Forever Amber

CHAPTER TWENTY–TWO

GROPING LANE WAS a narrow dirty disreputable little alley on Tower Hill. The houses were crazily built and old, and the overhanging stories leaned across the street, almost touching at the top and shutting light and air from the festering piles of refuse that lay against each wall. The great gilded coach tried to turn into the lane but, finding it too narrow, was forced to stop at the entrance. A woman, completely covered by a black hooded cloak and with a vizard over her face, got out and with two footmen on either side of her hurried several yards farther up the alley and disappeared into one of the houses. The footmen remained below, waiting.

Running swiftly up two flights of stairs she paused and knocked on the door just at the top. For a moment there was no reply and she knocked again, hammering impatiently, glancing around as though some unseen pair of eyes might be watching her there in the pitch-dark stairwell. Still the door did not open, but a man’s voice spoke from behind it, softly:

“Who is it?”

“Let me in! It’s Lady Castlemaine, you logger-head!”

As though she had given the magic formula the door swung wide and he bowed from the waist, sweeping out one hand with a gesture of flourishing hospitality as Barbara sailed in.

The room was small and bare and dark, furnished with nothing but some worn, cane-bottomed stools and chairs and a large table littered with papers and piled with books; more books and a globe of the world stood beside it on the floor. Outside the night was frosty, and the meagre sea-coal fire which burnt in the fireplace warmed only a small area around it. An ugly mongrel dog came to reassure himself by a curious sniff at Barbara’s velvet-booted feet, and then returned to gnaw at a bone.

The man who admitted her looked little better than his dog. He was so thin that his chamois breeches and soiled shirt hung upon him as though on a rack. But his pale blue eyes were quick and shrewd and his face for all its gauntness had a look of enthusiasm and intelligence, combined with a certain slyness that was revealed in the shifting of his eyes and the unctuous quality of his smile.

He was Dr. Heydon—the degree he had bestowed upon himself—astrologer and general quack, and Barbara had been there once before to find out whom the King would marry.

“I apologize, your Ladyship,” said Heydon now, “for not opening the door immediately. But to be honest with you I am so hounded by my creditors that I dare not open to anyone unless I first make certain of his identity. The truth of it is, your Ladyship,” he added, heaving a sigh and flinging out his arms in a gesture of despair, “I scarcely dare leave my lodgings these days for fear I shall be seized upon by a bailiff and carried off to Newgate! Which God forbid!”

But if he hoped to interest Barbara in his problems he was very much mistaken. In the first place she knew well enough that there was no ribbon-seller or perfumer or dressmaker in London with a trade at Court who did not hope to enrich himself at the expense of the nobility. And in the second she had come there to tell him her troubles, not to listen to his.

“I want you to help me, Dr. Heydon. There’s something I must know. It means everything to me!”

Heydon rubbed his dry hands together and picked up a pair of thick-lensed spectacles which he perched midway down his nose. “Of course, my lady! Pray be seated.” He held a chair for her and then took one himself just across the table, picking up a pen made of a long goose quill and beginning to caress his chin with the tip of it. “Now, madame, what is it that troubles you?” His tone was sympathetic, inviting confidence, implying a willingness and ability to solve any problem.

Barbara had removed her mask and now she tossed back the hood and dropped the cloak down from her shoulders. As she did so the diamonds at her throat and in her ears and hair caught the light and struck off brilliant sparks; Dr. Heydon’s eyes widened and began to glow, focusing upon them.

But Barbara did not notice. She frowned, stripping off her gloves, and for several moments she remained silent and thoughtful. If only there was some way she could get his advice without telling him! She felt like a young bride going to consult a physician, except that her scruples were those not of modesty but of angry and humiliated pride.

How can I tell him that the King’s grown tired of me! she thought. Besides, it’s not true! I know it isn’t! No matter what anyone says! It’s just that he’s so pleased at the prospect of having a legitimate child—for once! I know he still loves me. He must! He’s just as cold to Frances Stewart as he is to me—! Oh, it’s all because of that damned woman—that damned Portuguese!

She raised her eyes and looked at him. “You’ve heard, perhaps,” she said at last, “that her Majesty finally proves with child?” She accentuated the word “finally,” giving it an inflection which suggested that the delay was due to Catherine’s own malicious procrastination.

“Ah, madame! Of course! Haven’t we all heard the happy news by now? And high time it is—but then, better late than never, as they say. Eh, your Ladyship?” But at Barbara’s quick disapproving scowl he sobered, cleared his throat, and bent over his papers. “Now, what were you saying, your Ladyship?”

“That her Majesty proves with child!” snapped Barbara. “Now, it seems that since it was learned the Queen is pregnant, his Majesty has fallen in love with her. That must be the reason, since no one noticed that he paid her any undue attention before. He neglects his old friends and scarcely goes near some of them. I want you to tell me”—suddenly she Leaned forward, staring at him intently—“what will happen once the child is born. Will he go back to his old habits then? Or what?”

Heydon nodded his head and bent to his work. For some time he was silent, poring over an extremely complicated map of the heavens which was spread before him, pursing his lips and frowning studiously. From time to time he sucked air through a space between his two front teeth and drummed his fingers on the table. Barbara sat and watched him, her excitement mounting and her hopes, as well, for she could not believe that he would give her any really bad news. Somehow, this would all work out to her satisfaction—as everything had always done.

“Faith, madame,” he said at last, “you ask me a very difficult question.”

“Why? Can’t you see into the future? I thought that was your business!” She spoke to him as though he were a glove-maker who had just told her that he would be unable to get the kind of leather she wanted.

“My years of study have not been in vain, madame, I assure you. But such a question—You understand—” He shrugged, spreading his hands, and then made a gesture as of a knife being run across his throat. “If it should be known I had made a prognostication in a matter so important—” He glanced down at his charts again, frowning dubiously, and then he murmured softly, as though to himself: “It’s incredible! I can’t believe it—”

Barbara, in a froth of sudden excitement, sat far forward on the edge of her chair and her eyes blazed wildly. “What’s incredible? What is it? You’ve got to tell me!”

He leaned back, putting his finger-tips lightly together and contemplating the bony joints. “Ah, madame—it is information of too much importance to be disposed of so casually. Give me a few days to think it over, I pray you.”

“No! I can’t wait! I’ve got to know now! I’ll run mad if I don’t! What do you want—? I’ll give you anything! A hundred pound—”

“Have you a hundred pound with you?”

“Not with me. I’ll send it tomorrow.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, madame, but I can no longer do business on credit. It was that practice which brought me to the condition you now see. Perhaps it would be best if you returned tomorrow.”

“No! Not tomorrow! I’ve got to know now! Here—take these ear-rings, and this necklace, and this ring—they’re worth more than a hundred pound any day!” She took off her jewels swiftly, tossing them across the table to him as though they were glass baubles bought at a fair or from some street vendor. “Now—Tell me quick!”

He gathered up the jewellery and slipped it into his pocket. “According to the stars, madame, the Queen’s child will be born dead.”

Barbara gasped. One hand went to cover her mouth and she sank back into her chair, her face shocked and unbelieving. But presently there began to creep into her eyes a look of cunning and of malignant satisfaction.

“Born dead!” she whispered at last. “Are you sure?”

“If the stars are sure, madame, I am sure.”

“Of course the stars are sure!” She got up swiftly. “Then he’ll come back to me, won’t he?” In her sudden joy and new confidence she spoke recklessly.

“It would seem likely, would it not—under the circumstances?” His voice had a soft purring sound and his face was smiling and subtle.

“Of course he will! Good-night, Dr. Heydon!” She lifted the hood up over her head once more as she walked to the door and he followed her, opening it and standing back to bow her out. The dog came too to see the visitor off. She took one step down, holding up her skirts so that she would not stumble in the darkness, and then all at once she glanced back over her shoulder and gave him a dazzling smile. “I hope the diamonds keep you out of Newgate, Doctor! That news was worth far more than a thousand pound to me!”

He bowed again, still smiling and nodding his head, and as she got to the landing and disappeared he closed the door and slowly fastened the bolt. Then he bent to stroke his dog and the animal went meekly down onto its back, its long rat-like tail thumping the floor.

“Towser,” he said, “at least we’ll eat for a while.”

Barbara, however, took the Doctor absolutely at his word and from then on the Queen’s health was her greatest concern. She went to her levee every morning, invited her to supper in her own rooms, bribed some of the pages to bring her immediate word if the Queen should fall sick—she kept a constant close but secret watch on everything she did. But Catherine seemed to thrive. She looked healthy and happy and prettier than she ever had.

“Your Majesty is not feeling well?” Barbara asked her at last in desperation. “You look so pale, and tired.”

But Catherine laughed and answered in her heavily accented English: “Of course I’m well, my lady! I’ve never been more well!

Barbara began to grow discouraged and even considered demanding the return of her jewels from Dr. Heydon. And then, in mid-October, sometime in the fifth month of Catherine’s pregnancy, a rumour swept through the Palace corridors: her Majesty had fallen ill, and had miscarried of the child.

Catherine lay flat on her back in bed, surrounded on all sides by her maids and waiting-women. Her eyes were closed tightly to keep back the tears, for she was desperately sick and afraid. But as she heard Penalva turn and tell one of the women in a whisper to call the King she looked up swiftly.

“No!” she cried. “Don’t do that! Don’t send for him! It’s nothing—I’ll be better presently—Wait until Mrs. Tanner comes.”

Mrs. Tanner was the midwife who had been taking care of her Majesty, and the moment Catherine had begun to feel sick and faint they had sent for her. She arrived a few minutes later, and as she went toward the bed her cheerful vulgar face contrived to appear both alarmed and optimistic. Mrs. Tanner resembled nothing so much as a fish-wife masquerading as a great lady. Her hair was dyed the fashionable silver-blonde colour that was almost white, her cheeks were so brightly painted with Spanish paper that they looked like autumn apples, and her fingers and wrists and neck were loaded with expensive jewellery —tokens of appreciation from her patients and a convenient and portable form of advertising.

Catherine opened her eyes to find the woman bending over her. “Your Majesty is feeling unwell?”

“I’ve been having pains—here—and I feel as though—as though I’m bleeding—” She looked up at her with the great mournful eyes of a puppy who begs a favour.

Mrs. Tanner swiftly masked the horrified surprise that came to her face and immediately began to take off her rings and bracelets. “Will your Majesty permit me to make an examination?”

Catherine nodded and Mrs. Tanner gave a signal for the curtains to be pulled about the bed. Then oiling her hands thoroughly with sweet-butter which an assistant had brought, she disappeared for several moments behind the curtains. Once there was a tormented little cry and a softly drawn groan from the Queen, and the face of every woman there winced with sympathetic pain. Finally Mrs. Tanner parted the curtains, dipped her right hand into a basin of water, and whispered to another woman: “Her Majesty has miscarried. Send for the King.” A wave of excited murmurs and significant glances rushed around the room.

A few minutes later Charles came in on the run and went immediately to Mrs. Tanner, who was now wiping her hands while two maids sponged blood from the floor. He had been called from the tennis-court and wore only his open-necked shirt and breeches; and his brown face—streaked with sweat—was drawn taut by anxiety.

“What’s happened? They told me her Majesty had fallen sick—”

Mrs. Tanner could not meet his eyes. “Her Majesty has miscarried, Sire.”

A look of horror struck across his face. Swiftly he parted the curtains and knelt beside her bed, out of sight of the roomful of curious watching eyes. “Catherine! Catherine, darling!” His voice was urgent, but low, for she lay with her eyes closed and appeared to be unconscious.

But at last her lashes lifted slowly and she saw him. For a moment there was scarcely even recognition on her face, and then the tears came and she turned her head away with an agonized sob.

“Oh, Catherine! I’m sorry—I’m so sorry! Have they given you something to ease the pain?” His face looked tired and as haggard as hers, for above all things on earth he wanted a legitimate son; but pity made him yearn to protect her.

“It isn’t the pain. I don’t care about that. Pain doesn’t matter—But, oh, I so wanted to give you a son!”

“You will, darling—you will someday. But you mustn’t think about that now. Don’t think about anything but getting well.”

“Oh, I don’t want to get well! What good am I on earth if I can’t do the one thing I’m put here for? Oh, my dear—” Her voice now sank so low that he had to lean forward to hear it and she stared up at him, her eyes flooded with self-reproach. “Suppose it’s true what they say—that I’m barren—”

Charles was shocked and his breath caught sharply. He had not known she had heard that gossip, though it had been circulating through the Court and even out in the town from the first month of their marriage, perhaps earlier.

“Oh, Catherine, my darling—” His long fingers stroked her hair, caressed her pale moist cheeks. “It isn’t true; of course it isn’t true. People will talk maliciously as long as they have tongues in their heads. These accidents happen so often, but they mean nothing. You must rest now and grow well and strong—for my sake.” He smiled tenderly, and bent his head to kiss her.

“For your sake?” She looked up at him trustingly, and at last she gave him a grateful little smile. “You’re so kind. You’re so good to me. And I promise—this won’t happen the next time.”

“Of course it won’t. Now go to sleep, my dear, and rest, and presently you’ll be well again.”

He remained kneeling beside her until her breathing was deep and regular and the little frown of pain had left her forehead, and then he got up and without a word walked from the room and back to his own apartments where he went into his closet alone.

Catherine was no better the next day and she grew steadily worse with each day that passed. They did everything they knew to cure her: They bled her until she was white as the sheets she lay on. They cut live pigeons in two and tied them to the bare soles of her feet to draw out the poison. They gave her purgatives and sneezing-powders, pearls and chloride of gold. Her priests were with her constantly, groaning and wailing and praying, and at every hour the room was filled with people. Royalty could neither be born nor die in quiet and privacy.

Hour after hour Charles sat there beside her, anxiously watching each move that she made. His grief and devotion amazed them all; but for that one episode regarding Castlemaine, he had been a kind but by no means adoring husband.

They were all convinced that she would die, most of them hoped she would, and the talk was not so much of the dying Queen as of the new one. Whom would he marry next? For of course he must and would marry, after a decent interval of mourning.

Frances Stewart was the bride they had selected. She had some royal blood in her veins, enough to make such a match possible, she was beautiful—and she was still a virgin. That, at least, was the opinion of the best-informed, even though his Majesty had been pursuing her for months, ever since she had come from France to take a place as one of Queen Catherine’s Maids of Honour.

She was not quite seventeen but rather tall, and slender as a candle-flame; she had about her an air of tranquil poise which could be suddenly broken by a bubbling merry laugh that gurgled up out of a happy well of youth and confidence. Her beauty was pure and perfect, flawless as a cut gem, delightful as the sight of a poplar glistening in the sun.

Charles had been first attracted by the irresistible lure of beauty, and then, discovering in her a modest shyness that was to him as incredible as it was genuine, he began a systematic program of seduction. So far, it had been unsuccessful. But her fresh youth and naïveté appealed to him strongly, sent him yearning toward the lost years as though in her he could catch again for a moment something of that perishable and precious charm.

During the past four months, since the discovery of her Majesty’s pregnancy, Charles had seemed to lose interest in Frances; he had been as coolly polite as though he had never desired her at all—or as though he had already had her. But now he seemed to return to Frances again for comfort in his despair. They were so positive she would be the next Queen of England that it was not even possible to find betting odds. Frances believed it herself.

But certainly not even the King’s sorrow was more extravagant or more seemingly sincere than that of the least likely of all mourners, Lady Castlemaine. She kept a continuous stream of pages running from the Queen’s apartments to her own at every hour of the day and night, went there frequently herself, and was reliably reported to pray for her Majesty’s recovery five or six times a day. Barbara was alarmed.

It had never occurred to her, when Heydon had made his astounding prophecy, that the Queen would be as sick as she was. Certainly not that she would die. And she had not even considered the possibility that if she did she might be replaced by a woman like Frances Stewart, whose marriage to the King could mean nothing but Barbara’s own ruin and, more than likely, her exile into France. She and Frances had not been friendly for some time, not, in fact, since Barbara had become convinced that his Majesty’s infatuation for the girl was a serious one. She had always underestimated all women but herself, and it had taken her a long while to discover that Frances was really a formidable rival. Now she lived in terror that the Queen would die.

The gatherings in Barbara’s rooms were sober affairs now, for though the King came almost every night at supper-time his mood was a morose and silent one, and discretion kept them from seeming to be as indifferent as they were.

On the tenth night after Catherine had fallen sick he stood in Barbara’s drawing-room, over against the fireplace, thoughtfully swirling the red wine in his glass and talking in quiet tones which the most intent ears could not catch, to Frances Stewart. For Frances, though her own hopes of glory depended upon the Queen’s death, was genuinely sympathetic and sorrowful for the quiet unhappy little woman who had befriended her.

“How was she when you left her, Sire?”

Charles scowled, a drawn and worried scowl which seldom left his face nowadays, and stared down into his glass. “I don’t think she even knew me.”

“Is she still delirious?”

“She hadn’t spoken for more than two hours.” He gave a quick shake of his head as though to drive away the painfully vivid image of her that dogged his memory. “She talked to me this morning.” A strange sad and cynical smile touched his mouth. “She asked me how the children were. She said that she was sorry the boy was not pretty. I told her that he was very handsome and she seemed pleased—and said that if I was satisfied then she was happy.”

Frances gave a sudden hysterical sob, her fist pressed against her mouth, and Charles looked at her in quick surprise, as though he had forgotten that she was there. Just then a page entered the room, running in without ceremony, and went immediately to the King.

Charles whirled around. “What is it?”

“The Queen, Sire, is dying—”

Charles did not wait for the boy to finish his sentence but with a swift movement he flung the glass into the fireplace and ran out of the room. The Queen’s bed-chamber was in the same miserable condition it had been in for days: All windows were closed and had been since she had first fallen sick, so that the air was heavy and hot and stinking; the darkness was complete, but for a few low-burning candles about the bed; and the priests hung over her like bald malefic ravens, their voices eternally wailing and moaning.

Catherine lay flat on her back. Her eyes were closed and sunken in dark pits, her skin was yellow as wax, and she breathed so faintly that at first he thought she was dead. But before he had even spoken she became aware of his presence beside her, her eyes opened slowly and she looked up at him. She tried to smile and then, painfully, she began to talk to him, falling back into Spanish.

“Charles—I’m glad you came. I wanted to see you just once more. I’m dying, Charles. They told me so, and I know it’s true. Oh, yes it is.” She smiled gently as he started to open his mouth to protest. “But it doesn’t matter. It will be better for you when I’m dead. Then you can marry a woman who will give you sons—I want you to promise me that you won’t wait. Get married soon—It won’t matter to me where I’ll be—”

As she talked he stared at her, horrified and sick with shame. He had not realized before that she was dying because she had no wish to live. He had never wanted or tried to understand what this past year had been for her. The enormity of his selfish thoughtlessness, the guilty awareness that in his secret heart he had hoped for her death, struck him like a blow from a mighty fist. He had a moment of passionate regret, of devout promises for a better future.

Suddenly he leapt to his feet and turned to face the priest who was standing just beside him, interrupting the old man in the midst of his clamorous prayer.

“Get out of here.” His voice was low and tense with fury. “Get out of here, I say! All of you!”

Priests and doctors stared at him in astonishment, but made no move to go.

“But, your Majesty!” protested one. “We must be here when her Majesty dies—”

“She’s not going to die! Though God knows what you’ve put her through would kill a stronger woman! Now, get out, or by Jesus, I’ll throw you out myself!” His voice rose to an enraged shout and one arm swept out in a violent gesture of dismissal. His face was dark as a devil’s and his eyes glittered savagely; he hated them for his own errors as much as for theirs.

They began to straggle out, puzzlement on their faces as they looked back again and again, but he paid them no more attention and turning away dropped once more to his knees beside her. For a long minute her eyes remained closed and he watched her, his own breathing almost stopped; at last she looked up at him again.

“Oh—” she sighed. “It’s so quiet now—so peaceful. For a moment I thought I must be—”

“Don’t say it, Catherine! You’re not going to die! You’re going to live—for me, and for your son!”

But she shook her head, a vague almost imperceptible movement. “I have no son, Charles. I know I haven’t. But, oh, I did so want to give you one—I wanted to be part of your life. But now, before very long, I’ll be gone—And when you marry again you’ll have sons—You’ll be happier, and so I’m glad I’m going—”

Charles gave a sudden sob. The tears were streaming from his eyes and his two hands crushed her tiny one between them. “Catherine! Catherine! Don’t talk that way! Don’t say those things! You’ve got to want to live! If you want to you can—And you’ve got to—for me—”

She stared up at him, a new look in her eyes. “For you, Charles? You want me to?” she whispered.

“Yes, I do! Of course I do! My God, whatever made you think—Oh, Catherine, darling, I’m sorry—I’m sorry! But you’ve got to live—for me—Tell me that you’ll try, that you will—”

“Why, Charles—I didn’t know you—Oh, my darling, if you want me to—I can live—Of course I can—”

CHAPTER TWENTY–THREE

IT WAS NOT until after he was dead that Amber realized how much Rex Morgan had meant to her. She missed the sound of his key turning in the lock and the feeling of warmth and happiness he had always brought with him, as though a fire had just been lighted in a cold dark room. She missed waking up in the morning to find him half-dressed and shaving, screwing his face this way and that as he scraped the beard off. She missed the evenings when they had been alone and had played cribbage or crambo and he had listened to her strum her guitar and sing the popular bawdy street ballads. She missed his smile and the sound of his voice and the reassuring adoration in his blue eyes. She missed him in a thousand ways.

But most of all, though she scarcely knew it herself, she missed the comfortable sense of security with which he had surrounded her.

For now she found herself suddenly adrift, lost, and filled with a cold apprehension for the future. She had almost seventeen hundred pounds with Shadrac Newbold; so there was no immediate cause for concern on that score, and she could not be arrested for debt anyway. But even seventeen hundred pounds, she knew, would not last very long if she continued to live on her present scale, and when it was gone she would be at the mercy of the tiring-room gallants.

The thought was not pleasant—for after a year and a half of association she saw them naked now and unvarnished with the gilt of a naive young girl’s illusions. To her they were no longer gallant and gay and valiant, fine gentlemen because they wore fine clothes and could trace their families to followers of William the Conqueror—but only a half-breed species of Frenchified Englishman, shallow, malicious, and absurd. They had all the trappings of cynicism, careless ill-breeding and light-hearted cruelty, which were now the marks of quality. There was not another man like Rex Morgan to be found among them.

“Oh, if I’d only known this would happen!” she thought, over and over again. “I’d never have gone away! And I wouldn’t have gone to the King that time, either. Oh, Rex, if I’d known, I’d have been kinder to you—I’d have made you happy every minute—”

The first visitor she admitted after Rex’s funeral—though many others had come—was Almsbury. He had been there before but she had been unfit to see anyone at all, and so Nan had sent him away. But one afternoon, ten days after the duel, he came again and this time she said that she would see him.

She was sitting on a couch before a burning fire, for the weather was cold and wet, and her head was bent in her arm. She did not even glance up until he sat down and reached over to put one arm about her, and then she looked at him with red and swollen eyes. Her dress was plain black and she wore not a ribbon or a jewel, her hair was tumbled and only carelessly combed, and her face was shiny with tears; her head ached and she looked thinner than she had.

“I’m sorry, Amber,” he said softly, tenderness and sympathy in his eyes and the tone of his voice. “I know how little it means to hear that when you’ve lost someone—but I mean it with all my heart, and please believe me when I say that Bruce—”

She gave him a venomous glare. “Don’t you dare speak of him to me! Much I care how sorry he is! If it hadn’t been for him Rex would still be alive!”

Almsbury looked at her in surprise and an expression of impatience crossed his features, but she had covered her face with her hands and was crying again, wiping at the tears with a wet wadded handkerchief.

“That isn’t fair, Amber, and you know it. He asked you to stop the duel; he even let Captain Morgan cut his arm in the hope that that would satisfy him. There was nothing more to do unless he had let Morgan kill him—and surely even you couldn’t have expected that.”

“Oh, I don’t care what he did! He killed Rex! He murdered him—and I loved him! I was going to marry him!”

“In that case,” said the Earl, with unmistakable sarcasm, “it would have been better judgement not to go off on a honeymoon with another man—even if he was an old friend.”

“Oh, mind your own business!” she muttered, and though he hesitated for a moment, Almsbury got to his feet, made her a polite bow and went out of the room. Amber neither spoke nor tried to stop him.

She did not feel able to go back to the theatre immediately, and then shortly after the first of June it closed for two months. But as soon as she began to admit visitors her own apartments became almost as crowded as the tiring-room. She found, somewhat to her surprise, that the duel had made her as much the fashion as red-heeled shoes or Chatelin’s Ordinary. Lord Carlton was handsome, his family one of the oldest and most honourable, and his exploits as a privateer had made him a spectacular figure, not only at Court but throughout the city.

Amber knew how much such popularity meant, but she determined to take every advantage of it that she possibly could. Somewhere among those clamoring beaus, those beribboned fops and wit-imitators, there must be a man—a man who would fall in love with her as Rex had done; and if she could but single him out, this time she would know what to do. Marriage she did not expect, for the social position of an actress was no better than that of the vizard-masks in the pit, and with Rex dead her earlier opinion of matrimony had revived. But the brilliant lavish exciting life of an exclusive harlot seemed to her a most pleasant one.

She saw herself occupying a magnificent house in St. James’s Field or Pall Mall, driving about town in her gilt coach-and-six, giving fabulous entertainments, setting the styles which would be taken up at Whitehall. She saw herself famous, admired, desired and—most of all—envied.

It was what she had wanted for a long time; and now that she had begun to reconcile herself to the fact of Rex Morgan’s death, the wish opened once more into quick full blossom. Optimistically, she decided that he was all that had kept her from having those things.

But though she encouraged them all, flirted with them and laughed at their jokes, she never accepted their proposals. She knew that they held constancy in contempt, but also that they valued a woman more if she pretended concern for her virtue and made a great issue of surrender—just as they would rather win money from a man who hated to lose it. And so far no one had offered what she wanted.

“Phoo, pox, Mrs. St. Clare!” said one of them to her. “A virtuous woman is a crime against nature!”

“Well,” retorted Amber, “then there aren’t many criminals nowadays.”

But nevertheless she was growing uneasy and discouraged and in spite of her insistence that she intended never to err again, the other actresses taunted her because she had not found another keeper.

“I hear the young gentlemen are grown mighty shy of keeping these days,” remarked Knepp one afternoon when she and Beck Marshall had come to call on Amber. Over her glass of clary—a potent drink made of brandy and clary-flowers flavoured with sugar and cinnamon and ambergris—she flipped Beck a sly wink. “They say three months is the limit a man will keep now, for fear of losing his reputation as a wit.”

“Oh, gad, a man is as much laughed at for keeping as ever he was for taking a wife,” said Beck. “More, I believe, for at least a wife brings a dowry to settle his debts, while a whore gives him nothing but a bastard and more debts.”

“Especially,” said Amber, “if she’s being kept by three or four at once.”

Beck looked at her sharply. “What d’you mean by that, madame?”

“Heavens, Beck.” Amber opened her eyes wide in pretended innocence. “I’m sure it isn’t my fault if your conscience troubles you.”

“My conscience doesn’t trouble me at all! Don’t you agree it’s better to be kept by three men at once—than by none at all?” She gave Amber a malicious tight-lipped smile, and then defiantly downed her drink at one gulp.

“Well,” said Amber, “I’m glad I learnt my lesson on that score. I intend never to go into keeping again.”

“Hah!” Knepp gave a sudden short barking laugh, and then she and Beck got up and prepared to leave.

As Amber closed the door after them she heard Knepp say, “She intends never to go into keeping again—until she can find the man who’ll make her an indecent proposal at a high figure!” And the giggling voices of the two women faded away down the stair-well.

Amber turned back to Nan, who rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Oh, Nan, maybe they’re right! I half believe it’s harder to find a man who’ll keep than one who’ll marry.”

“Well, mam—”

“Now don’t tell me again I should have married Captain Morgan!” she cried warningly. “I’m sick of hearing it!”

“Lord, mam, I wasn’t going to say anything about that. ”But I have been thinking of a plan you might try.”

“What?”

“If you quit the theatre, took lodgings in the City and set yourself up for a rich widow, I’ll warrant you’d find a husband with a good portion within the month.”

“My God, Nan! Can you imagine me married to some stinking old alderman with nothing to do but breed his brats and visit his aunts and cousins and sisters and go to church twice on Sundays for my diversion? No thanks! I’m not that discouraged—yet!”

For three months it had rained, and then on the last day of June the sun came out brilliantly, the puddles in the streets began to dry, and the air was fresh and sparkling-clean. Children appeared, like a ragged legion sprung up overnight, in every alley and lane and courtyard in London, running and shouting joyously at their gutter games. Vendors and ballad-singers and housewives swarmed out-of-doors to feel the sun, and in St. James’s Park and the Mall courtiers and ladies strolled again.

Since his Majesty’s Restoration St. James’s Park was open to the public and not only the nobility but other idlers were free to saunter through its broad tree-lined avenues and stop to watch the King playing at pall mall, which he did with the same enthusiasm and skill he showed at every kind of athletic contest.

Amber went there that pleasant sunny afternoon with three young men—Jack Conway, Tom Trivet and Sir Humphrey Pere-pound—who had come to invite her to supper. It was scarcely four o’clock when they left her apartments and so they had some time to waste until the supper hour. At the Park entrance they got out of their hired coach and started off up Birdcage Walk, so called because the trees were full of cages containing singing and squawking birds from Peru, the East Indies, and China.

The three fops were all younger sons who lived far above their means and much in debt. Up at noon, they escaped by some back door or window to avoid their creditors. They strolled then to the nearest ordinary for dinner, went next to the playhouse where they got in free under the pretext of intending to stay for but one act, spent part of the evening in a tavern playing cards and the rest in a bawdy-house, and started for home at midnight, noisy and surly and drunken. Not one of them was over twenty, they would never inherit an estate, and the King probably was not even able to recognize them at sight. But Amber had been alone when they had called and she would rather be seen with anyone than no one—for obviously if a woman lay shut up in her house she could not bring herself to the attention of a great man.

She always hoped and expected that this day might be the day for which she had been waiting. But her hopes had been sorely buffeted these past six weeks and were beginning to show signs of wear.

They kept up an unceasing chatter, gossiping about everyone who passed, bowing obsequiously to the lords and ladies of higher rank but judging them vindictively once they had gone by. Amber scarcely listened to them, but her eyes saw every detail of a lady’s gown and coiffure, compared it mentally with her own, and went on to the next. She smiled at the men she knew and was amused to see how much it annoyed the women they were attending.

“There’s my Lady Bartley with her daughter fast in tow, as usual. Gad, she’s exposed the girl at every public mart in town and still they haven’t found a taker,” Sir Humphrey informed them.

“Nor ever will, as far as I’m concerned. Curse my tripes, but they made a mighty play for me not long since. I vow and swear the old lady is hotter for a son-in-law than the daughter is for a husband—there’s never a more eager bed-fellow than your wanton widow. It was her design I should marry her daughter but devote my manhood to her. She told me as much one day when—Now! What d’ye think! She went by like she’d never seen me before! Damn my diaphragm, but these old quality-bawds grow impertinent!”

“Who’s that rare creature just coming? She looks as if she would dissolve like an anchovy in claret. Damn me, but she has the most languishing look—”

“She’s the great fortune from Yorkshire. They say she hadn’t been in town a week when she was discovered in bed with her page. Your country-wench may never learn the art of dressing her carcass, but it doesn’t take her long to find out how to please it.” Sir Humphrey, as he talked, had taken a bottle of scent from his inner pocket and was touching the stopper to his eyebrows and wrists and hair.

