The French Admiral (47 page)

“Across the hall from the Henrys. Good customers in past, afore the troubles,” the man said, seeming almost kindly compared to the rest of the citizenry toward Tories, as they called them.

“I'd like to send a dinner up to them. Have you turkeys?”

“Aye, sir, I'm turkey poor at this moment,” the man smiled. “I kin cook up anythin' ya want an' deliver it.”

“I want a truly magnificent bird, with all the trimmings you can think of. What you'd put on your own table had you the mind for it.”

“I'd be layin' in a couple bottles o' wine, too, with mine, sir,” the publican said. “Dinner fer . . .”

“Four, including the old black servant woman,” Alan told him.

“Got a bird that'll feed 'em all fer nigh on a week, an' all the trimmin's, with a couple bottles . . . say, ten shillings fer all, sir.”

“So be it.” Alan winced at the price. A dinner like that back in London from even a Piccadilly or Strand ordinary-kitchen would not go over a crown, and the bird not a penny a pound of it. “Let me send a note with it.”

“Be a ha' penny fer paper, sir, an' a ha' penny fer the King's stamp,” the man said slyly. “God knows, tax stamps got us in this mess, so we got ta obey the King's laws, ain't we now, sir?”

“I take it the ink's free,” Alan said wryly.

“Scribble away, sir, scribble away!”

Alan left the shop and headed for the boat landing on Market Street, feeling . . . good about himself, savoring the emotion of having done a kind act for the Chiswicks and wondering just how big a fool he was for doing it, and if the man even intended to deliver the dinner.

Yorktown must have deranged me, he thought. Here I am worrying over a family I never clapped eyes on before, acting serious as a sober parson for the first time in my life, and going back aboard without even a try for some mutton. And I can't even share that dinner, much as I'd like to look at the girl some more, even if she is poor as mud. Maybe they really will bury me a bishop.

CHAPTER 15

I
t
was only after most of the civilians had been put aboard the shallow coastal ships in the river that they began to extricate the army from the garrison. Patrols had found no organized Rebel activity beyond the town, so it was thought possible to finish up the evacuation.

Alan had gotten a nice “thank you” note from the Chiswicks and an invitation to dinner, but he was worked much too hard to be able to accept for days. He did not know how much their sons had sent them, so he did not wish to intrude on their penury if they had to lay out money only to entertain him. The food in
Desperate
was good enough now they were in harbor, and the chandlers and purveyors could get in their last good selling season on the fleeing Loyalists and ships' crews. He ate his fill of some very good dinners that Freeling did not mangle or burn.

Toward the last week of November, though, as the weather turned rainy and cold, he was surprised to get a note from Caroline Chiswick, asking for that promised aid in packing and moving. After showing the note to Treghues, he was allowed ashore once more on a private errand.

He took Cony and several sturdy hands to do the fetching and carrying and to row the cutter through the blustery morning wind and rain. Sopping wet even through a tarpaulin watch coat, he reached their lodgings to find absolute disorganization.

“Mister Lewrie, thank you for coming.” Caroline smiled in relief as he entered the frowsty warm room. “I did not wish to throw ourselves on you, or be a burden to you, but . . .”

“If you need help, then there's nothing for it but to get some, Mistress Chiswick.” He was smiling back, feeling glad to be in her presence once more. “Now, what may I do? I'd have thought you would have been on one of the ships long since, so I must own to some surprise to receive your note this morning.”

“Daddy hasn't been feeling well.” She sighed, her hands knit together as though she was at the end of her own tether. “He . . .”

She led him to one corner where they could converse without the rest of the family—or his curious seamen—overhearing them.

“He became more lucid in the last few days, less involved in his memories, but then he began to weep over all we've lost, and nothing could console him. I sent for a physician, but there was little he could do but put him to bed and told us to cosset him and wait it out. Otherwise we would have taken passage with the Henrys, who had lodgings across the hall. But they could not wait, and they had so much to pack . . .”

“How is he doing today, then?” Alan asked, stripping off the tarpaulin garment. “Pardon my familiarity in presuming to pry.”

“He thinks he is home,” she whispered in a small voice, the pain making her shake so that she had to place a hand on his shoulder to steady herself, something Alan was only too glad to allow. “He doesn't understand why we have to pack up and leave, and Momma doesn't want to upset him. I've tried packing what I could, but as soon as he sees me gathering things up, he . . . oh, dammit!” she finally burst out, catching herself almost at once and apologizing for losing control. “I have tried, the good Lord shall witness I have tried, but I'm only a weak woman.”

