Rapture of the Deep Page 2

  Then the dear boy takes my shoulders in his hands and looks me in my streaming eyes and says, "I want to hold you like this, Jacky, for the rest of my life, but right now I've got to deal with this. You should go below, for it will be rough."

  What...?Go below?

  He glances over my head and I follow that look and notice that the storm has drawn closer. It looks like a bad one, a bank of storm clouds that stretches across the horizon with nothing but blackness beneath, blackness that is split every few moments by streaks of lightning, followed by the rolling thunder that rumbles across the sea, warning us to beware the fury that is surely to come. The wind has come up even more and my dress flies up about me.

  "One more kiss, Jaimy, and I will go below," I say all meek-like. We have that kiss and then I turn to go back down into my cabin.

  Oh yes, Mr. Fletcher, I will go below, but it will not be to cower and hide—it will be to change into my midshipman's uniform.

  I find Higgins setting the table for dinner. "Higgins, I'm going to need my uniform after all. We're in for a bit of a blow and I can't face it in this flimsy dress. And if I were you, I wouldn't set out the dishes just yet."

  He nods and lays out my black middie jacket, white shirt, and white pants as I pull my dress over my head and fling it onto the bed.

  Higgins helps me into my midshipman gear and asks, "The boots, Miss?"

  "Nay, I don't want them wet. I'll just go barefoot. I will have better purchase that way, anyway, and things are going to get slippery. And no hat, either—it'd just get blown off."

  As I go to leave the cabin, he says, "Please exercise some caution, Miss. I sense that you have not fully recovered from your recent ordeal."

  It's true, I am still a bit trembly, but fighting this gale should cure me of the shakes. I assure him that I will be careful, then go back out on deck, to find my ship's boy, Daniel Prescott, standing next to Jaimy on the quarterdeck. Jaimy appears startled to see me once again on the deck and clad not in my dress, but in jacket and trousers.

  "Danny, go below and bring me my oilskins, if you would," I say. All on deck already have on their rain gear. The storm is much closer now, and the black wall of cloud towers high overhead. We are going to be hammered.

  "Aye, aye, Captain," he pipes as he scampers off to get my gear. I am sure he did not answer my order in that manner to intentionally get Jaimy's goat, but I can tell that Jaimy's goat is certainly gotten. It is very easy to get used to being the captain of a ship, and I can tell from Jaimy's expression that he is neither pleased with my reappearance dressed as I am nor with his demotion by a mere ship's boy.

  I go to him, place my hand on his arm, and peer into his eyes and smile. "Come, love, and together we will get through this storm, side by side, as we will get through other things in our lives, neither one of us in front of the other." I put my left arm around him and give him a poke in the ribs with the stiff forefinger of my right hand and continue to look deep into his eyes. "All right, Jaimy?"

  He looks off, takes a breath, lets it out, and then smiles down at me, running his hand through my hair.

  "This is not the Royal Navy, then, is it, Jacky?"

  "No, dear one, it is not. This is Faber Shipping Worldwide,suchasitis."

  He laughs and says, "Well, let's get on with it, then."

  I jump up and kiss his cheek, then climb into my 'skins as we all prepare to get mauled by the storm.

  Ah yes, Jacky and Jaimy, together at last! Hooray!

  Yeah, right...

  Chapter 2

  "Come, Jaimy, come down with me, and let us go into my bed."

  My gallant crew had fought that howling gale the whole night long, but the Nancy B. is a stout little ship, she is, and she carried us through the storm. We pitched, we rolled, we yawed, with just scraps of canvas set—just enough sail to keep her head into the wind, so she could take the mountainous seas on her port bow. Her bowsprit tore deep into the bellies of the waves and disappeared while green water swept across her decks; but she came back up every time, the seas streaming off her sides, her bow lifted high to take yet another in her teeth. She held, yes, she did, and so did we.

  As the storm lessened in the early morning hours, I had sent Jim Tanner and John Thomas below to get some sleep, and now they have come up to give us blessed relief.

