‘Mr. Brook, I appreciate all you say, yet I would still ask you to consider my side of the matter. I have many other agents in France who send me useful intelligence, but none like yourself. They can do no more than hover on the outskirts of events, whereas you have made your way into the councils of those who initiate them. God forbid that I should send any man to his death; but having, as you say yourself, lived through the worst, I have even greater confidence in your ability to er … keep that handsome head on your shoulders in the less dangerous circumstances now emerging. I will not ask you for a decision now. Let us postpone the issue. But I pray you reflect on what I have said, and come to see me again when you have recovered from the nervous exhaustion which at present afflicts you.’
‘Nay, Sir. There would be no point in that. In ’92 I agreed to go again to France because I was at that time in desperate need of money. Now, thank God, I am better found; so can afford to risk your displeasure. Until your own prognostications are fulfilled, and France once more becomes a country fitted for a human being to live in, I am resolved not to return to it.’
The corners of the Prime Minister’s thin mouth drew down, and he asked sternly: ‘Am I to understand that you refuse to continued to serve me?’
‘By no means, Sir. My youth and good constitution should set me up again by Christmas. In the new year I hope you will find another mission for me.’
‘Ah! Now you speak more in the vein to which I am accustomed from you. Should the autumn campaign go as I expect, by early spring the conditions you require may be fulfilled. You could be of inestimable value to me in Paris while I negotiate peace and a restoration.’
‘No, no!’ Roger exclaimed in exasperation. ‘I thought I had made myself plain. I’ll not set foot on French soil until the restoration is an accomplished fact. But there are other countries. In’86 you sent me to aid my Lord Malmesbury in Holland. In ’87 I served you at the Courts of Denmark, Sweden and Russia. In ’89 and ’90 I carried out missions for Queen Marie Antoinette at the courts of Tuscany and Naples. In ’91 you made me your envoy extraordinary to Madrid. I have useful acquaintances in all these places. Send me to any of them, to America, or to one of the German courts. I care not; but I have earned the right to ask that it should be to some city in which I can live like a civilised human being, and not a hunted, half-starved dog.’
Slowly shaking his head from side to side, Mr. Pitt replied: ‘Now that Austria, Prussia, the Rhine Provinces, Holland, Spain, Sardinia and Naples are all joined with us in a grand alliance to crush the French, our diplomats furnish me with all the information I require of the happenings at their courts; and our relations with all the neutral countries are fully satisfactory. France is my problem, and among the minds that direct her policy you have made for yourself a niche that no other man can fill. ’Twould be a criminal waste to send you elsewhere.’ Then, standing up, he added with a kindly smile: ‘Think no more of this now. When you are restored to health I feel sure you will regard the matter differently. Near Christmas time I will get in touch with you; so be good enough to keep me informed of your whereabouts.’
Roger, too, had risen to his feet. His mouth set for a moment in a firm, hard line, then he said:
‘It would be useless, Sir. Since you refuse me reasonable employment I have now made up my mind to accept an invitation I received but yesterday. By Christmas I’ll be in the West Indies, and should I find the Sugar Islands as pleasant as they are portrayed I intend to stay there.’
2
The Silken Cord
As Roger rode away from Holwood House his feelings were very mixed. The nerve-racking existence he had led through the Terror would have satiated most men’s zest for adventure for the rest of their lives; but it was the horror of it together with the sordid conditions in which he had been compelled to live, more than the ever-present danger, that had so sickened him of his work in Paris. Previous to the rising crescendo of butchery that had taken place during his last mission to France, he had greatly enjoyed himself, both there and in the numerous other countries to which he had been sent. Meeting sovereigns, statesmen, generals and diplomats in court and camp, intriguing to secure information of value, and even at times succeeding in influencing events in favour of his country, had become the breath of life to him. He had, therefore, had no intention of severing his connection with Mr. Pitt, and would never have done so but for his master’s uncompromising refusal to send him anywhere other than back to France.
