‘Must you subject her to such indignity?’ he heard Lord Tregarth protest bitterly.
‘Her?’ Nick’s glance raked the man of clerical appearance, obviously seemingly petrified and mouthing prayers under his breath, the young girl and her large, buxom aunt, Lord Tregarth and the bruiser. It seemed impossible to believe any of them could be the Paris jeweller. He turned back to the coach with a jerk of his pistol, whereupon the young girl squealed: ‘Aunt, will he murder her?’
There came another rumble of thunder. Suddenly tense in his saddle, borne upon a rain-filled squall came the faint oncoming drumming of horse’s hooves. Even as he made sure of the sound, Lord Tregarth uttered a gratified exclamation. ‘Sounds like a chaise, or someone on horseback.’
‘You in there,’ Nick snarled. ‘Out quickly or death to you.’
The remaining occupant of the coach appeared at the door, her face shadowed by the hood of the long cloak she had drawn about her as if to hide herself from scrutiny. Nick had to admit she appeared unlikely to be the creature he sought, disguised, but was determined not to allow the coach to proceed on its way without being completely satisfied the French spy was not in it. Peremptorily ordering the woman in the cloak to stand beside his horse he turned his pistols upon the others, watching anxiously. ‘Get back into the coach, the rest of you. You coachman, if whoever it is approaching stops to ask do you require help, fob him off with some excuse.’
‘What excuse?’
‘A stone in one of your team’s hooves — use your wits or lose your life.’ And swinging his pistols at the group by the coach-door: ‘You play up to him.’
‘And what,’ his lordship inquired, ‘will you be doing?’
‘Waiting’ — jerking his head in the direction of the trees — ‘with my prisoner. Should any try to play me false I will shoot her without compunction.’
The hooded figure beside his horse remained still, giving no sign she was affected by his threat, though the man in parson’s attire wrung his hands, murmuring nervously: ‘Of course we will do as you say.’
‘Or,’ Nick jeered, ‘your prayers will be needed for a departed soul this night.’ Before the compulsion of his dangerous-looking pistols, the others got quickly back into the coach, and Nick escorted his hostage, who kept close to his saddle into the trees. Now the hooves were nearer and, together with their steady beat, could be heard the rattle of carriage-wheels. Nick, leaning down, observed in low tones: ‘Most silent you are for a woman, and I think not because fright has lost you the use of your tongue.’
The other made no reply, but stood there quiet and cloaked and somehow strangely mysterious. Impossible she could be Boehemer, who, according to the description of him, was a middle-aged, prosperous-looking individual. Overhead, rainy gusts stirred the trees starkly black against the threatening sky. Now Nick made out a post-chaise against the dim road spinning along at a fast lick. At the appearance of the coach standing there, the chaise pulled up, the post-boy calling out if ought were amiss. Nick turned, heard the hooded creature at his stirrup utter a faint gasp as the coachman coughed and mumbled before he found his voice. ‘One of my horses slipped and I thought a trace had snapped,’ he extemporized, ‘but it will hold.’
The post-boy urged his pair of horses onwards again, with a ‘good night’ and a ‘God speed’. In a few moments the chaise had disappeared into the stormy darkness, to be revealed brightly by a flash of lightning, the echo of rattling wheels and hooves dying away.
Nick prodded the figure at his saddle in the back with his pistol and bent forward. ‘Now for a closer view of one so silent,’ and, with a quick movement, jerked back the hood obscuring her face. As it fell away she turned, her eyes blazing up at him.
‘Do you keep your hands from me.’ Her voice was low and her French accent did not disguise the contemptuous hatred charging it, and as another lightning flash clawed the darkness from the sky Nick found himself staring into the face of the Comtesse Chagrin de l’Isle.
11.
At the same time the lightning flash was illuminating the darkness of Blackheath and Nick Rathburn found himself gazing at the Comtesse Chagrin de l’Isle, the bronze ormulu clock on the mantelpiece of Madame Du Barry’s boudoir at the Hotel de Brissac, Rue de Crenelle in the Faubourg St. Germain, that most fashionable quarter of Paris, struck the quarter past the hour of ten. The sweet chimes reached the pretty ears of the gloriously fair woman lying in her bath in the gilt and mirrored bathroom, and she called to her femme de chambre, who at once appeared with the loose wrap in which to envelop the beautiful body.
