The Rising Storm

by Dennis Wheatley

  Suddenly Don Diego jumped to his feet, threw himself on one knee before his Sovereigns, and began to gabble away in Spanish at nineteen to the dozen.

  Roger glanced at Isabella; her face was flushed and her eyes were shining with excitement. He looked at Godoy; the favourite’s well-modelled mouth was curved in a pleased smile. He knew then that the plot he had hatched with Georgina that afternoon was working.

  In Don Diego’s pleading he caught the word “Neapoli”, then the name “d’Aranda” several times repeated, so he was able to guess the gist of what the Count was saying to be: “As I have lived in Naples since the beginning of Your Majesty’s reign, I have so far had little opportunity to be of service to you. I beg you now to allow me to show my devotion as your envoy to Paris, and as the son-in-law of the Conde d’Aranda utilise the prestige his name still carries there.”

  The Queen spoke to the King; the heavy Monarch nodded; Don Diego jumped up with a delighted cry and kissed the hands of first one then the other; Isabella joined her thanks to those of her husband by throwing herself at the feet of the Queen, and received a friendly pat on the head. The two Infantes, Godoy, and the ladies-and gentlemen-in-waiting all exclaimed with pleasure and offered Don Diego their congratulations.

  The little scene was a revelation to Roger that the Spaniards did, on occasion, show spontaneous emotion; but it was soon over, for, as though ashamed of having done so, they swiftly resumed their formal dignity, and in that atmosphere the audience was terminated. Godoy alone continued to give free rein to his exuberance, and when he had escorted the visitors from the presence chamber he at once insisted that before going home they should take a glass of wine with him to the success of the mission.

  In his apartment a fine old Malaga was produced, and when the toast had been drunk the handsome favourite courteously asked Roger if he would permit him to speak in Spanish with Don Diego for a few moments. Roger only too willingly consented, as it gave him an opportunity to offer his arm to Isabella, and lead her to the other side of the room on the pretext of admiring a fine collection of bull-fighting swords that hung on the wall there.

  As they stood looking at the beautifully chased blades of blue Toledo steel, she whispered with a little catch in her voice: “What marvellous fortune, my love! For him to request this mission himself was more than I could possibly have hoped for. But why he should wish to go to Paris I cannot think.”

  “I can,” Roger whispered back. “We owe this to Lady Etheredge. She intended to stay on here for some time, and when at length she could bring herself to break with him, to hurry back to England. But out of fondness for me she agreed instead to tell him that she means to spend some time in Paris on her way home, and had decided to set out next week. It was her telling him so after dinner that caused his desperate agitation, and what followed was the result of it.”

  Isabella squeezed his arm. “Oh! Rojé, what a brilliant stroke of yours; and how grateful I am to her.”

  “But in this we have courted a great risk,” he warned her gravely. “With time before him Don Diego may well have been putting off so terrible a decision as to make a definite attempt upon your life. Now his coming departure will force him to face the issue. Either he must abandon his awful thought and go to Paris still tied to you, or seek to gain his freedom by using the poison before he sets out. You could still slip away tonight and I could meet you to escort you to some place of hiding; but otherwise I beg you not to relax your watchfulness for a single moment.”

  She turned a trifle pale, but her low voice was firm. “You are right. Only now has my danger become acute. Yet to leave home prematurely would be to throw away all that we have gained. On the plea of health I shall drink naught but water and place myself on an even stricter diet.”

  A few minutes later they were in the coach on their way to the Embassy villa, with the intention of dropping Roger there. It had not proceeded fifty yards before Don Diego said to his wife:

  “Señor Godoy has warned me that this mission has been under consideration for some time; so Her Majesty now wishes it to leave with a minimum of delay. We are to set out next week, so it would be well for you to start tomorrow on your preparations for our departure.”

