I look about and there's an opening in the thick bushes, leading to a dark glen within.
Uh-oh...
"Randall, I don't know..." Suddenly I ain't quite so brave anymore.
"But Jacky, this is the place I want to share with you."
"Mr. Trevelyne, I've got to tell you that I am promised to another," says I, all prim. "And I think you've been promised to Clarissa Howe."
"Of course, my dear," he says, his hand still reaching for me. "This is only a little visit between friends—think of us as brother and sister sitting on the banks of the river to rest from the ride and to have a nice talk. You did say last night that if Amy was your sister, then I am your brother?"
"I guess," I say.
"We have to be friends, Jacky. You're not like other girls—prissy and afraid of their own shadows—no, you're different, you are, and I knew the minute I saw you the first time, dressed as a midshipman and so pleased with yourself that I thought you might just explode with joy ... and when you were onstage at that tavern, so confident, so unafraid..."
While he's sayin' this his mouth is getting closer and closer to mine and I'm pullin' back but he goes on. "That's why we're so much alike, Jacky, and why we have to become very good friends, Jacky, we have to become such very, very good friends, a friendship that goes beyond who we are promised to, Jacky, beyond who we will marry, beyond the very bonds of convention itself."
His breath is on my face, and I say, "But..."
"But nothing. You know it's true. Now I will kiss you, Jacky. Close your eyes, Jacky, just a brotherly kiss, now, Jacky ... Jacky..."
His words are making me dizzy, sleepy even...
...And then we hear hoofbeats and Amy storms up on her horse, furious.
"Just what the hell do you think you are doing, you philandering cur!" Amy pulls up and takes a swing at Randall's head with her riding crop.
"Minding my own business, Sister!" he roars, ducking his head such that the crop swishes over it.
I figures it's time for Jacky to disappear and leave them to it, and I cuts and heads back to the house. And they do go at it for real.
Millie comes up and bounds by my side as I'm trudging along and then I hear hoofbeats. Oh no, Randall, you'll not again... But, no, it's Amy on Daisy and she comes up behind me, her face the very mask of doom and damnation.
"Amy, I..."
"Just keep walking, you," she says, not looking at me. "Millie. Mind her."
Millie takes that as an order to keep me moving and on the path. She pokes at me with her nose and seems just out of her mind with joy.
"Nothing happened," I throw back over my shoulder.
"I know," she says. "I was in time. Just. Millie! Mind her!"
Millie comes after me as I try to veer off the path to escape Amy and her wrath. She brings me back.
"I thought you was my friend," I hisses to Millie, but she just shrugs a doggy shrug as if to say, "A job's a job," and keeps me to the straight and narrow. I look back, but Amy still won't look at me, so I keep walking.
"You'll not give me a ride, Sister?" I say, a little miffed. It's a long way to the house, in disgrace or not.
"Ladies ride. Tramps walk," is all she says, and with that, she wheels Daisy about and gallops back to the main compound, leaving me there in the dust.
Fine, I says to myself, my seabag is always packed.
Later, anyone standing outside our window, by Millie's whining side, would have heard us go at it.
"My seabag is packed. I always said you could put me out at any time, and I don't hold it against you."
"It is only because I love you and don't want to see you hurt, and I would never put you out no matter what stupid thing you have done."
"I know how to take care of myself, thank you, I've done it all me life and I means to keep on doin' it."
"You think you are so smart and cunning in the ways of the world, but all I've seen of your cunning is you getting beaten and ill-used..."
"I've made it this far from a pretty low start—"
"You may think you know how to manage low ruffians—"
"My mates ain't low ruffians, my mates are them what loves me and have, mind you, been loyal and kind to me and stood beside me, unlike present company!"
"You may think you know how to manage low ruffians, but you have no defenses against smooth-talking gentlemen who have nothing on their mind but to have sport with you! Randall is good at what he does, and you wouldn't be the first link in his chain of broken hearts, Jacky, I can tell you that. Father has had to get him out of several scrapes of that nature so far. There are at least two local girls who are older and far, far wiser now."
"Don't care don't care don't care..."
"Put down that bag. Stop that. You are not going anywhere. It will be dark soon."
"Yes, I am. Jacky Faber don't stay where she ain't wanted. Don't worry, I can make my way—"
"Oh yes, I had forgotten: the redoubtable Jacky Faber and her magic whistle! How could I have forgotten that wonderful life-sustaining talent! Tell me, Sister, how will it be when it is the old Jacky Faber squatting on a street corner in rags, tootling on her pennywhistle?"
"You shut up, you—"
"Will the crowds hoot and hooray for you then when you are not the brisk young dame that jumps up and down so pretty..."
"Stop it, Amy..."
"Will they say, 'Oh, ain't she the prettiest thing' when ... all right, now wait. Stop that. Stop crying. I am sorry I said those—"
"I ain't cryin' you can't m-m-make me cry, you can't, you can't..."
"Please. Come here. There, there, I did not mean it. I know you mean well and have a good and open heart. That's the problem. Please stop crying now, Jacky, please ... here, dear, let me hold you. Come, dear child, put your head on my breast. Collect yourself. And then we will go down for dinner, which we will have in the kitchen. Then maybe to the piano? I will start to teach you to play it. There, that is better. Quiet now. Quiet."
That night, in bed, we start off sleeping without touching, each of our backs toward the other, but by morning we are snugged up as usual and I am forgiven. Again.
Chapter 42
We're back in Boston and we could have come back, on horseback with Randall as escort but Amy would have none of it, so we came back by that damned rattly coach. But we're back and hardly the worse for wear.
Amy's right, of course. I always think I know what I'm doing and I don't. I always think I'm in control of everything and I ain't in control of nothing. I always think I know everything and it always turns out that I don't know nothin'. I do know, though, that I'll watch that Mr. Randall Trevelyne real close.
I just wish that I'd get a letter from jaimy. Something. Anything. It's been five months since I sent that letter with Davy and, I know, maybe the wakes of their ships didn't cross, maybe they'll never meet, I don't know.
It's hard, Jaimy, it is. It's hard enough for me to he good when I know you're waitin for me, hut if you ain't...
I attend to my studies. I got to, 'cause I ain't got much freedom around here no more. Since my last outing when I come back with the smashed eye, Peg has told Herr Hoffman I ain't to check out no more horses and Mistress Pimm won't let me spend the night with the Byrnes sisters no more—ladies don't associate with servants, you know. Amy, too, has her eye on me constant. So I must be good. I must content myself with going over to the stables to see dear Gretchen and just ride her around the paddock and walk her and comb her down.