“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.”
“I should always support a brother officer,” Frank replied tautly, “particularly when I believe him unjustly accused. But I do not think, sir, that an affair of military justice fells within the scope of your power.”
Here my brother was on uncertain ground. It was true enough that the original charge on Seagrave's head — the killing of the French captain after the surrender of the latter's ship — fell to the disposition of his naval superiors. That crime, if crime it were, had occurred at sea aboard one of His Majesty's vessels. The murder of Lieutenant Chessyre, however, was another kettle of fish. Chessyre had died in Southampton proper, while relieved of his dudes and turned upon shore. The disposition of his case must be considered the magistrate's; and anyone Mr. Pethering suspected of evil should fall within the temporal law, be they naval or no.
We turned into East Street and progressed the brief distance to Mrs. Davies's establishment. The magistrate seemed disposed to ignore, for the nonce, Frank's challenge to his authority. He preferred to pursue a different line.
“If Captain Seagrave ranks so high among your friends, Captain Austen, one must presume that Eustace Chessyre was chief among your enemies.'”
I stumbled slightly at a loose paving, and both men turned.
“It is nothing,” I cried. “Pray do not regard it”
Frank flashed me a brief smile; he must know that anxiety had tripped me up, not an obstacle at my feet. “I date my acquaintance with Mr. Chessyre only from Tuesday, and thus must consider him neither as a friend of the bosom nor an enemy of the heart To what do your questions tend, Mr. Pethering? Or should you like to enter my lodgings, and discuss them further?”
“You need only explain this, Captain Austen,” Mr. Pethering replied, “and I shall trouble you no longer.” With the air of a conjurer he withdrew a square of paper from his coat pocket and thrust it towards Frank.
“That is my card,” my brother observed, without taking it from Mr. Pethering's bony hand.
“Indeed. It was found upon Chessyre's corpse— one of the few things the man seems to have kept about him.”
“I gave it into the Lieutenant's keeping on Tuesday.”
“You met with him?”
“On … an affair of business.”
“You have written your direction upon the reverse, I see. Did you expect Mr. Chessyre to call in East Street?”
“He did call. Unfortunately, I was not at home.” Frank's lips had set in a thin line; he was holding his temper in check only with difficulty.
“How very inconvenient. One wonders what the Lieutenant might have said. Were you very pressing in your invitation, Captain, to seek out your lodgings? Or was the matter of business you wished to discuss better concluded… behind the Walls?”
“Good God, man, if you wish to accuse me of murder — then do so at once! I am confident you will be made to look a fool!”
But the magistrate was studying my indignant brother with calculation. He neither accused nor offered quarter. I understood, suddenly, that he hoped to frighten Frank with his suspicions — and draw forth some intelligence presently withheld. The contents of his express to Captain Seagrave, perhaps?
“Pray come inside, Mr. Pethering,” Frank said at last. “My sister is greatly in need of a warm fire and a glass of claret after her passage up the Solent, and I cannot believe you likely to refuse either.”
“I never take wine,” the magistrate rejoined. “It is most injurious to the health, in my opinion. But I should not say nay to a glass of warm gin, if you have any in the house.”
“It shall be sent for directly.”
THEY WERE CLOSETED IN MRS. DAVIES'S BEST PARLOUR nearly three-quarters of an hour. I sat with Mary before the fire in the dining parlour adjacent, while she tried to attend to her sewing, and threw it down again; chewed at her fingernail, and sighed her impatience. I thought I glimpsed the stain of tears about her pretty eyes; some trouble with the child she carried, or a depth of anxiety for Frank must be the cause. But when at last she spoke, her voice held only fretfulness.
“And so Tom Seagrave's accuser was murdered, and must bring the magistrate to our very
door! Thank God my mother has no notion of the scenes to which I am daily subjected — the indignities and sufferings quite thrust upon me, and in my delicate condition! I am sure that Mamma would carry me off to Kent directly, without stopping for a word of explanation; and I am in half a mind to summon her!”
