The Rising Storm

All our stratagems have proved in vain. My aunt and cousin arrived here this afternoon. They were half-mad with rage and mortifica­tion at the dishonour they say I have done our house. They treated both myself and my servants like criminals. Under their threats Pedro broke down and confessed that he believed you to be my lover. It is due to your chivalry alone that I was able to prove to my aunt that I am still a virgin.

That mollified her somewhat. She considers that it will save me from repudiation by my fiance. But she insisted that I should proceed at once to Naples under the escort of my horrid cousin and his men-at-arms. For two hours I withstood her while she prated of my duty. At length she confronted me with the terrible alternative. If I persisted in my refusal she would have you slain as the cause of it.

Something, I know not what, has made them suspect that you mean to rejoin me here. She threatened to carry me to Florence as a prisoner and leave men in ambush at the inn to kill you on your return.

I love you more than my life. To save yours I will face any future, however repugnant to me. I have now consented to do as she wishes. In a few minutes I set out again for Naples under my cousin1 s escort.

I begged my aunt for a brief respite before setting out to compose myself by prayer. I am using it to write this. Maria will see that the innkeeper has it to give to you.

I pray you by our love not to follow me. Gusippi Frescobaldi has with him a dozen men. Any attempt to snatch me from them could result only in your death. That would render my sacrifice in vain. The thought that I had brought about your death would drive me insane. I would go mad and dash out my brains against a wall.

I am resigned. I assure you I am resigned. For a month I have lived in a sweet dream. To think of it will be my consolation all my life long. But I am awake again. I must be brave and undertake the duties to which my birth has called me. But without the knowledge that you still live and sometimes still think of me I should lack the courage.

I shall never love anyone else. Never! Never!

Good-bye, dear chivalrous English Knight. Good-bye, sweet companion of my soul.

While life doth last,

Your Isabella.

His eyes blurred with tears, Roger thrust the letter into his pocket. His throat was tight with the agony of his loss and, as he stumbled from the kitchen, he shook with rage at this annihilation of all his plans. In spite of Isabella's pleas he had already determined to follow her. Twelve men or a hundred might guard her, but somehow by wit and courage he would get her back.

He had hardly covered half the distance to the street when a side door in the passage opened. An officer came out and behind him Roger vaguely glimpsed a squad of soldiers. He made to push his way past, but the officer barred his passage and, thrusting another letter at him, said curtly in bad French:

'For you, Monsieur. By His Highness the Grand Duke's orders.'

In a daze Roger tore the missive open, and read:

As we supposed would be the case, instead of proceeding to Leghorn you have attempted to rejoin the Senorita d'Aranda. Consider yourself fortunate that we have not ordered that you be brought back to Florence to face the accusations of the Frescobaldi. It is our pleasure that within three days you should have left Tuscany. You may proceed at your choice either towards Leghorn or Milan. The officer who delivers this letter will escort you to our frontier.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE FIRST REVOLUTION

DURING the month of June 1789 an event took place some 10,000 miles from Florence that was to have serious repercussions in Europe and, eventually, decide the fate of Isabella and Roger.

On the other side of the world, in the distant Pacific, Spanish and English seamen became involved in a local dispute that later threat­ened to develop into a world war. Many years earlier the Spaniards had sent expeditions from their South American ports northward along the Pacific coast on voyages of exploration. Mexico was already one of their oldest colonies, and they further claimed sovereign rights over the western seaboard all the way up to Alaska. More recently, one of their captains, named Perez, had, in 1774, discovered the harbour of Nootka Sound on the island of Vancouver. But Britain's great explorer, Captain Cook, paid a lengthy visit to the place four years later; and, as the Spaniards—apparently content with their rich possessions in Chile,

Mexico and Peru—showed no signs of developing this outpost in the far, cold north, it was assumed in Whitehall that it could now be regarded as British.

Owing to the wars that ensued during the next seven years the shipping of both nations was so fully occupied that the North American Pacific coast remained deserted. But from '85 numerous British vessels visited Nootka Sound to buy furs from the Indians. Then, in '88, Catherine II's greed for territory led to the Russians pushing eastwards across the Behinng Strait into Alaska. The Spaniards, alarmed for their theoretical sovereignty over lands first discovered by them, decided to bestir themselves. In the following summer, Flores, Viceroy of Mexico, sent the Captains Martinez and Haro north in the warships Princesa and San Carlos to occupy Nootka before a base could be established there by any other Power. On their arrival they found two English traders, the Iphigenia and Argonaut, in the Sound; upon which they seized the ships, imprisoned their British crews and sent them as captives to Mexico.

Nothing of this was known in Europe until many months later; but owing to it, had things taken only a slightly different turn, all history from that year might have entirely altered its course. The King and Queen of France might have escaped execution, the Revolution never culminated in a monstrous Terror, Napoleon Bonaparte never emerged to disrupt the lives of millions; and those two tiny pawns in the game, Roger and Isabella, might have met with a fate far removed from that which actually fell to them.

But in those middle days of June neither believed that they would ever meet again. Miserable but resigned, she was travelling south in her coach to Naples; while, filled with bitter rage and frustration, he was riding as though possessed by devils north-westward back across the Alps into France.

On learning of her departure there had been nothing that he could do. Nothing. In his saner moments he realized that he was extremely lucky to have escaped being hauled back to Florence and thrown into prison. So, electing to return to France by the shortest route, he had allowed himself to be escorted to the Tuscan frontier; and from there on endeavoured to allay his grief through the physical exertion of hard riding.

In any other circumstances he would have lingered among the treasures that Bologna, Modena, Parma, Piacenza and Turin had to show, and delighted in the landscapes of snow-capped mountains against blue skies as he wound his way through the Mont Cenis pass; but he dismounted only to eat and sleep; his eyes were blind and his heart numb from the belief that he had lost for good the love of a lifetime. On June 16th he arrived in Paris, half dead with fatigue, yet still consumed with unappeasable longings and such poignant grief that he felt he would never again be capable of taking a real interest in anything.

Next morning, although he woke early, he lay long abed; but eventually he felt that he could not stay there indefinitely and must sooner or later make an effort to pull himself together. It was a sub­conscious impulse to deaden the pain in his mind by employing himself with his original mission that had dictated his return to France; and he realized now that he must either go on to England with the object of resigning his task, or take it up again with such initiative as he could muster. If he adopted the first course he knew that it would lead to a brief interval of wild dissipation in London, followed by a long period of penniless brooding at his home in Lymington; moreover, it would probably mean the untimely end of a career which, despite its occasional dangers, provided him with everything that he normally prized most highly. On the other hand, the second course, while seeming at the moment dreary, fatiguing and lacking in all interest, would at least prevent him making a fool of himself. So, being at rock bottom a sensible young man, he decided on the latter.

When he had lived in Paris as secretary to Monsieur de Rochambeau he had often dined at La Belle Etoile in the Rue de l’Arbe Sec, and had come to know well the patron and his wife, a couple from Cabourg in Normandy, named Blanchard. In consequence, on his return in the previous April he had taken a room there; and, once more, the preceding evening, they had welcomed his reappearance. So, when he was dressed, he went downstairs and invited his old friend, the landlord, to join him