Winsor, Kathleen (35 page)

For
almost a month she did not once leave Michael Godfrey's apartment of two rooms.
He bought a second-hand suit of boy's clothes for her to wear and she strutted
about, swaggering, clacking her heels on the floor in imitation of the young
fops she had seen in the streets, while he roared with laughter and told her
that she was as good an actor as Edward Kynaston himself. She was supposed to
be Tom, his nephew from the country, but none of his friends who visited them
were very much fooled, though they all made a great jest of it and obligingly called
her by that name.

He
told her, however, that it would probably not be a great deal longer before her
presence there became known and that when it did they would be forced to leave.
But that threat did not trouble him for he seldom studied as it was and had no
more interest in learning law than did most of the other young men whose
fathers sent them to the Inns of Court. Now, more than ever, life was too
distracting for a young man to give much time to books and lectures.

She
told him her own name and the story of her misfortunes, though she omitted
altogether Lord Carlton's part in it and pretended that the baby had been
gotten by her husband. Luke Channell's name, since she had used it in
Whitefriars, was no longer of any value to her and she made Michael promise to
keep secret the fact that she had ever been married; she considered that that
mistake was over and done and absolutely refused to think of Luke as her
husband.

About
a fortnight after Black Jack's death Michael went down to Ram Alley to visit
Mother Red-Cap and convince her
that Mrs. Channell had gone from London and would
never return. He went partly out of curiosity, to see what the old woman's
reaction to the recent events had been, and also because Amber begged him to
get the imitation gold ear-rings she had left behind, telling him that her aunt
had given them to her just before she had gone away. He brought them back, and
some news as well.

"She's
satisfied you're gone. I told her I'd had a letter from you and that you were
back with your family and would never so much as think of London again."

Amber
laughed, taking a bite out of a big red apple. "Did she believe you?"

"She
seemed to. She said that you should never have left the country in the first
place—and that London was no place for a girl like you."

"I'll
warrant she's running distracted to have lost me. I made her a mighty good
profit, let me tell you."

"Sweetheart,
Mother Red-Cap wouldn't run distracted if she lost her own head. She's got
another girl she's training to take your place—a pretty little wench she found
somewhere who's with child and unmarried and full of gratitude for the kind old
lady who's promised to help her out of her difficulties."

Amber
made a sound of disgust, throwing the apple-core across the room into the fireplace.
"That old fleshbroker would pimp for the devil himself if there was a
farthing to be got by it!"

Most
of her time, when she was alone, she spent learning
to read and to
write and she undertook both with the same enthusiasm she had had for her dancing
and singing and guitar lessons. Hundreds of times she wrote her name and
Brace's, drawing big hearts around them, but she always burnt the papers before
Michael should see them—partly because she knew it would not be tactful to let
the man who was keeping her find that she was in love with someone else, but
also because she could not bear the thought of discussing Bruce with anyone.
Her own signature was a long sprawl of which only the initial letters were made
large and distinguishable, and when she showed Michael specimens of her
handwriting he laughed and told her it was so illegible it might be mistaken
for that of a countess.

One
wet early October afternoon she lay stretched out flat on her stomach on the
bed, mouthing over the text of one of the bawdy illustrated books which he had
given her to practice on, an English edition of Aretino's sonnets. Hearing the
key turn in the lock and the door of the other room open, she called over her
shoulder: "Michael? Come in here! I can't make this out—"

His
voice, solemn for once, answered her. "Come here, nephew."

Thinking
that he was playing some joke she leapt off the bed and ran to the doorway, but
stopped on the threshold with a
gasp of astonishment and dismay. For with him was
an old man, a sour prim thin-nosed old gentleman with a forbidding scowl and a
look of having been preserved in vinegar. Amber took a startled step backward
and one hand went to the throat of her deeply opened white shirt, but it was
too late. He could never mistake her for a boy now.

"You
said that you were entertaining your nephew, sirrah!" said the old man
sternly, drawing down his tufted brows and frowning back at Michael.
"Where is he?"

"That
is he, Mr. Gripenstraw," said Michael, respectfully, but nevertheless with
an air of whimsical unconcern.

Mr.
Gripenstraw looked at Amber again, over the tops of his square-cut green
spectacles, and he screwed his mouth from side to side. Amber's hand dropped
and she spoke to Michael, pleading.

"I'm
sorry, Michael. I thought you were alone."

He
made a gesture, motioning her into the bedroom, and she went, closing the door
but standing next to it so that she could hear what was said between them. Oh,
God in Heaven! she thought despairingly, rubbing the palms of her hands
together.
Now
what will happen to me? What if he finds out who I— Then
she heard Mr. Gripenstraw's voice again.

"Well,
Mr. Godfrey—and what excuse have you to make this time?"

"None,
sir."

"How
long has this baggage been on your premises?"

"One
month, sir."

"One
month! Great God! Have you no respect for the ancient and honourable
institution of English law? Because of my regard for your father I have
overlooked many of your past misdemeanours, but this is beyond anything! If it
were not for the honour and esteem in which I hold Sir Michael I would have you
sent to the Fleet, to learn a better view of the conduct befitting a young man.
As it is, sirrah, you are expelled. Never show me your face again. And get that
creature out of here—within the hour!"

"Yes,
sir. Thank you, sir."

