From the first morning they were enemies, but it was not until several days had gone by that mutual antipathy flared into open conflict. It was over a question of money.
He presented to her a neatly-written note addressed to Shadrac Newbold: “Request to pay to Edmund Mortimer, Earl of Radclyffe, or bearer, the sum of eighteen thousand pound,” and asked her to sign it, for the money was still in her name, though he possessed the marriage-contract which put control of her entire fortune, except for ten thousand pounds, into his hands.
They were standing beside a small writing-table. As he gave her the paper he took a quill, dipped it in the ink-well and extended it to her. She glanced first at the note and then, with a little gasp of amazement, raised her head to look at him.
“Eighteen thousand pound!” she cried angrily. “My portion won’t last long at this rate!”
“I beg your pardon, madame, but I believe that I am as well aware as you of the evanescent quality of money, and I have no more wish to dissipate your inheritance than you have to see me do so. This eighteen thousand pound is to pay my debts which, as I told you, have been accumulating for twenty-five years.”
He spoke with the air of one who makes a reasonable explanation of a difficult problem to a child who is not very clever, and Amber gave him a furious glare. For a moment longer she hesitated, her mind stabbing here and there for a way out. But at last she snatched away the pen, thrust it into the ink-well and with a few swift strokes scrawled her name across the sheet, making specks of ink fly as she did so. Then she threw down the pen, left him and walked to the window where she stood staring down into the alley below—scarcely seeing two women fish-vendors who were bellowing curses and slapping at each other with huge flounders.
In a few moments she heard the door close behind him. Suddenly she whirled, grabbed up a small Chinese vase and threw it violently across the room. “Lightning blast him!” she cried. “Stinking old devil!”
Nan rushed forward as though she would rescue the pieces. “Oh, Lord, mam! Your Ladyship!” she corrected. “He’ll be stark staring mad when he finds what you’ve done! He was mighty fond of that vase!”
“Yes! Well, I was mighty fond of that eighteen thousand pound, too! The varlet! I wish it had been his head! Lord! What a miserable wretch is a husband!” Impatiently she glanced around, looking for some diversion. “Where’s Tansy?”
“His Lordship told me not to allow ’im in the room when you’re in your undress.”
“Oh, he did, did he? We’ll see about that!” She rushed across the room and flung open the door, shouting. “Tansy! Tansy, where are you?”
For a moment she got no answer. Then, from behind a massive carved chest appeared his turban and shortly the little fellow’s black and shining face. He blinked his eyes sleepily, and as he opened his mouth to yawn half his face seemed to disappear. “Yes’m?” he drawled.
“What the devil are you doing back there?”
“Sleepin’, mam.”
“What’s the matter with your own cushion in here?”
“I ain’ allowed no more in there, Mis’ Amber.”
“Who said so!”
“His Lordship done say so, mam.”
“Well, his Lordship doesn’t know what he’s talking about! You come in here, and from now on do as I say—not as he says! D’ye hear?”
“Yes’m.”
It was just after noon when Radclyffe returned, entering the room with his usual quietness, to find Amber sitting cross-legged on the floor playing at “in and in” with Tansy and Nan Britton. There were piles of coins before each of them and the women were laughing delightedly over Tansy’s droll antics. Amber saw the Earl come in but ignored him, until he was standing directly beside her. Then Tansy looked slowly around, his black eyes rolling in their sockets, and Nan became apprehensively still. Amber gave him a careless glance, shaking the dice back and forth in her hand. Though it made her angry, her heart was beating a little harder—but she had told Nan he might as well find out once and for all that she was not to be governed.
“Well, m’lord? I hope your creditors are happy now.”
“Truly, madame,” said Radclyffe slowly, “you surprise me.”
“Do I?” She rolled the four dice out onto the floor, watching the numbers as they turned up.
“Are you naïve—or are you wanton?”
Amber gave him a swift glance and heaved a deep bored sigh, brushed the dice aside and got to her feet, reaching down as she did so to take Tansy’s wrist and lift him too. Suddenly there was a sharp stinging blow on the back of her hand that made the nerves tingle. Tansy gave a scared shriek, grabbing at her skirts for protection.
“Take your hands off that creature, madame!” Radclyffe’s voice was even and cold, but his eyes glittered savagely. “Get out of this room!” He spoke to Tansy, who ran, not waiting to be told twice.
Radclyffe looked at Nan, who was staying close to Amber. “I told you, Britton, that that little beast was not to be in this room when her Ladyship was undressed. What have you—”
“It’s not her fault!” snapped Amber. “She told me! I brought him in myself!”
“Why?”
“Why not? He’s been with me two and a half years—he comes and goes in my apartments as he likes!”
“Perhaps he did. But he shall do so no longer. You are now my wife, madame, and if you have no sense of decency yourself I shall undertake the management of your conscience myself.”
Furious, determined to hurt him with the one weapon she could depend upon, she said now, softly but with an unmistakable sneer: “Sure, my lord, you don’t expect to be cuckolded by a mere child?”
The whites of Radclyffe’s eyes turned red, and the purple veins of his forehead began to beat. Amber had an instant of real terror, for there was murderous rage in his face—but to her relief he seemed swiftly to control himself. He flicked an imaginary speck of dust from his immaculate lace cravat.
“Madame, I cannot imagine what sort of man your first husband must have been. I assure you that an Italian woman who spoke to her husband as you have just spoken to me would have the gravest cause to repent of her impertinence.”
“Well, I’m not an Italian woman and this isn’t Italy—it’s England!”
“Where husbands, you think, have no rights.” He turned away. “Tomorrow that black monkey will be gone.”
Suddenly Amber regretted her insolence and bluster. For she realized that he was neither to be bullied like Black Jack Mallard or Luke Channell—nor wheedled like Rex Morgan or Samuel Dangerfield. He did not love her and he had no awe of her. And though it was fashionable to scorn husbands, she was quite aware that a wife, under the penal laws, was her husband’s property and a chattel. He could use her at his will, or even murder her—particularly since he was rich and titled.
She changed her tone. “You won’t hurt him?”
“I’m going to get rid of him, madame. I refuse to have him in my house any longer.”
“But you won’t hurt him, will you? Why, he’s harmless and helpless as a puppy. It wasn’t his fault he was in here! Oh, please let me send him to Almsbury! He’ll take care of him. Please, your Lordship!” She hated begging him and hated him more for making her beg, but she was fond of Tansy and could not bear to think of his being hurt.
There was something on his face now almost like secret amusement, and his next words were her return for the cut she had given him. “It scarcely seems possible,” he said slowly, “a woman could have so much fondness for a little black ape unless she had some use for him.”