Forever Amber

by Kathleen Winsor

  "But what would we do with 'em?" Nan wanted to know, and they all three gave a burst of laughter.

  Amber's hair was now undone—for no lady would lift a hand to her head—and Nan had left the room, herding Tansy and the dog before her. She was standing at the dressing-table, unfastening her necklace, when she saw his face and shoulders appear behind her in the mirror. His green eyes watched her for a moment and then he bent, swept the hair off her neck, and put his lips there. A cold thrill ran over her body; she caught a deep breath and her eyes closed.

  He set the glass onto the table and one hand closed over her arm to turn her about. "Oh, Bruce—" she cried. "Bruce—how I love you!"

  His arms went around her and they stood close together, thighs pressed hard, bodies straining. When he took his mouth from hers she looked up, wondering, and found him staring across the room. Slowly he released her and slowly she turned. There was Gerald, standing just inside the door, his face white and his jaw fallen.

  "Oh!" cried Amber, and her eyes blazed with sudden fury. "What d'you mean—sneaking in here like this! Spying on me! You damned impertinent dog!"

  With a sudden unexpected movement she picked up a silver patch-box from the dressing-table and hurled it at him, but her aim was bad and it struck the door-jamb. Gerald jumped. Bruce merely stood quietly and looked at him, surprise in his eyes at first and then a kind of pity as he saw how bewildered and unhappy and scared the boy was.

  Amber rushed at him in a shrieking fury, her clenched fists raised. "How dare you sneak into my rooms this way! I'll have your ears cut off for this!" He moved aside as she struck at him and the blow landed on his shoulder.

  He was all but stammering, his face had turned grey, and there was a sick look on his face. "For God's sake, madame— I had no idea—I didn't know—"

  "Don't lie to me, you baboon! I'll show you—"

  "Amber!" It was Brace's voice. "Give him a chance to speak, why don't you? This is obviously a mistake."

  Gerald shot him a look of gratitude, but he was clearly somewhat afraid of the woman who stood before him, glowering with rage. "My mother was still in the hall-way. And when I came out she—well—she told me to go back in."

  Amber started to speak again and then she turned and glanced at Brace, to see what he thought about it. His expression was perfectly serious but his eyes glittered with amusement, even while he had a very obvious sympathy for the unhappy young husband whose duty it now was to challenge him to duel. Honour offered no alternative. And yet it was ridiculous to think of Gerald Stanhope, small and undeveloped with scarcely the courage of an adolescent girl, fighting a man who was not only eight inches taller than he but an accomplished swordsman as well.

  Bruce stepped forward, made him an easy bow from the waist, and said politely, "Sir, I regret that you have so much reason to suspect my motives regarding your wife. I offer you my profoundest apologies and hope that you will believe no worse of me than you can help."

  Gerald looked as relieved as a criminal who sees the sheriff come flying with a reprieve just as the noose is being fastened about his neck. He bowed in return. "I assure you, sir, that I am enough a man of the world to know that appearances are often deceiving. I accept your apology, sir, and hope that we may meet again under more congenial circumstances. And now, madame, if you'll show me the way, I'll go by your back-staircase—"

  Amber stared at him in astonishment. God in heaven! Wasn't the poor fool even going to fight? And was he going now, to leave his wife's lover in undisputed possession? Her anger drained away and contempt took its place. She pulled up the bodice of her smock and made him a curtsy.

  "This way, sir."

  She crossed the room and opened a door which led down a dark little stair-well. Just before going out Gerald bowed again, very jauntily, first to her and then to Bruce—but Amber could see that the muscles about his mouth quivered nervously. She closed the door behind him and turned to face Bruce; there was a contemptuous smile on her lips which she expected would also be on his.

  He was smiling, but in his eyes was a strange expression. What was it? Disapproval of her, pity for the man who had just left, mockery of all three of them? It alarmed her, and for an instant she felt cold and lost and alone. But as she watched, the expression flickered and changed and he made a gesture with one hand, shrugged his shoulders and started toward her.

