CHAPTER 11APRIL 1758The Leopard Can Change Her SpotsThe doctors house was quiet. I couldnt sleep for the pounding in my head.In the days that followed the funeral, Margery relayed to the doctor that she was ever so sorry, but she didnt have enough business to take on an apprentice. Moreover, she said, she had no place for me to stay given her situation, living with nine brothers and sisters and her mother about to give birth again. Shed teach me any time I wanted, she said, but I couldnt live with her family nor could I stay above Mr. Galts shop as hed have to get a new tenant for the sake of the rent. Mrs.Stevensons dressmaker knew someone willing to take on a girl to do small sewing of ladies undergarments, and then move up to gowns if the girl proved herself. The girlmewould sew tiny stitches for twelve hours every day for seven years. During the Season, from April to July, when London ladies ordered new gowns, I might work around the clock, for a new gown must always be done by the next drawing-room event or fte or dance. The dressmaker made a pound or more per gown, so Id better be nimble with my fingers! I would work from dark to dark and Sunday to Sunday, with no time off even for church if we were busy. If I proved myself, I might someday have my own business. I would have board and a place to sleep in the dressmakers establishment, which, Mrs.Stevenson said, was a boon, as many sempstresses had to find their own lodgings. The doctor and Mr.Franklin and Mrs.Stevenson together said they would pay my apprentice fee of 50. My seven-year sentence was to begin Monday next. I was doomed.I worried my problem like a dog worries a bone as I lay again in the dark in Brians room at Dr. Abernathys. Both Brian and his mother died of the smallpox, which the doctor believed hed brought home with him on his clothing during the epidemic that killed so many in London two summers after I was born. Still blames himself too, Mrs.Pierce had told me on a rare day when she was inclined to string more than two words together. He wanted to inoculate Brian at the new smallpox hospital when he was born, but the missus feared inoculation for such a small baby. So the doctor agreed to wait until Brian was older. And as the days passed, the boy was healthy, and they were happy, and then it was too late. Brian got sick. Such a sad thing. If Brian Abernathy had lived, he might be apprenticed to his father by now, learning medicine, a position I desired with all my heart. The doctor would be a good master. I admired him, gruff though he was. He could be trusted to do the right thing. I didnt want to be apprenticed to someone I didnt know. Back in Lamesley long ago, Id walked by the blacksmiths shop where the apprentice worked a bellows. The smith cursed and dropped his tongs and came for the apprentice and cuffed him. Harder! he demanded. And the boy, bleeding from his ear and with tears running rivers down his smoky cheeks, pumped the bellows harder. The doctor would never strike me, but what about the dressmakers friend? What if she didnt like me or didnt like my work (which was likely)? What if she were cruel like the blacksmith? It was good of Mr.Franklin and Dr.Abernathy and Mrs. Stevenson to find me a place, but being an apprentice is like being a slave, except an apprentice is freed after seven years. Sewing round the clock until I grew up? Id almost rather go down the pit to dig coal. At last, lying there in the dark, I decided to run away before the indenture deed was signed. I said those words in my head, and the blood beat warm in my veins. But then I thought, Where can I go? Id hidden my money at Mrs.Stevensons. Once Dr. Abernathy turned me over to my new mistress, my lessons with Mr.Franklin likely would end. If I turned up at Craven Street, any one of Mrs.Stevensons people could ask me what I was about and why I wasnt sitting in a cheerless, airless room sewing petticoats! Once I moved to the dressmakers, the gate would be closed and locked behind me.I had to show the doctor and Mr.Franklin that I was fit for more than they intended. If I were a boy like Brian, nobody would prevent me from being a doctor. If I were a boy, I could do more in every part of my life, for people seemed to appreciate a mans character above his physical self. It was the opposite for women. The Bible said, The Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. If God Himself valued the heart most, why didnt everybody else? I lay in Brians bed, tossing and turning and thinking. The moon shone through the window, glancing off Brians hobbyhorse in a corner. It shone fully on his toy soldiers, which stood in dusty ranks on a table. Everything was as Brian had left it. Even his clothes were still in the wardrobe. And then I got an idea so outrageous it seemed too large to hold in my mindyet I couldnt let it go.The idea advanced and retreated like waves on a beach: yes, no, maybe, probably not, why not, what if. When the last wave said what if, I turned away from my dithering and held that what if to my heart. If the world allowed only males to be doctors, yet God valued most what was inside, then the outer appearance of a person didnt matter. It