"I suppose I'll be made a governess to someone else's children ... unless a match can be made for me."
"Not much fun, that. More fun to make your way on your own. It can be done. Even as a girl, alone. Come, we can rig you out with bits and pieces of clothing from downstairs and you'll look just like me. The wild and contrary Valentine Sisters, out on the prowl!"
"But I'll be missed at prayers tonight."
"Hmm ... all right. You can't go out tonight, that's certain. But we'll do it tomorrow afternoon, for we do a Saturday afternoon show, as well as the nighttime one."
Ready now, I turn and go to the window.
"Please be careful, Jacky."
"I will, Sister. Turn off the lamp when you leave."
She says that she will, and I hook my leg through the open window and fit my foot on the first rung.
Much later when I return, smelling I'm sure of spilt ale and tobacco smoke and with much jingle in my purse, Amy is there in her nightclothes, sprawled across my bed with a book on her chest and the lamp long since gone out.
I open my seabag and add my handful of coins to my hoard and then get into my night togs. I rouse Amy enough to get her under the covers and on her side. She murmurs, "Thank goodness," and then falls back into sleep.
Dear Amy, I thinks, crawling in beside her and pulling the blanket up over both of us, you need not have worried. The crowds were cheerful and well behaved and generous with their applause and their money.
We've added a closing number to our act and it went over wonderfully. It's called "The Parting Glass," and it's a slow song, almost a lament. Gully plays the straight melody and sings over it.
"Oh, all the money that ever I had
I spent it in good company.
And all the harm I've ever done,
Alas, it was to none hut me."
I play a breathy countermelody over it all on my whistle to add a wistful touch, and after we do the final verse...
"And all I've done for want of wit
To memory now I can't recall.
So fill for me the parting glass,
Good night and joy be with you all."
Gully bows low and I do a deep curtsy and we are off. A perfect way to end the set and the evening.
"Always leave 'em wanting more, Moneymaker," says Gully, putting the Lady Lenore gently back in her velvet-lined bed. He had even cleaned up a bit and stayed almost sober the whole night and insisted on walking me home after our set. I said he didn't have to and was even a little suspicious and made sure my shiv was handy, but he was a gentleman and it was good walking and talking with him and not having to stay in the shadows.
He left me at the foot of my ladder, chuckling at my arrangement. "Och, you're a rare 'un, you are, Moneymaker," he whispered, and disappeared in the dark.
I put my hands behind my head and look off into the dark, too keyed up to sleep just yet, and I think back on another funny thing that happened tonight. These two gents come up to me after I was steppin' off the stage at the end of a set and they bow all polite and I'm watchin' 'em real careful for any false moves but they don't invite me upstairs or anything like that. Instead they hand me a small white card that says
Fennel & Bean
Thespians
Theatricals & Revues
I looked at the card and then blankly up at them.
"Actors, Miss. I am Mr. Fennel and this is Mr. Bean"—a sweeping bow. "We are always looking for talented young actresses. Are we not, Mr. Bean?"
"Yes, we are, Mr. Fennel," says Mr. Bean.
"But I'm not..."
"Oh, yes, you are. And we notice that you are not at all shy in performance," says Mr. Fennel.
"And you are also not shy about donning costume," says Mr. Bean.
"Please keep our card, Miss Faber. We will be staying the season at the Bull and Garter, giving performances at various fine halls about town. Please feel free to call on us at any time. Shall we go, Mr. Bean?"
"Yes, we shall, Mr. Fennel," says Mr. Bean.
I think on all that for a while, and then I turn over and go to sleep.
Chapter 26
Amy and me rolls into the Pig at about two the next afternoon and there's already a crowd gathering. My reputation grows. I know 'cause I get looks and even a small round of applause just by walking in. I hate to say it, but it warms me. I lower the eyes and dip a bit in answer to the claps and then take Amy up to Maudie at the bar.
"This here's Amy, Maudie. She'll help out during the rush. For tips. All right?" Me and the other girls had cobbled together a version of our uniform for Amy, so she don't stand out.
"For sure, Amy, any friend of Jacky is a friend of mine," says Maudie. She's lining up freshly washed glasses along the bar. "There's aprons hanging there. Put one on and get some change for your pouch, dear, for it looks like it's gonna be a good night." Maudie is fair beaming at the thought. I hear her man Bob rolling in another keg, and he looks right cheerful, too.
I give Amy a slight shove and I can feel her shoulder shaking under my hand, but she goes over and picks an apron and puts it on. Do it, Amy. Its a skill like anything else and it never hurts to pick up another skill.
"A nickel a pint and no one runs a tab," says Maudie. "Just dish it out and don't stand for no foolishness."
I can see that some of the glasses on several of the tables are getting low so I take an apron myself and says, "Here. I'll show you." I put the apron on over my head and tie the strings behind me and take a tray and go to the nearest table and say, "Gentlemen?"
"Aye. Three more, lass. And then come sit on my lap, like a good girl," says the biggest rogue of the lot, patting his leg. His friends guffaw and say, "Well said, Mike."
"I'll not try your lap, Sir," says I, "but I will get your pints."
