Curse of the Blue Tattoo: Being an Account of the Misadventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman and Fine Lady (39 page)

"Wait, Sir. One more thing." I go over to Gully and open his coat and take out his bottle of the greenish liquid. I lean over and look down at Gully's eyes as I say, "He has a problem with the drink, Sir. I would deny him his rum ration, at least for a while." I can imagine what Gully is calling me right now, but nothin' gets by the gag cept a gargling sound.

The Bo'sun takes the bottle from my hand and uncorks it and sniffs at the neck. He makes a face. "Wormwood. Rotten Frenchy wormwood. Rots the brain. Might as well drink lye!" He throws the bottle over the edge of the wharf and we hear it shatter on a crossbeam down below.

The men untie Gully and pull him upright, one good strong sailor on either arm. They leave the gag in.

I take the fiddle case from my shoulder and am about to hand it over when the officer says, "Ah no, Miss. No fiddles. The Captain can't abide them and won't let any aboard."

I sling the case back over my shoulder and look at Gully, and this time his eyes show only a deep, deep sadness.

"Sorry, Gully, I really am. But I'll take good care of the Lady Lenore for you, and if we ever meet again, I'll give her back to you."

With that I pick up the wheelbarrow and I turn and take it back to Bob's shed.

The sun is coming up when I see Amy runnin' toward me when I turn up Beacon Street. Annie is with her and their relief at seein' me back is gone the instant they see my eye. Amy's mouth opens but nothin' comes out.

"Sweet Jesus," says Annie. "We got to get her to Peg right off!"

There is a kind of thick juice comin' out from between the slit of my eyelids.
Please God, don't take my eye.

I'm led into the kitchen. "Oh, my poor little girl," moans Peg. She puts her hand on my forehead and looks at the eye.
Her hand feels wondrous cool and soothing. "Sylvie! Go down to the apothecary shop and get three ... no, five leeches! Quickly! Abby, to the icehouse! Run!"

Peg wets a towel and takes me to her room in back. "Get in here. We can't let Mistress see you like that. Stretch out on the bed." I take off the Lady and I lie down, gratefully.

"Who did that to you?" she demands. "I swear I'll have the man that did that..."

"He's gone away, Peg, and he won't be back for a long, long time," I says, and falls into a deep, deep sleep.

Much later, when I swim back into something close to wakefulness I feel a cold ice pack held to my eye. I open the other eye and see that it is Amy who is holding the compress. I fumble around and find her other hand and hold it to me. "Dear Amy," I whisper, "thank you."

Then I hear Peg say, "All right. Let's take a look." With my good eye I see her squinting at my other eye. "The swellin's down. Let's get 'em on her."

With great joy I find I can see a little out of my hurt eye—just a little slit of light, but it's something. Peg brings something black and shiny and wiggling over into my sight and puts it down, cold and clammy, on the top of my cheekbone, close to my lower eyelid.

"One there, and one over here ... and two up top..."

I see that Amy's look of tender concern has been replaced by one of stern disapproval. "I told you something like this would happen," she scolds. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

I considers this for a bit. "You know," I says, as I feel the leeches' rasping mouths workin' their blood-suckin' way through my skin, "I'm thinkin' of giving up show business."

Amy thinks it might be a good idea to get me out of the school for a few days, what with my eye and all, and I think it is a
great idea
, so we go to Dovecote for a few days this weekend. I spent all Friday in bed, claiming to be sick, and when Mistress came in to check on me, I flipped over on my side and pressed my bad eye to the pillow so she wouldn't see. Amy makes our excuses to Mistress and this time there
is
a coach and we take it. The coach is anything but comfortable and we get bounced around something awful—I'd much rather have ridden Gretchen—but we chatter and laugh and soon the journey is done and we are dropped at the big house at Dovecote.

We drop our bags in Amy's room and I go over to the mirror and squint at myself in it. Not too bad—the leeches did their job in getting the purple bruises out. Now it's just a few smudges of yellowish tinge.

Amy sees me looking in the mirror and says, "Come. We will go to Mother's dressing room. She will have some powder there."

***

"Coo, Amy, look at all this," says I. The dresser top is full of little jars and bottles and things with stoppers. "I thought you Yankees was all Puritans and didn't hold with this stuff."

