Kathleen Winsor - Forever Amber

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 while. 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.

“Eighteen thousand pound!” 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 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.