The Rising Storm

you?'

'As far as I am concerned she is dead,' replied Roger tonelessly. Then, with a touch of his father the Admiral, he added in a voice that brooked no reply:

'Tenente. Be good enough to order your ship to sea.'

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE RISING STORM

ROGER had spent nine days and nights in Naples. During that time he believed himself to have been carried up to the highest peaks of human happiness and dashed down to the lowest depths of human misery. He had not only burnt the candle at both ends, but also burnt himself. For a week, lack of sleep, except for a few hours a day snatched when most other people were getting up, had made no impression on him. His splendid youth, fortified by love as by draughts of some Olympian nectar, had given him temporarily the buoyancy of a demigod. But the past forty-eight hours of uncertainty, strain and desperation had done what his physical excesses had failed to accomplish. His nerves were in shreds; he felt empty as a drum, mentally exhausted and absolutely at the end of his tether.

Yet, as he drove down to the harbour, the core of sound common sense, that acted as a balance to his highly strung nature, had enabled him to take stock of his position clearly.

It was seven months since he had first met Isabella. For one month of that time he had enjoyed a love idyll with her, and for one week a tornado of passion; but for close on half a year his love for her had deprived him of all his normal zest for life. The future offered no hope of a higher proportion of happiness against misery either for her or him.

Therefore, it seemed, there was only one sensible thing to do. If he wished for any contentment in the future he must exercise his will­power as he had never done before. Each time he thought of Isabella, instead of letting his mind dwell upon her, as he had previously, he must force himself to think of something else. He must cut her right out of his life, and henceforth regard her as though she had died that night.

On his return voyage to Marseilles the weather did not favour him as it had on his outward trip. For a good part of the time it rained and blew, but not sufficiently to make him sea-sick; and so that he should not have time to brood he spent all his waking hours helping the crew with the sails and winches. On the evening of Tuesday, November 24th, after six days at sea, he said good-bye to Lieutenant Godolfo and stepped ashore. Then, knowing how anxious Madame Marie Antoinette would be to learn the result of his mission, he took post-chaise first thing next morning, sustained three days and nights of appalling jolting, and arrived in Paris at midday on the 28th.

He was, once more, incredibly tired from his arduous journey and, feeling that his reappearance at the Tuileries might arouse comment, he wished to make it at a time when it was least likely to attract atten­tion. The next day was a Sunday, and knowing that the Sovereigns received the Foreign Ministers on that day, he felt that it would offer as good an opportunity as any; so he slept the clock round at La Belle Etoiley and made his way to the palace on the following afternoon.

There he found things much as he had left them. The Royal Family had practically no privacy. The garden was full of idlers staring in at the windows, and 800 National Guards were posted in and about the building; there were groups of them lounging in all the halls and principal rooms, and sentries on the staircases and at almost every door.

Mingling with the crowd of diplomats and such courtiers as continued to attend the royal receptions, he made his way upstairs. Most of the Ambassadors were known to him by sight, but there were not many people there with whom he had ever exchanged more than a few words, and, with one exception, to those who addressed him he mentioned casually that for the past three weeks he had been absent from Paris on a trip to England.

The exception was Lord Robert Fitz-Gerald, who was still acting as the British Charge'd'Affaires pending the appointment of a new Ambas­sador. They had met several times at the far more brilliant receptions of a similar nature held at Versailles, and Lord Robert knew from Mr. Hailes of Roger's secret activities. Roger was responsible only to Mr. Pitt, and his connection with the Embassy was limited to using it as a post-office and a bank; but, as a matter of courtesy, he thought it proper to inform Lord Robert where he had actually been; and, having done so in a low voice, he added that he would be making a full report of his journey direct to the Prime Minister.

At the entry of the Sovereigns a human lane was formed and the usual procedure gone through. Roger had placed himself in a position where the Queen could hardly fail to see him, and, on doing so, she gave a faint start, then a little nod of recognition; but she did not beckon him towards her. For the better part of an hour the King and Queen talked to various people each for a few moments, then they withdrew.

The company did not disperse at once, as these bi-weekly receptions of the Corps Diplomatiquewere a good opportunity for the representa­tives of the foreign Powers to exchange news and conduct informal business; so Roger was able to remain among them inconspicuously while waiting to be sent for, as he felt sure he would be in due course.

Presently a fair woman, some five or six years older than the Queen, paused near him. As he took in her large gentle eyes and air of tender melancholy, she gave him a faint smile. He was somewhat surprised, as, although he recalled having seen her at the Tuileriesbefore his departure for Naples, he did not know her; but he at once returned her smile and made her a bow.

She sank in a curtsy and, as she rose from it, murmured: 'Monsieur. J’ai suis la Princess de Lamballe.'

Her whispered introduction at once recalled to Roger all he had heard about her. She was said to be not overburdened with brains, but very pious and extremely charitable. She had married the only son of the immensely rich Due de Penthievre, so was the sister-in-law of the Due d'Orleans, but, unlike him, she was wholly attached to the Queen. After only a year of marriage her husband died, so she had devoted her­self to good works on her father-in-law's estates; but on coming to Court for the wedding celebrations of Madame Marie Antoinette, the young Dauphine had taken a great fancy to her, begged her to remain and made her Superintendent of her Household.

For some six years she had remained the Queen's closest friend; until the latter began to frequent the gayer company of Madame de Polignac. Then, for the ten years that followed, the Princess had again given most of her time to improving the conditions of the peasants on her father-in-law's estates, so that she had become known throughout the Province as 'the good angel'. During the terrible events that had taken place at Versailles early in October she had been at Rambouillet; but, immediately on hearing of them, she had courageously driven through the night to Paris, arrived at the Tuilerieson the morning of the 8th, and at once resumed her old place as the Queen's first lady and confidante.

For a few minutes Roger exchanged the type of banalities with her that might have passed between two acquaintances who had not met for a few weeks; then she dropped her handkerchief. As he picked it up he felt the stiffness of a piece of paper in its folds. Guessing it to be a note for him, he swiftly palmed the paper before handing the hand­kerchief back to her. After a few more airy exchanges she left him; then he strolled out of the room, and as soon as he could find a corridor in which he would be unobserved, read the note. It ran:

My apartments are above these. Please go to them. Show this note to my maid and she will let you in. Wait there until I conjoin you.

Unhurriedly, so as not to attract attention, he followed the directions he had been given. In the ante-room he found an elderly maid busy with some mending. At sight of the note she led him through to a salon, and asked him to take a seat by the fire.

After about ten minutes the Princess de Lamballe came in, and locked the door of the ante-chamber behind her. With no more than a smile in response to Roger's bow, she walked across the salon to a door at its far end, and disappeared through it. Wondering what these mystifications portended, Roger sat down again. He had not long to wait for an answer. Within two minutes the door opened and the Princess came out, but this time she was preceded by the Queen. Evidently the two sets of apartments were connected by a secret stair­case in the thickness of the wall, and the Queen was now coming up to Madame de Lamballe's rooms whenever she wanted to prevent it becoming known that she was giving anyone a private audience.

Roger thought her looking somewhat better than when he had last spoken to her; but she had aged a lot in the past few months, and he noticed a slight nervous twitching of her hands as she asked him about his mission.

With a cheerful smile he at once assured her that it had been successful and presented the letter he had