Winsor, Kathleen (128 page)

"What's
the matter with you, Nell? You look as though you're in a fit!"

"Shh!
I think I am!"

Villiers
looked annoyed, not knowing whether to take her seriously or not. "D'you
want to go?"

"No.
Of course not. Be still."

She
did not even glance at him, but her cheeks had begun to burn for she was aware
that Charles was looking at her, and he was so close that by leaning over
slightly she could have touched his arm. And then suddenly she turned her head
and stared him full in the eyes, questioningly. He grinned, his teeth shining
white beneath his black mustache, and Nelly gave a relieved little laugh. Then
he wasn't angry! He had thought it a good joke too.

"What
brings you here?" asked Charles, speaking in a low voice so as to attract
no more attention than could be helped from those around them.

"Why—a—I
came to see if it's true Moll Davis is a better dancer than I am."

"And
do you imagine she'll be dancing today?" His eyes sparkled at her
obviously painful embarrassment and confusion. "I should think she might
be sick at home with the colic."

In
spite of herself Nell blushed and dropped her lashes, unable to face him.
"I'm sorry, Sire. I wanted to pay her back for—" Suddenly she looked
up at him, eager and serious. "Oh, forgive me, your Majesty! I'll never do
such a thing again!"

At
this Charles laughed outright and his familiar deep voice drew several glances.
"Give your apologies to her, not to me. I haven't spent such an
entertaining evening in a long while." He leaned closer, put the back of
his hand to his mouth and whispered confidentially, "To tell you truly,
madame, I think Mrs. Davis is mightily out of humour with you."

With
sudden boldness Nelly retorted, "Well, she must be mighty simple or she
wouldn't have been taken in with a stale old trick like that! She should have
known it was physicked after the first bite!"

At
that moment Moll came whirling out onto the stage below them, spinning round
and round, a small graceful figure in her close-fitted boy's breeches and thin
white-linen blouse. A spontaneous roar of shouts and applause went up. Charles
gave Nelly a brief glance, one eyebrow lifted as much as to say, Well, she did
dare to come after all. Then he returned his attention to the stage and it was
not long before the girl on it
saw him and smiled, as brazenly self-assured as
though nothing at all unusual had happened the night before.

But
just the next moment she saw Nell sitting there beside him, leaning with her
elbows on the railing, grinning down at her. For an instant Moll's face lost
its smile, then immediately she stuck it back on again. Swiftly Nelly raised
her thumb to her nose and waggled her fingers, but not so swiftly that his
Majesty missed the impudent gesture. When Moll's dance was over she flung
several kisses toward the middle-box; then she was gone and she appeared no
more, for she had no part in the play that afternoon.

From
time to time as the play progressed Charles and Nelly exchanged opinions on the
acting, a song, a bit of stage-business, costuming and scenery, or the rest of
the audience. Villiers was beginning to look disgruntled, but York glanced now
and again at his brother's newest mistress with pleased interest, liking her
expressive face, her gaiety and the spontaneous happy laugh that crinkled her
blue eyes till they all but disappeared.

When
at last the play was done and they were getting up to leave Charles casually
remarked, "Now that I think on it, I don't believe I've eaten any supper
yet. Have you, James?"

"No.
No, I can't say that I have."

Nelly
gave Villiers a swift nudge in the ribs with her elbow and when he did not take
his cue quick enough she kicked him sharply on the ankle. He winced at that and
promptly said: "Your Majesty, if it would not be too great an
impertinence, may I beg the honour of your company, and his Highness's company,
at supper with me?"

Charles
and York accepted instantly and all of them left the theatre together, hailed a
hackney and set out for the Rose Tavern. It was already dark, though not yet
six-thirty, and the rain came in gusts. Charles and York were not recognized at
the Rose, for both men had their hats pulled low and cloaks flung across their
chins, and Nelly wore a full vizard. The host escorted them upstairs to a
private room, which they asked for, with no more ado than if they had been any
trio of men bringing a wench to supper.

