Forever Amber

CHAPTER THIRTY–THREE

THE WHARVES WERE busy as an ant hill.

Ships with their gilded hulls gleaming, their tall masts mere bare skeletons, lay on the quiet water in great numbers. Many of them were men-of-war back from fighting the Dutch and in the process of being overhauled and cleaned. Broken seams were being mended with boiling-pitch, and the ropes bound with tarpaulin. Sailors and porters were everywhere, unloading the plundered treasure which had recently been seized, while captured Dutch flags snapped out bravely from the Tower. But there were also great numbers of crippled and wounded men, hobbling about, sitting, lying flat on their backs, all reaching out their hands to beg. For the most part they were ignored. The navy had not been paid and already some of the seamen were starving.

Amber got out of her coach and walked along the wharf between Tempest and Jeremiah, one hand shading her eyes against the hot sun. The beggars tried to touch her as she passed and some of the sailors whistled or made audible comments, but she was too absorbed in looking for Bruce even to hear them.

“There he is!” She started to run and the sound of her high heels on the boards made him turn. “Bruce!”

She came up to him, smiling eagerly and out of breath, expecting to be kissed. But instead he looked down at her with a scowl and she saw that his face was tired and his skin wet with sweat.

“What the devil are you doing down here?”

As he spoke he glanced around truculently at the men who were staring at her, for her cloak was opened over her black-satin gown and emeralds sparkled in her ears and on her fingers. Disappointed, offended by his surly tone, she had an instant of angry self-pity. But his look of exhaustion was real and her eyes went over him anxiously, tender as a mother’s caress. She had seldom seen him tired and now she longed to take him into her arms, kiss away the scowl and the weariness—her love for him rose up like a painful throbbing ache.

“Why, I came to see you, darling,” she answered softly. “Aren’t you glad?”

He gave a faint smile, as though ashamed of his ill temper, and ran the back of one hand across his moist forehead. “Of course I am.” His eyes went down over her figure. “The baby’s been born?”

“Yes—a little girl. I named her Susanna—Oh!” She remembered with a sudden sense of guilt. “Samuel’s dead.”

“I know. I heard about it this morning. Why aren’t you out of town?”

“I waited for you.”

“You shouldn’t have—it’s not safe in London. Where’s the baby?”

“I sent her and Nan and Tansy into the country. We can go too—and meet them—” She looked at him questioningly, afraid he might tell her that he already had other plans.

Bruce took her arm and they started back toward the coach. As they went he began talking in an undertone. “You’ve got to get away from here, Amber. You shouldn’t have come down at all. Ships carry disease, you know.”

“Oh, I’m not worried about that. I’ve got a unicorn’s horn.”

He laughed, but without much humour. “Unicorn’s horn—my God! A cuckold’s horn would do you as much good.”

They reached the coach and he handed her in. Then he braced one foot on the step, rested his arms on his knees and as he leaned forward to talk to her his voice was no more than a murmur. “You’ve got to get away from here as fast as you can. Some of my men are sick of the plague.”

Amber gasped in horror, but he made her a quick negative motion with his head. “But Bruce!” she whispered. “You might catch it too!”

“There’ve only been three cases. There was sickness on some of the Dutch ships we took and when we found it we sank them with everyone on board—but three of my own sailors have fallen sick since. They were moved off the ships last night and there haven’t been any new cases so far today.”

“Oh, Bruce! You can’t stay here! You’ve got to come away—Oh, darling, I’m scared! Have you got an amulet or something to protect yourself?”

He gave her a look of exasperated impatience, and ignored the last question. “I can’t leave now—I can’t leave until everything’s been unloaded and stored. But you’ve got to go. Please, Amber, listen to me. I’ve heard a rumour they’re going to lock the gates and forbid anyone’s leaving. Get out while there’s still time.”

She looked at him stubbornly. “I won’t go without you.”

“Holy Jesus, Amber, don’t be a fool! I’ll meet you somewhere later.”

“I’m not afraid of the plague—I never get sick. When will you be through unloading?”

“Not before night.”

“Then I’ll come back here for you at sundown. Nan and the baby are at Dunstable and we can meet them there. I’m not living at Dangerfield House any more—I’ve got lodgings in St. Martin’s Lane.”

“Then go there and stay. Keep off the streets and don’t talk to anyone.”

He turned away and then, as she watched anxiously, her face wistful as a child’s, he looked around and gave her a smile and a slow weary wave of his hand. He walked off down the wharf and disappeared into the crowds.

But she did not stay at home as he had told her to do.

She knew that he was skeptical about a great many things in which she believed, and a unicorn’s horn was one of them. Wearing it pinned inside her smock she felt perfectly safe as she went out to make arrangements for their supper, for she thought that tomorrow morning would be early enough to leave. She ordered their supper at the Blue Bells, a very fine French tavern in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and then went back to set the table herself. All her silver had been stored with Shadrac Newbold but there was pewter enough in the kitchen to make a handsome show and she amused herself for most of an hour experimentally folding the napkins to resemble weird birds. In the courtyard she gathered a great armful of limp yellow roses that climbed over the walls and onto the balconies, and arranged them in a large pewter bowl for the dining-room table.

She took delight in each small detail, each unimportant little thing which she did, with the hope that later it would make him comfortable or cause him to smile. The plague began to seem almost a blessing to her now, for it meant that they would be together for several weeks, perhaps months—perhaps, forever. She thought that she had never been so happy, or had so much cause for happiness.

The last hour before she set out she spent brushing and arranging her hair, polishing her nails, and painting her face-very subtly, for she did not want him to look at her with the smile she knew so well, which always made her feel that she was both foolish and wrong. She was standing at the window fastening a bracelet when she saw a funeral procession turn the corner. There were banners floating, horses and men tramped solemnly, and though it was still light several torches burned. She turned quickly away—resenting the intrusion of death into her happiness—threw on her cloak and went downstairs.

The wharf was half deserted now and as she rode out along it the wheels of her coach rumbled noisily. He was talking to two other men, and though he gave her a nod he did not smile and she saw that he looked even more tired than before. After a few minutes all three returned to one of the ships and disappeared from sight.

By the time a quarter of an hour had gone by she was beginning to grow impatient. Now, just what can be keeping him all this time! Here he hasn’t seen me for ten months and what does he do? Goes back to his damned boat for a drink, I suppose! She began to tap her foot and flutter her fan. From time to time she sighed and scowled, and then she smoothed her features again and tried to compose herself. The sun had set, dark red over the water, and now there was a slight breeze which seemed refreshing after the hot day just passed.

It was at least another half-hour before he came back and by then her eager anticipation had turned to angry pique. He got in and sat down heavily. She gave him a sideways glance and said tartly:

“Well, Lord Carlton! Have you come at last! Pray don’t let me keep you from something important!”

The coach began to move again. “I’m sorry, Amber—I’ve been so damned busy I—”

She was instantly contrite and ashamed of her meanness, for she could see that his eyes were bloodshot and even though the air was cool now, little drops of sweat stood on his forehead. She had never seen him look so tired, and her hand reached over to his. “I’m sorry, darling. I know you didn’t keep me waiting on purpose. But why did you have to work so hard and so long? Sure now, those men aren’t such fools they can’t unload a ship by themselves.”

He smiled, stroking her fingers. “They could have unloaded it alone, and would have been only too glad to. But these prizes are the King’s, and God knows he needs them. The sailors haven’t been paid and the men are refusing to work any more for tickets that can’t be cashed—Contractors won’t supply commodities they know they won’t be paid for. God, you don’t have to be here three hours to hear a tale of woe that would make a lawyer weep. And I might as well tell you—the three men who were sick yesterday are dead, and four more got it today.”

She stared at him. “What did you do with them?”

“Sent them to a pest-house. Someone told me that the gates are guarded now and that no one can leave without a certificate-of-health. Is that true?”

“Yes, but don’t trouble yourself about it. I got a certificate for you when I got mine and Nan’s and all the others. Even Susanna had to have one. And what a bother it was! The streets were packed for a half-mile around the Lord Mayor’s house. I think everyone in town is leaving.”

“If they issue them for people they’ve never seen they can’t be worth much.”

Amber held out her hand, rubbing her thumb and first two fingers suggestively together. “For enough money they’d give a dead man a certificate-of-health. I offered them fifty pound for the lot and they didn’t ask a question.” She paused. “I’m mighty rich now, you know.”

He sat slumped low, as though every muscle was tired, but he gave her a faint smile. “So you are. And is it as pleasant as you’d expected?”

“Oh, much more! Lord, everyone wants to marry me now! Buckhurst and Talbot and I can’t think how many others. What a pleasure it was to laugh in their faces!” She laughed now, thinking of it, and there was a malicious sparkle in her eyes. “Oh, gad, but it’s a fine thing to be rich!”

“Yes,” he agreed. “I suppose it is.”

Both of them were silent for a few minutes and then he said, “I wonder how long this plague will last.”

“Why?”

“Well, I’d hoped to be back at sea in another month—but the men won’t sign now. And anyway it would be foolish—they’ve found some Dutch ships with everyone aboard dead.”

Amber did not reply, but she felt that if there must be a plague at all it could not have happened more to her advantage.

When they reached her lodging-house she ran on up the stairs ahead of him, full of a trembling eager excitement. Sometimes she felt that moments like this one were almost compensation enough for the long periods of time when she did not see him at all. Such wild frantic happiness, ecstasy that was almost torture, pleasures that racked and exhausted—these things could be no everyday occurrence, no matter how truly you loved. They fed on loneliness and longing, and came to full blossom over slow months of separation.

She unlocked the door and flung it open, then turned about quickly to face him.

But he was still only halfway up the staircase, mounting it with slow heavy steps that were strangely and almost frighteningly unlike him. As he reached the top he paused for just an instant, one hand lifting as if to touch her, but he did not and walked on, into the parlour. A cold wet chill went over her and for a moment Amber stood, sick with disappointment, staring at the wall. She turned slowly then and saw him drop wearily into a chair, and at that moment her selfish feeling of jilted expectation was gone in a shock of horror.

He’s sick!

But instantly she pushed the thought away, superstitiously furious with herself for having allowed it into her mind. No! she thought fiercely. He isn’t sick! He’s just tired and hungry. When he’s rested a while and had something to eat he’ll be well and strong again.

Determined that he should not suspect what treacherous fear she had had, she now came toward him with a broad gay smile, taking off her cloak and throwing it over one arm. He looked up at her with an answering grin, but gave a short involuntary sigh.

“Well—” she said. “Aren’t you even going to say that you like my lodgings? Everything’s in the latest style—and nothing’s English.” She made a comical little face and gave a sweep of one hand, but as he looked out over the room her eyes watched him anxiously.

“It’s lovely, Amber. Forgive my bad manners. To tell the truth I’m tired—I was up all night.”

The news relieved her. Up all night! Why, who wouldn’t be tired? Then he wasn’t sick at all. Oh, thank God—thank God!

“I’ve got just the thing for that. Here, darling, let me take your cloak and hat—and the sword, too, you’ll be more comfortable without it.”

She would have bent to unbuckle it for him, but he did so himself before she could, and handed it to her. Then, laying everything on a nearby chair, she brought him a tray on which were two decanters, one of water and one of brandy. He gave her a grateful smile and picked up a bottle while she turned to take their wraps into the bedroom.

“I’ll be back in a trice. And we can eat right away. Everything’s here.”

She ran into the bed-chamber, which opened out of the parlour, and while she took off her gown and unpinned her hair she talked to him from the doorway—still hoping that he was not so tired as he seemed, that he would get up and come to her. But he merely sat, watching her and drinking the brandy, saying very little. She stepped out of her dress, untied the bows on her shoes and stripped off her stockings, let her petticoats drop to the floor and bent to pick them up.

“I’ve got everything you like best for supper: Westphalia-style ham and roast duck and an almond pudding and champagne. It isn’t easy to get French wines any more, either, since the war. Lord, I don’t know how we’ll shift for new styles if we go to war with France! Do you think we will? Buckhurst and Sedley and some of the others say we’re sure to—” She talked fast, to keep both of them from thinking. She disappeared from sight for a moment and then came into the room wearing a white silk dressing-gown and a pair of silver mules.

She walked toward him, slowly, and his green eyes darkened like water. He swallowed the rest of the brandy and got to his feet, and though for a moment they stood staring at each other he made no move to touch her. Amber waited, almost afraid to breathe; but as he scowled and turned half away, picking up his glass and the brandy decanter again, she said softly: “I’ll put the food on the table.”

She went through the dining-room and into the kitchen where the waiter who had brought the food had left the hot soup simmering over some embers in the fireplace. When she had served the soup they sat down to eat and though both of them tried to keep up a lively conversation, it stumbled and lagged.

He told her that he had taken five Dutch merchant-vessels, all of them valuable prizes. He said that he thought there would be war with France because France did not want England to win a decisive victory, and had to protect Holland to keep her from forming an alliance with Spain. Amber told him some of the gossip she had heard from Buckhurst and Sedley: that the Lowestoft victory would have been a much greater one but that Henry Brouncker gave orders in York’s name to slacken sail, so that the battered Dutch fleet escaped. And—more exciting, she thought—she told him how the Earl of Rochester had kidnapped the great heiress, Mrs. Mallet, and been put in the Tower by the King for his effrontery.

He said that the meal was delicious, but he ate slowly and obviously had no appetite. At last he laid down his fork. “I’m sorry, Amber, but I can’t eat. I’m not hungry.”

She got up from the table and went around to him, for her fears had been growing steadily. He did not look tired; he looked sick. “Perhaps you should sleep, darling. After staying up all night you must be—”

“Oh, Amber, there’s no use pretending about this. I’ve got the plague. At first I thought it was only lack of sleep. But I’ve too many symptoms the other men had—no appetite, headache, dizziness, sweating, and now I begin to feel nauseated.” He flung down his napkin and pushed back his chair, slowly heaving himself to his feet. “I’m afraid you’ll have to go alone, Amber.”

She looked at him steadily. “I won’t go without you, Bruce, and you know it! But I’m sure it isn’t the plague. It can’t be! You’re well and strong—When you’ve had a night’s sleep I know you’ll feel better.

He smiled faintly, but shook his head. “No, I’m afraid you’re wrong. I only hope to God I haven’t exposed you. That’s why I didn’t kiss you. I was afraid—” He looked around. “Where’s my hat and cloak?”

“You’re not going anywhere! You’re going to stay here with me! Lord, I’ve looked and felt as bad as you do a hundred times and next day I was up and about! Everybody who gets a pain or ache can’t have the plague! If you’re not sick we’ll leave tomorrow morning. And if you are—I’m going to take care of you.”

“Oh, Amber, my dear—You don’t think I’d let you? I might be dead by—”

“Bruce! Don’t say that! If it is the plague I’ll take care of you and make you well again. I learned how to take care of a sick person from my Aunt Sarah.”

“But it’s infectious—you might catch it too. And it’s highly fatal. No, darling, I’m going. Get my hat and cloak—go on.”

He turned away and the look of worried anger he had tried to conceal before now showed plainly. His face was wet with sweat, so that the drops slid along his jaw, and he moved like a man half drunk. His muscles seemed almost useless. There was a pounding headache over his eyes and a dull aching pain had filled his back and loins and went down into his legs. At a sudden chill he shuddered involuntarily, and the feeling of nausea was overwhelming.

Amber took hold of his arm, determined to keep him there somehow if she had to knock him unconscious. For if he went out onto the street she knew that he either would be taken up by a constable for drunkenness—a mistake which was frequently made—or would be sent to a pest-house. If he was sick, and she was finally convinced that he was, she intended to take care of him.

“Lie down here for a moment on the settee by the fireplace and rest while I make you a tea of some herbs. You can’t stir a step in this state. It’ll make you feel better, I swear it, and I’ll have it ready in a trice.”

She took his arm and he crossed the room with her to the corner fireplace. He was still obviously reluctant to stay but was rapidly losing the ability to make a decision; by the minute he grew more dazed and weak. Now he dropped onto the cushioned couch with a heavily drawn sigh, his eyes already closed. He shuddered frequently, as though very cold, but sweat had soaked through the back of his coat—Amber left him and ran swiftly and softly into the bedroom, returning with a satin quilt which she flung over him.

Then, sure that he could not get up and would probably fall asleep, she ran into the kitchen and began to search the cabinets for the herbs Nan had stocked there. As she found them she sprinkled some of each that she needed into a kettle: hawkweed and hound’s-tongue and sorrel for the nausea; marigold and purslane for fever; hellebore, spikenard and nightshade for headache. Each had been gathered according to astrological tables, under exactly the right planetary influences, and she had considerable faith in their efficacy.

She poured some warm water into the kettle and hung it on a crane, but the fire had almost gone out and she threw on some more coals from the scuttle and a few chips of wood to make it burn, kneeling while she worked the bellows. At last a bright flame sprang up and she ran back into the parlour to make sure that he was all right, though she had not heard any sound.

He was lying flat on his back but the quilt had fallen off and he was moving restlessly, his eyes closed but his face contorted. As she bent over him, tucking in the quilt again, he looked up at her; and then suddenly he reached out and grabbed her wrist, giving it a savage jerk.

“What are you doing!” His voice was thickened and hoarse and the words slurred one over another. The green-grey irises of his eyes glittered, but the eyeballs were congested and red. “I told you to get out of here—Now, get out!” He almost shouted the last words and flung her arm from him furiously.

Amber was scared, for she thought he was losing his mind, but she forced herself to answer him in a calm reasonable voice. “I’m brewing the tea for you, Bruce, and it’ll be ready in a little while. Then you can go. But lie still till then, and rest.”

He seemed to return all at once to full rationality. “Amber—please! Please go and leave me alone! I’ll probably be dead by tomorrow—and if you stay you’ll get it too!” He started to sit up but she forced him down again with a sudden swift shove and he collapsed back onto the cushions. At least, she thought, I’m stronger than he is; he can’t get away.

For a moment she waited, hanging over him anxiously, but he lay perfectly still, and at last she turned and tip-toed swiftly from the room. She was so nervous that her hands and even her knees shook; she picked up a pewter mug and dropped it with a loud clatter that made her heart jump sickeningly. But as she stooped to get it, she heard noises from the other room.

Grabbing up her skirts she rushed back to the parlour and found him standing in the middle of the floor, looking about in a dazed bewildered way. With a cry she ran toward him.

“Bruce! What are you doing!”

He turned and gave her a defiant glare, raising one arm to ward her off, muttering a curse beneath his breath. She grabbed hold of him and he gave her a shove that almost knocked her off her feet, but as she staggered backward she clutched frantically for him and dragged him along with her. He stumbled, tried to save himself from falling, and both of them crashed to the floor, Amber half pinned beneath him. He lay there perfectly still, eyes and mouth open, unconscious.

For a moment Amber remained where she was, stunned, and then she crawled out from beneath him and got to her feet. Bending, she put her hands under his arm-pits to try to drag him to the bed-chamber; but he was a foot taller and eighty pounds heavier than she and she could scarcely move him. She pulled and tugged frantically and was beginning to cry with terror and desperation, when she remembered that Tempest and Jeremiah were most likely upstairs in their quarters.

Whirling about she sped through the kitchen and up the back flight of stairs, bursting into their room without even a knock. They were lounging, looking out the windows and smoking, and they stared at her in amazement.

“Tempest! Jeremiah!” she cried. “Come with me!”

She turned and rushed back out of the room and down the stairs so fast she seemed almost to glide. The two men knocked out their pipes and followed her, through the kitchen and the dining-room back into the parlour where they found Bruce once more standing erect, though his feet were spread wide to brace himself and his shoulders weaved slowly from side to side. Amber ran to place herself before him and the two men followed, but remained at a timid distance, watching him uncertainly. He started forward, glaring menacingly from one to the other, as though to clear a path for himself. He looked like a man so drunk that he was about to pitch forward onto his face.

Amber watched him like one hypnotized, and as he came toward her she stepped aside to let him pass. Her hands went out involuntarily, for he looked as though he would fall at any moment, but she did not touch him. He went through the doorway and into the anteroom, then out onto the landing and for a moment he stood at the top of the staircase, like a colossus looking down. He took one step and then another, but suddenly he gave a groan and staggered, clutching at the railing. Amber screamed and the two men rushed past her in time to keep him from falling headlong. Supported by one on either side, he allowed himself to be half dragged back into the apartment; his head had dropped forward onto his chest and he was again in an almost unconscious stupor.

She led the way into the bedroom, throwing back the counterpane and quilts and indicating that they were to lay him there on the white silk sheets. Then immediately she pulled off his shoes and peeled down his stockings. They were, she noticed, coloured strangely yellow by his sweat which had a sharp unpleasant smell that was not natural to him. She unwound the sash from about his waist and had begun to work off the coat, when all at once she remembered Tempest and Jeremiah and glanced up swiftly to find them staring at her with white-faced horror. They had just realized, she knew, that they had been helping a man who was not drunk—but sick of the plague.

“Get out of here!” she muttered at them, furious to see the craven terror on their faces, and with their mouths still open they turned and dashed from the room, slamming the door violently behind them.

His shirt was so wet that it clung to his skin and she picked up her smock which had been left lying on the floor to wipe him dry. When she had removed all of his clothes she covered him again and took the pillow from beneath his head, for she knew that he never used one. He lay quietly on his back now, though from time to time he muttered something unintelligible beneath his breath.

She left him again and ran swiftly back to the kitchen. The water on the herbs had boiled down, but not far enough, and while she waited she searched the cupboards for what provisions might be on hand. But she had had all her meals sent in and could find only some orange-cakes, a bowl of cherries, several bottles of wine and one of brandy. While she made a mental list of the things she must get she stood and watched the bubbling mess, her ears alert for any sound he might make. And then at last she swung the crane out and filled the pewter mug she had ready. The smell was nauseating, but she wrapped the handle in a towel and went back to the bedroom.

Bruce was lying there, leaning on one elbow and looking at her as she came in. She saw that he had just vomited onto the floor. His expression was humble and contrite and as guilty as though he had just done some shameful thing, for the sickness humiliated him. He seemed to want to speak to her, but could only drop back exhausted onto the bed. Amber had heard of men who felt well in the morning and were dead of the plague by night—but until now it had not seemed possible to her that a disease could make such swift terrible progress.

The sense of her own inadequacy seemed suddenly to overpower her.

Sarah had taught her how to take care of someone sick of an ague or the small-pox, what to do for a burn or the stomachache—but the plague was a mysterious thing, strange and evil. Some thought it rose out of the ground like a poisonous exhalation, entering through the pores of the skin, and that it spread thereafter by personal contact. But no one knew or pretended to know what really caused it, why it sometimes came in a great epidemic, or how to cure it. Still, she felt that she must have help of some kind, advice from someone.

Kneeling, she began to mop up the vomit with his shirt. I’ll send Jeremiah for a doctor, she thought. At least he’ll know more than I do.

When she tried to get Bruce to drink some of the tea he pushed it away, muttering thickly, “Some water? Thirsty. Thirsty as hell.” He put his tongue between his lips as if to wet them, and she saw that it was swollen and the tip bright red.

She brought a pewter pitcher of cool water from the kitchen and he drank three glassfuls, swallowing avidly as though he could not get enough; and then with a deep sigh he dropped back onto the bed. When he had lain quietly for a few moments Amber ran up to the garret once more and pounded at the door. She waited impatiently for a few seconds but when she got no answer flung it open.

No one was there. A few soiled articles of clothing were strewn about the floor but an old wooden chest which stood open was completely empty, as were the pulled-out drawers of a dresser. They had packed and gone.

“Scoured!” muttered Amber. “Damn them for a pair of ungrateful pimps!” But she turned that instant and ran back down the stairs, for she was afraid to leave him alone even a minute.

He was lying as she had left him—moving about restlessly and muttering beneath his breath, but it was no longer possible to understand him and he seemed in a low delirium. She wrung out a cloth in cold water and laid it across his forehead, smoothed the sheets and blankets which were already disordered, and wiped away the sweat which continued to pour from him. Then she began to clean up the room. She picked up her own clothes and put them away, spread his over some chairs to dry, brought a basin to use next time he vomited, and a silver urinal. She did not dare stop working or let herself begin to think.

It was now almost ten and the streets had grown quiet but for the occasional rumble of a passing coach or the sound of a link-boy singing as he walked along. And after a while she heard the watchman go by, ringing his bell and crying: “Past ten o’clock of a fine summer’s night—and all’s well!”

Once or twice Bruce began to retch and each time she ran to hold the basin and help him sit up, covering his chest with a clean white linen towel, and at last he vomited again. When he tried to get out of bed she forced him back and brought the urinal, and now she saw that there was a tender-looking red swelling in his right groin—the beginning of the plague-boil. The last of her hopes died quietly.

CHAPTER THIRTY–FOUR

THE NIGHT PASSED with incredible slowness.

When she had cleaned the room and brought fresh water from the big jug which stood in the kitchen she washed her face and scrubbed her teeth, brushed her hair vigorously, and finally wheeled the trundle out from under the bed. But, though she lay down, a sense of guiltiness followed her—and each time she began to slide off to sleep she woke up with a sudden start and the terrible feeling that something had happened to Bruce.

But when she got up and held the candle down close so that she could look at him he was always lying as he had been, moving constantly, muttering from time to time beneath his breath, his face twisted into an expression of angry anxiety. She could not tell whether he was conscious or not, for though his eyes were partly opened he did not seem to hear her when she spoke to him or to be in any way aware of her. Sometime in the middle of the night the sweating stopped and his skin became hot and dry and his face and neck violently flushed. His pulse beat rapidly and his breath came in quick shallow gasps, and sometimes he gave a slight cough.

About four it began to grow light and Amber decided to stay up, though her eyeballs ached and she was dizzy with tiredness. She put on her smock and one petticoat, stuck her bare feet into a pair of high-heeled shoes, and got into the dress she had been wearing the day before which, without her busk, she could not fasten all the way up the front. She pulled a comb hastily through her hair and rinsed her face, but she did not powder it or stick on a patch. For once it made no difference how she looked.

The room stank, for all the windows were closed. She was not afraid of the night air herself but she shared the common belief that it was fatal to a sick man. And she clung superstitiously to the country belief that if there was serious illness in the house death would not come if all doors and windows were kept tight shut and bolted. The smells were thick and heavy. She did not realize how overpowering they had become until she opened the door into the parlour and took a breath of clean air. Then she lighted the fire in the bed-chamber and flung on a handful of dried herbs.

She made up the trundle and shoved it back out of sight and then, while he seemed to be somewhat quieter than usual, she took the slop-pans and went down to empty them into the courtyard privy and rinse them out. She made two more trips to bring up pails of fresh water. It had been a long while since she had remembered how tedious and how inconvenient were the simplest tasks of keeping house.

His intense thirst persisted, but though she gave him one glass of water after another the thirst was not allayed and he soon threw it up. Again and again he vomited, retching with a violence it seemed would tear out his bowels; each time it left him pouring sweat, exhausted and all but unconscious. Amber, who ran to hold the pan and to support him, watched him with horror and pity, and a growing rage.

He’s going to die! she thought, holding the pan beneath his chin, pushing herself against his back to help him sit upright. He’s going to die, I know he is! Oh! this filthy rotten plague! Why did it come! Why did he get it? Why should he be the one—and not somebody else!

He dropped down once more, flat on his back, and suddenly she flung herself across him, her fingers clutching at his arms—the muscles, though useless now, still looked hard and powerful beneath the brown skin. She began to cry, holding onto him defiantly and with all her strength, as though determined she would not give him up to Death. She murmured his name, mingled with curses and endearments, and her sobs grew wilder and more frantic until she was almost hysterical.

She was jerked out of her orgy of self-pity, back to reality by Bruce, whose fingers took hold of her hair and pulled her head slowly upward. She looked at him, her face smeared with tears, her eyes oddly slanted as his grip on her hair dragged at her scalp. Sick with shame and remorse she stared at him, wondering desperately what she had been saying—and if he had heard her.

“Amber—”

His tongue had swollen now until it almost filled his mouth, and it was covered with a thick white fur, though the edges were red and shiny. His eyes were dull, but he looked at her with recognition for the first time in many hours, scowling with the agonized effort to seize hold of his thoughts and express them.

“Amber—Why—why—aren’t you—gone—”

She looked at him warily, like a trapped animal. “I am, Bruce. I am going. I’m just going now.” Her fingers, spread out on the quilt before her, moved backward a little, but she could not stir.

He let go of her hair, gave another deep sigh, and his head rolled over sideways. “God go with you. Go on—while—” The words slurred off and he was almost quiet again, though still softly mumbling.

Slowly and carefully she moved away from him, genuinely afraid, for she had heard many awful tales of plague-victims gone mad. She was sweating with relief when at last she stood on her feet again and out of his reach. But the tears were gone and she realized that if she was to be of any use to him she must hold herself in control, do what she could to make him comfortable and pray that God would not let him die.

With quick resolution she went to work again.

She bathed his face and arms and combed his hair—he had not been wearing a periwig when she had met him at the wharf—smoothed the bed and laid another cold compress on his forehead. His lips were parched and beginning to split from the fever, and she covered them with pomade. She brought fresh towels from the nursery, and gathered all the soiled articles into a great bag, though of course no laundress would take it if it became known that there was plague in the house. And all the while she kept one eye on him, tried to understand him when he muttered something and to anticipate what he wanted so that he would not have to make the effort of reaching or moving himself.

About six the streets began to take on life. Across the way an apprentice let down the shutters of a small haberdashery shop, a coach rattled by, and she heard the familiar cry: “Milk-maid below!”

Amber threw open the window. “Wait there! I want some!” She glanced at Bruce and then ran out, scooping a few coins from the dressing-table as she went past, rushed into the kitchen for a pail and down the stairs. “I want a gallon, please.”

The girl, pink-cheeked and healthy, was one of those who came in every day from Finsbury or Clerkenwell. She grinned at Amber and slid the yoke off her shoulders to pour the fresh warm milk. “Going to be another mighty hot day, I doubt not,” she said conversationally.

Amber was listening for some sound from Bruce—she had left the window open just a crack—and she answered with an absent-minded nod. At that moment a deep boom filled the air. It was the passing-bell and it tolled three times—somewhere in the parish a man lay dying, and those who heard it were to pray for his soul. Amber and the milk-maid exchanged quick apprehensive glances, then both of them closed their eyes and murmured a prayer.

“Three pence, mam,” said the girl, and Amber saw her eyes going over her black gown with a sharp glint of suspicion.

She gave her the three pennies, picked up the heavy pail and started to go back into the house. At the door she turned. “Will you be here tomorrow?”

The woman had shouldered her yoke and was already several feet away. “Not tomorrow, mam. I’ll not be comin’ into town for a while. There’s no tellin’ these days which one might have the sickness.” Her eyes went down over Amber again.

Amber turned away and went inside. She found Bruce lying just as she had left him, but even as she came to the doorway he suddenly began to retch and tried to sit up. She put down the pail and ran toward him. His eyeballs were no longer bloodshot but had turned yellow and sunk into his skull. He had obviously lost all contact with things outside himself and seemed neither to hear nor to see; he moved and acted only by instinct.

Later she made several more purchases. She got cheese, butter, eggs, a cabbage, onions and turnips and lettuce, a loaf of sugar, a pound of bacon, and some fruit.

She drank some milk and ate part of the cold duck left from supper the night before, but when she suggested food to Bruce he did not answer and when she put a glass of milk to his lips he pushed it away. She did not know whether to insist that he eat or not, and decided that it would be best to wait for a doctor—she hoped to see one going past the house, for they carried gold-headed canes to distinguish them. Surely, with so many people sending for them at every hour of the day and night, she would see one soon. She was afraid to leave him alone long enough to go for one herself.

And then at last she found that his vomit was streaked with uncoagulated blood. That scared her violently and she decided that she could wait no longer.

She took her keys, left the building and ran along the street toward where she remembered having seen a doctor’s sign, pushing her way through the crowds of porters and vendors and housewives. A passing coach left such a cloud of dust that she could taste the grit in her mouth; an apprentice bawled out some impertinent compliment which reminded her that her gown was undone; and a filthy old beggar, his hands and face covered with running sores, reached out to catch at her skirts. She passed three houses which were marked with the red cross and had a guard before each.

She arrived at the doctor’s house out of breath and with hard dry pains in her chest, gave the knocker an impatient clatter and then, when no one answered, banged it furiously. She waited for at least a minute and was just picking up her skirts to leave when a woman answered. She held a pomander-ball to her nose and stared at Amber suspiciously.

“Where’s the doctor? I’ve got to see ’im this instant!”

The woman answered her coldly, as though resentful that she had come at all. “Dr. Barton is making his calls.”

“Send him the moment he gets back. The Sign of the Plume in St. Martin’s Lane, up the street and around the corner—”

She raised her arm and pointed, and then she whirled and ran off, pressing her hand against the sharp pain that stabbed in her left side. But to her immense relief she found that Bruce, though he had vomited again—bringing up more blood—and had flung off the blankets, was otherwise as she had left him.

She waited nervously for the doctor. A hundred times she looked out the window, swearing beneath her breath at his slowness. But it was mid-afteroon before he arrived and she flew down the stairs to let him in.

“Thank God you’ve come! Hurry!” Already she was on her way back up again.

He was a tired old man, smoking a pipeful of tobacco, and he started wearily after her. “Hurrying won’t do any good, madame.”

She turned and looked at him sharply, angry that he apparently did not consider this patient to be of unusual importance. But nevertheless she was relieved to have him there. He could tell her how Bruce was, and what she should do for him. Ordinarily she shared the popular skepticism regarding doctors, but now she would have believed implicitly the idlest words of any quack or charlatan.

She arrived at the bedside before he did and stood there, watching him walk slowly into the room, her eyes big and apprehensive. Bruce lay now in a coma, though he was still mumbling and moving restlessly about. Dr. Barton stopped short of the bed by several feet, and he held a handkerchief to his nose. For a moment he looked at him without speaking.

“Well?” demanded Amber. “How is he?”

The doctor gave a faint shrug. “Madame, you ask me to answer the impossible. I do not know. Is there a bubo?”

“Yes. It started to rise last night.”

She turned back the quilts so that he could see the lump in Bruce’s groin, enlarged now to the size of a half-submerged tennis-ball; the skin over it looked stretched and red and shining.

“Does it seem to cause him much pain?”

“I touched it once, by accident, and he gave a terrible yell.”

“The rising of the plague-boil is the most painful stage of the disease. But unless there is one they seldom live.”

“Then he will live, Doctor? He’ll get well?” Her eyes glistened eagerly.

“Madame, I can promise you nothing. I don’t know. No one knows. We must simply admit that we don’t understand it—we’re helpless. Sometimes they die in an hour—sometimes it takes days. Sometimes it’s easy, without a convulsion, other times they go in a screaming agony. The strong and healthy are as vulnerable as the frail and weak. What have you been giving him to eat?”

“Nothing. He refuses everything I try to feed him. And he vomits so often it wouldn’t do any good.” “Nevertheless, he must eat. Force it down him someway, and feed him often—every three or four hours. Give him eggs and meat-broth and wine-caudles. And you must keep him as hot as possible. Wrap him in all the warm blankets you have and don’t let him throw them off. Heat some bricks and pack them at his feet. If you have some stone water-bottles use those. Start a good fire and don’t let it go out. He must be induced to sweat as profusely as possible. And make a poultice for the boil—you can use vinegar and honey and figs if you have them and some brown bread-crumbs and plenty of mustard. If he throws it off tie it on someway, and keep it there. Unless the boil can be brought to break and run he’ll have but little chance of recovery. Give him a strong emetic—antimony in white wine will do, or whatever you may have on hand, and a clyster. That’s all I can tell you. And you, madame—how are you?”

“I feel well enough, except that I’m tired. I had to stay up most of the night.”

“I’ll report the case to the parish and a nurse will be sent to help you. To protect yourself I’d advise you to steep some bay-leaves or juniper in vinegar and breathe the fumes several times a day.” He turned and started to go and Amber, though keeping an eye on Bruce, walked along with him. “And by the way, madame, you’d better hide whatever valuables you may have in the house before the nurse arrives.”

