Dennis Wheatley - The Rising Storm

As the cold, hard voice of the Prime Minister ceased, Roger gave a weary shrug, and said:

"I admit many things with which you charge me, sir; upon others I am prepared to defend myself. How long is it since you had news out of France?"

Mr. Pitt frowned. "I have heard nothing since Saturday; when my agent arrived with the tale of your infamies. Owing to bad weather in the Channel no packet boat left after his until the one from which you must have landed this morning."

"Then you will not have heard the result of the sittings of the National Assembly on the twenty-first and twenty-second."

"No. What of them?"

"Only that another great blow has been struck against the Royal Prerogative, by the passing of a new Revolutionary measure that I inspired."

"And you have the insolence to announce this to me as a matter of which you can be proud?"

"I do. The manner of Don Diego Sidonia y Ulloa's death is a matter that lies only between myself and God. Let it suffice that by seizing the opportunity to denounce him when I did I gained the end I had in mind. To save myself from arrest I placed myself under the protection of the Jacobin Club. It was voted that he was an enemy of the people, and that by my act I had served their cause in putting a swift end to his intrigues to drag France into war. You need not con­cern yourself about any request for my extradition. There will be none. No French official would dare to lay a finger on me; for in Paris I am acclaimed a national hero.

"That night I spoke in the Jacobins as has been reported to you by your ineffectual creature Miles. I spoke again the following night, and yet again the night after that. I declared myself the bitter enemy of monarchy in all its forms, and the Jacobins hung upon my words. In the matter of Nootka Sound I urged them to repudiate the Spanish alliance. I said that it was made by two effete Royal Families for their own aggrandizement, without thought of the horrors that war brings to the common people. I argued that no treaty was binding upon a nation unless it had been entered into with the full knowledge and assent of the people's representatives. I demanded that all existing treaties should be declared null and void, and that in future France should consider herself bound only by treaties made by the nation.

"What the Jacobins decide by night now becomes law in the National Assembly the following day. Mirabeau attempted to sway the Club against me, but he was howled down; Desmoulins, Lameth, Robespierre, Dupont, Petion, all supported me. And Mirabeau was again defeated in the debates that followed in the Assembly, by Barnave using my arguments against him.

"I have betrayed the Queen and all my better instincts. I caused a man to be done to death in a manner that will trouble my soul for years to come. I brought about the death of a woman who was very dear to me by remaining on in Paris, when I might have come away with her ten days ago. I have lost a friendship that I value more than life itself. And all this as the price of getting a hearing in the Jacobin Club. I have branded myself as a sans-culotte —a brutal murderer from whom all decent people will shrink. But I have served you and England well.

"You can cancel your preparations in the ports and demobilize your levees. On your own word Spain will not fight alone; so there will be no war. A year ago you asked me to devise means which might assist you to break the Family Compact. I have broken it for you. On Saturday the twenty-second, by the law of France, it was declared null and void. It is as dead as yesterday's sheep that is now mutton. More; without resorting to war, I have made possible your dream, that all Canada, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, should henceforth become a dominion of the British Crown."

Mr. Pitt remained quite silent for a moment, then he said: "Mr. Brook. I owe you an apology. I—er—omitted to offer you a glass of Port."

When Roger left No. 10 Downing Street dusk was falling. A few yards from the entrance a closed carriage was drawn up. As he walked past it a voice that he knew well called him by name. Turning he saw Georgina's lovely face framed in the carriage window. Beckoning to him she threw open the door. After only a second's hesitation he got in, slammed it behind him and sat down beside her. As he did so the carriage drove off.

After an awkward pause, he asked: "How comes it that you knew I had returned to London?"

"I had word from Droopy Ned," she answered in a low voice. "As soon as Papa and I got back I asked Droopy to let me know the instant that you arrived. He sent me a message an hour ago that you had dropped your baggage at Amesbury House and gone on to Downing Street."

Again there was a long, strained silence; then she said with a sob: "Oh Roger 1 All this past week I have been near dead of grief."

He turned away his face. "I know how bitterly you must feel, but I beg you to spare, me your reproaches. The memory of that awful scene and the manner in which I brought about his death is as much as I can bear."

"Nay," she replied quickly. "Fond as I was of him, it was not his death that has driven me half-crazy. 'Twas the thought of the breach between us. You are so much a part of me that I could not reconcile myself to cutting you from my life without an attempt at explanation. I had to find out if you had some shadow of justification for the awful thing you did, or if I am condemned to regard you henceforth as a monster. Why did you do it, Roger? Why?"

"It is a long story," he murmured. "But I too have been more distressed by your threat never to forgive me than all else put to­gether. Where can we go to talk alone in comfort?"

"I am taking you to my studio on Campden Hill. I must know the truth, and whether after tonight I may ever look you in the face again without a shudder. Let us say no more till we arrive there."

As they drove on through Hyde Park and down to Kensington village, Roger recalled the many times that they had taken the same drive together in very different circumstances. Georgina had a natural talent for painting, and Gainsborough and Reynolds had entered on a pleasant rivalry in giving such a ravishing pupil lessons, in her studio-villa on Campden Hill; but she also used it as a petit maison, and when she felt inclined to play the wanton took her most-favoured beaux there to sup with her. With a sad pang Roger thought again of the wine, the laughter and the love that had united them when he had last accompanied her there in the early hours of the morning, after a ball.

But that was long ago; "and no hideous Paris street scene centring round a battered, bloody corpse lay between them then.

When they arrived at the quiet villa, secluded among its grove of trees, Jenny, Georgina's faithful maid, who knew all her secrets, let them in. Roger had not seen Jenny in Paris and only once in Aran­juez; so after she had bobbed him a curtsy he talked to her for a few minutes as an old friend; and that served to relieve a little the tension between Georgina and himself. Georgina then told Jenny to bring them a bottle of Canary wine and, as the maid left them to fetch it, asked him when he had last fed.

"I have not eaten all day," he replied; "but am more tired than hungry. What I need most in all the world, after your forgiveness, are a hot bath and a few hours' sleep."

She kept her eyes away from his. "The issue cannot now be al­tered; so I will contain my impatience yet a while that you may have both, and be the better man to justify yourself—if you can. 'Tis not yet eight o'clock. Jenny shall boil some water up for you while we drink a glass of wine and you undress. You can sleep in my bed and later I will have some cold food ready for you."

In silence they drank two glasses each of the Canary, then he had his bath and flopped into Georgina's big square bed. As its black silk sheets caressed his naked limbs he thought of the last time that he had lain there, with her burbling with laughter beside him, and won­dered if he would ever again know such perfect contentment. Then he dropped asleep.