Much comforted, Roger shook his rescuer warmly by the hand, and was shortly afterwards led back to his cell; but he had to exercise his patience for a further ten days before there were any developments. It was the 18th of January when another two British warships put in to Palma, and on the 20th Roger was again taken down to the Governor’s office. A Lieutenant Jenkins was there, and Don Miguel informed Roger that on the previous evening arrangements had been made for him to be handed over to the British. Jenkins then gave him a portmanteau, and requested him in French to change into the civilian clothes it contained, in order to avoid the hostility of the Royalist refugees as they went down through the town. A little under an hour later Roger ran up the ladder of a British seventy-four, and to his joy found his father waiting on the quarter-deck to welcome him.
Christopher Brook was a bigger man than Roger. He had a full, brick-red face, slightly protruding blue eyes and a bluff, hearty manner. It was over two years since they had met, so they had a thousand things to tell each other, and it was a great reunion. The Admiral was not in his own ship, but declared it to be a most welcome excuse for snatching a short spell from the dreary winter blockade to have come down in the first vessel due to water at Majorca in order to arrange personally for Roger’s transfer. They dined alone in the Captain’s cabin, disposing of two bottles of Rioja and two of port while Roger told the long tale of his adventures. When at last he had finished, he said to his father:
“Now tell me, sir, how soon do you think Lord Hood can get me exchanged for a British officer, so that I can continue my work in France?”
The Admiral shook his head. “No, my boy, you’re not fit to go back to that damned country yet awhile. That good fellow Lightfoot told me you looked like death warmed up, and the ten days since he saw you have done little to improve your appearance. You’re due for leave, and this will be sick-leave at that. I’m sending you back to England.”
With the rescue of the little King in mind, Roger protested that he still had a very important job to do in Paris; but his protest lacked real vigour. For nineteen months he had been living under a constant strain, which at times had been appalling, and he knew that his father was the last man to divert him from his duty without an adequate reason.
Ignoring his protest, his father went on firmly, “Our consort, the frigate Audacious, is sailing for home with despatches tomorrow, and you are going in her. As she goes up Channel, I’d like you to drop off at Lymington. You’ll probably recall that after your mother died I installed Mrs. Hapgood as housekeeper; so you’ll find Grove open and can stay there for a night or two on your way to London.” The Admiral fumbled with his port glass, refilled it, blinked a little and continued:
“While watering ship from Syracuse last October, I happened on a Greek urn. Stone’s a bit worn, of course, but there’s something rather good about it. I thought it would look nice on your mother’s grave. It’s got a pattern of birds carved round its middle, and your mother was always fond of birds. I’ll have it lifted from the hold tomorrow and transferred to Audacious. Glad if you’d see Banks, the stonemason, and have him erect it for me.”
This request clinched the argument. Roger’s sense of duty, his passion for Athénaïs and his desire to earn a huge reward that would make him independent for life all called him back to France; but for the time being he was mentally and physically exhausted, and beyond all things he yearned for a few months’ peace and quiet with his dear Amanda in their home at Richmond. He nodded. “Indeed, sir, you’re right that I need a spell, and I’ll execute your commission with every care.”
So, on the 21st of January, ’94, Roger sailed in Audacious for Portsmouth. He was not a bad sailor, but far from a good one, and the winter passage in a frigate proved a gruelling experience. The confined quarters, the stench, the unappetising food, and the unceasing motion of the ship, which at times increased to a violent plunge and roll, combined to make him thank his gods that he had resisted his father’s wish that he should adopt the sea as a profession. He managed to weather the greater part of the voyage with a fair show of equanimity; but he suffered two bouts of appalling sea-sickness and was incredibly thankful when, after twenty days at sea, the frigate passed the Needles light and lowered a boat to take him in to Lymington.
