Chapter 3 The Gamester by Rafael Sabatini
THE EARL OF STAIR
There is no gamester worthy of the name who cannot lose without change of countenance. And although John Law had played for a stake not of mere thousands, but of millions, his placidity did not desert him.
His Highness had detained him after dismissing the Council, and it was as if to express an undiminished sense of esteem that he leaned upon the Scot's arm as they passed along the noble gallery leading to the main staircase, whilst graciously expressing his personal chagrin at the issue of the affair.
Nothing could have been more unexpected than Mr Law's reply. "If I share to the full your regret, monseigneur, it is only because I see you deprived of services by which I had counted upon resolving your grievous difficulties."
For a moment the Regent was taken aback by what he accounted an arrogant fatuity, and Mr Law was made aware of it by a lessening of the ducal weight upon his arm.
"Ah!" His Highness drew breath audibly, and there was a pause before he added in a cooler voice: "at least you relieve me of the fear that you have suffered a disappointment. But let us not yet despair. It may well be that with the increasing embarrassment in our affairs which seems inevitable, these gentlemen may be brought to reconsider today's unfortunate decision."
They were within a dozen paces of the head of the great staircase. The Duke checked. "Meanwhile, do you ask for nothing?"
"I thank Your Highness." Mr Law bowed under those friendly eyes. "I am in need of nothing."
"Corbleu!" The Regent's smile broadened. "To hear a man say that, is to renew my faith in human nature. I trust that you do not yet think of leaving us."
"Not until Your Highness tells me that I can be of no service."
"Faith, I hope that I shall never tell you that." He moved on again towards the wide marble stairs, where an officer was in attendance. "Here is Major de Contades. He will accompany you. You shall hear from me soon again. Meanwhile, my dear Baron, in any need remember that I am here with an undischarged obligation."
Thus dismissed, Mr Law departed, not without hope.
He was becomingly, if only temporarily, installed in a handsome house in the Rue de Grenelle, which his steward Laguyon had found and rented for him. He came home that day to learn from his wife that in his absence they had been visited by the Earl of Stair.
Mr Law's brows were raised. "Johnny Dalrymple? What a plague should he want with me?"
"To bid you welcome to Paris."
"Since when has he owned it?"
"Well, then, to pay his respects to you. What's to frown at? He was very civil. He is to bring Lady Stair and Lady Sandwich to visit me and some other of his English friends here."
Mr Law shrugged, and found himself a chair. "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."
"Is that Spanish?"
"No. Virgil. It means, 'I fear the Greeks when they are bearers of gifts'."
"Do you mean that for Lord Stair?" She spoke with the indignation to which nowadays she was quickly moved when he expressed opinions in conflict with her own. "I can't think why you should. A very proper man."
"I have known few more improper."
"We do not judge by the same standards."
"I have long suspected it."
"He will not be of the quality among which you usually seek your friends."
"God be thanked."
She looked at him disdainfully, and he observed with an odd detachment how very attractive she was in a gown of peacock blue, her body springing shapely and slender from the billowing petticoat. He wondered impersonally whether Dalrymple had found her to his taste and made her aware of it. For a grievance which he had not mentioned to his brother was that she was too responsive to gallantry. Had he done so, William, as her advocate might have answered that it was natural she should desire him to remark that other men were eager to pay her the court which he denied her.
"I suppose you'll know," she said, "that Lord Stair is in Paris as the English ambassador."
"It would surprise me less if he were an English spy. The best I know of him is that he's a damned whig. There's little good in an English whig. In a Scottish one there is none. And that, I repeat, is the best I know of him. The worst isn't fit for your ears, although, God knows, you're no prude. Besides, he'll supply it you, himself, if you afford him the occasion. Ah well! If all he told you of his purpose in visiting us was a desire to be civil, we shall have to wait until he comes again in order to discover the true reason."
She shrugged and moved away in annoyance. "I vow you delight in being provoking. It is fortunate that I know how to keep my temper. I suppose things have not gone well for you at the Palais Royal this morning."
