Forever Amber

CHAPTER NINE

THE FLOOR OF the room was covered with rushes which smelt sour and old, and rats came out boldly to dart about searching for morsels of food, their eyes bright and black as beads. The walls were stone, moist and dripping and green with a mossy slime; sunk into them were great ring-bolts from which hung heavy chains. Boarded beds ranged the walls as in a barracks. Though only mid-morning it was dark and would have been darker but for a tallow-candle which burnt with a low sullen flame, as though oppressed by the stinking air. It was the Condemned Hold at Newgate where prisoners were kept until they had paid the price of better quarters.

There were four women in the room, all of them seated, all of them shackled with heavy chains on wrists and ankles, all of them perfectly quiet.

One was a young Quaker girl in sober prim black, a starched white collar about her throat and a linen cap covering her hair; she sat motionless, concentrating on her feet. Across from her was a middle-aged woman who looked like any of the dozens of housewives seen every day in the streets going to market with a basket over one arm. Not far from her sprawled a morose slattern who stared dully at the others, one side of her mouth screwed up in a faint cynical smile. There were large open sores on her face and breasts and now and again she coughed with a hollow, racking sound as if she would bring up her very guts. The fourth woman was Amber, and she sat wrapped in her cloak, one hand tightly clasping the bird-cage set on her lap, the other inside her muff.

She looked strangely out of place there in that mouldering sty, for though all her garments were somewhat the worse for the soaking they had had two weeks before, the materials were good and the style fashionable. The gown, which had been made by Madame Darnier, was black velvet, caught up in back over a stiff petticoat of dark red-and-white-striped satin. Pleated frills of sheer white linen showed about the low neck-line and at the elbows of the puffed sleeves. Her silk stockings were scarlet and her square-toed shoes black velvet with large sparkling buckles. She wore her back-velvet cloak, carried her fox muff, her gloves and fan and mask.

She had been there for perhaps an hour—though it seemed a great deal longer—and so far no one had spoken a word. Her eyes roamed about restlessly, searching in the darkness, and she was beginning to fidget nervously. From everywhere about them, overhead, beneath their feet, from either side, came the muffled sounds of shouts and groans, screams and curses and laughter.

She looked at the housewife, then at the Quakeress, finally at the dirty slut across the room, and the last she found watching her with grum insolent amusement. “Is this the prison?” asked Amber at last, speaking to her because neither of the others seemed conscious of her or their own whereabouts.

For a moment she continued to squint near-sightedly at Amber and then she laughed and suddenly began to cough, leaning over with her hand against her chest until she spat out a great clot of bloody phlegm. “Is this the prison?” she repeated at last, mimicking. “What the hell d’ye think it is? It ain’t Whitehall, me fine lady!” Her accent was strong and harsh and her voice had the dreary whine of a woman who has been tired for years.

“I mean is this all the prison?”

“Jesus, no.” She gave a weary sweep of one arm. “Hear that? It’s over us and under us and all around us. What’re you here for?” she asked abruptly. “We ain’t used to havin’ the quality for company.” She sounded sarcastic, but too tired to be dangerously malicious.

“For debt,” said Amber.

The morning after Luke and his aunt and the maid had left her Amber had wakened with a bad cold, her throat so sore she could scarcely speak. But she was half relieved to be sick, for at least she could do nothing until she got well and it was impossible for her even to imagine what she would do then. She had no clothes but the ones she had been wearing, not a penny in cash, and her only negotiable assets were her wedding-ring, the string of pearls she had worn around her neck, a pair of pearl ear-drops, and the ear-rings Bruce had bought for her at the Fair. Luke had stolen everything of value, including the reconciliation bracelet and the silver-handled tooth-brush Bruce had given her.

As Amber lay in bed, coughing and blowing her nose, her very bones seeming to ache and her head feeling as though it was stuffed with cotton, she began to worry. She knew that she had been a fool, that they had played a trick on her that must be old as time and worn threadbare by usage. With her country-girl gullibility she had walked into their trap, as innocent as a woodcock. And she had nothing for consolation but the sureness that they had been almost as much mistaken in her. For now she was convinced that Luke had thought he was marrying a real heiress and that they had left only when the mistake was discovered.

By the third day the hall outside her room was aswarm with creditors, all of them demanding payment. And when Amber went to the door wrapped in a blanket and told them that her husband had run away and she had no money they threatened to bring action against her. At last she refused to answer any more and shouted at them to go away and leave her alone. Then this morning the constable had come, told her to get dressed and taken her off to Newgate. She would not be tried, he said, until the quarter-session and then—if found guilty of .her large debt—she would be sentenced to remain in Newgate until it was paid.

“For debt,” repeated the housewife. “That’s why I’m here, too. My husband died owin’ one pound six.”

“One pound six!” cried Amber. “I owe three hundred and ninety-seven pound!” She felt almost triumphant at being in jail for such a stupendous sum, but that feeling was soon squelched.

“Then,” said the slattern, “you ain’t goin’ out of here till they carry you out in a wooden box.”

“What d’you mean? I had the money! I had more than that—but my husband rubbed off with it! When they catch him I’ll get it back again!” She tried to sound confident but the woman’s words had scared her, for it was not the first rumour she had heard of the kind of justice they dealt here in London.

Smiling, the other woman heaved herself away from the wall and came forward, bringing with her a stench that made Amber’s nostrils flare in revulsion. She stood for a moment looking down at her with an expression that suggested both weary jealousy of her youth and beauty and an almost friendly contempt for her naivete and confident optimism. Then she sat down beside her.

“I’m Moll Turner. Where’d you come from, sweetheart? You ain’t been long in London, have you?”

“I’ve been here seven months and a half!” retorted Amber defiantly, for it always hurt her pride when she was recognized for an outlander. “I came from Essex,” she added, more meekly.

“Well, now, you needn’t take such hogan-mogan airs with me, Mrs. Minx. I’d say anyone’s had such a flam put upon ’em as you have stands in need of a little friendly counsel. And you’ll need more before you been long in this place.”

“I’m sorry. But to tell you truly, Mrs. Turner, I’m in such a mouse-hole I think I’ll run mad. What can I do? I’ve got to get out of here! I’m going to have a baby!”

“Are you indeed?” She did not seem very much impressed or concerned. “Well, it won’t be the first born in Newgate, believe me for that. Look here, sweetheart, most likely you ain’t never goin’ out of here. So listen to what I say and you’ll save yourself a deal of trouble.”

“Never!” cried Amber frantically. “Oh, but I am! I’ve got to! I won’t stay—they can’t keep me in here!”

Mrs. Turner seemed bored and impatient, and ignoring Amber’s protests went on with what she had begun to say. “You’ll have to pay garnish to the jailor’s wife to get better quarters, garnish for lighter chains, garnish if you so much as puke in this place. And you can begin to get the feel of it by giving me them ear-drops—”

Amber gasped in horror and moved back a little. “I won’t do it! They’re mine! Why should I give ’em to you, pray!”

“Because, sweetheart, if I don’t get ’em the jailor’s wife will. Oh, I’ll use you honestly. Give me the ear-drops—they don’t look worth more’n a pound at the top—” she added, narrowing her eyes and peering at them closely, “—and I’ll tell you how to live in this place. I’ve been here before, I’ll warrant you. Come, now, before we’re disturbed.”

Amber stared at her for a long moment, frank skeptical distrust on her face, but finally she decided that it would be worth the ear-rings to have a friend who understood this strange place. She slid the pearls from her ears and dropped them into Mrs. Turner’s outstretched palm. Moll tucked them into the bodice of her gown, somewhere between her stringy breasts, and turned to Amber.

“Now, my dear, how much money have you got?”

“Not a farthing.”

“Not a farthing? My God, how d’you intend to live? Newgate ain’t run for charity, you may be sure. You pay for everything you get here, and you pay dear.”

“Well, I won’t. Because I haven’t got any money.”

Amber’s matter-of-fact tone sent Moll into another fit of violent coughing, but at last she straightened, running her fore-arm across her wet mouth. “Don’t seem like you’re old enough to be out of the house alone, sweetheart. Where’s your family—in Essex? My advice to you is to send to ’em for help.”

Amber stiffened at that suggestion, defensively lowering her black lashes. “I can’t. I mean I won’t. They didn’t want me to get married and I—”

“Never mind, my dear. I think I know your plight well enough. You found yourself with child and so left home. Now your keeper’s left you. Well, in London we don’t give a damn —we’ve got troubles enough of our own without worryin’ ourselves with our neighbours—”

“But I am married!” protested Amber, determined to have the credit of a respectable woman since she had gone to such lengths to be one. “I’m Mrs. Channell—Mrs. Luke Channell. And here’s my ring to prove it!” She stripped the glove from her left hand and thrust it beneath Moll’s nose.

“Yes, yes. Lord, my dear, I don’t care if you’re married or whore to forty men. I was myself, in better days. Now I’m so peppered a man wouldn’t have me upon a pinch.” She smiled faintly and shrugged, then stared off into space, forgetting her promise as she began to recall the disappointments of her own life. “That’s the way I began. He was a captain in the King’s army—a mighty handsome fellow in his uniform. But my dad didn’t like to see his daughter bringin’ a nameless brat into the family. So I came to London. You can hide anything in London. My boy died—more’s the mercy—and I never saw my captain again. But I saw other men aplenty, I’ll warrant you. And I had money for a while, too. Once a gentleman gave me a hundred pound for one night. Now—” She turned suddenly and looked at Amber, who had been staring at her with fascinated horror, finding it almost impossible to believe that this ugly emaciated sick creature had once been young and in love with a handsome man, just as she was. “How old d’ye think I am? Fifty? No, I’m thirty-two. Just thirty-two. Well, I’ve had my day, there’s no denyin’ that. I suppose I wouldn’t trade it for something different—”

Amber was beginning to feel sick, seeing herself several years hence in Moll Turner. Oh, God! Oh, God! she thought frantically. It’s just like Aunt Sarah said. Look what happens to a bad woman!

And then all of them started at the sound of a key in the lock; the great iron door began to swing open. Moll, putting her hand to her mouth, muttered quickly: “Sell that ring for whatever she’ll give you.”

A woman, perhaps fifty years old, came into the room. Her hair, almost white, was lifeless as straw and screwed into a hard knot high on the crown of her head. She wore a soiled blouse, a dark-blue woollen skirt with a long red apron tied over it, and slung about her hips was a leather thong to which were attached several very large keys, a pair of scissors, a wallet and a bull’s pizzle—a short heavy wooden cudgel for maintaining discipline. She carried a candle stuck into a bottle, and before turning around to look at them she set it on a shelf.

A huge grey-striped cat followed her in, pushing against her legs, arching its back, giving out a low satisfied rumble. And then all at once it caught sight of Amber’s parakeet and moved swiftly forward. But Amber, with a little scream, jumped to her feet and, holding the cage at shoulder-level, kicked out at the cat with one foot while her parakeet fluttered and clung terrified to the bars of its cage.

“Good-morning, ladies,” said the woman now, and her shrewd pitiless eyes went over them quickly, resting longest on Amber. “I’m Mrs. Cleggat—my husband is the Jailor. It’s my understanding that you are all ladies of refinement who naturally would not care to take up your abode in a vault set aside for thieves, parricides, and murderers. I’m happy to say that from here you may be removed to a chamber the equal of that in any private house and there you’ll be furnished with the best of conversation and entertainment—for a consideration.”

“There’s the rub,” commented Moll, sprawled out with her arms crossed, her legs stretched before her.

“How much?” asked Amber, keeping an eye on the cat which now sat patiently at her feet, wide-eyed and flicking just the tip of his tail. If she could sell her wedding-ring she would have money enough to buy very good quarters—and she was still convinced that she would be out within a day or two.

“Two shillings six to get out of here. Six shillings for easement. Two shillings six a week for a bed. Two shillings a week for sheets. Six shillings six to the turnkey. Ten shillings six to the steward of the ward for coal and candles. That’s all for now. I’ll have one pound ten from each of you ladies.” As they all looked at her and no one either moved or spoke she said briskly, “Come, now. I’m a woman of affairs. There’s others here too, y’know.”

Moll now lifted her skirt and from a pocket in her petticoat produced the required sum. “ ’Sblood, it seems I only steal enough to support myself in prison.”

Amber looked around, waiting for one of the others to speak, but they did not and so she pulled the wedding-ring from her finger and extended it toward Mrs. Cleggat. “I haven’t got any money. How much will you give me for this?”

Mrs. Cleggat took it, held it to the candle and said, “Three pound.”

“Three pound! But I paid twelve for it!”

“Values are different here.” She unbuttoned the wallet, counted out several shillings, handed them to Amber and dropped the wedding-ring into the leather pouch. “Is that all?”

“Yes,” said Amber. She did not intend to part with the string of pearls Bruce had given her not long before he sailed.

Mrs. Cleggat looked at her sharply. “You’d better give me whatever else you’ve got right now. If you don’t I promise you it’ll be stolen before you’ve been here two hours.”

Amber hesitated a moment longer and then, with a heavy sigh, she unfastened the clasp and drew the strand out of her cloak. Mrs. Cleggat gave her six pounds for them and promptly turned her attention to the other women. The Quakeress stood up and faced her squarely, but as she spoke her voice was soft and meek.

“I have no money, friend. Do with me as thou wilt.”

“You’d better send out for some, Mrs. Or you go into the Common side which, though I say it myself, isn’t fit for a baboon.”

“No matter. I can get used to it.”

Mrs. Cleggat shrugged and her voice was contemptuously indifferent. “You fanatics.” (A fanatic, in the common understanding, was anyone who belonged to neither the Catholic nor the Anglican Church.) “Well enough then, Mrs. Give me your cloak for the entrance fee and your shoes for easement.”

Out of doors it was almost warm for the winter had been a strange one, but in there it was chill and damp. Nevertheless the girl untied her cloak and took it off. Amber, looking from her to Mrs. Cleggat with growing indignation, now suddenly made up her mind.

“Here! Keep it on! I’ll pay for you! You’ll fall sick without it!”

Moll glanced at her scornfully. “Don’t be a fool! You’ve little enough for yourself!”

But the Quakeress gave her a gentle smile. “Thank thee, friend. Thou art kind—but I want nothing. If I fall sick, it is the will of God.”

Amber regarded her dubiously, then extended the coins toward Mrs. Cleggat. “Take it for her anyway.”

“The girl will be a damned nuisance to me if she’s made comfortable. Keep the money for yourself. It’ll go quick enough.” She turned to the housewife, who admitted that she had not so much as a farthing. Amber looked at Moll to see if she would not offer to share the woman’s expenses with her, but Moll was glancing idly about the room and whistling beneath her breath.

“Well, then—I’ll pay for her.”

This time the offer was accepted and the woman thanked her profusely, promising to repay her as soon as she was able—which would apparently be never if she was to be kept in prison until her debt was cleared. And then a man came in to put on the lighter shackles. They consisted of bracelets which fitted loosely about the wrists and ankles with long chains stretching between, and though they were awkward and clanked dismally they did not seem to be otherwise uncomfortable.

“Take the fanatic to the Common Felon’s side,” said Mrs. Cleggat to the man when he had done. “Come with me, ladies.” They trooped out of the room after her, first Moll, then Amber holding the bird-cage on her shoulder, and then the housewife.

Mounting a dark narrow stairway they reached a big room where the door stood open; above it was nailed a skull-and-crossbones. Mrs. Cleggat went in first with her candle and as they followed they could see two large flat beds, covered with flock mattresses and some grey rumpled bedding, a table, scarred stools and chairs, and a cold fireplace above and beside which hung some blackened kettles and pans and a few pewter mugs and dishes. Certainly there was nothing in this barren dirty room to suggest the luxurious quarters Mrs. Cleggat had painted.

“This,” she said, “is the Lady Debtors’ Ward.”

Amber looked at her in angry astonishment, while Moll smiled. “This!” she cried, forgetting her manacles and giving a sweep of one arm. “But you told us—”

“Never mind what I told you. If you don’t like it I can take you to the Common Side.”

Amber turned away, disgusted, and Mrs. Cleggat prepared to leave with Moll, who would go to the Lady Felons’ Quarters. Oh! she thought furiously. This nasty place! I won’t stay here a day! Then she swung around.

“I want to send a letter!”

“That’ll cost you three shillings.”

Amber paid it. “Are we the only prisoners?” She could still hear the voices, the incessant sounds that seemed to come from the very walls, but they had seen no one else.

“Most of the others are down in the Tap-Room. It’s Christmas Eve.”

The letter, written by an amanuensis, was sent to Almsbury, and she was very confident that he would have her out of there within twenty-four hours. When she got no immediate reply she told herself that since it was Christmas Day he had very likely been away from his lodgings. Tomorrow, she promised herself, he’ll come. But he did not, and the days passed and at last she was forced to realize that either he had not received the letter or was no longer interested in her.

The Lady Debtors’ Ward was the least crowded one in Newgate, but even so she and the housewife, Mrs. Buxted, had to share those scant accommodations with a dozen other women. In many wards, however, thirty or forty were crowded into the same space and there were more than three hundred prisoners in a building intended for half that number. It was impossible for everyone to lie on the beds at once and they had to use cooking utensils and dishes in turn. Usually these were merely scraped off between meals, for water cost money and was always stale and stinking and afloat with vegetation and specks of sewage. This encouraged them to spend what they could on ale or wine.

The entire prison lay in an eternal half-gloom, for the windows, deep-set and narrow, opened only upon dark passages. Links and tallow-candles were bought by the prisoners and they burnt all day long. Large ugly cats and numerous dogs, half-naked with mange, roamed the hallways and contested with the rats for every shred of refuse; Amber had to keep a constant eye on her parakeet. The smells were thick and almost palpable, product of the accumulated rot of centuries, and sometimes there was another strange and sickening odour which she learned came from the heads being boiled by the hangman in his kitchen below their ward. She had not been there an hour when she started scratching furiously. She caught the plump lice between her fingers, squashing them like boiled peas.

Newcomers were automatically assigned the duties of chamber-maid. The first morning Amber and Mrs. Buxted carried the slop-jars down the hall and emptied them into the cesspool below. The stench of the heavy fumes made Amber almost faint. After that she paid another woman two pence a week to do the job for her.

The prison was considered to be a place of detention, not of correction, and from eight o’clock in the morning until nine at night all inside doors were opened and each was free to follow his inclination.

Those who had been arrested because of their religious beliefs were now permitted to hold services, make what converts they could, or preach sedition. Whoever had money usually spent it in the Tap-Room, drinking and gambling. Well-to-do inmates sometimes gave large entertainments attended by persons of the first quality, for some criminals enjoyed considerable popularity. Visitors were admitted to the Hall and swarmed there by the hundreds. A man might have his wife and children to keep him company—sometimes for years—or, if he preferred and had the price, he could take his choice of the prostitutes who daily came from outside.

Thievery was common and fights went on continually, for discipline was maintained by the prisoners themselves. Some went mad and were heavily chained, but usually not segregated. Babies were born but seldom lived long, and the death-rate among all prisoners was high.

Amber remained as aloof from the life of the jail as she could; this was one place where she desired no popularity. She did not go to the Tap-Room and of course she had no visitors, so that the only time she left her own ward was on Sunday when everyone was herded up to the third-floor Chapel.

Most of the women in the Lady Debtors’ Ward were the victims of misfortune and all of them expected soon to be released. They sat by the hour talking of the day when their debt would be paid—by a father or brother or friend—and they would go free. Amber listened to them, wistfully, for she had no one to pay her debt and no reason to hope for freedom, though she continued stubbornly to do so.

With aching homesickness her memories went back to the Goodegroome cottage. She took pleasure in remembering many things she had not known she cared for. She remembered how the dormer windows of her bedroom were wreathed in roses, and the delicious summer scent they had had. She remembered how the overhanging eaves were full of sparrows so that every morning she woke to the sound of their twirring and twittering. She remembered Sarah’s wonderful rich food, the clean-scrubbed flag-stones of the kitchen floor and the rows of glossy pewter lining the shelves. She longed passionately for a sight of the sky, a breath of fresh air, the smell of flowers and hay new-mown, the sound of a bird’s song.

The holidays were dreary as she had never known they could be.

She remembered what Christmas had been the year before when she had helped Sarah to make mince-pies and plum-pottages; she and all her cousins had dressed up to go mumming; and everyone on the farm had toasted the fruit trees in apple-cider, according to the old old custom. On New Year’s Eve she spent several shillings of her fast-dwindling supply for Rhenish wine and the Lady Debtors drank it, proposing a toast to the new year. Just before midnight the bells began to ring from every steeple in London and Amber burst into lonely frightened tears, for she was sure that she would never live to hear them ring in another year.

A week later Newgate was swept with frenzied excitement: A rebellion had broken out in the city, led by a band of religious zealots, and for three days and nights they ran riot through the streets. Bellowing for King Jesus, they shot down whoever opposed them. Inside the prison they heard the bells banging out an ominous warning, confused shouts and cries and the sound of flying hoofs. The prisoners gathered anxiously in groups, talking of massacre and fire, discussing means of escape; the women became hysterical, screamed at the grates and begged to be set free.

But the Fifth Monarchists were hunted out, killed or captured, and within a few days twenty of them had been hanged, drawn and quartered. Their remains were brought to Newgate and dismembered legs and arms and torsos lay in the courtyard while Esquire Dun was at work in his kitchen pickling the heads in bay-salt and cumin seed. Prison life settled back into the normal rut of drunkenness and gambling, quarrels and venery and theft.

When the quarter-sessions were held Amber was brought to trial along with Mrs. Buxted and Moll Turner and a great many others and—like most of them—found guilty. She was sentenced to remain in Newgate until her debt had been paid in full. She had been so hopeful she would be released after the trial that it was a severe shock and for several days she was sunk in despondency; she would have been almost glad to die. But gradually she began trying to persuade herself that her position was not so desperate as it seemed. Why—any day Almsbury might arrive and rescue her. It always happens, she assured herself, when you least expect it; and she tried very hard to stop expecting Almsbury.

She often saw Moll Turner, who wandered in to talk to her and to urge her to come out and mingle with the others. “Christ, sweetheart, what can you lose? D’ye want to rot in here?”

“Of course not!” said Amber crossly. “I want to get out of this damned place!”

Moll laughed and went to the fireplace to light a pipeful of tobacco. Many of the prisoners, both men and women, smoked incessantly for the tobacco was supposed to protect them against disease. She came back puffing and sat down opposite Amber, ostentatiously drumming one hand on the table-top.

“See that?” On her middle finger she wore a large diamond. “Got that off a lady was here visitin’ day before yesterday. We gave her the budge, and when she caught her balance I had the fambles cheat and somebody else had the scout.” Moll often talked in an underworld cant, of which Amber had begun to pick up a few words. A “fambles cheat” was a ring and a “scout” was a watch. “Oh, I tell you, my dear, the Hall’s a mighty profitable place. At this rate I can buy my way out of here in another month. “Well—” She heaved herself up. “Stay in here if you like—”

Amber, half-convinced by Moll’s tales of facile theft, ventured out into the hallway a time or two, but she was always accosted so swiftly and roughly that she would pick up her skirts and run as hard as she could go for the comparative privacy of the Lady Debtors’ Ward. Moll laughed at this too and told her that she was a fool not to take advantage of what she could get.

“Some of those gentlemen are mighty rich. In time I don’t doubt you could earn your way out. Of course,” she would admit, with her lop-sided smile, “four hundred pound ain’t come by very quick, and there’s a dozen half-crown sluts they can have the pick of any day in the week.”

Several times she brought Amber offers of specific sums from one or another of the men, but it was never enough that Amber cared to make the venture. Moll’s condition was sufficient warning and she was in mortal fear of being peppered herself. Nevertheless she would have done anything to get out of Newgate—taken any wild chance that might keep her baby from being born there.

By the end of a month her money had dwindled to less than two pounds, for everything had a price and it was invariably a high one. She had been paying to have her food sent in—the alternative was to eat the prison-fare, mouldy bread and stale water, with charity-meat once a week—and she had also paid for Mrs. Buxted’s meals because otherwise the woman would have had none. When a midwife who shared the ward told her that she was too thin for a pregnant woman and that the baby was getting all she ate, she decided that she must sell the gold ear-rings.

Mrs. Cleggat gave them one scornful glance. “Those things? Brass and Bristol-stone! They’re not worth three farthings! Where’d ye get ’em—St. Martin’s?” A great deal of cheap imitation jewellery was sold in the parish of St. Martin-le-Grand.

Hurt, Amber did not answer her. But she had begun to notice herself that the thin gilt was wearing and showed a grey metal beneath. She was almost glad that they were too worthless to sell.

At the end of her fifth week in Newgate Amber sat in one of the boxes of the chapel, stared at her dirty finger-nails, and worried about how she would eat a month from then. For days she had been trying to find courage to tell Mrs. Buxted that she could not feed her any longer. But she had not been able to do it, for every day Mrs. Buxted’s daughter came and brought her the youngest child to nurse. As usual, Amber had not heard a word of the sermon, though it had been going on for a long while.

Now Moll Turner gave her a sharp nudge. “There’s Black Jack Mallard!” she whispered. “And he’s got his eye on you!”

Amber glanced sulkily across the room where she saw a gigantic black-haired man sitting staring at her, and as she did so he smiled. Cross at being interrupted in her worries, she scowled at him and looked away. Moll, thoroughly disgusted, nudged her several times but Amber refused to pay her any attention.

“Oh, you and your hogan-mogan airs!” muttered Moll as they left the chapel. “Who d’ye expect to find here in Newgate, pray? His Majesty?”

“What’s so fine about him, I’d like to know?” She had thought him too dark and ugly.

“Well, Mrs., whatever you may think, Black Jack Mallard is somebody! He’s a rum-pad, let me tell you.”

“A highwayman?”

Highwaymen, she had discovered, were the elite of the criminal world, though this man was the first she had seen. She did remember, though, one of that brotherhood who had hung, a mere clean-picked skeleton, in a set of gibbet-irons at the Marygreen crossroads, mute warning to others of his kind. And in a slight breeze the bones and irons had had an eerie clank that sent the villagers home before sundown to avoid passing him in the dark.

“A highwayman. And one of the best, too. He’s already broke out of here three times.”

Amber’s eyes opened with a snap. “Broke out of here! How!”

“Ask ’im yourself,” said Moll, and went off, leaving Amber at the door of her own ward.

Staring dazedly, Amber walked inside. Here was the chance she had been waiting for! If he’d got out before, he’d get out again—perhaps soon. And when he did—She was suddenly excited and full of optimism—But all at once her hopes collapsed.

Look at me! I’m fat as a barn-yard fowl and stinking dirty. The Devil himself wouldn’t have a use for me now.

There was no doubt her appearance had suffered sad changes during the past five weeks. Now, at the end of her seventh month of pregnancy, she could no longer button her bodice, the once pert frills had wilted, and her smock was a dirty grey. Her gown was stained in the armpits, spotted with food, and her skirt hung inches shorter in front. She had long ago thrown away her silk stockings, for they had been streaked with runs, and her shoes were scuffed out at the toes. She had not seen a mirror since she had been there, nor taken off her clothes, and though she had scrubbed her teeth on her smock she could feel a slick film as she ran her tongue over them. Her face was grimy and her hair, which she had to comb with her long finger-nails, snarled and greasy.

Despair on her face, Amber’s hands ran down over her body. But she was sharply aware that this might be her one chance, and that made her determination begin to rise. It’s dark in here, she told herself. He can’t see me very well—and maybe I can do something, maybe I can make myself look a little better someway. She decided that she would do what she could to improve her appearance and then go down to the Tap-Room, on the chance of seeing him, though admission there would cost her a precious shilling and a half.

She was scrubbing her teeth with some salt and a piece torn off her smock—rinsing her mouth out with ale and spitting into the fireplace—when a man appeared at the door, and told her that Black Jack wanted to see her in the Tap-Room. She gave a start and turned quickly.

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“Oh, Lord! And I’m all unready! Wait a moment!”

Not knowing what to do, she began smoothing her dress and rubbing her hands over her face in the hope of taking off some of the dirt.

“I’m paid to light you down, Mrs., but not to wait here. Come along.” He gave a wave of the link and started off.

Amber paused just long enough to open her smock low over her breasts, muttered swiftly to Mrs. Buxted, “Watch my bird,” and then picking up her skirts she hurried after him. Her heart was pounding as though she had been going to be presented at Court.

CHAPTER TEN

BARBARA CALMER WAS a woman of no uncertain desires or ambitions. Almost from the moment she had been born she had known what she wanted and had usually contrived to get it, whatever the cost to herself or others. She had no morals, knew no qualms, did not trouble herself with a conscience. Her character and personality were as glittering, as elemental, as barbaric as was her beauty. And now, just twenty-one years old, she had found what she wanted more than anything else on earth.

She wanted to be the wife of Charles Stuart; she wanted to be Queen of England. She refused to believe that such an idea was absurd.

Barbara and Charles had met at the Hague a few weeks before the Restoration, when her husband was sent there to take a gift of money to the King. Charles, who was invariably attracted to beautiful women, was instantly and strongly attracted to her. And Barbara, both flattered to be sought by a king and glad of an opportunity to revenge herself on a jilting lover—the Earl of Chesterfield—quickly became his mistress. Everyone agreed that Charles, not surprisingly, was more deeply infatuated than he had ever been during the many years of his gallantry, and Barbara began to be a woman of considerable importance.

The Roger Palmers, who had been married less than two years, lived in one of the great houses on King Street, a narrow muddy but highly fashionable thoroughfare which ran through the Palace grounds and served to connect the villages of Charing and Westminster. Inns massed the west side of the street, but on the east were great mansions whose gardens led down to the unembanked Thames. It was in her husband’s home, at the end of the year, that Barbara began to give suppers which were attended by the King and most of the gay young men and pretty women of the Court, his Majesty’s closest companions.

For a while Roger obediently appeared and pretended to be host. But at last he balked at the ridiculous role he was expected to play.

He came one January evening and knocked, as he had been told to do, at the door of his wife’s bedroom. He was a medium-sized man of no pretentious appearance or manner but there was a look of good-breeding on his face and intelligence in his eyes. Barbara called out to him to enter and then, as he did so, merely glanced around carelessly over her shoulder.

“Oh. Good-evening, sir.”

She was sitting before a table above which hung a mirror with candles affixed, and a maid was brushing her long mahogany-coloured hair while she tried several different pairs of dangling ear-rings to see which effect she liked best. Her elaborate gown was made of stiff black satin so that by contrast the skin of her arms and shoulders and breasts looked chalk-white, and there were diamonds at her throat and about her wrists. She was in the eighth month of her first pregnancy but seemed scarcely conscious of her unusual bulk, and she looked robustly healthy.

Now, as he entered and crossed the room the maid curtsied and went on with her brushing while Barbara turned her head from one side to the other, making the diamond pendants dance and catch the candle-light. At his appearance a subtle boredom, a kind of polite contempt, had come upon her face. And as he stood looking down at her in obvious perplexity she paid him no further attention, though she knew that he was trying to speak and wanted her help.

“Madame,” he began at last, after taking a deep swallow into his dry throat. “I find that it will be impossible for me to have supper with you this evening.”

“Ridiculous, Roger! His Majesty will be here. He’ll expect you.”

She had finally satisfied herself as to the ear-rings and now began to stick on several small black patches, hearts and diamonds and half-moons; one went beside her right eye, another on the left side of her mouth, a third high on her left temple. She had not glanced at him again after the first careless greeting.

“I think his Majesty will understand well enough, if I’m not present.”

Barbara rolled her eyes, heaving a pained but patient sigh. “Heigh ho! Are we to go through this again?”

He bowed. “We are not, madame. Good-night.”

As he turned and went to the door Barbara sat drumming her nails on the edge of the table, her eyes taking on a dangerous sparkle, and then all at once she pulled away from the maid and got to her feet, raising her arm to secure the last bodkin herself.

“Roger! I want to speak to you!”

His hand on the knob, he turned and faced her. “Madame?”

“Get out of here, Wharton.” She gave a wave of her hand at the maid but started to talk before the girl had had time to leave. “I think you’d better come tonight, Roger. If you don’t his Majesty will think it damned peculiar.”

“I don’t agree, madame. I think his Majesty must find it more peculiar that a man should be content to go tamely and parade his wife’s whoredom before half the Court.”

Barbara gave an unpleasant laugh. “The mistress of a King is not a whore, Roger!” Her eyes suddenly narrowed and hardened and her voice rose. “How often must I tell you that!” Then it fell again to become soft, purring, sarcastic. “Or can it be you haven’t noticed I’m treated with twice as much respect now as I got when I was only the wife of an honourable gentleman?” The inflection she gave the last two words showed her contempt of him and of her own insignificant station as his wife.

He looked at her coldly. “I think there’s a better word for it than respect.”

“Oh? And what’s that pray?”

“Self-interest.”

“Oh, a pox on you and your damned jealousy! I’m sick of your bellow-weathering! But you’ll come to the supper tonight and act as host or by Jesus you’ll smoke for it!”

Suddenly he crossed to her, his pose of indifference gone, his face flushed and contorted with anger. He caught hold of her fore-arm. “Be quiet, madame! You sound like a fish-wife! I was a fool not to have taken you to the country when I first married you—my father warned me you’d disgrace us all! But I’ve learned since then, and I’ve discovered that to some women freedom means license. It seems that you’re one of those women.”

Her eyes, almost on a level with his, stared at him tauntingly. “And if I am,” she said slowly, “what of it?”

All the uncertainty he had shown before her at first had now vanished completely, leaving him poised and determined. “Tomorrow we shall leave for Cornwall. I don’t doubt that two or three years of country quiet will do much to restore your perspective.”

With a sudden swift wrench she jerked away from him. “You damned noddy! Just you try spiriting me away to the country and we’ll make a trial of what good it does me to have the King’s favour!” They were standing silently, both breathing hard, staring fiercely into each other’s eyes, when there was a knock on the door and a voice called:

“His Majesty, King Charles II!”

Barbara looked around. “He’s here!” Automatically her hands went to her head to make sure that every hair was in place, her eyes moving swiftly and excitedly, and though her face still showed traces of anger it had cleared considerably. She went to pick up her black-spangled fan and then returned. “Now! Are you coming down to act as host, or no!”

“I am not.”

“Oh, you fool!”

Her hand lashed out and slapped him stingingly across the face and then she picked up her skirts and hurried across the room, pausing a moment to compose her features before she opened the door. Then she went out and down the broad portrait-lined hallway, to the staircase.

Below her stood the King in conversation with her cousin, Buckingham, but as she appeared both men stopped talking and turned to give her their attention. She came down slowly, partly because the precarious unbalance of pregnancy made her cautious, partly to let them admire her. And then as she reached the bottom she curtsied while both men bowed and the King, who alone might remain covered in his own presence, swept off his hat.

Barbara and Charles exchanged lingering smiles, deep intimate looks charged with memories and anticipation. And then she turned to the Duke who had been watching them with cynical amusement on his face.

“Well, George. I didn’t expect you back so soon from France.”

“I didn’t expect to be back so soon. But—” He gave a shrug of his heavy shoulders, glancing at the King.

Charles laughed. “But Philippe flew into a jealous rage. I think he was afraid his Grace intended to follow in his father’s footsteps.”

It was notorious gossip in both kingdoms that the first Buckingham had been the lover of beautiful Anne of Austria, who was now Louis XIV’s fat and old and ill-tempered mother. And his son had made no secret of his violent admiration for Minette.

“It would have been a pleasure,” said Buckingham, and made the King a half-mocking bow.

“Shall we go into the drawing-room?” asked Barbara then, and as they walked toward it she looked up at Charles, her face appealing, soft and almost childish. “Your Majesty, I’m in a most embarrassing position. There’s no host for the supper tonight.”

“No host? Where’s—You mean he didn’t care to come?”

Barbara nodded and dropped her black lashes, as though deeply ashamed of her husband’s bad manners. But Charles had another view of the matter.

“Well, I can’t say that I blame him, poor devil. Ods-fish, it seems a man with a beautiful wife is more to be pitied than envied.”

“If he lives in England, he is,” said the Duke.

Charles laughed good-humouredly. He could not be offended on the subject of his own habits for he did not try to fool himself about them.

“Still, every party needs a host. If you’ll permit me, madame—”

Barbara’s purple eyes gleamed with triumph. “Oh, your Majesty! If you would!”

Now, as they entered the doorway and paused for a moment, the roomful of people swung to face them as though magnetized. The hat of every man came off in a sweeping bow and the ladies bent gracefully to the ground, like full-blown flowers grown too heavy for their stems. Barbara had already become so successful and important a hostess that she did not find it necessary to welcome her guests as they arrived. Everyone of any ambition, whether social or political, was delighted to receive an invitation from Mrs. Palmer and would not have complained whatever her manners might be. For many were convinced she would one day, perhaps soon, be Queen of England.

A year ago Barbara would have thought it incredible that she would ever have in her home all at one time these men and women she now used so carelessly.

There was Anthony Ashley Cooper, small, emaciated and sick, related to many of the most powerful families in the nation. By some sleight-of-hand performance he had contrived to transmute himself into a loyal Cavalier at just about the time of the Restoration. The feat, however, was no very unusual one. Sympathizers with or active workers in the old regime had by no means all been hanged and quartered or harried into exile—many of them now supported the Monarchy and, in fact, formed the basis of the new Government. Charles was too practical and too well-versed in politics to have imagined that his Restoration could mean a complete overthrow of everything that had been done these past twenty years; the recent change had been mostly superficial. Cooper, like many another, had adopted a new set of manners which matched better with Charles’s Court, but he had relinquished neither principles nor fundamental intentions.

There was Cooper’s good friend, the Earl of Lauderdale, a huge red-faced red-haired Scotsman whose brogue was thick even though most of his forty-five years had been spent in England. He was ugly and coarse and boisterous, but he had an amazing education in Latin, Hebrew, French, and Italian which he had laboriously acquired during his years of imprisonment under the Commonwealth. Charles found him amusing and the Earl had a deep affection for his King.

George Digby, Earl of Bristol, was a good-looking man of almost fifty, vain and unreliable, but he had in common with Cooper and Lauderdale a violent hatred of the Chancellor. That hatred, founded on envy and jealousy, served to unite most of the ambitious men at Court. To put Chancellor Hyde out of the way was their highest aim, their greatest hope. Barbara’s house gave them a rallying-ground, for here they might meet the King when he was at his leisure and most accessible.

But many of them were merely gay young people interested in nothing more serious than their love-affairs and gambling, in learning the latest dance or keeping apace with the French fashions.

Lord Buckhurst, only twenty-three, lived at Court but had no use for it, and refused to exert himself to become a man of power. Henry Jermyn was a big-headed spindle-shanked fop who was enjoying a considerable amatory success because many persons believed he had been married to the dead Princess Mary. Among the ladies was the voluptuous cat-like Countess of Shrewsbury; Anne, Lady Carnegie, flagrantly over-painted, now famous because she had shared Barbara’s first lover with her; Elizabeth Hamilton, a tall gracious cool young woman, newly arrived at Court, whom it was the fashion to admire. They were all about Barbara’s age, twenty or younger, for the men were outspoken in their opinion that a woman had begun to decay at twenty-two.

The immense drawing-room was furnished well, hung with heavy draperies of gold-green, lighted by dozens of candles burning in wall-sconces and in brass chandeliers overhead. The floor was uncovered and the high heels made a melodious tapping upon it. Laughter seemed to fill the air to the very ceiling; a band of musicians played in one corner; silverware and dishes rattled together.

An adjoining room was set with a buffet-table, in the French style which Charles preferred, and footmen swarmed everywhere. The dishes piled upon it might have done justice to a cathedral builder: pompous confections decorated with candied roses and violets; little dolls in full Court dress spinning about on cake tops; great silver porringers containing steaming ragouts of mushrooms, sweetbreads, and oysters. Bottles of the new drink, champagne, crowded the tables. No more was an Englishman to be satisfied with boiled-mutton and pease and ale. He had learnt better in France and would never be reconciled to the old fare again.

The King’s role as host created a sensation, for many of them were sure that it was a subtle way of showing his future intentions. Barbara was sure too and she moved about the room like a flame, charming, amazingly beautiful, full of the confidence of her power. Their eyes followed her and their whispers discussed her. But Barbara was not fooled, for she knew well enough that obsequious though they all were now it would take no more than a hint that the King was losing interest and out would come the sheathed claws, every honeyed word would turn to acid, and she would find herself more alone than she had ever been in the days before her dangerous glory.

It had happened before. But it won’t happen to me, she told herself. To all the others, perhaps, but not to me.

Gambling-tables were set up in a third room and there they were soon congregated. Charles sat down to play for a short time, but in less than half an hour he had lost a couple of hundred pounds. He glanced up at Lauderdale who hung over his shoulder.

“Take my place, will you, John. I always lose and I’m a bad loser—What’s worse, I can’t afford it.”

Lauderdale guffawed appreciatively, splattering the King as he did so for his tongue was too big for his mouth, but he took his seat and Charles strolled into the next room to listen to the music. Barbara promptly left her own table and met him just as he was going out the door. Her arm linked with his and he bent to kiss her lightly on the temple, while behind them significant glances were exchanged and some wagers laid.

“It’s my opinion Mrs. Palmer is mad enough to think she might be Queen,” said Dr. Fraser. He was a personal favourite of the King and, since he could with equal dexterity perform an abortion, cure a clap, or administer a physic, his services were much in demand at Whitehall.

“The lady has a husband, you know,” murmured Elizabeth Hamilton, not glancing away from her cards.

“A husband is no obstacle where a king has set his heart.”

“He’ll never marry her,” said Cooper positively. “His Majesty is no such fool as that.” Cooper had acquired a considerable reputation for sagacity by guessing far ahead of anyone else that York was married to Anne Hyde.

Barbara’s old chum, Anne, gave him a malicious smile. “Why, whatever do you mean by that, sir? Sure, now, you don’t think she’d be an unlucky choice?”

“I do not, madame,” he assured her coldly. “But I think that the King will marry where political expediency dictates—as kings have always done.”

By the time they had left, Barbara was thoroughly relieved. She was tired. The muscles in her legs ached and trembled. But she was happier than she had ever been and perfectly convinced that her hopes and expectations—wild as they might have seemed—would soon be fulfilled.

As she and Charles entered the bedroom together Wharton, asleep in a chair by the fire, jumped to her feet and curtsied, looking at her mistress with frightened apprehension. But Barbara smiled and spoke to her kindly.

“You may go, Wharton. I won’t need you again tonight.” Then, just as the girl was leaving, she called after her, “Wake me by half-after-eight. There’s a ’Change woman coming to show me some lace and if I don’t get it first, Carnegie will.” Barbara smiled at Charles as though she were a naughty little girl. “Isn’t that selfish of me?”

He answered the smile but not the question, and took a chair. “That was good food, Barbara. Haven’t you a new head-cook?”

She had gone to the dressing-table and was beginning to unfasten her hair. “Isn’t he a marvel? Guess where I got him. I took him away from Mrs. Hyde—she brought him from France with her. D’you know, Charles, that woman hasn’t once paid me a call?” She shook out her hair and it tumbled in long ripples like dark-fire running down her back; over her shoulder she threw him a quick, petulant glance. “I don’t think the Chancellor likes me—or his wife would have called long since.”

“Well,” said Charles easily, “suppose he doesn’t.”

“Well! Why shouldn’t he! What harm have I done him, pray?” Barbara thought that her new position should command not only the deference but the liking of every man and woman at Court, and she intended to get it, one way or another.

“The Chancellor belongs to the old school of statesmen, my dear. He’ll neither pimp nor bribe, but thinks it’s possible to get along in this world by honest hard work. I’m afraid there’s a new model politician likely to prove too hard for him.”

“I don’t care what his morals are! He was good friends with my father and I think it’s damned bad manners his wife doesn’t make me a call! Why, I’ve heard he even tells you you shouldn’t waste your time on a jade like me!”

Charles smiled, one arm over the back of the chair and his legs crossed, his eyes lazily admiring as he sat watching her undress. “The Chancellor has been telling me what I may and may not do for so many years I believe he half thinks I pay him some attention. But he’s a very good old man and very loyal, and his intentions are the best even if his understanding is sometimes faulty. However, I wouldn’t trouble myself with whether or not his wife calls, if I were you. I assure you she’s a dull old lady and no very entertaining company.”

“I don’t care whether she’s dull or not! Don’t you understand? It’s just that she should call on me!”

He laughed. “I understand. Let’s forget it—”

He got up and went toward her and Barbara turned, just slipping her smock down over her breasts, to look at him. Her eyes lighted with a bright passion that was perfectly genuine, and as his hands reached out a shudder of expectation shook her, driving everything else from her mind. But not for long.

As they lay in the bed, her head resting on his shoulder so that she could feel beneath her cheek the pulsing of his blood, Barbara said softly, “I heard the most ridiculous rumour today.”

Charles was uninterested and merely murmured, “Did you?”

“Yes—someone told me that you’re already married to a niece of the Prince de Ligne—and have two sons by her.”

“The Prince doesn’t even have a niece, so far as I know. None I’ve married, anyway.” His eyes were closed and he lay flat on his back, a faint smile on his mouth. But he was not thinking of what they were saying.

“Someone else told me that you’re contracted to the Duke of Parma’s daughter.”

He did not answer and now, raising herself on one elbow, she said anxiously: “You’re not, are you?”

“Not what? Oh, no. No, I’m not married.”

“But they want you to marry, don’t they? The people, I mean.”

“Yes, I suppose they do. Some fat squint-eyed straight-haired antidote, no doubt,” he said lazily. “Odsfish, I don’t know how I’ll ever get an ugly woman with child.”

“But why should you marry an ugly woman?” With one pointed forefinger she was tracing a pattern in the matted black hair on his chest.

He opened his eyes and looked up at her, and then his face broke into a grin and he reached out his hand to stroke her head. “Princesses are always ugly. It’s a tradition they have.”

Barbara felt the excitement begin to mount within her, and her heart was pounding at a furious rate. Unable to look him full in the face, she dropped her eyes before she spoke. “But-Well, why marry a princess if there’s none you like? Why not—” She took a deep quick breath and her throat felt dry; a sharp pain stabbed at the base of her skull. “Why not marry me?” Then she raised her eyes quickly and looked at him, searching.

Instantly Charles’s face grew wary, the smile faded, and it settled once more into the old lines of moody cynicism. She could feel him draw away from her, though actually he had not moved at all. Barbara was shocked and she looked at him with horrified disbelief on her face. She had been so sure, so perfectly confident that he loved her madly, even enough to make her his wife.

“Sire,” she said softly, “hasn’t that ever occurred to you?”

He sat up and then left the bed to begin dressing. “Now come, Barbara. You know as well as I do that it’s impossible.”

“Why?” she cried, growing desperate. “Why is it impossible? I’ve heard it was you who made the Duke marry Anne Hyde! Then why can’t you marry me—if you want to. If you love me.” She felt her temper getting away from her and caught at it frantically, telling herself that this was too important to throw away because she couldn’t hold her tongue. She still thought that she could wheedle him into anything.

Someway I’ll make him marry me. I know I will. He’s got to. He’s got to!

With his breeches on he pulled the thin white linen shirt over his head and fastened the full sleeves at the wrist. He was eager to get away from her, bored and impatient at the prospect of a useless quarrel. He was, and he knew it, thoroughly infatuated with her, for he had never found a woman more exciting to lie with. But if she had been Queen of Naples he would not have cared to marry her—he knew her too well for that, already.

“The two cases aren’t exactly comparable, my dear,” he said now, his warm voice low and soothing, hoping to lull her into quiet and then get away. “My children will succeed to the throne. James’s, most likely, never will.”

Certainly that seemed perfectly reasonable for Charles had already recognized at least five illegitimate children, while Barbara herself was convinced that the child she carried was his and not her husband’s—or Chesterfield’s.

“Oh, but what’s to become of me if you marry another woman? What will I do?” She was close to tears.

“I think you’ll do very well, Barbara. I see no reason why you shouldn’t. You’re not exactly a helpless person, you know.”

“But that isn’t what I mean! Oh, you see how they all run after me now—Buckingham and Cooper and the rest of that crew—But if you marry someone else and fob me off—Oh, I’d die! You can’t think how they’d use me! And the women would be even worse than the men! Oh, Charles, you can’t, you can’t do that to me!”

He paused now and looked at her sharply; then all at once his face softened and he sat down beside her again, taking her hands into his. Her face was wet with tears that welled out of her eyes and slid over her cheeks in great drops, splashing off onto the satin-covered blankets beneath her.

“Don’t cry, darling. What the devil do you take me for—an ogre? I won’t desert you, Barbara, you can be sure of that. You’ve given me a great deal of happiness, and I’m grateful. I can’t marry you, but I’ll see that you’re taken care of—very well.”

She was sniffling and her chin quivered but she was again conscious of her appearance and trying to weep attractively. “How? With money? Money won’t help—not in the case I’ll be in.”

“What would help?”

“Oh, Sire, I don’t know! I don’t see how I can—”

He interrupted her quickly, to stem another flood. “If I make you a Lady of my wife’s Bedchamber—would that help?”

He spoke to her like an indulgent uncle holding out a sweetmeat to a small girl who had fallen and skinned her knee.

“I suppose it would. If you really do it. You won’t change your mind and just—just—Oh—”

Now, suddenly overwhelmed with the knowledge of her defeat, she burst into shaking sobs and flung herself toward him. He held her against his chest for a moment, patting her shoulder while she cried, and then very gently he disengaged himself and got up.

While she lay on the bed and sobbed he swiftly slid into his doublet, knotted his cravat, buckled on his sword, and taking up his hat came to stand above her. Charles, who could not do without women though he could very easily do without any one woman, was often inclined to wish that it was never necessary to see any of them out of bed.

“Barbara—I swear I’ve got to go now. Please don’t cry any more, darling. Believe me, I’ll keep my promise—”

He bent and kissed the top of her head and then turned and went to the door. He glanced back just in time to see her look around at him, red-faced and swollen-eyed; he gave her a hasty wave and went out.

She sat up slowly, her face wrenched into a scowl, one hand to her aching head. And then all at once she opened her mouth and gave a high uncanny scream that made the veins in her neck stand out like purple cords, and picking up a vase from the bedside table she hurled it with all her strength at the mirror across the room.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

TO GET TO the Tap-Room, which was a floor and a half below the Lady Debtors’ Ward, Amber had to follow the candleman down a black narrow flight of stairs. But when they had gone only part way he turned suddenly and blocked the passage and she stopped three steps above him, angry and frightened at the look she saw on his face, for her advanced pregnancy gave her a sense of clumsy helplessness.

“Go on!” she cried. “What are you stopping for?”

He made no answer but lunged swiftly forward; one hand caught hold of her skirts and dragged her toward him. With a scream Amber knocked the candle out of his hand. Suddenly she found that he had given way and she was going swiftly down the steps, her hands reaching out blindly toward the walls, but the short chains on her wrists and ankles caught with a jerk. She lost her footing and toppled headlong, twisting desperately to protect her belly and yelling with terror as she plunged toward the bottom of the stairwell.

But even as she stumbled Black Jack Mallard started up, and he caught her before she had hurt herself. She could not see him but she felt with passionate relief a man’s powerful hands and arms, his great protecting body, and she heard the violent angry thunder of his voice bellowing curses at the candleman whose footsteps went pounding on up to the second story.

“What did he do to you? Are you hurt?” he demanded anxiously.

Spent with fear, Amber relaxed against him. “No—” she panted. “I think I’m—”

From above, the candleman shouted something unintelligible and with a snarl of rage Black Jack let her go and started after him. “You stinking son-of-a-whore, I’ll—”

Suddenly his warmth and protectiveness were gone. Amber’s eyes opened and she reached out frantically. “Don’t leave me! Please—don’t leave me!” She was afraid of other unseen dangers hiding there in the dark.

Instantly he was back again. “I’m here, sweetheart. Don’t be scared. I swear I’ll slit his gullet next time I see him, the turd-coloured dog!”

“I wish you would,” she muttered, pressing her hands to her swollen stomach.

Fright had left her crumpled and weak and she let him half carry her to the bottom of the staircase where he gently set her on her feet again. The Tap-Room was nearby and they stood in a kind of smoky twilight; she could feel him watching her. And finally, forcing herself to look up, she saw his eyes going over her face and shoulders and breasts with an expression of pleased contemplation. All at once she felt pretty again; she could almost forget her stringy hair and the lice crawling on her skin and the dirt packed beneath her fingernails. The corners of her mouth went up in a faint smile and her eyes slanted flirtatiously.

Black Jack Mallard was the biggest man Amber had ever seen. He was at least six feet five, his shoulders were massive and the muscles in his calves thick and powerful. His coarse black hair, shiny with oil, hung to his shoulders and there was a slight wave in it. She could see the glint of gold as a vagrant light touched the rings he wore in either ear—it was a fashion much affected by the fops, but on this giant the jewels seemed only to accentuate his almost threatening masculinity. His forehead was low and broad, his nose wide at the nostrils, and while his upper lip was narrow and tightly drawn the lower rolled out in a heavy curve.

His clothes were in the latest mode: A blue velvet suit consisting of short doublet and wide-legged knee-length breeches, white shirt, white linen-and-lace cravat. Garnet-coloured satin ribbons hung in loops at his waist and sleeves and shoulders, there was a feather-loaded Cavalier’s hat on his head and he wore calf-high riding boots. Only the boots would not have been acceptable in the King’s own Drawing-Room. The clothes were obviously expensive and certainly no cast-off garments but they were soiled, somewhat wrinkled, and he wore them with an air which suggested contempt of such finery.

Now he grinned at her, showing even, square teeth so white they glistened, and made a bow. For all his great bulk he was controlled and graceful as a cat. “I’m Black Jack Mallard, madame, of the Press Yard.” The Press Yard was the elite quarter of the jail, reserved for the rich.

She curtsied, delighted to be once more in the presence of a man who was not only susceptible to her charms but worthy of them. “And I, sir, am Mrs. Channell of the Lady Debtors’ Ward, Master side.”

Both of them laughed and bending over he gave her a casual kiss, the customary salute upon formal introduction. “Come in here,” he said, “and we’ll have a bouse on that.”

“A what?”

“A bouse, sweetheart—a drink. I don’t suppose you know our Alsatian cant.” He took her arm and she noticed that he wore no fetters and even had a sword slung at his hip.

The Tap-Room was dimly lighted with several tallow candles, but the smoke that hung over it was thick as a morning fog on the Thames. At one end was a bar. Stools and tables and chairs were packed in closely, leaving little room to pass between them, and the ceiling was so low that Black Jack had to hunch his shoulders as he walked along, going toward a table in one far corner. He exchanged several greetings as he went and Amber was aware that every eye there turned to survey her, searching curiously over Black Jack’s new wench; she caught some whistles from the men and low-murmured spiteful comments from the women.

But he evidently had a position of some authority, for they moved respectfully aside to let him pass, several of the women gave him inviting smiles, and one or two men complimented his choice. His own attitude toward them was that of good-natured camaraderie—he slapped the men on the back, stroked one woman’s head and another’s cheek as he passed—and seemed as much at his ease as though they had been in the tap-room of the Dog and Partridge.

Amber sat down with her back to the wall, and Black Jack, after asking her what she wanted, ordered Rhenish for her and brandy for himself. When they had examined her thoroughly the others went back to what they had been doing. Bottles were raised, cards shuffled and dice rolled, prostitutes wandered from table to table soliciting business; the room swelled with voices-laughter, songs and shouts, the occasional cry of a child. Amber exchanged a smile with Moll Turner but averted her eyes swiftly from the sight of a blowzy fat woman sprawled at a table, holding a fan of cards in her hand while a sleeping baby had its mouth fastened to one brown teat.

Oh, my God! she thought with horror. Two more months and I’ll—She looked quickly at Black Jack, and found him smiling down at her.

“You’re a mighty dimber wench,” he said softly. “How long ’ve you been here?”

“Five weeks. I’m here for debt—four hundred pound.”

He was less impressed than the Lady Debtors had been. “Four hundred. God’s blood, I can take that much in an easy night’s work. What happened?”

“My husband stole every penny I had and ran off and left me with the debts—”

“And the lullabye-cheat.” He glanced significantly at her belly. “Well—” He poured a glass of white wine for her and a smaller one of brandy for himself and flipped a coin to the waiter, giving a casual salute to the brim of his hat. “Here’s to you! May he come back soon and get you out of crampings.” He tossed it down at a gulp, as a gentleman should, poured another glass and turned to look at her shrewdly.

Amber drank hers down too, for she was thirsty, but a scowl puckered her eyebrows. “He’ll never come back. And I hope he never does—the ungrateful pimp!”

Black Jack laughed and gave a low whistle. “You say that with such spleen I’d go near to believe you really are married.”

She stared at him, her eyes sparkling. “Well! And why shouldn’t you believe it, pray! Why the devil does everyone think that’s just some tale I tell!”

He poured another glass for each of them. “Because, sweetheart, a girl like you who says her husband left her, probably never had one at all.”

She smiled then and her voice purred. “The way I look now I think I’d fright away a better man than a husband.”

“My eyes are good, sweetheart. They see under six layers of dirt—and they see a tearing beauty.” For a moment they sat looking at each other and then at last he said, “I’ve got a room with a window on the third floor. Would you like to smell some fresh air and look at the sky?” He half-smiled at the invitation but got to his feet and reached down his hand to help her.

As they walked out the entire room set up a bellowing and laughing, shouting obscenities and advice to Black Jack, who waved his hand at them but did not glance around.

The rooms were furnished like those in a low-class tavern catering to gay parties, the furniture scarred and much initialled, but certainly luxurious compared to the rest of the jail. The walls were covered with ribald words and sentences, crude drawings, names, and dates. Black Jack told her that the quarters had cost him three hundred pounds. Every man who bought the office of Jailor at Newgate went out of it rich, if not beloved.

Black Jack was often gone, for he had a great many visitors and social obligations to fulfill. But each time he came back they would laugh together over the fine lady—masked of course —who had hinted that she was at the very least a countess and had offered to solace his lonely hours. Once he stole a gold bracelet from some admirer and gave it to her. The highwaymen were the aristocrats of the underworld and they enjoyed a general popularity. Their names were well-known, their exploits discussed in taverns and on street-corners, they were much visited when in jail and when they took their last ride in a cart up Tyburn Hill they were attended by great and sympathetic crowds.

Amber spent most of her time at the window, swallowing in the fresh air as though she could never get enough, standing with her arms braced on the window-sill and looking out over the city. She could see the favoured prisoners down below in the courtyard, walking or standing in groups, some of them playing hand-ball or pitch-and-toss, for though it was now the end of January the weather continued mild and the streets were dusty. The tar-smeared quarters of the men hanged after the fanatic uprising earlier that month still lay exposed there and flies and wasps buzzed over the heap in angry masses.

Four days after Amber had met him Black Jack made another of his miraculous escapes, and she went with him. Every bolt, every door, every gate had been liberally greased with the King’s coin and each swung open at a touch. In the street a hackney waited, the door ajar; they got in swiftly and rattled off down Old Bailey Street. Black Jack, settling into the seat beside her, slapped his thigh and gave one of his thunderous laughs.

Suddenly a woman’s voice spoke, tart and peevish. “ ’Sdeath, Jack! That’s a fine stink you’ve got! You bring it out every time you go into that damned jail!”

That, Amber knew, must be Bess Columbine, whom he called his “buttock.” Now he introduced them, saying, “Bess, this is Mrs. Channell.”

The two women exchanged cool murmurous greetings and all three of them lapsed into silence. It was only a few minutes, however, until the coach stopped, and as she got out Amber saw that they were at the edge of the river. They climbed swiftly into the barge that waited there and the water-man started upstream; it was perfectly black and moonless and though none of them could see the others Amber felt Bess staring insistently at her and could sense her jealous hostility.

Much I care, she thought, if she likes my company or not!

But she did not expect to stay long with Black Jack. For somehow, she was sure, she could get him to give her four hundred pounds. He seemed to have so much money, and so little use for it, she was convinced she would have it from him in less than a fortnight. And then she would leave him—though what she would do or where she would go she had no idea. She had even lost the names of the women Lord Carlton had said would take care of her during her lying-in.

At the foot of Water Lane they disembarked and Bess started out ahead up the steep stone steps to the street level. Amber, holding the bird-cage in one hand and her skirts in the other, cautiously felt her way along until all at once Black Jack—who had been delayed while he paid the bargeman—came up behind her, swung her into his arms and went up as swiftly as though it had been broad daylight. They passed through the gardens which had belonged to the old Carmelite monastery that had once stood there, and finally came into a narrow street.

Here, there was light and noise, and great street signs indicated that almost every other building was a tavern. Through the square-paned windows they could see men playing cards, a naked woman dancing, two other women stripped to the waist and fighting before a crowd of onlookers that cheered and threw coins. The sound of fiddles blended with screams and laughter and the wailing of babies. They were in Ram Alley, Whitefriars, a part of the district which gave the privilege of sanctuary to criminals and debtors. Those who lived there preferred to call it, ironically, Alsatia.

They stopped before one of the houses, Bess opened the door with a key and Black Jack set Amber down. She stepped inside and instantly the two women turned to look at each other.

Bess, Amber saw, was no more than her own age, and of about the same height. Her hair, which was abundant, was dark brown and curly and fell below her shoulders; her eyes were blue and she had a small piquant face, somewhat too broad at the cheekbones, with a nose that turned up saucily. Her figure was round almost to plumpness and her breasts were full-blown. Amber thought that she looked vulgar—an ill-bred slut.

But she was uneasy and angry herself to be put under the girl’s scrutiny. For though she had used Black Jack’s comb and scrubbed her face she was still miserably dirty, and now she could feel a louse begin to bite. But she would have died rather than reach down to scratch. As it was, Bess lifted her brows and smiled faintly to indicate that she considered her no very formidable rival.

Pox on her! thought Amber furiously. Just wait till I’ve had a bath, Mrs.! We’ll see whose nose is out of joint then, I’ll warrant you! Her speech was taking on the colour of her surroundings, reflecting Lord Carlton and Almsbury, Luke Channell and his aunt, Moll Turner and Newgate, and now, Black Jack and Alsatia.

But if Black Jack was conscious of the resentment crackling between the two women he gave no indication of it. “I’m thirsty,” he said. “Where’s Pall?”

Bess shouted the name and within a few moments a girl pushed open the door which led into another room and stood sleepily on the threshold. Evidently the kitchen-slavey, she was barefooted and ill-kempt, and her hair hung in greasy yellow streaks about her neck. But at the sight of Black Jack she blushed and smiled self-consciously and dropped him a curtsy.

“Glad t’see ye back, sir.”

“Thanks, Pall. I’m glad to be back. Can we have something to drink? I’ll have cherry-brandy. What do you want, sweetheart?” He turned to Amber.

Bess scowled swiftly at that and the next instant she was berating Pall, pouring her jealous spleen over her. “What’ve you been doing, you lazy slut! Why aren’t those dishes cleaned?” She pointed to a table littered with dishes and bones and nut-shells, glasses and wine-bottles. “By Jesus, you’ll mend your ways or I’ll give you a flogging—D’ye hear me?”

Pall winced, evidently believing her, but Black Jack interrupted the tirade. “Leave the girl alone, Bess. Maybe she’s been busy in the kitchen.”

“Busy sleeping, I’ll warrant you!”

“Bring a bottle of Rhenish for Mrs. Channell, and Bess will have—”

“Brandy!” snapped Bess, and gave Amber a quick furious glare.

Amber turned her back and went to sit down. She felt tired and listless and suffered acutely from knowing that she had never been less attractive. She wished only that she might get away from them all and go somewhere to sleep, and then in the morning have a fine warm bath with soap-suds enough to float on. Oh, to be really clean again!

Black Jack and Bess began to talk then, but it was in the underworld cant of which Amber had learnt only a few words. She heard their voices but did not try to understand what they were saying. Instead, she looked idly about her at the furnishings of the room. It was crowded with a vast number of chairs and tables and stools. Half-a-dozen cupboards and hutches ranged the walls. There were innumerable portraits in heavy gold frames and several more stood stacked in a pile against the fireplace. Some of the pieces were obviously expensive, but others were so old or so badly scarred and broken as to be of no possible value and very little use.

Pall brought the glasses and bottles and they drank a toast to the night’s success. Amber then told Black Jack that she was tired and he asked Pall to light her upstairs to the west-center bedroom, kissing her casually when she left. Even that made Bess fume and draw down her brows. But Amber hoped the girl might have her way that night, for she did not care to be troubled with him.

Amber sat in a great wooden tub full of warm water and soap, sought out the lice and cracked them while they were wet and immobilized. Her hair, just washed, had been wrung out and skewered onto the top of her head. On a gold and white brocade chair beside her Black Jack sat, idly flipping a knife into the floor between his feet. Amber gave a wave of one arm that surveyed the room.

“Why d’you have so much of everything?”

For the bedroom was as overfurnished as the parlour downstairs, and in much the same helter-skelter fashion. The bed was hung luxuriously with violet velvet and the counterpane was yellow satin; several of the chairs were covered with violet velvet and another with crimson, fringed with gold tassels. There were at least two dozen portraits on the walls, a great many mirrors, three wardrobes, and two screens.

“Mother Red-Cap’s a pawn-broker. The house is furnished with what she takes in—the portrait of grand-dad always seems to go first.” He grinned and gave a lift of one eyebrow to indicate the numerous old gentlemen in stiff black doublets and white ruffs who looked down from the walls.

Amber laughed. Her spirits had revived and she was once more full of energy and optimism and self-confidence. She knew that she should not be in a tubful of hot water, for Sarah had always said that sitting in a warm bath was sure to bring on a baby before its time, but she was enjoying herself so that she had no intention of moving for at least another half-hour.

“Who lives here? Anyone besides Mother Red-Cap and Bess and Pall?” The corridor down which Pall had led her had been a long one and the house seemed to be quite large.

“Mother Red-Cap lets out the four extra bedrooms. A man who coins false money has the third floor and there’s a fencing-school on the fourth.”

This was not the first Amber had heard of Mother Red-Cap. Mother Red-Cap had sent the money to bribe the Jailor. Mother Red-Cap had just been elected Mayor of Sanctuary and the night before had been hearing a case at the George and Dragon. Mother Red-Cap wanted to see her as soon as she was dressed.

At last Amber stood up, dried herself, and slipped into one of Black Jack’s East Indian dressing-robes; both of them laughed to see how it trailed on the floor and the sleeves hung below her knees. Then, giving her a wink, Jack went to a chest and lifted out a large box which he put into her hands. She took it and glanced at him questioningly. He was standing there with his hands thrust into his pockets, rocking back on his heels and grinning broadly, waiting for her to open it.

Excited at the prospect of a present, Amber laid the box on a chest, untied the strings and tossed the crackling papers aside. With a cry of delight she took out a green taffeta gown sewn with appliquéd scrolls of black velvet. Underneath lay a black velvet cloak, a smock and two petticoats, green silk stockings and green shoes.

“Oh, Black Jack! It’s beautiful!” She reached up to kiss him and he bent rather awkwardly, like a bashful boy, for he was always afraid of hurting her. “But how’d you ever get it so quick?” Madame Darnier had never completed a gown in less than a week.

“I was abroad early this morning. There’s a second-hand dealer in Houndsditch where the quality sell their clothes.”

“Oh, Black Jack—and just the colour I love!” She slipped off the robe and began to dress hastily, chattering all the while. “It looks like the leaves on the apple-tree that used to grow outside my bedroom window. How’d you know green’s my favourite colour?”

But a moment later her face fell in disappointment. The gown would not fasten over her stomach and the sight of herself in a mirror—something she had not seen for over a month—made her want to cry. It seemed to her that she had been pregnant forever.

“Oh!” she cried in exasperation, and stamped her foot. “How ugly I look! I hate having a baby!”

But Black Jack assured her soothingly that she was the prettiest thing he had ever seen, and they went downstairs to meet Mother Red-Cap. They found her seated at one of the tables with her back to them and a candle at her elbow, writing in an enormous ledger which lay spread open before her. As Black Jack spoke to her she turned and then immediately got to her feet and came forward. She gave Amber a friendly kiss on the cheek and smiled her approval at Black Jack, who stood there proudly beaming over both of them.

“A gentry-more she is, Jack.” She glanced over her figure. “When do you reckon?”

“About two months, I think.”

Amber was looking at her wide-eyed, amazed to find that she bore no resemblance at all to the dissolute old harridan she had been expecting. She did not, in fact, look any more vicious than Aunt Sarah. Mother Red-Cap was fifty-five years old but her skin was clear and smooth and her eyes snapped brightly. Smaller than Amber, her body was trim and compact, and all her movements suggested a fund of unexpressed energy. The clothes she wore were plain neat ones made of cotton and wool with starched collar and cuffs and apron, and there was not a jewel in sight. A bright red cap covered every wisp of hair and Black Jack had told Amber that in almost ten years he had never seen her without it.

“I’ll have a midwife for you in good time, then,” she said, “and we’ll find a woman to take the baby.”

“Take the baby where!” cried Amber, suddenly on the defensive.

“Don’t be alarmed, my dear,” said Mother Red-Cap reasonably, and the accent with which she spoke reminded Amber of Lord Carlton and his friends. “Who’d want a baby to live in the Friars? Most of those who do, die before their first year is out. We can get a cleanly responsible cottager’s wife who will care for the child and let you visit him whenever you like. Oh, it’s a very satisfactory arrangement—many women do it,” she assured her, as Amber still did not look convinced. “Now,” she turned briskly and went back to her ledger. “Tell me your full name.”

Black Jack spoke up quickly. “Mrs. Channel is all she wants to give. I’ll pay the garnish-fee for her.”

Amber had not told even Black Jack her real name and he did not seem to care for he said that his own was assumed and that any person of sense kept his name secret in Alsatia.

“Very well. No one here is interested in prying into the past. Black Jack tells me you’re in debt for four hundred pound and want to pay it so that you can leave the Friars. I don’t blame you—I think you’re too pretty to stay here long, and I assure you I’ll put the means of earning that sum in your way, just as soon as you’re able to go abroad.” Amber started to ask her how, but Mother Red-Cap went crisply on. “Meanwhile, we’ll have to do something to get rid of that accent. A girl from the country is generally assumed to be a fool here in London, and that’s a handicap to the best laid plans. I think that Michael Godfrey might make a good tutor for her, don’t you, Black Jack? And now, my dear, make yourself comfortable with us and ask for whatever you want or need. I’ll leave you now; this is the first of the month and I must call upon my tenants.”

She closed the ledger, put it into a drawer of the table, and locked it with a key taken from her apron-pocket. Then tossing a cloak over her arm, she smiled at them both and went to the door. Once again she turned to give Amber a sweeping glance, shook her head slightly, and remarked, “A pity you’re so far gone with child. Three months ago you’d have brought a hundred pound as a maidenhead.”

She went out and though Black Jack burst into hearty laughter Amber turned to him with an angry light in her eyes. “What the devil does that old woman intend? If she thinks I’m going to earn my way out of here by—”

“Don’t get excited. She doesn’t—I’ll see to that. But once a bawd, always a bawd. And Mother Red-Cap’s such a matchmaker I’ll swear she could have married the Pope to Queen Elizabeth.”

What Mother Red-Cap’s real name was, Amber never learned, but very obviously Black Jack not only liked her but had a strong masculine admiration for her success, her uncompromising determination, her ability to survive and prosper no matter what happened to others. But Amber could not understand why the woman lived so frugally when she did not need to, or why she had chosen a life of chastity after what must have been an exciting youth. For those reasons she felt a frank but unexpressed contempt for her and decided that she could not be so very clever after all.

But nevertheless she exerted herself to make Mother Red-Cap like her and believed that she was succeeding very well. For Black Jack had flatly refused, the first time she broached the subject, to give her money enough to pay her debt—and it had led to a quarrel between them.

“I think you want me to stay in this damned place!”

“I certainly do. What d’ye think I got you out of jail for? You’re an ungrateful little bitch!”

“What if I am! Who wants to stay in this filthy hole all their life! I hate it! And I will get out! Just you wait and see! If you won’t give it to me I’ll ask Mother Red-Cap for the money! She doesn’t use it and she’ll lend me four hundred pound, I warrant you!”

He was a formidable giant who might have snapped her bones like toothpicks, but he threw back his head and laughed. “Go ahead and ask her if you like! But believe me, she’d as soon lend you four hundred of her teeth.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

ONE AFTERNOON WHILE Black Jack was away Amber sought out Mother Red-Cap. When she was home, which was not often, she was almost always employed in working on her ledger, entering long columns, filling out bills and receipts by the dozen, and she did not like to be interrupted. Now, as Amber approached, she made her a signal to be silent and continued running her pen up a line of neatly written figures, her lips moving as she did so, and then finally she set down the total and turned to Amber.

“What is it, my dear? Can I do something for you?”

Amber had prepared and rehearsed her speech, but now she cried impulsively: “Yes! Lend me four hundred pound so I can get away from here! Oh, please, Mother Red-Cap! I’ll pay it back, I promise you!”

Mother Red-Cap observed her coolly for a moment, and then she smiled. “Four hundred pound, Mrs. Channell, is a large sum of money. What do you offer for security?”

“Why—I’ll give you a promise, on paper, or anything you like. And I’ll pay it back with interest,” she added, for she had learned by now that Interest was both God and Sovereign to Mother Red-Cap. “I’ll do anything. But I’ve got to have it!”

“I don’t believe you understand the business of pawn-brokerage, my dear. It may seem to you that four hundred pound is an insignificant sum to borrow. It is, however, a very large sum to lend upon no better security than the promise of a young girl to repay. I don’t doubt your intentions, but I think you would find it more difficult to come by four hundred pound than you imagine now.”

Surprised, disappointed, Amber was angry. “Why!” she cried. “You said yourself you could have got a hundred pound for me!”

“And so I probably could. More than half that hundred, however, would have been mine for arranging the match, not yours. But to be frank with you, it was merely an idle thought. Black Jack’s told me very flatly he intends keeping you for himself and I believe, my dear, you should feel some gratitude toward him. It cost him three hundred pound to get you out of Newgate.”

“Three hundred—Why, he never told me that!”

“And so I think that while Black Jack’s here we won’t be using you that way.”

“While he’s here? Is he going somewhere?”

“Not very soon, I hope. But someday he’ll ride up Tyburn Hill in a cart—and he won’t come down again.”

Amber stared at her, horror-struck. She knew that he had been burnt on the left thumb, which meant he was to hang for the next offense. But he had escaped again in spite of that and he had a reckless audacity which made her think of him as almost indestructible. Now, however, she was thinking not of him but of herself.

“That’s what’s going to happen to all of us! I know it is! We’re all going to hang!”

Mother Red-Cap lifted her brows. “We might, I suppose. But we’re far more likely to die of consumption here in Alsatia.” She turned away and picked up her pen and though Amber lingered a few moments she knew that she had been dismissed, and went to climb the stairs back up to her bedroom.

She was discouraged but not beaten. She still intended to escape somehow, and comforted herself with the reminder that she had made the far more difficult escape from Newgate.

Alsatia lay just east of the Temple Gardens and could be reached from them by going down a narrow broken flight of steps. Low as it was and close to the river it was perpetually invaded by a thick dingy-yellow fog that hung to the very pavements, seeped into the bones, stuck in the nostrils and made it difficult even to breathe. Ram Alley, where Mother Red-Cap’s house was, smelt of stinking cook-shops and the lye-soap used by the laundresses who made that street a headquarters.

Its courts and alleys were crowded with beggars and thieves, murderers and whores and debtors, a wild desperate rabble who lived in a constant internecine warfare but who invariably banded together to beat off any attempted intrusion by constable or bailiff. Children swarmed everywhere—almost as numerous as the dogs and pigs—starving little dwarfs with sunken eyes and husky high-pitched voices. Amber shuddered at the sight of them and looked swiftly away for fear her own baby would be marked before birth because she had seen them. She felt that living here she had left the world—the only world that mattered to her, the world where she might see Lord Carlton again.

It was Michael Godfrey, hired by Mother Red-Cap to teach her to speak as a London lady of quality should, who gave her glimpses back into that life toward which her heart yearned.

He was a student at the Middle Temple where sons of many of England’s wealthy families were to be found, supposedly acquiring a liberal education and learning how to manage their estates and preside at the sessions when they came into their property. Most of them, however, spent more time in taverns than they did in the class-room and more money on women than on books. Like many of the others, Michael had sometimes ventured into the Friars, impelled by curiosity and a desire to see how the wicked lived and looked. And also like many others, when his mode of living had far outrun his allowance and he found himself embarrassed with debts, he had come to borrow and thus he had made the acquaintance of Mother Red-Cap, the fabled witch-woman of the Sanctuary. Within a fortnight after Amber’s arrival he had been engaged as her tutor.

He was just twenty years old, of medium height and size, with light-brown curling hair and blue eyes. His father was a knight with property in Kent and money enough to give his son all the customary advantages of his class: Michael had gone to Westminster School to learn Latin and Greek. At sixteen, the usual age for entering college, he had been sent to Oxford to master Greek and Roman literature, history, philosophy, and mathematics. That was supposed to be accomplished in three years, for too much education was not considered good for a gentleman, and a year ago he had enrolled in the Middle Temple. Two years or so there and he would go on his tour abroad.

While the rain dripped unceasingly—for the mild winter had been followed by weeks of wet—he and Amber would sit beside the fireplace in the parlour drinking hot-spiced buttered ale and talking. She was an eager and enthusiastic listener, appreciative of his jests, fascinated by the things he did and saw and heard.