didnt matter what I looked like; what mattered was what was in my heart, and in my heart, I wanted to learn medicine, not dressmaking. To turn away from what was in my heart was a kind of lying, and Mum and Da said lying was bad. I shouldnt lie, should I? No. If people wanted their doctor to look like a man, I could do that, couldnt I?Yes.So then: What if I were a boy? Could I learn medicine? I lay still as a shadow in that great bed, my breathing fast and my eyes fixed on the carved wooden panels of the ceiling, picked out by moonlight. But I didnt see the ceiling; I saw myself, dressed as a boy, going about the business of living. There I was in breeches, walking along the street to purchase a loaf. There I was, leaping after the doctor into a coach to go on a case. There I was, running two at a time up the stairs in Mrs.Stevensons house to have a lesson of Mr.Franklin.And there I was not, if I were a boy, sewing tiny stitches in dim light, struggling with skirts and stays, my only choice to do it forever or somehow find a husband. A man was free. I wanted to be free.The dream was irresistiblethough possibly wickedbut it solved every problem. I was ten years old; I was alone; I had lost everything. But in breeches, I might leap over any obstacles I might encounter!Before I lost my nerve, I got out of bed. I lit my candle from the fire, placed it on the floor beside Brians wardrobe, and opened the double doors. Before I touched anything, I prayed that what I was doing was rightand then I did it.I found a shirt and breeches, a waistcoat and a jacket, and I put them on. I found stockings and a hat. Brians shoes didnt fit me, so I wore my own. The doctor owned a beautiful mirror, which had pride of place over the fireplace in his front room. Id looked in it the first time Id stayed with the doctor. Now, I wanted to see myself in my boys garb, so I took the candle and crept down the stairs. It didnt occur to me that if I could see light and shadow under my doors crack, others could as well, nor did I realize, so great was my excitement, that my steps and light had awakened the doctor as easily as his had awakened me the night I went along to clean Mr.Crakers bedsores. I reached the front room and looked up at the mirror and sawa boy holding a candle.He was as tall as me. He had my dark hair. But he was as normal-looking a boy as any that walked the streets of London.At a step on the stair, my courage seeped away like water into sand. I blew out the candle and scrambled behind the door. The doctor stuck his head in the doorway and said, Who is it? What are you about? Dont think to hide; I can smell your candle. My cane has a leaden head. Come out now, or Ill thrash you.Please, sir, its only me, Jenna. I said from my hiding place.Come out from there at once! What are you doing out of bed? He set his candle on the table and turned.I walked out from behind the door. If my heart hadnt been beating so hard, I mightve laughed at the way his eyebrows showed what he was thinking: first they met in a straight line, then they wrinkled like caterpillars, then they peaked up in the middle. When they met again in a straight line, he said, Jenna? Why are you dressed like this? His eyes narrowed to slits. Are those Brians clothes? What, exactly, do you think you are doing? he said, his lips stretched tight over his teeth. Well?I sucked in air. Sir, you want me to be a dressmakers prentice and learn to sew. I want to be your prentice and learn medicine. I want to be like you and heal people. You said girls cant be doctors, so I put on boys clothes.The eyebrows winged to heaven. Impossible. Outrageous and out of the question.I prayed about it.I dont care if God and all the Saints gave you written permission. What astonishing cheek you have! To be a guest in my house, to be shepherded and helped and guided by me, to allow me to undertake all the funeral arrangements for your familyBut, sir, IHe threw up a hand. Not to mention the care they received before they died, and then to have the unmitigated cheek to put on clothing belonging to my own dead son and purport to act the part of a boy so that you can insinuate yourself into being my apprentice! Do you think you can manipulate me?I couldnt answer that thundery face. Jenna, I am angrier with you than Ive ever been. Im so angry I dont trust myself to say anything else. Go upstairs immediately and take off my sons things and put them back exactly where you found them. You are not to touch them ever again. Do I make myself clear?My excitement drained. My dream withered. I felt very small. Perfectly, sir.Go then.Dr.Abernathy, Im sorryGo! Get out of my sons clothes. Dont show your wicked, ungrateful face to me again until youve done so. Goodnight.I trudged upstairs, thinking, stupid girl. Of course the doctor was shocked to see me dressed in his sons clothing. Of course he was angry that Id ignored his efforts on my behalf.Insinuate. Manipulate. They described a sneak. I didnt feel like a sneak; right then, I felt like a worm. Id best give up my dream and do what my betters believed was in my best interest. For all I knew, they were right. If they were wrong, I still could run away.