I studied her petulant young face over the edge of my book. “Mr. Chessyre called at this house in search of Frank on Tuesday. It was Chessyre who occasioned Frank's absence from home that night, and Chessyre you must thank for your extreme anxiety then. Mr. Pethering, the magistrate, knows that Frank solicited an interview with Chessyre on Tuesday morning; he has found Frank's card among Chessyre's things. As Tom Seagrave's friend, Frank must be counted among Chessyre's enemies. Must I speak any plainer, Mary, or will the recital do? Your husband is in the gravest danger of being accused of murder.”
Her mouth formed itself into a tragic O. “Frank went in search of the Lieutenant Tuesday night? When I could not sleep?”
“He sought the man throughout the quayside, and among the most unsavoury circles; but failed in the end to meet with him. Tom Seagrave should consider himself greatly obliged to Frank, once he learns of the energy exerted on his behalf—” I broke off. Mary's hand was now pressed to her lips, as though she were ill, and her eyes had filled with tears. “I have upset you. What a wretched thing in one who professes to be your sister! Pray forgive me—”
“So that is why she came in search of him.”
“Who came?”
Mary shook her head. “She would not give her name. A very vulgar sort of person, Jane. Indeed, I believe one might refer to her as a …a …”
“Barque of frailty?” I enquired.[16]
“Not nearly so well-bred as that! She was quite disreputable in her person, and her clothes were in rags. I must confess that she smetted, Jane, most disconcertingly. No, I am afraid we must call her simply a jade, and leave it at that 'As much as my life is worth,' she insisted, 'to speak to Captain Austen; but I must do it' I thought her quite out of her senses.”
“Wherever did you meet with such a woman?” I enquired, bewildered.
“She came to Mrs. Davies's kitchen door, just after breakfast, and asked for Frank.”
“How very unfortunate,” I breathed.
“Mrs. Davies felt it her duty, she said, to summon me — Captain Austen being from home.” Mary's countenance was scarlet; she must have presented just such a picture of consciousness and mortification in our landlady's kitchen. I apprehended, now, the source of those tears I had suspected in the poor girl's looks, her misery and thoughts for her mamma.
“And did she state her business?”
“She would not, though I pressed her most severely. I thought at the time that she was simply surprised to find that Frank had a wife — that he had suggested otherwise, on a previous occasion in her … company. But I wonder—”
“You did not learn her name?”
Mary's eyes slid away. “I suppose in common decency I should have requested it, Jane, but I will own that I was so dumbfounded by her appearance that I wished only to be rid of her. I told her that Captain Austen was from home, and that if she refused to disclose her business with my husband, she must seek him on another occasion. She wrung her hands, and insisted that she was in terror of her life — she looked most pitiful, Jane — but in the end, I shut the kitchen door, and she took herself off.”
I could imagine the scene without considerable effort. Young Mary — unequal to the display of pride that Mrs. Davies would require — sailing past our landlady with her chin quivering, to spend the remainder of the morning in her empty bedchamber.
“Do you think it possible,” Mary enquired of me, “that this person sought Frank with regard to Chessyre?”
“Anything, in this sordid business, is possible,” I replied with unhappy candour. “Frank was open in his effort to secure the Lieutenant, the night before the man's death; from my brother's account, he searched the quayside for some hours, asking directly for Chessyre. Any with ears to hear and eyes to see, would know that the one man was concerned with the other. “
Mary did not reply. She appeared lost in sorrowful reflection; the young bride's quick remorse for hasty judgement, I presumed.
There was the sound of a distant door thrust open, and the murmur of voices quick and low; then a decisive thud in the passage to the street as the house turned its back upon Mr. Pethering. Another instant, and my brother strode into the room, his countenance considerably lighter than it had been when we parted.
“I do not believe we have the slightest cause for worry,” he declared without preamble. Mary, my love, have you been dreadfully disturbed in spirits? I must beg your pardon for occasioning anxiety, and lay the whole before you without delay.”
“Spare your breath, Frank,” she replied with energy, “for I am well-acquainted with the business.”
My brother shot me a look of hurt surprise; he had not believed me so unreliable a confidante; but Mary hastened to disabuse him.
“Would you take me for an ignorant child? Am I to remain unconscious of a subject that has engrossed the better part of my acquaintance these many months, solely because my husband did not chuse to speak of it? Fie, Frank! That you could credit me for a goose! I wonder at your opinion of my understanding.”
