Chickens, clucking and cackling, had rushed for cover as the horses came in and a cat streaked out of the way of the wheels. The sun lay warm on the brick-paved yard though the smell of recent rain was there, and pots of flowers against the wall had put out green leaves and dainty buds, tipped with colour. Overhead, hanging from lines or flung across balcony railings, was the stiff-dried wash, bed-sheets and shirts and towels and the billowing smocks of the women. A little boy sat in the sun, stroking his dog and singing an idle endless song to himself; he looked up curiously but did not move as the coach stopped short of him by only a few feet.
Amber put her hand into Bruce's and jumped down, flipping off her hat to feel the sun on her hair and skin, smiling at the youngster and asking him if he wanted some cherries. He was on his feet in an instant and after taking out a handful she gave him the basket. As Bruce had now paid the driver they strolled into the side entrance which led up to their apartments, Amber eating the fruit and spitting out pits as she went.
He had ordered a meal sent up and when they arrived the waiters were just leaving. A heavy white-damask cloth was laid on a small table before the fireplace, with flat silver and napkins, a seven-branched lighted candelabrum and handsome Italian dishes of wrought silver. There were strawberries in thick cream, a crisp broiled carp caught that morning in the river, a plateful of hot buns with a spattering of caraway seeds on them, and a jelly-torte—a delicious achievement with moist cooked apples in the center and apple-jelly poured over the whole. And there was a pot of steaming black coffee.
"Oh!" cried Amber in delight, forgetting that they had been on the narrow edge of hostility. "Everything I love!" She turned joyously and kissed him. "You always remember what I like best, darling!"
And it was true that he did. Time after time he had brought her unexpected gifts, some of the greatest value, others of none at all. If a thing was beautiful or if it was amusing, if it reminded him of her or if he thought that it would make her laugh, he bought it—a length of some marvelous green-and-gold glinting material, a fabulous jewel, or a mischievous monkey.
She flung her hat aside and loosened the laces of her corselet so that she would be more comfortable, and they sat down to eat All her resentment had gone. They talked and laughed, enjoying the good food, absorbed in each other, both of them happy and content.
They had come at only a few minutes past two and it had seemed then that there was a long afternoon before them. But the sun had moved from where it had been falling across their dining-table, around to the bedroom, onto the recessed seat below the square-paned windows, and finally out of the room altogether. Inside it was already cool shadowy dusk, though not dark enough yet to light the candles. Amber got up from where she had been lying on the bed with a pile of nutshells between her and Bruce, and went to look out the window.
She was only partly dressed, barefooted and wearing her smock. Bruce, in his plain-cut breeches and wide-sleeved white shirt lay stretched out and resting on one elbow, cracking a nutshell in his right hand, watching her.
She leaned out a little, looking toward the busy barge-laden river where the sun was going down, turning the water to red brass. Below in the shadows of the courtyard two men stood talking, turning their heads as a girl walked by with a slopping pail of water in each hand, her hair bright as flames where a last shaft from the sun struck it. There was a languor and quietness in the air as the long day drew to a close—and the movements of all creatures were slower and a little weary. Amber's throat swelled and began to ache; her eyes were wet with tears as she turned to look across the room at him.
"Oh, Bruce, it's going to be a glorious night. Wouldn't it be wonderful to take a barge and sail up the Thames to some little inn and ride back in the morning—"
"It would," he agreed.
"Then let's!"
"You know we can't."
"Why not!" Her voice and eyes challenged him. But he merely looked at her, as though the question were superfluous. Both of them were silent for a few moments. "You don't dare!" she said flatly at last.
Now it came welling back into her again, all the anger and resentment, the hurt pride and baffled affection of these past months. She came to sit beside him again on the rumpled bed, determined to have it out with him now.
"Oh, Bruce, why can't we go? You can think of something to tell her. She'll believe anything you say. Please! You'll be gone so soon!"
"I can't do it, Amber, and you damn well know it Anyway, I think it's time to leave." He sat up.
"Of course!" she cried furiously. "The minute I mention something you don't like to hear then it's time to leave!" Her mouth twisted a little and there was bitter mockery in her tones. "Well, this is one time you're going to hear me out! How happy d'ye think I've been these five months past—sneaking about to see you, scarcely daring to give you a civil word in company—all for fear she might notice and be hurt! Oh, my! Poor Corinna! But what about me!" Her voice was harsh and angry and at the last she hit herself a smack on the chest. "Don't I count for something too!"
Bruce gave her a bored frown and got to his feet. "I'm sorry, Amber, but this was your idea, remember."
She sprang up to face him. "You and your blasted secrecy! Why, there's not another man in London coddles his wife the way you do her! It's ridiculous!"
He reached for his vest, slipped it on and began to button it. "You'd better get into your clothes." His voice spoke shortly and the line of his jaw was hard; the expression on his face roused her to greater fury.
"Listen to me, Bruce Carlton! You may think I should be pleased you'll so much as do me the favour of lying with me! Well, maybe I was once—but I'm not just a simple country wench any longer, d'ye hear? I'm the Duchess of Ravenspur-— I'm somebody now, and I won't be driven around in hackneys or met at lodging-houses any longer! And I mean it! D'ye understand me?"
