Roger sighed. "How wise you are, my dear Amanda. Yet even had I the good fortune to marry a wife so clear-sighted as yourself I believe it would be a great mistake to follow the course you propose. The nature of my Spanish love is so intense that I feel sure she would consider herself desperately aggrieved did I marry another. And though I am in no situation to marry at the moment I have recently felt more than once that I would like to settle down in a home of my own. So 'tis best for both her and me that we should not meet again."
"If you now feel that, you are cured."
"Yes; for I no longer think of her with any frequency, and am able once more to regard life as a joyous adventure."
"Think you that you are now inoculated of the fell disease?"
"I trust so. It went so deep that 'tis unlikely a similar madness will seize upon me for some other woman, at least for some years to come."
"I feel that, too; for my love also was most desperate while it lasted, and I'll not willingly surrender the freedom of my mind again. In that I intend to model myself on Georgina Etheredge; though I am not of a temperament ever to become quite so reckless a wanton as her hot, half-gipsy blood has made her. She has reduced love to a fine art. Whenever she finds herself becoming too deeply attached to a man she dismisses him and takes another."
Roger glanced up in surprise. "I did not know you knew Georgina."
"I met her first when she was married to Humphrey Etheredge, then again on her return to England last October. I stayed with her for a while at Stillwaters and found her positively enchanting."
"She is my oldest and dearest friend."
"I know it; and you had written to her most gloomily from Lyming-ton last summer, mentioning me in your letter. 'Twas the discovery that we were both worried on your account which formed a special bond between us; for the ravishing Georgina is not normally given to making women friends."
"I have not seen her now for close on a year; and 'twas a sad blow to me to learn on my return from France last month that she had gone abroad again."
"She and her father left early in December to spend the worst months of the year in Italy; but they should be back soon, as she told me that she could not bear the thought of missing another spring at Stillwaters."
Roger nodded. " 'Tis a heavenly place. When Georgina returns we must arrange a visit to her."
For the third time since they had been sitting there the violins struck up, so Amanda said: "Roger, my dear, we must dally no longer, or the number of my irate disappointed partners will be greater than even my notoriously poor memory will excuse."
As he escorted her back to the ballroom he asked if he might call upon her, and she replied: "Do so by all means. I am as usual with my Aunt Marsham in Smith Square; but let it be within the next two days, as we leave on Thursday to stay with friends at Wolverstone Hall in Suffolk."
On the Wednesday Roger had himself carried in a sedan down to Westminster, and took a dish of tea with Amanda and Lady Marsham. The latter had mothered Amanda ever since she had been orphaned as a child of four, and Roger had met her on numerous occasions when she was staying with her brother, Sir Harry Burrard, at Walhampton. There was a striking family resemblance between Amanda and her aunt. Age had increased Lady Marsham's figure to august proportions, but she was still a very handsome woman of fine carriage, and she had the same effortless charm of manner. In her vague way she at first took Roger for someone else, but welcomed him none the less heartily when her mistake was discovered.
Nevertheless the visit was not an altogether satisfactory one, as the two ladies were in the midst of packing. Their mutual untidiness had turned Lady Marsham's boudoir, in which they took tea, into a scene, of indescribable confusion, and frequent interruptions by the servants to hunt there for articles that had been mislaid played havoc with all attempts to carry on an intelligent conversation.
It was perhaps Amanda's departure for the country that subconsciously decided Roger to pay a visit to his mother. His own enquiries and those of Droopy Ned had so far not produced any suitable opening, and while he was anxious not to waste longer than necessary before starting a new career, he had funds enough to keep him as a modish bachelor for two or three years; so there would have been little sense in his jumping into a blind alley simply to salve his conscience.
On arriving at Lymington he found, to his distress, that his mother was far from well. Lady Marie had for some months been suffering from pains in her inside, and although the doctors had failed to diagnose the cause of the trouble they feared a tumour. She had not taken to her bed, but tiredness now brought on the pain, and having always led a very active life she naturally found it hard to have to limit herself in the time that she could now spend in her stillroom and garden.
Roger had meant to spend only a few nights at Lymington but, in the circumstances, he prolonged his visit to a fortnight; and, seeing his solicitousness for her, she took occasion one evening to speak to him more seriously than she had done for a long time past.
She disclosed how worried she had been about him in the summer, so he told her about his affaire with Isabella; and also that it was unlikely that he would be going abroad again, as his work for the Government had been terminated. With her usual tact she refrained from telling him that she had guessed him to be involved in some foreign entanglement, or remarking how pleased she was to hear that he was now free of it; but she expressed considerable concern about his future, and discussed various possibilities with him. However, the trouble—as had been the case with Roger on his first return from France two and a half years before—was that the combination of qualities he possessed did not particularly fit him for any career outside the fighting services.
It was not until he kissed her good night that she said quietly: "I do not wish to alarm you, Roger; and when next you write to your father in no circumstances are you to put ideas into the dear man's head. But I do not think I shall live to make old bones."
