Chapter 13
“Passing the word for Mister Lewrie,” a Marine sentry bawled.
Alan was aloft with Toliver, one of the bosun’s mates, checking over the foret’gallant mast after it had been hoisted into place to see if the standing rigging was set up properly. He scrambled down to the gangway and jogged aft to answer the summons, passing Forrester on the way. Forrester grinned evilly at him as he passed and gave him a sniff that Alan had come to know as a sign of complete satisfaction.
Damme, what does that bacon-fed thatch-gallows know that I don’t? he wondered. He looked too happy for my liking. Oh God, is this when he starts getting his own back?
He instantly had visions of being transferred to the flagship and being triced up to a grating for daring to enter the Navy, or for offending Sir George or Forrester.
“Calling for me?” Lewrie asked the sentry.
“Cap’n wants ta see yer, sir.”
“Aye, thank you.”
There was little he could do to make himself more presentable in a stained working-rig uniform. He straightened his neckcloth, tucked in his shirt so a large tar stain would not show, and went below and aft to the passage to Treghues’ cabins.
“You wished to see me, sir?”
Treghues was seated in his coach, the dining space to starboard of his bed cabin. He was having his breakfast, neatly dressed, freshly shaved and surrounded by good-quality furniture and plate. His cabin servant bustled to pour him a second cup of coffee.
“You may go, Judkin.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Oh shit, I’m in the quag now, Alan thought as the servant left, closing the fragile door behind him.
“I had a most distressing conversation with Captain Bevan and Sir George about you last night, Lewrie,” Treghues told him, frowning over his beef and eggs. “Is it true that you did not join the Navy willingly?”
“Aye, sir,” Alan said after a long moment.
“I had heard talk of a young lady, so I naturally thought it was a star-crossed affair. But now I am told that you were banished before a magistrate could have you up on a charge of raping your own sister.” The prim Treghues hissed.
“That’s … that’s not strictly true, sir.”
“Either it is or it isn’t. There’s no such thing as half-rape, boy. Any more than anyone can be half-pregnant. Is it true?”
“If you would let me try to explain, sir … it’s not a thing that is ‘yes’ or ‘no’—” Alan equivocated.
“I can only believe that some money changed hands for Bevan to have allowed you to wear the king’s coat,” Treghues said. “I put that down to Bevan’s cupidity. Too long in the Impress Service could ruin anyone. And no doubt he must have lied to your first captain, if not offered him money to take you on … on your family’s behalf.”
“Captain Bales was aware that I had been banished, sir. In my first interview he had a letter from our family solicitor, Mister Pilchard, and he didn’t…”
“Who are your people, anyway?”
“Sir Hugo Willoughby, sir.”
“The one in St. James’s?” Treghues appeared to be shocked.
“Aye, sir.” Damme, is Father that infamous?
“And you’re his git? No wonder you’re such a black rogue. That’s sweet. So they gave you a false name and foisted you off onto the first poor captain that was fitting out? That’s a wicked sort of business.” Treghues scowled.
“It was no false name, sir. Sir Hugo never married my mother, Elizabeth Lewrie. He adopted me, but never really made me one of his.”
“He and Lord Sandwich and Dashwood are all of a set. Hell-Fire Club, balum rancum bucks without the fear of God. Sacreligious bastards. And they push you on me!”
“Sir, I must explain—”
“How dare you stand there fouling the uniform with your evil stink,” Treghues ranted with prim, outraged passion. “Trailing your false colors and hoping to avoid the gibbet by joining the Navy—”
“It’s all a lying packet, sir,” Alan said, raising his voice.
“Don’t you dare sass back to me. I’ll have you flogged for it. I’ve a good mind to do that, anyway, and send you in chains to the flag.”
“How else am I to get to say my side of it, sir?”
“What side could you possibly present, after forcing your foul self on a gentle, virginal girl, your own flesh and blood?”
“Belinda Willoughby has the shortest heels in London, sir,” Alan said loudly. “She spent two weeks luring me into her bed, and then up turns Sir Hugo, my half brother Gerald, who’s known for being a windward-passage fellow, our solicitor, the vicar from our parish, and a catch-fart with a pistol. Very damned convenient, if you ask me. And no justice was ever called, no constable of the watch, no one, except for a Navy captain.”
“Don’t you dare shout at me, damn you,” Treghues said, rising.
“You have heard what I have said, sir?” Alan asked, numb to the possibility that he was about to be lashed and dis-rated. “Does it not sound suspicious to you, sir?”
“What motive could they possibly have had?” Treghues said, showing that at least some of it had sunk in but still on a tear at the affront to him personally, as though the inventor of original sin had just pissed liquid fire in his coffee.
“I was forced to sign a paper that pledged me to disavow any hope of inheritance from my mother’s estate, sir, though they told me she had none and had died a prostitute in a parish poorhouse. There was never any talk of my mother or her family, so I have no way of knowing if her people were still alive, or if they had property.”
“Then why should they go to such lengths? Why did Sir Hugo not just disown you and throw you out into the street?”
“I have no idea, sir. I have been thinking on it for nigh on a year and a half, and still can find no reason for such a deception.”
“But you were caught. Not just in her room, I’m told, but bare as you were born, in the middle of…” Evidently Treghues could not bring himself to say the word.
“Had you ever met her, sir, you would be tempted yourself.”
“But your own sister, the last of your line.”
“No, sir. My half sister. Belinda Willoughby, not Lewrie.”
Treghues sat down, flung himself into his chair and sipped at his coffee, brow creased, while Alan stood at attention, breathing hard.
“And you have been totally disowned? No allowance or any support?”
“Mister Pilchard sends me an hundred guineas a year, sir. And they gave Captain Bevan money to buy my kit. I am to never go back to London—”
“Does he! That does not sound like a man so ill-disposed to his son. No, Mister Lewrie, you’ve spun a pretty tale, but I fear you’d make a better novelist than Fielding. Thank God, the world is changing, and all the avarice and lust of the last forty years is being swept away by a new morality. There are now God-fearing people unwilling to put up with, or condone, the openly sinful doings that characterized our society in past years.”
My God, is Treghues some kind of leaping Methodist? Alan wondered, listening to his captain rant.
“I cannot help who my father was, or in what environment I was raised, sir, but since joining the Navy I have put all that behind me. Am I not a better than average midshipman, sir?”
“I’ve a good mind to write Sir Onsley Matthews and inform him just what a total wastrel and Godless rake you really are,” Treghues went on as though he had not heard a word. “Had I leave to do so, I would turn you out of this ship at once, at once, do you hear, Mister Lewrie?”