The Gun Ketch (5 page)

"Pitt, you bastard!" Alan said, stooping down to touch him.

But William Pitt was having none of that. He shied away and ran into the bedchamber to leap for the bed, making the mattress bounce on its rope supports, and lashed his tail as he stood there, bristled up.

"Well, you wanted to come in, so what is it you want from me, hey?" Alan went back to the bed and sat at one end, wary that the cat had not remembered their brief, grudging, alliance, and would rip into him as was the animal's wont when he first reported aboard, a barely "wetted down" commission officer.

He wiggled his fingers and Pitt flicked the good ear, shook his head, then ambled over to sling his considerable bulk against Alan's hip and begin to purr loud as a bilge-pump chain. In stupefied amazement, Alan discovered that William Pitt would allow him to scrub under his chin, on the top of his head, and on his chest!

"By God, but you've mellowed," Alan whispered in awe. "Like as not, you'd of had my fingers in shreds by now. Killed any live-stock this week, have you? The odd pig?"

There was a rap on the door and Cony entered with a small tray which bore a china cup, a lidded silver pot, and a sugar and creamer.

"Mornin', Mister Lewrie, sir." Cony bubbled over with bonhomie. "Well, if 'tisn't yer ole cat, William Pitt. Got ya up afore I did. 'Tis a fine, fine mornin', perfect for a canter on the downs. Hot chocolate t'perk ya up, sir. 'Ere ya go. Push ya into clothes, an' there's a country breakfast a'waitin' below-stairs, sir. Now, a maid I made h'acquaintance of, she told me that this cat 'ere, 'e's
yews'lly
a'cryin' at Mistress Caroline's door o' th' mornin's, but I s'pose 'e got yer scent an' come t'see iffen ya'd remember 'im, sir. 'Nother sugar in that, sir?"

"Thankee kindly, Cony. Have you eat yet?"

"Oh, aye, sir!" Cony beamed as he fetched duds from traveling bags. "Why, this house is a grand feeder, an' the scullery'n all bung t'th' deckheads with fine folk. Some of 'em right pretty,they is, so I'm set from now 'til th' 'Piphany. You'll be needin' me on yer ride this morning, sir?" Cony asked with an askance glance.

"Ah, no, I don't believe so, Cony," Alan replied after one sip of the perfectly wonderful chocolate, recognizing when his man was so cheerful that he was practicing his own form of coyness. "We're both here to enjoy ourselves. Ow!"

He had ignored William Pitt, who had rolled over on his right side and was pushing
hard
against Alan's nightshirt with all four of his paws, claws out and huffing for more attention!

"Now there's a bloody wonder," Alan sighed, mystified once more and turning one hand back to ruffling the cat's throat and jaws. "Why don't you just fart about today, have a yam or two with your new, ah ... compatriots. Even go down to the village for a pint or two. I'll not need anything more 'til, oh ... supper, say?"

* * * *

"Er, thankee, sir!" Cony showed quick gratitude, then feigned contriteness at abandoning his master, and his responsibilities. "Iffen ya think there's no service I could be a'doin' for ya, that is..."

"There's two shillings on the dresser there," Alan said as he finished the cocoa and set the cup down for Pitt to peer and sniff at. "I trust the girl is pretty? Aha, so that's it, you rogue! Maybe you could practice some of your Hindi on her.
Hamare ghali ana, achcha din?"

"Hello, won't you come into our street?" A whore's greeting.

"Larlcee bahut sundar hai, jeehan, El-looee Sahib."
Cony blushed a bit, though still more fluent than Lewrie would ever be.
"Bazaari-rahndi naheen hai. Makaan naukari-larkee. "*

*"The girl is very pretty, yes, Lewrie master. Not a bazaar-whore ... a house serving-girl."

"Namaste, Cony-ji,"
Lewrie snickered, putting his palms together and bowing his head, "May God protect you, Cony."

"Got me a cundum, sir," Cony whispered, darting out the door as Lewrie shucked his nightshirt and reached for his stockings.

"God damme, I've corrupted him, swear if I haven't, hey, Pitt? Do they let you take breakfast? Hungry?"

Alan finished dressing and headed for the stairs, and William Pitt leapt off the bed and made a tawny streak ahead of him.

