On the 12th, Sheridan's venomous hatred of Pitt led him openly to threaten the Prime Minister with the possibly dire consequences to himself, should he persist in opposing the Prince's claims further. Three days later the Duke of York attempted to offset the menace by a tactful speech in the House of Lords; but the damage was done. Pitt had the sympathy of every decent man and woman in the country. Yet there could be no altering the course that events must take, and arrangements were made for the introduction of the Regency Bill early in the New Year.
On the 19th of December Roger returned to Lyrninton to spend Christmas with his mother. He got in a few days shooting and attended a number of dances at the big houses round about—Pylewell, Priest-lands and Vicars Hill—and also in the town Assembly Rooms. It was now well over two months since he had left Natalia, and already he had come to regard her as an episode of his past; so he entered on an amusing flirtation with another Christmas visitor to the district, Amanda Godfrey, the Titian-haired niece of old Sir Harry Burrard of Walhampton.
She was a lively and audacious young woman, who did not take much persuading to slip out of her uncle's house after everyone else was in bed, to keep assignations with her beau. On several nights they went for stolen walks together round the star-lit lakes in the grounds and through the still, frosty woods; but it was no more than a holiday romance, and by the middle of the first weekvof"January Roger was back in London.
At the opening of the first session of Parliament for 1789, the most fateful year in modern history, the Regency Bill was the one question which occupied every member's mind; so the House sat impatiently through the preliminary business, the chief item of which was the election of a new Speaker, the holder of that office having died. Pitt's cousin, the heavy-featured but incorruptible William Grenville, was elected and, on January the 6th, the acrimonious discussions on the Bill were resumed.
Pitt's proposals were, in brief, that the Prince should be empowered to exercise the royal authority, but that the guardianship of the King and the regulation of the royal household should be committed to the Queen, with a Council to assist her. Further that the Prince-Regent should have no power to assign the King's property, grant any office beyond His Majesty's pleasure, or bestow any peerage, except on the King's children after they had attained their majority.
Thus, while bowing to the inevitable, the faithful Minister sought to ensure that the poor stricken monarch should remain in the care of those who loved him, that his property should be protected against the possibility of his recovery, and that his affliction should not provide an opportunity for his unprincipled son to swamp the House of Lords with the worthless and rapacious crew that formed his following.
For days on end the Whigs screamed their rage at the prospect of so considerable a portion of the vast treasure they had hoped to loot being secured against them; but in vain. The Ministerial proposals were carried in both Houses, the Prince had no option but to consent to act as Regent on the terms submitted to him, and towards the end of January, preparations were made for the actual introduction of the Bill which would enable the Regent to replace Pitt's administration by one composed of Fox and his friends.
These were dark days for the nation but their gloom was lightened at intervals for Roger by several pleasurable episodes and minor pieces of good fortune.
On his return to London he found a notification from the Foreign Office that some packages were awaiting his collection. These turned out to have been forwarded by Hugh Elliot, and contained all the things that both Roger and Natalia had left behind when they had quitted Copenhagen. He was a little disconcerted at the sight of Natalia's furs and dresses, and he found that his money-chest was empty, but he was extremely glad to recover his own expensive wardrobe.
Then, having had no acknowledgment of an application which he had put in privately to Lord Carmarthen early in December, for the reimbursement of his expenses while abroad, he waited upon that nobleman personally. True to the policy of the British Government, which reserves all but minor rewards and honours for its paid official servants working under those who have the distribution of them, and expects its private citizens to give their services from patriotism alone, his lordship pointed out that Roger must have had a very interesting time and that, in any case, a considerable proportion of the money he had spent must have been on his own enjoyment. However, Roger succeeded in obtaining a draft on the Treasury for five hundred pounds and, although several hundreds out on the deal, considered himself lucky to have settled for that sum before the dissolution of the administration jeopardised his chances of getting anything at all.
In mid-January he received a letter from Hugh Elliot, reporting that he had now succeeded in tracing Natalia. She had gone to Stockholm and was living there again in the Russian Embassy with her father, Count Andrew Razumofsky. Having known that she dared not return to Russia, Roger was a little surprised that this solution to the problem had not occurred to him before. He was much relieved to think that she was safe and well cared for; as, although he knew perfectly well inside himself that she was much too tough to come to any serious harm, he had occasionally had fits of morbid depression in which he had imagined her in the most dire straits, or even taking her own life on account of his having deserted her. He was glad, too, to know her whereabouts as it would facilitate his proceedings against her for divorce, although these could not be instituted for some time to come.
Next, towards the end of the month, he had another letter from Georgina. It was written from the Principality of Monaco on his birthday, the 8th, and was to wish him good luck on his coming of age. She was still enjoying the sunshine of the Mediterranean but now had a heartache to be back at her beloved Stillwaters to see its gardens blossom in the spring. Fortunately, she wrote, her father's business interests now demanded his return to England after his long absence, so they planned to get home towards the end of the first week in February.
