Chapter 22 The Gamester by Rafael Sabatini
REVELATION
It did not occur to Mr Law on this occasion to employ a nom de guerre. Boldly he had himself announced by his own name, and the footman who bore the announcement returned almost at once to conduct him to that same boudoir of rose damask panels and black and gold chinoiserie in which she had last received him.
She stood before him in the informal sacque in which ladies of fashion took their ease at home. It was cut low at the neck and of the colour of feuille morte, which, save for its lack of lustre, almost matched her russet hair.
She smiled as she greeted him. "How did you learn that I am in Paris?"
"I wish that I could say that some subtle sense brought me the knowledge. But, in effect, it was nothing subtler than my Lady Stair."
"Why have you come?" was her next question.
"For this," he said, and gathered her into his arms and kissed her lips.
She did not deny him. But she cut short the embrace and put him from her, with a half-reproof. "This is not wise."
"Nor wisely intended."
"Ah!" Her glance was keen. A feverishness in his manner made her suddenly solemn. "Will you not sit?" she invited, and herself sank to a chair, spreading her gown. "You will have some deeper reason."
He remained standing over her. "Reason is not concerned. I merely obey the instinct to come to you as soon as I learn that you are within reach."
She disregarded this. It was plain that her casualness was forced, she was ill at ease.
"Had you delayed until tomorrow you would no longer have found me. The business with Lord Stair that brought me is done, and there is no reason for me to stay."
"That is utterly to crush the wild hope I fostered."
Again she scrutinized him, and her lip quivered. "It cannot be that you are making love to me, John," she said between question and assertion.
"Is it odd that I should? Is there good reason why I should not?"
"It is you now who talk of reason. But I, too, have my instincts, and they rebel. Come, John, let us be sane. I know that I am to blame for this. I was wanting in discretion when last you were here. I suffered my feelings to master me for a moment. But I trusted you, and trusting you I believe it could have no sequel. Do not spoil that. Please, John. Do not diminish my esteem for you."
"Esteem!" He was aggrieved. "You had another word for it when last I was here."
"I have said that I lacked discretion. And now you are proving it." Her tone was sad. "Be generous, my dear. You found me in an hour of weakness, a poor distraught woman with a fresh, raw wound to add to the many life has dealt me. At such times we are apt to leave a slack rein to our feelings."
"What has changed since then?" he demanded. "Has Horn become more worthy, or Catherine less of a shrew? Is either of us less lonely or alone?"
"That is nothing to the matter. It draws us no nearer to each other."
"Not if we are fools," he cried, and sank to one knee beside her, grasping the hands that lay limp in her lap. "Margaret my dear, must we be fools, indeed? Are we never to draw strength and comfort from each other in the loneliness in which each of us is wasting?"
Her agitation deepened. Her eyes looked almost black in the whiteness of her face. "What do you know of loneliness who hold an empire in your strong hands? Does not that suffice you, without seeking a poor woman for your toy?"
"That is a cruel thing to say to me."
"Cruel! If you cannot understand that the cruelty is yours, you do not know what cruelty means. Did I lay bare my heart in an unguarded hour so that you should come and tear fresh wounds in it?"
"Nay, Margaret. To heal the old ones, and to heal my own at the same time. Why will you deny me?"
"God knows I would deny you nothing, John. I am yours if you want me, but...Oh, God!" she wrenched her hands from his and covered her face, sinking back into her chair. "I have prayed that you never would. Not this way." There was anguish in her voice. "I suppose that I have given you cause to think me a woman whom you can ask to be your mistress. That is what wounds: that you should so regard me."
Mortification and frustrated longings wrung from him unpardonable words. "To be sure I am not a king. You shudder as if in horror. But you had no horror of the Dutchman after I, like a fool, had removed the husband who for his profit would have yielded you to him."
