Chapter 11 The Gamester by Rafael Sabatini
THE COUNTESS OF HORN
With no suspicion of the plot that menaced his very life, Mr Law was quietly pursuing the even tenor of those studies by which his system was to achieve its ultimate all-embracing scope.
To keep pace with his expanding fortunes and consequence, Mr Law had by now removed himself to the Hôtel de Nevers, that handsome palace built by Mazarin in the Rue Vivienne.
The great success of the Banque Générale, the high credit of the paper it emitted, and the facilities which this provided for commerce both at home and abroad were by now abundantly reflected in that increased prosperity which Mr Law had affirmed would follow upon the free and ample circulation of currency. Not only in trade, but in agriculture, too, both of which had been dangerously languishing, there was every sign of healthy activity as a result of the Bank's judicious loans.
At Mr Law's magical touch the Mississippi Company, worthless under Crozat, and although not likely for some time to show returns, was already proving by the gradual appreciation of its shares, those theories on credit which Mr Law had so lucidly and so vainly expounded to the sealed minds of the Council of Finance.
All this was predisposing the Regent naturally enough to allow the Scot to undertake the control of France's other languishing overseas monopolies: the East India Company, the China Company, the Sénégal Company, and the like.
And whilst completing arrangements for this, Mr Law's conceptions were opening out still wider horizons to the Regent's dazzled view.
He propounded a revolution in taxation. He would suppress all those internal customs' barriers, which were mere stumbling blocks to trade; he would abolish altogether the arbitrary taxes: the taille, the gabelle, the corveés, and the rest of those ancient, unpopular, complicated, vexatious imposts which paralysed commerce and required for their collection an army of parasites who fed upon the substance of the State whilst themselves producing nothing.
He would replace all this by a single uniform tax of one per centum on every man's revenue, a tax which could hurt no one; for, as he argued, the wealthy would have no reason to conceal his wealth, and the poor man would dare to become wealthy without the dread of being arbitrarily preyed upon.
There would be an end of barriers, of inquisitions, of collectors, of tax farmers, and with them of all those vexatious conflicts constantly resulting from the necessity under which men found themselves so as to guard their rights from predatory servants of the State.
Then, just as salt and tobacco became State monopolies, there no longer appeared to be any reason why trade in general should not be treated in the same way and brought under State control, to the profit of the nation as against the profit of the individual. The valid objections to this which had been urged by d'Aguesseau were not permitted to obscure the grandiose dream.
The Regent, listening to Law, questioning him, pressing for details and impressed by the glittering pageantry of wealth and universal prosperity which the Scot evoked, found himself regretting that he should lately have allowed d'Argenson to purchase the general farming of the revenue.
The Chancellor had actually found his inspiration in Law's flotation of the Mississippi Company. He had acquired the rights for an annual payment of forty-eight millions, and he had associated with himself a group of able financiers--the four brothers Paris--Duverney--launching a company which he called the Anti-System. For this he had found the necessary capital the more readily since he was able to assure the investors of a definite fixed return.
For Mr Law this was a minor obstacle to that complete control at which he aimed, and he dismissed it for the present as of no immediate importance. His projected activities in the realm of taxation must follow, and not precede, the expansion of the Mississippi Company by amalgamation with it of the other colonial trading companies. Of this it was at last decided that he should prepare a complete scheme for the Regent's consideration.
He was at work upon this one afternoon, in the room which he had made peculiarly his own in the Hôtel de Nevers and to which he had transplanted the rich furnishings of his own personal office in the Rue Quincampoix: the rosewood and ormolu writing table, the Aubusson carpet, the Van Dycks, the Watteaus, the Consoles, the Venetian mirrors and the rest. Saving that between the pilasters with gilded capitals the walls were panelled in embossed Cordovan leather, you might suppose yourself still in the Rue Quincampoix.
There was, it is true, less hubbub from the street, which lay beyond the spacious courtyard, and it was of a different character. Through the tall, open windows, subdued by distance, came intermittently the cry of a bellows mender, a water carrier, a rat-catcher, or the shriller note of a fishwife, but there were none of the unceasing deafening vociferations of the Rue Quincampoix.
