Kathleen Winsor - Forever Amber

“Oh, no, Jemima. Not yet. I want to talk to you first.”

Jemima glanced at her swiftly, her eyes guarded. “What about?”

“You know what about. There’s no use trying to pretend. You’re pregnant—aren’t you?”

“No! Of course I’m not! I can’t be! It’s just that—Well, I’ve had the vapours, that’s all.”

“If you thought it was only the vapours why didn’t you tell anyone? Don’t try to fool me, Jemima. Tell me the truth and maybe I can help you.”

“Help me? How could you help me?”

“How long has it been since your last flux?”

“Why—almost two months. But that doesn’t mean anything! Oh, I know I’m not pregnant! I can’t be! I’d die if that happened!”

“Don’t be a fool, Jemima! What the devil did you think when you laid with him? That you had a charm of some kind-it couldn’t happen to you? Well, it has, and the sooner you admit it the better for you.”

Suddenly Jemima began to cry, scared and distracted now that she was finally forced to confront the fact from which she had been fleeing for weeks. “I don’t believe you! I’ll be well again in a few days, I know I will! You’re just trying to scare me, that’s all! Oh—go away and leave me alone!”

Amber gave her an angry shake. “Jemima, stop it! Most likely some of the servants are listening! D’you want everyone to know what’s happened? If you’ll keep your mouth shut and be sensible you can save yourself and your family too. Don’t forget what a disgrace this will be for them if it’s ever found out—”

“Oh, that’s what I’m afraid of! They’ll hate me! They’ll-Oh—I wish I was dead!”

“Stop talking like an idiot! If you marry Joseph Cuttle on the 15th—”

Jemima snapped out of her hysteria as if she had been dashed with cold water. “Marry Joseph Cuttle! Why, I won’t marry Joseph Cuttle and you know it! I wouldn’t marry him for—”

“You’ve got to marry him! There’s nothing else you can do now! It’s the only way you can keep the Dangerfields from being disgraced.”

“I don’t care! I don’t care about them! I won’t marry him! I’m going to run away from home and take lodgings somewhere and wait till Lord Carlton comes back. He’ll marry me then, when he knows what happened.”

Amber gave a short brutal laugh. “Oh, Jemima, you silly green foolish girl. Lord Carlton marry you! Are you cracked in the head? He wouldn’t marry you if you had triplets. If he’d married every woman he’s ever laid with I don’t doubt he’d have as many wives as King Solomon. Besides, if you ran away from home you wouldn’t even have a dowry to offer him! Marry Joseph Cuttle while you’ve still got time—it’s the only thing you can do now.”

For a long moment Jemima lay perfectly still and stared up at her.

“So at last you’re going to get your way,” she said softly. Her eyes glittered, but her next words merely formed on her mouth:

“Oh, how I despise you—”

JEMIMA’S WEDDING WAS a social event of considerable importance.

Between them the Dangerfields and the Cuttles had friends or relatives in almost every one of the great City families. Gifts for the bride and groom had been pouring into the house for weeks past, and had almost filled one large room set aside to receive them. The bride walked on a golden tapestry to the improvised altar which had been set up in the south drawing-room, while her aunts and female cousins sniffled and the mighty music of three great organs made the walls tremble. She wore her dark coppery hair flowing over her shoulders-symbol of virginity—and a garland of myrtle and olive and rosemary leaves; she was sober-faced and dry-eyed, which was unfortunate, for it was believed to be bad-luck if the bride did not weep. But she seemed preoccupied and almost unaware of what she was doing or saying, and when the ceremony was over she accepted the kisses of her eager happy groom and her friends and relatives with an air of absent-minded indifference.

The newly married couple opened the ball, and when the first dance was over they retired, as was customary, to the decorated bridal-chamber above. She began to cry when the women were undressing her, and everyone was pleased at this happy omen. When the two young people sat side by side in the great bed, Jemima’s eyes now wide and troubled like those of a frightened animal which has been trapped, the spouted posset-pot was handed ceremoniously from one to another, all around the room.

There was no unseemly laughter, no bawdy jests or boisterous singing as was common at many weddings, but an atmosphere of quiet good-natured but serious responsibility. They went out then, leaving Jemima and her groom alone—and Amber heaved a grateful sigh of relief. There! she thought. It’s done at last! And I’m safe.