“For my part, gentlemen,” said Jack Conway, who was lazily fanning himself with Amber’s fan, a trick the beaus all had to show their gentility, “I consider every woman odious but the finest of her sex—” He made Amber a deferential bow. “Madame St. Clare.”

“Oh, gad, and I too! I only spoke of the slut to give Sir Humphrey the opportunity of railing at her. I vow, there’s no one has the art of wiping out a reputation almost in one breath as it were, like Sir Humphrey.”

Jack Conway had begun to comb his hair with a great carved ivory comb and now Tom Trivet took a flageolet from his pocket and started to play a tune on it. Obviously, he had played in company more than he had practiced. Sir Humphrey took advantage of the noise to whisper in her ear.

“Dear madame, I’m most confoundedly your slave. What d’you think I’ve done with the ribbon you gave me from your smock?”

“I don’t know. What did you do? Swallow it?”

“No, madame. Though if you’ll give me another to take its place I will. I’ve got it tied in a most pretty bow—I’d be most glad to show you. The effect is excellent, let me perish—”

Amber murmured “Hm—” in an absent-minded tone.

For advancing through the crowd with people bowing to him on every side sauntered the gorgeous figure of his Grace, Duke of Buckingham, an equipage of several pages following close in his wake. Everyone turned and stared as he passed, whispers ran along behind the raised fans of elegant ladies, ambitious mothers, eager young girls—all of them hoping for an extra moment’s notice from the great Duke.

Oh, damn! thought Amber frantically. Why didn’t I wear my new gold-and-black gown! He’ll never see me in this!

The Duke was advancing steadily. The green plumes on his hat swayed with every nod of his head, the sun glittered on the diamond-buttons of his suit, his handsome, arrogant face and splendid physique gave every other man a look of drab insignificance. Amber had seen Buckingham in the pit and in the tiring-room, she had been presented to him casually once, and she had heard endless gossip about his amorous and political exploits—but he had never paid her any particular attention. Now, however, as he came closer she saw his eyes run over her swiftly and go on and then her heart gave a plunge as they returned again—and this time lingered. He was no more than four yards from her.

“Madame St. Clare?”

The Duke had stopped and was making her a flourishing bow while Amber quickly recovered herself and swept out her skirts in a deep curtsy. She was conscious that other men and women were watching them, turning their heads as they passed, and that her three gallants were stammering foolishly and making desperate efforts at nonchalance. The Duke’s mouth was smiling beneath his blonde mustache, and his eyes travelled down her body and back up again, as though measuring her by his own private yardstick.

“Your servant, madame.”

“Your servant, sir,” mumbled Amber, almost suffocated with excitement. She stabbed about wildly for something to say, something to arrest his attention—witty and amusing and different from what any other woman would have said, but she did not find it.

His Grace, however, was at no loss for words. “If I mistake not, you’re the lady over whom Lord Carlton fought some officer, a month or so since?”

“Yes, your Grace. I am.”

“I’ve always admired Lord Carlton’s taste, madame, and I must say that you’re so fine a person I can see no reason to differ from his judgement now.”

“Thank you, your Grace.”

“Oh, gad, your Grace!” interrupted Sir Humphrey, suddenly bold and swaggering. “Every man in town is adying to be the lady’s servant. I vow and swear, her health is drunk as often as the King’s—”

Buckingham gave him a brief glance, as though he had noticed him for the first time, and Sir Humphrey wilted instantly. Neither of the two others ventured to speak.

“My coach is at the north gate, madame. I stopped to take a turn in the Park as I was going to supper—It would please me mightily if you would be my guest.”

“Oh, I’d like to, your Grace! But I—” She paused, her eyes indicating that she was obligated to the three fops who were now bridling and grinning in anticipation of being invited to sup with the Duke of Buckingham.

The Duke bowed to them, a bow which was at once polite and condescending, which showed his own breeding even while it contrived to belittle theirs. “Sure, now, gentlemen—you’ve enjoyed the lady’s company all afternoon. I know you’re all too much men of wit and understanding to wish to deprive others of that privilege. With your permission, gentlemen—”

He offered his arm to Amber, who could not conceal her delight and pride, and making a quick bobbing curtsy to the three beaus she sailed off. She had never been so stared at or felt so full of importance in her life as she did now, for wherever he went the Duke attracted as much attention as the King himself and more than his Highness ever had. On the way to the north gate they passed the Mall where Charles was playing before a gallery crowded with ladies and a packed row of courtiers and beggars and loitering tradesmen. The King—who had just struck the little wooden ball into a hoop suspended from a pole at the opposite end of the Mall—saw them going by and waved. Buckingham bowed.

“If the King would spend as much time in the council-room as he does at the tennis-court and Mall,” murmured the Duke as they went on, “the country might be in a better state than it is.”

“Than it is? Why, what’s the matter with it? It seems well enough to me.”

“Women, my dear, never understand such matters and should not—but you may believe me, England’s in a most miserable condition. The Stuarts have never been good masters. Here’s my coach—”

They circled around the Park and stopped at Long’s, a fashionable ordinary in the Haymarket, which was a narrow little suburban lane lined with hedges and surrounded by green fields. The host led them upstairs to a private room and supper was served immediately, while below in the courtyard the Duke’s fiddlers played and people gathered from neighbouring cottages to sing and dance to the music. From time to time a cheer went up for the Duke, who was popular with the Londoners because he was well known to be a violent anti-Catholic.

The food was excellent, well-cooked and seasoned, and served hot by two quiet unobtrusive waiters. But Amber could not enjoy it. She was too much worried about what the Duke was thinking of her, what he would do when the meal was over and what she should do in her turn. He was such a great man, and so rich—If only she could please him enough it might be the making of her fortune.

But it did not seem likely the Duke would be an easy man to please.

He was thirty-six years old, and his life had left him nothing of either illusion or faith. He had raked and probed his emotions, experimented with his senses until they were deadened and dull and he was forced to whip them up by whatever voluptuous device occurred to him. Amber had heard all this and it was what made her uneasy. She was not afraid of what he would do—but that she would never be able to interest this bored and jaded libertine.

Now, once the table had been cleared and they were left alone, he merely took a pack of cards from his pocket and began to shuffle them idly; they flew through his fingers with a speed and sureness which proclaimed the accomplished gamester.

“You look uneasy, madame. Pray compose yourself. I hate to see a woman on edge—it always makes me feel that she expects to be raped, and to tell you truly I’m not in the mood for such strenuous sport tonight.”

“Why, I didn’t think the woman breathed who couldn’t be persuaded by your Grace by an easier means than that.” In spite of her awe and eagerness Amber could not keep a certain tartness from her voice; something in the personality of the Duke set her teeth on edge.

But if he noticed the sarcasm he ignored it. He dealt himself two putt hands, one from the top and the other from the bottom of the deck, inspected each with satisfaction and began to shuffle again.

“She doesn’t,” he said flatly. “Women are all inclined to make two mistakes in love. First, they surrender too easily; second, they can never be convinced that when a man says he is through with them he means it.” As he talked he continued to watch the cards, but there had spread over his face a look of brooding discontent, a self-occupied bitterness. “It’s long been my opinion the world would run far smoother if women would not insist on expecting love to be a close relation of desire. Your quality whore is always determined to make you fall in love with her—by that means she thinks she justifies the satisfaction of her own appetite. The truth of the matter is, madame, that love is only a pretty word—like honour—which people use to cover what they really mean. But now the world has grown too old and too wise for such childish toys—thank God we’re beyond needing to deceive ourselves.”

He looked up at her now and tossed the cards away. “I take it you’re for hire on the open market. How much do you ask?”

Amber looked at him, her eyes narrowed slightly and slanting at the corners. His harangue, made obviously for the sole purpose of amusing himself, since it was plain he did not consider it necessary to convince her of anything, had made her angry. She had been listening to that kind of talk from the tiring-room gallants for a year and a half, but the Duke was the first man she had met who wholly believed what he said. She would have liked to get up, slap his face and walk out of the room—but he was George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and the richest man in England. And her morals were dictated rather by the expediency of the moment than by any abstract formula of honour.

“What am I bid?”

“Fifty pound.”

Amber gave a short unpleasant langh. “I thought you said you weren’t in the mood for a rape! Two hundred and fifty!”

For a long moment he sat and stared at her, and then he got up and walked to the door. Amber turned, watched him apprehensively, but he merely spoke to a footman who was waiting just outside and who ran off down the steps. “I’ll give you your two hundred and fifty, madame,” he said. “But pray don’t flatter yourself it’s because I think you’ll be worth it. I can give you that sum without missing it any more than you would miss a shilling flung to a whining Tom o’ Bedlam. And when all’s said and done, I doubt not you’ll be more surprised by this night’s business than I.”

Amber was surprised; it was her first experience with perversion. And it would, she swore, be her last if she starved in the streets.

Shocked and disgusted, she conceived a violent loathing for the Duke which not even one thousand pounds could dispel. For days she thought of nothing but how she could contrive to pay him back. But in the end all she could do was put him in her list of enemies to be dealt with at some future date—when she should be powerful enough to ruin them all.

The theatre reopened late in July, and Amber found that she now had among her admirers the finest beaus in town. Buckingham had done that much for her, at any rate.

There was Lord Buckhurst and his plump black-eyed friend Sir Charles Sedley. The huge and handsome Dick Talbot, wild Harry Killigrew, Henry Sidney whom many thought to be the finest-looking man in England, and Colonel James Hamilton who was generally considered the best-dressed man at Whitehall. All of them were young, from Sidney who was twenty-two to Talbot who was thirty-three; all of them came of distinguished families and were allied through marriage or blood to the country’s ruling houses; all of them frequented the innermost circles of the Court, associated on familiar terms with the King and might have been men of more consequence if they had cared to spare the time from their amusements.

Almost every night she went to supper with one or more of them, sometimes in a crowd of young men and women— actresses and orange-girls and other professed whores—often it was an intimate group of only two or three. They drank toasts to her and strained wine through the hem of her smock, and anatomized her among themselves. She went to the bear-baitings and cock-fights and spent three or four days at Banstead Downs with Buckhurst and Sedley, attending the horse-races—for the old passionate English love of field sports had returned three-fold since the Restoration.

She went several times to Bartholomew Fair during the three weeks it was in progress, saw every puppet-show and ropedancer, gorged herself on roast pig and gingerbread and made a great collection of Bartholomew Babies—the pretty dolls which it was customary for a gentleman to buy and present to the lady he admired.

One Sunday afternoon she visited Bedlam to see the insane hung up in cages, their hair matted and smeared with their own filth, raving and screaming at the sight-seers who jeered at and tormented them. At Bridewell, where they went to watch the prostitutes being beaten, Talbot recognized a woman he had known some time since and she began to yell at him, pointing her finger and accusing him of being the cause of her present shame and misery. But when they wanted to stop at Newgate to visit the great highwayman, Claude de Vall, who was holding his court there, Amber declined.

After the play she often drove in Hyde Park with four or five young men, and sometimes she saw a copy of her latest gown on one of the Court ladies. She slept short hours, neglected her dancing and singing and guitar lessons, and was so little interested in the theatre that Killigrew threatened to turn her out and would have done so but for the intervention of Buckhurst and Sedley and his own son. When he chided her for missing rehearsal or forgetting her lines—or not even troubling to learn them—she laughed and shrugged her shoulders or flew into a fit of anger and went home. The fops threatened to boycott the theatre if Madame St. Clare was not there, and so Hart and Lacy and Kynaston would be sent to coax her back again. Her popularity made her arrogant and saucy.

At first she had intended to be just as independent and unattainable as she had been at the beginning of her acquaintance with Rex Morgan. But the gentlemen were not subtle. They told her frankly that they would never spend the time courting an actress which they would lavish on a Maid of Honour. And Amber, faced with the alternative of abandoning either her resolutions or her popularity, did not hesitate long in her choice. When Sedley and Buckhurst offered her one hundred pounds to spend a week with them at Epsom Wells she went. But she was never offered so large a sum again.

To each of her lovers she gave a bracelet made from her abundant hair, and some who did not get them had imitations made which they swore were hers. Her name began to appear in the almanack records of half the young fops in town, many of whom she did not even know. Buckhurst gave her a painted fan with a dreamy sylvan scene on one side and on the other the loves of Jupiter which depicted the god in the guise of a swan, a bull, a ram, an eagle, with various women—all of whom looked like Amber. Within a week copies of it were hiding blushes and veiling smiles in the Queen’s Drawing-room.

In December a filthy verse which was unmistakably about her—though the woman in it was called “Chloris” and the man “Philander,” after the old pastoral tradition—began to circulate through the tiring-room and the taverns and bawdy-houses. Amber, who was becoming tired, resented it deeply though she knew many similar poems had been written with far less provocation than she had given, but she could never find out whose it was. She suspected either Buckhurst or Sedley, both poets and very creditable ones, but when she accused them they smiled blandly and protested their innocence. Harry Killigrew followed the insult by flipping her a half-crown piece one night when she tardily suggested a settlement.

Early in January she spent two nights in succession at home without a caller or an invitation, and she knew all at once that her vogue was passing. And only a few days later Mrs. Fagg confirmed her fears that she was again with child. She felt suddenly sick and discouraged and exhausted. It was all but impossible for her to force herself to get out of bed in the morning, her appetite was gone, she looked pallid and thin and there were dark smudges beneath her eyes. Almost anything could bring forth a passionate flood of tears or a hysterical tantrum.

“I wish I was dead!” she told Nan. For her future was only too clear.

Nan suggested that they go away from London for a few weeks and when Mrs. Fagg advised a long ride in a coach, to be taken with her own special medicine, she agreed. “If I never see another fop or another play as long as I live I’ll be glad!” she cried violently. She hated London and the playhouse, all men and even herself.

CHAPTER TWENTY–FOUR

AMBER DECIDED TO go to Tunbridge Wells in the hope that drinking the waters would make her feel better. She set out early the next morning in her coach with Nan and Tansy, Tempest and Jeremiah. As it was raining, they could travel at but little more than a foot-pace, and even then the coach almost turned over several times.

Amber rode along in sullen silence, eyes tight shut and teeth clenched, not even hearing the chattering of Nan and Tansy. She had taken Mrs. Fagg’s evil-tasting medicine and her belly was full of grinding cramps which seemed worse than those of child-birth. She wished that the earth would open and swallow them all, that a thunderbolt from heaven would strike her, or merely that she would die and be relieved of her misery. She told herself that if a man ever dared make her an indecent proposal again, though for a thousand pound in gold, she would have him kicked like a common lackey.

They stopped at an inn late that afternoon and went on the next morning. The medicine had taken its effect but she felt even worse than she had the day before, and at each turn of the wheels she longed to open her mouth and scream as loud as she could. She scarcely noticed when the coach came to a stop and Nan began wiping at the steamy window with her sleeve, putting her face against it to look out.

“Lord, mam! I hope we’re not set upon by highwaymen!” She had had the same apprehension almost every time Tempest and Jeremiah had stopped to pry the wheels out of the mud.

Amber scowled crossly, but kept her eyes shut. “My God, Nan! You expect a highwayman behind every tree! I tell you they don’t go abroad in weather like this!”

At that moment Jeremiah opened the door. “It’s a gentleman, mam, who’s been stopped by highwaymen and his horses taken.”

Nan gave a little cry and turned to her with an accusing stare. Amber made a face. “Well, ask him if he wants to ride with us. But tell ’im we’re only going to the Wells.”

The man who returned with Jeremiah was perhaps sixty, though his skin was clear and smooth and fresh-coloured. His hair was white, cut much shorter than a Cavalier’s, and was not curled but had merely a slight natural wave. He was handsome, somewhat above six feet, erect and broad-shouldered. The clothes he wore were old-fashioned but well made of fine materials, sober black and untrimmed with ribbon or gold braid.

He bowed to her politely, but his manner suggested nothing of the French-tutored courtier. This was some plain City-bred man, very likely a Parliamentarian who thought the worst of Charles Stuart and all his beribboned cursing whoring sword-fighting crew—a substantial merchant, perhaps, or a jeweller or a goldsmith.

“Good afternoon, madame. It’s very kind of you to invite me into your coach. Are you quite sure I won’t be making you uncomfortable?”

“Not at all, sir. I’m glad to be of service. Pray get in, before the rain soaks you through.”

He climbed in, Nan and Tansy moved over to make room for him, and the coach started off. “My name is Samuel Dangerfield, madame.”

“Mine is Mrs. St. Clare.”

Mrs. St. Clare obviously meant nothing to him, and for once she welcomed the anonymity. “Did my coachman tell you that I’m only going as far as Tunbridge? I don’t doubt you can hire horses and another coach there.”

“Thank you for the suggestion, madame. But as it happens I too am going to Tunbridge.”

They talked little after that and Nan explained her mistress’s silence by saying that she was suffering wretchedly from a quartan ague. Mr. Dangerfield was sympathetic, said he had had that ailment himself, and suggested bleeding as a sovereign remedy. Within three hours they arrived at the village.

Tunbridge Wells was a fashionable spa and the previous summer her Majesty and all the Court had paid it a visit; but now, in mid-January, it was a dreary deserted scattered little village. Not a person was in sight, the elms that lined the single main street were naked and forlorn, and only the smoke drifting from several chimneys gave evidence of life.

Amber and Samuel Dangerfield parted at the inn, where he had accommodations, and she promptly forgot him. She rented a neat little three-room cottage, furnished with very old polished oak, chintz curtains, and an array of shining brass and copper utensils. For four days she did not get out of bed but lay sleeping and resting, and by the end of that time her vitality and energy began to return. She started worrying again about what was to become of her.

“Well, I can’t go back to London, that’s sure as the small-pox,” she told Nan as she sat morosely in bed, propped against pillows and plucking at her brows with a silver-plated tweezer.

“I’m sure I don’t see why, mam.”

“Don’t see why! D’you think I’d ever go back to that scurvy theatre again, and have every town-fop laughing in his fist at me? I will not!”

“Well, after all, mam, you can go back to London without going back to the stage, can’t you? It’s a sorry mouse that has but one hole.” Nan liked well-worn aphorisms.

“I don’t know where else I’d go,” muttered Amber.

Nan drew in a deep breath to prepare for her next speech, but kept her eyes on her deftly stitching needle. “I still think, mam, that if you’d take lodgings in the City and set yourself up for a rich widow you’d not be long a-catching a husband. Maybe you don’t want to—but beggars should be no choosers.”

Amber looked at her sharply. Then suddenly she flung the tweezers away, tossed the mirror aside and slumped back against the pillows with her arms folded. For several moments both women remained silent and Nan did not even glance at her glowering mistress. But at last Amber smoothed out her face and gave a sigh.

“I wonder,” she said, “if Mr. What-d’ye-call—who had his horses stolen—is rich enough to bother with.” Mr. Dangerfield had sent two days earlier to inquire if her ague was improving; she had returned a careless ungracious reply and had thought nothing of him since then.

“He might be, mam. He’s got a mighty handsome young footman I could go talk to for a while.”

Nan came back a couple of hours later flushed and excited—not altogether, Amber suspected, by the news she had heard. “Well?” asked Amber, who was lying out flat with her arms braced behind her head. She had spent the time since Nan’s departure gloomily mulling over her past errors and disliking the men she considered to have been responsible for them. “What did you find out?”

Nan swept into the room, bringing with her a gust of cool fresh air from the outside and a buoyant energy. “I found out everything!” she declared triumphantly, untying the strings of her hood and throwing it into a chair. With her cloak still on she rushed to the bed and sat down beside Amber, who stubbornly refused to catch her enthusiasm. “I found out that Mr. Samuel Dangerfield is one of the richest men in England!”

“One of the richest men in—England!” repeated Amber slowly, still incredulous.

“Yes! He’s got a fortune! Oh, I can’t remember! Two hundred thousand pound or something like that! John says everybody knows how rich he is! He’s a merchant and he’s—”

“Two hundred thous—Is he married?” demanded Amber suddenly, as her wits began to revive.

“No, he isn’t! He was but his wife died—six years ago I think John said. But he’s got fourteen children; some other ones are dead—I forget how many. He comes up here every year to drink the waters for his health—he had a stroke. And he’s just getting ready now to go down to the wells—Big John’s going with ’im!”

Suddenly Amber flung back the covers and began to get out of bed. “I think I’ll go drink some waters myself. Get out my green velvet gown with the gold braid and the green cloak. Is it muddy enough to wear chopins?”

“I think it is, mam.” Nan was scurrying busily about, searching through unfamiliar drawers for smocks and petticoats, ransacking the still half-unpacked trunk for garters and ribbons, chattering all the while. “Only to think, mam! What luck we’re in! I vow and swear you must have been born with a caul on your head!” Both women were gayer and in better spirits than they had been for some weeks past.

It had stopped raining the day before and the night had been cold, so that there was a crust on the mud. A pale sun sifted down through the grey-blue sky and there were whiffs of clouds overhead, too white and thin to threaten more immediate rain. Country girls in straw hats and short skirts, with baskets over their arms, appeared in the street crying their wares of poultry and fresh butter, milk and vegetables. And when Amber, with Nan and Tansy, strolled to the well two young men in ribboned suits and plumed hats, with long curling wigs and elaborate swords, bowed ceremoniously and begged leave to present themselves. It was the custom of such resort-places, where a man might with propriety introduce himself.

They were Frank Kifflin and Will Wigglesworth and they told her that they had come down from London to avoid a lady who was beginning to insist that Will marry her. Amber had never seen either of them at the theatre and decided that they were most likely a pair of rooks who posed as men of quality, or perhaps younger sons who had to live like gentlemen without being given the means to do so. Card-sharpers, pick-pockets, forgers, they preyed upon the naive and unsuspecting—young country squires and heiresses were their easiest dupes. Luke Channell had been a crude specimen of the breed; Dick Robbins who had lived at Mother Red-Cap’s a subtler and more clever one. Probably, since Tunbridge could not be a very fertile field for such activities at that time of the year, they had been run out of London or some other city and were in temporary retirement here.

To Amber’s dismay they perked up immediately when she told them her name. “Mrs. St. Clare?” repeated Will Wigglesworth, an ugly pock-marked weasel-toothed young man. “I vow to gad the name’s familiar, madame. What about you, Frank? Haven’t we met Mrs. St. Clare somewhere before?”

“Why, yes, I’m sure we have, madame. Where could it have been, I wonder? Were you at Banstead Downs last year, perhaps?”

Oh, damn! thought Amber. If these fools find out who I am and Mr. Dangerfield hears about it, I wouldn’t have any more chance with him than the man in the moon!

But she smiled at them very sweetly. “No, gentlemen, I’m sure you’ve got some other lady in mind. Neither of you looks at all familiar to me—and I know I’d never have forgotten your faces if we’d ever met.”

Both of them took that for a compliment, grinned and coughed and made simultaneous bows. “Your servant, madame.” But even then they would not let the subject drop and, probably for lack of other conversation, galloped along in relentless pursuit. Frank asked Will if they hadn’t seen her in the Mall, and Will assured Frank it must have been in the Drawing-Room. Amber denied having been anywhere at all and was casting about for a means of escape when Mr. Dangerfield arrived and came to speak to her.

“You’re looking very well, madame. I hope your ague is improved?”

She curtsied and smiled at him, and wished she could blow Kifflin and Wigglesworth away like two puffs of smoke. However, while Amber and Mr. Dangerfield talked of the weather, the taste of the well-water, and Tansy’s scuffed shoes, they fiddled with their ribbons and combs and rolled their eyes about, obviously wishing that the old dotard would go away. But when Amber presented them to him she was amused to see the great change in their manners. She knew for sure then that she had guessed them for what they really were.

“Samuel Dangerfield, sir?” repeated Will Wigglesworth, as both of them jerked suddenly to attention. “I know a Bob Dangerfield. That is, we met once at the home of a mutual friend. He’s a member of the great merchant family. Are you, by any chance, sir, a relative?”

“I’m Bob’s father.”

“Well, well. Only fancy, Frank. This is Bob’s father.”

“Hm, only fancy. Pray take our regards to Bob, sir, when you return to London.”

“Thank you, gentlemen, I will.”

Amber was growing nervous for she did not want them to begin talking and guessing at her identity again before Mr. Dangerfield. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I must be getting back now. Your servant, sir.” She curtsied again to Mr. Dangerfield, but as she would have left, the two young men insisted that they be allowed to see her home.

“Faith and troth, Will,” said Frank Kifflin, as soon as they were out of Mr. Dangerfield’s hearing. “Only think of meeting Bob’s old father here. He seems a close acquaintance of yours, Mrs. St. Clare.”

“Oh, no. I happened upon him just after his coach had been held up and his horses stolen, and carried him the rest of the way.”

Will was indignant. “Lord, to see the effrontery of the highwaymen nowadays! I vow it’s barbarous! They’ll stop at nothing to gain their ends. And only to think of the scurvy rascals daring to attack a man of Mr. Dangerfield’s consequence!”

“Barbarous!” agreed Frank.

As Amber stood in her doorway bidding them goodbye, Wigglesworth, who had been studying her face carefully for some moments, suddenly gave a snap of his fingers. “I know who you are now, Mrs. St. Clare! You’re the player from His Majesty’s Theatre!”

“Of course! That’s who she is, Will! I knew all along we’d seen you before, madame. But why so modest, pray? Most actresses are—”

“An actress!” protested Amber. “Lord, whatever put that unlucky notion into your heads! It may be I resemble one of the wretches, but then it’s the practice of all of ’em to try to look like quality, they tell me. No, gentlemen, you’ve made a mistake. I assure you I’ve never been nearer the stage than the middle-box. And now, good-day.”

But she knew by the sly looks they exchanged and the smiles on their faces when they bowed, that she had not convinced them. When the door was shut Amber leaned back against it with a low whistle.

“Whew! Blast those two paper-skulled nuisances! I’ve got to find a way to be rid of them, that’s flat!”

When they came that night and invited her to go with them to the gaming-house Amber’s first impulse was to refuse. But it occurred to her then that she might be able to catch them at something and scare them away from the Wells, and so she agreed. On the way Frank Kifflin suggested that they stop and ask Mr. Dangerfield to join them.

“Most likely the poor old gentleman’s lonely, and though gad knows I hate to play with an old man I can’t bear to think of Bob’s old father being lonely.”

But Amber did not intend to have Mr. Dangerfield told that she was an actress. “Mr. Dangerfield never plays cards, gentlemen. He hates the sight of ’em worse than a Quaker hates a parrot. You know these old Puritans.”

The men, obviously disappointed, agreed that they did.

There were not a score of persons gathered about the tables in the gaming-house, and of those some were obviously natives of the town playing for only a few pence or shillings. Amber and the two men watched for a while and finally Frank Kifflin suggested that they try their luck at raffle—a dice-game which they assured her was the most harmless in the world and depended upon nothing but a turn of the wrist. “Oh; heavens, gentlemen,” said Amber with an air of surprised innocence. “I can’t play. I only came along to watch and keep you company. I never carry money with me when I’m travelling.”

That seemed to please Mr. Kifflin. “Very wise, Mrs. St. Clare. Travel is full of too many hazards these days. But pray let me lend you ten or twenty pound—it’s but dull entertainment watching others play.”

Amber pretended to hesitate. “Well—I don’t know if I should or not—”

“Tush, madame! Why shouldn’t you? And let’s not speak a word of interest, I beg of you. Only a rook would accept interest from so fine a person as yourself.”

“What a courtier you are, Mr. Kifflin!” said Amber, thinking that if they did not want interest for their money they must have some other game.

Between them Mr. Kifflin and Mr. Wigglesworth produced a great many shiny shillings from their pockets and put them on the table before her. There was not a guinea or a penny or another coin in the pile, nothing but shillings. It was not very difficult to guess that they must be hired by some counterfeiter to pass his false money and get back true. Amber obligingly lost several pounds and when she quit said that she would send a note to her goldsmith immediately so that they could collect next time they were in London.

“But remember, Mrs. St. Clare,” said Wigglesworth the last thing before they parted. “We’ll accept not a penny in interest. Not a penny.”

Amber examined some of the coins and was sure that they were “black-dogs”—double-washed pewter discs; they looked and sounded exactly like those made by the counterfeiter who had lived on the third-floor at Mother Red-Cap’s. She tossed one of them up and caught it, laughing and giving a wink to Nan.

“I’ll take care of those two young fop-doodles, I warrant you. Send Jeremiah the first thing tomorrow morning to invite Mr. Dangerfield to take his dinner with me. Let’s see—I believe I’ll wear that black velvet gown with the white lace collar and cuffs—it gives me a maidenly air, don’t you think?”

“If anything could, mam.”

When Samuel Dangerfield arrived Amber met him at the door. Her gown was high-necked but the bodice fitted snugly. She had her hair combed into deep waves and held at each temple by a black velvet bow; and her face was painted so subtly that even a woman could not have been sure the colouring was not natural.

“It was kind of you to invite me to dinner, Mrs. St. Clare.”

“I know it isn’t proper,” she said demurely, “but I sent such a barbarous reply to your note—pray forgive me, sir. It was the sickness made me churlish.”

Amber knew that her invitation was unconventional but hoped she could affect sufficient modesty to fool him. He smiled at her now much as he might have smiled at a pretty little kitten.

They discussed her ague for a few moments, and then took their places at a table which Nan had set in the parlour next the fireplace. The footman had informed Nan that his master had a hearty appetite—though he was now under his physician’s orders to eat sparingly—and the meal Amber had had sent down from the inn was an ample one. She thought it would be more to her interest to please Mr. Dangerfield than his doctor.

Without much difficulty Amber had soon maneuvered the conversation around to Mr. Kifflin and Mr. Wigglesworth. Off-handedly, she told him how they had come to her house last night to ask her to change some money for them. She said that she had only brought fifteen or twenty guineas to Tunbridge, but that she had given them to the young men to pay their gambling debts with, and was now wondering how she would ever pack all those shillings into her trunk.

Mr. Dangerfield, as she had hoped, seemed somewhat alarmed by this innocent tale. “Are you well acquainted with Mr. Kifflin and his friends?”

“Heavens, no! I met them yesterday morning at the well. They introduced themselves. You know how little one goes upon ceremony in places like this.”

“You’re very young, Mrs. St. Clare, and I don’t imagine you understand the ways of the world so well as an old man. If I may I’d like to give you some advice—and that is not to accept too much money from those gentlemen. They may be honest as they pretend, but when you’ve lived as long as I you’ll know it’s best to be cautious with a new acquaintance—particularly if you happen upon him at a public resort.”

“Oh,” said Amber, suddenly crestfallen. “But I thought that Tunbridge Wells was frequented by persons of the best quality! My physician who sent me here told me that her Majesty was here with all her ladies only last summer.”

“Yes, I believe she was. But where there’s quality there are sure to be rooks. And it’s unworldly young persons like yourself of whom they’ll take the greatest advantage.”

While he talked Amber reached up to adjust the bow in her hair, as a signal for Nan who was waiting just outside and peeking in the window. “Oh!” she said, with a troubled frown, “how could I have been so foolish! I hope—”

At that moment Nan came in, out of breath, and stood in the doorway taking off her chopins. “Heavens, mam!” she cried excitedly. “The landlord at the inn refused the money! He says it’s a false coin!”

“A false coin! Why, that was one Mr. Kifflin gave me last night!”

Samuel Dangerfield turned in his chair. “May I see it?” He took it from Nan, rung it upon the table and felt of the edges while both women watched him. “It is a false one,” he said seriously. “So the young coxcombs are counterfeiters. That’s a sorry business—and a dangerous one. I wonder how many others they’ve got to change money with them?”

“Everyone who looked simple enough, I suppose!” said Amber indignantly. “Well, I think we should call the constable and put ’em where they belong!”

