Jane Austen After

  Almost no one.

  . . . I write to you from a house nearly empty. What a difference a year or two can bring! Once I went away to the races, leaving you all here to be happy. Now I have given over such frivolities, but my reward is to find no one here save my father and mother, and my cousin Susan Price.

  So where was Maria Rushworth gone? That night at the Frasers’ party, she’d paid no heed to Henry’s prepared speech about her brother Tom. How angry she’d been!

  Crawford gazed into the flames. How well he’d thought anger became her that evening, with diamonds glittering around her neck and in her hair, the shimmer of her silken gown over her outraged form. Anger had made her interesting, however briefly.

  He ran his eyes down the rest of Tom’s letter, not finding any of the names he had hoped, and feared, to see. Tom had begun a course of study—he met with his father every morning to learn the business of managing of estates—Crawford would comprehend, having been master of Everingham ever so long . . .

  In short, Tom meant to be good. But he was bored. And he wrote a boring letter.

  Crawford crushed the heavy paper in his fist, ready to throw it in the fire. A clamor at the door stayed his hand. He welcomed the diversion, as a hubbub of English voices entered the common room of the dismal inn he’d perforce been driven to.

  “You’ll pay for that, you b-blaggur-r-rd . . .” The slurred voice belonged to a furious youth who, from the spectacle of the loose, awkward swing of his fists, was drunk, though the hour was scarcely past midday. He was the center of a group of sailors on liberty; the accents of Wapping were louder than the thin, bitter rain hissing outside.

  “Come on, sport your canvas,” a man taunted, to more laughter.

  A familiar voice said, “Pho, pho. Baker, let him be.”

  The drunken youth bawled, “Where is he! Come fight, you rascal dog, you . . .”

  “Sit, Musgrove. I’ll get you a glass.”

  “Make it gin, you cur.”

  “Hold him, Baker. Trevelyan. But no more sport. He’s in my charge, and I must answer for anything happening to him.”

  Crawford knew that voice.

  “Send him to the frogs,” someone called from the group. “He’s no better at fighting us nor they are.”

  Another roar of laughter met this sally.

  Crawford thrust his mail into the pocket of his greatcoat, as a tall, powerfully built young man in a shabby naval lieutenant’s uniform elbowed his way among the customers of the inn toward the counter. “Pardon—si, si, escoosay—hey, mate, shift aside—hi, innkeep! A tankard of ale! Make that three.”

  Henry Crawford stood up, his heart beating. Anywhere else in the world money, good address, and fine looks gained one a place in any company. He’d proved that so often it was a given . . . except to one steadfast heart.

  Yet again, he had to know. “William?” he said, and a little louder, for the drunken boy was shouting insults to the high entertainment of the rest of the naval fellows, “William Price?”

  The powerful young man at the counter swung around, surprise in his weather-beaten, open countenance. Then pleasure. Then he flushed, uncertain, but after a moment’s hesitation he came forward, hand out. “Mr. Crawford. Sir.”

  “My dear fellow.” Henry shook hands, flushing with gratitude at the welcome, though well aware of the irony.

  “What brings you to Gibraltar, sir?” William asked. “Stay. My head is a-mazed, and not a drop have I drunk this day. Here, let me just discharge this . . .”

  The innkeeper was waiting to be paid. William dug into his pocket and pulled out coinage at which he squinted, then he slapped down a shilling. “That will surely do.” He took the tankards to his table, and put one in front of the drunken youth. “Drink it slowly, Musgrove.” He set the others down. “Here. This for you two, if you’ll bide with him a moment. I just discovered a gentleman acquainted with my family.” He lifted his voice. “The rest of you, shove off.”

  The watchet-jacketed sailors moved out, still laughing, leaving two young lieutenants in worn, faded coats like that William Price wore.

  Price returned to Crawford, who indicated the other chair. “Please. Join me.”

