Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House

“Your husband has told you this?” I whispered.

Her lips worked, and then her entire countenance crumpled with the fierce violence of grief. “He did not need to say a word. I know the love he bore that child. I witnessed it every day, in the diminished affection he gave to his own sons — in the flight of all love and honour from myself! I did not have to be told.”

“The child,” I repeated, as comprehension broke. “You would speak of the Young Gentleman! The boy who took a musket shot, while aloft in the shrouds, and was dashed to the decks with the roll of the ship. But why—”

“Master Simon Carruthers,” Louisa Seagrave said. “Nearly two years he was in my husband's keeping, and dearer to him than any child in the world. A bright, healthy lad with a courageous heart, a shock of blond hair, a ready grin. The boy's father — Captain Carruthers— was a great friend of Thomas's, and killed at Trafalgar. Simon's place on the Stella was meant to be a great favour, a mark of esteem. Do you know what they do to a lad of that age, when he dies in battle? Do you?” Her voice was shrill, as though she teetered on the brink of hysterics; it demanded of me some answer.

I shook my head.

“They toss him overboard without a word of farewell, without a prayer for his parting soul. He slips astern like a sprig of jetsam, and is lost to the fishes and the rocks. No mother may bathe his body for burial, or stand by his graveside with a posy for remembrance.” She covered her face with her hands and began to sob wretchedly. The sound was guttural and harsh. “Such dreams as I have had, Miss Austen! Such visions of decay — the nightmares that haunt my sleep! Those are pearls that were his eyes …'”

The high, piping voice of six-year-old Edward, raised in protest as his uncle Sir Walter was torn from all the delights of boat launchings at Sally Port, drifted through the ceiling from the nursery upstairs. I shuddered. It was horrible to think of such innocence blasted, and made food for fishes.

“But a French musket brought down the boy. Surely you cannot—”

“Seven years old. But seven years old! No stouter than one of my own boys should be.” She turned upon me as a wolf might avenge the baiting of her young. “Simon Carruthers should not have been at sea. I blame my husband! As who could not! He is guilty of the grossest folly — guilty of abuse and murder! It was Thomas who would have the boy torn from his mother at the tender age of five — Thomas, who being denied his own sons to parade about the quarterdeck, must borrow the heir of a hero, and throw the child into all the violence of a fighting ship in the midst of a brutal war. Madness, this crush of young lives in the gun's breech, like the maul of apple blossom beneath a booted heel! Can you bear to think of his mother, Miss Austen?”

His mother. The beautiful Phoebe Carruthers, in her gown of dark grey, her mass of golden hair. I had thought her a sort of Madonna when I glimpsed her in French Street last night, before I even knew of her mourning. Strange that a woman with every cause for grief should venture to a play.

“Are you at all acquainted with Mrs. Carruthers?”

“One cannot reside in Hampshire, and yet be ignorant of Phoebe Carruthers,' Louisa Seagrave replied. “She is reckoned the most beautiful woman of the naval set; certainly she has suffered the most. The entire Admiralty is at her feet, I understand, from respect for her courage. Even Thomas—”

She broke off, and stared at her hands. “You think me bitter, no doubt. You think me vengeful and cruel to urge my husband's sacrifice. There are some, I know, who do not hesitate to call me mad. But I cannot view the Navy's folly, Miss Austen, without I declare it criminal. I would not give my sons to Thomas when he longed to take them to sea. I refused him — and my refusal has long divided us. It is the rock upon which our marriage has broken. But I am justified in that poor child's death! And if God is yet in His Heaven, Tom will hang for what he did.”

There was a bustle in the hallway and the parlour door swung inwards to reveal my brother. Behind him I detected the forms of Mr. Hill and Monsieur LaForge. All three were subdued; and from the turn of Frank's countenance, my heart sank. I feared the worst.

“Mrs. Seagrave,” he said with a bow, “pray forgive an intrusion so unannounced. We thought it best to inform you—”

“Oh, God, pray tell me at once!” the lady implored.

Frank hesitated, and his eyes sought my face. “Captain Seagrave's court-martial has been suspended by order of Admiral Hastings.”

“He is free, then?” Mrs. Seagrave asked faintly.

“For the moment. But he remains under charge. Suspension, I am afraid, is not the same as acquittal.” Frank glanced over his shoulder at the pair on the threshold. “I must apologise for carrying strangers in my train, and thrusting them upon you at such an hour. Mrs. Seagrave, may I present Mr. Hill and Monsieur LaForge, two gentlemen who have been most active on your husband's behalf.”

Louisa shielded her eyes as the gentlemen made their way into the room, then sank once more upon the sopha. From her attitude, she might be overpowered with relief and thankfulness; I alone of the party must suspect the truth.

“The Lieutenant, Mr. Chessyre, failed to appear?” I enquired of Frank in a lowered tone.

“Mr. Chessyre is dead,” my brother returned without preamble. “He was murdered last night in a brothel beyond Southampton's walls, his body discovered only this morning.”

I pressed one hand to my lips in horror.

Louisa Seagrave began to laugh.

26 February 1807, cont.

“THAT IS A VERY ILL YOUNG WOMAN,” MR. HILL DECLARED as we stood in Lombard Street almost an hour later. We had subdued Louisa Seagrave's hysterics, and partaken of the dry sherry and iced cakes the maidservant had thrust upon us, however little appetite we felt for them.

“If she were my wife,” the surgeon continued, “I should engage a private nurse and demand absolute quiet. Her children should be taken from her care, and a strict control placed upon her diet. A tour in the Swiss Alps might answer the case, if safe passage could be managed.”

“Is the complaint a nervous one?” I enquired apprehensively. Even to Mr. Hill I dared not voice the idea of madness.

“Perhaps it began as such. But she has not helped her situation by consuming so much of laudanum. It is a tincture that carries its own dependence; more and more of the stuff is required to achieve a salutary effect; nightmares and waking terror swiftly follow; and the total destruction of the bodily frame must eventually result She should be weaned from it as soon as may be.” He shook his head grimly.

“You mean Dr. Wharton's Comfort? But surely that cannot be harmful. It is stocked in every stillroom in the land. Babies take it from their wet nurses' hands, to comfort them in crying.”.

“Laudanum is a tincture of opium, Miss Austen,” enjoined Mr. Hill brusquely, “and no less vicious than what may be eaten in a Chinese den. I suggest, Captain Austen, that you speak to your friend about his wife.”

“I expect to meet him within the hour,” Frank returned, “but it is a delicate subject. Perhaps if you would be so good as to vouchsafe an opinion — in a professional capacity, of course …”.

“I can do nothing unless I am expressly consulted,” said Mr. Hill, “but I stand willing to perform the office.” Frank bowed. Mr. Hill clapped LaForge on the shoulder.

“We two shall take a nuncheon, Captain, and await you and your sister at the quay. Our French colleague deserves a toast to freedom, before he is immured once more in walls of stone.”