The Devil’s Laughter Read online

  Jean looked at her. He wondered, idly, how old she was. He knew she was probably many years short of the sixty she looked, but when he asked her, her answer shocked him.

  “Twenty-eight, M’sieur,” the old woman said.

  He fumbled in his pocket and came out with a louis d’or. But the woman shook her head.

  “Haven’t you any little money, M’sieur?” she said. “Where could I change a louis? At the grocer’s, the butcher’s? You know better, M’sieur. With my lord’s spies about, were I to come in with such a fortune, the bailiffs would be waiting at my door before I reached home again.”

  Jean Paul put the louis back and came out with a handful of écus and sous—all the small change he had. It was much less than the louis d’or he offered her, but she was better off with less. At least, by using extreme caution, she could spend the smaller coins. They would last her weeks—even months.

  She dropped the money into a big pocket in her skirt. Then she seized both his hands and covered them with kisses. Jean stood there and took it, the pain moving inside his heart.

  “It won’t always be like this,” he growled.

  “I know, M’sieur,” she whispered, “but I won’t live to see it.” Jean walked on slowly. He was going to the house of Pierre du Pain, his partner in crime. Pierre was perfect for the task. No one would ever dream that this droll fellow, commonly supposed to be mad, was a printer, and an expert one at that. Nor was there anything strange in the association of Jean Paul Marin and the man he himself had hired as night watchman for certain of the Marin warehouses. That these warehouses contained a printing press, paper, ink, and other supplies, nobody knew—not even Henri Marin. All the authorities and the infuriated nobility did know was that someone was flooding the whole Côte d’Azur with quite treasonable pamphlets, written with diabolical skill. For their telling style, Jean Paul was responsible. For the printing, Pierre.

  But he never got to Pierre’s house. For as he turned the last corner, he saw Raoul, his manservant, running towards him.

  “M’sieur Jean!” Raoul called breathlessly. “By all the Saints, I have searched the whole world over for you!”

  Jean mocked him with his eyes.

  “That is grave,” he smiled. “This is something of importance, doubtless?”

  “Of the gravest importance,” Raoul panted. “Your respected sister, Mademoiselle Thérèse, demands to see you. She warned me not to return without you

  “Enfer!” Jean swore. Then he smiled again. His little sister was very dear to him. “Very well, Raoul,” he said, “I’ll come.”

  Thérèse was waiting for him at the big iron gate of the Villa Marin. She was wrapped in a cloak, but her head was bare. Down here, on the Côte itself, the rain had stopped, and even the mistral was only a murmur.

  At the sight of him she stamped her tiny foot.

  “Jean, Jean,” she cried, “how you do try my patience! We have been waiting for you for hours.”

  Jean looked at his sister. Thérèse Marin was small, like all the Marins. But unlike Henri Marin, her father, and Bertrand, her eldest brother, she had a kind of delicate beauty, inherited from the mother who had died in giving her birth. Of them all, only Jean Paul was like her; for in him, too, the basic coarseness of the Marins had been refined.

  But now his gift for mockery got the better of him. He made her a sweeping bow.

  “I am at your command, Mademoiselle,” he said dryly, “or is it—” he paused, splitting the word deliberately into two syllables, “Ma Dame Thérèse, Comtesse de Gravereau?”

  Thérèse looked at him. Her eyes were the exact duplicates of his own—except that they had no mockery in them, but only tenderness.

  “Jean,” she said gently, “why must you be like this? So—so prickly. Why can’t you accept life as it is?”

  “Because,” Jean said, “I’m me. Because, my little sister, I happen to love you. And because I don’t like to see pearls cast before swine.”

  “Jean Paul!” Thérèse said.

  “That hurts, doesn’t it, little sister? The truth always does. Gervais la Moyte, Comte de Gravereau—very fine, eh? But strip away those titles, those pretty, meaningless words, and what have you left? Gervais la Moyte, blackguard. Gervais la Moyte, roué, drunkard, gamester. And we’re supposed to make a leg before such a man. I read for the law; I finished the Lycée, and afterwards the University. I’ve forgotten more than that man has ever known. For what, then, do I owe him homage? Because some ancestor of his was a brigand who built a castle near a bridge or at a cross-road and made himself rich and powerful by thievery? They are still all thieves, your fine nobles! And I, for one, would make an end to them!”

