Under the Jolly Roger: Being an Account of the Further Nautical Adventures of Jacky Faber (43 page)

My nose itches and maybe that's what wakes me up—or maybe it's that horsefly—I groan and stretch again and bat at the fly and crack open an eyelid. There, leaning over me, is an old man holding a walking stick and crying ...
Crying?
Christ! It ain't a dream, it's a lunatic!

I scramble to my feet and lunge for my horse, leaving the remnants of my lunch scattered on the heather, but still the old man comes after me.

"Nancy!" he cries. "Nancy! Don't you know me? Don't you..."

But that's as far as the crazy old coot gets, 'cause now I'm up on my mount and off. I leave him standing there in the dust and calling after me.
Damn! You take a little nap and you wake up with a crazy old man standing about you!
I'm getting back to my ship, I am.

I ride for a bit and then slow down, knowing that the old man couldn't possibly catch up with me.
Damn! I left my cloak back there!
Oh, well, I sure ain't going back for it now.
Stupid! To fall asleep all splayed out and unprotected like that! You deserve whatever happens to you, girl! Damn!

That night, I stay in. The Port Watch invites me out to the taverns but I say,
Nay, I cannot,
for Mairead is not allowed off the ship, and in the spirit of true sisterhood, I must stay with her. And besides, later, when we are put up for the winter, there will be lots of time for the pubs and taverns. And besides, that Arthur McBride needs the damper on his ardor turned down, and besides ... there are lots of besides.

After dinner, as a special treat before turning in, we take out this book I had bought back in Waterford. It is called
Laugh and Be Fat
and it is a bunch of stories and jokes and is just the most obscene, dirtiest thing I have ever read, and, as I tell Mairead, I
have
read the
Decameron
as well as
The Canterbury Tales,
mind you, and so, of course, we are soon snorting and burying our faces in our pillows, we're in highest gross hilarity and rolling around in the bed in pure hellish joy.

It is good that we have the laughter 'cause it eases me off to sleep—it keeps me from thinking about that crazy old man on the road today. Something about that nags at me, I don't know why. Probably 'cause I was so stupid as to let myself be surprised like that—helpless and all. That's gotta be it, and I won't let it happen again.

We snuff the lamp and stifle giggles and poke about and
Get your cold feet offa me! Cold feet? I'll show you cold feet! Yow! It comes from eatin' cold potatoes all yer life and you got it coming, Brit! Take that!
and we settle in for the night.

Noon of the following day finds us in the Golden Rudder tavern—Liam, Mairead, Padraic, and me. Higgins had been dispatched to the bank in Colchester and would be back shortly, but since he was not there to make my lunch, I invited the Clan Delaney out to lunch at this local pub. No singing or dancing at this time of day, just eating and knocking back a few pints. A fragile peace exists between Liam and his daughter—and between Padraic and his sister. Padraic was none too pleased, either, when Mairead was found aboard—but now he knows we're sailing back to Waterford tomorrow and he can stick her back in Moira's care. During this meal, at least, Mairead keeps her mouth shut about running away again and that's good, for even though I know she intends on gaining her freedom, it's best that things lie calm for a while.

The food was good, but now it's done and time to be gone, so we get up, pay both money and compliments to the landlord, and go back out into the bright light of day. Just as we are heading down the road and back to the ship, the midday coach from Colchester pulls up and Higgins gets out.

"Ahoy, Higgins!" I say. "That was quick. We hardly had time to miss you."

"Yes, Miss," he says, as he joins our little group. "I had good luck in..."

"Nancy!"

I whip my head around and there he is again, the dusty little old man who stood over me yesterday as I lay asleep on the hillside. Again, he comes at me with his hand outstretched, tears running down his face. "Nancy," he wails again, "oh, don't you know me, Nancy?"

"Crazy old beggar," says Liam, fishing a coin out of his pocket and holding it out to the man. "Here's a penny, old man. Now off with you."

The old man, who I now notice is wearing a churchman's collar and an old-fashioned frock coat, once fine but now threadbare, ignores Liam and his coin.

"No, no," he says, never taking his eyes off me, "I don't mean Nancy, I know you can't be her, because she's ... she's dead, my child is dead. I'm sorry, I'm sorry ... I got confused because you look so much like she looked is why I got confused ... I'm sorry..."

