Forever Amber

by Kathleen Winsor

  "Your Grace does me too much honour. I'm sure it's more than I deserve."

  The Duke was suddenly brisk again. "We'll dispense with the bowing and nodding. As you know, madame, if I like I can help you—in your turn, you may be of some use to me. My cousin made the mistake of thinking that all her business was done for her in bed and that it made no difference how she carried herself otherwise. That was a serious error, as no doubt she understands by now—if she has wit enough to see it. But that's all water under the bridge and need not concern us. I admit to you freely, madame, I've made a lifelong study of his Majesty's character and flatter myself I know it as well as any man who wears a head. If you will be guided by me I think that we might go near to molding England in our own design."

  Amber had no design for molding England and no wish to invent one. Politics, national or international, did not concern her except in so far as they affected the course of her personal wants or ambitions. Her intrigues did not extend—intentionally, at least, beyond the people she knew and the events she could observe. She was inclined to agree with Charles that his Grace had windmills in the head—but if it pleased the Duke to imagine himself engaged upon great projects she saw no reason to argue with him about it.

  "Nothing could please me more, your Grace, than to be your friend and share your interests. Believe me for that—" She lifted her glass to him, and they drank together.

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Frances Stewart was not long satisfied with her life in the country. She had always lived where there were many people, balls and supper-parties, hunting and plays, gossip and laughter and a continual rush for petty excitements. The country was quiet, days passed with monotonous similarity, and compared with the Palace her great house seemed lonely and deserted. There were no gallants to amuse her, flatter her, run to pick up a fan or help her down from horseback.

  Her husband spent much of this time in the field and when he was home he was too often drunk. The steward managed the house—which she had never been trained to do anyway— and the idle hours bored her desperately, for no one had ever encouraged her to learn to be happy alone. She did not like being married, either, but of course she had not expected to like it.

  She had married because it had seemed the only way that she could be an honest and respected woman—and that had been the wish of her life. No doubt the Duke really loved her and was grateful she had married him, but he seemed to her dull and uncouth compared with the well-bred gentlemen of Whitehall who had a thousand amusing tricks to make a lady laugh.

  And love-making revolted her. She dreaded each night as it began to grow dark, and invented many small illnesses to keep him away. She had a horror of pregnancy which sometimes made her actually sick, and more than once she experienced all the symptoms without the actuality.

  Constantly she thought of the Town and Court and the fine life she had had there—which she had not valued at a great price then but which now seemed to her the most pleasant and desirable existence on earth. She spent endless hours dreaming of the balls she had attended, the clothes she had worn, the men who had gathered around her wherever she went to fawn upon and compliment her; she lived over again and again each small remembered episode, feeding her loneliness on them.

  But more than anything else, she thought of King Charles. She considered now that he was the handsomest and most fascinating man she had ever known, and she had found to her dismay that she was in love with him. She wondered why she had not been wise enough to know it sooner. How different her life might have been! For now that she had her respectability it seemed much less important than her mother had assured her it was. What else could a woman need—if she had the King's protection?

  She longed to return to London; but what if he was not ready to forgive her? What if he had forgotten he had ever loved her at all? She had heard of his most recent mistresses: the Countess of Northumberland, the Countess of Danforth, Mary Knight, Moll Davis, Nell Gwynne. Perhaps he had lost all interest in her by now. Frances remembered well enough that once people were out of his sight—no matter how well he might like them—he promptly forgot their existence.

  She tried to take an interest in painting or in playing her guitar or in working a tapestry. But those things did not seem entertaining to her, done alone. She was thoroughly, wretchedly bored.

  Finally she coaxed the Duke to return to London, and at first her hopes ran exuberantly high. Everyone came to her supper-parties and balls. She was as much courted and sought out as she had been after her first triumphant appearance at Whitehall. She knew perfectly well that everyone now expected the King would soon relent and make her his mistress, and for the first time she was almost ready to accept that position with its advantages and hazards. But Charles, apparently, did not even know that she was in town.

  That went on for four months.

  At first Frances was surprised, then she became angry, and finally hurt and frightened. What if he intended never to forgive her? The mere thought terrified her, for she knew the Court too well not to understand that once they were convinced he had lost interest they would flock away, like daws leaving a plague-stricken city. With horror she faced the prospect of being forced to return to her life of idle seclusion in the country—the years seemed to spin out in an endless dreary prospect before her.

  And then, not quite a year from the day she had eloped, Frances became seriously ill. At first the doctors thought it might be pregnancy or an ague or a severe attack of the vapours—but after a few days they knew for certain that it was smallpox. Immediately Dr. Fraser sent a note to the King. The resentment Charles had felt against her, his cynical conviction that she had deliberately played him for a fool, vanished in a flood of horror and pity.

  Smallpox! Her beauty might be ruined! He thought of that even before he thought of the threat to her life—for it seemed to him that such beauty as Frances had was a thing almost sacred, and should be inviolable to the touch of God or man. To mar or destroy it would be vandalism, in his eyes almost a blasphemy. And she still meant more to him than he had been willing to admit these past months, for she had a kind of freshness and purity which he did not discover in many women he knew and which appealed strongly to the disillusion of his tired and bitter heart.

