Forever Amber

by Kathleen Winsor

  "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 removed, 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 ignited 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 she 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 picked 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 u
nfold 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 pu
blicly 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.