Troubled Waters

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

And, it was a true Far Eastern, Hindi feast, the sort of thing that Lewrie ravenously remembered from his time in Calcutta. All four of them at-table in Twigg's Baker Street house that evening were veterans of India, and each new course was cheered much like the arrival of the Christmas pudding. Genteel and witty conversation, expected of diners at refined English tables, had given way to lip-smacking, slurping, and only occasional sallies in finding new adjectives and adverbs to congratulate Twigg on his chef and his creations.

But, instead of lingering over nuts, sweet biscuits, and port (and entertaining each other with the aforesaid witty conversations to the wee hours), their small party broke up just before ten of the clock, Sir Hugo and Trilochan Singh taking the short walk to his private town-house, and Burgess Chiswick, yawning heavily, off to the Madeira Club, where Sir Hugo had arranged a room, and temporary membership.

"You are surely exhausted by our arduous adventure, today, sir," Twigg imperiously announced, as if the matter was settled, "and by the early hour at which you, and we, were forced to arise for our journey. Ajit Roy will light you up to a spare bedroom for the night. You are sure you brought along your best uniform, your medals, and such? Good. Such a brave show, your barrister assures me, will go a long way with the Lord Justice who will conduct your evidentiary hearing tomorrow. Good night, bonne nuit… achchhaa raat, sonaa t'keek* … all that." (* achchhaa raat, sonaa t'heek=good night, sleep well)

"Thankee, again, sir," Lewrie replied, loath as he was to give Twigg thanks for much of anything, for he still had his lingering suspicions of the man's motives.

"We breakfast at seven in this house" was Twigg's parting comment as he betook himself to his first-floor study with a lit candle, with no acknowledgement of Lewrie's gratitude, sincere or not.

If Twigg's country estate, Spyglass Bungalow, was Hindi-exotic, a museum and treasure trove of priceless Far East relicts, his London house was the epitome of subtly understated Palladian grandeur, a home furnished and decorated by a rich, but modest, English gentleman, from the crown of his head to the tip of his toes. Albeit with rather more firepower available than most. No bejeweled tulwars or valuable Asian matchlock or flintlock jenails, but, here a gun-cabinet, there a gun-cabinet; a brace of rifled duelling pistols in a glass case in the salon, a brace of rare Ferguson rifled breechloading muskets standing in the library, and double-barreled fowling pieces secreted behind almost every open door! Twigg obviously was a fellow who'd spent too long in the field to sleep well without something bang-worthy near to hand. In Lewrie's own spacious, but darkly panelled, bedchamber, his own double-barreled Mantons were set out on the wine-table, much like a house servant might spread out his "housewife" shaving kit ready for the morning. There was a shotgun (presumably loaded and primed for any emergencies) 'twixt the wall corner and the armoire, and a brace of infantry hangers crossed on the wall near the door!

Sleep well, mine arse! Lewrie thought as he undressed; Court in the mornin', gaol right after dinner, and the noose after breakfast o' th' next day? Shit!

He did give sleep a try, sans the silk ankle-length night shirt so thoughtfully laid out for him, for even the mild warmth of a London summer was a tad too hot. The wee decanter of brandy left on the night-stand didn't help much, either; nor did the rumble of wheels, the clops of hooves, or the squeal of axles from the street outside, even if the road had been strewn with straw to dampen the din. Window open and the noise was maddening; window closed, and it was too stuffy to breathe.

He sponged off and dressed in slippers, breeches, and shirt and padded back down to the first floor with a candle in his hand to find a book to read… or another decanter of brandy. At the library room's door, though, he heard a suspicious noise. There was a skritching and rustling, sounding as if someone had snuck into the house despite all of Twigg's security, and was rifling through his files. There was also a gurgling, bubbling sound. Someone's throat had been cut, and was now in his final gasps for air? The office door was open, and there was a light inside, so he went on tiptoes to investigate.

But no, it was only Mr. Twigg, sitting cross-legged on a pile of large and garish tasseled pillows with a portable writing desk in his lap, and quill pen in hand… now more comfortably dressed in equally garish pyjammy trousers and robe, with a long night cap on his head, now and again sucking on the mouthpiece of a "hubble-bubble" pipe, and blowing smoke rings 'tween scribbled thoughts.

