Law, Parliament, the Church, military service, banking or such careers were for the upper crust, Alan knew. Burgess was too old at twenty-one to be 'prenticed out to learn a trade, and it sounded as if farming was out, too. What little was left for him? That this spectacular specimen of mankind would grub away his days in some counting house, clerking and writing for a bank or mill owner? It was a ghastly thought. And, with the country inundated with veterans returned from the war, jobs were scarce as hen's teeth already, with a hundred queuing for every opening, and a thousand more tramping the roads from one rumor of employment to the next.
" Bow Street Runners!" Alan spoke up with sudden inspiration. "You know, that Fielding fellow's watch service. Replacing the parish Charlies with a police force. It's a bloo… a devilish un-English idea if you ask me, having a police force like the Frogs over in Paris do. Might as well declare martial law and have done, but they'd look kindly on a well set-up young fellow with military experience. I've read he hires ex-servicemen, sergeants and corporals, mostly. Good men handy with a staff, who can take care of themselves. Surely, they'd need someone like you, Burgess. You could show 'em what Red Indians fight like."
"It's a good idea, Burge," Governour opined heartily. "Not too much different from the Army, I suppose. Get in on the ground floor, so to speak. And with your education, and your skills, you'd move right up quickly."
"Aye, it's a thought," Burgess piped back, but Alan could see, even if the others didn't, that his heart wasn't exactly in it. From their time at Yorktown, besieged by the Rebels and the French, and in their daring escape after being blown downriver in those damned barges the night before the surrender, Alan was pretty sure being a constable of the watch was not the career Burgess Chiswick would care for.
He was a strange young fellow. So woods-crafty, so in control of his troops by an almost natural sense of superiority. Yet down in his depths, Alan had always caught an inkling of fear, of uncertainty. God knew, Alan had seen enough war to make his own knees knock every time he heard a cannon go off, and he still couldn't quite credit the Navy with making him a Commission Officer and giving him command of a ship of war, even one so small as Shrike in the closing weeks of the war-he of all people by God knew uncertainty like a close relation! But with Burgess, he felt a… softness. A nature too soft for the slings and arrows of life, like setting foxes to outfight hounds. And yet the ember of ambition burned within his breast, the wish to do great things perhaps beyond his measure.
"Who knows?" Burgess went on between bites of his fish course. 'There's always the sea, like you. Or the East Indies. I've heard officers with 'John Company' come home at least a chicken-nabob. Fifty thousand pounds in diamonds and rubies'd suit me right down to my toes."
"I pray not, Burge," Caroline said, frowning. "So far away, so harsh and hot. Why, they die like flies among the Hindoos, do they not, Alan?"
"So I've read, Caroline," Alan replied, and was rewarded with another of those deep gazes, and a slight touch of her hand on his in thankfulness for backing her words. A touch that struck a spark between them as remarkable as their first timid kiss on the Desperate frigate's midnight quarterdeck two years and more before.
Why'd I act so miss-ish with her before? Alan wondered. I even entertained a thought of marrying her, even if she was poor as a church-mouse. 'Course, that was back when I still had hopes of Lucy Beauman and her daddy's guineas. Any other girl, I'd have bulled her aft by the taffrail and damned anyone in the watch who'd interfere. Governour or Burgess would have called me out and skewered me for it, though. Maybe that's why I didn't. Maybe that's why.
"It would be a capital way to renew the family fortunes," Burgess insisted. "To get on with 'John Company.' Even as a clerk to some trading house out there would put me in the way of money beyond measure. And it wouldn't be but for a few years."
"Your friend Mister Chute intimated he had influence, Alan," Governour said. "Perhaps he could suggest something."
"I'd not trust him any farther than I could spit, Governour," Alan replied. "I knew him at Harrow, before I was expelled. He still owes me half a crown for tatties and gravy after all these years, and devil a hope I have of ever being repaid. He makes a career of making efforts on people's behalf. But he charges a pretty penny for it."
"Ah, that kind." Governour scowled again.
"And I thought after Mister Richardson's novels about such doings, they'd be a law to stop such as he," Mrs. Chiswick all but cried in alarm. "Harrow, though. A good school, for all I've heard tell. And what did you do to get yourself expelled, Alan?"
"Tried to blow up the governor's coach-house. And his privy," Alan was forced to admit. "Come to think on it, Clotworthy Chute and Peter Rushton were both in on it with me, and left me holding the bag. Or the wick, in this case." The food had been swill, the new governor of the school had strict ideas about discipline, and most schools were run by terror, anyway, with the students ready to riot at any provocation. Just before term ended, when parents came to fetch their children and saw the one instance of decent victuals (put on for their benefit and not to be seen again), they had decided to do something grand. A small keg of gunpowder had been procured, with a length of slow-match. It had been only extreme bad luck that the governor had been on his way to the privy behind the stables when the charge went off.
The intent had been to destroy the man's splendid coach and let him know how reviled he was among the students. But the measure of powder was a lot more than it ought to have been. Alan had lit the slow-match and run back away from the stables and coach-house what he thought was a safe distance to watch the show, and Clotworthy, Peter Rushton and a couple of other young scamps had hidden in the box hedges, tittering with anticipation.
The roof had been blown off. The doors and windows disappeared in a whoof of flame and smoke, and the carriages inside had certainly been turned into heat and light. But the horses had panicked and broke free from the stalls, and ran all over the county as the barn caught fire. Everyone had run for his life, and Alan had had the misfortune to choose the wrong direction, had not thought to put down his port-fire and had collided headlong with the governor, ramming his head right into the man's stout stomach and nightshirt, which abrupt collision had addled both of them, and Alan was last to his feet, with the incriminating evidence by his side.
"I could have tattled on the others, but I didn't," Alan said in conclusion of his tale, "and he still won't pay me for those tatties. Or the beating I got, either."
"Were I your father I'd have tanned your bottom, sir!" Mrs. Chiswick declared, swooning with laughter with the rest. "No wonder a career at sea, where you could indulge your passion for explosives, resulted. Oh, what a scamp you were, sir!"
"And still is, I'll be bound," Caroline added fondly. "I can see where your sense of adventure comes from, Alan."
"And where is your father, now, Alan?" Governour asked. "In London as well?"
"Last I heard from him," Alan lied smoothly, "he went to Portugal. Something about the wine trade, I believe."
Such as getting closer to the source of his sherry, Alan told himself, hoping they wouldn't pursue the topic any further. By the time he'd brought Shrike back to pay her and her crew off at Deptford Hard, his solicitor, Mr. Matthew Mountjoy, who had been pursuing a suit against Sir Hugo, had told him he'd fled to the Continent, leaving a host of creditors behind, and was rumored to be living in Lisbon where even the impoverished could scrape by, as long as one did not upset the church authorities and the Inquisition by one's behavior.
"Even so, he must indeed be proud of you, sir," Mrs. Chiswick continued. "To become a Sea Officer in only three years."