Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House

by Stephanie Barron

  “Never admit to such an ignorance before a lady, Charles,” I told him briskly. “It is the worst sort of offence a gentleman may bestow. I am Miss Austen, and this is Miss Lloyd. How do you boys come to be abroad, entirely alone, in such cold weather? Where is Nancy? Surely she attended you from Portsmouth?”

  “Nancy is in charge of the baby,” retorted Charles, “and good riddance, so cross as she is!”

  Little Edward rose to his feet, his bare fingers thrust under his arms, his lips blue and chattering. “Please, m-m-miss, don’t be telling our mum about our lark! She’s resting after our journey from P-p-portsmouth, which was bang-up jolly if you ask me—four post horses hired from the G-g-george, and everything prime about ‘em! How we ratt-tt-ded along! We made the distance in under two hours!”

  “Am I to understand that your mother is as yet ignorant of your absence?” I enquired in an awful tone. “That you are both abroad expressly without permission?”

  Martha choked upon what I guessed to be a laugh. The brothers quailed. Charles threw his arm about Edward, as though his thin nankeen jacket might supply the want of warmth in the younger boy’s own.

  “We only meant to have a look around town,” he protested. “It’s our first visit to Southampton! We’ve been down the High to the Quay, and seen all the ships, and poked our noses into the dockyard—though it’s a poor thing indeed compared to Portsmouth’s,” he concluded contemptuously.

  “Not even Nancy knows of your going?”

  He shook his head.

  “They shall be all in an uproar at the inn,” murmured Martha beside me.

  “We intended to return ages ago!” Edward cried. “Only—we could not find the High once we had visited the bathing machines. We are most dreadfully lost.”

  I did not have the heart to tell them that the High Street was but a hundred yards away. Both boys were shivering violently now. Edward looked upon the verge of tears.

  “Come along,” I said with a sigh. “Miss Lloyd and I shall treat you to hot chocolate and honey cakes in that pastry shop opposite, while I beg some paper and a messenger of the proprietor.”

  Crows of delight interrupted my declaration. I endeavoured to look stern.

  “We shall send a note to the Dolphin attesting to your whereabouts and safety—but the very moment your last drop of chocolate is drunk, my fine fellows, it is off to the inn with you and no mistake! You require hot water bottles and warm possets, and you do not wish to die of an inflammation of the lungs.”

  Suitably subdued, the boys preceded us into the pastry shop, and commenced to eat with a voracity that suggested young wolves. I secured my paper and pen, and began to compose a note for Louisa Seagrave while Martha kept up a stream of nonsense calculated for the boys’ amusement. But not all their talk was of spillikins and hoops, or the dashing naval actions recently reported in the Gazette; little Edward must be constantly reverting to the subject foremost in the boys’ minds: the judgement hanging over their father’s head.

  “Charles and I have determined to run away to sea if Father hangs,” he informed us as he tucked into an apple pasty.

  “Edward!” his brother hissed in a quelling tone. Possessing eight years to his brother’s six, he was necessarily more cautious, and knew the value of discretion. “They will tell Mum straightaway! Only you mustn’t,” he added for our benefit, “for it is our only recourse, as I’m sure you’re aware, being of the naval set yourselves. If Father hangs, we shall be tossed overboard in a manner of speaking. I mean to say—no connexions worth having, and no influence with the Admiralty. We shall have to make our way if we mean to advance.”

  Martha gazed at Charles doubtfully. “I am sure your father—even supposing the worst should happen, which I do not admit for an instant—would wish you to serve as support for your mother. She should be in ever greater need of you, if she were … alone … in the world.”

  “Muzzer that go into Kent,” Edward declared through a mouthful of pastry. “We thould be more of a burden if we thayed.” He swallowed mightily. “Besides, I cannot support Aunt Templeton. She means to engage a tutor for us! As if we did not know all we needed to learn, already! She is an apeleader! Poor Uncle Walter—how he must suffer it!”

  “He is shot of her for now,” returned Charles, “and must be having a jolly time of it. But I for one shall certainly run away to sea if we are bound for Luxford!”

  I met Martha’s eyes over the heads of the two boys. She raised one eyebrow. At that moment, the bells of St. Michael’s Church, adjacent to our seats in the shop’s bow front window, tolled half-past eleven o’clock. The inquest into Mr. Chessyre’s death must be concluded, or nearly so.

  I was suddenly sharply impatient to know what the judgement might be, and determined to place the boys in Martha’s charge—they were getting along famously, for Martha has always been a slave to children’s amusement—and set off in search of Fly. I gathered up my paper parcels—one held a pair of gloves in dark blue satin, quite unlike my usual wear, but perfectly in keeping with the iridescent hue of the three feathers I had chosen under Martha’s instruction—and motioned for the reckoning. Pray God I had sufficient coin to satisfy the ravages of two healthy young predators.

  “Jane,” observed Martha in peering through the window panes clouded with February cold, “is not that Mr. Hill I see before us? He looks worn to a fag end. I should judge that travel by sea does not agree with him—a curious recommendation for a naval surgeon, I am sure!”

  The thin frame, the narrow, black-clad shoulders, the periwig—indeed, it could be none other than Mr. Hill. I set down the gloves and hurried out of the shop to intercept him.

  “Miss Austen!” The surgeon started at my address, as though lost in a brown study. “How well you look this morning! I should say that your cold is quite gone off!”

  Martha appeared in the doorway, her parcels precariously balanced in her arms and the Seagrave boys hiding behind her skirts.

  “Miss Lloyd, too! And you have been making a few purchases at the milliner’s, I see—a pursuit that is always calculated to bring animation to a lady’s countenance.”

  “We have been entertaining Captain Seagrave’s sons,” I informed Mr. Hill. “Master Charles, his heir, and Master Edward.”

  Both boys scraped their bows. Mr. Hill inclined his head benevolently.

  “Your brother is well, I hope, Miss Austen? No ill effects from yesterday’s voyage?”

  “I do not think that Frank could ever suffer at sea. You might better enquire how he fares on dry land!” I scanned the surgeon’s face. He looked very ill indeed. “But what of yourself, Mr. Hill? Are you quite recovered from your exertions?”

  He hesitated. “I could wish our friend Monsieur LaForge to be in better frame. I sat up with him all night. The effort of achieving Portsmouth yesterday— his testimony on Seagrave’s behalf—or perhaps simply the exposure to poor weather in his weakened state—”

  Chessyre is dead. I shall not long survive him.

  “You find me just returning from a consultation with Dr. Mount,” the surgeon continued, “a physician of considerable reputation, and a great traveller in his day. He has seen many cases of gaol-fever—or ship fever, as it is also known. Even he cannot account for LaForge’s symptoms. I confess that I am greatly disappointed; I had hoped for some inspiration. Instead, I have fetched only laudanum. It shall ease his suffering, at the very least.”

  Then you think … you believe it possible …”

  That the man will die?” Mr. Hill gazed at me baldly. “I should never undertake to say, Miss Austen. It is a point that only his Maker may answer. I will tell you that his fever has increased; that from cramping in the bowels, he may take neither food nor water; and that his pulse is fluttering and weak. Indeed, he may have passed from this life while we stand thus, in talking.”

  I looked my indecision at Martha, then impulsively seized Mr. Hill by the arm.

  “For God’s sake, let us be silent,” I sa
id, “and reserve our breath for walking. Miss Lloyd must carry the young Seagraves back to the Dolphin, but I shall accompany you to Wool House. I cannot stay away.”

  ETIENNE LA FORGE WAS NOT DEAD; BUT HE LAY IN AN attitude so narrowly approximating it, that I all but despaired of his life. The sharp brown eyes were completely closed, the jaw clenched in pain. He was drenched in sweat despite the room’s raw atmosphere, so that his body was racked with chills. His ebony walking-stick lay by his side on the pallet, as though in the last extremity of existence, he would guard this one relic of home. He muttered fragments of French—phrases I could not always catch, or comprehend once I heard them. At times he seemed to be wandering in childhood; at others, he broke into bawdy song, and must be restrained or he should have attempted to dance. But for the most part he seemed torn with anguish, and struggled upright to cry aloud the name of Genevieve. His Beloved, perhaps? Left behind in the Haute Savoie—or in early death?

  “Just so it has been,” Mr. Hill muttered, “since eight o’clock last evening. I do not know how much more the human frame may stand.”

  Chessyre is dead. I shall not long—

  I pressed LaForge’s shoulders gently back onto his pallet and bathed his brow. I held a basin while Mr. Hill bled him. Where I knelt on the stone floor, the cold crept through my dress, deadening all feeling in my joints.

  “He should not be lying in these dreadful conditions,” I burst out. “None of them should. It is shocking that we tf eat men this way—as though they were slaves, or less than human. He should be moved to a proper bed, near a proper fire.”

  Mr. Hill did not meet my eyes. “Naturally. But his condition has declined so greatly, Miss Austen, that I do not think it possible to move him now.”

  “This is nothing like the usual course of gaol-fever?”

  The surgeon shook his head. “Did I know nothing of the case before this, I should pronounce him poisoned. He suffers, I should say, from an acute gastric complaint quite unlike the troubles of a few days previous. His sickness is lodged in the bowels. It is that which causes him agony.”

  I felt my frame stiffen, the breath caught in my chest. “I once witnessed a death from poisoning. It was terrible to behold. Could something noxious have been introduced to his food?”

  “But that is absurd! Why should anyone wish to harm a French prisoner? None but ourselves is familiar with even a particle of his history!”

  “Monsieur LaForge was in despair yesterday at the suspension of Captain Seagrave’s trial,” I told the surgeon urgently. “When he learned the news of Lieutenant Chessyre’s murder, he declared that his life was forfeit for having related what he saw aboard the Manon. He is the sole witness to an attempted plot. Do not you comprehend the matter?”

  “But who—”

  “Whoever killed Chessyre! Have you received a gift of food for the prisoners?”

  Mr. Hill hesitated. “Your eggs, of course,” he said slowly, “and a quantity of meat pasties from Mrs. Braggen’s kitchen. They were sent in my absence yesterday. But surely Mrs. Braggen—”

  “I should never accuse the lady or her household of ill intent. But if the food appeared in your absence— anything might have been done to it.”

  “Then why did not every prisoner who partook of the food fall dreadfully ill?”

  “Because the poison was meant for only one man,” I persisted.

  Mr. Hill shook his head. “My dear Miss Austen, I fear mat your imagination is run away with you. You have been overwrought. All this talk of murder—it may give rise to the most dreadful fancies—”

  “There has not merely been talk! Two men are dead. One was killed at sea, another not a mile from this door. It is you, Mr. Hill, who persist in fancy. You must treat LaForge as though he were indeed a case of poison. It can cost you nothing, and may save his life.”

  The surgeon studied me shrewdly, then felt LaForge’s brow with his palm. “Fever, a fluttering pulse, and a disruption of stomach and bowels. A purgative first,” he said decisively “Ipecac, I think, or perhaps the more gentle tartar emetic. Then a cathartic, to flux the bowels. I should attempt cremor tartar, but for its strength; perhaps a solution of castor oil and medicinal rhubarb will prove more gentle in its effect. Once the system is cleansed, we may see what a strong dose of charcoal in milk may do for what has already been consumed. It is a property of charcoal to attach itself to metallic substances, such as are often found in your common poisons; the stuff may then be passed harmlessly enough.”

  “Can such doses harm him?” I enquired with trepidation.

  “The combined effects shall work violently on his frame, and in such a weakened state—I should advise you, Miss Austen, to leave us for a period. I shall send word by messenger to your boarding house, once I am certain of the effect—whether it be good or ill.”

  He began to rummage in his black bag, purposeful now that he had determined his course. I rose, took one last look at the sufferer, and quitted that dreadful place.

  It was ten minutes past two o’clock. I went directly to St. Michael’s Church, halfway along my path towards home, and knelt in the silence of the nave. I prayed for the salvation of Etienne LaForge—prayed as I had not done for some months since, with a passion and a purpose that could not help but sing its way to Heaven. If asked, I could not have said why the Frenchman’s case burned at me so. I hardly knew die man. But the thought of so much wit and understanding finding an untimely grave was suddenly insupportable. In praying for LaForge, I prayed for all that I loved: Frank and Mary and their unborn babe; for my mother, and Cassandra, and the sprawling family at Godmersham; even for Mr. Hill, unstinting in his work to save this foreign life. In this quarter-hour they were all of a piece with that Frenchman: beloved of somebody, and dying alone.