Absorbed in his calculations, Mr Law heard not so much as the beat of hooves on the kidney stones and the creaking of a coach. Not until it rumbled and clattered to a standstill in his spacious courtyard did it disturb him into momentarily raising his head.
Laguyon, soft-footed and soft-voiced, came in, with the quiet announcement: "Pardon, monsieur. Madame la Comtesse de Horn begs urgently to see you."
"The Comtesse de Horn!" It certainly surprised him. He was only vaguely aware of the existence of such a person. "But I do not know the lady."
"Madame la Comtesse desires particularly to be received, sir. She begs me to assure you that her errand is of the gravest. Short of that, sir, I should not have ventured to disturb you."
"Of the gravest? Pish! The language of exaggeration. However, you may bring her in."
The lady whom Laguyon introduced was of slender build and more than middle height, cloaked in grey from neck to heel, her head covered by what in England would have been called a Nithsdale hood.
Mr Law rose and bowed. "Madame La Comtesse!"
Over her shoulder she watched the departure of the servant, and not until the door had closed did she fully confront her host. She thrust back her hood, her cloak rippled open, and she stood revealed.
Mr Law fell back a pace, and for a long moment, this man, so imperturbable in all circumstances, stared at her with dilating eyes and parted lips, the natural pallor of his dark face slowly deepening to the colour of lead.
Yet here was no Gorgon so to petrify him. No man who has written of her, and many have done so, has failed to describe her as of an uncommon beauty. It dwelt in no particular conformance with accepted canons, but was of a more elusive, spiritual kind, a radiance that glowed in her dark brilliant eyes, in the smile that seemed ever about to break on her generous mouth.
Her russet hair, defying fashion, was dressed low, and a heavy ringlet hung upon the white neck and shoulders that surged from a rose-coloured bodice. Pallor was her norm, but not so deep as at this moment when it made her eyes seem black. The rise and fall of her breast betrayed a quickened breathing, and the faint quiver perceptible on her lips told of an agitation that seemed poised between laughter and weeping.
Mr Law's startled eyes were without lustre as, frowning, he considered her.
"The Comtesse de Horn I was told..."
"I am the Countess of Horn," she said, in English.
"You!"
"Improbable, of course. Nevertheless the fact."
He took a step forward, his head craned. She made a gesture of opening her arms, a gesture as of drawing a curtain apart so as to make a fuller revelation of herself.
He passed a trembling hand across his eyes. His voice was husky. "Fact, do you say? But you are Margaret; the Lady Margaret Ogilvy."
"I was...in another life, when you were known as Jessamy John." Then her voice assumed an edge of irony as she added "I am glad that you have not quite forgotten me, although I am sure that you will have tried."
The sting of it restored to him his self-possession. He stiffened into his normal self. If irony was to her taste he knew how to supply it in abundance.
"You were?" he said. "Ah, true! King William made you...Countess of Orkney, was it? No, no. That was his other paramour, Elizabeth Villiers. You...Of what did he make you a countess? Or was it a duchess?"
The quiver of her lips was quickened. For a fleeting moment they bore a grin of rigor, those lips to which he had known laughter to come so readily and so irresistibly, from a nature wholly joyous. She let her arms fall to her sides, as if nerveless and gazed at him piteously through a blur of unshed tears. "Does it matter, what I was or may have been? Let it suffice that it is as the Countess of Horn that I am here."
"It will not surprise you if I understand less than ever why you should have come."
"If you did, your welcome might be different. I have no purpose but to save your life."
"My life! I seem to remember...No matter, I am not aware that it is in any danger."
"That is why I have come. To make you aware of it." And, bitter in her turn, she added, "Nothing less would have brought me."
Upon that, abruptly, in the baldest terms, she gave him her message. The Parliament was to issue a writ for his arrest that very day. It was to be executed at once. It was proposed to take him secretly before the tribunal of La Tournelle, to try him, sentence him and put him to death out of hand, before the news of his case could get abroad, so as to make sure of no rescuing intervention.
It was a moment before scornful laughter succeeded his surprise.
"What wild, fantastic tale is this? And if so secret, madam, how does it come within your knowledge?"