"Oh, 'tis you," Twigg snippishly said. "Can't sleep, hey? Oh, come in, then, if you must."

"I thought t'find a book, or…," Lewrie said, excusing his odd-hour ramble. "Was it Doctor Samuel Johnson who said that 'the idea of being hanged concentrates the mind most wondrously'?"

"Some scribbler, yayss," Twigg drawled. "Or, it very well might have been Boswell, to make the old grump sound more lively."

"You're up late," Lewrie commented as he found a more conventional seat in a wing-back chair. Looking about for a bottle of something.

"I find that as I age, the need for sleep is less," Twigg said, finishing off whatever he was writing with grand nourish, and a smug sniff of pleasure, before sanding it and setting the paper aside. "Of course, when younger and more active in the Crown's service overseas, I perhaps developed a habit of sleeping with one eye open, in short bouts, and have never really lost it. You, I should expect, usually have no difficulty sleeping deep, long, and well."

Insult me more, why don't you? Lewrie silently groused.

"Something about all this has disturbed my sleep, for the last year or better," Lewrie said.

"And, what is that, Lewrie?" Twigg asked, looking nettled to be interrupted in his thought processes as he prepared a fresh sheet of paper and dipped his quill into the ink-pot.

"Why you, of all people, all of a sudden, are so solicitous for me," Lewrie said. "Half the time, I imagine you're saving me for future work upon your behalf, the other half the time I think I'm being used in some scheme you've dreamt up, but for the life o' me, I can't find what advantage there is in it. I can halfway believe that you are as opposed to slavery as Wilberforce and his crowd, but… knowing you and your ways by now, I'm always haunted by knowing that nothing with you is ever that clear… that you always have an ulterior motive, or a whole set o' motives. Am I to hang as your martyr to further some grand scheme o' yours, or…?"

Twigg took a pull on his hookah pipe, smiling mysteriously.

"All those damned tracts an' such. Was it you, or the Abolitionists who ran 'em up? Hired Cruikshank t'do the art-work?" Lewrie pressed. "They can't afford all that, surely."

"Perhaps I merely wish to watch you wiggle," Twigg snickered, " 'twixt honesty and morality, and… whatever feels necessary at the time, and plea-sureable to you. Following your career can be very entertaining, ye know. Well… it seems a night for home truths, so I will, this once, mind, explain my motives to you.

"Slavery," Twigg harrumphed, almost rolling his eyes. "As long as there are Hindu ryots and Irish day-labourers, England has no need of slavery, Lewrie. It is a despicable, abhorrent practice, one which all civilised gentlemen must deplore. I, personally, despise slavery, but that is of no matter, any more than your own detestation of it preceded your liberation of those dozen Beauman slaves, or is a sudden… 'conversion by indictment.' "

He just has t'goad me, even when he's serious! Lewrie thought. "But, where does slavery principally thrive, Lewrie? Here, in England? In France or the Germanies, in Sweden? No. Europe and the civilised parts of the world have done away with it, the French abolished slavery even in their West Indies colonies… all that Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite nonsense taken to the ultimate extreme. For that giddiness, I might almost admire them. The rest of the world… ha! What heathen, pagan, backward cultures may do in their benighted lands, of no consequence to Britain or anyone else, bothers me not a fig!"

Lewrie cocked his head over that seeming hypocrisy, which only made Zachariah Twigg snigger in smug amusement.

"Slavery thrives in Spanish and Portuguese dominions, Lewrie," Twigg continued, after a satisfying puff at his hubble-bubble. "One a continual foe, one a doubtful neutral. Their colonial economies, and the wealth that flows to Spain and Portugal from them, could not survive without slave labour in mines and fields. Consider also the United States of America, whose constitution may claim that all men are created equal, but restricts full rights to European descendants. A quarter of the inhabitants cross the Atlantic were slaves before their Revolution, and their numbers yearly increase through the further importation of slaves, the fecundity of the Negro race, and the lascivious doings of their masters, who indulge in a sordid practice which, so I am told, is termed 'going through the cabins'; to wit, the rape and impregnation of comely Negresses as a matter-of-fact rightl

"Now just when, d'ye think, Lewrie," Twigg archly posed, "might the enchained and oppressed in the Americas take the uprising of Saint Domingue, or Haiti, or whatever they call it these days, to heart, and fight to free themselves? And… what happens to those nations which thrive and grow rich and more powerful on the backs of their slaves?"

