Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House (17 page)

Thursday

~

I
F FRANK RECEIVED ANY REPLY FROM TOM SEAGRAVE TO
his express of Tuesday evening, I was not informed. My brother was unwontedly silent this morning as we sailed down the Solent. It was so early that the dusk had barely lifted from the New Forest, so early that the faint winter light had no power to warm me, and I huddled in my old pelisse while the frigid spume raced across the small vessel's hull.

Etienne LaForge was braced in the bow of the boat drinking great draughts of fresh air. To him, the cold and wet seemed immaterial. He had donned this morning a black wool coat, serviceable and unadorned. His hair, overlong from inattention, was bound at his nape with black ribbon, and his countenance was alight with freedom despite the manacles at his wrists. I had winced at the sight of those bonds, heavy and remorseless about his fine hands; but I did not question them. Frank had warned me that the French surgeon's motives must be suspect. It was possible, after all, that the man had schooled his story to the hints I had given him—that having heard a little of Seagrave's court-martial from the Marine guards, he had fabricated Chessyre's perfidy with precisely this view to escape. Frank had no intention of appearing a fool; he had sacrificed reputation enough in taking Tom Seagrave's part. Did LaForge intend to hurl himself from the hoy halfway to Portsmouth, he should sink like a stone from the weight of his irons.

The Frenchman had bowed low, the perfect gentleman regardless, as we stood on the Water Gate Quay. There was no cause for LaForge to feel shame at his bonds; he was a prisoner solely from unhappy circumstance; yet I did not think there were many Englishmen who should have worn humiliation so carelessly.

“Miss Austen! Your taste for the macabre runs to hanging, I see. Shall you be very disappointed if the Captain survives?”

“Monsieur LaForge.” I had bowed my head in acknowledgement of his greeting. “You must recollect the friend of the bosom—the Captain's wife. I go to Portsmouth solely to comfort her.”

A twitch of amusement, peculiarly his own, had worked at the corners of his mouth.
“La pauvre petite.
But as I have agreed to tell whatever I know to whomever will listen—perhaps your comfort will be unnecessary,
heiri?”

We had now been underway nearly half an hour, and Gosport was fast approaching to the larboard side; the squat dark shape of the Isle of Wight loomed like an enormous turtle. Mr. Hill, as a sailor of long standing and a responsible gaoler, stood stoutly next to LaForge in the bow, the two men spoke but little. Given the tearing breeze, Hill's attention seemed fixed upon securing his periwig to his skull. LaForge's eyes eagerly swept the horizon, as though he expected to find salvation there. My brother was engaged in steady conversation with the vessel's master—a conversation that consisted mainly of assessing the wind and clapping on sail—and so I was alone amidships, with my gloved hands clenched upon the edge of my seat.

Mr. Hill chanced to look around—chanced to furl his wizened face in a smile, which I returned—and that swiftly it seemed the two men could not sustain the picture of lonely self-sufficiency I presented. As one, Mr. Hill and Etienne LaForge picked their way over coils of rope, dodged taut lines and shuddering canvas, and settled themselves beside me.

“That is better.” Mr. Hill sighed with relief, and dropped his hands to his sides. The gusts of wind in this part of the vessel were greatly diminished in relation to the bow. “I never wear my wig at sea if I can help it; but circumstances this morning must dictate the strictest attention to propriety. One cannot present a ragged appearance before Admiral Hastings.”

“You look very well, sir,” I assured him. “You shall disgrace no one in your present guise.”

Etienne LaForge raised one eyebrow. “Is it not the custom for surgeons to look pitiful and go in tatters? I had thought it was requisite to appear as the dregs of humanity, a testament to impoverished circumstance.”

“Surgeons are a mixed lot, I warrant you,” replied Mr. Hill equably. “Five drunkards for every sober man, most without the scantiest learning, and not a few fleeing charges of murder at home. But you have seen the same in the French Navy, surely?”

“Zut,”
cried Monsieur LaForge, “you ask me to impugn the honour of the French? Never! Besides, I cannot claim to be a real surgeon. I am versed in the physical sciences, not the sawing of bones; I was pressed into service aboard that ship, and know very little of the navy, French or otherwise.”

