"The code duello makes for careful, courteous gentlemen," Lewrie had said with a knowing snicker, "and circumspect behaviour."
"Don't it just!" McGilliveray had beamed back. "It never came to such, once he and his peers entered their 'tweens. No, 'twas more a matter o' snubbin', of few invitations to social occasions, unless it was the whole fam'ly invited. Young ladies were warned he wasn't a suitable match, no matter how gentlemanly he was, how well-educated and mannerly. Not t'brag, Cap'm Lewrie, but we're a clan o' substantial means, so never doubt that the boy had the best of ev'rything and stood second to none when it came time to 'gussy' up for church or grand occasions.
" 'Cept when he came home from play, or the hunt, lookin' as if he'd wallowed like the Prodigal Son with the pigs, that is!" Captain McGilliveray had chortled, slapping his knee in a "daddy's" reverie; a sort of reverie that Lewrie, so much at sea but for a few rare years on half-pay 'tween the wars, could but dimly understand. He hadn't been there for the outrageous, exasperating, tom-foolery of his sons Hugh or Sewallis, had no parental tales to share about his precocious girl-child Charlotte, except for distant letters, or giggly remembrances he heard from Caroline (or Theoni, now!) months or years after the deeds were done, once he crossed his own doorsill.
"Life's hard on poor orphans," Lewrie had said, squirming with embarrassment; embarrassed, too, to sound so conventionally… pious. "First year or so of my life I thought / was one, I ought to know."
"My dear sir, I'd no idea!"
"Long story," Lewrie had said, wincing and squirming some more. "Never knew my mother… father late to the ball, 'til he discovered me and took me in. Two wars past." Lewrie had harumphed, embarrassed, like any proper English gentleman, to speak too openly of himself.
"Pray God, though, you had one parent who cared enough to take you in, and raise you right," McGilliveray had rejoined; earnestly and piously, "restore to you your proper birthright…"
McGilliveray never did quite fathom why the estimable Captain Alan Lewrie, RN, hoicked up such a snortful bark of amusement!
"So, the lad was more than happy to come away with you and take the sailor's life?" Lewrie had quickly asked in order to cover his droll musing on what a "loving, and caring" father Sir Hugo had really been to lay public claim upon him, or the whys of his claiming.
"Somewhere on those far horizons o' his," Capt. McGilliveray had agreed, "cold-shouldered as he was, t'would've been that, or ride away cross the high mountains, among his mother's lands. Has an itchy foot, Desmond does. And though I doubt he gave it much consideration, some few years of honourable public service in the uniform of his country's Navy wouldn't go amiss, either, we reckoned. Send him to England for further schoolin'… where no one'd know him as half-Muskogee, right off, was another possibility. Where even did they learn of his birthright, bein' exotic might be a help, not a hindrance."
"No, I'd suspect that Desmond did consider it," Lewrie replied. "To take his country's colours in her time of need… to wear uniform and face danger, even crave it!" he had exclaimed, rising to fill their glasses one more time, then pace. "Even to dream of gaining his commission, of coming home one of a few, a rare breed… a Sea Officer with a sword on his hip, not a trainee's dirk, an officer and a gentleman, in an honourable, gentlemanly, and selfless, profession. I'd imagine that glorious return figured prominently in his fantasies, to tweak every tormentor's nose out of joint, put 'em all to shame, stop the wagging tongues… and make all those high-nosed young misses go green with regret they ever snubbed him. Perhaps even make one of 'em… the one he desired, forlorn and unrequited all his mis'rable 'tween years, see him in a sudden and diff rent light."
"We never really thought…" Capt. McGilliveray had begun, but broke off, before bowing his head and beaming. "I, now, strongly feel that you have the right of it, sir. And are possessed of keen insight into the hearts of young lads."
"Might as well, Captain McGilliveray," Lewrie had brushed off, with a twinkle to his "top-lights" in thanks for the rare compliment. "I once was one… and may still be, God knows. There's more'n a few who've chid me to grow up! So!" Lewrie had chuckled, seating himself near his guest. "You do not think that my intrusive favouritism will do him lasting harm?"
"I do not, sir. You are, after all, his true father, and a man he should know, and learn from. He's starved for… repudiation, now that you state things as you have, and speak to his hopes and dreams. As his captain, I cannot dote on him, but you, sir, well… dote away!"
"And you will introduce me to your ominous Captain Goodell, as soon as you may discover to him the, ah… temptation which our mutual foe Choundas will soon put before him?"
"I shall indeed, sir," McGilliveray had solemnly promised.
"More, I cannot, in good conscience, ask, sir," Lewrie had said back, turning solemnly grandiose, as well, "for which I am eternally in your debt. For so much… in so many things!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
What onerous task Lieutenant de Vaisseau Jules Hainaut had been given, to scour the Windwards and the Spanish Main in search of those two absent corvettes, had barely gotten underway, when, like a pair of old shoes beneath the bed-stead, La Resolue and Le Gascon had suddenly heaved up over the Sou'west horizon not five dawns since his sailing, sullenly dragging in their wakes a lone, dowdy three-masted merchant ship, with a badly faded American "grid-iron" flag hung beneath a much brighter and larger Tricolour to signify her new ownership.
An hour later, after making their private numbers to each other, all four ships were hove-to on a gently heaving and sun-glittered sea, and Hainaut was proudly taking his first salute as the commander of a warship being welcomed aboard another man o' war. Despite the Liberte, Egalite, and Fraternite the Republic presented to the world, the French Navy put a bit more stock in the old customs than the Directory in Paris would have preferred. Swords swirled like mercury droplets, polished St. Etienne Arsenal muskets were slapped about to Present Arms, and well-blacked Naval Infantry boots stamped on pale sanded decks in creditable precision. Sailors stood facing the entry-port, doffing red-wool-stocking Liberty caps or tarred straw hats with wide brims as Hainaut doffed his egret-plumed, gilt-laced bicorne hat to them and stepped aboard the starboard gangway, to the surprise of a fair number of the watch officers and midshipmen of Le Gascon.
"You've come up in the world, Lieutenant Hainaut," Capt. Griot the senior officer of the pair of corvettes, glumly commented. "With a ship of your own, so soon? How delightful for you, I am sure. And you have come South from Guadeloupe, why, exactly?" the older Breton asked, sucking on his teeth for the last bits of his interrupted meal.
"Capitaine Choundas sent me in search of you, m'sieur" Hainaut archly replied, knowing just where he stood in the doughty Griot's estimation. "He has desperate need of you both, as quickly as you can be off Basse-Terre. I am charged to inform you that…"
Griot silenced him with a subtle finger upon his lips, then he pointed overside at Capt. MacPherson's gig, which was just coming near the entry-port. "We will speak of this later. Below," Griot said in a faint mutter from the side of his mouth.