brayed, tossing his head back and to one side to emit another of his donkey-bray laughs. 'Now we simply must array you in the very finest!'
There was a palaver 'twixt Sir Pulteney and the master tailor to explain how fine a suit would be necessary.
'Jacques cautions that you must not out-shine the First Consul in splendour, Captain Lewrie,' Sir Pulteney Plumb said with a cautionary wag of a long aristocratic finger, 'and that Bonaparte is fond of his general's uniform, or red velvet, with white silk stockings and a pair of red Moroccan slippers… fellow caught the Turkish and Mameluke 'fashion pox' somethin' horrid during his Egyptian campaign… Even fetched back a Muslim manservant, haw haw! Or sometimes he will don the plainest uniform of a Colonel of Chasseurs. Yayss,' Sir Pulteney softily speculated as he paced a quick orbit round Lewrie, 'you would be splendid, but not too splendid, in something dark red. Vite, vite, Jacques. Maroons and burgundies!'
Is he a Clotworthy Chute, a Jean-Joseph, a Captain Sharp? he had to ask himself as assistants came with tapes to take his measure, and his dimensions were carefully noted in a ledger, should Lewrie be a return customer. 'Hang the cost, Begad!' from Sir Pulteney, 'Lud, a once in a lifetime occasion, haw haw!'
Fabrics were fetched, stroked, draped over his shoulders to display how a fine broadcloth wool would mould to him; how watered silks or embroidered and figured satins might complement the basic colour motif. Not knowing just how he'd been cossetted into it, Lewrie ended with all the makings for three suits. Hang the cost, indeed!
There would be a dark-red doubled-breasted tail-coat with a wide collar and lapels, snug matching trousers, and an electric blue waist-coat in moirй silk beneath. There would be a grey single-breast coat with a stand-and-fall collar trimmed in electric blue satin that could be paired to the first waist-coat, or a second one in maroon satin. There would be a third, a black single-breasted coat matched with a cream-coloured embroidered waist-coat, which could be mated with those grey trousers or any old pair of black or buff breeches.
Not to mention the hats, new silk hosiery, elaborately laced silk shirts Sir Pulteney thought essential. The gloves or lace jabots, the new-fangled Croatian cravats and various coloured neck-stocks without which a proper gentleman would be deemed half-dressed, or only half finished.
I'll need a new leather portmanteau t'pack away all this bumf, Lewrie told himself, wondering how much that'd cost him, on top of all this? Appointments were made for further fittings before the delivery of the finished togs.
Sir Pulteney Plumb slightly made up for the pained look on Alan Lewrie's face as he goggled over the reckoning, offering to treat him to a late mid-day meal and extending an invitation for Lewrie and his wife to sup with them that evening, his treat, then take in a performance at the Comйdie Franзaise, where, Sir Pulteney grandly informed him, his lady-wife, Imogene-Knew it was somethin' starts with I! Lewrie told himself- had once 'trod the boards' as a noted actress of some renown.
'French, o' course, Begad!' Sir Pulteney brayed, tittering over the fact. 'Dash it, imagine an English gel on a Parisian stage, haw haw haw!'
A comedy, Lewrie thought, that'll give the fop genuine call for that Godawful laugh o' his!
Caroline Lewrie was waiting, rather impatiently, in their rented suite of rooms for her husband to arrive; pacing, frowning, rehearsing the wrath she would launch as soon as the faithless hound stepped into the parlour. Her purchases, those that could be carried away the same day, she had left scattered on settees, chairs, and table tops-pelts of her 'kills,' the expensive items that did not even come near to mollifying the rebirth of her anger after meeting Phoebe Aretino, his old mistress, and seeing her in the flesh! And to be so pretty and petite and young-looking, to boot, well!
'I'm home, dear!' Lewrie gaily called out, whipping his old hat at a row of pegs by the armoire, infuriatingly scoring a direct hit and hanging it up on the first try. 'Have fun shopping, Caroline? Well, there may be need for a lot more of it, d'ye see-'
'I met an old friend of yours, today… husband!' she fumed.
'Did ye now? I say, that looks expensive, all that… stuff,' Lewrie blathered on. 'We've some formal 'to-do's' in our future. How would ye like t'meet Napoleon Bonaparte himself? The famous Josephine, too, most-like. And, we're invited to supper and the Comйdie Franзaise tonight. Recall Sir Pulteney Plumb and his lady, Imogene, from the packet? With the ginger pastilles? Ran into him at a tailor's…,' Lewrie said, grinning as he went to her, prepared to dance her round the room with his news.
'I said I… what?' said Caroline, flummoxed. 'Napoleon Bonaparte? When?'
'Don't know yet, but our Embassy'll be sendin' round an invitation to a levee at the Tuileries Palace in a few days,' Lewrie cheerfully explained. 'Those swords o' mine… 'stead of an informal hand-over at their Ministry of Marine, it's got turned into a raree-show. Ye should see the bill from the tailor's t'get me suited proper for it. What's the current rate of exchange, francs to pounds, I wonder?'
'You just… just barge in here, full of yourself, and spring this upon me, like a Jack- in-the-Box?' Caroline blurted, her fury now re-directed on a fresh cause. 'You expect me to be presentable at the theatre at the drop of your… hat?'
'Should I have sent you a note first?' Lewrie asked, confused.
'The theatre, tonight?' Caroline continued to rant, pacing the salon. 'In one of my old rags? Why…! Sir Pulteney Plumb and Lady Imogene, I vaguely recall… Oh! That lofty couple? They were, as I recall, extremely well-dressed… in the height of fashion. Lord, I might be mistaken for their maid-servant in comparison! Are they anyone?'
'Well, over dinner, Sir Pulteney alluded t'bein' on intimate grounds with the Prince of Wales,' Lewrie told her. 'And, he seemed t'be swimmin' in gold guineas, 'tween his purchases at the tailor's and him sportin' all for dinner. Supper and the theatre's his treat tonight, too. If they're a pair o' 'sharps,' then they're both out a pretty penny, and if they think t'trick us out of 'chink,' then they're barkin' up the wrong tree. He seems genuine… annoyin'ly odd, but genuine.
'Should I write him a note and ask for a couple nights' delay?' Lewrie offered, sure that something else had set her off, and he ran better-than-good odds that he was 'in the quag, right to his eyeballs' over something.
'You will not!' Caroline snapped, after a long moment to mull it over. 'If the Plumbs are as well connected and as wealthy and aristocratic as you say they appear, to turn them down would be unseemly. People on close terms with the Prince of Wales, perhaps even with the King himself… '
So are pretty whores, and Eudoxia Durschenko by now, Lewrie had to imagine, though he dared not say that aloud. The winter before, in London, the Prince of Wales-'Prinny' to his friends and 'Florizel' to himself, God alone knew why!-had taken a keen interest in Eudoxia, and despite her evil-looking father's Argus-eyed watchfulness over her virginity, the mort did sport a few more baubles than before!
'I'm in the same boat, Caroline,' Lewrie told her. 'Boat, see?' That was met with another roll of her eyes.
'I'd be wearin' me own best, and my new'uns won't be finished for days, so…,' he went on. 'Well, there's new stocks and such, hats and gloves, but… '
'I suppose I could throw a suitable ensemble together at short notice,' Caroline allowed at last, with an exasperated, wifely sigh. 'The Comйdie Franзaise? Gawd, it will all be in French!' she wailed, turning to sort through her new purchases to see if there was anything that would avail, instanter, to liven the best of her supper gowns.
Met an old friend o' mine… in Paris? Lewrie tried to puzzle out as he began to change clothes. He couldn't imagine who that would be, but… he had
