There is the thump of another pair of boots on the fore-top, and I look up to see that we have been joined by Joseph Jared. It is plain that he has just gotten off watch, and it is equally plain that he is not at all pleased at what he has found here. In talking with Davy I had, without thinking, reverted to my old childish foretop posture of drawn-up knees with forearms between legs, and was not presenting a very ladylike picture.
"Well, this is awful damn cozy. What the hell are you doing here, Jones?" he demands.
I let go of his hand as Davy gets to his feet and puts his right knuckle to his brow, his face expressionless. "I was visiting an old mate, Sir," he says. I, too, get to my feet.
"Joseph," I cry, "this is none other than David Jones, my brother from the Dolphin, from when we were ship's boys together!"
"I know who he is, and he don't look much like a boy to me," says Jared, his voice cold. "Get yourself gone, Jones."
"Aye, Sir," says Davy. He grabs a line and goes to haul himself up into the high rigging. I catch his eye and wink, tapping my clenched fist on my right hipbone, over my tattoo, to show him I know how things stand and that the Dread Brotherhood of the Dolphin still exists, at least for me. Before he goes up, he does the same, showing that the same goes for him, too. Oh, it is so good to have another friend aboard!
"Can't leave Puss-in-Boots for a moment, can we, before our little Pussycat's snugged up with another Tom," says Jared, who had not missed that last exchange of signals.
I hit a brace. "That's not worthy of you, Joseph, and you know it," says I, suddenly angry. "He was a good friend of mine when I was a child, and he is a good friend now. I do not abandon my friends." I go to the edge of the foretop. "I believe it's time we went down for lunch."
"Ah, nobody owns Jacky Faber, is that right?" He hooks his arm around my waist.
"That is right, Mr. Jared, and don't you forget it. Nobody but me." I spin out of his grip and launch myself over the side of the foretop, grab the backstay, and go down, hand over hand.
"Please don't do that again, Miss," says Private Keene, visibly sweating under his high leather collar, plainly relieved to see me hit the main deck and to have me once more in his direct custody.
"Oh, don't worry, Patrick. I'd cover for you, and I'll be good now, I promise," says I, taking his arm. "You may lead me down to the Gun Deck."
I am escorted through the throng of officers gathering for their midday meal and put into my room. I receive my lunch and I eat it. Before I am taken back to work in the Doctor's lab, I search through my seabag and pull out an ivory disk, the kind I use for making my miniature portraits and slip it into my vest.
When I get to the lab, the Doctor is not yet there, so I take a piece of paper and begin work on the frontispiece for his folio. I've decided the nine-inch-by-twelve-inch size will be best for this thing, since that is the size of paper that seems most available here. I shall have to ask Davy to see if the Sailmaker can make us a leather folder to protect the drawings. I look about at the paintings I've done so far that have been tacked to the wall and that plainly won't do. The Doctor may have a keen scientific mind, but he certainly has no notion of order—nor any sense whatsoever of how to advance oneself in the world of Academia and Publishing. Or how to make any money from it all. I will show him.
One thing about my art—while the quality of the work I have done must be judged by others, there is one thing I know—I am fast. Having painted many pictures of fidgety children, impatient men, and flighty ladies, to say nothing of being in houses of mourning to paint funeral portraits, I have learned to be fast and accurate.
The Doctor comes back into the lab, so I slide the frontispiece out of the way, without him seeing it. I finish off the drawing of the vile gut I had been working on before, and then ink in the words the Doctor wants put under it, describing what the thing does and what poor thing it came out of, and suchlike. I now appreciate Miss Prosser's Penmanship classes back at the Lawson Peabody.
That done, I am given a butterfly, a dead one stuck on a pin.
"Ah," I say, looking at the design on its wings. "That is quite beautiful. This will be a joy to do."
"I am glad you think so," says the Doctor, "as we have many of them to do. The Lepidoptera are one of my special interests."
I turn to my work, while the Doctor turns back to his microscope, his sharp face in profile. I sketch in the shape of the butterfly's wings, then put down a wash of yellow water-color. As I wait for that to dry so that I can paint the colorful details over it without blurring, I slip out the little disk from my vest and begin on the Doctor's portrait.
Using the pencil, I draw the outline of his face. He is sunk in his work and is completely oblivious to what I am doing. It will not be hard to get a good resemblance, I'm thinking, as he has a prominent nose with a slight hook at the bridge, thin lips, deep-set eyes, thick brows ... yes, Mr. Peet, I will keep the overall composition of the piece in mind from the start... When you are an artist, you carry the instructions and admonitions of everyone you ever studied under right with you when you are working. It's like they're looking over your shoulder and going tsk, tsk! and shaking their heads sadly if you mess up. Mr. Peet at the Lawson Peabody was the one who started me on this path, and I thank him for it.
Back to the butterfly. Black now for those spots ... oops, not dark enough. There! Got it! Let that dry and now back to the portrait of Dr. Sebastian.
And so the afternoon goes.
