Yet, in four short years the colossal industry and ability of young Billy Pitt, both in the sphere of commerce and foreign relations, had lifted his country once again to first place among the nations. His financial genius had restored her prosperity and his broad vision had gained her friends. In '86 he had struck at the roots of England's most cancerous, wasting sore—her centuries-old feud with the French— by a commercial treaty which was now rapidly bringing about a better understanding between the two countries. And in recent months he had successfully negotiated defensive treaties with both the Dutch and the King of Prussia; thus forming the Triple Alliance as an insurance against future aggression. Since the Peace of Versailles in '83 his wise policies had done more than those of any other statesman to stabilise a shaken world, and it seemed that Europe might now look forward to a long period of tranquillity.
Roger Brook was justly proud that, young as he was, he had, in some small measure, secretly contributed to the new Alliance*; and, during the past five months, he had put all thought of work from him, to enjoy to the full the almost forgotten feeling of well-being and security that Mr. Pitt had re-won for the people of England.
*The Launching of Roger Brook (His story in the years 1783-87).
Several of these care-free weeks Roger had spent with his parents, Rear-Admiral and Lady Marie Brook, at his home on the outskirts of Lymington, in Hampshire; others he had passed in London; frequently going to the gallery of the House to hear the learned, well-reasoned but tedious orations of Edmund Burke, the melodious, forceful eloquence of Fox, and the swift, incisive logic of the young Prime Minister; but he had devoted the greater part of his time to the tomboy companion of his early adolescence, who had since become the beautiful Lady Etheredge.
Meeting again after a separation of four years they had seen one another with new eyes. During most of November they had danced, laughed and supped together in the first throes of a hectic love affair; and since then he had been a frequent guest here at "Stillwaters," the magnificent setting she had secured for her flamboyant personality down in the heart of the Surrey woods, near Ripley.
The stately mansion had been designed by William Kent, some half a century earlier, and was a perfect specimen of Palladian architecture. Forty-foot columns supported its domed, semi-circular, central portico; from each side of which broad flights of stone steps curved down to a quarter-mile-long balustraded terrace with pairs of ornamental vases set along it at intervals and between these, other nights of steps gave onto a wide lawn, sloping gently to the natural lake from which the house took its name. Kent, the father of English gardens, had also laid out the flower-borders and shady walks at each end of the terrace; and nature's setting had been worthy of his genius, since the house and lake lay in the bottom of a shallow valley; a secret, sylvan paradise enclosed on every side by woods of pine and silver birch.
Now that spring had come blue and yellow crocus gaily starred the grass beneath the ornamental trees, and the daffodils were beginning to blossom on the fringe of the woods, which feathered away above them in a sea of delicate emerald green. The scene was utterly still, and not even marred by the presence of a gardener; for it was her Ladyship's standing order that none of the thirty men employed to keep the grounds should ever be visible from her windows after she rose at ten o'clock.
Indeed, the prospect on which Roger looked down was one of such peace, dignity and beauty as only England has to show; but there was no peace in his heart. He loved Georgina dearly. They were both only children, and his fondness for her was even deeper from having filled to her the role of brother, than that of a lover. But she had been aggravatingly temperamental of late, and now this dread foreboding, that one or both of them would fall under the shadow of the gallows, had shaken him much more than he cared to admit.
After some moments he turned and, seeing that her weeping had ceased, went over and kissed her on her still damp cheek; then he said with as much conviction as he could muster:
"My love, I beg you to use your utmost endeavours to put this horrid vision from your mind. You know as well as I that all such glimpses of the unknown are only possibilities—not certainties. They are but random scenes from several paths which circumstances make it possible that one may tread; yet, having free-will, we are not bound to any, and may, by a brave decision taken opportunely, evade such evil pitfalls as fate seems to have strewn in our way. You have oft predicted things that have come true for both of us, but there are times when you have been at fault; and others when you have seen the ill but not its context, so that in the event it proved harmless after all, or a blessing in disguise. With God's Mercy, this will prove such a case."
Georgina was far too strong a personality to give way to panic for long, and having by an effort regained her composure, she replied firmly, "Thou art right in that, dear heart, and we must take such comfort from it as we may. Yet, I confess, the vision scared me mightily; for I once before saw a gibbet in the glass when telling poor Captain Coignham's fortune, and he was swinging from one on Setley Heath within the year."
"Egad!" exclaimed Roger, with a look of shocked surprise. "Coignham was the highwayman you once told me of. The same that held you up in the New Forest when you were scarce seventeen, and robbed you of your virginity as ransom for your rings. Dost mean to tell me that you took to meeting the rogue afterwards? Damme, you must have! No occasion could have arisen for you to tell his fortune otherwise."
She smiled. "I'll not deny it. Dick Coignham was near as handsome as you are, Roger darling; and 'twould be more fair to say that he persuaded me to give, rather than robbed me, of what he took. It never cost me a moment's regret, and 'twas a fine, romantic way to lose one's maidenhead."
"That I'll allow, as an unpremeditated act committed in hot blood —but to deliberately enter on an affair with a notorious felon. How could you bring yourself to that?"
"And why not, Sir?" she countered, with a swift lift of her eyebrows. "You may recall that 'twas soon after my first meeting with him that I went to Court for my presentation, and during that season I threw my slippers over the moon with the handsomest buck of the day. On my return to Highcliffe there came yourself; but only that once, then you went to France. You'll not have forgotten how Papa's having taken a Gipsy for his wife had estranged him from the county, and the almost solitary existence that I led down there in consequence. After a little, with not even a local beau to buy me a ribbon, I became prodigious bored. So when out riding one day I encountered Dick Coignham again, what could be more natural than that I should become his secret moll. More than once I slipped out at night to watch him waylay a coach in the moonlight, and afterwards we made love with the stolen guineas clinking in his pockets. He was a bold, merry fellow, and I vow there were times when he caused me to near die of excitement."
"Georgina, you are incorrigible!" murmured Roger, with a sad shake of his head.
She gave a low, rich laugh. "And you, m'dear, are the veriest snob. Why should you be so shocked to learn that I took a tobyman for my lover? Since that day long ago, when I turned you from a schoolboy into a man, I've made no secret of the fact that I was born a wanton and will always take my pleasure where I list. 'Tis naught to me how a man gets his living, provided he be clean, gay and good to look upon. Think you poor Dick was more to blame because he paid for the gold lace upon his coats by robbing travellers of their trinkets, than all the fine gentlemen at Westminster who take the King's bribes to vote against their consciences?"