"Where's Heathstone from here?"
"Heathstone be damned!" protested one of the men. "What's wrong with your own ordinary? I'll fall off this jade if I go another mile without food!" He was a handsome blond red-faced young man and in spite of his scowl he was obviously happy and good-natured. As he spoke the others laughed and one of them leaned over to clap him on the shoulder.
"By God, we're a set of rascals! Almsbury hasn't had a mouthful since he ate that side of mutton this morning!"
They laughed again at this for apparently Almsbury's appetite was a well-established joke among them. The girls giggled too, more at ease now, and the six-year-old who had mistaken them for Puritan ghosts came out boldly from behind Lisbeth's skirts and edged a step or two nearer. At that instant something happened to create an abrupt change in the relationship between the men and girls.
"There's nothing wrong with our inn, your Lordship!" cried a low-pitched feminine voice, and the girl who had been talking to the two young farmers came running across the green toward them. The girls had stiffened like wary cats but the men looked about with surprise and sudden interest. "The hostess there brews the finest ale in Essex!"
She made a quick little curtsy to Almsbury and then her eyes turned to meet those of the man who had spoken first and who was now watching her with a new expression on his face, speculative, admiring, alert. While the others watched, it seemed that time stopped for a moment and then, reluctantly, went on again.
Amber St. Clare raised her arm and pointed back down the street to the great sign with its weather-beaten gilt lion shimmering faintly as the falling sun struck it. "Next the blacksmith's shop, m'lord."
Her honey-coloured hair fell in heavy waves below her shoulders and as she stared up at him her eyes, clear, speckled amber, seemed to tilt at the corners; her brows were black and swept up in arcs, and she had thick black lashes. There was about her a kind of warm luxuriance, something immediately suggestive to the men of pleasurable fulfillment—something for which she was not responsible but of which she was acutely conscious. It was that, more than her beauty, which the other girls resented.
She was dressed, very much as they were, in a rust wool skirt tucked up over a green petticoat, a white blouse and yellow apron and tight-laced black stomacher; her ankles were bare and she wore a pair of neat black shoes. And yet she was no more like them than a field flower is like a cultivated one or a sparrow is like a golden pheasant.
Almsbury leaned forward, crossing his arms on his saddle bow. "What in the name of Jesus," he said slowly, "are you doing out here in God's forgotten country?"
The girl looked at him, dragging her eyes away from the other man, and now she smiled, showing teeth that were white and even and beautifully shaped. "I live here, m'lord."
"The deuce you do! Then how the devil did you get here? What are you? Some nobleman's bastard put out to suck with a cottager's wife and forgotten these fifteen years?" It was no uncommon occurrence, but she looked suddenly angry, her brows drawing in an indignant scowl.
"I am not, sir! I'm as much my father's child as you are— or more!"
The men, including Almsbury, laughed heartily at this and her gave her a grin. "No offense, sweetheart. Lord, I only meant you haven't the look of a farmer's daughter."
She smiled at him quickly then, as though in apology for her show of temper, but her eyes went back immediately to the other man. He was still watching her with a look that warmed all her body and brought a swift-rising sense of excitement. The men were wheeling their horses around and as his turned, its forelegs lifted high, he smiled and nodded his head. Almsbury thanked her and lifted his hat and then they rode off, clattering back up the street to the inn. For a moment longer the girls stood silently, watching them dismount and go through the doorway while the inn-keeper's young sons came to take care of their horses.
When they were out of sight Lisbeth suddenly stuck out her tongue and gave Amber a shove. "There!" she cried triumphantly, and made a sound like a bleating female goat. "Much good it did you, Mrs. Minx!"
Swiftly Amber returned the shove, almost knocking the girl off balance, crying, "Mind your knitting, chatterbox!"
For a moment they stood and glared at each other, but finally Lisbeth turned and went off across the green, where the other girls were rounding up their charges, running and shouting, racing with one another, eager to get home to their evening suppers. The sun had set, leaving the sky bright red along the horizon but turning to delicate blue above. Here and there a star had come out; the air was full of the magic of twilight.