God, there was leftover ham! Salted kippers, hard peppery sausages, crisp bacon strips, boiled, fried, or scrambled eggs on the sideboard, warming in candle-heated covered servers! Racks of thick, chewy home-baked bread toasted on forks over the kitchen fire and fetched out by the half-loaf! The remains of the peach "jumble" sat on a raised pie plate, and stone jugs of preserves, jams and marmalades paraded down the length of the breakfast table, along with huge, sweaty globs of home-churned butter between every two place settings.

And for the
serious
feeders, there were pork chops sizzling on black-iron pans, heaping bowls of gruel, and three different kinds of cheeses. As for beverages, there was ale, a lighter, gassier beer, tea, coffee, more chocolate, or a heavy, almost-black berry wine made on the property. More of Caroline's doing, he discovered, though he could not assay a taste after heaping a plate and taking three cups of strong tea.

There was a mob at table; Caroline, looking a bit perkier this morning, dressed in a middle-green wool dress with a short jacket for riding on over it, Governour in rustic and worn boots, breeches and waistcoat so he could tour the properties. Millicent was there in a white sack gown, shawl and mobcap. Mother Chiswick was turned out in gray wool. There was the head groom, the gamekeeper, the assistant estate manager, who was trying to keep track of a two-sided conversation between Governour and Uncle Phineas, who was gnawing his way through a stack of pancakes, pork chops and ale, both eager to be out and doing, and a continual parade of underlings there to take orders and turn to with a will.

Alan picked at his food, trying to carry on a conversation with Caroline, who was seated by his side this morning, with William Pitt in either his or her lap, peeking over the top of the table and singling out particularly dainty delicacies from their plates with one sly paw, when not being offered fatty bacon fast enough to suit him.

"Christ, is it always like this?" Alan managed to ask in one of the lulls, broken only by the sounds of somewhat sedate chewing. "I've seen quieter twopenny ordinaries on Boxing Day!"

"I'm afraid so, Alan." She smiled. "The work of a farm starts early, and never stops."

"Then thank God I was never cut out to be a farmer," Alan said in reply. "The Navy's Bedlam enough. Cony mentioned something about riding this morning?"

"If you would wish it, Alan," she assured him. "If you would rather loll about for the morning, we could go later. That is, if you could tolerate my being your guide."

"Anywhere, as long as it's not here," he chuckled, patting her hand. "And anywhere with you, Caroline."

"Then let's be on our way, right now!" she urged, half-rising. "If you have eat sufficient?"

"Point me to a horse!"

She rode as if the Hounds of Hell were at her heels, astride the older-style saddle and bent over low, her light brown hair touched with gold streaming from beneath her straw bonnet like flame. Her mare was a good'un, making it hard for Alan's gelding to keep up for at least half a mile, until they thundered up a rising down towards a patch of wood lot, their mounts sucking and blowing like bellows.

At last they slowed to a walk as they neared the summit, and Alan could draw alongside her to see what had vexed her so.

"Good little mare you have there," he complimented her. "And you ride prettily. But what was all the hurry?"

"I just wanted to get out from under foot," she replied, just a touch wan, though flushed with the exertion and the excitement of a hard ride. "I liked our little house near the road better, instead of all the coming and going around Uncle's. At least down there, we felt... settled and at peace. Snug in our own house, at last."

"I don't see why you had to move, really," Alan said as their mounts cropped grass after getting their wind back. "Surely the maid that cares for your father could have come there instead."

"Uncle insisted on it," Caroline replied with a wry grin, which flitted away quickly. "He insists on rather a lot of things, I fear."

"Caroline, is there something the matter here?" Alan asked. "Far be it from me to presume to intrude in your family's affairs, but..."

"Oh, Alan, you who've done so much for this family already," she warmed to him, leaning over to lay a gloved hand on his sleeve. "As if we don't consider you kin by now... of sorts! You do not intrude to ask me anything."

"Then what's going on?" he shrugged.

"When Father lost his leg and fell ill, he was months in bed," Caroline sighed, looking away down the toppling downs toward the sea to the south. "Governour was head of the family, then. But he was still estate manager to Uncle Phiqeas. And just married to Millicent Embleton. So, by rights, Uncle Phineas is the master of the land. And of our lives. What did the Romans call it...
paterfamilias'!"