  Thérèse put her hands over her ears.

  “I won’t listen to you,” she said.

  “Ah, but you will,” Jean laughed. “You, and ultimately all the world. You know, don’t you, why he is here? No, don’t tell me that, not the simple answer. To ask our father for your hand—that, of course. But why, Thérèse? Name of heaven, why?”

  “Because,” Thérèse said, “because I am pretty and good and he loves me. . . .”

  “Name of a name! Thérèse, how can you be so stupid? There are any number of noblewomen who are pretty. There may even be a few among them who are good, though that I doubt. You’ve seen this man. You know how proud he is. Why then would he sully his ancient line with the blood of commoners? The answer is simple, my poor Thérèse. Because he is poor and we are rich. Like all his arrogant breed, he thought his lands, his feudal dues, rents, corvécs, traites, lods et ventes, plaits-à marcis, banvins, and a thousand others would last him for ever. He dreamed of spending more than his income for the rest of his life without going into bankruptcy.”

  Thérèse stood there, looking at her brother. But she didn’t interrupt him.

  “All over France, now, the lines are crumbling. And always for this same reason. We bourgeois are intelligent, patient, industrious. And the nobles are too proud, too indolent, to engage in trade. All France is sunk in ruin because of them. The King, without knowing it, is as ruined as the rest. They try expedients now—anything to save themselves. The king makes great offices with rich stipends and no duties, but even that cannot save them all.

  “So now, if you are Gervais la Moyte, what must you do? How can you keep up your châteaux, your stables, your gaming, wenching, your assorted mistresses from the Opéra and the Comédie? Simple, my boy, why didn’t I think of it before? That Simone de Beauvieux, old Marquis de Beauvieux’ eldest daughter—didn’t she save the old man by marrying into a maritime family? Rich canaille, fat, stupid oxen—with, I grant you, a certain head for trade. . . . Let’s see, now, what was their name? Martine—Marin that’s it! Now, wasn’t there something about a daughter? Probably bovine and dull; but still, my old one, the sacrifice must be made. . . .”

  “Stop it!” Thérèse screamed at him. “You stop it this instant, Jean!”

  He looked at her. She was crying.

  “I’m sorry, Thérèse,” he said, “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  He bent and kissed her gently. She stopped crying after a few minutes—smiled at him.

  “Come,” she said, “Father sent for you.” Jeal Paul stiffened.

  “Why?” he growled.

  “M’sieur le Comte is leaving us. Father wants you there so that we might all say good-bye properly.”

  “Leaving us?” Jean said.

  “Yes. He has asked for my hand—and—and has been accepted. Father feels that the whole family should show him every Courtesy—now.”

  “I’ll see him turning on a spit above a bed of coals in hell first!” Jean roared. “Thérèse, how could you?”

  “Because I am a woman,” Thérèse whispered. “And Gervais is very fair; you must admit that, Jean.”

  Jean Paul stared at his sister.

  “You’re trying to tell me that you love this cochon?” he got out. “That’s it, Thérèse?”

  Thérèse b
owed her head.

  “That’s it, Jean,” she whispered. “I love him—I do, oh, I do!”

  “The sweet blue eyes of God!” Jean swore.

  “You mustn’t swear, Jean,” Thérèse said gently. “He’s going to try to do better. He promised me that. I had heard of his evil ways—I—I taxed him with them. He admitted quite freely he had been no saint. He swore he’d never grieve me. And he could have lied, Jean. It was fine of him not to.”

  “His kind are too proud to lie,” Jean said. “But they do worse.”

  “There is nothing worse,” Thérèse said.

  “Dear God!” Jean Paul whispered.

  “Besides, you’re being unfair, Jean. Gervais is a nobleman and a man of honour. Yet you scream at me if I so much as mention his name. Odd, isn’t it? Let me or anyone else say aught of that common little theatre girl, Lucienne Talbot . . .”

  “Thérèse!”

  “You see? She dances half naked at the Comédie—and God alone knows what she does afterwards. But, to your mind, that painted little minx is both fair and good.”

  “She is! I’d stake my life on that.”

