Curse of the Blue Tattoo

Plot introduction

At the end of Bloody Jack, Jacky Faber is exposed as a girl and sent to the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls in Boston, in the hopes that they can find her a husband.

Explanation of the novel's title

Curse of the Blue Tattoo refers to the anchor tattoo Jacky received while serving as a ship's boy. Frequently mistaken for a pitchfork, it becomes a great source of trouble for her.

Plot summary

After saying goodbye to her shipmates, Jacky is sent to Lawson Peabody's and turned over to the custody of Miranda Primm, the elderly headmistress. From the start, it is clear that she has a very low opinion of Jacky, going so far as to have her earring cut off and her mail seized to keep her from sending letters to her beloved, Midshipman Jaimy Fletcher.

Shunned by most of her fellow students, Jacky strikes up a friendship with Amy Trevelyne, the daughter of a wealthy Massachusetts farmer. Clarissa Worthington Howe, an arrogant Virginia heiress who enjoys abusing the school staff, takes an instant dislike to Jacky and insults her mother, resulting in a fight between the girls. As punishment, the two are beaten and forced to give up dinner and supper.

Eager to please Primm, Jacky throws herself into her classes, which include horse riding, art, music, embroidery, French, and etiquette. Jacky is subsequent noticed by Reverend Richard Mather, the school priest, who views her as a disgrace. While visiting the graveyard near his church, Jacky stumbles upon an unmarked grave, which she later learns belonged to Mather's former servant, Janey Porter.

While wandering the streets of Boston unsupervised, Jacky is arrested for public indecency and put on trial. When the court learns that she attends Lawson Peabody's, however, they decide to embarrass the school by having Jacky paraded through the streets in chains. Humiliated, Primm assigns Jacky to work as a lowly servant, while Mather petitions the court to appoint him as her legal guardian.

Welcomed by her fellow workers, Jacky decides to form a Sisterhood of Lawson Peabody Girls, consisting of several serving girls and Amy. While meeting with her lawyer, Ezra Pickering, she also learns that Janey Porter's death was declared a suicide, but was briefly suspected to be murder. Jacky spies on Mather and discovers that he is a drunkard and religious zealot obsessed with riding the world of "witches" and "demons".

Convinced that Mather is responsible for killing Janey, Jacky poses as her and starts "haunting" him, further increasing his paranoia.

Having grown increasingly attracted to Amy's brother Randall, Jacky attends a party at her family's mansion, during which she gets drunk and makes a fool of herself. After an argument with Amy, Jacky runs away and flees to New York City. On the way there, two men hired by Mather abduct her and bring her back to the school.

Convinced that Jacky is Janey reincarnated, Mather plans to stake her with her own shiv. A fire breaks out in the church, during which Jacky's friends rescue her and trap Mather, causing him to die when the church collapses in on itself. The fire then spreads to the school, and though Jacky manages to save Primm and her students, the entire building is lost. Fearing arrest, Jacky flees Boston and joins the crew of a whaling ship as a servant.

Characters in "Curse of the Blue Tattoo"

Release details

2004, USA, Harcourt Trade Publishers ISBN 978-0-15-205115-0, Trade Paperback