Troubled Waters

'Hmm… scribble that down, will you, Mister Sadler, lest we forget it?' MacDougall said with a giggle and an inspired expression. 'A ludicrous argument, but… not completely implausible. They are his Majesty's sailors, are they not, ha ha? No matter…' The attorney suddenly sobered (though with a bit of visible difficulty, that). 'Your friend Cashman is now a citizen of the United States of America, and the state of North Carolina, not a subject of the Crown, and beyond the reach of British law, unless and until he voluntarily returns to Great Britain, or any British colony or possession, so, he would run absolutely no risk were he to supply us with an affidavit stating his role in the matter. We must keep our fingers crossed.'

'Well, of course he would!' Lewrie countered. 'Once you write him and suggest it, he'd be…'

'Ah, but I may not, Captain Lewrie,' MacDougall interrupted as he put on his stern and formal 'pose for a noble picture' phyz. 'For me to elicit testimony which I know to be fraudulent would go against the grain with me. I will do all I can for you, but to suggest to a witness that he 'cut his cloth' to suit my purposes would be to suborn perjury, and that would be dishonourable to the profession of the law, and would redound to my complete discredit.

'Besides,' MacDougall said with a lop-sided cherub's grin, 'we have so much perjury, obfuscation, and collusion done by the Beaumans, already, that any jury in the land may smell the rot. Whilst we, on the other hand, must be above all that, and appear as pure as Caesar's wife.'

'Along with our usual antics, sir?' Sadler mystifyingly added, stifling a chuckle of his own with his napkin.

'Goes without saying, Mister Sadler, indeed, ha ha!' MacDougall chearly replied, guffawing right out loud.

'So, does Cashman send us an… affidavit what-ye-call-'em,' Lewrie asked, too fuddled to pay much attention to that cryptic statement, 'sayin' that 'twas he who roused the slaves to run, and arranged for me t'be there to collect 'em, I don't get 'scragged'?'

'My dear Captain Lewrie,' MacDougall smugly assured him, 'by the time I'm done, you'll be chaired and cheered through the streets, and 'twill be the Beaumans who'll be lucky to get aboard a ship back to Jamaica with clothes on their backs, a step ahead of 'Captain Tom' of the Mob!'

'Well, if you're sure…' Lewrie pondered.

'Certain as tomorrow's sunrise, sir!' MacDougall vowed. Then, both he and Sadler turned their gazes on him, just as a waiter fetched them their coffee, milk, sugar, cups, and spoons. The waiter carried the reckoning, scribbled on a quarter-page of foolscap, as well, which he withdrew from a chest pocket of his traditional blue apron. Sadler and MacDougall both put their heads down as the waiter poured coffee for them, and got grossly intent upon the sugaring and the milking of their beverages, paying the waiter no mind.

Christ! Lewrie sarcastically thought; my bloody treat, sure!

The waiter, obviously a fellow very familiar with the ways of the barrister and his clerk, made but a small, sly nod, and turned his attention to Lewrie, coughed into his fist as if to prompt Lewrie, and plastered a benign, but expectant, smile on his face.

'Oh, give it me,' Lewrie resignedly said, pulling his leather purse from his snug breeches' pocket.

Mine arse on a hand-box, 1 could buy a blooded hunter, at these prices! he groaned inwardly, regretting that he and Caroline had made up their minds to settle a 'dot' of an hundred pounds a year on young Sophie, to match the hundred that Langlie's parents had settled on him. A trip to Coutts' Bank would be in order, soonest, to replenish before returning to his expensive lodgings that evening, else he'd not be able to pay that reckoning, either!

'Well, after coffee, we'll retire to my lodgings,' MacDougall suggested,

once the waiter was gone. 'A hard afternoon's work, then supper? I know a wonderful new establishment near the 'Change, sir.'

I don t feed him proper, lend up swingin'in the breeze? Alan Lewrie cynically wondered.

