Curse of the Blue Tattoo: Being an Account of the Misadventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman and Fine Lady (2 page)

The coachman goes over to the rack on the back of the carriage and gets my seabag and chest and brings them to the entrance and then goes back to his seat to wait for Tilly to get free of me.

Tilly lifts the knocker on the door. It is opened by a young girl in service gear—black skirt and black lace-up weskit, white blouse, white apron and cap.

"Yes, Sir?" she says, all big eyed and meek lookin'. "May I help you?"

"Yes.
Harrumph,
" says Tilly, "I am Professor Phineas Tilden and I bring Mistress Pimm her new student." The girl gives me a quick up-and-down with her eyes, then slips out of the room through a door at the far end to fetch this Mistress Pimm. I look around, jumpy as a cat.

You calm down now, you. Right now.

The room is empty of furniture and rugs—prolly 'cause
this is where people track in snow and mud in the winter. But there are things on the walls. Wondrous things. Flowers and leaves all twisted around each other—words, alphabets, apples, oranges, urns, and weeping willow trees—all made out of thread on white cloth and framed with fine wood and...

"Yes. Mistress Pimm's girls are noted for their embroidery," says Tilly, when he notices me lookin'.

Embroidery! I don't know nothing 'bout no 'broidery, Tilly, you should've told me about this. I don't know how to do this stuff. I can sew a straight line, yes, but this I can't...

The serving girl opens the door and stands aside to let Mistress Pimm stride in. The schoolmistress advances to the center of the room and brings her gaze to rest on the Professor. She is as tall as he and as thin as he is stout. Her hair is the gray of a brushed iron cannon and is pulled back hard and gathered in a bun at the back of her head, which makes her sharp features look as if chiseled from stone. She, too, is dressed in black, but her dress goes all the way from ankle to throat where it is tightly fastened by a shiny black brooch. Her sleeves end in black lace above her white hands.

"Dear Cousin Phineas," she says. She does not look at me. She does not smile at either of us. "How good to see you again." She extends her hand and touches the outstretched hand of the Professor for the briefest of moments.

"Yes.
Harrumph,
" says the Professor, reddening. "Good to see you, too, Miranda. May I present Miss Jacky Faber, the girl you have so graciously taken on as a new student? Jacky, this is Mistress Pimm."

She slowly turns her head and brings her gaze to bear upon me cowering down below.

What am I 'posed to do? Oh Lord, Tilly, you should've thought to teach me what to do in things like this. I don't know, should I hit a brace and snap off a salute and case my eyes or should I knuckle my brow and look down all humble or should I...

The serving girl standing behind Mistress Pimm sees me in all my confusion and she takes a bit of her skirt in each hand and moves one foot behind the other and dips down, spreading out her skirt with her hands as she looks down at the floor and then rises back up and brings her eyes back to mine and nods at me and silently mouths,
Do it.

I do it, or at least I tries, and I almost falls over sideways when I squats down but I don't, and I comes back up and puts my eyes on her brooch 'cause I don't want to meet her steely eyes and I says, "Pleased to meetcha, Mum."

Tilly sighs and says, "She's going to take a bit of work, I'm afraid. But she is a good boy ... ah ... girl, that is, and she is a willing worker and a quick study and she..."

Mistress looks me over. "I am sure she will prosper here," she says, finally, but she is not smiling and she don't sound like she believes it. I don't believe it, neither, not right now I don't.

She looks back at Tilly. "I believe our business is concluded, then. I bid you good day, Cousin Phineas." The serving girl goes to open the door for him.

"Right. Well, then," says Tilly to me, "you be a good girl, now."

"I will be, Sir, and I thank you for your kindness to me and the other boys. You were just the best teacher."

Tilly blinks and nods and is out the door and gone.

The door clicks shut and silence fills the room. I stand
there nervously quiverin' while Mistress Pimm looks me over.

"What is this, then?" she says sharply, reaching over and flicking her finger at my earring. I flinch back cause her fingernail caught my ear and it shocked me, the suddenness of it all.

"It's ... it's ... just me ring, Ma'am. It's like a token from me intended husband, a weddin' ring, like. We're gonna use 'em when we finally gets married and..."