"We have a saying here in New England: 'Pray in Church, Sin at Home.' Here, hold your face to the light." She picks up a squat jar and opens it and takes a soft brush and dips into it and applies it to my bruises.

It's easy to imagine Amy's mother sitting here at this dressing table. As different from Amy as the night from the day, Clementine Trevelyne is as pink and flighty as Amy is dark and serious. It is certain that Mrs. Trevelyne has never read a book and her talk centers totally on things of a social nature—the parties, the dinners, the glittering balls, and who was there and who was not. She does not seem to care a whit about the danger her husband's gambling poses to her present way of life, but goes about being gay and frivolous and charming. Or maybe she doesn't know. Whatever, she was kind to me when we met at Christmas, clucking over me and saying how nice it was that our Amy has a little friend. She was kind and I liked her.

Amy steps back and surveys her work. "There. That's better."

I look in the mirror and sure enough, I can hardly see the bruise. "Good work," I say. I pick up a bottle with blue juice in it. "What's the rest of this, then?"

"That is perfume. From France. Try some if you wish."

I pull out the stopper and put my nose to the tiny bottle. "Ooohhh, that's so lovely!" I want to stuff the whole thing up my nose.

"Put some on if you like ... No, no, not like that." She sees that I was about to shake the open bottle over my head.
"Like this." She takes the bottle and puts her finger over the open end and tips it and then takes her finger and puts it behind my ear. "Like that. Behind each ear. Maybe a touch at the throat."

I do it and as I am doing it, Amy's attention is captured by something outside and she goes to the window.

"It's Randall," she says, not sounding entirely pleased, "home for the weekend.
Again.
I've never seen him home so much. It's strange."

By the time she turns around, I have put another big dab of the perfume down on my breastbone, loosened my hair from its usual pigtail, and dragged a lock of it over my damaged eye.

She narrows her eyes upon seeing me do all this, but I just smile all innocent and get up and go down to our room to brush my hair and tie it back with a ribbon.

"Ah, you rogue, you! What have you been up to since last we met? Oh yes? Well, I've heard you've been havin' quite a jolly time with the girls, you rascal you! Several babies already on the way? I'm not surprised. Now, don't you blush like that!" Saying that, I wrap my arms around his head and plant a great kiss on his forehead.

The Sheik seems to be glad to see me, too. I had heard him whinny when we approached the stable—I guess he caught a whiff of me, though how he could through all this perfume, I don't know. Maybe he recognized my voice, talking to Amy and Randall as I was. Whatever, his eyes roll and he fairly screams at the sight of me.

I give him pieces of dried apple, which he takes off my palm with great gentleness, and I say to George Swindow,
who's the head hostler, "Please, George, tell me you'll allow me to ride him later." Amy don't even bother anymore tryin' to tell me not to do it, and Randall puts on his air of not carin' what I do.

"
Exercise
him, Miss. You may
exercise
him
inside
the track," says George. It's plain he's thinkin' back to those wild rides I've already had upon the Sheik.

"Thank you, George. I'll be back as soon as I change!" And I lift the front of my skirts and run back to our room and put on my sailor pants and shirt and I get back as they are saddling him up. The people here are used to seeing me in this rig—they have shrugged it off and they let me be the tomboy I guess I am.

I go up next to the Sheik and he lowers his great head, nuzzles me, and then shakes his mane and snorts and stamps, which means he's ready to run and asking why are we just standing here?

Randall appears to hand me up and I settles myself on the saddle. He is dressed today in a red velvet jacket with white front lapels and a high stiff collar that goes up above his ears and his dark hair curls over both collar and ears. Above his black boots stretch spotless white britches. He looks up with hooded eyes and then reaches up and pats me on the leg and says, "Be careful now, Jacky." I smile and nod. The Sheik shies away and I turn him and we are off.

The first time around the track I take him around slow—slow for the Sheik, that is—my hair is flying out straight behind me and the great muscles of his shoulders flex and stretch and roll under my legs and the white fence posts fly by. When we get to the last turn, we go by a small pasture
that has some mares placidly grazing and I've been told that three of them are with foal by him and we shall have some fine colts and fillies by summer. I know the Sheik notices them, 'cause he speeds up a bit as we pass, as if to say, "Ain't I some fine horse?"

