'Oh, bugger!' Lewrie bemoaned. 'I just can't leave my ship at the drop of a hat, the Navy'd have my 'nutmegs' off, relieve me of my command, whether I request leave, or not, just…! Couldn't MacDougall simply sue for more time?'
'Believe me when I tell you that time is precious, sir,' Sadler said with a negative shake of his head. 'Your poor relationship with the Beaumans, and their brutal and vengeful nature which you described to my employer in letters, must be fleshed out by direct questions put to you, before the Beaumans and their representatives arrive and lay the charges, the verdict, and the sentence before a court. This can't be done by post, any longer.'
'Christ shit on a biscuit,' Lewrie muttered under his breath as he rose and headed for his wine-cabinet for a restorative glass of something… any spirit that fell first to hand. 'The bastardsl'
'They seem to be, sir,' Sadler primly agreed, with a longing eye on the squat bottle of brandy that Lewrie dug out. He brightened as Lewrie waved the bottle in his direction and fetched out a second glass. 'It would appear that we, meaning your legal representatives, have received the transcript, and the verdict, beforehand of its being laid before a Lord Justice in King's Bench, where all criminal trials are held. Which happy fact will allow us perhaps enough time to find flaws in your trial, which may result in the sentence being ruled null and void, and a second trial held here, or your being acquitted.'
'Really?' Lewrie piped, with a faint glimmer of hope.
'And, until your foes actually arrive, and are allowed to lay the sentence of death before a Lord Justice, you will remain a free man, Captain Lewrie,' Sadler assured him (sort of) as he accepted the glass of brandy and did, for a weedy sort, a manly job of drinking off half of it at once. 'And there is the matter of which law term will have space on its docket before an evidentiary hearing… before you are brought to dock, that is to say…'
'Damme, I could be at sea long afore that!' Lewrie gleefully cried. 'Out of reach of…!'
'Though, sir… perhaps under a death-sentence,' Sadler had to point out. 'Until we may challenge the result of your trial, and stay its execution.'
'Ba-ad choice o' words, Mister Sadler,' Lewrie said, blanching. 'Bloody-bad choice o' words!'
Christ, am I fucked! Lewrie thought to himself; think o' going to Sophie's and Langlie 's wedding with this hangin' over me! Shit! Did I say 'hanging '? Now th' bastard's got me doin' it!
Dick Butcher: The first thing we do, let's kill
all the lawyers.
William Shakespeare,
The Second Part of King Henry VI
Act IV, Scene II
It had been extremely crowded in the diligence coach up from Portsmouth to London; 'arseholes to elbows' as Lewrie grumbled at the coaching inn at Petersfield, where the horse teams had been changed. A few passengers got off there, but a horde of new'uns had gotten on, and Lewrie had been crammed into a tiny corner by a window, with the bench seat normally fit for three abreast jam-packed with four, and nary a one of them seemed to have bathed, the last week entire!
He had taken lodgings at an inn suggested by Mr. Sadler, who had made a bad travelling companion. The man simply could not silence his cheery babbling; towards Lewrie, who grunted back, lost in his own brown study and ready to throttle the wee bastard; with each and every passenger-male, female, child or toddler, wizened, droop-eyed, and wheezing dodderers, simpering matron-hags, adult men, new mothers with 'drool fountains' on their laps-anyone was fare for him, from rich to poor, and generally goggling out the windows at every passing sight like a simpleton who'd found himself on an aristocrat's Grand Tour of the Continent by mistake!
Well, perhaps Mr. Sadler had never been outside London before, Lewrie could speculate, and he was on a Grand Tour. And, slaving away over special pleadings, all ink and rustling paper, from dawn to dusk as a law clerk just might be a stiflingly drab life, in a sober-sided profession. Sadler was like a boy just up from school!
He ate like one, too, for Lewrie had been given to understand that the 'honorarium' already paid to his employer, Andrew MacDougall, Esq., did not cover travel expenses, meals and lodging, etc., and etc., so it was Lewrie's not-bottomless purse that had gotten Sadler back to shore and into decent lodgings after they had completed their business aboard Savage, had repaid his downward fare to Portsmouth, and their coach fares to London, Sadler's hearty breakfast, their mid-day meal at Petersfield, and a basket of treats to take the edge off any wants the rest of the way up to London, as well as a pint of ale here, then a bottle of porter aboard the coach (to keep Sadler's touchy throat condition wet), Lewrie's rooms in London, and another hearty evening meal taken together at a rather fashionable new chop-house near Somerset House in the Strand… a chop-house that seemed dedicated to settling the National Debt off the price of its victuals, and one Lewrie was mortal-certain had never been one of Sadler's haunts, without one of his employer's clients to pay for all… the damned fool! He'd even shown up at Lewrie's lodgings for a 'pre-consultation' breakfast, by God!
'Mister MacDougall will be out shortly, Captain Lewrie,' Sadler said with a simper as he hung up his hat and greatcoat on a hall-tree in the outer 'office,' and saw to Lewrie's as well. They had coached the short distance from Lewrie's inn. Well, Sadler had coached in rare style from whatever miserable garret he occupied to the inn, then had the cabman wait (for an extra fee) 'til they had eat, and for a small fellow, Sadler could put it away like a modern-day Sir John Falstaff, then taken the coach up the Strand to Fleet Street, then into narrower Whitefriars Street, where MacDougall had his 'digs.'
It was not quite the 'offices' where Lewrie had expected to find himself; the first room he entered was more a parlour or sitting room than anything else, all prim and clean, with an Axminster carpet on the floor, a marble fireplace, and fresh-looking and brightly upholstered settees and wing-back chairs set about, with two large windows facing the street, and God only knew how much MacDougall paid in Window Tax for such a lot of light, and a good view.
Sadler parted a set of double doors in the back wall, stepped through, then closed them, leaving Lewrie to pace about the parlour, peer into the bookcases, and fret with his shirt collar and neck-stock. A moment later, Sadler was back, leaving the doors open this time and saying most formally, 'If you will step this way, sir?'
Hmmph… got his work-a-day face back on, I s pose, Lewrie had to think; thank God there 'II be no more blathering.
He followed Sadler into a room of equal size to the parlour, one featuring a dining area, a wee butler's pantry, and a large sideboard. Past that'un into a third, a bedroom with an old-style curtained four-poster, then through a final set of double doors to yet another large room furnished as a proper office, a book-lined study with a fireplace and yet another pair of windows looking west onto Bou-verie Street. Damme, how much is his fee? Lewrie wondered, and felt thankful that Reverend William Wilberforce and his charitable, and fervent, anti-slavery followers had so far footed the bill!
