Читаем Forever Amber полностью

“Don’t, Bruce! Don’t, for God’s sake! You’ll kill yourself! You can’t get up! Oh, after everything I’ve done you’re going to kill yourself—”

Suddenly she dropped to her knees on the floor, put her head in her arms and sobbed. He fell back against the pillows, wiping his hand over his forehead, surprised to find that he was dizzy and that his ears rang, for he had thought himself farther recovered than he was. He reached over to stroke Amber’s head.

“Darling—I won’t get up. Please don’t cry—you need your strength. Lie down and rest. The nurse will be here soon.”

At last, with an intense feeling of weariness, she forced herself to get to her feet and stood looking about the room as though trying to remember something. “What was I going to do—” she murmured at last. “Something—What was it?”

“Can you tell me where the money is, Amber? I’ll need it for supplies. I had none with me.”

“Oh, yes—that’s it, the money.” The words slurred, one over another, as if she had drunk too much cherry-brandy. “It’s in here—I’ll get it—’sin secret panel—”

The parlour seemed a great distance away, farther than she could possibly walk. But she got there at last, and though it took her a while to locate the panel, she finally found it and scooped out the leather wallet and small pile of jewellery that lay there. She brought them back in her apron and dropped them onto the bed beside Bruce. He had managed to lean over and pull out the trundle and now, when he told her to lie down, she collapsed onto it, already half unconscious.

Bruce lay awake through the night, cursing his own helplessness. But he knew that any violent strain now would only make him worse and might kill him. He could help her best by saving his strength until he was well enough to take care of her. He lay there and heard her vomit, again and again, and though each time when she had done she gave a heavy despairing groan, she was otherwise perfectly quiet. So quiet that he would listen, with mounting horror, for the sound of her breathing. And then the retching would begin again. The nurse did not come.

By morning she lay flat on her back, her eyes fixed and wide open but unseeing. Her muscles were perfectly relaxed and she had no consciousness of him or of her surroundings; when he spoke to her she did not hear. The disease had made much swifter progress than it had with him, but it was characteristic of plague to vary its nature with each victim.

He decided that if the nurse did not appear soon he would get out of bed and talk to the guard, but at about seven-thirty he heard the door open and a woman’s boisterous voice called out: “The plague-nurse is here; Where are ye?”

“Come upstairs!”

Within a few moments a woman appeared in the doorway. She was tall and heavy-boned, perhaps thirty-five, and Bruce was relieved to see that she looked strong and at least moderately intelligent. “Come in here,” he said, and she walked forward, her eyes already on Amber. “I’m Lord Carlton. My wife is desperately sick as you can see, and needs the best of care. I’d give it to her myself, but I’m convalescing and not able to get up yet. If you take good care of her—if she lives—I’ll give you a hundred pound.” He lied about their marriage because he thought the truth was none of the woman’s business, and he offered a hundred pounds because he believed it might impress her more than a larger sum which she would probably not expect to get.

She stared at him in surprise. “A hundred pound, sir!”

She drew closer to the trundle then and looked at Amber, whose fingers were picking restlessly at the blanket Bruce had thrown over her, though but for the nervous movements of her hands she would have seemed to be totally unconscious. There were dirty green circles beneath her eyes and the lower part of her face was shiny with the bile and saliva which had dried there; she had not vomited at all for the past three hours.

The woman shook her head. “She’s mighty sick, your Lordship. I don’t know—”

“Of course you don’t know!” snapped Bruce with angry impatience. “But you can try! She’s still dressed. Take her clothes off, bathe her face and hands—get her into the sheets. She’ll be more comfortable at least. She’s been cooking for me and you’ll find soup and whatever else you need in the kitchen. There are clean towels and sheets in that room—The floor must be mopped, and the parlour cleaned. A woman died there yesterday. Now get to work! What’s your name?” he added, as an afterthought.

“Mrs. Sykes, sir. Yes, sir.”

Mrs. Sykes, who told Bruce that she had been a wet-nurse but had lost her job because her husband had died of the plague, worked hard throughout the day. Bruce gave her no opportunity to loaf or to rest, and despite the fact that she knew he was helpless and unable to get out of bed she obeyed his commands meekly—whether from respect of the nobility or one hundred pounds he did not know or care.