The Rising Storm

by Dennis Wheatley

  Even when the boot had been slit down, getting the injured foot out of it proved a most painful business, but the result of the chirurgeon’s examination was reassuring. He said that all use of the foot would greatly retard its healing, so he meant to encase it in plaster in the morning; but that if it was kept rigid for from two to three weeks he thought that the patient would be able to walk again without developing a permanent limp.

  Isabella, the plump, fat-faced Maria and the old Señora were all present at the conference and all three of them assisted the chirurgeon to wash and bandage their hero’s wounds. Flattered as Roger might have been had he felt more his normal self, he now wished fervently that they would go away with the doctor and leave him in peace; but he knew there was no hope of that. He had been carried up to the largest room in the hostelry, which Isabella’s outrider had reserved for her and her women, and clearly they had no thought of going to another. Maria began to lay the table for supper with her mistress’s travelling cutlery, and an inn servant brought up two screens for them to undress behind afterwards.

  When the meal arrived the two ladies and Quetzal sat down to it while Maria waited upon them. They conversed only in hushed voices but every ten minutes or so Isabella could not resist asking him how he was feeling and if she could get anything for him. At length he took refuge in pretending to be asleep. But he had now become feverish, and his restless tossing brought their further ministrations upon him before they retired for the night.

  Evidently having decided that his foot was the seat of the trouble they undid the bandage. The Señora then produced a small packet of oiled silk and a square of cardboard from her medicine chest. The oiled silk contained some tacky greyish stuff that looked like dirty cobwebs, and Roger began to protest vigorously when he saw that she was about to put it on the red gash across his inflamed and swollen instep.

  He gave in only because he dared not struggle for fear of restarting the bleeding, and on receiving Isabella’s assurance that this old-wives’ salve was a sovereign remedy for reducing fever in angry flesh wounds; but his apprehension was hardly lessened when he saw that the piece of cardboard, which the Señora placed immediately over the salve, was a picture of St. Sebastian.

  While Isabella rebandaged his foot the Señora took a glass phial from her chest, poured some of the liquid it held into a glass and, after adding a little water, brought it over to Roger. Thinking “in for a penny in for a pound”, he drank it down; but this time no further qualms assailed him, as he recognised it to be Cordial Poppy Water; and ten minutes later he dropped off to sleep.

  When he woke in the morning he felt decidedly better; and, whether he owed it to the cobwebs or the intervention of St. Sebastian, there was no doubt that the inflammation of his instep had subsided. Nevertheless, the Señora Poeblar evidently had no wish to flaunt her triumph over the chirurgeon, as she removed both before his arrival and, having done so, put her finger to her lips to enjoin secrecy on Roger.

  It was the first opportunity he had had to regard her with any attention, and as he smiled his understanding and thanks, he thought she looked rather a nice old lady. She was very swarthy and fat, but big-built and strong-limbed. Her age might have been anything between fifty and seventy, since her face was much wrinkled, but her beady eyes showed liveliness and humour. Had it not been for their smallness Roger thought that when young she would probably have passed as a beauty, for she still had good features. She was dressed entirely in black and in addition to a rosary of ebony beads her ample bosom was hung all over with a variety of sacred emblems.

  When the chirurgeon arrived he expressed himself as both surprised and gratified at the improvement in the patient’s foot, but, all the same, maintained his view that it should be set in plaster. Roger had been hoping that he might now escape so crippling a treatment, but both Isabella and her duenna backed up this opinion, and as he had no wish to risk being lame for life he submitted with the best grace he could muster.

  As the day happened to be Sunday Isabella and her entire entourage would normally have attended High Mass, but she excused herself on the plea that someone must stay with Roger. In view of the invalid’s still weak condition, and the unlikelihood of his committing an amorous assault on her charge with a heavy plaster cast round his foot, the Señora agreed that the conventions would not be outraged by her leaving the two young people; so at a quarter to ten she set off, taking Quetzal and all the servants with her.

