Dennis Wheatley - The wanton princess

'I am even more convinced than when I spoke to you of the matter at Walmcr that our one hope is to maintain our superiority over the French at sea. With that in mind, soon after I returned to office I put in hand an increased ship­building programme. The French Emigre General Dumouricz sent mc a long memoir upon the subject and he argued wisely that nothing is so perilous as remaining perpetually on the defensive; that our Navy should be made strong enough to go over to the attack, and that if we could make it so we would stand a much better chance of drawing other nations into a new alliance against Bonaparte.'

'What, sir,' Roger asked, 'are our present prospects of doing so?'

'Encouraging, to say the least. The foul murder of the Due d'Enghicn has helped us there. Before that the Czar was inclined to admire Bonaparte for the new internal peace and prosperity he has brought to France; but since then he has declared him to be a monster in human form who will stick at nothing for his own aggrandisement, and so must be checked. Can we but persuade him to come in with us, we may then count upon Gustavus of Sweden also to take up arms against the French. Given those two we would have good hopes of also drawing Austria into a new Coalition; and I am now in friendly correspondence with all three monarchs to that end. I am, though, much concerned about the attitude of Spain. Not only has she blackmailed our old ally Portugal into closing her ports against us but she is paying Bonaparte a huge subsidy which is of great assistance to him. That, she can continue to do only so long as her treasure ships from America are freely allowed to enter Cadiz. Since she continues to ignore our protests that she is infringing her neutrality by providing Bonaparte with the sinews of war, I have recently given orders that her ports are to be blockaded.'

Roger raised his eyebrows, 'Is that wise, sir? Surely it would be sounder policy to let Napoleon continue to receive these supplies of Spanish gold, rather than risk Spain entering the war actively against us.'

'She will not fight,' Mr. Pitt asserted with conviction. 'It is not without reason that her Prime Minister, Godoy, has been christened "Prince of Peace," and he is as slippery as an eel. Should we take any of their ships we'll not rob them of their bullion; only hold it for them, and thus give him an excuse to resist any pressure Bonaparte may exert upon him to act against us.'

While Roger had a poor opinion of Mr. Pitt's capabilities as a strategist, he had a great admiration for his financial genius, and it was obvious that holding up the Spanish trea­sure ships would make it difficult for the French Treasury to find the vast sums needed to pay Napoleon's army; so he said no more. For a further half hour they talked of other matters, then he took his leave.

Next morning he bought a variety of toys and in the afternoon drove down to Stillwaters to sec the children. On arriving he found Colonel Thursby there and at once enquired about Georgina, but the Colonel could tell him little more than he had learned from Droopy Ned and, with tears in his eyes, the old gentleman said that as no news of her or the 'Enterprise' had been received by midsummer he had since reconciled himself to the thought that she must be dead.

Previously the Colonel had made only frequent visits to Stillwaters, spending the rest of the year either at his old home near Lymington or at his house in Bedford Square, but Roger was greatly pleased to learn that, in order to help Aunt Marsham bring up the children, he had now decided to make Stillwaters his permanent home.

That night after dinner, when Aunt Marsham had left them to their port, they talked again of Georgina. She had taken to the Indies with her a Mr. and Mrs. Skiflington, who were old friends, and the handsome young Lord Rockhurst who, knowing her so well, Roger assumed to have been her lover at that time. No news had been received of them, nor of any of the crew of 'Enterprise', so it seemed that the ship must have gone down with all hands.

Legally, Georgina's death could not be presumed for some years, but the family solicitors had shown her father her Will. She had left Stillwaters to little Charles, a legacy of £50,000 and most of her jewels to Susan, the contents of her library to her father should he be living at the date of her death, £5,000 each to her faithful Jenny and Aunt Marsham and numerous smaller legacies to other friends and servants. To Roger she had left her paintings, her horses, any of her personal posses­sions he chose to select and her hair.

By her last bequest Roger was deeply touched and, as the Will was a recent one made shortly before she sailed, it was clear that by then she must have regretted her betrayal of him and again thought of him with great tenderness. As the Colonel made no mention of that dark day when she had nearly caused Roger to be re-arrested, he refrained from speaking of it.

He remained at Stillwaters for a week, spending most of each day playing with the children. While doing so, or talking with the Colonel, his mind was occupied; but every room, the hothouses, the stables and every corner of the gardens held memories of Georgina and these saddened him so much that, although the Colonel pressed him to stay longer, he excused himself as having business to attend to and was glad to get away.

But in London he had no business; the weather had turned cold and rainy and the more he heard of the way in which Mr. Pitt was being hampered by his political enemies in his endeavours to conduct the war, the more depressed he became. So, after a few days spent with Droopy Ned, he decided to return to France and enjoy some weeks of sun­shine at St. Maxime.

On September 23rd he caught the night coach to Exeter and two evenings later was in Sidmouth, tactfully sounding the landlord of the local inn about the prospects of getting a passage to France. He had to kick his heels there for six days, then the French smuggler who had put him over came in with another cargo and on October 1st landed him back at Bor­deaux.

From there, by diligence, he followed the same route as he had on his stolen honeymoon with the gay and wanton Pauline, and passing again through the towns on that route he was frequently reminded of that happy journey. On reaching Aix-en-Provence it chanced that he got news of her as a result of reading a copy of Le Moniteur. It was reported that she had recently lost her son Dermid. Continued poor health had caused her to move from spa to spa in the hope of a cure, and she had been at Bagni di Lucca, when she learned that the frail little boy had been carried off by a sudden fever.

Roger felt deep sympathy for her; but she now meant no more to him than any of the other lovely women he had enjoyed for a brief season, and he thought of her only as an old friend. Georgina had been the only abiding love of his life and, although there had been times when they had been separated for years at a stretch, the thought that he could never more return to her continued to cause him a grief that he felt he would never overcome.

On October 8th he reached St. Maxime and spent the next seven weeks there idling in the autumn sunshine. Daily he went for long rides or walks but only because it had been his habit of a lifetime to keep himself in perfect physical condi­tion. Since Droopy had confirmed his fears about Georgina he had become a prey to a curious lassitude and lacked the urge to interest himself in anything; so it was only with an effort that he forced himself on November 20th to set out for Paris in order to keep his promise to be present at Napoleon's coronation.

When he reached the capital he learned that the Emperor was at Fontaineblcau, so next day he rode on there and found the little town swarming with busy people. Two days earlier Pope Pius VII, lured by promises of concessions to the Roman Catholic Church in France, which Napoleon had no intention of fulfilling, had arrived there. To avoid any cere­monial reception in which he might appear to be taking second place, Napoleon had arranged a hunt in the forest then, apparently by chance, intercepted the Pontiff's carriage a few miles from the Palace.