"Permission to come aboard, Sir!" I pipes, hand to brow in a snappy salute. The quarterdeck is all fancied up with shiny brass and bright white rope lace going from post to post to mark off the holy area. There is also a young midshipman on the quarterdeck as Officer of the Watch and he is handsome and bright, too, and he looks properly astounded at the sight o' me.
"No ... No girls allowed on the Intrepid, I'm sorry, Miss," he finally manages to say, blushin' very prettily.
"I just want to send this letter by you to my very good friend Mr. James Fletcher of the Dolphin. He is a brother midshipman and I hope you will do it." I bob and flutter my eyelashes and give him the letter. There is a Bo'sun's Mate of the watch there, too, but he ain't blushin'—he's all smirks and leers as he looks at Amy and me and thinkin' he knows somethfn' about us.
Well, he don't.
The midshipman gives the letter to the Messenger of the Watch, which used to be one of my jobs on the Dolphin, and I stand there and point out to Amy all the things of interest on the ship—the foretop, the mainmast, the shrouds, the spars, and all, and then the middie comes back with the news that the letter will indeed be sent along. I give him my very best curtsy and heartfelt thanks and I give the Bo'sun's Mate my very best damn-your-eyes look and we turn and leave.
I'm twisting around and looking at all the familiar sights of rope and line and tackle and, of course, the foretop, which looks exactly like the foretop on the Dolphin, and Amy has to tug at my sleeve to get me down the gangway and onto the pier.
We're heading up State Street over to Ezra Pickering's office on Union Street, and I'm looking around at all the shops and signs and such when I notice something. Not something that's there—something that isn't there.
"Amy," I asks, "how come there ain't any orphan beggars around this town? In London we'd be knee-deep in 'em by now."
Amy keeps peering down every alleyway as if she expects a parcel of rogues to leap out at us at any second. Satisfied, for the moment, that none are poised for such an attack, she says, "Well, it is because anyone who is orphaned and has no other relations or means is generally given to a farm family in the outlying towns. Many times on the frontier, beyond the Alleghenies. The farmers put them to work in exchange for their keep."
"That's good for the orphans, then?"
"Sometimes. Sometimes they are taken in and treated as a member of the family. Adopted, even, or they marry into the family when they are old enough," says Amy, scooting across a dark alleyway. "Sometimes, though, they are just worked like indentured servants."
I reflect that if I was an up-and-coming young orphan instead of the grizzled and battle-hardened veteran orphan that I am, I'd still choose to take my chances here in the city rather than out there in the woods.
"And there is the New England Home for Little Wanderers, and for those boys big enough to lift a shovel, they are filling in the Mill Pond in the northern part of town. They're scraping off part of Beacon Hill to do it and anyone who can lift a wheelbarrow can—"
"Hey! Ahoy! It's the little nightingale from the Pig!"
"By God, 'tis!"
Uh-oh.
There's three men standing in front of us, grinning and lifting their caps and it looks like they are seamen and they look a little familiar, like maybe they were in last night's crowd, and by the way they are weaving, it looks like they've had a few.
"Oi believes ye be right, Seth Hawkins," says the man in the middle. "The one what could sing and dance so pretty it fair broke me poor heart, it did!"
"Aye, you were right blubbering in yer beer, ye were, Amos, ye sorry sod!" says his mate, slapping him on the back.
"Don't care," says the one named Amos. "She put me in such mind of my own dear daughter back home who I may never see again that I could not hold back the tears..."
"She may have put ye in mind of your daughter, but that didn't stop you from tryin' to steal a kiss!" roars the other man.
I do remember this crew, I thinks, and I did have to be right nimble to stay out of their reach when I was helpin' Maudie durin' our break, but I did feel there was no harm in them for all their bawdy behavior. I sneak a look at Amy—she looks like her most terrible fears have come true. Ah, well.
"Gentlemen," I says, all bright and brave, "I am very pleased that you enjoyed our show, but now I must bid you all a good day, 'cause me and my sister must be gettin' back to school, and if we're late we're sure to get a whuppin'." I hear Amy let out a whimper behind me.
"Ah, Miss," says Seth Hawkins, "if ye could give us just one tune, for we right now are going back to the ship and we sail on the tide and may never see land nor ale nor pretty young things ever again." He takes off his cap and gives me the mournful eye.
"Very well," says I, and I draw out my pennywhistle. "Just one now, mind." And I tears into "The Queen of Argyle."
Seth and Amos link arms and whirl about in some demented dance while the other hoots and hollers and Amy tries to sink into the masonry of the nearest building.
We're rippin' along pretty good and I adds a few steps of my own and I'm headin' for the end of—
"TWEEEEEEET! You! Stop there!"
Oh, Lord.
"Cheese it, boys, it's the constable!" shouts my trio of admirers, and they fly off down the street. They could've saved themselves the trouble 'cause it's me that Wiggins is after, not them.
"Run, Amy! If he catches me I'll be tied to the stake and whipped for real! This way!"
