The French Admiral

'Please do come again, Mister Lewrie,' Caroline said, putting on a smile which lit up her face, making Alan notice for the first time that she had the funniest little underlining folds of skin below her eyes, a fault that made her eyes seem incredibly merry. 'Daddy isn't always lost in the past, and we do so want to repay you with whatever little we still have to offer, if only to feel part of a family for a short while after so much time at sea, away from your own.'

'I would appreciate that more than you know, Mistress Chiswick,' Alan told her. He took her hand and held it for a moment, but she leaned forward and bestowed a sisterly kiss on his cheek, gave his fingers one slight squeeze, and went back inside.

Alan regained the street and shambled back down Dock Street over the brow of the hill and stood looking down the road towards St. James and the handsome houses that reached almost to the wharves. He waited to digest what he had seen and heard at the Chiswicks. They had opened their home, such as it was, to him, and he felt an odd longing to go back and take advantage of their hospitality, painful as it would be to see the old man maundering through an evening, waiting for him to open his mouth and say something inane.

'I've never been part of a family,' he muttered. 'So what's the point now? Probably be bored shitless in an hour. If Govemour or Burgess were there, 'twould be a different kettle of fish. The old man's gone Tom O'Bedlam, and his wife ain't far behind him, even on her best days. The girl's the only attraction, and she's so…'

He was going to say 'pitifully gawky,' but the word 'handsome' swam to the fore instead, which thought made him shake himself all over.

One thing for certain, he needed a drink after all that familial bumf, so he betook himself down to Market Street and entered an ordinary. He considered a brandy, but didn't think that was the thing to have on his breath when returning to the ship, so he settled on an ale. He stretched his legs out by the fire to warm himself from the damp winds that chilled the street, noting how the locals shied away from him and stopped conversing so loudly as long as a man in King's uniform was in sight. The ordinary was attached to a chandler's next door, and after finishing his beer, he wandered in. Foraged over as the countryside had to be, there was a goodly selection of foodstuffs present, a sure sign that the prices would be high, bespeaking Rebel connections inland.

'Need anythin', sir?' the publican asked, clad in the universal blue apron that seemed so homey in this alien and hostile land.

'Do you mind the refugee house on Dock Street, across the hill?'

'Aye, I knows it well, sir. Send a lot o' trade up here.'

'I'd like to send something to one of the families.'

'Ah, the Henrys, I expect.'

'No, the Chiswicks.'

'Across the hall from the Henrys. Good customers in past, afore the troubles,' the man said, seeming almost kindly compared to the rest of the citizenry toward Tories, as they called them.

'I'd like to send a dinner up to them. Have you turkeys?'

'Aye, sir, I'm turkey poor at this moment,' the man smiled. 'I kin cook up anythin' ya want an' deliver it.'

'I want a truly magnificent bird, with all the trimmings you can think of. What you'd put on your own table had you the mind for it.'

'I'd be layin' in a couple bottles o' wine, too, with mine, sir,' the publican said. 'Dinner fer…'

'Four, including the old black servant woman,' Alan told him.

'Got a bird that'll feed 'em all fer nigh on a week, an' all the trimmin's, with a couple bottles… say, ten shillings fer all, sir.'

'So be it.' Alan winced at the price. A dinner like that back in London from even a Piccadilly or Strand ordinary-kitchen would not go over a crown, and the bird not a penny a pound of it. 'Let me send a note with it.'

'Be a ha' penny fer paper, sir, an' a ha' penny fer the King's stamp,' the man said slyly. 'God knows, tax stamps got us in this mess, so we got ta obey the King's laws, ain't we now, sir?'

'I take it the ink's free,' Alan said wryly.

'Scribble away, sir, scribble away!'

Alan left the shop and headed for the boat landing on Market Street, feeling… good about himself, savoring the emotion of having done a kind act for the Chiswicks and wondering just how big a fool he was for doing it, and if the man even intended to deliver the dinner.

Yorktown must have deranged me, he thought. Here I am worrying over a family I never clapped eyes on before, acting serious as a sober parson for the first time in my life, and going back aboard without even a try for some mutton. And I can't even share that dinner, much as I'd like to look at the girl some more, even if she is poor as mud. Maybe they really will bury me a bishop.

CHAPTER 15

It was only after most of the civilians had been put aboard the shallow coastal ships in the river that they began to extricate the army from the garrison. Patrols had found no organized Rebel activity beyond the town, so it was thought possible to finish up the evacuation.

Alan had gotten a nice 'thank you' note from the Chiswicks and an invitation to dinner, but he was worked much too hard to be able to accept for days. He did not know how much their sons had sent them, so he did not wish to intrude on their penury if they had to lay out money only to entertain him. The food in Desperate was good enough now they were in harbor, and the chandlers and purveyors could get in their last good selling season on the fleeing Loyalists and ships' crews. He ate his fill of some very good dinners that Freeling did not mangle or burn.

Toward the last week of November, though, as the weather turned rainy and cold, he was surprised to get a note from Caroline Chiswick, asking for that promised aid in packing and moving. After showing the note to Treghues, he was allowed ashore once more on a private errand.

He took Cony and several sturdy hands to do the fetching and carrying and to row the cutter through the blustery morning wind and rain. Sopping wet even through a tarpaulin watch coat, he reached their lodgings to find absolute disorganization.

'Mister Lewrie, thank you for coming.' Caroline smiled in relief as he entered the frowsty warm room. 'I did not wish to throw ourselves on you, or be a burden to you, but…'

'If you need help, then there's nothing for it but to get some, Mistress Chiswick.' He was smiling back, feeling glad to be in her presence once more. 'Now, what may I do? I'd have thought you would have been on one of the ships long since, so I must own to some surprise to receive your note this morning.'

'Daddy hasn't been feeling well.' She sighed, her hands knit together as though she was at the end of her own tether. 'He…'

She led him to one corner where they could converse without the rest of the family—or his curious seamen —overhearing them.

'He became more lucid in the last few days, less involved in his memories, but then he began to weep over all we've lost, and nothing could console him. I sent for a physician, but there was little he could do but put him to bed and told us to cosset him and wait it out. Otherwise we would have taken passage with the Henrys, who had lodgings across the hall. But they could not wait, and they had so much to pack…'

'How is he doing today, then?' Alan asked, stripping off the tarpaulin garment. 'Pardon my familiarity in presuming to pry.'

'He thinks he is home,' she whispered in a small voice, the pain making her shake so that she had to place a hand on his shoulder to steady herself, something Alan was only too glad to allow. 'He doesn't understand why we have to pack up and leave, and Momma doesn't want to upset him. I've tried packing what I could, but as soon as he sees me gathering things up, he… oh, dammit!' she finally burst out, catching herself almost at once and apologizing for losing control. 'I have tried, the good Lord shall witness I have tried, but I'm only a weak woman.'

'I don't think you weak at all, Mistress Chiswick,' Alan told her, his heart going out to her in her travail of trying to nurse a loony and cajole a stubborn but weak mother at the same time. 'Is he rational enough to listen to reason?'

'No, I fear not.'