This quieted the crowd so profoundly that étienne felt rather bad about it, and began to formulate what showed every sign of being a lengthy and comprehensive apology. But Eliza was having none of it. “You don’t know England!” she said, “But I do, for I am Mercury. England has factions. The one that rules now is called the Tories, and they make no secret that they loathe the Usurper, and want him out. Indeed, our invasion plans are predicated, are they not, on the assumption that the English Navy will look the other way as our fleets cross the Channel, and that the common folk of England, and much of the Army, will joyfully throw off the yoke of the Dutchman and welcome our French and Irish soldiers with open arms. If we grant all of these assumptions, why, there is no difficulty in supposing that the Tory masters of the Mint will strike a few coins for the House of Hacklheber—”
“Or whichever bank we elect to deal with,” put in Pontchartrain.
“—without asking too many awkward questions as to where those coins are intended to end up.”
“Yes—I see the whole thing now as if you have painted a picture,” said étienne. At which most of the party-guests attempted to get faraway looks in their eyes, as though gazing raptly at the same picture that étienne was viewing in his mind’s eye.
Though there were exceptions: “Samuel Bernard,” unable or unwilling to let go of the scheming-Jew impersonation that had garnered him so many laughs and so much attention, was still back in the Petit Salon, storming to and fro between “Paris” and “Lyon,” waving his stick around and demanding to know when he was going to see some of this dough that Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain had spoken of so convincingly; and “Castan,” his partner in billiards, finance, and (now) drinking (for they had got control of a decanter of something brown), was also beginning to make himself heard on the matter. “What are they on about?” inquired étienne.
“Don’t worry, ‘Lothar the Banker,’ ” said Eliza. “You will be paid back.”
étienne’s brow furrowed. “That’s right—I quite forgot! I haven’t seen any dough! Is that what those two are so upset about?”
Pontchartrain intervened, sharing a warm private look with Eliza. “Those two, monsieur, have just discovered something called liquidity risk.”
“It sounds dreadful!”
“Never mind, Monsieur le duc. It is a phantom. We do not have such things in France.”
“That’s fortunate,” said the duc d’Arcachon. “They were starting to make me a bit anxious—and I’m not even a banker!”
Eliza to Lothar von Hacklheber
12 APRIL 1692
Mein Herr,
PRIDE is a vice to which a woman is no less susceptible than a man, and I, perhaps, more than other women. PRIDE, like other vices, is arrogant of what room it can claim in the human breast, and jealous of that occupied by the Virtues, which it ever seeks to trample on or drive out.
When I rushed to little Johann’s nursery eighteen months ago to discover his cradle empty, a war began within my soul. On one side was the Virtue of Love: a mother’s natural love for her child. On the other was the Vice of Pride: pride wounded, aggrieved, and humiliated. It was not merely that I had been bested, but that it had happened while I was far away attending a fashionable soirée, rather than staying at home and tending to my duties as a mother. Pride, therefore, was urged on by Shame; and together their legions charged across the field and swept Love’s feebler forces before them. All that I have done since then, where Johann is concerned, has been dictated by Pride. Love’s counsel has rarely been heard, and when I have heard it, I have wilfully ignored it.
But the soul harbors its own tides. Much has changed in eighteen months. I have a new little boy now. Impetuous Pride, I have learned, is better at seizing ground than holding it. Love’s inroads have insensibly made up all the ground that she lost, and more. This letter may be considered the instrument of Pride’s surrender, and Love’s victory. It only remains for terms to be negotiated.
Of course you have already dictated the terms; you laid them out with admirable clarity in the note that was left in Johann’s crib. You seek the return of the gold that was seized off Bonanza in August of 1690 and that is believed to be in the hands of the band of thieves and pirates led by the villain Jack Shaftoe. You phant’sy that I had something to do with the theft and that I know where Jack is to be found.
In truth I had nothing to do with it and I have no idea where he is. But this is a prideful response, which brings me no closer to seeing my little boy again. The loving response is to give you, sir, what you want, to appease your anger and balm your wounds, though it be never so humiliating to me, your humble and obedient servant.
So: though I cannot return the gold, and do not know where Jack is, I shall protest no more, but do all in my power to give you what I can in compensation.
As to the whereabouts of Jack Shaftoe: no one knows this, though Father édouard de Gex and Monsieur Bonaventure Rossignol have devised a scheme to ferret him out. One of the members of his pirate-band writes letters, from time to time, to his family in France. These letters are intercepted and read by Monsieur Rossignol, who, however, is unable to extract all of their meaning, as they are written in an impenetrable code. He makes copies of them and passes them on to the family.