Frances smiled coolly. “Could you, madame? You’re welcome to try—But I think I please his Majesty quite as well as you—even though my methods may not be the same—”
Barbara made a sound of disgust. “Bah! You squeamish virgins make me sick! You’re no good to any man, once he’s had you! I’ll wager you my right eye that once his Majesty lays with you he’ll—”
Frances gave her a bored look and as Barbara chattered on, the door behind her swung slowly open. His Majesty appeared in it. He motioned her to silence and stood lounging against the door-jamb, watching Barbara, his dark face moody, displeased and glowering.
Barbara was beginning to shout. “There’s one place where you can never get the better of me, Madame Stewart! Whatever my faults, there’s never a man got out of my bed—”
“Madame!”
The King’s voice spoke, sharply, from the doorway, and Barbara swung about with a horrified gasp. Both women watched him come into the room.
“Sire!” Barbara swept him a deep curtsy.
“That’s enough of your bawdy talk.”
“How long have you been there?”
“Long enough to have heard a great deal which was unpleasant. Frankly, madame, at times you exhibit the worst imaginable taste.”
“But I didn’t know you were there!” she protested. And then suddenly her eyes narrowed, she looked from Charles to Frances and back again. “Oho!” she said softly. “Now I begin to see something. How cleverly the two of you have hoodwinked us all—”
“Unfortunately, you’re mistaken. As it happened you passed me in the hall without seeing me, and when I found where you were going I turned around and followed you back. You looked as though you were about some mischief.” He smiled faintly, amused at her discomposure, but instantly his face sobered again. “I thought we had agreed, madame, that your behaviour toward Mrs. Stewart was to be both polite and friendly. What I heard just now sounded neither.”
“How can you expect me to be polite to a woman who slanders me!” demanded Barbara, quick to her own defense.
Charles gave a short laugh. “Slanders you! Ods-fish, Barbara, you don’t imagine it’s still possible? Now, Mrs. Stewart is tired, I believe, and would like to rest. If you’ll make her an apology we’ll both go and leave her alone.”
“An apology!” Barbara stared at him with horrified indignation, and turning she swept Frances contemptuously from head to foot. “I’ll be damned if I do!”
All good humour was gone from his face now, replaced by that sombre bitterness which lurked there at all times. “You refuse, madame?”
“I do!” She faced him defiantly, and both of them had forgotten Frances who stood looking on, tired and nervous, wishing that they would quarrel elsewhere. “Nothing under God’s sky can make me apologize to that meek simpering milk-sop!”
“The choice is your own. But may I suggest that you retire from Hampton Court while you consider the matter? A few weeks of quiet reflection may give you another view of good manners.
“You’re sending me from the Court?”
“Put it that way if you like.”
Without a moment’s hesitation Barbara was in tears. “So this is what it’s come to! After the years I’ve given up to you! It’s a shame before all the world that a king should turn away the mother of his children!”
He lifted one eyebrow, skeptically. “My children?” he repeated softly. “Well, some of them, perhaps. But there’s nothing more to be said. Either make Mrs. Stewart an apology—or go elsewhere.”
“But where can I go? The plague’s everywhere else!”
“For the matter of that, the plague’s here too.”
Even Frances snapped out of her weary lethargy and both women repeated at once: “Here!”
“The wife of a groom died of it today. Tomorrow we move to Salisbury.”
“Oh, my God!” wailed Barbara. “Now we’ll all get it! We’ll all die!”
“I don’t think so. The woman has been buried and everyone who was with her is shut up. So far there’ve been no new cases. Come, madame, make your choice. Will you be going with us tomorrow?”
Barbara looked at Frances who, feeling her eyes shift to her, suddenly straightened and raised her head—meeting her glance with cold hostility. Suddenly Barbara slammed her fan to the floor.
“I will not! I’ll go to Richmond and be damned to you!”
CHAPTER THIRTY–SEVEN
AMBER WENT BACK into the kitchen and continued getting Bruce’s meal. She wanted to do as much as she could for him, while she was still able to do anything at all. For by tomorrow she would be helpless and a new nurse would be there—someone perhaps much worse than Spong had been. She was more worried about him than about herself. He was still weak and in need of competent care, and the thought of a stranger coming in, someone who would not know him or care what happened to him, filled her with desperation. If she’d only come in time, she thought, maybe I could bribe her.
Once the first horror of discovery was gone she accepted with resignation and almost with apathy the fact that she was sick. She did not, actually, expect to die. If one person fell ill of the plague in a house and lived, it was thought a good omen for all others in that same house. (Spong’s death she ignored and had almost forgotten; it seemed to have occurred in some distant past unconnected with either her or Bruce.) But apart from superstition she had strong faith in her own temporary immortality. She wanted so much to go on living, it was impossible for her to believe that she could die now, so young and with all her hopes still to be realized.
She had the same symptoms Bruce had had, but they came in swifter succession.
By the time she started into the bedroom with the tray her head was aching violently, as though a tight steel band had been bound about her temples and was drawing steadily tighter. She was sweating and there were stabbing pains throughout her stomach and along her legs and arms. Her throat was as dry as if she had swallowed dust, but though she drank several dipperfuls of water it did no good. The thirst increased.
Bruce was awake, sitting propped up as he could often do now, and though there was a book in his hands he was watching the door anxiously. “You’ve been gone so long, Amber. Is anything wrong?”
