Evil in a Mask (53 page)

‘
Mon vieux! Mon vieux! Mon cher Breuc
! Where have you been? What have you been doing all this time, and what brings you to this God-forsaken country?'

Roger returned the hug and kisses. ‘
Mon cher
Androché, it is a long story. The Emperor sent me with General Gardane's mission to Turkey and Persia. Later my travels were extended further than he intended. I was here when the Braganzas left and aboard one of their ships. A storm rose, and I could not get ashore. To my fury I was carried off with them to Brazil. From there I have only just returned. I fear the Emperor will be exceeding angry with me, owing to my long absence. As you know, he is capable of venting his displeasure in no mean manner on those who have failed to carry out his wishes.'

‘Do I not?' Junot angrily slapped his thigh. ‘Regard my own case. You were there at the siege of Toulon when, as an officer of little significance, he promoted me to be his first A.D.C. When he was still poor, I housed him and lent him money. I have accompanied him on all his campaigns and many times been wounded in his service. Who, if not I, when he distributed his batons, deserved to be a Marshal of the Empire? Yet he ignored me, and fobbed me off with a dukedom, which means nothing to a soldier.

‘Last autumn, he promised to promote me to Marshal, did I succeed in preventing the royal family from leaving Portugal. 'Tis true that he gave me thirty thousand men and a corps of Spanish auxiliaries. But he could have had no idea of the territory I had to cross. The rain descended in torrents, the rivers became near-unfordable, the peasants preferred death to yielding up to us the food they had hoarded for the winter. Believe me, it was a nightmare march. Two-thirds of the Spaniards perished and thousands of my own men fell by the wayside. I reached Lisbon with no more than fifteen hundred, and
I was only one day too late. Yet, despite all my efforts, the Emperor turned on me and rent me because I had failed to prevent the departure of the Braganzas.'

‘He'll make you a Marshal yet.' Roger gave his old friend a consoling pat on the shoulder. ‘Meanwhile, you could be worse off than as the uncrowned King of Portugal.'

‘True. When I was here previously, as Ambassador, the Portuguese were so pro-English that they were frequently discourteous to Laure and myself. But now matters are very different. They shower us with presents and fight to kiss our hands.'

‘You were lucky to be sent here, instead of to Madrid.'

‘Indeed I was. Poor Murat was given a most unpleasant task. Our master refused to reveal to him his true intentions, telling him to keep both sides sweet; so he knew not which to back when Ferdinand forced his old father at gun point to abdicate, and whether to protect Godoy or allow the mob to hang him.'

‘I gather that scamp was very lucky to get away with his life.'

‘Yes. While the mob sacked his palace, he managed to hide; but, after twenty-four hours, became so plagued by thirst that he had to come out and, on asking a gendarme for a glass of water, was recognised. The mob gave him a most terrible beating and, before he could be saved by arrest, battered in his face. He would have been executed next day had not that lecherous old cow, Queen Maria, gone down on her knees and begged his life of her son. Ferdinand granted it, but is a veritable swine and kept him in prison for a month without even allowing him a doctor. The Emperor then ordered that he should be conveyed to Bayonne, and it was he who drew up the treaty that has put an end to Bourbon rule in Spain.'

‘What terms did the Emperor force these awful people to accept?'

‘Carlos handed over the Crowns of Spain and the Americas for an income of seven and a half million francs a year, with the estates of Compiègne and Chambord. Ferdinand signed away his rights for a castle and a pension.'

‘And now they are gone, who is to occupy the throne?'

Junot laughed. ‘That question has been quite a comedy. As the Emperor had made his brothers Joseph, Lucien and Jerome Kings, Murat considered that, as brother-in-law, he had a good claim to the next vacant throne. Think, too, of the enjoyment he would have derived from designing for himself new costumes as King Achille I. But our master had other plans. He has been far from pleased at the way in which Louis has ignored many of his orders regarding Holland. ‘Tis said he wrote to him, saying that the air of the Low Countries was not good for his health, so he should have the Crown of Spain instead. Can you believe it, Louis refused it on the grounds that the Dutch people needed him and that he owed having become their King, not to his big brother, but to a call of God.'

