Anything she might have forgotten to put in her bedchamber at Whitehall she intended to have in this one. The gigantic bed—the biggest in all England—was to be covered with gold brocade and decorated with swags of gold cord and fringe. Each of its four posters was surmounted by a bouquet of black-and-emerald ostrich-feathers with a bordering of aigrettes. Every other piece of furniture was to be coated with gold-leaf and all cushions on chairs and couches were of emerald velvet or satin. The ceiling was a solid mass of mirrors; the walls had alternating panels of mirrors and gold brocade; Persian carpets of velvet and cloth-of-gold, pearl-embroidered, scattered the floor. Furnishings of other rooms were to be of a similar raucous splendour.
One hot day late in August Amber was there talking to Captain Wynne and looking at the house—she wanted to move in soon and had been urging him to hurry the work on it, while he protested that it could be done only at the cost of inferior craftsmanship. The summer heat and haze still lay upon London, but fall was fast coming on; already the willow trees hung in golden strips. And all about them were the dry and dead leaves, sifting to the ground.
As Amber talked her attention was distracted by Susanna who ran about, laughing gleefully as she evaded the clumsy pursuing footsteps and grasping hands of her nurse. She was five years old now, old enough to wear grown-up dresses, and Amber clothed her beautifully, from her innumerable silk and taffeta gowns to each pair of tiny shoes and miniature gloves. Two-year-old Charles Stanhope, the future Duke of Ravenspur, gave every indication that one day he would be at least as big as his father and, also like the King, he had a droll precocious seriousness. His nurse was holding him in her arms and he looked at the house with as much seeming interest and solemnity as if he realized the role he was expected one day to play there.
Finally Amber, in exasperation, stamped her foot and shouted at Susanna: "Susanna! Behave yourself, you pestilent little wench—or I'll take a course with you!"
Susanna stopped in her tracks, looked slowly around over her shoulder at Amber, and her lower-lip thrust out stubbornly. Nevertheless she turned about and walked with a kind of mock demureness back to her nurse, reaching up to slip her small hand into the woman's palm. Amber pursed her lips and frowned, displeased with her daughter's naughtiness. But just as she was about to turn away she heard a loud burst of masculine laughter and swinging about she saw that it was Almsbury, climbing out of his coach and starting toward her.
"Wait till she grows up!" he bellowed. "Just wait! She'll lead you a mighty merry chase about ten years from now, I'll warrant!"
"Oh, Almsbury!" Amber's own lip stuck out now, in an expression very much like Susanna's. "Who wants to think about ten years from now!" The older she got the more she dreaded and feared the encroachment of the years. "I hope it never comes!"
"But it will," he assured her complacently. "Everything comes, if you wait long enough, you know."
"Does it!" snapped Amber crossly. "I've waited long enough and everything hasn't come to me!" She turned her back to him and was about to take up her conversation with Captain Wynne again when something she had seen in his eyes caused her to turn and look at him. He was grinning at her, obviously very much pleased with himself.
"Almsbury," she said slowly, and all of a sudden her throat felt dry and tight. "Almsbury—what did you come out here for?"
He strolled up to stand very close beside her, and his eyes looked down into hers. "I came, sweetheart, to tell you that they're here. They got in last night."
She felt as though she had just been struck across the face, very hard, and for a paralyzed moment she stood staring at him. She was aware that one of his hands reached out and took hold of her upper arm, as if to steady her. Then she looked beyond him, over his shoulder, out to where his crested coach stood waiting.
"Where is he?" Her lips formed the words, but she heard no sound.
"He's home. At my house. His wife is here too, you know."
Swiftly Amber's eyes came to his. The dazed almost dreamy look was gone from her face and she looked alert and challenging.
"What does she look like?"
Almsbury answered gently, as if afraid of hurting her. "She's very beautiful."
"She can't be!"
Amber stood staring down at the wood shavings, the scraps and piled bricks that lay all about them. Her sweeping black brows had drawn together and her face had an expression of almost tragic anxiety.
"She can't be!" she repeated. Then suddenly she looked back up at him again, almost ashamed of herself. She had never been afraid of any woman on earth. No matter what kind of beauty this Corinna was she had no reason to fear her. "When—" She remembered that Captain Wynne was still there, just beside them, and changed the words she had been about to say. "I'm having a supper tonight. Why don't you come and bring Lord Carlton with you—and his wife too, if she wants to come?"
"I think they won't be going abroad for a few days—the voyage was longer than usual and her Ladyship is tired."
"That's too bad," said Amber tartly. "And is his Lordship too tired to stir out of the house too?"
"I don't think he'd care to go without her."
"Ye gods!" cried Amber. "I'm sure I never thought Lord Carlton would be the man to fawn over a wife!"
Almsbury did not try to argue the point. "They're going to Arlington House Thursday night—you'll be there, won't you?"
"Of course. But Thursday—" Again she remembered the presence of Captain Wynne. "Did he go down to the wharves today?"
