The Marquis Wellesley replaced Canning as Foreign Secretary. He had spent a number of years as Governor General of India and proved a most able administrator. It was there, too, that his brother Arthur had made his name, as Commander-in-Chief during several victorious campaigns. Having long ruled over vast territories, when the Marquis returned to England in 1806 his associates found him extremely haughty and self-willed. At the Foreign Office he proved the same, rarely bothering to attend Cabinet meetings, and holding the Prime Minister in contempt.
Lord Liverpool had taken over the War Office from Castlereagh, and had followed his policy of greatly increasing the army establishment; so that, including reserves, it now stood at over half a million men. Between them, he and Wellesley had overcome the former considerable opposition to continuing the war in the Peninsula, and were now the strongest men in the Government.
However, the burning question of the hour was a recurrence of the King’s malady. Some twenty years earlier his mind had become unstable, which had resulted in George, Prince of Wales, becoming temporary Regent. The King had recovered but, in recent years, had become increasingly feeble both in mind and body. A cataract had made him totally blind in one eye, and another in the other eye had so restricted his sight that he could not recognise anyone at a distance of more than four feet. He had, moreover, recently become quite mad, imagining that he was still King of Hanover, and that the Countess of Pembroke, for whom in his youth he had nurtured a secret passion, was his wife.
He was a simple man and very pig-headed. His disastrous refusal to give his colonies in America a measure of self-government had led to their total loss; and his deeply religious scruples made him adamant in resisting all measures that would give equal rights to his Catholic and Nonconformist subjects. But he had gained the love of his people by his intense patriotism and the fact that he grew the biggest turnips in England—which had earned him the nickname of ‘Farmer George’.
On the other hand, the Prince, now long known as ‘The First Gentleman in Europe’, was disliked and distrusted by both the nobility and a large section of the people. He was dissolute, a liar and a spendthrift of the first order. Again and again his mountainous debts had had to be paid, and his earlier morganatic marriage to Mrs. Fitzherbert—a Catholic—had been far from gaining him popularity.
As he loathed his father, he had done all he could to annoy him and, with that in view, made himself the patron of the Whigs. It was this, now that a Regency would again have to be proclaimed, that was causing great concern to the Tory peers; and, to protect their government, they were endeavouring to render the Prince almost powerless by hedging the Regency about with many restrictions.
It was not until towards the end-of November that Roger saw Georgina again. By then Mrs, Marsham and Susan had been installed in Thatched House Lodge, and he was greatly enjoying having his pretty and cheerful young daughter in the house. But fairly frequently, when he accepted invitations to social functions in London, he spent a night or two with Droopy Ned.
On this occasion they had both been present at a dinner given by the Earl of Malmesbury at the Beefsteak Club, which he had taken over for the evening. The great diplomat, now retired, had been one of Roger’s earliest patrons. He had become very deaf but, nevertheless, it had been an hilarious evening. Next morning Roger had decided to ride in Rotten Row. It was a pleasant autumn day, so quite a number of ladies were taking the air in their carriages. Among them was Georgina, looking as lovely as ever, her dark curls falling on the collar of an ermine cloak, and wearing an enormous picture hat crowned with white ostrich feathers. Catching sight of Roger, she jerked the string tied to her coachman’s little finger, and her carriage pulled up.
11
The Trap
Roger’s heart began to pound. He could not make up his mind whether he was glad or sorry to see her. But he could not ignore her beckoning hand. Dismounting, and with his horse’s reins over his arm, he made a leg, then put one foot on the step of the carriage and, with a smile, asked:
‘Well, how does it feel to be a Duchess?’
Georgina hesitated nervously for a moment before breaking into hurried speech, ‘No different. But Roger, my dear, let’s not talk of that. Oh, I pray you not to hold it against me, for I believed you dead. It seems that we are fated never to marry. I can only thank God that you are still alive.’
