She was scrubbing her teeth with some salt and a piece torn off her smock—rinsing her mouth out with ale and spitting into the fireplace—when a man appeared at the door, and told her that Black Jack wanted to see her in the Tap-Room. She gave a start and turned quickly.
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“Oh, Lord! And I’m all unready! Wait a moment!”
Not knowing what to do, she began smoothing her dress and rubbing her hands over her face in the hope of taking off some of the dirt.
“I’m paid to light you down, Mrs., but not to wait here. Come along.” He gave a wave of the link and started off.
Amber paused just long enough to open her smock low over her breasts, muttered swiftly to Mrs. Buxted, “Watch my bird,” and then picking up her skirts she hurried after him. Her heart was pounding as though she had been going to be presented at Court.
CHAPTER TEN
BARBARA CALMER WAS a woman of no uncertain desires or ambitions. Almost from the moment she had been born she had known what she wanted and had usually contrived to get it, whatever the cost to herself or others. She had no morals, knew no qualms, did not trouble herself with a conscience. Her character and personality were as glittering, as elemental, as barbaric as was her beauty. And now, just twenty-one years old, she had found what she wanted more than anything else on earth.
She wanted to be the wife of Charles Stuart; she wanted to be Queen of England. She refused to believe that such an idea was absurd.
Barbara and Charles had met at the Hague a few weeks before the Restoration, when her husband was sent there to take a gift of money to the King. Charles, who was invariably attracted to beautiful women, was instantly and strongly attracted to her. And Barbara, both flattered to be sought by a king and glad of an opportunity to revenge herself on a jilting lover—the Earl of Chesterfield—quickly became his mistress. Everyone agreed that Charles, not surprisingly, was more deeply infatuated than he had ever been during the many years of his gallantry, and Barbara began to be a woman of considerable importance.
The Roger Palmers, who had been married less than two years, lived in one of the great houses on King Street, a narrow muddy but highly fashionable thoroughfare which ran through the Palace grounds and served to connect the villages of Charing and Westminster. Inns massed the west side of the street, but on the east were great mansions whose gardens led down to the unembanked Thames. It was in her husband’s home, at the end of the year, that Barbara began to give suppers which were attended by the King and most of the gay young men and pretty women of the Court, his Majesty’s closest companions.
For a while Roger obediently appeared and pretended to be host. But at last he balked at the ridiculous role he was expected to play.
He came one January evening and knocked, as he had been told to do, at the door of his wife’s bedroom. He was a medium-sized man of no pretentious appearance or manner but there was a look of good-breeding on his face and intelligence in his eyes. Barbara called out to him to enter and then, as he did so, merely glanced around carelessly over her shoulder.
“Oh. Good-evening, sir.”
She was sitting before a table above which hung a mirror with candles affixed, and a maid was brushing her long mahogany-coloured hair while she tried several different pairs of dangling ear-rings to see which effect she liked best. Her elaborate gown was made of stiff black satin so that by contrast the skin of her arms and shoulders and breasts looked chalk-white, and there were diamonds at her throat and about her wrists. She was in the eighth month of her first pregnancy but seemed scarcely conscious of her unusual bulk, and she looked robustly healthy.
Now, as he entered and crossed the room the maid curtsied and went on with her brushing while Barbara turned her head from one side to the other, making the diamond pendants dance and catch the candle-light. At his appearance a subtle boredom, a kind of polite contempt, had come upon her face. And as he stood looking down at her in obvious perplexity she paid him no further attention, though she knew that he was trying to speak and wanted her help.
“Madame,” he began at last, after taking a deep swallow into his dry throat. “I find that it will be impossible for me to have supper with you this evening.”
“Ridiculous, Roger! His Majesty will be here. He’ll expect you.”
She had finally satisfied herself as to the ear-rings and now began to stick on several small black patches, hearts and diamonds and half-moons; one went beside her right eye, another on the left side of her mouth, a third high on her left temple. She had not glanced at him again after the first careless greeting.
“I think his Majesty will understand well enough, if I’m not present.”
Barbara rolled her eyes, heaving a pained but patient sigh. “Heigh ho! Are we to go through this again?”
He bowed. “We are not, madame. Good-night.”
As he turned and went to the door Barbara sat drumming her nails on the edge of the table, her eyes taking on a dangerous sparkle, and then all at once she pulled away from the maid and got to her feet, raising her arm to secure the last bodkin herself.
“Roger! I want to speak to you!”
His hand on the knob, he turned and faced her. “Madame?”
“Get out of here, Wharton.” She gave a wave of her hand at the maid but started to talk before the girl had had time to leave. “I think you’d better come tonight, Roger. If you don’t his Majesty will think it damned peculiar.”
“I don’t agree, madame. I think his Majesty must find it more peculiar that a man should be content to go tamely and parade his wife’s whoredom before half the Court.”
Barbara gave an unpleasant laugh. “The mistress of a King is not a whore, Roger!” Her eyes suddenly narrowed and hardened and her voice rose. “How often must I tell you that!” Then it fell again to become soft, purring, sarcastic. “Or can it be you haven’t noticed I’m treated with twice as much respect now as I got when I was only the wife of an honourable gentleman?” The inflection she gave the last two words showed her contempt of him and of her own insignificant station as his wife.
He looked at her coldly. “I think there’s a better word for it than respect.”
“Oh? And what’s that pray?”
“Self-interest.”
“Oh, a pox on you and your damned jealousy! I’m sick of your bellow-weathering! But you’ll come to the supper tonight and act as host or by Jesus you’ll smoke for it!”
Suddenly he crossed to her, his pose of indifference gone, his face flushed and contorted with anger. He caught hold of her fore-arm. “Be quiet, madame! You sound like a fish-wife! I was a fool not to have taken you to the country when I first married you—my father warned me you’d disgrace us all! But I’ve learned since then, and I’ve discovered that to some women freedom means license. It seems that you’re one of those women.”
Her eyes, almost on a level with his, stared at him tauntingly. “And if I am,” she said slowly, “what of it?”
All the uncertainty he had shown before her at first had now vanished completely, leaving him poised and determined. “Tomorrow we shall leave for Cornwall. I don’t doubt that two or three years of country quiet will do much to restore your perspective.”