The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware (30 page)

His only concern now was that Mary would feel compelled
to accompany Deborah on visits to him. But next morning, his fears on that score were allayed. Deborah came, accompanied by her aunt, and he learned from them that Mary had been stricken with an intermittent fever, which they attributed to fish poisoning. Whether she was actually ill or shamming, he had no means of knowing, but it certainly seemed probable that the shock she had sustained had resulted in her running a temperature. However, she would not be able to maintain for long that she was ill; so he decided that he must now get away from Lisbon as soon as possible and, when his visitors had gone, he asked his surgeon to enquire for him about passages to England.

The surgeon was averse to letting him leave his bed in less than a week, but when stitching up Roger's wound he had formed the opinion that it could not have been reopened in such a manner as a fall against a table. Suspecting from this that there was something unusual about the affair, he did not protest further when Roger asserted that most urgent business required his presence in London.

A passage was secured for Roger in a returning transport that was sailing from Lisbon four days later. He felt he ought to call at the Legation to make his farewells; but decided against it in case by then Mary had found it too difficult to sham illness any longer. So, on Lady Stuart's second visit to him, he begged her forgiveness for his apparent discourtesy, giving as his reason that he would have had to be taken to the Legation in an ambulance, as he was as yet forbidden to walk.

On April 22nd, an ambulance took him down to the dock and he was put aboard. Several other empty transports were in the convoy, and they were slow-going vessels, so it was not until May 6th that he landed at Portsmouth. But the passage had been a comparatively smooth one and, by then, his wound had healed again.

The following night he was in London and giving Droopy Ned an account of his adventures during the past three months. In the interim there had occurred no political upheavals. Mr. Perceval had succeeded in weathering the storms that had beset his early tenure of the office of Prime Minister. If not a brilliant man he was devout, honest, a very skilful Parliamentarian, and much beloved by his family and friends.

His most recent troubles had been the high price of gold, which had led to a Bill being passed enforcing the acceptance of banknotes as legal tender for any sum; and the continual cry of merchants from all quarters of the kingdom that they were being ruined by the measures taken by the Government in retaliation to Napoleon's Continental System. But Wellington's successes in the Peninsula had greatly heartened the war-weary nation.

The poor, aged King showed no sign of recovering from his madness. Bearded, blind and muttering crazily, he continued to live, now confined to his apartments at Windsor. Meanwhile, ‘Prinny' had got well into his stride as Regent. Although he greatly resented the way in which his powers had been restricted by the Regency Bill, he had at least made no further trouble for the Government by inciting his Whig friends to hamper it. Egotistical and disloyal by nature, it was typical that, except for Sheridan and a few minor cronies, he had abandoned his Whig friends now that it suited his interests to cultivate the Tories. He treated his unfortunate wife shamefully and continued to be grossly extravagant, both of which counts caused him to be very unpopular with the people.

But the London season was in full swing. The coverings on the furniture of the great mansions in the West End had been removed. In many of them servants, up to the number of fifty, scuttled about with brooms and
dusters, laboured in kitchens and laundries, carried endless cans of hot water up to the bedrooms, heated curling irons, uncorked bottles of wine by the dozen, or waited at table. Scores of footmen in gaily-striped waistcoats ran through the streets carrying messages by day or
flambeaux
by night, to light the way for their masters and mistresses. Carriages, coaches and sedan chairs frequently formed solid blocks in the narrow thoroughfares. Every night many thousand candles lit the great houses and in a dozen or more of them there were balls, concerts and routs from which the aristocratic revellers rarely came away before dawn. So, back at last in England, Roger could anticipate a gay and carefree summer.

Learning from Droopy that Georgina was in residence at Kew House in Piccadilly, the morning after he reached London he set off in high spirits to call on her.

As soon as they were alone, they embraced with their old fervour; but, having noticed his bad limp, Georgina quickly put him from her and demanded to know how he had come by it. Smiling, he told her only that he had been captured by brigands in Portugal and had been wounded when escaping from them, then asked when they could have a long session together.

