Winsor, Kathleen (99 page)

He
shrugged and smiled a little, frankly pleased with himself. "I believe
I've studied chemistry to some purpose. It was in the wine, of course. You
couldn't smell or taste it, could you?"

"D'ye
think I'd have drunk it if I could! For the love of God untie these ropes—my
legs and arms are dead." She was beginning to twist about, trying to find
a more comfortable position and to make the blood run again, for she felt so
cold and numb that it seemed to have stopped altogether.

He
ignored her request and took a chair beside her, with the air of a man who sits
down to console a sick person for whose condition he has no real pity.
"What a shame you couldn't meet him. I hope he didn't wait too long."

Amber
looked at him swiftly—and then very slowly, she smiled, a malicious cruel
little smile. "There'll be another day. You can't keep me tied up
forever."

"I
don't intend to. You may go back to London and Whitehall and play the bitch
whenever you like—but when you do, madame, I shall bring suit to get all your
money in my possession. I think I would win it, too, with no great difficulty.
The King may be willing to lie with you—but you've a long way to go before
he'll discommode himself for you. A whore and a mistress are not the same
thing—even though you may not be able to see the difference between them."

"I
see it well enough! All women aren't such fools as you like to think! I see
some
things you may think I don't, too."

"Oh,
do you?" His tone had the subtle sneering contempt with which he had
almost habitually addressed her since the day of their marriage.

"You
may pretend it's only my money you want—but I know better. You're stark staring
mad at the thought of having another man do what you can't do.
That's
why
you brought me off. And that's why you tell me I'll lose my money if I go back.
You fumbling old dotard—you're—"

"Madame!"

"I'm
not afraid of you! You're jealous of every man who's potent and you hate me
because you can't—"

His
right hand lashed out suddenly and struck her across the
face, so hard
that her head snapped to one side and the blood came rushing to the surface.
His eyes were cold.

"As
a gentleman I disapprove of slapping a woman. I have never, in my life, done so
before. But I am your husband, madame, and I will be spoken to with
respect."

Like
a vicious spitting cat, Amber recoiled. Her breathing had almost stopped
and her mottled
golden eyes were glowing. As she spoke her lips lifted away from her teeth like
a malignant animal's. "Oh, how I detest you—" she said softly.
"Some day I'll make you pay for the things you've done to me— someday I
swear I'll kill you ..."

He
looked at her with contempt and loathing. "A threatening woman is like a
barking dog—I have as much respect for one as for the other." There was a
knock at the door and though he hesitated for a moment at last he turned his
head.

"Come
in!"

It
was the landlady, cheerful and pink-cheeked and smiling, carrying in her arms a
table-cloth and napkins and the pewter-ware for the table. Behind her came a
thirteen-year-old girl balancing a tray loaded with appetizing food; she was
followed by her little brother and two dusty green bottles and a couple of
shining glasses. The landlady looked at Amber, who still lay half on one side,
propped on her elbow, covered with the robe.

"Well!"
she said briskly. "Madame is better now? I'm glad. It's a good supper if I
do say so, and I want you to enjoy it!" She gave her a friendly
woman-to-woman smile, obviously trying to convey that she understood what a
young wife must go through with her first pregnancy. Amber, her face still
burning from the slap, forced herself to smile in return.

Lime
Park was over a hundred years old—it had been built before the break-up of the
Catholic Church, when the proud Mortimers were at the height of their power,
and its stern elegant beauty expressed the power and pride. Pale grey stone and
cherry-red brick had been combined with great masses of squarepaned windows in
a building of perfect symmetry. It was four stories high with three dormers
projecting from the red slate roof, with its many chimneys so exactly placed
that each balanced another, and with square and round bays aligned in three
sections across the front. A brick-paved terrace, more than two hundred feet
long, overlooked the formal Italian gardens that dropped away in great steps
below. In marked contrast to the decay of the town-house, Lime Park had been
carefully and immaculately kept; each shrub, each fountain, each stone vase was
perfect.

The
train of coaches circled the front of the house at a distance of several
hundred yards and drove around to the back courtyard, where a fountain played
many jets of sparkling
water. Some distance to the west could be seen a great round brick Norman
dove-cote and a pond; on the north were the stables and coach-houses, all
handsome buildings of cherry brick and silver oak. A double staircase led to
the second-story entrance, and the first coach stopped just at the foot of it.

His
Lordship got out, then gallantly extended his hand to help his wife. Amber, now
unbound and completely recovered from the effects of the drug, stepped down.
Her face was sulky and she ignored Radclyffe as though he did not exist, but
her eyes went up over the building with admiration and interest. Just at that
moment a young woman ran out the door overhead and came sailing down the steps
toward them. She shot one swift timid glance at Amber and then made Radclyffe a
deep humble curtsy.

"Oh,
your Lordship!" she cried, bobbing up again. "We weren't expecting
you and Philip has ridden over to hunt with Sir Robert! I don't know
when
he'll
be back!"

Amber
knew that she must be Jennifer, his Lordship's sixteen-year-old
daughter-in-law, though Radclyffe had made no mention of her beyond her name.
She was slender and plain-faced with pale blonde hair which was already
beginning to darken in streaks; and she was obviously very much awed by her two
worldly visitors.

Ye
gods! thought Amber impatiently. So this is what living in the country does to
you! It no longer seemed to her that she had lived most of her life in the
country herself.