  "Well," he said, "he wears a pair of horns as well as any man in Europe."

  Chapter Fifty-one

  London had grown as hysterical as a girl with the green-sickness. Her life these last years had been too full of excitement and tragedy, too turbulent and too convulsive, and now she was uneasy, nervous, in a constant state of worry and fear. No prospect was too dismal, no possibility too remote—anything might happen, and probably would.

  The new year had opened despondently, with thousands of homeless men and women and children living in tiny tar-roofed shacks that had been thrown up on the sites of their former homes. Or they were crowded together in the few streets within the walls which had been spared by the Fire, and forced to pay exorbitant rents. In a winter of unusual coldness and severity sea-coal was so expensive that many could not afford it at all. Most of them believed, not unreasonably, that London would never be rebuilt and they had no faith in the present, saw no hope for the future.

  An evil star seemed to be ascendant over England.

  The national debt had never been greater, though the government was near bankruptcy. The War, begun so hopefully, was now unpopular, for it had not been successful and was connected in the public mind with the unprecedented disasters of the past two years. The seamen of the Royal Navy were in mutiny and men lay starving in the yard of the naval office. Parliament had refused to vote the money to set out a fleet that year and merchants would not be coerced again into supplying the ships without cash-in-hand. Hence the Council had decided—though against the judgment of Charles and Albemarle and Prince Rupert—to lay up the fleet for that year and trust to peace negotiations already under way.

  But at Court they did not trouble themselves very much with these problems. For despite the desperate state of government finances there was more wealth in the hands of private individuals than ever before—a person of enterprise and some capital might invest his money in stocks and soon increase it many times. And they were not afraid of the Dutch for most of them knew that England had made a secret treaty with France to keep the Dutch fleet from sailing. The French were not and never had been interested in the war, nor did Louis's ambitions point across the Channel. Let the ignorant people fret and mumble if they liked—ladies and gentlemen had other matters of which to think. They were far more concerned in Buckingham's escapade and the gossip that Frances Stewart was pregnant, a rumour which circulated exactly one month after her runaway marriage.

  Late in April came the shocking news that the Dutch were out with twenty-four ships, sailing along the coast.

  The people were frantic. Terror and resentment and suspicion ran through them like a flame. What had gone wrong with the peace negotiations? Someone had betrayed them, sold them over to the enemy. Every night they expected to hear the rolling of drums, to wake to the screams of men and women dying by the sword, to the glare of fire, the blasting of guns— but though the Dutch continued to ride the coast, tantalizingly, they came no nearer.

  Amber was not greatly concerned about any of it—the War, the threatening Dutch, Buckingham's plight, or Stewart's baby. She had one interest and only one, Lord Carlton.

  King Charles had granted him 20,000 acres more. Large tracts were necessary because tobacco exhausted the soil within three years and it was cheaper to clear new land than to fertilize the old. He had kept a fleet of six ships, for it was the common practice of both merchant and planter to underestimate each crop, with the result that ships were usually scarce. His were consequently in much demand and he had sent a great shipment to France the previous October. Though this was against the law, smuggling was common p
ractice and necessary if the planters were to survive, for Virginia was producing in two years as much tobacco as England used in three.

  Bruce now spent his days buying provisions, both for himself and for neighbours who had commissioned him to do so. Ordinarily it was necessary to trust such matters to a merchant who might send unsatisfactory goods, or profit at the colonists' expense.

  His home in Virginia was still only partly constructed because he had been too busy the year before clearing land and planting the tobacco crop. Furthermore, it was difficult to hire skilled workmen, for most of those who went to America expected to make a fortune in five or six years and could not readily be induced to work at their old trades. He was going to take back with him several dozen more indentured servants to complete the building and to work on the land. He was buying glass and bricks and nails—all of which were scarce in America—and, as most emigrants did, was taking with him many English plants and flowers for the garden.

  He had a passionate enthusiasm for Virginia and his life there.

