Dennis Wheatley - The Launching of Roger Brook

Those passions were actually by no means so dormant as she supposed. Roger had little left to learn theoretically about the tender passion and had so far refrained from its practice only on account of a certain fastidiousness. In those days of easy morals no one thought the worse of a youngster for giving free rein to his budding desires, providing he did not attempt his friends' sisters, and there were few country girls who did not consider it an honour to be seduced by a son of the quality. Roger knew half a dozen boys of his own age at Sherborne who had found willing initiators into the mysteries in then-mother's maids, and one much-admired young coxcomb who had even successfully invaded the bed of his married cousin.

But Roger, having toyed with the idea of both Polly and Nell during his last holidays, had decided to wait until he came across a young girl of less buxom charms and one who would prove more mentally exciting. As far as Georgina was concerned he knew that to think of her in that way was to play with fire, and, since he placed her automatically in the same category as he would have one of his friend's sisters, he rarely allowed himself to do so.

Yet now, as they all went into the dining-room, he could not help remarking how much more beautiful she seemed to have become since he had last seen her, and the laughter in her wicked dark eyes gave him a sudden half-guilty thrill.

The dining-room was furnished with the new tulip-wood which was just then coming into fashion and the two sideboards were laden, one with half a dozen hot dishes, the other with a cold ham, pig's face and crystal bowls of peaches, nectarines, apricots arid grapes from Colonel Thursby's glass-houses.

The Colonel and Roger helped themselves lavishly, but after surveying the tempting array uncertainly for a moment, Georgina declared with a pout: "The very sight of food so early in the day gives me the vapours. 'Twill be as much as I can do to face a bowl of bread and milk."

Roger looked at her in astonishment, but the Colonel gave him a sly wink. "See, Roger, what a London season has done for your old playfellow. Had we had notice of your coming, I vow she would have had her hair dressed a foot high and used a sack of flour upon it; 'tis only overnight that she has lost that fine appetite of hers.

Then he turned to his daughter and gave her a friendly slap on the behind. "Don't be a fool, girl, or you'll be famished by mid-morning. Pretend to live on air when you're in London, if you will, but spare us these conceits here in the country."

Georgina suddenly burst out laughing. "Oh, well, give me some salmon pasty then, and an egg; but no bacon; the fat makes me queasy, and that's the truth."

Roger had been so occupied with his own concerns that he had temporarily forgotten that Georgina must have only just returned from her first London season, and so now should be definitely regarded as grown up. With a smile he asked her how she had enjoyed herself.

" Twas a riot," she declared, enthusiastically. "Balls, routs and conversaziones tumbled a-top of each other with a swiftness you'd scarce credit possible. For all of ten weeks I was never up before midday or abed before two in the morning."

"I wonder you didn't die of your exertions, but I must say you look none the worse for it," remarked her father. " 'Tis your poor aunt that I was sorry for, though. I wouldn't have had the chaperoning of you for a mint of money."

Georgina shrugged. "Since you paid her five hundred guineas to take me out, and footed the bill for her to present that milk-sop daughter of hers into the bargain, she has no cause to complain."

"Was Queen Charlotte's drawing-room as splendid as accounts of it lead one to believe?" asked Roger.

" 'Twas a truly marvellous spectacle. All the gentlemen in their fine uniforms and the ladies with tiaras and great ostrich feathers in their hair. And you should have heard the buzz when I made my curtsy. I near died of gratification."

Her father glanced at her with unconcealed pride. "Yes, you certainly took the town by storm; 'tis not many girls who become one of the reigning toasts in their first season."

"You did not lack for beaux, then?" Roger said, feeling a distinct twinge of jealousy.

"Lud, no!" she laughed. "I had a score of proposals, and am half committed to three young bucks; but I doubt if I'll take any of them."

"What did you enjoy most—apart from all these flirtations?" inquired Roger, with a faintly malicious grin.

Her black eyes sparkled. " 'Tis hard to say. The ball father gave for me at our own house in Bedford Square was a roaring success. Then there was our grand day at the Derby, where I won twenty guineas. I loved His Grace of Queensberry's water party down at Richmond, and the night we all went masked to Vauxhall Gardens. But I think my most prodigious thrill, apart from my presentation, was to see Mrs. Siddons play Lady Macbeth at His Majesty's theatre in Drury Lane."

For half an hour she rattled on, dazzling Roger with descriptions of the great world as yet beyond his ken, then her father left them to go out and see his gardeners.

"Well! How shall we spend the day?" she asked, after a pause to regain her breath. "Shall we ride in the forest, go down the cliff and provide a fresh scandal for the neighbours by bathing from the beach, or take luncheon up to our old haunt in the tower?"

Roger had intended only to spend an hour with her and then return to face his irate parent, but the more he thought of doing so the more unnerving the prospect became. The gravity of the issue was such that his father's anger could scarcely be increased whatever he did now; so he decided that he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and spend the day with Georgina, as she obviously expected him to do.

From his ride through the forest on the previous day he knew that the flies were now hatching out in such numbers as to prove irksome during a picnic. The promised heat of the day made a swim sound attractive, and he cared little for the fact that for a young man to bathe with a fully grown girl was frowned upon, but the tower offered the best prospect of a long talk entirely free of any possibility of interruptions, so, after a moment, he voted for it.

Although they had only just finished breakfast Georgina went off to the kitchen to procure supplies; since it entailed no small effort to climb the three hundred odd stairs to the little room at the top of the tower and, once there, to descend and re-ascend for any purpose would have been a foolish waste of time and energy.

A quarter of an hour later she rejoined him in the garden and as she came towards him across the lawn, a well-laden basket over her arm, he thought how seductive she was looking. As always, except when about to go out riding, she was wearing more diaphanous clothes than were usual in the country. A full skirt of sprigged India muslin billowed about her legs and, as the gentle breeze pressed it against her, gave a hint of the shapely limbs beneath it. The sleeves were cut very wide, showing her well-made brown arms to the elbows and a double fichu of white goffered organdie crossed on her breast accentuated the outline of her rounded bosom.

Roger took the basket from her and a few minutes' walk brought them to the base of the tower. Square and unornamented it rose starkly to the sky, the small round cupola which crowned it no longer visible from where they stood. Georgina led the way in through its narrow door, and they began the ascent.

The stairs were narrow and the atmosphere abominably stuffy, being relieved only by air holes consisting of narrow slits at every twenty feet, through which no more than a glimpse could be obtained of the surrounding country. Three times on the way up they paused, hot and panting, to regain their breath, but at last they came out into the turret chamber.