most certainly appears she will end up.'
Were a long-suffering Christian permitted to snarl, slam fists on the desk, perhaps even aspire to rising and kicking cabin furniture, Capt. Treghues looked more than ready to turn from a Job to a Samson in the pagan temple! Crash-bang, and down come the pillars to bury smarmy 'John Company' captains under the rubble!
Lewrie could not help himself; he felt a fit of 'smarmy' coming on, and let it take wing.
'Besides, Sir Tobias,' he said with a sober, straight face, 'to allow Festival to make the best of her way alone would undermine Orders In Council… or was it an Act of Parliament? Can't quite recall its origin, but… Thirty-three George the Third, Cee-Sixty-six of Seventeen Ninety-eight. All British merchant vessels… and the Festival demonstrably is… must attach themselves to convoys under Royal Navy escort which either go to their destination, or as close to it as may be, sir. For a merchant master to do otherwise, he would be subject to a fine of one thousand pounds.'
Sir Tobias Treghues did two things simultaneously; he scowled at Lewrie as if he'd turned into a steaming, gore-dripping Beelzebub liable to ruin an armchair, and seemed to perk up at the mention of a substantial fine to levy.
'Of course, Festival, on her initial voyage to America, was in a Halifax convoy,' Lewrie explained, hiding his delight at what he had read up on once back aboard Proteus. 'Sailing alone from one Yankee Doodle port to the next, down to Savannah, Georgia, this last year entire, she was not strictly on the high seas, and therefore not liable to the Compulsory Convoy Act, and departed Nassau alone for the very good reason that no South-bound convoy originates from the Bahamas. Captain Weed assures me that it was his intent all along to join any convoy he met which could see him to Recife, Saint Helena, or Cape Town,' Lewrie laid out, ticking items off on his fingers. 'And, so he has,' he concluded, then folded his hands back in his lap, behind his cocked hat.
Pecuniary interest quite flew Treghues's head, and utter disgust for the beslimed Imp of Satan seated before him rose to the fore. His mouth flapped open, then snapped shut with an audible click of teeth.
'I never expected you to become a sea-lawyer, Lewrie,' Treghues sarcastically drawled, fidgeting a deal more in his chair, and uttering a faint, subdued sound that seemed very much like one of Lewrie's own 'patented' 'Arrs,' perhaps with a slight improvement of Treghues's own devising resembling a parrot's 'Rwark!' that he stifled rather well by raising a fist to his lips, as if caught in mid-cough.
'Captain Weed and Mister Wigmore have put up the bond for their passage, sir,' Lewrie further explained, reaching into an inner pocket of his coat and withdrawing a letter. 'I laid out to them the penalty of failing to obey escort instructions, lagging behind, or departing a convoy without proper leave, sir, and the fines liable for disobeying. As well as the one hundred pounds penalty for not making all efforts to avoid boarding by a foe, or failing to alert the rest of the convoy to such incident, by night or day. Now, as of this hour, Festival doesn't possess our private signals book which you devised, nor have they posted the pertinent articles of Thirty-three George the Third, Cee-Sixty-six on a board on their quarterdeck, but… perhaps did you send an officer aboard her in the morning with those, one who could ascertain how much they have done to be in compliance with Thirty-three George, and the Compulsory Convoy Act… perhaps go yourself, Sir Tobias? To satisfy your worries, for yourself? And, they're circus and theatre folk, sir, so you're bound to be amused.'
'Grr-umph!' Treghues thundered into his fist, louder and more acidic than before, fidgeting forward in his chair as if he wished that he could leap across it, take Lewrie by the lapels, and shake him back to subordinate sobriety. That, or slap him senseless!
'Would that suit you, Sir Tobias?' Capt. Clowes innocently asked, though he had a slight trouble with his own throat, it seemed, for he had need for a fist at his lips, too.
