Winsor, Kathleen (70 page)

Jemima
evidently did not care to make the test, and Danger-field House remained quiet.
Amber pretended to have the ague so that her step-daughter could not ask why
she had stopped going to visit Lady Almsbury. The time was drawing nearer for
Jemima's wedding, though the date had been postponed a few days at her almost
hysterical demand, and Amber was eager to have it over and the girl out of her
way.

A
week after her quarrel with Bruce, Samuel told her that Lord Carlton had been
in his office that morning. "He's sailing tomorrow," he said,
"if the wind serves. I hope that once he's gone Jemima will—"

But
Amber was not listening. Tomorrow! she thought. My God—he's going tomorrow! Oh,
I've got to see him—I've got to see him again—

His
ships lay at Botolph Wharf and Amber waited inside her coach while Jeremiah
went to find him. She was excited and anxious, afraid that he would still be
angry, but when he returned and found who it was waiting there for him he
smiled. The afternoon was hot and he wore no periwig but only his breeches and
bell-sleeved white shirt, and his tanned face was wet with perspiration.

She
leaned forward eagerly and put her hand on his as he stood in the door, and her
voice spoke swiftly and softly. "I had to see you again, Bruce, before you
went."

"We're
busy loading, Amber. I can't leave."

"Can't
we go on board? Just for a minute?"

He
stepped back and took her hand to help her down.

Everywhere
about them was activity. Tall-masted ships, elaborately carved and gilded,
moved gently with the water, and the wharf was crowded. There were sailors who
had been so many years at sea that they walked with a rolling gait which would
distinguish them anywhere. Husky-shouldered porters were trundling casks or
staggering along bent beneath great wooden boxes or iron-hooped bales.
Well-dressed merchants strolled up and down, pestered by the beggars—broken old
seamen who had given a leg or an arm or an eye for England. There were
wide-eyed boys, loitering old men and blatantly painted harlots—a noisy
variegated crowd.

As
they walked along the wharf every eye glanced at or followed them. For her
clothes and hair and her jewels glittered in the sunlight; she was beautiful
and she had a look of breeding to which they were not very much accustomed. The
prostitutes looked Bruce over with an interest not wholly professional.

"Why
didn't you come to see me?" she asked him in an undertone, and then
crossed over the wide roped-off plank which led to one of his ships.

Following
her, he murmured, "I didn't think my company would be very welcome,"
and turned to talk for a moment or two to another man. Then he led her around
the deck and down a flight of stairs to a small cabin. It looked comfortable,
though not luxurious, and was fitted with a good-sized bunk, a writing-table
and three chairs. Maps were nailed to the dark oak-panelled walls and on the
floor were stacks of leather-bound books.

Inside
she turned about swiftly to face him. "I'm not going to quarrel with you,
Bruce. I don't want to talk—just kiss me—"

His
arms had scarcely gone around her when there was a sharp knock. "Lord
Carlton! A lady to see you, sir!"

Amber
looked up accusingly at him, and as he released her he muttered a soft curse.
But before he started for the door he gestured at her, and picking up her cloak
and the muff she had dropped she hurried through the door he had indicated into
the adjoining cabin. And then as Bruce opened the other
door, she heard
a pair of high heels coming down the stairway and Jemima Dangerfield's lilting
young voice.

"Lord
Carlton! Thank Heaven I found you! I've got a message from my father for
you—"

Amber
heard Jemima's feet walk into the cabin and the door swing shut. She stood
close behind her own door, her ear against the wooden panels and her heart
hammering violently as she listened. Her excitement was caused as much, just
now, by fear of being caught as by jealousy.

"Oh,
Bruce! I found out you're going tomorrow! I had to come!"

"You
shouldn't have, Jemima. Someone might see you. And I'm so busy I haven't an
extra moment. I came down here to get some papers—here they are. Come, and I'll
walk back to your coach with you."

"Oh,
but Bruce! You're going away tomorrow! I've
got
to see you again! I can
meet you anywhere—I'll be at the Crown tonight at eight. In our same
room."

"Forgive
me, Jemima. I can't come. I swear I'm too busy— I've got to go to Whitehall,
and we'll sail before sunup."

"Then
now!
Oh, Bruce, please! Just this once more—"

"Hush,
Jemima! Sam and Robert will be here at any moment. You don't want them to find
you here alone with me." There was a pause, during which she heard him
turn and walk to the door and open it, and then he said: "Oh, I'm sorry. I
didn't see you drop your glove." Jemima did not answer and they walked
out.

Amber
waited until she was sure that they were gone and then she went back into his
cabin again.

Apprehension
for her own safety, now that it was secured, dissolved instantly into a jealous
fury against both Jemima and Bruce. So he
had
been making love to her!
The dirty varlet! And the puling little milk-sop, Jemima! She'll smoke for
this!

Bruce
returned to find her sitting on the writing-table, her feet braced against the
bunk and both hands on her hips. She looked at him as though expecting him to
hang his head and blush.

"Well!"
she said.

He
gave a shrug, closing the door.

"So
that's what you've been about this past week!" Suddenly she got up, walked
across the room and turned her back on him. "So you didn't intend to
seduce her!"

"I
didn't."

She
swung around. "You didn't! She just said—"

"I
didn't intend to. Now look here, Amber. I haven't time for a quarrel. A
fortnight or so ago Jemima came one morning to Almsbury House and sent up your
name. You may think I should have indignantly ordered her out of my bedroom,
but I didn't. The poor child was unhappy and disappointed over being made to
marry Joseph Cuttle and she thinks, at least, that she's in love with me.
That's all there is to it."

