"That may be so, Madame," says Higgins in his smoothest voice, "but the experience, I believe, has been beneficial to both of us."
"Hmmm," says Mistress. She glances at me standing there quivering. "I thought I had noticed a slight improvement in her deportment since her return."
She thinks for a moment and then comes to a decision. "Very well, let us go to the drawing room, where we may converse. Betsey, tea, please, for three."
When we have settled into the easy chairs in the drawing room, and Betsey has brought the tea service, Higgins reaches into a side pocket and pulls out a letter and says, "May I give it to her, Mistress? It is from her young man, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and the son of a very respected London family. I will vouch for his character."
My knees go weak and I almost swoon away. Oh, my joy!
Mistress considers this. Even with my heart in my mouth at this news, I can see that Higgins is playing the part of an English gentleman to the hilt—impeccable manners, beautifully tailored gray suit, gold-headed walking stick, fine carriage, ankles crossed just right—and I could see that Mistress was buying it. She may have no use for the British Empire, and I have heard that she was a fiery patriot in her day, but she knows class when she sees it, and Higgins is certainly that.
"Very well," she says, and Higgins hands me the letter.
"Slowly, Miss Faber," she cautions as I grab the letter and start to rip it open. "Head up. Affect disinterest. That's it." She turns to talk to Higgins as I break the wax seal and open the letter and begin to read.
Dimly, I hear her say, "Mr. Higgins, would you like for me to show you our school?"
"I would be delighted," says Higgins, rising to join her, leaving me to my letter.
Lieutenant James Emerson Fletcher
c/o The London Home for Little Wanderers
Brideshead Street, London
January 14, 1806
My Dearest Jacky,
It is my most fervent hope that this letter finds you well. It was with the greatest joy and relief that I received word through your Home that you were well and back in the safety of your school in Boston. Just how you accomplished that feat shall have to be a mystery to me for now, my last glimpse of you having been of a distant, forlorn figure signaling in a small lifeboat amidst the wreckage of the Great Battle.
You may rest assured that all at the Home, your grandfather Vicar Alsop, the delightful Mairead, and all the children were equally joyful at the news of your deliverance.
Upon my return to England, I immediately set about, with the able help of my brother George, who has become a skillful lawyer, to see about setting aside the charges that are against you. I expected it to be a relatively simple matter of making reparations for the ship under dispute, but I was wrong. The Admiralty is being obstinate to the extreme and will hear of nothing except your return to face trial. Even the usual bribes are ineffectual. I truly cannot understand what they want with such a small, insignificant female.
Efforts in this regard will still be made, but I say to hell with it. There is to be a hearing on this matter next month, and I will book passage for the States immediately afterward, no matter the outcome. If we are to live out our lives in the United States, well, so be it. After we are wed and we have you set up in a small cottage, I shall seek employment as a mate on a merchantman. There are very few openings for a junior lieutenant right now, anyway, the threat from Napoléon's navy being over. That suits me fine, as I am sick of war.
In that regard, it is now my painful duty to give you an account of what happened to your friends during the Battle. I will be brief, as I am sending this letter with your man Higgins, and I know he will fill you in on the details. I will only state the following: Gunner's Mates Harkness and Shaughnessy were killed, and I believe you already know that, since I saw you down there with them in the midst of the melee on that day. The Wolverine also lost Yonkers, Bronson, Turner, Magill, Dermott, and Gill, and from your Emerald crew I have heard of an Allan Kirby killed. Many more were wounded, but most are expected to live. Midshipman Piggott is among their number and is recovering at his home. I know from Higgins that you were already apprised of the death of Midshipman Ned Barrows. I know that his passing causes you the greatest of pain, but if it is any consolation, I did speak with those men who were by his side when he fell, and they report that his end was quick and clean. He did not suffer.
I, too, grieve with you over the loss of our mates.
Counting the days till I again see your sweet face,
I am Your most Devoted, etc.,
Jaimy
It is all too much. I am hunched over the letter, rocking back and forth, my eyes squeezed shut against a rush of tears, as Higgins and Mistress come back into the room.
Higgins, alarmed at seeing me so distressed, comes quickly over to lay his hand on my shaking shoulders, saying, "I am so sorry, Miss. I thought the letter would bring you the greatest joy."
"I can't get it out of my head, Higgins, I just can't. All their faces, I keep seeing all their faces and I can't ... I see everybody coming down to the London docks to welcome the sailors home and Ned's parents come down there, too, and they look for him to come down that gangway but their boy doesn't come, no, he doesn't. He won't ever come, and they'll never again see his face or hear his voice. Not even a body to bury, no, not even that. I see that scene over and over again, with all the other parents and wives and sweethearts crowding about and fearfully reading the cold butcher's bill tacked to the side of the Admiralty that recounts the honored dead. The honored dead ... And Shaughnessy and Harkness and all the others and the blood, all that blood. And Kirby, poor young Kirby ... if I had never set foot in Ireland with my wild schemes, he'd still be alive, he'd..."
