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

by L. A. Meyer

  I look hard back at him. "So now you're a pimp, as well." I pull the bill out of my bodice and throw it on the floor and ram my whistle back in my vest and heads for the ...by God, they're tryin to close the door I I'll be trapped in here! I whip out me shiv and hold it out in front of me and the bloke who's closin' the door thinks better of it and moves back and I'm out the door and into the cool night air.

  I put me shiv back in its usual spot in me vest and stand there, my chest heavin' with the anger that's ragin' through me. Then the door is jerked open and Gully lunges out and I rushes at him and sticks my finger in his face and shouts, "What the hell were you thinkin' of in there? What kind of girl—"

  The back of his hand hits my face and I go to my knees.

  He pulls my face up to his and says, "Listen, bitch. You're gonna go back in there and do exactly what they say. Understand? Exactly what they—"

  Through the fog of my shattered mind, I realize the men are pouring out the door, calling out to Gully.

  That's it, teach her a lesson!

  Show 'er 'er place!

  Damn bum show. Waste of time, it was...

  Gully yells after era, "Wait! Wait! Come back. She'll do it ... Damn, they're leaving! Goddammit! Twenty-five dollars and that was just to start! Now, nothing! You..." And he rounds on me kneeling there helpless, and he balls his fist and brings it crashin' down on my eye. My head explodes in pain and shock, and he lets go of me neck and I fall in a heap of weepin' misery to the cobblestones. He gives me another curse and goes back inside.

  I lie there for a while and then I get up and stagger over to an alleyway. I get in there and I lie back down 'cause I'm so dizzy with the force of his blow that I can't stand right. I put my hand to my eye and feel that it is already beginning to swell. In a while I get up and go to the Pig.

  When I get there, I don't go inside but instead go around the back to Bob's work shed and take his wheelbarrow from where it leans against a wall. I set off rattlin' back down to Skivareen's, and when I gets there, I puts the wheelbarrow back in the shadows of the alleyway. I can hear Gully rantin' and ravin' inside, and I sits down to wait.

  He's thrown out into the street at about two o'clock in the morning, barely conscious. The Lady Lenore comes flying out soon after, but I manage to break her fall.

  I bring the wheelbarrow up next to him and I say, "Come on, Gully, we've got to get you home. Up now." I put my hands under his arms and help him to his feet.

  "Moneymaker?" he says, his voice all thick and stupid. "Where you been?" He tries to focus on me, but he can't. "Lenore?"

  "I've got her, she's safe. Over here now, Gully." I get him between the handles of the barrow and eases him back. I need him far enough forward with his weight over the wheel so that I'll be able to lift him. There. That's good. "Lie back, Gully. Lie back and sleep."

  He does. Soon he snores.

  I lift my skirts and untie the lengths of rope that I had tied there. I tie each of his ankles to the wheelbarrow handles then I tie one end of a piece of rope around one wrist and pull that arm over the side of the box and I take the rope underneath and wrap it around the wheel housing a few times and then bring it up on the other side to his other wrist. I tuck in the ends so they will not drag.

  Then I take the small ball of rags that I had put in my pocket and I pinch Gully's nostrils shut and when he gasps and opens his mouth, I crams the gag in.

  There. Time to go. I sling the Lady Lenore over my shoulder and I grab the handles and lift. Not too bad. I've got about two hundred yards to the water. I can make it.

  I rattle off down the street and the jarring motion of the hard wooden wheel over the cobblestones wakes Gully and he looks about in confusion. He notices that his hands and feet are tied and he starts struggling.

  "I knows how to tie the knots, Gully, as I've been to sea. The more you struggle, the tighter they'll get." He struggles anyway, mumbling into his gag.

  My eye is almost completely swollen shut, and now I can't see out of it at all.

  "You hit me, Gully, you did. You was my partner and was supposed to look out for me, but you didn't. What you did was take me to that place where I didn't want to go and try to make me do something I didn't want to do, just so's you could buy more of that green stuff."

  Gully's shaking his head back and forth.

  "You prolly don't even remember doin' this to me, Gully, right? I see you shakin' your head, but you did it, Gully, you put your mark on me, and you'll do it again the next time you get drunk and I can't let that happen, I can't. I got to get rid of you, Gully. I'm sorry, but I do."

