"Indeed," Lewrie agreed, with a wry roll of his eyes.
"You seek new suitings, Captain Lewrie?" Sir Pulteney asked as he came closer to look Lewrie's current suit up and down. "Then you have come to one of the finest establishments in Paris, one which it was my utter delight to patronise in the years before the Revolution. You see?" Sir Pulteney spun himself slowly round most theatrically, modelling the new suit he was having fitted, and indeed it was a marvel to behold, of subtle grey and black striped watered silk over a burgundy satin waist-coat.
Light on his feet… ain't he, Lewrie thought as Sir Pulteney preened. Sir Pulteney Plumb was perhaps an inch taller than Lewrie's five feet nine, still of a trim, active build for a man in his late fourties (or so Lewrie judged him), broad in the chest and shoulders without appearing too "common" or "beef to the heel."
"Cut to the Tee, haw haw!" Sir Pulteney crowed. "Old Jacques, mon vieux, you have done it again! Fйlicitations!" he congratulated the master tailor, kissing his fingers in his direction, then, in fluent French, urging the fellow to emigrate to London, where he could make an even greater, new fortune… at least that was the gist Lewrie got from it. Old Jacques ate it up like plum duff.
"Something for our newfound friend, here, Jacques? I dare say you'd look particularly dashing in something maroon, or burgundy… 'less you'd prefer something more… everyday, what? Perhaps you and your lady wife envision some formal occasion whilst in Paris, in which case 'dashing' would be required?"
"M'sieur Sir Pulteney ees ze trиs йlйgante, hein?" the master tailor simpered to Lewrie.
Christ, ain't he just! Lewrie silently agreed.
"An occasion, aye, Sir Pulteney," Lewrie informed him, telling him of those swords he wished to exchange. "In short, one thing led to another, and we're down for some theatrical flummery at a levee at the Tuileries Palace with Bonaparte," he said with a wry shrug.
"Presented to the First Consul of France? Begad, sir, what an honour! Odd's Blood, haw haw!" Sir Pulteney brayed, tossing his head back and to one side to emit another of his donkey-bray laughs. "Now we simply must array you in the very finest!"
There was a palaver 'twixt Sir Pulteney and the master tailor to explain how fine a suit would be necessary.
"Jacques cautions that you must not out-shine the First Consul in splendour, Captain Lewrie," Sir Pulteney Plumb said with a cautionary wag of a long aristocratic finger, "and that Bonaparte is fond of his general's uniform, or red velvet, with white silk stockings and a pair of red Moroccan slippers… fellow caught the Turkish and Mameluke 'fashion pox' somethin' horrid during his Egyptian campaign… Even fetched back a Muslim manservant, haw haw! Or sometimes he will don the plainest uniform of a Colonel of Chasseurs. Yayss," Sir Pulteney softily speculated as he paced a quick orbit round Lewrie, "you would be splendid, but not too splendid, in something dark red. Vite, vite, Jacques. Maroons and burgundies!"
Is he a Clotworthy Chute, a Jean-Joseph, a Captain Sharp? he had to ask himself as assistants came with tapes to take his measure, and his dimensions were carefully noted in a ledger, should Lewrie be a return customer. "Hang the cost, Begad!" from Sir Pulteney, "Lud, a once in a lifetime occasion, haw haw!"
Fabrics were fetched, stroked, draped over his shoulders to display how a fine broadcloth wool would mould to him; how watered silks or embroidered and figured satins might complement the basic colour motif. Not knowing just how he'd been cossetted into it, Lewrie ended with all the makings for three suits. Hang the cost, indeed!
There would be a dark-red doubled-breasted tail-coat with a wide collar and lapels, snug matching trousers, and an electric blue waist-coat in moirй silk beneath. There would be a grey single-breast coat with a stand-and-fall collar trimmed in electric blue satin that could be paired to the first waist-coat, or a second one in maroon satin. There would be a third, a black single-breasted coat matched with a cream-coloured embroidered waist-coat, which could be mated with those grey trousers or any old pair of black or buff breeches.
Not to mention the hats, new silk hosiery, elaborately laced silk shirts Sir Pulteney thought essential. The gloves or lace jabots, the new-fangled Croatian cravats and various coloured neck-stocks without which a proper gentleman would be deemed half-dressed, or only half finished.
I'll need a new leather portmanteau t'pack away all this bumf, Lewrie told himself, wondering how much that'd cost him, on top of all this? Appointments were made for further fittings before the delivery of the finished togs.
Sir Pulteney Plumb slightly made up for the pained look on Alan Lewrie's face as he goggled over the reckoning, offering to treat him to a late mid-day meal and extending an invitation for Lewrie and his wife to sup with them that evening, his treat, then take in a performance at the Comйdie Franзaise, where, Sir Pulteney grandly informed him, his lady-wife, Imogene-Knew it was somethin' starts with I! Lewrie told himself- had once "trod the boards" as a noted actress of some renown.
"French, o' course, Begad!" Sir Pulteney brayed, tittering over the fact. "Dash it, imagine an English gel on a Parisian stage, haw haw haw!"
A comedy, Lewrie thought, that'll give the fop genuine call for that Godawful laugh o' his!
CHAPTER TWENTY
Caroline Lewrie was waiting, rather impatiently, in their rented suite of rooms for her husband to arrive; pacing, frowning, rehearsing the wrath she would launch as soon as the faithless hound stepped into the parlour. Her purchases, those that could be carried away the same day, she had left scattered on settees, chairs, and table tops-pelts of her "kills," the expensive items that did not even come near to mollifying the rebirth of her anger after meeting Phoebe Aretino, his old mistress, and seeing her in the flesh! And to be so pretty and petite and young-looking, to boot, well!
"I'm home, dear!" Lewrie gaily called out, whipping his old hat at a row of pegs by the armoire, infuriatingly scoring a direct hit and hanging it up on the first try. "Have fun shopping, Caroline? Well, there may be need for a lot more of it, d'ye see-"
"I met an old friend of yours, today… husband!" she fumed.
"Did ye now? I say, that looks expensive, all that… stuff," Lewrie blathered on. "We've some formal 'to-do's' in our future. How would ye like t'meet Napoleon Bonaparte himself? The famous Josephine, too, most-like. And, we're invited to supper and the Comйdie Franзaise tonight. Recall Sir Pulteney Plumb and his lady, Imogene, from the packet? With the ginger pastilles? Ran into him at a tailor's…," Lewrie said, grinning as he went to her, prepared to dance her round the room with his news.
"I said I… what?" said Caroline, flummoxed. "Napoleon Bonaparte? When?"
"Don't know yet, but our Embassy'll be sendin' round an invitation to a levee at the Tuileries Palace in a few days," Lewrie cheerfully explained. "Those swords o' mine… 'stead of an informal hand-over at their Ministry of Marine, it's got turned into a raree-show. Ye should see the bill from the tailor's t'get me suited proper for it. What's the current rate of exchange, francs to pounds, I wonder?"
"You just… just barge in here, full of yourself, and spring this upon me, like a Jack-in-the-Box?" Caroline blurted, her fury now re-directed on a fresh cause. "You expect me to be presentable at the theatre at the drop of your… hat?"