Forever Amber

by Kathleen Winsor

  She talked to one of the girls she had met, a 'Change woman named Mally, who was rumoured to have been given a great sum of money by no one less than the Duke of Buckingham: the girl directed her to a midwife in Hanging Sword Alley who she said had a numerous clientele among young women of their class and way of life. Without telling Michael anything about it she went to the midwife, who set her for an hour or more over a pot of steaming herbs, gave her a strong dose of physic, and told her to ride out to Paddington and back in a hackney. To Amber's immense relief some one, or all, of the remedies had been successful. Mally told her that every twenty-eight days she followed the practice herself of taking an apothecary's prescription, a long soaking in a hot tub, and a ride in a hell-cart.

  "Gentlemen nowadays," said Mally, "you'll find, have no patience with a woman who troubles 'em in that way. And, Lord knows, with matters as they stand a woman needs what good looks she can be mistress of." She lifted up her plump breasts and crossed her silken ankles, giving a smug little smile.

  At first Amber was in considerable apprehension whenever she left the house—even though she habitually went cloaked and hooded and masked—for fear a constable would stop her. The memory of Newgate weighed on her like an incubus. But even more terrifying was the knowledge that if caught again she would very likely be either hanged or transported, and she was already so rabid a Londoner that one punishment seemed almost as bad as the other.

  And then one day she learned something which seemed to offer her a solution, and an exciting new adventure as well. She had been surprised at the elegant clothes worn off-stage by all the actors she had seen, and one night she commented idly about it to Michael.

  "Ye gods, they all look like lords. How much money do they get?"

  "Fifty or sixty pounds a year."

  "Why, Charles Hart had on a sword tonight must have cost him that much!"

  "Probably did. They're all head over ears in debt."

  Amber, who was getting ready for bed, now backed up to have him unlace the tight little boned busk she wore. "Then I don't envy 'em," she said, jingling the bracelet on her right wrist. "Poor devils. They won't look so spruce in Newgate."

  Michael was concentrating on the busk, but at last he had it unlaced and gave her a light slap on the rump. "They won't go to Newgate. An actor can't be arrested, except on a special warrant which must be procured from the King."

  She swirled around, sudden eager interest on her face. "They can't be arrested! Why?"

  "Why—because they're his Majesty's servants, and enjoy protection of the Crown."

  Well—

  That was something to think about.

  This was not the first time, however, that she had cast covetous eyes toward the stage. Sitting with Michael in the pit, she had seen how the gallants all stared at the actresses and flocked back to the tiring-room after the play to paw over them and take them out to supper. She knew that they were kept by some of the greatest nobles at Court, that they dressed magnificently, occupied handsome lodgings and often had their own coaches to ride in. They seemed—for all that they were treated with a certain careless contempt by the very men who courted them —to be the most fortunate creatures on earth. Amber was filled with envy to see all this attention and applause going to others, when she felt that she deserved it at least as much as they.

  She had looked them over narrowly and was convinced that she was better looking than any of them. Her voice was good, she had lost her country drawl, and her figure was lovely. Everyone was agreed to that. What other qualifications did an actress need? Few of them had so many.

  Not many days later she got her opportunity.

  With Michael and four other couples she was at supper in a private room on the "Folly," a floating house of entertainment moored just above the ruined old Savoy Palace. They sat over their cheesecake and wine, cracking open raw oysters and watching the performance of a naked dancing-woman.

  Amber sat on Michael's lap; he had one arm hung over her shoulder with his hand slipped casually into the bodice of her gown. But all his attention was on the dancing-girl, and Amber, offended by his interest in the performance, got up and left him to sit down beside one man who had his back turned while he continued to eat his supper. He was Edward Kynaston, the fabulously handsome young actor from the King's Theatre, who had taken women's parts before the hiring of actresses had begun.

  He was very young, no more than nineteen, with skin like a girl's, loosely waving blond hair and blue eyes, a slender but well-proportioned body. There was nothing to mar his perfection but the sound of his voice which, from long practice of keeping it high-pitched, carried a kind of unpleasant whine. He smiled at her as she took a chair next to his.