"Chaos… civil war… slaughter and massacre!" Lewrie gasped. "Generations of it, bad as Saint Domingue for certain."

"And, how important, in the scheme of things, will Toussaint L'Ouverture's free and independent Haiti ever be, Lewrie?" Twigg asked in triumph. "Too embroiled inside of themselves to ever become a foe to Britain, or a substantial ally to other powers opposed to us, their economies so bankrupt that maintaining a navy to face ours would be impossible, effectively isolating them all in their own regions, unable to affect the expansion of the British Empire beyond the range of some yew heavy fortress guns, much less affect Europe.

"And…," Twigg concluded with great satisfaction, "ripe for the plucking should we ever wish such hapless, ungovernable snake pits."

"My God, that's… Christ!" Lewrie goggled in awe, thinking of the hundreds of thousands, no… the millions doomed to die in revolts.

"Should they require arms and powder, well…" Twigg waved off.

"I don't know whether t'congratulate you, or curse you," Lewrie finally said. "All the Americas up in flames, blood flowin' like rivers…"

"Take your Eudoxia Durschenko, she of the long, fine limbs, and firm breasts, Lewrie," Twigg continued.

"Huh… what? What does she have t'do with…?"

"Ever been to the Russias, Lewrie?" Twigg almost benignly asked. "I have. Serfdom is the Achilles' heel of the Tsars, as bad an 'institution' as slavery. Once outside the grand palaces and salons of their refined, French-speaking aristocracy, Russia is as backward and appalling as a trip back to the Dark Ages, all mud, mire, and shite. A serf is a landless tenant so dependent upon the good will of his land owner that he can be flogged to death with great bull-whips… knouts, they call them… for looking at them cross. Turf a serf and his family off the land for some offence, and they become lepers, pariahs, unwelcome anywhere, and usually starve to death. The Tsar wishes to fight a war, he has to raise troops, and sends word down to the country aristocracy… 'hey ho, each estate must conscript twenty-or-so young men for the army,' and off they go, for twenty years' service… marched very far away from home ground, and barracked among strangers… so, should they be called out to read the equivalent of the Riot Act, and fire on the locals, they have no compunctions whatsoever.

"Russian peasants are a brutal lot to begin with, so demanding brutal measures from them is an easy matter," Twigg informed him, with a shrug. "Their pretty, unmarried girls are prey for young aristocratic 'blades,' as well, and can be treated as brusquely as one may wish."

"You'd turn all Russia topsy-turvy, too? " Lewrie gawped, really in need of strong drink by then. This was appalling stuff, and more proof of Twigg's coldbloodedness. "Ye think on a grand scale, damme if ye don't, but…"

"A Russia whose serfs rise up, at long last, the veterans still young enough, the youths not yet conscripted along with them… and, supplied with arms from somewhere," Twigg said with an evil wee smile, "cannot field an army to save itself, much less interfere in the rest of Europe… as they dearly wish to do. You were in the West Indies, and missed our invasion of the Dutch Batavian Republic in '98. Horrid muddle, that, with the Russian Navy and Army as temporary, but prickly, allies. Sent forces from the Black Sea into the Aegean, the Adriatic, and eastern Mediterranean, and dearly wished to remain, in possession of anything they could lay their hands on, 'til the Tsar learned that he would not be given Malta, as the new Commander of the Knights of Saint John, and recalled all their forces. Impossible for us to invade, possessed of millions of military-age men, hence impossible for us to contain, should they put their minds to expanding their empire westward. A rebellion of the serfs could estop that for a long time. Ask your Mistress Eudoxia how her family, barely a cut above serfdom, suffered, should you ever run into her again."

"But what emerges from the ruins, Mister Twigg?" Lewrie asked. "Most likely, a weak and fractious land wracked by eternal wars 'tween various regions, and warlords," Twigg said with relish. "Could I snap my fingers and turn all France to dust and bones, I would do so, Lewrie. A nation which wishes to survive has no friends, only interests." "And the United States?" Lewrie wondered.

