Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House

Chapter 16 Nell Rivers

Saturday,

28 February 1807,

OUR HACK CHAISE WAS THE FIRST TO ARRIVE AT THE Footes' door, once the carriages were summoned — a testament to its driver's impatience, one must assume, or the penetrating cold. Frank handed in his wife, then Martha, and then myself. When we were all settled, and Mary had begun an animated discussion of baby Elizabeth's manifold charms, to which Martha kindly attended, I asked Frank softly, “What do you know of Phoebe Carruthers?”

He started; perhaps he had hoped to doze on the journey home. “No more than anyone may know. She was orphaned early, and worked as a governess, I believe — in a very wealthy household somewhere to the north. There was threat of a scandal — an attachment on the part of the eldest son — that led to her dismissal. She married Hugh Carruthers not long thereafter. He was her cousin, you see.”

“She is very beautiful.”

Frank glanced at his wife sidelong, but Mary remained insensible. “If you like that proud, untouchable look — yes, I suppose that she is.”

“Louisa Seagrave observed that all of Southampton was at Mrs. Carruthers's feet. 'Even Thomas', she said, and then broke off.”

“Did she?” enquired Frank with quickness. “They have been acquainted some years. Hugh Carruthers was a great friend of Seagrave's, I believe, and when he was killed by a ball aboard the Témérairt, nearly two years since, Tom undertook to give young Simon a step.”

“Perhaps his esteem for Captain Carruthers now extends to his widow. Certainly Louisa Seagrave believes as much.”

“You imagine her to harbour envy of Phoebe Carruthers? But she seemed to grieve so deeply for the boy!”

“Louisa Seagrave grieves for herself,” I returned tardy, “and for the loss of an amiable marriage. She spoke of Mrs. Carruthers with pity, for the death of her son; that death must justify Mrs. Seagrave's refusal to send her boys to sea. She was unstinting, however, in her abuse of her husband for having showered young Carruthers with affection — at the expense of his own children.”

Frank whistled sharply between his teeth. “She regards the woman in the nature of a rival.”

“Mrs. Foote declares that it is so.”

“What Mary Foote professes to know, all the world must see is truth,” muttered my brother. “You suspect Mrs. Carruthers as the lady Tom Seagrave would shield? The lady in the case, as you put it?”

“He did say, with some bitterness, that he might better have remained at home for all the good he achieved Wednesday evening. What if he rode out to Southampton — not with the intent of murdering Chessyre, but of calling upon Phoebe Carruthers?”

“—Whom we know to have been occupied with Sir Francis Farnham in French Street,” Frank cried.

“For at least the first of three acts.”

“And so Tom, in finding her from home, suffered a disappointment!”

“Or arrived at her door in time to make the acquaintance of her latest escort.”

“Then it is a wonder it was not Sir Francis found with a garotte about his neck,” Frank supplied.

“I DECLARE, MISS! YOUR COLD IS MUCH IMPROVED.” JENNY had torn herself from the embrace of sleep quite early this morning, and her comfortable face was quietly cheering. She is nearly forty, our Jenny — as yet unmarried, and likely to remain so; plain of feature, ample in girth as she is in kindness. No one may equal her at frying a chop or dressing a salad; but the chocolate and rolls she carried this morning were all that I could desire.

“It will be the mustard plaster, I'm thinking,” she continued. “It's just as well you employed it — what with that dreadful fever as the Frenchmen are spreading, and you so insistent upon ministering to them yourself, miss. I don't wonder Captain Austen was put out to find you'd gone to Wool House. But there, a lady must do her duty.”

“Indeed,” I replied. I sat up in bed and prepared to have my breakfast on a tray, like an indolent marchioness. I had never employed Jenny's mustard plaster, and had no intention of informing her of the fact. “Has any messenger come from Mr. Hill this morning?”

“No, ma'am.”

