forced cheer—such unfailing interest in the tedium of domestic life—that my heart aches for him, as must any heart of discernment and feeling.
“It is only that …” He faltered, and glanced down at his reddened fingers where they gripped the bow. “That is—you must be aware, Jane, from the intelligence of my letters in the year '05, how ardently I pursued the French Admiral, Villeneuve—across the Atlantic to the West Indies, and back again; how many months I spent vigilant, on blockade, before his Fleet even broke out of Brest. After having been in a state of constant and unremitting fag, to be at last cut out by a parcel of folk just come to join Lord Nelson from home, where some of them were sitting at their ease for months—”
“It is lamentable,” I said quietly. “We all feel your misfortune acutely, Frank.”
He shifted in the bow, unable to tear his eyes from the Solent. “I do not profess to like fighting for its own sake—and Mary is thankful to Heaven that I avoided the danger of that battle—but I shall ever consider the day on which I sailed from Nelson's squadron as the most inauspicious of my life.”2
There had recently been a rumour, I knew, that the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Grenville, had confidentially assured our acquaintance Lord Moira that the first fast frigate available should be given to Captain Austen. But as several fast frigates had subsequently gone to others, I placed no confidence in rumour. Like Patronage and Connexion, those twin hounds of a naval career, Rumour will forever abandon one prospect to bay after another more likely.
“Have you no word of a ship?” I enquired.
Frank's eyes slid towards mine and were as quickly averted. More than any gentleman in my circle, Frank is incapable of deceit. He must look conscious when he should prefer to be inscrutable.
“You have heard something!” I seized his arm. “It is intelligence of a ship that takes you to Portsmouth, and not 'concern for an old friend' as you would have Mary believe. Why have you said nothing of your prospects at home?”
“Because I cannot be easy in the subject,” he replied. “You know very well, Jane, that dear Mary is as solicitous for my credit as any woman—but she cannot like the idea of my putting to sea when she is so near her time. Indeed, I cannot like it myself.”
It was true—the birth of Frank's child was barely two months off; and as it was Mary's first lying-in, and the young woman's apprehension of childbed exceedingly great, he should have been a monster to wish for a ship at such a time. Yet he did wish it. A man's heart may yearn for what his sensibility would disdain.
“Mary talks of nothing but fast frigates,” I observed. “She is as zealous on your behalf—as buoyed by hope at the slightest portent of Admiralty favour—as any midshipman preparing to pass for lieutenant But I shall undertake to conceal your prospects from her, if only you would impart a tenth of the whole to me.”
“Mary is an angel,” Frank returned with fervour, “but had I suspected, Jane, how much my affections for my wife would anchor me to shore—how litd I should like my duty when it must come—how torn in my soul I should feel at the prospect of embarking—I declare I should have remained single to the end of my days, and suffered less in regret than I do presently in indecision.”
“Naturally you must feel it so,” I observed. “Any man would say the same—though I speak only of such men as have hearts. But consider, my dear, how little service you should do your wife by remaining fixed at her side. Such a position cannot advance your career or the prospects for your family. You must return to active service. Mary will agree. Was it not just such an eventuality that urged you to secure your sisters as companions for your wife? You have done the utmost to ensure her comfort, and must be satisfied. Now tell me of this ship you believe may offer.”
The hoy surged over the crest of a precipitous wave and flung itself into the gulley beyond; I clutched inadvertently at the bow, salt spume in my face, and felt my brother's shoulder brush close against my own. Gosport was now hard off the larboard side, and the white-painted houses of the Isle of Wight, clearly discernible. We should be anchoring in Portsmouth