Forever Amber

by Kathleen Winsor

  For as far as it was possible to see in both directions the shores were packed; on the water the barges lay so thick a man could have walked from Westminster Hall to Charing Cross Stairs on them. Banners whipped out in the brisk breeze, and garlands of flowers trailed in the water. Music played, and as the first of the great gilded state-barges appeared cannon went off, roaring along the river-front, while shouts echoed back from shore to shore and every bell-tower in the city began to rock clamorously.

  Amber, her hair blowing about her face, was standing over in one corner, very close to the edge and trying hard to see everything. With her were three young men who had just come from Hampton Court and who had been telling her the story of how the Queen had fainted when Castlemaine was presented to her, and how angry the King had been, thinking she had done it on purpose to embarrass him.

  "And since then," one of them was saying, "the Lady's gone to all the balls and entertainments and they say his Majesty is sleeping with her again."

  "Can you blame him?" demanded another. "She's a mighty delicate creature—but as for that olivader skinned—"

  "Well, damn me!" interrupted the third. "If there isn't the Earl himself!"

  Elbow-nudges and glances passed along the roof, but Roger Palmer ignored them all; and presently they turned their attention back to the pageant, for the great City barges were now moving by just below. A few minutes later, however, Barbara herself came up the stairway. She was followed by her handsome waiting-woman, Mrs. Wilson, and a nurse carrying her little son. She made a perfunctory curtsy to her husband, who bowed coldly, and immediately she was surrounded by the three young gallants who had left Amber with never a word of apology.

  Angry and resentful, hot at the mere sight of this woman she despised, Amber gave her head a toss and turned away. At least I'll not stare like a country-bumpkin at a puppet show! she thought furiously. But no one else seemed to have any such compunctions.

  Not very much later she was surprised by the sound of a strangely familiar masculine voice, a hand on her shoulder, and she looked swiftly about to see the Earl of Almsbury grinning down at her. "Well, I'll be damned!" he was saying. "If it isn't Mrs. St. Clare!" He bent then and kissed her, and she was so charmed by the warmth of his smile, the admiration she saw in his eyes, that she forgave him on the instant for having neglected her when she was in Newgate.

  "Why, Almsbury!"

  The questions rose immediately to her tongue: Where's Bruce? Have you seen him? Is he here? But her pride bit them down.

  He stepped back now and his eyes went over her from head to toe. "You're looking mighty prosperous, sweetheart! Matters have gone swimmingly with you, I doubt not—"

  Amber forgot Luke Channell and Newgate and Whitefriars. She gave him a little smile with the corners of her mouth and answered airily. "Oh, well enough. I'm an actress now—in the Theatre Royal."

  "No! I'd heard they have females on the stage now—but you're the first I've seen. I've been in the country for two years past."

  "Oh. Then maybe you never got my letter?"

  "No—did you write me?"

  She made a light gesture of dismissal. "Oh, it was a great while since. In December, a year and a half gone."

  "I left town just after—at the end of August in '60. I tried to find you, but the host at the Royal Saracen said you'd packed and gone to parts unknown, and the next day I left myself for Herefordshire—his Majesty granted me my lands again."

  At that moment the noise about them swelled deafeningly, for the Royal barge had reached the pier and the King and Queen were getting out, while the Queen Mother came forward to meet them.

  "Good Lord!" shouted Amber. "What the devil is her Majesty wearing?" From the distance the Queen's propped-out skirts made her look almost as wide as she was tall, and as she moved they rocked and swayed precariously.

  "It's a farthingale!" bellowed Almsbury. "They wear 'em in Portugal!"

  When at last the crowds began to break up Almsbury took her arm, asking if he might carry her to her lodgings. They turned, to find Barbara with a man's wide-brimmed hat on her head, standing only a few feet away, and she gave Almsbury a wave and a smile, though her eyes slid with unmistakable hostility over Amber. Amber lifted her chin, lowered her lashes, and sailed by without a glance.

  Her coach was waiting in King Street with a great many others, just outside the Palace Gate, and at sight of it Almsbury gave a low whistle. "Well! I didn't know acting was such a well-paid profession!"