"Take it off. Take it off,
now.
"

"I can't take it off, Mum," I says. "It's welded shut and please, Mum, I..."

From somewhere in her dress she pulls out a thin rod, whips it back, and lays it against my leg. Even under the layers of cloth, my leg buckles under the pain.
Damn, that hurts!

"Listen to me, girl. The Rules: You will never call me anything but Mistress, not Mum, not Ma'am,
nothing
but Mistress," she says, standing straight upright as if a steel rod was run up her back. "And you will never talk back to me or raise your voice or even
think
to contradict me. Do you understand me, Miss Faber?"

"Yes, Mistress, I do." I sobs, blinking back tears for me poor leg. "I do."

"Good," she says, straightening up and turning to the serving girl. "You. Go get Mr. Dobbs."

"Yes, Mistress," whispers the girl and darts out the door.

"And tell him to bring his snips!" Mistress calls after the girl.

While we wait for this Mr. Dobbs and his snips, Mistress continues to gaze upon me. She shakes her head and paces
about the room. "I have grave misgivings about this. Unseemly.
Most
unseemly."

The girl returns shortly with a dusty little man in work clothes bearing a look of put-upon impatience and carrying an evil-looking pair of sharp pliers.

"What is it, then, Mistress Pimm?" he says, with the air of one who anticipates a long, disagreeable, dirty, and thankless job.

"Take that barbaric thing out of her ear right now."

Mr. Dobbs squints at my earring and lifts his pinchy tool. He seems delighted that it is such a simple thing and soon he'll be back in the hole where I'm sure he hides himself the livelong day. "Sure thing, Mistress. We'll have that out in half a moment."

He lays his cold, vile snips against my cheek and peers at the offending ear and its ornament. I jerk back.

"Please, Mistress, it's such a small thing and I..."

The switch catches me on the leg again and I cries out, "
Oh! Please don't...
"

"What did I tell you about talking back to me?" she says to me and "Cut it out of there!" to Dobbs.

"Pardon, Mistress," says the vile Dobbs, scratching his bristly chin as he thinks about the job at hand, "but do ye wish me to cut the earring or the earlobe?" He opens his shears and puts my ear in its cruel mouth. I can feel the sharpness of the metal. "Earlobe'd be easier. Bit of a mess, though."

She seems to consider the two ways of freeing the ring from my poor quiverin' ear.

"Cut the ring," she says finally.

I'm sorry, Jaimy, I promised I'd never take your ring out of my ear but there it goes I'm sorry, Jaimy, I'm sorry.

Dobbs cuts the hoop and, none too gentle, twists the ring out of my ear and hands it to Mistress.

"Very well, Dobbs, you may take Miss Faber's things up to the dormitory. And you," she says to the serving girl, "may resume your duties." The girl bobs and leaves, and Dobbs lifts my seabag and chest and heads down the hallway.

"
You
will now follow me to my office."

We enter a hallway and proceed down its length. There's more of them 'broideries on both walls. On either side I see rooms that are prolly rooms where stuff is taught. There's a room with a lot of little tables, and there—oh, my—there's a room full of musical instruments, fiddles and harps and things.
This could be all right,
I think.

"This floor is classrooms and the dining hall. Upstairs is the living quarters. Downstairs is the kitchen and the household staff," she says, and with that she sweeps into a room and I follow.

It is a dark room with heavy curtains pulled over the windows. It has a large desk with a chair in the middle of it and cabinets along the side. Mistress Pimm goes over to a window and reaches behind the curtain and pulls a cord. The drapes part and light spills into the room and I can see the harbor lying down there below. How I wish I was down there with Jaimy, or even just sitting on a pier and playing my pennywhistle. Or gutting fish. Or doing anything but this.

Mistress comes back to the desk and sits down in her chair.

"Do you see the line drawn on the carpet?"

I look down and see that, sure enough, there is a thin white line drawn on the rug in front of her desk.

"Yes, Mistress," I say.

"Good. Now go up to it and put the points of your toes upon it."

I step over and put the shiny toes of my new shoes on the line. This puts my belly about four inches from the edge of the desk.

