Little Jane Silver

by Adira Rotstein

  In the face of his ridicule, Little Jane’s proud words crumbled into dust.

  “You, a pirate?” the peddler sputtered, tears of mirth streaming down his face. “You’re nought but a child … and a girl-child at that!”

  Little Jane faltered for a reply until she remembered what her mother had once told her: Always meet a cruel word with politeness. It is sure to bewilder people.

  So she smiled with a composure she did not feel and said, “I assure you, sir, I am a crewmember of good standing.”

  “Oh, yeah? Then what’s yer station?”

  She was about to speak when she realized, to her shock, that she did not know the answer. Did she even have a station?

  “Good God, you must be the cabin boy’s cabin boy!” The peddler laughed heartily. His assistant and the other peddlers at an adjacent table joined in.

  “Why, if they hire any more like you, the Admiralty’s sure to pack up and go home!”

  “That’s a good ’un, by gum, a good ’un!” commented a horse-seller’s apprentice, barely bigger than Jane.

  Little Jane looked around at the laughing merchants incredulously. No one had ever said anything of the sort to her before. She felt tears prick the insides of her eyelids and with a further wave of humiliation realized she was going to cry.

  Cry! Had she not seen her mother pull an enormous splinter of wood out of her own thigh with barely a grimace? Or her father sail a prizeship to port in a storm with but a company of two men? And did either one of them cry?

  No! Of course not!

  But the tears were coming on and the utter shame and dishonour of the situation only made them fall faster, marking flaming tracks down her sunburnt cheeks.

  Her bitter thoughts of self-reproach were quickly broken by the friendly voice of Jonesy, red-faced from running in the heat, “Oi, Lil’ Jane, been looking all over for you! I got all me things and—”

  The peddlers were instantly quiet, shrinking back under the canopies of their stalls. The rude fabric seller looked down at an unfolded bolt of pink silk that was suddenly in need of immediate attention, and Little Jane felt her old confidence returning as the other merchants bowed subserviently to Jonesy.

  “G’morning, sir,” said one, touching his forelock respectfully.

  “Fancy a sample, mahn?” asked another meekly.

  “No thanks, mate,” said Jonesy with a grin, and touched Little Jane on the shoulder. The peddlers retreated into the inner recesses of their stalls like frightened turtles. Little Jane suspected they had seen the large blue convict’s tattoo sprawled across the meaty flesh between Jonesy’s thumb and forefinger and were afraid.

  “C’mon, love,” he said, “I expect your Mum and Da be waitin’ for us by now.”

  Little Jane took his hand and they headed back to the cart.

  On the bumpy trip back to the Spyglass she sat amid the day’s purchases. There were casks of rum, salted meat, sacks of flour, and boxes of tangerines and other savouries, all headed for the tavern kitchen.

  Ordinarily, Little Jane loved the return trip home from the market. She usually helped herself to Jonesy’s purchases while her cousin was busy driving the donkeys, but today she just sat listlessly on top of the tangerine boxes while Jonesy prattled on about all the fresh local gossip. Tongues were wagging about the new new magistrate, last seen running around the island with a butterfly net, of all things.

  Little Jane’s mind turned things over, happiness leaking from her like water from a punctured barrel. It wasn’t that the peddlers had finally recognized her as the tough pirate she was and then become all deferential. No — it was that her cousin Jonesy had come along and they were afraid of him. And he wasn’t even a pirate! He was just a seaport barkeep with a prison record, hands like two slabs of mutton, and a wealth of inked flesh. Yes, perhaps she could see how someone unfamiliar with her cousin might fear him and mistake him for a buccaneer. But that didn’t explain the fact that they’d mistaken her for a street urchin.

  Such a thing had never happened to her before. She wondered if she had worn something different today, acted in some unaccustomed way as to give them the wrong impression about her importance or piratical affiliation, but she couldn’t think of anything. So why had such a comment never been uttered before in her presence?

