Winsor, Kathleen (147 page)

Nan
came into the room and found her mistress staring at herself with almost morbid
intensity. "Nan!" she cried, the instant the door opened. "Am I
beginning to decay?"

Nan
looked at her, flabbergasted. "Beginning to decay?
You?"
She
ran over to Amber and bent down to peer at her. "Lord, your Grace, you've
never been handsomer in your life! You must be running distracted to say a
thing like that!"

Amber
looked up at her uncertainly, then back into the mirror again. Slowly her
fingers reached up to touch her face. Of course I'm not! she thought. He didn't
mean that I was growing old. He didn't say that. He only said that someday—

Someday—that
was what she dreaded. She tossed the mirror down, got to her feet and walked
swiftly across the room to begin changing her clothes for supper. But the
thought that one day she would grow old, that her beauty—so flawless now —would
perish at last, invaded her mind more and more insistently. She pushed it back
but still it crept in, an insidious determined foe to her happiness...

The
first party that Amber gave at Ravenspur House cost her almost five thousand
pounds. She invited several hundred guests and all of them came, as well as
several dozen more who had not been asked, but who got in despite the guards
stationed in front.

The
food was deliciously prepared and served by a great horde of liveried footmen,
all of them young and personable. There was champagne and burgundy in great
silver tubs, and in spite of his Majesty's presence several gentlemen drank too
much. Music and shouts and laughter filled the house, reaching into every
corner. While some of the guests danced others gathered around the card-tables
or knelt in excited circles about a pair of rolling dice.

King
Charles and Queen Catherine were there, as well as the town's reigning
courtesans. Jacob Hill and Moll Davis performed and—more privately—some of
Madame Bennet's naked dancing-girls. But the coup of the evening was when a
harlot, who for some months had been attracting attention about town and
amusing the Court by her credible imitation of Lady Castlemaine, arrived late
wearing an exact replica of Barbara's own gown. Amber had found out, by bribing
one of the Lady's serving-women, what she would wear, and had hired Madame
Rouvière to duplicate the gown. Furious and humiliated, Barbara appealed to the
King to punish the outrage, or at least send the creature away—but he was as
much amused as he had been by the practical joke Nell Gwynne had played upon Moll
Davis.

Barbara
Palmer, Lord and Lady Carlton, and some few others left rather early, but
everyone else stayed on.

At
three in the morning breakfast was served, a breakfast as lavish as the supper
had been, and at six the last stragglers
were engaged in a pillow-fight. Two
excitable young gallants fell into dispute, pulled out their swords and might
have killed each other in the drawing-room—Charles was gone by then— but Amber
put a stop to that and all their friends accompanied them to Marylebone Fields to
settle the issue. And finally, exhausted but happy, Amber went upstairs to her
gold-and-green-and-black bedroom to sleep.

Everyone
seemed agreed there had not been such a successful party in months.

At
first Amber was perfectly content to meet Bruce in secret. Having come so close
to losing him she was grateful for the furtive hours, determined to savour to
the full each moment they had together. For now she realized that he never
would come back again and she saw the time running out—days, then weeks, then
months, and her life seemed to be going with it.

But
slowly a resentment began to grow. When he had said it she had believed
implicitly that he really meant he would see her no more if Corinna found out.
And yet he had broken one promise to his wife—why not others? And never, in the
ten years she had known him, had he seemed so genuinely and deeply in love with
her. It did not occur to her that she might be responsible for that herself—for
she had never made so few demands, or been so unfailingly cheerful, without
arguments or complaint. And so gradually she persuaded herself that she was of
such great importance to him that no matter what happened he would never give
her up. Consequently, she grew more dissatisfied with her lot.

What
am I to him? she would ask herself sourly. Something between a whore and a
wife—a kind of fish with feathers. I'll be damned if he can continue to use me
at this rate! I'll let him know I'm no farmer's niece now! I'm the Duchess of
Ravenspur, a great lady, a person of quality—I
won't
be treated like a
wench, visited on the sly and never mentioned in polite company!

But
the first time she hinted her indignation, his answer was definite. "This
arrangement was your idea, Amber, not mine. If it no longer suits you—say so,
and we'll stop meeting." The look in his eyes frightened her into
silence—for a while.

Still
she thought that there would always be a way to get what she wanted, and she
grew more rebellious and defiant. By the middle of May her patience, which had
been dragging thin these past five months, was worn through. As she went to
meet him one day, bouncing and jogging along in a hackney, she had reached a
peak of reckless and unreasonable irritability. Corinna was expecting her child
in another month and so they could have no more than six or seven weeks at the
longest left in England. She knew well enough that she had no business poking
the hornet's nest now.

But
who ever heard of treating a mistress so scurvily! she asked herself. Why
should I have to sneak about to meet him like a common pick-purse? Oh, a pox on
him and his infernal secrecy!

She
was dressed like a country-girl, perhaps come in from Knightsbridge or
Islington or Chelsea to sell vegetables, and out of sentiment she had chosen a
costume very much like the one she had been wearing the day of the Heathstone
May Fair. It consisted of a green wool skirt pinned up over a short
red-and-white-striped cotton petticoat, a black stomacher laced tight across
her ribs, and a full-sleeved white blouse. Her legs were bare, she wore neat
black shoes and a straw bongrace tilted far back on her head. With her hair
falling loose and no paint on her face she looked surprisingly as she had ten
years ago.

The
day was warm for the sun had come out suddenly after a morning of early summer
rain, and she had lowered the glass window. Rattling along King Street she came
to Charing Cross where the Strand met Pall Mall, and as the coach drew to a
stop she stuck out her head to look for him. The open space was filled with
children and animals, beggars and vendors and citizens; it was busy, noisy,
and—as London would always be to her—exciting.

