Winsor, Kathleen (14 page)

Now,
that might happen to her.

She
was well enough acquainted with the early symptoms of pregnancy for she had
often discussed the subject with those of her friends who were married, and she
had watched Sarah carry four children during the years since she had been old
enough to notice such things. But by the end of June, when they had been in
London almost two months, she still had no reason to think herself with child.
And so, to settle her own suspense, she went to consult an astrologer.

It
was no very difficult matter to find one for they were all over the city, thick
as flies in a cook-shop, and she set out one
day in Bruce's coach-and-four to learn
her fortune from a certain Mr. Chout. She watched as they rode along and when
she saw a sign marked with a moon, six stars, and a hand, she called to the
driver to stop and sent the footman to knock at the door. The astrologer, who
had peeked out the window and seen her crested coach, came forth himself to
invite her in.

He
did not look to her like a mystic. He had a large red face, dirt-clogged pores
covered his nose, and there was a rank odour about him. But he greeted her so
obsequiously, bowing as though she were a duchess of the blood royal, that her
confidence in him increased.

The
footman followed her into the house and waited while she and Mr. Chout retired
to a private parlour. The room was filthy and smelt no better than its owner,
and Amber glanced dubiously at the chair before she sat down in it. He took a
stool opposite her and began talking about the King's return and his own
invincible loyalty to the Stuarts. While he talked he rubbed his dirty hands
together and his eyes looked at her as though they could penetrate her cloak.
Finally, like a doctor who has humoured his patient long enough by gossiping of
other things, he asked her what she wanted to know.

"I
want to know what's going to happen to me."

"Very
well, madame. You've come to the right man. But first there are some things you
must tell me."

Amber
was afraid that he would ask her some embarrassingly personal questions, but
all he wanted was the date and hour of her birth and where she was born. When
she had told him he consulted several charts, gazed into a round crystal ball
he had on the table, peered occasionally at both her palms— holding her hands
in his own moist and grimy ones—and nodded his head gravely. All the while she
watched him with anxious eagerness, now and then giving an absent-minded caress
to the large grey cat that came and nudged against her skirts.

"Madame,"
he said finally, "your future is of singular interest. You were born with
Venus in separating square aspect to Mars in the Fifth House." Amber
solemnly absorbed that, too impressed at first even to wonder what it meant.
Then, as she was about to ask, he continued, having reached his conclusions as
much by looking at her as at his charts: "Hence you are inclined, madame,
to over-ardent affections and to rash impulsive attractions to the opposite
sex. This can cause you serious trouble, madame. You are also too much inclined
to indulge yourself in pleasure—and hence must suffer the attendant
difficulties."

Amber
gave a wistful little sigh. "Don't you see something
good,
too?"

"Oh,
indeed, madame, indeed. I was coming to that. I see you in possession of a
great fortune." By the appearance of her clothes and smart coach he had
surmised that she must already have access to a large amount of money.

"You
do?" cried Amber, delighted. "What else do you see?"

"I
see jealousy and discord. But also," he added hastily at a protesting
frown from Amber, "I see that the sextiles of Venus to Neptune and Uranus
give you considerable magnetism— no man may resist you."

"Ohhh—"
breathed Amber. "Gemini! What else do you see? Will I have children?"

"Let
me see your palm again, madame. Yes, indeed, a very fair table—the line of
riches well extended. The wheels of fortune are large. These intersparsings
betoken children. You will have—let me see—several. Seven, I should say, more
or less."

"When
will I have the first one? Soon?"

"Yes,
I think so. Very soon—" His eyes went down over her cloak, but nothing was
revealed there. "That is, of course," he added cautiously, "within
a reasonable time. You understand, madame."

"And
when will I get married—soon, too?" Her voice and eyes were hopeful,
almost pleading with him.

"Let
me see. Hmmm—let me see. Now, what did you dream last night? I've found there's
nothing to compare with a dream for telling a woman when she'll marry."

Amber
frowned, trying to remember. She could recall nothing but that she had dreamed
of pounding spices, which she had often done for Sarah—particularly after the
two annual fairs, when they were purchased in bulk. That fragment, however, was
enough for Mr. Chout's purpose.

"That's
very important, madame. Very important. To dream of pounding spices always
foretells matrimony."

"Will
I marry the man I love?"

"Why,
truly, madame, that I can't say for certain." But at Amber's stricken
expression he again hastened to amend his statement. "Of course, madame,
you will marry him one day —perhaps not today or tomorrow—but someday. These
lines here betoken husbands. You will have, let me see, some half-a-dozen, more
or less."

"Half-a-dozen!
I don't want half-a-dozen! I just want one!" She pulled her hand away from
him, for he seemed sticky and repulsive to her, and he had been holding on
somewhat too tightly. But he was not done yet.

"And
one thing more I see—if I may be frank with you?— I see that someday you will
have, madame, a hundred lovers." His greedy eyes watched her with obscene
calculation, taking vicarious pleasure from her look of surprise and the faint
pink blush that spread over her face and neck. "More or less, that
is."

Amber
gave an excited little laugh. He was making her feel ill-at-ease and she wished
that she was out of there; it was difficult to breathe, and though he had moved
no nearer he seemed to be oppressively close.
"A hundred lovers!" she
cried, trying to sound city-bred and casual. "Marry come up! One's enough
for me! Is that all, Mr. Chout?" She got to her feet.

"Isn't
that enough, madame? I don't often discover as much, let me tell you. The fee
is ten shillings."

Amber
took a dozen or more coins from her muff and dropped them onto the table. His
broad grin told her that most likely she had overpaid, again. But she did not
care. Bruce always left a handful of coins for her to use and when one pile was
gone another appeared in its place. Ten shillings as a sum of money meant
nothing to her at all.

