Winsor, Kathleen (29 page)

"I
think you
want
me to stay in this damned place!"

"I
certainly do. What d'ye think I got you out of jail for? You're an ungrateful
little bitch!"

"What
if I am! Who wants to stay in this filthy hole all their life! I hate it! And I
will
get out! Just you wait and see! If you won't give it to me I'll ask
Mother Red-Cap for the money! She doesn't use it and she'll lend me four
hundred pound, I warrant you!"

He
was a formidable giant who might have snapped her bones like toothpicks, but he
threw back his head and laughed. "Go ahead and ask her if you like! But
believe me, she'd as soon lend you four hundred of her teeth."

One
afternoon while Black Jack was away Amber sought out Mother Red-Cap. When she
was home, which was not often, she was almost always employed in working on her
ledger, entering long columns, filling out bills and receipts by the dozen, and
she did not like to be interrupted. Now, as Amber approached, she made her a
signal to be silent and continued running her pen up a line of neatly written
figures, her lips moving as she did so, and then finally she set down the total
and turned to Amber.

"What
is it, my dear? Can I do something for you?"

Amber
had prepared and rehearsed her speech, but now she cried impulsively:
"Yes! Lend me four hundred pound so
I can get away from here! Oh, please
Mother Red-Cap! I'll pay it back, I promise you!"

Mother
Red-Cap observed her coolly for a moment, and then she smiled. "Four
hundred pound, Mrs. Channell, is a large sum of money. What do you offer for
security?"

"Why—I'll
give you a promise, on paper, or anything you like. And I'll pay it back with
interest," she added, for she had learned by now that Interest was both
God and Sovereign to Mother Red-Cap. "I'll do anything. But I've
got
to
have it!"

"I
don't believe you understand the business of pawn-brokerage my dear. It may
seem to you that four hundred pound is an insignificant sum to borrow. It is
however, a very large sum to lend upon no better security than the promise of a
young girl to repay. I don't doubt your intentions, but I think you would find
it more difficult to come by four hundred pound than you imagine now."

Surprised,
disappointed, Amber was angry. "Why!" she cried. "You said
yourself you could have got a hundred pound for me!"

"And
so I probably could. More than half that hundred however, would have been mine
for arranging the match, not yours. But to be frank with you, it was merely an
idle thought. Black Jack's told me very flatly he intends keeping you for
himself and I believe, my dear, you should feel some gratitude toward him. It
cost him three hundred pound to get you out of Newgate."

"Three
hundred— Why, he never told me that!"

"And
so I think that while Black Jack's here we won't be using you that way."

"While
he's here? Is he going somewhere?"

"Not
very soon, I hope. But someday he'll ride up Tyburn Hill in a cart—and he won't
come down again."

Amber
stared at her horror-struck. She knew that he had been burnt on the left thumb,
which meant he was to hang for the next offense. But he had escaped again in
spite of that and
he had a reckless audacity which made her think of him as almost
indestructible. Now, however, she was thinking not of him but of herself.

"That's
what's going to happen to all of us! I know it is! We're
all
going to
hang!"

Mother
Red-Cap lifted her brows. "We might, I suppose. But we're far more likely
to die of consumption here in Alsatia." She turned away and picked up her
pen and though Amber lingered a few moments she knew that she had been
dismissed, and went to climb the stairs back up to her bedroom.

She
was discouraged but not beaten. She still intended to escape somehow, and
comforted herself with the reminder that she had made the far more difficult
escape from Newgate.

Alsatia
lay just east of the Temple Gardens and could be reached from them by going
down a narrow broken flight of steps. Low as it was and close to the river it
was perpetually invaded by a thick dingy-yellow fog that hung to the very
pavements, seeped into the bones, stuck in the nostrils and made it difficult
even to breathe. Ram Alley, where Mother Red-Cap's house was, smelt of stinking
cook-shops and the lye-soap used by the laundresses who made that street a
headquarters.

