Clarissa sure looks good, though, in her scarlet riding habit with the black lapels and the white lace spilling out at her throat and black gloves on her hands. Her jacket has little gold epaulets on the shoulders and is tailored perfectly to her form. She has a high bonnet in the Scottish style that sits up on top of her upswept hair instead of coming down low and tying under the chin like every other bonnet I've seen around here. My own bonnet ties under my chin, and upon seeing Clarissa's, I like mine less. I know that don't say too much for me, but there it is. Clarissa looks splendid, and I hate her for it.
Clarissa ain't the only one all decked out for Equestrian—every other time, whether for class, meals, or church, the girls got to wear the black uniform dress—but here, I guess they're allowed to dress the way they want to, and given the freedom, they really do it up. Though Clarissa looks the best, there are many others who are close seconds in the way of finery, all in greens and purples and blues and every other color, and all in the finest of weaves and fabrics. I have to be content with putting on one of the dusters, which keeps my dress from getting dusty but also makes me look like a perfect washerwoman. But I am content and do not seek to rise too quickly above my station in life.
We had a bit of a tiff, this Clarissa and I, and I'm afraid she came out on top, but my wounds have healed. We stay away from each other because Mistress has warned us that we both will be expelled if we get into that sort of thing again, and neither one of us wants that. I know you're a little ashamed of me for this, Jaimy, but I'm being as good as I can be, and I hope you'll understand and forgive me.
Hark! There's the chimes for supper. More later.
Back again.
The only thing I don't understand about the riding is, why do they make us ride sidesaddle? It seems it'd be a lot more stable if we could just throw a leg over on either side, like you boys do. Amy says it's because it looks more ladylike and I says it ain't very ladylike to fall off and roll in the dirt because you can't grasp the horse between your knees and get a proper grip, like. She says it's also because they think we'll hurt our female equipment and not be fit for marriage or able to have babies and such. I think it's a bunch of nonsense—ain't I wrapped my legs around many a spar and never yet hurt myself? Amy says I should stop talking about my knees and legs and such as it ain't ladylike, neither.
Amy is my new mate. She's a bit stiff and a gloomy Puritan to the core, but I know she's got a good heart. Maybe I can loosen her up a bit and she can give me lady lessons and we'll be good for each other.
Anyway, I've been going over and taking Gretchen out during some times I can get free and we ride through the fields on Beacon Hill. Beyond the row of houses on Beacon Street it's almost all open field and meadow and it's wondrous pretty in this fall time. Henry comes along sometimes and he's good company. But don't worry, Jaimy, I'm being good.
Arithmetic is easy after all that navigation figuring we had to do on the ship, and the French teacher, Monsieur Bissell, is patient with me. I've found that not all the froggies are bad.
Penmanship and writing is good 'cause I get to write letters like this one in there and Miss Prosser, the teacher, gives us pointers like using those little apostrophe things and how to spell stuff right. That and how to write so it looks pretty.
And we have Geography with Mr. Yale who also does some history with us and it looks like good stuff for me to learn, like for when I have my little merchant ship {don't you laugh, Jaimy) and I'll need to find my way about. A funny thing—we were all up looking at a map of the world and Mr. Yale asks us to point out where we've been and Clarissa had been the most traveled because she comes from Virginia and had been to the Carolinas and was proud of that, but then I pointed out England and then the Rock of Gibraltar and the Arab lands on the north coast of Africa and then Palma and then the Caribbean Sea and Kingston and Charleston. Mr. Yale said, "A cruise, then?" and I said, "Sort of." Clarissa looked at me all narrow-eyed at that. You can tell that Clarissa and I don't get along all that well.
I've discovered that the classes are not quite so fixed as I'd thought when I first got here. Like, you might be in Embroidery but leave sometimes for an individual music lesson with Maestro Fracelli, or you might step out of Art for a private lesson in horsemanship. In other words, they don't always know where you are. Heh, heh. And you know me, Jaimy—If they ain't got Jacky Faber lashed down tight, she's apt to be up and off. And I was. I made a trial run yesterday, pretending to be going to the stables, but instead walked a bit down toward the docks. Not all the way, just enough to know I could do it, as do it I must when a ship comes in, to mail these letters. That's how I found the post office. I went out through the kitchen and came back the same way so the staff down there gets used to me going in and out.
Oops. Time to go to Music. More later.
The music classes are going well and I'm practicing as much as I can on the flute that Maestro Fracelli has lent me. You got to blow it from the side, and right off I couldn't get no sound out of it at all but now it's going better. I'm learning to read music—Amy is helping me with that as she knows how to play the harpsichord powerful good and reading music sort of goes with that. I know it's going to be handy 'cause I'll be able to write down tunes I make up and I'll be able to do other people's tunes without having to be there listening to them doing it.
So, actually, now that I've written it all out, I guess I don't hate it here at all. 'Cept for the fact that you're not here. I miss you more than you can know.
All my love always,
Jacky
Chapter 8
Dear Jaimy!
