Ye gods! thought Amber impatiently. So this is what living in the country does to you! It no longer seemed to her that she had lived most of her life in the country herself.
Radclyffe was all graciousness and courtesy. “Don’t trouble yourself about it, my dear. We came unexpectedly and there was no time to send a message. Madame”—he turned to Amber —“this is my son’s wife, Jennifer, of whom I’ve told you. Jennifer, may I present her Ladyship?” Jenny gave Amber another quick fugitive glance and then curtsied; the two women embraced with conventional kisses and Amber could feel that the girl’s hands were cold and that she trembled. “Her Ladyship has not been well during the journey,” said Radclyffe now, at which Amber gave him a swift glance of indignation. “I believe she would like to rest. Are my apartments ready?”
“Oh, yes, your Lordship. They’re always ready.”
Amber was not tired and she did not want to rest. She wanted to go through the house, see the gardens and the stables, investigate the summer-house and the orangerie—but she followed the Earl upstairs into the great suite of rooms which opened from the northwest end of the gallery.
“I’m not tired!” she cried then, facing him defiantly. “How long have I got to stay shut up in here?”
“Only until you are prepared to stop sulking, madame. Your opinion of me interests me not at all—but I refuse to have my son or my servants see my wife behaving like an ill-natured slut. The choice is your own.”
Amber heaved a sigh. “Very well then. I don’t think I could ever convince anyone that I like you—but I’ll try to seem to endure you with the best grace I can.”
Philip was back by supper-time and Amber met him then. He was an ordinary young man of about twenty-four, healthy and happy and unsophisticated. His dress was careless, his manners casual, and it seemed likely that his most intellectual interests were horse-breeding and cock-training. Thank God, thought Amber at first sight of him, he’s nothing like his father! But it surprised her to see that though Philip was so different from him Radclyffe was deeply attached to the boy—it was a quality she had not expected to find in the cold proud lonely old man.
Amber spent several days exploring Lime Park.
There were dozens of rooms, all of them filled with furniture and pictures and objects which had come from every part of the world but which, by means of his Lordship’s own peculiar alchemy, had been made to harmonize perfectly. The Italian gardens were immense and laid out in great terraces surrounding the south and east sides of the house and connected by marble flights of steps and broad gravelled walks. There were long shaded alleys of cypress and yew, and avenues of clipped, bright-green lime-trees; there were flowers in stone vases lining the stairs or walks or set on the balustrades. There was not a ragged hedge nor a weed to be found anywhere. Even the stables were immaculate, walled inside with Dutch tile and kept freshly whitewashed, and there were an orangerie, greenhouses, and a pretty little summer-house.
It was no wonder, she thought, that he had been in debt. But now that she saw what her money had been spent for she was less resentful, for she looked at everything with the appraising critical eye of an owner. She passed nothing without making a decision as to whether she would want to keep it or sell it when the time came. For certainly nothing should stay hidden out here in the country where no one of any consequence might see and admire it. These fine things were destined for London: perhaps apartments in Whitehall or some grand new house in St. James’s Square or Piccadilly.
At first Jennifer was shy, but Amber—because she had nothing else to do and also because she was a little sorry for her—made the effort to become friendly. The girl responded with warm gratitude, for she had grown up in a large family and was lonely here, where, even with more than two hundred servants, the house seemed empty and dull.
It was now the end of April and the days were often warm and pleasant. The nightingales had arrived, cherry and plum trees were in full bloom and the gardens were filled with the sweet scent of potted lilacs. Jennifer and Amber, gaily chatting and laughing, strolled over the green lawns arm in arm, their silk gowns gently blowing, admiring the raucous-tongued peacocks. In no time at all they seemed fast friends.
Like a woman in love, Amber was forever talking of London, where Jennifer had never been. She told her about the theatres and the taverns, Hyde Park and Pall Mall and Whitehall, the gambling in the Queen’s Drawing-Rooms, the balls and the hawking parties. For to her London was the center of the universe and whoever was absent from it might almost as well have been on a distant star.
“Oh, there’s nothing so fine,” she cried enthusiastically, “as to see all the Court driving in the Ring! Everyone bows and smiles at everyone else each time they come round and his Majesty lifts his hat to the ladies and sometimes he calls out to them too. Oh, Jenny, you must come to London one day!” She continued to talk as if she were still there.
Jenny had always listened with great interest and asked innumerable questions, but now she gave an apologetic little smile. “It sounds very fine but—well, I think I’d rather hear about it than see it myself.”
“What?” cried Amber, shocked at this blasphemy. “But London’s the only place in the world to be! Why don’t you want to go?”
Jenny made a vague, deprecatory gesture. She was always acutely conscious of the greater strength of Amber’s personality, and it made her feel embarrassed and almost guilty to express an opinion of her own. “I don’t know. I think I’d feel strange there. It’s so big and there are so many people and all the ladies are so handsome and wear such fine clothes—I’d be out of place. Why, I’d be lost.” Her voice had a timid and almost desperate sound, as though she were already lost in that great terrifying city.
Amber laughed and slipped one arm about her daughter-in-law’s waist. “Why, Jenny, with paint and patches and a low-necked gown you’d be as pretty as anyone! I’ll warrant you the gallants wouldn’t let you alone—they’d be after you day and night.”
Jenny giggled, and her face grew pink. “Oh, your Ladyship, you know they wouldn’t! My heavens! I wouldn’t even know what to say to a gallant!”
“Of course you would, Jenny. You know what to say to Philip, don’t you, and all men are alike. There’s just one topic that interests ’em when they’re talking to a woman.”
Jenny turned red. “Oh, but I’m married to Philip and he— well—” She changed the subject hastily. “Is it really true what they say about the Court?”
“What d’ye mean?”
“Oh, you know. They say such terrible things. They say everyone drinks and swears and that even her Majesty plays cards on Sunday. They say his Majesty sometimes doesn’t so much as see the Queen for months at a time, he’s so busy with his other—er, ladies.”
“Nonsense! He sees her every day and he’s as kind and fond as can be—he says she’s the best woman in the world.”
Jenny was relieved. “Then it isn’t true that he’s unfaithful to her?”
“Oh, yes, he is. All men are unfaithful to their wives, aren’t they, if they get a chance?” But at that Jenny looked so stricken she gave her a little squeeze and added hastily, “Except men who live in the country—they’re different.”
And at first she half thought that Philip was different. The instant he had seen her his eyes had lighted with surprise and admiration—but his father was there and the look swiftly passed. After that she met him seldom, usually only at dinner and supper, and then he paid her the same deferential consideration she might have expected had she been at least twenty years older. He very politely tried to pretend that she actually was nearer his father’s age than his own. Amber finally decided, correctly, that he was afraid of her.