"Hmmpf! As I recall from the reports sent me by you and Jemmy Peel, that loose federation of sovereign states is already at logger-heads. The southern states distrust the cold natures of the people of New England, the northern states mock the culture, manners, accents, and cuisine of the southern. As early as 1783, northern writers show scorn for southerners, and their institution of slavery, which is dying out in New England… even if it is the New Englanders who own, and make their money from, slave ships and Negro importation. If there is more anti-slavery sentiment in the North, we shall capitalise on that. If the southern states feel oppressed, we shall find some way to provide diplomatic and military aid, therefore widening the break in the unity of the 'United' States. That nation is far too young to have a nation-wide ethos, as of yet. Men's loyalites lie within their particular state's borders much more than the federal entity, which is far-distant and as distrusted by most as Englishmen distrust a large army."

"And this is Crown policy? Your ultimate ploy?" Lewrie asked. "But what of our own economy, the sugar and all from the West Indies?"

"We ban slavery throughout the British Empire, Lewrie, giving us the moral and ethical 'guinea stamp,' " Twigg schemed, "which will be as valuable as any amount of lost trade. Besides… the southern United States are almost completely agricultural. May we, by diplomatic and moral force, make slavery so shameful an institution in America that the federal government bans it… at least bans the further importation of Africans, they are crippled, in need of imported goods, finance, and… 'friends,' d'ye see? Our shipping interests, sugar interests, will go where the products are, will make just as much money as they did before, and will be just as happy. The Navigation Acts will not be violated, for British exports, in British bottoms, will sail to ports in the South, and return with all the timber, tobacco, naval stores, rum, and molasses as before, in addition to the burgeoning sources of flax and hemp for linen and rope, and the newer southern crops, such as sugar cane and cotton.

"If the Liverpool slavers in the 'Triangle Trade' are harmed, if the few sugar grandees in the West Indies go out of business, then it is a small price to pay," Twigg happily concluded.

"First, though, we have to abolish slavery in all British possessions," Lewrie rejoined. "And that involves me. Did I just stumble into this, or…?"

"You were, Lewrie, once I became aware of your plight, the perfect example with which to deepen the average Englishman's detestation of slavery, to make more people aware of the issue, and, in supporting a successful naval hero guilty of stealing Blacks… an act of liberation, if you will… so Britain will be seen by the entire civilised world doing something about it, leading the way, setting a high-minded example for the rest of the world to emulate. Wilber-force, Priestly, Hannah More, and Clarkson et al., perhaps even the Wesley brothers and their too-exuberant 'Leaping Methodism' which has so taken hold of the common folk, even Bentham and his rot, are reforming Britain from the ground up, fostering a stronger religiosity, and the concurrent moral climate which accompanies such, so that our 'Christian Duty' will be, in future, to right the perceived wrongs of a sinful world, ha ha!"

"Even if that means I must hang in the process? Shit!" Lewrie spat, getting to his feet in search of Twigg's study for something wet and spiritous. He found a large-ish cruet sort of bottle, but its contents stank bad as hyena piss, so he restoppered it. "Wait a bit…! Did you merely take advantage of me… or, did you see to it that my case had to go forward, get splashed all over the papers? Could I have been swept under a rug, your powers used t'get me off?"

"To your previous question, Lewrie… you stumbled into it, as you usually do," Twigg said with what most people might deem a sympathic smile. "You, alone, leaped into a dung-hill of your own volition, and the Beaumans followed their typically rapacious wont in pursuing you, though Lord Balcarres, Vice-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, and your Captain Nicely did try to sweep you under the rug, as you say. Once the matter became public, about the same time that I became aware of it, I decided to get involved… to get you acquitted, firstly and force the issue onto the public conscience. And that is the bald truth.

"Oh, for God's sake, Lewrie!" Twigg snapped, mercurially changing tone. "You wish a drink, there's a bottle of brandy sitting right beside my day-lilies… the bloody flowers, yonder! And, I seriously doubt you will hang."

"How can you be so sure?" Lewrie asked, after a goodly slug and a smaller second, right from the bottle, as he sat back down.

