Winsor, Kathleen (94 page)

"Eighteen
thousand pounds!" she cried angrily. "My portion won't last long at
this rate!"

"I
beg your pardon, madame, but I believe that I am as well aware as you of the
evanescent quality of money, and I have no more wish to dissipate your
inheritance than you have to see me do so. This eighteen thousand pound is to
pay my debts which, as I told you, have been accumulating for twenty-five
years."

He
spoke with the air of one who makes a a reasonable
explanation of
a difficult problem to a child who is not very clever, and Amber gave him a
furious glare. For a moment longer she hesitated, her mind stabbing here and
there for a way out. But at last she snatched away the pen, thrust it into the
ink-well and with a few swift strokes scrawled her name across the sheet,
making specks of ink fly as she did so. Then she threw down the pen, left him
and walked to the window where she stood staring down into the alley
below—scarcely seeing two women fish-vendors who were bellowing curses and
slapping at each other with huge flounders.

In
a few moments she heard the door close behind him, Suddenly she whirled,
grabbed up a small Chinese vase and threw it violently across the room.
"Lightning blast him!" she cried. "Stinking old devil!"

Nan
rushed forward as though she would rescue the pieces. "Oh, Lord, mam! Your
Ladyship!" she corrected. "He'll be stark staring mad when he finds
what you've done! He was mighty fond of that vase!"

"Yes!
Well, I was mighty fond of that eighteen thousand pound, too! The varlet! I
wish it had been his head! Lord! What a miserable wretch is a husband!"
Impatiently she glanced around, looking for some diversion. "Where's
Tansy?"

"His
Lordship told me not to allow 'im in the room when you're in your
undress."

"Oh,
he did, did he? We'll see about that!" She rushed across the room and
flung open the door, shouting. "Tansy! Tansy, where are you?"

For
a moment she got no answer. Then, from behind a massive carved chest appeared
his turban and shortly the little fellow's black and shining face. He blinked
his eyes sleepily, and as he opened his mouth to yawn half his face seemed to
disappear. "Yes'm?" he drawled.

"What
the devil are you doing back there?"

"Sleepin',
mam."

"What's
the matter with your own cushion in here?"

"I
ain' allowed no more in there, Mis' Amber."

"Who
said so!"

"His
Lordship done say so, mam."

"Well,
his Lordship doesn't know what he's talking about! You come in here, and from
now on do as I say—not as he says! D'ye hear?"

"Yes'm."

It
was just after noon when Radclyffe returned, entering the room with his usual
quietness, to find Amber sitting cross-legged on the floor playing at "in
and in" with Tansy and Nan Britton. There were piles of coins before each
of them and the women were laughing delightedly over Tansy's droll antics.
Amber saw the Earl come in but ignored him, until he was standing directly
beside her. Then Tansy looked slowly around, his black eyes rolling in their
sockets, and Nan became apprehensively still. Amber gave him a careless glance,
shaking the
dice back and forth in her hand. Though it made her angry, her heart was beating
a little harder—but she had told Nan he might as well find out once and for all
that she was not to be governed.

"Well,
m'lord? I hope your creditors are happy now."

"Truly,
madame," said Radclyffe slowly, "you surprise me."

"Do
I?" She rolled the four dice out onto the floor, watching the numbers as
they turned up.

"Are
you na
ïve—or
are you wanton?"

Amber
gave him a swift glance and heaved a deep bored sigh, brushed the dice aside
and got to her feet, reaching down as she did so to take Tansy's wrist and lift
him too. Suddenly there was a sharp stinging blow on the back of her hand that
made the nerves tingle. Tansy gave a scared shriek, grabbing at her skirts for
protection.

"Take
your hands off that creature, madame!" Radclyffe's voice was even and
cold, but his eyes glittered savagely. "Get out of this room!" He
spoke to Tansy, who ran, not waiting to be told twice.

Radclyffe
looked at Nan, who was staying close to Amber. "I told you, Britton, that
that little beast was not to be in this room when her Ladyship was undressed.
What have you—"

"It's
not her fault!" snapped Amber. "She told me! I brought him in
myself!"

"Why?"

"Why
not? He's been with me two and a half years—he comes and goes in my apartments
as he likes!"

"Perhaps
he did. But he shall do so no longer. You are now my wife, madame, and if you
have no sense of decency yourself I shall undertake the management of your
conscience myself."

Furious,
determined to hurt him with the one weapon she could depend upon, she said now,
softly but with an unmistakable sneer: "Sure, my lord, you don't expect to
be cuckolded by a mere child?"

The
whites of Radclyffe's eyes turned red, and the purple veins of his forehead
began to beat. Amber had an instant of real terror, for there was murderous
rage in his face—but to her relief he seemed swiftly to control himself. He
flicked an imaginary speck of dust from his immaculate lace cravat.

"Madame,
I cannot imagine what sort of a man your first husband must have been. I assure
you that an Italian woman who spoke to her husband as you have just spoken to
me would have the gravest cause to repent of her impertinence."

"Well,
I'm not an Italian woman and this isn't Italy—it's England!"

"Where
husbands, you think, have no rights." He turned away. "Tomorrow that
black monkey will be gone."

Suddenly
Amber regretted her insolence and bluster. For she realized that he was neither
to be bullied like Black Jack Mallard or Luke Channell—nor wheedled like Rex
Morgan
or Samuel Dangerfield. He did not love her and he had no awe of her. And though
it was fashionable to scorn husbands, she was quite aware that a wife, under
the penal laws, was her husband's property and chattel. He could use her at his
will, or even murder her—particularly since he was rich and titled.

She
changed her tone. "You won't hurt him?"

