Winsor, Kathleen (34 page)

Oh!
she thought wildly. Where is he! Why doesn't he come!
What
can have
happened!

Then
all at once she heard a noisy commotion from outside. The dogs began to bark
again, horses' hoofs beat along the roadway, and there was a babble of
voices—men shouting, a woman's scream. Pall opened their door at the head of
the stairs to wave frantically at her. And Amber, suddenly terrified, thinking
that Bess had arrived with a party of constables, leaped to her feet.

"Good
Lord, madame! What's amiss?"

"It's
thieves!" cried Amber wildly. "Quick! Put out the lights!"

She
darted across to snuff out the candles burning in wall-sconces, and as she did
so Pall burst from the room above and came running down, wailing with fear.
"Shut up!" cried Amber frantically. At that moment she heard the
unmistakable sound of Bess Columbine's voice and a bellow of rage from Black
Jack.

The
voices were nearer now and Amber—able to think of nothing but saving
herself—started for the front door. She heard Pall bawling her name, and Mr.
Bidulph, catching the contagion of excitement, went stumbling around in the
dark, calling out, "Mrs. Ann! Mrs. Ann! Where are you!" By mistake he
grabbed hold of Pall and she shrieked with terror.

Amber
rushed on and then, just as she got outside, she heard footsteps coming that
way and saw the flare from their torches. Bess's voice screamed: "She's in
here! Let him go—
He's
not the one! The woman's inside!"

Amber
whirled and ran back inside, heading for the kitchen. Mr. Bidulph was still
floundering about and calling her name while Pall screamed but could not decide
what to do; as Amber ran by he reached for her and caught hold of her skirt.
She jerked it free, hearing it tear, and rushed on, reaching the narrow little
hallway below the stairs just as a torch brightened the room. Pall gave a
shriek of agony as she was seized and Mr. Bidulph indignantly demanded to know
what was going on.

Amber
burst into the kitchen, panting so that she could scarcely breathe, and gave a
scared start as she heard a voice. "Mrs. Channell? It's the host."

She
stopped still. "Oh, my God! Where can I go! Where can I hide? They'll be
here next!" Her teeth were chattering and her very bones seemed to shake.

"Quick!
Get into this food-hutch! Give me your hand!"

Amber
reached out gropingly. He caught hold of her hand, threw up the top of a great
oaken chest, and she climbed in. The lid had just shut down when Bess and the
constables came through the hallway; the host turned and ran out of the room,
slamming the door behind him.

"There
she goes!" yelled Bess. And through the air-holes bored in the chest Amber
saw a flare of light and heard the rush of their feet as they went by, Bess
swearing when she knocked her ankle against a stool.

Amber
waited only until the last one was gone and then she flung back the lid and got
out, picked up her skirts, and ran after them. Still on the trail of the host
they had rounded the corner into the courtyard, and since the kitchen formed a
separate wing of the house it was dark when she got outside. The confusion was
greater than ever and she knew they had captured all three men for she heard
Bess yelling: "Let him go, you damned fools! He's the ostler here! Get
that woman!"

Amber
did not pause an instant but struck off in the other direction, toward the
river, hoping only to get away where it
was so dark she could not be seen.
Reaching the bank she plunged down it. She was unable to see at all, for the
moon had disappeared and the sky was black with storm-clouds, but she ran
blindly ahead—like one in a dream who, no matter how hard the legs churn,
cannot seem to make any progress. The sounds were growing fainter, but she
dared not stop or look back.

Her
shoes were soaked through in a moment and the rocks on the streambed bruised
the soles of her feet. Her wet skirts flopped and clung to her ankles; brambles
scratched her face and bare arms and caught in her hair. A hard pain seared her
left side, her legs felt wooden and her lungs were beginning to burn. But she
ran on and on.

It
was quiet down there and after several minutes she could hear nothing at all
from the inn, only the occasional plop of a frog into the water or the
frightened scurrying of an animal. At last she could run no more and stopped,
heaving, sagged helplessly against a tree.

But
as she began to get her breath she also began to think and to wonder how she
would get back. Following the Bourne, she knew, would lead her down to the
Thames a great way from Whitefriars. She must go back to the road and hope to
find a hackney—or walk; it was only about two miles and a quarter. She climbed
the bank and started off across the fields, but did not return at once to the
road, for fear they would come along searching for her. She alternately ran and
walked, constantly looking back. Whenever a coach or a man on horseback
approached, she flung herself flat and waited, but for the most part the night
was quiet and she met no one.

Within
a few minutes she had reached St. James's Park. She skirted the edge of it, and
though here there were some late walkers, by keeping in the shadows and moving
softly, she got through without molestation. Reaching the Strand she hurried
along, holding onto her skirts to keep them from dragging in the street,
clotted and littered as it was with animal dung and decaying vegetable refuse.
She was afraid to be alone in the city, for she knew the menace of it and wished
violently that a hackney would come along. And then all at once the banging
clatter of a coach resounded through the night, lumbering heavily toward her as
though in a great hurry to run her down and be on.

Seeing
that it was a public vehicle she shouted. The driver hauled on the reins, came
to a stop some yards beyond, and turned on his perch. "Want to hire a
coach?"

Amber
had already reached the door and pulled it open. "Temple Bar!" she
cried. "And quick!" She jumped in and slammed it shut, so glad to be
safe inside that she scarcely noticed how it smelt.

He
drove so fast and so recklessly that she could only try to keep her seat as the
coach careened along. The wooden seat on which she sat was covered with a thin
hard pad and the
jarring and vibrating of the springless compartment shook her to the heels. At
Temple Bar he stopped. Almost before the wheels had quit turning she was down
and off on a run toward the Temple, for she had not a farthing with her.

