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—”
“—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.”
“As murder must always be,” Frank observed.
I was in danger of being led away from our companions of the morning without so much as a farewell; I turned, and found the two surgeons preparing to cross from the Quay to the far paving-stones where Wool House loomed.
“Adieu, monsieur,” I told LaForge
He looked very ill; but nonetheless he carried my gloved hand to his lips with an excess of courtier's gallantry. In this, as in everything, his manners belied the humbleness of his professed station; and I wondered again at his being in such a place and among such company.
“Mr. Hill,” I murmured to the surgeon, “we must contrive between us to improve Monsieur LaForge's circumstances. He ought to be exchanged at the earliest opportunity; but he is most pressing, my brother tells me, in his desire to remain in England. Cannot we secure a more salubrious lodging? He ought not to be allowed to sleep another night on those chill stone floors.”
“I quite agree,” Mr. Hill returned wryly, “but I fear in the case of a prisoner of war, comfort is the very last consideration. I shall write to Admiral Bertie tonight, and plead LaForge's case; your brother has requested that I should refer the Frenchman's desire to remain in this Kingdom to Bertie as well.”
“I shall urge Frank to write to the Admiralty. He is not without acquaintance among the Great. We shall see what determined activity may do.”
“Improvement, of whatever nature, cannot come too soon,” Mr. Hill observed. The shrewd narrow eyes flicked from my countenance to LaForge's. “Our colleague injustice has grown quite despondent since his appearance before the panel. Lowness of spirits cannot help a case of dubious health. I shall prescribe brandy as soon as I am within Wool House's doors.”
“You are very good,” I said with deep sincerity.
“Jane!” cried my brother. “We try Mr. Pethering's patience.”
Mr. Hill bowed; I curtseyed, and without another word turned to my brother and the magistrate.
Frank all but raced up the steep pitch of Southampton's High. He was considering, I knew, of Mary's anxiety — of her fears for himself, and of the magistrate's intent. Mr. Pethering proved unexpectedly equal to a sailor's brisk stride. I followed along in the wake of the two men, and bent all my effort at attending to the questions of one, and the replies of the other.
“May I enquire, Captain Austen, as to your conduct last night?” the magistrate began.
“My conduct? I was engrossed by the performance of Mrs. Jordan, in the French Street playhouse, as my sister and wife shall attest.”
“That play should have ended by half-past eleven, and all of you been returned to East Street by midnight at the latest. Did you stir from your home afterwards? Put the ladies down at the door and proceed alone to some haunt only you are aware of?”
“I did not, sir.”
“Do you generally display so domestic a devotion?”
“In general — yes. I am in the habit of rising at an early hour, Mr. Pethering, and such habits require a settled and tranquil life.” Frank's tone was easy enough; but I knew my brother, and found his words were watchful.
“I understand you sent an express messenger to Captain Seagrave's house in Portsmouth on Tuesday evening.”
“Seagrave is a very old acquaintance. I am often in communication with him — when we are both aground on dry land.”
“But an express — an express would argue a certain urgency, Captain Austen.”
“Would it?” Frank posed airily, as though constantly in the habit of spending more than he ought on his correspondence. “I confess that I am so often at sea, Mr. Pethering, that I am not able to keep abreast of the usual forms and charges of landsmen.”
“At sea. Yes, indeed. I imagine you must often be at sea. May I enquire, sir, as to the nature of the intelligence your express conveyed?”
“Gentlemen never look into the contents of each other's mail,” my brother replied with heat
The magistrate abruptly changed tack. “You have heard already of Chessyre's murder, though the body was discovered only this morning and you have been in Portsmouth all day. How, pray, did you learn of it?”
“In much the same manner, I imagine, that you learned of my express. From the mouths of innocent men. The messenger you sent to Portsmouth this morning was the agent of my discovery.”
The magistrate glanced sidelong, his appearance for all the world like that of a long-beaked marsh crane. “So you are not above perusing my correspondence, though I may know nothing of yours. I see how it is. But my message, Captain Austen, was for Admiral Hastings alone.”
“I was aboard the Valiant at the moment the Admiral learned of Chessyre's death. Your note was read aloud to all in attendance at the court-martial.”
“Your friend Seagrave's court-martial,” Mr. Pethering reiterated pointedly.
“I was not aware there was any other, sir.”
“You are deeply concerned in that unpleasant affair, Captain Austen. I wonder that you risk your reputation and standing — a man of your pronounced domestic virtue — in such a cause.”
“I should always support a brother officer,” Frank replied tautly, “particularly when I believe him unjustly accused. But I do not think, sir, that an affair of military justice fells within the scope of your power.”
Here my brother was on uncertain ground. It was true enough that the original charge on Seagrave's head — the killing of the French captain after the surrender of the latter's ship — fell to the disposition of his naval superiors. That crime, if crime it were, had occurred at sea aboard one of His Majesty's vessels. The murder of Lieutenant Chessyre, however, was another kettle of fish. Chessyre had died in Southampton proper, while relieved of his dudes and turned upon shore. The disposition of his case must be considered the magistrate's; and anyone Mr. Pethering suspected of evil should fall within the temporal law, be they naval or no.
