“More tea, Sir Alan?” Cotton asked, inclining his head to summon a Black servant in a dark suit. “Perhaps in the side garden.”
Mr. Cotton’s establishment was a modest version of the grand mansions of Charleston, of only two storeys, not three or four, with his private study, library, dining room, and parlour, as well as his consular offices, on the first floor. The house was walled off from East Bay Street and Queen Street with brick walls topped with ornamental iron fences. Lewrie had noticed a small balcony above facing East Bay Street and the Cooper River, and the wharves, and a larger balcony projecting from the left of the house.
“Perhaps we could substitute a cooler beverage than tea, Sir Alan,” Cotton further tempted. He rose from his chair and followed the Black house servant to a set of glazed double doors that led out to a side garden. Two or three steps down from the house and Lewrie found himself on a brick patio beneath that projecting balcony where there was a small, round table and four chairs, a pair of wood-slat benches, and several large terra-cotta planters awash in azaleas and roses; there were other flowering bushes and flower beds, though Lewrie could only be sure of the roses and the azaleas. There was a large patch of lawn before one got to the rear of the property where the kitchens were, to separate its heat from the house. Lewrie was amazed to feel a rush of coolness, even a mild, restoring breeze!
“We will have the citrus tea, Amos,” Cotton ordered from his manservant.
“Yassuh.”
“Lemons and limes, wild oranges in season,” Cotton explained, “with an admixture of cool tea. The physicians all say that drinking too much citrus juice in warm climates can ruin your health, but I’ve done it for years, here, and have yet to suffer.”
“Long ago, I found that a pot of tea that had gone cold aboard ship was refreshing,” Lewrie heartily agreed. “It was drink it, or throw it out, and, with some lemon juice and sugar…! Except in very cold weather, I have a large pot brewed each day. Ashore, I allow myself a whole gallon!”
“Until the stored winter ice runs out, I prefer it with a sliver or two,” Mr. Cotton continued. “Though, by high summer, ice is hard to come by in Charleston… anywhere in the Low Country. Sometimes I add a bit of sweet Rhenish wine… though that is also hard to come by… the war, do you see.”
“Were you back in England, though, Mister Cotton, there’d be all the Rhenish ye’d wish,” Lewrie said, sprawling at ease with his booted legs extended. “Our illustrious smugglers could even fetch you Arctic ice in August! French wines, brandies, Dutch gin? Napoleon Bonaparte can claim he’s shut Europe off from Great Britain, but nobody told the smugglers!”
Mr. Cotton smiled and nodded in agreement, then turned soberer, looking off into the middle distance for a long moment before speaking again. “You know, of course, Sir Alan, that it took some time after the American Revolution before British goods were acceptable again in the United States. I doubt Charleston has seen a British warship in port since their Constitution was ratified. No… French goods were preferred, and still are, do you see.”
“I saw that in Wilmington,” Lewrie agreed as a large pitcher of the cool tea was brought out on a coin-silver tray, and two tall glasses were poured for them.
“Especially so here in the Low Country,” Cotton went on after a pleasing sip. “Many of the settlers hereabouts were of French Protestant emigre stock, whose memories of being massacred by Catholic kings and cardinals dimmed considerably. France is elegance, style, and the epitome of gracious living to them, as it is with everyone in America who aspires to grandeur… and believe me, Sir Alan, no one aspires grander than South Carolinians. Now, when the Peace of Amiens was in force, Charleston was flooded with luxury French goods not seen since the first war with Republican France in 1793. The wines, the brandies, and exotic spirits you mentioned, as well as lace, satins, silks, furniture, chinawares, and womens’ fashions from hats to slippers, came in regularly, and were snapped up practically the instant they were landed on the piers, the shopkeepers bedamned. Yet now, that trade is almost completely gone, again, the last two years entire. You mentioned smugglers?” Cotton coyly hinted.
“Meaning…” Lewrie slowly said, puzzling it out, “if there was a way to bring luxury goods in, people might turn a blind eye to the trade… and what’s allowed in exchange, too? I gather that you suspect that this Captain Mollien is bringing in goods he doesn’t declare to the Customs House… no,” Lewrie said, dropping that thought as implausible. “His schooner’s too small for a second, secret cargo, and if French luxuries are un-available t’honest traders, then where’s he gettin’ ’em? It don’t make sense.”
“It is only a suspicion, so far, Sir Alan,” Mr. Cotton mused. “Perhaps from the cargoes of British ships he’s taken, who knows?”
“Not from homeward-bound West Indies trades,” Lewrie objected. “That’s all rum, molasses, sugar, and dye wood. Trades headed to the West Indies don’t feature French goods, either. Where is he…?”
“Mistah Cotton, sah,” the house servant said, returning to the side garden, “dey’s a gennulmun come t’call on ya, sah. He says he has ta speak with ya.”
“Tell the fellow I am busy, Amos,” Cotton gruffly said. “Who is it, by the way?”
“It be Mistah Gambon, sah, the French Consul.”
“Gambon? Damn!” Mr. Cotton testily snapped. “Of all the gall!”
“One thing the Frogs have in plenty, Mister Cotton, is gaul,” Lewrie japed, “G-A-U-L, hey?” It didn’t go down anywhere near how he wished it, though, for Mr. Cotton was too upset.
“Amos, tell M’sieur Gambon that I cannot receive him now, but if he wishes to-” Cotton began to say.
“ Bon matin, Edward, good morning to you!” came a cheery, heavily accented voice from within the house as the fellow in question barged right out through the double doors to the side garden. “An’ what a fine morning eet ees, n’est-ce pas? Oh my, oui! Such clear sky-es, such a cool breeze! ’Allo to all!”
Cotton and Lewrie shot to their feet, Mr. Cotton diplomatically struggling to hide his glower, and Lewrie with one brow up in wonder. He beheld a dapper, balding toad of a man not over five feet five in height, “gotch-gutted” and rotund with good living, and dressed in the latest fashion. M’sieur Gambon’s shirt collar stood up in points to his double chins and splayed out as if to support his head which was as round as a melon, and his full-moon face. Gambon’s sideburns were brushed forward, and what little hair remaining on his pate was slicked forward in a pomaded fringe. His fashionably snug trousers were strapped under elegant light shoes, yet they, and his short double-breasted waist-coat, bulged at the waist like a pregnant woman.
“You eentroduce me to your guest, Edward?” M. Gambon requested with a wide smile on his face as he handed his hat, gloves, and walking stick to the servant. “He, and hees terrifying warship are ze reason I ’ave come to call upon you, een such haste, after all, dear Edward. Een ze name of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and glorious France, I come to lodge ze strongest formal protest against the frigate’s presence.”
“The Devil you say, M’sieur!” Mr. Cotton spluttered, irked to the edge of “diplomacy” and beyond. “This is beyond the pale; it is simply not done in such fashion! And, might I remind you, M’sieur Gambon, that a British vessel is free to call at any neutral American port from Maine to-!”
“Edward! Edward, pray do not distress yourself,” Gambon good-naturedly countered, as if enjoying his little game, “such distress ees bad for your liver. Ze choler… ze bile? You do not introduce me? Ah me, pauvre Gambon. M’sieur Capitaine, allow me to name myself… Albert-Louis Gambon, Hees Majesty, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s Consul een Charleston. My carte de visite!” he said with a bow before reaching into a slit-pocket of his strained waist-coat to draw forth a bit of pasteboard, and snapping it out within Lewrie’s reach with the elegance and panache of a magician producing a coin.