Mr. Dangerfield, however, was less inclined to be vindictive. “The laws are too harsh—they’d be hanged, drawn, and quartered.” That would not have troubled Amber but she thought it best not to say so. “I believe we can manage them some other way. Do you think, Mrs. St. Clare, that you could get them to come here on some pretext or other?”

“Why, they should be along any minute—they asked me to walk to the well with them.”

When they arrived, not much later, Nan opened the door. At sight of Mr. Dangerfield their mouths opened into broad grins—and then closed suddenly when he said: “Mrs. St. Clare and I have just been discussing the fact that there seem to be counterfeiters at Tunbridge.”

Kifflin raised his eyebrows. “Counterfeiters? Gad! It’s un thinkable! I swear the wretches grow bolder every day!”

While Wigglesworth exclaimed, as though he could not believe his own ears, “Counterfeiters at Tunbridge!”

“Yes,” said Amber. “I have a shilling that was just refused at the inn and Mr. Dangerfield says it’s not a true coin. Perhaps they’d like to see it, sir.”

He gave it to Wigglesworth and both young men examined it closely, frowning, while Kifflin cleared his throat. Their faces were beginning to shine with sweat.

“It looks good enough to me,” said Kifflin at last. “But then I’m such a simple fellow someone has always got me on the hip.”

Wigglesworth laughed, not very enthusiastically. “That’s exactly my case, to the letter.” He returned the coin.

“The constable,” said Mr. Dangerfield gravely, “will be along soon to look at this coin. If he finds it to be false I suppose he’ll examine every person in the village.”

At that moment a country girl went by outside carrying a basket over her arm and crying, “Fresh new eggs! Who’ll buy my new fresh eggs?”

Kifflin turned about quickly. “There she is, Will. I hope you’ll excuse us, Mrs. St. Clare, but we came to ask if we might wait upon you later in the day. We overslept and came out in search of some eggs for our dinner. Good-day, madame. Good-day, sir.”

He and Wigglesworth bowed, backed their way out of the room, and once outside turned and started off in all haste. Their pace increased, they passed the girl without giving her so much as a glance, and when they had gone two hundred yards broke into an open run and at last cut off the main street and disappeared from sight. Amber and Mr. Dangerfield, who had gone out to watch, looked at each other and then burst into laughter.

“Look at ’em go!” cried Amber. “I vow they won’t stop for breath till they’ve reached Paris!”

She shut the door again and gave a little sigh. “Well, I hope I’ve learnt my lesson. I vow I’ll never put my trust in strangers again.”

He was smiling down at her. “A young lady as pretty as you are should be suspicious of all strangers.” He said it with the air of a man who intends to be very gallant, without ever having had much practice. And when she answered the compliment with a quick upward slanting glance he cleared his throat and his ruddy face darkened. “Hem—I wonder, Mrs. St. Clare, if you’d care to put your trust in this stranger long enough to walk to the well with him?”

Confidence was beginning to sweep through Amber, and the intoxication she always felt when she knew a man was attracted to her. “Of course I would, sir. I think I know an honest man when I see him—even if I can’t always tell one who isn’t.”

Amber had acted in numerous plays depicting the rigid austere hypocritical life of the City families and, though all of them had been bitter and satirical and slanderously exaggerated, she had taken them for literal truth. Consequently, she thought she knew exactly what Samuel Dangerfield would admire in a woman; but she soon discovered that her own instinct was a surer guide.

For as she became better acquainted with him she began to realize that even though he was a City merchant and a Presbyterian he was nevertheless a man. And she found to her surprise that he bore no resemblance at all to the sanctimonious severe dour old humbugs who had occasioned such derisive laughter at His Majesty’s Theatre.

If he was not frivolous, neither was he grimly sober; his disposition was a happy one and he laughed easily. He had worked hard all his life, for he had accumulated most of that vast fortune himself, but he was all the more susceptible to a young woman’s gaiety now. His family life had been a close one, but that had given him perhaps a sense of loss, and of curiosity. Amber came into his life like a spring gale, fresh, invigorating, a challenge to whatever he had of dormant venturesomeness. She was everything he had never known before in a woman, and much he had scarcely suspected.

It was not long before they were spending hours out of every day together, and though Samuel insisted that she must grow bored with the company of an old man and urged her to become acquainted with the few young people who were there, Amber insisted that she hated young fellows who were always so silly and empty-headed and thought of nothing but dancing or gambling or going to the play. She kept in close and never went out when she could avoid it, for she was afraid that someone else might recognize her.

And she thought that she could guess pretty well what he would think of an actress, by his opinion of the Court in general. For one day, after some mention of King Charles, he said: “His Majesty could be the greatest ruler our nation has ever had but, unfortunately, not only for him but for all of us, the years of exile were his ruin. He learned a set of habits and a way of living during that time from which he can never escape—partly, I’m afraid, because he doesn’t want to.”

Amber, stitching on a piece of embroidery borrowed from Nan’s work-basket, observed soberly that she had heard Whitehall had grown a most wicked place.

“It is wicked. Wicked and corrupt. Honour is a sham, virtue a laughing-stock, marriage the butt for vulgar jests. There are still decent and honest men aplenty at Whitehall, as everywhere else in England—but knaves and fools elbow them aside.”

Most of their conversation, however, was less serious, and he seldom cared to discuss ethical or even political matters with her. Women were not interested in such things, and pretty ones least of all. Besides, she was his escape from them.

But Amber did often ask him to advise her about financial matters; and listened wide-eyed and with her head nodding every so often to his talk of interest and principal, mortgages, title-deeds, and revenue. She talked of her goldsmith and when she mentioned Shadrac Newbold’s name was glad to see how favourably impressed he seemed. She said that it was a great responsibility for her to handle her husband’s money—she represented herself as a rich young widow—and that she worried a great deal for fear someone would cheat her out of it. That was another reason, she said, why she was always suspicious of young men who wished to strike up an acquaintance. She also talked frequently about her family and what terrible things they had suffered in the Wars—recounting, with elaboration, tales she had heard from Almsbury about his own or Lord Carlton’s difficulties. By these devices she hoped to discourage him, had he been so inclined, from taking her for a fortune-hunter.

They played dozens of games of wit-and-reason, and she always let him win. She made him laugh with her mimicry of the fat middle-aged women and gouty old men who were there taking the waters. She played for him on her guitar and sang songs—not ribald street-ballads, but gay country tunes or the old English folk-songs: “Chevy Chase,” “Phillida Flouts Me,” “Highland Mary.” She pampered and flattered and teased him, treated him at all times as though he was much younger than he was, and yet was as solicitous for his comfort as if he had been much older. She guessed his age one day at forty-five and when he told her that his eldest son was thirty-five, insisted he could never make her believe that Banbury-story. She gave a lively imitation of a woman most thoroughly infatuated.

But at the end of three weeks he had not tried to seduce her and she was growing worried.

She stood at the window one evening just after he had gone and traced idle patterns on the frosted pane with her finger-nail. Her lower lip stuck out and there was a scowl on her forehead.

Nan, who was lifting hot embers out of the fireplace with a pair of tongs and putting them into a silver warming-pan, glanced sideways at her. “Something amiss, mam?”

Amber swung around, giving a petulant switch to her skirt. “Yes, there is! Oh, Nan, I’m ready to run distracted! Three weeks I’ve been coursing this hare—and haven’t caught ’im yet!”

Nan closed the warming-pan and started into the bedroom with it. “But he’s getting winded, mam. I know he is.”

Amber followed her in and began to undress, but her face was gloomy and from time to time she gave an impatient ill-tempered sigh. It seemed to her that she had been trying all her life to make Samuel Dangerfield propose to her. Nan came to help her undress and stood behind her, unlacing her busk.

“Lord, mam!” she protested now. “You’ve got no cause for such vapourings! I know these formal old Puritans—I’ve worked in their houses. They think fornication’s a serious matter, let me tell you! Why, I’d bet my virginity he hasn’t laid with any woman save his wife these twenty years past! Heavens, give the gentleman leave to overcome his modesty! And what’s more, don’t forget you’ve gone to the greatest pains to make him take you for a woman of virtue. But I’ve watched him like a witch and I know he’s mighty uneasy—there’s fire in the flax and it’ll be quenched,” she added with a sage nod. “Only give ’im the right opportunity and you’ll have ’im—secure as a woodcock in a noose.” She made her two hands into a trap and put them about her own neck.

While Amber stepped out of her smock Nan whisked the warming-pan over the sheets, held back the covers and Amber jumped in, pulling them up quickly about her chin. Then she lay there in luxurious warmth and considered her problem.

This was, and she knew it, her last chance to take the world by its ears and climb on top. If she failed now—but she could not fail. She did not dare. She had seen too much at first hand of what happened to the women who, like her, made a livelihood by their wits and physical attractions but who had somehow let the years and the opportunities pass without achieving security.

Somehow, somehow, she thought desperately, I’ve got to do it; I’ve got to make him marry me!

And as she lay there thinking, it occurred to her all at once that perhaps she had been wrong, trying to make him marry her out of remorse and a sense of guilt. Why, she thought, with a sudden feeling of discovery, that would never even enter his head! Of course he’s not going to seduce me! He thinks I’m innocent and virtuous and he respects me! He’ll never marry me any way at all but from his own free will. That’s what I’ve got to do—I’ve got to get him to make me an honest proposal of marriage! Why didn’t I think of that long ago? But how can I do it—how can I do It—?

Amber and Nan put their heads together over that problem, and at last they worked out a plan.

About a week later Amber and Samuel Dangerfield set out for London in his coach. He had told her several days before that he must return and she had said that since she was leaving soon they might as well travel together; she would feel much safer riding with him. Her own coach, carrying Nan and Tansy, followed them. They had had a breakfast together at her cottage that morning—a substantial meal to prepare them for the journey—and though Amber had been gay and playful while they ate, now she had subsided into wistful and pensive quietness. From time to time she gave a little sigh.

The day was grey and dark and the rain seeped steadily down through the leafless branches of the forest. The air had a wet and penetrating chill, but they had fortified themselves against it with fur-lined cloaks and a fur-lined robe spread across their laps. Beneath their feet each one of them had a little brazier, like the ones people took to church, full of burning coals. So it was warm and moist inside the great lurching and rocking coach, and the warmth with the steam on the windows gave it a strange intimacy, making it a private little island shut off from the world.

Perhaps it was that seclusion and aloneness which made him bold enough to reach for her hand beneath the robe and say, “A penny for your thought, Mrs. St. Clare?”

For a moment Amber said nothing, and then she looked at him with her tenderest and most appealing smile. She gave a faint shrug of her shoulders. “Oh,” she said, “I was just thinking that I’m going to miss our card games and suppers and walking up to the well in the afternoons.” She gave another soft little sigh. “It’s going to seem mighty lonely now I’ve grown used to company.” She had told him how retired she lived in London, where she had no relatives, only a few friends, and was wary of making new acquaintances.

“Oh, but, Mrs. St. Clare, I hope you won’t think our friendship is over. I—Well, to be honest, I’ve been hoping we might meet sometimes in London.”

“That’s kind of you,” said Amber sadly. “But I know how busy you’ll be—and you have all your family about you.” Most of the children, she knew, grown and small alike, still lived at the great family mansion in Blackfriars.

“No, I assure you I won’t. My physician wants me to do less work and as for the matter of that, I find I’ve a taste for idleness —if it’s spent in pleasant company.” She smiled, and lowered her eyes at the compliment. “And I’d like to have you meet my family. We’re all very happy together and I think you’d like them—I know they’d like you.”

“You’re so kind, Mr. Dangerfield, to care about what—Oh! is something amiss?” she cried, as a sudden spasm of pain shot across his face.

For a moment he was silent, obviously embarrassed to be caught with an ailment at a moment so delicately romantic. But at last he shook his head. “No—” he said. “No, it was nothing.”

But presently the look of agony came again and his face flushed dark. Amber, now greatly alarmed, seized hold of his arm.

“Mr. Dangerfield! Please! You must tell me—What is it!”

He now looked wretchedly uncomfortable and was finally forced to admit that something, he could not imagine what, was causing him great abdominal discomfort. “But don’t trouble yourself for me, Mrs. St. Clare,” he pleaded. “It will pass presently, it’s only—Oh!” A sudden uncontrollable grunt escaped him.

Amber’s own face reflected sympathetic pain as she watched him. But instantly she was in practical charge of the situation. “There’s a little inn not far up the road—I remember we passed it on the way down. We’ll stop there. You must get into bed right away, and I’m sure I have some—Oh, now don’t make any objections, sir!” she said as he began to protest, and though her tone would permit no argument it was tender as a mother’s speaking to her sick child. “I know what’s best for you. Here—I’ve got some hawkweed and camomile in this little bag, I always carry it with me. Wait till I get this water-flask open so you can wash it down—”

It was not long before they reached the inn, at which Amber called out to order the coachman to stop, and Mr. Dangerfield’s gigantic footman, Big John Waterman, helped him to make his way inside. Big John offered to carry him, and no doubt could easily have done so, but he flatly refused and resented such assistance as he was forced to receive. Amber was busy as a hen with chicks. She rushed ahead to bid the hostess get a chamber ready, directed Tempest and Jeremiah which trunks to unload, ran back a half-dozen times to make sure Mr. Dangerfield was all right. At last they had him upstairs and, against his will, lying down in the great testered bed.

“Now,” said Amber to the hostess, “you must make a hot fire and bring me a kettle and crane so that I can heat water. Bring me all the hot-water bottles you have and some more blankets. Nan, open that trunk and get out the boxful of herbs —Jeremiah, go find my almanac—it’s in the bottom of the green leather trunk, I think. Now get out of here, all of you, so Mr. Dangerfield can rest—”

Amber loosened his clothes, took off his cloak and hat, cravat and doublet, piled hot-water bottles around him and covered him with blankets. She was quick and gentle, cheerful but concerned; an outsider would have thought she was already his wife. He begged her not to trouble herself with him, but to go on to London and send back a doctor. And, apparently in some apprehension that this might be another and perhaps final stroke, he asked her to notify his family. Amber firmly refused.

“It’s nothing serious, Mr. Dangerfield,” she insisted. “You’ll be hearty as ever in a few days, I know you will. It wouldn’t be right to scare them that way—especially with Lettice about to lie-in.” Lettice was his eldest daughter.

“No,” he agreed meekly. “It wouldn’t be right, would it?”

And in spite of his discomfort it soon became clear that he was enjoying his illness and the attentions it brought him. No doubt he had always felt obliged to be stoical before; now, far from home and those who knew him, he could luxuriate in the care and endless concern of a beautiful young woman who seemed to think of nothing at all but his comfort. She refused even to leave him alone at night, for fear the attack might recur, and slept there on the trundle only a few feet away.

The slightest sound from him and she was out of bed and beside him, her rich heavy hair falling about her face as she bent over him, the faint light from the candle throwing shadows across her arms and into her breasts. Her murmuring voice was like a caress; her flesh was warm whenever she happened to touch him; the heat in the room brought out an intoxicating fragrance of jasmine flowers and ambergris in her perfume. No illness had ever been so pleasant. And, half because she persuaded him he was pale and not strong enough to be moved, he remained in bed many days after all the pain had gone.

“Ye gods!” said Amber to Nan one day as she was dressing in the room which adjoined his chamber. “I think when I marry this old man I’ll be a nursemaid and not a wife!”

“Heavens, mam, it’s you’ve insisted he can’t get out of bed! And it was your idea in the first place to feed ’im those toadstools—”

“Shhh!” cautioned Amber. “You’ve got no business remembering such things.” She got up, gave herself a last glance in the mirror, and went toward the door into the next room; an expression of sweet tenderness spread over her face before she opened it.

CHAPTER TWENTY–FIVE

BARBARA’S HEAD LAY on James Hamilton’s shoulder.

And both of them lay motionless, half between waking and sleeping, eyes closed, faces smooth and peaceful. But slowly Barbara began to grow uneasy. Her nose wrinkled a little and then the nostrils flared; she sniffed once or twice. What the devil’s that smell? she thought irritably. And then all at once she realized.

Smoke!

The room was on fire!

She sat up with a start and saw that an entire velvet drapery was aflame, apparently having been lighted by a candle into which it had blown. She put her fists to her mouth and screamed.

“James! The room’s on fire!”

The handsome colonel sat up and glared resentfully at the flaming drapery. “Good Lord!”

But Barbara was pushing him out of bed, sticking her feet into mules, reaching for her dressing-gown. And now, suddenly wide awake, Hamilton rushed across the room and with a swift movement jerked the hanging from its rod and started to stamp the flame out. But already it had spread to a chair and as he flung it onto the floor a Turkish rug caught fire.

Barbara ran to him with his clothes in her hand. “Here!” She thrust them at him: “Get into these! Quick—down that stairway before someone comes! Help! Help!” she screamed. “Fire! Help!”

James got out of the room just as Barbara admitted half-a-dozen servants from the other door. By now the flames were licking up the walls, the opposite drapery was afire and smoke was beginning to fill the room and make them cough.

“Do something, some of you!” yelled Barbara furiously, but though the room was filling with people—footmen, pages, blackamoors, serving-women, courtiers who had been passing by—no one had yet made a move to put out the fire. They all stood for several seconds, looking on in stupefied amazement, each waiting for someone else to decide what should be done.

And then a couple of footmen arrived carrying buckets full of water and pushed their way in; they gave a mighty sling and sent the water splashing over one burning chair and carpet. There was a hissing and the smoke rolled out and everyone retreated, squinting his eyes and coughing. Several now began to run for more water.

Dogs were barking. A scared monkey leaped chattering from one shoulder to another and in his terror bit the hand of a woman who tried to knock him aside. Men rushed in and out with buckets of water, most of the women ran around distractedly, doing nothing. Barbara was trying to give orders to everyone at once, though no one paid her much attention. And now she seized a page by the arm as he went hurrying by, huge buckets slopping with water in either hand.

“Boy! Wait a moment—I want a word with you!” The young man stopped and looked at her; his eyes were bloodshot and his face wet with sweat and smeared with soot. She lowered her voice. “There’s a cabinet in there—a small one over in this corner—with a guitar atop it. Bring it out and I’ll give you twenty pound.”

His eyes flickered in surprise. Twenty pounds when his pay for the year was three! She must want it badly. “The whole side’s aflame, your Ladyship!”

“Forty pound, then! But bring it out!” She gave him a shove.

Two or three minutes later he came back carrying the cabinet easily in one hand, for it was very small. One side had been charred and as he set it down it fell apart and several folded letters dropped to the floor. He stooped quickly to retrieve them but Barbara cried: “Leave them alone! I’ll pick them up! Go back to your work!”

She knelt on one knee and began to gather them swiftly, when all at once a hand reached across and took one from beneath her very fingers. Looking up she saw the Duke of Buckingham standing there smiling down at her. Her purple eyes narrowed and her teeth closed savagely.

“Give that to me!”

Buckingham continued to smile. “Certainly, my dear. When I’ve had a look at it. If it’s so important to you, perhaps it’s also important to me.”

For a moment they continued to stare at each other, Barbara still half crouching, her tall cousin looming over her, both impervious to the noise and confusion all about them. And then suddenly she sprang at him, but he stepped lightly aside and warded her off with one raised arm, meanwhile sliding the letter into an inside pocket of his doublet.

“Don’t be so hasty, Barbara. I’ll return it to you in good time.”

She gave him a sullen glare and muttered some impolite curse beneath her breath, but evidently realizing that she would have to wait until he was ready she went back to directing the workmen. The fire was almost out by now and they were carrying from the bedroom all the furniture which had not been scorched. But the entire apartment was black with smoke and the bedchamber a wet charred mess. The windows were flung open to air the rooms, though it was a gusty rainy night, and Wilson brought Barbara a mink-lined cloak to put over her dressing-gown.

When at last they had gone she turned back to Buckingham, who was strumming at a guitar. Barbara stared at him from across the room. “Now, George Villiers—give me that letter!”

The Duke made an airy gesture. “Tush, Barbara. You’re always so brisk. Listen to this tune I pricked out the other morning. Rather pretty, don’t you think?” He smiled at her and nodded his head in time to the gay little melody.

“A pox on you and your damned tunes! Give me that letter!”

Buckingham sighed, tossed the guitar into a chair and took the letter from his pocket; as he began to unfold it she started toward him. He held up a warning hand. “Stay where you are, or I’ll go elsewhere to read it.”

Barbara obeyed him and stood there, her arms folded and the toe of her mule tapping impatiently. The crisp parchment crackled in the quiet room, and then as his eyes went rapidly over the contents a smile of amusement and contempt stole onto his face.

“By God,” he said softly, “Old Rowley writes as lewd a love-letter as Aretino himself.” Old Rowley was his Majesty’s nickname, after a pet goat that roamed the Privy Gardens.

“Now will you give me that letter!”

Buckingham slipped it once more into his own pocket. “Let’s talk this over for a moment. I’d heard his Majesty wrote you some letters just after you’d met. What do you expect to do with ’em?”

“What business is that of yours!”

The Duke shrugged and started for the door. “None, I suppose, strictly speaking. Well—a very fine lady has made me an assignation and I should hate to disappoint her. Good-night, madame.”

“Buckingham! Wait a minute! You know what I intend doing with them as well as I do.”

“Publishing them some day perhaps?”

“Perhaps.”

“I’ve heard you’ve threatened him with that once or twice already.”

“Well, what if I have? He knows what a fool he’d look if the people were ever to read them. I can make him jump through my hoop like a tame monkey by the mere mention of ’em.” She laughed, a gleam of reflective gloating cruelty in her eyes.

“A time or two, perhaps, but not for long. Not if he really decides to put you by.”

“Why, what do you mean? Age won’t stale these! Ten years will only give ’em a higher savour!”

“Barbara, my dear, for an intriguing woman you’re sometimes uncommonly simple. Has it never occurred to you that if you really tried to publish those letters you wouldn’t be able to find ’em?”

Barbara gasped. It had not, though she kept them under lock and key and until tonight no one but herself had known where they were. “He wouldn’t do that! He wouldn’t steal them! Anyway, I keep them well hidden!”

Buckingham laughed. “Oh, do you? I’m afraid you take Old Rowley for a greater fool than he is. The Palace swarms with men—and women too—who make it their business to find anything that will bring a good price. If he really decided that he wanted those they’d disappear from under your nose while you had your eye on ’em.”

Barbara was suddenly distraught. “Oh, he wouldn’t do that! He wouldn’t play me such a scurvy trick! You don’t really think he would, do you, George?”

He smiled, very much amused at her distress. “I know he would. And why not? Publishing them wouldn’t be exactly a gesture of good faith on your part, would it?”

“Oh, good faith be damned! Those letters are important to me! If he ever gets tired of me they’ll be all I have to protect myself—and my children. You’ve got to help me, George! You’re clever about these things. Tell me what I can do with them!”

Buckingham heaved himself away from the wall against which he had been leaning. “There’s only one thing to do with them.” But as she started eagerly toward him he made a gesture of one hand, and shook his head. “Oh, no, my dear. You’ll have to puzzle this out for yourself. After all, madame, you’ve not been my best friend of late—unless I’ve heard amiss.”

“I’ve not been your best friend! Hah! And what good turns have you done me, pray? Oh, don’t think I don’t know about you and your Committee for Getting Frances Stewart for the King! ”

He shrugged. “Well, a man must serve his King—and pimping’s often the high-road to power and riches. However, it all came to nothing. She’s a cunning slut, if I’ve ever seen one.”

“Well,” said Barbara, beginning to pout. “If it had it might have undone me for good and all. I thought you and I were pledged to a common cause, Buckingham.” She referred to their mutual hatred of Chancellor Clarendon.

“We are, my dear. We are. It’s my fondest wish to see that old man turned away in disgrace—or better yet to see his head on a pole over London Bridge. It’s time the young men have a swing at governing the country.” He smiled at her, a friendly ingratiating smile, all malice and scorn gone from his face. “I can’t think why we’re so often at odds, Barbara. Perhaps it’s because we both have Villiers blood in our veins. But, come—let’s be friends again—And if you’ll do your part I’ll try what luck I can have to bring you back into his Majesty’s favour again.”

“Oh, Buckingham, if only you would! I swear since her Majesty’s recovery he’s done nothing but trail after that simpering sugar-sop, Frances Stewart! I’ve been half-distracted with worry!”

“Have you? I’d understood there were several gentlemen who’d undertaken to console you—Colonel Hamilton and Berkeley and Henry Jermyn and—”

“Never mind! I thought we were going to be friends again—but that doesn’t give you leave to slander my reputation to my face!”

He made her a bow. “My humblest apologies, madame. I assure you it was but an idle jest.”

They had similarly quarrelled and made friends a dozen times or more, but both of them were too fickle, too mercurial, too determinedly selfish to make good partners in any venture. Now, however, because she wanted his help she gave him a flirtatious smile and was instantly forgiving.

“Gossip will travel here at Whitehall, be a woman never so innocent,” she informed him.

“I’m sure that’s your case to a cow’s thumb.”

“Buckingham—what about the letters? You know I’m but a simple creature, and you’re so clever. Tell me what I shall do.”

“Why, when you ask so prettily of course I’ll tell you. And yet it’s so simple I’m half ashamed to say it: Burn ’em up.”

“Burn them! Oh, come now, d’you take me for a fool?”

“Not at all. What could be more logical? As long as they exist he can take them from you. But once they’re burned he can turn the Palace upside down and never find ’em—and all the while you’re laughing in your fist.”

For a moment she continued to regard him skeptically, and then at last she smiled. “What a crafty knave you are, George Villiers.” She took a candle from the table and going to the cold fireplace tossed into it those letters which she held in her hand. Then she turned to him. “Give me the other one.”

He handed it to her and she tossed it too on the heap. The candle-flame touched one corner and in a moment the slow fire began to creep up the paper, making it curl as it turned black. And then suddenly they broke into a bright blaze which burned for a moment or two, the sealing-wax crackling and hissing, and began to die out. Barbara looked up over her shoulder at Buckingham and found him staring into the low fire, a thoughtful enigmatic smile on his handsome face. She had a quick moment of misgiving, wondering what he could be thinking; but it soon passed and she got to her feet again, relieved to have the troublesome letters safe at last.

About a week later most of the Court went to the opening performance of John Dryden’s new play, “The Maiden Queen.”

The house was full when the Court party arrived and there was a great buzzing and scraping as the fops in the pit climbed onto their benches to stare, while the women hung over the balconies above. One of them impudently dropped her fan as the King passed beneath and it landed squarely on top of his head. It began to slide off and Charles caught it and presented it with a smile to the giggling blushing girl above, as a spattering of handclaps ran over the theatre.

The King, York, and the young Duke of Monmouth were all in royal mourning—long purple cloaks—for the Duchess of Savoy.

Monmouth, the King’s fourteen-year-old bastard by an early love affair, had come to England in the train of Queen Henrietta Maria a year and a half before. Some said he was not really the King’s son, but at least he looked like a Stuart and there could be no doubt that Charles thought he was one. Almost since the day of the boy’s arrival he had shown him the most conspicuous affection and as a result of the title conferred upon him by his father he took precedence over all but York and Prince Rupert. The year before, his Majesty had married him to Anne Scott, eleven years old and one of the richest heiresses in Britain. Now the boy was appearing publicly in royal mourning—to the scandal of all who reverenced the ancient proprieties or who believed that blood was not royal unless it was also legitimate.

Down in Fop Corner one of the sparks commented: “By God, if his Majesty isn’t as fond of the boy as if he were of his own begetting.”

“It runs through the galleries he intends to declare him legitimate and make him his heir now it’s been proved the Queen’s barren.”

“Who proved it?”

“Gad, Tom, where d’ye keep yourself? My Lord Bristol sent a couple of priests to Lisbon to prove that Clarendon had something given her to make her barren just before she sailed for England.”

“A pox on that Clarendon’s old mouldy chops! And will you have a look at his mealy-mouthed daughter up there—as smug and formal as if she was Queen Anne!”

“And so she may be one day—if it’s true what they say about her Majesty.”

Another fop, catching the last phrase, perked up. “What’s that? What about her Majesty?”

All over the theatre the gossip went on, hissing and murmuring, while the royal party found its seats. Charles took the one in the center, with Catherine on his right and York on his left. Anne Hyde was beside her husband, and Castlemaine at the opposite end of the row next the Queen. Around and all about them were the Maids of Honour, both her Highness’s and the Queen’s. They were a group of pretty, eager, laughing girls, white-skinned, blue-eyed, with shining golden curls, their satin and taffeta skirts making a rustle as they arranged the folds and fluttered their fans, whispering and giggling together over the men down in the pit. They had arrived at Court during the past year and almost all of them were lovely—as though nature herself had sought to please the King by creating a generation of beautiful women.

On Barbara’s right sat one of the Queen’s Maids, Mrs. Boynton, a lively little minx who liked to affect an air of great languor and who grew faint three or four times a day when there were gentlemen about. Now Barbara spoke to her in an undertone which was nevertheless loud enough for Frances Stewart, just behind them, to overhear.

“Mrs. Stewart is looking wretchedly today, have you noticed? I would swear her complexion has a greenish cast.”

It was a well-known fact that Frances had been suffering from jealousy over the sensation created by the recent arrival at Court of Mrs. Jennings, a fifteen-year-old blonde who was currently being admired by all gentlemen and criticized by all ladies. Barbara was delighted that someone had come to catch interest from Frances Stewart, since that was what had happened to her the year before when Frances appeared.

Boynton waved her fan lazily, lids half-closed, and drawled, “She doesn’t look green to me. Perhaps it’s something in your Ladyship’s eye.”

Barbara gave her a look that once might have troubled her and turned to talk to Monmouth who leant forward eagerly, obviously much smitten by his father’s flamboyant mistress. He was tall and well-developed for his age, physically precocious as the King had been, and so extraordinarily handsome that grown women were falling in love with him. He had not only the Stuart beauty but also the Stuart charm—a merry gentle lovable disposition, and something in his personality so dazzling that he arrested attention wherever he went.

Boynton glanced around over her shoulder to exchange smiles with Frances, and Frances leaned forward, whispering behind her fan: “I just saw his Highness slip another note into Mrs. Jennings’s hand. Wait a moment and I’ll warrant you she tears it up.”

Jennings had been amusing the Court for some weeks by refusing to become York’s mistress, an office which was generally included in the appointment of Maid of Honour to his wife. She tore up his letters before everyone and scattered the pieces on the floor of her Highness’s Drawing-Room. And now, as Boynton and Frances Stewart watched her, she tore this note into bits and tossed them high in the air so that they drifted onto the Duke’s head and shoulders.

Boynton and Stewart burst into delighted laughter and York, glancing around, saw the scraps on his shoulder. Scowling, he brushed them off, while Mrs. Jennings sat very straight and prim-faced and looked down over his head at the stage, where the play was beginning.

“What!” said Charles, glancing at his brother as he brushed himself, and he laughed outright. “Another rebuff, James? Odsfish! I should think you’d have taken the hint by now.”

“Your Majesty doesn’t always take hints, if I may say so,” muttered the Duke, but Charles merely smiled good-naturedly.

“We Stuarts are a stubborn race, I think.” He leaned closer to James and murmured beneath his breath: “I’ll wager my new Turkish pony against your Barbary mare that I break in that skittish filly before you do.”

York raised a skeptical eyebrow. “It’s a wager, Sire.” The two brothers shook hands and Charles settled down to watch the play.

For two acts Barbara remained seated. She smiled at Buckingham and other gentlemen down in the pit. She twisted her pearls and fiddled her fan and put her hands to her hair. She took out a mirror to examine her face, stuck on another patch, and then tossed the mirror back to Wilson. She was, very ostentatiously, bored. And all the while Charles seemed unaware that she was nearby; he did not trouble to glance at her even once.

At last she thought she could bear this no longer, and fixing a determined smile on her face she leaned across Catherine and touched his arm. “It’s a wretched performance, don’t you think. Sire?”

He glanced at her coldly. “No, I don’t think so. I’m enjoying it.”

Barbara’s eyes glittered and the blood rushed to her face, but in a moment she had recovered herself. All at once she stood up, smiling sweetly, and crossing behind the Queen went to force a place for herself between Charles and York. The two men gave her surprised and angry glances and turned instantly away while Barbara sat, her face impassive and motionless as stone, though humiliated rage was making her sweat. For a moment she thought that her heart would explode, so bursting-full of blood it seemed.

And then, out of the corners of her eyes, she looked at Charles and saw the ominous flicker of his jaw-muscles. She stared at him, longing violently to reach over and rake her nails across that dark smooth-shaven cheek until she drew blood—but at last with a determined effort she dragged her eyes away and forced them down to the stage once more. All she could see was a blur that shifted and rocked; there were faces, faces, faces, turned up and grinning, smirking, sneering at her—a whole sea of enemy faces. She felt that she hated each one of them, with a murderous savage hatred that turned her sick and trembling.

It seemed to her that the play went on for hours and that she would never be able to endure the next minute of sitting there —but at last it was over. She waited a moment, under the pretense of pulling on her gloves, still hoping that Charles would invite her to ride in his coach. But instead he went off with Harry Bennet to call on the Chancellor who was again sick in bed with his gout.

Barbara lifted her hood up over her head, put on her mask and with an impatient gesture to Wilson started out as fast as she could go—the people stepped back to make a path, for her name still had magic to part the waves. Outside she got into her coach, and though it blocked the traffic she kept it waiting while her coachman yelled and swore at whoever complained, telling them to be silent—my lady would go in her own good time. It was several minutes before Buckingham appeared.

But finally he came strolling out of the theatre with Sedley and Buckhurst, and she gestured her footman to open the door. Frantically she signalled to him, but he was talking to an orange-girl, a merry laughing young wench who chattered with the three great men, no more awed than if they had been porters or carmen. At last, completely exasperated, Barbara shouted at him:

“Buckingham!”

He glanced carelessly in her direction, waved, and turned back to continue his conversation. Barbara ripped her fan across. “Lightning blast him! I’ll cut off his ears for this!” But finally he took an orange from the girl, kissed her, and dropping his coin into her low-necked bodice strolled toward the coach, tossing the orange to a tattered little ragamuffin who begged him for it.

“Get out and take a hackney,” Barbara muttered hastily to Wilson, and as his Grace got in on one side the waiting-woman got out on the other.

“That little wench has the readiest wit in London,” he said, sitting down beside her and waving out the window at the girl, while Barbara glared at him with a look so malignant he should have wilted. “She was put out into the streets at six to sell herring and was a slavey in Mother Ross’s brothel at twelve. Hart keeps her now, but I say she belongs on the stage. Nell Gwynne’s her name and I’d be willing to bet—”

Barbara had not listened to him but was yelling at her coachman to drive off, though now the traffic was so snarled on every side of them that it was impossible to move at all.

“A pox on you and your damned orange-girls!” she cried furiously, turning from the coachman back to her cousin. “A fine service you’ve done me! I’ve never been so humiliated—and in plain view of all the world! What ’ve you been about this past week?”

Buckingham stiffened, all his natural pride and arrogance rising in resentment at her hectoring tone and manner. “D’you expect miracles? Pray remember, madame, it’s taken you some time to get so far out of his Majesty’s favour. Even I can’t put you back in all at once. You should have stayed in your own seat—you wouldn’t have been humiliated there. And henceforward, madame, please don’t shout at me on street-corners as though I were your footboy.”

“Why, you impertinent dog! I’ll have you—”

“You’ll what, madame?”

“I’ll make you sorry for this!”

“I beg your pardon, madame—but you’ll never make me sorry for anything again. Or have you forgotten already that I can undo you whenever I care to take the trouble? Don’t forget, madame, that only you and I know that you burned his Majesty’s letters.”

Barbara’s mouth fell open and for several seconds she sat staring at him with horror which turned slowly to writhing impotent rage. She was about to speak when he flung open the door and got out, gave her a careless wave of his gloved hand and climbed into the next coach. It was full of young women who sat in a billowing sea of silk and satin skirts, and they welcomed him with screams of delight and kisses as he sat down among them. While Barbara stared, her eyes burning purple in a white face, the coach started slowly and rolled off, but the Duke did not give her so much as a backward glance.

CHAPTER TWENTY–SIX

DANGERFIELD HOUSE WAS in the aristocratic old quarter of Blackfriars and had been built twenty years before on the site of a great fourteenth-century mansion. It formed a broad sprawling H, with courtyards both in front and in back, and was four stories high with a fifth half-story; the ground floor and the basement served for offices and warehouse. Made of red brick it was perfectly symmetrical with innumerable large square-paned glass windows, several gables cutting into the roof-line and a forest of chimney-tops. It stood on the corner of Shoemaker Row, facing Greed Lane, and was surrounded on every side by a tall iron picket-fence, guarded by massive gates where servants waited at all hours of the day or night.

Climbing out of the coach before the twin staircases which led to the main entrance on the second floor, Amber looked up at it with wide wondering eyes.

This house was something bigger, more imposing, more formidable than she had expected. Two hundred thousand pounds was an even greater amount of money than she had realized. Until now she had thought of Samuel Dangerfield merely as a kind simple old gentleman whom she had contrived to hoodwink, but now he took on something of the awe-inspiring quality of his home, and she began to feel a little nervous at the prospect of meeting his family. She wished that she felt as convinced as he did that they were going to welcome her with open arms-love her at sight.

And now, as they stood for a moment in the February drizzle while he gave instructions to the footmen regarding the disposal of their trunks and baggage, a third-story window was flung open and a woman appeared in it.

“Dad! At last you’re back! We were so worried—you’ve been gone so long! But did it help you? Are you feeling better?” She did not, or pretended not to notice that there was a woman with her father.

But Amber looked up at her curiously. That, she thought, must be Lettice.

She had heard a great deal about Lettice—as she had heard a great deal about all his children—but more, perhaps, of Lettice than any of the others. Lettice had been married for several years, but at her mother’s death she had returned to Dangerfield House with her husband and family to take charge of the housekeeping. Without intending to, Samuel had portrayed a prim energetic domineering woman, whom his wife was already prepared to dislike. And now Lettice was ignoring her, as though she were a lewd woman whom it was not necessary to notice.

“I’m feeling very well,” said Samuel, obviously annoyed by his daughter’s bad manners. “How is my new grandson?”

“Two weeks old yesterday and thriving! He’s the image of John!”

“Come down into the front drawing-room, Lettice,” Samuel said crisply. “ I want to see you—immediately.”

Lettice, after giving a quick stealthy glance at Amber, closed the window and disappeared and Amber and Samuel—with Nan and Tansy following—went up the staircase and into the house. The door was opened for them by a gigantic Negro in handsome blue livery and they stepped into a great entrance-hall out of which opened other rooms; a pair of broad curved staircases ran up either side of it to the railed-off hallway above.

Everywhere about them were the evidences of lush comfort and wealth: the beautifully laid floors, the carved oak furniture and tapestry-hung walls. And yet, somehow, the impression created was one of soberness, not frivolity. An almost ponderous conservatism marked each velvet footstool and carved cornice. It was possible to know at a glance that quiet and well-bred and moderate people lived in this house.

They walked off to the left into a drawing-room more than fifty feet long and Samuel saw immediately, to his regret, that he had made a careless mistake. For there, over the fireplace, hung a portrait of him and his first wife, painted some twenty years before; it had been there so long that he had forgotten it. But Amber, looking at the powerful prim unlovely face of the first Mrs. Dangerfield, understood immediately why it had been possible to induce Samuel to marry her—though she doubted whether his family would understand as well.

At that moment there were footsteps behind them and she turned to see a replica of the woman on the wall standing facing her. For an instant Lettice’s eyes met hers in a quick fierce womanly stare, all-seeing, and condemning, and then she turned to her father. Amber gave her a sweeping glance which discovered that she knew nothing about clothes, was too tall, and looked older than her thirty-two years. The gown Lettice was wearing was like those Killigrew had put on the actresses when he had wished to show a hypocritical Puritan, and against which they had always protested violently. It was perfectly plain black and fitted neither snugly nor too loosely, had a deep white-linen collar which covered her to the base of her throat, and broad linen cuffs. Her light-brown hair was almost entirely concealed beneath a starched little cap with shoulder-length lappets, and she wore no jewellery but a diamond-studded wedding-band. Against such simplicity Amber, who had thought herself very demure, felt suddenly gaudy and flamboyant.

“My dear,” said Samuel to Amber, and he took her arm, “may I present my eldest daughter, Lettice? Lettice, this is my wife.”

Lettice gasped and turned paste-white. Amber—once the ceremony was performed——had suggested to Samuel that they send a messenger ahead to notify the family. But he had insisted upon giving them what he was sure would be a most happy surprise.

Now Lettice stood and stared at her father for several stark quiet moments, and then as she turned to look at Amber there was an expression of frank horrified shock on her face. She seemed aware of it herself, but unable to help it, and this unexpected reaction on. her part was making Samuel angry. Amber, who had prepared herself for it, smiled faintly and nodded.

At last Lettice managed to speak. “Your—wife? But, Dad—” She put one hand distractedly to her head. “You’re married? But your letters never mentioned—We didn’t—Oh, I—I’m sorry—I—”

She seemed so genuinely and painfully stunned that Samuel’s rigid hauteur collapsed. He put one arm about her. “There, my dear, I know it’s a surprise to you. But I was counting on you, Lettice, to help me tell the others. Look at me—And please smile. I’m very happy and I want my family to be happy with me.”

For a long minute Lettice buried her head against her father’s chest and Amber waited with a feeling of annoyance, expecting hysterics. But at last she stood erect, kissed Samuel’s cheek and smiled. “I’m glad you’re happy, Dad.” She turned about quickly. “I’ll make arrangements for dinner,” and she ran out of the room.

Amber glanced at Samuel and saw a strange thoughtful look on his face as his eyes followed Lettice. She put her hand into his. “Oh, Samuel—she doesn’t like me. She didn’t want you to get married.”

His eyes came back to her. “Well, perhaps she didn’t,” he agreed, though before he had never admitted such a possibility. “But then Lettice never likes anything new—ho matter what it is. But wait until she knows you. She’ll love you then—no one could help it.”

“Oh, Samuel, I hope so! I hope they’ll all like me. I’ll try so hard to make them like me.”

They went upstairs then to his apartments which were in the south-west wing of the building, overlooking the rear court and the garden. The suite consisted of a string of rooms opening one into another, all of them furnished in much the same style as the others she had seen. There were reminders of his first wife everywhere: another portrait of her above the fireplace, a wardrobe which must have held her clothes and perhaps still did; there was the impress of her personality on every rug and piece of furniture. Amber felt as though she had walked into a room which still belonged to the dead woman, and decided immediately that she would make some changes here.

Promptly at one o’clock Samuel and Amber entered the dining-room. They found every member of the family who was home and old enough to walk assembled there to meet her. Almost thirty persons stood about the huge table, several of them children who would ordinarily have been eating in the nursery. Such large families were common among the richer middle-classes, for their children did not die in as large proportion as did those of the poor and their women made no effort to prevent child-bearing as did the fashionable ladies of Whitehall and Covent Garden.

Now, as Amber and Samuel stood in the doorway, one little moppet inquired loudly: “Mother, is that the woman?” Her mother administered a hasty embarrassed slap and followed it with a shake to keep her from crying.

Samuel ignored this incident and began to make the introductions. Each person, when presented, came forward to bow, if a man, or to curtsy and give her a peck on the cheek if a woman. The children, staring round-eyed, likewise made their awkward bows and curtsies. It was obvious from their interest and awe that much had already been said among the grown-ups about the new Mrs. Dangerfield.

On the whole they were handsome people; Lettice’s plain face was almost conspicuous. There was the eldest son, Samuel, with his wife and six children. Robert, the next son, whose wife was dead, and his two children. Lettice’s husband, John Beckford, and their eight children. The third son, John, who also lived in the house with his wife and five children and was engaged as were the older sons in their father’s business. A daughter who had come from her nearby home with her children for the occasion. James, with his wife and two children. And three younger children, girls fifteen and thirteen, and a twelve-year-old boy. There were others—one travelling abroad, one at Grey’s Inn and one at Oxford, a girl who lived in the country and another whose first pregnancy had kept her from attending the great event.

Lord! thought Amber. So many people to divide a fortune between! Well, there’s one more now.

They were all instructed to call her “Madame”—Samuel could not bring himself to tell them her first name—and a troop of footmen began to march into the room carrying great silver trays, porringers and tankards, steaming with the most deliciously fragrant food and brimful of good golden ale. The dining-room was as solemnly impressive as the rest of the house. The stools they sat on were covered with tapestry; a great carved-oak cupboard was loaded with silver plate that made Amber’s eyes pop; they drank from fragile crystal glasses and ate from silver dishes. And yet in the midst of all that splendour they sat in their quiet unpretentious clothes, black and grey and dark green, with white collars and cuffs, drab as sparrows. Ribbons and lace, false curls and powder and patches were nowhere to be seen and Amber, even in her simple black velvet gown with the white lace collar, felt strangely conspicuous—and she was.

She had expected them to be hostile, and they were, for by law in the City of London one-third of a man’s fortune must go to his widow, and if she bore him a child—as she hoped to do—she might get even more.

But that was not the only reason they disliked her. They disliked her first because their father had married her, and every grievance stemmed from that, though it was not probable they would have had a good opinion of her under any circumstances. She was, though she tried not to seem so, an alien, different from them in all the wrong ways.

Her beauty, even without obvious paint, was too vivid to be decent in their eyes. The women were convinced that she was neither as sweet nor as innocent as she seemed, for they recognized though they did not discuss her blatant quality of sexual allure. A woman’s eyes should not have that wicked slant, nor her body an air of being unclothed even when thoroughly covered. They learned what her first name was and were shocked; their own names were the old-fashioned and trustworthy ones, Katherine, Lettice, Philadelphia, Susan.

And Amber, in spite of her protestations to Samuel that she wanted nothing on earth but the love of his family, did from the start many things which they could only resent and criticize.

She had already possessed an extensive wardrobe, but nevertheless she was constantly ordering and buying new things-elaborate gowns, fur-lined cloaks, dozens of pairs of silk stockings, fans and shoes and muffs and gloves by the score. For weeks at a time she never appeared twice in the same costume. And she wore her jewels, emeralds, diamonds, topazes, as carelessly as if they were glass beads. Her portrait, faintly smiling in a gold-lace gown, replaced that of Samuel and the first Mrs. Dangerfield in the drawing-room. The bedroom in which many of them had been born was refurnished and gold-flowered crimson-damask hangings went up at the windows and around the bed; the old fireplace was torn out and a new black Genoese marble mantel put in its stead; Venetian mirrors and lacquered East Indian cabinets and screens supplanted the respectable pieces of English oak.

But even those things they might have forgiven her had it not been for their father’s obvious and shameless infatuation. For once married to him Amber was able to make use of a great many means for increasing his passion which she had not dared employ during the courtship. She knew that her chief hold over him was her youth and beauty and flagrant desirability—qualities his first wife had utterly lacked and would have scorned as more suitable to a man’s whore than to his lawful wife. And, because she wanted a child to bind him even closer, she pandered in every way she could to his concupiscence. He neglected his work to be with her, lost weight, and—even though he made an effort to behave decorously before his family—his eyes betrayed him whenever he looked at her. They were aware of all this, aware in fact of more than any of them cared to mention, and their hatred grew.

At his age it seemed to them not only disgusting but actually treacherous, a desecration of the memory of their own mother. And it was incomprehensible, to the men as well as the women, for Samuel had lived so continently, had worked so hard and seemed so little interested in pretty women or any other form of divertissement, that they could not understand why he should now suddenly reverse all the habits of a lifetime.

But it was Lettice, more than any of the others, who resented her. She felt that Amber’s presence in the house was a shameful thing, for she could not regard a wife of barely twenty as anything other than her sixty-year-old father’s mistress, taken in his declining and apparently immoral years.

“That woman!” she whispered fiercely one day to Bob and the younger Sam as the three of them stood at the foot of the stairs and watched Amber run gaily up, curls tossing, skirts lifted to show the embroidered gold clocks on her green-silk stockings. “I vow she’s no good! I’m sure she paints!” They always criticized her for the things they dared to say out loud to each other, though the rest was well if silently understood among them.

Twenty-year-old Henry, who was a student at Grey’s Inn, had just sauntered up and stood watching her too. He was so much younger than the others that his share in the fortune would not be a large one and so he had no prejudice on that score. For the rest, he had a sly admiration for his step-mother which he often humoured in fanciful day-dreams.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t a raving beauty into the bargain, eh Lettice?” he said now.

Lettice gave her brother a look of scorn. “Raving beauty! Who wouldn’t be a beauty with paint and curls and patches and ribbons and all the rest of it!”

Henry shrugged, looking back to his sister now that Amber had disappeared down the upper hallway. “It’s a pity more women aren’t then, since it’s so easy.”

“Faith and troth, Henry! You’re getting all your ideas from the playhouse!”

Henry coloured. “I am not, Lettice! I’ve never been inside a playhouse and you know it!”

Lettice looked skeptical, and the other two brothers threw back their heads and laughed. Henry, growing redder, turned hastily and walked off; and Lettice with a sigh went out toward the kitchens to resume her work. For Amber had made no attempt to take over the running of the household and though Lettice would have liked to force it upon her Samuel had asked her to continue in charge and she could not refuse him. But it was no easy task to organize and direct an establishment consisting of thirty-five children and adults and almost a hundred and fifty servants.

Upstairs Amber was getting into her cloak, putting the hood up over her hair, tucking a black-velvet vizard inside her muff. Her movements were quick and her eyes sparkled with excitement.

“I tell you, mam,” said Nan, helping her but shaking her red-blonde curls, “it’s a foolhardy thing to do.”

“Nonsense. Nan!” She began pulling on a pair of embroidered, elbow-length gloves. “No one could recognize me in this!”

“But suppose they do, mam! You’ll be undone—and for what?”

Amber wrinkled her nose and gave Nan’s cheek a little pat. “If anyone wants me I’ve gone to the ’Change. And I’ll be back by three.”

She went out the door and down a narrow spiralling flight of stairs which led her into the back courtyard where one of the great coaches stood waiting. She got in quickly and the heavy vehicle lumbered about and drove out of the yard to turn up Carter Lane; she had kept Tempest and Jeremiah with her and they drove her wherever she went.

At last they stopped. She put on her mask and got out, crossed the street and turned into a lane which led through a teeming noisy courtyard and thence to the back of the King’s Theatre. She glanced around, then went in and down to the door of the tiring-room which she found, as always, full of half-naked actresses and beribboned gallants, most of whom were wearing the brand-new fashion of periwigs.

For a moment she stood unnoticed in the doorway and then Beck Marshall spoke to her. “What d’you want, madame?”

With a triumphant laugh and a flourish Amber took off her mask and dropped back her hood. The women shrieked with surprise and Scroggs waddled forward to greet her, her ugly old face red and grinning, and Amber put an arm about her shoulders.

“By Jesus, Mrs. St. Clare! Where’ve ye been? See!” she crowed. “I told ye she’d be back!”

“And here I am. Here’s a guinea for you to drink, Scroggs, you old swill-belly—that should keep you foxed for a week.”

She came on into the room and was instantly surrounded on every side by the women who kissed her, asking a dozen questions at once, while the gallants hung close and insisted they had been adying for her company. There had been rumours that she had gone into the country to have a baby, had died of the ague, had sailed for America, but when she told them she had married a rich old merchant—whose name she did not disclose—they were much impressed. The actors heard that she was there and came in too, claiming a kiss each, examining her clothes and jewels, asking her how much money she would inherit and if she was pregnant yet.

Amber felt wholly at her ease for the first time in more than four months. At Dangerfield House she was constantly dogged by the feeling that she would inadvertently do or say something improper. And she was made more uncomfortable by a nagging mischievous desire to suddenly throw off her air of sweet naivete, make a bawdy remark, wink at a footman, shock them all.

Then all at once she caught sight of a face which, for an instant, she did not recognize, seeing it in this unfamiliar environment. And suddenly she clapped her mask back on, turned up her hood and began to make her goodbyes. For there across the room, talking to one of the new actresses, was Henry Dangerfield. In less than a minute she was on her way down the dimly-lighted corridor, but she had not gone far when footsteps came up behind her.

“I beg your pardon, madame—”

Amber’s heart jumped and she stopped perfectly still, but only for an instant and then immediately she went on again.

“I don’t know you, sir!” she snapped, changing her voice to a higher pitch.

“But I’m Henry Dangerfield and you’re—”

“Mrs. Ann St. Michel, sir, and travelling alone!”

“I beg your pardon, madame—”

To her intense relief Amber found that he had stopped and when she got outside and glanced back he was not in sight. Nevertheless she did not get into the coach but said softly to Tempest as she walked by, “Meet me at the Maypole corner.”

Amber spent the rest of the afternoon in her room, nervous and restless. She paced back and forth, looked out the window dozens of times, wrung her hands and asked Nan over and over why Samuel was late. Nan had not said that she knew this would happen, but she looked it.

But when he came in, late in the afternoon, he greeted her with a smile and kiss, just as he always did. Amber, who had put on a dressing-gown and nothing else, laid her head against his chest.

“Oh, Samuel! Where ’ve you been! It’s so late—I’ve been so worried about you!”

He smiled and, glancing around to make sure that Nan was not looking, he slipped one hand into her gown. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. A gentleman had come from out of town on business and we talked longer than I expected—” His head bent to kiss her again, and from behind his back Amber signalled at Nan to leave the room.

At first she thought she would stay there that night and not go down to supper, but finally she decided that it would do no good. If Henry had recognized her he could mention it tomorrow as well as today, and she could not hide in their apartments forever.

But the supper went exactly as it usually did and afterward, as was their custom, they all went into one of the small parlours to spend an hour or two before retiring. Again Amber thought of pleading a headache and getting Samuel to go upstairs with her, but again she decided against it. If Henry was suspicious and she stayed—perhaps he would think that he had been wrong.

Lettice, with Susan and Philadelphia and Katherine, sat before the fireplace talking quietly and working on pieces of embroidery. The younger children started a game of blind-man’s-buff. Samuel sat down to a chess game which had been going on for several nights between him and twelve-year-old Michael, and Henry pulled up a chair to watch. The older brothers smoked their pipes and discussed business and the Dutch and criticized the government. Amber, beginning to feel comfortable again, sat in a chair and talked to Jemima, prettiest of all the good-looking Dangerfield children.

Jemima, just fifteen, was the one friend Amber had made in her new home; and Jemima admired her whole-heartedly. She was too unsophisticated to understand much more regarding her father’s recent marriage than that he had brought a new woman to live in the house. And this woman looked and dressed and behaved exactly as she would have liked to do herself. She could not understand the animosity felt toward Madame by her older brothers and sisters, and had often repeated to Amber the things she had heard them say about her. Once she told her that Lettice, upon hearing of how devotedly Madame had nursed him through his illness, had said that she would just as soon think she had made him sick herself to have the opportunity of making him well. Amber, somewhat uneasy to hear this, was relieved that the oldest brother had cautioned Lettice against being carried too far by her own jealousy. After all, he had said, the woman might be of dubious character—but she couldn’t be that bad.

Amber—who usually got along well with girls too young or unattractive to compete with her—encouraged the friendship. She found Jemima’s naive admiration and talkativeness a convenient means of informing herself on the others—as well as a source of entertainment to help her pass the long dull days. Furthermore, she took malicious delight in annoying Lettice. For Lettice had warned Jemima repeatedly against the association, but Lettice was no longer head of the house and Jemima was spirited enough to enjoy disobeying her.

She was about the same height Amber was, but her figure was slight and less rounded. Her hair was rich dark brown with sparks of copper in it; her skin fine and white and she had blue eyes with a sweep of curling black lashes. She was eager, vivacious, spoiled by her father and elder brothers, independent, stubborn and lovable. Now she sat on a stool beside Amber, her fingers clasped over her knees, eyes shining in fascination while Amber told her a story she had heard at second-hand of the King begging my Lady Castlemaine’s pardon on his knees.

Across the room Susan glanced at them and raised her eyebrows significantly. “How devoted Jemima is to Madame! They’re all but inseparable. I should think you’d be more careful, Lettice. Jemima might learn to paint.”

Lettice gave her a sharp glance but found her looking down at her embroidery, taking tiny precise stitches. For several years, ever since Lettice had returned home and assumed management of the household, there had been a low-current feud going on between her and this wife of the eldest brother. The other two women smiled faintly, amused, for they were all secretly a little pleased that at last Lettice had found someone she could not dominate. But they were not so pleased it sweetened the bitter gall of lost money: the new wife was still the common enemy of them all, and their little personal animosities of but minor importance.

Lettice answered her quietly. “I am going to be more careful in the future—for that isn’t all the child might learn from her.”

“Low-necked gowns without a scarf too, perhaps,” said Susan.

“Much worse than that, I’m afraid.”

“What could be worse?” mocked Susan.

But Katherine sensed that Lettice knew something she had not told them, and her eyes lighted with the prospect of scandal. “What’ve you heard, Lettice? What’s she done?” At Katherine’s tone the other two instantly leaned forward.

“What do you know, Lettice?”

“Has she done something terrible?” They could not even imagine what could be terrible enough.

Lettice threaded her needle. “We can’t discuss it now with the children in the room.”

Immediately Philadelphia rose. “Then I’ll send them to bed.”

“Philadelphia!” said Lettice sharply. “I’ll handle this! Wait until she begins to sing.”

For every night, after the children had gone to bed and just before they all retired, Amber sang to them. Samuel had instigated the custom, and now it was a firmly-established part of household routine.

The women fidgeted nervously for almost an hour, begging Lettice in whispers over and over again to send the children to bed, but she would not do so until exactly the time when they went every night. She returned from seeing them into the custody of their nurses to find Amber strumming her guitar and singing a mournful pretty little song:

“What if a day, or a month, or a year,

Crown thy delights

With a thousand glad contentings?

Cannot the chance of a night or an hour

Cross thy delights

With as many sad tormentings?”

When it was done the listeners applauded politely, all but Jemima and Samuel, who were enthusiastic. “Oh, if only I could sing like that!” cried Jemima.

And Samuel went to take her hand. “My dear, I think you have the prettiest voice I’ve ever heard.”

Amber kissed Jemima on the cheek and slipped her arm through Samuel’s, smiling up at him. She was still holding her guitar which had been a gift from Rex Morgan and was decorated with a streamer of multicoloured ribbons he had bought for her one day at the Royal Exchange. She was relieved to have the evening done and was eager to get upstairs where she could feel safe. Never again, she had promised herself a dozen times, will I be such a fool.

Lettice sat leaning forward in her chair, tense, her hands clasped hard, and now Katherine gave her an impatient nudge with her elbow. Suddenly Lettice’s voice rang out, unnaturally clear and sharp: “It’s not surprising that Madame’s voice should be pleasant.”

Henry, standing across the room, gave a visible start and his adolescent face turned red. Amber’s heart and the very flowing of her blood seemed to stop still. But Samuel had not heard, and though she continued to smile up at him she was wishing desperately that she could stop up his ears, push him out of the room, somehow keep him from ever hearing.

“What do you mean, Lettice?” It was Susan.

“I mean that any woman who used her voice to earn her living should have a pleasant one.”

“What are you talking about, Lettice?” demanded Jemima. “Madame has never earned her living and you know it!”

Lettice stood up, her cheeks bright, fists clenched nervously at her sides, and the lappets on her cap trembled. “I think that you had better go to your room, Jemima.”

Jemima was instantly on the defensive, looking to Amber for support. “Go to my room? Why should I? What have I done?”

“You’ve done nothing, dear,” said Lettice patiently, determined that there should be no quarrel within the family itself. “But what I have to say is not altogether suitable for you to hear.”

Jemima made a grimace. “Heavens, Lettice! How old do you think I am? If I’m old enough to get married to that Joseph Cuttle I’m old enough to stay here and listen to anything you might have to say!”

By now Samuel was aware of the quarrel going on between his daughters. “What is it, Lettice? Jemima’s grown-up, I believe. If you have something to say, say it.”

“Very well.” She took a deep breath. “Henry saw Madame at the theatre this afternoon.”

Samuel’s expression did not change and the three women about the fireplace looked seriously disappointed, almost cheated. “Well?” he said. “Suppose he did? I understand the theatre is patronized nowadays by ladies of the best quality.”

“You don’t understand, Father. He saw her in the tiring-room.” For a moment she paused, watching the change on her father’s face, almost wishing that her hatred and jealousy had never led her to make this wretched accusation. She was beginning to realize that it would only hurt him, and do no one any good. And Henry stood looking as if he wished he might be suddenly stricken by the devil and disappear in a cloud of smoke. Her voice dropped, but Lettice finished what she had begun. “She was in the tiring-room because she was once an actress herself.”

There was a gasp from everyone but Amber, who stood perfectly still and stared Lettice levelly in the eye. For an instant her face was naked, threatening savage hate showing on it, but so quickly it changed that no one could be certain the expression had been there at all. Her lashes dropped, and she looked no more dangerous than a penitent child, caught with jam on its hands.

But Susan pricked her finger. Katherine dropped her sewing. Jemima leaped involuntarily to her feet. And the brothers were jerked out of their lazy indifference to what they had thought was merely another female squabble. Samuel, who had been looking younger and happier these past weeks than he had in years, was suddenly an old man again; and Lettice wished that she had never been so great a fool as to tell him.

For a moment he stood staring ahead and then he looked down at Amber, who raised her eyes to meet his. “It isn’t true, is it?”

She answered him so softly that though everyone else in the room strained to hear her words they could not. “Yes, Samuel, it’s true. But if you’ll let me talk to you—I can tell you why I had to do it. Please, Samuel?”

For a long minute they stood looking at each other, Amber’s face pleading, Samuel’s searching for what he had never tried before to find. And then his head came up proudly and with her arm still linked in his they walked from the room. There was a moment of perfect silence, before Lettice ran to her husband and burst into broken-hearted tears.

CHAPTER TWENTY–SEVEN

NO FURTHER MENTION was ever made, in the presence of Samuel Dangerfield, of his wife’s acting.

The morning after Lettice had made her sensational disclosure, he called her into a private room and told her that the matter had been explained to his own satisfaction, that he did not consider an explanation due the family, and that he wanted no more talk of it among themselves, nor any mention to outsiders. Henry was told that he could either forgo visiting the theatre or leave home. And to all outward appearances everything went on exactly as it had before.

The first time Amber appeared at dinner after that she was as composed and natural as if none of them knew what she really was; her coolness on this occasion was considered to be the boldest thing she had yet done. They could never forgive her for not hanging her head and blushing.

But though Amber knew what they thought of her she did not care. Samuel, at least, was convinced that she was wholly innocent, the victim of bad luck which had forced her into the uncongenial surroundings of the theatre, and that she had been tainted neither physically nor morally by the months she had spent on the stage. His infatuation for her was so great, his loyalty so intense, that none of them dared criticize her to him, even by implication. And they were all forced by family pride and love of their father to protect her against outsiders. For though, inevitably, gossip spread among their numberless relatives and friends that old Samuel Dangerfield had married an actress—and one of no very good repute—they defended her so convincingly that Amber became acceptable to the most censorious and stiff-necked dowagers in London.

