The Rising Storm

outbreaks of disorder in Versailles and the Provinces, and rumours of plots of all sorts, to be investigated. He continued to attend the Queen's public receptions occasionally, went frequently to the National Assembly and spent several evenings each week at the Jacobin Club. He kept in dose touch with de Perigord and, now fully convinced of his fundamental loyalty to the Crown, confided to him the secret alliance that had been entered into between de Mirabeau and the Sovereigns; in ex­change for which he received much valuable information. In turn he dined with de la Marck, Fersen, de Cazales, Barnave, de Mercy-Argenteau, Desmoulins, and many other men of all shades of opinion.

He was quieter, graver and much more sure of himself than when he had come to Paris in the spring; but he was enormously interested in his work, had regained much of his old natural cheerfulness, and now rarely thought of Isabella.

It was on the afternoon of February 14th that he received a note by hand from Lord Robert Fitz-Gerald. It read simply: A certain person requires your immediate presence in London.

That night he was in the fast diligence, rumbling along the road towards Calais. The weather was filthy and the diligence an ice-box, the straw on its floor barely keeping the feet of the passengers from freezing; and he thanked his stars that he had decided against making the trip home for Christmas, when it had been even colder. But only a moderate sea was running and the wind was favourable, so on the 17th the Dover coach set him down at Charing Cross.

Tired as he was, he went straight to Downing Street; and only ten minutes after he had sent up his name he was ushered into the Prime Minister's room.

After greeting him pleasantly and offering him a glass of Port, Mr. Pitt came to the point with his usual directness. He said:

'Mr. Brook, I recalled you from Paris because I wish you to proceed at once to Spain.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

ON THE BEACH

FOR a moment Roger was silent. A mission to Spain could only mean that the Prime Minister was sending him to Madrid. It would take him a fortnight or three weeks to get there. Isabella's baby was due to be born in little over a month. The Condesa Fernanunez had said that after Isabella's lying-in the Sidonia y Ulloas would be certain to spend some months in Madrid making their court to the new King and Queen. So if he went there it was a virtual certainty that he would see Isabella again within six or seven weeks.

'I am sorry, sir,' he said. 'But I cannot go to Spain.'

'Cannot I' Mr. Pitt repeated, raising his eyebrows in astonishment. 'That, Mr. Brook, is a word which I do not permit those I employ to use to me.'

'Nevertheless,' said Roger, 'much as I regret to have to do so, I fear I must use it now. I am extremely sorry, but I cannot go to Spain.'

'Why?' asked the Prime Minister coldly. 'Have you committed some crime which would make you non persona grata at the Court of Madrid?'

'No, sir. It is a purely personal matter. I will willingly go anywhere else that you may choose to send me, but not to Madrid.'

'But I do not wish to send you anywhere else. I have special work of urgent importance that I wish you to undertake for me in the Spanish capital.'

'Then, greatly as it distresses me to refuse you, sir, I fear you must find someone else to do it.'

The Prime Minister's long, thin face paled slightly, and he said with extreme hauteur: 'Mr. Brook, your personal affairs cannot be allowed to interfere with the business of the State. Either you will accept the orders that I give you or find another master.'

Roger's face went whiter than Mr. Pitt's. He had been shocked into an abruptness that he did not intend. 'I—I pray you, sir, reconsider this matter,' he faltered. 'I now have excellent contacts in Paris, and have good reason to believe that I am serving you well there. I beg you to send somebody else to Spain and allow me to return to France.'

'On the contrary,' replied Mr. Pitt sharply, 'I am by no means satisfied with your activities in Paris. In my opinion you have become involved with the wrong type of people. On the one hand you have entered on what may be termed a conspiracy with the Austrian Ambas­sador to forward the reactionary projects of the Queen in opposition to the new democratic Government; and that is contrary to the interests of this country. On the other you have entered into an alliance with Monsieur de Talleyrand-Perigord. Having met him when I was in France I have a great admiration for his intellectual gifts; but he has proved himself to be an iconoclast of the most dangerous description, and as he is completely unscrupulous it is certain that he will use you for his own ends.

'Lastly, there is this story of yours about a rapprochement between Monsieur de Mirabeau and the Queen. One might as well try to mix oil and water, and I do not believe there is one grain of truth in it. Except upon purely general matters the information you have been sending is in complete contradiction to that furnished by the British Embassy, and I can only conclude that you are being made a fool of by de Perigord and your other friends.'

Utterly flabbergasted, Roger stared at him in dismay. Then he burst out angrily: ' 'Tis the British Embassy that is being fooled, not I; as time will show.'

'You must pardon me if I doubt that. In any case, I have decided to send another man to Paris. But in the past you have shown much courage and initiative, and I had hopes that you would recover them by a change of scene. Are you, or are you not, prepared to receive my instructions for this mission to Madrid?'

'No!' declared Roger firmly. 'I am not.'

The Prime Minister stood up. 'Very well then, Mr. Brook, It only remains for me to thank you for your endeavours in the past, and to wish you success in some other career. This evening I will have a word with His Grace of Leeds and request him to have your accounts looked into. If you will wait upon His Grace some time next week he will see to it that you receive any monies that may be due to you.'

Five minutes later Roger found himself in the street. He was utterly bewildered at the course events had taken, and wondered now if he had acted like a fool in refusing the mission to Spain. But, almost at once, he decided that he had been right to do so. Both Isabella and he had suffered too much from their affaire for it to be anything but madness to renew it, and that would have been inevitable if he had given way to Mr. Pitt and gone to the Court of Madrid. She would soon have her child about which to build her life, and for the past two months the vision of her had ceased to obsess him; so of two evils he felt sure he had chosen the lesser. Yet the price he had had to pay filled him with dismay. He could hardly realize it yet, but he was now, as his father the Admiral would have said, 'on the beach'. No, worse! For him there was no chance at all of another ship; he was a man without a future.

Mr. Pitt, meanwhile, was much annoyed at Roger's refusal of his mission, as he had counted on him for it. In less than three years Roger had been instrumental in checking two serious foreign aggressions that threatened to lead to war, and the Prime Minister had felt that his peculiar flair for such situations might help in arresting another.

Having become Prime Minister at the age of twenty-four, Mr. Pitt naturally did not share the common belief that a man must reach middle-age before he could be entrusted with discretionary powers in matters of high policy. There had been no British Ambassador at Madrid since the previous June, so, until a new one could be ap­pointed, he had intended to send Roger there with Letters of Marque which would have given him wide scope for his talents, and he felt aggrieved both at the upsetting of his own plans and that his young protege should have missed such an excellent chance to distinguish himself. On the other hand, as he knew much more about Mr. Brook's private affairs than that young man supposed, he was not altogether sorry that his insubordination had offered the opportunity to give him a sharp lesson.

It was not that he wished to reduce Roger to a cautious, hum-drum collector of information; as to have attempted it would have deprived him of the use of his most valuable assets—imagination and initiative —but he did want him to develop a greater sense of responsibility regarding his work.

Mr. Pitt had no personal animus against Madame Marie Antoinette, but since her removal to the Tuileries he had had no confirmation of Roger's story that her life was in danger, and he saw no reason why he should pay him to further her intrigues.

In the matter of de Perigord he had been much influenced by the opinion of his old preceptor and friend Bishop Tomline, and he recalled the positive horror that had shaken the poor Bishop when he had learned of de Perigord's bill to rob the Church of all its property in France. As a fiscal measure there might be sound arguments