We turned into East Street and progressed the brief distance to Mrs. Davies's establishment. The magistrate seemed disposed to ignore, for the nonce, Frank's challenge to his authority. He preferred to pursue a different line.
“If Captain Seagrave ranks so high among your friends, Captain Austen, one must presume that Eustace Chessyre was chief among your enemies.'”
I stumbled slightly at a loose paving, and both men turned.
“It is nothing,” I cried. “Pray do not regard it”
Frank flashed me a brief smile; he must know that anxiety had tripped me up, not an obstacle at my feet. “I date my acquaintance with Mr. Chessyre only from Tuesday, and thus must consider him neither as a friend of the bosom nor an enemy of the heart To what do your questions tend, Mr. Pethering? Or should you like to enter my lodgings, and discuss them further?”
“You need only explain this, Captain Austen,” Mr. Pethering replied, “and I shall trouble you no longer.” With the air of a conjurer he withdrew a square of paper from his coat pocket and thrust it towards Frank.
“That is my card,” my brother observed, without taking it from Mr. Pethering's bony hand.
“Indeed. It was found upon Chessyre's corpse— one of the few things the man seems to have kept about him.”
“I gave it into the Lieutenant's keeping on Tuesday.”
“You met with him?”
“On … an affair of business.”
“You have written your direction upon the reverse, I see. Did you expect Mr. Chessyre to call in East Street?”
“He did call. Unfortunately, I was not at home.” Frank's lips had set in a thin line; he was holding his temper in check only with difficulty.
“How very inconvenient. One wonders what the Lieutenant might have said. Were you very pressing in your invitation, Captain, to seek out your lodgings? Or was the matter of business you wished to discuss better concluded… behind the Walls?”
“Good God, man, if you wish to accuse me of murder — then do so at once! I am confident you will be made to look a fool!”
But the magistrate was studying my indignant brother with calculation. He neither accused nor offered quarter. I understood, suddenly, that he hoped to frighten Frank with his suspicions — and draw forth some intelligence presently withheld. The contents of his express to Captain Seagrave, perhaps?
“Pray come inside, Mr. Pethering,” Frank said at last. “My sister is greatly in need of a warm fire and a glass of claret after her passage up the Solent, and I cannot believe you likely to refuse either.”
“I never take wine,” the magistrate rejoined. “It is most injurious to the health, in my opinion. But I should not say nay to a glass of warm gin, if you have any in the house.”
“It shall be sent for directly.”
THEY WERE CLOSETED IN MRS. DAVIES'S BEST PARLOUR nearly three-quarters of an hour. I sat with Mary before the fire in the dining parlour adjacent, while she tried to attend to her sewing, and threw it down again; chewed at her fingernail, and sighed her impatience. I thought I glimpsed the stain of tears about her pretty eyes; some trouble with the child she carried, or a depth of anxiety for Frank must be the cause. But when at last she spoke, her voice held only fretfulness.
“And so Tom Seagrave's accuser was murdered, and must bring the magistrate to our very door! Thank God my mother has no notion of the scenes to which I am daily subjected — the indignities and sufferings quite thrust upon me, and in my delicate condition! I am sure that Mamma would carry me off to Kent directly, without stopping for a word of explanation; and I am in half a mind to summon her!”
I studied her petulant young face over the edge of my book. “Mr. Chessyre called at this house in search of Frank on Tuesday. It was Chessyre who occasioned Frank's absence from home that night, and Chessyre you must thank for your extreme anxiety then. Mr. Pethering, the magistrate, knows that Frank solicited an interview with Chessyre on Tuesday morning; he has found Frank's card among Chessyre's things. As Tom Seagrave's friend, Frank must be counted among Chessyre's enemies. Must I speak any plainer, Mary, or will the recital do? Your husband is in the gravest danger of being accused of murder.”
Her mouth formed itself into a tragic O. “Frank went in search of the Lieutenant Tuesday night? When I could not sleep?”
“He sought the man throughout the quayside, and among the most unsavoury circles; but failed in the end to meet with him. Tom Seagrave should consider himself greatly obliged to Frank, once he learns of the energy exerted on his behalf—” I broke off. Mary's hand was now pressed to her lips, as though she were ill, and her eyes had filled with tears. “I have upset you. What a wretched thing in one who professes to be your sister! Pray forgive me—”
“So that is why she came in search of him.”
“Who came?”
Mary shook her head. “She would not give her name. A very vulgar sort of person, Jane. Indeed, I believe one might refer to her as a …a …”
“Barque of frailty?” I enquired.[16]
“Not nearly so well-bred as that! She was quite disreputable in her person, and her clothes were in rags. I must confess that she smetted, Jane, most disconcertingly. No, I am afraid we must call her simply a jade, and leave it at that 'As much as my life is worth,' she insisted, 'to speak to Captain Austen; but I must do it' I thought her quite out of her senses.”
