His old schoolmates from his short term at Harrow-Lord Peter Rushton and Clotworthy Chute, ever the "Captain Sharp" without a pence to his own name-had been in Venice, too, and Clotworthy had diddled Fillebrowne over some "ancient" Roman bronze statues recently "dug" in the Balkans… about as old as the half-loaf of bread standing by the wine carafe!
The one letter his father'd seen had been written on fine paper, and done in an elegant copperplate hand, he'd said. Oh, but it was a bootless enterprise, to speculate who'd ruined him. The thing was done, and the fat was truly in the fire!
Caroline had borrowed sixty pounds from his sea chest, she wrote, to sustain their farm 'til his solicitor, Mr. Matthew Mountjoy, could make new arrangements for her and the children's upkeep… which she firmly intended to extract from him, no matter their estrangement. Income from their 160-acre rented farm should be hers alone, she wrote, since he'd never been a bit of help in that regard, and had never done a thing to learn it during his idle years ashore on half-pay, between the wars! He had to admit that that accusation was true.
Lewrie had been a city-raised London lad, only going down to the country on spring or summer jaunts, as a weekend house guest, and knew nothing of crops or livestock, didn't know one flower from another and could really only identify oak trees. Well, he knew good horseflesh if he saw it, and he could ride well… but Hell's Bells, was there any true English gentleman who couldn't, he'd eat his cocked hat!
Caroline then demanded that half his inheritance from his grandmother Lewrie's plate and paraphernalia be turned over to her; that he could live on his damned Navy pay, and the Ј150 per annum that Granny Lewrie had granted him long ago as an annual living, once she had rediscovered his existence during the Revolution.
Sewallis and Hugh must be schooled, she continued; their daughter Charlotte would soon require schooling and "finishing" in the arts, music, dance, and deportment necessary to a young lady to-be of her due station, then "dotted" when finally espoused.
The children, she accused, were already inured to his years-long absences on the King's Business, so they would treat his estrangement as just another extremely long active commission. And be the better for't!
"Damme, she's dotted all her I's, crossed all her T's," Lewrie sadly marvelled. "Minds her P's and Q's… pints an' quarts, pence'n shillings. Worse'n a publican… pick yer pockets for the reckonin', 'fore he tosses ye in the gutter."
Her note was, except for the occasional spiteful slur, of course, remarkably icy, as if she'd written a dry commercial contract to a complete stranger!
"Warmin' pan's in yer bed, sir, and yer covers turned down," his servant announced, padding stocking-footed back into the sitting room.
"Night, Aspinall," Lewrie said, slumped in defeat.
"Aye, sir," Aspinall said with a jerky bow, then departed for a bed of his own in what amounted to a large closet, though the children's beds in a proper, separate room were empty, and better-made.
Of a sudden, the carafe of wine was more than tempting. Lewrie poured himself a goodly measure, a brimming glass.
"Oof!" he was forced to exclaim, spilling a few drops on his new snow-white kerseymere breeches as his ram-cat Toulon jumped up into his lap. "Hallo, Toulon. 'Least you ain't abandoned me, pusslin'."
The black and white torn, now grown to nigh a stone-and-a-half in weight, and as firmly muscled as a well-fed basset hound-like petting a log with legs-made mouth-shut trills and grunts in welcome as he kneaded Lewrie's lap, rubbed his head against his chest, and slung his bulk against him, his thick, white-tipped ebony tail a brush that lazily twirled and tickled under Alan's nose.
Lewrie managed one sip, then set aside his glass to pet him and stroke him, else he'd be a pluperfect pest for a full half-hour. "Aye, I know, big baby, been gone too damn' long. Left you behind, did she? Been just you and Aspinall, hours and hours? Well, I'm back now, just you an' me, yyess……"
An' by God, ain't it just.! he sadly told himself; me and a damn' cat, the rest o ' my days, if Caroline don't come round… somehow.
And how his wife could ever reconcile herself with such a faithless hound as he, he couldn't quite fathom… yet, anyway. She wasn't the sort to pine away; she'd proved that by running their farm as well as any man during his other commissions. Rearing the children, becoming such an astute woman of commerce, never given to the vapours, just coping deuced well, with her stillroom, jams, and jellies, the domestics they employed, neighbours, skin-flint horse-copers, homemade vinegars, wines, and spring ales, her sewing, knitting, and economies…
She didn't need him, he realised with a start of revelation; he was a
sometime amusement, like a visiting troupe of jugglers and acrobats! Caroline was complete unto herself, and had been for years; what ties of affection and custom there had been were now severed!
Caroline had kith and kin, the house, the village, and the church, and the long, predictable roll of the seasons in peaceful and settled country life, home and hearth, whilst he had the sea, and…
"Murff, " Toulon muttered in his lap, strewing hair over the new breeches that he had bought for the celebration ball that they should have attended this evening, done up in their best finery, dancing with the great and near-great in glittering triumph and praise.
