Forever Amber

by Kathleen Winsor

  Perhaps I am too forgiving—Clarendon knew what he had meant by that. Charles forgot nothing and, in the long run, he forgave nothing.

  Less than three weeks from the time that Buckingham was sent to the Tower he was released and he appeared once more, arrogant as ever, in all his old haunts. At one of Castlemaine's suppers the King allowed him to kiss his hand. He began to frequent the taverns again and in a few days he was at the theatre with Rochester and several others. They took one of the fore-boxes and hung over the edge of it, talking to the vizard-masks below and complaining noisily because Nell Gwynne had left the stage to be Lord Buckhurst's mistress.

  Harry Killigrew, who was in an adjoining box, presently began to comment audibly on the Duke's affairs to a young man who sat beside him: "I have it on the best authority that his Grace will never be reinstated."

  Buckingham gave him a glance of displeasure and turned again to watch the stage, but Harry's mischievous zeal was merely whetted. He took out his pocket-comb and began grooming his wig. " 'Sdeath," he drawled, "but I was somewhat surprised his Grace should be content to take over the cast-off whore of half the men at Court." Some time since he had been a lover of the languid dangerous sensual Countess of Shrewsbury, and now that she was the Duke's mistress he babbled incessantly about the affair.

  Buckingham scowled angrily at him. "Govern your tongue, you young whelp. I will not hear my Lady Shrewsbury maligned—particularly I hate the sound of her name in a mouth so foul as your own!"

  The vizard-masks and beaus in the pit had begun to look up at them, for in the small confines of the theatre their voices carried and it sounded like a quarrel. Ladies and gentlemen in nearby boxes craned their necks, smiling a little in anticipation, and some of the actors were paying more attention to Killigrew and the Duke than to their own business.

  Feeling all eyes begin to focus upon him, Harry grew bolder. "Your Grace is strangely fastidious concerning a lady who's turned her tail to most of your acquaintance."

  Buckingham half rose, and then sat down again. "You impertinent knave— I'll have you soundly beaten for this!"

  Killigrew was indignant. "I'll have your Grace to understand that I'm no mean fellow to be beaten by lackeys! I'm as worthy of your Grace's sword as the next man!" It was a fine point of honour. And so saying he left the box, summoning his friend to go with him. "Tell his Grace I'll meet him behind Montagu House in half an hour."

  The young man refused and began hauling at Harry's sleeve, trying to reason with him. "Don't be a fool, Harry! His Grace has been troubling no one! You're drunk—come on, let's leave."

  "Pox on you, then!" declared Killigrew. "If you're an arrant coward, I'm not!"

  With that he unbuckled his sword, lifted it high and brought it smashing down, case and all, upon the Duke's head. He turned instantly and began to run as Buckingham sprang to his feet in white-faced fury and started after him. The two men scrambled along, climbing over seats, hitting off hats, stepping on feet. Women began to scream; the actors on the stage were shouting; and above in the balconies 'prentices and bullies and harlots crowded to the railing, stamping and beating their cudgels.

  "Kill 'im, your Grace!"

  "Whip 'im through the lungs!"

  "Slit the bastard's nose!"

  Someone threw an orange and it smacked Killigrew square in the face. An excited woman grabbed at Buckingham's wig and pulled it off. Killigrew was heading at furious speed for an exit, looking back with a horrified face to see the Duke gaining on him. Now Buckingham pulled out his naked sword, bellowing, "Stop, you coward!"

  Killigrew sent men and women sprawling to the floor in his headlong flight and the Duke, following after, tramped across them. He might have escaped but someone stuck out an ankle to trip him. The next moment Buckingham was upon him and gave him a hearty kick in the ribs with his square-toed shoe.

  "Get on your feet and fight, you poltroon," roared the Duke.

  "Please, your Grace! It was all in jest!"

  Killigrew writhed about, trying to escape the Duke's feet, which kicked viciously at him again and again, striking him in the stomach and the chest and about the shins. The theatre roared with excitement, urging him to trample out his guts, to slice his throat. Now Buckingham leaned over, wrenched Harry's sword away and spat into his face.

  "Bah! You snivelling coward, you don't deserve to wear a sword!" He kicked him again and Killigrew coughed, doubling over. "Get on your knees and ask me for your life—or by God I'll kill you like the yellow dog you are!"

  Harry crawled to his knees. "Good your Grace," he whined obediently, "spare my life."

  "Keep it then," muttered Buckingham contemptuously. "If you think it's any use to you!" and he kicked him again for good measure.

  Harry got painfully to his feet and started out, limping, one hand pressed against his aching ribs. He was followed by derisive hoots and jeers as the scornful crowd hurled oranges and wooden cudgels, shoes and apple-cores after him. Harry Killigrew was the most disgraced man of the year.

  Buckingham watched him go. Then someone handed him his wig and he took it, slapped the dust out and set it back on his head again. With Harry gone their cries of abuse changed to cheers for his Grace, and Buckingham, smiling and bowing politely, made his way back to his seat. He sat down between Rochester and Etherege, sweating and hot, but pleased in his triumph.

  "By God, that's a piece of business I've been intending to do for a long while!"

  Rochester gave him an affectionate slap on the back. "His Majesty should be grateful enough to forgive you anything. There's no man who wears a head needed a public beating so bad as Harry."

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Lord Carlton had not been gone a month when Amber was appointed a Lady of the Bedchamber and moved into apartments at Whitehall. The suite consisted of twelve rooms, six on a floor, strung out straight along the river front and adjoining the King's apartments, to which it had access by means of a narrow passage and staircase opening from an alcove in the drawing-room. Many such trap-stairs and passageways had been constructed during Mrs. Cromwell's stay there, for her ease in spying upon her servants—the King often found them useful too.

  And will you look at me now! thought Amber, as she surveyed her new surroundings. What a long way I've come!

  Sometimes she wondered in idle amusement what Aunt Sarah and Uncle Matt and all her seven cousins would think

  if they could see her—titled, rich, with a coach-and-eight, satin and velvet gowns by the score, a collection of emeralds to rival Castlemaine's pearls, bowed to by lords and earls as she passed, along the Palace corridors. This, she knew, was to be truly great. But she thought she knew also what Uncle Matt, at least, would think about it. He would say that she was a harlot and a disgrace to the family. But then, Uncle Matt always had been an old dunderhead.

  Amber hoped at first that she was rid of both her husband and her mother-in-law, but it was not long after the signing of the peace treaty that Lucilla returned to London, dragging Gerald in her wake. He paid a formal call upon Amber while she was still at Almsbury House, asked her politely how she did, and after a few minutes took his leave. His encounter with Bruce Carlton had scared him enough; he had no wish to interfere with the King. For he knew by now why Charles had created him an earl and married him to a rich woman. If he was humiliated he saw no solution but pretended nonchalance, no remedy but to employ himself in a course of dissipations. He was content to pursue his own life and leave her alone.

  But his mother was not. She came to visit Amber the day after she had moved into Whitehall.

  Amber waved her into a chair and went on with what she had been doing—directing some workmen in the hanging of her pictures and mirrors. She knew that Lucilla was watching her with a most critical eye on her figure—for she was now in the eighth month of her pregnancy. But she paid little attention to the woman's chatter and merely nodded occasionally or made some absent-minded remark.

  "Lord," said Lucilla, "to see h
ow captious the world has grown! Everyone, absolutely everyone, my dear, is under suspicion nowadays, don't you agree? Gossip, gossip, gossip. One hears it on every hand!"

  "Um," said Amber. "Oh, yes, of course. I think we'd better hang this one here, just beside the window. It needs to catch the light from that side—" She had already had several things sent down from Lime Park and she remembered what she had learned from Radclyffe about the most effective place for each.

  "Of course Gerry doesn't believe a word of it." Amber paid no attention at all to that and she repeated, louder this time, "Of course Gerry doesn't believe a word of it!"

  "What?" said Amber, glancing around over her shoulder. "A word of what? No—a little to the left. Now, down a bit— There, that's fine. What were you saying, madame?"

  "I said, my dear, that Gerry thinks it's all a horrid lie, and he says he'll challenge the rascal who started it if once he can catch him."

  "By all means," agreed Amber, standing back and squinting one eye to see that the painting was where she wanted it. "A gentleman's nothing here at Whitehall till he's had his clap and writ his play and killed his man. . . . Yes, that's right. When you're done with that you can go."

