He scooped the money into a purse and handed it to her as she got up to go. At the door she turned. “Any word of Lord Carlton?”
“Why, yes, as it happens, I have. Some ten days ago one of his ships put into port and a man came to tell me that his Lordship would be here soon. I’ve waited for him now longer than I’d intended, but I can’t wait any longer. Perhaps he’s heard of the sickness and decided not to come. Good-day, madame, and the best of luck to you.”
“Thank you, sir. And to you.”
Everyone was wishing everyone else good luck these days.
She drove immediately down to the wharves and sent Jeremiah to inquire for Lord Carlton. After half-an-hour or so he returned to say that he had found a man who had been on the ship which had come in and that he was expected at any time. The men who had manned the first ship were all waiting impatiently, for they wanted their shares of the venture.
Back home she saw that several carts piled with her own gilt leather trunks and boxes stood before the house, and Nan came running down the stairs to meet her. “A man died this morning only four doors up the street!” she cried. “I’ve got everything ready! We can leave this instant, mam! Can’t we, please?”
Amber was annoyed. “No, we can’t! I’ve just heard that Lord Carlton is expected in port any day and I’m not going till I’ve seen him! Then we’ll all go together.”
Suddenly Nan began to cry. “Oh, we’re all going to catch it and die! I know we are! That’s what happened to a family in Little Clement’s Lane—every one of ‘em died! Why can’t you meet his Lordship in the country? Leave ’im a message!”
“No. He might not come at all then. Oh, Nan! For Heaven’s sake! Stop your blubbering then. You can go tomorrow.”
Nan set out very early the next morning with the baby, her nurses, Tansy, two of the maids, and Big John Waterman—who had come with them from Dangerfield House because he was in love with Nan. She was to go to Dunstable and wait there or, if there was plague in the town, to continue on until she found a safe place and sent back a message. Amber gave them a great many instructions and admonitions regarding the care of the baby and protection of her belongings and they rattled off, waving back at her. Then she sent Jeremiah back to the wharves—but Bruce had not come.
London was emptying rapidly now.
Trains of coaches and carts started out early every morning: twenty-five hundred had died the week before. The sad faces of the plague prisoners—shut in with the sick—appeared at many windows, and bells tolled from almost every parish church in the city. People held their noses when they passed a cross-marked house. Some families were storing their cellars with great supplies of food and then sealing the house, stuffing every crack and keyhole, boarding the doors and windows to keep out the plague.
The weather continued hot and there was no fog; it had not rained for almost a month. The flowers down in the courtyard, roses and stocks and honeysuckle, were wilting and the meadows about the town were beginning to dry up and turn brown. Street vendors hawked cherries and apples and early pears, though oranges were scarce since the war had begun, and everyone who could afford it bought ice—cut off the lakes and rivers in the winter and stored underground packed in straw—to cool their wine and ale. They talked almost as much about the heat as they did about the war or the plague.
Amber was finally beginning to feel nervous herself. The long funeral processions, the red crosses on every hand, the tolling bells, the people passing with their noses buried in a pomander or bottle of scent had at last made her uneasy. She wanted to get away, but she was sure that if she left, Bruce would arrive the same day. And so she waited.
Tempest and Jeremiah were complaining about being kept so long in town and did not like being sent to the wharves. Jane—the serving-girl who had stayed with Amber—whined and wanted to go to her father’s home in Kent and so Amber let her. When Nan had been gone four days she asked Tempest and Jeremiah to look for Lord Carlton once more and told them that if they found him she would give them each a guinea. But for the money, she knew, they would merely drive around or go to a tavern for a couple of hours and then come back. By noon they were home again. Lord Carlton had come in the night before and they had just seen him down at the wharves, unloading his ships.
PART IV
CHAPTER THIRTY–THREE
THE WHARVES WERE busy as an ant hill.
Ships with their gilded hulls gleaming, their tall masts mere bare skeletons, lay on the quiet water in great numbers. Many of them were men-of-war back from fighting the Dutch and in the process of being overhauled and cleaned. Broken seams were being mended with boiling-pitch, and the ropes bound with tarpaulin. Sailors and porters were everywhere, unloading the plundered treasure which had recently been seized, while captured Dutch flags snapped out bravely from the Tower. But there were also great numbers of crippled and wounded men, hobbling about, sitting, lying flat on their backs, all reaching out their hands to beg. For the most part they were ignored. The navy had not been paid and already some of the seamen were starving.
Amber got out of her coach and walked along the wharf between Tempest and Jeremiah, one hand shading her eyes against the hot sun. The beggars tried to touch her as she passed and some of the sailors whistled or made audible comments, but she was too absorbed in looking for Bruce even to hear them.
“There he is!” She started to run and the sound of her high heels on the boards made him turn. “Bruce!”
She came up to him, smiling eagerly and out of breath, expecting to be kissed. But instead he looked down at her with a scowl and she saw that his face was tired and his skin wet with sweat.
“What the devil are you doing down here?”
As he spoke he glanced around truculently at the men who were staring at her, for her cloak was opened over her black-satin gown and emeralds sparkled in her ears and on her fingers. Disappointed, offended by his surly tone, she had an instant of angry self-pity. But his look of exhaustion was real and her eyes went over him anxiously, tender as a mother’s caress. She had seldom seen him tired and now she longed to take him into her arms, kiss away the scowl and the weariness—her love for him rose up like a painful throbbing ache.
“Why, I came to see you, darling,” she answered softly. “Aren’t you glad?”
He gave a faint smile, as though ashamed of his ill temper, and ran the back of one hand across his moist forehead. “Of course I am.” His eyes went down over her figure. “The baby’s been born?”
“Yes—a little girl. I named her Susanna—Oh!” She remembered with a sudden sense of guilt. “Samuel’s dead.”
“I know. I heard about it this morning. Why aren’t you out of town?”
“I waited for you.”
“You shouldn’t have—it’s not safe in London. Where’s the baby?”
“I sent her and Nan and Tansy into the country. We can go too—and meet them—” She looked at him questioningly, afraid he might tell her that he already had other plans.
Bruce took her arm and they started back toward the coach. As they went he began talking in an undertone. “You’ve got to get away from here, Amber. You shouldn’t have come down at all. Ships carry disease, you know.”
“Oh, I’m not worried about that. I’ve got a unicorn’s horn.”
He laughed, but without much humour. “Unicorn’s horn—my God! A cuckold’s horn would do you as much good.”
They reached the coach and he handed her in. Then he braced one foot on the step, rested his arms on his knees and as he leaned forward to talk to her his voice was no more than a murmur. “You’ve got to get away from here as fast as you can. Some of my men are sick of the plague.”