  Directly they had gone Isabella made a pile of the travelling cushions near the head of Roger’s bed and settled herself comfortably upon them. Taking her hand he kissed it, then smiled up into her dark eyes and said:

  “Señorita, this is the chance I have been waiting for, to thank you for coming back to search for me last night. Had you not done so I might have suffered a most horrid fate.”

  She returned his smile. “Knowing that, how could I have abandoned so brave a gentleman?”

  “Yet you ran a grave risk. You could not have known that I succeeded in wounding the last two of those cut-throats; and, had I not, they might have set upon you again.”

  “True, but forewarned is forearmed. They would not have found us such easy game as at the first encounter, for then they took us by surprise. On our return both Pedro and my coachman, Manuel, had their blunderbusses out ready, and I had my pistol on my lap.”

  “Then, Señorita, I count you braver still, since you returned anticipating a fight and were prepared to enter it yourself.”

  “Monsieur, I am a General’s daughter,” she said lightly, “so reared to have no fear of arms. But a truce to compliments. Pleased as I am that we should meet again, I am nonetheless surprised at it; and somewhat concerned by your apparent dilatoriness in Her Majesty’s service. How comes it that having been five days on the road you are got no further?”

  Roger cocked an eyebrow. “I was under the impression that Her Majesty attached more importance to the safe than the speedy delivery of her letter.”

  “ ’Tis true; and, in view of the injuries you have sustained, now most fortunate that should be so. I meant only that such a leisurely progress seemed most unlike the opinion I had formed of you. Moreover I am still at a loss to understand how I, who have travelled but a grandmother’s pace of twenty-five miles a day, should have passed you; as I must have done, seeing that you left Fontainebleau a night ahead of me.”

  “That is easy to explain. Before setting out for Italy I had certain private business that required my attention in Paris; so I directed the royal carriage in which you left me, thither, and did not leave again till Tuesday morning. Therefore ’twas you who had two days plus near forty miles start of me; and although I was covering some sixty miles a day it was only last night that I caught up with you.”

  She gave a not very convincing laugh and remarked: “I might have guessed that any gentleman of so dashing an appearance as Monsieur would have had tender adieux to make before departing on so long a journey.”

  The way she said it, and the way her dark eyebrows drew together afterwards in a little frown, revealed more clearly than anything had yet done her feelings towards him. For an instant he was tempted to let her think her supposition correct, but his natural kindness overcame the impulse, and he said:

  “Nay, Señorita; but there were numerous invitations I had accepted, and in common politeness I could not leave without making suitable excuses to my friends; also I had to convert some of my English letters of Credit into Italian bills of Exchange, and these things are not done in a couple of hours. Yet, if you were surprised to see me again I was equally so to see you. I had thought of you as nearing Chateauroux by this time, on your way to Spain.”

  “You had not forgotten me then?” She could not keep the eagerness out of her voice, and her slightly uneven teeth showed in a smile.

  “Far from it, Señorita. How could I, after the interest you displayed in—in my story? But how comes it that instead of taking the road to the Pyrenees you are on that to Ma
rseilles? Is it that you have, after all, abandoned your plan of rejoining your family?”

  “But no!” she exclaimed. “You must have misunderstood me. ’Tis true that I am on my way to rejoin my parents, but for some time past they have been resident in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. I am proceeding to Marseilles with the object of taking a ship thence to Naples.”

  “ ’Twas stupid of me,” Roger murmured. “I had temporarily forgotten that Naples is also a Spanish Court.”

  “It is an easy mistake to make; and my father retired there only after his differences with the old King.”

  “Do you think you will enjoy life at the Neapolitan Court?”

  She gave him a searching look. “ ’Tis hard to say, Monsieur. The Two Sicilies have for so long been under Spanish influence that I cannot think the life of the aristocracy there differs much from what it is in Spain. If so, despite any new distractions in my altered status, I fear I shall soon be sadly missing the witty and intelligent society which I enjoyed while with Madame Marie Antoinette.”

