Curse Of The Blue Tattoo Part 4

I tears into the helpless eggs and soon am patting my belly in satisfaction. "Now, Miss Amy, I'm ready to meet those horses."

On the way down the hallway Annie comes up to me and says, "Beggin' your pardon, Miss, but Mistress wants to see you in her office. Now."

Dread crawls up my soon-to-be-beaten legs and into my belly and makes my eggs sit less easy there than they was before. Somebody must have peached on me for being outside. d.a.m.n!

Clarissa sweeps past with a jaunty bonnet on her head, a riding crop under her arm, and a slight smile on her face.

I grimace at Amy and leave her side as we pa.s.s Mistress's office. The door is open and she is seated at her desk. I walk inside, bob, and put my toes on the white line and wait.

"Good morning, Mistress," I manage to say. 1 hope my Look is all right. I case my eyes and stare over her head, expecting the worst.

"Good morning," she says. "Here." And she hands me a letter. I recognize it as my own that I wrote to Jaimy yesterday and put in the mailbox outside her door. "This letter is addressed to a man to whom you are not related. It is not seemly for you to be carrying on such a correspondence, and I will not send it on. I advise you to be more careful in your actions and comportment in the future."

"But, Mistress, we are to be married as soon as I finish school. Surely-"

"Surely you remember what I said about talking back to me," she says with a warning in her tone. "Now. Do you have a formal engagement? Anything in writing?"

"No, Mistress, but I believe his intentions are true."

"That's not enough. I direct you to put aside these girlish dreams and attend to your studies here. If you are successful in these studies, I a.s.sure you there will be a good match for you in the future. All my girls make good matches. Certainly better than casual alliances with sailors. You are dismissed, Miss Faber."

"Mistress," I says, knowin' I'm pus.h.i.+ng my luck here, "but if I were to get a letter from this young man, would you-"

"I believe we are through discussing letters, Miss Faber, and we shall mention them no more," says Mistress, with menace in her voice. "Dismissed, Miss Faber."

I dip and do an about-face and head out the door, glad not to be beaten, but still steamed. She answered my question, all right-ain't no way she's ever gonna pa.s.s on any of Jaimy's letters to me. I am glad I made my explorations this morning 'cause I will go out and I will mail my letter to Jaimy 'cause I don't want no other match but him. I just got to think about how to get that done.

Amy has waited for me, and together we go out the front door and around the corner and up the small road between the school and the church. As we leave the school building behind us, I look back and notice that the ends of the school are not the usual white clapboards but are instead completely brick, being like enormous chimneys. We leave the churchyard to our right, there is a meadow, and we come to the stables.

"Heinrich!"

"Ja, Papa."

"Fraulein Faber hast not bin on eine horse before. Give her teachings."

"Yes, Papa."

I am standing there stupidly, once again judged hopelessly behind and backward. The other girls, including Amy, are taking their mounts from the handlers like they was born to it, mounting, and forming a circle around the inside of this huge circular barn that is floored in wet sawdust and roofed in soaring wood rafters and thick wood beams. Sort of like the hull of a s.h.i.+p from the inside, upside down. With a snap of Herr Hoffman's whip and a whoop! from some of the girls, they are off at a full gallop, round and around.

Not for me, however, as I must follow Heinrich into the stables.

The boy has his light brown hair tied loosely in the back with a black ribbon and he wears a dark green jacket with gray frogging on the front and tight, tight white breeches and knee-high s.h.i.+ny black boots. He has a light fuzz of hair on his upper lip and this is the first time I've been next to a boy and not under armed guard for about a month, and ... no, you stop that now. Concentrate on what he's tellin' you.

He goes into one of the stalls and comes out leading a horse.

"This is Gretchen, Miss Faber," he says. "She will be your horse while you are here." He doesn't talk the way his father does. Must have been born here, or at least brought up here. "She is a very nice little mare," he goes on when he sees my look of fear.

It don't look that little to me.

It is of a light tan color with a white mane and tail. It has big brown eyes and it looks at me and I look at it. Horses to a street kid like me are big stupid lumbering things that'd crush an orphan as soon as look at 'em, but I reach out my hand and pat it on its hard slab of a forehead and it snorts in a friendly way.

Maybe we'll get along, I think, and I get the feeling she thinks the same.

The young man lets me and the beast get more acquainted while he fetches a saddle. "You might want to put on one of those dusters, Miss. To protect your dress." There is a row of light cotton cover-ups hung on pegs along the wall and I choose the smallest one and put it on. I b.u.t.ton up the front as he flings the saddle over the horse's back and cinches it up, and then he hands me the reins. I take them, trying to keep my hand from shakin'.

"Gather them together and reach up and grab the saddle right here and put your right foot here and up you go." And I am in the saddle and looking down at the ground and thinking how much it would hurt to fall off and hit that ground.

"Heinrich," I say, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice, "wouldn't it be easier if I were to throw my leg to the other side of the horse?" Both my legs are now on one side of the horse and I'm feelin' right precarious.