Villiers
was not very gay, for he resented the King's intrusion but Charles and James
and Nelly enjoyed themselves immensely. They ordered all the most expensive and
delicious food the famous kitchen prepared, drank champagne, cracked raw
oysters, and ate until they had turned the table into a litter of shells and
bones and empty bottles. It was two hours before Charles suddenly snapped his
fingers and said that he must be on his way. His wife was expecting him in the
Drawing-Room that night to hear a newly arrived Italian eunuch who was supposed
to have the sweetest voice in Christendom.

With
the first enthusiasm he had shown Villiers jumped to his feet and bellowed
downstairs for the bill. The waiter came in as Charles was holding Nelly's
cloak for her and, because
he was obviously the eldest, presented the bill to
him. Charles, a Utile drunk, glanced at it and gave a low whistle,
experimentally put his fingers into the various pockets of his coat and each
time brought them out empty.

"Not
a shilling. What about you, James?"

James
likewise searched his pockets and wagged his head. Nelly burst into peals of
delighted laughter. "Ods-fish!" she cried. "But this is the
poorest company that ever I was in at a tavern!"

The
royal brothers both looked to Villiers who tried not to show his irritation as
he gave his last shilling to pay the bill. Then they went downstairs where both
Charles and James kissed Nelly good-bye before they climbed into a hackney and
set out for Whitehall, hanging out the coach windows to wave back at her. She
flung them enthusiastic kisses.

By
the next day the story was all over the Palace and was being told in the
tiring-rooms and at the 'Change, in the coffeehouses and taverns—to the vast
amusement of everyone but Moll Davis. And she was angrier than ever when a
bouquet arrived for her, a huge cluster of striking weed Nelly had found
growing somewhere along Drury Lane.

Amber
loved being a part of the Court.

Familiarity
had not disillusioned her and as far as she was concerned it was still the
great world and everything that happened in it more exciting and important than
it could possibly have been anywhere else. Buckingham himself was not more
convinced than she that they were God's chosen people, the lords and ladies of
all creation. And now she was one of them! With no protest at all she was soon
sucked into the maelstrom of Court life and whirled about in a mad darkness.

She
went to suppers and plays and balls. She was invited everywhere and her own
invitations were never refused, for it was dangerously impolitic to slight one
of the King's mistresses. Her drawing-room was often more crowded than the
Queen's and she kept several gambling-tables going at once: ombre,
trente-et-quarante, lanterloo, various dice games. The street-beggars had begun
to call upon her by name, a sure sign of importance. Hack poets and playwrights
hung about her anterooms and wanted to dedicate a new play or sonnet to her.
The first young man to whom she played generous patron— making him a gift of
fifty pounds, but not troubling to read the poem before it was published—had
written a virile and malevolent satire on the Court and everyone in it,
including her.

She
spent money as if she had inherited the Privy Purse, and though Shadrac Newbold
made investments for her and kept her accounts she paid no attention at all to
what was
coming in or going out. The fortune which Samuel had left still seemed to her
inexhaustible.

And
anyway there were a thousand ways to make money at Court—if the King liked you:
Once he allowed her to hold a lottery of Crown plate. He leased her six hundred
acres of Crown land in Lincolnshire for five years at a low figure and she
subleased it at a high one. He granted her the profits for a one-year period
from all vessels moored in the Pool. She got the money from the sale of
underwood in certain coppices in the New Forest. She engaged in two of the
Court's most lucrative businesses: begging estates and stock-jobbing. Charles
gave her gifts from the Irish taxes and all the foreign ambassadors made her
presents, which varied in value according to the supposed degree of her
influence over the King. She could have lived in fine style from these sources
alone.

