“You have a great deal to say about my morals, madame,” snapped Amber, “but you seem willing enough to live on my money!”

Lady Stanhope gave a horrified gasp. “Your money! Good Heavens! what is the world coming to! When a woman marries, her money belongs to her husband! Even you must know that! Live on your money! I’ll have you to know, madame, I scorn the mere thought of it!”

Amber spoke sharply, through her teeth. “Then stop doing it!”

Lady Stanhope jumped to her feet. “Why, you hussy! I’ll bring a suit against you for this! We’ll find out whose money it is, I warrant you!”

Amber got up, dropping the dog onto the floor where he stretched and yawned lazily, putting out his long pink tongue. “If you do you’re a greater fool than I think. The marriage-contract gives me control of all my money. Now get out of here and don’t trouble me again—or I’ll make you sorry for it!” She gave a furious wave of her arm and as Lady Stanhope hesitated, glaring, Amber grabbed up a vase and lifted her hand to throw it. The Dowager Baroness picked up her skirts and went out on the run. But Amber did not enjoy her triumph. Slamming away the vase she collapsed into a chair and began to cry, overwhelmed with the dark reasonless morbidity of her pregnancy.


It was Dr. Fraser who delivered Amber’s son, for many of the Court ladies were beginning to employ doctors rather than midwives—though elsewhere the practice was regarded as merely one more evidence of aristocratic decadence. The child was born at three o’clock one hot stormy October morning; he was a long thin baby with splotched red skin and a black fuzz on top of his head.

A few hours later Charles came in softly and alone to see this latest addition to his numerous family. He bent over the elaborate carved and inlaid cradle placed just beside Amber’s bed and very carefully turned back the white satin coverlet which hung to the floor. A slow smile came onto his mouth.

“Ods-fish!” he whispered. “I swear the little devil looks like me.”

Amber, pale and weak and looking as if all the strength had been drained out of her, lay flat on her back and smiled up at him. “Didn’t you expect him to, Charles?”

He gave her a grin. “Of course I did, my dear.” He took the baby’s tiny fist which had closed firmly over his fingers and touched it to his mouth. “But I’m an ugly fellow for a helpless infant to take after.” He turned to her. “I hope you’re feeling well. I saw the doctor just a few minutes since and he said you had an easy labour.”

“Easy for him,” said Amber, who wanted credit and sympathy for having suffered more than she had. “But I suppose I’m well enough.”

“Of course you are, my dear. Two weeks from now you won’t know you ever had a baby.” He kissed her then and went off so that she might rest. A few hours later Gerald arrived, and woke her up.

Though obviously embarrassed, he came swaggering into the room dressed in a suit of pale-yellow satin with a hundred yards of ribbon looped about his sleeves and breeches, and reeking of orange-flower water. From his silver sword to his lace cravat, from his feather-burdened hat to his richly embroidered gloves he was the perfect picture of a fop, a beau gallant, reared in England, polished in France, inhabiting the Royal Exchange and Chatelin’s ordinary, the tiring-rooms of the theatres and Covent Garden. His prototype was to be seen a dozen times by anyone who cared to stroll along Drury Lane or Pall Mall or any other fashionable thoroughfare in London.

He kissed Amber, as any casual caller might have done, and said brightly, “Well, madame! You’re looking mighty spruce for a lady who’s just laid in! Eh bien, where is he—this new sprig of the house of Stanhope?”

Nan had gone downstairs to the nursery to get him and now she returned bearing the baby on a cushion with his long embroidered gown trailing halfway to the floor. Swaddling was no longer the fashion at Court and this child would never be bound up like a mummy until he could scarcely wriggle.

“There!” said Nan, almost defiantly, but she held him herself and did not offer him to Gerald. “Isn’t he handsome?”

Gerald leaned forward to examine him but kept his hands behind his back; he looked puzzled and uneasy, at a loss for the appropriate comment. “Well! Hello there, young sir! Hmmm—Mort Dieu! but he has a red face, hasn’t he!”

“Well!” snapped Nan. “I’ll warrant you did too!”

