Forever Amber

by Kathleen Winsor

  Clawing and biting, screaming and kicking and pounding at each other with their fists, they rocked and swayed from one side of the room to the other. Their flimsy costumes were soon torn to shreds; their wigs came off and the black eye-paint smeared their faces; bloody scratches appeared on cheeks and arms and breasts. But for the time they were engrossed in rage, unfeeling, unhearing, unseeing.

  Outside a crowd had gathered and was pounding at the door, clamouring to be let in. Scroggs moved straddlelegged after them, keeping just out of reach of thrashing arms and legs, cheering and shouting for Madame St. Clare. Once, when she came too close, Beck gave her a vicious kick in the belly that knocked her into a breathless groaning quivering heap on the floor.

  At last Amber locked one leg behind Beck's knee and they went down together, clasped as tight as lovers, rolling over and over with first one on top and then the other. Amber's nose was streaming and her throat was beginning to feel raw from the blood she had swallowed, but at last she got astride Beck and pummelled her head and face with her fists while Beck fought her off with teeth and clawing nails. Thus they were when Scroggs opened the door and half-a-dozen men rushed in to drag them apart, hauling Amber off and pulling Beck away in another direction. Both women collapsed from sudden nervous exhaustion, and neither protested at the interference. Beck began to cry hysterically, babbling an incoherent stream of accusations and curses.

  Amber lay stretched out flat on a couch, Hart's cloak flung over her, and now while Scroggs sopped at the blood and muttered her fierce congratulations she began to feel the sting and smart of her wounds. Her nose was numb and seemed to have swollen immensely and one eye was beginning to close.

  Faintly she heard Killigrew's loud angry voice: "—the laughing stock of all the town, you damned jades! I'll never dare show this play again! Both of you are suspended for two weeks—no, three weeks, by God! I'll have some discipline among you impudent players or know the reason why! And you can pay the cost of replacing your costumes—"

  The voice went on but Amber's eyes were closed and she refused to listen. She was only relieved that Rex, who held his commission in his Majesty's regiment of Horse Guards, had been on duty at the Palace that day.

  Still, when she came back at the end of her enforced vacation she found that though the other women probably liked her no better and envied her no less, she had been accepted as one of them. There was tension and amusement in the tiring-room the first day that she and Beck met face to face, but they merely looked at each other for a moment, then nodded and exchanged cool greetings.

  A few days later Scroggs slyly gave Amber a new blue-velvet miniver-lined hood which some countess had just presented to the wardrobe. Blue was not Amber's colour and she knew it. "Thanks a million, Scroggs," she said. "But I think Beck should have it. It matches her gown."

  Beck, standing only a few feet away and pulling on a stocking, heard her. She glanced around in surprise. "Why should I have it? My part's but a small one." Killigrew persisted in his punishment, and neither of them had yet been put into the roles they had played before.

  "It's as big as mine," insisted Amber. "And anyway I've got a new petticoat to wear."

  Still skeptical, Beck took it and thanked her.

  In the comedy that day they played two frivolous girls, close friends, and halfway through the first act each suddenly discovered toward the other a new warmth which grew quickly into liking. At the end of the act everyone was astonished to see them coming off the stage arm in arm laughing gaily. After that they were as good friends as most women, and Beck even flirted sometimes with Captain Morgan when he came to the tiring-room—though she knew as well as Amber that nothing would ever come of it. It was merely a gesture of good will.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Charles II was married to the Infanta Catherine of Portugal two years after his Restoration.

  She had been decided upon by Charles and Chancellor Hyde —now Earl of Clarendon—very shortly after his return; the delay in the wedding had been political, designed to coerce a larger dowry from desperate little Portugal, just recently free but still menaced by Spain. In the end the Portuguese paid a high price for marrying English sea-power: they gave 300,000 pounds; the right of trade with all Portuguese colonies; and two of their most prized possessions, Tangier and Bombay.