But if the rest of the family was shocked and ashamed to be related, even by marriage, to a former actress, there was one of them who thought it the most exciting thing that had ever happened. That was Jemima. She teased Amber by the hour to tell her all about the theatre, what the gentlemen said, how my Lady Castlemaine looked when she sat in the royal box, what it felt like to stand on the stage and have a thousand people stare at you. And she wanted to know if it was true—as Lettice had said—that actresses were lewd women. Jemima was somewhat puzzled as to exactly what a lewd woman was, but it did sound wickedly exciting.

Amber answered her questions, but only part of each one. She told her step-daughter of all that was gay and colourful and amusing about the theatre and the Court—but omitted those other aspects which she knew too well herself. To Jemima fine gentlemen and ladies were fine because they wore magnificent clothes, had an elaborate set of mannerisms, and were called by titles. She would not have liked to be disillusioned.

And for all that Lettice could say or do she began to imitate her step-mother.

Her neck-lines went lower, her lips became redder, she began to smell of orange-flower-water and to wear her hair in thick lustrous curls with the back done up high and twisted with ribbons. Amber, motivated by pure mischief, encouraged her. She gave her a vial of her own perfume, a jar of lip-paste, a box of scented powder, combs to make her curls stand out and seem thicker. At last Jemima even stuck on two or three little black-taffeta patches.

“Faith and troth, Jemima!” said Lettice to her sister one day when she came down to dinner in a satin gown with huge puffed sleeves that left her shoulders and too much of her bosom bare. “You’re beginning to look like a hussy!”

“Nonsense, Lettice!” said Jemima airily. “I’m beginning to look like a lady!”

“I never thought I’d see the day my own sister would paint!”

But Sam put his arm about Jemima’s tiny laced-in waist. “Let the child be, Lettice. What if she does wear a patch or two? She’s pretty as a picture.”

Lettice gave Sam a look of scornful disgust. “You know where she learns all this, don’t you?”

Jemima sprang hotly to the defense of her step-mother. “If you mean I learned it from Madame, I did! And you’d better not let Father hear you speak of her in that tone, either!”

Lettice gave a little sigh and shook her head. “What have we Dangerfields come to—when the feelings of a common actress are—”

“What do you mean a ‘common actress,’ Lettice?” cried Jemima. “She isn’t common at all! She’s a lady of quality! Of better quality than the Dangerfields are, let me tell you! But her father—who was a knight, I’ll have you know—turned her out when she married a man he didn’t like! And when her husband died she was left without a shilling. Tom Killigrew saw her on the street one day and asked her to go onto the stage, and so she did—to keep from starving! And as soon as her husband’s father died and left her some money she quit and went to Tunbridge Wells where she could live quiet and retired! Well—what are you both smirking at?”

Sam sobered immediately, for it was his opinion that Jemima would be less injured by her association with the woman if she did not know what she really was. “Is that the story she told Father?”

“Yes, it is! You believe it, don’t you, Sam? Oh, Lettice! You make me sick!”

Suddenly she swirled about and lifting up her skirts started off up the stairs and as she went Lettice saw that with everything else she had begun to wear green silk stockings. Sam and Lettice looked at each other.

“Do you suppose he really believed that wild tale?” he asked at last.

Lettice sighed. “I know he did. And if he thought that we didn’t—well, he mustn’t ever think it, that’s all. I don’t know what happened to him to make him change, but something did and we must hide our feelings and thoughts for his sake. We still love him even if—even if—” She turned about quickly and walked away, though Sam gave her arm a brief pressure as she went. And at that moment Samuel and Amber walked into the room, Jemima triumphantly beside them with one arm linked through her step-mother’s.

By June Amber, who was not yet pregnant, was beginning to worry frantically. For Samuel, she knew, was anxious to have a child—mostly, she suspected, to justify his marriage to her in his own and his family’s eyes. And she wanted one herself. He had already redrawn his will to give her the legal one-third, but she thought that a baby might induce him to give her even more. He had grown almost comically sentimental about babies, considering that his first wife had borne him eighteen children. And perpetually aware as she was of the hostility they all felt toward her, she believed that a baby would protect her as nothing else could.

Enveloped in a cloak, her face covered with a vizard, she went to consult half the midwives and quacks and physicians in London, asking their advice. She had a chestful of oils and balsams and herbs and a routine of smearing and anointing which occupied a great deal of time. Samuel’s diet included vast quantities of oysters, eggs, caviar, and sweetbreads—but still the maddening fact persisted, she was not pregnant. She finally went to an astrologer to have her stars read and was encouraged when he told her that she would soon conceive.

One very hot day late in June she and Jemima returned from a visit to the Royal Exchange and came into her apartments to drink a syllabub cooled in ice. The streets had been dusty and the crowds bad-tempered. There were so many flies in the house that though Tansy was detailed with a swatter to kill them they zoomed and buzzed everywhere. Amber tossed aside her fan and gloves and the hood she had been wearing and dropped onto a couch, beginning immediately to unfasten the bodice of her gown.

Jemima was less interested in the heat than in the exciting adventure they had just had. For two very fine and good-looking gentlemen had stopped her step-mother in the Upper Walk of the ’Change and one of them had asked, with charming impudence, to be presented to “that pretty blue-eyed jilt”—meaning Jemima. And then he had kissed her on the cheek, bowed most graciously, and invited her to drive to Hyde Park with him and have a syllabub.

“Imagine!” cried Jemima delightedly. “Mr. Sidney saying that after meeting me the day seemed hotter than ever!” She giggled and sipped her drink. “I vow I’ve never seen such handsome men—at least not in a great while. And the other one, Colonel Hamilton, is my Lady Castlemaine’s lover, isn’t he?” She felt flattered to have been looked at admiringly by a gentleman her Ladyship loved. Barbara’s notoriety was now so extensive that she had become a kind of myth, known even to innocent and sheltered girls like Jemima.

“That’s the gossip,” said Amber lazily.

“Of course I know you were right to tell them we couldn’t go—and yet they seemed so fine, and so genteel and well-bred. I vow we’d all have been mighty merry.”

Amber exchanged a sly glance with Nan, who was across the room behind Jemima. “No doubt,” she agreed and got up to begin undressing. The Dangerfields entertained a great deal-more than ever since Samuel was so eager to display his lovely young wife—and it was her chief diversion to change one beautiful gown for another.

“You know,” said Jemima now, not watching her step-mother but staring reflectively down into her glass. “I think it would be a mighty fine thing to have a lover—if he was a gentleman, I mean. I hate common fellows! All the Court ladies have lovers, don’t they?”

“Oh, some of ’em do, I suppose. But to tell you truth, Jemima, I don’t think Lettice would like to hear you talk that way.”

“Much I care what Lettice would like! What does she know about things like that? The only man she ever knew was John Beckford—and she married him! But you’re different. You know everything—and I can talk to you because you won’t tell me I’m wanton. Husbands are always such dull fellows—the gentlemen never seem to get married, do they?”

“Not while they can get—not while they can help it,” amended Amber.

“Why not? Why don’t they?”

“Oh,” she shrugged into a dressing-gown, “they say they’ll lose their reputations as men of wit. But come, Jemima, you don’t really mean all this. I thought that you were going to marry Joseph Cuttle.”

Jemima made a violent face. “Joseph Cuttle! You should see him! Don’t you remember—He was here last Wednesday. He’s got teeth that stick out and skinny legs and pimples all over his face! I hate him! I won’t marry him! I don’t care what they say! I won’t!”

“Well—” said Amber soothingly. “I don’t think your father will make you marry a man you hate.”

“He says I have to marry him! They’ve been planning it for years. But, oh, I don’t want to! Amber!” she cried suddenly, and rushed to kneel before her where she sat in her dressing-gown, stroking a great purring tortoise-shell cat. “Father will do anything you say! You make him promise I don’t have to marry Joseph Cuttle, will you? Will you, Amber, please?”

“Oh, Jemima,” protested Amber, “you mustn’t say such things! Your father doesn’t do what I tell him to, at all.” She knew that even Samuel would not want his family to think he was hen-pecked. “But I’ll speak to him about it for you—”

“Oh, if only you would! Because I won’t marry him! I can’t! I’m—Do you want to know something, Amber? I’m in love!”

Amber seemed duly impressed, and asked the expected question. “How fine. Is he handsome?”

“Oh,” breathed Jemima fervently. “The handsomest man I’ve ever seen! He’s tall and his hair’s black and his eyes—I forget what colour they are, but when he looks at me I get such a queer feeling right here. Oh, Amber, he’s wonderful! He’s everything in the world that I admire!”

“Hey day!” said Amber. “Where’s this wonder to be seen?”

Jemima grew wistful at that. “Not here—not in London. At least not now—but I hope he’ll be back one day soon. I’ve been waiting for him for thirteen months and a week—and I’ll never love another man till he returns.”

Amber was amused, for Jemima’s enthusiasm seemed quite childish to her, considering that the girl did not guess what the primary business of love was about. Naive kisses and queer feelings were the limit of her experience. “Well, Jemima, I hope he comes back to you. Does he know you’re waiting?”

“Oh, no. I suppose he scarce knows I’m alive. I’ve only seen him twice—he was here one night for supper and another time I went down with Sam and Bob to see his ships, just before he sailed for America.”

“Sailed for America! Who is this man! What’s his name!”

Jemima looked at her in surprise. “If I tell you will you promise not to tell a soul? They’d all laugh at me. He’s a nobleman—Lord Carlton—Oh! What’s the matter? Do you know him?”

It was like a smack in the face with cold water, rude and shocking, and it made her angry because it scared her. But why should it? she thought, annoyed by her own uneasy lack of confidence. This girl can’t mean anything to him—Why, she’s just a child. Besides, she’s not half as pretty as I am—Or is she? Amber’s eyes were going swiftly over her step-daughter’s face—seeing there now a threat to her own happiness. Don’t be such a fool! she told herself wrathfully. Do you want her to guess—Only seconds had passed before she managed to answer, with a show of casualness:

“Why, I think I met him once at the Theatre. But how d’you come to be entertaining a lord and visiting his ships?”

“He does some business with Father—I don’t know just what.”

Amber lifted her eyebrows. “Samuel doing business with a pirate?”

“But he’s not a pirate! He’s a privateer—and there’s a world of difference between ’em. It’s the privateers we have to thank for keeping England on the seas—his Majesty’s navy won’t do it!”

“You talk like a merchant yourself, Jemima,” said Amber tartly, but brought herself up with another quick warning. “Well—” She contrived a smile. “So you’re in love with a nobleman. Then I hope for your sake he’ll come back to England soon.”

“Oh, I hope so too! I’d give anything to see him again! D‘you know—” she said with sudden confiding shyness, “last Hallowe’ en Anne and Jane and I baked a dumb-cake. Anne dreamed that night about William Twopeny—and now she’s married to him! And I dreamed about Lord Carlton! Oh, Amber, do you think he could ever fall in love with me? Do you think he’d ever marry me?”

“Why not!” snapped Amber. “You should have a big enough dowry!” The instant she heard the words she was furious with herself and quickly added, “That’s what men always think about, you know.”

In less than an hour she broke her promise to Jemima, for Samuel came in and she could not resist the temptation to speak to him of Bruce, though she began by saying innocently, “I heard today in the ’Change that the Dutch have told his Majesty their fleet is only to defend their fishing trade, and that he’s angry they should think he’s stupid enough to believe it.”

Samuel, who was putting off his outer clothes, laughed at that. “What a ridiculous lie! The Dutch fleet is for just one purpose—to run England off the seas. They’ve captured our ships, beaten our men in the East Indies, hung the St. George under their own flag, granted letters-of-marque against us, and done everything but dare us to fight them.”

“But we’ve been granting letters against them too, ever since the King came back, haven’t we?”

“If we have it’s not supposed to be known—the letters were mostly against the Spanish, though I don’t doubt that Dutchmen have been stopped too. Which is no better than they deserve. But how does it happen you know so much of our politics, my dear?” He seemed tenderly amused to hear his wife discussing serious matters.

“I’ve been talking to Jemima.”

“To Jemima? Well, I suppose she has the latest news at her finger-tips.”

“When it concerns privateers she does. She says you do business with ’em.”

“I do, with three or four. But I never knew Jemima to be very much interested in my business affairs.” He smiled as he stood before her, hands in his pockets while his eyes ran over her admiringly.

“It isn’t your business she’s interested in so much as the privateers.”

“Oh, so that’s it, is it? The little minx. Well—I suppose she thinks she’s in love with Lord Carlton.”

“How did you guess?”

“It wasn’t very difficult. He was here for supper once about a year ago. She could hardly eat a bite and talked about nothing else for days. Well, she’d better get him out of her head.”

“She says she’s waiting for him to come back.”

“Nonsense! He doesn’t know she’s on earth! His family’s one of the oldest in England and he’s made himself enormously rich privateering. He’s not interested in marrying some upstart merchant’s daughter.”

Samuel had no illusions about his social relationship to the aristocracy. His family was a new one, just come into power and wealth during the last two generations, and he had no snobbish ambition to buy his way into the peerage—as some men he knew were doing—at the price of his own self-respect.

“I wouldn’t want her to marry Lord Carlton if he’d have her. As a man, I like and admire him, but as a husband for my daughter—I wouldn’t consider it even if he wanted to marry her, which I know he doesn’t. No, Jemima’s going to marry Joseph Cuttle and she may as well get such ridiculous notions out of her head. The Cuttles and I have done business together for years and it’s a suitable marriage for her in every respect. I’ll speak to her directly about such nonsense.”

“Oh, please, Samuel—don’t do that! I promised her I wouldn’t tell you. But of course I thought you should know. Why not let me talk to her?”

“I wish you would, my dear. She has more respect for your opinion than for anyone’s.” He smiled and offered her his arm. “I don’t want to force her, and yet I know that it’s best for her and for all of us. The boy is young, but he’s very fond of her and is a quiet hard-working lad, exactly the kind of man she should marry.”

“Of course she should! But young girls have such silly ideas about men—” They started out of the room and Amber asked casually, “By the way, Samuel, is Lord Carlton coming to London soon?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Oh, I was only thinking that the contract should be signed before she sees him again—or heaven only knows what foolishness she might do.”

“That’s a very good idea, my dear. I’ll see the lawyers tomorrow. It’s kind of you to take an interest in my family.”

Amber smiled modestly.

Joseph Cuttle was among the guests they had that night and though Amber had met him before she had not remembered him. He was a tall awkward boy, eighteen years old, with a face which looked unfinished. His manners were clumsy and embarrassed, as though he always wished that he might run away and hide. It was almost ridiculous to think of dainty effervescent little Jemima married to so gauche a creature.

But Amber sought him out and though at first he was desperately uncomfortable she succeeded so well in putting him at his ease that presently he was confiding his troubles to her and begging her to help him. She promised that she would and hinted that Jemima liked him much better than she seemed to but that shyness kept her from showing her feelings. Once she caught Jemima’s eyes on her, surprised and hurt and accusing. It was not long before Jemima, pleading that she had a headache, left the company and went upstairs to her own apartments.

She rushed into Amber’s room early the next morning, while Amber lay drowsily sunk in her feather-mattress, contemplating the tufted satin lining of the tester over her head. She was indulging, as she often did when not quite awake, in a sensual reverie, half memory, half wishful imagining, about herself and Bruce Carlton. She had long since forgiven him for Captain Morgan’s death and did not doubt that he had likewise forgiven her. And, since Jemima had talked about him, she felt that he was closer than he had been, that perhaps she would see him again before so very long. Now Jemima’s appearance jerked her rudely from her voluptuous musing.

“Heavens, Jemima! What’s the matter?” She half sat up.

“Amber! How could you be so civil to that nasty Joseph Cuttle last night!”

“I don’t think he’s nasty at all, Jemima. He’s a good kind-hearted young man, and he adores you.”

“I don’t care! He’s ugly and he’s a fool—and I hate him! And you promised you’d help me!” All at once she began to cry.

“Don’t cry, Jemima,” said Amber, rather crossly. “I’ll help you if I can. But your father told me to talk to him, and I couldn’t very well refuse.”

“You could if you wanted to!” insisted Jemima, wiping the tears from her face. “Lettice says you make him do anything you want—like a tame monkey!”

Amber repressed a burst of laughter at this, but said severely, “Well, Lettice is wrong! And you’d better not say things like that, Jemima! But make yourself easy—I’ll help you all I can.”

Jemima smiled now, for her tears were sudden and light and left no traces. “Oh, thank you! I knew you wouldn’t turn against me! And when Lord Carlton comes—you will help me then, won’t you?”

“Yes, Jemima, of course. Every way I can.”

Amber, crossing the front courtyard to get into her coach, stopped suddenly and stared at another coach which was standing there. It was Almsbury’s. And since it was not likely the Earl could have any business with Samuel, it must mean that Bruce was back. He was there, at that very moment, inside with Samuel!

For an instant she stood, stunned, staring at the crest; and then without a word she whirled and ran back across the courtyard. She had been in Samuel’s offices no more than three or four times and the various men working there looked at her in some surprise and curiosity as she rushed through the outer rooms toward his private office. Without stopping for an instant to decide what she would say or do, to try to gather her composure, she flung open the door.

The room was large and handsomely furnished with carved oak tables and chairs and stools, dark rich velvet hangings, panelled walls, and numerous candles burning in brass sconces. Samuel and Lord Carlton stood before a great framed map of the New World, and though Samuel was facing her Bruce had his back turned. He had on one of the new cassock-coats, made of dark-green-and-gold brocade and reaching to his knees, with a broad twisted satin sash about the waist and a belt slung from one shoulder to hold his sword. A broad-brimmed hat was on his head and he wore a periwig which was not, however, much different in appearance from his own hair; only the fops wore the long extravagantly-curled wigs.

Even from the back he looked different to her from any other man, and her heart was beating so violently she was almost stifled. I’m going to faint! she thought desperately. I’m going to do something terrible and make a fool of myself!

“Oh, I’m sorry, Samuel,” she said, still standing in the opened doorway and holding to the knob. “I thought you were alone.”

“Come in, my dear. This is Lord Carlton, of whom you’ve heard me speak. My lord, may I present my wife?”

Bruce turned and looked at her and his eyes showed first surprise and then amusement. You—he seemed to say—of all people. You, married to a respectable rich old merchant. And she saw too that he had not forgotten their last parting, made in anger and tragedy.

But he merely took off his hat and bowed to her gravely. “Your servant, madame.”

“Lord Carlton is just returned from America with his ships —and several others, as well,” Samuel added with a smile, for the merchants were proud of the privateers, and grateful to them.

“How fine,” said Amber nervously, and she had a terrible feeling that she was going to fall apart, collapse in little pieces from head to toe. “I just came to tell you, Samuel”—she spoke rapidly—“that I won’t be home in time for dinner. I’ve got a call to make.” She gave Carlton a swift uncertain glance. “Why don’t you come to supper this evening, Lord Carlton? I’m sure you must have a great many exciting tales to tell of your adventures at sea.”

He bowed again, smiling. “I don’t believe sea-going stories hold much interest for ladies, but I shall be very glad to come, Mrs. Dangerfield. Thank you.”

Amber gave them both an abrupt smile, curtsied, and went out in a rush of taffeta petticoats; the door banged noisily behind her. She ran back across the courtyard as if afraid that her legs would not carry her all the way to the coach. She climbed in, dropped down onto the seat, and closed her eyes.

Excitedly Nan seized her hand. “Is he there, mam?”

“Yes,” she whispered weakly. “He’s there.”

Half an hour later she was at Almsbury House and Emily was greeting her with eager enthusiasm. Together they started upstairs toward the nursery.

“How kind of you to call! We’ve been in town less than a fortnight and we tried to find you but at the Theatre they could only tell us you’d married, but didn’t know where you were living. Lord Carlton is here with us—”

“Yes, I know. I just saw him at my husband’s office. Do you think he’ll come back here for dinner?”

“I don’t know. I believe that he and John were to meet somewhere at one.”

They had reached the nursery and found the children having their porridge. Amber’s disappointment over the prospect of missing Bruce was partly eased by her reunion with her son, whom she had not seen since the previous September. He was an extraordinarily beautiful child, healthy and happy and friendly, with dark waving hair and green eyes. She picked him up in her arms, laughing gaily when he kissed her and got cream on her cheeks and mouth and tangled his spoon in her curls.

“Daddy’s here too, Mother!” he announced loudly. “Aunt Emily brought me all the way to London to see him!”

“Oh,” said Amber, a little jealous resentment pricking at her. “You knew he was coming?”

“He wrote to John,” explained Emily. “He wanted to see the baby.”

“He isn’t married, is he?”

It was the one question she dreaded to ask, each time he came back, though she could not imagine whom a man could find to marry in that barbarous empty land across the ocean.

“No,” said Emily.

Amber sat down on the floor with Bruce and a fat barking spotted puppy which belonged to him, while Emily’s two sons came to join them. Between playing with the puppy and talking to her son, she managed to ask Emily some questions.

“How long is he going to stay this time?”

“A month or so, I believe. He’s going to volunteer his ships for the war.”

“The war! It hasn’t begun yet, has it?”

“Not yet, but soon, I believe. At least that’s what they’re saying at Court.”

“But what’s he going to do that for? He might lose them all—”

Emily looked faintly surprised. “Why, he wants to. England needs every ship and every experienced seaman she can get. Many privateers will do the same thing—”

At just that moment Bruce came through the opened doorway and walked toward them. While Amber sat speechless and helpless, the baby broke out of her arms and ran to his father, who swung him up onto one shoulder. He was standing above her now, looking down and smiling.

“I thought I might find you here.”

CHAPTER TWENTY–EIGHT

JEMIMA CAME RUNNING into the bedroom that evening as Amber was getting dressed for supper. “Amber!” she cried joyously. “Oh, Amber, thank you!”

Amber turned and saw to her annoyance that Jemima, dressed in a gown of cornflower-blue satin, with the skirt caught up by artificial roses and real roses pinned into her glossy curls, was looking prettier than she ever had.

“Thank you for what?”

“For inviting Lord Carlton to supper, of course! Father told me he was coming and that you had asked him!”

“Joseph Cuttle’s coming too, remember,” said Amber crossly. “And if you’re not nice to him your father will be mighty displeased.”

“Oh, Joseph Cuttle! Who cares about him! Oh, Amber, I’m so excited. What’ll I do? What’ll I say? Oh, I do want to make a great impression! Tell me what I shall do, Amber, please—You know about those things.”

“Just be quiet and modest,” advised Amber, somewhat tartly. “Remember, men never like a pert woman.”

Jemima was instantly subdued, struggling to compose her face. “I know it! I’ve got to be very formal and languishing—if only I can! But, oh, I think I’ll faint at the sight of him! Tell me—how do I look?”

“Oh, tearing fine,” Amber assured her. She got up to put on her gown.

Amber was unhappy and worried and sickeningly jealous, desperately afraid of her step-daughter. She and Bruce had been together all afternoon, and the glow of those hours still lingered, throbbing and reverberating through every chord of her being. But now here was Jemima, young, lovely, audacious, who suddenly seemed to her a dangerous rival. For by her own marriage to a rich old merchant Amber had acquired a sort of counterfeit respectability which she felt made her less alluring. She was married but Jemima was not; and for all Samuel’s certainty that Lord Carlton would not care to marry into the Dangerfield family, Amber was scared.

Don’t be a fool! she had told herself a hundred times. He wouldn’t marry a simpleton like Jemima for all the gold in England! Besides, he’s rich enough himself now. Oh, why doesn’t Jemima look like Lettice!

She did not look at Jemima as she got into her gown but she could feel the girl watching her, anxiously, and her own confidence began to return. The gown was made of champagne-coloured lace over champagne satin, and was spangled with thousands of golden stars. She turned, still avoiding Jemima’s eyes, and walked back to the dressing-table to put on her emeralds.

“Oh!” cried Jemima at last. “How beautiful you are!” Her eyes wistfully sought out her own reflection in a mirror. “He won’t even see me!”

“Of course he will, sweetheart,” said Amber, better-natured now. “You’ve never looked half so pretty.”

At that moment Jemima’s woman, Mrs. Carter, stuck her head in the door. “Mrs. Jemima!” she hissed. “His Lordship’s here! He just came in!”

Amber’s heart gave a bound, but she did not turn her head or move. Jemima, however, looked as distraught as a girl summoned to her execution. “He’s here!” she breathed. “Oh, my God!” That alone was enough to show her mortal desperation, for blasphemy was no more allowable in Dangerfield House than was bawdry.

And then Jemima picked up her skirts and was gone.

Five minutes later Amber was ready to go downstairs herself. She was eager to see how he looked at Jemima, what he seemed to think of her—but most of all she wanted nothing but to see him again, to hear his voice and watch his face, to be in the same room with him.

“Take care, mam,” cautioned Nan softly, as she gave her her fan.

Amber saw him the moment she entered the drawing-room. He was standing across from her talking to Samuel and two other men, and Jemima was there at his side, staring up at him like a flower with its face turned to the sun. She started toward them but had to stop a great many times on the way to greet her other guests, most of whom were familiar to her for they had been there often during the past five months.

They were merchants and lawyers and goldsmiths, part of that solid body of upper-middle-class rich which was rapidly becoming the greatest force in England. More and more they were able to control governmental policies both at home and overseas, because they now controlled the largest share of the country’s money. Almost without exception they had been on the winning side in the Civil Wars, and their fortunes had continued to grow during the years that the defeated Royalists suffered imprisonment and ruinous taxes at home or lived in desperate poverty abroad. Even the Restoration had not been able to bring about a return of the old conditions; these were the rich strong men of the kingdom now.

It was the merchants who were loudest and most insistent in demanding a war against the Dutch, which was necessary to protect England’s commerce and trade from the most formidable rival she had in that sphere. And Lord Carlton, as a privateer who had been sinking Dutch ships and capturing Dutch merchandise, was vastly respected and admired by them, in spite of the fact that he was an aristocrat.

At last Amber came up to the small group which stood framed by the new gold-embroidered velvet draperies she had put in the drawing-room. She made a deep curtsy and Bruce bowed to her. Jemima watched them both.

“I’m glad you were able to come, Lord Carlton.” She could face him more calmly now, though her inner excitement was still intense.

“I’m extremely happy to be here, Mrs. Dangerfield.”

No one could have guessed that only three hours ago they had lain together. Now they were cool and polite—strangers.

Supper was announced and the guests began to straggle into the dining-room where the meal was being served in French buffet style. There was food enough to feed three times the hundred people there were to eat it, and gallons of white and red wine. Wax candles cast a soft bright light on the women’s hair and shoulders; music of fiddles drifted from the rooms beyond. Some of the women were dressed with as great splendour as the Court ladies; the men were for the most part in sober dark velvets or wool.

Amber and Bruce were immediately separated, for she had her duties as hostess and he was captured by a circle of merchants who wanted to know when the war would begin, how many ships he had taken, and if it was true that there was a plague in Holland which would lay her so low she would be an easy victim. They asked him why the King did not mend his ways, how long the idleness and corruption at Court would continue and, privately, whether it was a safe investment to loan his Majesty a large sum of money. “Our ships,” “our trade,” “our seas,” were the words that sounded over and over. The women gathered in groups to talk of their children, their pregnancies and their servants. Almost everyone would remark, sometime during the course of the evening, that England had been far happier under Old Oliver; they forgot how they had grumbled about that same Old Oliver.

They drifted out of the dining-room and back to the drawing-room to seat themselves about little round tables or on chairs and benches. And Amber, whose eyes followed Bruce wherever he went, even when she seemed most occupied with something else, was furious when Jemima at last succeeded in maneuvering him away from his questioners and into a corner alone with her. They sat down, plates on their laps, and began to talk.

Jemima was chattering at him and smiling, her eyes ashine with happiness and passionate admiration as she plied on him all the pretty tricks of a natural flirt. Bruce sat and watched her and now and then he said something, but though he seemed only lazily amused Amber was in a state of anguished jealousy.

She made several starts to go over and interrupt them, but each time someone stopped her. At last one old dowager with a bosom like a shelf and the face of a petulant spaniel said to her: “Jemima seems mightily smitten with his Lordship. She’s been making sheep’s-eyes at him all evening. Let me tell you, Mrs. Dangerfield, if Jemima was my daughter I’d find a way to get her out of his company—I admire his Lordship’s exploits on the sea as much as anyone, but his reputation with women is none of the best, you can take my word for that.”

Amber was horrified. “Oh, heaven! Thank you for telling me, Mrs. Humpage. I’ll take a course with her this instant.”

And immediately she was off across the room to where Joseph Cuttle stood in a corner talking to Henry and trying to pretend he did not know Jemima was with a man who was not only handsome and titled but a hero into the bargain.

“Why, Joseph!” she cried. “Where have you been all evening? Whatever are you doing over here? I’ll wager you haven’t spoke so much as a word to Jemima!”

Joseph blushed and shuffled one foot awkwardly, while Henry looked into his step-mother’s neckline. “I’m having a fine time Mrs. Dangerfield. Jemima’s busy.”

“Nonsense, Joseph! Why, she’ll never forgive you if you serve her at this rate!” She took his wrist, kindness and encouragement in her eyes. “Come along, Joseph—you can’t help your cause with her by standing over here.”

They began to make their way across the room and Amber kept a firm hold on Joseph’s hand, as though afraid that he would bolt and run. But Amber dragged him up to Bruce and Jemima, ignoring the reproachful accusing stare Jemima gave her, and presented him to Lord Carlton.

“I’m going to let you and Joseph start the dancing, Jemima,” she said sweetly. “You can begin with a coranto.”

Reluctantly Jemima got to her feet, but her face began to sparkle again as she turned to Bruce. “Excuse me, your Lordship?”

Bruce bowed. “Certainly, madame. And I thank you for your company at supper.”

Jemima gave him a long smile, one he was not intended to forget—ignoring the tormented boy by her side—and then with a brief curtsy to Amber she went off toward the ballroom, but she did not take Joseph’s arm or seem aware that he was with her.

Amber waited until they were out of ear-shot and then she turned to Bruce, to find him smiling down at her. He seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. “Well!” she said. “And did you have a pleasant evening!”

“Very pleasant. Thank you for inviting me. And now—” He glanced across the room at a clock. “I must be going.”

“Oh, you must be going!” she repeated sarcastically. “As soon as I come along you must be going!”

“I have business at Whitehall.”

“I can imagine what your business is!”

“Smile a little, Amber,” he said softly. “Some of your guests are beginning to wonder at your familiarity with me. A woman never quarrels with a man she doesn’t know well.”

His mocking tone made her furious, but what he said scared her even more. And now she forced a bright smile onto her mouth if not into her eyes, and gave a quick sweeping glance to see if they were being watched. I’ve got to be careful! she warned herself. If anyone guessed—Oh Lord, if they ever guessed!

She raised her voice a little, smiling. “I’m so glad you could come tonight, Lord Carlton. It isn’t often we have the company of a man who’s done so much for England.”

Bruce bowed, bending with his careless, light feline grace. “Thank you, madame. Good-night.”

He left her then and made his way across the room to speak to Samuel. Suddenly Amber, who had turned about to talk to a white-haired old gentleman, left him with the excuse that she must see about replenishing the wine. In the hallway she picked up her skirts and ran as fast as she could go, out the door and round to the front courtyard where she saw Bruce just getting into a coach.

“Lord Carlton!” she cried breathlessly, her high heels clicking as she ran across the brick pavement toward him.

He stopped, turning to look at her. “Did you call me, Mrs. Dangerfield?”

“I have a message from my husband, your Lordship.” With that she climbed into the coach and beckoned him to follow her, motioning the footman then to close the door. “Bruce—when can I see you again?”

“Amber, you little fool! What are you thinking about?” His voice was impatient and there was an angry look in his eyes. “You’ve got to use more sense this time!”

