The ceremony went well, as did the new couple’s departure, with both ship’s officers and Midshipmen forming an arch of bared swords or dirks . . . though forcing Commander and Mrs. Langlie to duck when they got to the shorter Midshipmen, whose arms and shorter dirks threatened hats, shoulders, and noses.
Once at the George Inn, the wine began to flow almost from the instant that hats, swords (dirks), and walking-sticks were deposited with the doorkeeper, people still sober enough to read the place cards got themselves sorted out, and took their seats, with some of the men, principally Zachariah Twigg, Sir Hugo, and Mr. Sadler, heading straight for the sideboard and its restorative brandy bottle. Lewrie wished he could do the same, but he still had host duties, the requisite speech to make in praise of Langlie and Sophie, toasts to propose . . . and his wife to puzzle out, for though she appeared gay and chirpy, he could recognise the secret signs that Caroline was missish over something. Too, there were the children to keep an eye on, and there were Sadler and Twigg to avoid ‘til the last minute, like rosied plague carriers or peeling lepers!
“A lovely setting for the ceremony, what, Captain Lewrie?” Mr. Langlie the elder remarked with a glass of wine in his hand. “My Missus quite relished it. A most pleasing compromise location, in all.”
“Oh, absolutely, sir,” Lewrie agreed. “Why, in all my years of passing through Portsmouth, I cannot actually recall my being inside of Saint Thomas A’Becket’s before. A most impressive place, indeed.”
Langlie slightly cocked an eyebrow over that statement, keeping a mostly serene expression, though implying, I dare say your sort would have not! anyway. Or so Lewrie deduced; he refused to cringe.
“Your father, Sir Hugo?” Langlie continued. Lewrie managed not to wince as that name was mentioned, as was his usual wont. “A most, ah . . . colourful character, or so I have heard?”
“Colourful ain’t the half of it, Mister Langlie.” There came a faint guffaw from over Mr. Langlie’s left shoulder as Sir Hugo came to join them. Colourful, indeed, for Sir Hugo’s long-time Sikh orderly/valet, Trilochan Singh, he of the swarthy complexion, bristling mustachios, and evil eye patch, stood just off Sir Hugo’s larboard quarter in full regimental fig of his old 19th Native Infantry.
“And, never lend him, or let him hold, any monies, either,” Mr. Zachariah Twigg chuckled as he joined them, too, and damned if his own personal man, Sri Ajit Roy, wasn’t there, as well, right down to those elephant hide sandals of his, red cotton “celebration” stockings, suit of dark buff broadcloth with baggy pyjammy breeches. His mustachios, though greyer than Singh’s, were as stiff as anchor cat-heads, too, and it looked as if Roy and Singh had been having an “old boy” reunion much like almuni of Harrow or Eton. Langlie’s jaw dropped; so much for serenity!
“Namaste, El-Looey sahib, best wishes,” Singh said in a gravelly voice, palms together, and bowing.
“Namaste, Cap-tain El-Looey,” Ajit Roy added. “Oh, springing joy to the happy pair!”
“Namaste, Sri Ajit Roy, Sri Trilochan Singh,” Lewrie replied as he put his palms together before his face and bowed in return. “Dhanyavaad . . . thank you for coming so far, and your wishes.”
“Colourful runs in the family, Mister Langlie,” Sir Hugo said.
“I dare say!” Langlie replied, unsure whether to smile or flee.
“You’ve met my father at the church, sir,” Lewrie said, attending to the social niceties, “but, allow me to name to you Mister Zachariah Twigg, late of the Foreign Office. Mister Twigg, the father of the groom, and, I am proud to say, my new in-law, Mister Anthony Langlie of Horsham, in Kent.”
“Your servant, sir,” from Langlie, then from Twigg. “Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mister Langlie,” as Twigg prosed on, smooth and benign as a sated tiger. “Allow me to express my congratulations to you and your wife upon this happy occasion, and remark that you and Mistress Langlie have raised a praiseworthy son, one with great promise to the Crown, and the Navy, whose name has figured prominently in official reports from Captain Lewrie, the last three years, to my superiors, and Admiralty, as well.”
