With nothing else to do, and admittedly hitting his stride with his scribbling, Lewrie wrote chatty letters to his former brother-in-law Burgess Chiswick and his wife, Theodora, the brother-in-law he liked. He wrote to the other one, Governour, who despised him, and his wife, Millicent, again to be sociable. He wrote a separate letter to his daughter, Charlotte, who resided with Governour and Millicent, though he had no idea if she would even read it, or if Governour would even allow her to see it. Then came his former ward, Sophie de Maubeuge, now Mrs. Anthony Langlie. Sophie and his former First Officer in the Proteus frigate were the parents of at least two children by now, and were the most pleasant of his correspondents, were Lewrie given his “d’ruthers”.

With still no word from Mr. Marsden by noon, and with his appetite stifled by the odd rumbles engendered from the night before, he even went so far as to write to Sir Malcolm Shockley and his wife, the twitter-brained Lucy. Back when Lewrie and she had been teens, he’d been head-over-heels with her, but she had been a Beauman, of the Jamaican Beaumans, and nothing good could have ever come from that clan.

He paused to wonder if Lucy was still slipping under the sheets with other men and gulling poor, honest, and upright Sir Malcolm into believing her faithfulness!

Lewrie penned shorter notes to Peter Rushton, now Viscount Draywick after inheriting his childless uncle’s title; and his younger brother, Harold, who had inherited their father’s title of Baron Staughton when Peter had been elevated upwards. Harold, quite unlike his older brother, was level-headed and rather shrewd, when sober at least, and good company when not. Lewrie hadn’t seen him in years, but Peter had gotten Harold a well-paying government post under the Secretary of State at War, where he wielded considerable influence. One never knew who might come in handy when it came to patronage and influence! Lewrie even wrote another, shorter, letter to another old school chum, that nefarious “Captain Sharp”, Clotworthy Chute, who was rumoured to have turned honest and was now big in the antiques trade. Lewrie carefully stressed that he was in town a little time … too short a time for Clotworthy to hit him up for a loan!

By two in the afternoon, and with still no letter for him at the front desk, Lewrie betook himself on a stroll, threading his way through the pedestrian throngs of Wigmore Street, West to Baker Street, then South to the corner of Oxford Street and one of his favourite taverns, the Admiral Boscawen, where he tentatively supped on sliced roast beef, pease pudding, potato hash, and gravy, and was delighted to discover that what went down would stay down, aided along by two pints of ale.

Not quite as bleary as before, Lewrie returned to the Madeira Club, where he yet had no mail, and whiled away the rest of the afternoon by scribbling notes to his old Cox’n, Will Cony, who now owned the Olde Ploughman in Anglesgreen; to his former cabin steward, Aspinall, who was now a published author here in London; and, frankly, got so bored that he even penned letters to his Lewrie cousins at Wheddon Cross in Devonshire, near Exeter.

By the time he had folded, waxed, and sealed the last letter, it was nigh five o’clock, and the club’s stewards and servants were circulating to stoke up the fireplaces and light more candles to welcome the club’s members back from their days on the town. That passable Spanish brandy appeared on a sideboard.

Pettus made his appearance, yawning and shrugging his clothing into order, looking as if he had used his free time to good purpose whilst Lewrie had spent the day alone, and had caught up on his sleep.

“Will you be dining out on the town tonight, sir?” Pettus asked.

“Hmm … think not, Pettus,” Lewrie told him after deliberating. Gloster’s Chop House and his favourite-of-all restaurant in Savoy Street, were both off the Strand, and either were just too far to go at that hour. “I’ll dine in here. There’s little for you to do for me ’til the morning. Enjoy your idleness,” he said with a smile. “I trust they’re feedin’ ye well, and that your quarters are warm and comfy?”

“Oh, aye, sir, quite pleasant, and they feed extremely well,” Pettus told him, “though I do miss Yeovill’s way with spices and—”

“Pardons, Captain Lewrie,” Lucas, the desk clerk, interrupted, “but a messenger just dropped this off for you, this instant.”

“Aha!” Lewrie exclaimed as Lucas handed him a stiff cream bond letter with a large blob of royal blue sealing wax and the imprint of Admiralty. “Wish me luck, Pettus. Thankee, Lucas.”

He tore it open impatiently, but, once he had it un-folded, he paused and hitched a deep breath, expecting the worst.

“Uhmhmm, ‘directed and required … authorised to make such repairs His Majesty’s Dockyard deems necessary’ … Hell, yes!” he cried, thumping his free left hand on the arm of his chair in triumph.

“Good news, sir?” Pettus asked.

“The best, Pettus, the very best!” Lewrie told him, laughing. “We’ll be off for Portsmouth at first light. See Lucas to arrange a coach for us … not that drunken fool who fetched us up! We have orders for our bottom cleaning, and additional orders for the South Atlantic, soon as we can get the ship back on her own bottom and make sail! Hallelujah!”

“I’ll see to it, directly, sir!” Pettus assured him.

“Something to drink, sir?” a steward asked.

“I think I’ll try the Scottish whisky, this time,” Lewrie said. “That Spanish brandy makes me bilious, haw haw!”

Oh Christ, though, Lewrie had to think a moment later; If I’m off to Portsmouth, I’ll miss Lydia again!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

At such short notice, hiring an elegant coach-and-four for the return to Portsmouth was out of the question, so what Pettus managed to turn up was a weather-beaten and drab coach with cracked or stained glass windows, ratty interior fabrics, and leather bench seats so hard that there might not have been any horse-hair padding left. To make things even worse, the team looked more due the knacker’s yard, maybe even overdue. The coachee was rail thin, taciturn, and sour, but swore that he was of the temperance persuasion, and a Methodist Dissenter.

“And here I’ve thought all this time that Methodists were prone t’leapin’ enthusiasm,” Lewrie chuckled after they rattled away from the Madeira Club’s stoop in the “early-earlies” in a light fog. “It must be the temperance part that makes him as dour as Wilberforce’s crowd.”

“Does he stick with cider instead of ale, sir, perhaps he will cost you less,” Pettus suggested. He was cringing in a corner of the coach’s front bench seat, shrunk up in mortification, looking even more abashed than he had when he’d overlooked Lewrie’s presentation sword. “And, twenty-odd miles on, there will surely be a better team.”

“Assumin’ these beasts live long enough t’get to the next posting house,” Lewrie said with a sigh and a roll of his eyes.

“Sorry, sir,” was all that Pettus had to say, in a mutter.

“Oh, worse things happen at sea, I’m told,” Lewrie rejoined in slight mirth. “Do you shuffle over to the starboard side, we can both keep watch for Mistress Lydia’s coach.”

*   *   *

Out in open country beyond London, on the way to Guildford, the traffic thinned out from the nose-to-tail crush of all the waggons and carts and drays bringing goods and produce to town. Even so, a fresh coach came along at least once every two minutes or so. Some were of local origin, light one-horse or two-horse carriages trotting along to carry country folk from one village or hamlet to the next. Every now and then, with a thunder of hooves, the cracking of whips, and the tara-tara warnings from the assistant coachees, much larger diligence coaches or regularly scheduled flying “balloon” coaches came dashing toward them with six- or eight-horse teams, swaying and pitching fit to throw passengers and luggage from the cheaper seats on the rooves, barrelling “ram you, damn you” and expecting anyone with the least bit of sense to get right out of their way.