Forever Amber

CHAPTER ONE

MARYGREEN DID NOT change in sixteen years. It had changed little enough in the past two hundred.

The church of St. Catherine stood at the northern end of the road, like a benevolent godfather, and from it the houses ran down either side—half-timbered cottages, with overhanging upper stories, and thatched with heather or with straw that had been golden when new, then had turned slowly to a rich brown, and now was emerald green with moss and lichen. Tiny dormer windows looked out, wreathed with honeysuckle and ivy. Thick untrimmed hedges fenced the houses off from the road and there were small wooden gates, some of them spanned by arches of climbing roses. Above the hedges could be seen the confusion of blooming flowers, delphinium and lilacs, both purple and white, hollyhocks that reached almost to the eaves, an apple or plum or cherry tree in full blossom.

At the far end from the church was the green, where on festive occasions the young men played football and held wrestling matches and all the village danced.

There was an inn built of soft red brick and showing the aged silver-grey oaken timbers of its frame; a great sign painted with a crude golden lion swung out over the street on an elaborate wrought-iron arm. Nearby was the blacksmith’s cottage with his adjoining shop and the homes and places of business of the apothecary, the carpenter, and another tradesman or two. The rest of the cottages were occupied by husbandmen who divided their time between working on their own small holdings and on the large neighbouring farms. For there was no manor or squire’s estate near Marygreen, and the economic existence of the village depended upon the well-to-do yeomen farmers.

The day was quiet and warm, the sky blue with long streaks of white clouds, which seemed to have been put there by a paintbrush drawn across wet water-colour; the air was full of spring moisture and a rich loamy smell of damp earth. Chickens and geese and tiny sparrows had taken possession of the road. A little girl stood before one of the gates, holding a pet rabbit in her arms.

There were few people in sight, for it was late afternoon and each person had his own work to do, so that the only idlers were dogs, a playful kitten or two, and children too young to have learned a useful task. A woman with a basket on her arm walked along the street, pausing for a few moments to talk to another housewife, who threw open an upstairs casement window and leaned out, surrounded as though in a frame with wandering clematis and morning glories. Grouped about the village cross, which had somehow escaped Cromwell’s soldiers, were eight or ten young girls—cottagers’ daughters who were sent every day to watch their parents’ cattle on the common and make sure that no single goat, cow, or sheep should stray or be stolen.

Some of the younger ones were playing “How many miles to Babylon?”—but the three oldest girls talked among themselves, full of indignation and bad humour. With hands on their hips they glared across the common to where two young men, thumbs hooked awkwardly in their breeches, shifting their weight from one foot to another, stood deep in conversation with someone who apparently upset their not too well established poise. But their combined bulk hid whoever it was from view.

“That Amber St. Clare!” muttered the eldest girl with a furious toss of her long blonde hair. “If ever there’s a man about, you may be sure she’ll come along! I think she can smell ’em out!”

“She should ’ve been married and bedded a year ago—that’s what my mother says!”

The third girl smiled slyly and said in a knowing sing-song: “Well, maybe she an’t married yet, but she’s already been—”

“Hush!” interrupted the first, nodding toward the younger children.

“Just the same,” she insisted, though she had lowered her voice to a hiss, “my brother says Bob Starling told him he had his way with her on Mothering Sunday!”

But Lisbeth, who had started the conversation, gave a contemptuous snap of her fingers. “Uds Lud, Gartrude! Jack Clarke said the same thing six months ago—and she’s no bigger now than she was then.”

Gartrude had an answer. “And d‘ye want to know why, Lisbeth Morton? B’cause she can spit three times in a frog’s mouth, that’s why. Maggie Littlejohn seen her do it!”

“Pooh! My mother says nobody can spit three times in a frog’s mouth!”

But the argument was cut short. For suddenly a sound of galloping hoofs echoed through the quiet little valley and a body of men on horseback rounded the turn of the road above St. Catherine’s and came rushing headlong up the narrow street toward them. One of the six-year-olds gave a scream of terror and ran to hide behind Lisbeth’s skirts.

“It’s Old Noll! Come back from the Devil to get us!” Even dead, Oliver Cromwell had not lost his salutary effect on disobedient youngsters.

The men reined in their horses, bringing them to a prancing nervous halt not more than ten yards from where the girls stood in a close group, their earlier fright and apprehension giving way now to frank admiring interest. There were perhaps fourteen men in all but more than half of them were either serving-men or guides, for they wore plain clothes and kept at a discreet distance from the others. The half-dozen in the lead were obviously gentlemen.

They wore their hair in the shoulder-length cut of the Cavaliers, and their dress was magnificent. Their suits were black velvet, dark red velvet, green satin, with broad white linen collars and white linen shirts. On their heads were wide brimmed hats with swirling plumes, and long riding capes hung from their shoulders. Their high leather boots were silver-spurred and each man wore a sword at his hip. They had evidently been riding hard for some considerable distance for their clothes were dusty and their faces streaked with dirt and sweat, but in the girls’ eyes they had an almost terrifying grandeur.

Now one of the men took off his hat and spoke to Lisbeth, presumably because she was the prettiest. “My services, madame,” he said, his voice and eyes lazily good-humoured, and as he looked her over slowly from head to foot Lisbeth blushed crimson and found it difficult to breathe. “We’re looking for a place to eat. Have you a good tavern in these parts?”

Lisbeth stared at him, temporarily speechless, while he continued to smile down at her, his hands resting easily on the saddle before him. His suit was black velvet with a short doublet and wide knee-length breeches, finished with golden braid. He had dark hair and green-grey eyes and a narrow black mustache lined his upper lip. His good looks were spectacular—but they were not the most important thing about him. For his face had an uncompromising ruthlessness and strength which marked him, in spite of his obvious aristocracy, as an adventurer and gambler, a man free from bonds and ties.

Lisbeth swallowed and made a little curtsy. “Ye mun like the Three Cups in Heathstone, m’lord.” She was afraid to recommend her own poor little village to these splendid strangers.

“Where’s Heathstone from here?”

“Heathstone be damned!” protested one of the men. “What’s wrong with your own ordinary? I’ll fall off this jade if I go another mile without food!” He was a handsome blonde red-faced young man and in spite of his scowl he was obviously happy and good-natured. As he spoke the others laughed and one of them leaned over to clap him on the shoulder.

“By God, we’re a set of rascals! Almsbury hasn’t had a mouthful since he ate that side of mutton this morning!”

They laughed again at this for apparently Almsbury’s appetite was a well-established joke among them. The girls giggled too, more at ease now, and the six-year-old who had mistaken them for Puritan ghosts came out boldly from behind Lisbeth’s skirts and edged a step or two nearer. At that instant something happened to create an abrupt change in the relationship between the men and girls.

“There’s nothing wrong with our inn, your Lordship!” cried a low-pitched feminine voice, and the girl who had been talking to the two young farmers came running across the green toward them. The girls had stiffened like wary cats but the men looked about with surprise and sudden interest. “The hostess there brews the finest ale in Essex!”

She made a quick little curtsy to Almsbury and then her eyes turned to meet those of the man who had spoken first and who was now watching her with a new expression on his face, speculative, admiring, alert. While the others watched, it seemed that time stopped for a moment and then, reluctantly, went on again.

Amber St. Clare raised her arm and pointed back down the street to the great sign with its weather-beaten gilt lion shimmering faintly as the falling sun struck it. “Next the blacksmith’s shop, m’lord.”

Her honey-coloured hair fell in heavy waves below her shoulders and as she stared up at him her eyes, clear, speckled amber, seemed to tilt at the corners; her brows were black and swept up in arcs, and she had thick black lashes. There was about her a kind of warm luxuriance, something immediately suggestive to the men of pleasurable fulfillment—something for which she was not responsible but of which she was acutely conscious. It was that, more than her beauty, which the other girls resented.

She was dressed, very much as they were, in a rust wool skirt tucked up over a green petticoat, a white blouse and yellow apron and tight-laced black stomacher; her ankles were bare and she wore a pair of neat black shoes. And yet she was no more like them than a field flower is like a cultivated one or a sparrow is like a golden pheasant.

Almsbury leaned forward, crossing his arms on his saddle bow. “What in the name of Jesus,” he said slowly, “are you doing out here in God’s forgotten country?”

The girl looked at him, dragging her eyes away from the other man, and now she smiled, showing teeth that were white and even and beautifully shaped. “I live here, m’lord.”

“The deuce you do! Then how the devil did you get here? What are you? Some nobleman’s bastard put out to suck with a cottager’s wife and forgotten these fifteen years?” It was no uncommon occurrence, but she looked suddenly angry, her brows drawing in an indignant scowl.

“I am not, sir! I’m as much my father’s child as you are—or more!”

The men, including Almsbury, laughed heartily at this and he gave her a grin. “No offense, sweetheart. Lord, I only meant you haven’t the look of a farmer’s daughter.”

She smiled at him quickly then, as though in apology for her show of temper, but her eyes went back immediately to the other man. He was still watching her with a look that warmed all her body and brought a swift-rising sense of excitement. The men were wheeling their horses around and as his turned, its forelegs lifted high, he smiled and nodded his head. Almsbury thanked her and lifted his hat and then they rode off, clattering back up the street to the inn. For a moment longer the girls stood silently, watching them dismount and go through the doorway while the inn-keeper’s young sons came to take care of their horses.

When they were out of sight Lisbeth suddenly stuck out her tongue and gave Amber a shove. “There!” she cried triumphantly, and made a sound like a bleating female goat. “Much good it did you, Mrs. Minx!”

Swiftly Amber returned the shove, almost knocking the girl off balance, crying, “Mind your knitting, chatterbox!”

For a moment they stood and glared at each other, but finally Lisbeth turned and went off across the green, where the other girls were rounding up their charges, running and shouting, racing with one another, eager to get home to their evening suppers. The sun had set, leaving the sky bright red along the horizon but turning to delicate blue above. Here and there a star had come out; the air was full of the magic of twilight.

Her heart still beating heavily, Amber crossed back to where she had left her basket lying in the grass. The two young farmers had gone, and now she picked it up again and continued on her way, walking toward the inn.

She had never seen anyone like him before in her life. The clothes he wore, the sound of his voice, the expression in his eyes, all made her feel that she had had a momentary glimpse into another world—and she longed passionately to see it again, if only for a brief while. Everything else, her own world of Marygreen and Uncle Matt’s farm, all the young men she knew, now seemed to her intolerably dull, even contemptible.

From her conversations with the village cobbler she knew that they must be noblemen, but what they were doing here, in Marygreen, she could not imagine. For the Cavaliers these past several years had retired into what obscurity they could find or had gone abroad in the wake of the King’s son, now Charles II, who lived in exile.

The cobbler, who had fought in the Civil Wars on his Majesty’s side, had told her a great many tales of things he had seen and stories he had heard. He had told her of seeing Charles I at Oxford, of being almost close enough to have touched him, of the gay and beautiful Royalist ladies, the gallant men—it was a life full of colour and spirit and high romance. But she had seen nothing of it, for it disappeared while she was yet a child, disappeared forever the morning his Majesty was beheaded in the yard of his own Palace. It was something of that atmosphere which the dark-haired stranger had brought with him—not the others, for she had scarcely noticed them—but it was something more as well, something intensely personal. It seemed as though, all at once, she was fully and completely alive.

Arriving at the inn she did not go in by the front entrance but, instead, walked around to the back where a little boy sat in the doorway, playing with his fox-eared puppy, and she patted him on the head as she went by. In the kitchen Mrs. Poterell was rushing about in a frenzy of preparation, excited and distraught. On the chopping-block lay a piece of raw beef into which one of the daughters was stuffing a moist mixture of bread-crumbs and onions and herbs. A little girl was cranking up water from the well that stood far in one corner of the kitchen. And the turnspit-dog in his cage above the fireplace gave an angry yowl as another boy applied a hot coal to his hind feet to make him move faster and turn the roasting-joint so it would brown evenly on all sides.

Amber managed to catch the attention of Mrs. Poterell, who was careening from one side of the room to the other, her apron full of eggs. “Here’s a Dutch gingerbread Aunt Sarah sent you, Mrs. Poterell!” It was not true, for Sarah had sent the delicacy to the blacksmith’s wife, but Amber thought this the better cause.

“Oh, thank God, sweetheart! Oh, I never was in such a taking! Six gentlemen in my house at once! Oh, Lord! What shall I do!” But even as she talked she had begun breaking the eggs into a great bowl.

At that moment fifteen-year-old Meg emerged from the trapdoor which led down into the cellar, her arms full of dusty green bottles, and Amber rushed. to her.

“Here, Meg! Let me help you!”

She took five of them from her and started for the other room, pushing the door open with her knee, but she kept her eyes down as she entered, and concentrated all her attention on the bottles. The men were standing about the room, cloaks off though they still wore their hats, and as she appeared Almsbury caught sight of her and came forward, smiling.

“Here—sweetheart. Let me help you with those. So they play that old game out here too?”

“What old game, m’lord?”

He took three of the bottles from her and she set the other two on the table, looking up then to smile at him. But instantly her eyes sought out the other man where he stood next the windows with two companions, throwing dice on a table-top. His back was half turned and he did not glance around but tossed down a coin as one of the others snapped his fingers at a lucky throw. Surprised and disappointed, for she had expected him to see her immediately—even to be looking for her—she turned again to Almsbury.

“Why, it’s the oldest game in the world,” he was saying. “Keeping a pretty bar-maid to lure in the customers till they’ve spent their last shilling—I’ll warrant you’ve lured many a farmer’s son to his ruin.” He was grinning at her and now he picked up a bottle, jerked out the cork and put it to his lips. Amber gave him another smile, arch and flirtatious, wishing that the other man would look over and see her.

“Oh, I’m not the bar-maid here, sir. I brought Mrs. Poterell a cake and helped Meg to carry in the bottles.”

Almsbury had taken several swallows, draining half the bottle at once. “Ah, by God!” he declared appreciatively. “Well, then, who are you? What’s your name?”

“Amber St. Clare, sir.”

“Amber! No farmer’s wife ever thought of a name like that.”

She laughed, her eyes stealing swiftly across the room and back again, but he was still intent on the dice. “That’s what my Uncle Matt says. He says my name should be Mary or Anne, or Elizabeth.”

Almsbury took several more deep swallows and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Your uncle’s a man of no imagination.” And then, as she glanced toward the table again, he threw back his head and laughed. “So that’s what you want, is it? Well, come along—” And taking hold of her wrist he started across the room.

“Carlton,” he said, when they had come up to the group, “here’s a wench who has a mind to lay with you.”

He turned then, gave Almsbury a glance that suggested some joke between them, and smiled at Amber. She was staring up at him with her eyes big and shining, and had not even heard the remark. She was no more than five-feet three, a height convenient for making even a moderate-sized man feel impressive, but he towered over her by at least a foot.

She caught only a part of Almsbury’s introduction. “—a man for whom I have the highest regard even though the bastard does steal every pretty wench I set my eyes on—Bruce, Lord Carlton.” She managed a curtsy and he bowed to her, sweeping off his hat with as much gallantry as though she were a princess royal. “We’re all of us,” he continued, “come back with the King.”

“With the King! Is the King come back!”

“He’s coming—very soon,” said Carlton.

At this astonishing news Amber forgot her nervous embarrassment. For though the Goodegroomes had once been Parliamentarian in sympathy, they had gradually, as had most of the country, begun to long for monarchy and the old ways of life. Since the King’s murder his people had grown to love him as they had never done during his lifetime, and that love had been transferred to his heir.

“Gemini!” she breathed. For it was too great an event to realize all at once—and under such distracting conditions.

Lord Carlton took up one of the bottles which Meg had set on the table, wiped the dust from its neck with the palm of his hand, and pulling out the cork began to drink. Amber continued to stare at him, her self-consciousness now almost drowned in awe and admiration.

“We’re on our way to London,” he told her. “But one of our horses needs shoeing. What about your inn? Is it a good place to stay the night? The landlord won’t rob us—there aren’t any bed-bugs or lice?” He watched her face as he talked, and for some reason she did not understand there was a look of amusement in his eyes.

“Rob you?” she cried indignantly. “Mr. Poterell never robbed anybody! This is a mighty fine inn,” she declared with stanch loyalty. “The one in Heathstone is nothing to it!”

Both men were grinning now. “Well,” said Almsbury, “let the landlord steal our shoes and the lice be thick as March crows in a fallow field, still it’s an English inn and by God a good one!” With that he made her a solemn bow, “Your servant, madame,” and went off to find another bottle of sack, leaving them alone.

Amber felt her bones and muscles turn to water. She stood and looked at him, cursing herself for her tongue-tied stupor. Why was it that she—who usually had a pert remark on her tongue for any man no matter what his age or condition-could think of nothing at all to say now? Now, when she longed with frantic desperation to impress him, to make him feel the same violent excitement and admiration that she did. At last she said the only thing she could think of:

“Tomorrow’s the Heathstone May Fair.”

“It is?”

His eyes went down to her breasts which were full and pointed, upward tilting; she was one of those women who reach complete physical maturity at an early age, and there had long since ceased to be anything of adolescence about her.

Amber felt the blood begin to rise in her neck and face. “It’s the finest fair in all Essex,” she assured him quickly. “The farmers go ten and twenty miles to it.”

His eyes came back to meet hers and he smiled, lifting one eyebrow in apparent wonder at this gigantic local festival, then drank down the rest of his wine. She could smell the faint pungent odour of it as he breathed and she could smell too the heavy masculine sweat on his clothes and the scent of leather from his boots. The combination gave her a sense of dizziness, almost of intoxication, and a powerful longing swept through her. Almsbury’s impertinent remark had been no very great exaggeration.

Now he glanced out the window. “It’s growing dark. You should be getting home,” and he walked to the door, opening it for her.

The evening had settled swiftly and many stars had come out; the high-pitched moon was thin and transparent. A cool little breeze had sprung up. Out there they stood alone, surrounded by the talking and laughter from the inn, the quiet country sounds of crickets and a distant frog, the whir of tiny gnats. She turned and looked up at him, her face white and glistening as a moonflower.

“Can’t you come to the Fair, my lord?” She was afraid that she would never see him again, and the idea was intolerable to her.

“Perhaps,” he said. “If there’s time.”

“Oh, please! It’s on the main road—you’ll pass that way! You will stop, won’t you?” Her voice and eyes pleaded with him, wistful, compelling.

“How fair you are,” he said softly, and now for the first time his expression was wholly serious.

For a moment they stood looking at each other, and then Amber swayed involuntarily toward him, her eyes shut. His hands closed about her waist, drawing her to him, and she felt the powerful muscles in his legs. Her head fell back. Her mouth parted to receive his kiss. It was several moments before he released her, but when he did it seemed too soon—she felt almost cheated. Opening her eyes again she saw him looking at her with faint surprise, though whether at himself or her she did not know. The world seemed to have exploded. She was as stunned as though she had been given a heavy blow, and all the strength had gone out of her.

“You must go now, my dear,” he said finally. “Your family will be troubled to have you out so late.”

Quick impulsive words sprang to her lips. I don’t care if they are! I don’t care if I never go home again! I don’t care about anything but you—Oh, let me stay here and go away with you tomorrow—

But something kept her from saying them. Perhaps the image —somewhere not too far back in her mind—of Aunt Sarah’s troubled, cautioning frown, Uncle Matt’s stern, lean, reproving face. It would never do to be so bold, for he would only hate her then. Aunt Sarah had often said men did not like a pert woman.

“I don’t live far,” she said. “Just down this road and over the fields a quarter-mile or so.” She was hoping that he would offer to walk the distance with her but he did not, and though she waited a few seconds, at last she dropped him a curtsy. “I’ll look for you tomorrow, m’lord.”

“I may come. Good-night.”

He made her a bow, sweeping off his hat again, and then with a smile and a glance that took her in from head to foot he turned and went inside. Amber stood there a moment like a bewildered child; then suddenly she whirled about and started off at a run and though she stopped once to look back he was gone.

She ran on then—up the narrow road and past the church, quickening her pace as she went by the graveyard where her mother lay buried, and soon she turned right down a tree-lined lane leading over the fields toward the Goodegroome farm. Ordinarily she would have been a little scared to be out alone when it was almost dark, but ghosts and witches and goblins held no terror for her now. Her mind was too full of other things.

She had never seen anyone like him before and had not realized that such a man could exist. He was every handsome, gallant gentleman the cobbler had ever described, and he was what her dreams had embroidered upon those descriptions. Bob Starling and Jack Clarke! A pair of dolts!

She wondered if he was thinking of her now, and felt sure that he must be. No man could kiss a woman like that and forget her the next moment! The kiss, if nothing else, she thought, would bring him to the Fair tomorrow—draw him there perhaps in spite of himself. She complimented herself that she understood men and their natures very well.

The night air was cool, as though it had blown over ice, and the meadows were thick with purple clover and white evening campion. Amber approached the farmhouse from the back. She crossed the creek on a bridge which was nothing but a couple of boards with a hand-rail, passed the plot where the cabbages and other vegetables grew, and made her way between the numerous outbuildings—barns and stables and cow-sheds—all of them white-washed, their roofs covered with moss and yellow stone-crop. Then, skirting the edge of the duckpond, she entered the courtyard.

The house was two-storied, the oak frame ornately carved, and the soft red brick walls were spread with vines. Each chimney was muffled in ivy, and an arched lattice overgrown with honeysuckle framed the kitchen-door, above which had been nailed a horseshoe for protection against witches. In the brick-paved courtyard, over against the walls, grew Sarah’s flowers, low clusters of white and purple violets, hollyhocks reaching up to the eaves, a thick clump of fragrant lavender to put between the sheets. Several fruit trees were in bloom, scenting the air with a light sweetness. A low wooden bench had two thatch-roofed beehives on it; attached to the wall beside the door was a tiny bird-house, lost in the pink roses; and a saucy green-eyed kitten sat on the door-sill cleaning its paws.

The house had beauty and peace and the suggestion of an active useful life. It was more than a hundred years old and five generations had lived in it, leaving behind them a comfortable aura of prosperity—not of wealth but of solid ease and plenty, of good food and warmth and comfort. It was a house to love.

As Amber went in she stooped and took the kitten up into her arms, caressing its smooth soft fur with her fingers, hearing it purr with a low, contented little rumble. Supper was over and only Sarah and fifteen-year-old Agnes remained in the kitchen—Sarah just drawing hot loaves of bread from the oven sunk into the wall beside the fireplace, Agnes mending a rushlight.

Agnes was talking, her voice petulant and resentful: “—and it’s no wonder they talk about her! I vow and swear, Mother, I’m ashamed she’s my cousin—”

Amber heard her but did not care just then. Agnes had said the same thing often enough before. She came into the room with a joyful little cry and ran to fling one arm about her aunt. “Aunt Sarah!” Sarah’s head turned and she smiled, but there was a look of searching worry in her eyes. “The inn’s full of noblemen! His Majesty’s coming home!”

The troubled expression was gone. “Are you sure, child!”