Just
before Christmas she began to have her rooms completely redecorated and
furnished and for four months they were filled with workmen painting and
hammering and scraping. The furniture was covered over with heavy white canvas
to prevent spotting, buckets of gilt and coloured paint stood everywhere, men
on tall ladders dabbed at the ceiling and took measurements for a hanging.
Tansy followed them from room to room, curious and interested. Monsieur le
Chien snapped at their heels and barked all day long and sometimes, if his
mistress was not about, he was secretly kicked.

Amber
sent to Lime Park for all its furnishings and spent several days going over
Radclyffe's possessions, which she had obtained with the King's connivance.

Among
them she found a long but still unfinished poem: "The Kingdom Come. A
Satire." A quick glance told her that it had been written at Lime Park during
the spring and summer months of 1666, from information gathered while he had
been in London, just after their marriage. It was obscene, cruel, bitterly
malicious, but brilliant in style and perception. Amber read it for the malice
and obscenity, recognized those qualities instantly but missed everything
else—and threw it contemptuously into the fire. There were other papers: the
history of the family possessions, letters (one which had evidently been
written by the girl whom he had loved and who had disappeared during the Civil
Wars), many alchemical recipes, sheaves of notes, bills for pictures and other
objects which he had collected, translations he had made from Latin and Greek,
essays on a variety of subjects. With spiteful pleasure she destroyed them all.

She
came upon a skull with a recipe attached to it by thin copper wire. It was a
cure for impotency and recommended that spring-water be drunk every morning
from the skull of a man who had been murdered. Amber considered this to be very
funny and it even increased her contempt for the Earl. She kept it to show the
King and he appropriated it for his own

laboratory,
saying that he might have a need for that remedy himself some day.

What
she liked of his hangings and pictures and furniture Amber saved for her own
apartments; the rest she put up at auction. Radclyffe's lifelong interest in
everything beautiful and rare, the years of collecting, the infinite labour and
expense —all were sold now to people he had despised, or used as bric-a-brac by
a woman for whom he had had nothing but scornful contempt. Amber's triumph,
complete and terrible, was only the triumph of the living over the helpless
dead. But it pleased her a great deal.

Charles
and his Court had brought back from France with them a changed taste in
furniture, as in everything else. The new style was at once more delicate and
more lavish. Walnut replaced the heavy solid pieces of carved oak, tapestry was
considered old-fashioned, and rich Persian or Turkish carpets lay on bare
floors which were no longer covered with rushes to hide dirt and keep out cold.
No extravagance was beyond good taste—and the ladies and courtiers vied with
one another as to who could achieve the most spectacular effect. Amber was at
no loss among them.

She
had some walls knocked out and others put up to change the proportions of the
rooms—she wanted everything on a scale of prodigious size and grandeur. Even
the anteroom was very large—which was necessary to accommodate all those who
attended upon her—but its only furnishings were wall-hangings of green raw
silk, a pair of life-sized black-marble Italian statues, and a battery of gilt
chairs.

The
drawing-room, which fronted directly upon the river, was seventy-five feet long
and twenty-five feet wide. Its walls were hung with black-and-gold-striped silk
and at night the draperies could be pulled to cover all window-space.
Pearl-embroidered rugs were scattered over the floor. The delicate, graceful,
deeply carved furniture was coated thickly with gold-leaf, and the cushions
were emerald velvet. Because Charles preferred a buffet style of dining-service
there were many little tables about and she gave her suppers in that room.
Above the fireplace hung a portrait of Amber impersonating St. Catherine—all
the Court ladies liked to have themselves drawn as saints. Catherine had been a
queen and so Amber wore a magnificent gown with a crown upon her head; she
carried a book, the martyr's palm, and beside her lay the symbol of suffering,
a broken wheel. Her expression was very thoughtful and sedate.

A
small anteroom hung in white—where Radclyffe's Italian blackamoor stood on a
gold table before a mirror—opened from the drawing-room into the bed-chamber,
the furnishings of which cost Amber more than all the rest of the apartment together.