the Foote family, and their various troubles, I sincerely wished them happy, and rejoiced to see the lady in health. Mary Patton had married Edward Foote only four years previous; she was his second wife, the first—an illegitimate daughter of a baronet—proving too unsteady for the care of her household or children. Having exchanged Patton for Foote, Mary has been increasing without respite ever since.2 As the Captain already possesses three children from his first unhappy union, he must certainly be accounted a prolific progenitor.
“And you, Mrs. Austen?” enquired Mrs. Foote, with an eye to Mary's figure, “are you in health?”
“Excellent health, I thank you. My poor sister Jane is not so well.”
“You have taken a cold,” said a faint voice at my shoulder. I curtseyed in the direction of Catherine Bertie,
Admiral Bertie's daughter—who, though nearly ten years my junior, has already lost her bloom to the effects of ill-health. “Pray, let me offer you my vinaigrette.”
“What she needs is a good hot plaster,” declared a lantern-jawed woman of more advanced years. “I 3m Cecilia Braggen,” she added, as if by way of afterthought, “wife to Captain Jahleel Braggen. I do not usually force acquaintance, you may be assured; but I am come expressly on a matter of some urgency, and must solicit the aid and benevolence of you both. May we beg a seat in your parlour?”
“Of course!” Mary breathlessly replied, and led her visitors within.
I glanced at Mrs. Foote, who returned an expression of amused condolence; however urgent the matter to Mrs. Braggen, it could not command the entire sympathy of her companion.
“Jane,” Mrs. Foote whispered, as we moved to follow the others, do not feel obliged to satisfy her in the least regard. I fell in with the woman as I progressed along the High. She could not be turned back. But I am come myself to press you all most urgently—your mother and Miss Lloyd included—to join us for an evening party at Highfield House on Friday.”
“Friday? We should be delighted!” I cried. “I may answer for the others—we have no fixed engagements.”
“That is excellent news. And perhaps we shall have cause for celebration! Edward confides that Captain Austen may soon be posted to a frigate!”
“How very unlucky that the intelligence should already have spread so far,” I murmured uneasily. “There is just that degree of doubt in the case, that I should not wish the matter canvassed too soon. Mary, as yet, knows nothing of it.”
“Then I shall not breathe a word,” Mrs. Foote returned in a whisper. “Better that the full joy of it should burst upon her unawares!”
“… most distressing implications for the entire port,” Mrs. Braggen was exclaiming, as we joined the three women in Mrs. Davies's parlour. “Nineteen of the prisoners have fallen ill already, and with no one to nurse them, the situation will soon grow desperate! You cannot conceive the conditions in which they lie; the inclement weather must sharpen every discomfort. I have undertaken to organise our little society in shifts for the remainder of the week; but we are sadly pressed for hands. May I count upon each of you for at least a few hours—today or tomorrow, if convenient?”
I looked at Mary's pallid face and anxious eyes, and saw her palms pressed against her stomach. “Of what are you speaking?”
Cecilia Braggen wheeled upon me. “Of the French prisoners of war, confined in Wool House. There are forty of them held there, in a room fit for at most half that number; and they are all shaking with fever. The men who guard them—Marines, for the most part, and decidedly ill-educated—appear indifferent as to whether the poor fellows live or die. But I am persuaded that if disease is allowed to ravage the prisoners' ranks unchecked, it may soon spread to the Marines themselves—and you know what Marines are. The sickness will be all over the streets of Southampton in a thrice. We must act to stem the tide, before it is too late!”
“Mercy!” whispered Catherine Bertie. She held her vinaigrette to her flaring nostrils, and closed her eyes.
“But surely the French will soon be exchanged,” Mrs. Foote observed most sensibly. “I am sure they should fare far better on their native shores.”3
“I have it on good authority—from no less a personage than your father, Miss Bertie—that an exchange is not to be thought of before May. So you see where we are. I have presented my arguments most vigorously to the Admiral, and he agrees that