Curse Of The Blue Tattoo Part 23

"And you are also not shy about donning costume," says Mr. Bean.

"Please keep our card, Miss Faber. We will be staying the season at the Bull and Garter, giving performances at various fine halls about town. Please feel free to call on us at any time. Shall we go, Mr. Bean?"

"Yes, we shall, Mr. Fennel," says Mr. Bean.

I think on all that for a while, and then I turn over and go to sleep.

Chapter 26.

Amy and me rolls into the Pig at about two the next afternoon and there's already a crowd gathering. My reputation grows. I know 'cause I get looks and even a small round of applause just by walking in. I hate to say it, but it warms me. I lower the eyes and dip a bit in answer to the claps and then take Amy up to Maudie at the bar.

"This here's Amy, Maudie. She'll help out during the rush. For tips. All right?" Me and the other girls had cobbled together a version of our uniform for Amy, so she don't stand out.

"For sure, Amy, any friend of Jacky is a friend of mine," says Maudie. She's lining up freshly washed gla.s.ses along the bar. "There's ap.r.o.ns hanging there. Put one on and get some change for your pouch, dear, for it looks like it's gonna be a good night." Maudie is fair beaming at the thought. I hear her man Bob rolling in another keg, and he looks right cheerful, too.

I give Amy a slight shove and I can feel her shoulder shaking under my hand, but she goes over and picks an ap.r.o.n and puts it on. Do it, Amy. Its a skill like anything else and it never hurts to pick up another skill.

"A nickel a pint and no one runs a tab," says Maudie. "Just dish it out and don't stand for no foolishness."

I can see that some of the gla.s.ses on several of the tables are getting low so I take an ap.r.o.n myself and says, "Here. I'll show you." I put the ap.r.o.n on over my head and tie the strings behind me and take a tray and go to the nearest table and say, "Gentlemen?"

"Aye. Three more, la.s.s. And then come sit on my lap, like a good girl," says the biggest rogue of the lot, patting his leg. His friends guffaw and say, "Well said, Mike."

"I'll not try your lap, Sir," says I, "but I will get your pints."

I turn to Amy beside me and say so that they can hear, "You reach way in to get the gla.s.ses, that way they can't get too close to you, and always back up from the table so they can't grab your ... can't pinch you. And if they do grab you, call for Bob and he'll come runnin' with his s.h.i.+llelagh and bash a few of 'em till they behave."

The men snort and say that they ain't afraid o' no Bob with no club, but I notice they don't give Amy no trouble when she goes back with the full gla.s.ses and collects the money.

"I have gotten a tip," she says, when she comes back to the bar. "The first money I have ever earned in my life."

"May it not be the last, dear," says I, as Amy heads back out to another table. I believe she will enjoy this. I know I do.

"So where's Gully?" I ask Maudie.

"Don't worry, he's about. He's being careful about the British wars.h.i.+ps in the harbor. He thinks he'll be pressed if they catch him, him being a seaman and Scottish and all."

"That and being the Hero of Culloden Moor," I says. "If they take him, they'll surely hang him," says I. "He's got to be careful."

Maudie don't say nothing, but I get the feeling she ain't too worried about him being hanged for that. Two more tables come in and sit down.

"I guess I'll go up and do some solo," says I. "Get 'em warmed up, like."

"That would be good, Jacky," says Maudie.

I pull off my ap.r.o.n and take out my concertina and mount the little stage that Bob had built at the end of the room and begin to play. I don't give my usual show-opening patter but instead just play, 'cause I don't want them to get real worked up yet.

I do "The Blue-Eyed Sailor" and then step down from the stage and walk among the tables playing "Rosin the Beau," just playing, no singing or dancing, just something to get them in the mood. I brush by Amy and we exchange glances. She seems to be doing just fine.

The place is filling up and I see that some of the men have brought their wives with them-the word must be getting around that we run a clean act in a respectable public house. I had told Gully I didn't like singing the really bawdy songs like "The Cuckoo's Nest" and "Captain Black's Courts.h.i.+p" 'cause I didn't like the way the men looked at me when we did them-all smirks and knowin' winks and such-and Gully says that some men would look at me that way if I was up there in a white gown with wings and halo singin' the b.l.o.o.d.y Messiah, so leave off. But I say I don't mind being looked at-I am a performer, after all, and I like bein' the center of attention, but I don't like bein' snickered at or laughed at. So I get my way.