“Good Lord! What kind of a nurse are you sending?”

“The parish has to take whoever volunteers—we have too few already—and though some of them are honest enough, the truth of it is that most of them are not.” He had reached the anteroom now and just before he started down the steps he said: “If the plague-spots appear—you may as well send for the sexton to ring the bell. No one can help them after that. I’ll stop again tomorrow.” Even as he spoke they heard the bells begin to toll, somewhere in the distance, two tenor notes struck for a woman. “It’s the vengeance of God upon us for our sins. Well—good-day, madame.”

Amber went back and set immediately about her new tasks, for tired as she was she was glad to have work to do. It helped her to keep from thinking, and each thing that she did for him gave her a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

She poured some of the water which she kept hot in the kitchen into several stone bottles, wrapped them in towels and packed them all about him, and she brought out half-a-dozen more blankets from the nursery. He protested, pushing them down again and again, but each time, patiently, she covered him and went on with what she had been doing. The sweat began to run off his face in rivers, and the sheets beneath him were soaked and yellow. The fire roared and she heaped it with coals, making the room so hot that though she took off her petticoat, pushed her sleeves high and opened her gown, the silk clung to her ribs and there were wet spots beneath her breasts and in her arm-pits. She pulled the heavy hair up off her neck and skewered it on top of her head, and she mopped at her face and chest with a handkerchief.

She poured the emetic into his mouth and then, without waiting for it to take effect, administered the clyster. This was a difficult and painful process, but Amber was beyond either disgust or fastidiousness—she did what was necessary as well as she could, and without thinking about it. Afterwards she cleaned up the mess it had made, washed her hands, and went out to the kitchen to prepare the mustard-plaster and to make a sack-posset of hot milk, sugar and spices and white wine.

He made no protest when she laid the poultice on the boil and did not seem to know that it was there. Relieved—for she had been afraid that it might hurt him—she went back to finish making the posset.

She tasted the curdled drink, sprinkled on just a bit more cinnamon, and then tasted again. It was good. She poured it into the double-spouted posset pot and started for the bedroom. At that moment she heard a yell, a strange terrible sound that sent a quivering chill along her spine. Then there was a thud and a loud crash.

She slammed the pewter pot onto the sideboard and ran toward the bedroom. He was half-crouched on the floor, just getting to his feet—he had apparently fallen as he climbed out of bed, and overturned the table beside it. “Bruce!” she screamed at him, but he was not conscious of her or of what he was doing. Slowly he lunged to his feet and turned to push open the casement window which she had left unlocked. She rushed on toward him, grabbing up a candlestick from a chest-of-drawers and just as he put one foot on the recessed sill she grabbed his arm and swung the heavy stick, striking him hard across the base of the skull. Vaguely she realized that there were people below in the street, looking up, and she heard a woman scream.

He started to fall, sagging slowly, and she flung her arms about him, trying desperately to push him back onto the bed. But he was too heavy for her and in spite of her efforts slid slowly toward the floor. Knowing that she would never be able to lift him from there onto the high bed, she gave a sudden violent shove and he fell sideways, sprawled half across it; she stumbled and pitched down onto him. Swiftly she was on her feet again, and she jerked a quilt from the bed to fling over him, for he was naked and streaming sweat. Pulling and hauling, swearing with fright and rage, at last she got him back into the bed. She collapsed then into a chair beside it, completely exhausted, her muscles quivering and jumping resentfully.

Then, as she looked at him, she saw that a dark streak of blood was beginning to make a crooked path down his neck, and she got wearily to her feet again. With cotton and cold water she sponged it off, and wrapped a clean linen band—torn from a towel—around his head.

“Pox on that nurse!” she thought furiously. “Why doesn’t she get here?” She replaced the mustard-plaster and filled the hot-water bottles again, for they had begun to cool.

On her way back to the kitchen she stopped and took a long drink of the posset. It was supposed to be highly invigorating and, at least for a time, did make her feel stronger. Putting the pot down she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. If only that pestilent wench would arrive! she thought. Maybe I could sleep then. I’ll die if I don’t get some sleep. Exhaustion came over her in waves and for several minutes she would think she could not make another move, or take another step. And then it would pass, leaving her no less tired but able to do what had to be done.

It was several minutes before Bruce regained consciousness and then he was even more restless and violent. He tossed and threshed about, throwing off the blankets; his voice was loud and angry, and though she could not understand very much of what he said she knew that he swore continuously. She was not able to pour much of the posset down him before he gave a sudden swing of his arm that sent the pot clattering violently to the floor.

When at last he grew quieter she took a pen and paper and sat down at a table close by the bed to write a letter to Nan. It was difficult, for she wanted to tell the girl the truth without scaring her, and she worked over it for half an hour, scrawling out the words laboriously, making several drafts before she had one that suited her. She blew it dry and dripped on a great blob of gold sealing-wax. Then, picking up a shilling from the table, she went to the window and opened it, thinking that if she could find some youngster passing in the street below she could give him the coin to take it to the post-office for her. The price of postage would be paid upon delivery.

The sky was turning pale blue and a star or two had come out. There were not very many people abroad now, but as Amber leaned out she saw a boy, going down the middle of the street, hold his nose as he passed her house.

She looked down and saw a guard there, lounging against the wall with his halberd on his shoulder. That meant the red cross had been marked on her door too and they were shut in together for forty days and nights, or until both of them were dead. A few days before she would have been terrified; now she accepted it almost with indifference.

“Guard!” She spoke softly, and he heaved himself away from the wall and stood out from it to look up at her. “Will you give this letter to someone to post for me? I’ll give you a shilling.” He nodded his head, she tossed down the letter and the coin, and closed the window again. But for a moment she stood looking out, like a prisoner, at the sky and the trees. Then she turned and once more spread the quilts up over Bruce.

It was almost nine when the nurse arrived. Amber heard someone below talking to the guard and then a rap on the door. She took a candle and hurried down to admit her. “Why are you so late?” she demanded. “The doctor told me he’d send you here in the middle of the afternoon!”

“I come from my last patient, mam, and he wasn’t a quick one to die.”

Amber ran up the stairs ahead of the nurse, holding the candle high to make a light for her, but the old woman mounted slowly, breathing hard and bracing her hands on her knees at every step to boost herself. At the top Amber turned and looked down, surveying her narrowly. What she saw was not reassuring.

The woman was perhaps sixty, and fat. Her face was round and flabby, but she had a sharp-pointed nose and her mouth was compressed into a thin line. She was wearing a gnarled yellow wig set crookedly on her head and a dark-red velvet dress, soiled and worn shiny, which exposed her sloping shoulders and fitted too tight across the great loose breasts. She had an evil smell, reasty and stale.

“What’s your name?” Amber asked her, as she came puffing to the top.

“Spong, mam. Mrs. Spong.”

“I’m Mrs. Dangerfield. The patient’s in here.” She walked into the bedroom and Mrs. Spong waddled after her, her stupid blue eyes rolling over the splendid furnishings. She did not even glance at Bruce until at last, in exasperation, Amber said, “Well!”

Then she started slightly and gave a foolish half-grin, exposing a few blackened teeth in her gums. “Oh—that’s the patient.” She observed him for a moment. “He don’t look so good, does he?”

“No, he doesn’t!” snapped Amber, angry and disappointed to have been sent this stupid old woman. “You’re a nurse, aren’t you! Tell me what to do. How can I help him? I’ve done everything the doctor said—”

“Well, mam, if you’ve did everything the doctor said there’s nothin’ more I can tell ye.”

“But how does he look? You’ve seen others sick of it—how does he look compared with them?”

Spong stared at him for a moment, sucking on her teeth. “Well, mam,” she said at last, “some of ‘em looked worse. And some of ’em looked better. But I tell you truly—he don’t look good. Now, mam, have ye got some food for a poor starvin’ old woman? Last place I was they didn’t have nothin’ to eat. I vow and swear—”

Amber gave her a glare of disgust, but as Bruce suddenly began to retch again she rushed to hold the pan for him, motioning toward the kitchen with one hand. “Out there.”

She felt more tired than ever, and completely discouraged. This filthy vulgar old creature would be no use to her at all. She would not have let her touch Bruce, and it did not seem likely the nurse would do so anyway. The best Amber could hope would be that she might induce her to watch him tonight so she could have a few hours of sleep, and tomorrow send her away and get someone better.

Half an hour went by and she heard not a sound from Spong. At last, in a fury, she rushed out to find her immaculate kitchen littered and dirty. The food hutch stood open; there was a broken egg on the floor; great chunks had been cut from the ham and the quarter-wheel of cheese. Spong looked around at her in surprise. She had a piece of ham in one hand and the bottle of stale champagne—which they had opened the night before—in the other.

“Well!” said Amber sarcastically. “I hope you won’t mighty near starve here!”

“No, mam!” agreed Spong. “I’d rather nurse the quality, let me tell you. They always got more to eat.”

“Go in there and watch his Lordship. I’ve got to get some food ready for him. Call me if he throws off the blankets or starts to vomit—but don’t do anything yourself.”

“His Lordship, is it? And you’re her Ladyship, I doubt not?”

“Mind your own business, and get on in there. Go on!”

Spong shrugged her shoulders and went off, and though Amber clenched her teeth together, a sullen scowl on her face, she began immediately to prepare the tray. A few hours earlier she had given him a bowlful of the soup left over from their supper. Resentful at being disturbed, he had sworn at her and tried to shove the spoon away, but she had persisted until she poured it down him. Within a quarter of an hour he vomited it up again.

This time, as she held the basin beneath his chin while he threw up the soup, she was so filled with frustration and despair that she wept softly. Spong was not at all concerned. She sat sprawled in a chair five or six feet from the bed, drinking her wine and gnawing at the last of the cold duck. She flipped the bones out the window, exchanging bawdy pleasantries with the guard below, until Amber rushed in from the kitchen in a blazing anger.

“Don’t you dare open that window again!” she cried, and slammed it shut and locked it. Spong jumped. “What are you trying to do?”

“Lord, mam, I wasn’t doin’ the gentleman no harm.”

“Do as I say and keep the window closed—or I’ll make you sorry for it! Filthy old sot!” she muttered beneath her breath, and went back to finish washing the dishes and putting her kitchen in order. Sarah Goodegroome had been a meticulous housekeeper, and now that Amber had the work to do herself again she intended to have her rooms spotless if it meant working eighteen hours a day—which it probably would.

Bruce was increasingly restless and violent, which Spong informed her was most likely the effect of the rising carbuncle. Two of her patients, she said placidly, had been unable to stand the pain and had gone mad and killed themselves.

To watch him suffer and to be unable to help or ease his pain was an agony. She hung over him constantly, trying to anticipate his every need. She replaced the blankets each time he flung them off and put the mustard-plaster back again and again—once, as she bent above him, he struck out violently at her with his clenched fist, and if she had not moved quickly the blow would have knocked her down. The plague-boil had risen steadily out of his groin until now it was the full size of a tennis-ball and the taut-stretched skin over it had thickened and turned dark.

Spong sat humming or chanting to herself, softly beating her thigh with an empty wine-bottle. Most of the time Amber was so busy, or so haunted with worry over Bruce, she forgot that she was there—and otherwise she ignored her.

But at eleven o’clock, when she had everything clean for the night and was herself undressed and washed, she turned to the old woman. “I only got about three hours sleep last night, Mrs. Spong, and I’m tired as a dog. If you’ll watch his Lordship for three or four hours you can call me and then I will. We’ll have to take turns, because someone’s got to be with him every moment. Will you cover him again if he throws the blankets off?”

“Aye, mam,” agreed Mrs. Spong, and as she nodded her head the wig slipped, showing some of her own thin dirty grey hair. “Ye can count on me, mam. I warrant you.”

Amber pulled out the trundle on the opposite side of the bed and lay down on her stomach, wearing her dressing-gown but otherwise uncovered, for the room was still hot and close. She did not want to sleep—she was afraid to leave him—but she knew that she must, and she could not help herself. In only a few seconds she had lost consciousness.

Sometime later she was wakened by a sudden stunning blow across the face and weight of a heavy body falling over her. Involuntarily she screamed, a wild terrible sound that filled the night; and then she realized what had happened and began to struggle fiercely to free herself. Bruce, in his restless agony, had gotten out of bed again and stumbled across her; he lay there now, a massive, inert weight.

She shouted for Spong but got no answer. And as she pulled herself out and saw the old woman just lifting her head and opening one eye something seemed to swell and explode inside her. Swiftly she rushed around the bed, slapped her furiously across the face, and grabbed hold of one flabby arm.

“Get up!” she yelled at her. “Get up! you miserable old slut and help me!”

Shocked wide awake, Spong hoisted herself out of the chair much faster than she usually did. It took them several minutes, but at last they got him back into the bed and he lay stretched out, perfectly quiet, collapsed. Amber bent anxiously over him, putting her hand to his heart, pressing her fingers against his wrist—the pulse beat there, faintly.

And then she heard a whine from Spong. “Oh, Lord! What’ve I done! I touched ’im and now I’ll get the—”

Amber whirled around furiously. “What’ve you done!” she cried. “You pot-bellied old bawd! You fell asleep and let him get out of bed! You may’ve killed him! But by Jesus, if he dies you’ll wish you had the plague! I’ll strangle you, God help me, with my own two hands!”

Spong started back, quivering. “Oh, Lord, mam! I’d but dozed off that instant. I vow and swear! Please, for God’s sake, mam, don’t hit me—”

Amber’s clenched fists dropped and she turned away in disgust. “You’re no damned good. I’m going to get another nurse tomorrow.”

“Ye can’t do it, mam. Ye can’t turn out a nurse. The parish-clerk sent me here and he said to stay till all of you was dead.”

Amber blew out her cheeks in a sigh of utter exhaustion, throwing the hair from her face with the back of one hand. “Very well. Go to sleep. I’ll watch him. There’s a bed in there.” She pointed toward the nursery.

Through the rest of the long night she stayed beside him. He was quieter than he had been and she did not want to disturb him to make him eat, but she prepared some black coffee to keep herself awake and now and then she took a swallow of cherry-brandy, but she was so tired that it made her dizzy and she dared not drink much. In the next room Spong lay spewing and hawking; an occasional late coach rattled by, the horses’ hoofs clopping rhythmically on the pavement; and the night guard stamped wearily up and down. Somewhere a cat squalled in nocturnal ecstasy. The passing-bell tolled three separate times and the watchman went by with his musical call:

“Take heed to your clock, beware your lock,

Your fire and your light, and God give you good-night.

One o’clock!”

CHAPTER THIRTY–FIVE

MORNING CAME AT last, the sun rising bright and hot in a cloudless sky. Amber, looking out, wished desperately for fog. The brilliant joyous sunlight seemed a cruel mockery of the sick and dying who lay in a thousand rooms all over the city.

Toward dawn the look of angry worry which had been on Bruce’s face, from the first morning she had seen him at the wharf, changed to one of listlessness and apathy. He seemed to have no consciousness whatever of his surroundings or of his own actions. When she put a glass of water to his mouth he swallowed involuntarily, but his eyes stared dully, seeing nothing. His quietness encouraged her and she thought that perhaps he was better.

She got into the dress she had worn yesterday and began to clean up the night’s accumulated filth. Her movements were slow, for her muscles felt heavy and aching and the rims of her eyeballs burned. She carried the slop-jars—all but that which Mrs. Spong had used—down to the courtyard privy and there she had to stand and wait, for there was a man inside and he seemed leisurely.

At six she went to wake Spong, shaking her roughly by the shoulder. The old woman smacked her lips together and looked up at Amber with one eye. “How now, mam? What happened?”

“Get up! It’s morning! Either you’ll help me or I’ll lock the food away and you can starve!”

Spong looked at her resentfully, her feelings hurt. “Lord, mam! How was I to know it’s mornin’?”

She flung back the quilt and got out of bed, fully dressed but for her shoes. She buttoned the front of her gown, pulling and twisting at the skirt, and cocked her wig back to approximately where it had been. She leaned backward, stretching and yawning noisily, massaging her fat belly, and she stuck one finger into her mouth to pick out some shreds of meat, wiping what she extracted on the soiled front of her gown.

Amber stopped her as she was going through the bedroom on her way to the kitchen. “Come here! What d’you think? He’s quieter now—does he look better?”

Spong came back to look at him, but she shook her head. “He looks bad, mam. Mighty bad. I’ve seen ’em like that not a half-hour before they’re dead.”

“Oh, damn you! You think everyone’s going to die! But he isn’t, d’ye hear me? Go on—get out of here!”

Spong went. “Lord, mam—ye but asked me and I told ye—”

An hour later, when she had finished cleaning the bedroom and had fed him the rest of the soup, Amber told Spong that she was going to a butcher-shop for a piece of beef and would be gone perhaps twenty minutes. There was one, she knew, not a quarter of a mile away near Lincoln’s Inn Fields. She fastened her gown as high as she could and filled in the neck-line with a scarf. It was too hot to wear a cloak but she took a black-silk hood out of the chest and tied it beneath her chin.

“The guard won’t allow ye to go, mam,” predicted Spong.

“I think he will. You let me alone for that. Now listen to what I say: Watch his Lordship and watch him close, because if I come back to find you’ve let him harm himself in any way or so much as throw off the blankets—believe me, I’ll slit your nose for it!” Her tawny-coloured eyes glared, the black centers swelling, and her lips drew tight against her teeth. Spong gaped, scared as a rabbit.

“Lord, mam, ye can trust me! I’ll watch ’im like a witch!”

Amber went through the kitchen, down the back staircase, and started off along the narrow little alley that ran behind the house. She had not gone twenty yards when there was a shout, and she turned to see the guard running toward her.

“Escaping, eh?” He seemed pleased. “Or maybe ye didn’t know the house is locked?”

“I know it’s locked and I’m not escaping. I’ve got to buy some food. Will a shilling let me out?”

“A shilling! D’ye think I can be bribed?” He lowered his voice. “Three shillings might do it.”

Amber took the coins from inside her muff and flipped them to him—he did not venture to step up close and he had a pipe of tobacco in his mouth, for that was thought a plague preventive. She walked swiftly down the lane and turned into a main street. There seemed to be even fewer people out today than yesterday and those who were did not loiter or stop to gossip but moved along briskly, pomanders held to their noses. A coach followed by a train of loaded wagons went by and several heads turned wistfully; it was only the prosperous ones who could afford to leave, the others must stay and take their chances, put their faith in amulets and herbs. And there were several houses shut up along the way.

At the butcher’s stall she bought a good-sized chunk of beef, taking the meat from the hooks on which he extended it to her and dropping the money into a jar of vinegar. She put the meat, wrapped in a towel, into her market-basket and on the way back she stopped to buy a couple of pounds of candles, three bottles of brandy and some coffee. Coffee was so expensive that it was not hawked on the streets and while Amber did not drink it often she hoped that it would help her get through the day.

She found Bruce just as she had left him, and though Spong protested that she had not so much as taken an eye off him Amber strongly suspected that she had been foraging, at least in the bedroom, for money or jewels. But it was all locked up behind a secret panel, where neither Spong nor anyone else was likely to find it without a long search.

Spong would have followed her to the kitchen to find out what she had bought, but Amber sent her back to stay with Bruce. She locked the brandy away, for she knew that otherwise it would disappear, but first she took a good swallow herself. Then she tied back her hair, pushed up her sleeves and went to work. Into a great blackened kettle full of hot water went the meat, cut up in cubes, and some of the bacon she had bought the day before. She split the bones with a heavy cleaver and added them with the marrow and when the vegetables were ready they went in too: a quartered cabbage, leeks, carrots, peas and a handful of crumbled herbs, and she ground in some rock-salt and peppercorns.

The soup had to be cooked for several hours until it was boiled down and thickened, and meanwhile she prepared a caudle of sack, spices, sugar and eggs for him to drink. She crushed each egg-shell to tiny bits, remembering the old country belief that otherwise a witch would write your name on it. She had trouble enough now, without inviting more.

She found, as she poured the drink down his throat, that the fur on his tongue was beginning to peel, leaving raw red patches, and that his teeth had made deep indentations in it. His pulse had quickened, his breathing was more rapid and sometimes he coughed slightly. He lay in a deep coma, not sleeping but wholly unconscious, and it was no longer possible to rouse him at all. Even when she touched the plague-boil, now a soft doughy mass, he gave no indication of awareness. It did not seem possible, even to her, that a man could be so sick and live very long.

But she refused to think about it. She was, in fact, so tired that it was almost impossible to think at all.

She went back to the kitchen to finish the cleaning there. Then she swept the other rooms and dusted the furniture, put the towels to soak in hot soapy water and vinegar, brought up some more water and finally—when she felt that she could not make another move—she went into the bedroom and dragged out the trundle. Her lids felt rough and seemed to scratch against the eyeballs and there were muddy circles around her eyes.

It was about noon when she lay down and though the draperies were pulled the hot sun beat into the room. She woke up several hours later, wet and with a heavy aching head, feeling as though the house was rocking. It was Spong shaking her shoulder.

“Get up, mam! The doctor’s below a-knockin’.”

“For God’s sake,” muttered Amber, “can’t you do anything without being told? Go let ’im in.”

Spong was offended. “Ye told me not to leave his Lordship—no matter what happened!”

Amber got up wearily. She felt as though she had been drugged, her mouth had a vile taste, and days seemed to have gone by since she had lain down. But it was only five o’clock and though the room was darker the fire kept it as hot as ever. She pushed back the curtains and bent to look at Bruce, but he seemed not to have changed, either for better or worse.

Dr. Barton came into the room, looking tired and sick himself, and once more he merely looked at Bruce from a distance of several feet. Amber knew with despair that he had seen so many sick and dying men he could no longer distinguish one from another.

“What do you think?” she asked him. “Will he live?” But her own face showed no hope or expectation.

“He may; but to be truthful, I doubt it. Has the carbuncle burst?”

“No. It’s soft now but it feels hard deep inside. He doesn’t seem to even know when I touch it. Isn’t there anything we can do? There must be some way to save him.”

“Trust in God, madame. We can do no more. If the carbuncle breaks, dress it—but take care to get no blood or pus on yourself. I’ll come tomorrow and if it hasn’t opened by then I’ll have to cut it open. That’s all I can tell you. Good-day, madame.”

He bowed slightly and started out but Amber went along with him. “Isn’t there someway I can get another nurse?” she asked, her voice soft and urgent. “That old woman is useless. She doesn’t do a thing but eat and drink up my supplies. I could get along as well alone.”

“I’m sorry, madame, but the parish-clerk is too busy now to consider the problems of each individual. The nurses are all incompetent and most of them old—if they could get a living any other way they wouldn’t be doing this. The parish sends them out to nurse to avoid the charge of keeping them on charity. Still, madame, as you must know, you may fall sick yourself at any time—it’s better not to be alone.”

He left and Amber, shrugging and deciding that since she could not get rid of Spong she would find some use for her, went into the kitchen. The soup was ready now, a rich heavy pottage with the fat swimming in hot oily circles on top of it, and she ladled out a bowlful to eat herself. It made her feel better. Her headache disappeared and she felt almost optimistic again. She was sure once more that she could keep him alive by sheer force of will-power.

I love him so much, she thought, he can’t die. God won’t let him die.

When she was ready to go to bed she decided to try bribing Spong. “If you’ll stay awake till three and then call me I’ll give you a bottle of brandy.” If the old woman would watch and let her sleep at night she was willing to have her drunk all day.

The arrangement satisfied Spong who vowed again that she would not so much as close an eye. Once Amber woke suddenly and sat bolt upright, glaring accusingly at her—it was light in the room for the fire was kept burning all night. But the nurse was sitting there beside him, arms folded on her belly, and she grinned across at Amber.

“Fooled ye, mam, eh?”

Amber flopped back down and instantly fell asleep again. She was wakened by a gurgling scream that brought her to her feet at a leap, her heart pounding sickeningly. Bruce, kneeling on the edge of the bed, had grabbed Spong by the throat and she was lashing and flailing about, helpless as a flounder. With his face contorted, teeth bared savagely, shoulders hunched, he was forcing all the strength of his arms into his fingers and they were crushing out the old woman’s life.

Quickly throwing herself onto the bed behind him Amber grabbed his arms and tried to drag him backwards. Cursing, he dropped the nurse, and turned on Amber, his fingers closing around her throat—squeezing the blood into her face and temples until the top of her head felt ready to burst. Her ears cracked and she went blind. Desperately she put up her hands and finding his eyeballs she gouged her thumbs into them. His grip weakened slowly, and then all at once he collapsed onto the bed, sprawling weirdly.

Amber slowly sank to the floor, helpless and stupidly dazed. It was several seconds before she realized what Spong was trying to tell her.

“—it’s broke, mam! It’s broke—that was what drove ’im mad!”

She dragged herself to her feet then and saw that the great swollen mass of the carbuncle had burst, as though the top had been blown off a crater. There was a hole deep enough and large enough to thrust a finger into, and the blood poured out in a dark scarlet stream that ran into a spreading pool on the bed and clotted thickly. A watery gland-fluid came with it, and yellow pus was beginning to work its way upward.

Amber sent Spong to the kitchen for some warm water and began immediately to wash off the blood, wiping it away as it ran out. The bloody rags accumulated in a heap and the nurse was kept busy tearing bandages from some clean sheets. But it would have done no good to bind them on; they would have soaked through in less than a minute. Amber had never seen a man lose so much blood, and it scared her.

“He’s going to bleed to death!” she said desperately, throwing another red sopping rag into the pail beside her. His face was no longer flushed but had turned white beneath the short growth of black bristle and it felt cold and wet to the touch.

“He’s a big man, mam—he can lose a lot of blood. But ye can thank God it broke. He’s got a chance to live now.”

At last the blood stopped flowing, though it continued to seep slowly, and she bound up the wound and turned to wash her hands in a basin of clean warm water. Spong approached her with an ingratiating whine.

“It’s half-after-three now, mam. Can’t I go to sleep?”

“Yes, go on. And thanks.”

“It’s almost mornin’, mam. Could I have the brandy now, d’ye think?”

Amber went out to the kitchen to get it for her; and though for a while she heard her behind the closed door, droning a song, finally she fell silent and then set up a clattering snore that went on hour after hour. Amber was kept busy changing the bandages and refilling the hot-water bottles. Along toward morning to her enormous relief the colour began to return to his face, his breathing became more regular, and his skin was dry again.

By the eighth day she was convinced that he would live, and Mrs. Spong agreed with her, though she said frankly that she had expected him to die. But the plague took them quickly, if at all. Those who lived until the third day could be reasonably hopeful, and whoever lived a week was almost certain to recover. But the period of convalescence was long and tedious and characterized by a deep physical and mental depression, an almost complete prostration, during which any sudden or undue exertion could have rapidly fatal results.

Since the night the carbuncle had opened Bruce had lain supine, never making a voluntary move. The restlessness, the delirium, the violence were gone and his strength had wasted until he was not able even to stir. He swallowed obediently whatever food or drink she put into his mouth, but the effort seemed to exhaust him. Much of the time, she knew, he slept, though his eyes were always closed and it was never possible to tell when he was awake or even whether he was conscious of being awake.

Amber worked ceaselessly, though after the bursting of the carbuncle she was able to get enough sleep, and she did her tasks with enthusiasm and even a kind of pleasure, certainly with satisfaction. Everything that Sarah had ever taught her about cooking and nursing and housekeeping came back to her now and she prided herself that she did a better job of all three than her maids could have done.

She did not dare bathe Bruce, but otherwise she kept him as clean as possible, and with Spong’s help she managed to change the sheets on the bed. The rest of the apartment was kept as immaculate as if she expected a visit from a maiden-aunt. She mopped the kitchen floor, washed the towels and sheets and napkins and her own smocks and ironed everything; every day she scoured the pewter dishes with bran and soap and set them before a hot fire to dry, which was the way Sarah had taught her to keep them shining and spotless. Her hands were beginning already to roughen and she had several small blisters, but that mattered no more to her than did the fact that her hair was oily and that she had not worn a speck of powder for a week and a half. When he begins to notice me, she told herself, I’ll take time for those things. Meanwhile, her only audience was Spong and the shop-keepers she saw when she went out to buy provisions, and they did not matter.

She had heard nothing at all from Nan and though she worried about her and the baby she tried to make herself believe that they were all right. As far as she knew there was no plague in the country. And of course it was very likely that the letter had not reached her at all. She knew Nan well enough to know that she could trust her loyalty and resourcefulness, and now she must do so and refuse to think anything but that they were safe and well.

Her own health continued as good as ever, a fact which she attributed to the unicorn’s horn, the Elizabethan gold coin she kept in her mouth, and her daily practice of taking a snip of her own hair, cutting it up fine and drinking it in a glass of water. This last was Spong’s suggestion and both of them followed it religiously, for it had seen Spong safely through eight houses full of plague. Occasionally she said a prayer, for good measure.

Dr. Barton had not come since his second call, and both Spong and Amber decided that he had either died or run away —as the plague got worse more and more of the doctors were leaving. But, as Bruce continued to improve, she did not trouble to find another one.

Every morning when she had fed Bruce his breakfast—usually a caudle—she changed the bandage on the great sloughing wound, washed his hands and face, cleaned his teeth as well as she could, and then sat down beside him to comb his hair. It was the moment she enjoyed most in each day, for her work kept her so busy that she had very little time to spend with him. Sometimes he looked up at her, but his eyes were dull and expressionless; she could not tell whether he even knew who it was bending over him. But each time that he looked at her she smiled, hoping for an answering smile.

And at last it came.

It was the tenth day after he had fallen sick and she sat on the bed facing him, intent on combing his hair, which was as crisp and healthy as it had ever been. She laid the flat side of her hand gently into one of its waves, smiling as she did so, deeply and truly happy. She realized then that he was watching her and that he actually saw her, knew who she was and what she was doing. A swift thrill ran over her flesh and as his mouth tried to smile at her she touched his cheek with her fingers, caressing.

“God bless you, darling—” His voice was soft and hoarse, scarcely more than a whisper, and he turned his head to kiss her fingers.

“Oh, Bruce—”

She could just murmur his name, for her throat had swollen until it ached, and a tear splashed down onto his cheek. She brushed the next one away before it could fall, and then his eyes closed again, his head turned wearily and he gave a light sigh.

But after that she always knew when he was conscious, and little by little he began to talk to her, though it was many days before he could say more than a few words at a time. And she did not urge him to talk for she knew how great was the exertion and how tired it left him. His eyes often followed her when she was in the room and in them she saw a look of gratitude that wrenched her heart. She wanted to tell him that she had not done so very much—only what she had to do because she loved him, and that she had never been happier than during these past days when she had used all her energy, all the strength she had, every thought and waking minute for him. Whatever had been between them in the past, whatever was to come in the future, she had had these few weeks when he belonged to her completely.

Day by day London was changing.

Gradually the vendors disappeared from the streets, and with them went the age-old cries which had rung through the town for centuries. Many shops had closed and the ’prentices no longer stood before their stalls, bawling out their wares to the passerby—the shop-keepers were afraid of the customers, the customers were afraid of the shop-keepers. Friends looked the other way when they passed, or crossed the street to avoid speaking. Many were afraid to buy food, for fear it might be contaminated, and some of them starved to death.

The theatres had closed in May and now many taverns and inns and cook-shops were shut up. Those which continued to do business were ordered to lock their doors at nine o’clock and to put all loiterers off the premises. There were no more bear-baitings, cock-fights, jugglers’ performances, or puppet-shows; even the executions were suspended, for they invariably drew great crowds. Funerals were forbidden, but nevertheless long trains of mourners were to be seen winding through the streets at almost every hour of the day or night.

And in spite of the great fear of the disease, the churches were always crowded. Many of the orthodox ministers had fled, but the Nonconformists remained and harangued the confused, miserable multitudes for their sins. The prostitutes had never been busier. A rumour began to spread that the surest protection against plague was a venereal disease and the whorehouses of Vinegar Yard, Saffron Hill, and Nightingale Lane were open twenty-four hours a day. Harlots and customers often died together, and their bodies were carried out by a back door to avoid offending those who waited in the parlour. An increasing attitude of fatalism made many say that they would enjoy whatever was left to them of life, and die when their turn came. Others rushed to consult astrologers and fortunetellers and anyone might set himself up as a soothsayer with the prospect of a very good business.

Searchers-of-the-dead walked in every street. It was their duty to inspect the dead and to report to the parish-clerk the cause of death. They were a group of old women, illiterate and dishonest as the nurses, forced to live apart from society during a time of sickness and to carry a white stick wherever they went so that others might know them and stop up their mouths as they passed.

The town grew steadily quieter. The busy shipping of the Thames lay still—no ships might enter or leave the river—and the noisy swearing impudent boatmen had all but disappeared. Forty thousand dogs and two hundred thousand cats were slaughtered, for it was believed that they were carriers of the sickness. It was possible to hear, far up into the City, the roaring of the water between the starlings of London Bridge—a noise which usually went unnoticed. Only the bells continued to ring—tolling, tolling, tolling for the dead.

It soon became impossible to bury the dead in separate graves, and huge pits—forty feet long and twenty feet deep—were dug at the edge of the city. Every night the bodies were brought there, some of them decently in coffins, more and more shrouded only in a sheet or naked, as they had died. In the grave they found a common anonymity. During the day crows and ravens settled there, but at the approach of a man they swarmed up into the air, circling and hovering, waiting until he was gone, and then they drifted earthward again. As the bodies began to rot a foul stench crept into the town, and there was no breath of moving air to dispel it.

There had never been a hotter summer. The sky was bright as brass, blue and without a shred of cloud; they thought of the cool soothing fog as a blessing. Large birds flew heavily and laboriously. The church-vanes scarcely turned. In the meadows about London the grass lay burnt and the earth was hard as brick, flowers withered and dried. Amber transplanted some of the stocks, pink and white ones with a spicy cinnamon smell, into pots and kept them shaded on the balcony, but they did not prosper.

She protected herself against the plague by refusing to think about it. It was all that any of them could do, who were forced to stay in the town, to keep their sanity.

Often, when she went out to shop—she had to buy almost everything herself now that the vendors were gone—she heard cries and groans and terrible screams from the closed houses. Pitiable faces appeared at the windows and hands reached out pleadingly: “Pray for us!”

It became more and more common to see the dead and dying in the streets, for the plague struck swiftly. Once she saw a man huddled by a wall, beating his bloody head against it and moaning in delirium. She stared a moment in horror and then she hurried by, holding her nose and making a half-circle around him. Another time she saw a dead woman slumped in a doorway, a baby still sucking at her breast, and the small blue plague-spots showed plainly on her white flesh. She saw a woman walking slowly, crying, and carrying in her arms a tiny coffin.

One day, as she was busy in the bedroom, she heard from outside a man’s loud voice shouting something which she could not at first understand. But he drew nearer, evidently coming up St. Martin’s Lane, and his words became more distinct. “Awake!” he bawled. “Sinners, awake! The plague is at your doors! The grave yawns for you! Awake and repent!” She pushed back the curtains and looked out. He was walking swiftly by, just beneath her window, a half-naked old man with matted hair and a long dark beard, and he brandished his closed fist at the still houses.

Amber looked at him with disgust. “Devil take him!” she muttered. “The blasted old fool! There’s trouble enough without that caterwauling!”

And then one night, at the end of July, she heard another and far more terrible cry. There came a rumbling of cart-wheels over the cobblestones, the sound of a hand-bell, and a man’s deep voice calling: “Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!”

She looked swiftly at Spong, for Bruce was asleep, and then she rushed to the window. Spong waddled after her, crowding up close. Below they saw a cart, moving slowly, one man in the driver’s seat and another ringing the hand-bell and walking beside it. In the light from the torch carried by a third they could see that the cart was half-filled with bodies, piled indiscriminately, flung one on top of another. Arms and legs stuck out at weird angles; one corpse hung over the side, her long hair pouring half-way to the ground.

“Holy Virgin Mary!” breathed Amber, and then she turned away with a shudder, sick at her stomach, cold and wet.

Spong’s teeth were chattering. “Oh, Jesu! To be dumped in like that, helter-skelter, with every Jack Noakes and Tom Styles! Oh, Lud! It’s more than flesh can bear!”

