Stephanie Barron: Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House

“Charles! Edward!” Seagrave cried as he hauled his sons to their feet. “Mind your manners. We have visitors. What will they think of you!”

“But, Papa!” the elder boy exclaimed. “Nancy says that the Defiant has signalled. She leaves the harbour for Spithead, and we must be on hand to see her go! Look, I have my spyglass from Malta. Cannot we run down to the Sally Port? She shall be gone if we do not make haste!”

“Please, Papa!” the younger boy added.

“Go, then,” Seagrave said with good-natured impatience, “but mind you look after your brother, Charles. Edward — your boot is unfastened; you will be asprawl in the gutter, and you do not take care. I expect you both in time for dinner!”

Edward ducked around me; Frank made a teasing jab to corner Charles; and our little party was almost overrun as the two boys bowled through the door.

“They should be at sea by this time, Tom,” Frank said, looking after them thoughtfully. “Cannot you secure good places?”

Something in Seagrave's countenance hardened. “It is rather difficult at present,” he said abruptly. “Circumstances—”

For an instant, the grim spectre of the gallows hovered before all our eyes, though no one had yet dared to broach the subject of Seagrave's disgrace. A considered delicacy, I thought, prevented the two men from discussing the matter in the Captain's own lodgings, and before a lady. I hastened to turn the conversation.

“But they are full young, surely? Would their mother consent to part with them at so tender an age?”

“Pshaw!” Frank retorted with disgust. “I have known Young Gentlemen of five to come aboard. It is every stout lad's dearest wish to put to sea, Jane! If I am fortunate enough to have a son—”

“I wish to Heaven the boys were in the Indies at this very moment,” Seagrave said flady. “It would do them both good to be lashed to the t'gallants. They might even learn to read, Frank, from sheer boredom! God knows they learn little enough here!”

Frank laughed aloud, quite at home in all the squalor and noise of such a household, though it bore not the slightest resemblance to his own. Perhaps, however, it was very like to the confines of a ship — in which my brother had spent the better part of his life. Frank is nearly three-and-thirty; he went to sea (rather tardily, for the Navy) at the age of fourteen. Nineteen years is a considerable period in the life of a man. It must witness the better part of his character's formation — shape his ideas — confirm what is steady or vicious in his nature. How little we at home understood of Frank's way of life!

The wailing from beyond the parlour door increased, but Captain Seagrave paid it little mind; Nancy the maid screamed at some poor unfortunate in the depths of the scullery; and it appeared we should remain, for the nonce, in the front hall. I understood, now, why Frank had taken such care to procure tea and ham at the George well before seeking his old acquaintance; we had felt the full force of the Seagraves' hospitality in achieving their front step, and must be satisfied.

“Should you like to walk down to the dockyard, Frank?” Seagrave enquired. “I have an errand that way, and might converse with you as we go.”

“A capital idea!”

Seagrave glanced at me. “Perhaps Miss Austen would prefer to rest in the parlour. I shall summon Louisa—”

“Pray, do not disturb her,” I said, in hasty consideration of the squalling infant. “I am well able to amuse myself in exploring the shops hereabouts. Frank might rejoin me in an hour.”

“Louisa would like nothing better than a turn upon the High,” Seagrave insisted firmly. “It would do her good to get a breath of air. She is too much confined, and forever fancying herself ill. If you will but wait a moment, Miss Austen—”

He disappeared within the noisy parlour, and a low murmur of conversation ensued. Frank, I thought, might have intended a word for my benefit in the interval, but that Seagrave reappeared in the hall almost directly. I had only time to glimpse a swirl of ruffled muslin — Mrs. Seagrave, I suspected, had not yet exchanged her dressing gown for more formal attire, though it was nearly one o'clock — before the Captain cried, “Excellent! She would be delighted to accompany you, Miss Austen, if you will but spare her a moment to fetch her bonnet I am sure she will attend you directly. If you should like to take a seat here in the hall — the maid is at present engaged in tidying the parlour—”

“But of course,” I murmured, and settled myself on the single Windsor chair the foyer could boast I have always detested Windsor chairs. “Pray do not tarry on my account, Frank. I shall be quite happy to await Mrs. Seagrave.”