"You cannot know where he'd be. You cannot blame yourself. I know Kirby loved being a member of your crew. He was a volunteer, we all were, remember that. It was all out of your control. Please, here, dry your eyes..."
But it doesn't do any good. The Black Cloud has rolled in to shroud my mind, and I just sit there, rocking back and forth, and keen. Through my grief and pain I hear Mistress say, "Mr. Higgins, we will say good day to you now. I will take care of her. You may feel free to call on her tomorrow. You will see yourself out? Good"
Mistress comes over and sits by my side and says nothing, she just lets me cry, my face in my hands. I suspect that curious faces must have appeared at the door—it was, after all, approaching tea time—but a furious glance from Mistress would have sent them quickly away.
At last I subside, straighten up, and wipe my nose.
"I am sorry, Mistress. I am all right now."
"Good. You will follow me to my office so that the room can be set for tea."
I follow her out and down the hall. When we reach her office, she sits down at her desk and I go up and put my toes on the white line and wait, still sniffling.
She regards me standing there all miserable for a while. Then she says, "I have noticed, Miss Faber, that since you have been back, you have at times sunk into moods so despairingly black I could not put them down to the usual female vapors."
"I am sorry, Mistress, I did not think anyone had noticed."
"I notice everything about my girls"
"Yes, Mistress. It's just that ... that I've seen a lot of my friends die, and it weighs heavily on me. And today, seeing Higgins, the letter from Jaimy, the news ... it was all too much." I take a deep, shuddering breath. "It won't happen again."
Again she regards me in silence.
"The year before you first arrived, I lost three of my girls. Two to yellow fever. One to influenza" I nod my head.
"It happens, Miss Faber."
"Yes, Mistress."
"Many things in this world are not in our hands."
"I know, Mistress."
"God's will, Miss Faber."
"Yes, Mistress, I know. God's will."
Chapter 12
Jacky Faber
The Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
May 19, 1806
Lieutenant James Emerson Fletcher
c/o The London Home for Little Wanderers
Brideshead Street, London, England
My Dearest, Dearest Jaimy, know that I send this with all my love...
It has been a busy spring here at the Lawson Peabody since last I wrote to you, and I will now tell you of things, but you know that I am not good at this so you must forgive me. While I count myself handy with a brush, I am clumsy with a pen. I think it's that I am too eager to get things down quickly. Oops ... see, there's another blot.
Anyway, as I told you in my last letter, our Higgins, upon his arrival, took lodgings down at The Pig. That was true at the time, but it was not long before he had worked his way fully into the life of the school, first by acting as butler for some affairs when we had a large number of visitors, then gradually, ever so gradually, he began to take over some of the housekeeping management of the place until such time as he was in full-time employ, skillfully supervising the staff when they were upstairs. Higgins does have his ways, as you know. The serving girls took to him right from the start, of course, and Peg was glad to be rid of the upstairs chores and thankful to be left to her kitchen. In no time at all, Higgins was set up in a downstairs room of his own.
The really big thing for me, Jaimy, is that Mistress quickly figured out Higgins's true nature, and so has come to realize that he is no threat to the young females in his charge, and is, in fact, most protective of his brood, and so she lets him act as escort to us when out of the school. This has allowed me to get out of this place on weekends—not to play The Pig or anything like that, for that's too dangerous, considering, but at least I can get out to visit with Annie and Betsey Byrnes and Sylvie Rossio and the other girls, and to check in with Ezra and Jim...
I put down my quill and look off into the gloom of the drawing room. It's not long till prayers, then lights-out, but I sit back and think of a conversation I had with Higgins just as he was moving into his new quarters.
"Won't you find it rather tame, Higgins, after all you have been through, to be a butler in a girls' school?" I asked, perched on the edge of his bed as he moved his things into the wardrobe.
"Not at all, Miss. While the girls of the Lawson Peabody are delightful, my duties here end after the evening meal, and then I can be off to sample the pleasures of this charming town, and its pleasures are many, I can tell you. For one thing, I have met with your Mr. Fennel and Mr. Bean and have entered into some of their theatricals, and they are priming me for bigger parts. Look at my profile—do you not think I would make a fine King Lear? Hmmm? You agree? Yes, I do, too." He flicks a speck of dust off the wardrobe. "All in all, it is a most charming town."
Then it was my turn to be stuffy and I said, "Ummm. Well, you had best be careful, Higgins." And he allowed that he always was. Careful, that is.
"And, besides, Miss, who else is going to keep you neat and tidy, if not for me?"
If not for you, indeed, Higgins, for not only do you keep me as neat and tidy as is possible with one such as me, you also keep me from trouble when you can. I recollect the day Higgins arrived with Jaimy's letter and how the Black Cloud came and how I launched into uncontrollable crying there in the drawing room. I also recollect how the very next day I began hearing whispered the lines of that cruel, taunting children's rhyme: