his Mary; and as she is increasing, and much prone to swooning after a hearty meal, Frank is grown convinced that all women are prey to it
“Not in the slightest,” I assured him. “I am admirably situated here; you may return to the bow with equanimity.”
“Pray join me,” he urged. “The sensation of wind and movement is delightful. I shall keep one hand firmly on your arm, never fear, Jane; you shall not risk the slightest injury. ”
I found courage enough to attempt it, and soon stood with my brother in the hoy's farthest extent. Here, the views of the Solent and its encircling landscape were unimpeded. Frank's eager hands made figures in the air: to the larboard side, the peaceful settlements of Netley, and Lee-on-Solent, and Gosport spilling down to the sea; to starboard, the last fringe of the New Forest; and ahead, the Isle of Wight looming like another country. Portsmouth commanded the headland directly opposite the island; and beyond them both, roiled the broader waters of the Channel, where Frank had mounted blockade against the French for so many tedious years.
“How diminished is civilisation and comfort, how false the air of security, of a town viewed from such a vantage,” I observed. “What might be taken, on dry land, for the power of commerce and Kingdom, appears the merest foothold at this distance. How greater still the diminishment, when all the wide waters of the ocean are at one's back!”
“I have always believed,” Frank added, “that could kings and emperors reign solely from the seas, and suffer the overruling might of Nature to humble and command them with every gale of wind, they might then regard themselves in the proper light The vastness of the world is an acute corrective, Jane, for over-weening vanity! As it is for many land-borne ills.”
I studied him soberly. “You miss a ship, Frank. Confess as much. You long to put to sea, however near Mary's time and however comfortable your present circumstances.”
“You forget the inadequacy of Mrs. Davies's fire, Jane,” he returned with brusque humour. “There is little of comfort in that.”
“We shall be gone from hired lodgings in a fortnight,” I said dismissively, “but your malaise shall prove as strong. The lease in Castle Square—that fringe you are so busily knotting for the parlour curtains—the bedsteads you turn, and the conveniences you fashion in your restless, tidy, sailor's way—they are nothing more than make-work, a sop to fill your time. You are unhappy, Frank. I am more convinced of it now, having seen you once again in your element, than I have been for many weeks. Though I have long suspected the cause.”
He offered no reply—only stared across the heaving water, his eyes narrowed. Salt spray had dried in a haphazard pattern of white droplets on his collar, his auburn hair was ruffled into curls by the force of the approaching rain. It is hard for such a man—trained from boyhood in every nerve and sinew to pursue the Enemy, to engage and subdue him—to subdue, rather, his own ardent spirit to the necessities of fortune. Frank is become like a powerful horse, honed for the Oaks or the Derby, that is put to plough the same featureless length of turnip patch day after day. Having won a little prize money, he saw fit to marry at last the lady who had waited so many patient months for his return from sea; and being a gallant son, he required his mother and unwed sisters to take up their abode in his company. Southampton was chosen, the treaty struck for a house in Castle Square; that house entirely refurbished; and our prospects of happiness in our situation, very great—but a plan for domestic happiness must prove inadequate to one of Frank's temperament.
He is a man accustomed to commanding three hundred tars, at least, in the midst of the greatest fleet on earth. He has chased the Enemy across every ocean on the globe, and seen the colours of French ships struck at his desiring. Now he turns and turns without employment, surrounded by too many muslin skirts, and the tiresome frivolities of a watering-place, with its Assemblies and circulating libraries and occasional theatrical play. He slips away to Portsmouth whenever convention will allow, and haunts the naval yard, where constant intelligence of the better fortunes of his brother officers—who possessed the luck to distinguish themselves with Nelson at Trafalgar—must poison his heart like gall. He bears so constant an aspect of