Kathleen Winsor - Forever Amber

And then, almost unexpectedly, he caught the smell of her breath and knew that she was there, beside him. His eyes were wide open, but he could see nothing. For an instant he hesitated. Then, with a swiftness and strength that caught him off guard, she dropped a noose down over his head and jerked it tight. His arm shot out and seized hold of her, brought her sprawling across him and in that moment he thrust his fingers into the noose, tore it from about his own head and forced it down over hers. He pulled on it with both his hands and all the strength he had. She clawed and struggled furiously, gagging, while he yanked at it again and again, and when at last after many minutes he knew that she was dead he let her slide to the floor and fell back upon the bed himself, almost unconscious. Amber was still asleep.

WHEN HE DRAGGED Mrs. Maggot down the stairs to leave her for the dead-cart he gave the guard five guineas not to make a report to the parish-clerk; he wanted no more nurses in the house. For now he was well enough to take care of Amber himself, though it might be difficult for several more days.

The next morning he found that Mrs. Maggot had left the kitchen in even worse condition than Sykes. It stank with the spoilage of rotten fruit and vegetables, the meat was a mass of weaving worms, and the bread was covered with green mould. There was nothing there which was edible and since he was not yet able to clean up the mess or cook anything himself, he sent the guard to a tavern for a prepared meal.

But as the days went by he grew gradually stronger and though at first he had to rest after each small task he finally got all the rooms cleaned again. And one day while Amber was sleeping he moved her into the freshly-made bed and from then on occupied the trundle himself. Both of them joked about his housekeeping and cooking—which he did as soon as he was well enough—and the first time she laughed was when she woke up one morning to see him, naked but for a towel tied about his waist, sweeping the floor. She told him that she must have his recipes to give her next cook and asked him what method he used to get the sheets so white, saying that her laundress sometimes brought them back in worse condition than they were sent.

Soon he began going out to buy the food himself—for the guards had been withdrawn as useless—and found the streets almost empty.

The people were dying at the rate of 10,000 a week or more-it was a frightening insidious fact that of those who died a great percentage were never reported or even counted. Dead-carts came by at all hours, but in spite of that hundreds of bodies lay in the streets or were piled in the public squares, sometimes for days, while the rats swarmed over them. Many were half gnawed away before they were taken up for burial. The red cross was no longer chalked on the doors, but large printed posters were nailed up instead. Grass grew between the cobble-stones; thousands of houses were deserted and whole streets were barricaded and closed off, all their inhabitants having died or fled. Even the bells ceased tolling. The city lay perfectly still, hot and stinking.

Bruce talked to the shop-keepers, many of whom, like others who had remained behind, had shrugged off their earlier terrors. Death had become so common that a kind of scorn had replaced fear. The timid ones were shut tight in their houses and never ventured abroad. Others who went on with daily work and habits acquired a fatalism which sometimes was tempered by caution, but which more often was deliberately reckless. Mourning was now almost never seen, though at the end of the first week in September 2,000 were dying each day and almost every family had lost someone.

There were innumerable grotesque and terrible stories, heard on every hand, but none more terrible than what was actually happening. Instances of premature burial were widely known —partly because of the death-like coma which made the mistake natural, partly because nurses often took advantage of it to get the patient out of the way and plunder the house. There was the story of the butcher who was laid outside in his shroud for the dead-cart, which neglected to carry him off, and who regained consciousness the following morning. He was said to be alive and almost well again. One man escaped from his house, raving mad, and jumped into the Thames, swam across it, and recovered. Another man, left alone, knocked over a candle and burned himself to death in his bed. A young woman discovered a plague-spot on her baby, dashed out its brains against the wall of a house and ran along the street, shrieking.

The first day that Bruce was able to go out he walked the half-mile or so to Almsbury House, let himself in with his key, and went up to the apartments he had always occupied to get some fresh clothing. What he had on he took off and burned. There were a couple of servants who had been left as caretakers—for many of the great empty houses were now being entered and robbed by thieves and beggars—and they had been shut in there for more than two months. They refused to come near him but shouted out questions, and were much relieved when he left.

