Kathleen Winsor - Forever Amber

“Sometimes you forgot what?”

“Nothing it will do any good to remember now.” He wiped his face with a towel, tossed the towel onto the table-top and then turned to put on the rest of his clothes. “Oh, Lord, Amber —I’m sorry. This is a devil of a mess.”

She was quiet for a moment, but finally she said, “You don’t like babies, do you?”

She asked the question so naively, looked up at him with so sad and wistful an expression that all at once he took her into his arms and held her head against his chest while one hand stroked tenderly over her hair. “Yes, my darling, of course I like them.” His mouth was pressed against the top of her head, but his eyes were troubled and a little angry.

“What are we to do?” she asked him at last.

Held close in his arms with her body against his she felt warm and safe and happy—the problem had dissolved. For though he had told her he would not marry her and she had believed it at first, now she was almost convinced that he would. Why shouldn’t he? They loved each other, they were happy together, and during the past several weeks of living with him she had almost forgotten that he was a lord and she the niece of a yeoman farmer. What might once have seemed impossible to the point of absurdity now seemed to her quite natural and logical.

He let her go and stood with his arms hanging at his sides while he talked, his green-grey eyes hard and uncompromising, watching her steadily. There was no doubt he meant every word he said.

“I’m not going to marry you, Amber. I told you that at the first and I’ve never once said anything to the contrary. I’m sorry this has happened—but you knew it probably would. And remember, it was your idea that you come to London—not mine. I won’t just leave you to drift—I’ll do everything I can to make it easier for you—everything that won’t interfere with my own plans. I’ll leave you money enough to take care of yourself and the baby. If you won’t go back to Marygreen the best thing is for you to go to one of the women here in London who take care of pregnant women and arrange for their lying-in—some of those places are very comfortable and no one will inquire too closely for your husband. When you’re well again you can do as you like. With a few hundred pound in cash a woman as beautiful as you are should be able to marry a country-squire, at the least—or perhaps a knight, if you’re clever enough—”

Amber stared at him. She was suddenly furious, all the pride and happiness she had felt at the prospect of bearing him a child was drowned now in pain and outraged pride. The sound of his voice enraged her—talking so coolly, as if falling in love with a man and having his baby was a matter to be settled with money and logic, like provisioning a ship! She almost hated him.

“Oh!” she cried. “So you’ll give me money enough to catch a knight—if I’m clever! Well, I don’t want to catch a knight! And I don’t want your money, either! And as for the matter of that—I don’t want your baby! I’m sorry I ever laid eyes on you! I hope you go away and I never see you again! I hate you! —Oh!—” She covered her face with her hands and began to cry.

Bruce stood watching her for a moment, but at last he put on his hat and started out of the room. Amber looked up. And when he had scarcely reached the bedroom door she ran after him.

“Where are you going?”

“Down to the wharf.”

“Will you come back tonight? Please come back! Please don’t leave me alone!”

“Yes—I’ll try to get here early. Amber—” His voice was again warm and smooth, caressing, tender. “I know this is hard for you and I’m truly sorry it’s happened. But it’ll be over sooner than you expect and you’ll be none the worse for it. It’s really no great tragedy when a woman has a baby—”

“No great tragedy to a man! You’ll go away and forget all about it—but I can’t go away! I can’t forget it! I’ll never be able to forget it—Nothing will ever be the same for me again! Oh, damn men!”

As the days passed she became convinced beyond all doubt that she actually was pregnant.

Less than a week after she had told him, she began to retch the moment she lifted her head in the mornings. She was morose and unhappy and cried upon the slightest provocation, or with none at all. He began coming home even later at night and when he did they often quarrelled; she knew that her ill temper was keeping him from her, but she could not seem to control herself. But she knew also that nothing she had said or could say would make him change his mind. And when he was away once for an entire day and night and until late the next night, she realized that she must give over her haranguing and tantrums or lose him even before he sailed. She could not bear the thought of that, for she still loved him, and she made a tremendous effort to seem once more gay and charming when they were together.

But alone she was no more reconciled than she had been and the hours without him seemed endless, while she trailed idly about the house, steeped in pity for herself. This great world of London to which she had come with such brilliant expectations only four months ago now seemed a dismal place and full of woe. She had not the vaguest idea as to what she would do when he was gone and refused to discuss it with him, even pushing the thoughts out of her own mind when they began to creep in. When that day came she felt that the end of the world would also come, and did not care what happened afterward.

One hot mid-morning in late August Amber was down in the courtyard playing with some puppies that had been born at the inn a month or so before. She knelt on the flag-stones in the mottled shade of a fruit-heavy plum tree, laughing and holding two of the puppies in her arms while the proud mother lay nearby, wagging her tail and keeping a careful eye on her offspring. And then, unexpectedly, she glanced up and saw Bruce leaning on the rail of the gallery outside their bedroom, watching her.

He had left several hours before and she had not expected him back till evening, at the earliest. Her first reaction was one of delight that he had come home and surprised her and she gave him a wave as she got quickly to her feet, putting the puppies back into their box. But then immediately a slow stealthy fear began to sneak in. It grew ominously, and as she reached the stairs and started to mount them she raised her eyes and met his. She knew it then for sure. He was leaving today.

