The Shadow of Tyburn Tree (24 page)

Before Roger could reply Harris did so for him. ‘We are meeting again next week, Sir, and I already have in mind a sound channel for that. There is, however, the, er—question of funds. My mission to Russia cost me twenty thousand pounds of my private fortune over and above my emoluments as Ambassador, and I should not like to think that Mr. Brook is to be out of pocket to even a twentieth of that amount'

‘Nor I,' laughed Pitt, and Carmarthen smiled affably across the table, as he said: ‘If you will be good enough to wait upon me at the Foreign Office, Mr. Brook, I will arrange both funds and passage for you.'

The conversation then again became general until, at half-past eight, they left the table and the guests prepared to go back to London.

As Roger, now full of good port and inward excitement at the new prospects which the day had opened, to him, was about to mount his horse, Pitt and Dundas warmly wished him every good fortune. Carmarthen and Harris he was to see again, so as they got into their carriage they only waved him a cheerful ‘good-night.'

The carriage bowled swiftly down the drive, and as it passed out of the gates with Roger a hundred yards ahead, Carmarthen asked his friend: ‘What think you are the prospects of that young man's mission having profitable results?'

‘None,' answered Harris bluntly.

‘Why so, Jimmy?' yawned his Lordship. ‘I thought him a likeable fellow; modest yet not slow to answer when addressed, and of good intelligence.'

‘He is all of that, and a man to mark; for he will, I believe, go far. But not in this.'

‘What reason have you for your pessimism?'

‘The venue of the mission he has been given; and Billy Pitt is at fault in that. Having ever lived aloof from the world himself he still remains completely oblivious to the fact that other human beings are made of flesh and blood. Had it been otherwise he would have had more sense than to send this lad to Petersburg. We must afford him all the help we can, but he will fail there for a certainty.'

‘Why should he have a greater chance of success in any other capital?'

Harris gave a short, hard laugh. ‘Because, my friend, I will eat my Order of the Bath if, after one look at his fine figure and bonny blue eyes, that old bitch of an Empress does not order him to her bed. And I do not think young Mr. Brook will stand for that.'

On April the 17th Roger landed at Copenhagen. It had been Sir James Harris's idea that an oblique approach to St. Petersburg would offer advantages not to be obtained by a direct descent upon it. The wily diplomat had pointed out that while Roger's plan of passing himself off as a Frenchman in the Russian capital was basically sound, he would be greatly handicapped if he arrived there with neither background nor introductions; whereas if he spent a few weeks in Denmark and Sweden on his way, he should be able to establish his new personality while in those countries, and later enter Russia adequately sponsored by friends that he had made while in the Scandinavian capitals.

It had transpired that the first available ship was sailing from Edinburgh about the 20th of the month, so Roger had had ample time to go down to Lymington and spend a few days with his mother before taking coach for the north. This visit to his home had also enabled him to have several additional conferences with Sir James, as the diplomat was about to be elevated to the peerage under the title of Baron Malmesbury for his part in bringing about the Triple Alliance; and, as member for Christchurch, he wished to secure the support of his constituents in the coming by-election for his party's nominee. In consequence, two days after their dinner at Brook's, they travelled down into Hampshire together, and Roger had benefitted by much sage advice about his mission.

Quite apart from Sir James's great prestige in his own service he had most valuable personal relationships with other leading figures in it. His wife had been a Miss Amyand, and her sister had married Sir Gilbert Elliot, whose youngest sister was the wife of William Eden, the negotiator of the recent commercial treaty with France, and whose younger brother, Hugh, was now minister at Copenhagen. It had therefore been decided that no one could be better fitted to launch Roger into the Baltic scene than Mr. Hugh Elliot, and Sir James had furnished him with a letter for that purpose. He had also
given him a letter for the Reverend William Tooke, the chaplain to the trading factory in St. Petersburg, where all cargoes of British goods shipped to the port were warehoused before being distributed. Sir James had described the clergyman as a shrewd, discreet fellow, long resident in Russia and possessing an encyclopaedic knowledge of Russian affairs. It was to him that Roger was to give his despatches, as he was admirably situated to pass them on to Mr. Alleyne Fitzherbert for transmission by Embassy bag to London.