“Stop your blubbering!” muttered Amber impatiently. “There’s nothing the matter with you!”

“Aye, mam,” agreed Spong gloomily. “There’s nothin’ the matter with either of us today. But who’s to tell? By tomorrow we may both be—”

“Shut up, will you!” cried Amber suddenly, whirling around, and then, as the old woman gave a startled jump, she added crossly, somewhat ashamed of her nervous ill-temper: “You’re as melancholy as a bawd in Bridewell. Why don’t you go out in the kitchen and get a bottle to drink?”

Spong went, gratefully, but Amber could not push the picture of the dead-cart from her mind. The sick men and women she had seen, the dead bodies in the streets, the constant tolling of the bells, the stench from the graves, the city’s unnatural quiet, the news (given by the guard) that two thousand had died of plague that past week—the cumulative effect of those things was beginning to overpower her. She had held off fear and despair during the time that Bruce had been most hopelessly sick, for then she had not had time to think. But now a kind of superstitious dread was beginning to work in her mind.

Why should I still be well and alive when all these others are dying? What have I done to deserve to live if they must die? And she knew that she deserved life no more than anyone else.

Fear was as contagious as the plague, and it spread as the plague spread. The well expected to be sick; hope of escape was small. Death was everywhere now. You might inhale it with a breath; you might take it up with a bundle of food; you might pass it in the street and bring it walking home beside you. Death was democratic. It made no choice between the rich and the poor, the beautiful and the ugly, the young and the old.

One morning in mid-August Bruce told her that he thought they would be able to leave London within another fortnight. She was spreading up his bed, and though she answered him as casually as she could she had been worrying about it for some time.

“No one is allowed to leave the city now, whether they have a certificate-of-health or not.”

“We’ll go anyway. I’ve been thinking about it and I believe I know a way we can get out.”

“There’s nothing I’d like more. This city—God, it’s a nightmare!” She changed the subject quickly, smiling at him. “How would you like a shave? I’m a mighty good barber—”

Bruce ran his hand across the five-weeks growth of beard on his chin. “I’d like it. I feel like a fishmonger.”

She went out to the kitchen for a basin of warm water and found Spong sitting morosely, a half-eaten bowl of soup in her lap. “Well!” said Amber merrily. “Don’t tell me that you’ve got enough to eat at last!” She swung the crane out from the fire and poured some water into the pewter basin, testing it with her finger.

Spong gave a heavy discouraged sigh. “Lord, mam. Seems like I’m off the hooks today. Don’t feel so good.”

Amber straightened, looking at her sharply. If that old bawd’s going to be sick now, she thought, I’ll put her out in a trice and the parish clerk be damned!

But she was eager to get back to Bruce and returned to the bedroom where she laid her implements on a table, wrapped a great white linen towel about his chest, and sat down beside him. Both of them enjoyed the operation, and were much amused by it. Amber felt a deep current of joy running through her and once, as she leaned close to him, she saw his eyes on her breasts. Her heart gave a beat and she was aware of a slow creeping warmth.

“You must be feeling much better,” she said softly.

“Well enough,” he agreed, “to wish I felt much better than I do.”

When at last his face was clean again, but for the mustache he had always worn and which she left, it was easy to see how sick he had been, and how sick he still was. The smooth brown colour of his skin, habitually tanned before, had faded to a light pallor, his cheeks were lean and drawn and new faint lines showed at his eyes and mouth; all his body was much thinner. But to Amber he seemed as handsome as ever.

She began to pick up after herself, dumping the water out the window, gathering towels and scissors and razor. “In a few days,” she said, “I think you can have a bath.”

“God, I hope so! I must stink like Bedlam!”

He lay down then and presently fell asleep, for he was still so weak that a very small exertion was fatiguing. Amber took up her hood, locked the bedroom door so that Spong could not go in during her absence, and went out through the kitchen. The old woman was wandering aimlessly, a stupid staring look in her eyes. She reminded Amber of the long-snouted rats which sometimes came out of their holes and stood dazedly, or squeaked with distraction when she went after them with a broom, sick creatures with patches of fur fallen out of their blue-black coats.

“Are you feeling worse?” Amber was tying on her hood, watching the nurse in the mirror.

Spong answered her with a whine. “Not much, mam. But don’t it seem cold in here to you?”

“No, it doesn’t. It’s hot. But go sit by the fire in the kitchen.’

Amber was annoyed, thinking that if Spong was sick she would have to throw away all the food she had in the house and fumigate the rooms. And she felt, as she had not when Bruce was sick, resentful on her own behalf, afraid that she would be exposed herself. When I get back, she thought, if she’s worse I’ll tell her to leave.

Spong met Amber at the door as she came in. She was winding her hands in her skirt and her expression was worried and depressed, almost comically self-pitying. “Lud, mam,” she began immediately, whining again, “I’m feelin’ mighty bad.”

Amber looked at her, her eyes narrowed. Spong’s face was red, her eyes blood-shot, and as she talked it was possible to see that her tongue was heavily coated with a white fuzz, the tip and edges bright red. It’s plague, right enough, thought Amber, and turned away so as not to get the woman’s breath in her face. She put the basket onto a table and began to unpack the food, transferring it immediately to the food-hutch so that Spong could not touch it.

“If you want to leave,” said Amber, as casually as she could, “I’ll give you five pound.”

“Leave, mam? Where could I go? I got no place to go, mam. And how can I leave? I’m the nurse.” She leaned heavily against the wall. “Oh, Lord! I never felt like this before.”

Amber swung around. “Of course you haven’t! And you know why—you’ve got the plague! Oh, there’s no use pretending you haven’t it, is there? It won’t make you well again. Look here, Mrs. Spong, if you’ll leave and go to a pest-house I’ll give you ten pound. You’ll be taken care of there. But I warn you, if you stay here.I won’t raise a hand to help you. I’ll get the money now—wait here.”

She started out of the room, but Spong stopped her.

“It’s no use, mam. I won’t go to a pest-house. Lord, I’ve got no mind to die if I can help it. A body might as well go to a burial-pit as the pest-house. You’re a cruel-hearted woman, to want to turn a poor sick old lady out of your house after she helped you nurse his Lordship back to life. You ain’t a Christian, mam—” She shook her head wearily.

Amber gave her a glare, full of disgust and hatred. But she had already decided that when night came she would force the old woman out if she had to do it at the point of a knife. Now, it was only two o’clock, and time to prepare another light meal for Bruce. Spong wandered back into the parlour, uninterested in food for once, and Amber began to set his tray.

As she carried it into the bedroom she passed Spong who lay on a couch before the long range of windows, mumbling beneath her breath and shivering convulsively. She reached out a hand to her. “Mam—I’m sick. Please, mam—”

Amber went by her without a glance, her jaw muscles setting, and took the key from her apron to unlock the bedroom door. The old woman started to get up and in a sudden panic of terror Amber rattled the key, flung the door open and rushed inside, slamming it again and turning the lock swiftly. She heard Spong collapse back onto the couch, whining some unintelligible words.

Amber blew a sigh of relief, thoroughly scared, for she had heard the tales of those sick from plague who roamed the streets, grabbing others into their arms and kissing them. She looked over to find Bruce propped upon his elbow, watching her with a strange expression of puzzlement and suspicion.

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh. It’s nothing.” She gave him a quick smile and came forward with the tray. She did not want him to know that Spong was sick, for she was afraid that it would worry him, and he was not strong enough for worry or any other exhausting emotion. “Spong’s drunk again, and I thought she was going to come in here and trouble you.” She was setting down the dishes and now she gave a nervous little laugh. “Listen to her! She’s drunk as David’s sow!”

He did not say anything more, but Amber thought that he had guessed it was not drunkenness but the plague. She ate with him but neither of them talked very much or with any gaiety, and Amber was relieved when he fell asleep again. But she dared not go out and stayed there, occupied with changing his bandage and cleaning the room—her ears were constantly alert for sounds from the parlour, and again and again she tip-toed to the door to listen.

She could hear her moving restlessly about, groaning, calling for her, and at last, late in the afternoon, she heard a heavy thud and knew that she had fallen to the floor. By her cursing she was evidently struggling to get up again but could not do so. Amber felt discouraged and frightened and she watched Bruce constantly, but he was sleeping soundly.

What can I do? How can I get her out? she thought. Oh, damn her, the filthy old fustiluggs!

She stood looking out at a bright setting sun that lighted the trees with red and orange patches and struck a window-pane down the street so that it gave back a blinding reflection. Then, rather slowly, she began to be conscious of a strange new sound and for a few moments she listened curiously, wondering what it was and where it came from. She realized, finally, that it was coming from the other room. It was a sort of bubbling rattle. As she listened it stopped and then, just when she had begun to think her own imagination was playing tricks, it began again. It filled her with pure terror, for it was an evil eerie sound, but she was impelled almost against her will to cross the room and—very softly—turn the lock and open the door, just a crack, to look out.

Mrs. Spong lay on her back on the floor, arms and legs flung wide. Her mouth was open and a thick bloody mucus poured out of it, bubbling from her nose as she breathed, coming out in a gush with each collapsing rattle of her throat muscles. Amber stared, chill with horror, stiff and motionless. Then she closed the door again, more loudly than she had intended, and sank back against it. The sound evidently attracted Spong’s attention for Amber heard a choked, gurgling noise as though the old woman was trying to call her—and with a whimper of terror she rushed into the nursery, her hands over her ears, and banged the door.

It was several minutes before she could force herself to return to the bedroom. There she found that Bruce was awake. “I wondered where you were. Where’s Spong? Is she worse?”

The room had darkened and as yet she had lighted no candles, so that he could not see her face. She waited for a moment, listening, but as she heard no sound she decided that the nurse must be dead. “Spong’s gone,” she said, trying to sound unconcerned. “I sent her away—she went to a pest-house.” She picked up a candle. “I’ll light this from the kitchen-fire.”

In the semi-darkness of the parlour she could see the bulk of Spong’s body but she went by without stopping, lighted the candle, and then returned. Spong was dead.

Amber picked up her skirts with an automatic gesture of revulsion, and walked back into the bedroom to light the candles. Her face was white and she had an intense desire to vomit, but she went about her tasks, determined that Bruce should not guess. And yet she could feel him watching her and she dared not meet his eyes, for if he should speak she felt that she could not trust herself. She seemed to be hanging on the ragged edge of hysteria but knew that she must keep herself in control, for when the dead-cart came by she would have to get the woman down the stairs and outside.

A pale velvety blueness still lingered in streaks in the sky when she heard the first call, from a distance: “Bring out your dead!”

Amber stiffened, like an animal listening, and then she seized a pewter candle-holder. “I’ll get your supper ready,” she said, and before he could speak she went out of the room.

Without looking at Spong she set the candle on a table and went to open the doors leading through the anteroom. The call came again, nearer now. She paused there a moment and then with sudden violent resolution she came back, flung up her skirts, unfastened her petticoat and stepped out of it. Wrapping it about her hands she bent and took hold of Spong by her thick swollen ankles, and slowly she began to drag her toward the door. The old woman’s wig came off and her flesh slid and squeaked over the bare floor.

By the time Amber reached the head of the stairs she was sick and wet with sweat and her ears were ringing. She reached backward with one foot for the step, found it and sought the next; it was perfectly dark in the stair-well but she could hear the nurse’s skull thump on each carpeted stair. She reached the bottom at last and knocked at the door. The guard opened it.

“The nurse is dead,” she said faintly. Her face looked out at him, white as chalk in the twilight, and the linen petticoat trailed from one hand.

There was the sound of the dead-cart rattling over the cobble-stones, the clop-clop of the horses’ hoofs, and then the unexpected cry: “Faggots! Faggots for six-pence!”

It seemed strange to her that anyone should be selling faggots in this weather, and at this hour. But at that moment the dead-cart drew up before the house. A link-man came first, carrying his smoky torch, and he was followed by the dead-cart, beside which walked a man ringing a bell and chanting: “Bring out your dead!” In the driver’s seat sat another man, and now Amber saw that he was holding the naked corpse of a little boy, no more than three years old, by the legs.

It was he who shouted, “Faggots for six-pence!”

While Amber stared at him with incredulous horror he turned, flung the child back into the cart, and climbed down. He and the bell-man started forward to get Spong.

“Now,” he said, grinning at Amber, “what’ve we got here?”

Both men bent over to pick Spong up. Suddenly he seized the bodice of her gown and ripped it down the front, exposing the old woman’s gross and flabby body. From neck to thighs she was covered with small blue-circled spots—the plague tokens. He made a noise of disgust, hawked up a glob of saliva and spat it onto the corpse.

“Bah!” he muttered. “What a firkin of foul stuff she is!”

Neither of the other men seemed surprised at his behaviour; they paid him no attention at all, and obviously were accustomed to it. Now they picked Spong up, gave a heave and dumped her into the cart. The link-man started on, the bell-man took up his bell again, and the driver climbed back into his seat. From there he turned and surveyed Amber.

“Tomorrow night we’ll come back for you. And I doubt not you’ll make a finer corpse than that stinking old whore.”

Amber slammed the door shut and started slowly up the stairs, so weak and sick that she had to hold onto the railing as she went.

She entered the kitchen and began the preparation of Bruce’s supper, thinking that as soon as that was done she must take hot water and a mop and clean the parlour floor. For the first time she felt resentful that there was so much work to do, such an endless number of tasks reaching before her. She wished only that she might lie down and sleep and wake up some place far away. All at once responsibility seemed an unbearable burden.

And the driver of the dead-cart was still with her. She could not get rid of him, no matter what she tried to think of. It did not seem that she was there in the kitchen, but still downstairs, standing in the doorway watching him—but it was not Spong whose gown he tore open, and it was not Spong he thrust into the dead-cart. It was herself.

Holy Jesus! she thought wildly. I think I’m stark raving mad! Another day and I’ll be ready for Bedlam!

As she went about her work, mixing the syllabub, setting the tray, her movements were slow and clumsy and finally she dropped an egg onto the floor. She scowled wearily but took a cloth and bent to wipe it up, and as she did so there was a sudden splitting pain in her forehead and she was seized by a swirl of dizziness. She straightened again, slowly, and to her amazement she staggered and might have fallen but that she grabbed the side of a table to brace herself.

For a moment she stood and stared at the floor, and then she turned and walked into the parlour. No, she thought, shoving away the idea that had suddenly come to her. It can’t be that. Of course it can’t—

She took the candle-holder, carried it to the little writing-table and set it there. Then she placed the palms of her hands flat onto the table-top and leaned forward to look at herself in the small round gilt mirror which hung on the wall. The candle-flame cast stark shadows up onto her face. It showed the deep hollows beneath her eyes, flung pointed reflections of her lashes up onto her lids, heightened the wide staring horror of her eyes. At last she put out her tongue. It was coated with a yellowish fur but the tip and edges were clean and shiny, unnaturally pink. Her eyes closed and the room seemed to sway and rock.

Holy Mother of God! Tomorrow night it will be me!

CHAPTER THIRTY–SIX

GOD’S TERRIBLE VOICE was in the city.

But twenty miles away at Hampton Court it could scarcely be heard at all; there were too many distracting noises. The whir of shuffled cards and the clack of rolling dice. The scratching of quills writing letters of love or diplomacy or intrigue. The crashing of swords in some secret forbidden duel. Chatter and laughter and the sibilant whisper of gossip. Guitars and fiddles, clinking glasses raised in a toast, rustling taffeta petticoats, and tapping high-heeled shoes. Nothing was changed.

They did, occasionally, discuss the plague when they gathered in her Majesty’s Drawing-Room in the evenings, just as they discussed the weather, and for the same reason—it was unusual.

“Have you seen this week’s bills?” Winifred Wells would ask as she sat talking to Mrs. Stewart and Sir Charles Sedley.

“I can’t bear to look at ’em. Poor creatures. Dying like flies.”

Sedley, a dark short plump young man with snapping black eyes and a taste for handsome lace cravats, was scornful of her tender heart. “Nonsense, Frances! What does it matter if they die now or later? The town was overcrowded as it was.”

“You’d think it mattered, my Lord, if the plague got you!”

Sedley laughed. “And so it would. Sure, my dear, you’ll allow there’s some difference between a man of wit and breeding and a poor drivelling idiot of a baker or tailor?”

At that moment another gentleman approached them and Sedley got up to welcome him, throwing one arm about his shoulders. “Aha! Here’s Wilmot! We’ve been sitting here most damnably dull, with nothing to talk on but the plague. Now you’ve come we can be merry again. What’ve you got there? Another libel to spoil someone’s reputation?”

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, was a tall slender young man of eighteen, light-skinned and blonde with a look of delicacy which made his handsome face almost effeminate. Only a few months before he had come to Court direct from his travels abroad, precocious and sophisticated, but still a quiet modest lad who was just a little shy. He adapted himself to Whitehall so quickly that he was but recently released from the Tower for the offense of kidnapping rich Mrs. Mallet with intent to marry her fortune.

Writing was the fashion. All the courtiers wrote something, plays, satires, lampoons on their friends and acquaintances, and the Earl had already shown that he had not only a quick talent but a flair for malice. Now he had a rolled-up sheet of paper stuck beneath his arm and the other three glanced at it expectantly.

“I protest, Sedley.” Rochester’s smile and manner were deceptively mild, and he bowed to Stewart and Wells so courteously that it was impossible to believe he had not the most charitable opinion of all women. “You’ll convince the ladies I’m an ill-natured sot. No—it’s no libel I have here. Just a silly thing I scratched out while I was waiting for my periwig to be curled.”

“Read it to us!” cried both women at once.

“Yes, for God’s sake, Wilmot. Let’s hear it. The silly things you scratch out while you sit at stool are better than anything Dryden can do though he eat a peck of prunes and put himself into a course of physic.”

“Thanks, Sedley. I’ll be in the front row to cry up your play if you ever bring yourself to finish it. Well, here’s what I’ve writ—”

Rochester began to read his poem, a long half-idyllic, pseudo-serious rambling tale of a shepherd and his love. The virgin was reluctant, the swain over-ardent, and when at last he brought her to consent he found himself powerless to satisfy either of them—and so it pointed a moral to laggard young maidens, like Frances, perhaps. Winifred Wells and Sedley were much amused, but though Frances could follow the trend of thought the subtleties escaped her. When at last he had finished he suddenly crumpled the paper and flung it into the fireplace. None of the gentlemen would let it be thought they had any regard for their scribbling.

“You write well on that subject, my lord,” said Sedley. “Can it be you’ve had the misfortune yourself?”

Rochester was not offended. “You always seem to know my secrets, Sedley. Is it possible you’re lying with my whore?”

“And will you be angry if I am?”

“By no means. I say a man who won’t share his whore with his friends is damned ill-natured and deserves the pox.”

“Well,” said Sedley, “I wish you’d treat your ladies with more kindness. She complains to me constantly that you’re unfaithful and use her barbarously. She swears she hates you and never wants to see your face again.”

Rochester gave a sudden laugh. “Ye gods, Sedley! You’re out of the fashion! That’s my last whore!”

At that moment a quick change came over Rochester’s face; his blue eyes darkened and an odd smile touched his mouth. The others turned curiously to see that Barbara Palmer had just appeared in the doorway. For an instant she paused, and then she swept in upon them, gorgeous, sultry, impressive as a tropical storm. She was dressed in green satin and she glittered everywhere with the darting shafts thrown from her jewels.

“By God,” said Rochester softly, “she’s the handsomest woman in the world!”

Frances made a face and turned her back. The King’s attention had accustomed her to the flattering notion that she was the most beautiful creature alive and she did not like to hear others praised; and Winifred and Castlemaine, rivals for the same man, had never been more than superficially polite to each other. While they watched, Barbara crossed the room and went to take her place at one of the card-tables.

“Well,” said Sedley, “if you have a mind to lie with her you must cure yourself of your nervousness. She’d have no patience with a man who found himself in such a predicament. Anyway, I don’t think your Lordship is the type she admires.”

They gave a hearty burst of laughter at this, for no one would ever forget how Barbara had given Rochester a blow that had sent him reeling when he had once tried to snatch a kiss.

The Earl joined in the laughter but his eyes had a malicious gleam. “No matter,” he shrugged. “Another five years and I warrant she’ll be willing to pay even me a round sum.”

The two women looked pleased, if a little surprised. Had Barbara actually begun to pay her lovers? Sedley, however, was frankly skeptical.

“Come now, John. You damned well know her Ladyship can have whatever man she sets her mind to, with no more than the lift of an eyebrow. She’s still the handsomest woman at Whitehall—or in all London, for the matter of that—”

Frances, now thoroughly hurt, gave a wave of her hand at someone across the room. “Your servant, madame—gentlemen—I must speak a word with my Lady Southesk—”

Rochester and Sedley and Winifred exchanged smiles. “I still hope,” said the Earl, “that some day that little milksop Stewart will come to blows with Castlemaine. Gad, I could write an epic on it!”

Several hours later Frances and Charles stood beside an open casement window above the garden, and the soft night breeze carried to them a faint smell of roses and the waxen sweet scent of potted orange-trees. It was almost midnight and many of the ladies and gentlemen had left already. Others were counting up their losses, arranging loans, grumbling about bad luck or exulting if it had been good.

Queen Catherine was talking to the Duchess of Buckingham and pretending not to notice how engrossed her husband was in Mrs. Stewart. She had learned her lesson well three years before, and though she loved Charles sincerely and hopelessly, she had never again objected to his interest in another woman. Now she played cards and danced, wore English clothes and dressed her hair in the latest French mode; she was as much an Englishwoman as her early training would allow. Charles always showed her the most perfect courtesy and insisted that the members of his Court do likewise. She was not happy, but she tried to seem so.

Frances was saying, “What a beautiful beautiful night! It doesn’t seem possible that only twenty miles away there are thousands of men and women—sick, and dying.”

Charles was quiet for a moment, and then he spoke very softly. “My poor people. I wonder why this has happened to them. They can’t deserve it—I can’t make myself believe in a malignant God who would punish a nation for the faults of its ruler—”

“Oh, Sire!” protested Frances. “How can you talk like that! They’re not being punished for your faults! If they’re being punished for a fault it’s for their own!”

Charles smiled. “You’re loyal, Frances. I think you must be my loyal subject—But of course you’re not my subject at all. I’m yours—”

At that moment the high flaunting voice of Lady Castlemaine interrupted them. “Lord, what wretched cards I held tonight! I lost six thousand pound! Your Majesty, I swear I’m stark in debt again!”

She gave a gurgling laugh, staring up at him with her great purple eyes. Barbara was not so docile as the Queen. Charles visited her in private; she was then carrying his fourth child, and she did not intend that he should slight her in public. Obviously resenting her intrusion, he looked at her coldly with something of the forbidding hauteur he could so well assume when he had a use for it.

“Are you, madame?”

Frances now took up her skirts, with a gesture which delicately conveyed her distaste. “Excuse me, Sire. Your servant, madame.” She scarcely looked at Barbara, and then she started away.

Quickly Charles touched her arm. “Here, Frances—I’ll walk along with you, if I may. You have an escort, madame?” His question to Barbara did not demand or want an answer.

“No, I haven’t! Everyone’s gone.” Her lips pouted and she had an injured air which was probably the beginning of a crackling tantrum. “And I don’t see why I should shift for myself while you—”

Charles interrupted. “With your leave, madame, I shall see Mrs. Stewart to her chamber. Good-night.” He bowed, very politely, offered Frances his arm, and the two of them walked off together. They had gone only a few feet when Frances turned her head and looked up at him; suddenly she burst into a gleeful giggle.

They walked back to her apartments and at the door he kissed her, asking if he might come in while she made ready for bed—which he often did, sometimes with a herd of his courtiers. But now she gave him a wan little smile and a look of pleading.

“I’m tired. And my head aches so.”

He was instantly alarmed, for though there had been no plague at Court the slightest sign of an indisposition was enough to set up unpleasant fears. “Your head aches? Do you feel well otherwise? Have you any nausea?”

“No, Your Majesty. Just a headache. Just one of my headaches.”

“You have them often, Frances.”

“All my life. Ever since I can remember.”

“You’re sure they’re not just a convenience—for putting off unwelcome visitors?”

“No, Sire. I really have them. Please—may I go now?”

Quickly he kissed her hand. “Certainly, my dear. Forgive my thoughtlessness. But promise me that if it gets worse or if you have any other symptoms you’ll send for Dr. Fraser—and let me know?”

“I promise, Sire. Good-night.”

She backed into the room and closed the door gently. It was true that she had always had violent headaches. Her gaiety and high spirits were part nervousness, for she had none of Castlemaine’s robust hearty vigour.

In her bedroom the long-tailed green parrot which she had brought from France was sleeping, his head tucked under his wing, but at her entrance he woke instantly and began to dance up and down on his perch, squawking with delight. Mrs. Barry, the middle-aged gentlewoman who had been with Frances since babyhood, had also been dozing in her chair; now she too woke, and came hurrying forward to help her mistress undress.

Alone now and off her guard, with no need to impress anyone, she looked frankly tired. Slowly she got out of her gown, unfastened the laces of her busk and with a sigh of relief sat down while Barry began to unpin the jewels and ribbons twisted in her hair.

“Another headache, sweetheart?” Mrs. Barry’s voice was worried, soft and maternal, and her fingers worked with loving tenderness.

“Terrible.” Frances was close to tears.

Barry took a cloth now and wrung it out in a bowl of vinegar which was kept on a shelf nearby, convenient for frequent use. She laid it across Frances’s forehead and held it with her fingers at either temple, while Frances closed her eyes and let her head rest gratefully against the cushion of Barry’s bosom. They continued silent for a few moments.

Suddenly there was a sound of commotion from outside. A little page spoke, quietly, and an angry feminine voice answered; the door of the bedroom burst open and there stood Barbara Palmer. For an instant she glared at Frances and then she slammed it closed, with such violence that the noise seemed to reverberate in Frances’s brain, making her wince.

“I have a crow to pluck with you, Madame Stewart!” declared the Countess.

Frances’s pride rose, ready to do combat, and sweeping the weariness from her face she stood up, lifting her chin. “Your servant, madame. And what can I do for you, pray?”

“I’ll tell you what you can do for me!” replied Barbara, and she crossed the room swiftly, until she stood just three or four feet from her. Barry was glaring pugnaciously from over Frances’s shoulder and the parrot had begun to squawk his resentment, but Barbara ignored them both. “You can stop trying to make me appear a fool in public, madame! That’s what you can do!”

Frances looked at her with obvious distaste, wondering how she had ever been so stupid as to consider this wild uncontrolled harpy her best friend. And then she sat down again, motioning Barry to continue undressing her hair.

“I’m sure I don’t know how I can make you look a fool, madame—in public or anywhere else. If you do, you have only yourself to thank.”

Barbara stood with her hands on her hips, eyes slightly narrowed. “You’re a cunny gypsy, Mrs. Stewart—but let me tell you this: I can be a mighty dangerous enemy. You may find you’ve got the bear by the nose. If I set my mind to it, I could have you out of Whitehall like that!” She gave a quick sharp snap of her fingers.

Frances smiled coolly. “Could you, madame? You’re welcome to try—But I think I please his Majesty quite as well as you—even though my methods may not be the same—”

Barbara made a sound of disgust. “Bah! You squeamish virgins make me sick! You’re no good to any man, once he’s had you! I’ll wager you my right eye that once his Majesty lays with you he’ll—”

Frances gave her a bored look and as Barbara chattered on, the door behind her swung slowly open. His Majesty appeared in it. He motioned her to silence and stood lounging against the door-jamb, watching Barbara, his dark face moody, displeased and glowering.

Barbara was beginning to shout. “There’s one place where you can never get the better of me, Madame Stewart! Whatever my faults, there’s never a man got out of my bed—”

“Madame!”

The King’s voice spoke, sharply, from the doorway, and Barbara swung about with a horrified gasp. Both women watched him come into the room.

“Sire!” Barbara swept him a deep curtsy.

“That’s enough of your bawdy talk.”

“How long have you been there?”

“Long enough to have heard a great deal which was unpleasant. Frankly, madame, at times you exhibit the worst imaginable taste.”

“But I didn’t know you were there!” she protested. And then suddenly her eyes narrowed, she looked from Charles to Frances and back again. “Oho!” she said softly. “Now I begin to see something. How cleverly the two of you have hoodwinked us all—”

“Unfortunately, you’re mistaken. As it happened you passed me in the hall without seeing me, and when I found where you were going I turned around and followed you back. You looked as though you were about some mischief.” He smiled faintly, amused at her discomposure, but instantly his face sobered again. “I thought we had agreed, madame, that your behaviour toward Mrs. Stewart was to be both polite and friendly. What I heard just now sounded neither.”

“How can you expect me to be polite to a woman who slanders me!” demanded Barbara, quick to her own defense.

Charles gave a short laugh. “Slanders you! Ods-fish, Barbara, you don’t imagine it’s still possible? Now, Mrs. Stewart is tired, I believe, and would like to rest. If you’ll make her an apology we’ll both go and leave her alone.”

“An apology!” Barbara stared at him with horrified indignation, and turning she swept Frances contemptuously from head to foot. “I’ll be damned if I do!”

All good humour was gone from his face now, replaced by that sombre bitterness which lurked there at all times. “You refuse, madame?”

“I do!” She faced him defiantly, and both of them had forgotten Frances who stood looking on, tired and nervous, wishing that they would quarrel elsewhere. “Nothing under God’s sky can make me apologize to that meek simpering milk-sop!”

“The choice is your own. But may I suggest that you retire from Hampton Court while you consider the matter? A few weeks of quiet reflection may give you another view of good manners.

“You’re sending me from the Court?”

“Put it that way if you like.”

Without a moment’s hesitation Barbara was in tears. “So this is what it’s come to! After the years I’ve given up to you! It’s a shame before all the world that a king should turn away the mother of his children!”

He lifted one eyebrow, skeptically. “My children?” he repeated softly. “Well, some of them, perhaps. But there’s nothing more to be said. Either make Mrs. Stewart an apology—or go elsewhere.”

“But where can I go? The plague’s everywhere else!”

“For the matter of that, the plague’s here too.”

Even Frances snapped out of her weary lethargy and both women repeated at once: “Here!”

“The wife of a groom died of it today. Tomorrow we move to Salisbury.”

“Oh, my God!” wailed Barbara. “Now we’ll all get it! We’ll all die!”

“I don’t think so. The woman has been buried and everyone who was with her is shut up. So far there’ve been no new cases. Come, madame, make your choice. Will you be going with us tomorrow?”

Barbara looked at Frances who, feeling her eyes shift to her, suddenly straightened and raised her head—meeting her glance with cold hostility. Suddenly Barbara slammed her fan to the floor.

“I will not! I’ll go to Richmond and be damned to you!”

CHAPTER THIRTY–SEVEN

AMBER WENT BACK into the kitchen and continued getting Bruce’s meal. She wanted to do as much as she could for him, while she was still able to do anything at all. For by tomorrow she would be helpless and a new nurse would be there—someone perhaps much worse than Spong had been. She was more worried about him than about herself. He was still weak and in need of competent care, and the thought of a stranger coming in, someone who would not know him or care what happened to him, filled her with desperation. If she’d only come in time, she thought, maybe I could bribe her.

Once the first horror of discovery was gone she accepted with resignation and almost with apathy the fact that she was sick. She did not, actually, expect to die. If one person fell ill of the plague in a house and lived, it was thought a good omen for all others in that same house. (Spong’s death she ignored and had almost forgotten; it seemed to have occurred in some distant past unconnected with either her or Bruce.) But apart from superstition she had strong faith in her own temporary immortality. She wanted so much to go on living, it was impossible for her to believe that she could die now, so young and with all her hopes still to be realized.

She had the same symptoms Bruce had had, but they came in swifter succession.

By the time she started into the bedroom with the tray her head was aching violently, as though a tight steel band had been bound about her temples and was drawing steadily tighter. She was sweating and there were stabbing pains throughout her stomach and along her legs and arms. Her throat was as dry as if she had swallowed dust, but though she drank several dipperfuls of water it did no good. The thirst increased.

Bruce was awake, sitting propped up as he could often do now, and though there was a book in his hands he was watching the door anxiously. “You’ve been gone so long, Amber. Is anything wrong?”

She did not look at him but kept her eyes on the tray. Dizziness swept over her in waves, and when it came she had a weird sensation of standing in the midst of a whirling sphere; she could not tell where the floors or walls were. Now she paused for a moment, trying to orient herself and then, setting her teeth, she came determinedly forward.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she repeated, but even to her her voice had a strange fuzzy sound. She hoped that he would not notice.

Slowly, for she felt very tired and her muscles seemed heavy, she set the tray on the bedside table and reached down to pick up the bowlful of syllabub. She saw his hand reach out and close over her wrist and when at last she forced her eyes to lift and meet his, she found on his face the look of self-condemning horror she had been dreading.

“Amber—” He continued to stare at her for a moment, his green eyes narrowed, searching. “You’re not—sick?” The words came out with slow forced reluctance.

She gave a little sigh. “Yes, Bruce. I am—I guess I am. But don’t—”

“Don’t what!”

She tried to remember what she had started to say. “Don’t—worry about it.”

“Don’t worry about it! Good God! Oh, Amber! Amber! You’re sick and it’s my fault! It’s because you stayed here to take care of me! Oh, my darling—if only you’d gone! If only you’d—Oh, Jesus!” He let go of her wrist and distractedly ran one hand through his hair.

She reached down to touch his forehead. “Don’t torture yourself, Bruce. It’s not your fault. I stayed because I wanted to. I knew it was a chance—but I couldn’t go. And I’m not sorry—I won’t die, Bruce—”

He looked at her then with a kind of admiration in his eyes she had never seen before. But at that moment she felt the nausea begin to rise, flooding up irresistibly, and even before she could reach the basin halfway across the room she had started to vomit.

Each time it happened it left her more exhausted, and now she hung for a minute longer over the basin, leaning on her hands, with her burnt-taffy hair concealing her face. All at once she gave a convulsive shudder; the room seemed cold, and yet the fire was burning, all the windows were closed, and the day had been an unusually hot one. At that moment there was a sound behind her. She turned slowly and saw Bruce beginning to get out of bed. With a last desperate surge of her strength she ran toward him.

“Bruce! What are you doing! Get back—” She began to push at him, frantically, but her muscles seemed useless. She had never felt so weak, so helpless, not even after her children had been born.

“I’ve got to get up, Amber! I’ve got to help you!”

He had been out of bed only once or twice since he had fallen sick, and now his body was shining with sweat and his face was violently contorted. Amber began to cry, almost hysterical.

“Don’t, Bruce! Don’t, for God’s sake! You’ll kill yourself! You can’t get up! Oh, after everything I’ve done you’re going to kill yourself—”

Suddenly she dropped to her knees on the floor, put her head in her arms and sobbed. He fell back against the pillows, wiping his hand over his forehead, surprised to find that he was dizzy and that his ears rang, for he had thought himself farther recovered than he was. He reached over to stroke Amber’s head.

“Darling—I won’t get up. Please don’t cry—you need your strength. Lie down and rest. The nurse will be here soon.”

At last, with an intense feeling of weariness, she forced herself to get to her feet and stood looking about the room as though trying to remember something. “What was I going to do—” she murmured at last. “Something—What was it?”

“Can you tell me where the money is, Amber? I’ll need it for supplies. I had none with me.”

“Oh, yes—that’s it, the money.” The words slurred, one over another, as if she had drunk too much cherry-brandy. “It’s in here—I’ll get it—’sin secret panel—”

The parlour seemed a great distance away, farther than she could possibly walk. But she got there at last, and though it took her a while to locate the panel, she finally found it and scooped out the leather wallet and small pile of jewellery that lay there. She brought them back in her apron and dropped them onto the bed beside Bruce. He had managed to lean over and pull out the trundle and now, when he told her to lie down, she collapsed onto it, already half unconscious.