Her heart still beating heavily, Amber crossed back to where she had left her basket lying in the grass. The two young farmers had gone, and now she picked it up again and continued on her way, walking toward the inn.
She had never seen anyone like him before in her life. The clothes he wore, the sound of his voice, the expression in his eyes, all made her feel that she had had a momentary glimpse into another world—and she longed passionately to see it again, if only for a brief while. Everything else, her own world of Marygreen and Uncle Matt's farm, all the young men she knew, now seemed to her intolerably dull, even contemptible.
From her conversations with the village cobbler she knew that they must be noblemen, but what they were doing here, in Marygreen, she could not imagine. For the Cavaliers these past several years had retired into what obscurity they could find or had gone abroad in the wake of the King's son, now Charles II, who lived in exile.
The cobbler, who had fought in the Civil Wars on his Majesty's side, had told her a great many tales of things he had seen and stories he had heard. He had told her of seeing Charles I at Oxford, of being almost close enough to have touched him, of the gay and beautiful Royalist ladies, the gallant men—it was a life full of colour and spirit and high romance. But she had seen nothing of it, for it disappeared while she was yet a child, disappeared forever the morning his Majesty was beheaded in the yard of his own Palace. It was something of that atmosphere which the dark-haired stranger had brought with him—not the others, for she had scarcely noticed them—but it was something more as well, something intensely personal. It seemed as though, all at once, she was fully and completely alive.
Arriving at the inn she did not go in by the front entrance but, instead, walked around to the back where a little boy sat in the doorway, playing with his fox-eared puppy, and she patted him on the head as she went by. In the kitchen Mrs. Poterell was rushing about in a frenzy of preparation, excited and distraught. On the chopping-block lay a piece of raw beef into which one of the daughters was stuffing a moist mixture of bread-crumbs and onions and herbs. A little girl was cranking up water from the well that stood far in one corner of the kitchen. And the turnspit-dog in his cage above the fireplace gave an angry yowl as another boy applied a hot coal to his hind feet to make him move faster and turn the roasting-joint so it would brown evenly on all sides.
Amber managed to catch the attention of Mrs. Poterell, who was careening from one side of the room to the other, her apron full of eggs. "Here's a Dutch gingerbread Aunt Sarah sent you, Mrs. Poterell!" It was not true, for Sarah had sent the delicacy to the blacksmith's wife, but Amber thought this the better cause.
"Oh, thank God, sweetheart! Oh, I never was in such a taking! Six gentlemen in my house at once! Oh, Lord! What shall I do!" But even as she talked she had begun breaking the eggs into a great bowl.
At that moment fifteen-year-old Meg emerged from the trapdoor which led down into the cellar, her arms full of dusty green bottles, and Amber rushed to her.
"Here, Meg! Let me help you!"
She took five of them from her and started for the other room, pushing the door open with her knee, but she kept her eyes down as she entered, and concentrated all her attention on the bottles. The men were standing about the room, cloaks off though they still wore their hats, and as she appeared Almsbury caught sight of her and came forward, smiling.
"Here—sweetheart. Let me help
you with those. So they play that old game out here too?"
"What old game, m'lord?"
He took three of the bottles from her and she set the other two on the table, looking up then to smile at him. But instantly her eyes sought out the other man where he stood next the windows with two companions, throwing dice on a table-top. His back was half turned and he did not glance around but tossed down a coin as one of the others snapped his fingers at a lucky throw. Surprised and disappointed, for she had expected him to see her immediately—even to be looking for her—she turned again to Almsbury.
"Why, it's the oldest game in the world," he was saying. "Keeping a pretty bar-maid to lure in the customers till they've spent their last shilling—-I'll warrant you've lured many a farmer's son to his ruin." He was grinning at her and now he picked up a bottle, jerked out the cork and put it to his lips. Amber gave him another smile, arch and flirtatious, wishing that the other man would look over and see her.
"Oh, I'm not the bar-maid here, sir. I brought Mrs. Poterell a cake and helped Meg to carry in the bottles."
Almsbury had taken several swallows, draining half the bottle at once. "Ah, by God!" he declared appreciatively. "Well, then, who are you? What's your name?"
