Kathleen Winsor - Forever Amber

It was just beginning to grow light and she stood there alone for several moments, surrounded by quiet familiar country sounds: the river washing its banks, the “tick-tick” of a stonechat, the unseen scurrying of many little creatures. All about her the fog moved gently, like breath blown on a cold morning. She watched a Polly Dishwasher dragging at a worm, cocking its head in bewilderment when the captive slipped away and disappeared into the earth again. She laughed nervously aloud at that and then started suddenly, glancing around her. Quickly she darted back behind the tree, out of sight, for he was riding toward her across the meadow.

She did not dare to peek for fear he would see her, wheel about and go back, but she could hear the sound of hoofs coming over the soggy ground and her heart sped with relief and apprehension. Now that he was here—what would he do? She had never had less confidence in her ability to coerce and charm him.

She could hear the horse, heaving and panting, and she heard him talking to it as he swung down and stood there beside it. Trying to screw up the courage to show herself she hesitated several moments longer. At last he gave a short impatient shout.

“Hey! Are you ready?”

Her throat was too dry and tight for her to answer, but she stepped out from behind the tree and confronted him. Her head was lowered a little, like a child who expects a beating, but her eyes darted up quickly to his face. He did not look very much surprised but gave her a faint one-sided smile.

“So it is you,” he said slowly. “I didn’t think your husband was an ardent duellist. Well—” He had been holding his cloak in his hand and now he swung it on again, turned and walked back to where his horse was grazing.

“Bruce!” She ran toward him. “You’re not going! Not yet! I’ve got to talk to you!” She reached for him, seizing his forearms, and he paused, looking down at her.

“What about? Everything there is to be said between us has been said a thousand times.”

There was no smile on his face now, but seriousness and the impatience and simmering anger she had come to recognize and to dread.

“No it hasn’t! I’ve got to tell you how sorry I am! I don’t know what happened to me that day—I must have been crazy! Oh, Bruce—you can’t do this to me! It’s killing me, I swear it is! Please, darling, please—I’ll do anything, anything in the world if only I can see you again!” Her voice was intense and passionate, pleading with wild desperation. She felt that she had to convince him somehow, or die.

But he looked skeptical, as he always had at her extravagant promises and threats. “I’ll be damned if I know what you want. But one thing I do know, and that’s that we’re done meeting. I’m not going to cause my wife any more unpleasantness when her confinement is so near.”

“But she’d never know!” protested Amber, frantic at the uncompromising hardness she saw on his face.

“Less than a week ago she got a letter telling her that we were still seeing each other.”

Amber looked at him in momentary surprise, for she had not sent it herself and had not known of it, and then a pleased secret smile came to her lips.

“What did she say?”

A look of disgust flickered across his face. “She didn’t believe it.”

“Didn’t believe it! She must be an awful fool!”

Suddenly she stopped, one hand clapped to her mouth, staring at him and wishing that she could bite off her own treacherous tongue. Her eyes fell and all her spirit crumpled.

“Oh,” she murmured, “forgive me for that!”

After a long moment she looked up again to find him watching her, some strange expression of mingled tenderness and anger in his eyes. They stood there while several moments passed, eyes locked. And then all at once she gave a little sobbing cry and flung herself against him, her arms about his back, her body pressed close to his. For a moment he stood perfectly still and then his hands took hold of her shoulders, his fingers pressed hard into her flesh. With a wild exultant sense of triumph she saw the expression on his face shift and change.

Her eyes closed and her head tipped back. She felt almost delirious with the violence of her desire. Everything else had been swept away but a longing for union with him. Her mouth, moist and parted, formed his name.

“Bruce—”

He gave her a sudden rude hard shake. “Amber!”

Her head snapped and her eyes opened, looking up at him dizzily. Slowly he bent and kissed her mouth, but his hands held her forearms so that she could not move. Then all at once he released her and before she had recovered her senses he walked swiftly to his horse, mounted, and set out at a gallop back toward the city. Amber stood there alone beneath the trees, still too stunned to move or cry out, and helplessly watched him go. The pale white light of daybreak was beginning to sift down through the leaves upon her uncovered head.