“Expect us in an hour, Jane. Any later, and we'll find the passage back to Southampton too cold and wet for bearing. The rain cannot hold off forever.” Frank squeezed my gloved hand, settled his cockade hat, and pulled open the door. A bow from Captain Seagrave— and the two men were gone.

I had a full quarter-hour to calculate the depth of dust on the picture frames before the distant sound of feet descending a staircase alerted me. The hallway's farthest door was thrust open — Nancy's black patch and sullen countenance appeared — and behind her, the lady who must be Louisa Seagrave.

She was a tall woman, almost equal to her husband in height; and though, to judge by the infant's cries, she had recently been increasing, her gown hung upon her emaciated frame. Her hair was dark, and drawn back without the slightest attention to style or arrangement, in a severe knot at her nape. Though her features were good, and I might trace the remnants of a vanished beauty, it was rather as one might conjure the memory of summer from the frame of a leafless tree. There was about her a palpable air of defeat mingled with defiance, as though she knew herself to have suffered a mortal wound, but was prepared to fade without ceding the slightest quarter to her enemies.

I rose, and moved by an obscure sensation of pity, extended my hand.

“Good day. I am Miss Austen. And you must be Mrs. Seagrave. How good of you to consent to walk with me in town!”

The kindness is entirely yours, I am sure,” she returned abruptly. “Have you any particular errands you wish to complete? A direction you thought to pursue?”

“None whatsoever,” I replied cheerfully. “As this is my first visit to Portsmouth, everything is of interest to me.”

“Then you are more easily amused than I.” She could not disguise the bitterness in her words. “Portsmouth is a wretched hole, Miss Austen, with nothing to recommend it May I ask what place you call home? — Or are you as itinerant as every naval woman in my acquaintance?”

“I am presently settled with my family in Southampton,” I replied.

“Ah. Southampton. They have libraries there, I believe. All you will find in Portsmouth are essays on the calculation of longitude.” Her grey eyes glinted as she pulled on her gloves. They were doeskin, the color of mulled wine — and like much about Louisa Seagrave, of the highest quality and the shabbiest use.

“Have you lived here long, Mrs. Seagrave?”

“Three years. But I do not intend to endure it a fourth. I shall remove to Kent when my husband is again at sea.”

She lifted her head as she said this, as though in defiance of courts-martial and all die Articles of War — or perhaps it was a courage flung at the husband who would attempt to rule her. “Shall we go, then?”

“With pleasure,” I said drily, and followed the lady to the street.

THE RAIN BEGAN PERHAPS A HALF-HOUR AFTER WE HAD achieved the High. In the interval before the deluge, however, I had time enough to establish that my companion was the only daughter of a viscount; that her schooling had been accomplished at a fashionable establishment in Town; that she had become acquainted with Tom Seagrave at the age of seventeen, during a period at Brighton; and had married not long thereafter. The air of elopement hung over her terse explanation; the match had been accomplished without the sanction of her parents. It was clear to me, however, that if Louisa Seagrave did not exactly regret her headlong alliance with the dashing Captain, she had suffered greatly from social diminution. At the time of their union, Tom Seagrave had been only a lieutenant, with a lieutenant's meagre pay; success, and further steps in rank, had swiftly come — he was not called “Lucky” for nothing — but the early years had proved a period of deprivation. The connexions so swiftly thrown off, at seventeen, were reckoned a greater loss at three-and-thirty. Doors that should have swung open for the Honourable Miss Carteret were closed to Mrs. Sea grave; and she had only learned to value the rooms beyond, once they were locked against her. Her pride had suffered in the exchange, and not all the years of marriage, or the birth of three children, could heal the wound of a cut direct from a former intimate acquaintance.