The Captain Claims His Lady

So far, he thought he’d done a fair job of announcing that he’d been in the navy and had more money than sense.

‘Very good, sir. My name is Mr Jeavons,’ said the landlord with a smug bow. ‘It will not take long to prepare our best suite, for you. Jones,’ he said, indicating a servant in a green apron, who’d been lounging against the doorframe of what appeared to be the entrance to a public taproom, ‘will take your luggage up.’ Jones pushed himself off his doorframe and made for the pile of cases Dawkins had just deposited on the stone flags. ‘If you would not mind just signing our guest book?’ He gestured to a leather-bound journal propped open on a shelf beneath the main staircase.

Harry obliged. Once Jeavons had glanced at the entry, which included his title and gave his estate in Scotland as his main address, the manager became even more obsequious.

‘Permit me to guide you to our reading room, where there is a fire by which you can warm yourself, my lord,’ he said, inching in the direction of a corridor which led into the bowels of the large, rambling building which occupied one entire side of the market square.

‘Captain Bretherton,’ Harry corrected him.

‘As you wish,’ said the landlord subserviently. ‘We have the London papers, as well as a large stock of books in our lending library. People—that is, the better sort of people—come from all over the locality to borrow books or simply to take coffee. In fact, I am not ashamed to confess that the Three Tuns has become the centre of the social life in this part of Dorset, since I made the improvements.’

Harry glanced round the deserted foyer, into which a little rain was gusting through the door which still stood open behind him.

‘Ah, if only you had been here during the summer months. Then you would have been able to enjoy concerts, and balls, as well as the very best of society.’

‘I was not up to dancing, during the summer,’ because he’d rarely been sober enough to know his left foot from his right. ‘Though my recent sojourn in Bath,’ he continued, hoping Jeavons would pick up on the fact he was posing as a semi-invalid, ‘has worked wonders.’

‘Ah,’ said Jeavons, with dawning comprehension. Finally. ‘You have been taking the waters. Did someone you met there recommend the health-giving properties of our own spring? Though it is not,’ he continued before Harry had a chance to make any sort of response, ‘as conveniently situated, I am sure that you will find the walk along the recently constructed promenade along the sea front, followed by the climb up through our beautiful cliffside gardens to reach the source, most beneficial to your health and well-being. And when you drink it—’

‘All I wish to drink, for the present, is some of that coffee you mentioned.’

‘Of course, of course,’ said Jeavons with a deft bow. ‘Please follow me to the reading room, where I will serve you myself.’

He set off along the corridor he’d pointed out before and Harry followed, with Dawkins close on his heels.

The room to which Jeavons took them turned out to be far more appealing than Harry had expected from what he’d seen of the Three Tuns so far. There were plenty of comfortable-looking chairs arranged round various-sized tables. A pair of sofas flanking a cheerfully crackling fire. Newspapers and journals displayed on slanted-topped tables set beneath the windows to catch the light.

But what really caught his interest was a large, framed map, displayed on the wall between those windows, with the legend ‘Peacombe’ picked out in bold red lettering.