Forever Amber Page 24

  Seeing that it was a public vehicle she shouted. The driver hauled on the reins, came to a stop some yards beyond, and turned on his perch. "Want to hire a coach?"

  Amber had already reached the door and pulled it open. "Temple Bar!" she cried. "And quick!" She jumped in and slammed it shut, so glad to be safe inside that she scarcely noticed how it smelt.

  He drove so fast and so recklessly that she could only try to keep her seat as the coach careened along. The wooden seat on which she sat was covered with a thin hard pad and the jarring and vibrating of the springless compartment shook her to the heels. At Temple Bar he stopped. Almost before the wheels had quit turning she was down and off on a run toward the Temple, for she had not a farthing with her.

  "Hey!" he yelled furiously. "Come back here, you cheating drab!"

  And then as she ran on, disappearing into the darkness, he climbed down and started after her. But at the sight of a party of gay and drunken students, he apparently decided it was not worth the risk of losing his coach-and-horses for a one-shilling fare. He got back up on his perch and started off again.

  Amber ran down Middle Temple Lane and cut into the Pump Court. Many lights were still burning, there were sounds of music and singing and laughter, and people were going and coming everywhere. Her head was down, because she was now too tired to hold it up, and she ran headlong into a group of some half-dozen students, one of whom caught her in his arms.

  "Hey, there, sweetheart!" he cried gaily. "Where're you going in such haste!"

  Amber did not answer him but began to struggle frantically, pounding at his chest with her fists, crying with exhaustion and terror. But the more she struggled the tighter he held her. And all the others had gathered around now, laughing and joking, thinking that perhaps they had caught a whore, since no respectable woman would be running about the streets at eleven o'clock in only a thin silk dress, and that torn and wet.

  He bent her head back to kiss her and Amber felt them crowding closer and closer until such a terror swept over her she was close to fainting. Every one of them looked like a constable. At that moment she heard a familiar voice.

  "Hey, just a minute! What's going on here! I know this lady— Let her go, you varlets!" It was Michael Godfrey, whom Amber had not seen for more than four months.

  Reluctantly the young man released her. Amber looked up at Michael with tears streaking down her scratched and dirt-stained face, but she did not speak to him. Giving a quick shove she broke free and started off. but he followed her. When he caught her they had reached a dark corner leading into Vine Court, away from the lights of the torches.

  "Mrs. Channell! For God's sake, what's the matter? What's happened? It's Michael—don't you remember me?"

  He grabbed hold of her arm and brought her to a stop but she jerked at him furiously, sobbing. "Let me go! Oh, damn you! Let me go or I'll get caught!"

  "Caught by who! What is it? Tell me!" He gave her a little shake for she was not looking at him but tugging to free herself, trying to pry his fingers loose from her wrist, wild and desperate.

  "The constables, you fool! Let me go!"

  He turned suddenly, dragging her after him, and entered a doorway, which he closed. Amber slumped against the wall.

  "Where's Black Jack?" he demanded.

  "They've caught him. We were at Knightsbridge and the constables came—I got away but they're coming after me—" She made a sudden lunge. "Let me go! I've got to get back!"

  He grabbed her shoulders, thrusting her against the wall, and she felt his arms go about her. "You can't go back there. Mother Red-Cap'll send you out again, and someday you'll get caught for sure. Come with me—" His mouth sought hers, his arms held her close, and Amber relaxed gratefully, so tired she could struggle no longer. He picked her up and started through the dark hallway toward the stairs.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The three men, Black Jack and Jimmy the Mouth and Blue-skin, were all hanged from the same arm of the three-cornered gallows, just ten days from the night they were taken. When the process of justice worked at all it was with devastating swiftness; they left him no time to pay his way out. Bess was sent to Bridewell, the house-of-correction for female offenders, to improve her morals. Pall, who pleaded her belly, was sent to Newgate to await the birth of her child and probable transportation to Virginia.