Gerald jumped nervously. He was almost as much in awe of Nan as of his wife or mother. “Oh, heavens! I meant no offense, let me perish! He’s—oh, indeed, he’s really very handsome! Why, yes—he looks like his mother, let me perish!” The baby opened his mouth and began to squall; Amber gave a wave of her hand and Nan hurried him from the room. Left alone with her, Gerald began to fidget. He took out his snuffbox, the last word in affectation among the fops, and applied a pinch to each nostril. “Well, madame, no doubt you wish to rest. I’ll trouble you no longer. The truth on it is, I’m engaged to go to the play with some gentlemen of my acquaintance.”

“By all means, my lord. Go along. Thanks for waiting on me.”

“Oh, not at all, madame, I protest. Thank you for admitting me. Your servant, madame.” He kissed her again, a frightened hasty peck at the tip of her nose, bowed, and started for the door. As at a sudden afterthought he paused and looked around over one shoulder. “Oh, by the way, madame, what d’ye think we shall name him?”

Amber smiled. “Charles, if it pleases your Lordship.”

“Charles? Oh! Yes—mais oui! Of course! Charles—” He left hastily and just as he went out the door she saw him whip a handkerchief from his pocket and apply it to his forehead.


Amber’s up-sitting was a triumphant occasion.

Her rooms were crowded to capacity with the first lords and ladies of England. She served them wine and cakes and accepted their kisses and effusive compliments most graciously. They were forced to admit to one another that the child was undoubtedly a Stuart, but they also observed with malicious satisfaction that it was as ugly as the King had been when he was first born. Amber did not think he was pretty either; but perhaps he would improve in time, and anyway the important thing was that he looked like Charles. And when the baby was christened, Charles acted as godfather and presented her with a silver dinner-service, simple and beautiful, but also expensive enough; his son received the traditional gift of the twelve silver Apostle spoons.

As Amber recovered she began to consider how she might permanently rid herself of her troublesome mother-in-law.

Lucilla did not intend to return to the country, she was extravagant, and in spite of Amber’s warning she persisted in sending the tradesmen to her for payment. Amber put them off, for she had in mind a scheme which she hoped would compel the Baroness to meet her own obligations. She hoped to find a husband for her. Lucilla still talked a good deal of the strictness and formality which had been in vogue during her youth and professed to be very much shocked by the new manners, but nevertheless she had acquired some of those manners herself. No actress cut her gowns any lower; no Maid of Honour was more flirtatious; no vizard-mask plying her trade in the pit had her face more painted and patched. She was as gay and, she thought, as appealing as a kitten.

She did not care for men her own age but preferred the twenty-five-year-old sparks, merry young fellows who bragged of the maidenheads they had taken and considered it a piece of hilarious wit to break the watchman’s head when he tried to arrest them for disturbing the peace. To the Dowager Baroness they represented all the excitement and liveliness she had missed and since she felt herself no older than they she refused to believe the years had really changed her. But if she was not aware of the difference, they were, and they escaped her whenever they could to seek out a pretty young woman of fifteen or seventeen. The Baroness, in their estimation, was an old jade with no fortune to offset that handicap and they considered that she was making a fool of herself.

There was one of them in particular to whom she seemed most attracted. He was Sir Frederick Fothergill, a brash confident young fop who was seen everywhere it was fashionable to be seen and who did everything it was fashionable to do. He was tall, thin, effeminately handsome, but he was also an ardent duellist and had distinguished himself as a volunteer against the Dutch during the past two years.

Amber inquired into his circumstances and learned that he was the son of a man who had not profited by the Restoration—as most of the Royalists had not—and that he was deep in debt and constantly going deeper. He lived an expensive life, bought fine clothes and kept his coach, gambled without much luck and was often compelled to sneak out of his lodgings or to stay with friends to avoid the dunning of his creditors. Amber guessed that he would be glad to find so apparently simple a solution to his problems.

She sent for him one morning and he came to her apartments. She had dismissed the tradesmen but there were still several others in the room: Nan and half-a-dozen women servants, a dressmaker just gathering up her materials to leave, Tansy and the dog, and Susanna. Susanna stood with her plump elbows on Amber’s crossed knees, her great green eyes staring up solemnly at her mother who was explaining that young ladies should not snatch off the wigs of gentlemen. She had experimented once with the King’s periwig, found that it came off, and had since made a grab at every man who leaned close enough. Now, however, she nodded her head in docile agreement.