A few minutes later the Du Barry, clothed in silken petticoats and over them a négligé of rich Brussels lace, faced the great mirror of her muslin-draped dressing-table and, aided by her woman, deftly applied the cosmetics from the delicate jars of porcelain and jewelled bottles before her; dark brown colouring for her wonderful eyebrows which contrasting so vividly with her magnificent fair hair, black for her thick eyelashes, enhancing her marvellous eyes shining like sapphires, carmine for the small, perfectly shaped mouth. Then blue to emphasize the veins in her white slender hands, and rose tinting for her fingernails. From the richly cut crystal bottles the sweet and heavy perfumes of carnation, rose, musk and amber spilled upon the warm air.
Here at the Hotel Brissac, home of Louis-Hercule, Due de Brissac, where she had permanent apartments, she was in her thirty-ninth year seeking to regain a semblance of the position she had lmown before the death of Louis le Bien-Aime two years before. The fifty-year-old Brissac, himself involved in machinations behind the scenes of Louis XVI’s and Marie Antoinette’s court, found her an apt pupil. Quickly she grasped that if France was to avenge her defeat a dozen years earlier by her traditional foe, England, she must support America, now desperately engaged in her War of Independence against Britain.
If only, went her lover’s argument, which she echoed, Louis could be persuaded to recognize America’s independence now. Now, while Burgoyne’s apparently overwhelming forces of redcoats were on all sides encountering unexpectedly determined onslaughts from the Americans bent on retaking Philadelphia. France would not only turn the balance in America’s favour, but bring Spain and Holland into the alliance. With such a powerful array against her England must be forced to admit defeat, and France would regain her former prestige and glory.
These thoughts were circling the Du Barry’s mind as presently, preceded by her youthful negro servant, Zamor, she made her way through the large house to Brissac’s private study, passing below the picture gallery crowded with Italian and Dutch masters and where hung that painting of herself her lover so much admired which, however, superstitious-minded as she was, she had never really cared for since that time Diderot, the author, swore he perceived a line round the neck separating the head from the body.
Across the library she followed the scuff of Zamor’s shoes echoing among the books all around stamped with the Due’s arms, Brissac being a great reader and very well informed on the novel ideas the new philosophers were expounding. Zamor opened the heavy study door and Brissac, tall and quietly elegant in a coat of pale lavender, a sapphire brooch gleaming among the folds of his cravat, came towards her at once. But it was the other figure in the tapestry-panelled room who tonight took the Du Barry’s immediate attention. The shortish, bald man with a fringe of white hair over the collar of his brown coat. ‘Monsieur Franklin,’ and she hurried to take his hands in hers, ‘you do Monsieur le Due and myself a great honour.’
‘On the contrary, Madame la Comtesse,’ was the response in French with a schoolboy’s accent, ‘it is I who am honoured, not to say charmed, to meet you.’
She kept her white, pretty fingers over his gnarled, gouty old hands. ‘To us you are the greatest American, if not the greatest man of the age.’ She glimpsed his long cloak and the fur hat cast upon a gilt and cream chair. ‘It is all the more to be deprecated we should have to receive you secretly like this at the back door.’
‘But since France must as yet appear neutral,’ Brissac said, ‘and we know you are surrounded by the English Ambassador’s spies, it required us to employ the greatest discretion.’
‘True, Lord Stormont appears to regard me with some suspicion,’ was the wry reply, ‘though as to the matter of his spies, their attentions persuade me, and doubtless Paris also, that my business in France is upon not unimportant grounds.’
‘We did not drop that mysterious message over your garden wall at Passy,’ the Du Barry said, ‘merely for you to hear us express our approval of your defiance of Britain. While Paris rings with the glorious news of your heroic attack against Burgoyne at Philadelphia, we seek to strike a blow on your behalf.’
Franklin, whose face had become shadowed at the mention of the battle raging, perhaps already won and lost, for the city he knew and loved so well, was regarding her now with a quizzical expression. ‘But, Madame la Comtesse, as Monsieur le Due has just reminded me, all the world knows France remains neutral.’
‘As yet,’ Brissac interposed significantly.
‘What all the world does not know’ — Madame Du Barry’s eyes flashed — ‘is that July the fourth was the signal for some of us to declare secret war against the British. We spoke just now of their spies in Paris. I also have my spies in London,’ and the American’s eyes widened, ‘whom I have entrusted with the task of acquiring information such as what British troops are en route for America, what equipment and military supplies are being shipped for use against American soldiers.’
‘You may regard our contribution to your cause as of relatively trivial consequence,’ Brissac remarked, ‘but it is the utmost we can offer against the day when we shall openly stand shoulder to shoulder with you.’
‘On the contrary,’ Benjamin Franklin answered warmly, ‘I am sorely in need of every scrap of intelligence as you may furnish me. I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude to you for all your energies to that end. As to the moment when we join forces, every day do I urge your foreign minister to conclude a speedy alliance with us, but still he hesitates to advise his monarch accordingly.’
‘Rest assured,’ Brissac told him, ‘France needs only the appropriate trumpet-call and she must be convinced it is her hour also to strike.’
‘Meanwhile,’ the Du Barry went on enthusiastically, ‘we carry the war surreptitiously to the enemy’s camp.’ She included Franklin and Brissac in a conspiratorial look. ‘Par exemple, a certain jeweller had agreed to journey to London, ostensibly upon business matters, to meet my agent already installed and bring back his despatches. At the last minute, however, Monsieur le Due himself chanced to observe a creature in the shadows across the street watching this house at the time of the jeweller’s visit for instructions.’ Brissac gave a confirmatory nod. ‘Caution dictated me to substitute in his place someone else less likely even than a respectable jeweller to be suspect.’ She was interrupted by a hurried knock on the door. A manservant, looking somewhat flustered, appeared.
‘A messenger for your guest, Monsieur le Due,’ he announced, low-voiced.
‘For Monsieur Franklin?’ Madame Du Barry glanced at Brissac questioningly, then at the American.
‘He describes himself as having just landed at Nantes and bearing important despatches from America,’ the manservant said. ‘He has driven here post-haste.’
A minute later a young man hurried into the room, overcoat thrown loosely about his shoulders, his hair awry, and travelweary in appearance. ‘I am come direct from your home at Passy, sir,’ he told Franklin. ‘I was informed you were not there, but after much insistence on my part and stressing the urgency of my business, your confidential servant conveyed to me where I should find you.’
Benjamin Franklin’s voice trembled as he asked: ‘What report bring you that is so pressing? Have our fortunes at Philadelphia failed?’
‘No, sir. Philadelphia is ours again,’ and as Franklin and the others uttered a great glad sigh and tension in the room slackened: ‘But I bear even greater news. General Burgoyne is defeated. He and his whole army are our prisoners.’
They stared at him, dumbfounded with disbelief — even the old sage was momentarily bereft of speech. Then, with a ringing cry: ‘America is saved,’ he fell upon the young man’s shoulders with joy.
Madame Du Barry turned to Brissac, her blue eyes ablaze with excitement: ‘And the hour has sounded for France.’
12.
Chagrin de l’Isle watched the chair-men make off towards Piccadilly before she turned into the alley, gloomy and chill as if the sun never reached down into its cramped confines, and knocked at the door of a narrow, low-built house, mean and dingy-looking. She heard the scuff-scuff of footsteps approaching and a man keeping well back in the doorway stood silent and immobile waiting for her to speak. She could barely distinguish his features hidden as they were in the darkness of the hall.
‘Monsieur Morande?’ She spoke to him in French.
‘And if I am?’ he asked in the same tongue. She sensed his entire form tautening with suspicion.
‘I have a message for you.’
Coming closer, slanting a look along the alley towards Half Moon Street, his expression still distrustful, he muttered:
‘Who are you?’ She gave him her name and his eyelids flickered. ‘To what,’ with a thin sneer, ‘do I owe the honour of your visit?’ She was somewhat nonplussed by the evident hostility in his manner. ‘To the instructions of someone,’ she answered, ‘it is an honour for both of us to serve.’
