Mildred gets up and runs off while Bessie pats Mr. Burrows's brow and says, "Now, now, sweetie, you go back to sleep now. No more trouble, you'll see..."
In a minute, John Tinker, my fellow ship's boy from my days on the Dolphin, hobbles on a crutch into the main room, his left leg dragging slightly behind his right one.
"What? Who?" he asks, wondering at me standing there in all my finery.
I go to him and say, "Tink. It's me, Jacky. Davy told me you were here."
"Jacky? Jack Faber? No, it cannot be. How...," he says, bewildered.
"Later, Tink, let's get out of here," I reply, and with my arm around his waist, we leave the Bell and Boar to go out into the street where we lean against a wall.
"Jacky. I can't believe this...," he says, gazing wonderingly at me. "Last time I saw Davy he said that you was all growed up. I didn't believe him then, but he sure was right. You're some fine lady."
"You ain't so bad yourself, Tink. Still the same thick black curls and ruddy complexion. 'Course you've grown some. But never mind that now. We'll lift a pint together in the future and catch up on things." I look to the right and left to make sure that Carr and Boyd have not come upon us unawares. They have not. "Right now you've got to take this letter and deliver it to my grandfather, the Reverend Alsop, at the London Home for Little Wanderers on Brideshead Street. Can you do that?"
"Aye. It is not that far from here. I'll go there now." He stuffs the letter into his shirtfront.
"Good. They'll give you some money and employment if you want it. Do you want to go back to sea, John Tinker?"
"It is my fondest wish, Jacky," he answers sadly, looking down at his leg, "but..."
"But nothing. There's always room for an able seaman at Faber Shipping, Worldwide, one-legged or two-. You'll see. Just deliver the letter. Now I must go, as they are after me. Remember, if anyone asks, you haven't seen me."
"Faber Shipping?" He laughs. "You always did go on about that."
"Yeah, it ain't so big right now, just one schooner and two fishing boats, but it does exist, so there."
"Well, I'll be damned. What of the others?"
"Willy's still on the Temeraire, last I heard. Davy's newly married to a friend of mine back in Boston, but now he's in a French prison. Jaimy's wounded but still alive, and you are there, and I am here. Benjy's still up in Heaven watchin' over all of us, and laughing at all our trials. The Brotherhood forever!"
With that we each put our fists on our Brotherhood tattoos and I grasp his hand and give him a kiss on his forehead and then run off down the street and he heads, not as swiftly but just as determinedly, in the other direction.
I spot a familiar drainpipe and shinny up it to a low rooftop, then climb onto a higher one, and then an even higher one. I spent a good deal of my youth clambering over these roofs so I know them quite well. When I reach a height that gives me a good view of what is going on down below, sure enough, I spot Carr and Boyd feverishly searching Broad Street, so I cross over a few more rooftops and then drop down onto Paternoster Street. Then I cut down Creed and hop back into our carriage, none the worse for wear. Up above, the driver is deep in slumber, his whip across his knees. The job is done.
I sink against the cushions, chuckling over Messrs. Carr and Boyd, who by this time must be planning new careers for themselves, knowing that surely they will be sacked from the Intelligence Branch, if not taken out and shot, for the misplacement of one small female.
I draw the veil back over my face and I manage to drift off into some sweet slumber, only to be awakened when Mr. Carr jumps into the coach and plops down on my left side with Mr. Boyd on my right.
"Gentlemen," I ask, yawning and rubbing at my eyes, "wherever did you get off to? I was fearing for your safety, as this is a very rough neighborhood."
They say absolutely nothing, just stare stonily forward. The driver clucks at the horses and we are off, returning to the Admiralty, and, hopefully, to a good dinner with Sir Grenville.
"Don't worry, lads," I say as I snuggle down between them, "I shan't peach on you to Mr. Peel." I lift the veil for a moment to plant a kiss on each of their impassive cheeks as we ride back in silence.
The letter I gave to Tink? Oh, yes, here it is:
Unknown Person in Some Degree of Peril
London, September 1806
To Whom It May Concern:
I will keep this letter short and anonymous for reasons that should be obvious. Suffice to say that a Certain Person Who I Hope Is Dear To You did not die under the guillotine recently, no matter what the reports from France of her demise might indicate.
Please send word to certain Persons in the United States, especially to Mr. Ezra Pickering and to John Higgins, that I am not yet dead, even though I may well deserve to be so. However, it would be best if this information is kept secret for a while.
Please give the bearer of this letter money for passage to America and provide him with a Letter of Reference from me to Mr. James Tanner that begs him to employ this same messenger in some sort of seagoing fashion, as he is a thoroughgoing seaman in spite of his infirmity.
Please give my love and regards to the children and to Mairead and Ian as well.
I will not be able to correspond for a while, but do not worry about me.
All my love,
J.
Chapter 19
The next morning I am again off in the carriage, this time to Madame Petrova's dance studio. Carr's and Boyd's unusually flinty gaze adds little joy to the ride. This time they make certain that both entrances to the carriage are firmly latched.
