Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House (21 page)

“She is anything but,” I replied evenly. “Her wisdom in revealing so much to a relative stranger must, of course, be disputed; but I believe her to have spoken from an agony of spirit that would not be gainsaid. Remember that she never accused Tom Seagrave of the French captain's murder. She is most unhappy in her union; she cannot respect or confide in the man who shares her fate; she does not approve of his way of life, and will not entrust her children to his care at sea. So much is certain. It remains for us to determine how much weight to accord her words.”

“None at all, if I am to be consulted,” Frank muttered belligerendy. “She is a shrew and an ungrateful wretch, and Seagrave should be quit of her directly.”

“Frank—”

He turned upon me. “You cannot take her part, Jane. You cannot wish the man to hang, simply because a boy of seven was killed in battle. Boys of every age are dropped over the side; it is the nature of war.”

“Then women are well out of it,” I retorted bitterly. “You must not apply the coldness of a man's heart, trained to command and to hurl lives into the breach, with the tender feelings of a mother.”

“Louisa Seagrave has done the reverse,” Frank declared, “and the application is ill-judged. I know for a fact that Tom was most seriously cut-up about young Carruthers's loss; he felt the lad's death acutely. But if he were to feel every such death in excess of its due—”

“—he should be incapable of command,” I concluded bleakly. “I quite see your point”

We sailed up the Solent with the wind on the quarter and the threat of storm ominous at our backs. I could not be easy; my mind had received new information. I considered of my brother's life in a harsher light, I knew, of course, that he was daily witness to scenes of brutality; that he lived in the closest proximity with the baser instincts of man; that he was constantly exposed to mortal danger. But his love for the naval life had superseded every objection in the hearts of his family. We saw that Frank could not do otherwise than he had done, and the honour he had won seemed recompense enough for sacrifice. I had never considered, however, that he must play at God. Each action—each decision as captain to engage the Enemy—must bring with it the certainty of death for some among his men. My brother lived with the consequences as surely as he lived by the noon reckoning. I could not gaze at his beloved profile—already aged unnaturally by privation and war—without feeling equal parts pity and pride confounded in my heart.

We sailed on in silence for a period, the rough seas slapping and tugging at the hoy's bow. Mr. Hill fell sound asleep, with his hands clasped over his breast; Etienne LaForge sat slumped by his side, looking quite ill. It was probable that the excitement and fatigue of the morning had sapped his strength, already delicate from prolonged fever; he could not achieve Wool House too soon. I burned with indignation at the thought of the Frenchman's incarceration; his precarious health demanded a decent room with clean linen, a steady fire, and adequate victuals. I must speak to Admiral Bertie. The surgeon should be housed as an officer, in the home of a naval family. Perhaps Mr. Hill—or even Mrs. Davies—might find the man a room….

At my side Frank expelled a heavy sigh. “Lord knows I should prefer that Tom carry a
tendre
for a lady not his wife, than to suppose him a murderer—but it seems an unhappy choice.”

“You were ready enough to believe the latter while disputing in the naval yard.”

“Perhaps I was over-hasty there. A lesser man might kill for vengeance, but Tom did not earn his reputation through impulse and unreason. I should be surprised, upon reflection, did your Frenchman's tale of rank betrayal overrule Seagrave's good sense.”

“This murder was not, however, the act of a hasty man,” I observed thoughtfully. “Death by impulse requires a knife or a pistol—something carried against attack, and deployed without thought, in the heat of passion or self-defence. But a garotte—”

“—would suggest that Chessyre's killer came upon him from behind. That he crept up by stealth, and slipped the iron band deliberately about his neck, and pulled it taut. Yes, I quite seize your meaning, Jane. The murder was determined, organised, and carried out with despatch. That much is of a piece with Tom's usual tactics in war.”

“Then a casual brigand we must discard. Three choices remain to us,” I concluded. “Either Chessyre was killed by his companion in plotting, to prevent him divulging all ?? knew; or he was killed by Tom Seagrave, from vengeance. Or lastly by one of Seagrave's friends, who thought to tip the scales of justice in the Captain's favour by weighting them with the corpse of his accuser.”

“I cannot like the character of such a friend.”