Liam makes a move to hustle him off. A chill runs up my spine and I put my hand on Liam's arm to hold him back.

"Wait. Wait, let's hear him out," I say, feeling myself start to tremble. From out of the half-forgotten past it comes to me now and I know why I was so uneasy yesterday when first I saw this old man—
My mother's name was Nancy.

"You are not Nancy," the old man says, nodding as if getting his mind in order. "You are her daughter Mary ... Mary Faber ... and, as such, you are my granddaughter."

***

We have taken him back to the ship and sat him at my table. Liam, Higgins, and I stand frowning down on him like agents of the Spanish Inquisition looking down on a hapless heretic. He looks around in wonder at the richness of my cabin and then he begins.

"My name is George Henry Alsop. I am, or I was, the Vicar of Saint Edmund-Standing-in-the-Moor, up in North Allerton, just north of Leeds..."

I look at Higgins and he says, "A considerable distance—over two hundred miles."

"With my dear wife, Rosemary, now sadly departed and much missed, I had but one child, a daughter, Nancy. When Nancy grew up, beautiful and wild, she married one Jack Faber, a poet, scholar, and a bit of a rascal. They were well matched, for Nancy, always a cheerful child, had grown into a young woman of independent mind and adventurous spirit."

Here Liam and Higgins turn to look at me.

"At any rate, they had a child, Mary, and then later another, Penelope, and after that they decided to decamp for London, for there was certainly nothing in St. Edmunds for a penniless scholar like Jack Faber, and nothing to contain the spirit of Nancy. Jack believed himself in possession of a teaching post in London and so they all set out. Jack, Nancy, Penny, and Mary. I never saw any of them again, till now, with you."

"I know all that," I snap, without much warmth. "How came you to hear of me, here in this place?"

"I was teaching Sunday School one day and found that two boys, two very naughty boys, were giggling over an assignment, one of the book of Job, which I never found particularly funny, and upon peering at their book from behind them, I found something quite different therein..."

I know what's comin' here ... just like Ned and Tom and their navigation book...

"What they had was a copy of a penny-dreadful book called
Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary Jacky' Faber, Ship's Boy.
I would have immediately thrown the thing away and given the boys a swift smack for their inattention to their lessons, but the 'Mary Faber' caught my eye. I wandered off and read the first page and it was like the very heavens opening up. What was described there was nothing less than a description of the end of my own dear family, the thing most precious to me in the world. But through the misery of reading of my own lovely daughter's lifeless body being dumped in a cart, I saw that glimmer of hope—the hope that one of you had survived."

He sniffs and looks down at his hands, which are worrying each other on the tabletop, and he continues. "It became an obsession with me—it was all I could think of—could the child in that book be my own daughter's daughter? When I heard from a traveling tinker that the girl who was the heroine of that book was known to make port in Harwich, well, I had to know, and so I packed up what little I had—and it was not much, even my books belonged to the vicarage—handed over my post to young Reverend Stewart, who always wanted it so much anyway, and I put my foot on the road and came here."

"You walked the whole way?" I ask.

"Aye. Shank's mare, mostly, but sometimes a kindly farmer would give me a lift on his hay wagon. And once I rode for ten full miles on the back of a plow horse next to a cheerful plowboy riding the other member of the team." He pauses to collect his thoughts and smiles a small smile and then goes on. "You know, I've never felt better—since that time ... when all that I held dear was lost—I had in my mind a mission, which was to find out what happened to the one member of my family I could not absolutely account for—you."

"Why didn't you come looking for me back then? Why didn't you try to find me back then ... back then, when I needed you?" I bite off the words and I've got my haughty Look on my face—I don't know why, but I do.

"I did. As soon as the letters from Jack and Nancy stopped, I went to London. I feared the worst—and the worst is what I found. I learned that they had died and had been buried in a common grave and that about you and your sister there was not a word. And that..."

"They were not buried in a common grave ... that's too nice a word for it. They were stripped and thrown into a lime pit at the edge of town. I saw that pit once when the gang and I were out that way. Arms and legs stickin' up through dirty white powder, that's your common grave. And as for Penny, she was sold to the anatomists to be cut up and put in jars."