  Jaimy and I stagger down to my cabin and prepare for bed. We strip off our rain gear; then we pull off our damp clothes and take up the towels that Higgins had laid out for us—the oilskins had not kept all of the water out—and we dried ourselves.

  Completely naked now, I know I am looking quite awful and I am suddenly shy before him.

  I put my arms across my chest and whisper, "I-I-I'm sorry, I know I don't present a very c-c-comely sight to you, Jaimy, being banged up and all ... But I'm your lass, Jaimy, should you still want me." My hair is plastered to my head, my bare feet are blue, my skin is gray from tiredness and cold, and my body is splotched with bruises and scars; I cannot imagine any man wanting me in my current condition.

  "My eyes could not behold a vision more lovely," he says, taking me by the shoulders. "I have been waiting and hoping for this moment for years. Now here it is, and here you are." The lovely boy holds me to him and plants a kiss on my forehead. I drop my arms and put them about his waist and pull him to me and lay my head upon his chest. Oh, thank you, Lord, thank you...

  "But you're trembling. Here. A quick toweling of your hair and then into bed with you." He takes up the towels and rumples my hair dry, and I crawl into my lovely bed and pull the covers to my chin.

  "Come to me, J-J-Jaimy. Come lie next to me and we shall finally be as one. Hurry, Jaimy, come and warm me. Oh Jaimy, I am so c-c-cold. Hold me to you, please, J-J-Jaimy..."

  I shudder and the shuddering doesn't stop, even after he slides in beside me and puts his arms around me. I press my face into his neck and wrap myself around him.

  "Hold me, Jaimy, it has been so long and I am so ... c-c-cold..."

  I feel him take his hand from my shoulder and place his palm on my forehead.

  "Good Lord, Jacky! You're burning up with fever!" cries Jaimy. He jumps out of my bed and goes to the door.

  Don't go, Jaimy, don't leave me ... What are you doing, Jaimy? What...

  He puts his head out and shouts, "Higgins!"

  Chapter 3

  The fever has left me and I am told we are being tied alongside Paul's Wharf in London. We had a following breeze upon our entrance into the mouth of the Thames, and Jaimy told me he felt it best to come all the way up to the city; we could always ride the tide and the river flow on the way out.

  Imagine that, Paul's Wharf, not two hundred yards from our old kip under Blackfriars Bridge.

  Jaimy now sits on the bed, by my side, and holds my hand and looks into my eyes.

  "You are much better, Jacky, and for that I am very glad," he says, softly.

  "I am so sorry we could not have been ... together ... last night."

  "Actually, my dear, it was the night before last. You've been out for a long while. It is good to see you back among us once again."

  I don't remember much of the past few days, but I do know that it was Jaimy who held me to him when my body was wracked with chills and he who held the cool wet cloths to my sweat-soaked form when the hot flashes came.

  "It is so good to be here," I whisper, still weak from the fever. I lift my hand and put the backs of my fingers to his face. Oh Jaimy, you are so beautiful...

  He takes that same hand and kisses the back of it. Then he rises. "Well, it appears that we're going to be doing this the proper way, after all. I am now off to inform my family and to publish the banns."

  "Oh Jaimy, sit with me a while longer yet ... It has been so long."

  "I would love to do that, Jacky, but I must go. There are many things for me to do. Any number of things to set in train. We will want this done right."

  I don't care how right it is done, Jaimy. I just want you and me to
be together for good and ever...

  "I'll want my grandfather to marry us."

  "Of course, dear. I shall inform him straightaway of your safe return. Your Home for Little Wanderers is on the way to my parents' house, and I will stop there to give all therein the joyous news."

  "And if it could be at Saint Paul's ... maybe ... well, I'd like that a lot." Sure I would—the church that wouldn't let my dirty little urchin self in the front door back in the old days will now receive my grown self in all its glory. Money and position talks, evenin church ... Maybe especially in church.

  "You rest up now," he says, placing my hand back on my chest. "It's plain that you've been through a lot."

  There is a light knock at the door. "Ah, here's Higgins," says Jaimy, rising, then leaning down to place a kiss on my rather damp and probably very salty forehead, "with your breakfast. Till later, Jacky. Goodbye."

