“I think that would only apply were you being pursued by the enemy, in strength, and meant to avoid combat, Sir Alan,” Mr. Cotton told him, then laughed out loud, “and I very much doubt that such an intrepid officer as yourself would ever do so, ha ha! It would be an act more suitable to an enemy warship trying to avoid the inevitable, yet unwilling to intern herself. In that case, the warship in question would be ordered out to sea within seventy-two hours or surrender herself to the care of the neutral country. You have orders to speak with the Consul in Savannah, Mister Hereford? Good. Go do so, and Gambon’s screechy objections bedamned.”
“Excellent,” Lewrie said with a sigh of relief.
Mr. Cotton pulled a pocket watch from his waist-coat and opened the lid. “It is nigh Noon, Sir Alan,” he announced, “and I must own to a peckish feeling. Might you wish to dine on the town, or will you trust that I have a very talented cook, who by this hour is usually ready to serve a toothsome dinner?”
“I would be grateful for more of your kind hospitality, Mister Cotton, and dining in would suit, admirably,” Lewrie replied.
“Good, good! Another thing I must own to is a most lazy habit, Sir Alan… happily, one that is as prevalent in South Carolina’s Low Country as it is in Spanish colonies,” Cotton freely confessed. “I speak of siesta -the afternoon nap. Barring official duties, or a caller as upsetting as M’sieur Gambon, I usually put my head down for an hour or two after dinner. Later in the summer in Charleston, the afternoon nap is a necessity, ’til late afternoon, and its coolness. You are welcome to a spare bed-chamber, one which, like my own, faces the prevailing breeze.”
“I’ll take you up on that, too, Mister Cotton, most gladly,” Lewrie assured him, “and perhaps… a cool shore bath before supper.”
“It shall be done, sir!”
Damn whether that Frog sails, Lewrie thought; I’ll have enough fresh water for a proper scrub-down, for a rare once!
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
By half past six that evening, Lewrie was much refreshed by a good nap in a sinfully soft bed, sprawled nude atop the coverlet and cooled by a gentle breeze. He was also much cleaner, after a brass tub full of cool water had been provided in the wash-house behind the house, with enough soap for a thorough scrubbing, behind his ears and between his toes. He’d sudsed his hair and used two whole buckets of water with which to rinse, too. He had shaved himself quite closely, but had submitted to the house servant’s, Amos’s, ministrations when it came to dressing in his best shore-going uniform that had been sponged and brushed free of cat-fur, completely so for a rare once, too. With his neck-stock tied just so, the sprig of hair at the nape of his neck bound with black ribbon, his gold-tasseled Hessian boots newly blacked and buffed, his sash and star over his chest, and his “hundred-guinea” dress sword on his hip, he could take time to stare at himself in the tall cheval mirror and deem himself one Hell of a natty fellow, and a man possessed of an athletic stature and slimness, despite being fourty-two years of age. He still had a full head of mid-brown hair, turned lighter by the sun below the brim of his cocked hat (thankfully closer to dark blond without a hint of grey!) that still showed no sign of receding. His face was bronzed by constant exposure, but it was not yet lined… though he thought that the “raccoon eye” look of squint lines at each outer corner of his eyes, normal flesh colour against the ruddiness, did look a bit comical.
If people wished to laugh at those squint lines, though, there was the faint, vertical scar upon his left cheek, the mark of a long-ago duel on Antigua in his Midshipman days, to belie them.
He flashed his teeth, pleased that they looked whiter against his skin, then puffed his breath into a hand; one more of his ginger pastilles would not go amiss.
Witty and charming? Lewrie thought; I think I’m ready t’please Charleston.
Mr. Cotton laid on a two-wheeled, one-horse hack for the short trip from his house down to Broad Street, and a hotel which he assured Lewrie had a fine dining room. It would be a small dinner party, assembled at short notice, but Mr. and Mrs. McGilliveray would definitely attend, as well as the U.S. Navy officer commanding the two gunboats which guarded Charleston harbour, and a few others.
As they alit by the doors to the hotel, Lewrie took a moment to savour the early evening. Broad Street was awash in light from many large whale-oil lanthorns that bracketed the entrances of the shops, taverns, and houses, as well as regularly spaced tall street lanthorns, which were just being ignited. The skies and the thin clouds overhead were shading off to dusk after a spectacular sunset, and there was a welcome coolness to the breezes, though the air still felt humid.
“Red skies at night, sailors sleep tight, hey, Sir Alan?” Mr. Cotton japed. “Shall we go in and take a glass of Rhenish to prompt our appetite?”
“Certainly,” Lewrie agreed.
“And, here are some of our guests, sir!” Mr. Cotton exclaimed, ready to make the introductions. Lewrie turned with a smile plastered on his phyz, recognizing Mr. Douglas McGilliveray, who had captained a converted merchantman, a U.S. Armed Ship, in the West Indies during the Quasi-War with France in 1798. There was a fellow in his thirties wearing the uniform of a navy officer, still the dark-blue coat with the red facings and lapels, the red waist-coat and dark-blue breeches that had been in style since the Revolution.
At least they got rid o’ the tricorne hats and changed over to cocked hats. They looked like sea-goin’ farmers, else!
Ever the good host, Mr. Cotton did the introductions, first to the McGilliverays, though Mr. Douglas McGilliveray eagerly offered his hand, and introduced his wife, himself.
“You’re coming up in the world, Captain Lewrie,” McGilliveray jovially said. “The last time we met, you wore but one epaulet, but now, ha ha! For bravery and success, surely.”
“A squadron action off New Orleans, sir,” Lewrie happily explained. “So good to see you, again, sir, and in such fine health. And, Mistress McGilliveray… your servant, ma’am,” he said with a bow, and a doff of his hat.
“Sir Alan!” the older lady gushed as she dipped a brief curtsy. Evidently, even egalitarian Americans did “dearly love a lord”!
“ Hmpf… what’s he doing here?” Mr. McGilliveray muttered, making them all turn to take note of three men slouching against the side of a carriage further up the street.
“Sir Alan, allow me to also introduce to you Lieutenant Israel Gordon, the officer commanding U.S. naval forces in Charleston,” Mr. Cotton soldiered on, after a nervous peek at the three men, “and his lady, Mistress Susannah Gordon. Lieutenant and Mistress Gordon, allow me to name to you Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, of His Britannic Majesty’s frigate, Reliant. ”
“Delighted to make your acquaintance, Lieutenant Gordon, Mistress Gordon,” Lewrie said, making another bow. “Your servant, sir… ma’am.”
“And to make your acquaintance, Captain Lewrie,” Lt. Gordon replied with equal gravity, in a jarring New Englander’s accent; his wife sounded like a Down East Yankee lady, too, when she spoke. Mrs. Gordon found need to use a silk and lace fan, even after the day’s heat had dissipated.
“But weel no one introduce me to such a grand Anglais sea-dog?” one of the men who had been slouching by the coach requested, forcing them all to turn to face him.