On the other hand, the idea of dropping all cares for many months, while making a voyage to the West Indies, had been very tempting. The invitation had come quite unexpectedly and, as things had turned out, could not have done so at a more appropriate moment. He had been home only two nights, and the day before, his oldest friend, Georgina, now Countess of St. Ermins, had driven out to Richmond to pay a surprise visit to his wife, Amanda. The St. Ermins were in London in August only because the Earl had been suffering from such acute insomnia that Georgina had decided that he must consult a mental specialist. The doctor’s recommendation had been a long sea voyage, and as St. Ermins had estates in Jamaica, it had been decided that they should go out there for the winter and later, perhaps, visit North America. Georgina had not known that Roger was back from France, and on finding him at home, but in such poor health, she had at once declared that he and Amanda must accompany her and her husband on their voyage.
As the four of them were such close friends no prospect could have been more delightful and Amanda had instantly pressed Roger to accept for them; but he had told her he feared that Mr. Pitt would have projects for his future which would put such a prolonged absence from Europe quite out of the question. Now, angry as he was with the Prime Minister for having forced his hand, he was glad of it for Amanda’s sake; and, after he had ridden a mile, he decided that he was really glad for his own as well.
During the past two years Amanda had spent much of her time staying with relatives; so she had made no serious inroads into the payments for his services that the Foreign Office had remitted to his bank, and he had succeeded in getting out of France the bulk of the considerable sums he had received while acting as a high official of the Revolutionary Government. On a rough calculation he reckoned that he must now have at least £10,000 in investments lodged with Messrs. Hoare’s, and although both he and Amanda were extravagant by nature, that was ample to keep them in comfort for a long time to come. When he returned from America it would be quite soon enough to look round for some remunerative employment.
At a fast trot he passed through Bromley and its adjacent village of Beckenham. Beyond it he left the main road by a lane that shortly brought him to the hamlet of Penge Green. Thence he rode through orchards towards Nor Wood, the three mile wide stretch of which now confronted him.
Ten minutes later, as he entered the wood, his thoughts had turned to Charles St. Ermins and his malady. Georgina had made no secret of its cause. Her husband was one of those gallant gentlemen who, under Sir Percy Blakeney, had formed a League to rescue French families from the Terror. At times, in order to carry out their plans for saving one set of people they had to stand by while appalling atrocities were inflicted on others. It was such sights which were now preying on the young nobleman’s mind, and one in particular.
In Robespierre’s native town of Arras, his friend Le Bon had shocked even hardened revolutionaries by his barbarities. On one occasion, having caught an émigré officer who had returned, he had had him strapped face upward to the plank of the guillotine; then, while the wretched man lay staring up at the heavily weighted triangular knife which was to come swishing down upon his throat, the terrorist had stood there for twenty minutes reading out to him from the latest news-sheet a long report of a Republican victory. To the victim, while waiting for the knife to fall, each moment must have seemed an hour, and St. Ermins, who had been present disguised as a National Guard, now dreamed each night that he was the victim; so that he woke hysterical with the agony the other
must have suffered.
Roger, too, was afflicted by harrowing memories, but they plagued him mostly whenever his thoughts happened to drift in the day time. The death of the little King was one, and another a scene that he had not actually witnessed but which, as he had seen so many similar to it, frequently sprang unbidden to his imagination with sickening vividness. During one of his brief absences from Paris his first love, Athénaïs de Rochambeau, had been guillotined. In his mind’s eye he could see the executioner’s assistant performing his awful function of throwing her decapitated trunk into the cart, then thrusting her beautiful head between her legs.
Each time this horrifying vision arose he found it terribly hard to banish it, and he wondered now if he and St. Ermins had a softer streak in them than most other men; but he rather doubted it. Both of them had given ample evidence of normal courage; so it seemed that the sight of atrocities committed in cold blood were particularly liable later to play havoc with a man’s nerves. That he and Charles were both seeking to escape from much the same thing now struck him as a fortunate coincidence, and he felt that the doctor who had advised the Earl must be a sound man. The peaceful routine of life aboard ship, followed by unmeasured time in which to laze in the sunshine of palm-fringed islands, was just the thing to banish the nightmares that beset them.
Emerging from the leafy glades of Nor Wood he passed Round Hod Hill, then rode a few hundred yards down a turning to the left until he came to the Horn Inn. There, he gave his horse half-an-hour’s rest while drinking a couple of glasses of Malaga at a wooden table outside the inn, from which there was a lovely view over the gardens and country houses that lay in the valley to the west.
From the Horn he returned to the road leading down the south side of Streatham Common, but he still was on the high ground when, to his annoyance, just outside the gates to the Duke of Bedford’s mansion, his horse cast a shoe. The occurrence necessitated his reducing his pace to a walk for the next mile, down to the main road and north along it up the hill into Streatham village; but on the apex of the fork roads there stood a forge, where he was able to order his mount to be re-shod.
As the smith and both his assistants were already busy he had to wait a while; so he sat down outside on the mounting block and idly watched the passing traffic. It was mainly composed of country carts taking farm produce into London, and the carriage of local gentry, but twice smart equipages clattered through, most probably on their way down to Brighthelmstone, or Brighton as the newly fashionable little watering-place was now beginning to be called.
Mentally he contrasted the busy, prosperous scene with the hopeless lethargy and squalid poverty which was now universal in villages of a similar size in France, and that set him thinking again of Athénaïs. He was roused from his gloomy thoughts by the smith calling to him that his horse was ready, but just at that moment a familiar figure caught his eye.
It was Mr. Pitt coming up the hill in his phaeton. Despite the slope its horses were being driven at a spanking trot, and the few other vehicles in sight quickly pulled aside to give it passage. On the back seat the Prime Minister sat, as was his wont, stiff as a ramrod and looking neither to right nor to left. He was utterly indifferent to either the applause or abuse of crowds, and of such a haughty disposition that even when taking his seat in the House he never deigned to glance at his closest supporters. Roger came to his feet and swept off his hat in a graceful bow, but his gesture received no acknowledgment. The beautifully-sprung carriage hardly slackened speed as it rounded the end of the smithy, then took the road past St. Leonards Church towards Tooting.
Clapping his hat back on his head Roger stared after it with an angry frown. He did not care a hoot about the attitude of god-like superiority that Mr. Pitt chose to assume in public; but he did intensely resent; the treatment he had received that morning. Brooding now upon the lack of appreciation and generosity which he felt his old master had shown him, he paid the smith a shilling, mounted his horse and set off after the carriage.
Cantering across Tooting Common he came up to within a hundred yards of it, but on reaching the village it went on along Garrett Lane, from which Roger deduced that the Prime Minister was going, via Roehampton, to see the King at Kew, whereas his own way lay to the west through Wimbledon. Another hour’s ride brought him to the Robin Hood Gate of Richmond Park, and by half-past three he reached his home, Thatched House Lodge.
It was a charming little mansion near the south end of the Park, with a lovely view of the Surrey Hills. An earlier building on the site had been used as a hunting-box by Charles I, and it was still a Crown property; but Mr. Pitt, in a more handsome mood than he had just displayed, had given Roger a life tenancy of it four years earlier for the special services he had rendered during the early stages of the Revolution.
Having handed his horse over to the faithful Dan, his black-bearded ex-smuggler servant, Roger went from the stables into the house by its back entrance. The kitchen door was open, and glancing through it as he passed he was much surprised to see that his wife was there directing the operations not only of the cook but also their two maids, and that every available space was occupied with meats in preparation, vegetables, pies and basins. As he paused in the doorway, Amanda looked up and exclaimed:
‘Thank goodness you’re back! There are a dozen things I want you to help with.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘What is all this to-do?’Tis true that I need feeding up, but we’ll not be able to eat a tithe of these things for dinner.’
Amanda was a tall girl with a fine figure, slightly frizzy auburn hair and the beautiful skin that often goes with it. She had good teeth and her mouth was so formed that it was always a little open, as though she was about to smile. Now it opened in a laugh, as she replied:
‘We have guests coming, and to stay.’
Seeing his face darken she came over to him, pushed him firmly back and closed the kitchen door behind her.
‘M’dear,’ he expostulated, ‘you must know that I am in no mood for company.’
‘Now Roger,’ she chided him gently, ‘you must be sensible. Nearly all day yesterday you sat looking a picture of misery in the garden. You brightened a little while Georgina was here, and I know you did your best to respond each time I tried to cheer you; but drunkenness has never been a vice of yours and you punished the port after dinner so heavily that you spoilt our evening.’
He gave a rueful smile. ‘I’m truly sorry for that, and for my general moroseness. ’Tis no fault of yours, and I beg you to be patient with me.’
‘I will, my sweet; but to contend with your unhappy state is too much for me alone. I’d soon become as miserable as yourself and contemplate throwing myself out of a window. Help to make you your own cheerful self again I had to have; so soon after you left this morning I had Dan drive me in the gig to London. Georgina at once said yes to my appeal that she and Charles should come to stay for a while, and as they are lying in Bedford Square at her father’s, I asked him to come out with them for dinner. Georgina, too, will try to collect dear Droopy Ned; so that this evening your best friends may begin the re-enlivening of your mind with a proper party.’
Leaning forward, he kissed her, and said: ‘It was a sweet thought, my pet, and maybe you’re right that the necessity to play host will take me out of myself. In any case I’m glad the St. Ermins are to stay, as it will give us ample opportunity to discuss going with them to Jamaica.’
‘Roger!’ Her eyes widened with delight. ‘And you had led me to believe there was no hope of that! Oh, never again will I say aught against Mr. Pitt, after his generosity in releasing you for long enough to make this voyage.’
‘Providing it be only to myself, you may now say what you will about him and I’ll not contradict you; for he no longer is my master.’
‘What! Do you mean that you have quarrelled with him?’
‘Not that; but he treated me most scurvily. I have, of course, been paid for what I’ve done, but no more than I would have
received had I been working in comfort and some degree of security. Even so, I asked him for nothing, except that in the new year he should give me a mission to some place where life would be endurable. I had a right to expect that, but he refused it, and did not even offer me a continuance of my salary until I recovered my health. I told him flatly that I’d go no more to France, and that has put an end to matters between us.’
‘Then he has cut off his nose to spite his face,’ said Amanda quickly. ‘I’ve long felt his ruthless exploitation of others for his own selfish ends to be intolerable. He will never be able to replace you, and when he finds that out it should be just the lesson that he needs to make him a trifle more human in his dealings.’
Roger shrugged. ‘Do not deceive yourself, m’dear. Were I the last servant he had, he would never admit to himself that he had been in error to dispense with me. But we must give him his due. He exploits people only from the highest motives; never for his own ends, but for the nation’s, and ’tis that which has formed the basis of my attachment to him.’
Amanda’s face showed concern, as she asked: ‘Are you greatly distressed by this breach that has occurred?’
‘I could be,’ he admitted, ‘but I have determined not to be. ’Tis a matter that I can put out of my mind more readily than some others, and while riding home I vowed I’d let the future take care of itself.’
She nodded, and then he added with a sudden smile: ‘In fact I will go further. From now on I mean to do my utmost to think of nothing but your own dear self enjoying with me the sunshine of the Indies.’
‘Oh Roger, how happy you make me!’ she cried, throwing her arms round his neck. For a few moments they remained tightly embraced, then she went back into the kitchen and he hurried away to get wines up from the cellar.
The Dark Secret of Josephine Page 3