The Devil’s Laughter Read online

  Then, looking at the others, he started to laugh.

  “Why do you laugh?” Bertrand demanded.

  “I am seeing visions,” Jean said, the laughter bubbling through his voice. “I see the comic dance that M. le Comte will soon do upon thin air, supported only by the noose about his neck; how odd the good Abbé will look defrocked of his robe of vain superstitions; Bertrand de-titled, plundered of his riches; Simone, and you, my poor sister, trying to boil your patents of nobility to make a stew to ease your hunger. . . .”

  Henri Marin stared at his son.

  “And me?” he growled uneasily.

  Jean stopped laughing.

  “You, my poor father,” he said gently, “will be spared all pain. Because you won’t be here to see any of these things.”

  “Mad!” Gervais la Moyte spat.

  “Ah, yes,” Jean smiled; “or, perhaps, sane and living in a mad world. Who knows?”

  Then he marched out the door, leaving the sound of his laughter trailing behind him.

  The others stood there, staring at one another. There was something eerie about that laughter. Something, the Abbé Grégoire thought suddenly, demonic.

  “Ma foi!” he said aloud, “the boy’s possessed!”

  At the sound of his voice they all turned towards him. Then one by one they bowed their heads, hearing the chant of exorcism falling from the old man’s lips.

  And even the Comte de Gravereau quailed before the acceptance in their eyes.

  2

  WHEN Jean Paul came out of the villa, it was raining again. But he smiled into the rain, lifting his lean face so that trickles of water ran down his cheeks. The weather suited his mood.

  Again he went up the road winding up from the seashore into the foot-hills of the Alpes Maritimes, going by Lucienne’s house

  “I don’t lie. If I have any sickness, it is the sickness of truth. It makes a difference, then, that the grandson of M. le Comte de Gravereau shall be a peasant and sweat in the sun? Will he be any less a peasant? Will his hunger be less, or his stripes less painful? Jean, my Jean, brother of my heart—the thing you do is madness, and is better left undone.”

  “What should I do, then?” Jean said.

  “Sit in the sun and drink your wine. Make love. Laugh—but not as you usually laugh, like a demented devil. Laugh from your belly, your good, full belly, with good laughter. Beget Sons, many sons, and always refuse to think. For that is the final sickness for which there is no cure.”

  “You’re mad,” Jean chuckled, and stretched out his legs towards the fire, so that the smoke curled from his sodden boots.

  Marianne was busying herself before the fire, and Jean smelled the savoury odour of the rabbit stew, cooked in wine, that came from the black pot hanging over the fire. If he had been a stranger, Pierre’s supper would have disappeared in an instant into a specially prepared hiding-place. In the first place, a peasant had always to give the appearance of starvation to escape the greedy fingers of his Seigneur’s bailiffs; in the second, that Pierre had rabbit at all meant that he had been poaching upon the Comte’s game preserves, and that was by law still a hanging offence, though the law was seldom so rigorously enforced nowadays.

  He was, Jean discovered at the first taste of the stew, amazingly hungry. He had been cursed by nature with a miserably poor appetite, but tonight he equalled Pierre’s ability as a trencherman. It would have been good to sit before the fire and continue their half-bantering, half-serious talk; but half a night’s work lay before them.

  Pierre kissed Marianne good-bye, and they went down the road until it met the fork that led down and away to Marseilles. There, in the shadow of the trees, Jean had horses tethered; for the distance was too great to be covered on foot.

  Two hours later, they were inside the largest of the Marin warehouses, busily engaged in moving packing-boxes and bolts of silk. When they had moved all these things, a little door came into sight. Jean Paul had found this door quite by accident a year ago, when his father had made such a heavy shipment of goods to the colonies that it had been temporarily revealed. It led to a small room that Henri Marin had used early in his career as an office; but continuing prosperity had caused him to move his records to a separate office building, and the little room had been all but forgotten. Now it housed a screw press, brought in piece by piece by Pierre and assembled in the little room, bales of paper, a cutting-board, and racks of fine, expensive type.