‘Why not today?' she replied with a laugh. ‘Tonight I am bidden to the Duchess of Devonshire's ball and am to be escorted there, though 'tis only two hundred yards up the street, by my latest beau, young Lord Chalfont. But I'll send my Negro page with a message to put him off, and another to her Grace praying her to excuse me because I am plagued by a migraine. We'll take luncheon together here, then drive out to Kensington and spend the night there.'

So, to Roger's great satisfaction, the matter was arranged. Three o'clock found these lifelong lovers out at Georgina's studio and half an hour later in her big bed,
with no intention of leaving it except to partake of snacks until well into the following morning.

After they had made love with all their old ardour, with Georgina's head comfortably pillowed on his chest, Roger spent over an hour telling her how he had been accused of murder by the de Pombals, of his missions to Masséna and Soult, of his terrible twenty-four hours as the prisoner of
O Diabo
and, finally, of the calamitous ending of his affair with Mary.

When he had done Georgina said lazily, ‘The little fool. Girls like her who deliberately excite men's passions deserve all they get. I count her monstrous lucky to have lost her maidenhead to a man as chivalrous as yourself. Most gallants would have been greatly angered, told her it served her right, and refused to spare her blushes by leaving the house at considerable inconvenience to themselves. For having opened your wound in order to accommodate her, you deserve a martyr's crown. I can think of no other man who would have done the like.'

‘You are ungenerous to my sex, dear heart. In no other way could I account for the blood in the bed and get myself out of the Legation the following morning. I'm sure that any decent man would have acted as I did, had he spent many hours in Mary's company.'

‘Why so? Was she then so unusual bewitching?'

‘Indeed she was. I'd not rate her as a great beauty, though she had a most piquant face and enchanting figure. It was her personality that was so attractive. As I have told you, she is an orphan, has no fortune and, to maintain herself with any decency, she was almost entirely dependent on the charity of her friends; yet she faced a bleak future with unfailing gaiety. That she allowed me to fondle her was, I am convinced, not with any intent to lead me on, but because she is very passionate by nature and, since she was in love with me, could not subdue her cravings. Yet, unlike Lisala, she had not a trace of evil
in her, and during our games ever displayed a sweet modesty. She has, too, a high courage. Had she not attacked that
guarda
with her parasol, I'd not have escaped into the Legation but been dragged off to a Portuguese prison. Apart from yourself, dear love, and Amanda, I've never known a more joyous and delightful companion.'

Georgina sniffed. ‘Since you found her such a paragon and have ample money of your own, I wonder that you did not marry her.'

‘Is it likely?' he replied in quick remonstrance, giving her nearest curl a little tug. ‘You wicked piece! How dare you suggest such a thing when you are married to a man near twice your age. Old K can last but a year or two. And nothing would induce me to jeopardise my prospect of making you mine for ever, once the old fellow has snuffed it.'

She sighed. ‘Alas, dear Roger, I fear fate has decreed that we'll never be man and wife, at all events not for a long time to come. I've had no chance to tell you before, but early in April he had a stroke. He is now paralysed, poor wretch, and can neither rise from his bed nor talk. Yet the doctors declare him to be in all other respects as healthy as a man of fifty. His sexual activities apart, he has never indulged in any excesses. He gave up drink long ago that he might disport himself more vigorously in bed. Country pursuits and regular exercise have kept all his muscles in good trim and now he is fed only on simple, sustaining foods. With naught to age him further, the doctors say he may last another ten years.'

For some minutes Roger was silent, then he said, ‘What you tell me is a sad blow to my hopes. Even so, I have no mind to marry again, and I am now home for good. Half a loaf was ever better than no bread. As long as we can be together frequently, I'll be content with that.'

Lifting her face, she kissed him. ‘As a mistress, I am yours, and will be only yours as long as you remain in England. Now, my beloved, nibble my ears and make love to me again.'