At the prospect of seeing her again so soon Roger felt the first real thrill of pleasure that he had known for many weeks. It was not that he wanted to make love to her; it was a feeling that he could not possibly have described, but he knew that he felt more content and happy when he was with her than with any other person that he had ever known.
Lastly, on the 1st of February he was elected a member of White's. On his attaining his majority he had become eligible for membership, and Droopy Ned had put him up. As a young man of respectable, but not distinguished, parentage, he felt that it was a considerable honour to belong to the Club which was the stronghold of all the great Tory families in the land; and he derived a particular satisfaction in having, in this way, nailed his colours to the mast at the very hour when Pitt's government was about to fall, and so many friends and proteges of the Prime Minister were turning their coats in the hope of saving their places or gaining benefits from the other side.
For well over three months now he had been like a billiards ball in baulk; in the forefront of events but out of action and with his future entirely problematical. Suddenly he was brought into play again, and his affairs began to move with staggering swiftness.
CHAPTER XXII
THE FATE OF THE NATION
O N the 3rd of February, a Foreign Office messenger brought Roger two letters. Both were addressed in the writing of Hugh Elliot, and on opening the more bulky of the two he found it to be an appeal for help.
The diplomat wrote that, although he had browbeaten the Danes into withdrawing their army from Sweden in mid-November and agreeing to prolong the armistice for six months, the Northern powers were still far from showing any inclination to accept a permanent settlement on the basis of status quo ante helium.
Gustavus, now cock-a-hoop in the belief that he had the full weight of the Triple Alliance behind him, had become overbearing towards the Danes and twice committed flagrant breaches of the armistice; so, if the status quowas to be maintained, it might next be the Danes whom Britain would be called on to protect from aggression.<
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They had been deprived of all the initial advantages of their surprise invasion and Gustavus was no longer naked in the wind before them. With his usual amazing energy he had set his country on its feet again, and had now considerable forces at his command. Just before Christmas he had returned to his capital and performed miracles in repatriating and re-organising a large part of the army he had left in Finland. All the officers who had shown mutinous tendencies, and had not succeeded in escaping into Russia, had been seized, court-martialled and punished with the utmost savagery. New levies were being trained in every province and in the dockyards shipwrights were working night and day to get new war-keels on the stocks. By the early summer he would therefore be in a position to resume the war both in the North and in the South.
The Danes believed that the Czarina Catherine would be able to afford them little aid, owing to the terrible casualties that her armies had sustained in a series of bloody battles with the Turks. It was anticipated that she would be able to hold her own in Finland, but do little more.
Elliot then went on to say that he had received secret intelligence that the news of King George's madness had caused the Empress to reconsider her position. She had always loathed and feared Pitt, but now that his downfall was assured she believed that the time had come when she might detach the support of Britain from the Turks. She had, accordingly instructed her Ambassador, Count Vorontzoff, to make overtures to Charles Fox, and Fox had promised that on coming to office he would reverse Britain's foreign policy in her interests.
Should that, said Elliot, prove to be the attitude of the new Government it would be his duty to act upon such fresh instructions as he received; but he pointed out that if the burden of Catherine's war against the Turks was eased she would be able to send a strong army into Finland which might well result in the Russians and Danes achieving their old ambition of dividing Sweden between them. And, however provocative and unreasonable Gustavus's conduct might be at the moment, the elimination of Sweden from the European family must, in the long run, prove a major disaster; for Catherine would, in due course, turn upon and destroy the Danes. Russia would then be the mistress of the whole of Northern Europe, with her frontiers facing Scotland across the North Sea, and in a position directly to menace Britain with fleets based On the Danish and Norwegian ports.
Elliot gave it as his opinion that the only method of forestalling such a disastrous possibility was to bang the heads of the Swedes and Danes together, and dragoon them both into making a definite peace which it would be hard for either to break without contumely. But this must be done promptly, before the position worsened, and, for the purpose he needed more urgently than ever a British fleet which both the Swedes and the Danes would fear might be used against either of them should they prove recalcitrant in coming to terms.
In conclusion, Elliot said, he had written repeatedly to Lord Carmarthen on these matters and received no satisfaction; as it seemed that everyone at home was so occupied with the Regency question that they had no thought to spare for any other. But Roger's unusual position gave him special facilities for obtaining easy access to Mr. Pitt. Would he therefore, as a matter of the greatest urgency, do what he could to obtain the Prime Minister's consideration and appropriate action with regard to these momentous questions which were still threatening the balance of power in Northern Europe?
Having digested the contents of this long despatch, Roger opened the second letter. Its envelope proved to be only a cover for another and, on seeing the spidery writing on the inner one, his heart missed a beat. It was addressed to him care of the British Minister in Copenhagen in the hand of Natalia Andreovna.