  By the light of a single candle Pierre set to work, reading from the bundle of manuscripts that Jean Paul had brought with him.

  “Name of a name!” he swore. “When are you going to learn to write simple French? Your style is an abomination. Who the devil can spell such words?”

  “You can,” Jean Paul told him.

  “And your hand grows worse daily. Here, read this to me. . . .”

  Jean read to him from the manuscript. He had to admit that Pierre’s criticism of his handwriting was justified. He had some difficulty making out what he himself had written.

  There was no sound, after that, but the creak of the screw, as they turned it, bringing down the press upon the sheets of paper. They took turns at the screw, one of them feeding the sheets on to the bed as the other brought the press down by walking around it holding on to the two-handed lever, thus causing its threaded shaft to descend through the gigantic bolt that held it up. It was hard work, so they changed places often in order that each of them might have a chance to rest.

  It was after midnight when they had finished. They gathered up the printed broadsides and tied them into bundles. Then they left the little room, and placed all the goods they had removed once more in front of the door.

  They moved through the streets of the city on foot, as the ring of the horses’ hoofs on the stones might have attracted the Guard. They stopped, always before a boulangerie, a baker’s shop, and hid the bundles near-by where the baker could find them. The next morning, at daylight, each woman who bought a loaf would find it wrapped in what appeared to be cast-off printed matter. But in the houses of the poor, twenty or more people would be gathered around the lawyer, or scribe, or even, often, the parish priest, who, miserably underpaid and overworked, was nearly always on the side of the people, listening to Jean Paul Marin’s burning words.

  Some days later, a torn and greasy sheet would find its way into the hands of the authorities. There would be a mighty scurrying about, and titled heads would bend worriedly over their wine, but nothing ever came of it, because the police were unable to even discover the mechanics of distribution, since Pierre and Jean Paul seldom repeated the same tactics. This week, the bakers of Marseilles; the next, the grocers; the following, the sellers of wine. And always the murmuring of the people grew.

  They rode back into Saint Jule at four in the morning, and stabled the horses. Then Jean took his leave, and started back on foot towards the villa.

  But he never reached it. He had gone scarcely a hundred yards from Pierre’s door when he heard a man’s voice thundering oaths, and the crack of a whip, followed by screams.

  He started running towards the sound. When he was close, he saw what it was. A woodcutter’s cart had blocked the path of a great coach. In his haste to avoid the onrushing horses, since the nobles always drove like the wind, the woodcutter had turned too sharply, and his load had shifted, thus tilting his two-wheel cart half over and jamming it firmly between the walls of the houses that lined the narrow street.

  Jean saw this at a glance. He knew without even thinking about it what the woodcutter had been doing to cause him to drive through the streets of Saint Jule at four o’clock in the morning. He, quite simply, had been stealing timber from his Seigneur’s woods, since all the forest where the peasant wood-men were allowed to chop firewood had long since been cut or burned over.

  But what caused Jean Paul Marin to go sick all over with pure rage was the coachman’s method of dealing with the emergency. He had got down from his high seat and was encouraging t
he woodcutter in his frenzied efforts to right his cart by the simple expedients of roaring curses at him and beating him with the coaching whip.

  Jean put his hand into the pocket of his coat and came out with one of the pair of pistols he always carried. He moved forward quickly, walking soundlessly on the balls of his feet, and when he was close enough, he swung the pistol sideways, catching the coachman on the side of his face so hard that the flesh broke under the blow and the man went over backward into the mud. He came up roaring, only to face the yawning muzzle of the pistol.

  Jean held it on him steadily, and backed away until he came to the door of the coach. He jerked it open and, without looking inside, said mockingly:

  “My Lord will please have the goodness to descend?”

  There was no answer. Jean glanced quickly into the coach. It was empty

  He whirled, just in time to avoid a blow from one of the footmen who rode behind the coach. He jerked out the other pistol and pointed it upward.

  “Come down,” he said, “all of you.”

  Sullenly, the Comte de Gravereau’s lackeys descended.

