Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House jam-6

by Stephanie Barron

  She was both shorter and smaller than myself, a slip of a thing with a sharp, pointed face. One eye was blackened and bruised from the impact of a fist. Her hair was unwashed and ill-dressed; she wore a kerchief over it, like a common fishwife, but her dress was at once grander than one of these and more horrible in its cheapness. She was arrayed in a manner designed to reveal her charms, and her occupation — even so early in the day — must be obvious to everyone. It occurred to me that such a woman must have limited funds, and could hardly spare the coin to purchase a modest gown for daily use, when her money must be invested in her trade. And she had children, the Bosun's Mate had said; three litde 'uns, without a father. Such a family must run to considerable expense.

  “Are you Nell Rivers?”

  “Are you the Cap'n's sister?” she asked in a low and hurried tone. “The one as asked to speak with me?”

  “I am Miss Austen,” I said. “You have twice begged an interview with my brother, and found him not at home.”

  “I meant no 'arm, as God's my witness,” she said, crossing herself fumblingly. “I only thought as he might be needing to hear what I know.”

  “Is this a private matter?” I asked her severely.

  She shook her head. The furtive, rabbity look that Jenny had described was returned in force. “Will the Cap'n hear me, now?”

  “He is regrettably engaged this morning,” I replied, “in the service of a friend accused of murder.”

  Nell Rivers blenched white, and staggered a bit as though she might swoon.

  “Here.” I grasped her arm. “You must rest a bit before you may speak. Lean against this pier.” There were pilings along the Quay, and a low stone parapet that served as viewing box for every urchin in Southampton with a lust for the sea. I directed her to a seat, and sank down beside her.

  “Dad said as you were a real lady,” she muttered. “I'm that ashamed—”

  “Mr. Hawkins is your father?” I looked up at Jenny, whose expression was aghast. “I think perhaps you should tell me what you know.”

  Nell glanced at me sidelong and shook her head. “It's as much as my life is worth to speak. I daren't.”

  “Am I right in thinking you know something of an officer whose body was found in the Ditches — Mr. Chessyre, lately first lieutenant of the Stella Maris?”

  She gasped, and pressed her hand to her mouth.

  “Are you going to be sick?”

  “No. It's just that dreadful — the thought of poor Eustace.”

  “You were acquainted with him?”

  Her head bobbed. It was sunk so low into her bosom that I could not read her countenance. “Four year or more. We was mates.”

  “I see.”

  She fell silent, and I feared she might dissolve into weeping; but a second furtive glance informed me that she merely awaited initiative on my part. I reached for my reticule and extracted a shilling. Nell's head lifted and her eyes widened. I pressed the coin into her palm, and her fingers closed.

  “Eustace was with me the night he died.” Her eyes were swimming with tears. “He was that afraid. That's why he left the Dolphin, and come to set up with me. He'd done some dishonour, he said, and to try to put it right would only make things worse. He'd have to run for it, he said, only he needed some blunt. I said I'd help.”

  My opinion of Eustace Chessyre — already low— sank even further at this. Having failed to win his fortune from crime, the scoundrel thought to earn it off a woman's back.

  “I'd never seen pore Eustace so jumpy in his skin. He wouldn't go out, but must hide in my room; he'd start at every sound, allus looking over his shoulder. Fair gave me the shudders, so it did.” Nell shuddered now, in recollection.

  “He told you nothing of what he'd done?”

  “Not a particle. When I tried to wheedle it outta him — so as to make him easier in his mind, like — he give me this.” She pointed to her blackened eye.

  “Nothing? Not a word, not a hint of what his dishonour entailed? No … names … of anyone who might have been involved?”

  Again she shook her head.

  “Well,” I said, attempting to hide my disappointment, “at least we know where he was the night he died. Have you thought of telling the magistrate this?”

  She looked suddenly wild, and half rose as if to spring. “I’ll be clapped in gaol!” she cried. “They've no love for a whore, them judges, and they'll lock me away.”

  “Calm yourself,” I said. “I did not intend to throw you into alarm.”

  “I only asked for the Cap'n because Mrs. Bidgeon— she runs the Mermaid's Tail, where I work sometimes— said he was combing the quayside for news of Eustace. I told Eustace as much, thinking maybe it was Austen he'd dishonoured, and that he ought to lie low; but he just laughed. ‘It's too late,' he said. T can't help him, nor him me. I've told off the Devil, and the Devil will have my neck for it! We'll all go to the Devil together!' “

  Nell dashed away her tears with one worn hand. “I'd never seen him like that — down and beaten. Like he'd been trod on by a pack o' dogs. It scared me to death, and scares me still. When I heard they found his corpus—”

  “Had he left you? Left your house, I mean, before he died?”

  She gaped at me as though I were simple. “But that's what I wanted to tell the Cap'n,” she said. “About the night he were murdered, and the coach.”

  “The coach?” I repeated.

  “The one that come for Eustace in the middle of the night. I watched him get in, and that was the last I ever saw of him, living or dead.”

  I felt a cold thrill travel up my spine. “He went into a coach of his own accord? Though he was afraid for his life?”

  “He looked like he thought it was the saving of him. There,' I thought. 'Eustace will be safe as houses. He's got a friend or two more powerful than mine.' ”

  “What time was this?”

  “Middle o' the night. I don't properly remember. Maybe four or five bells.”[20]

  She had, after all, been raised by a boatswain.

  “Was it a hack, or a private carriage?”

  Nell looked uncomprehending.

  “Do you recall noting any arms upon the doors?”

  “I couldn't say. But the lady inside were very fine.”

  Jenny took a sharp breath beside me. I reached for Nell Rivers's hand.

  “It was a lady Chessyre went to meet?”

  Nell nodded miserably. “I suppose she were the death of him, miss.”

  Chapter 18

  What the Orders Said

  28 February 1807, cont.

  BEFORE 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 or 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.

  “MISS AUSTEN!”

  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 FLY 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 little souls — they shall be disappointed!”

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

  FRANK WAS GONE FROM MRS. DAVIES'S ESTABLISHMENT a full two hours and thirteen minutes by the man
tel 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.[21]

  “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.”