"Amber St. Clare, sir."
"Amber! No farmer's wife ever thought of a name like that."
She laughed, her eyes stealing swiftly across the room and back again, but he was still intent on the dice. "That's what my Uncle Matt says. He says my name should be Mary or Anne or Elizabeth."
Almsbury took several more deep swallows and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Your uncle's a man of no imagination." And then, as she glanced toward the table again, he threw back his head and laughed. "So that's what you want, is it? Well, come along—" And taking hold of her wrist he started across the room.
"Carlton," he said, when they had come up to the group, "here's a wench who has a mind to lay with you."
He turned then, gave Almsbury a glance that suggested some joke between them, and smiled at Amber. She was staring up at him with her eyes big and shining, and had not even heard the remark. She was no more than five-feet three, a height convenient for making even a moderate-sized man feel impressive, but he towered over her by at least a foot.
She caught only a part of Almsbury's introduction. "—a man for whom I have the highest regard even though the bastard does steal every pretty wench I set my eyes on—Bruce, Lord Carlton." She managed to curtsy and he bowed to her, sweeping off his hat with as much gallantry as though she were a princess royal. "We're all of us," he continued, "come back with the King."
"With the King! Is the King come back!"
"He's coming—very soon," said Carlton.
At this astonishing news Amber forgot her nervous embarrassment. For though the Goodegroomes had once been Parliamentarian in sympathy, they had gradually, as had most of the country, begun to long for monarchy and the old ways of life. Since the King's murder his people had grown to love him as they had never done during his lifetime, and that love had been transferred to his heir.
"Gemini!" she breathed. For it was too great an event to realize all at once—and under such distracting conditions.
Lord Carlton took up one of the bottles which Meg had set on the table, wiped the dust from its neck with the palm of his hand, and pulling out the stopper began to drink. Amber continued to stare at him, her self-consciousness now almost drowned in awe and admiration.
"We're on our way to London," he told her. "But one of our horses needs shoeing. What about your inn? Is it a good place to stay the night? The landlord won't rob us—there aren't any bed-bugs or lice?" He watched her face as he talked, and for some reason she did not understand there was a look of amusement in his eyes.
"Rob you?" she cried indignantly. "Mr. Poterell never robbed anybody! This is a mighty fine inn," she declared with staunch loyalty. "The one in Heathstone is nothing to it!"
Both men were grinning now. "Well," said Almsbury, "let the landlord steal our shoes and lice be thick as March crows in a fallow field, still it's an English inn and by God a good one!" With that he made her a solemn bow. "Your servant, madame," and went off to find another bottle of sack, leaving them alone.
Amber felt her bones and muscles turn to water. She stood and looked at him, cursing herself for her tongue-tied stupor. Why was it that she—who usually had a pert remark on her tongue for any man no matter what his age or condition— could think of nothing at all to say now? Now, when she longed with frantic desperation to impress him, to make him feel the same violent excitement and admiration that she did. At last she said the only thing she could think of:
"Tomorrow's the Heathstone May Fair."
"It is?"
His eyes went down to her breasts which were full and pointed, upward tilting; she was one of those women who reach complete physical maturity at an early age, and there had long since ceased to be anything of adolescence about her.
Amber felt the blood begin to rise in her neck and face. "It's the finest fair in all Essex," she assured him quickly. "The farmers go ten and twenty miles to it."
His eyes came back to meet hers and he smiled, lifting one eyebrow in apparent wonder at this gigantic local festival, then drank down the rest of his wine. She could smell the faint pungent odour of it as he breathed and she could smell too the heavy masculine sweat on his clothes and the scent of leather from his boots. The combination gave her a sense of dizziness, almost of intoxication, and a powerful longing swept through her. Almsbury's impertinent remark had been no very great exaggeration.
Now he glanced out the window. "It's growing dark. You should be getting home," and he walked to the door, opening it for her.
The evening had settled swiftly and many stars had come out; the highpitched moon was thin and transparent. A cool little breeze had sprung up. Out there they stood alone, surrounded by the talking and laughter from the inn, the quiet country sounds of crickets and a distant frog, the whir of tiny gnats. She turned and looked up at him, her face white and glistening as a moonflower.
