Winsor, Kathleen (102 page)

One
night in August she was considering which gown she would wear the following
day—for they were expecting a number of guests, most of them Jenny's relatives,
who were coming to be presented to the new Countess and to spend a few days.
Amber was delighted at the opportunity it would give her to show off, and did
not doubt that they would be vastly impressed, for they were all people who
lived in the country and most of the women had not even been to London since
the Restoration. The strict respectable old families would have nothing at all
to do with the new Court.

She
and Nan were going through the tall standing cabinets in which her clothes were
kept, amusing themselves by recalling what had happened the night she had worn
a certain gown.

"Oh!
That's what
I
had on the first night Lord Carlton came to Dangerfield House!" She
snatched the champagne-lace and gold-spangled gown out of the huge wardrobe and
held it against herself, smoothing out the folds, wistfully dreaming. But she
put it back again with sudden resolution. "And look, Nan! This is what I was
presented at Court in!"

At
last they took down the white-satin pearl-embroidered gown she had worn the
night of her wedding to Radclyffe. Both of them looked it over critically,
feeling the material, seeing how it was made, and commenting on how strangely
well it had fitted her—just a bit too large in the waist, perhaps, and ever so
slightly too small across the bosom.

"I
wonder who it belonged to," mused Amber, though she had completely
forgotten it in the eight months that had passed since the marriage.

"Maybe
his Lordship's first Countess. Why don't you ask 'im sometime? It's got me
curious."

"I
think I will."

At
ten o'clock Radclyffe came upstairs from the library. That was the hour at
which they usually went to bed and he was prompt in his habits, faithful to
each smallest one—a characteristic of which she and Philip had taken due
advantage. Amber was sitting in a chair reading Dryden's new play, "Secret
Love," and as he went through the bedroom into his own closet neither of
them spoke or seemed aware of the other. He had never once allowed her to see
him naked—nor did she wish to —and when he returned he was wearing a handsome
dressing-gown made of a fine East Indian silk patterned in many soft
subdued
colours. As he took a snuffer and started around the room to put the candles
out Amber got up and tossed away her book, stretching her arms over her head
and yawning.

"That
old white-satin gown," she said idly. "The one you wanted me to wear
when we were married—where did you get it? Who wore it before I did?"

He
paused and looked at her, smiling reflectively. "It's strange you haven't
asked me that before. However, there seem to be few enough decencies between
us—I may as well tell you. It was intended to be the wedding-gown of a young
woman I once expected to marry—but did not."

Amber
raised her eyebrows, unmistakably pleased. "Oh? So you were jilted."

"No,
I was not jilted. She disappeared one night during the siege of her family's
castle in 1643. Her parents never heard from her again, and we were forced to
conclude that she had been captured and killed by the Parliamentarians—"
Amber saw in his eyes an expression which was new to her. It was profoundly sad
and yet he was obviously deriving some measure of gratification, almost of
happiness, from this recalling of the past. There was about him now a strange
new quality of gentleness which she had never suspected he might possess.
"She was a very beautiful and kind and generous woman—a lady. It seems
incredible now—and yet the first time I saw you I was strongly reminded of her.
Why, I can't imagine. You don't look like her—or only a very little—and
certainly you have none of the qualities which I admired in her." He gave a
faint shrug, looking not at Amber but somewhere back into the past, a past
where he had left his heart. And then his eyes turned to her again, the mask
sliding over his face, the past resolving into the present. He went on snuffing
the candles; the last one went out and the room was suddenly dark.

"Perhaps
it wasn't really so strange you should have made me think of her," he
continued, and as his voice did not move she knew that he was standing just a
few feet away, beside the candelabrum. "I've been looking for her for
twenty-three years —in the face of every woman I've seen, everywhere I've gone.
I've hoped that perhaps she wasn't dead—that someday, somewhere I'd find her
again." There was a long pause. Amber stood quietly, somewhat surprised by
the things he had said, and then she heard his voice coming closer and the
sound of his slippers moving across the floor toward her. "But now I've
ceased looking—I know that she's dead."

Amber
threw off her gown and got quickly into bed, and the swift sense of dread she
had every night grabbed at her. "So you were in love—once!" she said,
angry to know that though he despised her he had once been able to love another
woman with tenderness and generosity.

She
felt the feather-mattress give as he sat down. "Yes, I was in love once.
But only once. I remember her with a young man's idealism—and so I still love
her. But now I'm old and I know too much about women to have anything but
contempt for them." He put his robe across the foot of the bed and lay
down beside her.

For
several minutes Amber waited apprehensively, her muscles stiff and her teeth
tightly closed, unable to shut her eyes. She had never dared actually refuse
him, but each night she was tortured with this suspense of waiting—she never
knew for what. But he was stretched flat on his back far to his own side of the
bed, and he made no move to touch her; at last she heard him begin to breathe
evenly. Relieved, she relaxed slowly and drowsiness began to creep upon her.
Nevertheless, the slightest move from him made her start, suddenly wide awake
again. Even when he left her alone she could not sleep in peace.

Jenny's
relatives came and for several days they were interested observers of Amber's
gowns and jewels and manners. None of them approved of her, but all of them
found her exciting, and while the women talked about her with raised eyebrows
and pinched lips the men were inclined toward nudges and conspiratorial winks.
Amber knew what they were thinking, all of them, but she did not care; if they
found her shocking she considered them dull and old-fashioned. Still, when they
were gone and the silence and monotony began to settle again, she was more
impatient than ever.

