Oh, God, no! There’s another poor soul in there!
The bottom of the stairs can only be through that door, and through that door I plunge. I find myself in a smoke-filled hallway with a kitchen to the left and . . . There! That must be the door to the stairway to the upper floor!
I pull up the front of my skirt to cover my nose and mouth against the choking smoke and lunge for the door handle. Jerking it open, I feel a great roaring wind about me.
There at the foot of the bottom step lies Josie, all white and not moving. I grab her by the scruff of her neck and haul her out, slamming the door and shutting off that hellish backdraft. That’s why Arthur didn’t want me to open the door—it acted like the open flue on a furnace! Damn!
I stagger through the outer door with Josie in my arms and suck in great gulps of good, clean air.
“Oh, Mommy, Josie’s dead!” screams the little girl upon seeing me and my limp burden. “Josie’s dead!” The mother herself is stretched out on the ground with Molly Malone kneeling beside her, wiping her face with a cool wet cloth, and does not hear her daughter’s cries.
My chest bucks as I cough, clearing my lungs of the awful smoke, as I lift Josie up and clamp my hand around her snout, holding her jaws together. Then I put my mouth over the puppy’s nose and blow. My other hand cradles her chest and I feel it expand. I squeeze to expel the air therein, and then blow again and squeeze again . . . and again . . . and again.
I despair, but then the dog’s eyes suddenly pop open and she coughs, then sneezes . . . then sneezes again, spraying my face with a fine mist. She starts to struggle in my hands.
After passing the panting Josie off to her young mistress, who wraps her arms about the dog and buries her face in its fur, her face a mask of tears and joyous relief, I look about.
Arthur and his boys are deep in the interior of the building, and I hear the sound of axes rending away burning timbers, shouts of warning, and the constant gush of the water pouring out of the tank car. I see that many people have gathered about, some to help, some not, and I am aware of a wagon that has pulled up close to the action.
On the driver’s seat sits Pigger O’Toole, his helmet on his head and Glory Wholey by his side. In the back sits the little white-haired man I saw at Skivareen’s earlier today. He ain’t lighting matches now, no, he’s just lookin’ up at the smoking wreck of the house with a look of complete rapture on his thin face. Pigger looks down on me, grinning.
“Just saw you suckin’ that dog’s nose,” says Pigger. “My, my . . . and you callin’ my Glory here dirty? That ain’t right, Little Mary. Earlier today I gave you the offer of a kiss, but now, with your mouth full o’ dog snot, I don’t know. I might find it . . . distasteful. What you think, Glory?”
“I think she’s a little snot-mouthed uppity bitch what’s gonna get hers if I ever catch her alone,” says Glory Hole, without much merriment in her voice.
“Glory, dear, so nice to see you again,” I say, all cheerily, “and in the finest of company, too.”
Glory Wholey’s face turns bright red and she seems ready to launch herself at me, but she thinks better of it as I pull my shiv from my sleeve and hold it up in front of my face, the sunlight glinting off its razor-sharp blade.
“Fat Pigger there can tell you that I’m a Cockney from Cheapside,” I say with a smile, “and we fight real dirty there.”
She gets my point and settles herself back down, fuming. She gives Pigger a poke in the side as if she expects some defense of her honor, but instead he raises his voice and says to the crowd in general, “I am sure all of you good people know that the damage to this poor dwelling would have been far less had that silly green symbol not been pinned to the side o’ the house . . .” He points to the shamrock. “Tsk, tsk! No, best stick with the Free Men’s Fire and Insurance Company, for the best fire protection . . . and prevention.”
The little white-haired man in back explodes into giggles over his boss’s words, but his eyes never leave the burned-out building, out of which steps a soot-covered Arthur McBride. He sees Pigger and company and comes over.
“Get out of here, Tooley. You ain’t wanted here.”
“Why, Captain,” says Pigger with a wide grin. “We just stopped by to see if we could help out a fellow firefighter.”
“Help?” Arthur spits a black gob of spittle on the ground in front of the wagon. “Is that why you brought yer whore and yer looney instead of yer water wagon?”
“You be careful just who you slanders, Captain,” warns Pigger, his grin still in place as he chucks his team and rolls off.
“I know the two up top, Arthur, but what is the thing in the back?” I ask.
“He’s known as Pyro Johnny, and he is a dirty piece of work, for sure. He’s holed up at Skivareen’s with the rest of Tooley’s crew. People ’round here hire him to burn brush and garbage, but the word is he sets other fires, too.” Arthur looks significantly at the smoldering house. “This fire could have started in the kitchen below, but it could have been Pyro’s work just as easy. Look at him, Jacky, he can’t get enough of this.”
Pigger’s wagon is about to disappear around the corner, but the little man has moved to the back of the cart, still staring at the fire scene, his hands gripped on the sides, his eyes shining.
“Why hasn’t he been sent to a lunatic asylum, then? Or hanged?”
