Isabella stiffened as though she had been struck with a whip; then her hands began to tremble violently, and she almost whimpered: "Rojé! It cannot be true! It cannot be true!"
He too was quivering as he stepped out of the shadows. She swayed towards him, her arms outstretched. He sprang to meet her, and drew her into an embrace so fierce that it threatened to crush the very bones of her body. Her mouth found his, and melted under it in a delirious, half-swooning kiss.
Nine hours later, just as dawn was breaking, she let him out of the french window, and he stole across the silent garden to the place where he had entered it over the wall. As he straddled it and dropped down on the far side he could well have exclaimed with joy—as did Henry VIII on greeting his courtiers the morning after he had been married to Cathrine of Aragon—"Gentlemen, this night I have been in the midst of Spain."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE EARTHLY PARADISE
THOSE nine hours that Roger spent with Isabella in her great canopied bed passed for the reunited lovers as though they had been no more than ninety minutes. Neither closed an eye except momentarily to savour better the cup of pleasure, and they were not even called upon to control their transports from fear of being overheard. Isabella's bedroom lay above the garden-room where Roger had found her, and the previous owner of the villa—a beautiful Neapolitan who had been notorious for her amours—had had a narrow staircase connecting the two cut in the end wall of the house, so that whenever she wished she could receive her lovers in secrecy.
The only other entrance to the bedroom lay through an antechamber in which Maria slept at night. She was in Isabella's confidence and entirely to be trusted. When Isabella had called her in, and she saw Roger, her fat, honest face had glowed with delight, and she ran to kiss his hand. Now that her mistress was married she would have thought her mind unhinged by shock had she failed to reward her lover for his faithfulness and restraint while she was still unwed. She had gone downstairs and smuggled them up a supper of oysters, cold truffled pheasant pie, tartlets, fruit and wine; then left them to take their joy of one another. So, at long last, when the gods had decided to be kind to these two young people they had grudged them nothing.
Although the lovers had so much to say to one another, the golden hours sped by so swiftly that when they exchanged their parting kiss it seemed they had said almost nothing. Yet, as Roger made his way, feeling as though he walked on air, back to his hotel, he realized that they had talked of many things.
First, and most important, there were the arrangements for their meeting again. To his unbounded joy there was no impediment to his passing every night with Isabella until her husband returned with Their Majesties from Sicily. But that was not enough; they were greedy for every hour, for every moment, that they could spend in one another's company, and Isabella had declared that the solution to their problem lay in Roger's immediate introduction to Neapolitan society.
Her grief at losing him had equalled his at losing her, but she had found some consolation in life at Naples. She had expected to find herself virtually a prisoner, hedged about with the same restraints and wearisome etiquette that made existence so dreary for ladies of high rank at the Court of Madrid; but that had not proved the case.
Although King Ferdinand was a Spaniard, during his reign of thirty years various causes had gradually whittled away the Spanish influence in his Kingdom. His father, Don Carlos, while still once removed from the Spanish throne, had conquered Naples and made himself its King; but to win the goodwill of the Neapolitans he had given them a treaty guaranteeing that the crowns of Spain and Naples should never be merged upon one head. So, when his half-brother died in 1759, and he ascended the throne of Spain—his eldest son, Phillip, being an idiot—he had made his second son, Carlos, Prince of the Asturias and heir to the Spanish crown, and given his third son, Ferdinand, Naples as an independent Kingdom.
Ferdinand, then only a boy of eight, had ruled by a Council of Regency, dominated by his tutor Tanucci; but a year after Ferdinand attained his majority he had married the Archduchess Maria Carolina of Austria. The marriage treaty had stipulated that she should have a say in all affairs of State; and, being a strong-willed young woman, she soon got him under her thumb. She had allied herself with the Neapolitan nobility, succeeded in getting Tanucci dismissed, and reversed his policy. Queen Caroline had not gone to the length of attempting to break the Bourbon Family Compact, so Naples was still allied to France and Spain; but in the twenty-one years that she had now been Ferdinand's consort she had modelled his Court on that of Vienna, instead of Madrid, and done away with all the hidebound etiquette with which the Spaniards surrounded royalty.
There were still several great Spanish families, such as the Novinos, Santa Marias and d'Avilas, living in Naples; but they had intermarried with the Sambucas, Monteliones, della Roccas, and other ancient Neapolitan houses; so now formed part of one aristocracy.
Isabella said that after the glittering Court of Versailles she found these petty princes and their ladies very provincial, but far nicer than the French. As Sovereigns, King Ferdinand and Queen Caroline left much to be desired. Naples was one of the most backward States in
Europe, and its peasantry still groaned under the burdens of a feudal tyranny while its rulers concerned themselves with little except their own pleasure. But they mingled freely with their nobility, often in an almost bohemian manner, and this gave an air of spontaneous gaiety to life in their capital.
Everyone of importance in Naples owned one or more villas with lovely gardens, within an easy drive of the city, at Posilipo, Portici or Sorrento; and even in winter the mildness of the climate enabled them to enjoy these properties. Almost every day one or other of Isabella's friends made up a little party of eight or ten people, to lunch informally and spend the afternoon at a villa along the coast; so while she could not invite Roger openly to her own house, she could get her friends to include him in these parties, and thus spend most of each day with him.
In the Princess Francavilla she had found such a sweet and sympathetic friend that she had confided to her the story of her love affair with Roger; so it would be easy to send the Princess a note that morning and have him invited for the afternoon. After that the Princess would take charge of matters and, without Isabella being compromised, arrange for him to be asked by mutual friends to every party where she herself would be.
When he had enquired after Quetzal Isabella told him that her Indian was well, as devoted to her as ever, and showed great intelligence over his lessons, which now occupied most of his time; but, unfortunately, had taken an intense dislike to her husband. Feeling that he must find out where he stood, in case Don Diego returned from Sicily earlier than was expected, Roger had then asked, as casually as he could, if she found her husband tolerable to five with, and she had replied:
"I have no reason to complain of him. We were married almost immediately after my arrival here, and I had no option but to submit to his will. As my heart was, and is, yours, 'tis hardly to be wondered at if he found me cold. After the first few weeks he ceased to exercise his rights and openly returned to his mistress. In Naples it is the fashion for every man of quality to keep a mistress, whether he has a use for her or not. He had retained a pretty young thing of seventeen, whom he had been keeping before my arrival; so my failure to provide a counter-attraction caused him no inconvenience.
"For a man of only thirty he is very old-fashioned, and if he could, he would, I am sure, make me live the type of life to which women are condemned in Spain; but fortunately he dare not, for any husband who attempted to put his wife behind bars here would be the laughing-stock of Naples. He treats me with grave courtesy and is at most times of a pleasant temper; but now and then he is subject to very black moods. I soon learned their cause. It is not the custom here for men to remain faithful to their mistresses any more than to their wives, and these moods arise each time he has set his mind on some new charmer. They last as long as she rejects him; but as chastity is the exception rather than the rule among the fair of Naples his black fits are rarely of lengthy duration."