Part 28 (1/2)
When we go round the school and arrive at the kitchen entrance, most get into amorous embraces till Amy coughs, ”Ahem,” and the lovers part. Paul and his brother go off down the hill and I go and get between Davy and Annie, which ain't easy. With a final squeeze of his hand, she turns and gives him a wave and then she joins the other girls, who all go in the kitchen door, opened by Peg in her nightgown, clucking over her girls like any mother hen. Sylvie, I'm sure, would go into the hayloft right off with Henry but good sense prevails, and after a long good-night kiss, she, too, disappears through the kitchen door, and Peg's strong arm reaches out and pulls the door shut. There is the sound of a latch being thrown.
Henry, in a daze, wanders back to his bed after what has to be the finest night of his young life. Ezra and Davy escort us around to our rung ladder and look at our rope trick and Davy says something like, ”Can't keep that one down, for sure.” Ezra takes Amy's hand and bows over it and kisses it. Amy lets him do it and then turns and goes to the rope. When Amy goes up, s.h.i.+nnying up like I taught her, Ezra looks away like a gentleman. Davy don't, and I 'spect he won't look away when I go up, neither. I can't wait to get that little weasel alone for a while, but it ain't gonna happen now, I know.
”I gotta talk to you, Davy,” I whispers.
”I know, Jacky, I know,” says he, ”but I got the duty tomorrow and they won't let you on the s.h.i.+p, not to talk to the likes o' me, they won't. But it will all keep. I'll see you on Monday. I'll come here.”
I bet you will, thinks I. I've got to get that Annie aside and tell her some of the facts of life. And of sailors.
I go up the ladder, and Ezra and Davy walk back downtown together, seaman and lawyer, brothers at least for this night.
Chapter 32.
”But I like him,” says Annie.
I had gotten up close to her on Monday morning, when we're in the kitchen scrubbing up the breakfast pots.
”You don't know the little weasel like I do. You'll catch something from him. Or he'll give you a baby and run away to sea.”
”I can't believe that,” she softly says.
”What's he promised?”
”That he'd think of nothing but me when he's out on the sea.”
”That's prolly true,” I admits, ”but that don't mean much. Will you give him any token?”
”A lock of my hair, braided and tied up in one of my ribbons.”
”Aye, and it's lovely I'm sure, Annie, and he'll show that to all his mates so they'll think he's a mighty lover what's broken many a young girl's heart, yours included, you can be sure of that, too.”
”But what's the harm in that? I know that I'll probably never see him again after tomorrow, but it's nice to dream on things, sometimes.”
”Harrumph,” I grumps. It occurs to me that I'm prolly acting a lot like Mistress right now.
”He said he'd swing in his hammock at night with the lock clutched in his hand and next to his heart and all fear banished from his mind, knowing I was safe and warm back on land, no matter what cruel fate awaited his poor self.”
”Oh, please, that's what they all say. Davy does have a gift of gab, I'll own, if nothing else,” I say, thinkin' back to when he talked himself aboard the Dolphin when there was plenty more boys bigger and stronger than him. Then again, I done the same thing. But he's prolly not lyin' about lying there in the dark with the token to his breast, for it does get cold and lonely out there. ”All right. Just you be careful is all. The Davy I remember don't think with his head, that's for sure. What's the rascal got planned for today?”
”Just a walk in the Common. Then a bite to eat, and then I got to go home at my usual time, you know that, or else my father would kill me.”
”Well, you mind the tall gra.s.s in the Common, Annie.”
”I know how to be careful, Jacky. You're the one what needs to be more careful, from what I've heard.”
I ain't got nothin' to say to that.
Davy comes up the hill at about eleven in the morning and I'm layin' for him. I've been about jumpin' out of my skin all yesterday and today, I'm so keen to talk to him.
I head him off at the kitchen door. ”Come with me,” I say, and we go around to the side and then we're up in my room.
”Keep your voice down and if anyone tries that door, you dive out the window, you hear?” I had put a small wooden wedge under the door to keep us from being surprised.
”Pretty nice kip,” says Davy. ”How come you're separate from the others?”
”I got busted down from lady to serving girl,” I say, makin' myself not hang my head.
”Sounds like something you'd do.” He tests the bed. ”Why don't you call down for Annie to pop up here for a bit?”
”She's a good girl and a nice girl and a good friend to me and I don't want the likes of you to hurt her-”
”Ah, Jacky Faber, the Mother Superior, lookin' out for her little flock, ain't that sweet...”
”I mean it, Davy...”
”Still the bossy one, ain't you, Jacky? Now boys, dress up in these pretty little uniforms I made for ye! Now boys, stand up all straight in a line here! Now boys, wear the cute little caps! Now boys....” He looks at me all serious. ”Look, Jacky, she's the first real girl I've met since I got on the Dolphin- you don't meet many of 'em in my line of work, you might recall-and, h.e.l.l, I've only been ash.o.r.e about a week and a half total since I signed on to this jolly seafarin' life.”
”Still...”
He sneers and pokes me on the breastbone with a stiff finger. ”No real girls, 'cept for you, of course, but you never did me much good in that way, savin' it all for Jaimy like you was ... and is, I reckon. Aww ... is that your Jaimy up there on your wall now?”
Davy and I are back in our old stance-nose to nose, eyes narrowed, lower lips jutting out, fingers pointing, each at the other, and snarling.
”You don't know what it's like to be me, Davy, then or now.”
”Maybe I don't care what it's like to be a bossy, pigheaded little c.o.c.kney chambermaid what thought she was gonna be a lady.”
That hurts me and I jerk like I've been hit. I got nothin' to say to that. He knows he hit home 'cause he looks a little ashamed and he don't follow it up with any more jibes.