Kathleen Winsor - Forever Amber

Rose Lawn lay on the boundary which separated Royalist territory from that held by Parliament, and news of an attack so near had ominous significance. The house had been kept in readiness for any possible emergency since the beginning of the war and now, following her husband’s instructions, Lady Anne began to make preparations for a siege. It was not unusual for a few women and old men to stave off an attacking force for weeks or months, and no one who knew Lady Anne could doubt that if Rose Lawn were to be besieged she would hold it until every last child and dog was dead of starvation.

The following night there was a sudden alarm from the watch. The women began to scream with terror, thinking that the moment had come; children bawled and dogs barked; somewhere a musket went off. Judith leaped from the bed, flung on a dressing-gown, and rushed out to find her mother. She discovered her downstairs in conversation with a farmer, and as she appeared Lady Anne turned and handed her a sealed letter. Judith gave a little gasp and her face turned white, but even under her mother’s cold and accusing eyes she could not mask the passionate gratitude and relief she felt. It must be from John. While she tore open the seal and began to read, Lady Anne dismissed the farmer.

“In a few days we will attack Rose Lawn. I cannot prevent the attack but I can carry you and her Ladyship to a place of safety. Bring nothing with you that will make travelling difficult and wait at the mouth of the river beneath the house as soon as it is dark tomorrow night. I won’t be able to see you, but I have a servant I can trust and I have made arrangements for you to be cared for until I can come to you.”

Judith raised her eyes to her mother’s and then slowly, as if by compulsion, she handed her the letter. Lady Anne gave it a quick glance, crossed the room and threw it into the fire. She turned back to face her daughter.

“Well?” she said at last.

Impulsively Judith ran toward her. “Oh, madame, we’ve got to go! If we stay here we may be killed! He’ll take us where we’ll both be safe!”

“I do not intend to leave my home at such a time as this. And certainly I will not accept the protection of an enemy.” Her eyes watched Judith coldly. She looked proud, indestructible, and a little cruel. “Make your own choice, Judith, but make it carefully. For if you do I shall tell your father that you were captured. We will never see you again.”

Judith had a moment of intense longing to tell her mother what had happened. If only she could explain it to her somehow, could make her understand how truly they loved each other—how impossible it was to stifle that love merely because England was at war—But looking into Lady Anne’s eyes she knew that her mother would never understand, that she would only despise and condemn her. The decision was hers to make, and there could be no explanation once she had made it.

With only one extra gown and her few jewels, she left Rose Lawn. All that night she and the servant travelled and by mid-morning of the following day had come to a farmhouse in Essex which was well within the borders of Parliamentary domination. There she was introduced to Sarah and Matthew Goodegroome as Judith St. Clare, wife of John St. Clare, who had left her home because of a quarrel between her family and her husband’s. Sarah knew that she was a lady of quality but did not know her rank; and Judith, according to John’s instructions, told her nothing more. When the War was over and John came for her they would explain everything. Meanwhile Sarah introduced her to the village women as her own sister, come to live with her because the armies were fighting about her husband’s farm.

There was something sure and free and vibrantly contented about Sarah Goodegroome that gave Judith a sense of security and brought back her optimism. They became close friends, and Judith was happier than she had been for a long while.

Whenever he could, John sent her a message, always saying that he would join her as soon as possible. Once he mentioned, briefly, that Rose Lawn still held. But her home, her parents, the Earl of Radclyffe, seemed almost unreal to her now. Her life was absorbed in the farmhouse, in her new friends and the little village of Marygreen, in her thoughts and dreams of John—and most of all in the tiny creature her body carried. Now that her worries and apprehensions were over, now that she was thought to be—and almost thought herself—as respectable a married woman as any of them, she grew happier and prettier by the day. Pregnancy became her well. But she was eager for the day when she would bear John his first son; never once did it occur to her that the child might be a girl.

She was beginning to move restlessly, conscious of painful cramps in the muscles of her arms and legs. She could see only dimly now, as if she had her eyes opened under water. And though she could not tell how much time had gone by, Sarah was still working, kneading her belly with capable strong fingers, her face strained and wet.