Bruce lay awake through the night, cursing his own helplessness. But he knew that any violent strain now would only make him worse and might kill him. He could help her best by saving his strength until he was well enough to take care of her. He lay there and heard her vomit, again and again, and though each time when she had done she gave a heavy despairing groan, she was otherwise perfectly quiet. So quiet that he would listen, with mounting horror, for the sound of her breathing. And then the retching would begin again. The nurse did not come.

By morning she lay flat on her back, her eyes fixed and wide open but unseeing. Her muscles were perfectly relaxed and she had no consciousness of him or of her surroundings; when he spoke to her she did not hear. The disease had made much swifter progress than it had with him, but it was characteristic of plague to vary its nature with each victim.

He decided that if the nurse did not appear soon he would get out of bed and talk to the guard, but at about seven-thirty he heard the door open and a woman’s boisterous voice called out: “The plague-nurse is here; Where are ye?”

“Come upstairs!”

Within a few moments a woman appeared in the doorway. She was tall and heavy-boned, perhaps thirty-five, and Bruce was relieved to see that she looked strong and at least moderately intelligent. “Come in here,” he said, and she walked forward, her eyes already on Amber. “I’m Lord Carlton. My wife is desperately sick as you can see, and needs the best of care. I’d give it to her myself, but I’m convalescing and not able to get up yet. If you take good care of her—if she lives—I’ll give you a hundred pound.” He lied about their marriage because he thought the truth was none of the woman’s business, and he offered a hundred pounds because he believed it might impress her more than a larger sum which she would probably not expect to get.

She stared at him in surprise. “A hundred pound, sir!”

She drew closer to the trundle then and looked at Amber, whose fingers were picking restlessly at the blanket Bruce had thrown over her, though but for the nervous movements of her hands she would have seemed to be totally unconscious. There were dirty green circles beneath her eyes and the lower part of her face was shiny with the bile and saliva which had dried there; she had not vomited at all for the past three hours.

The woman shook her head. “She’s mighty sick, your Lordship. I don’t know—”

“Of course you don’t know!” snapped Bruce with angry impatience. “But you can try! She’s still dressed. Take her clothes off, bathe her face and hands—get her into the sheets. She’ll be more comfortable at least. She’s been cooking for me and you’ll find soup and whatever else you need in the kitchen. There are clean towels and sheets in that room—The floor must be mopped, and the parlour cleaned. A woman died there yesterday. Now get to work! What’s your name?” he added, as an afterthought.

“Mrs. Sykes, sir. Yes, sir.”

Mrs. Sykes, who told Bruce that she had been a wet-nurse but had lost her job because her husband had died of the plague, worked hard throughout the day. Bruce gave her no opportunity to loaf or to rest, and despite the fact that she knew he was helpless and unable to get out of bed she obeyed his commands meekly—whether from respect of the nobility or one hundred pounds he did not know or care.

But by nightfall Amber seemed, if possible, to be even worse. A carbuncle had begun to swell in her right groin and though it grew larger it remained hard and gave no indication that it would suppurate. Sykes was anxious about that, for it was the worst possible sign, and not even the mustard plasters she applied—which blistered the skin—seemed to have any effect.

“What can we do?” Bruce asked her. “There must be something we can do! What have you done for your patients when the carbuncle wouldn’t break?”

Sykes was staring down at Amber. “Nothing, sir,” she said slowly. “Most usually they die.”

“She’s not going to die!” he cried. “We’ll do something. We’ve got to do something—She can’t die!” He looked less well than he had the day before but he forced himself to stay awake, as though he could keep her alive by holding a vigil over her.

“We might cut into it,” she said. “If it’s still like this tomorrow. That’s what the doctors do. But the pain of the knife sometimes drives ’em mad—”

“Shut up! I don’t want to hear it! Go out and get her something to eat.”

He was almost exhausted and his temper was quick and savage, for he suffered agonizingly over his own impotence. It went through his mind over and over again. She’s sick because of me and now, when she needs me, I lie here like a sot and am able to do nothing!

Almost to his surprise, Amber lived through the night. But by morning her skin was beginning to take on a dusky colour, her breathing grew more shallow and her heart-beats fainter. Sykes told him that those things meant approaching death.

“Then we’ll cut the boil open!”

“But it might kill her!”

Sykes was afraid to do anything, for it seemed that no matter what she did the patient would die and she would lose the greatest fortune she had ever imagined.

He almost shouted at her. “Do as I say!” Then his voice dropped again, he spoke to her quietly but with a swift commanding urgency. “Over in the top drawer of that table there’s a razor—get it. Take the cord off the drapes and bind her knees and ankles together. Wrap the cord around the trundle so she can’t move, and tie her wrists to the corners. Get some towels and a basin. Hurry!”

Sykes scrambled nervously about the room, but within a couple of minutes she had followed his directions. Amber lay bound securely to the trundle and still completely unconscious.

Bruce was close to the edge of the bed. “Pray God she doesn’t know—” he muttered and then: “Now! Take the razor and cut into it—quick and hard! It’ll hurt less that way. Quick!” His right fist clenched and the veins in it swelled.

Sykes looked at him in horror, the razor held tight in her hand. “I can’t, your Lordship. I can’t.” Her teeth began to chatter. “I’m scared! What if she dies under it!”

Bruce was pouring sweat. He licked his tongue over his dry lips and gave a convulsive swallow. “You can, you fool! You’ve got to! Now—do it now!”

Sykes continued to stare at him for a moment and then, as though hypnotized into obedience by the sheer force of his will, she bent and placed the edge of the razor against the hard red knob high up on Amber’s groin. At that moment Amber stirred and her head turned toward Bruce. Sykes gave a start.

“Cut it open!” said Bruce hoarsely, his clenched fist trembling with helpless rage. His face was dark with the rush of blood and the cords in his neck and temples were thick as ropes and throbbing.

With sudden resolution Sykes jammed the razor into the lump, but as she did so Amber moaned and the moan slid in crescendo to a quivering scream. Sykes let go of the razor and stepped back to stand staring at Amber who was struggling now to free herself, twisting frantically in an effort to escape the pain, shrieking again and again.

Bruce began to get out of bed. “Help me!”

Sykes came swiftly, put one arm around his back, the other beneath his elbow, and in an instant he had dropped on his knees beside the trundle and seized the razor.

“Hold her! Here! By the knees!”

Again Sykes did as she was told, though Amber continued to writhe, shrieking, her eyes rolling like a frenzied animal’s. With all the strength he had left Bruce forced the razor into the hard mass and twisted it to one side. As he pulled it out again the blood spurted, splattering onto his body, and Amber dropped back, unconscious. His head fell helplessly onto his fist; his own wound had opened once more and the bandage showed fresh and red.

Sykes was trying to help him get up. “Your Lordship! Ye must get back into bed! Your Lordship—please!”

She wrenched the razor from his hand and with her help he managed to crawl back onto the bed. She flung a blanket over him and turned immediately to Amber whose skin was now white and waxen. Her heart was beating, very faintly. Quantities of blood poured from the opening, but there was no pus and the poison was not draining.

Sykes worked furiously, at her own initiative now, for Bruce had lapsed into coma. She kept the blood sponged away; she heated bricks and every hot water bottle in the house and packed them about Amber; she laid hot cloths on her forehead. If there was any way she could be saved, Sykes intended to get her hundred pounds.

It was almost an hour before Bruce returned to consciousness and then, with a sudden start, he tried to sit up. “Where is she! You didn’t let them take her!”

“Hush, sir! I think she’s sleeping. She’s still alive and I think, sir, that she’s better.”

He leaned over to look at her. “Oh, thank God, thank God. I swear it, Sykes, if she lives you’ll get your hundred pound. I’ll make it two hundred for you.”

“Oh, thank you, sir! But now, sir—you’d better lie back there and rest yourself—or you might not fare so well, sir.”

“Yes, I will. Wake me if she gets any—” The words trailed off.

At last the pus began to seep up and the wound started to drain off its poison. Amber lay perfectly still again, drowned in coma, but the dark tinge was gone from her skin and though her cheeks had sunk against the bones and there were crape-like circles around her eyes, her pulse had a stronger, surer beat. The sound of tolling bells seemed suddenly to fill the room. Sykes gave a start, then relaxed; they would not toll tonight for her patient.

“I’ve worked hard for my money, sir,” Sykes said to him on the morning of the fourth day. “And I’m sure she’ll live now. Can I have it?”

Bruce smiled. “You have worked hard, Sykes. And I’m more grateful than I can tell you. But you’ll have to wait a while longer.” He would not give her any of the jewellery, partly because it was Amber’s personal property, partly because it might have encouraged her to outright thievery or some other mischief. Sykes had served her purpose, but he knew that it would be foolish to trust her. “There are only a few shillings in the house—and they’ve got to be spent for food. As soon as I can go out I’ll get it for you.”

He was able to sit up now, most of the day, and when it was necessary he could get out of bed, but never stayed more than a few minutes at a time. His persistent weakness seemed both to amuse and infuriate him. “I’ve been shot in the stomach and run through the shoulder,” he said one day to Sykes as he walked slowly back to the bed. “I’ve been bitten by a poisonous snake and I’ve had a tropical fever—but I’ll be damned if I’ve ever felt like this before.”

Most of the time he spent reading, though there were only a few books in the apartment and he had already seen most of them. Some had been there as part of the furnishings and they were a respectable assortment, including the Bible, Hobbes’s “Leviathan,” Bacon’s “Novum Organum,” some of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, Browne’s “Religio Medici.”

Amber’s collection, though small, was more lively. There was an almanac, thumbed and much scribbled in, the lucky and unlucky days starred, as well as those for purging or bloodletting, though so far as he knew she seldom did either. Her familiar scrawl was marked across the fly-leaf of half-a-dozen others: “L’École des Filles,” “The Crafty Whore,” “The Wandering Whore,” “Annotations upon Aretino’s Postures,” “Ars Amatoria,” and—evidently because it was currently fashionable —Butler’s “Hudibras.” All but the last had obviously been well read. He smiled to see them, for though the same volumes would doubtless have been found in the closet of almost any Court lady they were nevertheless amusingly typical of her.

He always sat near the edge of the bed where he could watch her, and she made no movement or slightest sound which he did not notice. She was, very slowly, getting better, though the constant sloughing of the wound worried him, for it continued to open wider and deeper until it had spread over an area with a two-inch diameter. But both he and Sykes were convinced that if the incision had not been made she would have died.

Sometimes, to his horror, she would suddenly put up her hands as though to ward off a blow, and cry out in a piteous voice. “Don’t! No! Please! Don’t cut me!” And the cry would slide off in a shuddering moan that turned him cold and wet. After that she always lapsed again into unconsciousness, though sometimes even in coma she twitched and squirmed and made soft whimpering sounds.

It was the seventh day before she saw and recognized him. He had come in from the parlour and found her propped against Sykes’s arm swallowing some beef-broth, languidly and without interest. He had a blanket flung over his shoulders and now he knelt beside the trundle to watch her.

She seemed to sense him there and her head turned slowly. For a long moment she looked at him, and then at last she whispered softly: “Bruce?”

He took her hand in both of his. “Yes, darling. I’m here.”

She forced a little smile to her face and started to speak again, but the words would not come, and he moved away to save her the effort. But the next morning, early, while Sykes was combing out her hair she spoke to him again, though her voice was so thin and weak that he had to lean close to hear it.

“How long ’ve I been here?”

“This is the eighth day, Amber.”

“Aren’t you well yet?”

“Almost. In a few days I’ll be able to take care of you.”

She closed her eyes then and breathed a long tired sigh. Her head rolled over sideways on the pillow. Her hair, lank and oily with most of the curl gone, lay in thick skeins about her head. Her collar-bones showed sharply beneath the taut-stretched skin, and it was possible to see her ribs.

That same day Mrs. Sykes fell sick, and though she protested for several hours that it was nothing at all, merely a slight indisposition from something she had eaten, Bruce knew better. He did not want her taking care of Amber and suggested that she lie down in the nursery and rest, which she did immediately. Then, wrapping himself in a blanket, he went out to the kitchen.

Sykes had had neither the time nor the inclination and probably not even the knowledge for good housekeeping and all the rooms were littered and untidy. Puffs of dust moved about on the floors, the furniture was thickly coated, stubs of burnt-down candles lay wherever she had tossed them. In the kitchen there were stacks of dirty pans and plates, great pails full of soaking bloody rags or towels, and the food had not been put away but left out on the table or even set on the floor.

Everything spoiled rapidly in the heat and she had been negligent about reordering from the guard; so he found that the butter had turned rancid, the milk was beginning to sour, and some of the eggs stank when opened. He ladled out a bowl of soup—Sykes’s concoction and by no means so palatable as Amber’s had been—and ate it himself, and then he took the best of what he could find in on a tray to Amber.

As he was feeding her, slowly, spoonful by spoonful, Sykes suddenly began to rave and scream in delirium. Amber grabbed his wrist, her eyes full of terror.

“What’s that!”

“It’s nothing, darling. Someone in the street. Here—that’s enough for now. You must lie down again.”

She did so but her eyes watched him as he went to the nursery door, turned the key in the lock and taking it out tossed it upon the table.

“There’s someone in there,” she said softly. “Someone who’s sick.”

He came back and sat beside her again. “It’s the nurse—but she can’t get out. You’re safe here, darling, and you must go back to sleep again—”

“But what if she dies, Bruce—how’ll you get her out of the house?” The expression in her eyes showed what she was thinking: of Spong, of dragging her down the stairs, of the dead-cart.

“Don’t worry about it. Don’t even think about it. I’ll do it someway. Now you must sleep, darling—sleep and get well.”

For two or three hours Sykes continued to rave intermittently. She beat on the door, shrieking at him to let her out, demanding the money he had promised her, but he made no answer at all. The windows in the nursery overlooked the courtyard and the back alley and sometime in the middle of the night he heard her smashing them and screaming wildly. And then he heard a yowl as she leaped out and went crashing down two stories below. When the dead-cart came by he opened the window to tell the guard where they would find her.

It was almost noon the next day before another nurse arrived.

He was lying flat on his back, half dozing, worn out by the effort of getting up to bring Amber some food, to change her bandage and bathe her hands and face. And then, slowly, he opened his eyes and found an old woman standing beside the bed, watching him with a curious, speculative look. He scowled, wondering why she had come in so silently, distrustful immediately of her manner and appearance.

She was old and filthy in her dress, her face was deeply lined and her breath stank foully. But he noticed that she wore a pair of diamond earrings that looked real and several rings on her fingers which were also of obvious value. She was either a thief or a ghoul or both.

“Good-day, sir. The parish-clerk sent me here. I’m Mrs. Maggot.”

“I’m almost well,” said Bruce, staring at her intently, hoping to make her think that he was stronger than he was. “But my wife still needs a great deal of care. I got her one meal this morning, but it’s time for another now. The last nurse left the kitchen in a mess and there’s no food, but you can send the guard for some.”

As he spoke her eyes were going over the furnishings of the room: the cloth-of-silver covering the bedstead and chairs, the marble-topped tables, the row of exquisite vases across the mantelpiece.

“Where’s the money?” she asked, not looking at him.

“There are four shillings on that table. That should buy whatever we need—the guard always takes a fee for himself.”

She got the coin and tossed it out the window, telling the guard to bring some food, already prepared, from a cook-shop. Obviously she did not intend to do anything herself. And later in the day when he asked her to change the bandages she refused, saying that every nurse she knew who had dressed an ulcer was dead now but that she intended to die another way.

Bruce was furious, but he answered her quietly. “Then, if you won’t help, you may as well go.”

She gave him an insolent grin and he was afraid that she had guessed already he was far less strong than he pretended to be. “No, m’lord. I was sent by the parish. If I don’t stay I won’t get my fee.”

For a moment they stared at each other, and then he flung the blanket about himself and got out of bed. She stood there, watching him closely as he knelt on one knee beside Amber, measuring his strength, and at last he turned with a flare of exasperated anger.

“Get out! Go in the other room!”

She grinned again but went, and closed the door. He called out to her to leave it open but she ignored him. Swearing beneath his breath he finished dressing the wound and then got back into bed to rest. There was no sound at all from the parlour. It was half-an-hour before he could get up again and then he crossed the room, opened the door quietly and found her going through the drawer of a table. There were articles scattered everywhere and she had evidently been searching methodically through each piece of furniture for secret drawers and hiding places, which were almost always built in.

“Mrs. Maggot.”

She looked up and met his stare coolly. “Sir?”

“You’ll find nothing of value hidden away. Whatever you may care to steal is in plain sight. We have no money in the house beyond a few coins for food.”

She made no reply but, after a moment, turned and went into the dining-room. Bruce found that he was sweating with rage and nervousness, for he did not doubt the old woman would murder them both without an instant’s hesitation if she learned that there was almost seventy pounds in the house. He knew that the nurses were drawn from the lowest social classes: lifelong paupers, uncaught criminals, and—in plague-time—from women like Sykes who had been forced into it through necessity and misfortune.

He did not sleep well that night, aware of her in the parlour, for when she had found evidences of Sykes’s illness she had refused to go into the nursery. And when he heard her get up, two or three times, and move about he lay tense and apprehensive. If she decides to kill us, he thought, I’ll try to strangle her. But he clenched and unclenched his fists with despair, for the fingers had but little of their usual strength.

The next morning, just before daylight, he fell deeply asleep and when he woke she was bending over him, her arm thrust beneath the mattress on which he lay. As his eyes opened she straightened slowly, unalarmed. He could not tell, by her expression, whether she had discovered the bagful of coins and jewels.

“Just smoothin’ your bed, sir.”

“I’ll take care of that myself.”

“You said yesterday, sir, that I might go. If you’ll give me fifty pound now, I will.”

He looked at her shrewdly, aware that she had made the offer to find out whether or not he would admit to having that much money in the house. “I told you, Maggot—I have only a few shillings here.”

“How now, sir? Only a few shillin‘s—a lord, and livin’ in lodgings like this?”

“We put our money with a goldsmith. Is there any food left from yesterday?”

“No, sir. The guard stole most of it. We’ll have to send again.”

Throughout the day, whenever he got out of bed, he could feel her watching him, even though most of the time she was not in the room. She knows there’s money here, he thought, and tonight she’ll try to get it. But if there had been not a farthing in cash the furnishings alone were worth what would be a fortune to her—even if she sold them to a broker-of-the-dead.

He spent the day thinking and planning, aware that if he was to save either of their lives he must be ready for her, no matter what she might try to do. And while he lay there the dead-carts came by three times; there were now too many deaths to bury the bodies at night.

He considered every possibility.

If he asked the guard for help she would overhear him, and he had no reason to think that the guard could be trusted. There seemed no choice; he must try to handle the situation himself. She would not be likely, he thought, to use a knife, for that would leave tell-tale wounds. Strangulation with a length of cord or rope should be easy with both of them as weak as they were; and she would try to kill him first, for Amber could make no more resistance than a kitten. But having thought that far lie found himself confronted by problems that, in his state of weakness, seemed insoluble. If he closed the door and waited behind it she would know he was there, and he could not outwait her. If he locked it she could force her way in, and in any open battle he was no match for her, for though his strength might be greater he was unable to move about quickly and would soon be exhausted.

At last he decided to make a bundle of blankets in the bed and wait there next to it, concealed behind the window hangings. If she came near he could strike her over the head with a heavy pewter candlestick. But the plan was spoiled, for she refused to close the door. When he asked her to do so, just as it was growing dark, she obeyed, but a few minutes later he heard it opening, very slowly. It remained ajar just an inch or so for more than an hour, and then he called out to her again.

“Maggot! Close the door—all the way.”

She did not answer but closed it. The room grew darker as twilight settled into night. For half-an-hour he waited and then, slowly, cautiously, he got out of bed, keeping a watch on the door as he began to move about, making the bundle of bedding. It was almost done when he heard a creaking sound—and saw the door begin to swing open.

Exasperated and thoroughly worried he snapped out her name. “Mrs. Maggot!” She made no reply but he could feel her there, watching, for though no candles had been lighted there was a moon and it shone at his back. He could not see her, but she could see him. He got back into the bed and lay down, sweating with nervous rage to think that after surviving the plague itself they might both die now at the hands of a filthy greedy old woman.

But, by Jesus, we won’t! I won’t let her kill us! He felt a responsibility for Amber’s life more violent and determined even than his own will to live.

The hours went past.

Several times he heard the dead-cart, and the passing-bell tolled at least twenty separate times. Against his will he listened for the tone and counted the number of times they were struck —twelve women, eight men, had died in the parish so far tonight. He had a horror of falling asleep—for drowsiness swept over him in waves—and forced himself to recite silently every poem he had ever memorized, every song he had ever sung. He made a mental list of the books he had read, the women he had made love to, the towns he had visited. It kept him awake.

Then at last she entered the room.

He saw the door swing slowly open and after a moment he heard the creaking of a floor board. The moon was gone now and there was absolute darkness. His heart began to beat heavily and all his being was abnormally alert, his eyes straining into the black that surrounded him, his ears listening until he felt sure that he could hear the coursing of his own blood.

She approached slowly. Each time he heard a board creak there followed what seemed an interminable period of absolute silence, until he could no longer tell from where the sound had come. The suspense was an agony but he forced himself to lie motionless, breathing deeply and naturally. His nerves were raw and trembling and he had a violent impulse to leap up and try to grab her. He dared not, though, for she might get away and then they would be left helpless. He had a desperate fear that his strength would not last under such tension. It seemed to be draining away, and the muscles of his legs and arms ached painfully.

And then, almost unexpectedly, he caught the smell of her breath and knew that she was there, beside him. His eyes were wide open, but he could see nothing. For an instant he hesitated. Then, with a swiftness and strength that caught him off guard, she dropped a noose down over his head and jerked it tight. His arm shot out and seized hold of her, brought her sprawling across him and in that moment he thrust his fingers into the noose, tore it from about his own head and forced it down over hers. He pulled on it with both his hands and all the strength he had. She clawed and struggled furiously, gagging, while he yanked at it again and again, and when at last after many minutes he knew that she was dead he let her slide to the floor and fell back upon the bed himself, almost unconscious. Amber was still asleep.

CHAPTER THIRTY–EIGHT

WHEN HE DRAGGED Mrs. Maggot down the stairs to leave her for the dead-cart he gave the guard five guineas not to make a report to the parish-clerk; he wanted no more nurses in the house. For now he was well enough to take care of Amber himself, though it might be difficult for several more days.

The next morning he found that Mrs. Maggot had left the kitchen in even worse condition than Sykes. It stank with the spoilage of rotten fruit and vegetables, the meat was a mass of weaving worms, and the bread was covered with green mould. There was nothing there which was edible and since he was not yet able to clean up the mess or cook anything himself, he sent the guard to a tavern for a prepared meal.

But as the days went by he grew gradually stronger and though at first he had to rest after each small task he finally got all the rooms cleaned again. And one day while Amber was sleeping he moved her into the freshly-made bed and from then on occupied the trundle himself. Both of them joked about his housekeeping and cooking—which he did as soon as he was well enough—and the first time she laughed was when she woke up one morning to see him, naked but for a towel tied about his waist, sweeping the floor. She told him that she must have his recipes to give her next cook and asked him what method he used to get the sheets so white, saying that her laundress sometimes brought them back in worse condition than they were sent.

Soon he began going out to buy the food himself—for the guards had been withdrawn as useless—and found the streets almost empty.

The people were dying at the rate of 10,000 a week or more-it was a frightening insidious fact that of those who died a great percentage were never reported or even counted. Dead-carts came by at all hours, but in spite of that hundreds of bodies lay in the streets or were piled in the public squares, sometimes for days, while the rats swarmed over them. Many were half gnawed away before they were taken up for burial. The red cross was no longer chalked on the doors, but large printed posters were nailed up instead. Grass grew between the cobble-stones; thousands of houses were deserted and whole streets were barricaded and closed off, all their inhabitants having died or fled. Even the bells ceased tolling. The city lay perfectly still, hot and stinking.

Bruce talked to the shop-keepers, many of whom, like others who had remained behind, had shrugged off their earlier terrors. Death had become so common that a kind of scorn had replaced fear. The timid ones were shut tight in their houses and never ventured abroad. Others who went on with daily work and habits acquired a fatalism which sometimes was tempered by caution, but which more often was deliberately reckless. Mourning was now almost never seen, though at the end of the first week in September 2,000 were dying each day and almost every family had lost someone.

There were innumerable grotesque and terrible stories, heard on every hand, but none more terrible than what was actually happening. Instances of premature burial were widely known —partly because of the death-like coma which made the mistake natural, partly because nurses often took advantage of it to get the patient out of the way and plunder the house. There was the story of the butcher who was laid outside in his shroud for the dead-cart, which neglected to carry him off, and who regained consciousness the following morning. He was said to be alive and almost well again. One man escaped from his house, raving mad, and jumped into the Thames, swam across it, and recovered. Another man, left alone, knocked over a candle and burned himself to death in his bed. A young woman discovered a plague-spot on her baby, dashed out its brains against the wall of a house and ran along the street, shrieking.

The first day that Bruce was able to go out he walked the half-mile or so to Almsbury House, let himself in with his key, and went up to the apartments he had always occupied to get some fresh clothing. What he had on he took off and burned. There were a couple of servants who had been left as caretakers—for many of the great empty houses were now being entered and robbed by thieves and beggars—and they had been shut in there for more than two months. They refused to come near him but shouted out questions, and were much relieved when he left.

By the end of the second week in September Amber was able to dress and sit in the courtyard for a few minutes every day. Bruce carried her down and back again the first few times but she begged him to let her walk for she wanted to grow strong enough so that they could leave the city. She believed now that London was doomed, cursed by God, and that unless they got out they would die with everyone else. For though she was much better she was still gloomy and pessimistic; her usual attitude was completely reversed. Bruce was so well now that his own confidence and optimism had returned and he tried to amuse her—but it was not easy to do.

“I heard an interesting story today,” he said one morning as they sat in the courtyard.

He had brought down a chair for her and she drooped in it pathetically. The clothes she had worn while taking care of him he had burned, and the one gown which was left was a high-necked one of plain black silk that made her skin look sallow and drained. There were dark pits beneath her eyes and her hair hung in drab oily coils about her shoulders, but there was a red rose pinned at one temple which he had found that morning while shopping. Flowers had almost vanished from the town.

“What?” she asked him listlessly.

“Well, it sounds preposterous but they swear it’s true. It seems there was a drunken piper who left a tavern the other night and lay down in a doorway somewhere to sleep. The dead-cart came along, tossed him on top of the heap, and went off. But halfway to the graveyard the piper woke up and nothing daunted by the company took out his pipe and began to play. The driver and link-man ran off bellowing that the cart was haunted—”

Amber did not laugh or even smile; she looked at him with a kind of incredulous horrified disgust. “Oh—Oh, how terrible! A live man in that cart—Oh, it can’t be true—”

“I’m sorry, darling.” He was instantly contrite and changed the subject immediately. “You know, I think I’ve found the means to get us out of the city.” He was sitting on the flag-stones before her in his breeches and shirt-sleeves, a lock of his own coarse, dark hair falling over his forehead, and he looked up at her now with a smile, squinting his eyes against the sun.

“How?”

“Almsbury’s yacht’s still here, moored at the water-stairs, and it’s big enough so that we could take along provisions to last us for several weeks.”

“But where could we go? You can’t go out to sea in a yacht, can you?”

“We won’t try. We’ll sail up the Thames toward Hampton Court and go past Windsor and Maidenhead and on up that way. Once we’re sufficiently recovered not to spread the disease we can go to Almsbury’s country seat in Herefordshire.”

“But you said they wouldn’t let ships leave port at all.” Even simple plans sounded more difficult to her now than preposterous ones would have when she was in good health.

“They won’t. We’ll have to be careful. We’ll go at night—but don’t you worry about it. I’ll make the plans. I’ve already begun to—”

He paused, for Amber was staring at him, her face almost green, all her body stiffened in an attitude of listening. Then he heard it too—the rumbling sound of wheels turning over the cobble-stones, and a man’s distant voice.

“Bring out your dead!”

Amber began to sway forward but swiftly he was on his feet and had her in his arms. He carried her back up the stairs to the balcony and through the parlour into the bedroom and there he laid her down, very gently. She had lost consciousness for only a moment and now she looked up at him again. The sickness had left her wholly dependent upon him; she looked to him for all strength and confidence, she expected him to supply the answer and solution for every fear or worry. He was lover, God and parent.

“I’ll never forget that sound,” she whispered now. “I’ll hear it every night of my life. I’ll see those carts every time I shut my eyes.” Her eyes were beginning to glitter, her breath came faster with hysterical excitement. “I’ll never be able to think about anything else—”

Bruce bent close and put his mouth against her cheek. “Amber, don’t! Don’t think about it. Don’t let yourself think about it. You can forget it. You can, and you’ve got to—”

A few days later Amber and Bruce left London in Almsbury’s yacht. The country was beautiful. The low riverside meadows were thick with marigolds and along the banks grew lilies and green rushes. Tangled masses of water-grass, like green hair, floated on the swift current, and in the late afternoons there were always cattle standing at the edge of the water, quiet and reflective.

They passed a great many other boats, most of them small scows or barges on which were crowded whole families who had no country homes and had taken that means of escaping the plague. But though they exchanged mutual greetings and news, people were still distrustful of one another. Those who had avoided the sickness this long had no wish to risk it now.

They progressed slowly, past Hampton and Staines and Windsor and Maidenhead, stopping whenever they found a spot they liked and staying there for as long as they liked and then going on again. By the time they had been gone a night and a day London and its dying thousands seemed to be in another world, almost another age. Amber began to improve more rapidly, and she was as determined as Bruce to shut those memories from her mind. When they tried to creep in she pushed them aside, refusing to meet them face to face.

I’ll forget there ever was a plague, she insisted.

And gradually it began to seem that Bruce’s sickness and her own, all the events of the past three months had not happened recently but many years ago, in another life. It even seemed they must have happened to other people, not to them. She wondered if he felt the same way, but she never asked, for it was a subject they refused to discuss.

For a while Amber was desolate over her appearance. She was afraid that her beauty was gone forever and that she would be ugly the rest of her life. In spite of everything Bruce could say to try to reassure her she cried with rage and despair every time she saw a mirror.

“Oh, my God!” she would wail dismally. “I’d rather be dead than look like this! Oh, Bruce—I’m never going to look like I did before, I know I’m not! Oh! I hate myself!”

He would put his arms about her, smiling as though she were a naughty child, coaxing away her fear and anguish. “Of course you’re going to look the same, darling. But good Lord, you were mighty sick you know—you can’t expect to be well again in only a few days.” They had not been long on the yacht when her health improved so much that she did begin to look something like her old self.

Both of them realized, as perhaps they never had before, how pleasant it was merely to be alive. They spent hours lying stretched out on cushions on the deck, soaking in hot sunlight, that seemed to penetrate to the very bone—and though Bruce lay naked, his body turning a deep rich brown again, Amber kept herself carefully covered for fear of tanning her own cream-coloured skin. They shared everything, so as to enjoy it more intensely: The late summer sky, clear and blue, painted only here and there with a thin spray of cloud. The sound of a corncrake on a dewy morning. The good smell of earth and warm summer rain. The silver-green leaves of a poplar growing just beside a shallow stream. A little girl, standing amid white daisies, surrounded by her flock of geese.

Later on they began to go into the villages to buy provisions or sometimes to eat a ready-cooked meal, which now seemed a rare luxury and almost an adventure. Amber worried a great deal about Nan and little Susanna, particularly after she found that there was plague in the country, too, but Bruce insisted that she must make herself believe that they were well and safe.

“Nan’s a woman of good sense, and there’s no one more loyal. If it became dangerous where they were she’d go somewhere else. Trust her, Amber, and don’t make yourself miserable worrying.”

“Oh, I do trust her!” she would say. “But I can’t help worrying! Oh, I’ll be so glad when I know they’re well and safe!”

Everything that Amber saw now reminded her of Marygreen and her life there with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Matt. It was rich agricultural country, as was Essex, with prosperous enclosed farms, many orchards, quiet pretty little villages usually no more than two or three miles apart—though often, as she knew, so far as those who lived there were concerned it might as well have been two or three hundred miles. There were cottages of cherry brick with oak frames and thatched roofs that lay like thick blankets over them. Morning-glories and roses climbed the walls and clustered about the dormer windows. Pearl-grey doves perched softly cooing on the steep-slanted roof-tops, and sparrows ruffled themselves in the dusty roadway. It seemed to her now to mean peace and quiet and a kind of contentment which must exist nowhere else on earth.

She tried to tell him something of how she felt and added, “I never used to feel that way about it when I lived there—yet God knows I don’t want to go back!”

He smiled at her tenderly. “You’re growing older, darling.”

Amber. looked at him with surprise and resentment. “Old! Marry come up! I’m not so old! I’m not twenty-two yet!” Women began to feel self-conscious about age as soon as they reached twenty.

He laughed. “I didn’t mean that you’re growing old. Only that you’re enough older you’ve begun to have memories—and memories are always a little sad.”

She digested that thoughtfully, and gave a light sigh. It was just at gloaming and they were walking back to the Sapphire through a low lush river meadow. Nearby they could hear the castanet-like voice of a frog, and the stag-beetles buzzing noisily.

“I suppose so,” she agreed. Suddenly she looked up at him. “Bruce—remember the day we met? I can shut my eyes and see you so plain—the way you sat on your horse, and the look you gave me. It made me shiver inside—I’d never been looked at like that before. I remember the suit you had on—it was black velvet with gold braid—Oh, the most wonderful suit! And how handsome you looked! But you scared me a little bit too. You still do, I think—I wonder why?”

“I’m sure I can’t imagine.” He seemed amused, for she often brought up such remnants of the past, and she never forgot a detail.

“Oh, but just think!” They were crossing a shaky little wooden bridge now, Amber walking ahead, and suddenly she turned and looked up at him. “What if Aunt Sarah hadn’t sent me that day to take the gingerbread to the blacksmith’s wife! We’d never even have known each other! I’d still be in Marygreen!”

“No you wouldn’t. There’d have been other Cavaliers going through—you’d have left Marygreen whether you’d ever seen me or not.”

“Why Bruce Carlton! I would not! I went with you because it was fate—it was in the stars! Our lives are planned in heaven, and you know it!”

“No, I don’t know it, and you don’t either. You may think it, but you don’t feel it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” They were across the bridge, strolling along side by side again, and Ambers switched petulantly at the grass with a little twig she had picked up. Suddenly she flung it away and faced him squarely, her hands catching at his arms. “Don’t you think that we were meant for each other, Bruce? You must think so—now.”

“What do you mean, ‘now’?”

“Why—after everything we’ve been through together. Why else did you stay and take care of me then? You could have gone away when you were well and left me alone—if you hadn’t loved me.”

“My God, Amber, you take me for a greater villain than I am. But of course I love you. And in a sense I agree with you that we were meant for each other.”

“In a sense? What do you mean by that?”

His arms went about her, the fingers of one hand combing through the long glossy mass of her hair, and his mouth came down close to hers. “This is what I mean,” he said softly. “You’re a beautiful woman—and I’m a man. Of course we were meant for each other.”

But, though she did not say anything more about it just then, that was not what she wanted to hear. When she had stayed with him in London, at the risk of her own life, she had not thought of or expected either gratitude or return. But when he had stayed with her, had cared for her as tenderly and devotedly as she had for him—she believed then that he had changed, and that now he would marry her. She had waited, with growing apprehension and misgiving, for him to speak of it—but he had said nothing.

Oh, but that’s not possible! she told herself again and again. If he loved me enough to do all that—he loves me enough to marry me. He thinks I know he will as soon as we’re where we can—that’s why he hasn’t said anything—He thinks I—

But not all her brave assurances could still the doubts and torment that grew more insistent with each day that passed. She began to realize that, after all, nothing had changed—he still intended to go on with his life just as he had planned it, as though there had never been a plague.

She wanted desperately to talk to him about it but, afraid of blighting the harmony there was between them—almost perfect for the first time since they had known each other—she forced herself to put it off and wait for some favourable opportunity.

Meanwhile the days were going swiftly. The holly had turned scarlet; loaded wagons stood in the orchards, and the air was fragrant with the fresh autumn smell of ripe red apples. Once or twice it rained.

