Forever Amber

by Kathleen Winsor

  The city was infinitely more sad and pitiful now that the cruel gorgeous spectacle of the flames was gone. There were gloomy predictions that she would never rise again, and on that rainy grey December day they seemed to be only inevitably truth. Beaten down by plague and war and fire, her trade fallen off, burdened with the greatest public debt in the history of the nation, full of unrest and misery—men were saying everywhere that the days of England's glory had passed, her old valour was worn out, she was a nation doomed to perish from the earth. The future had never seemed more hopeless; men had never been more pessimistic or more resentful.

  But in spite of everything the indomitable will and hope of the people had already begun to conquer. A mushroom city of mean little shacks and rickety sheds had sprung up where whole families took shelter on the sites of their former homes. Shops were beginning to open and some new houses were a-building.

  And not all the town had burned.

  For outside the walls there was still left standing that part of the city east of the Tower and north of Moor Fields; on the west there remained the old barristers' college of Lincoln's Inn and still farther west Drury Lane and Covent Garden and St. James, where the nobility was moving in steadily increasing numbers. Nothing around the bend of the river had burned. The Strand was still there and the great old houses with their gardens running down to the Thames. The fashionable part of London had not been touched by the fire.

  Amber and Big John had left the city immediately, hired horses when they found their own gone, and ridden straight to Lime Park. She told Jenny that when she had arrived the house had been burnt and she had not been able to find his Lordship anywhere—but nevertheless for the sake of appearances she sent a party of men back to London to search for him. They returned after several days to say he could not be discovered and that according to all evidence he had been trapped in the house and burned to death. Amber, immeasurably relieved that she was evidently not going to be caught, put on mourning—but she did not pretend to be very sorry, for she did not consider that particular piece of hypocrisy essential to her welfare.

  But the best news she heard was from Shadrac Newbold— who had a messenger out there two days after she got back to inform her that not one of his depositors had lost a shilling. She found out later that though much money had gone up in the Fire, almost all the goldsmiths had saved what was entrusted to them. And though there was less than half of it left now, twenty-eight thousand pounds, even that was enough to make her one of the richest women in England. Furthermore, it was being added to by interest and by returns on the investments he had made for her, and later she could augment it by renting Lime Park and selling much of the furnishings—though so far she could not bring herself to touch Radclyffe's effects.

  Certainly there was brilliant promise in the future. But the present was a source of fear and anxiety to her—for though Radclyffe was dead she had not been able to get rid of him. He had come there to his home to haunt her. She met him unexpectedly as she rounded a corner in the gallery; he stood behind her when she ate; he accosted her in the night and she lay sweating with terror, jumping at imaginary sounds, or she woke up with a hysterical scream. She wanted to get away, but Nan's baby had been born just the day before she returned and she intended to wait until Nan could travel. She was staying mostly out of affection for Nan and gratitude for what she had done during the Plague—but also because she had no place to go but Almsbury's, and did not want to rouse his suspicions by rushing away pell-mell at first news of her husband's death. She was not willing to entrust her fatal secret to anyone but Big John and Nan.

  Jenny's mother came, and as soon as the child had been born and Jenny recovered she was going home to her own people. Amber felt a little guilty when, at the first of October, she left for Barberry Hill—but she told herself that after all Jenny had no reason to be afraid of staying there. She had never been his Lordship's enemy; she had had nothing to do with Philip's death—the walls and ceilings and very trees had nothing to say to her. But for herself—she could stand it no longer. And she went.

  At Barberry Hill she felt more comfortable, and it did not take her as long to forget—Radclyffc, Philip and everything that had happened this past year—as she had thought it would. She put it all resolutely out of her mind. She had an uncomfortable feeling that Almsbury guessed she knew more about her husband's death than she had told—perhaps he thought that she had hired a gang of bullies to murder him— but he never tried to trick her into making an inadvertent admission, and they seldom mentioned his Lordship at all.

