Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House

“—he should be incapable of command,” I concluded bleakly. “I quite see your point”

We sailed up the Solent with the wind on the quarter and the threat of storm ominous at our backs. I could not be easy; my mind had received new information. I considered of my brother's life in a harsher light, I knew, of course, that he was daily witness to scenes of brutality; that he lived in the closest proximity with the baser instincts of man; that he was constantly exposed to mortal danger. But his love for the naval life had superseded every objection in the hearts of his family. We saw that Frank could not do otherwise than he had done, and the honour he had won seemed recompense enough for sacrifice. I had never considered, however, that he must play at God. Each action — each decision as captain to engage the Enemy — must bring with it the certainty of death for some among his men. My brother lived with the consequences as surely as he lived by the noon reckoning. I could not gaze at his beloved profile — already aged unnaturally by privation and war — without feeling equal parts pity and pride confounded in my heart.

We sailed on in silence for a period, the rough seas slapping and tugging at the hoy's bow. Mr. Hill fell sound asleep, with his hands clasped over his breast; Etienne LaForge sat slumped by his side, looking quite ill. It was probable that the excitement and fatigue of the morning had sapped his strength, already delicate from prolonged fever; he could not achieve Wool House too soon. I burned with indignation at the thought of the Frenchman's incarceration; his precarious health demanded a decent room with clean linen, a steady fire, and adequate victuals. I must speak to Admiral Bertie. The surgeon should be housed as an officer, in the home of a naval family. Perhaps Mr. Hill — or even Mrs. Davies — might find the man a room….

At my side Frank expelled a heavy sigh. “Lord knows I should prefer that Tom carry a tendre for a lady not his wife, than to suppose him a murderer — but it seems an unhappy choice.”

“You were ready enough to believe the latter while disputing in the naval yard.”

“Perhaps I was over-hasty there. A lesser man might kill for vengeance, but Tom did not earn his reputation through impulse and unreason. I should be surprised, upon reflection, did your Frenchman's tale of rank betrayal overrule Seagrave's good sense.”

“This murder was not, however, the act of a hasty man,” I observed thoughtfully. “Death by impulse requires a knife or a pistol — something carried against attack, and deployed without thought, in the heat of passion or self-defence. But a garotte—”

“—would suggest that Chessyre's killer came upon him from behind. That he crept up by stealth, and slipped the iron band deliberately about his neck, and pulled it taut. Yes, I quite seize your meaning, Jane. The murder was determined, organised, and carried out with despatch. That much is of a piece with Tom's usual tactics in war.”

“Then a casual brigand we must discard. Three choices remain to us,” I concluded. “Either Chessyre was killed by his companion in plotting, to prevent him divulging all?? knew; or he was killed by Tom Seagrave, from vengeance. Or lastly by one of Seagrave's friends, who thought to tip the scales of justice in the Captain's favour by weighting them with the corpse of his accuser.”

“I cannot like the character of such a friend.”

“But can you put a name to him, Frank? Some old shipmate of Seagrave's, perhaps?”

My brother shook his head in the negative.

“Excepting, naturally — yourself,” I said.

OUR RETURN TO MRS. DAVIES'S LODGING HOUSE WAS attended with unexpected ceremony.

As the hoy dropped anchor in Southampton Water, and the skiff set out from the Quay to meet us, I observed a singular figure clutching the gunwales amidships. He was tall and spare — so spare that his narrow back curved like a fishhook over his protruding knees, and his thin wrists sprang from his coat sleeves like stalks of spring rhubarb. The master of the hoy, in observing this apparition's approach, muttered under his breath.

“I'll not be taking that delicate article anywhere on the Water, Cap'n, and I'll thank'ee to tell him so.”

His eyes narrowed against the wind, Frank clapped the master on the shoulder. “I doubt that gentleman has a voyage in view.”

The skiff came alongside; the oarswomen shipped their blades; and the reedy fellow glanced at us beseechingly from under his broad-brimmed hat.

“Captain Austen, I assume? Miss Austen?” He evinced no interest in Mr. Hill or Etienne LaForge, who were waiting patiently for a seat in the skiff.

“You have the advantage of me, sir,” Frank replied.

The gentleman ducked his head in acknowledgement. “Forgive me — I feel most unwell — that is, a trifle indisposed — the motion of the seas—” He swallowed convulsively and clutched once more at the skiff's sides. “I am Mr. Percival Pethering, Magistrate of Southampton, and I wish to speak with you, Captain, on a matter of utmost urgency.”

“Am I to suppose,” said Frank with undisguised amusement, “that you have braved the seas in order to apprehend me? Then shift your position, sir, that I might hand my sister into the skiff.”

“Naturally!” cried Pethering in an agony of consciousness. His hands remained fixed at the skiffs sides, his skeletal form immovable. “Only too happy to oblige! Provided, of course, that this cockle does not overturn….”

“And you do not attempt to stand upright, all will be well.” Frank avoided the satiric looks of the oarswomen, and placed his hand under my elbow. “Lightly, Jane, lest Mr. Pethering be indisposed.”

I cast him a chiding look. Fly is merciless in his abuse of the lubbers everywhere about him; he cannot resist this natural tendency towards superiority in matters naval; but Pethering held a temporal power that warranted respect.

At the moment, however, the magistrate was incapable of taking offence. He was recumbent over the skiff's far side, being sick into the sea.

We managed to achieve the Water Gate Quay without further incident. My brother assisted Mr. Pethering — who was most unsteady on his feet — from the skiff before even myself. The magistrate stood upon the stone pier drawing great gusts of salutary air, as though life, in all its miseries and joys, was newly granted him.

Frank stepped easily to shore and bowed to the magistrate. “You are come upon the matter of Mr. Chessyre, I think?”

“I am, sir. You have learned of his brutal end already. But we shall defer our speech until the lady” — this, with a nod for me — “is safely returned to your lodgings.”

“My sister is entirely in my confidence, sir,” Frank told him stiffly.

“Pray do not regard me in the slightest, Mr. Pethering,” I said.

The magistrate hesitated. His small eyes shifted from Frank to myself, as though in the most acute indecision. Viewed in full, his countenance appeared drawn, his features sharp, his teeth very bad. I guessed him to be no older than myself, but the wispy tendrils of hair escaping from his hat suggested a man approaching his dotage. There was about Percival Pethering a pitiful air of ill-health, of seclusion within doors, of embarrassments nursed in the most painful solitude. He was not the sort for decisive action or lightning-swift thought.

“Very well,” he conceded abruptly. “We shall talk as we go, and save your wife the trouble of accommodating an interview.”

“You know of my wife?” Frank returned, with the first suggestion of unease.

“It was she who told me where you might be found. I have been waiting for the hoy's return this last hour at least. You may judge from that how serious is the case.”