I was sure that Jenny knew everything to do with our smallest concerns. From her piercing search of my countenance this morning, I guessed that she was disturbed in her mind — undoubtedly because of my correspondence with Wool House. Did she think me likely to lose my heart to a foreigner? Or was she nettled at the vagaries of Frank's temper? “I am afraid we are all a sad trial, with our adventures and our disputes. It is a wonder you put up with us, Jenny.”

“I'd never call it a quiet household, what with your taste for murder and the Captain's for drabs.”[18]

I nearly choked on my chocolate.

“He did ought to be ashamed of himself! There's that poor young wife of his so far gone with the first, and her still a bride. I never thought I'd live to see the day when we should have women of the street lurking in the back doorway — but there, he is a man of the Navy, and we all know what they are. Mrs. Davies will never be done talking of it. If it weren't for the spoke I planted in her wheel, she'd have told all of Southampton.”

“Did you see the young woman who enquired Thursday for the Captain?”

Jenny shrugged. “She weren't much to see. Long in the tooth and short on washing, if you ask me. But I knew it was her straightaway, when she come round again this morning. I told her to be off in three ticks, and no mistake!”

“This morning!” I thrust aside the covers and made to get out of bed. Jenny hastened to fetch my dressing gown. “Why did you not call my brother?”

“Captain Austen quitted the house at half-past six,” Jenny returned with asperity, “no doubt upon business of his own. The Captain made sure to tell me I was not to disturb Mrs. Frank, and that I was to tell you he was gone to Gaoler's Alley.” These last words were uttered with extreme contempt.

Gaoler's Alley. We had agreed last night, before retiring to our respective bedchambers, that Tom Seagrave should be interrogated on the subject of Mrs. Carruthers. Frank was doubtful that a direct assault might persuade him to yield a confidence he seemed so determined to keep. The lady, however, might save Seagrave's neck if she could swear before the magistrate that it was she he had sought on Wednesday night — and not Eustace Chessyre.

“Even so,” Frank had told me doubtfully as we stood in the passage, “it cannot account for the entire period before the body's discovery. I do not know what we gain, Jane, by exposing Seagrave so dreadfully.”

“He may stand the test of a trifling exposure,” I retorted. “If you intimate that we shall appeal to Phoebe Carruthers if Seagrave preserves his silence, he may well unbend to spare her the mortification.”

And so my brother was not at home to answer the plea of a Southampton jade. The woman had come in search of him twice. I knew Frank well enough to believe it was not on business of a personal nature. This woman sought him as a certain authority. It was imperative that we learn what intelligence she guarded.

“Would you know the woman again?” I asked Jenny directly. “The one who wished to speak to my brother?”

She started, a slight frown between her eyes. “Happen I might. But I'd'a thought you'd be glad to see the back of her, miss.”

“So we probably shall,” I murmured, “once we apprehend what we have undertaken. Nonetheless, she must be found.”

Jenny's gaze slid guiltily away. “The poor wretch begged me to take a message to the Captain. I told her I wanted none of it. But she stood her ground. All manner of nonsense she uttered.”

“You must try to remember what she said. It is of vital importance, Jenny.”

The maid hesitated. “Has it to do with the murder? Of that sailor as all the town is talking of? He weren't a friend of the Captain's, surely.”

“The man accused of Mr. Chessyre's death may hang for a crime he did not commit. And he is Captain Austen's dear friend. My brother cannot bear to see an injustice done.”

“You think the light-skirt as is skulking about the back door knows summat she oughtn't?”

“Please try to remember what she said.”

” 'My soul must be quit of it' — that was one part, like she had a sin she needed shriving of. Of course, at the time, I reckoned she meant the Captain. That her conscience was devilling her on account of Mrs. Frank.”

“She gave you nothing? No note for Captain Austen's perusal?”

“I doubt as she can write, miss; and that sort don't go carrying of cards.”

“No,” I admitted. Even with Jenny's sharp eyes as aid, the search for a single young woman in all of Southampton must be fruitless.

“I suppose we could ask at the Bosun's Mate,” she said thoughtfully.

