Curse of the Blue Tattoo: Being an Account of the Misadventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman and Fine Lady (18 page)

Gully takes out the bow and tightens up the knob on the end and says, "Let's do 'Bungo Rye.'"

"All right," I says, and pulls out my pennywhistle and puts it to my lips. "But that one I usually does with my concertina."

He looks at me with joy. "Good Lord! It sings! It dances!
And
it plays the concertina! Little Miss Moneymaker, by God!"

And then he brings down the bow on the Lady Lenore.

Later, I head down to Haymarket and look at the clock on Faneuil Hall and I see I'd better be gettin' a move on. I nip into the post office just long enough to have my hopes of a letter from Jaimy crushed yet again—"
Sorry, Miss, nothing
"—and then head Gretchen down Union Street to Mr. Pickering's office, which ain't hard to find 'cause there's a sign hangin' above which says:

EZRA PICKERING, ESQUIRE
ATTORNEY AT LAW

Under the words is painted a picture of a hand holding a scale.

I dismount and tie up Gretchen and enter, the door being open. I spy Mr. Pickering sitting at a desk. He rises upon seeing me come in and says, "Ah, Miss Faber. How good of you to come."

He pulls out a chair for me to sit down in across from him. His slight smile is in place.

I thank him and he says, "I see by your costume that you have had a reversal of fortune, my dear."

"Aye. I've been busted down to chambermaid."

"I am sorry."

"Don't be. I had it coming. Besides, the life of a serving girl has its charms."

"Well. That changes things somewhat," he says, and I wonder what
that
means and he shuffles some papers on his desk till he finds the one he was looking for. "You have nine hundred and fifty-seven dollars on account at the Lawson Peabody School. Previous to learning of your demotion, I would have advised you to stay at the school. Now, I don't know."

Nine hundred and fifty-seven dollars! Enough for me to buy a small cutter!
I clap my hands in delight. "So get it for me and I'll be gone!"

Mr. Pickering has his usual half smile on his pink face and he folds his pink hands. "I will try to get it for you, Miss Faber, and for—"

"Call me 'Tacky,' please. I ain't a 'Miss' no more."

"I will try to get your money, Tacky," he says. "And for my efforts I will charge you fifteen percent of whatever I recover. If I recover nothing, then there will be no charge."

I do the math. My boat just got about fifteen feet shorter, I thinks.

"Done," I says.

"There are several problems, however," he says, leaning back in his chair. "The chief of which is that you are an underage female and have, as such, essentially no rights of property."

I ain't likin' the way this is goin'.

"Oh, and speaking of property, I believe this is yours." He reaches in a drawer and takes out my shiv and places it on the desk before me. I had not hoped to see it again and I am glad to see the cocky rooster. I thank him and slip the blade in my weskit and it feels good there against my ribs once again.

He continues, "You cannot hold property in your own name if you have a father, uncle, brother, male cousin, or even a son. The instant you marry, all your property becomes that of your husband. Do you understand so far?"

"I get it, and it ain't fair," I says through me teeth. "But I don't have any of those things and so I'm entitled to my money. Right?"

"I'm afraid not. You are underage and have been placed in the custody of the school and it is acting, in the eyes of the Court, in loco parentis, or, in place of your parents."

"Finally been adopted," I snorts.

Ezra chuckles and says, "But I think I could petition the Court to break that hold on you because of the fact that the people who put you there had no real legal right to do so. They were only acting out of charity."

"They didn't know what else to do with me," I say, somewhat resentful.

"My reading of it is that they were trying to do their best by you, but never mind. The problem is that if I succeed in breaking the hold the school has on your assets, the Court would then have to appoint a guardian for you, being female and underage. Do you have any marriage prospects?"

"I do. I am promised to one James Emerson Fletcher, Midshipman, His Majesty's Royal Navy," I say primly and proudly.

"You have my congratulations. However, an engagement
will not do, especially to someone half a world away," says Ezra, leaning over the desk and lookin' at me intently. "The problem is, someone has already stepped forward and petitioned the Court to be appointed guardian of a particular female child, one Jacky Faber, late of England and now resident in Boston."

