Chapter 13 The Gamester by Rafael Sabatini
TREASONABLE PRACTICES
A small group of disgruntled gentlemen, brought together to condole with one another were exchanging heated words in the library of Monsieur de Noailles' mansion at Vincennes. They were the men chiefly concerned in the Parliament plot: the President de Mesmes and the Vice-President Blamont, shaken to the soul of them and still in fear of arrest, the old Maréchal de Villeroy, persuaded that he was in like case, the young Duc d'Aumont, that lackey of the Maines, representing their interests, and the Count of Horn, the bitterest of them all in his disappointment.
They were almost lachrymose until Noailles, provoked by a sneer from Horn, made the assertion that their failure could have resulted only from betrayal.
"My God, here's shrewdness!" mocked the Count. "Where we lacked it was in not foreseeing that with such a multitude ours would be a secret of Polichinelle."
"A multitude?" said de Mesmes. "There were not ten men with knowledge of what was actually intended. Besides ourselves, the Vice-President Blamont, and the Councillor Beaumanoir, the only others who knew our full intent were the Duke and Duchess of Maine, and they would certainly not betray it."
"It's not so much a matter of betrayal as of indiscretion," said d'Aumont.
"That," quavered the old Maréchal, "is the least that can be said."
"It's the most," d'Aumont insisted.
"I ask myself," said Horn, "who can have talked."
"Do you ask yourself or do you ask us?" Noailles demanded.
The Count's hackles went up. "After all, you are right. Why should I ask myself?"
"Because you may know the answer."
"Is that an innuendo?"
"Oh, I'll be quite plain. If anyone has talked it's likeliest to be you. You drink too much, Count, and men who drink too much commonly talk too much."
"Ah, but this is more than I'll endure. It amounts to an accusation, and that without a grain of evidence."
D'Aumont struck in to avert a quarrel. "Gentlemen, are we to wrangle over something which, if done at all, will have been done by inadvertence and cannot now be undone? I am sure that the sensible course is to stand together so as to repair matters, and find other ways to achieve our aim."
"A timely reminder, Monsieur le Duc," de Mesmes approved, whilst Villeroy was asking, "What have you in mind?"
"Why, this is how I see it. Lass' crazy schemes will be the ruin of France."
"We discovered that some time ago," sneered Noailles. "In fact, before we planned to have the Parliament deal with him."
"The difficulty," grumbled Villeroy, "lies in bringing it home to the dog. The least that one can say is that his gambling ventures prosper."
"For the moment," said d'Aumont. "It's commonly the case for a while with gamesters. The danger is that even if they didn't prosper, the Regent would still support him."
"By God, Duke, you never said anything truer," was Horn's bitter comment, remembering his own case.
Noailles was not conciliated. "If we are to content ourselves with stating the obvious we shall make no progress."
"We shall make no progress in any case as long as the Regent shields him," said d'Aumont. "That's obvious, too. But it's as well to state it. It perhaps points the way."
"In God's name," quavered Villeroy, "the way to what?"
The others were staring round-eyed at d'Aumont. He nodded, tight-lipped. "I see that you understand. Well, there it is, and we may as well face it. As long as the Regent is where he is, Monsieur Lass will keep his heel on our necks."
Noailles grew stern. "As long as the Regent is where he is? Let us understand you. Are you proposing that the Regent be removed?"
D'Aumont affected a laugh. "I am proposing nothing. I am plainly stating a situation."
This was too much for Noailles. He came to his feet. "A plain statement that is an invitation to treason."
Again d'Aumont laughed. "An invitation to nothing. It is not for me to be inviting. Yet since treason is mentioned, it might be well to consider whether the greater treason, the treason to this France, which we all agree a foreign adventurer is ruining, should not forbid us to remain inert. But, I repeat, I merely indicate. I do not advocate."
Noailles' quick answer forestalled any other. "It is well for you, Monsieur le Duc, that you circumscribe that treasonable opinion. You make it plain that to talk further at present is at best a waste of time. I trust that no one else could even bear to look along the road of which Monsieur d'Aumont says that he merely indicates the existence."
D'Aumont became voluble in protesting his repugnance to any measures against the Regent. Actually, all his aim was to bring home to them how idle it was at present to talk of concerting measures for dealing with Monsieur Lass. It convinced none of them; but at least it enabled them to dine together in harmony and amity at Noailles' table.