  1Shakespeare, The Tempest, act IV, scene 1, line 148.—Editors note.

  Chapter 15

  The naval Set

  27 February 1807,

  cont.

  ~

  “A VERDICT OF WILLFUL MURDER WAS RETURNED AGAINST Tom Seagrave,” Frank said, as I entered Mrs. Davies’s sitting-room at a quarter past three o’clock. “He is held at present in Gaoler’s Alley, in expectation of trial.”

  I sank into a chair ranged against the wall and closed my eyes. “That is very unfortunate. You told the coroner’s panel of your express?”

  “I did. The magistrate knew enough to direct the coroner’s questions. There was little of surprise in anyone’s testimony; and Seagrave refused, again, to disclose his movements on Wednesday night.”

  “Did the charges of the court-martial arise?”

  “Naturally. Percival Pethering has not the slightest authority in that case; but he sought to show that Seagrave had murdered his lieutenant—and all discussion of motive must involve events on the Manon.”

  “And thus the panel was taught to regard Tom Seagrave as a man who is intimate with murder. No other outcome was possible. I feared as much.” I stared up at Frank. “Monsieur LaForge has taken a turn for the worse. Mr. Hill suspects poison.”

  “Poison!” My brother’s hand clenched spasmodically. “But who—?”

  “The man who killed Chessyre, I suppose. Having despatched his conspirator, he could not allow a witness to survive.”

  “If he dies, Jane, his blood will be on our hands,” Frank muttered. “It was we who urged LaForge to divulge what he knew.”

  “Then we must pray that he does not die,” I said, and went to dress for the party.

  “MY DEAR MISS AUSTEN! YOU DO US PROUD IN SUCH feathers, I declare—we shall be as the moon outshone by the sun!”

  Captain Edward-James Foote, hearty and weather-beaten as only a man in his third decade at sea may look, stood in his dress uniform under the sparkling chandelier in the central hall of Highfield House, and bowed to all our party. Captain Foote is a towering figure—quite suited to serve as model for some martial statue in bronze; and though forty years at least, is as yet handsome.

  �
�And how is your delightful daughter?” I enquired, as I curtseyed before him. I had practised the movement in the privacy of my room, under Martha’s tutelage, to be certain I should not disturb the wretched turban; but my heart and delight were not in it. I must be always thinking of Wool House, and the grim struggle undergone in its shadows. I had received a messenger from Mr. Hill just before five o’clock. Etienne LaForge had suffered greatly from the ministrations of castor oil and ipecac; he had refused to drink the potion of charcoal of his own will, and must be held down by two Marines while the dose was given; but Mr. Hill could detect no greater injury to the system. He saw nothing of improvement in the Frenchman’s condition, but neither did he see a persistent decline. LaForge had fallen into restless slumber, still muttering the name of Genevieve. I must hope for the best And endeavour to turn my mind to other things—

  “We were so happy to receive your daughter’s visit last week, when Captain Austen brought her home from church; Catherine is most natural in her manner, and quite devoid of shyness.” She was also small and frail for her age, and her looks were not equal to her brother’s; but I saw no occasion for telling the father this.

  Captain Foote raised one eyebrow. “I hope Kitty did not disgrace herself by seeming too forward? She did not bring you to a blush? Her mother, you know, was not entirely what one could have wished.”

  The unfortunate Nina Herries, long since fled to Calcutta with an officer of the Hussars. She had a fatal interest, it seemed, in the military orders—a fascination with uniforms that had better been outgrown in the nursery. Litde Catherine was her second child, abandoned to a new mamma and a different home; but the change had been of marked benefit.

  “Kitty was everything that was delightful—and all that I was not, at her age,” I replied. “You need have no fears for the young lady, with such an example at home.”

  I glanced at Mary Foote as I said this, and felt the Captain’s eyes travel fondly towards his wife. She looked brilliant in pale grey satin, her dark locks piled ingeniously upon her head. In four years of marriage she had spent barely six months free of pregnancy; but the practise appeared to agree with her. She was perhaps a bit more stout than the elegant young daughter of an admiral who had first caught Foote’s eye; but the Captain’s second adventure in marriage had proved him a gambler of good fortune.