Its
courts and alleys were crowded with beggars and thieves, murderers and whores
and debtors, a wild desperate rabble who lived in a constant internecine
warfare but who invariably banded together to beat off any attempted intrusion
by constable or bailiff. Children swarmed everywhere—almost as numerous as the
dogs and pigs—starving little dwarfs with sunken eyes and husky high-pitched
voices. Amber shuddered at the sight of them and looked swiftly away for fear
her own baby would be marked before birth because she had seen them. She felt
that living here she had left the world—the only world that mattered to her,
the world where she might see Lord Carlton again.

It
was Michael Godfrey, hired by Mother Red-Cap to teach her to speak as a London
Lady of quality should, who gave her glimpses back into that life toward which
her heart yearned.

He
was a student at the Middle Temple where sons of many of England's wealthy
families were to be found, supposedly acquiring a liberal education and
learning how to manage their estates and preside at the sessions when they came
into their property. Most of them, however, spent more time in taverns than
they did in the class-room and more money on women than on books. Like many of
the others, Michael had sometimes ventured into the Friars, impelled by
curiosity and a desire to see how the wicked lived and looked. And also like
many others, when his mode of living had far outrun his allowance and he found
himself embarrassed with debts, he had come to borrow and thus he had made the
acquaintance of Mother Red-Cap, the fabled witch-woman of the Sanctuary. Within
a fortnight
after Amber's arrival he had been engaged as her tutor.

He
was just twenty years old, of medium height and size, with light-brown-curling
hair and blue eyes. His father was a knight with property in Kent and money
enough to give his son all the customary advantages of his class: Michael had
gone to Westminster School to learn Latin and Greek. At sixteen, the usual age
for entering college, he had been sent to Oxford to master Greek and Roman
literature, history, philosophy, and mathematics. That was supposed to be
accomplished in three years, for too much education was not considered good for
a gentleman, and a year ago he had enrolled in the Middle Temple. Two years or
so there and he would go on his tour abroad.

While
the rain dripped unceasingly—for the mild winter had been followed by weeks of
wet—he and Amber would sit beside the fireplace in the parlour drinking
hot-spiced buttered ale and talking. She was an eager and enthusiastic
listener, appreciative of his jests, fascinated by the things he did and saw
and heard.

She
would laugh delightedly to hear of how he and his friends, "somewhat
disguised" as the gallants liked to say when they had been drunk, had
knocked over a watchman's stand where the old man sat sleeping, serenaded a
bawdy-house in Whetstone Park and broken all the windows, and finally stripped
naked a woman they met returning home late with her husband. Bands of young
aristocrats scoured about the town every night, boisterous and destructive, the
terror of all quiet peaceable citizens, who would as soon have been set upon by
cutthroats or thieves. But Michael recounted his exploits with a zestful
freshness and relish which made them seem the most harmless innocent childish
pranks.

He
told her that for the past three or four months women had been appearing on the
London stage and were now in every play, overpainted, daringly-dressed young
sluts, some of them already taken by the nobles as mistresses. He told her of
seeing the rotten bodies of Cromwell and Ireton and Bradshaw pulled out of
their graves and hanged in chains at Tyburn, and of how their pickled heads
were now stuck atop poles on Westminster Hall and chunks of their carcasses
exposed on pikes over the seven City gates. And he told her about the plans for
his Majesty's coronation which was to take place in April and was to be the
most magnificent in the history of the British throne; he promised to describe
for her every robe, every jewel, every word spoken and gesture made, after he
had seen it.

Meanwhile
she was losing the remnants of her country accent. Her ear was alert and her
memory retentive, mimicry was natural to her and she had a passionate eagerness
to learn. She stopped pronouncing power as pawer and yeo as yeow. She gave up
both Gemini and Uds Lud and learned some more fashionable oaths. He taught her
all the correct ways of
making and receiving introductions, a few French phrases and words, that it was
the mode to pronounce certain as sartin and servant as sarvant. Vulgarity was
high-fashion at Whitehall and pungent words of one syllable interlarded the
conversation of most lords and ladies. Amber absorbed all of it, and with it
the cant of Alsatia.