“Aye,” said Amber proudly. “They told me so!” She was full of the importance of her news and the wonderful thing that had just happened to her. She thought anyone must be able to tell by looking at her how greatly she had changed since leaving home two hours before.

Agnes looked frankly suspicious—and contemptuous—but Sarah turned and rushed out of the house toward the barns, where most of the men had gone to finish their evening tasks. Amber ran after her. And the moment the news was told, by both women at once, a general shout of rejoicing went up. Men came running out of the barns and cow-sheds, women rushed from their little cottages (there were several on the farm), and even the dogs barked with a loud gay sound as if they, too, would join in the hilarity.

Long live his Majesty, King Charles II!

At market the week before Matthew had heard rumours of a Restoration. They had been floating through the country since early March, carried by travellers, by itinerant pedlars, by all those who had commerce with the great world to the south. Tumbledown Dick, the Protector’s son, had been thrown out of his office. General Monk had marched from Scotland, occupied London, and summoned a free Parliament. Civil war seemed on the verge of breaking out again between civilians and the great mobilized armies. These events had left in their wake a trail of weariness and hope—weariness with the interminable troubles of the past twenty years, hope that a restored monarchy might bring them peace again, and security. They yearned for the old familiar ways. And now, if the Cavaliers were returning, it must mean that King Charles was coming home—a Golden Age of prosperity, happiness, and peace was about to begin.

When at last the excitement had begun to die down and everyone went back to his work, Amber started for the house. They would get up early tomorrow morning to leave for the Fair and she wanted to sleep long enough to look and feel her best. But as she was going by the dairy on her way into the kitchen she heard her name spoken softly, insistently, and she stopped. There was Tom Andrews standing in the shadows, reaching out a hand to catch her wrist as she went by.

Tom was a young man of twenty-two who worked for her Uncle, and he was very much in love with Amber who liked him for that reason—though she knew that he was by no means a match for her. For she was aware that her mother had left her a dowry which would enable her to marry the richest farmer in the countryside. But she found a certain luxury in Tom’s adoration and had encouraged him in it.

Now, with a quick glance around to make certain that neither Aunt Sarah nor Uncle Matt would see her, she went inside. The little room was cool, sweet and fresh, and perfectly dark. Tom caught hold of her roughly, one arm about her waist, his hand immediately sliding down into her blouse as he sought for her lips. Obviously this was not new to either of them, and for a moment Amber submitted, letting him kiss and fondle her, and then all at once she broke away, pushing violently at him.

“Marry come up, Tom Andrews! Who gives you leave to be so bold with me!”

She was thinking that it was incredible the kiss of an ordinary man should be so different from that of a lord, but Tom was hurt and bewildered and his hands reached out for her again.

“What’s the matter, Amber? What’ve I done? What’s got into you?”

Angrily she wrenched her hand free and ran out. For she now felt herself above such trifling with men of Tom Andrews’ station and was only eager to get upstairs and into bed where she could lie and think of Lord Carlton and dream of tomorrow.

The kitchen was deserted except for Sarah, sweeping the flagstoned floor one last time before going to bed. There were three or four rushlights burning, a circle of tiny moths darting about each tenuous reaching flame, and only the bell-like song of the crickets invaded the evening stillness. Matt came in, scowling, and without a word went to the barrel of ale which stood in a far cool corner of the room, poured himself a pewter mugful and drank it off. He was a middle-sized serious man who worked hard and made a good living and loved his family. And he was conscientious and God-fearing, with strong beliefs as to what was right and what was wrong, what was good and what was bad.

Sarah gave him a glance. “What is it, Matt? Is the foal worse?”

“No, she’ll live, I think. It’s that girl.”

His face was sour and now he went to stand before the great fireplace which was surrounded on all sides with blackened pots and pans, gleaming copper, pewter polished till it looked like silver. Bacon and hams, in great nets, hung from the overhead beams, and there were several thick tied-up bunches of dry herbs.

“Who?” asked Sarah. “Amber?”

“Who else? Not an hour since I saw her come out of the dairy and a minute later Tom Andrews followed her, looking like a whipped pup. She’s got the boy half out of his noddle—he’s all but useless to me. And what was she doing, pray, down at the inn with a pack of gentlemen?” His voice rose angrily.

Sarah went to stand the broom just outside the door and then closed it, throwing the bolt. “Hush, Matt! Some of the men are still in the parlour. I don’t think she was doing anything she shouldn’t have. She was just passing by and saw them—it’s natural she should stop.”

“And come home alone in the dark? Did it take her an hour to hear that the King’s to return? I tell you, Sarah, she’s got to get married! I won’t have her disgracing my family! D’ye hear me?”

“Yes, Matt, I hear you.” Sarah went to the cradle beside the fireplace where the baby had begun to stir and whimper, took him out and put him to her breast, then she went to sit down on the settle. She gave a weary little sigh. “Only she don’t want to get married.”

“Oh!” said Matt sarcastically. “So she don’t want to get married! I suppose Jack Clarke or Bob Starling’s not good enough for ’er—two of the finest young fellows in Essex.”

Sarah smiled gently, her voice soft and tired. “After all, Matt, she is a lady.”

“Lady! She’s a strumpet! For four years now she’s caused me nothing but trouble, and by the Lord Harry I’m fed up to the teeth! Her mother may have been a lady but she’s a—”

“Matt! Don’t speak so of Judith’s child. Oh, I know, Matt. It troubles me too. I try to warn her—but I don’t know what heed she pays me. Agnes told me tonight—Oh, well, I don’t think it means anything. She’s pretty and the girls are jealous and I suppose they make up tales.”

“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—”

CHAPTER TWO

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.

To cover her embarrassed confusion Amber looked with the greatest interest at each booth they passed. Finally, as they came to one where a young woman had a great deal of sparkling jewellery for sale, Lord Carlton glanced down at her.

“Do you see anything there you’d like to have?”

Amber gave him a quick look of delighted surprise. All of it looked wonderful to her, but of course it must be very expensive. She had never worn any such ornaments, though her ears had been pierced because Sarah said that when she married she was to have a pair of earrings which had belonged to her mother. Now, of course, if she came home wearing something like that Uncle Matt would be furious and Aunt Sarah would begin to talk to her again about getting married—but the lure of the jewels and the prospect of a gift from his Lordship was more than she could resist.

She answered without hesitation. “I’d like to have some earrings, m’lord.”

Already the young woman behind the counter, seeing them pause, had set up a noisy babble and was picking up necklaces and combs and bracelets for her inspection. Now, as Amber mentioned earrings she snatched up a pair from which dangled pieces of crudely cut glass, both coloured and clear.

“Look at these, sweetheart! Fine enough for the ears of a countess, I do vow! Lean over, dear, and I’ll try ’em on you. A little closer—There. Why! will you look at that, your Lordship! I vow and swear they make her quite another person, a lady of quality, let me perish! Here, my dear, look at yourself in this glass—Oh, I vow I’ve never seen such a change come over anyone as those jewels make in you, madame—”

She rattled on at a furious rate, holding up a mirror to let Amber see for herself the phenomenal improvement. And Amber leaned forward, tossing her hair back from her face so that her ears would show, her eyes shining with pleasure. They made her feel very grand, and also a little wicked. She gave Lord Carlton a sideways smile to see what he thought about it, longing to have them but afraid of making him think something bad about her if she seemed too eager. He grinned at her, then turned to the other woman.

“How much?”

“Twenty shillings, my lord.”

He took a couple of gold coins from his pocket and tossed them onto the counter. “I’m sure they’re worth every farthing of it.”

He and Amber started on, Amber delighted with her gift and positive that it was all real gold, diamonds, and rubies. “I’ll keep ’em always, your Lordship! I vow I’ll never wear another jewel!”

“I’m glad they please you, my dear. And now what are we to do? Would you care to see the play?”

With a nod of his head he indicated the tent which they were approaching. Amber, who had always wanted to see one—for they had been forbidden ever since she could remember-cast a quick wistful glance toward it. But now she hesitated, partly for fear of meeting someone inside whom she knew—perhaps even more because she wanted to be alone with him, away from everyone else.

“Oh—well—to tell you truly, sir, I don’t think my Uncle Matt would want me to go—”

And as she stood there beside him, wishing that he would make the decision for her, she saw—not ten yards away—Agnes and Lisbeth Morton and Gartrude Shakerly. All three of them were staring at her with their mouths wide open—amazed, indignant, shocked, furious with jealousy. Amber’s eyes met her cousin’s for one instant, she gave an involuntary gasp of horror, and then swiftly looked the other way and tried to pretend she had not seen them. Nervously her fingers began to pick at the brim of her bongrace.

“Uds Lud, your Lordship!” she muttered in an excited undertone. “There’s my cousin! She’s sure to run and tell my aunt! Let’s go over this way—”

She did not see the smile on Carlton’s face for already she had started off, making her way through the crowd, and without glancing around at the three girls he followed her. Amber looked back just once to make sure that Agnes was not at their heels and then she gave him the brightest smile she could muster. But she was scared now. Agnes would rush to find Sarah or Matt, and after that she would be sought out by some member of the family and summoned back to safety. They must get away, out of sight—for she was determined to have this hour or two, whatever discomfort it caused her later.

Now she said hastily: “Here’s the churchyard—let’s go in and make a wish at the well.”

He stopped then and she stopped too, looking up at him with a kind of apprehensive defiance. “My dear,” he said, “I think you’re only going to get yourself into trouble. Evidently your uncle’s a very moral gentleman and I’m sure he wouldn’t care to have his niece in the company of a Cavalier. Perhaps you’re too young to know it, but the Puritans and the Cavaliers don’t trust each other—particularly where it concerns female relatives.”

There was the same lazy sound in his voice, the same look of mild amusement on his face that had so strangely affected her the night before. For she was able to sense that this idle indifference but thinly concealed a temper at once relentless, fierce, and perhaps a little cruel. Without being able to recognize her own desires she was vaguely conscious of wanting to break through that veneer of urbanity, to experience herself something of the stormy power which was there just under the surface, not dormant but carefully leashed.

She answered him recklessly, for she was beginning to feel more sure of herself. “I don’t care about my uncle—My aunt always believes me—Leave me alone for that, your Lordship. Please, sir, I want to make a wish.”

He shrugged his shoulders and they started on, crossed the road and went through the ivy-grown lych-gate to where two small wells stood three feet or so apart. Amber dropped to her knees between them, plunging one hand in each until the cold water covered her wrists, and then closing her eyes she made a silent wish.

I wish for him to fall in love with me.

For a moment she remained still, concentrating intensely, and then lifting each cupped hand she drank the water. He reached out one hand and raised her to her feet.

“I suppose you’ve wished for all the world,” he said. “How long before you’ll get it?”

“In a year—if I believe it—but never, if I don’t.”

“But of course you do?”

“All my other wishes came true. Don’t you want to wish too?”

“A year isn’t long enough for most of my wishes.”

“Not long enough? Gemini! I’d thought a year must be long enough for anything!”

“When you’re seventeen, it is.”

She began looking around her then, partly because she could no longer meet the steady stare of his green-grey eyes, but also because she was searching for some place where they might go. The churchyard was too public. Other people were likely to wander that way at any time, and every man or woman or child seemed a threat to her happiness. She felt that they were all in league to call her away, to make her leave him and go back to the dry sterile protection of her uncle and aunt.

At the side of the church was a garden and beyond it the meadow which separated Heathstone from Bluebell Wood. Why, that was the place of course! In the wood it was cool and dark and there were many little nooks where no one would ever see them—she knew several, remembered from the Fairs of the past three or four years. Now she started off that way, hoping that he would think they had merely chanced upon it.

They went through the garden, climbed the stile, and set out across the meadow.

The grass there was sown thickly with buttercups and field daisies and wild yellow irises. Underfoot the ground was spongy with contained water and their feet sank a little at every step. Farther ahead near the river was an orange wash of colour where the marigolds grew, and as they came closer they could see the tall green reeds standing in the water. On the banks were pussywillow trees and across the stream at the edge of the forest was a cluster of aspen, their leaves glistening like sequins in the sun.

“I’d almost forgotten,” he said, “how beautiful England is in the spring.”

“How long since you left it?”

“Almost sixteen years. My mother and I went abroad after my father was killed at Marston Moor.”

“Sixteen years abroad!” she cried incredulously. “Lud, how’d you shift?”

He looked down at her, smiling with a kind of tenderness. “It wasn’t what any of us would have chosen, but the choice wasn’t ours. And for my part I’ve got no complaint to make.”

“You didn’t like it over there?” she demanded, shocked and almost indignant at this blasphemy.

Now they were crossing the swift-flowing river on a narrow shaky footbridge built of logs; below them the fish darted and dragon-flies zoomed low over the water and among the lily-pads that grew in a quiet pool. On the other side they entered the forest and took a wandering faint little path which led among the trees and ferns and flowering wild hyacinth. It was cool in there and still, fragrant with the smell of flowers and rotting leaves.

“I suppose it’s petty treason for an Englishman to admit he likes another country. But I liked several of them—Italy and France and Spain. But America most of all.”

“America! Why, that’s across the ocean!” That was, in fact, all she knew about America.

“A long way across,” he admitted.

“Was the King there?”

“No. I sailed once on a privateering expedition with his Majesty’s cousin, Prince Rupert, and another time on a merchant-fleet.”

She was entranced. To have seen such faraway places—to have even sailed across the ocean! It was incredible as a fairy-tale. Heathstone was as far from home as she had ever been, and that just twice a year, for the spring and autumn fairs. While the only person in her acquaintance who had been to London, twenty-five miles south-east of Marygreen, was the cobbler.

“What a fine thing it must be to see the great world!” She heaved a sigh. “Have you been to London, too?”

“Just twice since I’ve been old enough to remember. I was there ten years ago and then again a couple of months after Cromwell died. But I didn’t stay long either time.”

They had stopped now and he gave a glance up at the sky, through the trees, as though to see how much time was left. Amber, watching him, was suddenly struck with panic. Now he was going—out again into that great world with its bustle and noise and excitement—and she must stay here. She had a terrible new feeling of loneliness, as if she stood in some solitary corner at a party where she was the only stranger. Those places he had seen, she would never see; those fine things he had done, she would never do. But worst of all she would never see him again.

“It’s not time to go yet!”

“No. I have a while longer.”

Amber dropped onto her knees in the grass, her mouth pouting, eyes rebellious—and after a moment he sat down facing her. For several seconds she continued staring sulkily, mulling over her dismal future, and then swiftly her eyes went to his. He was watching her, steadily, carefully. She stared back at him, her heart pounding, and there began to steal over her a slow weakness and languor, so consuming that even her eyes felt heavy. Every part of her was tormented with longing for him. And yet she was half-scared, uncertain, and reticent, filled with a sense of dread almost greater than her desire.

At last his arm reached out, went around her waist, and drew her slowly toward him; Amber, tipping her head to meet his mouth, slid both her arms about him.

The restraint he had shown thus far now vanished swiftly, giving way to a passion that was savage, violent, ruthlessly selfish. Amber, inexperienced but not innocent, returned his kisses eagerly. Spurred by the caressing of his mouth and hands, her desire mounted apace with his, and though at first she had heard, somewhere far back in her mind, Sarah calling out to her, warning her, the sound and the image grew fainter, dissolved, and was gone.

But when he forced her back onto the earth she gave a quick movement of protest and a little cry—this was as far as her knowledge went. Something mysterious, almost terrible, must lie beyond. Her hands pushed at his chest and she gave a frightened little sob, twisting her face away from his. Her fear now was irrational, intense, almost hysterical.

“No!” she cried. “Let me go!”

She saw his face above her, and his eyes had become pure glittering green. Amber, crying, half-mad with passion and terror, suddenly let herself relax.

With slow reluctance Amber became again conscious of the surrounding world, and of both of them as separate individuals. She drew a deep luxurious sigh, her eyes still closed—she felt that she could not have moved so much as a finger.

After a long while he drew away from her and sat up, forearms resting on his knees, a long blade of grass between his teeth, staring ahead. His tanned face was wet with sweat and he mopped across it with the black-velvet sleeve of his doublet. Amber lay perfectly still beside him, eyes closed and one arm flung over her forehead. She was warm and drowsy, marvellously content, and glad with every fibre of her being that it had happened.

It seemed that until this moment she had been only half alive.

Aware of his eyes on her she turned her head slightly and gave him a lazy smile. She wanted to say that she loved him but did not quite dare, even now. She wished he would say that he loved her, but he only bent and kissed her, very gently.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I didn’t expect to find you a virgin.”

“I’m glad I was.”

Was that all he was going to say? She waited, watching him, beginning to feel uncertain and a little afraid. He looked again as he had when she first saw him—she could never tell now by his expression or manner how close they had been. She was surprised and hurt, for what had happened should have changed him as much as it had her. Nothing should ever be the same again, for either of them.

At last he got up, squinting overhead at the sun. “They’ll be waiting for me. We want to get into London before nightfall.” He reached down a hand to help her and she jumped up quickly, shaking out her hair, smoothing her blouse, touching her earrings to make sure she had not lost them.

“Lud, we mustn’t be late!”

Knocking at the dust on his hat, he gave her a glance of quick astonishment, then set it back on his head. He scowled, as though he had got more than he had bargained for.

At his look, Amber’s smile and excitement went suddenly dead. “Don’t you want me to go?” She was almost ready to cry.

“My dear, your aunt and uncle would never approve.”

“What do I care! I want to go with you! I hate Marygreen! I never want to see it again! Oh, please, your Lordship. Let me go with you.” Marygreen and her life there had suddenly become intolerable. He had crystallized all the restlessness, the thirst and longing for a broader, brighter life which had been working within her, half unrealized, ever since she had first talked to the cobbler many years ago.

“London’s no place for an unmarried girl without money or acquaintance,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone, which even Amber knew meant that he did not care to be troubled with her. And then he added, perhaps because he was sorry to hurt her, “I won’t be there long. And what would you do when I go? It wouldn’t be easy to come back here—I know well enough what an English village thinks of such escapades. And in London there aren’t many means of livelihood open to a woman. No, my dear, I think you’d better stay here.”

All of a sudden, to his surprise as well as her own, she burst into tears. “I won’t stay here! I won’t! I can’t stay here now! How d’ye think I’m to explain to my Uncle Matt where I’ve been these two hours—when a hundred people I know saw us leave the fair grounds!”

A look of annoyance crossed his face, but she did not see it. “I told you that would happen,” he reminded her. “But even if he’s angry it’ll be better for you to go back and—”

She interrupted him. “I’m not going back! I won’t live here any more, d’ye hear? And if you won’t take me with you—then I’ll go alone!” She stopped suddenly and stood looking up at him, angry and defiant, but pleading, too. “Oh, please—your Lordship. Take me along.”

They stood and stared at each other, but at last his scowl faded away and he smiled. “Very well, you little minx, I’ll take you. But I won’t marry you when we get there—and don’t forget, whatever happens, that I told you so.”

She heard only the first part of what he said, for the last seemed of no immediate importance. “Oh, your Lordship! Can I go! I won’t be any trouble to you, I swear it!”

“I don’t know about that,” he said slowly. “I think you’ll be aplenty.”

It was mid-afternoon when they rode into London over Whitechapel Road, passing the many small villages which hung on the edge of the city and which despite their nearness to the capital differed in no external aspect from Heathstone or Marygreen. In the open fields cattle grazed, wrenching lazily at the grass, and cottagers’ wives had spread their wash to dry on the bushes. As they rode along they were recognized for returning Royalists and were cheered wildly. Little boys ran along beside them and tried to touch their boots, women leant from their windows, men stopped in the streets to take off their hats and shout.

“Welcome home!”

“Long live the King!”

“A health to his Majesty!”

The walled City was a pot-pourri of the centuries, old and ugly, stinking and full of rottenness, but full of colour too and picturesqueness and a decayed sort of beauty. On all sides it was surrounded with a wreath of laystalls, piled refuse carted that far and left, overgrown with stinking-orage. The streets were narrow, some of them paved with cobblestones but most of them not, and down the center or along the sides ran open sewage kennels. Posts strung out at intervals served to separate the carriage-way from the narrow space left to pedestrians. And across the streets leaned the houses, each story overhanging the one beneath so as to shut out light and air almost completely from the tightest of the alleys.

Church-spires dominated the skyline, for there were more than a hundred within the walls and the sound of their bells was the ceaseless passionately beautiful music of London. Creaking signs swung overhead painted with golden lambs, blue boars, red lions, and there were a number of bright new ones bearing the Stuart coat-of-arms or the profile of a swarthy black-haired man with a crown on his head. In the country it had been sunny and almost warm but here the fog hung heavily, thickened with the smoke from the fires of the soap-boilers and lime-burners, and there was a penetrating chill in the air.

The streets were crowded: Vendors strolled along crying their wares in an age-old sing-song which was not intended to be understood, and a housewife could make almost all necessary purchases at her own doorstep. Porters carried staggering loads on their backs and swore loudly at whoever interrupted their progress. Apprentices hung in the shop doorways bawling their recommendations, not hesitating to grab a customer by the sleeve and urge him inside.

There were ballad-singers and beggars and cripples, satin-suited young fops and ladies of quality in black-velvet masks, sober merchants and ragged waifs, an occasional liveried footman going ahead to make way for the sedan-chair of some baronet or countess. Most of the traffic was on foot but some travelled in hackney-coaches which plied for public hire, in chairs, or on horseback, but when the traffic snarled, as it often did, these were liable to be stalled for many minutes at a time.

It took no sharp eye to see at a glance that the Londoner was a different breed from the country Englishman. He was arrogant with the knowledge of his power, for he was the kingdom and he knew it. He was noisy and quarrelsome, ready to start a murderous battle over which man got the walk nearest the wall. He had supported Parliament eighteen years before but now he prepared joyously for the return of his legitimate sovereign, drinking his health in the streets, swearing that he had always loved the Stuarts. He hated a Frenchman for his speech and his manners, his dress and his religion, and would pelt him with refuse or blow the froth from a mug of ale into his face before proposing a toast to his damnation. But he hated a Dutchman or any other foreigner almost as fiercely, for to him London was the world, and a man worth less for living out of it.

London—stinking dirty noisy brawling colourful—was the heart of England, and its citizens ruled the nation.

Amber felt that she had come home and she fell in love with it, as she had with Lord Carlton, at first sight. The intense violent energy and aliveness found a response in her strongest and deepest emotions. This city was a challenge, a provocation, daring everything—promising even more. She felt instinctively, as a good Londoner should, that now she had seen all there was to see. No other place on earth could stand in comparison.

The group of horsemen parted company at Bishopsgate, each going his separate way, and Bruce and Amber went on alone with two of the serving-men. They rode down Gracious Street and, at the sign of the Royal Saracen, turned and went through a great archway into the courtyard of the inn. The building enclosed it on every side and galleries ran all the way around each of the four stories. Bruce helped her to dismount and they went in. The host was nowhere about and after a few moments Bruce asked her to wait while he went out to find him.