While sailing up the Sound towards Copenhagen, through waters alive with shipping, Roger had been pleasantly impressed with the fertile, undulating country, studded with fine private houses set in well-wooded picturesque parks; and on landing he was similarly impressed by the Danish capital. Sixty years before it had been almost totally destroyed by a great fire, so all its principal buildings were comparatively modern, and it had a much more spacious air than any other city that he had so far visited.

Roger had travelled from Edinburgh as Monsieur le Chevalier de Breuc, and The Silver Hart having been recommended to him as the best inn at which to put up, he went straight to it and took rooms there in that name. As soon as he was settled into them he wrote a note in French to Mr. Elliot, simply saying that he had a letter for him from Sir James Harris and would be glad to know when it would be convenient to deliver it. The same evening a reply came back that the Minister would be happy to receive him at eleven o'clock the following morning.

Next day therefore he hired a horse and rode out to Christiansholm, the residential suburb in which the British Legation was situated, and found it to be a small but very beautiful villa. Immediately he was alone with Mr. Elliot he disclosed the fact that he was an Englishman and presented his credentials. Then, as the Minister gave him a quiet smile and settled down to peruse them, Roger had ample opporunity to study him at leisure and think over the outline of his history, which had been supplied by Sir James.

Hugh Elliot hailed from Minto in Roxburghshire and was the second son of a Scottish Baronet. He was educated for the Army but, owing to his father's friendship with Lord Suffolk, the Foreign Secretary of the day, had, without being consulted by either, been appointed His Brittanic Majesty's Minister to the Elector of Bavaria, at the age of twenty-one. After a tour of duty in the charming and easy-going city of Munich he had been transferred at twenty-five to the much less agreeable but far more important post of Berlin. Here he fell in love with
and married the beautiful Fraulein von Krauth, only to learn a few years later that she was deceiving him. At this juncture he had just been transferred to Copenhagen, and his romance ended by his secretly returning to Berlin to kidnap his own little daughter in the middle of the night, fighting a successful duel with his young wife's lover, and then divorcing her.

He was a rather frail-looking, fair-haired, blue-eyed Scot, now thirty-six years of age. Roger thought he looked considerably older, but attributed that to the tragic failure of his marriage.

Having finished reading the letter Hugh Elliot said: ‘I will willingly serve you in any way I can, Mr. Brook, but your having appeared here in the guise of a Frenchman makes it somewhat difficult for me to do so openly. For example, it would not be
de rigueur
for me to present anyone not having British nationality, at the Danish Court.'

Roger bowed. ‘I am aware of that, Sir, and the last thing I would wish to do is to prove an embarrassment to you. However, Sir James suggested that you might perhaps be able to arrange an occasion when I could meet the French Minister here, casually. My story is that I am a native of Strasbourg, but have been living with relatives in England for the past six months; so that while I am lacking in introductions from my own countrymen, friends in London were good enough to give me a letter of introduction to yourself.'

‘That sounds like a typical James Harris ruse,' smiled Elliot. ‘He would reason that once I have brought you into contact with Monsieur le Baron la Houze, you will only have to make yourself pleasant to him, for him to offer, quite spontaneously, to present you himself; then you will be launched every bit as much under the French aegis in Denmark as though you had arrived here with your pockets stuffed full of letters from Versailles.'

‘That was the idea, Sir,' Roger grinned back.

‘Regard the matter as arranged then. I'll not ask Monsieur le Baron here to meet you, as that might appear a shade too pointed. But he is certain to be at Count Bernstorff's
soirée
next Tuesday so you shall accompany me to that. Now, in what other way can I be of assistance to you?'

‘If I did not fear to trespass on your good nature I would ask if you could spare an evening to put me
au courant
with the politics of the Scandinavian Kingdoms
vis-à-vis
Russia.'

‘I will do so with pleasure. As I lead a bachelor existence 'tis my custom to spend most Sundays with my good friends the Reventlows; but I can easily excuse myself tomorrow, and if you will dine with me we can have a long talk afterwards.'

‘Please don't let me interfere …' Roger began.