She frowned a little as she glanced out the window, wishing that that stupid footman would go away with his torch, for it sent a flaring light in upon them. “I’ll be careful! Only I’ve got to see you, Bruce! When? I can come any time.”

“Come to the ships tomorrow, then. We’ll be unloading and no one will be surprised if you’re there.”

“I’ll be there in the morning.”

She leaned a little toward him, longing for a kiss.

“Amber!”

Reluctantly she got out of the coach and ran back into the house again. To her horrified amazement she found the drawing-rooms in an uproar of excitement and turmoil, though she had left her guests talking and laughing and beginning to dance.

“What is it? What’s happened?” She rushed up to the first person she saw.

“It’s your husband, Mrs. Dangerfield. He’s fainted.”

“Fainted!”

The terrible thought went through her mind that he had somehow guessed or been told about her and Bruce and that the shock had brought on a stroke. She was more worried for herself than for Samuel, as she ran up the stairs.

She found the outer rooms full of people, servants and members of the family, but without stopping to speak to them she went directly into the bedroom. Samuel lay at full length on the bed and Lettice knelt beside him, while the four oldest brothers stood anxiously nearby. None of them glanced at her. Dr. de Forest, who was his physician and who had been at supper, was holding his wrist and taking the count of his pulse.

Instinctively Amber lowered her voice to whisper. “What happened? I went out to see about the wine and when I came back they said he had fainted.”

“He has,” said Sam curtly.

Amber went to stand beside the bed, on the opposite side from Lettice. She did not dare look at her or at the others, but she sensed that none of them was paying her any attention; all interest was focused on their father. And though it seemed to her that she waited there for an endless time, it was actually but a few minutes. When he opened his lids he was looking up at Lettice; his eyes shifted, searching for Amber, and when he found her he smiled. She was watching him breathlessly, afraid that now he would say something that would tell her she was caught.

She bent across the bed and kissed him gently. “You’re here, Samuel, with us. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“I don’t remember what happened—I thought we were—”

“You fainted, sir,” said Dr. de Forest.

Lettice was crying, very softly so that she would disturb no one, and her eldest brother reached down and took her by the shoulders to raise her to her feet. At the doctor’s request they left the room, all but Amber. He began to talk to them both then, very seriously, of the necessity for Samuel to be perfectly quiet for a few days, to avoid exertion of any kind—and he particularly addressed himself to Amber who looked at him solemnly and nodded her head.

“You must help your husband, Mrs. Dangerfield,” he said privately to Amber when she was showing him out. “His life’s in jeopardy if you don’t. You understand me?”

“Yes, Dr. de Forest. I will.”

When she came back Samuel took her hand and smiled. “Dr. de Forest is full of ridiculous notions. We won’t pay any attention to him, will we?”

But Amber answered him firmly. “Yes, we will, Samuel. He says it’s for your good and we will. We must. Promise me, Samuel—promise you’ll do as he says.”

He was obviously embarrassed, but Amber was insistent. She would allow him to do no thing, not the smallest, which might be injurious to his health. And they would be just as happy as before—he must never think that it mattered to her in any way at all. Nothing mattered to her but his safety and well-being. Samuel, deeply touched by this manifestation of tender devotion, could not restrain a few tears. But while she sat beside him and talked and stroked his head Amber was thinking that if she became pregnant now the child would be Lord Carlton’s —and if only it happened soon, Samuel would think it his own.

The next morning he was feeling somewhat better, but Amber insisted that he remain in bed as the doctor had said he should, and much against her will she stayed in the room with him. About one o’clock Jemima came in with her two oldest brothers to say that they were going down to watch Lord Carlton’s ships being unloaded.

“Why don’t you go with them, my dear?” Samuel asked Amber. “You’ve been shut up here with me all day.”

Jemima looked at her anxiously, obviously hoping that she would not come, and though for a moment or two Amber insisted that she could not leave him she allowed herself to be persuaded. But the trip was a disappointment. They had not so much as a word alone together and Bruce was so busy he seemed scarcely aware of her presence. Her only consolation was that Jemima was as much disappointed as she was, and did not conceal it so well.

He did, however, make each of them a handsome present. To Jemima he gave a magnificent length of material which looked as though molten gold had been poured over a piece of silk, and a pattern etched in it by sensitive fingers holding a feather; to Amber he gave an elaborate necklace of topaz and gold. Both gifts had been captured from one of the Dutch ships returning from the East Indies.

But early the next morning she slipped out of the house in a black cloak and mask and took a hackney to Almsbury House. They spent half an hour in the nursery with the baby and Emily and Almsbury, and then they went back to his apartments.

“Suppose someone finds out about this,” he said.

Amber was confident. “They won’t. Samuel was asleep and Nan was to say I went to have a gown fitted, so I wouldn’t have to trouble him with women about in the room.” She smiled up at him. “Oh, I’m a marvellously devoted wife, I’ll warrant you.”

“You’re a hard-hearted little bitch,” he said. “I pity the men who love you.”

But she was too happy to get angry about anything, and there was a light in his green eyes as he sat looking at her which would have made her forgive anything. She went over and sat on his lap, putting her arms about his neck and her mouth against his smooth-shaven cheek.

“But you love me, Bruce—and I’ve never hurt you. I don’t think I could if I tried,” she added with a pout.

He gave a lift of one eyebrow and smiled. He had never indulged in the extravagant compliments which were a fashion among the gallants, and she sometimes wondered jealously if he paid them to other women. Jemima, perhaps.

“What do you think of Jemima?” she asked him now.

“Why, she’s very pretty—and naïve as a Maid of Honour her first week at Court.”

“She’s mad in love with you.”

“A hundred thousand pound or so, I’ve discovered, will make a man more attractive than he’d ever suspected himself of being.”

“A hundred thousand! My God, Bruce! What a lot of money! When Samuel dies I’ll have sixty-six thousand. Think what a fortune that would be if we put it together! We’d be the richest people in England!”

“You forget, darling. I won’t be in England.”

“Oh, but you—”

Suddenly he stood up and swung her into his arms; his mouth closed over hers. Amber sailed away dizzily, her arguments effectively stopped. But he had not heard, by any means, the last of it. For now she had contrived to get something which she knew he valued, money, and she hoped to bargain with it. If only he would marry her—if only she could have him forever. There was nothing else she wanted, really. All her other great ambitions would vanish like a piece of ice dropped on a red-hot stove.

She did not go back to Almsbury House the next two mornings, for Bruce had warned her that unless she was very careful she would be found out. “If you’re sailing that ocean under false colours,” he said, “and I suppose you must be—you’d better remember it won’t take much to make them suspicious. And if they ever caught you—your sixty-six thousand might dwindle considerably.” She knew that it was the truth and determined to be cautious.

But when Jemima asked her what she had thought of Lord Carlton the blood shot suddenly to her face and she had to bend over to retie her garter. “Why—he’s mighty handsome, of course.”

“I think he liked me—don’t you?”

“What makes you think so!” Her voice was sharp in spite of herself, but she hastily changed its tone. “You mustn’t be so bold, Jemima. I’m sure everyone thought you were flirting with him—and courtiers are all the same.”

“All the same? In what way?”

Worried and annoyed by what seemed to be Jemima’s stupidity she snapped: “Just remember this—take care he doesn’t do you some harm!”

“Harm, pish!” said Jemima scornfully. “What harm could he do me when I love him?”

Amber had an impulse to run after her and grab her by the hair and slap her face, but she restrained herself. It would certainly not be in keeping with the character she had built for herself, a structure put together at too much pain and cost to kick it over carelessly now because of a silly girl who meant nothing to him. Nevertheless, she and Jemima were henceforward somewhat cool when they met and Jemima—who was even now puzzled as to what had caused this change in their friendship—again began to call her “Madame.”

The next afternoon she returned from visiting some of Samuel’s innumerable relatives and found Jemima waiting in the entrance hall with Carter, both of them dressed to go out. Jemima was painted and patched and perfumed, her hair was curled and her buttercup-yellow satin gown cut so low that it seemed her small round breasts might escape at any moment. There were yellow roses in her hair and she wore her yellow-lined black-velvet cloak hung carelessly on her shoulders, to cover as little of her as possible. She looked for all the world like a Court beauty or the town’s reigning harlot.

“Ye gods, Jemima!” said Amber, pausing in shocked amazement to look at her step-daughter. “Wherever are you going dressed like that?”

Jemima’s eyes sparkled and her voice was triumphant, almost defiant. “Lord Carlton is coming to take me for a drive in Hyde Park.”

“I suppose you asked him?”

“Well, maybe I did! You don’t get what you want by sitting and waiting for it!”

Amber had told Jemima something like that once, but now Jemima said it without remembering its source. She thought it was her own idea. And Amber, who had meddled in a spirit of malicious mischief, encouraging Jemima’s rebellion against family traditions, was faced with the prospect of having her own advice turned against her. Three months ago Jemima would never have dared ask a man to take her riding. Amber was not thinking of retributive justice, however, as she stood staring at Jemima with her hatred showing plain in her eyes. Oh! if only I wasn’t married to her father! she thought, furious at her own impotence.

“Jemima, you’re making a fool of yourself! You don’t know the kind of man Lord Carlton is!”

Jemima lifted her chin. “I beg your pardon, Madame, but I know exactly. He’s handsome and he’s fascinating and he’s a gentleman—and I love him.”

Amber’s lip curled and she repeated the words, mimicking her with cruel accuracy. “He’s handsome and he’s fascinating and he’s a gentleman—and you love him! Hoity-toity! And if you’re not mighty careful you’ll find that your maidenhead is missing!”

“I don’t believe you! Lord Carlton isn’t like that at all! Besides, Carter is going along!”

“She’d better! And see that she stays along, too!”

She was now so angry that, in spite of Nan’s frantic nudges and grimaces, she might have gone on to say much more, but the knocker clattered and the footman who answered it admitted Bruce. He swept off his hat to both of them, and his eyes glittered with amusement to find Amber and her step-daughter so obviously engaged in a quarrel.

Damn him! thought Amber. Men always think they’re so superior!

“This is a pleasant surprise, Mrs. Dangerfield,” he said now. “I hadn’t expected to have your company too.”

“Oh, Madame isn’t coming!” said Jemima hastily. “She’s just returned from a drive!”

“Oh,” said Bruce softly. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Dangerfield. I’d have enjoyed having you with us.”

Amber’s eyes stared at him, hard and shining and slanting like a cat’s. “Would you, Lord Carlton?”

And she turned and ran up the stairs, but as she heard the door close behind them she stopped abruptly on the balcony above, swirling about to look down. They were gone. Suddenly she raised her arm and threw her fan as hard as she could at the floor below. She had not realized that anyone was about, but at that moment a footman appeared and looked up in some surprise; her eyes met his for an alarmed angry instant and then she rushed off.

She was still somewhat excited when Samuel came up from the office where he had gone to spend an hour or two. But she kissed him affectionately, made him sit down, and then took a stool beside him and put her hand into his. For a few moments they chatted of various small things and then she gave a troubled little frown, and stared off pensively into space.

He stroked the smooth crown of her head, where the hair lay in burnished satin waves. “What is it, my dear? Nothing’s amiss?”

“No, Samuel, nothing. Oh, Samuel—I must tell you! It’s about Jemima! I’m worried about her!”

“You mean about Lord Carlton?”

“Yes. Why, only an hour ago I met her in the hall and she’d asked him to take her driving in Hyde Park!”

He gave a heavy tired sigh. “I can’t understand her. She’s been as carefully brought up as could be possible. Sometimes I think there’s a taint in the air nowadays—the young people fall sick of it. Not all of them, of course,” he added with a smile of fondness. “I don’t think he’s at all interested in her—Jemima isn’t the kind of woman he can be used to associating with—and I think that if she had let him alone he’d never have given her a second thought.”

“Of course he wouldn’t!” agreed Amber, very positively.

“I don’t know what’s to be done—”

“I do, Samuel! You must make her marry Joseph Cuttle—right now! Before something much worse happens!”

CHAPTER TWENTY–NINE

THAT WAS THE end of Jemima’s friendship with her step-mother. For by an unerring feminine instinct she knew immediately who was responsible for her father’s sudden determination to marry her to Joseph Cuttle without more delay. It was the one thing Amber had done of which the family approved, for they had been worried too about Jemima’s infatuation for a Cavalier —though they considered that it was Madame’s fault Jemima had ever fallen in love with him. They did not believe it would have occurred to Jemima to admire such a man, but for the bad example of false values Amber had set. But Bruce seemed somewhat shocked when Amber told him that the contract had been signed and the marriage date set for August 30th—forty days from the time of betrothal.

“Good Lord!” he said. “That awkward spindle-shanked boy! Why should a pretty little thing like Jemima have to marry him?”

“What difference does it make to you who she marries!”

“None at all. But don’t you think you’re meddling rather impertinently in the affairs of the Dangerfield family?”

“I am not! Samuel was going to make her marry him anyway. I just got the matter settled—for her own good.”

“Well, if you think I intend seducing her, I don’t. I took her driving because she asked me to and it would have been an affront to her father if I’d refused.” He gave her a long narrow look. “I wonder if you have any idea what a very fine old gentleman Samuel Dangerfield is. Tell me—how the devil did you manage to marry him? The Dangerfields aren’t people who would welcome an actress to the hearth-side.”

She laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know!” But she never told him.

It was not long before Amber refused altogether to heed Bruce’s admonitions—she went to Almsbury House three or four mornings in every week. Samuel left for his office at about seven and returned between eleven and noon; she was there when he left and there when he got back. But even if she had not been it would have occasioned no comment. He trusted her implicitly and when he asked her where she had been it was never from motives of suspicion, but only to make conversation or because he was interested in the little things which occupied her day. Whatever off-hand tale she told him, he believed.

And Jemima, meanwhile, turned sulky and bad-tempered, refused to take an interest in the elaborate preparations for her wedding. Dressmakers and mercers filled her rooms at all hours; she was to be married in cloth-of-gold and her wedding-ring was studded with thirty diamonds. The great ballroom in the south wing of the house where the wedding-feast and masque were to take place would be transformed into a blooming, green-leafed forest, with real grass on the floor. There would be five hundred guests for the ceremony and almost a thousand for the festivities afterward. Fifty of the finest musicians in London were being hired to play for the ball and a noted French chef was coming from Paris to oversee the preparation of the food. Samuel was eager to please his daughter and her persistent sullenness troubled him.

Amber magnanimously took Jemima’s part. “There’s nothing wrong with her, Samuel, but what’s wrong with all girls old enough to be married who aren’t. She’s got the green-sickness, that’s all. Wait till after the wedding, she’ll be herself again then, I warrant you.”

Samuel shook his head. “By heaven, I hope so! I hate to see her unhappy. Sometimes I wonder if we’re not making a mistake to insist that she marry Joseph. After all, there are suitable matches enough for her in London if she—”

“Nonsense, Samuel! Who ever heard of a girl choosing her own husband! She’s too young to know what she wants. And Joseph is a fine young man; he’ll make her mighty happy.” That settled it. And Amber thought that she had managed everything with great cleverness—Jemima was no source of worry to her now. Silly girl! she thought scornfully. She should have known better than to cross swords with me!

Scarcely six weeks had gone by since Bruce’s arrival in London when she told him that she was sure she was pregnant, and explained why she believed the child must be his. “I hope it’ll be a girl,” she said. “Bruce is so handsome—I know she’d be a beauty. What do you think we should name her?”

“I think that’s up to Samuel, don’t you?”

“Pish—why should it be? Anyway, he’ll ask me. So you tell me what name you’d like—please, Bruce, I want to know.”

He seemed to give it a few moments’ serious consideration—but the smile that lurked about his mouth showed what he was thinking. “Susanna’s a pretty name,” he said at last.

“You don’t know anyone named Susanna, do you?”

“No. You asked me for a name that I liked, and I told you one. I had no ulterior motives.”

“But you’ve named your share of bastards, I doubt not,” she said. “What about that wench—Leah, or what d’ye call her? Almsbury said you’d had two brats by her.”

By now Bruce had been back long enough and she had seen him so often that the jealousies and worries that beset her when he was away had begun to encroach upon the pleasure she found in being with him. She had begun to feel more discontented over what she was missing than grateful for what she had.

His voice answered her quietly. “Leah died a year ago, in childbirth.”

She looked up at him swiftly, saw that he was serious and a little angry. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she lied. But she turned to another subject. “I wonder where you’ll be when Susanna’s born?”

“Somewhere giving the Dutch hell, I hope. We’ll declare war on them as soon as Parliament votes the money for it. While we’re waiting I’ll try what I can do to keep the peace the way his Majesty wants it kept.” England and Holland had been at war everywhere but in the home seas for almost a year, and during the past two months the fight had blazed into the open; it needed only to be declared, but Charles had to wait on further preparation and Parliamentary grants.

They were lying on the bed, half-dressed. Bruce had his periwig off and his own hair had been cut short so that now it was no more than two or three inches long, and combed back from his forehead in a wave. Amber rolled over onto her stomach and reached for a bunch of purple Lisbon grapes in a bowl on the table.

“Heigh ho! I suppose it’s a dull day for you when there isn’t a town to burn or a dozen Dutchmen to kill!”

He laughed, pulled a small cluster of grapes from the bunch she held, and began to toss them into his mouth. “Your portrait’s somewhat bloodthirsty.”

She gave a sigh. “Oh, Bruce! If only you’d listen to me!” And then all at once she bounced up and knelt facing him, determined that he should listen to her. Somehow he had always managed to stop her before—but not this time. This time he was going to hear her out. “Go off to the wars if you must, Bruce! But when it’s over sell your ships and stay here in London. With your hundred thousand and my sixty-six we’d be so rich we could buy the Royal Exchange for a summer pavilion. We could have the biggest finest house in London—and everyone who was anybody at all would come to our balls and suppers. We’d have a dozen coaches and a thousand servants and a yacht to sail to France in if we took the notion. We’d go to Court and you’d be a great man—Chancellor, or whatever you wanted, and I’d be a Lady of the Bedchamber. There wouldn’t be anyone in England finer than us! Oh, Bruce, darling—don’t you see? We’d be the happiest people in the world!”

She was so passionately convinced herself that she was positive she could convince him; and his answer was a painful disappointment.

“It would be fine,” he. said. “For a woman.”

“Oh!” she cried furiously. “You men! What do you want then!”

“I’ll tell you, Amber.” He sat up and looked at her. “I want something more than spending the next twenty-five years standing on a ladder with one man’s heels on my fingers and mine on the man’s beneath. I want to do something besides plot and scheme and intrigue with knaves and fools to get a reputation with men I despise. I want a little more than going from the theatre to a cock-fight to Hyde Park to Pall Mall and back over the same round the next day. Playing cards and poaching after anything that goes by in petticoats and a mask and serving my turn as the King’s pimp—” He made a gesture of disgust. “And finally dying of women and drink.”

“I suppose you think living in America will keep you from dying of women and drink!”

“Maybe not. But one thing I know—When I die it won’t be from boredom.”

“Oh, won’t it! I don’t doubt it’s mighty exciting over there with blackamoors and pirates and Newgate-birds and every other kind of ragamuffin!”

“It’s more civilized than you imagine—there are also a great many men of good family who left England during the Commonwealth, remember. And who are still leaving—for the same reason I am. It isn’t that I’m going there because I think the men and women in America are better or different from what they are in England; they’re the same. It’s because America is a country that’s still young and full of promise, the way England hasn’t been for a thousand years. It’s a country that’s waiting to be made by the men who’ll dare to make it—and I intend getting there while I can help make it my way. In the Civil Wars my father lost everything that had belonged to our family for seven centuries. I want my children to have something they can’t lose, ever.”

“Well, then, why trouble yourself to fight for England—since you love her so little!”

“Amber, Amber,” he said softly. “My dear, someday I hope you’ll know a great many things you don’t know now.”

“And someday I hope you’ll sink in.your damned ocean!”

“No doubt I’m too great a villain to drown.”

She jumped off the bed in a fury, but suddenly she stopped, turned and looked at him as he lay leaning on his elbow and watching her. And then she came back and sat down again, covering his hand with both of hers.

“Oh, Bruce, you know I don’t mean that! But I love you so —I’d die for you—and you don’t seem to need me at all, the way I need you! I’m nothing but your whore—I want to be your wife, really your wife! I want to go where you go, and share your troubles and plan with you for what you want, and bear your children—I want to be part of you! Oh, please, darling! Take me to America with you! I don’t care what it’s like, I swear I don’t! I’ll live in anything! I’ll do anything! I’ll help you cut down trees and plant tobacco and cook your meals—Oh, Bruce! I’ll do anything, if only you’ll take me with you!”

For a moment he continued to stare at her, his eyes glittering, but just when she thought she had convinced him he shook his head and got up. “It would never work out that way, Amber. It’s not your kind of life and in a few weeks or months you’d get tired of it, and then you’d hate me for bringing you.”

She ran after him, throwing herself before him, grabbing frantically at the happiness that seemed just to elude her fingers but which she was sure she could catch. “No, I wouldn’t, Bruce! I swear it! I promise you! I’d love anything if you were there!”

“I can’t do it, Amber. Let’s not talk about it.”

“Then you’ve got another reason! You have, haven’t you? What is it?”

He was suddenly impatient and faintly angry. “For the love of God, Amber, let it go! I can’t do it. That’s all.”

She looked at him for a long .minute, her eyes narrowed. “I know why,” she said slowly at last. “I know why you won’t take me over there, and why you won’t marry me. It’s because I’m a farmer’s niece and you’re a nobleman. My father was only a yeoman, but your family was sitting in the House of Lords before there was one. My mother was just a plain simple woman, but your mother was a Bruce and descended from no one less than Holy Moses himself. My relatives are farmers—but you’ve got some Stuart blood in you, if you look hard enough to find it.” Her voice was sarcastic and bitter, and as she talked her mouth twisted, giving an ugly expression to her face.

She turned angrily away and began to pull on the rest of her clothes, while he watched her. There was a kind of tenderness on his face now and he seemed to be trying to think of something to say to her that would help take away the painful sense of humiliation she felt. But she gave him no opportunity to speak. In only two or three minutes she was dressed and then as she picked up her cloak she cried: “That’s why, isn’t it!”

He stood facing her. “Oh, Amber, why must you always make things hard for yourself? You know as well as I do that I couldn’t marry you if I wanted to. I can’t marry just for myself. I’m not alone in the world, floating in space like a speck of dust. I’ve got relatives by the score—and I’ve got a responsibility to my parents who are dead and to their parents. The Bruces and Carltons mean nothing to you—and there’s no reason why they should —but they’re damned important to the Bruces and Carltons.”

“That wheedle won’t pass with me! You wouldn’t marry me even if you could! Would you!”

They stared at each other; and then his answer cracked out, surprising as the sharp report of a pistol.

“No!”

For an instant Amber continued looking at him, but her face had turned beet-red and the blue cords throbbed in her throat and forehead. “Oh!” she screamed, almost hysterical with rage and pain. “I hate you, Bruce Carlton! I hate you—I—” She turned and rushed from the room, slamming the door after her. “I hope I never see you again!” she sobbed to herself as she dashed headlong down the stairs. And she told herself that this was the end—the last insult she would take from him—the last time he would ever—

Amber ran out of Almsbury House and straight to her coach. She jumped in. “Drive away!” she yelled at Tempest. “Home!” She flung herself back and began to cry distractedly, though with few tears, her teeth biting at the tips of her gloved hands.

She was so excited that she did not notice another coach waiting just outside the gates, with its wooden shutters closed, which started up and came rumbling along behind her own. And it stayed there, just behind her, following every turn, halting when her coach halted, proceeding at exactly the same rate of speed and never letting another coach come between them. They were almost home before Amber noticed that two of her footmen, who were hanging on the side, kept looking back and gesturing, apparently both puzzled and amused. She turned and glanced through the back window, saw the hackney behind them, but was not much concerned.

And then, as they turned through the great south gate of Dangerfield House, the impertinent hackney turned in also. Amber got out, still scowling in spite of her struggles to compose her face, and confronted Jemima who had just stepped down from the hackney. Carter was paying the driver.

“Good morning, Madame,” said Jemima.

Amber started off, and tossed Jemima what she hoped was a careless greeting. “Good morning, Jemima.” But her heart was pounding and she had a sick feeling of despair. The damned girl had been spying! And, what was worse, had caught her!

“Just a moment, Madame. Haven’t you time for a word with me? You were glad enough to be my friend—before Lord Carlton came.”

Amber stopped still, and then she turned around to face her step-daughter. There was nothing to do but try to brazen it out with her. “What’s Lord Carlton got to do with this?”

“Lord Carlton’s staying at Almsbury House. That’s why you were there just now—and day before yesterday and twenty other times this past month, for all I know!”

“Mind your own business, Jemima! I’m no prisoner here. I’ll come and go as I like. As it happens Lady Almsbury is a dear friend of mine—I was visiting her.”

“You didn’t visit her before Lord Carlton came to town!”

“She wasn’t here! She was in the country. Now look here, Jemima, I’ve a mighty good idea why you’ve been following me—and I’ve a mind to tell your father. He’ll take a course with you, I warrant.”

“You’ll tell Father! Suppose I tell him a few things I know—about you and Lord Carlton!”

“You don’t know a thing! And if you weren’t as jealous as a barren wife you wouldn’t have such suspicions, either!” Her eyes went swiftly from Jemima to Carter and back again. “Who puts these ideas in your head? This old screech-owl here?” Carter’s guiltily shifted glance told her that her guess was right and Amber, with a great show of independent virtue, gave her a last warning and went off. “Don’t let me hear any more of your bellow-weathering, Jemima, or we’ll try which one of us your father will believe!”

Jemima evidently did not care to make the test, and Dangerfield House remained quiet. Amber pretended to have the ague so that her step-daughter could not ask why she had stopped going to visit Lady Almsbury. The time was drawing nearer for Jemima’s wedding, though the date had been postponed a few days at her almost hysterical demand, and Amber was eager to have it over and the girl out of her way.

A week after her quarrel with Bruce Samuel told her that Lord Carlton had been in his office that morning. “He’s sailing tomorrow,” he said, “if the wind serves. I hope that once he’s gone Jemima will—”

But Amber was not listening. Tomorrow! she thought. My God—he’s going tomorrow! Oh, I’ve got to see him—I’ve got to see him again—

His ships lay at Botolph Wharf and Amber waited inside her coach while Jeremiah went to find him. She was excited and anxious, afraid that he would still be angry, but when he returned and found who it was waiting there for him he smiled. The afternoon was hot and he wore no periwig but only his breeches and bell-sleeved white shirt, and his tanned face was wet with perspiration.

She leaned forward eagerly and put her hand on his as he stood in the door, and her voice spoke swiftly and softly. “I had to see you again, Bruce, before you went.”

“We’re busy loading, Amber. I can’t leave.”

“Can’t we go on board? Just for a minute?”

He stepped back and took her hand to help her down.

Everywhere about them was activity. Tall-masted ships, elaborately carved and gilded, moved gently with the water, and the wharf was crowded. There were sailors who had been so many years at sea that they walked with a rolling gait which would distinguish them anywhere. Husky-shouldered porters were trundling casks or staggering along bent beneath great wooden boxes and iron-hooped bales. Well-dressed merchants strolled up and down, pestered by the beggars—broken old seamen who had given a leg or an arm or an eye for England. There were wide-eyed boys, loitering old men and blatantly painted harlots—a noisy variegated crowd.

As they walked along the wharf every eye glanced at or followed them. For her clothes and her hair and her jewels glittered in the sunlight; she was beautiful and she had a look of breeding to which they were not very much accustomed. The prostitutes looked Bruce over with an interest not wholly professional.

“Why didn’t you come to see me?” she asked him in an undertone, and then crossed over the wide roped-off plank which led to one of his ships.

Following her, he murmured, “I didn’t think my company would be very welcome,” and turned to talk for a moment or two to another man. Then he led her around the deck and down a flight of stairs to a small cabin. It looked comfortable, though not luxurious, and was fitted with a good-sized bunk, a writing-table and three chairs. Maps were nailed to the dark oak-panelled walls and on the floor were stacks of leather-bound books.

Inside she turned about swiftly to face him. “I’m not going to quarrel with you, Bruce. I don’t want to talk—just kiss me—”

His arms had scarcely gone around her when there was a sharp knock. “Lord Carlton! A lady to see you, sir!”

Amber looked up accusingly at him, and as he released her he muttered a soft curse. But before he started for the door he gestured at her, and picking up her cloak and the muff she had dropped she hurried through the door he had indicated into the adjoining cabin. And then, as Bruce opened the other door, she heard a pair of high heels coming down the stairway and Jemima Dangerfield’s lilting young voice.

“Lord Carlton! Thank Heaven I found you! I’ve got a message from my father for you—”

Amber heard Jemima’s feet walk into the cabin and the door swing shut. She stood close behind her own door, her ear against the wooden panels and her heart hammering violently as she listened. Her excitement was caused as much, just now, by fear of being caught as by jealousy.

“Oh, Bruce! I found out you’re going tomorrow! I had to come!”

“You shouldn’t have, Jemima. Someone might see you. And I’m so busy I haven’t an extra moment. I came down here to get some papers—here they are. Come, and I’ll walk back to your coach with you.”

“Oh, but Bruce! You’re going away tomorrow! I’ve got to see you again! I can meet you anywhere—I’ll be at the Crown tonight at eight. In our same room.”

“Forgive me, Jemima. I can’t come. I swear I’m too busy—I’ve got to go to Whitehall, and we’ll sail before sun-up.”

“Then now! Oh, Bruce, please! Just this once more—”

“Hush, Jemima! Sam and Robert will be here at any moment. You don’t want them to find you here alone with me.” There was a pause, during which she heard him turn and walk to the door and open it, and then he said: “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you drop your glove.” Jemima did not answer and they walked out.

Amber waited until she was sure that they were gone and then she went back into his cabin again.

Apprehension for her own safety, now that it was secured, dissolved instantly into a jealous fury against both Jemima and Bruce. So he had been making love to her! The dirty varlet! And that puling little milk-sop, Jemima! She’ll smoke for this!

Bruce returned to find her sitting on the writing-table, her feet braced against the bunk and both hands on her hips. She looked at him as though expecting him to hang his head and blush.

“Well!” she said.

He gave a shrug, closing the door.

“So that’s what you’ve been about this past week!” Suddenly she got up, walked across the room and turned her back on him. “So you didn’t intend to seduce her!”

“I didn’t.”

She swung around. “You didn’t! She just said—”

“I didn’t intend to. Now look here, Amber, I haven’t time for a quarrel. A fortnight or so ago Jemima came one morning to Almsbury House and sent up your name. You may think I should have indignantly ordered her out of my bedroom, but I didn’t. The poor child was unhappy and disappointed over being made to marry Joseph Cuttle and she thinks, at least, that she’s in love with me. That’s all there is to it.”

“Then what about the Crown—and our same room?” The last three words mocked Jemima’s voice as she had said them.

“We met there three or four times afterwards. If you want to know anything else about it, ask Jemima. I haven’t the time. Come on—I’m going back up on deck.”

As he turned she ran forward and grabbed his arms. “Bruce! Please, darling—Don’t go till we’ve said goodbye—”

Half an hour later they returned to her coach and he handed her in. “When will you come back to London again?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It’ll be several months anyway. I’ll see you when I do.”

“I’ll be waiting for you, Bruce. And, oh, darling, be careful! Don’t get hurt. And think of me sometimes—”

“I will.”

He stepped back, swinging the door closed, and made a signal to the coachman to start. The coach began to move and he smiled back at her as she stuck her head out the opened window.

“Sink a thousand Dutchmen!” she called.

He laughed. “I’ll try!” He gave her a wave and turned to go back onto the ship. The coach moved on and the crowds closed between them; he disappeared from her sight.