Amber watched him go, her eyes shining with pride and admiration and the almost breathless excitement she felt. I’m in London! It can’t be true but it is. I am in London! It seemed incredible that her life could have changed so swiftly and so irrevocably in less than twenty-four hours. For she was determined that no matter what happened she would never return to Marygreen. Never as long as she lived.

Wearing Bruce’s cloak she moved nearer to the fire, reaching out her hands to its warmth, and as she did so she became conscious that there were three or four men sitting over against the diamond-paned casement, drinking their ale and watching her. She had a quick sense of pleased surprise, for these men were Londoners, and she turned her head a little to give them a view of her profile with its delicate slightly tilted nose, full lips, and small round chin.

At that moment Bruce came back, looking down and grinning at the little man who walked beside him and who reached scarcely to his shoulder. Evidently he was the host, and he seemed to be in a state of great excitement.

“By God, your Lordship!” he was shouting. “But I swear I thought you were dead! They were here not a half-hour after you’d gone, those Roundhead rogues, and they tore my house apart to find you! And when they didn’t they were in such a rage they carried me into the courtyard and flung me into the coalhole!” He made a noise and spat onto the floor. “Bah! Plague take ’em! I hope to see ’em all strung up like hams on Tyburn Hill!”

Bruce laughed. “I don’t doubt you’ll get your wish.” By now they had come to where Amber was standing and the host gave a start, for he had not realized she was there; then he made her a jerky little bow. “Mrs. St. Clare,” said Bruce, “may I introduce our host, Mr. Gumble?” She was relieved that he called her “Mrs.” St. Clare, for only very little girls and professed whores were called Miss.

Amber nodded her head and smiled, feeling that she had now advanced too far in the world to curtsy to an innkeeper. But she did have an uncomfortable moment of wondering if the look he gave her meant that he disapproved of his Lordship travelling with a woman who was not his wife. Bruce, however, seemed as casual as if she were his sister, and Mr. Gumble immediately took up the conversation where he had been interrupted:

“It’s mighty lucky you’re not a day later, my lord. I vow and swear my house has never been so crowded—all England’s come to London to welcome his Majesty home! By the end of the week there won’t be a room to let between here and Temple Bar!”

“How is it you haven’t set a crown on your Saracen to pass him for the King? Half the signs we’ve seen are King’s Heads or King’s Arms.”

“Ho! They are, at that! And have you heard what they’re saying now? If the King’s Head is empty—the King’s Arms are full!” He shouted with laughter at that, Bruce grinned, and even the men across the room gave out noisy guffaws. But Amber did not know enough of his Majesty’s reputation to quite understand the jest.

The little man took out his handkerchief and mopped at his perspiring brow. “Ah, well, we’ll be mighty glad to have him home, I warrant you. ’Sdeath, your Lordship! You’d never think what we’ve been through here! No cards, no dice, no plays. No drinking, no dancing. My God! They even wanted to make fornication a capital crime!”

Bruce laughed. “I’m glad I stayed abroad.”

But again Amber missed the point because she did not know what “fornication” meant. Still, she smiled appreciatively and tried to look as though such witticisms were a commonplace to her.

“Well, enough of this. Your Lordship must be hungry, and perhaps tired. I have the Flower de Luce still vacant—”

“Good! It brought me luck last time—Perhaps it will again.”

They started up the stairs and as they went they heard the men below begin to sing, their voices roaring out in jovial good humour, off key and untuned:

“The King he loves a bottle, my boys,

The King he loves a bowl!

He will fill a bumping glass

To every buxom lass

And make cuckolds of us all, my boys.

And make cuckolds of us all!”

At the top of the staircase Mr. Gumble unlocked a door and stepped back to let them go in. The room was of good size and, in Amber’s opinion, very magnificent, for she had never seen anything like it before.

The walls were panelled oak, dark and rich, and the chimney piece was also oak, elaborately carved with patterns of fruit and flowers. The floor was bare and all the furniture was in the heavy florid style belonging to the early years of the century, though the chairs and stools had been covered with thick cushions of sage-green or ruby-coloured velvet, worn just enough to have acquired a look of mellowness.

In the bed-chamber was an immense four-poster bed hung with red velvet curtains which could be pulled at night to enclose the occupants in privacy and suffocation. Two wardrobes stood against the wall for clothing. There were several stools and a couple of chairs, a small table with a mirror hung above it, and a writing-table. One side of the room was filled with long windows and had doors opening onto the gallery, from which a flight of stairs led down to the courtyard.

Amber stared about her, momentarily speechless, while Bruce said, “It looks like home. We’ll take our supper up here—Send whatever you think is best.”

After several assurances that he would furnish anything at all which either of them might require, Mr. Gumble left—and Amber burst suddenly out of her spell. Flinging off the cloak she ran to look out the parlour windows, down two stories into the street. A group of boys had built a fire there and were roasting skewered chunks of meat in derision of the Rump Parliament; the voices of the men still singing downstairs filtered up faintly through the solid walls.

“Oh! London! London!” she cried passionately. “I love you!”

Bruce smiled, tossing off his hat, and coming up behind her he slid one arm about her waist. “You fall in love easily.” And then, as she turned about quickly to look up at him he added, “London eats up pretty girls, you know.”

“Not me!” she assured him triumphantly. “I’m not afraid!”

CHAPTER THREE

AND now at last, when it had seemed that nothing would ever change, he was coming home to England and to his people. Charles Stuart was Charles Lackland no longer.

Eleven years before, a little band of Puritan extremists had beheaded his father—and the groan that had gone up from the watching thousands echoed across Europe. It was a crime that would forever lie heavily upon English hearts. Exiled in France, the dead King’s eldest son first knew that his efforts to save his father had failed when his chaplain knelt and addressed him as “your Majesty.” He turned and went into his bedroom to mourn alone. He found himself a king with no kingdom, a ruler with no subjects.

And in England the mighty heel of Cromwell came down on the necks of the English people. It was now a crime to be a member of the aristocracy, and to have been loyal to the late King was an offense often punishable by confiscation of lands and money. Those who could followed Charles II abroad, hoping to return someday in a happier time. A gloomy piety settled over the land, discouraging much that was essentially English: the merry good humour, the boisterous delight in sports and feasts and holidays, the robust enjoyment of drinking and dancing and gambling and love-making.

May-poles were chopped down, theatres closed. Discreet women left off their gaily coloured satin and velvet gowns, put away their masks and fans and curls and false hair, covered in the low necklines of their dresses and no longer dared touch their lips with rouge or stick on a black patch for fear of falling under the suspicion of having Royalist sympathies. Even the furniture grew more sober.

For eleven years Cromwell ruled the land. But England found at last that he was mortal.

When news of his illness began to get abroad an anxious crowd of soldiers and citizens gathered at the gates of the Palace. The country was in terror, remembering the chaotic years of the Civil Wars when bands of roving soldiers had pillaged through all the length and breadth of England, plundering the farms, breaking into and robbing houses, driving off the sheep and cattle, killing those who dared to resist. They did not want Cromwell to live, but they were afraid to have him die.

As night closed in, a great storm rose, gathering fury until the houses rocked on their foundations, trees were uprooted, and turrets and steeples crashed to the ground. Such a storm could have for them only one meaning. The Devil was coming to claim the soul of Oliver Cromwell. And Cromwell himself cried out in terror: “It’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!”

The storm swept all of Europe, raging through the night and on into the next day, and when Cromwell died at three o’clock in the afternoon it was still desolating the island. His body was immediately embalmed and buried with haste. But his followers clothed a waxen image of him in robes-of-state and set it up in Somerset House, as though he had been a king. In derision the people flung refuse at his funeral escutcheon.

But there was no one to take his place, and almost two years of semi-anarchy followed. His son, whom the Protector had designated to succeed him, had none of his father’s ability, and at last the military autocrats got rid of him—much to his own relief. Immediately skirmishes began between the cavalry and the infantry, between veterans and new recruits, and another civil war between the army and the people seemed inevitable. Despair flooded the land. To go through with it all again—when nothing had been gained the first time. They began to think of a restored monarchy with longing, as their only salvation.

General Monk, who had served Charles I but who had finally gone into service for Cromwell when the King was dead, marched from Scotland and occupied the capital with his troops. Monk, though a soldier, believed that the military must be subordinate to the civil power, and it was his hope to liberate the country from its slavery to the army. He waited cautiously to determine the temper of the country and then at last, convinced that the royalist fervour which swept through all classes was an irresistible tide, he declared for Charles Stuart. A free Parliament was summoned, the King wrote them a letter from Breda declaring his good intentions, and England was to be, once more, a monarchy—as she preferred.

London was packed to overflowing with Royalists and their wives and families, and if a man existed in all the city who did not wholeheartedly long for his Majesty’s return he was silent, or hidden. And the gradual return to laughter and pleasure which had been apparent since the end of the wars took a sudden violent spurt. Restraint was thrown off. A sober garment, a pious look were regarded as sure signs of a Puritan sympathy and were shunned by whoever would show his loyalty to the King. The world did a somersault and everything which had been vice was now, all at once, virtue.

But it was not merely a wish to appear loyal, a temporary exuberance at the returning monarchy, the joyousness of sudden relief from oppression. It was something which struck deeper, and which would be more permanent. The long years of war had broken families, undermined old social traditions, destroyed the barriers of convention. A new social pattern was in the making—a pattern brilliant but also gaudy, gay but also wanton, elegant but also vulgar.

On the 29th of May, 1600—his thirtieth birthday—Charles II rode into London.

It was for him the end of fifteen years of exile, of trailing over Europe from one country to another, unwanted anywhere because his presence was embarrassing to politicians trying to do business with his father’s murderer. It was the end of poverty, of going always threadbare, of having to wheedle another day’s food from some distrustful innkeeper. It was the end of the fruitless efforts to regain his kingdom which had occupied him incessantly for over ten years. Above all it was the end of humiliation and scorn, of being ridiculed and slighted by men who were his inferiors in rank and in everything else. It was at long last the end of being a man without a country and a king without a crown.

The day was clear and bright, brilliantly sunlit, perfectly cloudless, and people told one another that the weather was a good omen. From London Bridge to Whitehall, along his line of march, every street and balcony and window and rooftop was packed. And though the procession was not expected until after noon, by eight in the morning there was not a foot of space to be found. Trainbands to the number of 12,000 men lined the streets—they had fought against Charles I but were now detailed to keep the crowds in order for his son’s return.

The signs were draped with May flowers; great arches of hawthorn spanned every street; and green oak boughs had been nailed over the fronts of many buildings. Garlands looped from window to window were decorated with ribbons and silver spoons, brightly polished, gleaming in the sun. From the homes of the well-to-do floated tapestries and gold and scarlet and green banners—flags whipped out gallantly on even the humblest rooftop. The fountains ran with wine and bells pealed incessantly from every church steeple in the city. At last the deep ponderous booming of cannon announced that the procession had reached London Bridge.

It began to wind slowly through the narrow streets, the horses’ hoofs clopping rhythmically on the pavement, trumpets and clarinets shrilling, kettledrums rolling with a sound as of thunder echoing across the hills. The whole procession glittered and sparkled—fabulously, almost unbelievably splendid. It passed in a stream that seemed to have no end: troops of men in scarlet-and-silver cloaks, black velvet and gold, silver and green, with swords flashing, banners flying, the horses prancing and snorting, lifting their hoofs daintily and with pride. Hour after hour it went on until the eyes of the onlookers grew dazzled and began to ache, their throats were raw from shouting, and their ears roared with the incessant clamour.

The hundreds of loyal Cavaliers, men who had fought for the first Charles, who had sold their goods and their lands to help him and who had followed his son abroad, rode almost at the end. They were, without exception, handsomely dressed and mounted—though all this finery had been got on credit. After them came the Lord Mayor, carrying his naked sword of office. On one side of him was General Monk, a short stout ugly little man, who nevertheless sat his horse with dignity and commanded respect from soldiers and civilians alike. Next to the King he was perhaps the most popular man in England that day. And on the Lord Mayor’s other side rode George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham.

The Duke, a big, handsome, flagrantly virile man, with hair blonde as a god’s, smiled and nodded to the women in the balconies who flung him kisses and tossed flowers in his path. His rank was second only to that of the princes of the blood, and his private fortune was the greatest in England. For he had contrived to marry the daughter of the Parliamentarian general to whom his vast lands had been given, and so had saved himself. Many knew that for his numerous treacheries he was in disfavor amounting almost to disgrace, but the Duke looked as well pleased with himself as though he had personally engineered the Restoration.

Following them came several pages, many trumpeters whose banners bore the royal coat-of-arms, and drummers shining with sweat as they beat out a mighty roar. At their heels rode Charles II, hereditary King of England, Ireland, and France, Monarch of Great Britain, Defender of the Faith. A frenzy of adoration, hysterical and almost religious, swept through the people as he passed, and surged along before him. They fell to their knees, reaching out their hands toward him, sobbing, crying his name again and again.

“God bless your Majesty!”

“Long live the King!”

Charles rode slowly, smiling, raising one hand to them in greeting.

He was tall, more than six feet, with a look of robust good health and animal strength. His physique was magnificent and never showed to better advantage than on horseback. The product of many nationalities, he looked far more a Bourbon or a Medici than he did a Stuart. His skin was swarthy, his eyes black, and he had an abundance of black shining hair that fell heavily to his shoulders and rolled over on the ends into great natural rings; when he smiled his teeth gleamed white beneath a narrow moustache. His features were harsh and strongly marked, seared by disillusion and cynicism, and yet in spite of that he had a glowing charm that went out to each of them, warming their hearts.

They loved him on the instant.

On either side of him rode his two younger brothers. James, Duke of York, was likewise tall, likewise athletic, but his hair was blonde and his eyes blue, and more than any of the other children had he resembled his dead father. He was a handsome man, three years younger than the King, with thick well-defined dark eyebrows, a slight cleft in his chin and a stubborn mouth. But it was his misfortune that he did not have his brother’s instantly winning manner. And from the first they held in reserve their estimation cf him, critical of a certain coolness and hauteur they discovered in his expression which offended them. Henry, Duke of Gloucester, was only twenty, a happy vivacious young man who looked as though he was in love with all the world and did not doubt that in return it loved him.

It was late that night when at last the King begged off from further ceremonies and went to his own apartments in Whitehall Palace, thoroughly exhausted but happy. He entered his bed-chamber still wearing his magnificent robes and carrying on one arm a little black-and-tan spaniel with a plume-like tail, long ears, and the petulant face of a cross old lady. Between his feet scampered half-a-dozen dogs, yapping shrilly—but at a sudden raucous screech they skidded to a startled halt and looked up. There was a green parrot, teetering in a ring hung from the ceiling, eyeing the dogs and squawking angrily.

“Damn the dogs! Here they come again!”

Recognizing an old enemy the spaniels quickly recovered their courage and ran to stand in a pack beneath him, jumping and barking while the bird bawled down his curses. Charles and all the gentlemen who followed him laughed to see them, but finally the King gave a tired wave of his hand and the menagerie was removed to another room.

One of the courtiers thrust his fingers into his ears and shook his head vigorously. “Jesus! I swear I’ll never be able to hear again! If there’s a man left in London who can use his voice tomorrow—he’s a traitor and deserves to be hanged.”

Charles smiled. “To tell you the truth, gentlemen, I think I can blame only myself for having stayed so long abroad. I haven’t met a man these past four days who hasn’t told me he’s always desired my return.”

The others laughed. For now that they were home again, lords of creation once more and not unwanted paupers edged from one country to another, they found it easy to laugh. The years gone by had begun already to take on a kind of patina, and now they knew the story had a happy ending they could see that, after all, it had been a romantic adventure.

Charles, who was being helped out of his clothes, turned to one of the men and spoke to him in a low voice. “Did she come, Progers?”

“She’s waiting belowstairs, Sire.”

“Good.”

Edward Progers was his Majesty’s Page of the Backstairs. He handled private money transactions, secret correspondence, and served in an ex-officio capacity as the King’s pimp. It was a position of no mean prestige, and of considerable activity.

At last they trooped out and left him alone, giving them a lazy wave of his arm as he stood there in riding-boots, knee-length breeches, and a full-sleeved white linen shirt. Progers went also, by another door, and Charles strolled over to stand by the open windows, snapping his fingers impatiently while he waited. The night air was cool and fresh, and just below ran the river, where several small barges floated at anchor, their lanterns pricking the water like so many fireflies. The Palace lay round the bend of the Thames, but the innumerable bonfires back in the city had cast a glow against the sky and he could see the flashing yellow trails of rockets as they shot up and then dropped hissing into the water. The booming of cannon came again and again, and faintly the sound of bells still ringing.

For several moments he stood at the windows, staring out, but the expression on his face was moody and almost sad. He looked like a tired, bitter, and disappointed man, far more than like a king returned in triumph to his people. And then, at the sound of a door opening behind him, he spun swiftly on his heel, and his face lighted with pleasure and admiration.

“Barbara!”

“Your Majesty!”

She bent her head, curtsying low, as Progers backed discreetly out of the room.

She was some inches smaller than he but still tall enough to be imposing. Her figure was magnificent, with swelling breasts and small waist, suggesting lovely hips and legs concealed by the full satin skirts of her gown. She wore a violet velvet cloak, the hood lined in black fox, and she carried a great black-fox muff with a spray of amethysts pinned to it. Her hair was dark red, her skin clear and white, and the reflection from her cloak changed her blue eyes to purple. She was strikingly, almost aggressively beautiful, creating an immediate impression of passion and a wild, lusty untamableness.

Instantly Charles crossed and took her into his arms, kissing her mouth, and when at last he released her she tossed aside her muff and dropped off her cloak, aware of his eyes upon her. She stretched out her hands and he took both of them in his.

“Oh! it was wonderful! How they love you!”

He smiled and gave a slight shrug. “How they’d have loved anyone who offered them release from the army.”

She disengaged herself and walked a little from him toward the windows, consciously flirtatious. “Do you remember, Sire,” she asked him softly, “when you said you’d love me till kingdom come?”

He smiled. “I thought it would be forever.”

He came to stand behind her, his hands going to her breasts, and his head bent so that his mouth touched the nape of her neck. His voice was husky, deep, and there was a swift demanding impatience on his face. Barbara’s hands had tight hold on the window ledge and her throat arched back, but she stared straight ahead, out into the night.

“Won’t it be forever?”

“Of course it will, Barbara. And I’ll be here forever too. Come what may, there’s one thing I know—I’ll never set out on my travels again.” Suddenly he put one arm under her knees and swung her up off the floor, holding her easily.

“Where does the Monsieur think you are?” “The Monsieur” was their name for her husband.

She put her lips to his smooth-shaven cheek. “I told him I was going to stay the night with my aunt—but I think he guesses I’m here.” An expression of contempt crossed her face. “Roger’s a fool!”

CHAPTER FOUR

AMBER sat looking at herself in the mirror that hung above the dressing-table.

She was wearing a low-cut, lace-and-ribbon-trimmed smock made of sheer white linen, with belled, elbow-length sleeves and a long, full skirt. Laced over it was a busk—a short, tight little boned corset which forced her breasts high and squeezed two inches from the twenty-two her waist normally measured. With it on she had some difficulty both in breathing and in bending over, but it gave her such a luxurious sense of fashionableness that she would gladly have suffered twice the discomfort. Her skirt was pulled up over her knees so that she could see her crossed legs and the black silk stockings that covered them; there were lacy garters tied in bows just below her knees, and she wore high-heeled black-satin pumps.

Behind her hovered a dapper little man, Monsieur Baudelaire, newly arrived from Paris and having at his fingers’ ends all the very latest tricks to make an Englishwoman’s head look like a Parisienne’s. He had been working over her for almost an hour, prattling in a half-French and half-English jargon about “heartbreakers” and “kiss-curls” and “favourites.” Most of the time she did not understand what he said, but she had watched with breathless fascination the nimble manipulations of his combs and oils and brushes and pins.

Now, at last, he had her hair looking glossy as taffy-coloured satin, parted in the center and lying sleekly over the crown of her head in a pattern of shadowy waves. Fat shining curls hung to her shoulders, propped out a little by invisible combs to make them look even thicker. In back he had pulled all the hair up from her neck and braided and twisted it into a high scroll, securing it there with several gold-headed bodkins. It was the style, he told her, affected by all the great ladies and it quite transformed her features, giving her a piquant air at once provocative and alluring. Like a cook decorating his masterpiece he now fastened one pert black-satin bow at each temple and then stood back, clasping his hands, tipping his head to one side like a curious little bird.

“Ah, madame!” he cried, seeing not madame at all but only her hair and his own handiwork. “Oh, madame! C‘est magnifique! C’est une triomphe! C’est la plus belle—” Words failing him, he rolled his eyes and spread his hands.

Amber quite agreed. “Gemini!” She turned her head from side to side, holding up a hand mirror so as to see both back and front. “Bruce won’t know me!”

It had taken six weeks to get a gown made, for every good tailor and dressmaker in London had more orders than it was possible to fill. But Madame Darnier had promised to have her dress finished that afternoon and his Lordship had told her that he would take her wherever she wanted to go. She had been counting the days eagerly, for so far she had had little amusement but hanging out the windows to watch the crowds in the streets and running down to make purchases from every vendor who passed. Lord Carlton was gone a great deal of the time-where, she did not know—and though he had bought a coach which was usually at her disposal she was ashamed to go out in her country clothes.

Now, everything would be different.

When she was alone she had occasional pangs of homesickness, thinking of Sarah, whom she had really loved, of the numerous young men who had run at her beck and call, of what a great person she had been in the village where everything she did was noticed and commented upon. But more often she thought of that bygone life with scornful contempt.

What would I be doing now? she would ask herself.

Helping Sarah in the still-room, spinning, dipping rushlights, cooking, setting out for the market or going to church. It seemed incredible that such dull occupations could once have engaged her from the time she got up, very early, until she went to bed, also very early.

Now she lay as long as she liked in the mornings, snuggled deep into a feather mattress, dreaming, lost in luxurious reverie. And her thoughts had just one theme: Lord Carlton. She was violently in love, completely dazzled, dejected when he was gone and wildly happy when they were together. And yet she knew very little about him and most of that little she had learned from Almsbury, who had come twice when Bruce was away.

She found out that Almsbury was not his name, as she had thought, but his title, the whole of which was John Randolph, Earl of Almsbury. He had told her that they had passed through Marygreen because they had landed at Ipswich and gone north from there a few miles to Carlton Hall where Bruce had got a boxful of jewels which his mother had not dared take when they fled the country—the territory having been at that time in Parliamentary hands and overrun with soldiers. Marygreen and Heathstone lay on the main road from there to London.

It seemed to her a miracle wrought by God Himself that she had chanced to be standing near the green at the moment they had come along. For Sarah had first told Agnes to take the gingerbread, but Amber had coaxed until she let her go instead—she was always eager to get away from the farm and out into the wider world of Marygreen. Agnes had been furious but Amber had sailed off, humming to herself and keeping a quick eye for whatever or whoever might be about. And then she had loitered so long with Tom Andrews coming across the meadow that another quarter-hour and she would never have seen them at all. By such thoughts she convinced herself that they had been fated since birth to meet on the Marygreen common, the fifth day of May, 1660.

