Clarissa beckons to me and I take teapot and tray and over I go.
I pour Clarissa's tea first, then the rest of the ladies, and then Randall. He looks up at me as I fill his cup. "It is good to see you again, Jacky," he says.
This surprises me a bit, but I recover and dip and say, "It is kind of you to say so, Lieutenant Trevelyne. I trust you are well." I notice the male chest swell a bit at my use of his military rank. I meet his gaze and then drop my eyes and go to fill the rest of the cups.
I am not the only one surprised by this—I heard a sharp intake of breath from Clarissa's direction at this exchange of pleasantries and I steal a glance at her. The Queen is not pleased, that's for sure. Her eyes are narrowed as she stares at me with undisguised loathing.
"You," she says to me, "take care of the next table. And try to do it right."
I wait a moment before I say, "Yes, Miss." Not a pause long enough to make me guilty of outright insolence, but long enough for her to get the point. I go off to another table, but on my way I look back at Randall and find that he is looking back at me, and I lower my eyelids and let the slightest of smiles come to my lips as I turn away. Clarissa misses none of this, I can tell—the pink of her cheeks has gone to a much less becoming shade of red.
Sylvie handles Clarissa's table for the rest of the party.
All in all, I reflect later when it's all over, a most satisfactory tea.
***
That night, after all the giggling over the events of the day subsides and prayers are said and Mistress retires, Amy sneaks out of her bed into the darkness and goes out into the hall and up the stairs to my door, where she opens the latch and slips into my room, where I am waiting for her. We sit on my bed in our nightdresses and talk real low till we are sure that all below are asleep.
Amy looks around at my room, what she can see of it in the light of the lamp. I had gotten tired of the guttering candles that Mistress issued to me and bought this whale oil lamp yesterday when I had snuck down to the Pig to see when Gully was gettin' sprung. It didn't cost much and works really fine—good, even light and not much smoke, so I get to read and study my French and Music and work on my miniatures far into the night. I don't seem to need a lot of sleep, prolly 'cause of all those watches I stood on the ship.
Amy notices my miniature I did of Jaimy that I hung on my bedpost so it is the last thing I see at night before I snuff the lamp and the first thing I see when I wake.
"That is your young man?" she asks, and I say yes, but it's not a good likeness 'cause he's much more handsome than that and my poor skill does not do him justice at all.
"He is a lucky young man," says Amy, and she turns to looking at my books. She picks up one and reads the title, "Barnabas Bickford, a History of Wantonness and Dissolution. " And then another, "The Rake's Progress."
She considers these for a moment and then asks, wonderingly, "Where ever did you get these? Surely not from the school library?"
"No. I got them from dear old Mr. Yale, who has the bookseller's shop on School Street. He lent me the books in return for me sweeping up a bit when I can," I says.
"No moss ever grows on you, does it, Sister?"
"Well, I was down there the other day, and I figured, why not give it a try?"
"You were abroad in the town again and you were not arrested?"
"I am not always arrested, Sister, as I know my way around."
"Why did you go, other than pure contrariness?"
"I had to find out when Gully was getting out of the slammer so as to know when we're gonna put on our act again."
"And when is that?"
"Friday night. Then Saturday afternoon and Saturday night. Three full sets."
"I wish you would not do it, Jacky, I really do wish that. You are going to get in trouble. Again." She wrings her hands, and I know that she is genuinely distressed.
"I must do it, Amy. I must get some money together so I can leave if I have to. Have I told you that Mistress means to marry me off as soon as a 'suitable match' is found?"
"That is horrid and wrong," she says. "I cannot believe it. Not even Mistress would do that."
I snort out a quick bark of a laugh. "When you fall in Mistress's eyes, you fall hard and far, that's for sure. A 'suitable match' indeed! Prolly to some no-account scoundrel who'll take my money and work me to the bone and then turn me out when I'm broke down and useless. Well, believe me, Sister, it's not gonna be that way. I'll run away first, I will, and if I have to cut and run because of it, well, I'd rather have some money in my pocket than to go out in the world all penniless again."
"Where would you run to?" asks Amy.
I consider this and say, "If I didn't have enough money to book passage back to England, I would go to New York, I think. I hear they might be more tolerant of my ways than Boston seems to be. I would work the taverns there till I had enough money to cross the pond."
I lean over and turn the wick on the lamp down as low as I can without it going out, as I don't want to have to creep down to the fireplace in the dormitory to light it again. "So you see that I must do what I must do. Come, let us go up on the widow's walk."
I rise and go over and pull down my stairway to the stars.
And stars there are. It is a brilliant night and the moon is just rising and the stars are as jewels in the heavens and I name them and point them out to Amy. I especially point out my old friend Orion and Polaris, the North Star, which always tells the poor sailor where north is and what latitude he is on.
