King, Ship, and Sword

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Before it was re-established, the British Embassy had been in French hands for several years, from 1793 'til 1802, and had not been treated well. It had an odour of dirty feet and old socks, of barrack farts and sweat, as if troops of the Garde Nationale had been garrisoned there. Effort had been expended to clean it up and make it grand once more, but it was a continuing process. After announcing himself and the reason for his call, Lewrie had cooled his heels in the baroque lower lobby for an hour or better, before some "catch-fart" flunky saw him abovestairs to the offices of Sir Anthony Paisley-Templeton, who held the odd title of Chargй d'Affaires, which could have meant anything. Lewrie had met a few people who parted their last names, and had come away with a less than favourable impression… one reenforced by his first sight of the fellow. Sir Anthony was a wispy young fellow, at least ten or twelve years Lewrie's junior, with pale skin and a stylish thick head of pale blond hair, poetically curled on top, sides, and nape, but brushed forward over his forehead, his long sideburns brushed forward towards his cheeks, as well. He sported stylish suitings, too, it went without saying, in the latest French cut, with upstanding shirt collars.

"Captain Alan Lewrie, so honoured t'meet you, sir," Sir Anthony enthused as he offered a hand to be shaken, one so limp once taken in hand that Lewrie might as well have been shaking a dead fish. "Followed your trial last year, don't ye know… capital doings, capital, hah!"

With about as much true enthusiasm as a clench-jawed Oxonian of "the Quality" ever allowed out in Publick, Lewrie took note.

"Now, what is it you wish to do, Captain Lewrie? Meet Bonaparte? Sorry, but… that would be impossible, it just isn't done, old chap," Sir Anthony pooh-poohed.

"A rencontre with Bonaparte isn't necessary," Lewrie told him. "Didn't exactly enjoy the first, anyway. The point is… I've several swords, surrendered by French naval captains, and I'd like t'return 'em to their owners, or their heirs. In exchange, Bonaparte does have one of my old swords… my very first. Nothin' grand about it, but… it is dear t'me. Gifted me just before I gained my lieutenancy, d'ye see."

"You, erm… kept surrendered swords, sir?" Sir Anthony Paisley-Templeton asked, seeming tremulously appalled. "I thought the customary usage was to refuse, and allow the surrendee to maintain possession of his… honour, sir."

"It us'lly is… are they alive t'take 'em back," Lewrie said, crossing his legs at sublime ease in a chair cross the desk from the slim diplomat. "Most… weren't," he added with a shrug and a grin.

"I see," Sir Anthony said with a barely imperceptible gulp.

"Something could be arranged 'twixt me and their Admiralty… their Ministry of Marine, or whatever they call it?" Lewrie asked. "I didn't think just bargin' in on my own would be a good idea. In the spirit of our newfound peace, though…"

"Ah, yayss, hmm," Paisley-Templeton drawled, head cocked to one side in sudden thought, then brightened considerably. "Peace! That's the thing, is it not, Captain Lewrie? Hmm. You will take coffee, or tea, sir? And, will, pray, excuse me for a few moments whilst I consult with my superiors?"

That few moments turned into two cups of very good coffee, one trip down the hall to the "necessary" to pump his bilges, and a third cup before Paisley-Templeton returned.

"Consider this, Captain Lewrie," Sir Anthony said with genuine enthusiasm, hands rising to frame a stage like a proscenium arch. "A levee in the Tuileries Palace… music, champagne, French chittering and flirting… the First Consul, General Napoleon Bonaparte, is there with his cabinet, his coterie. You are presented to him and perhaps to his wife, Josephine, by my superior… or one of his representatives, hmm?"

Like yerself, d'ye mean, Lewrie sarcastically thought, even as he kept his phyz sobre and nodded sagaciously; gain up in the world like a Montgolfier balloon, do ye hope?

"Bonaparte… forewarned through his Foreign Minister, M'sieur Talleyrand," Sir Anthony speculated on, "will be prepared to accept the delivery of your captured swords. With enough forewarning, perhaps he will be able to find your sword.

"Then, sir! Then, with hundreds of people looking on, you and he will make a formal exchange," Sir Anthony fantasised. "Your… how many? Five, good ho, five. Your five swords presented to him, then… after some kind and sincere words shared, some smiles 'twixt warriors… he will return to you your old sword… or one suitable enough to the occasion in value and style to satisfy you," Sir Anthony tossed off as if it was no matter. "Gad, what a place of honour that'll have in your house, Captain Lewrie! Yours, or a proper replacement, from the hand of Bonaparte, why… one could dine out on that for years, ha ha!"

