Dennis Wheatley - The Rising Storm

"Then there came Christmas at Lymington, and yourself. I knew full well that your intentions were not serious; but you were the hand­somest beau in the district, so well enough to flirt with. And it was, I think, the very fact that you were not obsessed with my physical attractions that made you talk to me the more. I mean, apart from the usual persiflage of gallantry. You would not recall it, but you asked my opinion upon a hundred matters, ignored my vagueness about things that are of little account, and showed a genuine interest in all I had to say. On one occasion you said to me: ' 'Tis the combination of such femininity with so clear and deep a mind as yours, Amanda, that enables great courtesans to rule Empires.' Oh, Roger, had you been the ugliest man on earth I could have kissed you for that!"

He placed a hand gently over hers. "My dear, I vow to you I meant it."

She smiled. "The way you said it at the time convinced me of that; and although clever I shall never be, no one will ever again make me believe that at bottom I am a fool. But your case last summer was very different. You were in love with a woman who returned your love, but debarred by circumstances from attaining your mutual desires. Con­sciously or unconsciously I could do nothing to aid you in such a pass. Yet I find you now recovered. Tell me; how have you managed to free yourself from the grip of this ghastly malady that is praised by poets with such stupendous unreason?"

"I hardly know myself," Roger confessed. "In part, perhaps, 'tis because when I was last abroad I met the lady of my love again, under unexpected and most-favourable conditions. Yet since we were little more than a week together 'tis no case of having satiated our passion, on either side. I moved heaven and earth in an attempt to persuade her to fly with me, but she would not; and her refusal was no slight upon her love, as she considered herself tied from the fact that in a few weeks now she is to bear her husband a child."

"You could rejoin her later; visit her from time to time and seize such opportunities as offer to renew your transports."

"Nay. What kind of a life would that be? 'Tis better, far, that she should build a new life round her child; and that I should consider myself free to marry."

"If you marry—even had you been able to marry her—do you believe that you would remain faithful to a wife?"

Roger laughed. "You have me there! I fear 'tis most unlikely."

"I am glad you have the honesty to admit it," Amanda smiled, "for all I have ever learnt of men has led me to believe that 'tis against nature in them to be monogamous. Granted then that you would be unfaithful to a wife, why should you not marry if you have a mind to it, and still at intervals indulge your passion for your Spanish mistress, rather than for some other?"

"Your logic is unanswerable," Roger replied, after a moment. "But recently my circumstances have changed, and in future 'tis probable that my work will lie here in London. Were I to marry, 'tis hardly likely that my wife would be agreeable to my going gallivanting alone on the Continent."

"Then she would be a ninny," Amanda declared serenely. "A wife whose husband deceives her only when he is abroad should count herself lucky. At least she is spared the sweet innuendoes of her friends when his latest affaire becomes common knowledge in her own circle. I only pray that I may be sent a husband who betakes himself once or twice a year to foreign parts and confines his infidelities to his absences from England."

Roger sighed. "How wise you are, my dear Amanda. Yet even had I the good fortune to marry a wife so clear-sighted as yourself I believe it would be a great mistake to follow the course you propose. The nature of my Spanish love is so intense that I feel sure she would consider herself desperately aggrieved did I marry another. And though I am in no situation to marry at the moment I have recently felt more than once that I would like to settle down in a home of my own. So 'tis best for both her and me that we should not meet again."

"If you now feel that, you are cured."

"Yes; for I no longer think of her with any frequency, and am able once more to regard life as a joyous adventure."

"Think you that you are now inoculated of the fell disease?"

"I trust so. It went so deep that 'tis unlikely a similar madness will seize upon me for some other woman, at least for some years to come."

"I feel that, too; for my love also was most desperate while it lasted, and I'll not willingly surrender the freedom of my mind again. In that I intend to model myself on Georgina Etheredge; though I am not of a temperament ever to become quite so reckless a wanton as her hot, half-gipsy blood has made her. She has reduced love to a fine art. Whenever she finds herself becoming too deeply attached to a man she dismisses him and takes another."

Roger glanced up in surprise. "I did not know you knew Georgina."

"I met her first when she was married to Humphrey Etheredge, then again on her return to England last October. I stayed with her for a while at Stillwaters and found her positively enchanting."

"She is my oldest and dearest friend."

"I know it; and you had written to her most gloomily from Lyming-ton last summer, mentioning me in your letter. 'Twas the discovery that we were both worried on your account which formed a special bond between us; for the ravishing Georgina is not normally given to making women friends."

"I have not seen her now for close on a year; and 'twas a sad blow to me to learn on my return from France last month that she had gone abroad again."

"She and her father left early in December to spend the worst months of the year in Italy; but they should be back soon, as she told me that she could not bear the thought of missing another spring at Stillwaters."

Roger nodded. " 'Tis a heavenly place. When Georgina returns we must arrange a visit to her."

For the third time since they had been sitting there the violins struck up, so Amanda said: "Roger, my dear, we must dally no longer, or the number of my irate disappointed partners will be greater than even my notoriously poor memory will excuse."

As he escorted her back to the ballroom he asked if he might call upon her, and she replied: "Do so by all means. I am as usual with my Aunt Marsham in Smith Square; but let it be within the next two days, as we leave on Thursday to stay with friends at Wolverstone Hall in Suffolk."

On the Wednesday Roger had himself carried in a sedan down to Westminster, and took a dish of tea with Amanda and Lady Marsham. The latter had mothered Amanda ever since she had been orphaned as a child of four, and Roger had met her on numerous occasions when she was staying with her brother, Sir Harry Burrard, at Walhampton. There was a striking family resemblance between Amanda and her aunt. Age had increased Lady Marsham's figure to august proportions, but she was still a very handsome woman of fine carriage, and she had the same effortless charm of manner. In her vague way she at first took Roger for someone else, but welcomed him none the less heartily when her mistake was discovered.

Nevertheless the visit was not an altogether satisfactory one, as the two ladies were in the midst of packing. Their mutual untidiness had turned Lady Marsham's boudoir, in which they took tea, into a scene, of indescribable confusion, and frequent interruptions by the servants to hunt there for articles that had been mislaid played havoc with all attempts to carry on an intelligent conversation.

It was perhaps Amanda's departure for the country that subcon­sciously decided Roger to pay a visit to his mother. His own enquiries and those of Droopy Ned had so far not produced any suitable opening, and while he was anxious not to waste longer than necessary before starting a new career, he had funds enough to keep him as a modish bachelor for two or three years; so there would have been little sense in his jumping into a blind alley simply to salve his conscience.