“I don't think you weak at all, Mistress Chiswick,” Alan told her, his heart going out to her in her travail of trying to nurse a loony and cajole a stubborn but weak mother at the same time. “Is he rational enough to listen to reason?”

“No, I fear not.”

“Then lie to him,” Alan said bluntly. “If he doesn't know where he is, then you may tell him you're already in Charleston, ready to go home, or going to Charleston to see his sons, who are already there. You must go there now and again.”

“Only once in our lives,” she confessed. “Wilmington is the biggest town we've seen, except for that. But he always did love going. I could try. Oh, thank you, Mister Lewrie, you're inspiring.”

“Sneaky, but inspiring.” He grinned.

“The Lord shall forgive us a small lie, in a good cause,” she said with a firmness he was glad to see.

“You go work on him, and I shall have my men gather up your belongings and get them into your wagon. Which one is yours?”

“We have none,” she said. “We had to sell the wagon and the carriage and all the horses just to pay for lodging and food once our coin ran out. No one extends credit, and everything is dear.”

“No problem.” Alan grinned. “Cony?”

“Aye, sir?”

“Go out and hire us a wagon. Handle the drays yourself and we'll save tuppence or two. Hold on, how much is to go?”

Alan saw all the heavy furniture, the beds and the chairs, the tables and paintings, the carpets on the floor, even if they were far past the times when Axminster or Wilton would have claimed them as their work. Caroline must not have been able to pack up much, he surmised.

“The mattresses and pillows, the crates that Mammy and I have already packed, and the trunks.”

“The rest?” Alan wondered.

“It came with the lodgings, or was found from other unfortunates such as we for a few pence,” Caroline said, trying to put a brave face on it. “I have one large trunk for the last of our clothes, and one for all the quilts and such still hanging. The rest is packed.”

“One 'orse dray, sir,” Cony said, looking at the meager pile of possessions that represented three generations of work and life.

“Go get one then,” Alan told him grimly.

Caroline ducked through a quilt barrier to her parents' bedroom and began to speak to her father. Alan could hear her telling him that he was there to take them to Charleston to see Gov and Burge, see all the sights and buy new horses and a slave or two, some “fancies.”

The old man was having little of it, however, and insisted that there were good reasons to stay where they were, snug in their own beds at home on their own lands. Alan didn't want to hear all of that, so he got busy ordering the hands to shift everything out to the front of the lodging house, letting Mammy point out what was to go and what was to stay while she had herself a short weep between loads.

They finally got the room picked clean of all the Chiswick belongings, and the landlord came in to see that nothing of his would be going.

“They owe fer the last two days, sir,” he said, leaning on the doorjamb as though he would not move until he got his money.

“How much?” Alan asked.

“A crown,” the man said, smiling hopefully.

“Bugger me!” Alan gawped. “I wouldn't pay that much to sleep in St. James' Place!”

“They ain't leavin' 'til I get my money,” the man blustered.

Alan crooked a finger at one of his hands, a fo'c's'le man named Fields, who easily stood taller than Alan and weighed fifteen stone, the sort who could seize a headsail sheet and almost walk away with it himself in a full gale.

“Now, sir,” Alan crooned softly, dragging the little man into the hallway. “There's a lot of furniture been added to this room to make it livable, some of it rather good and bought for a penny on the pound, unless I miss my guess. Why don't you take that in trade? If you do, then I won't have to have Fields here tear off your legs and cram 'em up your fundament.”

“You wouldn't dare, sir!”

“Take him out back and dismember him, Fields.”

“Aye, sir,” Fields said, lumbering within reach. “Hain't never tried ta rip a man's legs h'off afore. Might be a treat.”

“Alright, go, just go!” the landlord cried, ducking out of range.

Finally, Mr. Chiswick was bundled up into winter clothing and was carried out to the dray, protesting all the while that he could walk, and his wife stumbled alongside him while two seamen linked arms to make a chair for his frail body. Caroline came out of the house in a dark red velvet traveling cloak with the hood up over her fair hair, and a muff over her hands, and the sailors winked and leered at Lewrie, thinking him quite the fellow to have become friends with such a pretty girl.

“Do we have everything?” Alan asked, getting back into his watch coat and going to her side on the porch.