'If!' Capt. Treghues barked. 'If, ah…' he repeated in calmer takings after a moment, 'the law requires us, requires them, rather… and, given Commodore Cowles's assent to this des…! this particular, ah… vessel's joining the convoy, then, well… hmm,' he flummoxed, trailing off whilst trying to
put the best face on abject surrender, or humiliating defeat. 'I s'pose we must allow it, though…'
'And will they keep strictly to themselves, sirs?' came a harsh voice from aft, from Treghues's sleeping space, which was screened off by some rather nice glossy deal partitions and 'homey' chintz drapes. 'Or, will such low and amoral people be allowed to contaminate us all}'
It was a female voice, which made Lewrie start and swivel about in his chair (made easier by the slug-trail of satanic slime he'd left in it, perhaps?) to seek the identity of the speaker.
Thought I saw a woman on the quarterdeck, the first day, Lewrie told himself; Damme, did Treghues marry, at last? And does he carry her aboard?
Long, long ago, when the old HMS Desperate had helped evacuate the last British garrison and American Loyalists from Wilmington, North Carolina, Treghues had been rather taken by Caroline Chiswick, had even very clumsily and embarassingly sniffed about her; even more embarassingly trolled about Lewrie to see if the girl might prove willing for him to sling a tentative 'woo' at her. Damned near grovelling, he had been, blushing as if it nigh-killed his prim soul to discover what he could of the girl from such a low source!
And, did he ever hear that she married me in '86, I wonder?
The heavy draperies were pulled back, and the lady in question appeared, with her knitting still in her hands, and both bone needles clutched in a white-knuckled grip like all-conquering Brittania ready to heave spears or cross swords with the foe.
Yoicks, what a bloody horror! Lewrie silently gawped, keeping a level expression on his phyz as he rose from his chair at her entrance. Lady Treghues was the severe sort! Wouldn't care t'run into her in a dark alley! was his thought as he clasped his hat to his breast, and made a 'leg' to her, as did Capt. Cowles, which nicety she ignored in her pique. Hair which might have once been lustrous and fetching was now a drab mousey-brown, and drawn back from her face; her face, of a particularly-pale complexion, bore not a trace of fashionable cosmetic artifice. A firm square jaw, lips so thinly pursed that she could be mistaken for one of Zachariah Twigg's kinfolk; harshly high, knotty cheekbones, and the only feature that might draw favourable comment was her light, jade-green eyes, which were now spitting glittering Arctic icicles like a shower of cross-bow bolts. Despite the lingering warmth of an evening near the 20th Latitude, in a stuffy, closed great-cabin, Lady Treghues was simply swaddled in a Puritan-dark heavy gown, covered from scrawny throat to her wrists, and draped in a wool shawl of her own making, to boot! Oh, she was a long and lanky gawk!
'Milady,' Capt. Cowles soothingly intoned, bent over in a bow worthy of St. James's Palace.
' Good Captain Cowles,' Lady Treghues cooed back to him, could a vulture actually coo, of course! 'And you must be Captain Alan Lewrie, sir!'
'Milady,' Lewrie rejoined, dipping her an additional bow.
'My husband has told me all about you, Captain Lewrie,' came a much cooler address. Had she a fan instead of knitting needles, she'd have been whacking it back and forth to fight her 'virtuous vapours' like a loose and flagging jib! All that was missing was a scandalised 'Hmmph!' and a stamped foot.
'It was my pleasure to serve aboard his ship, milady,' Lewrie replied, rising upright instead of 'grovelling' like a Russian serf.
'Hmmph!'
There it is! Lewrie told himself, now sure that an exasperated stamp would soon come.
'I rather doubt there'll be much visiting 'tween ships, dear,' Treghues grumpily said, put out that his wife had intruded upon men's business… but seemingly at a loss as to how to prevent it. Perhaps the grey hair in his thinning auburn thatch had come from his wife and her 'for his own good' interventions? 'Once the weather calmed, there has been, Treghues,' she objected, 'supper invitations, and I don't know what all. Surely,
