Curse of the Blue Tattoo: Being an Account of the Misadventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman and Fine Lady (6 page)

She taps her cane twice on the floor and the girls pile into their beds.

Mistress says, "Good night, girls."

"Good night, Mistress," we all say.

Mistress herself goes about and snuffs the lamps. Soon all is darkness.

A great wave of weariness sweeps over me even though I ain't done no real work today, and with the weariness comes the hopelessness of homesickness, too, that awful feelin' that things ain't never gonna get any better than they are now, and I'm startin' to wet my pillow with my tears but I got to stop it. I can't let them hear me cry, I can't. You got to look on the bright side of things now, I tells myself. The truth is no one tried to hang you today or even threatened you with it. You were not thrown naked into the street. You were beaten but not insensible. All those things
have
happened to you before, but not today. True, you've got to contend with horses tomorrow and I know you ain't lookin' forward to that, and that Clarissa is hateful and awful but at least she's not tryin' to actually kill you. Mistress is as stern as any Bo'sun or officer, but did the First Mate come to you every night on the
Dolphin
with a glass of warm milk and a kiss to tuck you in? No, he did not. So stop your complainin'.

I burrow down under the covers and curl up in a ball and clasp Jaimy's ring in my hand, and having already prayed for his health and safety, I start to fall into sleep. It is hard to believe that only this morning I woke from such sleep on the
Dolphin.
Such a long time ago, a world away it seems.

Sleep is shattered the next morning by the ringing of yet another bell. I curse the ringer of the bell and throw back the covers and get out and pull my drawers and my shift from the sea chest and take my towel and stumble off to the washroom.

I'm the first one in and so have my pick of the stalls. I guess the others ain't used to bein' awakened for night watches by the Bo'sun, him what calls once and whacks second if you ain't up and on the deck right quick. I notice that the pitcher is full of water again and that the water is warm. The serving girls must have been in and I didn't even hear 'em, poor things. I wonder what time
they
had to get up.

So I whips off me cap and nightgown, takes care of the necessaries, and washes up. I runs the toothbrush what Tilly give me over the soap and then over my teeth, rinse and spit, and then I squints at myself in the mirror and decides that my hair will do for one more day, especially seein' as how I don't know how the washin' of hair is done around here and from the looks of some of 'em, it ain't been a real regular practice.

Goin' back into the main sleeping room in my shift and
drawers, my bare feet slappin' on the floor, I see that half of 'era ain't even out of bed yet, Amy included. Clarissa's up, though.

Good. I throw on my dress and stockings and shoes and quickly make my bed, and then I head out to explore. Let's see what this ship has in the way of secrets.

First, I go down the hall and down the stairs and down another hall to the foyer to see if the front door is kept locked. It is. Or, at least it's locked now, but maybe that's on account of it's early. The lock has a latch on the inside and I quietly slide it over and pull open the massive door and look at the outside of the door—there is no keyhole, which means the door can only be locked from the inside. It also means that I'll have to find some other way of gettin' in and out of this ark if I want to explore Boston like I mean to do.

I makes sure the latch is off and then I step out into the light, and there below me all Boston is laid out on this fine late August day, the Common all green with its beasts scattered about, the buildings of the town all neat and orderly, and the harbor sparkling in the distance. There is a slight breeze that blows the hair that's got out of my pigtail about my face and if I close my eyes I'm up in the rigging and we're one day out from Boston and it's, let's see, about six bells in the Four-to-Eight watch and ... no, stop it.

I open my eyes and it occurs to me that this is the first time I have been free in a long, long time. I could walk down into that city and disappear forever, as far as the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls is concerned. Sort of free, that is ... free to starve to death ... or to Fall into Iniquity as Deacon Dunne would have it ... and all my stuff is
inside and how could I make my way without my whistle or me shiv or ...

Click!

The door has locked behind me! Someone has ...
That Clarissa!
She must have seen me leave the dormitory and followed me!
Damn!

I go up to the door in a panic. Already I can feel the cane on the backs of my legs. I dare not pound on the door 'cause Mistress might answer it and where would I be then? Stretched across her desk with my skirt up, that's where. I've
got
to find another way in.