He knew that she was confirming his own half-formed fears, that her illness was serious; so in a swift effort to comfort her he kissed her again and pressed her very tightly in his arms. She smiled up at him, patted his cheek and murmured:
"Don't worry, my lamb. I feel sure God will spare me to you for a -year or two yet. But before I go I would like to see you happily settled, if that be possible. Mind, I would not for the world have my wish over-weigh your own judgment in any case where you feel an inclination, yet have doubts. I mean only that should you find the right girl, I beg you not to hesitate on account of your present lack of employment, or the smallness of your income. A man of your parts cannot fail to climb high, so 'tis but a matter of finding a good ladder; and I can vouch for it that in the meantime your father would see to it that you did not lack for money."
When, a few minutes later, Roger reached his own room, his thoughts turned to Amanda. If he married her, how overjoyed his mother would bel But would Amanda be willing to marry him? In view of their conversation a fortnight back he thought she probably would. Neither of them had any illusions left about unreasoning passion; both had been burnt by'it too badly. She did not wish to experience that kind of love again; nor did he. Both of them wanted something more gentle but more enduring. Georgina held a special place in his life that no one else could ever fill; but, Georgina apart, he liked Amanda as a person better than any other woman he had ever met. Mentally they had been attracted to one another from the beginning; quite early in their game of make-believe they had toyed with passion just enough to know that each was capable of raising in the other swift desire, and between them, like two sturdy trees, there had grown up trust and genuine affection.
Before he went to sleep, Roger decided that if Amanda felt the same way about him as he did about her, they would have a far better prospect of enjoying many years of happiness together than the great majority of couples that got married. Yet he refrained from committing himself
to any definite course of action. Amanda was due back from Suffolk at th
e end of the month. He would take an early opportunity to see her again and unostentatiously reclaim his position as one of her beaux. After that he would leave the development of matters on the knees of the gods and to Amanda.
But, as always happened when a fresh line of thought came to him, his mind gripped, exploited and would not let it go; so by the time he arrived in London, on the night of March 20th, he was looking forward to Amanda's return with the utmost eagerness, and was highly conscious that in the next few weeks life might hold a new excitement and a new meaning for him.
Then, on the morning of the 22nd, a letter was delivered to him at Amesbury House. He saw by the franking that it came from Portugal; next second he recognized the careful, angular writing as Isabella's.
With unsteady hands he opened it, and with his eyes jumping from line to line swiftly took in its contents. The paragraphs were not many but every one of them aroused his deepest emotions.
She loved him more than all the world. She was desperately unhappy. She believed her life to be in danger. Would he endeavour to reach Madrid by mid-April and snatch her from hell to the paradise of his protection?
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE KING'S BUSINESS
WITH his heart hammering in his chest, Roger read the letter through again more carefully. It had been written as recently as the 4th of the month, and its swift transit was explained by Isabella having sent it by fast personal courier as far as Lisbon. She added that she had sent a duplicate of it to La Belle Etoile in Paris, with her prayers that one or the other would reach him in time for him to save her.
She and her husband had left Naples at the end of January in order that she might have her baby in the traditional manner at the castle from which he took his title. She expected the event in the latter part of March. She still felt that she had been right in her decision not to elope with Roger from Naples, and that he could not love her less on that account. To have done otherwise would have been shameful. She had intended to resign herself to a life without love except that for her child. But she had discovered that her husband was a monster.
Little Quetzal was one of the very few people who did not shun the village witch, so the old crone doted on the boy. She had told him that Don Diego had bought poison from her, and that from her private reading of his horoscope he intended to use it on his wife. The motive for such a frightful act was, alas, all too plain. Some weeks previously he had conceived one of his uncontrollable passions for an Englishwoman. She was a beautiful creature, but cold, designing and ambitious.
Like other Spanish noblemen Don Diego never stooped to conceal his infidelities from his wife; and, in one of his black, morbid fits, he had told Isabella frankly that the cause of his distress was that their beautiful visitor would not give in to him or any other man for either love or money; she wanted both a title and a fortune, and her price was marriage. A week later Quetzal's terrible discovery had disclosed the way Don Diego's mind was now working. Since he was in no situation to pay the Englishwoman's price without first getting rid of Isabella, his wild obsession was such that he had determined to take the step which would enable him to pay it.
Isabella felt confident that she would be safe until she had had her child. Afterwards, she meant to exercise the utmost caution and keep to her bed for a fortnight, as there she need eat nothing but food that had been specially prepared for her by Maria. But by mid-April, or possibly earlier, it was certain that the doctor would declare her well enough to leave for Madrid. From then on she would be in extreme danger, but fit to travel. So she begged Roger to hasten to Madrid at the earliest possible moment and carry her off back to England with him.
Roger noted that it did not seem to have even entered her head that since she had refused to leave Naples with him his passion for her might have cooled. It was clear that her love for him had not abated one iota; and obviously she assumed that his love for her had equally sustained no diminution. Now that her letter, with her desperate plea, raised her image so clearly in his mind again it seemed as if for the past four months he had been boxed up in an airtight compartment, and that its walls had suddenly been whipped away like paper in a gale.