"Yes. But he's got a great deal of business there. I'd advise you to wait till Thursday—"
Amber gave him a glare that cut off his sentence in the middle. Then, mocking her, he gulped a time or two as if in fright, bowed very formally, and turning walked back to his coach. She watched him go, made a sudden little movement to run after him and apologize—but did not. His coach had no sooner disappeared from sight than Amber lost all interest in her house.
"I've got to go now, Captain Wynne," she said hastily. "We'll talk about this later. Good-day." And she half ran to get into her own coach, followed by the nursemaids and the two children. "Drive down Water Lane to the New Key! And hurry!"
But he was not there. Her footman went up and down the wharf inquiring; they saw his ships riding at anchor and were told that he had been there all morning but had left at dinnertime and not returned. She waited for almost an hour, but the children were becoming cross and tired and at last she had to go.
Back at the Palace she immediately wrote him a letter, imploring him to come to her, but she got no reply until the next morning and then it was merely a hasty scratched note: "Business makes it impossible for me to wait on you. If you're at Arlington House Thursday, may I claim the favour of a dance? Carlton." Amber tore it into bits and flung herself onto the bed to cry.
But in spite of herself she was forced to take certain practicalities into consideration.
For if it was true that Lady Carlton was a beauty then she must somehow contrive to look more dazzling Thursday night than ever before in her life. They were used to her at Court now and it had been a long while since her appearance at any great or small function had aroused the excitement and envy she had been able to stir up three and a half years ago. If Lady Carlton was even moderately pretty she would be the object of every stare, the subject of every comment, whether it were made in praise or derogation. Unless—unless I can wear something or do something they won't be able to ignore, no matter how they try.
She spent several hours in a frenzy of worry and indecision and then at last she sent for Madame Rouvière. The only possible solution was a new gown, but a gown different from anything she had ever seen, a gown no one had ever dared to wear.
"I've got to have something they can't help staring at," Amber told her. "If I have to go in stark naked with my hair on fire."
Madame Rouvière laughed. "That would be well enough for an entrance—but after a while they would grow tired and begin to look at the ladies with
more on. It must be something indiscret—and yet covering enough to make them try to see more. Black would be the colour—black tiffany, perhaps—but there must be something to glitter too—" She went on, talking aloud, sketching out the dress with her hands while Amber listened in rapt attention and with glowing eyes.
Lady Carlton! Poor creature—what chance would she have?
For the next two days Amber did not leave her rooms. From early morning until late at night they were filled with Madame Rouvière and her little sempstresses, all of them chattering French and giggling while scissors snipped, deft fingers stitched and Madame wrung her hands and shrieked hysterically if she discovered a seam taken in a bit too far or a hem-line uneven by so much as a quarter of an inch. Amber stood patiently hour after hour while the dress was fitted, and they literally made it on her. No one was allowed to come in or to see it and to her great delight all this secrecy set up a froth of rumours.
The Duchess was going to come as Venus rising from the sea, dressed in a single sea-shell. She was going to drive a gilt chariot and four full-grown horses up the front stairs and into the drawing-room. Her gown was to be made of real pearls which would fall off, a few at a time, until she had on nothing at all. At least they did not doubt her audacity and their ingenuity gave considerable credit to hers.
Thursday they were still at work.
Amber's hair was washed and dried and polished with silk before the hairdresser went to work on it. Pumicestone removed every trace of fuzz from her arms and legs. She slathered her face and neck a dozen times with French cold-creams and brushed her teeth until her arm ached. She bathed in milk and poured jasmine perfume into the palms of her hands to rub on her legs and arms and body. She spent almost an hour painting her face.
At six o'clock the gown was done and Madame Rouvière proudly held it up at full length for all of them to see. Susanna, who had spent the entire day in the room, jumped and clapped her hands together and ran to kiss the hem. Madame let out such a screech of horror at this sacrilege that Susanna almost fell over backward in alarm.
Amber threw off her dressing-gown and—wearing nothing but black silk stockings held up by diamond-buckled garters and a pair of high-heeled black shoes—she lifted her arms over her head so that they could slide it on. The bodice was a wide-open lace-work of heavy cord sewn with black bugle beads, and it cut down to a deep point. There was a long narrow sheath-like skirt, completely covered with beads, that looked like something black and wet and shiny pouring over her hips and legs and trailing away in back. Sheer black tiffany made great puffed sleeves and an over-skirt which draped up at the sides and floated down over the train like a black mist.
While the others stood staring, babbling, ecstatically "oh-ing," Amber looked at herself in the mirrored walls with a thrill of triumph. She lifted her ribs and tightened her chest muscles so that her breasts stood out like full pointed globes.
He'll die when he sees me! she told herself in a delirium of confidence. Corinna could not scare her now.
Madame Rouvière came to adjust her head-dress which was a great arch of black ostrich-feathers sweeping up over her head from a tight little helmet. Someone handed her her gloves and she pulled them on, long black ones, clear to her elbows. Against the nakedness of her body, they seemed almost immodest. She carried a black fan and over her shoulders they laid a black velvet cloak, the lining edged in black fox. The stark black against her rich cream-and-honey colouring, something in the expression of her eyes and the curve of her mouth, gave her the look of a diabolical angel—at once pure, beautiful, corrupt and sinister.
