Through a Glass Darkly: A Novel (68 page)

   The breath left her body. She sat down limply on the bed. Harry was still rummaging through the ruins of a drawer.

   Four years had done little to change him, except to turn him from a boy into a man.

   "We nearly fought ourselves," he was saying. "I tried to make him rest a moment. He has been up all night looking for you. And he is past drunk. I was just coming for you—ah, here is one." He held up the shirt, and in doing so, saw Barbara's face. Down came the shirt. He went to her, taking her cold hand in his.

   "Are you well, Bab? Answer me. Marchpane! Marchpane! Get some water for my sister—"

   "No! No." She swallowed. "I cannot stand another duel."

   They looked at each other, both thinking the same thing. He patted her hand, then walked to the window. The sounds of midday London came to their ears, the street vendors selling lavender and brooms and doormats and gingerbread, the rumble of carts and wagons, the curses of drivers. Absently he rubbed his mangled earlobe, his fingers lightly playing with the healed tissue of the ear opening, the scar of the groove the pistol ball had indented in his skull. Philippe had either aimed to miss and failed, or aimed to kill him and failed. But he had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, because something essential had poured out of Harry with his blood, some wild, boyish, carefree recklessness that was so much a part of his charm. He was still boyish and still reckless. And still charming. But it was an act to cover the empty place inside. He knew it, and Barbara knew it. And they never mentioned it. Never.

   "I have been thinking, Bab. We must reach Jemmy or Charles before they reach one another. If that is done, I do not think we can stop it—"

   "So Mother says. But I could convince Jemmy. I know I could—"

   "No honorable man is going to walk away from a duel, my dear. You must face that. If Charles has time to sober up and rest, he will cool down. He is not the kind of man to prey on another man's inexperience. I know that."

He was thinking of Philippe, she thought. Dangerous memories. Philippe had taken more than his ear. He had taken his faith in himself. Harry had gone marching into battle like a young prince, even though his knowledge was swords, not pistols. But the choice of weapons was Philippe's. And he chose pistols.

   "Where can we find Charles?" he asked her.

   "Garraway's. He will stop at some point in Garraway's. He always does."

   "Then you will leave a note for him there."

   "Saying what, for God's sake?"

   "That you must meet with him—begging him to meet. He will not be able to resist; he is in love with you, you know."

   "A fine way to show it." Her face was haggard. "And Jemmy?"

   "Write another note, saying essentially the same thing."

   "And then what?"

   "Pray they show up. You will deal with Charles, and I will deal with Jemmy."

   "How? What will you do?"

   "Spirit him out of London if I have to. Young fool! I will not let him face Charles." His face was grim.

   He is remembering, she thought. God help us all. She reached out her hands and he took them in his, squeezing them. He had always blamed himself for Roger's leaving her, but she knew now that life was not that simple. It had been both their faults…and neither's.

   She went to write the notes while Harry finished dressing, searching for a blank piece of paper on a table littered with papers. Riffling through them, she began to notice they were bills. She opened more and more of them. Bill after bill, gambling debts of honor, pawn receipts, reminders that stock payments were due, bills for hats and snuffboxes and gold– topped canes. Oh, Harry, she thought. You said everything was under control. You said you made money this summer; you said you were going to pay off everything. She closed her eyes. Well, whatever money had been made had not been spent on clearing debts. Harry was living on the brink of financial disaster, the specter of imprisonment for debt a certainty if it were not for her generosity and their mother's and Tony's. But to lend him money was to see it thrown away. He was always sure some stock purchase would catapult him over the brink; the next horse he backed would win; the next throw of the dice would change his life. She picked up a bill, months old, for two pairs of soft leather gloves, green–colored. Green gloves. A needless expense. Whom had he given them to? Pamela? Judith? A whore?

   "I have an idea," he called to her from the bedchamber. "With your permission, I will get Wart to help. He will know where to find Jemmy."