Later, when I am relieved of my duties in the lab, I take my painting tools with me and go down to the Gun Deck and seat myself at the long table since no officers are there yet. Private Kent takes up station behind me at the door to my room. I could go out on deck to take some air and maybe see Davy again, but I want to finish this ... and I want Jared to cool his heels a bit, too.
All right, wet brush, dip in color, and get to work.
I am bent over my task as Joseph Jared comes into the room. I see him out of the corner of my eye, but I say nothing as I continue to work on the miniature. I had painted in the Doctor's basic features before, so now I'm finishing the rest from memory—his high white collar, short-cropped dark hair, pince-nez hanging from a cord pinned to his lapel, and resting on his upraised hand, his precious Lepidoptera Danaeus plexippus.
Jared sits down at the table across from me. He, too, says nothing. A steward comes in the room and Jared gestures to him, and soon a glass of wine is placed before him, and then another in front of me.
"If this is an apology, Mr. Jared," I say, lifting the glass, "then I accept it." But I don't yet take a sip.
He still says nothing, but just looks at me intently.
"When first I met you on the Wolverine, Joseph, you were standing a watch for one of your common seamen while he was ill. Do you remember that? You were Captain of the Top and I remarked on the fact that you did not have to assume the man's duty and you replied that you have to stand up for your men and for your mates. Do you expect any less from me?"
The corners of his eyes crinkle up as he smiles and taps my glass with his, our eyes still locked. "Well said, Puss." He takes a drink and so do I. "So I may consider myself forgiven?"
"Yes, you may," I say and put my eyes back on my work. I am almost done ... some highlights in the hair, there ... his jacket a little blacker. Now to fix that hand.
"It seems that the good Doctor is to be immortalized in paint," says Joseph, craning his neck to see. "It's very good, Jacky, I must say."
"Thank you, Joseph, but pray do not tell him of it, as I mean for it to be a surprise, to thank him for his kindness to me."
Stewards come in bearing the tablecloth and dishes so I rise to go to my room, gathering up my materials, knowing that the men must set up for the officers' dinner. Lamps are being lit and I notice that Private Kent has seen to it that my lamp is also lit.
"Till later, Mr. Jared. Thank you for your company."
He nods and stands as I turn to go into my room. On my way I pat the Marine on his red sleeve and say softly, "Thank you, Billy."
Once in there, noting once again the oh-so-dim light, I decide that I cannot spend another whole evening in this gloom—no books, not enough light to work on paintings, no company. Well, I may not be able to do anything about those first two things, but I can do something about the third.
I poke my face out the door. Joseph is still there, not having moved since I left. "Mr. Jared," I ask, "does each officer have his own place at that table?"
"No," he says, wondering at the question. "The First Mate, Mr. Bennett, sits at the head and Mr. Curtis, the Second, is at the foot. The rest of us take our seats as we find them."
"Good. Could you please see that this one is kept open?" I ask, pointing at the chair directly in front of my door.
"Sure, Puss," agrees Jared, grinning full on. "Consider that seat saved. I assume a certain bottom will rest upon it at dinner?"
I don't answer outright, but I do give him a wink and a hint of a smile as I duck back into my room. I must dress now for dinner.
I strip off my serving-girl gear and pull out my old blue dress from my seabag. Ah, the old standby dress that I had made for myself back on the dear old Dolphin. I had patterned it on the one worn by Mrs. Roundtree, a practitioner of the so-called world's oldest profession, whom I had met in a brothel on Palma de Majorca when I was thirteen. It was she who had clued me in on the Facts of Life, for which instruction I was, at the time, most grateful. I haven't grown much since then, but I have grown some, primarily in my upper region and a bit in the tail so the thing has gone through many alterations, and it has served me in good stead over the years since I was finally tossed off the Dolphin for being a girl. I wear it whenever I want to catch the attention of men.
I pull it over my head, smooth it down, and adjust the bodice—no undershirt under this dress, that's for sure. Hmmm, this dress buttons up the back, so I stick my head back out the door.
"Billy. Put your musket down for a second and come button me up." As I say this, I glance out and see that the room is beginning to fill with the ship's officers.
"Belay that, Private," says Jared, who obviously has been standing by to see what's going to happen here. "I'll tend to that." A plainly disappointed William Kent stands aside as Joseph enters my cabin.
I turn my back to him, awaiting the touch of his fingers along my backbone, but I don't feel that. Not yet, anyway. I do hear his foot lightly kicking the door shut and then feel his hands reach in the open back of the dress and come around to rest on my bare belly. I have to keep my hands clasped to my chest to hold the front of the dress in place or it would fall down to my waist and we can't have that, no, we can't, but what am I to do?
His hands move up over my ribs, seeking, I know, to slide under mine. Then I feel his breath on my neck and then his lips and tongue on my shoulder and I catch my breath and let out a sigh and relax my hands and then...
...then I open my eyes, which had closed, and those eyes fall on the portrait of Jaimy hung over my bed, and I force myself back to my senses.