But once she knew that she was secure, boredom began to settle on her like the gloomy fogs that hung over the river. She had bought too many gowns and too much jewellery to be satisfied by that any longer, particularly since she felt contemptuous of the opinion of those who saw them. Consequently she moped over her pregnancy, worried about the colour of her skin and the circles beneath her eyes, wept when her belly began to enlarge, and was sure that she was hideous and would always be so. For amusement she spent a great deal of time wishing for out-of-the-season foods—it was now winter—and since everyone knew that when a pregnant woman “longed” she must be satisfied or the child might be lost, it kept Samuel and all the household in a pother to supply her with the things she wanted. Usually by the time she got them the longing was gone, or another had taken its place.

She slept ten or eleven hours every night, no longer getting up at six with Samuel, but often drowsing till ten; and then she lay in bed another half-hour, thinking discontentedly of the day before her. By the time she had dressed it was noon and dinner-time. If he stayed home after that she did too; otherwise she went to visit some of the dozens of Dangerfield relatives or the hundreds of Dangerfield friends, and sat talking talking talking of babies and servants, servants and babies.

“When do you reckon, Mrs. Dangerfield?” they asked her everywhere she went, and time after time. And then came the discussion of Cousin Janet and the frightful labour she had had—fifty-four hours of it—or of Aunt Ruth who had been brought to bed of triplets twice in succession. And all the while they sat and munched on rich cakes, thick pastries, cream and curds, plump good-natured happy satisfied women whom Amber thought the most absurd creatures in the world.

Weeks went by very quickly this way.

Ye gods! thought Amber dismally. I’ll be twenty-one in March! I’ll most likely be too old to enjoy it when I finally get that damned money.

Christmas was a welcome diversion to her. The house swarmed with children, more of them than ever: Deborah who lived in the country had come to spend the holidays, bringing with her a husband and six children. Alice and Anne, though they both lived in London, followed the Dangerfield tradition and came home with their families. William returned from abroad and George came down from Oxford. Only Jemima preferred to stay at her husband’s home, but even she paid them a visit almost every day, with Joseph always beside her—full of pride for his pretty wife and so happy at the prospect of parenthood he must tell everyone he saw the wonderful news. And Jemima seemed, if not in love with Joseph, at least tolerant of his adoration—which she had not been before; pregnancy had given her a kind of serene contentment. Her rebellion against the manners and morals of her class was over, and she was beginning to accept and settle into her place in that life.

Laurel and cypress and red-berried holly decorated every room and filled them with a spicy winter fragrance. An enormous silver bowl of hot-spiced wine, garlanded with ivy and ribbons and floating roast apples, stood ever ready in the entrance hall. And there was food in all the glorious ancient tradition: plum-porridge and mince-meat pies, roast suckling pig, a boar’s head with gilded tusks, fat geese and capons and pheasants roasted to a crusty golden brown. Every dinner was a feast, and whatever was left was distributed to the poor who crowded at the back gates in vast numbers, baskets over their arms, for the Dangerfield generosity was well-known.

Gambling for money was traditionally permitted in all but the strictest households at Christmas-time, and from early morning till late at night cards were shuffled and dice rolled and silver coins clinked merrily across the tables. The children played hot-cockles and blind-man’s-buff and hunt-the-slipper, shouting and laughing and chasing each other from one room to another, from garret to basement. And for more than two weeks a stream of guests poured continuously through the house.

Amber gave Samuel a heart-shaped miniature of herself (fully clothed) set in a frame of pearls and rubies and diamonds. She gave gifts almost as expensive to every other member of the family, and her generosity to the servants convinced them that she was the best-natured woman in the world. She received as much as she gave, not because the family liked her any better than before, but to keep up appearances for their father and for outsiders. Amber knew this but she did not care, for nothing could have dislodged her now that he thought she carried his child. He gave her a beautiful little gilt coach, upholstered in padded scarlet velvet trimmed with swags of gold rope and numerous tassels, and six fine black horses to draw it. She was not, however, allowed to ride in it but must go everywhere in a sedan-chair—Samuel would take no chances with her health or the baby’s.