"Very well," she says and leans back in her chair. "Whenever you are called into this office, you will advance to that line. If you are here for punishment—and I cannot think of any other reason why you would be here—you will lay your upper body on the desk and lift up your skirts. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Mistress." I'm thinkin' fearfully that it's sort of like being bent over a cannon and having your pants pulled down and your bottom switched, which was the common punishment for ship's boys on the
Dolphin.
Never happened to me, though it was close a couple of times. Maybe this won't happen to me here, neither. I hope not. I didn't like the feel of that stick of hers.

"All right, then." She picks up some papers and holds them up. "I have read an account of your recent life aboard that ship, provided by Mr. Tilden, and I find it neither amusing nor reassuring as to your moral character," she says, crossing her arms and looking at me intently. "Are you still innocent?"

Innocent?
Of what?

She notes my confusion. She narrows her eyes even more and says, "Are you yet a maiden?"

Oh.
That.

"Yes, Mistress," I stammers.
If only just barely,
I thinks, but I don't say it out loud.

She is silent for a bit and then says, "Very well. I choose to believe you on that. I would not take you if I believed otherwise. It is reassuring that you can still blush, at least. You will, however, never speak with the other girls of your past life, as it smacks of the sordid and the unseemly. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Mistress."

Her gaze has never once left my face. "I have grave misgivings about taking you on as a student, given your origins and past life, but we shall see. Hold out your hand."

I sticks out my trembling hand half expectin' her to give it a whack with her stick for my past sins, but instead she jams my ring into it. "I never want to see that, or any kind of ornament on you again. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Mistress," I say in my misery.

"And, Miss Faber, the most important thing of all," she says, standing and raising herself to her full height, "although you may know the name of this school to be the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls, I want you to fully understand that those are the names of the founders and trustees but that it is
my
school and
my
girls and you will
never
bring disgrace down upon me and my school by your actions and comportment. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, Mistress." I'm thinkin' that this is a lot like bein' read the Articles of War on the ship—every breakin' of a rule bein' punishable by death.

"Good. We will go up and meet my girls now." She comes around from behind the desk. "You will find that my
girls have a look about them that distinguishes them from the common run of girl, and you, Miss Faber, will try to cultivate that look."

She comes up next to me. "My girls walk as if they were delicately balancing a book upon their heads. They keep their lips together and their teeth apart."

I lift my head and drop my jaw down a bit with my lips mashed together.

She sighs. "Relax the lips, Miss Faber. Make a cupid's bow of them. Now drop your eyelids down halfway. That's better. Not even close to the ideal, but better." She lifts her rod and taps my shoulders with it. "Not so rigidly straight. Remember the book on your head. You are projecting a look of languid confidence."

She steps back to look at me.

"Eventually, Miss Faber, it is further to be hoped that you will learn to control your emotions so that they do not display quite so visibly on your face as they do right now. My girls have a look about them and appearing to be about to burst into tears is
not
part of that look. Let us go."

"Yes, Mistress."

There is a broad sweep of stairs at the end of the hallway and up it we do go, Mistress first and me behind watching the swaying hem of her skirt. At the top, we turn right and enter a large room that has beds lined up on either side. There are chests of drawers and windows curtained with light white drapes on each side. There are also about thirty girls of various sizes and ages, dressed just like me. They all get to their feet upon seeing Mistress Pimm enter.

"Good day, Ladies."

"Good day, Mistress," say the girls as one.

"I've asked you to gather here before dinner to welcome a new girl, Miss Faber." She steps aside for me to come forward. "She is from England. Acquaint her with our ways and our rules."

And with that, Mistress turns on her heel and leaves the room.

Well. I breathe a bit easier with her gone. Maybe I'll find some warmth down here in the crew's quarters, but I dunno—all I see now is unsmiling faces turned toward me, lookin' all haughty and ... oh, right—the
Look,
that's what it is.

Nothin' for it but to put on my most charmin' smile and beam it all around. "My name is Mary, but you can call me Jacky—everybody does," I pipes and looks around at their faces expectin'...what? Welcome, maybe. I don't see much in the way of that, though.