He took up his cravat and turned to the mirror to knot it. "Pretty well, I think. Are you coming with me?"
"No, I'm not! Why should I!" She stood with her feet spread and hands planted on her hips, watching him with her eyes defiantly ablaze.
The cravat tied, he put on his periwig, picked up his hat and walked through the bedroom toward the outside door, while Amber stared after him with growing fear and misgiving. Now what was he going to do? Suddenly she ran after him and just as she got to him he reached the door, took hold of the knob and turned to look down at her. For a moment they looked at each other in silence.
"Goodbye, my dear."
Her eyes shifted warily over his face. "When will I see you again?" She asked the question softly and her voice was apprehensive.
"At Whitehall, I suppose."
"Here, I mean."
"Not at all. You don't like meeting in secret—and I won't do it any other way. That would seem to settle the matter."
She stood and stared at him in horrified unbelief, and then all at once her fury burst. "Damn you!" she yelled. "I can be independent too! Get out of here, then—and I hope I never see you again! Get out! Get out!" Her voice rose hysterically and she lifted her fists to strike at him.
Swiftly he opened the door and went out, slamming it behind him. Amber flung herself against the panels and burst into wild helpless angry tears. She could hear his feet going down the stairs, the sound of his footsteps fading away, and then— when she quit sobbing for a moment and listened—she could hear nothing at all. Only the faint sound of a fiddle playing somewhere in the building. Whirling around she ran to the window and leaned out. It was almost dark but someone was just coming into the courtyard carrying a lighted link and she saw him down there, rapidly crossing the square.
"Bruce!"
She was frantic now, and thoroughly scared.
But she was three stories above the ground and perhaps he did not hear her; in another moment he had disappeared into the street.
Chapter Sixty-six
She did not see him at all for six days. At first she thought that she could make him come to h
er, but he did not. She wrote to let him know that she was ready to accept an apology. He replied that he had no wish to apologize but was satisfied to leave it as it was. That alarmed her, but still she refused to believe that all those tempestuous years, the undeniably powerful feeling they had for each other, could end now—tamely, uselessly, disappointingly—over a petty quarrel that could so easily have been avoided.
She looked for him everywhere she went.
Each time she entered a crowded room her eyes swept over it, searching for him. When she walked through the Privy Garden or along the galleries she expected and hoped to see him there, perhaps only a few feet ahead of her. At the theatre and driving through the streets she kept an eager alert watch for him. He filled her mind and emotions until she was conscious of nothing else. A dozen different times she thought that she saw him. But it was always someone else, someone who did not really look like him at all.
Not quite a week after their quarrel she went to a raffle at the India House in Clement's Lane, Portugal Street, which opened just off the Strand and had several little shops patronized by men and women of fashion. On that day every surrounding street was blocked by the great gilt coaches of the nobility and crowds of their waiting, gossiping footmen.
The room, which was not a very large one, was packed full of ladies with their lapdogs and blackamoors and waiting-women, as well as several gallants who stood among them. Feminine voices and high little shrieks of laughter babbled through the room like a spring freshet dashing headlong toward the river. China tea-dishes clinked and taffeta skirts whistled softly.
The raffle had been under way for an hour or more when the Duchess of Ravenspur arrived. Her entrance was spectacular, made with the sense of showmanship and ostentation which proclaimed her still more actress than great lady. Like a wind she swept upon them, nodding here and smiling there, well aware of the sudden lull she had caused, the murmurs that followed after her. She was, as always, splendidly dressed. Her gown was cloth-of-gold, her hooded cloak emerald velvet lined in sables and there was a spray of emeralds pinned to her great sable muff. The blackamoor carrying her train wore a suit of emerald velvet and his skull was bound in a golden turban.
Amber was pleased by their interest, malicious as it was, for only jealousy and envy ever got a woman such attentions from her own sex she thought. Next to a man's admiration she valued a woman's envy. Someone quickly placed a chair for her beside Mrs. Middleton, and as she took it Jane's face clouded with the resentful troubled expression of a pretty woman forced into comparison with one far handsomer.
Amber saw at a glance Middleton's ambitious costume, too expensive for her husband's modest estate, the pearls that had been given her by one lover, the ear-drops by another, the gown in which she had been seen more times than was fashionable and which should have been on her waiting-woman's back several weeks since.
"My dear!" she cried. "How fine you look! I vow and swear, that gown! Where'd you ever get it?"
"How kind of you to say so, madame, when of course you outshine me by far!"
"Not at all," protested Amber. "You're too modest, with every man at Court adying to be your servant!"
The fencing-match of compliments ended when a young Negro brought Amber a bowl of tea which she took and began to sip while her slanted eyes moved about the room—looking for him. He was not here either, though she would have sworn that was Almsbury's coach in the street. They were preparing now to auction off a length of Indian calico—the expensive flowered cotton which the ladies like to have made into morning-gowns, because of its extreme rarity. The auctioneer measured down an inch of candle and stuck a pin into it, the candle was lighted, and the bidding began. Middleton gave Amber a nudge and smiled at her slyly from over the top of her bowl, glancing off across the room.