“Because Constable Fat Ass Wiggins would have to be the one to arrest him, and you know the name of that tune, don’t you?” says McBride. He looks me up and down, his white toothy grin splitting the black of his face. Then he says, his mind no longer on Wiggins, “So, our Saint Jacky of Assisi today risks her own dear skin to rescue and breathe the air of life back into a mongrel dog. Such a thing, it fair tears me heart out.”
I give a bit of a sniff. “Someone once did that same thing for me and I felt I should pass it on.”
He laughs and turns to his men. “We’re done here, lads. Patsy, Dougie, fill some buckets and stick around and watch for flare-ups. Rest o’ you, let’s go—we gotta refill in case Pyro makes some more work for us.”
The woman of the house is being taken away, weeping, by friends and relatives. Her little girl tags along, her puppy bouncing by her side. The ladders are stowed and secured and I put my foot on one of them and regain my perch on top of the pump. Molly comes up behind me and wraps her arms about my waist, the men cling to the sides, the team is turned, and we head off, back down Beacon Street.
Again we approach the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls, but this time a black-clad figure leaves the front porch where she has obviously been standing, waiting for our return, to advance to the middle of the street, right arm upraised, palm forward. Arthur reins in the horses and we come to a halt. The person says nothing, but only points to me and then points to a spot in front of her.
With a sigh, I climb down and go to the spot and curtsy, as best as I can, given my soot-streaked face and dress.
“My office, Miss Faber,” she says, then turns away.
“Yes, Mistress,” I say with a certain amount of resignation in my voice. I wave the others on, for they must fill their pump and I am not far from the Nancy B., which is where I intend to stay this night. They wave and clatter off and I follow Headmistress Amanda Pimm into the Lawson Peabody.
I enter her office, as I have done so many times before, in a state of disarray, and put my toes on the white line, once more a schoolgirl. I resist the impulse to flip up my skirts and lay my upper body across the desk, ready to receive punishment.
“So, Miss Faber, where have you been?” asks Mistress, her mouth set, her gaze level. “Explain.”
And I do.
I tell her of France and Napoleon and the battles I have seen, of the legions of the dead lying on the ground, of Newgate and the South China Sea and the Lorelei Lee and Cheng Shih and Chopstick Charlie and the Duke of Clarence and . . .
In the middle of it I am interrupted and allowed into Mistress’s washroom to rinse the soot from my face and hands while she sends out for tea. When I return, we sit at a small table and the tea is brought.
. . . and King George III and General Wellesley and Portugal and Francisco Goya and Spanish guerillas and the Romani . . . and . . . and . . .
And eventually I tell it all, more or less coherently. I sit back in my chair, both physically and spiritually exhausted. It has been a very long day.
Mistress thinks for a while on what I have said, then says, “Remarkable. Truly remarkable.” She looks me over. “You are not in a fit condition to take dinner with my girls. Plus you seem very tired. However, we are having graduation next week, it also being the end of the term, and I invite you to attend, as I am sure many of your classmates would enjoy seeing you there. Will you come?”
“Yes, Mistress, I would like that very much.”
“Good. You are excused, Miss Faber.”
When I climb back aboard the Nancy B., still streaked and sooty, Jemimah doesn’t say a word but merely stokes up the kitchen stove and sets kettles of water on it to heat for my bath. In a short while, I am in it.
Ahhhhh . . .
As I lie back in my beautiful little brass-bound copper tub made especially for me and my small size, I reflect that this is my first real bath in a long time—one in a tub, anyway—not since I was a member of Francisco Goya’s studio, and then I had a circle of artists about the tub, drawing me as I lolled in the suds. Of course, after I joined King Zoltan’s caravan of Romani, Medca and Lala and I and the rest of the unmarried girls bathed frequently in the rivers and streams along the banks where the gypsy caravan camped. As for my way over the Big Pond to here aboard the Margaret Todd, there was certainly no lolling about in a tub. One does not take full baths on a merchantman crossing the Atlantic, not when one is a girl posing as a male seaman.
Mmmmm . . .
I wallow in sinful pleasure for a long time, while Jemimah rustles up some grub for the two of us. Daniel Prescott is the only other one onboard, and he is out on watch, already well fed.
When I finally get out, leaving the water a lot grayer than I usually do, I dry myself and get into my nightdress, and then Jemimah and I sit at the long mess table and share a companionable meal—cold chicken, hot rice, and biscuits with gravy. Mmmmm . . .
I tell Jemimah of some of my travels and, in particular, my encounter with Brother Bullfrog when I was starving back in Spain, as I think she would enjoy the telling of it . . .
Hello, Brother Bullfrog. How you been? I said to the frog. The bullfrog brought his big googly eyes to look upon me.
Well, hello, Sister Girl. I been jus’ fine. Whatcha got on yo’ mind?
My mind is set on eatin’ you, Brother Bullfrog—legs, belly, croaker, and all, that’s what.
Hmmm . . . I might be havin’ a bit of a problem wi’ dat, Sister Jacky. What makes you think you can ’complish dat t’ing?
It’s ’cause I’m low and cunning and powerful hungry, and I’ll get it done. You’ll see, Brother. You be restin’ in my belly soon.