"Then
what about the Crown—and our same room?" The last three words mocked
Jemima's voice as she had said them.

"We
met there three or four times afterwards. If you want to know anything else
about it, ask Jemima. I haven't the time. Come on—I'm going back upon
deck."

As
he turned she ran forward and grabbed his arms. "Bruce! Please,
darling—Don't go till we've said goodbye—"

Half
an hour later they returned to her coach and he handed her in. "When will
you come back to London again?" she asked.

"I
don't know. It'll be several months anyway. I'll see you when I do."

"I'll
be waiting for you, Bruce. And, oh, darling, be careful! Don't get hurt. And
think of me sometimes—"

"I
will."

He
stepped back, swinging the door closed, and made a signal to the coachman to
start. The coach began to move and he smiled back at her as she stuck her head
out the opened window.

"Sink
a thousand Dutchmen!" she called.

He
laughed. "I'll try!" He gave her a wave and turned to go back onto
the ship. The coach moved on and the crowds closed between them; he disappeared
from her sight.

Amber
entered her apartments, still too full of the warm luxuriant afterglow of
Brace's love-making to have begun thinking of Jemima again. It was an
unpleasant shock to find the girl there, waiting for her.

Jemima
was tense and excited. "May I see you alone, Madame?"

Amber
felt very superior; triumphant. "Why, of course, Jemima."

Nan
herded the other servants out of the room, all but Tansy
who stayed
where he was, sitting cross-legged on the floor absorbed in working a Chinese
puzzle which Samuel had brought him more than a week ago. A servant took
Amber's muff and fan and gloves, one of which Amber had lost. She was careless
with her belongings, they were so easily replaced; and if she lost something it
gave her an excuse to buy another.

Amber
turned and faced her step-daughter. "Now," she said casually, raising
her hands to her hair. "What d'you want?"

The
two women, both of them beautiful and expensively dressed, with well-bred
features, presented a strange contrast. For one was obviously unsophisticated
and essentially innocent, while the other was just as obviously the reverse.
But it was not the way she looked, nor was it anything in her manner. It was
rather a certain indefinable aura which hung about her, like a wickedly
fascinating perfume, redolent of passion and recklessness and a greed for
living.

Jemima
was too overwrought, too disappointed and unhappy and angry to try to be
subtle. "Where've you been!" It was no question, but an accusation.

Amber
gave her eyebrows a lift, and twisted around to straighten the seams in her
stockings. "That's none of your business."

"Well,
whether it's any of my business or not, I know! Look at this—it's yours, isn't
it!" She held out a glove.

Amber
glanced at it and then her eyes narrowed. She snatched it away. "Where'd
you get that!"

"You
know where I got it! It was lying on the floor in the master-cabin of the
Dragon!"

"Well,
what if it was? I hope I can visit a man who's gone to sea to fight the
Dutch!"

"Visit
him! Don't try to put that upon me! I know what kind of visiting you do! I know
what
you
are! You're a harlot—! You've cuckolded my father!"

Amber
stood and stared at Jemima and her flesh began to crawl with loathing and
hatred. "You whining Utile bitch," she said slowly. "You're
jealous, aren't you? You're jealous because I got what you wanted." She
began to mimic her, repeating exactly the words and tone Jemima had used
scarcely an hour before, but giving to them a savage twist that mocked and
ridiculed. "Then
now!
Oh, Bruce, please! Just this once more—"
She laughed, enjoying the horror and humiliation that came onto Jemima's face.

"Oh,"
said Jemima softly. "I never knew what you were like before—"

"Well,
now you do but it won't do you any good." Amber was brisk and confident,
thinking that she would settle Jemima's business for her now, once and forever.
"Because if you're thinking to tell your father what you know about me,
just stop long enough to consider what he'd say if he knew that his daughter
had been sneaking out of the house to meet a man at public taverns! He'd be
stark raving mad!"

"How
do you know that!"

"Lord
Carlton told me."

"You
couldn't prove it—"

"Oh,
couldn't I? I could call in a midwife and have you examined, remember!"

Amber
had been about to order Jemima triumphantly from the room, when her next words
came with the unexpected shock of a mid-summer thunderclap. "Call in
anyone you like! I don't care what you do! But I can tell you this much—either
you make Father stop my wedding to Joseph Cuttle or I'll tell him about you and
Lord Carlton!"

"You
wouldn't dare! Why it—it might kill him!"

"It
might kill him! Much you'd care! That's what you want and you know it! Oh, the
rest of them were right about you all along! What a fool I was not to see it!
But I know what you are now—you're nothing but a whore."

"And
so are you. The only difference between us is that I got what I went for—and
you didn't."

Jemima
gasped and the next instant lashed out with the palm
of her right
hand and smacked Amber on the cheek. So swiftly that it seemed to be part of
the same movement Amber returned the slap, and with her other hand grabbed a
fistful of hair and gave a jerk that snapped Jemima's head back like a
chicken's. Jemima screamed in sudden fright and viciously Amber slapped her
again. Her self-control had slipped away and she was not even wholly conscious
of what she was doing. Jemima began to struggle to free herself, now genuinely
terrified and screeching for help. The sight of her scared eyes and the sound
of her cries infuriated Amber; she had a sudden savage determination to kill
her. It was Nan, who rushed into the room and threw herself between them, who
saved Jemima from a serious mauling.

"Mam!"
she was shouting. "Mam! For God's sake! Are you mad!"

Amber's
hands dropped to her sides and she gave an angry shake of her head to toss the
hair back from her face. "Get out of here!" she cried. "Get out
and don't trouble me again, d'ye hear?" the last words were a hysterical
shriek, but Jemima had already fled, sobbing.