  William took the chair, and leaned forward. “I can hardly stay a moment. I’ve been charged with this fellow.” A jerk of his square chin over his shoulder. Strange, how so manly a feature could yet recall the more delicate line of his sister’s features. “He cast up his accounts at the top of the hill. At least it’s raining, or I’d be afeared he’d die of a sunstroke by the time I get him aboard.” His brow furrowed as he looked around. “What are you doing here, sir, if I might ask?”

  “I was on Lord Somerset’s yacht. We were driven into the harbor by a party of French pirates, and landed in Gibraltar yesterday,” Crawford said. “Ahead of our time. We applied at the Governor’s Mansion to discover what to do, and found mail waiting, but no beds, as they were full up with government fellows. So I asked direction to an English inn, and found myself here.”

  William glanced over his shoulder, then lowered his voice. “You don’t want to stay in English inns. They’re robbers all, and the victuals are either boiled to shreds or dried to ash.”

  Crawford laughed softly. “So I discovered. And through some absurd etiquette, they will not let my man into the kitchen to dress my meals.”

  “No, what you want is one of the French-owned places. Or Spanish. Though here they do offer English ale.” He indicated his young charge, who was just finishing the tankard. “Only remedy when someone’s jug-bitten. Where he finds gin, the devil knows, for the captain don’t let it on board.”

  “How old is that boy?” Crawford asked, as the spot-faced midshipman began arguing incoherently with the red-haired lieutenant sitting with him.

  William’s brows lifted, reminding Crawford that, despite his younger age, Lieutenant Price had seen far more of the world, and a rougher world, than had Henry Crawford. “He’s old in sin. Old in sin.” Then William said diffidently, “I don’t quite understand what happened—that is, I am conscious of how much I owe you, sir, for your—yes, I can see you do not want to be reminded, but hang it all, what I’m trying to say is, if you wish, I can take you by one ten times better, and for half the cost.”

  “I am your man. Lead on.”

  “Well, I’m under orders from the premier to bring young Musgrove back to the ship, as this was his first day of liberty, and not half a watch and he’s run himself aground.”

  A brief fracas began at the other table, as the boy named Musgrove made a sudden start for the door, but the shorter lieutenant was ready for just that, and stuck out a scuffed but serviceably booted foot. The boy tripped over it, fell heavily, and was hauled up, spitting curses.

  William Price rose. “I’d better go. My friends are giving up their own liberty to sit on young Jack-at-warts, and he’s not even their shipmate. We lie just off the New Mole, if—no, I see you don’t know your way about yet. But if you’ll meet me at three, say, at the grog shop at the bottom of the hill below the Governor’s Mansion, I can show you around.”

  o0o

  My dear Henry. Why have you not answered my previous? I believe this is my fifth, but if it’s true and you are gone from our shores, then this might be the first to reach you. If any of them do. How very vexing, not to know if all this effort and wit is thrown away.

  Very well, I shall pretend we are sitting at Mansfield Parsonage, and you will soon go out Riding, and I will sit to my Harp. My sister is at work turning the yard into a garden, and as for my brother-in-law, who knows? We might see him at dinner. That is Worlds enough.

  But when I open my eyes, I see Flora seated at her harp. At least Lord Stornaway is not here, which is a large Mercy. Why is it that the ugliest Men are the most exigeant? You are neither ugly nor exigeant, so you must not be the person to ask. There! A compliment! Does that not require you to write me in return?

  I do not know what is more irritating to the nerves,
their pretence at grief that I lost a possible husband—or their relief that I am not thrown away in some country parsonage . . .

  There was only one remaining letter from Mary. Henry had scanned down the previous ones, finding what he had expected to find, a long litany of questions he would not answer, and bon mots that scarcely disguised Mary’s ire at being left so suddenly, and without any communication.

  Henry wanted to throw the letters into the fire, but there was none in this super-heated space. And he knew that such an action would not render them unwritten, the words unsaid—his actions undone. . . . What was Fanny Price about, with her missish behavior? Was there a Madame d’Arblay about to be impressed, and to make of her a tiresome example of a saintly virgin for the edification of future young flirts?

