1 Overtures for Peace! ' Grenville exclaimed, taking the first letter. ' And from the Corsican, of all people! I can scarce believe it.' Breaking the seals of Bonaparte's letter, he opened it and quickly read it through. As he laid it down on the counterpane, he said:
' It has the air of honesty and must receive our most earnest consideration. As soon as I have risen I will take it to the Prime Minister.'
' How soon can Your Lordship expect to hand me a reply? * Roger asked.
Grenville considered for a moment. ' It must be laid before His Majesty, and my colleagues in the Cabinet must be given time to consider the terms that are proposed. Three days should suffice. Today is the 28th, a meeting of the Cabinet could be called for the morning of the 31st, I could let you know the result that afternoon.'
' Until then, my Lord, I pray you to excuse me. Most urgent private affairs claim my attention. I pray you, too, to relieve me of my watchdog, a Captain Denistoun, who waits below, and also to lend me a horse. I must at once ride down into Surrey.'
The Foreign Secretary made a mild protest, as he would have liked Roger to remain with him for some time and give him the latest news from France; but, seeing Roger's extreme agitation, he rang his bell and gave the orders that had been requested of him. A quarter of an hour later Roger was on his way out of London.
The village of Ripley, near which Stillwaters lay, was no more than twenty-five miles distant. Roger was now very tired. It was over forty-eight hours since he had had a chance to do more than doze, and for more than half that time he had been swaying from side to side in fast-driven coaches. Yet his desperate anxiety gave him the energy to fight down fatigue, and he reached Stillwaters soon after ten o'clock.
Throwing the reins of his horse over a stone vase, he ran up the steps and into the hall. A footman, carrying a tray, was crossing it. White-faced, Roger shouted at him:
'Her Ladyship! Is she alive? Is she alive? '
The man nodded. ' Yes, sir; but, alas, very low.'
' Is Colonel Thursby here? '
' Yes, sir. He is up in Her Ladyship's boudoir.*
Roger mounted the stairs three at a time and burst into the room. Georgina's father looked up with a start. He had been another father to Roger and Georgina was the greatest treasure in the world to both of them. Coming to his feet, the Colonel exclaimed:
' Roger! Dear boy, how glad I am to see you. But you find us in dire distress.'
' How is she? ' Roger gasped.
The Colonel shook his head. ' Alas, we now have little hope for her. It was scarlet fever. But you must have heard. She caught it from the children. They, thank God, are-now fully recovered. But for an adult the disease is serious; or rather, its after-effects.'
' May I see her? '
' Yes. But she will not recognize you. She is in a coma.'
They went next door, into the big bedroom. Georgina was lying in her great canopied bed, pale as a corpse. Jenny, her faithful maid, her eyes red with weeping, was sitting beside her. Turning down the sheet, Roger took Georgina's wrist and felt her pulse. Looking across at the Colonel, he groaned, ' It hardly beats.'
Tears welled up into the Colonel's tired eyes. '1 know it. I fear she is sinking fast.'
' She is so deathly pale,' Roger murmured. ' Did they purge and bleed her? They must have, for her vitality to be so low.'
' Yes. They did it to reduce the fever. It is the usual practice, as you must know.'
' Then the fools bled her too much,' cried Roger furiously. ' It is lack of blood from which she is dying. Upon what are you feeding her? '
' A little milk is all that she can take.'
With an impatient shake of his head, Roger cried, ' Tis not milk she needs but iron.'
' Iron? ' repeated the Colonel, with a puzzled look.'
' Yes. While on my travels I learned that iron is the sovereign remedy for loss of blood. In many aspects of medicine, the peoples of the East are more knowledgeable than ourselves; for among them the learning of the ancient Greeks has not been smothered by Christian taboos and monkish superstition. When I was residing in Alexandria with the Greek banker Sarodopulous, one of his servants attempted to commit suicide by cutting her wrists with a knife. Before she was found and her wounds bound up, she had lost so much blood that she certainly would have died had they not promptly forced her to swallow all the iron she could stomach.'
' But, my dear boy, one can neither eat nor drink iron. How is it possible to administer it to a patient? '
' I'll show you. But let's not waste a moment.' Roger turned to Jenny. ' Quick. Run downstairs. Get me a bottle of Claret and a large pewter mug.'
As Jenny ran from Jhe room, Roger said to the Colonel, ' The Greeks heat an old sword or dagger in the fire until it is red hot, then plunge it into the wine. Among the ignorant, this practice has come to be regarded as magic, owing to the symbolical union of virtue and strength giving the potion life-saving properties; but in fact it is the essence of the iron entering the wine that fortifies the body and makes new blood. To use a weapon is unnecessary. Any piece of iron that has a roughened surface will serve our purpose.'
Crossing the room, Roger seized the poker and thrust it into the heart of the glowing log fire.
A few minutes later Jenny came bustling in with a pint tankard already filled with Claret. Impatiently they waited until the end of the poker was red hot, then Roger took it from the fire and plunged it into the wine. The liquid hissed and bubbled fiercely. When it had settled down, he withdrew the poker and put it back into the fire until it was again red hot. Three times he repeated the process, then with a spoon tasted the mulled wine to test its heat. Satisfied that if each spoonful was first blown upon it would not burn Georgina's mouth, he carried the tankard over to her bedside and, while Jenny held her mistress's head, he carefully fed a dozen spoonsful between her pale lips.
When they had done, Roger said to the Colonel, '1 have come at all speed from Paris and am near the end of my tether. If I do not get to bed soon I'll drop; so I pray you to excuse me. As you have seen, the preparation of the potion presents no difficulty. I'll leave you to give Georgina a further dozen spoonsful of a new brew every hour, then, when I am restored by a few hours' sleep, I will rejoin you.'
Jenny gave him a pale smile. ' Seeing how fatigued you looked on your arrival, sir, when I went downstairs for the wine I told them to get your usual room ready at once. By now there should be a fire lit there and a warming pan in the bed.'
6 Bless you for a good, thoughtful girl, Jenny,' Roger smiled back. Then he left them, crossed Georgina's boudoir to the bedroom beyond it, struggled out of his clothes and at last relaxed between the warm sheets.
For the next five hours he lay as though dead himself, then he was roused by Colonel Thursby, who said, ' The doctor is here, Roger, and I have told him about the method by which we are endeavouring to save our dear Georgina. I woke you only because I felt you might wish to discuss her condition with him.'
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Roger murmured, '1 see nothing to discuss; but I welcome the opportunity to tell him that if she dies it will be through his excessive application of leeches, and for that I'll kill him.'
' Nay,' the Colonel shook his head. ' Be not too hard upon him, Roger. He is a very decent man and has done only what any other practitioner would have done in a case where it was necessary to bring down a high fever. Moreover, he takes no umbrage, as many others would have done, at you, a layman, having arbitrarily decreed a treatment of your own for his patient. Indeed, he expressed interest in your belief in the efficacy of iron to make blood.'