I take my regular clothes back to my chest of drawers and I carefully lay my uniform dress out in a drawer of its own. There is a net bag in the bottom drawer and I do not know what it is for but I'm sure I will find out. I hang my towel on the hook at the head of my bed.
Amy comes back from the privy decked out in her own nightclothes and I look to her to see what to do next. Climbing into my bunk and going to sleep seems much too simple, and I am right. Mistress comes briskly into the room and taps her rod once on the deck and says, "Prayers."
There is the sound of knees hitting the floor as all the girls kneel next to their beds, and so I do the same. I glance around and see that everybody has their hands in prayerful attitude and is mumbling away, and I do the same. I figures "Now I lay me down to sleep" will work and then the Lord's Prayer, can't go wrong with that, and then I hear some of the nearby girls blessing their mums and dads and sisters and brothers so I sets in to blessing Jaimy and Tink and Davy and Willy and Liam and Snag and Captain Locke and Mr. Lawrence and, yes, even Mr. Haywood and the rest of the Dolphins and then puts in a word for the ones passed on like Benjy and Rooster Charlie and Grant and Spence, and then I'm mentioning Johnny No Toes and Hugh the Grand and Polly and Nancy and Judy of the Blackfriars Bridge gang when I notice Mistress standing next to me and I stops reelin' off the names. I guess I've blessed enough.
She taps her cane twice on the floor and the girls pile into their beds.
Mistress says, "Good night, girls."
"Good night, Mistress," we all say.
Mistress herself goes about and snuffs the lamps. Soon all is darkness.
A great wave of weariness sweeps over me even though I ain't done no real work today, and with the weariness comes the hopelessness of homesickness, too, that awful feelin' that things ain't never gonna get any better than they are now, and I'm startin' to wet my pillow with my tears but I got to stop it. I can't let them hear me cry, I can't. You got to look on the bright side of things now, I tells myself. The truth is no one tried to hang you today or even threatened you with it. You were not thrown naked into the street. You were beaten but not insensible. All those things have happened to you before, but not today. True, you've got to contend with horses tomorrow and I know you ain't lookin' forward to that, and that Clarissa is hateful and awful but at least she's not tryin' to actually kill you. Mistress is as stern as any Bo'sun or officer, but did the First Mate come to you every night on the Dolphin with a glass of warm milk and a kiss to tuck you in? No, he did not. So stop your complainin'.
I burrow down under the covers and curl up in a ball and clasp Jaimy's ring in my hand, and having already prayed for his health and safety, I start to fall into sleep. It is hard to believe that only this morning I woke from such sleep on the Dolphin. Such a long time ago, a world away it seems.
Chapter 2
Sleep is shattered the next morning by the ringing of yet another bell. I curse the ringer of the bell and throw back the covers and get out and pull my drawers and my shift from the sea chest and take my towel and stumble off to the washroom.
I'm the first one in and so have my pick of the stalls. I guess the others ain't used to bein' awakened for night watches by the Bo'sun, him what calls once and whacks second if you ain't up and on the deck right quick. I notice that the pitcher is full of water again and that the water is warm. The serving girls must have been in and I didn't even hear 'em, poor things. I wonder what time they had to get up.
So I whips off me cap and nightgown, takes care of the necessaries, and washes up. I runs the toothbrush what Tilly give me over the soap and then over my teeth, rinse and spit, and then I squints at myself in the mirror and decides that my hair will do for one more day, especially seein' as how I don't know how the washin' of hair is done around here and from the looks of some of 'em, it ain't been a real regular practice.
Goin' back into the main sleeping room in my shift and drawers, my bare feet slappin' on the floor, I see that half of 'era ain't even out of bed yet, Amy included. Clarissa's up, though.
Good. I throw on my dress and stockings and shoes and quickly make my bed, and then I head out to explore. Let's see what this ship has in the way of secrets.
First, I go down the hall and down the stairs and down another hall to the foyer to see if the front door is kept locked. It is. Or, at least it's locked now, but maybe that's on account of it's early. The lock has a latch on the inside and I quietly slide it over and pull open the massive door and look at the outside of the door—there is no keyhole, which means the door can only be locked from the inside. It also means that I'll have to find some other way of gettin' in and out of this ark if I want to explore Boston like I mean to do.
I makes sure the latch is off and then I step out into the light, and there below me all Boston is laid out on this fine late August day, the Common all green with its beasts scattered about, the buildings of the town all neat and orderly, and the harbor sparkling in the distance. There is a slight breeze that blows the hair that's got out of my pigtail about my face and if I close my eyes I'm up in the rigging and we're one day out from Boston and it's, let's see, about six bells in the Four-to-Eight watch and ... no, stop it.
I open my eyes and it occurs to me that this is the first time I have been free in a long, long time. I could walk down into that city and disappear forever, as far as the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls is concerned. Sort of free, that is ... free to starve to death ... or to Fall into Iniquity as Deacon Dunne would have it ... and all my stuff is inside and how could I make my way without my whistle or me shiv or ...
Click!
The door has locked behind me! Someone has ... That Clarissa! She must have seen me leave the dormitory and followed me! Damn!
I go up to the door in a panic. Already I can feel the cane on the backs of my legs. I dare not pound on the door 'cause Mistress might answer it and where would I be then? Stretched across her desk with my skirt up, that's where. I've got to find another way in.
I run around the side of the school and see nothing on that side and then run around the back—nothing! I continue pounding around to the other side and there! The land slopes down and away and at the bottom there's a door to a lower level. I careens down the slope and tries the door. It's open and I go in.
I find myself in the kitchen and it is filled with the smell of frying bacon and toasting bread and there are girls chattering and laughing and scurrying around getting ready to cart it all upstairs and serve it to the ladies and in the middle of it all is a large woman in an apron standing at a huge stove and directing who's to take what.
"Betsey! The bread baskets! Get 'em up there and see if they're ready to eat yet. Annie, take up the tea!"
"Yes, Peggy, we got it we..."
That's when they notice me and the place goes quiet. There are two other girls seated at a table finishing up their own breakfasts and they stand up upon seeing me. The cook asks me, "Yes, Miss, how can we help you?"
"I'm sorry," I stammer. "But I locked myself out the front door. Could you..."
"If it pleases you, Miss, just follow Betsey there. She'll show you the way up."