Amber looked at her sharply. Then suddenly she flung the tweezers away, tossed the mirror aside and slumped back against the pillows with her arms folded. For several moments both women remained silent and Nan did not even glance at her glowering mistress. But at last Amber smoothed out her face and gave a sigh.
“I wonder,” she said, “if Mr. What-d’ye-call—who had his horses stolen—is rich enough to bother with.” Mr. Dangerfield had sent two days earlier to inquire if her ague was improving; she had returned a careless ungracious reply and had thought nothing of him since then.
“He might be, mam. He’s got a mighty handsome young footman I could go talk to for a while.”
Nan came back a couple of hours later flushed and excited—not altogether, Amber suspected, by the news she had heard. “Well?” asked Amber, who was lying out flat with her arms braced behind her head. She had spent the time since Nan’s departure gloomily mulling over her past errors and disliking the men she considered to have been responsible for them. “What did you find out?”
Nan swept into the room, bringing with her a gust of cool fresh air from the outside and a buoyant energy. “I found out everything!” she declared triumphantly, untying the strings of her hood and throwing it into a chair. With her cloak still on she rushed to the bed and sat down beside Amber, who stubbornly refused to catch her enthusiasm. “I found out that Mr. Samuel Dangerfield is one of the richest men in England!”
“One of the richest men in—England!” repeated Amber slowly, still incredulous.
“Yes! He’s got a fortune! Oh, I can’t remember! Two hundred thousand pound or something like that! John says everybody knows how rich he is! He’s a merchant and he’s—”
“Two hundred thous—Is he married?” demanded Amber suddenly, as her wits began to revive.
“No, he isn’t! He was but his wife died—six years ago I think John said. But he’s got fourteen children; some other ones are dead—I forget how many. He comes up here every year to drink the waters for his health—he had a stroke. And he’s just getting ready now to go down to the wells—Big John’s going with ’im!”
Suddenly Amber flung back the covers and began to get out of bed. “I think I’ll go drink some waters myself. Get out my green velvet gown with the gold braid and the green cloak. Is it muddy enough to wear chopins?”
“I think it is, mam.” Nan was scurrying busily about, searching through unfamiliar drawers for smocks and petticoats, ransacking the still half-unpacked trunk for garters and ribbons, chattering all the while. “Only to think, mam! What luck we’re in! I vow and swear you must have been born with a caul on your head!” Both women were gayer and in better spirits than they had been for some weeks past.
It had stopped raining the day before and the night had been cold, so that there was a crust on the mud. A pale sun sifted down through the grey-blue sky and there were whiffs of clouds overhead, too white and thin to threaten more immediate rain. Country girls in straw hats and short skirts, with baskets over their arms, appeared in the street crying their wares of poultry and fresh butter, milk and vegetables. And when Amber, with Nan and Tansy, strolled to the well two young men in ribboned suits and plumed hats, with long curling wigs and elaborate swords, bowed ceremoniously and begged leave to present themselves. It was the custom of such resort-places, where a man might with propriety introduce himself.
They were Frank Kifflin and Will Wigglesworth and they told her that they had come down from London to avoid a lady who was beginning to insist that Will marry her. Amber had never seen either of them at the theatre and decided that they were most likely a pair of rooks who posed as men of quality, or perhaps younger sons who had to live like gentlemen without being given the means to do so. Card-sharpers, pick-pockets, forgers, they preyed upon the naive and unsuspecting—young country squires and heiresses were their easiest dupes. Luke Channell had been a crude specimen of the breed; Dick Robbins who had lived at Mother Red-Cap’s a subtler and more clever one. Probably, since Tunbridge could not be a very fertile field for such activities at that time of the year, they had been run out of London or some other city and were in temporary retirement here.
To Amber’s dismay they perked up immediately when she told them her name. “Mrs. St. Clare?” repeated Will Wigglesworth, an ugly pock-marked weasel-toothed young man. “I vow to gad the name’s familiar, madame. What about you, Frank? Haven’t we met Mrs. St. Clare somewhere before?”
“Why, yes, I’m sure we have, madame. Where could it have been, I wonder? Were you at Banstead Downs last year, perhaps?”
Oh, damn! thought Amber. If these fools find out who I am and Mr. Dangerfield hears about it, I wouldn’t have any more chance with him than the man in the moon!
But she smiled at them very sweetly. “No, gentlemen, I’m sure you’ve got some other lady in mind. Neither of you looks at all familiar to me—and I know I’d never have forgotten your faces if we’d ever met.”
Both of them took that for a compliment, grinned and coughed and made simultaneous bows. “Your servant, madame.” But even then they would not let the subject drop and, probably for lack of other conversation, galloped along in relentless pursuit. Frank asked Will if they hadn’t seen her in the Mall, and Will assured Frank it must have been in the Drawing-Room. Amber denied having been anywhere at all and was casting about for a means of escape when Mr. Dangerfield arrived and came to speak to her.
“You’re looking very well, madame. I hope your ague is improved?”
She curtsied and smiled at him, and wished she could blow Kifflin and Wigglesworth away like two puffs of smoke. However, while Amber and Mr. Dangerfield talked of the weather, the taste of the well-water, and Tansy’s scuffed shoes, they fiddled with their ribbons and combs and rolled their eyes about, obviously wishing that the old dotard would go away. But when Amber presented them to him she was amused to see the great change in their manners. She knew for sure then that she had guessed them for what they really were.
“Samuel Dangerfield, sir?” repeated Will Wigglesworth, as both of them jerked suddenly to attention. “I know a Bob Dangerfield. That is, we met once at the home of a mutual friend. He’s a member of the great merchant family. Are you, by any chance, sir, a relative?”
“I’m Bob’s father.”
“Well, well. Only fancy, Frank. This is Bob’s father.”
“Hm, only fancy. Pray take our regards to Bob, sir, when you return to London.”
“Thank you, gentlemen, I will.”
Amber was growing nervous for she did not want them to begin talking and guessing at her identity again before Mr. Dangerfield. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I must be getting back now. Your servant, sir.” She curtsied again to Mr. Dangerfield, but as she would have left, the two young men insisted that they be allowed to see her home.
“Faith and troth, Will,” said Frank Kifflin, as soon as they were out of Mr. Dangerfield’s hearing. “Only think of meeting Bob’s old father here. He seems a close acquaintance of yours, Mrs. St. Clare.”
“Oh, no. I happened upon him just after his coach had been held up and his horses stolen, and carried him the rest of the way.”
Will was indignant. “Lord, to see the effrontery of the highwaymen nowadays! I vow it’s barbarous! They’ll stop at nothing to gain their ends. And only to think of the scurvy rascals daring to attack a man of Mr. Dangerfield’s consequence!”
“Barbarous!” agreed Frank.
As Amber stood in her doorway bidding them goodbye, Wigglesworth, who had been studying her face carefully for some moments, suddenly gave a snap of his fingers. “I know who you are now, Mrs. St. Clare! You’re the player from His Majesty’s Theatre!”