Kathleen Winsor - Forever Amber

And then as she moved slightly, trying to ease the cramps that knotted again and again in her legs, Sarah suddenly put her face in her hands and began to sob. Without an instant’s hesitation another woman bent and began to work, firmly kneading and massaging.

“Sarah—Please, Sarah—” whispered Judith, full of pity for her.

Very slowly and with great effort she drew her hand from where it lay at her side under the blankets and raised it toward her. As she did so she saw that the palm and fingers were smeared with wet blood. For a moment she stared at it dreamily, without comprehension, and then all at once she understood why she had had such a strange sense of comfort, as though she lay in a warm bath. Her eyes widened with horror and she gave a sharp cry of pleading and protest.

“Sarah!”

Sarah dropped to her knees, her face contorted with grief.

“Sarah! Sarah, help me! I don’t want to die!”

The other women were sobbing wildly but Sarah, gaining control of herself again, forced a smile. “It’s nothing, Judith. You mustn’t be frightened. A little blood is nothing—” But the next moment her features twisted with unbearable anguish and she was crying, unable to control herself any longer.

For several seconds Judith stared at her bowed head and shaking shoulders, full of wild, angry, helpless resentment, terrified. I can’t be dying! she thought. I can’t! I don’t want to die! I want to live!

She tried to speak to Sarah again, to beg for help—to demand it—Sarah! Sarah—don’t let me die—But she heard no words, she could not even tell if her lips formed them.

And then slowly she began to drift, floating back into some warm pleasant world where there was no fear of death, where she and John would meet again. She could see nothing at all now, and she let her eyes close—the ringing in her ears had shut out every other sound. She was no longer struggling; she drifted willingly, suffused with so intolerable a tiredness that she welcomed this promise of relief. And then all at once she could hear again, loud and clear, the sound of her daughter’s cries. They were repeated over and over, but grew steadily fainter, fading away, until at last she heard them no more.

MARYGREEN DID NOT change in sixteen years. It had changed little enough in the past two hundred.

The church of St. Catherine stood at the northern end of the road, like a benevolent godfather, and from it the houses ran down either side—half-timbered cottages, with overhanging upper stories, and thatched with heather or with straw that had been golden when new, then had turned slowly to a rich brown, and now was emerald green with moss and lichen. Tiny dormer windows looked out, wreathed with honeysuckle and ivy. Thick untrimmed hedges fenced the houses off from the road and there were small wooden gates, some of them spanned by arches of climbing roses. Above the hedges could be seen the confusion of blooming flowers, delphinium and lilacs, both purple and white, hollyhocks that reached almost to the eaves, an apple or plum or cherry tree in full blossom.

At the far end from the church was the green, where on festive occasions the young men played football and held wrestling matches and all the village danced.

There was an inn built of soft red brick and showing the aged silver-grey oaken timbers of its frame; a great sign painted with a crude golden lion swung out over the street on an elaborate wrought-iron arm. Nearby was the blacksmith’s cottage with his adjoining shop and the homes and places of business of the apothecary, the carpenter, and another tradesman or two. The rest of the cottages were occupied by husbandmen who divided their time between working on their own small holdings and on the large neighbouring farms. For there was no manor or squire’s estate near Marygreen, and the economic existence of the village depended upon the well-to-do yeomen farmers.

The day was quiet and warm, the sky blue with long streaks of white clouds, which seemed to have been put there by a paintbrush drawn across wet water-colour; the air was full of spring moisture and a rich loamy smell of damp earth. Chickens and geese and tiny sparrows had taken possession of the road. A little girl stood before one of the gates, holding a pet rabbit in her arms.

There were few people in sight, for it was late afternoon and each person had his own work to do, so that the only idlers were dogs, a playful kitten or two, and children too young to have learned a useful task. A woman with a basket on her arm walked along the street, pausing for a few moments to talk to another housewife, who threw open an upstairs casement window and leaned out, surrounded as though in a frame with wandering clematis and morning glories. Grouped about the village cross, which had somehow escaped Cromwell’s soldiers, were eight or ten young girls—cottagers’ daughters who were sent every day to watch their parents’ cattle on the common and make sure that no single goat, cow, or sheep should stray or be stolen.

Some of the younger ones were playing “How many miles to Babylon?”—but the three oldest girls talked among themselves, full of indignation and bad humour. With hands on their hips they glared across the common to where two young men, thumbs hooked awkwardly in their breeches, shifting their weight from one foot to another, stood deep in conversation with someone who apparently upset their not too well established poise. But their combined bulk hid whoever it was from view.

“That Amber St. Clare!” muttered the eldest girl with a furious toss of her long blonde hair. “If ever there’s a man about, you may be sure she’ll come along! I think she can smell ’em out!”

“She should ’ve been married and bedded a year ago—that’s what my mother says!”

The third girl smiled slyly and said in a knowing sing-song: “Well, maybe she an’t married yet, but she’s already been—”

“Hush!” interrupted the first, nodding toward the younger children.

“Just the same,” she insisted, though she had lowered her voice to a hiss, “my brother says Bob Starling told him he had his way with her on Mothering Sunday!”

But Lisbeth, who had started the conversation, gave a contemptuous snap of her fingers. “Uds Lud, Gartrude! Jack Clarke said the same thing six months ago—and she’s no bigger now than she was then.”

