Curse of the Blue Tattoo

by L. A. Meyer

  His breath is on my face, and I say, "But..."

  "But nothing. You know it's true. Now I will kiss you, Jacky. Close your eyes, Jacky, just a brotherly kiss, now, Jacky ... Jacky..."

  His words are making me dizzy, sleepy even...

  ...And then we hear hoofbeats and Amy storms up on her horse, furious.

  "Just what the hell do you think you are doing, you philandering cur!" Amy pulls up and takes a swing at Randall's head with her riding crop.

  "Minding my own business, Sister!" he roars, ducking his head such that the crop swishes over it.

  I figures it's time for Jacky to disappear and leave them to it, and I cuts and heads back to the house. And they do go at it for real.

  Millie comes up and bounds by my side as I'm trudging along and then I hear hoofbeats. Oh no, Randall, you'll not again... But, no, it's Amy on Daisy and she comes up behind me, her face the very mask of doom and damnation.

  "Amy, I..."

  "Just keep walking, you," she says, not looking at me. "Millie. Mind her."

  Millie takes that as an order to keep me moving and on the path. She pokes at me with her nose and seems just out of her mind with joy.

  "Nothing happened," I throw back over my shoulder.

  "I know," she says. "I was in time. Just. Millie! Mind her!"

  Millie comes after me as I try to veer off the path to escape Amy and her wrath. She brings me back.

  "I thought you was my friend," I hisses to Millie, but she just shrugs a doggy shrug as if to say, "A job's a job," and keeps me to the straight and narrow. I look back, but Amy still won't look at me, so I keep walking.

  "You'll not give me a ride, Sister?" I say, a little miffed. It's a long way to the house, in disgrace or not.

  "Ladies ride. Tramps walk," is all she says, and with that, she wheels Daisy about and gallops back to the main compound, leaving me there in the dust.

  Fine, I says to myself, my seabag is always packed.

  Later, anyone standing outside our window, by Millie's whining side, would have heard us go at it.

  "My seabag is packed. I always said you could put me out at any time, and I don't hold it against you."

  "It is only because I love you and don't want to see you hurt, and I would never put you out no matter what stupid thing you have done."

  "I know how to take care of myself, thank you, I've done it all me life and I means to keep on doin' it."

  "You think you are so smart and cunning in the ways of the world, but all I've seen of your cunning is you getting beaten and ill-used..."

  "I've made it this far from a pretty low start—"

  "You may think you know how to manage low ruffians—"

  "My mates ain't low ruffians, my mates are them what loves me and have, mind you, been loyal and kind to me and stood beside me, unlike present company!"

  "You may think you know how to manage low ruffians, but you have no defenses against smooth-talking gentlemen who have nothing on their mind but to have sport with you! Randall is good at what he does, and you wouldn't be the first link in his chain of broken hearts, Jacky, I can tell you that. Father has had to get him out of several scrapes of that nature so far. There are at least two local girls who are older and far, far wiser now."

  "Don't care don't care don't care..."

  "Put down that bag. Stop that. You are not going anywhere. It will be dark soon."

  "Yes, I am. Jacky Faber don't stay where she ain't wanted. Don't worry, I can make my way—"

  "Oh yes, I had forgotten: the redoubtable Jacky Faber and her magic whistle! How could I have forgotten that wonderful life-sustaining talent! Tell me, Sister, how will it be when it is the old Jacky Faber squatting on a street corner in rags, tootling on her pennywhistle?"

  "You shut up, you—"

  "Will the crowds hoot and hooray for you then when you are not the brisk young dame that jumps up and down so pretty..."

  "Stop it, Amy..."

  "Will they say, 'Oh, ain't she the prettiest thing' when ... all right, now wait. Stop that. Stop crying. I am sorry I said those—"

  "I ain't cryin' you can't m-m-make me cry, you can't, you can't..."