‘I, too,’ he agreed. ‘Although for a while after I got back to England I wished myself dead. But does our meeting here not remind you of another occasion when we met by accident?’
‘Why, yes!’ she exclaimed, with a quick smile. ‘’Twas on this very spot that, in ’89, we encountered each other after your return from four years on the Continent. How strange a coincidence.’
‘It is indeed. What would I not give that we might roll back the years and again enjoy what followed our meeting.’
Her big eyes suddenly lighting up, she leaned forward and whispered. ‘Roger, why should we not? I have always retained the little house on the height above Kensington village, for the sake of its studio. Let us meet there this evening.’
‘There’s nothing I’d like better,’ Roger whispered back. ‘But what of your Duke?’
She shrugged. ‘The old fellow is still down at New market. He no longer cares for London, and I made it a condition of our marriage that I should come here when I wished. I’ve been lying these past few nights at Kew House, his mansion in Piccadilly. It has a glorious view over St. James’ Park, but for tonight I’ll forgo that vista. Join me at our old haunt, dear Roger, no later than eight o’clock.’
Feeling a dozen years younger, Roger drove out that evening to Georgina’s petite maison. In the old days she had used it not only to have painting lessons from Sir Joshua Reynolds and Mr. Gainsborough, whom she had incited to a jealous rivalry as her teachers; she had also secretly received there the beaux she had decided to pleasure.
Roger thought it unlikely that she would fail to bring from Kew House a supper of some sort; but, against the chance that she had found it awkward to explain a sudden demand for a picnic basket on a November evening, he had brought as a contribution two bottles of champagne, a cold roast duck and a Strasbourg pâté that had recently been smuggled over.
Now dear Jenny, who for so many years had served Georgina as a personal maid and confidant, was happily married to an ex-bosun and living in a cottage she had been given on the Stillwaters estate; so it was another buxom young woman named, as he soon learned, Harriet, who opened the door to him, took the valise he had brought and smilingly showed him in to her mistress.
Clad only in a silk chamber robe, Georgina was lying on a comfortable sofa before a roaring fire. Jumping up, she threw her arms about him and he drew her soft, yielding form into a tight embrace. When they had temporarily taken their fill of kisses, she bade him go into the bedroom and get out of his heavy clothes. When he returned he had on only his chamber robe. Taking her in his arms again, he pushed her back on the sofa, buried his face in her neck and let his hand caress her opulent thighs. She opened them to him, but only for a minute, then pulled his hand away. Her eyes were closed and her breath was coming fast, as she panted:
‘Roger, you devil, desist. I vow you would seduce a saint, and I’m mightily tempted to let you have me here and now. But I’ll not. Young Harriet will soon be bringing us our supper. She would be hard to shock, for I know my coachman to be her lover. Even so, I’ve no wish to let her see me half-naked, my legs entwined with yours, and you up to the hilt in me. ‘Tis not as though we had not the whole night before us.’
Roger laughed, ‘Then, sweet, you’d best send for some cold water, so that I may reduce my manhood to more normal proportions.’ But he let her go and rearranged his robe more decorously.
They supped beside the fire. Georgina was much amused by Roger’s idea that she would even dream of giving an explanation to her chef on requiring him to produce food for her to take out of the house at any hour of the day or night. She h
ad brought oysters, a hen lobster, a game pie and a pineapple, as well as ample wine. Both of them had always had hearty appetites, so they tucked into this fine selection of good things until they were both belching between their bouts of laughter.
Over the meal Roger told her all that had befallen him since he had put her on to the frigate off St. Maxime. At his description of de Brinevillers lashed to the commode, with his nose only six inches above its pot, tears of mirth came to Georgina’s eyes and she cried:
‘Oh, the poor wretch, how I should have loved to see him; but he deserved worse. Had I been there I would have rubbed his face in it.’
