"Expecting weevils?" says the Captain, his eyebrow raised in question.
"Excuse me, Sir?" I say, confused. "I don't underst—" Then I realize I've been tappin' my biscuit on the tabletop without thinkin'. Damn! "I'm sorry, Sir, it's an old habit."
"That's all right, Missy. Here, a little more wine with you." He gestures and the tall midshipman goes to the sideboard and takes a bottle and fills my glass. Too bad. I had meant to fill my glass with water to dilute the wine, but I didn't get to it in time. Ah, well. Next time. I take a sip.
"So, schoolgirls, eh?" says the Captain, and then he leans in close and whispers, "Thanks for being here. I thought for sure I'd get stuck next to some old biddy and I sure didn't come all this way to talk to ancient dames! Har, har!" He laughs out loud at his wit and I gulp and nod. Under the table he places his hand on my leg and gives it a squeeze. I gulp again. I don't know what to do about it.
The soup bowls are taken away and the main courses brought. The Captain, needing both his hands to dig in to his dinner, frees my leg and I squirm and move a little out of his range. I know the serving girls a little bit now and I wink at them in thanks as I am served. They know me for one of them, and I think they delight in my being here.
Clarissa speaks up. "Perhaps, Classmate, you'll tell us something of your family." She smiles sweetly and brings her glass to her lips.
Uh-oh... I look at Amy but she shakes her head and mouths Not me, and then I look at Randall and he just looks back at me as if he's mildly interested in my answer. Clarissa, however, looks me right in the eye, and there is a wicked merriment in her gaze. She knows, and how she knows, I don't know—prolly looking through Amy's scrib-blings when she wasn't around.
I lift my chin and say, "I have no family. I was orphaned as a young child."
"Oh, what a pity!" says dear Mrs. Trevelyne. "Who took you in?"
"No one took me in," I say. I put my hands in my lap and look down at them. "I was left on my own." I know what's comin'. A pity. This would have been such fun. Oh, well.
Amy tries to change the subject. "Captain, could you tell us of the exotic ports you have—" but Clarissa rides right over her.
"But what did you do, you poor thing?" she purrs. "Left on your own as you were?"
I stick out my lower lip and say quietly, "My parents died when I was a little girl and I was put out on the curb to live or to die. I fell in with a gang of street children and I ran the slum streets of London with them for several years." I put my napkin on the table and look Clarissa in the eye. "You ask me what I did, Clarissa? I was a beggar and a thief. What kind of beggar was I? I was a naked beggar and a filthy beggar. Any kind of beggar you can imagine and I was it. I begged pennies and I stole bread. I lived under a bridge, but I had good mates in Rooster Charlie's gang, I did, a lot better mates than some I have now."
I take a sip of wine and I will my hand not to shake in rage as I continue. "Actually, if you must know, I was a better thief than a beggar. I stole bread and I pickpocketed fancy handkerchiefs and I stole clothing off of clotheslines and I stole anything that would keep me and my friends alive. In fact, I picked pockets at the very foot of the gallows, the gallows that were sure to be my fate someday."
The whole table is lookin' at me with open mouths, their knives and forks and glasses held motionless in midair. It would be comical if this were a play, which it ain't.
"Then I find it a shame, dear Jacky, that you did not remain in your chosen profession," purrs Clarissa.
I look at her without expression. "It is true, Miss Howe, that my estate was very low. So low, indeed, that it was very like that of the slaves you hold in bondage. Except that I was free."
There are rumblings around the table as some of the guests realize that Clarissa and I could actually go at each other, right here and right now, and they try to soothe ruffled feathers with there, there, and all right, now, and suchlike.
But Clarissa is not to be soothed.
"Free? Ah, yes. Free," says Clarissa, tilting her head as if what I had said amused her. "Free to beg. Free to steal from honest folk. And free..." Here she pauses and her tongue flicks over her upper lip as if she is about to taste something delicious. "Free to have yourself tattooed."
There is a common gasp from the guests at the table.
"Why don't you tell us about your cunning little tattoo, Jacky?" says Clarissa, relentlessly plowing on. "What is it? An anchor? How daring of you, Jacky. I do declare you leave all the rest of us poor girls far behind in the pursuit of new fashion."
The game is up now, for sure, for there are no tattooed ladies in this world, not outside of freak shows. I get to my feet and I turn to my hostess. "Mrs. Trevelyne, you have been nothing but kind to me here at Dovecote and I thank you for it and I beg forgiveness if I have brought dishonor to your table. I am sorry. Sometimes I get above myself. I'll be excused now." She sits there stunned.
I get up to leave the room but a rough hand comes down on my bare shoulder and shoves me back down in my chair.
"Oh, nonsense!" says Captain Humphries. "Sit down! That's the best story I've heard all day!"
I take up my napkin again and look over at Mrs. Treve-lyne, but she's just all a-goggle with the turn of things and simply takes another dainty sip of her wine.
"So how did you get from there to here? From the rags to the riches? From an urchin in the streets to a neatly turned out young lady in the very bosom of New England society?" the Captain booms out. "We must hear! Leave nothing out!"
Before I say anything I turn to my hostess again, "Please, Mrs. Trevelyne, if anything said here causes you pain, just tap your knife on your glass and I will be out of here in an instant. All right?" She manages to nod. I look at Amy and she is stunned. I look at Randall and he is astounded. I look at Clarissa and she is smirking. I look at Lieutenant Flashby and he has left off looking at my chest and is instead peering at my face, as if trying to figure something out.
"Actually, Captain Humphries, I had a bit of very good luck," I say. "I had the great good fortune to be taken into your own service."
"The Royal Navy?" he says, perplexed. "How? In what capacity?"
"First as ship's boy, then as midshipman, on board the..."
"It's Bloody Jacky Faber, by God!" shouts Lieutenant Flashby, bringing the flat of his hand down hard on the table. He points his finger at my nose. "It's the Jackaroe!"
"Wot! Can it be? The girl from the Dolphin?" says the Captain, all incredulous. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, yes!" says the Lieutenant. "Look! She's still got the mark on her neck where they tried to hang her." That scar has mostly gone away, 'cept when I get excited, like now, and then it flares up all red. I pull my hair around to cover it.
"Is it you?" asks the Captain.
"I don't know ... yes, I was on the Dolphin, but I had no idea my poor adventures had—"
"Oh, Trevelyne, you dog!" says the Captain to the Colonel, who's sitting there like he's been hit with a bludgeon. "You set this up for us, didn't you! Oh, what a fine thing! It's too perfect!" The Captain's hand has found my leg again, higher up this time, but I am too amazed to move.
"But this can't be..." I stammer.
"Oh yes!" says the Captain, giving my thigh an affectionate squeeze. "It is the talk of London, it is all around the fleet! On all the broadsides! You there, Padget! Sing a few verses of the song! 'Jackaroe'!"