Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House (16 page)

Frank bowed, and paid his respects to Mr. Hill; enquired of the surgeon's career since they had last met in the Indies; then introduced Martha to Mr. Hill's acquaintance. I lent half an ear to these pleasantries while my eyes surveyed the room.

Seven of the pallets, at least, were empty this morning. I did not enquire as to their occupants' fate; I was reasonably assured that I knew it. One of the missing was the young seaman whose letter I had transcribed only yesterday: Jean-Philippe.

With a chill at the heart, I glanced swiftly around the darkened room in search of the one man we could not afford upon any account to lose. I failed to discover his face. He was not lying in the shadows, nor yet propped against the stone wall; nor was he among the card players grouped around the table. Surely he was not—

“I am astounded to see you here again, Miss Austen,” said Mr. Hill, “and deeply grateful.”

I collected myself and curtseyed to the surgeon. “I could not stay away, Mr. Hill, and I have brought with me a companion. Miss Lloyd has consented to assist us.”

“We have brought eggs,” Martha declared. “They should be coddled over a moderate fire and served upon toast—provided, of course, that your men are capable of keeping their victuals down?”

Mr. Hill straightened. “I am happy to report that several of them seem equal to the task of taking a little sustenance. And I may say that I am well-acquainted with the process of coddling an egg.”

“Then you are a better man than most,” Martha retorted, and moved off in the direction of the fire.

“Pray tell me, Mr. Hill,” I attempted. “The French surgeon—Monsieur LaForge. Is he …”

“—Attempting to shave by the light of that far window,” Mr. Hill replied.

I followed his gesture with a queer little catch in my throat and a sensation of relief. The corner in which Etienne LaForge sat was difficult to plumb with eyes adjusting to Wool House dimness; but I discerned his clean profile, the spill of dark hair over the broad brow, the delicate hands poised with the razor. He looked and seemed stronger at a distance of twenty-four hours. Not for him, the coarse black shroud and the common pit dusted with lime.

He had ceased his ablutions and was staring at me intently. I found that I blushed, and looked away. With my brother beside me, purposeful in his intent of securing LaForge's witness, I felt almost a traitor to the Frenchman's confidence.

“Captain Austen has been telling me of Captain Seagrave's case,” Mr. Hill persisted. “Most extraordinary. I had no notion we harboured such celebrated prisoners in this dreadful place. I did not even know that LaForge was a surgeon. I might have secured his assistance in treating the sick; but, however, he has been almost unable to stand upright before this.”

“He is improved, then?”

“I am happy to say it. I lost several men in the early hours of morning, Miss Austen.” He shook his head in weariness and regret. “It is always thus; a man will go out with the night's ebb tide, as though he cannot wait for dawn.”

Frank was listening to our conversation without attempting to form a part of it. His eyes roamed over the assembled pallets, but his countenance evidenced neither shock nor distaste; the scene before us must resemble the usual squalor of the lower decks. He had often seen men in suffering before.

“I have given my consent to your brother,” said Mr. Hill, “for this small liberty of Monsieur LaForge's. He shall accompany Captain Austen to Portsmouth on the morrow.”

“You are not his gaoler, surely?”

“No—but I remain his doctor,” returned the gentleman shrewdly. “He goes with Captain Austen on one condition: that I might form another of the party. I should not wish LaForge to suffer from exposure in the hoy.”

“You are very good,” I said. “But there remains one other person's consent we must seek.”

“Admiral Bertie's?”

“Etienne LaForge's,” I replied.

T
HE BUSINESS WAS CONCLUDED WHILE MARTHA CODDLED
two dozen eggs.

LaForge was brought forward, his white shirtsleeves rolled high and his jaw wiped clean with a reasonably fresh towel. He stood easily before my brother, regarding him with the faint expression of amusement I had detected the previous day. For support he chose an ornately-carved walking-stick, ebony with a silver handle—so precious a thing must surely be his own, carried out of the
Manon.
He leaned upon it with all the careless disregard of long use.

While the two gentlemen conversed, I undertook to assist Hill with his patients—it seemed the least I could do for the harassed surgeon. My brother's interrogation did not require many minutes.

