Winsor, Kathleen (92 page)

"Oh."
That was all she could think of to say.

It
did not seem to her that he was so interested in her as Almsbury had Said and
since she had come half to be flattered by a man's goggle-eyed staring, she was
disappointed and bored. She paid little attention to the rest of the conversation
and as soon as dinner was over escaped back to her room.

The
apartments she had shared with Bruce for more than a month were dreary and
deserted now, and the fact that he had so recently been there made them even
lonelier. She wandered forlornly from one room to another, finding something to
remind her of him everywhere she looked. There was the book he had been reading
last, lying opened in a big chair. She picked it up and glanced at it: Francis
Bacon's "History of Henry VII." There was a pair of mud-stained
boots, two or three soiled white-linen shirts which carried the strong male
smell of his sweat, a hat he had worn while hunting.

Suddenly
Amber dropped to her knees, the hat crushed in her hands, and burst into
shaking sobs. She had never felt more lonely, hopeless and despairing.

Two
or three hours later when Almsbury gave a knock at the door and then came in
she was stretched out on her stomach on the bed, head buried in her arms, no
longer crying but merely lying there—listless.

"Amber—"
He spoke to her softly, thinking that she might be asleep.

She
turned her head. "Oh. Come in, Almsbury."

He
sat down beside her and she rolled over on her back and lay looking up at him.
Her hair was rumpled and her eyes red and swollen, her head ached vaguely but persistently,
and her expression was dull and apathetic. Almsbury's ruddy face was now
serious and kindly, and he bent to kiss her forehead.

"Poor
little sweetheart."

At
the sound of his voice the tears welled irresistibly again, rolling out the
corners of her eyes and streaking across her temples. She bit at her lower lip,
determined to cry no longer; but for several moments they were quiet and one of
Almsbury's square hands stroked over her head.

"Almsbury,"
she said at last. "Did Bruce leave without me because he's going to get
married?"

"Married?
Good Lord, not that I know anything about! No, I swear he didn't."

She
gave a sigh and looked away from him, out the windows. "But someday he'll
get married—and he says when he does he wants to make Bruce his heir." Her
eyes came back again, slightly narrowed now and suddenly hard with resentment.
"He won't marry
me
—but he'll make my son his heir. A pretty
fetch!" Her mouth twisted bitterly and she gave a kick of her toe at the
blankets.

"But
you will let him, won't you? After all, it would be best for the boy."

"No,
I won't let him! Why should I? If he wants Bruce, he can marry me!"

Almsbury
continued to watch her for several seconds, but then all at once he changed the
subject. "Tell me: What's your opinion of Radclyffe?"

She
made a face. "A nasty old slubber-degullion. I hate him. Anyway, he didn't
seem so mightily smitten by me. Why, he scarcely gave me a glance, once he'd
made his leg."

He
smiled. "You forget, my dear. He belongs to another age than ours. The Court
of the first Charles was a mighty formal and discreet place—ogling wasn't the
fashion there, no matter how much a gentleman might admire a lady."

"Is
he rich?"

"He's
very poor. The Wars ruined his family."

"Then
that's why he thinks I'm so handsome!"

"Not
at all. He said you're the finest woman he's seen in two-score years—you remind
him, he says, of a lady he once knew, long ago."

"And
who can that be, pray?"

Almsbury
shrugged. "He didn't say. Some mistress he had, most likely. Men are never
favourably reminded of their wives."

She
saw the Earl of Radclyffe again the next day at dinner, but now there were two
more guests: a cousin of Emily's, Lady Rawstorne, and her husband. Lord
Rawstorne was a big man —about Almsbury's height, but much heavier—with a
boisterous laugh, a red face and a smell of stables about him. The moment he
saw Amber he seemed delighted and throughout dinner he stared across the table
at her.

His
wife looked sour and discontented, as though she had watched such behaviour for
a great many years and was not even yet resigned to it. And the Earl of
Radclyffe, though he
elaborately ignored Rawstorne and his staring at Mrs. Danger-field, was clearly
annoyed. For the most part he sat with his eyes on his plate, and regarded the
food with the expression of one to whom it could mean only future distress.
Amber was amused by both of them and found a sort of mischievous pleasure in
flirting with Lord Rawstorne. She pouted her lower lip, slanted her eyes at
him, and moved her body provocatively. But it was not a very entertaining
diversion. Loneliness and boredom continued to mock at her.

As
she left the table she saw Rawstorne begin to edge around from one side, trying
to avoid his wife's glowering signals and get to her, but before he could do so
Radclyffe was at her side. He bowed, stiffly as a marionette whose joints had
not been well oiled for years.

"Your
servant, madame."

"Your
servant, sir."

"Perhaps
you recall, madame, that yesterday Lord Almsbury mentioned I had brought
several objects of interest and value with me from abroad? Some of those things
were in my coach and in the hope that you might honour me by looking at them I
had a case unpacked last night. Would you be so kind, madame?"

Amber
was about to refuse but decided that she might as well do that as go back
upstairs and sit alone, and probably cry again. "Thank you, sir. I'd like
to see them."

"They're
in the library, madame."

The
great room was dark, oak-panelled and but dimly lighted. Before the fireplace
there was a large table spread with several articles and next to it was a
torchere; the shelves of books stood far away in the spreading gloom. Almsbury
was no ardent scholar and the place smelled unaired and musty.

Amber
approached the table without interest, but immediately her indifference turned
to delight, for it was covered with a great number of rare and delicate and
precious things. There was a small white marble statue, a Venus with the head
broken off; a blackamoor carved out of ebony with an enamelled skirt of ostrich
feathers and real jewels in the turban and around the thick muscular arms; a
heavy gold frame, exquisitely wrought; tortoise-shell jewel-boxes and diamond
buttons and dainty blown-glass perfume-bottles. Each was perfect of its kind
and had been selected by a man whose taste was never-failing.

