Forever Amber

by Kathleen Winsor

  Another voice, a man's this time, came from her other side. "Ods-fish, madame. But this is the greatest display that ever I've seen in public since I was weaned." It was the King, lazy, smiling, obviously amused.

  Amber felt suddenly as if she had been hurt inside.

  She turned sick with a feeling of horror and self-disgust. What have I done! she thought. Oh, my God! what am I doing out here half undressed?

  Her eyes swept around the room and every face she saw was secretly smiling, covertly sneering at her. All at once she felt like the person in a dream who sets out confidently to go uptown stark naked, gets halfway there and then realizes his mistake. And, like the dreamer, she wished passionately that she were back home where no one could see her—but to her wild dismay she realized that this time she was caught in her own trap. She could not wake up from this bad dream.

  Oh, what am I going to do? she thought desperately. How am I going to get out of here? In her anguish and self-consciousness she had all but forgotten Lord Carlton and his wife.

  And then, so unexpectedly that she almost started, she heard their names called out, loud and clear: "My Lord Carlton! My Lady Carlton!"

  Without even realizing that she had done so she grabbed Almsbury by the hand and her eyes turned toward the door. The colour drained out of her face and neck as she watched them walk in; she did not even see the quick glance Almsbury gave her but she felt the warm reassuring pressure of his hand.

  Bruce looked very much as he had when he had left London two years before. He was thirty-eight years old and perhaps a little heavier than when last she had seen him, but still handsome, hard-skinned and vigorous-bodied, a man who changed little with the years. Amber only glanced at him—and then shifted her attention to his wife who walked beside him, her fingers resting upon his arm.

  She was rather tall, though slender and graceful, with clear blue eyes, dark hair, and a skin pale as moonlight. Her features were delicate, her expression serene. To look at her brought up some elusive emotion—the same feeling evoked by an exquisitely painted porcelain. The gown she wore was cloth-of-silver covered with black lace and a black-lace mantilla lay upon her head; about her neck was the diamond and sapphire necklace which had belonged to Bruce's mother and which Amber had always hoped might one day be her own.

  The King, ignoring ceremony, went forward with Lord and Lady Arlington to greet them—and as he did so all the room set up a noisy buzzing.

  "My God! But she's a glorious creature!"

  "I know that gown was made in Paris, my dear, it must have been, it couldn't have—"

  "Can they really have women like that in Jamaica?"

  "Poise and breeding—than which I admire nothing more in a woman."

  Amber was actually sick at her stomach now. Her hands and arm-pits were wet, all her muscles seemed to ache. I've got to get out of here before they see me! she thought wildly. But just as she made an involuntary movement to escape, Almsbury's grip on her hand tightened and he gave her a little jerk. She looked up at him, surprised, but then quickly composed herself again.

  Charles, with no respect for etiquette, was asking Lady Carlton to dance with him, and now as the music started for a pavane he led her onto the floor. Others followed and it was soon crowded with slow-moving figures, pacing to the rhythmic cadence of spinets, flutes and a low-beating drum. Amber scarcely heard Almsbury asking her to dance. He repeated his request, louder this time.

  She glanced at him. "I don't want to dance," she muttered, distracted. "I'm not going to stay here. I—I've got the vapours —I'm going home."

  This time she picked up her skirts and took a step, but the Earl caught her wrist and gave her so vigorous a jerk that her breasts shook and her curls bounced. "Stop acting like a damned fool or I'll slap you! Smile at me, now—everyone's watching you."

  With a quick shifting of her eyeballs beneath half-lowered lashes, Amber glanced round the room. She wanted to turn and scream or pick up something to throw at them, something that would destroy them all where they stood and wipe out of her sight forever those pleased smirking faces. Instead she looked up at Almsbury and smiled, pulling the corners of her mouth as tight as possible to keep the muscles from quivering. She put her hand on his extended arm and they moved toward the floor.

  "I've got to get out of here," she told him, under cover of the music. "I can't stay!"

  His expression did not change. "You won't leave if I have to tie you up. If you had the courage to wear that thing in the first place, by God you'll have the courage to stay till the end!"