  Convinced by now that she would never get rid of Lucilla until she had heard her out, she went to sit down in a chair and scooped up Monsieur le Chien to lay him across her lap. She had been on her feet for several hours and was tired. She wanted to be let alone. But now her mother-in-law leaned forward with the hot-eyed, excited eagerness of a woman who had unsavoury gossip to tell.

  "You're rather young, my dear," said Lucilla, "and perhaps you don't understand the way of the world so well as a more experienced woman. But to tell you the truth on it, there's a deal of unpleasant talk regarding your appointment at Court."

  Amber was amused and one corner of her mouth curled slightly. "I didn't think there'd ever yet been an appointment at Court that didn't cause a deal of unpleasant talk."

  "But this, of course, is different. They're saying— Well, I may as well speak frankly. They're saying that you're more in his Majesty's favour than a decent woman should be. They're saying, madame, that that's the King's child you're carrying!" She watched Amber with hard unforgiving eyes, as though she expected her to blush and falter, protest and weep.

  "Well," said Amber, "since Gerald doesn't believe it, why concern yourself?"

  "Why concern myself? Good God, madame, you shock me! Is that the kind of talk you're willing to have go on about you? I'm sure no decent woman would have such things said about her!" She was growing breathless. "And I don't believe that you would either, madame, if you were a decent woman! But I don't think you are—I think it's true! I think you were with child by his Majesty and knew it when you married my son! Do you know what you've done, madame? You've made my good honest boy appear a fool in the eyes of the world—you've spoiled the honourable name of the Stanhopes—you've—"

  "You have a great deal to say about my morals, madame," snapped Amber, "but you seem willing enough to live on my money!"

  Lady Stanhope gave a horrified gasp. "Your money! Good Heavens! what is the world coming to! When a woman marries, her money belongs to her husband! Even you must know that! Live on your money! I'll have you to know, madame, I scorn the mere thought of it!"

  Amber spoke sharply, through her teeth. "Then stop doing it!"

  Lady Stanhope jumped to her feet. "Why, you hussy! I'll bring a suit against you for this! We'll find out whose money it is, I warrant you!"

  Amber got up, dropping the dog onto the floor where he stretched and yawned lazily, putting out his long pink tongue. "If you do you're a greater fool than I think. The marriage-contract gives me control of all my money. Now get out of here and don't trouble me again—or I'll make you sorry for it!" She gave a furious wave of her arm and as Lady Stanhope hesitated, glaring, Amber grabbed up a vase and lifted her hand to throw it. The Dowager Baroness picked up her skirts and went out on the run. But Amber did not enjoy her triumph. Slamming away the vase she collapsed into a chair and began to cry, overwhelmed with the dark reasonless morbidity of her pregnancy.

  It was Dr. Fraser who delivered Amber's son, for many of the Court ladies were beginning to employ doctors rather than midwives—though elsewhere the practice was regarded as merely one more evidence of aristocratic decadence. The child was born at three o'clock one hot stormy October morning; he was a long thin baby with splotched red skin and a black fuzz on top of his head.

  A few hours later Charles came in softly and alone to see this latest addition to his numerous family. He bent over the elaborate carved and inlaid cradle placed just beside Amber's bed and very carefully turned back the white satin coverlet which hung to the floor. A slow smile came onto his mouth.

  "Ods-fish!" he whispered. "I swear the little devil looks like me."

  Amber, pale and weak and looking as if all the strength had been drained out of her, lay flat on her back and smiled up at him. "Didn't you expect him to, Charles?"

  He gave her a grin. "Of course I did, my dear." He took the baby's tiny fist which had closed firmly over his fingers and touched it to his mouth. "But I'm an ugly fellow for a helpless infant to take after." He turned to her. "I hope you're feeling well. I saw the doctor just a few minutes since and he said you had an easy labour."

  "Easy for him," said Amber, who wanted credit and sympathy for having suffered more than she had. "But I suppose I'm well enough."

  "Of course you are, my dear. Two weeks from now you won't know you ever had a baby." He kissed her then and went off so that she might rest. A few hours later Gerald arrived, and woke her up.

  Though obviously embarrassed, he came swaggering into the room dressed in a suit of pale-yellow satin with a hundred yards of ribbon looped about his sleeves and breeches, and reeking of orange-flower water. From his silver sword to his lace cravat, from his feather-burdened hat to his richly embroidered gloves he was the perfect picture of a fop, a beau gallant, reared in England, polished in France, inhabiting the Royal Exchange and Chatelin's ordinary, the tiring-rooms of the theatres and Covent Garden. His prototype was to be seen a dozen times by anyone who cared to stroll along Drury Lane or Pall Mall or any other fashionable thoroughfare in London.

