“Fore gad, yes!” the other exploded in a storm of contempt. “I am glad ye have the grace to admit it.”
“I have never lacked for grace,” said the Captain complacently His lordship struck the table with his clenched hand. “Let us understand each other,” he demanded savagely.
“’Tis what I most desire.”
“In a word then: What is Miss Hollinstone to you?”
“In a word, my lord — nothing.”
“Nothing? Nothing? And yet you—”
“Spare me your jealousy, I pray,” the soldier interrupted, and ran on undismayed by the other’s haughty frown: “There is no need for it here. I have never so much as set eyes upon Miss Hollinstone. You see in me no rival for the lady’s affections. I know not whether she be tall or short, fair or dark, fat or lean. I know her as the greatest heiress in these islands — a lady of surpassing wealth. I know her in no other way and in no other way do I desire to know her.”
The contempt, the disgust on the nobleman’s face was overwhelming.
“By God, Captain Gaynor!” he cried, in a voice thick with passion, “I have welcomed you to my house. I have sat at table with you. I have deemed you a gentleman.”
“Ah! And you find me?” quoth the Captain, entirely unruffled, yet with a challenging note in the question. But the other answered him undeterred. “I find you a — a jackal. You have spoken of yourself as an adventurer, a soldier of fortune. I did not dream what depths of degradation the term could imply. You have put an affront upon me in making me this proposal. ’Twas to consider me your equal in baseness. It is an insult for which you shall give me satisfaction. Fore gad, you shall!”
The soldier of fortune stood a little pale before that onslaught. His lips were set, and in his steely eyes there was a cold glitter before which men of bigger heart than Pauncefort had quailed in their time. He moved at length from his position before the empty fireplace, and sauntered, a graceful, supple figure, to the windows. There he stood a moment gazing out upon the breaking day, what time his host’s eyes followed him, angry and impatient.
The Captain was revolving something in his mind, debating something eminently distasteful. It went against his wayward, imperious nature to explain himself to any man. Many had misunderstood his motives aforetime; and he had left them in a misunderstanding, for which they had not infrequently paid dearly.
Yet here was a man whom that night’s business had taught him to despise, and he found himself urged to offer explanations of his conduct to such a man. It was repugnant to him; yet it must be done if he were to have his way in this, if he were to carry through this thing upon which, with his characteristic swiftness, he had determined.
He turned at last, and with his back to the window he faced his host.
“If I apprehend you aright, my lord,” said he, and the calm and dignity of his voice and mien, the force of his singularly compelling personality, impressed the other into lending him an ear notwithstanding the disgust and impatience that possessed him, “if I apprehend you aright it is not with my proposal so much as with my motives that you quarrel. If I had been able to say to you, ‘I love Miss Hollinstone,’ you would have viewed my proposal differently?”
His lordship flung out an arm in anger. “Perhaps,” he rasped. “What matter?”
“Oh! A deal,” replied the other. “Had I been able to say that, then, indeed, would my proposal have been base and ignoble; then, indeed, would you have been right to deem yourself affronted and to demand of me satisfaction. You are surprised at my point of view, my lord? I do not think we are like to see eye to eye in many things; but I would you could see eye to eye with me in this, that you could understand — as you are very far from doing — the true motives out of which I am acting.”
