I think on this for a while, and I begin to see the wisdom of what he says. Winters here are cold, and if I do the singing-and-dancing thing in the taverns, I'm sure to be spotted by someone anxious to collect the reward. Even if I go back down to the Cape or over to New York or Philadelphia, it would be the same. British Intelligence has operatives everywhere. Maybe he's right...
"I still can't believe Mistress would take me back."
Ezra sits again and smiles at me. "I believe she considers you an especially challenging ... project."
"Hmmm. She is up at the school?"
"Yes, overseeing every nail, every board, every bit of trim. The school is being put back exactly as before—except that it's bricks this time, not wood. For obvious reasons. That and the fact that it's now a law. Right after you left, as a matter of fact. The embers hadn't even cooled on Beacon Hill before the town fathers passed an ordinance forbidding any more wooden buildings within the city limits." Ezra leans back and smiles expansively. "So ... sic transit Jacky!"
"Very funny, Ezra," I say, and go silent for a while. Then I put on the Look and stick my nose in the air and say, "And Amy Trevelyne. What of her?"
"You must go see her. She has not been herself since you left."
"Why? I should think she would have felt well rid of me"
"I know what you are thinking: That she betrayed you to the Preacher's hired thugs. But that was a misunderstanding. When I received the letter from you and told her of it, she asked to see it and I reluctantly gave it to her. Her immense joy at knowing you were still alive and well was immediately dashed by the realization that you thought she had betrayed you."
I know I look doubtful, and still I say nothing.
"You must do this for her, Jacky."
I take a deep breath and then say, "Very well. I shall now go and pay a call on Mistress Pimm. And then tomorrow we shall go see Amy."
"That is both wise and good of you, Jacky. However, the coach does not run down to Quincy tomorrow."
"Just meet me at Codman's Wharf, Ezra, at eight o'clock in the morning," I say, "and we shall go to Dovecote. Bring a coat, and maybe a bit of brandy, as it might be chilly." I get up, take his hands in mine, kiss him on the cheek, and leave his office, my mantilla wrapped tight about my face.
The school is on the same spot, built on the same foundation, but it is now made of brick, red brick, and it has a slightly different kind of roof—but it is essentially the same, right down to the widow's walk perched up top. I imagine Mistress insisted. The stables have been rebuilt, too, but not the church. The churchyard remains, and I guess always will remain. I pause for a second by Janey Porter's grave on the other side of the stone wall, same as it was that first day I came upon it, except that now there is a gravestone put at her head.
Here Lyeth ye Body of
Jane Porter
A goode girl cut down in the prime
of her Sixteenth year.
1802 Requiescat in Pacem
I do hope you are resting in peace now, Janey, I do.
I stand for a while, and then I turn and enter the kitchen door, which is where it always was, opening through the stone foundation in the back.
It's like nothing had ever happened. Peg is standing at the steaming stove as usual and the girls are dashing about getting ready to serve dinner. Annie's mouth drops open upon seeing me and she gasps, "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! It's Jacky!" I'd planned on saying something arch and clever, but when Peg turns and sees me and I see her sweet face, she who was like a mum to me, I start bawling and hold out my arms to her and am folded into her warm embrace.
Eventually I recover somewhat and we have a joyous reunion. Everyone's here 'cept Abby, who married the other Barkley boy and is now great with child, and I'm told Betsey and Ephraim will marry in the spring when they are fully set up in the furniture-making business. Annie still carries a torch for that Davy, and Sylvie Rossio and Henry Hoffman are still hand-fervently-in-hand and will marry as soon as their parents say they are old enough.
There are two new girls, the jolly Ruby McCourt, who's a cousin of the Byrnes sisters, and Katy Deere, a tall, thin, and very reserved girl from the frontier, who I am told just showed up one day at Peg's kitchen door, half starved and looking for work. She is very solemn and not much given to smiling.
We chatter on deliriously, and although I want to stay there with them forever, these, my sisters of the Dread Sisterhood of the Lawson Peabody Serving Girl Division, I must get something done. After gratefully accepting an invitation to spend the night with Annie and her family, I ask about and am told that Mistress's office is in the same place it used to be, so I climb the stairs to the second floor and approach the door. I smooth down the front of my dress, take a deep breath, and knock.
"Come in," says the voice from within.
I open the door and enter. All the furniture is new, as are the rugs and curtains, but the white line is still drawn upon the floor. Although I have seen and done a lot of things since last I left this place, I go up and put my toes on the line and I am once again a schoolgirl. Mistress Pimm, Headmistress of the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls, is seated at her desk, her iron-gray hair drawn back in that same severe bun.
"Good day, Mistress." I fix my eyes on a spot on the far wall and wait.
She looks up and says, "Ah, Miss Faber. So, you have returned to us." She regards me without expression. "I do not, however, recall having dismissed you when you left last year."
"No, Mistress, but at the time it seemed the best thing for all concerned." Being that the school and church and stables were all burning down, largely because of me ... well, totally because of me.
She smiles slightly at this and says, "Perhaps so. Well, I have spoken with your attorney and informed him that you are welcome to come back to resume your studies, as you still have tuition on the books, and, if I guess right, you still have not attained your majority. That is, if you are still innocent."