  "Please. Come here. There, there, I did not mean it. I know you mean well and have a good and open heart. That's the problem. Please stop crying now, Jacky, please ... here, dear, let me hold you. Come, dear child, put your head on my breast. Collect yourself. And then we will go down for dinner, which we will have in the kitchen. Then maybe to the piano? I will start to teach you to play it. There, that is better. Quiet now. Quiet."

  That night, in bed, we start off sleeping without touching, each of our backs toward the other, but by morning we are snugged up as usual and I am forgiven. Again.

  Chapter 42

  We're back in Boston and we could have come back, on horseback with Randall as escort but Amy would have none of it, so we came back by that damned rattly coach. But we're back and hardly the worse for wear.

  Amy's right, of course. I always think I know what I'm doing and I don't. I always think I'm in control of everything and I ain't in control of nothing. I always think I know everything and it always turns out that I don't know nothin'. I do know, though, that I'll watch that Mr. Randall Trevelyne real close.

  I just wish that I'd get a letter from jaimy. Something. Anything. It's been five months since I sent that letter with Davy and, I know, maybe the wakes of their ships didn't cross, maybe they'll never meet, I don't know.

  It's hard, Jaimy, it is. It's hard enough for me to he good when I know you're waitin for me, hut if you ain't...

  I attend to my studies. I got to, 'cause I ain't got much freedom around here no more. Since my last outing when I come back with the smashed eye, Peg has told Herr Hoffman I ain't to check out no more horses and Mistress Pimm won't let me spend the night with the Byrnes sisters no more—ladies don't associate with servants, you know. Amy, too, has her eye on me constant. So I must be good. I must content myself with going over to the stables to see dear Gretchen and just ride her around the paddock and walk her and comb her down.

  And we have been to see Ezra again, under Amy's watchful eye. I would not be surprised if she has not been given a club by Peg and the Sisterhood and ordered to drop me in my tracks should I show any interest in straying from the straight and narrow. But I am good as any angel, and except for a few growls from Amy when I look longingly toward the Pig, things go smoothly. Ezra has nothing new to report, other than the fact that people are beginning to remark upon the Preacher's growing strangeness.

  They do let me out for Rachel's wedding, though, mainly 'cause Peg's goin', too, in all her finery and I get to go under her watchful eye. Peg's kids are all grown and gone, but she considers us all to be her brood, too, so she bawls most uncontrollably when the words are said.

  Amy gives Rachel a fine leather-covered family Bible that has a family tree in the front where they will put in all the names of their babies and the babies that the babies have down the years. I, of course, give em each a portrait, which is all that I seem able to do of a lasting nature in this world. Annie and Betsey and Abby and Sylvie give two needlework pillow slips that they all worked on and put in their names and wishes, and if you ask me, it is as fine as any of the framed needlework in the school. And Peg, some kitchen tools, and Ephraim gives the bridegroom a fine wood plane he made himself, and Henry, a finely worked bridle.

  Across the Alleghenies, imagine that ... and she the oldest of us and in some ways the calmest and the wisest, and I can't stand to see her go 'cause I know for certain I'll never see her again and to keep from blubberin' we promise to write and never forget each other and then Rachel and Paul Barkley get on the seat of the loaded wagon, wave, and are gone.

  Along with my other studies, I keep working on the miniatures, and I have taken them to a new turn—now I have the sitter turn a little toward me, a three-quarter view, as Mr. Peet would have it. It is harder than the profile view, but it does let the painter fix th
e eye of the viewer with that of the sitter.

  I have had two miniature-portrait commissions that Mr. Peet got for me, and I made a decent penny out of them, too. One was of a prosperous shipowner, and I did him in his office at the end of Hall's Wharf. I think the portrait was a present for his wife. I brought along my long glass and had him cradle it in his arm as I posed him. I gave him a little more hair than he actually has and slimmed him down a touch. He was enchanted with the result and tipped me most handsome.