“Aye, I made a last check.” She sighed, finally looking weak and helpless for a change, instead of so rigid and self-controlled. They made their way down to the boat, loaded all the possessions into it, and rowed out to the small schooner which Caroline had booked for passage. But the master bluntly informed them that he was full up, since they had not paid to reserve their space and others had come aboard since.

They had to pick their way through the anchored shipping, searching for a ship that would take them.

“Like Joseph and Mary looking for lodging,” Caroline said, trying to smile and regard it as an adventure.

“I'm cold,” Mr. Chiswick complained.

“We'll find the right boat soon, Daddy,” she told him.

They tried a brigantine, a ship lying near
Desperate,
but once more they were rebuffed. A passenger came to the rail and gave the Chiswicks a hearty hello, but had no joy for them.

“Mister Henry, sir, surely our few belongings would take no room at all,” Caroline bargained, and Alan could see that though she was trying to stay friendly, her teeth were set on edge with frustration. “We could sleep four to a pallet in the corner of a cabin, or hang our quilts for privacy.”

“But my dear girl, that would crowd my family so, and the others aboard this poor ship,” Henry shouted back smarmily. He was a richly dressed man, and his wife looked as fashionable as a London belle on her way to a ball. Alan was sure they had as much room as a post-captain.

“They's a tiny bit o' room, young miss,” the master called down. “But I'm overloaded now, an' the risk o' takin' more weight . . . if there be the four o' ya an' all that dunnage, I couldn't do it fer less'n twenty pounds.”

Caroline considered this, though Alan was sure it was most of their money. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath, a strange smile still on her features.

“The hell you shall,” Alan said. “Cox'n, get a way on her and steer for
Desperate.
”

“Aye, aye, sir!” the man replied. “Give way tagither!”

Minutes later he clambered to the deck through the entry port, sought out an audience with Commander Treghues and explained the situation, stressing that no one would show a decent, God-fearing family the slightest Christian charity. He knew how Treghues thought by then.

“They have no money for passage?” Treghues asked.

“They do, sir, but so little that the tariff would break them, and all they have is what their sons sent them from New York. Mr. Sewallis Chiswick was a prominent Loyalist, helped to outfit local military units, and they'd hang him sure as fate if he doesn't get away,” Alan said.

“And how pretty is the girl, Mister Lewrie?” Treghues asked with a twinkle in his eyes.

“Sir?” Alan gaped. Damme, he's having a good day, I didn't know he was that sharp anymore, Alan thought.

“I know you, Mister Lewrie,” Treghues warned, still smiling that lazy, superior smile. “Since Yorktown you seem a changed person, for the better, I might add, but as Horace tells us, men may change their latitudes but not their character, or something like that. I'll not ensconce an innocent and impressionable young girl aboard to liven your social life.”

“If you would but see them, sir. They wouldn't take up much room, they have so little left of their possessions. They could do quite well in the chart space, all four of them. They'd sleep in hammocks if that was all we had to offer.”

“Very well, I shall take a look at your refugees,” Treghues said, rising from his desk and shrugging on a grogram watch coat over his uniform.

Once Treghues looked down over the rail at the bedraggled family seated in the cutter among their treasured possessions, dripping wet and freezing, he lurched into action. Stay tackle went over the side, and the dunnage went soaring aloft in parbuckles. Bosun's chairs were rigged to hoist the old man and his womenfolk into the air and deposit them on deck. Judkin, the captain's steward, and a wardroom steward were there in minutes with hot rum toddies. Treghues offered up the use of his day cabin aft for their comfort, while he would berth in the chart space. The carpenter began sawing and hammering to create new bed boxes, and the duty bosun's mate rushed aft with rope and tackle to rig them from the deckhead so the heel of the ship would not disturb their rest. The old man and his wife were tucked into the first beds finished, with warming pans and hot bricks wrapped in sailcloth to thaw them out from their sojourn on the chilly river.

“However do you do it, Mister Lewrie?” Railsford asked him mildly as Alan thawed his hands around a pewter mug of rum toddy on the quarterdeck once the cutter had been tied up alongside and its crew dispersed.

“Do what, sir?” Alan shivered, savoring the fumes rising from the mug.

“Go skylarking ashore and discover the most ravishing creatures, time after time, so I hear. That Miss Lucy Beauman on Antigua, for one, and now Miss Chiswick for another.”