I grab her arm and we pounds down the alley and out into some yards that I sort of recognize and I heads through some rose arbors and out another alley and onto Union Street. I spies Ezra's office and haul Amy through the door and into Ezra's office sayin', "Save us, Ezra," and out the back door and through the backyard and through some gardens and then on to Water and then up High, but the constable keeps after us, movin' real well for such a big bloke, I gotta say. I sees somethin' up ahead, maybe a way out of this.
"That stairway, Amy! Head for that!" I shouts, and we makes it to it and storms up the stairs and through the door. I slams it after us and throws the lock, me back to the door. Amy's breath is comin' in huge gaspin' rasps and her eyes are wild in her head.
There is a woman there, sitting at a small desk. She looks up slowly, unruffled by our sudden disturbance.
Soon there is a loud poundin' and a tryin' o' the lock.
"Hide us, Mrs. Bodeen, please!"
Mrs. Bodeen calmly gets up and goes to the window and pulls the curtain aside, ever so slightly, and looks out.
"All right. I'll take care of it. Get in that room there." She points to a room at the end of the hall.
I grabs Amy's arm and we runs down and dives into the room. I puts me back to the door again and closes me eyes and takes a couple of deep breaths and then I opens me eyes. Everything is yellow.
The walls are yellow and there's a yellow dresser with a yellow pitcher of water and a yellow basin, a yellow chair, and...
I hear a rustle of cloth and a wave of a very familiar perfume rolls across the room and breaks across my nose.
"Why, if it isn't my Little Miss Precious, come to visit her dear aunt Mam'selle Claudelle day Bour-bon. And she's brought a little fray-und with her. How nice."
Lord.
I turn and look, and there is Mam'selle herself reclining on her bed, wearing a yellow day dress and snuggled up against big, fluffy yellow satin pillows, which I'm guessin' is silk cause it's all kind of shiny. She is holding a little lapdog, which being white has somehow escaped the yellow brush. It does, however, wear a yellow ribbon around its neck.
Well, I sighs, let's tough this out as a lady, shall we?
"Good day to you, Mademoiselle," I says, and dips a bit and turns to the astounded Amy. "May I present my very good friend, Miss Amy Trevelyne? Amy, this is Mademoiselle Claudelle de Bour-bon of the New Orleans Bour-bons. She was kind to me when I was in prison."
Amy recovers enough from her astonishment to dip and shakily say, "Enchanté, Mademoiselle de Bourbon."
"Charmed, I am sho-ah," says Mam'selle, moving her head to make her golden earrings jangle. "What a lovely little friend you have, Precious, and she even speaks Frey-unch." She pets her little dog and looks up through her impossibly long eyelashes. "Shall I call you Little Miss Dumpling, then, Little Precious's special fray-und? Yes, I believe I shall."
Mam'selle pats the bed next to her. "Now, come over he-ah, both of you, and let me relieve you of some of your garments ... It's rather warm in here, don't you think? Would you like some refreshment? Hmmm?"
"It's a lovely room you have here, Mam'selle," says I, moving out to the center of the room and looking about.
"Why, thank you, Precious," simpers our hostess. She looks at Amy cowering by the door. "Does my apartment not make it plain that I am for the discriminatin' gentleman, the one who desires somethin' rare and refined and exotic in the way of female companionship?"
"It does, indeed, Mam'selle," says I, tryin' to think of somethin' else to say.
Mam'selle puts her finger to the side of her nose and looks at me all tender. "I can see by your clothing that you have had a fall in your station in life. Poor, poor little Miss Precious, it is such a hard life, isn't it? Why don't you come over he-ah and put your dear little head in Mam'selle's lap and I will pet you and caress you and make it a little bit better. Now doesn't that sound good, Precious baby?"
Actually, with her singsong purring voice and my tiredness from the events of the day, it does sound kind of good, but there's a light knock on the door and I shakes my head to clear it of Mam'selle's soft and insinuating voice.
"You can come out now, girls," we hear Mrs. Bodeen say from the other side.
Amy has the door open in a flash and is outside in an instant. I pause to thank Mam'selle for her kindness and to apologize for Amy's rudeness in not saying good-bye 'cause she is scared and don't know her way around yet.
Mam'selle smiles and says, "That's all right, Precious, I understand. Just you be careful now, because I am quite fond of you and I know you to be one of those that aren't scared when maybe sometimes they should be scared, hmmm?"
We go back out into the foyer. Mrs. Bodeen looks at us and shakes her head.
"Girls, don't you know you've got to pay off the police?"
"Please, Missus," I says, "we warn't doin' nothin', just singin' and playin' in the street, we warn't..."
"Still got to give John Law his bit, Miss. Anyway, he's been taken care of." Mrs. Bodeen casts her shrewd eye over the both of us standin' there. "If you're ever looking for full-time work, girls, you know where to come. I run a clean house."
I don't have to look over at Amy to know that she is brick red in the face and ready to fall through the floor. "Everyone knows you run a clean and honest house, Missus," says I, my face hot, too. "And we thank you for the invite, but we're still in school and..." I trails off, not wantin' to offend her who has just saved us.
Mrs. Bodeen lets a knowing smile come to her lips as she looks me over.
"I recall you from the jail," she says, dryly. "You do get around for a schoolgirl, don't you? Ah. Here's our Mr. Pickering, come to collect you."