Winsor, Kathleen (8 page)

She
heard only the first part of what he said, for the last seemed of no immediate
importance. "Oh, your Lordship!
Can
I go! I won't be any trouble to
you, I swear it!"

"I
don't know about that," he said slowly. "I think you'll be
aplenty."

It
was mid-afternoon when they rode into London over Whitechapel Road, passing the
many small villages which hung on the edge of the city and which despite their
nearness to the capital differed in no external aspect from Heathstone or
Marygreen. In the open fields cattle grazed, wrenching lazily at the grass, and
cottagers' wives had spread their wash to dry on the bushes. As they rode along
they were recognized for returning Royalists and were cheered wildly. Little
boys ran along beside them and tried to touch their boots, women leant from
their windows, men stopped in the streets to take off their hats and shout.

"Welcome
home!"

"Long
live the King!"

"A
health to his Majesty!"

The
walled City was a pot-pourri of the centuries, old and ugly, stinking and full
of rottenness, but full of colour too and picturesqueness and a decayed sort of
beauty. On all sides it
was surrounded with a wreath of laystalls, piled refuse carted that far and
left, overgrown with stinking-orage. The streets were narrow, some of them
paved with cobblestones but most of them not, and down the center or along the
sides ran open sewage kennels. Posts strung out at intervals served to separate
the carriage-way from the narrow space left to pedestrians. And across the
streets leaned the houses, each story overhanging the one beneath so as to shut
out light and air almost completely from the tightest of the alleys.

Church-spires
dominated the skyline, for there were more than a hundred within the walls and
the sound of their bells was the ceaseless passionately beautiful music of
London. Creaking signs swung overhead painted with golden lambs, blue boars,
red lions, and there were a number of bright new ones bearing the Stuart
coat-of-arms or the profile of a swarthy black-haired man with a crown on his
head. In the country it had been sunny and almost warm but here the fog hung
heavily, thickened with the smoke from the fires of the soap-boilers and
lime-burners, and there was a penetrating chill in the air.

The
streets were crowded: Vendors strolled along crying their wares in an age-old
sing-song which was not intended to be understood, and a housewife could make
almost all necessary purchases at her own doorstep. Porters carried staggering
loads on their backs and swore loudly at whoever interrupted their progress.
Apprentices hung in the shop doorways bawling their recommendations, not
hesitating to grab a customer by the sleeve and urge him inside.

There
were ballad-singers and beggars and cripples, satin-suited young fops and
ladies of quality in black-velvet masks, sober merchants and ragged waifs, an
occasional liveried footman going ahead to make way for the sedan-chair of some
baronet or countess. Most of the traffic was on foot but some travelled in
hackney-coaches which plied for public hire, in chairs, or on horseback, but
when the traffic snarled, as it often did, these were liable to be stalled for
many minutes at a time.

It
took no sharp eye to see at a glance that the Londoner was a different breed
from the country Englishman. He was arrogant with the knowledge of his power,
for he was the kingdom and he knew it. He was noisy and quarrelsome, ready to
start a murderous battle over which man got the walk nearest the wall. He had
supported Parliament eighteen years before but now he prepared joyously for the
return of his legitimate sovereign, drinking his health in the streets,
swearing that he had always loved the Stuarts. He hated a Frenchman for his
speech and his manners, his dress and his religion, and would pelt him with
refuse or blow the froth from a mug of ale into his face before proposing a toast
to his damnation. But he hated a Dutchman or any other foreigner almost as
fiercely, for to him London was the world, and a man worth less for living out
of it.

London—stinking
dirty noisy brawling colourful—was the heart of England, and its citizens ruled
the nation.

Amber
felt that she had come home and she fell in love with it, as she had with Lord
Carlton, at first sight. The intense violent energy and aliveness found a
response in her strongest and deepest emotions. This city was a challenge, a
provocation, daring everything—promising even more. She felt instinctively, as
a good Londoner should, that now she had seen all there was to see. No other
place on earth could stand in comparison.

The
group of horsemen parted company at Bishopsgate, each going his separate way,
and Bruce and Amber went on alone with two of the servingmen. They rode down
Gracious Street and, at the sign of the Royal Saracen, turned and went through
a great archway into the courtyard of the inn. The building enclosed it on
every side and galleries ran all the way around each of the four stories. Bruce
helped her to dismount and they went in. The host was nowhere about and after a
few moments Bruce asked her to wait while he went out to find him.

Amber
watched him go, her eyes shining with pride and admiration and the almost
breathless excitement she felt. I'm in London! It can't be true but it is. I
am
in London! It seemed incredible that her life could have changed so swiftly
and so irrevocably in less than twenty-four hours. For she was determined that
no matter what happened she would never return to Marygreen. Never as long as
she lived.

Wearing
Brace's cloak she moved nearer to the fire, reaching out her hands to its
warmth, and as she did so she became conscious that there were three or four
men sitting over against the diamond-paned casement, drinking their ale and
watching her. She had a quick sense of pleased surprise, for these men were
Londoners, and she turned her head a little to give them a view of her profile
with its delicate slightly tilted nose, full lips, and small round chin.

At
that moment Bruce came back, looking down and grinning at the little man who
walked beside him and who reached scarcely to his shoulder. Evidently he was
the host, and he seemed to be in a state of great excitement.