  Once he said to her teasingly, "Well, sweetheart—who d'ye suppose you'll marry next? They say Buckhurst has almost made up his mind to risk matrimony—"

  She shot him a sharp indignant glance. "Marry come up, Almsbury! You must think I'm cracked! I'm rich and I've got a title now—why the devil should I make myself miserable by marrying again! There never was such a wretched state as matrimony! I've tried it three times and—"

  "Three times?" he asked, his voice sliding over the words with a sound of amusement.

  Amber flushed in spite of herself, for Luke Channell was a secret she had never shared with anyone but Nan. It was one of the few things of which she was ashamed. "Twice, I mean! Well—what are you smirking for? Anyway, smile if you like, but I'll never get married again—I've got better plans for myself than that, I warrant you!" She turned, her black-silk skirts swishing about her, and started to leave the room.

  Almsbury was lounging against the fireplace, filling his pipe. He looked after her and grinned, but shrugged his shoulders.

  "God knows, sweetheart, it's nothing to me if you've had three husbands or thirteen. And none of my business if you marry again or not. I was just wondering—how d'you think you'll look in stark black by the time you're thirty-five?"

  Amber stopped in her tracks and turned to stare back at him, over her shoulder; her face looked suddenly white and shocked. Thirty-five! My God—I'll never be thirty-five! She looked down at herself—at the severe black gown of mourning—the gown she must wear until she died, unless she married again.

  "Damn you, Almsbury!" she muttered, and went swiftly out of the room.

  It was not long before Amber began to grow impatient. What was the good of money and a title, beauty and youth—if you buried it alive in the country? By the time a couple of months had passed she felt convinced that whatever speculation his Lordship's sudden death might have aroused would now be abated—scandals at Court were even shorter-lived than love-affairs—and she was eager to return. She coaxed and cajoled and finally she persuaded Lord and Lady Almsbury to go back with her for the winter social season. It would give her a house to live in, and the prestige of John's and Emily's families. She might need both, for a while.

  Her appearance at Whitehall created a greater sensation than she had hoped. She was surprised to learn that rumours had her dead—poisoned by her husband out of jealousy—but she pretended to laugh at such tales. "What nonsense!" she exclaimed. "There's never anyone dies nowadays above the rank of chimney-sweep but it's thought he's been poisoned!"

  There was truth in what she said for poisoning was still a revenge so common among the aristocracy that much apprehension regarding it persisted. Errant wives who fell ill were invariably thought to have died by that means. Lady Chesterfield had died the year before, after displeasing her husband by an affair with York, and everyone had insisted that she was poisoned. Now another of York's mistresses, Lady Denham, was ill and told her friends that his Lordship had poisoned her —though some thought the Duke had done it himself because he was bored with her constant demands for new honours.

  The men gave Amber an enthusiastic welcome.

  Life at Court was so narrow, so circumscribed, so monotonous and inbred that any even moderately attractive newcomer was sure of a rush of attention from the gentlemen and a chill neglect from the ladies. When the newness was gone she would settle into whatever position she had been able to wrest for
herself, and try to hold it against the next pretty young face. The men would be used to her by then, and the women would finally have accepted her. She would join them in ignoring and criticizing the next beautiful woman who dared appear and cast her gauntlet. The Court suffered from nothing so much as a surfeit of idleness; for most of them had nothing to do that had to be done and it taxed the most lively ingenuity to provide a continuous play of excitement and variety and amusement.

  It took no more than a quick glance for Amber to see what was her position.

  Because of her title she had access to the Court and could go into her Majesty's Drawing-Rooms, accompany the royal party on its trips to the theatre, attend any balls or dances or banquets to which there was a general invitation—but unless she could make a friend somewhere among the women she would go to no private suppers or parties. And thus they could force her to remain a virtual outsider, shut off from the intimate life of the Court. Amber did not intend to let that happen.

