And all at once it washed down over her—the disappointment and loneliness, the aching longing she had for Bruce, the hopelessness of her situation, and she flung herself onto the bed and began to cry. She could feel her pregnancy closing in on her, seeming to shut her into a room from which there was no escape, and she was as terrified as though menaced by some looming monster.
Oh, what’ll I do! What’ll I
AMBER AND LUKE CHANNELL were married in mid-October, three weeks after they had met, in the old church of the parish where the Rose and Crown was located. As was customary, Amber bought the wedding-ring and she got a very handsome one with several little diamonds, for which she told the jeweller to send a bill. She had discovered that it was possible to do business that way and now made a practice of it, for her ignorance of money-values was otherwise a serious handicap.
Amber had not been at all eager to marry Luke. She considered him to be one of the least attractive men she had ever known and nothing but the eternal nagging awareness of pregnancy could have persuaded her to consider him for a husband. He seemed to have just one redeeming quality, and that was a violent infatuation for her.
But by the next morning she knew that she had been cheated in that too.
His obsequious adoring manner had vanished altogether and now instead he was insolent, crude, and overbearing. His vulgarity shocked and disgusted her and he would allow her neither privacy nor peace but set upon her at any hour of the day or night. From the first day he was gone most of the time, drank incessantly, harangued her to send for the rest of her money, and displayed almost without provocation a violent and destructive bad-temper.
Mr. Goodman’s financial affairs continued unsolved and he began to seem almost as nebulous a figure as Amber’s aunt, though both women made new excuses to each other whenever the time limit of the old one had run out. As soon as Amber and Luke were married the two apartments were flung together and presently Sally was borrowing Amber’s fans and gloves and jewels and even tried without success to squeeze into her gowns. Amber began to feel that somehow she was caught between these two, aunt and nephew, who seemed to have gained an advantage over her—though she was at a loss to know just when or how it had happened.
Honour remained as quiet and self-effacing as ever, though she became slovenly and Amber had to tell her over and over again to wear her shoes in the house and not to go out in a soiled apron. When Luke was at home she stared at him with a sheepish longing that turned Amber sick; when he was drunk she held his head, cleaned up his vomit, undressed him and put him to bed. Such tasks were routine for a servant, but Honour performed them with a kind of fawning wife-like devotion. Luke, however, showed her no gratitude, nagged at her persistently, gave her a cuff or a kick whenever he was annoyed —which was often—and handled her familiarly even before Amber.
When they had been married scarcely two weeks Amber came into the room one day and surprised Honour and Luke on the bed together. Stunned and disgusted Amber stood there for a moment, mouth and eyes wide open, before she slammed the door. Luke gave a startled jump and Honour, with a terrified shriek, scrambled up and ran into Sally’s room, whimpering as she went.
Luke glared at her. “What in hell blew you in here?”
She was on the verge of crying, not because she cared if he seduced the maid, but because she was nervous and distraught. “How was I to know what you’d be about!”
He did not answer but got into his doublet, buckled on his sword and smacking his hat onto his head slammed out of the room. Amber stood for a moment, glaring after him, and then she went to find Honour. The girl was in Sally’s room, huddled in a far corner behind the bed, rocking and sobbing with her hands held protectively over her head. A master or mistress had the right to beat unruly servants and that was obviously what she expected.
“Stop that!” cried Amber. “I’m not going to hurt you!” She tossed a coin into her lap. “Here. And I’ll give you another for every piece-of-mutton he gets from you. Maybe he won’t worry me so much then,” she added in a mutter, and swirling her skirts about walked away.
But her own loathing of Luke and his unpleasant personal habits was by no means the only source of Amber’s trouble with her husband. Both he and his aunt were spending a great deal of money—almost every day new packages arrived for one or both of them—but they paid for nothing. She brought the subject up one day when she was setting out on a shopping tour with Mrs. Goodman.