Her voyage home had been without incident. Before she had been an hour aboard the surly Captain had given up his cabin to her and was eating out of her hand. At Gibraltar, the Admiral commanding there had been an old friend and made no difficulty about securing her a passage in the first ship bound for England. In the Bay of Biscay it had been rough; but she was a good sailor, so had ridden out the three-day storm and been landed safely at Portsmouth in mid-April.
When Roger asked her about her marriage, she said, ‘’Tis well enough. The news of your death and, following closely on it, that of my beloved Papa, reduced me to a state that I have never before experienced. I felt so low that I no longer cared what happened to me. By summer, soon after I returned to town, a dozen men were, as usual, after me. I could not stomach the thought of going to bed with any of them. But I’ll confess that I was tempted by the thought of becoming a Duchess and wearing the famous Kew emeralds; so, in the autumn, I accepted the old goat.’
‘ “Goat” is a fitting description of him,’ Roger remarked a shade acidly. ‘I well remember how, to the amusement of passers-by, he used to lean over his balcony in Piccadilly and beckon up the whores to rut upon. Since you say that you had no desire left to bed with even a handsome man, it amazes me that you could find it in you to give yourself to an ugly, elderly roué.’
Her eyes widened, and she cried, ‘Do you then suppose that I let him make love to me? Lud, no! He’s long past that; as impotent as a new-born child. He now gets his pleasure by seeing me naked. But that means nothing to me. A cat may look at a king. So, when I feel well disposed toward him, I let him gaze his fill.’
The clock on the mantel chimed ten. As though at a signal, they smiled at each other and stood up. Georgina led the way to the bedroom, Roger followed her, carrying a bottle of champagne. Two minutes later, they were between the black silk sheets of her bed.
During the night, between bouts of love-making, they dozed or talked and made plans for the future. Before consenting to marry her Duke, Georgina had wisely discussed with him their marital relations. Since, as she had supposed, age had rendered him impotent, she had told him that she would not marry him unless he left her free to satisfy the urges natural to a woman of her years. As his main reason for wanting to marry her was the right to show her off in public as his, to the envy of other men, he had agreed, provided she took care that her amours should not become generally known.
In consequence, however much the servants at Kew House might prattle, she did not have to account to her husband for her comings and goings. Overjoyed that they would be able to spend two or three nights a week together as long as she remained in London, Roger raised the question of Christmas.
Naturally, they wanted to spend it together, if possible; but either for her to have him to stay at New market or for him to have her at Richmond they felt to be too blatant. It then occurred to her that the answer to the problem was for them all to spend Christmas at Stillwaters. It had been the children’s home for the greater part of their lives and, as Susan’s father, Roger was accounted one of the family. It might even make a pleasant change for the old Duke and, provided they were discreet, he would give them no trouble.
The three months that followed turned out to be one of the happiest periods of Roger’s whole life. Although his hope of settling down for good with Georgina had been dashed, the fact that she had a complaisant husband enabled them to see a great deal of each other both in private and public, since both the Duke and all society were aware of their lifelong friendship and that whenever Roger was for a while in London he had escorted her everywhere.
Susan’s stay at Thatched House Lodge had at last enabled him to get to know his daughter well, and he experienced a hitherto unknown joy in the affection shown him by this gay, pretty young creature who called him Papa.
When she and Mrs. Marsham returned to Stillwaters, he followed them a few days later. Georgina and her Duke were already installed, and Roger found the old man more congenial company than he had expected. His Grace was no fool, had a cynical wit and an excellent taste for claret, old Madeira and vintage port. From a few sly remarks he made, it soon became apparent that he had tumbled to it that Roger was his wife’s lover; but, as their long friendship provided them with excellent cover, it suited him much better to be cuckolded by Roger than for her to start a new affaire which might have provoked a scandal.
As, from the beginning, Georgina had insisted that she and her husband should occupy separate rooms, having seen her to bed he always left her round about midnight; so Roger, to whom she had given his old room on the far side of her boudoir, was able to sleep with her for the greater part of the night.
