Exercising an iron control over feet that itched to run, he sauntered slowly across the hall and upstairs to his room. Having collected his cloak he slipped quickly down a flight of back stairs to a side entrance, and so out into the garden. Darkness had come, and despite the warmth of the day the November night was chilly. Drawing his cloak about him, he slid like a shadow between the oleanders along a path to the road, then turning, he set off in yard-long strides up the hill.
Within a quarter of an hour he found the villa. It was a big house standing in about three acres of its own grounds. Its front facade was in complete darkness, except for a lantern above the porch. He walked some way round the wall that encircled the garden, hoping to get a full view of the back of the house; but that proved impossible, owing to intervening trees. As far as he could see there were no lights in the upper windows. A sudden depression descended on his mind like a damp, cold hand, as it occurred to him that Isabella might be out at some party and not be returning until the small hours of the morning.
To find out if she was or was not there now seemed more than ever a matter of desperate urgency. Feverishly he began to hunt for a foothold in the wall. After a few minutes' search he found one, stuck the toe of his boot in it, kicked off hard with his other foot, grabbed the top of the wall and hauled himself up till he was astride its coping.
He could see better now. There were lights in three of the downstairs windows. Instantly his depression lifted. Dropping down on the far side of the wall, he thrust his way through a screen of bushes and emerged on to a path. Treading gently now he advanced towards the house. The path ran round a fish-pond, and as he skirted it he could see the lighted windows only from an oblique angle. It was not until the path turned inward again, quite near the house, that he could see into the room on to which the three tall windows gave.
His view was partially obscured by muslin drapes, but the heavy brocade curtains behind them had not been drawn, so between the drapes three diamond-shaped sections of the interior were visible. The room was long but of only medium height; the windows ran almost up to its ceiling, and Roger now saw that the centre one was really a pair of narrow double-doors that opened on to the garden. He took another few paces forward to get a more direct view of the room. As he did so a section of a woman's skirt, beyond the nearest muslin drape, came into his line of vision. Next moment he could see the whole figure. It was Isabella.
She was sitting in a low chair reading a book, and as she read she occasionally took a puff at a long cheroot. Roger knew that many Spanish ladies smoked. He had never seen Isabella do so before, but it occurred to him that perhaps she had been unable to obtain tobacco in that form in France.
His heart was pounding like a sledge-hammer in his chest. Had he, six nights before in Paris, been presented with a djinn out of the Arabian Nights to do his bidding, it could not have served him better than his own endurance and luck. He could hardly believe it to be true that he had really found his adorable Isabella again—and found her alone. But there she was, within a dozen yards of him. He had only to open the french window and walk through it to hold her in his arms.
It remained only to let her know of his presence without frightening her and causing her to alarm her household. Stooping, he picked up a few little pieces of lava, from which the path he was standing on was made; then he threw one gently at the window.
At the faint tap it made she looked up, but after a second reverted to her reading. He threw two more in quick succession. She looked up again, staring straight towards him now, yet not seeing him outside in the dark. He threw another. She closed her book, put down her cheroot, stood up, came over to the window, and opening it a little, called in Spanish: 'Who is there?'
Roger's voice came in a whisper: ' 'Tis I, dear heart.'
Isabella stiffened as though she had been struck with a whip; then her hands began to tremble violently, and she almost whimpered:
He too was quivering as he stepped out of the shadows. She swayed towards him, her arms outstretched. He sprang to meet her, and drew her into an embrace so fierce that it threatened to crush the very bones of her body. Her mouth found his, and melted under it in a delirious, half-swooning kiss.
Nine hours later, just as dawn was breaking, she let him out of the french window, and he stole across the silent garden to the place where he had entered it over the wall. As he straddled it and dropped down on the far side he could well have exclaimed with joy—as did Henry VIII on greeting his courtiers the morning after he had been married to Cathrine of Aragon—'Gentlemen, this night I have been in the midst of Spain.'
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE EARTHLY PARADISE
THOSE nine hours that Roger spent with Isabella in her great canopied bed passed for the reunited lovers as though they had been no more than ninety minutes. Neither closed an eye except momentarily to savour better the cup of pleasure, and they were not even called upon to control their transports from fear of being overheard. Isabella's bedroom lay above the garden-room where Roger had found her, and the previous owner of the villa—a beautiful Neapolitan who had been notorious for her
The only other entrance to the bedroom lay through an antechamber in which Maria slept at night. She was in Isabella's confidence and entirely to be trusted. When Isabella had called her in, and she saw Roger, her fat, honest face had glowed with delight, and she ran to kiss his hand. Now that her mistress was married she would have thought her mind unhinged by shock had she failed to reward her lover for his faithfulness and restraint while she was still unwed. She had gone downstairs and smuggled them up a supper of oysters, cold truffled pheasant pie, tartlets, fruit and wine; then left them to take their joy of one another. So, at long last, when the gods had decided to be kind to these two young people they had grudged them nothing.
Although the lovers had so much to say to one another, the golden hours sped by so swiftly that when they exchanged their parting kiss it seemed they had said almost nothing. Yet, as Roger made his way, feeling as though he walked on air, back to his hotel, he realized that they had talked of many things.
First, and most important, there were the arrangements for their meeting again. To his unbounded joy there was no impediment to his passing every night with Isabella until her husband returned with Their Majesties from Sicily. But that was not enough; they were greedy for every hour, for every moment, that they could spend in one another's company, and Isabella had declared that the solution to their problem lay in Roger's immediate introduction to Neapolitan society.
Her grief at losing him had equalled his at losing her, but she had found some consolation in life at Naples. She had expected to find herself virtually a prisoner, hedged about with the same restraints and wearisome etiquette that made existence so dreary for ladies of high rank at the Court of Madrid; but that had not proved the case.
Although King Ferdinand was a Spaniard, during his reign of thirty years various causes had gradually whittled away the Spanish influence in his Kingdom. His father, Don Carlos, while still once removed from the Spanish throne, had conquered Naples and made himself its King; but to win the goodwill of the Neapolitans he had given them a treaty guaranteeing that the crowns of Spain and Naples should never be merged upon one head. So, when his half-brother died in 1759, and he ascended the throne of Spain—his eldest son, Phillip, being an idiot—he had made his second son, Carlos, Prince of the Asturias and heir to the Spanish crown, and given his third son, Ferdinand, Naples as an independent Kingdom.
Ferdinand, then only a boy of eight, had ruled by a Council of Regency, dominated by his tutor Tanucci; but a year after Ferdinand attained his majority he had married the Archduchess Maria Carolina of Austria. The marriage treaty had stipulated that she should have a say in all affairs of State; and, being a strong-willed young woman, she soon got him under her thumb. She had allied herself with the Neapolitan nobility, succeeded in getting Tanucci dismissed, and reversed his policy. Queen Caroline had not gone to the length of attempting to break the Bourbon Family Compact, so Naples was still allied to France and Spain; but in the twenty-one years that she had now been Ferdinand's consort she had modelled his Court on that of Vienna, instead of Madrid, and done away with all the hidebound etiquette with which the Spaniards surrounded royalty.
There were still several great Spanish families, such as the Novinos, Santa Marias and d'Avilas, living in Naples; but they had intermarried with the Sambucas, Monteliones, della Roccas, and other ancient Neapolitan houses; so now formed part of one aristocracy.
Isabella said that after the glittering Court of Versailles she found these petty princes and their ladies very provincial, but far nicer than the French. As Sovereigns, King Ferdinand and Queen Caroline left much to be desired.