Darkness still shrouded the Isle of Wight when the boat’s crew were piped away, and the February dawn was only just breaking as they pulled in to the wharf. No one was yet about; so when the sailors had landed the crate containing the Greek urn, Roger gave them a cheery farewell and set off up the slight rise on his ten minutes’ walk to his old home. In spite of the discomforts of the voyage he felt the better for it, and the chill air of the early morning stimulated his brain to a swift review of his situation.
His interests in France now seemed remote to him. He was more than ever convinced that, since Athénaïs had asked a price he could never pay, he was lucky to be so far removed from temptation. It was most unlikely that any harm would befall the little King, as it was to everybody’s interest to keep him alive; so the golden prize for his rescue would continue to be attainable for many months to come. In the meantime, Dan would have banked the £4,000 with Droopy, and Amanda’s fears about the legality of their marriage would have been set at rest by his letter. He did not think it likely that her resentment about Athénaïs’s arrival at Passy would now be very difficult to overcome, and two nights hence he hoped to be with her at Richmond with all forgiven and forgotten. Then he would settle down to a good two months’ rest, and become really strong again before returning to France on a new bid to rescue that now-horrible child from the Temple.
Striding up the avenue of lime trees to the east of the house, he reached the postern gate in the tall wall, but found it locked; so he walked round to the main entrance, then took a side path that wound through a shrubbery and served as a short cut to the front door. The path ended in a narrow archway cut in a thick yew hedge. As he reached the opening he stopped dead in his tracks.
The door was open, and a man and woman stood framed between the stone pillars of the Adams porch. It was still only half light, but the porch was barely fifty feet from where Roger was standing, and it was light enough for him to have seen at first glance that the man of the pair was not a servant. He was wearing a cloak and a high-crowned hat. The Admiral had said nothing about having lent the house to anyone, and it was Roger’s wondering who could possibly be using it that had caused him to pull up.
As he watched, the man kissed the woman’s hand, turned, and with the jaunty step of a gallant who has passed a happy night with his mistress walked down the drive. Roger stepped softly backwards so that he should not be seen, then his eyes almost popped out of his head. The man was the Baron de Batz.
Roger’s glance swivelled towards the woman, who was still standing in the open doorway. She had on only a chamber-robe, and her hair fell in curls about her shoulders. She blew a kiss after the retreating figure of the plump little Baron. Roger stared at her in fury and amazement. She was his “dear” Amanda.
CHAPTER XXV
HOME, SWEET (?) HOME
Roger’s fists clenched spasmodically and his teeth closed with a vicious snap. It was all he could do to restrain himself from striding after de Batz, boxing his ears and kicking him into the road; but for so long he had had to guard even his words for fear of his life, that it had become a habit with him to think twice before giving way to an impulse.
Any assault on the Baron must inevitably be followed by a duel. To have run him through would have afforded Roger great satisfaction, but the laws against duelling were now being enforced very strictly in England. If he killed his man he would be charged with murder, unless he fled abroad and remained there at least two years to give the matter time to blow over. No doubt he would meet de Batz again in due course on the Continent, and he could then spit this French turkey-cock on a yard of good Toledo steel without fear of legal repercussions.
But what of Amanda? Roger itched to stalk
into the house, call her a faithless jade, and create hell’s delight; but again he fought down the impulse. There would be tears and recriminations, then he would either have to forgive her or stalk out again. The servants must be getting up by this time; a row could not be carried on in whispers, and they would be certain to hear it. If his first act on returning after a long absence was to quarrel violently with his wife, and if de Batz had been visiting her frequently in the daytime, they would be bound to suspect its cause; then, whether he forgave Amanda or not, the scandal would be all over the town before nightfall. The only alternative was to swallow his rage and pretend to know nothing—for the moment anyhow. But that would mean getting into a bed still warm from the body of that plump Frog; and Roger decided that he would be damned first.
