Amber went there that pleasant sunny afternoon with three young men—Jack Conway, Tom Trivet and Sir Humphrey Perepound—who had come to invite her to supper. It was scarcely four o'clock when they left her apartments and so they had some time to waste until the supper hour. At the Park entrance they got out of their hired coach and started off up Birdcage Walk, so called because the trees were full of cages containing singing and squawking birds from Peru, the East Indies, and China.
The three fops were all younger sons who lived far above their means and much in debt. Up at noon, they escaped by some back door or window to avoid their creditors. They strolled then to the nearest ordinary for dinner, went next to the playhouse where they got in free under the pretext of intending to stay for but one act, spent part of the evening in a tavern playing cards and the rest in a bawdy-house, and started for home at midnight, noisy and surly and drunken. Not one of them was over twenty, they would never inherit an estate, and the King probably was not even able to recognize them at sight. But Amber had been alone when they had called and she would rather be seen with anyone than no one—for obviously if a woman lay shut up in her house she could not bring herself to the attention of a great man.
She always hoped and expected that this day might be the day for which she had been waiting. But her hopes had been sorely buffeted these past six weeks and were beginning to show signs of wear.
They kept up an unceasing chatter, gossiping about everyone who passed, bowing obsequiously to the lords and ladies of higher rank but judging them vindictively once they had gone by. Amber scarcely listened to them, but her eyes saw every detail of a lady's gown and coiffure, compared it mentally with her own, and went on to the next. She smiled at the men she knew and was amused to see how much it annoyed the women they were attending.
"There's my Lady Bartley with her daughter fast in tow, as usual. Gad, she's exposed the girl at every public mart in town and still they haven't found a taker," Sir Humphrey informed them.
"Nor ever will, as far as I'm concerned. Curse my tripes, but they made a mighty play for me not long since. I vow and swear the old lady is hotter for a son-in-law than the daughter is for a husband—there's never a more eager bed-fellow than your wanton widow. It was her design I should marry her daughter but devote my manhood to her. She told me as much one day when—Now! What d'ye think! She went by like she'd never seen me before! Damn my diaphragm, but these old quality-bawds grow impertinent!"
"Who's that rare creature just coming? She looks as if she would dissolve like an anchovy in claret. Damn me, but she has the most languishing look—"
"She's the great fortune from Yorkshire. They say she hadn't been in town a week when she was discovered in bed with her page. Your country-wench may never learn the art of dressing her carcass, but it doesn't take her long to find out how to please it." Sir Humphrey, as he talked, had taken a bottle of scent from his inner pocket and was touching the stopper to his eyebrows and wrists and hair.
"For my part, gentlemen," said Jack Conway, who was lazily fanning himself with Amber's fan, a trick the beaus all had to show their gentility, "I consider every woman odious but the finest of her sex—" He made Amber a deferential bow. "Madame St. Clare."
"Oh, gad, and I too! I only spoke of the slut to give Sir Humphrey the opportunity of railing at her. I vow, there's no one has the art of wiping out a reputation almost in one breath as it were, like Sir Humphrey."
Jack Conway had begun to comb his hair with a great carved ivory comb and now Tom Trivet took a flagolet from his pocket and started to play a tune on it. Obviously, he had played in company more than he had practiced. Sir Humphrey took advantage of the noise to whisper in her ear.
"Dear madame, I'm most confoundedly your slave. What d'you think I've done with the ribbon you gave me from your smock?"
"I don't know. What did you do? Swallow it?"
"No, madame. Though if you'll give me another to take its place I will. I've got it tied in a most pretty bow—I'd be most glad to show you. The effect is excellent, let me perish—"
Amber murmured "Hm—" in an absent-minded tone.
For advancing through the crowd with people bowing to him on every side sauntered the gorgeous figure of his Grace, Duke of Buckingham, an equipage of several pages following close in his wake. Everyone turned and stared as he passed, whispers ran along behind the raised fans of elegant ladies, ambitious mothers, eager young girls—all of them hoping for an extra moment's notice from the great Duke.