  The Earl of Sandwich had been sent to Portugal with a fleet to escort the princess back to England, but Charles could not leave London until he had prorogued Parliament, and that was several days after she had arrived at Portsmouth. But once it was dismissed he set out immediately and rode through the night. He arrived there early the next afternoon and went first to his own apartments to change his clothes.

  Charles sat down and his barber lathered his face, then began to swipe across it with swift clean strokes of a sharp-edged razor. There were black circles beneath his eyes but he looked happy and alert, and somewhat amused, for the room was full of courtiers and he knew that the same thought was in every head.

  They were wondering what kind of husband he was going to make, how this marriage would affect the status of each of them, and whether or not he really would, as he had said, keep no mistresses once he was married. For his own part he was glad to be away from London and the melancholy Barbara, who had sulked and pouted and cried for weeks past, though she bragged to acquaintances that she was going to lie-in of her second child at Hampton Court, while the King was spending his honeymoon there.

  Now Charles glanced up at Buckingham who stood beside him, stroking the head of a little brown-and-black spaniel. Buckingham had been there for some time and had already seen the Infanta.

  "Well?"

  "Well," said the Duke.

  Charles laughed. "I think you're jealous, my lord." Buckingham's wife was a plain, plump little woman with odd, slanted eyes and a large turned-up nose. When the barber was finished the King got up and submitted to being dressed. "Well—for the honour of the nation I only hope I'm not put to the consummation tonight. I haven't had two hours rest in the past thirty-four, and I'm afraid matters would go off somewhat sleepily."

  Dressed at last he slapped his hat onto his head and strode rapidly from the room, a pack of his spaniels running at his heels, a pack of courtiers following after them. The Infanta, he had been told, had caught a cold and been sent to bed; and that was where he found her, sitting propped against white silk pillows embroidered with the Stuart coat-of-arms, wearing a dressing-gown of pale pink satin with belled wrist-length sleeves. He paused in the doorway, bowing, and saw her eyes staring at him wide and half-frightened, her fingers twisting the counterpane nervously.

  She was surrounded on all sides by her attendants, banked two or three deep about the bed as though for her protection. There were half-a-dozen long-robed priests, their tonsured heads shining, their eyes measuring and skeptical. There were the Countesses of Penalva and Ponteval, her Majesty's chaperons, two ugly, muddy-skinned, punctilious old women. And the six maids-of-honour, young but just as dark, sallow, and hideous to the eye of an Englishman. Instead of the sweeping, graceful low-cut gowns then in fashion, they were without exception dressed in stiff-bodiced, old-fashioned farthingales which had not been worn in England for thirty years. If they had breasts they were so tightly cased as to appear perfectly flat, and their skirts jutted out from the waist on either side like shelves that swung and teetered clumsily whenever they moved.

  As the King appeared in the doorway, his gentlemen crowded behind him, peering over his shoulders; the women stood motionless and waiting, a look of alarm on their faces. Portuguese etiquette was as rigid as the clothes they wore and the girls, having seldom seen men who were not members of their own families, regarded the entire sex with suspicion and distrust. They had been creating a good deal of trouble by refusing to sleep in any bed which had ever been occupied by a man, and at the sight of one of the creatures approaching had covered their faces and run off in another direction, cackling and gabbling. Now, unable to run, they stoo
d and stared—defensive, nervous, wretchedly ill-at-ease. They would have been more so if they had guessed what the men thought of them.

  Charles's face did not change and immediately he came forward, taking her hand to kiss. "My apologies to you, madame," he said in soft Spanish, for she knew no English. "Business kept me until late last night. I hope you've been made comfortable?" He straightened then and looked down at her.

  Catherine was twenty-three but she looked no more than eighteen. Her hair was beautiful, a cascading mass of dark brown waves, and her eyes which were also brown were large and bright, gentle and just a little wistful as she looked up at him. They seemed to beg for kindness and to ask apology for her own shortcomings. For her skin was inclined to sallowness; her front teeth protruded a little. And he had been told that she was scarcely five feet tall.

  Still—he thought—for a princess, she's not bad.