Michael
Godfrey, who was already sure he loved her, wanted to know her real name, who
she was, and where she came from. She refused to tell him the truth but she
embroidered upon her story to Sally Goodman and he accepted her for what she
said she was: a country heiress run away from home with a man her family
disliked, and now deserted by him. He was very sympathetic, indignant that a
woman of her gentle breeding should have to live in such surroundings, and
offered to get in touch with her family. But Amber shied away from that and
assured him that they would never come to her aid in such a place
as Whitefriars.

"Then
come with me," he said. "I'll take care of you."

"Thanks,
Michael, I wish I could. But I can't—not till I've laid-in, anyway. Lord,
wouldn't it be a pretty fetch if I fell into labour in your quarters! You'd be
turned out in a trice!"

They
both laughed. "They've threatened me a dozen times. Mend your ways,
sirrah, or out you go!" He drew down his brows and bellowed dramatically.
Then all at once he leaned forward and took her hand. "But
please—afterward—will you go with me then?"

"There's
nothing I'd like better. But what about the constables? If they caught me I'd
have to go back to Newgate." Michael lived on an allowance which did not
cover his own expenses; he could never pay her debt.

"They
won't catch you. I'll see to that. I'll keep you safe—"

Amber
woke early in the morning on the 5th of April, conscious of a dull prodding
ache in her back. She turned over to make herself more comfortable and then
suddenly she realized what it was. She gave Black Jack a poke.

"Black
Jack! Wake up! Go tell Mother Red-Cap it's started! Send for the midwife!"

"What?"

He
grumbled sleepily, not wishing to be disturbed. But when she shook him—frantic,
for she had heard of babies being born and no preparation made for them—he woke
up, stared at her for a surprised instant, and quickly began to get into his
clothes.

Mother
Red-Cap came to
see
her and then went out on her perpetual round of business, confident that
nothing would happen for several hours. The midwife arrived with her two
helpers, made an examination and sat down to wait. Bess Columbine looked in
once but was sent away, for there was a strong superstition that the presence
of one whom the labouring woman disliked would impede the progress of birth.
But Black Jack, though he poured sweat and seemed to suffer at least as much as
she did, remained with her constantly, drinking one glass of brandy after
another.

At
last, about four o'clock in the afternoon, the baby's head began to appear,
like a red wrinkled apple, and a few minutes later a boy was born. Amber lay in
exhausted collapse on the bed. unable to feel anything but relief.

She
was disappointed in the baby for he was long and thin and red and gave scant
promise that he would ever resemble his handsome father, though Mother Red-Cap
assured her that he would be very pretty in a month or two. But now his tiny
face was screwed up in a continuous squall, for he was hungry. Amber had
assumed that she would nurse him herself— in the country, women did not expect
to look like virgins once they were married—but Mother Red-Cap was horrified at
such a thought and told her that no lady of fashion would think of spoiling her
figure. A wet-nurse would be found instead. Amber's vanity needed no urging and
she agreed readily, but while they interviewed applicants the baby starved.

It
took four days to find the woman who answered to Mother Red-Cap's exacting
demands, but after that he was quiet and content and slept most of the time, in
his cradle beside Amber's bed. She felt a passionate tenderness for him, far
greater than she had ever expected or believed possible. Even so, she hoped
that she would never have another baby.

She
recuperated rapidly and by the time the wet-nurse arrived she was sitting up in
bed, propped against pillows and wearing one of Black Jack's shirts, for that
was supposed to cause the milk in the breasts to dry quickly. Michael Godfrey
came to visit her and brought the baby a lavishly embroidered white-satin gown
for his christening, and she received several other presents as well.
Apparently she had made more friends in the Friars than she had realized.