Gartrude had an answer. “And d‘ye want to know why, Lisbeth Morton? B’cause she can spit three times in a frog’s mouth, that’s why. Maggie Littlejohn seen her do it!”

“Pooh! My mother says nobody can spit three times in a frog’s mouth!”

But the argument was cut short. For suddenly a sound of galloping hoofs echoed through the quiet little valley and a body of men on horseback rounded the turn of the road above St. Catherine’s and came rushing headlong up the narrow street toward them. One of the six-year-olds gave a scream of terror and ran to hide behind Lisbeth’s skirts.

“It’s Old Noll! Come back from the Devil to get us!” Even dead, Oliver Cromwell had not lost his salutary effect on disobedient youngsters.

The men reined in their horses, bringing them to a prancing nervous halt not more than ten yards from where the girls stood in a close group, their earlier fright and apprehension giving way now to frank admiring interest. There were perhaps fourteen men in all but more than half of them were either serving-men or guides, for they wore plain clothes and kept at a discreet distance from the others. The half-dozen in the lead were obviously gentlemen.

They wore their hair in the shoulder-length cut of the Cavaliers, and their dress was magnificent. Their suits were black velvet, dark red velvet, green satin, with broad white linen collars and white linen shirts. On their heads were wide brimmed hats with swirling plumes, and long riding capes hung from their shoulders. Their high leather boots were silver-spurred and each man wore a sword at his hip. They had evidently been riding hard for some considerable distance for their clothes were dusty and their faces streaked with dirt and sweat, but in the girls’ eyes they had an almost terrifying grandeur.

Now one of the men took off his hat and spoke to Lisbeth, presumably because she was the prettiest. “My services, madame,” he said, his voice and eyes lazily good-humoured, and as he looked her over slowly from head to foot Lisbeth blushed crimson and found it difficult to breathe. “We’re looking for a place to eat. Have you a good tavern in these parts?”

Lisbeth stared at him, temporarily speechless, while he continued to smile down at her, his hands resting easily on the saddle before him. His suit was black velvet with a short doublet and wide knee-length breeches, finished with golden braid. He had dark hair and green-grey eyes and a narrow black mustache lined his upper lip. His good looks were spectacular—but they were not the most important thing about him. For his face had an uncompromising ruthlessness and strength which marked him, in spite of his obvious aristocracy, as an adventurer and gambler, a man free from bonds and ties.

Lisbeth swallowed and made a little curtsy. “Ye mun like the Three Cups in Heathstone, m’lord.” She was afraid to recommend her own poor little village to these splendid strangers.

“Where’s Heathstone from here?”

“Heathstone be damned!” protested one of the men. “What’s wrong with your own ordinary? I’ll fall off this jade if I go another mile without food!” He was a handsome blonde red-faced young man and in spite of his scowl he was obviously happy and good-natured. As he spoke the others laughed and one of them leaned over to clap him on the shoulder.

“By God, we’re a set of rascals! Almsbury hasn’t had a mouthful since he ate that side of mutton this morning!”

They laughed again at this for apparently Almsbury’s appetite was a well-established joke among them. The girls giggled too, more at ease now, and the six-year-old who had mistaken them for Puritan ghosts came out boldly from behind Lisbeth’s skirts and edged a step or two nearer. At that instant something happened to create an abrupt change in the relationship between the men and girls.

“There’s nothing wrong with our inn, your Lordship!” cried a low-pitched feminine voice, and the girl who had been talking to the two young farmers came running across the green toward them. The girls had stiffened like wary cats but the men looked about with surprise and sudden interest. “The hostess there brews the finest ale in Essex!”

She made a quick little curtsy to Almsbury and then her eyes turned to meet those of the man who had spoken first and who was now watching her with a new expression on his face, speculative, admiring, alert. While the others watched, it seemed that time stopped for a moment and then, reluctantly, went on again.

Amber St. Clare raised her arm and pointed back down the street to the great sign with its weather-beaten gilt lion shimmering faintly as the falling sun struck it. “Next the blacksmith’s shop, m’lord.”

Her honey-coloured hair fell in heavy waves below her shoulders and as she stared up at him her eyes, clear, speckled amber, seemed to tilt at the corners; her brows were black and swept up in arcs, and she had thick black lashes. There was about her a kind of warm luxuriance, something immediately suggestive to the men of pleasurable fulfillment—something for which she was not responsible but of which she was acutely conscious. It was that, more than her beauty, which the other girls resented.

She was dressed, very much as they were, in a rust wool skirt tucked up over a green petticoat, a white blouse and yellow apron and tight-laced black stomacher; her ankles were bare and she wore a pair of neat black shoes. And yet she was no more like them than a field flower is like a cultivated one or a sparrow is like a golden pheasant.

Almsbury leaned forward, crossing his arms on his saddle bow. “What in the name of Jesus,” he said slowly, “are you doing out here in God’s forgotten country?”

The girl looked at him, dragging her eyes away from the other man, and now she smiled, showing teeth that were white and even and beautifully shaped. “I live here, m’lord.”

“The deuce you do! Then how the devil did you get here? What are you? Some nobleman’s bastard put out to suck with a cottager’s wife and forgotten these fifteen years?” It was no uncommon occurrence, but she looked suddenly angry, her brows drawing in an indignant scowl.