Curse of the Blue Tattoo: Being an Account of the Misadventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman and Fine Lady (17 page)

"So," says Peg, "go down and get some fish for tomorrow's chowder. About six pounds. You do know how to buy fish, don't you?"

"Peg, I was born in a market," I says, thinkin' back to the old days in Cheapside, and I pantomimes takin' a skinned fish and openin' it up where its guts used to be and stickin' my nose in and takin' a long sniff.

"All right. We have accounts with Fulton's and with Anzivino's. They're both in the Haymarket. Be back in time to serve supper."

The whole afternoon! Hooray!

"Luckeeeee," says Abby, and the rest of them hoot at me for getting out of work as I grab a basket and head out the door. It's a warm day and I won't need my cloak and I got my maid cap on as a head cover so I won't have to run upstairs and get my bonnet. I've found out since I got arrested that one of the reasons Wiggins picked up on me that day was that I wasn't wearing a hat, and around these parts that means you're advertising yourself as a bad girl. They could've told me that
before
I got nailed, jailed, and derailed in becoming a lady, but what's done is done.

This time I decide to take Gretchen cause that'll save me a bunch of time and it's a beautiful day and I love riding her, so that's all the reason I need. I head to the stables.

I don't get to ride with the upstairs ladies anymore, of course, but Henry lets me ride on my own 'cause I help clean up in the stables when I can sneak over to pet Gretchie. He's been ever so helpful to me since I got demoted. He's even let me put a regular saddle on Gretchen and try it that way, and I was right, it is a lot easier—boys always get everything their own way and we girls always got to do it the hard way. I know Henry was scandalized when I rode astride, with my skirt riding up to my knees, but I know he didn't look away.

He still blushes and stammers around me, but he's easier now that we're on the same level, like. I know he's glad I got sent down 'cause now we can be friends, though he don't say so. And I know that he wants to be more than friends but he don't push it, so I don't have to tell him that I am promised to another.

I spy him combing down Jupiter, which is Clarissa's horse that she owns herself. Nobody else ever rides Jupiter.

"Henry, can I take Gretchen to the market, please, say yes, please," I say, bouncing up and down and giving him the big eyes.

"I suppose, if you're careful with her, Jacky," says Henry, and he pulls a saddle off a rack and goes into Gretchen's stall and throws it on her. I could do it, but I know he likes doing it for me so I let him. She whinnies when she sees me, and I take an apple from a bin and give it to her. I love the feel of her lips in my palm as she takes it and then chews it up.

Henry weaves his fingers together and presents his hands to me for a leg up and I put my foot in his hands, but before
I jump up, I lean forward and give him a kiss on his forehead and say, "Thanks, Henry, you're a dear," and then I take the reins and Gretchie and I head out into the light.

A sisterly peck now and then, what the harm? He seems to enjoy it so.

We cross Beacon Street and ride down through the Common and there's a good firm path there so I get Gretchie up to the gallop and go whooping and hallooing along, scattering goats and sheep that go
nay
-ing and
baaa
-ing out of our way till we get to the streets, and then we slow to a trot on Tremont Street and then to a walk on Court Street 'cause I don't want to cause no fuss here, that's for certain, but I blends right in 'cause there's lots of people in the street, both walking and riding, and Gretchen is ever so gentle in the way she picks her way through that there's never an angry eye cast our way.

As we go by the courthouse I catch a glimpse of that hated whipping post and...

...And the stocks. I realize with a start that the stocks ain't empty and the person in 'em is none other than Mr. Gulliver MacFarland, the Hero of Culloden Moor and my former jailhouse mate.

There is a hitching post at the side of the courthouse by the stocks and I dismount and tie Gretchen's reins to the rail and pet her and whisper in her ear so she'll feel safe here where she ain't been before. She flashes me a trusting eye and I walk over to the pillory.

There is a gang of boys there who have gathered up some choice pieces of dog mess and they are laughing and jeering and tossing it at Gully's helpless head held captive there in the stocks. His fists clench in rage in their holes in the stout
wooden face of the stocks and his face is dirty with the dog mess that's already hit, and he curses the urchins to Hell, which only makes them laugh more and throw more mess. I stoop down and pick up some rocks and advance to a place where both Gully and the boys can see me.

