The drawing-room, which fronted directly upon the river, was seventy-five feet long and twenty-five feet wide. Its walls were hung with black-and-gold-striped silk and at night the draperies could be pulled to cover all window-space. Pearl-embroidered rugs were scattered over the floor. The delicate, graceful, deeply carved furniture was coated thickly with gold-leaf, and the cushions were emerald velvet. Because Charles preferred a buffet style of dining-service there were many little tables about and she gave her suppers in that room. Above the fireplace hung a portrait of Amber impersonating St. Catherine —all the Court ladies liked to have themselves drawn as saints. Catherine had been a queen and so Amber wore a magnificent gown with a crown upon her head; she carried a book, the martyr’s palm, and beside her lay the symbol of suffering, a broken wheel. Her expression was very thoughtful and sedate.
A small anteroom hung in white—where Radclyffe’s Italian blackamoor stood on a gold table before a mirror—opened from the drawing-room into the bed-chamber, the furnishings of which cost Amber more than all the rest of the apartment together.
The entire room, floor to ceiling, was lined with mirrors—brought from Venice and smuggled through the port officers by his Majesty’s connivance. The floor was laid with black Genoese marble, supposed to be the finest in Europe. On the ceiling an artist named Streater had depicted the loves of Jupiter, and it swarmed with naked full-breasted, round-hipped women in a variety of attitudes with men and beasts.
The bed, an immense four-posted structure with a massive tester, was covered with beaten silver and hung with scarlet velvet. And every other article of furniture in the room was thickly plated with silver; each chair, from the smallest stool to the great settee before the fireplace, was cushioned in scarlet. The window-hangings were silver-embroidered scarlet velvet. Above the fireplace and sunk flush with the wall was a more intimate and considerably more typical portrait of Amber, painted by Peter Lely. She lay on her side on a heap of black cushions, unashamedly naked, staring out with a slant-eyed smile at whoever paused to look.
The room seemed to possess a violent, almost savage personality. No human being had a chance of seeming important in it. And yet it was the envy of the Palace, for it was the most extravagant gesture anyone had yet made. Amber, not at all awed by it, loved it for its arrogance, its uncompromising challenge, its crude and boisterous beauty. It represented to her everything she had ever believed she wanted from life; and all she had got. It was her symbol of success.
But it was not enough, now she had it, to make her happy.
For though her days were perpetually busy, occupied with a never-ceasing round of gossip, new clothes, gambling, play-going, supper-giving, schemes and counter-schemes, she was never able to make herself forget Bruce Carlton. He would not leave her, no matter what she was doing, and though usually her longing for him was a low-keyed minor unhappiness it surged sometimes into tremendous and monumental music which seemed unbearable. When that happened, always when she least expected it, she would think and almost wish that she would die. It would seem impossible then that she could exist for another moment without him, and her yearning, wild and desperate, would reach out blindly—to inevitable disappointment.
About mid-March Almsbury arrived in London alone to attend to some business matters and amuse himself for a few weeks. Amber had not seen him since the previous August and the first question she asked was whether or not he had heard from Bruce.
“No,” said the Earl. “Have you?”
“Have I?” she demanded crossly. “Of course not! He’s never written me a letter in his life! But it’d seem he might at least let
Almsbury shrugged. “Why should he? He’s busy—and as long as I don’t hear from him I know everything’s well with him. If it wasn’t he’d let me know.”
“Are you sure?”
Her eyes slipped him a stealthy glance. They were in her bedroom, Amber in a dressing-gown lying on a little day-bed with her trim ankles crossed, while Tansy sat on the floor beside her contemplating the frayed toes of his shoes. Though he could be very amusing, usually he did not speak unless spoken to and was quiet in a way which suggested some strange inner tranquillity, an almost animal self-sufficiency.
“What do you mean by that?” Almsbury’s eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at her. “If you’re hoping that something’s happened to Corinna you may as well forget it. Hoping for another woman to die will never get you what you want, you know that as well as I do. He never intended to marry you anyway.”
