King Charles had granted him 20,000 acres more. Large tracts were necessary because tobacco exhausted the soil within three years and it was cheaper to clear new land than to fertilize the old. He had kept a fleet of six ships, for it was the common practice of both merchant and planter to underestimate each crop, with the result that ships were usually scarce. His were consequently in much demand and he had sent a great shipment to France the previous October. Though this was against the law, smuggling was common practice and necessary if the planters were to survive, for Virginia was producing in two years as much tobacco as England used in three.

Bruce now spent his days buying provisions, both for himself and for neighbours who had commissioned him to do so. Ordinarily it was necessary to trust such matters to a merchant who might send unsatisfactory goods, or profit at the colonist’s expense.

His home in Virginia was still only partly constructed because he had been too busy the year before clearing land and planting the tobacco crop. Furthermore, it was difficult to hire skilled workmen, for most of those who went to America expected to make a fortune in five or six years and could not readily be induced to work at their old trades. He was going to take back with him several dozen more indentured servants to complete the building and to work on the land. He was buying glass and bricks and nails—all of which were scarce in America—and, as most emigrants did, was taking with him many English plants and flowers for the garden.

He had a passionate enthusiasm for Virginia and his life there.

He described to her the forests with their oak and pine and blossoming laurel—great masses of dogwood, violets, roses, honeysuckle. He told her that fish were so plentiful a man could lean over and scoop a frying-pan full from a running stream. There were shad and sturgeon, oysters a foot long, turtle and crab and tortoise. He told her about the birds that came in September, clouds of them that blackened the sky, to feed on the wild-celery and oats that grew along the river banks. And there were swan, goose, duck, plover, and turkeys which weighed as much as seventy pounds. There had never been such a prodigal land.

Wild horses roamed the forests and catching them was one of the chief sports of the country. Brilliant birds fluttered everywhere—tawny and crimson parakeets, others with yellow heads and green wings. Animals were abundant and mink such a nuisance that traps had to be set for them. Knowing that she admired the fur, he had brought her skins enough to line a cloak and a robe and to make a great muff.

Corinna, his wife, had stayed in Jamaica the year before, but she had named their home from the description he had given her: they called it Summerhill. In a couple of years, Bruce said, they intended to visit England and France and would buy most of their furniture then. Corinna had left England in 1655 and had not seen it since; and like all English who went abroad to live she longed to return to her homeland, if only for a visit.

Amber wanted to hear about these things and pestered him with a thousand questions, but when he answered she was invariably hurt and angry and jealous. “Ye gods! I’m sure I can’t think how you must pass your time in a place like that! Or do you work all day long?” Work was no occupation for a gentleman, and the way she said the word it sounded as if she was accusing him of something unworthy.

One hot bright-skied afternoon in late May they were drifting along the Thames toward Chelsea, some three and a half miles up-river from Almsbury House. She had bought a new barge, a great handsome gilt one filled with gold-embroidered green-velvet cushions, and she had coaxed him to take the maiden trip with her. Amber was stretched out in the shade of the awning, her hair wreathed in white roses, the thin silk of her green gown falling along her legs, and she held a large green fan to shield one side of her face against the sun. The barge-men in their gold-and-green livery were resting, talking among themselves. The barge was a long one and they were not close enough to overhear what Bruce and Amber said.

There were many other little boats on the river carrying sweethearts, families, groups of young men or women on pleasure-cruises and picnics. The first warm spring days brought out everyone who could find leisure to escape—for London and the country were still almost one and every Londoner had an Englishman’s rural heart.

He sat facing her and now he grinned, shutting one eye against the sun. “I’ll admit,” he said, “that I don’t spend the morning in bed reading billets-doux or the afternoon at a play or the evening in taverns. But we have our diversions. We all live on rivers and travel isn’t difficult. We hunt and drink and dance and gamble just as you do here. Most of the planters are gentlemen and they bring their habits and customs with them, along with their furniture and ancestral portraits. An Englishman away from home, you know, clings to the old ways as fiercely as if his life depended upon it.”

“But there aren’t any cities or theatres or palaces! Lord, I couldn’t endure it! I suppose Corinna likes that dull life!” she added crossly.