Oh, damn! thought Amber frantically. Why didn't I wear my new gold-and-black gown! He'll never see me in this!
The Duke was advancing steadily. The green plumes on his hat swayed with every nod of his head, the sun glittered on the diamond-buttons of his suit, his handsome, arrogant face and splendid physique gave every other man a look of drab insignificance. Amber had seen Buckingham in the pit and in the tiring-room, she had been presented to him casually once, and she had heard endless gossip about his amorous and political exploits—but he had never paid her any particular attention. Now, however, as he came closer she saw his eyes run over her swiftly and go on and then her heart gave a plunge as they returned again—and this time lingered. He was no more than four yards from her. "Madame St. Clare?"
The Duke had stopped and was making her a flourishing bow while Amber quickly recovered herself and swept out her skirts in a deep curtsy. She was conscious that other men and women were watching them, turning their heads as they passed, and that her three gallants were stammering foolishly and making desperate efforts at nonchalance. The Duke's mouth was smiling beneath his blond mustache, and his eyes travelled down her body and back up again, as though measuring her by his own private yardstick.
"Your servant, madame."
"Your servant, sir," mumbled Amber, almost suffocated with excitement. She stabbed about wildly for something to say, something to arrest his attention—witty and amusing and different from what any other woman would have said, but she did not find it.
His Grace, however, was at no loss for words. "If I mistake not, you're the lady over whom Lord Carlton fought some officer, a month or so since?"
"Yes, your Grace. I am."
"I've always admired Lord Carlton's taste, madame, and I must say that you're so fine a person I can see no reason to differ from his judgement now."
"Thank you, your Grace."
"Oh, gad, your Grace!" interrupted Sir Humphrey, suddenly bold and swaggering. "Every man in town is adying to be the lady's servant. I vow and swear, her health is drunk as often as the King's—"
Buckingham gave him a brief glance, as though he had noticed him for the first time, and Sir Humphrey wilted instantly. Neither of the two others ventured to speak.
"My coach is at the north gate, madame. I stopped to take a turn in the Park as I was going to supper— It would please me mightily if you would be my guest."
"Oh, I'd like to, your Grace! But I—" She paused, her eyes indicating that she was obligated to the three fops who were now bridling and grinning in anticipation of being invited to sup with the Duke of Buckingham.
The Duke bowed to them, a bow which was at once polite and condescending, which showed his own breeding even while it contrived to belittle theirs. "Sure, now, gentlemen—you've enjoyed the lady's company all afternoon. I know you're all too much men of wit and understanding to wish to deprive others of that privilege. With your permission, gentlemen—"
He offered his arm to Amber, who could not conceal her delight and pride, and making a quick bobbing curtsy to the three beaus she sailed off. She had never been so stared at or felt so full of importance in her life as she did now, for wherever he went the Duke attracted as much attention as the King himself and more than his Highness ever had. On the way to the north gate they passed the Mall where Charles was playing before a gallery crowded with ladies and a packed row of courtiers and beggars and loitering tradesmen. The King— who had just struck the little wooden ball into a hoop suspend
ed from a pole at the opposite end of the Mall—saw them going by and waved. Buckingham bowed.
"If the King would spend as much time in the council-room as he does at the tennis-court and Mall," murmured the Duke as they went on, "the country might be in a better state than it is."
"Than it is? Why, what's the matter with it? It seems well enough to me."
"Women, my dear, never understand such matters and should not—but you may believe me. England's in a most miserable condition. The Stuarts have never been good masters. Here's my coach—"
They circled around the Park and stopped at Long's, a fashionable ordinary in the Haymarket, which was a narrow little suburban lane lined with hedges and surrounded by green fields. The host led them upstairs to a private room and supper was served immediately, while below in the courtyard the Duke's fiddlers played and people gathered from neighbouring cottages to sing and dance to the music. From time to time a cheer went up for the Duke, who was popular with the Londoners because he was well known to be a violent anti-Catholic.
