Winsor, Kathleen (7 page)

"Uds
Lud, your Lordship!" she muttered in an excited undertone. "There's
my cousin! She's sure to run and tell my aunt! Let's go over this way—"

She
did not see the smile on Carlton's face for already she had started off, making
her way through the crowd, and without glancing around at the three girls he
followed her. Amber looked back just once to make sure that Agnes was not at
their heels and then she gave him the brightest smile she could muster. But she
was scared now. Agnes would rush to find

Sarah
or Matt, and after that she would be sought out by some member of the family
and summoned back to safety. They must get away, out of sight—for she was
determined to have this hour or two, whatever discomfort it caused her later.

Now
she said hastily: "Here's the churchyard—let's go in and make a wish at
the well."

He
stopped then and she stopped too, looking up at him with a kind of apprehensive
defiance. "My dear," he said, "I think you're only going to get
yourself into trouble. Evidently your uncle's a very moral gentleman and I'm
sure he wouldn't care to have his niece in the company of a Cavalier. Perhaps
you're too young to know it, but the Puritans and the Cavaliers don't trust
each other—particularly where it concerns female relatives."

There
was the same lazy sound in his voice, the same look of mild amusement on his
face that had so strangely affected her the night before. For she was able to
sense that this idle indifference but thinly concealed a temper at once
relentless, fierce, and perhaps a little cruel. Without being able to recognize
her own desires she was vaguely conscious of wanting to break through that
veneer of urbanity, to experience herself something of the stormy power which
was there just under the surface, not dormant but carefully leashed.

She
answered him recklessly, for she was beginning to feel more sure of herself.
"I don't care about my uncle— My aunt always believes me—Leave me alone
for that, your Lordship.
Please,
sir, I want to make a wish."

He
shrugged his shoulders and they started on, crossed the road and went through
the ivy-grown lych-gate to where two small wells stood three feet or so apart.
Amber dropped to her knees between them, plunging one hand in each until the
cold water covered her wrists, and then closing her eyes she made a silent
wish.

I
wish for him to fall in love with me.

For
a moment she remained still, concentrating intensely, and then lifting each
cupped hand she drank the water. He reached out one hand and raised her to her
feet.

"I
suppose you've wished for all the world," he said. "How long before
you'll get it?"

"In
a year—if I believe it—but never, if I don't."

"But
of course you do?"

"All
my other wishes came true. Don't you want to wish too?"

"A
year isn't long enough for most of my wishes."

"Not
long enough? Gemini! I'd thought a year must be long enough for anything!"

"When
you're seventeen, it is."

She
began looking around her then, partly because she could no longer meet the
steady stare of his green-grey eyes, but also because she was searching for
some place where they might go. The churchyard was too public. Other people were
likely to
wander that way at any time, and every man or woman or child seemed a threat to
her happiness. She felt that they were all in league to call her away, to make
her leave him and go back to the dry sterile protection of her uncle and aunt.

At
the side of the church was a garden and beyond it the meadow which separated
Heathstone from Bluebell Wood. Why, that was the place of course! In the wood
it was cool and dark and there were many little nooks where no one would ever
see them—she knew several, remembered from the Fairs of the past three or four
years. Now she started off that way, hoping that he would think they had merely
chanced upon it.

They
went through the garden, climbed the stile, and set out across the meadow.

The
grass there was sown thickly with buttercups and field daisies and wild yellow
irises. Underfoot the ground was spongy with contained water and their feet
sank a little at every step. Farther ahead near the river was an orange wash of
colour where the marigolds grew, and as they came closer they could see the
tall green reeds standing in the water. On the banks were pussywillow trees and
across the stream at the edge of the forest was a cluster of aspen, their
leaves glistening like sequins in the sun.

"I'd
almost forgotten," he said, "how beautiful England is in the
spring."

"How
long since you left it?"

"Almost
sixteen years. My mother and I went abroad after my father was killed at
Marston Moor."

"Sixteen
years abroad!" she cried incredulously. "Lud, how'd you shift?"

He
looked down at her, smiling with a kind of tenderness. "It wasn't what any
of us would have chosen, but the choice wasn't ours. And for my part I've got
no complaint to make."

"You
didn't like it over there?" she demanded, shocked and almost indignant at
this blasphemy.

Now
they were crossing the swift-flowing river on a narrow shaky footbridge built
of logs; below them the fish darted and dragon-flies zoomed low over the water
and among the lily-pads that grew in a quiet pool. On the other side they
entered the forest and took a wandering faint little path which led among the
trees and ferns and flowering wild hyacinth. It was cool in there and still,
fragrant with the smell of flowers and rotting leaves.

"I
suppose it's petty treason for an Englishman to admit he likes another country.
But I liked several of them—Italy and France and Spain. But America most of
all."

"America!
Why, that's across the ocean!" That was, in fact, all she knew about
America.

"A
long way across," he admitted.

"Was
the King there?"

"No.
I sailed once on a privateering expedition with
his Majesty's cousin, Prince
Rupert, and another time on a merchant-fleet."

She
was entranced. To have seen such faraway places—to have even sailed across the
ocean! It was incredible as a fairytale. Heathstone was as far from home as she
had ever been, and that just twice a year, for the spring and autumn fairs.
While the only person in her acquaintance who had been to London, twenty-five
miles south-west of Marygreen, was the cobbler.

"What
a fine thing it must be to see the great world!" she heaved a sigh.
"Have you been to London, too?"

"Just
twice since I've been old enough to remember. I was there ten years ago and
then a couple of months after Cromwell died. But I didn't stay long either
time."