  She therefore sought out Frances Stewart and made such a convincing show of her fondness and admiration that Frances, still naïve and trusting after four years at Whitehall, asked her to a little supper she was giving that same evening. The King was there and all the men and women who, by his favour, made up the clique which ruled fashionable London. Buckingham did one of his grotesque, cruel and witty imitations of Chancellor Clarendon. Charles told again the incredible and still exciting story—for all that most of them had it by heart— of his flight and escape to France after the battle of Worcester. The food and the wine were good, the music soft, the ladies lovely. And Amber looked so well in her black-velvet gown that the Countess of Southesk was prompted to say:

  "Lord, madame, what a handsome gown that is you're wearing! D'ye know—it seems to me I've seen one like it before somewhere." She tapped a sharp pink finger-nail reflectively against her teeth, and her eyes went slowly over the dress, though she pretended not to see what was inside. "Why, of course! I remember now! It's just like one I had after my husband's cousin died—Whatever became of the thing? Oh, yes —! I gave it to the wardrobe woman at His Majesty's Theatre. Let me see—that was about three years ago, I think. You were on the boards then, weren't you, madame?" Her blue eyes had a hard malicious amused sparkle as she looked at Amber, raising one eyebrow, and then she glanced across the room and gave a little shriek. "My God! If there isn't Winifred Wells—Castlemaine told me she'd gone into the country for an abortion. I vow and swear this is a censorious world! Pardon me, madame—I must go speak to her—poor wretch—" And with a faint curtsy, not even looking at Amber, she brushed off.

  Amber scowled a little but then, as she looked up and saw Charles just beside her, she smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "If women could somehow learn to tolerate one another," he said softly, "they might get an advantage over us we'd never put down."

  "And d'you think it's likely, Sire?"

  "Not very. But don't let them trouble you, my dear. You can well enough shift for yourself, I'll warrant."

  Amber continued to smile at him; his mouth, scarcely moving, framed a question. She answered it with a slight nod of her head. She could not possibly have been more pleased by her return to Whitehall.

  But she was not yet so secure that she could do without Frances Stewart, and she made sure that they were all but inseparable. She visited Frances in her rooms, walked with her in the galleries—for the weather was often too cold to go out-of-doors—and sometimes stayed the night with her when the roads were bad or the hour very late. Amber never talked about herself but seemed tremendously interested in everything Frances said or thought or did and Frances, unable to resist this lure of flattery, soon began to confide in her.

  The Duke of Richmond had recently made her her first proposal, a circumstance which had greatly amazed the Court— for Frances was considered nothing less than Crown property. He was a not unhandsome young man of twenty-seven and a distant relative of the King but he was stupid, drunken, and habitually in debt. Charles had accepted the news with his customary aplomb and asked the Duke to turn his financial papers over to Clarendon for an examination.

  One night when she and Amber were tucked snugly in bed, one great feather-mattress beneath them and another on top, Amber asked casually if she intended to marry his Grace. Frances's reply amazed her. "There's nothing else I can do, now," she said. "If the Duke hadn't been so kind as to propose I don't know what would have become of me."

  "What would have become of you! Why, Frances, what nonsense! Every man at Court is mad in love with you and you know it!"

  "Maybe they are," admitted Frances, "but not one of 'em has ever made me an honest proposal. The truth of it is I've ruined my good name by allowing his Majesty so many liberties—without ever letting him take that one which might have been to my benefit."

  "Well," drawled Amber idly, though actually she had a strong curiosity on the subject, "then why didn't you? No doubt you could've been a duchess without the trouble of marrying— and a mighty rich woman as well."

  "What!" cried Frances. "Be the King's whore? Oh, no— not I! I'll leave that to other ladies. It's bad enough a woman has to lay with her husband—I'd rather die than lay with some man who wasn't! Lord! It gives me the vapours to think of it!"

  Amber smiled in the close darkness, very much amused and not a little surprised. So that was what Frances's much vaunted virtue amounted to—not morality at all, but repugnance. She was not chaste, but squeamish.

