Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House (5 page)

A
S THIS WAS MY FIRST VISIT TO
P
ORTSMOUTH
, F
RANK
was all enthusiasm in conducting me through the streets once we quitted the George. He had first come to the town as a boy of twelve, a hopeful scholar at the Royal Naval Academy; he had returned some part of every year thereafter, and must regard it as almost a home. He was longing, I knew, to gain the naval dockyard in order to observe the ships presently building in the stocks; to meet with old acquaintances and learn the latest intelligence of war; to finger lengths of cordage and brass carronades and talk with spirit of his views on gunnery. I had heard Frank's opinions on the subject before, and might have engaged in such a conversation, with a remarkable air of possessing knowledge well beyond my grasp—
Three broadsides every five minutes, and
better by G-d if we can manage it
—but Frank was inured this morning to the lures of his profession. He led me unswervingly from the broader main street, into a crooked little lane halfway down its extent, lined with steep and leaning houses shoddily-built. In one of these, we thought to find Captain Seagrave.

“I should mention,” Frank informed me as we stood upon the steps, “that Seagrave possesses a wife—a lady of birth and independent fortune. I believe she married to disoblige her family, however, and was cut off.”

I nodded once in comprehension. The door swung open to reveal the harassed visage of a girl in apron and cap, several strands of blond hair trailing down her reddened face. Remarkably, she bore a black patch over one eye.

“Missus says as how she's not at home,” this apparition supplied without preamble. “You may leave yer cards if you've a mind.”

“It is Captain Seagrave we seek, Frank said firmly. “Pray tell him that Captain Austen has called.”

“Yer can tell 'im yerself,” the slattern retorted.

“That will be all, Nancy.”

The maid skittered aside as though she had been prodded with a fire iron, to reveal an upright figure barely discernible among the shadows of the foyer. From his bearing alone—correct, unfussy, and economical in its containment—I should have known him instantly for an officer of the Royal Navy; but the smile that lit my brother's countenance was assurance enough.

Frank stepped forward and seized Captain Seagrave about the shoulders. “Tom! It does my heart good to see you!”

The man before us broke into a grin; he returned the pressure of Frank's hands with a clap of his own. “Austen! You rogue! I thought you well out of Portsmouth this age—on convoy duty to the Indies, some said, though I had heard you were relieved of the
Canopus.
Is Charles Yardley in command of her, then? She'll not be well served. Yardley's a craven fool.”

“You'll not hear me say you nay, Tom,” my brother replied with a laugh. “I might almost suspect the Admiralty of wishing the old
Canopus
at the bottom of the sea, in placing her in such hands. But it
has
been an age since we met!”

“Off Minorca, was it not? A year since?”

“More,” Frank replied grimly. “It was the thirty-first of October, 1805, and I had at last come out of Gibraltar in search of the Admiral's fleet I encountered you first among all the victors of that action.”

There was no need to distinguish
which
admiral the two men would discuss, or what action; with Nelson gone, the details of his passing were forever enshrined in glory.

“You look well, Frank,” Seagrave said in a softened tone. “I might almost believe that shore leave agrees with you. And you are married, I understand! Is this, then, the pretty bride you've brought to meet me?”

I blushed. The shadows of the foyer must be heavy, indeed, could Tom Seagrave flatter me so. This past December I achieved the age of one-and-thirty, and any bloom I might once have claimed has entirely gone off.

“Mary sends her most cordial greetings, to be sure,” Frank interposed, “—but at present, she is indisposed. May I present my sister to your acquaintance? Miss Austen, Captain Seagrave.”

I made my courtesy to the gentleman, and received his bow in return. Like so many officers of the Navy, Seagrave possessed a weathered face, deeply lined, with crow's-feet about the eyes from gazing long at the horizon; his hair was grizzled by the sun, his skin the color of mahogany. He was, I thought, a few years older than Frank; or perhaps his various fortunes had hardened his countenance in a manner that Frank had yet escaped. It was a handsome face, all the same, as a beast's carved in stone will forcibly draw the eye. In gazing upon it, I judged that Tom Seagrave was formed for command, and decisive action, and coolness in the extremity of battle; but having viewed his countenance, I could no longer dismiss the idea of the man shooting an enemy point-blank, in cold blood. By his looks, Seagrave required only sufficient provocation.

