Rapture of the Deep: Being an Account of the Further Adventures of Jacky Faber, Soldier, Sailor, Mermaid, Spy (8 page)

I may not be Virgil, but I can lay it on good and thick.

Lieutenant James Fletcher
Onboard HMS Dolphin
Approaching Boston Harbor
Massachusetts, USA

Jacky Faber

Onboard the schooner
Nancy B. Alsop

Somewhere in that same Boston

Dear Jacky,

Well, I shall probably see you very soon, as we are no more than a day's sail from Boston. I say "probably" in the event you have been carried off by Hottentots, wild Red Indians, Pyrates, or some such, which, given the happenings of the past three years, is not entirely unlikely.

We had smooth sailing on the way over and I only hope that the mission to which you have been committed will play out as smooth, but I have my doubts as to that—there is talk amongst the officers about this device that is going to be loaded aboard
and I have uneasy feelings about it. I overhear Dr. Sebastian saying things like "heavy atmospheric pressure" and "being so small, she won't need much air." Just what part this "device" will play in this supposedly purely scientific expedition, I do not know, as I have not been told. But I can imagine who the "she" is.

The ship's company did prove convivial—except for Flashby, of course, but he has kept his distance from me, at least for now. I believe he knows I shall not pass up an opportunity to call him out and he does want to provoke me. I know you would not like to hear this, Jacky, but the scoundrel has exercised what turns out to be his considerable, if false, charm, and is well liked by the other officers. Even I have found it hard to suppress a laugh at some of his stories and jokes told at the mess table.

Captain Hudson is an excellent commanding officer, firm but fair and a thoroughgoing seaman. He has told me that I will not be confined to the ship when we reach Boston, saying that Intelligence be damned, he's not going to treat a gentleman like a common unrated seaman, and for that I am grateful. When in Boston, I shall be able to take you out to dinner, if not to bed. I should greatly prefer the latter, but I must accept my lot.

Well, I must go on watch now, and so I will conclude. Should the Fates prove kind this time, I shall soon be able to place this letter in your hand, and that prospect soothes my worried mind somewhat.

In any case, dear one, till we meet again, I remain yr most humble and etc....

Jaimy

"...and that is how I almost got married," I say, heaving a huge, theatrical sigh and wiping away an imaginary tear. "End of story. Sniff."

"I am sorry for you, Sister," says Amy Trevelyne. "But I am glad that you found your way back to us and have regained your good spirits in spite of it all."

We are up in the hayloft of the big barn at Dovecote, the estate of the family Trevelyne in Quincy, Massachusetts. It has always been one of our favorite places to lie about and talk and to tell each other our hopes and dreams. We have just gotten back from a fine ride about the meadows and fields in the late fall air and I am lying sprawled on my back in the still-warm straw and it feels oh so lovely. The horses we rode are being cooled and curried and put up by the stablemen below, and I feel a bit guilty about it—for one who was born common and raised as a beggar, I certainly find it easy to slip into the ways of the rich. I pick up a tasty-looking piece of new hay that still has its head of bearded barleycorn on it and I stick it between my teeth and chew on the end, musing on the happenings of the last six weeks—London, the outfitting of my vessel, the leave-taking, the journey over, and our arrival back in dear old Boston.

"Still, Amy, I wish the marriage had happened," I say, shaking my head to get it back in the present.

"You are only sixteen years old, Sister, you have time enough," says Amy.

"Lots of people get married at sixteen. Younger, even."

"Yes, but the quality do not."

"Oh? And I am suddenly of the quality?"

"You'll do," she says, and goes on. "Martha Custis married George Washington at age twenty-nine. Of course, she was a widow, but even before that, when she had wed Daniel Custis, she was two years older than you. And our second president, John Adams, became interested in Abigail when she was fifteen, but they didn't marry until she was twenty."

"Umm," I say, reserving judgment on that. "And what about you?"

"I am not ready for that sort of thing just yet," she says, as she has so often before. I take that with a grain of salt but hold my tongue, for now.

While I'm stretching in the warm straw, Amy sits cross-legged next to me with her portable writing desk balanced on her knees. She bends over the paper laid thereupon, writing away furiously, pausing only to ask me pertinent questions as I relate the happenings on my recent trip down the Mississippi River. Finally, we are done.