Amber entered her apartments, still too full of the warm luxuriant afterglow of Bruce’s love-making to have begun thinking of Jemima again. It was an unpleasant shock to find the girl there, waiting for her.

Jemima was tense and excited. “May I see you alone, Madame?”

Amber felt very superior; triumphant. “Why, of course, Jemima.”

Nan herded the other servants out of the room, all but Tansy who stayed where he was, sitting cross-legged on the floor absorbed in working a Chinese puzzle which Samuel had brought him more than a week ago. A servant took Amber’s muff and fan and gloves, one of which Amber had lost. She was careless with her belongings, they were so easily replaced; and if she lost something it gave her an excuse to buy another.

Amber turned and faced her step-daughter. “Now,” she said casually, raising her hands to her hair. “What d’you want?”

The two women, both of them beautiful and expensively dressed, with well-bred features, presented a strange contrast. For one was obviously unsophisticated and essentially innocent, while the other was just as obviously the reverse. But it was not the way she looked, nor was it anything in her manner. It was rather a certain indefinable aura which hung about her, like a wickedly fascinating perfume, redolent of passion and recklessness and a greed for living.

Jemima was too overwrought, too disappointed and unhappy and angry to try to be subtle. “Where ’ve you been!” It was no question, but an accusation.

Amber gave her eyebrows a lift, and twisted around to straighten the seams in her stockings. “That’s none of your business.”

“Well, whether it’s any of my business or not, I know! Look at this—it’s yours, isn’t it!” She held out a glove.

Amber glanced at it and then her eyes narrowed. She snatched it away. “Where’d you get that!”

“You know where I got it! It was lying on the floor in the master-cabin of the Dragon!”

“Well, what if it was? I hope I can visit a man who’s gone to sea to fight the Dutch!”

“Visit him! Don’t try to put that upon me! I know what kind of visiting you do! I know what you are! You’re a harlot—! You’ve cuckolded my father!”

Amber stood and stared at Jemima and her flesh began to crawl with loathing and hatred. “You whining little bitch,” she said slowly. “You’re jealous, aren’t you? You’re jealous because I got what you wanted.” She began to mimic her, repeating exactly the words and tone Jemima had used scarcely an hour before, but giving to them a savage twist that mocked and ridiculed. “Then now! Oh, Bruce, please! Just this once more—” She laughed, enjoying the horror and humiliation that came onto Jemima’s face.

“Oh,” said Jemima softly. “I never knew what you were like before—”

“Well, now you do but it won’t do you any good.” Amber was brisk and confident, thinking that she would settle Jemima’s business for her now, once and forever. “Because if you’re thinking to tell your father what you know about me, just stop long enough to consider what he’d say if he knew that his daughter had been sneaking out of the house to meet a man at public taverns! He’d be stark staring mad!”

“How do you know that!”

“Lord Carlton told me.”

“You couldn’t prove it—”

“Oh, couldn’t I? I could call in a midwife and have you examined, remember!”

Amber had been about to order Jemima triumphantly from the room, when her next words came with the unexpected shock of a mid-summer thunderclap. “Call in anyone you like! I don’t care what you do! But I can tell you this much—either you make Father stop my-wedding to Joseph Cuttle or I’ll tell him about you and Lord Carlton!”

“You wouldn’t dare! Why it—it might kill him!”

“It might kill him! Much you’d care! That’s what you want and you know it! Oh, the rest of them were right about you all along! What a fool I was not to see it! But I know what you are now—you’re nothing but a whore.”

“And so are you. The only difference between us is that I got what I went for—and you didn’t.”

Jemima gasped and the next instant lashed out with the palm of her right hand and smacked Amber on the cheek. So swiftly that it seemed to be part of the same movement Amber returned the slap, and with her other hand she grabbed a fistful of hair and gave a jerk that snapped Jemima’s head back like a chicken’s. Jemima screamed in sudden fright and viciously Amber slapped her again. Her self-control had slipped away and she was not even wholly conscious of what she was doing. Jemima began to struggle to free herself, now genuinely terrified and screeching for help. The sight of her scared eyes and the sound of her cries infuriated Amber; she had a sudden savage determination to kill her. It was Nan, who rushed into the room and threw herself between them, who saved Jemima from a serious mauling.

“Mam!” she was shouting. “Mam! For God’s sake! Are you mad!”

Amber’s hands dropped to her sides and she gave an angry shake of her head to toss the hair back from her face. “Get out of here!” she cried. “Get out and don’t trouble me again, d’ye hear?” The last words were a hysterical shriek, but Jemima had already fled, sobbing.

It was not easy to convince Samuel that Jemima’s wedding must be postponed. But she did, at last, succeed in making him agree to put it off for a few more weeks to let the poor child recover from her grief at Lord Carlton’s departure. Amber, nervous and worried and lonely for Bruce, was made even more morose and irritable by pregnancy. But she had to conceal her ill-humour from everyone but Nan, who listened patiently and with sympathetic concern to her mistress’s perpetual grumbling and sighing.

“I’m so damned sick and tired of being virtuous,” she said wearily one day as she came in from having paid several afternoon calls.

She spent a great deal of time visiting the wives and daughters of Samuel’s friends, sitting about and discussing babies and servants and sickness with them until she wanted to yell. She worked hard at being a respectable woman. Now all at once she arranged her mouth into a smug smile and began to mimic the elderly aunt upon whom she had just called. No one—not even the immediate family—had yet been told that she was pregnant, though Samuel knew it and was almost absurdly delighted.

“My dear, I do hope you’ll soon prove with child. Believe me, no woman can know what it is to be truly happy until she holds her first little one in her arms and feels its tiny mouth at her breast.” Amber screwed up her face and gave a noisy rattle with her tongue: “I’ll be damned if I can see where the pleasure is to throw-up every morning and look like a stuffed pig and blow and puff like an old nag going up Snow Hill!” She slammed her fan onto the floor. “Crimini! I’m sick of this business!”

To make matters worse, when Bruce had been gone four weeks Samuel firmly announced that the wedding-date was definitely set for October 15th. Nothing at all, he assured her, would induce him to change his mind again. The Cuttles were growing impatient, people were beginning to wonder at the delay, and it was high time Jemima stop her foolishness and behave like a grown woman. Amber was frantic with worry and though she mulled over her problem most of the day and half the night she could discover no solution. Jemima warned her again that if she did not do something to stop it she would tell her Father, even though he threw both of them into the streets.

“Oh, Lord, Nan! After everything I’ve been through to get that money I’m going to lose it! I’ll never get a shilling! Oh, I always knew something would happen! I knew I’d never really be that rich!”

“Something ’ll save you, mam,” insisted Nan cheerfully. “I know it will. Your stars are lucky.”

“Something?” demanded Amber, her voice sliding up an octave. “But what! And when?”

By the tenth Amber was half-wild with worry and remorse. She wished that she had never seen Bruce Carlton. She wished that she was back home in Marygreen and married to Jack Clarke or Bob Starling. She paced the floor and beat her hands together and bit her knuckles.

Oh, my God, my God, my God, what am I to do!

Thus she was one morning, still in her dressing-gown and walking distractedly about the bedroom, when Nan came rushing in. Her cheeks were pink and her blue eyes sparkled triumphantly. “Mam! What d’ye think? I just saw one of Mrs. Jemima’s women and she told me Mrs. Jemima’s been in a green-sickness all this past fortnight—but no one’s supposed to know it!”

Amber stared at her. “Why, Nan!” she said softly.

And then all at once she ran out of the bedroom, down the long hallway toward the opposite wing of the house, and into Jemima’s chamber. She found it crowded with dressmakers, maids, several mercers and other tradesmen. Amber had told her that if she would go ahead and pretend she was going to be married, she would somehow find another excuse at the last moment—if she had to throw herself out the window. And Jemima, not because she wished to oblige her step-mother, but because she really was confused and helpless, had done so.

There were gowns heaped on every chair and stool, lengths of brocade and satin and sheer tiffany ran like rivers over the floor, fur-skins lay in soft shining piles. Jemima stood in the midst of the crowded, noisy room, her back turned to the door, having her wedding-gown fitted; it was made of the gold cloth Lord Carlton had given her.

Amber came in breezily. “Oh, Jemima!” she cried. “Such a marvellous gown! How I envy you—getting married in that!”

Jemima gave her a sullen, warning glance from over her shoulder. But Amber saw to her satisfaction that the girl was pale and seemed tired.

“Are you almost done now?”

Jemima spoke wearily to two of the dressmakers who were kneeling about her on the floor, pins in their mouths, arranging each smallest fold and crease with the most meticulous care.

“In a moment, madame. Can’t you bear it just a little longer?”

Jemima sighed. “Very well. But hurry—please.”

Amber went to stand before Jemima, her head cocked to one side as she examined the dress, and her eyes ran tauntingly up and down the girl’s figure. She saw Jemima begin to fidget nervously, a faint shine of sweat came to her forehead; and then all at once her arms dropped and she sank to the floor, her head falling back, her eyes rolling. The dressmakers and maids gave excited squeaks and the men stepped aside in alarm.

Amber took charge. “Pick her up and lay her on the bed. Carter, bring some cold water. You—run for some brandy.”

With the help of two of the maids she got Jemima out of her gown, took the pillow from under her head and began to unlace her busk. When Carter brought the cold water she sent them all out of the room—though Carter was obviously reluctant to leave Jemima in the care of her step-mother—and wrung out a cloth to lay on Jemima’s forehead.

It was not more than a minute before Jemima regained consciousness and looked up at Amber, who leaned above her. “What did I do?” she asked softly, her eyes going uncertainly about the empty room.

“You fainted. Take a sip of this brandy and you’ll feel better.” Amber put her hand behind Jemima’s head and tipped it forward. Both of them were silent for a moment, and Jemima made a face as she tasted the brandy.

“The dizzy feeling’s gone,” she said at last. “You can call the others back in now.” She started to sit up.

“Oh, no, Jemima. Not yet. I want to talk to you first.”

Jemima glanced at her swiftly, her eyes guarded. “What about?”

“You know what about. There’s no use trying to pretend. You’re pregnant—aren’t you?”

“No! Of course I’m not! I can’t be! It’s just that—Well, I’ve had the vapours, that’s all.”

“If you thought it was only the vapours why didn’t you tell anyone? Don’t try to fool me, Jemima. Tell me the truth and maybe I can help you.”

“Help me? How could you help me?”

“How long has it been since your last flux?”

“Why—almost two months. But that doesn’t mean anything! Oh, I know I’m not pregnant! I can’t be! I’d die if that happened!”

“Don’t be a fool, Jemima! What the devil did you think when you laid with him? That you had a charm of some kind-it couldn’t happen to you? Well, it has, and the sooner you admit it the better for you.”

Suddenly Jemima began to cry, scared and distracted now that she was finally forced to confront the fact from which she had been fleeing for weeks. “I don’t believe you! I’ll be well again in a few days, I know I will! You’re just trying to scare me, that’s all! Oh—go away and leave me alone!”

Amber gave her an angry shake. “Jemima, stop it! Most likely some of the servants are listening! D’you want everyone to know what’s happened? If you’ll keep your mouth shut and be sensible you can save yourself and your family too. Don’t forget what a disgrace this will be for them if it’s ever found out—”

“Oh, that’s what I’m afraid of! They’ll hate me! They’ll-Oh—I wish I was dead!”

“Stop talking like an idiot! If you marry Joseph Cuttle on the 15th—”

Jemima snapped out of her hysteria as if she had been dashed with cold water. “Marry Joseph Cuttle! Why, I won’t marry Joseph Cuttle and you know it! I wouldn’t marry him for—”

“You’ve got to marry him! There’s nothing else you can do now! It’s the only way you can keep the Dangerfields from being disgraced.”

“I don’t care! I don’t care about them! I won’t marry him! I’m going to run away from home and take lodgings somewhere and wait till Lord Carlton comes back. He’ll marry me then, when he knows what happened.”

Amber gave a short brutal laugh. “Oh, Jemima, you silly green foolish girl. Lord Carlton marry you! Are you cracked in the head? He wouldn’t marry you if you had triplets. If he’d married every woman he’s ever laid with I don’t doubt he’d have as many wives as King Solomon. Besides, if you ran away from home you wouldn’t even have a dowry to offer him! Marry Joseph Cuttle while you’ve still got time—it’s the only thing you can do now.”

For a long moment Jemima lay perfectly still and stared up at her.

“So at last you’re going to get your way,” she said softly. Her eyes glittered, but her next words merely formed on her mouth:

“Oh, how I despise you—”

CHAPTER THIRTY

JEMIMA’S WEDDING WAS a social event of considerable importance.

Between them the Dangerfields and the Cuttles had friends or relatives in almost every one of the great City families. Gifts for the bride and groom had been pouring into the house for weeks past, and had almost filled one large room set aside to receive them. The bride walked on a golden tapestry to the improvised altar which had been set up in the south drawing-room, while her aunts and female cousins sniffled and the mighty music of three great organs made the walls tremble. She wore her dark coppery hair flowing over her shoulders-symbol of virginity—and a garland of myrtle and olive and rosemary leaves; she was sober-faced and dry-eyed, which was unfortunate, for it was believed to be bad-luck if the bride did not weep. But she seemed preoccupied and almost unaware of what she was doing or saying, and when the ceremony was over she accepted the kisses of her eager happy groom and her friends and relatives with an air of absent-minded indifference.

The newly married couple opened the ball, and when the first dance was over they retired, as was customary, to the decorated bridal-chamber above. She began to cry when the women were undressing her, and everyone was pleased at this happy omen. When the two young people sat side by side in the great bed, Jemima’s eyes now wide and troubled like those of a frightened animal which has been trapped, the spouted posset-pot was handed ceremoniously from one to another, all around the room.

There was no unseemly laughter, no bawdy jests or boisterous singing as was common at many weddings, but an atmosphere of quiet good-natured but serious responsibility. They went out then, leaving Jemima and her groom alone—and Amber heaved a grateful sigh of relief. There! she thought. It’s done at last! And I’m safe.

But once she knew that she was secure, boredom began to settle on her like the gloomy fogs that hung over the river. She had bought too many gowns and too much jewellery to be satisfied by that any longer, particularly since she felt contemptuous of the opinion of those who saw them. Consequently she moped over her pregnancy, worried about the colour of her skin and the circles beneath her eyes, wept when her belly began to enlarge, and was sure that she was hideous and would always be so. For amusement she spent a great deal of time wishing for out-of-the-season foods—it was now winter—and since everyone knew that when a pregnant woman “longed” she must be satisfied or the child might be lost, it kept Samuel and all the household in a pother to supply her with the things she wanted. Usually by the time she got them the longing was gone, or another had taken its place.

She slept ten or eleven hours every night, no longer getting up at six with Samuel, but often drowsing till ten; and then she lay in bed another half-hour, thinking discontentedly of the day before her. By the time she had dressed it was noon and dinner-time. If he stayed home after that she did too; otherwise she went to visit some of the dozens of Dangerfield relatives or the hundreds of Dangerfield friends, and sat talking talking talking of babies and servants, servants and babies.

“When do you reckon, Mrs. Dangerfield?” they asked her everywhere she went, and time after time. And then came the discussion of Cousin Janet and the frightful labour she had had—fifty-four hours of it—or of Aunt Ruth who had been brought to bed of triplets twice in succession. And all the while they sat and munched on rich cakes, thick pastries, cream and curds, plump good-natured happy satisfied women whom Amber thought the most absurd creatures in the world.

Weeks went by very quickly this way.

Ye gods! thought Amber dismally. I’ll be twenty-one in March! I’ll most likely be too old to enjoy it when I finally get that damned money.

Christmas was a welcome diversion to her. The house swarmed with children, more of them than ever: Deborah who lived in the country had come to spend the holidays, bringing with her a husband and six children. Alice and Anne, though they both lived in London, followed the Dangerfield tradition and came home with their families. William returned from abroad and George came down from Oxford. Only Jemima preferred to stay at her husband’s home, but even she paid them a visit almost every day, with Joseph always beside her—full of pride for his pretty wife and so happy at the prospect of parenthood he must tell everyone he saw the wonderful news. And Jemima seemed, if not in love with Joseph, at least tolerant of his adoration—which she had not been before; pregnancy had given her a kind of serene contentment. Her rebellion against the manners and morals of her class was over, and she was beginning to accept and settle into her place in that life.

Laurel and cypress and red-berried holly decorated every room and filled them with a spicy winter fragrance. An enormous silver bowl of hot-spiced wine, garlanded with ivy and ribbons and floating roast apples, stood ever ready in the entrance hall. And there was food in all the glorious ancient tradition: plum-porridge and mince-meat pies, roast suckling pig, a boar’s head with gilded tusks, fat geese and capons and pheasants roasted to a crusty golden brown. Every dinner was a feast, and whatever was left was distributed to the poor who crowded at the back gates in vast numbers, baskets over their arms, for the Dangerfield generosity was well-known.

Gambling for money was traditionally permitted in all but the strictest households at Christmas-time, and from early morning till late at night cards were shuffled and dice rolled and silver coins clinked merrily across the tables. The children played hot-cockles and blind-man’s-buff and hunt-the-slipper, shouting and laughing and chasing each other from one room to another, from garret to basement. And for more than two weeks a stream of guests poured continuously through the house.

Amber gave Samuel a heart-shaped miniature of herself (fully clothed) set in a frame of pearls and rubies and diamonds. She gave gifts almost as expensive to every other member of the family, and her generosity to the servants convinced them that she was the best-natured woman in the world. She received as much as she gave, not because the family liked her any better than before, but to keep up appearances for their father and for outsiders. Amber knew this but she did not care, for nothing could have dislodged her now that he thought she carried his child. He gave her a beautiful little gilt coach, upholstered in padded scarlet velvet trimmed with swags of gold rope and numerous tassels, and six fine black horses to draw it. She was not, however, allowed to ride in it but must go everywhere in a sedan-chair—Samuel would take no chances with her health or the baby’s.

Twelfth Night marked the end of the celebrations. It was late in the evening that Samuel suffered another severe stroke, his first since the previous July.

Dr. de Forest, who was sent for immediately, asked Amber in private if Samuel had obeyed his earlier advice and she reluctantly admitted that for some time past he had not. But she defended herself, insisting that she had tried to persuade him but that he had refused to listen and had said it was ridiculous to think a man of sixty-one too old for love, and swore he felt more vigorous than he had in years.

“I don’t know what else I can do, Dr. de Forest,” she finished, giving the responsibility back to him.

“Then, madame,” he said gravely, “I doubt that your husband will live out the year.”

Amber turned about wearily and left the room. If she was ever to get rich Samuel must die, and yet she shrank from the thought of being his murderess, even indirectly. She had developed a genuine, if superficial, love for the handsome, kind and generous-spirited old man she had tricked into marriage.

In the anteroom to the bedchamber she came upon Lettice and Sam, and Lettice was in her brother’s arms, crying mournfully. “Oh, Sam! If only it had happened any night but this one! Twelfth Night—that means he’ll die before the year is out, I know it does!” Twelfth Night was the night of prophecy.

Sam patted her shoulders and talked to her quietly. “You mustn’t think that, Lettice. It’s only a foolish superstition. Don’t you remember that last year Aunt Ellen had the ague on Twelfth Day? And she’s been merry as a grig all year.” He caught sight of Amber, pausing in the doorway, but Lettice did not.

“Oh, but it’s different with Dad! It’s that terrible woman! She’s killing him!”

Sam tried to shush her beneath his breath, as Amber came on into the room. Lettice spun around, stared at her for a moment as though undecided whether to apologize or speak her mind. And then suddenly she cried out:

“Yes, you’re the one I meant! It’s all your fault! He’s been worse since you came!”

“Hush, Lettice!” whispered Sam.

“I won’t hush! He’s my father and I love him and we’re going to see him die before his time because this brazen creature makes him think he’s five-and-twenty again!” Her eyes swept over Amber with loathing and contempt; Samuel’s announcement of his wife’s pregnancy had been a serious shock to her, as though it were the final proof of her father’s infidelity to their dead mother. “What kind of woman are you? Have you no heart in you at all? To hurry an old man into his grave so that you can inherit his money!”

“Lettice—” pleaded Sam.

Amber’s own sense of guilt stopped her tongue. She had no stomach for a quarrel with his daughter when Samuel lay in the room beyond, perhaps dying. She answered with unwonted gentleness.

“That isn’t true, Lettice. There’s a great difference in our ages, I know. But I’ve tried to make him happy, and I think I have. He was sick before I came, you know that.”

Lettice, avoiding her eyes, made a gesture with one hand. Nothing could ever make her like this woman whom she distrusted for a hundred reasons, but she could still try to show her at least a surface respect for her father’s sake. “I’m sorry. I said too much. I’m half distracted with worry.”

Amber walked by, toward the bedroom, and as she passed gave Lettice’s hand a quick grasp with her own. “I am too, Lettice.” Lettice looked at her swiftly, a questioning puzzled look, but she could not help herself; the woman’s smallest gesture would always seem false-hearted to her.

Samuel refused to make his annual trip to Tunbridge Wells that January because his wife’s advanced pregnancy would not allow her to accompany him. But he did rest a great deal. More and more he stayed in his own apartments with her, while the eldest sons took over the business. She read to him and sang songs and played her guitar, and with gaiety and affection tried to soothe her own conscience.

It was customary for men with financial responsibilities to check over and settle their accounts at the end of the year, but because of his stroke Samuel postponed doing so until early in February. And then he worked on them for several days. He had his wealth in goldsmiths’ bills, stock in the East India Company—of which he was one of the directors—assignments upon rents, mortgages, shares in privateering fleets and other similar ventures, cargoes in Cadiz and Lisbon and Venice, jewels and gold-bullion and cash.

“Why don’t you let Sam and Bob do that?” Amber asked him one day, as she sat on the floor playing a game of cat’s-cradle with Tansy.

Samuel was at his writing-table, dressed in an East Indian robe which Bruce had given him, and there was a many-branched candlestick lighted above his head, for though midday it was dark as twilight. “I want to be sure myself that my affairs are in order—then if anything should happen to me—”

“You mustn’t talk like that, Samuel.” Amber got to her feet, dropping the cradle, and with a pat on the head for Tansy she walked over to where he sat. “You’re the picture of good health.” She gave him a light kiss and bent over, one arm about his shoulders. “Heavens! What’s all that? I couldn’t puzzle it out to save my bacon. My senses seem to run a-wool-gathering at the sight of a number!” She could, in fact, not do much more than read them.

“I’m arranging everything so that you won’t need to worry about it. If the baby’s a boy I’m going to leave him ten thousand pound to start in a business for himself—I think that’s better than for him to try to go in with his half-brothers—and if it’s a girl I’ll leave her five thousand for a marriage portion. How do you want your share? In money or property?”

“Oh, Samuel, I don’t know! Let’s not even think about it!”

He smiled at her fondly. “Nonsense, my dear. Of course we shall think about it. A man with any money at all must have a will, no matter what his age. Tell me—which would you prefer?”

“Well—then I suppose it would be best for me to have it in gold—so I won’t get cheated by some sharp rook.”

“I haven’t that much cash on hand, but in a few weeks’ time I think it can be arranged. I’ll put it with Shadrac Newbold.”

He died very quietly one evening early in April, just after he had gone upstairs to rest from a somewhat strenuous day.

In a great black mourning-bed, Samuel Dangerfield’s body lay at home in state. Two thousand doles of three farthings each were distributed to the poor, with biscuits and burnt ale. His young widow—much pitied because it was so near the time of her confinement—received visitors in her own room; she was pale and wore the plainest black gown, with a heavy black veil trailing from her head almost to the floor. Every chair, every table and mirror and picture in the entire apartment had been shrouded in black crape, every window was shut and covered, and only a few dim candles burned—Death was in the house.

The guests were served cold meats, biscuits and wine, and at last the funeral procession set out. The night was dark and cold and windy and the torches streamed out like banners. They moved very slowly, with a solemn stumping tread. A man ringing a bell led them through the streets and he was followed by the hearse, drawn by six black horses with black plumes on their heads. Men in black mounted on black horses rode beside it, and there followed a train of almost thirty closed black coaches carrying all members of the immediate family. After that there came on foot and in their official livery the members of the guilds to which he had belonged and other mourners in a straggling line almost two miles long.

Amber could not go to sleep that night in her black room alone but insisted that Nan sleep with her and that a torchère be left burning beside the bed. She was not as glad to be a rich woman as she had expected she would be, and she was not as sorrowful at Samuel’s death as she thought she should be. She was merely apathetic. Her sole wish now was that her pains would begin so that she could bear this child and be freed of the burden which grew more intolerable with each hour.

CHAPTER THIRTY–ONE

THE ANTEROOM WAS crowded. Young men stood about in groups of two and three and four, leaning on the window-sills to look down into the courtyard where a violent mid-March wind racked the trees, bending them almost double. They wore feather-loaded hats and thigh-length cloaks, with their swords tilting out at an angle in back; lace ruffles fell over their fingers and flared out from their knees and clusters of ribbon loops hung at their shoulders and elbows and hips. Several of them were yawning and sleepy-eyed.

“Oh, my God,” groaned one, with a weary sigh. “To bed at three and up at six! If only Old Rowley would find the woman could keep him abed in the mornings—”

“Never mind. When we’re at sea we can sleep as long as we like. Have you got your commission yet? I’m all but promised a captaincy.”

The other laughed. “If you’re a captain I should be rear-admiral. At least I know port from starboard.”

“Do you? Which is which?”

“Port’s right, and starboard’s left.”

“You’re wrong. It’s the other way around.”

“Well—it won’t make much difference, this way or that. There never was a man so plagued by sea-sickness as I. If I so much as take a pair of oars from Charing Cross to the Privy Stairs I’m sure to puke twice on the way.”

“I’m a fresh-water sailor myself. But for all of that I’m mighty damned glad the war’s begun. A man can live just so long on actresses and orange-girls, and then the diet begins to pall. Curse my tripes, but I’ll welcome the change—salt air and waves and fast gun-fire. By God, there’s the life for a man! Besides, my last whore begins to grow troublesome.”

“That reminds me—I forgot to take my turpentine pills this morning.” He brought a delicate gem-studded box out of one pocket and snapped it open, extending it first to his friend who declined the offer. Then he tossed two of the large boluses into his mouth and gave a hard swallow to get them down, shaking his head mournfully. “I’m damnably peppered-off, Jack.”

At that moment there was a stir in the room. The door was flung open and Chancellor Clarendon entered. Frowning and preoccupied as usual, his right foot wrapped in a thick bandage to ease his gout, he spoke to no one, but walked straight across and through the other door which led into his Majesty’s bed-chamber.

Eyebrows went up, mouths twisted, and sly secret smiles were exchanged as the old man passed.

Clarendon was rapidly becoming the most hated man in England—not only at Court but everywhere. He had been in power too long and the people blamed him for whatever went amiss, no matter how little he might have had to do with it. He would accept no advice, allow no opposition; whatever he did was right. Even those faults might have been overlooked but that he had others which were unforgivable. He was inflexibly honest and would neither take nor give bribes, and not even his friends profited by his favour. Though he had lived most of his life at courts he was contemptuous of courtiers and scorned to become one.

And so they watched, and waited. If his hold on Parliament should once slip they would be at his throat like a pack of starving jackals.

“Have you been out Piccadilly to see the Chancellor’s new house?” asked someone, when he had gone.

“Judging by the foundations I’d say he’ll have to sell England to finish it. What he got from Dunkirk won’t build the stables.”

“How many more times does the old devil think he can sell England? Our value won’t hold up much longer at the present rate of exchange.”

The door into the King’s private chambers opened again and Buckhurst strolled out with another young man. Two or three others crossed over to speak to them.

“What’s the delay? I’ve been waiting here half-an-hour. Nothing but the hope of speaking to his Majesty about a place for my cousin could have induced me to get out of bed on a morning like this one. Now I suppose he’s gone by way of the Privy Stairs and left us all to shift for ourselves.”

“He’ll be along presently. He’s dickering with a Jesuit priest over the price of a recipe for Spirit of Human Skull. Have you got a tailor’s bill in your pocket, Tom? If it’s illegible enough sell it to Old Rowley for a universal panacea and your fortune’s made. He’s giving that mangy old Jesuit five thousand pound for his scrap of paper.”

“Five thousand! Good God! What can an old man have to spend five thousand on?”

“What do you think? On a remedy for impotence, of course.”

“The best remedy for impotence is a pretty wench—”

The voices grew temporarily quiet as the King appeared, strolling through the door with his dogs and sycophants behind him. He was freshly shaved and his smooth brown skin had a healthy glow; he gave them a smile and a nod of his head and started on out. The jostling for place began immediately as they streamed along in his wake, but Buckingham already had one elbow and Lauderdale the other.

“I suppose,” said Charles to the Duke, “that by tomorrow it will be running up the galleries and through the town I’m a confirmed Catholic.”

“I’ve heard those rumors already, Sire.”

“Well—” Charles shrugged. “If that’s the worst rumour that goes abroad about me I think it’s no great matter for concern.” Charles was not inclined to worry about what anyone said of him, and he knew his people well enough to know that grumbling was a national sport, not much more subversive than football or wrestling. He had been home almost five years now, and the honeymoon with his subjects was over.

Leaving his own apartments he crossed the Stone Gallery and started down a maze of narrow hallways which led along the Privy Garden, over the Holbein Gateway and into St. James’s Park. He walked so rapidly that the shorter men had to half run, or be left behind, and since most of them had a favour to ask they did not intend to let that happen.

“I think there’s time,” said Charles, “for a turn through the Park before Chapel. I hope the air’s cold enough to make me sleepy.”

They had reached the old stairway which led down into the Park when suddenly one of the doors up the corridor to the left burst open and Monmouth came out in a rush. The men stopped and while his father laughed heartily the Duke ran toward them; he arrived breathless, swept off his hat and made a low bow. Charles dropped an arm about the boy’s shoulders and gave him an affectionate pat.

“I overslept, Sire! I was just going to attend you to Chapel.”

“Come along, James. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

James, who was now walking between the King and Lauderdale, gave his father an apprehensive glance. “What about, Sire?”

“You must know, or you wouldn’t have such a guilty face. Everyone’s been telling me about you. Your behaviour’s a favourite subject of conversation.” James hung his head and Charles, with a smile he could not wholly conceal lurking at the corners of his mouth, went on. “They say you’ve taken to keeping a wench—at fifteen, James—that you’ve run deep into debt, that you scour about the streets at night disturbing peaceful citizens and breaking their windows. In short, son, they say you lead a very gay life.”

Monmouth looked swiftly up at his father, and his handsome face broke into an appealing smile. “If I’m gay, Sire, it’s only to help me forget my troubles.”

Several of the others burst into laughter but Charles looked at the boy solemnly, his black eyes shining. “You must have a great many troubles, James. Come along—and tell me about them.”

The morning was cold and frosty and the wind blew their periwigs about, as it did the spaniels’ ears. Charles clamped his hat firmly onto his head, but the others had to hold to their wigs—for they carried their hats beneath their arms—or lose them. The grass was hard-matted and slippery, and there was a thin sheet of ice over the canal; it had been an unusually cold dry winter, and there had been no thaw since before Christmas. The other men looked at one another sourly, annoyed that they must go walking in such weather, but the King strode along as unconcernedly as if it were a fine summer day.

Charles walked in the Park because he liked the exercise and the fresh-air. He enjoyed strolling along the canal to see how his birds, in cages hung in the trees on either side, were standing the cold weather. Some of the smaller ones he had had removed indoors until the frost should break. He wanted to know if the cold had hurt the row of new elms he had had set out the year before and whether his pet crane was learning to walk with the wooden leg he had had made for it when its own had been lost in an accident.