She would laugh delightedly to hear of how he and his friends, “somewhat disguised” as the gallants liked to say when they had been drunk, had knocked over a watchman’s stand where the old man sat sleeping, serenaded a bawdy-house in Whetstone Park and broken all the windows, and finally stripped naked a woman they met returning home late with her husband. Bands of young aristocrats scoured about the town every night, boisterous and destructive, the terror of all quiet peaceable citizens, who would as soon have been set upon by cut-throats or thieves. But Michael recounted his exploits with a zestful freshness and relish which made them seem the most harmless innocent childish pranks.

He told her that for the past three or four months women had been appearing on the London stage and were now in every play, overpainted, daringly-dressed young sluts, some of them already taken by the nobles as mistresses. He told her of seeing the rotten bodies of Cromwell and Ireton and Bradshaw pulled out of their graves and hanged in chains at Tyburn, and of how their pickled heads were now stuck atop poles on Westminster Hall and chunks of their carcasses exposed on pikes over the seven City gates. And he told her about the plans for his Majesty’s Coronation which was to take place in April and was to be the most magnificent in the history of the British throne; he promised to describe for her every robe, every jewel, every word spoken and gesture made, after he had seen it.

Meanwhile she was losing the remnants of her country accent. Her ear was alert and her memory retentive, mimicry was natural to her and she had a passionate eagerness to learn. She stopped pronouncing power as pawer and you as yeow. She gave up both Gemini and Uds Lud and learned some more fashionable oaths. He taught her all the correct ways of making and receiving introductions, a few French phrases and words, that it was the mode to pronounce certain as sartin and servant as sarvant. Vulgarity was high-fashion at Whitehall and pungent words of one syllable interlarded the conversation of most lords and ladies. Amber absorbed all of it, and with it the cant of Alsatia.

Michael Godfrey, who was already sure he loved her, wanted to know her real name, who she was, and where she came from. She refused to tell him the truth but she embroidered upon her story to Sally Goodman and he accepted her for what she said she was: a country heiress run away from home with a man her family disliked, and now deserted by him. He was very sympathetic, indignant that a woman of her gentle breeding should have to live in such surroundings, and offered to get in touch with her family. But Amber shied away from that and assured him that they would never come to her aid in such a place as Whitefriars.

“Then come with me,” he said. “I’ll take care of you.”

“Thanks, Michael, I wish I could. But I can’t—not till I’ve laid-in, anyway. Lord, wouldn’t it be a pretty fetch if I fell into labour in your quarters! You’d be turned out in a trice!”

They both laughed. “They’ve threatened me a dozen times. Mend your ways, sirrah, or out you go!” He drew down his brows and bellowed dramatically. Then all at once he leaned forward and took her hand. “But please—afterward—will you go with me then?”

“There’s nothing I’d like better. But what about the constables? If they caught me I’d have to go back to Newgate.” Michael lived on an allowance which did not cover his own expenses; he could never pay her debt.

“They won’t catch you. I’ll see to that. I’ll keep you safe—”

Amber woke early in the morning on the 5th of April, conscious of a dull prodding ache in her back. She turned over to make herself more comfortable and then suddenly she realized what it was. She gave Black Jack a poke.

“Black Jack! Wake up! Go tell Mother Red-Cap it’s started! Send for the midwife!”

“What?”

He grumbled sleepily, not wishing to be disturbed. But when she shook him—frantic, for she had heard of babies being born and no preparation made for them—he woke up, stared at her for a surprised instant, and quickly began to get into his clothes.

Mother Red-Cap came to see her and then went out on her perpetual round of business, confident that nothing would happen for several hours. The midwife arrived with her two helpers, made an examination and sat down to wait. Bess Columbine looked in once but was sent away, for there was a strong superstition that the presence of one whom the labouring woman disliked would impede the progress of birth. But Black Jack, though he poured sweat and seemed to suffer at least as much as she did, remained with her constantly, drinking one glass of brandy after another.

At last, about four o’clock in the afternoon, the baby’s head began to appear, like a red wrinkled apple, and a few minutes later a boy was born. Amber lay in exhausted collapse on the bed, unable to feel anything but relief.

She was disappointed in the baby for he was long and thin and red and gave scant promise that he would ever resemble his handsome father, though Mother Red-Cap assured her that he would be very pretty in a month or two. But now his tiny face was screwed up in a continuous squall, for he was hungry. Amber had assumed that she would nurse him herself—in the country, women did not expect to look like virgins once they were married—but Mother Red-Cap was horrified at such a thought and told her that no lady of fashion would think of spoiling her figure. A wet-nurse would be found instead. Amber’s vanity needed no urging and she agreed readily, but while they interviewed applicants the baby starved.

It took four days to find the woman who answered to Mother Red-Cap’s exacting demands, but after that he was quiet and content and slept most of the time, in his cradle beside Amber’s bed. She felt a passionate tenderness for him, far greater than she had ever expected or believed possible. Even so, she hoped that she would never have another baby.

She recuperated rapidly and by the time the wet-nurse arrived she was sitting up in bed, propped against pillows and wearing one of Black Jack’s shirts, for that was supposed to cause the milk in the breasts to dry quickly. Michael Godfrey came to visit her and brought the baby a lavishly embroidered white-satin gown for his christening, and she received several other presents as well. Apparently she had made more friends in the Friars than she had realized.

One of them was Penelope Hill, a prostitute who lived just across the street. She was a large-boned young woman whose claims to beauty were a head of hair that was like a heavy skein of pale yellow silk, and ample melon-shaped breasts. Rusty sweat-stains showed in the armpits of her soiled blue-taffeta gown and all her body gave out a strangely inviting promise of lushness and fulfillment. She was languid and cynical and regarded all men with a kind of amused contempt; but she warned Amber that a woman had no chance of succeeding in a man’s world unless she could turn their weaknesses to her own advantage.

Such philosophical advice, however, meant less to Amber than did her practical information on another subject. From Penelope she learned that there were a great many means of preventing perpetual child-bearing—or abortions—and she learned what they were. In possession of the knowledge, Amber wondered how she had ever been so stupid as not to have guessed at it long since; it seemed so perfectly obvious.

When the baby was two weeks old he was christened with the single name—Bruce. It was customary to give a bastard his mother’s surname, but she could not use hers and would not use Luke Channell’s. Afterwards she had a christening feast, which was attended by Mother Red-Cap and Black Jack, Bess Columbine and Michael and Penelope Hill, an Italian nobleman who had fled his country for reasons he did not disclose and who knew no word of English, the coiner and his wife from the third floor, two men who accompanied Black Jack on his expeditions out of town—Jimmy the Mouth and Blueskin—and an assortment of cutpurses, bilks, and debtors. While the men drank and played cards the women sat and discussed pregnancy and miscarriages and abortions with the same ravening interest they had in Marygreen.

A week after that the woman Mother Red-Cap had hired to take the baby came for him. She was Mrs. Chiverton, a cottager’s wife from Kingsland, a tiny village lying out of London some two and a quarter miles, but almost four miles from Whitefriars. Amber liked and trusted her immediately, for she had known many women of her kind. She agreed to pay her ten pounds a year to feed and care for the baby, and gave her another five so that she could have him brought to see her whenever she wanted.

She did not wish to part with him at all and would have kept him there with her in Whitefriars if it had not been for Mother Red-Cap’s insistence that he would probably die in that unhealthy place. She loved him because he was her own—but perhaps even more because he was Bruce Carlton’s. Bruce had been gone now for almost eight months, and in spite of the violent feeling she still had for him, he had grown increasingly unreal to her. The baby, a moving breathing proof of his existence, was all that convinced her she had ever known him at all. He seemed to be a dream she had had, a wish that had almost, but not quite, come true.

“Let me know right away if he falls sick, won’t you?” she said anxiously as she put him into Mrs. Chiverton’s arms. “When will you bring him to see me?”

“Whenever ye say, mem.”

“Next Saturday? If it’s a good day?”

“Very well, mem.”

“Oh, please do! And you’ll keep him warm and never let him be hungry, won’t you?”

“Yes, mem. I will, mem.”

Black Jack went along to see her safely into a hackney, but when he came back Amber was sitting alone in a chair by the table, staring morosely into space. He sat down beside her and took her hands into his; his voice was teasing but sympathetic. “Here, sweetheart. What’s the good of all this moping and sighing? The little fellow’s in good hands, isn’t he? Lord, you wouldn’t want ’im to stay here. Would you now?”

Amber looked at him. “No, of course not. Well—” She tried a little smile.

“Now, that’s better! Look here—d’ye know what day ’this is?”

“No.”

“It’s the day before his Majesty’s coronation. He rides through the City on his way to the Tower! How would you like to go see ’im?”

“Oh, Black Jack!” Her whole face lighted eagerly and then suddenly collapsed into a discontented frown. “But we can’t—” She had come to feel that she was as much a prisoner here in Whitefriars as she had been in Newgate.

“Of course we can. I go into the City every day of my life. Hurry along now, into your rigging and we’ll be off. Bring your mask and wear your cloak,” he called after her, as she whirled and started out on a run.

It was the first time Amber had left Alsatia since she had come there two months and a half before, and she was almost as excited as she had been the first day she had seen London. After weeks of rain the sky was now blue and the air fresh and clean; there was a brisk breeze that carried the smell of the outlying fields into the city. The streets along which the King’s procession would pass had been covered with gravel and railed off on either side and the City companies and trainbands formed lines to keep back the eager pushing crowds. Magnificent triumphal arches had been erected at the corners of the four main streets and—as the year before—banners and tapestries floated from every house and women massed at the windows and balconies threw flowers.

Black Jack shepherded Amber through the crowd before him, elbowing one man aside, shoving his hand into the face of another, until finally they came to the very front. She dropped her mask—which was kept in place by a button held between the teeth—and could not stop to pick it up. Black Jack did not notice and in her own excitement she soon forgot that it was gone.

When they got to where they could see, the great gilt coaches, filled with noblemen in their magnificent Parliament robes, were turning slowly by. Amber stared at them with her eyes wide open, impressed as a child, and unconsciously she searched over each face, but did not see him. Lord Carlton had ridden the year before with the loyal Cavaliers returning from over the seas. But when the King approached she forgot even Bruce.

His Majesty was on horseback and as he rode along, nodding his head and smiling, hands reached out trying to touch him or the trappings of his horse. From time to time his attention was caught by a pretty woman somewhere in the crowd. And so he glanced once, then again, at a girl whose tawny eyes stared up at him in passionate admiration and awe, her lips parted with a sudden catch of breath as his gaze met hers. And as he passed he smiled at her, the slow lazy smile that—for all its cynicism-was so strangely tender. Her head turned, following him, but he did not look back.

Oh! thought Amber, dizzy with exultation. He looked at me! And he smiled! The King smiled at me! In her excitement she did not even see the camel lumbering along bearing brocaded panniers from which a little East Indian boy flung pearls and spices into the crowd.

The King’s swarthy sombre face and the expression in his eyes stayed with her for hours as vivid as the moment she had seen him. And now she was more than ever dissatisfied with her life in the Sanctuary. The world of which she had half lost remembrance called to her again like an old and beloved melody and she yearned to follow it—but did not dare. Oh, if only somehow, somehow I could get out of this scurvy place!

That evening the four of them sat at the supper-table: Bess sullen and glowering because she had not been to the pageant; Amber eating in silent preoccupation; Black Jack laughing as he showed Mother Red-Cap the four watches he had stolen. Amber was conscious of the conversation but she paid no attention to what was being said until she heard Bess’s angry protest.

“And what about me, pray? What am I to do?”

“You may stay here tonight,” said Mother Red-Cap. “There’ll be no need for you to go along.”

Bess banged her knife onto the table. “There was a need for me once! But now Mrs. Fairtail’s come I find I’m as unwelcome as a looking-glass after the small-pox!” She gave Amber a venomous glare.

Mother Red-Cap did not answer her, but turned to Amber. “Remember the things I’ve told you—and above all, don’t be uneasy. Black Jack will be there when you need him. Keep your wits and there’ll be no possibility of mistakes.”

Amber’s hands had turned cold and her heart was beginning to pound. During the discussions and rehearsals for these holdups she had always felt that she was merely pretending, that she would never really have to do any of those things. And now all of a sudden—when she had least expected it—the pretending was done. Mother Red-Cap did intend her to go. Amber could feel the noose about her neck already.

“Let Bess go if she wants to!” she cried. “I’ve no great maw for the business! I dreamed about Newgate again last night!”

Mother Red-Cap smiled. Her temper was never ruffled, she never lost her cool, reasonable tone and manner. “My dear, surely you know that dreams are expounded by contraries. Come, now, I had expected great things of you—not only for your beauty but for your spirit, which I had thought would carry you undismayed through any adventure.”

“Undismayed spirit, my arse!” snorted Bess.

Amber gave her a sharp hard stare across the table and then got to her feet. Without another word she left the room and went upstairs to get her cloak and mask, to powder her face and smooth a little rouge on her lips. A few minutes later she came down to find Bess and Black Jack quarrelling. Bess was chattering furiously at him though he merely lounged in his chair with a wine-bottle in his hand, and ignored her. Seeing Amber at the door he smiled and got to his feet. Bess whirled around.

“Your!” she cried. “You’re the cause of all my troubles—you jilting whore!” And suddenly she grabbed a salt-cellar from the table and hurled it to the floor. “There! And the devil go with you!” She turned and rushed out of the room, sobbing as she went.

“Oh!” cried Amber, staring at the spilt salt with scared and anxious eyes. “We’re cursed! We can’t go!”

Black Jack, who had gone after Bess, now gave her a cuff with his great hand that almost knocked her off her feet. “You damned meddling jade!” he roared at her. “If we run into ill-luck I’ll cut your ears off!”

But Mother Red-Cap scoffed at Amber’s superstitious fears and assured her that it could be no ill omen because it had been done purposefully. She gave them some last-minute admonitions, Black Jack swallowed a glass of brandy and—though Amber was still reluctant and worried—they set out. By the time they had climbed the stairs and entered the Temple gardens she was beginning to feel excited and eager for whatever adventure might lie ahead; Bess and the spilled salt were already far out of her mind.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

IN THE CITY the bells were ringing, and blazing bonfires sent up a glow against the sky. Every house was brightly lighted and crowds of merrymakers filled the streets; coaches rattled by and there were sounds of laughter and singing and music. Taverns were packed and the inns were turning customers away. It was the night of the Restoration all over again.

The Dog and Partridge was a fashionable tavern located in Fleet Street, frequented for the most part by gallants and the well-dressed, overpainted harlots who tracked them to their habitat. On this night it was jammed full. Every table was crowded with men—those who brought women usually took them to a private room upstairs; waiters were going among them with trays of bottles and glasses and foaming mugs of ale; a tableful of young men were singing; over in one corner some fiddlers scratched away, unheard and ignored. And just as Amber enterèd the door four young men started out, drunk and excited, going to fight a duel over some petty disagreement or imagined slight. They jostled against her but went on, troubling neither to stop nor to apologize, though by their dress they were obviously gentlemen.

Amber, masked and with her hood up, drew her cloak disdainfully about her and stepped aside. When they had gone she stood in the doorway and looked over the smoke-filled room, as though to find someone, and presently the host approached her.

“Madame?”

She knew by his manner that he took her for what she was supposed to be: a lady—Covent Garden variety. And she felt like one herself. She had spent hours at her window, both at the Royal Saracen and the Rose and Crown, watching them get in and out of their coaches, stop to speak to an admirer, fling a beggar a shilling. She knew how they picked up their skirts, how they pulled on a glove, spoke to a footman, used their fans. They were confident careless ladies, sure of the world and of their position in it, ever so slightly scornful of those who lived apart. But it was not by mere mimicry that she could so successfully pretend to be one; it was an attitude toward life that seemed natural to her.

“I’m looking for a gentleman,” she said softly. “He was to meet me here.” She scarcely glanced at the host; her eyes were going over the room.

“Perhaps I can help you to find him, madame. What was he wearing? What is his appearance?”

“He’s very tall and his hair is black. I think he wears a black suit with a gold braid garniture.”

The host turned, looked over the room. “Can it be that gentleman? The one at the far right-hand table?”

“No, no. Not that one. Hang it, the rascal must be late!” She fluttered her fan in annoyance.

“I’m sorry, madame. Perhaps you would prefer to wait in some more private place?”

“I’d prefer it, but if I do he might miss me. I can’t tarry long —you understand.” He was to understand that she was a married woman come to an assignation with her lover and in some apprehension of being seen by her husband or an acquaintance. “Place me in some discreet corner then. I’ll wait on the wretch a few minutes or so.”

The host led her across the room, weaving his way through the hot, noisy crowd, and Amber was aware that for all she was concealed from top to toe several of the gallants turned and looked at her. Her perfume was alluring and her cloak—which Black Jack had stolen from some lady of quality—suggested wealth. He seated her at a table in the farthest corner, and though she declined to order anything to drink she put a silver coin into his hand.

“Thank you, sir.”

Sitting down Amber let her cloak fall open just enough to reveal something of her low neckline, flared her fan, gave a bored little sigh and then a quick casual glance around the room. She met several pairs of eyes, a few smiles and one broad grin, and instantly she dropped her lashes. They were not to take her for a prostitute.

She was glad now that she had come; a quick excitement flowed through her veins, and she only wished that this was real life, no mere part she was playing.

Within a quarter of an hour she had sorted them over and found at least one young man apparently well suited to her purposes. He sat at a table some seven or eight feet away playing cards with four companions, but his head turned persistently and his eyes looked back at her again and again. When most women went masked in public places a man had to learn to judge beauty by very little detail—the colour and sheen of a curl escaping from a hood, the sparkle of a pair of eyes seen between narrow slits, the curve of a pretty mouth.

Now, as she felt him looking at her again she glanced across and let the faintest smile touch her lips, a smile that scarcely existed at all, and then she looked away. Immediately he put down his cards, shoved back his chair and started toward her, walking unsteadily.

“Madame—” He paused politely to hiccough. “Madame, will you permit me the honour of buying you a glass of wine?”

Amber, who had been looking in another direction, now glanced at him in apparent surprise.

“Sir?”

The boy was flustered. “Oh, I’m sorry, your Ladyship. I meant no offense—hic—but I thought you might be lonely—”

“I’m waiting for someone, sir. I’m not lonely at all. And if you take me for a whore you’re quite mistaken. I think you’ll find your luck better with that lady over there.”

With her fan, which she held clasped in one hand as it lay on the table, she indicated an unmasked woman who had just come in and who stood surveying the room, her cloak open to show a pair of almost naked breasts. As he looked Amber noticed that he wore four rings, had gold buttons on his coat with tiny diamonds in the centers, that his sword case was silver and that he wore a large mink muff attached to a broad twisted satin girdle.

He gave her a bow, very stiff and dignified. “I beg your pardon, madame. That is not my game, I assure you. Your servant, madame.” He turned and would have gone off but she stopped him.

“Sir!” He looked around and she smiled up at him, her tawny eyes coaxing. “Forgive my rudeness. I fear the waiting has set me on edge. I’ll accept your offer of wine, and thanks.”

He smiled, forgiving her instantly, sat down and summoned the waiter to order champagne for her and brandy for himself. He told her that his name was Tom Butterfield and that he was a student at Lincoln’s Inn, but when he tried to find out who she was she grew cool and aloof, intimating that she was too well known to dare give her name. And she knew by the way he stared at her that he was trying to place her, wondering if she was Lady This or Countess That, and thinking that he was having a considerable adventure.

They sipped their drinks, chatting idly, and when a little herring-peddler came to the table to ask if she might sing a song for the lady they both agreed. The child was perhaps ten or eleven years old, a slovenly little waif with dirty fingers, snarled blonde curls and shoes worn through at the toes. But her voice was surprisingly clear and mature and there was about her a buoyant happy quality, refreshing as the taste of oranges on a stale tongue.

When she had done, Tom Butterfield munificently gave her several shillings, no doubt to impress her Ladyship. “You’ve a pretty voice, child. What’s your name, pray?”

“Nelly Gwynne, sir. And thank ye, sir.” She gave them both a grin, bobbed a curtsy, and was off through the crowd, stopping at another table across the room.

Amber now began to seem impatient. “What provoking creatures men are!” she exclaimed at last. “How the devil does he dare use me at this rate? I’ll see that he smokes for it, I warrant you!”

“He’s an ignorant blockhead that would keep your Ladyship awaiting,” agreed Tom Butterfield soberly, though his eyes no longer focused well and he looked half-asleep.

“Well, he’ll not do it again, you may be sure!” She began to gather up her belongings, muff, fan, and gloves. “Thank you for your drink, sir. I’ll go along now.”

She dropped one glove and bent slightly to pick it up. He stooped at the same time to get it for her and as he did so stared down into her bodice; he was weaving on his feet as he straightened, and gave his head a vigorous shake to clear it.

“Let me see you to your coach, madame.”

They went out the door, Tom Butterfield walking solemnly at her heels and ignoring the jocular hoots of his friends. “Where is your coach waiting, madame?”

“Why, I came in a hackney, sir,” she replied, implying that no lady going to an assignation would be so foolish as to ride in her own coach which might be seen and reported. “I believe there’s one for hire over there. Will you call it for me?”

“I protest, madame. So fine a person as yourself travelling about after nightfall in a hell-cart? Tush!” He waggled an admonitory finger at her. “I have my coach just around the corner. Pray, let me carry you to your home.” He put his fingers to his mouth and whistled.

They climbed in and the coach started off, jogging along Fleet Street to the Strand, and now Tom Butterfield sat in his own corner, hiccoughing gently from time to time and hanging onto the strap beside the window for support. Amber, afraid that he would fall asleep, finally said to him: “You still don’t know me, do you, Mr. Butterfield?”

“Why, no, madame. Do I know you?” She could feel him lean toward her as though trying to see through the darkness.

“Well—you’ve smiled and bowed to me often enough at the play.”

“How now, have I then? Where were you sitting?”

“Where? In a box, of course!” No lady of quality sat elsewhere and her tone was indignant, but still teasing.

“When were you there last?”

“Oh, perhaps yesterday. Perhaps the day before. Don’t you recall a lady who smiled kindly on you? Lord, I never thought you’d forget me so quick—all those amorous tweers you cast.”

“I haven’t forgot. My mind’s been running on you ever since. You were in the fore of the King’s box three days ago, dressed in a pretty deshabille with your hair in a tour and your eyes had the most languishing gaze in all the world. Oh, gad, madame, I haven’t forgot—not I. I’m mightily smitten with you, I swear I am. I’m in love with you, madame!”

As his impetuosity mounted Amber grew more coy, moving as far away as she could get and giving a low giggle in the darkness so that he made a grab for her. They started to tussle, she yielding a little and then pushing him off as he tried to draw her against him, giving a cry of dismay as his hand went into her bodice and caught one breast. He was panting excitedly, blowing his sour breath in her face, and all at once she gave him a brisk slap.

“What the devil, sir! Is this the way you handle a person of quality?”

Suddenly abashed, sobered by the slap, he drew away. “Forgive me, madame. My ardour outran my breeding.”

“Indeed it did! I’m not accustomed to that kind of courtship!”

“My humblest apologies, madame. But I’ve admired you for a great while.”

“How do you know? Perhaps I’m not the lady you have in mind at all.”

“You must be the lady I have in mind. In fact, madame, I find myself so hot for you—” He reached for her again and they had begun to struggle once more, when the coach stopped. “Hell and furies!” he muttered, and she began to push him off.

“Sit up, sir, for God’s sake!” She was straightening her clothes, pulling up her bodice, smoothing her hair, and then the door opened and Tom Butterfield staggered out and offered his hand to help her down.

The house before which they were stopped was a new one in Bow Street just a block from Covent Garden Square. At the door he caught hold of her to kiss her again and as he did so she took the key from her muff and slipped it into the lock.

“My husband’s abroad tonight,” she murmured. “Will you come in, Mr. Butterfield—and drink a glass of wine with me?”

She pushed open the door and went in with him following close behind her. But when he would have detained her in the passage she disengaged herself and went on up the black staircase to another door, which she also opened. She went in first and turned to find him smiling, his eyes full of expectancy as he looked at her; a candle was burning and it gave just enough light to see by. And then as Black Jack’s heavy cudgel smashed down upon his skull the smile froze on his face, his eyes glazed over, and he dropped to the floor, folding up in sections like a carpenter’s rule. Amber gave an involuntary little scream, one hand to her mouth, for the look of accusation she had seen in his eyes filled her with guilt.

But Black Jack had already stuck the cudgel back into his pocket and was kneeling beside him, cutting the string of cat’s gut on which the buttons of his coat were strung. While she stood and stared he went efficiently about his work, rolling him over to get the buttons in back, pulling off the rings, unbuckling the sword and muff, searching through his pockets. And then, as a dark narrow streak of blood began to run out of his hair and over his temple, Amber moaned aloud.

“Oh! You’ve killed him!”

“Hush! He’s not hurt.” He looked up, giving her a broad grin. “What the hell, sweetheart! Scared by a little blood? A broken head may teach him better sense next time—if we hadn’t fibbed the young prigster somebody else would have. Look at this scout—” He held up a gold watch. “Fifteen pound if it’s worth a sice. It takes fine bait to catch a big fish. Now come along—let’s rub off.” He had the boy’s wrists and ankles tied and they started out. Amber paused to look back once more, but Black Jack hurried her down the backstairs and into a hackney that was waiting.

The night’s easy success was reassuring to Amber, who now believed that she might soon get money enough to leave the Friars. And she had enjoyed the adventure, too—all but the clouting of Tom Butterfield, for whose welfare she still felt a certain guilty concern. When she had drunk her morning draught of ale, brought to her by the shuffling Pall, she slipped into her dressing-gown and went downstairs. Mother Red-Cap and Black Jack were in the parlour, talking, and both of them seemed in high spirits.

Amber came in with a breezy greeting and wave of her hand —full of a vast self-confidence and ready to be congratulated. Mother Red-Cap gave her a warm smile.

“Good-morning, my dear! Black Jack’s been telling me how like a veteran you handled matters last night! He says it was worth a Jew’s eye to see the way you led the young cully into his trap. And now you’ve seen for yourself how easy it is, and how safe, haven’t you?”

Amber, thinking that now they had a need of her, was inclined to be independent. She shrugged. “I suppose so. Well—” She held out her hand. “Tip me my earnest.”

“Why, my dear, there’s nothing for you this time. I’ve applied your share on your bill.”

“On my bill!”

“Of course. Or did you think it costs nothing to eat and lodge and give birth to a baby?”

She unlocked the drawer where her ledger was kept, took out a neatly written sheet and handed it to Amber who stood for a moment staring at it, nonplussed. She did not know what it said, for she had never been taught to read or write, but she was horrified to think that none of the money she had helped to steal was hers. For those expenses Mother Red-Cap had mentioned were not ones she had ever expected to pay. She felt that she had been cheated, and it made her angry. After a moment she looked up, her mouth opened to speak, and saw Mother Red-Cap just removing her cloak from the peg where it hung beside the door; she put it on and went out.

“Here!” Amber thrust the bill at Black Jack. “Read it to me!”

He took it and read the items slowly. At each one her scowl intensified. Now she was in a fine pickle! Instead of being less in debt she was deeper than ever. A violent despair filled her.

The bill was carefully itemized.

“Lord!” cried Amber furiously. “I’m surprised she doesn’t charge me for the use of her pot!”

Black Jack grinned. “Never mind. She will.”

Amber was as angry with Black Jack as she was with Mother Red-Cap. For he could have paid her bill—and the debt too—at no hardship to himself. She was so resentful over his refusal that she had lost all sense of gratitude at being out of Newgate. She would have pawned some of the jewellery he had given her, but it was not enough to clear the full debt and if part of it disappeared she knew that she would get no more. It seemed to her that she would be in Whitefriars forever.

And so when Michael Godfrey came the next afternoon and asked her again to go away with him she agreed without hesitating an instant.

“Wait here and I’ll be right down. I want to get my cloak and I have a new gown—” She was already out of the room.

Michael called after her: “Let it go! I’ll get you another!”

But she pretended not to hear him and ran on, for there were several things she wanted to take with her—a, lace fan, a pair of green silk stockings, the imitation gold ear-rings, and her parakeet. She rushed about the room—the house was empty and she wanted to get away before someone should return—flung everything into a sheet and hastily tied it. “Come on,” she said to the parakeet. “We’ve had enough of this damned Sanctuary.” And with the cage in one hand, the tied-up sheet in the other, she hurried out and down the stairs. Halfway to the bottom she stopped with a gasp, for the door swung open and Black Jack Mallard stood there, his great frame blocking out the light.

She gave a gasp of dismay. “Jack!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What are you doing here!”

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

“I heard you and Jack yesterday afternoon—”

“Did you now!”

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Black Jack was himself a good example.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then one day she got a rude and sickening shock.

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

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

“What’s that?”

They looked around, surprised to find her there.

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

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

“What’s the matter?” demanded Black Jack, a kind of sharpness in his voice.

“You know what’s the matter! They’re looking for you and they’ll catch you! They’ll catch all of us, and hang us! Oh, I wish I’d never come to this damned place! I wish I was still in Newgate! There at least I was safe!”

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

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

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

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

“Jealous? Me jealous of you!” yelled Bess. “I’ll be damned if I am, you scurvy wench!”

“Don’t call me names!”

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

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

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

“Bess!”

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

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

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

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

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

“That’s a damned lie and you know it! I never so much as spoke to another man until you brought that slut in here! And anyway I haven’t laid with anyone but Blueskin—and that only a few times! This brat is yours and you know it, Black Jack Mallard, and you’ll own it or I’ll—”

He tossed the bone aside and leaned forward to pick up a cluster of purple Lisbon grapes. “For God’s sake, Bess, stubble it! You sound like a beggar’s clack-dish! I don’t care what you do. Lay with who you damned please, but don’t bother me about it.”

His back was half turned and for a moment she stood staring at him, her eyes like glass, her whole body beginning to tremble with rage. And then with an animal-like cry she lunged for him, snatching up a knife off the table. A quick look of surprise crossed his face as he saw the swift descending flash of the blade and his arm went up to defend himself, thrashing out then and giving her a violent blow that sent her sprawling across the room.

She was crouched on the floor, staring ferociously up at him where he loomed above her, when Mother Red-Cap rushed in from her room down the hallway. “What is it?” she cried. “Oh!” She put her hands on her hips. “Well, I’ve warned you before, Bess, and now you go. Get your belongings and leave this house!”

Bess glared up at her with sulky defiance, but got slowly to her feet. For a long moment she stood there without moving.

“Go on!” repeated Mother Red-Cap. “Get out of here!”

Bess started to protest and then she gave a sudden furious scream. “Don’t say it again! I’m going! I’m going away from here and I’ll never come back! I wouldn’t come back if you got on your knees and begged me! I hate you! I hate every one of you and I hope you—” Suddenly she whirled about and ran from the room and they could hear her feet pounding up the stairs.

Black Jack gave a low whistle and glanced at the knife where it lay on the floor, knocked out of her hand when he had struck her. “Whew! The crafty little gypsy. She’d have slit my throat, I think.” He gave a shrug and went back to take up the cluster of grapes, picking them off and tossing them one at a time into his mouth.

Mother Red-Cap went to the table, got out her ledger, and sat down to settle Bess’s account. “I’ll be glad to be done with her. She’s never been much use to me, and ever since Mrs. Channell came she’s been an infernal nuisance. Oh, well—you can’t make a whistle of a pig’s tail.”

Presently Black Jack went into the kitchen to tease Pall, who adored him though she blushed and stammered and scratched nervously at her lice whenever he appeared. The house was quiet for several minutes and then Amber came in the front door. She was wearing a thin pale-green silk dress with her hair tumbling about her shoulders and tied with a ribbon, and she had two of Penelope Hill’s choicest yellow roses stuck into the low-cut neckline.

“Ye gods! I swear this is the hottest day in an age!” She dropped into a chair, fanning herself with her lace-trimmed handkerchief, and Mother Red-Cap went on with her work. After a few moments Amber got up and started for the doorway that led into the hall where the stairs were.

“I don’t think you’d better go up there, my dear,” said Mother Red-Cap, dipping her pen into a pewter inkwell, but neither turning nor looking around. “I just sent Bess to pack her rigging and she’s in a tearing rage.”

Amber glanced back, smiling. “Bess is going?” She shrugged. “Well, much I care if she’s in a rage or no. Let her just say something to me and I’ll—”

“Never mind, my dear. I don’t want another brawl in my house. Go into the kitchen with Black Jack and Pall until she’s gone.”

Amber hesitated for a moment but finally turned and went into the other room. After a few minutes they heard Bess’s high-heeled shoes coming down the stairs, Mother Red-Cap’s voice talking to her, though Bess did not answer, and then with a bang she was gone. Black Jack proposed a toast to the peaceful life, and he and Amber presently wandered back into the parlour and sat down to play a game of cards.

They had spent interminable hours at cards and dice, for they did not go out on business more than once or twice a week—sometimes even less—and the long days and nights had to be passed somehow. Black Jack had taught her every trick in a gambler’s repertoire—palming, slurring, knapping, the brief—and in seven months she had attained to a very creditable proficiency. She felt that she could hold her own now at a table with any lord or lady in the kingdom.

After a while Blueskin came in and they started to play at putt, the favourite tavern game and one which had probably been the undoing of more country-squires’ sons than any other. It was three or four hours before she went upstairs to her own room, and there she found Bess’s final gesture to the rival she despised. Her smocks and gowns and petticoats littered the room, ripped and slashed to pieces. There were torn fans, gloves cut in two, cloaks hacked by scissors, and she had dumped the contents of the chamber-pot onto the remnants of Amber’s finest gown.

Black Jack promised to find Bess and give her the beating she deserved, but she had disappeared from Sanctuary and left not a trace, and they all knew it would never be possible to seek her out in the great sprawling city with its half-million inhabitants. She could lose herself in the warrens of Clerkenwell or St. Pancras, in the glutted seafaring center of Wapping, or in the alleys and courts of the Mint across the river in Southwark.

It was a bad shock to Amber; she decided that her life was cursed and that she would never get out of Whitefriars. She became gloomy and despondent, trailed listlessly about the house, and was sullenly bad-tempered with all of them. She hated Bess and Black Jack and Mother Red-Cap, Pall and Blueskin and the house-cat, even herself.

No matter what I do, she thought, no matter how hard I work and how much I save, there’s always something happens! I’ll never get out! I’ll die in this stinking hole!

Three days after Bess had gone Mother Red-Cap came into the bedroom and found Amber lying on her back, stretched out straight with her hands behind her head. She had been awake for at least two hours, mulling over her troubles, and the longer she thought about them the more insurmountable they became. She gave Mother Red-Cap a sulky glare, annoyed at being interrupted, but she did not speak.

“Well, my dear,” said Mother Red-Cap, as cheerfully as though Amber had greeted her in good humour. “This is no ordinary day for us, you know.”

Every morning she got up punctually at five, like an apprentice, put on her plain, neat dress, and began to go about her numberless tasks. From the moment she woke she was brisk and alert and ready for the day. The sight of such determined activity was irritating to Amber.

“It’s an ordinary day for me,” she said crossly.

“How now! Surely you’ve not forgot this is the day you’re going to Knightsbridge.”

“It’s not the day I’m going to Knightsbridge!”

“But, my dear child, this is most important. There’s a great deal of money involved.”

“It isn’t the first time there’s been a great deal of money involved—but I never saw much of it!” The subject had been discussed between them before, always with considerable bitterness, for though Amber protested she was being cheated of her rightful share Mother Red-Cap insisted that she got exactly what her services warranted, and Black Jack agreed. “Anyway, it’d be like Bess Columbine to have the constables waiting on us. She knows all our plans.”

“Nonsense, my dear. I think I know Bess better than you do, and I assure you she’s no such desperate creature as that. She hates the sight of a constable worse than a fishmonger hates a hard frost. But as for the money—I came up here to tell you I’ll double your earnest this time, to make up for the loss of your clothes.” Considering the matter settled she started toward the door. “Black Jack is below with Jimmy and Blueskin. They intend setting out within the hour.”

But as she went Amber flounced over on her side, scowled and called after her, “I’m not going!”

Mother Red-Cap did not reply, but within a few minutes Black Jack appeared and after half-an-hour’s coaxing and wheedling and assuring her that they had changed their plans so that Bess could not catch them if she tried, she got up and began to dress. Even so she would not leave before she had gone to consult an astrologer who lived in Mitre Court. Upon his assurance that the day was a propitious one for her she borrowed a cloak from Mother Red-Cap and, still sulking, left the Sanctuary with Pall and the three men.

Knightsbridge was a quiet little village on the West Bourne, just two miles and a half out of the city, and they reached it by taking a barge up the river to Tuthill Fields and then hiring a coach to the village. Because of its convenient situation Knightsbridge was much frequented by highwaymen who attacked travellers leaving or entering the city. Mother Red-Cap had had a message from the inn-keeper in her employ there that an old gentleman, Theophilus Bidulph, who came into London twice a year, was expected on the 8th of September.

Sometimes they had to wait two or three or more days for a victim to appear, but Amber heartily hoped that this time it would not be necessary. They went upstairs to the room assigned them and Pall immediately took off her shoes, complaining—as she had ever since leaving home—that they hurt her feet. Having nothing else to do Amber sat down to arrange her hair all over again, a process which could easily take half-an-hour, and when that was done she plagued Pall until the miserable girl finally admitted that she was with child by Black Jack Mallard. By nightfall she was distractedly bored, pacing uneasily about the room, hanging out the window and tapping her fingers on the sill, wishing she were anyone but who she was and anywhere in the world but there.

But at last she heard the pounding of horses’ hoofs, the clatter and bang of a coach; dogs began to bark and the ostlers ran out into the courtyard to greet the arriving guest. A few moments later there was a hasty tap at her door and the host told her Theophilus Bidulph had come and was ordering his supper downstairs. Amber waited about a quarter of an hour and then she went down herself.

Mr. Bidulph was standing beside the fireplace drinking a glass of ale and talking to the host and he did not see her until she spoke his name. Then he turned about in some surprise. He was a short merry-faced old gentleman with great bushy pointed eyebrows and the look of a good-natured imp.

“Why, Mr. Bidulph!” she cried, giving him a sparkling smile and holding out her hand.

He took it and made her a bow. “Your servant, madame.” In spite of his courtesy he was frankly puzzled, though he looked at her with interest.

“I vow I think you’ve forgotten me, sir.”

“By the mass, madame, I fear I have.”

“I’m Balthazar St. Michel’s eldest daughter, Ann. Last time we met I was no more than so high.” She bent a little, indicating with her flat palm a very tiny girl. “Surely you remember me now, sir? You used to dandle me on your knee.” She continued to smile at him.

“Why—uh—of course, madame—my dear, I mean. And how is your father, pray? It’s some years since we’ve met and—uh—”

Her face fell a little. “Oh, Mr. Bidulph, he’s not well. The old gout again. Sometimes he’s in bed for days.” She gave him another quick smile. “But he speaks so often of you—He’ll be so pleased I chanced to see you.”

Mr. Bidulph drank down his ale. “You must give him my regards, child. But what are you doing all alone out here?”

“Oh, I’m not alone, sir. I’m travelling with my woman. I’m going into town to visit Aunt Sarah—but one of our horses lost a shoe and we stopped here for the night. They say the ways are thick with highwaymen nowadays.”

“It’s true the wretches are everywhere—much worse than when I was a young fellow, let me tell you. But then, of course, nothing is as it was. But won’t you ride in with me in the morning? I’ll see you get there safe and sound.”

“Oh, thank you, sir! How kind that is! For the truth on it is, those cut-throats everywhere about have me uneasy as a witch.”

While they talked Amber saw some of his footmen going through the room bearing trunks and boxes on their backs; evidently the old gentleman did not intend to trust his belongings to the surveillance of the stable-boys. But at least that would make it possible for Black Jack to take what he wanted, while she occupied Mr. Bidulph’s attention. And, long before morning, all five of them would be in Whitefriars again. Amber was eager to have it over and done and to be back in safety once more—for Bess’s jealousy hung above her like an ominous threat. She thought the girl was mad enough to do anything for her revenge.

At Mr. Bidulph’s invitation Amber sat down to have supper with him, and they lingered there afterward while she listened to his tales of the Civil Wars. She heard of numerous instances demonstrating his and everyone else’s heroic valour, of the dead King’s nobility and martyrdom, the magnificent leadership of Prince Rupert. Nothing, he assured her again and again, could have been more glorious than the way the Royalists had lost the war.

Amber kept an eye on the clock.

By ten she was beginning to grow nervous and had to force herself to sit still and smile and ask questions. They had been there at the table for more than three hours, and certainly Black Jack should have finished his work by now and made her a signal to join them. A feeling of panic was rising in her, and her stomach turned over and over, fluttering like a captive bird.

Oh! she thought wildly. Where is he! Why doesn’t he come! What can have happened!

Then all at once she heard a noisy commotion from outside. The dogs began to bark again, horses’ hoofs beat along the roadway, and there was a babble of voices—men shouting, a woman’s scream. Pall opened their door at the head of the stairs to wave frantically at her. And Amber, suddenly terrified, thinking that Bess had arrived with a party of constables, leaped to her feet.

“Good Lord, madame! What’s amiss?”

“It’s thieves!” cried Amber wildly. “Quick! Put out the lights!”

She darted across to snuff out the candles burning in wall-sconces, and as she did so Pall burst from the room above and came running down, wailing with fear. “Shut up!” cried Amber frantically. At that moment she heard the unmistakable sound of Bess Columbine’s voice and a bellow of rage from Black Jack.

The voices were nearer now and Amber—able to think of nothing but saving herself—started for the front door. She heard Pall bawling her name, and Mr. Bidulph, catching the contagion of excitement, went stumbling around in the dark, calling out, “Mrs. Ann! Mrs. Ann! Where are you!” By mistake he grabbed hold of Pall and she shrieked with terror.

Amber rushed on and then, just as she got outside, she heard footsteps coming that way and saw the flare from their torches. Bess’s voice screamed: “She’s in here! Let him go—He’s not the one! The woman’s inside!”

Amber whirled and ran back inside, heading for the kitchen. Mr. Bidulph was still floundering about and calling her name while Pall screamed but could not decide what to do; as Amber ran by he reached for her and caught hold of her skirt. She jerked it free, hearing it tear, and rushed on, reaching the narrow little hallway below the stairs just as a torch brightened the room. Pall gave a shriek of agony as she was seized and Mr. Bidulph indignantly demanded to know what was going on.

Amber burst into the kitchen, panting so that she could scarcely breathe, and gave a scared start as she heard a voice.

“Mrs. Channell? It’s the host.”

She stopped still. “Oh, my God! Where can I go! Where can I hide? They’ll be here next!” Her teeth were chattering and her very bones seemed to shake.

“Quick! Get into this food-hutch! Give me your hand!”

Amber reached out gropingly. He caught hold of her hand, threw up the top of a great oaken chest, and she climbed in. The lid had just shut down when Bess and the constables came through the hallway; the host turned and ran out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

“There she goes!” yelled Bess. And through the air-holes bored in the chest Amber saw a flare of light and heard the rush of their feet as they went by, Bess swearing when she knocked her ankle against a stool.

Amber waited only until the last one was gone and then she flung back the lid and got out, picked up her skirts, and ran after them. Still on the trail of the host they had rounded the corner into the courtyard, and since the kitchen formed a separate wing of the house it was dark when she got outside. The confusion was greater than ever and she knew they had captured all three men for she heard Bess yelling: “Let him go, you damned fools! He’s the ostler here! Get that woman!”

Amber did not pause an instant but struck off in the other direction, toward the river, hoping only to get away where it was so dark she could not be seen. Reaching the bank she plunged down it. She was unable to see at all, for the moon had disappeared and the sky was black with storm-clouds, but she ran blindly ahead—like one in a dream who, no matter how hard the legs churn, cannot seem to make any progress. The sounds were growing fainter, but she dared not stop or look back.

Her shoes were soaked through in a moment and the rocks on the stream-bed bruised the soles of her feet. Her wet skirts flopped and clung to her ankles; brambles scratched her face and bare arms and caught in her hair. A hard pain seared her left side, her legs felt wooden and her lungs were beginning to burn. But she ran on and on.

It was quiet down there and after several minutes she could hear nothing at all from the inn, only the occasional plop of a frog into the water or the frightened scurrying of an animal. At last she could run no more and stopped, heaving, sagged helplessly against a tree.

But as she began to get her breath she also began to think and to wonder how she would get back. Following the Bourne, she knew, would lead her down to the Thames a great way from Whitefriars. She must go back to the road and hope to find a hackney—or walk; it was only about two miles and a quarter. She climbed the bank and started off across the fields, but did not return at once to the road, for fear they would come along searching for her. She alternately ran and walked, constantly looking back. Whenever a coach or a man on horseback approached, she flung herself flat and waited, but for the most part the night was quiet and she met no one.

Within a few minutes she had reached St. James’s Park. She skirted the edge of it, and though here there were some late walkers, by keeping in the shadows and moving softly, she got through without molestation. Reaching the Strand she hurried along, holding onto her skirts to keep them from dragging in the street, clotted and littered as it was with animal dung and decaying vegetable refuse. She was afraid to be alone in the city, for she knew the menace of it and wished violently that a hackney would come along. And then all at once the banging clatter of a coach resounded through the night, lumbering heavily toward her as though in a great hurry to run her down and be on.

Seeing that it was a public vehicle she shouted. The driver hauled on the reins, came to a stop some yards beyond, and turned on his perch. “Want to hire a coach?”

Amber had already reached the door and pulled it open. “Temple Bar!” she cried. “And quick!” She jumped in and slammed it shut, so glad to be safe inside that she scarcely noticed how it smelt.

He drove so fast and so recklessly that she could only try to keep her seat as the coach careened along. The wooden seat on which she sat was covered with a thin hard pad and the jarring and vibrating of the springless compartment shook her to the heels. At Temple Bar he stopped. Almost before the wheels had quit turning she was down and off on a run toward the Temple, for she had not a farthing with her.

“Hey!” he yelled furiously. “Come back here, you cheating drab!”

And then as she ran on, disappearing into the darkness, he climbed down and started after her. But at the sight of a party of gay and drunken students, he apparently decided it was not worth the risk of losing his coach-and-horses for a one-shilling fare. He got back up on his perch and started off again.

Amber ran down Middle Temple Lane and cut into the Pump Court. Many lights were still burning, there were sounds of music and singing and laughter, and people were going and coming everywhere. Her head was down, because she was now too tired to hold it up, and she ran headlong into a group of some half-dozen students, one of whom caught her in his arms.

“Hey, there, sweetheart!” he cried gaily. “Where’re you going in such haste!”

Amber did not answer him but began to struggle frantically, pounding at his chest with her fists, crying with exhaustion and terror. But the more she struggled the tighter he held her. And all the others had gathered around now, laughing and joking, thinking that perhaps they had caught a whore, since no respectable woman would be running about the streets at eleven o’clock in only a thin silk dress, and that torn and wet.

He bent her head back to kiss her and Amber felt them crowding closer and closer until such a terror swept over her she was close to fainting. Every one of them looked like a constable. At that moment she heard a familiar voice.

“Hey, just a minute! What’s going on here! I know this lady—Let her go, you varlets!” It was Michael Godfrey, whom Amber had not seen for more than four months.

Reluctantly the young man released her. Amber looked up at Michael with tears streaking down her scratched and dirt-stained face, but she did not speak to him. Giving a quick shove she broke free and started off, but he followed her. When he caught her they had reached a dark corner leading into Vine Court, away from the light of the torches.

“Mrs. Channell! For God’s sake, what’s the matter? What’s happened? It’s Michael—don’t you remember me?”

He grabbed hold of her arm and brought her to a stop but she jerked at him furiously, sobbing. “Let me go! Oh, damn you! Let me go or I’ll get caught!”

“Caught by who! What is it? Tell me!” He gave her a little shake for she was not looking at him but tugging to free herself, trying to pry his fingers loose from her wrist, wild and desperate.

“The constables, you fool! Let me go!”

He turned suddenly, dragging her after him, and entered a doorway, which he closed. Amber slumped against the wall.

“Where’s Black Jack?” he demanded.

“They’ve caught him. We were at Knightsbridge and the constables came—I got away but they’re coming after me—” She made a sudden lunge. “Let me go! I’ve got to get back!”

He grabbed her shoulders, thrusting her against the wall, and she felt his arms go about her. “You can’t go back there. Mother Red-Cap’ll send you out again, and someday you’ll get caught for sure. Come with me—” His mouth sought hers, his arms held her close, and Amber relaxed gratefully, so tired she could struggle no longer. He picked her up and started through the dark hallway toward the stairs.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE THREE MEN, Black Jack and Jimmy the Mouth and Blueskin, were all hanged from the same arm of the three-cornered gallows, just ten days from the night they were taken. When the processes of justice worked at all it was with devastating swiftness; they left him no time to pay his way out. Bess was sent to Bridewell, the house-of-correction for female offenders, to improve her morals. Pall, who pleaded her belly, was sent to Newgate to await the birth of her child and probable transportation to Virginia.

At the time of the execution Amber was alone in Michael Godfrey’s rooms in Vine Court. Michael had gone to watch and when he came back he told her that all three men had been cut down and taken to lie at a tavern—where they might be viewed by mourners or whoever had a curiosity to look at them. All the corpses had been treated with respect and not, as often happened, carried through the streets and tossed about until mangled beyond recognition. Black Jack, he said, was very nonchalant to the end, and the last words of his farewell speech were: “Gentlemen, there’s nothing like a merry life—and a short one.”

But even then she could not believe it.

How could Black Jack Mallard be dead when she remembered him so well, everything he had done and said over the months she had known him? How could he be dead when he was so big, so powerful, so obstinately indestructible? She remembered his six feet five inches of male strength, hard-muscled and hard-fleshed, covered with wiry black hair that matted on his chest. She remembered the thunderous rumble of his laugh; his enormous capacity for wine—he had said that his nickname originated one night when he won a wager by drinking a blackjack of Burgundy without once putting down the vessel. She remembered a thousand things more.

And now he was dead.

She remembered how some of the men had wept at Chapel the day before they were to be executed. And, though she thought she had forgotten, she could, all too well, recall the expressions on their faces. She wondered how Black Jack had looked—and how she would have looked herself had she been sitting there beside him. She suffered agonies thinking of it. Whatever she was doing—enjoying her dinner, brushing her hair, leaning on the windowsill and laughing at the pranks of the young men down in the courtyard—the thought would come like the sudden shocking impact of a physical blow: I might not be here! I might be dead!

At night she would wake up, crying with terror and clutching at Michael. She had seen two of her cousins die, but this was the first time that any personal realization of death had come to her. She became very pious and repeated all the prayers she knew a dozen times a day.

But for the grace of God I’d not be here right now but in Hell, she would think, for she knew she had not been good enough to get into Heaven. Even before she had left Marygreen Uncle Matt had not thought it likely that Heaven was her destination. She believed in the existence of those two places with superstitious intensity, just as she believed that a hare was a witch in disguise, but the prospect of eternal damnation could not deter her from anything she really wanted to do.

For almost a month she did not once leave Michael Godfrey’s apartment of two rooms. He bought a second-hand suit of boy’s clothes for her to wear and she strutted about, swaggering, clacking her heels on the floor in imitation of the young fops she had seen in the streets, while he roared with laughter and told her that she was as good an actor as Edward Kynaston himself. She was supposed to be Tom, his nephew from the country, but none of his friends who visited them were very much fooled, though they all made a great jest of it and obligingly called her by that name.

He told her, however, that it would probably not be a great deal longer before her presence there became known and that when it did they would be forced to leave. But that threat did not trouble him for he seldom studied as it was and had no more interest in learning law than did most of the other young men whose fathers sent them to the Inns of Court. Now, more than ever, life was too distracting for a young man to give much time to books and lectures.

She told him her own name and the story of her misfortunes, though she omitted altogether Lord Carlton’s part in it and pretended that the baby had been gotten by her husband. Luke Channell’s name, since she had used it in Whitefriars, was no longer of any value to her and she made Michael promise to keep secret the fact that she had ever been married; she considered that that mistake was over and done and absolutely refused to think of Luke as her husband.

About a fortnight after Black Jack’s death Michael went down to Ram Alley to visit Mother Red-Cap and convince her that Mrs. Channell had gone from London and would never return. He went partly out of curiosity, to see what the old woman’s reaction to the recent events had been, and also because Amber begged him to get the imitation gold ear-rings she had left behind, telling him that her aunt had given them to her just before she had gone away. He brought them back, and some news as well.

“She’s satisfied you’re gone. I told her I’d had a letter from you and that you were back with your family and would never so much as think of London again.”

Amber laughed, taking a bite out of a big red apple. “Did she believe you?”

“She seemed to. She said that you should never have left the country in the first place—and that London was no place for a girl like you.”

“I’ll warrant she’s running distracted to have lost me. I made her a mighty good profit, let me tell you.”

“Sweetheart, Mother Red-Cap wouldn’t run distracted if she lost her own head. She’s got another girl she’s training to take your place—a pretty little wench she found somewhere who’s with child and unmarried and full of gratitude for the kind old lady who’s promised to help her out of her difficulties.”

Amber made a sound of disgust, throwing the apple-core across the room into the fireplace. “That old flesh-broker would pimp for the devil himself if there was a farthing to be got by it!”

Most of her time, when she was alone, she spent learning to read and to write and she undertook both with the same enthusiasm she had had for her dancing and singing and guitar lessons. Hundreds of times she wrote her name and Bruce’s, drawing big hearts around them, but she always burnt the papers before Michael should see them—partly because she knew it would not be tactful to let the man who was keeping her find that she was in love with someone else, but also because she could not bear the thought of discussing Bruce with anyone. Her own signature was a long sprawl of which only the initial letters were made large and distinguishable, and when she showed Michael specimens of her handwriting he laughed and told her it was so illegible it might be mistaken for that of a countess.

One wet early October afternoon she lay stretched out flat on her stomach on the bed, mouthing over the text of one of the bawdy illustrated books which he had given her to practice on, an English edition of Aretino’s sonnets. Hearing the key turn in the lock and the door of the other room open, she called over her shoulder: “Michael? Come in here! I can’t make this out—”

His voice, solemn for once, answered her. “Come here, nephew.”

Thinking that he was playing some joke she leapt off the bed and ran to the doorway, but stopped on the threshold with a gasp of astonishment and dismay. For with him was an old man, a sour prim thin-nosed old gentleman with a forbidding scowl and a look of having been preserved in vinegar. Amber took a startled step backward and one hand went to the throat of her deeply opened white shirt, but it was too late. He could never mistake her for a boy now.

“You said that you were entertaining your nephew, sirrah!” said the old man sternly, drawing down his tufted brows and frowning back at Michael. “Where is he?”

“That is he, Mr. Gripenstraw,” said Michael, respectfully, but nevertheless with an air of whimsical unconcern.

Mr. Gripenstraw looked at Amber again, over the tops of his square-cut green spectacles, and he screwed his mouth from side to side. Amber’s hand dropped and she spoke to Michael, pleading.

“I’m sorry, Michael. I thought you were alone.”

He made a gesture, motioning her into the bedroom, and she went, closing the door but standing next to it so that she could hear what was said between them. Oh, God in Heaven! she thought despairingly, rubbing the palms of her hands together. Now what will happen to me? What if he finds out who I—Then she heard Mr. Gripenstraw’s voice again.

“Well, Mr. Godfrey—and what excuse have you to make this time?”

“None, sir.”

“How long has this baggage been on your premises?”

“One month, sir.”

“One month! Great God! Have you no respect for the ancient and honourable institution of English law? Because of my regard for your father I have overlooked many of your past misdemeanours, but this is beyond anything! If it were not for the honour and esteem in which I hold Sir Michael I would have you sent to the Fleet, to learn a better view of the conduct befitting a young man. As it is, sirrah, you are expelled. Never show me your face again. And get that creature out of here—within the hour!”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

The door opened. “Let me tell you this, sirrah—there is nothing a young man may get by wenching but duels, claps, and bastards. Good-day!” The door closed noisily.

Amber waited a moment and then flung open her own door. “Oh, Michael! You’re expelled! And it’s all my fault!”

She began to cry but he came swiftly across to take her into his arms. “Here, here, sweetheart! What the devil! We’re well rid of this scurvy place. Come now, put on your hat and doublet and we’ll find us lodgings where a man may live as he likes.”

He took two rooms in an inn called the Hoop and Grapes, situated in St. Clement’s Lane, which wound up out of Fleet Street. It was outside the City gates in the newer and more fashionable west-end of the town. Drury Lane was nearby, and Covent Garden, and not five minutes walk away was Gibbon’s Tennis Court in Vere Street, which had become the Theatre Royal.

He bought her some clothes, second-hand at first because she needed them immediately—though later she had some made—and she found herself precipitated into a whirl of gaiety and pleasure. She had met several of his friends while they were still at the Temple, but now she met many more. They were young men of good family, future barons and lords; officers in the King’s or the Duke’s guards; actors from one of the four public theatres. And she met, too, the women they kept, pretty girls who sold ribbons or gloves at the Royal Exchange, professed harlots, actresses, all of them wise and gay and no more than Amber’s age—flowers that had bloomed since the Restoration.

They went to the theatres and sat in the pit where the women wore their masks and sucked on China oranges, bandying pleasantries with everyone in earshot. They went to the gambling-houses in the Haymarket and once Amber was thrown into a frenzy of excitement when a rumour swept through that the King was coming. But he did not and she was bitterly disappointed, for she had never forgotten his expression that day he had looked at her. They went to the New Spring Gardens at Lambeth and to the Mulberry Gardens, which was temporarily the height of fashion. They went to dinner at all the popular taverns, Lockets near Charing Cross which was always filled with young officers in their handsome uniforms, the Bear at the Bridgefoot, the notorious Dagger Tavern in High Holborn, a rough-and-tumble place that abounded in riots and noise but was famous for its fine pies. They went to see the puppet-play in Covent Garden, currently the resort of all the fashionable world. At night they often drove about town in a hackney, contesting as to who could break the most windows by throwing copper pennies through them.

And when they were not out their rooms were full of young people who came in at all hours of the day and night, ordered food and drink sent up, played cards and got drunk and borrowed their bed for love-making. None of them had a serious thought or occupation, beyond avoiding their creditors. Pleasure was their creed. The old views of morality had gone as much out of fashion as high-crowned hats and, like them, were now disdained and ridiculed. Indifference, cynicism, selfishness and egoistic opportunism were the marks of quality. Gentleness, honesty, devotion—these were held in contempt.

The gentlemen of the old school, of the decorous Court of Charles I, were blaming the present King for the manners and behaviour of the new generation. And while it was true that Charles neither wished nor tried to set up strict standards, the same conditions had existed during the late years of the Protectorate, though then more than half concealed under a mantle of hypocrisy. The Civil Wars, not his Majesty, had sowed the seeds for plants suddenly shot to full growth since his return.

But Amber was not even remotely aware of the force of trends and currents.

She was in love with this life. She liked the noise and confusion, the continual bustle and disorder, the reckless devil-may-care gaiety. She knew that it was wholly different from the country and was glad that it was, for here she might do as she liked and no one was shocked or admonitory. It never even occurred to her that this was perhaps not the usual life of all gentlemen of all times.

None of the young men was interested in matrimony, which had fallen into such disrepute that it was considered only as the last resort of a man so far encumbered by debt he could see no other way out. Good manners forbade a man and wife to love—scarcely permitted them even to like—each other, and a happy marriage was regarded with scorn, not envy. This was Amber’s view, for Luke Channell had convinced her that marriage was the most miserable state a woman could endure, and she talked as glibly as any rake about the absurdity of being a wife or husband. In her heart she held a secret reservation, for Bruce Carlton—but she was almost willing to believe now that she would never see him again.

Only once did her confident audacity receive a jar and that was when, about mid-October, she discovered that she was pregnant again. Penelope Hill had warned her that the most careful precautions sometimes failed, but she had never expected that they might fail her. For a time she was wildly distracted. All her pleasures would be ruined if she had to go again through the tedious uncomfortable ugly business of having a baby, and she determined that she would not do it. Even in Marygreen she had known women who had induced abortions when pregnancy recurred too often. She had wanted Bruce Carlton’s child, but she did not want another man’s now, or ever.

She talked to one of the girls she had met, a ’Change woman named Mally, who was rumoured to have been given a great sum of money by no one less than the Duke of Buckingham: the girl directed her to a midwife in Hanging Sword Alley who she said had a numerous clientele among young women of their class and way of life. Without telling Michael anything about it she went to the midwife, who set her for an hour or more over a pot of steaming herbs, gave her a strong dose of physic, and told her to ride out to Paddington and back in a hackney. To Amber’s immense relief some one, or all, of the remedies had been successful. Mally told her that every twenty-eight days she followed the practice herself of taking an apothecary’s prescription, a long soaking in a hot tub, and a ride in a hell-cart.

“Gentlemen nowadays,” said Mally, “you’ll find, have no patience with a woman who troubles ’em in that way. And, Lord knows, with matters as they stand a woman needs what good looks she can be mistress of.” She lifted up her plump breasts and crossed her silken ankles, giving a. smug little smile.

At first Amber was in considerable apprehension whenever she left the house—even though she habitually went cloaked and hooded and masked—for fear a constable would stop her. The memory of Newgate weighed on her like an incubus. But even more terrifying was the knowledge that if caught again she would very likely be either hanged or transported, and she was already so rabid a Londoner that one punishment seemed almost as bad as the other.

And then one day she learned something which seemed to offer her a solution, and an exciting new adventure as well. She had been surprised at the elegant clothes worn off-stage by all the actors she had seen, and one night she commented idly about it to Michael.

“Ye gods, they all look like lords. How much money do they get?”

“Fifty or sixty pound a year.”

“Why, Charles Hart had on a sword tonight must have cost him that much!”

“Probably did. They’re all head over ears in debt.”

Amber, who was getting ready for bed, now backed up to have him unlace the tight little boned busk she wore. “Then I don’t envy ’em,” she said, jingling the bracelet on her right wrist. “Poor devils. They won’t look so spruce in Newgate.”

Michael was concentrating on the busk, but at last he had it unlaced and gave her a light slap on the rump. “They won’t go to Newgate. An actor can’t be arrested, except on a special warrant which must be procured from the King.”

She swirled around, sudden eager interest on her face. “They can’t be arrested! Why?”

“Why—because they’re his Majesty’s servants, and enjoy the protection of the Crown.”

Well—

That was something to think about.

This was not the first time, however, that she had cast covetous eyes toward the stage. Sitting with Michael in the pit, she had seen how the gallants all stared at the actresses and flocked back to the tiring-room after the play to paw over them and take them out to supper. She knew that they were kept by some of the greatest nobles at Court, that they dressed magnificently, occupied handsome lodgings and often had their own coaches to ride in. They seemed—for all that they were treated with a certain careless contempt by the very men who courted them—to be the most fortunate creatures on earth. Amber was filled with envy to see all this attention and applause going to others, when she felt that she deserved it at least as much as they.

She had looked them over narrowly and was convinced that she was better looking than any of them. Her voice was good, she had lost her country drawl, and her figure was lovely. Everyone was agreed as to that. What other qualifications did an actress need? Few of them had so many.

Not many days later she got her opportunity.

With Michael and four other couples she was at supper in a private room on the “Folly,” a floating house of entertainment moored just above the ruined old Savoy Palace. They sat over their cheesecake and wine, cracking open raw oysters and watching the performance of a naked dancing-woman.

Amber sat on Michael’s lap; he had one arm hung over her shoulder with his hand slipped casually into the bodice of her gown. But all his attention was on the dancing-girl, and Amber, offended by his interest in the performance, got up and left him to sit down beside the one man who had his back turned while he continued to eat his supper. He was Edward Kynaston, the fabulously handsome young actor from the King’s Theatre, who had taken women’s parts before the hiring of actresses had begun.

He was very young, no more than nineteen, with skin like a girl’s, loosely waving blonde hair and blue eyes, a slender but well-proportioned body. There was nothing to mar his perfection but the sound of his voice which, from long practice of keeping it high-pitched, carried a kind of unpleasant whine. He smiled at her as she took a chair next to his.

“Edward, how d’you go about getting on the stage?”

“Why? Have you a mind to acting?”

“Don’t you think I could? I hope I’m pretty enough.” She smiled, slanting her eyes.

He looked her over thoughtfully. “You certainly are. You’re prettier than anyone we have—or anyone Davenant has, either, for the matter of that.” Davenant managed the Duke of York’s Theatre, for there were only two licensed companies (though some others continued performing), and rivalry was sharp between His Majesty’s and His Highness’s Comedians. “I suppose you think to show yourself on the boards and get some great man for a keeper.”

“Maybe I do,” she admitted. “They say there’s a mighty fine profit to be got that way.”

Her voice had a soft tone of insinuation, for Kynaston, everyone knew, had numerous admirers among the gentlemen and had received many valuable gifts from them, most of which he shrewdly turned into money and banked with a goldsmith. Among his lovers he was said to number the immensely rich Buckingham, who had already begun the ruin of the greatest fortune in England, squandering what he had as recklessly as if it came out of a bottomless well.

Kynaston did not take offense at her suggestion, but he had a kind of feminine modesty which, for all that he sold himself in the open market, lent him the appearance of dignity and virtue.

“Perhaps there is, madame. Would you like me to present you to Tom Killigrew?” Thomas Killigrew was a favourite courtier and manager of the King’s Theatre.

“Oh, would you! When?” She was excited, and a little fearful.

“Rehearsal will be over about eleven tomorrow. Come then if you like.”

Amber dressed with great care for her interview and, though it was a cold dark early-November morning with no shred of sun filtering through the heavy smoke and fog, she put on her finest gown and cloak. All morning long her stomach had been churning and the palms of her hands felt wet. In spite of her eagerness she was miserably nervous, and at the last moment such a panic of doubt swept through her that she had to bully herself into going out the door.

When she reached the theatre, however, and took off her mask the attendant gave a low whistle; she laughed and made him an impudent face, suddenly relieved.

“I’ve come to see Edward Kynaston. He’s expecting me. Can I go in?”

“You’re wasting your time, sweetheart,” he told her. “Kynaston doesn’t give a hang for the finest woman that wears a head. But go along if you will.”

The stage was just clearing and Killigrew was down in the pit talking to Kynaston and Charles Hart and one of the actresses who stood on the apron-shaped stage above them. It was dark inside, for only the candles in the chandelier that hung above the stage were lighted, and the cold seemed to bring out a strong sour smell. Orange-peelings littered the aisle and the green-cloth-covered benches were dirty with the foot-marks of the men who had stood upon them. Empty now of people and of noise there was something strangely dismal and shabby, almost sad, about it. But Amber did not notice.

For a moment she hesitated, then she started down the aisle toward them. At the sound of her heels they looked around, Kynaston lifting his hand to wave. They watched her come, Kynaston, Charles Hart, Killigrew, and the woman on the stage, Beck Marshall. She had met Charles Hart, a handsome man who had been on the stage for many years, often risking imprisonment to act during the dour years of the Commonwealth. And once she had been casually introduced to Beck Marshall who stood now, hands on her hips, looking her over, not missing anything about her gown or hair or face, and then with a switch of her skirt walked off. The three men remained.

Kynaston presented her to Killigrew—an aristocratic, middle-aged man with bright-blue eyes and white hair and an old-fashioned, pointed chin-beard. He did not look as though he would be the father of the notorious Harry Killigrew, a bold rash drunken young rake whose exploits caused some surprise even at Court. Amber had seen Harry once, molesting the women in St. James’s Park, but she had been masked and well muffled and he had not seen her.

She made her curtsy to Killigrew, who said: “Kynaston tells me that you want to go on the stage.”

Amber gave him her most alluring smile, which she had practiced several times in the mirror just before leaving home. But the corners of her mouth quivered and her chest felt tight. “Yes,” she said softly. “I do. Will you give me a part?”

Killigrew laughed. “Take off your cloak and walk up onto the stage, so I can have a look at you.”

Amber pulled loose the cord which tied in a bow at her throat, flung back the cloak, and Charles Hart offered his hand to lift her onto the platform. Ribs held high to show off her pert breasts and little waist, she walked the length of the stage, turning, raising her skirts above her knees to let him see her legs. Hart and Killigrew exchanged significant glances.

At last, having appraised her as carefully as any man buying a horse, he asked: “What else can you do, Mrs. St. Clare, besides look beautiful?”

Charles Hart, stuffing his pipe with tobacco, gave a cynical snort. “What else should she do? What else can any of ’em do?”

“What the devil, Hart! Will you convince her she needn’t even try to learn to act? Come, my dear, what else do you know?”

“I can sing, and I can dance.”

“Good! That’s half an actress’s business.”

“God knows,” muttered Charles Hart. He could act himself and thought the theatre was running amuck these days with its emphasis on nothing but female legs and breasts. “I don’t doubt to see ‘Hamlet’ put on one day with a Gravediggers’ dance.”

Killigrew gave her a signal and Amber began to dance. It was a Spanish saraband which she had learned more than a year before and had since performed many times, for Black Jack and his friends in Whitefriars, more recently for Michael and all their acquaintance. Twirling, swaying, dipping, she moved swiftly about the stage, all her self-consciousness gone now in her passionate determination to please. After that she sang a bawdy street-ballad which burlesqued the old Greek fable of Ariadne and Theseus, and her voice had a full voluptuous quality which would have made a far more innocent song seem sensual and exciting. When at last she sank to a curtsy and then lifted her head to smile at him with eager questioning, he clapped his hands.

“You’re as spectacular as a show of fireworks on the Thames. Can you read a part?”

“Yes,” said Amber, though she had never tried.

“Well, never mind about that now. Next Wednesday we’re going to give a performance of ‘The Maid’s Tragedy.’ Come to rehearsal tomorrow morning at seven and I’ll have a part in it for you.”

Half delirious with joy, Amber ran home to tell Michael the great news. But though she did not expect to play the heroine, she was nevertheless seriously disappointed the next morning to learn that she was to be merely one of a crowd of Court ladies-in-waiting, and that she had not so much as a single word to speak. She was disappointed, too, at her salary, which was only forty-five pounds a year. She realized by now that the five hundred pounds given her by Bruce Carlton had been a considerable sum of money, if only she had had the wit to keep it.

But both Kynaston and Charles Hart encouraged her, saying that if she attracted the attention of the audience as they knew she would, he would put her in more important parts. An actress had no such period of long training and apprenticeship as did an actor. Pretty young women were very much in demand for the stage, and if the men in the audience liked them they could sound like screech owls and act no better than puppets.

She quickly established a gay friendliness with the actors and was prepared to do likewise with the women, but they would have none of it. Despite the fact that women had been on the stage no more than a year they had already formed a tight clique, and were jealous and distrustful of any outsider trying to break into their closed ranks. They ignored her when she spoke to them, tittered and whispered behind her back, hid her costume on the day of the dress rehearsal, all in the obvious hope of making her so miserable that she would quit. But Amber had never believed that other women were important to her success and happiness, and she did not intend to let them trouble her now.

The stage fascinated her. She loved everything about the theatre: The hours of rehearsal, when she listened and watched intensely, memorizing the lines of half the other characters. The thrilling day when she was sworn in at the Lord Chamberlain’s Office as his Majesty’s servant. The occult mysteries of stage make-up, into which she was now initiated, black and white and red paint, false-noses, false-beards, false-hair. The marvellous collection of scenery and other apparatus which made it possible to show the moon coming up at night, to reveal the sun breaking through a mist, to simulate a bird’s song or the rattle of hail. The costumes, some of which were gorgeous things given by the nobles, others mere cheap imitations made of shoddy and bombazine. She took it to her heart, made it a part of her, in the same way she had London.

At last the great day arrived and, after a restless turning night full of apprehension and doubts, she got up and dressed and set out very early for the theatre. On the way she saw one of the play-bills nailed up on a post and stopped to read it: “At the Theatre Royal this present Wednesday, being the Ninth day of December will be presented a play called: The Maid’s Tragedy beginning exactly at three after Noon. By His Majesty’s Servants. Vivat Rex.” And when she reached the theatre a flag was already flying from the roof to announce that there would be a performance that day.

Oh, Lord! she thought. What ever made me think I wanted to go on the stage?

It was still so early that she found the entire theatre empty but for a couple of scene-shifters and the tiring-woman, Mrs. Scroggs, a dirty profane drunken old harridan whose daughter Killigrew hired at twenty shillings a week for the use of his actors. With her easy camaraderie and frequent gifts of money Amber had purchased her friendship at least, and Scroggs was as ardently partisan in her favour as the women were violently antagonistic. By the time the other actresses began to arrive she was painted and dressed and had gone out to watch the audience from behind the curtains.

The pit was already crowded, fops, prostitutes and orange-girls, all of them noisy and laughing, shouting to acquaintances all over the theatre. The galleries were spotted with men and women, and ’prentices were trying out their cat-calls. Finally the boxes began to fill with splendidly gowned and jewelled ladies, languid dreamy creatures who were bored with the play before it had even begun. The very boards and walls seemed now to have changed, enchanted by the glamour and richness of the audience.

Amber stood looking out, her throat dry and her heart beating with anticipation, when suddenly Charles Hart appeared behind her, slipped an arm about her waist and kissed her cheek. She gave a startled little jump.

“Oh!” She laughed nervously and swallowed.

“How now, sweetheart!” he said briskly. “Ready to lay the town by its ears?”

She gave him a pleading look. “Oh, I don’t know! Michael’s in the pit with a score of friends to cry me up. But I’m scared!”

“Nonsense. What are you scared of? Those high-born sluts and fop-doodles out there? Don’t let them scare you—” He paused, as suddenly the fiddlers in the music-room above the stage struck up the first bars of a gay country air. “Listen! His Majesty’s come!” And he drew back the curtains so that he and Amber could look out.

There was a scraping of benches and a low running murmur as they got to their feet, turning to face the King’s box which was in the first balcony in the center just above the stage, gilded and draped with scarlet velvet and emblazoned with the royal coat-of-arms. And then, as the King appeared, the music swelled and the hats of the men swept off with a flourish. The tall and swarthy Charles, smiling easily, lifting one hand in greeting, dominated the group of men and women who surrounded him; but no one overlooked Barbara Palmer at his side, glittering with jewels, haughty and beautiful and a little sullen. They seemed very magnificent and awe-inspiring; and staring at them from behind the curtains Amber was suddenly overcome with an agonizing sense of her own insignificance.

“Oh,” she breathed unhappily. “They look like gods!”

“Even gods, my dear, use a chamber-pot,” said Charles Hart, and then he walked away, back to the tiring-room to get his cloak, for he was to speak the prologue. Amber looked after him and laughed, somewhat relieved.

But her eyes returned immediately to Mrs. Palmer, who was leaning back in her chair, smiling and speaking to a man who sat behind her. As she looked Amber’s face hardened with hate. Her fingers with their long nails curled involuntarily and she had a sharp satisfying image of clawing across the woman’s face, tearing away her beauty and confident smile. The jealousy she felt was as violent and painful as on that far-away night when she had looked down into the street and seen Bruce Carlton’s head bend to kiss a red-haired woman leaning out of her coach and laughing.

Soon, however, she was surrounded by the other actresses, who came trooping up behind her, giggling, elbowing her aside —until she gave one of them a sharp jab in the ribs—lifting back the curtain to wave at their admirers below. All of them seemed as merrily unconcerned as though this were nothing but another rehearsal. But Amber was wishing desperately that she might bolt and run, out of the theatre, back to the quiet and security of her own rooms, and hide there. She knew that she could never force herself to go out onto the stage and face those hard smart critical people whose eyes and tongues would go over her like rakes.

The prologue was done, the curtains had swung back, and Charles Hart and Michael Mohun had started to speak their lines. The theatre was settling down, quieting as much as it ever did, though the buzzing and murmuring went on and there were occasional laughs or loud-spoken comments. Amber, who knew most of the lines by heart, now discovered that she was not able even to follow the dialogue, and the ladies-in-waiting had already started out when Kynaston gave her a little shove.

“Go on!”

For an instant she hung back, unable to move, and then, with her heart pounding so hard she thought it would burst, she lifted her head high and walked out. During the rehearsals the other women had always maneuvered to keep her in the background, despite the fact that Killigrew said he wanted the audience to see her, but now because of her late entrance she stood in the front, closer to the audience than any of them.

She heard a man’s voice from nearby, in the pit. “Who’s that glorious creature, Orange Moll?”

Another one spoke up. “That must be the new wench. By Jesus, but she’s handsome, I swear she is!”

And from the gallery the ’prentices sent up a low appreciative hum.

Amber felt her cheeks begin to burn and sweat start in her armpits, but at last she forced herself to sneak a glance out of the corner of one eye. She saw several upturned faces beneath her, grinning, and all at once she realized that these were only men like any other men. Just before the ladies-in-waiting went off the stage she threw them a dazzling smile, and heard another rising hum of approval. After that she stood in the wings and fretted because her part was done. By the time the play was over she was incurably stage-struck.

Beck Marshall spoke to her as they were going into the tiring-room. “Look here, Mrs. What-d’ye-call,” she said, pretending to have forgotten Amber’s name. “You needn’t strut up and down like a crow in the gutter. Those gentlemen will have a swing at anything new—”

Amber smiled at her, superior, very well satisfied with herself. “Don’t concern yourself for me, madame. I’ll have a care of my own interests, I warrant you.”

But she was more than a little disappointed when Michael and three of his friends appeared promptly, surrounding her and shutting her off from any possible outside interference, for several of the young men were watching her, asking about her, curious and interested and admiring.

Oh, well, she thought. I won’t always be troubled with Michael.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE NEXT DAY Amber was given the part of the first Court lady, and had four short lines to say. Not very long after that she was taking important roles, singing songs and, dressed in a tight pair of breeches and thin white blouse, performing the dance at the end of the play. It was her chief qualification as an actress that she could easily achieve an accurate and only piquantly exaggerated imitation of almost any kind of woman, whether great lady or serving-wench. And little more was expected, for the audience had no interest in the subtleties of character delineation. The taste was for crude gorgeous exciting effects, whether in women, scenery, or melodrama.

They liked the bloody noisy terrifying tragedies of Beaumont and Fletcher, considered Ben Jonson the greatest playwright of all time, thought Shakespeare too realistic and hence deficient in poetic justice. He required considerable altering before he could qualify for presentation. A great deal of singing and dancing, frequent changes of scenery and costume, battles and deaths and ghosts, profanity and smut and seminudity was what they liked and what they got. At every murder or suicide sheep’s-blood spurted from concealed bladders and covered the actor with gore; ghosts rose and sank on trap-doors; scenes of torture by rack, wheel and fire filled the theatre with anguished screams and groans. But through it all the fops in the pit kept up a stream of banter with the actors and prostitutes and orange-girls, and the ladies in the boxes waved their fans and cast lazy smiles at the gallants below.

Amber’s popularity was considerable—because she was new, the women insisted—and every day after the performance she was surrounded by a flock of gallants who kissed her, tied her garters, watched her dress, and invited her to spend the night with one or all of them. She listened and laughed, flirted with everyone, but went home with Michael Godfrey.

She was afraid of arousing his jealousy, for he knew all her secrets and could ruin her if he chose. But even had she been free of him, she had not yet heard the offer which could interest her. She was looking for a man of both importance and wealth, who would keep her according to the manner in which she intended to live—clothes and jewels and a coach, a generous annual allowance, handsomely furnished lodgings, a serving-woman, and a footman. The man who could supply those things was not to be found every day, even among the tiring-room gallants, and when found he was not likely to be a ready dupe. Amber was impatient, eager to better her status, but determined to make no rash change which might precipitate her down the steep narrow road leading to common prostitution. Penelope Hill’s advice meant more to her now than when she had first heard it—and she intended to turn some man’s weakness to her own advantage.

More than a month went by and still Amber was on no better terms with the other actresses than she had been at first. They missed no opportunity to confuse or embarrass her, either on the stage or in the tiring-room, circulated rumours that she had the French-pox and that she was living incestuously with her brother—Michael—and were more annoyed than ever when she treated them all with cool, superior contempt. But nothing they said seemed to discourage the men, who brushed it all aside as mere jealous female slander.

“Well,” said Beck Marshall to her one day, “they may poach after you here in the tiring-room, but I don’t notice one of ’em’s made you an offer of more than half-a-crown.”

Amber sat on one of the tables, legs crossed while she looked into a hand-mirror and carefully drew a black line along the edge of her eyelid. “And what about you, madame? Who’s your stallion? The Duke of York, I doubt not?”

Beck gave her a smug, complacent smile. “Not his Highness, perhaps. But then, Captain Morgan’s a man of no mean consequence.”

“And who the devil’s Captain Morgan? That straight-haired nincompoop I saw you with at Chatelin’s the other night?” She got up and turned her back, beckoning Scroggs to come help her into her gown.

“Captain Morgan, Mrs. Double-tripe, is an officer in his Majesty’s Horse Guard—and a mighty handsome fellow into the bargain. And he’s so mad in love with me he’s going to make me a settlement and take me off the stage. I don’t doubt he’d marry me quick enough—if I could make up my mind to endure matrimony,” she added, examining her nails.

Amber stepped into her gown and stooped over to pull it up. “You’d better make up your mind to endure it before long,” she said, “or you’ll be leading apes in hell.” Leading apes in hell was supposedly the destiny of an old maid, and Amber liked to taunt Beck with the fact that she was two or three years her senior. “But where d’you keep this wonder? Under lock and key?”

“He’s been out of town these two months past—his family’s got a great estate in Wales, and his father just died. But he wrote me he expects to return within the week and then—”

“Oh, I don’t doubt I’ll be in a green-sickness of jealousy at the very sight of ’im.”

At that moment a boy stuck his head in the door calling, “Third music, ladies! Third music!” and they all began to troop out, for the third music meant that it was time for the curtains to be drawn. Amber thought no more of Beck’s Captain Morgan and several days went by. But late one afternoon as she was dressing after the performance, surrounded by her circle of impudent gallants, a man appeared in the doorway who instantly arrested her attention.

He was well over six feet tall with wide, square shoulders, lean hips, and magnificent legs. Powerful and virile, in his red and blue uniform he was an exciting contrast to the pale effeminate young fops who talked incessantly of their claps and poxes and carried a box of turpentine-pills wherever they went. His face was crudely handsome, with well-defined features; he had waving brown hair and skin tanned to a tawny-gold. Amber stared at him in surprise and admiration, wondering who he was, and then as he smiled slowly the corners of her eyes went up and she gave him a faint answering smile.

At that moment there was a scream from Beck.

“Rex!”

And she rushed over to throw herself into his arms, took his hand, and led him to the opposite side of the room. She dressed hastily then and hurried him out, but as he went he gave Amber a backward glance.

“Well!” said Beck the next morning, as they sat in the pit watching a rehearsal. “What d’ye make of him?” But her eyes were slightly narrowed and she was more defiant than triumphant.

Amber smiled innocently and gave a little shrug. “Oh, no doubt he’s a very fine person. I don’t wonder you rushed ’im out as fast as if you were going for a midwife.” Her eyes took on a malicious sparkle. “It’d never do to let a fellow like that make the acquaintance of other ladies, would it?”

Beck flared. “I smoke your design, madame! But let me tell you this—if I find you spreading your nets for him I’ll make you sorry for it! I’ll carbonado you, I swear I will!”

“Pooh!” said Amber, and got up to leave her. “Your bellow-weathering doesn’t scare me!”

Still, Captain Morgan did not appear backstage again for several days, and when Amber gibed at her for not daring to show her prize not only Beck but her older sister Anne flew into a rage and threatened her with the wrath of God, as well as their own. “Just you dare meddling with Captain Morgan!” cried Anne dramatically, for she was the tragedienne of the company. “You’ll wish you hadn’t!”

But Amber was so little impressed by their threats that whenever she saw him in the pit, as she often did, she flirted openly with him. It would have pleased her a great deal to steal Beck Marshall’s admirer, even if he had been much less attractive than he was.

She was going into the theatre early one afternoon when a ragged little urchin came limping up, glanced hastily around, and thrust a wax-sealed paper into her hand. Curious, Amber tore it open. “For Madame St. Clare,” she read. (“Madame” was the title applied to all actresses.) “I must confess I am hopelessly smitten by you, for all that a lady known to us both has warned me you’re not to be trusted and already belong to another man. Still, I have made so bold as to reserve a table for us at the Fox-Urider-the-Hill at Ivy Bridge. I shall hope to see you there tomorrow evening at seven. Your most humble obliged servant, madame, I am, Captain Rex Morgan.” And he added a postscript: “May I ask you, madame, to have the kindness for me as not to mention this note to anyone?”

Amber smiled slyly to herself, and after a moment tore the paper into little bits, tossed them up over her head and went on into the theatre. She had no intention of telling Beck about the note. Not, at least, until she was sure that he was captured; but she could not resist giving her a fleering little smile that annoyed the other girl even if it told her nothing.

She had no performance the next afternoon and spent the day washing her hair—in spite of the almanac, which said that the time was astrologically unfavourable—deciding what she would wear, and trying to think of an excuse to give Michael. She was still undecided when she took a hackney and rode to the Royal Exchange to buy some ribbons and gloves and a bottle of scent. Coming back with her arms full of parcels, her cloak and hood covered with raindrops, she opened the door and found Michael standing in conversation with another man.

He was much older than Michael and as he turned to look at her there was a stern scowl on his face. She knew instantly who he was: Michael’s father. For some time past Michael had been getting letters from his father, demanding to know why he had been expelled from the Middle Temple, insisting that he return home at once. Michael had read each one to her, laughing, saying gaily that his father was a formal old coxcomb, and had thrown them into the fire without ever sending an answer. Now, however, he wore a hang-dog expression and a look of cowed helplessness.

“Amber,” he said at last, “this is my father. Sir, may I present Mrs. St. Clare?”

Sir Michael Godfrey merely stared at her without speaking, and after a moment she crossed the room, laid down her packages, and spread her cloak on a chair before the fire. That done she turned to find both men still watching her, and Sir Michael’s hostile eyes made her aware that her neckline was cut very low and her face obviously painted. He turned away.

“Is this the woman you kept in the Temple?” As he said it Amber had an uncomfortable feeling that she was the commonest kind of whore.

“Yes, sir.”

Michael was not flippant with his father as he had been with Mr. Gripenstraw. The wild gay boy who had delighted in getting drunk every night and breaking the windows of sleeping citizens had quite disappeared in the chagrined, embarrassed dutiful son.

Sir Michael Godfrey turned to Amber. “Madame, I fear you shall have to cast about elsewhere for a young fool to meet your expenses. My son is returning with me into the country and you shall get not a farthing more by his misplaced generosity.”

Amber merely stared at him coolly and curbed her impulse to give him a tart answer because she remembered all that Michael had done for her, and all that he could still do, if he chose, to injure her. With a gesture of his hand Sir Michael signalled his son from the room. And though he hesitated for a moment he went, turning back once to give Amber a wistful pleading look of good-bye, which Sir Michael cut short by thrusting him sharply out and banging the door after them. Amber was sorry for Michael; evidently his life would now be sadly changed, but her pity soon gave way to relief—and then to eagerness for the night.

My stars are lucky! she thought exuberantly. Just when I had no more use for ’im—he’s gone!

Amber was only a little late, but as she was ushered upstairs to the private-room, Captain Morgan flung open the door and greeted her with happy enthusiasm. “At last you’re here! How kind of you to come!” His eyes glistened with pleasure as they looked down at her and he took her muff and cloak, tossed them over a chair, and turned her about by one hand. “You look wonderful! By God, you’re the most glorious creature I’ve ever seen!”

Amber laughed. “Come now, Captain Morgan! Beck Marshall tells me you’ve said kinder things to her by far.”

But she luxuriated in his admiration, feeling a warm glow of pleasure go through all her body at the expression on his face. It had been a long while since she had seen a man so infatuated —not, in fact, since she had left Marygreen. And she was glad that he had the sense to appreciate a pretty gown, for she had worn her best and newest one; too many of the young fops were so concerned with their own “garnitures” and “petite-oie” they scarcely knew what a woman was wearing. The dress was made of bright green velvet, with the skirt slit down the front and draped up over a black-satin sequin-spattered petticoat, and she had one pert black-satin bow tied at either temple.

He snapped his fingers. “The devil with Beck Marshall. She’s nothing to me, I assure you.”

“That’s what every man says about his old doxy when he has a mind to a new one.”

Rex Morgan laughed. “I see you have wit as well as beauty, madame. That makes you perfect.”

At that moment there was a loud rap at the door. Morgan called out for them to enter, and in marched the host and three waiters, loaded down with covered pewter dishes, knives and spoons, napkins, glasses and salt-dishes, and two bottles of wine. They set the places, removed all covers with a flourish so that Captain Morgan might inspect the contents, and then marched out again. Amber and Rex sat down to eat.

There was a great steaming bowlful of crayfish bisque, a well-seasoned leg-of-mutton stuffed with oysters and chopped onion, a chicken-pie covered with a flaky golden crust, and a pudding made of thick pure cream and pounded chestnuts. They sat side by side, facing the fireplace where sea-coals burnt brightly, and as they ate they fell into easy comfortable talk, enjoying the good meal and admiring each other.

He told her that she had the most fascinating eyes in the world, the loveliest hair he had ever seen, the most beautiful breasts, and the prettiest legs. His voice had an authentic sincerity she did not even care to question, and he looked at her with frank adoration and desire. Why, he’s mad in love with me already! thought Amber delightedly, and had an image of herself parading him into the tiring-room tomorrow like a tame monkey on a chain.

“Is it true,” he asked her at last as they were beginning to eat the hot baked chestnut pudding, “that you’re in the keeping of someone from the Middle Temple?”

“Lord Almighty! Who told you that?”

“Everyone I asked about you. Is it true?”

“Certainly not! Lord, I swear a woman can be raped here in London without losing her maidenhead! I’ll admit I was occupying lodgings with a gentleman for a time—but he was my cousin, and he’s gone back to Yorkshire now. Heavens, I can’t think what my father would say, to hear the bawdy talk that goes on here—about nothing at all!” She gave him a look of wide-eyed indignation.

“Lucky for him he’s only your cousin. I’d have had to send him a challenge to get him out of my way. But I’m glad he’s gone anyway. Tell me, who are you? Where’d you come from? Everyone told me a different story.”

“I’m Mrs. St. Clare and I came from Essex. What else d’you want to know?”

“What are you doing on the stage? You don’t look as though you belong there.”

“Oh, don’t I? I’ve been told different.”

“That isn’t what I mean. You look like a person of quality.”

“Oh. Well—” She gave him a sidelong glance as he began to pour the champagne. “To tell you truly, I am.”

She took the glass as he handed it to her, leaned back in her chair and began to spin for him the story upon which she had been embroidering almost since she had first come to London, improving upon it whenever she got a new idea. “My family’s old and honourable and they had a good estate in Essex—but they sold everything to help his Majesty in the Wars. So, when an old ugly earl wanted to marry me my father was going to insist, to help repair his loss. I wouldn’t have the stinking old goat—my father said I should have him, and he locked me into the house. I broke out and came to London—Of course I changed my name—I’m not really Mrs. St. Clare.” She smiled at him over the rim of her glass, pleased to see that he apparently believed her.

He got up then, moved their chairs closer to the dying fire, and they sat down side by side. Amber lifted her legs, bracing her feet on one side of the narrow fireplace so that her skirts fell back above her knees and showed her legs in black silk stockings and lacy garters. He reached over to take her hand in his and they sat for several moments, perfectly still and silent, but with the tension mounting between them.

What shall I do? she was thinking. If I do, he’ll take me for a harlot—and if I don’t, maybe he won’t ever come back again.

At last she turned to face him and found his eyes on her, intense and serious, glowing with desire. One arm reached out and went around her waist, drawing her slowly toward him, and she slid over onto his lap. For a moment she hesitated, and then her face bent to his and she felt the pressure of his mouth, moist and warm and eager; his hand moved over her breasts, and she could feel the heavy beating of his heart against her own. Her blood began to rush, filling her with warmth and quick passion—she felt herself sliding toward surrender and had no inclination to stop.

But as he would have knelt before her she jumped up suddenly and left him, crossing the room to stand before the black windows, her head buried in her hands. Instantly he was behind her, his fingers taking hold of her shoulders, pressing her back against him. His voice whispered to her, pleading, and as his lips touched the back of her neck a thrill ran along her spine.

“Please, darling—don’t be angry. I’m in love with you, I swear I am. I want you, I’ve got to have you!” His fingers cut into her shoulders and his voice in her ear was hoarse with intensity. “Please—Amber, please! I won’t hurt you—I won’t let anything happen—Come here—” He swung her around to face him.

Amber wrenched herself free; her own eyes were a little wild and her face was flushed. “You’ve got the wrong opinion of me, Captain Morgan! I may be on the stage, but I’m no whore! My poor father would die of shame if his daughter gave herself up to a sinful life! Now let me go—” She brushed past him, starting to get her cloak, and when he turned swiftly, catching her arm, his jaw set and hard, she cried warningly, “Have a care, sir! I’m not one of your willing rapes, either!”

She jerked away and getting her cloak, flung it on, took up her muff and went to the door. “Good-night, Captain Morgan! If you’d told me why you brought me here I could’ve saved you the cost of a supper!” She looked at him haughtily, but the cold angry expression on his face alarmed her.

Now! she thought. If he doesn’t really like me I’ve spoiled everything.

One eyebrow went up as he stared at her and his mouth twisted slightly, but as she took hold of the knob he crossed over and stopped her. “Don’t go away like this, Mrs. St. Clare. I’m sorry if I’ve offended you. I’d heard—Well, never mind. But you’re a damned desirable woman. A man must be gelt if he wouldn’t want you—and to tell the truth, I’m not.” He grinned down at her. “Let me see you home.”

After that she saw him often, but not at the theatre, for she was not sure of him yet and did not care to give Beck the opportunity of jeering at her. Beck, meanwhile, continued to boast and brag of his attentions to her, showed Amber his gifts, and gave her the intimate details of his visits. Amber was receiving some gifts, too: A pair of exquisite black-lace stockings from France, garters with little diamond buckles, a muff made of wide bands of gold brocade hooped at either end with black fox—but she was very mysterious about the giver.

She used every trick she knew—and by now they were several —to heighten his desire for her. But each time he imagined himself about to succeed she pushed him off and insisted again that she was a woman of virtue. Fortunately for her, he did not suggest that such behaviour seemed quite the opposite of virtuous. Sometimes he bellowed that she was a jilting baggage and stormed off, swearing that he would never see her again. Other times he staved and pleaded, doggedly, with real desperation, and then finally went away defeated. But each time he came back.

And then one evening, his face haggard and his cravat askew, he slumped down into a chair, demanding, “What the devil do you want, then? I can’t go on like this. I’m fretting my bowels to fiddle-strings over you!”

She had a sense of quick poignant relief. At last! And though a moment before she had been feeling tired and discouraged and all too inclined to be virtuous no longer, now she laughed, got up, and went to the mirror to smooth her hair.

“That isn’t what Beck says. She was telling me today how last night you came to see her, so hot you wouldn’t be put off for an instant.”

He scowled, like an embarrassed boy. “Beck prattles too much. Answer me! What are you holding me off for? What do you want? Marriage?” She knew that he had been dreading to ask that, that he was no more eager to get married than were any of the other young men, and that even though he believed or pretended to believe her story about her aristocratic family, he would not marry an actress.

“Marriage!” she repeated in mock astonishment, staring at him in the mirror. “That’s enough to give one the vapours! What woman in her right senses wants to get married?”

“Any woman, it seems.”

“Well, they wouldn’t if they’d ever been married!” She turned around and stood looking at him, her hands easily on her hips.

“Ye gods! Are you married?”

“No, of course not! But I’m not blind. I’ve seen a thing or two. What’s a wife, pray? The men use ’em worse than a dog nowadays. They think they’re good for nothing but to breed up their brats—and serve as a foil to a mistress. A wife gets a full belly every year, but a mistress gets all the money and attention. Be a wife? Pooh! Not me! Not for a thousand pound!”

“Well!” he said, obviously much relieved. “You talk like a woman of rare good sense. But you don’t seem very anxious to be a mistress, either. Surely you don’t expect to be that worthless object, a virgin, all your life? Not a woman like you.”

“Have I said I did? If a man I liked made me a fair offer, I assure you I’d do him the kindness to think it over.”

He smiled. “Well, now—we’re getting somewhere at last. And what’s your notion of a fair offer, pray?”

She leaned her elbow back on the mantelpiece and stood with her weight on one foot, the other bare knee sliding out of her satin dressing-gown; she began to count on her fingers. “I’d want a settlement of two hundred pound a year. I’d want lodgings of my own choosing, and a maid, and a neat little coach-and-four—and of course a coachman and footman—and leave to keep on acting.” She had no intention of quitting the stage, for she had met him there and hoped someday to meet another and more important man. As she saw what was possible for a young and beautiful and obliging woman, her ambitions soared.

“You set a damned high price on yourself.”

“Do I?” She smiled a little and gave a faint shrug. “Well—a high price, you know, serves to keep off ill company.”

“If I take you at that figure I’ll expect it to keep off all company, but mine.”

It took Amber several days to find the lodgings that suited her and she rattled all over town in a hackney, searching, whenever she could be free from the theatre. But at last she found a three-room suite on the third floor of the Blue Balcony, down at the fashionable Strand end of Drury Lane. The rent was high, forty pounds a year, but Captain Morgan paid it in advance.

Everything here was in the latest fashion, reflecting the light gay colourful taste of the new age. The parlour was hung in emerald-green damask. There were French tables and chairs of walnut, some of them gilt, and all very different from the heavy old oaken pieces she was accustomed to seeing in inns. A long walnut couch had thick green cushions, fringed with gold, and there were several green-and-gold lacquered mirrors. She decided immediately that she would have her portrait painted and sink it flush with the wall above the fireplace, like one she had seen in the apartments of another actress, who was in the keeping of a lord.

The walls of the dining-room were covered with hand-painted Chinese paper, flaunting peonies and chrysanthemums, all aswarm with brilliant-hued birds and butterflies. The chairs and stools had thick bright-green cushions tied to them. In the bedroom the hangings were also of damask, patterned in green and gold; there was a five-leaved screen, two leaves red and three green, and green-and-red-striped chair cushions.

“Oh!” cried Amber, when Captain Morgan went with her to see it and agreed that she might have it. “Thank you, Rex! I can’t wait to move in!”

“Neither can I,” he said. But she gave him a quick pout and then a smile.

“Now, Rex—remember what you said! You promised you’d wait.”

“And I will. But for God’s sake—not much longer.”

She insisted on having the whole of her allowance in advance and, when she got it, hunted out Shadrac Newbold—whose name, she remembered, Bruce Carlton had told her—and put it with him at six percent interest. In Cow Lane they found a second-hand coach which, though small, was freshly painted and in good condition. It was glossy black with red wheels and red reins and harness, and he bought four handsome black-and-white horses to draw it. The coachman and footman were named, respectively, Tempest and Jeremiah, and she ordered red livery trimmed with silver braid for them.

She hired her maid from an old woman Mrs. Scroggs recommended with the absolute assurance that the girl was honest, demure, and well-bred, that she could carve and sew and clean, would not sleep late or gossip to the neighbours or run about in slovenly dress. She was a plain-faced girl whose teeth had wide spaces between them and whose face was entirely covered with little pale freckles. Prudence was her name, which Amber did not like, for she remembered simple harmless Honour Mills who had been in league with a pair of thieves to rob her. But still the girl seemed anxious to please and looked so pitiful at the prospect of not being hired that Amber took her.

The first night at her new apartments she and Rex had an elaborate supper sent in from the Rose Tavern nearby and opened a bottle of champagne, but they scarcely drank a glass, for he picked her up impetuously and carried her into the bedroom. And yet for all his passionate fervour he was tender and considerate, as eager to give pleasure as to take it, and Amber thought that this was far more like a wedding-night than that wretched experience she had had with Luke Channell. For the first time in a year and a half she was wholly and completely satisfied, for Rex had the same combination of experience, energy, controlled violence, and instinctive understanding which Lord Carlton had also had.

There’s a world of difference, she told herself, between being a man’s mistress and his wife. And as far as she was concerned that difference was all for the better.

The next afternoon Amber found the women’s tiring-room buzzing like a swarm of angry hornets, and Beck Marshall was the centre of their chattering indignation. She realized instantly that they had heard about her and Rex. And though they all turned at once to fix upon her their cold wrathful stares, she sauntered into the room and pulled off her gloves with a great show of unconcern. Scroggs waddled over to her immediately, a self-satisfied grin on her ugly old face.

“Damn me, Mrs. St. Clare!” she said now, and her deep hoarse rough voice carried above all the noise of the room. “But it pleased me mightily to hear of your good fortune!” She leaned close, smelling strongly of brandy and spoilt fish, and gave Amber a jab in the ribs. “When ye asked me t‘other day where ye might hire a woman I says to m’self, ‘Aha! Mrs. St. Clare’s a-goin’ into keepin’, I’ll warrant you!’ But I’ll swear I never guessed the gentleman’d be Captain Morgan!” She leered and nudged, and jerked her thumb in the direction of the glowering group across the room.

Scroggs had taken Amber’s cloak and fan and muff and was helping her out of her gown. “Neither did anyone else, I see,” murmured Amber, glancing toward them with a significant lift of one eyebrow. She bent over to step out of her petticoats.

“Foh! Ye should’ve seen the look on the face of Mrs. Snotty-nose when she heard the news!” She laughed heartily, showing 250 the holes in her mouth where teeth had been, and slapped her great thigh. “Damn me! I thought she’d bust a gut!”

Amber smiled, taking the combs out of her side curls and giving her hair a shake. And then, as she looked at her, Beck’s head turned and their eyes met directly. For a long moment they stared, Amber exultant, taunting, Beck seething with rage, and then all at once Beck turned away, raising her right hand to show Amber the stiff middle finger. Amber laughed out loud at that and picked up the black wig she was to wear for her part as Cleopatra in Shakespeare’s tragedy, sliding it down over her own coarse bright silken hair.

She knew well enough herself that she was ill-suited to play the Egyptian queen—the part might much better have gone to Anne Marshall—but the idea had been Tom Killigrew’s and in her black wig with her eyes elongated by black pencil, a sleeveless sequin-spotted vest which just covered her breasts and a thin scarlet silk skirt slit to the knees in front, she had attracted an overflowing house for the past week and a half. Most productions were limited to three or four days, because so small a part of the London population attended plays, but some of the young men had been back four or five times to see this Cleopatra. They were used to a woman’s breasts being displayed in public, but not her hips and buttocks and legs. Every time she walked onto the stage there were whistles and murmurs and the most unabashed comments, but the boxes had been noticeably empty and the ladies were said to have protested they could not tolerate so lewd and immodest a display.

Amber more than half expected trouble and was prepared for it, but though the atmosphere was undoubtedly tense, everything went as usual until the last scene of the last act. Then, as she stood waiting at the side of the stage for her cue to go on, both Beck and Anne Marshall came to stand beside her, Beck on her right, Anne slightly in back. Amber gave Beck a careless glance but continued to watch the stage where the men—in their great plumed head-dresses which told an audience that this was tragedy being performed—were deciding Cleopatra’s fate.

“Well, madame,” said Beck. “Let me offer my congratula-251 tions. You’ve progressed mightily, they tell me—to be kept by only one man now.”

Amber looked at her sharply, and then said with an air of profound boredom: “Lord, madame, you should see your ’pothecary. I swear you’re turned quite green.”

At that instant a pin pricked her from behind and she gave an angry start, but before she had time to say anything Mohun came off the stage, scowled, and muttered at them to go on. With Beck on one side and Mary Knepp on the other Amber walked out, proclaiming in a loud clear voice:

“My desolation does begin to make

A better life. ’Tis paltry to be Caesar ...”

But for the commotion in the audience, the last scene progressed smoothly—through Cleopatra’s dialogue with Caesar, her decision to end her life, the trial suicide of Iras, and then Cleopatra’s own seizure of the pâpier-maché asp, which she addressed in full dramatic tones:

“With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate

Of life at once untie; poor venomous fool ...”

While Beck, as the faithful serving-woman who could not bear her mistress’s death, ran distractedly about the stage, Amber applied the asp beneath her vest and heard a young man down in Fop Corner remark, “I’ve seen this six times. That viper should be weaned by now.”

She clenched her teeth and shut her eyes as in a sudden spasm of pain. But she did not take her tragic parts very seriously and had to resist the inclination to laugh.

After standing motionless for a long moment she began to turn slowly in her death agony. Halfway around, she was arrested by a sudden barking shout of laughter from nearby. And then the sound was repeated from hundreds of throats. It swept on up through the boxes to the galleries beneath the roof, growing ever louder and noisier as it rose, until it seemed to fill the theatre and to come from all sides at once, hammering against her with an almost physical force.

Instinctively conscious that the laughter was directed at her, Amber swung quickly about, putting her hand to the back of her skirt. And though she half expected to find it torn open, she felt there instead a piece of cardboard and ripped it off, sailing it furiously across the stage. Beneath and before and above her she saw a blur of faces, a seemingly endless vista of opened mouths, and at the same instant the apprentices began to beat their cudgels and stamp their feet and a roaring chant went up:

“My tail’s

For sale.

Half-a-crown

Will lay me down!”

Half-crown pieces had begun to ring upon the stage and Amber felt them pelting her sharply, hitting her from every side. The men were climbing onto their benches, shouting at the top of their lungs; the ladies had put on their masks but were shaking with laughter; from top to bottom the theatre was a bedlam of noise and confusion—though not more than forty seconds had passed since Amber’s unlucky turn.

“You lousy bitch!” Amber ground the words through her clenched teeth. “I’ll break your head for this!”

With a hysterical titter Beck started off the stage at a run and, just as the curtains swished frantically together, Amber went after her as fast as she could go, yelling, “Come back here, you damned coward!”

Anne, waiting in the wings, stuck out a foot to trip her, but Amber jumped over it, gave Anne a backhand swipe that sent her staggering, and rushed on. Flying down the narrow dark hallway Beck turned to look back just as she reached the tiring-room, gave a shriek when she saw how close her pursuer was, and dashing in slammed the door. But before she could throw the bolt Amber had burst against it, shoved it open, and with a violent push was inside. In one movement she flung the bolt herself and turned to grapple with Beck.

Clawing and biting, screaming and kicking and pounding at each other with their fists, they rocked and swayed from one side of the room to the other. Their flimsy costumes were soon torn to shreds; their wigs came off and the black eye-paint smeared their faces; bloody scratches appeared on cheeks and arms and breasts. But for the time they were engrossed in rage, unfeeling, unhearing, unseeing.

Outside a crowd had gathered and was pounding at the door, clamouring to be let in. Scroggs moved straddle-legged after them, keeping just out of reach of thrashing arms and legs, cheering and shouting for Madame St. Clare. Once, when she came too close, Beck gave her a vicious kick in the belly that knocked her into a breathless groaning quivering heap on the floor.

At last Amber locked one leg behind Beck’s knee and they went down together, clasped as tight as lovers, rolling over and over with first one on top and then the other. Amber’s nose was streaming and her throat was beginning to feel raw from the blood she had swallowed, but at last she got astride Beck and pummelled her head and face with her fists while Beck fought her off with teeth and clawing nails. Thus they were when Scroggs opened the door and half-a-dozen men rushed in to drag them apart, hauling Amber off and pulling Beck away in another direction. Both women collapsed from sudden nervous exhaustion, and neither protested at the interference. Beck began to cry hysterically, babbling an incoherent stream of accusations and curses.

Amber lay stretched out flat on a couch, Hart’s cloak flung over her, and now while Scroggs sopped at the blood and muttered her fierce congratulations she began to feel the sting and smart of her wounds. Her nose was numb and seemed to have swollen immensely and one eye was beginning to close.

Faintly she heard Killigrew’s loud angry voice: “—the laughing stock of all the town, you damned jades! I’ll never dare show this play again! Both of you are suspended for two weeks—no, three weeks, by God! I’ll have some discipline among you impudent players or know the reason why! And you can pay the cost of replacing your costumes—”

The voice went on but Amber’s eyes were closed and she refused to listen. She was only relieved that Rex, who held his commission in his Majesty’s regiment of Horse Guards, had been on duty at the Palace that day.

Still, when she came back at the end of her enforced vacation she found that though the other women probably liked her no better and envied her no less, she had been accepted as one of them. There was tension and amusement in the tiring-room the first day that she and Beck met face to face, but they merely looked at each other for a moment, then nodded and exchanged cool greetings.

A few days later Scroggs slyly gave Amber a new blue-velvet miniver-lined hood which some countess had just presented to the wardrobe. Blue was not Amber’s colour and she knew it. “Thanks a million, Scroggs,” she said. “But I think Beck should have it. It matches her gown.”

Beck, standing only a few feet away and pulling on a stocking, heard her. She glanced around in surprise. “Why should I have it? My part’s but a small one.” Killigrew persisted in his punishment, and neither of them had yet been put into the roles they had played before.

“It’s as big as mine,” insisted Amber. “And anyway I’ve got a new petticoat to wear.”

Still skeptical, Beck took it and thanked her.

In the comedy that day they played two frivolous girls, close friends, and halfway through the first act each suddenly discovered toward the other a new warmth which grew quickly into liking. At the end of the act everyone was astonished to see them coming off the stage arm in arm, laughing gaily. After that they were as good friends as most women, and Beck even flirted sometimes with Captain Morgan when he came to the tiring-room—though she knew as well as Amber that nothing would ever come of it. It was merely a gesture of good will.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHARLES II WAS married to the Infanta Catherine of Portugal two years after his Restoration.

She had been decided upon by Charles and Chancellor Hyde —now Earl of Clarendon—very shortly after his return; the delay in the wedding had been political, designed to coerce a larger dowry from desperate little Portugal, just recently free but still menaced by Spain. In the end the Portuguese paid a high price for marrying English sea-power: they gave 300,000 pounds; the right of trade with all Portuguese colonies; and two of their most prized possessions, Tangier and Bombay.

The Earl of Sandwich had been sent to Portugal with a fleet to escort the princess back to England, but Charles could not leave London until he had prorogued Parliament, and that was several days after she had arrived at Portsmouth. But once it was dismissed he set out immediately and rode through the night. He arrived there early the next afternoon and went first to his own apartments to change his clothes.

Charles sat down and his barber lathered his face, then began to swipe across it with swift clean strokes of a sharp-edged razor. There were black circles beneath his eyes but he looked happy and alert, and somewhat amused, for the room was full of courtiers and he knew that the same thought was in every head.

They were wondering what kind of husband he was going to make, how this marriage would affect the status of each of them, and whether or not he really would, as he had said, keep no mistresses once he was married. For his own part he was glad to be away from London and the melancholy Barbara, who had sulked and pouted and cried for weeks past, though she bragged to acquaintances that she was going to lie-in of her second child at Hampton Court, while the King was spending his honeymoon there.

Now Charles glanced up at Buckingham who stood beside him, stroking the head of a little brown-and-black spaniel. Buckingham had been there for some time and had already seen the Infanta.

“Well?”

“Well,” said the Duke.

Charles laughed. “I think you’re jealous, my lord.” Buckingham’s wife was a plain, plump little woman with odd, slanted eyes and a large turned-up nose. When the barber was finished the King got up and submitted to being dressed. “Well —for the honour of the nation I only hope I’m not put to the consummation tonight. I haven’t had two hours rest in the past thirty-four, and I’m afraid matters would go off somewhat sleepily.”

Dressed at last he slapped his hat onto his head and strode rapidly from the room, a pack of his spaniels running at his heels, a pack of courtiers following after them. The Infanta, he had been told, had caught a cold and been sent to bed; and that was where he found her, sitting propped against white silk pillows embroidered with the Stuart coat-of-arms, wearing a dressing-gown of pale pink satin with belled wrist-length sleeves. He paused in the doorway, bowing, and saw her eyes staring at him wide and half-frightened, her fingers twisting the counterpane nervously.

She was surrounded on all sides by her attendants, banked two or three deep about the bed as though for her protection. There were half-a-dozen long-robed priests, their tonsured heads shining, their eyes measuring and skeptical. There were the Countesses of Penalva and Ponteval, her Majesty’s chaperons, two ugly, muddy-skinned, punctilious old women. And the six maids-of-honour, young but just as dark, sallow, and hideous to the eye of an Englishman. Instead of the sweeping, graceful low-cut gowns then in fashion, they were without exception dressed in stiff-bodiced, old-fashioned farthingales which had not been worn in England for thirty years. If they had breasts they were so tightly cased as to appear perfectly flat, and their skirts jutted out from the waist on either side like shelves that swung and teetered clumsily whenever they moved.

As the King appeared in the doorway, his gentlemen crowded behind him, peering over his shoulders; the women stood motionless and waiting, a look of alarm on their faces. Portuguese etiquette was as rigid as the clothes they wore and the girls, having seldom seen men who were not members of their own families, regarded the entire sex with suspicion and distrust. They had been creating a good deal of trouble by refusing to sleep in any bed which had ever been occupied by a man, and at the sight of one of the creatures approaching had covered their faces and run off in another direction, cackling and gabbling. Now, unable to run, they stood and stared—defensive, nervous, wretchedly ill-at-ease. They would have been more so if they had guessed what the men thought of them.

Charles’s face did not change and immediately he came forward, taking her hand to kiss. “My apologies to you, madame,” he said in soft Spanish, for she knew no English. “Business kept me until late last night. I hope you’ve been made comfortable?” He straightened then and looked down at her.

Catherine was twenty-three but she looked no more than eighteen. Her hair was beautiful, a cascading mass of dark brown waves, and her eyes which were also brown were large and bright, gentle and just a little wistful as she looked up at him. They seemed to beg for kindness and to ask apology for her own shortcomings. For her skin was inclined to sallowness; her front teeth protruded a little. And he had been told that she was scarcely five feet tall.

Still—he thought—for a princess, she’s not bad.

Catherine had been bred in a convent, embroidering, praying, singing hymns, waiting for her mother to find her a husband. When she did, Catherine was already far beyond the age when most princesses married and still she knew nothing at all of men, was almost as ignorant of their natures as if they had been members of another species. She had expected to learn to love her husband because it was a woman’s duty to do so; but now as she looked up at Charles she realized that she had already fallen in love with him. Everything about him seemed wonderful to her: his swarthy good-looks, the powerful grace of his body, the deep smooth gentle tones of his voice which lapped over her like a warm tide, stilling some of her terrors, echoing in her heart.

The next morning they were married, first by a secret Catholic ceremony in her bedchamber, again in the afternoon according to the rites of the Church of England. A few days later they set out for Hampton Court. And though there was much gossip to the effect that Charles was disappointed in his marriage and ready to accept Barbara Palmer back again as soon as she had recovered from her confinement, both their Majesties seemed perfectly happy and content and as much in love as though they had not married for reasons of political expediency.

But if Catherine was satisfied, there were others in her suite who were not.

Penalva, an ailing, near-sighted old virgin, disliked England the moment she set foot upon it. It was too different from Portugal to be good. The women, she decided immediately, were wanton and bold, the men unscrupulous and dishonourable, and she undertook to warn the naive little Queen of these facts.

“The Court of England,” she said sternly, “must needs be much remodelled before it is fit for the occupancy of your Majesty.”

Catherine, who was still admiring her splendid crimson-and-silver-hung apartments, examining the massive toilet and mirror made out of pure beaten gold, looked at her in surprise, but with a happy little smile.

“Why, perhaps it should be. I’ve not heard what condition it’s in, but I don’t doubt his Majesty will be glad to make any repairs I ask—he’s so kind to me.” Her dark eyes went out the windows, looking across the stretches of green lawn, the blooming flower-plots, and something dreamy and thoughtful came into them that evidently annoyed Penalva.