   Wart. Yes, Wart would know. Just as he knew where the next card game was, or the next horse race or cockfight. Wart spent even more money than Harry, but as a duke he had much better resources to fall back on. Sometimes she wanted to blame Harry's friends for his recklessness, but all the young men she knew were in debt, always gambling, spending their money on clothes and snuff and gold toothpicks and actresses. Richelieu had. And Charles did. And Wart, who was running through his inheritance as if there were no tomorrow. He was no longer the shy boy of Paris, brilliant and endearing. His baby son had died from smallpox in March, and Wart, who had settled down to live with his wife and son on his estate, had plunged headlong into dissipation, with Harry as a too–willing companion. But she understood that it was grief. It did strange things to one, twisting the heart the way it did. Would she have acted differently in Paris if she had not still been grief–stricken over the deaths of her brothers and sisters? Still fragile and off–balance? Who was she to judge Wart or Harry? Or anyone? The five graves at Tamworth had changed her, as had the grave of what had been her love for Roger. Vanity of vanity, saith the Preacher, all is vanity. She no longer turned to the Lord above for comfort, but in the first days of her most searing grief over Roger, she had searched for answers and found only a grim irony in the bitter words of the Preacher: What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever…forever unlike love or youth…forever.

   "Sprinkle some water on those notes," Harry said over her shoulder. "It will look better if it seems you have cried over them. Waterlog Jemmy's. He is still young and impressionable—smile at me, Bab. Perhaps nothing happened between you two. You were both so drunk."

   "I am in no mood for your vulgar jests," she said irritably. "If you had seen the way he looked at me this morning—"

   "He always looks at you that way. God knows why."

   He made her laugh. Dear Harry. He had been with her when Roger left; he had been with her when she left Richelieu; he had been with her in Italy to bury their father; he had been with her the afternoon she had first seen Roger again. Harry had no illusions about her. It was so comforting.

   "Harry…these bills…"

   "Never mind those." He sprinkled water liberally over both notes and her gown. "I will pay them soon. Just as soon as I sell some stock. Just wait, Bab. We are both going to be laughing about this thing in just a few days. I promise."

* * *

   Now she sat waiting in a tavern not far from Garraway's coffeehouse on Cornhill Street in the financial heart of London. The tavern was on the corner of a short blind alley with other small taverns and coin and specie dealers and, since this summer, offices of stockjobbers, those who bought and sold stock on their own account. Noblewomen were not a usual sight in this part of London, which belonged to merchants and bankers, but as people flocked here from Westminster and the suburbs, from all over the country and abroad to buy South Sea and other stocks, the sight of noblewomen, in their carriages or accompanied by their maids, was now nothing new. They were as eager to invest as their husbands, pawning jewels or heirlooms, spending their jointures, to finance moneymaking. She had spent many an hour in this very tavern waiting for Harry or Charles. They were used to her here.

   She stared out the bow window to Garraway's across the street. It was crowded, not only with its patrons but with buyers and sellers of stock. She could barely see inside for the press of people and carriages and horses outside. A mood of frantic activity was everywhere in this part of London. It made her more nervous than she already was. A fourth subscription of South Sea stock had been offered, and people were clamoring to buy or sell. And no wonder. Last spring, the South Sea Company's plan to take over the national debt had been approved, and the stock rose with each subscription all summer. In April, the price of the stock had been £300 a share.

   By June it was £1,050. The success stories were known to all: one actress retired from the stage, having made £8,000 on South Sea; a fortunate man had the honor of announcing his marriage to a woman whose attractiveness was increased by having made £100,000 in the South Sea Company; an Exchange Alley porter bought himself a carriage fit for a duke and a velvet coat with his gains, £2,000 on South Sea…South Sea marriages, South Sea carriages, South Sea jewels, South Sea estates. Its name was magic. The directors even allowed investors to borrow money against stock.

