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.
“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 littlemind; 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