"Hey!"
he yelled furiously. "Come back here, you cheating drab!"

And
then as she ran on, disappearing into the darkness, he climbed down and started
after her. But at the sight of a party of gay and drunken students, he
apparently decided it was not worth the risk of losing his coach-and-horses for
a one-shilling fare. He got back up on his perch and started off again.

Amber
ran down Middle Temple Lane and cut into the Pump Court. Many lights were still
burning, there were sounds of music and singing and laughter, and people were
going and coming everywhere. Her head was down, because she was now too tired
to hold it up, and she ran headlong into a group of some half-dozen students,
one of whom caught her in his arms.

"Hey,
there, sweetheart!" he cried gaily. "Where're you going in such
haste!"

Amber
did not answer him but began to struggle frantically, pounding at his chest
with her fists, crying with exhaustion and terror. But the more she struggled
the tighter he held her. And all the others had gathered around now, laughing
and joking, thinking that perhaps they had caught a whore, since no respectable
woman would be running about the streets at eleven o'clock in only a thin silk
dress, and that torn and wet.

He
bent her head back to kiss her and Amber felt them crowding closer and closer
until such a terror swept over her she was close to fainting. Every one of them
looked like a constable. At that moment she heard a familiar voice.

"Hey,
just a minute! What's going on here! I know this lady— Let her go, you
varlets!" It was Michael Godfrey, whom Amber had not seen for more than
four months.

Reluctantly
the young man released her. Amber looked up at Michael with tears streaking
down her scratched and dirt-stained face, but she did not speak to him. Giving
a quick shove she broke free and started off. but he followed her. When he
caught her they had reached a dark corner leading into Vine Court, away from
the lights of the torches.

"Mrs.
Channell! For God's sake, what's the matter? What's happened? It's
Michael—don't you remember me?"

He
grabbed hold of her arm and brought her to a stop but she jerked at him
furiously, sobbing. "Let me go! Oh, damn you! Let me go or I'll get
caught!"

"Caught
by who! What is it? Tell me!" He gave her a little shake for she was not
looking at him but tugging to free herself, trying to pry his fingers loose
from her wrist, wild and desperate.

"The
constables, you fool! Let me go!"

He
turned suddenly, dragging her after him, and entered a
doorway, which
he closed. Amber slumped against the wall.

"Where's
Black Jack?" he demanded.

"They've
caught him. We were at Knightsbridge and the constables came—I got away but
they're coming after me—" She made a sudden lunge. "Let me go! I've
got to get back!"

He
grabbed her shoulders, thrusting her against the wall, and she felt his arms go
about her. "You can't go back there. Mother Red-Cap'll send you out again,
and someday you'll get caught for sure. Come with me—" His mouth sought
hers, his arms held her close, and Amber relaxed gratefully, so tired she could
struggle no longer. He picked her up and started through the dark hallway
toward the stairs.

The
three men, Black Jack and Jimmy the Mouth and Blue-skin, were all hanged from
the same arm of the three-cornered gallows, just ten days from the night they
were taken. When the process of justice worked at all it was with devastating
swiftness; they left him no time to pay his way out. Bess was sent to
Bridewell, the house-of-correction for female offenders, to improve her morals.
Pall, who pleaded her belly, was sent to Newgate to await the birth of her
child and probable transportation to Virginia.

At
the time of the execution Amber was alone in Michael Godfrey's rooms in Vine
Court. Michael had gone to watch and when he came back he told her that all
three men had been cut down and taken to lie at a tavern—where they might be
viewed by mourners or whoever had a curiosity to look at them. All the corpses
had been treated with respect and not, as often happened, carried through the
streets and tossed about until mangled beyond recognition. Black Jack, he said,
was very nonchalant to the end, and the last words of his farewell speech were:
"Gentlemen, there's nothing like a merry life— and a short one."

But
even then she could not believe it.

How
could Black Jack Mallard be dead when she remembered him so well, everything he
had done and said over the months she had known him? How could he be dead when
he was so big, so powerful, so obstinately indestructible? She remembered his
six feet five inches of male strength, hard muscled and hard-fleshed, covered
with wiry black hair that matted on his chest. She remembered the thunderous
rumble of his laugh; his enormous capacity for wine—he had said that his
nick-name originated one night when he won a wager by drinking a blackjack of
Burgundy without once putting down the vessel. She remembered a thousand things
more.

And
now he was dead.

She
remembered how some of the men had wept at Chapel the day before they were to
be executed. And, though she
thought she had forgotten, she could, all too well,
recall the expressions on their faces. She wondered how Black Jack had
looked—and how she would have looked herself had she been sitting there beside
him. She suffered agonies thinking of it Whatever she was doing—enjoying her
dinner, brushing her hair, leaning on the windowsill and laughing at the pranks
of the young men down in the courtyard—the thought would come like the sudden
shocking impact of a physical blow: I might not be here! I might be
dead!

At
night she would wake up, crying with terror and clutching at Michael. She had
seen two of her cousins die, but this was the first time that any personal
realization of death had come to her. She became very pious and repeated all
the prayers she knew a dozen times a day.

But
for the grace of God I'd not be here right now but in Hell, she would think,
for she knew she had not been good enough to get into Heaven. Even before she
had left Mary-green Uncle Matt had not thought it likely that Heaven was her
destination. She believed in the existence of those two places with
superstitious intensity, just as she believed that a hare was a witch in
disguise, but the prospect of eternal damnation could not deter her from
anything she really wanted to do.