The Wanton Princess Read online

  Droopy nodded his narrow head, ‘Stout Tory as I am, I fear the trouble is that our Prime Minister has been too long in office. ’Tis seventeen years now since he formed his first Government, and because he has always taken so much upon himself every one of them has been a year of strain. Brilliant as he was, he has become worn out with anxieties. From the beginning he has been self-opinionated and autocratic; now he no longer brings his once fine mind to judge events impartially but continues his old policies with dogged inflexibility.’

  ‘I judge you right, Ned. Though I’d be loath to see him go, for I owe him much and have the greatest admiration for him. And who else have we? His cousin Grenville is little more than his mouthpiece on Foreign Affairs. Henry Dundas would act like a bull in a china shop. Addington is a poor weak fellow incapable of handling great issues. As for the Opposition, God forbid! From ’89 Charles Fox became a partisan of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” with such enthusiasm that on all occasions since he has done his utmost to disrupt our war measures in favour of the French, and not long ago he publicly declared his sympathy with the extremists here who would like to see Britain a Republic. Even so, ’tis a bitter pill that Mr. Pitt’s blindness to present reality should compel me to return to France with the report that I have failed in my mission.’

  ‘How soon have you in mind to make the crossing?’

  ‘Within a few days now. In Paris they will already be becoming impatient at my delay, but will put it down to the British Government shilly-shallying. As in time of war there is no French Embassy here I came over in a Revenue cutter which now lies below Tower Bridge and temporarily serves that purpose. Tomorrow I shall apply for clearance.’

  Droopy Ned remained silent for a moment, then he said, ‘I would not do that, Roger, but remain here yet awhile. Mr. Pitt is obliged to inform Parliament of General Bonaparte’s offer and his refusal of it. In fact I learned at White’s only yesterday that February 3rd has been settled on as the date for a debate on this matter. So strong is the feeling that a negotiated peace would be in the best interests of the country that, as a result of the debate, many Members may cross the floor of the House. That might well cause the fall of the Government. Should it do so you would, after all, be able to carry back to France a favourable reply to General Bonaparte’s letter.’

  Roger looked up quickly. Droopy Ned was an exceedingly shrewd man and had often advised him well in the past. ‘Since you think that,’ he said, ‘I’ll certainly stay on. After the great services Mr. Pitt has rendered our country, I’d hate to see his Government fall. But to bring about the pacification of Europe is of far greater importance. To accompany me I was given a small staff, including a professional diplomat named Broussalt as my Counsellor. I’ll send him back with an interim report and myself remain in England until the result of the debate is known.’

  ‘You will have nothing to lose by so doing,’ Droopy said with a smile, ‘I’ll order your old room here to be prepared for you, and the longer you care to give me your company the happier I’ll be. That is,’ he added after a moment, ‘unless you prefer to return to Stillwaters.’

  ‘I must do so, to collect my belongings. But now that Georgina is out of danger I had meant to make my adieux there in any case; so I’d be glad to accept your hospitality for a few nights. Not for longer, though, as my present position in London is an anomalous one. Here I am naturally known as Roger Brook, but there must be diplomats now accredited to the Court of St. James whom I have met abroad. Did I run into one of them he would assume me to be Colonel Breuc, and for my future security the fewer people to whom I have to explain that they have mistaken me for my French cousin, the better. As things are I’ll take the opportunity to visit my old father at Lymington, then return here early in February.’

  That afternoon Roger wrote his despatch, breaking the bad news to Talleyrand that the British Government were averse to entering into negotiations, then adding that a debate in Parliament on February 3rd might cause the fall of the Government, so he was remaining on with the somewhat slender hope that he would be able to return to France in mid-February with better tidings.

  The following morning he waited on Lord Grenville at the Foreign Office and obtained clearance for his cutter, then went down river in a wherry to the ship. Having informed his Counsellor of the situation and handed over to him the papers he had brought, he returned to Amesbury House and dined tête-à-tête with Droopy Ned.