That again.
"Yes, Mistress," I say, and think to myself, It was a close thing a few times, but...
"When last I asked that question, you blushed. This time you did not. Why is that?"
"Much water under the bridge, Mistress."
She nods. "Will you come back?"
"I would be honored, Mistress," I say.
"Where are you staying?"
"I'll stay the night with the Byrnes sisters. Tomorrow, I must go see Miss Trevelyne. I hear she is poorly."
She considers this. "Very well. But when you come back into this school, you will be completely under my guidance and tutelage. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Mistress."
"Good. Now you will join me for dinner." She reaches up to pull on her tasselled cord. Far off, I hear a bell, and I know that Annie or one of the others will be on her way up. "And you will tell me of your travels."
I will and I do.
Chapter 7
"You know," says Ezra, "this is not entirely unpleasant."
He certainly had looked dubious about the whole notion of getting to Quincy by boat this morning when first he shakily boarded the Morning Star, but now, as we cut cleanly through the calm waters of Boston Bay under a sky of brilliant blue, he appears to have changed his mind. He relaxes against the railing, then says, "Ah yes, me, for the life on the open sea. And I did not even need my coat. Yo, ho, ho."
I have to smile at the notion of the newly nautical Mr. Pickering. "Indeed, it is a fine day, Ezra," says I from my place at the tiller. "But you can never trust the sea completely, as Father Neptune can turn nasty in a minute. It is his nature to suddenly test those who would presume to ride in comfort upon his ocean."
"I shall take that advice to heart, Miss Alsop," says Ezra, using my alias for the benefit of Jim Tanner, who is trimming the sail and who, while proving to be a good lad, cannot be completely trusted yet. Two hundred and fifty pounds is a lot of money and would be a mighty temptation to a penniless boy.
"Here, Master Tanner, be so good as to take the tiller. Steer between those two islands up ahead. I must check the chart." Saying that, I get up, hand the tiller over to him, and duck down into the cuddy to get the map. He squints up at the sail and alters his course a bit. It seems he does know a good bit of small-boat handling.
Jim is now decked out in new shirt and trousers, of which he is most proud. If he proves worthy, he shall get shoes and, when winter really sets in, a monkey jacket that will hold him in good stead if he continues to follow a seafaring life ... Have your monkey jacket always at your command, for beware the cold nor'westers on the Banks of New Found Land, as the song goes. I intend to put both the Star and Jim to work. When we return from Dovecote, I will buy some fish-and-lobster traps and Jim shall tend them with the Star so we'll make some money so I'll be able to pay for his keep. I really don't think I can chance playing in any of the local taverns, and Mistress ain't gonna allow me out, anyway. Buying the traps and keeping Jim fed will be a drain on my meager finances, but I should see a good return on my money. I don't have much, but I do have a sturdy little boat and a promising young coxswain.
Yesterday, after I had dinner with Mistress and before I headed to the Byrnes's place, I went back down to the docks and found that Jim had indeed found a more permanent and secure mooring for our Star and was standing by, as ordered. I noticed, too, that he had bailed the bilges completely, without being told to, and that pleased me greatly.
So pleased was I that I took him up into the town, bought him a meat pie from a vendor in the marketplace, and then went into a dry-goods store. There I purchased the pair of trousers, the drawers, and the blue striped shirt he now wears, all of which I refused to let him put on just then. We then proceeded up the street till we came to a wash-house that I knew of. As soon as Jim saw just what I was up to, he tried to run, but I grabbed his arm and held it tight and said through my teeth, "You do this and I'll allow you to sleep inside the cuddy from now on. But you will not climb dirty into my Morning Star bed, count on it, boy." Besides, if you want to work for Faber Shipping, Worldwide, you must be clean and presentable, by God.
"Here, Madam," I said to the washerwoman, who stood between her steaming tubs of water. "Wash this down thoroughly and then dress it up in these clean clothes. Spare not any part of him with your brush." He squalled, but the old woman took him by the scruff of his neck and tossed him inside. I paid the woman the amount she demanded for the task at hand.
"You are sure you know how to get there by boat?" asks Ezra, when I come out of the cabin with my chart.
I fix him with a gimlet eye. "You're asking Jacky Faber, Queen of the Ocean Sea, if she can find her way about well-charted Boston Bay?" I snort.
Ezra cuts his eyes to Jim, back at the tiller.
Ooops...
But I don't think the boy heard me stupidly use my real name, he being too concentrated on making a good showing of his sailing ability on this, our maiden voyage together. And actually, he's doing quite well.
"I meant no offense, Miss," says Ezra.
"I could never take offense from you, Ezra, you know that," I say, plopping down next to him and spreading the chart out on my lap. I'm wearing my maroon, gray, and dark green riding habit, the one that Amy gave me for Christmas two years ago, in hopes that the sight of me in it might warm her now chilly heart. I'm starting to feel a little nervous about this coming reunion. "See that big island there? That's Thompson Island. Right here on the chart." I point to it and Ezra looks at it. "We'll leave that to our port and steer directly for Quincy. When we go past the mouth of the Neponset River, we'll know we are near Dovecote, as that river forms the northern boundary of the Trevelyne estate. Jim, come a few degrees to starboard. There, that's good."