Dewey Lambdin - THE GUN KETCH

"Well, life goes on, don'… does it not, sir?" Finney said, eyeing Lewrie sharply, and the geniality leaving those blue eyes.

"I'm told some of the men who were hung once worked with you," Lewrie was emboldened to say, with a sad and sober expression of shammed sympathy.

"And so they did, sir," Finney told him, speaking slower, and choosing his words and their pronunciation more guardedly. "What my old Gran told me is true, y'know; you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink? There's some in this world will seize an opportunity to better themselves, and some as won't. For privateering, they were a grand crew, all tarry-handed and smart as paint, as willing to dare as any I'd ever seen, sir. When the war ended and I paid 'em off, I told 'em they'd have an honest berth with me whenever they needed it. Some signed on. Some went their own ways."

"Like Doyle," Lewrie needled, sporting a commiserating smile.

"Aye, like William," Finney sighed, looking wistful for what might have been. "Me… my bosun at one time. Met him, Lord, thirteen year ago when we were topmen on a Liverpool 'Black-Birder' on the Middle Passage. I made third mate, he made bosun's mate. He was the grandest seaman of all. But not a thinker, God have mercy. You know sailors, Captain Lewrie. They live from shilling to shilling. What would you find of yer fellow men from one of yer old ships, were ya all to get t'gither? Who among 'em'd prospered, and who among 'em'd sunk? The Fleet can't afford t'be picky when it needs seamen, an' I couldn't turn me nose up at the lads as signed aboard with me. And, when ya get right down to it," Finney shrugged with a sad grin, "ya can't be yer brothers' keeper. A man'll go his own way, divil a try ya make t'redeem him."

"Quite so," Lewrie had to agree with the sentiment, and the sense of what Finney said. "Well, I must take my leave, sir. Thank you for a most enjoyable morning, and a most pleasing reckoning."

"Wotiver yer needs, think o' Finney's first," the man insisted as they rose from the table. "There's no finer selection, an' for you and your fine wife, Captain Lewrie, there'll always be some specials held back, at the same pleasin' prices, break me though they might!"

"I shall keep that ever in mind, Mister Finney," Lewrie said.

"You tell yer missus t'try us first, 'stead o' Misick's, or Frith's," Finney rattled on as he walked him toward the door. "Those stores on Shirley Street'd sell 'Ratty' his own pelt, charge extra for a good fit, an 'im niver knowin' 'twas skinned soon as he entered their doors!"

"I shall tell her that, sir."

" 'Dobe planters from Santo Domingo, lime fertilizers…" Jack Finney rhapsodized about his merchandise. "The latestfashions, just about anything the new homemaker needs for a burgeoning house, for the ball, for…"

"Good day, sir," Lewrie beamed, offering his hand, which Jack Finney took and pumped vigorously. "And once again, thankee."

"I've a drum planned for Saturday, sir," Finney announced of a sudden. "I would be honored should you and Mistress Lewrie be able to attend. Late afternoon's cool, stand-up buffet, champagne…"

"Ah, I fear not," Lewrie replied, though they had no current plans for the weekend. "Should Alacrity still be in port, we will dine some guests in on Saturday," Alan lied easily. "There's a scheme afoot to introduce my first officer Lieutenant Ballard to a young lady of our acquaintance, and see how they progress over cards and music. A fearsome business! But, let a young wife see others unattached, and…" he concluded, making a face and faking a shiver. "Some other time would be more convenient, perhaps?"

"Some other time, then, sir," Finney replied with a shrug of his own, finally dropping Alan's hand. "And good day to you, sir, and thank you for your trade. Do come again, mind."

Lewrie stepped out the door which David the wine clerk held for him, doffed his hat in farewell once more, and strode away towards his horse. He undid the reins from the hitch-rail and looked across the saddle towards Finney's store idly as he fumbled with a stirrup.

Finney stood just inside the still-open door. In an unguarded moment, before he realized that Alan had glanced back at him, he was caught glaring at him from beneath blond brows beetled together with hate. And when caught, Finney put a shadowing palm over his eyes, as if the sun's glare had caused it, made his face bland with a smile of seeming sincerity, and used that shadowing hand to wave him goodbye.

"You shopped at Finhey's?" Caroline goggled once he was home. "Whatever possessed you to enter that man's stores, Alan?"

"Call it curiosity, my dear," he allowed, stripping off his coat and waistcoat, undoing his neck-stock and taking his ease in a chair on the front porch where it was cool. Caroline had a pitcher of sweetened limewater near at hand. "Damme if he didn't have good prices, too. And a wider selection. You do not?"

"Only with Wyonnie to accompany me," she frowned. "I find good bargains along the docks, directly off the trading ships."

"Uhm, Caroline, those that sell direct off the ships…" Alan complained. "Those goods aren't landed or bonded. The imposts aren't paid. Those are Yankee traders!"

"So I noticed," she grinned between sips of limewater.

"They're violating the Navigation Acts, Caroline," he pressed. "Laws I'm sworn to enforce! Damme… dash it all, how does it appear, for the wife of an officer holding the King's Commission, to… to…!"

"Commodore Garvey's wife shops right alongside me, Alan," she told him. "As does the cook from the Governor's mansion, the butlers for every household that've ever invited us, the…"

"Well, I'm damned!"

