There came a hellish din from abovestairs, the scrape and clang of something heavy and metallic, the "sloosh" of water, followed not a moment later by a trickle of water off the smoky overhead oak beams of the low-ceilinged public house's common rooms.
"What the Devil?" Lewrie griped aloud, standing quickly to flee a positive flood of sudsy water leaking through the ancient floorboards above.
"Oh, so sorry, Squire Lewrie, but we're doin' spring cleaning," Mistress Beakman gasped. "Per'aps you'd be safer on the side garden."
"Thought I'd escaped spring cleaning," he groused, rescuing his pile of newspapers and his wide-brimmed felt hat. "Might as well go home at this rate."
"Sor-ry, Mizzus!" a woman wailed from abovestairs. "The kettle o' wash water spilled. But it's bringin' up a power o' grime! Will ya wish us t'start on the public rooms then?"
"Aye," Mistress Beakman called aloft. "Will you not stay for the mail coach, then, Squire Lewrie Won't be a half-hour, with every road dry so far this week, sir," she prattled on. "Should've done the cleanin' and mop-pin' before the Muster Day, but… and wasn't that the grand sight, sir. Your good wife and wee daughter turned out so fine and your ward, Miz Sophie, lookin' so fresh and fetchin' in that pale green chiffony gown, her new straw bonnet, and all… Aye, she's rare wondrous t'see, sir… poor, motherless lass, bein' French and so far from home. Still, Muster Day seemed t'cheer her… Squire Harry and his cavalry lads especial"-she breezed on, fanning her face, as if overcome with lust or excitement herself-"bouncin' on her toes and clappin' and cheerin' so…"
Something was being said beyond idle chatter and "gush," Lewrie suspected, and he raised a brow over it. As cattily delighted as she was over Will Cony's "comeuppance," and her rival Maggie's sufferings for it at long last, Lewrie suspected that he was being slyly baited.
Will had been his "man"; and he was the interloper from rakish London who had shamed Harry, stolen his "intended" Caroline. Did she blame him for being jilted, and was she now suggesting that he would be getting a well-deserved "comeuppance" too?
"Fetch you a fresh mug in the side garden whilst ya wait for the mail coach t'come then, shall I, sir?" she chirped.
"Uhm, aye… I s'pose," Lewrie allowed.
"Lord, as if I don't have enough worries on my plate as it is!" Lewrie grumbled to himself as he betook himself out to the open-sided, covered garden porch and took a dry seat at a newish oak-slab table.
World's goin' t'Hell in a hand-basket, and even domesticity has its pitfalls, he decided. Oh, there'd been signs, right from Easter Church services. "Women!" he muttered under his breath.
They just won't do the sensible thing. Offer sugar or salt and they'll take salt, every time…'cause it's sharper tasting. Bad man, oh, a baddd man-stay away, he wished he could simply order her. Or don't, you silly chit; be a fool, if you wish.
He supposed Sophie was bored to tears by the poor choice of eligible bachelors in the neighbourhood. She was eighteen now, and her sap was rising; and girls that age began to think of which tree a nest could be built in… and how best to feather it. Sophie was penniless, without dowry or "dot" to offer, without personal paraphernalia to take with her, beyond what Caroline had sewed with her, and if she thought the Lewries would stand her marriage portion, she'd best have another think coming… especially if her choice was as abysmally unfortunate as the Honourable Harry Embleton!
"Maybe it's simple youthful rebellion," he grumbled. The 'tween years' headstrong urge to kick over the traces, no matter how gentle or kind the traces? "Or maybe it's because she's French!" He smirked.
Oh, they were a perverse race, the Frogs. He could not imagine that she found Harry attractive-only another otter could be attracted to such a profile. He was an idiot… therefore controllable? Bosh!
Lewrie could not feature Sophie as being so guileful, so mercenary, so… scheming! Yet for no discernible reason, she suddenly had not seemed averse to being fawned at by that feckless fool, Harry. She had few opportunities outside Caroline's sharp notice, but that didn't signify. Caroline was sure that something was going on behind their backs, yet he feared speaking to her about it; speak too often and disparagingly about a swain, and young chits would-perversely!-run with glee to the very thing or person one warned them against!
And God knows, I did… gladly! Alan told himself; not that anyone in charge of me ever took the time to give me fair warnings.
Yet just yesterday, amid all the pomp and pageantry that little Angles-green could produce, the stamp and slap of musket drill and marching, the clatter of cavalry hooves, the tootles of "The Bowld Soldier Boy" that his father, as the senior officer hereabouts had chosen from his Indian army days as one of his very favourites… there Sophie had been, making sheep's eyes and hooded glances, mostly at Harry.
Oh, she'd bantered prettily with Richard Oakes too; and if Alan had his druthers, of all the rakehellish local lads, Richard Oakes was his choice, should she deign to swoon over anyone! Nowhere near rich, but his family owned their own land; he was handsome, well-knit, rode well, sang well… the best of a bad lot, frankly, for being a member of Harry's roistering, hell-for-leather coterie. Educated, was known to not move his lips when he read… didn't look like a sack of cast-off clothes in his finery… and, most especially, did not resemble an otter with dysentery!
Perhaps I should at least try to solve this one small problem, Lewrie thought with a fresh frown; there's damn-all I can do about the rest. If I m fated to stay "beached" 'til the mutiny ends, pray God it does… soon! or…
There came a clatter from the East, the sight of a coach rising over the hill by the old ruins, threading the overhanging, road-spanning boughs of centuries-old oaks. Shopkeepers emerged from the doors of their establishments, housewives popped from their homes. The mail coach brought them out to see something new, hear something new, see a strange face in their staid village life.
Lewrie rose too, ignoring his mug of ale, to stand by the kerb in front of the pub where the coach usually stopped. The wee "daisy-kicker" sprang to seize the reins. A mail sack was flung down. There were no passengers alighting this morning; then the coachee whipped up and clattered the swaying "dilly" on its way to Petersfield.
"Why, 'tis a good thing you waited, Squire Lewrie, for there's a whole packet for ya," Miss Beakman tittered. "Oh, and by-the-by, the milliner, Mistress Clowes, left this note here for you, but it clean fled my mind with all the scrubbin' we…"
"Ah, thankee, Mistress," Lewrie replied, adding that letter to the pile bound with a hank of twine. "Bills, bills, bills… ah, ha!"
A larger letter, of much finer paper, watermarked with the GR for Georgius Rex for King George III… sealed with a dark-blue wax, stamped with crown and anchors… Admiralty!
It appeared that domesticity, any worries anent young Sophie de Maubeuge, the spring planting… it could all go hang of a sudden.
And feeling the perversity of being delighted, Lewrie was delighted! But not guilty enough to stifle a broad grin of relief!
Flinging coins on the table, he drained his mug and called out, "Boy, my horse!"