I must tell her to stop, thought Judith drowsily. She looks so tired.

She heard the baby squalling and remembered again that it was a girl. I’ve never even thought of a name for her. What shall I call her? Judith—or Anne—or perhaps it should be Sarah—

And then she said softly, “Sarah—I think I’ll name her Amber —for the colour of her father’s eyes—”

She became aware of the other women nearby, of a bustle and stir in the room, and now one of them leaned down to lay a warm cloth across her forehead, at the same time removing another which had grown cool. Blankets had been piled on her, but still her face was cold and wet and she could feel moisture on her fingers. Her ears were ringing and the feeling of dizziness came again, swooping down and whirling her up and away until she saw nothing but a hazy blur, heard only a confused murmurous babble.

And then as she moved slightly, trying to ease the cramps that knotted again and again in her legs, Sarah suddenly put her face in her hands and began to sob. Without an instant’s hesitation another woman bent and began to work, firmly kneading and massaging.

“Sarah—Please, Sarah—” whispered Judith, full of pity for her.

Very slowly and with great effort she drew her hand from where it lay at her side under the blankets and raised it toward her. As she did so she saw that the palm and fingers were smeared with wet blood. For a moment she stared at it dreamily, without comprehension, and then all at once she understood why she had had such a strange sense of comfort, as though she lay in a warm bath. Her eyes widened with horror and she gave a sharp cry of pleading and protest.

“Sarah!”

Sarah dropped to her knees, her face contorted with grief.

“Sarah! Sarah, help me! I don’t want to die!”

The other women were sobbing wildly but Sarah, gaining control of herself again, forced a smile. “It’s nothing, Judith. You mustn’t be frightened. A little blood is nothing—” But the next moment her features twisted with unbearable anguish and she was crying, unable to control herself any longer.

For several seconds Judith stared at her bowed head and shaking shoulders, full of wild, angry, helpless resentment, terrified. I can’t be dying! she thought. I can’t! I don’t want to die! I want to live!

She tried to speak to Sarah again, to beg for help—to demand it—Sarah! Sarah—don’t let me die—But she heard no words, she could not even tell if her lips formed them.

And then slowly she began to drift, floating back into some warm pleasant world where there was no fear of death, where she and John would meet again. She could see nothing at all now, and she let her eyes close—the ringing in her ears had shut out every other sound. She was no longer struggling; she drifted willingly, suffused with so intolerable a tiredness that she welcomed this promise of relief. And then all at once she could hear again, loud and clear, the sound of her daughter’s cries. They were repeated over and over, but grew steadily fainter, fading away, until at last she heard them no more.

MARYGREEN DID NOT change in sixteen years. It had changed little enough in the past two hundred.

The church of St. Catherine stood at the northern end of the road, like a benevolent godfather, and from it the houses ran down either side—half-timbered cottages, with overhanging upper stories, and thatched with heather or with straw that had been golden when new, then had turned slowly to a rich brown, and now was emerald green with moss and lichen. Tiny dormer windows looked out, wreathed with honeysuckle and ivy. Thick untrimmed hedges fenced the houses off from the road and there were small wooden gates, some of them spanned by arches of climbing roses. Above the hedges could be seen the confusion of blooming flowers, delphinium and lilacs, both purple and white, hollyhocks that reached almost to the eaves, an apple or plum or cherry tree in full blossom.

At the far end from the church was the green, where on festive occasions the young men played football and held wrestling matches and all the village danced.

There was an inn built of soft red brick and showing the aged silver-grey oaken timbers of its frame; a great sign painted with a crude golden lion swung out over the street on an elaborate wrought-iron arm. Nearby was the blacksmith’s cottage with his adjoining shop and the homes and places of business of the apothecary, the carpenter, and another tradesman or two. The rest of the cottages were occupied by husbandmen who divided their time between working on their own small holdings and on the large neighbouring farms. For there was no manor or squire’s estate near Marygreen, and the economic existence of the village depended upon the well-to-do yeomen farmers.