“Wherever did you meet with such a woman?” I enquired, bewildered.
“She came to Mrs. Davies's kitchen door, just after breakfast, and asked for Frank.”
“How very unfortunate,” I breathed.
“Mrs. Davies felt it her duty, she said, to summon me — Captain Austen being from home.” Mary's countenance was scarlet; she must have presented just such a picture of consciousness and mortification in our landlady's kitchen. I apprehended, now, the source of those tears I had suspected in the poor girl's looks, her misery and thoughts for her mamma.
“And did she state her business?”
“She would not, though I pressed her most severely. I thought at the time that she was simply surprised to find that Frank had a wife — that he had suggested otherwise, on a previous occasion in her … company. But I wonder—”
“You did not learn her name?”
Mary's eyes slid away. “I suppose in common decency I should have requested it, Jane, but I will own that I was so dumbfounded by her appearance that I wished only to be rid of her. I told her that Captain Austen was from home, and that if she refused to disclose her business with my husband, she must seek him on another occasion. She wrung her hands, and insisted that she was in terror of her life — she looked most pitiful, Jane — but in the end, I shut the kitchen door, and she took herself off.”
I could imagine the scene without considerable effort. Young Mary — unequal to the display of pride that Mrs. Davies would require — sailing past our landlady with her chin quivering, to spend the remainder of the morning in her empty bedchamber.
“Do you think it possible,” Mary enquired of me, “that this person sought Frank with regard to Chessyre?”
“Anything, in this sordid business, is possible,” I replied with unhappy candour. “Frank was open in his effort to secure the Lieutenant, the night before the man's death; from my brother's account, he searched the quayside for some hours, asking directly for Chessyre. Any with ears to hear and eyes to see, would know that the one man was concerned with the other. “
Mary did not reply. She appeared lost in sorrowful reflection; the young bride's quick remorse for hasty judgement, I presumed.
There was the sound of a distant door thrust open, and the murmur of voices quick and low; then a decisive thud in the passage to the street as the house turned its back upon Mr. Pethering. Another instant, and my brother strode into the room, his countenance considerably lighter than it had been when we parted.
“I do not believe we have the slightest cause for worry,” he declared without preamble. Mary, my love, have you been dreadfully disturbed in spirits? I must beg your pardon for occasioning anxiety, and lay the whole before you without delay.”
“Spare your breath, Frank,” she replied with energy, “for I am well-acquainted with the business.”
My brother shot me a look of hurt surprise; he had not believed me so unreliable a confidante; but Mary hastened to disabuse him.
“Would you take me for an ignorant child? Am I to remain unconscious of a subject that has engrossed the better part of my acquaintance these many months, solely because my husband did not chuse to speak of it? Fie, Frank! That you could credit me for a goose! I wonder at your opinion of my understanding.”
Frank begged forgiveness; Mary wept a little into her square of lawn; and I was spared a further indulgence of bridal humours, by the urgency of the matter at hand.
“Pray tell me, dearest Frank, what that dreadful man Pethering would lay at your door,” Mary begged.
“He had hoped to disturb a desperate murderer in his plans for flight,” my brother answered calmly, “but was forced to conclude, from my sanguine air and excellent head, that I had nothing to do with the Lieutenant's sorry end. I pointed out that any number of lodgers in this establishment might vouch for my presence last evening; and proceeded to inform the magistrate that I thought it likely the man was killed in a brawl.”
I raised my brows at this, but elicited not the slightest notice.
Tethering required an explanation for the presence of my card among the man's things, and I told him that I had called upon Chessyre at the Dolphin during the course of Tuesday morning. I fancy he already knew as much. What he hoped to learn was the substance of my express to Tom Seagrave.”
“And did you disclose it?” I asked.
Frank hesitated. “I had no choice, Jane. Pethering warned me that he shall soon call a coroner's panel to enquire into Chessyre's death; and I shall be forced to give evidence. I could not very well lie to the man in my own home.”
“You might have pled the constraints of honour, and purchased your friend a few more hours!” I protested. “The magistrate now knows what the Frenchman saw. And what he saw is motivation for murder enough!”
“What Frenchman?” Mary cried, bewildered.
“I am done with preserving Tom Seagrave!” Frank retorted. “He has not been open; he guards all in a cloud of secrecy; he impugns the disinterest of his friends. It is not enough that I should be suspected of dangling for a ship; I must now be expected to lie for him! I wonder you can suggest it, Jane!”
My brother rose, and quitted the room with a bang of the door. Mary stared after him in perplexity.
“Frank is to have a ship} Why did he say nothing of this to me?”
“Perhaps we should start with the Frenchman,” I sighed.
Barque of frailty was the cant term for a mistress or courtesan. — Editor's note.