The
door opened. "Let me tell you this, sirrah—there is nothing a young man
may get by wenching but duels, claps, and bastards. Good-day!" The door
closed noisily.

Amber
waited a moment and then flung open her own door. "Oh, Michael! You're
expelled! And it's all my fault!"

She
began to cry but he came swiftly across to take her into his arms. "Here,
here, sweetheart! What the devil! We're well rid of this scurvy place. Come
now, put on your hat and doublet and we'll find us lodgings where a man may
live as he likes."

He
took two rooms in an inn called the Hoops and Grapes, situated in St. Clement's
Lane, which wound up out of Fleet Street. It was outside the City gates in the
newer and more fashionable west-end of the town. Drury Lane was nearby, and Covent
Garden, and not five minutes walk away was Gibbons Tennis Court in Vere Street,
which had become the Theatre Royal.

He
bought her some clothes, second-hand at first because she needed them
immediately—though later she had some made—and she found herself precipitated
into a whirl of gaiety and pleasure. She had met several of his friends while
they were still at the Temple, but now she met many more. They were young men
of good family, future barons and lords; officers in the King's or the Duke's
guards; actors from one of the four public theatres. And she met, too, the
women they kept, pretty girls who sold ribbons or gloves at the Royal Exchange,
professed harlots, actresses, all of them wise and gay and no more than Amber's
age—flowers that had bloomed since the Restoration.

They
went to the theatres and sat in the pit where the women wore their masks and
sucked on China oranges, bandying pleasantries with everyone in earshot. They
went to the gambling-houses in the Haymarket and once Amber was thrown into a
frenzy of excitement when a rumour swept through that the King was coming. But
he did not and she was bitterly disappointed, for she had never forgotten his
expression that day he had looked at her. They went to the New Spring Gardens
at Lambeth and to the Mulberry Gardens, which was temporarily the height of
fashion. They went to dinner at all the popular taverns, Lockets near Charing
Cross which was always filled with young officers in their handsome uniforms,
the Bear at the Bridgefoot, the notorious Dagger Tavern in High Holborn, a
rough-and-tumble place that abounded in riots and noise but was famous for its
fine pies. They went to see the puppet-play in Covent Garden, currently the
resort of all the fashionable world. At night they often drove about town in a
hackney, contesting as to who could break the most windows by throwing copper
pennies through them.

And
when they were not out their rooms were full of young people who came in at all
hours of the day and night, ordered food and drink sent up, played cards and
got drunk and borrowed their bed for love-making. None of them had a serious
thought or occupation, beyond avoiding their creditors. Pleasure was their
creed. The old views of morality had gone as much out of fashion as
high-crowned hats and, like them, were now disdained and ridiculed.
Indifference, cynicism, selfishness and egoistic opportunism were the marks of
quality. Gentleness, honesty, devotion—these were held in contempt.

The
gentlemen of the old school, of the decorus Court of Charles I, were blaming
the present King for the manners and behaviour of the new generation. And while
it was true that Charles neither wished nor tried to set up strict standards,
the same conditions had existed during the late years of the Protectorate, though
then more than half concealed under a mantle of hypocrisy. The Civil Wars, not
his Majesty, had sowed
the seeds for plants suddenly shot to full growth since his return.

But
Amber was not even remotely aware of the force of trends and currents.

She
was in love with this life. She liked the noise and confusion, the continued
bustle and disorder, the reckless devil-may-care gaiety. She knew that it was
wholly different from the country and was glad that it was, for here she might
do as she liked and no one was shocked or admonitory. It never occurred to her
that this was perhaps not the usual life of all gentlemen of all times.

None
of the young men was interested in matrimony, which had fallen into such
disrepute that it was considered only as the last resort of a man so far
encumbered by debt he could see no other way out. Good manners forbade a man
and wife to love—scarcely permitted them to like—each other, and a happy
marriage was regarded with scorn, not envy. This was Amber's view, for Luke
Channell had convinced her that marriage was the most miserable state a woman
could endure, and she talked as glibly as any rake about the absurdity of being
a wife or husband. In her heart she held a secret reservation, for Bruce
Carlton—but she was almost willing to believe now that she would never see him
again.

Only
once did her confident audacity receive a jar and that was when, about
mid-October, she discovered that she was pregnant again. Penelope Hill had
warned her that the most careful precautions sometimes failed, but she had
never expected that they might fail her. For a time she was wildly distracted.
All her pleasures would be ruined if she had to go again through the tedious
uncomfortable ugly business of having a baby, and she determined that she would
not do it. Even in Marygreen she had known women who had induced abortions when
pregnancy recurred too often. She had wanted Bruce Carlton's child, but she did
not want another man's now, or ever.

She
talked to one of the girls she had met, a 'Change woman named Mally, who was
rumoured to have been given a great sum of money by no one less than the Duke
of Buckingham: the girl directed her to a midwife in Hanging Sword Alley who
she said had a numerous clientele among young women of their class and way of
life. Without telling Michael anything about it she went to the midwife, who
set her for an hour or more over a pot of steaming herbs, gave her a strong
dose of physic, and told her to ride out to Paddington and back in a hackney.
To Amber's immense relief some one, or all, of the remedies had been
successful. Mally told her that every twenty-eight days she followed the
practice herself of taking an apothecary's prescription, a long soaking in a
hot tub, and a ride in a hell-cart.