Toulon turned about in his own length and slunk inside the sling that bound Lewrie's left arm, stretching out once inside, feeling like a hairy 18-pounder shot, with but his whiskers, nose, and slitted eyes showing after he'd turned about once more. He gave out a long, happy yawn, stretched out his front paws and legs to dangle either side of his master's wrist, and began to purr, rattling like signal halliards and light blocks might clatter in a stiff breeze.
Lewrie was too tired to think anymore, too drunk and too numb for self-pity or a good, cleansing admission of guilt. He was certain those'd come, though, as he picked up his abandoned wineglass and took a melancholy sip. Now that he was alone, and still.
And it was goin ' so bloody good this mornin ', he mourned as he recalled how promising the day had started out…'til that encounter in Hyde Park…
Well, that came off well, Lewrie thought for a hopeful moment, as Theoni bade them all a gracious goodby, took her sons and her maidservant and new-fangled wheeled perambulator off down the pale gravelled path. Polite and innocent as anything! Whew!
He had turned back to face his wife, after perhaps allowing his gaze to linger just a blink too long on the departing Mrs. Connor.
Ka-whap!
Caroline's stinging blow made his jaw feel as if it was broken!
"Oow!" he'd yelped in sudden pain and astonishment, face reddening. "What the bloody…!"
"You… beast!" Caroline fumed; her upraised hand-just used to slap him halfway into next week-now fisted, as if she'd contemplated boxing his ear, or making his nose spout claret! Her parasol, a flimsy thing good only for languid strolls, was held low and furled in her left hand, its pointy brass ferrule winking in the wan sunshine, putting Lewrie in mind of a sword-point.
"What was that for?" he'd demanded, though he knew damn' well.
"You…faithless… lying… bastard!" she'd accused.
"Caroline… dearest!" he'd assayed, hoping to cozen her from her pet. "You're sadly mistook! It's not… oww!"
The fragile parasol had swept up high on her right, then slashed downwards and leftwards, catching him on the scalp (proving harder than advertised) and sending his ornate new cocked hat flying over the dun December grass. He'd lifted his wounded left arm in its sling to ward her off, too late, making him grunt with sudden pain.
Christ, she'd hit a wounded man? he gawped as he'd skittered to the rear in retreat; mean t'say, me… and a wounded bloody hero?
And this was the gentle wife and mother who'd spank the unruly child, then go off and weep into her aprons, the most kindly and…?
"Bastard!" Caroline had insisted, moving that parasol into her right hand, taking a swordsman's lunge at his offending groin, making him squeak in alarm and retreat a step or two more.
With a pang of chagrin, he had realized that he'd fired a hulling shot into himself. Caroline might have been chary, and less than sincere with cordiality when presented with the sight of the handsome Widow Theoni Kavares Connor and her youngest drooling "git" in the perambulator. Impossible to avoid on the park's pathway, since Theoni's party and their skirts took up so much of it, impossible to snub her when here came the bold captain who'd saved her in the Adriatic, here came his father, General Sir Hugo, who'd called upon her before; glorious in his best uniform, glittering with gold lace and chain gimp.
Caroline hadn't voiced the slightest cattiness when shown the pudgy little bastard, who, unfortunately, was enough grown a "crawler" for the uncanny resemblance to her loyal husband to begin to be evident, no! The vertical furrow in her brows that sprouted when she was wroth with him hadn't sprouted 'til Theoni was leaving. She hadn't accused him of that… yet.
And then he'd blurted out that she was mistaken, before she said a blessed thing, only confirming her deepest suspicion! Idiot! he had chid himself; but if the mort had t'honour me for her salvation, why not call him James Alan Connor, 'stead o' Alan James, for all the damn' world t'wonder at?
No time for rational thought or inventive lying, though, for his wife had begun to slash right-and-left like a trained cavalry trooper; forcing him to retreat and duck that gaily coloured parasol! Him of all people, the very picture of a British sea-dog, two medals jouncing on his chest, sporting an honourable wound taken in arduous Service for King and Country, the tasselled epaulet of a Post-Captain of less than three years'
seniority on his right shoulder… retreating from a woman? Just about ready to cut and run?
There'd been a clutch of fashionable onlookers, tittering and hooting Caroline encouragement, guffawing at him; Royal Navy officers, midshipmen, and tars watching, too, ashore to share the day of celebration. Gawkin' at me? he'd quailed. But, what could he have done, in those circumstances… draw his sword in defence? Slug her senseless?
"Caroline, for God's sake!" he'd pled, instead. "I've not done anything, honest! Tongue-lash me in private if you like, but…!"
"Liar!" Caroline shrilled, loud enough to startle even the fat park pigeons to flight, slashing at him some more. "Liar, liar, liar!" she had howled, pleasant, familiar features pinched pale, but oddly dry-eyed, Lewrie had taken ominous note. That had been the very worst sign. Had she wept tears of rage, sadness, or betrayal, he might have held out hope.
"Madam!" he'd huffed, dredging up what shreds were left of his courage, and his husbandly dignity and authority-safely beyond her reach, it must here be noted!-"This is nought for the Mob's amusement. Your uncalled for rage is unseemly, and common!"
That'd stopped her in her tracks. Caroline had always put the greatest stock in their Public Image, her determination to appear as good as anyone of the squirearchy, no matter she and her kin had turned up as poor as church mice after fleeing the Lower Cape Fear settlements of the North Carolina colony after the Revolution, living on charity grudgingly given by her miserly Uncle Phineas Chiswick-thin as that was! And just you wait 'til I get you home!' Hadn't she regularly frozen the children stock-still, arrested in mid-stride, with that'un?
Caroline had hitched a deep breath, and had at last relented, lowering her "weapon" from High Third to rest the point on the ground, giving Lewrie space in which to look towards his family to see how the dispute was going down with them.
His eldest son, Sewallis, a lanky-lean eleven, looked as pale as death, hands pawed at midchest, ever the miniature parson, the one to shy like a whipped puppy at every start and alarum. His second, Hugh "the fearless," had gawped wide-eyed, glancing from mother to father, half-hidden and clinging to their ward Sophie, Vicomtesse de Maubeuge, and her skirts. Daughter Charlotte, now a brisk toddler and Caroline's duplicate, had glared at him as fiercely as his wife, face screwed up in tears, but mortal-certain it was his, a man's fault!
Sophie, who moments before had been lavishing in the grins and tipped hats, the admiring glances of single young gentlemen, now hid her face behind an ivory-and-lace fan that vibrated against her lips in rapid little wing-beats, standing close to his father Sir Hugo, as she always did, eyes full of more sadness than shock.
And his father…! The fashionable old stick looked as if he had bitten into a tart lemon; e'en so, there was the tiniest glint of "told you so" in his eyes.
So much for sympathy from him! Lewrie had sadly sighed; Oh, it ain't fair! None of 'em meant a fig t'me. Not now, when I've gotten a touch o' real fame!
"Damn you, Alan… damn you!" Caroline had spat, voice lower at last. "All the years you were at sea, me thinking so trustingly, and now…!" She'd hiccoughed, on the edge of breaking-mellowing at last? No, for she'd hitched a breath, one hand on a hip, one hand on the handle of her parasol as if it was a walking stick. "You're right, sir!" she'd snapped, the cynicism dripping. "This is not a public… affair, nor shall it be a private one 'twixt us, either. I know you now for a lying, cheating, dissembling, adulterous hound… sir, and I tell you now that I have no more desire to speak with you, nor see your earnest fool's face… nor even hear your name, ever again!"
She'd been choking, but she'd managed to say all that.
"Caroline…" Lewrie had attempted to say, opening his arms to her and taking a tentative step forward.
"Back, Devil!" she'd cried, bringing her parasol up to Guard and freezing him in place; she was too bloody good with it, as good as a French grenadier with a bayonet-tipped musket! "You will consider yourself dead to me, sir… to us. For so I, and we, consider you!"
"Uhm, Caroline, m'dear, surely…" his father had at last attempted to placate, but she'd whipped about to glare him to silence, and aimed her parasol at his crutch, too!
"Blood does tell, does it not… Sir Hugo?" she'd purred, all scornful. Which threat and cutting comment forced a quick retreat on that worthy's part, Sir Hugo's drink-wizened "phyz" suffused as red as his tunic, as he coughed "courtly" into his fist.
"Come, children… Sophie. We are going back to our lodgings, now!" Caroline had ordered.
"But, Mummy!" Hugh had objected, whilst Sewallis dithered as was his timid wont, and Charlotte had glared daggers at father and her brother both.
"Madame, I…" Sophie had squeaked, lowering her fan, turning to Sir Hugo, whom she adored as her racy, stand-in grand-pиre. "Oh… what shall become of us, if…?"
"Go along and obey your mistress, Sophie, there's a good girl," Sir Hugo had said. "Worst comes t'worst, we'll arrange something. Is that not so, Alan?"
"Hey?" he'd contributed, in his usually "sharp" manner.
"Gawd!" Sir Hugo had muttered under his breath, despairing.
"I am so sorry, M'sieur Alain, I…" Sophie had whispered, patting his good shoulder with a lace-gloved hand. Looking scared… enough to blab what she knew of Phoebe Aretino, at long last, did his wife browbeat her long enough?