  He would have gone immediately to visit her but the doctors advised against it for fear he might carry the infection and spread it to others. He wrote instead. But though he tried to make his letter sound confident and unworried it had a false flat sound to him, for he did not believe it himself. He had scant faith left in anything, certainly not in the duty of God to preserve a woman's beauty for men's eyes. He had found God a negligent debtor who cared little to keep His accounts straight. But he sent her his own best physicians and pestered them constantly for news of her.

  How was she feeling? Was she better today? Good! Was she cheerful? And—would she be marred? They always told him what he wanted to hear, but he knew when they were lying.

  It was the end of the first week in May—more than a month later—before they would let him see her. And then when his coach rolled into the courtyard of Somerset House he found it jammed full with a score or more of others. Evidently word had spread that he was coming, and they had wanted to be there to see the meeting between them. Charles muttered a curse beneath his breath and his face turned hard and sombre.

  Damn them all for their ghoulish curiosity, their cheap petty minds and malignant poking into the sorrows of others.

  He got out of his coach and went inside. Mrs. Stewart, Frances's mother, had been expecting him. He saw at a glance that she was nervous and excited, close to tears, and he knew then for certain that the doctors had been lying to him.

  "Oh, your Majesty! I'm so glad you've come! She's been longing to see you! Believe me, Sire, she's never forgiven herself for that wretched trick she played on you!"

  "How is she?"

  "Oh, she's much better! Very much better! She's dressed and sitting up—though she's weak yet,
of course."

  Charles stood looking down at her, his black eyes reading what was behind her odd fluttering gestures, her quick breathless way of speaking, the anguish in her eyes and the new lines beneath them.

  "May I see her now?"

  "Oh, yes, your Majesty! Please come with me."

  "From the look of the courtyard, I'd say I'm not the only visitor she has today."

  Mrs. Stewart was mounting the stairs beside him. "It's the first day she's been allowed visitors, you see. The room's quite full—all the town's in there."

  "Then I think I'll step into this ante-room until they leave."

  She went to send them away with the plea that Frances had had excitement enough for one day. Charles stood behind the closed door listening to them troop by, chattering and giggling with irresponsible malice. When at last they were gone Mrs. Stewart came for him. They walked down the gallery and into Frances's own apartments, then through several more rooms until finally they reached the bed-chamber where she sat waiting.

  She half lay on a couch that faced the doors and she was wearing a lovely silken gown which hung in folds to the floor. The draperies had been pulled across all windows to darken the room—it was only two o'clock—and though several candles burned all of them were placed at a distance from her. Charles swept off his hat and bowed, then immediately crossed the room to stand before her. He bowed again, deeply, and reluctantly he raised his eyes to look at her. What he saw sickened him.

  She had changed. Oh, even in this dim light she had changed. The disease had spared her nothing. There were ugly red splotches and deep pockmarks on the skin that had been smooth and white as a water-lily, and one eye was partly closed. All that pure and perfect beauty was gone. But it was misery in Frances's own upraised begging eyes that struck him hardest.

  Mrs. Stewart was still in the room—for Charles had asked her to stay—and she stood with her hands clasped before her, anxious and worried as she watched them. But Charles and Frances had forgotten she was there.

  "My dear," he said softly, forcing himself to speak after too long a silence. "Thank God you're well again."

  Frances stared at him, struggling for self-control but afraid to trust her voice. At last she managed a pitiful little smile, but the corners of her mouth began to quiver. "Yes, your Majesty. I'm well again." Her soft low voice dropped to a mere whisper. "If it's anything to be grateful for."

  There was a sudden bitter twist of her mouth, her eyes went down and she looked quickly away. All at once she covered her face with her hands and began to cry, shoulders and body shaken with the violence of her sobs. It was, he knew, not only the agony of having him see what had happened to her, but the culmination of all she had endured this afternoon—the curious cruel spiteful eyes of the men and women who had been there, all elaborately polite, sympathetic, falsely cheerful. They had taken their revenge on her for every moment of grudging admiration she had ever had, for each fawning compliment, each hypocritical friendship.

  Instantly Charles dropped to one knee beside her. His hand touched her arm lightly, the deep tones of his voice began to plead with her. "I've been so worried for you, Frances! Oh, my dear—forgive me for acting like a jealous fool!"

  "Forgive you? Oh, Sire!" She looked at him, her hands still covering all her face but her eyes, as though she could hide from him behind them. "It's I who must ask your forgiveness! That's why this happened to me—I know it is!—to punish me for what I did to you!"

  A wave of almost unbearable pity and tenderness swept over him. He felt that he would have given everything he possessed on earth to have her beautiful again, to see her look at him with her old teasing confident coquetry. But it had all gone forever, the sparkling expressions of her face, the happy laughter of a lovely woman who knows that her beauty will buy forgiveness for anything. Savage anger filled him. God in heaven! Does the world spoil everything it touches?

