In The Belly Of The Bloodhound (11 page)

I had put up with this hazing for about a week, figuring it had to die down sooner or later, when I was coming down the hall on my way to French class and I heard it again, from inside a near classroom. They must have had someone posted with their head out in the hall to see when I was coming. I think I recognized Caroline Thwackham’s voice…

Crybaby, cripsie,

Your mother was a gypsy…

But she did not finish the verse, for Clarissa’s slow drawl broke in with, “Oh, no, Caroline dear, you shouldn’t say that…” She pauses for a beat, then says, “For we all know, poor Jacky’s mother was a pros-ti-tute, don’t we? That’s why she ended up on the street when she was a little bitty child. That’s how all those orphans get there, their mothers havin’ been harlots who died of those nasty diseases that run through those brothels…

My books and slate hit the floor as I raced around the corner and into the room in a blind rage, seeking only to rip Clarissa’s lying tongue from her throat with my bare hands.

“My mother was a lady!” I snarled as I lunged toward her, claws extended. She stood there calmly, with her cronies gathered about her, as I closed the distance between us. “You miserable piece of—”

But that’s as far as I got. A strong, gray-clad arm came around my waist and carried me kicking and squalling from the room.

“Higgins, put me down! I-I’m gonna kill her! I’m gonna—”

“What we are going to do, Miss, is wash your hair. I believe you would benefit by it,” says Higgins, putting his free hand over my lower face, stifling my cries of outrage. “There now, Miss, we don’t want to arouse and trouble Mistress with your bootless cries, now do we?”

I’m carried, still kicking, along the hall and down the stairway to the servants’ area. “A bucket of water, if you would, Mrs. Moody,” Higgins asks of Peg, “a bucket of very cold water.”

The water is put in the bucket and then my head is put in the water. I gasp at the coldness of it. “But, Higgins,” I plead, pulling my head back out, “she called my mother a—”

Higgins’s hand gently but firmly pushes my head back down into the frigid water. “Sometimes, Miss, you act your age and sometimes you do not. You know who your mother was and you know what she was. Which was a fine, spirited young lady. What Miss Howe says should make absolutely no difference to you. You know that.”

“But—”

“But, Miss, if you continue to play her game, she will win, count on it. Did you notice how she stood there, her hands at her sides when you charged in righteous fury?”

I thought on that and had to admit it was true. It was very unlike Clarissa not to fight back.

“I believe she had every intention,” Higgins continued, “to stand there and let you beat upon her unresisting person in front of witnesses until you were pulled away and certainly expelled from the school. Or at the least, made serving girl again.”

With the water dripping from my face, I had to realize the wisdom of his words. With a sigh I gave up the struggle, then said, “All right, Higgins. I’ll be good now. I promise. I’ll let her alone.”

“Oh, you do not have to leave her alone, Miss,” said Higgins with a slight smile, “just you play your own game, and not hers. Now let’s get you towelled off and back to class.”

And so it was that I went to Music with my wet hair stuffed up under a maid’s mobcap to stand at my place next to the smug Clarissa and I was good. I can’t remember what it was we sang that day, but I think it had something to do with the brotherhood of all mankind.

I smile grimly at the memory of that day, and my quill goes back into the inkwell…

Having Higgins back with me has been such a godsend, Jaimy, I cannot tell you just how much. I had been sinking into the slough of despond over the loss of so many of our friends, but he has brought me back to cheerfulness. His spirited telling of little Georgie Piggott’s recovery amidst adoring young females who have named him Our Hero and the Lion of Trafalgar and crowned him with laurels did much to restore my spirits. Our departed friends? I must hark back to Liam’s advice on the
Dolphin[_ when we lost Benjy—you grieve for a proper time for your mates, then you’ve got to let them go. And so I have. Amen._]

And then there’s the Lawson Peabody Girls Chorus. After having ourselves whipped into fine musical shape by both Signor Fracelli and Hepzibah Van Pelt, we have been going about and giving concerts in various places round the town, only the finest and most proper of houses, to be sure—the Saltonstalls’, the Lowells’, a few Cabot mansions here and there, the Thwackhams’, the de Lises’...

