Dennis Wheatley - The Shadow of Tyburn Tree

"How so?" asked Droopy.

Selwyn smiled. "By the discovery that our visitor was quite a friendly fellow and asked no more than to take supper with us.

"George, you are romancing," Droopy laughed. "I'll not believe it."

" 'Tis true. I pledge you my word. On closer acquaintance he proved to be a tame chimpanzee hired from a circus. That irrepressible joker John Wilkes was one of our company. He had brought the ape down earlier in the day and hidden him in a box beneath the altar. Then, just as Dashwood in the role of High Priest was about to make the offering to Venus upon it, Wilkes pressed a spring and the creature jumped out."

Fox's corpulent body rocked and the tears came into his eyes with mirth, as he chortled: "Stap me! But I'd have given as much as I won at Newmarket last year for a sight of poor Dashwood's face."

"Aye, one can laugh over it after all these years," said Selwyn soberly. "But it taught us a lesson we never forgot; and 'twas the end of the Hell-Fire Club. Wilkes's ape was too like the real thing for us ever again to play at being monks and nuns, by night, in the ruins of Medmenham Abbey."

"What a character Wilkes is!" exclaimed the Colonel. "He must have caused more commotions in the past half-century than any man in England."

"Than any ten," cried Fox. "The controversy over that article of his in the North Briton , his suspension as a Member of Parliament and arrest, near caused a revolution. For twelve years the electors of Middlesex refused to be represented by any other candidate and repeat­edly brought actions aimed at forcing the House to re-accept him. More of our time was spent in losing our tempers over John Wilkes than we gave in succeeding sessions to debating the American war."

"I wonder you don't blush to recall it, Charles," Selwyn smiled, "seeing that the part you played in hounding him, and battling to restrict the liberties of the press, was so contrary to your present principles."

The wily politician shrugged. "Times change, George. I was then a young full-blooded aristocrat with little understanding of what is due to the common people. 'Tis strange to think, though, that I was once a King's man, hot to defend all privilege, whereas now Farmer George has not a subject in his whole realm that he hates more bitterly than myself."

"In that you have changed places with Wilkes, Sir," Roger laughed. "For time was when the King counted him his worst enemy; yet I have heard it said that more recently, when Wilkes had to present a petition as Lord Mayor of London, his Majesty said that he had never met a more civil man in all his life."

" 'Tis true," Fox acknowledged. "And there again, see how time's magic brings the most amazing changes in the affairs of men. For who would have thought that after the publication of Wilkes' licentious 'Essay on Women ,' the straight-laced City Fathers could ever have brought themselves to elect him their Chief Magistrate; or that as a sometime member of the Hell-Fire Club he should now be spending his declining years in the grave role of City Chancellor."

"The public memory is ever plaguey short," remarked Colonel Thursby. "His private immoralities have long been submerged in most men's minds by his vast popularity, and no man of his generation has done more for the preservation of the people's liberties."

Fox nodded. "Wilkes and Liberty ! For a score of years anyone could raise a mob at a moment's notice by that cry. I'll not forget how, after one of my speeches against him in the House, they attacked my coach and rolled me in the mud; or the cheering thousands who drew him in triumph up Ludgate Hill after he was at last released from prison. Yet, to the detriment of my own hopes of reform, a sad apathy seems to have seized upon the public mind of recent years; and there is no longer that stalwart spirit of resistance to the abuses of the Ministerial power that there was when Wilkes defied the King."

"The reason for that is not far to seek, Sir," said Droopy Ned. " 'Twas the excesses committed by the mob during the Gordon riots that put a check upon its power. That hydra-headed monster seized upon the project of extending toleration to the Roman Catholic faith as a pretext for glutting its carnal appetites. All those who saw large parts of London ablaze have since had a feeling of acute distrust for popular movements. The King alone kept his head in the crisis, and insisted on calling out the troops for the rounding up of those hordes of drunken looters; so 'tis but natural that all law-abiding people should have come to look on him as the saviour of society."

Roger was still thinking fitfully of Georgina and waiting with some anxiety for the time to pass until they would join the ladies, so that he could put into operation his plan for the discomfiture of the Russian; but he now remarked: "It may well be that the brief reign of terror that so horrified everyone in June '80 will save the country from something far worse in the next decade. Discontent against the old order of things is rife in every country on the continent, particularly France, from whence I returned last autumn after a residence of four years. The middle-classes there are now leagued solidly with the masses in their demand for an end of privilege, and even the nobility them­selves have come to regard a revolution as inevitable."

Droopy nodded. "Thou art right about the people of London, Roger. Having seen for themselves the horrid violence of which the mob is capable they will be mighty chary of letting it get loose again."

"That sounds good sense," Fox agreed. "And, as far as France is concerned, I would be the last to gainsay Mr. Brook's contention that we may soon see grave disorders there. The oppression and abuses under which the people of that great nation groan have detached the sym­pathy of all decent men from its Government; and Louis XVI is far too weak and vacillating a Monarch to succeed in maintaining his authority much longer. The sweeping away of the parasites who batten on the throne is generations overdue, and I'll be the first to acclaim it. Through its blindness and extravagance the Monarchy itself has long been riding for a fall, and should it be shaken to its foundations, so much the better. The humbling of that pair of wastrels at Versailles may well have excellent repercussions at Windsor."

"Nay, nay, Sir," cried Colonel Thursby. "I do protest that there you have allowed your feelings to run away with your sense of com­parison. Whatever may be the faults of King George and Queen Charlotte no one could accuse them of being wastrels. Why, all the world knows that they entertain but once a week, and keep so poor a table that even the most spartan Ministers shun an invitation to it."

" 'Tis the fact," laughed Droopy. "Have you not heard the latest of the Queen's economies. 'Tis said that throughout the week she saves every crust from the Royal table; then has them stuck like a fence round a mess of cooked apple and served at her Saturday parties under the name of Charlotte Russe."

So, for another half-hour, the talk ran on, alternating between the grave and gay and covering another score of subjects, till the Colonel glanced at his watch and said: "Gentlemen, 'tis after eight and I am sure some of you must be eager to get to the card-table, so I suggest that we join the ladies."

In the drawing-room matters were just as Roger had suspected. Lady Amelia had brought down her needlework, and seated by the fire, was explaining various intricate stitches to the tactful and self-effacing Mrs. Armistead; while, well out of earshot at the far end of the long room, Georgina was lending an attentive ear to the Am­bassador.

As the men entered, and she stood up to curtsy in response to their bows, they all exclaimed in surprise and admiration. She was no longer dressed in her creation of white silk, but in the gay Russian peasant costume that Vorontzoff had brought her, having, as she told them, changed into it with the help of the other two ladies immediately on leaving the dining-room.