Stephanie Barron: Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House

There are chandlers, and tailors adept at the fashioning of uniforms, and purveyors of all such items as are necessary to a sailor's trunk — cocked hats, round hats for everyday wear, preserved meat and portable soup, Epsom salts and James's powders, nankeen and kerseymere waistcoats, black silk handkerchiefs, combs and clothes-brushes, tooth-powder, quadrants, day-glasses, log-books, Robinson's Elements of Navigation and The Requisite Tables and Nautical Almanac. Portsmouth may boast a few butchers and grocers, but they cannot look very high in their custom, the pay of the naval set running only to modest joints, and such comestibles as are cheaply in season.

Four coaching inns serve the well-heeled traveller come south for embarkation: the Crown, the Navy Tavern, theFountain, and, of course, the George. Ido not believe thereis a town in England that cannot claim a George. It was to this latter that my brother intended to repair, to procure us both a light nuncheon before seeking the home of Captain Thomas Seagrave. I thought it likely that Frank did not wish to put the Captain — or his wife, did Seagrave possess one — to the trouble of feeding those who came to condole.

“There is the Stella Maris” Frank said quietly as we were rowed into the quay. “Cast your eyes upon that, Jane. Everything prime about her.”

I gazed in silent absorption at the single-decker's closed gun ports, her soaring triple masts. I knew nothing of the subtleties of ship design; I should have to accept Frank's assurances regarding this one. But the ship was certainly an article of spirit, rocking gently at her moorings like a swan come to rest: sails close-furled in the shrouds, quarterdeck bereft of life. Only a handful of men moved purposefully about her. The rest of her crew would be on shore leave.

“You can see where the foremast has been shipped and repaired,” Frank observed. “Splinters dashed from the poop railing and tops, as well — it is a French habit, you know, to train their guns on the masts and rigging, rather than the hull as we should do. I should like to see the damage the Manon took! She must be moored somewhere near about; the Stella will have towed her into port — but such trifles as this trim little frigate sustained, would never leave Seagrave dead in the water.”

He halted abruptly in this speech, as though his words risked an ominous construction; andwe spoke no more of the unlucky action, nor of thetrim little frigate, until the George was gained and our nuncheon consumed.

AS THIS WAS MY FIRST VISIT TO PORTSMOUTH, FRANK was all enthusiasm in conducting me through the streets once we quitted the George. He had first come to the town as a boy of twelve, a hopeful scholar at the Royal Naval Academy; he had returned some part of every year thereafter, and must regard it as almost a home. He was longing, I knew, to gain the naval dockyard in order to observe the ships presently building in the stocks; to meet with old acquaintances and learn the latest intelligence of war; to finger lengths of cordage and brass carronades and talk with spirit of his views on gunnery. I had heard Frank's opinions on the subject before, and might have engaged in such a conversation, with a remarkable air of possessing knowledge well beyond my grasp — Three broadsides every five minutes, and better by G-d if we can manage it — but Frank was inured this morning to the lures of his profession. He led me unswervingly from the broader main street, into a crooked little lane halfway down its extent, lined with steep and leaning houses shoddily-built. In one of these, we thought to find Captain Seagrave.

“I should mention,” Frank informed me as we stood upon the steps, “that Seagrave possesses a wife — a lady of birth and independent fortune. I believe she married to disoblige her family, however, and was cut off.”

I nodded once in comprehension. The door swung open to reveal the harassed visage of a girl in apron and cap, several strands of blond hair trailing down her reddened face. Remarkably, she bore a black patch over one eye.

“Missus says as how she's not at home,” this apparition supplied without preamble. “You may leave yer cards if you've a mind.”

“It is Captain Seagrave we seek, Frank said firmly. “Pray tell him that Captain Austen has called.”

“Yer can tell 'im yerself,” the slattern retorted.

“That will be all, Nancy.”

The maid skittered aside as though she had been prodded with a fire iron, to reveal an upright figure barely discernible among the shadows of the foyer. From his bearing alone — correct, unfussy, and economical in its containment — I should have known him instantly for an officer of the Royal Navy; but the smile that lit my brother's countenance was assurance enough.

Frank stepped forward and seized Captain Seagrave about the shoulders. “Tom! It does my heart good to see you!”

The man before us broke into a grin; he returned the pressure of Frank's hands with a clap of his own. “Austen! You rogue! I thought you well out of Portsmouth this age — on convoy duty to the Indies, some said, though I had heard you were relieved of the Canopus. Is Charles Yardley in command of her, then? She'll not be well served. Yardley's a craven fool.”

“You'll not hear me say you nay, Tom,” my brother replied with a laugh. “I might almost suspect the Admiralty of wishing the old Canopus at the bottom of the sea, in placing her in such hands. But it has been an age since we met!”

“Off Minorca, was it not? A year since?”

“More,” Frank replied grimly. “It was the thirty-first of October, 1805, and I had at last come out of Gibraltar in search of the Admiral's fleet I encountered you first among all the victors of that action.”

There was no need to distinguish which admiral the two men would discuss, or what action; with Nelson gone, the details of his passing were forever enshrined in glory.

“You look well, Frank,” Seagrave said in a softened tone. “I might almost believe that shore leave agrees with you. And you are married, I understand! Is this, then, the pretty bride you've brought to meet me?”

I blushed. The shadows of the foyer must be heavy, indeed, could Tom Seagrave flatter me so. This past December I achieved the age of one-and-thirty, and any bloom I might once have claimed has entirely gone off.

“Mary sends her most cordial greetings, to be sure,” Frank interposed, “—but at present, she is indisposed. May I present my sister to your acquaintance? Miss Austen, Captain Seagrave.”

I made my courtesy to the gentleman, and received his bow in return. Like so many officers of the Navy, Seagrave possessed a weathered face, deeply lined, with crow's-feet about the eyes from gazing long at the horizon; his hair was grizzled by the sun, his skin the color of mahogany. He was, I thought, a few years older than Frank; or perhaps his various fortunes had hardened his countenance in a manner that Frank had yet escaped. It was a handsome face, all the same, as a beast's carved in stone will forcibly draw the eye. In gazing upon it, I judged that Tom Seagrave was formed for command, and decisive action, and coolness in the extremity of battle; but having viewed his countenance, I could no longer dismiss the idea of the man shooting an enemy point-blank, in cold blood. By his looks, Seagrave required only sufficient provocation.

A door into the hall burst open at that moment, and two boys of perhaps six and eight rushed headlong into the room to fall in a tangle about Seagrave's ankles. From the open doorway there emanated a baby's insistent wail, and the tired voice of a woman attempting to hush it.