  Next day he rode out to Richmond Park to visit Thatched House Lodge, a charming ‘Grace and Favour’ residence of which Mr. Pitt had given him the life tenancy as a reward for his services in the early days of the Revolution, when he had caused the National Assembly to annul the Bourbon ‘Family Compact’ by which treaty France was obliged to enter on war with England as the ally of Spain.

  He had spent only a few nights there since he had lost his wife, Amanda, in December ’95, but had left his faithful henchman, the ex-smuggler Dan Izzard, there, with a housekeeper, to keep the place up during his absence.

  As he expected, he found everything in perfect order. Old Dan was delighted to see him and still more so when Roger told him that, after a last trip to France in February, he intended to retire and in future would live there for a part of each year.

  On the 12th he went down to Stillwaters and, that evening, had another long talk with Georgina. Now that he had had time to recover from the shock of what he considered to be her extreme folly, he was better able to reason with her; but all his arguments were to no avail.

  At length he said, ‘You admit that you do not love this man, but only find him reasonably attractive; so, judging by your past performance, I take it you have no intention of being faithful to him!’

  ‘In that you wrong me, Roger,’ she replied, ‘I have sown wild oats enough and hope to make him an honest wife. That is,’ suddenly she smiled, ‘with one exception, a certain Mr. Brook.’

  With a laugh he seized her hand and kissed it. ‘My sweet, you may be sure I’ll hold you to that.’

  ‘How could I ever act otherwise, seeing what we are to one another.’ With her free hand she drew his face down to hers, gave him a long kiss on the mouth, then murmured with a little giggle, ‘Dost remember the night when we agreed that you should marry Amanda and I’d take my Earl, then we slept together?’

  ‘Shall I ever forget it,’ he grinned. ‘Or that golden afternoon when I was but a boy and you seduced me.’

  ‘You beast!’ she cried with mock indignation. ‘ ’Twas the other way about. And for imputing me a slut I’ve a mind to punish you. I’m not yet strong but strong enough if you be gentle with me. Get your clothes off and I’ll seduce you yet again.’

  Next morning, with great reluctance, but knowing that a repetition of such nights would be bound to retard her recovery, Roger bade her a fond farewell, then had the footman who valeted him pack his valise and said good-bye to Colonel Thursby and the children. On the morning of the 15th, having travelled by night coach, he arrived at his old home, Grove Place, Lymington.

  It was a pleasant square mansion looking out on the Solent and the western end of the Isle of Wight; not very large but with good, lofty rooms and some seventeen acres of garden, orchard and meadow lands. He had always loved it and on the way down had been happily contemplating now spending a lot of his time there with his widowed father, who had retired from the Navy the previous year.

  Since he had run away from home in ’83, Roger’s only prolonged stay in England had been a period of two years in the early ’90s; so, although he had many acquaintances in London, Droopy Ned was his only close friend; whereas in his youth he had had numerous playmates of his own age among the sons of landed gentry in South Hampshire and it would be easy to pick up with several of them again. Moreover, he knew that his father would be delighted for him to bring the children down to stay. At Thatched House Lodge there would be few amusements with which he could provide them, but at Lymington he could teach them to ride in the New Forest, to swim
from Hordle Beach and to sail on the Lym river as well as spend happy days with them in the large garden of Grove Place.

  He had informed his father by letter of his proposed visit, so the Admiral was expecting him and gave him the most hearty welcome. After Roger had unpacked, and had had a chat with the old houseman, Jim Button, who had known him from his birth, he spent a couple of hours exchanging news with his father. As they had not met for over five years they had much to talk of; but Roger refrained from announcing his intention of abandoning his adventurous life, keeping that as a pleasant surprise for his father after dinner. When the time came it was he who got the surprise, and it proved the second great blow to his hopes of happily settling down.

  Pushing the Port over to him, the bulky, red-faced old sailor said gruffly, ‘I’m glad you’ve timed your visit as you have, my boy; for had you made it later than March you’d no longer have found me here.’

  Looking up with a start, Roger exclaimed, ‘Why so, sir? While a state of war continues, travel on the Continent presents many difficulties. But perhaps you have in mind a voyage as a civilian to see again the scenes of your battles in the West Indies?’

