Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House

by Stephanie Barron

  The small boat bobbled with his weight as he grasped the rope ladder at the bow, and hauled himself up the side. I crawled forward, my anxiety extreme, and clutched at the ladder to keep the boat from drifting; but with a wave of panic I saw that I should be pulled over the gunwale.

  “Oh, Fly, what I would not give for your strength!” I muttered between my teeth, and gripped the ladder with all my might.

  At that moment, the gap of water widening between

  burning hulk and small cockle, a coil of rope thudded into the skiff’s bottom. I snatched it up.

  “Tie it to the ladder!” Jeb Hawkins cried. His face floated above me in the lurid darkness, and then was gone.

  I know nothing of seaman’s ropes, but I have embroidered many a square of lawn in my day, and may be trusted to tie off a knot that will serve in a pinch. The rope was slippery, and my hands fumbled in the darkness; but in a little the job was done, and I had but to wait.

  I then became sensible of the chaos above: the hoarse shouts, tramp of feet, fearsome swearing and shudder of blows. One seaman at least must be hacking away with an axe at the burning timbers; they would be tossed overboard to gutter in the sea. It seemed impossible that such a large vessel could founder within sight of land—but I recalled the wrecks off Spithead, and the Mary Rose, sunk centuries before in Southampton Water. I peered upwards in an effort to discern something of the activity on deck: I saw nothing but the great bowed curve of the hull. Great roiling clouds of smoke billowed over the side.

  The skiff jerked abruptly so that I was almost unseated, and a dark, seal-wet head appeared over the gunwale. Gleaming eyes, a mouth open in a snarl, and two hands reaching for a hold. The boat bobbed wretchedly again.

  I screamed aloud. The sound was lost in the general din.

  “Help me,” said a voice hoarsely.

  Those two words spurred me to action. I reached forward and grasped the wet hands—rough, male fingers slippery with seawater—and braced myself against the skiff’s bottom. I leaned backwards. He surged forward, and fell asprawl in the bottom of the boat.

  Martin Whitsun.

  “Who the devil are you?” the Rocketeer growled, and promptly vomited a quantity of the Solent over my boots.

  AT LENGTH THERE WERE FIVE MEN HUDDLED IN JEB Hawkins’s boat, shivering and cursing and half-dead from cold; Martin Whitsun was the most voluble of these, his vehemence sharpened by his frustration with my knots.

  “Trust a woman to foul a line so bad it cannot be undone,” he muttered. “If I had my knife—”

  “I should be forced to scream for Mr. Hawkins,” I retorted patiently. “I have no intention of abandoning him, and I shall not allow you to steal his boat.”

  “You’d rather see us die of exposure, I suppose.”

  “That is why I hauled you from the sea,” I replied implacably.

  “Curse you, woman! What have you done to the cable? It’s lodged so tight we shall never get free.”

  “We might s-w-wim for it, Marty,” suggested one of the rogues. His teeth were chattering, and his lips were blue. “There’s the Queen Anne sending out a longboat, and I’ll wager they’ve grog and blankets.”

  It was true. The fire could not help but be seen by the score of vessels moored roundabout, and it would not be long before a host of small craft converged upon the hulk and endeavoured to aid her survivors. Martin Whitsun shaded his eyes with his hands, and peered across the dark water, I glanced anxiously upwards, intent for any sign of Jeb Hawkins.

  “I don’t fancy meeting a longboat full of Navy men,” Whitsun said shortly. “They might ask cruel questions, about the rockets and such. The hulk’s a Navy vessel, mind.”.

  The men stole shuddering and miserable glances at me. “Here,” Whitsun demanded suddenly. “You fashioned the sodding knot; you get it undone, or I’ll throw you over the side.”

  He looked as fierce as his words, and being vastly outnumbered in strength and desperation, I did not like to test his mettle. I propelled myself forward, and clutched at the vile cable with gloved hands and a sinking heart. The wet coils had swollen and tightened inevitably upon themselves; the knot was fixed, for all my scrabbling fingers might do. I stopped short in the attempt, and drew off my gloves, hoping to buy time.

  “Longboat’s c-c-coming!” cried one stuttering buck.

  “What I won’t do to Jeb Hawkins when I meet him,” said Martin Whitsun through his teeth. He shoved at my back, nearly toppling me from the boat. I cried out and clutched at the rope ladder.