"Would you rather have my eight pounds gone in a twinkling at Bay Street or Shirley Street shops, then, Alan?" she queried without a qualm.

"Do you need more money, then?" he asked.

"Not a farthing!" she chuckled, leaning back into a chair and putting her feet up on a padded footstool. "Darling, I manage quite well, with more than enough left over at the end of each month. But I could not without seeking out bargains. Alan, I will not break you to support me. I am not spendthrift."I know that, Caroline," he softened, reaching out to take her free hand. "And I'd not begrudge you our entire fortune, were you to need it."

"I know that, too, love," she purred. "And that is why I will never ask of you until it is needful. I am quite content on my house allowance. And too much in love with you to ever wish to lose your regard by being extravagant. I don't think I'm much for extravagance, anyway," she chuckled. "I'm a country girl at heart."

"I love you, too, dear, for so many reasons," he cooed back at her. "Every day I recognize a new'un."

"I shall send Wyonnie and her husband to shop the docks for me in future, then, love," Caroline promised. "So we do not give the impression that you condone anything illegal. Now it's cooler, I'll bake more at home, 'stead of buying bread from the baker's. Though summers, I will have to trade with the bakeshops. And local dishes are tasty and filling. I need no heavy imported dishes when fish, rice and all are just as nourishing, and the open-air markets are much cheaper. I love it here in the Bahamas! And Shirley Street stores are closer and just as economical, if one looks carefully at imported goods."

"Misick's and Frith's," Alan nodded in agreement.

"How did you know where I market, Alan? Have their bills at the end of the month bothered you?" she teased.

"I heard they're a little higher than Finney's, but not so dear as to rival Bay Street," Alan stumbled, feeling a flush of color as he wondered just how Jack Finney had known the exact stores she favored.

Damme, has the man been following her? he shuddered.

"I have a surprise for you, dear," Caroline blushed. "Two, to be truthful. Sit right there and close your eyes."

Hope 'tis a better surprise than the ones I've had this morning, Alan thought, going back over his long conversation with Finney.

"I know Christmas is supposed to be a time of sober reflection, and in England, people spend it with their noses in the prayer book," she said as she came back to the front porch. "No, keep your eyes shut for a space longer!"

She bent down to kiss him for a moment, giggling at his temporary helplessness, and mistaking his agitation for impatience.

"But the Klausknitzers, that German couple, have the most wonderful traditions. That carpenter fellow who made these chairs? They exchange gifts such as the Magi brought the infant Jesus, Alan, and I thought it a grand idea. And the perfect season for mine to you."

"May I look now?" he grinned.

"Now."

First he beheld a shiny tube that she held out to him.

"A flageolet," she said proudly. "Made from tin. You always said you wished you could play a musical instrument, and I thought it the perfect one. There's a little chapbook of tunes and instructions in how to read musical notes."

Now there's reason for a crew to mutiny, Alan thought, though smiling happily! I'll make a bloody nuisance of myself, bad as some noisome Welsh harpist!

"Darling, it's wonderful, I had no idea…!" he said instead.

"And this," she said, sweeping a drop-cloth away from something that was leaned on one of the support posts.

"Gawd!" he could but exclaim in awe.

What he beheld was Caroline's portrait, an oval-framed oil of her from the waist up. She was depicted standing in her flower garden by the front gate, dressed in a gauzy white off-shoulder sack gown and flowered straw hat. Potter's Cay and Hog Island were hinted in the background behind overhanging tropical flowers and palmettos in a hazy spring morning.

"Damme, that's Alacrity anchored there!" he gasped out first, as he recognized the ketch in the far background which flew the Red Ensign and streamed a red-white-blue commissioning pendant.

Bloody hell, wrong thing to say, he winced within himself!

"My God, Caroline, the artist has captured you to the life, I swear," he added quickly, kneeling down to look closer. "Why, he did you so true I'd expect your eyes here to blink any moment. And he caught your smile perfectly! 'Tis like having you looking at me from your mirror scantwise, as you do of a morning. When you're looking pleased and full of ginger!"

"I told you Augustus Hedley was a wonderful artist."

Alan rose and took her in his arms, lifting her off her feet to swing her about as he kissed her.

"I take back everything I ever said about him, darling," Alan laughed heartily. "You're right, as always. He is damned good!"

Alan had been married long enough to know to forbear mention that the waters east of Potter's Cay were too shallow for anchoring a warship, or that Alacrity did not sport t'gallant yards above her tops'ls.

"Darling Alan, do you really like it?" she teased.

"Like it, God yes, what a magnificent gift!" he assured her. "Now, every time I look up from my desk, or dine in my cabins, I'll have you there, so fresh and lovely I'll ache for want of you."

"Mmm, having you ache, and miss me when you're at sea wasmy main idea, darling," she murmured coyly in his ear. "Do you still begrudge giving up your awful old harem picture, hmm?"

"Not one whit."

"Augustus'd done so many island scenes, he practically gave our Sunset Over Nassau Harbour away in trade," she boasted, pleased with herself, and with his enthusiastic reaction to her gift. "And he did my portrait for only five pounds, and a dozen crocks of my pineapple marmalade. Now, am I not economical, my love?"

"Uncle Phineas would be proud of you," Alan snickered as he let her down to her feet again, though still draped against him. "I am, too. There's only one place I know you to be spendthrift. And thank God for it!"