Young Charles came down from Eton the day after Roger arrived, and the children enjoyed the happiest Christmas they had known for years. Roger and Georgina rode with them every morning and, anxious that the young Earl should become a good swordsman, Roger spent an hour or two every day teaching him to fence. On Christmas Day there were dozens of presents for everybody, golden guineas in the Christmas pudding and, at the end of the meal, the candles having been put out, a blazing snapdragon was brought in, from which they snatched the raisins at the risk of burning their fingers. Then, in the evening, they sat in semi-darkness round the Yule log, telling ghost stories.
On Boxing Day, they had the traditional servants’ dinner and dance; then, for the 27th Georgina had invited a hundred of her neighbours to a ball and, for the first time, the children were allowed to take part in such a festivity. In the days that followed there were a special party for them to entertain their contemporaries, visits to neighbours and entertainments given by them. The church bells of Ripley rang in 1811 and the inmates of Stillwaters celebrated the New Year with all the time-honoured games and songs.
On January 3rd, for appearances’ sake, Roger returned to Thatched House Lodge, but it had been agreed that, as soon as Charles went back to Eton, Mrs. Marsham and Susan should again join him there, and that later in the year Roger should pay a visit to Georgina’s new home at Newmarket. Meanwhile the ‘little season’ was about to open in London, so she would be living for a while in Piccadilly and they would be able to see each other as often as they wished.
A fortnight later, at a diplomatic reception, Roger ran into an old acquaintance. This was a tall, dark man with beetling eyebrows, named Alfonso de Queircoz, who had been First Secretary at the Portuguese Embassy at Isfahan when Roger had been there in the summer of 1807.
There had been no friendship between them there, because de Queircoz had been madly in love with the Ambassador’s beautiful daughter, Lisala, and Roger had cut him out; but it was for another reason that the meeting was far from welcome. In Isfahan the Portuguese had known him as M. le Colonel de Breuc, a member of the French mission.
However, on previous occasions he had surmounted such awkward situations arising from his dual identity; so, having returned de Queircoz’s bow, he waited with a half-smile on his lips to hear how the diplomat would address him.
As it turned out, he was not called on to resort to his well-established catalogue of plausible lies, for de Queircoz said, ‘Sir, you must pardon me for accosting you, but you bear so strong a resemblance to M. le Colonel de Breuc that I feel sure you must be his English cousin.’
‘Indeed, Sir, I am,’ Roger replied. ‘In appearance we are near-twins and have oft b
een mistaken for each other. I take it then that you know him?’
‘Yes, we met in Persia, and to my cost. I was then paying court to the lovely Lisala de Pombal; but, after your handsome cousin’s arrival on the scene, she had no eyes for anyone but him.’
Roger nodded. ‘It seems, then, Senhor, that you have been twice fated to be thwarted by my family. For you may have heard that later, in Lisbon, I met Lisala, accompanied her to Brazil and married her.’
‘Yes, I did hear that. Also that, eighteen months or so ago, she died in mysterious circumstances in Germany. Please accept my sincere condolences.’
‘Alas, it was so.’ Roger’s face took on a suitable expression of grief. ‘As you no doubt know, her death was caused by a strange accident which has never been accounted for.’
‘So I gathered, although my informant could give me no details of the tragedy. I can only again condole with you, Sir, on your great loss.’
‘I thank you, Senhor.’ Roger bowed, and was about to move away, when de Queircoz said:
‘While I naturally resented your cousin ruining my chances with the Senhorita in Isfahan, having lost any hope of her returning my affection I bear no ill will toward you, Sir, in that later she became your wife. Two nights hence we are giving a reception at the Portuguese Embassy, and I should be honoured if you would attend it as my guest.’
It happened that Roger was free for that evening so, out of politeness, he accepted.
When he arrived at the reception, the dark-browed Portuguese received him most courteously, presented him to the Ambassador, and then to several agreeable ladies. Later in the evening he rejoined Roger, refilled his glass with wine and led him over to a small table; then said:
The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware Page 13