Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House

At last, when the hands had reached twenty-five minutes past two o'clock, I caught the bustle of entry in the front hall and heard Fly's voice raised stridently in a demand for brandy. It must have been perishingly cold upon Southampton Water today.

“I had to search into the very hold of the ship,” he declared with barely suppressed rage as he entered the parlour, “and with the quantity of stuff still sitting in that Indiaman's bowels — salt pork, hardtack, biscuit, water casks, calicoes, a full complement of rats and I know not what else — it was tedious, unpleasant work, I assure you. Captain Dedlock insisted that no boys had come aboard, as well he ought — the Seagraves had paid off their ferryman to get their trunks on board, and come up themselves through the chains. They hid themselves in the hull, determined not to be found. [21] “The chains” refers to the chain-wale or dead-eyes, the hardware used to secure the lower shrouds of a mast to the hull of the ship. We may suppose that Charles and Edward Seagrave climbed up the bow of the ship and entered at the spot in the chain-wale where a sailor usually stood to take soundings of water depth. — Editor's note.

“But you did discover them?”

“Only by resorting to the oldest trick in the book,” Frank retorted. “I waved a burning piece of sacking through the open hatch and shouted Fire! until I was hoarse. They fairly tripped over themselves in their anxiety to achieve the air.”

I could not suppress a smile. “I hope you were not too hard on them, Fly.”

“I whipped them soundly with the bosun's switch, and then carried them back to the Dolphin. Neither Charles nor Edward shall have the use of his backside for several days, and they shall live in terror of naval justice for the rest of their lives. Or so it is to be hoped.”

Jenny appearing at that moment with a large serving of brandy (“for medicinal purposes, the Cap'n having got wet through in all this cold”), my brother sighed his gratitude and could manage nothing more for several moments. At length, setting aside his empty glass, he cocked a quizzical eyebrow at me.

“What stealthy business carried you to the Quay this morning in any case, Jane? For I am not so much of a flat as to believe you were merely taking exercise when you espied the young Seagraves.”

I told him then every particle of intelligence I possessed regarding Nell Rivers, and her strange tale of Eustace Chessyre's end. My brother could no more account for the insertion of a woman — much less a woman in a baronet's coach — into the business than I. Rather than dwell upon the unaccountable, however, I moved quickly to the comprehensible: Sir Francis Farnham's perfidy regarding the prisoners of Wool House, and the manner in which I had been made to look a fool.

“It is active malevolence on Sir Francis's part,” I told Frank indignantly. “Sir Francis has determined to destroy those poor men by consigning them to that hulk. They should all of them be tucked up in warm bedchambers, while instead they lie piteously below decks.”

“Recollect, Jane, that most of those poor men, as you call them, have spent a lifetime in the hold of a ship,” observed my brother mildly. “They may feel more at home in a slung hammock than they should in the best featherbed you could provide!”

“I doubt they have often benefitted from the choice,” I retorted.

“And I must agree with Sir Francis,” Frank went on, “that our convalescent British sailors should not be exposed to gaol-fever. We are too often in want of good men, to lose them in saving the French. Though I am sorry for our friend the surgeon — who seemed a good enough sort of chap — I must say that Sir Francis shows excellent sense.”

“A prison hulk, Fly! Should you like to lie in one yourself, off Boulogne or Calais?”

“I might do a good deal worse,” he rejoined. “I know Captain Smallwood, who has command of that hulk, and I should vouch for his goodwill and integrity without hesitation. He shall not like his duty, but by God, he shall do it!”

“Hurrah for Captain Smallwood.” I sighed.

With a grunt, Frank pulled off his damp boots and tossed them against the fender. A faint frown was lodged above his eyes. “You do not suspect Sir Francis Farnham of having tainted the French surgeon's food, while inspecting Wool House? Surely that is carrying your grudge too far.”

“I do not harbour any grudge,” I said coldly. “I merely observed that the Marines were over-hasty in stating that no one but ourselves had entered the gaol. Plainly, others have. Sir Francis was certainly walking among the prisoners Thursday evening; and I saw him there again this morning. Any man with ill intent, and the good luck to know exactly which meat pasty LaForge would consume, might have done it.”

“Or any woman? — One who drives a coach emblazoned with the arms of a baronet?”

I thrust back my chair, ignoring his satiric look, and crossed to the fire.

“We ought to go to Percival Pethering with your intelligence,” Frank persisted. “Think what it may do for poor Tom! We know, in this, that Chessyre met with others before the end!”

“Nell Rivers's account, though provocative in the extreme, fails to prove Seagrave's innocence. The woman in the baronet's carriage might have dropped Eustace Chessyre anywhere, and left him prey to Seagrave's or another's violence,” I replied thoughtfully. “It should not be unusual for a man to employ a woman as his lure.”

Many ladies were but too willing to serve as the tool of a powerful man, and concerned themselves little with the purpose of their activity. Consider Phoebe Carruthers, for example, with her golden head bent to the words of her companion….

“Fly … Sir Francis Farnham is a baronet, is he not?”

My brother threw up his hands. “And I suppose he veiled himself as a woman, and spoke in a voice firm and low! Next you shall be suspecting Lady Templeton of having been in both Kent and Southampton at once.”

“That is hardly necessary,” I retorted. “Chessyre was killed on Wednesday night, and I observed Lady Templeton in Portsmouth on Thursday. She spoke a great deal of her decision to quit the place the following morning — but no one thought to inform me when she had arrived.9

“I should like a glimpse of Lady Templeton,” Frank said drily. “She must be a formidable person, and much used to arduous travel. After strangling Chessyre with a garrote Wednesday night, we must suppose she poisoned Monsieur LaForge on Thursday. That is quite a piece of road between Portsmouth and Southampton, to traverse three times in twenty-four hours! And what motive could she have for despatching either man?”

“We should have to assume that she wished Tom Seagrave to hang; that she formed a plot with his disgrace as her object; and that she was unwilling either for Chessyre to recant, or LaForge to destroy, the delicate subterfuge she had constructed.”

“But why?” Frank argued. “Because Tom married her niece against all opposition, fifteen years ago? It does not make sense, Jane.”

“Not yet,” I murmured, “but perhaps with time …”

“With time, you expect to learn that LaForge is a French nobleman in disguise, and Lady Templeton an agent of Buonaparte sworn to effect his ruin. Really, Jane! At times I must believe with my mother that you indulge too much in novels!”

I glared at him. “Have you a more apt solution, Frank? What did you learn from Seagrave this morning, in Gaoler's Alley?”

“Nothing to the purpose. Tom refused, without quarter, to discuss his activity Wednesday night; and he very nearly took off my head when I mentioned Phoebe Carruthers. All of Southampton was disposed to invade the lady's privacy, he said, because of her extreme beauty; she was an angel, she had suffered greatly, she deserved to be free of the wretched noose of gossip — et cetera, et cetera.”