Least of all did it convince Horn. He had been at Sceaux, and in that atmosphere so openly and poisonously hostile to the Regent, he had seen how close was d'Aumont in the councils of the Duchess. It was clear enough to him that d'Aumont sought to exploit the present situation in her service, and being actuated by none of Noailles' high-principled loyalty, the Count knew no reason why he should scruple, in the pursuit of his vindictiveness against Law, to hurt a Regent who had so brutally dismissed his plaint.
Therefore, having contrived to return to Paris in the Duc d'Aumont's coach, he went straight to the heart of the matter, applauding the Duke's clearsightedness and agreeing that the Regent's protection of Lass was in the present circumstances an outrage to be resented by every true Frenchman.
Of course, d'Aumont agreed with warmth. "In fact, when all is weighed, we discover that it is not really Lass who is ruining France, but the Duke of Orléans."
"The shrewd old King foresaw it," Horn agreed, "when he provided otherwise for the Regency."
"You are not alone in perceiving it. There are those with no interest at heart but that of France, whose proper aim is to right this wrong."
"I rejoice to hear it. More, I should always be ready to bear a part in so laudable an undertaking. It would be an honour and a duty."
Now, however much Horn might be regarded as a debauched fribble, it remained that by virtue of his lofty connections his name was of weight in Europe, and would be of particular weight in Spain, to which the Maines were looking for redress of their wrongs. Hence, when he expressed himself so frankly, d'Aumont perceived no reason not to be equally frank.
"The Parliament, overborne by the Duke of Orléans, has removed the Duke of Maine from the Regency. Against that there is now no appeal. He could be restored only by the King of Spain, who stands nearest to the throne of France, and as the late King's grandson, is actually the real heir presumptive, and therefore the natural Regent. He should be invited to take the office and then govern by deputy."
"And that deputy," said Horn, to whom much was now clear, "would, of course, be the Duke of Maine."
"Of course. There would then be an end to these abuses, to this dissolute governing by harlots, rakes, and money-changers."
"Not before it is needed, by God," said Horn, with virtuous fervour. "Count upon me for one."
"I rejoice to do so. You not only perceive the right, you wish to uphold it. That, my dear Count, is the true nobility."
It remained for d'Aumont only to persuade Horn to pay another visit to Sceaux and offer himself to the Duchess, who would give him a glad welcome and enrol him in the growing army that under her direction was working to this noble end.
Having pledged himself, Monsieur de Horn went home to request his Countess to prepare for this jaunt into the country on the morrow. He found her deep in Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes, which had lately appeared, wearing a gown of shimmering silk of palest green without panniers, so that her admirable shape and lovely length of limb were not dissembled.
Under its crown of lustrous russet hair her face and neck and breast were of a creamy pallor. All this and the brilliant eyes and vivid lips that seemed ever laughter-laden, which once had disturbed the senses of a king by no means ardent, and once had driven the Count of Horn to such distraction as almost to have changed his nature, made him deplore the lack of affection in the gaze with which she returned his own.
"To Sceaux," she said. "I wonder what attraction you find there that you should wish to return so soon. Or is the Baroness Lass again to be of the company?"
"The Baroness Lass!" His tone and grimace were convincing denial. "Reassure yourself, madame. It will not be the sort of attraction you will be suspecting."
"Suspecting!" She smiled, with a flash of perfect teeth. "I am not suspecting. I was asking. But it is of no importance."
He was goaded by her calm into a full and boastful disclosure of the part he hoped to play in pulling down the Regent, so that he might afterwards square the account with that thieving dog of a compatriot of hers who had robbed him of a fortune.
"Perhaps," she suggested, "it was his way of forestalling your attempt to rob him of a wife."
His annoyance was the sharper, because of the truth he discerned in this, a truth he was not even concerned to dissemble. "I would to God I had never seen the sickly creature."
Her laugh was not in the least wifely. "You thought to grasp a wanton, and found a prude. A thorny prude. My dear, I commiserate you. These vexations are occasionally inevitable in such a career as yours. As for this revenge you contemplate, it is no affair of mine. And, of course, my opinion will not weigh with you. Yet I am impelled to say that you would be better advised to keep away from the Maines and their plots, or you may end by suffering more than mere banishment from Court."