"Your barrister, Mister Andrew MacDougall, sent me a note this evening, in reply to mine," Twigg related, sucking meditatively on the mouthpiece of his hookah. "Though many Lord Justices are away on the summer Assizes tour, some few remain in London to dispense justice… so much crime these days, so many trials to be held. 'Tis the war, I expect, which so unsettles our society; that, and the remnants of the Spithead and Nore mutinies, the lawless examples of the American, and the French, revolutions, and…"

"Ahem?" Lewrie grumpily reminded him, impatiently shifting upon his chair. "Some Lord Justices who preside at King's Bench are impatient, rash sorts, who give the accused short shrift," Twigg said, lips thin in asperity to be pressed to the point before he had ended his philosophical ramblings. "Perhaps they're paid by their number of convictions and executions? They do not wish to involve themselves with any complex cases. Mister MacDougall, though, has managed to have you appear before Lord Justice Oglethorpe, a most cautious, and deliberative, man. A member of one of my clubs, in point of fact, Lewrie…" Damme, is it already rigged, I wonder? he thought.

"… bit of a pedant, really, and a dead, ruminative bore, do you meet him in person," Twigg continued, "so much so that he requires nigh an hour choosing from a chop-house menu! But, Oglethorpe's your man when it comes to reading, glooming, and meditating over every jot and tittle. Should have been appointed to Chancery Court, where just crossing all the T's and dotting all the I's could take five years or better, and cases stretch out a young lawyer's entire lifetime.

"Once MacDougall presents the transcript of your trial in absentia on Jamaica… no lover of rude colonial concepts of justice is Oglethorpe… and sees the flaws in it, you stand a very good chance of being carried forward to Hilary Term, next January."

Oh, joy I Lewrie thought with a groan; six more months of agony an 'fret/ Six more months for you, Twigg, t 'shout abolition in papers and tracts. Hmmm, though… "Six months o' Hugh Beauman stuck in London, bleedin' pounds sterling out his arse. Lovely!

"Our ambush, too," Lewrie further mused aloud. "Word o' that'd put him out o' sorts, too, I'd expect."

"Word of that, right alongside the announcement of your appearance at King's Bench this morning, will hit the streets in the early editions," Twigg smugly told him. "Mister MacDougall was appalled at the news of it… but, also delighted. Pleased as punch, he said in his note, that the Beaumans, or some other interest closely involved with slavery, could have been so infernally stupid and arrogant as to attempt such a clumsy and brutal murder, in broad daylight. Trust to the tract printers, as well, Lewrie, who have been toiling away this night, running off express numbers which condemn the attempt in exclamations of the most florid sort… the Kingston magistrate's written conclusions, and eyewitness accounts from among our party, your father and Major Chiswick, principally… forgive me if I prefer that my part in the affair remains unmentioned… will be quite the sensation, so much so that even an impartial Lord Justice may not be immune."

"Well…" Lewrie dithered, bottle resting on one knee, and his limbs sprawled in contemplation. "You won't be there, then?"

"Oh, yes, I shall be," Twigg informed him, frowning as the fire in the upper bowl of his hubble-bubble pipe went out. "Though, not in close proximity to! you in the dock, nor with the first rows of attendees. Will that be all, Lewrie? Are you more settled of mind? Drunk enough for sleep at last, pray God? For I still have several more letters that must be distributed about the city just after dawn."

"Aye, I s'pose," Lewrie decided, corking the bottle and rising to stretch and force a yawn, which always helped put his body in touch with his mind and fool it into rest. "With any luck at all, perhaps my trial may get postponed 'til after Easter. Hah! More time for Hugh Beauman t'stew and twiddle his thumbs, away from his precious plantations… spendin' money like a drunken sailor."

"He has brought quite the entourage, as the French call such a large retinue… his witnesses and Jamaican attorney, and… his new wife." Twigg sniggered. "A classic young and beautiful 'batter pudding'… so I am informed. And, their personal Black servants."

"That won't make 'em popular in London," Lewrie scoffed. "Anne died? I'm sorry t'hear that. She was the one redeemin' member of the whole damned clan. Damned shame," he said more soberly.

"They have not been in London a fortnight," Twigg continued in a somewhat merry taking, "and I doubt there's a single fashionable shop she has not set foot in, as my 'Irregulars' report. Hugh Beauman dotes on her like the most foolish 'colt's tooth' cully. I doubt that they shall much enjoy their enforced stay. Not if your father and I have anything to say about the matter. The Mob indeed, hmm hmm."

"I'll wish you goodnight, then, Mister Twigg. See you at seven." "Ajit Roy will wake you at six. Achchhaa raat, Lewrie," Twigg coolly bade him. "Now go, shoo… bugger off and let me work!"