Dennis Wheatley - The Rising Storm

The Queen stood up. "Monsieur," she said coldly. "His Majesty and I are well aware of the horrors and distresses that war inflicts upon any people who engage in it. And never would we be guilty of plunging France into war for our own selfish interests. At this very moment the King is doing his utmost to mediate between the Courts of London and Madrid, in the hope of arranging a peaceful solution between them."

Roger had come to his feet with the Queen; now he went down on one knee before her. "I humbly crave Your Majesty's pardon; but what hopes can be placed in such mediation while His Majesty encour­ages the Spaniards by such acts as ordering a fleet to sea ? I implore you, Madame, to use your great influence in the interests of peace, and dis­suade His Majesty from all further measures of a provocative nature."

"Rise, Monsieur," said the Queen. "I have listened patiently to all you have to say, and I fear that no useful purpose can be served by prolonging this conversation. You may rest assured that the King and I would never countenance a war unless we were forced to it; and that the preparations now going forward are no more than reasonable precautions. But we are allied to Spain, and if Spain decides to fight, France must fight too. It is unthinkable that we should do otherwise, for our honour is involved in it."

With the bitter knowledge that he had failed, Roger bowed very low, and said quietly: "So be it, Your Majesty. I am distressed beyond words to find that I cannot count upon your help; and I can only beg that you will not think too hardly of me, should you learn that in the cause of peace I have sought other allies."

Five minutes later he was out in the courtyard. The "other allies" to whom he had referred were the deputies of the Extreme Left. But he knew none of them except Barnave; to them he could not possibly produce Mr. Pitt's Letter of Marque, and even if he got in touch with them he did not feel that either he or they could do very much to influence the situation. The idea was the slenderest of forlorn hopes, and he had been stung into his last words to the Queen owing only to his anger at her blindness, in refusing to see that the best hope of averting war lay in France refraining from further warlike measures.

As he stood on the steps of the court endeavouring to decide on his next move,' a coach drove up. The footmen jumped down from the box and opened its door. A lady got out. They were face to face. He found himself staring at Isabella.

When he had decided in Aranjuez to come to Paris he had realized with considerable misgivings that he might meet her again there. But he could not allow that to weigh with him in the scales against the possibility of still being able to prevent a war. Paris was a large city, he had counted on securing an audience with the Queen within a week, and it had seemed then that once he had obtained her answer there would be nothing further to detain him in France; so he had felt reason­ably confident that he would escape further entanglement with the lovely Condesa who had once meant so much to him. Now, Fate had brought them together yet again.

"Rojé!’ her glad cry rang through the court. "When did you reach Paris? How clever of you to guess that I should not waste an hour before coming to the Tuileries! But to find you here waiting for me! Oh, Rojé, I am overcome with joy! I . . . I . . ." Seizing his hands she burst into tears.

Her assumption that he had come hot-foot to Paris for the sole purpose of reuniting with her there was so transparently obvious that he had not the heart to undeceive her, and he took refuge in garbled half-truths mingled with white lies.

"I got here yesterday, thinking you must have already arrived. Today business brought me to the Palace; but I should have come here in any case, as the best place to get news of you. In that I was disappointed, and I could not imagine why you had not yet been to make your service to the Queen. I did my utmost to catch up with you, and 'tis now evident that I must have passed you on the road."

"No matter," she sobbed happily. "No matter; we are together again, and 'twill be easy here for us to slip away so that we may be so always."

He swallowed hard, then muttered: "HushI Have a care of what you say; and control yourself, I beg. Your servants are listening."

She shook her head. "We need take no heed of them. They are not from the Spanish Embassy, but only hired men. Diego is there, and the Lady Georgina and her father with him. But I went straight to the Carmelites. The Mother Superior is an old friend of mine, and I knew that I could count on her to give me refuge."

"Refuge?" repeated Roger. "But why, having passed a month with your husband on the road, should you feel this sudden need of it?"

"While on the road I was safe; now I am once more in mortal danger. But I must not linger. Her Majesty is expecting me. And I cannot ask you to come to me this evening, for no visitors are allowed in the Convent after sundown. Come to me at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning at the Carmelites. Then we can make our plans."

In a daze, Roger kissed her hand and watched her enter the Palace. Then he slowly turned away, walked back to La Belle Etoile, mechani­cally ate a solitary evening meal and went early to bed.

For a long time he lay there staring up at the ceiling. He recalled another occasion when he had lain in bed thinking about Isabella. That had been twelve and a half months ago, at a less comfortable inn, near Les Gobelins, on the far side of the Seine. He was then about to set out for Florence with Madame Marie Antoinette's letter, and he had barely made the acquaintance of the dark-browed Senorita d'Aranda.

How much had happened since then, the States General had not even met. Lettres de cachet were still issued for the imprisonment of people during His Majesty's pleasure; and there still existed a Bastille in which to confine them. The de Polignacs, the de Coignys; their High­nesses d'Artois, de Conde, de Conti, and a host of others had still danced and gambled in the splendid salons of Versailles. The treacherous Due d'Orleans had been the idol of the Paris mob; and none but a few rough seamen and Red Indians even knew of the existence of a place called Nootka Sound.

Roger had never then been to Avignon, Marseilles, Leghorn, Florence, Naples, Lisbon, Madrid or Aranjuez; and he recalled speculat­ing on whether, had Isabella been remaining at the Court of France, and they had entered on an affaire, he would have been able to make her his mistress. He had been inclined to think it most unlikely, because he believed her to be a serious, intense girl who, when she gave herself, would do so with great passion, but would bring herself to it only with a man with whom she hoped to share a lifelong love. Now he knew.

There was nothing to stop him leaving Paris next day for England. Mr. Pitt had not sent him to France and would certainly be much annoyed with him for having gone there. He had shot his bolt with the Queen in vain, and if he stayed on to enter into some almost hopeless intrigue with the deputies of the Extreme Left his master would have more cause for anger with him than ever. It would probably wreck his career for the second and last time.

Yet he knew that he was going to stay on; both because, having already adopted unorthodox means in the hope of being able to fulfil his mission, he would not give up the game as long as there was a card left in the pack; and because, since Isabella now felt her danger to be so acute as to have left her husband on account of it, and life for her held no future except with him, he could not possibly abandon her.

At eleven o'clock next morning she joined him in the visitors' parlour at the Carmelite Convent. It was a bare, sparsely furnished room, the antithesis of the surroundings that any couple would have chosen to make love in; and they did not attempt it.