Bruce Alexander - Smuggler's Moon

“Not more than I,” said Sir John.

“But may I give you a bit of advice, sir?”

“Of course you may, Mr. Bilbo.”

“With all due respect to Jeremy here, who has proved his worth again and again, I do believe you would be well served to take with you one of your Bow Street constables, if you get my meaning.”

“No, not quite. To what end?”

“As protection. They take their smuggling seriously down there in Deal. I believe you may need a bodyguard.”

“You do? Truly? Hmmm. Well, I shall give the matter serious consideration.”

Mr. Bilbo did not belabor the point but wished us both Godspeed and a safe return. Bunkins waved and called out his goodbye as the coach and its impressive team of four pulled away.

“If I may say so, Sir John, I believe that Mr. Bilbo is right,” said I, rather boldly. ”I believe one of the Bow Street Runners should accompany us, and I believe I know which it should be.”

He chuckled at my certainty. ”You do, do you? And just who is it you have in mind?”

“Constable Perkins, and no other,” said I, ”for he is as able as any man among your force, and he knows the territory to which we travel. He grew up on a farm in Kent, and I do believe he mentioned to me once that the nearest town of any size was Deal.”

I had given him pause. Right there in the walkway before the Bow Street Court he took a stand, ruminating for near a minute as the passersby passed him by.

At last said he, ”I daresay, Jeremy, you are indeed right! I shall need a constable in Deal, and Constable Perkins is the constable I shall need. I leave it to you to inform him when he reports for duty this evening.”

Alas, the dinner prepared by Clarissa was no great success. Even in describing it as ”no great success,” I praise it beyond its due. And for its failure, I fear I was partly to blame. I now know enough of cookery to realize that the instructions given me by Mr. Tolliver to be passed on to Clarissa were quite essential, and I have been thoroughly disabused of the notion I once had that members of the female sex come quite naturally to a knowledge of the kitchen arts. No, they have to be taught, just as I have had to be taught the law. And the particular lesson she was intended to get in the proper use of meat in the preparation of stew was not taught her because I was in such a great rush to be off with Sir John to visit the Lord Chief Justice.

After all, Mr. Tolliver’s advice was simple enough: ”Just have her cut the fat off the meat, all but half an inch or so. That should be more than plenty. Simmer that in the stew-pot for the last half of the afternoon with potatoes and carrots and an onion, and you’ll have a good stew for yourself.”

That was what he said to me, and that was what I should have said to her-but did not. As a result, Clarissa did her best, but with no previous experience, that best simply was not good enough. She tossed in the meat as it had come to her from Mr. Tolliver, thick with fat with gobbets of flesh scattered through. And, knowing no better, she cooked it in the stewpot with the vegetables for the whole of the afternoon. The result was a viscous gray mess, bubbling greasy bubbles in our plates even after she had ladled the concoction out to us. It did not taste so bad as it looked. Yet what were we to do with these large pieces of light-colored, inert stuff which looked more or less like meat yet squirted pure grease when we bit down upon them? And the vegetables, dear God, the vegetables-they had cooked down so that they had lost their distinct identity: no longer were they potatoes, carrots, and onion, but rather mere lumps in the slime.

“Quite tasty,” said Sir John. ”I do believe, however, that I should have a happier time of it with a spoon. Will you fetch me one, Jeremy?”

I did as he requested and watched him empty his plate with great relish. He asked for more. It was provided him. He attacked it with the same enthusiasm. Inspired by his example, I dug in once more, trying to eat without looking at what I ate. That worked well enough for half a plate or so, but then a fit of belching overtook me, and I was forced to end my dinner there.

For her part, Clarissa took a bite, or possibly two, then began pushing her food about upon her plate, as if looking for uncontaminated bits. Finding none, she looked across the table at me quite miserably, shook her head, and quietly laid down her knife and fork. Through it all. Sir John continued to eat until he, too, began to belch with such alarming frequency that he was forced to end his meal rather abruptly.

As I did the washing up afterward, I confessed to our dejected cook that I had failed to tell her of Mr. Tolliver’s instructions and must therefore shoulder some of the blame she claimed for herself.

“Ah no,” said she, ”I should certainly have known better. How many times have I sat here in the kitchen with Annie, watching her trim the fat from the stew meat? You’d think I might have picked up a thing or two just being round her.”

“Ah, but Annie was one of a kind.”

“Indeed she was. Why couldn’t I have realized that while she was here and learned something from her?”

“But, well, you should be happy at least that you’re going down to Deal with us. They say that the sea air is quite beneficial. Think of it as a holiday.”

“Oh, I will. I do. But when we return, I shall have another test in the kitchen, then another, and another.”

”Well, if it is any consolation to you, your stew was no worse and probably better than most Mrs. Gredge cooked up.”

“Gredge? She was the old woman Annie replaced, wasn’t she?”

“She was,” said I, ”and not a moment too soon.”

Sir John had asked me to visit him in his study when I had finished washing up that he might dictate to me a letter to Lady Fielding explaining why it was he must leave London for Deal for a week, give or take a bit, and further, why he must take Clarissa with him. He promised that she would be well taken care of, and would, in fact, be staying at the home of a local squire, Sir Simon Grenville. In closing, he voiced his concern for Lady Fielding’s mother. Yet he declared that he was certain her mother would pull through her illness, as he had predicted, and that she, Kate, would soon be back in London. ”Until the happy day when we are reunited, I shall be but half a man, wandering about this lonely city, thinking only of you.” And then did he stipulate that the letter be signed, ”Your loving husband.” Unused to putting his name as ”Jack” upon correspondence, he asked my help in forming the letters. We practiced together two or three times, then did we sign him informally at the bottom of the text. I addressed the letter as he dictated and prepared it for mailing. But my mind being yet troubled by the matter of Henry Curtin, I remained on in that little room and attempted to think just how I might begin.

“Was there something more?” he asked.

“Yes, there is a matter I should like to discuss,” said I. ”Or perhaps better put, a matter I should like to confess.”

“Well then, let me hear it.”

I told him the whole tale. I told of how I had given the shilling to the coachman and asked that he see that Lady Fielding was well taken care of-all as Sir John had told me to do. But then, I went on to tell him how and how much I had enlarged upon his instructions. Insofar as I was able, I quoted myself exactly, though it proved embarrassing. I even told him how, when I feared perhaps I had overstepped myself, I told Mr. Curtin not to presume upon Sir John’s generosity; and thinking I had told him all, I ended it there. But then I did add that Clarissa had said I had done wrong, and as I thought about it through the day, I saw that she was right.