Sea of Grey

houseguests for a week or two in the country or the coach that brought the mails also brought in a clutch of passengers. Every day, folk would gather before the Olde Ploughman or the Red Swan Inn, just for a sight of them, even were they merely alighting for a shot at the 'jakes,' a quick half-pint of ale with a cold beef pie before 'Whip Up And Away.' And certainly, he smugly grinned to himself, the sight of two gold medals dangling on his chest didn't hurt when it came to a lure for the curious, either!

As men shook his hand with almost an admiring briskness, and the ladies curtsied or inclined their heads, with fans rustling faster in what he took for approval, he was pumped dry for information about the doings 'at home' in England, the latest titillating scandals at Court, the prices of goods, the progress of the war. He also got a chance to enquire about people he had met in Jamaica in his early days.

'Mistress Margaret Haymer and her husband… name escapes me?'

'Dead, oh years ago, alas!'

'The Hillwoods?'

'Both passed over, unfortunatly.'

'Feller who invited my commanding officer and several of us from the midshipmens' mess to a supper and ball once… Sir Richard Slade?'

'Joined the Great Majority in '86,' was the shifty-eyed reply. 'And good riddance, frankly. A back- gammoner, sir, d'ye get my…'

'Thought there was somethin' a tad… off about him, myself,' Lewrie could say with a frown of pleasure. 'A man o' the 'windward passage,' ey? Hid it well, he did, but… his house servants were a young bunch, and all boys. Well, well…'

'Alan Lewrie, is it you, sir?'

'Ma'am?' he replied, turning in the direction of the query. 'I say! Mistress Beauman, a great pleasure after all these… after all this time.' Years, ye gods! he chid himself, don't remind her of her years!

Cashman had the right of it; Anne Beauman had aged badly. Only her lively brown eyes reminded him of the lass she used to be. She had shriveled like one of those apple-headed dolls the Rebels made that he had seen in Charleston or Wilmington; stout as a salt-beef cask, as well. Though still done up in the best apparel money could buy-and Beaumans could afford the best-she more resembled a weary harridan who had not been blessed by Life, the sort of shop-woman one could see in London, out on a Sunday stroll since that was better than desponding up in an airless garret lodging.

'Congratulations, sir,' she said as if recalling maidenly coos and styles. 'Lucy wrote us, once she was safely back in England. But she told us you were merely a Commander, at the time.'

'She and Sir Malcolm keep well, I trust, Mistress Anne?' 'Oh, indeed! With you to thank for their lives.' 'I did nothing more than warn them to flee Venice and get home, before the French took the place, ma'am, nothing like…' Lewrie said with his brow creased in confusion, wondering what spindrift the minx had invented to improve her tale.

'Oh, but was there not some adventure at some island along the Dalmatian coast, with pirates and…?' Anne frowned in turn.

'We put in there for a bit, once she and Sir Malcolm took passage with us, but that was after we'd-'

'Ah, there ye be,' a gruff voice interrupted; most thankfully, to Alan's lights-how did one disabuse someone of their kin's veracity?

'Ah!' Lewrie said, feigning joy. 'Mister Hugh Beauman!'

He offered his hand, recalling that at one time this side of beef, this breeding bull-and his father-had threatened to thrash him in the streets of Kingston and finally had shown him the door, quite firmly assuring him he'd never darken their lives again! Surprisingly, Hugh Beauman took it and gave it a powerful shake of welcome; with a viselike, crunching squeeze, though-just to remind him of his 'place!'

'Lewrie, ah de do!' Beauman bellowed. 'Years, wot? All grown up, I see. Stap me, a Post-Captain now!'

'Last year, sir, after the battle of-'

'On yer own bottom. Have a frigate, I'd expect? Yes? Good!'

