"Oh," says Clarissa, "how clumsy of you. You really must hold the tray steady. I'm sure you'll clean that up immediately, won't you?"
"Yes, Miss," I say, and I'm wantin' to dump the whole tray over her head but I'm sure I'd be taken back to court for assaulting a real lady with a tray of meat if I did, giving Wiggins the excuse he needs to lay his rod upon my back, so I don't. What I do is take my tray back to the cart and take a napkin and go back to the table and kneel down and clean up the mess. Then I go back to the cart and take a tray of vegetables and resume serving.
It's bad, but not so bad that I can't stand it.
Later, when we're back in the kitchen, I'm put in a chair and a cup of tea is put in my hand and my shoe is taken off and cleaned and a wet cloth is put to my stocking to clean off the gravy and Rachel says, "Don't you worry, Tacky, that one's gonna get it some day, and I hope I'm there to see it!"
"From the amount of curses you all have already laid on that one's head, well, one of them's bound to take, sooner or later," says Peg, which gets a laugh from all, even me.
Peg fusses over me a bit and then says, "Go over and feed some apples to that nag you love so much. Be back in time to help with supper."
Good, good Peg, I thinks. Bless you for giving me this bit of time. You miss very little in this world that you rule so kindly.
Over at the stables I put an apple in the palm of my hand and Gretchen takes it oh-so-gentle and I bury my face in her silken mane and it soothes and gentles my mind. I stay there like that for a long time.
After a while I hear Henry come into the stall and I lift my head to see that he has brought in a saddle, which he throws on Gretchen's back.
"Here, Miss, take her for a ride. Just walk about the fields a bit. It will make you feel better, I know it will." He cinches her up and hands me the reins.
I take them from him and place my hand on his and say, "Thank you, Henry. But now you must call me Jacky, for I am no longer a lady." I put my foot in the stirrup and climb aboard.
"All right, Jacky. I will call you that if you want, but you will always be a lady to me, no matter what."
"But why?" I say. "I sure ain't acted like one."
"It's for how you treated a stableboy when you were one of The Ladies, is why," he says, and he leads Gretchen and me out into the light.
***
J. Faber
General Delivery
U.S. Post Office
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
October 5, 1803
James Emerson Fletcher
Number 9 Brattle Lane
London, England
Dearest Jaimy:
With my own hand I now release you from the vow of marriage which you honored me with when we were both children on HMS Dolphin, as I have been busted down to serving girl and will never be a fine lady as you wished me to be, a lady worthy to stand by your side.
Without going too much into the sordid details of my fall, it is enough to say that my wanton ways have got me in deep trouble again, and although I am still a good girl and am still promised to you, I am in deep disgrace.
I shall remain promised to you until such time as I receive a letter from you saying that you don't want me anymore.
Please write to me, either way. It seems like it's been a long, long time, Jaimy.
All my love,
Jacky
Chapter 13
It is on the second Sunday after my fall from grace that the word comes down from above that I must go back to the church for more of the Preacher's counseling and guidance. Damn, and I just got out of that place, I thinks, what with him going on and on about sin and stuff as usual and looking at me when he says it, me now standing in the back, apart from the ladies.
We were preparing the noon meal when I was summoned, and I put aside the tray of steamed greens I was making up and wipe my hands, heave a heavy sigh, and head out. The other girls give me looks of sympathy as I go, but Betsey, strangely, looks at me with real alarm in her eyes, and says don't... but lets it drop there and sits down and worries her hands in her lap. Don't what? I wonders as I cross the space between the church and the school, going past the graveyard and the unmarked grave.
I open the door and go in and again he is standing tall and severe up at his podium, his white collar tabs glowing in the half darkness of the place. He points to the aisle in front of him and I go there and kneel and put my hands up in a prayerful attitude as I did on my last visit to this place.
"We have now seen where your wanton ways have gotten you, haven't we, girl?"
"Yes, Sir, we have."
"And have you prayed for forgiveness, girl?"
"Yes, Sir, I have." Anything to get me out of here.
"I think it is plain to you now that the Devil is indeed in you, girl, is he not?"
"I hope he is not, Sir." Get ready, my poor knees, for yet more pain. "And I do not believe he is, Sir." I look up at him when I say this and hold his gaze. I am growing heartily sick of all this.
"What? You dance wildly in the streets, showing your limbs before decent people and expect us to believe that?" He takes a deep breath and pulls himself up to his full height. The light inside the church is gloomy, with dust motes floating about in the weak light that comes through the high windows. "You end up in jail and there carouse with whores and other low types the whole night long and you say the fiend is not in you, has not taken possession of you entirely?"
"It was not that way at all, Sir," I say, wearily, and settle back onto my haunches. Sounds to me like the Preacher has been talking to somebody from the jail to know so much about my night there. Prolly that Wiggins. I drop my hands from the prayerful attitude and fold them in my lap. How much more can they do to me?
"Liar!" he shouts, coming around the lectern and pointing his finger at me. "Liar! Strumpet! Minion of Satan!" He is working himself up to a fine froth and I'm starting to get scared. It is now that I notice he has a long rod in his hand. "You will put your hands back up in a proper supplicating posture and you will beg on your bended knees the good Lord's forgiveness for your transgressions against his holy teachings!"
