The Rising Storm

'We are packed already,' Isabella replied. 'I have been up all night, half crazy with anxiety about you. Maria did my packing soon after de Roubec left, and before dawn I sent her to rouse Pedro with orders to do yours. I will send her now to order the coach. That also is in readiness; so we can leave as soon as it comes round and you have settled our reckoning.'

As Maria left the room Roger took Isabella in his arms, kissed her fondly and murmured: 'Blessings upon you, my love, for keeping your beautiful head and showing such forethought. Your family shall not snatch you from me. Have no fear of that. I would rather die than lose you to them.'

'But whither shall we go?' she asked. 'And what of the Queen's letter? From what you tell me I take it you have the original concealed in your belongings somewhere. If so you are still pledged to deliver it.'

Roger had told Isabella nothing of his secret activities on behalf of Mr. Pitt, and he loved her so much that he could not help flushing as he answered with a swift prevarication: 'I thought the original too difficult to hide on account of its bulk, so I disposed of it. But before doing so I made the transcript of which I have told you and took a tracing of that. The former was the same bulk as the original, and I made it as a precaution against just such an emergency as has occurred, the latter I have ever since carried sewn up in the buckram lining of my coat-collar. I must, as you say, somehow contrive that it reaches its proper destination safely; and on that account I fear we must part company for a while.'

'No! No!' Isabella protested.

'Nay, this time it is yes, my love,' he said firmly. ' 'Twill not be for long, and our only chance of later securing a lifetime of happiness together. De Roubec's blackguardly attempt to blackmail you has no more than hastened by a few hours the steps we should have been compelled to take in any case, on its becoming known that you are in Florence. I thought the whole matter out in the night; but we have not long together, so listen carefully.'

He told her then, as briefly as he could, of the attack upon him and of his abduction; of the hooded men and of what had passed at their tribunal. When he came to the episode which concerned her personally he repeated the actual words, as far as he could remember them, that he had used in explaining why she had come with him to Florence instead of sailing direct to Naples; then he went on:

'So, you see, if what I said is reported to the Contessa Frescobaldi she will have no grounds for supposing that you are running away with me. And if, as I said we intended to do, we part company this morning, it will further confirm her in the belief that there is nothing between us. There is even a fair chance that such lies as de Roubec may tell will be discounted; and should your aunt still fear that I may have seduced you, but is led to believe that I have left you for good, what action can she take that would in any way benefit you or your family? If she thinks that of your own free will you are proceeding on your way to Naples to get married, ft would be pointless to send in pursuit of you and haul you back to Florence. More, if she is a woman of any sense she will realize that the less attention that is drawn to your brief stay here and possible lapse from virtue, the better. So I have hopes that she will threaten de Roubec with the wrath of the Frescobaldi unless he holds his tongue, and as far as we are concerned let sleeping dogs lie.'

Isabella nodded. 'There is much shrewdness in your reasoning, my clever one. Very well then; I will do as you wish. But when and where will you rejoin me ?'

Much relieved by her acquiescence, Roger proceeded with the unfolding of his plan. 'The road to Naples goes inland from Florence, and only turns south when it has rounded the mountains to the east of the city. About ten miles along it lies a small township called Pontassieve. Go thither at a normal pace and take rooms there. I shall remain here for a few hours, as I intend to buy riding horses on which we will later make our way back by a circuitous route to Leghorn. But I hope to rejoin you soon after midday, and we will then discuss our further plans in detail.'

At the thought that he would be with her again so soon, she bright­ened. Then, after a moment, she said: 'To purchase horses you will require money.'

He nodded. 'It would not come amiss; as to buy good ones, and the pack-mules we shall require as well, the outlay will be considerable.'

Kneeling down she unlocked her money-chest again, and took from it a hundred of the big gold pieces. He protested that it was far too much, and that he still had considerable funds of his own. But she insisted on his taking the full hundred in case, while separated from her, he needed a large sum for some unforeseen emergency.