  Roger was filled with admiration for the steadiness of Isabella’s voice, as she replied: “If that is your wish it is for me to obey you. But have you as yet given full thought to our child? He is not yet a month old and we could not possibly expose him at so tender an age to the hazards of the journey. For another month at least he should have my personal care. Would it not be best if I remain with him till mid-May, then follow you to Paris?”

  For a long moment Don Diego remained silent. Roger and Isabella hardly dared to breathe. For them everything now hung on this decision, and they both knew that should it prove unfavourable to them she could not possibly disobey her husband.

  After what seemed an eternity Don Diego said: “I judge you right, Madame. You had best remain here with our son for another month or so.”

  When they dropped Roger at the villa he waited there for half an hour to give ample time for the coast to be clear, then walked round to see Georgina and the Colonel in their Moorish pavilion.

  As soon as he told them how perfectly the plot had worked they both expressed their pleasure for him, but Georgina was very far from being in her usual good humour.

  “Oh, damn you, Roger!” she exclaimed, after a moment. “Paris is the very last place to which I would wish to go, now ’tis in the hands of those vile revolutionaries. Yet on your account I am committed to it.”

  “Knowing your reluctance to do so, I am all the more grateful,” he said gently. “But you have said several times that you are not yet disposed to break with Don Diego, and now you can both travel with him on the greater part of your journey home and remain in Paris with him as long as you wish.”

  “But now that spring is here, ’tis at Stillwaters I wish to be,” she murmured petulantly.

  He smiled. “It has ever been your nature to wish to have your cake and eat it too; but you cannot both be soon at Stillwaters and keep Don Diego. You told me last night that rather than give him up you meant to stay on here for some time.”

  “I did indeed. The dratted man holds some special fascination for me. Yet I think by the end of the month I might have worked myself free of it. And you know well my habit of letting things slide until some incident causes me to take a sudden decision. As long as Papa and I remained here we could at any time by way of Lisbon have got home in a month; whereas now it will take us much more than that to get to Paris; so I’ll be lucky if I see Stillwaters before June is gone.”

  “Come, my dear,” Colonel Thursby said quietly. “ ’Tis not like you to grudge some upsetting of plans for your own pleasure in the urgent service of so old a friend as Roger.”

  “Nay,” she replied, with a sudden smile. “I fear I am being plaguey churlish, Roger dear. I beg you to forgive me.”

  “There is naught to forgive.” He took her hand and kissed it. “I am beyond expression grateful for all you have done and are about to do.”

  They arranged that Georgina should again contrive for Isabella to come to the pavilion on the following day; then Roger took his leave.

  The demands of his own affairs during the past thirty hours had by no means put out of his mind Mr. Pitt’s business; so next day, in the cool of the morning, he went to the Palace and waited upon the Caballero Heredia.

  The Spaniard expressed courteous surprise at receiving a second visit from him after a lapse of only two days; but Roger again stressed the urgency of the matter upon which he had been sent to Spain, and asked when he was to have his audience with the Count Florida Blanca.

  “I fear, Monsieur, that you have failed to take into account the fact that many urgent matters must always claim the attention of a Prime Minister,” the Caballero replied blandly. “And at present His Excellency happens to be particularly heavily engaged. I have no doubt that he will make time to r
eceive you in the course of the next few days, or early next week at the latest. In the meantime perhaps you will permit me to show you something of our beautiful Spain. Have you yet visited Toledo?”

  Roger had to admit that he had not; and, although he was most loath to leave Aranjuez even for a night, when the diplomat offered to take him there he felt that he could not possibly refuse the invitation. So it was arranged that the Caballero should call for him next morning in a carriage, then they would spend Wednesday night in Toledo and make the return drive on Thursday morning.

  As Roger strolled back along the leafy avenues leading from the Palace, he decided that, although diplomatic politeness had forced him to accept this first invitation, it did not require him to suffer any further attempts on Heredia’s part to gain time by taking him on such expeditions. Before leaving he had again pressed most strongly for an early audience with the Prime Minister, and if it was not granted by the end of the week he meant to begin making Heredia’s life a misery by going to badger him every day.