  “Say that again, Martin Whitsun,” demanded a voice from above. “Happen you’d rather beat a man senseless than a poor defenceless woman—or maybe you’d rather go over the side?”

  I looked up—and saw the Bosun’s Mate peering through the livid gloom above. He carried a burden over one shoulder: a man, insensible and unmoving.

  “Stand aside, you fools!” Hawkins shouted, and heaved one leg over the Marguerite’s rail. He grasped the rope ladder with his right hand, and steadied his load with the left Such strength and grace in a man of his age must stand as testament to the hardy nature of the finest seamen. I watched with bated breath all the same, my bare fingers twisting together, conscious of Martin Whitsun malevolent at my back. If he moved—if he menaced Jeb Hawkins in any way—I was determined to shove my elbow hard into the rogue’s ribs in an effort to unseat him. The Bosun’s Mate torturously descended, breathing hard, his burden dangling. I could not tell for the smoke whether it was LaForge or no.

  “Ahoy, there!” cried a voice across the water. “Have you need of assistance?”

  The longboat put off from the Queen Anne. Martin Whitsun turned, his attention diverted, and began to swear viciously under his breath. I reached out and seized Jeb Hawkins’s coat sleeve; his left boot groped for the skiffs gunwale.

  “Don’t clutch at me, ma’am—hold the rope steady,” he shouted irritably. I did as I was told, and his foot found a hold. He stepped backwards into the crowded vessel, the man he carried sliding heavily into the bilge— and at that moment the skiff rose up and slapped against the Marguerite’s side, all but overbalanced by a sudden shift in weight.

  Martin Whitsun and his fellows had abandoned us, diving into the chill waters rather than face the Queen Anne’s rescue party.

  1A prize-agent was responsible for selling enemy ships seized in maritime war and condemned by the prize-court, one of the courts of the Admiralty.—Editor’s note.

  2Jeb Hawkins refers to the bosun’s chair, which resembled a wooden swing and could be hauled aloft when seamen were at work on the shrouds. It was routinely used to hoist women who boarded from the sea.—Editor’s note.

  3The sally port was an entry hatch on a warship’s larboard side, not to be confused with Sally Port, a spot on Portsmouth’s fortifications where naval boats and men embarked for ships anchored at Spithead.—Editor’s note.

  Chapter 21

  The Frenchman’s Story

  28 February 1807,

  cont.

  ~

  IT WAS AS WELL FOR US THAT THE DRUNKEN BUCKS deserted us when they did, for the wild activity in the water alerted the men of the longboat party, who set about rescuing the unfortunate rogues much against their will. Other boats presently appearing—from the Star of Bengal, the Matchless, the Parole, and other vessels moored in Southampton Water—Martin Whitsun’s men were soon surrounded by benevolence, and hauled out of the sea to be plied with grog and warm clothing. Their terror and shame should soon tell the tale despite their better interests, and the sailors’ welcome become an interrogation; but this was not our affair.

  Jeb Hawkins righted himself, squinted at me through the clouds of smoke, and pulled his knife from his pocket.

  “You’ll never rate Able, ma’am,” he said, and sliced the skiff’s painter in two.

  Etienne LaForge—for it was assuredly he, in a dead swoon—lay sprawled in the bilge of Hawkins’s skiff. I struggled to pull his shoulders upright, and rest his h
ead upon my lap, while the Bosun’s Mate settled his oars and turned our craft. He intended to slip round the far side of the Marguerite, and double back upon Southampton unnoticed in the general clamour; in a few moments we should be lost to view and quite safe from scrutiny.

  “How did you discover him?”

  “I asked where he lay,” Hawkins said curtly. “Many a man in His Majesty’s service has cause to know the Bosun’s Mate. I’ve a favour or two I don’t mind using, when the occasion requires.”

  “But weren’t you questioned?”

  “Every man jack on the Marguerite was setting about dousing the blaze; it’s a small crew on a prison hulk, what with the want of sails and cordage. I told one tar that I must have the keys to the prisoners’ chains, in case the hulk should be abandoned. He never blinked twice, just said they was kept on a hook in the old wardroom. I shinned along and fetched the picks, then asked politely where LaForge was housed.”

