He gave a heavy tired sigh. “I can’t understand her. She’s been as carefully brought up as could be possible. Sometimes I think there’s a taint in the air nowadays—the young people fall sick of it. Not all of them, of course,” he added with a smile of fondness. “I don’t think he’s at all interested in her—Jemima isn’t the kind of woman he can be used to associating with—and I think that if she had let him alone he’d never have given her a second thought.”
“Of course he wouldn’t!” agreed Amber, very positively.
“I don’t know what’s to be done—”
“I do, Samuel! You must make her marry Joseph Cuttle—right now! Before something much worse happens!”
THAT WAS THE end of Jemima’s friendship with her step-mother. For by an unerring feminine instinct she knew immediately who was responsible for her father’s sudden determination to marry her to Joseph Cuttle without more delay. It was the one thing Amber had done of which the family approved, for they had been worried too about Jemima’s infatuation for a Cavalier —though they considered that it was Madame’s fault Jemima had ever fallen in love with him. They did not believe it would have occurred to Jemima to admire such a man, but for the bad example of false values Amber had set. But Bruce seemed somewhat shocked when Amber told him that the contract had been signed and the marriage date set for August 30th—forty days from the time of betrothal.
“Good Lord!” he said. “That awkward spindle-shanked boy! Why should a pretty little thing like Jemima have to marry him?”
“What difference does it make to you who she marries!”
“None at all. But don’t you think you’re meddling rather impertinently in the affairs of the Dangerfield family?”
“I am not! Samuel was going to make her marry him anyway. I just got the matter settled—for her own good.”
“Well, if you think I intend seducing her, I don’t. I took her driving because she asked me to and it would have been an affront to her father if I’d refused.” He gave her a long narrow look. “I wonder if you have any idea what a very fine old gentleman Samuel Dangerfield is. Tell me—how the devil did you manage to marry him? The Dangerfields aren’t people who would welcome an actress to the hearth-side.”
She laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know!” But she never told him.
It was not long before Amber refused altogether to heed Bruce’s admonitions—she went to Almsbury House three or four mornings in every week. Samuel left for his office at about seven and returned between eleven and noon; she was there when he left and there when he got back. But even if she had not been it would have occasioned no comment. He trusted her implicitly and when he asked her where she had been it was never from motives of suspicion, but only to make conversation or because he was interested in the little things which occupied her day. Whatever off-hand tale she told him, he believed.
And Jemima, meanwhile, turned sulky and bad-tempered, refused to take an interest in the elaborate preparations for her wedding. Dressmakers and mercers filled her rooms at all hours; she was to be married in cloth-of-gold and her wedding-ring was studded with thirty diamonds. The great ballroom in the south wing of the house where the wedding-feast and masque were to take place would be transformed into a blooming, green-leafed forest, with real grass on the floor. There would be five hundred guests for the ceremony and almost a thousand for the festivities afterward. Fifty of the finest musicians in London were being hired to play for the ball and a noted French chef was coming from Paris to oversee the preparation of the food. Samuel was eager to please his daughter and her persistent sullenness troubled him.
Amber magnanimously took Jemima’s part. “There’s nothing wrong with her, Samuel, but what’s wrong with all girls old enough to be married who aren’t. She’s got the green-sickness, that’s all. Wait till after the wedding, she’ll be herself again then, I warrant you.”
Samuel shook his head. “By heaven, I hope so! I hate to see her unhappy. Sometimes I wonder if we’re not making a mistake to insist that she marry Joseph. After all, there are suitable matches enough for her in London if she—”
“Nonsense, Samuel! Who ever heard of a girl choosing her own husband! She’s too young to know
Scarcely six weeks had gone by since Bruce’s arrival in London when she told him that she was sure she was pregnant, and explained why she believed the child must be his. “I hope it’ll be a girl,” she said. “Bruce is so handsome—I know she’d be a beauty. What do you think we should name her?”
“I think that’s up to Samuel, don’t you?”