"I'm
going to get rid of him, madame. I refuse to have him in my house any
longer."

"But
you won't hurt him, will you? Why, he's harmless and helpless as a puppy. It
wasn't
his
fault he was in here! Oh, please let me send him to Almsbury!
He'll take care of him.
Please,
your Lordship!" She hated begging
him and hated him more for making her beg, but she was fond of Tansy and could
not bear to think of his being hurt.

There
was something on his face now almost like secret amusement, and his next words
were her return for the cut she had given him. "It scarcely seems
possible," he said slowly, "a woman could have so much fondness for a
little black ape unless she had some use for him."

Amber
shut her teeth and refused to be goaded. For a long moment they faced each
other. At last she repeated: "Will you please send him to
Almsbury's?"

He
smiled faintly, pleased to have her in this humiliating predicament. "Very
well. I'll send him tomorrow." The favour, though granted, was like a
slap.

Amber's
eyes lowered.

"Thank
you, sir."

Someday,
she was thinking, I'll slit your gullet, you damned old cannibal.

On
the 1st of February Charles returned to Whitehall. There were deep snows on the
ground, the church bells pealed out merrily, and at night great bonfires
lighted the black winter sky, welcoming the King home. Her majesty, however,
and all the ladies had remained at Hampton Court. Castlemaine had recently
given birth to another son; the Queen had miscarried again. And York was not speaking
to his Duchess because he thought—or pretended to think—that she had been
having an affair with handsome Henry Sidney.

Radclyffe
went to wait upon the King, but Amber could not go to Court until the women
returned, when she might be presented at a ball or some other formal occasion.
However, having once paid his respects, Radclyffe did not go often to
Whitehall. He was not the sort of man King Charles would take for a confidant
and his religion barred him from ever holding an office. Furthermore, he had
been too long away from Court. A new generation was setting the pace, and it
was not the pace at which his own had moved. There was a new way of living,
which he considered to be shallow, frivolous, lacking in grace or purpose. Most
of the men he judged either knaves or fools or both and the women he thought a
pack of empty-headed sluts. He included his wife in this category.

To
Amber it seemed that time passed more slowly than ever before. She spent hours
with Susanna, helping her learn to walk, building block castles and playing
with her, singing her the dozens of nursery rhymes she remembered from her
childhood. She adored her—but she could not build a whole life around her. She
longed for that great exciting world to which she had bought and paid her
admission and which she might now enter proudly by the front door, not sneak
into like a culprit through some back passageway. She was glad that Radclyffe
was not interested in the gay life at the Palace, for that would leave her all
the more free to enjoy it herself.

She
wanted nothing so much as to get away from him. She felt as though he was
casting some evil spell over her, for though she did not actually see him often
he seemed to hang forever at her shoulder, to lurk in her mind—sombre and
dreaded. Alone in the house as she was and with few diversions, everything that
was said or done by either of them assumed a magnified importance. She mulled
over each word spoken, each glance exchanged, every action, worrying it like a
dog with a bone.

Once,
out of boredom, she ventured into his laboratory.

She
tried the door, found it open, and went in quietly, so as not to disturb him.
Great stacks of books and manuscripts, recently sent down from Lime Park, were
piled on the floor. There were several skulls, hundreds of jars and bottles,
oil-lamps, pottery vessels of every shape and size—all the paraphernalia of
alchemy. He was engaged, she knew, in the "Great Work"—a tedious,
complicated process of seven years which had as its goal the discovery of the
Philosopher's Stone —a search that was occupying some of the best minds of the
age.

As
she entered he stood before a table, his back to her, carefully measuring a
yellow powder. She said nothing but walked toward him, her eyes going curiously
over the loaded shelves and tables. All at once he gave a start and the bottle
dropped from his hands.

Amber
jumped backward to avoid spotting her gown. "Oh, I'm sorry."

"What
are you doing in here!"

Her
anger flared quickly. "I just came in to look! Is there any harm in that?"

He
relaxed, smoothing the scowl from his face. "Madame, there are several
places where women do not belong—under any circumstances at all. A laboratory
is one of them. Pray don't interrupt me again. I've spent too many years and
too much money on this project to have it ruined now by a woman's
blundering."

After
alchemy his greatest interest was his library, where he spent many hours of
each day. For most of his life he had been collecting rare books and
manuscripts, which he kept all in precise order, listing each one carefully and
with a full
account of everything that pertained to it. But his interest in books was more
than mere pleasure in possession, in the look and feel of fine leather and old
paper. He read them as well. There were Greek plays; Cicero's letters, and the
meditations of Marcus Aurelius; Plutarch and Dante; Spanish plays; French
philosophers and scientists—all in their original languages.

He
did not forbid Amber the library, but it was not until they had been married
for several weeks that she went into it. She had now become so desperate for
entertainment that she was finally willing to read a book. But she had not
realized that he was there and when she saw him, sitting beside the fireplace
with a pen in his hand and a great volume lying open on the writing-table, she
hesitated a moment, then started out again. He glanced up, saw her, and to her
surprise got politely to his feet, smiling.

"Pray
come in, madame. I see no reason why a woman may not enter a library—even
though she isn't likely to find much in it to her taste. Or are you that freak
of man and nature—a learned female?"

His
mouth, as he spoke the last sentence, turned ironically down. In common with
most men—no matter what their own intellectual interests and acquirements might
be—he considered education for women absurd and even amusing. Amber ignored the
jibe; it was not a subject on which she could be easily offended.

"I
thought I might find something to pass the time with. Have you got any plays
written in English?"

"Several.
What do you prefer—-Ben Jonson, Marlowe, Beaumont and Fletcher,
Shakespeare?"