  The realization hit Little Jane like a load of grapeshot. It was simply this: everyone on the Pieces of Eight knew who her parents were. No hand would question the captains’ decision to raise their daughter onboard. And then, in Smuggler’s Bay — well, everyone at the Spyglass knew of her parentage. When she went to market, she never went alone — always with her mother, father, cousin, or one of the crew. But by herself, without a real buccaneer by her side, they all thought she was just an ordinary child. Of course, she reflected, people were known to make mistakes based on appearances. She knew the story of how her mother’s father, Old Captain Bright, once returned to port after a shipwreck so violent it tore half the clothes from his body, making his own best mate confuse him for a beggar.

  Ah, but Old Captain Bright really was a pirate captain, countered her brain, with three ships’ of ruthless buccaneers at his command. You say you’re a pirate, but what do you actually do aboard the Pieces of Eight?

  I help Ishiro peel potatoes sometimes, she thought meekly.

  Ooooh, impressive, responded her traitorous mind.

  I also help Rufus, the cabin boy, swab the deck, feed the ship’s chickens, stack cannonballs, and—

  So what? scoffed her cynical psyche. Do you go out on the boarding parties? Trim the sails? Or just sit and watch everyone else do it?

  And then, the most horrific thought of all struck her square in the face like a sailboat’s boom — I’m not a pirate at all! I’m … I’m … a passenger!

  No wonder the man at the market didn’t respect her. No wonder, if she never did anything of any real use whatsoever around the ship! But that will not stand, she resolved. Was she not Jane Irene Amelia Silver, the daughter of Bonnie Mary Bright and Long John Silver?

  From this day forward I will show that dog of a fabric seller! Soon the name of Little Jane Silver — No, Jane Silver — will command respect from every corner of the globe!

  Aye, she would be feared! Feared, known and honoured above every other infamous rogue who styled himself a pirate-sailor! Oh, and how they would all tremble and quake in their boots and hold their tongues, lest they speak saucily and she chop them off! Let them dare call her Little Jane then!

  So, having at last resolved to bend all efforts to the extension of her impending infamy, Little Jane began her villainous career by eating an over-ripe tangerine from Jonesy’s pile and promptly fell asleep.

  Chapter 3

  Dinner Conversation

  “This year,” announced Little Jane to her parents, whilst they tucked into their customary Tuesday night dinner of hog’s face and green lichen, “this year I want to go on a boarding party.”

  Bonnie Mary Bright and Long John Silver looked up at their daughter as if she had just informed them she wanted to be emperor of China.

  “You must be joking,” said her father.

  “Too dangerous,” proclaimed her mother conclusively. “Absolutely too dangerous. Do you know what happens to sailors who try to board ships without the proper preparation?”

  Little Jane did not know or really care, but she had the feeling she was going to find out anyway.

  “Well? Do you?”

  “They turn into pumpkins?”

  “Don’t be saucy now, young lady!”

  “This ain’t a game, love,” warned Bonnie Mary. “I’ve seen many an experienced man struck down boarding a ship.”

  “That’s right,” interjected Long John. “Why, when I were a young lad, I disobeyed a direct order not to participate in the raiding of a French frigate. Little then did I know the captain kept a pet Australian alligator onboard—”

  “Jim,” warned Bonnie Mary, who could always tell when her husband
was about to go off topic. But Long John continued, quickly warming to the tale.

  “I had but set me leg over the rail when ... SNAP! Gone was me new boot, and foot with it! Worse still, the gator what took ’em followed me around for months after, still lookin’ for another taste! Eventually, I had to—”

  “Hogwash,” snorted Little Jane. “Ain’t none of that true.”

  “What?” exclaimed Long John, truly stunned. Little Jane had never questioned the veracity of any tale of his before, no matter how outlandish. Perhaps he was losing his touch.

  “You heard me. Not true!”

  “Are you calling your father a liar at his own supper table, Little Jane?” (Unlike most parents who might thoughtlessly utter such a statement, Long John really was within his rights to call it his supper table, as he’d carved the table himself and was really quite proud of his workmanship).

  “She do have a point, Jim,” mused Bonnie Mary.

