Forever Amber Read online

  She gave a gasp of dismay. "Jack!"

  It was dark down there and she could not see the expression on his face, but his voice was deep and hoarse. "So you were going to scour!" Slowly he started up the stairs toward her, and she could only stand there helplessly, watching him and waiting. All at once she was afraid of him; she had seen him lose his temper with Bess and knew that he could be violent. "You ungrateful little bitch, I should break your head for this—"

  Amber's courage came back with a rush. "Get out of my way!" she cried. "I'm leaving this filthy place! I'm not going to stay here and hang with the rest of you!"

  He was just below her now and she could see his face, the thin upper lip drawn tight against his teeth, his eyes dark and glittering. "You'll stay here as long as I want you to stay. Go on upstairs now. Go on, I say!"

  For a long moment they stood staring at each other. Then suddenly she kicked out at his shins and threw herself against his arm, trying to break through. "Michael!" she screamed.

  Suddenly Black Jack laughed. He picked her up with one arm, threw her over his shoulder, and started back up the stairs. "Michael!" he repeated contemptuously. "What good d'ye think that jack-straw could be to you?" He laughed again, a thunderous roar that echoed up the narrow stairwell, and he seemed scarcely to notice that Amber was screaming furiously, kicking and beating at him with her fists.

  When he reached the bedroom he sat her down, so forcibly that the jar went from her heels up into her head. She recovered quickly.

  "God damn you, Black Jack Mallard!" she yelled at him. "You're trying to kill me, that's what you're doing! You'll make me stay here till we all get caught! But I won't do it, d'ye hear? I'll get out if I have to—" She started for the door again, so furious that she would have run out of Whitefriars and into the arms of the first constable who saw her.

  He reached out a hand and caught her as she would have gone by, jerking her to him as easily as if she were one of the dolls bought at Bartholomew Fair. "Stop it, you little fool! You gabble like a magery prater! You're not going out of the Friars —not while I'm here. When I'm gone do what you damned please—but I didn't give three hundred pound to get you out of Newgate so some other man could have the use of you!"

  She stared at him with angry amazement, for she had always believed that he was in love with her; and it had long been her opinion that it was very easy for a woman to take advantage of a man in love. Now she realized that the only distinction he made between her and Bess was that she was newer and more ornamental and evidently pleased him better in bed. It was a sharp and humiliating cut to her pride, and all of a sudden she despised him.

  When she answered him her voice was low and tense, full of enraged scorn. "Oh, you gormandizing vermin, Jack Mallard, I despise you! I hope you do get caught! I hope they hang you and cut you up in pieces—I hope—Oh!" She whirled about and flung herself on the bed, bursting into sobs, and in a moment she heard the door slam behind him.

  She stayed in her room the rest of the day, refused any supper, and was still sulking the next morning when someone knocked. Thinking that it was probably Black Jack, coming with a gift to beg her pardon and try to make up the quarrel, she called out for him to come in. She was at the dressing-table, cleaning her nails, and did not glance around until she saw Bess's face appear in the mirror. Then she turned swiftly.

  "What are you doing here!"

  Bess was unexpectedly sweet and agreeable. "I only came to wish you a good morning." Amber thought she had most likely come to gloat because Black Jack had spent the night with her, and she turned away. But now Bess leaned over, close to her shoulder.

  "I heard you and Jack yesterday afternoon—"

  "Did you now!"

  "If you really want to leave the Friars—if you'll promise to go away and never come back—I can get that money for you."

  Amber jumped to her feet, one hand reaching out to grab Bess's wrist. "If I'll promise to go! My God! I'll go so fast I'll— Where is it?"

  "It's mine. I've saved it up to have if Black Jack should ever need it. Mother Red-Cap keeps it for me, but I can get it by tomorrow night. I'll put it in the food-hutch in the kitchen."

  But the money was not there and when next Amber saw Bess she had a purple bruise across one eye, and the side of her face and her lower lip was swollen—obviously Black Jack had discovered their plot. After that Bess never troubled to conceal her hatred and jealousy and only a few days later Amber found the house-cat with turquoise feathers clinging to its jowls and paws. Bess insisted that she was completely innocent of any connection with the cat's crime, but Amber had always kept her parakeet's cage safely out of reach and knew the little bird could not have been caught without help from someone.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Though she at first intended to, Amber discovered it would not be possible to stay on bad terms with Black Jack forever. She depended on him for too much. And so—even if she continued to harbour her resentment against him—within four or five days after the quarrel they seemed as close as before.

  She had declared to Mother Red-Cap and all of them that she would never venture her carcass again for so paltry a fee— twelve pounds was her share from the first night—but she soon did. For it was the only possible chance she had of ever getting out of the Friars. And in spite of the danger she enjoyed their escapades: playing at being a fine lady, venturing up into the City, even the excitement of running great risks.

  For the most part their luck was as good as it had been the first night. It seemed that every young coxcomb in London was ready to believe a beautiful stranger had fallen in love with him at the play or in Hyde Park or the Mulberry Gardens, and was more than eager to help her cuckold her foolish old husband. Both Black Jack and Mother Red-Cap attributed much of their success to Amber's own skill at portraying a fashionable woman. Bess, they said, had too often spoiled the whole scheme by being taken for a whore in disguise—which made the gentlemen wary, for it was well known that those ladies were frequently in league with a gang of bullies.