The Minister waved the polite hesitation aside. ‘Believe me, Mr. Brook, 'tis mere selfishness out of my eagerness to hear the latest gossip from London, that makes me seek so early an opportunity to talk with you at leisure. I'll be your debtor for giving me your company tomorrow. How long do you plan to remain with us in Copenhagen?'

‘In that, Sir, I should value your guidance. My mission is of so nebulous a character that any reasonable delay in my reaching the Russian capital may well be compensated for, if during it, I acquire a better knowledge of how to interpret such allusions to future policy as I may pick up when I am once established there. Yet I am naturally eager to reach my destination and set about the business on which I have been sent.'

‘I agree that a good understanding of the background against which you are to work should prove of great value to you; and I will give you a verbal survey of the Danish court tomorrow. I think too, that either through Monsieur la Houze or some other agency we must arrange for your presentation, so that you can see the leading personages here for yourself. But once you have made your bow there will be little point in your lingering here. Denmark now pursues a policy of strict neutrality, so Copenhagen has become something of a backwater and you would be more likely to learn of matters to your advantage in Stockholm.'

A servant now appeared with a pot of hot chocolate, and over it they talked of lighter matters for a quarter of an hour, then Roger took his leave;

He spent the rest of the day wandering about the Danish capital, and found to his relief that language presented no barriers to his enjoyment. All the better class of people whom he addressed, as also the shopkeepers and hackney-coachmen, spoke either fluent French or German; and he soon learned that few of the nobility even understood Danish, as it was then considered by them to be only the barbarous tongue of churls.

The Royal Palace of Christiansborg appeared to him vast in comparison with the smallness of the city, but such churches as he visited proved disappointing. Since the Reformation the Danes had adopted the strictest form of Calvinism, so their places of worship were bleakly puritanical. Such people of quality as he saw were richly dressed in the French fashion, but the bulk of the citizens wore sober black, and the tattered garments of the poorer people led him to judge that, as in France, the wealth of the country was most unevenly distributed. The food that was served to him at his own inn
he found excellent, as, although plain, it was beautifully fresh and included a greater number of fish-dishes than he had seen before on one table.

On the Sunday the entire city assumed an air of intense sobriety. Every shop was shuttered, the cries of the street-vendors were stilled, and amusements of every kind were strictly prohibited. In consequence, he was glad when the time came for him to ride out again to Christiansholm. The air was crisp, but now that May had almost come a brave sun heightened the tender green of the gardens that he passed, and brought out the rich colours of their flowers.

At the Legation the tall, blue-eyed Scot received him kindly and they sat down to dinner
à deux,
Once more Roger noted the profusion of fish-dishes, including a delicious cold salmon; and, on his commenting on it, his host told him that, as Norway formed part of the Danish dominions, such salmon were to be had all through the season in Copenhagen for a few pence.

After they had dined, instead of remaining at table, they took their wine into the library and settled themselves comfortably at a table in a bay-window which had a lovely view across the garden to the Sound, where an armada of small yachts was rocking gently at anchor in Sabbath quiet.

Having filled Roger's glass, Hugh Elliot said: ‘Now to business. To give you a picture of the people who control the destinies of Denmark I must go some way back. You will, no doubt, have noted the strictness with which Sunday is kept here. Well, 'tis a feast-day now to what it was when King Frederick V ascended the throne in 1746. Before his time the Court lived in almost unrelieved gloom, on weekdays as well as on the Sabbath, but he altered that, for the nobility at least. He was one of the most dissolute monarchs that ever lived, and was hardly surpassed in his excesses by his contemporary Louis XV. The Reformed Church here naturally regarded him as its worst enemy, but the Danish Kings are absolute. They have no Parliament, and neither the nobility nor the clergy has any legal means of opposing their wishes—so their word is law. In consequence King Frederick emancipated his upper-clases from their hair-shirts; and ever since his time the court has been to some extent lax in its morals, whereas the bulk of the people have continued to lead outwardly the most puritanical lives. Apart from his debaucheries he was by no means a bad King, and with the aid of his very able Prime Minister, Count Bernstorff, he brought a moderate prosperity to Denmark.'