Since he had run away from home in '83, Roger's only prolonged stay in England had been a period of two years in the early '90s; so, although he had many acquaintances in London, Droopy Ned was his only close friend; whereas in his youth he had had numerous playmates of his own age among the sons of landed gentry in South Hampshire and it would be easy to pick up with several of them again. Moreover, he knew that his father would be delighted for him to bring the children down to stay. At Thatched House Lodge there would be few amusements with which he could provide them, but at Lymington he could teach them to ride in the New Forest, to swim from Hordlc Beach and to sail on the Lym river as well as spend happy days with them in the large gardnn of Grove Place.
He had informed his father by letter of his proposed visit, so the Admiral was expecting him and gave him the most hearty welcome. After Roger had unpacked, and had had a chat with the old houseman, Jim Button, who had known him from his birth, he spent a couple of hours exchanging news with his father. As they had not met for over five years they had much to talk of; but Roger refrained from announcing his intention of abandoning his adventurous life, keeping that as a pleasant surprise for his father after dinner. When the time came it was he who got the surprise, and it proved the second great blow to his hopes of happily settling down.
Pushing the Port over to him, the bulky, red-faced old sailor said gruffly, 'I'm glad you've timed your visit as you have, my boy. for had you made it later than March you'd no longer have found me here.'
Looking up with a start, Roger exclaimed, 'Why so, sir? While a state of war continues, travel on the Continent presents many difficulties. But perhaps you have in mind a voyage as a civilian to see again the scenes of your battles in the West Indies?’
'Nay, lad. I've had enough of a roving life, and for the past few months after I'd swallowed the anchor I thought I'd be happy enough pottering about here until our Maker sent for me. But that's not proved the case. The cursed gout puts a ball and chain on me so that I can no longer shoot, ride or handle a boat, and I was never much of a fisherman. Our neighbours are kindly enough in asking me over now and then, but there are days together when I never leave the house. It's much too big for a man living on his own and with your dear mother gone it seems plaguey dismal and empty. So for three years from next Quarter Day I've let the place as it stands to one of the Drummonds. He's paying me a good rent, and as he is a banker I can be sure of getting my money.'
'But where will you live?' Roger asked.
'Over at Walhampton with my old crony, Sir William Burrard. He's in the same boat as myself, a widower with a house much too large for him; though he has a family that comes down to stay and that, at times, will make pleasant company for me. I'll have my own rooms, of course, and be free to come and go as I please. But when we are alone on winter evenings it will be pleasant for both of us to sit either side of a good fire and sip our grog together. Mrs. Hapgood is to remain on as housekeeper to the Drummonds, and they are taking the maids, but Jim will be coming with me.'-
Roger forced a smile and said in a voice that he hoped sounded enthusiastic, 'I think it a most admirable arrangement.' But inwardly he was grievously disappointed at this unexpected wrecking of his plan to bring the children down for long visits. To speak of it now seemed pointless; so he took a swig of Port, turned the conversation to wine, told his father that before leaving London he had instructed Justerini's to send him down twelve dozen of the best current vintage and hoped that the gout would not punish him too severely for the drinking of it.
For the remainder of the month Roger stayed on at Grove, looking up old friends, going out on pheasant shoots with them and attending a few local dances. This pleasant round made him regret more than ever that, for the next few years at least, he would be unable to resume it by long visits to his old home. On February 2nd he returned to London.
On the evening of the 3rd he accompanied Droopy to the Strangers' Gallery in the House of Commons and they listened to one of the most memorable debates in all the long years that the younger Pitt had been Prime Minister. The Opposition attacked him with the utmost ferocity for rejecting Peace and, during a long oration in which he descanted on Bonaparte's rapacity and perfidy, and stigmatized him as 'This last adventurer in the lottery of Revolutions,' they frequently endeavoured to shout him down. Then Tierney, the Whig leader, defied him to stale in one sentence, without 'ifs' and 'buts', the object of the war.
In reply Pitt flung back the retort. 'I know not if I can do it in one sentence, but in one word it is security; security against a danger, the greatest that ever threatened the world. How or where did the Honourable gentleman discover that the Jacobinism of Robespierre and of the Triumvirate of the Five Directors, which he acknowledges to be real, has vanished and disappeared because it has all been centred and condensed into one man, who was nursed and reared in its bosom, whose celebrity was gained under its auspices, who was at once the child and champion of all its atrocities and horrors? Is our security in negotiation to be this Bonaparte, who is now the sole organ of all that was formerly dangerous and pestiferous in the Revolution? ... If peace afford no prospect of security, then I say it is prudent in us not to negotiate at the present moment. This is my plea, and by no other do I wish to be tried by God or my country.'
It was a magnificent performance and made a profound impression on the House. At that lime Bonaparte had barely started on his great regeneration of the French as a law-abiding people: so Members knew of him only as a grandiose bandit. In consequence it was not to be wondered at that the Opposition was shattered and Pitt left the House exhausted but triumphant with its sanction to continue the war.
Roger had feared that might prove the case, and there was now no point in his remaining longer in England; so the following morning he went to Downing Street and requested an interview with the Prime Minister. After a wait of three quarters of an hour he was shown upstairs.
As he entered the room Mr. Pitt waved him to a chair and said, 'Your waiting on me comes as a surprise, Mr. Brook. I thought you had returned to France with the members of your Mission early in January. Or is it that you have again just crossed the Channel?' 'Nay, sir, I stayed on here,' Roger replied glumly. 'To be frank, distressed as I would be to see you personally defeated, I had hopes that Parliament might refuse to endorse your decision regarding General Bonaparte's offer.'
The Prime Minister shrugged, 'That they did not, demonstrates the soundness of my contentions, and I hope that by now you too are convinced of their rightness.'
'Far from it, sir. I am of the same opinion still, and in this matter believe you to be committing the greatest error in your career.'
'Indeed! In that case, Mr. Brook, I find it surprising that a man of your intelligence should fail to grasp the essentials of the situation. Our obligations to King Charles Emanuel apart, during Bonaparte's absence in Italy the French were driven from all but that country's northern part. The Austrians at this moment are mustering for an offensive aimed at regaining Genoa and Nice. Bonaparte has offered us terms only in the hope of detaching us from our allies; so that our Fleet should not support them in these operations and his own squadrons, now blockaded in Brest and Cherbourg, be freed to sail round into the Mediterranean. Do you not sec how unthinkable it is for us to abandon our allies at such a juncture?'
'They abandoned us in '98,' Roger returned stubbornly. 'And both they and we could now agree a peace with France simultaneously, since General Bonaparte has sent the same offer to the Emperor as he has to His Majesty.'