  "Edward, how d'you go about getting on the stage?"

  "Why? Have you a mind to acting?"

  "Don't you think I could? I hope I'm pretty enough." She smiled, slanting her eyes.

  He looked her over thoughtfully. "You certainly are. You're prettier than anyone we have—or anyone Davenant has, either, for the matter of that." Davenant managed the Duke of York's Theatre, for there were only two licensed companies (though some others continued performing), and rivalry was sharp between His Majesty's and His Highness's Comedians. "I suppose you think to show yourself on the boards and get some great man for a keeper."

  "Maybe I do," she admitted. "They say there's a mighty fine profit to be got that way."

  Her voice had a soft tone of insinuation, for Kynaston, everyone knew, had numerous admirers among the gentlemen and had received many valuable gifts from them, most of which he shrewdly turned into money and banked with a goldsmith. Among his lovers he was said to number the immensely rich Buckingham, who had already begun the ruin of the greatest fortune in England, squandering what he had as recklessly as if it came out of a bottomless well.

  Kynaston did not take offense at her suggestion, but he had a kind of feminine modesty which, for all that he sold himself in the open market, lent him the appearance of dignity and virtue.

  "Perhaps there is, madame. Would you like me to present you to Tom Killigrew?" Thomas Killigrew was a favourite courier and manager of the King's Theatre.

  "Oh, would you! When?" She was excited, and a little fearful.

  "Rehearsal will be over about eleven tomorrow. Come then if you like."

  Amber dressed with great care for her interview and, though it was a cold dark early-November morning with no shred of sun filtering through the heavy smoke and fog, she put on her finest gown and cloak. All morning long her stomach had been churning and the palms of her hands felt wet. In spite of her eagerness she was miserably nervous, and at the last moment such a panic of doubt swept through her that she had to bully herself into going out the door.

  When she reached the theatre, however, and took off her mask the attendant gave a low whistle; she laughed and made him an impudent face, suddenly relieved.

  "I've come to see Edward Kynaston. He's expecting me. Can I go in?"

  "You're wasting your time, sweetheart," he told her. "Kynaston doesn't give a hang for the finest woman that wears a head. But go along if you will."

  The stage was just clearing and Killigrew was down in the pit talking to Kynaston and Charles Hart and one of the actresses who stood on the apron-shaped stage above them. It was dark inside, for only the candles in the chandelier that hung above the stage were lighted, and the cold seemed to bring out a strong sour smell. Orange-peelings littered the aisle and the green-cloth-covered benches were dirty with the footmarks of the men who had stood upon them. Empty now of people and of noise there was something strangely dismal and shabby, almost sad, about it. But Amber did not notice.

  For a moment she hesitated, then she started down the aisle toward them. At the sound of her heels they looked around, Kynaston lifting his hand to wave. They watched her come, Kynaston, Charles Hart, Killigrew, and the woman on the stage, Beck Marshall. She had met Charles Hart, a handsome man who had been on the stage for many years,
often risking imprisonment to act during the dour years of the Commonwealth. And once she had been casually introduced to Beck Marshall who stood now, hands on her hips, looking her over, not missing anything about her gown or hair or face, and then with a switch of her skirt walked off. The three men remained.

  Kynaston presented her to Killigrew—an aristocratic, middle-aged man with bright-blue eyes and white hair and an old-fashioned, pointed chin-beard. He did not look as though he would be the father of the notorious Harry Killigrew, a bold rash drunken young rake whose exploits caused some surprise even at Court. Amber had seen Harry once, molesting the women in St. James's Park, but she had been masked and well muffled and he had not seen her.

  She made her curtsy to Killigrew, who said: "Kynaston tells me that you want to go on the stage."

  Amber gave him her most alluring smile, which she had practiced several times in the mirror just before leaving home. But the corners of her mouth quivered and her chest felt tight. "Yes," she said softly. "I do. Will you give me a part?"