With his mouth dry and his palms suddenly moist he read what she had to say:
His first letter had been a great shock to her, as she could not understand why he had not entrusted her with the secret that he was an Englishman when they had become so devoted to one another on first arriving in St. Petersburg; but she had freely forgiven the deceit and waited patiently in Copenhagen for his return. Then, after a far longer absence than he had led her to expect, had come his second letter, saying that he must go to England without her. Gothenborg being no great distance from Copenhagen there seemed no reason why he should not have crossed to the latter place, in order to pick her up and carry her to England with him. As he had not done so, she had formed the conclusion that it was his definite intention to abandon her, but that he had lacked the courage to say so outright.
On this, rather than face the humiliation of disclosing her sad state to the Countess Reventlow, she had decided to leave Copenhagen in secret and rejoin her father in Stockholm. She had been very miserable there, as apart from her grief at Roger's treatment of her, she was unable to avail herself of the distractions afforded by re-entering Swedish society. In spite of the fact that she was now English by marriage, the Swedes regarded her as an enemy and refused to receive her among them. Her situation had greatly worsened in the New Year as King Gustavus had, at last, succeeded in expelling her father from Sweden. She was allowed to remain there in strict retirement but only, as she understood it, because the King had learned that she was married to Roger, and had some special reason for not wishing to act discourteously towards him.
She pointed out that it was, in any case, impossible for her to return to Russia, and, having stressed her loneliness, she vowed that neither time nor separation had affected the love she felt for her dear husband. On re-reading his letters, as she had done many times, she felt that she had acted precipitately in coming to the conclusion that he intended to abandon her for good; and she now begged his pardon for having left Copenhagen without his permission. If he would forgive her she would joyfully return to her duty and live with him in England or any other country to which his affairs might take him. She was now certain that with him alone could she find lasting happiness; so would he, therefore, bearing in mind the deceit he had practised upon her, overlook her temporary lapse of faith in him, and either come to Stockholm to fetch her, or send her instructions as to the swiftest method of joining him in England.
When he had read the letter Roger felt as though he had been struck by a thunderbolt. For over two months he had believed that Natalia Andreovna had gone out of his life for good, but here she was back again, and now the onus was on him; for he must definitely decide whether to accept or reject her.
Technically he had not deserted her. By leaving her, but writing to say that he did so only on account of urgent business, and would rejoin her as soon as possible, he had followed a course in which any court of law would uphold a husband as fully justified. She, on the other hand, had deliberately deserted him, and, if he chose to take divorce proceedings, he had little doubt that he could be rid of her for good. But, seeing the way he had brought her out of Russia and the miserable state of exile to which she was now reduced, could he possibly square it with his conscience to do so?
As Droopy Ned had left London that morning to spend a long week-end in the country, Roger had no-one with whom he could talk over his frightful problem in the hope of clarifying his own mind; so he decided to shelve the matter for the moment and respond to Hugh Elliot's urgent appeal by trying to obtain an interview with Mr. Pitt.
In this, at least, he was lucky. On arriving at No. 10 he met the Prime Minister on his own front doorstep, just about to enter the house. Pitt answered his salutation, gave him a sharp glance and remarked. "What ails you. Mr. Brook? You look as though you had just seen a ghost."
"I'd not be far off the mark if I said I had, sir," Roger replied with a worried grin. Then, his quick mind seizing on a way in which he might turn the allusion to his advantage, he added, "The devil of it is that this ghost follows me about."
"Have you come to me to lay it, then?" Pitt smiled.
"I have, sir; if you can give me ten minutes of your time?"
"Next month I'll give you ten days if you wish; but come upstairs and, if you'll be brief, I'll hear what you have to sa
y."
Up in his room Pitt poured two glasses of port, handed one to Roger, and said, "You really look as though you needed this. Drink it down; then tell me what it is that troubles you?"
" 'Tis true, that I have just sustained something of a shock," Roger admitted. "But the ghost that haunts me, sir, is the state of things I left in Sweden."
"Oh that!" the Prime Minister exclaimed a little irritably; but Roger produced Hugh Elliot's letter and hurried on.
"I pray you read this, sir. I ask it on the count that however deplorable the state of our internal affairs at the moment we still cannot afford to ignore events that are taking place overseas, or we'll have cause to rue it."
Pitt shrugged, read the letter through, refolded it and handed it back. "I have already told you," he said firmly, "that in this matter I can do nothing."
"But you can,sir," Roger protested. "You are still the principal executive of the Crown, and there is nought to prevent you ordering a fleet to sea."
"I could, but I have no mind to commit my successor in office to a policy on which he has not been consulted and of which he would almost certainly disapprove."
Roger stared at the thin, tired face of the harassed statesman; then he suddenly burst out. "How can you put such scruples before the interests of the country? Do you but act now, while you still have the chance, you may yet preserve the independence of two Kingdoms. But if you do not, Catherine of Russia will sweep the board. You know as well as I, sir, that once you are gone that traitor Fox will sell us out to her."
"Charles Fox is no traitor," Pitt replied sharply. " 'Tis merely that his views as to the country's best interests differ from my own. I sent you to Russia to ascertain if a rapprochement with the Empress was possible. Her personal dislike of me may have been the stumbling block. If Fox can secure a permanent alliance with her he will, in that, have served his country better than myself."
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