‘Was there ever such a family as the Bonapartes?' Roger raised his eyes to heaven. ‘But I'm not surprised. Louis has always been a neurotic and has now become a monomaniac. Who, then, is to have the throne of Spain?'

‘Joseph. And, in his case, without even being asked if he would like it. The Emperor simply ordered him to leave Naples and join him in Madrid, where he is at present. Murat is to replace Joseph as King of Naples; so, after all, our handsome swashbuckler has not come off too badly.'

Roger nodded. ‘The eldest brother is by far the best of the hatch. But I don't envy him his new Crown, from all I hear of the situation in Madrid.'

‘
Mon Dieu
, no! Spain is about to blow up about our ears.'

‘Do you really think that?' Roger raised a sceptical eyebrow.

‘I'd wager my chances of yet getting a Marshal's baton on it. The
émeurt
in Madrid on May 2nd sparked the trouble off. The news of it ran round Spain like wild-fire. The Spanish notables had been summoned by the Emperor to Bayonne, and accepted the Constitution he thrust at them; but the people rejected it with angry contempt. By the middle of the month the hardy mountaineers of the north began to arm themselves, on the 24th, their little province of Asturias actually declared war on France. A few days later, Galicia and Léon followed
suit. My latest intelligence is that the south, too, is in a ferment. Andalusia, Mercia and Valencia may join the rebellion any day. Within a month there will be fighting throughout the whole Peninsula.'

Roger shrugged. ‘What can such rabble do against our well-armed and well-disciplined troops?'

‘They can render the country near-untenable by raids and ambushes. No small body of French troops will be safe outside the cities, and in them they'll no longer dare to go abroad at night, for fear of assassination. The odds are that we'll be compelled to withdraw into the fortresses.'

‘But with them in his hands, the Emperor will still hold Spain. They, at least, are impregnable, except from assault by a regular army with cannon.'

‘Of course. But what if the English take advantage of our difficulties to seize one of the ports? Given a base, they could supply the rebels with arms and ammunition, and land an army of their own. To provision our garrisons across a hostile countryside would, in any case, be far from easy. Supported by English regulars, the Spaniards could reduce them one by one.'

Feigning anxiety and distress, Roger exclaimed, ‘Do you really fear then that we may be driven out of Spain?'

‘Not without a long and ghastly struggle. But if the English do land an army, it may well come to that.'

Roger had his answer for Mr. Canning, and much more quickly than he had expected. His only regret now was that he had told the young Captain of the sloop not to return to the bay for a week.

Over a bottle of wine, he told Junot about the awful voyage to Brazil, and of the state of squalor they had found in Rio; then of his marriage to Lisala and her inheritance. Having congratulated him, Junot asked, ‘But how did you succeed in getting back here?'

With a laugh Roger replied, ‘How do you think? In a British ship, of course. As you know, I am bi-lingual. Before you reached Lisbon I was here on the Emperor's business, posing as an Englishman. The Portuguese believed me to be one when
I was carried off to Brazil and I succeeded in maintaining the fiction there until I could arrange with the Captain of a British frigate to give my wife and myself passage to England. After a short spell there I persuaded another British Captain to take us across to Algeciras. From thence we came overland.'

Junot nodded. ‘Tell me now about your wife.'

‘Willingly. I had intended to. She is a most lovely creature but our present situation is a difficult one, and I would be grateful for your help.

‘Her father died recently, so she is heir to a great inheritance and has returned to Lisbon to claim it. Naturally I have accompanied her, but now that Portugal is subject to France I could not come here as the Englishman her people supposed me to be when I married her in Brazil. For the moment we are keeping our marriage a secret and have been compelled temporarily to separate. She has returned to her family mansion; I have secured quarters at the
Leão d'ouro
. There is naught to prevent my calling on her frequently as her servants are aware that I was previously acquainted with, and enamoured, of her when she was in Persia and I was there as a member of Gardane's mission. We shall go about together and shortly let it be known that we intend to marry.'