  Killigrew laughed. "Take off your cloak and walk up onto the stage, so I can have a look at you."

  Amber pulled loose the cord which tied in a bow at her throat, flung back the cloak, and Charles Hart offered his hand to lift her onto the platform. Ribs held high to show off her pert breasts and little waist, she walked the length of the stage, turning, raising her skirts above her knees to let him see her legs. Hart and Killigrew exchanged significant glances.

  At last, having appraised her as carefully as any man buying a horse, he asked: "What else can you do, Mrs. St. Clare, besides look beautiful?"

  Charles Hart, stuffing his pipe with tobacco, gave a cynical snort. "What else should she do? What else can any of 'em do?"

  "What the devil, Hart! Will you convince her she needn't even try to learn to act? Come, my dear, what else do you know?"

  "I can sing, and I can dance."

  "Good! That's half an actress's business."

  "God knows," muttered Charles Hart. He could act himself and thought the theatre was running amuck these days with its emphasis on nothing but female legs and breasts. "I don't doubt to see 'Hamlet' put on one day with a Gravediggers' dance."

  Killigrew gave her a signal and Amber began to dance. It was a Spanish saraband which she had learned more than a year before and had since performed many times, for Black Jack and his friends in Whitefriars, more recently for Michael and all their acquaintance. Twirling, swaying, dipping, she moved swiftly about the stage, all her self-consciousness gone now in her passionate determination to please. After that she sang a bawdy street-ballad which burlesqued the old Greek fable of Ariadne and Theseus, and her voice had a full voluptuous quality which would have made a far more innocent song seem sensual and exciting. When at last she sank to a curtsy and then lifted her head to smile at him with eager questioning, he clapped his hands.

  "You're as spectacular as a show of fireworks on the Thames. Can you read a part?"

  "Yes," said Amber, though she had never tried.

  "Well, never mind about that now. Next Wednesday we're going to give a performance of 'The Maid's Tragedy.' Come to rehearsal tomorrow morning at seven and I'll have a part in it for you."

  Half delirious with joy, Amber ran home to tell Michael the great news. But though she did not expect to play the heroine, she was nevertheless seriously disappointed the next morning to learn that she was to be merely one of a crowd of Court ladies-in-waiting, and that she had not so much as a single word to speak. She was disappointed, too, at her salary, which was only forty-five pounds a year. She realized by now that the five hundred pounds given her by Bruce Carlton had been a considerable sum of money, if only she had had the wit to keep it.

  But both Kynaston and Charles Hart encouraged her, saying that if she attracted the attention of the audience as they knew she would, he would put her in more important parts. An actress had no such period of long training and apprenticeship as did an actor. Pretty young women were very much in demand for the stage, and if the men in the audience liked them they could sound like screech owls and act no better than puppets.

  She quickly established a gay friendliness with the actors and was prepared to do likewise with the women, but they would have none of it. Despite the fact that women had been on the stage for no more than a year they had already formed a tight clique, and were jealous and distrustful of any outsider trying to break into their closed ranks. They ignored her when she spoke to them, tittered and whispered behind her back, hid her costume on the day of the dress rehearsal, all in the obvious hope of making her so miserable that she would quit. But Amber had never believed that other women were important to her success and happiness, and she did not intend to let them trouble her now.

  The stage fascinated her. She loved everything about the theatre: The hours of rehearsal, when she listened and watched intensely, memorizing the lines of half the other characters. The thrilling day when she was sworn in at the Lord Chamberlain's Office as his Majesty's servant. The occult mysteries of stage make-up, into which she was now initiated, black and white and red paint, false-noses, false-beards, false-hair. The marvellous collection of scenery and other apparatus which made it possible to show the moon coming up at night, to reveal the sun breaking through a mist, to simulate a bird's song or the rattle of hail. The costumes, some of which were gorgeous things given by the nobles, others mere cheap imitations made of shoddy and bombazine. She took it to her heart, made it a part of her, in the same way she had London.