A door into the hall burst open at that moment, and two boys of perhaps six and eight rushed headlong into the room to fall in a tangle about Seagrave's ankles. From the open doorway there emanated a baby's insistent wail, and the tired voice of a woman attempting to hush it.

“Charles! Edward!” Seagrave cried as he hauled his sons to their feet. “Mind your manners. We have visitors. What will they think of you!”

“But, Papa!” the elder boy exclaimed. “Nancy says that the
Defiant
has signalled. She leaves the harbour for Spithead, and we must be on hand to see her go! Look, I have my spyglass from Malta. Cannot we run down to the Sally Port? She shall be gone if we do not make haste!”

“Please,
Papa!” the younger boy added.

“Go, then,” Seagrave said with good-natured impatience, “but mind you look after your brother, Charles. Edward—your boot is unfastened; you will be asprawl in the gutter, and you do not take care. I expect you both in time for dinner!”

Edward ducked around me; Frank made a teasing jab to corner Charles; and our little party was almost overrun as the two boys bowled through the door.

“They should be at sea by this time, Tom,” Frank said, looking after them thoughtfully. “Cannot you secure good places?”

Something in Seagrave's countenance hardened. “It is rather difficult at present,” he said abruptly. “Circumstances—”

For an instant, the grim spectre of the gallows hovered before all our eyes, though no one had yet dared to broach the subject of Seagrave's disgrace. A considered delicacy, I thought, prevented the two men from discussing the matter in the Captain's own lodgings, and before a lady. I hastened to turn the conversation.

“But they are full young, surely? Would their mother consent to part with them at so tender an age?”

“Pshaw!” Frank retorted with disgust. “I have known Young Gentlemen of five to come aboard. It is every stout lad's dearest wish to put to sea, Jane! If I am fortunate enough to have a son—”

“I wish to Heaven the boys were in the Indies at this very moment,” Seagrave said flady. “It would do them both good to be lashed to the t'gallants. They might even learn to read, Frank, from sheer boredom! God knows they learn little enough here!”

Frank laughed aloud, quite at home in all the squalor and noise of such a household, though it bore not the slightest resemblance to his own. Perhaps, however, it was very like to the confines of a ship—in which my brother had spent the better part of his life. Frank is nearly three-and-thirty; he went to sea (rather tardily, for the Navy) at the age of fourteen. Nineteen years is a considerable period in the life of a man. It must witness the better part of his character's formation—shape his ideas—confirm what is steady or vicious in his nature. How little we at home understood of Frank's way of life!

The wailing from beyond the parlour door increased, but Captain Seagrave paid it littlemind; Nancy the maid screamed at some poor unfortunate in the depths of the scullery; and it appeared we should remain, for the nonce, in the front hall. I understood, now, why Frank had taken such care to procure tea and ham at the George well before seeking his old acquaintance; we had felt the full force of the Seagraves' hospitality in achieving their front step, and must be satisfied.

“Should you like to walk down to the dockyard, Frank?” Seagrave enquired. “I have an errand that way, and might converse with you as we go.”

“A capital idea!”

Seagrave glanced at me. “Perhaps Miss Austen would prefer to rest in the parlour. I shall summon Louisa—”

“Pray, do not disturb her,” I said, in hasty consideration of the squalling infant. “I am well able to amuse myself in exploring the shops hereabouts. Frank might rejoin me in an hour.”

“Louisa would like nothing better than a turn upon the High,” Seagrave insisted firmly. “It would do her good to get a breath of air. She is too much confined, and forever fancying herself ill. If you will but wait a moment, Miss Austen—”

He disappeared within the noisy parlour, and a low murmur of conversation ensued. Frank, I thought, might have intended a word for my benefit in the interval, but that Seagrave reappeared in the hall almost directly. I had only time to glimpse a swirl of ruffled muslin—Mrs. Seagrave, I suspected, had not yet exchanged her dressing gown for more formal attire, though it was nearly one o'clock—before the Captain cried, “Excellent! She would be delighted to accompany you, Miss Austen, if you will but spare her a moment to fetch her bonnet I am sure she will attend you directly. If you should like to take a seat here in the hall—the maid is at present engaged in tidying the parlour—”

“But of course,” I murmured, and settled myself on the single Windsor chair the foyer could boast I have always detested Windsor chairs. “Pray do not tarry on my account, Frank. I shall be quite happy to await Mrs. Seagrave.”

