He tossed me the single piece of paper. I took it with a sense of foreboding, and scanned it swiftly. Louisa Seagrave's handwriting was almost illegible: whether from the weight of her anxiety, or the effects of Dr. Wharton's Comfort, the words were cramped into a scrawl. The meaning, however, was clear enough.
“Naturally they have run away to sea,” I retorted, and thrust the letter back at Frank. “What boy of pluck would fail to do the same? With a father consigned to gaol and a mother enslaved to opium, I should be moved to risk even so dreadful an institution as the Navy myself. You shall probably find them aboard that Indiaman riding at anchor in Southampton Water.”
“The Star of Bengal?”
“I caught a glimpse of them on the Quay not an hour since. They wore cockades and dark blue cloaks, Frank, and each carried a seaman's chest upon his shoulders.”
“Devil take them both!” he burst out. “Young cubs! That ship is due to sail with the evening tide!”
“Naturally. Charles and Edward are not Lucky Tom's sons for nothing. They meant to be long gone by the time their mother discovered their absence. Poor litde souls—they shall be disappointed!”
But my brother did not vouchsafe a reply. He was already pulling on his boots.
FRANK WAS GONE FROM MRS. DAVIES'S ESTABLISHMENT a full two hours and thirteen minutes by the mantel clock, during which time I turned about the room in restless impatience, my brain divided between a natural concern for the welfare of the litde Seagraves, and the most active anxiety on Etienne LaForge's part Every minute spared for Charles and Edward, must be another moment of liberty denied the Frenchman. I attempted to bend my activity to the completion of a small garment for Mary's child—I took up and set down no fewer than three books—and still my gaze would travel inevitably to the ticking clock.
At last, when the hands had reached twenty-five minutes past two o'clock, I caught the bustle of entry in the front hall and heard Fly's voice raised stridently in a demand for brandy. It must have been perishingly cold upon Southampton Water today.
“I had to search into the very hold of the ship,” he declared with barely suppressed rage as he entered the parlour, “and with the quantity of stuff still sitting in that Indiaman's bowels—salt pork, hardtack, biscuit, water casks, calicoes, a full complement of rats and I know not what else—it was tedious, unpleasant work, I assure you. Captain Dedlock insisted that no boys had come aboard, as well he ought—the Seagraves had paid off their ferryman to get their trunks on board, and come up themselves through the chains. They hid themselves in the hull, determined not to be found.1
“But you did discover them?”
“Only by resorting to the oldest trick in the book,” Frank retorted. “I waved a burning piece of sacking through the open hatch and shouted Fire! until I was hoarse. They fairly tripped over themselves in their anxiety to achieve the air.”
I could not suppress a smile. “I hope you were not too hard on them, Fly.”
“I whipped them soundly with the bosun's switch, and then carried them back to the Dolphin. Neither Charles nor Edward shall have the use of his backside for several days, and they shall live in terror of naval justice for the rest of their lives. Or so it is to be hoped.”
Jenny appearing at that moment with a large serving of brandy (“for medicinal purposes, the Cap'n having got wet through in all this cold”), my brother sighed his gratitude and could manage nothing more for several
moments. At length, setting aside his empty glass, he cocked a quizzical eyebrow at me.
“What stealthy business carried you to the Quay this morning in any case, Jane? For I am not so much of a flat as to believe you were merely taking exercise when you espied the young Seagraves.”
I told him then every particle of intelligence I possessed regarding Nell Rivers, and her strange tale of Eustace Chessyre's end. My brother could no more account for the insertion of a woman—much less a woman in a baronet's coach—into the business than I. Rather than dwell upon the unaccountable, however, I moved quickly to the comprehensible: Sir Francis Farnham's perfidy regarding the prisoners of Wool House, and the manner in which I had been made to look a fool.
“It is active malevolence on Sir Francis's part,” I told Frank indignantly. “Sir Francis has determined to