Radclyffe
was all graciousness and courtesy. "Don't trouble yourself about it, my
dear. We came unexpectedly and there was no time to send a message.
Madame—" he turned to Amber —"this is my son's wife, Jennifer, of
whom I've told you. Jennifer, may I present her Ladyship?" Jenny gave
Amber another quick fugitive glance and then curtsied; the two women embraced
with conventional kisses and Amber could feel that the girl's hands were cold
and that she trembled. "Her Ladyship has not been well during the
journey," said Radclyffe now, at which Amber gave him a swift glance of
indignation. "I believe she would like to rest. Are. my apartments
ready?"

"Oh,
yes, your Lordship. They're always ready."

Amber
was not tired and she did not want to rest. She wanted to go through the house,
see the gardens and the stables, investigate the summer-house and the
orangerie—but she followed the Earl upstairs into the great suite of rooms
which opened from the northwest end of the gallery.

"I'm
not tired!" she cried then, facing him defiantly. "How long have I
got to stay shut up in here?"

"Only
until you are prepared to stop sulking, madame. Your opinion of me interests me
not at all—but I refuse to have my son or my servants see my wife behaving like
an ill-natured slut. The choice is your own."

Amber
heaved a sigh. "Very well then. I don't think I could
ever convince
anyone that I like you—but I'll try to seem to endure you with the best grace I
can."

Philip
was back by supper-time and Amber met him then. He was an ordinary young man of
about twenty-four, healthy and happy and unsophisticated. His dress was
careless, his manners casual, and it seemed likely that his most intellectual
interests were horse-breeding and cock-training. Thank God, thought Amber at
first sight of him, he's nothing like his father! But it surprised her to see
that though Philip was so different from him Radclyffe was deeply attached to
the boy—it was a quality she had not expected to find in the cold proud lonely
old man.

Amber
spent several days exploring Lime Park.

There
were dozens of rooms, all of them filled with furniture and pictures and
objects which had come from every part of the world but which, by means of his
Lordship's own peculiar alchemy, had been made to harmonize perfectly. The
Italian gardens were immense and laid out in great terraces surrounding the
south and east sides of the house and connected by marble flights of steps and
broad gravelled walks. There were long shaded alleys of cypress and yew, and
avenues of clipped, bright-green lime-trees; there were flowers in stone vases
lining the stairs or walks or set on the balustrades. There was not a ragged
hedge nor a weed to be found anywhere. Even the stables were immaculate, walled
inside with Dutch tile and kept freshly whitewashed, and there were an
orangerie, greenhouses, and a pretty little summer-house.

It
was no wonder, she thought, that he had been in debt. But now that she saw what
her money had been spent for she was less resentful, for she looked at
everything with the appraising critical eye of an owner. She passed nothing
without making a decision as to whether she would want to keep it or sell it
when the time came. For certainly nothing should stay hidden out here in the
country where no one of any consequence might see and admire it. These fine
things were destined for London: perhaps apartments in Whitehall or some grand
new house in St. James's Square or Piccadilly.

At
first Jennifer was shy, but Amber—because she had nothing else to do and also
because she was a little sorry for her—made the effort to become friendly. The
girl responded with warm gratitude, for she had grown up in a large family and
was lonely here, where, even with more than two hundred servants, the house
seemed empty and dull.

It
was now the end of April and the days were often warm and pleasant. The
nightingales had arrived, cherry and plum trees were in full bloom and the
gardens were filled with the sweet scent of potted lilacs. Jennifer and Amber,
gaily chatting and laughing, strolled over the green lawns arm in arm, their
silk gowns gently blowing, admiring the raucous-tongued peacocks. In no time at
all they seemed fast friends.

Like
a woman in love, Amber was forever talking of London, where Jennifer had never
been. She told her about the theatres and the taverns, Hyde Park and Pall Mall
and Whitehall, the gambling in the Queen's Drawing-Rooms, the balls and the
hawking parties. For to her London was the center of the universe and whoever
was absent from it might almost as well have been on a distant star.

"Oh,
there's nothing so fine," she cried enthusiastically, "as to see all
the Court driving in the Ring! Everyone bows and smiles at everyone else each
time they come round and his Majesty lifts his hat to the ladies and sometimes
he calls out to them too. Oh, Jenny, you
must
come to London one
day!" She continued to talk as if she were still there.

Jenny
had always listened with great interest and asked innumerable questions, but
now she gave an apologetic little smile. "It sounds very fine but—well, I
think I'd rather hear about it than see it myself."

"What?"
cried Amber, shocked at this blasphemy. "But London's the only place in
the world to be!
Why
don't you want to go?"

Jenny
made a vague, deprecatory gesture. She was always acutely conscious of the
greater strength of Amber's personality, and it made her feel embarrassed and
almost guilty to express an opinion of her own. "I don't know. I think I'd
feel strange there. It's so big and there are so many people and all the ladies
are so handsome and wear such fine clothes—I'd be out of place. Why, I'd be
lost." Her voice had a timid and almost desperate sound, as though she
were already lost in that great terrifying city.

Amber
laughed and slipped one arm about her daughter-in-law's waist. "Why,
Jenny, with paint and patches and a low-necked gown you'd be as pretty as
anyone! I'll warrant you the gallants wouldn't let you alone—they'd be after
you day and night."