  Amber took the cloak which Jeremiah handed her and tossed it over her shoulders, for evening had set in and it was growing cool. Picking up her skirts she gave him a sly smile over her shoulder.

  "Maybe acting isn't. But there's another that is." She climbed in, laughing as he sat down heavily beside her.

  "So our innocent country-maid has listened to the Devil after all."

  "What else could I do after—" She stopped quickly colouring, and then hastily added, "There's only one way for a woman to get on in the world, I've found."

  "There's only one way for a woman to get on very well—or very far. Who's your maintainer?"

  "Captain Morgan, of his Majesty's Horse Guard. D'you know 'im?"

  "No. I think I'm somewhat out of the fashion, in keepers and clothes alike. There's nothing will run a man out of the mode so quick as a wife and a home in the country."

  "Oh! So now you're married!" Amber gave him a roguish grin, almost as though he had just admitted some indiscretion.

  "Yes, now I'm married. Two years the 5th of next month. And I've got two boys—one a little over a year and another just two months. And—a—weren't you—" His eyes went down over her questioningly, but he hesitated.

  "I have a boy, too!" cried Amber suddenly, unable to control herself any longer. "Oh, Almsbury, you should see him! He looks just like Bruce! Tell me, Almsbury: Where is he? Has he been back to London? Have you seen him?" She did not care any longer about seeming flippant and independent. She was happy with Rex and had almost thought that she was no longer in love with Bruce Carlton—but the mere sight of Almsbury had brought it all churning up again.

  "I've heard that he's in Jamaica and sails from there to take Spanish ships. Lord, sweetheart, don't tell me you're still—"

  "Well, what if I am!" cried Amber, tears in her voice, and she turned her head quickly to look out the window.

  Almsbury's tone was soothing. He moved closer and put an arm about her. "Here—darling. Good Lord, I'm sorry."

  She dropped her head onto his shoulder. "When do you think he'll come back? He's been gone two years—"

  "I don't know. But I suppose one of these days when we least expect it he'll be putting into port."

  "He'll stay here then, won't he? He won't go away again, will he?"

  "I'm afraid he will, sweetheart. I've known Carlton for twenty years, and most of that time he's been just coming home or just going away. He doesn't stay long in one place. It must be his Scottish blood, I think, that sends him off adventuring."

  "But it'll be different—now that the King's back. When he has money he can live at Court without having to crawl on his belly—that's what he said he didn't like."

  "It was more than that. He doesn't like the Court."

  "Doesn't like it! Why, that's ridiculous! That's where everybody would live—if they could!"

  Almsbury shrugged. "Nevertheless he doesn't like it. No one does—but few of 'em have got the guts to leave."

  Amber shook her shoulders, pouting, and leaned forward to get out as the coach drew up before her lodging-house. "That sounds like damned nonsense!" she muttered crossly.

  Her maid, Gatty, was not in, for Amber had given her permission to see the pageant and then pay a visit to her father. Prudence she had long since dismissed when she had come home unexpectedly to find the girl parading about in her best and newest gown. And there had been two others before Gatty, one sent away for pilfering and the other for laziness. Amber sent Jeremiah to bring them some fo
od from the Bear, an excellent nearby ordinary which sold French food cooked by Englishmen. Her meals were all sent in, from taverns or cook-shops.

  She showed him her rooms with great pride, pointing out every detail so that he should miss nothing. Rex was generous and gave her almost everything she asked for; consequently he spent much of his time when not on duty gambling in the Groom Porter's Lodge or at a tavern.

  Among her recent acquirements was a chest of drawers from Holland made of Brazilian kingwood—chocolate brown with black veins, decorated with a great deal of florid Dutch carving. There was a lacquered black Chinese screen, and in one corner stood a what-not loaded with tiny figures: a tree of coral, a blown-glass stag, an old Chinese knife-grinder worked in silver filigree. And over the fireplace hung a three-quarter portrait of Amber.

  "What d'you think of me?" she asked, gesturing toward the portrait, tossing her muff and fan aside.

  Alsmbury put his hands in his pockets and leaned back on his heels, examining it with his head to one side. "Well, sweetheart, I'm glad I saw you in the flesh first, or I should have been troubled to think you'd grown so plump. And who sat for the mouth? That isn't yours."