"The Count of Horn is in the plot. Sometimes he is indiscreet. You may have noticed that, for I understand that you have been intimate with him, though--God knows--you make odd bedfellows. Also he drinks too much, and in his cups he boasts imprudently." It did not escape Mr Law that there was a fierce contempt in her voice. "Last night he boasted to me that with the Duke of Noailles' assistance he is using the Parliament so as to destroy you. The President de Mesmes, he declares, is a puppet whose strings are pulled by him and the Duke."
Mr Law, on the edge of a sneer at this conception of wifely duty, was stricken silent by an instant's consideration of a tale that hung faultlessly together. Horn's vindictiveness working upon the rancour of Noailles, and the Duke's employment of his influence with a Parliament resentful of Mr Law's vast and increasing influence, were facts that could not be dismissed. Whilst it might seem incredible that the court of Parliament should dare to proceed to such extremes, yet, when Mr Law came to think of it, he discovered that he was utterly ignorant of the powers possessed by that body or of the extent to which they might be exercised.
"But, in God's name, madam," he cried at last, his mind still resisting conviction, "this cannot be done without some charge against me. In what is it pretended that I have offended?"
"By unduly influencing the Regent in financial matters and the danger that you, a foreign adventurer, should obtain control of the State finances. That is to be the indictment, with perhaps something more that I did not understand, something about malversation of State bonds."
There was an end to his doubts. His prompt mind was swinging to consider the action to be taken, when her next words showed that it had already been considered for him.
"You have not an hour to lose. They may arrive at any moment now to arrest you. They must not find you."
"Not find me? Am I to run away?"
"You'll lose less breath by that than by what they intend." Almost was he more taken by her turn of phrase, that trick of illuminating expression which he so well remembered, which had so delighted him of old, than by what she actually told him.
"Don't you understand?" she said. "They are resolved to hang you. The rest--trial and sentence--will be so much comedy."
"Myself, I hardly find it comic. But...Oh, they would never dare. Why, it would be murder."
"Of course. But murder clothed in the robes of the judiciary, wearing the mask of lawfulness. Will you wait for it?" She came a step nearer in her impatience. "Don't you perceive what they fear that they should act secretly? The Regent's intervention. Your only safety lies in the Palais Royal until the Regent can handle them. Come, John. I've told you there is no time to lose."
He took a moment yet to consider, then turned to cross to the bell-pull. "I'll order my carriage."
"You'll be safer in mine," she told him. "It is at the door. Your liveries might even cause you to be seized upon the way."
He realized, of course, the prudence of this, and yielded out for fear for his life; yet reluctant to accept a gift at her hands, he faltered a little as he said: "You are very good."
Delivered of her scarcely veiled suspense, she laughed in relief, and it was in this laughter, displaying her strong, white teeth, lighting a face to which her colour was returning, that her full beauty and allurement were revealed. "I came to rescue you, and it is not my way to do things by halves." But even as she spoke that radiant laughter perished on her lips, and observing this, he wondered. She drew her hood over her head again, and her tone became peremptory. "Come, John. We had best make haste."
He was moving to hold the door for her when from below came the rumble of another coach entering the courtyard, and, as he checked to listen, the tramp of feet brought to a halt by a word of command.
They looked at each other wide-eyed.
"My God!" she exclaimed in distress. "Am I too late?"
He stepped swiftly to the window, and looked down. "Archers," he said as he turned again to face her. Whatever he may have felt, he displayed no alarm. He even smiled. "It certainly makes your information appear correct."
She wrung her hands. "John! John! You are caught."
"No, no. Not yet. Wait."
He was standing in thought when Laguyon came in quickly, his lean face reflecting alarm. "Monsieur, there is an officer below, asking for you, with a detachment of archers and a carriage."
"So I've seen." He was quite calm. "Desire him to give himself the trouble of waiting a few moments. Say that I shall not keep him long. Then bring me my hat and cane and wait for me in the gallery."
As Laguyon departed, Mr Law turned to the Countess, who stood dismayed and trembling. "You are going?" she gasped.
"Of course. But not as you suppose. There is fortunately a service entrance in the Rue Colbert. Since they have no reason to believe me alarmed, they are not likely to be guarding it. My steward will conduct you to your carriage. You will add to my debt if you will drive away in it and round to that back entrance. I shall be waiting for you there. Come."