  “You are a wonder, Mr. Hawkins,” I observed unsteadily. The Marguerite was receding from us now, the flames on her decks flaring like an unholy sunset. Everywhere about us, Southampton Water rippled red. “I owe you a very great deal.”

  “He owes me a sight more, I reckon,” said Hawkins with a nod to the insensible Frenchman. “There’s a few in that hold won’t see another day, what with the smoke and the fright Screaming half fit to blow their own ears off, stark mad with fear some of ‘em were.” He shuddered. “That’s as close to hell as I’m comfortable sitting, ma’am. A quick death and clean in the cannon’s mouth’s one thing—but slow roasting within sight of your neighbours is not to my relish. I opened the manacles on the lot of ‘em.”

  I laid my hand over his where it pulled at the oar. “Thank you, Mr. Hawkins,” I said.

  WE ACHIEVED THE QUAY AS THE LAST FLAMES ABOARD the Marguerite flickered and went out. Torches had been mounted along the seawall, the better to illuminate the spectacle of the burning ship; and a crowd of children and gaping onlookers had gathered. Among the horde of figures lining the stone platform I discerned my brother, and the slight figure of Mr. Hill at his side. How much time had my adventure demanded? It was now full dark—perhaps six o’clock in the evening, well past our dinner hour. Surely my mother would be grown querulous, Mary should be consumed with worry, and Martha attempting to comfort them both.

  “Fly!” I called out as Jeb Hawkins pulled alongside the Quay. “Captain Frank Austen—ahoy!”

  My brother started, peered down at the water, and then dashed down the Quay steps. “Jane! In the name of all that’s sacred—! You were not out at that ship!”

  “We have LaForge,” I said tensely. “He requires assistance and care. Mr. Hill—”

  My brother cupped his hands about his mouth and in the best sailor fashion, roared for the surgeon. The pack of onlookers, though far from weary of their public burning, divided their attention between prison hulk and skiff.

  “It’s a dead man! He’s drownded!” cried one urchin with enthusiasm.

  “There’ll be more’n worse by dawn,” prophesied a woman darkly.

  “That’s the Bosun’s Mate!” shouted a third. “Eh, Jeb, are you become a Fisher of Men like the Good Book says?”

  Jeb Hawkins did not reply. Instead, he grabbed a mooring and made the skiff fast to the Quay. My brother jumped into the vessel and seized LaForge by the shoulders. Mr. Hill proffered his hand and helped me from the boat.

  I had never been so thankful to find good, hard Hampshire stone beneath my feet.

  “I made certain you had gone back home,” Frank muttered to me. “I merely stayed to see what became of the hulk—I never dreamed you were upon the Water.”

  “Take him to Wool House,” I said tersely. “Mr. Hill will have the key.”

  “Of course.” Hill hurried off before us, clearing a path through the curious crowd. Jeb Hawkins—who must, in truth, be exhausted—grasped LaForge’s ankles and helped bear the insensible man the length of the Quay.

  “How did you manage … to pry this fellow … from the depths of that barge?” Frank gasped, as we approached Winkle Street

  “The Bosun’s Mate,” I replied. “Mr. Hawkins is deserving of our deepest thanks and praise. He freed Monsieur LaForge and carried him to safety.”

  “Safety? I begin to think this man shall never be safe until he has England at his back.”

  Mr. Hill stood ready by the great oak portal of Wool House; he had found and lit a candle. We slipped through the door like wraiths or shadows, too swift to be clearly discerned in the pitch-black streets; the crowd’s attention, in any case, had returned to the quayside where the longboats were approaching with their soggy burden of Southampton’s own.

  LaForge was laid on one of the old straw pallets and covered with a blanket. He moaned, and turned his head in restless dreaming; I thought perhaps his eyelids flickered, but it may have been only a chimera of the candle flame. Mr. Hill bent swiftly to feel for his pulse.

  “Genevieve,” said a faint voice at our feet; and with a sharp intake of breath, I saw that LaForge was once more in his conscious mind.

  I crouched near him and placed my hand on his brow.

  “Ah, Genevieve.” He sighed. “Tu vives encore. “

  “It is all right, monsieur—you are safe now, and we shall not let you come to harm. You may be assured of that. You are among friends.”

  He frowned. “Cette voix—je la sais. Mais ce n ‘est pas la voix de Genevieve.”

