Reefs and Shoals (25 page)

“Though the Americans still think the French ‘hung the moon’?” Lewrie posed. “Damned nice beer. I think I’ll have a top-up, too.”

“Oh, there’s many who still adore them, no matter how bloody the French Revolution was, compared to theirs,” Cashman scoffed as he refilled Lewrie’s mug, too. “Our good president Jefferson’s in love with them, and so are all the newspapers. You came up-river with but four sailors, and nothing but your sword and their knives? Quite the risk for a bloody Brit, after dark, when the patriotic drunks spill out of the taverns on a hoo-raw.”

“
You’re
a bloody Brit!” Lewrie exclaimed in good humor. “You’re not dead, yet.”

“Ah, but I’m an
eccentric
Brit, and a harmless civilian trader, to boot. No threat to anyone these days,” Cashman hooted with mirth as he came back to his desk. “I doubt I could stand for public office and win, but I care nothing for such, other than joining the local militia. My army background is welcome, by most … even if I am once more back to the rank of Lieutenant, and the junior-most, at that. The militia’s more social than professional,” Cashman explained with a shrug. “When I bought into an old, established, pre-Revolutionary firm, founded by patriots, that went a long way towards acceptance. Hewing strictly to business, and avoiding politics, has gone a long way, too.

“Matthew Livesey … when it was Livesey and Son. The old man moved the family trade from Philadelphia long ago,” Cashman expounded. “Dead and gone, now, but his grandson’s still a partner. Old Livesey was part of the Corresponding Society with New Englanders, early on, and joined the Sons of Liberty. The Seabright part? Phillip Seabright was a Royal Artillery officer who came to survey old Fort Johnston, down near Brunswick Town … horrid folly, I’ve heard. Every time the guns were fired, it like to shook itself to pieces! Anyway, he ended up buying land and going into business with Livesey. When the Stamp Act was enacted, Wilmington, and North Carolina, almost seceded from Great Britain. Seabright and Livesey were part of the thousand men of the militia from New Hanover, Brunswick, and surrounding counties who rebelled. He married Livesey’s daughter, Bess, before the war, and when it came, Seabright marched off with a couple of pop-guns to fight the Highlander Loyalists at Widow Moore’s Creek Bridge, then served in the Continental Army against Cornwallis and Tarleton. Seabright’s in his sixties, now, but his eldest son is with the firm.

“And … there’s the fact that I married well,” Cashman admitted, somewhat sheepishly.

“You married again, Kit? At last?” Lewrie hooted. “Mine arse on a band-box, that is capital! A good local family, I take it?”

“The Ramseurs,” Cashman told him. “Before the Revolution, the old patriarch was ‘Prince Dick’—Richard Ramseur—in comparison to ‘King’ Roger Moore, the grandest of the settlers who came up from Goose Creek, South Carolina, to found the borough. They’re still not sure of me, I’ll tell you. They’re nowhere near as well-off as they were in the old days, but the Ramseurs still farm … rice, tobacco, cotton? They own nigh an hundred slaves, yet here I am kin to them, despite my vow against owning another slave as long as I live, after my experiences on Jamaica. Makes for testy suppers at their place, or mine. My wife, Sarah, well … we have house servants, as few as possible in bondage, and pay wages to the rest.”

“Round here, you
are
eccentric,” Lewrie said, shaking his head in wonder. “I doubt there aren’t a round dozen gentlemen in the whole state of North Carolina of a mind with you. When you sent that affidavit about my theft of those dozen Beauman slaves that got me off … did that hurt you, hereabouts?”

“I swore it to Osgoode Moore, Junior … before he became the British Consul,” Cashman told him, looking grave. “As my attorney, he is required to keep mum about the matter, and, as I said, Moore is a stickler, and as high-minded a gentleman as his father. No one knows of it, and, pray God, no one ever will.”

“So, should I get in my cups whilst I’m in Wilmington, I’d best not mention all that?” Lewrie asked.

“Especially over supper tonight,” Cashman replied, grinning. “I hope to dine you in at my house, and invite Osgoode Moore and his wife. You should also lodge with us for a few days. Much cleaner, and safer, than taking public lodgings. The other officer who came with you?”

“My Purser, Mister Cadbury,” Lewrie said. “Only the one night, Kit. I expect he’s with your clerks, purchasing fresh stores. I told him to use no other chandlery.…”

“My, and my partners’, thanks, Alan!” Cashman laughed. “We’ll have your Mister Cadbury to dine, as well. We’ve two spare rooms.”