They left the boat at Abingdon and stayed overnight in a quiet old inn. The host and hostess finally accepted their certificates-of-health, but with obvious misgivings and only because Bruce gave them five extra guineas—though their money supply was now almost gone. But the next morning they hired horses and a guide and set out for Almsbury’s country home, some sixty miles away. They followed the main road to Gloucester, spent the night there and went on the next day. When they reached Barberry Hill in mid-morning Amber was thoroughly exhausted.

Almsbury came out of the house with a yell. He swung her up off her feet and kissed her and pounded Bruce on the back, telling them all the while how he had tried to find them both—never guessing that they were together—how scared he had been, and how glad he was to have them there with him, alive and well. Emily seemed just as pleased, though considerably less exuberant, and they went inside together.

Barberry Hill had not been the most important country possession of the Earls of Almsbury, but it was the one he had been able to have restored to the family. Though less imposing than Almsbury House in the Strand, it had a great deal more charm. It was L-shaped, built of red brick, and lay intimately at the foot of a hill. Part of it was four stories high, part only three; there was a pitched slate roof with many gables and dormer-windows and several spiralling chimneys. All the rooms were decorated with elaborate carvings and mouldings, the ceilings were crusted with plaster-work as ornamental as the frosting on a Twelfth Day cake, the grand staircase was a profusion of late Elizabethan carving and there were gay gorgeous colours everywhere.

Almsbury immediately sent a party of men to find Nan Britton and bring her there. And when Amber had rested and put on one of Lady Almsbury’s gowns—which she did not think had any style at all and which she had to pin in at the sides—she and Bruce went to the nursery. They had not seen their son for more than a year, not since the mornings when they had met at Almsbury House, and he had grown and changed considerably.

He was now four and a half years old, tall for his age, healthy and sturdy. His eyes were the same grey-green that Bruce’s were and his dark-brown hair hung in loose waves to his shoulders, rolling over into great rings. He had been put into adult clothes —a change which was made at the age of four—and they were in every way an exact replica of Lord Carlton’s, even to the miniature sword and feather-trimmed hat.

These grown-up clothes for children seemed symbolic of the hot-house forcing of their lives. For he was already learning to read and write and do simple arithmetic; riding-lessons had begun, as well as instruction in dancing and deportment. Before long there would be more lessons: French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; fencing, music, and singing. Childhood was brief, manhood came early, for life was an uncertain risk at best. There was no time to be lost.

When they entered the nursery little Bruce, with Almsbury’s eldest son, was seated at a tiny table studying his horn-book. But obviously he knew that his parents were coming to see him, for just as they opened the door he looked around with a quick expectancy which suggested many previous eager glances in that direction. As the horn-book went clattering to the floor, he was off the chair and running toward them joyously: But instantly, at a sharp word from his nurse, he stopped, swept off his hat and bowed with great ceremony, first to Bruce and then to Amber.

“I’m glad to see you, sir. And, madame.”

But Amber was not in awe of the nurse. She rushed forward, dropped to her knees and swooped him into her arms, covering his pink cheeks with passionate kisses. Tears glistened in her eyes and began to fall, but she was laughing with happiness. “Oh, my darling! My darling! I thought I would never see you again.”

His arms were about her neck. “But why, madame? I was sure I’d see you both again one day.”

Amber laughed and murmured quickly beneath her breath: “Damn the nurse! Don’t call me madame! I’m your mother and that’s what I’ll be called!” They laughed together at that, he whispered “Mother,” and then gave a quick half-apprehensive, half-defiant look over his shoulder to where the nurse stood watching them.

He was more reserved with Bruce and apparently felt that they were both gentlemen from whom such demonstrations were not expected. It was obvious, however, that he adored his father. Amber felt a pang of jealousy as she watched them but she scolded herself for her pettiness and was even a little ashamed. After an hour or so they left the nursery and started back down the long gallery toward their own adjoining apartments at the opposite end of the building.

All of a sudden Amber said: “It isn’t right, Bruce, for him to live this way. He’s a bastard. What’s the use for him to learn to carry himself like a lord—when God knows how he’ll shift once he’s grown-up.”

She looked up at him sideways, but his expression did not change and now, as they reached the door to her apartment, he opened it and they went in. She turned about quickly to face him, and knew at that instant he was about to say something which he expected would make her angry.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about this, Amber—I want to make him my heir—” And then, as a flash of hope went over her face, he hastily added: “In America no one would know whether he’s legitimate or not—they’d think he was the child of an earlier marriage.”

She stared at him incredulously, her face recoiling as though from a sudden cruel slap. “An earlier marriage?” she repeated softly. “Then you’re married now.”

“No, I’m not. But I’ll marry someday—”

“That means you still don’t intend to marry me.”

He paused, looking at her for a long moment, and one hand started to move in an involuntary gesture, but dropped to his side again. “No, Amber,” he said at last. “You know that. We’ve talked this all over before.”

“But it’s different now! You love me—you told me so yourself! And I know you do! You must! Oh, Bruce, you didn’t tell me that to—”

“No, Amber, I meant it. I do love you, but—”

“Then why won’t you marry me—if you love me?”

“Because, my dear, love has nothing to do with it.”

“Nothing to do with it! It has everything to do with it! We’re not children to be told by our parents who we’ll marry! We’re grown up and can do as we like—”

“I intend to.”

For several seconds she stared at him, while the desire to lash out her hand and slap him surged and grew inside her. But something she remembered—a hard and glittering expression in his eyes—held her motionless. He stood there watching her, almost as though waiting, and then at last he turned and walked out of the room.

Nan arrived a fortnight later with Susanna, the wet-nurse, Tansy and Big John Waterman. They had spent the four months going from one village to another, fleeing the plague. Despite everything only one cart-load had been stolen; almost all of Amber’s clothes and personal belongings were intact. She was so grateful that she promised Nan and Big John a hundred pounds each when they returned to London.

Bruce was enchanted with his seven-months-old daughter. Susanna’s eyes were no longer blue but now a clear green and her hair was bright pure golden blonde, not the tawny colour of her mother’s. She did not very much resemble either Bruce or Amber but she gave every promise of being a beauty and seemed already conscious of her destiny, for she flirted between her fingers and giggled delightedly at the mere sight of a man. Almsbury, teasing Amber, said that at least there could be no doubt as to her mother’s identity.

The very day of Nan’s arrival Amber put off Emily’s unbecoming black dress and, after considerable deliberation, selected one of her own: a low-bosomed formal gown of copper-coloured satin with stiff-boned bodice and sweeping train. She painted her face, stuck on three patches, and for the first time in many months Nan dressed her hair again in long ringlets and a high twisted coil. Among her jewellery she found a pair of emerald ear-rings and an emerald bracelet.

“Lord!” she said, surveying herself in the mirror with pleased satisfaction. “I’d almost forgot what I look like!”

She was expecting Bruce back soon—he and Almsbury had gone out to hunt—and though she was eager to have him see her at her best again she was a little apprehensive too. What would he say about her putting off mourning so soon? A widow was expected to wear plain unadorned black with a long veil over her hair all the rest of her life—unless she married again.

At last she heard the door slam in the next room and his boots crossed the floor. He called her name and then almost immediately appeared in the doorway, pulling loose the cravat at his neck. She was watching for him with her eyes big and uncertain, and she broke into a delighted smile as he stopped abruptly and then gave a long low whistle. She spread her fan and turned slowly around before him.

“How do I look?”

“How do you look! Why, you vain little minx, you look like an angel—and you know it!”

She ran toward him, laughing. “Oh, do I, Bruce!” But suddenly her face sobered and she looked down at her fan, beginning to count the sticks. “D’you think I’m wicked to leave off mourning so soon? Oh, of course,” she added hastily, with a quick upward glance, “I’ll wear it when I get back to town. But out here in the country with no one to see me or know if I’m a widow or not—it doesn’t matter out here, does it?”

He bent and gave her a brief kiss, grinning, and though she searched his face carefully she could not be sure what he was thinking. “Of course it’s not wicked. Mourning, you know, is done with the heart—” Lightly he touched her left breast.

After an unusually hot and arid summer the weather changed swiftly at the end of October. Violent rainstorms came in rapid succession and by the middle of the month there were hard frosts. The two men went out to ride or hunt in spite of it, though usually the powder became wet and they seldom shot anything. Amber spent most mornings in the nursery. Other times Bruce and Almsbury played billiards while she watched, or the three of them played cards or amused themselves by making anagrams out of their own names or someone else’s—for the most part they turned out to be unflattering. Emily seldom joined in these pastimes for she was an old-fashioned housewife who preferred to oversee each smallest detail of cooking and cleaning, rather than leave it to a steward as many great ladies had begun to do. Amber did not see how she could tolerate spending all her hours in the nursery, the still-room, or the kitchen, but there was no doubt the three of them were gayer when Emily was not present.

Ordinarily Barberry Hill was overflowing with guests at that time of year for both the Earl and her Ladyship had vast numbers of relatives, but the plague was keeping everyone at home and only occasionally some neighbour came to call. More encouraging news, however, had begun to come from London. The number of deaths was decreasing, though it was still over a thousand a week. Many who had left town when fewer than a hundred died in one week were now going back. The streets were full of beggars covered with plague sores, but no more corpses were to be seen and the dead-carts came only at night. A feeling of optimism was beginning to prevail again for they thought that the worst was over.

Bruce was growing restless. He was worried about what had happened to his ships and the prizes he had brought; he wanted to go back to London and, as soon as possible, to sail again for America. Amber asked when he thought that he would leave.

“As soon as I can. Whenever it seems likely that men will be willing to sign on again.”

“I want to go back with you.”

“I don’t think you’d better, Amber. I’m going to Oxford first—the Court’s there now and I want to see the King about a grant of land. The weather’s terrible and I can’t take the time to travel by coach—and once I get to London I’ll be so busy I wouldn’t be able to see you. Stay here with Almsbury another month or two—the city isn’t safe yet.”

“I don’t care,” she insisted stubbornly, “whether it’s safe or not. If I can see you at all I’m going. And it won’t hurt me to ride horseback that far, I’ll warrant you.”

But one noon as she stood at her windows looking out over the grey-skied rolling hills that swept away south, watching a party of horsemen approach the house, a strange feeling of dread and suspicion began to take hold of her. Before it was possible actually to distinguish the individual horses or their riders she was sure that Bruce was not among them. Suddenly she turned, swooping up her skirts, and rushed out of the room, along the hallway and down the great staircase. She arrived at the bottom and confronted Almsbury just as he entered the hall.

“Where’s Bruce!”

Almsbury, who wore a long riding-cloak and high leather boots, his brown hair wet and the feathers on his hat soaking and draggled, looked at her uneasily. “He’s gone, Amber. Back to London.” He took off his hat and knocked it against his knee.

“Gone? Without me!” She stared at him, first in surprise and then with growing anger. “But I was going, too! I told him I was going!”

“He said that he told you he was going alone.”

“Blast him!” she muttered, and then all at once she turned and started off. “Well, he’s not! I’m going too!”

Almsbury shouted her name but she paid no attention and ran on, back up the stairs again. Half-way up she passed someone she had not seen before, a well-dressed elderly man, but though he turned and looked after her she ignored him and ran on. “Nan!” she cried violently, bursting into her rooms again. “Pack some clothes for me! I’m going to London!”

Nan stared at her and then looked toward the windows where the rain was furiously beating and splashing and the upper branches of an elm tree could be seen writhing with the wind. “To London, mam? In this weather?”

“Damn the weather! Pack my clothes I tell you! Anything, I don’t care! Throw it in!”

She was yanking loose the bows that fastened the front of her bodice and now she tore the gown down and stepped out of it, kicking it to one side as she went to the dressing-table and began to slam her bracelets onto its polished wood surface. Her face was glowering and her teeth clenched furiously.

Damn him! she thought. At least he could let me have that much! I’ll show him! I’ll show him!

Nan scurried about, pulling gowns and smocks and shoes off hooks and out of drawers. Both women were so occupied they did not see Almsbury open the door and come in until he spoke.

“Amber! What in the devil are you doing?”

“Going to London! What d’ye think?”

She did not even glance at him but was jerking the bodkins out of her hair, which tumbled down her back. He crossed over swiftly and his face appeared behind her in the mirror. She gave him a truculent glare, daring him to try to stop her.

“Leave the room, Britton! Do as I say!” he added, as Nan hesitated, looking at Amber. “Now listen to me! Do you want to make a fool of yourself? He doesn’t want you in London. He doesn’t think it’s safe and he doesn’t care to be troubled with you—he’s going to be busy.”

“I don’t care what he wants. I’m going anyway. Nan!” She whirled about, shouting the girl’s name, but Almsbury caught her wrist and brought her up shortly.

“You’re not going—if I have to tie you to a bedpost! It is possible to have plague twice, you know. If you had any sense you wouldn’t want to go back—for nothing. Bruce left because he had to. His ships may be ruined or plundered by now and if they haven’t been they would be soon after the town began to fill again. Now, darling, for God’s sake—be sensible. He’ll be back again some day; he said he would.”

Amber looked up at him, her lower lip still rolled out stubbornly, but tears were in her eyes and beginning to slide over her cheeks. She sniffled but did not protest when he put his arms about her. “But why,” she asked him at last, and caught her breath on a sob, “why didn’t he even say ‘goodbye’ to me? Last night—why, last night was just like always—”

He pressed her head to his chest and stroked her hair. “Just maybe, sweetheart—it was because he didn’t want to quarrel.”

Amber gave a mournful little wail and burst into tears at that, her arms going about his neck for comfort. “I—I wouldn’t have quarrelled! Oh, Almsbury! I love him so much!”

He let her cry, holding her close, until at last she began to grow quiet again. Then he took out a handkerchief and gave it to her. “Did you notice the gentleman coming downstairs as you were going up?”

She blew her nose, wiped at her red eyes and tear-stained face. “No. I didn’t. Why?”

“He asked me who you were. He thinks you’re the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.”

Vanity crept through her grief. “Does he?” She sniffled a few times, looking down at the handkerchief as she twisted it in her hands, and then blew her nose again. “Who is he?”

“He’s Edmund Mortimer, Earl of Radclyffe—one of the oldest and most honoured families in England. Come on, darling, it’s time for dinner. Let’s go down—he wants to be presented.”

Amber sighed, turning away. “Oh, I don’t care if he does. I don’t want to know anyone else.”

Almsbury gave her an ingratiating smile. “You’d rather stay in your room and mope, is that it? Well, do as you like, but he’ll be mighty disappointed. To tell you the truth, I think he might make you a proposal.”

“A proposal! What the devil would I want with another husband? I’m never going to get married again!”

“Not even to an earl—” said his Lordship thoughtfully. “Well, my dear, do as you like. But I thought I heard you say something to Bruce the other night like: ‘Just wait till I’m Countess of Puddle-dock.’ Now here’s your chance—are you going to throw it away?”

“I suppose you told the old dotard how rich I am.”

“Well, now—perhaps I did. I don’t remember.”

“Oh, well, then, I’ll come down. But I’m not going to marry him. I don’t care whether I ever get to be a countess or not!”

But she was already thinking: If the next time Bruce saw me I was her Ladyship, Countess of Radclyffe, he’d take some notice of that, I’ll warrant you!

He’s only a baron!

CHAPTER THIRTY–NINE

DINNER WAS POSTPONED a half-hour, while Amber dressed again and removed the traces of tears from her face. Then, throwing a fur-lined cloak about her shoulders, she went to the dining-parlour. It was always necessary to wear cloaks when passing from one room to another during the winter, but this year it was so cold that they must be worn all the time.

Almsbury and his guest stood before the fireplace. Lady Almsbury sat near them, working on a piece of needlepoint. The two men turned, Almsbury made the introductions, and as Amber curtsied her eyes swept critically over the Earl of Radclyffe. Her first reaction was quick: How ugly he is! She decided immediately that she would not marry him, and they sat down to dinner.

Edmund Mortimer was fifty-seven and looked at least five years older. He was perhaps three inches taller than Amber, but because she had on high-heeled shoes they were exactly of a height. Slight and delicate, with narrow shoulders and thin legs, his head seemed too large for his fragile frame and the luxuriant periwig he wore increased the effect of disproportion. His face was severe and ascetic in expression and as he spoke decaying yellow teeth showed between his tight-pressed lips. Only his clothes met with her approval, for they were the most exquisite, the most perfect in every detail, that she had ever seen. And his manners, though cold and not engaging, were likewise impeccable.

“His Lordship,” said Almsbury, as they began to eat, “has been travelling on the Continent these three years past.”

“Oh?” said Amber politely. She was not hungry and she wished that she had stayed in her own room. She had to swallow food to force down the aching lump that rose in her throat. “But why come back now, of all times—with the plague among us?”

His voice, as he answered her, was precisely clipped, as though the man who spoke would tolerate no carelessness. “I am no longer young, madame. Sickness and death do not frighten me any more. And my son is to be married within the fortnight—I came back for the ceremony.”

“Oh.” That was all she could think of to say.

It did not seem to her that he was so interested in her as Almsbury had said and since she had come half to be flattered by a man’s goggle-eyed staring, she was disappointed and bored. She paid little attention to the rest of the conversation and as soon as dinner was over escaped back to her room.

The apartments she had shared with Bruce for more than a month were dreary and deserted now, and the fact that he had so recently been there made them even lonelier. She wandered forlornly from one room to another, finding something to remind her of him everywhere she looked. There was the book he had been reading last, lying opened in a big chair. She picked it up and glanced at it: Francis Bacon’s “History of Henry VII.” There was a pair of mud-stained boots, two or three soiled white-linen shirts which carried the strong male smell of his sweat, a hat he had worn while hunting.

Suddenly Amber dropped to her knees, the hat crushed in her hands, and burst into shaking sobs. She had never felt more lonely, hopeless and despairing.

Two or three hours later when Almsbury gave a knock at the door and then came in she was stretched out on her stomach on the bed, head buried in her arms, no longer crying but merely lying there—listless.

“Amber—” He spoke to her softly, thinking that she might be asleep.

She turned her head. “Oh. Come in, Almsbury.”

He sat down beside her and she rolled over on her back and lay looking up at him. Her hair was rumpled and her eyes red and swollen, her head ached vaguely but persistently, and her expression was dull and apathetic. Almsbury’s ruddy face was now serious and kindly, and he bent to kiss her forehead.

“Poor little sweetheart.”

At the sound of his voice the tears welled irresistibly again, rolling out the corners of her eyes and streaking across her temples. She bit at her lower lip, determined to cry no longer; but for several moments they were quiet and one of Almsbury’s square hands stroked over her head.

“Almsbury,” she said at last. “Did Bruce leave without me because he’s going to get married?”

“Married? Good Lord, not that I know anything about! No, I swear he didn’t.”

She gave a sigh and looked away from him, out the windows. “But someday he’ll get married—and he says when he does he wants to make Bruce his heir.” Her eyes came back again, slightly narrowed now and suddenly hard with resentment. “He won’t marry me—but he’ll make my son his heir. A pretty fetch!” Her mouth twisted bitterly and she gave a kick of her toe at the blankets.

“But you will let him, won’t you? After all, it would be best for the boy.”

“No, I won’t let him! Why should I? If he wants Bruce, he can marry me!”

Almsbury continued to watch her for several seconds, but then all at once he changed the subject. “Tell me: What’s your opinion of Radclyffe?”

She made a face. “A nasty old slubber-degullion. I hate him. Anyway, he didn’t seem so mightily smitten by me. Why, he scarcely gave me a glance, once he’d made his leg.”

He smiled. “You forget, my dear. He belongs to another age than ours. The Court of the first Charles was a mighty formal and discreet place—ogling wasn’t the fashion there, no matter how much a gentleman might admire a lady.”

“Is he rich?”

“He’s very poor. The Wars ruined his family.”

“Then that’s why he thinks I’m so handsome!”

“Not at all. He said you’re the finest woman he’s seen in two-score years—you remind him, he says, of a lady he once knew, long ago.”

“And who can that be, pray?”

Almsbury shrugged. “He didn’t say. Some mistress he had, most likely. Men are never favourably reminded of their wives.”

She saw the Earl of Radclyffe again the next day at dinner, but now there were two more guests: a cousin of Emily’s, Lady Rawstorne, and her husband. Lord Rawstorne was a big man—about Almsbury’s height, but much heavier—with a boisterous laugh, a red face and a smell of stables about him. The moment he saw Amber he seemed delighted and throughout dinner he stared across the table at her.

His wife looked sour and discontented, as though she had watched such behaviour for a great many years and was not even yet resigned to it. And the Earl of Radclyffe, though he elaborately ignored Rawstorne and his staring at Mrs. Dangerfield, was clearly annoyed. For the most part he sat with his eyes on his plate, and regarded the food with the expression of one to whom it could mean only future distress. Amber was amused by both of them and found a sort of mischievous pleasure in flirting with Lord Rawstorne. She pouted her lower lip, slanted her eyes at him, and moved her body provocatively. But it was not a very entertaining diversion. Loneliness and boredom continued to mock at her.

As she left the table she saw Rawstorne begin to edge around from one side, trying to avoid his wife’s glowering signals and get to her, but before he could do so Radclyffe was at her side. He bowed, stiffly as a marionette whose joints had not been well oiled for years.

“Your servant, madame.”

“Your servant, sir.”

“Perhaps you recall, madame, that yesterday Lord Almsbury mentioned I had brought several objects of interest and value with me from abroad? Some of those things were in my coach and in the hope that you might honour me by looking at them I had a case unpacked last night. Would you be so kind, madame?”

Amber was about to refuse but decided that she might as well do that as go back upstairs and sit alone, and probably cry again. “Thank you, sir. I’d like to see them.”

“They’re in the library, madame.”

The great room was dark, oak-panelled and but dimly lighted. Before the fireplace there was a large table spread with several articles and next to it was a torchère; the shelves of books stood far away in the spreading gloom. Almsbury was no ardent scholar and the place smelled unaired and musty.

Amber approached the table without interest, but immediately her indifference turned to delight, for it was covered with a great number of rare and delicate and precious things. There was a small white marble statue, a Venus with the head broken off; a blackamoor carved out of ebony with an enamelled skirt of ostrich feathers and real jewels in the turban and around the thick muscular arms; a heavy gold frame, exquisitely wrought; tortoise-shell jewel-boxes and diamond buttons and dainty blown-glass perfume-bottles. Each was perfect of its kind and had been selected by a man whose taste was never-failing.

“Oh, how beautiful! Oh! Look at this!” She turned to him eagerly, eyes sparkling. “Can I pick it up if I’m careful?”

He smiled, bowed again. “Certainly, madame. Please do.”

Forgetting that she did not like him she began to ask him questions. He told her where he had found each one, what its history was, through whose hands it had passed before it had come to him. She liked the story of the blackamoor best:

“Two hundred years ago there was a Venetian lady—very beautiful, as all ladies in legends are—and she owned a gigantic black slave whom her husband believed to be a eunuch. But he was not and when the lady bore his black child she had the infant killed and a white one put in its place. The midwife, from some motive of jealousy or revenge, told the husband of his wife’s infidelity and he killed the slave before her eyes. She had the ebony statue made, secretly of course, in her lover’s memory.”

At last, when there was no more to be said, she thanked him and turned away with a sigh. “They’re all wonderful. I envy you, my lord.” She could never see a beautiful thing without longing violently to possess it.

“Won’t you allow me, madame, to make you a gift?”

She turned swiftly. “Oh, but your Lordship! They must mean a great deal to you!”

“They do, madame, I admit it. But your own appreciation is so keen I know that whichever you choose will be loved as much by you as it could be by me.”

For several moments she stared at them critically, determined to make the one choice she would not regret, deciding first on one and then another. She stood bent forward, tapping her fan on her chin, wholly absorbed. Slowly she became aware that he was watching her and gave him a swift sidelong glance, for she wanted to catch his expression before he could change it. As she had expected he glanced hastily away, refusing to meet her eyes, but nevertheless the look she had surprised on his face made the frank good-natured lust of Lord Rawstorne seem naive and artless. The repugnance she had felt the first moment of their meeting came back again, stronger than ever. What is there about this old man? she thought. He’s strange—he’s strange and nasty.

She picked up the blackamoor—which was very heavy and about two feet high—and turned to the Earl. Once more he presented to her a face cool and polite, austere as an anchorite’s.

“This is what I want,” she said.

“Certainly, madame.” She thought that a hint of a smile lurked somewhere about his thin mouth, but she could not be sure. Had her choice amused him, or was it only her imagination, perhaps a trick of the lighting? “But if you are of a timid nature, madame, perhaps another choice would be more comfortable to you. There’s an old superstition the statue’s cursed and brings ill-luck to whoever owns it.”

She glanced at him sharply, momentarily alarmed, for she was passionately superstitious and knew it. But she decided instantly that he did not want to part with the blackamoor after all and was trying to scare her into making a less valuable choice. She would have kept it now no matter what the curse might be and her eyes glittered defiance.

“Pooh, my lord! That’s a tale to scare children and old ladies! But it doesn’t scare me! Unless you have some objection—I’ll take this.”

He bowed again and this time she knew that he was smiling, ever so faintly. “I protest, madame. I have no objections at all —and I knew that you were a person of too much wit to be alarmed by such foolishness.”

The next day Radclyffe was gone. Three days later a letter came for Amber. She showed it to Almsbury that same morning when he came in to talk to her as Nan was brushing her hair. The ebony blackamoor stood beside the dressing-table.

Almsbury grinned. “So the old goat finds that his thoughts return to you as to any creation of perfect beauty.”

Amber stuck a patch at the left side of her mouth. “Since I’ve become a rich widow I find my attractions have increased a hundredfold.”

“Only on the score of marriage, sweetheart. You’ve always had attractions enough for a dozen other women—but in the way of the world a pretty face without money must go abegging for honest suitors. Now you’re rich, you can take your pick from a dozen.” He stood up and leaned close enough so that his next words could not be overheard by the maids in the room. “If I weren’t married I’d make you a proposal myself.” Amber laughed gaily, thinking that he was joking.

He bent down then and as he kissed her cheek he whispered in her ear. She murmured an answer, they exchanged a wink in the mirror and he went out. Lord Carlton formed the pivotal point for their mutual affection: Amber liked Almsbury better for being Bruce’s friend; he liked her better for being his Lordship’s mistress and mother of his children. But not one of the three considered it either strange or disloyal that in Carlton’s absence the Earl sometimes made love to her.

Only a few days later she heard from Radclyffe again. He sent her a gilded Florentine mirror with a very wide frame, carved in lavish scrolls like the swirl of ostrich plumes. The accompanying note said that this mirror had once reflected the image of the loveliest woman in Italy, but he hoped it might now reflect the most beautiful face in Europe. In less than a week there arrived a basket of oranges—a great rarity now with the war and intense cold—and hidden among them was a topaz necklace.

“He must intend marrying me,” said Amber to the Earl. “No man makes such valuable presents unless he expects to get ’em back again.”

Almsbury laughed. “I think you’re right. And if he does make you a proposal—what about you? Will you accept?”

Amber gave a sigh and a shrug. “I don’t know. It’s no use being rich, unless you’ve got a title too.” She made a face. “But I hate that stinking old buck-fitch.”

“Then marry a young man.”

She gave him a glance of indignation. “Why, I’d rather be buried alive than marry one of your hectoring Frenchified Covent Garden fops! I know well enough what that means. They get you with child and send you off to the country to breed—while they stay in London to play the town-bull and spend all your portion on actresses and ’Change women. No thanks, not for me. I’ve seen enough of that to learn my lesson. If I’ve got to marry someone to get a title I’d rather marry an old man I hate than a young one I hate. At least there’s a sooner prospect of freedom that way.”

The Earl burst into hearty laughter. Amber looked at him in surprise and some annoyance. “Well—my lord? What makes you so hysterical, pray?”

“You do, sweetheart. I swear no one would ever guess to hear you talk that six years ago you were a simple country-wench and so virtuous you slapped my face for making you an honest offer of my affections. I wonder what’s happened to her —that innocent pretty girl I saw on the Marygreen common?” His voice and eyes turned a little wistful at the last.

Amber was petulant; why shouldn’t he be satisfied with the way she was now? She liked to think of Almsbury as one man who accepted her exactly as she was, liked her and approved of everything she said and did. “I don’t know,” she said crossly. “She’s gone now—if she ever existed at all. She couldn’t last long in London.”

He gave her hand a quick friendly grasp. “No, darling, she couldn’t. But seriously, I think it would be a mistake for you to marry Radclyffe.”

“Why? You suggested it yourself to begin with.”

“I know. But I only wanted to make you think about something besides Bruce. In the first place, he’s deep in debt. It might take half your inheritance to get him out.”

“Oh, I’ve got that all planned. I’ll have the contract drawn to let me retain management of my own funds.”

Almsbury shook his head. “That’ll never do. He wouldn’t marry you with any such arrangement as that—any more than you’d marry him if he was to retain sole use of his title. No, if you marry Radclyffe you’ve got to sign over your money to him. But do you think you could tolerate living in the same house with him—not to mention sleeping in the same bed?”

“Oh, as for that! In London I won’t know he’s about. I’ll spend all my days at Court—and maybe some of my nights, too.” Her mouth turned up significantly at one corner; she had never completely abandoned her earlier ambition of being his Majesty’s mistress—and whenever Bruce Carlton was gone the prospect glittered.

To be mistress of the King, a great lady, feared and envied and admired. To be stared and pointed at in the streets, watched in the galleries of the Palace, bowed and truckled to in the Drawing-Rooms. To be begged for favours, fawned upon for a smile—to hold the power of success or failure over dozens, even hundreds, of men and women. That was the summit of ambition—higher than the Queen, mightier than the Chancellor, greater than any nobly born woman in the land. And if she could once be presented at Whitehall, have the right and privilege of the royal apartments, see him day after day-Amber had no doubt that she could occupy the place which Castlemaine was said to be rapidly losing.

All those things were in her mind when—just a few days after Christmas—she accepted the Earl of Radclyffe’s proposal of marriage.

It came after a boresome week of impatient waiting on her part, for though she had been so scornful of him at first and still was, the more she thought about it the more she wanted to become a countess. And marriage with him did not seem any formidable price to pay for the honour. He had come back to Barberry Hill for the avowed purpose of “paying his compliments to Mrs. Dangerfield,” but he did very little of that or anything else which seemed to Amber like courting. She could not even catch him looking at her again as he had that day in the library.

The day before he was to return to his own home some thirty miles north, they sat alone in the gallery playing a game of trick-track. The gallery, on the second floor of the house, was an immense room which ran along two sides of the courtyard. It was massed with deep set diamond-paned windows, on the panelled walls were dozens of portraits, and the ceiling was painted light blue with great wreaths of gilt roses. Radclyffe wore his hat and both of them had on long fur-lined cloaks; a brazier of hot coals was set beside each of them, and an enormous log blazed in the fireplace. But in spite of all that they were uncomfortably cold.

Amber moved a peg in the board to change her score. Then she sat, staring absently at it and waiting for him to make the next play. At last, when several seconds had passed, she looked up. “Your move, my lord.” He was watching her, very carefully, like a man studying a painting—not like a man looking at a woman.

“Yes,” he said quietly, not taking his eyes from her. “I know.” Amber returned his stare. “Madame—I am not unaware that it is a breach of propriety to ask for the hand of a lady who has been widowed only nine months. And yet my regard for you has reached that pitch I am prepared to fly in the face of all decorum. Madame, I ask you most solemnly —will you do me the honour to become my wife?”

Amber answered him immediately. “With all my heart, sir.” She had thought from the first that since each knew what the other wanted it was absurd they must mince and simper like a couple of dancing-mice at Bartholomew Fair.

Again she thought that she caught the hint of a smile on his mouth, but could not be sure. “Thank you, madame. Your kindness is more than I deserve. I must return to London soon after the first of the year, and if you will go with me we can be married at that time. I understand that the sickness is now greatly abated and the town has begun to fill again.”

He wanted, of course, to make certain her fortune had survived the Plague before he married her—but Amber was tired of the country and eager to get back herself.

They set out together in his coach on the second of January, bundled in furs and covered with fur-lined robes; it was so cold they could see their breath as they talked. The roads were so hard and frosty that it was possible to travel much faster than if it had been raining, but they had to stop that afternoon at four because the bouncing and jogging distressed his Lordship.

The marriage-contract had been signed at Barberry Hill and Amber supposed he would take advantage of the usual custom to lie with her that night. At eight o’clock, however, he bowed, wished her a good night, and retired to his own chamber. Amber and Nan watched him go, both of them staring with astonishment. Then as the door closed they looked at each other and burst into uncontrollable giggles.

“He must be impotent!” hissed Nan.

“I hope so!”

It was nightfall on the fifth day when they reached London. Amber had a feeling of dread as they approached the city, but as they rolled through the dark quiet streets it began to disappear. There were no dead-carts, no corpses, very few red crosses to be seen. Already the sloping mounds in the graveyards had been covered over with a coarse green vegetation—the hundred thousand dead were effacing themselves. Taverns. were brightly lighted again and crowded, coaches teetered by filled with gay young men and women, the sound of music came from some of the houses.

It never really happened, she thought. It never really happened at all. She had a strange sense of discovery, as though she had wakened from some terrible nightmare and found to her relief that it had been only a dream.

Radclyffe House stood in Aldersgate Street above St. Anne’s Lane and just without the City gates. The street was a broad one lined with large wide-spaced houses. Radclyffe told her that it resembled an Italian avenue more than any other street in London. It was the only place left so near the walls where some of the great old families were still living.

The house had been virtually unoccupied for almost twenty-five years, but for a few servants left there as caretakers, and most of the windows were bricked up. Inside it was dark and dusty, the furniture was shrouded in dirty white and nothing had been brought up to date since it had been built eighty-five years ago. One room led into another like a maze, and with the exception of the grand staircase in the center of the house, all passages and stair-wells were narrow and dark. Amber was relieved to find that the apartments to which she was shown had at least been cleaned and dusted and aired, even though otherwise it was in no better condition than the rest.

Early the next morning she went to visit Shadrac Newbold and found that he had kept all her money intact. (He also told her that Lord Carlton had sailed for America two weeks before.) When she told him that her money was safe Radclyffe suggested that they be married as soon as all necessary arrangements could be made. As she knew, he was a Catholic—hence it would be necessary to have two services performed, for a Catholic ceremony could be declared null and void.

“I’d intended,” said Amber, “to bespeak a gown of my dressmaker. I haven’t got anything that’s new—and I think she could get one done in ten days or so.”

“I don’t think it would be safe, madame, as yet—the sickness is still too much with us. But if you would care to oblige me, I have a gown laid away I should be most happy to have you wear.”

Somewhat surprised, wondering if he kept a wedding-gown about for unexpected marriages, Amber agreed. Certainly it seemed a simple harmless request.

Later in the day he came to her chamber, carrying in his arms a stiff white-satin gown, embroidered all over with tiny pearls, and as he shook it out she saw that there were deep sharp creases in it, as though it had been lying folded for a very long while. She realized then that it actually was an old gown; the white had turned creamy and the cut and style were many years out of fashion. The waist-line was high with a flaring peplum slashed in four places; the low square neck had a deep collar of lace and lace cuffs finished the long full sleeves; when the skirt opened down the front a petticoat of heavy silver cloth showed.

Radclyffe smiled at her puzzled expression. “As you can see —it isn’t a new gown. But it is still beautiful, and I shall be grateful if you will wear it.”

She reached out to take it. “I’m glad to, sir.”

Later, she and Nan examined it carefully, speculating. “It must be two-score years old, or more,” said Nan. “I wonder who wore it last?”

Amber shrugged. “His first wife, maybe. Or an old sweetheart. Someday I’ll ask him.”

To her surprise she found when she put it on that it fitted her very well, almost as if it had been made for her.

CHAPTER FORTY

“AMBER, COUNTESS OF RADCLYFFE,” she said slowly, watching herself in a mirror, whereupon she wrinkled up her nose, snapped her fingers and turned away. “Much good it does me!”

