Winsor, Kathleen (93 page)

The
Earl burst into hearty laughter. Amber looked at him in surprise and some
annoyance. "Well—my lord? What makes you so hysterical, pray?"

"You
do, sweetheart. I swear no one would ever guess to hear you talk that six years
ago you were a simple country-wench and so virtuous you slapped my face for
making you an honest offer of my affections. I wonder what's happened to
her—that innocent pretty girl I saw on the Marygreen common?" His voice
and eyes turned a little wistful at the last.

Amber
was petulant; why shouldn't he be satisfied with the way she was now? She liked
to think of Almsbury as one man who accepted her exactly as she was, liked her
and approved of everything she said and did. "I don't know," she said
crossly. "She's gone now—if she ever existed at all. She couldn't last
long in London."

He
gave her hand a quick friendly grasp. "No, darling, she couldn't. But
seriously, I think it would be a mistake for you to marry Radclyffe."

"Why?
You suggested it yourself to begin with."

"I
know. But I only wanted to make you think about something besides Bruce. In the
first place, he's deep in debt. It might take half your inheritance to get him
out."

"Oh,
I've got that all planned. I'll have the contract drawn to let me retain
management of my own funds."

Almsbury
shook his head. "That'll never do. He wouldn't marry you with any such
arrangement as that—any more than you'd marry him if he was to retain sole use
of his title. No, if you marry Radclyffe you've got to sign over your money to
him. But do you think you could tolerate living in the same house with him—not
to mention sleeping in the same bed?"

"Oh,
as for that! In London I won't know he's about. I'll spend all my days at
Court—and maybe some of my nights, too." Her mouth turned up significantly
at one corner; she had never completely abandoned her earlier ambition of being
his Majesty's mistress—and whenever Bruce Carlton was gone the prospect
glittered.

To
be mistress to the King, a great lady, feared and envied and admired. To be
stared and pointed at in the streets, watched in the galleries of the Palace,
bowed and truckled to in the Drawing-Rooms. To be begged for favours, fawned
upon for a smile—to hold the power of success or failure over dozens, even hundreds,
of men and women. That was the summit of ambition—higher than the Queen,
mightier than the Chancellor, greater than any nobly born woman in the land.
And if she could once be presented at Whitehall, have the right and
privilege of
the royal apartments, see him day after day—Amber had no doubt that she could
occupy the place which Castlemaine was said to be rapidly losing.

All
those things were in her mind when—just a few days after Christmas—she accepted
the Earl of Radclyffe's proposal of marriage.

It
came after a boresome week of impatient waiting on her part, for though she had
been so scornful of him at first and still was, the more she thought about it
the more she wanted to become a countess. And marriage with him did not seem
any formidable price to pay for the honour. He had come back to Barberry Hill
for the avowed purpose of "paying his compliments to Mrs.
Dangerfield," but he did very little of that or anything else which seemed
to Amber like courting. She could not even catch him looking at her again as he
had that day in the library.

The
day before he was to return to his own home some thirty miles north, they sat
alone in the gallery playing a game of trick-track. The gallery, on the second
floor of the house, was an immense room which ran along two sides of the
courtyard. It was massed with deep-set diamond-pane windows, on the panelled
walls were dozens of portraits, and the ceiling was painted light blue with
great wreaths of gilt roses. Radclyffe wore his hat and both of them had on long
fur-lined cloaks; a brazier of hot coals was set beside each of them, and an
enormous log blazed in the fireplace. But in spite of all that they were
uncomfortably cold.

Amber
moved a peg in the board to change her score. Then she sat, staring absently at
it and waiting for him to make the next play. At last, when several seconds had
passed, she looked up. "Your move, my lord." He was watching her,
very carefully, like a man studying a painting—not like a man looking at a
woman.

"Yes,"
he said quietly, not taking his eyes from her. "I know." Amber
returned his stare. "Madame—I am not unaware that it is a breach of
propriety to ask for the hand of a lady who has been widowed only nine months.
And yet my regard for you has reached that pitch I am prepared to fly in the
face of all decorum. Madame, I ask you most solemnly— will you do me that
honour to become my wife?"

Amber
answered him immediately. "With all my heart, sir." She had thought
from the first that since each knew what the other wanted it was absurd they
must mince and simper like a couple of dancing-mice at Bartholomew Fair.

Again
she thought that she caught the hint of a smile on his mouth, but could not be
sure. "Thank you madame. Your kindness is more than I deserve. I must
return to London soon after the first of the year, and if you will go with me
we can be married at that time. I understand that the sickness is now greatly
abated and the town has begun to fill again."

He
wanted, of course to make certain her fortune had
survived the Plague before he
married her—but Amber was tired of the country and eager to get back herself.

They
set out together in his coach on the second of January, bundled in furs and
covered with fur-lined robes; it was so cold they could see their breath as
they talked. The roads were so hard and frosty that it was possible to travel
much faster than if it had been raining, but they had to stop that afternoon at
four because the bouncing and jogging distressed his Lordship.

The
marriage-contract had been signed at Barberry Hill and Amber supposed he would
take advantage of the usual custom to lie with her that night. At eight
o'clock, however, he bowed, wished her a good night, and retired to his own
chamber. Amber and Nan watched him go, both of them staring with astonishment.
Then as the door closed they looked at each other and burst into uncontrollable
giggles.

"He
must be impotent!" hissed Nan.

"I
hope so!"

It
was nightfall on the fifth day when they reached London. Amber had a feeling of
dread as they approached the city, but as they rolled through the dark quiet
streets it began to disappear. There were no dead-carts, no corpses, very few
red crosses to be seen. Already the sloping mounds in the graveyards had been
covered over with a coarse green vegetation— the hundred thousand dead were
effacing themselves. Taverns were brightly lighted again and crowded, coaches
teetered by filled with gay young men and women, the sound of music came from
some of the houses.