He told her that Bruce was twenty-nine, that both his parents were dead and that he had one younger sister who had married a French count and lived now in Paris. She was very much interested in what he had done during the sixteen years he had been away from England, and Almsbury told her something of that also.

In 1647 both of them had served as officers in the French army, volunteer service being an expected part of every gentleman’s training. Two years later Bruce had sailed with Prince Rupert’s privateers, preying on the shipping of Parliament. There had followed another interval in the French army and then a buccaneering expedition to the West Indies and the Guinea Coast with Rupert. Almsbury himself had no taste for life at sea and preferred to remain with the Court, which had led a wandering hand-to-mouth existence in taverns and lodging-houses over half of Europe. With Bruce’s return they had travelled together around the Continent, living by their wits; which meant, for the most part, by the proceeds from their gambling. And two years ago they had been in the Spanish army, fighting France and England. Both of them, he said, were the heirs of their own right hands.

It was the pattern of life which had been generally followed by the exiled nobility, with the difference that Carlton was more restless than most and grew quickly bored with the diversions of a court. To Amber it sounded the most lively and fascinating existence on earth and she always intended to ask Bruce to tell her more of what he had done.

To help her while away the days he had employed a French instructor, a dancing-master, a man to teach her to play the guitar, and another to teach her to sing: each one came twice a week. She practised industriously, for she wanted very much to seem a fine lady and thought that these accomplishments would make her more alluring to him. She had yet to hear Lord Carlton say that he loved her, and she would have learned to eat fire or walk a tightrope if she had thought it could call forth the magic words. Now she was counting heavily upon the effect her new clothes and coiffure might have on his heart.

Just then there was a knock at the outer door and Amber leaped up to answer it. But before she had got far a buxom, middle-aged woman came hurrying into the room, her taffeta skirts whistling, out of breath and excited.

She was Madame Darnier, another Parisian come to London to take advantage of the rabid francophilia which raged there among the aristocracy. Her black hair was streaked with grey and her cheeks were bright pink, a great chou of green satin ribbon was pinned atop her head just behind a frontlet of false curls, and her stiff shiny black gown was cut to a precarious depth. But still she contrived, as a Frenchwoman should, to look elegant rather than absurd. In her wake scooted a young girl, plainly dressed, bearing in her arms a great gilded wooden box.

“Quick!” cried Amber, clasping her hands and giving an excited little jump. “Let me see it!”

Madame Darnier, chattering French, motioned at the girl to lay the box on a table, off which she grandly swept Amber’s green wool skirt and striped cotton petticoat. And then, with a magnificent flourish, she flung up the lid and at one swoop snatched out her creation, holding it at arm’s length for them to see. Both Amber and the hairdresser gasped, falling back a step or two, while the other girl beamed with pride, sharing Madame Darnier’s triumph.

“Ohhh—” breathed Amber, and then, “Oh!” She had never seen anything so lovely in her life.

It was made of black and honey-coloured satin with a tight, pointed bodice, deep round neckline, full sleeves to the elbows, and a sweeping gathered skirt, over which was a second skirt of exquisite black lace. The cloak was honey-coloured velvet lined in black satin and the attached hood had a black fox border. There was a lace fan, long perfumed beige gloves, a great fox muff, and one of the black velvet vizard-masks which every fine lady wore when going abroad. In fact, all the trappings of high fashion.

“Oh, let me put it on!”

Madame Darnier was horrified. “Mais, non, madame! First we must paint the face!”

“Mais, oui! First we must paint the face!” echoed Monsieur Baudelaire.

They went back to the table, all four of them, and there Madame Darnier untied a great red-velvet kerchief and spread out its contents: bottles and jars and small China pots, a rabbit’s foot, an eyebrow brush, tiny booklets of red Spanish paper, pencils, beauty patches. Amber gave a surprised little shriek when the first eyebrow was pulled out, but after that she sat patiently, in a condition of ecstatic delight at the change she saw coming over herself. Arguing, chattering, shrieking among themselves, in half an hour they had made her into a creature of polish and sparkle and artifice—a worldly woman, at least in appearance.

And then at last she was ready to put on her gown, a major enterprise, for there must not be one wrinkle made in it, not a hair displaced, not a smear of lip-pomade or a smudge of powder. It took all three of them to accomplish that, with Madame Darnier scolding and clucking, screaming alternately at the girl and at Monsieur Baudelaire. But at last they had it settled upon her, Madame pulling the neckline down so that all of her shoulders and most of her breasts showed, and finally she put the fan into her hand and ordered her to walk slowly across the room and turn and face them.

“Mon Dieu!” she said then, with complacent satisfaction. “If you don’t outdo Madame Palmer herself!”

“Who’s Madame Palmer?” Amber wanted to know, looking down to examine herself.

“His Majesty’s mistress.” Madame Darnier rustled across the room to adjust a fold, twisting one sleeve a quarter of an inch, smoothing a tiny wrinkle from the bodice. “For today, at least,” she muttered, frowning, absorbed in what she was doing. “Next week—” She shrugged. “Perhaps someone else.”

Amber was pleased by the compliment—but now that she was finally ready she wished he would come. Outside she felt new and crisp as tissue-paper, but her stomach was fluttering with nervousness and her hands were moist. Maybe he won’t like me this way! She was beginning to feel scared and almost sick. Oh! why doesn’t he come!

And then she heard the door open and his voice called her name. “May I come in?”

“Oh!” Amber’s hand flew to her mouth. “He’s here! Quick!”

She began shooing them out and the three rushed everywhere at once, gathering up boxes and bottles and combs, flocking out the door of the bedroom just as he reached it. Bowing and curtsying as they went, they could not resist looking back gleefully over their shoulders to see what he would do. Amber stood in the middle of the room, lips parted, not even breathing, her eyes glistening with expectation. He walked through the doorway smiling and then suddenly stopped, surprise on his face, at the threshold.

“Holy Jesus!” he said softly. “How lovely you are!”

Amber relaxed. “Oh—do you like me this way?”

He came toward her and took the fingers of one hand to turn her slowly about, while she looked back at him over her shoulder—unwilling to miss the slightest expression of pleasure on his face. “You’re all the dreams of fair women a man ever had.” At last he picked up her cloak. “Now—Where shall we go?”

She knew exactly and was eager to set out. “I want to see a play!”

He grinned. “A play it is—but we’ll have to hurry. It’s almost four now.”

It was after four-thirty when they arrived at the old Red Bull Playhouse in upper St. John Street, and the performance had been under way for more than an hour. The theatre was hot and stuffy, almost humid, and it smelt strongly of sweat and unwashed bodies and powerful perfumes. There was a bustle and stir over the house which never ceased, and dozens of heads turned curiously as they went to their seats in the fore of one of the boxes. Even the actors took time out to give them a glance.

Amber was completely intoxicated, trying to see everything at once, thrilled by the whole noisy, bad-smelling, ill-bred but strangely exciting conglomeration. She felt that the triumph was peculiarly her own—and did not realize they would have stared at any other pretty woman arriving late. Any diversion was a welcome one, for neither players nor audience seemed seriously interested in the performance.

All the bottom floor of the house was called the pit and its benches were crowded with about three hundred young men who buzzed eternally among themselves. A few women were seated there also, most of them rather well-dressed but boldly over-painted, and when Amber asked Bruce in a loud whisper who they were he replied that they were prostitutes. There had been no prostitutes in Marygreen and if there had they would have been set up in the stocks and pelted with refuse by every right-thinking farmer and housewife. And so she was amazed to see that here the young men used them with apparent respect, talked to them openly, and even occasionally kissed or embraced one of them. Nor did the ladies themselves seem in any wise self-conscious or remorseful. They laughed and chattered loudly, locked happy and quite at their ease.

Ranged against the apron-shaped stage, which extended out into the pit, stood half-a-dozen girls with baskets over their arms, bawling out their wares—oranges and lemons and sweetmeats—which they sold at exorbitant prices.

Above the pit, but down close to the stage, was a balcony divided into boxes, and there sat the ladies of quality, gorgeously gowned and jewelled, with their husbands or lovers. Above that was another balcony filled with women and rowdies. And in one still higher were the apprentices who beat time to the music with their cudgels, gave a loud hum by way of disapproval and, when really indignant, sounded their cat-calls—loud whistles that filled the theatre.

Essentially the audience was aristocratic—the harlots and ’prentices being almost the only outsiders—and the ladies and gentlemen came to see and to be seen, to gossip and to flirt. The play was a secondary consideration.

Amber found nothing to disappoint her. It was all she had expected, and more.

Taut with excitement and happiness, she sat very straight beside Bruce, her eyes round and sparkling and travelling from one side of the theatre to the other. So this was the great world! Yet she could not but be poignantly aware of her new gown, her elaborate coiffure, the scent of her perfume, and the unfamiliar but pleasurable feeling of cosmetics on her skin, the silken caress of her fur muff beneath her fingers, the voluptuous display of her breasts.

And then, as she looked around at the boxes near them, she encountered the eyes of two women who were leaning slightly forward, watching her—and the expression on their faces was a sudden rude shock.

They were both handsome, richly dressed, sparkling with jewels, and they had an indefinable hauteur and confidence which she already associated with quality. Bruce had bowed and spoken to them when they came in—as he had spoken to several other men and women nearby and had acknowledged waves of greeting from gentlemen in the pit. But now, as her eyes met theirs, they gave her a sweeping contemptuous glance, exchanged smiles with each other; one woman murmured something behind her fan—and with a concerted lift of the eyebrows they both looked away.

For an instant Amber continued to stare at them, surprised and hurt, almost sick with humiliation, and then she looked down at her fan and bit her lower lip to force back the sudden impulse of tears. Oh! she thought in passionate mortification, they think I’m a harlot! They despise me! All at once the glory was gone from her outing into the gay world and she wished she had never come, had never exposed herself to their scorn and disdain.

When Bruce, who had evidently seen the exchange of glances, gave her hand a warm reassuring pressure her spirits lifted a little and she flung him a look of gratitude. But though she returned her eyes to the stage then and tried to take an interest in what was going on she found it impossible. She only wished that the play would end so that she might get back to the comforting seclusion of their apartment. How ashamed Sarah would be, how furious Uncle Matt, to see to what a condition she had come!

At last the epilogue had been spoken and the audience began to rise. Bruce turned to her with a smile, putting her cloak over her shoulders. “Well, how did you like it?”

“I—I liked it.” She did not look him in the eyes and dared not glance about for fear of confronting the two women again, or some other sneering face.

Below in the pit several of the men were clustering about the orange-girls, kissing them, handling them familiarly, while others indulged in horseplay among themselves, clapping one another on the back and pulling off hats. The actor who had impersonated Juliet, still in his long blond wig and a gown with padded chest, came out and stood talking to some of the beaus. Others were climbing up onto the stage and going back behind the scenes. Overhead they could hear tramping feet making for the exits, and the ladies and gentlemen about them were pausing in small groups—the women kissing one another and squealing while the men smiled with smug tolerance. But all the while Amber stood with a troubled frown on her face, her eyes fixed on Bruce’s cravat, wishing they would all get out.

“Shall we go, my dear?” He offered her his arm.

Outside the theatre they made their way through the loiterers to his coach where it stood in line with several others, all jamming the streets until foot-traffic was almost at a standstill. Everyone was pushing to get through and vendors and porters were swearing angrily. All of a sudden a beggar thrust himself before them, making weird undistinguishable sounds, his mouth open, and he put his face up to Amber’s to show her where his tongue bled from having been cut out. Sickened with pity and a little frightened she drew closer to Bruce, holding his arm.

Bruce tossed the man a coin. “Here. Out of the way.”

“Oh—that poor man! Did you see him? Why did they do that to him?”

They had reached the coach and he handed her in. “There was nothing wrong with him. It’s a trick they have of rolling their tongues out of sight and poking them with a stick until they bleed.”

“But why doesn’t he work instead of doing that?”

“He does work. Don’t think begging’s the easiest profession in the world.”

She sat down while he turned to talk to two young men who had called his name, and she saw them both looking at her from over his shoulder, frank appraisal in their eyes. For one bold instant Amber returned their stares, lifting her brows and slanting the corners of her eyes—and then suddenly she blushed and looked the other way. Oh, Lord! they were most likely thinking the same thing about her that the women had! But still she could not resist sneaking them another slow cautious glance—and her eyes met once more the full stare of the handsomer one. Swiftly she glanced away. And yet—there was no doubt it did not seem so insulting, coming from a man.

Bruce finally turned back, spoke to the driver and got in, sitting down beside her as the coach gave a jog and started to move. He took one of her hands in his. “You’ve set the town by its ears. That was my Lord Buckhurst and he says you’re far more beautiful than Barbara Palmer.”

“You mean the King’s mistress?”

“Yes. How the devil do you manage to get all the current gossip?” He looked down at her, amused as though she were a pretty doll or a plaything.

“The dressmaker told me about her. Bruce—who were those two ladies? The ones in the next box that waved to you?”

“Wives of friends of mine. Why?”

She looked down at her fan, frowning, counting the sticks. “Did you see how they looked at me? Like this—” She pulled her face into a sudden grimace, a perfect though somewhat exaggerated and malicious imitation of the stares they had given her. “They think I’m a harlot—I know they do!”

Bruce gave her a look of surprise and then, to her astonishment, threw back his head and laughed.

“Well!” she cried, offended. “What the devil is there to laugh at, pray?”

She was beginning already to pick up some of his expressions, words and phrases Matt Goodegroome would never have allowed even his sons to use. It seemed to Amber that all fine persons swore and that it was a mark of good breeding.

“I’m sorry, Amber. I wasn’t laughing at you. But to tell you the truth I think they glared at you for another reason—jealousy, no doubt. Certainly neither of them has any reason to have an ill opinion of another woman’s character. Between ’em I think they’ve laid with most of the men who went to France.”

“But you said they’re married!”

“So they are. If they weren’t they might have been more discreet.”

She was relieved, but at the same time a quick suspicion entered her mind. Could he have been one of those men? But she promptly decided that if he had been he would never have mentioned the matter at all—and she thrust that thought aside. She began to feel happy again, and eager for the next adventure.

“Where are we going now?”

“I thought you might like to have supper at a tavern.”

Back in the City they stopped in New Street before a building which bore the sign of a great golden eagle. When she stepped down Amber lifted her skirts high to show her black lace garters, just as she had seen several ladies do outside the theatre. Then, as they were about to go in the door, they heard a loud shout in a familiar masculine voice.

“Hey! Carlton!”

Curiously they looked around. It was Almsbury, riding by in a hackney jammed with several other men, and as the coach pulled up he jumped out, waved his companions goodbye and came toward them at a run. He blinked his eyes twice as he saw Amber and then swept off his hat in a deep bow.

“Holy Christ, sweetheart! Damn me if you aren’t as beautiful as a Venetian whore!”

The delighted smile froze on Amber’s face.

Well! So that was what he thought of her too! Her eyebrows drew together in a furious scowl, but at a glance from Bruce the Earl hastened to repair his breach. He shrugged his shoulders and made a comical face.

“Well—after all, you know, Venetian prostitutes are the prettiest women in Europe. But then, I suppose if you—”

He paused, watching her with an ingratiating grin and Amber slowly raised her eyes to his again. She could not resist his friendliness and all of a sudden she smiled. He took her arm. “Lord, sweetheart, you know I wouldn’t offend you for anything on earth.” The three of them went inside and, at Bruce’s request, were shown upstairs to a private room.

After the men had ordered, the waiter brought them a small barrelful of oysters and they began cracking them open, eating them raw with a sprinkle of salt and a few drops of lemon juice, scattering the shells on the table and floor. Almsbury predicted that oysters would become the staple food at Court and when Amber looked puzzled Bruce told her what he meant. She laughed heartily, thinking it a very good joke.

By the time they had finished the oysters the rest of the meal appeared: a roast duck stuffed with oysters and onions, fried artichoke bottoms, and a rich cheesecake baked in a crust. After that there was Burgundy for the two men, white Rhenish for Amber, fruit, and some nuts to crack. For a long while they sat at the table talking, all of them warm and well-fed and content, and Amber quite forgot her earlier chagrin.

The wine was stronger than the ale to which she was accustomed and after a couple of glasses she became quiet and drowsy, and sat with her eyes half closed listening to the men talk. A sense of lightness pervaded her, as though her head had become detached and floated somewhere far above her. She watched Bruce admiringly, every expression that crossed his face, every gesture of his hands. And when he would turn to smile at her or, as he did once or twice, lean over to brush his lips across her cheek, her happiness soared dizzily.

At last she whispered in his ear and, when he answered, got up and crossed the room to a small closet. While she was in there she heard a knock at the outer door, another voice speaking, and then the sound of the door closing again.

When she came out, Almsbury was sitting at the table alone, pouring himself another glassful of wine. He glanced around over his shoulder. “He’s been called out on business but he’ll be back in a moment. Come here where I can look at you.”

Ten minutes or more dragged slowly by with Amber watching the door, looking up with swift eager expectancy at each slight sound, nervous and unhappy. It seemed as though he had been gone an hour when the waiter came in. He bowed to Almsbury.

“Sir, his Lordship regrets that he has been called away on a matter of important business, and asks that you do him the kindness of carrying madame to her lodging.”

Almsbury, who had been watching Amber while the man delivered his message, nodded his head. And now Amber looked at him with her face white, her eyes as hurt as if she had been struck.

“Business,” she repeated softly. “Where can he go on business at this hour?”

Almsbury shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, sweetheart. Here, have another drink.”

But though Amber took the wine-glass he proffered she merely sat and held it. For a month and a half she had looked forward to this night—and now he must go off somewhere on business. Every time she asked him where he had been or where he was going it was always the same answer—“business.” But why tonight? Why this one night for which she had planned so long and from which she had hoped so much? She felt tired and discouraged and hung listlessly in her chair, scarcely speaking, so that after a few minutes Almsbury got up and suggested that they go.

During the ride back she did not trouble herself to make conversation with the Earl, but when they reached the Royal Saracen she asked him if he would care to come upstairs, half hoping that he would refuse. But he accepted readily and, while she went on ahead to take off her gown, stopped in the taproom for a couple of bottles of sack. Coming out of the bedroom in a pair of clopping mules and a gold satin dressing-gown—another recent acquirement—she found him stretched comfortably on a cushion-piled settle before the fire. He gave a wave of his arm, signalling her to come to him and, when she sat down beside him, took hold of one of her hands, looked at it reflectively for a moment and then touched it to his lips. Frowning, Amber stared off into space, scarcely conscious of him.

“Where d’you think he went?” she asked at last.

Almsbury shrugged, tilted the bottle again.

“What the devil is this ‘business’ he’s always about? Do you know what it is?”

“Every Royalist in England has business nowadays. One wants his property back. Another wants a sinecure that’ll pay a thousand a year for helping the King on and off with his drawers. The galleries are full of ’em—country squires and old soldiers and doting mamas who’ve heard the King has an eye for pretty women. They all want something—including me. I want Almsbury House back again and my lands in Herefordshire. His Majesty couldn’t please all of us if he were King Midas and high Jupiter rolled into one.”

“What does Bruce want? Carlton Hall?”

“No, I don’t think so. It was sold, not confiscated, and I don’t believe they’ll give back property that was sold.” He finished the bottle and leaned over to pick up another one.

The Earl could drink more with less effect to himself than any man she had ever seen, and Bruce had told her that it was because he had lived so long in taverns that his blood had turned to alcohol. She still was not sure whether he had meant it as a joke or the solemn truth.

“I don’t see what he can want,” she said. “As rich as he is.”

“Rich?” Almsbury seemed surprised.

“Well—isn’t he?”

Amber knew very little about money for she had never had in her possession more than a few shillings at a time and could scarcely tell the value of one coin from another. But it seemed to her that Lord Carlton must have fabulous wealth to own a coach-and-four, to wear the clothes he did, to buy such wonderful things for her.

“By no means. His family sold everything they had to help the King and what they didn’t sell was taken from them in the decimations. That jewellery he found at Carlton Hall was just about everything that was left. No—he’s not rich. In fact, he’s damned near as poor as I am.”

“But what about the coach—and my clothes—”

“Oh. Well—he has that much. A man who knows what he’s about can sit down for a few hours at cards or dice and come away several hundred pounds to the good.”

“Cheating?” She was rather shocked, almost inclined to think that Almsbury was lying.

But he smiled. “Well, perhaps he plays a little upon advantage. But then, we all do. Of course some of us are clever at it and some not so clever—Bruce can slur and knap with any man in Europe. He made his living for most of fifteen years with a pair of dice and a pack of cards—and he lived a damned sight better than most of us did. in fact, the other night I saw him win twenty-five hundred in four hours at the Groom Porter’s Lodge.”

“Is that what all this business is he goes upon—gambling?”

“Partly. He needs money.”

“Then why doesn’t he ask the King for it—since everyone else does?”

“My dear, you don’t know Bruce.”

At that moment she heard a coach come banging down the street and left him to rush to the window—but to her disappointment it continued on by and rounded the next corner. She stayed there, looking out into the darkness, for there were no street lights of any sort but only the pale gleam from the new moon and the stars. The streets were deserted, not a person was in sight. London citizens stayed home at night unless they had a very good reason to go abroad, and then they took with them an escort of linkboys or footmen.

In the distance she saw the glow of the bellman’s lantern and could hear his monotonous refrain: “Past ten o‘clock of a fine warm summer’s night and all’s well. Past ten o’clock—”

Completely absorbed in her worries about Bruce, she had forgotten that Almsbury was there at all. But now she felt his arms go around her, one hand sliding into her dressing-gown, and with the other he turned her about and kissed her on the mouth. Astonished, she gave a little gasp and then suddenly shoved him away, slapping him resoundingly across the face.

“Marry come up, sir!” she cried. “A fine friend you are! When his Lordship hears about this he’ll run you through!”

He stared at her for an instant in surprise, and then threw back his head and laughed. “Run me through! Jesus, sweetheart, but you’ve a droll wit! Come, now—surely you don’t think Bruce would give a damn if I borrowed his whore for a night?”

Amber’s eyes blazed in violent anger. Then in a fury she kicked out at his shins, beginning to pound his chest with her clenched fists. “I’m not a whore, you damned dog! Get out of here—Get out of here or I’ll tear you to pieces!”

“Hey!” He grabbed her wrists, giving her a shake. “Stop it, you little vixen! What are you trying to do? I’m sorry. I apologize. I didn’t—”

“Get out, you varlet!” she yelled.

“I’m going. I’m going—Hold your bawling.”

Picking up his hat, which she had knocked off, he crossed to the door. There, with his hand on the knob, he turned to face her. She was still glaring at him, fists planted on her hips, but tears glistened in her eyes and it was all she could do to keep from crying. His flippancy vanished.