They had been married just one week, but so far her life was no more exciting than it had been when she was plain Mrs. Dangerfield—certainly far less so than when she was Madame St. Clare of His Majesty’s Theatre. The weather was so cold that it was unpleasant to go out. The plague deaths for the past week had been almost a hundred, and neither King nor Court had yet returned to Whitehall. She stayed at home, scarcely left their suite of rooms—for the rest of the house continued in its dirt and gloom—and spent her time feeling bored and resentful. Was this what she had traded her sixty-six thousand pounds for! It seemed a bad bargain—dullness and a man she despised.

For now that she was his wife Radclyffe was a greater enigma than ever.

She saw him but little for he had a multitude of interests which he did not wish to share with her, nor she with him. Several hours of almost every day he spent in the laboratory which opened out of their bedroom, and for which new equipment was constantly arriving. When he was not there he was in the library or in the offices on the lower floor, reading, writing, going over his bills, and making plans for the remodelling and furnishing of the house. Though this was to be done, obviously, at Amber’s expense, he never consulted her wishes in the matter or even told her what plans he had made.

They met, usually, just twice a day—at dinner, and in bed. Conversation at dinner was polite and arid, carried on chiefly for the benefit of the servants, but in bed they did not talk at all. The Earl could not, in any real sense, make love to her, for he was impotent and apparently had been for some time. More than that, he disliked her, frankly and contemptuously —even while she roused in him conflicting emotions of desire and some wild yearning toward the past which he could never explain. Yet he longed violently for complete physical possession—a longing at which he caught night after night, but never grasped, and it drove him down a hundred strange pathways of lust and helpless rage.

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.”

Amber shut her teeth and refused to be goaded. For a long moment they faced each other. At last she repeated: “Will you please send him to Almsbury’s?”

He smiled faintly, pleased to have her in this humiliating predicament. “Very well. I’ll send him tomorrow.” The favour, though granted, was like a slap.

Amber’s eyes lowered.

“Thank you, sir.”

Someday, she was thinking, I’ll slit your gullet, you damned old cannibal.

On the ist of February Charles returned to Whitehall. There were deep snows on the ground, the church bells pealed out merrily, and at night great bonfires lighted the black winter sky, welcoming the King home. Her Majesty, however, and all the ladies had remained at Hampton Court. Castlemaine had recently given birth to another son; the Queen had miscarried again. And York was not speaking to his Duchess because he thought—or pretended to think—that she had been having an affair with handsome Henry Sidney.

Radclyffe went to wait upon the King, but Amber could not go to Court until the women returned, when she might be presented at a ball or some other formal occasion. However, having once paid his respects, Radclyffe did not go often to Whitehall. He was not the sort of man King Charles would take for a confidant and his religion barred him from ever holding an office. Furthermore, he had been too long away from Court. A new generation was setting the pace, and it was not the pace at which his own had moved. There was a new way of living, which he considered to be shallow, frivolous, lacking in grace or purpose. Most of the men he judged either knaves or fools or both and the women he thought a pack of empty-headed sluts. He included his wife in this category.

To Amber it seemed that time passed more slowly than ever before. She spent hours with Susanna, helping her learn to walk, building block castles and playing with her, singing her the dozens of nursery rhymes she remembered from her own childhood. She adored her—but she could not build a whole life around her. She longed for that great exciting world to which she had bought and paid her admission and which she might now enter proudly by the front door, not sneak into like a culprit through some back passageway. She was glad that Radclyffe was not interested in the gay life at the Palace, for that would leave her all the more free to enjoy it herself.

She wanted nothing so much as to get away from him. She felt as though he was casting some evil spell over her, for though she did not actually see him often he seemed to hang forever at her shoulder, to lurk in her mind—sombre and dreaded. Alone in the house as she was and with few diversions, everything that was said or done by either of them assumed a magnified importance. She mulled over each word spoken, each glance exchanged, every action, worrying it like a dog with a bone.

Once, out of boredom, she ventured into his laboratory.

She tried the door, found it open, and went in quietly, so as not to disturb him. Great stacks of books and manuscripts, recently sent down from Lime Park, were piled on the floor. There were several skulls, hundreds of jars and bottles, oil-lamps, pottery vessels of every shape and size—all the paraphernalia of alchemy. He was engaged, she knew, in the “Great Work”—a tedious, complicated process of seven years which had as its goal the discovery of the Philosopher’s Stone—a search that was occupying some of the best minds of the age.

As she entered he stood before a table, his back to her, carefully measuring a yellow powder. She said nothing but walked toward him, her eyes going curiously over the loaded shelves and tables. All at once he gave a start and the bottle dropped from his hands.

Amber jumped backward to avoid spotting her gown. “Oh! I’m sorry.”

“What are you doing in here!”

Her anger flared quickly. “I just came in to look! Is there any harm in that?”

He relaxed, smoothing the scowl from his face. “Madame, there are several places where women do not belong—under any circumstances at all. A laboratory is one of them. Pray don’t interrupt me again. I’ve spent too many years and too much money on this project to have it ruined now by a woman’s blundering.”

After alchemy his greatest interest was his library, where he spent many hours of each day. For most of his life he had been collecting rare books and manuscripts, which he kept all in precise order, listing each one carefully and with a full account of everything that pertained to it. But his interest in books was more than mere pleasure in possession, in the look and feel of fine leather and old paper. He read them as well. There were Greek plays; Cicero’s letters and the meditations of Marcus Aurelius; Plutarch and Dante; Spanish plays; French philosophers and scientists—all in their original languages.

He did not forbid Amber the library, but it was not until they had been married for several weeks that she went into it. She had now become so desperate for entertainment that she was finally willing to read a book. But she had not realized that he was there and when she saw him, sitting beside the fireplace with a pen in his hand and a great volume lying open on the writing-table, she hesitated a moment, then started out again. He glanced up, saw her, and to her surprise got politely to his feet, smiling.

“Pray come in, madame. I see no reason why a woman may not enter a library—even though she isn’t likely to find much in it to her taste. Or are you that freak of man and nature—a learned female?”

His mouth, as he spoke the last sentence, turned ironically down. In common with most men—no matter what their own intellectual interests and acquirements might be—he considered education for women absurd and even amusing. Amber ignored the jibe; it was not a subject on which she could be easily offended.

“I thought I might find something to pass the time with. Have you got any plays written in English?”

“Several. What do you prefer—Ben Jonson, Marlowe, Beaumont and Fletcher, Shakespeare?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve acted ’em all.” She knew that he did not like any reference to her acting and mentioned it frequently to annoy him. So far he had refused the bait.

But now he looked at her with obvious displeasure. “Madame, I had hoped your own sense of shame would prevent you from making any further reference to so unfortunate an episode in your life. Pray, let me hear no more about it.”

“Why not? I’m not ashamed of it!”

“I am.”

“It didn’t keep you from marrying me!”

From across the dozen or so feet that separated them they eyed each other. Amber had long felt sure that if once she could break through his coldness and composure she would have him at her mercy. If I ever hit him, she had told herself a dozen times, I’d never be afraid of him again. But she could not quite bring herself to do it. She knew well enough that he had a strong streak of cruelty, a malevolent savagery—highly refined, as were all his vices. But she had not found any restraining rein of conscience or compassion. Therefore she hesitated out of fear, and hated herself for the cowardice.

“No,” he agreed at last. “It didn’t keep me from marrying you—for you had other attractions which I found it impossible to resist.”

“Yes!” snapped Amber. “Sixty-six thousand of ’em!”

Radclyffe smiled. “How perceptive,” he said, “for a woman!”

For several seconds she glared at him, longing violently to smash her fist into his face. She had the feeling that it would crumble, like a mummy’s, beneath any hard and sudden blow, and she could picture his expression of horror as his face disintegrated. Suddenly she turned toward the book-shelves.

“Well, where are they! The plays!”

“On this shelf, madame. Take whatever you want.”

She picked out three or four at random, hastily, for she was anxious to get away from him. “Thank you, sir,” she said without looking at him, and started out. Just as she reached the door she heard his voice again.

“I have some very rare Italian books in which I believe you would be interested.”

“I don’t read Italian.” She did not glance around.

“These may be appreciated without a knowledge of the language. They make use of the universal language of pictures.”

She at once understood what he meant and paused, caught by her own strong interest in whatever was sensational or prurient. With a smile which clearly betrayed his cynical amusement at her curiosity he turned and took down from a shelf a hand-tooled leather-bound volume, laid it on the table, and stood waiting. She turned, and for a moment hesitated, watching him suspiciously as though this were some trap he had set for her. Then with a defiant lift of her chin she walked forward and opened the book, turned half-a-dozen pages on which was some unrecognizable printing and stopped with a gasp of surprise at the first picture. It was beautifully done, painted by hand, and showed a young man and woman, both of them naked, straining in an ecstasy.

For a moment Amber looked at it, fascinated. Suddenly she glanced up and found him watching her, carefully, with the same expression she had seen that day in Almsbury’s library. It disappeared again, as swiftly as the time before; and she picked up the book and started across the room.

“I thought you’d be interested,” she heard him saying, “but pray handle it carefully. It’s very old and very rare—a treasure of its kind.”

She did not answer or look around but went on out of the room. She felt bewildered and angry, both pleasantly excited and disgusted. It seemed, somehow, that he had taken an advantage of her.

CHAPTER FORTY–ONE

THE QUEEN’S PRESENCE CHAMBER was packed with courtiers. The ladies were dressed in the full splendour of laces, spangled satins and velvets—garnet, carmine, primrose-yellow, dusky plum and flame—with shoulders and bosoms and forearms blazing with jewels. Hundreds of candles burnt in wall-sconces and torchères, and Yeomen of the Guard held smoking flambeaux. Their Majesties, seated on a dais canopied with crimson velvet swagged with gold and silver fringe, gave their hands to be kissed. At one end of the room waited the musicians, in varicoloured taffeta suits and with garlands about their heads, quietly tuning their instruments. There were no outsiders, no spectators thronging the gallery to watch, for the plague was persistent, the number of deaths fluctuating week by week. The women had only recently arrived from Hampton Court.

“Her Ladyship, the Countess of Castlemaine!” cried the usher.

“Baron Arlington! Lady Arlington!”

“Lord Denham! Lady Denham!”

“The Earl of Shrewsbury! The Countess of Shrewsbury!”

As each name was announced eyes swept toward the door, murmurs ran round the room behind raised fans, glances were exchanged; there were feminine giggles and sometimes the sound of a man’s low chuckle.

“Damn me,” remarked one young beau to another, “but I wonder my Lord Shrewsbury dares show his face in public. Her Ladyship has laid with half the men at Court and yet he’s never once so much as offered to defend his honour.”

“And why should he, pray?” retorted the other. “Any man who thinks his honour depends upon that of his wife is a fool.”

“Look!” whispered a twenty-year-old fop, stroking at his elaborate curled wig, arranging the profusion of ruffles at his wrist. “York’s ogling my Lady Denham again. I’ll bet a hundred pound he lies with her before St. George’s Day.”

“I’ll bet he doesn’t. Her Ladyship’s honest.”

“Honest? Pshaw, Jack. There’s not a woman in the world who’s honest at all times and upon all occasions.”

“She may not be honest,” interrupted a Maid of Honour, “but she’s watched mighty close.”

“No woman’s watched so close she can’t give her husband a buttered-bun if once she sets her mind to it.”

“Now where d’ye think Lady Arlington got that scurvy gown? She’s always as far behind the fashion as a Lancashire squire’s wife.”

“She’s a Dutchwoman, darling. How should she know how to dress?”

All of a sudden something unexpected happened—the usher announced two unfamiliar names: a new element had entered that close-knit little clique.

“The Earl of Radclyffe! The Countess of Radclyffe!”

The Earl of Radclyffe. Who the devil was he? Some moss-backed old dodderer left over from the last generation? And his countess—a platter-faced jade of at least five-and-forty, no doubt, who disapproved of the new manners as violently as any Puritan alderman’s wife. They looked toward the doorway with a kind of bored curiosity. Then, as Lord and Lady Radclyffe appeared, surprise and shock flowed over the room, snapping them out of their lazy indifference. What was this! An actress being presented at Court!

“Jesus Christ!” remarked one gentleman to another. “Isn’t that Amber St. Clare?”

“Why!” hissed an indignant lady. “That’s that comedian—Madame What-d’ye-call who was at the Theatre Royal a couple of years ago!”

“Intolerable!”

Amber kept her head high and looked neither right nor left, but straight ahead toward the Queen. She had never felt so nervously excited, so eager, or so scared. I really am a countess, she had been telling herself all day. I’ve got as much right at Whitehall as anyone. I won’t let ’em scare me—I won’t! They’re only men and women—they’re no different from me or anyone else. But the truth was she did believe them different—here, at least, in Whitehall.

Her heart pounded so hard she was breathless, her knees trembled and her ears rang. The back of her neck ached. She kept looking straight toward the dais, but all she could see was a blur, as though she had her eyes open under water. Slowly she walked forward, her shaking fingers on Radclyffe’s arm—down the long long corridor of faces toward the throne. She sensed the whispers, the smiles and smirks, the indignation, but actually she saw and heard nothing.

Radclyffe was splendidly dressed. His wig was white, his coat gold-and-purple brocade and his breeches pale-green satin; precious stones glittered on his sword-hilt. His sharp austere face forbade them to criticize his wife, defied them to remember that she had been an actress, demanded that they admire and accept her. And Amber’s costume was as gorgeous as any in the room. Her long-trained gown was cloth-of-gold covered with stiff gold lace; a veil fell over her head and she wore her impressive collection of emeralds.

Now they had reached the throne. She spread a deep curtsy; he knelt. As Amber’s lips touched the Queen’s hand she raised her eyes, to find Catherine smiling, a gentle wistful smile that caught suddenly at her heart. She’s kind, thought Amber, and she’s unhappy, poor lady. But she’s harmless. I like her, she decided.

But she dared not look at Charles. For here in his Palace, surrounded by all the pomp and circumstance of royalty, he was not the man she had visited secretly at night three years before. He was Charles II, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland. He was all the might and glory of England —and she knelt before him reverently.

Slowly she rose, moving backward, and went to stand among the throng that lined the approach to the dais. For several moments she remained half-dazed—but gradually the world began to expand again beyond herself and her feelings. She glanced to the right and found Buckhurst there, grinning down at her. Sedley looked over his shoulder with a wink. Immediately across from her was the magnificent Buckingham, and though she had not seen him since that night at Long’s in the Haymarket, he smiled at her now and she was grateful. There were others: the two Killigrews, father and son; Dick Talbot and James Hamilton and several more young men who had frequented the tiring-room. And then all at once her eyes came to a stop. She was looking straight at Barbara Palmer. Castlemaine was watching her, her face speculative and predatory. For several seconds their stares held, and it was Amber who looked away first, with flaunting unconcern. She was beginning to realize that these people were not, after all, gods and goddesses—even here on Olympus.

Finally the presentations were over, the King gave a signal, and music swelled suddenly through the room. The ball opened with a coranto, danced by Charles and Catherine, the Duke and Duchess of York, and the Duke and Duchess of Monmouth. Only one couple performed at a time. The dance was a slow stately parade, full of attitudes, requiring a high degree of skill and gracefulness.

Amber watched the King with enchanted eyes.

How handsome he is, she thought, and how he walks and stands! Oh, I wonder if I dare ask him to dance! She knew that court etiquette required that ladies ask his Majesty to dance with them. I wonder if he still remembers me—no, of course he doesn’t. How could he? That was three years and a half ago—God knows how many women there’ve been since then. But, oh, I want to dance—I don’t want to stand here all evening by myself!

In her excitement she had altogether forgotten Radclyffe just beside her, silent and unmoving.

When the coranto ended Charles called for an allemande—in which several couples might participate—and as the floor began to fill Amber waited breathlessly, praying that she would be asked. She felt like a little girl at her first party, lost and forlorn, and she was beginning to wish herself safe at home again when—to her immense joy and relief—Lord Buckhurst made her a bow.

“M-m-may I have the pleasure of her Ladyship’s company f-for this dance, my lord?” When sober, Buckhurst had a slight tendency to stutter, which caused him much annoyance.

Amber, with a start of surprise, remembered her husband then and turned to him with a look of apprehension. Suppose he should refuse! But he bowed as graciously as she could have hoped.

“Certainly, my lord.”

Amber gave Buckhurst a dazzling happy smile and laid her hand on his arm. They walked out to join the other dancers, who stood in a double line halfway down the room. Charles and Castlemaine were the first couple and everyone followed their lead—a few steps forward and a few steps back, and then a pause. The figure of the dance offered them all opportunity for flirtation or talk.

Buckhurst smiled down at Amber. “H-how the devil did you get here?”

“Why, how d’ye think, sir? I’m a countess!”

“You told me, m-madame, that you weren’t g-going to marry again.”

She gave him a mischievous sparkling glance. “But I changed my mind. I hope your Lordship won’t be inclined to hold a grudge.”

“Good Lord, no! Y-you can’t believe what a pleasure it is to s-s-see a new face here at Court. We’re all s-so damned bored with one another.”

“Bored!” cried Amber, shocked. “How can you be bored?”

But he was not able to answer, for by now they had reached the opposite end of the room where they parted, the gentlemen walking down one side and the ladies down the other. Each couple met again, executed a few steps which formed a square, and the dance ended. Buckhurst led her back to Radclyffe, thanked the Earl, and there left her. Amber knew at once that his Lordship was displeased, that he did not like to see her enjoying herself and attracting attention, completely forgetful of him.

“You’re having a pleasant evening, madame?” he asked her coldly.

“Oh, yes, your Lordship!” She hesitated for an instant and then, doubtfully, “Are you?”

But he did not reply, for all at once the King was beside them, smiling. “It was most considerate of you, my lord,” he said, “to marry a beautiful woman. There isn’t a man here tonight who isn’t grateful to you.” Radclyffe bowed. “We’re all of us tired of looking at the same faces and gossiping about the same people.”

Charles smiled down at Amber who was looking at him, fascinated, powerfully aware of his charm, which was so strong it seemed to be an almost physical force. As his black eyes met hers her head began to spin dizzily. But she was even more aware that here before her, with the whole world looking on, stood the Monarch of Great Britain, smiling and complimenting her.

“You’re very kind, Sire,” said Radclyffe.

Amber made a curtsy, but her tongue was maddeningly tied. Her eyes, however, had almost too much eloquence—and Charles’s face would always betray him in the presence of a pretty woman. Radclyffe watched them, his own face noncommittal as a mummy’s.

But it was only for an instant, and then Charles turned back to address Radclyffe. “I understand, my lord, that you’ve recently acquired a very rare Correggio.”

Radclyffe’s cold blue eyes lighted, as always at any mention of his paintings. “I have, your Majesty, but it’s not yet arrived. I’m expecting it very soon, however, and when it comes if you are interested I should be most happy to show it to you.”

“Thank you, sir. I’d very much like to see it. And now, will you permit me, my lord?” Already he was extending his arm to Amber, and as Radclyffe gave his assent, bowing again, they walked out onto the floor.

Amber’s whole being filled with fierce buoyant pride. It was as though she stood in a blazing light and all the rest of the world in darkness, its eyes focused upon her. The King had sought her out, had flouted convention, had asked her to dance! Before all these people, and here in his own Court! The dreary weeks she had spent alone with Radclyffe, his selfish brutal abortive lust, his unconcealed dislike and contempt—all vanished at once in her violent joy. The price had been paid and it was not too high.

The King called for the traditional merry old folk-dance: “Cuckolds All Awry,” and just as they stood facing each other at the head of a long line, waiting for the music to begin, he said in an undertone: “I hope your husband won’t suspect that choice of music. He doesn’t look as though he’d wear a pair of horns gracefully.”

“I don’t know, Sire,” she murmured, “whether he would or not.”

“What?” asked Charles, in mock surprise. “Married two months and still a faithful wife?”

But the music began then and the dance was too lively to let them talk. He said nothing more and when it was over led her back to Radclyffe, thanked them both, bowed and was gone. Amber was too breathless from excitement and the exertion of the dance to speak. Just as she rose from her curtsy she saw the Duke of Buckingham approaching them.

God’s my life! she thought, in half-hysterical delight. It’s the truth! The men are tired of looking at the same faces!

She glanced hastily around the great room, caught dozens of pairs of eyes upon her—admiring eyes, amused eyes, hostile eyes. But what did it matter why they looked, or how they looked—so long as they did look? Why! I’m the White Ewe tonight-she thought as she recalled an old Alsatian expression.

Everyone wanted to dance with her. York, Rochester, the popular lazy young fop and playwright, George Etherege, the Earl of Arran, the Earl of Ossory, Sedley and Talbot and Henry Jermyn. All the young and gay and handsome men of the Court flirted with her, paid her outrageous compliments, and asked her for assignations. The women exerted themselves to find fault with her gown, her coiffure, her manners—and reached the comfortable conclusion that, after all, she was new and she was rich and of course her reputation as an actress smelt so high it would have caught the attention of any male within the Verge. It was Amber’s night of glorious triumph.

Suddenly into the midst of this perfect world a meteor fell, shattering everything. In one brief interval when she was returned to his side Radclyffe said quietly: “We are going home, madame.”

Amber gave him a look of hurt surprise, for already beside her stood the Duke of Monmouth and James Hamilton. “Home, my lord?” she said incredulously.

Monmouth immediately took it up. “You’re not thinking of going home, sir? Why, it’s still early. And her Ladyship’s the toast of the evening.”

Radclyffe bowed, his thin lips set in a tight ungracious smile. “By your leave, your Grace. I am not a young man, and to me the hour is already late.”

Monmouth laughed, a happy ingenuous laugh which could have offended no one. “Why, then, sir—why not let her Ladyship stay with us? I’ll see her home myself—with a band of fiddlers and a score of links to light us.”

“Oh, yes!” cried Amber, turning eagerly to her husband. “Let me do that!”

Radclyffe ignored her. “You jest, your Grace,” he said stiffly, bowed, and then turned to Amber. “Come, madame.”

Amber’s golden eyes flamed rebelliously and for an instant she thought of refusing, but she did not quite dare. She curtsied to Monmouth and Colonel Hamilton, but kept her eyes down. When they stopped to bid his Majesty good-night shame and disappointment had made her face scarlet and tears stung her eyes. She could not look at him, though she heard the lazy amusement in his voice as he asked why they were leaving so early. Smiles and whispers followed them out of the room—for the impression created was that of a little girl who has misbehaved at her first party and is being led home by a disgruntled parent.

She did not speak until they were in the coach, jogging along King Street. Then she could restrain herself no longer. “Why did we have to come away so soon!” she demanded, and suddenly her voice broke with enraged disappointment.

“I am too old, madame, to enjoy many hours of such noise and confusion.”

“That wasn’t the reason!” she cried accusingly. “And you know it!”

She stared at him, though his face was in shadow, for the streets were dark and the moon showed only a pale light, like a candle seen through a dirty pane. “I am not interested in discussing the matter,” he retorted coldly.

“I am! You made me come away because I was enjoying myself! You can’t stand seeing anyone happy!”

“On the contrary, madame. I do not object at all to happiness. But I do object to watching my wife make a ridiculous display of herself.”

“Ridiculous! What was ridiculous about it? I was doing nothing but dancing and laughing—is that so ridiculous? Maybe you even danced and laughed once yourself—if you were ever young!” She gave him a look of furious loathing, and turned her face away, muttering, “Which I doubt!”

“You’re not so naive, madame, as you try to pretend. You know as well as I do what was in the minds of those men tonight.”

“Well!” she cried, clenching her fists. “What of it! Isn’t the same thing in the minds of all men! It’s in yours, too, even if you—” But there she stopped, suddenly, for he gave her a look so swift and so venomous, so threatening that the words caught short in her throat and she remained quiet.

The next morning, rather early, Amber and Nan came downstairs wrapped in cloaks and hoods and muffs. She spoke to the footman at the door. “Please send for his Lordship’s great coach. I’m going abroad.”

“The coach is being repaired, madame.”

“Then I’ll go in mine.”

“I’m sorry, your Ladyship, but that one is also at the coachmakers’.”

Amber heaved an impatient sigh. “Very well, then! I’ll call a hackney. Open the door, please!”

“I’m sorry, your Ladyship. The door is bolted and I have no key.”

She looked at him with sudden suspicion. “Who has it then?”

“His Lordship, madame, I presume.”

Without another word Amber swirled about and rushed from the entrance-hall toward the library, threw open the door without knocking, and burst in like a gust of wind. The Earl was seated at a table, writing, with a great sheaf of papers beside him.

“Would you mind telling me why I’m made a prisoner?” she cried.

He looked up as though she were, indeed, a disrupting physical force rather than a human being. Then his eyes ran over her slowly and he gave a faint smile, as of a patient man who is somewhat bored.

“Where did you wish to go?”

She was on the edge of telling him that where she went was not his business, but thinking better of it she replied, more quietly: “To the New Exchange. I have some purchases to make.”

“I can’t imagine what they could be. But it seems that no matter how much a woman may have, she always needs something more. Well, if you feel you cannot do without a new pair of gloves or a bottle of essence—send Britton.”

Amber stamped her foot. “I don’t want to send Britton! I want to go myself! I will go myself! God’s curse, sir! is there any reason why I shouldn’t leave the house? What the devil have I done to be used like this!”

Radclyffe paused a long moment before he answered her, gazing reflectively at the pen he turned in his fingers. “This is a strange age. A man is considered a fool if he allows his wife to cuckold him—and an even greater one if he takes measures to prevent it.”

Amber’s mouth twisted into an ugly triumphant sneer. “So at last we have it! You’re afraid some other man will get your children for you! Well, now—wouldn’t that be strange?”

“You may go, madame.” As she continued to glare at him, he suddenly spoke with startling sharpness. “Get out! Go to your rooms!”

Amber’s eyes blazed, as though she could wither him where he sat by the sheer force of her hatred. All at once she muttered a curse, slammed her fan onto the floor, and as she went out flung the door wide and banged it with all the force in her body.

But Amber soon discovered that shouts and violence would gain her nothing. He had the legal right to lock her in, and to beat her if he thought that she deserved it. She had little fear the thin brittle Earl would ever attempt physical chastisement—since she was certainly more than a match for him—but she sometimes had a sneaking apprehension of poison or the sudden thrust of a knife. He wouldn’t dare! she told herself. But she was never wholly convinced, and fear made her cautious.

For several days she sulked. She thought of starving herself to make him submit, but realized after she had missed two meals that such a process would be more uncomfortable for her than for him. Then she ignored him completely. When he was in the room she turned her back, sang bawdy songs, chattered with Nan. She never left her apartments but went about all day in her dressing-gown, her hair undone and no paint on her face. He seemed scarcely to notice, and certainly did not care.

She thought of every possible solution, but was compelled to abandon each in turn. If she left him he would have all her money—and she would have no title. To get a divorce was almost impossible and would have required an act of Parliament; not even Castlemaine had obtained a divorce. Annulment was almost as difficult, for the case must rest upon impotence or sterility, and how was she to prove herself a virgin or him incompetent? To make matters worse, the courts, she knew, were not inclined to side with a woman. And so at last she decided that if it had been possible for her to tolerate him before they were married it should be possible now. She began to speak civilly to him once more, joined him at dinner, went into the library to search among the books when he was there. She took an extraordinary care of her appearance, in the hope of buying what she wanted by pandering to his salaciousness.

On the afternoon the precious Correggio arrived, she went down to watch it being unpacked. When at last it was hung, the workmen gone, and they stood before the fireplace looking up at it, Amber sneaked him a glance and found that he was smiling. As always, when he had just acquired another coveted and admired object, he seemed in a pleasanter, more tractable mood.

“I wonder, your Lordship,” she began tentatively, her eyes stealing toward him again, and then back to the picture, “I wonder if I might go abroad today—just for a drive. I haven’t been out of the house in three weeks and I swear it’s making me pale and sallow. Don’t you think so?” She looked at him anxiously.

He turned and faced her directly, a faint amused smile on his mouth. “I thought your pleasant humour of the past few days meant a request would soon be forthcoming. Very well, you may go.”

“Oh! thank you, sir! Can I go now?”

“Whenever you like. My coachman will drive you—and, by the way, he’s served me for thirty years and is not to be bribed.”

Her smile suddenly froze, but she concealed her anger swiftly for fear of having the privilege revoked. Then swooping up her skirts she ran out of the room, down the hall, and up the stairs two at a time. She burst into their apartments with a cry of triumph that made Nan start and almost drop her needlework.

“Nan! Get your cloak! We’re going abroad!”

“Going abroad! Oh, Lord, are we? Where?” Nan had been sharing her mistress’s confinement—save for a few brief excursions to buy ribbons or gloves or a fan—and was as tired of it as Amber.

“I don’t know! Somewhere—anywhere—Hurry!”

The two women left the house in a swirl of velvet skirts and fur muffs, getting into the coach with as much laughter and excitement as if they had just arrived from Yorkshire to see the London sights. The air was so sharp and fresh it stung the nostrils. The day was grey and windy, and petals blown from peach trees drifted through the air, falling like flakes of snow onto the roof-tops and into the mud.

There was still plague in the town, though there were usually not more than half-a-dozen deaths a week, and it had retired once more to the congested dismal districts of the poor. By now it was almost impossible to find a shut-up house. The streets were as crowded as ever, the vendors and ’prentices as noisy, and the only sure sign that plague had recently passed that way were the many plaintive notices stuck up in windows: “Here is a doctor to be let.” For the doctors, by their wholesale desertion, had forfeited even what reluctant and suspicious trust they had once been able to command. A fifth of the town’s population was dead, yet nothing seemed to have changed—it was the same gay bawdy stinking brilliant dirty city of London.

Amber, delighted to be out again, looked at and exclaimed upon everything:

The little boy solemnly plying his trade of snipping silver buttons from the backs of gentlemen’s coats as they strolled unsuspectingly down the street. The brawl between some porters and apprentices who, setting up the traditional cry of “ ’Prentices!” Prentices!” brought their fellows flying to the rescue with clubs and sticks. A man performing on a tight-rope for a gape-mouthed crowd at the entrance to Popinjay Alley. The women vendors sitting on street corners amid their great baskets of sweet-potatoes, spring mushrooms, small sour oranges, onions and dried pease and new green dandelion tops.

She had directed the coachman to drive to Charing Cross by way of Fleet Street and the Strand, for there were a number of fashionable ordinaries in that neighbourhood. And after all, if she should chance in passing to see someone she knew and stopped to speak a word with him out of mere civility—why, no one could reasonably object to anything so innocent as that. Amber kept her eyes wide open and advised Nan to do likewise, and just as they were approaching Temple Bar she caught sight of three familiar figures gathered in the doorway of The Devil Tavern. They were Buckhurst, Sedley and Rochester, all three evidently half-drunk for they were talking and gesticulating noisily, attracting the attention of everyone who passed by.

Instantly Amber leaned forward to rap on the wall, signalling the driver to stop, and letting down the window she stuck out her head. “Gentlemen!” she cried. “You must stop that noise or I’ll call a constable and have you all clapped up!” and she burst into a peal of laughter.

They turned to stare at her in astonishment, momentarily surprised into silence, and then with a whoop they advanced upon the coach. “Her Ladyship, by God!” “Where’ve you been these three weeks past!” “Why’n hell haven’t we seen you at Court?” They hung on one another’s shoulders and leaned their elbows on the window-sill, all of them breathing brandy and smelling very high of orange-flower water.

“Why, to tell you truth, gentlemen,” said Amber with a sly smile and a wink at Rochester, “I’ve had a most furious attack of the vapours.”

They roared with laughter. “So that formal old fop, your husband, locked you in!”

“I say an old man has no business marrying a young woman unless he can entertain her in the manner to which she’s accustomed herself. Can your husband do that, madame?” asked Rochester.

Amber changed the subject, afraid that some of the footmen or the loyal old driver might have been told to listen to whatever she said and report it. “What were you all arguing about? It looked like a conventicle-meeting when I drove up.”

“We were considering whether to stay here till we’re drunk and then go to a bawdy-house—or to go to a bawdy-house first and get drunk afterward,” Sedley told her. “What’s your opinion, madame?”

“I’d say that depends on how you expect to entertain yourselves once you get there.”

“Oh, in the usual way, madame,” Rochester assured her. “In the usual way. We’re none of us yet come to those tiresome expedients of old-age and debauchery.” Rochester was nineteen and Buckhurst, the eldest, was twenty-eight.

“Egad, Wilmot,” objected Buckhurst, who was now drunk enough to talk without stammering. “Where’s your breeding? Don’t you know a woman hates nothing so much as to hear other women mentioned in her presence?”

Rochester shrugged his thin shoulders. “A whore’s not a woman. She’s a convenience.”

“Come in and drink a glass with us,” invited Sedley. We’ve got a brace of fiddlers in there and we can send to Lady Bennet for some wenches. A tavern will serve my turn as well as a brothel any day.”

Amber hesitated, longing to go and wondering if it might be possible to bribe the coachman after all. But Nan was nudging her with her elbow and grimacing and she decided that it was not worth the risk of being locked up for another three weeks, or possibly longer. And worst of all, she knew, Radclyffe might be angry enough even to send her into the country—the favourite punishment for erring wives, and the most dreaded. By now her coach had begun to snarl the traffic. There were other coaches waiting behind, and numerous porters and carmen, vendors, beggars, apprentices and sedan-chair-men—all of them beginning to growl and swear at her driver, urging him to move on.

“There’s some of us got work to do,” bawled a chair-man, “even if you fine fellows ain’t!”

“I can’t go in,” said Amber. “I promised his Lordship I wouldn’t get out of the coach.”

“Make way there!” bellowed another man trundling a loaded wheelbarrow.

“Make room there!” snarled a porter.

Rochester, not at all disturbed, turned coolly and made them a contemptuous sign with his right hand. There was a low, sullen roar of protest at that and several shouted curses. Buckhurst flung open the coach-door.

“Well, then! You can’t get out—but what’s there to keep us from getting in?”

He climbed in—followed by Rochester and Sedley—and settled himself between the two women, sliding an arm about each. Sedley stuck his head out the window. “Drive on! St. James’s Park!” As they rolled off, Rochester gave an impertinent wave of his hand to the crowd. There was a breeze blowing up and it now began to rain, suddenly and very hard.

Amber came home in a gale of good humour and high spirits. Tossing off her rain-spattered cloak and muff in the entrance hall she ran into the library and, though she had been gone almost four hours, she found Radclyffe sitting just where she had left him, still writing. He looked up.

“Well, madame. Did you have a pleasant drive?”

“Oh, wonderful, your Lordship! It’s a fine day out!” She walked toward him, begining to pull off her gloves. “We drove through St. James’s Park—and who d’ye think I saw?”

“Truthfully, I don’t know.”

“His Majesty! He was walking in the rain with his gentlemen and they all looked like wet spaniels with their periwigs soaking and draggled!” She laughed delightedly. “But of course he was wearing his hat and looked as spruce as you please. He stopped the coach—and what d’you think he said?”

Radclyffe smiled slightly, as at a naive child recounting some silly simple adventure to which it attached undue importance. “I have no idea.”

“He asked after you and wanted to know why he hadn’t seen you at Court. He’s coming to visit you soon to see your paintings, he says—but Henry Bennet will make the arrangements first. And”—here she paused a little to give emphasis to the next piece of news—“he’s asking us to a small dance in her Majesty’s Drawing-Room tonight!”

She looked at him as she talked, but she was obviously not thinking about him; she was scarcely even conscious of him. More important matters occupied her mind: what gown she should wear, which jewels and fan, how she should arrange her hair. At least he could not refuse an invitation from the King—and if her plans succeeded she would soon be able to cast him off altogether, send him back to Lime Park to live with his books and statues and paintings, and so trouble her no more.

CHAPTER FORTY–TWO

THE TWO WOMEN—one auburn-haired and violet-eyed, the other tawny as a leopard, and both of them in stark black—stared at each other across the card-table.