  Amber clenched her teeth, hating him, and as her feet kept moving in time to the music she began to plan how she would escape—slip away through some side-door the first time he let her out of his sight. Damn him! she thought. He acts like my grandmother! What's it to him if I stay or don't! I'll go if I—

  And then, all unexpectedly, she saw Lady Carlton not more than ten feet away. Corinna was smiling at Almsbury, but she gave a little gasp of surprise as she caught sight of his partner. Amber's eyes blazed in fury and Corinna looked swiftly away, obviously embarrassed.

  Oh, that woman! thought Amber. I hate her, I hate her, I hate her! Look how she minces and smiles and sets her foot so! Hoity-toity! How mightily prim and proper! I wish I was stark naked! That would make her eyes pop out! I'll pay her back for that! I'll make her sorry she ever clapt eyes on me! Just wait—

  But suddenly her energy was consumed. She felt weak, lost, helpless.

  I'm going to die, she thought wretchedly. I'll never live through this. My life won't be worth tuppence to me now— Oh, God, let me die right here, right now—I can't take another step. For the moment it seemed that Almsbury's arm was all that kept her from collapsing. Then the music stopped and the crowd began to move about, gathering into groups. Amber, with Almsbury still at her side, pretended to see no one as she made her way among them.

  I'm going now, she told herself. And that damned blockhead isn't going to stop me!

  But as she started toward a door he took hold of her arm. "Come over here and meet Lady Carlton."

  Amber jerked away. "What do I want to know her for?"

  "Amber, for the love of God!" His voice, scarcely more than a whisper, was pleading with her. "Look about you. Can't you see what they're thinking?"

  Amber's eyes again flickered hastily around in time to catch a dozen pairs of eyes which had been fixed upon her glance aside, eyes that glittered, set above mouths that curled with amusement and contempt. Some of them did not even trouble to look away but met her with bold scornful smiles; they were watching, and waiting—

  She took a deep breath, linked her arm with Almsbury's and together they walked toward where Lord and Lady Carlton stood in a group made up of the King, Buckingham, Lady Shrewsbury, Lady Falmouth, Buckhurst, Sedley and Rochester. As they approached, the small gathering seemed to grow quieter —as if expecting something to happen from the mere fact of her presence. Almsbury presented Lady Carlton to the Duchess of Ravenspur and both women, smiling politely, made faint curtsies. Lady Carlton was friendly and gracious and obviously altogether unaware that her husband might know this gorgeous half-naked woman. While the men, including his Majesty, all turned their heads to look at her, their eyes admiring her figure.

  But Amber was conscious of no one but Bruce.

  For an instant Lord Carlton's expression might have betrayed him—but no one was looking—and then immediately it changed, he bowed to her as though they were the merest acquaintances. Amber, as their eyes met, felt the world rock and tremble beneath her. The conversation began again and had been going on for several seconds before she was able to follow it: King Charles and Bruce were discussing America, the tobacco plantations, the colonists' resentment of the Navigation Laws, men the King knew who had gone to make their homes in the New World. Corinna said little, but whenever she did speak Charles turned to her with interest and unconcealed admiration. Her voice was light and soft, completely feminine, and the brief
glances she gave Bruce revealed that here was that unheard-of phenomenon in London society: a woman deeply in love with her husband.

  Amber wanted to reach out and rake her long nails across that tranquil lovely face.

  When the music began again she curtsied, very cool and aloof and with some delicate suggestion of insult, to Corinna, nodded vaguely at Bruce and left them. After that she defiantly began to pretend that she was enjoying herself and was not at all embarrassed by her own nudity. She ate her supper attended by half-a-score of gallants, drank too much champagne, danced every dance. But the evening dragged with interminable slowness, and she thought wearily that it would never end.

  After an hour or so the dancers began to disappear into the rooms beyond, where the gaming-tables were set up. Amber, a nervous ache in her back and an agonizing tiredness through every bone, excused herself and went into the dressing-room which had been set aside for the ladies. There they might powder their faces or touch up their lips, adjust a garter or sit down for a few minutes and relax—impossible in the presence of men.

