“With star and sash both! And I have in mind just the lady you’ll squire,” she added. “The Honourable Arabella Fortescue, an accomplished beauty and most delightful woman …”
CHAPTER 4
IT HAD BEEN TOUCHING to see Renzi and Cecilia together, but Kydd had still not quite grown used to seeing his friend at such an elevation.
Renzi had changed. He was wearing the honour and noble bearing as though born to it, which of course he was, but now he carried himself differently: serious, listening more, saying less. Kydd suspected he’d gone through some private hell in Constantinople in his clandestine efforts to stop it falling into the hands of the French, but was not letting the world see how it had affected him. The healing was a task for Cecilia alone.
For himself it was different. He’d lost L’Aurore-but in her place had been given a plum prize: a brand-new heavy frigate of the latest design, the envy of every red-blooded captain in the navy. The price? Months of patience in idleness.
Since his first command, dispatch had been the watchword, and sloth a vice. Now he was being asked to kick his heels, with nothing to do other than graciously accept the reputation and eminence that was now his.
After making his farewells to Renzi and Cecilia, it was off to London-with leisure time and freedom to make foray into the entertainments on offer in the world’s capital.
Kydd settled into his accustomed chair at the White Hart Inn while Tysoe dealt with the baggage. He realised he needed someone who could provide a fashionable steer, give him an entree, and thought of Edmund Bazely, the jolly commander he had first met among the Channel Gropers in those feverish times of Bonaparte’s threatened invasion.
He’d heard that the man had just returned from a particularly fortunate cruise in the Caribbean. A determined bachelor, he was above all a knowing man about town in London.
Impatient to taste the delights of the capital, Kydd soon found himself outside Albany in Piccadilly.
The doorman took his card and before long a tubby man stood before him, not fully dressed but beaming with pleasure.
“Why, damme if it ain’t Kydd the Frog-slayer! Or is it t’ be Sir T at all?” he added, with a teasing grin. “Do come in, cuffin. M’ cabin is all ahoo but ye’re welcome, very welcome!”
The rooms, or “set” as they were termed in Albany, were modest in size but well appointed and quite the thing for their chief function, bachelor quarters for the comfortably off.
“A snort o’ something?” Bazely called to his guest, from the bedroom, as he completed his attire. “Jus’ touch the bell.”
Kydd nonetheless politely waited until he emerged. “You’ve done well at prize-money then, dear fellow.”
Bazely grinned. “Pewterising is the solemn duty of any in a blue coat, m’ friend.” He looked at Kydd shrewdly. “Last I saw ye, you’d run afoul o’ Admiral Lockwood, somethin’ about his daughter, wasn’t it? Now I sees before me a cove who’s made post, got his name in The Times, shipped a star, an’ who everyone says is today’s hero. I honour ye for it, Kydd. And thank ’ee for noticing an old frien’ like this.”
“Damn your eyes, Bazely-I came of a purpose, man.”
“Oh?”
“I’m to get a frigate-but not yet. She hasn’t completed, I have to wait it out. Months. And I’ve a yen to make the most of it, take m’ fill of what London can offer a weary mariner, if you see my meaning.”
“Ha! Jack Tar on the ran-tan in the Great Smoke?”
“Just so.”
“Fenella’s in for small repair, I think I c’n see m’ way clear to a mort o’ frolicking. Cards? High table? Theatre? Ladies-or all four on ’em?”
After an agreeable discussion on which to do first, Bazely reflected lazily, “Weren’t ye in that Buenos Aires moil at all?”
“Yes, I was. Why do you ask?”
“As it might put a crimp in your little spree-the court-martial. I take it y’r not bein’ charged?”
“No, but I’m to witness.”
It had been a relief to hear that only one man was to face the court: the instigator of the failed expedition, Commodore Popham. Kydd had received the formal notification only very recently that he was being summoned as witness, with the instruction to hold himself in readiness for the date of convening, to be announced.
“Should be interestin’, I’m persuaded.” Bazely chuckled.
“Maybe, but I think it a miserable thing, and to be honest with you, m’ friend, I don’t particularly want to dig it up again.”
“No? Then you’ve been out o’ Town too long-every codshead scribbler tryin’ either to roast the man or cry up the hero. Here y’ have the Admiralty, righteous an’ frowning, saying as how he left his station to go a-venturing without leave. An’ over there you’ve got Johnny Public-he adores a scrapper who sees th’ enemy an’ goes for him.
“And it’s gone political. Popham was a Pitt’s man, an’ when he was gone, he lost his friends. He’s a cunning old fox, but where can y’ stand with a closet Whig like Portland? Not t’ say the Tories at each other’s throats and ready to see their allies go hang. It’s a right shambles an’ the whole world has an opinion. I’d say ye’d better have your story tight an’ pretty, Kydd. You’re in the centre o’ the storm.”
It cast a pall, but not for long.
Bazely beamed. “So we’re for the tiles. Now, m’ knightly friend, if I’m to introduce ye to ladies o’ my acquaintance then I’m not t’ be shamed in the article o’ dress. Here in Town we has t’ be taut-rigged an’ in fashion or we don’t stand a chance against y’r strut-noddies prancing about as calls ’emselves the ton. I know a tailor t’ be trusted in Old Bond Street. Shall we …?”
Kydd had been overseas for so long that he hadn’t appreciated just how much things had changed. Gone were the colourful and ornamented waistcoats and breeches of the eighteenth century and in their place was a mode laid down by the upcoming society dictator Beau Brummell, avidly followed by the Prince of Wales-a plain, studied elegance that owed everything to cut and quality.
“Sir has a fine figure,” the tailor declared, holding Kydd at arm’s length. “We can make much of this. Buckskin pantaloons, perhaps?”
In the next few days Kydd was transformed.
He stood in front of a mirror in admiration. Over a cream waistcoat he wore a double-breasted dark green tailcoat, relieved by two discreet lines of brass buttons. Its high collar felt awkward but it served its purpose in confining a gushing white cravat, starched and finished with the looser but fashionable mailcoach knot. The tight-fitting pantaloons were tucked into gleaming hessian boots, sporting tassels and ending with beautifully shaped pointed toes.
In his hand was his latest purchase, a narrow-brimmed hat, flat on the crown and all of twelve inches high but with a wicked curve to the edge. It felt so impractical compared to his service bicorne, which could be folded flat in an instant and tucked under the arm in confined spaces ’tween-decks. He hesitated to put it on, especially as he’d paid a barber an extortionate sum to style his hair in the latest mode, the Titus, shorn everywhere but the front where his dark curls were swept forward in imitation of classical statues of a Roman emperor.
“Bang up t’ the mark,” Bazely enthused from behind. “As will f’r a surety have the ladies all of a tizz, you devil!”
A visit to the glover followed. Kydd blinked at the mounting cost but, then, if he was to be taken for a gentleman about town, why hold back?
It was a gratifying experience to promenade in Hyde Park in the bright summer sunshine, swinging his cane, noticed with a tip of the hat by gentlemen of consequence-he raised his own to passing ladies to their barely concealed delight.
A parade of soldiers, regimental band thumping away, marched past; Kydd and Bazely respectfully stood still with doffed hats as they passed and were awarded a smart salute from the young subaltern in command.
Spotting Kydd, a curious Curzon and his lady hurried over to pay their respects. Too well-bred to remark his astonishment at the vision, he made much of introducing his companion to the famous frigate captain and, in return, Kydd was gracious and fulsome. Finding his old lieutenant still without a ship, he extended an invitation for the pair to accompany himself and Bazely to the theatre the following evening.