For the rich it was a halcyon summer. Regardless of the eighteen long years of a war that still showed no prospect of ending, they danced, drank, gambled, duelled, gossiped and flirted. For the middle classes it was a period of increasing strain from shortage of money. More and more merchants went bankrupt and the rest were hard put to it to meet their bills. For the poor, it dragged by, in week after week of ever-greater penury and distress. The harvests had been bad or indifferent for many years in succession, so food was scarce and expensive. Owing to the decline in commerce, many thousands of workers had been laid off from the new factories. In the old days, the country folk had at least had their cottage industries to support them and, in hard times, their lords of the manor had regarded it as a duty to tide them over. But during the past five decades great numbers of workers had migrated to the towns and had become slave labour. The industrialists were hard men and felt no obligation to give money to hands for whom they could no longer find work. In consequence, the slums teemed with poor, idle, wretches, watching their children starve for lack of a crust.

For that Roger was no more to blame than others of his generation and station, few of whom were even aware of the misery being endured by their fellow men in the Midlands and northern towns.

Old Dan had, as ever, taken good care of Thatched House Lodge and, as Roger had not expected to be in Lisbon for much more than a month, he had kept on his excellent cook-housekeeper, Mrs. Muffet. A week after his arrival in London, he again took up his residence there, and sent for Mrs. Marsham and Susan to join him. Every
week he rode up to the metropolis and spent two or three nights there, sometimes escorting Georgina to big receptions and dancing the night away; at others with her in the delightful seclusion of her studio out at Kensington.

The war in the Peninsula dragged on. Masséna, having withdrawn from Portugal, had left as the fruit of his exhausting nine-month campaign and the loss of twenty-five thousand men, only the great fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida. Wellington proceeded to lay siege to the latter, while Masséna endeavoured to inject new life into his exhausted army in the neighbourhood of Salamanca. He had lost nearly all his cavalry and had not enough horses to pull his guns; but he had never lacked courage, and was determined not to let Wellington take Almeida without a fight. Being so heavily handicapped, he appealed to his colleague, Bessières, who was commanding in the north, for a loan of cavalry and artillery. The younger Marshal came to look on, but brought with him only fifteen hundred horse and a single battery. With some forty thousand men, Masséna marched to the relief of Almeida.

On May 5th, he found Wellington, with an army of some six thousand fewer than his own, blocking his path on the heights of Fuentes d'Oñoro. A two-day battle ensued. Twice Masséna sent his massed columns against the British line; both times the line held. But the Marshal had despatched a strong column round the southern flank of the British. This forced them to retire, but the French were too exhausted to follow them up and again fell back on Salamanca. A few days later General Brennier, the commander in Almeida, blew up the walls of the city and gallantly cut his way with his garrison through the besiegers. Thus fell the last stronghold held by the French on Portuguese soil.

Meanwhile the Emperor, furious at Masséna's having
abandoned the attempt to take Lisbon, had appointed the young and ambitious Marmont to supersede him. On the 12th May the great soldier who had held the bastion of Switzerland against the Russians in '98, while Bonaparte was in Egypt, made Napoleon's victory at Marengo possible by holding starving Genoa, played a leading part in a score of victories since and was accounted by the French people second only to the Emperor as a leader of armies, handed over his command. His career was finished.

There followed a series of marches and counter-marches. General Beresford, who had been detached to protect the British lines of communication against an attack from the south, had attempted to re-take Badajoz. Soult came up and the bloodiest battle of the whole war took place. The French lost six thousand men and, of the British army which totalled only eight thousand and narrowly escaped defeat, one out of every two men was either killed or wounded.

Having left a considerable part of his army to watch the French, who were again regrouping in the neighbourhood of Salamanca, Wellington marched south, but arrived too late to assist Beresford and, soon afterward, found himself confronted with the combined armies of Soult and Mortier. By stripping Leon and Andalusia of troops, they had mustered an army of sixty-two thousand men, whereas Wellington had only fifty-two thousand. Retiring behind the river Gaya, from June 22nd to the 4th July, with great anxiety, he awaited their attack. It never came. Soult learned that a Spanish army under General Blake was threatening Seville, so he marched away to defend the city that he had hoped to make his capital.