"A good guess," he admitted smoothly.
"No guess at all. You advertise it by your bad manners. So you've failed again? It was to have been foreseen, of course."
"Spare me your sympathy."
"La! Did you expect it? At least I can congratulate you upon taking my advice not to bring Will to France. You are saved the humiliation you suffered in Turin. A pity you don't heed me more often. But, to be sure, I know that you despise my intelligence. Not the least of your errors that. Heigho! And what now? Do we go on our travels again?"
Of all her tirade this was the only question that he answered, speaking quietly. "Not yet awhile. His Highness offers me the hospitality of France for the present."
"Until you forfeit it, I suppose, in the usual way."
"Until then, of course. Meanwhile," he added with scarcely perceptible sarcasm, "we may be vouchsafed the occasion to improve our acquaintance with Lord Stair."
They had not long to wait for this. His lordship came again no later than the morrow: a short, spare man, still young, of Mr Law's own age, with a handsome, if crafty, face and an assurance of manner that bordered normally upon arrogance and procured him few friends. This, however, was subdued on the present occasion. His low-lidded eyes, set on the very surface of his face, under arching brows, glowed flattering homage of Madame's beauty as he bowed over her hand.
"I vow your graciousness renders me importunate," he murmured.
Mr Law, under his wife's anxious glance, was formally polite. "Your lordship honours us."
"That is too civil, my dear Baron."
Suspecting raillery behind the smile, Mr Law was quick to curb it.
"I am a baron only in French. That is how His Highness chooses to translate a Scottish title for which there is no precise equivalent in France."
"A translation that does credit to His Highness' good sense. I am proud to know, sir, that he honours you with his friendship."
"Do not let us exaggerate."
"It were an affectation of modesty in you to disclaim so notorious a fact. As the representative here of King George I must rejoice in it."
"You'll have a great faculty for rejoicing, sir, to rejoice over so little."
"So little? You don't know what you are saying. Wait until you learn how much it is."
Laguyon appeared, ushering two footmen in claret and silver who bore between them the elements of a chocolate service. It was, Mrs Law announced, the hour of their collation. My lord would do them the honour to drink a cup of chocolate.
"Ma'am, it is to overwhelm me," Stair protested. "I feel more than ever that I come untimely."
She simpered. "Most timely, my lord, and very welcome." Sipping his chocolate at the goat-legged table over which Mrs Law was now presiding, his lordship came at last to the reason for his presence.
"If I am here to ask a service of you, Mr Law, I am in the fortunate position of being able to give service in return."
Upon this Mr Law offered no comment; but looking up from his cup his cool glance plainly invited my lord to continue.
"I have had the misfortune to incur the displeasure of the Regent, who, to our great regret, continues to give shelter in France to the Pretender. There was an unfortunate incident some months ago, at the time of the late Jacobite rising in Scotland, brought about..." He paused. "We are private here, and if I speak freely it is entirely in confidence." He resumed. "Brought about, I was saying, by the Regent's having broken faith with us. He had given me his word that should James Stuart attempt to cross France so as to embark to put himself at the head of the rebels, he would be detained. His Highness was, as the French say, swimming between two waters. On the one hand he did not wish to provoke King George; on the other, he did not wish to hinder the Pretender, lest a successful rebellion should place him on the throne. Because I had reason to suspect this, we were not content to rely upon His Highness' word, but kept watch for ourselves. Perhaps you know the rest."
"I have heard of an attempt by a Colonel Douglas to intercept and assassinate the Pretender as he was making for Brittany."
"Assassinate!" Lord Stair was shocked. "Oh, no, no. That is just the vulgar calumny."
"Your lordship should know, since it is understood that Colonel Douglas was acting upon your orders. But if you had caught your man, I don't see what else you could have done with him."
My lord smiled ruefully. "That, of course, was the popular view, just as it was, as you've said, that Douglas acted upon my orders."
"Monstrous," murmured Catherine. "But so natural to vulgar rashness."