"And with a last, full-throated, stentorian bellow, Mike Fink disappeared around a bend in the river and I saw him no more.
End of story, thank God."

"Well, there are a few gaps to be filled," says Amy, still scribbling away, "but I suppose that will do for now."

I put my hands behind my head and look off into the high rafters. "And just how scarlet will you paint me this time, Amy?" For one who has never yet been caught breathing hard in an amorous situation, she is certainly not loath to portray my poor fallible self in such a way.

"I only write down what you tell me, Jacky."

Uh-huh, and with a few literary embellishments here and there...

"Well, I'm sure Mother Fletcher will be delighted," I say, imagining the sheer joy that Jaimy's mother must have felt upon seeing my wedding to her darling son turn into a shambles. I look at my dear friend through narrow eyes. "You have become quite the literary sensation, Miss, both here and in London. I hear your works are to be translated into French, even."

"Well," says Amy, "my family is quite mortified, you'll be glad to hear. It's not done, you know. One such as I to publish, I mean." She writes down another few words and sniffs a ladylike sniff. "If the literary establishment will not publish my poetry, then it will have to put up with my ... prose efforts."

I knew that Amy had sent a sheaf of her poems to a Mr. Thomas Wentworth, the editor of a high-toned Boston literary journal, and he sent them back saying that she "ought not publish," for various reasons, chief of which was that she was a young girl of gentle birth and because of that her efforts could not possibly be up to snuff. Last week I was at my local bookseller's on Cornhull Street and I managed to find some of Mr. Wentworth's writing. I can tell you one thing—Thomas Wentworth may be a fine and righteous Abolitionist, but as a poet, he ain't a patch on Amy Trevelyne's snowy white drawers.

"Your very purple prose efforts, Sister," says I, squirming deeper into the wonderfully warm hay. "And speaking of marriage prospects, quality or not, how are things between you and our fine Mr. Pickering?"

She blushes, but before she can say her usual "I am not ready for that sort of thing right now," there is a bit of a bustle down below, and whose head should pop up at the edge of the loft but that of Ezra Pickering himself.

"And what do we have here?" he asks, smiling his secret little smile. "Two dewy country maidens taking their ease in the new-mown hay. How charmingly rustic. May I join them?"

I laugh and say, "Ah, yes, just two simple milkmaids are we. Come on up." I glance at Amy and see that she is not at all displeased at Ezra's arrival. Not at all ...
Hmmm ...

He sits down next to Amy. "Can I hope to be invited to dinner, Miss Trevelyne, since I came all the way here?"

"You may, Mr. Pickering," she says.

But I take it further. "You have news, Ezra, else you would not be here."

"That is true, Miss Faber," he says, dusting some chaff off his perfectly tailored sleeve. "HMS
Dolphin
has docked at Long Wharf and your presence there tomorrow has been ... how shall we say ... 'requested.'"

It was Solomon Freeman who brought Ezra Pickering over to Dovecote in the Morning Star yesterday, and it is he who brings me back in her today.

"I am honored that the great Lord Othello deigns to convey my poor self back to Boston," I tease, leaning back against the gunwale, watching him trim the sail and tend the tiller. I note that he has become quite expert in small-boat handling since last I saw him, and I compliment him on it. "How good of His Lordship to come all the way across Massachusetts Bay just for me."

Solomon laughs and adjusts the sail a bit, steering a course for the Boston docks. "Well, I may play the warrior Othello on the stage, but you, Miss Faber, are still the boss of Faber Shipping here in the real world, and so I will come pick you up anytime you want me to."

Higgins and I had taken in the play several nights ago and Solomon was magnificent—every inch the victorious general in the beginning, every bit the broken man brought down by treachery and his own jealousy at the end. Mr. Bean plays Iago, and for the duration of their play, I hate him.

It caused a bit of a scandal in Boston, of course, but it shouldn't have—a black actor playing a black character, what could be more natural?

After the final curtain, I joined the cast for a bit of carousing at the Pig and Whistle and got in quite late, but it was good to see Messrs. Fennel and Bean again, as well as Chloe Cantrell, my friend and Faber Shipping's part-time secretary.

