There is a jangle of keys and I look up and see that Constable Wiggins has come in and is unlocking my cell. "They weady now. Let's go, you."
The constable leads the way, followed by me and then Goody Wiggins and then Mr. Pickering. They take me down a hallway and I see a big room opening up ahead, and I pipes up and says that I got to go to the privy and Goody says, "Goddammit, why didn't you use the pot in the cell?" but Mr. Pickering shushes them and I am guided to a small room off to the side and get it done. I just couldn't use the pot in the cell, I ain't shy but I just couldn't, I couldn't.
When I come out, the constable takes me by the arm into the court and puts me in the middle of the room on a little stand that has a polished wood railing around it. There is a little gate in the railing behind me and he closes it as he steps back. I grip the railing and look fearfully around.
It is indeed a grand room with fine high windows all around, windows that go up at least two stories and let in a soft yellow light that falls on all within, and all within are up in high podiums and all are lookin' down at me standin' there all wide-eyed and open-mouthed and totally without hope. There's a man off to the left with a quill poised above a ledger, prolly to record my doom, and there's more men off in a balcony up to the right, all in black robes and white wigs, who look at me curiously as I am brought in and put in the dock.
They all look fearsome and dreadfully stern, but the most forbidding of all is the person directly in front of me—he is seated at the highest and most massive podium of all, one that is worked in fine dark wood and marble columns and behind him is a white statue of a woman in a blindfold holding a scale. That this has to be the awful Judge Thwackham somehow gets through the fog of fear in my mind. My legs turn to jelly and I starts an all-over shakin', which can't be good for my case, as I must look like the very picture of sinful guilt. Judge Thwackham is a big man with a big nose and a red face with great hanging jowls. He wears a powdered white wig and an expression of extreme distaste and boredom and would look like a humorous drawing of a great old hound if this were a humorous situation, which, God knows, it ain't.
The judge glowers down at my poor self cowering down here below and picks up this wooden hammer he has and gives his podium top a great whack. "What on God's green Earth is this, then?" he bellows. "More aggravation for the Court, I'll warrant!"
One of the men with quills gets up and says in a very serious tone, "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts versus the Female Jacky Faber for the crime of Lewd and Lascivious Conduct, to wit: A wanton display of female parts in the commission of a song-and-dance performance on the streets of Boston, on the twenty-seventh of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and three."
The words hang in the air. Wanton display! Female parts! What? I...
"How do you plead?" says Judge Thwackham, leaning over his bench and putting the full force of both his office and his disapproval upon me.
I open my mouth but nothin' comes out and I hear Mr. Pickering say, "She pleads not guilty, Your Honor." I turn my head and see that he is standing at a desk to my right, with some papers in front of him.
"Ah," says the judge, sitting back in his chair. "Our own Mr. Pickering, God's gift to the oppressed, the downtrodden, and the morally suspect." This gets the judge a round of titters from the other members of the Court and this appreciation of his wit seems to please him.
"As you wish, Your Honor," says Mr. Pickering, his slight smile never wavering. "I am representing Miss Faber in this matter."
"Very well, Mr. Pickering," says the judge with an air of great weariness. "What is the State's evidence against her?"
One of the coves in black robe and white wig stands up to my left and says, "Constable Wiggins will now give an account of the arrest of the defendant."
Wiggins strides out into the open space in front of Judge Thwackham's bench and places his hand grandly over his heart and says, "I did appwehend this selfsame female yesterday at the end of Long Wharf engaged in a wild and wanton dance for the eddy-fick-cation of a group of low sailors wherein she did expose a female part, a knee, it was, to public view."
"Hmmm," says the judge. "What do you say to that, Counsel?"
"She is new to this country, Your Honor," says Mr. Pickering, "and unacquainted with our customs. May I ask some questions of the redoubtable Constable Wiggins?"
"You may," sighs the judge. "But be quick. My dinner is calling."
Mr. Pickering turns to face the constable and asks, "My Good Sir," he says, bowing slightly, "what sort of music was the accused playing when you apprehended her?"
"Oh, you know," says Wiggins, "that I wish stuff. It all sounds the same to me."
Mr. Pickering clasps his hands behind his back and circles slowly around the constable.
"How big was the crowd that she was entertaining?" he asks.
"Maybe six," says Wiggins, "but I..."
"And do you think they were being whipped into a high state of carnal excitement by the performance by this girl?" He points to me and the eyes of the Court swing over to me. I make my eyes big and wide and innocent and I clasp my hands demurely before me.
"Well, no, not by the music, but by the display of flesh."
"Ah. Well. Let's get to that, shall we? How did you know that it was indeed a female knee that you did spy, and not a bit of light-colored cloth, or a petticoat or, say, a slip?"
"No, Sir," says Wiggins, reddening. "It was indeed a knee, plainly wisible wight below the dwawers and wight above the stockings!" He nods his head decisively.