By
now she had worked Philip to such a pitch of infatuation and resentment that it
was difficult to make him use discretion. "What are we going to do!"
he asked her again and again. "I can't stand this! Sometimes I think I'm
losing my mind."

Amber
was sweetly reasonable, smoothing back the light-brown hair from his face—he
never wore a periwig. "There isn't anything we can do, Philip. He's your
father—"

"I
don't care if he is! I hate him now! Last night I met him in the gallery just
as he was going in to you— My God, for a minute I thought I was going to grab
him by the throat and— Oh, what am I saying!" He sighed heavily, his
boyish face haggard and miserable. Amber had brought him some momentary
pleasures, but a great deal of unhappiness, and he had not been really at peace
since she had come to Lime Park.

"You
mustn't talk that way, Philip," she said softly. "You mustn't even
think about such things—or sometime it might happen. I doubt not it's his
lawful right to use me however he will—"

"Oh,
Lord! I never thought I'd see my life in such a mess— I don't know how it ever
happened!"

It
was only a few days later that Amber came into the house alone from her morning
ride—Philip had returned by another route so that they would not be seen
together—and found Radclyffe at the writing-table in their bedroom.
"Madame," he said, speaking to her from over his shoulder, "I
find it necessary
to pay a brief visit to London. I'm leaving this afternoon immediately
following dinner."

A
quick smile sprang to Amber's face, and though she did not really believe that
it was his intention to take her with him, she hoped to bluff her way into
going. "Oh, wonderful, your Lordship! I'll set Nan a-packing right
now!"

She
started out of the room but his next words brought her up short. "Don't trouble
yourself. I'm going alone."

"Alone?
But why should you? If you're going I can go too!"

"I
shall be gone but a few days. It's a matter of important business and I don't
care to be troubled with your company."

She
drew a quick breath of indignation and then suddenly rushed back to face him
across the table. "You're the most unreasonable damned man
on earth! I
won't stay here alone, d'ye hear me? I won't!" She banged the handle of
her riding-whip on the table-top, marring its surface.

He
got up slowly, bowed to her—though she could see the muscles about his mouth
twitch and squirm with the effort to control his rage—and walked out of the
room. Amber banged the whip down again, furiously, and yelled after him:
"I won't stay! I won't! I won't! I won't!" As the door closed behind
him, she slammed the riding-whip through the window and rushed into the
adjoining room where she found Nan gossiping with Susanna's dry-nurse.
"Nan! Pack my things! I'm going to London in my
own coach! That
bastard—"

Susanna
ran to her mother, stamped her foot, and repeated with a shake of her curls:
"That bas-tard!"

When
dinner was announced Amber did not go down. She was busy getting ready to leave
and was so angry and excited that she had no appetite. And when Radclyffe sent
again, demanding that she join them, she refused point-blank, shut the outer
door to their apartments, locked it and flung aside the key.

"He's
told me one time too many what I can do and what I can't!" she hotly
informed Nan. "I'll be damned if that stinking old scoundrel can lead me
like a bear by the nose any longer!"

But
when she had changed her clothes and was ready to go she discovered that the
doors leading into the gallery had been locked from the other side and that her
own key was not to be found. There was no other outside entrance, for the rooms
opened one into another, and though she hammered and pounded and kicked she got
no answer. At last in a passionate temper she flung back into the bedchamber
and began smashing everything she could lay her hands on. Nan ran out, arms up
over her head. By the time Amber had exhausted herself the room was a shambles.

After
a while someone opened the door into the entrance hall and slid a trayful of
food, rapped to call her attention, and then ran off down the gallery. The Earl
had evidently informed the servants that his wife was having another fit A maid
brought the
tray in and placed it on a table beside the bed where her mistress lay. Amber
turned, grabbed up the cold fowl and flung it across the room; then shoved away
the tray and dishes, which crashed onto the floor.

After
three hours had gone by Nan ventured back into the room. Amber sat up
cross-legged on the bed to talk to her. She was determined to go to London
anyway, if she had to climb out the window, but Nan tried to convince her that
if she disobeyed his Lordship, he might bring an action against her, obtain a
separation and get control of all her money.

"Remember,"
cautioned Nan, "his Majesty may like you— but his Majesty likes all pretty
ladies. And you know his nature—he doesn't love to meddle where it's any
trouble to him. You'd be wise to stay here, mam,
I
think."

Amber
had thrown off her shoes and undone her hair and she sat with elbows propped on
her knees, glowering. She was beginning to grow very hungry, for she had had
nothing but a glass of fruit syrup since seven o'clock that morning, and it was
now four-thirty. Her eye went to the cold roast fowl, which someone had picked
up, dusted, and set back on the tray.

"But
what am I to do? Moult out here in the country for the rest of my life? I tell
you I won't do it!"

Suddenly
they became aware of a muffled pounding and a woman's faint frantic cries. They
looked at each other, both of them held taut in an attitude of listening and
surprise. It was Jenny, hammering at the outer door—and with a leap Amber was
off the bed and running through the intervening rooms toward her.