  If, Jean thought wryly, I am to be cheated of the major pleasure of making my Lord of Gravereau load wood, I shall at least have the lesser, of having it done by these pampered lackeys of his.

  “Now, gentlemen,” he said pleasantly, “you will now have the goodness to right the cart of our esteemed friend, the woodcutter.”

  They stared at him.

  “The alternative,” Jean laughed, “would scarcely be so pleasant. For, if you refuse, you leave me no other course but regretfully to have to burn your brains.”

  The two pistols were persuasion enough. Clad in all their finery—silken breeches, and broidered frock-coats, plumed tricornes, and lace cravats—they put their shoulders against the high wheel of the cart and pushed mightily. Slowly it righted. But a number of logs lay scattered about.

  “And now,” Jean said airily, “the wood!”

  They picked up the logs and put them back on the cart. The woodcutter drove off, his face ashen with terror.

  I shall have to make another diversion for them, Jean thought. Can’t let them drive away so handily to report this matter.

  He walked quietly up to the coachman, who was standing there trembling, his finery ruined with mud and bark and resin, and one side of his face covered with blood from Jean’s blow.

  “The horses,” Jean barked; “loose them!”

  “But—” the coachman quavered; “it’s worth my life, Sir Highwayman! My Lord awaits me, and I am already half an hour late. If I delay longer . . .”

  Jean studied him, but he wasn’t seeing the man at all. Something black and formless came alive inside his chest. It sat upon his lungs, stopping his breath. It wrapped slimy tentacles around his heart.

  “Where,” he whispered, “does my Lord await you?”

  “At—at the house of that maid with the reddish hair . . . Please, M’sieur Highwayman. . . .”

  “Loose them!” Jean thundered.

  Slowly the coachman loosed the yoke that coupled the shaft to the coach. Jean picked up the whip with his left hand, still keeping one pistol pointed at the lackeys. Then, straightening up, he brought the whip down across the backs of the four horses. They were off at once, galloping down the narrow street.

  “You are not to follow me,” Jean said slowly. “At this moment to kill anyone connected with the Comte de Gravereau would be a pleasure.”

  He backed away from them, down the street. When he was far enough away, he turned and ran. It was downhill all the way. When he got to the house, he wasn’t even breathing hard.

  The door was neither locked nor bolted. Lucienne knew that he never returned from his forays into Marseilles before the afternoon of the next day.

  There were still live coals among the ashes of the burned-out fire. It took him a long time to get the candles lit, his hands trembled so.

  He stood there, looking at them. They were both sleeping, peacefully. He took a step towards the bed. Another. He stopped, hanging there, his eyes blinded by a scalding rush of tears.

  When he straightened at last, the tears were gone. What had come to take their place was rage at his own weakness. Then—murder. He took out both the pistols and aimed them very carefully.

  But he didn’t pull the triggers. He couldn’t.

  She was too lovely, lying there in the flickering glow of the candlelight, cushioned upon the wild tangle of her own tawny hair. Too lithe-lovely, sweet-curving, washed in candle-glow. He watched, lost, the play of light and shadow upon her face; the lips moist, warm, a little parted; the rest of her incredibly perfect, soft-rising flame-tipped, falling away into waist hollow, hip curve, thigh sweep, long flow of calf and gem-like ankles above her tiny ivory and alabaster feet.

  He turned and, without knowing why he did so, hurled a log upon the almost dead fire. The crash brought them upright at once.

  “I thought you might have need of warmth,” he said quietly, “if only to accustom you to where you’re going. I’m told it’s very warm in hell.”

  “Jean!” Lucienne screamed.

  He smiled at her.

  “You’re nice to look at,” he whispered. “Even now when the sight of you should sicken me. . . . ‘Tis a pity to spoil all that loveliness.”

  “Marin,” Gervais got out, “let her go. Surely you wouldn’t—”

  “I am not a gentleman, my lord,” Jean laughed. “I have no honour, remember? Yesterday my lord refused to meet me—strange, you have that power, M’sieur le Comte. You can refuse to meet your inferiors, with no reflection upon your honour. . . .”

