"It has indeed," Roger said thoughtfully. "And you would make me still further your debtor if, before I leave, I might consult you on various aspects of my mission."
"I had been about to suggest placing my small experience of life at the Court of Petersburg at your disposal. Would it suit you to dine with me at Brook's on Tuesday?"
"I'd be honoured, Sir; and more than grateful to you for your guidance."
Seeing that they had finished their semi-private conversation, Pitt leaned forward and said to Roger: "Have you spoken to Sir James with regard to some method of sending me your despatches privately?"
Before Roger could reply Harris did so for him. "We are meeting again next week, Sir, and I already have in mind a sound channel for that. There is, however, the, er—question of funds. My mission to Russia cost me twenty thousand pounds of my private fortune over and above my emoluments as Ambassador, and I should not like to think that Mr. Brook is to be out of pocket to even a twentieth of that amount."
"Nor I," laughed Pitt, and Carmarthen smiled affably across the table, as he said: "If you will be good enough to wait upon me at the Foreign Office, Mr. Brook, I will arrange both funds and passage for you."
The conversation then again became general until, at half-past eight, they left the table and the guests prepared to go back to London.
As Roger, now full of good port and inward excitement at the new prospects which the day had opened to him, was about to mount his horse, Pitt and Dundas warmly wished him every good fortune. Carmarthen and Harris he was to see again, so as they got into their carriage they only waved him a cheerful "good-night."
The carriage bowled swiftly down the drive, and as it passed out of the gates with Roger a hundred yards ahead, Carmarthen asked his friend: "What think you are the prospects of that young man's mission having profitable results?"
"None," answered Harris bluntly.
"Why so, Jimmy?" yawned his Lordship. "I thought him a likeable fellow; modest yet not slow to answer when addressed, and of good intelligence."
"He is all of that, and a man to mark; for he will, I believe, go far. But not in this."
"What reason have you for your pessimism?"
"The venue of the mission he has been given; and Billy Pitt is at fault in that. Having ever lived aloof from the world himself he still remains completely oblivious to the fact that other human beings are made of flesh and blood. Had it been otherwise he would have had more sense than to send this lad to Petersburg. We must afford him all the help we can, but he will fail there for a certainty."
"Why should he have a greater chance of success in any other capital?"
Harris gave a short, hard laugh. "Because, my friend, I will eat my Order of the Bath if, after one look at his fine figure and bonny blue eyes, that old bitch of an Empress does not order him to her bed. And I do not think young Mr. Brook will stand for that."
CHAPTER VIII
THE BAL MASQUE
O N April the 17th Roger landed at Copenhagen. It had been Sir James Harris's idea that an oblique approach to St. Petersburg would offer advantages not to be obtained by a direct descent upon it. The wily diplomat had pointed out that while Roger's plan of passing himself off as a Frenchman in the Russian capital was basically sound, he would be greatly handicapped if he arrived there with neither background nor introductions; whereas if he spent a few weeks in Denmark and Sweden on his way, he should be able to establish his new personality while in those countries, and later enter Russia adequately sponsored by friends that he had made while in the Scandinavian capitals.
It had transpired that the first available ship was sailing from Edinburgh about the 20th of the month, so Roger had had ample time to go down to Lymington and spend a few days with his mother before taking coach for the north. This visit to his home had also enabled him to have several additional conferences with Sir James, as the diplomat was about to be elevated to the peerage under the title of Baron Malmesbury for his part in bringing about the Triple Alliance; and, as member for Christchurch, he wished to secure the support of his constituents in the coming bye-election for his party's nominee. In consequence, two days after their dinner at Brook's, they travelled down into Hampshire together, and Roger had benefitted by much sage advice about his mission.
Quite apart from Sir James's great prestige in his own service he had most valuable personal relationships with other leading figures in it. His wife had been a Miss Amyand, and her sister had married Sir Gilbert Elliot, whose youngest sister was the wife of William Eden, the negotiator of the recent commercial treaty with France, and whose younger brother, Hugh, was now minister at Copenhagen. It had therefore been decided that no one could be better fitted to launch Roger into the Baltic scene than Mr. Hugh Elliot, and Sir James had furnished him with a letter for that purpose. He had also given him a letter for the Reverend William Tooke, the chaplain to the trading factory in St. Petersburg, where all cargoes of British goods shipped to the port were warehoused before being distributed. Sir James had described the clergyman as a shrewd, discreet fellow, long resident in Russia and possessing an encyclopaedic knowledge of Russian affairs. It was to him that Roger was to give his despatches, as he was admirably situated to pass them on to Mr. Alleyne Fitzherbert for transmission by Embassy bag to London.
While sailing up the Sound towards Copenhagen, through waters alive with shipping, Roger had been pleasantly impressed with the fertile, undulating country, studded with fine private houses set in well-wooded picturesque parks; and on landing he was similarly impressed by the Danish capital. Sixty years before it had been almost totally destroyed by a great fire, so all its principal buildings were comparatively modern, and it had a much more spacious air than any other city that he had so far visited.
Roger had travelled from Edinburgh as Monsieur le Chevalier de Breuc, and The Silver Hart having been recommended to him as the best inn at which to put up, he went straight to it and took rooms there in that name. As soon as he was settled into them he wrote a note in French to Mr. Elliot, simply saying that he had a letter for him from Sir James Harris and would be glad to know when it would be convenient to deliver it. The same evening a reply came back that the Minister would be happy to receive him at eleven o'clock the following morning.
Next day therefore he hired a horse and rode out to Christiansholm, the residential suburb in which the British Legation was situated, and found it to be a small but very beautiful villa. Immediately he was alone with Mr. Elliot he disclosed the fact that he was an Englishman and presented his credentials. Then, as the Minister gave him a quiet smile and settled down to peruse them, Roger had ample opportunity to study him at leisure and think over the outline of his history, which had been supplied by Sir James.
Hugh Elliot hailed from Minto in Roxburghshire and was the second son of a Scottish Baronet. He was educated for the Army but, owing to his father's friendship with Lord Suffolk, the Foreign Secretary of. the day, had, without being consulted by either, been appointed His Brittanic Majesty's Minister to the Elector of Bavaria, at the age of twenty-one. After a tour of duty in the charming and easy-going city of Munich he had been transferred at twenty-five to the much less agreeable but far more important post of Berlin. Here he fell in love with and married the beautiful Fraulein von Krauth, only to learn a few years later that she was deceiving him. At this juncture he had just been transferred to Copenhagen, and his romance ended by his secretly returning to Berlin to kidnap his own little daughter in the middle of the night, fighting a successful duel with his young wife's lover, and then divorcing her.
He was a rather frail-looking, fair-haired, blue-eyed Scot, now thirty-six years of age. Roger thought he looked considerably older, but attributed that to the tragic failure of his marriage.