  At this, his eyes grow wide and he cranes his head about to look where we're goin' and he sees that we're goin' toward the water. The look in his eyes changes from one of confusion to fear. He makes a loud sound into the gag and redoubles his thrashing about. It don't do him no good.

  'Cause of my tiredness and my throbbin' eye, I'm startin' to ramble and sometimes I make sense and sometimes I don't.

  "What's it gonna be like if I lose me eye, Gully? If my Jaimy comes again for me, will I lift my face to him and show him a gaping empty eyehole? Or an eye that's all filmed over, disgustin' milky white, staring out all blind at nothin'?

  "You don't know this about me, Gully, but in some quarters I'm known as Bloody Jack 'cause I killed two men by my own hand. Yes, it's true. It's also true that they had it comin' just like you got it comin', Gully, but it still weighs heavy on my soul."

  The fear in his eyes has been replaced by pure terror. He cranes his head and twists his neck around again and sees that we're about halfway to the water. He makes mewling sounds.

  "You know, Gully, it's such a shame. We had a really good act. People really liked us. Good people, not like those scum back there. And, yes, I know you're sorry and you'll make it right and I know you'll say that we'll get the act back together again and it'll be like it was, but we won't, Gully, 'cause you'll just get drunk again and mess it up."

  I stop and put the barrow down for a second to rest. "Surprised I can do this, Gully? Well, I'm little, but I'm strong, I am." Then I lift him up again and we press on.

  His eyes get bigger and bigger and he looks frantically about for some passerby to save him, but there ain't nobody out this late, and if we do run across someone, well, I got a story already cooked up: Poor Dad, when he's like this, it's the only way we can get him home. What a trial he is to poor Mum, Sir, you can well imagine...

  "Yes, Gully, it's a shame. You were a great fiddler, you just weren't much of a man."

  Gully groans in despair as we roll up onto the planks of the wharf. We go on for a while and then I pulls up next to the eighty-eight-gun HMS Redoubt, looming up there above us in the gloom of the early morning. I put down Gully and the barrow.

  "Ahoy, the quarterdeck!" I shouts up.

  An officer steps out on the gangway and says, "What do you want?"

  "Beggin' your pardon, Sir, but this here gentleman has expressed a desire to return to sea."

  The Officer of the Deck barks out a short laugh. "He has, has he? He looks like he's right tied up in knots about it."

  "Aye, Sir. He is Gulliver MacFarland, a prime seaman and a British citizen—Scottish, he is—so you won't anger the locals by takin' him. He was foretopman on the Solstice—that much is true—the rest he tells you will be lies."

  Other men are called and they start down the gangway. Gully, his fear of death gone, looks at me with cold hatred.

  "They're finally getting the Hero of Culloden Moor, ain't they, Gully," says I. "I found out about that, too. You warn't the Hero of Culloden Moor, you warn't the hero of nothin'. You only found glory at the bottom of a bottle. What a fool I was."

  The sailors come and stand around Gully. "You are sure he is a Scotsman?" says the officer.

  "Yes, Sir," says I, and reaches down and pulls out the gag and a torrent of curses pours out of his mouth, thick with a Scots accent. "See?" says I, and I jams the gag back in. Gully's curses turn
to gurgles.

  "He is Scots, for sure, but what do you expect to get out of this?"

  "Nothing, Sir, just a good English girl doin' her duty for King and Crown. And for the good of the Service, like."

  "Wait. Did he do that to you?" The good officer puffs up in outrage.

  Ah, the eye. It must be a sight. "Yes, Sir, but he was out of his mind when he did, so don't hold it against him. I would, however, warn you that he is more slippery than any eel. Perhaps if you held him in the brig till you sail?"

  "We'll hold him," he says grimly and turns to his men. "Take him."

  "Wait, Sir. One more thing." I go over to Gully and open his coat and take out his bottle of the greenish liquid. I lean over and look down at Gully's eyes as I say, "He has a problem with the drink, Sir. I would deny him his rum ration, at least for a while." I can imagine what Gully is calling me right now, but nothin' gets by the gag cept a gargling sound.

