Amber made a sound of disgust, throwing the apple-core across the room into the fireplace. “That old flesh-broker would pimp for the devil himself if there was a farthing to be got by it!”

Most of her time, when she was alone, she spent learning to read and to write and she undertook both with the same enthusiasm she had had for her dancing and singing and guitar lessons. Hundreds of times she wrote her name and Bruce’s, drawing big hearts around them, but she always burnt the papers before Michael should see them—partly because she knew it would not be tactful to let the man who was keeping her find that she was in love with someone else, but also because she could not bear the thought of discussing Bruce with anyone. Her own signature was a long sprawl of which only the initial letters were made large and distinguishable, and when she showed Michael specimens of her handwriting he laughed and told her it was so illegible it might be mistaken for that of a countess.

One wet early October afternoon she lay stretched out flat on her stomach on the bed, mouthing over the text of one of the bawdy illustrated books which he had given her to practice on, an English edition of Aretino’s sonnets. Hearing the key turn in the lock and the door of the other room open, she called over her shoulder: “Michael? Come in here! I can’t make this out—”

His voice, solemn for once, answered her. “Come here, nephew.”

Thinking that he was playing some joke she leapt off the bed and ran to the doorway, but stopped on the threshold with a gasp of astonishment and dismay. For with him was an old man, a sour prim thin-nosed old gentleman with a forbidding scowl and a look of having been preserved in vinegar. Amber took a startled step backward and one hand went to the throat of her deeply opened white shirt, but it was too late. He could never mistake her for a boy now.

“You said that you were entertaining your nephew, sirrah!” said the old man sternly, drawing down his tufted brows and frowning back at Michael. “Where is he?”

“That is he, Mr. Gripenstraw,” said Michael, respectfully, but nevertheless with an air of whimsical unconcern.

Mr. Gripenstraw looked at Amber again, over the tops of his square-cut green spectacles, and he screwed his mouth from side to side. Amber’s hand dropped and she spoke to Michael, pleading.

“I’m sorry, Michael. I thought you were alone.”

He made a gesture, motioning her into the bedroom, and she went, closing the door but standing next to it so that she could hear what was said between them. Oh, God in Heaven! she thought despairingly, rubbing the palms of her hands together. Now what will happen to me? What if he finds out who I—Then she heard Mr. Gripenstraw’s voice again.

“Well, Mr. Godfrey—and what excuse have you to make this time?”

“None, sir.”

“How long has this baggage been on your premises?”

“One month, sir.”

“One month! Great God! Have you no respect for the ancient and honourable institution of English law? Because of my regard for your father I have overlooked many of your past misdemeanours, but this is beyond anything! If it were not for the honour and esteem in which I hold Sir Michael I would have you sent to the Fleet, to learn a better view of the conduct befitting a young man. As it is, sirrah, you are expelled. Never show me your face again. And get that creature out of here—within the hour!”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

The door opened. “Let me tell you this, sirrah—there is nothing a young man may get by wenching but duels, claps, and bastards. Good-day!” The door closed noisily.

Amber waited a moment and then flung open her own door. “Oh, Michael! You’re expelled! And it’s all my fault!”

She began to cry but he came swiftly across to take her into his arms. “Here, here, sweetheart! What the devil! We’re well rid of this scurvy place. Come now, put on your hat and doublet and we’ll find us lodgings where a man may live as he likes.”


He took two rooms in an inn called the Hoop and Grapes, situated in St. Clement’s Lane, which wound up out of Fleet Street. It was outside the City gates in the newer and more fashionable west-end of the town. Drury Lane was nearby, and Covent Garden, and not five minutes walk away was Gibbon’s Tennis Court in Vere Street, which had become the Theatre Royal.

He bought her some clothes, second-hand at first because she needed them immediately—though later she had some made—and she found herself precipitated into a whirl of gaiety and pleasure. She had met several of his friends while they were still at the Temple, but now she met many more. They were young men of good family, future barons and lords; officers in the King’s or the Duke’s guards; actors from one of the four public theatres. And she met, too, the women they kept, pretty girls who sold ribbons or gloves at the Royal Exchange, professed harlots, actresses, all of them wise and gay and no more than Amber’s age—flowers that had bloomed since the Restoration.

They went to the theatres and sat in the pit where the women wore their masks and sucked on China oranges, bandying pleasantries with everyone in earshot. They went to the gambling-houses in the Haymarket and once Amber was thrown into a frenzy of excitement when a rumour swept through that the King was coming. But he did not and she was bitterly disappointed, for she had never forgotten his expression that day he had looked at her. They went to the New Spring Gardens at Lambeth and to the Mulberry Gardens, which was temporarily the height of fashion. They went to dinner at all the popular taverns, Lockets near Charing Cross which was always filled with young officers in their handsome uniforms, the Bear at the Bridgefoot, the notorious Dagger Tavern in High Holborn, a rough-and-tumble place that abounded in riots and noise but was famous for its fine pies. They went to see the puppet-play in Covent Garden, currently the resort of all the fashionable world. At night they often drove about town in a hackney, contesting as to who could break the most windows by throwing copper pennies through them.

And when they were not out their rooms were full of young people who came in at all hours of the day and night, ordered food and drink sent up, played cards and got drunk and borrowed their bed for love-making. None of them had a serious thought or occupation, beyond avoiding their creditors. Pleasure was their creed. The old views of morality had gone as much out of fashion as high-crowned hats and, like them, were now disdained and ridiculed. Indifference, cynicism, selfishness and egoistic opportunism were the marks of quality. Gentleness, honesty, devotion—these were held in contempt.

The gentlemen of the old school, of the decorous Court of Charles I, were blaming the present King for the manners and behaviour of the new generation. And while it was true that Charles neither wished nor tried to set up strict standards, the same conditions had existed during the late years of the Protectorate, though then more than half concealed under a mantle of hypocrisy. The Civil Wars, not his Majesty, had sowed the seeds for plants suddenly shot to full growth since his return.

But Amber was not even remotely aware of the force of trends and currents.

She was in love with this life. She liked the noise and confusion, the continual bustle and disorder, the reckless devil-may-care gaiety. She knew that it was wholly different from the country and was glad that it was, for here she might do as she liked and no one was shocked or admonitory. It never even occurred to her that this was perhaps not the usual life of all gentlemen of all times.

None of the young men was interested in matrimony, which had fallen into such disrepute that it was considered only as the last resort of a man so far encumbered by debt he could see no other way out. Good manners forbade a man and wife to love—scarcely permitted them even to like—each other, and a happy marriage was regarded with scorn, not envy. This was Amber’s view, for Luke Channell had convinced her that marriage was the most miserable state a woman could endure, and she talked as glibly as any rake about the absurdity of being a wife or husband. In her heart she held a secret reservation, for Bruce Carlton—but she was almost willing to believe now that she would never see him again.

Only once did her confident audacity receive a jar and that was when, about mid-October, she discovered that she was pregnant again. Penelope Hill had warned her that the most careful precautions sometimes failed, but she had never expected that they might fail her. For a time she was wildly distracted. All her pleasures would be ruined if she had to go again through the tedious uncomfortable ugly business of having a baby, and she determined that she would not do it. Even in Marygreen she had known women who had induced abortions when pregnancy recurred too often. She had wanted Bruce Carlton’s child, but she did not want another man’s now, or ever.

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.