  “It is I, Miss Austen. I am here with Mr. Hill and my brother and another man who saved you from the burning ship.”

  Mr. Hill had been busy at the hearth to the rear of Wool House; he had tindered flame, and set a pot of water to boiling, and now appeared at my side with a hunk of day-old bread. “Soak it in water,” he commanded, “then try if you can to persuade him to swallow a morsel.”

  I did as I was bid. After a litde, LaForge was persuaded to eat; he appeared to recover somewhat of his strength with every sodden bite; but still he lay with his eyes closed, the symmetry of his features marred by a sharp crease between his eyebrows, as though he suffered considerable pain. He looked thinner and more drawn from his ordeal with poison and neglect than I could have imagined. Inwardly cursing Sir Francis Farnham, I bent myself to my task.

  My brother had found a stool, and propped himself upon it. I slipped the last of the soggy bread into LaForge’s mouth; he lay back on his pallet. Presendy the surgeon and the Bosun’s Mate joined us with steaming tea, which we accepted gratefully.

  “I should like to know, Captain Austen,” said Mr. Hill over the rim of his cup, “exactly what has occurred. Whom do you suspect of murder, and how does our friend LaForge come into it?”

  We told him, then, the worst of our fears of Sir Francis Farnham, and the collusion of Phoebe Carruthers, not excepting the gentleman’s motive for defaming Tom Seagrave, the possible use of the Admiralty’s telegraph to transmit spurious orders, and the accidental insertion of Nell Rivers in the affair.

  Jeb Hawkins, in comprehending how tangled was the plot in which his girl found herself, muttered beneath his breath and flexed his broad hands, as though he should like to seize the Baronet himself.

  “You have no proof of anything, of course,” said Mr. Hill pensively. “I should not like to attempt to arraign Sir Francis on so wild a charge. The equipage with the bloody gauntlet might be traced on Wednesday night— the coachman paid to disclose what he knows—”

  “I have considered that,” I interrupted. “What if the coachman was Sir Francis himself, suitably disguised? He had only to lure poor Chessyre into the carriage, let Mrs. Carruthers down at a suitable spot, drive to a darkened alley, and employ his garrote.”

  “No one should be the wiser,” Mr. Hill admitted. “The same is true of our suspected poison. It is impossible to show that Sir Francis introduced something noxious to a particular Wool House pasty; your men of the Navy should declare that the food was rotten, and be done.”

  “Somethi
ng might be learned of those sealed orders,” suggested Frank. “We might enquire at the Admiralty— as friends among friends, you understand—what purpose they thought to serve by sending Seagrave on a wild-goose chase. And if no one admits to taking our meaning—”

  “Wild-goose chase?” interrupted Mr. Hill.

  “Seagrave was ordered to stand off the coast of Corunna,” I explained, “to take off an agent of the Crown and bear him back to England. But no one answered his signal, and after three days he turned for home.”

  “No one answered the good Seagrave’s signal,” supplied Etienne LaForge weakly from his position on the floor, “because the agent of your Crown had already been seized by Captain Porthiault, and locked in a cabin of the Manon.”

  We turned as one to stare at him. His shrewd brown eyes—replete once more with the humour I had always discerned in them—roved across our faces. “Did you not wonder why I demanded to remain on British shores? It is death to me to return to France!”

  “You are that agent?” I gasped, finally comprehending. “But why did you not inform us earlier?”

  “Because such an admission, from a prisoner of war, should sound fantastic; and because I did not know whom I could trust.” With effort, he propped himself weakly on one elbow. “May I beg you, mademoiselle, for a litde of that tea? I have had nothing hot to drink in days.”

  “Of course.” I hastened to procure another cup. LaForge drank it down entire while his rescuers kept silence in the sharpest suspense. At last he set aside the tea and sat fully upright. His voice, when next he spoke, gained in timbre and strength.

  “You must understand, above all, that nothing in my plan went as I had hoped when I fled Paris. I did not reveal myself to you when first I came to Wool House, because I have already escaped death too many times to invite it willingly. The wisest course was to wait, and watch, and turn to advantage what I could. When I heard of the good Seagrave’s court-martial, I thought to bargain my way to safety by telling what I had seen during the batde for the Manon. I did not comprehend, hein, that by accusing the man Chessyre, I should tomber de Charybde en Scylla”1