Suddenly it struck him that if he stood there much longer old Jim Button or one of the gardeners would be starting work and would probably run into him. Then, nothing could stop his return becoming generally known. If that happened he would be faced with having either to leave without explanation, and setting tongues wagging, or to play the part of the happy husband home from the wars, and allow Amanda to believe her infidelity to be undiscovered. Next second, he realised that he would be faced with the same alternatives if he allowed himself to be seen in the town; he was so well known there that he could not possibly hope to escape recognition if he went to the Angel Inn to wait for the London coach, and the same applied if he returned to the harbour in the hope of finding a salt barge due to leave that morning for Southampton.
Nevertheless he continued of the opinion that he would be damned rather than crawl into bed with Amanda within an hour of the Baron having played lover to her, and it added no little to his fury that the only alternative was to walk all the way to Lyndhurst.
Quickly, now his mind was made up, he tiptoed back down the path and out into the road, crossed it diagonally, climbed a stile giving on to Fairfield meadows, and set off at a swift pace to work his way round the town on to the London road. One small consolation was that he had no baggage which might have given away his arrival at the port. Since leaving Majorca he had acquired only a razor and a few oddments from ships’ stores, and those he was already carrying in a small bundle. The crate containing the urn for his mother’s grave was fortunately labelled with his father’s name, and might have been dropped off from any homecoming naval vessel; the harbour people would find and deliver it, and later he could send written instructions about it.
It was nine miles to Lyndhurst, mainly across deserted heaths and the woodland glades of the New Forest; so his chances of a lift were poor, and he did not manage to get one until a farmer’s gig overtook him a mile outside the town. He would have ridden sixty miles in a day and thought nothing of it, but he was not used to walking, and his eight-mile tramp had done Amanda’s case no good at all.
He knew well enough that she could cite Athénaïs’s arrival at Passy against him, but he now took the view that she had brought that entirely on herself. In the first place she should never have come to France with that meddlesome old fool, Lady Atkyns; in the second she should have left Passy when he had asked her to. Then she had gone off without giving him the option of standing by her, and gone without even leaving the address to which she was going; thus causing him endless trouble and anxiety. Lastly, it was in order to spare her feelings that he had sacrificed Athénaïs and himself. It was that beyond all else which made him seethe with anger. The thought of his wife having taken a lover in his own home town, and under his father’s roof, while he had denied himself the embraces of a mistress who, for years, had aroused in him stronger emotions than had any other living woman, caused him to come near bursting a blood-vessel.
Owing to his having landed at Lymington so early, he managed to reach the cross-roads beyond Lyndhurst in time to catch the Poole coach, which set him down at the Swan With Two Necks in Lad Lane soon after seven in the evening. As it was just on two months since he had left France he was in no position to give Mr. Pitt anything but stale news; and in his present mood he did not feel that he could face even his good friend Droopy Ned. In fact, there was only one person in the world to whom he was prepared to admit he had been cuckolded, and that was his beloved Georgina. Each was an only child and, as neighbours for several years in their teens, they had been like brother and sister; then, on that now distant day when he had run away from home, she had given to him both her jewels and herself. Four years later, during one mad winter, they had been lovers; and they were friends to that high degree in which either would at any time have given his or her fortune or life for the other. He knew that if he fell in love or married a dozen times no woman could ever replace Georgina in his innermost heart; and he knew too that she felt the same way about him. In his present anger and misery she was the only person who could possibly bring him comfort and help him to straighten out his life.
He could only pray that she was not wintering abroad; but it seemed probable that, at this time of the year, she would be at her husband’s country seat near Northampton. Having booked himself a room at the Swan, and ordered supper there, he sent a runner to the St. Ermins’ town house in Berkeley Square to enquire her ladyship’s whereabouts. At half-past eight the man returned to report that the Earl was abroad and his Countess was at White Knights Park.