Ah, yes, the house of the de Lise…again my quill lifts from the paper…That was something when we performed at Lissette’s place and were treated to tea and cakes after we sang in the comte’s elegant hall, with Clarissa acting like she owned the place, she having stayed there[_ so_] many weekends. Yes, and then Lissette’s father, the Comte de Lise, himself, French consul to New England, singled me out and introduced himself to me. Startled, I dropped into a curtsy, the elegance of which I am sure was ruined by me having half a piece of cake in my hand and the other half in my mouth. I managed to sputter out an[_ enchanté,
] probably spewing crumbs on the poor man as I said it. I held out my hand, the one that didn’t have the cake in it, and he bowed over my hand and kissed the back of it and said, “Pardon, Mademoiselle, but the most amazing coincidence. I have received word from France of a female pirate captain named the same as you, Jac-kee Fay-bear…La[
belle jeune fille sans merci,
] she is called…” I choked down the cake and replied, “But, Monsieur, how could that be? A woman as captain of a ship,[
mais non, jamais…
] never…,” but he continued to look me over carefully and then said, “My Lissette, she has talked often of you…she has said you have had many adventures…ah, pardon, you seem to have a speck above your eye…,” and before I could jerk back, he had put out his hand and rubbed his thumb over my right eyebrow and then looked at the faint brown smudge on his finger and smiled. He then bowed and said,[
“Eh, bien.
] The speck is gone now…but it was most interesting meeting you. Au[
revoir.”_] I was taken aback and worried for days that the French might mount an assault on the school and take me, but nothing came of it. Higgins was of the opinion that the Frenchman, though intrigued, wanted to do nothing that would bring joy to the British government. I hoped so.

I pick up the quill again.

Yes, the Chorus is getting quite famous. I suggested that we do a few nights at The Pig, but that was met with stony silence. Ah, well…

I keep thinking back to what you said in your last letter. I was so glad to hear that you might leave the military to enter into the merchant fleet. Oh, Jaimy, we could do it, we really could. I have already started on that course by outfitting my little boat for the setting and tending of lobster and fish traps. I had early on hired a boy, a Jim Tanner, and he has proven to be a very good lad, and the traps have been producing. I have made arrangements for Anzivino’s Fish Market to take what we catch, and now we have some money coming in. And if I could get back to singing and dancing in the taverns and maybe get some portrait commissions, we might make enough money to buy a small coaster and carry rum down to New York and Philadelphia. I was shocked to learn that there are over a hundred rum distilleries within a day’s ride of Boston. Ships loaded down with molasses for the making of spirits dock

every day. Bluenosed New England Puritans, indeed! More like red-nosed ones. Actually, we could start off doing that right now with my
Morning Star.[_ Wouldn’t that be glorious—Jim up at the helm, you and me all snugged down in the cabin, the_] Star[_ rolling gracefully over the waves? And then maybe we could buy a small bark like my_] Emerald[_ and we could sail down to the Caribbean? Ah, dear boy, there are some places I could show you there, believe me on that, and I already know a great many fine seamen here, who we could make up into a great crew, and then…Well, I’m getting ahead of myself…If I can never go back to my own country, well, so be it. It ain’t so bad here, Jaimy, you’ll see. Oh, I just can’t wait!_]

But, then, I’m rattling on again. Foolish dreams…

Back to the here and now: Wonder of wonders, there is talk of a science field trip next week to one of the islands in Boston Harbor! Oh, how good it will be to get out of here for a day! Our science teacher, Mr. Sackett, has set it up through one of the excursion companies that take the quality folk out on excursions where they may picnic on the grass and pretend they are poor, simple peasants for a day. It is all the thing to do—Amy tells me that the unfortunate Queen Marie Antoinette of France used to spend days at one of her country estates pretending to be a simple milkmaid. It would have been far better for her had she actually been one, I’m thinking, and I’m sure she would agree, if she still wore her head upon her shoulders.

Ain’t I getting good at commas?

But that’s next week—tomorrow we go to sing across the river at the boys’ college, which promises to be fun. All the girls are in an absolute tizzy about it. Not me, of course, for there is nothing of interest for me there as I am promised to another, that being you, dear boy.

Well, this has certainly turned out to be a long letter. Please forgive me, Jaimy, as the evenings here are long and there is not much for me to do, except study and dream of you.