  “When I were your age I would’ve never dared call me father a liar!” snapped Long John.

  “It ain’t true,” Little Jane repeated, “’cause Changez said you said your foot was took off by King George III when his sword slipped while knighting you for saving his life. And I know there’s no such thing as Australian alligators anyways, ’cause they only have crocodiles in Australia, and it even says so on page fifty-seven of the animal book you bought me in Boston!”

  “Point taken,” said Long John with a weary smile and a twinkle in his eye. “But where does it say a man can’t improve a little on history?”

  Little Jane gritted her teeth in frustration.

  “Come now, you mustn’t take it so seriously,” said Bonnie Mary gently. “You’ll get your chance to be on a boarding party one day — just not yet, love.”

  This settled the affair, according to Little Jane’s parents, and they moved on to talk of other things.

  “Did Jonesy tell you?” Long John asked.

  “Tell me what?” asked Bonnie Mary.

  “That new magistrate, Villienne, paid a visit to the Spyglass today.”

  “I thought we’d have got him packed off by now,” muttered Bonnie Mary in consternation. “We’re slipping, Jim. He still trying to collect those blasted taxes? How go the plans for running him off?”

  “Not good, I’m afraid,” said Long John, not sounding too sorrowful about it. “But you know, I think we may be goin’ about this the wrong way, Mary.”

  “And how’s that?”

  “Weeeell,” began Long John, “Villienne ain’t such a bad fellow. A bit of a nutter, perhaps, but ain’t no harm in him. I come to thinking, Mary, maybe we should stop trying to drive him off. I talk to him right, he might come around to working with us, ’stead of against.”

  “Don’t be naive, Jim. He’s an Englishman. Remember, I lived with them and I’m telling you, an Englishman ain’t happy till he’s got everyone else under his thumb.”

  “Now, that ain’t fair,” began Long John judiciously. “Me father were an Englishman. And yer mother, too.”

  “Well, even if she were, she weren’t his sort.” Bonnie Mary frowned. “All them magistrates is the same — they just hang about where they ain’t wanted, sticking their noses in our business, tellin’ us ‘savages’ what we ought to do, and taking our hard-earned gold without a thing back in return. What were he up to today, may I ask?”

  “Didn’t rightly explain himself,” admitted Long John, “but he was carryin’ a mighty big bag of lichen.”

  “Now, y’see! That’s just plain off, ” said Bonnie Mary with a frown. “It is! What does a toff like that want with a bunch of plants, I’d like to know.”

  Little Jane wondered the same thing as she pushed her own lump of salted green lichen around on her plate. Why would anyone in their right mind purposely seek out the most unappetizing foodstuff on the island, instead of sensibly fleeing the noxious green lichen in terror and disgust? But then, she thought, as the salty green substance made its way down her gullet, perhaps Villienne really was as strange as everyone in Smuggler’s Bay said he was.

  It behooves us now to speak briefly about the Honourable Almost-Doctor Alistair Florence Virgil Villienne, the island’s sole legal judge, doctor, tax collector, and representative of the king. Mr. Villienne could only command so many positions at once by dint of the island’s small population and tiny size. In fact, Smuggler’s Bay was so small that a man could stroll round the perimeter of the island in a single day and still have time for dinner and a rousing game of charades.

  Almost-Doctor Alistair Florence Virgil Villienne never set out to be the sole representative of the British Empire on an obscure Caribbean island. Actually, if anyone on the island had bothered to ask him, he might have explained that his great ambition in life was to be a famous poet, or barring that, a scientist.

  Of the most popular poet and heartthrob of the age, Lord Byron, it was said, “He is mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” Of the completely unknown poet and aspiring explosives chemist Almost-Doctor Alistair Florence Virgil Villienne, it was said, “Who? Villi … what now?” — if anything was said at all.

  Despite this, Long John, in his lifelong mission to know something about everyone who inhabited his island, had discovered a few things about the new British magistrate’s life prior to his arrival in Smuggler’s Bay that he found quite fascinating. Then again, there was usually something in everybody’s life that the garrulous captain found fascinating. It was part of the reason he enjoyed talking to people so much. And as luck would have it, of all the people who enjoyed good talk in Smuggler’s Bay, Villienne, long starved for intelligent conversation, proved to be nearly as unstoppable a talker as Long John himself.

