Winsor, Kathleen (64 page)

"What if a
day, or a month, or a year,

Crown thy
delights

With a thousand
glad contentings?

Cannot the
chance of a night or an hour

Cross thy
delights

With as many sad
tormentings?"

When
it was done the listeners applauded politely, all but Jemima and Samuel, who
were enthusiastic. "Oh, if only I could sing like that!" cried
Jemima.

And
Samuel went to take her hand. "My dear, I think you have the prettiest
voice I've ever heard."

Amber
kissed Jemima on the cheek and slipped her arm through Samuel's, smiling up at
him. She was still holding her guitar which had been a gift from Rex Morgan and
was decorated with a streamer of multicoloured ribbons he had bought for her
one day at the Royal Exchange. She was relieved to have the evening done and
was eager to get upstairs where she could feel safe. Never again, she had
promised herself a dozen times, will I be such a fool.

Lettice
sat leaning forward in her chair, tense, her hands clasped hard, and now
Katherine gave her an impatient nudge with her elbow. Suddenly Lettice's voice
rang out, unnaturally clear and sharp: "It's not surprising that Madame's
voice should be pleasant."

Henry,
standing across the room, gave a visible start and his adolescent face turned red.
Amber's heart and the very flowing of her blood seemed to stop still. But
Samuel had not heard, and though she continued to smile up at him she was
wishing desperately that she could stop up his ears, push him out of the room,
somehow keep him from ever hearing.

"What
do you mean, Lettice?" It was Susan.

"I
mean that any woman who used her voice to earn her living should have a
pleasant one."

"What
are you talking about, Lettice?" demanded Jemima. "Madame has never
earned her living and you know it!"

Lettice
stood up, her cheeks bright, fists clenched nervously at her sides, and the
lappets on her cap trembled. "I think that you had better go to your room,
Jemima."

Jemima
was instantly on the defensive, looking to Amber for support. "Go to my
room? Why should I? What have I done?"

"You've
done nothing, dear," said Lettice patiently, determined that there should
be no quarrel within the family itself. "But what I have to say is not
altogether suitable for you to hear."

Jemima
made a grimace. "Heavens, Lettice! How old do you think I am? If I'm old
enough to get married to that Joseph Cuttle I'm old enough to stay here and
listen to anything you might have to say!"

By
now Samuel was aware of the quarrel going on between his daughters. "What
is it, Lettice? Jemima's grown-up, I believe. If you have something to say, say
it."

"Very
well." She took a deep breath. "Henry saw Madame at the theatre this
afternoon."

Samuel's
expression did not change and the three women about the fireplace looked
seriously disappointed, almost cheated. "Well?" he said.
"Suppose he did? I understand the theatre is patronized nowadays by ladies
of the best quality."

"You
don't understand, Father. He saw her in the tiring-room." For a moment she
paused, watching the change on her
father's face, almost wishing that her
hatred and jealousy had never led her to make this wretched accusation. She was
beginning to realize that it would only hurt him, and do no one any good. And
Henry stood looking as if he wished he might be suddenly stricken by the devil
and disappear in a cloud of smoke. Her voice dropped, but Lettice finished what
she had begun. "She was in the tiring-room because she was once an actress
herself."

There
was a gasp from everyone but Amber, who stood perfectly still and stared
Lettice levelly in the eye. For an instant her face was naked, threatening
savage hate showing on it, but so quickly it changed that no one could be
certain the expression had been there at all. Her lashes dropped, and she
looked no more dangerous than a penitent child, caught with jam on its hands.

But
Susan pricked her finger. Katherine dropped her sewing. Jemima leaped
involuntarily to her feet. And the brothers were jerked out of their lazy
indifference to what they had thought was merely another female squabble.
Samuel, who had been looking younger and happier these past weeks than he had
in years, was suddenly an old man again; and Lettice wished that she had never
been so great a fool as to tell him.

For
a moment he stood staring ahead and then he looked down at Amber, who raised
her eyes to meet his. "It isn't true, is it?"

She
answered him so softly that though everyone else in the room strained to hear
her words they could not. "Yes, Samuel, it's true. But if you'll let me
talk to you—I can tell you why I had to do it. Please, Samuel?"

For
a long minute they stood looking at each other, Amber's face pleading, Samuel's
searching for what he had never tried before to find. And then his head came up
proudly and with her arm still linked in his they walked from the room. There
was a moment of perfect silence, before Lettice ran to her husband and burst
into broken-hearted tears.

No
further mention was ever made, in the presence of Samuel Dangerfield, of his
wife's acting.

The
morning after Lettice had made her sensational disclosure, he called her into a
private room and told her that the matter had been explained to his own
satisfaction, that he did not consider an explanation due the family, and that
he wanted no more talk of it among themselves, nor any mention to outsiders.
Henry was told that he could either forgo visiting the theatre or leave home.
And to all outward appearances everything went on exactly as it had before.

The
first time Amber appeared at dinner after that she was as composed and natural
as if none of them knew what she
really was; her coolness on this
occasion was considered to be the boldest thing she had yet done. They could
never forgive her for not hanging her head and blushing.

But
though Amber knew what they thought of her she did not care. Samuel, at least,
was convinced that she was wholly innocent, the victim of bad luck which had
forced her into the uncongenial surroundings of the theatre, and that she had
been tainted neither physically nor morally by the months she had spent on the
stage. His infatuation for her was so great, his loyalty so intense, that none
of them dared criticize her to him, even by implication. And they were all
forced by family pride and love of their father to protect her against
outsiders. For though, inevitably, gossip spread among their numberless
relatives and friends that old Samuel Dangerfield had married an actress—and
one of no very good repute—they defended her so convincingly that Amber became
acceptable to the most censorious and stiff-necked dowagers in London.