  ‘Nay, lad. I’ve had enough of a roving life, and for the past few months after I’d swallowed the anchor I thought I’d be happy enough pottering about here until our Maker sent for me. But that’s not proved the case. The cursed gout puts a ball and chain on me so that I can no longer shoot, ride or handle a boat, and I was never much of a fisherman. Our neighbours are kindly enough in asking me over now and then, but there are days together when I never leave the house. It’s much too big for a man living on his own and with your dear mother gone it seems plaguey dismal and empty. So for three years from next Quarter Day I’ve let the place as it stands to one of the Drummonds. He’s paying me a good rent, and as he is a banker I can be sure of getting my money.’

  ‘But where will you live?’ Roger asked.

  ‘Over at Walhampton with my old crony, Sir William Burrard. He’s in the same boat as myself, a widower with a house much too large for him; though he has a family that comes down to stay and that, at times, will make pleasant company for me. I’ll have my own rooms, of course, and be free to come and go as I please. But when we are alone on winter evenings it will be pleasant for both of us to sit either side of a good fire and sip our grog together. Mrs. Hap-good is to remain on as housekeeper to the Drummonds, and they are taking the maids, but Jim will be coming with me.’

  Roger forced a smile and said in a voice that he hoped sounded enthusiastic, ‘I think it a most admirable arrangement.’ But inwardly he was grievously disappointed at this unexpected wrecking of his plan to bring the children down for long visits. To speak of it now seemed pointless; so he took a swig of Port, turned the conversation to wine, told his father that before leaving London he had instructed Juster-ini’s to send him down twelve dozen of the best current vintage and hoped that the gout would not punish him too severely for the drinking of it.

  For the remainder of the month Roger stayed on at Grove, looking up old friends, going out on pheasant shoots with them and attending a few local dances. This pleasant round made him regret more than ever that, for the next few years at least, he would be unable to resume it by long visits to his old home. On February 2nd he returned to London.

  On the evening of the 3rd he accompanied Droopy to the Strangers’ Gallery in the House of Commons and they listened to one of the most memorable debates in all the long years that the younger Pitt had been Prime Minister. The Opposition attacked him with the utmost ferocity for rejecting Peace and, during a long oration in which he descanted on Bonaparte’s rapacity and perfidy, and stigmatised him as ‘This last adventurer in the lottery of Revolutions,’ they frequently endeavoured to shout him down. Then Tierney, the Whig leader, defied him to state in one sentence, without ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, the object of the war.

  In reply Pitt flung back the retort, ‘I know not if I can do it in one sentence, but in one word it is security; security against a danger, the greatest that ever threatened the world. How or where did the Honourable gentleman discover that the Jacobinism of Robespierre and of the Triumvirate of the Five Directors, which he acknowledges to be real, has vanished and disappeared because it has all been centred and condensed into one man, who was nursed and reared in its bosom, whose celebrity was gained under its auspices, who was at once the child and champion of all its atrocities and horrors? Is our security in negotiation to be this Bonaparte, who is now the sole organ of all that was formerly dangerous and pestiferous in the Revolution? … If peace afford no prospect of security, then I say it is prudent in us not to negotiate at the present moment. This is my plea, and by no other do I wish to be tried by God or my country.’

  It was a magnificent performance and made a profound impression on the House. At that time Bonaparte had barely started on his great regeneration of the French as a law-abiding people; so Members knew of him only as a grandiose bandit. In consequence it was not to be wondered at that the Opposition was shattered and Pitt left the House exhausted but triumphant with its sanction to continue the war.

  Roger had feared that might prove the case, and there was now no point in his remaining longer in England; so the following morning he went to Downing Street and requested an interview with the Prime Minister. After a wait of three quarters of an hour he was shown upstairs.

  As he entered the room Mr. Pitt waved him to a chair and said, ‘Your waiting on me comes as a surprise, Mr. Brook. I thought you had returned to France with the members of your Mission early in January. Or is it that you have again just crossed the Channel?’

  ‘Nay, sir, I stayed on here,’ Roger replied glumly. ‘To be frank, distressed as I would be to see you personally defeated, I had hopes that Parliament might refuse to endorse your decision regarding General Bonaparte’s offer.’

  The Prime Minister shrugged, ‘That they did not, demonstrates the soundness of my contentions, and I hope that by now you too are convinced of their Tightness.’

  ‘Far from it, sir. I am of the same opinion still, and in this matter believe you to be committing the greatest error in your career.’

  ‘Indeed! In that case, Mr. Brook, I find it surprising that a man of your intelligence should fail to grasp the essentials of the situation. Our obligations to King Charles Emanuel apart, during Bonaparte’s absence in Italy the French were driven from all but that country’s northern part. The Austrians at this moment are mustering for an offensive aimed at regaining Genoa and Nice. Bonaparte has offered us terms only in the hope of detaching us from our allies; so that our Fleet should not support them in these operations and his own squadrons, now blockaded in Brest and Cherbourg, be freed to sail round into the Mediterranean. Do you not see how unthinkable it is for us to abandon our allies at such a juncture?’

  ‘They abandoned us in ’98,’ Roger returned stubbornly. ‘And both they and we could now agree a peace with France simultaneously, since General Bonaparte has sent the same offer to the Emperor as he has to His Majesty.’

  ‘If his intentions are honest there is one way, and one way only, in which he could show it. That is by using the power he has usurped to re-establish his rightful King on the throne of France.’

  ‘Believe me, sir; even had he the wish to do so the French people would not permit it.’

  ‘Then there is no point in our prolonging this interview. My Lord Grenville will provide you with passports enabling you to return freely to France.’ For the first time the Prime Minister’s face lit up with a smile as he added, ‘Despite our difference of opinion on this present matter, on others in the past I have found your judgment excellent, and I have a great respect for your capabilities. In due course, therefore, when I receive from you further reports on affairs in France I shall continue to set a high value on them.’

  ‘It was, sir, with the intention of disabusing any expectations that you might entertain on that head that I came here this morning,’ Roger said
gravely. ‘You will receive no more reports from me, for I am not agreeable to serve you any longer.’

  Mr. Pitt sat back and remained silent for a moment, then he said, ‘I find that most regrettable; but from the outrageous manner in which you behaved towards my Lord Grenville and myself when last you were here, and I informed you of our rejection of Bonaparte’s offer, I feared that it might portend a cessation of the good understanding between us that has endured for so long. Since you are determined to take no further part in secret diplomacy I assume you do not intend to return to France, but will at once retire into private life.’

  ‘No, sir. I am under an obligation to report personally to Monsieur de Talleyrand on the failure of my mission.’

  ‘In that I appreciate the delicacy of your feelings. So be it then. But that done I take it you will shortly be back here. Being not unmindful of the great services you have rendered myself and your country I should like to confer upon you some sinecure or provide you with an opening for some new career that you may think attractive. You possess both eloquence and a wide knowledge of foreign affairs, so would be a valuable man in Parliament. Without difficulty could secure your nomination as Member for a Borough.’

  For the past fortnight Roger had spent much time taking stock of his situation. Georgina’s refusal to marry him and his father’s having let Grove Place for three years had robbed him of his best prospects of living a happy life in which he could see a lot of the children. Apart from Georgina, he had no desire at all to marry again and the thought of living alone at Thatched House Lodge did not appeal to him. Lastly, he had come to realise that he had many more friends in France than he had in England, and that life there could hold much more for him. So he replied:

  ‘I thank you, sir, for your good intentions; but here I am a nobody, whereas in France I have already made a career for myself that holds great promise. As an A.D.C. to General Bonaparte and the intimate friend of his Foreign Minister I am close to a seat of power that I am personally convinced will dominate France for a long time to come. To watch its growth and to grow with it offers me a far more interesting life than could being Member for a Rotten Borough. So I intend to return to the service of General Bonaparte and remain in it.’