He turned away his face. “I know how bitterly you must feel, but I beg you to spare me your reproaches. The memory of that awful scene and the manner in which I brought about his death is as much as I can bear.”
“Nay,” she replied quickly. “Fond as I was of him, it was not his death that has driven me half-crazy. ’Twas the thought of the breach between us. You are so much a part of me that I could not reconcile myself to cutting you from my life without an attempt at explanation. I had to find out if you had some shadow of justification for the awful thing you did, or if I am condemned to regard you henceforth as a monster. Why did you do it, Roger? Why?”
“It is a long story,” he murmured. “But I too have been more distressed by your threat never to forgive me than all else put together. Where can we go to talk alone in comfort?”
“I am taking you to my studio on Campden Hill. I must know the truth, and whether after tonight I may ever look you in the face again without a shudder. Let us say no more till we arrive there.”
As they drove on through Hyde Park and down to Kensington village, Roger recalled the many times that they had taken the same drive together in very different circumstances. Georgina had a natural talent for painting, and Gainsborough and Reynolds had entered on a pleasant rivalry in giving such a ravishing pupil lessons, in her studio-villa on Campden Hill; but she also used it as a petit maison, and when she felt inclined to play the wanton took her most-favoured beaux there to sup with her. With a sad pang Roger thought again of the wine, the laughter and the love that had united them when he had last accompanied her there in the early hours of the morning, after a ball.
But that was long ago; and no hideous Paris street scene centring round a battered, bloody corpse lay between them then.
When they arrived at the quiet villa, secluded among its grove of trees, Jenny, Georgina’s faithful maid, who knew all her secrets, let them in. Roger had not seen Jenny in Paris and only once in Aranjuez; so after she had bobbed him a curtsy he talked to her for a few minutes as an old friend; and that served to relieve a little the tension between Georgina and himself. Georgina then told Jenny to bring them a bottle of Canary wine and, as the maid left them to fetch it, asked him when he had last fed.
“I have not eaten all day,” he replied; “but am more tired than hungry. What I need most in all the world, after your forgiveness, are a hot bath and a few hours’ sleep.”
She kept her eyes away from his. “The issue cannot now be altered; so I will contain my impatience yet a while that you may have both, and be the better man to justify yourself—if you can. ’Tis not yet eight o’clock. Jenny shall boil some water up for you while we drink a glass of wine and you undress. You can sleep in my bed and later I will have some cold food ready for you.”
In silence they drank two glasses each of the Canary, then he had his bath and flopped into Georgina’s big square bed. As its black silk sheets caressed his naked limbs he thought of the last time that he had lain there, with her burbling with laughter beside him, and wondered if he would ever again know such perfect contentment. Then he dropped asleep.
At midnight she woke him, and shortly afterwards he joined her in the lofty studio-sitting-room, one end of which was curtained off to conceal all the paraphernalia of her painting. In the other, in front of the fireplace, a small table was set for supper. As they sat down to it, she said:
“Tell me now, Roger, what led you to this ghastly act, that must for ever bring the awful vision of his dead body between us, unless you can once and for all dispel it.”
Georgina and Droopy were the only people from whom Roger had never concealed his secret activities, so, as they slowly ate their supper, he told her of his endeavours to break the Family Compact, then of Mr. Pitt’s blasting of him that evening, and his reply.
It was the first time that they had ever eaten a meal together without laughter, and now Georgina did not even smile, as she remarked: “You are right in that you have served your country well by these extraordinary means, and risked your life in doing so; for had you not handled matters with great skill and daring the French authorities would have had you tried and executed for murder. What had the Prime Minister to say on your proving to him that you have sacrificed all else in a fanatical devotion to your duty?”
“He asked me for the Letter of Marque I carried; struck out the words ‘of Nootka Sound’, altered one other, initialled the alterations and handed it back to me; so that it now reads: ‘Mr. Roger Brook knows my mind on this matter, and is commissioned by me to speak upon it:’”
Georgina’s unsmiling eyes widened. “ ’Tis then transformed into an open warrant, empowering you during the course of your work to speak in his name on any subject. It shows that you have now won his complete trust in your judgment. ’Tis a remarkable achievement, Roger, and I am glad for you in that.”
“I thank you.” He returned her solemn glance. “ ’Tis even more a testimony to the greatness of his own mind, in that he has overlooked my many shortcomings and paid regard only to the final outcome of my mission. But I’ll find no joy in his noble gesture to me unless I can convince you too that I played no dishonourable part.”
She continued to regard him dubiously, as she said: “In so grave an affair of State I can understand that the life of a single man could not be allowed to affect the issue; but ’twas the personal relationship you bore him, Roger, that made your crime so peculiarly horrible. Surely, if a man had to die to win your popularity with the mob, you could have played the part of blind Fate and selected a victim at random, instead of seizing on the chance to slake your hatred of the husband of your mistress?”
“ ’Twas no calmly reasoned plan. The thought that I might achieve my country’s ends over Don Diego’s dead body came to me only as a flash of inspiration while we stood together on that balcony. But had I had time to make deliberate choice of a victim I greatly doubt if I could have brought myself to throw an innocent person to that pack of wolves. I had in any case come there to kill him.”
“I do not understand you, Roger.” Georgina shook her head. “Diego was as innocent as myself of the Condesa Isabella’s death. She did not even die by poison; she was butchered by those cut-throat robbers.”
“Say hired assassins, rather! Don Diego planned her murder. I am convinced of that. When I reached the Embassy, I was still too distraught to do more than imply that I knew him to be guilty, and after—after what then befell I had no opportunity for any explanation with you. Instead of mumming the part of blind Fate, as you suggest, I took the role of blindfold Justice. He raised the mob to kill her. I raised the mob to kill him.”
“What proof have you of this monstrous charge you make against him?”
Roger spread out his hands. “ ’Tis the very lack of it that has filled me with such despondency at the thought of trying to make my case with you. I have naught to offer but the word of another person, now also dead, and that you may well consider prejudiced by hatred and suspicion of Don Diego. If you refuse to believe it there is no more that I can say. I can but vouch for the story as it was told to me, and pray that you may judge, as I did, that ’tis so circumstantial as to have the ring of truth.”
Leaning forward across the table, he went on earnestly: “In recent months there have been numerous attacks on religious institutions in Paris for the purpose of robbery; and that excuse served for the one which was made on the night of Tuesday the eighteenth, on the Convent of the Carmelites. I had a rendezvous there with Isabella at ten o’clock the following morning, and knew naught of it till then.
“On my arrival I found National Guard sentries posted on the broken doors, and at first they refused me admittance. But I insisted on seeing the Mother Superior, and when I declared myself a friend of Isabella this is what she told me.
“Shortly after two in the morning they were aroused and alarmed by a battering on the doors. By a previous arrangement made in case of such an emergency she and her nuns at once gathered in the chap
el; but Isabella, being a lay visitor, did not know of it and remained in her room. The doors were burst in, but the attackers numbered less than a dozen ruffians. They despoiled the sacristry of the sacred vessels, seized all other articles of any value they could find, insulted the nuns and defiled the altar. After some twenty minutes of such excesses they left the Convent with their loot. It was only then that the Mother Superior recalled her visitor. On going to Isabella’s room she found her dead, and little Quetzal lying under her bed grievously wounded.
“The boy was still alive at the time of my visit and the Mother Superior took me to him. This is what he had to tell. He was sleeping in the gardener’s lodge, hard by the main entrance to the Convent. He was awakened by the battering upon it, and getting up ran to his mistress. No sooner were the main doors stove in than he heard the rush of trampling feet along the stone corridor; then the ruffians attacked the door of Isabella’s room. They forced it and four of them made violent entry. Isabella had sprung from her bed, thrown a robe about her person and was standing in the middle of the room. That gallant child had his tomahawk in his hand and did his best to defend her. In a moment he was struck down and they rushed upon Isabella. Two of them seized her arms and forced her back against the wall, while the other two thrust their pikes a dozen times through her body.
“Seeing that she was dead, and hoping yet to save himself, Quetzal wriggled beneath the bed. When they had left the room he tried to staunch the blood that was flowing from his wound. He was still attempting to do so when the trampling of feet came again. Peering out from under the valance, he saw a tall man, who had not been there before, and one of Isabella’s murderers. The tall man was masked, wore a cloak, and a soft-brimmed hat pulled well down over his face. He stood for a moment looking down at Isabella’s dead body. Then he drew a heavy bag of money from under his cloak and handed it to the leader of the murderers with the words: ‘Yes; this is the woman. Here is the price on which we agreed.’
“Quetzal knew the tall figure, and he knew the voice. He died of his wound before I left the Convent, and with his last breath he swore to me that it was Don Diego.”
Georgina nodded. “I cannot doubt you, Roger; and I now understand. I can by inference even confirm the truth of what you say. That morning Diego was sent for to go to the Convent about seven o’clock. I was up when he returned, and having told me what had occurred he asked me to marry him as soon as his period of mourning was over. Then, I saw no possible connection between him and the attack on the Carmelites. I was only shocked by his flagrantly indecent haste in proposing before his wife’s body was even cold. The thought of his callousness in that afterwards did much to lessen the grief I should otherwise have felt at the death of anyone with whom I had been so intimate. But now I see that his proposal to me was the confirmation of his wife’s fears, and nails his motive to the mast.”
For a moment she was silent, then she resumed in a low voice: “What you have told me now reveals that I was greatly guilty towards your poor Condesa. I ridiculed her fears and sought to persuade you that she was lying in order to entrap you. Worse; it seems that I was in a large measure responsible for her death.”
“Nay,” Roger protested. “You must not think that. The intensity of Don Diego’s passion when unsatisfied drove the poor man into morbid fits, during which he was no longer master of himself. Had he not conceived a desperate passion for you he would have done so for some other fair, just as he did in a lesser degree for Sara Goudar. You did all that lay in your power to avert a tragedy; for you gave yourself to him even while unconvinced that by your continuing to refuse him a tragedy might occur.”
She shook her head. “Dear Roger; I was more responsible than you know; but only out of love for you. I could not abide the thought of your ruining your future for her sake. I concocted a plan with Papa by which we hoped to save you. That day on which you were in Toledo he went to Manuel Godoy, and pointed out to him that General Count d’Aranda’s daughter would have an influence far greater than her husband with the Queen of France; so that if the mission was to be successful ’twas of the first import that she should leave her child and go with him. Godoy was quick to see the sense in that and went to Queen Maria Luisa. The result was the order that ruined your plans for an elopement and sent the Condesa Isabella to die in Paris.
“Strap me! I might have guessed it!” he exclaimed. “I knew the way you felt, and that you were capable of taking any measure that you thought might save me from myself.”
Her dark eyes were shining and she took his hand. “Yes, Roger. And, even could I have foreseen the terrible result of my secret intervention, I would have accepted the guilt and done the same. Your happiness means more to me than the life of any woman.”
“And yours more to me than the life of any man. I thank you, sweet; for had not matters panned out as they have my life could have been only one long tale of misery. I loved poor Isabella desperately when we were together in Florence and Naples; but on leaving the latter place I deliberately killed my love for her, and strive as I would afterwards, I could not revive it. She was incredibly possessive; and had I eloped with her I should have been in honour bound to stick by her for good, in fact, far more so than had she been my married spouse. ’Tis now six months since my first striving to cut her image from my heart, and I would be a liar if I did not confess to you that I am mightily relieved to have my freedom.”
For a full moment they were silent, then Georgina said: “No good can come to either them or us from arguing the matter further. I would suggest that we now regard them as other loves of ours that are past and gone; and seek to forget their double tragedy by never referring to it again.”
“Egad, you’re right!” he nodded. “ ’Twould be hypocritical to pretend that either of our hearts is broken. Shall we—would it be too monstrous callous if we cracked another bottle of wine to seal that pact, and toast the future?”
Georgina smiled. “Since Fate has ordained that they should die and we should live, ’twould be an insult to our own protecting gods did we weep crocodile tears instead of rejoicing in our deliverance. Go get a bottle up from the cellar, m’dear. Meanwhile I’ll rid me of these plaguey pinching corsets and take my ease in a chamber robe.”
Ten minutes later Roger was pouring the Champagne into tall glasses, and Georgina had installed herself comfortably in a corner of the big settee. As he carried the wine over and sat down beside her, she asked:
“Now that you are so firmly re-established in Mr. Pitt’s good graces, will you proceed on another mission for him at an early date?”
“Not for a time,” he replied; then added with a sudden gay excitement: “I did not tell you all his kindness to me. He was good enough to say that I had done more to deserve a Knighthood of the Bath than most men who receive it. But ’tis not possible to reward services of a secret nature in that way; so he asked me what I would have that it was in his power by patronage to bestow. After a moment’s thought I said I would like a small house of my own, if it chanced that any of the Crown properties of a moderate size were vacant. By great good fortune Thatched House Lodge in Richmond Park has recently fallen free. He has promised me a life occupation of it, and I can scarce contain my impatience to see my new home.”
“Oh, Roger, how truly marvellous!” she exclaimed, her lovely face now glowing with delight. “I know it well, and ’tis the most charming spot imaginable. ’Twill not be too big for you to run, yet large enough for you to put up a few people if you wish and to entertain in. It stands on a rise with a pretty garden at its back and a view that is enchanting. The older part was once a hunting lodge of Charles I. In the garden there is still standing a large, thatched summer-house which he loved to frequent; and some twenty years ago an occupant of the place had Angelica Kauffmann paint the most lovely frescos on its ceiling.”
“Think you this large summer-house would prove suitable for a studio?”
“Why, yes!” Her eyes widened. “But have you then a mind
to take up painting?”
He nodded. “I have always had a love for pictures, as you know; and short though my travels were in Italy the masterpieces I saw there added to my enthusiasm for the art. I’ll never be able to do more than daub myself, but I would like to try my hand at it.”
“I will come down to Richmond and give you your first lessons.”
“Indeed you shall,” he agreed eagerly. Then he added with a smile: “As you once did in more important matters. And I think you put a spell upon me then; for no other woman that I have ever met has had the same power to rouse me physically at will, and give me afterwards so perfect a sense of utter content and joyous well-being. I have wondered many times if we were foolish not to have married.”
“Nay,” she said softly. “We argued that question long ago. Did we wed, by unbroken intimacy we would gradually whittle away that very attraction for one another of which you speak; and marriage vows could do naught to strengthen our precious friendship. So our decision, that you should never lead me to the altar, was a wise one. But that is no reason why my head should continue to repose upon this cushion rather than on your shoulder.”
He put his arm about her and they snuggled down together.
For the best part of half an hour they talked of Thatched House Lodge, and the fun they might have in redecorating and furnishing it; then she said: “But Roger, all this by rights is no affair of mine. Now that you have this charming property, ’tis time that you thought seriously of marriage and settling down. You have racketed with all and sundry overlong. Even though you may continue to tumble some pretty baggage now and then during your trips upon the Continent, you should have a home that you can return to in which to find a quiet contentment.”
“Mayhap you’re right,” he agreed. “I have often thought that way myself during these past two years.”
She wriggled a little closer to him, and gave a happy sigh. “I am prodigious glad you feel that way, since I have in mind the very woman for you. ’Tis that dear Amanda Godfrey.”
The Rising Storm Page 62
