Читаем Forever Amber полностью

With aching homesickness her memories went back to the Goodegroome cottage. She took pleasure in remembering many things she had not known she cared for. She remembered how the dormer windows of her bedroom were wreathed in roses, and the delicious summer scent they had had. She remembered how the overhanging eaves were full of sparrows so that every morning she woke to the sound of their twirring and twittering. She remembered Sarah’s wonderful rich food, the clean-scrubbed flag-stones of the kitchen floor and the rows of glossy pewter lining the shelves. She longed passionately for a sight of the sky, a breath of fresh air, the smell of flowers and hay new-mown, the sound of a bird’s song.

The holidays were dreary as she had never known they could be.

She remembered what Christmas had been the year before when she had helped Sarah to make mince-pies and plum-pottages; she and all her cousins had dressed up to go mumming; and everyone on the farm had toasted the fruit trees in apple-cider, according to the old old custom. On New Year’s Eve she spent several shillings of her fast-dwindling supply for Rhenish wine and the Lady Debtors drank it, proposing a toast to the new year. Just before midnight the bells began to ring from every steeple in London and Amber burst into lonely frightened tears, for she was sure that she would never live to hear them ring in another year.

A week later Newgate was swept with frenzied excitement: A rebellion had broken out in the city, led by a band of religious zealots, and for three days and nights they ran riot through the streets. Bellowing for King Jesus, they shot down whoever opposed them. Inside the prison they heard the bells banging out an ominous warning, confused shouts and cries and the sound of flying hoofs. The prisoners gathered anxiously in groups, talking of massacre and fire, discussing means of escape; the women became hysterical, screamed at the grates and begged to be set free.

But the Fifth Monarchists were hunted out, killed or captured, and within a few days twenty of them had been hanged, drawn and quartered. Their remains were brought to Newgate and dismembered legs and arms and torsos lay in the courtyard while Esquire Dun was at work in his kitchen pickling the heads in bay-salt and cumin seed. Prison life settled back into the normal rut of drunkenness and gambling, quarrels and venery and theft.

When the quarter-sessions were held Amber was brought to trial along with Mrs. Buxted and Moll Turner and a great many others and—like most of them—found guilty. She was sentenced to remain in Newgate until her debt had been paid in full. She had been so hopeful she would be released after the trial that it was a severe shock and for several days she was sunk in despondency; she would have been almost glad to die. But gradually she began trying to persuade herself that her position was not so desperate as it seemed. Why—any day Almsbury might arrive and rescue her. It always happens, she assured herself, when you least expect it; and she tried very hard to stop expecting Almsbury.

She often saw Moll Turner, who wandered in to talk to her and to urge her to come out and mingle with the others. “Christ, sweetheart, what can you lose? D’ye want to rot in here?”

“Of course not!” said Amber crossly. “I want to get out of this damned place!”

Moll laughed and went to the fireplace to light a pipeful of tobacco. Many of the prisoners, both men and women, smoked incessantly for the tobacco was supposed to protect them against disease. She came back puffing and sat down opposite Amber, ostentatiously drumming one hand on the table-top.

“See that?” On her middle finger she wore a large diamond. “Got that off a lady was here visitin’ day before yesterday. We gave her the budge, and when she caught her balance I had the fambles cheat and somebody else had the scout.” Moll often talked in an underworld cant, of which Amber had begun to pick up a few words. A “fambles cheat” was a ring and a “scout” was a watch. “Oh, I tell you, my dear, the Hall’s a mighty profitable place. At this rate I can buy my way out of here in another month. “Well—” She heaved herself up. “Stay in here if you like—”

Amber, half-convinced by Moll’s tales of facile theft, ventured out into the hallway a time or two, but she was always accosted so swiftly and roughly that she would pick up her skirts and run as hard as she could go for the comparative privacy of the Lady Debtors’ Ward. Moll laughed at this too and told her that she was a fool not to take advantage of what she could get.

“Some of those gentlemen are mighty rich. In time I don’t doubt you could earn your way out. Of course,” she would admit, with her lop-sided smile, “four hundred pound ain’t come by very quick, and there’s a dozen half-crown sluts they can have the pick of any day in the week.”