She set the fashions. When she had a tiny pistol made to carry in her muff, most of the other Court ladies did likewise. Several apartments were being redecorated with mirrored walls, and a great deal of walnut furniture was sent out to be silver-plated. She pinned up the brim of her Cavalier’s hat at an angle one day and next day half the ladies in his Majesty’s hawking-party had done the same. She appeared at a ball with her hair undone and hanging down her back covered with a thick sprinkling of gold-dust, and for a week that was the rage. Everyone copied her beauty patches—little cupids drawing a bow, the initials CR (Charles Rex) intertwined, a prancing long-horned goat.
Amber racked her brain to think of something new, for it tickled her vanity to lead them about like so many pet monkeys fastened to a stick. Everything she did was talked about. Yet she pretended to be bored with the imitations and resentful she could never keep a fashion to herself.
One unexpectedly warm October night she and several of the gayest ladies and gentlemen took off their clothes and dove from the barge on which they had been supping and dancing to swim in the Thames. Almost nothing that had occurred since the Restoration so aroused the indignation of the sedate as this prank—for heretofore men and women had not gone swimming together and it had seemed the one steadfast decency still respected by a wicked decadent age. Her private entertainments for the King were, it was said, scandalous and lewd. Her numberless reputed lovers, her beauty-rites and her extravagances were discussed everywhere. There was nothing of which she had not been accused; no action was considered beyond or beneath her.
Amber, by no means resenting all this vicious and spiteful talk, paid out large sums to start new rumours and to keep them going. Her life, though comparatively chaste, became in reputation a model of license and iniquity. Once, when Charles repeated some gross tale he had heard of her, she laughed and said that rather than not be known at all she’d be known for what she was.
The people liked her. When she drove through the streets in her calèche, handling the reins herself and surrounded by six or eight running footmen to clear the way, they stopped to stare and give her a cheer. She was remembered for her days in the theatre; and her frequent spectacular public appearances as well as her open-handed almsgiving had made her both well-known and popular. She loved the attention now as much as she ever had and was still eager to be liked by those she would never know.
She saw Gerald but seldom, and never in private. Mrs. Stark had recently borne him a child, on which occasion Amber sent her six Apostles’ spoons. Lucilla had found herself pregnant less than three months after her marriage and the gay Sir Frederick had sent her back to the country. He and Amber sometimes laughed together over his wife’s predicament, for though Lucilla had welcomed the pregnancy she sent a continuous stream of letters to her husband, imploring him to come to her. But Sir Frederick had a vast amount of business in London and he made many promises that were not kept.
Amber was never bored and considered herself to be the most fortunate woman on earth. To buy a new gown, to give another supper, to see the latest play were all of equal consequence. She never missed an intrigue or a ball; she had her part in every counter-plot and escapade. Nothing passed her by and no one dared ignore her. She lived like one imprisoned in a drum, who can think of nothing but the noise on every side.
There seemed to be only one thing left for her to want, and finally that wish too was granted. Early in December Almsbury wrote to say that Lord Carlton expected to arrive in England sometime the following autumn.
SPRING THAT YEAR was somewhat dry and dusty. There was too little rain. Nevertheless by May the meadows about London were thick with purple clover, bee-haunted, and there were great red poppies in the corn-fields. Cries of “Cherries, sweet cherries, ripe and red!” and “Rosemary and sweetbriar! Who’ll buy my lavender?” were heard once more. Summer gowns, tiffany, sarsenet and watered moire in all the bright colours—sulphur-yellow, plum, turquoise, crimson—were seen in the New Exchange and at the theatres or stepping into a gilt coach that waited in St. Martin’s Lane or Pall Mall. The warm windy delightsome months had come again.