I run around the side of the school and see nothing on that side and then run around the back—nothing! I continue pounding around to the other side and
there!
The land slopes down and away and at the bottom there's a door to a lower level. I careens down the slope and tries the door. It's open and I go in.

I find myself in the kitchen and it is filled with the smell of frying bacon and toasting bread and there are girls chattering and laughing and scurrying around getting ready to cart it all upstairs and serve it to the ladies and in the middle of it all is a large woman in an apron standing at a huge stove and directing who's to take what.

"Betsey! The bread baskets! Get 'em up there and see if they're ready to eat yet. Annie, take up the tea!"

"Yes, Peggy, we got it we..."

That's when they notice me and the place goes quiet. There are two other girls seated at a table finishing up their own breakfasts and they stand up upon seeing me. The cook asks me, "Yes, Miss, how can we help you?"

"I'm sorry," I stammer. "But I locked myself out the front door. Could you..."

"If it pleases you, Miss, just follow Betsey there. She'll show you the way up."

The girl with the bread turns and heads out of the kitchen and I follow. I do
not
put on the Look. I do, however, take note of what's down here. After the kitchen we go through what appears to be the laundry with big washtubs and a wet floor. There's a room with brooms and mops and buckets. Also tools and a coil of rope. Then we go up a flight of stairs and the girl Betsey sticks the breadbasket on her hip and opens the latch on the door at the top and lets me through and I'm back in the classroom hallway, again.

"Thank you, Betsey," I say, and she just blushes and nods. She is the shyer of the two sisters, I see, but I make her talk by asking, "The front door. Is it always kept locked?"

"Yes, Miss."

"And if I were to go out and came back later and rapped on the knocker, you or one of the others would come and let me in?"

"Yes, Miss," she says. "Or sometimes Mistress."

Oh.

"What about the kitchen door? Downstairs."

"That's not locked, Miss. Not till after we clean up after supper and go home. Then Peg locks up."

I have gotten some useful information.

I get to the dining hall and says, "Hey, Mate," and sits down across from Amy yet again. I look around the room and it seems that this meal is a good deal less formal than the
others, as the girls pile right into the tea and toast and there ain't no grace. I see some of the girls put their hands together and mumble one to themselves, but I figure I prayed enough yesterday to hold me for a long while and so grabs a roll as soon as Betsey sets 'em down. The teacher table is empty. I guess Mistress doesn't do this one. Prolly back in her room with a pipe and a cup of coffee.

I look for some sign in Clarissa that she was the one what marooned me outside, but I can't see none. She serenely holds court, the center of all attention, a goddess in her heaven. She and some of the other girls have on what I reckon are riding clothes and they look quite smart, damn them.

"What's the rule on going outside the school?" I asks of Amy.

Once again she looks confused. I find that I am good at confusing her. But then she answers.

"But of course we could never go out without an escort, so I imagine that has never been stated as an actual rule." She thinks for a bit more and then goes on. "Of course, our parents can take us out for holidays, and the local girls go home for the weekends, generally. I suppose my brother could escort me if I ever wanted to go anywhere ... Not that he ever would."

"Oh yes. You said you have a brother."

"Yes, Randall. He is eighteen. The college he attends across the river, in Cambridge, is a real school. Not like this." She sniffs.

"Well, Mate, maybe someday he can come over and escort us around the town," I says. "There's some taverns down on the docks I'd like to check out."

I don't catch her reply to this 'cause a platter of eggs is brought up to me and I scoops up a couple and slides 'em on my plate and snags a brace of bacon strips to keep 'em company. I looks at the eggs in all their yellow-yolked beauty lying there on my plate.

"And what's your name, then?" I ask of the girl holdin' the platter with the eggs and bacon. She was one of the girls sitting at the table when I came in the kitchen door.

"Abby, Mum," says the girl.

"Well, thank you, Abby, and please tell Peggy I think she's some cook."

Abby smiles and says, "Yes'm."