  But for a couple of maids, the room was empty when she walked into it and she stood for a moment, completely off her guard, shoulders slumped and head buried in her hands. Then all at once she heard steps behind her and Boynton's voice cried gayly: "How now, your Grace? An attack of the vapours?"

  Amber gave her a quick glance of scorn and disgust and bent to smooth up her stockings and tighten the garters. Boynton flung herself onto a couch with a heavy relieved sigh, spreading her legs and stretching them out before her, turning her neck from side to side to relieve the tension.

  Giving Amber an arch sidewise glance, she began to strip off her gloves. "Well—what d'ye think of my Lady Carlton?"

  Amber shrugged, "She's well enough, I suppose."

  Boynton laughed loudly at that. "Well enough, indeed. The men all think she's the prettiest woman here—if not the nakedest!"

  "Oh, shut up!" muttered Amber, and turned her back on her to look into one of the mirrors, her hands pressed flat on the table-top. Did she really look so tired, or was it only that her face had gotten a little shiny? She asked one of the maids to bring her some powder.

  Just at that moment Lady Carlton appeared in the doorway. Amber saw her in the mirror, her heart came to a sudden stop and then sped on again, almost suffocating her. She took the box of powder and began to dust her nose.

  "May I come in?" asked Corinna.

  "By all means, your Ladyship!" cried Boynton, shooting Amber a glance of malicious triumph. "We were just saying that since the Duchess of Richmond's had the small-pox you're the greatest beauty to come to Court."

  Corinna laughed softly. "Why, thank you. How kind of you to say that." Her eyes glanced uncertainly at Amber's back, as though she wished to speak to her but did not quite know how to begin. Actually, she wanted to make some kind of apology for her clumsiness earlier in the evening. London, she realized, was not America, and here no doubt it was quite correct for a lady of the highest rank to appear all but naked at a private party.

  "Your Grace," she ventured at last, "would it seem rude if I told you how much I admire your gown?"

  Amber did not even glance at her, but continued busy with the hare's foot. "Not if you meant it," she said tartly.

  Corinna looked at her, both puzzled and hurt by the rudeness, wondering what reply she should or could make to that. Already she had been surprised and baffled to discover the savage undercurrents that existed in the glossy polite stream of Palace etiquette.

  But Boynton spoke up instantly. "But your own gown, Lady Carlton, is the loveliest one here tonight! How do you get such clothes in America? The cloth-of-silver, and that lace—it's exquisite!"

  "Thank you, madame. My dressmaker is a Frenchwoman and she sends to Paris for the materials. Why, really," she added with a little laugh, "we aren't such savages in America. Everyone seems surprised I don't wear a leather dress and moccasins."

  Amber picked up her fan and gloves, turned around again and looked Corinna straight in the eye. "As for that, madame, you may find it's us who are the savages!"

  With that she swept out of the room, but not before she had heard Boynton say gleefully, "Pray, my lady, you must excuse her. She's had a mighty bad shock tonight." All of them were thinking, Amber knew, that she was jealous because King Charles had been paying her Ladyship such marked attention.

  "Oh," murmured Corinna's sympathetic voice, "I'm sorry—"

  Amber found Bruce at the raffling-table—for he never remained long in a ball-room when the cards were being dealt or the dice were running—and so absorbed in the play that he did not see her until she had been standing across from him for several moments. Self-consciously she had put on her most becoming expression, lower lip softly pouting, brows slightly raised to tilt the corners of her eyes.

  The instant he looked at her she knew it and glanced over swiftly, a half-smile on her mouth. But his mouth did not answer and his green eyes looked at her seriously for a moment, then lightened and slid down her body with a kind of lazy insolence. Slowly they returned to her face and one eyebrow lifted almost imperceptibly. At that instant she felt like the commonest kind of drab, displaying herself for any man to see and appraise and—worst of all—to reject.

  Ready to cry with rage and humiliation she turned swiftly and walked away.