My head came up. “What is that? A tavern, of some sort?”

Jenny shrugged. “I haven't the slightest idea, miss. But that's what she said. 'Tell the Captain he must ask for Nell Rivers. The Bosun's Mate will find me.' ”

“It does sound like a tavern. I shall just have to find it”

“You're never going into that part of town, miss! Not alone! I won't allow it!”

I handed Jenny my cup. “Then you'll come? Thank Heaven! I do not know how I should manage without you, Jenny.”

The maid rolled her eyes. But she did not decline the office; and as she thrust her large frame into the passage, I saw that she was smiling.

WE SET OUT TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER. I HAD TAKEN just time enough to dress and pen a swift note to Mr. Hill, begging the earliest news of the manner in which Monsieur LaForge had passed his night; I might hope for an answer upon my return to East Street. The bells of St. Michael's were tolling a quarter-past nine as we descended to the pavement. Jenny wore the hood of her cape well over her head, as though to ward off the impertinence of the common sailor; and though my bonnet presented a wide brim, and was secured with ribbon over my ears, I found that I could wish for a disguise as thorough as my maid's. It seemed unlikely that I could ever be taken for a slattern; but my appearance in such a part of town must occasion comment.

“Have you any notion, Jenny, which streets might be considered … of ill-repute? My brother spoke of the quayside — and of the district beyond the Walls.”

“The quayside you know,” Jenny replied. “It's a pother of houses for the common seamen, and a few taverns where food as well as drink is served. The Bosun's Mate might well be there, but I cannot say as I recollect the name. If that bit o' muslin hails from one of the nunneries, I'm thinking we should search out past the Ditches.[19] There's a snarl of lanes new-laid just there, and poor ramshackle places as no one should be proud of biding in.”

From the High, we turned into Winkle Street and proceeded to the limits of the town walls. Just beyond where we stood was a platform for viewing the sea and the ships at anchor; to the north ran the Ditches. Beyond the drained moat lay Porter's Mead, an open greensward. Above the mead was a web of small alleys that sprang from Orchard Lane, a narrow thoroughfare running north in parallel to the High. It had received its name long since, and apple trees had given way to buildings of every description.

Our road was of recent construction, and in fairly good repair; but the jumble of houses that lined it on either side was cheap and poorly maintained. It is natural, I must suppose, that the situation of an ancient port such as Southampton — drawing every describable breed and rank to its shores — must encourage such a miscellany of habitation and circumstance. There is poverty in the country, of course; the clergyman of a parish must be intimately acquainted with the humbler forms of suffering, and I had witnessed a good deal of humanity's bleaker side in my youth. But the decay of a city's lower districts is something worse. Here it is not simply a question of want of bread, or of illness brought on the wings of bad weather; here it is a rotting from within: through drink, and violence, and every form of vice.

A woman emerged from a doorway opposite to toss her chamber pot into the gutter. She eyed us malevolently as we passed, and her gaze followed us down the street Three chickens scurried before us, clucking anxiously; a cat trotted by with a fishhead in its mouth. I counted at least three men stretched drunkenly upon the pavement, and was sorry to note that one of them still wore the remnants of a midshipman's dress. From the distance came a high-pitched cackle of laughter, swiftly choked off, and then the wail of a child.

“Poor mite,” murmured Jenny.

Almost every habitation along Orchard Lane was shuttered as yet against the morning. A man's face— dreadful in its haggardness — peered out through one undraped window, and a milk cart drawn by a donkey made its rumbling way along the ruts at the paving's verge. “It is an unsuitable hour for approaching a tavern,” I observed doubtfully, “even did we find the Bosun's Mate. We ought to have waited until sunset, and brought my brother with us.”

“Good mornin', ladies,” said a rough voice behind us. “Lost yer way?”

Jenny started, and clutched at the market basket she carried; I turned with a rustle of skirts. It would not do to show alarm. We should occasion even greater notice than we already had.

