Forever Amber полностью

The Dutch fleet still lay at the mouth of the Thames and no English shipping could enter or leave. Consequently Bruce, though he had been almost ready to sail at the time of the attack, was now forced to wait on the peace negotiations. But he refused to go away with her, for when the treaty was concluded he intended to sail immediately. Much of his time he spent hunting with the King. And there were other hours when he and the little boy rode together or he helped him with his fencing-lessons. Sometimes they sailed a few miles up the Thames in Almsbury’s Sapphire, and Amber went along. She could not see them together without feeling a torture of longing and jealousy—for somewhere in her heart she knew that he would go with his father, and forget her. She could surrender him to Bruce, but she could not bear the thought of another woman’s having him.

They were walking, she and the little boy, in the garden one morning, waiting for Bruce who was going to take him sculling. It was mid-July, hot and bright, and the walks steamed where the gardener had been watering. The lime-trees were in bloom and bees hummed incessantly at their sweet yellow-green flowers. Monsieur le Chien ran along ahead of them, nosing everywhere, and his ears were draggled, for he had dipped them into the fountain and then trailed them through the dust.

A gardener had given each of them a ripe yellow pear to eat. It tasted like wine as she bit into it. “Bruce,” she said all at once, “will you miss your father a great deal when he goes?” She had not actually expected to say it but now she found herself waiting, tensely, for his answer.

She saw it in the wistful little smile he gave her. “Oh, yes, Mother. I will.” He hesitated, then: “Won’t you?”

Surprised, the tears started into her eyes; but she looked away, thinking hard about the musk-rose that lay half opened against the wall. She reached over to pluck it. “Yes, of course I will. Suppose, Bruce—suppose—” Suddenly she said it. “Would you like to go with him?”

He stared up at her with a look of perfect incredulity, and then he grabbed her hand. “Oh, could I, Mother? Could I go?”

Amber looked down at him, unable to keep the disappointment from her face, but his eyes had such a shine she knew then what would happen. “Yes—you can. If you want to. Do you want to?”

“Oh, yes, Mother! I do! Please let me go!”

“You want to go and leave me?” She knew that it was unfair when she said it, but she could not help herself.

As she had hoped, the look of happiness fled and a kind of bewildered conscience-stricken worry took its place. For a moment he was quiet. “But can’t you go too, Mother?” Suddenly he smiled again. “You come with us! Then we can all be together!”

Amber’s eyes brooded over him; lightly her fingers reached out to touch his hair. “I can’t go, darling. I’ve got to stay here.” The tears sparkled in her eyes again. “You can’t be with both of us—”

He took her hand with a little gesture of sympathy. “Don’t cry, Mother. I won’t go and leave you—I’ll tell Father that I—can’t go.”

All at once Amber hated herself. “Come here,” she said. “Sit beside me on this bench. Listen to me, darling. Your father wants you to go with him. He needs you over there—to help him—there’s so much to do. I want you to stay with me—but I think he needs you more.”

“Oh, do you, Mother? Do you really think so?” His eyes searched her face anxiously, but there was no concealing the joyous relief.

“Yes, darling. I really think so.”

Amber looked up over his head and beyond to see Bruce coming toward them along the garden walk. The little boy glanced around, saw his father, and jumped up to run and meet him. His manners were always much more formal with Bruce than with her, not because Bruce insisted but because his tutor did, and he bowed ceremoniously before speaking a word.

“I’ve decided to go to America with you, sir,” he informed him solemnly. “Mother says that you need me there.”

Bruce glanced down at the boy and then his eyes moved swiftly to meet Amber’s. For a moment they looked at each other, unspeaking. His arm went about his son’s shoulder and he smiled at him. “I’m glad you’ve decided to come with me, Bruce.” Together they walked toward Amber, and she got to her feet though her eyes had not once left Bruce’s face. He said nothing but he bent and kissed her, softly, briefly; and it was, almost, a husband’s kiss.

At first Amber felt that she had done a noble and unselfish thing and she was quite willing to have Bruce think so too. But the hope came creeping, and she had to recognize it, that perhaps having her child there with him all the time would keep her alive in his memory as nothing else could do. Perhaps she could defeat Corinna without even seeing her.