  He kissed Amber, as any casual caller might have done, and said brightly, "Well, madame! You're looking mighty spruce for a lady who's just laid in! Eh bien, where is he—this new sprig of the house of Stanhope?"

  Nan had gone downstairs to the nursery to get him and now she returned bearing the baby on a cushion with his long embroidered gown trailing halfway to the floor. Swaddling was no longer the fashion at Court and this child would never be bound up like a mummy until he could scarcely wiggle.

  "There!" said Nan, almost defiantly, but she held him herself and did not offer him to Gerald. "Isn't he handsome?"

  Gerald leaned forward to examine him but kept his hands behind his back; he looked puzzled and uneasy, at. a loss for the appropriate comment. "Well! Hello there, young sir! Hmmm— Mort Dieu! but he has a red face, hasn't he!"

  "Well!" snapped Nan. "I'll warrant you did too!"

  Gerald jumped nervously. He was almost as much in awe of Nan as of his wife or mother. "Oh, heavens! I meant no offense, let me perish! He's—oh, indeed, he's really very handsome! Why, yes—he looks like his mother, let me perish!" The baby opened his mouth and began to squall; Amber gave a wave of her hand and Nan hurried him from the room. Left alone with her, Gerald began to fidget. He took out his snuffbox, the last word in affectation among the fops, and applied a pinch to each nostril. "Well, madame, no doubt you wish to rest. I'll trouble you no longer. The truth on it is, I'm engaged to go to the play with some gentlemen of my acquaintance."

  "By all means, my lord. Go along. Thanks for waiting on me."

  "Oh, not at all, madame, I protest. Thank you for admitting me. Your servant, madame." He kissed her again, a frightened hasty peck at the tip of her nose, bowed, and started for the door. As at a sudden after
thought he paused and looked around over one shoulder. "Oh, by the way, madame, what d'ye think we shall name him?"

  Amber smiled. "Charles, if it pleases your Lordship."

  "Charles? Oh! Yes—mais oui! Of course! Charles—" He left hastily and just as he went out the door she saw him whip a handkerchief from his pocket and apply it to his forehead.

  Amber's up-sitting was a triumphant occasion.

  Her rooms were crowded to capacity with the first lords and ladies of England. She served them wine and cakes and accepted their kisses and effusive compliments most graciously. They were forced to admit to one another that the child was undoubtedly a Stuart, but they also observed with malicious satisfaction that it was as ugly as the King had been when he was first born. Amber did not think he was pretty either; but perhaps he would improve in time, and anyway the important thing was that he looked like Charles. And when the baby was christened, Charles acted as godfather and presented her with a silver dinner-service, simple and beautiful, but also expensive enough; his son received the traditional gift of the twelve silver Apostle spoons.

  As Amber recovered she began to consider how she might permanently rid herself of her troublesome mother-in-law.

  Lucilla did not intend to return to the country, she was extravagant, and in spite of Amber's warning she persisted in sending the tradesmen to her for payment. Amber put them off, for she had in mind a scheme which she hoped would compel the Baroness to meet her own obligations. She hoped to find a husband for her. Lucilla still talked a good deal of the strictness and formality which had been in vogue during her youth and professed to be very much shocked by the new manners, but nevertheless she had acquired some of those manners herself. No actress cut her gowns any lower; no Maid of Honour was more flirtatious; no vizard-mask plying her trade in the pit had her face more painted and patched. She was as gay and, she thought, as appealing as a kitten.

  She did not care for men her own age but preferred the twenty-five-year-old sparks, merry young fellows who bragged of the maidenheads they had taken and considered it a piece of hilarious wit to break the watchman's head when he tried to arrest them for disturbing the peace. To the Dowager Baroness they represented all the excitement and liveliness she had missed and since she felt herself no older than they she refused to believe the years had really changed her. But if she was not aware of the difference, they were, and they escaped her whenever they could to seek out a pretty young woman of fifteen or seventeen. The Baroness, in their estimation, was an old jade with no fortune to offset that handicap and they considered that she was making a fool of herself.