“He can eat with a knife and fork,” Lewrie japed, “though, I don’t know if he snores, or walks in his sleep!”

“Your sailors won’t mind dossing down in the coach house and stables?” Cashman asked.

“So long as they’ve eat well, and had some rum, no,” Lewrie replied, “though, they’d not make good supper conversation. I don’t know if Cadbury’s all that much a conversationalist, either, but…”

“One can never tell,” Cashman mused aloud. “America is full of surprises. Planter grandees, tradesmen, and commoners … ‘mud-sills’ from the back country, as some say round here … one never knows where a good yarn can be had. Quite unlike British Society, hey? With industry, even a ‘mud-sill’ can become a grandee, and, do his sons and daughters get polished, there’s no limit on how far they can go. I am continually amazed by the open egality and aspirations of Americans.”

“Well … so long as one’s White,” Lewrie wryly countered.

“Well, there is that,” Cashman ruefully admitted. “Now … let me get the invitations written, and send my wife a note that we’ll have guests this evening. Moore will need a formal invitation. Anything to impress him? A medal or two, hey?” Cashman teased.

“Battles of Cape Saint Vincent and Camperdown,” Lewrie smiled as he ticked his honours off. “Copenhagen, but they didn’t hand out any ‘tin’ for that ’un. I command a very small squadron of very small sloops, but one can’t see my broad pendant, all the way down-river to Smithville. Just say that Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet, will wish to discuss—”

“A knightbood? A baronetcy, to boot?” Cashman gawped, pen poised above the sheet of paper. “When did that happen?”

“Spring of 1804,” Lewrie grinned. “Fought a Frog squadron off New Orleans and took all four of ’em so the French could not invest the city before Napoleon sold it to the United States.”

“So your wife is now Dame Lewrie?” Cashman beamed, “Grand! I never met her, but—”

“She … passed away, three years ago,” Lewrie sadly related, “in 1802.”

“Lord, do forgive me, Alan, I had no idea!”

“I didn’t write you of it, you didn’t know, so there’s nought to beg forgiveness for, Kit,” Lewrie assured him. “I should’ve written, but … things happened in the meantime, and…”

Tell him
how
it happened?
Lewrie wondered;
No, Americans adore the French. I say Napoleon killed her while trying t’have me killed, it wouldn’t be
 …
diplomatic. And diplomatic’s what they sent me to be, ain’t it?

“Sarah will be delighted, even so, to dine in a Baronet, in his sash and star,” Cashman breezily said, returning to his letter. “No matter America’s distaste for aristocracy, you show them a lord, and they’ll dearly love him.”

“I left ’em aboard,” Lewrie confessed. “I didn’t know how all that might go down … how touchy peoples’ feelings about England are even this long after the Revolution. Diplomacy, hey?” he added with a cynical shrug. “No mobs pantin’ t’lynch a Tory.”

“But you should’ve worn them, Alan!” Cashman exclaimed. “You’re going about this ‘show the flag’ thing all wrong! You’ll be calling along the coast to other port cities? Good. When you sail into Savannah or Charleston, be sure to wear them. A sash and star will make the Charlestonians gush over you, ’cause in their hearts, they’d wish to have one, too. You know what they say about South Carolinians … that they’re the most Asiatic of all Americans? S’truth! For they eat a lot of rice, and worship their ancestors, haw haw!”

“And Savannah, and Georgia?” Lewrie asked.

“Of much the same mind, though nowhere near as polished, in the main,” Cashman quipped again. “People in both the Carolinas are sure that ‘all the rogues end up in Georgia’.”

There was a knock at the office door, and at Cashman’s bidding,
Reliant
’s Purser, Mr. Cadbury entered. “I believe we’ve found all our needs, sir, and on good terms, as well. Mister Cashman’s clerks have been most helpful. Though, the bulk and weight of the stores exceed our boat.”

“For a further modest fee, we’ll see your purchases down-river in one of the ‘corn-crackers’ alongside the piers,” Cashman suggested. “All our lighters are tied up at the moment, but I’m sure we can make an offer to one of the masters to make an extra run before he returns here to load his trade goods. Grains and such down the Northwest or the Northeast Branch of the Cape Fear, as far as Campbelltown or Cross Creek, and back again. Very fast and handy little vessels, even for the coasting trade from Beaufort and New Bern. Does one of them get underway by mid-day next, she could use the river current and the ebb of the tide and be off Smithville waiting for you.”