“That depends, sirrah,” I replied, “upon the quality of your aid. We are in search of a tavern called the Bosun's Mate.”

He was a man of advancing years, yet still powerful in his frame; his face had been ravaged by pox in his youth, and his right arm was gone below the elbow. His grizzled hair was drawn back in a queue, and tied with a length of black ribbon. He stank of strong spirits, and his eyes were very red.

“We are searching for … my maid's young son,” I added with sudden inspiration. Jenny stiffened beside me. She had never married, and the imputation against her virtue was deeply felt. A lad of fifteen years, whom we believe is lying insensible in a place called the Bosun's Mate. Do you know it?”

“What happened to the young feller then?” our interlocutor enquired, his bleary gaze falling heavily on Jenny. “Run away from home?”

“He were avoiding the Press Gang,” she answered stoutly. “And who wouldn't, I'd like to know?”

“The Press done fer me, in my time,” said the drunkard darkly. “Crying disgrace, it is, the King sending ruffians to cart every able-bodied man and boy off to slave and die at sea. Not that it ain't a good life, mind. I'd be there still, if it weren't fer Boney taking the better part of my arm. But if the lad don't have a taste fer it—”

“He holed up in this here tavern,” Jenny interposed, “but the pore lad were beaten silly by a lout with a grievance. We 'ad a note of the publican, sent to my lady's house bold as brass, and my lady were so good as to lend me her protection. Me being a woman with a reputation to keep.”

I was stupefied by this exercise of wit on Jenny's part, and could only stare at her and await developments. They were not long in coming.

“And could yer man not come in search of the boy?”

“Dead,” she said succinctly. “At Trafalgar/

The drunkard swept off his hat — or the one he imagined to be as yet on his head, but had lost some time since — with a grand gesture of his remaining arm. “Caleb Martin at yer service, good lady,” he informed Jenny. “As who could not be.”

She actually simpered at him. I deemed it time to retrieve the reins.

“Would you be so good as to direct us to the Bosun's Mate?”

“Gladly,” he said, “provided I knew where it was. There's no pothouse o' that name in Southampton, and I've been inside of 'em all.”

Studying his red-veined features, I could well believe the truth of this. I turned to Jenny. “Are you certain that was the name?”

She looked at me helplessly, then nodded. “It's not a common one, like the George, that a body could mistake.”

“No. But a George we might have been certain of finding.” I sighed. “Let us proceed up the street. Perhaps we shall encounter a person better able to assist us than Mr. Martin.”

The fellow attempted to bow, and went sprawling on all fours. I winced at the impact of his poor stump against the paving-stones, but he seemed quite insensible to pain. From his position at our feet, he looked upwards and grinned — a gap-toothed, rather hideous smile that was nonetheless endearing. “Yer boy wouldn't be havin' a joke with yer now, would he?”

“Young Ned is capable of anything,” Jenny told him with resignation. “I almost wish he'd been sent to sea. It might be the making of him — same as yerself, Mr. Martin.”

“I only ask, because o' the name,” he explained.

“The name?”

“The Bosun's Mate. Everyone in Orchard Lane calls old Jeb Hawkins that, on account of it being his station fer thirty year or more. You sure it wasn't a person yer boy meant, and not a public house?”

JEB HAWKINS LIVED IN A TIDY END OF CHARLOTTE Street, with a neat front yard and a kitchen garden set out to one side. He kept a dog, which howled as we approached, and a few guinea fowl. He had evidently been up with the sun, and had been working about his place some few hours. We took courage and introduced ourselves; and rather than setting the dog upon us, he bade us welcome. He was just about to take his morning ration of grog, and would be happy if we might join him.

