Dewey Lambdin - Reefs and Shoals

“It will be warmer, where you’re going?” she asked.

“Much warmer, even in January,” Lewrie told her. “The Bahamas and Bermuda, I expect, are vivid green and surrounded by blue-green seas. In the old days, we sailed little Alacrity over waters so gin-clear, or the palest blue, and could see the bottom and fish swimming, ten fathoms down, as clear as day.”

“It sounds like the fabled Land of the Lotus Eaters,” Lydia commented, chuckling,

“Isles of the dead-drunk rum-pots, more like,” Lewrie japed.

“Even so, they sound heavenly,” Lydia said, then looked up at him sharply. “Take me with you.”

“What?” Lewrie gawped.

“I’ve learned enough of the Navy and ships to know that some captains take their wives with them, even in wartime,” Lydia animatedly said. “God knows, I brought half a year’s worth of gowns and such when I came down to Portsmouth. I could be packed and aboard by the end of the day!”

“Lydia, I can’t,” Lewrie told her, though wishing he could.

“Did not your wife sail with you to the Bahamas when you were first there?” she pointed out, cocking her head to one side.

“To be settled in a house ashore, in peacetime,” Lewrie said. “We’ll be up against French and Spanish privateers, might even cross hawses with some of their frigates, and I can’t put you at such risk. Besides, there’s…”

“If I accept the risks, then why not?” she pressed.

“There’s the matter of Reliant ’s people, Lydia,” Lewrie continued in a sombre but soothing tone. “They can’t take their wives and sweethearts with them, and for them to see their captain enjoying the privilege they can’t… rubbing it in their faces everytime you took the air on the quarterdeck? The Navy won’t even give them shore liberty, unless it’s a damned small island, and there’s an Army garrison t’help round ’em up do they run… take ‘leg-bail’. The best we can do for ’em is to put the ship Out of Discipline for a few days in port and let the… women of the town come aboard. Some of ’em might even really be wives, but that’s a rare ease. You wouldn’t wish to see it. When you toured Reliant last summer, she was in full discipline.”

“Whores, do you mean,” Lydia said with a scoffing smirk.

“Aye, whores,” Lewrie admitted. “And, finally… there are some captains who’d take their wives to sea, even in wartime, but… they’re wives , not lovers. Admiralty has a ‘down’ on that.”

“Hmmm,” was Lydia’s comment to that. She put one brow up in quizzical thought, eying him over quite carefully.

“What?” Lewrie asked, wondering if she was contemplating…! “What are you thinking?”

“Well, in the first instance, I was wondering what poor Percy would say, did I dash off with you, married or not,” Lydia confessed, a grin spreading. “Secondly, I was wondering if I were brazen enough to propose to you, and lastly… I asked myself what I might say did you propose to me!”

Oh, shit! Here we go again! Lewrie told himself, hoping that his phyz didn’t mirror the stricken feeling inside him. He’d been in “Cream-pot Love” with his late wife, Caroline, and had admitted “there’s a girl worth marrying… someday, perhaps, maybe !” before circumstances anent her future had dragooned him into proposing, to give her an out from the beastly attentions of her neighbour Harry Embleton, or her only other options: marry a much older tenant farmer, or take a position as governess to someone’s children, far from family.

“And, did you come to some conclusions?” Lewrie whimsically asked, wishing he could cross his fingers.

“God, the look on your face, Alan!” Lydia said, laughing out loud. “Have I frightened you into next week?”

“Astonished, not frightened, really,” Lewrie breezed off. “You have a knack for that,” he added with a teasing smile.

“As for Percy and Society, I don’t give a toss,” Lydia said with a cynical jerk of her head. “I’m already scandalous, so what else would they expect? And, no… as fond as I’ve become of you, I am not that un-conventional, at bottom. The man must do the asking. Lastly…”

“Hmm?” Lewrie prompted.

“Fond as I am, I would refuse,” Lydia told him, turning sombre.

“Mean t’say…?” Lewrie flummoxed. Not that he would be asking, but it irked that she would have spurned him if he had!

“After all I’ve been through, Alan, my dear, I’ve too many fears to be settled, before I place myself, and my heart, at the mercy of any man again, without knowing him so completely that I could overcome my trepidations. I told you once, remember?” she slowly explained.

“At the Cocoa Tree, wasn’t it?” Lewrie replied. “Tea and scones in a quiet corner, while Percy was in the Long Rooms, gambling. You told me you’d never willingly re-enter such a slavish institution as marriage. And what did I tell you?”

“To suit myself, and enjoy my life,” Lydia replied, grinning, pleased that he could recall.

“ Do you enjoy your life?” Lewrie asked her softly.

“I began to, that very night,” she answered, “and ’til now, I must own that I have, immensely. But I would not marry you. Even for a sea voyage to the splendours of Cathay. Not yet.”

“Call it early days?” Lewrie fondly teased.

“Early days,” Lydia whispered back, beaming at him, though he discerned the rising moisture in her eyes. Before her tears came, he scooped her to him and kissed her long and gently.

“I will pack and coach back to London tomorrow,” she told him, her face pressed to his gilt-laced coat collar. “You will have many things to attend to, and I would be in the way… at the best, quite ignored, so…”

“I’ll settle your lodgings,” Lewrie offered.

“You will not!” she chuckled for a moment. “You, as you said, are ‘comfortable’, but I am rich. Consider it my gift to you.”

“Your being here’s been the real gift,” Lewrie assured her.

“That night at the Cocoa Tree, later that night,” Lydia teased. “Recall where we went?”

“Your house in Grosvenor Street,” Lewrie supplied promptly.

“And what did I ask you there, dear Alan?”

“You said… ‘Make love to me’,” Lewrie quite gladly recalled, leaning back to look her in the eyes, knowing that he was beaming like the hugest fool in the Universe.

“Such a keen memory you have!” she praised him. “Do, please?”

Whether HMS Reliant had received sailing orders or not, all the business of provisioning and victualling for sea was continual. Spare spars and replacement sails, huge bolts of cloth from which to fashion or repair the existing ones; livestock for fresh meat issue in harbour, and for the first week or so on passage… Captain Alan Lewrie was in sanguine takings that only a day or two more to take aboard last-minute items, and he could take his frigate to sea just as soon as the winter winds swung round to a favourable quarter. Then…

“Currant jam, of course, sir?” his cook, Yeovill, suggested as he went down a long list of “necessities” to be purchased for Lewrie’s comfort from a chandlery.

“I’ve developed a taste for raspberry,” Lewrie mused aloud with a grin. “Those tarts and popovers o’ yours? Dried currants and raisins for duffs, aye, but…”

“Midshipman Houghton… SAH!” the Marine sentry shouted, with a crash of his musket butt and his boots on the deck planking, beyond.

“Enter,” Lewrie bade.

“Good morning, sir!” Midshipman Houghton said, right cheerily, as he stood before Lewrie’s desk in the day-cabin, hat under his arm, and all but rocking on the balls of his feet. “I fear I must depart the ship, sir. My Lieutenancy’s come through.”