Curse of the Blue Tattoo

by L. A. Meyer

  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.

  Gully takes out the bow and tightens up the knob on the end and says, "Let's do 'Bungo Rye.'"

  "All right," I says, and pulls out my pennywhistle and puts it to my lips. "But that one I usually does with my concertina."

  He looks at me with joy. "Good Lord! It sings! It dances! And it plays the concertina! Little Miss Moneymaker, by God!"

  And then he brings down the bow on the Lady Lenore.

  Later, I head down to Haymarket and look at the clock on Faneuil Hall and I see I'd better be gettin' a move on. I nip into the post office just long enough to have my hopes of a letter from Jaimy crushed yet again—"Sorry, Miss, nothing"—and then head Gretchen down Union Street to Mr. Pickering's office, which ain't hard to find 'cause there's a sign hangin' above which says:

  EZRA PICKERING, ESQUIRE

  ATTORNEY AT LAW

  Under the words is painted a picture of a hand holding a scale.

  I dismount and
tie up Gretchen and enter, the door being open. I spy Mr. Pickering sitting at a desk. He rises upon seeing me come in and says, "Ah, Miss Faber. How good of you to come."

  He pulls out a chair for me to sit down in across from him. His slight smile is in place.

  I thank him and he says, "I see by your costume that you have had a reversal of fortune, my dear."

  "Aye. I've been busted down to chambermaid."

  "I am sorry."

  "Don't be. I had it coming. Besides, the life of a serving girl has its charms."

  "Well. That changes things somewhat," he says, and I wonder what that means and he shuffles some papers on his desk till he finds the one he was looking for. "You have nine hundred and fifty-seven dollars on account at the Lawson Peabody School. Previous to learning of your demotion, I would have advised you to stay at the school. Now, I don't know."

  Nine hundred and fifty-seven dollars! Enough for me to buy a small cutter! I clap my hands in delight. "So get it for me and I'll be gone!"

  Mr. Pickering has his usual half smile on his pink face and he folds his pink hands. "I will try to get it for you, Miss Faber, and for—"

  "Call me 'Tacky,' please. I ain't a 'Miss' no more."

  "I will try to get your money, Tacky," he says. "And for my efforts I will charge you fifteen percent of whatever I recover. If I recover nothing, then there will be no charge."

  I do the math. My boat just got about fifteen feet shorter, I thinks.

  "Done," I says.

  "There are several problems, however," he says, leaning back in his chair. "The chief of which is that you are an underage female and have, as such, essentially no rights of property."

  I ain't likin' the way this is goin'.

  "Oh, and speaking of property, I believe this is yours." He reaches in a drawer and takes out my shiv and places it on the desk before me. I had not hoped to see it again and I am glad to see the cocky rooster. I thank him and slip the blade in my weskit and it feels good there against my ribs once again.

  He continues, "You cannot hold property in your own name if you have a father, uncle, brother, male cousin, or even a son. The instant you marry, all your property becomes that of your husband. Do you understand so far?"

  "I get it, and it ain't fair," I says through me teeth. "But I don't have any of those things and so I'm entitled to my money. Right?"

  "I'm afraid not. You are underage and have been placed in the custody of the school and it is acting, in the eyes of the Court, in loco parentis, or, in place of your parents."

  "Finally been adopted," I snorts.

  Ezra chuckles and says, "But I think I could petition the Court to break that hold on you because of the fact that the people who put you there had no real legal right to do so. They were only acting out of charity."

  "They didn't know what else to do with me," I say, somewhat resentful.

  "My reading of it is that they were trying to do their best by you, but never mind. The problem is that if I succeed in breaking the hold the school has on your assets, the Court would then have to appoint a guardian for you, being female and underage. Do you have any marriage prospects?"

  "I do. I am promised to one James Emerson Fletcher, Midshipman, His Majesty's Royal Navy," I say primly and proudly.

  "You have my congratulations. However, an engagement will not do, especially to someone half a world away," says Ezra, leaning over the desk and lookin' at me intently. "The problem is, someone has already stepped forward and petitioned the Court to be appointed guardian of a particular female child, one Jacky Faber, late of England and now resident in Boston."

  His statement hangs in the air while my mind tries to understand it.

  "What!" I blurts out. "Who in the hell..."

  "The Very Reverend Richard Wilson Mather, pastor of the Beacon Hill Congregational Church, is the petitioner," says Mr. Pickering, all composed and calm. "I happened to be in court yesterday on another matter when he came in to start the guardianship proceedings."

  I feel a coldness come over me. "He can't! I won't—"

  "I am afraid he can, Jacky. He is an ordained minister and a member of the board of the school you attend. Or attended. You are a female orphan with no relatives of any kind. You have spent time on a warship in the company of rough men. The Court knows that you have exhibited some wild behavior in the recent past and you are very probably in need of the very correction and guidance he is in a unique position to give. The Court will look very favorably on such a petition."

