Читаем Forever Amber полностью

Amber went back home, spent four hours trying to sleep, ate her dinner and then set out for the Palace. Along the Strand went a parade of carts and coaches full of refugees hurrying out of town once more to the comparative safety of the country. In the courts and passages of Whitehall there stood more loaded carts. Everywhere people gathered together, listening for the guns, gabbling of nothing but invasion and of trying to get their money, of hiding their belongings and of making out their wills. Several of the courtiers had been among those volunteers who had gone with Albemarle to Chatham or with Prince Rupert to Woolwich, and upon those few hundred men rested all the hope of England.

Amber was stopped every few feet by some excited courtier or lady who asked her what she was going to do and then without waiting for her answer started to tell his or her own troubles. Everyone was gloomy, acknowledging frankly that all fortifications were decayed, unarmed and unmanned, and that the country lay helpless before the invaders. They were angry with the goldsmiths because they would not return their money and swore never to do business with them again. Some of them intended to go to Bristol or another port and sail for America or the Continent. If England was a sinking vessel they did not intend to go down with her.

The Queen’s apartments were hot and crowded and full of shrill noisy voices. Catherine was fanning herself and trying to look composed, but the quick, darting anxious movements of her black eyes betrayed her own worry and uncertainty. Amber went up to speak to. her.

“What’s the news, your Majesty? Have they come any nearer?”

“They say that the French are in Mounts Bay.”

“But they won’t come here, will they? They wouldn’t dare!”

Catherine smiled faintly and shrugged her shoulders. “We didn’t think that they would dare do this much. Most of the ladies are going out of town, madame. You should go too. I’m afraid the sad truth is we didn’t expect this and we’re not prepared.”

Just then they heard the loud clear voice of Lady Castlemaine, standing only a few feet away talking to Lady Southesk and Bab May. “Someone’s going to smoke for this, you may be sure! The people are in a tearing rage! They’ve been chopping down Clarendon’s trees and breaking his windows and they’ve writ their sentiments plain enough on his gate. They’ve got a sign there that says, ‘Three sights to be seen: Dunkirk, Tangier, and a barren Queen!’ ”

Lady Southesk gave her a warning jab and Barbara glanced around, puffed out her cheeks as though in horrified surprise and pressed one hand to her mouth. But the glitter in her eyes said plainly that she had intended to be overheard. While Catherine stared, Barbara gave a careless shrug and signalled to Bab May. They left the room together.

Damn that hard-hearted bitch! thought Amber. I’d like to jerk her bald-headed!

“And a barren Queen,” whispered Catherine, her tiny hands clasping her fan until they trembled. “How they hate me for that!” Suddenly her eyes came up and she looked Amber straight in the face. “How I hate myself!”

Amber had a sudden pang of shame; she wondered if Catherine knew that she was pregnant at that moment, with his child. Impulsively she pressed her hand, tried to give her a reassuring smile of sympathy, but she was relieved to see the languid affected Boynton sail up, waving her fan and seeming about to swoon.

“Oh, Lord, your Majesty! We’re all undone! I’ve just heard the French army is off the coast of Dover making ready to land!”

“What!” yelped a woman who stood nearby. “The French have landed? Good God!” And she started in a rush for the door. The cry was taken up and instantly the room was a milling swirling mass—men and women shoving and pushing at one another in their wild anxiety, surging toward the door.

But that rumour, like a hundred others, proved false.

Drums beat all through that night, calling up the train-bands. Gunfire could be heard from London Bridge. Waves of hysterical alarm and angry pessimism swept the city. Whoever owned anything of the slightest value was busy burying it in the back yard, rushing it out of town in the custody of wife or servant, hectoring the goldsmiths and drawing up his will. They said openly that they had been betrayed by the Court—and most of them expected to die at the point of a French or a Dutch sword. Then news came that the Dutch had broken the boom which had been stretched across the Medway to keep them out, that they had burned six men-of-war and taken the Royal Charles and were pillaging the countryside.