Lord Pauncefort bowed, not without irony. “Proceed, sir,” he invited his guest. “If anything you can say will mitigate the judgment I have formed—”
“I care nothing for your judgments, my lord,” came the sharp, almost passionate interruption. “When men have lived such lives as mine, believe me, they are very far from being touched by the judgments of those whose lives have been smooth and sheltered. In all this world there is but one thing I care for, one Cause in which were I not prepared to lay down my life tomorrow I should not be tonight in England. None knows that better than your lordship. If I have a hope of personal fortune, it is a remote and distant hope, to follow upon, as it is bound up with, the fortune of another. For ten years have I waited, acquiring knowledge in foreign service, steeling and tempering myself for the great service that is to come. I am in the twenty-ninth year of my age; the first flush of my youth is over, spent without regrets, consecrated like a novitiate to fit me for my task. The cup of youth’s pleasures is one that my lips have never touched. The love of woman has passed me by. The money that has come to me in the course of services that I have hired to others has gone, most of it, to the Cause on which my heart is set. If it please Almighty God that my hopes bear fruit, that my labours yield return, I shall have my reward and I shall rest me at last. If not,” and a shadow crossed the face and dimmed the almost fanatical glow of the blue eyes, “I shall still have my reward within myself — in the glory of the memory of the service rendered to that exiled one in Rome.
“You know of whom I speak, my lord, to what service I refer. Tonight I sat down to play here with money that I scarce dared call my own. Had I lost, it would have been so much lost to the Cause; as I have won, it is but just that I count it still money to be devoted to this sacred enterprise; and under no circumstances, sir, would my honour have permitted me, as for a moment you supposed, to return you the draft and await a convenience that may never come.
“My lord, you know full well that our Cause is most desperately in need of funds. His Majesty lives almost upon charity.” There was something akin to a sob in his voice. “Think of it, my lord! You count yourself one of his servants, one of his loyal adherents. You plot and scheme and pray for his return because you believe and are loyal to the rightful king. Can you, then, contemplate his straitened circumstances without feeling yourself humbled and ashamed? Consider how the money you have dissipated here—”
He broke off suddenly. “But let that be! I am speaking of myself, I think. I have said that this money I have won from you I scarce consider mine. Yet will I adventure it again as I adventured that other. I will adventure it to win more — to win the fortune of Miss Hollinstone, that I may turn it to a like sacred purpose.
“Now, sir,” he ended abruptly, “you are informed of the precise height and depth of my baseness; you have the precise measure of the insult I have offered you.” And he turned again to the window swiftly, that the other should not see the scalding tears that welled to his eyes, man of iron though he was.
My lord sank to a chair and took his head in his hands, beaten down by the storm of that man’s fervour — that man whom he had dubbed in scorn and disgust a self-seeking fortune hunter.
Something of the soldier’s enthusiasm had stirred him, and in its wake had come a burning, searing shame at the reflection of what were Gaynor’s motives, what his own. The small voice of his conscience whispered mockingly that it was he was the fortune hunter, he that was vile and base, he that, without faith or loyalty, had lent himself to a cause whose prevailing was his forlorn hope, the last perceptible means by which to mend his shattered fortunes.
“Captain Gaynor,” he said at last, in a hushed voice, “I ask your pardon for my misapprehension of you.”
The Captain swung round and faced him again — master of himself once more, calm and self-contained.
“Is it your pleasure, then, that we play?” he asked.
But here his lordship’s face again grew dark, reflecting thoughts of which the soldier could have no knowledge, else he would not have insisted as he did.
“Consider, my lord,” he cried, “that all the odds are on your side. On the one hand you stand to win; on the other, to lose nothing that is not lost already.”
>
My lord threw up his head, something between amazement and anger in his eyes. “How?” he cried with extraordinary vehemence. “What is’t you mean?”
To himself Captain Gaynor cursed the fellow’s dullness. He proceeded to explain.
“You have said that, unless you have this money tomorrow, a debtors’ gaol awaits you. In such a case will not Miss Hollinstone be lost to you? Do you dream that her uncle and guardian, Sir John Kynaston, will permit this betrothal to continue? It is your only chance that I am offering you, my lord. For your own sake, no less than for mine, you should consent.”
It was so clear and plain that Pauncefort for a moment turned the notion over in his mind, and something else — a further unsuspected advantage that must lie with him in such a game, an advantage, indeed, which made a mock of it and himself no better than a cheat did he consent. He frowned in doubt and perplexity. The perplexity he voiced at last.
“How do you look to profit by my loss?” he asked.