Why am I being so cruel? I don't know...

He nods his head and looks down at the floor. "I know. I know. I read all of the book. Penelope ... Little Penny ... was only one year old when they ... you ... left for London. I can still see you sitting up on the wagon, all gay in your new bonnet, all sparkling with excitement over the coming journey, all..."

"Did you come to Cheapside when you made your inquiries?"

"Oh yes," he replies to me. "I had the address of their flat from their letters. I went to the flat, but..."

"You probably went right by me, then. I was the one in the dirty shift and snotty nose with my grubby hand held out to you."

He nods again and says, "I know. I know."

I think for a minute and say, "So what do you want from me now?"

He seems startled. "Oh, nothing. Just the joy of knowing that you are alive and..."

"Good. You have your joy, then. Higgins, if you would be so good as to take this gentleman out and buy him a new set of clothes and then give him a bit of money and send him on his way back to Saint Edmund-Standing-in-the-Bloody-Mucky-Moor. I bid you good day, Sir. I found our talk most interesting."

With that, I end this reunion by turning and leaving the cabin. I'm up in the maintop in a mighty sulk before they can even leave the cabin.

What the Hell do I need with a grandfather, now? Ain't I got enough men about me tellin' me to be good without a bleedin' gramps doin' it, too? And him a goddamn preacher to boot! Nay, go back to Saint-Who-Cares-What's-Squattin'-in-Some-Bloody-Cesspool or wherever the hell you come from! Jacky Faber is a wild and free rover who takes none of this ... oh, the Hell with it!

I put on my maroon riding habit, and, with bonnet on my head, I leave the ship and go out into the town. It is not long before I see Higgins and Reverend Alsop emerging from a tailor's shop.

I take the edges of my skirt and give a deep curtsy and say, "I am sorry ... Grandfather ... it was just so sudden for me. Pray, please return with me to the ship and we shall have dinner and talk."

A spark of joy lights the old man's eyes. He nods and says, "Thank you, dear. Thank you. I—I know it was sudden for you, but can you imagine what it was like for me—to have lost a child and then to see her again walking toward me? I..."

I go to him and open my arms and fold them around him. By holding his form, I find him to be a trim and upright little man. I also know he is trying hard to keep from weeping.

I see Higgins beaming at me with that look that says,
I knew you would do the right thing, Miss.
Well, I don't always do the right thing. In fact, I almost
never
do the right thing, and I wish people wouldn't expect that from me.

"
Ahem.
"

I turn from my grandfather's embrace to see that a group of women has come up to us. I give them a glance and figure them for churchwomen looking for a donation for some worthy cause—a new bell for the belfry or something like that. Well, they know I got money, so who can blame them for asking?

"Yes?" I ask, all stupid and innocent.

A thin woman with a disagreeable look on her face marches forward. It is plain she is the leader and it is plain, too, that a donation ain't what they got in mind. "We wish you to leave this town immediately and never return," snaps this biddy. "Find some other port in which to do your dirty business. We know you to be a bad influence on the good girls of this place with your whorish ways, and we will not have it!" Her mouth snaps shut. I recognize her as the woman at the picnic who shooed the girls away from me.

I feel Higgins stiffen beside me, but I put out my arm to hold him back. I don't need no help in fighting this fight. I lower my eyelids to half-mast and wipe the pleasant look off of my face.

"Do you know that I had thought that you were going to ask me for a donation to some worthy cause, or to invite me to one of your services, or to welcome me into your Christian fellowship? But, no, that was not your intention at all. Instead, you come up unbidden to me and call me a whore in front of my own grandfather."

Her mean little eyes dart over to my now well-dressed grandfather with his unmistakable vicar's collar.

"The way you dress, the way you carry on..." She is not to be stopped. Neither am I.

"I, Madam, am an agent of King George the Third, by the Grace of God,
King
of England, Scotland, Wales! I hold a personal commission from His Majesty to harry the trade of the enemy, an enemy, I might add, who could very likely land right there on that very beach and sweep over your land and all that you hold dear. What would your good girls do then, as they were thrown over the shoulders of Napoléon's soldiers? How will your teaching help them when their skirts are lifted and their drawers hauled down?"