Winsor, Kathleen (19 page)

"Lord,
how bawdy the young men talk nowadays!"

Somewhat
abashed at this Amber guarded her eyes and frowned a little, to show that she
was displeased too. But the frown did not last long—for she was
half-intoxicated by the sights and sounds all about her.

She
wanted to buy almost everything she saw. She had little sense of
discrimination, her acquisitive instincts were strong, and she felt so
boundlessly rich that there seemed no reason why she might not have whatever
she desired. Finally she stopped before a stall where a plump black-eyed young
woman stood surrounded by dozens of bird-cages, painted gold or silver or
bright colours; in each one was a brilliant bird, canaries, parrots, cockatoos
brought back by the East India Company or some merchant fleet.

While
she was making her selection, unable to decide between a small
turquoise-coloured parakeet and a large green squawking bird, she heard a man's
voice in back of her remark: "By God, she's tearing fine. Who d'ye think
she is?"

Amber
glanced around to see if he was speaking of her, just as the other replied,
"I've never seen her at Court. Like as not
she's some country heiress. By
God, I'll make her acquaintance though I perish for it!" And with that he
stepped forward, swept off his hat and bowed to her. "Madame, if you'll
permit me, I should like to make you a present of that bird—which is, if I may
be permitted the observation—no more gorgeous than yourself."

Delighted,
Amber smiled at him and had just begun to make a curtsy when Mrs. Goodman's
voice cut in sharply: "How dare you use a young woman of quality at this
rate, sir? Begone, now, before I call a constable and have you clapped up for
your impertinence!"

The
fop raised his eyebrows in surprise and hesitated a moment as if undecided whether
to challenge the issue, but Mrs. Goodman faced him so stoutly that at last he
bowed very ceremoniously to the disappointed Amber and turned to go off with
his friend. As they walked away she heard his scornful remark:

"Just
as I thought. A bawd out with her prot
égée. But apparently she intends to save
her for some gouty old duke."

At
that Amber realized she had seemed too eager to make the acquaintance of
strangers, and she began to fan herself swiftly. "Heaven! I swear I
thought he was a young fellow I'd seen sometime at my aunt's!" She drew
her cloak about her and went back to the business of selecting her bird, but
now she kept her eyes decorously within the shop.

She
paid for the gilt cage and little turquoise parakeet with a random coin which
she fished out of her muff. And once again Mrs. Goodman's quickness came to her
rescue, for as she was scooping the change back into her hand, Sally caught
hold of her wrist.

"Hold
on, sweetheart. I believe you're lacking a shilling there."

The
girl behind the counter quickly produced one, giggling, saying that she had
miscounted. Mrs. Goodman gave her a severe frown and she and Amber left, going
downstairs then to get into the coach.

On
the ride back Mrs. Goodman undertook to warn Amber of the dangers a young and
pretty woman unaccustomed to town life must encounter in the city. The times
were wicked, she said; a woman of virtue had much ado to preserve not only her
honesty but even the appearance of it.

"For
in the way of the world, sweetheart," she warned, "a woman loses as
much by the appearance of evil as she does by the misdeed itself."

Amber
nodded solemnly, her own guilty conscience writhing inside her, and she
wondered miserably if her behaviour had given the strait-laced Mrs. Goodman
some clue to her predicament. And then, as the coach stopped, she looked out
the opened window and gave a sharp horrified cry at what she saw: Trudging
slowly along was a woman, naked to the waist and with her long hair falling
over her breasts, moaning and wincing each time a man who walked behind her
slashed his
whip across her shoulders. Following in her wake and trailing beside her was a
considerable crowd—laughing jeering little boys, grown men and women, who
mocked and taunted.

"Oh!
Look at that woman! They're beating her!"

Sally
Goodman glanced at her and then away, her face complacently untroubled.
"Don't waste your sympathy, my dear. Wretched creature—she must be the
mother of a bastard child. It's the common punishment, and no more than the
wicked creatures deserve."

Amber
continued to watch with reluctant fascination, turning her head to look as the
procession passed. There were streaks of blood laced across the woman's naked
shoulders. And then suddenly she turned back again and shut her eyes hard. For
a moment she felt so sick that she was sure she would faint, but fear of Mrs.
Goodman made her take hold of herself again. But all her gaiety was gone and
she was aware as never before that she had committed a terrible crime—a
punishable crime.

Oh,
Gemini! she thought in frantic despair. That might be me! That
will
be
me!

The
next morning Amber was up, wearing her dressing-gown and eating a dishful of
gooseberry jelly, which was supposed to cure her nausea, when there was a rap
at the door and Mrs. Goodman's cheerful voice called her name. Quickly she
shoved the dish under the bed and ran to let her in.

"I
was just putting up my hair."

Mrs.
Goodman followed her back to the dressing-table. "Let me help sweetheart.
Has your maid gone abroad?"

Amber
felt her fingers working competently, making a thick braid, twisting it into a
chignon high on her head, then sticking in gold-headed bodkins to hold the
heavy scroll in place. "Why—I had to turn my maid off. She—she got herself
with child." It was the only excuse she could think of.

Mrs.
Goodman shook her head, but her mouth was too full of bodkins to cluck her
tongue. "It's a wicked age, I vow and swear. But Lord, sweetheart, how'll
you shift, without a maid?"

Amber
frowned. "I don't know. But my aunt'll have dozens, when she comes."

Mrs.
Goodman had finished now and Amber began combing out the long thick tresses at
the sides of her face, rolling the ends into fat curls that lay on her
shoulders.