Georgina Etheredge was a case apart, and—with the possible exception of his calf-love for Athehais de Rochambeau—he knew that he had never felt so deeply for any woman as he had for Isabella. The idea that her life was in danger made his throat contract; yet he caught himself wondering if he would ever quite recover the wild passion for her that had obsessed him in Naples, and that he had since striven so successfully to kill.
The thought of Amanda gave him pause for a moment. He was not committed to her in any way; yet for these past few days he had been envisaging the seductive possibilities of married life with her. If she felt as he did, everything could be so simple and so suitable. The wedding would be from Walhampton, the ceremony in the old parish church at Lymington, blessings and good wishes would be showered on them by all their friends. They would have only themselves to blame if they were not happy; and his poor, darling mother would be overjoyed in seeing her dearest wish come true.
In contrast to that picture Isabella did not even mention the prospects of an annulment, and he could not possibly expose her to the risk of insult, as his kept woman, in London; neither could he take her to Lymington. During his fit of madness in Naples he had had vague thoughts of taking her down to Hampshire and passing her off as his wife, but he knew that he would never be able to bring himself to do that now. Should some ill-chance reveal such a deception, in his mother's present state the shock and shame involved might prove so great a blow that it would aggravate her illness and send her into a swift decline.
Yet Isabella was asking no more of him than he had asked of her four months ago, and in her case with far greater reason. From the moment he had first skimmed through her letter there had been no real doubt in his mind. He knew that he must go to Spain, if only to save her from becoming the victim of Don Diego's ungovernable passion. As there were no other possible means of doing so than eloping .with her, it followed that Fate had, after all, decreed that their lives were to be permanently united.
It struck him that the blind goddess had behaved with a certain cynicism, in first causing him to wreck his professional career by refusing a journey to Spain that would have led to reopening his nerve-racking affaire and now compelling him to go there at the price of his new prospects of quiet, domestic happiness. But he swiftly upbraided himself for a thought so disloyal to the woman whom only four months before he had loved so desperately. That love would blossom anew once he was with Isabella again and prove a buckler to them against all the difficulties they might meet with when he got her to England.
Fortunately he had ample money to keep them in modest comfort for a long time to come. They could live very quietly somewhere in the country under an assumed name; perhaps in Kent or Sussex, as in both counties there were now many French exiles, so Isabella being a foreigner would not arouse unwelcome interest in either of them. He would give out in London that he had been sent abroad again; and could only pray that the Catholic Church would allow Don Diego to repudiate Isabella so that they could regularize their union while his mother was still able to give them her blessing. There was, too, always just a chance that Fate might intervene again, and give Isabella her freedom through her husband's death.
Swiftly upon these thoughts another came to Roger. Since he was going to Spain, both courtesy and his own interests suggested that he ought to offer himself to Mr. Pitt to carry any despatches that were awaiting transit to Madrid. At least by doing so he could show that he bore no rancour against the Prime Minister, and was still willing to serve him in any way he could. It was possible, too, that by this time Mr. Pitt had had confirmation of de Mirabeau's alliance with the Court, and so took a better view of his ex-agent's last activities in Paris. If so, Roger felt, there was just a chance that he might be forgiven his insubordination, and entrusted with a new mission on his return fro
m Spain.
At even this slender prospect of reinstatement his spirits went up with a bound. He had felt all along that no opening he could find would prove so congenial to him as his old work and, with luck, a resumption of it would enable him to live abroad with Isabella as Madame de Breuc, which would solve a multitude of problems for them.
At once he hurried off to Downing Street; but it was a Monday, and he learned that the Prime Minister, having as usual spent Sunday at Holwood, was not expected back until it was time for him to take his place in the House of Commons that evening.
Roger knew it would be useless to leave a note, as Mr. Pitt was too poor to be able to afford a private secretary and very often left his letters lying unopened for weeks.
It was one of the strangest anomalies that by his financial genius Mr. Pitt should have brought Britain, in the space of a few years, from the verge of bankruptcy to a wonderful prosperity, yet be quite incapable of managing his own affairs; and another that, while he was incredibly hardworking and extremely punctilious about the discharge of all business that could be transacted verbally, he was one of the worst correspondents in the world. He was shamefully robbed by his servants and hopelessly in debt; but, maintaining that the nation's affairs must come before his own, he refused to open letters from fear they would be bills, which would distract his attention from more important matters; and he never answered a letter unless he thought it absolutely imperative to do so.
In consequence, Roger, being reluctant to waste a whole day, decided that the best course was to go down to see him in the country. So, returning? to Amesbury House, he had a horse saddled and rode through Southwark, down the Old Kent Road, to Bromley. A few miles beyond the village he came to Mr. Pitt's country home and, having had himself announced, was shown through into the garden.
There he found the tall, lean, worn-looking Prime Minister admiring his crocuses and daffodils. He smiled as Roger approached and asked: "Well, Mr. Brook, am I to take this as a social call?"
The Rising Storm rb-3 Page 49