“Just one thing, sweetheart, before I go. Contrary to what your Aunt Sarah may have told you—a man’s not insulting you when he invites you to bed. And if you’d be honest you’d admit yourself you’re flattered that I did. For if there’s one thing a woman will never forgive a man—it’s not wanting to lie with her. Now I’ll trouble you no more. Good-night.” He made her a bow and opened the door.

Amber stood and looked at him like a little girl getting a lesson in etiquette from her grown-up uncle. She was beginning to find that her suit of country morals was as much out of fashion here in London as her cotton petticoat and green woolen skirt had been. Now she held out her hand in an impulsive but still uncertain gesture, and took two or three steps toward him.

“My lord—don’t go. I’m sorry—Only—”

“Only you’re in love with Bruce.”

“Yes.”

“And so you think you shouldn’t lie with another man. Well, my dear, perhaps someday you’ll discover that it doesn’t make so very much difference after all. And if you do—Your servant, madame.” He made her another bow.

She stood and looked at him, not knowing what to do next. For though she had to admit to herself that she really was, in a sense, flattered by his proposal, she could not agree with him that fidelity to the man you loved was of no importance. It seemed incredible she could ever so much as think of lying with another man. She never would, not as long as she lived.

And then there came again the sound of a coach rattling over the cobblestones; she whirled around and ran once more to the window. The coach came careening down the street, rocking from side to side, the driver hauled on the reins and it stopped just beneath. Nimbly as a monkey the footman got down from his perch and ran to open the door, and after a moment Lord Carlton got out, turning then to speak to someone inside. Another footman held a flaring torch which lighted one side of his Lordship’s face and threw stark shadows up the street and upon the walls of the houses.

Amber was about to lean out and call a greeting when, to her horror, a woman thrust her head from the coach-window and she caught a glimpse of a beautiful white face, laughing, and a tumbling mass of red hair. Bruce’s head bent above her and she heard their voices murmuring. After a moment he stepped back, bowing and removing his hat, the footman closed the door and the coach rolled away. He turned and disappeared through the arch below.

Amber stood clutching at the sill, almost sick enough to faint. And then, by a great physical effort, she straightened again and turned slowly about. The colour had washed out of her face and her heart was beating violently. For several moments she stood and stared before her—not even seeing Almsbury who was watching her with a kind of compassionate sympathy on his face. She let her eyes close and one hand went up slowly to her forehead.

At that moment the door opened and Bruce came in.

CHAPTER FIVE

HE paused as if in surprise, glancing from one of them to the other, but before he had had time to say a word Amber burst into tears and ran into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her and flinging herself onto the bed.

The sobs wrenched and tore at her and she gave herself up to them with complete abandon. This was the most miserable moment in all her life and she had no wish to be brave and restrained. Suffering in silence was not her way. And, when he did not come in immediately, running after her as she had expected, she grew increasingly hysterical—until finally she began to retch.

But finally she heard the door open and then the sound of his footsteps crossing the floor. Her sobs became louder than ever. Oh! she thought vehemently, I wish I’d die! Right now! Then he’d be sorry!

The room began to glow as he lighted a couple of candles. She heard him toss his cloak and hat aside and unbuckle his sword, but still he said nothing. At last she lifted her head from her arms and looked at him; her face was streaked and her eyes red and swollen.

“Well!” she cried, challenging him.

“Good evening.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“What else should I say?”

“You might at least tell me where you’ve been—and who you’ve been with!”

He was untying his cravat now, and taking off his doublet. “Don’t you think that that’s my business?”

She gasped, as hurt as if he had struck her. She had given herself to him so wholeheartedly, with not a single reservation, that she had made herself believe he had done the same. Now she realized all at once that he had not. His life had not changed, his habits had not changed, she had scarcely touched him at all.

“Oh,” she said softly, and looked away.

For a moment he stood watching her, and then he came suddenly and sat down on the bed. “I’m sorry, Amber, I didn’t mean to be rude. And I’m sorry I had to leave you—spoil your evening that you’ve been counting on for so long. But it really was business that called me away—”

She looked at him skeptically, the tears brimming over her eyes again and falling in drops onto her satin gown. “Business indeed! What kind of business does a man do with a woman!”

He smiled, his eyes tender and yet amused. She always had the feeling, and it made her uncomfortable, that he did not quite take her seriously.

“More than you might imagine, darling, and I’ll tell you why: The King can’t possibly satisfy or repay everyone who was loyal to him—he’s got to make a choice from among a thousand claims, one as good as another. I don’t think his Majesty could ever be persuaded by a woman—or anyone else—to do something he didn’t want to, but when it comes to choosing between several things he’d like to do—why then the right woman can be very useful in helping him to make up his mind. Just now there’s no one who can do more to persuade the King than a young woman named Barbara Palmer—who’s been kind enough to use her influence in my behalf—”

Barbara Palmer!

So that was the woman she had seen!

She had a sudden horrified sense of defeat, for certainly the woman who could charm a king must have some almost unearthly allure. Her confidence plunged, beaten and overwhelmed by her own superstitious belief that a King and everything which surrounded him was more than half divine. Her head dropped into her hands.

“Oh, Amber, my dear—please. It’s not as serious as that. She happened to be driving by and saw my coach and sent up to ask if I was there. I’d have been a damned fool to refuse. She’s helped me get what I wanted more than anything on earth—”

“What? Your lands?”

“No. Those were sold. I won’t get them back again unless I can buy out the present owner, and I don’t think I will. She helped me persuade the King and his brother to go into a privateering venture with me; they both contributed several thousand pounds. I got my letter-of-marque yesterday.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a letter from the King authorizing the bearer to seize the vessels and cargo of other nations. In this case I can take Spanish ships sailing off the Americas—”

Her fear and jealousy of Barbara Palmer vanished.

“You’re not going to sea?”

“Yes, Amber, I am. I’ve bought two ships of my own, and with the money I’ll get from the King and York I can buy three more. As soon as they’re provisioned and the men are signed we’ll sail.”

“Oh, Bruce, you can’t go away! You can’t!”

A flicker of impatience crossed his face. “I told you that day in Heathstone I wouldn’t stay long. It’ll be two months yet, or perhaps a little longer, but as soon as I can, I’m going.”

“But why? Why don’t you get a—a—I forget what Almsbury called ’em—where you get money for helping his Majesty put on his drawers?”

He laughed, though her face was passionately serious. “As it happens I don’t want a what-d‘you-call-’em. I need money, but I’ll get it my own way. Crawling on my belly for the rest of my days isn’t the way I want to do it.”

“Then take me with you! Oh, please, Bruce! I won’t be any trouble—let me go along, please!”

“I can’t, Amber. Life on ship-board is hard enough for a man—the food’s rotten, it’s cold and it’s uncomfortable, and there’s no getting off when you get tired of it. And if you think you wouldn’t cause any trouble—” He smiled, running his eyes over her significantly. “No, my dear—it’s no use talking about it.”

“But what about me? What’ll I do when you go? Oh, Bruce, I’ll die without you!” She looked at him pitifully and reached over to put her hands on his arms, already forlorn as a lost puppy.

“That’s what I asked you when you wanted to come to London with me. Or have you forgotten? Listen to me, Amber. There’s only one thing for you to do—go back to Marygreen right now. I’ll give you as much money as I can. We’ll think of some tale or other to tell your aunt and uncle—I know it won’t be easy for you, but even in a village a large sum of money doesn’t go unrespected. After a while the gossip will run down, and you can get married—Wait a minute, let me finish. I know I’m to blame for having brought you here, and I won’t pretend my motives were noble. I wasn’t thinking about you or what would happen to you, and to tell the truth I didn’t very much care. But I care now; I don’t want to see you hurt any more than I can help. You’re young and you’re innocent and you’re beautiful, and all that with your enthusiasm for living can easily ruin you. I wasn’t joking when I said that London eats up pretty girls —the town’s aswarm with rogues and adventurers of every conceivable breed. You’d be snapped up in a minute. Believe that I know what I’m saying and go back home, where you belong.”

Amber’s eyes sparkled angrily, and she lifted her chin as she answered him. “I a’nt so innocent, my lord! I warrant you I can look to my own interests as well as the next one! And don’t think I can’t see what you’re about, either! You’ve grown tired of me now the King’s mistress has caught your eye, and think to fob me off with some lame story that I should go back for my own good! Well, you don’t know what you’re talking about! My Uncle Matt wouldn’t so much as let me in the house —money or no! And the constable would likely set me up in the stocks! Every man in the parish would laugh in his fist at me and—” She stopped suddenly and burst into tears again. “I won’t do it! I won’t go home!”

He reached over and took her into his arms. “Amber, my darling, don’t cry. I swear it, I don’t give a damn about Barbara Palmer. And I was telling the truth when I said I thought you should go back for your own sake. I still do. But it isn’t because I’ve grown tired of you. You’re lovely—you’re more desirable than you can know. My God, no man could grow tired of you—”

Under his stroking fingers her sobs grew quieter, a warmth began to come over her and she purred like a kitten. “You aren’t tired of me, Bruce? I can stay with you?”

“If you want—But I still think—”

“Oh, don’t say it! I don’t care! I don’t care what happens to me—I’m going to stay with you!”

He gave her a light kiss and got up to finish undressing while she sat on her knees watching him, glowing admiration in her eyes. His body was magnificent—with a splendid breadth through chest and shoulders, sleek narrow hips, and handsome muscular legs. His flesh was hard-surfaced, the skin of his torso browned by exposure. Every movement he made had the easy gracefulness of an animal, seemingly unhurried, yet lithe and quick.

He crossed the room to snuff out the candles. And suddenly Amber could restrain herself no longer.

“Bruce! Did you make love to her?”

He did not answer but gave her a glance, half-scowling, that intimated he considered the question a superfluous one, and then his head bent and he blew out the last candle.

From the beginning Amber had both half-hoped and half-feared that she would become pregnant. She hoped because her love for him yearned to be fulfilled in every way. But she feared, too, because she knew that he would not marry her, and it was her vivid memory that a woman who gave birth to a bastard child had no very tender treatment at the hands of the community. Two years before in Marygreen a daughter of one of the cottagers had become pregnant and had either not known or refused to tell the father’s name, so that sheer force of public antagonism drove her to leave the town. Amber remembered the circumstance well, for it had been the subject of chatter among the delighted and scandalized girls for weeks on end, and she had been as contemptuous, as jeering as any of them.

Now, that might happen to her.

She was well enough acquainted with the early symptoms of pregnancy for she had often discussed the subject with those of her friends who were married, and she had watched Sarah carry four children during the years since she had been old enough to notice such things. But by the end of June, when they had been in London almost two months, she still had no reason to think herself with child. And so, to settle her own suspense, she went to consult an astrologer.

It was no very difficult matter to find one for they were all over the city, thick as flies in a cook-shop, and she set out one day in Bruce’s coach-and-four to learn her fortune from a certain Mr. Chout. She watched as they rode along and when she saw a sign marked with a moon, six stars, and a hand, she called to the driver to stop and sent the footman to knock at the door. The astrologer, who had peeked out the window and seen her crested coach, came forth himself to invite her in.

He did not look to her like a mystic. He had a large red face, dirt-clogged pores covered his nose, and there was a rank odour about him. But he greeted her so obsequiously, bowing as though she were a duchess of the blood royal, that her confidence in him increased.

The footman followed her into the house and waited while she and Mr. Chout retired to a private parlour. The room was filthy and smelt no better than its owner, and Amber glanced dubiously at the chair before she sat down in it. He took a stool opposite her and began talking about the King’s return and his own invincible loyalty to the Stuarts. While he talked he rubbed his dirty hands together and his eyes looked at her as though they could penetrate her cloak. Finally, like a doctor who has humoured his patient long enough by gossiping of other things, he asked her what she wanted to know.

“I want to know what’s going to happen to me.”

“Very well, madame. You’ve come to the right man. But first there are some things you must tell me.”

Amber was afraid that he would ask her some embarrassingly personal questions, but all he wanted was the date and hour of her birth and where she was born. When she had told him he consulted several charts, gazed into a round crystal ball he had on the table, peered occasionally at both her palms—holding her hands in his own moist and grimy ones—and nodded his head gravely. All the while she watched him with anxious eagerness, now and then giving an absent-minded caress to the large grey cat that came and nudged against her skirts.

“Madame,” he said finally, “your future is of singular interest. You were born with Venus in separating square aspect to Mars in the Fifth House.” Amber solemnly absorbed that, too impressed at first even to wonder what it meant. Then, as she was about to ask, he continued, having reached his conclusions as much by looking at her as at his charts: “Hence you are inclined, madame, to over-ardent affections and to rash impulsive attractions to the opposite sex. This can cause you serious. trouble, madame. You are also too much inclined to indulge yourself in pleasure—and hence must suffer the attendant difficulties.”

Amber gave a wistful little sigh. “Don’t you see something good, too?”

“Oh, indeed, madame, indeed. I was coming to that. I see you in possession of a great fortune, madame—a very great fortune.” By the appearance of her clothes and smart coach he had surmised that she must already have access to a large amount of money.

“You do?” cried Amber, delighted. “What else do you see?”

“I see jealousy and discord. But also,” he added hastily at a protesting frown from Amber, “I see that the sextiles of Venus to Neptune and Uranus give you considerable magnetism—no man may resist you.”

“Ohhh—” breathed Amber. “Gemini! What else do you see? Will I have children?”

“Let me see your palm again, madame. Yes, indeed, a very fair table—the line of riches well extended. The wheels of fortune are large. These intersparsings betoken children. You will have—let me see—several. Seven, I should say, more or less.”

“When will I have the first one? Soon?”

“Yes, I think so. Very soon—” His eyes went down over her cloak, but nothing was revealed there. “That is, of course,” he added cautiously, “within a reasonable time. You understand, madame.”

“And when will I get married—soon, too?” Her voice and eyes were hopeful, almost pleading with him.

“Let me see. Hmmm—let me see. Now, what did you dream last night? I’ve found there’s nothing to compare with a dream for telling a woman when she’ll marry.”

Amber frowned, trying to remember. She could recall nothing but that she had dreamed of pounding spices, which she had often done for Sarah—particularly after the two annual fairs, when they were purchased in bulk. That fragment, however, was enough for Mr. Chout’s purpose.

“That’s very important, madame. Very important. To dream of pounding spices always foretells matrimony.”

“Will I marry the man I love?”

“Why, truly, madame, that I can’t say for certain.” But at Amber’s stricken expression he again hastened to amend his statement. “Of course, madame, you will marry him one day—perhaps not today or tomorrow—but someday. These lines here betoken husbands. You will have, let me see, some half-a-dozen, more or less.”

“Half-a-dozen! I don’t want half-a-dozen! I just want one!” She pulled her hand away from him, for he seemed sticky and repulsive to her, and he had been holding on somewhat too tightly. But he was not done yet.

“And one thing more I see—if I may be frank with you?—I see that someday you will have, madame, a hundred lovers.” His greedy eyes watched her with obscene calculation, taking vicarious pleasure from her look of surprise and the faint pink blush that spread over her face and neck. “More or less, that is.”

Amber gave an excited little laugh. He was making her feel ill-at-ease and she wished that she was out of there; it was difficult to breathe, and though he had moved no nearer he seemed to be oppressively close. “A hundred lovers!” she cried, trying to sound city-bred and casual. “Marry come up! One’s enough for me! Is that all, Mr. Chout?” She got to her feet.

“Isn’t that enough, madame? I don’t often discover as much, let me tell you. The fee is ten shillings.”

Amber took a dozen or more coins from her muff and dropped them onto the table. His broad grin told her that most likely she had overpaid, again. But she did not care. Bruce always left a handful of coins for her to use and when one pile was gone another appeared in its place. Ten shillings as a sum of money meant nothing to her at all.

I’m going to have a baby and marry Bruce and be rich! she thought exultantly as she rode home.

That night she asked Bruce what the planet Venus was, though she did not tell him of her visit and did not intend to, until something more definite had come of it. But perhaps he guessed.

“It’s a star called Venus after the Roman goddess of love. It’s supposed to control the destinies of those who are born under it. I believe such people are thought to be beautiful and desirable and generally dominated by emotion—if you believe in that kind of nonsense.” He was smiling at her, for Amber’s face showed her shock at this heretical statement.

“Don’t you believe in it?”

“No, darling, I don’t believe in it.”

“Well—” She put her hands on her hips and gave her curls a toss. “One day you will, I warrant you. Just wait and see.”

But nothing which happened immediately seemed to indicate that any of Mr. Chout’s predictions were coming true. And meanwhile her life continued very much as it had been.

Most of the time Bruce was away from home, either gambling at the Groom Porter’s Lodge, where the nobles went to play cards and dice, or overseeing the supplying and loading of his ships. Often, too, she knew that he went to balls or suppers given at Court or the homes of his friends. And though she thought wistfully of how wonderful it would be to go with him he did not ask her and she never mentioned it. For she was still strongly conscious of the great gulf which separated his social position from hers—and yet when she lay waiting for him to come back she was lonely and sad, and jealous too. She was morbidly afraid of Barbara Palmer and other women like her.

Almsbury often came to call and, if Bruce was not there, took her out somewhere with him.

One day they went to see a bull-and-bear baiting across the river in Southwark. And Amber leaned out the coach window to gape at the weather-beaten heads, some twenty or thirty of them, exposed above London Bridge on poles that stuck up crazily, like toothpicks in a glass. Another time he took her to a fencing-match, and one of the antagonists lost an ear which flopped off into the lap of a woman sitting down in front.

They went to supper at various fashionable taverns and two or three times he took her to the theatre. She paid no more attention to the play than did the rest of the audience—for she was too much interested, though she pretended not to be, in the havoc she was creating down in the pit. Some of the young men came up to Almsbury in such a manner that he could not avoid presenting them, and two or three made her outrageous proposals beneath his very nose. Almsbury, however, always assumed his dignity at this and let them know she was no whore but a lady of quality and virtue. While Amber, ashamed of her country accent, hoped that they would indeed take her for a Royalist lady who had lived retired with her parents during the Protectorate and had only now come up to Court.

But the greatest adventure of all was her visit to Whitehall Palace.

Whitehall lay to the west, around the bend of the river from the City. It was a great sprawling mass of red brick buildings in the old Tudor style, honeycombed with hallways and having dozens of separate apartments opening one into another like some complex maze or huge rabbit-warren. Here lived the royal family and every court attendant or hanger-on who could wheedle official lodgings on the premises. It fronted directly on the river, so close that at high tide the kitchens were often flooded. And through the grounds ran the dirty unpaved narrow little thoroughfare of King Street, flanked on one side by that part of the Palace called the Cockpit and on the other by the wall of the Privy Garden.

Whitehall was open to all comers. Anyone who had once been presented at Court or who came with one who had could get in, and many total strangers filtered through the carelessly watched gateways. Hence, when Amber and Almsbury arrived in the Stone Gallery they found it so thronged as to be almost impassable.

The gallery was the central artery of the Court, a corridor almost four hundred feet long and fifteen feet wide, and on the walls were hung some of the splendid paintings which Charles I had collected and which his son was now trying to reassemble—paintings by Raphael, Titian, Guido. Scarlet-velvet drapes covered all doors opening into the royal apartments, and Yeomen of the Guard were posted before each one. The crowd was a motley assortment of satin-gowned ladies, languid sauntering young fops, brisk men-of-business hurrying along with an air of having weighty problems to solve, soldiers in uniform, country squires and their wives. Amber could easily recognize these latter for they all wore clothes hopelessly out of fashion—boots, when no gentleman would be seen off his horse in them; high-crowned hats like a Puritan’s, though the new mode was for low ones; and knee-gartered breeches, although wide-bottomed ones were now the style. Here and there was even a ruff to be seen. Amber was contemptuous of such provinciality and glad that her own clothes did not betray her origin.

She was less confident, however, about herself. “Gemini!” she whispered, round-eyed, to Almsbury. “How handsome all the ladies are!”

“There’s not one of ’em,” said the Earl, “half so pretty as you.”

She gave him a grateful, sparkling smile and slipped her arm through his. She and Almsbury had become great friends and though he had not asked again to sleep with her he had told her that if she ever needed money or help he would be glad to give it. She thought that he had fallen in love with her.

And then all at once something happened. A ripple of excitement flowed along the Gallery, turning heads as it passed, catching the Earl and Amber in its wake.

“Here comes Mrs. Palmer!”

Amber’s head turned with every other. And she saw advancing toward them, with people falling back on either side to make way for her, a magnificent red-haired white-skinned woman, trailing behind her a serving-woman, two pages, and a blackamoor. Haughty and arrogant, she walked with her head held high, seeing no one, though she could not but be well aware of the excitement she was creating. Amber’s eyes began to burn with rage and jealousy and her heart set up a suffocating flutter. She was sickeningly afraid that Madame Palmer would see Almsbury—who she knew was acquainted with her—and stop. But she did not. She went past them without a glance.

“Oh! I hate her!” The words burst out as though driven by some pent-up violence.

“Sweetheart,” said Almsbury, “someday you’ll learn it’s impossible to hate every woman a gentleman may make love to. It wears out your own guts, and that’s all the good it does.”

But Amber neither could nor wished to accept his Lordship’s mellow philosophy. “I don’t care if it does!” she insisted stubbornly. “I do hate her! And I hope she gets the pox!”

“No doubt she will.”

After that they went to the Banqueting Hall to watch the King dine in state, which he usually did at one o’clock on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. The galleries were massed to see him but he did not come and at last they had to go away, disappointed. Amber had been much impressed when she had seen King Charles the day he returned to London; after Bruce she thought him the finest man in England.

About the first of August Amber became convinced that she was pregnant, partly because she had at least one symptom but mostly because it was forever on her mind. For a couple of weeks past she had waited and counted on her fingers and nothing had happened. Now her breasts began to feel stretched and sore and as though pricked by a thousand pins. She wanted to tell Bruce and yet she was half scared, for she guessed that he would not be pleased.

He got up early every morning—no matter how late he might have come in the night before—and Amber would put on her dressing-gown and talk to him until he left, after which she went back to sleep again. On this day she sat at the edge of the bed, swinging her bare feet and pulling a tortoise-shell comb through the tangled snarls of her hair. Bruce stood near her, wearing only his breeches and shoes, shaving with a long sharp-bladed razor.

For several minutes Amber watched him and neither of them spoke. Each time she tried to open her mouth her heart gave a leap and her courage failed her. Then all at once she said: “Bruce—what if I should get with child?”

He gave a slight involuntary start and cut himself, the bright blood showing in a little line on his chin, and then he turned to look at her. “Why do you say that? Do you think you are?”

“Well—haven’t you noticed anything?” She felt strangely embarrassed.

“Noticed what? Oh—I hadn’t thought about it.” He scowled and even though it was not at her she felt a sudden frightened loneliness; then he turned back, took up a small bottle and put a drop of liquid styptic on the cut. “Jesus!” he muttered.

“Oh, Bruce!” She jumped off the bed and ran to him. “Please don’t be mad at me!”

He had started shaving again. “Mad at you? It’s my fault. I intended to be careful—but sometimes I forgot.”