"And the booty that Burgess sent home from India did not help?"

"Only in improving our finances," Caroline said with a frown. "But not in our station, you see. We are still tenants. Relatives, yes, but mostly tenants when it comes to Uncle Phineas. We had hoped for a warmer reception from blood kin."

"I remember in London, when we were finding Burge his situation, your uncle did not sound wholly ... solicitous and charitable to you."

"It was his obligation, nothing more," Caroline told him. "A chore of blood. He was eldest, responsible for his younger brother's folly. That's what our plantation was in the Carolinas... folly. Their father united the two estates after my granduncle died without issue. I've always felt Uncle Phineas feared that Father would split it again, even after getting a fair price for it when he sailed for the Colonies. He didn't have to pay him a shilling for it, after all. He was the eldest, due to inherit everything."

"Yet he gave back 120 acres, for a guinea a year," Alan pointed out.

"Oh, yes, he
rented
back 120 acres. But that ended last year!" Caroline almost hissed in anger. "Father too ill to work it, Gove up on the larger tract, or pining for the Embleton land ... who else could do it? Mother? My mother is a dear woman, Alan, but she depended on my poor father for everything! It could have settled on Burgess, but you know what he thinks of farming."

"And Governour makes no objections?" Alan asked, unable to see the (used-to-be) fiery young hawk-face accede to losing land.

"Dearest Alan, Governour will inherit all when the time comes," Caroline barked in sour amusement "The last, eldest Chiswick male. Then Uncle Phineas will have what he's always wanted."

"And what is that?" Alan asked.

"An heir to hold the land. If he's said it the once, he's said it anhundred times." She frowned. "The land is forever. Men and women rise up and die, but the land is always. And he doesn't want to see it in a stranger's hands. The Embletons get what they want as well," she almost spat in conclusion. "And that is?"

"That the two biggest estates are united." Caroline shivered. "After all these years, with Governour and Millicent wed, they are linked."

"Now I see why Governour would not object," Alan laughed in understanding. "There's always the off-chance he'd outlive Harry and end up with it all?"

"Oh, yes!" Caroline nodded. "And to ensure his complaisance, Sir Romney's putting Governour up for Commons next by-election, as his pet member from a rotten borough he controls up north. Harry already sits for Anglesgreen. There're not twenty men with the hundred pounds in rents or income to vote here, and even less in Teverly New Town." Caroline shrugged, then smiled ruefully. "Forgive me, Alan, a woman is not to know such, or involve herself in men's doings, but that's the way things stand here."

"As if that ever stopped you!" Alan hooted, trying to cosset her out of her bleak mood. "I've seen you before, remember, so eager to talk about any subject, then fade back into the woodwork when you think you've overstepped yourself. What a bloody waste!"

"Thank you, Alan, I do appreciate your understanding." Caroline truly smiled for the first time that morning. "Yes, I find it hard to be so ... subservient! In North Carolina, so much more was expected of a woman, so much more was she allowed, as a helpmeet to her man and her family! Here, one
sews
neatly," she complained. "One plays an instrument. One reads, and distills, and orders servants, and cannot dirty one's own dresses at gardening, but must tell others what to do. Here in England, I feel so like an ill-bred...
lout
!"

"Out of place?" he muttered, laying a hand on hers this time, and she seized his hand like a drowning victim and linked their fingers. "Not a pink-cheeked, rude Colonial, surely."

"Out of place, yes," she sighed, almost on the point of tears. "Truly, I wonder if I have a place! Or a life I may call mine own."

"And what sort of a life do you desire, Caroline?"

"I wish to be happy, Alan. I wish to ... to wed someone
I
love so deeply, and do I if indeed have the ... the
economy
to present that man with a well-run home, then that is what I want. I want children, and perhaps one maid-of-all-work to help a little. But I want to be useful, not only around the house, but on the land. And to myself and those I love. I know I may not aspire to a man's role in this life. I have no wish to enter Parliament, or night wars. But I do wish to be able to use those talents God gave me as a woman, and the mind I believe He gave me for something more useful than...
bakingl"