She uncovered her face again, to look at him, and he beheld it charged with pain and anger. "And now you insult me! You dare to reproach me with that. You dare because you never understood. You had neither the wit nor the faith that would have made you understand.
"Did you never ask yourself why you were not hanged as sentenced, nor yet why Mr Bentinck should have opened for you the prison door and provided for your escape, on the sole condition that you left England at once and never returned in King William's lifetime? Did you not? Then I will tell you.
"When you lay under sentence in Newgate I went to the King to beg your life. He questioned me on my relations with you. But that is no matter. He was kind, with a kindness that frightened me. He would consider, he said, and I should hear from him. I did. He sent his lackey Bentinck to offer me your life and liberty...on terms."
"Oh, my God!" cried the man at her feet, overcome by sudden revelation, moved now in his turn to hide his face in his hands.
Her lips twitched in a crooked smile that was like a grin of pain.
"You begin to understand. The bargain I was offered revolted me. I cursed that smug Dutch gentleman, and called upon God to punish him and his master. Then I thought of you, and took fright. I reflected that my life was ruined in either case, and that yours, at least, might be saved. And your life was the price I accepted for my harlotry."
So far she had spoken in a low voice that was charged with sorrow. And now its pathos deepened. "I was not born to be a harlot, John, as you should know. I was a woman of a high pride and of the dignity that comes of virtue fiercely guarded. Yet a harlot I became for your sake, so that for years you might loathe me, and in the end reproach me with it as you have done tonight."
"Margaret!" The name broke from him in a sob. He bowed his head almost to the ground. He took the hem of her gown and bore it to his lips. "I am not worthy even of so much. As God hears me I would rather that I had hanged. How could I guess? How could I guess?"
At the agony in his voice, the humility of his act, all passion fell from her. Her hand moved over his head in a caress. Very sadly and quietly she spoke. "Had your faith been stout enough there would have been no need to guess."
"Do me justice," he cried, starting to his feet. "When Bentinck came to me in Newgate there was no mention of you."
"And you never asked yourself why he should come at all, and offer you so much."
"Indeed, I did. And I supposed it common justice; that they recognized the sentence as excessive, yet did not wish to admit it openly. I killed Wilson in a fair encounter, as any court of honour must have adjudged, and gentlemen are not to be hanged for that, whatever the edicts."
"Yes," she admitted slowly. "There is that. It is what I have thought."
"If I had known, if he had dared to tell me, I must have cast my life back in his teeth."
"Which is why he did not tell you. Afterwards...why should I have given you knowledge of something that was past mending? It could serve only to torment you, as it torments you now when a gust of anger left me without the generosity or good sense to continue to hide it."
"Never think that." At last he looked at her again, and found her in tears. "The only present shame is mine for...for having provoked the avowal. Yet, however this thing may haunt me, in my soul I must be glad of the knowledge. For there you are enshrined again, wholly pure as you were in the days when I had no thought of you that was not of worship. Of your charity, Margaret, forgive me for this hour."
"I do, in thankfulness."
He stood straight and squarely before her. "And now, Margaret?"
"Now?" She contrived to smile up at him through her tears. "It is time, I think, to say good night." She stood up. "Good night and goodbye, my dear. It will be best for both of us that it should be goodbye. Finally goodbye."
"If I believed that, life would have little purpose left."
"You say that in the weakness of the moment. There is abundant purpose in your life, John, and I doubt not that I shall find some in mine."
Tenderly she brought him to take his leave. "It shall be my constant prayer," he said, "that the life you have preserved for me may be worthy of the dreadful sacrifice you made."
"I thank you for that. They are healing words." She took his head between her hands, drew it down and kissed him on the lips. "God have you ever in His keeping, my dear."
It was a prayer that was not immediately to be answered, for he departed in torment, and in torment abode in the days that followed. Only the knowledge that she had quitted Paris kept him from yielding to the overpowering need to see her again, and left him moving like a sleep walker whilst the greatest hazard of his gambler's life was being played.