“You misunderstand, your Majesty! I was not speaking of the furnishings of the Palace. Quite possibly it will be as barbarous as this—” She gestured quickly, for she did not like English taste either. “I was speaking of the manners and morals of the courtiers and ladies themselves.”

“Why,” said Catherine, “what’s wrong with them?”

“Can it be your Majesty has not noticed how these women dress? All of them go half naked from morning till night.”

“Well—” she admitted with some reluctance, for she did not want to be disloyal to her new land and husband. “They are—different—from what we’re used to seeing at home.”

“Different! My dear, they’re indecent! No woman whose intentions were innocent would display herself before a man as these creatures do. Your Majesty, you have an opportunity to earn for yourself the gratitude of all England—by reforming the Court.”

“I wouldn’t know how to begin. Perhaps they wouldn’t like to have an outsider—”

“Nonsense, your Majesty! What does it matter what they would like! You’re not their subject! They are yours, and must be made to understand so immediately—or you will find yourself a mere hanger-on at your own Court.”

Catherine smiled gently, thinking that the poor old lady was so concerned for her happiness that she saw a great deal of evil where none existed. “I think you’ve misjudged them, my lady. They all look so fine—I’m sure they must be good.”

“Unfortunately, your Majesty, that is not the way of the world. The good are never ostentatious—these creatures are. Now, your Majesty, you must listen to the advice of an old woman who has lived a long while and seen a great deal. Be mistress in your own Court! Be a leader, not a follower, or they’ll leave you alone for whoever does undertake to lead, and Heaven knows, in this abandoned place it could be no one of good character. Begin, your Majesty, by putting off those absurd English clothes his Majesty gave you. Return to your native costume, and others will be forced to follow.”

Catherine looked down, somewhat dismayed, at her pink-and-blue taffeta gown with its full-gathered skirt, billowing sleeves, the neckline cut more discreetly than were those of most ladies, but still quite daring, she had thought. She felt that in it she was prettier than she had ever been before in her life.

“But,” she protested softly, “I like it.”

“It doesn’t become you, my dear, as your native costume does. Go back to your farthingales, or these English will think they’ve converted you to their ways already. They’re an arrogant race, and will have scant pity or respect for whoever is easily tamed by them. And one thing more, your Majesty—don’t learn the language. Let them speak to you in your own tongue—”

Catherine had listened to Penalva all her life, and she knew that the old lady had nothing but love and affection for her. She bowed to the wisdom of age and that night she appeared at a banquet in her bobbing, black-silk farthingale. She gave Charles a quick anxious glance, to see whether or not he disapproved of the change, but his face was inscrutable. He smiled, bowing, and offered her his arm.

The honeymoon was celebrated with endless entertainment and gaiety. There were banquets and balls and cock-fights, picnics, rides on the canal in the luxurious royal barges, plays performed by actors who came down from London. All day long the staircases, the chain of great rooms and galleries, were crowded with a brilliantly dressed throng of men and women. In plum-coloured velvet, blue satin, gold brocade, they clattered and swished from room to room, strolled down the cradle-walk of interlaced hornbeam, drifted lazily on the river. And the sound of their voices, calling to one another, laughing, chatter. ing eternally, reached Catherine whether she was with them or —more often—when she was in her own apartments at prayer or talking to her ladies and priests. She liked to hear them, for though she felt shy and lonely when she was among them, from a distance it gave her a sense of being part of their gay, debonair, heedless world.

She did not guess what they thought of her.

“She’s ugly as a bat,” they told one another, after the first glimpse, and greatly magnified her defects because she did not look like an Englishwoman.

They dissected her among themselves, the women giggling and murmuring behind their fans even when she was in the room, for they knew she could understand nothing of what they said. And if by chance the Queen’s brown eyes rested upon one of them and she smiled, they quickly composed their faces to smile back, curtsying faintly, and gave a wink and a nudge to the nearest lady.

“Gad! But she looks as demure as a dog in a halter!”

“I’ll be damned if I can bring myself to admire a woman with such a dingy skin! Why the devil doesn’t she give it a plastering of powder?”

“Oh, heavens, my lord! Her monster would never allow it! They say the old witch thinks we’re a pack of infidels and counsels her Majesty to have a care we don’t corrupt her.”

“Look! how she gives the king the sheep’s eye! Ugh! I swear it makes me queasy to see a woman who dotes so upon her husband—and in public in broad daylight!”

“I say it’s a mark of his Majesty’s good-breeding he can make such a tolerable show of seeming to endure her.”

“Well—I’ll wager he won’t make such a tolerable show much longer. Castlemaine laid-in last week. She’ll be here in another fortnight—and then we’ll see—” Barbara Palmer had been created Countess of Castlemaine some six months before.

“It runs through the galleries the King promised long ago he’d make her a Lady of the Bedchamber when he married—”

“And she says he will or she’ll know why!”

Much as they disliked Barbara for her insolence and airs, hot though jealousy of her flared among the other women, still she was one of them and they were united in her favour against this newcomer who outraged them with her modesty and reticence, her obstinate clinging to the fashions of her own country, her persistent devotion to her church. But it was not only the frivolous and cynical whom Catherine had offended. By seeming from the first to like Chancellor Clarendon she had unwittingly drawn upon herself the enmity of the most ambitious and able and influential men at Court.

But Catherine could know nothing of all this. And in spite of Penalva’s repeated warnings she looked at her new subjects and saw only women dressed in beautiful gowns, with glossy golden hair and a look of sleek complacency—women she envied though she knew it was wicked to do so—and men with suave easy manners bowing over her hand, sweeping off their hats as she appeared, their closed faces telling her nothing. She was still a little frightened by England, but so much in love with her husband and so eager to please him that she tried to conceal her awe and uncertainty and thought that she was succeeding very well.

And then one evening, while she was being made ready for bed, Lady Suffolk, aunt of Lady Castlemaine, and the only English attendant thus far appointed, handed the Queen a sheet of paper with a list of names written upon it. “These are the persons proposed for your Majesty’s attendants,” she said. “Will your Majesty be pleased to sign?”

Catherine, now in her flowing night-gown of white silk, took it and went to her little writing-table. She picked up a pen and had bent to write her signature, when suddenly Penalva’s hawk-nosed face appeared over her shoulder.

“Don’t sign without reading it first, your Majesty!” she whispered.

Catherine gave her a glance of mild surprise, for she had assumed that if the King had chosen these ladies to attend her they could not be otherwise than acceptable. But already her old chaperon was mumbling them over.

“—Mrs. Price. Mrs. Wells. Mother of the Maids: Bridget Saunderson. Ladies of the Bedchamber: my Lady Castlemaine—” At the last name her voice became audible, suddenly sharp and indignant, and her face turned to Catherine’s.

It was the only name which meant anything to her. For before she had sailed her mother—who had given her so little advice as to how to be happy, either as wife or queen—had warned her never to allow Lady Castlemaine to so much as come into her presence. She was, the old Dowager Queen had said, an infamous hussy for whom the King had shown a deplorable kindness during the days of his bachelorhood.

“Why!” said Catherine, horrified. Then quickly she glanced about to catch the cool eyes of Lady Suffolk upon her, and turned so that only her back was to be seen. “What shall I do?” she whispered, pretending to study the list.

“Scratch the creature’s name out, of course!” With a quick motion she snatched up the pen which Catherine had dropped, dipped it into the inkwell and handed it to her. “Scratch it out, your Majesty!”

For a moment longer Catherine hesitated, her face troubled and hurt, and then resolutely she crossed her pen over the name with several dark broad strokes, until it was completely obliterated. She felt that by so doing she had also obliterated this menace to her happiness. She turned then and spoke to her interpreter.

“Tell my Lady Suffolk that I shall return the list to her in the morning.”

Half an hour later Charles arrived to find her alone and, as usual, on her knees before the little shrine which had been set up next to the great scarlet-velvet bed-of-state. He waited quietly, but already his eye had caught sight of the paper on the writing-table and the black bar which marked out Lady Castlemaine. However, he said nothing, and when she turned and smiled at him he crossed over to help her to her feet; but as he stooped to kiss her he could feel her tiny body stiffen defensively.

For a few moments they talked, discussing the play they had seen that night—a performance of “Bartholomew Fair” done by the King’s Company—but all the while Catherine was wondering nervously how she should broach the subject and wishing that he would mention it first. At last, in desperation, just as he excused himself to go into the dressing-room, she spoke quickly.

“Oh—and Sire—before I forget. My Lady Suffolk gave me the list tonight—it’s over there—” She swallowed and took a deep breath. “I crossed out one name. I’m sure you know which one,” she added hastily, a little note of defiance coming into her voice, for Penalva had warned her that she must let him know once and for all she was not to be treated like that again.

Charles stopped, glancing carelessly across his shoulder, for he was just passing the writing-table. He turned slowly to face her. “Have you an objection to a lady you’ve never seen?”

“I’ve heard of her.”

Charles gave a shrug and one finger stroked his mustache, but he smiled. “Gossip,” he said. “How people love to gossip.”

“Gossip!” she cried, shocked now to see how crassly unconcerned he was at having been taken in this bold attempt. “It can’t be just gossip! Why, my mother told me—”

“I’m sorry, my dear, that my personal affairs are known so far afield. And yet since you seem so well advised of my shortcomings, I hope you’ll believe me when I tell you that that episode is past. I have not seen the lady since we were married, and I intend having nothing more to do with her. I only ask you to accept her so that she may not have to suffer the indignities sure to be otherwise imposed upon her by ladies and gentlemen who were her friends only a short while since.”

“I don’t understand you, Sire. What else does a woman of that kind deserve? Why, she was nothing but your—your concubine!”

“It’s always been my opinion, madame, that the mistresses of kings are as honourable as the wives of other men. I don’t ask you to make her your friend, Catherine, or even to have her about you—but only that she be allowed the title. It would make her life much easier—and could scarcely hurt you, my dear.” He smiled, trying to convince her, but nevertheless he was surprised at her stubbornness, for he had never suspected that this quiet adoring little woman had so much spirit.

“I’m sorry, your Majesty, but I must refuse. I would gladly do anything else you ask—but I can’t do this. Please, Sire—try to understand what it would mean to me, too.”

A week later Charles, on the pretext of going hunting, went to see Barbara at her uncle’s nearby estate. She had just arrived and had sent him a desperate, humble imploring letter which, however, touched him less than did the fragrance it carried—that heavy musky compelling odour with which she always surrounded herself.

Breathless from running, she met him just as he stepped into the great hallway where stag-horns decorated the walls and ancient armour and firearms hung in every corner. He looked at her and saw a woman more beautiful than the one he remembered—his memory was short for such things—with brilliant violet eyes, her hair in a lavish cluster of curls about her face dressed in a becoming gown of deep-red silk.

“Your Majesty!”

She made him a sweeping curtsy and her head dropped gracefully. Her eyes closed and she gave a little sigh as he bent casually to kiss her upon the cheek. Then she took his arm and they walked on into the house and up the flight of stairs which led to the main apartments.

“You’re looking very well,” he said, determinedly ignoring her obvious efforts to enchant. “I hope your confinement was not difficult.”

She laughed gaily and pressed his arm, as sweet and merry as she had ever been in the early weeks of their acquaintance before the Restoration. “Difficult! Heavens, Your Majesty, —you know how it is with me! I’d rather have a baby than a quartan ague! Oh, but wait till you see him! He’s ever so handsome—and everyone says he’s the image of you!” That was not what they had said about her first child.

In the chapel the bishop was waiting with Lord Oxford and Lady Suffolk and the baby. When the ceremony of baptism was over Charles admired his son, took it up into his arms with an air of knowing exactly what he was about. But presently it began to cry and was sent off back to the nursery. The others went into a small private room to have wine and cakes, and here Barbara maneuvered him off to one side, under the pretext of showing him a section of the garden.

But she soon turned from the roses and flowering lime.

“And now you’re married,” she breathed softly, looking up at him with her eyes sad and tender. “And I’ve heard you’re deep in love.”

He stood and stared at her moodily, his eyes flickering over her face and hair and down to her breasts and small-laced waist. He caught the faint lascivious odour of her perfume, and his eyes darkened. Practiced voluptuary as he was, Charles had begun to long for a woman whose senses he could arouse, and who could arouse his. Catherine loved him, but he was finding her innocence and instinctive reticence a bore.

He sucked a quick breath through his teeth and his jaw set. “I’m very happy, thank you.”

A faint mocking smile crossed her face. “For your sake, Sire, I’m glad.” Then she sighed again and looked wistfully out the window. “Oh, you can’t think what a wretched time I had in London after you’d left! The very porters and ’prentices in the streets insulted me! If you hadn’t promised to make me a Lady of the Bedchamber—Lord, I don’t know how I’d shift!”

A scowl crossed his face, for this was what he had been expecting and dreading. Of course her aunt had told her the whole story. “I’m sure you exaggerate, Barbara. I think you’ll get along very well, in spite of everything.”

Her head turned swiftly, the black centers of her eyes enlarging. “What do you mean—in spite of everything?”

“Well—it’s unfortunate, but my wife crossed out your name. She says she doesn’t want you for an attendant.”

“Doesn’t want me! Why, that’s ridiculous! Why doesn’t she want me? My family’s good enough, I hope! And what harm can I do her now?”

“None,” he said, very definitely. “But all the same she doesn’t want you. She doesn’t understand the way we live here in England. I told her that I would—”

Barbara stared at him aghast. “You told her she needn’t have me!” she repeated in a horrified whisper. “Why, how could you do such a thing!” Tears had swum into her eyes and already, in spite of Lady Suffolk’s frantic signalling, her voice was rising and a quaver of hysteria had come into it. “How can you do such a thing to a woman who has sacrificed her reputation, been deserted by her husband, and left to the scorn of all the world—to give you happiness! Oh,——!” She turned and leaned her forehead against the window, one closed fist pressed to her mouth. She took a deep sobbing gasp. “Oh, I wish I’d died when the baby was born! I’d never have wanted to live if I’d known you’d do a thing like this to me!”

Charles looked more annoyed than sympathetic or conscience-smitten. All he wanted was to have the matter settled one way or another—and whether Barbara won or Catherine did made little difference to him. There was something to be said for both sides of the question, he thought, but a woman could never see more than one.

“Very well,” he said. “I’ll speak to her again.”

But instead he sent the Chancellor to do the delicate business for him, though the old man protested vehemently, for he thought that Castlemaine would be well served if she were sent into exile overseas. Clarendon came out of his interview wiping his red face and shaking his head, limping slightly to favour his gout-stricken right foot. Charles was waiting for him in his laboratory and that was where he went—but as the short, round, pompous little man passed through the galleries he was followed by a trail of smirks and whispers. The contest between their Majesties was giving amusement to the entire Court.

“Well?” said the King, getting up from where he had sat writing a letter to Minette—she was now Madame, Duchess of Orléans and third lady at the Court of France.

“She refuses, your Majesty.” He sat down, ignoring ceremony, because he was tired and discouraged and his foot ached. “For a little woman who looks meek and obliging—” He mopped his wet face again.

“What did you tell her? Did you tell her that—”

“I told her everything. I told her that your Majesty no longer had commerce with the Lady—nor ever intends to. I told her that your Majesty has the greatest affection for her and will make her a very good husband if she would but agree to this one thing. Oh, I beg of your Majesty, don’t send me again! I have no maw for this business—you know what my opinion is—”

“I don’t care what your opinion is!” said Charles sharply, though usually he listened with a lazy patient smile to whatever criticism of his manners, morals or intellect the Chancellor cared to make. “What was her attitude when you left?”

“She was in such a passion of tears, I think she may be wholly dissolved by now.”

Charles went to his wife’s room that night in a mood defiant and determined. He had had a domineering mother; he had unwittingly chosen a domineering mistress; but he did not intend to be hen-pecked at home. He was less interested now in the fate of Barbara Palmer than he was in convincing his wife that he and not she would make the decisions. Catherine met him with an equally defiant air—though only an hour before they had been smiling politely at each other and listening to a choir of Italian eunuchs.

He bowed to her. “Madame, I hope that you are prepared to be reasonable.”

“I am, Sire—if you are.”

“I ask this one favour of you, Catherine. If you’ll grant it, I promise it shall be the last hard thing I’ll ever expect of you.”

“But the one thing you do ask is the hardest thing a man could ask of his wife! I can’t do it! I won’t do it!” Suddenly she stamped her tiny foot and cried in a flare of angry passion that astonished him, “And if you speak of it again I’ll go home to Portugal!” She stared at him for a moment, and then bursting into tears turned her back and covered her face with her hands.

For a long moment both of them were silent, Catherine struggling to control her sobs but wondering miserably why he did not come to her, take her into his arms, and tell her that he realized how impossible it would be for her to accept his cast-off whore as an attendant. He had seemed so kind and gentle and tender, she could not understand what had happened to change him. Surely if he cared so much about the woman’s having that place he must still love her.

But Charles, his stubbornness now thoroughly aroused, had a vision of himself going through life the meek, uxorious husband of a tyrannizing little despot. She could never learn earlier that he would rule his own household.

“Very well, madame,” he said at last. “But before you go I think it would be wise to determine first if your mother will have you—and to find out, I’ll send your attendants before you.”

Catherine whirled around and stared at him with unbelieving astonishment. Those men and women of her own country were all she had to cling to in this strange terrifying land. Now, more than ever, when he was against her too, she needed them.

“Oh, please, Sire!” Her hands went out imploringly.

He bowed. “Good-night, madame.”

To the amused relief of the Court most of Catherine’s ugly train departed within a few days, for Charles allowed only Penalva, the priests, and a few kitchen attendants to remain. He did not trouble to send so much as a letter of explanation with them, but he hoped the Dowager Queen would know that he was displeased because she had paid most of the dowry—at the last moment—in sugar and spices instead of in gold.

For days the contest between them persisted.

Catherine remained most of the time in her own rooms and, when she did appear, she and Charles scarcely spoke. When the courtiers met in the garden or at the cockpit they asked each other: “Are you going to the Queen-baiting this afternoon?” The young and gay wanted to see Barbara Palmer triumphant because she represented their own way of living; the older and more circumspect sympathized with the Queen but wished that she understood men better and had been taught that tact could often accomplish what blustering and threats could not. As usual, Charles heard advice from both camps, but though he listened politely to everyone he was no more influenced than usual. In any matter which he considered to be of importance to his comfort he made his own decisions—and he did so now.

Queen Henrietta Maria was coming to pay her son another visit, and Charles did not intend that she should arrive to find his wife pouting and his house in a turmoil. Determined to settle the issue for once and all, he sent for Barbara to come to Hampton Court.

One warm late-July afternoon Catherine’s drawing-room was crowded to capacity and many who could not force their way in stood in the anteroom. There was a sharp tension in the air which she felt but could not understand, unless it was because Charles had not yet appeared. In spite of herself she continued to look anxiously for him, over their heads toward the doorway. For he was always there, and even when he ignored her she could find some comfort in the mere fact of his presence. But now, feeling lonely and forsaken, she had to force herself to smile, bit the inside of her lower lip so that it would not tremble, swallowed hard over the lump in her throat.

Oh! she was thinking desperately, how I wish I’d never come to England! I wish I wasn’t married! I wish I was back home again! I was happy then—

Her memory returned with longing to the lazy still afternoons in the convent garden, washed with the hot Portuguese sun, when she had sat with her brush and palette trying to catch the sharp contrast of white walls and blue shadows, or had worked her needle and listened to the murmurous chant of prayers in the chapel. What a quiet safe world that was! She envied that Catherine for the things she had not known.

And then suddenly she saw him and her back stiffened, a cold wave washed over her and the sadness and the dreamy languor was gone. Alert, glad to see him though she knew he would pay her no attention, a little smile touched her mouth. How tall he is, she thought, and how handsome! Oh, I do love him! She had scarcely noticed that a woman—dressed in white lace that sparkled with silver sequins—walked by his side.

As they came forward the room fell into a hushed waiting silence, every eye watching, every ear straining to hear. It was not until Charles, in a low but perfectly distinct tone, had spoken the lady’s name that Catherine turned to look at her, holding out her hand to be kissed as the woman dropped to one knee.

At the same moment she felt a grasp on her shoulder and heard Penalva’s hiss in her ear: “It’s Castlemaine!”

Catherine’s hand jerked involuntarily, and her eyes turned to Charles, surprised, incredulous, questioning. But he was merely watching her, his face hard and speculative, his whole manner coolly defiant, as though daring her to refuse him now. She looked then at Lady Castlemaine, who had risen, and had a quick unforgettable glimpse of a beautiful face—the lips curled faintly, the eyes shining with triumph and mockery.

She turned suddenly sick and weak. The world began to swim and rock dizzily, a ringing in her ears drowned out every other sound, and the room blackened before her eyes. She pitched forward out of her chair, but was kept from falling by the quick restraining hands of two pages and the Countess of Penalva, who glared at Charles with cold and unrelenting hatred. A sudden look of horror crossed his face and involuntarily one hand went out. But he quickly remembered himself, stepped back, and stood there silently while the Queen was carried from the room.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

BECAUSE OF REX MORGAN’S place at Court, Amber was able to watch the King and Queen’s state entry into London from the roof of one of the Palace buildings along the Thames.

For as far as it was possible to see in both directions the shores were packed; on the water the barges lay so thick a man could have walked from Westminster Hall to Charing Cross Stairs on them. Banners whipped out in the brisk breeze, and garlands of flowers trailed in the water. Music played, and as the first of the great gilded state-barges appeared cannon went off, roaring along the river-front, while shouts echoed back from shore to shore and every bell-tower in the city began to rock clamorously.

Amber, her hair blowing about her face, was standing over in one corner, very close to the edge and trying hard to see everything. With her were three young men who had just come from Hampton Court and who had been telling her the story of how the Queen had fainted when Castlemaine was presented to her, and how angry the King had been, thinking she had done it on purpose to embarrass him.

“And since then,” one of them was saying, “the Lady’s gone to all the balls and entertainments and they say his Majesty is sleeping with her again.”

“Can you blame him?” demanded another. “She’s a mighty delicate creature—but as for that olivader skinned—”

“Well, damn me!” interrupted the third. “If there isn’t the Earl himself!”

Elbow-nudges and glances passed along the roof, but Roger Palmer ignored them all; and presently they turned their attention back to the pageant, for the great City barges were now moving by just below. A few minutes later, however, Barbara herself came up the stairway. She was followed by her handsome waiting-woman, Mrs. Wilson, and a nurse carrying her little son. She made a perfunctory curtsy to her husband, who bowed coldly, and immediately she was surrounded by the three young gallants who had left Amber with never a word of apology.

Angry and resentful, hot at the mere sight of this woman she despised, Amber gave her head a toss and turned away. At least I’ll not stare like a country-bumpkin at a puppet show! she thought furiously. But no one else seemed to have any such compunctions.

Not very much later she was surprised by the sound of a strangely familiar masculine voice, a hand on her shoulder, and she looked swiftly about to see the Earl of Almsbury grinning down at her. “Well, I’ll be damned!” he was saying. “If it isn’t Mrs. St. Clare!” He bent then and kissed her, and she was so charmed by the warmth of his smile, the admiration she saw in his eyes, that she forgave him on the instant for having neglected her when she was in Newgate.

“Why, Almsbury!”

The questions rose immediately to her tongue: Where’s Bruce? Have you seen him? Is he here? But her pride bit them down.

He stepped back now and his eyes went over her from head to toe. “You’re looking mighty prosperous, sweetheart! Matters have gone swimmingly with you, I doubt not—”

Amber forgot Luke Channell and Newgate and Whitefriars. She gave him a little smile with the corners of her mouth and answered airily. “Oh, well enough. I’m an actress now—in the Theatre Royal.”

“No! I’d heard they have females on the stage now—but you’re the first I’ve seen. I’ve been in the country for two years past.”

“Oh. Then maybe you never got my letter?”

“No—did you write me?”

She made a light gesture of dismissal. “Oh, it was a great while since. In December, a year and a half gone.”

“I left town just after—at the end of August in ’60. I tried to find you, but the host at the Royal Saracen said you’d packed and gone to parts unknown, and the next day I left myself for Herefordshire—his Majesty granted me my lands again.”

At that moment the noise about them swelled deafeningly, for the Royal barge had reached the pier and the King and Queen were getting out, while the Queen Mother came forward to meet them.

“Good Lord!” shouted Amber. “What the devil is her Majesty wearing?” From the distance the Queen’s propped-out skirts made her look almost as wide as she was tall, and as she moved they rocked and swayed precariously.

“It’s a farthingale!” bellowed Almsbury. “They wear ’em in Portugal!”

When at last the crowds began to break up Almsbury took her arm, asking if he might carry her to her lodgings. They turned, to find Barbara with a man’s wide-brimmed hat on her head, standing only a few feet away, and she gave Almsbury a wave and a smile, though her eyes slid with unmistakable hostility over Amber. Amber lifted her chin, lowered her lashes, and sailed by without a glance.

Her coach was waiting in King Street with a great many others, just outside the Palace Gate, and at sight of it Almsbury gave a low whistle. “Well! I didn’t know acting was such a well-paid profession!”

Amber took the cloak which Jeremiah handed her and tossed it over her shoulders, for evening had set in and it was growing cool. Picking up her skirts she gave him a sly smile over her shoulder.

“Maybe acting isn’t. But there’s another that is.” She climbed in, laughing as he sat down heavily beside her.

“So our innocent country-maid has listened to the Devil, after all.”

“What else could I do after—” She stopped quickly, colouring, and then hastily added, “There’s only one way for a woman to get on in the world, I’ve found.”

“There’s only one way for a woman to get on very well—or very far. Who’s your maintainer?”

“Captain Morgan, of his Majesty’s Horse Guard. D’you know ’im?”

“No. I think I’m somewhat out of the fashion, in keepers and clothes alike. There’s nothing will run a man out of the mode so quick as a wife and a home in the country.”

“Oh! So now you’re married!” Amber gave him a roguish grin, almost as though he had just admitted some indiscretion.

“Yes, now I’m married. Two years the 5th of next month. And I’ve got two boys—one a little over a year and another just two months. And—a—weren’t you—” His eyes went down over her questioningly, but he hesitated.

“I have a boy, too!” cried Amber suddenly, unable to control herself any longer. “Oh, Almsbury, you should see him! He looks just like Bruce! Tell me, Almsbury: Where is he? Has he been back to London? Have you seen him?” She did not care any longer about seeming flippant and independent. She was happy with Rex and had almost thought that she was no longer in love with Bruce Carlton—but the mere sight of Almsbury had brought it all churning up again.

“I’ve heard that he’s in Jamaica and sails from there to take Spanish ships. Lord, sweetheart, don’t tell me you’re still—”

“Well, what if I am!” cried Amber, tears in her voice, and she turned her head quickly to look out the window.

Almsbury’s tone was soothing. He moved closer and put an arm about her. “Here—darling. Good Lord, I’m sorry.”

She dropped her head onto his shoulder. “When do you think he’ll come back? He’s been gone two years—”

“I don’t know. But I suppose one of these days when we least expect it he’ll be putting into port.”

“He’ll stay here then, won’t he? He won’t go away again, will he?”

“I’m afraid he will, sweetheart. I’ve known Carlton for twenty years, and most of that time he’s been just coming home or just going away. He doesn’t stay long in one place. It must be his Scottish blood, I think, that sends him off adventuring.”

“But it’ll be different—now that the King’s back. When he has money he can live at Court without having to crawl on his belly—that’s what he said he didn’t like.”

“It was more than that. He doesn’t like the Court.”

“Doesn’t like it! Why, that’s ridiculous! That’s where everybody would live—if they could!”

Almsbury shrugged. “Nevertheless he doesn’t like it. No one does—but few of ’em have got the guts to leave.”

Amber shook her shoulders, pouting, and leaned forward to get out as the coach drew up before her lodging-house. “That sounds like damned nonsense!” she muttered crossly.

Her maid, Gatty, was not in, for Amber had given her permission to see the pageant and then pay a visit to her father. Prudence she had long since dismissed when she had come home unexpectedly to find the girl parading about in her best and newest gown. And there had been two others before Gatty, one sent away for pilfering and the other for laziness. Amber sent Jeremiah to bring them some food from the Bear, an excellent nearby ordinary which sold French food cooked by Englishmen. Her meals were all sent in, from taverns or cook-shops.

She showed him her rooms with great pride, pointing out every detail so that he should miss nothing. Rex was generous and gave her almost everything she asked for; consequently he spent much of his time when not on duty gambling in the Groom Porter’s Lodge or at a tavern.

Among her recent acquirements was a chest of drawers from Holland made of Brazilian kingwood—chocolate brown with black veins, decorated with a great deal of florid Dutch carving. There was a lacquered black Chinese screen, and in one corner stood a what-not loaded with tiny figures: a tree of coral, a blown-glass stag, an old Chinese knife-grinder worked in silver filigree. And over the fireplace hung a three-quarter portrait of Amber.

“What d’you think of me?” she asked, gesturing toward the portrait, tossing her muff and fan aside.

Almsbury put his hands in his pockets and leaned back on his heels, examining it with his head to one side. “Well, sweetheart, I’m glad I saw you in the flesh first, or I should have been troubled to think you’d grown so plump. And who sat for the mouth? That isn’t yours.”

She laughed, beckoning him into the bedroom where she began to unpin her back hair. “Being in the country hasn’t changed you so much, Almsbury. You’re still as great a courtier as ever. But you should see the miniature Samuel Cooper did of me. I’m supposed to be Aphro—I forget what he called it—Venus, anyway, rising from the sea. I stand like this—” she struck an easy graceful pose, “and haven’t got a thing on.”

Almsbury, sitting astride a low chair with his arms folded across the back, gave a low appreciative hum. “Sounds mighty pretty. Where is it?”

“Oh, Rex has it. I gave it to him for his birthday and he’s carried it ever since—over his heart.” She grinned mischievously and began untying the bows down the front of her gown. “He’s mad in love with me. Lord, he even wants to marry me now.”

“And are you going to?”

“No.” She shook her head vigorously, indicating that she did not care to discuss the matter. “I don’t want to get married.”

Picking up her dressing-gown, she went behind the screen to put it on. Just her head and shoulders showed over the top of it, and as she took off her garments, tossing them out one by one, she kept up a merry chatter with the Earl.

Finally the waiter arrived and they went into the dining-room to eat. Rex had sent her a message that he would be on duty at the Palace until late, or she would never have dared eat her supper with a man, wearing only a satin dressing-gown. For she had discovered long ago that Rex was not joking when he said that if he took her into keeping he would expect a monopoly of her time and person. He kept the beaus from crowding her too closely or impudently at the theatre and discouraged them from visiting her—though all the actresses held their levees at home just as the Court ladies did and entertained numbers of gentlemen while they were dressing. The result was that during the last few months they had quite given up Mrs. St. Clare. Rex had a formidable reputation as a swordsman, and most of the tiring-room fops would rather see an apothecary for a clap, than a surgeon for a flesh-wound.

Throughout the meal Amber and the Earl talked with all the animation of old friends who have not met for a long while and who have a great deal to say to each other. She told him about her successes, but not her failures, her triumphs but not her defeats. He heard nothing of Luke Channell or of Newgate, Mother Red-Cap or Whitefriars. She pretended that she still had left a good deal of Lord Carlton’s five hundred pounds, deposited with her goldsmith, and he admitted that she had been far more clever than most young country girls left to shift for themselves in London.

It was two hours later as they sat on her long green velvet-cushioned settle, empty wine-glasses in their hands and staring into the last glow of the sea-coal fire, that Almsbury drew her into his arms and kissed her. For a moment she hesitated, her body tense, thinking of Rex and how furious he would be if another man kissed her, and then—because she liked Almsbury and because he meant Bruce Carlton to her—she relaxed against him and made no protest until, at last, he asked her to go into the bedroom.

Then suddenly she shook back her hair and pulled the front of her gown together. “Oh, Lord, Almsbury! I can’t! I should never have even let you think I would!” She got up, feeling a little dizzy from the wine, and leaned her head against the mantelpiece.

“Good God, Amber! I thought you were grown up now!” He sounded exasperated and more than a little angry.

“Oh, it isn’t that, Almsbury. It isn’t because I’m still—” She was about to say “waiting for Bruce,” but stopped. “It’s Rex. You don’t know him. He’s jealous as an Italian uncle. He’d murder you in a trice—and turn me out of keeping.”

“He wouldn’t if he didn’t know anything about it.”

She smiled, skeptically, turning her head to look at him, though her hair fell forward over her face. “Was there ever a man yet who could lie with a woman and not tell all his acquaintance within the hour? The gallants say that’s half the pleasure of fornication—telling about it afterwards.”

“Well, I’m no gallant, and you damned well know it. I’m just a man who’s in love with you. Oh, maybe I shouldn’t say that. I don’t know whether I’m in love with you or not. But I’ve wanted you since the first day I saw you. You know now that what I told you that night is true, so don’t put me off any longer. How much do you want? I’ll give you two hundred pound—put it with your goldsmith, toward the day when you’ll need it.”

The money was a convincing argument, but the thought that someday Bruce Carlton might hear about it—and be hurt—was even more so.

It was true, as Amber had told Almsbury, that Rex Morgan wanted to marry her. During the past seven months they had been happy and content, leading a life of merry companionable domesticity. They took an instinctive pleasure in doing the same things, and it was heightened always by a warm suffusing glow of happiness at the mere fact of being together.

The summer just past they had been together most of the time, for with the King out of town Rex had no official duties and the theatres were always closed for a vacation period of several weeks—though twice Amber had gone down with the rest of the Company to perform before their Majesties at Hampton Court. With Prudence or Gatty or whomever she might have in service, they would pack a hamper and ride out Goswell Street on warm June evenings to eat a picnic supper at the lonely, pretty little village of Islington. Several times they found a quiet spot in the river and pulled off their clothes to go swimming, laughing and splashing in the cool clean water, and afterwards while she dried her hair Rex would catch a few fish for them to take home.

Or they rowed up the river in a hired scull, Amber with her shoes and stockings off and her ankles trailing in the water, screaming with delighted laughter to hear Rex bandy insults and curses with the watermen—caustic-tongued old ruffians who amused themselves by hooting and jeering obscenely at everyone who ventured upon the river, whether Quakeress or Parliament man. At Chelsea they would get out to lie dreamily in the thick meadow grass, watching the clouds as they formed and passed overhead, and Amber would fill her skirt with wildflowers, yellow primroses, blue hyacinths, white dogwood. Then she would open the hamper and spread a clean white linen cloth, laying on it the potted neat’s tongue, the salad which the celebrated French cook at Chatelin’s had made for her with twenty different greens, fresh ripe fruits, and a dusty bottle of Burgundy.

They seldom quarrelled—only when, rightly or wrongly, Rex’s jealousy was aroused, though before she had seen Almsbury she had never been unfaithful to him. But she did drive out to Kingsland to see the baby once a week. For a long while she contrived to keep her visits secret from him, but one day, to her astonishment, he accused her of having been with another man. During the violent quarrel which ensued she told him where she had been—and told him also that she was married.

For two or three days he was angry, but no matter what lies he caught her in he did not seem to love her less, and even after that he asked her again to marry him. She had refused before, pretending that she thought he was only joking, but now she objected that it was impossible. Bigamy was punishable by death.

“He’ll never come back,” said Rex. “But if he does—well, you let me alone for that. I’ll see to it you’re a widow, not a bigamist.”

But Amber could not make up her mind to do it. She still had a lingering horror of matrimony, for it seemed to her a trap in which a woman, once caught, struggled helplessly and without hope. It gave a man every advantage over her body, mind and purse, for no jury in the land would interest itself in her distress. But neither that horror nor the greater one she had of being prosecuted for bigamy was the real reason behind her refusal. She hesitated because in her heart she still nursed an imp of ambition, and it would not let her rest.

If I marry Rex, she would think, what will my life be? He’d make me quit the stage and I’d have to start having babies. (Rex resented the child she had had—he thought by her first husband—even though he had never seen the little boy, and had a sentimental desire for her to bear him a son.) And then most likely he’d grow more jealous than ever and if I so much as came home a half-hour late from the ’Change or smiled at a gentleman in the Mall he’d tear himself to pieces.

He probably wouldn’t be as generous as he is now, either, and if I spent thirty pound for a new gown there’d be trouble and he’d think last year’s cloak could do me again. First thing you know I’d grow fat and pot-bellied and dwindle into a wife —and before I was twenty my life would be over. No, I like it better this way. I’ve got all the advantages of being a wife because he loves me and won’t put me aside, and none of the disadvantages because I’m free and my own mistress and can leave him any time I like.

She had heard that King Charles had remarked more than once he considered her to be the finest-woman on the stage, and that in particular after her last performance at Hampton Court he had told someone he envied the man who kept her.

A fortnight or so after Almsbury’s return to town Amber got a new maid. She dismissed Gatty one day when the girl surprised her taking a bath and talking to his Lordship, sending her away with the warning that Almsbury had a great interest at Court and would order her tongue cut out if she spoke to anyone at all of what she had seen. She told Rex that she had turned the girl away because she was pregnant, and sent Jeremiah to post a notice for a serving-woman in St. Paul’s Cathedral, where a good deal of such business was done.

But that same morning as she was riding from the New Exchange to a rehearsal, her coach stopped at the golden-crowned Maypole, and while Tempest was bellowing abuse at the driver and occupants of the coach that blocked his way, the door was flung open and a girl leaped in. Her hair was dishevelled and her eyes looked wild.

“Please, mam!” she cried. “Tell ’im I’m your maid!” Her pretty face was intense and pleading, her voice passionate. “Oh, Jesus! Here he comes! Please, mam!” She gave Amber a last imploring look and then retreated far back into one corner, pulling the hood of her cloak up over her red-blonde curls.

Amber stared at her in amazement and then, before she could speak a word, the door was thrown open and a blue-coated constable, carrying his staff of offices, pushed his head in at them. At this Amber gave an involuntary backward start. But, remembering that a constable could mean nothing to her now, she quickly recovered herself.

He made her a half salute, evidently mistaking her for a lady of quality. “Sorry to trouble you, mam, but that wench just stole a loaf of bread. I arrest you,” he shouted, “in the King’s name!” And he lunged across Amber toward the girl, who cowered far into one corner, skirts drawn close about her. Even from where she sat, Amber could feel her tremble.

Suddenly furious, all her memories of Newgate rising like a tide, Amber brought her fan down with a hearty smack on the constable’s wrist. “What are you about, sir? This girl is my serving-woman! Take your hands off her!”

He looked up at her in surprise. “Well, now, mam—I wouldn’t care to be calling a lady a liar—but she just stole a loaf of bread from off that bulk over there. I seen ’er myself.”

He leaned far in now, grabbing hold of the girl’s ankle and dragging her toward him. A curious restless crowd was beginning to gather outside in the street—and as Amber gave him a kick in the chest with the toe of her shoe and a violent shove that sent him staggering, a loud joyous laugh went up. He lurched back; she leaned forward and slammed the door shut.

