Curse of the Blue Tattoo

by L. A. Meyer

  "Betsey. You," says Peg, and Betsey dries off her hands and squares away her apron and cap and runs upstairs.

  In a moment she is back with a note that she hands to Peg, who opens it, reads it, and sighs, and says, "Mistress has invited a bunch of the boys from the college over for the afternoon tea. Miss Howe is to be the hostess and she has picked Sylvie and Jacky to serve. We are to finish up with the laundry, serve dinner, and then you all are to help the ladies prepare." Peg claps her hands. "Let's go, girls. Mistress has done it again!"

  Sylvie and I look at each other. Of course. The one Clarissa slapped and the one who fought her, right there under her control. Shows us who's boss, now, don't it?

  ***

  As I rush about doing my duty, I'm thinking that Mistress prolly sprung this as a surprise so that the ladies would just spend one day getting ready, instead of a whole week. And keep them on their toes and get them used to preparing on the spur of the moment—never can tell when the President's gonna drop by, don'cha know. And I figures Mistress set this whole thing up so's the ladies could show off their refinement and good manners and social skills in mixed company. And maybe to scout out some future marriage prospects, hmmm? Mistress did say that all her girls made good matches.

  The place is in a dither of excitement all day as the ladies rush about furiously powdering and perfuming and combing and primping. There's not much done in the way of school-work after the noon meal, that's for sure. All us girls are pressed into service, combing and putting up hair, brushing out and ironing dresses, and suchlike, but finally, all is done and the boys arrive and are met at the door by Abby and Annie all starched and primped and in their best uniforms. Swords and scabbards are unhooked from sword belts and are placed in the cloakroom next to the entrance foyer, and then Mistress appears and she takes the young men up to the tea room, where the ladies anxiously await their coming.

  There are introductions and bows and curtsies and dimples and giggles, blushes, and female eyes peeking out over the tops of fans and males strutting about, and oh, but there will be a lot of posing and posturing this day, depend on it, and all, all under the very watchful eye of Mistress, for woe be to any boy who would venture to as much as touch any of the ladies, and even more woe to any lady who would allow such a thing to happen.

  Except that Mr. Randall Trevelyne is allowed to take Miss Clarissa Worthington Howe's hand to bring her up from her curtsy, 'cause they're engaged to be married, so it's all right. And even those lovely hands are in snow-white cotton gloves, white gloves that she had me wash and dry before the fire earlier today. At least I didn't have to comb and set her hair—she didn't trust me to be so close to her face with the hot curling iron, and well she shouldn't.

  There are clusters of easy chairs grouped around low tea tables on which the cups and saucers and spoons and napkins are set, and Clarissa leads Randall to the one she has selected for herself—the grandest one, the one with the largest bouquet of flowers on it and, as the central one, visible to the entire room. Randall pulls out her chair, she places her lovely bottom in it, and all are seated. They do look splendid together, I got to admit—Clarissa in a dress of white with touches of pink here and there, low cut in the latest French style, her shining blond hair piled high with cunning little ringlets to the side, and Randall is the very picture of male beauty in a velvet coat of the deepest crimson with white lapels and white lace at the throat and cuffs, snow-white breeches, and black boots to the knees. A lot of the boys are wearing crimson, I notice. Prolly the school's color.

  Also seated there is her pet Lissette and a few other carefully selected toadies and some young men of various sizes and shapes, one of whom seems especially taken with the Frenchy, with her exotic manners and haughty ways. He is trying to speak to her in stumbling French and is making a fearful botch of it, I'm afraid. His name seems to be Chad-wick and she is not being very nice to him at all. I get the feeling that she'd much rather be next to Randall, and for that, I would not blame her. Amy's at this setting, too, in a state of cold fury, she being family and all and required to be there.

  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.

  "It ain't exactly the fashion," says Abby, with a laugh. It's always a joy to come to town with the plump and jolly Abby, she of the red curls stuffed up in her cap, she with her wandering eye for the lads—won't be long before she's married and dandling a fat baby on her knee, I'll wager.

  "Don't matter," says I.

  This morning, too, I gather up some sooty ashes from the edge of the fire and put them in an old cracked jar, and, let's see, I'm going to need an extra bucket of water in my room and some old ragged towels that no one will miss, an old mop.

  I get all these things and I sneak them up to my room and stash them in the shadows where the roof rafters meet the floor.

  Then I go down and attend to my dut
ies.

  ***

  I am easy in my duties now. I know how to make bread and am skilled in washing and ironing, and under Peg's sweet guidance, I am learning to cook. I keep up with my studies on the sly and steadily improve in my painting and my music—I can read the little musical notes now and Maestro Fracelli is showing me some things on the fiddle as I have shown interest 'cause of listening to Gully. I'm even doing some embroidery. Mistress would be proud, if she knew, but if she knew she'd prolly beat me for neglecting my duties, so it's better she don't know.

  In turn I've been helping Rebecca with her reading and writing and math, she being the little girl I talked to my first day here as we sat all miserable doing our samplers. Poor thing, she's really too young to be here and seems so lost. So, anyway, I'm paying back in instruction for the instruction I've been getting, and that seems fair to me.

  Clarissa doesn't bother much with me anymore, now that I have been, in her eyes, completely destroyed, and am no longer worthy of her steel—though she does keep a wary eye on me since that little thing with Randall at the Grand High Tea. The serving of the meals is no longer the humiliation that it was at first. I am used to it now, and so is everyone else. It is merely a job to be done and, it is to be hoped, done well.

  We do the noon dinner and then clean up, and later I help Dolley, Miss Frazier, that is, serve the afternoon tea, as it is her turn. She is gracious and charming and she orders me about with a brisk but kind manner that I hope I will be able to show someday if I ever have servants, which ain't likely. Dolley is going to be a fine lady, I can tell. She already is one.

  ***

  When I help serve the evening meal, I notice how the Preacher's eyes seek me out every few minutes for a split second and then dart away. Not plain enough for anyone else to notice, of course, he is much too careful about that. But I do, and if I had any doubts as to which girl he was talking about last night, I don't have them now.