‘What an amusing farce! But the sooner your situation is regularised the better. Bring her to dine with us tomorrow. I will tell no-one but Laure your secret. She will be delighted to see you again, and both of us will look forward to meeting the lovely heiress you have captured.'

Roger happily accepted. For a while the two old friends talked on together then, having satisfactorily established his position in Lisbon, Roger took his departure.

He had known the vivacious Laure Junot, Duchesse d'Abrantés, when she had been Mademoiselle Permon. She received him with a radiant smile and made much of Lisala. Some thirty people sat down to the meal, most of them soldiers with whom Roger had served in past campaigns, and it proved a gay occasion. When he condoled with the Duchesse on the Emperor's not having made Junot a Marshal, she exclaimed:

‘The ingratitude of the man! Of course, he is now “Sire” to everybody; but time was when to his face I used to call him “Puss-in-Boots”. I am now writing my memoirs, though, so I'll pay him out with posterity.'

During the days that followed, all went well. Roger paid frequent visits to Lisala and, in front of her servants, she welcomed him more warmly on each occasion. It was soon clear to the de Pombal household that their mistress was having a hectic
affaire
with the handsome
Colonel de Breuc
; but while they might privately disapprove of this fraternisation with one of their conquerors, they were too well trained to show it.

Meanwhile, Lisala had summoned her steward and the family lawyers to a series of conferences. They had recently learned of the Marquis' death, but had heard only garbled accounts of it. All reports agreed that he had met his death in a fracas caused by an Englishman's attempt to abduct Lisala. Some said he had died as a result of a heart attack, others that he had been murdered by a mad slave, and others again that it was the Englishman who had killed him. But a two-month-old Brazilian news-sheet that had recently reached Lisbon gave an account of his funeral service in the Candelabra Church, so there could be no doubt that he was dead.

Fortunately for Lisala, practically the whole of the Portuguese Court had accompanied Don Joao to Brazil, so there remained in Lisbon no relatives or elderly, close friends of the family, who might have questioned her; and no-one suspected for a moment that
M. le Colonel Chevalier de Breuc
could be the Englishman mixed up in the affair.

Roger spent a lot of his time with his old comrades-in-arms, and had several more long conversations with Junot. The curly-haired Pro-Consul was confident that he could hold down the Portuguese, at least for the time being; but news kept coming in of further uprisings in Spain.

A week after Roger had landed, he wrote a long appreciation for Mr. Canning. In it he gave as much reliable information as he could gather about the areas in rebellion, and strongly advised the sending of representatives to the rebel leaders with a view to their arranging for the arrival of a British Expeditionary Force.

That night he rode out with his despatch to the deserted cove ten miles north of the city. Unfortunately, there was a high wind, and it was raining hard, so visibility was too poor for him to make out whether the sloop was lying offshore or if her Captain had decided that the weather made it too dangerous to keep the rendezvous. After waiting for three hours, he gave up and, soaked to the skin, returned to his inn.

All next day he was greatly worried, as it was possible that the sloop's failure to send a boat ashore might be due to her having been sunk or captured. If so, his only line of swift communication with England was cut, and it might be many weeks before he would be able to get to the Foreign Minister information, the use of which could give a new turn to the war in Britain's favour.

At night he again rode out to the bay. To his relief, he could discern
Gadfly
half a mile out and, presently, she sent a boat in to the beach. Lieutenant Higgins had come himself. Roger handed him the despatch and impressed upon him the importance of delivering it in London as a matter of the utmost urgency.

He was now free to give his attention solely to Lisala's affairs. Like men of the law the world over, the Portuguese attorneys were habitually dilatory. Normally, while their fees piled up, they would have taken many months to secure for Lisala an order of the Court that she was at liberty to deal with her father's estate.

To expedite matters, Roger sought Junot's help. Following the example of their Emperor, his representatives had become accustomed to taking swift decisions and asserting their authority to have them quickly carried out. Junot sent for the Chief Justice, told him curtly that he would be very displeased if Lisala's affairs were not settled within the next ten days, and that, should the Court rule against her, he would have those responsible clapped into prison.