  Roger frowned. “Your mention of Her Majesty recalls me to my duty to her. By averaging sixty miles a day I had hoped to deliver her despatch to the Grand Duke somewhere about the middle of the month, but my prospects of being able to do so now seem far from good.”

  “As you infer that you would have ridden all the way, I take it you meant to go via Lyons, Chambery and Turin?”

  “Yes, since ’tis May, and the passage of the Alps now open.”

  “Yet had it been earlier in the year you would have had no choice but to go down to Marseilles, and take ship from there across the gulf to Leghorn. Now that it will prove impossible to ride, are you still set upon taking the Alpine route?”

  “Why, yes; for it is normally the quicker at this time of year whether one goes on horseback or in a post-chaise. What now perturbs me is that it may be some days before the chirurgeon permits me to resume my journey; and that even when he does I may find the jolting of a fast post-chaise so painful to my leg that I shall be able to bear it only for short stages.”

  Isabella gave him a thoughtful look. “It was just that of which I was thinking. If during your convalescence you are reduced to going in short stages anyway, you would travel far more comfortably in a well-sprung coach.”

  Suddenly Roger saw the way her mind was working. If he went via the Alps, as he had intended, their ways would part at Moulins, only a good day’s journey further south. She wanted him to change his route so that she could keep him with her all the way to Marseilles. Next moment she disclosed her thought:

  “Even when the chirurgeon pronounces you fit to proceed, your wounds will require careful dressing for some days. Alone on the road to Italy you will be dependent for that on the unskilled ministrations of slatternly inn servants; whereas if you come with me in my coach we can look after you properly.”

  Roger’s brain was now revolving at high speed. Crippled as he was there would probably be little difference in the time it took him to reach Florence whether he went by land or sea. But the latter involved certain highly perturbing possibilities. He now had little doubt that from their first meeting in the forest of Fontainebleau Isabella d’Aranda had fallen in love with him. He was not in love with her, but he knew what propinquity could do to a man like himself who was easily attracted to pretty women. His heart was not made of the stuff to withstand for long the lure of being with her day after day for long hours in the close confinement of a coach. He knew that he would become more and more intrigued by her subtle charm until he gave way to the temptation to make love to her. And from that it might be but a short step to falling in love with her himself.

  Such a development could end only in the misery of a painful parting at Marseilles, followed perhaps by months of hopeless longings. It would be far kinder to her to let her go on alone while her feeling for him had so little to feed upon that it could soon be forgotten. And the caution he had inherited from his Scottish mother warned him that to do so would, also save him from putting himself in a situation that he might later bitterly regret.

  “I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your thought for me, Señorita,” he said, after only a moment’s hesitation. “But I fear I must decline your offer. ’Tis true that when I set out again I may have to go carefully for the first few days, but after that I should be able to stand up to longer stages.”

  Her dark brows drew together. “Yet you said yourself that you counted the safe delivery of Her Majesty’s letter of paramount importance, and speed only a secondary consideration.”

  “Indeed I did. But what of it?”

  “You seem to have forgotten that you are no longer in a state to defend yourself, and are unlikely to be so for some time to come.”

  “That is so, but now that I am well clear of Paris, why should I fear attack?”

  Isabella’s brown eyes widened. “Surely, Monsieur, you realise that de Roubec, having seen you come to my rescue, may now think_________”

  “De Roubec!” exclaimed Roger, starting up, then falling back at the sudden twinge his foot and arm gave him. “Do you mean that he was among the men who attacked your coach?”

  “Why, yes. He was one of those who pulled the Señora Poeblar from it. I recognized him despite his mask. Moreover, he got away unharmed by you, for ’twas his horse that Pedro shot in the buttocks.”

  “I thought them ordinary highwaymen intent on robbery. But why, in Heaven’s name, should de Roubec set upon you?”

  She shrugged. “The Queen’s enemies knew about that letter; they knew also that I am her friend and was about to proceed to Naples, from whence it would have been easy to send it by a safe hand up to Florence. What could be more natural than that she should entrust it to me?”

