Dewey Lambdin - The French Admiral

Still, the idea of his father, his half-sister, and his butt-fucking half-brother Gerald turfed out into the street was cheering, if they had fallen afoul of creditors. Alan had no idea how much money the Willoughbys had; they weren't related to the Willoughbys who counted in the scheme of things. There had always seemed more than enough, but only Heaven knew where it came from, or where it went that he did not see.

There was a knock on his thin slat and canvas door, and he snatched it open to reveal the purser's assistant, the Jack in the Bread Room.

"Pusser wants ta see ye, sir. 'Is complamints, an' could ya join 'im in the spirit store, sir?"

"I shall be there directly, thank you," Alan said, shrugging off his foul mood. He dressed quickly in his new uniform and went out to the steep ladder that led to the orlop, then aft to the locked compartments in the stern that held the wine and brandy for the officers' mess and the captain's steward.

"Sit ye down, Mister Lewrie," Cheatham said, looking up from a stack of papers he held on a rough fold-down desk at which it appeared he had been doing inventory of Navy Victualing Board issue spirits; rum, Miss Taylor, and Black Strap. "Have a cup of cheer, my boy."

"I'll take a cup, but there's damned little to cheer about," Alan groused, taking a seat on a wine keg. Cheatham poured from a bottle into a clean glass. "Um, this is quite good. Not for the hands, I take it."

"Something I found in port last week," Cheatham said, putting away his quill and ink pot. "Wardroom stuff. I have here some information about you, Mister Lewrie. From my brother at Coutts' Bank and your solicitor. Wondrous and strange things have been going on in London since your departure for Sea Service."

"I don't have a solicitor, sir," Alan said, mystified, but stirring in anticipation. "Perhaps I need one, though. My father has cut me off. Not a penny more for me. Without a mate's pay, I'd be begging rations."

"Where did you hear that?"

Alan explained the letter from Pilchard.

"And when was it dated?"

"March of last year."

"Ah ha, just about the time things got interesting, according to Jemmy." Cheatham smiled serenely. "Your father had to cut you off, for he no longer had a groat to send you. He is in considerable difficulties."

"He is!" Alan beamed in sudden and total joy. He took a deep breath or two, then let out a whoop of glee loud enough to echo off the hull, piercing enough to startle Red Indians. "The bastard got his comeuppance at last! How? When did it happen? Did he lose everything?"

"Slowly now, let me explain this at its own pace, for it's rather complicated a legal and personal matter," Cheatham said. "My brother Jemmy went to work discovering your background after I bade him do so, and he has found some wondrous interesting facts. First of all, as to your heritage and the background of the Lewrie family. It seems that in the winter of 1762, your mother, Elizabeth, then 22 years of age, was in London for exposure at a season, with close relatives, and met your father, at that time Captain Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby, just back from service on Gibraltar, where he had won his knighthood in service with a distinguished foot regiment, the Fourth, King's Own. Now, there are under English common law two separate and distinct parts to a marriage, as the law would say, de future , which are the spousals in which a couple pledge public affirmation of their mutual agreement to be wed, which can take form as the banns published in the parish or a short mutual statement in the presence of witnesses that they shall at a future time take the other as husband or wife. The witnesses may be summoned to a court of law, and the exchange of gifts and love letters may be used as proof of their intent. The second form, the nuptials, is termed de praesenti , and is usually celebrated by a certifiable churchman."

"You're losing me, Mister Cheatham," Alan said, his mind already in full yawn, wishing to skip over the legal mystifications and get to the existence of a Lewrie estate… and how much it could be.

"Patience, my boy, patience, and all shall be discovered to you in full measure," Cheatham cautioned. "In 1753, Hawkinge's Marriage Act was passed in Parliament to do away with such scandals as the Fleet St. wedding chapels to save young girls from being robbed by unscrupulous suitors, so that a marriage ceremony with an officiating clergyman is now recognized as necessary to settle all legal questions. Otherwise, two people could leap out of bed, swear themselves wed before witnesses, and it would assign the husband coverture over whatever estate the young lady possessed for the rest of their lives. The Ecclesiastical Courts had the very devil of a time with complaints before this law. But, and this is a very important but, a spousal de futuro is as legally binding on both of the parties who partake willingly in it as a nuptial de praesenti when it comes to settling parenthood of any children. Your parents announced the intention to wed before witnesses at a dinner party, where officers of his regiment and friends of hers were present, so you are not a bastard as you have always assumed, but legally born of a legitimate couple."

"So I am really a Willoughby." Alan sighed.

"A lot more than Gerald and Belinda are." Cheatham grinned. "You see, you are the only living issue from your father's loins. That he may wish to claim, that is."

"I don't understand."

"Let me settle up the Lewrie part, and then I shall touch on the later events, in strict chronological order, so that it shall all be of a piece. Spousals being exchanged, love letters and gifts also being exchanged—'I give my love a packet of pins, and this is how our love begins,' remember that one?—your parents took up lodgings together as man and wife, and you were conceived shortly thereafter in 1762. But the Lewrie family, who reside in Wheddon Cross, Devon, just north of Exeter—"

"How terrible for them," Alan commented, never a fan of the rustic life.

"The father, a Mister Dudley Lewrie, Esquire, was, as the Lewrie family solicitor for many years, a Mister Kittredge, assures us, a most strict religionist and somewhat of a Tartar to deal with. He had hated his only living daughter going off to London for a season, but the mother had cozened him into it to assure Elizabeth a chance to meet a better sort of husband than she could locally, or be assured of bonafides better than the moonshine one hears at Bath or another resort, when a footman with the chink may appear as grand as his master, and the rules of society in a resort town allow perfect freedom between classes."

"Yes, yes, get on with it, I beg you, Mister Cheatham."

"Well, there's your father and mother cohabiting, she pregnant with you, and the parents descending on the town to snatch her back. The happy couple flee to Holland after having a quick marriage performed to make it legally binding. The only problem was that the officiant was not certified as a recognized cleric able to celebrate a nuptial, just some hedge-priest that one of Sir Hugo's fellow officers found for them at short notice, obviously not understanding the need for real clergy. So Sir Hugo never got true coverture over the Lewrie estate, or that share of it that Elizabeth Willoughby née Lewrie would have inherited. And Sir Hugo was not well off at all, his own estate almost an empty shell by his profligate spending and the cost of his commission to remove him from some scandalous doings in '58. She was beautiful, and one of two heirs to a sizable estate, so the temptation must have been the very devil on him."

"I can understand that," Alan said wryly. "So far, sir."

"Well, Sir Hugo abandoned your mother in Holland, taking off with her cash and jewels, quite a valuable prize to purloin, I'm told."