"I'm sorry, Miss. It just isn't done," says he. "And please call me Henry, if you would. Now put your right limb about the pommel there." That feels a bit better, now that the pommel thing in the front of the saddle is sort of holding my thigh above the knee. Henry adjusts the stirrup for my right leg till it feels right. "Now take the reins-no, don't hold on to the saddle, and if it pleases you, Miss, sit back a bit so that your backbone is directly over hers. Please forgive my frank language, but it's the only way to say it." I believe he is fl.u.s.tered over calling my backbone a backbone. "Now let us go outside."

We go out into the sun and Henry takes the horse by what he calls the bridle and he walks me and the horse around a bit and I get used to the smooth roll of the horse's muscles beneath mine and that's all right, a bit nice, really. Henry shows me how to pull on the reins to make it go right and then left and then stop.

Henry ain't content to let it go at that and just let me enjoy the warmth of the morning, oh no, he says, since I'm doing so well, we must now go to trotting. He has me take the horse to a small fenced-in spot and he puts a long thin line on the horse's bridle and stands back and says, "Now, Miss Faber, firmly pull your heels up into her side and say, 'Hup!'"

I do it and the horse starts this jiggy way of going that about jars the teeth out of my head and I grab for the pommel of the saddle.

"No, no, Miss. You must never do that. It makes you look like ... an inexperienced rider."

Makes me look like a scrub, you mean, I thinks, vowing never again to touch the saddle.

"Get into the rhythm of her motion. Let your ... back arch a little, back and forth."

I try to do it and, little by little, by getting my back and my bottom into it, I start to get it.

"Very good posting, Miss. Very good. I think you are a natural rider."

I glow under his praise and try even harder.

Henry holds the line so that the horse goes about in a circle around him, sort of a small version of the circle inside the barn, and round and round we go. "Now lean forward and chuck her again with your heels!" and I do it and she slips into this easy, loping thing that's a lot easier on my tail and I get into the rhythm of that, too, and it feels so right and easy that my heart starts poundin' in me chest from the joy of it all.

Henry has me go from the canter to the trot to walk and back again and again till it's as easy as walking a spar and swinging down to the s.h.i.+p's deck on a futtock shroud.

When we are done, Henry has me dismount and walk Gretchen around the field to cool her off.

"If you put her up wet, she's likely to take the colic and die, and we wouldn't want that."

No, we wouldn't, I thinks to myself, running my hand through Gretchen's mane with growing affection, we wouldn't want that at all.

I take her bridle in my hand and walk her about for fifteen minutes or so, till I can reach down onto her chest between her front legs and find it is no longer steamy with sweat. I take her back to her stall and feed her an apple from the barrel that's kept in the stable for just such a purpose. Her lips take it ever so delicately from my hand.

I have taken my first equestrian lesson and Henry says I have done well. Very well, even. I know that I have tried hard, for I hate being the baby and the odd one out and I cannot wait to join that wild circle of riders pounding about that barn.

Dinner, and then Art, which I am going to like, and then Penmans.h.i.+p, which is all right, too, 'cept now my hand is all cramped up and is as sore from the writing as my bottom is sore from the riding. Now on to Music.

All day I've been thinking about how I'm gonna get my letters to Jaimy-and his letters to me, since sure as h.e.l.l that Mistress ain't gonna pa.s.s 'em on to me. Wouldn't be seemly.

So what I've decided is that I'll save up everything and when a British man-of-war comes into port and is bound back to England, I'll put together a packet and then go down and ask them to take it for me, and I'm sure they will do it. At the same time I'll figure out an address he can send stuff to me. I'll ask Amy, later. She might know the way of it.

"Amy," I says, as we head for the music room, "what is this bit with Clarissa calling me a Tory? I don't know what to say when she calls me that. Where I come from, Tories are just part of a political party. That can't be what she means."

"That is not what she means. Here 'Tory' refers to an American who remained loyal to King George before and during the Revolution. Clarissa is calling you a turncoat, a traitor."

"Now, how can I be that when I'm born English and can't help it?" I exclaims all baffled.

"We were all English twenty-five years ago. Emotions still run high, especially in light of the recent troubles with Great Britain."

"Troubles like what?"

"Impressment of seamen, for one. The stopping of American s.h.i.+ps on the high seas and the taking of seamen to fight for the crown. Mostly British sailors, but sometimes our own. And there's the British agents out west stirring up Tec.u.mseh and his Indians to kill our settlers on the frontier."

"Oh," says I.

We enter the music room. My cla.s.smates arrange themselves in two circular lines facing a podium in the center, and at the podium is a round little man who is leafing through a stack of papers.

Amy takes me up to him and says, "Maestro, this is Miss Faber. She is new. Miss Faber, this is Maestro Fracelli."

I do the curtsy and then stand there as Amy takes her place in the second rank. I know that is an a.s.signed place 'cause she's standing right next to Clarissa and I know she'd never stand there on her own.