His statement hangs in the air while my mind tries to understand it.

"What!" I blurts out. "Who in the hell..."

"The Very Reverend Richard Wilson Mather, pastor of the Beacon Hill Congregational Church, is the petitioner," says Mr. Pickering, all composed and calm. "I happened to be in court yesterday on another matter when he came in to start the guardianship proceedings."

I feel a coldness come over me. "He can't! I won't—"

"I am afraid he can, Jacky. He is an ordained minister and a member of the board of the school you attend. Or attended. You are a female orphan with no relatives of any kind. You have spent time on a warship in the company of rough men. The Court knows that you have exhibited some wild behavior in the recent past and you are very probably in need of the very correction and guidance he is in a unique position to give. The Court will look very favorably on such a petition."

I jump to me feet. "That's it then. I must run away. My seabag is always packed. I'll be gone in five—"

"Please sit down, Jacky. I assumed this would be your reaction," continues Ezra, "and I took the liberty of informing the Court that I was acting as your attorney and that I would be conferring with you on this matter. I asked the Court for a stay of their judgment and they granted
it.
That
put a twist in the Preacher's nose, I'm pleased to report." Ezra broadens his usual bemused smile at the thought.

"You are a very good lawyer and I am glad I have you lookin' out for me," I says, sittin' back down and tryin' to calm myself some.

"Thank you, Jacky, but it was mere luck that I was there. Otherwise, you might be sitting in his vestry right now."

I shivers at that thought. Swallowed up by that horrid old church.

"It is possible, though, that it was not my skill as a lawyer that delayed the Court's granting Reverend Mather's request but rather that other thing."

I look back all confused.
What other thing?

Ezra makes a little tent of his pink little fingers and looks off in a considerin' way. "There was an ... incident last year, in the Reverend's household: A young girl, employed by him as a housemaid, hanged herself in her room in the vestry."

I sit up in horror as it hits me.
The unmarked grave!

"The circumstances were unusual—please forgive me here for giving you the details, but you should know—one end of one of her stockings was tied around her bedpost and the other around her neck. She was slumped against the bed. Her feet were on the floor."

"How can you hang yourself with your feet on the floor?" I asks, all dumbfounded.

"It can be done, if one really wants to do it. Condemned prisoners have done it to cheat the hangman. But to continue, she was known as a cheerful sort of girl, only sixteen, and her suicide came as a shock to all who knew her." Ezra
pauses. "One other thing. It was rumored that she was with child."

I draw in my breath sharply.

"Then it had to be murder," says I. "No girl would kill herself with a baby in her belly!"

"Maybe she killed herself because of it," says Mr. Pickering, gently. "Because of the shame."

I don't say nothin' to that. I just sits and smoulders.

Mr. Pickering sighs and leans back in his chair. "Anyway, there was an inquest, but nothing could be proved. The girl's parents did not claim her body because of the nature of her death, and Reverend Mather wasted no time in getting her in the ground. There was suspicion cast on a young man of the town, but no charges were brought."

I am quiet for a while.

"What was her name?" I ask of him, breaking the silence.

"Ah. Let me think.. Jane, it was. Janey Porter."

Again, there is silence. Finally, Ezra gives a little cough and says, "As for our course of action, I will file an injunction to stop, or at least delay, the granting of guardianship. We can demand a hearing, and that will give us some time. At the same time I will file a petition on your behalf to regain your money—it won't work, but it will at least show the Court that there is money involved here and that might throw some doubt on the supposed selflessness of the Preacher's petition."

I nod in agreement.
Can I pick a lawyer or what?

I rise and say, "Thank you, Mr. Pickering, for all you have done for me. Now I must go and buy some fish. Good day to you, Sir."

"Good day, Jacky, and please call me Ezra."

***

I hurry through the throng in Haymarket and get the fish at Anzivino's, himself crying, "Right off the boat, Signorina!" but I sniff it all the same, and he implores heaven with his hands in the air, "The trust! Where is the trust?" It is fresh and I take five of the redfish and put them in my basket and tie it to the back of Gretchen's saddle and I head out of the market with its sounds of vendors calling out their wares in many kinds of English and its heady smells of produce and meat, both fresh and frying, and of the sea and the clam flats nearby and the horse manure to which Gretchen adds her bit but nobody seems to mind.

