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.
Chapter Twenty-seven
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 othe
r.
"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.
"Imagine!" cried Jemima delightedly. "Mr. Sidney saying that after meeting me the day seemed hotter than ever!" She giggled and sipped her drink. "I vow I've never seen such handsome men-—at least not in a great while. And the other one, Colonel Hamilton, is my Lady Castlemaine's lover, isn't he?" She felt flattered to have been looked at admiringly by a gentleman her Ladyship loved. Barbara's notoriety was now so extensive that she had become a kind of myth, known even to innocent and sheltered girls like Jemima.
"That's the gossip," said Amber lazily.
"Of course I know you were right to tell them we couldn't go—and yet they seemed so fine, and so genteel and well-bred. I vow we'd all have been mighty merry."
Amber exchanged a sly glance with Nan, who was across the room behind Jemima. "No doubt," she agreed and got up to begin undressing. The Dangerfields entertained a great deal— more than ever since Samuel was so eager to display his lovely young wife—and it Was her chief diversion to change one beautiful gown for another.
"You know," said Jemima now, not watching her stepmother but staring reflectively down into her glass. "I think it would be a mighty fine thing to have a lover—if he was a gentleman, I mean. I hate common fellows! All the Court ladies have lovers, don't they?"
"Oh, some of 'em do, I suppose. But to tell you the truth, Jemima, I don't think Lettice would like to hear you talk that way."
"Much I care what Lettice would like! What does she know about things like that? The only man she ever knew was John Beckford—and she married him! But you're different. You know everything—and I can talk to you because you won't tell me I'm wanton. Husbands are always such dull fellows—the gentlemen never seem to get married, do they?"
"Not while they can get—not while they can help it," amended Amber.
"Why not? Why don't they?"
"Oh," she shrugged into a dressing-gown, "they say they'll lose their reputations as men of wit. But come, Jemima, you don't really mean all this. I thought that you were going to marry Joseph Cuttle."
Jemima made a violent face. "Joseph Cuttle! You should see him! Don't you remember—He was here last Wednesday. He's got teeth that stick out and skinny legs and pimples all over his face! I hate him! I won't marry him! I don't care what they say! I won't!"
"Well—" said Amber soothingly. "I don't think your father will make you marry a man you hate."
"He says I have to marry him! They've been planning it for years. But, oh, I don't want to! Amber!" she cried suddenly, and rushed to kneel before her where she sat in her dressing-gown, stroking a great purring tortoise-shell cat. "Father will do anything you say! You make him promise I don't have to marry Joseph Cuttle, will you? Will you, Amber, please?"
"Oh, Jemima," protested Amber, "you mustn't say such things! Your father doesn't do what I tell him to, at all." She knew that even Samuel would not want his family to think he was hen-pecked. "But I'll speak to him about it for you—"
"Oh, if only you would! Because I won't marry him! I can't! I'm— Do you want to know something, Amber? I'm in love!"
Amber seemed duly impressed, and asked the expected question. "How fine. Is he handsome?"
"Oh," breathed Jemima fervently. "The handsomest man I've ever seen! He's tall and his hair's black and his eyes—I forget what colour they are, but when he looks at me I get such a queer feeling right here. Oh, Amber, he's wonderful! He's everything in the world that I admire!"
"Hey day!" said Amber. "Where's this wonder to be seen?" Jemima grew wistful at that. "Not here—not in London. At least not now—but I hope he'll be back one day soon. I've been waiting for him for thirteen months and a week—and I'll never love another man till he returns."
Amber was amused, for Jemima's enthusiasm seemed quite childish to her, considering that the girl did not guess what the primary business of love was about. Naive kisses and queer feelings were the limit of her experience. "Well, Jemima, I hope he comes back to you. Does he know you're waiting?"
"Oh, no. I suppose he scarce knows I'm alive. I've only seen him twice—he was here one night for supper and another time I went down with Sam and Bob to see his ships, just before he sailed for America."
"Sailed for America! Who is this man! What's his name!"
Jemima looked at her in surprise. "If I tell you will you promise not to tell a soul? They'd all laugh at me. He's a nobleman—Lord Carlton—Oh! What's the matter? Do you know him?"
It was like a smack in the face with cold water, rude and shocking, and it made her angry because it scared her. But why should it? she thought, annoyed by her own uneasy lack of confidence. This girl can't mean anything to him—Why, she's just a child. Besides, she's not half as pretty as I am—Or is she? Amber's eyes were going swiftly over her stepdaughter's face—seeing there now a threat to her own happiness. Don't be such a fool! she told herself wrathfully. Do you want her to guess—Only seconds had passed before she managed to answer, with a show of casualness:
"Why, I think I met him once at the Theatre. But how d'you come to be entertaining a lord and visiting his ships?"
"He does some business with Father—I don't know just what."
Amber lifted her eyebrows. "Samuel doing business with a pirate?"
"But he's not a pirate! He's a privateer—and there's a world of difference between 'em. It's the privateers we have to thank for keeping England on the seas—his Majesty's navy won't doit!"
"You talk like a merchant yourself, Jemima," said Amber tartly, but brought he
rself up with another quick warning. "Well—" She contrived a smile. "So you're in love with a nobleman. Then I hope for your sake he'll come back to England soon."
"Oh, I hope so too! I'd give anything to see him again! D'you know—" she said with sudden confiding shyness, "last Halowe'en Anne and Jane and I baked a dumb-cake. Anne dreamed that night about William Twopeny—and now she's married to him! And I dreamed about Lord Carlton! Oh, Amber, do you think he could ever fall in love with me? Do you think he'd ever marry me?"
"Why not!" snapped Amber. "You should have a big enough dowry!" The instant she heard the words she was furious with herself and quickly added, "That's what men always think about, you know."
In less than an hour she broke her promise to Jemima, for Samuel came in and she could not resist the temptation to speak to him of Bruce, though she began by saying innocently, "I heard today in the 'Change that the Dutch have told his Majesty their fleet is only to defend their fishing trade, and that he's angry they should think he's stupid enough to believe it."
Samuel, who was putting off his outer clothes, laughed at that. "What a ridiculous lie! The Dutch fleet is for just one purpose—to run England off the seas. They've captured our ships, beaten our men in the East Indies, hung the St. George under their own flag, granted letters-of-marque against us, and done everything but dare us to fight them."
"But we've been granting letters against them too, ever since the King came back, haven't we?"
"If we have it's not supposed to be known—the letters were mostly against the Spanish, though I don't doubt that Dutchmen have been stopped too. Which is no better than they deserve. But how does it happen you know so much of our politics, my dear?" He seemed tenderly amused to hear his wife discussing serious matters.
"I've been talking to Jemima."
"To Jemima? Well, I suppose she has the latest news at her finger-tips."
Forever Amber Page 44