  Villienne quickly explained to the attentive pirate that he had been born to an old land-owning family in England’s Lake District. Unfortunately, this old land-owning family no longer actually owned any land thanks to one uncle’s poor decision to sell the family estate in order to corner the market in Belgian cuckoo clocks. Sadly, as anyone familiar with the great Belgian cuckoo clock bubble of ’73 is surely aware, such speculations swiftly met with disaster.

  Thus, the youthful Villienne was, unlike most young men of his rank, forced to deal with the bothersome matter of selecting a respectable profession to earn his bread. With his budding interest in natural science, his parents thought he might do well as a physician, and sent him off to medical school in Edinburgh. Unfortunately, a medical career did not take, and young Villienne soon found himself in a London flat shared with three other young men and a mouldy wheel of cheese they named Harolde. Alistair Florence Virgil Villienne proceeded to earn money by tutoring indifferent young scholars. All his remaining time he spent busily writing reams of verse and stories that no one wanted to read.

  Although this manner of existence might have horrified many a poor man of noble name, it did not trouble Villienne: nourishment, shelter, ink, and paper being all he thought he required.

  But to craft a child from ink and paper is no easy task, and to send one’s paper children out into the wide world is more difficult still. Week after week he would kiss them on their inky little heads with all the love and hope in his desperate poet’s soul. And week after week he would discover that his poems had been put to use as a client’s birdcage lining or water-closet paper. It began to try even his most patient of spirits.

  Slowly, he came to realize that he could not live a life shut up in his room simply churning out verse. He was starting to repeat the same words over and over. Worse yet, he was growing increasingly obsessed with finding a word to rhyme with orange.

  His parents suggested the diplomatic service and Villienne realized that a journey to foreign lands might be exactly what he needed to rekindle his imagination. He dreamed of splendid new people and landscapes to write about, things no poet before had ever put to pen. Success was sure to be his! He could already hear the ink-stained masses crying out for more.

  Exactly where Villienne’s plan went awry
he could not precisely say. Perhaps, he lamented, he lacked the proper Romantic temperament for such adventure. Then again, maybe it was the adventure itself that was lacking. Smuggler’s Bay was a nice enough island, to be sure, but one could hardly describe people who named their favourite native cuisine as fish and chips as exotic.

  The magistrate’s mansion was a residence in the traditional Spanish style. To Villienne, who had spent the past few years living in one-third of a poorly ventilated apartment above a seedy Earl’s Court chip house, using Harolde the cheese wheel as both window insulation and the occasional meal supplement, it was a palace.

  In London, Villienne had slept in the same blanket for four years without once washing it. Now he had servants whose sole employment was to keep him in fresh linens and frown critically over his ink-splattered shirt sleeves, chemical-stained hands, and threadbare clothes. It was all rather disconcerting. He spent his first few weeks as magistrate cowering in his mansion, worrying someone would realize what a fraud he was and escort him away.

  Dovecoat, the old magistrate, dead thirteen years by then, had been popular among the citizens of Smuggler’s Bay. A rotund gentleman and regular patron of the Spyglass, Dovecoat could always be counted on to supply good English sweets to all the island children and to forget to collect the taxes.

  Now there was a man, the islanders said, who, despite his vices, knew enough to leave all important matters concerning what was best for Smuggler’s Bay in the capable hands of its true leaders — the captains of the Pieces of Eight.

  Shortly after the beloved Dovecoat’s death, the people of Smuggler’s Bay were promised a new magistrate by the British government. Unfortunately, the matter took a little longer than expected, what with the wars going on in Europe utilizing all available ships. By the time some bigwig in London remembered pokey little Smuggler’s Bay and a ship was cleared to drop off the first of the many new magistrates, the islanders had grown perfectly happy with governing themselves, making their own rules and ignoring taxes.