"I thank you, ma'am. Your intuitions are as I should expect in you. However, Colonel Douglas, who was well viewed in Paris and in favour at court, has left France in disgrace, and some part of that disgrace attaches, I grieve to say, to me, with hampering consequences."
Again Mrs Law afforded him her sympathy. "That is shameful!"
"You give me heart, ma'am." Gratitude gleamed from his hooded eyes. "Formerly I was growing in favour with His Highness, but since he has lent an ear to slander he refuses to receive me in private and turns his back upon me in public." He became proudly disdainful as he added: "For myself this is no matter. But it happens that I have a duty here, a conciliatory duty, which I am finding it impossible to discharge. It is in this that I solicit your aid."
"My aid?" Mr Law looked blank, whilst Catherine was protesting effusively: "Of course he'll be proud to lend it."
My lord set down his cup, wiped his lips with a napkin, and explained himself. If now that Mr Law's credit with the Regent stood high he would employ it in the British interest, his lordship might be able to do something for Mr Law no less valuable in return.
"I am dull," said Mr Law. "I do not perceive exactly what my voice could plead even if my favour with the Regent were as high as you suppose."
"Will you suffer me to instruct you?"
"I am sure that it is all that he needs," the lady assured him, to earn again his lordship's warmest smile.
"Brutally stated, the argument to be employed, is that one usurper should support the other."
"Brutal, as you say. One usurper will be King George, though that your lordship should say so robs me of breath. But the other? I don't discern him."
"The other, a usurper at present in posse, may well become a usurper in esse if the young Louis XV should die; for Philip of Spain, as the son of the Grand Dauphin, can show a stronger claim to the throne of France than Philippe of Orléans, and Philip of Spain is not without a party here, a party which is likely to grow under the fostering of the Duchess of Maine. That hot-tempered little grandchild of the great Condé makes no secret of her designs."
He went on to divulge that lately a guest at the magnificent country seat of the Duke of Maine at Sceaux, and whilst appearing absorbed in the extravagant junketings, the literary tournaments, the Venetian water parties, the masques and the play-acting conducted by the Duchess, he had used his eyes, his ears and his wits.
After all, the folk at Sceaux, histrionic in all things, were of a monstrous indiscretion. Her grace did not hesitate to avow that she was on fire to avenge not only her husband's exclusion from the regency, but even more fiercely the project to deprive the bastards of the rights of Princess of the Blood conferred upon them by Louis XIV when he legitimized them.
The Duchess of Maine had dreamed of being one day Queen of France. That dream Philippe of Orléans had shattered. She was saying openly and on every occasion that when one has once acquired the ability to succeed to the crown, rather than suffer the robbery of it, one should set fire to the four corners of the kingdom.
"And this is not mere talk," Lord Stair went on. "From what I have seen I have reason to believe that she is actively corresponding with Philip of Spain. The Prince of Cellamare, the Spanish ambassador, is nowadays a frequent visitor at Sceaux. If you were to acquaint the Duke of Orléans with that, in proof of your devotion to him, he would believe you moved to serve his interests and would be the more ready to listen when you dissuade him from supporting the Pretender, so that in his own possible need he may, in return, count upon King George to give no support to the King of Spain. You will not be the only one to urge this upon the Regent, but the more of those whose wits he trusts become the advocates of this course, the more likely will he be to follow it."
Mr Law was left in no doubt that Stair must be under instructions to bring about an offensive and defensive alliance between England and France, and that he perceived a way of furthering this object by flaunting before the Regent the menace of Spain. He smiled thoughtfully as he shook his head.
"You put too high an estimate on the confidence I enjoy. It has been exaggerated to you. In fact, such as it may be, it has just suffered a setback. And, anyway, the Regent may believe in me financially, but not politically. So I am spared the trouble of adding that I am without eagerness to serve England or her King."
Stair's eyebrows became still more arched. "You're not telling me that you're a Jacobite."
"No, my lord. I am an exile on quite other grounds."
"That was in King William's day."
"But the ban has never been lifted. Actually, I am less an exile than a fugitive. A fugitive from what passes for justice in England."