Amber turned now from the mirror to face Madame, and their eyes met with the gleaming look of successful conspirators. Madame put her thumb and fingers together and made the gesture of kissing them. She came up to Amber and said with a hiss in her ear: "They'll never see her at all—that other one!"
Amber gave her a quick grateful hug and a grin. Then she bent to kiss Susanna, who approached her mother very carefully, almost afraid to touch her. And with her heart beating fast, her stomach churning maddeningly, Amber walked out of the room, put her mask to her face and went along a narrow little corridor leading out to where her coach waited. She had not felt so excited at the prospect of a party, so apprehensive and frightened, since the night she had first been presented at Court.
Chapter Sixty-one
Arlington House, which had been Goring House before Bennet bought it in 1663, stood next to the old Mulberry Gardens on the west of the Palace. In it the Baron and Baroness gave the most brilliant, the most elaborate, and the most eagerly attended parties in London. Nothing else could be compared to them. The invitations they sent out were a sure barometer of one's social standing. Nonentities were never asked.
His Lordship was known as the most lavish and thoughtful host of fashionable society. He served superlative food, prepared by a dozen French cooks, and wines from a vast cellar. There was music in every room; gambling-tables were piled with gold; candles burned by the thousand. The house swarmed with earls and dukes and knights, countesses and duchesses and ladies, and to the casual eye everything seemed most decorous. Satin-gowned ladies curtsied and smiled over spread fans, brocade-suited gentlemen bowed from the waist with a flourishing sweep of their hats. Voices were low and conversation apparently polite.
But in fact they were gleefully at work destroying one another's characters. The men, as they stood watching a pretty woman, boasted that they had laid with her, discussed her physical defects and compared her behaviour in bed. The women yanked reputations apart with equal or greater vigour. Darkened bedrooms all over the house sheltered couples seeking a temporary refuge. In some obscure corner a Maid of Honour was lifting her skirts to let the gallants decide whether her legs were as pretty as another's, squealing and giggling when they ventured to employ their hands too boldly. One of the fops had sneaked a girl from Madame Bennet's into the house under the guise of mask and cloak and she was performing for several young men and women somewhere behind locked doors.
Arlington never interfered with his guests but let each amuse himself according to his own tastes.
At seven o'clock, the night being still young and most of the guests sober as well as curious, they were gathered in the main drawing-room and keeping one eye at least on the new arrivals. They were waiting for two women who had not yet come: the Duchess of Ravenspur, and Lady Carlton. Her Ladyship— whom almost no one had seen—was rumoured to be the greatest beauty ever to appear in England, though opinions on this score were already strong and divided. Many of the women, at least, were prepared to decide the moment she arrived that she was by no means as beautiful as had been reported. And the Duchess of Ravenspur, no doubt from fear that her Ladyship would outshine her, was expected to do something spectacular in order to save herself.
"How I pity her Grace," said one languid young lady. "It runs through the galleries she lives in terror now of losing what she has. Gad, but it must be a bothersome thing to be great."
Her companion smiled with lips pressed together. "Is that why you never climbed the ladder?—for fear of falling off?"
"I don't care a fig for Lady Carlton or what she looks like," commented a thin young fop who kept his hands busy with manipulating a woman's fan, "but I'll be her slave if she can put the Duchess's nose out of joint. That damned woman has grown intolerable since his Majesty gave her a duchy. I used to lace her busk for her when she was only a scurvy player— but now every time we're presented she makes a show of never having seen me before."
"It's her vulgar breeding, Jack. What else can you expect?"
A voice like a trumpet interrupted them. "Her Grace, the Duchess of Ravenspur!"
Every eye in the room swept toward the door—but only the usher stood there alone beside it. They waited for an impatient moment or two and then, with her head held high and a kind of fierce challenging pride on her face, the Duchess came into view and slowly walked through the doorway toward them. A wave of shock
and amazement swept along before her. Heads spun, eyes popped and even King Charles turned on his heel where he was talking to Mrs. Wells and stared.
Amber came on imperturbably, though it seemed all her insides were quaking. She heard some of the older women gasp and saw them set their mouths sternly, square their shoulders and fix upon her their hard reproving glares. She heard low whistles from the men, saw their eyebrows go up, their elbows reach out to nudge one another. She saw the young women looking at her with anger and indignation, furious that she had dared to take such an advantage of them.
Suddenly she relaxed, convinced that she was a success. She was hoping that Bruce and Corinna were there somewhere to have seen her triumph.
Then, almost at once, she became aware that Almsbury was just at her side. She looked at him, a faint smile touching the corners of her mouth, but something she saw in his eyes made her expression freeze suddenly. What was it? Disapproval? Pity? Something of both? But that was ridiculous! She looked stunning and she knew it.
"Holy Christ. Amber," he murmured, and his eyes went swiftly down over her body.
"Don't you like it?" Her eyes hardened a little as she looked up at him and even in her own ears her voice took on a confident brassy sound that was part bravado.
"Yes, of course. You look gorgeous—"
"But aren't you cold?" interrupted a feminine voice, and turning swiftly Amber found Mrs. Boynton beside her, looking her over with feline insolence.