She
saw him immediately, standing several feet away with his back turned, buying a
little basket of the first red cherries from an old fruit-woman, while a dirty
little urchin pulled at his coat, begging a penny. Bruce had not taken to
disguises with the same gusto she had but always wore his own well-cut
unostentatious suits. This one had green breeches, gartered at the knee, and a handsome
knee-length black coat with very broad gold-embroidered cuffs set on sleeves
that came just below the elbow. His hat was three-cornered and both suit and
hat were in the newest fashion.

Her
face lost its petulant frown at the sight of him, and she leant forward, waving
her arm and crying: "Hey, there!"

Half-a-dozen
men looked around, grinning, to ask if she called them. She made them an
impudent teasing grimace. Bruce turned, paid the old cherry-woman, tossed a
coin to the little beggar, and after giving the driver his directions got into
the coach. He handed her the basket of cherries and, as the hackney gave a
lurch and started off, sat down suddenly. With quick admiration his eyes went
over her, from her head down to her fragile ankles, demurely crossed.

"You
make as pretty a country-wench as the first day I saw you."

"Do
I so?" Amber basked under his smile, beginning to eat the cherries and
giving a fistful to him. "It's been ten years, Bruce—since that day in
Marygreen. I can't believe it, can you?"

"I
should think it would seem like many more than ten years to you."

"Why?"
Suddenly her eyes widened and she turned to him. "Do I look so much more
than ten years older?"

"Of
course you don't, darling. What are you, twenty-six?"

"Yes.
Do I
look
it?" There was something almost pathetic in her
eagerness.

He
laughed. "Six-and-twenty! My God, what an age! Do you know how old I am?
Thirty-nine. How do you imagine I get around without a cane?"

Amber
made a face, sorting over the cherries. "But it's different with
men."

"Only
because women think so."

But
she preferred to discuss something more agreeable. "I hope we're going to
have something to eat. I didn't have dinner today—Madame Rouvière was fitting
my gown for his Majesty's birthday." It was the custom for the Court to
dress up on that occasion. "Oh, wait till you see it!" She rolled her
eyes, intimating that he would be thunder-struck at the spectacle.

He
smiled. "Don't tell me—I know. It's transparent from the waist down."

"Oh,
you villain! It is not! It's very discreet—as discreet as anything of
Corinna's, I'll warrant you!"

But,
as always, she knew that it had been a mistake to mention his wife. His face
closed, the smile faded, and both of them fell silent.

Riding
there beside him, jogging about uncomfortably on the hard springless seat,
Amber wondered what he was thinking, and all her grievances against him rushed
back. But she stole a glance at him from the corners of her eyes, saw his
handsome profile, the nervous flickering of jaw muscles beneath the smooth
brown skin, and she longed to reach out and touch him, to tell him how deeply,
how hopelessly, how eternally she loved him. At that moment the coach turned
into the courtyard of the lodging-house and as it stopped he got swiftly out
and reached a hand in to help her.

Chickens,
clucking and cackling, had rushed for cover as the horses came in and a cat
streaked out of the way of the wheels. The sun lay warm on the brick-paved yard
though the smell of recent rain was there, and pots of flowers against the wall
had put out green leaves and dainty buds, tipped with colour. Overhead, hanging
from lines or flung across balcony railings, was the stiff-dried wash,
bed-sheets and shirts and towels and the billowing smocks of the women. A
little boy sat in the sun, stroking his dog and singing an idle endless song to
himself; he looked up curiously but did not move as the coach stopped short of
him by only a few feet.

Amber
put her hand into Bruce's and jumped down, flipping off her hat to feel the sun
on her hair and skin, smiling at the youngster and asking him if he wanted some
cherries. He was on his feet in an instant and after taking out a handful she
gave him the
basket. As Bruce had now paid the driver they strolled into the side entrance
which led up to their apartments, Amber eating the fruit and spitting out pits
as she went.

He
had ordered a meal sent up and when they arrived the waiters were just leaving.
A heavy white-damask cloth was laid on a small table before the fireplace, with
flat silver and napkins, a seven-branched lighted candelabrum and handsome
Italian dishes of wrought silver. There were strawberries in thick cream, a
crisp broiled carp caught that morning in the river, a plateful of hot buns
with a spattering of caraway seeds on them, and a jelly-torte—a delicious
achievement with moist cooked apples in the center and apple-jelly poured over
the whole. And there was a pot of steaming black coffee.

"Oh!"
cried Amber in delight, forgetting that they had been on the narrow edge of
hostility. "Everything I love!" She turned joyously and kissed him.
"You always remember what I like best, darling!"

And
it was true that he did. Time after time he had brought her unexpected gifts,
some of the greatest value, others of none at all. If a thing was beautiful or
if it was amusing, if it reminded him of her or if he thought that it would
make her laugh, he bought it—a length of some marvelous green-and-gold glinting
material, a fabulous jewel, or a mischievous monkey.

She
flung her hat aside and loosened the laces of her corselet so that she would be
more comfortable, and they sat down to eat All her resentment had gone. They
talked and laughed, enjoying the good food, absorbed in each other, both of
them happy and content.

They
had come at only a few minutes past two and it had seemed then that there was a
long afternoon before them. But the sun had moved from where it had been
falling across their dining-table, around to the bedroom, onto the recessed
seat below the square-paned windows, and finally out of the room altogether.
Inside it was already cool shadowy dusk, though not dark enough yet to light
the candles. Amber got up from where she had been lying on the bed with a pile
of nutshells between her and Bruce, and went to look out the window.

She
was only partly dressed, barefooted and wearing her smock. Bruce, in his
plain-cut breeches and wide-sleeved white shirt lay stretched out and resting
on one elbow, cracking a nutshell in his right hand, watching her.