  When she blundered into Lord Buckhurst and he suggested that they find some private room she went with him, as much to get away where she could not be seen as for anything else. But she stayed for more than two hours and got a morbid kind of satisfaction from thinking that Bruce would probably know what she was about. She had been lucklessly trying for nine years to arouse his jealousy, but still she was not convinced it would never be possible.

  They returned to the drawing-room after eleven to find the gambling still going on and a group gathered about the King and his Royal Highness—James was playing a guitar and Charles was singing, in his magnificent bass voice, a rollicking Cavalier song of the Civil War days. The first person she saw, even before they got to the bottom of the stairs, was Almsbury, and he came toward her with a look of worry on his face. But he said nothing and he and Buckhurst exchanged polite bows. His Lordship went off then and left her with the Earl.

  "Ye gods, Amber, I've been looking everywhere for you! I thought you'd gone—"

  All at once Amber found herself ready to burst into tears. "Almsbury! Oh, Almsbury, please take me home! Haven't I stayed long enough!"

  They went outside then and got into the coach and there Amber began to cry with furious abandon, sobbing almost hysterically. It was several moments before she could even speak and then she wailed miserably: "Oh, Almsbury! He didn't even smile at me! He just looked at me like—like—Oh, God! I wish I was dead!"

  Almsbury held her close against him, his mouth pressed to her cheek. "What else could he do, sweetheart? His wife was there!"

  "What difference does that make! Why should he be the only man in London to care what his wife thinks! Oh, he hates me, I know he does! And I hate him too!" She blew her nose. "Oh, I wish I did hate him!"

  She saw Lord and Lady Carlton the next day riding in the Ring. Amber knew that he disliked intensely the monotonous circling round and round, nodding and smiling to the same people two dozen times and more, but evidently he had come for Corinna's entertainment, since the ladies always enjoyed that pastime. The following day they sat in adjacent boxes at the Duke's Theatre, and the day after that they were in the Chapel at Whitehall. It was the first time she had ever seen him in a church. Each time both Lord and Lady Carlton bowed and smiled at her, and his Lordship seemed no better acquainted with her than his wife was.

  Amber alternated between fury and despondent misery.

  How can he have forgotten me? she frantically asked herself. He acts as if he'd never seen me before. No, he doesn't, either! No man who'd never seen me before would look the way he does! If his wife had any wit at all she'd begin to suspect he know
s me only too well— But she won't of course! Amber thought petulantly. I swear she's the greatest dunce in nature!

  But despite his seeming indifference she could not believe it possible that he had been able to forget all they had meant to each other, for happiness and sorrow, over the nine years past. He could not have forgotten the things she remembered so well. That first day in Marygreen, those early happy weeks in London, the terrible morning when Rex Morgan had died, the days of the Plague— He could not have forgotten that she had borne him two children. He could not have forgotten the pleasures they had shared, the laughter and quarrels, all the agony and ecstasy of being violently in love. Those were the things that could never fade—nothing could ever erase them. No other woman could ever be to him exactly what she had been.

  Oh, he can't forget! she cried to herself, lonely and despairing. He can't! He can't! He'll come to me as soon as he can, I know he will. He'll come tonight. But he did not.

  Five days after she had seen him at Arlington House, he and Almsbury came to her rooms late one afternoon as she was dressing to go out for supper. She had been thinking of him, both angry and excited at once, wishing passionately that he would come—and yet she was surprised when he and Almsbury walked into the room together.

  "Why—your Lordship!"

  Both men bowed, sweeping off their hats.

  "Madame."

  Then, quickly recovering herself, Amber shooed the maids and other attendants out of the room. But she did not rush toward him as she had thought she would. Now that he was there she merely stood and looked at him, almost painfully self-conscious, and did not know what to do, or what she dared to do. She waited for him.

  "I wonder if I might see Susanna?"

  "Why—yes—yes, of course."

  She walked to the door and called to someone in the next room. She turned back to face him. "Susanna's grown like anything. She's—she's much bigger than when you left." She was scarcely aware of what she said. Oh, my darling! she thought wildly. Is that all you're going to do—after two years? Just stand there—looking as if you scarce know me at all?