'What did you see, my poor sweet?' Roger asked her frantically. 'Tell me! Tell me! What did you see?'
She groaned again. 'They . . . they're going to hang him. He ... he was standing beneath ... beneath a tree. It was in a long avenue. There were . . . French soldiers round him. They . . . Oh God! ... his hands were tied behind him and . .. and they were just about to put the noose of a rope round the neck of a comrade standing near him.'
Roger signed to Jane to leave them, then took both Georgina's hands and said firmly, 'Light of my life, I do not believe one word of this. The whole thing is a fantasy.'
'But I saw it! I saw it. And my crystal never lies to me. Remember how in the autumn of 1809 I saw you with a pastor in a cell for the condemned. We persuaded ourselves it was a glimpse of the past, when you were in Guildford gaol. But it was not. I was seeing you many months later, after you were tried for murder in Berlin.'
'True, but I was reprieved. And this vision of yours lacks all credulity. Charles is an officer, and officers condemned to death are shot. They are never hanged.'
'Roger, I saw it as clearly as I see you now. That avenue of tall trees and Charles standing among their fallen leaves with . . . with other prisoners who were already hanging from the branches of the trees.'
'It would then be in the autumn.'
'Yes, yes, it was autumn. 'Twas this morning he was captured. Of that I'm certain. But in a few months' time he ... he'll do something ... then ... oh, is there nothing we can do to save him ?'
As her big eyes, misty with tears, stared into Roger's, he knew what she was thinking. He knew, too, that she would not ask it of him; but there was something that could be done, and he was the only man in England who might be able to do it.
On the Continent, wherever France's writ ran, he was Colonel Comte de Breuc, a Commander of the Legion of Honour and an A.D.C. to the Emperor. He had for years formed one of Napoleon's intimate circle, and a single prisoner would mean nothing to a man whose prison camps held many, many thousands. He had only to go to the Emperor and ask for an order for Charles's release, and he had not the least doubt that it would be given him.
Through Roger's mind raced distressing thoughts of what such a commitment would entail. He had vowed never again to leave England until the war was over. His desperate craving to be done with risks and to lead a life of ease must go by the board. Once more he must face the chance that he would be found out to be an English secret agent. But that was not all. There was Mary. She had been settled into her new home barely a month. Must the man she loved so devotedly be snatched from her, and her happiness be turned for many weeks into miserable anxiety at the thought that she might have lost him for good?
It was not as though he could hope to accomplish such a mission in a fortnight by a swift crossing of the Channel and return. The Emperor was in Germany and Charles in Spain. To reach northern Germany, ride all the way across the Rhineland through France, find Charles, secure his release, then get home, could easily take two months.
But wait! Was it necessary to go to the Emperor? No. Roger knew King Joseph well, and Napoleon's eldest brother was a kindly man. It was men of his army who had captured Charles, and he could easily be persuaded to give an order for the boy's release. To go direct to Spain would save a month or more. And time was important, for any unforeseen delay in the much longer journey could mean not reaching Spain until the autumn, and perhaps too late.
Roger had as good as made up his mind that he must inflict a month or so of misery on poor little Mary when another thought struck him. If Georgina's vision had been a true one, no order for Charles's release could prevent his standing beneath a tree about to be hanged. In that case, any attempt to save him must prove, as near as made no odds, futile.
Again his thoughts raced furiously. Himself apart, Georgina loved her son more than anyone in the world. How could he possibly tell her that, unless the crystal had misled her, there was no hope for him ? Besides, while there is life, there is always hope. She had not seen Charles hanging, only about to be hanged. It might be that his captors were only threatening him with death as a means of wringing some information from him. That was a possibility as slender as a gossamer thread. On such a chance to shatter poor little Mary's happiness and resume the dangerous game that, with fantastic good fortune, he had survived for so long was, when regarded cooly, sheer madness.
But wait! Perhaps Georgina's vision had been sent her as a warning—a warning of a fate likely to overtake Charles unless some action was taken to prevent it. There had been many instances of people who had appeared to stand no hope whatever of escaping execution, yet had been saved from death by some quite unexpected intervention. All forecasts of future events were, Roger knew, no more than probable indications of the course fate would take. None were inevitable.
With sudden resolution he took Georgina's hands firmly in his and said:
'I will go to Spain and spare no effort in an attempt to save him.'
13
To Go, or not to Go
It was with a heavy heart that Roger rode home that afternoon, to face Mary and tell her of the scurvy trick fate had played them. Anxiously he wondered how she would take the news that he must leave her. Very badly, he was certain, and he was terribly distressed at the thought of the grief he must inflict on her.
He was also grimly conscious of his own misfortune. Gone was the future to which he had looked forward for so long: to leading the life of a well-to-do gentleman of leisure, mingling with high society at gay balls and routs, frequenting the most exclusive clubs and discussing there with the best informed men of the day the latest news from courts and camps, pleasant visits to Brighton and big country houses, sleeping always in comfortable beds, hearing Mary's merry laughter daily, having Susan and Droopy to stay and, as a priceless spice to life, from time to time renewing his youth by revelling in a hectic night with his beloved Georgina.
Instead, he was doomed, for a time at least, to a renewal of the hard and dangerous existence he had led for so long. He knew from bitter past experience how easy it was, once on the Continent as Colonel Comte de Breuc, to become involved in hazardous undertakings. They could lead to having to spend days on end in the saddle until he was half-dead from exhaustion, to sleeping wrapped in a cloak on the hard ground, to coming unexpectedly face to face with someone who knew him to be an Englishman and who might denounce him as a spy; or, once again, having to gallop through smoke and musket balls carrying orders from Napoleon during one of his battles and fearing every moment to be killed or maimed for life.
But Mary was his immediate worry. In vain he had racked his brain for a way to soften the blow, but there was no avoiding having to deliver it. However, on one aspect of the matter his mind was made up. In no circumstances must she be allowed to know that it was for Georgina's sake that he was leaving her. And, fortunately, he thought he had the means of preventing her suspecting that.
Following a procedure he had decided upon during his ride from London, when Mary ran out of the house to greet him as he crossed the garden from the stable yard, he gave her only a pale smile and kissed her in a slightly off-handed manner. When she asked him how he had enjoyed his dinner the previous night, he replied, 'Oh, well enough,' then said that after freshening himself up he had some letters he must write.
Although he did not put pen to paper, he remained in his small library until the gong sounded for dinner, moodily contemplating the distressing task before him. Over the meal he appeared distrait and answered Mary's questions only very briefly. She waited until the parlourmaid had put the dessert on the table and left the room. Then she asked with deep concern: