‘De l’Isle,’ she responded, smiling and carefully spelling it for him, as now he had no doubt about her identity. The Comtesse Chagrin de l’lsle. The chaise gave a lurch as a wheel dipped in the pitted road and she was thrown against him, and at her nearness he was irresistibly impelled to take her hand which had clung to him and press it to his cheek, and she, making no attempt to take it away, he kissed her fingers gently, lingeringly. ‘You are a trifle bold for so complete a stranger,’ she whispered in his ear, but there was no anger in her voice and he turned, kissing her cheek and still finding no resistance, only a yielding soft smile and her eyes shining up at him.
‘Tell me,’ he begged her, ‘when I might hope to see you again?’
Her smile became enigmatic. ‘We shall meet again, but, for tonight’ — she hesitated as if finding difficulty in choosing the right phrase not in her own tongue — ‘be discreet.’
For answer he took her hands in his and covered them with kisses, searching desperately for some means by which he could stay with her, not let her out of his sight, but knowing all the time there was no way, that he must leave her soon or he would have to face her scorn when she learned of his deception. They had reached Lady Harrington’s house, the windows ablaze with light, from within which could be heard the sounds of music. Now Nick and Chagrin stood in the big hall, the girl quite dazzled by the light from the huge chandelier and the whirlpool of guests in all their finery and splendour. This was the moment, Nick knew with a heavy sadness, when he must beat a hasty retreat, or his deception be discovered and he unmasked before the girl. Suddenly he gave an exclamation. She turned to him questioningly. ‘My gloves, I must have left them in the chaise. And if I hurry I may recover them.’ A footman moved towards him as if to offer to go, but Nick interrupted him. ‘No,’ then to Chagrin: ‘Do you join Lady Harrington and I will find you.’ She was regarding him curiously and he realized she must think he was acting strangely, but with a quick smile he turned and hurried off.
Never looking back he walked through the dark streets, his mind a turmoil, only the faint, subtle, elusive whisper of her perfume which haunted him to reassure she was not a figure of some strangely wonderful hallucination, so he hardly knew how he found himself returned to Spring Gardens. So preoccupied was he that his pace had slowed, thoughtfully, or he must have been in time to observe, as he drew near Casanova’s house, a form, accompanied by another, both muffled to the ears and whose appearance might have been not unfamiliar to him, hurry forth, step into a waiting hackney and drive away.
He was in his shirt and breeches, idly brushing his hair and seeing in the mirror not his, but another’s face. Even had it not followed, as indeed it had, hard upon his flight from Mother Sulphur’s brothel, his encounter with Chagrin must have made an impact upon him of such transcending power unique in his experience. He could scarcely credit it had happened, that even for those all-too-brief moments he had actually enjoyed the company of someone so delicate and sublime. Every nerve and fibre of his being quickened with excitement, his blood ran afire with wonder. It was as if he had encountered a vision from some celestial realm, an angel of goodness and sweetness, of tenderness and enchantment.
He turned away from the mirror and paced his room on the third floor, his brain spinning, the palms of his hands moist with perspiration, his heart full, as if it would burst with the tumult of emotions that racked it. He kept telling her name over to himself like a votary telling a rosary, losing himself in the magic of it. Chagrin... Chagrin... Comtesse Chagrin de l’lsle... This was something he had never before known; this was honour and truth; this was no cheap and fast-ebbing passion, no lust of the flesh. This was something of ineffable beauty and delight to be cherished and adored. And yet, which was the marvellousness of it, she was no cold, marble figure without heart or sensibilities, or ardour. For she had responded to his half-bold, half-shy advances with a delicate charm; aloof, yet warm; her eyes reserved, yet her soft mouth provocative, curving with tender humour.
He turned back to the mirror, still seeing her face in its candlelit depths, but now his thoughts ran seared with bitterness. She had responded to his caresses upon her perfumed hand, white like flower petals in the darkness of the coach, and her soft cheek, and had not turned away. For she had not known him for the upstart vagabond he was, riffraff from the foul stews of St. Giles’s, a one-time charlatan’s assistant, lately promoted to strut in the reflected glory of a handsome adventurer, who, for all his extravagant attire and fine manners, was himself no more than a charlatan. Else would he have felt impelled to slink off upon some feeble pretext, like any thief or knave, to quit her presence when he ached to stay? Had he been what she had mistaken him for, and not a mere impostor, he would be with her even now, holding her in his arms in the dance, drinking in her beauty amongst the gay throng, the lilting music, attending upon her every word, proud and basking in her smiles.
He grated his teeth as he realized how worthless he would appear in her estimation, how utterly beneath her contempt she must hold him should she become aware of the truth concerning him, and there surged within him a tremendous yearning to become the individual of substance and status she had mistaken him for. So close had he been to her and yet so far; and harrowed by a terrible longing for the unattainable that mocked him he offered up a silent prayer that in spite of the helplessness of his situation somehow, by some miraculous stroke, he would find a way to meet her upon her own ground, her own terms. And then his reflection derided him in the mirror as he realized the cruel impossibility of his dreams. The door opening noiselessly brought his thoughts back to the here and now.
‘You both must have come home most quietly,’ Marianne Charpillon was saying. ‘I did not hear you.’
‘I returned alone.’
Closing the door behind her she advanced towards him, her loose robe of filmy lace, clinging to every curve of her slim form. Her eyes were very wide, catching in their blue depths the flames of the candles on his dressing-table.
‘Why, what happened? Where did you leave him?’
‘With friends,’ he answered her cryptically. ‘Myself I felt a trifle indisposed, so came away.’
‘His friends,’ she sneered. ‘You mean the Corneleys bitch.’
‘In fact, we were not at Soho Square. They were other acquaintances we called upon.’
‘It is a matter of indifference where he is,’ she said, taking the hairbrush from him. ‘That white streak,’ she murmured softly. ‘Bend your head so I may brush it into place.’ He remained perfectly still, a whimsical quirk lifting the corners of his jutting brows.
‘I have already brushed my hair.’
He did not move and she pouted. ‘You are so tall, you would have me on tiptoe.’ The wide sleeves of her robe slipped back over her slender arms, gleaming with dazzling whiteness. She laughed softly. ‘Do you please bend your head.’ He could not resist lowering his gaze past her moist, painted mouth and the curve of her throat.
‘You asked me to bend my head,’ he mocked, ‘not lose it.’
Her arms twined round his neck, she writhed against him, her teeth gleamed, her perfume heady, like wine in his nostrils. ‘Why are you so cold, so unyielding?’ she queried. ‘Never once have you looked my way as do other men.’
‘My employer, for example?’
Her eyelids veiled her melting look for a moment, but she made no answer. ‘I could come to you when all are gone to bed. No matter how late I would wait for your return.’
‘I should have imagined you too wearied after your evening’s work,’ he insinuated. But she only squirmed closer, forcing his arms around her to hold her to him. Suddenly she tensed and stared over her shoulder. Casanova’s voice came up to them.
‘Marianne, where are you? Nick, are you returned?’
The girl drew away, making as if to cross to the door, then paused indecisively. ‘Marianne,’ came the voice again and footsteps hurried up the stairs.
�
��You had best answer him,’ Nick said, enjoying the situation.
She flashed a glance at him, then reached for the door-handle. ‘He must not know I am with you,’ she whispered.
‘Surely you are not at a loss for some lie,’ he mocked her, and her eyes snapped back at him viciously. ‘Tell him you were frightened by the dark.’
But she remained speechless, utterly disconcerted by Casanova’s approach. Nick crossed to her and pulled upon the door, just as there came another shout for Marianne. ‘We are here,’ he called down, then in an undertone to the girl: ‘Best think quick of something to tell him, unless you prefer to make it the truth.’
‘I hate you,’ she grated, and there was suddenly a malevolence in her look that made him realize with a shock the deep undercurrent of hatred running beneath her alluring prettiness. She hurried past him, calling with forced brightness to Casanova as she went downstairs. Not bothering to try and overhear what took place between them, Nick closed his door.
Presently he put on his quilted dressing-gown and made his way downstairs. He found Casanova in the sitting room, leaning back in an easy chair, his cloak, hat and jacket strewn about while he sipped abstractedly at a glass of cognac. Nick kicked a log in the grate so that sparks flew from it and a flame began to lick round it anew. Casanova did not open his eyes — it was as if he had been expecting Nick, but after a few moments he said through a yawn:
‘I regret this evening’s entertainment amused you so little you had to leave before I did.’
‘You are, no doubt, accustomed to such a surfeit, but it was too much for my inexperienced stomach.’
‘I fancy,’ Casanova continued drowsily, ‘you will scarcely be a welcome guest there for the future.’
‘I regret,’ Nick said, ‘if the manner of my departure caused you embarrassment.’
‘Not a bit. I was amused and reminded of those brothels I have had to fight my way out of.’ There was a silence. The log crackled as the flame got a firmer hold about it, then: ‘I also wondered if you had better entertainment in mind elsewhere.’ ‘I did not think,’ Nick said, with a movement of the hand in an upstairs direction, ‘she could give you a very convincing story.’
‘Indeed, she made no excuses at all; merely flounced into her bedroom, leaving me to think what I might. Since you are not entirely unattractive, I concluded the worst.’ He sighed heavily. ‘The little girl is more than a match for me, though I have fed myself on the wisdom of the ancients. She has only to look at me with those glorious eyes of hers and I take in the poison of her glance at every pore. Well she knows it,’ he added, sipping at his cognac.
‘Because she cheats, should I also?’ Casanova opened his eyes and now they were glittering with their familiar brilliance. ‘Do you give me to understand she made advances which you rejected?’ Nick shrugged. ‘Pox on it’ — the other banged his glass down on the table so that some of the liquor slopped over — ‘if you do not wear the air of a man who had repulsed such an assault.’
There followed another silence while Casanova drained his glass and said casually: ‘We have, however, Marianne and I, between us concocted a kind of charade.’ Casanova filled up his glass and replaced the decanter on the table. ‘It includes for its performance a certain merchant of high repute and a deeper purse who, unlike you, reciprocates the alluring Marianne’s advances.’ A further pause, and then slowly: ‘I wonder if you may also have guessed the role in our mummery for which you are cast?’
‘I await your advice on that score with consuming interest.’
‘This,’ Casanova said, ‘might be as appropriate a time as any to impart it to you. Then must we rehearse together, all three of us.’
‘With mentors of such experience I cannot fail to prove an apt pupil.’ Casanova caught Nick’s tone and glanced at him sharply, observing the faint flicker of amusement that etched the corners of his mouth.
‘You speak almost as if you are already aware what direction your lessons will take.’
‘This,’ Nick murmured, ‘might be as an appropriate time as any for me to impart to you I was not altogether frank with you when I first entered your employ.’
‘Few of us have nothing in our past we would prefer hid,’ and Casanova sighed heavily, ‘if you mean that. But what is it concerning which you are minded to undeceive me now?’
‘I recognized Marianne at Bartholomew Fair as a girl from the Rookeries,’ Nick replied, ‘whose cunning in her own particular way was much admired. For myself I was considerably satisfied that, though I recognized her, my own appearance had so changed she in turn knew me not.’
Casanova stared at him unbelievingly for several moments and then gave a roar of laughter. Presently his mirth subsided and, growing serious, he fell to outlining details of the deep-laid design he fervently anticipated was to yield them, Nick to receive his fair share, so rich a haul, and that soon.
*
At breakfast next morning any romantic reverie concerning Chagrin was edged from Nick’s mind by Casanova’s casual reference to a cock-fight they would attend together that evening. Something in the other’s tone convinced Nick that Casanova had brought forward the timing of his scheme’s climax. Was it because he was anxious to secure its success and then rid himself of Marianne Charpillon’s company? The Venetian, however, chose to remain reticent concerning what was in his thoughts, turning the conversation to a discussion of cock-fighting.
It was Nick’s first visit to the royal cockpit in St. James’s Park, which was a small arena with rows of matting-covered seats rising from the pit itself, brightly illuminated with lanterns and tallow candles. Nick and Casanova took their places and watched for a couple of hours while the cocks, some of which were valued as high as a hundred guineas, all armoured alike in silver helmets and spurs, were set down in pairs to fight each other with amazing bloodthirstiness, the air splitting to the uproar of the spectators crowded round. The betting was prodigious, Nick noting considerable sums of money passing from hand to hand. He could not help a twinge of pity for the losers of the savage contests as they were mangled and torn to the encouraging shouts of the hard-faced audience. Casanova appeared to exhibit similar sentiments, for presently he turned to Nick with an expression of repugnance, suggesting they had seen enough and that they left the cockpit.
Outside, Nick realized Casanova’s reason for leaving the place so early was the more important rendezvous he had in mind. It was now just after seven o’clock and the early December evening was chilly with a drizzling rain. Casanova led the way to a waiting hackney carriage and, to Nick’s surprise, who had anticipated they would go to some tavern, the driver was directed to convey them forthwith to Spring Gardens.
‘Now is the moment approaching,’ Casanova spoke quickly and in low tones, ‘for you to enact your role.’ He then took Nick through the line of action which they, with the girl, had rehearsed together. ‘At first you will be distraught and I shall have to struggle to restrain you from satisfying your honour by the sword, and do you calm down most reluctantly.’
They went over each step in the approaching drama, whose final curtain was to yield such a handsome sum from their gull. Casanova rolled the amount round his tongue so Nick could almost hear him smacking his lips. ‘We cannot know our parts word for word beforehand, since one of the characters must remain unaware of the part he is to play until our entrance.’ He chuckled a little, yet Nick could detect the nervous quiver in his tone. ‘So we must extemporize accordingly.’
Casanova lapsed into silence, and each remained busy with their thoughts, until they were outside the house. Swiftly they went up the stairs to the first floor, Nick leading the way and catching a glimpse of Mrs. Rancour’s startled face as she appeared at the bottom of the stairs. They approached Marianne’s bedroom and Nick suddenly raised his voice.
‘Where are you, darling wife? Where are you, love? My friend and I have returned sooner than we thought to.’ He opened the door and went in. The s
cene that met his eyes appeared to be posed precisely as had been anticipated. Marianne loosed an expert scream and caught a robe about her with an expression of excellently simulated surprise combined with mortification. The tubby, middle-aged man, with mouth agape, was reacting in a manner expected of someone caught in such somewhat compromising circumstances. But something deep down inside Nick’s very core warned him all was not what it seemed. Despite the artistry with which the picture was composed it hung awry.
Nick thrust aside his inner conviction that the performance was foredoomed to disaster, and uttered that anguished cry to Casanova, who promptly appeared in the doorway to lend his presence as witness of the discovery of an outraged, unsuspecting husband of his wife’s infidelity. Casanova risked a knowing wink, so obviously satisfied was he with the way the plot was going. Nick drew his sword and adopted the conventional threatening attitude, advanced towards the bed: ‘Pox on you both, I know not which of you should be first.’ This producing the desired effect upon the girl, who, screaming, grovelled herself sobbing in his path.
‘No, husband, no.’
Casanova begged him put down his sword, which Nick, with most convincing show of controlling his racked emotions, slowly did. Next he allowed himself to be dissuaded even from obtaining satisfaction through the process of the law. Then, his magnanimity taking a practical turn, the matter of some monetary reward was mentioned. It was when the sum of ten thousand pounds, no more no less, was mentioned as the price for silence, and their man had agreed to fork out, that the long, richly embroidered curtains drawn across the window-recess were suddenly pulled apart.
An individual moved into the room and snapped an order, and from behind the curtains over the other window-recess a man, whose red waistcoat of a Bow Street Runner showed beneath his jacket, stepped purposely forward. Casanova stood there utterly dumbfounded, then, with a gabble of Italian, grabbed his sword. As its point sped towards the first figure Nick brought the flat of his own blade across the other’s wrist so hard it drew forth a gasp of pain, forcing the sword from Casanova’s grasp.
The Blind Beak Page 6