Kathleen Winsor - Forever Amber

All of a sudden his hands took hold of her arms and forced them down. Swiftly he turned and almost before she could realize it had happened Bruce and their son had crossed the gang-plank onto the ship. It began to move, very slowly, and the sails snapped out white and full in the wind, catching up the ship as though life had gone through her. The little boy took off his hat and waved.

“We’ll be back, Mother!”

Amber gave a sharp cry and started forward, along the wharf, but the ship was getting away from her. Bruce was half turned, giving directions to the men, but all at once he walked swiftly back and his hand dropped about the boy’s shoulders. He raised one arm in a goodbye salute and though Amber’s hand started to go up in reply she instead put her bent forefinger into her mouth and bit down hard. For a long moment she stood there, lost and forlorn, and then she lifted the other arm and gave them a spiritless little wave.

ALL AROUND THE room men paused in their eating to stare, dumfounded, toward the doorway.

At twelve o’clock the Sun Tavern, just behind the new-built Royal Exchange in Threadneedle Street, was always crowded, for there the great merchants came to eat dinner, transact part of their business, and discuss the news of the day. Not a few of them had been talking about Buckingham, whose plight was regarded with more sympathy in the City than it was at Court, when the Duke strolled in.

One white-haired old man looked up, his weak blue eyes popping. “By God! What d’ye know! Speak of the Devil—”

There was nothing about his Grace to suggest a man in hiding, or one whose life had been jeopardized by his own treasonous acts. He wore his usual blonde periwig and a splendid suit consisting of black-velvet breeches and gold-brocade coat, with a flash of long green-satin vest showing. He was as cool and casual as any gentleman stopping in at his favourite ordinary before the play.

But instantly they left their tables and surrounded him on all sides. Buckingham had taken pains to insinuate himself among these men and they were convinced that he was the one friend they had at Court. Like them, he hated Holland and wanted to see it crushed. Like them, he favoured religious toleration—and though this was merely from personal indifference to any religion, they did not know it. Out of all the scratch and rubble of his life Buckingham had saved this much—the good opinion of the nation’s most powerful body of men.

“Welcome back, your Grace! We were speaking of you even now and despairing when we should see you again!”

“There’s been a rumour you’d gone abroad!”

“My Lord! Is it really you? You’re not an apparition?”

Buckingham strolled through them toward the fireplace, smiling, clasping the hands outstretched to him as he went. The hereditary Villiers charm was a potent weapon when he cared to use it. “It’s I, gentlemen. No apparition, I assure you.” He gave a nod of his head to summon a waiter, told him what he would have for his dinner and admonished the man to be quick about serving it, since his time might be short. Then he spoke to a young boy who squatted nearby, staring goggle-eyed and turning the spit on which a leg-of-mutton was roasting. “Lad, can you carry a message?”

The boy jumped to his feet. “Aye, your Grace!”

“Then mind that you make no mistake. Go with all haste to the Tower and inform the sentry there that the Duke of Buckingham is waiting at the Sun Tavern for his Majesty’s officers to place him under arrest.” He flipped him a silver coin.

A murmur of surprised admiration ran through them, for it was no secret the Duke would most likely lose his head if once he were brought to trial. The boy turned and sped out of the room and Buckingham, surrounded by his cortege, strolled to a table next the window where he sat down and began to eat his dinner. An eager curious excited crowd had already begun to gather outside and they clustered in the door, peered through the windows at him. The Duke gave them a wave and a grin, and a great cheer went up.

“Gentlemen,” said Buckingham to the men about him, talking while he took his silver fork from its case and began to tear at his meat. “Gentlemen, I am willing to give myself up to my enemies—though I know well enough how they may use me—because my conscience will no longer bear my continued absence from public affairs after our most recent disgrace.” Their polite cries of approval at these words interrupted him, but only for a few moments. He held up a hand, asking to be heard further. “England has need of some men whose interests are not wholly in the building of a new house or the getting of a full night’s sleep, at whatever cost to the nation.”

This brought a loud cheer from everyone in the room, and it was taken up and echoed outside by those who had no idea what his Grace had said. For public resentment was strong against Clarendon’s great new house in Piccadilly. And during this past year no one had forgotten that Arlington had been asleep when the order had come for Rupert to return and meet the Dutch, and that his servants had not wakened him to sign it till morning. Next to criticizing the Court themselves, they loved to hear it criticized.

“Aye, your Grace,” agreed one elderly goldsmith. “The country has been too long under the mismanagement of incompetent old men.”

Another leaned forward and hammered his fist on the table. “When Parliament convenes next time he’ll be impeached! We’ll call the old rascal to task for his crimes!”

“But, gentlemen,” protested Buckingham mildly, gnawing at his mutton-joint, “the Chancellor has handled matters as honestly and as capably as his faculties would permit.”

There was a storm of protest at this. “Honest! Why, the old dotard’s bled us white! Where else did he get the money for that palace he’s building!”

“He’s been as great a tyrant as Oliver!”

“His daughter’s marriage to the Duke made him think he was a Stuart!”

“He hates the Commons!”

“He’s always been in cabal with the bishops!”

“He’s the greatest villain in England! Your Grace is too generous!”

Buckingham smiled and made a faint deprecatory gesture, shrugging his broad shoulders. “I’m no match for you, gentlemen. It seems I’m outnumbered.”