"Hold on a bit, sir," Lewrie said with a gawp. "I'm t'meet the Corsican tyrant? Glad-hand the bastard?"

Sir Anthony Paisley-Templeton visibly shuddered and pouted.

"Now, Captain Lewrie… in the interests of continental peace and goodwill, surely you could find more… charitable expressions," he chid Lewrie. "Now he's First Consul, perhaps for life it is lately rumoured, and so involved with a sweeping reform of France's legal system, its roads, canals, harbours, and civic improvements, standardising its currency and all, could you not, perhaps, give Bonaparte the benefit of the doubt? Think of him as a great, new-come man?"

"Don't know… seems a bit theatrical t'me," Lewrie dubiously replied, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. "But… long as I get my old sword back, I s'pose I could play along."

"That's the spirit, Captain Lewrie!" Sir Anthony cheered. "Now, you must give me all the particulars about your old sword."

"Should've brought my dress uniform, d'ye think, sir?" Lewrie asked.

"Good heavens, no, sir!" Paisley-Templeton gasped, about ready to shudder again. "General Bonaparte usually dons red velvet suitings for formal levees… most un-military. The sight of an officer from a branch of his recent opponents in uniform might be… insulting, my superior believes. Something new, stylish… uhm, might I give you the name of my tailor here in Paris, sir?" Sir Anthony enquired, with an equally dubious expression as he looked Lewrie's suit up and down.

"Make my wife happy," Lewrie mused aloud. "A reason to purchase court clothing, hey?"

"You and your wife together, sir? That would be even more pacific," Paisley-Templeton gushed. "Dare she take wine with Josephine? Well, perhaps that might be a bit of a stretch, but… as to what the old sword looks like, then, Captain Lewrie?"

"It was a hanger, patterned on a French infantry sabre-briquet. Royal blue scabbard and sharkskin grip, the grip bound in silver wire, with silver throat, drag, and… "

An hour later, and Lewrie was at a tailor's, not the one recommended by Paisley-Templeton, but the one that Jean-Joseph had named. It didn't begin well, for the elderly tailor had very little English, Lewrie was nigh-incomprehensible in French, and his manservant, Jules, was not as bilingual as he'd been touted to be.

Before negotiations broke completely down, another customer and one of the tailor's journeyman assistants emerged from a change-room at the back of the shop, and rescue was at hand… of a sort.

"Stap me! I declare if it is not Captain Lewrie, to the life, haw haw!" the fellow brayed in an Oxonian accent, and an inane titter.

"Sir… Poult… Pulteney?" Lewrie responded, groping for the fellow's last name and only coming up with "Thing-Gummy." "Yer servant, sir, and I thankee for your kindly assistance 'board the packet."

"Pulteney Plumb, and your servant, Captain Lewrie," the foppish man said back, making a flourished, showy "leg." "I trust your lovely wife recovered from the mal de mere, sir? Ha?"

"Completely, Sir Pulteney, thankee for asking," Lewrie replied. "Those sweet ginger pastilles did the trick. Should I ever command a crew of pressed hands again, a case or two of 'em in the Surgeon's apothecaries might prove useful, hey?"

"Might Admiralty reimburse you for them, though, haw haw?" Sir Pulteney gaily countered. "A parsimonious lot, officialdom."

"Indeed," Lewrie agreed, with a wry roll of his eyes.

"You seek new suitings, Captain Lewrie?" Sir Pulteney asked as he came closer to look Lewrie's current suit up and down. "Then you have come to one of the finest establishments in Paris, one which it was my utter delight to patronise in the years before the Revolution. You see?" Sir Pulteney spun himself slowly round most theatrically, modelling the new suit he was having fitted, and indeed it was a marvel to behold, of subtle grey and black striped watered silk over a burgundy satin waist-coat.

Light on his feet… ain't he, Lewrie thought as Sir Pulteney preened. Sir Pulteney Plumb was perhaps an inch taller than Lewrie's five feet nine, still of a trim, active build for a man in his late fourties (or so Lewrie judged him), broad in the chest and shoulders without appearing too "common" or "beef to the heel."

