Kathleen Winsor - Forever Amber

“I’m not so sure it’s just tale-telling, Sarah! You’ve always got a mind to think the best of folks—but they don’t always deserve it. Bob Starling asked me for her again today, and I tell you if she an’t married soon not even Tom Andrews ’ll have her, dowry or no!”

“But suppose her father comes, and finds her married to a farmer. Oh, Matt, sometimes I think we’re not doing the right thing—not telling her who she is—”

“What else can we do, Sarah? Her mother’s dead. Her father’s dead, too, or we’d have heard some word of him—and we’ve never found trace of the other St. Clares. I tell you, Sarah, she’s got no choice but to marry a farmer and for her to know she’s of the quality—” He made a gesture with his hands. “God forbid! The fellow who gets her ’s got my pity as ‘tis. Why make it any the worse for ’im? Now, don’t give me any more excuses, Sarah. It’s Jack Clarke or Bob Starling, one or t’other, and the sooner the better—”

IN their painted blue and red wagons, on foot and on horseback, every farmer and cottager within a twenty-mile radius converged upon Heathstone. With him he brought his wife and children, the corn and wheat and livestock he had to sell and the linens or woollens woven by the women during long winter evenings. But he came to buy also. Shoes and pewter-plates and implements for the farm, as well as many things he did not need but which it would please him to have: toys for the children, ribbons for his daughters’ hair, pictures for the house, a beaver hat for himself.

Booths were set up on the green about the old Saxon cross, making lanes which swarmed with people in their holiday dress—full breeches and neck-ruffs and long-sleeved gowns—all many years out of the style but nevertheless kept carefully in wardrobes from one great occasion to the next. Drums beat and fiddles played. The owners of the booths bawled out their wares in voices which were already growing hoarse. Curious crowds stood and stared, each face contorted with sympathy, to watch a sweating man have his rotten tooth pulled, while the dentist loudly proclaimed that the extraction was absolutely painless. There was a fire-eater and a stilt-walker, trained fleas and a contortionist, jugglers and performing apes, and a Punch and Judy show. Over one great tent flew a flag to announce that a play was in progress—but the Puritan influence remained strong enough so that the audience inside was a thin one.

Amber, standing between Bob Starling and Jack Clarke, frowned and tapped her foot as her eyes ran swiftly and impatiently over the crowd.

Where is he!

She had been there since seven o’clock, it was now after nine, and still she had seen no sign of Lord Carlton or his friends. Her stomach churned with nervousness, her hands were wet and her mouth dry. Oh, but sure, if he was coming at all he’d be here by now. He’s gone. He’s forgot all about me and gone on—

Jack Clarke, a tall blunt-faced young man, gave her a nudge. “Look, Amber. How d’ye like this?”

“What? Oh. Oh, yes, it’s mighty fine.”

She turned her head and searched the gleefully yelling group about the jack-pudding who stood on a stand, covered from head to foot with a mess of custard which had been thrown at him, so many farthings a custard.

Oh, why doesn’t he come!

“Amber—how d’ye like this ribbon—”

She gave them each a quick smile in turn, trying to drag her mind away from him, but she could not. He had been in her thoughts and heart every waking moment, and if she did not see him again today she knew she would never be able to survive the disappointment. No greater crisis had ever confronted her, and she thought she had met many.

She had dressed with extraordinary care and was sure that she had never looked prettier.

Her skirt, which did not quite reach her ankles, was made of bright green linsey-woolsey, caught up high in back to show a red-and-white-striped petticoat. She had pulled the laces of her black stomacher as tight as possible to display her little waist; and after leaving Sarah she had opened her white blouse down to the valley of her breasts. Wreathing the crown of her head was a garland of white daisies, their stems twisted together, and in one hand she carried a broad-brimmed straw bongrace.

Now, must all that trouble go to waste on a pair of dolts who stood hovering over her, jingling the coins in their pockets and glaring at each other?

“I think I like this—” She spoke absently, indicating a red satin ribbon which lay in the pile on the counter and then, frowning again, she turned her head—and saw him.

“Oh!”

For an instant she stood unmoving, and then suddenly she picked up her skirts and rushed off, leaving them to stare after her, bewildered and astonished. Lord Carlton, with Almsbury and one other young man, had just entered the fair grounds and were standing while an old vegetable woman knelt to wipe their boots according to the ancient custom. Amber got there out of breath but smiling and made them a curtsy to which they all replied by removing their hats and bowing gravely.

“Damn me, sweetheart!” cried Almsbury enthusiastically. “But you’re as pretty a little baggage as I’ve seen in the devil’s own time!”

“God-a-mercy, m’lord,” she said, thanking him. But her eyes went back instantly to Lord Carlton whom she found watching her with a look that made her arms and back begin to tingle. “I was afraid—I was afraid you were gone.”

He smiled. “The blacksmith had gone off to the Fair and we had to hammer out the shoe ourselves.” He glanced around. “Well—what do you think we should see first?”

In his eyes and the expression about his mouth was a kind of lazy amusement. It embarrassed her, made her feel helpless and tongue-tied and awkward, and a little angry too. For how was she to impress him if she could not think of anything to say, if he saw her turning first white and then red, if she stood and stared at him like a silly pea-goose?

The old woman had finished now and as each of the men gave her a coin to “pay his footing” she went on her way. But she looked back over her shoulder at Amber who was beginning to feel conspicuous, for everyone was watching the Cavaliers and, no doubt, wondering what business a country-girl might have with them. She would have been delighted by the attention but that she was afraid some of her relatives might see her—and she knew what that would mean. They must get away somehow, to a safer quieter place.

“I know what I want to see first,” said Almsbury. “It’s that booth down here where they’re selling sack. We’ll meet you at the crossroads below the town, Bruce, when the sun gets here—” He pointed high overhead and then, with another bow, he and the other man left them.

She hesitated a moment, waiting for him to suggest what she wanted to do, but when he did not she turned and started toward the pillory and wooden stocks and the tent where the play was going on. The crowds were still thick, but it was away from the center of the fair grounds. He walked along beside her and for several minutes they said nothing. Amber was glad that it was too noisy to talk without shouting—and she hoped that he would think that was what kept her quiet.

She had a miserable sense of inadequacy, a fear that whatever she said or did would seem foolish to him. Last night, lying in bed, she had seen herself very gay and easy, casting her spell over him as she had over Tom Andrews and Bob Starling and many, many others. But now she was once more aware of some great distance between them and she could not find her way across it. Every sense and emotion had heightened to an almost painful intensity and there was an unnatural brilliance about everything she saw.