“Aha!” said Mr. Hill with satisfaction. “I thought there was something peculiar in your air, sir. Too much the gentleman to be merely a sawbones—there was the matter of your attire, that handsome walking-stick, and all those books you brought from the
Manon.
Great intellect is not often wanted aboard ship.”

“Nor evident in the conduct of its sailing,” LaForge retorted. “That is one blow to French honour I may freely give.”

I remembered that the same bitterness had marked his views of the dead captain, Porthiault. LaForge had called him a fool, and evinced no regret at the man's violent passing. He wished, as well, to remain in England rather than return to France. Life under the Monster's claws must be brutal beyond enduring.

“I myself fell in with the Navy purely as a view to research, you know,” continued Mr. Hill. “I am a passionate ornithologist, and one cannot stay at home and hope to master the subject. Was the
Manon
your first berth?”

“Yes,” returned LaForge abruptly, “and I pray God it may prove my last Having seen the inside of Wool House, I have no
grande envk
to see the rest of the world.”

“And where in France do you call home,
monsieur?”
I enquired.

“The Haute Savoie,” he replied, “not far from the Swiss border. It is a beautiful country, quite unlike your England.”

“And yet you wish to exchange the one for the other,” I rejoined, stung.

“Beauty is not the sole recommendation for a
méthode de vivre,”
he said. “Whether I remain in this country, or flee to another, I am not likely to see my Haute Savoie again.”

This last was muttered in so low a tone, I could not be certain I had heard the man correctly; but when I would have begged his pardon, and asked him to repeat his words, he turned the conversation by exclaiming, “I commend you,
mademoiselle,
for an excellent sailor.
Votes avez depied matin.
No sickness, no cries of womanly fear at every movement of the boat—it is in your blood, yes? You enjoy the sea as your indomitable brother?” He gestured at Frank, who was still engrossed in the matter of sails.

“Who may regard the constant life of the waves and be unmoved,
monsieur?
Who may witness the ebb and flood of the tide and not yearn to be carried far from shore, to know the multitude of peoples and places about the globe?” I enquired wistfully. “I should dearly love a man's experience of the sea, but must be content with stories of my brothers' wanderings.”

The master of the hoy shouted suddenly to his mate; the canvas was reefed, and the vessel slowed as it turned. We had achieved the entrance to Portsmouth harbour once more—to starboard, the ships at anchor off Spithead; to larboard, the mass of buildings tumbling towards the quay. Within the sheltered port itself were anchored a few men o' war. One of these, I knew, must be the
Valiant,
with its signal flag for court-martial fluttering at the mizzen.

“And there, I presume, sit the rest of the
Manon's
complement,” observed Etienne LaForge wryly.

My eyes were drawn to the massive stone prison that rose forbiddingly above Portsmouth—a prison in which perhaps hundreds of French sailors languished in expectation of exchange. I had not spared it a thought on Monday. Were the men within ill and despairing? And had they anyone to write their letters?

“Steady, Jane,” my brother said at my elbow as the hoy dropped anchor. “You will not scold us if we do not accompany you to the quay. Our course lies with Admiral Hastings's ship—the
Valiant,
just to larboard there. The irregularity of LaForge's circumstance is such that we ought not to delay in paying our respects.”

“Of course,” I replied with intrepidity, as though the experience of two days on the water had made me a seasoned sailor. Frank paid off the hoy while Mr. Hill handed me into the cockleshell of a skiff; Monsieur LaForge's hands, after all, were bound.

I
TOOK TWO WRONG TURNINGS BEFORE I PETITIONED FOR
aid, and found my way at last into Lombard Street. Once there, I managed to distinguish the Seagrave household from its companions in the uniform row of small cottages. This is a more remarkable feat than it sounds, for all passage of the narrow lane and entrance to the residence were blocked by a stately and expensive carriage. Two sets of arms—both unknown to me—were empalled on the panels, surmounted by the bloody gauntlet of the baronet.
¹
Not all of Louisa Seagrave's

acquaintance among the Great had ceased to notice her, it seemed.