I'm
going to have a baby and marry Bruce and be rich! she thought exultantly as she
rode home.

That
night she asked Bruce what the planet Venus was, though she did not tell him of
her visit and did not intend to, until something more definite had come of it.
But perhaps he guessed.

"It's
a star called Venus after the Roman goddess of love. It's supposed to control
the destinies of those who are born under it. I believe such people are thought
to be beautiful and desirable and generally dominated by emotion—if you believe
in that kind of nonsense." He was smiling at her, for Amber's face showed
her shock at this heretical statement.

"Don't
you
believe in it?"

"No,
darling, I don't believe in it."

"Well—"
She put her hands on her hips and gave her curls a toss. "One day you
will, I warrant you. Just wait and see."

But
nothing which happened immediately seemed to indicate that any of Mr. Chout's
predictions were coming true. And meanwhile her life continued very much as it
had been.

Most
of the time Bruce was away from home, either gambling at the Groom Porter's
Lodge, where the nobles went to play cards and dice, or overseeing the
supplying and loading of his ships. Often, too, she knew that he went to balls
or suppers given at Court or the homes of his friends. And though she thought
wistfully of how wonderful it would be to go with him he did not ask her and
she never mentioned it. For she was still strongly conscious of the great gulf
which separated his social position from hers—and yet when she lay waiting for
him to come back she was lonely and sad, and jealous too. She was morbidly
afraid of Barbara Palmer and other women like her.

Almsbury
often came to call and, if Bruce was not there, took her out somewhere with
him.

One
day they went to see a bull-and-bear baiting across the river in Southwark. And
Amber leaned out of the coach window to gape at the weatherbeaten heads, some
twenty or thirty of them, exposed above London Bridge on poles that stuck up
crazily, like toothpicks in a glass. Another time he took her to a
fencing-match, and one of the antagonists lost an ear which flopped off into
the lap of a woman sitting down in front.

They
went to supper at various fashionable taverns and two or three times he took
her to the theatre. She paid no more attention to the play than did the rest of
the audience—for she was too much interested, though she pretended not to be,
in
the
havoc she was creating down in the pit. Some of the young men came up to Almsbury
in such a manner that he could not avoid presenting them, and two or three made
her outrageous proposals beneath his very nose. Almsbury, however, always
assumed his dignity at this and let them know she was no whore but a lady of
quality and virtue. While Amber, ashamed of her country accent, hoped that they
would indeed take her for a Royalist lady who had lived retired with her
parents during the Protectorate and had only now come up to Court.

But
the greatest adventure of all was her visit to Whitehall Palace.

Whitehall
lay to the west, around the bend of the river from the City. It was a great
sprawling mass of red brick buildings in the old Tudor style, honeycombed with
hallways and having dozens of separate apartments opening one into another like
some complex maze of huge rabbit-warren. Here lived the royal family and every
court attendant or hanger-on who could wheedle official lodgings on the
premises. It fronted directly on the river, so close that at high tide the
kitchens were often flooded. And through the grounds ran the dirty unpaved
narrow little thoroughfare of King Street, flanked on one side by that part of
the Palace called the Cockpit and on the other by the wall of the Privy Garden.

Whitehall
was open to all comers. Anyone who had once been presented at Court or who came
with one who had could get in, and many total strangers filtered through the
carelessly watched gateways. Hence, when Amber and Almsbury arrived in the
Stone Gallery they found it so thronged as to be almost impassable.

The
gallery was the central artery of the Court, a corridor almost four hundred
feet long and fifteen feet wide, and on the walls were hung some of the
splendid paintings which Charles I had collected and which his son was now
trying to reassemble—paintings by Raphael, Titian, Guido. Scarlet-velvet drapes
covered all doors opening into the royal apartments, and Yeomen of the Guard
were posted before each one. The crowd was a motley assortment of satin-gowned
ladies, languid sauntering young fops, brisk men-of-business hurrying along
with an air of having weighty problems to solve, soldiers in uniform, country
squires and their wives. Amber could easily recognize these latter for they all
wore clothes hopelessly out of fashion— boots, when no gentleman would be seen
off his horse in them; high-crowned hats like a Puritan's, though the new mode
was for low ones; and knee-gartered breeches, although wide-bottom ones were
now the style. Here and there was even a ruff to be seen. Amber was
contemptuous of such provinciality and glad that her own clothes did not betray
her origin.

She
was less confident, however, about herself. "Gemini!" she whispered,
round-eyed, to Almsbury. "How handsome all the ladies are!"

"There's
not one of 'em," said the Earl, "half so pretty as you."

She
gave him a grateful, sparkling smile and slipped her arm through his. She and
Almsbury had become great friends and though he had not asked again to sleep
with her he had told her that if she ever needed money or help he would be glad
to give it. She thought that he had fallen in love with her.

And
then all at once something happened.
A ripple of excitement flowed along the
Gallery, turning heads as it passed, catching the Earl and Amber in its wake.

"Here
comes Mrs. Palmer!"

Amber's
head turned with every other. And she saw advancing toward them, with people
falling back on either side to make way for her, a magnificent red-haired
white-skinned woman, trailing behind her a serving-woman, two pages, and a
blackamoor. Haughty and arrogant, she walked with her head held high, seeing no
one, though she could not but be well aware of the excitement she was creating.
Amber's eyes began to burn with rage and jealousy and her heart set up a
suffocating flutter. She was sickeningly afraid that Madame Palmer would see
Almsbury—who she knew was acquainted with her—and stop. But she did not. She
went past them without a glance.