I know that Maudie eyes the women and makes sure they are wives, and not something else, before they are welcomed and seated. There are some taverns where Mrs. Bodeen's girls and their like are allowed, and some where they ain't, and the Pig is one where they ain't. "I run a good, clean public house and I don't need them here," she told me early on. "I don't need the men fightin' over 'em, and I don't need angry wives burstin' in with muskets loaded to blow the heads off wayward husbands. If I can't run a respectable house, then I won't run one at all."

I go back to my bag and pull out an old lace shawl that I got down at the rag shop and I put it on my head and whips one end around my neck and I step back on the stage. I note that there's a lot of Irish in the crowd and more coming in, so I decide to do "The Galway Shawl," which is about a young man on the road who meets a maid wearing a Galway shawl, like the one I'm wearing. This song is usually done with just the voice, but since I ain't done it before in front of an audience, I take out my pennywhistle and plays the melody, with a few embellishments, and then drops it and lifts my chin and sings: "In Erinmore in the County Galway,

One fine evening in the month of May,

I spied a Colleen she was tall and handsome,

And she nearly stole my heart away.

She wore no jewels or no costly diamonds,

And as for silken stockings she had none at all,

She wore a bonnet with a ribbon on it,

And o'er her shoulders hung a Galway shawl."

The maiden in the shawl takes the young man back to meet her father, her father who was six-foot tall, and the boy charms him by singing "Brown-Eyed Sailor" and "Foggy Dew" and the girl sits with the lad by the fire and they hold hands through the night. I warbles the last two verses.

"Early next morning I was on the High Road,

On the High Road out and bound for Donegal,

And as I wandered thoughts strayed wildly from me,

Dwelling with the maiden in her Galway shawl.

So all young men from me take warning,

Don't you love no maiden be she short or tall,

She'll wander with you in the mists of morning,

She'll steal your heart in her Galway shawl."

Just as I'm ending and bowing my head, Gully strides in with the Lady under his arm and the applause breaks out and Gully takes it for his and bows grandly and bounds to the stage and says, "Good one, Moneymaker, we'll add it to the act," and I flush with pleasure, and as Gully pulls out the fiddle and rips into "Bonny Kate," I nip off the stage and grab my bag and pull out my sailor top and sailor cap and pull them on. As Gully finishes up, I bound back on the stage to cheers and starts on the whistle and we swings into our act.

We're flying along and the crowd is in a state of near delirium with the music and the drink and we're coming up on our break and I ends with a fine rattle of me hooves and we bow and there are cheers and whistles and the lovely clatter of coins being thrown into the Lady Lenore's open case when there's the sound of horses pulling up outside and in a moment six young men swagger in. They're finely dressed, with swords clanking by their sides, and they look like they're just itching for trouble, and at their front is Randall Trevelyne and he has his best arrogant, sneering, d.a.m.n-your-eyes look on his face.

Oh, Lord...

He walks up to the stage as if he had expected to find me here in this place. I can feel the ill will of the crowd toward these unwelcome puppies and I hope I can cut the fuse of this situation and calm things down. Randall hooks his thumbs in his sword belt and says, "Your reputation has extended across the river, Jacky, even unto the ivy-covered halls of academe. When I heard rumors of a girl in a sailor suit who sang and danced and played a tin whistle in one of the sailor bars, I knew it could be none other than yourself." It's plain that his friends find him a rare man-about-town in speaking to me as if he knows me well. Well, he don't.

"You are welcome here, Lieutenant Trevelyne," I say, and again I see the chest swell a few inches when I say it. "Please be seated and we will attend to your needs."

I turn to Gully and say under my breath, "College boys. Half drunk. Trouble. Do you know any college tunes?"

Randall strolls back to his table to the admiring looks of his chums and the black looks of the usual Pig patrons while Gully thinks and says, "I know some ... mostly obscene, though ... Ah, I know. 'Glorious!' A real rouser! All will enjoy. Concertina, key of G. Chord along. Introduce it, Jacky, and tell 'em to sing along with the chorus."

I pick up my squeeze box and take a breath and announce to the crowd, "We have with us some fine lads from the college across the river and to give them a proper Pig and Whistle welcome, Mr. MacFarland and I will do 'Glorious' and we invite all to join in the chorus in the spirit of brotherhood and good fellows.h.i.+p!"

With that, Gully puts fiddle and bow to his sides and booms out the chorus.

"Glorious! Glorious!

One keg of beer for the four of us!

Glory be to G.o.d that there ain't no more of us,

The four of us can drink it all alone!"