"Oh,
how beautiful! Oh! Look at this!" She turned to him eagerly, eyes
sparkling. "Can I pick it up if I'm careful?"

He
smiled, bowed again. "Certainly, madame. Please do."

Forgetting
that she did not like him she began to ask him questions. He told her where he
had found each one, what its history was, through whose hands it had passed
before it had come to him. She liked the story of the blackamoor best:

"Two
hundred years ago there was a Venetian lady—very beautiful, as all ladies in
legends are—and she owned a gigantic
black slave whom her husband believed
to be a eunuch. But he was not and when the lady bore his black child she had
the infant killed and a white one put in its place. The midwife, from some
motive of jealousy or revenge, told the husband of his wife's infidelity and he
killed the slave before her eyes. She had the ebony statue made, secretly of
course, in her lover's memory."

At
last, when there was no more to be said, she thanked him and turned away with a
sigh. "They're all wonderful. I envy you, my lord." She could never
see a beautiful thing without longing violently to possess it.

"Won't
you allow me, madame, to make you a gift?"

She
turned swiftly. "Oh, but your Lordship! They must mean a great deal to
you!"

"They
do, madame, I admit it. But your own appreciation is so keen I know that
whichever you choose will be loved as much by you as it could be by me."

For
several moments she stared at them critically, determined to make the one
choice she would not regret, deciding first on one and then another. She stood
bent forward, tapping her fan on her chin, wholly absorbed. Slowly she became
aware that he was watching her and gave him a swift sidelong glance, for she
wanted to catch his expression before he could change it. As she had expected
he glanced hastily away, refusing to meet her eyes, but nevertheless the look
she had surprised on his face made the frank good-natured lust of Lord
Rawstorne seem naive and artless. The repugnance she had felt the first moment
of their meeting came back again, stronger than ever. What is there about this
old man? she thought. He's strange— he's strange and nasty.

She
picked up the blackamoor—which was very heavy and about two feet high—and
turned to the Earl. Once more he presented to her a face cool and polite,
austere as an anchorite's.

"This
is what I want," she said.

"Certainly,
madame." She thought that a hint of a smile lurked somewhere about his
thin mouth, but she could not be sure. Had her choice amused him, or was it
only her imagination, perhaps a trick of the lighting? "But if you are of
a timid nature, madame, perhaps another choice would be more comfortable to
you. There's an old superstition the statue's cursed and brings ill-luck to
whoever owns it."

She
glanced at him sharply, momentarily alarmed, for she was passionately
superstitious and knew it. But she decided instantly that he did not want to
part with the blackamoor after all and was trying to scare her into making a
less valuable choice. She would have kept it now no matter what the curse might
be and her eyes glittered defiance.

"Pooh,
my lord! That's a tale to scare children and old ladies! But it doesn't scare
me! Unless you have some objection —I'll take this."

He
bowed again and this time she knew that he was smiling, ever so faintly.
"I protest, madame. I have no objections at all —and
I knew that you
were a person of too much wit to be alarmed by such foolishness."

The
next day Radclyffe was gone. Three days later a letter came for Amber. She
showed it to Almsbury that same morning when he came in to talk to her as Nan
was brushing her hair. The ebony blackamoor stood beside the dressing-table.

Almsbury
grinned. "So the old goat finds that his thoughts return to you as to any
creation of perfect beauty."

Amber
stuck a patch at the left side of her mouth. "Since I've become a rich
widow I find my attractions have increased a hundredfold."

"Only
on the score of marriage, sweetheart. You've always had attractions enough for
a dozen other women—but in the way of the world a pretty face without money
must go abegging for honest suitors. Now you're rich, you can take your pick
from a dozen." He stood up and leaned close enough so that his next words
could not be overheard by the maids in the room. "If I weren't married I'd
make you a proposal myself." Amber laughed gaily, thinking that he was
joking.

He
bent down then and as he kissed her cheek he whispered in her ear. She murmured
an answer, they exchanged a wink in the mirror and he went out. Lord Carlton
formed the pivotal point for their mutual affection: Amber liked Almsbury
better for being Bruce's friend; he liked her better for being his Lordship's
mistress and mother of his children. But not one of the three considered it
either strange or disloyal that in Carlton's absence the Earl sometimes made
love to her.

Only
a few days later she heard from Radclyffe again. He sent her a gilded
Florentine mirror with a very wide frame, carved in lavish scrolls like the
swirl of ostrich plumes. The accompanying note said that this mirror had once
reflected the image of the loveliest woman in Italy, but he hoped it might now
reflect the most beautiful face in Europe. In less than a week there arrived a
basket of oranges—a great rarity now with the war and intense cold—and hidden
among them was a topaz necklace.

"He
must intend marrying me," said Amber to the Earl. "No man makes such
valuable presents unless he expects to get 'em back again."

Almsbury
laughed. "I think you're right. And if he does make you a proposal—what
about you? Will you accept?"

Amber
gave a sigh and a shrug. "I don't know. It's ho use being rich, unless
you've got a title too." She made a face. "But I hate that stinking
old buck-fitch."

"Then
marry a young man."

She
gave him a glance of indignation. "Why, I'd rather be buried alive than
marry one of your hectoring Frenchified Covent Garden fops. I know well enough
what that means. They get you with child and send you off to the country to
breed—while
they
stay in London to play the town-bull and spend all your portion on
actresses and 'Change women. No thanks, not for me. I've seen enough of that to
learn my lesson. If I've got to marry someone to get a title I'd rather marry
an old man I hate than a young one I hate. At least there's a sooner prospect
of freedom that way."