A Passage Down the Solent

Monday, 23 February 1807
Southampton

Had I suffered the misfortune to be born a man, I should have torn myself early from the affections of my family and all the comforts of home, and thrown my fate upon the mercy of the seas.

That fresh salt slap, as bracing as a blow; the bucking surge of wave upon wave, a riderless herd never to be bribed or charmed into complaisance; the endless stretch curbed by no horizon, that must unfold an infinite array of wonders before the eyes -- exotic climes, benighted peoples, lost cities set like rubies among the desert chasms -- oh, to sail the seas as my brothers have done before me! Free of obligation or care beyond the safety of oneself and one's men -- free of the confines of home and earth-bound hopes and all the weight of convention like an anchor about one's neck!

Casting my eye across the extent of Southampton Water to the New Forest opposite -- verdure indistinct behind a scrim of morning fog -- I shuddered from suppressed excitement as much as from the chill rising off the sea. From my position on Southampton's Water Gate Quay I might dip my hand for a time in the cold current of English history. Southampton Water, and the Solent that runs between the mainland and the Isle of Wight just south, have ever been the point of departure for great adventure -- for risk, and high daring, and fortunes made or lost. Here the troops of King Henry embarked for the battle of Agincourt; here the Puritan colonists hauled anchor for the New World. It is impossible to stand within sight and sound of the heaving grey waters, and be deaf to their siren call; and not for Jane Austen to resist the force that has bewitched so many Hearts of Oak.

A forest of masts bobbed and swayed under my gaze: men o'war newly-anchored from Portsmouth; merchant vessels and whalers from the far corners of the Atlantic; Indiamen, rich and fat with the spoils of Bombay; and a thousand smaller craft that skimmed the surface of the Solent like a legion of water beetles. Hoarse cries of boatmen and the creak of straining ropes resounded across the waves; a snatch of sea-chanty, an oath swiftly quelled. The smell of brine and pitch and boiling coffee wafted to my reddened nostrils. This was life, in all its unfettered boldness -- and these were Englishmen at their most honest and true: a picture of glory enough to drive a thousand small boys from their warm beds, and send them barefoot to the likeliest ship, hopeful and unlettered, ill-fed and mendacious as to right age and family, for the sake of a creaking berth among the rats and the bilge-water below. Were I returned in spirit to the days of my girlhood, a child of seven sent to school in Southampton -- I might be tempted to steal my brothers' Academy uniforms, and stow away myself.

"Are you quite certain you wish to accompany me to Portsmouth, Jane?" enquired my brother Frank anxiously at my elbow.

I turned, the pleasant reverie broken. "I should never have quitted my bed at such an early hour, Fly, for anything less. You could not prevent me from boarding that hoy at anchor, if you were to set upon me with wild dogs." It was necessary to suggest bravado -- the hoy, with a single mast bobbing in the swell, was rather a small coasting vessel when viewed against the backdrop of so much heavy shipping: and I am no seawoman.

"The weather shall certainly be brisk," my brother persisted doubtfully. "The wind is freshening, and I fancy we shall have rain before the day is out."

"I do not regard a trifling shower, I assure you -- and the air is no warmer in our lodgings. Mrs. Davies is of a saving nature, and does not intend that we...

 

 

"Historical fiction at its best!"

 

"Barron does a wonderful job of evoking the great British estates and the woes of spinsters living in that era ... often echoing the rhythms of the Austen novels with uncanny ease."

 

"Ms. Barron's skillful rendering of Ms. Austen's style, attuned to picking up the most delicate fluctuations in social behavior, reveals it to be an ideal vehicle for the classic cozy murder mystery. Who knew?"

 

"A real charmer."

 

"There's plenty to enjoy in the crime-solving side of Jane.... She is as worthy a detective as Columbo."

 

"People who lament Jane Austen's minimal lifetime output ... now have cause to rejoice."

 

"Splendid fun!"

 

"Happily succeeds on all levels: a robust tale of manners and mayhem that faithfully reproduces the Austen style -- and engrosses to the finish."

 

"A lighthearted mystery ... The most fun is that 'Jane Austen' is in the middle of it, witty and logical, a foil to some of the ladies who primp, faint and swoon."

 

Stephanie Barron, a lifelong admirer of Jane Austen's work, is the author of five previous Jane Austen mysteries. She lives in Colorado, where she is at work on the seventh Jane Austen mystery, Jane and the Ghosts of Netley. As Francine Mathews, she is the author most recently of The Cutout. Learn more about both Stephanie Barron and Francine Mathews at www.francinemathews.com.

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