"By
God, your Lordship!" he was shouting. "But I swear I thought you were
dead! They were here not a half-hour after you'd gone, those Roundhead rogues,
and they tore my house apart to find you! And when they didn't they were in such
a rage they carried me into the courtyard and flung me into the coalhole!"
He made a noise and spat onto the floor. "Bah! Plague take 'em! I hope to
see 'em all strung up like hams on Tyburn Hill!"

Bruce
laughed. "I don't doubt you'll get your wish." By now they had come
to where Amber was standing and the host gave a start, for he had not realized
she was there; then he made her a jerky little bow. "Mrs. St. Clair,"
said Bruce, "may I
introduce our host, Mr. Gumble?" She was relieved that he called her
"Mrs." St. Clair, for only very little girls and professed whores
were called Miss.

Amber
nodded her head and smiled, feeling that she had now advanced too far in the
world to curtsy to an innkeeper But she did have an uncomfortable moment of
wondering if the look he gave her meant that he disapproved of his Lordship
travelling with a woman who was not his wife. Bruce, however, seemed as casual
as if she were his sister, and Mr. Gumble immediately took up the conversation
where he had been interrupted:

"It's
mighty lucky you're not a day later, my lord. I vow and swear my house has
never been so crowded—all England's come to London to welcome his Majesty home!
By the end of the week there won't be a room to let between here and Temple
Bar!"

"How
is it you haven't set a crown on your Saracen to pass him for the King? Half
the signs we've seen are King's Heads or King's Arms."

"Ho!
They are, at that! And have you heard what they're saying now? If the King's
Head is empty—the King's Arms are full!" He shouted with laughter at that,
Bruce grinned, and even the men across the room gave out noisy guffaws. But
Amber did not know enough of his Majesty's reputation to quite understand the
jest.

The
little man took out his handkerchief and mopped at his perspiring brow.
"Ah, well, we'll be mighty glad to have him home, I warrant you. 'Sdeath,
your Lordship! You'd never think what we've been through here! No cards, no
dice, no plays. No drinking, no dancing. My God! They even wanted to make
fornication a capital crime!"

Bruce
laughed. "I'm glad I stayed abroad."

But
again Amber missed the point because she did not know what
"fornication" meant. Still, she smiled appreciatively and tried to
look as though such witticisms were a commonplace to her.

"Well,
enough of this. Your Lordship must be hungry, and perhaps tired. I have the
Flower de Luce still vacant—"

"Good!
It brought me luck last time— Perhaps it will again."

They
started up the stairs and as they went they heard the men below begin to sing,
their voices roaring out in jovial good humour, off key and untuned:

"The King
he loves a bottle, my boys,

The King he
loves a bowl!

He will fill a
bumping glass

To every buxom
lass

And make
cuckolds of us all, my boys.

And make
cuckolds of us all!"

At
the top of the staircase Mr. Gumble unlocked a door and
stepped back to
let them go in. The room was of good size and, in Amber's opinion, very
magnificent, for she had never seen anything like it before.

The
walls were panelled oak, dark and rich, and the chimney piece was also oak,
elaborately carved with patterns of fruit and flowers. The floor was bare and
all the furniture was in the heavy florid style belonging to the early years of
the century, though the chairs and stools had been covered with thick cushions
of sage-green
or
ruby-coloured velvet, worn just enough to have acquired a look of mellowness.

In
the bed chamber was an immense four-poster bed hung with red velvet curtains
which could be pulled at night to enclose the occupants in privacy and
suffocation. Two wardrobes stood against the wall for clothing. There were
several stools and a couple of chairs, a small table with a mirror hung above
it, and a writing-table. One side of the room was filled with long windows and
had doors opening onto the gallery, from which a flight of stairs led down to
the courtyard.

Amber
stared about her, momentarily speechless, while Bruce said, "It looks like
home. We'll take our supper up here— Send whatever you think is best."

After
several assurances that he would furnish anything at all which either of them
might require, Mr. Gumble left—and Amber burst suddenly out of her spell.
Flinging
off
the cloak she ran to look out of the parlour windows, down two stories into the
street. A group of boys had built a fire there and were roasting skewered
chunks of meat in derision of the Rump Parliament; the voices of the men still
singing downstairs filtered up faintly through the solid walls.

"Oh!
London! London!" she cried passionately. "I love you!"

Bruce
smiled, tossing off his hat, and coming up behind her he slid one arm about her
waist. "You fall in love easily." And then, as she turned about
quickly to look up at him he added, "London eats up pretty girls, you
know."

"Not
me!" she assured him triumphantly. "I'm not afraid!"

And
now at last, when it had seemed that nothing would ever change, he was coming
home to England and to his people. Charles Stuart was Charles Lackland no
longer.

Eleven
years before, a little band of Puritan extremists had beheaded his father—and
the groan that had gone up from the watching thousands echoed across Europe. It
was a crime that would forever lie heavily upon English hearts. Exiled in
France, the dead King's eldest son first knew that his efforts to save his
father had failed when his chaplain knelt and addressed him as "your
Majesty." He turned and went into his
bedroom to mourn alone. He found
himself a king with no kingdom, a ruler with no subjects.