  “Pray God you never have to,” Thérèse said. “Come, Jean, Father will grow impatient—and you still have to change your clothes. Instead of staying in out of the rain like a sensible person . . .”

  “Hang Father’s impatience,” Jean said; “and I won’t change my clothes. La Moyte can see me like this, and be damned! I tell you. . . .”

  “Oh, don’t be childish!” Thérèse said. “Gervais won’t care in the slightest how bedraggled you are. You will only shame me. Is that what you want?”

  Jean smiled at her, quite suddenly.

  “No, little sister,” he said, “that’s not what I want. Come along, I’ll change.”

  They went up to the villa through the icily perfect formal garden. Everything in it had been tortured into geometric forms. Even the shrubs themselves.

  “I hate it!” Jean Paul burst out. “Why—”

  “I know,” Thérèse said patiently. “Why didn’t they leave nature alone—à la Jean—Jacques Rousseau? You won’t draw me into that argument again. Here we are. Now you go and get dressed!”

  “Your obedient servant, Madame la Comtesse!” Jean mocked, and ran up the stairs to his room. When he came down again, he looked very little better than before, except that his clothes were dry.

  In the doorway of the grand salon Jean Paul paused, gazing at the guests. He saw the Abbé Grégoire’s wise old face, seamed and lined above his brown robe. There was the meagre form of Simone, Jean’s sister-in-law. She was trying to be gracious to the Abbé, condescending to her dull clod of a husband, and to ignore her father-in-law. She was failing in all three attempts. It was in the nature of things that she should fail.

  Only Gervais la Moyte, Comte de Gravereau, was entirely at ease. And that, too, was in the nature of things.

  He towered by a full head over everyone else in the salon except Jean. And he was taller than Jean by a full two inches. He was incredibly handsome. And in his court dress, a pale blue habit à la francaise of heavily embroidered silk, with the rich, creamy lace of his lingerie shirt and cravat spilling out at throat and bosom and wrist, his lace handkerchief trailing with negligent arrogance between the fingers of his left hand, his blond hair powdered into exquisite whiteness, his small-sword with the jewelled hilt flaring the tails of his coat, he was a peacock among barn-yard fowl.

  He looked at Jean, and his blue eyes were cold. This one, he thought suddenly, is dangerous. Don’t know when I’ve seen a more intelligent face. And intelligence among the lower orders is dangerous, especially now. . . .

  He took out a golden snuff-box ornamented with the crest of the house of Gravereau, and took snuff delicately, touching the lace handkerchief lightly to his nostrils.

  Jean Paul stood there. Sweated. All his laughter had left him now. His hatred for this man was sickness, physical pain.

  Gervais smiled at him.

  “Ah,” he said, “the young philosopher condescends to join our mundane gathering? So good of you, Jean.”

  Jean Paul didn’t answer. Don’t bait me, he thought. By God’s love, don’t bait me. I am but inches away from murder now. . . .

  But Gervais was bowing ovet Thérèse’s small hand.

  “Mademoiselle will forgive me,” he murmured, “that I must depart with such haste from so happy a scene. My departure is indeed painful to me, more painful than she can possibly imagine.”

  “Then,” Thérèse breathed, her eyes dark stars, “why do you go, M’sieur?”

  “The pressure of court affairs,” he whispered. “A mission for His Majesty. More than that I cannot say—even to you, Mademoiselle. I trust that you will forgive me?”

  “You are forgiven,” Thérèse smiled, “if you will come again—soon. . . .”

  “My feet will be winged,” Gervais laughed. Then he turned to the others.

  “Your blessing, good Abbé,” he said, and knelt upon one knee before the old priest. The Abbé Gregoire murmured the Latin words, and made the sign of the cross above the Comte’s head. Gervais rose and, taking the Abbé’s hand, kissed his ring as though he were the Pope.

  “And now, my good father-in-law-to-be,” he said, and embraced Henri Marin, kissing him upon both cheeks. Jean saw his father’s dark face go mahogany red with embarrassed pleasures and, in spite of himself, he contrasted his father’s squat ugliness, born of his dark Sicilian blood, with Gervais la Moyte’s striking good looks. Father, Jean thought, looks like Punch—and Bertrand is even uglier.