But
if the rest of the family was shocked and ashamed to be related, even by
marriage, to a former actress, there was one of them who thought it the most
exciting thing that had ever happened. That was Jemima. She teased Amber by the
hour to tell her all about the theatre, what the gentlemen said, how my Lady
Castlemaine looked when she sat in the royal box, what it felt like to stand on
the stage and have a thousand people stare at you. And she wanted to know if it
was true— as Lettice had said—that actresses were lewd women. Jemima was
somewhat puzzled as to exactly what a lewd woman was, but it did sound wickedly
exciting.

Amber
answered her questions, but only a part of each one. She told her step-daughter
of all that was gay and colourful and amusing about the theatre and the
Court—but omitted those other aspects which she knew too well herself. To
Jemima fine gentlemen and ladies were fine because they wore magnificent
clothes, had an elaborate set of mannerisms, and were called by titles. She
would not have liked to be disillusioned.

And
for all that Lettice could say or do she began to imitate her step-mother.

Her
neck-lines went lower, her lips became redder, she began to smell of
orange-flower-water and to wear her hair in thick lustrous curls with the back
done up high and twisted with ribbons. Amber, motivated by pure mischief,
encouraged her. She gave her a vial of her own perfume, a jar of lip-paste, a
box of scented powder, combs to make her curls stand out and seem thicker. At
last Jemima even stuck on two or three little black-taffeta patches.

"Faith
and troth, Jemima!" said Lettice to her sister one day when she came down
to dinner in a satin gown with huge puffed sleeves that left her shoulders and
too much of her bosom bare. "You're beginning to look like a hussy!"

"Nonsense,
Lettice!" said Jemima airily. "I'm beginning to look like a
lady!"

"I
never thought I'd see the day my own sister would paint!"

But
Sam put his arm about Jemima's tiny laced-in waist. "Let the child be,
Lettice. What if she does wear a patch or two? She's pretty as a picture."

Lettice
gave Sam a look of scornful disgust. "You know where she learns all this,
don't you?"

Jemima
sprang hotly to the defense of her step-mother. "If you mean I learned it
from Madame, I did! And you'd better not let Father hear you speak of her in
that tone, either!"

Lettice
gave a little sigh and shook her head. "What have we Dangerfields come
to—when the feelings of a common actress are—"

"What
do you mean a 'common actress,' Lettice?" cried Jemima. "She isn't
common at all! She's a lady of quality! Of better quality than the Dangerfields
are, let me tell you! But her father—who was a knight, I'll have you
know—turned her out when she married a man he didn't like! And when her husband
died she was left without a shilling. Tom Killigrew saw her on the street one
day and asked her to go onto the stage, and so she did—to keep from starving!
And as soon as her husband's father died and left her some money she quit and
went to Tun-bridge Wells where she could live quiet and retired! Well— what are
you both smirking at?"

Sam
sobered immediately, for it was his opinion that Jemima would be less injured
by her association with the woman if she did not know what she really was.
"Is that the story she told Father?"

"Yes,
it is! You believe it, don't you, Sam? Oh, Lettice! You make me sick!"

Suddenly
she swirled about and lifting up her skirts started off up the stairs and as
she went Lettice saw that with everything else she had begun to wear green silk
stockings. Sam and Lettice looked at each other.

"Do
you suppose he really believed that wild tale?" he asked at last.

Lettice
sighed. "I know he did. And if he thought that we didn't—well, he mustn't
ever think it, that's all. I don't know what happened to him to make him
change, but something did and we must hide our feelings and thoughts for his
sake. We still love him even if—even if—" She turned about quickly and
walked away, though Sam gave her arm a brief pressure as she went. And at that
moment Samuel and Amber walked into the room, Jemima triumphantly beside them
with one arm linked through her step-mother's.

By
June Amber, who was not yet pregnant, was beginning to worry frantically. For
Samuel, she knew, was anxious to have a child—mostly, she suspected, to justify
his marriage to her in his own and his family's eyes. And she wanted one
herself. He had
already redrawn his will to give her the legal one-third, but she thought that
a baby might induce him to give her even more. He had grown almost comically
sentimental about babies, considering that his first wife had borne him
eighteen children. And perpetually aware as she was of the hostility they all
felt toward her, she believed that a baby would protect her as nothing else
could.

Enveloped
in a cloak, her face covered with a vizard, she went to consult half the
midwives and quacks and physicians in London, asking their advice. She had a
chestful of oils and balsams and herbs and a routine of smearing and anointing
which occupied a great deal of time. Samuel's diet included vast quantities of
oysters, eggs, caviar, and sweetbreads—but still the maddening fact persisted,
she was not pregnant. She finally went to an astrologer to have her stars read
and was encouraged when he told her that she would soon conceive.

One
very hot day in June she and Jemima returned from a visit to the Royal Exchange
and came into her apartments to drink a syllabub cooled in ice. The streets had
been dusty and the crowds bad-tempered. There were so many flies in the house
that though Tansy was detailed with a swatter to kill them they zoomed and
buzzed everywhere. Amber tossed aside her fan and gloves and the hood she had
been wearing and dropped onto a couch, beginning immediately to unfasten the
bodice of her gown.

Jemima
was less interested in the heat than in the exciting adventure they had just
had. For two very fine and good-looking gentlemen had stopped her step-mother
in the Upper Walk of the 'Change and one of them had asked, with charming
impudence, to be presented to "that pretty blue-eyed jilt"— meaning
Jemima. And then he had kissed her on the cheek, bowed most graciously, and
invited her to drive to Hyde Park with him and have a syllabub.