Like all the Beauman men, Lewrie sadly told himself; they talk in fragments… too busy for polite conversation. Prob'ly begrudge the time wasted, too! The father Beauman he'd dealt with had been the same way, when Lewrie was courting Lucy. For all their wealth, they were 'chaw-bacon' with not a jot of ton or style; tenant-tramplin', fox-huntin', beer-swillin' country-puts-the very epitome of that newspaper artist Cruikshank's droll cartoons of 'John Bull' as a testy, drink- veined tub of ale, with the temper of a rutting steer, a poorly educated 'squire' to the soles of his top-boots!

'How'd ye get out here? What fetched ye?' Hugh Beauman asked, sounding a bit suspicious, even after all these years.

Lewrie was sorely tempted to answer, 'By frigate, then by coach,' but wisely forebore. Hugh Beauman, for all his business acumen, didn't have what one could call an 'ear' for waggish wit.

'Colonel Cashman and I are old compatriots, sir. We met in town and dined together. He invited me to see his regiment.'

'Ah, ah?' Hugh Beauman said as he took that in, still looking like a man offered a dubious deal. 'Never heard that. Must ask, I s'pose.'

'In Spanish Florida,' Lewrie informed him, with a secretive grin.

'Covert doin's with Red Indians, during the last war, d'ye see. Neck-or-nothin' in places, it was. Doubt a man of us got away with a whole skin, once the Dons found us,' he boasted, to discomfit Hugh Beauman.

'You've risen so quickly, Captain Lewrie,' Anne Beauman quickly said, to fill the gaps-and no longer using his Christian name, Lewrie noted, as if to distance herself, or haul their converse back to a politer plane. 'And been decorated twice. And is that a wedding ring that I see on your left hand? You must tell us all about it!'

'Ah!' her husband exclaimed, as a trumpet sang out. 'Parade's on! Later, Lewrie. Come, dear.'

' 'Til later, sir… ma'am,' Lewrie said, doffing his hat, and bowing them away as they ploughed their way through the throng to the raised platform before the pavillion that would serve as the reviewing stand. Lewrie snagged himself another pair of champagnes, in relief, then drifted over to where he could see.

Sure enough, Ledyard Beauman made a splendid sight on a charger. The horse was a sleek dapple-grey, with the conformation of an Arabian, its saddlery and reins polished, its showy sheepskin pad as white as new- ' fallen mountain snow, and the stiff under-pad so large that it fell almost as low as the flashing silver-plate stirrups; blue, trimmed in real gilt embroidery border, real gilt-lace regimental badge, Roman numerals, and oak leaves. Even silver bit and chains!

Ledyard, however…

'Look! A uniform… wearin' a man!' some girl said in a very soft snicker behind her fan, before being shushed by the man at her side; it didn't do to sneer a Beauman… not and be heard!

Ledyard rode well enough, with his heels well down, as he cantered his charger out and drew his sword to take the salute of officers standing in a rigid row before the troops, now arrayed by companies on the far side of the field. The pace did put his hat-a cocked one as large as a ripe watermelon, all adrip with egret feathers and trimmed with gilt-lace cockade and vane-askew, though. Like leftover style from the '70s, Ledyard bought them too small to fit over his wigs! A hand that held his sword hilt snuck up to right it as he drew reins to return the salute, eliciting the faintest titter, despite the setting.

Always was a vain little cox-comb, Lewrie uncharitably thought.

After a bit of martial palaver, Ledyard spun his horse about on the off-hand foot, and walked it back to the front of the review stand. A small band of fifes and drums struck up 'British Grenadiers,' and at a command from Cashman, the first company on the right, the grenadier company, began to wheel about in lines four ranks deep.

'Shape main-well,' a grudging commentator allowed.

For all the little that Lewrie knew of drill and marching, they did, indeed, seem to know what they were doing, as good or better than the Anglesgreen yeomanry that his father drilled on the village commons on Muster Days. For a mob of the usual drunks, failures, ne'er-do-wells, and no-hopers that armies tended to recruit, and given the smaller and 'scummier' pool of volunteers to be found in the islands, they marched in straight lines, with no one staggering; all in step, and all their muskets sloped at the same exact angle.