  One of their most consistently successful tricks was the "buttock and twang"—a simpler form of what they had done the first night. Amber would go masked into a tavern, find her victim and lure him outside into some dark alley. When she had picked his pocket a cough or sneeze summoned Black Jack who would come staggering along and pretending to be drunk, knock him over, and make off with whatever she had stolen. Concealed by the darkness she would also disappear, join Black Jack, and return to Alsatia. A time or two she went "upon the question lay." Dressed well, though discreetly, and carrying in her hand an empty bandbox she would go to some great house and pretend to be the 'Change-woman come with the ribbons my lady had bespoke the day before. While the maid was gone to see if the lady was awake she could put a few small valuable objects into her box and depart.

  But Amber did not care for that kind of sport. She preferred to play the lady of quality herself and told them flatly this dodge was a trick better suited to Bess's talents than her own.

  Once Amber went into a house in Great Queen Street where a masquerade was in progress, and after a while she and one of the young men sought a quiet room. But as they were walking down a dark hallway she felt stealthy fingers at the nape of her neck and moved swiftly. "You're a thief!" she whispered, afraid to cry out for fear a constable actually would come. He protested and was about to run off when he discovered that the buttons on his coat had been cut. They both laughed, he admitted he had been mistaken in her too, and so they parted, to cast for other fish.

  She had only one serious scare and that occurred the night she went to an upstairs-room in a tavern with their victim and found that Black Jack had not yet arrived. For more than half an hour she was capricious and teasing, holding him off; but at last he grew impatient, began to suspect what she was about and when he tried to pull off her mask she grabbed up a pewter candlestick and struck him with it. Then, not stopping for his sword or watch or even to see whether or not he was dead
, she rushed out of the room, down the hallway and the stairs and was halfway through the taproom when she heard a voice bellow: "Stop that woman! She's a thief!" He had recovered consciousness and come after her.

  Amber felt an agonizing terror that seemed to freeze blood and muscle, but somehow in spite of herself she ran on at full speed through the roomful of dumfounded patrons. She had just reached the door to the street when a man sprang up from one of the tables and started after her, shouting that he would bring her back. It was Black Jack. They got safely to the Sanctuary where he told the story to everyone with shouts of laughter—but Amber refused to stir out of the Friars again for more than a fortnight. She had felt the gallows noose too plain that time.

  But in spite of all these activities she was not able to save much money. She had to have numerous gowns and cloaks, so that she could not come to be recognized by what she wore, and though she bought them second-hand in Houndstitch or in Long Lane and soon sold them again, she spent a good deal. She also had to defer the cost of her lodging and food and other incidental expenses. And every time Mrs. Chiverton brought the baby in she had a dozen gifts for him. She had come to feel that there was a wall around Alsatia over which it would never be possible to climb—most who came there, she knew, stayed.

  Black Jack was himself a good example.

  Whatever his real name, he was the son of a country-squire and had come to London eleven years before to attend the Middle Temple. At that time the King had just been beheaded and the Puritans were rabidly punishing vice and praising virtue; but the young men nevertheless contrived to live very much the same carefree reckless lives they always had. A hypocritical cloak of modesty served its purpose for them. Thus he ran himself into debt, far beyond his father's ability to pay even had the old man wished to do so. It was never permissible for impecunious gentlemen to beg of their relatives and friends, and so when his creditors became too pressing he moved into Whitefriars to avoid arrest. And there he had found, as did many another bankrupt young man of good family, that the King's highway offered an easy and exciting livelihood.

  "When it's so easy to steal money," he said, "a man's a fool to work for it." Amber was half inclined to agree with him— or would have had she been able to keep all and not merely a small part of what she took.

  Early in June Black Jack went back to the roads again. Winter was the gay social season in London and many of the nobility returned to their country homes to spend the summer months. Then the roads swarmed with highwaymen and numerous inn-keepers were in their pay; but in spite of the well-known dangers most persons rode without sufficient protection.

  Amber's part was a simple and safe one. With Bess, who went along dressed as her serving-woman, she would ride out to the inn from which Mother Red-Cap had had information and there make the acquaintance of the traveller and his family. Pretending to be a lady of quality just going out of or coming into town, she would tell them that her coach had been overturned and wrecked; and when they offered to let her ride with them she could manage the time of departure to Black Jack's advantage. For though many inn-keepers were willing to give information, very few would allow a robbery on the premises—too many such incidents would put them out of business. Amber was well satisfied with this arrangement, but Bess was not—for she had been accustomed to acting the part of lady herself and was furiously resentful at having been demoted.

  There was seldom any scuffle when the bandits appeared, for even if all members of a party were armed they usually preferred giving up the master's valuables to risking a wound. One man, however, told Black Jack that he would never have got the money if he had not taken him unawares, and Black Jack offered to shoot it out with him. Armed with pistols, they walked into the nearby field, counted off ten paces, and fired. The man dropped dead. Amber, who had been watching with anxiety and trying to think what she should do if Black Jack was killed, felt a passionate relief—but afterward she was more in awe of him than she had been.