Captain Gaynor considered a moment. He came forward and leaned upon the table opposite to his lordship.
“The conquest of a woman so wounded in her pride and vanity should not be an insuperable task. Under the urge of pique she may welcome a suitor who at another time might be disdained. That is my opportunity; none so great, as you may judge; so that here again the odds are all with you. Given the opportunity, however, I am not unpersonable; I have seen the world, and I could no doubt, upon occasion, develop the antics which delight a woman.” He spoke quite coldly. “For the rest, not only is her uncle on our side, not only does he expect me at Priory Close on Thursday, but he holds me in some affection; so that the way lies open to me.”
“You speak of wounds to her pride and vanity.”
“Those consequent upon your lordship’s withdrawal of your suit,” said Captain Gaynor crisply, his steely eyes full upon the other’s.
But his lordship was not dominated by the glance. He smote the table with his clenched hand. “No!” he roared. “Sink me into perdition, no!”
It was a cry of conscience; the repudiation which common honesty demanded. But Captain Gaynor rated it at a still higher value. Slightly he inclined his head. He spread his hands a little. “Be it so,” said he. “We will say no more. I think, with your permission, I will take my leave. The sun is rising.”
But the alternative gaped before Pauncefort like a yawning chasm upon whose brink he tottered. He clutched the soldier’s sleeve.
“Stay!” he cried. “When a man has lost all else, what matters honour?”
“There are some causes to which one may sacrifice honour and remain honourable. You will remember that should I win, and should all speed thereafter as I desire it, you will have done the Cause perhaps the best service that lay within your power.”
“Should you win?” said the other. His face was ghastly. “Ah, but should you lose—” He broke off abruptly. “How shall we play?”
“What would you propose?” quoth Captain Gaynor, controlling the exultation that strained within him like a hound upon the leash.
My lord rose, his dark face was almost sinister now. He passed a white, jewelled hand over his long, cleft chin.
“Such a game as this,” he said, “should be played, I think, with other tools than dice or cards. Honour is here involved, and with honour should go life as well.”
“That,” said the Captain composedly, “depends upon the point of view, and you and I, my lord, again do not see eye to eye. I do not count this game dishonouring, else you may be very sure I should not engage in it.”
“You do not — true!” His lordship winced as he realised the difference, dependent upon their respective motives. “But you do not think of me.”
“If I did not,” said Gaynor sweetly, “I should accept the game with the tools you have in mind. But those, my lord, are the tools of my trade, and they should place the advantage too heavily with me.”
He uttered it as a commonplace; there was no scintilla of boastfulness in his cold statement of an irrefragable fact. His lordship laughed, short and bitterly.
“In that case,” said he, “we had better use the tools of mine.” And he gathered up the cards that were spread upon the table. “You are, as you have insisted, the incarnation of generosity, Captain Gaynor.”
“I am glad that at last you begin to perceive it,” said the soldier amiably. “Shall it hang upon a single cut’” He placed my lord’s draft upon the table as he spoke.
His lordship glanced at it, and then at the soldier. “Will you not give your generosity a free rein?” said he. “Will you not add to that the other two thousand that you have won from my guests tonight?”
Gaynor, masking his contempt, drew from his pocket another note of hand and a heavy purse. These, too, he placed upon the table.
“Shall I throw in my head as well?” he asked. “It is valued at a thousand guineas.”
Pauncefort looked at him with hostile eyes, resentful of the sneer that underlay his words. “I am content,” he said.
Captain Gaynor smiled, took the cards from his lordship, shuffled them with steady fingers and placed the pack upon the table.
“A single cut,” he repeated, and by a gesture invited his lordship to go first.
The viscount put forth a shaking hand, cut, and displayed the four of spades. His face turned ashen.
“Sink me!” he raged. “I was a fool to have consented! God knows I have had proof enough that my luck is dead tonight.”
The Captain made him no answer, but reaching for the pack cut in his turn.