Next morning Roger went early to his tailor and collected a trunkful of clothes that he always kept there; then at ten o’clock he caught a Manchester coach which dropped him off at Northampton at six that evening. There, he hired a post-chaise and at a little after seven it entered the mile-long drive. Ten minutes later he alighted at the broad central steps in the west front of the great grey stone mansion. An under-butler and two footmen ran out to take his things, and as he entered the lofty pillared hall, with its marble staircase, crystal chandelier, statuary, tapestries, bowls of hothouse flowers and two roaring wood fires, it struck him that he might be on a different planet from that of the squalor and misery in which he had been living for so long.
The sound of the chaise driving up had brought Georgina to a window, and now, surprised but delighted at his unexpected appearance, in a flurry of silk skirts, she came running into the hall to greet him. Her dark eyes shining, she kissed him fondly; then sent him upstairs and urged him to change his clothes swiftly so that she might hear his news the sooner.
When he came down he found to his relief that she had only a Mrs. Rafferty, who was a widowed aunt of her husband’s, staying with her. As soon as he had been presented, they went in to supper; again he was strongly conscious of the contrast between the taverns in which he had taken most of his meals for so many months and this—the rich mahogany, the silver and cut-glass, the soft glow of the candles lighting Georgina’s lovely face, the portraits of past St. Ermins looking down from the walls, and the silent servants who handed the food and wine.
While they ate, Roger pulled himself together sufficiently to tell the two ladies something of the terrible state of affairs in France; then, a moment after they had left him to his port, Georgina returned to collect a comfit box she had purposely forgotten. As she picked it up she whispered with a smile:
“We’ll not be long in the drawing-room, but to preserve the proprieties I shall go up with Aunt Sarah. Give us ten minutes, then come to my boudoir.”
In the drawing-room they spent barely half an hour, then Georgina yawned and took her aunt off to bed. Roger watched the clock until the ten minutes was up, put out the candles and went quietly upstairs.
Georgina was not in the boudoir when he reached it, but she came in from her bedroom a moment later. She had freed her raven hair from its pins and changed into a chamber-robe. She was a little over a year older than he, but did not look it. Her skin was flawless, her big black eyes moist and shining, her rich, full mouth a perfect setting for her fine white teeth. Her mother’s hot gipsy blood, that had made her by nature wanton, gave her both her splendid colouring and her tremendous vitality; her father had contributed her
good brain and ready wit. As Roger looked at her, he thought, not for the first time, that her very presence was as heady as drinking a great vintage wine. But as she looked at him, the smile faded from her lips, and she said softly:
“Roger, my sweet, what in the world has happened to you? Even your long sojourn in Revolutionary France, and your having been seriously wounded, can scarce be enough to have made you this sad-faced ghost of the man you used to be.”
Side by side they sat down on a sofa. Then, staring into the glowing wood fire, he began with the morning in Rennes when Athénaïs had been brought before him as a prisoner, and told the story of his tangled love affairs.
Georgina was a good listener; she did not once interrupt, but let him unburden himself to the very end. When he had described how he had come on the Baron and Amanda he fell silent. After a moment, as she made no comment, he turned to look at her. To his surprise, her eyes were dancing with amusement, and, suddenly throwing herself back among her cushions, she gave way to a gale of laughter.
“I see no cause for mirth in this,” he said acidly.
“Then …” she burbled, “then, dear man … you’ve lost your sense of humour as well as your looks.”
He shrugged. “Were it a stage play, the fact that Amanda had trompéd me in the very place that Athénaïs wished me to tromper her would be an amusing twist. But since this has happened to myself, I think your laughter most unkind.”
She stopped at once, and asked, “Well; what mean you to do?”
“I have had ample time to think matters over these past two days. Amanda showed her lack of faith in me by running away, and has since revenged herself by taking a lover in my father’s house. In a small place like Lymington it is too much to hope that news of this intrigue of hers will not have got about. In fact, it is now plain to me that must have been her intention, and her choice of the scene of her adultery been deliberate—”
The Man who Killed the King Page 55