Dewey Lambdin - THE GUN KETCH

He waded out to chest-deep and bobbed about in the gin-clear water slightly tinged pale turquoise, ducking his head now and again.

"You said he was a hero?" Alan asked once Peyton had paddled near enough. The older man stood in the water and swiped his short-cut hair dry.

"Who, Finney?" Peyton asked, wiggling an ear clear of water.

"Yes, what did he do?"

"Privateer, sir," Peyton smiled. "A most successful privateer. Ended up with a flotilla of his own in these waters. Spanish, French, Rebels… no vessel was safe from him. 'Tis bruited about he took over two hundred thousand pounds sterling in prize money. But what sealed his repute was when the Spanish took Nassau in '82, just before the Revolution ended. You know of Col. Andrew Deveaux, the Loyalist soldier from, I'm quite proud to say, dear South Carolina of my birth?"

"I've heard of him."

"Well, he determined upon an expedition to retake Nassau, all on his own," Peyton bragged on his former neighbor. "Sailed a scratch militia here, April of '83, with what weapons they could come up with. Tag-rag-and-bobtail effort, with no help from the Crown, you see. Well, Finney threw in with him! Brought a brace of his privateers tricked out as ships of war. They rowed their so-called troops ashore and landed them. Then they had those few men lay down in the boats and rowed back out, looking empty, to supposedly embark another batch. Kept it up until the Dons figured they were hopelessly outnumbered, and they threw it up as a bad bargain, d'you see, haw haw! Quite a stunt! And with not 200 men, all told!"

"A clever fellow, too, this Finney," Alan smiled.

"Well, 'twas more Andrew's idea than Finney's, of course. Our 'Calico Jack' is shrewd, and ambitious. But I doubt he'd have thought of it on his own, don't you know. Or cared much one way or t'other if the Spanish held Nassau another year. He'd have made more profit from taking their ships, whilst his store sold them victuals and wine!"

" 'Calico Jack'?" Alan grinned with mirth. "And how did he come by that charming sobriquet? Wasn't there a Calico Jack Rackham, a pirate, in these waters long ago?"

"There was," Peyton sneered aristocratically. "Finney came by his by the tradesman's entrance, so to speak. And more prosaic. More common, haw haw."

Peyton Boudreau and his wife Heloise were splendid people in the main, though given to languid, highly cultured and snobbish, aloof airs of fallen Huguenot and Charleston Low Country nobility. No matter that their estate had fallen since leaving fabled South Carolina, they were still accounted regal pluses to Nassau society. And told damned juicy gossip with such wit and relish!

"Wasn't always rich, y'know," Peyton continued. "Had but the one packet ship, and a used-goods chandlery past East Hill Street, almost in 'Over-Hill.' Inn, chandlery, an 'all-nations' dram shop. Brokered whores out of there, too, by all accounts. Sold slop-goods and shoddy not fit for anyone but slaves and the idle poor. Little of this, then a little of that, to show a profit. Had mongers out with drays hawking his castoffs like ragpickers. But he did the best of his business in calico and nankeen cloth for use on the plantings to dress slave gangs. Condemned salt-meats, weevily flour, gin, rum and ratafia brandy, that sort of hard bargain, hand-to-mouth trade," Peyton dismissed, raising a cultured eyebrow significantly. "Then in '75, when the Revolution broke out, everything changed for him overnight. The Admiralty Court gave him a Letter of Marque to turn privateer, and the next thing anyone knew, he was tea-trade, nabob-rich."

"A most impressive feat," Alan had to admit, though it galled.

"For a man who started out illiterate in the gutter," Boudreau sniffed top-loftily. "By the time Heloise and I got here in '82 when the Crown abandoned Charleston, he was strutting golden as an Ottoman sultan, with that big snip's chandlery, his fancy-goods shops on Bay Street, and half a dozen privateers flying his house flag. But, don't y'know," Peyton snickered, "the brats in the streets still tailed after him chanting his cant, 'Calico, calico, who'll buy my calico! Tis Jack, Jack, the Calico Man,' haw haw!"

"Oh, poor bastard!" Lewrie smiled, relishing what chagrin that would have caused the handsome Finney.

"Then, of course," Peyton sobered, "that was before he killed three men in duels for ragging him or sneering at him. And after he and Andrew Deveaux retook Nassau, he became a veritable social lion. For a time, mind," Peyton chuckled meanly. "Only for a time. One may not turn a sow's ear into a silk purse, after all. For all his fame and his money, he's still 'Beau-Trap' and too ill mannered for most decent people. No manners at all, though he's said to work hard at gaining some small measure of refinement. Built his fine town house, hired dancing-masters, tutors in elocution, only the best tailors and such. 'Moik me a foin gennulmun, damn yuz oyes!' he told 'em, hey?" Peyton scoffed, cruelly imitating a bogtrotter's brogue. "One may gild dried dung, but all one has to show for it is gold-plated shit, after all. And, he's still tight with his old chums from 'Over-Hill.' Niggers, scoundrels, shiftless whites and whores, pickpockets, cut-throats and such. And he is Irish, when you come right down to it."

"He seems welcome in everyone's salon, though," Alan commented. "And people seem to accept his invitations willingly enough."

"That's the 'fly' nature of Bahamian society," Peyton guffawed. "How few of them arose from the better classes? In Charleston, in London it goes without saying, and I suspect even in his native Dublin, in the better circles, John Finney'd still not be admitted but to the tradesman's entrance. There's damned few refined folk'd set foot inside his door. We do not. Nor do those who aspire to true civility ever invite him. In like manner, he has never seen my parlor, our salon, sir! Nor shall he," Peyton declaimed grandly, then cocked his grizzled head to peer closely at Alan. "And why this sudden interest, young sir?"

"He has irked me by showing an undue interest in Caroline."

"Ah, I see" Peyton drawled out. "Yes, she did once receive an invitation to some affair he was hosting. Thankfully, she told us of it before she responded, and we were able to discover to her what one may mention in polite company of his background, which discovery dissuaded her from attending, God be praised."

"Truly," Alan flushed, embarrassed that the truth was out.

"Sir… Alan," Peyton said kindly, "Heloise and I are that taken with your lovely Caroline. She is a most handsome girl, and a most intelligent and discerning one, in addition to her sweet and modest nature. Since you and she became our tenants, she has been like one of our own daughters to us. She most sensibly inquired of us the usual things. Where best to shop, where best for bargains and such. And, more importantly, which places best avoided. And, which people to avoid, so no breath of scandal ever taints your good name, or soils her, dare I say, immaculate repute. Unlike some I could name to you."

"Yet he seems to be everywhere we go, sir," Alan complained. "And he is so gracelessly… impertinent. And persistent!"

"You may not avoid him totally, since our society here is so small a circle, even with the influx of Loyalists by the hundreds," Peyton counseled. "Finney rose from the gutter by dint of dogged and slavish persistence, so one would suppose he believes anything will come to him, if he but perseveres. Still, he knows his place, deny it though he will."

"If he does persist, Mister Boudreau, I'll have to call him out for it," Alan frowned.

"Lord, no, Alan, I beg you!" the older man shuddered. "Do not duel him! He's a crack shot, and chopping fair with a sword."