Barbara looked at Frances who, feeling her eyes shift to her, suddenly straightened and raised her head—meeting her glance with cold hostility. Suddenly Barbara slammed her fan to the floor.
“I will not! I’ll go to Richmond and be damned to you!”
AMBER WENT BACK into the kitchen and continued getting Bruce’s meal. She wanted to do as much as she could for him, while she was still able to do anything at all. For by tomorrow she would be helpless and a new nurse would be there—someone perhaps much worse than Spong had been. She was more worried about him than about herself. He was still weak and in need of competent care, and the thought of a stranger coming in, someone who would not know him or care what happened to him, filled her with desperation. If she’d only come in time, she thought, maybe I could bribe her.
Once the first horror of discovery was gone she accepted with resignation and almost with apathy the fact that she was sick. She did not, actually, expect to die. If one person fell ill of the plague in a house and lived, it was thought a good omen for all others in that same house. (Spong’s death she ignored and had almost forgotten; it seemed to have occurred in some distant past unconnected with either her or Bruce.) But apart from superstition she had strong faith in her own temporary immortality. She wanted so much to go on living, it was impossible for her to believe that she could die now, so young and with all her hopes still to be realized.
She had the same symptoms Bruce had had, but they came in swifter succession.
By the time she started into the bedroom with the tray her head was aching violently, as though a tight steel band had been bound about her temples and was drawing steadily tighter. She was sweating and there were stabbing pains throughout her stomach and along her legs and arms. Her throat was as dry as if she had swallowed dust, but though she drank several dipperfuls of water it did no good. The thirst increased.
Bruce was awake, sitting propped up as he could often do now, and though there was a book in his hands he was watching the door anxiously. “You’ve been gone so long, Amber. Is anything wrong?”
She did not look at him but kept her eyes on the tray. Dizziness swept over her in waves, and when it came she had a weird sensation of standing in the midst of a whirling sphere; she could not tell where the floors or walls were. Now she paused for a moment, trying to orient herself and then, setting her teeth, she came determinedly forward.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she repeated, but even to her her voice had a strange fuzzy sound. She hoped that he would not notice.
Slowly, for she felt very tired and her muscles seemed heavy, she set the tray on the bedside table and reached down to pick up the bowlful of syllabub. She saw his hand reach out and close over her wrist and when at last she forced her eyes to lift and meet his, she found on his face the look of self-condemning horror she had been dreading.
“Amber—” He continued to stare at her for a moment, his green eyes narrowed, searching. “You’re not—sick?” The words came out with slow forced reluctance.
She gave a little sigh. “Yes, Bruce. I am—I guess I am. But don’t—”
“Don’t what!”
She tried to remember what she had started to say. “Don’t—worry about it.”
“Don’t worry about it! Good God! Oh, Amber!
She reached down to touch his forehead. “Don’t torture yourself, Bruce. It’s not your fault. I stayed because I wanted to. I knew it was a chance—but I couldn’t go. And I’m not sorry—I won’t die, Bruce—”
He looked at her then with a kind of admiration in his eyes she had never seen before. But at that moment she felt the nausea begin to rise, flooding up irresistibly, and even before she could reach the basin halfway across the room she had started to vomit.
Each time it happened it left her more exhausted, and now she hung for a minute longer over the basin, leaning on her hands, with her burnt-taffy hair concealing her face. All at once she gave a convulsive shudder; the room seemed cold, and yet the fire was burning, all the windows were closed, and the day had been an unusually hot one. At that moment there was a sound behind her. She turned slowly and saw Bruce beginning to get out of bed. With a last desperate surge of her strength she ran toward him.
“Bruce! What are you doing! Get back—” She began to push at him, frantically, but her muscles seemed useless. She had never felt so weak, so helpless, not even after her children had been born.
“I’ve
He had been out of bed only once or twice since he had fallen sick, and now his body was shining with sweat and his face was violently contorted. Amber began to cry, almost hysterical.