She had scarcely relocked the chest when Maria returned to say that the coach was below, and a few moments later Pedro and Hernando came in to carry down the baggage.

While they were about it Signor Pisani appeared on the scene, still in his chamber-robe and much agitated by these signs of unannounced departure. But the fat landlord was soon pacified by Roger explaining matters on the grounds that Madame Jules had had news by a messenger who had knocked her up in the middle of the night that her husband was seriously ill in Naples, and she naturally wished to get to his bedside at the earliest possible moment. He added that as his own business in Florence was not yet completed he would be staying on for another night or more; after which he would be returning to France via Leghorn. Then he produced a few of Isabella's Spanish gold pieces and asked Pisani to change them for him, deduct the amount of the bill, and let him have it with the balance in Tuscan money when he returned in the course of an hour or so.

When Pisani left them to get the money changed, and the servants had gone downstairs with the last of the baggage, Roger and Isabella snatched a quick embrace. He made her repeat the name of the township where she was to wait for him, told her that to conform to his plan she should take rooms there in her own name, and swore that nothing should prevent him rejoining her at latest by the afternoon. Then he accompanied her to her coach. In the presence of Pisani's people he took leave of her in a manner suited to either a brother-in-law or close friend, shook hands with Quetzal, and said good-bye to her servants as though he did not expect to see them again.

As soon as the coach was out of sight he set off down the street. After a few enquiries he found a man who understood him sufficiently to direct him to a horse-dealer. There, after a short delay, an apothecary who could speak a little French was fetched from a nearby shop to act as interpreter; and with his aid Roger looked over the dealer's stock. For himself he settled on a grey gelding with strong shoulders and an easy pace, for Isabella a brown mare that he felt confident would please her; and, feeling certain that she would refuse to leave Quetzal behind with her servants, he bought a fat little pony for the boy. Having added two sleek mules to his string, he then got the apothecary to take him round to a saddler's, where he purchased all the necessary equip­ment for his animals, including two pairs of panniers for the mules.

Not wishing to let the apothecary know too much of his business, after arranging for the saddlery to be sent round to the horse-dealer's, he thanked and left him; then he found his own way back to the Lungarno Corsini where the best shops were situated.

There, he hired a porter with a barrow to follow him and collect his purchases as he made them. With Isabella's slim figure and Quetzal's small one in his eye he bought two complete outfits of boys' clothing. Then he set about choosing a new hat, cloak and coat for himself. The first two were easy, as his only requirement was that they should be a different shape and colour from those he had been wearing; but the selection of the last called for a certain niceness of judgment. It had to be a garment in which he would appear suitably dressed to pay a social call in the evening, yet at the same time one which was not too ornate for him to wear in the daytime. Fortunately the Italian sunshine lent itself far better to such a compromise than the uncertain weather of northern Europe would have done; and he settled on a long-skirted coat of rich red brocade. When he had done, with the porter behind him, he made his way back to Pisani's.

It still lacked a few minutes to nine; but, all the same, he now approached del Sarte Inglesi with some trepidation. He had little fear that de Roubec had as yet set the Frescobaldi on to him, but felt that at any time he might be in fresh danger from the Grand Orient.

When he made the copy of Madame Marie Antoinette's letter with the jumbled cypher in Paris he had had in mind the possibility of its being stolen from him, and no attempt being made to decipher it until it reached His Highness of Orleans, perhaps many days later. But it seemed a fair assumption that any such secret society as that of the hooded men would be sufficiently curious to learn what the Queen had written to her brother to investigate the contents of the despatch before handing it over to d'Orleans' agent. And Roger felt there was an un­pleasant possibility that, when they found they could not read it, they might endeavour to get him into their clutches again in the hope that he might know the cypher, and could be forced to interpret it for them. It was fear of this that had caused him to devote so much time during the night to a fruitless endeavour to devise a way of getting out of their hands without surrendering any document at all, instead of deciding right away to fob them off with the one in