All the Court was in mourning for a woman none of them had ever seen, the Queen of Portugal. But in spite of her mother’s recent death Catherine’s rooms were crowded with courtiers and ladies, the gaming-tables were piled with gold, and a young French boy wandered among them, softly strumming a guitar and singing love-songs of his native Normandy. An idle amused crowd had gathered about the table where the Countess of Castlemaine and the Countess of Radclyffe sat, eyeing each other like a pair of hostile cats.

The King had just strolled up behind Amber, declining with a gesture of his hand the chair which Buckingham offered him beside her, and on her other side Sir Charles Sedley lounged with both hands on his hips. Barbara was surrounded by her satellites, Henry Jermyn and Bab May and Henry Brouncker—who remained faithful to her even when she seemed to be going down the wind, for they were dependent upon her. Across the room, pretending to carry on a conversation with another elderly gentleman about gardening, stood the Earl of Radclyffe. Everyone, including his wife, seemed to have forgotten that he was there.

Amber, however, knew very well that he had been trying for the past two hours to attract her attention so that he might summon her home, and she had painstakingly ignored and avoided him. A week had passed since the King had invited them to Court again, and during that time Amber had grown increasingly confident of her own future, and steadily more contemptuous of the Earl. Charles’s frank admiration, Barbara’s jealousy, the obsequiousness of the courtiers—prophetic as a weather-vane—had her intoxicated.

“Your luck’s good tonight, madame!” snapped Barbara, pushing a pile of guineas across the table. “Almost too good!”

Amber gave her a smug, superior smile, with lips curled faintly and eyes slanting at the corners. She knew that Charles was looking down at her, that almost everyone at the table was watching her. All this attention was a heady wine, making her feel vastly important, a match for anyone.

“Whatever do you mean by that, madame?”

“You know damned well what I mean!” muttered Barbara, half under her breath.

She was hot and excited, trying desperately to control her temper for fear of being made to look a fool. It was bad enough that Charles in his forthright, casual way had let everyone know he intended laying with this upstart wench from the theatres. But to make matters even worse that miserable wretch, Buckingham, had taken it into his maggoty head to sponsor her himself—and if she dared so much as murmur a protest he reminded her that it was only by his good nature she remained in England at all.

Oh, damn those letters! Damn Buckingham! Damn everything! I’d like to claw that bitch’s hair off her scalp! I’ll learn her she can’t use me at this rate!

“Here!” she cried. “I’ll raffle you for the whole of it!”

Amber gave a delicate lift of her eyebrows. The more furiously excited Barbara grew, the cooler she seemed. Now she looked up and exchanged smiles with Charles, a smile that took him into her camp, and he grinned lazily—a willing prisoner.

She gave a careless shrug. “Why not? Your throw first, madame.”

Barbara ground her teeth and gave Charles a glare that might once have warned him. Now he was frankly amused. She swept three ivory dice off the table and flung them into a dice-box, while all around them conversation stopped and the lords and ladies leaned forward to watch. Barbara gave the box a defiant vigorous shake and with a dramatic flourish she tossed the dice out onto the table where they tumbled along the polished surface and slid at last to a stop. Two sixes and a four.

Someone gave a low whistle and a murmur ran through the bystanders as Barbara looked up with a triumphant smile, her eyes glittering. “There, madame! Try if you can better that!”

And since the object of the game was to throw three alike—else the highest pair took the stakes—even Amber was forced to recognize that her chances could not be very good.

Frantically she stabbed about for a way to save herself. I’ve got to do something—I can’t let her beat me in front of all these people! I’ve got to do something—something—something—

And then she felt the pressure of Buckingham’s knee and a light movement in her lap. Suddenly she found herself cold and clear-headed again, no longer desperate, and with a quick automatic gesture she picked the dice-box up from the table in one hand and the dice in the other. So quickly that it scarce seemed to happen she dropped the box into her lap and the one she recovered was the one just put there by Buckingham. Without looking she knew what it was: a false box painted inside to look like an honest one—and she tossed the dice in. The hours of practice she had had in Whitefriars and since now stood her in good stead—for the dice came forth like loyal soldiers: a five, a five, and another five. There was a gasp all around the room while Amber pretended astonishment at her own good fortune. The beet-faced Brouncker leaned down to whisper in Barbara’s ear.

And suddenly she sprang to her feet. “Very clever, madame!” she cried. “But I’m not one to be so easily put upon! There’s been some scurvy trick here—I’ll pass my word for that!” she added, addressing herself to the audience in general, and his Majesty in particular.

Amber was beginning to grow nervous, though already the Duke had reclaimed his box and the one she held in her hand was the same one Barbara had used. But she was prepared to run a bluff.

“Can’t anyone be allowed to get the better of your Ladyship but by some trick?” That drew a general laugh and Amber felt somewhat more comfortable; she carelessly tossed the box onto the table.

Still it was a serious matter for one person to accuse another of cheating, though all of them did—for just as some of the ladies liked to pretend they were virtuous or unpainted, so they pretended to play on the square. And to be caught now and labelled a cheat before all the Court, suddenly seemed to Amber so horrible a fate she would rather have been dead. It would be unbearable—to have everyone stand there and witness her defeat at the hands of Barbara Palmer!

And Barbara, convinced she had the hare cornered, came baying ruthlessly on the scent. “Only a false box would have turned ’em up like that! There wouldn’t be a chance in a thousand it could happen honestly!”

Amber by now was sick and shaking inside, and it took her a few seconds to find her answer. But when she did she tried to sound brazenly assured, so casually scornful that they could have no doubt of her honesty. “Come to think of it, your Ladyship’s throw was almost too good to be true—”

“I’ll have you know, madame, I’m not a cheat!” cried Barbara, who often lost such sums it seemed she must be either honest or clumsy. “There’s the box I used! Examine it, someone—” She snatched it up and suddenly leaned across the table, extending it to the King. “Now, your Majesty! You saw everything that happened! How does it look to you? You tell us which one cheated in this game!”

Charles took the box and looked it over very carefully, both inside and out, wearing his most serious and thoughtful expression. “As far as I can see,” he said at last, “there’s nothing wrong with this box.”

Amber sat there motionless and stiff, her heart hammering so violently she expected to faint. This was the end—the end of everything—it would be no use to go on living after this—

“Aha!” cried Barbara’s voice, in a triumphant brassy tone that Amber felt scrape mercilessly along her nerves. “Just as I thought! I knew—”

“But,” interrupted Charles in a lazy drawl, “since both of you used the same box I can see no reason for all this bustle and stir.”

Amber’s relief was so great now that it was all she could do to keep herself from slumping over and falling face down onto the table-top. But Castlemaine gave a high little screech of indignation.

“What? But we didn’t! She changed it! She—”

“I beg your pardon, madame, but—as you said—I saw everything that happened, and it’s my opinion her Ladyship played as much upon the square as you did.”

“But—”

“The hour’s growing late,” continued Charles imperturbably, and his snapping black eyes glanced round the table. “Don’t you all agree we might better be in bed?”

There was a general laugh at that and the crowd, convinced the show was over, began to break up. “A pretty deal of an odd sort!” muttered Castlemaine sourly. And then she leaned forward and said tensely to Amber, “I wouldn’t play with you again for crooked pins!” and she swung about and started off, with Brouncker and Bab May and little Jermyn hurrying in her wake like tenders.

Amber, still weak and helpless, finally managed to look up at the king with a grateful smile and a soundless whistle. He reached down to put his hand beneath her elbow and slowly she got to her feet.

“Thank you, Sire,” she said softly, for of course he knew that she had cheated. “I’d have been disgraced forever.”

Charles laughed. “Disgraced—here at Whitehall? Impossible, my dear. Did you ever hear of anyone being disgraced in hell?”

Her energy and confidence were coming back again. She looked at Buckingham, still there beside them, with an impudent grin. “Thanks, your Grace,” she said, though she knew that he had given her the false box not to help her but to humiliate his cousin.

Buckingham made a comical face. “I protest, madame. I assure you I had no hand in your luck—not I. Why, all the world knows I’m an honest fellow.”

As the three of them laughed at that Amber was conscious of the lords and ladies moving everywhere about them, glancing in her direction—and she knew what they were thinking. The King had taken her part tonight, defied and embarrassed Castlemaine before them all; it could have only one meaning. The Countess of Radclyffe would soon be the topping mistress at Court. Amber thought so herself.

As they stood there looking at each other, the smiles slowly fading from their faces, Buckingham said good-night and left; they did not notice. Amber knew that she was in love with Charles—as much as she would ever be with any man but Bruce Carlton. His dark lazy eyes stirred the embers of desire, at which Radclyffe had rudely raked but never once brought into flame, and she longed with all her being to lie in his arms again. She had completely forgotten that Radclyffe must be there nearby, watching them, and her recklessness was now so great she would not have cared anyway.

“When can you escape your duenna?” murmured Charles.

“Anytime. Whenever you say.”

“Tomorrow morning at ten?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll post a sentry to admit you at the Holbein Gate—on this side.” He glanced up, over her head, and then smiled faintly. “Here comes your husband—and he looks horn-mad already.”

Amber had a sharp unpleasant sense of shock.

Your husband!.

She felt resentful that he should have the effrontery still to be alive, when she had no longer any use for him and had half imagined he would somehow disappear from her world like an exorcised demon. But he was there now—beside her, and Charles was greeting him with a pleasant smile. Then the King was gone and Radclyffe extended his arm to her. Hesitating for only a moment, she put her fingers on his arm as they started slowly from the room.

For a long while Amber struggled to return to consciousness. She felt as if there was a heavy pressing weight on her head and her eyeballs throbbed. A twisting cramp in her neck sent pains shooting out along her shoulders and down her back as she began to move, moaning softly. She seemed to have been aware for some interminable time of an uneven rolling and jogging motion that shook her from side to side and made her sick at her stomach. With a great effort she forced herself to lift her eyelids and look about, striving to discover where she was and what had happened to her.

She saw first a man’s small veined hands, clasping a walkingstick which he held between his legs, and then as her eyes raised slowly she found herself looking into Radclyffe’s impassive expressionless face. She now realized that part of her discomfort was because her legs were bound together, about the thighs and below the knees, and her arms tied close to her sides. They were in his coach, and the window pane showed only a grey sky and green meadows with lonely bare-branched trees. She wanted to speak, to ask him where they were—but an intolerable weight on her head pressed down, heavier and heavier, until at last she slid off again into unconsciousness.

She was aware of nothing more until she suddenly opened her eyes to find that the coach had stopped and that someone was lifting her out; she felt the cool fresh evening air in her face and took a deep breath.

“Try not to wake her,” she heard Radclyffe say. “When she’s in these spells she must not be disturbed or it may cause another.” It made her furious that he should dare tell anyone such an insulting lie about her, but she had no energy to protest.

The footman carried her, covered with her cloak and a long fur-lined robe, toward the inn and someone pushed open the door. The room was warm and filled with the savoury smells of fresh-baked bread and a roasting-joint which turned in the fireplace. Dogs circled about, wagging their tails and sniffing inquisitively, several children appeared, ostlers ran to unhitch the horses and a cheerful landlady came to greet them. At the sight of Amber lying with her head limp against the footman’s chest and her eyes closed, she gave a sympathetic little cry and hurried forward.

“Oh! Is the lady sick?”

Radclyffe brushed her aside. “My wife is indisposed,” he said coldly. “But it’s no serious matter. I’ll attend to her myself. Show us to a room and send up supper.”

Rebuffed, the landlady climbed the stairs ahead of them and unlocked a clean lavender-scented chamber, but whenever she thought that the Earl was not looking she glanced surreptitiously at Amber. She lighted the candles and soon had a brisk blaze in the fireplace. Then, just before going, she hesitated again, looking with real distress at Amber where she lay on the bed, just as the footman had put her down.

“My wife does not need your attention!” snapped Radclyffe, so sharply that the woman gave an embarrassed start and hurried from the room. He walked to the closed door, listened for a moment and then, apparently satisfied that she had gone on, returned to the bedside.

Though now fully conscious, Amber felt dull and heavy and irritable, her head ached and her muscles were stiff and sore. She drew a deep sigh. For several moments both of them remained silent and waiting, but at last she said: “Well, why don’t you untie me? I can’t get away from you now!” She looked up at him sullenly. “How damned clever you must think you are!” She had already begun to realize that he must have tied her merely to satisfy some brutal whim of his own, for deeply drugged as she had been it would not have been necessary in order to move her about.

He shrugged and smiled a little, frankly pleased with himself. “I believe I’ve studied chemistry to some purpose. It was in the wine, of course. You couldn’t smell it or taste it, could you?”

“D’ye think I’d have drunk it if I could! For the love of God untie these ropes—my legs and arms are dead.” She was beginning to twist about, trying to find a more comfortable position and to make the blood run again, for she felt so cold and numb that it seemed to have stopped altogether.

He ignored her request and took a chair beside her, with the air of a man who sits down to console a sick person for whose condition he has no real pity. “What a shame you couldn’t meet him. I hope he didn’t wait too long.”

Amber looked at him swiftly—and then, very slowly, she smiled, a malicious cruel little smile. “There’ll be another day. You can’t keep me tied up forever.”

“I don’t intend to. You may go back to London and Whitehall and play the bitch whenever you like—but when you do, madame, I shall bring suit to get all your money in my possession. I think I would win it, too, with no great difficulty. The King may be willing to lie with you—but you’ve a long way to go before he’ll discommode himself for you. A whore and a mistress are not the same thing—even though you may not be able to see the difference between them.”

“I see it well enough! All women aren’t such fools as you like to think! I see some things you may think I don’t, too.”

“Oh, do you?” His tone had the subtle sneering contempt with which he had almost habitually addressed her since the day of their marriage.

“You may pretend it’s only my money you want—but I know better. You’re stark staring mad at the thought of having another man do what you can’t do. That’s why you brought me off. And that’s why you tell me I’ll lose my money if I go back. You fumbling old dotard—you’re—”

“Madame!”

“I’m not afraid of you! You’re jealous of every man who’s potent and you hate me because you can’t—”

His right hand lashed out suddenly and struck her across the face, so hard that her head snapped to one side and the blood came rushing to the surface. His eyes were cold.

“As a gentleman I disapprove of slapping a woman. I have never, in my life, done so before. But I am your husband, madame, and I will be spoken to with respect.”

Like a vicious spitting cat, Amber recoiled. Her breathing had almost stopped and her mottled golden eyes were glowing. As she spoke her lips lifted away from her teeth like a malignant animal’s. “Oh, how I detest you—” she said softly. “Someday I’ll make you pay for the things you’ve done to me—someday I swear I’ll kill you ...”

He looked at her with contempt and loathing. “A threatening woman is like a barking dog—I have as much respect for one as for the other.” There was a knock at the door and though he hesitated for a moment at last he turned his head.

“Come in!”

It was the landlady, cheerful and pink-cheeked and smiling, carrying in her arms a table-cloth and napkins and the pewterware for the table. Behind her came a thirteen-year-old girl balancing a tray loaded with appetizing food; she was followed by her little brother with two dusty green bottles and a couple of shining glasses. The landlady looked at Amber, who still lay half on one side, propped on her elbow, covered with the robe.

“Well!” she said briskly. “Madame is better now? I’m glad! It’s a good supper if I do say so, and I want you to enjoy it!” She gave her a friendly woman-to-woman smile, obviously trying to convey that she understood what a young wife must go through with her first pregnancy. Amber, her face still burning from the slap, forced herself to smile in return.

CHAPTER FORTY–THREE

LIME PARK was over a hundred years old—it had been built before the break-up of the Catholic Church, when the proud Mortimers were at the height of their power, and its stern elegant beauty expressed that power and pride. Pale grey stone and cherry-red brick had been combined with great masses of square-paned windows in a building of perfect symmetry. It was four stories high with three dormers projecting from the red slate roof, with its many chimneys so exactly placed that each balanced another, and with square and round bays aligned in three sections across the front. A brick-paved terrace, more than two hundred feet long, overlooked the formal Italian gardens that dropped away in great steps below. In marked contrast to the decay of the town-house, Lime Park had been carefully and immaculately kept; each shrub, each fountain, each stone vase was perfect.

The train of coaches circled the front of the house at a distance of several hundred yards and drove around to the back courtyard, where a fountain played many jets of sparkling water. Some distance to the west could be seen a great round brick Norman dove-cote and a pond; on the north were the stables and coach-houses, all handsome buildings of cherry brick and silver oak. A double staircase led to the second-story entrance, and the first coach stopped just at the foot of it.

His Lordship got out, then gallantly extended his hand to help his wife. Amber, now unbound and completely recovered from the effects of the drug, stepped down. Her face was sulky and she ignored Radclyffe as though he did not exist, but her eyes went up over the building with admiration and interest. Just at that moment a young woman ran out the door overhead and came sailing down the steps toward them. She shot one swift timid glance at Amber and then made Radclyffe a deep humble curtsy.

“Oh, your Lordship!” she cried, bobbing up again. “We weren’t expecting you and Philip has ridden over to hunt with Sir Robert! I don’t know when he’ll be back!”

Amber knew that she must be Jennifer, his Lordship’s sixteen-year-old daughter-in-law, though Radclyffe had made no mention of her beyond her name. She was slender and plain-faced with pale blonde hair which was already beginning to darken in streaks; and she was obviously very much awed by her two worldly visitors.

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.

Prompted by boredom and mischief and a desire to revenge herself on Radclyffe, she set out to make Philip fall in love with her. But she knew the Earl well enough to realize that she would have to be cautious, and take strictly in private any satisfaction she might find in cuckolding him with his own son. For if he should ever suspect or guess—but she refused to think of that, for nothing violent or cruel seemed beyond him. But Philip was the only young and personable and virile male at Lime Park, and she craved excitement as well as the flattery of a man’s adoration.

One rainy morning she met him in the gallery where they stopped to talk for a moment about the weather. He would have gone on almost immediately but she suggested a game of shovel-board and while he was trying to find an excuse she hurried him off to where the table was set. After that they bowled or played cards occasionally, and a couple of times, apparently by accident, they met at the stables and rode together. Jenny was pregnant and could not ride.

But Philip continued to treat Amber like a step-mother and even seemed to be somewhat in awe of her, which was an emotion she was not accustomed to rousing in men, either young or old. She decided that he must have forgotten everything he had learned on his Tour.

She saw Radclyffe no oftener now than when they had been in town. He supervised every detail regarding the house which was not attended to by the steward (for he refused to allow a woman to manage his household); he planned new arrangements for the gardens, directed the workmen, and spent hours in his laboratory or in the library. He never rode horseback or played a game or a musical instrument, and though he was sometimes out-of-doors it was never to idle but always for a definite purpose and when it was accomplished he returned to the house. He wrote interminably. When Amber asked him what it was, he told her. He was writing the complete history of every article of value he had acquired so that the family would always know what its possessions were. He also wrote poetry, but never offered to read it to her and she never asked to see it. She thought it a very dull occupation and could not imagine a man wasting his time shut up in a dark close room when outside the white violets were poignantly fragrant, beech-trees were hung with purple clusters of bloom, and clean cool rain-swept air washed over the hills.

When she tried to quarrel with him about returning to London he told her flatly that she had conducted herself like a fool there and was not fit to live where she would be subjected to temptation. He repeated that if she wanted to go back alone he was willing to have her do so, but he reminded her that if she did she would forfeit her money to him—all but ten thousand pounds. She shouted at him in a fury that she would never turn that money over to him, not if she had to stay in the country for the rest of her life.

Consequently, convinced that she might be there a long while, she sent for Nan and Susanna and Big John Waterman. Nan, who had earlier had one miscarriage and one abortion, was now pregnant again—this time by Big John—and though it was the fifth month and Amber told her not to come if she thought it might hurt her, she arrived within a fortnight.

As always, they seemed to have a great deal to talk about, for both women were interested in the same things and they gossiped and chattered and exchanged intimate personal details without hesitation or self-consciousness. Jenny’s innocence and inexperience had begun to bore Amber who was relieved to have someone she could talk to frankly, someone who knew her for exactly what she was and who did not care. When she told Nan that she intended seducing her husband’s son Nan laughed and said there was no limit to a woman’s desperation once she was carried off into the country. For certainly Philip could not bear comparison with Charles II or Lord Carlton.

But it was the middle of May before he began to seek her out deliberately.

She was waiting one morning for her pretty little golden mare to be saddled when she heard his voice behind her. “Why, good morrow, your Ladyship! Are you riding so early?” He tried to sound surprised, but she knew the moment she looked at him that he had come purposely to meet her.

“Good-morning, Philip! Yes, I think I’ll gather some May dew. They say it’s the most sovereign thing in the world for a woman’s complexion.”

Philip blushed, grinning at her, whacking his hat nervously against his knee. “Your Ladyship can’t have need of anything like that.”

“What a courtier you are, Philip.”

She looked up at him out of the shadow of her broad hat-brim, smiling a little. He doesn’t want to, she thought, but he’s falling in love with me all the same.

The mare, now accoutred with a handsome green-velvet saddle embroidered in gold lace, was led out to where they stood waiting beneath the great trailing pepper-trees. For a moment Amber talked to her, patting her neck and giving her a lump of sugar. Philip then stepped forward to help her mount. She sprang up easily and gracefully.

“We can ride together,” she suggested now. “Unless you were going somewhere to pay a visit.”

He pretended to be surprised at the invitation. “Oh, no. No, I wasn’t. I was just going to ride by myself. But thank you, your Ladyship. That’s very kind. Thank you very much.”

They set out over the rolling clover-thick meadowland, and were presently beyond sight of the house. The grass was very wet and a slow-moving herd of cattle grazed in the distance. For some time neither of them found anything to say, but at last Philip called, happily: “What a glorious morning it is! Why do people live in cities when there’s the country?”

“Why do they live in the country when there are cities?”

He looked surprised and then grinned broadly, showing his even white teeth. “But you don’t mean that, my lady—or you wouldn’t be at Lime Park!”

“Coming to Lime Park wasn’t my idea! It was his Lordship’s!”

She spoke carelessly, and yet something of the contempt and hatred she had for Radclyffe must have been in her tone or in some fleeting facial expression, for Philip replied quickly, as if to a challenge. “My father loves Lime Park—he always has. We never have lived in London. His Majesty, Charles I, visited here once and said that he thought there was no finer country home in England.”

“Oh, it’s a mighty fine house, I doubt not,” agreed Amber, aware that she had offended his family loyalty—though she did not very much care—and they rode some distance farther without speaking. At last she called to him: “Let’s stop here awhile.” Without waiting for his answer she began to rein in her horse; but he rode several hundred yards beyond, wheeled, and came back slowly.

“Perhaps we’d better not, since there’s no one about.”

“What of that?” demanded Amber in half-impatient amusement.

“Well—you see, madame—his Lordship thinks it best not to dismount when we ride. If we were seen someone might misunderstand. Country people love to gossip.”

“People everywhere love to gossip. Well, you do as you like. I’m going to get off.”

And immediately she jumped down, pulled off her hat to which she had pinned two or three fresh red roses, and shook out her hair. He watched her and then, setting his jaw stubbornly, he dismounted too. At his suggestion they started over to see a pretty little stream that ran nearby. The brook was noisy and full, dark-green bulrushes grew along the banks and there were weeping willows that dipped their branches into the water. Through the trees sunlight filtered down onto Amber’s head, like the light in a cathedral. She could feel Philip watching her, surreptitiously, out of the corners of his eyes. She looked around suddenly and caught him.

Slowly she smiled and her eyes slanted, staring at him with bold impudence. “What was your father’s last countess like?” she asked him finally. She knew that his own mother, the first Lady Radclyffe, had died at his birth. “Was she pretty?”

“Yes, a little, I think. At least her portrait is pretty, but she died when I was nine—I don’t remember her very well.” He seemed uneasy at being alone with her; his face had sobered and his eyes could no longer conceal what he really felt.

“Did she have any children?”

“Two. They died very young—of the small-pox. I had it too—” He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “But I lived.”

“I’m glad you did, Philip,” she said very softly. She continued to smile at him, half in mockery, but her eyes were weighted with seduction. Nothing had amused her so much in over four weeks.

Philip, however, was obviously wretched. His emotions pulled him two ways, desire in one, filial loyalty in another. He began to talk again, quickly, on a more impersonal subject. “What is the Court like now? They say it’s most magnificent—and that even foreigners are surprised at the state in which his Majesty lives.”

“Yes, it is. It’s beautiful. I don’t think there can be more handsome men or beautiful women any place else on earth. When were you there last?”

“Two years ago. I spent several months in London when I returned from my travels. Many of the paintings and hangings had been brought back to Court then, but I understand it’s even finer now. The King is much interested in beautiful things.” His tongue talked but his mind did not follow it; his eyes were hot and intense, and as he swallowed she saw the bobbing movement of his Adam’s apple in his thick corded neck. “I think we’d better start back now,” he said suddenly. “It’s—it’s growing late!”

Amber shrugged her shoulders, picked up her skirts and began to make her way back through the tall grass. She did not see him at all the next day, for to tease him she pleaded an attack of the vapours and ate dinner and supper in her own chambers. He sent up a bouquet of roses with a formal little note wishing for her rapid recovery.

She expected to find him at the stables when she went out the following morning, waiting there like a schoolboy hanging about the corner where he hoped his sweetheart might pass-but he was nowhere in sight and she had a brief angry sense of pique, for she had thought him badly smitten. And she had been looking forward herself with some excited anticipation to their next encounter. Nevertheless she set off alone in the same direction they had taken two days before. In only a few moments she had completely forgotten Philip Mortimer and also his father—who was considerably more difficult to force out of her mind—and was wholly engrossed in thoughts of Bruce Carlton.

He had been gone for almost six months now and once again she was losing hold of him—it was like a pleasant dream recalled vividly in the morning but fading to nothing by noon. She could remember many things: the strange grey-green colour of his eyes; the twist of his mouth that always told better than words what he thought of something she had done; his quietness that carried in it the perpetual promise and threat of suppressed violence. She could remember the last time he had made love to her, and whenever she thought of it her head spun dizzily. She had a poignant painful longing for his kisses and the knowing caresses of his hands—but still he seemed to her like someone half imagined and her memories were small comfort for the present. Even Susanna could not, as Amber had expected and hoped, make Bruce seem any nearer or more real to her.

Amber was so absorbed that when her horse shied suddenly she grabbed at the reins and all but sailed over its head. Recovering herself and looking about for whatever had caused the animal’s nervousness she saw Philip—red—faced and guilty-eyed —astride his own horse near the three sentinel poplars that stood alone in the midst of the meadow. Immediately he began to apologize for having startled her.

“Oh, your Ladyship! Forgive me! I—I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’d just stopped here a moment to enjoy the morning when I saw you coming—so I waited.” The explanation was made so earnestly that she knew it was a lie and that he had not wanted his father to see them ride off together.

Amber regained her balance and laughed good-naturedly. “Oh, Philip! It’s you! I was just thinking about you!” His eyes shone at that, but she stopped any foolish comment he was about to make. “Come on! I’ll race you to the stream!”

He reached it just ahead of her. When she swung down from the saddle he immediately followed, making no argument this time. “How beautiful it is in England in May!” she exclaimed. “Can you imagine why anyone would want to go to America?”

“Why, no,” he agreed, bewildered. “I can’t.”

“I think I’ll sit down. Will you spread your cloak for me, Philip, so I won’t spoil my gown?” She glanced around to find the most pleasant spot. “Over there against that tree, please.”

With a display of great gallantry he swirled off his long riding-cloak and laid it on the damp grass. She dropped down easily with her back against the dainty birch, her legs stretched out straight and crossed at the ankles. She flung her hat aside.

“Well, Philip? How long are you going to stand there? Sit down—” She indicated a place beside her.

He hesitated. “Why—uh—” Then, with sudden resolve, he said briskly, “Thank you, your Ladyship,” and sat down facing her with his arms resting on his drawn-up knees.

But instead of looking at her he kept intent watch on a bee which was going hurriedly from flower to flower, caressing the surface of each, lingering occasionally to sip the last bit of honey. Amber began idly picking the little white daisies that grew profusely in the grass and tossing them one after another into her lap until she had a mound of them.

“You know,” said Philip finally, and now he looked directly at her, “it doesn’t seem as though you’re my step-mother. I can’t make myself believe it—no matter how I try. I wonder why?” He seemed genuinely puzzled and distressed; almost comically so, Amber thought.

“Perhaps,” she suggested lazily, “you don’t want to.”

She had begun to make the flowers into a wreath for her hair, piercing the tiny stems with one sharp fingernail, threading them dexterously together.

He thought that over in silence. Then: “How did you ever happen to marry Father?” he blurted suddenly.

Amber kept her eyes down, apparently intent on her work. She gave a little shrug. “He wanted my money. I wanted his title.” When she looked up she saw a worried frown on his face. “What’s the trouble, Philip? Aren’t all marriages a bargain—I have this, you have that, so we get married. That’s why you married Jenny, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes, of course. But Father’s a mighty fine man—you know that.” He seemed to be trying to convince himself more than her, and he looked at her tensely.

“Oh, mighty fine,” agreed Amber sarcastically.

“He’s mighty fond of you, too.”

She gave a burst of impolite laughter at that. “What the devil makes you think so?”

“He told me.”

“Did he also tell you to keep away from me?”

“No. But I should—I know I should. I should never have come today.” His last words came out swiftly and he turned his head away. Suddenly he started to get to his feet. Amber reached out and caught at his wrist, drawing him gently toward her.

“Why should you keep away from me, Philip?” she murmured.

He stared down at her, half kneeling, his breath coming hard. “Because I—Because I should! I’d better go back now before I—”

“Before you what?” The sun through the leaves made a spatter of light and dark on her face and throat. Her lips were moist and parted and her teeth shone white between them; her speckled amber eyes held his insistently. “Philip, what are you afraid of? You want to kiss me—why don’t you?”

CHAPTER FORTY–FOUR

PHILIP MORTIMER’S CONSCIENCE troubled him. At first he tried to avoid his step-mother. The day after she had seduced him he went to visit a neighbour and remained away for almost a week. When he returned he was so busy visiting tenants that he seldom appeared even for meals, and on those occasions when he could not avoid meeting her his manner was exaggeratedly stiff and formal. Amber was angry, for she thought that his ridiculous behaviour would give them both away. Furthermore, he was the one source of amusement she had found in the country, and she had no intention of losing him.

One day from the windows of her bedchamber she saw him walking alone across the terrace from the gardens. Radclyffe was closeted in his laboratory and had been for some time; so Amber picked up her skirts and rushed out of the room, down the stairs, and onto the brick terrace. There he was below. But as she started after him he glanced hastily around and then dodged into a tall maze of clipped hedges—it had been planned seventy years ago when such labyrinths were the fashion and now had grown so tall that it was almost possible to get lost there. She reached it, looked about but could not see him, and then ran in, turning swiftly into one lane after another, coming up against a blank wall and retracing her steps to start down another path.

“Philip!” she cried angrily. “Philip, where are you!”

But he made no answer. And then all at once she turned into a lane and found him there, caught, for it was closed at the end. He glanced uneasily about him, saw that there was no escape, and faced her with a look of guilty nervousness. Amber burst into laughter and threw over her head the black-lace shawl she had been carrying.

“Oh, Philip! You silly boy! What d’you mean, running away from me like that? Lord, you’d think I was a monster!”

“I wasn’t,” he protested, “I wasn’t running away. I didn’t know you were there.”

She made a face at him. “That wheedle won’t pass. You’ve been running away from me for two weeks now. Ever since—” But he looked at her with such protesting horror that she stopped, widening her eyes and raising her brows. “Well—” she breathed softly then. “What’s the matter? Didn’t you enjoy yourself? You seemed to—at the time.”

Philip was in agony. “Oh, please, your Ladyship! Don’t—I can’t stand it! I’m going out of my head. If you talk that way I’ll—I don’t know what I’ll do!”

Amber put her hands on her hips and one foot began to tap impatiently. “Good Lord, Philip! What’s the matter with you? You act as if you’ve committed some crime!”

His eyes raised again. “I have.”

“What, for heaven’s sake!”

“You know what.”

“I protest—I don’t. Adultery’s no crime—it’s an amusement.” She was thinking that he was a fine example of the folly of allowing a young man to live so long in the country, shut away from polite manners.

“Adultery is a crime. It’s a crime against two innocent people —your husband, and my wife. But I’ve committed a worse crime than that. I’ve made love to my father’s wife—I’ve committed incest.” The last word was a whisper and his eyes stared at her, full of self-loathing.

“Nonsense, Philip! We’re not related! That was a law made up by old men for the protection of other old men silly enough to marry young women! You’re making yourself miserable for nothing.”

“Oh, I’m not, I swear I’m not! I’ve made love to other women before—plenty of them. But I’ve never done anything like this! This is bad—and wrong. You don’t understand. I love my father a great deal—he’s a very fine man—I admire him. And now what have I done—”

He looked so thoroughly wretched that Amber had a fleeting sense of pity for him, but when she would have reached over to press his hand he stepped back as if she were something poisonous. She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, Philip—it’ll never happen again. Forget about it—just forget it ever happened.”

“I will! I’ve got to!”

But she knew that he was not forgetting at all, and that as the days went by he found it more and more impossible to forget. She did nothing to help him. Whenever they met she was invariably looking her most alluring and she flirted with him in a negative way which seemed just as effective as anything more flagrant could possibly have been. By the end of a fortnight he met her again when she had gone out to ride, and after that he was completely helpless. His feeling of guilt and of self-hatred persisted, but the desire for pleasure was stronger.

They found many places to meet.

Like all great old Catholic homes Lime Park was full of hiding-places which had once been used for the concealing of priests. There were window-seats which might be lifted to disclose a small room below the level of the floor. There were panels in the walls which slid back to show a narrow staircase leading up to a tiny room. Philip knew them all. For Amber at least their various rendezvous afforded a dangerous excitement from which she derived far more enjoyment than she did from Philip’s inept love-making.

She did not, however, find it so amusing that she was less eager to return to London. She asked Radclyffe over and over again when they were going back, but invariably he said that he had no plans for returning at all. He would as soon stay in the country, he said, until he died.

“But I’m bored out here, I tell you!” she shouted at him one day.

“I don’t doubt you are, madame,” he said. “In fact it’s always been a puzzle to me how women avoid boredom wherever they are. They have so few resources.”

“We have resources enough,” said Amber, giving him a slanted look, full of venom and contempt. She had started the conversation with good resolutions, but they could not last long under his cold supercilious stare, his srieering sarcasm. “But it’s dull out here. I couldn’t wish the devil himself a worse fate than to be boxed up in the country!”

“You should have considered that, then, when you were attempting to prostitute yourself to his Majesty.”

She gave a harsh vindictive little laugh. “Attempting to prostitute myself! My God, but you are droll! I laid with the King long ago—while I was still at the theatre! Now, my lord, what do you make of that!”

Radclyffe smiled, cynical amusement on his thin pressed lips. He was standing beside one of the great windows that overlooked the terrace, leaning against the gold-embroidered hangings, and his whole decadent figure was like that of a delicate porcelain. She longed to smash her fist against the fragile bones of his cheek and nose and skull, and feel them crumble beneath her knuckles.

“Your own lack of subtlety, madame,” he said quietly, “makes you suspect a similar flaw in everyone else.”

“So you knew it already, did you?”

“Your reputation is not spotless. It was, in fact, very much befouled.”

“And I suppose you think it’s in a better condition now!”

“At least it will not be in a worse one. I have no interest at all in you or in your reputation, madame. But I have a great deal of interest in the repute which my wife bears. I cannot undo the faults you committed before I married you—but I can at least prevent you from committing new ones now.”

For an instant fury brought her close to a disastrous error. It was on the end of her tongue to tell him about herself and Philip, to prove to him that he could not govern her life no matter how he tried. But just in time she controlled herself—and said instead, with an unpleasant sneer: “Oh, can you?”

Radclyffe’s eyes narrowed, and as he spoke to her he measured each word like precious poison. “Someday, madame, you’ll try me too far. My patience is long, but not endless.”

“And then, my lord, what will you do?”

“Go to your rooms!” he said suddenly. “Go to your rooms, madame—or I shall have you carried there by force!”