They
had stopped now and he gave a glance up at the sky, through the trees, as
though to see how much time was left. Amber, watching him, was suddenly struck
with panic. Now he was going—out again into the great world with its bustle and
noise and excitement—and she must stay here. She had a terrible new feeling of
loneliness, as if she stood in some solitary corner at a party where she was
the only stranger. Those places he had seen, she would never see; those fine
things he had done, she would never do. But worst of all she would never see
him again.

"It's
not time to go yet!"

"No.
I have a while longer."

Amber
dropped onto her knees in the grass, her mouth pouting, eyes rebellious—and
after a moment he sat down facing her. For several seconds she continued staring
sulkily, mulling over her dismal future, and then swiftly her eyes went to his.
He was watching her, steadily, carefully. She stared back at him, her heart
pounding, and there began to steal over her a slow weakness and languor, so
consuming that even her eyes felt heavy. Every part of her was tormented with
longing for him. And yet she was half-scared, uncertain, and reticent, filled
with a sense of dread almost greater than her desire.

At
last his arm reached out, went around her waist, and drew her slowly toward
him; Amber tipping her head to meet his mouth, slid both her arms about him.

The
restraint he had shown thus far now vanished swiftly, giving way to a passion
that was savage, violent, ruthlessly selfish. Amber, inexperienced but not
innocent, returned his kisses eagerly. Spurred by the caressing of his mouth
and hands, her desire mounted apace with his, and though at first she had
heard, somewhere far back in her mind, Sarah calling out to her, warning her,
the sound and the image grew fainter, dissolved, and was gone.

But
when he forced her back onto the earth she gave a quick movement of protest and
a little cry—this was as far as her knowledge went Something mysterious, almost
terrible, must lie beyond. Her hands pushed at his chest and she gave a
frightened
little sob, twisting her face away from his. Her fear now was irrational,
intense, almost hysterical.

"No!"
she cried. "Let me go!"

She
saw his face above her, and his eyes had become pure glittering green. Amber,
crying, half-mad with passion and terror, suddenly let herself relax.

With
slow reluctance Amber became again conscious of the surrounding world, and of
both of them as separate individuals. She drew a deep luxurious sigh, her eyes
still closed— she felt that she could not have moved so much as a finger.

After
a long while he drew away from her and sat up, forearms resting on his knees, a
long blade of grass between his teeth, staring ahead. His tanned face was wet
with sweat and he mopped across it with the black-velvet sleeve of his doublet.
Amber lay perfectly still beside him, eyes closed and one arm flung over her
forehead. She was warm and drowsy, marvellously content, and glad with every
fibre of her being that it had happened.

It
seemed that until this moment she had been only half alive.

Aware
of his eyes on her she turned her head slightly and gave him a lazy smile. She
wanted to say that she loved him but did not quite dare, even now. She wished
he would say that he loved her, but he only bent and kissed her, very gently.

"I'm
sorry," he said softly. "I didn't expect to find you a virgin."

"I'm
glad I was."

Was
that all he was going to say? She waited, watching him, beginning to feel
uncertain and a little afraid. He looked again as he had when she first saw
him—she could never tell now by his expression or manner how close they had
been. She was surprised and hurt, for what had happened should have changed him
as much as it had her. Nothing should ever be the same again, for either of
them.

At
last he got up, squinting overhead at the sun. "They'll be waiting for me.
We want to get into London before nightfall." He reached down a hand to
help her and she jumped up quickly, shaking out her hair, smoothing her blouse,
touching her earrings to make sure she had not lost them.

"Lud,
we mustn't be late!"

Knocking
at the dust on his hat, he gave her a glance of quick astonishment, then set it
back on his head. He scowled, as though he had got more than he had bargained
for.

At
his look, Amber's smile and excitement went suddenly dead. "Don't you
want
me to go?" She was almost ready to cry.

"My
dear, your aunt and uncle would never approve."

"What
do I care! I want to go with
you!
I hate Marygreen! I never want to see
it again! Oh, please, your Lordship.
Let
me go with you." Marygreen
and her life there had suddenly become intolerable. He had crystallized all the
restlessness, the thirst and longing for a broader, brighter life which had
been working
within her, half unrealized, ever since she had first talked to the cobbler
many years ago.

"London's
no place for an unmarried girl without money or acquaintance," he said in
a matter-of-fact tone, which even Amber knew meant that he did not care to be
troubled with her. And then he added, perhaps because he was sorry to hurt her,
"I won't be there long. And what would you do when I go? It wouldn't be
easy to come back here—I know well enough what an English village thinks of
such escapades. And in London there aren't many means of livelihood open to a
woman. No, my dear, I think you'd better stay here."

All
of a sudden, to his surprise as well as her own, she burst into tears. "I
won't stay here! I
won't!
I can't stay here now! How d'ye think
I'm to explain
to my Uncle Matt where I've been these two hours—when a hundred people I know
saw us leave the fair grounds!"

A
look of annoyance crossed his face, but she did not see it. "I told you
that would happen," he reminded her. "But even if he's angry it'll be
better for you to go back and—"

She
interrupted him. "I'm not going back! I won't live here any more, d'ye
hear? And if you won't take me with you— then I'll go alone!" She stopped
suddenly and stood looking up at him, angry and defiant, but pleading, too.
"Oh, please— your Lordship. Take me along."

They
stood and stared at each other, but at last his scowl faded away and he smiled.
"Very well, you little minx, I'll take you. But I won't marry you when we
get there—and don't forget, whatever happens, that I told you so."