Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House (29 page)

cont.

~

B
EFORE PARTING,
I
ENQUIRED OF NELL RIVERS HER
direction, and learned that she was staying with another woman—a confederate in her trade—who lived in one of the dense streets running from Orchard Lane, not far from her father's house. It was convenient, she said, for the Bosun's Mate to look in on the children when she could not be there—and I gathered this must be often. Nell had quitted her own lodgings in terror that the lady in the mysterious coach might return to finish her off. She would not be charged with having exposed her blameless little 'uns, she added, to harm.

I forbore from suggesting that she had already done so, for most of their young lives; and commended her to caution. I urged her to plead an indisposition with the proprietress of the Mermaid's Tail, that she might better avoid her constant brush with strangers; danger could appear in any form. But she shook her head in stubborn refusal.

“I'd lose my place, miss, and they're not easy to come by. You've no notion how many women'd fight for a chance at the Mermaid's Tail. Murder 6r no, I must put bread in the children's mouths.”

“You said that the lady in the coach was very fine,” I attempted. “Can you describe her?”

“I didn't see her face,” Nell answered. “She wore a black veil over all—heavy lace—and her pelisse was something dark. She was inside the carriage, and the lamps was blown out; I only caught a snatch of her cloak and a gloved hand as she opened the door.”

Either the woman had doused the spermaceti candles in her globes, or she possessed oil lamps that guttered and smoked and suffocated from want of air. It was a problem common enough; but in this case, looked too much like design. The lady had intended to go unnoticed in the environs of Orchard Lane.

“Eustace went right up to the steps and said, 'My lady,' like she were a princess or summat; and she answered in a voice that told me she were his master, all right. It was low and firm, like she were used to giving orders. 'Get in,' she says; T have not much time.' And he got in.”

“What about the nags?” my faithful Jenny demanded. “Did you not notice them? How many, and what colour?”

“Four, I think,” said Nell in doubt, “and dark. But I've never paid too much mind to a horse.”

It was hardly a hack chaise in local use; they were drawn by at most two horses, sometimes one alone. It must have been a private carriage, or one hired post at a coaching inn along the road. The entire matter was a puzzle; I could not believe that a woman had garroted Lieutenant Chessyre in her own equipage, much less cast him from the same into the Ditches behind the Walls.

“And you noticed nothing upon the carriage itself?” I pressed, without very much hope. It had obviously been pitch black in the lane in the middle of the night, and the lady had depended upon this to increase her anonymity.

“Naught but the diamond painted on the side,” said Nell as an afterthought, “with the fist in the glove.”

The fist in the glove
The bloody gauntlet accorded a baronet. I had seen one only days before, emblazoned on a coach that stood before Tom Seagrave's door. Lady Temple ton's equipage

“M
ISS
A
USTEN!”

The voice came from the paving-stones opposite, as I made to cross to French Street. Mr. Hill, bereft of his companion of the morning. I had searched the Quay steps for Charles and Edward Seagrave, to no avail; I was desperate to be at home, in order to consult with my brother regarding Nell Rivers's rambling account; but I could not deny the impulse to enquire after Monsieur LaForge. I bade Jenny return to East Street, and her long-neglected duties in Mrs. Davies's household, and made for Mr. Hill's spare figure.

“Good day to you, sir. How did our patient pass the night?”

“Far better than we had reason to hope. I sent you word this morning, Miss Austen, but must conclude that the messenger found you from home.” He peered at me kindly. “You hoped for a last sight of him? I am afraid I must disappoint you there. He is gone.”

“Gone?”
My throat constricted. “But I thought… you said that he passed the night…”

“LaForge was taken away with the rest of them this morning, at Sir Francis's orders.” The surgeon pursed his lips in a grimace of frustration. “I cannot like the decision, but in this, I am utterly powerless. Sir Francis
is
the Transport Board, and before him I must bow.”

“Then LaForge is not dead! Thank Heaven! Your purgatives and emetics did some good!”

“Yes,” agreed Mr. Hill thoughtfully, “and I should never have attempted them were it not for you. I suspected—I feared the matter was one of poison; but I could not believe the evidence of my eyes. As every physical scientist must, however, I credit the result of my own experiment.”