  He paused, still smiling.

  “But strip away your finery, and you become just another man. Not a bad specimen, either, for a noble. . . . Don’t be troubled, my Lord of Gravereau. My honour is not due to an accident of birth. It is branded upon my soul. Here, catch!”

  He threw the second pistol upon the bed.

  Gervais picked it up. Then he looked at himself ruefully.

  “Like this?” he said.

  “It troubles my lord to go out of the world in the same dress he came into it?” Jean Paul mocked. “It is rather less imposing than a habit à la française, isn’t it? Very well, I will wait until Monseigneur is suitably attired. . . .”

  “Jeannot, for God’s love!” Lucienne said.

  “The Opéra, the Comedie Française,” Jean Paul whispered. “But you have no head for business, my love, or you would have known better than to make your payment in advance.”

  “Now, I’m ready,” Gervais said. “Though, at this range. . . .”

  “Both of us will very likely die,” Jean smiled. “That troubles you, my lord? A pity. Yesterday, you could have made the arrangements to suit yourself. . . . Ready, my lord?”

  He saw Lucienne’s eyes widening. But she was staring past him, “Seize him!” the Comte de Gravereau roamed.

  Jean whirled. The coachman and the other three lackeys came hurtling through the door.

  Jean sighed, and lifted his pistol.

  “It appears,” he said regretfully, “that I shall have to kill some of you, after all. . . .”

  The click of the flintlock in Gervais la Moyte’s hand broke through into Lucienne’s consciousness. She saw, in the instant before she hurled herself upon him, that he had cocked the pistol. She was too late. But not too late to deflect his aim and thereby save Jean’s life.

  The noise of the shot was deafening in the little room. Lucienne saw the mushroom of smoke, and the stab of orange flame. Then Jean Paul Marin shook a little and bent over backward, becoming suddenly boneless. As he struck the floor, his own pistol spun out from his hand.

  “You—you shot him!” Lucienne whispered. “You shot him in the back. . . .”

  Gervais smiled.

  “Where else would you have me shoot—a dog?” he said.

  Lucienne’s hand came up, curving into talons, her nails raking at his eyes.

 
And Gervais la Moyte, Comte de Gravereau, whose training included all the useful arts, including how to handle the women of the inferior orders, drew back his hand and slapped her to the hearth.

  “Come,” he said to his servants, “we’d best leave them here—both of them. . . .”

  But in the doorway he turned and saw Lucienne. She had come up on one knee, and the light of the awakened fire washed her all over with flickering gold. She was something to see.

  I, Gervais la Moyte reflected, shall never forget this sight as long as I live.

  Then he went out of the door, closing it softly behind him.

  3

  THE woodman’s cart wound down the steep road towards the seashore. Lucienne had piled it high with feather mattresses and comforters, but every time one of the big wheels struck a stone Jean Paul had to bite his lip to keep from groaning. He had emerged from the half-world of dreams and delirium only a week ago, but in that week he had found out how tenderly Lucienne had nursed him. After the first day when the local chirurgien had probed for the flattened ball, and set the splintered rib which had prevented its reaching a vital organ, she had guarded him with tender fierceness, forbidding the doctor to again set foot inside the door. She had scant respect for doctors, and her disrespect was more than justified; it is doubtful whether Jean Paul would have survived the tender mercies of a French physician of the seventeen-eighties. It could scarcely do a man good to be bled, Lucienne reasoned, when he had already lost more blood than anybody could rightly afford to lose; or to be purged when he was too weak to lift a spoon of potage to his own lips.

  Does one hand truly wash the other? Jean Paul thought, as he lay there in the jolting cart, watching her tawny hair blowing backward in the breeze. She saved my life—after having put it in jeopardy in the first place with her faithlessness. The one thing should wipe out the other, but does it? Strange. . . . All my friends call me a philosopher, but I am nearly dead of trying to become a man of action. I am but badly fitted for the role.