“But can you put a name to him, Frank? Some old shipmate of Seagrave's, perhaps?”

My brother shook his head in the negative.
“Excepting, naturally—yourself,” I said.

O
UR RETURN TO
M
RS
. D
AVIES'S LODGING HOUSE WAS
attended with unexpected ceremony.

As the hoy dropped anchor in Southampton Water, and the skiff set out from the Quay to meet us, I observed a singular figure clutching the gunwales amidships. He was tall and spare—so spare that his narrow back curved like a fishhook over his protruding knees, and his thin wrists sprang from his coat sleeves like stalks of spring rhubarb. The master of the hoy, in observing this apparition's approach, muttered under his breath.

I'll not be taking that delicate article anywhere on the Water, Cap'n, and I'll thank'ee to tell him so.”

His eyes narrowed against the wind, Frank clapped the master on the shoulder. “I doubt that gentleman has a voyage in view.”

The skiff came alongside; the oarswomen shipped their blades; and the reedy fellow glanced at us beseechingly from under his broad-brimmed hat.

“Captain Austen, I assume? Miss Austen?” He evinced no interest in Mr. Hill or Etienne LaForge, who were waiting patiendy for a seat in the skiff.

“You have the advantage of me, sir,” Frank replied.

The gentleman ducked his head in acknowledgement. “Forgive me—I feel most unwell—that is, a trifle indisposed—the motion of the seas—” He swallowed convulsively and clutched once more at the skiff's sides. “I am Mr. Percival Pethering, Magistrate of Southampton, and I wish to speak with you, Captain, on a matter of utmost urgency.”

“Am I to suppose,” said Frank with undisguised amusement, “that you have braved the seas in order to apprehend me? Then shift your position, sir, that I might hand my sister into the skiff.”

“Naturally!” cried Pethering in an agony of consciousness. His hands remained fixed at the skiffs sides, his skeletal form immovable. “Only too happy to oblige! Provided, of course, that this cockle does not overturn….”

“And you do not attempt to stand upright, all will be well.” Frank avoided the satiric looks of the oarswomen, and placed his hand under my elbow. “Lighdy, Jane, lest Mr. Pethering be indisposed.”

I cast him a chiding look. Fly is merciless in his abuse of the lubbers everywhere about him; he cannot resist this natural tendency towards superiority in matters naval; but Pethering held a temporal power that warranted respect.

At the moment, however, the magistrate was incapable of taking offence. He was recumbent over the skiff's far side, being sick into the sea.

We managed to achieve the Water Gate Quay without further incident. My brother assisted Mr. Pethering— who was most unsteady on his feet—from the skiff before even myself. The magistrate stood upon the stone pier drawing great gusts of salutary air, as though life, in all its miseries and joys, was newly granted him.

Frank stepped easily to shore and bowed to the magistrate. “You are come upon the matter of Mr. Chessyre, I think?”

“I am, sir. You have learned of his brutal end already. But we shall defer our speech until the lady”—this, with a nod for me—“is safely returned to your lodgings.”

“My sister is entirely in my confidence, sir,” Frank told him stiffly.

“Pray do not regard me in the slightest, Mr. Pethering,” I said.

The magistrate hesitated. His small eyes shifted from Frank to myself, as though in the most acute indecision. Viewed in full, his countenance appeared drawn, his features sharp, his teeth very bad. I guessed him to be no older than myself, but the wispy tendrils of hair escaping from his hat suggested a man approaching his dotage. There was about Percival Pethering a pitiful air of ill-health, of seclusion within doors, of embarrassments nursed in the most painful solitude. He was not the sort for decisive action or lightning-swift thought.

“Very well,” he conceded abruptly. “We shall talk as we go, and save your wife the trouble of accommodating an interview.”

“You know of my wife?” Frank returned, with the first suggestion of unease.

“It was she who told me where you might be found. I have been waiting for the hoy's return this last hour at least. You may judge from that how serious is the case.”

“As murder must always be,” Frank observed.

I was in danger of being led away from our companions of the morning without so much as a farewell; I turned, and found the two surgeons preparing to cross from the Quay to the far paving-stones where Wool House loomed.