  The Bo'sun takes the bottle from my hand and uncorks it and sniffs at the neck. He makes a face. "Wormwood. Rotten Frenchy wormwood. Rots the brain. Might as well drink lye!" He throws the bottle over the edge of the wharf and we hear it shatter on a crossbeam down below.

  The men untie Gully and pull him upright, one good strong sailor on either arm. They leave the gag in.

  I take the fiddle case from my shoulder and am about to hand it over when the officer says, "Ah no, Miss. No fiddles. The Captain can't abide them and won't let any aboard."

  I sling the case back over my shoulder and look at Gully, and this time his eyes show only a deep, deep sadness.

  "Sorry, Gully, I really am. But I'll take good care of the Lady Lenore for you, and if we ever meet again, I'll give her back to you."

  With that I pick up the wheelbarrow and I turn and take it back to Bob's shed.

  The sun is coming up when I see Amy runnin' toward me when I turn up Beacon Street. Annie is with her and their relief at seein' me back is gone the instant they see my eye. Amy's mouth opens but nothin' comes out.

  "Sweet Jesus," says Annie. "We got to get her to Peg right off!"

  There is a kind of thick juice comin' out from between the slit of my eyelids. Please God, don't take my eye.

  I'm led into the kitchen. "Oh, my poor little girl," moans Peg. She puts her hand on my forehead and looks at the eye. Her hand feels wondrous cool and soothing. "Sylvie! Go down to the apothecary shop and get three ... no, five leeches! Quickly! Abby, to the icehouse! Run!"

  Peg wets a towel and takes me to her room in back. "Get in here. We can't let Mistress see you like that. Stretch out on the bed." I take off the Lady and I lie down, gratefully.

  "Who did that to you?" she demands. "I swear I'll have the man that did that..."

  "He's gone away, Peg, and he won't be back for a long, long time," I says, and falls into a deep, deep sleep.

  Much later, when I swim back into something close to wakefulness I feel a cold ice pack held to my eye. I open the other eye and see that it is Amy who is holding the compress. I fumble around and find her other hand and hold it to me. "Dear Amy," I whisper, "thank you."

  Then I hear Peg say, "All right. Let's take a look." With my good eye I see her squinting at my other eye. "The swellin's down. Let's get 'em on her."

  With great joy I find I can see a little out of my hurt eye—just a little slit of light, but it's something. Peg brings something black and shiny and wiggling over into my sight and puts it down, cold and clammy, on the top of my cheekbone, close to my lower eyelid.

  "One there, and one over here ... and two up top..."

  I see that Amy's look of tender concern has been replaced by one of stern disapproval. "I told you something like this would happen," she scolds. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

  I considers this for a bit. "You know," I says, as I feel the leeches' rasping mouths workin' their blood-suckin' way through my skin, "I'm thinkin' of giving up show business."

  Chapter 40

  Amy thinks it might be a good idea to get me out of the school for a few days, what with my eye and all, and I think it is a great idea, so we go to Dovecote for a few days this weekend. I spent all Friday in bed, claiming to be sick, and when Mistress came in to check on me, I flipped over on my side and pressed my bad eye to the pillow so she wouldn't see. Amy makes our excuses to Mistress and this time there is a coach and we take it. The coach is anything but comfortable and we get bounced around something awful—I'd much rather have ridden Gretchen—but we chatter and laugh and soon the journey is done and we are dropped at the big house at Dovecote.

  We drop our bags in Amy's room and I go over to the mirror and squint at myself in it. Not too bad—the leeches did their job in getting the purple bruises out. Now it's just a few smudges of yellowish tinge.

  Amy sees me looking in the mirror and says, "Come. We will go to Mother's dressing room. She will have some powder there."

  ***

  "Coo, Amy, look at all this," says I. The dresser top is full of little jars and bottles and things with stoppers. "I thought you Yankees was all Puritans and didn't hold with this stuff."

  "We have a saying here in New England: 'Pray in Church, Sin at Home.' Here, hold your face to the light." She picks up a squat jar and opens it and takes a soft brush and dips into it and applies it to my bruises.