Frank bowed; the Frenchman nodded—and with a slight glance over his shoulder, returned to the place where he had been sitting. I thought his countenance somewhat sobered. But before I had occasion to consider the man and his moods, my brother was at my side.

“He does not deny his story, at least,” Frank said without preamble. “What he told you yesterday in the vestige of fever, he is very happy to report with a clearer head to a panel of British officers. He attempted to bargain, naturally—but I could promise him nothing. I told him merely that I would exert myself on his behalf, and so I shall.”

“What sort of price does one put upon the truth?” I asked curiously. “Exchange to France? A quantity of gold?”

“Neither. He merely begs to be allowed to remain in England, a free man. I suppose there are many who cannot love the Monster Buonaparte.”

“But it is agreed? He sails with you tomorrow?”

“Quite early.” Frank's grey eyes moved over the face of the prisoner beside me; I had been attempting to feed the man an egg, but found him unequal to the task. “The trial is settled for eleven o'clock, you know, and I should like to be arrived in good time. I must write to Admiral Hastings aboard the
Valiant,
and request permission for LaForge to come aboard.”

“I should like to accompany you, Fly.”

“To the court-martial? Don't be absurd. It is not the place for a lady,” he said stiffly.

“Not to the
Valiant
itself, but to Portsmouth.”

“Jane, you do not know what a dreadful thing it is to see a man hang. It is entirely possible that if things go badly—not at all in Seagrave's way—that the sentence will be carried out immediately. It is the tradition in the Navy.”

“Then Louisa Seagrave will undoubtedly require a companion,” I rejoined with equanimity. “Think, Frank! A lady in such a state! With her little children all around her, and no support but a surly maidservant in a black eyepatch! It is not to be thought of. Certainly I shall go.”

Frank's lips parted, but he failed to voice a word. An appeal to the feelings of a lady must always reign paramount in his mind, however strong his attention to naval
niceties
and
forms.

I handed Mr. Hill the remnants of coddled egg. There was a spask of humour in the surgeon's grave eyes as he took charge of spoon and bowl.

“This is become quite a pleasure party,” he observed. “A morning's diversion on the Solent! Do not neglect a hearty breakfast, Miss Austen. It is the surest safeguard against seasickness.”

“I should never ignore the advice of a surgeon,” I said, and prepared to attend Martha to the French Street theatre.

T
HE PALE SUNLIGHT THAT HAD GREETED THE DAY WAS
soon fled, and succeeded by the usual Southampton drizzle we had come to abhor. I feared the night would prove far too wet for my mother's health, and that a diminution of our evening party must be the result. Nothing short of widespread revolution, however, should prevent me from seeing the play in French Street. I had found too little enjoyment this winter, and meant to have my share of amusement.

I have long been a devotee of good hardened real acting, and though I may win contempt for preferring a Comedy to a Tragedy, I own that Mrs. Jordan is exactly the sort of player to please my taste. She is bright and light and sparkling; ingenuous in her air, despite the increase in grandeur that has attended her notice from the Duke. She delivers her lines with so lively a humour, that one might almost believe the words to have sprung directly from her wit, rather than the pen of a Kotzebue or an Inchbald. I had once been disappointed in a glimpse of her at Covent Garden, while on a visit to my brother Henry; I could hardly credit my good fortune in finding the lady descended upon Southampton, and must assume that some imminent embarkation aboard a royal yacht had occasioned Mrs. Jordan's removal hither.

Despite the delay occasioned by our visit at Wool House, Martha and I were in good time to procure seats for our entire party. The hearty dinner Martha had ordered was duly laid at an early hour; my mother descended to table for the second time in as many days—an unprecedented honour—and insisted that the rain was nothing she must regard. By seven o'clock we were all established cosily in a hack chaise, pulled up before the theatre doors in a long line of similar conveyances. The downpour was considerable, and Frank was so gallant as to
offer to
carry me across the wet paving-stones. I declined, and splashed my slippers regrettably in achieving the foyer.

