Amber could not go to sleep that night in her black room alone but insisted that Nan sleep with her and that a torchère be left burning beside the bed. She was not as glad to be a rich woman as she had expected she would be, and she was not as sorrowful at Samuel’s death as she thought she should be. She was merely apathetic. Her sole wish now was that her pains would begin so that she could bear this child and be freed of the burden which grew more intolerable with each hour.
THE ANTEROOM WAS crowded. Young men stood about in groups of two and three and four, leaning on the window-sills to look down into the courtyard where a violent mid-March wind racked the trees, bending them almost double. They wore feather-loaded hats and thigh-length cloaks, with their swords tilting out at an angle in back; lace ruffles fell over their fingers and flared out from their knees and clusters of ribbon loops hung at their shoulders and elbows and hips. Several of them were yawning and sleepy-eyed.
“Oh, my God,” groaned one, with a weary sigh. “To bed at three and up at six! If only Old Rowley would find the woman could keep him abed in the mornings—”
“Never mind. When we’re at sea we can sleep as long as we like. Have you got your commission yet? I’m all but promised a captaincy.”
The other laughed. “If you’re a captain I should be rear-admiral. At least I know port from starboard.”
“Do you? Which is which?”
“Port’s right, and starboard’s left.”
“You’re wrong. It’s the other way around.”
“Well—it won’t make much difference, this way or that. There never was a man so plagued by sea-sickness as I. If I so much as take a pair of oars from Charing Cross to the Privy Stairs I’m sure to puke twice on the way.”
“I’m a fresh-water sailor myself. But for all of that I’m mighty damned glad the war’s begun. A man can live just so long on actresses and orange-girls, and then the diet begins to pall. Curse my tripes, but I’ll welcome the change—salt air and waves and fast gun-fire. By God, there’s the life for a man! Besides, my last whore begins to grow troublesome.”
“That reminds me—I forgot to take my turpentine pills this morning.” He brought a delicate gem-studded box out of one pocket and snapped it open, extending it first to his friend who declined the offer. Then he tossed two of the large boluses into his mouth and gave a hard swallow to get them down, shaking his head mournfully. “I’m damnably peppered-off, Jack.”
At that moment there was a stir in the room. The door was flung open and Chancellor Clarendon entered. Frowning and preoccupied as usual, his right foot wrapped in a thick bandage to ease his gout, he spoke to no one, but walked straight across and through the other door which led into his Majesty’s bed-chamber.
Eyebrows went up, mouths twisted, and sly secret smiles were exchanged as the old man passed.
Clarendon was rapidly becoming the most hated man in England—not only at Court but everywhere. He had been in power too long and the people blamed him for whatever went amiss, no matter how little he might have had to do with it. He would accept no advice, allow no opposition; whatever he did was right. Even those faults might have been overlooked but that he had others which were unforgivable. He was inflexibly honest and would neither take nor give bribes, and not even his friends profited by his favour. Though he had lived most of his life at courts he was contemptuous of courtiers and scorned to become one.
And so they watched, and waited. If his hold on Parliament should once slip they would be at his throat like a pack of starving jackals.
“Have you been out Piccadilly to see the Chancellor’s new house?” asked someone, when he had gone.
“Judging by the foundations I’d say he’ll have to sell England to finish it. What he got from Dunkirk won’t build the stables.”
“How many more times does the old devil think he can sell England? Our value won’t hold up much longer at the present rate of exchange.”
The door into the King’s private chambers opened again and Buckhurst strolled out with another young man. Two or three others crossed over to speak to them.
“What’s the delay? I’ve been waiting here half-an-hour. Nothing but the hope of speaking to his Majesty about a place for my cousin could have induced me to get out of bed on a morning like this one. Now I suppose he’s gone by way of the Privy Stairs and left us all to shift for ourselves.”
“He’ll be along presently. He’s dickering with a Jesuit priest over the price of a recipe for Spirit of Human Skull. Have you got a tailor’s bill in your pocket, Tom? If it’s illegible enough sell it to Old Rowley for a universal panacea and your fortune’s made. He’s giving that mangy old Jesuit five thousand pound for his scrap of paper.”
“Five thousand! Good God! What can an old man have to spend five thousand on?”
“What do you think? On a remedy for impotence, of course.”
“The best remedy for impotence is a pretty wench—”
