Winsor, Kathleen (32 page)

One
of their most consistently successful tricks was the "buttock and
twang"—a simpler form of what they had done the first night. Amber would
go masked into a tavern, find her victim and lure him outside into some dark
alley. When she had picked his pocket a cough or sneeze summoned Black Jack who
would come staggering along and pretending to be drunk, knock him over, and
make off with whatever she had stolen. Concealed by the darkness she would also
disappear, join Black Jack, and return to Alsatia. A time or two she went
"upon the question lay." Dressed well, though discreetly, and
carrying in her hand an empty bandbox she would go to some great house and
pretend to be the 'Change-woman come with the ribbons my lady had bespoke the
day before. While the maid was gone to see if the lady was awake she could put
a few small valuable objects into her box and depart.

But
Amber did not care for that kind of sport. She preferred to play the lady of
quality herself and told them flatly this dodge was a trick better suited to
Bess's talents than her own.

Once
Amber went into a house in Great Queen Street where a masquerade was in
progress, and after a while she and one of the young men sought a quiet room.
But as they were walking down a dark hallway she felt stealthy fingers at the
nape of her neck and moved swiftly. "You're a thief!" she whispered,
afraid to cry out for fear a constable actually would
come. He
protested and was about to run off when he discovered that the buttons on his
coat had been cut. They both laughed, he admitted he had been mistaken in her
too, and so they parted, to cast for other fish.

She
had only one serious scare and that occurred the night she went to an
upstairs-room in a tavern with their victim and found that Black Jack had not
yet arrived. For more than half an hour she was capricious and teasing, holding
him off; but at last he grew impatient, began to suspect what she was about and
when he tried to pull off her mask she grabbed up a pewter candlestick and
struck him with it. Then, not stopping for his sword or watch or even to see
whether or not he was dead, she rushed out of the room, down the hallway and
the stairs and was halfway through the taproom when she heard a voice bellow:
"Stop that woman! She's a thief!" He had recovered consciousness and
come after her.

Amber
felt an agonizing terror that seemed to freeze blood and muscle, but somehow in
spite of herself she ran on at full speed through the roomful of dumfounded
patrons. She had just reached the door to the street when a man sprang up from
one of the tables and started after her, shouting that he would bring her back.
It was Black Jack. They got safely to the Sanctuary where he told the story to
everyone with shouts of laughter—but Amber refused to stir out of the Friars
again for more than a fortnight. She had felt the gallows noose too plain that
time.

But
in spite of all these activities she was not able to save much money. She had
to have numerous gowns and cloaks, so that she could not come to be recognized
by what she wore, and though she bought them second-hand in Houndstitch or in
Long Lane and soon sold them again, she spent a good deal. She also had to
defer the cost of her lodging and food and other incidental expenses. And every
time Mrs. Chiverton brought the baby in she had a dozen gifts for him. She had
come to feel that there was a wall around Alsatia over which it would never be
possible to climb—most who came there, she knew, stayed.

Black
Jack was himself a good example.

Whatever
his real name, he was the son of a country-squire and had come to London eleven
years before to attend the Middle Temple. At that time the King had just been
beheaded and the Puritans were rabidly punishing vice and praising virtue; but
the young men nevertheless contrived to live very much the same carefree reckless
lives they always had. A hypocritical cloak of modesty served its purpose for
them. Thus he ran himself into debt, far beyond his father's ability to pay
even had the old man wished to do so. It was never permissible for impecunious
gentlemen to beg of their relatives and friends, and so when his creditors
became too pressing he moved into Whitefriars to avoid arrest. And there he had
found, as did many another bankrupt young man of good family,
that the King's
highway offered an easy and exciting livelihood.

"When
it's so easy to steal money," he said, "a man's a fool to work for
it." Amber was half inclined to agree with him— or would have had she been
able to keep all and not merely a small part of what she took.

Early
in June Black Jack went back to the roads again. Winter was the gay social
season in London and many of the nobility returned to their country homes to
spend the summer months. Then the roads swarmed with highwaymen and numerous
inn-keepers were in their pay; but in spite of the well-known dangers most
persons rode without sufficient protection.

Amber's
part was a simple and safe one. With Bess, who went along dressed as her
serving-woman, she would ride out to the inn from which Mother Red-Cap had had
information and there make the acquaintance of the traveller and his family.
Pretending to be a lady of quality just going out of or coming into town, she
would tell them that her coach had been overturned and wrecked; and when they
offered to let her ride with them she could manage the time of departure to
Black Jack's advantage. For though many inn-keepers were willing to give
information, very few would allow a robbery on the premises—too many such
incidents would put them out of business. Amber was well satisfied with this
arrangement, but Bess was not—for she had been accustomed to acting the part of
lady herself and was furiously resentful at having been demoted.

There
was seldom any scuffle when the bandits appeared, for even if all members of a
party were armed they usually preferred giving up the master's valuables to
risking a wound. One man, however, told Black Jack that he would never have got
the money if he had not taken him unawares, and Black Jack offered to shoot it
out with him. Armed with pistols, they walked into the nearby field, counted
off ten paces, and fired. The man dropped dead. Amber, who had been watching
with anxiety and trying to think what she should do if Black Jack was killed,
felt a passionate relief—but afterward she was more in awe of him than she had
been.

But
he was a good-natured thief and always left the coachman half-a-crown to drink
his health. Once he robbed an old Parliamentarian just returning from a trip
into the country with his whore, stripped them both naked and tied them to a
tree, back to back; over their heads he put a sign informing all passers-by
that here were two Adamites.

As
the summer weeks passed Amber's savings began to mount; by mid-August she had
accumulated two hundred and fifty pounds. They had had no new scares and she
became brazenly confident and almost began to enjoy the life she was living.
She still had an uneasy restlessness to leave Alsatia, a feeling that she was
missing something of great importance going on out in the real world, but the
days faded one into another and she was half content.

