Читаем Forever Amber полностью

“When’s Luke going to get some money from home? If he so much as takes his dinner at a tavern or goes to the play he asks me for some.”

Sally laughed and fanned herself industriously, looking out into the crowded street. “See that yellow satin gown just across the way, sweetheart? I’ve a mind to have one like it. Now what’s that you were saying? Oh, yes—Luke’s money. Well, to tell you truly, sweetheart, we wanted to keep this from you, but since you ask you may as well know: Luke’s father is furious he married without his leave. Poor Luke—married for love and now it seems he may be cut off without so much as a shilling. But then, my dear, with all your money no doubt the two of you could shift well enough?” She gave Amber an ingratiating grin, but her eyes were hard and searching.

Amber stared at her, shocked. Luke cut off and the two of them to live on her five hundred pounds! She had begun to learn already that five hundred was less than the illimitable fortune she had at first imagined it to be, particularly when spent at the reckless rate they three were going.

“Well, now, why the devil should he be cut out of his father’s will?” The question was a sharp challenge, for she and Sally were by means as polite as they had once been and several times had come close to quarrelling. “I suppose I’m not a good enough match for ’im?”

“Oh, Lord, sweetheart, I protest! I didn’t say that, did I? But his father had another girl in mind—Wait till he sees you. He’ll come around then fast enough, I warrant. And by the way, my dear, that thousand pound you sent for to your aunt’s lawyer—isn’t it mighty long in coming?” Sally’s voice was once more silky, soothing, as when she asked Luke to curb his temper, not to tear up the cards when he lost a hand, or to treat Honour more gently.

But Amber stuck out her lower lip, refused to look at her, and answered sullenly. “Maybe the lawyer won’t send it at all —now I’m married!”

Little by little her money was dribbling away. It went to Luke for pocket-money, to Mrs. Goodman, who always promised to repay the instant her husband returned from France, or to a tradesman who came to the door dunning her for a bill two or three months in arrears.

What’ll I do when it’s gone? she would think desperately. And overwhelmed with fear and foreboding she would begin to cry again. She had cried more often in the weeks since Lord Carlton had left than in all the rest of her life. If Luke flew into a temper, if the laundress did not return her smocks in time—the slightest upset, the smallest inconvenience was now enough to start the tears. Sometimes she wept dismally, mournfully, but other times the tears came in a torrent, noisy and splashing as a summer storm. Life was no longer a gay and buoyant challenge but had become empty and hopeless.

There was nothing left to look forward to. This baby would be born and others would follow in a succession down the years. Without money, with children to care for, a brutal husband, hard work, her prettiness would soon be gone. And she would grow old.

Sometimes she woke at night feeling as if she were struggling in some growing living net. She would sit up suddenly, so scared that she could not breathe. And then she would remember Luke beside her, sprawled over three-fourths of the bed, and hatred made her long to reach down and strangle him with her own hands. She would sit there staring at him, thinking with pleasure of what it would be like to stab him to death, to have him pinned there to the bed flopping helplessly. She wondered if she could poison him—but she knew nothing of the process and was afraid of being caught. A woman guilty of husband-murder was burnt alive.

So far apparently none of them had guessed at her pregnancy, though it had now passed the end of the fifth month. Her numerous starched petticoats and full-gathered skirts helped to disguise her in the daytime and ever since her stomach had begun to swell she had contrived to dress when no one was around or to keep her back turned. The lights were always out at night because Honour slept in the same room they did, on a little trundle-bed which was pushed under the large one in the daytime. But nevertheless they were sure to find out soon, and she knew she could never make them believe the child was Luke’s. She had no idea what she would do then.

From time to time Amber had changed the hiding-place of her money, leaving out only a few coins at one time, and she congratulated herself that the system was a very clever one. One day she went to her cache; the wallet was gone.