She did not look at him but kept her eyes on the tray. Dizziness swept over her in waves, and when it came she had a weird sensation of standing in the midst of a whirling sphere; she could not tell where the floors or walls were. Now she paused for a moment, trying to orient herself and then, setting her teeth, she came determinedly forward.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she repeated, but even to her her voice had a strange fuzzy sound. She hoped that he would not notice.
Slowly, for she felt very tired and her muscles seemed heavy, she set the tray on the bedside table and reached down to pick up the bowlful of syllabub. She saw his hand reach out and close over her wrist and when at last she forced her eyes to lift and meet his, she found on his face the look of self-condemning horror she had been dreading.
“Amber—” He continued to stare at her for a moment, his green eyes narrowed, searching. “You’re not—sick?” The words came out with slow forced reluctance.
She gave a little sigh. “Yes, Bruce. I am—I guess I am. But don’t—”
“Don’t what!”
She tried to remember what she had started to say. “Don’t—worry about it.”
“Don’t worry about it! Good God! Oh, Amber! Amber! You’re sick and it’s my fault! It’s because you stayed here to take care of me! Oh, my darling—if only you’d gone! If only you’d—Oh, Jesus!” He let go of her wrist and distractedly ran one hand through his hair.
She reached down to touch his forehead. “Don’t torture yourself, Bruce. It’s not your fault. I stayed because I wanted to. I knew it was a chance—but I couldn’t go. And I’m not sorry—I won’t die, Bruce—”
He looked at her then with a kind of admiration in his eyes she had never seen before. But at that moment she felt the nausea begin to rise, flooding up irresistibly, and even before she could reach the basin halfway across the room she had started to vomit.
Each time it happened it left her more exhausted, and now she hung for a minute longer over the basin, leaning on her hands, with her burnt-taffy hair concealing her face. All at once she gave a convulsive shudder; the room seemed cold, and yet the fire was burning, all the windows were closed, and the day had been an unusually hot one. At that moment there was a sound behind her. She turned slowly and saw Bruce beginning to get out of bed. With a last desperate surge of her strength she ran toward him.
“Bruce! What are you doing! Get back—” She began to push at him, frantically, but her muscles seemed useless. She had never felt so weak, so helpless, not even after her children had been born.
“I’ve got to get up, Amber! I’ve got to help you!”
He had been out of bed only once or twice since he had fallen sick, and now his body was shining with sweat and his face was violently contorted. Amber began to cry, almost hysterical.
“Don’t, Bruce! Don’t, for God’s sake! You’ll kill yourself! You can’t get up! Oh, after everything I’ve done you’re going to kill yourself—”
Suddenly she dropped to her knees on the floor, put her head in her arms and sobbed. He fell back against the pillows, wiping his hand over his forehead, surprised to find that he was dizzy and that his ears rang, for he had thought himself farther recovered than he was. He reached over to stroke Amber’s head.
“Darling—I won’t get up. Please don’t cry—you need your strength. Lie down and rest. The nurse will be here soon.”
At last, with an intense feeling of weariness, she forced herself to get to her feet and stood looking about the room as though trying to remember something. “What was I going to do—” she murmured at last. “Something—What was it?”
“Can you tell me where the money is, Amber? I’ll need it for supplies. I had none with me.”
“Oh, yes—that’s it, the money.” The words slurred, one over another, as if she had drunk too much cherry-brandy. “It’s in here—I’ll get it—’sin secret panel—”
The parlour seemed a great distance away, farther than she could possibly walk. But she got there at last, and though it took her a while to locate the panel, she finally found it and scooped out the leather wallet and small pile of jewellery that lay there. She brought them back in her apron and dropped them onto the bed beside Bruce. He had managed to lean over and pull out the trundle and now, when he told her to lie down, she collapsed onto it, already half unconscious.
Bruce lay awake through the night, cursing his own helplessness. But he knew that any violent strain now would only make him worse and might kill him. He could help her best by saving his strength until he was well enough to take care of her. He lay there and heard her vomit, again and again, and though each time when she had done she gave a heavy despairing groan, she was otherwise perfectly quiet. So quiet that he would listen, with mounting horror, for the sound of her breathing. And then the retching would begin again. The nurse did not come.
By morning she lay flat on her back, her eyes fixed and wide open but unseeing. Her muscles were perfectly relaxed and she had no consciousness of him or of her surroundings; when he spoke to her she did not hear. The disease had made much swifter progress than it had with him, but it was characteristic of plague to vary its nature with each victim.
He decided that if the nurse did not appear soon he would get out of bed and talk to the guard, but at about seven-thirty he heard the door open and a woman’s boisterous voice called out: “The plague-nurse is here; Where are ye?”
“Come upstairs!”
Within a few moments a woman appeared in the doorway. She was tall and heavy-boned, perhaps thirty-five, and Bruce was relieved to see that she looked strong and at least moderately intelligent. “Come in here,” he said, and she walked forward, her eyes already on Amber. “I’m Lord Carlton. My wife is desperately sick as you can see, and needs the best of care. I’d give it to her myself, but I’m convalescing and not able to get up yet. If you take good care of her—if she lives—I’ll give you a hundred pound.” He lied about their marriage because he thought the truth was none of the woman’s business, and he offered a hundred pounds because he believed it might impress her more than a larger sum which she would probably not expect to get.
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