“You believe, then, that he was deliberately poisoned?”

“It was not a case of food gone bad,” he said, “nor yet of an arsenic intended for Wool House's rats, ingested in error. His food—and his food alone—was tainted by something I have yet to name. I am as certain of that, as I am that the poor man lives. And I confess it disturbs me greatly in my mind. This threat to his life can have been no accident. It came too swiftly upon the heels of his testimony in Captain Seagrave's court-martial.”

“You have questioned the Marines?”

Mr. Hill shrugged. “I have. They observed nothing untoward, and all stoutly maintain that no one but ourselves was permitted to enter Wool House. By ourselves, I would include, of course, your brother and Mrs. Braggen.”

“Then the Marines are in error,” I declared with heat. “Last evening, Sir Francis Farnham told me that he had visited the place the previous day. It was then he determined upon the removal of the prisoners to Greenwich.”

“Greenwich?” Mr. Hill stared at me strangely. “Our patients are not gone to Greenwich, Miss Austen. They have been removed to that hulk lying at anchor in Southampton Water you may see from the quay—a rotting, foetid, and unwholesome berth if ever I saw one. It has been commissioned as a prison hulk, under the command of Captain Smallwood. An excellent fellow, but an unenviable post”

“A prison hulk?” I gasped. “But that is madness! Sir Francis told me expressly last evening that all the prisoners were to be removed to the naval hospital at Greenwich!”

“Not while the gaol-fever hangs over them,” Mr. Hill grimly replied. “Greenwich would never tolerate the threat of infection to its good British sailors. Sir Francis claims that he had no choice but to isolate the sufferers; all of Southampton was alarmed at the possibility of epidemic. The French could not remain the longer in Wool House.”

“He lied to me,” I muttered furiously. “He made me look a fool, and himself a paragon, before the better part of my present acquaintance.”

I turned and stared out at the ghostly ship, dismasted and forlorn at its anchorage in the Solent “Etienne LaForge has been consigned to
that
misery? A man as ill as he?”

“I promised him I would row out to the hulk tomorrow, and see how he did,” the surgeon said. “He was quite broken at his removal; he commended his books and walking-stick to my care, and went into the longboat as though it were a tumbril of execution.”

“I should not give a farthing for his chances,” I said bitterly.

“And I should not take your wager, if you did,” replied Mr. Hill.

I
FOUND
F
LY SITTING IN THE PARLOUR WITH HIS BOOTS
off and his damp socks steaming gently before the fire. He was alone—Mrs. Foote, I was made to understand, had very kindly called for Mary and carried her off for a visit to Highfield House—and he held a scrap of paper in his hands. His forehead was furled in puzzlement or dismay. I judged him to be perusing his missive for a second time.

“What is it?” I enquired as I came to a halt in the doorway. Whatever headlong rush of accusation and argument I had intended was quelled. “A letter from Tom Seagrave? Has he repented of his harsh words?”

Fly shook his head. “The note is from Tom's wife— and I am afraid I cannot make it out at all. She writes remarkably ill, Jane—a most impenetrable fist If I judge correctly, she seems to think her boys have run away to sea! But that is absurd!”

He tossed me the single piece of paper. I took it with a sense of foreboding, and scanned it swiftly. Louisa Seagrave's handwriting was almost illegible: whether from the weight of her anxiety, or the effects of Dr. Wharton's Comfort, the words were cramped into a scrawl. The meaning, however, was clear enough.

“Naturally they have run away to sea,” I retorted, and thrust the letter back at Frank. “What boy of pluck would fail to do the same? With a father consigned to gaol and a mother enslaved to opium, I should be moved to risk even so dreadful an institution as the Navy myself. You shall probably find them aboard that Indiaman riding at anchor in Southampton Water.”

“The
Star of Bengal?”

“I caught a glimpse of them on the Quay not an hour since. They wore cockades and dark blue cloaks, Frank, and each carried a seaman's chest upon his shoulders.”

“Devil take them both!” he burst out. “Young cubs! That ship is due to sail with the evening tide!”

“Naturally. Charles and Edward are not Lucky Tom's sons for nothing. They meant to be long gone by the time their mother discovered their absence. Poor litde souls—they
shall
be disappointed!”