"Weill Who d'ye think I see?"
Amber's heart stopped completely and then began to pound.
"Who!"
But even as she spoke her eyes followed Middleton's and she saw Corinna sitting just a few feet away, but half-turned so that only the curve of her cheek and the long black arc of her lashes was visible. Her cloak fell slant-wise, concealing the grotesque bulge of pregnancy, and as she moved her head to speak to someone her full profile appeared, serene and lovely. Amber was seized with a fury of murderous hatred.
"They say," Middleton was drawling, "that his Lordship is mad in love with her. But it's no wonder, is it?—she's such a beauty."
Amber dragged her eyes away from Corinna, who either did not know that she was in the room or pretended not to know it, and gave Middleton a savage glare. The bidding was idle and the customers inattentive for, as at the theatre, they were more interested in themselves than in what they had ostensibly come for. Without much success the auctioneer tried to whip up some competition; the calico was a beautiful piece, printed in soft shades of rose and blue and violet, but the highest bid so far was only five pounds.
Amber was leaning across the woman on her left to talk to a couple of young men and the three of them were busily murmuring and laughing together over the newest scandal.
The night before Charles had gone with Rochester to the Russia House, a brothel in Moor Fields, and while the King's attentions were occupied his Lordship had stolen his money and left. When he was ready to pay his fee and go Charles found himself penniless and was only saved from a severe beating when someone chanced to recognize him. Rochester had gone to take the country air and, no doubt to polish a new set of lampoons which would soon flood the Court.
"D'you think it's true?" Henry Jermyn wanted to know. "I saw his Majesty this morning and he looked as spruce as you please."
"He always does," the other reminded him. "It's his Majesty's great good fortune that his dissipations don't show in his face—at least not yet."
"We'll never know if it's true or not," said Amber. "For he won't tolerate being reminded the next morning of what he did the night before."
"Your Grace should know."
"They say he's mightily taken with Nell Gwynne these days," said Jermyn, and he watched Amber carefully as he spoke. "Chiffinch tells me he goes to see her two or three times a week, now her belly's got so big she can't hop in and out of hackneys."
Amber knew that already, and in fact Charles had not visited her at night for several weeks. Ordinarily she might have been worried about it, but she had been too much concerned over Bruce to give it very much thought. He had neglected her before, and she knew that he would do so again, for the King liked variety in his love-affairs and no one woman could satisfy him for long. It was a habit he had contracted early in life and which he had never wanted or tried to change. But it made her angry to have others know and remind her that she was less a favourite than she had been on her first coming to Court.
She might have thought of something flippant to say in retort, but at that moment she caught the end of the auctioneer's sentence: "—if no one else wishes to bid, this length of cloth goes to my Lady Carlton for the sum of six pound—" His eyes went over the room. "Is there another bid! No? Then—"
"Seven pound!"
Amber's voice rang through the room, loud and clear and defiant; she was half startled herself to hear it. For certainly she had no use for that calico—pretty as it was; it was printed in colours she never wore and would not have considered wearing. But Corinna had bid for it, wanted it—and must not have it.
Corinna did not turn her head to look at Amber, but for several seconds she sat quietly, as if surprised or embarrassed. The auctioneer was setting up a lively chatter, sensing that these two ladies were rivals who might be persuaded to bid against each other. Amber, fully expecting that Corinna would retire meekly and let her have the cloth, was astonished when her voice, soft but determined, spoke again.
"Eight pound."
Damn her! thought Amber. I'll get it now if it costs me my last farthing!
The flame was burning close to the pin. In just a few moments the pin would fall out and whoever had m
ade the last bid took the prize. Amber waited until the auctioneer was once more announcing that the cloth went to Lady Carlton and then she interrupted him.
"Twenty pound!"
The room had grown quiet now and at last they were taking an interest in the auction, for the Duchess of Ravenspur's affair with Lord Carlton was known to all of them. They understood why she was so anxious to get the cloth, and they hoped to see her beaten and embarrassed. Their sympathy for Corinna was not great, but their resentment against Amber was. She had got too much, been too successful, and now even her sycophants and pretended friends hoped secretly for her unhappiness. No defeat of hers could be too small to give them satisfaction.
Corinna hesitated, wondering if it was not absurd to haggle with a woman who had neither the breeding nor the manners to appreciate that both of them were being made conspicuous in the worst possible way. Amber had no such misgivings. She sat tensely forward in her chair, her eyes wide and shining with excitement, fists clenched inside her muff.
I've got to beat her! she was thinking. I've got to! It seemed that nothing else in her life had ever been so important.
And while Corinna hesitated the flame burned closer to the pin, melting the wax, and slowly it began to droop. Amber was breathing faster, her nostrils flared a little and her muscles held taut. There! It's sliding out! I've got it! I've won!
"Fifty pounds!" called a masculine voice, as the pin fell from the candle onto the table.
The auctioneer was holding the cloth in his hands, grinning. "Sold, for fifty pound, to my Lord Carlton."
Forever Amber Page 100
