"… under the coat collar, over the waist-coat, so the medal will hang just above the pit of your stomach, sir," Alan thought he heard the Earl Spencer instruct. "First, Sir Robert Calder, now you, Commander Lewrie… the only ones I will have the honour to personally bestow. The rest are to be sent on to the Fleet, now blockading Cadiz, so that the Earl Saint Vincent may award them."
"Then I'm doubly honoured, milord," Lewrie murmured, still not quite featuring this was happening. This was fame! This was glory… beyond his wildest fantasies! Within a quim-hair of being knighted!
God, he thought; / can dine out on this, free, for years!
"… suitable period of leave, then… will there be something open, Mister Nepean?" Earl Spencer enquired, as Lewrie swam his way back to the here-and-now.
"Several vessels will, I am certain, be coming open, milord," Nepean purred back. "Though none for several weeks, as I recall."
"There you are, then, good sir. Your few weeks of shore leave, Commander Lewrie." Earl Spencer beamed. "You reside where, sir?"
"A… Anglesgreen, milord. Just down the road past Guildford, in Surrey," he replied, his mind gibbering. Bloody Hell, they goin' t'promote me into the bargain?
"Family estates, sir?"
"Oh, erm… milord. Near my wife's relations," he admitted.
"Good huntin' country, Surrey," Spencer prosed on. "Wide open and rolling. Lovely riding. Which hunt do you follow, sir?"
"Only the local, sir. Sir Romney Embleton… baronet," Lewrie related, glad he could elide his way 'round how often he'd been invited to ride with them since he and Caroline had wed in '86. Sum total of zero, it was, since he'd shamed Sir Romney's otter-jawed, lack-wit son, Harry. Damn' near broke his nose, in point of fact! He could at the least sound like he still "Yoicks, tally-hoed" after foxes!
"Well, my regards to your wife and family, Commander Lewrie," the First Lord chuckled. "And do you take joy of a few weeks ashore. Mind, now… don't fall off anything and lame yourself. We expect a great deal of you once you're back in Navy harness, ha!"
"I shan't, and thankee most kindly, milord! Most kindly!" he babbled on his way out, with Evan Nepean taking hold of his elbow to steer him away before he said something lunatick.
"My Lord, that was…!" Lewrie marvelled, back in the privacy of Nepean 's adjoining offices.
"Quite," Nepean said, with a firm nod, though sounding much less appreciative than he had before. "Well then, sir… I will turn all the official correspondence from your commission over to the junior clerks, though I don't imagine… after a thorough 'scouring' by Vice-Admiral Sir Peter Parker's staff at Portsmouth, that there's anything serious amiss to quibble over. My congratulations again, Commander Lewrie," he said, extending his hand for a quick shake. "I note that you are owing eleven pounds, two shillings, six pence. And there is the matter of your official certificate for your medal. That will be another two shillings, six pence. Do you prefer we may deduct the total from the pay certificate owing you, sir. Or you may deposit the sum with my under-clerk, then see the Pay Office superintendent, get your chit, and be on your way home."
Nepean was looking at his mantel clock whilst he said all that, no matter his hearty bonhomie; he'd done his duty, and it was time for him to take up others, and Lewrie's presence was a time-waster. Which made Lewrie all but snort with cynical amusement.
"I'll just pay your clerk, Mister Nepean," he drawled, with one brow up and a quirky smile on his face. "And damme if it ain't one o' the cheapest ways ever I heard of to get a medal. Stap me… I should have thought o' this sooner."
"Erm… yayss," Nepean purred back, just as chary of Lewrie of a sudden as Lewrie was of him. "Well, goodbye, Commander Lewrie. We will be in touch by post, hmmm…?" And he chivvied Lewrie out of his offices into the care of an underling before Lewrie could utter another sound. The underling led him without a word to the aforementioned clerk, far down the hallway.
Lewrie felt like stopping dead in his tracks, or going back into Nepean 's office, concerned about the sheaf of penny tracts which had been hidden in his borrowed newspaper the previous evening. All sorts of rabble-rousing Republican cant: no more King, annually elected Parliaments, votes for the Common Man. What rot! But given his unfortunate penchant for shooting off his mouth, as he just had, of indulging his smarmy wit… he didn't think he'd get another welcome. Or a bit more of Nepean 's time of day.
He dug into his purse and paid on the nail, then waited for his slowly penned receipt for the sum owing. The clerk then opened a tin cash-box, and proceeded to begin counting out a stack of ornately made papers, muttering to himself and referring to a thick ledger.
"Damme, what are those, then?" Lewrie was forced to ask.
"This is the balance of your pay owing you, sir," the prim old fellow intoned most officiously. "Less advances previously paid out…"
"Looks like bum-fodder," Lewrie carped.
"Bank notes, sir"-the clerk tensed-"issued by the Bank of England are hardly, uhm… that which you just described, sir! They are perfectly good, legal tender throughout the realm, sir. There is the shortage of specie to consider, after all! They come in various denominations, you should note, sir… differing colours and such for a one- or two-pound note, the five, ten, and twenty. You will come across the odd fraud, issued by forgers or private or provincial banks… those which have not gone under the past two years, sir. Only these notes are legitimate, so you should give any received in exchange the closest inspection. And, of course, there are none smaller than a one pound."
"And I'm to be paid in these, am I? My crew, too, when it comes their due? 'Twill be a wonder do they not riot over 'em!"
"I fear so, Commander. But times are so terribly hard."
"Christ, what's the country comin' to?" he griped, stuffing the neat pile of bills into his coat pockets-they surely wouldn't go in a proper coin-purse!-and wondering how he'd get to Coutts's Bank to deposit them without losing half to a brisk breeze.
"One may only wonder, Commander… wonder, indeed!" that clerk lowed, like a mournful bovine.
CHAPTER FOUR
What a reassuring sameness and familiarity, Lewrie thought, all but squirming with anticipation as his hired coach swept past the stone ruins of the Norman or Saxon castle at the edge of Sir Romney Embleton's lands, mossy old St. George's Church hard by the eastern bridge, then Anglesgreen itself. "Damme, more change!" he grumbled to himself, as he beheld a whole new row of houses on the south side of the stream, the clutch of new buildings 'round the Red Swan Inn, how the ancient Old Ploughman tavern had taken down a row-house to make a side garden for casual drinkers or bowlers. There was a third bridge…! He clattered past quickly, 'round the curve of the Red Swan, onto the newly graveled road which forked off north, alongside Chiswick lands-taking the turning, he shouted to the coachman-onto a primeval, rutted goat track.
Trust Uncle Phineas Chiswick not to waste a single farthing for pea gravel on his private lane; just like the miserly old fart!
Lewrie sat up straighter, shifting from the larboard window to the starboard, for a first, tantalizing glimpse of his own home! "God!" he breathed in expectation.
There was a last turning between two (new) grey-brick pillars, onto his own lane, which was proper-gravelled and drained, wide enough for two coaches to pass, and lined with far set back sapling oaks. In twenty-five years, he'd have the makings of a drive found only on regal estates, he marvelled, beaming at Caroline's handiwork and forethought.