  I jump to me feet. "That's it then. I must run away. My seabag is always packed. I'll be gone in five—"

  "Please sit down, Jacky. I assumed this would be your reaction," continues Ezra, "and I took the liberty of informing the Court that I was acting as your attorney and that I would be conferring with you on this matter. I asked the Court for a stay of their judgment and they granted it. That put a twist in the Preacher's nose, I'm pleased to report." Ezra broadens his usual bemused smile at the thought.

  "You are a very good lawyer and I am glad I have you lookin' out for me," I says, sittin' back down and tryin' to calm myself some.

  "Thank you, Jacky, but it was mere luck that I was there. Otherwise, you might be sitting in his vestry right now."

  I shivers at that thought. Swallowed up by that horrid old church.

  "It is possible, though, that it was not my skill as a lawyer that delayed the Court's granting Reverend Mather's request but rather that other thing."

  I look back all confused. What other thing?

  Ezra makes a little tent of his pink little fingers and looks off in a considerin' way. "There was an ... incident last year, in the Reverend's household: A young girl, employed by him as a housemaid, hanged herself in her room in the vestry."

  I sit up in horror as it hits me. The unmarked grave!

  "The circumstances were unusual—please forgive me here for giving you the details, but you should know—one end of one of her stockings was tied around her bedpost and the other around her neck. She was slumped against the bed. Her feet were on the floor."

  "How can you hang yourself with your feet on the floor?" I asks, all dumbfounded.

  "It can be done, if one really wants to do it. Condemned prisoners have done it to cheat the hangman. But to continue, she was known as a cheerful sort of girl, only sixteen, and her suicide came as a shock to all who knew her." Ezra pauses. "One other thing. It was rumored that she was with child."

  I draw in my breath sharply.

  "Then it had to be murder," says I. "No girl would kill herself with a baby in her belly!"

  "Maybe she killed herself because of it," says Mr. Pickering, gently. "Because of the shame."

  I don't say nothin' to that. I just sits and smoulders.

  Mr. Pickering sighs and leans back in his chair. "Anyway, there was an inquest, but nothing could be proved. The girl's parents did not claim her body because of the nature of her death, and Reverend Mather wasted no time in getting her in the ground. There was suspicion cast on a young man of the town, but no charges were brought."

  I am quiet for a while.

  "What was her name?" I ask of him, breaking the silence.

  "Ah. Let me think.. Jane, it was. Janey Porter."

  Again, there is silence. Finally, Ezra gives a little cough and says, "As for our course of action, I will file an injunction to stop, or at least delay, the granting of guardianship. We can demand a hearing, and that will give us some time. At the same time I will file a petition on your behalf to regain your money—it won't work, but it will at least show the Court that there is money involved here and that might throw some doubt on the supposed selflessness of the Preacher's petition."

  I nod in agreement. Can I pick a lawyer or what?

  I rise and say, "Thank you, Mr. Pickering, for all you have done for me. Now I must go and buy some fish. Good day to you, Sir."

  "Good day, Jacky, and please call me Ezra."

  ***

  I hurry through th
e throng in Haymarket and get the fish at Anzivino's, himself crying, "Right off the boat, Signorina!" but I sniff it all the same, and he implores heaven with his hands in the air, "The trust! Where is the trust?" It is fresh and I take five of the redfish and put them in my basket and tie it to the back of Gretchen's saddle and I head out of the market with its sounds of vendors calling out their wares in many kinds of English and its heady smells of produce and meat, both fresh and frying, and of the sea and the clam flats nearby and the horse manure to which Gretchen adds her bit but nobody seems to mind.

  I head out and back up toward Beacon Hill, and as I go I think about Gully MacFarland and the idea of us getting an act together. We certainly sounded good together in our practice session. I've never heard anyone play the fiddle better than he, that's for sure. He gets some amazing sounds out of the Lady Lenore—he makes her whisper, he makes her growl, he makes her shout, he makes her plead, by turns pathetic and heroic and grand—and he knows how to slip in and out of my whistle playing and singing, doing the straight melody sometimes and sometimes countermelodies and by and large making it easy for me to sound good.

  It would really be a good act, but I don't know ... I'm still smartin' from my last brush with the law. Gully said that won't matter, we'd be playin' inside and Wiggins won't touch me, but I don't know. Maudie says to me that I seem like a bright girl but if I trust a drunk like Gully then I ain't bright at all, and he told her to shut her gob, but I don't know ... And when Gully asked if I can get out at night to do this and I say I prolly can, he says meet me here tomorrow night and we'll have a go, but I don't know...

  I do know I told him that I'd think it over and let him know soon.

  I get back just in time and take Gretchen to Henry and say, "Please, Henry, could you please walk her cool, I've got to get in to serve supper. I'm sorry I'm late."

  "Anything for you, Jacky. You go on." He starts to walk Gretchen around the yard, cooling her down from our final gallop across the Common.