"Cut to the Tee, haw haw!" Sir Pulteney crowed. "Old Jacques, mon vieux, you have done it again! Fйlicitations!" he congratulated the master tailor, kissing his fingers in his direction, then, in fluent French, urging the fellow to emigrate to London, where he could make an even greater, new fortune… at least that was the gist Lewrie got from it. Old Jacques ate it up like plum duff.

"Something for our newfound friend, here, Jacques? I dare say you'd look particularly dashing in something maroon, or burgundy… 'less you'd prefer something more… everyday, what? Perhaps you and your lady wife envision some formal occasion whilst in Paris, in which case 'dashing' would be required?"

"M'sieur Sir Pulteney ees ze trиs йlйgante, hein?" the master tailor simpered to Lewrie.

Christ, ain't he just! Lewrie silently agreed.

"An occasion, aye, Sir Pulteney," Lewrie informed him, telling him of those swords he wished to exchange. "In short, one thing led to another, and we're down for some theatrical flummery at a levee at the Tuileries Palace with Bonaparte," he said with a wry shrug.

"Presented to the First Consul of France? Begad, sir, what an honour! Odd's Blood, haw haw!" Sir Pulteney brayed, tossing his head back and to one side to emit another of his donkey-bray laughs. "Now we simply must array you in the very finest!"

There was a palaver 'twixt Sir Pulteney and the master tailor to explain how fine a suit would be necessary.

"Jacques cautions that you must not out-shine the First Consul in splendour, Captain Lewrie," Sir Pulteney Plumb said with a cautionary wag of a long aristocratic finger, "and that Bonaparte is fond of his general's uniform, or red velvet, with white silk stockings and a pair of red Moroccan slippers… fellow caught the Turkish and Mameluke 'fashion pox' somethin' horrid during his Egyptian campaign… Even fetched back a Muslim manservant, haw haw! Or sometimes he will don the plainest uniform of a Colonel of Chasseurs. Yayss," Sir Pulteney softily speculated as he paced a quick orbit round Lewrie, "you would be splendid, but not too splendid, in something dark red. Vite, vite, Jacques. Maroons and burgundies!"

Is he a Clotworthy Chute, a Jean-Joseph, a Captain Sharp? he had to ask himself as assistants came with tapes to take his measure, and his dimensions were carefully noted in a ledger, should Lewrie be a return customer. "Hang the cost, Begad!" from Sir Pulteney, "Lud, a once in a lifetime occasion, haw haw!"

Fabrics were fetched, stroked, draped over his shoulders to display how a fine broadcloth wool would mould to him; how watered silks or embroidered and figured satins might complement the basic colour motif. Not knowing just how he'd been cossetted into it, Lewrie ended with all the makings for three suits. Hang the cost, indeed!

There would be a dark-red doubled-breasted tail-coat with a wide collar and lapels, snug matching trousers, and an electric blue waist-coat in moirй silk beneath. There would be a grey single-breast coat with a stand-and-fall collar trimmed in electric blue satin that could be paired to the first waist-coat, or a second one in maroon satin. There would be a third, a black single-breasted coat matched with a cream-coloured embroidered waist-coat, which could be mated with those grey trousers or any old pair of black or buff breeches.

Not to mention the hats, new silk hosiery, elaborately laced silk shirts Sir Pulteney thought essential. The gloves or lace jabots, the new-fangled Croatian cravats and various coloured neck-stocks without which a proper gentleman would be deemed half-dressed, or only half finished.

I'll need a new leather portmanteau t'pack away all this bumf, Lewrie told himself, wondering how much that'd cost him, on top of all this? Appointments were made for further fittings before the delivery of the finished togs.

Sir Pulteney Plumb slightly made up for the pained look on Alan Lewrie's face as he goggled over the reckoning, offering to treat him to a late mid-day meal and extending an invitation for Lewrie and his wife to sup with them that evening, his treat, then take in a performance at the Comйdie Franзaise, where, Sir Pulteney grandly informed him, his lady-wife, Imogene-Knew it was somethin' starts with I! Lewrie told himself- had once "trod the boards" as a noted actress of some renown.

"French, o' course, Begad!" Sir Pulteney brayed, tittering over the fact. "Dash it, imagine an English gel on a Parisian stage, haw haw haw!"

A comedy, Lewrie thought, that'll give the fop genuine call for that Godawful laugh o' his!