  Bertrand, being himself a member of the noblesse, by virtue of having purchased an office that carried with it a title—to such desperate straits had the King of France come—and having married Simone de Beauvieux, daughter of an authentic, if extremely decayed, noble house, received much the same sort of embrace. But there was a difference. Slight, but still a difference.

  Jean Paul saw at once what it was. Gervais was capable of a real affection for his father-in-law-to-be. Henri Marin was simple and without pretence. He was still, actually, Enrico Marino, a sturdy Sicilian brigand-pirate, catapulted by a trick of fate into great fortune, because, alone of his numerous brothers, he had seen that more could be gained on the side of the law than fighting against it. Gervais could admire this bluff old rogue.

  But the true nobility, the noblesse de l’épée, the nobles of the sword, had nothing but contempt for the new noblesse de la robe, the men who had bought their way out of the ranks of commoners by trading upon the financial distress of the realm. That the old nobility was itself responsible for this distress did not in any way mitigate their ferocious contempt for these presumptuous upstarts preening themselves in borrowed feathers. Gervais, Jean realised, would never forgive Bertrand for his effrontery in having married a noblewoman, even so sad a specimen of nobility as Simone. His embrace, then, was tinged with the most graceful display of contempt imaginable.

  And, bending over Simone’s hand, he scarcely troubled to conceal his mockery. He would have had more respect for a daughter of joy than he had for a noblewoman who married a commoner.

  “So, my dear Simone,” he murmured, so that none but she could hear him, “we become birds of a feather, eh?”

  But Jean saw her stiffen, and guessed at his words.

  Then it was Jean Paul’s turn. Gervais was approaching him, his right hand outstretched. The social distinctions were to be drawn to the hair. A simple handshake—and even this was condescension—was to suffice for Jean Paul Marin.

  Jean stood there, his hands at his side. I will be damned and in hell, he thought, before I will take his hand.

  Gervais stopped, his hand still outstretched. His blue eyes became splinters of ice.

  “I offered you my hand, Marin,” he said.

  “I am aware of that, M’sieur le Comte,” Jean said.

  “Jean!” Thérèse cried.

  Jean could feel the eyes of the others upon him, ho
t as coals in embarrassed rage. Only Simone, for an instant, permitted a tiny light of admiration to show, then it was gone, and he was left alone to face the pack.

  “I am still offering you my hand,” Gervais said, and his smile was deadly.

  “And I,” Jean said, furious that his voice shook a little, “am still within my rights when I refuse to take the hand of one of the despoilers of France. Or would M’sieur prefer that I shake hands with him and then send for servants with water and towels and wash my hands in his presence?”

  Gervais let his hand fall. The smile on his face never wavered. In spite of himself, Jean had to admire his bearing.

  “You are courageous, M. le Philosophe,” Gervais said. “But then, perhaps, you are merely sure of yourself. I should scarcely risk jeopardising the affections of Mademoiselle, your sister, by sending my lackeys to cane you within an inch of your life as you so richly deserve for your bad Mariners. Upon that you rely, is it not so?”

  “I rely upon nothing,” Jean said, “but my good right arm—with an épée, or a sabre, or even a pistol—as M’sieur prefers.”

  Gervais stared at him. Then he threw back his head and laughed merrily.

  “Now really, Marin,” he said, “but you are fantastic!”

  Then he turned and bowed grandly to the others.

  “I choose to forget this display,” he smiled. “Youth—and too much wine, perhaps. Mayhap the boy should be bled. I should be glad to place my personal physician at your disposal, M’sieur Marin.”

  “He’ll be bled all right,” Henri Marin roared, “but with a horse-whip, not a scalpel! Jean, go to your room, and await my pleasure! This instant, boy!”

  Jean looked at his father. Then very slowly he smiled.

  “Fantastic,” he murmured. “I thank you for that word, M. le Comte. But I can think of a better. You are not fantastic, Father—rather—you are merely grotesque. And not everything is for sale, as you will learn one day.”

  “Go to your room!” Henri Marin thundered.

  “No,” Jean said easily, pleasantly; “I do only what I please. And if ever again you lay hands on me. I shall forget you are my father, a fact that I have always regretted infinitely. Ah, yes, I shall forget it quite easily.”