I turn to Amy beside me and say so that they can hear, "You reach way in to get the glasses, that way they can't get too close to you, and always back up from the table so they can't grab your ... can't pinch you. And if they do grab you, call for Bob and he'll come runnin' with his shillelagh and bash a few of 'em till they behave."
The men snort and say that they ain't afraid o' no Bob with no club, but I notice they don't give Amy no trouble when she goes back with the full glasses and collects the money.
"I have gotten a tip," she says, when she comes back to the bar. "The first money I have ever earned in my life."
"May it not be the last, dear," says I, as Amy heads back out to another table. I believe she will enjoy this. I know I do.
"So where's Gully?" I ask Maudie.
"Don't worry, he's about. He's being careful about the British warships in the harbor. He thinks he'll be pressed if they catch him, him being a seaman and Scottish and all."
"That and being the Hero of Culloden Moor," I says. "If they take him, they'll surely hang him," says I. "He's got to be careful."
Maudie don't say nothing, but I get the feeling she ain't too worried about him being hanged for that. Two more tables come in and sit down.
"I guess I'll go up and do some solo," says I. "Get 'em warmed up, like."
"That would be good, Jacky," says Maudie.
I pull off my apron and take out my concertina and mount the little stage that Bob had built at the end of the room and begin to play. I don't give my usual show-opening patter but instead just play, 'cause I don't want them to get real worked up yet.
I do "The Blue-Eyed Sailor" and then step down from the stage and walk among the tables playing "Rosin the Beau," just playing, no singing or dancing, just something to get them in the mood. I brush by Amy and we exchange glances. She seems to be doing just fine.
The place is filling up and I see that some of the men have brought their wives with them—the word must be getting around that we run a clean act in a respectable public house. I had told Gully I didn't like singing the really bawdy songs like "The Cuckoo's Nest" and "Captain Black's Courtship" 'cause I didn't like the way the men looked at me when we did them—all smirks and knowin' winks and such—and Gully says that some men would look at me that way if I was up there in a white gown with wings and halo singin' the bloody Messiah, so leave off. But I say I don't mind being looked at—I am a performer, after all, and I like bein' the center of attention, but I don't like bein' snickered at or laughed at. So I get my way.
I know that Maudie eyes the women and makes sure they are wives, and not something else, before they are welcomed and seated. There are some taverns where Mrs. Bodeen's girls and their like are allowed, and some where they ain't, and the Pig is one where they ain't. "I run a good, clean public house and I don't need them here," she told me early on. "I don't need the men fightin' over 'em, and I don't need angry wives burstin' in with muskets loaded to blow the heads off wayward husbands. If I can't run a respectable house, then I won't run one at all."
I go back to my bag and pull out an old lace shawl that I got down at the rag shop and I put it on my head and whips one end around my neck and I step back on the stage. I note that there's a lot of Irish in the crowd and more coming in, so I decide to do "The Galway Shawl," which is about a young man on the road who meets a maid wearing a Galway shawl, like the one I'm wearing. This song is usually done with just the voice, but since I ain't done it before in front of an audience, I take out my pennywhistle and plays the melody, with a few embellishments, and then drops it and lifts my chin and sings:
"In Erinmore in the County Galway,
One fine evening in the month of May,
I spied a Colleen she was tall and handsome,
And she nearly stole my heart away.
She wore no jewels or no costly diamonds,
And as for silken stockings she had none at all,
She wore a bonnet with a ribbon on it,
And o'er her shoulders hung a Galway shawl."
The maiden in the shawl takes the young man back to meet her father, her father who was six-foot tall, and the boy charms him by singing "Brown-Eyed Sailor" and "Foggy Dew" and the girl sits with the lad by the fire and they hold hands through the night. I warbles the last two verses.
"Early next morning I was on the High Road,
On the High Road out and bound for Donegal,
And as I wandered thoughts strayed wildly from me,
Dwelling with the maiden in her Galway shawl.
So all young men from me take warning,
Don't you love no maiden be she short or tall,
She'll wander with you in the mists of morning,
She'll steal your heart in her Galway shawl."
Just as I'm ending and bowing my head, Gully strides in with the Lady under his arm and the applause breaks out and Gully takes it for his and bows grandly and bounds to the stage and says, "Good one, Moneymaker, we'll add it to the act," and I flush with pleasure, and as Gully pulls out the fiddle and rips into "Bonny Kate," I nip off the stage and grab my bag and pull out my sailor top and sailor cap and pull them on. As Gully finishes up, I bound back on the stage to cheers and starts on the whistle and we swings into our act.
We're flying along and the crowd is in a state of near delirium with the music and the drink and we're coming up on our break and I ends with a fine rattle of me hooves and we bow and there are cheers and whistles and the lovely clatter of coins being thrown into the Lady Lenore's open case when there's the sound of horses pulling up outside and in a moment six young men swagger in. They're finely dressed, with swords clanking by their sides, and they look like they're just itching for trouble, and at their front is Randall Trevelyne and he has his best arrogant, sneering, damn-your-eyes look on his face.