  The other one, curiously, was a portrait of a young bride whose new husband was about to go off to sea, and she brought me into a private room and she locked the door and she took off her cloak and revealed herself in a very sheer slip, one so sheer that parts of her upper self were plainly visible through the filmy garment. "Paint me as you see me," she said, sitting down on a stool, "and don't leave anything out." I did it and I made the parts to which she was referring most plump and proud and pink. When she saw the result, she blushed and squeezed my arm and said, "It is just the thing. That will keep him warm and he will look to no other soft breast for comfort."

  You'd better not, I thinks, or this fierce young bride of yours will make short work of you.

  I have shown Maestro Fracelli the Lady Lenore and my intent to try to learn her. He sucks in his breath as he picks her up and cradles her in his arm and puts the bow to her and plays.

  "It's like one cannot play a false note on it," he says in wonder, and examines her most closely. "It is Italian, without a doubt," he says, with a hint of national feeling and pride. "And if you should ever want to sell it..."

  "Ah, nay, Sir," says I. "I could never sell her, as I am but keeping her for ... a sometime friend, who will one day return to claim her."

  "Ah," says Maestro Fracelli, handing the Lady to me. "Then hold her thus, and put this under your chin and put your left hand just so, and take the bow..."

  And the Lady Lenore and I are off on a long voyage.

  The Preacher is losing his congregation. As I look about the church I see the hapless Pimm's girls are really all that's left, and they look at each other and cringe at his rambling, disconnected sermons and keep their gaze down in their laps. His twitchy actions during the service have made even the most hidebound Puritans, them what's used to taking their lumps in church, feel weird and discomfited and they know they have only to go down to the Old South Church to find a preacher that, though fierce, at least ain't crazy. And there they have gone.

  I do not meet his eye, because if I do, I think he will know what I have been doing for Janey. I pass the time during the service today wondering how he's dealing with his own board of directors. Those collection plates been looking mighty thin.

  I think he sleeps on one of the hard pews, afraid to sleep upstairs, where sometimes he hears the scratching of fingernails or the moaning of a young girl saying, "Please, Sir, don't..." over and over. Sometimes I'm there and sometimes I ain't, but I know he hears her anyway.

  One more haunting should do it, I think. I must call the Brothers and Sisters together, one more time, before Amy and I return to Dovecote and the Great Race.

  Chapter 43

  "You see how he comes around with the dog every hour on the tolling of the Meeting House clock?" I whisper. The bell sounds off in the distance. There is the call of a night watchman down in the town sayin' that all's well. "He is not a smart man, as he never varies in his rounds."

  Ephraim nods in the dark, and he and I duck around the side of the school as the man with the dog appears in the graveyard under the pale moonlight. Betsey is there in the shadows, too, and she clutches Ephraim's arm as he comes back to her from our scouting mission.

  "So I will distract him when he is at the far end of his round, on the other side of the church?"

  "Right. But you must give no sign you know anything about this school or anyone in it, or the Preacher will know that it is not ghosts who are after him, but real people. And that I know he can deal with."

  "How long, Jacky?"

  "Just five minutes is all it will take."

  I have a special treat for Reverend Mather tonight.

  ***

  We are arrayed. I put on my costume with the aid of Annie and Betsey and Sylvie up in my old room into which we have all snuck. Ephraim is given a bottle to portray a wandering drunk. And in my sack, I have my Other Item.

  At the appointed hour, Ephraim heads to the east side of the church and I make my preparations by the wall. I can see the man and his dog over there, and then I see the dog raise his head suddenly and pull at the leash. "What is it, boy?" the man asks and follows the dog out of sight. This is my cue to rise up, go to the wall, and kneel down. I'll then crawl to the grave and stand up and wait for the Reverend. If he don't come to the window, then the night's work is lost.

  I'm standin' there weaving back and forth, hopin' I don't hear Ephraim's warning whistle, which'll signal that the watchman is comin' back to this side, when Reverend Mather appears in the window and he sees me right off. He starts backward, as usual, but then he comes to the window and opens it and leans out and says in a low voice, "I know what you are and what you want but you won't succeed ... you won't ... you..."