"Of
course, sweetheart. But until then—Heaven, a lady can't do without a serving-woman."

"No,"
agreed Amber. "I know it. But I don't know where to get one—I've never
been in London before. And a woman alone must be mighty careful of
strangers," she added virtuously.

"She
must, my dear, and that's the truth on it. You're a wise young creature to know
it. But perhaps I can help you. A dear friend of mine has just removed to her
country-estate and left
some of her serving-maids here. There's one of 'em I have in mind in
particular—a neat modest accomplished young creature she is, and if she's not
already found a new place I can get her for you."

Amber
agreed and the girl arrived in less than an hour, a plain-faced plump little
thing in neat dark-blue skirt, tucked-up fresh white apron and long-sleeved
white blouse with a linen cap that covered her hair and tied in a knot beneath
her round chin. She curtsied to Amber, her eyes lowered modestly, and she spoke
in a soft voice that suggested she would never try to bully whoever took her
into service. Her name was Honour Mills and Amber hired her promptly at two
pounds a year, with her room and board and clothing.

It
made her feel very fashionable and elegant, having a maid to brush her hair and
lay out her clothes, run small errands and walk behind her when she went out of
doors. And she was grateful, too, for the girl's company. Honour was quiet and
well-behaved, always neat in her appearance, always good-tempered, and a most
satisfactory audience for her mistress whom she seemed to admire greatly.

But
nevertheless Amber remembered Lord Carlton's advice, kept her money well-hidden
and did not confide her private affairs to her. She had not, however, taken the
five hundred pounds to Shadrac Newbold, as he had suggested, for she had never
heard of a goldsmith before and was distrustful of putting her money into the
hands of a complete stranger. She thought herself quite competent to manage it.
Nor did she intend to go to either of the two women he had suggested until she
was forced by her own appearance to do so.

Amber
and Mrs. Goodman became constant companions. They ate dinner together, usually
in one of their own apartments; they went riding in Hyde Park or the Mall, but
did not get out; they shopped in the Royal Exchange or at the East India House.
Once Amber suggested that they go to a play, but Mrs. Goodman had some severe
things to say about the debauchery of the theatres, and after that she did not
dare make any more suggestions.

Mrs.
Goodman's husband was detained longer on the Continent, for his business
matters were badly tangled. And Amber said that she had received a letter from
her aunt, telling her that it would be two weeks or more before she could leave
France. If necessary she did not doubt that she could think of another excuse
at the end of that time. She was already convinced that people had a better
opinion of you if you pretended to be something more than you were than if you
used them honestly.

They
had been acquainted for perhaps a fortnight when Sally Goodman told Amber about
her nephew. Just returned from church, for it was Sunday, they were in Amber's
room, eating a dishful of hot buttered shrimps with their fingers and washing
them down with Rhenish. Honour was busily using a
pair of bellows to make the fire
go, for the day had suddenly turned chill and heavy fog hung over the city.

"Faith,"
said Mrs. Goodman, not looking up, for she ate with an almost impartial
attention to her plate, "but I'll vow it was worth a Jew's eye to hear my
silly nephew going on about you last night. He swears you're the most glorious
creature he's ever seen."

Amber,
popping a crisp plump shrimp into her mouth, glanced over at her swiftly.
"When did he see me?"

She
had not made the acquaintance of a single young man, though she had had
opportunities aplenty; she was convinced that she would never fall in love
again but nevertheless she longed for masculine company. Being with a woman she
thought was flat and unexciting as a glass of water. But she had almost never
met the man who did not seem to have at least one redeeming quality.

"Yesterday,
when you alighted from your coach out in the yard. I thought the young
simpleton would fall out the window and break his noodle. But I told 'im you're
intended for an earl."

Amber's
smile disappeared. "Oh. You shouldn't 've done that!"

"Why
not?" Mrs. Goodman now turned to a French cake, split and covered with
melted butter and rose-water, sprinkled with almonds, "You are, aren't
you?"

"Well—yes.
But then, he's your nephew. Heavens, you've been mighty kind to me, Mrs.
Goodman, and if your nephew wants to make my acquaintance—why, what harm is
there in that?"

Luke
Channell was to call on his aunt that evening and Mrs. Goodman said that she
would bring him to meet her. He was, she said, just returning from his travels
and on his way to his country-seat in Devonshire. Amber, very much excited and
hoping that he would be handsome, changed her gown and had Honour dress her
hair again. She did not expect a man like Lord Carlton, for she had seen none
other in London like him, but the prospect of talking to a young man again,
perhaps flirting a little, seeing his eyes light with admiration, was an
exhilarating tonic.

Luke
Channel, however, was a serious disappointment.

Not
very much taller than she, he was stockily built with a broad flat snub-nosed
face, and his two front teeth had been broken off diagonally; there was a kind
of slippery green moss growing along the edges of his gums. But at least he was
quite well-dressed, with a profusion of ribbon-loops at his elbows, hips, and
knees, his manner was self-assured, and he seemed tremendously smitten by her.
He grinned incessantly, his eyes scarcely left her face, and at times he even
seemed so nonplussed as to lose his trend of thought in the middle of a
sentence.

Like
most young men who went abroad he had brought back
his quota of
French oaths, and every other word was "Mor-blew" or
"Mor-dee." He told her that the Louvre was much larger than
Whitehall, that in Venice the prostitutes walked the streets with their naked
breasts on display, and that the Germans drank even more than the English. When
he left he invited Amber and his aunt to be his guests at the Mulberry Gardens
the next evening and she accepted the invitation with a smiling curtsy.