“Adieu, monsieur,”
I told LaForge

He looked very ill; but nonetheless he carried my gloved hand to his lips with an excess of courtier's gallantry. In this, as in everything, his manners belied the humbleness of his professed station; and I wondered again at his being in such a place and among such company.

“Mr. Hill,” I murmured to the surgeon, “we must contrive between us to improve Monsieur LaForge's circumstances. He ought to be exchanged at the earliest opportunity; but he is most pressing, my brother tells me, in his desire to remain in England. Cannot we secure a more salubrious lodging? He ought not to be allowed to sleep another night on those chill stone floors.”

“I quite agree,” Mr. Hill returned wryly, “but I fear in the case of a prisoner of war, comfort is the very last consideration. I shall write to Admiral Bertie tonight, and plead LaForge's case; your brother has requested that I should refer the Frenchman's desire to remain in this Kingdom to Bertie as well.”

“I shall urge Frank to write to the Admiralty. He is not without acquaintance among the Great. We shall see what determined activity may do.”

“Improvement, of whatever nature, cannot come too soon,” Mr. Hill observed. The shrewd narrow eyes flicked from my countenance to LaForge's. “Our colleague injustice has grown quite despondent since his appearance before the panel. Lowness of spirits cannot help a case of dubious health. I shall prescribe brandy as soon as I am within Wool House's doors.”

“You are very good,” I said with deep sincerity.

“Jane!” cried my brother. “We try Mr. Pethering's patience.”

Mr. Hill bowed; I curtseyed, and without another word turned to my brother and the magistrate.

Frank all but raced up the steep pitch of Southampton's High. He was considering, I knew, of Mary's anxiety—of her fears for himself, and of the magistrate's intent. Mr. Pethering proved unexpectedly equal to a sailor's brisk stride. I followed along in the wake of the two men, and bent all my effort at attending to the questions of one, and the replies of the other.

“May I enquire, Captain Austen, as to your conduct last night?” the magistrate began.

“My conduct? I was engrossed by the performance of Mrs. Jordan, in the French Street playhouse, as my sister and wife shall attest.”

“That play should have ended by half-past eleven, and all of you been returned to East Street by midnight at the latest. Did you stir from your home afterwards? Put the ladies down at the door and proceed alone to some haunt only you are aware of?”

“I did not, sir.”

“Do you generally display so domestic a devotion?”

“In general—yes. I am in the habit of rising at an early hour, Mr. Pethering, and such habits require a settled and tranquil life.” Frank's tone was easy enough; but I knew my brother, and found his words were watchful.

“I understand you sent an express messenger to Captain Seagrave's house in Portsmouth on Tuesday evening.”

“Seagrave is a very old acquaintance. I am often in communication with him—when we are both aground on dry land.”

“But an express—an
express
would argue a certain urgency, Captain Austen.”

“Would it?” Frank posed airily, as though constantly in the habit of spending more than he ought on his correspondence. “I confess that I am so often at sea, Mr. Pethering, that I am not able to keep abreast of the usual forms and charges of landsmen.”

“At sea. Yes, indeed. I imagine you must often be at sea. May I enquire, sir, as to the nature of the intelligence your express conveyed?”

“Gentlemen never look into the contents of each other's mail,” my brother replied with heat

The magistrate abruptly changed tack. “You have heard already of Chessyre's murder, though the body was discovered only this morning and you have been in Portsmouth all day. How, pray, did you learn of it?”

“In much the same manner, I imagine, that you learned of my express. From the mouths of innocent men. The messenger you sent to Portsmouth this morning was the agent of my discovery.”

The magistrate glanced sidelong, his appearance for all the world like that of a long-beaked marsh crane. “So you are not above perusing
my
correspondence, though I may know nothing of yours. I see how it is. But my message, Captain Austen, was for Admiral Hastings alone.”

“I was aboard the
Valiant
at the moment the Admiral learned of Chessyre's death. Your note was read aloud to all in attendance at the court-martial.”

“Your friend Seagrave's court-martial,” Mr. Pethering reiterated pointedly.

“I was not aware there was any other, sir.”

“You are deeply concerned in that unpleasant affair, Captain Austen. I wonder that you risk your reputation and standing—a man of your pronounced domestic virtue—in such a cause.”