  She laughed beckoning him into the bedroom where she began to unpin her back hair. "Being in the country hasn't changed you so much, Almsbury. You're still as great a courtier as ever. But you should see the miniature Samuel Cooper did of me. I'm supposed to be Aphro—I forgot what he called it —Venus, anyway, rising from the sea. I stand like this—" she struck an easy graceful pose, "and haven't got a thing on."

  Almsbury, sitting astride a low chair with his arms folded across the back, gave a low appreciative hum. "Sounds mighty pretty. Where is it?"

  "Oh, Rex has it. I gave it to him for his birthday and he's carried it ever since—over his heart." She grinned mischievously and began untying the bows down the front of her gown. "He's mad in love with me. Lord, he even wants to marry me now."

  "And are you going to?"

  "No." She shook her head vigorously, indicating that she did not care to discuss the matter. "I don't want to get married."

  Picking up her dressing-gown, she went behind the screen to put it on. Just her head and shoulders showed over the top of it, and as she took off her garments, tossing them out one by one, she kept up a merry chatter with the Earl.

  Finally the waiter arrived and they went into the dining-room to eat. Rex had sent her a message that he would be on duty at the Palace until late, or she would never have dared eat her supper with a man, wearing only a satin dressing-gown. For she had discovered long ago that Rex was not joking when he said that if he took her into keeping he would expect a monopoly of her time and person. He kept the beaus from crowding her too closely or impudently at the theatre and discouraged them from visiting her—though all the actresses held their levees at home just as the Court ladies did and entertained numbers of gentlemen while they were dressing. The result was that during the last few months they had quite given up Mrs. St. Clare. Rex had a formidable reputation as a swordsman, and most of the tiring-room fops would rather see an apothecary for a clap, than a surgeon for a flesh-wound.

  Throughout the meal Amber and the Earl talked with all the animation of old friends who have not met for a long while and who have a great deal to say to each other. She told him about her successes, but not her failures, her triumphs but not her defeats. He heard nothing of Luke Channell or of Newgate, Mother Red-Cap or Whitefriars. She pretended that she still had left a good deal of Lord Carlton's five hundred pounds, deposited with her goldsmith, and he admitted that she had been far more clever than most young country girls left to shift for themselves in London.

  It was two hours later as they sat on her long green velvet- cushioned settle, empty wine-glasses in their hands and staring into the last glow of the sea-coal fire, that Almsbury drew her into his arms and kissed her. For a moment she hesitated, her body tense, thinking of Rex and how furious he would be if another man kissed her, and then—because she liked Almsbury and because he meant Bruce Carlton to her—she relaxed against him and made no protest until, at last, he asked her to go into the bedroom.

  Then suddenly she shook back her hair and pulled the front of her gown together. "Oh, Lord Almsbury! I can't! I should never have even let you think I would!" She got up, feeling a little dizzy from the wine, and leaned her head against the mantelpiece.

  "Good God, Amber, I thought you were grown up now!" He sounded exasperated and more than a little angry.

  "Oh, it isn't that, Almsbury. It isn't because I'm still—" She was about to say "waiting for Bruce," but stopped. "It's Rex. You don't know him. He's jealous as an Italian uncle. He'd murder you in a trice—and turn me out of keeping."

  "He wouldn't if he didn't know anything about it."

  She smiled skeptically, turning her head to look at him, though her hair fell forward over her face. "Was there ever a man yet who could lie with a woman and not tell all his acquaintance within the hour? The gallants say that's half the pleasure of fornication—telling about it afterwards."

  "Well, I'm no gallant, and you damned well know it. I'm just a man who's in love with you. Oh, maybe I shouldn't say that. I don't know whether I'm in love with you or not. But I've wanted you since the first day I saw you. You know now that what I told you that night is true, so don't put me off any longer. How much do you want? I'll give you two hundred pound—put it with your goldsmith, toward the day when you'll need it."

  The money was a convincing argument, but the thought that someday Bruce Carlton might hear about it—and be hurt— was even more so.