  At last the great day arrived and, after a restless turning night full of apprehension and doubts, she got up and dressed and set out very early for the theatre. On the way she saw one of the play-bills nailed up on a post and stopped to read it: "At the Theatre Royal this present Wednesday, being the Ninth day of December will be presented a play called: The Maid's Tragedy beginning exactly at three after Noon. By His Majesty's Servants. Vivat Rex." And when she reached the theatre a flag was already flying from the roof to announce that there would be a performance that day.

  Oh, Lord! she thought. What ever made me think I wanted to go on the stage?

  It was still so early that she found the entire theatre empty but for a couple of scene-shifters and the tiring-woman, Mrs. Scroggs, a dirty profane drunken old harridan whose daughter Killigrew hired at twenty shillings a week for the use of his actors. With her easy camaraderie and frequent gifts of money Amber had purchased her friendship at least, and Scroggs was as ardently partisan in her favour as the women were violently antagonistic. By the time the other actresses began to arrive she was painted and dressed and had gone out to watch the audience from behind the curtains.

  The pit was already crowded, fops, prostitutes and orange-girls, all of them noisy and laughing, shouting to acquaintances all over the theatre. The galleries were spotted with men and women, and 'prentices were trying out their cat-calls. Finally the boxes began to fill with splendidly gowned and jewelled ladies, languid dreamy creatures who were bored with the play before it had even begun. The very boards and walls seemed now to have changed, enchanted by the glamour and richness of the audience.

  Amber stood looking out, her throat dry and her heart beating with anticipation, when suddenly Charles Hart appeared behind her, slipped an arm about her waist and kissed her cheek. She gave a startled little jump.

  "Oh!" She laughed nervously and swallowed.

  "Now, now, sweetheart!" he said briskly. "Ready to lay the town by its ears?"

  She gave him a pleading look. "Oh, I don't know! Michael's in the pit with a score of friends to cry me up. But I'm scared!"

  "Nonsense. What are you scared of? Those high-born sluts and fop-doodles out there? Don't let them scare you—" He paused, as suddenly the fiddlers in the music-room above the stage struck up the first bars of a gay country air. "Listen! His Majesty's come!" And he drew back the curtains so that he and Amber could look out.

  There was a scraping of benches and a low running murmur
as they got to their feet, turning to face the King's box which was in the first balcony in the center just above the stage, gilded and draped with scarlet velvet and emblazoned with the royal coat-of-arms. And then, as the King appeared, the music swelled and the hats of the men swept off with a flourish. The tall and swarthy Charles, smiling easily, lifting one hand in greeting, dominated the group of men and women who surrounded him; but no one overlooked Barbara Palmer at his side, glittering with jewels, haughty and beautiful and a little sullen. They seemed very magnificent and awe-inspiring; and staring at them from behind the curtains Amber was suddenly overcome with an agonizing sense of her own insignificance.

  "Oh," she breathed unhappily. "They look like gods!"

  "Even gods, my dear, use a chamberpot," said Charles Hart, and then he walked away, back to the tiring-room to get his cloak, for he was to speak the prologue. Amber looked after him and laughed, somewhat relieved.

  But her eyes returned immediately to Mrs. Palmer, who was leaning back in her chair, smiling and speaking to a man who sat behind her. As she looked Amber's face hardened with hate. Her fingers with their long nails curled involuntarily and she had a sharp satisfying image of clawing across the woman's face, tearing away her beauty and confident smile. The jealousy she felt was as violent and painful as on that far-away night when she had looked down into the street and seen Bruce Carlton's head bend to kiss a red-haired woman leaning out of her coach and laughing.

  Soon, however, she was surrounded by the other actresses, who came trooping up behind her, giggling, elbowing her aside —until she gave one of them a sharp jab in the ribs—lifting back the curtain to wave at their admirers below. All of them seemed as merrily unconcerned as though this were nothing but another rehearsal. But Amber was wishing desperately that she might bolt and run, out of the theatre, back to the quiet and security of her own rooms, and hide there. She knew that she could never force herself to go out onto the stage and face those hard smart critical people whose eyes and tongues would go over her like rakes.