But he did not walk only for amusement and exercise; it was a part of the morning’s business. Charles had always preferred that his unpleasant tasks be done under pleasant conditions—and there were few duties he disliked more than hearing petitions and begging for favours. If it had been possible he would gladly have granted every request that was made him, not so much from the boundless generosity of his nature as to buy his own peace from whining voices and pleading eyes. He hated the sound and the sight of them, but it was the one thing from which there never could be escape.

Some of them wanted a place at Court for a friend or relative, and there were always a hundred askers for each place that fell vacant. However he chose he left many disgruntled and jealous and the one who got it was seldom as well pleased as he had expected to be. Another would want a grant for a Plate Lottery —royal permission to sell tickets at whatever price he could command for a lottery of some crown plate. Others were there to beg an estate: it was common practice to bear the expense of arrest and prosecution of other persons in the hope that a cash-fine or confiscated property could be begged from the King. Another man wanted to go to sea to fight the Dutch, and he wanted to go as a captain or a commander, though his sea experience had been limited to a crossing from France in one of the packet-boats.

Charles listened to them patiently, tried when he could to refer the supplicant to someone else, and when he could not usually granted the request, though well aware that it might be impossible of fulfillment. And as he walked and listened to the petitions of his courtiers he was often approached by a sick old man or woman, sometimes a young mother with her child, who begged him to touch and heal them. The courtiers resented the intrusion, but Charles did not.

He liked his people and, though he had lived so long out of the country, he understood them. They grumbled about his mistresses and the extravagance of the Court, but when he smiled and stopped to talk to them and laughed with them in his deep booming voice they loved him in spite of everything. His charm and accessibility were potent political weapons and he knew it.

They walked along the Canal that crossed the Park from one end to another and back along Pall Mall, turning down King Street into the Palace grounds. The chapel bells began to ring and Charles increased his rapid pace, relieved that soon he would be where they could pester him no longer. Monmouth was far ahead of them. All along the way he had been running and leaping, calling the spaniels to follow him until now their long ears were soggy and wet and their paws clotted with mud.

Ah! thought Charles, and drew a deep breath as they came into the courtyard which led to the chapel. Another hundred yards and I’m safe!

At that moment Buckingham, who had given his place to others, caught up with him again. “Sire,” he began. “May I present—”

Charles threw a quick comical glance at Lauderdale. “How is it,” he murmured, “that every one of my friends keeps a tame knave?”

But he turned back with a smile to hear the man out, and stopped just at the chapel doors with the courtiers clustered around him. But the ladies were going in, and his eyes wandered. Frances Stewart came along with her waiting-woman and gave him a wave of her hand. Charles grinned broadly and made a quick move to follow her, but remembered that he was listening to a petition and checked himself.

“Yes,” he interrupted. “I appreciate your position, sir. Believe me, I’ll give it serious thought.”

“But, Sire—” protested the man, holding out his hands. “As I told you, it’s most urgent! I must know soon or—”

“Oh, yes,” said Charles, who had not been listening at all. “So it is. Very well, then. I think you may.”

Gratefully the man started to drop to his knees, but the King gave him an impatient signal not to, for he was eager to get away. And then, just before he entered the great carved oak doors he turned and said over his shoulder, “As far as I’m concerned, you may have your wish. But you’d best make sure the Chancellor has no other plans on that score.”

The man opened his mouth again, the smile disappearing in a sudden look of dismay, but it was too late. The King was gone. “Catch him as he comes out,” whispered Buckingham, and went on himself.

The chapel was already well filled and the music of the great organ thundered in the walls. Charles did not like going to church and sermons bored him, but he did contrive to please himself while there with some of the finest music to be had. And, much to the scandal of the conservative, he had introduced violins, which he loved better than any other instrument.

He sat alone in the Royal Closet in the gallery—Catherine attended her own Catholic mass—looking down over the chapel. Curtains at either side closed off the portion of the gallery where the ladies sat, though he knew that Frances was there just beside him, so close that he could whisper to her. The young clergyman who was to speak for the day had taken his place and was mopping his perspiring cheeks and forehead with his black-gloved hands, until as the dye came off he looked more like a chimney-sweep than a divine. Titters went up here and there and the young man looked more wretchedly uncomfortable than ever, wondering why they had begun to laugh before he had spoken so much as one word.

It was almost as difficult to preach to the Court as it was to act to it. The King invariably went to sleep, sitting bolt upright and facing the pulpit, as soon as the subject of the sermon had been announced. The Maids of Honour whispered among themselves, waved their fans at the men below, giggled and tried on one another’s jewellery and ribbons. The gallants craned their necks back up at the ladies’ gallery and compared notes on the previous night’s activities or pointed out the pretty women present. The politicians leaned their heads together and murmured in undertones, keeping their eyes ahead as though no one could guess what they were doing. Most of the older ladies and gentlemen, relics of the Court of the first Charles, sat soberly in their pews and listened with satisfaction to the warnings repeatedly given by the pulpit to a careless age; but even their good intentions often ended in noisy snores.

At last the young chaplain, newly preferred to his place by an influential relative, proclaimed the subject of his first sermon before the King and Court. “Behold!” he announced, giving another swipe of his black glove along his cheek, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made!”

Instantly the chapel was filled with laughter, and while the bewildered frightened young man looked out over his congregation, tears starting into his eyes, even the King had to clear his throat and bend over to examine his shoe-lace to conceal a smile. A finger poked him gleefully through the curtains, and Charles knew that it was Frances whom he could hear gasping with laughter. But the chapel finally grew quiet again, the terrified clergyman forced himself to go on, and Charles composed himself to sleep.

Frances Stewart had replaced Barbara Palmer as the most popular and successful hostess at Whitehall. The suppers she gave in her apartments overlooking the river were crowded with all the powerful and clever men and pretty women of the Court. Both Buckingham and Arlington were trying to enlist her support for their own projects, for they were convinced as was everyone else that the King could be led through a woman.

Buckingham strummed his guitar for her and sang songs, mimicked Clarendon and Arlington, played with her at her favourite game of building card-castles, and flattered himself that she was falling in love with him. The Baron had no such social tricks at his command, but he did unbend enough to talk to her with a certain air of gracious condescension which was the best he could do toward charming a woman. And when Louis XIV sent his new minister, Courtin, to try to persuade Charles to call off the Dutch War, the merry little Frenchman immediately applied himself to Mrs. Stewart.

“Oh, heavens!” she said one evening to Charles, when he had finally maneuvered her into a corner alone. “My head’s awhirl with all this talk of politics! One tells me this and another that and a third something else—” She stopped, looked up at him and then gave a sudden mischievous little burst of laughter. “And I don’t remember any of it! If they only guessed how little I listen to their prittle-prattle I warrant you they’d all be mightily out of sorts with me.”

Charles watched her, his eyes glowing with passionate admiration, for he still thought that she was the most perfectly lovely thing he had ever seen. “Thank God you don’t listen,” he said. “A woman has no business meddling in politics. I think perhaps that’s one reason why I love you, Frances. You never trouble me with petitions—your own or anyone else’s. I see asking faces everywhere I look—and I’m glad yours doesn’t ask.” His voice dropped lower. “But I’d give you anything you want, Frances—anything you could ask for. You know that, don’t you?”

(Across the room one young man, watching them, said to another: “His Majesty’s been in love with her for two years and she’s still a virgin. I tell you, it’s beyond credence!”)

Frances smiled, a gentle wistful smile so young and artless that it clutched at his heart. “I know that you’re very generous, Sire. But truly, there’s nothing I want but to live an honourable life.”

A look of quick impatience crossed his face and his eyebrows twisted with a kind of whimsical anger. But then he smiled. “Frances, my dear, an honourable life is exactly what he who lives it thinks it to be. After all, honour is only a word.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Sire. To me, I assure you, honour is much more than a word.”

“But nevertheless it must be one or several qualities you associate with a certain word. His Grace of Buckingham, for instance, over there at the card-table, has quite another definition from your own.”

Frances laughed at that, somewhat relieved that she could, for she did not like serious conversations and felt uneasy in the presence of an abstraction. “I don’t doubt that, your Majesty. I think that’s one subject where his Grace and I think no more alike than you and I do.”

“Oh?” said the King, with an air of mild and amused interest. “And has Buckingham been trying to persuade you over to his interpretation?”

Frances blushed and tapped her fan on her knee. “Oh, that wasn’t what I meant!”

“Wasn’t it? I think it was. But don’t trouble yourself about it, my dear. It’s an old habit of the Duke’s—falling in love along with me.”

Frances looked offended. “Falling in love along with you! Heavens, Sire! You sound as if you’ve been in love mighty often!”

“If I tried to pretend I’d never noticed a woman until you came along—well, Frances, after all—”

“Just the same you needn’t speak as though it’s a common everyday occurrence!” She tilted her chin and turned a haughty profile to him.

Charles laughed. “I almost think you’re prettiest when you’re just a little—just ever so little—angry with me. You have the loveliest nose in the world—”

“Oh, have I, Sire?” She turned eagerly and smiled at him, unable to resist the compliment.

But suddenly the King glanced across the room and muttered in annoyance, “Good Lord! Here comes Courtin to lecture me about the war again! Quick! Let’s go in here!”

He took her arm and though she started to protest he swiftly ushered her through the door and closed it. The room was dark but for the moonlight reflecting off the water, but he led her across it and into another beyond.

“There!” he said, closing the second door. “He’ll never dare follow us in here!”

“But he’s such a nice little man. Why don’t you want to talk to him?”

“What’s the use? I’ve told him a thousand times. England and Holland are at war and that’s all there is to it. The fleet’s at sea—I can’t very well call it back for all the nice little men in France. Come here—”

Frances glanced at him dubiously, for each time they were alone the same thing happened. But after a moment of hesitation she walked to the window and stood beside him. White swans were floating there close to shore in the early spring dusk, and the reeds grew so tall the tips of them touched the glass. The water looked dark and cold and a brisk wind had whipped up the waves. He slipped one arm about her waist and for a minute or more they stood silently, looking out. And then slowly he turned, drew her close against him, and kissed her mouth.

Frances submitted, but she was unresponsive. Her hands rested lightly on his shoulders, her body held taut and her lips were cool and passive. His arms tightened and his mouth forced her lips apart; the blood seemed to vibrate through his veins with the intensity of his passion. He felt sure that this time he could bring her to life, make her desire him as violently as he did her.

“Frances, Frances,” he murmured, a kind of pleading rage in his voice. “Kiss me. Stop thinking—stop telling yourself that this is wicked. Forget yourself—forget everything and let me show you what happiness can be—”

“Sire!”

She was beginning to push at him now, a little frightened, arching her back and trying to bend away from him, but his body curved over hers, his hands and his mouth seeking. “Oh, Frances, you can’t put me off any longer—I’ve waited two years —I can’t wait forever—I love you, Frances, I swear I do! I won’t hurt you, darling, please—please—”

It was true that he was in love with her. He was in love with her beauty and her femininity, the promise of complete fulfillment which she seemed to offer. But he did not really love her any more than he had ever loved any other woman; and he believed furthermore that her show of virtue was a stubborn pretense, designed to get something she wanted. In his relations with women as in all other phases of his life, his selfishness took refuge in cynicism.

“Sire!” she cried again, really alarmed now, for she had never realized before how powerful was his strength, how easy it would be for him to force her.

But he did not hear. His hands had pushed the low-cut gown far off her shoulders, and he held her hard against him, as though determined to absorb her body into his own. She had never seen him so blindly excited and it terrified her, for her emotions did not answer his but fled to the opposite extreme—she was scared and disgusted. And all at once she hated him.

Now she put her crossed arms against his shoulders and pushed, and at the same time she gave a sobbing desperate cry. “Your Majesty, let me go!” She burst into tears.

Instantly he paused, his body stiffening, and then he released her, so swiftly that she almost lost her balance. While he stood there in the darkness beside her, so quiet she would have thought she was alone but for the sound of his breathing, she turned away and continued to cry—not softly but with whimpering sobs so that he would hear her and regret what he had done. And also so that he would realize she was even more offended than he could possibly be. For she was afraid now that he might be angry.

It seemed a long time, but at last he spoke. “I’m sorry, Frances. I didn’t realize that I was repulsive to you.”

Frances whirled around. “Oh, Sire! Don’t think that! Of course you’re not! But if I once give myself up to you I’ll have lost the only thing I have that’s any value to me. A woman can no more be excused because she gives herself to a king than if he were any other man. You know that your own mother says that.”

“My mother and I do not always think alike—and certainly not on that point. Answer me honestly, Frances. What is it you want? I’ve told you before and I tell you again—I’ll give you anything I have. I’ll give you anything but marriage—and I’d give that if I could.”

Frances’s voice answered him crisply. “Then, Sire, you will never have me at all. For I shall never give myself to a man under any other conditions than marriage.”

He stood with his back to the windows and his face in darkness, and she could not see the expression of savage anger that brushed across it. “Someday,” he said, in a soft voice, “I hope I’ll find you ugly and willing.” He went past her swiftly and out the door.

CHAPTER THIRTY–TWO

AMBER DID NOT like being shut up in a black room; it made her melancholy. But at least the fact that she was supposed to be in mourning secured her from what would otherwise have been an intolerable number of visits from every friend, acquaintance and remote relative of the entire family. Her child, a girl, had been born just a few days after Samuel’s death. And she would have been expected to give a gossips’-feast, a child-bed feast, and a great reception following the christening.

As it was she received calls only from close relatives and friends of the family, though many others sent gifts. During these she sat half propped in bed, looking very pale and fragile against all that sombre black. She smiled wistfully at her visitors, sometimes squeezed out a tear or two or at least a long sigh, and looked fondly at the baby when someone said that she was as much Samuel’s image as if she had been spit out of his mouth. She was polite and patient and as decorous as ever, for she felt that she owed Samuel that much at least in return for the great fortune he had left her.

She scarcely saw the immediate family at all. Each of them came just once to her room, but Amber knew that it was only out of a persistent sense of duty to their father. She realized that now he was dead they expected and wanted her to leave as soon as she could get out of bed. And she did not intend to linger there any longer than necessary.

But it was only Jemima who said what the others were thinking. “Well—now that you’ve got Father’s money I suppose you expect to buy a title with it and set yourself up for a person of quality?”

Amber gave her an impudent mocking smile. “I might,” she agreed.

“You may be able to buy a title,” said Jemima, “but you can’t buy the breeding that goes with it.” That sounded to Amber like something she had heard one of the others say, but the next words were Jemima’s own: “And there’s something else you can’t buy, either, not if you had all the money there is. You never can buy Lord Carlton.”

Amber’s jealousy of Jemima had faded, since she knew her to be securely trapped in marriage, to lazy contempt. There was nothing she had to fear from her now. And she gave her a slow, sweeping insolent glance. “I’m very sensible of your concern, Jemima. But I’ll shift for myself, I warrant you. So if that’s all you came for, you may as well go.”

Jemima answered her in a low tense voice, for Amber’s smugness and indifference made her furious. “I am going—and I hope I never see you again as long as I live. But let me tell you one thing—someday you’re going to get the fate you deserve. God won’t let your wickedness thrive forever—”

Amber’s superiority dissolved into a cynical laugh. “I vow and swear, Jemima, you’ve grown as great a fanatic as the rest of them. If you had better sense you’d have learned by now that nothing thrives so well as wickedness. Now get out of here, you malapert slut, and don’t trouble me again!”

Jemima did not trouble her again, and neither did anyone else in the family. She was left as strictly alone as if she were not in the house at all.

She sent Nan about the town searching for lodgings—not in the City but out in the fashionable western suburbs that lay between Temple Bar and Charing Cross. And about three weeks after the baby’s birth she went herself to look at one Nan had found.

It was a handsome new building in St. Martin’s Lane, between Holborn, Drury Lane, and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where she would be surrounded by persons of the best quality. The house was four stories high with one apartment on each floor and there was a top half-story for the servants. Amber’s apartment was on the second floor; a pretty young girl just in from the country with her aunt to find a husband was above her, and a rich middle-aged widow occupied the fourth. The landlady, Mrs. de Lacy, lived below Amber. She was a frail creature who sighed frequently and complained of the vapours, and who talked of nothing but her former wealth and position, lost in the Wars along with a husband whom she had never been able to replace.

The house was called the Plume of Feathers and a large wooden sign swung out over the street just below Amber’s parlour windows—it depicted a great swirling blue plume painted on a gilt background and was supported by a very ornate wrought-iron frame, also gilded. The coach-house and stables were up the street only a short distance. And the narrow little lane was packed with the homes and lodgings of gallants, noblemen, titled ladies and many others who frequented Whitehall. Red heels and silver swords, satin gowns and half masks, periwigs and feathered hats, painted coaches and dainty high-bred horses made a continuous parade beneath her window.

The apartments were the most splendid she had ever seen.

There was an anteroom hung in purple-and-gold-striped satin, furnished with two or three gilt chairs and a Venetian mirror. It opened into one end of a long parlour which had massed diamond-paned windows overlooking the street on one side and the courtyard on another. The marble fireplace had a plaster overmantel reaching to the ceiling, lavishly decorated with flowers, beasts, swags, geometrical figures and nude women. The chimney-shelf was lined with Chinese and Persian vases, there was a silver chandelier, and the furniture was either gilded or inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl. Nothing, Mrs. de Lacy explained proudly, had been made in England. The emerald-and-yellow satin draperies were loomed in France, the mirrors came from Florence, the marble in the fireplace from Genoa, the cabinets from Naples, the violet-wood for two tables from New Guinea.

The bedroom was even more sybaritic. The bedstead was covered with cloth-of-silver and all hangings were green taffeta; even the chairs were covered with silver cloth. Several wardrobes were built into the walls and there was a small separate bench-bed with a canopy and tight-rolled bolster for lounging, surely the most elegant little thing Amber had ever seen. And there were three other rooms, nursery, dining-parlour and kitchen, which last she did not expect to use.

The rent was exorbitant—one hundred and twenty-five pounds a year—but Amber had the merest contempt for such small change and paid it without a word of protest, though she hoped and expected that she would not be there even half that long. For Bruce should be back soon; he had been gone now more than eight months and the Pool was crowded again with captured merchant-shipping.

She moved her belongings from Dangerfield House before she herself left, and though the process took three or four days no one came near or commented on what she was taking, not all of which strictly belonged to her. She had hired a wet-nurse and a dry-nurse for the baby, and now she hired three maids, which completed the equipage necessary to a woman of fashion living alone. The day she left, the great house was perfectly silent; she scarcely saw a servant and not even one of the children appeared in the hallways. Nothing could have told her more plainly than this silent contempt how they hated her.

But Amber did not care at all. They were nothing to her now—those stiff precise formal people who lived in a world she despised. She sank back onto the seat of her coach with a sigh of relief.

“Drive away! Well—” she turned to Nan. “That’s over-thank God.”

“Aye,” agreed Nan, softly but with real feeling. “Thank God.”

They sat quietly, looking out the windows as the coach jogged along, enjoying everything they saw. It was a dirty foggy day and the moisture in the air made stronger than ever the heterogeneous and evil smells of London. Along one side of the street swaggered a young beau with his arm in a sling from a recent duel. Across the way a couple of men, obviously French, had been caught by a group of little boys who were screaming insults at them and throwing refuse picked up out of the kennels. The English hated all foreigners, but Frenchmen most of all. A ragged one-eyed old fish-woman lurched drunkenly along, holding by its tail a mouldering mackerel and bawling out her unintelligible chant.

All at once Nan gave a little gasp, one hand pressed to her mouth and the other pointing. “Look! There’s another one!”

“Another what?”

“Another cross!”

Amber leaned forward and saw a great red cross chalked on the doorway of a house before which they were stalled. Beneath it had been printed the words, in great sprawling letters: LORD HAVE MERCY UPON us! A guard lounged against the house, his halberd planted beside him.

She leaned back again, giving a careless wave of her gloved hand. “Pish. What of it? Plague’s the poor man’s disease. Haven’t you heard that?” Barricaded behind her sixty-six thousand pounds she felt safe from anything.

For the next few weeks Amber lived quietly in her apartments at the Plume of Feathers. Her arrival in the neighbourhood, she knew, created a considerable excitement and she was aware that every time she stepped out of the house she was much stared at from behind cautiously drawn curtains. A widow as rich as she was would have aroused interest even if she were not also young and lovely. But she was not so eager to make friends now as she had been when she had first come to London, and her fortune made her suspicious of the motives of any young man who so much as stepped aside to let her pass in the street.

The courtiers were all out at sea with the fleet and—though she would have enjoyed flaunting to them her triumph over the conditions which had once put her at their mercy—she had no real interest in anyone but Bruce. She was content waiting for him to return.

Most of the time she stayed at home, absorbed in being a mother. Her son had been taken away from her so soon, and she had seen him so infrequently since, that this baby was as much a novelty to her as if it were her first. She helped the dry-nurse bathe her, watched her while she fed and slept, rocked her cradle and sang songs and was fascinated by the smallest change she could discover in her size and weight and appearance. She was glad that she had had the baby, even if it had temporarily increased her waist-line by an inch or so, for it gave her something of Bruce’s which she could never lose. This child had a name, a dowry already secure and waiting, an enviable place of her own in the world.

Nan was almost as interested as her mistress. “I vow she’s the prettiest baby in London.”

Amber was insulted. “In London! What d’you mean? She’s the prettiest baby in England!”

One day she went to the New Exchange to do some unnecessary shopping, and happened to see Barbara Palmer. She was just leaving when a great gilt coach drove up in front and Castlemaine stepped out. Barbara’s eyes went over her clothes with interest, for though Amber was still dressed in mourning her cloak was lined with leopard-skins—which Samuel had bought for her from some African slave-trader—and she carried a leopard muff. But when her eyes got as far as Amber’s face and she saw who was wearing the costume she glanced quickly and haughtily away.

Amber gave a little laugh. So she remembers me! she thought. Well, madame, I doubt not you and I may be better acquainted one day.

As the days went by red crosses were seen, more and more frequently, chalked on the doors. There was plague in London every year and when a few cases had appeared in January and February no one had been alarmed. But now, as the weather grew warmer, the plague seemed to increase and terror spread slowly through the city: it passed from neighbour to neighbour, from apprentice to customer, from vendor to housewife.

Long funeral processions wound through the streets, and already people had begun to take notice of a man or a woman in mourning. They recalled the evil portents which had been seen only a few months before. In December a comet had appeared, rising night after night, tracing a slow ominous path across the sky. Others had seen flaming-swords held over the city, hearses and coffins and heaps of dead bodies in the clouds. Crowds collected on the steps of St. Paul’s to hear the half-naked old man who held a blazing torch in his hand and called upon them to repent of their sins. The tolling of the passing-bell began to have a new significance for each of them:

Tomorrow, perhaps, it tolls for me or for someone I love.

Every day Nan came home with a new preventive. She bought pomander-balls to breathe into when out of doors, toad amulets, a unicorn’s horn, quills filled with arsenic and quicksilver, mercury in a walnut shell, gold coins minted in Queen Elizabeth’s time. Each time someone told her of a new preservative she bought it immediately, one for each member of the household, and she insisted that they be worn. She even put quicksilver-quills around the necks of their horses.

But she was not content merely with preventing the plague. For she realized sensibly, that in spite of all precautions one sometimes got it, and she began to stock the cupboards with remedies for curing the sickness. She bought James Angier’s famous fumigant of brimstone and saltpetre, as well as gunpowder, nitre, tar and resin to disinfect the air. She bought all the recommended herbs, angelica, rue, pimpernel, gentian, juniper berries, and dozens more. She had a chestful of medicines which included Venice treacle, dragon water, and a bottle of cow-dung mixed with vinegar.

Amber was inclined to be amused by all these frantic preparations. An astrologer had told her that 1665 would be a lucky year for her, and her almanac did not warn her of plague or any other disease. Anyway it was true, for the most part, that only the poor were dying in their crowded dirty slums.

“Mrs. de Lacy’s leaving town tomorrow,” said Nan one morning as she brushed Amber’s hair.

“Well, what if she is? Mrs. de Lacy’s a chicken-hearted old simpleton who’d squeak at the sight of a mouse.”

“She’s not the only one, mam, you know that. Plenty of others are leaving too.”

“The King isn’t leaving, is he?” They had had this same argument every day for the past two weeks, and Amber was growing tired of it.

“No, but he’s the King and couldn’t catch the sickness if he tried. I tell you, mam, it’s mighty dangerous to stay. Not five minutes’ walk away—just at the top of Drury Lane—there’s a house been shut up. I’m getting scared, mam! Lord, I don’t want to die—and I shouldn’t think you would either!”

Amber laughed. “Well, then, Nan—if it gets any worse we’ll leave. But there’s no use fretting your bowels to fiddle-strings.” She had no intention at all of leaving before Bruce arrived.

On the 3rd of June the English and Dutch fleets engaged just off Lowestoft, and the sound of their guns carried back to London. They could be heard, very faintly, like swallows fluttering in a chimney.

By the 8th it was known that the English had been victorious —twenty-four Dutch ships had been sunk or captured and almost 10,000 Dutchmen killed or taken prisoner, while no more than 700 English seamen had been lost. The rejoicing was hysterical. Bonfires blazed along every street and a mob of merrymakers broke the French Ambassador’s windows because there was no fire in front of his house. King Charles was the greatest king, the Duke of York the greatest admiral England had ever known—and everyone was eager to continue the fight, wipe out the Dutch and rule all the seas on earth.

The red crosses had now entered the gates of the City.

Nan came in a few days later with a bill-of-mortality in her hand. “Mam!” she cried. “Mam! There was 112 died last week of the sickness!”

Amber was entertaining Lord Buckhurst and Sir Charles Sedley who—along with the other gentlemen—had just returned from sea, all of them sunburnt heroes. Nan stopped on the threshold in surprise to find them there.

“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry, gentlemen.” She made a curtsy.

“Never mind, Mrs. Nan. Damn me, Sedley! She’s as pretty as ever, isn’t she? But what’s this? Sure you’re not worried about the plague?”

“Oh, but I am, sir! I’m scared out of my wits! And all these other things they’ve got marked! I’ll warrant you at least half of ‘em died of the plague!” She began to read from the fresh-printed bill, for they were scarcely off the press before Nan had one. “Griping of the guts—3! Worms—5! Fits—2! How do we know those weren’t all the plague too and not reported by the searcher because somebody greased ’em in the fist to give another cause of the death!”

Amber and the two men laughed but Nan was so excited she began to choke on the gold-piece she had in her mouth and ran out of the room. Only nine days later, however, the Queen and her ladies set out for Hampton Court, and the gentlemen intended to follow very shortly. Buckhurst and some of the others who had heard of her inheritance tried to persuade Amber to go along, but she refused.

Then at last, very much to Nan’s relief, she began to make preparations for leaving town herself. She had the maids begin packing her clothes, and most of her jewellery she took to Shadrac Newbold, for she did not want to carry it about the countryside with her and had no idea as to where she would go. She found the street before his house crowded with carts and wagons and all the household in a turmoil.

“It’s fortunate you came today, Mrs. Dangerfield,” he told her. “I’m leaving town tomorrow myself. But I had assumed you were in the country with the rest of the family. They left at least a fortnight ago.” The Dangerfields had a country home in Dorsetshire.

“I don’t live at Dangerfield House any more. I think I’ll take just a hundred pound. That should be enough, don’t you think?”

“I think so. The ways will be more crowded than ever with highwaymen. And the plague must be near spent by now. Excuse me a moment, madame.”

While he was gone Amber sat fanning herself. The day was hot and she could feel her high-necked black-satin gown sticking to ‘her skin; her silk stockings, moist with perspiration, clung tight to her legs. Presently he returned and sat down to count out the pieces of gold and silver for her, stacking them in piles on the table while she watched him drowsily.

“That was a fine boy little Mrs. Jemima had, wasn’t it?” he said conversationally.

Amber had not known that Jemima’s child was born, but now she said sarcastically: “So soon? She was only married last October.”

He gave her a glance of surprise, and then smiled, shrugging his shoulders. “Well, yes, perhaps it is a little early. But you know how young people are—and a contract is as binding as the ceremony, they say.”

He scooped the money into a purse and handed it to her as she got up to go. At the door she turned. “Any word of Lord Carlton?”

“Why, yes, as it happens, I have. Some ten days ago one of his ships put into port and a man came to tell me that his Lordship would be here soon. I’ve waited for him now longer than I’d intended, but I can’t wait any longer. Perhaps he’s heard of the sickness and decided not to come. Good-day, madame, and the best of luck to you.”

“Thank you, sir. And to you.”

Everyone was wishing everyone else good luck these days.

She drove immediately down to the wharves and sent Jeremiah to inquire for Lord Carlton. After half-an-hour or so he returned to say that he had found a man who had been on the ship which had come in and that he was expected at any time. The men who had manned the first ship were all waiting impatiently, for they wanted their shares of the venture.

Back home she saw that several carts piled with her own gilt leather trunks and boxes stood before the house, and Nan came running down the stairs to meet her. “A man died this morning only four doors up the street!” she cried. “I’ve got everything ready! We can leave this instant, mam! Can’t we, please?”

Amber was annoyed. “No, we can’t! I’ve just heard that Lord Carlton is expected in port any day and I’m not going till I’ve seen him! Then we’ll all go together.”

Suddenly Nan began to cry. “Oh, we’re all going to catch it and die! I know we are! That’s what happened to a family in Little Clement’s Lane—every one of ‘em died! Why can’t you meet his Lordship in the country? Leave ’im a message!”

“No. He might not come at all then. Oh, Nan! For Heaven’s sake! Stop your blubbering then. You can go tomorrow.”

Nan set out very early the next morning with the baby, her nurses, Tansy, two of the maids, and Big John Waterman—who had come with them from Dangerfield House because he was in love with Nan. She was to go to Dunstable and wait there or, if there was plague in the town, to continue on until she found a safe place and sent back a message. Amber gave them a great many instructions and admonitions regarding the care of the baby and protection of her belongings and they rattled off, waving back at her. Then she sent Jeremiah back to the wharves—but Bruce had not come.

London was emptying rapidly now.

Trains of coaches and carts started out early every morning: twenty-five hundred had died the week before. The sad faces of the plague prisoners—shut in with the sick—appeared at many windows, and bells tolled from almost every parish church in the city. People held their noses when they passed a cross-marked house. Some families were storing their cellars with great supplies of food and then sealing the house, stuffing every crack and keyhole, boarding the doors and windows to keep out the plague.

The weather continued hot and there was no fog; it had not rained for almost a month. The flowers down in the courtyard, roses and stocks and honeysuckle, were wilting and the meadows about the town were beginning to dry up and turn brown. Street vendors hawked cherries and apples and early pears, though oranges were scarce since the war had begun, and everyone who could afford it bought ice—cut off the lakes and rivers in the winter and stored underground packed in straw—to cool their wine and ale. They talked almost as much about the heat as they did about the war or the plague.

Amber was finally beginning to feel nervous herself. The long funeral processions, the red crosses on every hand, the tolling bells, the people passing with their noses buried in a pomander or bottle of scent had at last made her uneasy. She wanted to get away, but she was sure that if she left, Bruce would arrive the same day. And so she waited.

Tempest and Jeremiah were complaining about being kept so long in town and did not like being sent to the wharves. Jane—the serving-girl who had stayed with Amber—whined and wanted to go to her father’s home in Kent and so Amber let her. When Nan had been gone four days she asked Tempest and Jeremiah to look for Lord Carlton once more and told them that if they found him she would give them each a guinea. But for the money, she knew, they would merely drive around or go to a tavern for a couple of hours and then come back. By noon they were home again. Lord Carlton had come in the night before and they had just seen him down at the wharves, unloading his ships.