Like one person, you might say.” Jessie sighs. “She may have been younger, but she was wilder and stronger. Rachael could hold her breath and dive down deep and swim halfway across the lake under the water. Her skinny arms and legs a-pumpin’ like a frog. And Mum and me, we’d get scared. ‘Rachael, Rachael,’ we’d call and hug each other. ‘Mother of God, she ain’t comin’ up this time, Mum,’ says I and cried. And then she would. She would just pop up from the water, gasping and laughing, and wipe the water from her eyes. ‘You a-cryin’ for me, Jessie, you silly girl? You thought I ain’t comin’ up this time? Huh? Did ya?’”
“And then Mum died, didn’t she?” Miss Anthony says.
Jessie nods, surprised that the suffragist is following her story. “The fever took many a soul that winter. It’s a wonder Rachael and I didn’t up and die, too. Pater was a smithy, that’s how I get my special touch with the nags. Pater’s business had been slow, the house was an ice box, and he and Mum both caught the fever and died. I was ten years of age, Rachael eight going on nine. There must have been some money, you know? Pater owned our house and our stables, least as far as I knew. But a lawyer came to settle their accounts and sent me and Rachael to an orphanage in Portland. Maybe some money went with us for our keep, I don’t know. All I know is we never saw one red cent of it.
“Sure and we hated that place! I took it into my head that the orphanage had murdered Mum and Pater. That Mum and Pater would never have gone off and left me and Rachael alone without a penny.” Jessie pulls from her flask. “So we turned bad. We ran away from that place every chance we got. There’s a great big ol’ river winding through Portland, and down to the river we’d go to swim. Oh! How we missed our Lily Lake.
“One hot summer we’d run away to swim, and Rachael was a-swimmin’ underwater the way she did, divin’ down and breachin’ up and spoutin’ water from her mouth. Kickin’ up her legs, sassy like. Showin’ off she was. And me a-cryin’ and a-wringin’ my hands. Beggin’ her to come up, don’t drown! My sweet innocent Rachael, she was all I had left in the world.
“Suddenly a strange gentleman with silver hair stood beside me on the riverbank.
“I was never shy, but as I stood dripping wet in my cotton shift, I could see how his black eyes looked me up and down. I think that must have been the first time I got a notion about the lust of men. I remember how I found my crumpled dress on the riverbank and clutched it to myself. As though a dusty piece of cotton could hide my body from his eyes.
“But it wasn’t me he wanted most, he wanted Rachael. He made small talk, all polite. ‘Can you swim, too?’ says he. ‘Sure I can,’ says I, all boastful. ‘Like a mermaid.’ I got real mad when I cottoned on that it was Rachael who had grabbed his eye. ‘We grew up at Lily Lake. We swum like mermaids before we could walk.’
“’Mermaids,’ says he. ‘How charming.’
“Like a damn fool, I spilled our whole story. ‘Orphans?’ says he. ‘Would you like me to spring you and your sister loose of that orphanage?’ ‘How?’ says I. ‘Come with me,’ says he. ‘I own a circus.’”
“Oh, my! You joined the circus, Miss Malone?” Lucy exclaims.
“But that’s wonderful!” Zhu says. After her skipparents abandoned her and she went to live at the barracks, Zhu often fantasized about just such an escape from the cruelties of her young life. Run off and join the circus!
“Sure and we joined the circus, Rachael and me. Mr. Girabaldi—for he was the silver-haired gent, of course—billed us as ‘The Water Princesses. See the Little Living Mermaids!’ Rachael at nine was not so little, anymore. She shot up taller than me. And at eleven going on twelve, I was not so little, either. After the cheap grease and grits Mr. Girabaldi fed us, I was developin’ my bosom and hips, you bet. Neither of us was such little girls anymore.
“Oh, but you should have seen our act! Mr. Girabaldi dressed us in daring silver and green sateen bathing suits.