By the end of the second week in September Amber was able to dress and sit in the courtyard for a few minutes every day. Bruce carried her down and back again the first few times but she begged him to let her walk for she wanted to grow strong enough so that they could leave the city. She believed now that London was doomed, cursed by God, and that unless they got out they would die with everyone else. For though she was much better she was still gloomy and pessimistic; her usual attitude was completely reversed. Bruce was so well now that his own confidence and optimism had returned and he tried to amuse her—but it was not easy to do.

“I heard an interesting story today,” he said one morning as they sat in the courtyard.

He had brought down a chair for her and she drooped in it pathetically. The clothes she had worn while taking care of him he had burned, and the one gown which was left was a high-necked one of plain black silk that made her skin look sallow and drained. There were dark pits beneath her eyes and her hair hung in drab oily coils about her shoulders, but there was a red rose pinned at one temple which he had found that morning while shopping. Flowers had almost vanished from the town.

“What?” she asked him listlessly.

“Well, it sounds preposterous but they swear it’s true. It seems there was a drunken piper who left a tavern the other night and lay down in a doorway somewhere to sleep. The dead-cart came along, tossed him on top of the heap, and went off. But halfway to the graveyard the piper woke up and nothing daunted by the company took out his pipe and began to play. The driver and link-man ran off bellowing that the cart was haunted—”

Amber did not laugh or even smile; she looked at him with a kind of incredulous horrified disgust. “Oh—Oh, how terrible! A live man in that cart—Oh, it can’t be true—”

“I’m sorry, darling.” He was instantly contrite and changed the subject immediately. “You know, I think I’ve found the means to get us out of the city.” He was sitting on the flag-stones before her in his breeches and shirt-sleeves, a lock of his own coarse, dark hair falling over his forehead, and he looked up at her now with a smile, squinting his eyes against the sun.

“How?”

“Almsbury’s yacht’s still here, moored at the water-stairs, and it’s big enough so that we could take along provisions to last us for several weeks.”

“But where could we go? You can’t go out to sea in a yacht, can you?”

“We won’t try. We’ll sail up the Thames toward Hampton Court and go past Windsor and Maidenhead and on up that way. Once we’re sufficiently recovered not to spread the disease we can go to Almsbury’s country seat in Herefordshire.”

“But you said they wouldn’t let ships leave port at all.” Even simple plans sounded more difficult to her now than preposterous ones would have when she was in good health.

“They won’t. We’ll have to be careful. We’ll go at night—but don’t you worry about it. I’ll make the plans. I’ve already begun to—”

He paused, for Amber was staring at him, her face almost green, all her body stiffened in an attitude of listening. Then he heard it too—the rumbling sound of wheels turning over the cobble-stones, and a man’s distant voice.

“Bring out your dead!”

Amber began to sway forward but swiftly he was on his feet and had her in his arms. He carried her back up the stairs to the balcony and through the parlour into the bedroom and there he laid her down, very gently. She had lost consciousness for only a moment and now she looked up at him again. The sickness had left her wholly dependent upon him; she looked to him for all strength and confidence, she expected him to supply the answer and solution for every fear or worry. He was lover, God and parent.

“I’ll never forget that sound,” she whispered now. “I’ll hear it every night of my life. I’ll see those carts every time I shut my eyes.” Her eyes were beginning to glitter, her breath came faster with hysterical excitement. “I’ll never be able to think about anything else—”

Bruce bent close and put his mouth against her cheek. “Amber, don’t! Don’t think about it. Don’t let yourself think about it. You can forget it. You can, and you’ve got to—”

A few days later Amber and Bruce left London in Almsbury’s yacht. The country was beautiful. The low riverside meadows were thick with marigolds and along the banks grew lilies and green rushes. Tangled masses of water-grass, like green hair, floated on the swift current, and in the late afternoons there were always cattle standing at the edge of the water, quiet and reflective.