To be mistress of the King, a great lady, feared and envied and admired. To be stared and pointed at in the streets, watched in the galleries of the Palace, bowed and truckled to in the Drawing-Rooms. To be begged for favours, fawned upon for a smile—to hold the power of success or failure over dozens, even hundreds, of men and women. That was the summit of ambition—higher than the Queen, mightier than the Chancellor, greater than any nobly born woman in the land. And if she could once be presented at Whitehall, have the right and privilege of the royal apartments, see him day after day-Amber had no doubt that she could occupy the place which Castlemaine was said to be rapidly losing.
All those things were in her mind when—just a few days after Christmas—she accepted the Earl of Radclyffe’s proposal of marriage.
It came after a boresome week of impatient waiting on her part, for though she had been so scornful of him at first and still was, the more she thought about it the more she wanted to become a countess. And marriage with him did not seem any formidable price to pay for the honour. He had come back to Barberry Hill for the avowed purpose of “paying his compliments to Mrs. Dangerfield,” but he did very little of that or anything else which seemed to Amber like courting. She could not even catch him looking at her again as he had that day in the library.
The day before he was to return to his own home some thirty miles north, they sat alone in the gallery playing a game of trick-track. The gallery, on the second floor of the house, was an immense room which ran along two sides of the courtyard. It was massed with deep set diamond-paned windows, on the panelled walls were dozens of portraits, and the ceiling was painted light blue with great wreaths of gilt roses. Radclyffe wore his hat and both of them had on long fur-lined cloaks; a brazier of hot coals was set beside each of them, and an enormous log blazed in the fireplace. But in spite of all that they were uncomfortably cold.
Amber moved a peg in the board to change her score. Then she sat, staring absently at it and waiting for him to make the next play. At last, when several seconds had passed, she looked up. “Your move, my lord.” He was watching her, very carefully, like a man studying a painting—not like a man looking at a woman.
“Yes,” he said quietly, not taking his eyes from her. “I know.” Amber returned his stare. “Madame—I am not unaware that it is a breach of propriety to ask for the hand of a lady who has been widowed only nine months. And yet my regard for you has reached that pitch I am prepared to fly in the face of all decorum. Madame, I ask you most solemnly —will you do me the honour to become my wife?”
Amber answered him immediately. “With all my heart, sir.” She had thought from the first that since each knew what the other wanted it was absurd they must mince and simper like a couple of dancing-mice at Bartholomew Fair.
Again she thought that she caught the hint of a smile on his mouth, but could not be sure. “Thank you, madame. Your kindness is more than I deserve. I must return to London soon after the first of the year, and if you will go with me we can be married at that time. I understand that the sickness is now greatly abated and the town has begun to fill again.”
He wanted, of course, to make certain her fortune had survived the Plague before he married her—but Amber was tired of the country and eager to get back herself.
They set out together in his coach on the second of January, bundled in furs and covered with fur-lined robes; it was so cold they could see their breath as they talked. The roads were so hard and frosty that it was possible to travel much faster than if it had been raining, but they had to stop that afternoon at four because the bouncing and jogging distressed his Lordship.
The marriage-contract had been signed at Barberry Hill and Amber supposed he would take advantage of the usual custom to lie with her that night. At eight o’clock, however, he bowed, wished her a good night, and retired to his own chamber. Amber and Nan watched him go, both of them staring with astonishment. Then as the door closed they looked at each other and burst into uncontrollable giggles.
“He must be impotent!” hissed Nan.
“I hope so!”
It was nightfall on the fifth day when they reached London. Amber had a feeling of dread as they approached the city, but as they rolled through the dark quiet streets it began to disappear. There were no dead-carts, no corpses, very few red crosses to be seen. Already the sloping mounds in the graveyards had been covered over with a coarse green vegetation—the hundred thousand dead were effacing themselves. Taverns. were brightly lighted again and crowded, coaches teetered by filled with gay young men and women, the sound of music came from some of the houses.