  But he was a good-natured thief and always left the coachman half-a-crown to drink his health. Once he robbed an old Parliamentarian just returning from a trip into the country with his whore, stripped them both naked and tied them to a tree, back to back; over their heads he put a sign informing all passers-by that here were two Adamites.

  As the summer weeks passed Amber's savings began to mount; by mid-August she had accumulated two hundred and fifty pounds. They had had no new scares and she became brazenly confident and almost began to enjoy the life she was living. She still had an uneasy restlessness to leave Alsatia, a feeling that she was missing something of great importance going on out in the real world, but the days faded one into another and she was half content.

  Then one day she got a crude and sickening shock.

  Coming into the parlour she found Black Jack standing between Blueskin and Jimmy the Mouth—leaning with his great arms upon their shoulders—while they looked at something laid out on the table before them. Their backs were to her and she could not see what it was but they were talking together in low voices which now and then burst into a laugh.

  Amber walked up and saw that it was a large sheet of paper with his Majesty's coat-of-arms and two long lines of printing upon it. She frowned, suddenly suspicious.

  "What's that?"

  They looked around, surprised to find her there.

  "Black Jack's a famous man," said Blueskin. "He's been named first in a proclamation for taking twenty-two highwaymen." Black Jack grinned, pleased with the honour.

  But Amber stared, open-mouthed and horrified. She wanted violently to live, and at a time like this, when she saw how close death stood beside her, she grew frantic with terror.

  "What's the matter?" demanded Black Jack, a kind of sharpness in his voice.

  "You know what's the matter! They're looking for you and they'll catch you! They'll catch all of us, and hang us! Oh, I wish I was still in Newgate! There at least I was safe!"

  "And so do I wish you were still in Newgate! Of all the complaining jades I've ever known— What the hell did you expect when I brought you here? You'd better get it through your head the whole world doesn't function for your benefit! But you can stop worrying about your neck! A woman's always got one alibi—you can plead your belly. Why," he continued—and now his voice had turned sarcastic, his eyes went over her with mocking amusement—"I once knew a woman put off the hangman for ten years—no sooner was she delivered of one brat than they found her quick again."

  Amber scowled and her mouth gave a sneer of repugnance. "Oh, did she, indeed? Well, that's all very well—but not for me!" She finished the sentence with a shout, leaning toward him, fists clenched and the cords in her throat straining. "I've got other things to do with my life, I'll have you know—!"

  At that moment Bess came in the door, and saw that there was trouble between them. She grinned maliciously. "What's the quarrel here? Sure, now, Jack, you've not fallen out with our fine Mrs. Fairtail?"

  Amber turned, her nostrils flaring with anger, and gave her a sweeping glance of lazy insolence. "Marry come up, Bess Columbine, but you're as jealous as a wife of her husband when she lies-in!"

  "Jealous? Me jealous of you!" yelled Bess. "I'll be damned if I am, you scurvy wench!"

  "Don't call me names!"

  Suddenly Amber reached out, grabbed her by the hair, and gave a violent jerk. With a shriek of rage Bess seized a fistful of curls and the two women would have flown into deadly battle—but for the unexpected appearance of Mother Red-Cap. The men merely stood looking on and smiling, but she rushed forward, took them by the shoulders and gave each a vigorous shake.

  "Stop!" she cried. "I won't have any brawling under my roof! Just once more, Bess Columbine, and out you go!"

  "Out I go!" protested Bess, while Amber, with a superior smile, reached up to pin back the long heavy curls that had come loose. "What about her! What about that—"

  "Bess!"

  For a long time Bess and Mother Red-Cap stood with loc
ked stares, but Bess was finally forced to yield. Nevertheless, as she turned to leave the room she knocked into Amber, giving her a hard jar. Without an instant's hesitation Amber turned her head and spat onto her gown. Bess stopped abruptly, the two women once more face to face like a pair of bristling cats; but at another warning from Mother Red-Cap Bess whirled around and stalked out.

  For several days after that Black Jack ignored Amber as though she did not exist, and Bess was insultingly triumphant; she flouted his preference whenever they met. But however little Amber cared for Black Jack or his company, she did not intend to let Bess get the better of her. She began a new flirtation with him which was presently successful——and after that Bess's hatred was so intense and so sullen that she half expected to get a knife stuck into her ribs. She believed, and with good reason, that it was only Bess's fear of Black Jack which secured her own life.

  Early in September, Bess, convinced that she was pregnant, told Black Jack about it and asked him outright to marry her. He gave her an insulting snort.

  "Marry you? You must take me for a dommerer. I suppose you think I don't know every man that's come into this house has had a lick at you!"

  He was sitting at the dinner-table, as he always did, long after everyone else had left, gnawing at a chicken-leg he had in one hand and washing it down with swallows from a wine-bottle held in the other. He was slumped far down on his spine, perfectly easy and relaxed and unconcerned, not even troubling to glance up at her.