He had not yet finished his meal when the King’s officers arrived—he had sent an earlier messenger than the little boy, whom he had merely used as a dramatic device to arouse their interest and sympathies. Two of them entered the room, out of breath and excited, obviously very much surprised to find his Grace actually sitting there, eating and drinking and talking. They approached to place him under arrest, but he gave them a negligent wave of his hand.

“Give me leave to finish my dinner, sirs. I’ll be with you presently.”

Their eyes consulted one another, dubiously, but after hesitating a moment they backed off and stood meekly waiting. When he was done he wiped his mouth, washed off his fork and put the case back into his pocket, shoved aside his pewter-plate and got up. “Well, gentlemen, I go now—to surrender myself.”

“God go with your Grace!”

As he started for the door the two officers sprang forward and would have taken his arms, but he motioned them aside. “I can walk unassisted, sirs.” Crestfallen, they trailed after him.

There was an explosion of shouts and cheers as Buckingham appeared in the doorway, grinning broadly and raising one hand to them in greeting. The crowd in the street had now grown to monstrous size. It was packed from wall to wall and for a distance of several hundred yards in both directions all traffic had come to a standstill. Coaches were stalled, porters and car-men and sedan-chair carriers waited with more patience than usual; all nearby windows and balconies were full. This man, accused of treason against King and country, had become the nation’s hero: because he was out of favour at Court he was the one courtier they did not blame for all their recent and present troubles.

There was a coach waiting for him at the door and Buckingham climbed into it. It was but little over half-a-mile to the Tower and all along the way he was greeted with clamorous shouts and cries. Hands reached out to touch his coach; little boys ran in his wake; girls flung flowers before him. The King himself had not been greeted more enthusiastically when he had returned to London seven years before.

“Don’t worry yourselves, good people!” shouted Buckingham. “I’ll be out in a trice!”

But at Court they thought otherwise and in the Groom Porter’s lodgings they were betting great odds that the Duke would lose his head. The King had stripped him of his offices and bestowed most of them elsewhere. His enemies, and they were numerous and powerful, had been unceasingly active. He had, however, at least one ardent supporter—his cousin, Castlemaine.

Just three days earlier Barbara and her woman Wilson had been driving along Edgware Road in the early evening, returning from Hyde Park. All at once a lame tattered old beggar appeared from some hiding-place and dragged himself before the coach, forcing it to stop. The coachman, swearing furiously, leaned down to strike him with his whip but before he could do so the beggar had reached the open window and was hanging onto the door, holding a dirty palm toward the Countess.

“Please, your Ladyship,” he whined. “Give alms to the poor!”

“Get out of here, you stinking wretch!” cried Barbara. “Throw him a shilling, Wilson!”

The beggar hung on stubbornly, though the coach had started to move again. “Your Ladyship seems mighty stingy for one who wears thirty thousand pound in pearls to a play-house.”

Barbara glared at him swiftly, her eyes darkened to purple. “How dare you speak to me thus? I’ll have you kicked and beaten!” She gave his wrist a sudden hard rap with her fan. “Get off there, you rogue!” She opened her mouth and let out a furious yell. “Harvey! Harvey, stop this coach, d’ye hear!”

The coachman hauled at his reins and as the wheels were slowing the beggar gave her a grin, displaying two rows of beautiful teeth. “Never mind, my lady. Keep your shilling. Here—I’ll give you something, instead.” He tossed a folded paper into her lap. “Read it, as you value your life.” And then, as the coach stopped and the footmen ran to grab him he dodged swiftly, no longer limping, and was gone. He turned once to thumb his nose at them.

Barbara watched him running away, glanced at the paper in her lap and then suddenly unfolded it and began to read. “Pox on this life I’m leading,” she whispered. “Expect me in two or three days. And see that you do your part. B.” She gave a gasp and a little cry and leaned forward, but he was gone.

Barbara was scared. She had heard the rumours too—his Majesty’s patience was at an end and this time Buckingham must suffer for his treacherous impertinence. Exile was the easiest punishment they saw for him. And she knew her cousin’s malice well enough to realize that if he went down he would drag her with him. Every time she saw Charles she begged him, frantically, to believe that the Duke was innocent, that it was a plot of his enemies to ruin him. But he paid her scant attention, merely asking her with lazy amusement why she should be so concerned for a man who had done her very little good and some harm.

“He’s my cousin, that’s why! I can’t see him abused by scoundrels!”

“I think the Duke can hold his own with any scoundrel that ever wore a head. Don’t trouble yourself for him.”

“Then you will hear him out and forgive him?”

“I’ll hear him out, but what will happen after that I can’t say. I’d like to see how well he can defend himself—and I don’t doubt he’ll entertain us with some very ingenious tale.”

“How can he defend himself? What chance has he got? Every man in your council wants to see him lose his head!”

“And I doubt not he has similar hopes for them.”

The hearing was set for the next day and Barbara was determined to get some kind of promise from him, though she knew that the King regarded promises much as he did women—it should not be too much trouble to keep them. As usual, she sought to gain her ends by the means to which he was least amenable.

“But Buckingham’s innocent, Sire, I know he is! Oh, don’t let them trick you! Don’t let them force you to prosecute him!”

Charles looked at her sharply. He had never, in his life, done anything he actually did not want to do, though he had done many things to which he was indifferent in order to buy his own peace or something else he wanted. But he had endured years of stubborn conflict with a domineering mother and hated the mere suggestion that he was easily led. Barbara knew that.