Still making no move to admit her into the house he held the door only half open as if in readiness to slam it in her face, eyeing her silently up and down. ‘You are from Paris?’ he asked at last.
‘I arrived in London last night.’
He fixed her with another long appraising glance, then held the door wide for her. As it closed she was in a musty blackness but for the glimmer of light from a room at the end of a passage. He brushed against her and she experienced chill fingers running down from the nape of her neck, so for a moment she almost panicked and would have turned blindly back and fled the house. Bracing herself resolutely, she followed him, the aroma of stale cooking, a damp and frowsty atmosphere, closing about her like a fog.
The room was shabby and ill-lit by a candle in a tallow-encrusted candlestick on the table, with tattered curtains half drawn across the tall window looking out upon a small area from which any daylight was obscured by the wall of a house opposite. A fire burned fitfully in the grate. Morande indicated an old, wing-backed chair, while he lounged by a low table scattered with books, newspapers and journals, writing-paper, quills and ink, some of the papers spattered with tallow drippings. Pushed against one wall was a sagging couch used as a bed, its bedclothes strewn in disorder, beside it a small table with the remains of a meal. Glasses and wine bottles littered the mantelpiece and a low shelf. His long dressing-robe, faded and begrimed with the stains of food and wine, was pulled carelessly over a greasy shirt and threadbare breeches.
She produced from an inside pocket of her rich sable cape a parchment envelope. Taking it from her, he tore it open with greedy anticipation and, extracting the bill of exchange, which he glanced at sharply and was apparently satisfied, next unfolded the brief, guardedly worded despatch bearing the myrtle and roses device and the Du Barry’s seal, introducing the Comtesse Chagrin de l’Isle.
‘What happened to Boehemer?’ he asked, tapping the paper. ‘This is the first advice I have received you would be taking his place.’
‘A last-minute notion of Madame Du Barry’s that his prospective journey had come under suspicion of Lord Stormont’s spies.’ As she was speaking his gaze roamed over her, appraising the curves of her slender form and every detail of the French riding-habit of elegant cut
she wore.
‘But as the well-known Paris jeweller travelling to London on business,’ he objected, ‘how should he be suspect?’
‘As to that,’ she answered, ‘did not your last despatch advise Madame Du Barry of increasing vigilance in London as the result of reports from Lord Stormont?’
A trace of amusement showed on his unhealthy, pale, cadaverous features. ‘It is true,’ he conceded, ‘there is a heightening wave of opinion in London that most any French visitor is a potential spy. Mr. Fielding, for instance, of Bow Street, reputedly has instructed his Bow Street Runners, for whose activities he is responsible, to keep a sharp watch for secret agents from Paris.’
She was back in the crowded, stuffy courtroom that night five years ago, and then forced her attention to bear upon the business concerned with her visit to this wretched, shabby house and its unprepossessing, sinister occupant. ‘We in Paris,’ she told him, leaning forward earnestly, ‘are aware the political climate in England has altered radically since July the fourth.’
‘Thanks to my despatches,’ he interposed.
‘Political circles here,’ she continued, ‘appreciate the possibility of France seeking an opportunity to attack a Britain pre-occupied with America. London must realize even as we do the obvious disadvantage of her position should Louis recognize America’s claim for independence and ally himself with her.’
‘You have quite the political jargon for one so young and attractive,’ he told her. He went on insinuatingly: ‘I should have imagined you would prefer to employ your time less dangerously.’ Regarding themselves, as he knew, second only to kings and princes, the De l’Isles traced their lineal descent from mighty Charlemagne himself, distinguishing themselves in the cause of France over the centuries. The father of the young woman facing him had been the late Louis XV’s most devoted counsellor. With the king’s death, De l’lsle’s continued implacable hatred of France’s erstwhile enemy had consequently lost him the new monarch’s favour and his place at a Court which was in accord with the more cautious and placatory policy of Louis and Marie-Antoinette.
The Blind Beak Page 9