She began shooing them out and the three rushed everywhere at once, gathering up boxes and bottles and combs, flocking out the door of the bedroom just as he reached it. Bowing and curtsying as they went, they could not resist looking back gleefully over their shoulders to see what he would do. Amber stood in the middle of the room, lips parted, not even breathing, her eyes glistening with expectation. He walked through the doorway smiling and then suddenly stopped, surprise on his face, at the threshold.

“Holy Jesus!” he said softly. “How lovely you are!”

Amber relaxed. “Oh—do you like me this way?”

He came toward her and took the fingers of one hand to turn her slowly about, while she looked back at him over her shoulder—unwilling to miss the slightest expression of pleasure on his face. “You’re all the dreams of fair women a man ever had.” At last he picked up her cloak. “Now—Where shall we go?”

She knew exactly and was eager to set out. “I want to see a play!”

He grinned. “A play it is—but we’ll have to hurry. It’s almost four now.”


It was after four-thirty when they arrived at the old Red Bull Playhouse in upper St. John Street, and the performance had been under way for more than an hour. The theatre was hot and stuffy, almost humid, and it smelt strongly of sweat and unwashed bodies and powerful perfumes. There was a bustle and stir over the house which never ceased, and dozens of heads turned curiously as they went to their seats in the fore of one of the boxes. Even the actors took time out to give them a glance.

Amber was completely intoxicated, trying to see everything at once, thrilled by the whole noisy, bad-smelling, ill-bred but strangely exciting conglomeration. She felt that the triumph was peculiarly her own—and did not realize they would have stared at any other pretty woman arriving late. Any diversion was a welcome one, for neither players nor audience seemed seriously interested in the performance.

All the bottom floor of the house was called the pit and its benches were crowded with about three hundred young men who buzzed eternally among themselves. A few women were seated there also, most of them rather well-dressed but boldly over-painted, and when Amber asked Bruce in a loud whisper who they were he replied that they were prostitutes. There had been no prostitutes in Marygreen and if there had they would have been set up in the stocks and pelted with refuse by every right-thinking farmer and housewife. And so she was amazed to see that here the young men used them with apparent respect, talked to them openly, and even occasionally kissed or embraced one of them. Nor did the ladies themselves seem in any wise self-conscious or remorseful. They laughed and chattered loudly, locked happy and quite at their ease.

Ranged against the apron-shaped stage, which extended out into the pit, stood half-a-dozen girls with baskets over their arms, bawling out their wares—oranges and lemons and sweetmeats—which they sold at exorbitant prices.

Above the pit, but down close to the stage, was a balcony divided into boxes, and there sat the ladies of quality, gorgeously gowned and jewelled, with their husbands or lovers. Above that was another balcony filled with women and rowdies. And in one still higher were the apprentices who beat time to the music with their cudgels, gave a loud hum by way of disapproval and, when really indignant, sounded their cat-calls—loud whistles that filled the theatre.

Essentially the audience was aristocratic—the harlots and ’prentices being almost the only outsiders—and the ladies and gentlemen came to see and to be seen, to gossip and to flirt. The play was a secondary consideration.

Amber found nothing to disappoint her. It was all she had expected, and more.

Taut with excitement and happiness, she sat very straight beside Bruce, her eyes round and sparkling and travelling from one side of the theatre to the other. So this was the great world! Yet she could not but be poignantly aware of her new gown, her elaborate coiffure, the scent of her perfume, and the unfamiliar but pleasurable feeling of cosmetics on her skin, the silken caress of her fur muff beneath her fingers, the voluptuous display of her breasts.

And then, as she looked around at the boxes near them, she encountered the eyes of two women who were leaning slightly forward, watching her—and the expression on their faces was a sudden rude shock.

They were both handsome, richly dressed, sparkling with jewels, and they had an indefinable hauteur and confidence which she already associated with quality. Bruce had bowed and spoken to them when they came in—as he had spoken to several other men and women nearby and had acknowledged waves of greeting from gentlemen in the pit. But now, as her eyes met theirs, they gave her a sweeping contemptuous glance, exchanged smiles with each other; one woman murmured something behind her fan—and with a concerted lift of the eyebrows they both looked away.

