He, at last, dared take a peek 'twixt the ringers of one hand, the one he used to rake mud-slime from his eyes, and was amazed to see that they were on the Tottenham Court Road, just about to the crossing where it became Charing Cross.
"We're here," Twigg commented with a grunt of satisfaction, and a peek at his pocket watch, as if he'd just beaten his old record for a "jaunt" to town. Indeed, they were; Lewrie's addled senses re-awoke to the sights, sounds, and smells of bustling London. Twigg had removed his ancient tricorne (now much the worse for wear) and had replaced it with a natty new-styled hat; his grimy muffler now lay at his feet, as did his old overcoat, revealing the "country squire" suitings he'd had on during dinner. He looked clean as a new penny-whistle… damn him!
With a twitch of his reins, Twigg swung them onto Oxford Street, headed west. "I will drop you at your father's gentlemen's hotel and club, Lewrie," he told him. "You are sure to get lodging there… and at a significant discount, I'd wager, hah? Right round the corner to mine own house in Baker Street. Convenient, that, for our purposes."
"Should I dine with you tonight, then, sir?" Lewrie asked, flexing his hands, now that there was no need to cling to the chariot with a death-grip.
"Not a bit of it!" Twigg barked, back to his old, imperious self. "There's too much for me to do, tonight, to put your salvation on good, quick footing. Eminent people with whom to dine, and consult over victuals, hmm? Speed's the thing, before any news from Jamaica makes you a pariah, subject to arrest, hah!"
"What a pity," Lewrie said, tongue-in-cheek, now that he could trust using it without the end of it getting snipped off on a deep rut and a bounce. Which statement made Twigg glare down his nose at him.
"It would be best for you if you kept close to your lodgings, Lewrie," Twigg instructed. "No gadding about. No drunken sailor's antics, for a time. And I'll thank you to keep your breeches buttoned up snug, as long as we're here, sir. Let us not give your anonymous tormentor any more grist for his, or her, mill. And, the influential men and women whom we wish to espouse your cause are a prim lot. Even the slightest whiff of new scandal or dalliance, and you'll lose what hope they could offer you, n'est-ce pas?"
"Lor', wot a caution ye are, yer honour, damme if ye ain't, har har!" Lewrie returned in a mock lower-deck accent, fed up with Twigg's top-lofty scorn. "Nary e'en one saucy wench, nor drap o' gin, neither, yer honour, sir? Why, wot's th' world comin' t', I axs ye? Tsk tsk."
"And yet you must make a fool of yourself," Twigg said, sighing in exasperation, his eyes and lips slit; one might have also heard him almost growl in frustration.
"Sorry, sir. My nature, I 'spose," Lewrie said, sobering.
"Well, keep a taut rein on your… nature," Twigg snapped back. "I'd keep you caged in a basement or garret, if I could, but I suppose at some point, your potential patrons will have to see you, and speak to you… more's the pity. Whilst in your lodgings, I suggest that you polish the tale you told me of how your crime occurred, and make it damned short. I'll send round a list of queries your sponsors are, to my mind, most likely to make to you, and include suggestions as to how best to explain yourself.
"And, when they see you, Lewrie… should they, that is to say," Twigg added, his acidic aspersion dripping, "I adjure you to display a proper gravitas suitable to your station, and circumstances. One might even practice righteousness in a mirror… though I doubt you're that familiar with it. Play-act a 'tarpaulin sailor,' perhaps, all blunt, and tarry-handed. Rehearse responses of wide-eyed honesty to the most probable questions they might put to you… a list of which I'll send round… damned short responses, it goes without saying. Do you give your… saucy nature free play even for a moment, such as your last, witless fillip, and I assure you that you're truly lost."
A short turn north in James Street, a tack westerly to Wigmore Street, and they were at last arrived at the corner of Duke Street, and Twigg drew them to the kerbings before a splendid converted mansion that now boasted a discreet blass plate by the entry that announced the place as the Madeira Club, Lewrie's father's "gentlemen's hotel."
"Hellish-fond of their ports," Twigg said with a sniff. "Sup in. Do not stray to your usual low haunts," he brusquely ordered as Lewrie mast-thankfully alit on solid, un-moving, ground. The doors opened and a liveried porter came down the steps to help carry his traps. "I will be in touch with you, anon. And for God's sake, Lewrie! Have yourself a good, long bathe, sponge your uniform, or purchase a new'un. You are as filthy as a Thames-side mud-lark!"
With that to cackle over, Twigg whipped up and away, leaving Capt. Alan Lewrie muttering under his breath, and slowly dribbling road-slime on the sidewalk.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Righteousness came rather easy to hand at the Madeira Club, for most of its lodgers and guests were of the very same sort of "made men" whom Twigg had disparaged over dinner at his Hampstead bungalow, newly rich or at least moderately well-to-do off steam engines, the mills and manufacturies that had sprung up due to the war's demands, expanding overseas trade despite said war, and clerks and functionaries returned from India or other colonies as "chicken nabobs," worth ?50,000 at the very least, even some "nabobs" and "gora-nabobs" with nouveau riche fortunes of ?100,000 or more, even some few who could nearly be called by the new-fangled term "millionaire." Even with his Spanish silver, Lewrie was a piker compared to most of them. After he let drop that he was a friend of Sir Malcolm Shockley, Baronet, one of the club's founders and major investors, though, once he declared that his father was Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby, the other founder, he was welcome enough there. Serving officers, in the main, holders of King's Commission, were not expected to be anything but middling-poor, so he was forgiven! And if he wasn't exactly a paid-up official member, he surely would be, soon.
God, but they were an earnest lot, though! Early to bed, early to rise, no loud noises after ten in the evening, their wagers on card games in the so-called Long Room never ventured much above a shilling or two, and every meal was preceded with a prayer. Alan Lewrie had to give his father credit, though, when it came to the victuals, and most especially to the contents of the wine cellar. If one had no valet or manservant to assist, a gentleman could trust the staff to fill a role temporarily, and with all the quiet, unobtrusive competence of the best private mansion's staff.
The maidservants, of course, were homely, old trullibubs.
The chariot ride did require Lewrie to purchase a complete new uniform at his old Fleet Street tailor's; whilst there, he also got a rather drab and sober civilian suit, imagining that if the city's bailiffs were on the lookout for a Capt. Lewrie, RN, they might not look twice at a natty fellow in mufti, as the East India Company officers put it. And, if he appeared to be sober, grave, and righteous before his potential patrons in unremarkable (but well-cut) clothes, it might go a long way towards furthering his cause. Lewrie didn't imagine that prim Clapham Sect and Evangelical Society sorts would care very much for "flash" on their own backs… or on their penitents, either. With his fellow lodgers' attires to go by, Lewrie thought he'd made a wise move.
"That's the question, d'ye see, Captain Lewrie," one member told him as they sat side-by-side in matching leather chairs before a cheery fire one night in the Common Rooms. After a hearty supper, and two bottles of smuggled French cabernet sloshed down, Mr. Giles, who'd made his fortune in the leather-goods trade, had turned nigh-gloomily voluble in his maunderings, to which Lewrie, in his new "sober" guise, was forced to listen, nod, and make the appropriate "ah hums" and "I sees."