Amber felt that she would burst with rage and raised her clenched fist to strike him. But he stood so imperturbably, looked at her so coldly, that though she hesitated for several seconds she at last muttered a curse, turned, and ran out of the library.

Her hatred of Radclyffe was so intense that it ate into her brain. He obsessed her day and night until it became a torment which seemed unendurable—and she began to scheme how she might be rid of him. She wanted him dead.

On just one occasion, and that by accident, did Amber come close to making an important discovery about the man she had married. She had never tried to understand him or to learn what had made him the kind of person he was, for they not only disliked each other but found each other mutually uninteresting.

One night in August she was considering which gown she would wear the following day—for they were expecting a number of guests, most of them Jenny’s relatives, who were coming to be presented to the new Countess and to spend a few days. Amber was delighted at the opportunity it would give her to show off, and did not doubt that they would be vastly impressed, for they were all people who lived in the country and most of the women had not even been to London since the Restoration. The strict respectable old families would have nothing at all to do with the new Court.

She and Nan were going through the tall standing cabinets in which her clothes were kept, amusing themselves by recalling what had happened the night she had worn a certain gown.

“Oh! That’s what I had on the first night Lord Carlton came Dangerfield House!” She snatched the champagne-lace and gold-spangled gown out of the huge wardrobe and held it against herself, smoothing out the folds, wistfully dreaming. But she put it back again with sudden resolution. “And look, Nan! This is what I was presented at. Court in!”

At last they took down the white-satin pearl-embroidered gown she had worn the night of her wedding to Radclyffe. Both of them looked it over critically, feeling the material, seeing how it was made, and commenting on how strangely well it had fitted her—just a bit too large in the waist, perhaps, and ever so slightly too small across the bosom.

“I wonder who it belonged to,” mused Amber, though she had completely forgotten it in the eight months that had passed since the marriage.

“Maybe his Lordship’s first Countess. Why don’t you ask ’im sometime? It’s got me curious.”

“I think I will.”

At ten o’clock Radclyffe came upstairs from the library. That was the hour at which they usually went to bed and he was prompt in his habits, faithful to each smallest one—a characteristic of which she and Philip had taken due advantage. Amber was sitting in a chair reading Dryden’s new play, “Secret Love,” and as he went through the bedroom into his own closet neither of them spoke or seemed aware of the other. He had never once allowed her to see him naked—nor did she wish to—and when he returned he was wearing a handsome dressing-gown made of a fine East Indian silk patterned in many soft subdued colours. As he took a snuffer and started around the room to put the candles out Amber got up and tossed away her book, stretching her arms over her head and yawning.

“That old white-satin gown,” she said idly. “The one you wanted me to wear when we were married—where did you get it? Who wore it before I did?”

He paused and looked at her, smiling reflectively. “It’s strange you haven’t asked me that before. However, there seem to be few enough decencies between us—I may as well tell you. It was intended to be the wedding-gown of a young woman I once expected to marry—but did not.”

Amber raised her eyebrows, unmistakably pleased. “Oh? So you were jilted.”

“No, I was not jilted. She disappeared one night during the siege of her family’s castle in 1643. Her parents never heard from her again, and we were forced to conclude that she had been captured and killed by the Parliamentarians—” Amber saw in his eyes an expression which was new to her. It was profoundly sad and yet he was obviously deriving some measure of gratification, almost of happiness, from this recalling of the past. There was about him now a strange new quality of gentleness which she had never suspected he might possess. “She was a very beautiful and kind and generous woman—a lady. It seems incredible now—and yet the first time I saw you I was strongly reminded of her. Why, I can’t imagine. You don’t look like her—or only a very little—and certainly you have none of the qualities which I admired in her.” He gave a faint shrug, looking not at Amber but somewhere back into the past, a past where he had left his heart. And then his eyes turned to her again, the mask sliding over his face, the past resolving into the present. He went on snuffing the candles; the last one went out and the room was suddenly dark.

“Perhaps it wasn’t really so strange you should have made me think of her,” he continued, and as his voice did not move she knew that he was standing just a few feet away, beside the candelabrum. “I’ve been looking for her for twenty-three years —in the face of every woman I’ve seen, everywhere I’ve gone. I’ve hoped that perhaps she wasn’t dead—that someday, somewhere I’d find her again.” There was a long pause. Amber stood quietly, somewhat surprised by the things he had said, and then she heard his voice coming closer and the sound of his slippers moving across the floor toward her. “But now I’ve ceased looking—I know that she’s dead.”

Amber threw off her gown and got quickly into bed, and the swift sense of dread she had every night grabbed at her. “So you were in love—once!” she said, angry to know that though he despised her he had once been able to love another woman with tenderness and generosity.

She felt the feather-mattress give as he sat down. “Yes, I was in love once. But only once. I remember her with a young man’s idealism—and so I still love her. But now I’m old and I know too much about women to have anything but contempt for them.” He put his robe across the foot of the bed and lay down beside her.

For several minutes Amber waited apprehensively, her muscles stiff and her teeth tight-closed, unable to shut her eyes. She had never dared actually refuse him, but each night she was tortured with this suspense of waiting—she never knew for what. But he was stretched flat on his back far to his own side of the bed, and he made no move to touch her; at last she heard him begin to breathe evenly. Relieved, she relaxed slowly and drowsiness began to creep upon her. Nevertheless, the slightest move from him made her start, suddenly wide awake again. Even when he left her alone she could not sleep in peace.

Jenny’s relatives came and for several days they were interested observers of Amber’s gowns and jewels and manners. None of them approved of her, but all of them found her exciting, and while the women talked about her with raised eyebrows and pinched lips the men were inclined toward nudges and conspiratorial winks. Amber knew what they were thinking, all of them, but she did not care; if they found her shocking she considered them dull and old-fashioned. Still, when they were gone and the silence and monotony began to settle again, she was more impatient than ever.

By now she had worked Philip to such a pitch of infatuation and resentment that it was difficult to make him use discretion. “What are we going to do!” he asked her again and again. “I can’t stand this! Sometimes I think I’m losing my mind.”

Amber was sweetly reasonable, smoothing back the light-brown hair from his face—he never wore a periwig. “There isn’t anything we can do, Philip. He’s your father—”

“I don’t care if he is! I hate him now! Last night I met him in the gallery just as he was going in to you—My God, for a minute I thought I was going to grab him by the throat and—Oh, what am I saying!” He sighed heavily, his boyish face haggard and miserable. Amber had brought him some momentary pleasures, but a great deal of unhappiness, and he had not been really at peace since she had come to Lime Park.

“You mustn’t talk that way, Philip,” she said softly. “You mustn’t even think about such things—or sometime it might happen. I doubt not it’s his lawful right to use me however he will—”

“Oh, Lord! I never thought I’d see my life in such a mess—I don’t know how it ever happened!”

It was only a few days later that Amber came into the house alone from her morning ride—Philip had returned by another route so that they would not be seen together—and found Radclyffe at the writing-table in their bedroom. “Madame,” he said, speaking to her from over his shoulder, “I find it necessary to pay a brief visit to London. I’m leaving this afternoon immediately following dinner.”

A quick smile sprang to Amber’s face, and though she did not really believe that it was his intention to take her with him, she hoped to bluff her way into going. “Oh, wonderful, your Lordship! I’ll set Nan a-packing right now!”

She started out of the room but his next words brought her up short. “Don’t trouble yourself. I’m going alone.”

“Alone? But why should you? If you’re going I can go too!”

“I shall be gone but a few days. It’s a matter of important business and I don’t care to be troubled with your company.”

She drew a quick breath of indignation and then suddenly rushed back to face him across the table. “You’re the most unreasonable damned man on earth! I won’t stay here alone, d’ye hear me? I won’t!” She banged the handle of her riding-whip on the table-top, marring its surface.

He got up slowly, bowed to her—though she could see the muscles about his mouth twitch and squirm with the effort to control his rage—and walked out of the room. Amber banged the whip down again, furiously, and yelled after him: “I won’t stay! I won’t! I won’t! I won’t!” As the door closed behind him, she slammed the riding-whip through the window and rushed into the adjoining room where she found Nan gossiping with Susanna’s dry-nurse. “Nan! Pack my things! I’m going to London in my own coach! That bastard—”

Susanna ran to her mother, stamped her foot, and repeated with a shake of her curls: “That bas-tard!”

When dinner was announced Amber did not go down. She was busy getting ready to leave and was so angry and excited that she had no appetite. And when Radclyffe sent again, demanding that she join them, she refused point-blank, shut the outer door to their apartments, locked it and flung aside the key.

“He’s told me one time too many what I can do and what I can’t!” she hotly informed Nan. “I’ll be damned if that stinking old scoundrel can lead me like a bear by the nose any longer!”

But when she had changed her clothes and was ready to go she discovered that the doors leading into the gallery had been locked from the other side and that her own key was not to be found. There was no other outside entrance, for the rooms opened one into another, and though she hammered and pounded and kicked she got no answer. At last in a passionate temper she flung back into the bedchamber and began smashing everything she could lay her hands on. Nan ran out, arms up over her head. By the time Amber had exhausted herself the room was a shambles.

After a while someone opened the door into the entrance hall and slid a trayful of food in, rapped to call her attention, and then ran off down the gallery. The Earl had evidently informed the servants that his wife was having another fit. A maid brought the tray in and placed it on a table beside the bed where her mistress lay. Amber turned, grabbed up the cold fowl and flung it across the room; then shoved away the tray and dishes, which crashed onto the floor.

After three hours had gone by Nan ventured back into the room. Amber sat up cross-legged on the bed to talk to her. She was determined to go to London anyway, if she had to climb out the window, but Nan tried to convince her that if she disobeyed his Lordship he might bring an action against her, obtain a separation and get control of all her money.

“Remember,” cautioned Nan, “his Majesty may like you—but his Majesty likes all pretty ladies. And you know his nature—he doesn’t love to meddle where it’s any trouble to him. You’d be wise to stay here, mam, I think.”

Amber had thrown off her shoes and undone her hair and she sat with elbows propped on her knees, glowering. She was beginning to grow very hungry, for she had had nothing but a glass of fruit syrup since seven o’clock that morning, and it was now four-thirty. Her eye went to the cold roast fowl, which someone had picked up, dusted, and set back on the tray.

“But what am I to do? Moult out here in the country for the rest of my life? I tell you I won’t do it!”

Suddenly they became aware of a muffled pounding and a woman’s faint frantic cries. They looked at each other, both of them held taut in an attitude of listening and surprise. It was Jenny, hammering at the outer door—and with a leap Amber was off the bed and running through the intervening rooms toward her.

“Your Ladyship!” screamed Jenny, and there were hysterical tears in her voice. “Your Ladyship! Your Ladyship!”

“Here I am, Jenny! What’s happened? What’s the matter?”

“It’s Philip! He’s sick! He’s desperately sick! I’m afraid he’s dying! Oh, your Ladyship—you’ve got to come!”

A chill of horror ran over Amber. Philip sick—dying? Only that morning before the ride they had been in the summer-house, and he had been perfectly well then.

“What’s the matter with him? I can’t get out, Jenny! I’m locked in! Where’s the Earl?”

“He’s gone! He left three hours ago! Oh, Amber—you’ve got to get out! He’s calling for you!” Jenny began to sob.

Amber looked around helplessly. “I can’t get out! Oh, damn! Go get a footman! Make them break open the door!”

Nan was beside her now and as Jenny’s heels pounded off down the hallway the two women picked up brass shovels from the fireplace and began to beat at the lock. In only a minute or two Jenny was back.

“They say his Lordship left orders not to let you out no matter what happened!”

“Where’s the footman!”

“He’s here—but he says he doesn’t dare unlock the door! Oh, Amber, tell him he’s got to! Philip—”

“Open this door, you varlet!” shouted Amber. “Open it or I’ll set fire to the house!” She smashed furiously against the lock with the brass shovel.

There was a long moment of hesitation after which the man began to pound at the door from the outside while Amber stood waiting, wet with sweat. Nan had brought her shoes and she pulled them on, jumping up and down, first on one foot and then the other, as she did so. At last the lock broke and she burst out, flung an arm around Jenny’s waist and started down toward the opposite end of the gallery where Philip’s apartments were located.

Philip was lying on the bed, still fully dressed but with a blanket thrown over him; his head was forced back upon the pillows and his face contorted almost beyond recognition. He was writhing and turning, clutching at his stomach, his teeth ground together until the veins in his neck seemed ready to burst.

Amber hesitated for only an instant on the threshold and then ran forward. “Philip! Philip, what’s the matter? What happened to you?”

He looked at her for a moment without recognition. Then he grabbed her by the wrist, dragging her toward him. “I’ve been poisoned—” His voice was a harsh whisper. Amber gasped in horror, starting backward, but he held onto her wrist with a clutch so strong she thought it would break. “Have you eaten anything today—”

Suddenly she realized what had happened. The Earl had found out about them and had tried to poison them both. The food sent up on her tray must have been poisoned. She felt sick, dizzy and cold, swept with selfish anxiety.

Maybe it was in the fruit-syrup this morning—Maybe I’m poisoned too!

“I had some fruit-syrup,” she said softly, her eyes staring like glass, “early this morning—”

There was an explosive spitting sound from beneath the blankets and Philip’s body leaped upward in convulsion; he threw himself furiously from side to side, as though trying to escape the pain. Agonized paroxysms jerked at his face, and it was several moments before he was able to speak again. Then each word as it came out was a forced and painful grunt.

“No. I got it at dinner, I think—Pains began half-an-hour ago. The summer-house—there’s a hollowed eye in that stone mask on the wall—”

He could say nothing more for Jenny was close beside them, but Amber understood his meaning. Radclyffe could have been there that morning, watching them. He could have been there many mornings—watching them. Disgust and loathing and helpless rage filled her. But there was relief too—because she was not poisoned; she was not going to die.

Jenny now helped Philip to sit up, holding a mugful of warm milk to his mouth. After he had taken several greedy swallows he gave a groan and flung himself backward again. Amber turned away, her hands over her face.

Suddenly she picked up her skirts and started to run as fast as she could—out of the room and down the gallery, down the stairs and onto the terrace. She fled down the steps and through the gardens and did not stop once until she was forced to by the splitting pain in her side and the dryness of her lungs. Then she stood there for a minute or so, one hand pressed to her chest and the other hard against her side, struggling to breathe. But gradually it became easier for her and at last she turned her head, slowly, to look back up at the bedroom window that faced from the south-east end of the house. Then with a wail of animal terror she threw herself onto the ground and buried her face in the grass, shutting her eyes as tight as she could and closing her ears with her fingers. But still she could see Philip’s face in its agony and hear the hoarse desperate sound of his voice.

CHAPTER FORTY–FIVE

PHILIP WAS BURIED that same night as the dusk settled through a brilliant sunset sky. The family chaplain who had baptized him administered the last sacraments and conducted the services in the little Catholic chapel where Jenny and Amber and Radclyffe’s many servants knelt in silence. Poison was suspected in almost any sudden death, and because there was a general belief that a poisoned body decomposed rapidly they had not dared to wait upon formality. Philip’s constant request had been to keep it secret, to let no one know what had caused his death. He wanted it told that he had accidentally shot himself while cleaning a gun.

Amber was so hungry that her stomach ached, but she refused to eat or drink anything at all. She was terrified for fear Radclyffe had instructed one of the servants to kill her if he failed. For there could be no doubt he had intended to kill them both: she fed a few slices of the fowl to a dog, and it died swiftly and in great pain.

Neither Amber nor Jenny wanted to be alone that night and Jenny was having spasmodic cramps which she feared might mean that her labour had begun prematurely. They stayed together in a seldom used guest apartment in the north-east wing of the building overlooking the courtyard, for they were both reluctant to return to their own chambers. Amber was determined she would never go back to hers again as long as she lived. By ten o’clock Jenny’s pains had stopped and she went to bed, but Amber stayed up, nervous and jumpy, apprehensive of shadows, alarmed at any unexpected sound. She felt as though hideous unseen things surrounded her on every side, shutting her in until she could scarcely breathe, and once she screamed aloud in terror. She kept lighted all the candles she could find and refused to take off her clothes.

At last Jenny got up and came to put her arms about her. “Amber, dear, you must try to sleep.”

Amber shook her off. “I can’t I can’t.” She ran her fingers through her hair, shivering. “What if he should come back. He meant to kill me. If he found me alive—Oh! What’s that!”

“Nothing. Just an animal outside. He won’t come back. He wouldn’t dare. He won’t ever come back. You’re safe here.”

“I’m not going to stay! I’m going away tomorrow morning—as soon as it’s light!”

“Going away? But where will you go? Oh, please, Amber, don’t go and leave me!”

“Your mother will come. I can’t stay here, Jenny! I’d go mad! I’ve got to go—and don’t try to stop me!”

She could not and would not tell Jenny where she was going, but she knew very well herself. For now the chance had come and all the plans over which she had mulled and brooded these past weeks fell into a pattern. She had expected to use Philip, but now he was dead and she realized that she could do it better without him. It seemed so simple she wondered why she had endured all these months of hatred and degradation, without realizing that it had taken time and circumstances to bring her to her present pitch of desperation.

With Big John Waterman and two or three other serving-men she would set out for London. Perhaps they could ambush him on the way, but if not she would somehow contrive to meet him alone in London, some dark night. It was no uncommon occurrence, she knew, to find a gentleman of quality badly beaten or even dead—for every man had his enemies and vengeance was crude and decisive. A slit nose, a brutal kicking, a sword through the stomach, were all popular means of avenging some real or imagined insult. She intended Radclyffe to die of his injuries—since now it was either his life or hers.

Because it was both easier and safer to travel in masculine dress she prepared to set out the next morning wearing one of the Earl’s suits—which was not a great deal too large—his hat and riding-cloak. Big John and four husky footmen were to go with her, though no one but John knew what her intentions were. Jenny wept and begged her over and over to change her mind, but when Amber refused she helped her get ready and gave her many admonitions about taking care of herself.

“There’s one thing I’ll never be able to understand,” Jenny said, as she watched Amber pulling on a pair of his Lordship’s boots. “I don’t know why he spared me—If he wanted to kill you, and Philip—why would he have let me live?”

Amber gave her a swift narrowed glance and as the blood rushed into her face she bent her head. Poor innocent little Jenny. She still did not know; and certainly it could do her no good to know now. For the first time since she had begun her affair with Philip Mortimer Amber felt a kind of shame. But it did not last long. Soon she was on horseback—waving to Nan and promising Jenny that she would be careful.

The summer had been even hotter than the year before; for weeks it had not rained and the roads were hard. Amber, because she had been riding almost every day during the past four and a half months, was able to set a swift pace for the men. They stopped at the first village they came to because she was ravenously hungry, and then they hurried on again. By five o’clock that evening they had travelled forty-five miles.

Hot and tired and dusty, reeking of sweat—their own and the horses’—the six of them stopped at a pretty little inn. Amber went swaggering in with the men, pretending that she was one of them. She felt pleased at this adventure, the more so because she was keenly aware that but for a lucky accident she would have been lying dead at Lime Park and not sitting here on a settle with her feet cocked up before the fire, stroking a ragged old dog and enjoying the succulent smells from a joint which turned and crackled over the flames. She was luxuriously tired and her muscles felt sore from the unaccustomed strain of riding astride. Nothing had ever tasted so good as the cool golden ale she swallowed from a pewter tankard.

She slept deeply that night and longer than she had intended, but they were off again at six. By noon they had reached Oxford, where they stopped for dinner. The hostess put two enormous black-jacks on the table and while they drank she brought in pewter plates and knives and spoons. When the joint was taken off the fire she carved it for them, very neatly, and then according to the custom they invited her to join them.

“I suppose you gentlemen are on your way to London to see the fire?” she inquired in a polite, conversational tone.

Heads turned all down the table, fingers paused halfway to their mouths. “Fire!”

“Ye hadn’t heard? Oh, there’s a great fire in London, they say.” She was full of importance at having such news to tell: burnt-out crops and the heat had been the most exciting source of conversation for some time. “There was a gentleman here not an hour since just come from there. He says it gets worse by the hour. Looks like it might take the whole city,” she added, shutting her mouth complacently and nodding at them.

“You mean there’s a big fire in London?” repeated Amber incredulously. “Not just a few houses?”

“Oh, Lord, no! It’s a big one, well enough. He said it was well along the river when he left—and that was yesterday afternoon.”

“Good Lord!” whispered Amber. She had visions of all her money burning, her clothes, and everything else that belonged to her. London in flames! “When did it begin? How did it start?”

“Began early Sunday morning,” she said. “Long before sun-up. They think it’s a Papist plot.”

“My God! And this is Monday noon! It’s been burning almost two days!” She turned excitedly to Big John. “How much farther is it? We’ve got to get there!”

“It’s seventy miles or more, sir. We could never make it if we rode all night. Better to ride till dark and then go on in the morning.”

In just a few minutes they had finished eating and were mounted. The hostess followed them out, pointing up into the sky. “Look at the sun! How red it’s turned!” They all looked up, shading their eyes with their hands, and there were others in the streets also looking up. The sun had a dull glow and its colour was fierce and ominous.

“Come on!” cried Amber, and they swept off, galloping down the road.

Amber did not want to stop at all that night for she was afraid that when she got there not only her money but the Earl too would have disappeared in the confusion. But it would have been all but impossible to reach the City, for travel by night was much slower and more dangerous than by day. When supper was over she went immediately to her room and without taking off more than her hat and boots and doublet threw herself onto the bed and fell fast asleep. Before dawn the hostess was rapping at the door and by five they were on the road again.

At each village they asked for news of the fire and heard the same thing everywhere: it was taking all the town, burning the Bridge, churches, houses, sparing nothing. And the closer they got to London the more people they saw on the roads, all going in the same direction. Farmers and workmen were throwing down their shovels and leaving their fields, setting out for the capital with carts and even wheelbarrows; vehicles of transportation were at a premium and a man might hire himself and cart at forty or fifty pounds for a few hours’ work—as much as a farmer was likely to make in a whole year’s time.

When they had gone fifteen more miles they could see the smoke, a great moving pall that hung in the distance, and soon little charred fragments of paper and linen and plaster began to drift down upon them. They galloped on and on, as fast as they could go, not stopping even to eat. The day was windy and the closer they got to London the fiercer it blew, whipping their cloaks about them. Amber lost her hat. They had to squint their eyes for the wind blew specks of tinder into them. As the afternoon began to fade the flames could be seen more clearly, leaping in great streaks, casting a threatening red glare over all the land.

It was almost night when they reached the City because for the last ten miles the roads were so congested that they could not move at even a walking pace. From far off they could hear the roar of the fire, like thousands of iron coach-wheels crashing together over cobblestones. There was a continuous echoing thunder as buildings collapsed or were blown up. From the churches that still stood, within the City and without, the bells rang frantically—sounding a wild call of distress that had never ceased since the fire had been discovered two days and a half before. As darkness settled the sky glowed red—like the top of a burning oven.

Just without the walls were the great open spaces of Moor Fields, already crowded with men and women and children, and more were constantly arriving—forcing the first comers back into the middle of the fields, packing them in tightly. Some had already pitched tents made of sheets or towels tied together. Women were suckling their babies; others were trying to prepare a meal with whatever food they had been able to save in those few awful moments before the flames had seized their houses. Some sat and stared, unable and unwilling to believe. Others stolidly stood and watched, the heat scorching their faces, though the glare of the fire made it impossible to see more than black silhouettes of the burning buildings.

At first no one had believed that the fire would be any more destructive than were dozens of fires London had every year. It had begun at two o’clock Sunday morning in Pudding Lane, a narrow little alley near the waterfront, and for hours it fed on the tar and hemp and coal that were stored beside the river. The Lord Mayor was brought to the scene in the early hours and said contemptuously that a woman might piss it out; for fear of making himself unpopular he refused to begin blowing up houses. But it swept on, terrifying and ruthless, destroying whatever lay in its path. When London Bridge caught, the City was doomed—for it was covered with buildings and as they collapsed they blocked that means of escape; charred timbers falling into the water destroyed the water-wheels underneath, and the one efficient means of fighting a great fire was gone. From then on it must be done with buckets of water passed from hand to hand, pumps, hooks for dragging down burning buildings, and hand-squirts.

Unalarmed, the people went to church as usual on Sunday, though some of them were brought running into the streets by a man who galloped along crying, “Arm! Arm! The French have landed!”

But complacency began to vanish as the fire backed up into the City, crawling steadily, leaping sometimes, driven and fed by the violent east wind. As it advanced it drove the people before it. Many of them refused to make any preparations for leaving until the flames had actually caught their houses, and then they seized whatever they could and ran—often taking articles of no value and leaving behind what was most important. Helpless, confused, they moved slowly through the narrow alleys. First they stopped at Cannon Street, which ran along the crest of the hill above the river, but the fire came on and by afternoon they were forced to move again.

The King was not informed until eleven o’clock. He and York came immediately and at his order men began to blow up houses. It was too late to save the City by that means, but it was all they could do. Both the brothers worked hard and without stopping for rest or food. They helped to man the pumps, passed water-buckets, moved from place to place offering what encouragement and sympathy they could. More than anything else, it was their courage, energy and resourcefulness which prevented widespread panic and rioting.

Even so, the streets became unsafe for any foreigners who were obviously Dutch or French. In Fenchurch Street a blacksmith knocked down a Frenchman with a heavy iron bar, smashing his cheekbones and his nose. A woman who was believed to be carrying fire-balls in her apron was attacked and badly mauled and bruised before they found that the fire-balls were only chickens. Another Frenchman with an armful of tennis-balls was seized upon and beaten unconscious. No one cared whether they were guilty—the mounting hysteria demanded an explanation for this terrible calamity, and they found it in the three things Englishmen most feared and hated: the French, the Dutch, and the Catholics. One or all three must be responsible—they were determined not to let the guilty escape with the innocent. King Charles ordered many foreigners jailed for their own protection and the Spanish Ambassador opened his house to others.

The Thames was aswarm with little boats, smacks and barges, which plied back and forth—carrying people and their goods to safety in Southwark. Shooting sparks and pieces of burning wood fell hissing into the water or started new fires in blankets or clothing. Sometimes a boat overturned and spilled out an entire family—the river was so crowded that it was like coming up under ice and trying to find an open space.

Finally Amber and the five men had to abandon their horses and continue on foot.

They had been riding for almost thirteen hours and she was sore and stiff; she felt as though she would never be able to make her knees touch again. Her head swam with fatigue. She longed to drop where she was and stay, but she forced herself to go on. Don’t stop, don’t stop, she told herself over and over. Take another step. Go on. You’ve got to get there. She was afraid that she had missed him—that he would be gone or the house burned and though tortured by fatigue, she pushed ahead.

She grabbed at people as they passed, shouting to ask if Cheapside had burnt. Most of them shoved on by, ignoring or not even hearing her, but finally she got an answer.

“Early this morning.”

“All of it?” He was gone and she accosted several more, dragging at their shirt-sleeves. “Is all of Cheapside burnt?”

“Aye, lad. Burnt to the ground.”

The answer gave her a plunging shock of despair, but it was not as great as what she would have felt under any other conditions; for the hysterical energy that was in the moving groping crowds had communicated itself to her. The fire was so gigantic, the destruction so wide-spread and terrible that it assumed a strange unreality. Shadrac Newbold had been burnt out and with him probably all the money she had on earth-but she could not just then fully realize what it meant and might mean to her. That must come later.

Nothing mattered now but to find Radclyffe.

Outside the gates in Chiswell Street and the Barbican and Long Lane the people were still waiting dubiously. They were hoping, as those who had lived in Watling Street and Corn Hill and Cheapside had hoped, that the fire would stop before it reached them. But the flames had already broken through the walls and the wind had increased to such fury it seemed impossible anything at all could be spared. Some ran distractedly in and out of their homes, unable to make a decision. But others were moving what they could, throwing pieces of furniture and piles of bedding out of upper-story windows, stacking carts with dishes and silver-plate and portraits.

Amber hung closely to Big John Waterman as they shoved their way along Goswell Street, for they were going against the crowd and the irresistible tide of people sometimes forced them backward in spite of their efforts.

There were mothers who balanced great loads on their heads, holding in one arm a sucking baby while they tried wearily to watch other children and keep them from being crushed or lost. Husky porters, arrogant and rude, shouted and swore and elbowed their ruthless way—for once it was they who gave the orders. Bewildered.animals were everywhere. A bleating frightened goat tried to butt his way through. Cows were hauled along with yelling children astride their backs. There were countless dogs and cats, belled pigs, squawking parrots in their cages, monkeys perched on the shoulder of a master or mistress, chattering angrily and snatching at a man’s wig or a woman’s necklace. There were men who carried on their heads a feather-bed and on top of that a trunk that shifted perilously and sometimes went crashing to the ground. Others had everything they had been able to save tied into a sheet and slung over their backs. There were a great many pregnant women, desperately trying to protect their awkward bellies, and several of the younger ones were crying, almost hysterical with terror. The sick were carried on the backs of sons or husbands or servants. A woman lying in a cart rolled slowly by; she was groaning and her face was contorted in the agony of childbirth; beside her knelt a midwife, working with her hands beneath the blankets, while the woman in her pain kept trying to throw them off.

Their faces were desperate, apathetic, bewildered. Some of the children laughed and played games between the legs of the crowd. Many of the old had become perfectly listless. But all of them had lost everything—the savings of a lifetime, the work of generations. What the fire took was gone forever.

With Big John’s arm about her Amber slowly fought her way. She was too small to see over the heads of the crowd and she asked him again and again if Aldersgate Street was burning; he continued to tell her that it did not look as if the flames had reached it yet, but they seemed near.

If only I can get there! If only I can get there and find him!

Cinders got into her eyes and when she inadvertently rubbed them they became inflamed. She choked and coughed on the smoke, and the hot scorching air that the wind blew into her nostrils and lungs made every breath painful. It was only by tremendous effort that she kept from bursting into tears of sheer baffled rage and weariness. She might have fallen if Big John had not held her up. Somewhere they had lost the other men—who perhaps had gone off to join the looters, for thieves entered the houses even before the masters had left.

At last they came to Radclyffe House.

The flames were just below it in St. Martin le Grand and had almost reached Bull and Mouth Street at the corner. Loaded carts were lined up in front and there were servants—and perhaps thieves too—carrying out vases and portraits and statues and furniture. She forced her way in. No one tried to stop her or even seemed to know that she was there. Certainly they could not have recognized her with her soot-smudged face, her hair in long dirty snarls, her torn and blackened clothes.

The hallway was in a turmoil. The broad center staircase was covered with men and furniture—one carrying a small Italian couch, another bundled in ornate golden drapes, someone with a Botticelli painting on his head, another balancing one velvet-seated Spanish chair on each shoulder. Amber approached a liveried footman who carried one end of a gigantic carved chest.

“Where’s your master?” He ignored her and would have gone on by without answering but she grabbed him roughly by the arm, angry enough to have slapped his face. “Answer me, you varlet! Where’s your master?”

He gave her a surprised look, without recognition, as though he had heard her for the first time. Radclyffe had probably been working them for hours. He gave a jerk of his head. “Upstairs, I think. In his closet.”

Amber ran up the stairs, dodging around servants and furniture, with Big John close at her heels. But now her legs were weak and trembling. She felt her heart begin to pound. She swallowed but her throat was dry. Nevertheless her exhaustion was suddenly and miraculously gone.

They hurried down the gallery to his Lordship’s apartments. Two men were just coming out, each of them bearing a tall stack of books, and as they went she signalled Big John to turn the lock. “Don’t come till I call you,” she said softly, and then walked swiftly across the parlour toward the bedchamber.

It was almost empty—but for the bed, too big and unwieldy to be moved—and she went on, toward the laboratory. Her heart seemed to have filled all her chest now and it hammered so that she expected it suddenly to burst. He was there, going hastily through the drawers of a table and stuffing his pockets with papers. For once his clothes were in disarray—he must have ridden horseback to have arrived so soon—but even so he presented a strangely elegant appearance. His back was turned to her.

“My lord!” Amber’s voice rang out like the tolling of a bell.

He started a little and glanced around, but he did not recognize her and returned instantly to his work. “What do you want? Go away, lad, I’m busy. Carry some furniture down to the carts.”

“My lord!” she repeated. “Look again. You’ll see I’m no lad.”

For a moment he paused and then, very slowly and cautiously, he turned. There was a single candle burning on the table beside him, but the glare of the flames lighted the room brilliantly. Outside the fire roared like unceasing thunder; the constant booming of explosions rattled the windows, and burnt buildings toppled to the ground, crashing one after another.

“Is it you?” he asked at last, very softly.

“Yes, it’s me. And alive—no ghost, my lord. Philip’s dead—but I’m not.”

The incredulity on his face shifted at last to a kind of horror, and suddenly Amber’s fears were gone. She felt powerful and strong and filled with a loathing that brought out everything cruel and fierce and wild in her.

With an insolent lift of her chin she started toward him, walking slowly, and the riding whip in her right hand flicked nervously against her leg. He stared at her, his eyes straight and steady, but the muscles around his mouth twitched ever so slightly. “My son’s dead,” he repeated slowly, fully realizing for the first time what he had done. “He’s dead—and you’re not.” He looked sick and beaten and older than ever before, all confidence gone. The murder of his son had completed the ruin of his life.

“So you finally found out about us,” taunted Amber as she stood before him, one hand on her hip, the other still flicking the riding-crop.

He smiled, a faint and reflective smile, cold, contemptuous, and strangely sensual. Slowly he began to answer. “Yes. Many weeks ago. I watched you together—there in the summer-house—thirteen times in all. I watched what you did and I listened to what you said, and I got a great deal of pleasure from thinking how you would die—one day, when you least expected it—”

“Did you!” snapped Amber, her voice taut and hard, and the whip flickered back and forth, swift as a snake. “But I didn’t die—and I’m not going to either—”

Her eyes flared to a wild blaze. Suddenly she raised the whip and lashed it across his face with all the force in her body. He jerked backward, one hand going up involuntarily, but the first blow had left a thin red welt from his left temple to the bridge of his nose. Her teeth clenched and her face contorted with murderous fury; she struck at him again and again, so blind now with rage she could scarcely see. Suddenly he grabbed hold of the candlestick and lunged toward her, heaving all his weight behind it. She moved swiftly aside and as she dodged gave a shrill scream.

The candlestick struck her shoulder and glanced off. She saw his face loom close and his hand seized the whip. They began to struggle and just as Amber brought up her knee to jab him in the groin Big John’s cudgel came down on his skull. Radclyffe began to double. Amber jerked the whip out of his hand and lashed at his face again and again, no longer fully conscious of what she was doing.

“Kill him!” she screamed. “Kill him!” She cried it over and over again: “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!”

With one hand John swept off the Earl’s periwig and with the other he smashed again at his skull. Radclyffe lay sprawled grotesquely on the floor, his naked head streaming blood. A strong revulsion swept Amber. She felt no pity or regret but only a violent paroxysm of satisfied rage and hatred.

All at once she became aware that the draperies were on fire and for a horrified moment she believed the house was burning and that they were trapped. Then she saw that the candle he had thrown at her had fallen beside the window, the draperies had caught, and now flames roared to the ceiling and licked along the wooden moulding.

“John!”

He turned, saw the flames, and both of them started out of the apartment in a rush. At the door they glanced back, briefly, before John shut and locked it. The last they saw of Radclyffe was a broken and bloody old man who lay dead on the floor, with the flames already approaching him. John put the key into his pocket and they began to run down the gallery toward the rear of the house. But Amber had not gone ten yards when she suddenly pitched forward, unconscious as she fell. Big John swooped her into his arms and ran on. He went clattering noisily down the little back staircase, Amber held limp and flopping before him, and halfway down he met two men who would have pushed past him. They wore no livery and must have been thieves.

“Fire!” he shouted at them. “The house is afire!”

Instantly they turned and rushed down, the three of them making a furious noise in the narrow echoing cavity. One stumbled and almost fell, recovered himself and burst out into the courtyard. Big John came close on their heels, but they had disappeared. He glanced around once, and saw that the flames from the upstairs window already were casting a reflection into the courtyard pool.