Safe journey, Jaimy.

All my love always,

Jacky

“Would you come sit over here, Miss? It appears you could use a comb-out, and today is a big day.”

“Higgins, why do you make that sound like I am nothing but an unruly pony?”

“There are certain similarities, Miss. The coltish high spirits, the occasional burrs in the unruly mane, the dirty hooves…”

“All right, Higgins, brush away. And it is not such a big night, as we are merely going over to sing for those silly boys at the college.”

“I do not think the rest of your fellow students share in your opinion as to the silliness of this evening’s event, Miss, considering the uproar in this place,” says Higgins. “And what is this, may I ask?” He pulls something out of my hair and holds it before my eyes.

“It is a cocklebur. I was out riding yesterday, and after a while, I dismounted to lie down in the high grass, looking at the sky. It was a glorious fine day.”

“Of course. Now I am sure we shall have to check you out for ticks.”

“Ummm,”
I purr, as the brush goes through my hair. “Maybe I’ll let Randall Trevelyne do that very job later tonight, ummm…” I had heard from Amy that Randall has been readmitted to the college.

“If I did not know you were joking, or that Mistress Pimm will be keeping a[_ very_] tight watch on all of you tonight, I might take alarm at that.”

Now, Higgins, you wouldn’t go telling tales on me, would you? Ah, no, not you…

I lean back and let Higgins do his magic with his brush. I almost doze off, but…

“Isn’t this just the most exciting thing! Real boys!” This from Elspeth, who’s next to me, having her hair done up by Annie. “I have never been to a ball with real boys!”

“This ain’t exactly a ball, Elspeth,” I say, lazily. “It’s more like a high tea—we sing, everybody claps, we come down and simper as the boys lead us about and give us some tea and cakes, and then we’re loaded back in the coaches and hauled back here. That ain’t a ball by my way of thinking.”

“Yes, but you’ve been off and had adventures and stuff,” she gushes. “Oh, if only I could have had such adventures!”

“Be careful what you wish for, dear. I’ve found that most adventures are better in the telling of than in the living through.”

“What I can’t believe is,” says Rebecca—whom Higgins has already put up in a high-on-head hairstyle to make her appear older than her thirteen years, as he knew she would want, and she is pleased with it and cannot stop looking at herself in the mirror—”why Mistress is allowing us to go.”

I snort. “Mistress always says that her girls make good matches and that college is where the good matches are to be found, in this town, anyway…and no rouge, you, you’re not old enough.” Rebecca pouts and puts down the rouge pad. “Besides, you couldn’t look any lovelier than you do right now without the paint.” She has always been “Little” Rebecca to us, her being the youngest, but she has recently put her foot down, demanding that we stop.[_ After all, I will be fourteen soon and I am_] not[_ so little, so there!_]

“Mistress knows where the money is, too,” says the ever cynical Amy, who’s waiting her turn under the brush. “What I cannot believe is that she is letting us go on that field trip. Out on the water and all.”

“Come, Sister, the water will hardly be over our heads, and it’s always calm in the sheltered harbor, so you needn’t worry about that,” I say. I know that Amy has never liked the water—the last time back at Dovecote, I took her and Randall out for a sail on the[_ Star,
] but she didn’t take to it. She does put up with going back and forth on the[
Star_] to her farm on the rare weekends when we can get away, because it is so much quicker than the coach. Now that it’s warmer, I’ve brought Jim and the boat back to its mooring in Boston, so it is always ready for us when we need it. Haven’t had any more trouble from British Intelligence, so I have become more bold.

“We will get wet from the spray, and when we get to the island, there will be bugs. It will be horrid.” She sniffs a profound sniff and returns to her book.

I look over at Annie and ask, “Who’s going from downstairs?”

“Me, Miss. And Katy and Sylvie. We’re wicked excited to go.”

“Me, too, Annie. A full day away from this place and part of it out on the briney. But how will poor Henry Hoffman stand it, not to see his pretty Sylvie for a whole day?”

She laughs but says nothing. We are easy together, for we all well remember when I was one of their number downstairs and was comforted during a time of trial by their openhearted love and affection. Annie, though she knows she’ll probably never see the rogue again, was most glad to hear that Davy was not listed among the Honored Dead after the Great Battle.