He crossed again to the door that led to the anteroom.
"You are sure, John? You are sure?" she asked.
"There is no cause to doubt. Come."
He was to remember afterwards that in opening the door, his ears had caught the quick, silken rustle of a gown. In the preoccupation of the moment he paid no heed to it.
They crossed the anteroom and emerged upon the balustraded gallery to find Laguyon already at the head of the marble stairs with Mr Law's hat and cane.
"The officer is waiting, monsieur."
"Very well. Ask him to be patient for yet a moment longer. Meanwhile you will reconduct Madame la Comtesse to her carriage."
He remained at the stairhead until the rumble of wheels below announced her departure. Then he went briskly on, and quitted the gallery by a narrow doorway on his right.
When her coach drew up at the entrance in the Rue Colbert, he was waiting. The vehicle rolled away at speed as soon as he had jumped in, turned into the Rue des Bons Enfants and so gained the Rue Saint Honoré.
With the danger now behind him, Mr Law became increasingly conscious of the oddness of his situation and of the presence of this lady who sat so stiffly erect beside him, the lady whom he had met with insult and to whom it might well be that he now owed his life. In all this there was much that he did not understand, much that he required to know, yet knew not how to ask.
"You have placed me deeply in your debt," he murmured. "Which is detestable to you, of course."
"I could not be so ungracious as to agree."
"Could you not? Lord! Must we be formal, John?"
Whilst he observed how free she was with his name, he could not bring himself to make use of hers. "Is it formal to acknowledge what we owe? Let me hope that at least it will have no...no unpleasant consequences for you."
"Why should there be consequences?"
"From what you have told me, it is...your husband who is the instigator of the action against me."
"And from that you'll be inferring that my regard for you is greater than my regard for the Count of Horn."
"I should not permit myself the liberty of drawing inferences concerning you."
"You have never done so, have you?" There was a hardening of her tone.
He took a moment's thought before answering firmly: "Never."
"Really! Never? Well, you should know."
"Nor am I vain enough, I hope, to draw the inference that you suggest."
"You may save your tears. The disloyalty I practise in helping you sits lightly on my conscience. And not for the first time. I served you as well as I could at Sceaux by guarding your wife. It is fortunate that Margaret Ogilvy was only a name to her, that she had never met me face to face, or my task might not have proved so easy."
She broke off on a sudden subdued cry of alarm.
She had drawn aside the leather curtain, and put her head out of the coach, to withdraw it instantly.
They were approaching the open space before the Palais Royal, and by the tall iron gates she had caught sight again of the blue coats and red facings of a group of archers. She supposed them posted there by the Parliament for just such an eventuality, and said so.
Mr Law, however, was not perturbed. "It is not likely," he said. "But set me down at the side door in the Rue de Richelieu."
She pulled the cord, and to the footman, who came to the window as the coach was checked, she gave the order. They swung to the right, and halted presently at the door by which Dubois, in the days when he was content with the role of pandar, was in the habit of introducing the little ladies brought there to beguile the leisure of the young Duke.
A footman let down the step, but Mr Law was not pressed to descend.
"Make haste," she urged him, "before you are seen."
"I am without words..." he was beginning.
"All the better. There is no time for them."
"They must keep then until I see you again."
"Will that be necessary?"
He was jolted. "There is so much I should wish to know."
"But nothing you would be the happier for knowing." She touched his hand lightly. "Goodbye, John. Believe that I am glad to have served you. Go now."
He swung round so as to face her squarely, and in the wistfulness of her eyes he found encouragement to insist. He was deeply moved. "Let me see you again."
She shook her head. "It is not even likely that there will be the occasion. I am but a bird of passage. Lately come, I shall shortly go again. Give thanks as I do for my brief passage. I was sent to play Providence. That is all." She held out her hand. "Let us part friends, John--for old times' sake." Her voice broke on the words.
"Friends!" he echoed, with a touch of bitterness. Then, at last, he used her name. "Margaret!" He bore her gloved fingers to his lips, sprang from the coach and vanished through the little doorway into the palace.
The footman put up the step and swung to his place behind. The coach rolled away. Behind its leather curtains the woman sat rigidly erect, staring straight before her with eyes that the tears were blinding.