“Drive on, Tempest!” she shouted, and the coach rolled off, leaving justice to pick itself up from a swimming kennel of rain-washed filth.

For a moment both women were silent, the girl staring at Amber with gratitude, Amber breathing heavily from anger and the nervousness which the sight of a constable still roused in her.

“Oh—mam!” she cried at last. “How can I ever thank you? But for you, he’d have carried me off to Newgate! Lord, I didn’t see ’im till he made a grab for me, and then I ran—I ran as fast as anything but the old fat pricklouse was right on my heels! Oh, thank you, mam, a million times! It was mighty kind for a great lady like yourself to care what happens to the likes of me. It wouldn’t ’ve been any skin off your arse if I’d gone to Newgate—”

She rattled along in a quick light musical voice, the expressions playing vivaciously over her pretty face. She could have been no more than seventeen, fresh and dainty with clear blue eyes, light lashes and brows, and a golden sprinkle of freckles over her little scooped nose. Amber smiled at her, liking her immediately.

“These damned impertinent constables! The day’s a loss to ’em that they don’t throw half-a-dozen honest citizens into jail!”

The girl lowered her lashes guiltily. “Well—to tell you truly, mam, I did steal that loaf of bread. I’ve got it here.” She tapped her cloak, beneath which it was concealed. “But I couldn’t help it, I swear I couldn’t! I was so hungry—”

“Then go ahead and eat it.”

Without an instant’s hesitation she took out the crusty split-topped loaf, broke a piece off one end and crammed it into her mouth, chewing ravenously. Amber looked at her in surprise.

“How long since you’ve eaten?”

The girl swallowed, took another great bite and answered with her mouth full. “Two days, mam.”

“Ye gods! Here, take this and buy yourself a dinner.”

From a little velvet bag inside her muff she emptied several shillings and dropped them into the girl’s lap. By now they had drawn up before the theatre and the footman came to open the door. Amber gathered her skirts and prepared to get out and the girl leaned forward, staring through the glass windows with great interest.

“Lord, mam, are you goin’ to the play?”

“I’m an actress.”

“You are!” She seemed both pleased and shocked that her benefactress should be engaged in so exciting and disreputable a profession. But immediately she jumped out on her own side and ran around to make her curtsy to Amber. “Thank you, mam. You were mighty kind to me, and if ever I can do a good thing for you, I wish you’d be pleased to call on me. I’ll not forget, you may be sure. Nan Britton’s my name—serving-woman, though without a place just now.”

Amber stopped, looking at her with interest. “You’re a serving-woman? What happened to your last place?”

The girl lowered her eyes. “I was turned out, mam.” Her voice dropped almost to a whisper and she added, “The lady said I was debauchin’ her sons.” But she looked up quickly then and added with great earnestness, “But I wasn’t, mam! I vow and swear I wasn’t! ’Twas just the other way around!”

Amber laughed. “Well, my son’s not old enough to be debauched. I’m looking for a woman myself, and if you want to wait in the coach after you’ve had your dinner we’ll talk about this later.”

She hired Nan Britton at four pounds a year and her clothes and lodging and food. Within three or four days they were good friends—Amber felt that Nan was the first real woman friend she had ever had—and Nan did her work quickly and well, taking the same delight in polishing a pewter pitcher or arranging Amber’s hair that she did in riding to the ’Change or accompanying her and Rex on a visit to the Spring Gardens.

She was energetic, vivacious, and unfailingly good-natured, and as she became more sure of her place and accustomed to it, these qualities remained. Nan and Amber found much to discuss, exchanging the most unabashed feminine confidences, and while Nan learned almost all that there was to know about her mistress (except that she had been in Newgate and Whitefriars) Amber likewise heard the tale of Nan’s adventures as a girl-servant in a household where there were four handsome boys. Her dismissal had come when one of them, deciding that he had fallen in love with Mrs. Nan, announced to his horrified parents that he intended to marry her.

When Rex was not there Nan shared the bed, but otherwise she slept on the trundle. As was customary, she was as much his personal servant as she was Amber’s, helped him in and out of his clothes, was not embarrassed to be in the room when he was naked, and soon decided that Captain Morgan was the finest gentleman she had ever known. He enlisted her on his side and she urged Amber again and again to marry him.

“How Captain Morgan loves you, mam!” she would say in the mornings, while she brushed Amber’s hair. “And he’s the handsomest person, and the most genteel! I vow, he’d make any lady a mighty fine husband!”

But Amber, who merely laughed at first and teased Nan with having fallen in love with him herself, grew less and less interested in such advice. “Captain Morgan’s well enough, I suppose,” she said finally. “But after all, he’s only an officer in the King’s Guard.”

“Well!” cried Nan, offended at such disloyalty. “And who will you have, mam? The King himself?”

Amber, smiling at this sarcasm, gave a superior lift of her eyebrows. She was just setting out for the theatre and now began pulling on her gloves. “I might at that,” she drawled and, when Nan gasped, repeated, “Yes, I might at that.” She strolled toward the door, leaving Nan staring pop-eyed after her, but just with her hand on the knob she turned suddenly. “But don’t you dare breathe a word of this to Captain Morgan, d’ye hear me!”

After all, it might be only gossip that King Charles had told Buckingham who had told Berkeley who had told Kynaston who had told Amber that the King had a mind to lay with her.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

AMBER UNLOCKED THE door and started up the steps two at a time. She was eager to look at herself in a mirror, for she was sure that she must be very much changed. She had almost reached the top when the door to her apartments was flung open, and Rex loomed there above her. The light was at his back and she could not see the expression of his face, but knew by his voice that he was angry.

“Where in hell have you been?” he demanded. “It’s half after two!”

Amber paused for one astonished moment, staring at him almost as if he were some intruding stranger. And then, with, a haughty lift of her chin, she came on toward him and would have gone by without a word, but he grabbed her wrist and snatched her up close to him. His eyes had the dangerous glitter she had seen before when his ready jealousy was aroused.

“Answer me, you jilting little baggage! The plays at Whitehall are done by eleven! Who’ve you been with since then!”

For a long moment they stared at each other, and then at last Amber gave a pout and winced. “You’re hurting me, Rex,” she whimpered.

His face relaxed, and though he hesitated a moment he released her. But just as she moved away a heavy bag dropped out of her muff and fell clanking to the floor; by the sound it could only contain money. Both of them looked down at it, and then as Amber raised her eyes she saw that his were narrowed and gleaming with rage, and that the veins in his neck stood out.

“You God damned whoring little bitch,” he said softly.

And then suddenly he grabbed her by the shoulders and began to shake her, harder and harder, until her head snapped back and forth so fast she felt that the top of it would come off.

“Who was it?” he shouted. “Who’ve you been laying with! Tell me, or by Jesus I’ll break your neck!”

“Rex!” she cried imploringly. But the moment he let her go and she began to recover her senses her own rage mounted to heedless violence. “I was with the King!” she yelled at him. “That’s where I was!” She began massaging her neck, and ended with a mutter, “Now what’ve you got to say!”

For a long moment he stared at her, incredulous at first, and then slowly, gradually, she saw the crumpling of his hopes and confidence. “You weren’t,” he said at last. “I don’t believe it.”

Her hands went up to arrange her hair where it had come loose, and she gave him a cruel superior little smile. “Oh, don’t you?”

But he did and she knew it.

Then without another word he turned, took his cloak and sword and hat from the chair where he had left them, and started across the room. He gave her a last look of contempt and disgust before he went out, but she met it with merely a cool lift of the eyebrows. And as the door slammed behind him she gave a snap of her fingers, swirled about quickly and ran into the bedroom to a mirror.

For surely a woman who had been made love to by a king could not look like any common mortal. She half expected a glow, a luminous shimmer to her skin and hair, and was disappointed to see that she looked no different except that her hair was tumbled and there were tired shadows beneath her eyes.

But I’m not the same! she assured herself triumphantly. I’m somebody now! I’ve lain with the King!

When Nan tried to wake her the following morning she shooed her away, rolling over onto her stomach, saying she’d sleep as long as she liked and they could do without her at rehearsal. By the time she finally did wake up it was almost noon and the rehearsal long since over. She yawned and stretched, sliding back the heavy draperies which had made the bed so hot and sultry that she was wet all over, and then suddenly she reached beneath the feather mattress and brought out the bagful of coins, dumping them onto the pillow so that she could count them again.

There was fifty pounds. Only to think of it—fifty pounds as a gift for the greatest honour a woman could have.

Before going to the theatre she took the money to deposit with Shadrac Newbold, and when she finally got there it was after two. As she had expected, her appearance in the tiring-room created a considerable sensation; all the women began to babble and shriek at once. Beck ran to throw her arms about her.

“Amber! We thought you weren’t coming at all! Quick! Tell us about it—we’re a-dying to hear! What was it like?”

“How much money did he give you?”

“What did he say?”

“How long were you there?”

“What did he do?”

“Was it different than it is with ordinary men?”

It was the first time that King Charles had sent for a player and their feelings were divided between personal jealousy and occupational pride. But curiosity over-rode both.

Amber was not reticent; she answered all their questions. She described the rooms of Edward Progers where she had been received first, the appearance of the King in his brocade dressing-robe, the new-born puppies which had slept beside their mother on a velvet cushion near the fireplace. She told them that he had been as kind and easy, as courteous as though she were a lady of the highest rank. But she did not add that she had been so scared she thought she would faint, and she hinted that he had given her at least a thousand pounds.

“When are you going again?” Beck asked at last, as Scroggs began to help Amber out of her clothes.

“Oh,” she said casually, “sometime soon, I suppose. Maybe next week.”

She was very confident, for though she had not spent more than an hour with him she had come away feeling that of all the women he had known she had pleased him best. It did not occur to her that perhaps the others had thought the same.

“Well, madame!” It was Tom Killigrew’s voice, sounding cold and sarcastic as he made his way through the crowded room toward her. “So at last you’ve come.”

Amber looked up in surprise, and then gave him a friendly smile. She was prepared to be no different from usual, in spite of her changed status—at least until she was more secure in her new place. “I’m a little late,” she admitted, ducking her head into the gown which Scroggs held for her.

“You were not at rehearsal this morning, I believe.”

“No.” She thrust her arms through the sleeves and as Scroggs pulled the dress down her head appeared once more. “But that’s no matter. I’ve played the part a dozen times—I know it well enough without rehearsing.” She took up a mirror and half turned to face the light, examining the paint on her face and wiping away a little smear of lip-rouge rubbed onto her chin as she had struggled into the gown.

“With your permission, Madame St. Clare, I shall decide who will rehearse and who will not. I’ve given your part to Beck Marshall—I don’t doubt you’ll be able to play the strumpet well enough without rehearsal.”

There was a concerted giggle at that. Amber shot Beck a quick glare and caught a smug look of mischief on her face. She was on the verge of bursting out that she would play her own part or none at all, when caution warned her. “But I know my lines! I know every one of ’em if I never rehearsed again! And the other’s but a small part!”

“Perhaps it is, madame, but those who are too much occupied elsewhere must learn to be content with small parts—or with no part at all.” He glanced around at the sparkling, smiling faces, on which malicious pleasure was but ill concealed. “And I advise all of you to keep that in mind—should another head be turned by attention from high places. Good-day.” He swung about and left the room.

Amber was furious that he should have dared to treat her like that, and consoled herself with the promise that one day she would be even with him. I’ll get his patent and run him out of the theatre, that’s what I’ll do! But for the benefit of the others she gave a shrug and a pout of her mouth.

“Pooh! Much I care! Who wants to be a player anyway?”

As the days began to pass, however, her disgrace was not alleviated by another request from the King. She continued to play small roles—and to wait for another invitation. No one let her forget that she had been sent for once and had expected to go again; the other women, even some of the actors, and the gallants who came back to the tiring-room, all knew about it and taunted her slyly. They seemed to have grown more insolent than ever. And Amber, though she tried to toss off the gibes with a laugh or counter them with some impertinence of her own, was sick at heart, disappointed and miserably unhappy. She felt that after all her bragging she would die of shame if he sent for her no more.

And though she had thought in her first high-flown confidence that she did not care whether or not she ever saw Rex again, she soon began to miss him. It was not quite a week after their quarrel that Beck told her he had given a diamond ring to Mrs. Norris of the rival playhouse and that she was saying he had offered to take her into keeping.

“Well, why tell me about it! It’s nothing to me if he gives diamond rings to every tawdry little whore in Whetstone Park!”

But it was all bravado.

She was learning that Rex Morgan was more important to her happiness than she had ever suspected he could be. Though she had not realized it before, she knew now that he had protected her from much that would otherwise have been unpleasant. The tiring-room fops, for example, would never have dared patronize and bait her as they were doing. Without him she felt that she had been plunged suddenly into a hard and bleak world which hated her and wished her nothing but misfortune. There was no kindness or sympathy in any of them—they enjoyed her failure, battened upon her humiliation, were amused by her not-well-concealed anger and frustration.

She began to wish again that she had never seen Lord Carlton and never come to London.

Nan, however, continued optimistic even when ten days had gone by. She could think of more reasons why the King had been too busy to see her than he could possibly have found himself. “Don’t be downcast, mam,” she would say. “Lord, it takes up one’s time—being a king.”

But Amber refused to be comforted. Slumped in a chair before the fireplace, she muttered petulantly: “Oh, nonsense, Nan! You know as well as I do if I’d pleased ’im he’d have sent long ago!”

Nan sat beside her on a stool, working on a piece of embroidered satin, pale green with a whole English gardenful of flowers on it, which she intended as a petticoat for Amber. Now she gave a little sigh and made no answer, for she was finally beginning to grow discouraged herself. But when, just a few minutes later, there was a knock at the door she leaped up and rushed across the room.

“There!” she cried triumphantly. “That must be him now!”

Amber, however, merely looked around over the back of her chair toward the door, expecting to see one of the gallants or perhaps Hart or Kynaston come to visit her. But as Nan threw open the door she saw that a young boy stood there, dressed in some unfamiliar livery, and she heard him ask:

“Madame St. Clare?”

“I’m Madame St. Clare!” She jumped up and ran across the room. “What is it?”

“I come from Mr. Progers, madame. My master presents his service to you and asks if you will wait upon him at his lodgings tonight at half-after-eleven?”

It was the royal summons!

“Yes!” cried Amber. “Yes, of course I will!”

She picked up a coin off the table and gave it to him, and when he was gone she turned to throw her arms about Nan. “Oh, Nan! He did like me! He did remember! Only think! Tonight I’m going to the Palace!”

Suddenly she paused, made a stiff little bow and said: “Madame St. Clare? My master presents his service to you and asks if you will wait upon him tonight at his lodgings.” And then she spun around and danced off across the room, laughing joyously. But in the midst of a whirl she stopped, her face serious again. “What shall I wear!” And chattering excitedly the two women ran into the bedroom. The clock on the mantel pointed to nine.

This time she was more sure than ever that he liked her.

Some of her earlier awe and self-consciousness was gone and they laughed and talked like old friends; she thought him the most fascinating man she had met since Lord Carlton. When she left he said, as he had the time before, “Good-night, my dear, and God bless you,” gave her a playful slap on the buttocks, and another bagful of coins.

Tempest and Jeremiah were waiting for her at the Holbein Gate and they set off swiftly for home, rattling and clanging through the night.

But the coach had no sooner turned into the Strand than a party of horsemen rushed at them from out of the shadows. Before Amber knew what was happening Tempest had been hauled down from his perch and Jeremiah knocked to the ground. The horses began to rear and neigh with excitement. Amber was looking around her, wondering what she should do, when the door was flung open. A masked man leaned in, seized her by the wrist and began dragging her toward him. Amber screamed and started to struggle, though she knew well enough what little good that could do.

He gave her a rough shake. “Stop that! I won’t hurt you-just hand me that bagful of coins his Majesty gave you! Quick!”

Amber was kicking at him and trying to tear his fingers loose from her wrist. But now as she leaned over to bite his hand he gave her a violent shove that knocked her across the coach and half onto the floor and she could see the gleam of moonlight on his levelled pistol. “Give me that bag, madame, or I’ll shoot you! I have no time for playful tricks!”

Amber continued to hesitate, expecting to be rescued somehow, but as she heard the sound of the pistol cocking she took the bag from her muff and tossed it at him. He caught it, gave her a bow and backed away. But just before the door shut she heard a woman’s triumphant laugh and a voice cried: “Many thanks, madame! Her Ladyship appreciates your charity! I promise you the money will be laid out in a good cause!” The door slammed and there was a sound of prancing horses’ hoofs as they wheeled about and then started off again at a gallop—riding back down King Street toward the Palace.

Amber lay for a moment without moving, dumfounded. That voice! she thought. I’ve heard it somewhere before! And then suddenly she remembered: It was the same laugh, the same aggressive, high-pitched feminine voice she had heard that night outside the Royal Saracen-it was Barbara Palmer!

That was the last of Amber’s visits to Whitehall.

The King, it was well known, liked to live in peace and quiet, and a jealous woman’s sharp venomous tongue could make that impossible. Fortunately for her though, gossip spread that Charles had said he liked Madame St. Clare well enough—but not to the point of sacrificing his ease for her. And that was all that saved her. As it was they kept at her for several days, stinging and biting like malicious insects, but at last they grew tired of baiting her and found another victim.

By the time a fortnight had passed her life had settled back to normal. Everyone but Amber had forgotten that the King had ever sent for her.

But she did not forget or intend to forget. She nursed her new grievance against Barbara Palmer as carefully as she had the old. Someday, she promised herself, I’ll make her sorry she ever was born. I’ll find a way to get even with her if it’s the last thing I do on earth! She spent much time and found much pleasure in imagining her revenge, but those images, like everything else she could not see or touch, slid gradually into some back compartment of her mind to be saved and brought out again when she had a use for them.

She had been entertaining, one night, a dozen young men and women whom she had invited to supper and they had just gone home, leaving the tables littered with dishes, the floors covered with nut-shells and fruit-peelings and a torn deck of cards. There were wine-bottles and glasses, with only a sticky sediment in the bottoms, the air was thick with tobacco smoke, and the furniture had all been pushed out of place.

While Nan began to pile up dishes and pick up nut-shells Amber went to stand with her back to the fireplace, raising her skirts to warm her buttocks. It was mid-December and the ground was covered with snow, the first in three years, and even the Thames was frozen over. For a while they talked idly about who had said what, whether a certain lady was now having an affair with a certain gentleman or with another, or with both, and discussed at some length the gowns and coiffures and figures of the women who had been present, to the detriment of each.

Amber had taken off her gown and stood yawning and stretching in her puff-sleeved smock and frilly petticoats, when a low knock sounded at the door. Both of them started and then looked at each other, and Amber waited tensely as Nan crossed the room and flung back the bolt. Can it be-can it-It was Captain Morgan who stood there, his long riding-cloak thrown across his shoulder, his hat pulled low. He looked in and his eyes met hers, pleading, his expression that of a small boy who has run away and now returns to his home. Instantly forgetting that she had hoped it might be the King’s messenger, Amber ran to him with her arms outstretched.

“Rex!”

“Amber!” He swung her up off the floor, kissing her face again and again, and at last he gave a kind of sobbing exultant laugh. “Oh, my God! I’m glad to see you!” He put her onto her feet again but kept her in his arms, stroking her head, running his hands eagerly over her back. “Jesus, darling! I couldn’t stay away any longer! I love you—oh, God, I love you so much!”

There were tears in his eyes and from behind them came Nan’s surreptitious snifHe as she stood and watched them, smiling and crying at the same time. They both turned to look at her and suddenly all three of them began to laugh.

“Come in, Rex darling! Close the door. Oh, how sweet of you to come back! Why- Have you been waiting outside for the others to leave?”

He smiled, gave a nod.

“But you knew them all! Why didn’t you just come in! Lord, it’s bitter-cold out there!”

He hesitated. “Well-I wasn’t sure you.’d-let me in.”

“Oh, Rex!”

Suddenly and thoroughly ashamed Of herself Amber stood staring at him, fully aware for the first time how kind and generous and good he had been to her, and great tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Here, darling! What are you crying for, you little minx? This is a night for celebrating! Look at this-” He reached into his pocket and drew out a jeweller’s box, holding it toward her.

Slowly Amber took it from him and as she opened it Nan edged forward so that she could see too. As she lifted the lid both women gave a cry of astonished delight: there was a great topaz stone set in a golden heart, depending from a heavy golden chain. She looked up at him, doubtfully, for it must have cost a great deal. “Oh, Rex!” she said softly. “It’s beautiful—but—”

He gave a wave of his hand, dismissing her objections. “I had a run of luck with the dice not long ago. And here, Mrs. Nan, is something for you.”

Nan opened the box he handed her to find a pair of gold ear-rings set with tiny pearls. She gave a little scream of pleasure and jumped up to kiss him on the cheek-for he was at least a foot taller than she-and then quickly recovering herself she blushed and curtsied and turned in confusion to run into the bedroom.

“Hey!” called Rex. “Just a moment there, Mrs. Nan! Your mistress and I have a fancy to that place.” He swung Amber up in his arms and started toward it. “You’ll have to sleep out here tonight, sweetheart. This is a very special occasion.”

The months began to go by swiftly, for she was happy and popular and thought herself very famous. The winter was unusually cold and through December, January and February there were hard frosts with much snow and ice, but at last the frost broke and there came the slush and mud and the new green buds of spring. Killigrew had put her into leading parts again, and she was very busy with her singing and dancing and guitar lessons.

When they played at Court or when he came to the Theatre Amber saw King Charles, and though he sometimes smiled at her, that was all. She heard the gossip that he was less interested in Castlemaine than he had been and was now engrossed in lovely Frances Stewart, though so far, they said, he had not succeeded in overcoming her scruples. Some thought that Mrs. Stewart was a fool and others that she was very clever, but there was no doubt she had captured the fickle heart of the King, and that was distinction enough in itself. Amber did not care whom he fell in love with if only Barbara Palmer lost by it.

In the middle of February Amber found herself pregnant again. And though she hesitated for some time, not telling Rex but arguing with herself as to whether or not she should marry him, in the end she went to Mrs. Fagg and had an abortion. This time it took more than a pot of herbs and a ride in a hackney and made her so sick that she had to spend most of a week in bed. Rex was wild with anger and fear when he found what she had done and begged her to marry him immediately.

“Why won’t you, Amber? You say you love me—”

“I do love you, Rex, but—”

“But what?”

“Well, what if Luke—”

“He’ll never come back and you know it as well as I do! Even if he did, it wouldn’t matter. I could either kill him or get someone at Court to have the marriage annulled. What is it, Amber? Sometimes I think you put me off in hopes the King will send for you again. Is that it?”

She was sitting half propped up in bed, pale and sick and discouraged, staring at nothing. “No, Rex, that’s not it. You know it isn’t.”

She was lying, for she did still hope, but nevertheless she was almost convinced that if she did not marry Rex Morgan now she would regret it in the future. What did it matter if she left the stage? She had been playing for a year and a half and could not see that she had got anything by it. Her nineteenth birthday was less than a month away and she felt that the time was passing rapidly, leaving her in a backwash. And it was true, as she had said, that she loved him, though she could never quite force from her heart the memory of Lord Carlton or her ambitions for a more glorious and exciting life.

“Let me think about it, Rex—just a little longer.”

Her son was to be two years old on the 5th of April and, because she would not be free that day, Amber planned instead to go out on the 1st and take him the gifts she had bought. Rex left at seven while it was still dark outside, and the eaves dripped with rain that had fallen during the night.

He kissed her tenderly. “Twelve hours until I’ll see you again. Have a good trip, darling, and give the little fellow a kiss for me.”

“Why, Rex! Thank you!” Amber’s eyes sparkled with pleasure, for usually Rex ignored her trips as he wanted to ignore the fact that she had a child; but since she had almost agreed to marry him he had evidently decided that he must reconcile himself to his step-son. “I’ll bring one back from him to you!”

He kissed her again, gave a wave of his hand to Nan Britton, and was gone. Amber closed the door softly, leaning back against it for a moment, smiling. “I think I’ll marry him, Nan,” she said at last.

“Lord, mam, you should! A finer, kinder gentleman never lived—it makes my heart ache to see how he loves you. You’d be happy, mam, I know you would.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I suppose I would be happy. But—”

“But what?”

“But that’s all I’d be.”

Nan stared at her, shocked and uncomprehending. “Good God, mam! What else d’ye want?”

It was not long before the singing-master arrived, and after him came the dancing-master to put her through the steps of the minuet—a new French dance which everyone was busily learning. Meanwhile Jeremiah trudged again and again through the parlour carrying buckets of hot water to pour into the wooden tub in the bedroom for her bath.

Nan washed her hair and rubbed it almost dry, piling it on top of her head where she secured it with half-a-dozen bodkins. It was now close to ten and at last the sun had come out, for the first time in many days, so that where she sat in her tub the warmth fell across her bare shoulders and filled her with pleasure. She felt, as she usually did, that it was a wonderful thing to be alive, and was urging herself to leave the soapy luxury of her bath when there was a knock at the door.

“I’m not home,” called Amber after Nan. She had no intention of having her plans for this day disturbed, for anyone at all.

Nan returned a moment later. “It’s my lord Almsbury, mam.”

“Oh. Well, bring ’im in then.” Almsbury had not stayed long in town the last autumn but had recently come again for the spring session of Parliament and he visited her frequently—though he had given her no more money. But Amber did not care, for she was very fond of him. “Is he alone?”

“No, there’s another gentleman with him.” Nan rolled her eyes, but Nan was easily impressed by men.

“Have ’em wait in the parlour—I’ll be out in a trice.”

She stood and began to dry herself with a towel. From the other room came the low sound of the men’s voices; occasionally Nan giggled or burst into a peal of delighted laughter. Amber slipped into a green satin dressing-gown, took the bodkins out of her still slightly damp hair and ran a comb through it, stuck her feet into a pair of golden mules and started out. But she turned back again. After all—he might have someone of some consequence with him. She patted a little powder over her face, touched a perfume stopper to her wrists and throat, and smoothed some carmine into her lips. Then, pulling the neckline apart to show her breasts, she went to the door and opened it.

Almsbury stood before the fireplace and leaning against the mantel, smiling down at Nan, was Bruce Carlton.

CHAPTER TWENTY

HE RAISED HIS head quickly as she came in and their eyes met. Amber stood perfectly still, one arm braced against the doorjamb, staring at him. She felt her head begin to whirl and her heart to pound and she was suddenly paralyzed, unable to move or speak. He bowed to her then but Amber merely stood and trembled, cursing herself for a fool, but utterly helpless.

Almsbury came to her rescue. He crossed the room, kissed her casually, and slipped one arm about her waist. “What d’you think, sweetheart! The scoundrel put into town yesterday!”

“Did you?” said Amber weakly.

Bruce smiled, his eyes going swiftly down over her body. “The sailor’s home from the sea.”

“To stay?”

“No—at least not for long. Amber, may I go with you today?”

She glanced at Almsbury in surprise, for she had forgotten that she had told him her plans for the baby’s birthday. “Yes, of course. Will you wait while I dress?”

With Nan she went back into the bedroom and when the door was shut she sank against it, her eyes closed, as exhausted as though she had just finished some tremendous physical labour. Nan looked at her in alarm.

“Lord, mam! What is it? You don’t look well. Is he your husband?”

“No.” She gave a shake of her head, and started for the dressing-table, but her legs felt as though every bone and muscle had dissolved. “Will you get out that new gown Madame Drelincourt just finished?”

“But it’s raining again, mam. You might spoil it.”

“Never mind!” snapped Amber. “Just do as you’re told!” But she was instantly apologetic. “Oh, Nan, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”

“Neither do I, mam. I suppose you’ll not be wanting my company today?”

“No. Not today. I think you’d better stay here and polish the silver—I was noticing last night it’s somewhat tarnished.”

But as she painted her face and Nan dressed her hair she began to grow calmer, the blood seemed to flow in her veins again, and a passionate happiness replaced the first stunning sense of shock. She had thought him more handsome than ever, and the sight of him had filled her with the same intense irrational excitement she had felt the first time she had ever seen him. The past two years and a half had dissolved and vanished. Everything else in her life seemed suddenly unimportant, and dull.

Her new gown was made of chartreuse-coloured velvet and her shoes and stockings matched it exactly; her hooded cloak was topaz velvet, almost the same honey-rich colour as her eyes and hair, and she wore Rex Morgan’s topaz heart around her neck. She picked up her great mink muff and started for the door, but Nan stopped her: “When will you be home, mam?”

Amber tried to answer casually, from over her shoulder. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll be a little late.”

She saw disapproval on Nan’s face and knew that she was jealous for Rex, thinking that she ought not to go out there with another man, particularly a man who affected her as this one did.

“What about Captain Morgan?”

“The devil with Captain Morgan!” muttered Amber, and went back in to join Almsbury and Bruce.

When they were all in the coach, several gaily wrapped packages piled beside Amber, Almsbury gave a sudden snap of his fingers. “By God, I’m engaged to play at tennis with Sedley! Damned lucky thing I remembered!” With that he climbed out again, grinning back at them from the doorway. Bruce laughed and slapped him on the shoulder, Amber blew him a kiss, and the coach started off.

Behind them the Earl and Nan exchanged looks. “Well,” said his Lordship, “there’s no friend to love like a long voyage at sea,” and he climbed into his own coach and rattled off in the opposite direction.

Amber turned instantly to Lord Carlton. “Bruce! Oh—is it really and truly you! It’s been such a long time—oh, darling, it’s been two years and a half!”

She was close beside him as she looked up, her eyes seeming to swim in some luminous light, and his arm went around her. He bent his head swiftly and his mouth came down hard upon hers. Amber returned his kiss with wild abandon, forgetting where they were, straining toward him with a longing to be crushed and enveloped. She had a sense of plunging disappointment when he released her, as if she had been cut off in the midst of a dream, but he smiled and his fingers passed over her face, lightly caressing.

“What a charming little witch you are,” he said softly.

“Oh, Bruce, am I? Do you think so? Did you ever think about me—way over there?” She was intensely serious.

“I thought about you a great many times—more than I expected. And I worried about you too. I was afraid that someone might get that money away from you—”

“Oh, no!” protested Amber immediately. She would have died rather than let him know what had happened to her. “Don’t I look well enough?” A wave of her hand indicated her expensive clothes, the coach they rode in, her own triumph over the great world. “I can shift for myself, I’ll warrant you.”

He grinned, and if he saw through her bluff he gave no indication of it. “So it seems. But I should have known you would. You’ve got the world’s most marketable commodity—enough for ten women.”

“What’s that?” she asked him, putting on a demure face.

“You damned well know what it is, and I’m not going to flatter you any more. Tell me, Amber: What does he look like? How big is he?”

“Who?” She looked at him in sudden surprise, thinking that he meant Rex Morgan, and then they both burst into laughter. “Oh, the baby! Oh, Bruce, wait till you see him! He’s grown so big I can hardly lift him. And he’s so handsome! He looks just like you—his eyes are the same colour and his hair is getting darker all the time. You’ll adore him! But you should have seen ’im at first. Lord, he was a fright! I was almost glad you weren’t there—”

Both their faces sobered at that. “I’m sorry, darling. I’m sorry you had to be alone. You must have hated me for leaving you.”

She put her hand over his and her voice was low and tender. “I didn’t hate you, Bruce. I love you and I’ll always love you. And I was glad I had him—he was a part of you that you’d left with me, and while I carried him I wasn’t as lonely as I’d have been otherwise. But I don’t want any more babies—it takes too long. Maybe someday when I get old and don’t care how I look I’ll have some more then.”

He smiled. “And when will that be?”

“Oh, when I’m about thirty.” She said it as though she would never be about thirty. “But tell me what you’ve been doing. What’s it like in America? Where did you live? I want to know everything.”

“I lived in Jamaica. It’s an island, but I went to the mainland too. It’s a wonderful country, Amber—wild and empty and untouched, the way England hasn’t been for a thousand years. And it’s over there waiting—for whoever will come to take it.” He sat staring ahead now, talking softly and almost as though to himself. “It’s bigger than anyone knows. In Virginia the plantations are spreading back from the coast, hundreds of thousands of acres, and still there’s more land. There are wild horses and herds of wild cattle, and they belong to whoever can catch them. The forests are full of deer and every year the wild pigeons come over in clouds that blot out the sky. There’s more than enough food in Virginia alone to feed everyone in England better than he’s ever been fed before. The soil is so rich that whatever you plant grows like weeds. It’s something to catch your imagination—something you never dreamed of—” He looked at her suddenly, his eyes glittering with passionate enthusiasm.

“But it isn’t England!”

He laughed, relaxed again, the tension gone. “No,” he agreed. “It isn’t England.”

As far as Amber was concerned that settled the matter, and they began to talk, instead, of his adventures at sea. He told her that the life was unpleasant, that nothing could make a man uglier than being shut up for weeks at a time on a ship with other men, but that it was not very dangerous and was a sure road to riches. That was why so many seamen preferred sailing with the privateers to joining the British navy or the merchant fleets. At that moment the Thames was crowded with prizes just brought into port and more were arriving every day.

“I suppose you’re a mighty rich man, now.”

“My fortunes are considerably improved,” he admitted.

It took an hour and a half to reach Kingsland, for the road was unpaved most of the way and the recent heavy rains had turned it into a slough. Tempest and Jeremiah had to pry the wheels free a dozen times.

But at last they arrived and went around to the kitchen-door of Mrs. Chiverton’s pretty little thatched cottage, where they found her just cleaning the remains of the noon-day meal. Amber had given her frequent and generous gifts of money, for she wanted her son to live in a comfortable home, and the cottage now had an air of pleasant warmth and friendliness that it had not had at first.

The baby lay in his cradle, which he had now almost outgrown, flat on his back and sleeping soundly. Amber put up a cautioning finger as they came in and, walking softly, went over to look at him. His cheeks were flushed and there was a sheen of moisture on his eyelids, his breathing came quietly and regularly. For a long moment Bruce and Amber stood staring down at him, and then their eyes turned and met in a look of mutual pride and congratulation. Lord Carlton’s slender, hard aristocratic hands reached down and closed under his son’s armpits and he lifted him to his chest.

He woke up then, yawning, looked in some surprise at the man who held him, and then catching sight of Amber broke into a sudden smile and reached out for her.

“Mother!”

After a while, when they had eaten a bowl of hot pottage which Mrs. Chiverton insisted they have, they began to unwrap the baby’s presents. There were numerous toys, including drums and soldiers and a Jack-in-the-Pulpit—a Puritan preacher which popped out of a box and swayed comically from one side to the other. And there was a doll with real blonde hair and an extensive wardrobe which Amber had bought for Mrs. Chiverton’s four-year-old daughter. They stayed until mid-afternoon, but when finally they got ready to leave, the baby cried and wanted to go with them. While Amber tried to quiet him Bruce gave Mrs. Chiverton fifty pounds, telling her that he was grateful for the good care his son had received.

It was raining again as they started back, Amber chattering with the greatest enthusiasm and excitement about the baby. For she had been pleased and a little surprised to find that Bruce—who she had half expected would be an indifferent father—seemed to love the child as much as she did. But even while she talked she was conscious again of the rising surge of passion in both of them, temporarily calmed and forced back while they had been at the cottage. Now it was once more wild and violent, immediately demanding, determined to sweep away two years and a half in a few moments of savage union.

Stopping in the midst of a sentence she turned and looked up at him. Bruce gave a swift glance out the window, and as one arm went about her he leant forward to rap on the side of the coach. “We’re coming to Hoxton,” he said quickly to Amber. “I know a good inn there. Hey!” he raised his voice to a shout. “Stop up here at the Star and Garter!”

When Amber got home, after nine o’clock that night, she found Nan sitting beside the fireplace mending one of Rex’s shirts while he stood next to her, his hands jammed into his pockets and a scowl on his face. Amber paused, looking at him with a sense of surprise, for he seemed almost unreal to her—and then he had crossed the room and had her hands in his.

“My God, darling! What happened! I was just going out to try to find you!”

She forced a smile. “Nothing happened, Rex. The baby didn’t want me to go and I kept staying on—and then the coach got stuck and once it almost turned over.” She reached up to caress his cheek, a little sorry to have cheated him as she had, for he looked at her with such adoration and not the faintest hint of doubt or suspicion. “You mustn’t worry about me all the time, Rex.”

“I can’t help it, darling. I love you, you know.”

Amber turned away to escape the expression in his eyes and as she did so she saw Nan’s look of disapproval and resentment.

Early the next morning, when they were alone, Amber asked her if she had told Rex about the visit of Almsbury and Lord Carlton. Nan was making the bed, smoothing out the sheets with a bed-staff, and she answered without looking at Amber.

“No, mam, I did not,” she said crisply. “Lord, I’m sure I don’t know why you should think I’d meddle in your business. I never have before. What’s more, I wouldn’t tell Captain Morgan you were playing him false for a thousand pound. It would break his heart!” She turned around all at once and the two women stood staring at each other; there was a gleam of moisture in Nan’s eyes.

“You weren’t so finical when it was the King I was playing him false with!”

“That was different, mam. That was serving the Crown. But this—this is wicked. Captain Morgan loves you beyond his own life—It’s—it’s not kind!”

Amber gave a sigh. “No, Nan, it’s not kind. But I can’t help it. I’m in love with Lord Carlton, mad in love with him. Nan! He’s Bruce’s father! Not my husband—I married Luke after Lord Carlton had gone to America. Oh, you’ve got to help me, Nan! Help me to keep Rex from finding out. While he’s here I’ve got to see him—and I will see him!—but he’ll be gone soon, in a month or two, and when he’s gone Rex will be none the wiser. I’ll marry him then—to make it up to him. Will you help me, Nan? Will you promise?”

As Amber talked Nan’s flexible face changed, her expressions shifting like the play of sunlight over water, and at the end she ran to throw her arms about Amber. “Oh, I’m sorry, mam! I didn’t know—I didn’t guess—I thought he was just some gentleman you’d taken a fancy to.” Suddenly she smiled broadly, holding onto Amber’s arms. “And so he’s little Bruce’s father! Oh, of course! Why, they look alike!” She gave a gasp and put one hand to her mouth. “Lord, but it’s mighty lucky the Captain would never go out with you to see ’im! If he ever saw his Lordship—”

Carlton was staying at Almsbury House and two days later Amber sent a note inviting him, with Almsbury and his countess, to see the play—she wheedled Killigrew into reserving four seats in the front row of the King’s Box—and she asked them to have supper with her in her apartments afterward. Lord and Lady Almsbury were intended as decoys in the event that Captain Morgan should arrive unexpectedly.

