The Scarlet Pimpernel
“Shall we leave Sir Percy out of the question for the present, my dear
friend?” she said drily.
“Ah! my dear lady, pardon me, but that is just what we cannot very well
do,” said Chauvelin, whilst once again his eyes, keen as those of a fox
on the alert, darted a quick glance at Marguerite. “I have a most
perfect prescription against the worst form of _ennui_, which I would
have been happy to submit to you, but—”
“But what?”
“There _is_ Sir Percy.”
“What has he to do with it?”
“Quite a good deal, I am afraid. The prescription I would offer, fair
lady, is called by a very plebeian name: Work!”
“Work?”
Chauvelin looked at Marguerite long and scrutinisingly. It seemed as if
those keen, pale eyes of his were reading every one of her thoughts.
They were alone together; the evening air was quite still, and their
soft whispers were drowned in the noise which came from the
coffee-room. Still, Chauvelin took a step or two from under the porch,
looked quickly and keenly all round him, then, seeing that indeed no
one was within earshot, he once more came back close to Marguerite.
“Will you render France a small service, citoyenne?” he asked, with a
sudden change of manner, which lent his thin, fox-like face singular
earnestness.
“La, man!” she replied flippantly, “how serious you look all of a
sudden. . . . Indeed I do not know if I _would_ render France a small
service—at any rate, it depends upon the kind of service she—or
you—want.”
“Have you ever heard of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Citoyenne St. Just?”
asked Chauvelin, abruptly.
“Heard of the Scarlet Pimpernel?” she retorted with a long and merry
laugh, “Faith, man! we talk of nothing else. . . . We have hats ‘à la
Scarlet Pimpernel’; our horses are called ‘Scarlet Pimpernel’; at the
Prince of Wales’ supper party the other night we had a ‘oufflé à la
Scarlet Pimpernel.’ . . . Lud!” she added gaily, “the other day I
ordered at my milliner’s a blue dress trimmed with green, and bless me,
if she did not call that ‘à la Scarlet Pimpernel.’”
Chauvelin had not moved while she prattled merrily along; he did not
even attempt to stop her when her musical voice and her childlike laugh
went echoing through the still evening air. But he remained serious and
earnest whilst she laughed, and his voice, clear, incisive, and hard,
was not raised above his breath as he said,—
“Then, as you have heard of that enigmatical personage, citoyenne, you
must also have guessed, and known, that the man who hides his identity
under that strange pseudonym, is the most bitter enemy of our republic,
of France . . . of men like Armand St. Just.”
“La! . . .” she said, with a quaint little sigh, “I dare swear he is. .
. . France has many bitter enemies these days.”
“But you, citoyenne, are a daughter of France, and should be ready to
help her in a moment of deadly peril.”
“My brother Armand devotes his life to France,” she retorted proudly;
“as for me, I can do nothing . . . here in England. . . .”
“Yes, you . . .” he urged still more earnestly, whilst his thin
fox-like face seemed suddenly to have grown impressive and full of
dignity, “here, in England, citoyenne . . . you alone can help us. . .
. Listen!—I have been sent over here by the Republican Government as
its representative: I present my credentials to Mr. Pitt in London
to-morrow. One of my duties here is to find out all about this League
of the Scarlet Pimpernel, which has become a standing menace to France,
since it is pledged to help our cursed aristocrats—traitors to their
country, and enemies of the people—to escape from the just punishment
which they deserve. You know as well as I do, citoyenne, that once they
are over here, those French _émigrés_ try to rouse public feeling
against the Republic. . . . They are ready to join issue with any enemy
bold enough to attack France. . . . Now, within the last month, scores
of these _émigrés_, some only suspected of treason, others actually
condemned by the Tribunal of Public Safety, have succeeded in crossing
the Channel. Their escape in each instance was planned, organised and
effected by this society of young English jackanapes, headed by a man
whose brain seems as resourceful as his identity is mysterious. All the
most strenuous efforts on the part of my spies have failed to discover
who he is; whilst the others are the hands, he is the head, who beneath
this strange anonymity calmly works at the destruction of France. I
mean to strike at that head, and for this I want your help—through him
afterwards I can reach the rest of the gang: he is a young buck in
English society, of that I feel sure. Find that man for me, citoyenne!”
he urged, “find him for France!”