  At the time of the execution Amber was alone in Michael Godfrey's rooms in Vine Court. Michael had gone to watch and when he came back he told her that all three men had been cut down and taken to lie at a tavern—where they might be viewed by mourners or whoever had a curiosity to look at them. All the corpses had been treated with respect and not, as often happened, carried through the streets and tossed about until mangled beyond recognition. Black Jack, he said, was very nonchalant to the end, and the last words of his farewell speech were: "Gentlemen, there's nothing like a merry life— and a short one."

  But even then she could not believe it.

  How could Black Jack Mallard be dead when she remembered him so well, everything he had done and said over the months she had known him? How could he be dead when he was so big, so powerful, so obstinately indestructible? She remembered his six feet five inches of male strength, hard muscled and hard-fleshed, covered with wiry black hair that matted on his chest. She remembered the thunderous rumble of his laugh; his enormous capacity for wine—he had said that his nick-name originated one night when he won a wager by drinking a blackjack of Burgundy without once putting down the vessel. She remembered a thousand things more.

  And now he was dead.

  She remembered how some of the men had wept at Chapel the day before they were to be executed. And, though she thought she had forgotten, she could, all too well, recall the expressions on their faces. She wondered how Black Jack had looked—and how she would have looked herself had she been sitting there beside him. She suffered agonies thinking of it Whatever she was doing—enjoying her dinner, brushing her hair, leaning on the windowsill and laughing at the pranks of the young men down in the courtyard—the thought would come like the sudden shocking impact of a physical blow: I might not be here! I might be dead!

  At night she would wake up, crying with terror and clutching at Michael. She had seen two of her cousins die, but this was the first time that any personal realization of death had come to her. She became very pious and repeated all the prayers she knew a dozen times a day.

  But for the grace of God I'd not be here right now but in Hell, she would think, for she knew she had not been good enough to get into Heaven. Even before she had left Mary-green Uncle Matt had not thought it likely that Heaven was her destination. She believed in the existence of those two places with superstitious intensity, just as she believed that a hare was a witch in disguise, but the prospect of eternal damnation could not deter her from anything she really wanted to do.

  For almost a month she did not once leave Michael Godfrey's apartment of two rooms. He bought a second-hand suit of boy's clothes for her to wear and she strutted about, swaggering, clacking her heels on the floor in imitation of the young fops she had seen in the streets, while he roared with laughter and told her that she was as good an actor as Edward Kynaston himself. She was supposed to be Tom, his nephew from the country, but none of his friends who visited them were very much fooled, though they all made a great jest of it and obligingly called her by that name.

  He told her, however, that it would probably not be a great deal longer before her presence there became known and that when it did they would be forced to leave. But that threat did not trouble him for he seldom studied as it was and had no more interest in learning law than did most of the other young men whose fathers sent them to the Inns of Court. Now, more than ever, life was too distracting for a young man to give much time to books and lectures.

  She told him her own name and the story of her misfortunes, though she omitted altogether Lord Carlton's part in it and pretended that the baby had been gotten by her husband. Luke Channe
ll's name, since she had used it in Whitefriars, was no longer of any value to her and she made Michael promise to keep secret the fact that she had ever been married; she considered that that mistake was over and done and absolutely refused to think of Luke as her husband.

  About a fortnight after Black Jack's death Michael went down to Ram Alley to visit Mother Red-Cap and convince her that Mrs. Channell had gone from London and would never return. He went partly out of curiosity, to see what the old woman's reaction to the recent events had been, and also because Amber begged him to get the imitation gold ear-rings she had left behind, telling him that her aunt had given them to her just before she had gone away. He brought them back, and some news as well.

  "She's satisfied you're gone. I told her I'd had a letter from you and that you were back with your family and would never so much as think of London again."

  Amber laughed, taking a bite out of a big red apple. "Did she believe you?"

  "She seemed to. She said that you should never have left the country in the first place—and that London was no place for a girl like you."