It was then that he gave his lordship the sorely needed lesson in the art of graceful losing. He smiled and shook his head in deprecation of his lordship’s passion.
“You cursed your luck too soon, my lord,” said he. He had cut the three of diamonds.
As he walked along Jermyn Street, flooded now with the radiance of the new-risen sun, he smiled pensively. The gods had given him a wondrous chance and a little fortune of ten thousand pounds. He pondered some of the things that might have been accomplished with that sum. Then he dismissed the matter from his mind without another regret.
He was by temperament, you see, the perfect gamester.
Chapter 3. MR SECOND SECRETARY
However undeniable it may be that Captain Gaynor was a man inured to danger and prepared to accept all risks that came his way, yet it is no less undeniable that he never accepted a risk that was unnecessary. Daring he was, but not reckless. The care and precaution with which he laid his plans, the thought which he devoted to their formulation and the elaborate pains he took in their execution were all calculated to reduce his risk to the lowest fraction. He overlooked nothing, neglected nothing, and rarely moved into a situation from which he had not prepared himself an avenue of retreat in the event of sudden danger.
As a result of all this, although the Government was aware of the existence of a singularly daring Jacobite agent, who spied and plotted, came and went between the Pretender’s Court at Rome and his adherents in England, and although the country was sown with proclamations offering a thousand guineas for his apprehension, the identity of this agent remained unknown. No definite description of him existed; indeed, the descriptions forthcoming at various times offered such glaring discrepancies one with another that it almost seemed as if his exploits were not those of an individual, but of a group.
He was generally known as “Captain Jenkyn” though none could say how the sobriquet had arisen. As “Captain Jenkyn” he was referred to in all reports concerning his movements which the Government spies were from time to time enabled to lay before the Secretary of State, and “Captain Jenkyn” was the name in those proclamations which offered a thousand guineas for his head.
But no man who was not of the party — and only one or two who were — had ever consciously come face to face with Captain Jenkyn. On the day when that should happen, on the day when a Government agent or emissary should hail him to his face by that nom
de guerre, on that day, he was resolved, he would sink his own identity — cast it from him like a garment that has served its turn — for the sake of the many whose connection with Captain Harry Gaynor might be traced and whose lives might in consequence be jeopardised. On that day his career as an agent would be at an end. Even if with the mask plucked from him he should succeed in making good his escape from the perils that would then surround him, another must thereafter take up his work. Such was his resolve against a contingency which the elaborate quality of his plans permitted him to account remote.
It is in the perfection of these plans that towards noon of that day whose dawn saw him departing from Pauncefort House we find the Captain in one of the last places in London where we should look for a man engaged upon such a mission as his own — in the anteroom of Mr Second Secretary Templeton’s residence in Old Palace Yard.
Three months ago, in Rome, Captain Gaynor had renewed an old acquaintance with one Sir Richard Tollemache Templeton, who had served with him under Marlborough in the days of the late Queen — days in which Harry Gaynor had been acquiring the rudiments of the art by which he was to live. Since then Tollemache Templeton had succeeded to the baronetcy, left the service, and was now repairing an omission in his education by making the grand tour.
Sir Richard was the Second Secretary’s cousin, and Gaynor had been quick to seize upon that circumstance, and upon their old acquaintance, to provide against his forthcoming mission into England. For a month he had flung in his lot with the lounging Sir Richard. Together they had roamed over Southern Italy, the Captain representing himself as a soldier of fortune out of work just then, to whom time was of no account and upon whom the allurements of Sir Richard’s company proved compelling. He had very materially improved the acquaintance between them during that month. It had warmed and quickened into a friendship, very genuine on Sir Richard’s part, and only a little less so on the other’s.
Most subtly had Captain Gaynor succeeded in conveying to the baronet an entirely wrong conception of his aims. So cleverly, indeed, had he done his work that in the end the suggestion which it was his intention ultimately to make to Sir Richard, Sir Richard actually made to him.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 250