“Ah, well?” Langlie puffed up with pride. “Thankee kindly, sir, for your best wishes, and for that information, too.”
“Ahem” came a faint throat clearing, a timid cough into a fist from Mr. Sadler, who hovered nearby.
“My old orderly from my time in East India Company service, and a long-time friend, Mister Langlie,” Sir Hugo stuck in, “Former Sergeant . . . Havildar Trilochan Singh?”
Twigg was quick to introduce Ajit Roy as well, outre though an introduction of a servant to a gentleman was, requiring Mr. Langlie to try on the pressed-together palms, head bow, and stab at pronouncing a Hindu greeting, with Langlie looking dazedly bemused, as if wondering whether his son’s wedding day could get any stranger.
“Ahem?” Sadler coughed a tad louder. He wasn’t exotic, merely impertinent, but evidently thought his case urgent enough to violate the niceties, this once.
“Oh, yes,” Twigg said. “May I also name to you another friend of Captain Lewrie’s, Mister Langlie, who coached down from London with us?”
He did? Lewrie fearfully gawped to himself; Twigg, father, and Sadler in the same coach} With Ajit Roy and Singh, to boot? Christ, I must really be in the legal “quag”! The two former orderlies/valets surely would have ridden in the coach, not been stuck in the cheap seats atop in the rain; vile as they were, both Sir Hugo and Twigg held high regard and respect for their manservants. Sadler’s such a chatter-box away from work, ‘tis a bloody wonder he ain’t fluent in Hindi or Urdu by now!
“Bless me, Mister Twigg, but ‘tis a rare thing, indeed, to see a solicitor be so, ah . . . solicitous, as to coach all the way down to Portsmouth for a client’s ward’s wedding,” Mr. Langlie marvelled, and making Sadler turn several livid colours, after Twigg had made but the sketchiest explanation of Sadler’s relationship to Lewrie; “financial aspects” was the way he’d phrased it.
“C . . . Captain Lewrie is a client of long standing, sir,” Mr. Sadler managed to say with a straight face. “And, so successful with prizes taken over the years, that, ah . . .,” he trailed off with a sheepish grin.
“I see,” Langlie said, chin lifting and eyes glazing over after meeting one too many below his station. Sadler handled money, so he was a “tradesman,” perhaps only a cut above an apothecary or tailor, and not quite a gentleman. “Your servant, Mister Sadler,” he said as he turned to Lewrie once more. “A small matter, sir, speaking of financial doings . . . you are agreed, Captain Lewrie, that we each settle one hundred pounds per annum on our newlyweds . . . an hundred from me upon my son, an hundred from you upon Sophie?”
“Absolutely, Mister Langlie,” Lewrie agreed.
In much better humour, Langlie cocked a brow again, and posed a better offer. “Care to go guineas, instead, Captain Lewrie?”
Twenty-one shillings to the guinea, as opposed to twenty to the pound, would be £105 per annum, £210 total, in addition to the pay of a Commander in active commission, 8 shillings a day, or a little over £134 per annum, less all the damned deductions, of course, so Sophie and her new husband would start out life on a firm financial footing, even if Sophie chose to reside apart from either set of in-laws.
I get acquitted, it’s not that much more, Lewrie told himself; I get convicted and hung, and it don’t matter a toss.
“Guineas it is, then,” Lewrie agreed with a smile, offering his hand to seal the bargain. He could not resist turning to the hovering Sadler and adding, “You’ll see to that arrangement, will you, Sadler? There’s a good fellow.”
“But of course, Captain Lewrie,” Sadler had to respond to keep with the spirit of things, bowing himself away, his neck turned red.
“Well, shall we seat ourselves, join the ladies, and allow the festivities to begin, sir?” Langlie suggested, main-well pleased.
“Must speak,” Twigg rasped in a harsh, business-like whisper in Lewrie’s ear as Langlie preceded him to the table. “Later, hmm?”
“If we must,” Lewrie said with a resigned sigh. “You, father, and Sadler all came down togeth—?”
“Later,” Twigg shushed him. “All will be discovered.”