Yesterday, in a little side office at Dovecote, Ezra and I had some time to go over the affairs of Faber Shipping Worldwide, he being the Clerk of the Corporation and all. We went over money on hand (not much); the state of our equipment—boats, traps, lines, et cetera; rates of pay for employees—Solomon had to hire several wharf rats to help with the trap hauling, me having most of the able-bodied men with me across the sea; the going price on lobsters, clams, and fish; profit and loss, profit and loss, till my head spun. But Higgins did sell off that china at a good price, so, at the end of it all, we get to meet the payroll and go on.

"Maybe this new expedition will yield something for us," I said, putting my hand on his arm. "Maybe some crumbs will fall through the cracks. Never can tell. We'll see..."

"Well, if anyone can nudge those crumbs toward those cracks," Ezra said, chuckling and gathering up his papers and stuffing them back in his valise, "it is you, Madame President. And now I believe we are being called to dinner."

That evening, Colonel and Mrs. Trevelyne received me most cordially at their table, even though I know they do not entirely approve of me as a suitable companion for their daughter, Amy, or, God forbid, a suitable match for their son, Randall. Of course they were overjoyed to hear my news of their hotheaded son, who had disappeared in late summer after an argument with the Colonel over Randall's performance, or lack of it, at college.
I'll wager he'll come back with his head a good deal less hot after having seen that awful slaughter at Jena-Auerstadt,
I'm thinking.

Having stormed out of Dovecote, Randall had wrangled a letter of introduction to an important general in Napoleon's army out of Lissette's father, le Comte de Lise, and so ended up as a light horseman on the march to Germany. With me. Pressed for details, I recount how shocked Randall and I were to meet each other that day in Marshal Murat's tent and how, some days later, we both rode in Murat's cavalry charge on the Prussian lines at Jena. I told them of Randall's bravery and how he saved my very life. I know Colonel Trevelyne was pleased to hear that. I also told them of my last meeting with Randall and of his stated intention to resign his commission and return to Dovecote. I know Mrs. Trevelyne was pleased to hear
that.

Right now I am at sea and bundled up against the cold—it is early December, after all—a beautiful day with clear skies and just the right amount of following wind to speed us on our way across the bay. Aye, it's a bit chilly, but I still prefer this to a tooth-rattling ride in a coach, which is how Amy and Ezra are returning to Boston at this very moment. I smile to think of the two of them there in the cramped interior of the carriage ...
How cozy
... I know Ezra's having a good time of it and I believe Amy is, too, though she won't show it, the fool.

"There she is," says Solomon, heading straight for the side of the
Nancy B.
lying dead ahead, now tied up outboard of the newly arrived
Dolphin.
"The captain of that ship ordered us to bring her alongside, so we did it. We moved her yesterday. Hope that was all right with you."

I nod.
Aye, I'm certainly not the one calling the shots now, Solly, not even on my own boat.

"Yes, you did right, Mr. Freeman. The men on that ship are my friends."
Most of them, anyway.

We are close enough now that I can make out John Tinker and John Thomas and Smasher McGee standing on the deck of my schooner and young Daniel Prescott and Joan-nie together up in the rigging. Jim Tanner and Davy Jones are, of course, nowhere to be seen. And on the
Dolphin
I believe I spy ... aye, that's him ... Captain Hannibal Hudson on his quarterdeck, hands clasped behind him and deep in conversation with another, younger officer and ... Is it?...
Yes! It's Jaimy!

I jump to my feet and shout, "Hullo, Jaimy Fletcher!" waving my arms wildly about in my joy at seeing him safely delivered from across the sea.

Hearing my call, he bows to Captain Hudson—no doubt begging his pardon for the sudden, female intrusion—and then turns and brings his hand to his hat in salute to me.
Oh, Jaimy, I am so glad.
I can see the white gleam of his teeth as he gestures over the side to the brow that has been set up alongside the
Dolphin.

"I see it, Cap'n," says Solomon, anticipating my order, his grin huge in seeing the complete happiness writ all over my face. "We'll be right there. Steady, now, Missy."