We both lean on the railing and look out over the town, struck by the beauty of the tiny lights that twinkle in the city and the moonlight gleaming on the harbor beyond.
We are silent for a while and then Amy asks, "What do you want out of life, Jacky?"
I don't have to think hard on that, as it's what I always wanted since first I stepped on the Dolphin. "I'd like to have a small ship, one that could take cargo here and there around the world. So I could get my Bombay Rat and Cathay Cat, and see the Kangaroo."
"And what does that mean?
"It's just a line from a song I heard sailors singing back in London when I was on the streets. It sorta summed up for me the yearning I felt to better my condition and see the world and all its wonders. That yearning I feel yet, strong as ever."
"And if your Mr. Fletcher wants you to stay at home and keep house?"
I smile at that. "Ah, Jaimy knows me better than that, he does. He knows I got a streak of the wild rover in me and would soon get restless and unhappy in a calm and settled life." My Mr. Fletcher, I think, the smile slipping from my face, is he really? It's been almost two months and still no letters. What's wrong, Jaimy?
"And what do you want out of your life, Sister?" I ask Amy in return. I suck in the cool night air, looking out over the water to where Britain lies. She is quiet for a time.
"I want to write poetry and prose and I want to publish it, and I want to lecture about my writing and the writing of others before halls of educated people and I want..." She stops. "It does not matter what I want, because it is not going to happen. Women do not publish, as it is unseemly. It is just not done—their sensitive natures, you know, and the disgrace to their families, well, it is just not done, not in New England, anyway, and I do not want to talk about it anymore."
"Seems to me you could publish what you want to publish, if you've got the money to pay the printer. I know there's women in England who write novels and sell them," says I, a little mystified as to what one can and cannot do in this world. Seems to me that money drives what you can and cannot do. "Mr. Yale has a print shop next to the bookstore, should you need it."
Amy cuts her eyes to mine. "As a matter of fact, I do have a project in mind—"
"Hush! Amy, get down! He's there!" and I pull her by her sleeve down to the deck of the widow's walk and we lie there and peer out through the railing posts at the Preacher's lighted window.
First he opens the window and leans out and peers intently at Janey's grave and then he pulls back and the arm and the finger start pointing and he starts into talking and he starts saying words like demon and devil and Satan and Babylon, and Amy and me, whose faces are right close together, look at each other in amazement.
Then the Preacher goes into his thing of talking to someone not in the room and we hear snatches like "Grandfather, I know!" and then "Something will be done, I swear!..." and then he steps back into the room and we can hear only muffled sounds. After a pause, he lunges back to the window and says, "I know she is one, too, and she will pay, oh I swear it, Grandfather, I swear it!" and I get the feelin' that he ain't talking about poor Janey now, and I wonder what I'm guilty of. Besides the usual, that is.
I look over toward janey's grave and I shudder, 'cause I know for certain that if he gets me over there I will soon lie beside her.
I look at the overarching oak tree and resolve that I will hear the Reverend Mather a lot more closely tomorrow night.
After the Preacher subsides and turns out his lamp, Amy and I get up and go back down to my room.
"Please, Sister," I say as we come back into the small circle of my lamp, "stay with me tonight, as I feel the nightmare coming on."
Soon we are abed and I snuff out the lamp and I burrow into her side and the nightmare does not come.
Chapter 24
I take the packet of black powder and open it and iJp^pour the contents into the steaming pail of water I have prepared and then I take a stick and stir. This done, I take the britches that I got off poor Charlie the night he died and plunge them into the dye and poke them down with the stick and swirl them around. I'll leave the whole thing sit for an hour or two and then I'll pour off the dye and rinse out the britches and hang them to dry. It won't be a great dye job, but it will do for my purposes.
I had been keeping the pants in my seabag 'cause, though they are tight, I can still get them on. There's a New England homily that I heard Peg say one day that goes "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without," and I holds to that motto, as it appeals to my practical nature.
I got the dye this morning at the chemist's at the end of Sprague's Wharf when Abby and I were sent down to the market to get some fresh-killed chickens. We don't usually kill our own hens, as long as they keep on laying eggs, but we do kill the roosters when we get too many of them or when we have a pressing need. A while back I was taken out and shown the ax and the chopping block with its two nails stuck in it about an inch apart, which is where you put the chicken's head and then stretch out his neck out and then ... I couldn't look, and one day when Peg said, "Jacky, go kill two chickens. I need 'em for the broth," I took the ax, but I dragged Annie outside and begged and pleaded for her to do it and she did. In spite of the nickname I picked up on the ship, Bloody Jack don't like killin' and she ain't particularly partial to blood.
I also bought a watch cap, one of those black knit woolen things that sailors wear rolled up on top of their heads when it gets a bit chilly and pull down over their ears when the weather turns harsh. I've already got one, of course, but I'm going to need another. Abby looks at me funny when I pays a penny for that, but I just say that winter is coming.