Amber looked at him, puzzled. What was he talking about? She’d heard in Marygreen that it was possible to avoid pregnancy by spitting three times into the mouth of a frog or drinking sheep’s urine, but Sarah had warned her often enough that such methods were unreliable.

“Sometimes you forgot what?”

“Nothing it will do any good to remember now.” He wiped his face with a towel, tossed the towel onto the table-top and then turned to put on the rest of his clothes. “Oh, Lord, Amber —I’m sorry. This is a devil of a mess.”

She was quiet for a moment, but finally she said, “You don’t like babies, do you?”

She asked the question so naively, looked up at him with so sad and wistful an expression that all at once he took her into his arms and held her head against his chest while one hand stroked tenderly over her hair. “Yes, my darling, of course I like them.” His mouth was pressed against the top of her head, but his eyes were troubled and a little angry.

“What are we to do?” she asked him at last.

Held close in his arms with her body against his she felt warm and safe and happy—the problem had dissolved. For though he had told her he would not marry her and she had believed it at first, now she was almost convinced that he would. Why shouldn’t he? They loved each other, they were happy together, and during the past several weeks of living with him she had almost forgotten that he was a lord and she the niece of a yeoman farmer. What might once have seemed impossible to the point of absurdity now seemed to her quite natural and logical.

He let her go and stood with his arms hanging at his sides while he talked, his green-grey eyes hard and uncompromising, watching her steadily. There was no doubt he meant every word he said.

“I’m not going to marry you, Amber. I told you that at the first and I’ve never once said anything to the contrary. I’m sorry this has happened—but you knew it probably would. And remember, it was your idea that you come to London—not mine. I won’t just leave you to drift—I’ll do everything I can to make it easier for you—everything that won’t interfere with my own plans. I’ll leave you money enough to take care of yourself and the baby. If you won’t go back to Marygreen the best thing is for you to go to one of the women here in London who take care of pregnant women and arrange for their lying-in—some of those places are very comfortable and no one will inquire too closely for your husband. When you’re well again you can do as you like. With a few hundred pound in cash a woman as beautiful as you are should be able to marry a country-squire, at the least—or perhaps a knight, if you’re clever enough—”

Amber stared at him. She was suddenly furious, all the pride and happiness she had felt at the prospect of bearing him a child was drowned now in pain and outraged pride. The sound of his voice enraged her—talking so coolly, as if falling in love with a man and having his baby was a matter to be settled with money and logic, like provisioning a ship! She almost hated him.

“Oh!” she cried. “So you’ll give me money enough to catch a knight—if I’m clever! Well, I don’t want to catch a knight! And I don’t want your money, either! And as for the matter of that—I don’t want your baby! I’m sorry I ever laid eyes on you! I hope you go away and I never see you again! I hate you! —Oh!—” She covered her face with her hands and began to cry.

Bruce stood watching her for a moment, but at last he put on his hat and started out of the room. Amber looked up. And when he had scarcely reached the bedroom door she ran after him.

“Where are you going?”

“Down to the wharf.”

“Will you come back tonight? Please come back! Please don’t leave me alone!”

“Yes—I’ll try to get here early. Amber—” His voice was again warm and smooth, caressing, tender. “I know this is hard for you and I’m truly sorry it’s happened. But it’ll be over sooner than you expect and you’ll be none the worse for it. It’s really no great tragedy when a woman has a baby—”

“No great tragedy to a man! You’ll go away and forget all about it—but I can’t go away! I can’t forget it! I’ll never be able to forget it—Nothing will ever be the same for me again! Oh, damn men!”

As the days passed she became convinced beyond all doubt that she actually was pregnant.

Less than a week after she had told him, she began to retch the moment she lifted her head in the mornings. She was morose and unhappy and cried upon the slightest provocation, or with none at all. He began coming home even later at night and when he did they often quarrelled; she knew that her ill temper was keeping him from her, but she could not seem to control herself. But she knew also that nothing she had said or could say would make him change his mind. And when he was away once for an entire day and night and until late the next night, she realized that she must give over her haranguing and tantrums or lose him even before he sailed. She could not bear the thought of that, for she still loved him, and she made a tremendous effort to seem once more gay and charming when they were together.

But alone she was no more reconciled than she had been and the hours without him seemed endless, while she trailed idly about the house, steeped in pity for herself. This great world of London to which she had come with such brilliant expectations only four months ago now seemed a dismal place and full of woe. She had not the vaguest idea as to what she would do when he was gone and refused to discuss it with him, even pushing the thoughts out of her own mind when they began to creep in. When that day came she felt that the end of the world would also come, and did not care what happened afterward.

One hot mid-morning in late August Amber was down in the courtyard playing with some puppies that had been born at the inn a month or so before. She knelt on the flag-stones in the mottled shade of a fruit-heavy plum tree, laughing and holding two of the puppies in her arms while the proud mother lay nearby, wagging her tail and keeping a careful eye on her offspring. And then, unexpectedly, she glanced up and saw Bruce leaning on the rail of the gallery outside their bedroom, watching her.

He had left several hours before and she had not expected him back till evening, at the earliest. Her first reaction was one of delight that he had come home and surprised her and she gave him a wave as she got quickly to her feet, putting the puppies back into their box. But then immediately a slow stealthy fear began to sneak in. It grew ominously, and as she reached the stairs and started to mount them she raised her eyes and met his. She knew it then for sure. He was leaving today.

“What is it, Bruce?” she asked him, warily, as though she could ward off the answer.

“The wind’s changed. We’re sailing in an hour.”

“Sailing! In an hour! But you said last night it wouldn’t be for days!”

“I didn’t think it would. But we’re ready sooner than I expected and there’s nothing to wait for.”

While she stood there, helpless, he turned and went through the door, and then she followed him. There was a small leather-covered nail-studded trunk of his on the table already packed more than half full, while the wardrobe in which he kept his clothes was opened and empty. Now he took some shirts from a carved oak chest, piled them into the trunk, and as he did so he began to talk to her.

“I haven’t much time, so listen to what I say. I’m leaving the coach and horses for your use. The coachman gets six pound a year with his livery and the footman gets three, but don’t pay them until next May or they’ll likely rub off. I’ve paid all the bills and the receipts are in the drawer of that table. So are the names and locations of a couple of women who can take care of you—ask them what the charge will be before you move into the house. It shouldn’t be more than thirty or forty pound for everything.”

While Amber stood staring at him, horrified at the brusque impersonal tone of his voice, he closed the lid of the trunk and walked swiftly to the door of the other room where he made a signal to someone evidently waiting out in the hall. The next moment he was back, followed by a great ruffian with a patch over one eye, who shouldered the trunk and went out again. All the while Amber had been watching him, desperately trying to think of something she could say or do to stop him. But she felt stunned, paralyzed, and no words came to help her.

From the pocket of his doublet Bruce now drew a heavy leather wallet, closed by draw-strings and bulging with coins, and tossed it onto the table.

“There’s five hundred pound. That should be enough to take care of you and the baby for several years, if necessary, but I’d advise you to put it with a goldsmith. I’d intended to do that for you, but now I haven’t time. Shadrac Newbold is perfectly reliable and he’ll allow you six percent interest if you put it with him at twenty days call, or three and a half if you want it on demand. He lives at the Crown and Thistle in Cheapside; his name is written on this piece of paper. But don’t trust anyone else—above all don’t trust a maid if you take one into service, and don’t trust any strangers no matter how much you may like them. Now—” He turned and picked up his cloak. “I’ve got to go.”

He spoke swiftly, giving her no chance to interrupt, and obviously was in a hurry to get out before she started to cry. But he had not taken three steps when she ran to throw herself before him.

“Bruce! Aren’t you even going to kiss me?’

He hesitated for only an instant and then his arms went about her with a rough eagerness which suggested some reluctance within himself to leave her. Amber clung to him, her fingers clutching his arms as though she could hold him there by sheer force of superior strength, her mouth avidly against his, and already her face was wet with tears.

“Oh, Bruce! Don’t go! Please don’t go—please don’t leave me—! Please—please don’t leave me—”

But at last his fingers took hold of her wrists and slowly he forced her away. “Amber, darling—” His voice had a sound of pleading urgency. “I’ll come back one day—I’ll see you again—”

She gave a sudden cry, like a lonely desperate animal, and then she began to struggle with him, reaching out to grab hold of his arms, terrified. All at once he seized both her wrists, his mouth caught at hers again for an instant, and before she could quite realize what had happened he was gone through the room and out the door and it slammed behind him.

Stunned, she stood for a moment staring at the closed door. And then she ran to it, her hand going out to grab the knob.

“Bruce!”

But she did not quite reach it. Instead she stopped, brought up short by some hopelessness inside herself, and though for a moment her eyes continued to watch the door, at last she slumped slowly to her knees and her head dropped into her hands.

CHAPTER SIX

THE DUKE OF YORK leaned gloomily against the fireplace. His hands were in the pockets of his breeches, his good-looking face was sulky, and he stared down at the floor. Across the room Charles was bent over a table, peering intently into a pewter pan set on an oil-lamp, in which boiled and bubbled a hundred different herbs. Now, carefully, he took up a spoon and measured in three heaping spoonfuls of dried ground angelica, stirring as he did so.

The brothers were in his Majesty’s laboratory, surrounded on all sides by crucibles and alembics, retorts and matrasses. There were glass and earthenware jars full of powders, pastes, many-coloured liquids, oil of prima materia. Egg-shaped vessels of every size and substance lined the shelves. Piles of books bound in old leather, stamped with gold, stood on the floor or on the tables. Chemistry—which had not yet secured its divorce from the medieval witch-woman, alchemy—was one of the King’s chief interests. Even when he had had to beg a meal he had not been able to resist paying money out of his meagre store for almost every new nostrum recommended him by a passing quack.

“How the devil,” said Charles now, stirring the mixture but not looking around, “did you let her get you into such a mess?”

York gave a heavy sigh. “I wish I knew. She isn’t even pretty. She’s as ugly as an old bawd. Eyes that pop and a shape like this—” His hands described an ungainly female form.

Charles smiled. “Perhaps that’s what fooled you. It’s my observation a pretty woman seldom thinks it’s necessary to be clever. Anne Hyde is clever—don’t you agree?” He seemed amused.

James shifted his weight, scowling. “I don’t know what fooled me. I must have been out of my mind. Signing that damned marriage-contract!”

“And in your own blood. A picturesque touch, James, that one. Well—you’ve signed it and you’ve had her and she’s pregnant. Now what?”

“Now nothing. I hope I never see her again.”

“A contract of marriage is as binding as a ceremony, James, you know that. Whether you like it or not, you’re married to her. And that child she carries is yours and will bear your name.”

James heaved himself away from the fireplace, walked across the room and glanced at the concoction his brother had stirred up. “Ugh!” said the Duke. “How it stinks!”

“It does, I agree,” admitted Charles. “But the fellow who sold me the recipe says it’s the most sovereign thing for an ague ever discovered—and London and the ague, you know, are synonymous. This winter I don’t doubt you’ll be glad enough to borrow a dose of it from me.”

Restless, discontented, angry, James turned and walked away. After a moment he once more took up the subject of his marriage. “I’m not so sure,” he said slowly, “you’re right about that, sir. The brat may not be mine after all.”

“Now what’ve you been hearing?”

Suddenly James came back to him; his face was serious and growing excited. “Berkeley came to me two days ago and told me that Anne has lain with him. Killigrew and Jermyn have sworn the same thing since.”

For a long moment Charles looked at his brother, searching his face. “And you believed them?”

“Of course I believed them!” declared James hotly. “They’re my nearest friends! Why wouldn’t I believe them?”

“Berkeley and Jermyn and Harry Killigrew. The three greatest liars in England. And why do you suppose they told you that? Because they knew it was what you wanted to hear. It is, isn’t it?” Charles’s dark eyes narrowed slightly, his face shrewd. He understood his brother perfectly, much better in fact than James understood himself.

James did not answer him for a long moment but at last he said softly, half-ashamed, “Yes. I suppose it is. But why the devil should I think Anne Hyde is more virtuous than another woman? They all have a price—”

“And hers was marriage.” The King set the pan off the flame and turned down the lamp. Then he took his doublet from where it had hung over a chair-back and slipped into it. “Look here, James—I’m no better pleased than you are with this business—The daughter of a commoner, even if he is my Chancellor, is no suitable wife for the heir to the English throne. But it would raise a damned peculiar smell all over Europe if you got her with child and refused to marry her. If she’d been anyone but the Chancellor’s daughter we might have found a way around it. As it is I think there’s only one course for you: Marry her immediately and with as good a grace as you can.”

“That isn’t what the Chancellor wants. He’s locked her in her rooms and says he’d rather have her thrown into the Tower and beheaded than disgrace the Stuarts by marrying one of them.”

“Edward Hyde was a good servant to my father and he’s been a good servant to me. I don’t doubt he’s angry with her, but one thing you may be sure of—it’s not only the Stuarts he’s worried about. He knows well enough that if his daughter marries you he’ll have a thousand new enemies. Jealousy doesn’t breed love.”

“If you say it’s best, Sire, I’ll marry her—but what about Mam?” He gave Charles a sudden desperate look that was almost comical.

Charles laughed, but put an arm about his brother’s shoulders. “Mam will most likely have a fit of the mother that will go near to killing her.” “A fit of the mother” was the common term for hysteria. “She’s always hated Hyde—and her family pride is almost as great a passion with her as her religion. But I’ll protect you, Jamie—” He grinned. “I’ll threaten to hold off her pension.”

They walked out together, James still thoughtful and morose, Charles good-humoured as usual. He snapped his fingers at a pair of little spaniels asleep in a square of sunshine and they scrambled to their feet and tore yapping out of the room, scuttling between his legs, turning to prance on their hind legs to look up at him.

James’s marriage to Anne Hyde created a considerable excitement. The Chancellor was furious; Anne wept incessantly; and the Duke still thought he might find a way out. With the help of Sir Charles Berkeley he stole the blood-signed contract and burned it, and Berkeley offered to marry her himself and give the child his name. The courtiers were in a quandary, not knowing whether they should pay their respects to the new Duchess or avoid her altogether, and only Charles seemed perfectly at ease.

And then the Duke of Gloucester, who had fallen ill of small-pox but had been thought to be out of danger, died suddenly. Charles had loved him well, as he did all his family, and he had seemed a young man of great promise, eager and charming and intelligent. It was unbelievable that now he lay dead, still and solemn and never to move again. There had been nine children in the family. Two had died on the day of birth, two others had lived only a short while, and now there remained only Charles and James, Mary who was Princess of Orange, and Henrietta Anne, the youngest, still with her mother in France.

But even the death of Henry could not halt the festivities for long. And though the Court managed to show a decent face of sorrow in the presence of Charles or James, the balls and the suppers, the flirtations and the gambling went on as before, wildly, madly, as though it would never be possible to get enough of pleasure and excitement.

The great houses along the Strand, from Fleet Street to Charing Cross, were opened all day and far into the night. Their walls resounded with noisy laughter and the tinkle of glasses, music and chatter, the swish of silken skirts and the tap of high-heeled shoes. Great gilt coaches rattled down the streets, stood lined up outside theatres and taverns, went rambling through the woods of St. James’s Park and along Pall Mall. Duels were fought in Marrowbone Fields and at Knightsbridge over a lady’s dropped fan or a careless word spoken in jest. Across the card-tables thousands of pounds changed hands nightly, and lords and ladies sat on the floor, watching with breathless apprehension a pair of rolling dice.

The executions of the regicides, held at Charing Cross, were attended by thousands and all the quality went to watch. Those men who had been chiefly responsible for the death of Charles I now themselves died, jerking at the end of a rope until they were half-dead, and then they were cut down, disembowelled and beheaded and their dripping heads and hearts held up for the cheering crowds to see. After that their remains were flung into a cart and taken off to Newgate to be pickled and cured before being set up on pikes over the City gates.

A new way of life had come in full-blown on the crimson wings of the Restoration.

It was only a week after her brother’s death that Princess Mary arrived in London. She was twenty-eight, a widow and mother—though she had left her son in Holland—a pretty, graceful gay young woman with chestnut curls and sparkling hazel eyes. She had always hated Holland, that sombre strait-laced land, and now she intended to live in England with her favourite brother and have all the lovely gowns and extravagant jewels for which she longed.

She embraced Charles enthusiastically, but she was cooler with James and only waited until the three of them were alone to speak her mind to him:

“How could you do it, James? Marry that creature! Heavens, where’s your pride? Marrying your own sister’s Maid of Honour!” Anne and Mary had been close friends at one time, but that was over now.

James scowled. “I’m sick of hearing about it, Mary. God knows I didn’t marry her because I wanted to.”

“Didn’t marry her because you wanted to! Why, pray, did you marry her then?”

Charles interrupted, putting an arm about his sister’s waist. “I advised him to it, Mary. Under the circumstances it seemed the only honourable course to take.”

Mary cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “Mam won’t find it so honourable, I warrant you. Just wait until she gets here!”

“That,” said Charles, “is what we’re all waiting for.”

It was not long until the Queen Mother Henrietta Maria arrived—not more than a week, in fact, after Anne Hyde’s son was born. Most of the Court went to Dover to meet her and they stayed a day or two at the great old castle which for centuries had guarded the cliffs of England.

Henrietta Maria was forty-nine but she looked nearer seventy, a tiny hollow-cheeked haunted-eyed woman with no vestige of beauty left. What little she had possessed had gone early, lost in the bearing of her many children, in the hardships of the Civil Wars, in her grief for her husband whom she had loved devotedly.

In repose her face was ugly, but when surrounded by people she was vivacious and gay, with all the superficial charm of her youth and the delightful manners in which she had so carefully schooled her children. She was dressed in the mourning-clothes which she had worn faithfully since her husband’s death and never intended to leave off until her own. The gown was plain black with full sleeves and high neck, broad white linen collar and cuffs, and over her head was hung a heavy black veil. She still wore her dark hair in old-fashioned corkscrew curls; it was her one concession to the love of personal ornament and pretty things which had been so strong in her.

By nature she was domineering and since all her children were stubborn and self-willed there had been continual conflict in the family. Several years before she had quarrelled with Gloucester over his refusal to enter the Catholic Church and had warned him never to see her more; when he died they were still unreconciled. But in spite of her deep hurt over that situation she now accosted James, determined to rule him or to break off their relationship. The Duke and his mother had always been most friendly when apart and he had been dreading this encounter with her, for her tongue could be acid and spiteful when she was angry.

“Well, James,” she said at last, when they were alone in her bedchamber to which she had summoned him. Her voice was quiet, and she had her hands clasped lightly before her, but her black eyes sparkled with excitement. “There’s talk about you in France—talk of which I was, needless to say, deeply ashamed.”

He stood across the room near the door and stared down at his feet, unhappy and ill-at-ease. He said nothing and would not look at her. For a long moment they remained perfectly silent and then he ventured to steal a glance, but instantly dropped his eyes.

“James!” Her voice was sharp and maternal. “Have you nothing to reply?”

With sudden impulsiveness he crossed the room and dropped to one knee at her feet. “Madame, I beg your pardon if I have offended you. I’ve played the fool, but thank God now I’ve come to my senses. Mrs. Hyde and I are not married and I intend to think of her no more—I’ve had proof enough of her unworthiness.”

The Queen Mother bent and kissed him lightly on the forehead. She was relieved and very pleased at the unexpected good sense he was showing—for knowing James she had anticipated a stubborn and bitter struggle. And so a part, at least, of what she had come for was accomplished.

She had two other purposes.

One was to secure a pension which would enable her to live out the rest of her life in comfort and security. She had begged too often from the tight-fisted Cardinal Mazarin, had lived too long in privation and want—sometimes without so much as firewood to heat her rooms. It would mean a great deal to her to have money again. Her other purpose was to get a suitable dowry for Henrietta Anne, who had suffered perhaps more than any of them during the years of exile. For with her father dead, her brother hunted out of his country, she had grown up as the poor relation of the grand Bourbons, a mere neglected little waif lost in the glitter of the French Court.

Now, however, King Louis’s brother wanted to marry her.

Henrietta Anne, whom Charles called Minette, was just sixteen. Her features were not perfect, her figure was too slender and one shoulder was slightly higher than the other—but almost everyone who met her was immediately struck by her beauty. For they attributed to facial prettiness what was really the glow of a warm and tender charm; it was impossible to resist her. And Charles had for her a deep and sincere devotion which he had never felt for any of his numerous mistresses.

His sister’s marriage to Philippe, Duc d’Orléans, would give him a valuable ally in the French Court, because Minette had already shown that she possessed a diplomatic talent which won admiration and respect from the most cynical statesmen. And she loved her brother with a passionate loyalty which would always place his interests first, those of Louis XIV second. Nevertheless Charles hesitated.

“Are you sure,” he asked her, “that you want to marry Philippe?”

They had left the Banqueting Hall to stroll in the Privy Gardens, along the gravel paths which separated the lawns and hedges into formal squares. Though mid-November it was very warm, and the rose-bushes were still covered with leaves; Minette had not even troubled to throw a cloak over her gold-spangled ball-gown.

“Oh, yes, Sire! I do!” She answered him with an eager smile.

He glanced down at her. “Do you love him?” Charles was so eager for his sister’s happiness that it troubled him to think of her marrying, as other princesses must, without love.

“Love him?” Minette laughed. “Mon Dieu! Since when did love have anything to do with marriage? You marry whom you must and if you can tolerate each other—why, so much the better. If not—” She shrugged. But there was no air of precocious cynicism about what she said—merely good common Parisian sense, and a willingness to accept the world for what it was.

“Perhaps,” he said. “But nevertheless you’re my sister, and I want to know. Do you love him?”

“Why—to tell you the truth, I don’t know whether I do or not. I’ve played with him since we were children, and he’s my cousin. I think he’s pretty—and I feel a little sorry for him. Yes, I suppose you might say I love him.” She put up one hand as a quick little breeze ruffled her hair. “And of course he’s mad in love with me. Oh, he swears he can’t live till we’re married!”

“Oh, Minette, Minette—how innocent you are. Philippe’s not in love with you—he’s not in love with anyone but himself. If he thinks he loves you now it’s because he sees that others do and imagines that if he marries you he’ll get some of that affection himself. When he doesn’t he’ll grow jealous and resentful. He’s a mean petty man, that Philippe—he’ll never make you happy.”

“Oh, you judge him too severely!” she protested. “He’s so harmless. Why, all his concern is to find a new way of dressing his hair or tying his ribbons. The most serious thought in his life is who takes precedence over whom in a parade or at the banqueting-table.”

“Or finding a new young man.”

“Oh, well, that!” said Minette, dismissing so minor a fault with a graceful little gesture of one hand. “That’s common enough—and no doubt he’ll change when we’re married.”

“And suppose he doesn’t?”

She stopped directly before him, looking up into his face.

“But, my dear!” Her voice was teasingly reproachful. “You’re so serious about it. What if he doesn’t? That’s no great matter, is it—so long as we have children?”