Madame's studio consists of a number of large rooms with polished wooden floors and absolutely no furniture or decoration. A metal barre runs around three sides of the room, the other side being a bank of windows. I know she has classes, too, with other girls, as I hear them out there going through their routines, but I am not allowed to mingle with them. No, I take my instruction alone, just me and the Witch Petrova.
On that first day, I am given a sort of body stocking to wear along with a pair of blunt-toed shoes that lace with ribbon about my ankles and then the instruction begins.
"Place your left hand upon the barre. We will now learn the Positions of the Feet, and how to move between them. Then the Positions of the Arms. Now First Position is..."
I'm given lessons in just how the poor feet should be twisted and the soon-exhausted arms lifted and held out just so, and then told to practice these things till noon, whereupon she sweeps out of the room to attend to her real students. Three hours of this! I shall die!
But I don't die, I just do it.
After a lunch of hard bread, cheese, and cold tea, we go back at it again. Madame is not pleased with my progress and is quite free with her cane.
At five o'clock I'm brought back to my room, aching in every muscle and bone. I flop facedown on my bed and do not move until I am called to dinner. I'm afraid I'm not very good company.
I suffer days and days of this treatment, progressing from the security of the barre to dancing in the center of the room. Beginning with the bourrée, a simple series of gliding steps on my tiptoes, I advance to grands jetés, big leaps in the air, then she pronounces me ready to learn the rond de jambe en l'air et l'arabesque. When she gives that command, I must lift my arms into the air and then slowly lower them in a sweeping circular motion until my turned-in fingers touch the tops of my thighs, at the same time letting my knees bend slightly, turning my legs into coiled springs. I hold that a split second and then, throwing my arms back up again, I leap to my toes in Second Position, my legs stiff as any mainmast backstay. Then I come off pointe, allowing my knees to lower my body slightly. Then I leap out of the crouch, smoothly landing en pointe on my left foot, my right leg in the air. I hold this, steady as any rock, feeling the instep of my left foot bulge with the strain.
So far, so good...
Then slowly, slowly, I begin moving my right leg, bent at the knee through the arc of a circle to my right and then bring it up behind me, at the same time letting my torso move forward and down, my back arched, my chin up. My left hand gracefully coils upward as I again bring my airborne leg up behind me, toes level with shoulder, completing the arabesque.
Ha! exults I to myself. How's that, you old crone? I release myself from the arabesque, returning to Fifth Position, my arms slowly floating down to my sides.
"Pathetic," says Madame Petrova. "Do it several hundred more times, then I will be back to see if there is any improvement."
Grrrrr...
After a week and a half of this torture, I once again take my dinner with Sir Grenville and again we are joined by Mr. Peel.
After all pleasantries are exchanged and the dinner is served, we engage in a spirited discussion concerning Dr. Sebastian and the drawings I had done for him—one of the reasons I had the Doctor sprung was that I wanted my drawings to be published. Sin of Pride, I know, but I put a lot of work into those things. At dinner, I described Dr. Sebastian coming off the Dauntless after the battle was done and we were taken, him clutching the leather portfolio to his chest as we were led down into the hold.
"A true scientist, through and through!" proclaims Lord Grenville. "Oh, it shall be so good to see him again!" It is then that I realize that Dr. Sebastian did not need my help in getting released, oh, no, he did not. "An excellent story, Miss. Another glass of wine with you?" Of course, Sir.
The good Sir Grenville has been supplying me with books during this time, as well as paints and brushes, so I can more profitably spend my evening and weekend times. I have done a portrait of the First Lord and he pronounces himself enormously pleased. I hope his wife likes it. Once during this time at the Admiralty, Mr. Peel came to my room, flipped a book down on my bed, gave me a significant look, and then left. It was a potboiler named Under the Jolly Roger, Being an Account of the Further Nautical Adventures of Jacky Faber, as told to Miss Amy Trevelyne, the book mentioned by Midshipman Shelton back on the Dauntless.
Heavy sigh. When I had gotten ready for bed that evening, I had picked it up and spent a good part of the night reading it by flickering lamplight. And, no, Amy, dear sister, you didn't leave anything out.
As I closed the book on the last page, I recalled recent times back at Dovecote, after I had just returned from my Mississippi run. Amy and I had spent many happy hours lying back in the grass, me telling her of the events on the slaver Bloodhound. Another heavy sigh. I guess there will be yet another book, and I am sure she will have interviewed the other girls who lived through that adventure and nothing will be left out of that story, either. Oh, well, I am what I am, and those who don't like me can leave me alone.
"Actually," Mr. Peel had observed when he was dropping the book on my bed, before leaving me to my evening ablutions and prayers, "it presents your case rather well."
But at this particular dinner, Mr. Peel gets down to business.
"You will be placed in a small dancing troupe that plays at some of the more, well, less-artistic venues. You'll be performing before audiences at private parties, if you catch my drift. The men at these events will not be in pursuit of high art, but rather will be more interested in the dancers themselves when they come out the stage door at the end of the night. Do you understand?"