By mid-morning he was ready to continue to seek employment.
On impulse he turned back for the post office; Kydd had promised to keep in touch and he was much concerned for him.
There was nothing from his friend—but there was a neatly sealed letter in an unknown hand, bearing a crest he did not know. It was from Commodore d'Auvergne: in friendly tones it invited him to make himself known at his shore address adjacent to the customs house where they would explore possibilities concerning a position. It seemed a trifle peculiar—a flag-officer, however junior, deigning to involve himself in clerkly hiring? But Renzi could see no advantage to be gained by any kind of prank.
At first he thought he had come to the wrong place. The small office, compared to his usual experience of naval headquarters, could only be termed discreet. He had taken some care in his appearance and stepped in purposefully. He identified himself to a clerk, who looked at him keenly but said nothing and ushered him up a cramped flight of stairs to a small room. It was odd, he thought, that there were no uniformed sentries.
"Mr Renzi, sir," the man announced.
"Ah, do come in, sir," Commodore d'Auvergne said genially, in barely accented English; he had a round, kindly face but with the high forehead and alert eyes of someone intelligent and self-possessed.
"Thank you, sir," Renzi said, attending carefully while d'Auvergne leaned back in his chair.
There was a moment's pause as the commodore summed him up. Then he said briskly, "You wonder why at my eminence I noticed you, sir. That is simple. In the letter your hand betrays you as a gentleman, and your making application for a menial post intrigues me."
Renzi's uneasy smile brought a further penetrating glance. "Of course, this would be a capital way for a spy to inveigle himself into my headquarters. Are you a spy, Mr Renzi?"
"I am not, sir."
"Then?"
"My last post was that of a ship's clerk, sir, lately Teazer, brig-sloop. For reasons that need not trouble you, this position has now been closed to me."
"Clerk? How interesting. It would disappoint me to hear that your removal was for . . . peccant reasons."
"No felonious act has ever attached to my name, sir," Renzi snapped.
"Do pardon my direct speaking, sir. You see, your presenting at this time comes as a particular convenience to me."
At Renzi's wary silence he went on: "Let me be more explicit. As commodore of the Jersey Squadron I have my flagship round the coast at Gorey. This little office provides an official pied-à-terre in St Helier and my private house is nearby. As it happens, sir, I have an especial regard for those who have in their person suffered in the terrible convulsions of the Revolution—the royalistes."
He looked at Renzi intently. "Here there are many émigré French to be seen wandering the streets, poor souls, some even standing for long hours on the cliffs mooning over their lost land, which is in plain view to the east. I do take a personal interest in their plight."
Shuffling some papers on his desk he said, "It is for this reason I maintain an old, contemptible castle near Gorey, which I devote to their cause. Now, there is nothing in the naval sphere available," he said regretfully, "but I have recently lost a valued confidential secretary and the creatures offering themselves in his place are—are lacking in the article of gentlemanly discernment, shall we say? Therefore, should you feel inclined, there is a post I can offer, which shall be my secretary for émigré affairs.
"You have the French, I trust?" he added.
"I do, sir."
"They are a distracted and, some might say, fractious community. Dogmatic priests, aristocrats insisting on the forms of the ancien régime, a thankless task. For this, shall we say fifty livres a month?"
A princely sum! It was more than he had dared hope, and—
With only a single glance at Renzi's scuffed shoes d'Auvergne added smoothly, "Of course, this will be at the castle—Mont Orgueil, I should inform you—which is at a remove from St Helier, and therefore I feel an obligation upon me to offer you a room there for a trifle in the way of duties out of the normal hours."
"That is most kind in you, sir."
"Then may I know when would be an acceptable date for your commencement, Mr Renzi?"
"This is a very remarkable achievement, sir," said Renzi, standing next to d'Auvergne within the grim bastions of Mont Orgueil, softened with tasteful medieval hangings and well-turned Gothic furniture. The castle, four-square and forbidding on a prominence looking across the water at France, had its roots in the age of the longbow and armoured knights, but with the arrival of cannon, it had been abandoned in Elizabethan times to genteel decay.