Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House

The Frenchman had bowed low, the perfect gentleman regardless, as we stood on the Water Gate Quay. There was no cause for LaForge to feel shame at his bonds; he was a prisoner solely from unhappy circumstance; yet I did not think there were many Englishmen who should have worn humiliation so carelessly.

“Miss Austen! Your taste for the macabre runs to hanging, I see. Shall you be very disappointed if the Captain survives?”

“Monsieur LaForge.” I had bowed my head in acknowledgement of his greeting. “You must recollect the friend of the bosom — the Captain's wife. I go to Portsmouth solely to comfort her.”

A twitch of amusement, peculiarly his own, had worked at the corners of his mouth. “La pauvre petite. But as I have agreed to tell whatever I know to whomever will listen — perhaps your comfort will be unnecessary, hein?”

We had now been underway nearly half an hour, and Gosport was fast approaching to the larboard side; the squat dark shape of the Isle of Wight loomed like an enormous turtle. Mr. Hill, as a sailor of long standing and a responsible gaoler, stood stoutly next to LaForge in the bow, the two men spoke but little. Given the tearing breeze, Hill's attention seemed fixed upon securing his periwig to his skull. LaForge's eyes eagerly swept the horizon, as though he expected to find salvation there. My brother was engaged in steady conversation with the vessel's master — a conversation that consisted mainly of assessing the wind and clapping on sail — and so I was alone amidships, with my gloved hands clenched upon the edge of my seat.

Mr. Hill chanced to look around — chanced to furl his wizened face in a smile, which I returned — and that swiftly it seemed the two men could not sustain the picture of lonely self-sufficiency I presented. As one, Mr. Hill and Etienne LaForge picked their way over coils of rope, dodged taut lines and shuddering canvas, and settled themselves beside me.

“That is better.” Mr. Hill sighed with relief, and dropped his hands to his sides. The gusts of wind in this part of the vessel were greatly diminished in relation to the bow. “I never wear my wig at sea if I can help it; but circumstances this morning must dictate the strictest attention to propriety. One cannot present a ragged appearance before Admiral Hastings.”

“You look very well, sir,” I assured him. “You shall disgrace no one in your present guise.”

Etienne LaForge raised one eyebrow. “Is it not the custom for surgeons to look pitiful and go in tatters? I had thought it was requisite to appear as the dregs of humanity, a testament to impoverished circumstance.”

“Surgeons are a mixed lot, I warrant you,” replied Mr. Hill equably. “Five drunkards for every sober man, most without the scantiest learning, and not a few fleeing charges of murder at home. But you have seen the same in the French Navy, surely?”

“Zut,” cried Monsieur LaForge, “you ask me to impugn the honour of the French? Never! Besides, I cannot claim to be a real surgeon. I am versed in the physical sciences, not the sawing of bones; I was pressed into service aboard that ship, and know very little of the navy, French or otherwise.”

“Aha!” said Mr. Hill with satisfaction. “I thought there was something peculiar in your air, sir. Too much the gentleman to be merely a sawbones — there was the matter of your attire, that handsome walking-stick, and all those books you brought from the Manon. Great intellect is not often wanted aboard ship.”

“Nor evident in the conduct of its sailing,” LaForge retorted. “That is one blow to French honour I may freely give.”

I remembered that the same bitterness had marked his views of the dead captain, Porthiault. LaForge had called him a fool, and evinced no regret at the man's violent passing. He wished, as well, to remain in England rather than return to France. Life under the Monster's claws must be brutal beyond enduring.

“I myself fell in with the Navy purely as a view to research, you know,” continued Mr. Hill. “I am a passionate ornithologist, and one cannot stay at home and hope to master the subject. Was the Manon your first berth?”

“Yes,” returned LaForge abruptly, “and I pray God it may prove my last Having seen the inside of Wool House, I have no grande envk to see the rest of the world.”

“And where in France do you call home, monsieur?” I enquired.

“The Haute Savoie,” he replied, “not far from the Swiss border. It is a beautiful country, quite unlike your England.”

“And yet you wish to exchange the one for the other,” I rejoined, stung.

“Beauty is not the sole recommendation for a méthode de vivre,” he said. “Whether I remain in this country, or flee to another, I am not likely to see my Haute Savoie again.”

This last was muttered in so low a tone, I could not be certain I had heard the man correctly; but when I would have begged his pardon, and asked him to repeat his words, he turned the conversation by exclaiming, “I commend you, mademoiselle, for an excellent sailor. Votes avez depied matin. No sickness, no cries of womanly fear at every movement of the boat — it is in your blood, yes? You enjoy the sea as your indomitable brother?” He gestured at Frank, who was still engrossed in the matter of sails.

“Who may regard the constant life of the waves and be unmoved, monsieur? Who may witness the ebb and flood of the tide and not yearn to be carried far from shore, to know the multitude of peoples and places about the globe?” I enquired wistfully. “I should dearly love a man's experience of the sea, but must be content with stories of my brothers' wanderings.”

The master of the hoy shouted suddenly to his mate; the canvas was reefed, and the vessel slowed as it turned. We had achieved the entrance to Portsmouth harbour once more — to starboard, the ships at anchor off Spit-head; to larboard, the mass of buildings tumbling towards the quay. Within the sheltered port itself were anchored a few men o' war. One of these, I knew, must be the Valiant, with its signal flag for court-martial fluttering at the mizzen.

“And there, I presume, sit the rest of the Manon's complement,” observed Etienne LaForge wryly.

My eyes were drawn to the massive stone prison that rose forbiddingly above Portsmouth — a prison in which perhaps hundreds of French sailors languished in expectation of exchange. I had not spared it a thought on Monday. Were the men within ill and despairing? And had they anyone to write their letters?

“Steady, Jane,” my brother said at my elbow as the hoy dropped anchor. “You will not scold us if we do not accompany you to the quay. Our course lies with Admiral Hastings's ship — the Valiant, just to larboard there. The irregularity of LaForge's circumstance is such that we ought not to delay in paying our respects.”

“Of course,” I replied with intrepidity, as though the experience of two days on the water had made me a seasoned sailor. Frank paid off the hoy while Mr. Hill handed me into the cockleshell of a skiff; Monsieur LaForge's hands, after all, were bound.

I TOOK TWO WRONG TURNINGS BEFORE I PETITIONED FOR aid, and found my way at last into Lombard Street. Once there, I managed to distinguish the Seagrave household from its companions in the uniform row of small cottages. This is a more remarkable feat than it sounds, for all passage of the narrow lane and entrance to the residence were blocked by a stately and expensive carriage. Two sets of arms — both unknown to me — were empalled on the panels, surmounted by the bloody gauntlet of the baronet. [14] Jane refers here to a heraldic shield that has been split down the middle to accommodate the arms of the lady's family, to the right, and the gentleman's, to the left. The gentleman is presumably a baronet, for the symbol of the bloody gauntlet is traditionally accorded to that rank. — Editor's note. Not all of Louisa Seagrave's acquaintance among the Great had ceased to notice her, it seemed.