  "But don't you like the King? There's no finer man at Court — It isn't only because he's King that the ladies all fall in love with him."

  "Oh, yes, of course I like him! But I just can't—I just couldn't— Oh, I don't know! Why do men always have to think about things like that? I know I've got to get married one day— I'm nineteen now and my mother says I'm a disgrace to the family— But, Lord! to think of getting in bed with a man and letting him— Oh, I know I'll die! I'll never be able to bear it!"

  Ye gods! thought Amber, completely nonplussed. She must be cracked in the head. But she felt a little sorry for her too, a kind of contemptuous pity. What did the poor creature think life was about, anyway?

  Their friendship was soon over. For Frances was jealous as a wife of the King's love-affairs, and Barbara had not let her remain long in ignorance when rumours began to spread that the King was secretly visiting Lady Radclyffe at Almsbury House. But Amber thought her position assured and was glad enough to dispense with Frances, whom she had always considered to be silly and boring. She had grown very tired of paying her compliments and pretending to be interested in what happened to her. And Charles, who always showed a quick rush of infatuation at the beginning of any new affair, would not let her be neglected now. At his insistence she was invited everywhere and treated with the same surface respect which Castlemaine had once commanded and Stewart still did. Even the ladies were forced to become her sycophants, and before long Amber began to think that nothing was beyond her.

  She was walking along the Stone Gallery early one morning when she saw Chancellor Clarendon coming in her direction. The hall-way was chill and damp and cold and all the numerous men and women who hurried along it were wrapped in heavy woollen or velvet cloaks, their arms folded in great fur muffs. From one end to the other the gallery was a mass of black-hooded figures, for the Court was still in mourning for the Dowager Queen of Portugal—Amber was glad that since she must wear black the other ladies could not bloom publicly in bright colours and jewellery.

  Clarendon came toward her with his head down, glaring at the floor, preoccupied with his gout and the innumerable problems which a ruined England expected him to solve. He did not see Amber any more than he saw anyone else and would have gone on by but she put herself in his path.

  "Good morning, Chancellor."

  He looked up, nodded his head brusquely and then, as she made him a low curtsy, was forced to pause and bow. "Your servant, madame."

  "What a lucky chance this is! Not ten minutes since I he
ard something of the greatest importance—something you should know about, Chancellor."

  He scowled unconsciously for he was worried about a great many things, not the least of which was his own precarious position. "I should be glad of any information, madame, which would better enable me to serve the King, my master." But his eyes looked at her disapprovingly and he was plainly eager to be on his way.

  But Amber, full of the self-importance of her early and easy triumph at Court, was determined to succeed with him where every other mistress of the King had failed. She wanted to parade him like a trophy, wear him like a jewel no one else had been rich enough to buy—even though she agreed with everyone else that his political days were numbered.

  "As it happens, Chancellor, I'm giving a supper at Almsbury House this Friday evening. His Majesty will be there, of course, and all the others— If you and her Ladyship would care to come—"

  He bowed stiffly, angry that he had wasted so much valuable time. The gout in his foot stabbed him painfully. "I'm sorry, madame, but I have no leisure for frivolous amusements these days. The country has need of some men of serious purpose. Thank you, and good-day." He walked off, followed by his two secretaries, both of them loaded down with papers, and left Amber staring open-mouthed after him.

  And then she heard a sudden hearty shout of feminine laughter behind her and spun around to face Lady Castlemaine. "God's eyeballs!" cried Barbara, still laughing. "But that was a sight to see! What did you expect him to do? Make you an assignation?"

  Amber was furious that her humiliation should have been seen by Barbara Palmer, of all people, though there had been onlookers enough that the news would be all over the Palace before nightfall. "That formal old fop!" she muttered. "He'll be lucky if he lasts out the year at Court!"

  "Yes," agreed Barbara, "and so will you. I've been watching women like you come and go for seven years now—but I'm still here."

  Amber stared at her insolently. "Still here, but mightily out of request, they say."