It
never really happened, she thought. It never
really
happened at all. She
had a strange sense of discovery, as though she had wakened from some terrible
nightmare and found to her relief that it had been only a dream.

Radclyffe
House stood in Aldersgate Street above St. Anne's Lane and just without the
City gates. The street was a broad one lined with large wide-spaced houses.
Radclyffe told her that it resembled an Italian avenue more than any other
street in London. It was the only place left so near the walls where some of
the great old families were still living.

The
house had been virtually unoccupied for almost twenty-five years, but for a few
servants left there as caretakers, and most of the windows were bricked up.
Inside it was dark and dusty, the furniture was shrouded in dirty white and
nothing had been brought up to date since it had been built eighty-five years
ago. One room led into another like a maze, and with the exception of the grand
staircase in the center of the house, all passages and stair-wells were narrow
and dark. Amber was relieved to find that the apartments to which she was shown
had at least been cleaned and dusted and aired, even though otherwise it was in
no better condition than the rest.

Early
the next morning she went to visit Shadrac Newbold and found that he had kept
all her money intact. (He also told her that Lord Carlton had sailed for
America two weeks
before.) When she told him that her money was safe Radclyffe suggested that
they be married as soon as all necessary arrangements could be made. As she
knew, he was a Catholic—hence it would be necessary to have two services
performed, for a Catholic ceremony could be declared null and void.

"I'd
intended," said Amber, "to bespeak a gown of my dressmaker. I haven't
got anything that's new—and I think she could get one done in ten days or
so."

"I
don't think it would be safe, madame, as yet—the sickness is still too much
with us. But if you would care to oblige me, I have a gown laid away I should
be most happy to have you wear."

Somewhat
surprised, wondering if he kept a wedding-gown about for unexpected marriages,
Amber agreed. Certainly it seemed a simple harmless request.

Later
in the day he came to her chamber, carrying in his arms a stiff white-satin
gown, embroidered all over with tiny pearls, and as he shook it out she saw
that there were deep sharp creases in it, as though it had been lying folded
for a very long time. She realized then that it actually was an old gown; the
white had turned creamy and the cut and style were many years out of fashion.
The waist-line was high with a flaring peplum slashed in four places; the low
square neck had a deep collar of lace and lace cuffs finished the long full
sleeves; when the skirt opened down the front a petticoat of heavy silver cloth
showed.

Radclyffe
smiled at her puzzled expression. "As you can see —it isn't a new gown.
But it is still beautiful, and I shall be grateful if you will wear it."

She
reached out to take it. "I'm glad to, sir."

Later,
she and Nan examined it carefully, speculating. "It must be two-score
years old, or more," said Nan. "I wonder who wore it last?"

Amber
shrugged. "His first wife, maybe. Or an old sweetheart. Someday I'll ask
him."

To
her surprise she found when she put it on that it fitted her very well, almost
as if it had been made for her.

"Amber,
Countess of Radclyffe," she said slowly, watching herself in a mirror,
whereupon she wrinkled up her nose, snapped her fingers and turned away.
"Much good it does me!"

They
had been married just one week, but so far her life was no more exciting than
it had been when she was plain Mrs. Dangerfield—certainly far less so than when
she was Madame St. Clare of His Majesty's Theatre. The weather was so cold that
it was unpleasant to go out. The plague deaths for the past week had been
almost a hundred, and neither King nor Court had yet returned to Whitehall. She
stayed at home, scarcely
left their suite of rooms—for the rest of the house continued in its dirt and
gloom—and spent her time feeling bored and resentful. Was
this
what she
had traded her sixty-six thousand pounds for! It seemed a bad bargain—dullness
and a man she despised.

For
now that she was his wife Radclyffe was a greater enigma than ever.

She
saw him but little for he had a multitude of interests which he did not wish to
share with her, nor she with him. Several hours of almost every day he spent in
the laboratory which opened out of their bedroom, and for which new equipment
was constantly arriving. When he was not there he was in the library or in the
offices on the lower floor, reading, writing, going over his bills, and making
plans for the remodelling and furnishing of the house. Though this was to be
done, obviously, at Amber's expense, he never consulted her wishes in the
matter or even told her what plans he had made.

They
met, usually just twice
a
day—at dinner, and in bed. Conversation at dinner was polite and arid, carried
on chiefly for the benefit of the servants, but in bed they did not talk at
all. The Earl could not, in any real sense, make love to her, for he was impotent
and apparently had been for some time. More than that, he disliked her, frankly
and contemptuously—even while she roused in him conflicting emotions of desire
and some wild yearning toward the past which he could never explain. Yet he
longed violently for complete physical possession —a longing at which he caught
night after night, but never grasped, and it drove him down a hundred strange
pathways of lust and helpless rage.

From
the first morning they were enemies, but it was not until several days had gone
by that mutual antipathy flared into open conflict. It was over a question of
money.

He
presented to her a neatly-written note addressed to Shadrac Newbold:
"Request to pay to Edmund Mortimer, Earl of Radclyffe, or bearer, the sum
of eighteen thousand pound," and asked her to sign it, for the money was
still in her name, though he possessed the marriage-contract which put control
of her entire fortune, except for ten thousand pounds, into his hands.

They
were standing beside
a
small writing-table. As he gave her the paper he took a quill, dipped it in the
ink-well and extended it to her. She glanced first at the note and then, with a
little gasp of amazement, raised her head to look at him.