“Expect us in an hour, Jane. Any later, and we'll find the passage back to Southampton too cold and wet for bearing. The rain cannot hold off forever.” Frank squeezed my gloved hand, settled his cockade hat, and pulled open the door. A bow from Captain Seagrave— and the two men were gone.

I had a full quarter-hour to calculate the depth of dust on the picture frames before the distant sound of feet descending a staircase alerted me. The hallway's farthest door was thrust open—Nancy's black patch and sullen countenance appeared—and behind her, the lady who must be Louisa Seagrave.

She was a tall woman, almost equal to her husband in height; and though, to judge by the infant's cries, she had recently been increasing, her gown hung upon her emaciated frame. Her hair was dark, and drawn back without the slightest attention to style or arrangement, in a severe knot at her nape. Though her features were good, and I might trace the remnants of a vanished beauty, it was rather as one might conjure the memory of summer from the frame of a leafless tree. There was about her a palpable air of defeat mingled with defiance, as though she knew herself to have suffered a mortal wound, but was prepared to fade without ceding the slightest quarter to her enemies.

I rose, and moved by an obscure sensation of pity, extended my hand.

“Good day. I am Miss Austen. And you must be Mrs. Seagrave. How good of you to consent to walk with me in town!”

The kindness is entirely yours, I am sure,” she returned abruptly. “Have you any particular errands you wish to complete? A direction you thought to pursue?”

“None whatsoever,” I replied cheerfully. “As this is my first visit to Portsmouth, everything is of interest to me.”

“Then you are more easily amused than I.” She could not disguise the bitterness in her words. “Portsmouth is a wretched hole, Miss Austen, with nothing to recommend it May I ask what place you call home?—Or are you as itinerant as every naval woman in my acquaintance?”

“I am presently settled with my family in Southampton,” I replied.

“Ah.
Southampton.
They have libraries there, I believe. All you will find in Portsmouth are essays on the calculation of longitude.” Her grey eyes glinted as she pulled on her gloves. They were doeskin, the color of mulled wine—and like much about Louisa Seagrave, of the highest quality and the shabbiest use.

“Have you lived here long, Mrs. Seagrave?”

“Three years. But I do not intend to endure it a fourth. I shall remove to Kent when my husband is again at sea.”

She lifted her head as she said this, as though
in
defiance of courts-martial and all die Articles of War—or perhaps it was a courage flung at the husband who would attempt to rule her. “Shall we go, then?”

“With pleasure,” I said drily, and followed the lady to the street.

T
HE RAIN BEGAN PERHAPS A HALF-HOUR AFTER WE HAD
achieved the High. In the interval before the deluge, however, I had time enough to establish that my companion was the only daughter of a viscount; that her schooling had been accomplished at a fashionable establishment in Town; that she had become acquainted with Tom Seagrave at the age of seventeen, during a period at Brighton; and had married not long thereafter. The air of elopement hung over her terse explanation; the match had been accomplished without the sanction of her parents. It was clear to me, however, that if Louisa Seagrave did not exactly regret her headlong alliance with the dashing Captain, she had suffered greatly from social diminution. At the time of their union, Tom Seagrave had been only a lieutenant, with a lieutenant's meagre pay; success, and further steps in rank, had swiftly come—he was not called “Lucky” for nothing—but the early years had proved a period of deprivation. The connexions so swiftly thrown off, at seventeen, were reckoned a greater loss at three-and-thirty. Doors that should have swung open for the Honourable Miss Carteret were closed to Mrs. Sea grave; and she had only learned to value the rooms beyond, once they were locked against her. Her pride had suffered in the exchange, and not all the years of marriage, or the birth of three children, could heal the wound of a cut direct from a former intimate acquaintance.

Now, with her husband being brought under a charge of murder, even her tenuous claim to the naval world must be threatened, her last foothold on safe ground, crumble beneath her. Louisa Seagrave had chosen to regard her fellow officers' wives with a coldness bordering on contempt—and given half a chance, they were sure to return the favour.