A look of consternation suddenly appeared on Droopy's face and he blurted out, 'Oh, Roger, my dear! How can I tell you? But she married again, only a se'nnight since. She is now Her Grace the Duchess of Kew.'
10
A Limited Compensation
During the long years since Roger had run away from home to escape having to become a midshipman, Fate had dealt him many savage blows; but never one so shattering as this. His eyes wide with surprise and shock, he stared at his friend and whispered:
'It can't be true!'
Droopy Ned shook his head. 'Alas, dear Roger, it is. Like myself, she believed you dead. We both received your letters written in a cell for the condemned, and with mine there was a cutting from a Berlin news sheet. It stated that you had been executed that morning.'
"The article had been printed overnight, before it was known that Marshal Davout had succeeded in getting my sentence commuted to ten years' imprisonment.'
'Thank God for that. But we never learned of it. Georgina and I both mourned you as dead. She was so stricken that she shut herself up for ten days and refused to see anyone. Then she wore black for you for three months, as though you had been her husband.'
'But, dam'me Ned, to marry again! Before she wed von Haugwitz she had remained a widow for years. Why, in God's name, should she again rush into matrimony so swiftly?'
With a shrug of his narrow shoulders, Droopy replied, 'Several factors I think contributed to that. She told me that with your death all that was best in her life had ended. Her youth was over, and all zest for pleasure gone. She must resign herself to middle age. Her father's death, coming shortly after we received news of yours, was also a big blow to her.'
'What! Colonel Thursby dead?'
'Yes, of a heart seizure in mid-July.'
'Oh, poor Georgina!' Roger exclaimed. "Twas he who furnished her fine mind with a thousand matters that are closed books to most women, and so enabled her to enchant her friends with intellect as well as beauty. He came second only to myself in her affections; and spent a great part of each year with her. I, too, shall miss him sadly, for he was more a father to me than my own. But why, Ned, why if she sought distraction from her sorrows, must she marry, of all people, old K? He must be near twice her age, and has a most unsavoury reputation.'
'Old K', as the Duke of Kew was popularly known, was indeed a far from pleasant character. He was immensely rich and a great patron of the Turf. He had a big house at Newmarket and, when younger, had often backed himself to win a sackful of guineas by competing either in horse races or driving a tandem. But he was a slovenly man who took no care for his appearance, often going about in awful old clothes and a battered hat. This, and other eccentricities, together with his well-known lewdness and lechery, had long made him notorious.
Again Droopy shrugged. 'I think she was in so sad a state that she cared not what became of her. He had pursued her all through last season; and, you may recall, she had oft boasted that she would become a Duchess before her hair turned grey. It may be that in accepting him she felt she was bowing to a decree of Fate.'
'Well, she's got her full coronet of strawberry leaves,' Roger said bitterly, 'and left me to moan the loveliest dream of my life.'
Taking him by the arm, Droopy said, 'Come, Roger, let us go upstairs. A glass of wine will at least make you feel no worse.'
'A glass!' Roger gave a harsh laugh. 'Tis a bottle I need; nay, a dozen.'
And he meant what he said. When, on returning to the West Indies at the end of 1795, he had learned that his wife, Amanda, had recently died in giving birth to their daughter, Susan, he had made himself drunk for a week. Now he followed that precedent and, for days, never left his bedroom while emptying bottle after bottle of Madeira. In vain Droopy begged him to moderate his potations, fearing that he would do himself an injury; but he remained maudlin and almost silent day after day while nursing his grief.
Lord Edward Fitz-Deverel was an unusual character for the age in which he lived. He abhorred all blood sports, horses, and any form of exercise. His interests lay in ancient religions, collecting antique jewellery and experimenting on himself with Eastern drugs. On the eighth morning after Roger had become his guest, he was amusing himself by translating a Greek papyrus that had come from Egypt. To his surprise, Roger came into his room, freshly shaven and dressed with his usual, almost foppish, elegance. The only signs of his long debauch were a slight watering of his eyes and the redness of his face. Sitting down, he crossed his silk stockinged legs and said:
'Well, Ned. I fear I've behaved like a very sot this past week; but, at least I've got the plaguey bile out of my system. I'm now as resigned as ever I am like to be to Georgina's having married.'
'Zeus be praised for that/ Droopy replied, rubbing his high-bridged nose with a long, slender finger. 'And what now are your plans? You know that, as ever, you are welcome to stay here as long as you wish.'
"Thanks, Ned. I'll gladly accept your hospitality until
I can settle on how to occupy myself in the future. But tomorrow I'd like to go down to Stillwater’s and spend a night or two there. That is, if Georgina has left my little Susan in her Great-Aunt Marsham's care.'
'She has, at least for the present, while she is-er- during these first weeks of her marriage.'
Roger gave a cynical laugh. 'You would have said, "while she is on her honeymoon", eh? Though how she can bring herself to pleasure that old roué passes my comprehension. But we'll not dwell on that. I'll take a stroll round the town now, and buy some gee-gaws for my daughter.'
On her return to England in the spring, Georgina had given Droopy a true account of the events at Schloss Langenstein, so that evening Roger had only to relate the story of his imprisonment and escape.
Next morning he rode the twenty miles to Stillwater’s, near Ripley in Surrey, which had long been Georgina's home. The day following his arrival, Droopy Ned had sent a messenger down to let Mrs. Marsham and Susan know that Roger was not dead; so they received no shock when he entered the house and greeted them. As for the greater part of his manhood he had lived abroad, his daughter was almost a stranger to him; so he was most agreeably surprised when she cried out with delight and threw herself into his arms.
Susan was now nearly fifteen and well developed for her age. She had her mother's auburn hair, freckles and blue eyes, with a feminine version of Roger's finely-chiselled features. There could be no doubt that, within a few years, she would be one of the toasts of the town. He felt justly proud of her, and her joy in seeing him again greatly added to his pleasure in giving her the costly furs and jewels suitable to her age that he had brought with him.
But before he had been in the house for long he was overcome by the same depression he had felt during his last visit, when Georgina had been in Germany and married to von Haugwitz. The stately mansion, with its lovely garden, woods and lake, gave him little pleasure now that they were no longer animated by her gay spirit. As he wandered about the splendid, lofty, now empty salons, he was filled with nostalgia as he recalled the days when they had been crowded with statesmen, poets, ambassadors, painters and lovely women. A visit to the suite so often occupied by Colonel Thursby caused him new grief at the loss of that gentle, clever and dear friend; while Georgina's rooms, their fine furniture now under covers, brought home to him more strongly than ever the bitter disappointment he had suffered on learning that it was now no longer possible for him to make her his wife. Sitting down on the side of her big bed he thought of the way in which they had often frolicked in it, and was near to bursting into tears.