  “I wonder, now, that she did not adopt that course.”

  “We talked of it, but decided that it was so obvious as to invite certain danger. In fact, at my suggestion we adopted the plan of using my departure as a red herring to cover your own. Her Majesty provided me with an escort of a half-troop of Monsieur d’Esterhazy’s hussars, thus openly inferring that I was carrying something of special importance. They could not be spared to accompany me further than Pouilly, but their presence assured me against attack for the first four days of my journey. We hoped that by then the enemy would have abandoned any hope of securing the letter; and in the meantime, while his interest had been concentrated upon myself, you would be clear of all danger, a hundred or more miles to the south.”

  “ ’Twas an admirable ruse,” Roger commented. “But I am much perturbed to learn_________”

  “Aye; yet it was brought to naught by de Roubec’s following me further than we expected, and your arrival on the scene,” she interrupted. “For though you failed to recognise him he will certainly have recognised you.”

  “Even so, as far as we know, he has never had any cause to suspect that I was the bearer of the letter. On the contrary in fact, as otherwise instead of attacking your coach he would have attacked me.”

  Isabella made a gesture of impatience. “But do you not see that last night’s affray has altered everything? Since de Roubec remained uninjured ’tis certain that he will now be spying on us. Should he see you leave me, and on reaching Moulins turn east, taking the direct route to Italy, he is sure to think that I, fearing another attack from him, have passed the despatch on to you; and that you have agreed to take it to Florence for me.”

  “That certainly is a possibility,” Roger agreed, and even as he made the half-hearted attempt to temporise he knew that it was one that he could not afford to ignore. It was highly probable that de Roubec would reason that way; and if he were in the Duc d’Orléans’ pay he would have plenty of money; so, although his original gang of bullies had been wounded and dispersed, he would be able to hire others in some low tavern of Nevers.

  Leaning towards Roger, Isabella swiftly followed up her advantage. “From Nevers onward I intend to hire two armed guards to accompany the coach on
each further stage, so with my own three men and ourselves with our pistols we should form a party sufficiently formidable to frighten off attack. But if you set out alone in a post-chaise and are held up, once you have fired off your two pistols what hope would you have?”

  “Plaguey little, I fear,” Roger was forced to admit.

  “Then, Monsieur, I beg you to listen to reason. The safe conveyance of Her Majesty’s letter is the thing that matters above all else, and you cannot deny that there will be less danger of its falling into her enemies’ hands if you accept the protection I can offer you.”

  Roger had done his best to evade a situation of which he feared the outcome both for her and for himself; but he now felt that he was cornered, so he gave in gracefully, and replied:

  “The last consideration certainly outweighs all others, Señorita. So I will gladly avail myself of your hospitality and protection as far as Marseilles.”

  Isabella’s sigh of satisfaction was almost audible, but she made an attempt to hide her pleasure at having got her way by quickly beginning to speculate on how long it would be before they could resume their journey.

  Now that the die was cast, and he appeared fated to spend a fortnight at the least as her constant companion, Roger felt that a few days more or less before they set out could make little difference to the outcome; but since travel by slow stages had been forced upon him he thought that he owed it to the Queen to get on the road again as soon as possible, so he said:

  “Were I still set on going by post-chaise and alone, no doubt the chirurgeon would insist on my remaining here for some days; but seeing that my fever has abated, and I am to have the benefit of being accompanied by two excellent nurses in a well-sprung coach, I see no reason why he should not let us start tomorrow.”

  She nodded. “Why not? And the gaining of those few days would, I am sure, ease any qualms you still may have at having forgone the more arduous and risky course in an attempt to get to Florence more quickly. But if we would avoid inviting a return of your fever we have talked enough for now. When the Señora Poeblar and the servants return from church I will send someone to ensure the chirurgeon coming to see you again this evening, and will make arrangements for the increase of our escort. Meanwhile try to sleep for a little; if you can it will do you good.”