“What’s that?”
They looked around, surprised to find her there.
“Black Jack’s a famous man,” said Blueskin. “He’s been named first in a proclamation for taking twenty-two highwaymen.” Black Jack grinned, pleased with the honour.
But Amber stared, open-mouthed and horrified. She wanted violently to live, and at a time like this, when she saw how close death stood beside her, she grew frantic with terror.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Black Jack, a kind of sharpness in his voice.
“You know what’s the matter! They’re looking for you and they’ll catch you! They’ll catch all of us, and hang us! Oh, I wish I’d never come to this damned place! I wish I was still in Newgate! There at least I was safe!”
“And so do I wish you were still in Newgate! Of all the complaihing jades I’ve ever known—What the hell did you expect when I brought you here? You’d better get it through your head the whole world doesn’t function for your benefit! But you can stop worrying about your neck! A woman’s always got one alibi—you can plead your belly. Why,” he continued—and now his voice had turned sarcastic, his eyes went over her with mocking amusement—“I once knew a woman put off the hangman for ten years—no sooner was she delivered of one brat than they found her quick again.”
Amber scowled and her mouth gave a sneer of repugnance. “Oh, did she, indeed? Well, that’s all very well—but not for me!” She finished the sentence with a shout, leaning toward him, fists clenched and the cords in her throat straining. “I’ve got other things to do with my life, I’ll have you know—!”
At that moment Bess came in the door, and saw that there was trouble between them. She grinned maliciously. “What’s the quarrel here? Sure, now, Jack, you’ve not fallen out with our fine Mrs. Fairtail?”
Amber turned, her nostrils flaring with anger, and gave her a sweeping glance of lazy insolence. “Marry come up, Bess Columbine, but you’re as jealous as a wife of her husband when she lies-in!”
“Jealous? Me jealous of you!” yelled Bess. “I’ll be damned if I am, you scurvy wench!”
“Don’t call me names!”
Suddenly Amber reached out, grabbed her by the hair, and gave a violent jerk. With a shriek of rage Bess seized a fistful of curls and the two women would have flown into deadly battle—but for the unexpected appearance of Mother Red-Cap. The men merely stood looking on and smiling, but she rushed forward, took them by the shoulders and gave each a vigorous shake.
“Stop!” she cried. “I won’t have any brawling under my roof! Just once more, Bess Columbine, and out you go!”
“Out I go!” protested Bess, while Amber, with a superior smile, reached up to pin back the long heavy curls that had come loose. “What about her! What about that—”
“Bess!”
For a long moment Bess and Mother Red-Cap stood with locked stares, but Bess was finally forced to yield. Nevertheless, as she turned to leave the room she knocked into Amber, giving her a hard jar. Without an instant’s hesitation Amber turned her head and spat onto her gown. Bess stopped abruptly, the two women once more face to face like a pair of bristling cats; but at another warning from Mother Red-Cap Bess whirled around and stalked out.
For several days after that Black Jack ignored Amber as though she did not exist, and Bess was insultingly triumphant; she flouted his preference whenever they met. But however little Amber cared for Black Jack or his company, she did not intend to let Bess get the better of her. She began a new flirtation with him which was presently successful—and after that Bess’s hatred was so intense and so sullen that she half expected to get a knife stuck into her ribs. She believed, and with good reason, that it was only Bess’s fear of Black Jack which secured her own life.
Early in September Bess, convinced that she was pregnant, told Black Jack about it and asked him outright to marry her. He gave her an insulting snort.
“Marry you? You must take me for a dommerer. I suppose you think I don’t know every man that’s come into this house has had a lick at you!”
He was sitting at the dinner-table, as he always did, long after everyone else had left, gnawing at a chicken-leg he had in one hand and washing it down with swallows from a wine-bottle held in the other. He was slumped far down on his spine, perfectly easy and relaxed and unconcerned, not even troubling to glance up at her.
“That’s a damned lie and you know it! I never so much as spoke to another man until you brought that slut in here! And anyway I haven’t laid with anyone but Blueskin—and that only a few times! This brat is yours and you know it, Black Jack Mallard, and you’ll own it or I’ll—”
He tossed the bone aside and leaned forward to pick up a cluster of purple Lisbon grapes. “For God’s sake, Bess, stubble it! You sound like a beggar’s clack-dish! I don’t care what you do. Lay with who you damned please, but don’t bother me about it.”
His back was half turned and for a moment she stood staring at him, her eyes like glass, her whole body beginning to tremble with rage. And then with an animal-like cry she lunged for him, snatching up a knife off the table. A quick look of surprise crossed his face as he saw the swift descending flash of the blade and his arm went up to defend himself, thrashing out then and giving her a violent blow that sent her sprawling across the room.
She was crouched on the floor, staring ferociously up at him where he loomed above her, when Mother Red-Cap rushed in from her room down the hallway. “What is it?” she cried. “Oh!” She put her hands on her hips. “Well, I’ve warned you before, Bess, and now you go. Get your belongings and leave this house!”
Bess glared up at her with sulky defiance, but got slowly to her feet. For a long moment she stood there without moving.
“Go on!” repeated Mother Red-Cap. “Get out of here!”
Bess started to protest and then she gave a sudden furious scream. “Don’t say it again! I’m going! I’m going away from here and I’ll never come back! I wouldn’t come back if you got on your knees and begged me! I hate you! I hate every one of you and I hope you—” Suddenly she whirled about and ran from the room and they could hear her feet pounding up the stairs.
Black Jack gave a low whistle and glanced at the knife where it lay on the floor, knocked out of her hand when he had struck her. “Whew! The crafty little gypsy. She’d have slit my throat, I think.” He gave a shrug and went back to take up the cluster of grapes, picking them off and tossing them one at a time into his mouth.
Mother Red-Cap went to the table, got out her ledger, and sat down to settle Bess’s account. “I’ll be glad to be done with her. She’s never been much use to me, and ever since Mrs. Channell came she’s been an infernal nuisance. Oh, well—you can’t make a whistle of a pig’s tail.”
Presently Black Jack went into the kitchen to tease Pall, who adored him though she blushed and stammered and scratched nervously at her lice whenever he appeared. The house was quiet for several minutes and then Amber came in the front door. She was wearing a thin pale-green silk dress with her hair tumbling about her shoulders and tied with a ribbon, and she had two of Penelope Hill’s choicest yellow roses stuck into the low-cut neckline.
“Ye gods! I swear this is the hottest day in an age!” She dropped into a chair, fanning herself with her lace-trimmed handkerchief, and Mother Red-Cap went on with her work. After a few moments Amber got up and started for the doorway that led into the hall where the stairs were.
“I don’t think you’d better go up there, my dear,” said Mother Red-Cap, dipping her pen into a pewter inkwell, but neither turning nor looking around. “I just sent Bess to pack her rigging and she’s in a tearing rage.”