  King Carlos’ words—“He could, at the same time, press them on that other matter”, when referring to the envoy he was sending to condole with the French Sovereigns on their misfortunes—had not escaped Roger; and he felt certain the “other matter” was to secure a definite promise from the French that they would honour the Family Compact in the event of Spain going to war with Britain over Nootka Sound. Although there was no outward sign of it he knew that the arrival of a personal representative from Mr. Pitt must have set the Court of Spain in a fine flutter. And that, he guessed, was the reason why Don Diego was being hurried off to France with barely a week’s notice, instead of being allowed to set out at his leisure.

  When Roger met Isabella in the afternoon he had from her an exciting confirmation of his suppositions. At eleven o’clock that morning her husband had received an order to wait upon Count Florida Blanca in the evening to receive his instructions. The note had further stated that Don Diego was now to be ready to leave Aranjuez not later than Thursday morning, and to make arrangements for the bulk of his baggage to follow him, as he was to proceed to Paris with all possible speed.

  Roger had no doubt at all that this un-Spanish haste was the direct result of his call on Heredia some two hours before Don Diego had received the order; and was overjoyed by it. Actually, like Georgina, he was still far from convinced that Isabella’s husband had ever had any intention of poisoning her; but the possibility that there might be real grounds for her suspicions was quite enough to cause him incessant anxiety. And now, the putting forward of Don Diego’s departure reduced the time left him in which to make an attempt on her to less than two days.

  For three happy hours they managed to put her danger out of their minds. When they parted it was with the terribly exciting thought that although, owing to Roger’s trip to Toledo, they must somehow get through the awful strain of Wednesday without meeting, by Thursday afternoon Don Diego would be gone. The cover provided by Georgina would no longer be necessary. Roger would have only to slip through the gate for them to continue to meet in secret with little risk in the pavilion; and that when they next did so, in forty-eight hours’ time, Isabella would be safe and free.

  Having installed Roger in the villa, Mr. Merry, on the plea that his Consular duties required his attention in the capital, had returned to Madrid the previous afternoon; so that night Roger dined alone. After the meal he could not get his mind off the subject of poison, so spent a very bad four hours until it was dark enough for him to go round to the Moorish pavilion without risk of running into Don Diego.

  He found Georgina in greatly improved spirits. First thing that morning Don Diego had called, told her with delight of his mission to Paris and begged that she and her father would travel in his company. Then, a few hours later, he had informed them that he would be leaving early on Thursday, and asked that they would leave all arrangements about sleeping coaches, a travelling kitchen and provisions to him. Her reluctance to go to Paris at all had been considerably mollified by a start being possible much earlier than she had expected, and Don Diego’s intention of travelling at a speed which should get them there in a month, as the two factors combined might yet enable her to be at Stillwaters by the end of May.

  As they would now be leaving before Roger’s return from Toledo it was his last chance to talk to them about his own plans. Colonel Thursby, with a kindness typical of him, said that when Roger and Isabella reached London they were welcome to occupy his house in Bedford Square until they could find a place to live permanently, and Georgina said that Stillwaters would always be at their disposal. But suddenly, just as Roger was about to take his leave, she stood up, faced him squarely, and said:

  “I still cannot bring myself to believe in the poison plot. I beg you, Roger, to give me your assurance that had you not been informed of it, and had some earlier opportunity occurred to revive your intimacy with the Condesa, you would still have formed this determination of eloping with her as soon as she had been delivered of her child?”

  Roger had never told Georgina a lie in his life, and he could not bring himself to do so now.

  “Nay,” he said quietly. “I fear I cannot give you that assurance. After I left Naples I counted the matter as a chapter in my life that was closed. But I am deeply attached to Isabella and believe that we shall be happy. In any case, my honour is now involved in it, and nothing would induce me to draw back.”

