The tall clock in the entry hall chimed half-past five, seemingly a signal to conjure the arrival of several more members, some of them new to Lewrie, and younger than he. There was a great bustle to doff hats, cloaks, and greatcoats, then rush to the fireplace for a warm-up of hands and backsides. Tea, coffee, and brandy were called for, and swiftly delivered. Lewrie was introduced to the new ones, striving to retain all their names, and was greeted by some of the longer-timed members he’d met before. The newer members, after thawing out, drifted to the tables and seating arrangements in other parts of the Common Rooms.

“Nice-enough fellows,” Mr. Giles allowed in a hushed voice to Lewrie, leaning over towards him. “But, most don’t lodge here, thank the Lord. Our new’uns are a bit too boisterous for me. The club’s changing, perhaps not for the better. Why, next thing you know, we will have women dined in!”

“Ahem,” someone said in a low voice, coughing into his fist. “Captain Lewrie?” It was the manager, Hoyle.

“Aye, Mister Hoyle?” Lewrie replied, swivelling about.

“My apologies, sir, about your assignment of rooms. The clerk is new, and did not know of your, ehm … infirmity,” Hoyle muttered, all but wringing his hands. “I will see that you’re moved to a lower storey…”

“Not a bit of it, Mister Hoyle!” Lewrie said with a laugh. “I am not the man I was when last I came, in January. I’m fit as a fiddle, and even danced the hours away at the last country ball, so the third storey’s just fine for me. No reason for my man, Pettus, to be shifting my things round.”

“Really, sir?” Hoyle said, eyebrows up in surprise. “Why, that is wonderful … good news, indeed. My congratulations, sir! Do you need anything, though, just let us know.”

“Thankee, Hoyle, and I shall,” Lewrie assured him.

Mr. Giles levered himself up from his chair after Hoyle left.

“Save my seat for me, will you, gentlemen? I will return, anon. And, does the waiter come round in my absence, I’d admire a brandy. I think it’s late enough in the day to indulge. Sun’s under the yardarm, hey, Captain Lewrie?”

“Somewhere in the world, aye, Mister Giles,” Lewrie agreed.

“In cold weather, he’s a permanent fixture by the hearth, is our Mister Giles,” Showalter wryly whispered as the older fellow departed. “And, none too keen on some of the newer members. Why, half of them are junior partners in their concerns, not owners. An attorney or three, fellows from the ’Change, even some serving officers. Poor Giles is sure they’ll steal his seat if he’s not careful!”

“Sounds as if things might become more lively round here than in the past?” Lewrie speculated.

“Only partially,” Showalter seemed to mourn, “and that only ’til bedtime for the oldsters. After that, it’s funereal, more’s the pity. At least, the mood’s brighter at mealtimes, and the victuals are still excellent!”

CHAPTER TWO

“Will there be anything else tonight, sir?” Pettus asked after he’d tugged Lewrie’s top-boots off, hung up his suitings, waist-coat and shirt, and handed him a thick robe.

“Don’t think so, Pettus, no,” Lewrie told him. “I think that I have all that I’ll need ’til morning.”

His best-dress Navy uniform was hung up on a rack in a corner, brushed and sponged for his appearance at Admiralty, the coat with the star of the Order of The Bath attached, the blue sash that went with it freshly pressed wrinkle-free, as was his neck-stock and shirt. Snowy white duck breeches awaited the morning, as did a pair of gold-tasseled Hessian boots, newly daubed and brushed. There was a carafe of water with a clean glass atop, for rinsing sleep from his mouth and brushing his teeth with tooth powder. His “housewife” kit for shaving was laid out by the wash-hand stand, and a half-pint glass bottle of whisky stood on the nightstand. The chamberpot was clean and empty, so far, and in all, he was set for the night.

“Six in the morning, sir?” Pettus asked.

“Aye, six, and have a good night, Pettus,” Lewrie bade him.

Once alone, Lewrie poured himself some whisky and went to the chair by the fire, taking along a candelabra so he could at last read one of the London papers, abandoned in the Common Rooms after supper.

The supper, well! As toothsome as his personal cook, Yeovill, prepared his meals, the club’s cooks could give him a run for his money. There had been breaded flounder, sliced turkey with red currant sauce, and prime rib of beef for the main courses, with lashings of green peas, beans, hot-house asparagus, and potatoes, both mashed and au gratin, with sweet figgy-dowdy to finish it off, then port or sherry, nuts and sweet bisquits to cap it all off.

Showalter had been right; the company at-table had been most lively, witty, and amusing, more so than Lewrie could recall from his earlier stays. Nobody had broken into song, but they could have!

Of course, after supper, a good part of the diners had left to return to their regular lodgings or go about the town to seek their further amusements, or pleasures, and but for a few hold-outs in the Common Rooms, the club had gone quiet once more, with most of the members who lodged off to bed at an early hour. After a brandy by the fire, Lewrie had toddled off, too.

Even with the four candles and the light of the fire reflected off the brass back plate, reading the paper was hard going. He gave it up and went to bed, doffing his robe and quickly sliding under the thick covers, snuffing all but one candle to savour his whisky.

Lewrie did, before pulling up the blankets and coverlet, raise his right leg and look once more at his thigh, grimacing again at the ragged, round, and dis-coloured puckered scar from a lucky long-range shot by a Spanish sailor, made even worse by the rough and un-gentle ministrations of his Ship’s Surgeon, Mr. Mainwaring, as he’d probed deep for the bullet, the patches of cotton duck from his breeches, his silk shirt-tails, and his muslin underdrawers with long pincers gouging remorselessly for the very last thread.

That wound was not the only one he’d suffered in his twenty-seven years in the Navy, but by God, it had been the most painful, a shrieking agony that seemed to last as long as the pangs of Hell! Even the thought of it made him shiver. He’d come to from a fever and laudanum-laced stupor to find himself in constant, throbbing pain, bound up in baby swaddles, fouling himself, and helpless, unable to crawl out of his hanging bed-cot and make it to his quarter-gallery, for an embarrassing fortnight. When he did manage to move without the pain immobilising him, it had taken Pettus and his cabin-servant, Jessop, to support him for a fortnight more.

At least I could wipe mine own arse! he thought.

When he could put slop trousers or breeches on, and attend to ship’s business once more, there had first been a crutch to aid him, with a watchful Pettus or Jessop at his elbow, still. Graduating to a walking stick had felt like marvellous progress, but … he had had need of it from their break in passage at St. Helena all the way to England, through de-commissioning Reliant, reporting to Admiralty, and going home to Anglesgreen, and his father’s house. At least Sir Hugo had patterned his house after a rambling Hindoo bungalow so there were no stairs to manage!

He’d gone on half-pay a cripple, a weak-legged shambler with a dubious future. Even mounting or dis-mounting a horse, or taking a morning ride at only a walk, not a trot, was a fearsome chore, and could cause a dull and deep ache! For a time, Lewrie had dreaded that not only would he never be called to service again, there was a good chance that he would be doomed to be only half a full man!

Thank God, again, for Will Cony, he grimly thought.

*   *   *

Over the years since first settling in Anglesgreen near his in-laws in 1789 to live upon a rented farm, whenever Lewrie had returned, whether from London or the sea, his first stop had always been the Old Ploughman public house. In the early days, when old Mr. Beakman had owned it, the Old Ploughman looked and felt smoky, grimy, and ancient, as it indeed was, the interior dim and low-ceilinged, the plastered walls and overhead beams dark with hundreds of years of hearth smoke.