Maestro Fracelli is done with his papers and turns to me and says, "Sing something, please, so that I may place you."

Place me?

I think quick and pick one that might show my range and not scandalize em too much, and I straighten out my shoulders and I lift my head and sings out: "Oh, hard is the fortune

Of all womankind.

She's always controlled,

She's always confined.

Controlled by her parents,

Until she's a wife,

A slave to her husband,

The rest of her life."

There is a dead silence. Maestro clears his throat and says, "Very nice. A curious choice of material, but delivered con brio. I think I will place you with the altos on the left." He picks up a folder and hands it to me. "Please sing the first stanza of this."

I look at it and my heart sinks. At the top of the paper is written "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," and underneath that is a bunch of lines with little black bugs and squiggles on em and I ain't got the foggiest idea of what they mean and I shakes me head and me throat starts to tighten up and me eyes start to fill and I'm startin' to shake all over 'cause once again I'm found wantin' in every cla.s.s and I'm so backward in everything here and I don't want them to see me cry, but two days of being the dummy is just too much and I'm losing control of everything and I'm about to run up and get my seabag and run off down to the docks and ... me mind hears Amy say, "Pardon, Maestro, a moment, please," and she puts her arm around me and she hustles me out into the hall.

She takes me by the shoulders and says, "It's not so hard. I will teach you. You do not have to already know everything. Now, go back in there and stand where he tells you and just hum along for a while until you get it. He is a really nice man and he will help you. Now, just do it."

I'm still shakin' and cryin' and about to dissolve into a puddle on the floor. Music! The thing I love the most and still I'm the fool and I was stupid enough to think I would stand out in this 'cause I thought I was good at it and I ain't I ain't I ain't good at nothin...

"Here. Dry your eyes. Put on the Look."

"Thank you, Miss, for your kindness." I gulps. "I won't forget. I promise you, I won't forget."

We go back into the music room and I walk across and Maestro points out my place and I take it and stand there with my useless folder in front of me. Incredibly, the girl next to me on my right gives me a nudge and a wink. It is the girl Dolley. I almost burst into tears again at that little kindness.

I am saved by Maestro Fracelli, who taps his stick on his podium and says, "From the beginning, one two three and four," and the girls burst into song and it is one of the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard. I am astounded that such beauty is coming out of the throats of these hateful girls, and I follow along the words and now that I got the tune, I sings along and adds my voice to the beautiful sound.

Amy's right. It will be all right.

I don't know if it was the tension of the past two days or just hearing some French being spoke, or maybe it was the constant rocking back and forth in the last few days between despair and joy-the despair of not knowing how to read their music and the sheer joy of hearing the beauty of the girls' chorus, the terror of my first time on a horse and the hope of someday joining the pounding ring of riders-or I don't know what, but he comes for me again tonight.

He comes to me as he always does when he comes to me, leering out of the darkness with the rope coiled over his arm, the noose dangling down. He reaches for me and I shrink back but my feet sink in the sand and my hands are tied behind me and I can't move and I can't get away and I keep foundering in the sand and I keep trying and the harder I try the more I'm sucked down and he reaches out and his hand goes around my arm and he draws me to him and I smell his foul breath on me and it smells of the grave and he puts the noose around my neck and it's rough and hairy and it sc.r.a.pes at my neck and then it tightens and I'm standing on the keg again and it is unsteady and rocks beneath me and LeFievre looks up at me and his head becomes the head we had nailed to the bowsprit and the eye sockets are empty and black where the birds picked them out and the lips rot away and fall off and the teeth gleam in a hideous grin and then he kicks away the keg and once again I feel the rope come up hard against my neck and my own weight pulls me down against my neck and I hang there and I can't breathe dear G.o.d help me I can't breathe I choke I choke I choke and...

And then Amy's face comes swimmin' out of the darkness in front of me and she's got me by the shoulders and is sayin', "Jacky, please wake up it is just a dream," and sense comes back to me in a rush. I must have been screamin', 'cause everybody's sittin' up in their beds and lookin' at me like I'm crazy, which I reckon I am, 'cause I got tears runnin' all down me face and I'm s.h.i.+verin' even though I'm covered in sweat and I'm gulpin' down great gobs of air and I shudders and then I lets out a great sob and buries me face in the front of Amy's nightgown.

After a while I calms down and Amy gets up and goes back to her bed. I lie there quiet in the darkness, but the terror is still in me and won't go away. I try to be brave but I'm not, I'm not, I'm just so lonely and scared that finally I fling back the covers and go over to Amy and I crawl in and burrow beside her and say, "Please, Miss. I'm not good at sleepin' alone, as I ain't done it much and I just can't do it right."

If she says anything to that, I don't hear it 'cause I'm so lulled by her nearness and the gentle sound of her breathing that I slips right off the edge of the cliff into deep and peaceful sleep and he don't come for me again this night, neither.