I head out and back up toward Beacon Hill, and as I go I think about Gully MacFarland and the idea of us getting an act together. We certainly sounded good together in our practice session. I've never heard anyone play the fiddle better than he, that's for sure. He gets some amazing sounds out of the Lady Lenore—he makes her whisper, he makes her growl, he makes her shout, he makes her plead, by turns pathetic and heroic and grand—and he knows how to slip in and out of my whistle playing and singing, doing the straight melody sometimes and sometimes countermelodies and by and large making it easy for me to sound good.

It would really be a good act, but I don't know ... I'm still smartin' from my last brush with the law. Gully said that won't matter, we'd be playin' inside and Wiggins won't touch me, but I don't know. Maudie says to me that I seem like a bright girl but if I trust a drunk like Gully then I ain't bright at all, and he told her to shut her gob, but I don't know ... And when Gully asked if I can get out at night to
do this and I say I prolly can, he says meet me here tomorrow night and we'll have a go, but I don't know...

I do know I told him that I'd think it over and let him know soon.

I get back just in time and take Gretchen to Henry and say, "Please, Henry, could you please walk her cool, I've got to get in to serve supper. I'm sorry I'm late."

"Anything for you, Jacky. You go on." He starts to walk Gretchen around the yard, cooling her down from our final gallop across the Common.

"Thanks, Henry, I'll make it up to you," I say, and take the basket of fish from the back of the saddle and dash down toward the kitchen entrance of the school.

"It's about time, you!" says Peg. She takes the fish and smells them and then spills them out on a cutting board and picks up a cleaver and begins chopping off the heads and tails and such, all of which go into a pot for the making of stock. "Take the chimes up and call them to supper and get ready to serve it. You take the head table tonight."

I start rapping the chime thing in front of the dormitory and I turn to go back down to get ready to serve when I hear, "Wait."

I look back through the door and I see Clarissa standing straight in the center of the room. There are some of the girls around her.

"Come here, girl."

I heave a mighty sigh and go into the dormitory room. I
try to never be close to that room when the ladies are around, but this time I had no choice.

"Yes, Miss," I say, and stand there and wait for it.

Clarissa tosses her net bag of soiled underwear at my feet. Some of the others do the same.

"Wash them and dry them and iron them and have them ready tomorrow."

I put the chimes aside and stoop to pick up the bags. I save Clarissa's for last and that one I pick up twixt my thumb and forefinger and with pinky extended hold it out at full arm's length and turn my face as if the bag and its contents stink. I wrinkle my nose, turn, and head for the door.

I hear the patter of her feet behind me as she charges, and I feel her hands hit my back as she stiff-arms me to the floor.

"You
insolent
piece of baggage, you! How dare you!"

I roll over and get to my knees and look up into Clarissa's furious face and I say, "Miss Howe, do whatever you're going to do and get it over with, please."

There, on my knees in front of Clarissa, I decide that I
will
join with Gully MacFarland and I
will
make enough money to buy passage for England and I
will
go see Jaimy.

Clarissa raises her hand and I get ready for it when I hear, "No. You shall not hit her. She is not one of your slaves."

I look up and Amy is standing between Clarissa and me, and Clarissa's face is a porcelain mask of absolute fury, but she does not challenge Amy. She turns and stalks off.

I wonder why.

Amy comes to me and lifts me to my feet.

"Come," she says, gathering up the scattered net bags, "I will help you carry them down."

***

In serving the supper this evening I study the Reverend more closely. He gives no sign of his plans for me except to glance up as I hold the platter next to him. He smiles and it is a ghastly sight to see, a smile on the face of what I am almost sure is a murderer. My stomach churns and threatens to come up on me, and it is with relief that I turn to Mistress and Dolley, the chosen one this evening. Dolley gives me a wink as she takes her portion. She is a good one and I like her.