  "Goodbye, Jaimy, and be careful. I can tell you, this is a very rough neighborhood ... And please give your family my regards—your father, your brother..." and especially your mother.

  It is not long after Higgins has propped up my sorry self on pillows and I have ravenously devoured everything on the tray that he had laid across my belly that the door again pops open, and I am overjoyed to see a very familiar mop of flaming red hair atop a hugely grinning freckled face come bursting into my cabin.

  Mairead! Oh joy!

  Chapter 4

  The next week is a flurry of activity. There are old friends to visit—Oh Grandfather, how good it is to see you!—provisions to get on board the Nancy B., and much clothing to buy, such as a wedding trousseau, no less! And there's nothing like the prospect of a little shopping to get Jacky Faber up and off her duff, that's for sure.

  I am invited by Jaimy's father to come to dinner, and I accept even though Jaimy doesn't want to put me through the ordeal. But I say, Hey, if she's to be my mum-in-law, then we're both gonna have to get used to it.

  Sure enough, throughout the entire meal, his mother sits there stiff as a ramrod, barely eating a bite or speaking a word. Which is good, for what she wants to say is that I lack breeding and am not a fit match for her son. That I have driven a wedge between him and her, and that he has forsaken her house for mine—the Nancy B., such as she is.

  The devilment, though, wells up in me as I include her silent self in my hopefully bright and charming conversation, pretending that she is graciously joining in.

  "...and Mrs. Fletcher, if you could have but seen Jaimy's heroic rescue of my poor self as I was hanging there, choking in LeFievre's noose. Ah, yes, he was every inch the hero while he disregarded the bullets that were flying all about him as he swung his gleaming sword at that horrid rope..."

  Cheers all around, but nothing cracks her reserve; and I know what she is thinking, for I can see it in her eyes: Another minute at the end ofthat rope would have served you very well and done us all a world of good, you insolent little guttersnipe...

  Well, to hell with her, then. I think it will always be thus. However, I believe I have won over the hearts of Jaimy's father and brother George, as well as the rest of the company, as they listen raptly to my stories and join me in joyous song.

  'Course the fact that Amy's fourth book is a sensation out on the London streets doesn't help much with Mother Fletcher, either...

  Earlier on, sitting in my cabin after I had fully recovered from my bout with that fever, Higgins looked at my head, sighed, and set to work getting my hair into some sort of reasonable condition. What there is of my hair, anyway—it was cut to a length of scarce half an inch last August due to an unfortunate encounter with bad men, much tar, and many feathers; and here it is November and still it is only about five scruffy inches long. He takes his scissors and trims up the mop to even things out a bit. He casts his eye upon the result and pronounces himself satisfied.

  "There. That makes it look like it was intentionally cut short, you see," says Higgins, fluffing my hair with his fingers. "The latest style on the Continent, as it were. Better than wearing one of your ghastly wigs."

  "But Higgins, surely women wear wigs as well as men," I counter. "I could wear a wig to the wedding. The powdered white one."

  Higgins shudders. "They were in fashion ten years ago. They are not in fashion now," he says, firmly. "The look now is au naturel, and you certainly do look natural."

  "You mean like a natural savage, don't you, Higgins?" I pout, while still enjoying the feeling of his brush in my hair.

  "Do not worry, Miss. The bridal veil will cover your shorn locks at the wedding, and till then, when you go out in public, you can wear your mantilla, so as not to cause a scandal," he advises, reaching behind me to pick up a book, which he lays in my lap. "Or more of a scandal than you already are."

  I gasp and pick up the book, fearing that I already know exactly what it is, and sure enough, there on the lurid cover is the title, In the Belly of the Bloodhound, Being an Account of a Particularly Peculiar Adventure in the Life of Jacky Faber, by Miss Amy Trevelyne. I notice that she did not add the "as told to" bit, since she would have gotten most of the information for this book from the girls of the Lawson Peabody, and not from me, since I was nowhere around. Amy is nothing if not precise in naming her sources.

