Most of their conversation, however, was less serious, and he seldom cared to discuss ethical or even political matters with her. Women were not interested in such things, and pretty ones least of all. Besides, she was his escape from them.
But Amber did often ask him to advise her about financial matters; and listened wide-eyed and with her head nodding every so often to his talk of interest and principal, mortgages, title-deeds, and revenue. She talked of her goldsmith and when she mentioned Shadrac Newbold’s name was glad to see how favourably impressed he seemed. She said that it was a great responsibility for her to handle her husband’s money—she represented herself as a rich young widow—and that she worried a great deal for fear someone would cheat her out of it. That was another reason, she said, why she was always suspicious of young men who wished to strike up an acquaintance. She also talked frequently about her family and what terrible things they had suffered in the Wars—recounting, with elaboration, tales she had heard from Almsbury about his own or Lord Carlton’s difficulties. By these devices she hoped to discourage him, had he been so inclined, from taking her for a fortune-hunter.
They played dozens of games of wit-and-reason, and she always let him win. She made him laugh with her mimicry of the fat middle-aged women and gouty old men who were there taking the waters. She played for him on her guitar and sang songs—not ribald street-ballads, but gay country tunes or the old English folk-songs: “Chevy Chase,” “Phillida Flouts Me,” “Highland Mary.” She pampered and flattered and teased him, treated him at all times as though he was much younger than he was, and yet was as solicitous for his comfort as if he had been much older. She guessed his age one day at forty-five and when he told her that his eldest son was thirty-five, insisted he could never make her believe that Banbury-story. She gave a lively imitation of a woman most thoroughly infatuated.
But at the end of three weeks he had not tried to seduce her and she was growing worried.
She stood at the window one evening just after he had gone and traced idle patterns on the frosted pane with her finger-nail. Her lower lip stuck out and there was a scowl on her forehead.
Nan, who was lifting hot embers out of the fireplace with a pair of tongs and putting them into a silver warming-pan, glanced sideways at her. “Something amiss, mam?”
Amber swung around, giving a petulant switch to her skirt. “Yes, there is! Oh, Nan, I’m ready to run distracted! Three weeks I’ve been coursing this hare—and haven’t caught ’im yet!”
Nan closed the warming-pan and started into the bedroom with it. “But he’s getting winded, mam. I know he is.”
Amber followed her in and began to undress, but her face was gloomy and from time to time she gave an impatient ill-tempered sigh. It seemed to her that she had been trying all her life to make Samuel Dangerfield propose to her. Nan came to help her undress and stood behind her, unlacing her busk.
“Lord, mam!” she protested now. “You’ve got no cause for such vapourings! I know these formal old Puritans—I’ve worked in their houses. They think fornication’s a serious matter, let me tell you! Why, I’d bet my virginity he hasn’t laid with any woman save his wife these twenty years past! Heavens, give the gentleman leave to overcome his modesty! And what’s more, don’t forget you’ve gone to the greatest pains to make him take you for a woman of virtue. But I’ve watched him like a witch and I know he’s mighty uneasy—there’s fire in the flax and it’ll be quenched,” she added with a sage nod. “Only give ’im the right opportunity and you’ll have ’im—secure as a woodcock in a noose.” She made her two hands into a trap and put them about her own neck.
While Amber stepped out of her smock Nan whisked the warming-pan over the sheets, held back the covers and Amber jumped in, pulling them up quickly about her chin. Then she lay there in luxurious warmth and considered her problem.
This was, and she knew it, her last chance to take the world by its ears and climb on top. If she failed now—but she could not fail. She did not dare. She had seen too much at first hand of what happened to the women who, like her, made a livelihood by their wits and physical attractions but who had somehow let the years and the opportunities pass without achieving security.
Somehow, somehow, she thought desperately, I’ve got to do it; I’ve