He scowled. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Minette.”

“Yes, I do, my dear. I assure you I do, and I think the world overestimates love-making. It’s only a small part of life—there are so many other things to do.” She spoke now with a great air of confidence and worldly wisdom.

“My little sister—how much you have to learn.” He smiled at her but his face was tender and sad. “Tell me, has a man ever made love to you?”

“No. That is, not very much. Oh, I’ve been kissed a time or two—but nothing more,” she added, blushing a little and dropping her eyes.

“That’s what I thought—or you wouldn’t talk like that.” Charles’s first son had been born when Charles was Minette’s age. “Half the joys and half the sorrows of this world are discovered in bed. And I’m afraid you’d find nothing but sorrow there if you married Philippe.”

Minette frowned a little and gave a brief sigh; they started to walk again. “That may be all very true for men, but I’m sure it isn’t for women. Oh, please let me marry him! You know how much Mam wants me to. And I want to too. I want to live in France, Sire—that’s the only place I could ever be at home. I know Philippe isn’t perfect, but I don’t care—If I have France, I’ll be happy.”

Christmas was England’s most beloved holiday, and nowhere was it celebrated with more enthusiasm than at Whitehall.

Every room and every gallery was decorated with holly, cypress and laurel. There were enormous beaten-silver wassail-bowls garlanded with ivy. Branches of mistletoe hung from chandeliers and in doorways, and a berry was pulled off for each kiss. Gay music sounded throughout the Palace, the staircases were crowded with merry young men and women, and both day and night there was a festival of dancing and games and cards.

The immense kitchens were busy preparing mince-pies, pickled boar’s heads to be served on immense golden platters, peacocks with their tails spread, and every other traditional Yule-tide delicacy. In the Banqueting Hall the King’s Christmas presents were on display and this year every courtier with a farthing to his name had sent one—instead of retiring into the country to avoid the obligation, as had once been common practice.

And then suddenly the laughter was hushed, the music ceased to play, gentlemen and ladies walked softly, spoke in whispers: Princess Mary was sick of the small-pox. She died the day before Christmas.

The royal family passed Christmas day quietly and sadly, and Henrietta Maria began to make preparations for returning to France. She was afraid to leave Minette longer in England for fear she too would contract the disease. And there was no real reason to stay longer, for though she had Minette’s dowry and a generous pension for herself, she knew at last that she had failed with James.

Berkeley had finally admitted that his story had been a lie, Killigrew and Jermyn had done the same, and James had recognized Anne as his wife. But he made no mention of his decision to his mother and she was furious when she heard of it, refused to speak to him either in public or in private, and declared that if that woman entered Whitehall by one door she herself would go out by another.

And then all at once her attitude changed completely and she told James that since Anne was his choice in a wife she was ready to accept her, and she asked that he bring the Duchess to her. James was relieved, though he knew what had prompted her sudden softening of heart. Cardinal Mazarin had written to tell her frankly that if she left England while still on bad terms with her two sons she would find no welcome in France. He was afraid that Charles would revoke her pension and that he, Mazarin, would have to support her.

The day before she left London Henrietta Maria received her daughter-in-law in her bedchamber at Whitehall. This was still the custom among great persons for that room was the most opulently furnished of all and differed from a drawing-room only because it contained the immense four-poster tester-covered bed-of-state. The reception was a large one, for Henrietta Maria was popular at Court if nowhere else, and in spite of widespread sickness they had been drawn there by curiosity to see how Queen and Duchess would greet each other. All wore sombre black and most jewels had been reluctantly left at home. The room smelt of unwashed bodies and a nostril-searing stench of burnt brimstone and salt-petre which had been used to disinfect the air. In spite of that precaution Henrietta Maria had not been willing for Minette to run the risk, and she was not there.

The Queen Mother sat in a great black velvet chair, a little mantle of ermine about her shoulders, talking pleasantly with a group of gentlemen. The King stood just beside her, tall and handsome in his royal-purple velvet mourning. But everyone was growing impatient. The prologue had been too long—they were eager for the play to begin.

And then there was a sudden commotion in the doorway. The Duke and Duchess of York were announced.

A hushed expectant murmur ran through the room and many pairs of eyes glanced quickly to Henrietta Maria. She sat perfectly still, watching her son and his wife approach, a faint smile on her mouth; no one could have told what she was thinking. But Charles, glancing down at her, saw that she trembled ever so slightly and that one veined taut-skinned hand had a tight hold on the arm of her chair.

Poor Mam, he thought. How much that pension means to her!

Anne Hyde was twenty-three years old, dark and ugly with a large mouth and bulging eyes. But she walked into the room-stared at by dozens of pairs of curious jealous critical eyes and facing a mother-in-law she knew hated her—with her head held high and a kind of courageous grandeur that commanded admiration. With perfect respect but no slightest hint of servility she knelt at the Queen’s feet, bowing her head, while James mumbled a speech of presentation.

Henrietta Maria smiled graciously and kissed Anne lightly on the forehead, apparently as well-pleased as though she had made the choice for James herself. Behind her the face of the King was impassive—but as Anne gave him a quick look of gratitude his black eyes sparkled at her with something that was very like a reassuring and congratulatory smile.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE DAY AFTER Lord Carlton’s departure Amber had moved almost a mile across town to the Rose and Crown in Fetter Lane. She could not stand the sight of the rooms where they had lived, the table where they had eaten, and the bed they had slept in. Mr. Gumble who gave her a bleak, sympathetic look, the chambermaid, even the black-and-white bitch with her litter of pups, filled her with lonely sickness. She wanted to get away from it and, just as much, she wanted to avoid the possibility of seeing Almsbury or any other of his Lordship’s acquaintance. The Earl’s promise of friendship.should she need it meant nothing to her now but the dread of raking over her misery and shame. She wanted to be left alone.

For several days she shut herself up in the single room she had taken.

She was convinced that her life was over and the future that lay before her was arid and hopeless. She wished that she had never seen Bruce, and forgetting her own willful part in what had happened to her, blamed him for all her troubles. She forgot that she had eagerly wanted to have a child and hated him for leaving her pregnant, frightened and baffled by the knowledge that imprisoned within her body, growing with each day that passed, was proof of her guiltiness. One day she would no longer be able to conceal it—and what would happen to her then? She forgot that she had despised Marygreen and wanted to leave it, and blamed him for having brought her to this great city where she had no friends and every strange face looked like an enemy’s. A hundred times she decided that she would go back home, but she did not dare. For though she might be able to explain to Sarah what had happened, her uncle, she knew, would very likely refuse her the house. And certainly would turn her out when he found her with child.

Amber mulled wretchedly over her problems, but there seemed no solution to them and no end. She would never again be young and gay and free. And all because of him!

But in spite of herself Lord Carlton sometimes—and more often as the days passed—stepped out of his role as Devil. She was still wholly infatuated and she had a passionate painful longing for him that was something more than desire. It was awe, bedazzlement, admiration as well.

But gradually, as time passed, she began again to take an interest in merely being alive. Her meals tasted good to her. There were so many things to eat here in London that she had never had before: elaborate sweets called marchpanes, olives imported from the Continent, Parmesan cheese and Bayonne bacon. And she began to feel a kind of curious wonder at the strange and mysterious functioning of her own body in pregnancy. She even began to care something about her appearance again. And once when she had idly dusted some powder over her cheeks, she went on opening one jar after another, until she had painted all her face, and she could not help being pleased with the result.

She almost felt then that she was too pretty to mope away the rest of her life alone.

Her windows overlooked the street, which was in a somewhat fashionable neighbourhood, and she began to spend more and more time there, wondering who the handsomely gowned lady was, getting out of her coach attended by four gallants, where the good-looking young man who stared up at her was going, and what he thought of her. London was just as exciting as it had ever been.

But I’m going to have a baby!

That was what made the difference. Even more than Lord Carlton’s departure.

But she could not stay indoors forever, and so one day when Carlton had been gone for about a fortnight she made herself ready again with great care and went out. She had no plan or specific intention but wanted only to get away from her room, perhaps to ramble through the streets in her coach, to feel in some way that she was a part of the world.

The coachman whom Lord Carlton had hired had fallen sick of the small-pox not three days after his Lordship left and Amber had paid him his salary for the year and—scared of the disease—sent the footman away. The host at the Rose and Crown found two others to take their place. Now while she waited for her coach she stood in the doorway of the inn pulling on her gloves, and was unable to keep back a pleased smile as two flaxen-haired beribboned young fops went by and craned their necks to stare at her. She was sure that they thought her some person of quality. And then, to her surprise, she heard her own name spoken and gave a start. Turning quickly she saw that a strange woman had come up behind her.

“Good morning, Mrs. St. Clare. Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to affright you, madame. I wanted to ask how you were doing. My apartments are just next yours and the landlord told me you’d been abed with an ague. I have a decoction that does wonders for an ague—”

Her eyes and smile were friendly and she looked at Amber as though she admired her beauty and her clothes. Instantly grateful for the attention and glad to have someone to talk to, if only for a moment, Amber made her a little curtsy.

“God-a-mercy, madame. But I think the ague’s near gone by now.”

At that instant her coach drove up and stopped before them; the footman opened the door, turned down the folding iron steps and stood ready to hand her in. Amber hesitated for just a moment. The jolt her self-confidence had had and two weeks of complete seclusion had made her a little shy. But she was desperately lonely and this lady looked kind—and not too critical. She would have been afraid of one of the glossy tart-voiced young women her own age whom she had seen and admired and half-consciously begun to imitate. But she was not able to think of anything more to say and so made her a slight curtsy and started toward the coach.

“Why!” cried the stranger then. “Is that your family, madame?” She referred to Bruce’s crest, which Amber had not removed from the door.

“Aye,” said Amber without hesitation. But she was hoping that the woman could not tell one from another. To her, at least, they all looked alike with their absurd clawing dog-faced lions, their checkerboards and stripes.

“Why, then I know your father well! My own country-seat is near Pickering in Yorkshire!”

“I come from Essex, madame. Near Heathstone.” She was beginning to wish that she had not lied about it, for it seemed likely she might be caught.

“Why, of course, Mrs. St. Clare! How furiously stupid of me! But your crest is so similar to that of a near neighbour of mine—though now I look closer I see well enough what the difference is. May I present myself, madame? I’m Mrs. Goodman.”

“I’m glad of your acquaintance, madame.” She bowed, thinking how much like a fine lady she was behaving, for she had learned those little niceties from her French master and by watching Lord Carlton and his friends. “Can’t I carry you somewhere?”

“Why, faith, my dear, I wouldn’t care to put you to the trouble. I was only going to pick up a trifle or so in the ’hange.”

The ’Change, Amber knew, was a fashionable lounge and meeting-place for the gallants and ladies, and that now seemed to her as good a place as any for her excursion. “I’m going there myself, madame. Pray ride along with me.”

Mrs. Goodman did not hesitate and they both got in, spreading their full skirts about them, ruffling their fans, commenting on the September heat. The coach started off across town, jogging about on the cobble-stones, and from time to time they were held up in a dispute with a hackney over the right of way or had to wait while a procession of colliers’ carts filed slowly by. Amber and Sally Goodman sat inside talking animatedly, and Amber had almost forgotten that she was a jilted woman carrying in her body a bastard child.

Sally Goodman was plump with pink over-fleshed arms and a bosom that bulged out of her low-necked gowns. Her skin was badly pock-marked, though she did what she could to remedy this defect by the application of a thick layer of some pink-white cosmetic, and her hair was two or three shades of light yellow so that it was plain she aided nature in this respect also. She admitted to twenty-eight of her thirty-nine years and, for that matter, she did contrive to look younger than she was. Her clothes had a sort of specious elegance, though a practiced eye might have known immediately that they were made of second-rate materials by a second-rate sempstress, and there was precisely the same quality in her manner and personality. But she had a hearty good-natured joviality that Amber found both warming and comforting.

Mrs. Goodman, it seemed, was a person of quality and means, making a short stay in London while her husband was abroad on business. Evidently judging Amber by her accent, clothes and coach, she assumed her to be a country heiress visiting in the city and Amber—pleased with this identity—agreed that she was.

“But, Lord, sweetheart!” said Mrs. Goodman. “Are you all alone? A pretty young creature like you? Why, there’s dozens of wicked men in London looking for just such an opportunity!”

Amber almost surprised herself with the readiness of her reply. “Oh, I’m visiting my aunt—that is, I—I’m going to visit her as soon as she gets back. She’s still in France—She was with his Majesty’s court—”

“Oh, of course,” agreed Mrs. Goodman. “My husband was there too, for a time, but the King thought he could do more good back here, organizing plots. Where does your aunt live, my dear?”

“She lives in the Strand—oh, it’s a mighty fine house!” Almsbury had once driven her by his home which was located there, though not yet returned to his possession.

“I hope she comes back soon. I’m afraid your parents would be uneasy to have you here alone for very long, my dear. You’re not married, I suppose?”

Amber felt a sudden hot blush at that question and her eyes retreated to her closed fan. But she found another nimble lie conveniently at her tongue’s end.

“No—I’m not—But I will be soon. My aunt has a gentleman for me—an earl, I think she said. He’s on his travels now but he’ll likely come home when she does.” Then she remembered what Almsbury had told her about Bruce’s parents and added: “My father and mother are both dead. My father was killed at Marston Moor and my mother died in Paris ten years ago.”

“Oh, you poor dear child. And have you no guardian, no one to care for you?”

“My aunt is my guardian when she’s here. I’ve been living with another aunt since she went abroad.”

Mrs. Goodman shook her head and sympathetically pressed Amber’s hand. Amber was passionately grateful for her kindly interest and understanding, for the mere fact that here was another human being she could talk to, share small experiences with—she had always felt miserable and lost when alone.

The Royal Exchange stood at the junction of Corn Hill and Threadneedle Street, not far from the Royal Saracen Inn. The building formed an immense quadrangle completely surrounding a courtyard and the galleries were divided into tiny shops attended by pretty young women who kept up a continual cry: “What d‘ye lack, gentlemen? What d’ye lack, ladies? Ribbons, gloves, essences—” The gallants loitered there, flirting with the ’Change women, lounging against a pillar to watch the ladies walk by and calling out boldly to them. The courtyard itself was crowded with merchants, soberly dressed, intent on business, talking of stocks and mortgages and their ventures at sea.

As they went inside and began to mount the stairs Amber reluctantly followed Sally Goodman’s example and put on her vizard. What’s the good of a pretty face, she thought, if no one’s to see it? and she let her cloak fall back, showing her figure. But in spite of the mask there was no doubt she attracted attention. For as they walked along, pausing now and then to examine a pair of gloves, some embroidered ribbons, a length of lace, enthusiastic comments followed them.

“She’s handsome—very handsome! By God, but she is!”

“Those killing eyes!”

“As pretty a girl, for a fortnight’s use or so, as a man could wish.”

Amber began to feel pleased and excited and she cast furtive sidelong glances to see how many men were watching her and what they looked like. Mrs. Goodman, however, took another view of the compliments. She clucked her tongue and shook her head.

“Lord, how bawdy the young men talk nowadays!”

Somewhat abashed at this Amber guarded her eyes and frowned a little, to show that she was displeased too. But the frown did not last long—for she was half-intoxicated by the sights and sounds all about her.

She wanted to buy almost everything she saw. She had little sense of discrimination, her acquisitive instincts were strong, and she felt so boundlessly rich that there seemed no reason why she might not have whatever she desired. Finally she stopped before a stall where a plump black-eyed young woman stood surrounded by dozens of bird-cages, painted gold or silver or bright colours; in each one was a brilliant bird, canaries, parrots, cockatoos brought back by the East India Company or some merchant fleet.

While she was making her selection, unable to decide between a small turquoise-coloured parakeet and a large green squawking bird, she heard a man’s voice in back of her remark: “By God, she’s tearing fine. Who d’ye think she is?”

Amber glanced around to see if he was speaking of her, just as the other replied, “I’ve never seen her at Court. Like as not she’s some country heiress. By God, I’ll make her acquaintance though I perish for it!” And with that he stepped forward, swept off his hat and bowed to her. “Madame, if you’ll permit me, I should like to make you a present of that bird—which is, if I may be permitted the observation—no more gorgeous than yourself.”

Delighted, Amber smiled at him and had just begun to make a curtsy when Mrs. Goodman’s voice cut in sharply: “How dare you use a young woman of quality at this rate, sir? Begone, now, before I call a constable and have you clapped up for your impertinence!”

The fop raised his eyebrows in surprise and hesitated a moment as if undecided whether to challenge the issue, but Mrs. Goodman faced him so stoutly that at last he bowed very ceremoniously to the disappointed Amber and turned to go off with his friend. As they walked away she heard his scornful remark:

“Just as I thought. A bawd out with her protégée. But apparently she intends to save her for some gouty old duke.”

At that Amber realized she had seemed too eager to make the acquaintance of strangers, and she began to fan herself swiftly. “Heaven! I swear I thought he was a young fellow I’d seen sometime at my aunt’s!” She drew her cloak about her and went back to the business of selecting her bird, but now she kept her eyes decorously within the shop.

She paid for the gilt cage and little turquoise parakeet with a random coin which she fished out of her muff. And once again Mrs. Goodman’s quickness came to her rescue, for as she was scooping the change back into her hand, Sally caught hold of her wrist.

“Hold on, sweetheart. I believe you’re lacking a shilling there.”

The girl behind the counter quickly produced one, giggling, saying that she had miscounted. Mrs. Goodman gave her a severe frown and she and Amber left, going downstairs then to get into the coach.

On the ride back Mrs. Goodman undertook to warn Amber of the dangers a young and pretty woman, unaccustomed to town life, must encounter in the city. The times were wicked, she said; a woman of virtue had much ado to preserve not only her honesty but even the appearance of it.

“For in the way of the world, sweetheart,” she warned, “a woman loses as much by the appearance of evil as she does by the misdeed itself.”

Amber nodded solemnly, her own guilty conscience writhing inside her, and she wondered miserably if her behaviour had given the strait-laced Mrs. Goodman some clue to her predicament. And then, as the coach stopped, she looked out the opened window and gave a sharp horrified cry at what she saw: Trudging slowly along was a woman, naked to the waist and with her long hair falling over her breasts, moaning and wincing each time a man who walked behind her slashed his whip across her shoulders. Following in her wake and trailing beside her was a considerable crowd—laughing jeering little boys, grown men and women, who mocked and taunted.

“Oh! Look at that woman! They’re beating her!”

Sally Goodman glanced at her and then away, her face complacently untroubled. “Don’t waste your sympathy, my dear. Wretched creature—she must be the mother of a bastard child. It’s the common punishment, and no more than the wicked creatures deserve.”

Amber continued to watch with reluctant fascination, turning her head to look as the procession passed. There were streaks of blood laced across the woman’s naked shoulders. And then suddenly she turned back again and shut her eyes hard. For a moment she felt so sick that she was sure she would faint, but fear of Mrs. Goodman made her take hold of herself again. But all her gaiety was gone and she was aware as never before that she had committed a terrible crime—a punishable crime.

Oh, Gemini! she thought in frantic despair. That might be me! That will be me!

The next morning Amber was up, wearing her dressing-gown and eating a dishful of gooseberry jelly, which was supposed to cure her nausea, when there was a rap at the door and Mrs. Goodman’s cheerful voice called her name. Quickly she shoved the dish under the bed and ran to let her in.

“I was just putting up my hair.”

Mrs. Goodman followed her back to the dressing-table. “Let me help sweetheart. Has your maid gone abroad?”

Amber felt her fingers working competently, making a thick braid, twisting it into a chignon high on her head, then sticking in gold-headed bodkins to hold the heavy scroll in place. “Why—I had to turn my maid off. She—she got herself with child.” It was the only excuse she could think of.

Mrs. Goodman shook her head, but her mouth was too full of bodkins to cluck her tongue. “It’s a wicked age, I vow and swear. But Lord, sweetheart, how’ll you shift, without a maid?”

Amber frowned. “I don’t know. But my aunt’ll have dozens, when she comes.”

Mrs. Goodman had finished now and Amber began combing out the long thick tresses at the sides of her face, rolling the ends into fat curls that lay on her shoulders.

“Of course, sweetheart. But until then—Heaven, a lady can’t do without a serving-woman.”

“No,” agreed Amber. “I know it. But I don’t know where to get one—I’ve never been in London before. And a woman alone must be mighty careful of strangers,” she added virtuously.

“She must, my dear, and that’s the truth on it. You’re a wise young creature to know it. But perhaps I can help you. A dear friend of mine has just removed to her country-estate and left some of her serving-maids here. There’s one of ’em I have in mind in particular—a neat modest accomplished young creature she is, and if she’s not already found a new place I can get her for you.”

Amber agreed and the girl arrived in less than an hour, a plain-faced plump little thing in neat dark-blue skirt, tucked-up fresh white apron and long-sleeved white blouse with a linen cap that covered her hair and tied in a knot beneath her round chin. She curtsied to Amber, her eyes lowered modestly, and she spoke in a soft voice that suggested she would never try to bully whoever took her into service. Her name was Honour Mills and Amber hired her promptly at two pounds a year, with her room and board and clothing.

It made her feel very fashionable and elegant, having a maid to brush her hair and lay out her clothes, run small errands and walk behind her when she went out of doors. And she was grateful, too, for the girl’s company. Honour was quiet and well-behaved, always neat in her appearance, always good-tempered, and a most satisfactory audience for her mistress whom she seemed to admire greatly.

But nevertheless Amber remembered Lord Carlton’s advice, kept her money well-hidden and did not confide her private affairs to her. She had not, however, taken the five hundred pounds to Shadrac Newbold, as he had suggested, for she had never heard of a goldsmith before and was distrustful of putting her money into the hands of a complete stranger. She thought herself quite competent to manage it. Nor did she intend to go to either of the two women he had suggested until she was forced by her own appearance to do so.

Amber and Mrs. Goodman became constant companions. They ate dinner together, usually in one of their own apartments; they went riding in Hyde Park or the Mall, but did not get out; they shopped in the Royal Exchange or at the East India House. Once Amber suggested that they go to a play, but Mrs. Goodman had some severe things to say about the debauchery of the theatres, and after that she did not dare make any more suggestions.

Mrs. Goodman’s husband was detained longer on the Continent, for his business matters were badly tangled. And Amber said that she had received a letter from her aunt, telling her that it would be two weeks or more before she could leave France. If necessary she did not doubt that she could think of another excuse at the end of that time. She was already convinced that people had a better opinion of you if you pretended to be something more than you were than if you used them honestly.

They had been acquainted for perhaps a fortnight when Sally Goodman told Amber about her nephew. Just returned from church, for it was Sunday, they were in Amber’s room, eating a dishful of hot buttered shrimps with their fingers and washing them down with Rhenish. Honour was busily using a pair of bellows to make the fire go, for the day had suddenly turned chill and heavy fog hung over the city.

“Faith,” said Mrs. Goodman, not looking up, for she ate with an almost impartial attention to her plate, “but I’ll vow it was worth a Jew’s eye to hear my silly young nephew going on about you last night. He swears you’re the most glorious creature he’s ever seen.”

