A King's Trade (12 page)

R
ighteousness 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.”

“What t'do with sudden wealth, sir,” Mr. Giles said with a sigh, as if £250,000 was an intolerably sinful burden. “To spend and get and waste it on mere pleasures and fripperies, as most do, when presented with a windfall, an un-looked-for inheritance? Why did God intend for
me
to prosper, and not others? Thankee for the port, sir…aahh! If one ponders it a bit, one sees that wealth hidden under the proverbial bushel basket, greedily squirreled away, benefits no one. The Lord may mean for us to make ourselves
comfortable,
but not
showy,
then use His rewards for our hard work and diligence to the benefit of
others,
d'ye see. To be useful, of avail to improve
others'
lots….”

Mr. Giles was a Methodist,
and
a Utilitarian.

“Treat the sick,” Lewrie surmised, “feed the poor, all that.”

“New hospitals, yes sir,” Mr. Giles replied. “Work-houses, and parish poor-houses to relieve the unfortunate, the orphans, the widows.
Good works
among ‘em, too. Not outright
charity,
though. Schools for the lower classes, so that they learn
honest
trades, thrift, sobriety, and obedience to the laws of the realm—”

“Chastity …” Lewrie stuck in, feigning an agreeable air.

“Oh my, yes, Captain Lewrie!” Giles heartily agreed. “As well as cleanliness
in their persons and habitations,
and
the way they live their lives. Now, Mister Putney, yonder …” Giles said, indicating a sallow stick of a fellow who looked as if an entire host of tropical diseases had had fun playing with him, “was the Collector of, uhm…some Indian city or province…Sweaty-Pore, or some such like that. Came home with an hundred thousand pounds, and what's the very first thing he did with it?”

Found a better physician,
was Lewrie's best guess.

“Donated two thousand to tract societies, to spread word of new morality throughout London
and
Portsmouth, ha!” Giles boasted, clapping a palm on the wide arm of his leather chair—which act resulted in a waiter fetching them both a fresh bottle of the house's trademark Madeira, which wasn't exactly what Mr. Giles had in mind, but was welcome nonetheless.

“And the poor academies and Sunday schools, I trust, teach them to actually
read
those tracts?” Lewrie asked, smiling congenially, but bored about to tears and wide yawns. “All improving, and…useful.”

“Exactly, sir, exactly,” Giles chummily agreed. “Now, our Major Baird is also a ‘graduate' of our Indian possessions,” he said, indicating another well-tanned man in his thirties in a “ditto” suit of such starkly unrelieved black that Lewrie had taken him for a “dominee.” “I heard he only came off, of late, with thirty thousand, mostly in looted pagan baubles, tsk tsk.” Lewrie wasn't sure whether Mr. Giles was sad that Maj. Baird hadn't piled up loot by the keg, or had had a bad run of luck at plundering the poorer
rajahs.
“Invalided out of East India Company's army, sad t'say for him, poor fellow, but before he departed, I'm told he donated enough to hire a C. of E. chaplain to minister to the needs of the native soldiers in his regiment. He and his Colonel held Sunday Church Parade, rain or shine, and succeeded in converting a fair number of heathens to the Lord, before coming Home. In the market for a wife is Major Baird, at present, and I'm certain that the Good Lord will reward his efforts a thousand-fold, by steering his steps to a most suitable and companionable match, of a like mind.”

Giles leaned closer to whisper, “Baird's dead-set against
novels,
don't ye know, any wastrel reading matter that does not uplift or serve the greatest good. Thinking of forming a society of his own, I believe, to which I do believe I may donate an hundred guineas, ha!”

“A creditable endeavour, sir,” Lewrie said, fighting a stricken expression from showing; in his rooms he had four new novels he'd found in the Strand, all of a lubricious or lascivious nature. Lewrie thought of hiding them away, before one of the ugly chambermaids found them and denounced him to Maj. Baird, fearing that the Evangelical Society might just drag him about the city in chains,
for an example of how “rogues were ground honest”! At the Madeira Club,
reading
about sex was about as close to the genuine article as one could get! In strict privacy.

“One may
try
to be a good, Christian Englishman,” Giles stated, all but wringing his hands, “one may attend Divine Services, hold deep and abiding faith, and
strive
to shun the lures of the world, Captain Lewrie, but, without Good Works, one is not a complete Christian, and is but a
drone
in Society. One must strive to
be
and
do,
not just to
seem,
hey what?”

“Now, where have I heard that before?” Lewrie asked, his tongue firmly in his cheek by then. “Did Doctor Priestley say it, or …?”