  A lot of the revenues that support the Home, now that I am not out buccaneering, come from the books that she has written concerning my exploits. Amy Trevelyne, well-fixed herself, has directed that all profits from the books go to the Home, so I can't really complain. And after all, I really did do most of that stuff.

  I see that the cover is decorated with a pretty good wood engraving, showing a girl who, I reckon, is supposed to be me, stripped to the waist and lashed to the mast, about to be flogged insensible—which I had been. But ... let's see what else...

  I open the book and begin quickly thumbing through it, looking with dread for certain things that I fear might be in there. Surely she could not have put that part in it, that bit with me dropping my drawers in front of Mick and Keefe ... Oh, no, surely she did. For a self-described bluenosed New England Puritan, she sure ain't shy about layin' out all of Jacky Faber's crimes against proper behavior for all to see, and, Hey wait, I didn't go that far! And hold on, what about that kiss with Clarissa? Flip, flip, flip ... Of course, there it is. In detail. Geez, Amy, couldn't you have lied a bit and reported I had at least some of my clothes on? And, oh, Clarissa's dad is gonna love the hell out of this if he ever sees it. Heavy sigh. And Mother Fletcher, don't even think about it...

  Higgins casts an amused eye on me.

  "I'm sorry, Higgins. I do try to be good."

  "I know you do, Miss, and sometimes you succeed."

  There is to be a reception at the dining hall of the London Home for Little Wanderers, and afterwards Jaimy and I shall take ourselves off to a place where no one can find us—I have in mind a cozy seaside cottage at Bournemouth—and we will be gone for a long time. A very good long time. When we get back, we shall get started on things.

  I had taken Higgins's advice and had a long talk with Jaimy. Two days after we got back to London, I had him pick me up and take me to the Admiral Benbow Inn for lunch. The Benbow isn't an elegant place, but I wanted us to meet there for it is not on Jaimy's turf, but rather on mine, 'cause we've got to get some things worked out.

  We go in, take a table, and order. He looks about at the humble interior, then looks at me and raises his eyebrows in question.

  "We gotta talk, Jaimy," I say, "about what's gonna happen to me after we get married."

  "Well," he says, "I do have my eye on a nice set of rooms for you to stay in, over on Aldersgate, and I am sure you'll be quite comfortable."

  I say nothing to that for a moment. Then I say, "Listen to me. All I want, Jaimy—all I ever want—is to stand by your side, wherever and whenever the world allows us to do so..."

  He reaches over to put his hand on mine, and I put my other hand on his and continue.

  "...but I just can't sit ar
ound and knit when you're far off at sea. You are still in the Royal Navy, you might remember, and no telling when you might be sent off for months, maybe years ... No,Jaimy,hear me out, please."

  He nods and waits, and I go on.

  "Here's what I propose. I will continue to run the Nancy B. back across the ocean, except this time not carrying cargo but men—Irish men."

  "Why? Whatever for?"

  "To work in Boston. They're filling in the Back Bay and they're desperate for workers. The Irish are going through another famine, so they are desperate for work. It's to everyone's advantage. The Nancy B. could be fitted out to carry a hundred men."

  "But if there's a famine, how could these men pay their fares?"

  "They wouldn't have to. Faber Shipping would take their indenture, and they could pay us back after they find work."

  "How do you know they would pay what they owed?"

  "Ha. Woe be to any man who failed to pay his debt. I've got John Thomas and Smasher McGee, remember. They would be quite formidable enforcers."

  "You seem to have it all worked out," he says, doubtfully.

  "Yes, I have. I've talked to Ian McConnaughey, and he says he could handle the Irish end of things while my Mr. Ezra Pickering would do what was necessary in Boston—making sure there was work for the men the instant they stepped off my ship."

  "But the danger, Jacky. Your ship is so small."

  "She is a very sound craft, Jaimy, as you well know. And if we make a year's worth of successful trips, we would be in a position to buy a bigger ship—maybe a bark or a brigantine—and then we could haul four hundred men at once and make some serious money. And as for danger, a person can die as easily from a fever caught in the streets of London as from a storm at sea. What do you say, Jaimy?"