   Lloyd's, Jonathan's, Garraway's, Virginia's, and other coffeehouses were crowded all day and into the night with men at clerks' tables, eager to invest not only in South Sea, but also in the other companies that had sprung up to take advantage of the public's craze to invest. It was madness, and it was wonderful. London was euphoric, its financial heart beating loudly, heard all over the country. The streets of Cornhill and Threadneedle and Leadenhall were packed all day long with carriages and horses and people. Invest. Invest. What stock have you bought? Have you heard the latest? Staring out at Garraway's, Barbara was sharply reminded of Paris the summer before, when carriages and people on horseback or on foot crowded outside John Law's mansion, waiting for the door to open so that they could trade Law's bank notes for stock in his newly formed Mississippi Company. The news from France now was not quite so optimistic. John Law had been dismissed from his spectacular post of controller general of France, but some said it was French politics, and others claimed the French simply could not tolerate a foreigner in such a high position. Everyone here knew Law was a financial genius. After all, he had solved France's bankruptcy and introduced that miraculous new idea of credit. Now everyone in England wanted to experience its wonder firsthand; it made money cheap and available. And the prime example of its splendor was the South Sea Company. South Sea lent money on its stock, and therefore there was more money to buy more stock, and its rise was magic and enriching and self–perpetuating. The government was behind the scheme: the king was governor of the company; an earl was a director.

   "Well, I do not like it," Barbara heard one of the two men at a table just behind her whisper loudly and sibilantly. "It is going to burst. It is already under nine hundred."

   South Sea. They were talking of South Sea. She was so weary of it, but then what else did people speak of these days? Only last week Harry had been angry that his name was no longer on the lists of those who had first options to buy in the fourth subscription. "The clerk said there were no lists this time," Harry told her, angry and impatient, an underlying desperation in his voice that she did not understand, "but I do not believe it. It is Roger's doing…" and then, seeing her face, he had caught himself. Harry and Roger were enemies now, enemies since that moment her screams had brought him bursting into the blue–and–gold salon to see her struggling and sobbing in her husband's arms. Yet still his name was on the earlier lists…a generous gesture by someone. What had she and Roger said to each other as Harry lay bleeding on her lace–edged sheets in that house that had become a hell in Paris? She could not remember. She remembered only a contrary longing to be somewhere safe, and the safest place she knew was her husband's arms….She put a hand to her head. I will not think of that now.

   "Do not be so cautious," said his companion. "The price will rise again."

   "The Bubble Act is a mistake," answered the first man, the pessimistic one.

   "Nonsense," said the other. "John Law says credit well managed is worth ten times the amount of capital stock. The rise could go on indefinitely."

   "But they have lent money they do not have. Millions of pounds. Any man of sense knows a house built on sand will eventually fall."

   She caught her breath. Charles was standing at the door, blinking in the dimness, searching for her.

   "The Duke of Marlborough drew his money out in May. In May! What does he know that we do not?"

   She lifted her chin and stared at him. Their glances locked. His face was white and tired, and once he saw her, it became grim. He began to stride toward her table, calling impatiently for a glass of wine. The closer he came, the more clearly she could see he had not slept; his eyes were bloodshot, rimmed with red, and unfriendly, the eyes of a stranger.

   "All right. Granted, it may have to fall eventually, but surely not before November."

   Barbara turned around. "Will you hush!" she hissed.

   The two men stared at her blankly, but she was already facing away.

   He was nearly at her table, walking with the loose–limbed, masculine grace some big men possess. She could feel her heart beating with loud, irregular thumps. There was such a resemblance to Roger; Charles might have been a less handsome, much larger brother, but for his nose and his mouth, wide and sensual, and he stood before her now. He is drunk, she thought. I cannot deal with him. She felt a sudden sense of doom and closed her eyes to will it away.

   He sat down heavily. A waiter glided over to serve the wine, opened his mouth to speak, glanced at Charles's face, then quickly to hers, and at once glided away, no fool. Charles drained the glass of wine. Do not drink any more, she thought, but she did not say a word. The hair on the back of her neck and along her arms had risen.

   "Where were you last night?" His words were flat.