Читаем Forever Amber полностью

Amber glanced back, smiling. “Bess is going?” She shrugged. “Well, much I care if she’s in a rage or no. Let her just say something to me and I’ll—”

“Never mind, my dear. I don’t want another brawl in my house. Go into the kitchen with Black Jack and Pall until she’s gone.”

Amber hesitated for a moment but finally turned and went into the other room. After a few minutes they heard Bess’s high-heeled shoes coming down the stairs, Mother Red-Cap’s voice talking to her, though Bess did not answer, and then with a bang she was gone. Black Jack proposed a toast to the peaceful life, and he and Amber presently wandered back into the parlour and sat down to play a game of cards.

They had spent interminable hours at cards and dice, for they did not go out on business more than once or twice a week—sometimes even less—and the long days and nights had to be passed somehow. Black Jack had taught her every trick in a gambler’s repertoire—palming, slurring, knapping, the brief—and in seven months she had attained to a very creditable proficiency. She felt that she could hold her own now at a table with any lord or lady in the kingdom.

After a while Blueskin came in and they started to play at putt, the favourite tavern game and one which had probably been the undoing of more country-squires’ sons than any other. It was three or four hours before she went upstairs to her own room, and there she found Bess’s final gesture to the rival she despised. Her smocks and gowns and petticoats littered the room, ripped and slashed to pieces. There were torn fans, gloves cut in two, cloaks hacked by scissors, and she had dumped the contents of the chamber-pot onto the remnants of Amber’s finest gown.

Black Jack promised to find Bess and give her the beating she deserved, but she had disappeared from Sanctuary and left not a trace, and they all knew it would never be possible to seek her out in the great sprawling city with its half-million inhabitants. She could lose herself in the warrens of Clerkenwell or St. Pancras, in the glutted seafaring center of Wapping, or in the alleys and courts of the Mint across the river in Southwark.

It was a bad shock to Amber; she decided that her life was cursed and that she would never get out of Whitefriars. She became gloomy and despondent, trailed listlessly about the house, and was sullenly bad-tempered with all of them. She hated Bess and Black Jack and Mother Red-Cap, Pall and Blueskin and the house-cat, even herself.

No matter what I do, she thought, no matter how hard I work and how much I save, there’s always something happens! I’ll never get out! I’ll die in this stinking hole!

Three days after Bess had gone Mother Red-Cap came into the bedroom and found Amber lying on her back, stretched out straight with her hands behind her head. She had been awake for at least two hours, mulling over her troubles, and the longer she thought about them the more insurmountable they became. She gave Mother Red-Cap a sulky glare, annoyed at being interrupted, but she did not speak.

“Well, my dear,” said Mother Red-Cap, as cheerfully as though Amber had greeted her in good humour. “This is no ordinary day for us, you know.”

Every morning she got up punctually at five, like an apprentice, put on her plain, neat dress, and began to go about her numberless tasks. From the moment she woke she was brisk and alert and ready for the day. The sight of such determined activity was irritating to Amber.

“It’s an ordinary day for me,” she said crossly.

“How now! Surely you’ve not forgot this is the day you’re going to Knightsbridge.”

“It’s not the day I’m going to Knightsbridge!”

“But, my dear child, this is most important. There’s a great deal of money involved.”

“It isn’t the first time there’s been a great deal of money involved—but I never saw much of it!” The subject had been discussed between them before, always with considerable bitterness, for though Amber protested she was being cheated of her rightful share Mother Red-Cap insisted that she got exactly what her services warranted, and Black Jack agreed. “Anyway, it’d be like Bess Columbine to have the constables waiting on us. She knows all our plans.”

“Nonsense, my dear. I think I know Bess better than you do, and I assure you she’s no such desperate creature as that. She hates the sight of a constable worse than a fishmonger hates a hard frost. But as for the money—I came up here to tell you I’ll double your earnest this time, to make up for the loss of your clothes.” Considering the matter settled she started toward the door. “Black Jack is below with Jimmy and Blueskin. They intend setting out within the hour.”

But as she went Amber flounced over on her side, scowled and called after her, “I’m not going!”