He stood over her, tall, handsome, and sneering. "You are right," he said.
She raised her brows. "Surprising admission!"
"I mean you are right that your opinion will not weigh with me."
"Forgive me. I was stupid. I am stupid sometimes."
"Often. But it is no matter. This is Monday. We shall go to Sceaux on Thursday."
"You mean that you will go."
"And that you will accompany me. Her Grace will be glad to welcome us again."
"Maybe. But I don't think I care to be welcomed by her Grace. I lack your interest in her honey flies. And in any case, I shall be leaving in the morning with Lady Stair for Saint Germain, and we shall not return until Saturday."
"You refuse, then, to come with me."
"I have been endeavouring to say so--politely."
He clenched his hands. "You are resolved to infuriate me."
"Must we exaggerate? It is only that I do not care for the posturing company at Sceaux, and that I am pledged to Lady Stair."
Her mocking air, even more than her words, made him bid her go to the devil and stalk out in fury.
It was intolerable that a man of his birth and station should be unable to constrain a mutinous wife, or even be in a position to threaten that he would close the Paris house and dismiss the servants. Such a threat in his straitened circumstances would be a brutum fulmen; for of the house, which was hired, it was she who bore all the costs of maintenance.
If on their first meeting in London two years ago her provocative beauty had enthralled him just as his own good looks and lofty birth had made him acceptable to her, yet but for the great wealth of which she disposed and the great estate of Harpington, of which she bore the title, it would never have occurred to him to seek her in wedlock.
Perhaps he had been less than prudent in neglecting to make sure of the exact tenure of that wealth. Because he was entirely mercenary he must be at more than ordinary pains to avoid revealing the fact; and as a result it was not until after marriage that money came to be discussed between them. Trusting in a husband's rights over a wife's property he had known no misgivings. The greater, therefore, was the shock that awaited him.
In the rich Harpington estates he discovered that she possessed no more than a life interest, with trustees who had it in their power to exercise a measure of control over the considerable revenue she derived from it; so that even this could not be accounted free, and certainly not free enough to permit him to control more of it than she chose to allow.
In the cruel light of that discovery, it seemed to the Count that he had overrated both her beauty and her charm. Disillusioned, he cast aside the mask of amativeness, cursed the fates which had tricked him into marriage, and resumed his normal ways of life rather sooner and more flagrantly than he might otherwise have done.
As for her, equally disillusioned, she regretted that she had not given heed to her brother, Stephen Ogilvy, who had been under no misapprehension concerning either his sister or her very ardent wooer. He knew the bruised condition of her heart, and how vulnerable it left her to an approach that came arrayed in deferential tenderness. He justly appraised the appeal to her senses of Horn's external graces and the claim upon her vanity of the wooing of a man of his almostly princely station. And he judged it a fire that would be soon burnt out.
An attempt of his to dissuade her from the marriage had almost led to a rupture between them. But when things fell out as he had foreseen and much sooner than he had foreseen, it was he who had shown her the weapons she possessed in her revenues and exactly how to wield them for her self-protection.
Thus she had remained mistress of the situation. The establishment in the Rue d'Argenteuil was maintained because she chose to maintain it. For the rest, she practised no petty meanness with her husband. From time to time she even supplied him with sums of money for his needs, most of which he had gamed or else spent on other women. In this he had been quite flagrant, and had she reproached him, she would have stirred in him no emotion but surprise.
He would amusedly have reproved an outlook more proper to the wife of a tradesman in viewing the world of fashion. But she did not reproach him. She amazed herself when, the mask being off, after so brief an experience of marriage, she found herself contemplating his true countenance with utter indifference; more, almost, it seemed, with relief, as if the revelation severed a bond that had secretly been irking her, and gave her back her freedom. Understanding followed, and with it a measure of shame.
Stephen had been right. Horn had never touched more than her senses. That bruised heart of hers, as Stephen knew, was quite incapable of love, although to a man of worth she would have given that duty and loyalty which the Count of Horn could certainly not command.
So that his raging departure from her presence left her supremely indifferent, whilst the prospect of his departure from Paris was vaguely uplifting.