  Feeling there was no more that she could say, she let him go. But no sooner was he outside the door than she burst into tears at the thought of the trouble she believed him to be laying up for himself: and her wise, adoring father could think of little to say to bring her comfort as she sobbed again and again:

  “ ’Tis a tragedy, a tragedy! I would give ten years of my own life could I but think of some way to prevent it.”

  Roger slept ill on account of his anxiety for Isabella, and he had puzzled his wits in vain for some way of assuring himself that no ill had befallen her before he set off for Toledo; so, when the Caballero Heredia called for him at eight o’clock, he had to start on his trip still ignorant whether Don Diego had utilised his last night but one in Aranjuez to attempt her murder.

  The day was fine and the drive pleasant, as the road lay for the whole thirty miles they had to cover along the banks of the Tagus, and the tortuous course of the river provided variety in an otherwise flattish landscape. Had Roger not been so worried for Isabella he would have thought even the distant sight of the ancient capital of Spain well worth the long drive, as it was set on a rugged pinnacle of granite, the foot of which was washed on three sides by a great bend in the river, and its towers, battlements and spires rising tier after tier against the blue sky made it look like a fairy city.

  After the siesta they visited the Cathedral and in its treasury saw the image of the Virgin, roped with millions of doubloons’ worth of pearls and other gems, that is carried in procession through the street on feast days; but Roger was more interested in the strange, distorted, greenish-hued paintings by El Greco that hung in the chapels of many of the lesser churches. He was, too, fascinated by the unusual silence that pervaded so large a city, on account of the cobbled ways between its old Moorish buildings being mostly too steep and narrow to permit the passage of traffic. In the evening they went to the fortress-palace of the Alcazar, where the Governor entertained them to a meal and provided them with accommodation for the night.

  On the Thursday morning they set off early on the return journey and were back in Aranjuez just before midday. In normal circumstances Roger would have enjoyed the excursion enormously, and he did his best to show his appreciation to Heredia; but he got rid of the Caballero at the earliest possible moment in order to hurry round to the Sidonia y Ulloa mansion.

  When visiting the pavilion earlier in the week he had never seen anyone about the grounds during the siesta hour and, had he done so, he could have said that he was calling on his compatriot, Colonel Thursby. Now he no longer
had that excuse he wondered a little anxiously if his luck would hold, and he would continue to escape observation. But that anxiety was a small matter compared with the acute one to reassure himself that Isabella had come unharmed through her husband’s last two days in Aranjuez.

  As he hurried down the avenue he saw Quetzal standing outside the gate. An awful doubt seized upon his mind. Had Isabella stationed the boy there to warn him that there was someone in the grounds or was he, knowing that she expected her lover, waiting there to break some ghastly news?

  A moment later Quetzal caught sight of him and began to run in his direction. During his visit to Naples, and while in Aranjuez, Roger had not seen the little Indian, so it was over ten months since they had met. He thought the youngster had grown considerably, and his education had evidently progressed; as, when he was still some twenty yards off, he broke out into heavily accented but quite understandable French:

  “Monsieur le Chevalier! I have a carriage waiting. We are to collect your things and set out at once for Madrid.”

  “For Madrid!” echoed Roger. “In God’s name, why?”

  “Yes. They will sup and rest there before proceeding further. If we start at once we can catch them up by nightfall. My mistress said you could give as an excuse for joining them a belated thought that you would like to make the journey to Paris in the company of your English friends.”

  “What the devil are you talking about?” Roger exclaimed. “I have no wish to go to Paris. I could not, even if I had, as important matters detain me here. Tell me at once_________”

  “But you must! You must!” the boy broke in. “Did you not come to Spain to save my mistress?”

  “Indeed I did!”

  “Then how can you allow aught else to detain you?”

  Quetzal’s black eyes were now flashing angrily, and Roger, still at a loss to understand what lay behind his excited words, cried with puzzled impatience: