Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House (15 page)

“And determined that he had flown. The room was neat as a pin. It looked as though the man had been absent some hours already. The bed had not been slept in. There was not so much as a change of clothes, Jane, in the wardrobe. I rounded upon poor Fortescue and demanded to know whether he had mistaken the room! The fellow was quite put out. He had begun to suspect that he had been bilked of gold; for Chessyre had not settled the tenth part of his account, I understand.”

“—And has left any number of enemies behind him, but no direction for future enquiries!”

“He did, however, leave
this”
My brother flourished a crumpled sheet of paper as though it might have been his sword. The sheet had been torn in eighths, and laboriously pieced together with sealing wax. I took it from Frank and frowned over the scrawl of smeared blue ink.

“When
will
you heroes learn to command a legible fist?”

“When we are afforded a desk that does not heave and roll with every swell.”

I glanced up. “You believe this to have been written at sea?”

“Method, Jane!” he declared patiently. “Observe the heading.”

“His Majesty s Prize
Manon,
in the Bay of Biscay, 13 January 1807,
” I murmured.” 'His Majesty's Prize'— this was written after the French ship had struck! I suppose it is in Chessyre's hand?”

Frank shrugged. “I suspect as much. I found it discarded among some other papers in his room. Give it here, and I shall attempt to read it aloud. It is a monkey's tangle; I am in some hopes you may make sense of it.”

I have done all that was required, and congratulate myself that I shall not disgrace you. It is the sole aspect of the affair I may regard without distaste, for the perfidy—

I write to inform you of the recent action between His Majesty's frigate
Stella Maris,
commanded by Captain Thomas Seagrave, and the French vessel
Manon,
off Corunna on the eleventh of this month—a date that shall live forever in my mind as the death of Honour—

I have the honour to inform you that the paltry sum, the benefices you pledged, are as nothing when measured against the diminution of Self I have been required to endure, and that if we cannot come to a more precise understanding, as to the value of a man's Honour, however sacrificed and besmirched—

There was no signature affixed, and no direction.

“A letter from one unknown to another,” I murmured, “and certainly unsent. He never intended it should be read.”

“No.”

“But this is vital, Frank! It assures us that Chessyre worked against his captain at the behest of another. Taken in company with the French surgeon's history, it smacks strongly of a plot. There cannot be two opinions on that point!”

“It was not a letter for Admiral Hastings to read, that much is certain. Though the author mentions the engagement, his thread descends swiftly into recrimination.”

I handed the piecemeal sheet carefully to my brother. “I must confess that I feel pity for the man. He is so divided in his soul! The writing smacks of torment. It is all pride and impudence, contempt and self-loathing. His conscience is uneasy. He has done
that
with which he cannot be reconciled; and he would blame the hand that moved him.”

“Save your pity for Tom Seagrave,” Frank told me brusquely. “Chessyre suffers from shame and pride, certainly—but he is perverse in his desire to bargain with his mover. Having sacrificed his Honour, as he puts it, he is ready to profit from the loss.”

“A man who fears the future may bargain with the very Devil.” I looked at my brother thoughtfully. “And you did say that he seemed mortally afraid. Do you think that he sent some version of this letter?”

“Not from the
Manon,
certainly, though this was written at sea. He was bound for port himself, and must arrive before any missive he could have pressed upon a homebound ship. I wonder that he wrote it at all.”

“Perhaps he merely attempted to order his thoughts.”

“A draft, you mean? Of a letter he later posted from Portsmouth? It is possible, I suppose.”

“His employer—if such we may call him—may have demanded the most immediate intelligence of Chessyre's deed.”

“I comprehend, now, why he said so little during our interview yesterday. He could not speak for himself; he moved under the prohibition of silence. His honour, we must assume, extends so far as the protection of his conspirator.”

“Then why did he call upon you here, Frank? It cannot have been with a view to reiterating his refusal.”

Frank glanced at me swiftly. “You think the man experienced a change of sentiment?”

“Why else consult with a superior he had spurned but a few hours before?”

“Remember that Chessyre is a mercenary creature. He may have thought to put a price on Thursday's testimony.”

“So much coin for Seagrave's guilt—for he must already have been well paid for the construction of the evidence—and so much more, for a subsequent avowal of Seagrave's innocence?”

“It might assuage his conscience, at the same moment it lined his purse.”

“And he could not hope for advancement in his naval career, did he recant of his charge,” I added thoughtfully. “Even did Chessyre profess himself confused— mistaken—unwitting in his accusation—he must be regarded as highly unsteady by the panel. He must be cashiered for calumny at least.”

My brother was silent an interval. Then he sighed. “I am too simple a man for prognostication. Chessyre is fled, Jane; and what Chessyre intends for the morrow must remain in question.”

I sipped the last of my chocolate. “We ought, nonetheless, to take measures against the worst that Chessyre might do.”

“Your French surgeon?” Frank cocked his head. “Very well. I shall go this morning to Wool House and petition Mr. Hill for the loan of his patient.”

“Will Admiral Bertie consent?”

“Admiral Bertie is so adamant in his refusal to credit any Frenchman of disinterested good, that he warns me soundly to be on my guard, and thinks it very likely your surgeon shall not receive a hearing before Seagrave's court. We can but try.”

I set aside my breakfast plate without further ado. “Then I shall accompany you.”

“There is not the slightest need.”

“On the contrary,” I retorted. “I have been ordered by Martha to procure a box for the theatre tonight; and Wool House lies in my way. You cannot thwart me in this, Fly. Mrs. Jordan is to play.”
²

“Mrs. Jordan!” he cried. “And poor Mary has not seen the inside of a theatre in weeks. It was always her chief delight I secured the promise of her affection,

you know, during the interval of a play at Ramsgate; and must always accord the theatre my heartfelt gratitude.”

“Then it is decided-You shall make another couple of our party, and I shall walk out with you now in the direction of French Street. I only stay to discover my bonnet.”

“I hope Mary may not swoon,” Frank added. “The crush, you know, is likely to be fearful if Mrs. Jordan is to play.”

“Let her swoon, and welcome!” I said in exasperation. “A lady in an interesting condition has so few opportunities to shine in public; and Mary, in fainting charmingly, might divert the attention of all assembled from a royal mistress. Think what delights she shall have in store! A play, and a personal act of considerable distinction! When one is grown old, and sources of satisfaction are few, it is much to relive one's youth in recounting such a tale.”

¹
Nunnery
was the cant term for a bordello. Its proprietor was called an “abbess.”—
Editor's note.

²
Dorothea Jordan was one of the most accomplished comic actresses of the late Georgian period, a regular performer at Covent Garden and Drury Lane. For many years the mistress of William, Duke of Clarence (later William IV), she bore him ten children before their parting in 1811.—
Editor's note.

Chapter 9
Scenes Played in French Street

cont.

~

I
MOUNTED THE STEPS TOWARDS MY ROOM IN SEARCH OF
my. bonnet, a parcel clutched to my breast. Martha was in the act of descending, and the staircase being narrow, one of us must be forced to give way. I elected the office, and pressed myself flat against the wall.

“I have ordered of Mrs. Davies a good dinner,” she told me, “and begged that it might be early, on account of Mrs. Jordan. I do hope we may secure good seats! Do you think that your mother might be persuaded to make another of the party?”

“I do not think wild dogs could keep her from French Street. It is exactly the sort of amusement calculated to drive her from her bed.”

“She has been very low,” Martha mused, “but I cannot make out any symptoms of decline. Perhaps a change of season, coupled with a change of domicile, will offer amendment.”

“Was she very pitiful when you begged admittance this morning?

“I counted only three sighs and one dab at the eyes,” Martha replied, “but you know that talk of an early dinner must always raise her spirits.”

“True. Had I recollected the fact earlier, we all might have spent the winter months in tolerable good humour.”

I have known Martha Lloyd since I was fourteen. It was in 1789 that her mother, a clergyman's widow, settled in Deane and rented from my father the neglected parsonage; and though the Lloyds very soon removed again, to Ibthorp, the bond of our friendship endured. It is true, as Mary says, that Martha is ten years my senior, and might be supposed to have found a better companion in a girl closer to her own age; but there has hardly been a time when Martha and I did not share a good joke, or chatter about our acquaintance, or dispose of our friends in marriages they should never have thought of for themselves. Martha is as much my sister as Cassandra could be—more, in some respects, because she so often shares my turn of mind. We two have lain awake far into the morning, after many a ball, abusing everyone within our acquaintance, and have never failed to move each other to laughter.

But if I cherish her for her ready understanding and convivial spirit, I must acknowledge that her true value lies far beyond these. Martha, at forty, has honed and measured her strength. She has watched her younger sisters marry and have the joy of children; she has presided over the deathbed of her mother, and seen her buried; moved alone and penniless into the world, to take up a home without the slightest assurance of its permanence; and never has she complained or expressed a wish to exchange her lot.

“Frank intends to walk into French Street, though not so far as the theatre,” I informed this paragon of female virtue. “Should you like to join us?”

“With pleasure. Too many hours confined in a carriage must cripple a woman of advanced years; I should benefit from the exercise.”

“We might return by way of Bugle Street,” I added thoughtfully, “and look in upon the house in Castle Square. I cannot convince myself of its being habitable without the constant reassurance of my own eyes.”

“Surely the renovations are finished! Or have the painters been too often pressed into our neighbour's service?”

The Marchioness of Lansdowne—the neighbour whom Martha chuses to regard so familiarly—presides over the Gothic folly immediately adjacent to our house in Castle Square. She is everywhere acknowledged as a former courtesan, and as such, is permitted an eccentricity of behaviour that should be shocking in a female gently bred. She drives a diminutive team of eight ponies, each pair tinier than the next, and is much given to rouging her cheeks. Her husband the Marquis has taken a kindly interest in the Austen project of renovation—as naturally he must, being our landlord. The Marchioness's favoured house-painter has been pressed upon us for the improvement of our rooms. It is a family joke that when not required about the Marquis's walls, the painter must often be tending to the Marchioness's face.

Martha peered at me narrowly. “Whatever are you clutching to your breast, Jane? A foundling in swaddling clothes, that you intend to lay at the Marchioness's door?”

“Eggs,” I replied. “Mary
would
buy several dozen in the market yesterday, and now finds that they bring on bilious attacks. She begged that they be hidden from sight as soon as may be. And as Frank intends a visit to Wool House, I thought they might better be used in treating the sick.”

“Frank at Wool House? And after such a demonstration of temper?” Martha's eyebrows rose. “That
is
a reversal. You know that I can never ignore an opportunity to observe your brother reformed and penitent. Naturally I shall come.”

I
WAS BETTER PREPARED TODAY FOR THE STREAMING
stone walls and the dreadful stench of illness. The surgeon Mr. Hill chanced to be standing by the oak doors as we entered; and the turn of his expression at the sight of me was painful to behold. It was too much like relief to be mistaken for his usual reserve, though it vanished as swiftly as it appeared. I knew, then, how much the surgeon felt the Frenchmen's fate in his heart— how much it galled him to be able to do so little.