I hesitated on the paving-stones before the door. If Mrs. Seagrave already entertained a visitor, I could scarcely be wanted. I did not like the duty that awaited me in any case, and should relish the opportunity to avoid it. The lady must be presently in a pitiable state, and the visit of a relative stranger might oppress rather than sustain her. Surely, if the lady of a baronet had come to call—

All these excuses and more flooded into my mind; but I will confess that I was troubled most by Mary's careless suggestion that Mrs. Seagrave was going mad. Bodily illness I may face without blenching, and all manner of infirmity or dereliction; but a soul unsound in her mind is the most terrifying of spectacles. My own brother George had been born without his full wits, and was banished while still a child to the care of strangers paid well to maintain him. We rarely saw him, and spoke of him still less. I glanced over my shoulder at all the bustle of Lombard Street, the carters shouting for passage against the claims of the elegant equipage, the maidservants trudging over the wet stones in their patterns. When I looked back at the Seagraves' door, the choice was made. Louisa Seagrave was standing at the window, staring at me.

I had taken passage down the Solent. I could not turn from a fellow-creature in torment. I smiled at her, stepped up to the door, and pulled once upon the bell.

The door was immediately flung open by two dark-haired boys who scuffled and shoved at each other in their haste to be first to greet the visitor: Charles and Edward Seagrave. Charles's stock was undone and trailing down his shirtfront; Edward, the younger child, had a bright smear of jam across his forehead. A hunk of bread torn from a loaf was still clutched in his fist.

“Have you any news of Papa?” he demanded without preamble. “Has he been akidded?”

“
Acquitted
, you imbecile,” retorted Charles. “Of course he has! Papa could never be guilty of murder, whatever Nancy says.” His large grey eyes, heavily lashed and startlingly like his mother's, turned full upon me. “I've seen you before. You came with Papa's captain friend. You'll be wanting Mum—only she's shut up with Aunt Templeton, the old carcase.”

“I won't go into Kent!” Edward cried shrilly, and dashed his bread at my feet. Involuntarily, I stepped backwards off the threshold. “Not without Papa! Aunt Templeton is a
monster?

A delicate clearing of a throat—apologetic and halfhearted—alerted me to the presence of a third person in the dimly-lit hall. I craned my head around the two boys—Edward was now crying bitterly, and Charles was berating him in furious whispers—and glimpsed the shining domed head of an elderly man, exquisitely dressed in silk knee breeches and a coat of black superfine.

“I beg your pardon,” he murmured, coming forward with one hand outstretched. He made me a deep bow in the fashion of thirty years ago, his right leg extended painfully behind him, then raised his quizzing glass to survey my figure. “I am Sir Walter Templeton. Forgive the … ah …
high spirits
… of the little boys. They are quite overset by events in this house. Quite unruly. There is no managing them. So my wife, Lady Templeton, assures me.”

His words, although stern, were uttered in such failing accents that I wondered at his true convictions: he might have been reciting a verse learned by heart.

“Not at all,” I replied. “I am quite used to boys and their antics. I am happy in the possession of no less than six nephews at present, and shall undoubtedly be blessed with more.”

“How very fortunate,” Sir Walter managed. “I was never so happy as to possess a child of any kind. It has been … a great sorrow.” He glanced down at young Charles, and his elderly face creased in an angelic smile, rendering his countenance unexpectedly carefree and childlike.

“Uncle!” cried Edward. “You promised that we should make paper ships today, and launch them off Sally Port!”

“So I did,” he declared, and laid a hand upon Edward's shoulder. Then casting a furtive glance at me, he added, “I cannot like the oppression of the household at such a time. I thought it best to divert the children with a little harmless sport.”

“Excellent notion,” I agreed—and would have said more, but that the door at the far end of the entrance hall was thrust open with a bang, and the housemaid Nancy hastened forward, her one good eye balefully upon me.

“Leave yer card!” she barked. “The Missus is seeing no one today, as any fool with a heart should know. Disgraceful, to call at such a time, with the Master about to swing at the yardarm!”

“He's not!” cried Charles angrily.

Nancy rounded upon the boy with her hand raised, and found her wrist firmly seized by Sir Walter Temple ton.

“That will do, my girl,” he said in a voice somewhat stronger than previous. “Pray be so good as to present the lady's card to Mrs. Seagrave.”

The maid no doubt intended a stinging rebuke, but Sir Walter had released her and was already steering the two boys firmly towards the kitchen, muttering in quiet tones about the Sally Port, and the necessity of fetching a quantity of paper from the nursery. I proffered the offending card, and grudgingly, the maid took it.