I do not do it. I say instead, "I do not recall the good Lord saying anything about singing and dancing, 'cept maybe that thing about makin' a joyful noise unto the Lord, which is what I was doin' when I was arrested. I was makin' joyful noises unto some of his own creatures, to bring them some cheer, I was, and there was no harm in it, Sir, not a bit."
He is astounded. His mouth works up and his eyes stare at me in disbelief and I swear a line of spittle comes out the side of it and runs down his chin. I get to my feet, as I have had enough of this.
"What! No shame? No contrition? You are possessed! You will prostrate yourself!" he shouts, letting loose a cloud of spit droplets in the air. "Prepare to have the Devil beaten out of you!"
He raises his rod and comes toward me. I back off a few steps and says, "No, Sir. I will not be beaten by you. I have been beaten by Mistress Pimm, but I suppose that goes with being in a school, but I will not be beaten by you, not in a church." I pause for breath, for my heart is poundin' and my chest is startin' to heave. "I go to a church for solace and consolation and to be in company with my friends in the presence of God and to think about my place in His universe, not to be beaten and shamed!"
I'm in a fine froth myself by now and I don't know where I'm gettin' the cheek to speak up like this but I push on, the words just pourin' out o' me.
"I spent almost two years in the Royal Navy, and I was not flogged once, Sir, not once!" I pull myself up and throw my head back. "I ain't apprenticed to you, and I ain't a member of your household. You think that 'cause I ain't a lady no more that you can beat on me if you want, but you're wrong, Sir, as I am a freeborn English woman and I will not be struck by you!"
I've been walking backwards this whole time and I'm about to turn to go out the door when he rushes up to me and grabs me by the arm and lifts the rod again, shouting something about a Jezebel right into my face, but I shouts back at him, "You let go of me, Preacher! If you hit me I'll put the police on you, I will! I know where they are and how things work down at the courthouse and ... and ... and I got me a lawyer, too! So let go of me!"
With that I jerk my arm from his grasp and bolt out the door, leavin' the amazed Preacher alone in the gloom of his church.
I rush back into the warmth and safety of the kitchen and put my back to the door and stand there pantin', tryin' to calm myself down. Through the fog of my fear and anger I hear Betsey say, "See, Peg, seel It's happening again!" and "Shush, you don't know, you must be quiet, hush your mouth now!" from Peg.
I think that's what was said, but when I ask Betsey about it later, she just shakes her head and won't say a word. And neither will Peg.
Chapter 14
It ain't long till Annie and Betsey Byrnes invite me to go home with them to spend the night and Mistress says all right 'cause she really don't care what her serving girls do, even though she makes sure I'm locked up tight every night. And Sylvie comes over, too, 'cause she lives just down the street from them, and we have a fine dinner with their parents and their younger sisters and brother and one older brother whose name is Timothy who seems right pleased that I came over. Their father is a shipwright so we got a lot of things in common and we get along well, and their mother is a fussy, jolly sort, who makes sure everyone's got enough to eat, and beams proudly over her merry brood.
After dinner we play ring games and tell riddles and I pull out my pennywhistle and give 'em a few tunes and songs and raps out some steps and then we gathers about the fireplace and pops popcorn, which is the most wondrous and tasty thing and which Betsey says the early settlers learned from the Indians back when the Indians was being nice before the British started paying them to ... and then she reddens and clams up, having forgot for a moment, I guess, my history and place of birth, but I laughs it off and packs in more of the salty popcorn and sings a few more songs. Timothy sits next to me by the fire and we hold hands for a while till it's time for us to go to bed. He's a sweet boy and I give him a peck on the cheek as we leave for upstairs. Then we girls get dressed for bed and have a great giggling good time in their big old feather bed, all of us, Annie and Betsey and Sylvie and even the little ones, Eileen and Gabby and Antonia, who are so thrilled to be with their older sisters on this night of merriment that we fear they shall never sleep.
But sleep they do and then we sit up cross-legged and light one candle and talk of the boys they got their eyes on, with great snickerin' and teasing back and forth. Annie and even shy Sylvie are quite frank in reeling off their list of boys who they might look favorably on, but Betsey keeps her secrets, she just smiles and shakes her head and looks off. They tell me I should marry Timothy 'cause he's taken a shine to me and he's a good boy and has got a trade and they'd love to have me for a sister-in-law, but I have to tell 'em I am promised to another.
Course they drags every detail of my recent misadventure out of me and I warms to it, being a natural show-off and storyteller, and I prolly shouldn't but I really gets into the tellin' of it, and they squeals and covers their mouths with their hands in shock and delight when I tells 'em about Mrs. Bodeen's girls and specially about Mam'selle Claudelle day Bour-bon. Then I puffs up like the judge and tells that part, usin' a deep voice for the judge and a high squeaky one for the constable and a sweet one for Mr. Pickering, and they says how could you be so brave to take all that, and I say I warn't brave at all as I was on the edge of wettin' my pants at any moment during the whole thing and they can take that as the truth, and amen to that.