"Very well, Constable, we will accept that you glimpsed her knee. Now, would you say that what she was performing was a simple country dance, one that you would see being done by simple God-fearing country folk at a country fair and not the same kind of performance one would see in a bawdy house?"
"Objection, Your Honor. That calls for speculation on the part of the witness," says the white-wigged cove who introduced the constable.
"Sustained," says Judge Thwackham. "What's your point, Counselor?"
"I am merely trying to show that this simple country girl, far from her home in England and not knowing our ways, was merely engaging in a bit of good fun and had no desire to whip men into a fever of base desire with a display of wild and licentious dancing." Mr. Pickering turns around and grandly gestures toward me. "I mean, look at her, Your Honor. Does that look like a temptress?"
I take my cue and put on my poor little beggar girl look from back in my London days. I work up a few tears to course down my cheeks. I drop my head and look up through my lashes at the judge.
The judge puts his chin in his hand and rubs it, and it looks like he might be thinkin' kind thoughts of me. "Hmm. I'm sure the knee in question is probably quite scrawny considering the rest of her..."
Mr. Pickerings gonna win this! It's gonna be all right! I'm gonna—
The white-wigged man on my left, the one that clearly don't mean me no good, clears his throat and says, "Tell me, Constable, did the accused have anything on her person when she was arrested?"
Uh-oh
Constable Wiggins, with an air of great importance, walks over to Goody and takes something from her and then comes back to stand before the judge.
"She had this up her sleeve, Your Honor!" He holds up me shiv, the blade all shiny 'cause I'd just sharpened it and the carved cock's head with its red coxcomb lookin' all rascally on the hilt.
There is a gasp from the Court. I look over at Mr. Pickering and he's slowly shakin' his head and lookin' like he's just had his feet kicked out from under him 'cause I forgot to tell him about my shiv. All is lost, now.
Judge Thwackham picks up his hammer with a look of pure thunder and damnation on his face and rumbles out, "A poor, simple, good-hearted country girl, eh?" The hammer starts to come down, "I find you—"
All bein' lost anyway, I grabs the railing in front of me and vaults down to the floor below and there's gasps from the Court and shouts of "Hear! Hear!" but I plows ahead and goes up to the judge's bench and falls to me knees and clasps me hands in front of me face and looks up at him high above me and pleads me own case.
"Please, Sir, please don't have me whipped as I didn't know I was doin' wrong 'cause I'm a stranger here, bein' a poor orphan girl what's lately come from sea and left here with no friends by her mates who don't want her on board with them no more 'cause they found out I was a girl and they put me in the school and Mistress Pimm's gonna kill me anyway, so why do it twice, Your Majesty, why not just let her do it and—"
"What? What's that you say?" shouts out the judge, a look of amazement on his face. Suddenly, everyone in the Court has their eyes riveted on me.
I don't know what he means, so I press on. "...and I had the knife 'cause all sailors have—"
"No, no!" he bellows. "What did you say about Mistress Pimm?"
"Oh," I say, and settle back on my haunches. "I've been apprenticed to the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls, where they're gonna make a lady out of me..."
There is quiet ... then a snicker, then a chuckle, then fullblown laughter in the Court. Even Judge Thwackham is now smiling jowl to jowl. "Oh, my joy," he says, beaming down at me. "After all these years I finally have one of Pimm's girls in my court and on a charge of Lewd and Lascivious Conduct yet! Oh, there is surely a God in Heaven and he is a just and righteous God and oh how this is going to put the old harpy's nose in a twist!"
He chortles some more and then says, "My daughter-in-law, too. Just wait till she hears! She was one of Pimm's girls and she never lets us forget it with her nose in the air and her grand and haughty ways! Joy! Pure unadulterated joy!" The judge pounds his fist on the desktop, his eyes squeezed shut in glee. "And, Brown, isn't your wife...?"
"Yes, Your Honor," replies the delighted Brown, which is the cove with the wig that's tryin' to get me convicted. "And Mr. Smith's daughters are Pimm's girls, too. We are all looking forward to great fun with this." The man with the quill smiles and nods vigorously.
"Glorious, just glorious," says the judge. "Just wait till the Governor gets wind of this. His wife and his daughters, all three of 'em, the poor man. One still in attendance, too."
After a few more har-hars the judge calms himself and turns back to one particular Pimm girl.
"So how shall we make a proper example of you, then, hmmm..." I swear he giggles in anticipation. As I knows that all this jollity may not extend to me, I figures I better get back in my hands-clasped, eyes-supplicatin' condition and I does it, throwin' in a little lower lip quiverin' for good measure.
Judge Thwackham lifts his hammer and brings it down and intones, "I find you, Miss Faber, guilty of the misdemeanor crime of Lewd and Lascivious Conduct, and I sentence you to an even dozen strokes of the cane..."
I start keening and I lean forward and put my forehead on the floor. Oh, to have my back bared and beaten bloody for public scorn!