Amber answered him immediately. “With all my heart, sir.” She had thought from the first that since each knew what the other wanted it was absurd they must mince and simper like a couple of dancing-mice at Bartholomew Fair.
Again she thought that she caught the hint of a smile on his mouth, but could not be sure. “Thank you, madame. Your kindness is more than I deserve. I must return to London soon after the first of the year, and if you will go with me we can be married at that time. I understand that the sickness is now greatly abated and the town has begun to fill again.”
He wanted, of course, to make certain her fortune had survived the Plague before he married her—but Amber was tired of the country and eager to get back herself.
They set out together in his coach on the second of January, bundled in furs and covered with fur-lined robes; it was so cold they could see their breath as they talked. The roads were so hard and frosty that it was possible to travel much faster than if it had been raining, but they had to stop that afternoon at four because the bouncing and jogging distressed his Lordship.
The marriage-contract had been signed at Barberry Hill and Amber supposed he would take advantage of the usual custom to lie with her that night. At eight o’clock, however, he bowed, wished her a good night, and retired to his own chamber. Amber and Nan watched him go, both of them staring with astonishment. Then as the door closed they looked at each other and burst into uncontrollable giggles.
“He must be impotent!” hissed Nan.
“I hope so!”
It was nightfall on the fifth day when they reached London. Amber had a feeling of dread as they approached the city, but as they rolled through the dark quiet streets it began to disappear. There were no dead-carts, no corpses, very few red crosses to be seen. Already the sloping mounds in the graveyards had been covered over with a coarse green vegetation—the hundred thousand dead were effacing themselves. Taverns. were brightly lighted again and crowded, coaches teetered by filled with gay young men and women, the sound of music came from some of the houses.
It never really happened, she thought. It never really happened at all. She had a strange sense of discovery, as though she had wakened from some terrible nightmare and found to her relief that it had been only a dream.
Radclyffe House stood in Aldersgate Street above St. Anne’s Lane and just without the City gates. The street was a broad one lined with large wide-spaced houses. Radclyffe told her that it resembled an Italian avenue more than any other street in London. It was the only place left so near the walls where some of the great old families were still living.
The house had been virtually unoccupied for almost twenty-five years, but for a few servants left there as caretakers, and most of the windows were bricked up. Inside it was dark and dusty, the furniture was shrouded in dirty white and nothing had been brought up to date since it had been built eighty-five years ago. One room led into another like a maze, and with the exception of the grand staircase in the center of the house, all passages and stair-wells were narrow and dark. Amber was relieved to find that the apartments to which she was shown had at least been cleaned and dusted and aired, even though otherwise it was in no better condition than the rest.
Early the next morning she went to visit Shadrac Newbold and found that he had kept all her money intact. (He also told her that Lord Carlton had sailed for America two weeks before.) When she told him that her money was safe Radclyffe suggested that they be married as soon as all necessary arrangements could be made. As she knew, he was a Catholic—hence it would be necessary to have two services performed, for a Catholic ceremony could be declared null and void.
“I’d intended,” said Amber, “to bespeak a gown of my dressmaker. I haven’t got anything that’s new—and I think she could get one done in ten days or so.”
“I don’t think it would be safe, madame, as yet—the sickness is still too much with us. But if you would care to oblige me, I have a gown laid away I should be most happy to have you wear.”
Somewhat surprised, wondering if he kept a wedding-gown about for unexpected marriages, Amber agreed. Certainly it seemed a simple harmless request.
Later in the day he came to her chamber, carrying in his arms a stiff white-satin gown, embroidered all over with tiny pearls, and as he shook it out she saw that there were deep sharp creases in it, as though it had been lying folded for a very long while. She realized then that it actually was an old gown; the white had turned creamy and the cut and style were many years out of fashion. The waist-line was high with a flaring peplum slashed in four places; the low square neck had a deep collar of lace and lace cuffs finished the long full sleeves; when the skirt opened down the front a petticoat of heavy silver cloth showed.
Radclyffe smiled at her puzzled expression. “As you can see —it isn’t a new gown. But it is still beautiful, and I shall be grateful if you will wear it.”
She reached out to take it. “I’m glad to, sir.”
Later, she and Nan examined it carefully, speculating. “It must be two-score years old, or more,” said Nan. “I wonder who wore it last?”
Amber shrugged. “His first wife, maybe. Or an old sweetheart. Someday I’ll ask him.”
To her surprise she found when she put it on that it fitted her very well, almost as if it had been made for her.
CHAPTER FORTY
“AMBER, COUNTESS OF RADCLYFFE,” she said slowly, watching herself in a mirror, whereupon she wrinkled up her nose, snapped her fingers and turned away. “Much good it does me!”
They had been married just one week, but so far her life was no more exciting than it had been when she was plain Mrs. Dangerfield—certainly far less so than when she was Madame St. Clare of His Majesty’s Theatre. The weather was so cold that it was unpleasant to go out. The plague deaths for the past week had been almost a hundred, and neither King nor Court had yet returned to Whitehall. She stayed at home, scarcely left their suite of rooms—for the rest of the house continued in its dirt and gloom—and spent her time feeling bored and resentful. Was this what she had traded her sixty-six thousand pounds for! It seemed a bad bargain—dullness and a man she despised.
For now that she was his wife Radclyffe was a greater enigma than ever.
She saw him but little for he had a multitude of interests which he did not wish to share with her, nor she with him. Several hours of almost every day he spent in the laboratory which opened out of their bedroom, and for which new equipment was constantly arriving. When he was not there he was in the library or in the offices on the lower floor, reading, writing, going over his bills, and making plans for the remodelling and furnishing of the house. Though this was to be done, obviously, at Amber’s expense, he never consulted her wishes in the matter or even told her what plans he had made.
They met, usually, just twice a day—at dinner, and in bed. Conversation at dinner was polite and arid, carried on chiefly for the benefit of the servants, but in bed they did not talk at all. The Earl could not, in any real sense, make love to her, for he was impotent and apparently had been for some time. More than that, he disliked her, frankly and contemptuously —even while she roused in him conflicting emotions of desire and some wild yearning toward the past which he could never explain. Yet he longed violently for complete physical possession—a longing at which he caught night after night, but never grasped, and it drove him down a hundred strange pathways of lust and helpless rage.