“Aye, mam,” agreed Mrs. Spong, and as she nodded her head the wig slipped, showing some of her own thin dirty grey hair. “Ye can count on me, mam. I warrant you.”
Amber pulled out the trundle on the opposite side of the bed and lay down on her stomach, wearing her dressing-gown but otherwise uncovered, for the room was still hot and close. She did not want to sleep—she was afraid to leave him—but she knew that she must, and she could not help herself. In only a few seconds she had lost consciousness.
Sometime later she was wakened by a sudden stunning blow across the face and weight of a heavy body falling over her. Involuntarily she screamed, a wild terrible sound that filled the night; and then she realized what had happened and began to struggle fiercely to free herself. Bruce, in his restless agony, had gotten out of bed again and stumbled across her; he lay there now, a massive, inert weight.
She shouted for Spong but got no answer. And as she pulled herself out and saw the old woman just lifting her head and opening one eye something seemed to swell and explode inside her. Swiftly she rushed around the bed, slapped her furiously across the face, and grabbed hold of one flabby arm.
“Get up!” she yelled at her. “Get up! you miserable old slut and help me!”
Shocked wide awake, Spong hoisted herself out of the chair much faster than she usually did. It took them several minutes, but at last they got him back into the bed and he lay stretched out, perfectly quiet, collapsed. Amber bent anxiously over him, putting her hand to his heart, pressing her fingers against his wrist—the pulse beat there, faintly.
And then she heard a whine from Spong. “Oh, Lord! What’ve I done! I touched ’im and now I’ll get the—”
Amber whirled around furiously. “What’ve you done!” she cried. “You pot-bellied old bawd! You fell asleep and let him get out of bed! You may’ve killed him! But by Jesus, if he dies you’ll wish you had the plague! I’ll strangle you, God help me, with my own two hands!”
Spong started back, quivering. “Oh, Lord, mam! I’d but dozed off that instant. I vow and swear! Please, for God’s sake, mam, don’t hit me—”
Amber’s clenched fists dropped and she turned away in disgust. “You’re no damned good. I’m going to get another nurse tomorrow.”
“Ye can’t do it, mam. Ye can’t turn out a nurse. The parish-clerk sent me here and he said to stay till all of you was dead.”
Amber blew out her cheeks in a sigh of utter exhaustion, throwing the hair from her face with the back of one hand. “Very well. Go to sleep. I’ll watch him. There’s a bed in there.” She pointed toward the nursery.
Through the rest of the long night she stayed beside him. He was quieter than he had been and she did not want to disturb him to make him eat, but she prepared some black coffee to keep herself awake and now and then she took a swallow of cherry-brandy, but she was so tired that it made her dizzy and she dared not drink much. In the next room Spong lay spewing and hawking; an occasional late coach rattled by, the horses’ hoofs clopping rhythmically on the pavement; and the night guard stamped wearily up and down. Somewhere a cat squalled in nocturnal ecstasy. The passing-bell tolled three separate times and the watchman went by with his musical calclass="underline"
“Take heed to your clock, beware your lock,
Your fire and your light, and God give you good-night.
One o’clock!”
CHAPTER THIRTY–FIVE
MORNING CAME AT last, the sun rising bright and hot in a cloudless sky. Amber, looking out, wished desperately for fog. The brilliant joyous sunlight seemed a cruel mockery of the sick and dying who lay in a thousand rooms all over the city.
Toward dawn the look of angry worry which had been on Bruce’s face, from the first morning she had seen him at the wharf, changed to one of listlessness and apathy. He seemed to have no consciousness whatever of his surroundings or of his own actions. When she put a glass of water to his mouth he swallowed involuntarily, but his eyes stared dully, seeing nothing. His quietness encouraged her and she thought that perhaps he was better.
She got into the dress she had worn yesterday and began to clean up the night’s accumulated filth. Her movements were slow, for her muscles felt heavy and aching and the rims of her eyeballs burned. She carried the slop-jars—all but that which Mrs. Spong had used—down to the courtyard privy and there she had to stand and wait, for there was a man inside and he seemed leisurely.
At six she went to wake Spong, shaking her roughly by the shoulder. The old woman smacked her lips together and looked up at Amber with one eye. “How now, mam? What happened?”
“Get up! It’s morning! Either you’ll help me or I’ll lock the food away and you can starve!”
Spong looked at her resentfully, her feelings hurt. “Lord, mam! How was I to know it’s mornin’?”
She flung back the quilt and got out of bed, fully dressed but for her shoes. She buttoned the front of her gown, pulling and twisting at the skirt, and cocked her wig back to approximately where it had been. She leaned backward, stretching and yawning noisily, massaging her fat belly, and she stuck one finger into her mouth to pick out some shreds of meat, wiping what she extracted on the soiled front of her gown.
Amber stopped her as she was going through the bedroom on her way to the kitchen. “Come here! What d’you think? He’s quieter now—does he look better?”
Spong came back to look at him, but she shook her head. “He looks bad, mam. Mighty bad. I’ve seen ’em like that not a half-hour before they’re dead.”
“Oh, damn you! You think everyone’s going to die! But he isn’t, d’ye hear me? Go on—get out of here!”
Spong went. “Lord, mam—ye but asked me and I told ye—”
An hour later, when she had finished cleaning the bedroom and had fed him the rest of the soup, Amber told Spong that she was going to a butcher-shop for a piece of beef and would be gone perhaps twenty minutes. There was one, she knew, not a quarter of a mile away near Lincoln’s Inn Fields. She fastened her gown as high as she could and filled in the neck-line with a scarf. It was too hot to wear a cloak but she took a black-silk hood out of the chest and tied it beneath her chin.
“The guard won’t allow ye to go, mam,” predicted Spong.
“I think he will. You let me alone for that. Now listen to what I say: Watch his Lordship and watch him close, because if I come back to find you’ve let him harm himself in any way or so much as throw off the blankets—believe me, I’ll slit your nose for it!” Her tawny-coloured eyes glared, the black centers swelling, and her lips drew tight against her teeth. Spong gaped, scared as a rabbit.
“Lord, mam, ye can trust me! I’ll watch ’im like a witch!”
Amber went through the kitchen, down the back staircase, and started off along the narrow little alley that ran behind the house. She had not gone twenty yards when there was a shout, and she turned to see the guard running toward her.
“Escaping, eh?” He seemed pleased. “Or maybe ye didn’t know the house is locked?”
“I know it’s locked and I’m not escaping. I’ve got to buy some food. Will a shilling let me out?”
“A shilling! D’ye think I can be bribed?” He lowered his voice. “Three shillings might do it.”
Amber took the coins from inside her muff and flipped them to him—he did not venture to step up close and he had a pipe of tobacco in his mouth, for that was thought a plague preventive. She walked swiftly down the lane and turned into a main street. There seemed to be even fewer people out today than yesterday and those who were did not loiter or stop to gossip but moved along briskly, pomanders held to their noses. A coach followed by a train of loaded wagons went by and several heads turned wistfully; it was only the prosperous ones who could afford to leave, the others must stay and take their chances, put their faith in amulets and herbs. And there were several houses shut up along the way.