  "I'll warrant she's running distracted to have lost me. I made her a mighty good profit, let me tell you."

  "Sweetheart, Mother Red-Cap wouldn't run distracted if she lost her own head. She's got another girl she's training to take your place—a pretty little wench she found somewhere who's with child and unmarried and full of gratitude for the kind old lady who's promised to help her out of her difficulties."

  Amber made a sound of disgust, throwing the apple-core across the room into the fireplace. "That old fleshbroker would pimp for the devil himself if there was a farthing to be got by it!"

  Most of her time, when she was alone, she spent learning to read and to write and she undertook both with the same enthusiasm she had had for her dancing and singing and guitar lessons. Hundreds of times she wrote her name and Brace's, drawing big hearts around them, but she always burnt the papers before Michael should see them—partly because she knew it would not be tactful to let the man who was keeping her find that she was in love with someone else, but also because she could not bear the thought of discussing Bruce with anyone. Her own signature was a long sprawl of which only the initial letters were made large and distinguishable, and when she showed Michael specimens of her handwriting he laughed and told her it was so illegible it might be mistaken for that of a countess.

  One wet early October afternoon she lay stretched out flat on her stomach on the bed, mouthing over the text of one of the bawdy illustrated books which he had given her to practice on, an English edition of Aretino's sonnets. Hearing the key turn in the lock and the door of the other room open, she called over her shoulder: "Michael? Come in here! I can't make this out—"

  His voice, solemn for once, answered her. "Come here, nephew."

  Thinking that he was playing some joke she leapt off the bed and ran to the doorway, but stopped on the threshold with a gasp of astonishment and dismay. For with him was an old man, a sour prim thin-nosed old gentleman with a forbidding scowl and a look of having been preserved in vinegar. Amber took a startled step backward and one hand went to the throat of her deeply opened white shirt, but it was too late. He could never mistake her for a boy now.

  "You said that you were entertaining your nephew, sirrah!" said the old man sternly, drawing down his tufted brows and frowning back at Michael. "Where is he?"

  "That is he, Mr. Gripenstraw," said Michael, respectfully, but nevertheless with an air of whimsical unconcern.

  Mr. Gripenstraw looked at Amber again, over the tops of his square-cut green spectacles, and he screwed his mouth from side to side. Amber's hand dropped and she spoke to Michael, pleading.

  "I'm sorry, Michael. I thought you were alone."

  He made a gesture, motioning her into the bedroom, and she went, closing the door but standing next to it so that she could hear what was said between them. Oh, God in Heaven! she thought despairingly, rubbing the palms of her hands together. Now what will happen to me? What if he finds out who I— Then she heard Mr. Gripenstraw's voice again.

  "Well, Mr. Godfrey—and what excuse have you to make this time?"

  "None, sir."

  "How long has this baggage been on your premises?"

  "One month, sir."

  "One month! Great God! Have you no respect for the ancient and honourable institution of English law? Because of my regard for your father I have overlooked many of your past misdemeanours, but this is beyond anything! If it were not for the honour and esteem in which I hold Sir Michael I would have you sent to the Fleet, to learn a better view of the conduct befitting a young man. As it is, sirrah, you are expelled. Never show me your face again. And get that creature out of here—within the hour!"

  "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

  The door opened. "Let me tell you this, sirrah—there is nothing a young man may get by wenching but duels, claps, and bastards. Good-day!" The door closed noisily.

  Amber waited a moment and then flung open her own door. "Oh, Michael! You're expelled! And it's all my fault!"

  She began to cry but he came swiftly across to take her into his arms. "Here, here, sweetheart! What the devil! We're well rid of this scurvy place. Come now, put on your hat and doublet and we'll find us lodgings where a man may live as he likes."

