Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House

“I see.” He drew his white gloves through hands made rough by constant exposure to the weather. “Louisa has not been well, for a twelvemonth at least, and I confess it wears at my heart. She abhors Portsmouth; and this wretched business has hardly contributed to her happiness. I thank you, Miss Austen, for your kindness to my wife.”

“It was a pleasure, I assure you.”

He appeared surprised, as well he might — there can be few that found aught in Louisa Seagrave to redeem the caprices of her temper.

“I wonder, Captain,” I added, “whether you have consulted a reputable physician? For Mrs. Seagrave does appear a trifle … thin.” I had chosen my words; uneasy in her mind, or most dependent upon laudanum, must be discarded as ill-advised. “Mr. Hill, the naval surgeon, remarked upon her… nerves. I am sure that he—”

“She will not bear a consultation,” Seagrave said abruptly, “though I have urged her repeatedly to it”

“You must bring her to Southampton one day. I am sure the airing would do her good.”

“Yes,” he replied, but his gaze fell to his gloves and he appeared less open than before. Perhaps he could not trust his Louisa amidst the delights of a watering place.

“Tom,” broke in my brother with some urgency, “the Admiral tells me you were questioned as to your movements last night.”

“I was.”

“Why did you not tell them that you were at home?”

The Captain smiled thinly. “I saw no reason to prevaricate. I was not at home. Though for all the good my activity did me, I should better have sat by the fire.”

Frank slapped his thigh in irritation. “You went in search of Chessyre. I should never have sent you the contents of that express! The shock must certainly prove too great—”

“Betrayal, particularly among friends, must always seize us unawares. A lifetime of experience cannot inure us to each new perfidy.”

Seagrave's accent was cold to the point of ice; but my brother appeared oblivious. Tom, you must own the truth before it is too late. If you killed Chessyre in an affair of honour—”

“I wish that I had. I did not. You may chuse to believe me or no, Austen — it is all one with me.”.

Again, Frank flushed. “I am happy to find you value the good opinion of your friends so highly!”

“The idea of friendship, it seems to me, has suffered an alteration. I once called Eustace Chessyre friend; but he might better have thrust my dirk into my back than Porthiault's chest — my end might have proved less lingering. I cannot forgive him for it”

“Good God, Tom, will you build your gallows in the very naval yard?” Frank hissed.

“And then there is Frank Austen,” Seagrave continued harshly, “whom I have also called friend. Frank Austen, whose desire for a fast frigate is everywhere known, whose ties to the Admiralty are so very good, whose efforts to clear me of dishonour must provide an occasion for the most officious and public spectacle of interference, and raise him in the esteem of everybody who has eyes to see — good, noble, avaricious Frank Austen, who should as soon steal a man's livelihood as shake his hand!”

“Tom!” my brother protested, aghast.

“Damn all friends, I say!”

And Tom Seagrave stalked off without a word of apology.

My brother stared after him. “I have half a mind to call him out! This is the basest ingratitude — and after all I have done, too!”

I restrained him with one gloved hand. “It is a hard thing for an independent man to utter thanks. Seagrave must know himself indebted to your goodness; he shall reflect, and regret his harsh words, when anger has passed. Surely you see so much?”

“I see nothing but a man determined to go to the Devil, Frank muttered. “He might at least have told us where he was last night.”

“As to that—” I said, “surely it is obvious?”

26 February 1807, cont.

“NOTHING ABOUT THIS WRETCHED BUSINESS IS OBVIOUS to me,” Frank commented bitterly as we made for the Portsmouth hoy.

I glanced at him sidelong. “There is a woman in Seagrave's case, Fly. Men never plead silence on the subject of their movements without they fancy themselves honour-bound to shield a lady's virtue. In their ponderous reticence they succeed in exposing that which they would most protect.”

“You suspect poor Tom of an illicit attachment?”

“Why else would your friend refuse to say where he was last night?”

“For any number of reasons! A man may have his privacy, after all!”

“Tom Seagrave has been careless in defending his; he must not be surprised to find it invaded. Mary tells me that Lucky Tom is everywhere known as a taker of prizes — not all of them ships. The ladies of her naval acquaintance regard Captain Seagrave as one who cannot keep his breeches on.”

Frank snorted. “Mary does not understand the meaning of the phrase.”

“I fear she does.”

My brother saw me safely into the hoy beside Mr. Hill, the surgeon; Etienne LaForge already sat in the bow, his manacled hands held before him like a penitent's. The Frenchman's face was flushed, his expression turned inwards. He was in the grip of fever or anxiety — the one hardly distinguishable from the other.

“I do not mean to make out that Tom is a saint, Jane,” my brother persisted. “l do not have to tell you what the Navy is. Women are left at home, to commit every kind of folly in unguarded idleness, while the men exist without sight of England for years, sometimes, at a stretch. Neglect and thoughtlessness may account for every kind of misery on both sides. But Tom has always seemed happy in his wife.”

“His wife, however, is hardly happy in her husband.” I drew my brother a little apart from the others and spoke in a lowered tone. It was imperative, now, that I acquaint Frank with Louisa Seagrave's opinions regarding the Captain. He was astounded; nothing in life had prepared him for such bitterness of feeling on the part of a spouse; and he seemed to feel her betrayal as though it were his own.

“Is she mad?” he cried. “When Tom is most in need of support, she must go blathering to a recent acquaintance that he deserves to hang! The woman can only be bird-witted!”

“She is anything but,” I replied evenly. “Her wisdom in revealing so much to a relative stranger must, of course, be disputed; but I believe her to have spoken from an agony of spirit that would not be gainsaid. Remember that she never accused Tom Seagrave of the French captain's murder. She is most unhappy in her union; she cannot respect or confide in the man who shares her fate; she does not approve of his way of life, and will not entrust her children to his care at sea. So much is certain. It remains for us to determine how much weight to accord her words.”

“None at all, if I am to be consulted,” Frank muttered belligerendy. “She is a shrew and an ungrateful wretch, and Seagrave should be quit of her directly.”

“Frank—”

He turned upon me. “You cannot take her part, Jane. You cannot wish the man to hang, simply because a boy of seven was killed in battle. Boys of every age are dropped over the side; it is the nature of war.”

“Then women are well out of it,” I retorted bitterly. “You must not apply the coldness of a man's heart, trained to command and to hurl lives into the breach, with the tender feelings of a mother.”

“Louisa Seagrave has done the reverse,” Frank declared, “and the application is ill-judged. I know for a fact that Tom was most seriously cut-up about young Carruthers's loss; he felt the lad's death acutely. But if he were to feel every such death in excess of its due—”