  I think he's just noticed my Other Item. Cradled in my arms I have my baby doll that I used in our act when we sang "Queer Bungo Rye," and I am rocking it back and forth like any young mother, 'cept more slow and sad. And I hum a lullaby, slow and sad. More of a soft keening, as strange and not-of-this-world as I can make it.

  At the window he lifts his arms and crosses his fingers in the cross sign in front of his face to ward off evil. Well, Preacher, that ain't gonna work, 'cause the evil ain't down here. Look within yourself. I hope this will help.

  "No. No," he croaks. "No, I didn't ... I didn't..."

  I have taken the baby doll from my breast and I slowly extend my arms and hold it up to him. I have blacked out the doll's eyes and blackened its nose and drawn skull teeth across its mouth so it looks just like me.

  I hear a low but clear whistle and I pull back the doll to my chest and slowly bend my knees more and more, so it looks like I'm sinking back into the grave, till I'm on my knees and then I bend forward till I'm hid behind the wall and then I quick crawls away. Done!

  We meet back in the upper room. We are quiet and I wish Abby could be here, too. I am glad we all come together in good fellowship for I feel an ending coming. A good one or a bad one, I don't know. But an ending, for sure.

  PART IV

  Chapter 44

  We are back at Dovecote, but there is to be no getting in my sailor togs this weekend, oh no, as many of the area's finest people, as well as some that are not so fine, will be coming here for the Great Race tomorrow. Colonel and Lady Trevelyne arrived yesterday and we paid our respects and Mrs. Trevelyne said she was glad to see me and how nice Amy was turning out, I guess you are good for her, Miss. The Colonel nodded and grunted and headed for the stables. When I am in front of him, I have to keep myself from bowing my head and putting my knuckle to my brow, and force myself to curtsy instead, as he is so strongly in command of his family and his holdings that it brings out the lowly ship's boy in me. Would that he was equally in command of himself.

  The field for the Sheik to conquer has been narrowed to ten, they being the very finest of all the horses in the Northeast. We have been watching them being brought in, just as we watched that day the Sheik was brought in, from the same hill that is again turning green and will soon be once more covered in daisies.

  We are mounted, sidesaddle, Amy on her Daisy and me on a little bay mare named Molly. She ain't my dear Gretchen, but she's nice. Millie races around as usual, delighted with our company.

  "Here comes another one," I say. It's a big chestnut that is being just as difficult as Sheik can be when he's in a foul mood. I look over at Amy and catch her heaving a great sigh. She, also, is in a foul mood, and no wonder—tomorrow could be the end of her life as she knows it.

  I don't want t
o do it, but I got to ask. "Will you really lose everything if the Sheik loses?"

  Amy nods. "Everything."

  "How fast would it happen?"

  "Oh, it would take a while for the mortgages to be called, for the creditors to pick the place apart." She looks out across the fields of her home. "My tuition at the school is paid until the end of the term, and then I would have to leave. I ... I don't even know if I could bring myself to go back with you after all this is over. All of them will know of ... the shame. I don't know..."

  "Clarissa will still marry Randall?"

  "I think so, unfortunately. It's the name Trevelyne she wants, not the money. Her family has lots of money."

  "She arrives today?"

  "At any time."

  "How will she come?"

  "In a coach-and-four. That is her usual style."

  She is quiet for a while and then says, "If the Sheik loses, and I leave for school on Monday, I will know then that I will never see this place again."

  I reach over and put my hand on her arm and say, "He will not lose, Amy, he is too much horse. But if he does, we will go out in the world together, and we will make our way. And we will not make that way by being governesses or by making dull marriages. Do you believe me on that, Sister?"

  She puts her hand on mine and manages to smile. "Of course. Are we not the wild and contrary Valentine Sisters?"

  "Yes, we are," I say, sitting up in my saddle and cocking my head to one side. "Now, what's that?" I thought I'd heard a far-off trumpet call and a rattle of drums.