  He described to her the forests with their oak and pine and blossoming laurel—great masses of dogwood, violet, roses, honeysuckle. He told her that fish were so plentiful a man could lean over and scoop a frying-pan full from a running stream. There were shad and sturgeon, oysters a foot long, turtle and crab and tortoise. He told her about the birds that came in September, clouds of them that blackened the sky, to feed on the wild-celery and oats that grew along the river banks. And there were swan, goose, duck, plover, and turkeys which weighed as much as seventy pounds. There had never been such a prodigal land.

  Wild horses roamed the forests and catching them was one of the chief sports of the country. Brilliant birds fluttered everywhere—tawny and crimson parakeets, others with yellow heads and green wings. Animals were abundant and mink such a nuisance that traps had to be set for them. Knowing that she admired the fur, he had brought her skins enough to line a cloak and a robe and to make a great muff.

  Corinna, his wife, had stayed in Jamaica the year before, but she had named their home from the description he had given her: they called it Summerhill. In a couple of years, Bruce said, they intended to visit England and France and would buy most of their furniture then. Corinna had left England in 1655 and had not seen it since; and like all English who went abroad to live she longed to return to her homeland, if only for a visit.

  Amber wanted to hear about these things and pestered him with a thousand questions, but when he answered she was invariably hurt and angry and jealous. "Ye gods! I'm sure I can't think how you must pass your time in a place like that! Or do you work all day long?" Work was no occupation for a gentleman, and the way she said the word it sounded as if she was accusing him of something unworthy.

  One hot bright-skied afternoon in late May they were drifting along the Thames toward Chelsea, some three and a half miles up-river from Almsbury House. She had bought a new barge, a great handsome gilt one filled with gold-embroidered green-velvet cushions, and she had coaxed him to take the maiden trip with her. Amber was stretched out in the shade of the awning, her hair wreathed in white roses, the thin silk of her green gown falling along her legs, and she held a large green fan to shield one side of her face against the sun. The bargemen in their gold-and-green livery were resting, talking among themselves. The barge was a long one and they were not close enough to overhear what Bruce and Amber said.

  There were many other little boats on the river carrying sweethearts, families, groups of young men or women on pleasure-cruises and picnics. The first warm spring days brought out everyone who could find leisure to escape—for London and the country were still almost one and every Londoner had an Englishman's rural heart.

  He sat facing her and now he grinned, shutting one eye against the sun. "I'll admit," he said, "that I don't spend the morning in bed reading billets-doux or the afternoon at a play or the evening in taverns. But we have our diversions. We all live on rivers and travel isn't difficult. We hunt and drink and dance and gamble just as you do here. Most of the planters are gentlemen and they bring their habits and customs with them, along with their furniture and ancestral portraits. An Englishman away from home, you know, clings to the old ways as fiercely as if his life depended upon it."

  "But there aren't any cities or theatres or palaces! Lord, I couldn't endure it! I suppose Corinna likes that dull life!" she added crossly.

  "I think she will. She's been very happy on her father's plantation."

  Amber thought that she had a very good notion of the kind of woman this Corinna was. She pictured her as another Jenny Mortimer or Lady Almsbury, a quiet shy timid creature who cared for nothing in the world but her husband and children. If the English countryside produced such women, how much worse they must be in that empty land across the seas! Her gowns were probably all five years out of the fashion and she wore no paint and not a patch. She'd never seen a play or ridden in Hyde Park, gone to an assignation or taken dinner in a tavern. In fact, she'd never done anything at all to make her interesting.

  "Oh, well—of course she's contented. She's never known about anything else. Poor wretch. What does she look like— she's blonde, I suppose?" Her tone implied that no woman with the least pretensions to beauty would have any other colouring.

  He shook his head, amused. "No. Her hair's very dark— darker than mine."

  Amber widened her topaz eyes, politely shocked, as though he had said that she had a hare-lip or bow-legs. Black hair on a lady was not the fashion. "Oh," she said sympathetically. "Is she Portuguese?" She remembered well enough that he had said she was English, but in England, Portuguese women were considered very unhandsome. Trying to seem nonchalant, she leaned out and made a lazy catch at a passing butterfly.