Frank begged forgiveness; Mary wept a little into her square of lawn; and I was spared a further indulgence of bridal humours, by the urgency of the matter at hand.
“Pray tell me, dearest Frank, what that dreadful man Pethering would lay at your door,” Mary begged.
“He had hoped to disturb a desperate murderer in his plans for flight,” my brother answered calmly, “but was forced to conclude, from my sanguine air and excellent head, that I had nothing to do with the Lieutenant's sorry end. I pointed out that any number of lodgers in this establishment might vouch for my presence last evening; and proceeded to inform the magistrate that I thought it likely the man was killed in a brawl.”
I raised my brows at this, but elicited not the slightest notice.
Tethering required an explanation for the presence of my card among the man's things, and I told him that I had called upon Chessyre at the Dolphin during the course of Tuesday morning. I fancy he already knew as much. What he hoped to learn was the substance of my express to Tom Seagrave.”
“And did you disclose it?” I asked.
Frank hesitated. “I had no choice, Jane. Pethering warned me that he shall soon call a coroner's panel to enquire into Chessyre's death; and I shall be forced to give evidence. I could not very well lie to the man in my own home.”
“You might have pled the constraints of honour, and purchased your friend a few more hours!” I protested. “The magistrate now knows what the Frenchman saw. And what he saw is motivation for murder enough!”
“What Frenchman?” Mary cried, bewildered.
“I am done with preserving Tom Seagrave!” Frank retorted. “He has not been open; he guards all in a cloud of secrecy; he impugns the disinterest of his friends. It is not enough that I should be suspected of dangling for a ship; I must now be expected to lie for him! I wonder you can suggest it, Jane!”
My brother rose, and quitted the room with a bang of the door. Mary stared after him in perplexity.
“Frank is to have a ship} Why did he say nothing of this to me?”
“Perhaps we should start with the Frenchman,” I sighed.
Chapter 14
A turn for the Worse
Friday,
27 February 1807,
I AWOKE NOT LONG AFTER SEVEN O'CLOCK TO THE SOUND of a fist hammering at the front door.
My ears strained through the dawn stillness for the issue of so much commotion — caught the tramp of sleep-dulled feet along Mrs. Davies's lower passage — the murmur of conversation — the thud of the heavy oak. There was an instant's silence, and then the same ponderous tread of a woman long past her prime, mounting the steps and making for my brother's bedchamber.
Another express. From Portsmouth, perhaps?
Mrs. Davies would not be pleased to have lost her final hour of rest in the presentation of Captain Austen's mail.
I threw back the bedclothes and stretched my warm feet to the cold drugget. There was little point in attempting further sleep; I had tossed throughout the night, my dreams consumed by a dimly-lit room and the glittering, half-opened eyes of a whispering Frenchman. There was something he meant to tell me — some message he sought to convey — but either the noise in my head was too great for hearing, or his French was become suddenly unintelligible. I could not make out the sense of his words.
Must I always translate for you? Etienne LaForge enquired wearily. Chessyre is dead. I shall not long survive him.
I drew my dressing gown about my shoulders. The palest light seeped through the clouded windows; a bank of heavy fog pressed down upon the house. It was an hour for lying curled in a huddle of warm blankets; but I could not be easy in my mind. The Frenchman's words haunted me. Was I a fool to accord such weight to the spectres of fancy? Perhaps in my younger days I might have shrugged off this nocturnal warning; but the wages of experience are caution. I have learned that what waking thought may not penetrate, the slumbering mind will illumine. I am hardly the first to credit the notion — the English language is replete with aphorisms that would urge a troubled soul to retire with worry, and find comfort in the dawn. For are we not “such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep”?[17]
Chessyre is dead. I shall not long survive him.
I twitched back the curtains and strained to make out the street below. My eyes have never been strong, and in the grey light every outline was indistinct; but even I could not mistake the horse and rider lingering there. The express messenger had been instructed to wait. His mount snorted and tossed its head; its breath showed white in the frigid air. At that moment, I caught the sound of my brother's door bursting open, and the quick light race of his feet along the passage. The reply, then, would be urgent. I must dress and discover what intelligence was come before Frank entirely quitted the house.
Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House jam-6 Page 15