"Leave off!" I say in my best command voice.

"Won't!" says the boys, and they makes as if to throw some of that stuff at me.

I picks out the worst lookin' of the young brutes and wings off a rock at him. "There's one for Cheapside!" I yells and gets off another. The second rock catches him on his broad rump and he yelps and gets off some dirty words at me, which don't bother me none, I just throws some more.

"Hard to miss
that
fat ass!" I taunts and hurls two more at his chums and connects with one. "And here's one for Blackfriars Bridge and here's another for Charlie Rooster and how 'bout one for Hugh the Grand, sure," and I've got a real rain of rocks in the air and the urchins turn tail and run and I'm glad to see I ain't lost me touch. I dust off my hands and nod to Gulliver MacFarland.

He grins up at me through his filth and says, "Good job, Miss, and I thank you. No, no, wait!"

I had turned and was heading back to Gretchen, thinkin' my job here was done. I stop and look back.

"Please. Come back. We've got to talk, me and you." He gives me what I'm sure he thinks is a winning smile but which ain't even close. I did not think that anyone could look worse than Gully MacFarland the last time I saw him, but I was wrong as he's topped himself in the way of filth. "You and me. We could be a team. You with your whistle and me with the Lady Lenore."

I know I should go on, but I wait to hear what he has to say.

"I caught your little act there that night in the tank. You were pretty good—a bit rough here and there, but then you were plainly scared ... I get out of here in a little bit. Can you wait?"

"I've got to buy some fish," says I, full of doubt. I look around all careful-like, making sure that Wiggins ain't around.

"Don't worry about the constable, girl," says Gully Mac-Farland, reading my mind. "I saw him take his fat self down to the docks to collect his bribes not ten minutes ago. Besides, they got you for the showin' of your legs, not for playin' of the tunes. They haven't outlawed music in Boston, at least not yet. Do you know 'MacPherson's Farewell'?"

I pull out my whistle and play a bit of the melody, then I lift my chin and sing the chorus.

"
Sae Rantonly, sae Wantonly,
Sae Dauntingly, played he.
He played a tune and danced a-roon
Below the gallows tree.
"

"Good," says Gully. "You've a good voice, and you ain't afraid to use it—though you'd never fool a real Scotsman with that accent. Have you got a lot of tunes by heart?"

He wrinkles up his nose as if it's got an itch. I step back—I'll be damned if I'll scratch the awful thing for him.

"Yes," I say. "Mostly sailor songs. Some murder ballads and songs of love, too."

"That's good. 'Queer Bungo Rye'? 'Patrick Street'?"

"Aye. And if 'Patrick Street' is the same as 'Barracks Street,' then yes."

"Good. Sing 'Bungo Rye.'"

I don't see any harm in it so I do it.

"
Well Jack was a sailor, and he walked up to town,
And she was a damsel who skipped up and down.
Says the damsel to Jack, as she passed him by,
Would you care for to purchase some old bungo rye,
Ruddy rye, ruddy rye, fall the diddle die,
Ruddy rye, ruddy rye.
"

"Good. You put a nice bounce in it. We'll do it as a duet with you takin' the girl voice and ... ah, here comes Goody with the key."

I turn and see Goody Wiggins approaching holding her ring of keys and with a disagreeable look on her face. As if an agreeable one ever sat there. I turn quickly away and go back to Gretchen and untie the reins and put my foot in the stirrup and mount up.
They aint gettin me back in there again,
I says to myself as I prepare to head off.

Gully is released, exchanges a few curses and obscenities with the matron, and then gallops over to me, his filthy coat flapping around his scrawny, loose-limbed frame.

"Please, girl. Just give it a try. A neat bit of fluff like you what can sing and dance, and me with the Lady Lenore, why, we'll make a fortune!" he says as he comes up next to me. Gretchen is skittish and whirls about as he tries to put his hand on my leg. "When do you have to be back?"

"For supper, sir," I reply. "But I have to—"

"Fine. That's lots of time. The Lady Lenore's down at the
Pig and Whistle and that's on your way down to Haymarket to buy fish. Let us play together and see what happens."

