Black Jack and Bess began to talk then, but it was in the underworld cant of which Amber had learnt only a few words. She heard their voices but did not try to understand what they were saying. Instead, she looked idly about her at the furnishings of the room. It was crowded with a vast number of chairs and tables and stools. Half-a-dozen cupboards and hutches ranged the walls. There were innumerable portraits in heavy gold frames and several more stood stacked in a pile against the fireplace. Some of the pieces were obviously expensive, but others were so old or so badly scarred and broken as to be of no possible value and very little use.
Pall brought the glasses and bottles and they drank a toast to the night’s success. Amber then told Black Jack that she was tired and he asked Pall to light her upstairs to the west-center bedroom, kissing her casually when she left. Even that made Bess fume and draw down her brows. But Amber hoped the girl might have her way that night, for she did not care to be troubled with him.
Amber sat in a great wooden tub full of warm water and soap, sought out the lice and cracked them while they were wet and immobilized. Her hair, just washed, had been wrung out and skewered onto the top of her head. On a gold and white brocade chair beside her Black Jack sat, idly flipping a knife into the floor between his feet. Amber gave a wave of one arm that surveyed the room.
“Why d’you have so much of everything?”
For the bedroom was as overfurnished as the parlour downstairs, and in much the same helter-skelter fashion. The bed was hung luxuriously with violet velvet and the counterpane was yellow satin; several of the chairs were covered with violet velvet and another with crimson, fringed with gold tassels. There were at least two dozen portraits on the walls, a great many mirrors, three wardrobes, and two screens.
“Mother Red-Cap’s a pawn-broker. The house is furnished with what she takes in—the portrait of grand-dad always seems to go first.” He grinned and gave a lift of one eyebrow to indicate the numerous old gentlemen in stiff black doublets and white ruffs who looked down from the walls.
Amber laughed. Her spirits had revived and she was once more full of energy and optimism and self-confidence. She knew that she should not be in a tubful of hot water, for Sarah had always said that sitting in a warm bath was sure to bring on a baby before its time, but she was enjoying herself so that she had no intention of moving for at least another half-hour.
“Who lives here? Anyone besides Mother Red-Cap and Bess and Pall?” The corridor down which Pall had led her had been a long one and the house seemed to be quite large.
“Mother Red-Cap lets out the four extra bedrooms. A man who coins false money has the third floor and there’s a fencing-school on the fourth.”
This was not the first Amber had heard of Mother Red-Cap. Mother Red-Cap had sent the money to bribe the Jailor. Mother Red-Cap had just been elected Mayor of Sanctuary and the night before had been hearing a case at the George and Dragon. Mother Red-Cap wanted to see her as soon as she was dressed.
At last Amber stood up, dried herself, and slipped into one of Black Jack’s East Indian dressing-robes; both of them laughed to see how it trailed on the floor and the sleeves hung below her knees. Then, giving her a wink, Jack went to a chest and lifted out a large box which he put into her hands. She took it and glanced at him questioningly. He was standing there with his hands thrust into his pockets, rocking back on his heels and grinning broadly, waiting for her to open it.
Excited at the prospect of a present, Amber laid the box on a chest, untied the strings and tossed the crackling papers aside. With a cry of delight she took out a green taffeta gown sewn with appliquéd scrolls of black velvet. Underneath lay a black velvet cloak, a smock and two petticoats, green silk stockings and green shoes.
“Oh, Black Jack! It’s beautiful!” She reached up to kiss him and he bent rather awkwardly, like a bashful boy, for he was always afraid of hurting her. “But how’d you ever get it so quick?” Madame Darnier had never completed a gown in less than a week.
“I was abroad early this morning. There’s a second-hand dealer in Houndsditch where the quality sell their clothes.”
“Oh, Black Jack—and just the colour I love!” She slipped off the robe and began to dress hastily, chattering all the while. “It looks like the leaves on the apple-tree that used to grow outside my bedroom window. How’d you know green’s my favourite colour?”
But a moment later her face fell in disappointment. The gown would not fasten over her stomach and the sight of herself in a mirror—something she had not seen for over a month—made her want to cry. It seemed to her that she had been pregnant forever.
“Oh!” she cried in exasperation, and stamped her foot. “How ugly I look! I