  It was true, as Amber had told Almsbury, that Rex Morgan wanted to marry her. During the past seven months they had been happy and content, leading a life of merry companionable domesticity. They took an instinctive pleasure in doing the same things, and it was heightened always by a warm suffusing glow of happiness at the mere fact of being together.

  The summer just past they had been together most of the time, for with the King out of town Rex had no official duties and the theatres were always closed for a vacation period of several weeks—though twice Amber had gone down with the rest of the Company to perform before their Majesties at Hampton Court. With Prudence or Gatty or whomever she might have in service, they would pack a hamper and ride out Goswell Street on warm June evenings to eat a picnic supper at the lonely, pretty little village of Islington. Several times they found a quiet spot in the river and pulled off their clothes to go swimming, laughing and splashing in the cool clean water, and afterwards while she dried her hair Rex would catch a few fish for them to take home.

  Or they rowed up the river in a hired scull, Amber with her shoes and stockings off and her ankles trailing in the water, screaming with delighted laughter to hear Rex bandy insults and curses with the watermen—caustic-tongued old ruffians who amused themselves by hooting and jeering obscenely at everyone who ventured upon the river, whether Quakeress or Parliament man. At Chelsea they would get out to lie dreamily in the thick meadow grass, watching the clouds as they formed and passed overhead, and Amber would fill her skirt with wild-flowers, yellow primroses, blue hyacinths, white dogwood. Then she would open the hamper and spread a clean white linen cloth, laying on it the potted neat's tongue, the salad which the celebrated French cook at Chatelin's had made for her with twenty different greens, fresh ripe fruits, and a dusty bottle of Burgundy.

  They seldom quarrelled—only when, rightly or wrongly, Rex's jealousy was aroused, though before she had seen Almsbury she had never been unfaithful to him. But she did drive out to Kingsland to see the baby once a week. For a long while she contrived to keep her visits secret from him, but one day, to her astonishment, he accused her of having been with another man. During the violent quarrel which ensued she told him where she had been—and told him also that she was married.

  For two or three days he was angry, but no matter what lies he caught her in he did not seem to love her less, and even after that he asked
her again to marry him. She had refused before, pretending that she thought he was only joking, but now she objected that it was impossible. Bigamy was punishable by death.

  "He'll never come back," said Rex. "But if he does—well, you let me alone for that. I'll see to it you're a widow, not a bigamist."

  But Amber could not make up her mind to do it. She still had a lingering horror of matrimony, for it seemed to her a trap in which a woman, once caught, struggled helplessly and without hope. It gave a man every advantage over her body, mind and purse, for no jury in the land would interest itself in her distress. But neither that horror nor the greater one she had of being prosecuted for bigamy was the real reason behind her refusal. She hesitated because in her heart she still nursed an imp of ambition, and it would not let her rest.

  If I marry Rex, she would think, what will my life be? He'd make me quit the stage and I'd have to start having babies. (Rex resented the child she had had—he thought by her first husband—even though he had never seen the little boy, and had a sentimental desire for her to bear him a son.) And then most likely he'd grow more jealous than ever and if I so much as came home a half-hour late from the 'Change or smiled at a gentleman in the Mall he'd tear himself to pieces.

  He probably wouldn't be as generous as he is now, either, and if I spent thirty pound for a new gown there'd be trouble and he'd think last year's cloak could do me again. First thing you know I'd grow fat and pot-bellied and dwindle into a wife —and before I was twenty my life would be over. No, I like it better this way. I've got all the advantages of being a wife because he loves me and won't put me aside, and none of the disadvantages because I'm free and my own mistress and can leave him any time I like.

  She had heard that King Charles had remarked more than once he considered her to be the finest woman on the stage, and that in particular after her last performance at Hampton Court he had told someone he envied the man who kept her.

  A fortnight or so after Almsbury's return to town Amber got a new maid. She dismissed Gatty one day when the girl surprised her taking a bath and talking to his Lordship, sending her away with the warning that Almsbury had a great interest at Court and would order her tongue cut out if she spoke to anyone at all of what she had seen. She told Rex that she had turned the girl away because she was pregnant, and sent Jeremiah to post a notice for a serving-woman in St. Paul's Cathedral, where a good deal of such business was done.