Amber, popping a crisp plump shrimp into her mouth, glanced over at her swiftly. “When did he see me?”

She had not made the acquaintance of a single young man, though she had had opportunities aplenty; she was convinced that she would never fall in love again but nevertheless she longed for masculine company. Being with a woman she thought was flat and unexciting as a glass of water. But she had almost never met the man who did not seem to have at least one redeeming quality.

“Yesterday, when you alighted from your coach out in the yard. I thought the young simpleton would fall out the window and break his noddle. But I told ’im you’re intended for an earl.”

Amber’s smile disappeared. “Oh. You shouldn’t ’ve done that! ”

“Why not?” Mrs. Goodman now turned to a French cake, split and covered with melted butter and rose-water, sprinkled with almonds. “You are, aren’t you?”

“Well—yes. But then, he’s your nephew. Heavens, you’ve been mighty kind to me, Mrs. Goodman, and if your nephew wants to make my acquaintance—why, what harm is there in that?”

Luke Channell was to call on his aunt that evening and Mrs. Goodman said that she would bring him to meet her. He was, she said, just returning from his travels and on his way to his country-seat in Devonshire. Amber, very much excited and hoping that he would be handsome, changed her gown and had Honour dress her hair again. She did not expect a man like Lord Carlton, for she had seen none other in London like him, but the prospect of talking to a young man again, perhaps flirting a little, seeing his eyes light with admiration, was an exhilarating tonic.

Luke Channell, however, was a serious disappointment.

Not very much taller than she, he was stockily built with a broad flat snub-nosed face, and his two front teeth had been broken off diagonally; there was a kind of slippery green moss growing along the edges of his gums. But at least he was quite well-dressed, with a profusion of ribbon-loops at his elbows, hips, and knees, his manner was self-assured, and he seemed tremendously smitten by her. He grinned incessantly, his eyes scarcely left her face, and at times he even seemed so nonplussed as to lose his trend of thought in the middle of a sentence.

Like most young men who went abroad he had brought back his quota of French oaths, and every other word was “Mor-blew” or “Mor-dee.” He told her that the Louvre was much larger than Whitehall, that in Venice the prostitutes walked the streets with their naked breasts on display, and that the Germans drank even more than the English. When he left he invited Amber and his aunt to be his guest at the Mulberry Gardens the next evening and she accepted the invitation with a smiling curtsy.

They had scarcely closed the door when Honour asked her: “Well, mem, what d’ye think of him? A mighty spruce young fellow, I’d say.”

But Amber felt suddenly tired and discouraged; the tendency to gloom and moroseness which had come with her pregnancy began to settle. Listlessly she shrugged her shoulders. “He’s no great matters to brag of.”

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 do! she thought wildly. It’s growing and growing and growing inside me! I can’t stop it! It’s going to get bigger and bigger till I swell up like a stuffed toad and everyone will know—Oh! I wish I was dead!

CHAPTER EIGHT

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.

“When’s Luke going to get some money from home? If he so much as takes his dinner at a tavern or goes to the play he asks me for some.”

Sally laughed and fanned herself industriously, looking out into the crowded street. “See that yellow satin gown just across the way, sweetheart? I’ve a mind to have one like it. Now what’s that you were saying? Oh, yes—Luke’s money. Well, to tell you truly, sweetheart, we wanted to keep this from you, but since you ask you may as well know: Luke’s father is furious he married without his leave. Poor Luke—married for love and now it seems he may be cut off without so much as a shilling. But then, my dear, with all your money no doubt the two of you could shift well enough?” She gave Amber an ingratiating grin, but her eyes were hard and searching.

Amber stared at her, shocked. Luke cut off and the two of them to live on her five hundred pounds! She had begun to learn already that five hundred was less than the illimitable fortune she had at first imagined it to be, particularly when spent at the reckless rate they three were going.

“Well, now, why the devil should he be cut out of his father’s will?” The question was a sharp challenge, for she and Sally were by means as polite as they had once been and several times had come close to quarrelling. “I suppose I’m not a good enough match for ’im?”

“Oh, Lord, sweetheart, I protest! I didn’t say that, did I? But his father had another girl in mind—Wait till he sees you. He’ll come around then fast enough, I warrant. And by the way, my dear, that thousand pound you sent for to your aunt’s lawyer—isn’t it mighty long in coming?” Sally’s voice was once more silky, soothing, as when she asked Luke to curb his temper, not to tear up the cards when he lost a hand, or to treat Honour more gently.

But Amber stuck out her lower lip, refused to look at her, and answered sullenly. “Maybe the lawyer won’t send it at all —now I’m married!”

Little by little her money was dribbling away. It went to Luke for pocket-money, to Mrs. Goodman, who always promised to repay the instant her husband returned from France, or to a tradesman who came to the door dunning her for a bill two or three months in arrears.

What’ll I do when it’s gone? she would think desperately. And overwhelmed with fear and foreboding she would begin to cry again. She had cried more often in the weeks since Lord Carlton had left than in all the rest of her life. If Luke flew into a temper, if the laundress did not return her smocks in time—the slightest upset, the smallest inconvenience was now enough to start the tears. Sometimes she wept dismally, mournfully, but other times the tears came in a torrent, noisy and splashing as a summer storm. Life was no longer a gay and buoyant challenge but had become empty and hopeless.

There was nothing left to look forward to. This baby would be born and others would follow in a succession down the years. Without money, with children to care for, a brutal husband, hard work, her prettiness would soon be gone. And she would grow old.

Sometimes she woke at night feeling as if she were struggling in some growing living net. She would sit up suddenly, so scared that she could not breathe. And then she would remember Luke beside her, sprawled over three-fourths of the bed, and hatred made her long to reach down and strangle him with her own hands. She would sit there staring at him, thinking with pleasure of what it would be like to stab him to death, to have him pinned there to the bed flopping helplessly. She wondered if she could poison him—but she knew nothing of the process and was afraid of being caught. A woman guilty of husband-murder was burnt alive.

So far apparently none of them had guessed at her pregnancy, though it had now passed the end of the fifth month. Her numerous starched petticoats and full-gathered skirts helped to disguise her in the daytime and ever since her stomach had begun to swell she had contrived to dress when no one was around or to keep her back turned. The lights were always out at night because Honour slept in the same room they did, on a little trundle-bed which was pushed under the large one in the daytime. But nevertheless they were sure to find out soon, and she knew she could never make them believe the child was Luke’s. She had no idea what she would do then.

From time to time Amber had changed the hiding-place of her money, leaving out only a few coins at one time, and she congratulated herself that the system was a very clever one. One day she went to her cache; the wallet was gone.

She had hung the strings of the leather bag over a nail hammered into the back of a very heavy carved oak chest which stood against one wall and was never moved. Now, with a little gasp, she got down onto her hands and knees to look underneath it, reaching back to feel about in the thick rolls of dust, suddenly scared and sick. She turned and shouted over her shoulder at Honour, who was in the next room, and the girl came on a run, stopping suddenly when she saw Amber glowering there beside the chest. Then she made a demure little curtsy and opened her eyes wide.

“Yes, mem?”

“Did you move this chest?”

“Oh, no, mem!” Her hands were holding to the sides of her skirts, as though for moral support.

Amber decided that she was lying, but thought it most likely that whatever her part in the theft had been she had been prompted by Luke. She got up wearily, discouraged, but still less surprised than she would have expected to be, and went to the door where a tailor stood waiting with his bill in his hand. He was most courteous, however, when she told him that she had no money in the house, and said that he would call again. Mr. Channell had been an excellent customer and he had no wish to antagonize him.

Luke came home late, too drunk to talk, so that Amber had no alternative but to wait. When she woke the next morning, however, the room was empty and the door into Sally’s apartment closed, but she could hear low voices coming from it. Quickly she slipped out of bed and ran to get into her clothes, intending to dress and then go in to talk to him before he left.

She had just pulled the sheer linen smock over her head and settled it about her when Luke opened the door. Quickly she reached for a petticoat. But he crossed the room swiftly, grabbed her by one elbow and swung her about, jerking the petticoat out of her hand and flinging it aside.

“Not so quick there. I hope a husband may be permitted a look at his wife sometimes?” He eyed her swollen belly. “You’re mighty modest—” he said slowly, his face unpleasant, “for a bitch who was three months gone with child when she got married.”

Amber stared at him, unmoving, her eyes cold and hard. Suddenly all her worry and indecision were gone. She felt only a bitter contemptuous hatred so strong it blotted out every other sense and emotion.

“Is that what you married me for, you lousy trull? To furnish a name for your bastard—”

All at once Amber struck him a hard, furious blow, with all the strength of her body, across the side of his face and left ear. Before she could even move he grabbed her by the hair, giving her head a vicious cracking jerk as his free hand smashed across her jaw. Suddenly terrified, seeing murder in his face, Amber screamed and Sally Goodman rushed into the room, shouting at him.

“Luke! Luke! Oh, you fool! You’ll spoil everything! Stop it!” She began to struggle with him as Amber cowered, not daring to fight back for fear some blow or kick would kill the baby, trying to protect herself with her hands and arms. But he struck at her again and again, his hands and fists hitting her wherever he could, swearing between his teeth, his face livid and writhing with rage. And then at last Sally succeeded in dragging him off and Amber crumpled to the floor, retching violently, moaning and gasping and almost hysterical.

“Oh, damn you, Luke!” she heard Sally cry. “Your temper will ruin us all!”

He ignored her, shouting at Amber: “Next time, you damned slut, I won’t let you off so easy! I’ll break your neck, d’ye hear me?” He made a short vicious kick at her and Amber screamed, arms covering her belly, eyes shut. He left the room, slamming the door with a crash.

The two women rushed immediately to Amber and helped her into the bed. She lay there for several minutes, still sobbing, trembling violently but more with rage and hatred and humiliation than from any pain she suffered. Sally sat on the bed chafing her hands, talking to her in a low soothing tone, while Honour hung over her with a sort of wide-eyed sympathetic stupefaction.

But as Amber began to recover her senses she became conscious of sharp little thrusting movements within her, and putting her hands to her stomach she could feel the baby stir. “Oh!” she cried furiously. “If I lose this baby I swear I’ll see that son of ’a whore set up on a gibbet on Tyburn Hill!” Though a great many times she had half-hoped that some accident would bring on a miscarriage, now she realized that more than anything else she wanted to bear this child—for he was all that was left to her of Lord Carlton.

“Lord, sweetheart! How you talk!” cried Sally.

Nevertheless she sent Honour to an apothecary to get something which would prevent abortion and when the girl returned she brewed the packet of herbs into a tea. Amber drank the stinking decoction, holding her nose and making a face. The day wore on and as no symptoms of a miscarriage appeared Amber began to feel easier, for though she was sore and bruised she had not been otherwise seriously hurt. But she could think of nothing but Luke Channell and how she hated him, and she was determined that as soon as she got her money back she would leave him—go away from London to some other town and hide. She lay on the bed for several hours with her eyes shut, absorbed in making her plans.

Sally was most solicitous and even when Amber pretended to be asleep she continued to question her, to bring her something to eat, to suggest that she would feel better if she sat up for a little while and played some game to amuse herself. Finally, with a bored sigh, Amber agreed and they started a game of ombre, playing on a board which rested across their laps.

“Poor Luke,” said Sally after a few minutes. “I fear the dear boy inherited his father’s fits. Sometimes, I swear, I’ve seen Sir Walter Channell lie foaming at the mouth and stark rigid for minutes at a time. But when it passes, he’s the pleasantest man alive—just like Luke.”

Amber, giving Sally a skeptical glance, put down her queen and took the trick. “Just like Luke?” she repeated. “Then I’m mighty sorry for Lady Channell.”

Sally pursed her lips primly. “Well, my dear—sure, now, you wouldn’t expect any man to be pleased to find his wife with child by another man’s offices? And d‘ye know—” She played a card, took the trick, and as she was placing it slantwise along the board looked across at Amber. “It would almost seem you must ’ve known what your condition was when you married ’im.”

Amber smiled maliciously. “Oh, would it?” Suddenly her eyes flashed and she snapped out, “Why else would I marry that daggle-toothed lout?”

Sally looked at her, took a deep breath, and then began counting the tricks. She shuffled the cards, dealt, and they played for a while in silence.

All at once Amber said: “I’m missing a wallet that had a deal of money in it. It was on a nail behind that chest and someone stole it.”

“Stole it! Thieves in these rooms! Oh, heaven!”

“I think the thief was Luke!”

“Luke? A thief? Lord, child, how you talk! Why, there’s never an honester man in London than my nephew! And anyway, my dear, how could he steal money from you? A wife’s money belongs to her husband the moment they leave the altar. I must say, sweetheart, I’m surprised you’d hide a few paltry pounds from ’im.”

“A few paltry pounds! That wasn’t a few paltry pounds! It was everything I had in the world!”

Sally looked at her quickly. “Everything you had? Then what about your inheritance? What about your five thousand pound?” She was staring at her, her blue eyes narrowed and hard, all the placid good-humour gone from her face.

“What about his inheritance?”

Sally refused to let go of her patience. “I explained that to you, my dear. And now am I to understand that you’ve swindled my nephew—made him think you were a person of some fortune when five hundred was all you had?”

Suddenly Amber slammed her handful of cards across the room and swept the board onto the floor. “Understand what you damn please! That wretch stole my money and I’ll have ’im before a constable for it!”

Sally got up, bowed to her with an air of injured dignity, and went into her own room where she closed the door and remained throughout the rest of the day. Honour stayed with her mistress. Quietly she went about her usual duties. She served Amber her supper on a tray, brushed her hair, and when Amber got up to wash her face and clean her teeth she smoothed out the sheets with a bed-staff. She listened with sympathy but made no comment upon Amber’s grumbling about her husband and his aunt and seemed not very much surprised by Amber’s statement that she intended to leave him as soon as she could force him to give her money back.

Though she did not intend to, Amber fell asleep before Luke came home. Some time in the middle of the night she wakened to hear voices in the next room—his and Sally’s—and though she waited for some time in cold angry apprehension the door between their rooms remained closed. And at last the sound of their voices ceased. She fell asleep again.

When she woke the next morning there was a bright fire going and the room had an almost surprising air of contented domesticity. Sally, humming a tune beneath her breath, was arranging a bowlful of green leaves. Honour was dusting the furniture with more enthusiasm than she usually showed for such tasks. And Luke stood knotting his cravat before a mirror, regarding himself with smug approval.

The moment she pulled back the bed-hangings Sally saw her.

“Why!” she cried pleasantly. “Good morning to you, sweetheart!” Briskly she crossed the room and kissed her on the cheek, ignoring the face Amber made. “I hope you’ve slept well! Luke slept on the trundle in my room so as not to disturb you.” She had never been more pleasant and now she turned a beaming smile upon her nephew, like a mother prompting her child in the presence of guests. “Didn’t you, Luke?”

Luke gave her a broad grin, the same one he had used during their courtship. Amber lay propped on one elbow and regarded him sourly. She was determined somehow to get her money back, but the mere sight of him infuriated her so that she lost hold of all her schemes and plans. He started toward her, still grinning, though Amber watched him with sullen distrust.

“What d’ye suppose I’ve got here for you?” He had picked something off the mantel and kept one hand behind his back.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care! Get away from me!” she cried warningly, as he stooped to kiss her, and she flung the covers up over her head.

An ugly look came swiftly to his face but Sally reminded him with a nudge and jerk of her head. He sat down on the bed and reached out a tentative hand to touch her. “Look here, duckling—look what a fine present I’ve brought you. Heavens, sweetheart, you a’nt going to stay mad at poor Luke, now are you?”

She could hear him open a box and jingle something which sounded like jewellery and at last out of curiosity she peeked over the top of the blankets. He was holding toward her, temptingly, a bracelet with several diamonds and a ruby or two winking on it. His voice continued to wheedle, though she was looking not at him but at the bracelet.

“Believe me, sweetheart, I’m sorry for what I did yesterday. But truly at times it seems I’m not master of myself. My poor old father had those fits. Here—let me fasten it on your wrist—”

The bracelet was a handsome one, and finally Amber permitted him to clasp it. She knew that she must make him think she liked him, or she would never get her money back. So she let him kiss her and even pretended to giggle with pleasure. She had such contempt for him it was easy to make herself believe that she could outwit him. Finally she got up and dressed and they drank the morning draught of ale, together with a few anchovies. Luke suggested that Amber ride out to Pancras with him and have dinner at a charming little inn he knew, and thinking that most likely he really was sorry for his behaviour and once more infatuated with her, she agreed. She put on her cloak—though at his suggestion she left the bracelet there because of the danger from highwaymen—and they set out.

Pancras, a tiny village to the northwest, was about two miles from the Rose and Crown, or some three-quarters of an hour by coach. But they had scarcely reached High Holborn when it began to rain—though the winter had been a dry and warm and dusty one—and within fifteen minutes the roads were splashing with mud and there was a strong smell of rotten garbage in the air, made more poignant by the wet. Two or three times the wheels stuck and the coachman and footman had to pry them out, using an iron bar, which all coaches carried for that purpose.

To Amber, lurching and jogging inside the springless carriage, the ride seemed interminable and she wished miserably that she had stayed at home. But Luke was cheerful and talkative as he had not been for weeks, and she tried to pretend that she was enjoying the outing and his company. His hands roamed over her persistently, and he urged her to reciprocate his attentions. Amber laughed and tried to push him off, pretending she was afraid that the coach might overturn and spill them out for everyone to see; the touch of his fingers made her flesh crawl and turn cold with loathing.

The inn she found to be a little greasy place and the room to which the host showed them was cold and unaired. He lighted a fire and then Luke went below with him to order the dinner while Amber stood at the window, looking out at the pouring rain and watching the bedraggled red rooster moving majestically across the courtyard, carefully picking up his claws as he went. She kept her cloak on, shivering a little, unhappy and listless, a sense of depression dragging at her.

The dinner was a bad one, a stringy slightly warmed chunk of boiled beef, boiled parsnips, and boiled bacon. Amber was disgusted with such fare and could scarcely force herself to take a bite but Luke, who was never discriminating, ate with gusto, a trickle of greasy juice running over his chin. He smacked his lips noisily, picked at his teeth with his fingernails, and spat on the floor until Amber, queasy with her pregnancy, thought that she would be sick.

He had scarcely done eating when he set upon her again, mauling her and pulling at her clothes. A moment later there was a knock and the landlord called his name; without a word he left her and went. out the door.

For a moment Amber lay, surprised and relieved, half wondering what had happened. Suddenly she burst into tears of anger and loneliness and revulsion. I won’t do it again! she thought. I won’t if he kills me! She rolled over onto her side, crying drearily, and waited for him to come back.

She waited a long time. At last she got up, rinsed her face in cold water and combed her hair. She wondered where he had gone and what kept him, but she did not care very much. For when he did return they would only drive back and she would spend the rest of the afternoon talking to Sally or, if Luke stayed home, playing ombre or gleek and she would be sure to lose because they cheated and she did not know how.

Finally she began to grow uneasy and the suspicion sneaked into her mind that he had taken the coach and gone off, leaving her to get back however she might. It would be like him to take some such means of repaying her for having slapped him. And she had not so much as a farthing with her. She snatched up her fan and muff and mask, flung on her black velvet cloak, and went out of the room and downstairs. The host was leaning over the counter, talking to some booted muddy stranger, and both men were smoking pipes and drinking ale.

“Where’s my husband?” she demanded, halfway down the stairs.

They looked up at her. “Your husband?” repeated the host.

“Of course! The man I came here with!” she cried impatiently, crossing the floor toward him now. “Where is he?”

“Why, he’s gone, mem. He said you was a lady wanted to elope with ‘im and told me to call ’im at half-after-one. He went off in the coach soon’s he came down—said you’d pay the reckoning,” he added significantly.

Amber stared at him in astonishment and then she ran to the door to look out. It was true. Her coach was gone. She turned and faced him, angry and worried. “I’ve got to get back to London! How can I do it? Is there a stage-coach that stops here?”

“No, mem. Few enough of any kind stops here. The dinner was ten shillin’s and the room ten shillin’s. One pound in all, mem.” He held out his hand.

“One pound! Well, I haven’t got it! I haven’t got a farthing! Oh, damn him!” It seemed to her that no one had ever had such scurvy luck, no one had ever suffered such trials as had beset her constantly since she had come to London. “How ’m I to get home?” she demanded again, desperate now. Certainly she could not walk in that pouring rain and the mud.

For a moment the host was silent, measuring her, deciding at last in her favour because of her fine clothes. “Well, mem, you look an honest lady. I’ve got a horse I can let you take and my son can show you the way—if you’ll pay him the reckoning when you get there.”

Amber agreed and she and the innkeeper’s fourteen-year-old boy set out on a pair of swaybacked nags that could not be kicked or coaxed out of a plodding trot. Though not yet two-thirty it was dark and the rain came down steadily, soaking both of them through before they had gone a quarter-mile.

They rode silently, Amber clenching her teeth, wretchedly uncomfortable with the heavy jogging of her belly and the feel of wet clothes and hair clinging tight to her skin. She was wholly obsessed with Luke Channell and how she despised him. And the farther they rode, the more her stomach stabbed and ached, the more chilled she became—the more savagely she hated him. She promised herself that she would murder him for this, though she burnt alive for it.

When they got back into the City the streets were almost deserted. Men with their cloaks wrapped up about their mouths and their hats pulled low leant against the wind. Wet skinny dogs and miserable cats crouched in the doorways, and the kennels down the middle of the streets were rushing torrents of water and refuse.

The boy helped her to dismount and followed her as she ran inside, her skirts sticking to her legs, her soaked hair hanging down her shoulders in long twining tendrils. She looked like some weird water-witch. She ran through the parlour without glancing at anyone—though every eye there turned to follow her in amazement—rushed up the steps two at a time, then down the hallway to burst into her room with a hysterical scream.

“Luke!”

No one answered. For the room was empty, her bed still unmade, and everywhere were signs of hurried departure. Drawers were opened and empty; the wardrobe where her clothes had been stood ajar, but nothing was in it; the top of her dressing-table had been wiped clean. The mirrors she had bought were gone from the walls. A pair of silver candlesticks had been taken from the mantel. In his pretty gilt cage the little parakeet cocked an eye at her, and she saw the earrings Bruce had bought at the May Fair lying on the floor, as though flung away in contempt.

She stood there, staring, stunned and helpless. But even while she stared there began to come over her a feeling of relief and she was glad to be rid of them—all three, Luke and Sally Goodman and simple little Honour Mills. Slowly she reached up one hand and took out the bodkins that held up her back hair —they had gold knobs on the ends with a pattern of tiny pearls. She held them toward him.

“My money’s all gone,” she said wearily. “Here. Take these.”

He looked at her doubtfully for a moment, but finally accepted them. Slowly Amber pushed the door shut. She leaned back against it. She wanted nothing but to lie down on the bed and forget—forget that she was even alive.