For an instant Amber continued to stare at them, surprised and hurt, almost sick with humiliation, and then she looked down at her fan and bit her lower lip to force back the sudden impulse of tears. Oh! she thought in passionate mortification, they think I’m a harlot! They despise me! All at once the glory was gone from her outing into the gay world and she wished she had never come, had never exposed herself to their scorn and disdain.

When Bruce, who had evidently seen the exchange of glances, gave her hand a warm reassuring pressure her spirits lifted a little and she flung him a look of gratitude. But though she returned her eyes to the stage then and tried to take an interest in what was going on she found it impossible. She only wished that the play would end so that she might get back to the comforting seclusion of their apartment. How ashamed Sarah would be, how furious Uncle Matt, to see to what a condition she had come!

At last the epilogue had been spoken and the audience began to rise. Bruce turned to her with a smile, putting her cloak over her shoulders. “Well, how did you like it?”

“I—I liked it.” She did not look him in the eyes and dared not glance about for fear of confronting the two women again, or some other sneering face.

Below in the pit several of the men were clustering about the orange-girls, kissing them, handling them familiarly, while others indulged in horseplay among themselves, clapping one another on the back and pulling off hats. The actor who had impersonated Juliet, still in his long blond wig and a gown with padded chest, came out and stood talking to some of the beaus. Others were climbing up onto the stage and going back behind the scenes. Overhead they could hear tramping feet making for the exits, and the ladies and gentlemen about them were pausing in small groups—the women kissing one another and squealing while the men smiled with smug tolerance. But all the while Amber stood with a troubled frown on her face, her eyes fixed on Bruce’s cravat, wishing they would all get out.

“Shall we go, my dear?” He offered her his arm.

Outside the theatre they made their way through the loiterers to his coach where it stood in line with several others, all jamming the streets until foot-traffic was almost at a standstill. Everyone was pushing to get through and vendors and porters were swearing angrily. All of a sudden a beggar thrust himself before them, making weird undistinguishable sounds, his mouth open, and he put his face up to Amber’s to show her where his tongue bled from having been cut out. Sickened with pity and a little frightened she drew closer to Bruce, holding his arm.

Bruce tossed the man a coin. “Here. Out of the way.”

“Oh—that poor man! Did you see him? Why did they do that to him?”

They had reached the coach and he handed her in. “There was nothing wrong with him. It’s a trick they have of rolling their tongues out of sight and poking them with a stick until they bleed.”

“But why doesn’t he work instead of doing that?”

“He does work. Don’t think begging’s the easiest profession in the world.”

She sat down while he turned to talk to two young men who had called his name, and she saw them both looking at her from over his shoulder, frank appraisal in their eyes. For one bold instant Amber returned their stares, lifting her brows and slanting the corners of her eyes—and then suddenly she blushed and looked the other way. Oh, Lord! they were most likely thinking the same thing about her that the women had! But still she could not resist sneaking them another slow cautious glance—and her eyes met once more the full stare of the handsomer one. Swiftly she glanced away. And yet—there was no doubt it did not seem so insulting, coming from a man.

Bruce finally turned back, spoke to the driver and got in, sitting down beside her as the coach gave a jog and started to move. He took one of her hands in his. “You’ve set the town by its ears. That was my Lord Buckhurst and he says you’re far more beautiful than Barbara Palmer.”

“You mean the King’s mistress?”

“Yes. How the devil do you manage to get all the current gossip?” He looked down at her, amused as though she were a pretty doll or a plaything.

“The dressmaker told me about her. Bruce—who were those two ladies? The ones in the next box that waved to you?”

“Wives of friends of mine. Why?”

She looked down at her fan, frowning, counting the sticks. “Did you see how they looked at me? Like this—” She pulled her face into a sudden grimace, a perfect though somewhat exaggerated and malicious imitation of the stares they had given her. “They think I’m a harlot—I know they do!”