  That was why he could not answer Mary: she was angry at the wrong person. He folded the letters—only one more to read, it could wait—and sat back in his uncomfortable chair made of a half-barrel, before a table cut from another barrel. Bottles hung overhead in netting, either for sale or decoration; the drink served was vile, tasting of lead, but Crawford was content to be out of the sun, which had come out by then, striking shards of blinding light off the steaming puddles. The air of the city pressed down in a miasmic combination, though apparently unnoticed by the swarms of red-coated soldiers and the sailors and officers in varying shades of blue as they drank, swore, roared and walked about, hallooing at one another and chivvying the local women as soon as they spotted one.

  The large young lieutenant ducked through the low door, tucking his chapeau-bras under his arm. Price greeted Henry in a cheery masthead-in-a-thunderstorm boom. “Here I find you, Mr. Crawford. I trust I did not keep you long?”

  The admiral, in spite of his liberality about the rules of matrimony, had considered unpunctuality an unforgivable sin. The church towers began ringing three before Crawford could answer.

  William just smiled, waiting for the wild clamor to echo down the narrow streets and fade away to sea, then he said, “I’ve been told there’s scarcely a bed to be had, for the troop ships are come in. They say the lobsters are gathering to chase Boney out of Spain with Wellesley at their head.”

  Henry Crawford knew that much, though little more; Lord Somerset had, under the guise of his yachting party, been the bearer of papers between Government officials.

  “So if it’s just you, my captain has issued an invitation. We’re standing off toward Minorca on the turn of the tide, if you’d like to see a little more of the Med. We’ve a couple of other gentlemen caught similarly.”

  “What about my man?”

  “Oh, we’ll find a corner for him. The captain don’t mind gentlemen, see, or their servants. He makes it a rule never to take ladies on board.”

  “Ah. Thank you. I find myself at—in short, I am glad to accept. Shall I meet you, or—” Henry paused, unsure how to proceed.

  William gave a deep chuckle. “Bless you, I’m to come along and see to your dunnage. I’ll make certain these Spanish rascals don’t rob you blind. My brother Sam will meet us at the Mole in an hour.”

  An hour and a half later Crawford sat in the sternsheets of a gig as a another young Price, sturdier even than William, stepped the single mast and sent them bumping over the choppy waters on a rising wind toward a handsome frigate of older build. William had indeed taken charge. Crawford knew his intent was kindness—William still regarded him in the light of a benefactor for making it possible to gain his promotion—but the unconscious ease with which he’d hoisted Crawford’s trunk to his shoulder, his assurance in navigating the bewildering streets, rendered Crawford feeling . . . unsettled. As useful as the expensive, dashing curly-brimmed beaver sitting on his head, which had proved inadequate against either rain or Mediterranean sun.

  “She’s the Laconia,” William said, as the boat threaded between two great ships-of-the-line. Crawford looked up those towering tumblehomes, the open gun ports affording a glimpse into the life of the many decks. But the Price brothers heeded them not: their attention was on a graceful frigate floating at anchor beyond. “Thirty-two guns. She’s not at her best. We had a brush with those gunboats that I think your party might have seen.”

  “Fourteen shot between water and deck, sir,” young Sam Price put in, his ready, fearless smile a twin to his brother’s.

  Men crawled up in the rigging, and hung over the hull hammering and painting; great booms lifted spars this way and that on the frigate.

  The sailors at the oars remained silent as the Price brothers talked about how stout their ship was during this storm or that “dust-up,” pride clear in their voices.

  When they reached the frigate, Crawford began to regret the impulse to accept Price’s invitation. The boat seemed destined to smash against the outward curving hull, and his servant, Bryce, had gone from pale to green. An exchange of utterly incomprehensible shouts between deck and boat soon procured a rope affair extended down from a yard arm.

  William said, “Bide here, sir, and we’ll boom you up. Watch your hat, and keep your hands in—your man would never get the pitch out of those gloves, not ever so.”

  Crawford found himself lifted aboard by a pair of grizzled man-of-war’s men—“There ye be, sir, that’s the dandy! Now step aft, if you please, sir”—followed by his servant and his trunk.