'But, of course,' he had to say, and grin as he did it. 'That sounds simply delightful. I am completely in your hands.'

CHAPTER EIGHT

'It was a passing-fair day for a wedding. Rain had poured down in buckets the early evening prior, just about the time that Lewrie had returned to Portsmouth in the diligence coach, slithering down the road from Portdown Hill. Thankfully though, the rain had eased off to misty, light showers round midnight, and had quit in the early hours of the dawn, just afore 'first sparrow fart.'

By proper sunrise, the skies had mostly cleared, displaying patches of lighter-coloured clouds, through which the sun broke, now and again. The town, and the seaport, smelled fresh-laundered without the usual accumulated reeks. Horse dung and ordure had been flushed away (for a little while, anyway) and the street cobbles and narrow brick sidewalks bore a damp sheen, with here and there puddles, some rather large but shallow, that acted like mirrors to the now-benign sky.

Lt. Urquhart, who had never met Langlie, volunteered to remain aboard, along with the new-come Midshipmen, to keep an eye on the ship, whilst Savage's Commission Sea Officers, Marine Lieutenant Devereux and Mr. Win-wood the Sailing Master, along with Mr. Midshipman Grace, accompanied Lewrie ashore in the ship's boats, buffed up, polished, brushed down, and clad in their best uniforms. For a rather rare once, except for Sunday Divisions, they had even bathed, closely shaved, and gotten their hair trimmed and combed into presentable order.

Caroline had insisted upon the services being held at the church of St. Thomas A'Becket 's, that grand and prominent Portsmouth landmark. If hoary old St. George's in their home village of Anglesgreen was not convenient to Langlie's family, who lived in Kent, and if Langlie could not get free of his new ship long enough during her own fitting-out… and if a London parish church was equally inconvenient, then St. Thomas A'Becket's it would be, and hang the cost! she had determinedly insisted… rather strongly, in point of fact; turned as chilly as a Greenland blizzard, high-nosed and imperious, and playing upon her husband's guilt like a master violinist. Hadn't Lewrie made a 'pile of tin' off Creole pirate silver, his prize-money from the Mediterranean as well been freed by the Prize-Courts, at long last, so…? 'What is money for, if not to spend on such an occasion… dear?' she had pouted.

Lewrie and his well-groomed party shambled into the appointed inn, the Blue Posts, to meet up with the groom and his party, and there Langlie was, dressed in a spanking-new uniform, with the single bright gold epaulet upon his left shoulder, his shirt, waist-coat, and breeches as white as snow, his Hessian boots new-blacked, and his long and curly dark hair brushed back, with a dab or two of pomade to keep it in good order, and a mere sprig of a queue at the back of his neck and uniform coat collar in the new style.

And looking as fretful and nervous as a treed cat, even if his two Lieutenants and four Midshipmen off the brig- sloop HMS Orpheus were gently joshing him at the moment.

'Captain Lewrie, sir!' Langlie exclaimed, flea-quick to cross the room and offer his hand, 'stead of waiting to receive that honour.

'Commander Langlie!' Lewrie replied in like manner, taking that offered hand and giving it a warm shake. 'Ye look well in your new rank, and both well-deserved and about time, too, sir!' Lewrie said in normal tones, then leaned closer to whisper, 'but about as nervous as a feagued horse. Marriage'll do that, or so I'm told, though.'

'More gladsome anticipation than fret, sir,' Langlie admitted in equally guarded voice, beaming fit to bust. 'May I make you known to my parents, sir, my sister, and my officers and 'Mids'?'

'Be delighted,' Lewrie happily agreed.

It had come as rather a surprise, when Lt. Langlie had spoken to his captain, just days after his commission and orders had come down from Admiralty, hemming and hawing, coughing into his fist and turning as red as rare beef, to formally ask Lewrie for his ward's, Sophie de Maubeuge's, hand in marriage. Oh, Lewrie had long ago given both of them permission to write each other, but then Sophie and Caroline had gone all