  He took two rooms in an inn called the Hoops and Grapes, situated in St. Clement's Lane, which wound up out of Fleet Street. It was outside the City gates in the newer and more fashionable west-end of the town. Drury Lane was nearby, and Covent Garden, and not five minutes walk away was Gibbons Tennis Court in Vere Street, which had become the Theatre Royal.

  He bought her some clothes, second-hand at first because she needed them immediately—though later she had some made—and she found herself precipitated into a whirl of gaiety and pleasure. She had met several of his friends while they were still at the Temple, but now she met many more. They were young men of good family, future barons and lords; officers in the King's or the Duke's guards; actors from one of the four public theatres. And she met, too, the women they kept, pretty girls who sold ribbons or gloves at the Royal Exchange, professed harlots, actresses, all of them wise and gay and no more than Amber's age—flowers that had bloomed since the Restoration.

  They went to the theatres and sat in the pit where the women wore their masks and sucked on China oranges, bandying pleasantries with everyone in earshot. They went to the gambling-houses in the Haymarket and once Amber was thrown into a frenzy of excitement when a rumour swept through that the King was coming. But he did not and she was bitterly disappointed, for she had never forgotten his expression that day he had looked at her. They went to the New Spring Gardens at Lambeth and to the Mulberry Gardens, which was temporarily the height of fashion. They went to dinner at all the popular taverns, Lockets near Charing Cross which was always filled with young officers in their handsome uniforms, the Bear at the Bridgefoot, the notorious Dagger Tavern in High Holborn, a rough-and-tumble place that abounded in riots and noise but was famous for its fine pies. They went to see the puppet-play in Covent Garden, currently the resort of all the fashionable world. At night they often drove about town in a hackney, contesting as to who could break the most windows by throwing copper pennies through them.

  And when they were not out their rooms were full of young people who came in at all hours of the day and night, ordered food and drink sent up, played cards and got drunk and borrowed their bed for love-making. None of them had a serious thought or occupation, beyond avoiding their creditors. Pleasure was their creed. The old views of morality had gone as much out of fashion as high-crowned hats and, like them, were now disdained and ridiculed. Indifference, cynicism, selfishness and egoistic opportunism were the marks of quality. Gentleness, honesty, devotion—these were held in contempt.

  The gentlemen of the old school, of the decorus Court of Charles I, were blaming the present King for the manners and behaviour of the new generation. And while it was true th
at Charles neither wished nor tried to set up strict standards, the same conditions had existed during the late years of the Protectorate, though then more than half concealed under a mantle of hypocrisy. The Civil Wars, not his Majesty, had sowed the seeds for plants suddenly shot to full growth since his return.

  But Amber was not even remotely aware of the force of trends and currents.

  She was in love with this life. She liked the noise and confusion, the continued bustle and disorder, the reckless devil-may-care gaiety. She knew that it was wholly different from the country and was glad that it was, for here she might do as she liked and no one was shocked or admonitory. It never occurred to her that this was perhaps not the usual life of all gentlemen of all times.

  None of the young men was interested in matrimony, which had fallen into such disrepute that it was considered only as the last resort of a man so far encumbered by debt he could see no other way out. Good manners forbade a man and wife to love—scarcely permitted them to like—each other, and a happy marriage was regarded with scorn, not envy. This was Amber's view, for Luke Channell had convinced her that marriage was the most miserable state a woman could endure, and she talked as glibly as any rake about the absurdity of being a wife or husband. In her heart she held a secret reservation, for Bruce Carlton—but she was almost willing to believe now that she would never see him again.

  Only once did her confident audacity receive a jar and that was when, about mid-October, she discovered that she was pregnant again. Penelope Hill had warned her that the most careful precautions sometimes failed, but she had never expected that they might fail her. For a time she was wildly distracted. All her pleasures would be ruined if she had to go again through the tedious uncomfortable ugly business of having a baby, and she determined that she would not do it. Even in Marygreen she had known women who had induced abortions when pregnancy recurred too often. She had wanted Bruce Carlton's child, but she did not want another man's now, or ever.