“Now don’t tell me again I should have married Captain Morgan!” she cried warningly. “I’m sick of hearing it!”
“Lord, mam, I wasn’t going to say anything about that. ”But I have been thinking of a plan you might try.”
“What?”
“If you quit the theatre, took lodgings in the City and set yourself up for a rich widow, I’ll warrant you’d find a husband with a good portion within the month.”
“My God, Nan! Can you imagine me married to some stinking old alderman with nothing to do but breed his brats and visit his aunts and cousins and sisters and go to church twice on Sundays for my diversion? No thanks! I’m not that discouraged—yet!”
For three months it had rained, and then on the last day of June the sun came out brilliantly, the puddles in the streets began to dry, and the air was fresh and sparkling-clean. Children appeared, like a ragged legion sprung up overnight, in every alley and lane and courtyard in London, running and shouting joyously at their gutter games. Vendors and ballad-singers and housewives swarmed out-of-doors to feel the sun, and in St. James’s Park and the Mall courtiers and ladies strolled again.
Since his Majesty’s Restoration St. James’s Park was open to the public and not only the nobility but other idlers were free to saunter through its broad tree-lined avenues and stop to watch the King playing at pall mall, which he did with the same enthusiasm and skill he showed at every kind of athletic contest.
Amber went there that pleasant sunny afternoon with three young men—Jack Conway, Tom Trivet and Sir Humphrey Pere-pound—who had come to invite her to supper. It was scarcely four o’clock when they left her apartments and so they had some time to waste until the supper hour. At the Park entrance they got out of their hired coach and started off up Birdcage Walk, so called because the trees were full of cages containing singing and squawking birds from Peru, the East Indies, and China.
The three fops were all younger sons who lived far above their means and much in debt. Up at noon, they escaped by some back door or window to avoid their creditors. They strolled then to the nearest ordinary for dinner, went next to the playhouse where they got in free under the pretext of intending to stay for but one act, spent part of the evening in a tavern playing cards and the rest in a bawdy-house, and started for home at midnight, noisy and surly and drunken. Not one of them was over twenty, they would never inherit an estate, and the King probably was not even able to recognize them at sight. But Amber had been alone when they had called and she would rather be seen with anyone than no one—for obviously if a woman lay shut up in her house she could not bring herself to the attention of a great man.
She always hoped and expected that this day might be the day for which she had been waiting. But her hopes had been sorely buffeted these past six weeks and were beginning to show signs of wear.
They kept up an unceasing chatter, gossiping about everyone who passed, bowing obsequiously to the lords and ladies of higher rank but judging them vindictively once they had gone by. Amber scarcely listened to them, but her eyes saw every detail of a lady’s gown and coiffure, compared it mentally with her own, and went on to the next. She smiled at the men she knew and was amused to see how much it annoyed the women they were attending.
“There’s my Lady Bartley with her daughter fast in tow, as usual. Gad, she’s exposed the girl at every public mart in town and still they haven’t found a taker,” Sir Humphrey informed them.
“Nor ever will, as far as I’m concerned. Curse my tripes, but they made a mighty play for me not long since. I vow and swear the old lady is hotter for a son-in-law than the daughter is for a husband—there’s never a more eager bed-fellow than your wanton widow. It was her design I should marry her daughter but devote my manhood to her. She told me as much one day when—Now! What d’ye think! She went by like she’d never seen me before! Damn my diaphragm, but these old quality-bawds grow impertinent!”
“Who’s that rare creature just coming? She looks as if she would dissolve like an anchovy in claret. Damn me, but she has the most languishing look—”
“She’s the great fortune from Yorkshire. They say she hadn’t been in town a week when she was discovered in bed with her page. Your country-wench may never learn the art of dressing her carcass, but it doesn’t take her long to find out how to please it.” Sir Humphrey, as he talked, had taken a bottle of scent from his inner pocket and was touching the stopper to his eyebrows and wrists and hair.
“For my part, gentlemen,” said Jack Conway, who was lazily fanning himself with Amber’s fan, a trick the beaus all had to show their gentility, “I consider every woman odious but the finest of her sex—” He made Amber a deferential bow. “Madame St. Clare.”