“I think she will. She’s been very happy on her father’s plantation.”

Amber thought that she had a very good notion of the kind of woman this Corinna was. She pictured her as another Jenny Mortimer or Lady Almsbury, a quiet shy timid creature who cared for nothing in the world but her husband and children. If the English countryside produced such women, how much worse they must be in that empty land across the seas! Her gowns were probably all five years out of the fashion and she wore no paint and not a patch. She’d never seen a play or ridden in Hyde Park, gone to an assignation or taken dinner in a tavern. In fact, she’d never done anything at all to make her interesting.

“Oh, well—of course she’s contented. She’s never known about anything else. Poor wretch. What does she look like—she’s blonde, I suppose?” Her tone implied that no woman with the least pretensions to beauty would have any other colouring.

He shook his head, amused. “No. Her hair’s very dark—darker than mine.”

Amber widened her topaz eyes, politely shocked, as though he had said that she had a hare-lip or bow-legs. Black hair on a lady was not the fashion. “Oh,” she said sympathetically. “Is she Portuguese?” She remembered well enough that he had said she was English, but in England, Portuguese women were considered very unhandsome. Trying to seem nonchalant, she leaned out and made a lazy catch at a passing butterfly.

Now he laughed. “No, she’s English. Her skin’s fair and her eyes are blue.”

Amber did not like the way he spoke of her—there was something in the sound of his voice and the expression in his eyes. She began to feel hot and nervous, sick in the pit of her stomach.

“How old is she?”

“Eighteen.”

She suddenly felt that she had aged a dozen years in the past few seconds. Women were almost tragically conscious of age, and once out of their teens everything conspired to make them feel that they were growing old. Amber, not two months past twenty-three, now felt all at once that she was ancient and decayed. There was five years between them! Why, five years is a century!

“You said she’s pretty,” murmured Amber in a forlorn little voice. “Is she prettier than I am, Bruce?”

“My God, Amber. What a question to put to a man. You know that you’re beautiful. On the other hand, I’m not so bigoted as to think there’s only one good-looking woman on earth.”

“You do think she’s prettier!” she cried resentfully.

Bruce took her hand and kissed it. “No, I don’t, darling. I swear I don’t. You’re nothing alike—but you’re both lovely.”

“And you do love me?”

“And I do love you.”

“Then why did you—Oh, very well!” she said petulantly, but she obeyed his look and changed the subject. “Bruce, I’ve got an idea! When you’ve finished your business let’s take Almsbury’s yacht and sail up the river for a week or so. He says we can have it—I asked him. Oh, please—it’d be wonderful!”

“I’m afraid to leave London. If the Dutch took the notion they could come right up to the Privy Stairs.”

Amber scoffed at him. “Oh, ridiculous! They wouldn’t dare! Anyway, the peace-treaty is all but signed. I heard his Majesty say so last night. They’re only riding our coast to scare us and pay us back for what we did to ’em last summer. Oh, please, Bruce!”

“Perhaps. If the Dutch go home.”


But the Dutch did not go home. For six weeks they hovered just off the coast with a fleet of one hundred ships—to which the French added twenty-five—while England had not one good ship at sea and was forced to call in her bad ones. The French army was at Dunkirk.

Consequently Bruce refused, for all her teasing and coaxing, to leave London. He said that if the Dutch did come he did not intend to be several miles up the river, lying about on a pleasure boat like some irresponsible Turkish sultan. His men, at least, were well paid and could, he hoped, be counted upon to help defend his ships.

And then one night as they lay in bed, Bruce fast asleep and Amber just sliding off, a sound began to penetrate her drowsiness. She listened, wondering, as it grew louder. Suddenly it roared out—drums beating like thunder down in the streets. Her heart seemed to stop, and then it began to pound as hard as the drums. She sat up, shaking him by the shoulders.

“Bruce! Bruce, wake up! The Dutch have landed!”

Her voice had a high hysterical quaver and she was cold with terror. The weeks of suspense, which had affected her more than she had realized, the black night, the sudden ominous roll of drums, made her feel that the Dutch were there in the very city—outside the house at that moment. The sound of the drums grew louder, beating frantically, and there were shouts of men’s and women’s voices, excited and shrill.