The Minister then said lie would send for his doctor; but Roger quickly protested, 'Nay, Your Excellency, I have already trespassed too much on the kindness of yourself and Lady Stuart. I could not bring myself to do so further. Besides, the wound must again be sewn up by a qualified surgeon; so I pray you have me removed to the hospital as soon as may be.'
Reluctantly Sir Charles and his wife agreed. A quarter of an hour later, Roger was carried downstairs by two footmen who accompanied him to the hospital where a bed in a ward was found for him. Gritting his teeth he again submitted to the painful business of being stitched up, then considered the problem of what his next move should be.
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, labored 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 revelers 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 oil 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 bidder, 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 Massena 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.'