Yet fate decreed that their liaison should shortly be brought to an abrupt termination. One night near the middle of November, when Aimee took him up to Pauline's room he found her in the depths of depression. Borghese had for some time tired of Paris and wanted to return to his own palace in Rome. Pauline had told him to go if he wished but that she had no intention of accompanying liim. Loath to leave her behind, Borghesc had spoken to Napoleon and he had written to her from Boulogne. In his letter he said that she must go with her husband and at once, as otherwise snow would make the Alps impassable. There had followed injunctions to 'love her husband, be respectful to his relatives, conform to the customs of the country, admire everything, never say "in Paris we have better than that", show attachment to the Holy Father, receive only people of unblemished reputation and never the English, etc., etc., and above all not to be wanton or capricious.' The lecture ended by pointing out that she was twenty-four so ought now to be mature and sensible. In fact she was barely twenty-three, but that did not make the letter less an order that must be obeyed.
Packing had started, the house was already upside down and arrangements had been made for the Borgheses to set out for Italy in three days' time. Roger did his best to console Pauline, but he was able to make her forget that she was being driven into exile only for the duration of a last long passionate embrace. Then they took a sad farewell of one another.
Had Roger not learned of Pauline's infidelity he would have felt their parting much more grievously; but his love affair with her had lasted, with only the two-month interval he had spent at Bruges, for very nearly a year, so the edge had already been taken off their physical desire. Even so, her going left a sad gap in his life and he continued to think of her with longing. Then, early in December, he was given a far more serious matter to think about.
Somewhat to his surprise he received a politely worded letter from Talleyrand, not inviting him to supper but requesting him to come the following evening to St. Cloud to discuss a certain matter. Having ridden out through the Bois to the Palace in its well-wooded grounds on the far bank of the Seine. Roger enquired for the Foreign Minister and was shown up to a magnificent apartment.
The tall windows were now screened by curtains of blue satin embroidered with the golden eagles and bees that Napoleon had already taken as his emblems. The furniture was of gilt and marble embellished with sphinx's heads and winged griffons which was to become known to posterity as 'Empire'. Talleyrand was seated there behind a vast desk, as impeccably dressed and smiling as ever. As Roger bowed to him, he said:
'Cher ami, I must apologize for having brought you all the way from Paris, but our little man has now insisted that I should spend a certain amount of my time here. At least he has had the decency to provide me with a pleasant setting for me to take my naps between attending to tiresome business. Do you approve it?'
Roger glanced round and smiled, 'Your Excellency was born of a princely family and even a Prince could not complain about having to work in such luxurious surroundings.'
'True, true, cher Colonel. But alas, work I must to justify these trappings. And I need your advice. Your mother, I recall, was a Scottish lady.'
'Yes,' replied Roger, somewhat surprised. 'She was a McElfic and a daughter of the then Earl of Kildonan.'
'Then my memory has not failed me. And he was a Jacobite, was he not?'
'Yes. He led his clan in the rising of '45, which sought to place Prince Charles Edward on the throne of his Stuart ancestors. After its failure the Earl was heavily penalized and all but a small part of his lands were confiscated. Naturally he became embittered on that account and remained a staunch Jacobite. He would have followed the Pretender to Rome had his health permitted. As things were, you can imagine the antagonism with which he would have regarded a match between his daughter and my father, Admiral Sir Christopher Brook, who was a staunch Hanoverian. In consequence, they eloped and married without his consent; so my contact with my Scottish relatives has always been exceedingly slender.'
Talleyrand nodded, 'That is unfortunate, because it was information on the present feeling of Jacobites in Scotland that I sought from you. Ireland, of course, has long been a thorn in Britain's side, and by stirring up trouble there we have several times made good use of it. But it has now occurred to our master that when the invasion of England takes place we might also create a valuable diversion by making a landing in Scotland and rousing the Jacobites there against their Hanoverian King. What think you of the prospects of such a project?'
Roger shook his head, 'Far from good. The rebellion of '45 took place nearly sixty years ago. The Hanoverian Kings have since then ruled Scotland wisely, on a light rein, and won over the greater part of the country's inhabitants. Only a few die-hards would again take up arms against King George and most of those, like my cousin the present Earl, are powerless to raise their clans because they have for long lived abroad, to begin with as exiles at the Court of the Pretender in Rome and since his death cither there or at other places on the Continent.'
With a quiet smile Talleyrand said, 'That is much as I supposed. It seems though that you are not aware that your cousin died above a year ago.'
Suddenly an alarm bell began to ring in Roger's brain. After a slight hesitation he said, 'No. I did not know that. And I am sorry to hear it, for he was the last of his line and the peerage has become extinct upon his death.'
Talleyrand took snuff, flicked the fallen grains from his lace cravat and remarked with, for him, unusual gravity, 'Enquiries through our Ambassador in Rome about these Jacobite nobles has led to my receiving certain authentic information about them. Over three years ago your cousin was knocked down by a runaway horse. The injuries he sustained were so serious that he was never afterwards able to do more than limp about the apartment that he occupied. He met his death when his crutch slipped on a polished floorboard and he fell down the stairs, breaking his neck. It is, therefore, obvious that it could not have been he whom Duroc mistook for you when in St. Petersburg. What have you to say about that?'
20
Poised on the Precipice
The alarm bell that had begun to tinkle in Roger's brain a few minutes earlier suddenly increased to a shrill clangour. He knew Talleyrand far too well not to realize now why he had been sent for. It was not to get his opinion on the chances of stirring up a Jacobite rising in Scotland. That had been only his devious lead in—the sort of cat and mouse game that he loved—before resurrecting this dangerous question of the identity of the man Duroc had met in Moscow.
Masking his perturbation with a shrug, Roger replied, 'Then since it could not have been my cousin it must have been some other person who closely resembles me.'
Talleyrand had ceased to smile as he asked, 'And who could be so near a twin to yourself as that English Admiral's son, Mr. Roger Brook?'
Roger had rarely felt less like laughing; but he threw back his head, chuckled and said, 'Oh come. Excellence! To you it has been no secret since we first met that he and I are one and the same person. But you will recall that within a fortnight of Duroc's having imagined that he saw me in St. Petersburg I attended a reception you gave in the Rue du Bac. For me to have made such a journey in so short a time would have been utterly impossible.'
'I wonder,' the Minister picked up an ivory paper-knife and began to twirl it between his elegant hands. 'Impossible I grant you to all but a very few exceptionally determined men capable of great endurance... such as yourself.'