At the invitation of Count Apponyi—a most dashing, handsome man—she and her father had removed for a while to Budapest, and also paid a visit to the Count's Castle, near Lake Balaton. Budapest had to be lived in to be believed; its nobility were graced with all the culture of the West, yet lived as though still in the Middle Ages, wore scimitars instead of swords, and clad themselves in all the rich, barbaric trappings of the East. While in the country she had attended a wedding. It had been kept up for three days, a dozen oxen had been roasted whole to feast the local peasantry, and they had danced every night till dawn to a gipsy band that distilled pure romance instead of music.
After a further sojourn in Vienna they were now about to remove to Salzburg, and thence to Munich. By August they hoped to reach the neighbourhood of the Rhine, as they had accepted an invitation to stay at Darmstadt; and another, later, for September, from Prince Metternich, to be present at the vintage on his estate at Schloss Johannisberg.
She ended by saying that since a contrary Nature had seemingly made it impossible for her to remain good for any length of time, she was at least trying to be careful; and urged on Roger the same sisterly precept.
He could not help laughing as he laid the letter down, but he wondered if Georgina's zest for enjoyment would ever fail her, as his own had done. He sincerely hoped not, as he already knew it to be a terrible thing to be still young yet unable to any longer take pleasure in anything. Moreover, he could not help contrasting her carefree existence with that which now confronted the scared, white-faced young French women who had crossed with him in the packet-boat from Calais. Even if none of them had been blessed with a combination of her abounding health, fine brain and dazzling beauty, many of them had been brought up in the same security and comfort that she had enjoyed as a young girl; and the thought of their uncertain future saddened him.
Next day he learned that the indefatigable Mr. Pitt was still in London, and managed to secure an interview with him. The tall, lean, young old-looking Prime Minister offered him a glass of Port as usual, and listened with interest to his first-hand account of the last days of the absolute monarchy at Versailles; but the news of the events that had followed was already stale.
Apart from securing the Queen's letter, which was now an old affair, Roger had brought off no considerable coup during his four months abroad; and the Prime Minister suggested, a little coldly, that he might have arranged for the safe delivery of the copy to the Grand Duke through British diplomatic channels, instead of wasting seven weeks in a journey to Italy and back.
Roger thought the comment unfair. He protested that if he had not delivered the letter personally he might have found it impossible to convince the Queen that he had carried out her mission, or she might later have learned from her brother that he had not done so, which would have proved equally disastrous.
Mr. Pitt admitted that there was something to be said for the points Roger had made, and let him go on to give his impressions of Leopold of Tuscany; but the truth was that he was giving his visitor only half his attention. Had Roger's business been urgent or important he would have got a fair and full hearing, but, as it was neither, the Prime Minister was allowing his mind to roam on a subject that was then giving him much concern.
That summer, inspired by his closest friend, the great humanitarian William Wilberforce, and supported by many Members on both sides of the House, including even his normally most bitter opponent, Charles James Fox, he had made a determined attempt to abolish the Slave Trade. But the vested interests that would have suffered from abolition, particularly in Liverpool, Manchester and Bristol, were enormous, and the anti-abolitionists had enlisted in their aid the crafty and powerful Lord Chancellor Thurlow. It now looked almost certain that the Chancellor would succeed in wrecking the measure, and Mr. Pitt was wondering if he could possibly devise some means of saving it.
However, his brilliant memory had not deserted him, and as Roger was about to take his leave, he said: "When last we met we talked of the Bourbon Family Compact. Have you, perchance, Mr. Brook, happened upon any circumstances which might be developed as a lever for the breaking of it?"
In spite of his grande affaire de coeur with a beautiful lady of Spain,
Roger knew little more of that .country's present political relations with France than he had when he left England; and he had to confess as much.
The Prime Minister shrugged his narrow shoulders. "Ah, well, There is no great urgency about the matter, but I should be glad if you would bear it in mind. I judge you right that the National Assembly will take a month or two to settle down; so you had best enjoy what is left of the summer here, then return to France in the autumn and endeavour to find out what you can of the new Government's intentions."
After his visit to Mr. Pitt, Roger tried to make up his mind what to do with himself. He did not want to go to his home at Lymington just yet, because he felt certain that his mother would remark upon his moodiness, and, dearly as he loved her, he was averse to giving her a true explanation. Now that he had discharged his responsibilities to the Prime Minister, the impulse came to him again to get drunk and beat up the town. But for that one needed suitable companions, either male or female. During most of the year he could have found some young sparks at his Club with whom to drink and gamble; but it was closed for its August cleaning. He knew a gay and pretty trollop of the more superior kind who was kept by an elderly nobleman in a comfortable apartment off Jermyn Street. It was most unlikely that her Earl would be visiting her at such a season, and he wondered if a week or so spent in her hilarious company would dispel his misery; but he decided that feminine endearments would only repel him at the moment.
He had had to abandon his horse at Calais, not having had time to sell it, but he had returned from the Continent with more money than he had ever possessed before. Isabella had refused to allow him to pay for anything on their journey south to Italy, which had meant a considerable saving of his own funds, and the string of animals he had bought in Florence had cost less than an eighth of the hundred pieces of Spanish gold she had given him; so he had on him nearly £600 in bills of exchange on London, and it seemed absurd that with such a sum at his disposal he could not find some means of buying himself distraction.
For an hour or two he mooned about the art dealers' in the West End, but saw nothing that he really liked in the way of pictures, and even looking at them made him feel the loss of Isabella more poignantly. Suddenly it occurred to him that it would be intriguing to lay in a stock of wine; and the idea had to some degree the merit of unselfishness, as he knew that a good addition to the cellar at home would please his father.
Accordingly, having long recognized the wise principle that the best is always the cheapest in the long run, he took a sedan chair along to the King's wine-merchants, Messrs. Justerini and Johnson, at No. 2, Pall Mall.
A scene of desolation met him in the neighbourhood, as on July 17th the Royal Opera House in the Haymarket, upon which the wine-merchants' shop backed, had been burnt to the ground. But the southern frontage of Sir John Vanbrugh's fine edifice had been saved, and Messrs. Justerini were still carrying on their business among the surrounding debris.