  Now he laughed. "No, she's English. Her skin's fair and her eyes are blue."

  Amber did not like the way he spoke of her—there was something in the sound of his voice and the expression in his eyes. She began to feel hot and nervous, sick in the pit of her stomach.

  "How old is she?"

  "Eighteen."

  She suddenly felt that she had aged a dozen years in the past few seconds. Women were almost tragically conscious of age, and once out of their teens everything conspired to make them feel that they were growing old. Amber, not two months past twenty-three, now felt all at once that she was ancient and decayed. There was five years between them! Why, five years is a century!

  "You said she's pretty," murmured Amber in a forlorn little voice. "Is she prettier than I am, Bruce?"

  "My God, Amber. What a question to put to a man. You know that you're beautiful. On the other hand, I'm not so bigoted as to think there's only one good-looking woman on earth."

  "You do think she's prettier!" she cried resentfully.

  Bruce took her hand and kissed it. "No, I don't, darling. I swear I don't. You're nothing alike—but you're both lovely."

  "And you do love me?"

  "And I do love you."

  "Then why did you— Oh, very well!" she said petulantly, but she obeyed his look and changed the subject. "Bruce, I've got an idea! When you've finished your business let's take Almsbury's yacht and sail up the river for a week or so. He says we can have it—I asked him. Oh, please—it'd be wonderful!"

  "I'm afraid to leave London. If the Dutch took the notion they could come right up to the Privy Stairs."

  Amber scoffed at him. "Oh, ridiculous! They wouldn't dare! Anyway, the peace-treaty is all but signed. I heard his Majesty say so last night. They're only riding our coast to scare us and pay us back for what we did to 'em last summer. Oh, please, Bruce!"

  "Perhaps. If the Dutch go home."

  But the Dutch did not go home. For six weeks they hovered just off the coast with a fleet of one hundred ships—to which the French added twenty-five—while England had not one good ship at sea and was forced to call in her bad ones. The French army was at Dunkirk.

  Consequently Bruce refused, for all her teasing and coaxing, to lea
ve London. He said that if the Dutch did come he did not intend to be several miles up the river, lying about on a pleasure boat like some irresponsible Turkish sultan. His men, at least, were well paid and could, he hoped, be counted upon to help defend his ships.

  And then one night as they lay in bed, Bruce fast asleep and Amber just sliding off, a sound began to penetrate her drowsiness. She listened, wondering, as it grew louder. Suddenly it roared out—drums beating like thunder down in the streets. Her heart seemed to stop, and then it began to pound as hard as the drums. She sat up, shaking him by the shoulders.

  "Bruce! Bruce, wake up! The Dutch have landed!"

  Her voice had a high hysterical quaver and she was cold with terror. The weeks of suspense, which had affected her more than she had realized, the black night, the sudden ominous roll of drums, made her feel that the Dutch were there in the very city—outside the house at that moment. The sound of the drums grew louder, beating frantically, and there were shouts of men's and women's voices, excited and shrill.

  Bruce sat up swiftly. Without a word, he flung back the curtains and got out of bed. Amber followed him, picking up her dressing-gown and putting it on. Already Bruce was at the window, his shirt in his hand as he leaned out and shouted across the courtyard.

  "Hey! What's happened? Have the Dutch landed?"

  "They've taken Sheerness! We're invaded!"

  The drum rolled again and bells had begun to ring from church towers; a coach roared through the streets and just afterward a single horseman went careening by. Bruce swung the window closed and began to get into his breeches.

  "Holy Jesus! They'll be here next—we haven't got a thing to stop them!"

  Amber was beginning to cry with distracted terror and a sense of utter helplessness. Outside, the drums were beating more and more wildly, filling the night with a wild terrifying rhythm full of calamity and fear, and people had begun to shout from their windows and to run down into the street. Nan was hammering at their door, begging to be admitted.