“Bless me, but I can't recall,” the wine-fuddled Mr. Giles said with a vague shake of his goodly head. “So, what is it that
you
do to make your mark on a sinful world, Captain Lewrie? Where do
your
interests lie when it comes to improving and uplifting?”

“I exterminate godless Frogs and heathen Dons, thus making our world safe for moral Englishmen, sir,” Lewrie declared, pretending as if it was his true calling, though ready to snicker aloud.

“Ha ha! Capital, capital, ha ha!” Giles exclaimed, bellowing his delight and slapping the chair arm, again. “A glass with ye, sir, a brimming bumper!”

“Well…if you insist, Mister Giles,” Lewrie replied, fraudulently trying to demur. “Though ‘wine's a mocker,' and I've not much of a head for deep drinking. Not my nature, d'ye see, and… I really did intend to read at least another chapter of the Good Book tonight, before retiring…clear-headed, but… hang it. A glass it is!”

Soon after that convivial “slosh,” he made his excuses, further pretending to yawn in a prodigious, jaw-locking manner, and made his goodnights to one and all.

Once out of the Common Rooms, though, he headed for the bar for a pint flask of decanted (also smuggled) French brandy, which he hid in his breast pocket. He almost made it to the stairs, but for the noble Maj. Baird, who managed to impede his progress long enough to hold a whispered conversation, enquiring just where an “inquisitive” fellow could “covertly witness and gather damning evidence upon” the immoral doings of the city, the cock & hen clubs, the dissolute dens of iniquity where wagers were laid, and where “women of the town” plied their trade… “to document in eye-opening tracts,” of course.

“Ask the barman for a copy of the
New Atlantis,”
Lewrie winked back, “that guide's your boy to
all
the dissolute. Slip him sixpence. Failing that, just wander down Charing Cross, this very night.”

He left the upright Maj. Baird to sort Sin out for himself.

“Well, you
look
presentable,” Mr. Twigg said as Lewrie entered his hired coach, thank God a closed one, and not another damn' chariot, this time. “You're well-practiced in your responses?”

“As well as may be,” Lewrie told him in a fretful tone as he sat across from him on the cold and damp-feeling leather bench facing Twigg. Twigg had decreed that Lewrie's new uniform would be best, complete with his sword and both the Cape St. Vincent and Camperdown medals hung low on Lewrie's mid-chest from their coloured ribbons.

“Sir Malcolm Shockley and some others have put in good words for you,” Twigg informed him, sounding almost breezily unconcerned. “Your old school chum, Peter Rushton in Lords, sent a letter, as well. With
his
reputation for vice, God knows what use it'll be… though I must declare it was well-written. Clerk gave it a polishing, I expect.”

Lewrie gave that a short, jerking nod of agreement; at Harrow (in the
short
time in attendance before his expulsion) trying to read a sniggery, surreptitious note from Peter Rushton had been all but indecypherable, like getting a scouting report on the defences of Biblical Canaan from one of Moses's spies, and
hastily
scribbled in Aramaic at that! “Meet us behind the coach-house and share a bottle of brandy” in Peter's idea of a “copper-plate” hand could have very well meant “We've hid five dead mouse and they're randy,” which of course had earned them both a caning, even if the instructor or proctor couldn't make heads or tails of it, either.

“We're to speak to William Wilberforce, himself, Lewrie,” Twigg informed him. “You followed my directives? Had a last bathe, a good night's sleep … alone…and you're not ‘headed' by spirits?”

“Sober as a hangman,” Lewrie answered.

“How apt,” Twigg said with a sniff. “Here's the line you're to take… ‘twas your old compatriot, Colonel Cashman, late of the King's Service in a West Indies regiment, and local planter—”

“And un-findable for corroboration in the United States,” Lewrie stuck in.

”—whose utter revulsion over the institution of slavery, even was he a participant and slave-owner for a time,” Twigg drilled onwards, “that led you to despise slavery, yourself. Very John Newton-ish, you see. It will strike a chord with Wilberforce and what possible
entourage
of the like-minded who might be present, for it slightly coincides with Newton's own experience of being a slaver, then shipwrecked, and enslaved by the very people he sought to capture and sell. That poem of his, describing his enlightenment and salvation…”

” ‘Amazing Grace,' aye,” Lewrie said with a grunt and a new nod.

“You actually know of it,” Twigg nigh-gasped with surprise that Lewrie, of all people, had been exposed to it. “Well, damme. Wonders never cease! No matter…whenasked, youwill clew to this point as if your life depended on it…which it does, by the by,” Twigg said, with another sniff of faint amusement, “that it was
Cashman
who thought it all up.”