Then
one day she got a crude and sickening shock.

Coming
into the parlour she found Black Jack standing between Blueskin and Jimmy the
Mouth—leaning with his great arms upon their shoulders—while they looked at
something laid out on the table before them. Their backs were to her and she
could not see what it was but they were talking together in low voices which
now and then burst into a laugh.

Amber
walked up and saw that it was a large sheet of paper with his Majesty's
coat-of-arms and two long lines of printing upon it. She frowned, suddenly
suspicious.

"What's
that?"

They
looked around, surprised to find her there.

"Black
Jack's a famous man," said Blueskin. "He's been named first in a
proclamation for taking twenty-two highwaymen." Black Jack grinned,
pleased with the honour.

But
Amber stared, open-mouthed and horrified. She wanted violently to live, and at
a time like this, when she saw how close death stood beside her, she grew
frantic with terror.

"What's
the matter?" demanded Black Jack, a kind of sharpness in his voice.

"You
know what's the matter! They're looking for you and they'll catch you! They'll
catch all of us, and hang us! Oh, I wish I was still in Newgate! There at least
I was safe!"

"And
so do I wish you were still in Newgate! Of all the complaining jades I've ever
known— What the hell did you expect when I brought you here? You'd better get
it through your head the whole world doesn't function for your benefit! But you
can stop worrying about your neck! A woman's always got one alibi—you can plead
your belly. Why," he continued—and now his voice had turned sarcastic, his
eyes went over her with mocking amusement—"I once knew a woman put off the
hangman for ten years—no sooner was she delivered of one brat than they found her
quick again."

Amber
scowled and her mouth gave a sneer of repugnance. "Oh, did she, indeed?
Well, that's all very well—but not for me!" She finished the sentence with
a shout, leaning toward him, fists clenched and the cords in her throat
straining. "I've got other things to do with
my
life, I'll have you
know—!"

At
that moment Bess came in the door, and saw that there was trouble between them.
She grinned maliciously. "What's the quarrel here? Sure, now, Jack, you've
not fallen out with our fine Mrs. Fairtail?"

Amber
turned, her nostrils flaring with anger, and gave her a sweeping glance of lazy
insolence. "Marry come up, Bess Columbine, but you're as jealous as a wife
of her husband when she lies-in!"

"Jealous?
Me
jealous of
you!"
yelled Bess. "I'll be damned if I
am, you scurvy wench!"

"Don't
call
me
names!"

Suddenly
Amber reached out, grabbed her by the hair, and gave a violent jerk. With a
shriek of rage Bess seized a fistful
of curls and the two women would have
flown into deadly battle—but for the unexpected appearance of Mother Red-Cap.
The men merely stood looking on and smiling, but she rushed forward, took them
by the shoulders and gave each a vigorous shake.

"Stop!"
she cried. "I won't have any brawling under my roof! Just once more, Bess
Columbine, and out you go!"

"Out
I
go!" protested Bess, while Amber, with a superior smile, reached
up to pin back the long heavy curls that had come loose. "What about her!
What about that—"

"Bess!"

For
a long time Bess and Mother Red-Cap stood with locked stares, but Bess was
finally forced to yield. Nevertheless, as she turned to leave the room she
knocked into Amber, giving her a hard jar. Without an instant's hesitation
Amber turned her head and spat onto her gown. Bess stopped abruptly, the two
women once more face to face like a pair of bristling cats; but at another
warning from Mother Red-Cap Bess whirled around and stalked out.

For
several days after that Black Jack ignored Amber as though she did not exist,
and Bess was insultingly triumphant; she flouted his preference whenever they
met. But however little Amber cared for Black Jack or his company, she did not
intend to let Bess get the better of her. She began a new flirtation with him
which was presently successful——and after that Bess's hatred was so intense and
so sullen that she half expected to get a knife stuck into her ribs. She
believed, and with good reason, that it was only Bess's fear of Black Jack
which secured her own life.

Early
in September, Bess, convinced that she was pregnant, told Black Jack about it
and asked him outright to marry her. He gave her an insulting snort.

"Marry
you? You must take me for a dommerer. I suppose you think I don't know every
man that's come into this house has had a lick at you!"

He
was sitting at the dinner-table, as he always did, long after everyone else had
left, gnawing at a chicken-leg he had in one hand and washing it down with
swallows from a wine-bottle held in the other. He was slumped far down on his
spine, perfectly easy and relaxed and unconcerned, not even troubling to glance
up at her.

"That's
a damned lie and you know it! I never so much as spoke to another man until you
brought that slut in here! And anyway I haven't laid with anyone but
Blueskin—and that only a few times! This brat is yours and you know it, Black
Jack Mallard, and you'll own it or I'll—"

He
tossed the bone aside and leaned forward to pick up a cluster of purple Lisbon
grapes. "For God's sake, Bess, stubble it! You sound like a beggar's
clack-dish! I don't care what you do. Lay with who you damned please, but don't
bother me about it."

His
back was half-turned and for a moment she stood staring at him, her eyes like
glass, her whole body beginning to tremble with rage. And then with an
animal-like cry she lunged for him, snatching up a knife off the table. A quick
look of surprise crossed his face as he saw the swift descending flash of the
blade and his arm went up to defend himself, thrashing out then and giving her
a violent blow that sent her sprawling across the room.

She
was crouched on the floor, staring ferociously up at him where he loomed above
her, when Mother Red-Cap rushed in from her room down the hallway. "What
is it?" she cried. "Oh!" She put her hands on her hips.
"Well, I've warned you before, Bess, and now you go. Get your belongings
and leave this house!"