"Can't you come to the Fair, my lord?" She was afraid that she would never see him again, and the idea was intolerable to her.
"Perhaps," he said. "If there's time."
"Oh, please! It's on the main road—you'll pass that way! You will stop, won't you?" Her voice and eyes pleaded with him, wistful, compelling.
"How fair you are," he said softly, and now for the first time his expression was wholly serious.
For a moment they stood looking at each other, and then Amber swayed involuntarily toward him, her eyes shut. His hands closed about her waist, drawing her to him, and she felt the powerful muscles in his legs. Her head fell back. Her mouth parted to receive his kiss. It was several moments before he released her, but when he did it seemed too soon—she felt almost cheated. Opening her eyes again she saw him looking at her with faint surprise, though whether at himself or her she did not know. The world seemed to have exploded. She was as stunned as though she had been given a heavy blow, and all the strength had gone out of her.
"You must go now, my dear," he said finally. "Your family will be troubled to have you out so late."
Quick impulsive words sprang to her lips. I don't care if they are! I don't care if I never go home again! I don't care about anything but you— Oh, let me stay here and go away with you tomorrow—
But something kept her from saying them. Perhaps the image —somewhere not too far back in her mind—of Aunt Sarah's troubled, cautioning frown, Uncle Mart's stern, lean, reproving face. It would never do to be so bold, for he would only hate her then. Aunt Sarah had often said men did not like a pert woman.
"I don't live far," she said. "Just down this road and over the fields a quarter-mile or so." She was hoping that he would offer to walk the distance with her but he did not, and though she waited a few seconds, at last she dropped him a curtsy. "I'll look for you tomorrow, m'lord."
"I may come. Good-night."<
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He made her a bow, sweeping off his hat again, and then with a smile and a glance that took her in from head to foot he turned and went inside. Amber stood there a moment like a bewildered child; then suddenly she whirled about and started off at a run and though she stopped once to look back he was gone.
She ran on then—up the narrow road and past the church, quickening her pace as she went by the graveyard where her mother lay buried, and soon she turned right down a tree-lined lane leading over the fields toward the Goodegroome farm. Ordinarily she would have been a little scared to be out alone when it was almost dark, but ghosts and witches and goblins held no terror for her now. Her mind was too full of other things.
She had never seen anyone like him before and had not realized that such a man could exist. He was every handsome, gallant gentleman the cobbler had ever described, and he was what her dreams had embroidered upon those descriptions. Bob Starling and Jack Clarke! A pair of dolts!
She wondered if he was thinking of her now, and felt sure that he must be. No man could kiss a woman like that and forget her the next moment! The kiss, if nothing else, she thought, would bring him to the Fair tomorrow—draw him there perhaps in spite of himself. She complimented herself that she understood men and their natures very well.
The night air was cool, as though it had blown over ice, and the meadows were thick with purple clover and white evening campion. Amber approached the farmhouse from the back. She crossed the creek on a bridge which was nothing but a couple of boards with a hand-rail, passed the plot where the cabbages and other vegetables grew, and made her way between the numerous outbuildings—barns and stables and cowsheds—all of them whitewashed, their roofs covered with moss and yellow stone-crop. Then, skirting the edge of the duck-pond, she entered the courtyard.
The house was two-storied, the oak frame ornately carved, and the soft red brick walls were spread with vines. Each chimney was muffled in ivy, and an arched lattice overgrown with honeysuckle framed the kitchen-door, above which had been nailed a horseshoe for protection against witches. In the brick-paved courtyard, over against the walls, grew Sarah's flowers, low clusters of white and purple violets, hollyhocks reaching up to the eaves, a thick clump of fragrant lavender to put between the sheets. Several fruit trees were in bloom, scenting the air with a light sweetness. A low wooden bench had two thatch-roofed beehives on it; attached to the wall beside the door was a tiny bird-house, lost in the pink roses; and a saucy green-eyed kitten sat on the door-sill cleaning its paws.
Forever Amber Page 3