  Catherine had been bred in a convent, embroidering, praying, singing hymns, waiting for her mother to find her a husband. When she did, Catherine was already far beyond the age when most princesses married and still she knew nothing at all of men, was almost as ignorant of their natures as if they had been members of another species. She had expected to learn to love her husband because it was a woman's duty to do so; but now as she looked up at Charles she realized that she had already fallen in love with him. Everything about him seemed wonderful to her: his swarthy good-looks, the powerful grace of his body, the deep smooth gentle tones of his voice which lapped over her like a warm tide, stilling some of her terrors, echoing in her heart.

  The next morning they were married, first by a secret Catholic ceremony in her bedchamber, again in the afternoon according to the rites of the Church of England. A few days later they set out for Hampton Court. And though there was much gossip to the effect that Charles was disappointed in his marriage and ready to accept Barbara Palmer back again as soon as she had recovered from her confinement, both their Majesties seemed perfectly happy and content and as much in love as though they had not married for reasons of political expediency.

  But if Catherine was satisfied, there were others in her suite who were not.

  Penalva, an ailing, near-sighted old virgin, disliked England the moment she set foot upon it. It was too different from Portugal to be good. The women, she decided immediately, were wanton and bold, the men unscrupulous and dishonourable, and she undertook to warn the naive little Queen of these facts.

  "The Court of England," she said sternly, "must needs be much remodelled before it is fit for the occupancy of your Majesty."

  Catherine, who was still admiring her splendid crimson-and-silver-hung apartments, examining the massive toilet and mirror made out of pure beaten gold, looked at her in surprise, but with a happy little smile.

  "Why, perhaps it should be. I've not heard what condition it's in, but I don't doubt his Majesty will be glad to make any repairs I ask—he's so kind to me." Her dark eyes went out the windows, looking across the stretches of green lawn, the blooming flower-plots, and something dreamy and thoughtful came into them that evidently annoyed Penalva.

  "You misunderstand, your Majesty! I was not speaking of the furnishings of the Palace. Quite possibly it will be as barbarous as this—" She gestured quickly, for she did not like English taste either. "I was speaking of the manners and morals of the courtiers and ladies themselves."

  "Why," said Catherine, "what's wrong with them?"

  "Can it be your Majesty has not noticed how these women dress? All of them go half naked from morning till night."

  "Well—" she admitted with some reluctance, for she did not want to be disloyal to her new land and husband. "They are— different—from what we're used to seeing at home."

  "Different! My dear, they're indecent! No woman whose intentions were innocent would display herself before a man as these creatures do. Your Majesty, you have an opportunity to earn for yourself the gratitude of all England—by reforming the Court."

  "I wouldn't know how to begin. Perhaps they wouldn't like to have an outsider—"

  "Nonsense, your Majesty! What does it matter what they would like! You're not their subject! They are yours, and must be made to understand so immediately—or you will find yourself a mere hanger-on at your own Court."

  Catherine smiled gently, flunking that the poor old lady was so concerned for her happiness that she saw a great deal of evil where none existed. "I think you've misjudged them, my lady. They all look so fine—I'm sure they must be good."

  "Unfortunately, your Majesty, that is not the way of the world. The good are never ostentatious—these creatures are. Now, your Majesty, you must listen to the advice of an old woman who has lived a long while and seen a great deal. Be mistress in your own Court! Be a leader, not a follower, or they'll leave you alone for whoever does undertake to lead, and Heaven knows, in this abandoned place it could be no one of good character. Begin, your Majesty, by putting off those absurd English clothes his Majesty gave you. Return to your native costume, and others will be forced to follow."

  Catherine looked down, somewhat dismayed, at her pink-and-blue taffeta gown with its full-gathered skirt, billowing sleeves, the neckline cut more discreetly than were those of most ladies, but still quite daring, she had thought. She felt that in it she was prettier than she had ever been before in her life.

  "But," she protested softly, "I like it."