His eyes are feverish. "You want to make some money, don't you? I note that you're dressed less grand than last I saw thee. I
know
you want to make some money, 'cause I know you for a minstrel no matter what you say to that. I heard you play along with me from inside the cage when I took out the Lady outside the jail after they let me go and I know you and what makes you go. So, one hour we will play together and you will decide whether you want to get an act together or not. Agreed?"

As we turn onto State Street, him lopin' alongside, I see the Haymarket down below and the taverns gathered about the docks. Squinting, I can make out the sign of the Pig and Whistle, which I had seen on my first day here and which I had wondered about 'cause the pig was playin' a penny-whistle on the sign, and I say, "One hour. No more."

"Do you have any money so we can have a bite to eat?" says Gully after we had gone into the Pig and Whistle and sat down in the gloom. The place smells of years of spilt ale and old fires but still it is a pleasant place, and, as they say of cozy pubs, it fits well around your shoulders.

I put my finger in the pocket of my vest and pull out the coin that was tossed to me by the sailor John Thomas on that day that I was taken.

"It is a dime, I think," I says.

"It will do," says Gully MacFarland, and orders. A "bite to eat" turns out to be two tankards of ale for Gully and nothing for me. I don't mind. I am well fed.

On our way here we had stopped at a washhouse where
Gully was allowed to wash up in some dirty rinse water they was about to dump in the street. He even managed to sweet-talk a bit of soap out of the washerwoman, and so, with his hair washed and his face clean, he looks almost presentable. Almost. His clothes are still dirty and they sure don't smell very good. I edge my chair as far away from him as I can manage.

Gully sticks his nose in the first tankard and takes a long, slow drink and drains it and the expression on his face turns almost holy, looking like in those pictures of cherubs that me and the gang used to see in Saint Mark's Cathedral in London on those few days we could get in to receive alms and steal what we could. He puts down the now empty tankard and sighs with relief.

"So, takin' money off little girls are you now, Gully?" says the woman behind the bar. "What's this, then? Better not be one of Bodeen's."

"No, Maudie, this here is my new partner in the performance of music and dance and joy for the populace."

"No, Ma'am. I am in service up at the girls' school," I speaks up for myself.

"Ah, well, that is a good post. Don't lose it by hangin' about the likes of Rummy MacFarland, mind."

"I ain't doin' that yet, Missus. I'm just listenin' to what he has to say," I answer.

"The Lady Lenore," says Gully, and he puts out his hands.

Maudie reaches under the counter and pulls out the fiddle case and lays it on the bar. "He left it here last night when he was hauled out by the constable, half out of his mind with drink, he was," she says to me by way of further warning.

Gully gets up to get the fiddle, but she pulls it back out of his reach and, with her eyes narrowed and her voice level and low she growls, "Listen to me, Gully MacFarland. Last night was over the top. You and me go back a long ways, but now that's done, and here's a new rule for you, Gully, and you will obey it. That rule is: None of the hard stuff for you in the Pig and Whistle, ever again. No rum, no whiskey, no brandy, no wine. Beer and ale only. Do you mark me, Gully?"

"Aw, Maudie, now..." says Gully, shuffling his feet.

"I mean it, Gully. You break the rule and I'll have my Bob take his club to your head and put you out cold, thereby savin' you the time and expense of drinkin' yourself there. And you'll never set foot in here again." She slides the fiddle case over the bar, and Gully grunts and takes it back to where I'm sittin'.

Maudie goes back to swabbin' the bar, I suppose in hopes of some customers, but there don't seem to be none comin', just me and Gully. I look over the situation and it don't take too much sense to figure out that the Pig is too far from the docks to catch the sailors as they step off their ships with their terrible thirst that has to be slaked right off in the nearest tavern, which the Pig ain't, being perched up the hill a bit.

Gully opens the case and gently pulls out the Lady Lenore.

"Look at her," he breathes. "Ain't she lovely?"

I own that she is indeed lovely, all glowing red brown in the dim light.

"Look," says Gully, pointing at a scrawl on the inside. "It says here it was made by some I-tal-ian whose name starts with an
s
. See it? And it was made in a place called Cremona."

I look and indeed it seems to be signed by someone
whose name starts with an
s
and a
t,
but it's all so old and dim and almost rubbed out.