I tears into the helpless eggs and soon am patting my belly in satisfaction. "Now, Miss Amy, I'm ready to meet those horses."

On the way down the hallway Annie comes up to me and says, "Beggin' your pardon, Miss, but Mistress wants to see you in her office. Now."

Dread crawls up my soon-to-be-beaten legs and into my belly and makes my eggs sit less easy there than they was before. Somebody must have peached on me for being outside.
Damn!

Clarissa sweeps past with a jaunty bonnet on her head, a riding crop under her arm, and a slight smile on her face.

I grimace at Amy and leave her side as we pass Mistress's office. The door is open and she is seated at her desk. I walk inside, bob, and put my toes on the white line and wait.

"Good morning, Mistress," I manage to say. 1 hope my Look is all right. I case my eyes and stare over her head, expecting the worst.

"Good morning," she says. "Here." And she hands me a letter. I recognize it as my own that I wrote to Jaimy yesterday and put in the mailbox outside her door. "This letter is addressed to a man to whom you are not related. It is not seemly for you to be carrying on such a correspondence, and I will not send it on. I advise you to be more careful in your actions and comportment in the future."

"But, Mistress, we are to be married as soon as I finish school. Surely—"

"Surely you remember what I said about talking back to me," she says with a warning in her tone. "Now. Do you have a formal engagement? Anything in writing?"

"No, Mistress, but I believe his intentions are true."

"That's not enough. I direct you to put aside these girlish dreams and attend to your studies here. If you are successful in these studies, I assure you there will be a good match for you in the future. All my girls make good matches. Certainly better than casual alliances with sailors. You are dismissed, Miss Faber."

"Mistress," I says, knowin' I'm pushing my luck here, "but if I were to
get
a letter from this young man, would you—"

"I believe we are through discussing letters, Miss Faber, and we shall mention them no more," says Mistress, with menace in her voice. "Dismissed, Miss Faber."

I dip and do an about-face and head out the door, glad not to be beaten, but still steamed. She answered my question, all right—ain't no way she's ever gonna pass on any of Jaimy's letters to me. I am glad I made my explorations this morning 'cause I
will
go out and I
will
mail my letter to
Jaimy 'cause I don't want no other match but him. I just got to think about how to get that done.

Amy has waited for me, and together we go out the front door and around the corner and up the small road between the school and the church. As we leave the school building behind us, I look back and notice that the ends of the school are not the usual white clapboards but are instead completely brick, being like enormous chimneys. We leave the churchyard to our right, there is a meadow, and we come to the stables.

"Heinrich!"

"Ja, Papa."

"Fräulein Faber hast not bin on eine horse before. Give her teachings."

"Yes, Papa."

I am standing there stupidly, once again judged hopelessly behind and backward. The other girls, including Amy, are taking their mounts from the handlers like they was born to it, mounting, and forming a circle around the inside of this huge circular barn that is floored in wet sawdust and roofed in soaring wood rafters and thick wood beams. Sort of like the hull of a ship from the inside, upside down. With a snap of Herr Hoffman's whip and a
whoop!
from some of the girls, they are off at a full gallop, round and around.

Not for me, however, as I must follow Heinrich into the stables.

The boy has his light brown hair tied loosely in the back with a black ribbon and he wears a dark green jacket with gray frogging on the front and tight,
tight
white breeches
and knee-high shiny black boots. He has a light fuzz of hair on his upper lip and this is the first time I've been next to a boy and not under armed guard for about a month, and ... no, you stop that now. Concentrate on what he's tellin' you.

He goes into one of the stalls and comes out leading a horse.

"This is Gretchen, Miss Faber," he says. "She will be your horse while you are here." He doesn't talk the way his father does. Must have been born here, or at least brought up here. "She is a very nice little mare," he goes on when he sees my look of fear.

It don't look that little to me.

It is of a light tan color with a white mane and tail. It has big brown eyes and it looks at me and I look at it. Horses to a street kid like me are big stupid lumbering things that'd crush an orphan as soon as look at 'em, but I reach out my hand and pat it on its hard slab of a forehead and it snorts in a friendly way.