Lettice, avoiding her eyes, made a gesture with one hand. Nothing could ever make her like this woman whom she distrusted for a hundred reasons, but she could still try to show her at least a surface respect for her father’s sake. “I’m sorry. I said too much. I’m half distracted with worry.”
Amber walked by, toward the bedroom, and as she passed gave Lettice’s hand a quick grasp with her own. “I am too, Lettice.” Lettice looked at her swiftly, a questioning puzzled look, but she could not help herself; the woman’s smallest gesture would always seem false-hearted to her.
Samuel refused to make his annual trip to Tunbridge Wells that January because his wife’s advanced pregnancy would not allow her to accompany him. But he did rest a great deal. More and more he stayed in his own apartments with her, while the eldest sons took over the business. She read to him and sang songs and played her guitar, and with gaiety and affection tried to soothe her own conscience.
It was customary for men with financial responsibilities to check over and settle their accounts at the end of the year, but because of his stroke Samuel postponed doing so until early in February. And then he worked on them for several days. He had his wealth in goldsmiths’ bills, stock in the East India Company—of which he was one of the directors—assignments upon rents, mortgages, shares in privateering fleets and other similar ventures, cargoes in Cadiz and Lisbon and Venice, jewels and gold-bullion and cash.
“Why don’t you let Sam and Bob do that?” Amber asked him one day, as she sat on the floor playing a game of cat’s-cradle with Tansy.
Samuel was at his writing-table, dressed in an East Indian robe which Bruce had given him, and there was a many-branched candlestick lighted above his head, for though midday it was dark as twilight. “I want to be sure myself that my affairs are in order—then if anything should happen to me—”
“You mustn’t talk like that, Samuel.” Amber got to her feet, dropping the cradle, and with a pat on the head for Tansy she walked over to where he sat. “You’re the picture of good health.” She gave him a light kiss and bent over, one arm about his shoulders. “Heavens! What’s all that? I couldn’t puzzle it out to save my bacon. My senses seem to run a-wool-gathering at the sight of a number!” She could, in fact, not do much more than read them.
“I’m arranging everything so that you won’t need to worry about it. If the baby’s a boy I’m going to leave him ten thousand pound to start in a business for himself—I think that’s better than for him to try to go in with his half-brothers—and if it’s a girl I’ll leave her five thousand for a marriage portion. How do you want your share? In money or property?”
“Oh, Samuel, I don’t know! Let’s not even think about it!”
He smiled at her fondly. “Nonsense, my dear. Of course we shall think about it. A man with any money at all must have a will, no matter what his age. Tell me—which would you prefer?”
“Well—then I suppose it would be best for me to have it in gold—so I won’t get cheated by some sharp rook.”
“I haven’t that much cash on hand, but in a few weeks’ time I think it can be arranged. I’ll put it with Shadrac Newbold.”
He died very quietly one evening early in April, just after he had gone upstairs to rest from a somewhat strenuous day.
In a great black mourning-bed, Samuel Dangerfield’s body lay at home in state. Two thousand doles of three farthings each were distributed to the poor, with biscuits and burnt ale. His young widow—much pitied because it was so near the time of her confinement—received visitors in her own room; she was pale and wore the plainest black gown, with a heavy black veil trailing from her head almost to the floor. Every chair, every table and mirror and picture in the entire apartment had been shrouded in black crape, every window was shut and covered, and only a few dim candles burned—Death was in the house.
The guests were served cold meats, biscuits and wine, and at last the funeral procession set out. The night was dark and cold and windy and the torches streamed out like banners. They moved very slowly, with a solemn stumping tread. A man ringing a bell led them through the streets and he was followed by the hearse, drawn by six black horses with black plumes on their heads. Men in black mounted on black horses rode beside it, and there followed a train of almost thirty closed black coaches carrying all members of the immediate family. After that there came on foot and in their official livery the members of the guilds to which he had belonged and other mourners in a straggling line almost two miles long.