As we pound by the grandstand I notice that Amy and Randall are standing at the rail, watching, and I stick my bottom up a little higher in the air—to gain better balance, of course. Ain't I some fine rider?

And this time around we really let go.

After the last lap, I pull up the Sheik, all hot and frothing but still ready for more, but no, that's it for now—George had waved the flag and I knew I had to bring him in or else not be allowed to get up on him again.

Sheik's capering around, wheeling and whinnying, and he rears up on his hind legs, but I soon get him calmed down by whispering in his ear and patting his sweaty neck. As he's standing there blowing, I slide off and hand the reins to ...
what?...

It is a tiny little man, no bigger than me, wearing the silken colors of Dovecote Farm—green and white striped top, tight white knee pants, white silk stockings, and a green cap. He wears also a little man's cocky grin and says, "Ain't it a wonder, a female jock," and since I don't hear an accent, he must be another Cockney.

"Hullo, jock," says I. As we stand, I look directly level into his eyes, something I ain't used to doin'. "London? Cheapside?"

"Couldn't be more right, Missy. Peter Jarvis, called Pete.
Sometimes Petey. Whelped and weaned in Ludgate. You, too?"

"Takes one to know one," says I, patting the Sheik on his flank. We lead him, all blowin' and snortin', on a coolin'-off walk. "Jacky Faber, Blackfriars Bridge."

"You lived near the bridge?" He looks quizzical.

"Under it," says I.

"Ah," he says, and he don't press it. "You ride real fine, Miss. The nag seems to like you."

"That's some horse. Is he the best you've ever seen?" I ask, wanting the real expert's opinion.

"He's right up there, Jacky," he says, looking up with admiration at the Sheik. "But, then, any horse can be beat, given the wrong day, the wrong rider, the wrong luck."

When we're done walking the big horse, we go back to the stable and I see Randall waiting by the racetrack gate. Not that he gives any indication that he's waiting for
me,
exactly, just sort of lounging about and surveying the scene and talking with some others.

I follow Petey into the stable and we put the Sheik into his stall and I get his oats and put some in his trough and he eats.

"I wonder why you get on so well with the horse, Jacky," says Pete. "He'll do things easy for you that he won't do for me."

I thinks for a bit and then says, "You know, it may sound stupid, but I think it's 'cause he knows I'm a girl."

Pete raises an eyebrow.

"Aye, and don't think this rogue don't know it. Aside
from runnin', gettin' with the mares is his main occupation. So he knows."

"Ah, what's the big difference?" asks Pete, the track-hardened jockey. His age, after you get over his boyish size, is about thirty, thirty-five.

"The difference is, with male jockeys, he sees competition, like ... and so he acts that way. He runs good for you 'cause he wants you to see just how good he is, so you'll go away in shame. With me, he sees someone he wants to ... well,
impress.
He wants me to admire him ... and like him." I blush a little at this speech, but I think it's true.

"Pretty deep there, jack-o," says he, laughing.

I laugh, too, and think how long it's been since I've been called by that Cockney name.

I spend a good deal of the rest of the afternoon with Pete, learnin' the tricks of the trade, listenin' to his stories—
and that time at Ascot when I was on a big dumb hammer-headed black, and four o' the bleedin bastards had me boxed in against the wall and I...

He's a good sort and we become fast friends. When I leave the stable, night is falling and Randall is no longer at the gate.

I go into Amy's room and she is sitting there scratching her quill in her manuscript, as she calls it. She rises and we dress for dinner.

We take our evening dinner with Randall at the great long table in the grand dining room. Amy wanted to take our dinner in the kitchen, all jolly and easy like we usually do, but Randall insisted, so here we are. I like being here, and
look about like any simple country girl. Candles are lit in a crystal chandelier above the table where we sit, and the lights from it reflect warmly on the polished top of the huge table. It reflects, also, on the fine china and silverware laid out before me. At least I know what to do with it now, and don't have to cringe in fear.

There are about twenty, twenty-five chairs ringing the table, and we three sit in the middle, Amy and I together, and Randall across from us. There are windows at the end of the room and they are covered with thick red drapes, gathered with gold cords. Behind me is a big double door that opens on the hall and through which we came in, and on the other side is another set of wide doors that open on what seems to be a big, dark ballroom.
What a thing,
I thinks,
to go to a real ball in there.