"After all, Mr Law, you killed a man," my lord protested.
"In a duel."
"But an irregular duel, without the proper complement of witnesses. No matter. I spoke of advantages to yourself in serving us. What if I could promise you a pardon and freedom to return to England as the price of your service?"
"I should answer that I have lived so long out of England that I feel more at home abroad."
"In short, you refuse?" His lordship's face had darkened. It was plain that he strove with a temper which opposition was never slow to stir.
"If I am to be entirely frank, let me say that I have hopes of my own to gratify, and that I will not jeopardize them by advocating those in which I have no interest."
His lordship breathed hard. "I may thank you at least for your candour." Then he laughed. "I could show you, I think, that your hopes might best be served by serving mine. It is not only the Regent's affairs which will prosper from an understanding with King George, but those of all whose interest it is that His Highness should continue in the regency. And you, Mr Law, I take it, are of these. Give it thought, sir. Take your own time. You may perceive your profit in it."
Without waiting for an answer, he swung to Catherine, whose darkened countenance gave him added hope. "I'll never believe, ma'am, that you share your husband's indifference to life at home in England, where so many would be proud to welcome you."
"You are too kind, my lord. And, indeed, having lived a vagabond, nothing could please me better."
Lord Stair displayed enchantment. "Let us then make an alliance to conquer this curmudgeon. I dare swear that he will thank us in the end."
"You hear his lordship, John."
Mr Law roused himself from the thoughts sown by Stair's last words. "I hear," he said, and laughed carelessly.
My lord was content to leave the matter there. Deftly he swung the talk into channels concerned with the delights of English fashionable life, of the attractions and gaieties of which its great wealth made it prodigal. By contrast existence, he vowed, was almost colourless in poverty-stricken France. He bewailed that duty constrained him to continue abroad, and eagerly looked forward to the day when, that duty accomplished, he might return to the pleasures of London.
He so visibly inflamed the lady by the pictures he painted, by the triumphs he promised her at home, that when at last he departed it was in the conviction that he left a zealous advocate to plead for him.
"Think over what I have told you," he said, as he took his leave of Law, "and especially your own profit in it. Upon reflection I am sure that you will perceive it."
He had not left the house before Catherine was bringing her guns to bear upon her husband. Was he quite mad, she wondered, that he could hesitate before this chance of rehabilitation.
"I do not hesitate," was the cold comment that drove her to fury.
"You mean that your mind is made up; that nothing will shake it?"
When he admitted that this was the case so far as concerned a return to England, the storm of her anger crackled in unmeasured terms about his head. What perversity was it that governed him? His plans for France had failed, as she knew they would. What, then, retained him? Was there some woman here who had cast a spell upon him? He had always, she vowed, been the willing prey of women. Always un homme à femmes.
Was that the reason for his present obstinacy? If it was not, then to what was he sacrificing her? Was he resolved that her entire life should be a martyrdom? And what of their two children, born abroad? Were they never to know the homeland, never to enjoy the advantages of an English rearing?
Well might she curse the day she had wed a gamester, to whom her happiness, her peace of mind, her very life were as mere stakes upon a board.
He heard her out in an impassivity that fed her fury. The lovely face grew pinched and shrewish, the voice that could be so musical and caressing became strident, and at moments coarse insults gave an added venom to her plaint. Thus until at long last she grew conscious of making no impression upon the panoply of his indifference, whereupon she sat down to weep.
Time had been when her tears had melted him; but that was in the days when he had stormed in answer to her storming; that was before contempt for her licences of temper, for the lack of restraint in her invective, had killed his feeling where she was concerned.
He had learnt that to dispute with her was merely to furnish unworthy fuel to her tantrums. He had learnt, too, that if nowadays she was seldom really amiable, her outbursts were as brief as they were wild. Within an hour or so of utterances that would seem to open an unbridgeable chasm between them, she would meet him as normally as if the surface of their peace had never known a ripple.
He spoke quietly now, as he turned to go. "Some day, Catherine, I may find you more tiresome than I can endure. Until then I will do as I can."