Deacon Dunne took me out the first day we were docked in Boston, to get me fitted out, as Tilly warn't up to the challenge of being alone with the female me in a female dressmaker's shop. The seamstress there was amazing fast, with her tape whipping all around me up and down and all around. Pins put here and there and chalk marks, too. She got all of my stuff to the ship today—two pairs of drawers, two pairs of black stockings, one dress, one nightshirt with nightcap, one black wool sweater, one chemise, and one black cloak with bonnet—and two hours after it arrived, I was off the ship. They couldn't get rid of me fast enough, the sods.
Everything that I ain't got on is packed away in my seabag with my other stuff that I've picked up along the way—needles, threads, awls, fishing lures, my concertina, my blue dress that I made myself and my Kingston dress, my pennywhistle, and, yes, me shiv, too, 'cause I can't figure out how to keep it in its old place next to my ribs in this dress. Not yet, anyway. And my sailor togs are in there, too—my white dress uniform that I made for myself and the boys and my drawers with the fake cod and my blue sailor cap with HMS DOLPHIN that I'd stitched on the band. And Rooster Charlie's shirt and pants and vest that delivered me from the slums of London and my midshipman's neckerchief and even a midshipman's coat and shirt and britches and cap that I'd got off Midshipman Elliot, who'd outgrown them. I think about that middies uniform and how everyone on board thought it was such a great joke that I was made a midshipman before they discovered I was a girl. Everyone but me. I earned my commission, I did, and I didn't think it was a joke. Still don't.
Ain't no money in my seabag, though. After paying for my clothes, they gave the rest of my share of the money from the pirate gold to the school to pay for my education in ladyhood. Wisht they had just given me the money and let me make my own way in the world like I always done, but, no—I'm a girl and too stupid to take care of money. That's a man's job, they say. Like I'd be gulled out of my money, me what's as practical and careful with a penny as any miser? Not bloody likely.
Oh, look. There's a row of taverns at the end of that pier. They look like places where I might be able to play my penny-whistle and concertina and maybe make some money after I get settled and know the lay of the land ... and look there—there's one called The Pig and Whistle and it's kind of seedy lookin' but it's got a sign with a fat jolly pig playing a whistle just like mine and he's dancin' about and he looks right cheerful.
Ah. There's a bookseller's. And a printer's next to it. Maybe I could pick up some work there, if I have any time off from the school. I wonder how confined I'm going to be. The school couldn't be as tight with its students as the Navy is with its sailors, though, could it? Wonder if the school has lots of books. Coo, wouldn't that be something—all you ever wanted to read right at your fingertips? It's a school. It's got to have a lot of books.
Now we've turned right and a big brick church is out my window to the right and a big graveyard, too, and to the left is a large open field with horses and sheep wanderin' about in the grass. Cows, too. Pray for me, cows, as I'm feelin in need of it and you look right sympathetic with your big brown eyes.
"It's like havin' the country right in the middle of the city. London for sure didn't have nothin' like that," I says.
"It's called the Common," says Tilly, when he sees my interest. I think he's glad that I've stopped crying, and he goes on in his teaching voice. "It was set aside by the forefathers because Boston is essentially an island and it would be hard to get the animals off and on for purposes of grazing. I think it's wondrous restful to the eyes after the hubbub of the town. Do you not find it so?"
I nod. I know he's talkin' just to keep my spirits up, and I appreciates it. But don't worry, Tilly, there'll be no more cryin'.
We're climbing quite high on a hill now—"Beacon Hill," says Tilly—and the horses are slowing down under the strain of it.
I look down at my feet and wiggle my toes inside my shiny new shoes. These are the fancy kind with hooks and eyes and laces that run up the ankle. I also got a pair of black pumps what slip on and off and what I think I'll like better cause my feet are used to being bare and my toes ain't accustomed to being all crammed together like this.
The coach lurches around to the left and..."Good Lord! What's that?" I say, my eyes wide as any country rube's. A huge stone building with white columns and grand entrances and a solid gold dome has come into view on my right.
Tilly peers out the window. "Oh. That is the Massachusetts State House. They hadn't finished the dome when last I was here. It is magnificent, is it not?"
It is indeed. I'm going to be going to school next to a bleedin' palace. If the gang could see me now.
We leave the State House behind us and continue along the edge of this Common for a while. The whole city is spread out below me—the buildings, the wharves and piers. It is for certain a seafarin' town. There must be at least fifty wharves stickin' out into the harbor and a hundred ships moored at them. Can't see the Dolphin, though, she being tucked up close to the land and hidden by the buildings. Prolly best I can't see her as it would just get the tears goin' again.
"This is Beacon Street," says Tilly. "And here is your new home."
My belly gives a queasy lurch. Steady down now. Steady. You've been through a lot worse than this.
We've pulled up in front of a large building. It is three stories high and has a large entrance with a lot of stone steps and two heavy wood doors dark with old varnish so that they look like they've been there forever and have closed behind many a poor, scared girl. There's a road off Beacon Street to the right of the school and there's a church there that's built in the same style as the school—stone foundation below, white wood running sideways above. There's this big tree between the church and the school, so big its lower branches touch the roofs of both, and on the roof of the church is a sharp steeple with a bell hanging in it, and on the roof of the school is a porchlike thing with a railing around it that's painted white, too.
The coachman goes over to the rack on the back of the carriage and gets my seabag and chest and brings them to the entrance and then goes back to his seat to wait for Tilly to get free of me.
Tilly lifts the knocker on the door. It is opened by a young girl in service gear—black skirt and black lace-up weskit, white blouse, white apron and cap.
"Yes, Sir?" she says, all big eyed and meek lookin'. "May I help you?"
"Yes. Harrumph," says Tilly, "I am Professor Phineas Tilden and I bring Mistress Pimm her new student." The girl gives me a quick up-and-down with her eyes, then slips out of the room through a door at the far end to fetch this Mistress Pimm. I look around, jumpy as a cat.
You calm down now, you. Right now.
The room is empty of furniture and rugs—prolly 'cause this is where people track in snow and mud in the winter. But there are things on the walls. Wondrous things. Flowers and leaves all twisted around each other—words, alphabets, apples, oranges, urns, and weeping willow trees—all made out of thread on white cloth and framed with fine wood and...
"Yes. Mistress Pimm's girls are noted for their embroidery," says Tilly, when he notices me lookin'.
Embroidery! I don't know nothing 'bout no 'broidery, Tilly, you should've told me about this. I don't know how to do this stuff. I can sew a straight line, yes, but this I can't...
The serving girl opens the door and stands aside to let Mistress Pimm stride in. The schoolmistress advances to the center of the room and brings her gaze to rest on the Professor. She is as tall as he and as thin as he is stout. Her hair is the gray of a brushed iron cannon and is pulled back hard and gathered in a bun at the back of her head, which makes her sharp features look as if chiseled from stone. She, too, is dressed in black, but her dress goes all the way from ankle to throat where it is tightly fastened by a shiny black brooch. Her sleeves end in black lace above her white hands.