Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House

“I should never ignore the advice of a surgeon,” I said, and prepared to attend Martha to the French Street theatre.

THE PALE SUNLIGHT THAT HAD GREETED THE DAY WAS soon fled, and succeeded by the usual Southampton drizzle we had come to abhor. I feared the night would prove far too wet for my mother's health, and that a diminution of our evening party must be the result. Nothing short of widespread revolution, however, should prevent me from seeing the play in French Street. I had found too little enjoyment this winter, and meant to have my share of amusement.

I have long been a devotee of good hardened real acting, and though I may win contempt for preferring a Comedy to a Tragedy, I own that Mrs. Jordan is exactly the sort of player to please my taste. She is bright and light and sparkling; ingenuous in her air, despite the increase in grandeur that has attended her notice from the Duke. She delivers her lines with so lively a humour, that one might almost believe the words to have sprung directly from her wit, rather than the pen of a Kotzebue or an Inchbald. I had once been disappointed in a glimpse of her at Covent Garden, while on a visit to my brother Henry; I could hardly credit my good fortune in finding the lady descended upon Southampton, and must assume that some imminent embarkation aboard a royal yacht had occasioned Mrs. Jordan's removal hither.

Despite the delay occasioned by our visit at Wool House, Martha and I were in good time to procure seats for our entire party. The hearty dinner Martha had ordered was duly laid at an early hour; my mother descended to table for the second time in as many days — an unprecedented honour — and insisted that the rain was nothing she must regard. By seven o'clock we were all established cosily in a hack chaise, pulled up before the theatre doors in a long line of similar conveyances. The downpour was considerable, and Frank was so gallant as to offer to carry me across the wet paving-stones. I declined, and splashed my slippers regrettably in achieving the foyer.

Such a crush of local worthies! Such a display of fine silks and sateens, of feathered headpieces and naked shoulders! How one was frozen from the draughts that flooded through the doors, and yet toasted unbearably when too near the roaring fires! The danger of spilled claret from a neighbour's glass, trailing like blood down a skirt of white lawn — the danger of an inflammation of the lungs, to so much goose-fleshed womanhood! I had elected to wear a sober gown of blue sarcenet with long sleeves, several years behind the fashion; what it lacked in daring exposure, it more than compensated in warmth. My hair was pulled back in a simple knot, and bound with ribbons of a similar colour; it was nothing very extraordinary in its arrangement. I felt positively dowdy; and suffered, of a sudden, from an access of shyness.

The sensation was increased when a broad-shouldered, chestnut-haired fellow jostled my arm in attempting to ease by me. He glanced at my face, muttered an apology, and swept on with only the barest civility of manner. I thought his countenance familiar. There was a mix of worldliness and contempt in his eyes that struck me like a blow. I had seen this man before.

“Frank! Frank—”

My brother turned from assisting his wife with her pelisse.

“That gentleman by the staircase, ascending to the boxes — with the woman in dark grey. We are acquainted with him, surely?”

The chestnut-haired man had a hand under the elbow of his fair companion. I had not noticed her previously, a testament to my confusion; she was extraordinarily lovely, with a haunting, fine-boned beauty. Her cheekbones were high; her nose aquiline; her deep-set eyes heavily lashed. A luxuriant mass of gold hair trembled elegantly above her nape; her ears were two pink shells. And though she was dressed in dark grey, with complete sobriety and disregard for ornament, the lines of her gown could not disguise the exceptional in her figure. It was a wonder that every male eye was not turned the lady's way. Her companion bore her along like a prize he had seized.

“By Jove,” Frank murmured. That is Sir Francis Farnham — a member of the Navy Board. I wonder what he is doing in Southampton?”

“Seeing to his ships, one must assume.”

“He should far rather work his coded signal lines from a safe distance,” Frank retorted.

“You would refer to the Admiralty's cunning flags, which communicate intelligence from London to Portsmouth?”

“Sir Francis never goes near the water if he may help it, and thus is a great advocate for telegraph — and every new form of jiggery-pokery the Admiralty may advise. It is said they contemplate a signal-line that will run the length of the Kingdom — God help them when the wind blows too strong!” [13] Frank Austen is referring here to the Royal Navy's semaphore system of communication, which only replaced the older form of signal-flag communications in 1816. “Telegraphy” refers not to the electrical system of transmission invented by Samuel Morse in 1837, but to a series of signal towers that relayed orders from the capital to the coast. — Editor's note.

“You seem quite familiar with the effects of Sir Francis's administration,” I observed.

“I made the Baronet's acquaintance some years ago in Kent, when I commanded the Sea Fencibles; I warrant he will not remember me now. He is grown so very great in Influence!”

“Ramsgate,” I said thoughtfully. That is where I have had a glimpse of him.”

“He does not observe,” Frank persisted, craning his neck; “he has already ascended. I shall seek him out during the interval, however. Sir Francis governs the Transport Board, and I should dearly like to consult with him on the matter of those Frenchmen in Wool House. The Transport Board holds authority, you know, over prisoners of war.”

“His wife is very lovely.”

“Wife! That is Phoebe Carruthers; Trafalgar widowed her. Perhaps Sir Francis hopes to secure her as his second lady — though I should have thought him capable of attaching a woman of greater fortune. He is handsome and rich, and Mrs. Carruthers possesses little more than her beauty.”

“Many men are happy with less.”

“I wonder at her sensibility, Jane. I should not have thought her in a humour for play-acting.”

“And why is that?”

“Cannot you see that she is in mourning? It was her son — the Young Gentleman — who fell dead from the shrouds on the Stella Maris.”

BUT BY THE TIME WE HAD WITNESSED MRS. JORDAN'S skill, and laughed until our sides ached, and stood once more to seek the foyer — Frank's project of appeal on behalf of the French prisoners must perforce be postponed. Sir Francis Farnham and his companion were gone.

Thursday

26 February 1807,

IF FRANK RECEIVED ANY REPLY FROM TOM SEAGRAVE TO his express of Tuesday evening, I was not informed. My brother was unwontedly silent this morning as we sailed down the Solent. It was so early that the dusk had barely lifted from the New Forest, so early that the faint winter light had no power to warm me, and I huddled in my old pelisse while the frigid spume raced across the small vessel's hull.

Etienne LaForge was braced in the bow of the boat drinking great draughts of fresh air. To him, the cold and wet seemed immaterial. He had donned this morning a black wool coat, serviceable and unadorned. His hair, overlong from inattention, was bound at his nape with black ribbon, and his countenance was alight with freedom despite the manacles at his wrists. I had winced at the sight of those bonds, heavy and remorseless about his fine hands; but I did not question them. Frank had warned me that the French surgeon's motives must be suspect. It was possible, after all, that the man had schooled his story to the hints I had given him — that having heard a little of Seagrave's court-martial from the Marine guards, he had fabricated Chessyre's perfidy with precisely this view to escape. Frank had no intention of appearing a fool; he had sacrificed reputation enough in taking Tom Seagrave's part. Did LaForge intend to hurl himself from the hoy halfway to Portsmouth, he should sink like a stone from the weight of his irons.