“What is it, Bruce?” she asked him, warily, as though she could ward off the answer.

“The wind’s changed. We’re sailing in an hour.”

“Sailing! In an hour! But you said last night it wouldn’t be for days!”

“I didn’t think it would. But we’re ready sooner than I expected and there’s nothing to wait for.”

While she stood there, helpless, he turned and went through the door, and then she followed him. There was a small leather-covered nail-studded trunk of his on the table already packed more than half full, while the wardrobe in which he kept his clothes was opened and empty. Now he took some shirts from a carved oak chest, piled them into the trunk, and as he did so he began to talk to her.

“I haven’t much time, so listen to what I say. I’m leaving the coach and horses for your use. The coachman gets six pound a year with his livery and the footman gets three, but don’t pay them until next May or they’ll likely rub off. I’ve paid all the bills and the receipts are in the drawer of that table. So are the names and locations of a couple of women who can take care of you—ask them what the charge will be before you move into the house. It shouldn’t be more than thirty or forty pound for everything.”

While Amber stood staring at him, horrified at the brusque impersonal tone of his voice, he closed the lid of the trunk and walked swiftly to the door of the other room where he made a signal to someone evidently waiting out in the hall. The next moment he was back, followed by a great ruffian with a patch over one eye, who shouldered the trunk and went out again. All the while Amber had been watching him, desperately trying to think of something she could say or do to stop him. But she felt stunned, paralyzed, and no words came to help her.

From the pocket of his doublet Bruce now drew a heavy leather wallet, closed by draw-strings and bulging with coins, and tossed it onto the table.

“There’s five hundred pound. That should be enough to take care of you and the baby for several years, if necessary, but I’d advise you to put it with a goldsmith. I’d intended to do that for you, but now I haven’t time. Shadrac Newbold is perfectly reliable and he’ll allow you six percent interest if you put it with him at twenty days call, or three and a half if you want it on demand. He lives at the Crown and Thistle in Cheapside; his name is written on this piece of paper. But don’t trust anyone else—above all don’t trust a maid if you take one into service, and don’t trust any strangers no matter how much you may like them. Now—” He turned and picked up his cloak. “I’ve got to go.”

He spoke swiftly, giving her no chance to interrupt, and obviously was in a hurry to get out before she started to cry. But he had not taken three steps when she ran to throw herself before him.

“Bruce! Aren’t you even going to kiss me?’

He hesitated for only an instant and then his arms went about her with a rough eagerness which suggested some reluctance within himself to leave her. Amber clung to him, her fingers clutching his arms as though she could hold him there by sheer force of superior strength, her mouth avidly against his, and already her face was wet with tears.

“Oh, Bruce! Don’t go! Please don’t go—please don’t leave me—! Please—please don’t leave me—”

But at last his fingers took hold of her wrists and slowly he forced her away. “Amber, darling—” His voice had a sound of pleading urgency. “I’ll come back one day—I’ll see you again—”

She gave a sudden cry, like a lonely desperate animal, and then she began to struggle with him, reaching out to grab hold of his arms, terrified. All at once he seized both her wrists, his mouth caught at hers again for an instant, and before she could quite realize what had happened he was gone through the room and out the door and it slammed behind him.

Stunned, she stood for a moment staring at the closed door. And then she ran to it, her hand going out to grab the knob.

“Bruce!”

But she did not quite reach it. Instead she stopped, brought up short by some hopelessness inside herself, and though for a moment her eyes continued to watch the door, at last she slumped slowly to her knees and her head dropped into her hands.

THE DUKE OF YORK leaned gloomily against the fireplace. His hands were in the pockets of his breeches, his good-looking face was sulky, and he stared down at the floor. Across the room Charles was bent over a table, peering intently into a pewter pan set on an oil-lamp, in which boiled and bubbled a hundred different herbs. Now, carefully, he took up a spoon and measured in three heaping spoonfuls of dried ground angelica, stirring as he did so.

The brothers were in his Majesty’s laboratory, surrounded on all sides by crucibles and alembics, retorts and matrasses. There were glass and earthenware jars full of powders, pastes, many-coloured liquids, oil of prima materia. Egg-shaped vessels of every size and substance lined the shelves. Piles of books bound in old leather, stamped with gold, stood on the floor or on the tables. Chemistry—which had not yet secured its divorce from the medieval witch-woman, alchemy—was one of the King’s chief interests. Even when he had had to beg a meal he had not been able to resist paying money out of his meagre store for almost every new nostrum recommended him by a passing quack.

“How the devil,” said Charles now, stirring the mixture but not looking around, “did you let her get you into such a mess?”

York gave a heavy sigh. “I wish I knew. She isn’t even pretty. She’s as ugly as an old bawd. Eyes that pop and a shape like this—” His hands described an ungainly female form.

Charles smiled. “Perhaps that’s what fooled you. It’s my observation a pretty woman seldom thinks it’s necessary to be clever. Anne Hyde is clever—don’t you agree?” He seemed amused.

James shifted his weight, scowling. “I don’t know what fooled me. I must have been out of my mind. Signing that damned marriage-contract!”

“And in your own blood. A picturesque touch, James, that one. Well—you’ve signed it and you’ve had her and she’s pregnant. Now what?”