The food was excellent, well-cooked and seasoned, and served hot by two quiet unobtrusive waiters. But Amber could not enjoy it. She was too much worried about what the Duke was thinking of her, what he would do when the meal was over and what she should do in her turn. He was such a great man, and so rich—If only she could please him enough it might be the making of her fortune.
But it did not seem likely the Duke would be an easy man to please.
He was thirty-six years old, and his life had left him nothing of either illusion or faith. He had raked and probed his emotions, experimented with his senses until they were deadened and dull and he was forced to whip them up by whatever voluptuous device occurred to him. Amber had heard all this and it was what made her uneasy. She was not afraid of what he would do—but that she would never be able to interest this bored and jaded libertine.
Now, once the table had been cleared and they were left alone, he merely took a pack of cards from his pocket and began to shuffle them idly; they flew through his fingers with a speed and sureness which proclaimed the accomplished gamester.
"You look uneasy, madame. Pray compose yourself. I hate to see a woman on edge—it always makes me feel that she expects to be raped, and to tell you truly I'm not in the mood for such strenuous sport tonight."
"Why, I didn't think the woman breathed who couldn't be persuaded by your Grace by an easier means than that." In spite of her awe and eagerness Amber could not keep a certain tartness from her voice; something in the personality of the Duke set her teeth on edge.
But if he noticed the sarcasm he ignored it. He dealt himself two putt hands, one from the top and the other from the bottom of the desk, inspected each with satisfaction and began to shuffle again.
"She doesn't," he said flatly. "Women are all inclined to make two mistakes in love. First, they surrender too easily; second, they can never be convinced that when a man says he is through with them he means it." As he talked he continued to watch the cards, but there had spread over his face a look of brooding discontent, a self-occupied bitterness. "It's long been my opinion the world would run far smoother if women would not insist on expecting love to be a close relation of desire. Your quality whore is always determined to make you fall in love with her—by that means she thinks she justifies the satisfaction of her own appetite. The truth of the matter is, madame, that love is only a pretty word—like honour—which people use to cover what they really mean. But now the world has grown too old and too wise for such childish toys—thank God we're beyond needing to deceive ourselves."
He looked up at her now and tossed the cards away. "I take it you're for hire on the open market. How much do you ask?"
Amber looked at him, her eyes narrowed slightly and slanting at the corners. His harangue, made obviously for the sole purpose of amusing himself, since it was plain he did not consider it necessary to convince her of anything, had made her angry. She had been listening to that kind of talk from the tiring-room gallants for a year and a half, but the Duke was the first man she had met who wholly believed what he said. She would have liked to get up, slap his face and walk out of the room—but he was George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and the richest man in England. And her morals were dictated rather by the expediency of the moment than by any abstract formula of honour.
"What am I bid?"
"Fifty pound."
Amber gave a short unpleasant laugh. "I thought you said you weren't in the mood for a rape! Two hundred and fifty!" For a long moment he sat and stared at her, and then he got up and walked to the door. Amber turned, watched him apprehensively, but he merely spoke to a footman who was waiting just outside and who ran off down the steps. "I'll give you your two hundred and fifty, madame," he said. "But pray don't flatter yourself it's because I think you'll be worth it. I can give you that sum without missing it any more than you would miss a shilling flung to a whining Tom o' Bedlam. And when all's said and done, I doubt not you'll be more surprised by this night's business than I."
Amber was surprised; it was her first experience with perversion. And it would, she swore, be her last if she starved in the streets.
Shocked and disgusted, she conceived a violent loathing for the Duke which not even one thousand pounds could dispel. For days she thought of nothing but how she could contrive to pay him back. But in the end all she could do was put him in her list of enemies to be dealt with at some future date— when she should be powerful enough to ruin them all.
The theatre reopened late in July, and Amber found that she now had among her admirers the finest beaus in town. Buckingham had done that much for her, at any rate.