  The deck was crowded with hen coops, sheep wandering about, goats, and a cow. What seemed to be several hundred men moved about, many hallooing at the tops of their voices as they clambered up and down, or hauled ropes, or carried things about.

  William Price led Crawford aft along the gangway, every so often stopping to let a work party carry a spar this way or an enormous worm of folded sailcloth that way.

  They stepped onto the quarterdeck, and when Price saluted, Crawford lifted his hat. Price presented him to the captain, who (Crawford was relieved to see) looked very much the gentleman. The captain was obviously extremely busy, so Crawford kept his answers as short as politeness permitted, and then a small man with a round, pleasant face stepped forward.

  “And here is Mr. Benwick, sir, our first lieutenant.”

  “Welcome, Mr. Crawford,” this Benwick said. “We’ve settled it that you shall have my quarters, and I will swing a hammock in the cabin, as Captain Wentworth and I have shared digs on many a ship since we were middies aboard the old Reso.”

  Crawford scarcely had time to thank him before Benwick excused himself and bounded forward, shouting at someone high in the complication of ropes and sails overhead.

  William led Crawford to a hatch with a ladder leading down into an even narrower, darker passage that smelled of mildewed wood, and the exhalations of hundreds of men. Price stopped by a canvas door. “Here you go, sir. Just get settled in—the mail packet was by while we were on shore, and so things are all ahoo, as you can see. But we’ll be dining with the captain late, on account of everything, which will be at double-dog.” Seeing Crawford’s confusion, he added, “I’ll send a squeaker to warn you. If you will pardon me?”

  He was gone, leaving Crawford to look around the minute space allotted to the second in command aboard a frigate. His experience on the yacht had not prepared him for any of this: the time had been standard count by clock, the cabins commodious. The servants many.

  The quarters belonging to the first lieutenant would not have suited a coal-heaver, Crawford thought as he stood in the narrow access, wondering where Bryce could possibly fit his trunk. But the tiny cubicle—for he would not term a canvas-walled space a cabin—was scrupulously clean, and as he eyed the space more closely by the light of the swinging lamp, had to admit that it was cunningly fit together. Here a shaving bowl could be set, then the same space turned to use for other purposes. The lieutenant slept in a hammock; just above it, in the slanting bulkhead, someone had fastened a kind of book shelf, which kept two small rows of tight-packed books from falling out.

  There was nowhere to sit, so perforce he must stretch out in the hammock, which was
difficult to climb into. But once he managed, the comfort was immediately apparent, if one overlooked the constant motion.

  What else to do? He had little taste for shoving his way back into the madness of the ship readying itself for sail, or the busy wardroom full of off-duty men eagerly reading mail.

  Mail. Crawford pulled from his pocket the last letter from his sister, broke the seal, and held it to the lamp, which seemed inclined to swing in a different direction than the hammock.

  Henry, I believe this will be my Last until I hear from you. Do I hear Relief, or Dismay? Let me inform you that I have seen her—Maria Rushworth that was; the Bill of Divorcement is already in Parliament. She came to me here at Lady Stornaway’s, but is gone away again, into Shropshire. She is to live with her aunt Norris. If that is not deemed Punishment enough, what is?

  I say nothing of the Price she has paid for her Passion—other than to remind you that more than two have paid it. But grief, the poets claim, can make unexpected bedfellows. Short of anyone else choosing to visit her in her Seclusion, I believe I will venture there anon. I have no fears of the Countryside. I have learnt what it can do.

  Your loving sister, Mary.

  “Sir?” A squeak-voiced boy scratched at the bulkhead outside the canvas curtain. “Sir, I’m to tell you that dinner with the captain is in forty-five minutes, and your man will be here with hot water anon.”

  Crawford fought his way out of the hammock, cursing under his breath. His head seemed to swing in the opposite direction of the ship. He poked his nose out, about to ask the boy if morning or evening dress was expected, but there was no boy.

  However, Bryce appeared moments later, with evening dress laid over his arm. Crawford was relieved to discover that his trunk was “struck” down in the hold, for there was little room to turn around with two in this tiny space. He was ready within the allotted time, and joined the men crowded in the passage outside the cabin.