But my brother did not vouchsafe a reply. He was already pulling on his boots.

F
RANK WAS GONE FROM
M
RS
. D
AVIES'S ESTABLISHMENT
a full two hours and thirteen minutes by the mantel clock, during which time I turned about the room in restless impatience, my brain divided between a natural concern for the welfare of the litde Seagraves, and the most active anxiety on Etienne LaForge's part Every minute spared for Charles and Edward, must be another moment of liberty denied the Frenchman. I attempted to bend my activity to the completion of a small garment for Mary's child—I took up and set down no fewer than three books—and still my gaze would travel inevitably to the ticking clock.

At last, when the hands had reached twenty-five minutes past two o'clock, I caught the bustle of entry in the front hall and heard Fly's voice raised stridently in a demand for brandy. It must have been perishingly cold upon Southampton Water today.

“I had to search into the very hold of the ship,” he declared with barely suppressed rage as he entered the parlour, “and with the quantity of stuff still sitting in that Indiaman's bowels—salt pork, hardtack, biscuit, water casks, calicoes, a full complement of rats and I know not what else—it was tedious, unpleasant work, I assure you. Captain Dedlock insisted that no boys had come aboard, as well he ought—the Seagraves had paid off their ferryman to get their trunks on board, and come up themselves through the chains. They hid themselves in the hull, determined not to be found.
¹

“But you
did
discover them?”

“Only by resorting to the oldest trick in the book,” Frank retorted. “I waved a burning piece of sacking through the open hatch and shouted
Fire!
until I was hoarse. They fairly tripped over themselves in their anxiety to achieve the air.”

I could not suppress a smile. “I hope you were not too hard on them, Fly.”

“I whipped them soundly with the bosun's switch, and then carried them back to the Dolphin. Neither Charles nor Edward shall have the use of his backside for several days, and they shall live in terror of naval justice for the rest of their lives. Or so it is to be hoped.”

Jenny appearing at that moment with a large serving of brandy (“for medicinal purposes, the Cap'n having got wet through in all this cold”), my brother sighed his gratitude and could manage nothing more for several

moments. At length, setting aside his empty glass, he cocked a quizzical eyebrow at me.

“What stealthy business carried you to the Quay this morning in any case, Jane? For I am not so much of a flat as to believe you were merely taking exercise when you espied the young Seagraves.”

I told him then every particle of intelligence I possessed regarding Nell Rivers, and her strange tale of Eustace Chessyre's end. My brother could no more account for the insertion of a woman—much less a woman in a baronet's coach—into the business than I. Rather than dwell upon the unaccountable, however, I moved quickly to the comprehensible: Sir Francis Farnham's perfidy regarding the prisoners of Wool House, and the manner in which I had been made to look a fool.

“It is active malevolence on Sir Francis's part,” I told Frank indignantly. “Sir Francis has determined to destroy those poor men by consigning them to that hulk. They should all of them be tucked up in warm bedchambers, while instead they lie piteously below decks.”

“Recollect, Jane, that most of those poor men, as you call them, have spent a lifetime in the hold of a ship,” observed my brother mildly. “They may feel more at home in a slung hammock than they should in the best featherbed you could provide!”

“I doubt they have often benefitted from the choice,” I retorted.

“And I must agree with Sir Francis,” Frank went on, “that our convalescent British sailors should not be exposed to gaol-fever. We are too often in want of good men, to lose them in saving the French. Though I am sorry for our friend the surgeon—who seemed a good enough sort of chap—I must say that Sir Francis shows excellent sense.”

“A prison hulk, Fly! Should you like to lie in one yourself, off Boulogne or Calais?”

“I might do a good deal worse,” he rejoined. “I know Captain Smallwood, who has command of that hulk, and I should vouch for his goodwill and integrity without hesitation. He shall not like his duty, but by God, he shall do it!”

“Hurrah for Captain Smallwood.” I sighed.

With a grunt, Frank pulled off his damp boots and tossed them against the fender. A faint frown was lodged above his eyes. “You do not suspect
Sir Francis Farnham
of having tainted the French surgeon's food, while inspecting Wool House? Surely that is carrying your grudge too far.”