Dennis Wheatley - The Shadow of Tyburn Tree

On the 19th of December Roger returned to Lyrninton to spend Christmas with his mother. He got in a few days shooting and attended a number of dances at the big houses round about—Pylewell, Priest-lands and Vicars Hill—and also in the town Assembly Rooms. It was now well over two months since he had left Natalia, and already he had come to regard her as an episode of his past; so he entered on an amusing flirtation with another Christmas visitor to the district, Amanda Godfrey, the Titian-haired niece of old Sir Harry Burrard of Walhampton.

She was a lively and audacious young woman, who did not take much persuading to slip out of her uncle's house after everyone else was in bed, to keep assignations with her beau. On several nights they went for stolen walks together round the star-lit lakes in the grounds and through the still, frosty woods; but it was no more than a holiday romance, and by the middle of the first weekvof"January Roger was back in London.

At the opening of the first session of Parliament for 1789, the most fateful year in modern history, the Regency Bill was the one question which occupied every member's mind; so the House sat impatiently through the preliminary business, the chief item of which was the election of a new Speaker, the holder of that office having died. Pitt's cousin, the heavy-featured but incorruptible William Grenville, was elected and, on January the 6th, the acrimonious discussions on the Bill were resumed.

Pitt's proposals were, in brief, that the Prince should be empowered to exercise the royal authority, but that the guardianship of the King and the regulation of the royal household should be committed to the Queen, with a Council to assist her. Further that the Prince-Regent should have no power to assign the King's property, grant any office beyond His Majesty's pleasure, or bestow any peerage, except on the King's children after they had attained their majority.

Thus, while bowing to the inevitable, the faithful Minister sought to ensure that the poor stricken monarch should remain in the care of those who loved him, that his property should be protected against the possibility of his recovery, and that his affliction should not provide an opportunity for his unprincipled son to swamp the House of Lords with the worthless and rapacious crew that formed his following.

For days on end the Whigs screamed their rage at the prospect of so considerable a portion of the vast treasure they had hoped to loot being secured against them; but in vain. The Ministerial proposals were carried in both Houses, the Prince had no option but to consent to act as Regent on the terms submitted to him, and towards the end of January, preparations were made for the actual introduction of the Bill which would enable the Regent to replace Pitt's administration by one composed of Fox and his friends.

These were dark days for the nation but their gloom was lightened at intervals for Roger by several pleasurable episodes and minor pieces of good fortune.

On his return to London he found a notification from the Foreign Office that some packages were awaiting his collection. These turned out to have been forwarded by Hugh Elliot, and contained all the things that both Roger and Natalia had left behind when they had quitted Copenhagen. He was a little disconcerted at the sight of Natalia's furs and dresses, and he found that his money-chest was empty, but he was extremely glad to recover his own expensive ward­robe.

Then, having had no acknowledgment of an application which he had put in privately to Lord Carmarthen early in December, for the reimbursement of his expenses while abroad, he waited upon that nobleman personally. True to the policy of the British Government, which reserves all but minor rewards and honours for its paid official servants working under those who have the distribution of them, and expects its private citizens to give their services from patriotism alone, his lordship pointed out that Roger must have had a very interesting time and that, in any case, a considerable proportion of the money he had spent must have been on his own enjoyment. However, Roger succeeded in obtaining a draft on the Treasury for five hundred pounds and, although several hundreds out on the deal, considered himself lucky to have settled for that sum before the dissolution of the admin­istration jeopardised his chances of getting anything at all.

In mid-January he received a letter from Hugh Elliot, reporting that he had now succeeded in tracing Natalia. She had gone to Stock­holm and was living there again in the Russian Embassy with her father, Count Andrew Razumofsky. Having known that she dared not return to Russia, Roger was a little surprised that this solution to the problem had not occurred to him before. He was much relieved to think that she was safe and well cared for; as, although he knew perfectly well inside himself that she was much too tough to come to any serious harm, he had occasionally had fits of morbid depression in which he had imagined her in the most dire straits, or even taking her own life on account of his having deserted her. He was glad, too, to know her whereabouts as it would facilitate his proceedings against her for divorce, although these could not be instituted for some time to come.

Next, towards the end of the month, he had another letter from Georgina. It was written from the Principality of Monaco on his birth­day, the 8th, and was to wish him good luck on his coming of age. She was still enjoying the sunshine of the Mediterranean but now had a heartache to be back at her beloved Stillwaters to see its gardens blossom in the spring. Fortunately, she wrote, her father's business interests now demanded his return to England after his long absence, so they planned to get home towards the end of the first week in February.

At the prospect of seeing her again so soon Roger felt the first real thrill of pleasure that he had known for many weeks. It was not that he wanted to make love to her; it was a feeling that he could not possibly have described, but he knew that he felt more content and happy when he was with her than with any other person that he had ever known.

Lastly, on the 1st of February he was elected a member of White's. On his attaining his majority he had become eligible for membership, and Droopy Ned had put him up. As a young man of respectable, but not distinguished, parentage, he felt that it was a considerable honour to belong to the Club which was the stronghold of all the great Tory families in the land; and he derived a particular satisfaction in having, in this way, nailed his colours to the mast at the very hour when Pitt's government was about to fall, and so many friends and proteges of the Prime Minister were turning their coats in the hope of saving their places or gaining benefits from the other side.

For well over three months now he had been like a billiards ball in baulk; in the forefront of events but out of action and with his future entirely problematical. Suddenly he was brought into play again, and his affairs began to move with staggering swiftness.

CHAPTER XXII

THE FATE OF THE NATION

O Nthe 3rd of February, a Foreign Office messenger brought Roger two letters. Both were addressed in the writing of Hugh Elliot, and on opening the more bulky of the two he found it to be an appeal for help.

The diplomat wrote that, although he had browbeaten the Danes into withdrawing their army from Sweden in mid-November and agree­ing to prolong the armistice for six months, the Northern powers were still far from showing any inclination to accept a permanent settlement on the basis of status quo ante helium .

Gustavus, now cock-a-hoop in the belief that he had the full weight of the Triple Alliance behind him, had become overbearing towards the Danes and twice committed flagrant breaches of the armistice; so, if the status quo was to be maintained, it might next be the Danes whom Britain would be called on to protect from aggression.