She stood there, staring, stunned and helpless. But even while she stared there began to come over her a feeling of relief and she was glad to be rid of them—all three, Luke and Sally Goodman and simple little Honour Mills. Slowly she reached up one hand and took out the bodkins that held up her back hair —they had gold knobs on the ends with a pattern of tiny pearls. She held them toward him.
“My money’s all gone,” she said wearily. “Here. Take these.”
He looked at her doubtfully for a moment, but finally accepted them. Slowly Amber pushed the door shut. She leaned back against it. She wanted nothing but to lie down on the bed and forget—forget that she was even alive.
THE FLOOR OF the room was covered with rushes which smelt sour and old, and rats came out boldly to dart about searching for morsels of food, their eyes bright and black as beads. The walls were stone, moist and dripping and green with a mossy slime; sunk into them were great ring-bolts from which hung heavy chains. Boarded beds ranged the walls as in a barracks. Though only mid-morning it was dark and would have been darker but for a tallow-candle which burnt with a low sullen flame, as though oppressed by the stinking air. It was the Condemned Hold at Newgate where prisoners were kept until they had paid the price of better quarters.
There were four women in the room, all of them seated, all of them shackled with heavy chains on wrists and ankles, all of them perfectly quiet.
One was a young Quaker girl in sober prim black, a starched white collar about her throat and a linen cap covering her hair; she sat motionless, concentrating on her feet. Across from her was a middle-aged woman who looked like any of the dozens of housewives seen every day in the streets going to market with a basket over one arm. Not far from her sprawled a morose slattern who stared dully at the others, one side of her mouth screwed up in a faint cynical smile. There were large open sores on her face and breasts and now and again she coughed with a hollow, racking sound as if she would bring up her very guts. The fourth woman was Amber, and she sat wrapped in her cloak, one hand tightly clasping the bird-cage set on her lap, the other inside her muff.
She looked strangely out of place there in that mouldering sty, for though all her garments were somewhat the worse for the soaking they had had two weeks before, the materials were good and the style fashionable. The gown, which had been made by Madame Darnier, was black velvet, caught up in back over a stiff petticoat of dark red-and-white-striped satin. Pleated frills of sheer white linen showed about the low neck-line and at the elbows of the puffed sleeves. Her silk stockings were scarlet and her square-toed shoes black velvet with large sparkling buckles. She wore her back-velvet cloak, carried her fox muff, her gloves and fan and mask.
She had been there for perhaps an hour—though it seemed a great deal longer—and so far no one had spoken a word. Her eyes roamed about restlessly, searching in the darkness, and she was beginning to fidget nervously. From everywhere about them, overhead, beneath their feet, from either side, came the muffled sounds of shouts and groans, screams and curses and laughter.
She looked at the housewife, then at the Quakeress, finally at the dirty slut across the room, and the last she found watching her with grum insolent amusement. “Is this the prison?” asked Amber at last, speaking to her because neither of the others seemed conscious of her or their own whereabouts.
For a moment she continued to squint near-sightedly at Amber and then she laughed and suddenly began to cough, leaning over with her hand against her chest until she spat out a great clot of bloody phlegm. “Is this the prison?” she repeated at last, mimicking. “What the hell d’ye think it is? It ain’t Whitehall, me fine lady!” Her accent was strong and harsh and her voice had the dreary whine of a woman who has been tired for years.
“I mean is this
“Jesus, no.” She gave a weary sweep of one arm. “Hear that? It’s over us and under us and all around us. What’re
“For debt,” said Amber.