  "It doesn't become you, my dear, as your native costume does. Go back to your farthingales, or these English will think they've converted you to their ways already. They're an arrogant race, and will have scant pity or respect for whoever is easily tamed by them. And one thing more, your Majesty— don't learn the language. Let them speak to you in your own tongue—"

  Catherine had listened to Penalva all her life, and she knew that the old lady had nothing but love and affection for her. She bowed to the wisdom of age and that night she appeared at a banquet in her bobbing, black-silk farthingale. She gave Charles a quick anxious glance, to see whether or not he disapproved of the change, but his face was inscrutable. He smiled, bowing, and offered her his arm.

  The honeymoon was celebrated with endless entertainment and gaiety. There were banquets and balls and cock-fights, picnics, rides on the canal in the luxurious royal barges, plays performed by actors who came down from London. All day long the staircases, the chain of great rooms and galleries, were crowded with a brilliantly dressed throng of men and women. In plum-coloured velvet, blue satin, gold brocade, they clattered and swished from room to room, strolled down the cradlewalk of interlaced hornbeam, drifted lazily on the river. And the sound of their voices, calling to one another, laughing, chattering eternally, reached Catherine whether she was with them or—more often—when she was in her own apartments at prayer or talking to her ladies and priests. She liked to hear them, for though she felt shy and lonely when she was among them, from a distance it gave her a sense of being part of their gay, debonair, heedless world.

  She did not guess what they thought of her.

  "She's ugly as a bat," they told one another, after the first glimpse, and greatly magnified her defects because she did not look like an English-woman.

  They dissected her among themselves, the women giggling and murmuring behind their fans even when she was in the room, for they knew she could understand nothing of what they said. And if by chance the Queen's brown eyes rested upon one of them and she smiled, they quickly composed their faces to smile back, curtsying faintly, and gave a wink and a nudge to the nearest lady.

  "Gad! But she looks as demure as a dog in a halter!"

  "I'll be damned if I can bring myself to admire a woman with such a dingy skin! Why the devil doesn't she give it a plastering of powder?"

  "Oh, heavens, my lord! Her monster would never allow it! They say the old witch thinks we're a pack of infidels and counsels her Majesty to have a care we don't corrupt her."

  "Look! how she gives the king the sheep's eye! Ugh! I swear it makes me queasy
to see a woman who dotes so upon her husband—and in public in broad daylight!"

  "I say it's a mark of his Majesty's good-breeding he can make such a tolerable show of seeming to endure her."

  "Well—I'll wager he won't make such a tolerable show much longer. Castlemaine laid-in last week. She'll be here in another fortnight—and then we'll see—" Barbara Palmer had been created Countess of Castlemaine some six months before.

  "It runs through the galleries the King promised long ago he'd make her a Lady of the Bedchamber when he married—"

  "And she says he will or she'll know why!"

  Much as they disliked Barbara for her insolence and airs, hot though jealousy of her flared among the other women, still she was one of them and they were united in her favour against this newcomer who outraged them with her modesty and reticence, her obstinate clinging to the fashions of her own country, her persistent devotion to her church. But it was not only the frivolous and cynical whom Catherine had offended. By seeming from the first to like Chancellor Clarendon she had unwittingly drawn upon herself the enmity of the most ambitious and able and influential men at Court.

  But Catherine could know nothing of all this. And in spite of Penalva's repeated warnings she looked at her new subjects and saw only women dressed in beautiful gowns, with glossy golden hair and a look of sleek complacency—women she envied though she knew it was wicked to do so—and men with suave easy manners bowing over her hand, sweeping off their hats as she appeared, their closed faces telling her nothing. She was still a little frightened by England, but so much in love with her husband and so eager to please him that she tried to conceal her awe and uncertainty and thought that she was succeeding very well.

  And then one evening, while she was being made ready for bed, Lady Suffolk, aunt of Lady Castlemaine, and the only English attendant thus far appointed, handed the Queen a sheet of paper with a list of names written upon it. "These are the persons proposed for your Majesty's attendants," she said. "Will your Majesty be pleased to sign?"