  "Don't talk like that, Frances. Please. I don't know what made me act like such a fool— But when I heard you were sick I was out of my mind. If anything had happened to you— But thank God you're well again! I'm not going to lose you."

  She looked at him for a long serious moment, as though wondering whether or not he could see the change in her— pathetically hoping— But it was no use. Of course he could see it. Everyone else had—why shouldn't he?

  "I'm well again, yes," she murmured. "But I wish I weren't. I wish I were dead. Look at me—!" Her hands came down, her voice was a lonely cry, anguished and full of desperation; behind them they heard a sudden hard sob from her mother. "Oh, look at me! I'm ugly now!"

  He grabbed her hand. "Oh, but you're not, Frances! This won't last, I promise you it won't! Why, you should have seen me after I'd had it. I was enough to frighten the devil himself." But now—look—you can't see a mark." He looked up eagerly into her face, smiling, holding both her hands against his heavy beating heart. He felt a passionate longing to help her, to make her believe again in the future, though he did not believe in it himself. And as he talked her eyes began to lighten, something like hope came back into her face. "Why, in no time at all it won't be possible to tell you've ever had the smallpox. You'll come to the balls and they'll all say that you're more beautiful than ever. You'll be more beautiful than you were that first night I saw you. Remember, darling, that black-and-white lace gown you were wearing, with the diamonds in your hair—"

  Frances watched him, fascinated, listening intently. His words had the sound of some old and half-intentionally forgotten melody. "Yes," she whispered. "Yes, I remember—and you asked me to dance with you—"

  "I couldn't take my eyes off you—I'd never seen such a beautiful woman—"

  She smiled at him, passionately grateful for his kindness, but the game was a sorry one and she knew as well as he did that they were only pretending. With all the effort of will she could summon she held back the tears while he sat with her and talked, trying desperately to take her mind off herself. But all her thoughts were wholly of her own tragedy; and Charles, too, could think of nothing else.

  Oh, why did it happen to her? he thought, furious with resentment. Why should it have happened to Frances, who had been gay and sweet and friendly, when there were other women who better deserved a fate like that—

  But Charles was a stubborn man.

  Once, he had said that he hoped someday to find her ugly and willing. He had forgotten the thoughtless words, but he had not forgotten the years of waiting and pleading and promising, the ache of desire, the longing for possession and fulfillment. And now, all at once, it was she who had become the supplicant.

  Late one afternoon they were in the garden that ran down to the river behind Somerset House, strolling arm in arm between a tall row of clipped limes. Frances was dressed in a lovely blue-satin gown with flounces of black lace on the skirt; a veil of black lace was flung over her hair and fell across her face to her chin. With her feeling for beauty, she had instinctively begun to try to compensate for what the disease had done to her. She used her fan for concealment, veils to shield her skin, and now when she paused beside the river it was in the shadow of a great elm.

  Silently they stood looking out over the water, and then her hand in the bend of his arm tightened slowly and he turned to find her staring up at him. For a moment Charles made no move but stood watching her, and he saw that she was asking him to kiss her. His arms went about her and this time there was no holding him off with her finger-tips, no giggle of protest as his body pressed close. Instead she clung to him, her arms drawing him to her, and he could feel in her mouth not real passion but eagerness to please—a frightened premonition that he would no longer find her desirable.

  Charles, his pity for her over-riding his inevitable reaction to a woman's body and lips, released her gently. But she did not want to let him go. Her hands caught at his upper arms.

  "Oh, you were right all along! I was a fool!— You should never have been so patient with me!"

  Surprised at her f
rankness, he said softly, "My dear, I hope that I shall never be any such bungler as to take a woman against her will."

  "But I—" she began, and then stopped suddenly, blushing. All at once she turned and went running up the path, and he knew that she was crying.

  The next night, however, as he was getting alone into a scull at the Palace stairs to take a short evening ride on the river he made a sudden decision, turned the boat around, and started toward Somerset House. The little craft went skimming over the water's surface; he beached it and jumped out. The water-gate was locked but in a moment he had vaulted the wall and was off on a run through the gardens toward the house.

  I've waited five years and a half for this, he thought. I hope to God it hasn't been too long!

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Charles and the Duke of Buckingham sat across the table from each other examining a small but perfect model for a new man-of-war, both of them absorbed and eagerly excited in the discussion. Charles had always loved ships and the sea. He knew so much about both, in fact, that many considered such a command of technical knowledge to be quite beneath a king's dignity. Nevertheless, the navy was his pride and he still smarted from the humiliation of having the Dutch sail into his rivers, plunder his countryside, burn and sink his finest ships. He intended one day to repay that insult—meanwhile he was building a stronger and bigger navy. It was the plan and hope of his life that England should someday sail the seas, supreme unchallenged mistress of all the waters on earth—for that way and that alone, he knew, lay greatness for his little kingdom.

  At last Charles got to his feet. "Well—I can't stay admiring this any longer. I'm engaged to play tennis with Rupert at two." He picked his wig from where it was perched on the back of a chair, set it on his head and glancing into a mirror clapped his wide hat down over it.