I should judge the Bosun's Mate to be roughly the age of sixty. A person of his prolonged exposure to the elements can never exhibit an unmarked frame; he was bent from hard labour, and his eyes were creased from gazing perpetually up into the shrouds. It is the boatswain's province on board ship to mind the sails and rigging, and report their condition daily to the first lieutenant; he is in charge, moreover, of all deck activity: the weighing and dropping of anchors, the taking of soundings, and the piping aboard of officers. The silver boatswain's whistle is a badge of honour among the able seamen, the highest distinction they may hope to attain. Frank has often said that a good bosun is worth his weight in Bombay bullion, and much of mutiny may be avoided in a ship that boasts the same.

“Mr. Hawkins,” I began, as Jenny and I perched upon two rattan chairs he had set out on the grass by a small table, “I am uncertain whether we disturb you to any purpose. A young woman — a stranger to us — said that we might find her through the Bosun's Mate. I understand that is how you are sometimes called.”

His thick white eyebrows lifted. “Are ye a naval lady, ma'am?”

“My brother is a post captain.”

“And his name?”

“Francis Austen,” I replied.

Mr. Hawkins nodded. “I've heard tell of yon. A grand, fighting cap'n, so they say, with none of your namby-pamby cut-and-run. Here's to the lad and his barky ship.” He raised his tankard, and took a long draught, I glanced sidelong at Jenny; we appeared to be no forwarder.

“Are you at all acquainted with Nell Rivers?” I persisted gently.

The tankard crashed down with a thud. Eyes flashing, Jeb Hawkins thrust back his chair. “I’ll not have ye meddling saints getting on the pore girl's back with all yer blather! She's not going to a Reform House, you hear? Not without Jeb Hawkins has something to say about it. Pore Nell's had enough to do, keeping body and soul together, and her the mother of three little 'uns, with no man about the place, without ye mealy-mouthed pisspots and all your bloody hymns! Be off!”

From the look on his face, he had been a bosun to fear indeed. Men must have quailed before the threat of his tongue, not to mention his lash; even in old age he could strike terror into a heart stouter than mine. Jenny was already on her feet, as though she meant to flee. But I reached out my hand in supplication.

“I am no missionary of God,” I said quiedy. “I come in search of Nell because she asked it. She says she is in fear for her life.”

The anger died out of his face. He settled once more in his chair and took a gulp of grog, scanning my countenance over the rim of his tankard. Then he sighed and set the loathsome mixture carefully on the table. A faint scent of rum laced the air.

“What do ye want wit' her?”

“That I cannot tell you.”

“May not — or won't?”

“Twice in three days Nell has sought my brother urgently. There is a matter of great importance she wishes to convey. And yet Captain Austen declares that Nell is unknown to him.”

“Many a man has said the same, to her sorrow,” Jeb Hawkins observed.

I leaned towards the old man and held his gaze. “My brother does not know this woman. And yet she wishes to speak to him. Captain Austen was from home when she came today, and she was sent away in disappointment. I am come to relieve her mind.”

Jeb Hawkins glanced from my face to Jenny's. Then he reached for a small ivory pipe, and settled it between his lips. “In fear for her life, you say? What has Nell to fear, in parting with such a bitter lot? She would be well out of her sorrows, and she found her grave.”

“Surely while there is life in mind and body, there must be hope of amendment,” I said.

He considered this. He rose from the table and ducked inside his small cottage to fetch a taper from his fire, then lit his pipe while standing in the doorway. I waited while the tobacco caught, and the smoke began to draw; I saw his narrowed eyes shift about the lane and then return to me. He lifted his shoulders in a gesture of surrender.

“I will not tell you where to find my Nell,” he said. “I shall send word by a trusty boy. If she is truly in fear for her life, better that no one know where she bides.”

“Tell her Captain Austen's sister begs the favour of a meeting,” I suggested. “Tell her that I shall be walking with my maid near the Water Gate Quay. She might find me there within the hour. If she does not appear by eleven o'clock, I shall return to my lodgings in East Street Please impress upon her that we are most anxious to hear what she has to say.”

“I'll tell her.” He took his pipe from his mouth and fastened me with a look. “But God help you, miss, if Nell comes to the slightest harm.”