They accepted, and for the next forty-eight hours Amber was in a flurry of excited preparation. She had Nan call in a woman to help her clean so that every speck of dust was brushed from the drapes and the walnut furniture oiled and polished until it gleamed. She went herself to the New Exchange to buy a great supply of artificial silk flowers, since the fresh ones were not yet in bloom, and she badgered Madame Drelincourt into finishing a new gown for her several days before it had been promised. She consulted the head-cook at Chatelin’s about the supper and the wine, trying to remember everything that Bruce liked best, and just before she left for the theatre she repeated once more to Nan the multifarious instructions which covered each smallest detail.

Halfway down the stairs she stopped suddenly, turned about, and ran back again. “Don’t forget to put a decanter of water on the tray with the brandy, Nan! Lord Carlton likes it that way!”

She got there very early and, once dressed and painted, went down into the pit to circulate about among the young men. She made a great show of all her charm and gaiety, hoping that Lord Carlton would see her and be impressed and perhaps a little jealous to find how popular she was with all the fops. But it was almost three-thirty and she was once more back behind the curtains when she saw him come in.

Lord and Lady Almsbury walked ahead, going to the seats which Amber had sent some boys to keep for them; but as one of the ladies leaned back and put out a hand to take hold of Bruce’s wrist he stopped, smiling, and bowed. Amber watched with anxious alarm while he bent over to hear what she was saying and saw her languid-eyed stare, the lazy intimate grasp which her hand kept on his, as though they had been long and well acquainted.

“Hey!” She heard Beck’s voice suddenly just beside her. “Who’s the handsome fellow my Lady Southesk is giving an assignation to?” Carnegie’s husband had recently succeeded to the earldom of Southesk.

“That’s Lord Carlton and he’s not making her an assignation!”

Beck looked at her in mild surprise and then smiled. “Well—” she drawled. “And if he is or isn’t—what’s that to you, pray?”

Quick anger at her own foolishness rushed over Amber, for she knew well enough that in spite of the half-hearted friendship which existed between them nothing would please Beck so much as an opportunity to create trouble between her and Rex Morgan. “It’s nothing at all to me! But I happen to know he’s laid his affections elsewhere.”

“Oh? And where’s that?” Beck’s voice was a musical purr and her eyes gleamed with sly malice.

“On my Lady Castlemaine!” snapped Amber, though it burnt her tongue to say it, and she flounced off.

She wished then that she had not invited Bruce to come back to the tiring-room after the play—for she knew that Beck’s sharp eyes would be upon them—and just before the last act she sent a boy to their box with a note asking him to meet her at Almsbury’s coach instead. She was not on the stage at the end of the play, and she rushed through her dressing to be ready to go by the time the crowds began streaming out of the theatre.

She left before anyone had returned to the tiring-room and made her way over to Almsbury’s coach, where Bruce stood waiting at the opened door. “Bruce! I’m so glad to see you!” She lowered her voice and glanced quickly around, for she did not want to be seen or overheard by anyone who might know Rex. “I sent you that note because I thought—”

He smiled. “Never mind, Amber. No excuses are necessary. I believe I know what you thought. May I present you to Lady Almsbury?”

She gave him a quick glance of indignation—for she wished he would not understand her motives so readily, or would be more offended by them when he did. But he seemed not to notice the look, took hold of her arm and began to make the introductions.

As Amber saw at once, Emily, Lady Almsbury, was by no means a beauty. Her hair, her eyes, even the clothes she wore, seemed indefinite in colouring, though there was nothing otherwise amiss in her features, and her teeth were white and even. Paint and false curls, a few patches and a low-necked gown, as well as a little natural audacity, might have made quite another woman of her. And it was noticeable that she was pregnant again.

Lord! thought Amber. How unprofitable it is to be a man’s wife!

Bruce and Amber went to ride in her coach and with them went a little Negro boy who could have been no more than five or six and who had much ado to keep his master’s cloak, which he carried, from getting into the mud. He was perfectly black and shiny, so that the whites of his eyes gleamed in his face, and as Amber smiled at him he gave her a broad ingratiating grin.

“This is Tansy,” Bruce explained. “I got him a year ago in Jamaica.”

Some of the nobility owned black servants, but Amber had never seen one of them at close range before and she examined him as though he were some small inanimate object or a new dog, looking at the pale-coloured palms of his hands and admiring the dazzling whiteness of his teeth. He wore a splendid suit of sapphire-blue satin and his head was wound in a silver-cloth turban, stuck through with a large ruby pin. But his shoes were shoddy and much too large for him and he was then easing the heel of one down off his foot with the toe of the other, while his big solemn eyes stared up at her.

“Oh, Bruce, what a pretty little moppet he is!” cried Amber. “Can he talk?” And without waiting for an answer she immediately asked him, “Why do they call you Tansy?”

“ ’Cause my mother ate a tansy puddin’ before I was born.” He had a soft liquid voice which it was difficult for her to understand. He stood up in the coach, leaning with one elbow on the seat beside Bruce, and he did not once glance out the window at the busy streets through which they were passing.

“What does he do? What’s he for?”

“Oh, he’s very useful. He plays the merry-wang—that’s a kind of guitar the Negroes have—and makes coffee. And of course he sings and dances. I thought perhaps you’d like to have him.”

“Oh, Bruce, is he for me! You brought him across the ocean for me! Oh, thank you! Tansy—how would you like to stay here in London with me?”

He looked from Amber to Bruce, then shook his head. “No, sir, mam. I’s goin’ back to see Mis’ Leah.”

Amber looked questioningly at Bruce, and caught a quick passing smile on his face. “Who’s Miss Leah?”

“She’s my housekeeper.”

Instant suspicion showed in her eyes. “Is she a blackamoor too?”

“She’s a quadroon.”

“What the devil’s that?”

“It’s one who has a quarter Negro blood and the rest white.”

Amber gave a mock shudder. “They must be a scurvy lot!”

“Not at all. Some of them are very beautiful.”

“And do they call ’em all ‘miss’?” she demanded sarcastically. “Or only yours!”

He smiled. “That’s the way Tansy pronounces ‘Mrs.’ ”

She gave him a sidewise glance of jealousv and mistrust, and though she wanted to ask him point-blank if the woman had been his mistress he was still a little strange to her and she did not quite dare. I’ll ask Tansy, she decided. I can find out from him some way.

At that moment they stopped before her lodging-house. Bruce helped her out and whatever she was about to say to him was cut short by the appearance of Almsbury’s coach, which had followed close behind them. She and the countess walked upstairs together, chatting about the weather and the play and the audience, and Amber found herself liking her very well, for she seemed kind and generous and apparently had none of the envy or malice which Amber habitually expected in a woman.

The meal was everything that Amber had hoped it would be.

There was a hot thick pea soup, steamingly fragrant, with leeks and chopped bacon and small crusty meat-balls that floated on the surface. There was roast duck stuffed with oysters and onions and walnuts; fried mushrooms; sweet biscuits; and an orange pudding baked in a dish lined with a crisp flaky puff-paste and decorated with candied orange-blossoms. And she had ordered a potful of black coffee because she knew that Bruce liked it—it was becoming a fashionable, though still an expensive, drink. The men were enthusiastic and Amber was as pleased as though she had cooked it all herself.

When supper was done they went into the parlour to talk; Amber and Lady Almsbury sat on the couch before the fire while the men took chairs, one on either side of them. For a few minutes Amber and her Ladyship discussed the new fashions —gowns were now being made with trains three feet long—and Bruce and the Earl talked of the Dutch war, which both were sure would come soon. But Amber presently grew tired of that. She had not invited Bruce there to talk to Almsbury.

“You say you’re not here to stay, my lord,” she said now, turning to him. “What do you intend doing?”

Bruce, who sat with both elbows resting on his wide-spread legs, holding his brandy glass in his two hands, glanced across at Almsbury before he answered her.

“I’m going back to Jamaica.”

“Why there, for Heaven’s sake? I’ve heard it’s a nasty place.”

“Nasty or not, it’s a very good place for my purpose.”

“And what’s your purpose, pray?” She was thinking of Mrs. Leah.

“To get some more money.”

“Some more? Aren’t you rich enough by now?”

“Is anyone ever rich enough any time?” Almsbury wanted to know.

Amber ignored him. “Well, now, sure you don’t intend to be a pirate all the rest of your life!” She knew well enough what was the difference between a pirate and a privateer, but liked to make his profession sound as disreputable as she could.

Bruce smiled. “No. Another year or two, perhaps, depending on what luck I have—and then I’m through.”

Her face brightened. “Then you’ll come back here to stay?”

He drew a deep breath, drained his glass, and as he answered her he started to get up. “Then I think I’ll go to America and plant tobacco.”

Amber stared at him, nonplussed. “Go to America!” she cried, and then added, “To plant tobacco! Why, you must be out of your head!” Suddenly she sprang up and ran after him where he had gone to pour himself another glass of brandy. “Bruce! You’re not serious!”

He looked down at her. “Why not? I don’t intend to stay here and play at cross-or-pile with the Court politicians for the next thirty years.”

“But why America! It’s so far away! Why not plant your tobacco here—in England?”

“For one thing, there’s a law against planting tobacco in England. And even if there were not it would still be impractical. The soil isn’t suitable and tobacco culture requires a great deal of ground—it exhausts the land quickly and you’ve got to have room to spread out.”

“But what will you get by it? You won’t need money over there—money’s no good if you’re not where you can spend it!”

He did not answer her, for just then the door opened and Rex Morgan came in; and paused in surprise to find her staring up so intensely at a man he had never seen before. Amber was disappointed and a little troubled, wondering what her expression had been at the moment he had opened the door, but immediately she ran to take his hand, welcoming him gaily.

“Come in, darling! I wasn’t expecting you and we’ve eaten everything but the nut-shells! Here—let me present my guests—”

Rex had already met Almsbury but neither the Countess nor Bruce, and once the introductions were acknowledged Amber made a quick suggestion that they play cards. She did not want the men to begin talking. They sat down to a five-handed game of lanterloo and as Almsbury began to shuffle the cards Amber saw Rex and Lord Carlton exchange glances across the table that sent a chill down her spine.

Oh, Lord! she thought. If he guesses!

She played badly, unable to keep her mind on her cards, and the room seemed too hot and close. But Bruce paid her no particular attention and was as casual in his manner as though he were merely the friend who had come along because he happened to be staying at Almsbury’s house. And in her turn Amber tried desperately to convince Rex of her undivided interest in him. She flirted with him as flagrantly as though they had just met, asked his opinion on several matters of no importance, called Nan to fill his wine-glass the moment it was empty, and scarcely looked at Bruce. For he had given her no reason as yet to think she would not continue to need Rex Morgan.

But she was uncomfortably nervous and the back muscles of her neck were beginning to ache when Almsbury, giving his wife’s pregnancy as an excuse, suggested that it was time to go home. She threw him a look of grateful relief.

Nan brought out the men’s cloaks and plumed hats and Amber walked into the bedroom with Lady Almsbury, telling her how pleased she was to have made her acquaintance. She held her cloak for her and took her fan while Emily adjusted her hood, then gave back her own instead. Emily did not notice the change and they went back into the parlour. The three men were having a last drink and all of them seemed to be on perfectly friendly terms; when they left Rex invited them to come again.

Nan went out with a candle to light them to the bottom of the stairs and Amber waited a minute or two. “Oh!” she cried then. “I’ve got her Ladyship’s fan!” And before Rex, who had gone into the dining-room to pick up a cold biscuit, could offer to take it down for her she had run out of the room. She reached them when they had just gotten to the bottom of the stairs, for Emily had to move with care, and all of them laughed politely as they made the exchange.

But as she turned to go back up again she gave a swift glance around, and then whispered to Bruce, “I’ll come to Almsbury House tomorrow morning at eight,” and before he could reply or object she had picked up her skirts and was running up the stairs once more.

Bruce was busy most of the time.

The days he spent down at the wharves overseeing the cleaning and repairing and supplying of his ships, signing new men, and talking to the merchants from whom he ordered provisions, for many of them had a monetary share in his ships. Privateering was the greatest speculative business of the nation, and not only the King and courtiers but most of the great merchants and many of the lesser ones were engaged in it, usually through money invested in a venture such as his. At night he went to Whitehall, saw the plays there, gambled in the Groom Porter’s Lodge, attended the never-ending succession of balls and supper-parties.

Consequently Amber saw him for only an hour or two in the morning when she visited his apartments at Almsbury House, and she did not go every day because, when he could, Rex waited until she was ready to start for the Theatre before he left. But as far as she knew he had no slightest suspicion that she had seen Lord Carlton either before or since that one night. And she intended to make sure that he never would suspect it.

But contending against her determination to be cautious and clever, to keep Rex Morgan’s confidence and his love, was the violent infatuation which made her reckless in spite of herself. She had begged Bruce again to take her with him when he went and again he had refused, nor would any amount of tears and imploring change his mind. She was accustomed to Rex, who could usually be coaxed, and his obdurate refusal filled her with frantic, impotent fury.

“I’ll stow away on your ship then!” she told him one day, half-joking, but thinking nevertheless that if she did there would be nothing he could do about it. She would be there and he couldn’t very well throw her overboard.

“And I’ll send you back again when I find you, no matter how far out we are.” His eyes had a warning glitter as he looked at her. “Privateering’s no game of handy-dandy.”

Amber worried because she knew that soon he would be gone and she would not see him at all—perhaps for years—but she worried even more because now, while he was here, the days were getting away from them one by one and they were able to be together only for a snatched hour or two at a time. She longed to spend whole days and nights with him, uninterrupted by either his obligations or hers. And at last she discovered the solution—a plan so simple and obvious it seemed incredible she had not thought of it weeks ago. They would go away together into the country.

“And what about Captain Morgan?” Bruce wanted to know. “Is he going along too?”

Amber laughed. “Of course he isn’t! Don’t you trouble yourself about Rex. I’ll take care of him, I warrant you. I know just what I’m going to tell him—and he’ll never suspect a thing. Oh, please, Bruce! You will go, won’t you?”

“My dear—I’d like to, of course. But I think you’d be taking a very great risk for a very small reward. Suppose that he—”

But she interrupted him swiftly. “Oh, Bruce, he won’t! I know Rex better than you do—he’ll believe anything I tell ’im!”

He gave her a slow smile. “Darling, men aren’t always as gullible as women think they are.”

He finally agreed, though, to go away with her for five or six days, after he had settled his business. A Spanish merchant-fleet was known to be returning from Peru, heavily laden with gold and silver, and he hoped to intercept it sometime at the end of May, which meant that he must leave London in the middle of the month.

And, as when he had agreed to bring her to London, Amber thought that she had persuaded him. She still did not realize that selfishness and cynicism made him indifferent to what might happen to her. He had warned her, but he did not believe that he either could or should protect her from the risks of living and of her own headstrong temper.

They took the main road down through Surrey toward the sea-coast. As in London it was raining—and had been almost every day for a month and a half—so that they travelled slowly and had to make frequent stops to haul the coach out of mud-bogs, for the roads were now nothing more. But the countryside was beautiful. This was the rich agricultural heart of England and prosperous farms lay spread over the rolling hills; many of them were enclosed by hedges, though that practice was as yet an uncommon one. The cottages and manor-houses were made of cherry-coloured brick and silver oak and the luxuriant gardens were massed with purple-and-white violets, tulips, crimson ramblers.

Amber and Bruce sat side by side, hands lightly clasped, looking out the glass windows and talking softly. As always his presence gave her a sense of finality, a sureness that this was all she wanted from life and that it would last as it was forever.

“It makes me think of home,” she said, gesturing to take in the village through which they were passing. “Marygreen, I mean.”

“ ‘Home’? Does that mean you’d like to go back?”

“Go back—to Marygreen? I should say not! It gives me the vapours to so much as think of it!”

The first night they stopped at a little inn, and since the rain continued they decided to stay there. It was warm and comfortable and friendly and the food was good. The host was a veteran of the Civil Wars, a bluff old fellow who cornered Bruce every time he saw him and went into lengthy reminiscences of Prince Rupert and Marston Moor. They were the only guests there.

But the week which she had expected would pass so slowly seemed to pick up speed as it went and the precious minutes and hours rushed along, slipping out of her hands as she tried to catch at them and drag them back. So soon now it would be over—he would be gone—

“Oh, why does the time go by so fast, just when you want it to go slow!” she cried. “Someday I hope the clock will stand still and never move!”

“Haven’t you learned yet to be careful of what you wish for?”

They spent the days idly, lay long in the mornings, and went to bed early at night. While the rain poured down outside they sat before the fire and played card games, costly-colours, putt, wit-and-reason; invariably he won and, though she thought that she had become very clever, he always seemed to know when she was cheating. If the evenings were nice, as two or three of them were, they bowled on the green beside the inn.

They had brought the baby with them—as well as Nan and Tansy—and Bruce told her that he had arranged with Almsbury to take him from Mrs. Chiverton and put him into the nursery with the Earl’s two sons. Amber was delighted to see how intensely fond he was of the child she had borne him. It encouraged her to think that sooner or later he would give up his roving life, and marry her—or take her to America with him.

Until the last day she kept her resolution not to argue with him, and then she could not resist making one more effort to convert him. “I don’t see why you want to live in America, Bruce,” she said, pouting a little before he had even had time to answer. “What can you like about that country—full of nothing but wild Indians and blackamoors! Why, you said yourself there isn’t a town the size of London in the whole of it. Lord, what can you find to do? Why don’t you come back to England and live when you’re done privateering?”

The rain had stopped and the sun come out hot. They had spread a blanket beneath a beech-tree, heavily laden with long drooping clusters of purple blossoms, and Amber sat cross-legged on it while Bruce lay stretched out on his stomach. As she talked she kept an eye on the baby who had wandered some yards away to watch a duck and several little tawny ducklings swimming on a shallow pond; from his hand trailed a neglected wooden doll tied to a cord. She had just cautioned him not to go too close, but he was absorbed in the ducks and paid her scant attention.

Bruce, with a stalk of green grass between his teeth and his eyes narrowed against the sun, looked up at her and grinned.

“Because, my darling, the life I want for myself and my children doesn’t exist in England any more.”

“Your children! How many bastards have you, pray? Or are you married?” she asked suddenly.

“No, of course not.” He gave a quick gesture as she started to open her mouth. “And let’s not talk about that again.”

“Oh, I wasn’t going to! You have such a damned high opinion of yourself! I don’t have to go begging for a husband, let me tell you!”

“No,” he agreed. “I don’t suppose you do. I’m only surprised that you aren’t married already.”

“If I’m not it’s because I’ve been a silly fool and thought that you’d—Oh, I’m not going to say it! But why don’t you like England? Lord, you could live at Court and have as fine a station as any man in Europe!”

“Perhaps. But the price is too high for my purse.”

“But you’ll be rich as anything—”

“It isn’t money I mean. You don’t know anything about the Court, Amber. You’ve only seen it from the outside. You’ve seen the handsome clothes and the jewels and the fine manners. That isn’t Whitehall. Whitehall’s like a rotten egg. It looks good enough until you break it open—and then it stinks to the heavens—”

She did not believe that and was about to tell him so, when there was a sudden splash and a loud howl from the baby as he tumbled into the pond. Bruce was on his feet at a bound and running, with Amber close behind, to pick his son out of the water. And when the little boy found himself unhurt and safe in his father’s arms all three burst into laughter. Bruce set him up on one shoulder and they started for the inn to get him out of his wet clothes.

It was late the next night when she left Bruce at Almsbury House. A nurse he had already hired came out to get the baby and disappeared with him. But for a moment Bruce stood in the rain beside the opened door of the coach, while Amber struggled with her tears. This time she was determined that he should go away with a pleasant memory of her, but her throat ached painfully and she thought that she would never be able to bear the parting. For hours she had kept herself talking and thinking of other things, but now she could pretend no longer. This was goodbye.

“I’ll see you when you come back, Bruce—” she whispered, for she could not trust her voice.

He stood looking at her, but for a moment did not answer. Then he said, “I’ve put a thousand pound with Shadrac Newbold in your name—you can have it on twenty days’ notice. If you have any trouble with Morgan because of this, that will help take care of you.” He leaned forward quickly, kissed her, and turned to walk away. She watched him go, fading from sight in the wet darkness, and then suddenly she could control herself no longer and she began to cry.

She was still crying when she reached the Blue Balcony. She felt as though she had been away for a great while, it was almost strange to her, and she climbed the stairs slowly. The door, as she tried it, was already unlocked and she went in. Rex was there.

His eyes were bloodshot and he looked as though he had not shaved for days, nor perhaps slept either, for his face was haggard and his clothes rumpled. Surprised to find him there and in that condition she stood perfectly still for a moment, sniffling unconsciously though the tears had stopped at sight of him, and one hand went up to wipe her streaked face.

“Well,” he said quietly at last. “So your Aunt Sarah died. Nothing else, I suppose, could make you look like that.”

Amber was wary, for she could not be sure if that was sarcasm in his voice. But she did not think—if he knew where she had been—that he would be so still and calm. “Yes,” she said. “Poor Aunt Sarah. It was a mighty bad shock to me—she was the only mother I ever—”

“Don’t trouble yourself to lie to me. I know where you’ve been and who you’ve been with.” He spoke between his teeth, biting off each word with a savage snap, and though his voice did not rise she saw all at once that he was insanely, murderously angry. She opened her mouth to make some denial but he cut her off. “What kind of a fool do you take me for? Don’t you suppose it ever occurred to me to wonder why that brat of yours had the same first name he has? But you’d made me so many promises—Oh, you’d never be unfaithful to the man who loved you, not you! I was determined to believe in you and trust you no matter what happened. And then both of you went out of town at the same time—You ungrateful jilting little slut—I’ve been here four days and nights, waiting for you to come back—Do you have any idea what I’ve been through since you went? Of course you don’t! You’ve never thought about anyone but yourself in all your life—You’ve never cared who you hurt if you got what you wanted—You selfish, mercenary, whoring little bitch, I should kill you—I’d like to kill you—I’d like to watch the breath go out of you—”

His voice went on in a low monotonous tone that did not sound like him and his face was twisted with rage and sickness and jealousy into something she could scarcely recognize. This was a man she had never known existed beneath the quiet gentle Rex Morgan she had taken so casually for granted; this was some malevolent, savage stranger.

Amber stared at him in terror. She took a step or two backward, intending to turn and run if he made the slightest move. Slowly he started toward her. And like a frightened animal she whirled, but he was quicker; before she knew what was happening he had grabbed her arm and jerked her back again. She screamed, but he clapped one hand over her mouth and gave her head a vicious shake.

“Shut up, you lousy little coward! I’m not going to hurt you!” He was straining every nerve and muscle, exhausted by jealousy and sleeplessness, to hold his fury in leash. Amber’s eyes looked up at him, big and glittering with fear, but the grasp he had on her was so tight she could not have moved if she had tried. “I want you to live—I want you to live long enough to know how I’ve felt—I want you to live and wish you were dead because he is—” Suddenly he let her go.

Relieved, Amber shook herself a little. She had scarcely realized what he was saying but now, as he started out, she looked up suddenly. “Where are you going?” All at once she understood what he had meant. “Rex! You’re not going to fight him!”

“I’m going to fight him, and kill him.”

Confident that her own life was no longer in danger, Amber gave him a scowl of contemptuous disgust. “You’re crazy, Rex Morgan, if you do! He’s a better swordsman than you are—”

He slammed his hat onto his head, picked up his cloak and went swiftly out of the room. At the door he knocked into Nan and Tansy and Jeremiah just coming in with their arms full of boxes, but he brushed on by without a word of apology.

Nan caught her balance and her blue eyes widened as she turned to watch him running down the stairs. “Where’s he going in such a rage, mam?” She looked back anxiously at Amber. “He’s not going to fight Lord Carlton!”

“He’s a fool if he does!” muttered Amber, and turned away.

But Nan whirled about, and started down the stairs after him, crying, “Captain Morgan! Captain Morgan! Come back here!”

CHAPTER TWENTY–ONE

AN HOUR LATER Bruce came to her rooms.

He walked in swiftly when Nan opened the door, and there was a dark scowl on his face that did not clear when Amber came running out of the bedroom in her dressing-gown. Her eager expectant smile disappeared as she saw his angry expression.

“Why, Bruce! What is it? What’s happened?”

He crossed to her and gave her a folded sheet of paper on which the seal had been broken. “Look at this! It was just brought to me at Almsbury House!”

She took it and began to read:

“Sir: You have done me an injury which one gentleman may not accept from another. I will see you tomorrow morning at five in Marrowbone Fields, where Tyburn Brook meets the road. Have your sword in your hand. Or I shall be at your service at the earliest time you shall appoint.

“Your servant, sir,

“CAPTAIN REX MORGAN.”

The handwriting was scratchy and the pen had splattered several times, streaking the page with black ink.

In his rage Rex had ignored half the formal appointments for a duel, for it was customary to let the challenged name the time and the place and the weapon. Nor had he said anything of seconds, either one or two of which were usually selected by each man, according to the French style of fighting imported into England and already responsible for many unnecessary deaths.

Amber looked up at him, giving back the note. “Well?”

“Well! Is that all you have to say! for the love of God, Amber, what’s the matter with you! You know that he’ll lose his rank and have to go into exile—He might never come back again! If you don’t care what happens to him you should at least have the sense to consider your own future! Get hold of him tonight and tell him there’s no reason for this ridiculous meeting!”

Amber was astonished, and then offended, for he obviously did not consider her sufficient cause for a duel. Her pride hurt, she wanted to hurt him, and now a mocking smile curled the corners of her mouth.

“You surprise me, Lord Carlton,” she said softly.

Bruce looked at her, his eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”

She gave a little shrug. “I wouldn’t expect to find you troubled about a meeting with swords. I should think a privateer could defend himself as well as any other man.”

Nan gasped, one hand going to her mouth as though to stop the words her mistress had just spoken. But Bruce’s face had a sort of angry contempt on it.

“I’m not afraid to meet him and you damned well know it! But I don’t care to fight a man without a better reason than this!”

“If you mean me, Lord Carlton, Rex thinks I’m reason enough!”

“Tell him you’ve already had a son by me and see what he thinks about it then!”

“He knows it—and he still wants to fight you! Anyway, I don’t know where he’s gone! If you don’t want to fight, you’ll have to make your own excuses!”

She turned away from him, but as she did so she caught a glimpse of his face staring at her with an expression that was almost frightening, and without another word he wheeled and left the room, his long riding-cape swirling about him.

“Oh, mam!” cried Nan despairingly. “Now what ’ve you done! ”

“I don’t care! He needn’t expect me to beg him off!”

“But it wasn’t because he’s afraid, mam! You know that!”

Irritably Amber gave a kick at a low stool and went back into the bedroom, slamming the door hard to ease her feelings. For a few minutes she paced back and forth, angry with Bruce and Rex and herself and all the world. A pox confound all men! she told herself furiously, and flung off her dressing-gown to get into bed, even though she knew she would not be able to sleep.

When Nan came in an hour or so later Amber was still awake and tossing restlessly, but the anger was beginning to wear off and worry was taking its place. The prospect of the duel did not trouble her, for in spite of the fact that duels were forbidden by law they took place every day and hot-tempered young men fought over the flimsiest pretexts: a quick thoughtless word, bad luck at the gaming-table, the giving or taking of the wall as they passed on the streets, a difference of opinion over religion or wine or a woman. Every gentleman learned to handle his sword almost as soon as he learned to walk, and he knew that the art was acquired to be used.

She was not afraid of having them fight. She was, in fact, flattered and almost pleased—or would have been had Bruce been less frankly insulting—for a duel was not often fatal and was usually stopped at the first drawing of blood. But she was afraid now of what would happen to her when it was over.

Suppose Rex would not forgive her this time? Suppose he did have to leave the country and never came back again? Then what would become of her? She had no illusions left about a woman’s place in Restoration London—she knew that she had been lucky to find a man like Rex Morgan who had loved her. For love was not in fashion any more, and without it a man had no obligations, a woman no rights. She realized all at once that she had been a fool to take such a chance—Of course he was sure to know—Her lame story about Aunt Sarah falling sick! And yet, how else could she have done it? She was forced now to admit to herself that there was only one way she could have avoided this—she should never have left London with Bruce. She had wanted too much, she had been too greedy —and this was what she got for it.

What was the matter with me? she asked herself furiously. I had Rex—and I had Bruce, too—now what have I got! But swiftly her anger reverted to Bruce. Damn him! He’s never been anything but trouble to me!

As she heard Nan tiptoeing about in the dark, she spoke to her.

“Light a candle if you want, Nan. I can’t sleep.”

Nan went back to the other room, returned with a wax candle, and lighted three or four others in wall-sconces while Amber sat with one arm across her knees and her hand clenched in her hair.

“Lord, Nan! What’ll I do?’

Nan, who was beginning to undress, heaved a sigh. “To tell you truly, mam, I don’t know. It’s the devil’s own mess we’re in.”

Both of them looked worried and disconsolate. At last Nan blew out the candles and got into bed and they lay side by side, talking; neither one of them was able to sleep for a long while. Finally Nan fell asleep but Amber continued to toss and turn from one side to the other and she heard the bell-man go by, calling out each hour as it passed: one, two, three.

I’m not going to just lie here, she thought, and let my life be ruined! And when she heard, “God give you good morrow, my masters! Past three o’clock and a fair morning!” she flung back the covers and got out of bed, turning to shake Nan.

“Nan! Wake up! Get up! I’m going to Marrowbone Fields!”

“Good Lord, mam! I thought the house was afire—”

Amber dressed quickly but carefully, as though she was aware that this would be a dramatic moment in her life and wanted to look ready for it. She painted her face and stuck on a couple of patches, combed out her hair and let it fall in deep loose waves down over her shoulders. She wore a scarlet velvet suit, the coat of which was cut exactly like a man’s. It fitted her snugly and the neck-line opened in a low V, and there were elaborate scrolls of gold braid decorating the deep cuffs and borders of the coat and skirt. The brim of her low-crowned Cavalier’s riding-hat billowed with scarlet ostrich plumes and she had a pair of red-velvet boots lined with miniver. She had had a tailor make this suit and expected to set a new fashion, but she had not worn it before.

While Jeremiah went to hire four riding-horses Amber drank some hot coffee which Tansy had just made and, well laced with brandy, it tasted good to her for once. It was after four when Jeremiah returned and they set out for Marrowbone Fields, Amber and Nan, with Tempest and Jeremiah. It was just beginning to grow light but a heavy mist was falling which blurred the outlines of houses and trees and made it impossible to see more than a few feet ahead; Amber was annoyed, for the dampness would probably spoil her gown.

She soon forgot her appearance, however, and the closer they came the more her anxiety mounted.

It took them no longer than twenty minutes to reach the place in the road where Tyburn Brook ran under a little stone bridge—and looking off toward the east they could dimly see a party of men and several horses, half obscured by a spacious group of Lombardy poplars. Amber immediately turned her horse and started toward them. Presently she could distinguish Bruce and Rex, Almsbury, Colonel Dillon whom she knew slightly, and two others who were apparently the surgeons. But only Bruce and Rex had removed their outer coats, to show that no armour had been worn.

At the sound of horses’ hoofs pounding across the field they all turned; it was not uncommon for a party to be sent to stop such meetings. But as Amber pulled on her reins and they saw who it was Bruce looked quickly away—though not before she had seen the angry annoyance on his face. Rex, however, stood and stared at her.

“Oh, Rex, darling!” she cried, stopping only a few feet from him and holding out her hand. “Thank God I got here in time! You mustn’t fight this duel—you mustn’t, Rex! Please, darling, for my sake!” Her eyes turned swiftly to the corners and she saw Bruce look across at her; his expression was sombre and a cynical half-smile touched one side of his mouth. Sick with fury she wanted to hurt him, any way she could. “There’s no reason for you to fight, Rex! Why, I don’t care any more for him than the man in the moon!” There! she thought savagely, and flung him a vindictive glance; he met it with cold contempt, impervious as stone.

But as her eyes shifted across to Bruce and back again she missed altogether the look on Rex’s face, and when she looked down at him it had gone. The wild unreasoning rage of despair had disappeared. Now he was quiet, self-possessed, and seemed cool. In her preoccupation with her own worries Amber did not realize that his seeming calm was a deadly determination and that his own tension quivered like the thin blade in his hand. Misunderstanding, she still thought that she could make him do what she wanted.

“You shouldn’t have come out here, Amber,” he said. “A duelling-ground is no place for a woman. Go on back.” He turned away and walked toward the rest of the group.

“Rex!” she cried, really alarmed now, and as Jeremiah came to help her dismount she got down as quickly as she could and ran after him, grabbing him by the arm. “Rex! I don’t want you to fight! I don’t want you to, d’you hear me?”

He neither looked at her nor answered, but jerked his arm free and went on. Amber would not have stopped even then, but suddenly Almsbury caught hold of her. “Come back here. You’ll be in the way up there.”

“But I can’t let them fight! I won’t—”

“Amber, for the love of Christ!” he growled at her. “Now stay here! Don’t move!”

Helplessly she stood where he had left her. Bruce and Rex both had unsheathed their swords, and with Almsbury and the officer they were talking in low tones. At last, giving a shrug of his shoulders, Almsbury moved back; Dillon took out a white handkerchief and indicated where each man was to stand. The Earl looked at her with a scowl.

“What is it?” she asked him anxiously. “What’s the matter?”

“Carlton wants to consider it settled when blood has been drawn, but your noble champion won’t be satisfied until one of them is dead.”

“Dead! Why, he’s out of his mind! He can’t! I won’t let him!”

She broke away from Almsbury and started forward at a run. “Rex!”

Almsbury caught her arm before she had gone three steps and brought her up with a jerk. “Stop it, you little fool! A duel’s no game between children! Keep your mouth shut or go back home! You’ve got no business here in the first place!”

Surprised, she obeyed him, and stopped perfectly still. The two men now stood facing each other, poised, sword-tips touching, and Colonel Dillon held the handkerchief over his head.

“All’s ready!” called Bruce and Rex in the same voice.

“All’s ready!” Dillon brought the handkerchief down with a sweep.

Both of them were quick, fierce, and graceful, expert swordsmen. But the English style of fencing was to cut rather than to thrust, as the French did, and as they were almost of a height neither had the advantage in that respect. Rex, however, was not fencing but fighting with reckless fury, and obviously intended to kill or be killed, while Bruce was on the defensive— protecting himself but making no effort to wound his antagonist.

Amber stood watching them, her eyes darting from one to the other; her throat was dry and she twisted her skirt in her fingers. But her fears were all for Bruce—she might not have even known the man he was fighting. And when Rex’s sword pierced his right upper-arm, just below the shoulder, and drew a quick streak of blood she gave a scream and started forward. Almsbury threw one arm about her waist and dragged her back.

Bruce had lowered his sword and Rex, refusing to seize an unfair advantage, dropped his own to his side. The blood from the small gash was streaming down Bruce’s right arm, staining his shirt and making red rivers along the exposed brown skin, and the sight of it filled Amber with terror and remorse.

“Oh, Bruce!” she wailed. “You’re hurt!”

Rex’s jaw set tensely, but Bruce ignored her.

“There,” he said to Rex. “That should satisfy you.”

More furious than ever since Amber’s impulsive cry, Rex answered him through clenched teeth. “Nothing could satisfy me but to see you dead.”

Amber gave a terrified scream that momentarily drew all eyes to her but Almsbury clapped his hand to her mouth and gave her a rough shake.

“If you don’t shut up you’ll distract him and he will get killed!”

Already the swords had begun to ring and clash again; now there was no doubt that Bruce was fighting in earnest, no longer merely defending himself. For several minutes the men moved rapidly back and forth, slashing and hacking, without either one being able to touch the other.

And then all at once the swords met, engaged, and locked. For a long tense moment they strained to get free, both men pouring sweat, their faces contorted with the intensity of effort. Then, so swiftly that it was not possible to see it happen, Bruce forced his sword free and thrust it into Rex’s chest until the tip showed through his shirt in back; and then he withdrew it, red with blood.

For an instant Rex stood as though stunned, and then he fell slowly, crumpling. The surgeons ran toward him and Amber rushed forward, dropping to her knees beside him where he lay on the grass. Her throat muscles were so stiff with horror that for a moment she could not even say his name, but she took his head into her arms, cradling it against her breast, and then suddenly a mournful frightened sob broke from her and her tears splashed onto his face.

“Oh, Rex! Rex!”. she moaned. “Speak to me, darling! Speak to me—please!” Her mouth touched his forehead, his temples and eyelids, with frantic passionate kisses.

Behind her, Bruce took Almsbury’s handkerchief and wiped the blood from his sword, jammed it back into its case and buckled the belt around his hips once more. By tradition the sword of the defeated man was forfeit, but he made no move to take it and Rex’s fingers were still loosely clasped on the hilt. Bruce’s surgeon was tearing open his shirt and binding the wound with a strip of white cloth while Bruce stood, hands on his hips and feet spread, looking down at Rex. His face was dark and grim, bitter but not triumphant.

Rex was moving restlessly, as if to escape the pain, and though he coughed and turned his head to spit out blood there was very little blood coming from the wound in his chest. Amber was sobbing hysterically, covering his face with kisses and stroking his head with her hands.

“Rex, darling! Look at me! Speak to me!”

He opened his eyes at last, very slowly, and as he saw her he tried to smile. “I’m ashamed, Amber,” he said softly, “that you saw me—beaten.”

“Oh, Rex! I don’t care about that! You know I don’t! All I care about is you—Are you in pain? Does it hurt you?”

A quick spasm crossed his face and the sweat started suddenly, but his features relaxed again as he looked up at her. “No—Amber. It doesn’t hurt. I’ll be—” But at that moment he coughed again and turned his head to spit out a great glob of clotted blood. His mouth was splattered with it; his eyes shut and one hand pressed hard against his chest in an effort to stop the gurgling cough.

Bruce slid his arms into the doublet Almsbury held for him, gave Rex a last look and then tossing his cloak over his arm started off, with the Earl and his surgeon, toward where a young page held their horses.

Amber looked around suddenly and saw him walking away. She glanced swiftly at Rex. He lay now quiet and with his eyes closed; she hesitated only an instant and then, very gently, she laid his head onto the grass. Hurriedly she got to her feet and ran after Bruce, calling his name in a soft voice so that Rex would not hear.

“Bruce!”

He swung around and looked at her, incredulity on his face and violent anger. When he spoke his teeth were clenched and the muscles at one side of his mouth twitched with nervous rage. “There’s a man dying over there—Go back to him!”

Amber stared at him for a moment in stunned helplessness, unable to believe the contempt and loathing she saw on his face. As though from a distance she heard Rex’s voice, calling her name. Blind fury raged in her and before she knew what she was doing she had drawn back her hand and slapped him squarely across the mouth with all the force in her body. She saw his eyes glitter as the blow struck but at the same moment she whirled, picking up her skirts, and was running back to kneel beside Rex. His eyes were opened now but as she bent over him she saw that they stared without seeing, his face was expressionless—he was dead. And in his hand, held closely as though he had been trying to lift it high enough to see, was the miniature of herself which she had given him the year before.