  It's easy to imagine Amy's mother sitting here at this dressing table. As different from Amy as the night from the day, Clementine Trevelyne is as pink and flighty as Amy is dark and serious. It is certain that Mrs. Trevelyne has never read a book and her talk centers totally on things of a social nature—the parties, the dinners, the glittering balls, and who was there and who was not. She does not seem to care a whit about the danger her husband's gambling poses to her present way of life, but goes about being gay and frivolous and charming. Or maybe she doesn't know. Whatever, she was kind to me when we met at Christmas, clucking over me and saying how nice it was that our Amy has a little friend. She was kind and I liked her.

  Amy steps back and surveys her work. "There. That's better."

  I look in the mirror and sure enough, I can hardly see the bruise. "Good work," I say. I pick up a bottle with blue juice in it. "What's the rest of this, then?"

  "That is perfume. From France. Try some if you wish."

  I pull out the stopper and put my nose to the tiny bottle. "Ooohhh, that's so lovely!" I want to stuff the whole thing up my nose.

  "Put some on if you like ... No, no, not like that." She sees that I was about to shake the open bottle over my head. "Like this." She takes the bottle and puts her finger over the open end and tips it and then takes her finger and puts it behind my ear. "Like that. Behind each ear. Maybe a touch at the throat."

  I do it and as I am doing it, Amy's attention is captured by something outside and she goes to the window.

  "It's Randall," she says, not sounding entirely pleased, "home for the weekend. Again. I've never seen him home so much. It's strange."

  By the time she turns around, I have put another big dab of the perfume down on my breastbone, loosened my hair from its usual pigtail, and dragged a lock of it over my damaged eye.

  She narrows her eyes upon seeing me do all this, but I just smile all innocent and get up and go down to our room to brush my hair and tie it back with a ribbon.

  "Ah, you rogue, you! What have you been up to since last we met? Oh yes? Well, I've heard you've been havin' quite a jolly time with the girls, you rascal you! Several babies already on the way? I'm not surprised. Now, don't you blush like that!" Saying that, I wrap my arms around his head and plant a great kiss on his forehead.

  The Sheik seems to be glad to see me, too. I had heard him whinny when we approached the stable—I guess he caught a whiff of me, though how he could through all this perfume, I don't know. Maybe he recognized my voice, talking to Amy and Randall as I was. Whatever, his eyes roll and he fairly screams at the sight of me.

  I give him pieces of dried apple, which he takes off my palm with great gent
leness, and I say to George Swindow, who's the head hostler, "Please, George, tell me you'll allow me to ride him later." Amy don't even bother anymore tryin' to tell me not to do it, and Randall puts on his air of not carin' what I do.

  "Exercise him, Miss. You may exercise him inside the track," says George. It's plain he's thinkin' back to those wild rides I've already had upon the Sheik.

  "Thank you, George. I'll be back as soon as I change!" And I lift the front of my skirts and run back to our room and put on my sailor pants and shirt and I get back as they are saddling him up. The people here are used to seeing me in this rig—they have shrugged it off and they let me be the tomboy I guess I am.

  I go up next to the Sheik and he lowers his great head, nuzzles me, and then shakes his mane and snorts and stamps, which means he's ready to run and asking why are we just standing here?

  Randall appears to hand me up and I settles myself on the saddle. He is dressed today in a red velvet jacket with white front lapels and a high stiff collar that goes up above his ears and his dark hair curls over both collar and ears. Above his black boots stretch spotless white britches. He looks up with hooded eyes and then reaches up and pats me on the leg and says, "Be careful now, Jacky." I smile and nod. The Sheik shies away and I turn him and we are off.

  The first time around the track I take him around slow—slow for the Sheik, that is—my hair is flying out straight behind me and the great muscles of his shoulders flex and stretch and roll under my legs and the white fence posts fly by. When we get to the last turn, we go by a small pasture that has some mares placidly grazing and I've been told that three of them are with foal by him and we shall have some fine colts and fillies by summer. I know the Sheik notices them, 'cause he speeds up a bit as we pass, as if to say, "Ain't I some fine horse?"

  As we pound by the grandstand I notice that Amy and Randall are standing at the rail, watching, and I stick my bottom up a little higher in the air—to gain better balance, of course. Ain't I some fine rider?