There was Lord Buckhurst and his plump black-eyed friend Sir Charles Sedley. The huge and handsome Dick Talbot, wild Harry Killigrew, Henry Sidney whom many thought to be the finest-looking man in England, and Colonel James Hamilton who was generally considered the best-dressed man at Whitehall. All of them were young, from Sidney who was twenty-two to Talbot who was thirty-three; all of them came of distinguished families and were allied through marriage or blood to the country's ruling houses; all of them frequented the innermost circles of the Court, associated on familiar terms with the King and might have been men of more consequence if they had cared to spare the time from their amusements.
Almost every night she went to supper with one or more of them, sometimes in a crowd of young men and women—actresses and orange-girls and other professed whores—often it was an intimate group of only two or three. They drank toasts to her and strained wine through the hem of her smock, and anatomized her among themselves. She went to the bear-baitings and cockfights and spent three or four days at Banstead Downs with Buckhurst and Sedley, attending the horse-races— for the old passionate English love of field sports had returned three-fold since the Restoration.
She went several times to Bartholomew Fair during the three weeks it was in progress, saw every puppet-show and rope-dancer, gorged herself on roast pig and gingerbread and made a great collection of Bartholomew Babies—the pretty dolls which it was customary for a gentleman to buy and present to the lady he admired.
One Sunday afternoon she visited Bedlam, to see the insane hung up in cages, their hair matted and smeared with their own filth, raving and screaming at the sight-seers who jeered at and tormented them. At Bridewell, where they went to watch the prostitutes being beaten, Talbot recognized a woman he had known some time since and she began to yell at him, pointing her finger and accusing him of being the cause of her present shame and misery. But when they wanted to stop at Newgate to visit the great highwayman, Claude de Vall, who was holding his court there, Amber declined.
After the play she often drove in Hyde Park with four or five young men, and sometimes she saw a copy of her latest gown on one of the Court ladies. She slept short hours, neglected her dancing and singing and guitar lessons, and was so little interested in the theatre that Killigrew threatened to turn her out and would have done so but for the
intervention of Buckhurst and Sedley and his own son. When he chided her for missing rehearsal or forgetting her lines—or not even troubling to learn them—she laughed and shrugged her shoulders or flew into a fit of anger and went home. The fops threatened to boycott the theatre if Madame St. Clare was not there, and so Hart and Lacy and Kynaston would be sent to coax her back again. Her popularity made her arrogant and saucy.
At first she had intended to be just as independent and unattainable as she had been at the beginning of her acquaintance with Rex Morgan. But the gentlemen were not subtle. They told her frankly that they would never spend the time courting an actress which they would lavish on a Maid of Honour. And Amber, faced with the alternative of abandoning either her resolutions or her popularity, did not hesitate long in her choice. When Sedley and Buckhurst offered her one hundred pounds to spend a week with them at Epsom Wells she went. But she was never offered so large a sum again.
To each of her lovers she gave a bracelet made from her abundant hair, and some who did not get them had imitations made which they swore were hers. Her name began to appear in the almanack records of half the young fops in town, many of whom she did not even know. Buckhurst gave her a painted fan with a dreamy sylvan scene on one side and on the other the loves of Jupiter which depicted the god in the guise of a swan, a bull, a ram, an eagle, with various women—all of whom looked like Amber. Within a week copies of it were hiding blushes and veiling smiles in the Queen's Drawing-room.
In December a filthy verse which was unmistakably about her—though the woman in it was called "Chloris" and the man "Philander," after the old pastoral tradition—began to circulate through the tiring-room and the taverns and bawdy-houses. Amber, who was becoming tired, resented it deeply though she knew many similar poems had been written with far less provocation than she had given, but she could never find out whose it was. She suspected either Buckhurst or Sedley, both poets and very creditable ones, but when she accused them they smiled blandly and protested their innocence. Harry Killigrew followed the insult by flipping her a half-crown piece one night when she tardily suggested a settlement.