“That’d be capital, Kit, thankee,” Lewrie said. “Oh, by the by. You’d not have some dried meats in stock, would you? Sausages, strips of jerky? For the cats, d’ye see. And, the Midshipmen have adopted a stray mongrel dog, so…”

“You still keep eats aboard?” Cashman teased. “I’ve the very thing. Pemmican! The Lumbee tribe round Lake Waccamaw make it. It’s God knows what sort of meat, flour, suet, molasses, and dried berries, pounded together. They bring it in by the bale, along with all the deer and alligator hides. Want some?”

“About an hundredweight will do, aye,” Lewrie agreed.

Sounds toothsome enough; the beasts’ll have t’fight me for it!
he thought.

“Mister Cadbury, I’ve invited my old friend, Captain Lewrie, to lodge and dine with me, tonight,” Cashman said as he quickly went over the tally his clerks had made, “and I trust that you will accept my invitation, as well.”

“With pleasure, Mister Cashman!” Cadbury quickly replied.

“Once we’ve settled the reckoning, I’ll see the both of you over to the house, then,” Cashman further offered. “The pemmican on your own account, Alan? Call it ten dollars. That’d be … two pounds, at the current rate of exchange.”

“Here you go,” Lewrie said, digging into his coin purse.

“Your boat will be safe enough here at our pier for the night,” Cashman said, once he had Cadbury’s money, and Admiralty note-of-hand. “Bring your sailors along, and we’ll get them settled in, as well.”

*   *   *

With Liam Desmond, Patrick Furfy, and the other of the boat’s crew in tow, Cashman led the party along Water Street, up Dock Street to round the uphill end of the actual dock cut into the river bank that gave the street its name, then over to Market Street, the main thoroughfare, and uphill again towards St. James Church and Fifth Street, which in Lewrie’s brief time in the city had been the outer limit of Wilmington, with nothing but pine forests beyond to the sea to the East. But it had grown far beyond, since. Where most homes and businesses had been wood, plagued by almost annual fires, there were now impressive stone or brick buildings and houses, some as fine as anything in London. Where Lewrie remembered sandy dirt streets, and full of stray dogs, geese, chickens, and goats, there were now cobblestoned streets with sidewalks, iron lampposts, and very little livestock. There were many more fine carriages than he remembered, too, and a lot more people strolling about in finer clothing than that worn at the tail-end of a long war.

We’ve become a raree show?
Lewrie asked himself, noticing how people stopped in their tracks to gawk and stare. He also noted that a parcel of gawkers, young boys mostly, had followed them from the chandlery, as if word had spread of a second British invasion, or bloody Tarleton or Lord Cornwallis had come back!

“Uh-oh,” Cashman muttered under his breath.

“Uh-oh?” Lewrie parroted in query, expecting trouble.

“The French consul,
Monsieur
Fleury,” Cashman explained, jutting his chin towards a foppish slim fellow at the corner by the church.

M. Jean-Marie Fleury was bristling with indignation at the very sight of a despicable
Anglais,
his exotic thin mustachios quivering in loathing, and his chin high. He was the epitome of a dandy, dressed in a long-tailed, waist-length, double-breasted green coat with lapels that ended near his shoulders, a short-brimmed thimble of a hat with a tricolour cockade, dazzling white trousers of almost painfully skin-tight cut, and brown-topped riding boots. Grey suede-gloved fingers flexed angrily on the gilt handle of his ebony walking stick, as if he would like nothing more than to dash forward and cudgel Lewrie to his knees.

“Faith, but ain’t he a little terrier, ain’t he?” Furfy said, snickering.

When they were within fifteen feet or so of that worthy, Fleury heaved a great sniff of disdain, stamped his walking stick on the pavement, and directed his gaze skyward and away, in the “Cut Sublime”.

The derisive and insulting gesture made several people titter.

Lewrie came to a stop, staring directly at Fleury. He could not resist. He heaved off a loud “Harumph” of his own, stamped one booted foot, and turned his own head about so he could study the clouds, and the view North down Fifth Street, raising both hands to one eye like the tube of a telescope. That raised another titter from the crowd.

Then, Lewrie began to laugh, with a broad grin on his face. He looked back to Fleury, laughed some more, then walked on past the man, leaving the French consul stuck with his “Cut Sublime”, and no chance of laughing it off, turning coral pink in frustration.

“Well played, Alan old son,” Cashman muttered, restraining his own laughter. “By supper, that’ll be the talk of the town, and every trick taken.”