MINETTE WAS COMING to England again. It would be the first time she had seen her two brothers since the joyous days just after the Restoration when, a gay sixteen-year-old, she had come visiting with her mother. That had been the beginning of a new life for all of them—a life which promised to repay the long dark years of wandering and hopelessness. Ten years had passed since then. Now there were only three of all the nine children still living—Charles, James, and Henriette Anne. The Queen Mother had died eight months before.

The visit had been planned for more than two years, but each time it had had to be postponed—usually through the jealous malice of her husband. At last, however, Charles had a pretext of such importance that Monsieur and his objections were thrust aside. England and France were to form a secret alliance and when Charles demanded that this sister be allowed to visit him before he would conclude it, Louis told his younger brother that state interests came first. But he did allow Monsieur to refuse her permission to go beyond Dover.

Dover was a fog-laden dirty little town of only one narrow ill-paved street about a mile long, lined with ramshackle cottages and inns. The great old castle had guarded the coast in feudal times, an impregnable barrier to invasion, but after the invention of cannon it had fallen into disuse and was now merely a prison. The English Court came into the village—the men first, for Charles still hoped that Monsieur might be persuaded to let her go on to London—in gilt coaches and on gorgeously caparisoned horses. Early the next morning the French fleet was sighted, far out in the Channel.

Charles, who had been up most of the night, restless and impatient, immediately got into a small boat with York and Rupert and Monmouth and set out to meet her. He stood up recklessly, constantly urging the men to row faster and faster, until it seemed their arms would tear from the sockets. The French fleet bobbed toward them over the waves, gilded hulls gleaming in the bright early sunlight, coloured sails blown up like fat bellies by the wind. The clouds looked white as suds where they lay piled on the horizon and sea and sky were sharp stinging blue.

James came to stand beside his brother, dropping one arm about his shoulders, and Charles, with his own arm around the Duke’s waist, grinned at him, his black eyes shining with happiness and excitement. The ships were now coming so close that it was possible to make out figures moving on deck, though they could not yet be distinguished individually.

“Only think of it, Jamie!” cried Charles. “After ten years—we’re going to see her again!”

And then all at once it was possible to pick out Madame who stood in the fore-deck, her white satin gown whipping about her, eyes shaded with her fan against the glare of the water; as she raised her arm and waved to them the brothers gave an excited shout.

“Minette!”

“James, it’s Minette!”

Swiftly the barge and the French sailing-vessel drew together. They had scarcely touched when Charles made a leap and started up the rope ladder, hand over hand, as swiftly and easily as though he had lived all his life at sea. Minette ran forward to meet him and as he bounded onto the deck she rushed into his arms.

He held her close to him and his mouth touched the sleek-brushed crown of her head; there were emotional happy tears in his eyes and Minette wept softly. Instinctively he spoke to her in French, for it was her language, and the words were like a tender caress.

“Minette,” he murmured. “Ma chère petite Minette—”

All at once she tipped back her head and looked up at him with a laugh, quickly brushing the tears away with her finger-tips. “Oh, my dear! I’m so happy I’m crying! I was afraid I would never see you again!”

Charles looked at her silently, adoration in his eyes, but also a dark anxiety—for he had seen at once how greatly, how tragically she had changed in ten years. Then she had been still half a child, buoyant, eager, unafraid—wholly delightful; now she was completely a woman, poised, accomplished, worldly, with a kind of heart-wringing charm. But she was too thin and even behind the joyous laughter on her face was a seriousness that troubled him, for he knew what had caused it. Pretending could not fool him; she was unhappy, and she was ill.

The other men had come aboard and Charles released her while she embraced first James, then Rupert and Monmouth. Finally Minette stood with Charles and James on either side of her, her arms linked with theirs, her face radiant as she looked from one to the other. “We’re together again at last—all three of us.” The brothers were in deep-purple mourning for their mother, and Minette too wore royal mourning—a simple white satin gown with a thin black veil thrown over her hair.