Such a crush of local worthies! Such a display of fine silks and sateens, of feathered headpieces and naked shoulders! How one was frozen from the draughts that flooded through the doors, and yet toasted unbearably when too near the roaring fires! The danger of spilled claret from a neighbour's glass, trailing like blood down a skirt of white lawn—the danger of an inflammation of the lungs, to so much goose-fleshed womanhood! I had elected to wear a sober gown of blue sarcenet with long sleeves, several years behind the fashion; what it lacked in daring exposure, it more than compensated in warmth. My hair was pulled back in a simple knot, and bound with ribbons of a similar colour; it was nothing very extraordinary in its arrangement. I felt positively dowdy; and suffered, of a sudden, from an access of shyness.

The sensation was increased when a broad-shouldered, chestnut-haired fellow jostled my arm in attempting to ease by me. He glanced at my face, muttered an apology, and swept on with only the barest civility of manner. I thought his countenance familiar. There was a mix of worldliness and contempt in his eyes that struck me like a blow. I had seen this man before.

“Frank! Frank—”

My brother turned from assisting his wife with her pelisse.

“That gentleman by the staircase, ascending to the boxes—with the woman in dark grey. We are acquainted with him, surely?”

The chestnut-haired man had a hand under the elbow of his fair companion. I had not noticed her previously, a testament to my confusion; she was extraordinarily lovely, with a haunting, fine-boned beauty. Her cheekbones were high; her nose aquiline; her deep-set eyes heavily lashed. A luxuriant mass of gold hair trembled elegandy above her nape; her ears were two pink shells. And though she was dressed in dark grey, with complete sobriety and disregard for ornament, the lines of her gown could not disguise the exceptional in her figure. It was a wonder that every male eye was not turned the lady's way. Her companion bore her along like a prize he had seized.

“By Jove,” Frank murmured. That is Sir Francis Farnham—a member of the Navy Board. I wonder what he is doing in Southampton?”

“Seeing to his ships, one must assume.”

“He should far rather work his coded signal lines from a safe distance,” Frank retorted.

“You would refer to the Admiralty's cunning flags, which communicate intelligence from Lpndon to Portsmouth?”

“Sir Francis never goes near the water if he may help it, and thus is a great advocate for telegraph—and every new form of jiggery-pokery the Admiralty may advise. It is said they contemplate a signal-line that will run the length of the Kingdom—God help them when the wind blows too strong!”
¹

“You seem quite familiar with the effects of Sir Francis's administration,” I observed.

“I made the Baronet's acquaintance some years ago in Kent, when I commanded the Sea Fencibles; I warrant he will not remember me now. He is grown so very great in Influence!”

“Ramsgate,” I said thoughtfully. That is where I have had a glimpse of him.”

“He does not observe,” Frank persisted, craning his neck; “he has already ascended. I shall seek him out during the interval, however. Sir Francis governs the Transport Board, and I should dearly like to consult with him on the matter of those Frenchmen in Wool House. The Transport Board holds authority, you know, over prisoners of war.”

“His wife is very lovely.”

“Wife! That is Phoebe Carruthers; Trafalgar widowed her. Perhaps Sir Francis hopes to secure her as his second lady—though I should have thought him capable of attaching a woman of greater fortune. He is handsome and rich, and Mrs. Carruthers possesses little more than her beauty.”

“Many men are happy with less.”

“I wonder at her sensibility, Jane. I should not have thought her in a humour for play-acting.”

“And why is that?”

“Cannot you see that she is in mourning? It was her son—the Young Gentleman—who fell dead from the shrouds on the
StellaMaris”

B
UT BY THE TIME WE HAD WITNESSED MRS/JORDAN'S
skill, and laughed until our sides ached, and stood once more to seek the foyer—Frank's project of appeal on behalf of the French prisoners must perforce be postponed. Sir Francis Farnham and his companion were gone.

¹
Frank Austen is referring here to the Royal Navy's semaphore system of communication, which only replaced the older form of signal-flag communications in 1816. “Telegraphy” refers not to the electrical system of transmission invented by Samuel Morse in 1837, but to a series of signal towers that relayed orders from the capital to the coast—
Editor's note.

Chapter 10
A Morning Pleasure Party