A ship! At long last a British warship! It's now the 27th of September and my month-long letter shall now go out to you! It is the Shannon and I must gather up all these papers and make a packet and I must make my plans to get out and go down to the docks!
Blot blot kiss kiss and Godspeed this letter to you!
All my love forever and ever and ever,
Jacky
I think about telling Amy about my plan to go to town today, but then I think better of it—better she should just think I am off with my dear Gretchen again, and that makes me think that maybe I should take Gretchen down cause it would be faster but, no, best not to attract notice. I bind up the packet of letters and the miniature of me, which I know ain't good enough but I'm sending it along, anyway, and I bind them up in oiled paper that I got from Art class to keep them safe and I get some sealing wax from Penmanship and drops a great gob of melted wax on the edge of the folder and then presses me thumb into it to hold it together and make it personal-like and then, after Penmanship, I tucks it in my bodice and shoves me whistle up one sleeve and me shiv up the other cause who knows what I might need it, and then I am off and out through the kitchen and out into the world. I've got a couple of hours and I am sure to be back before tea.
I cut by the side of the school so no one sees me go and cross Beacon Street and I plunge right into the Common amongst the black-faced sheep who go baa and I push their woolly fat rumps out of my way and I joyously run down the swale, by the cows and goats. I come out on Common Street and go up that to Tremont and then down Tremont till I hit Court Street. I don't know these streets except for their signs as I'm just heading pell-mell downhill to the docks where I see the Shannon sitting all pretty at the wharf.
Now I'm goin' on Court Street and I know it's that 'cause there's a courthouse there and behind it a jail and next to that, oh, Lord, there is a pillory with its head hole and hand holes. I'd seen poor blokes in these stocks in London, with their heads and hands stickin' out about to die from tiredness and shame and people throwin' stuff at 'em, and there's a stake there, too, prolly for the whippings. I hurry past all that.
Court Street turns into State Street and that leads down to Long Wharf, where the Shannon is moored alongside.
It is a glorious day with the sun shining and the wind whipping the Shannon's flags about, and she looks in wonderful trim all polished and painted, and I trips it up the gangway and the Officer of the Watch, who is a very well-turned-out young man, comes up before me and says, "I'm sorry, Miss, but no females are allowed on board without—"
"Begging your pardon, Sir"—and here I does my best and lowest curtsy and brings the eyes up under the eyelashes—"I come not to visit but merely to ask that you carry this letter to my very dear friend Midshipman James Fletcher of 9 Brattle Lane in London," and I hand him the letter.
He bows and takes it and says, "I am acquainted with Brattle Lane and will consider it an honor to convey it to a fellow sailor who is lucky enough to be in the favor of one such as you."
I blush the blush and bat the eyelashes and say, "Vous êtes très galant, mon capitaine," proudly using some of my new lady talk.
"Et tu es tres belle, Mademoiselle," he says. I do not miss the familiar tu but I let it pass.
"Thank you, Sir," says I. "And the mail you carried with you here?"
"Already delivered to the post office, Miss. Sorry." Ah, well. It's too early for a letter from Jaimy. It's only been a month or so.
I'm looking about me at the ship with its lace and shiny brass and things so familiar to me. I look up at their foretop and my throat tightens and my eyes mist up. It is very close to the Dolphin in all things, and I thinks I'd better leave now before I make a fool of myself, something I find I'm very good at.
The young man notices my distress and says, "Depend upon it, Miss. Your Mr. Fletcher shall receive this letter."
"Thank you, Sir. Good-bye." And I turn and go back down the gangway and try to walk with my head up away from the ship. The old sights, the old sounds, the creaking, the ... No, I will be strong.
When I am a safe distance from the ship I let myself slip over into a few tears and then I look out over the harbor. There is a wonderland of wharves down here. There are at least fifty wharves with ships at em just within my sight. If I was higher, I'm sure I should see at least twice as many. It is a seafaring town, no mistake about that, what with all the chandlers and shipfitters and victuallers and the taverns and the ropewalks, the huge long buildings built solely for the making and twisting of long lengths of rope.
I feel better now, knowing that my packet will get to Jaimy's house.
I don't want to leave the familiar sights and sounds of the port just yet and I figure I've got some time before High Tea and prolly wouldn't be missed, anyway, so I climbs up on a piling at the end of the pier and look about at the scene spread out before me, all flags and rope and pitch and tar and wooden ships and iron men, and I pull out my whistle and start to play.
I start out with "The Mountains of Morn," and then keepin' in the slow and sad mode, I does the "Londonderry Air," that sad, sad song of a father sending his son off to war to the sound of the calling pipes. Oh, Danny boy...
"Luffly, Miss, just luffly," I hears a voice say. "But could it be that you'll play sumthin' a bit more merry for poor John Thomas and 'is mates what had had enough of sadness and woe and hard times?"
I pops open my eyes and sees a group of sailors standin' in front of me. They look like they're just off the ship and heading for a bit of fun. A huge red-bearded brute seems to be the one what spoke, him grinnin' from ear to ear and flippin' a coin in an arc toward me.