Marguerite had listened to Chauvelin’s impassioned speech without
uttering a word, scarce making a movement, hardly daring to breathe.
She had told him before that this mysterious hero of romance was the
talk of the smart set to which she belonged; already, before this, her
heart and her imagination had been stirred by the thought of the brave
man, who, unknown to fame, had rescued hundreds of lives from a
terrible, often an unmerciful fate. She had but little real sympathy
with those haughty French aristocrats, insolent in their pride of
caste, of whom the Comtesse de Tournay de Basserive was so typical an
example; but, republican and liberal-minded though she was from
principle, she hated and loathed the methods which the young Republic
had chosen for establishing itself. She had not been in Paris for some
months; the horrors and bloodshed of the Reign of Terror, culminating
in the September massacres, had only come across the Channel to her as
a faint echo. Robespierre, Danton, Marat, she had not known in their
new guise of bloody justiciaries, merciless wielders of the guillotine.
Her very soul recoiled in horror from these excesses, to which she
feared her brother Armand—moderate republican as he was—might become
one day the holocaust.
Then, when first she heard of this band of young English enthusiasts,
who, for sheer love of their fellow-men, dragged women and children,
old and young men, from a horrible death, her heart had glowed with
pride for them, and now, as Chauvelin spoke, her very soul went out to
the gallant and mysterious leader of the reckless little band, who
risked his life daily, who gave it freely and without ostentation, for
the sake of humanity.
Her eyes were moist when Chauvelin had finished speaking, the lace at
her bosom rose and fell with her quick, excited breathing; she no
longer heard the noise of drinking from the inn, she did not heed her
husband’s voice or his inane laugh, her thoughts had gone wandering in
search of the mysterious hero! Ah! there was a man she might have
loved, had he come her way: everything in him appealed to her romantic
imagination; his personality, his strength, his bravery, the loyalty of
those who served under him in the same noble cause, and, above all,
that anonymity which crowned him, as if with a halo of romantic glory.
“Find him for France, citoyenne!”
Chauvelin’s voice close to her ear roused her from her dreams. The
mysterious hero had vanished, and, not twenty yards away from her, a
man was drinking and laughing, to whom she had sworn faith and loyalty.
“La! man,” she said with a return of her assumed flippancy, “you are
astonishing. Where in the world am I to look for him?”
“You go everywhere, citoyenne,” whispered Chauvelin, insinuatingly,
“Lady Blakeney is the pivot of social London, so I am told . . . you
see everything, you _hear_ everything.”
“Easy, my friend,” retorted Marguerite, drawing herself up to her full
height and looking down, with a slight thought of contempt on the
small, thin figure before her. “Easy! you seem to forget that there are
six feet of Sir Percy Blakeney, and a long line of ancestors to stand
between Lady Blakeney and such a thing as you propose.”
“For the sake of France, citoyenne!” reiterated Chauvelin, earnestly.
“Tush, man, you talk nonsense anyway; for even if you did know who this
Scarlet Pimpernel is, you could do nothing to him—an Englishman!”
“I’d take my chance of that,” said Chauvelin, with a dry, rasping
little laugh. “At any rate we could send him to the guillotine first to
cool his ardour, then, when there is a diplomatic fuss about it, we can
apologise—humbly—to the British Government, and, if necessary, pay
compensation to the bereaved family.”
“What you propose is horrible, Chauvelin,” she said, drawing away from
him as from some noisome insect. “Whoever the man may be, he is brave
and noble, and never—do you hear me?—never would I lend a hand to such
villainy.”
“You prefer to be insulted by every French aristocrat who comes to this
country?”
Chauvelin had taken sure aim when he shot this tiny shaft. Marguerite’s
fresh young cheeks became a thought more pale and she bit her under
lip, for she would not let him see that the shaft had struck home.
“That is beside the question,” she said at last with indifference. “I
can defend myself, but I refuse to do any dirty work for you—or for
France. You have other means at your disposal; you must use them, my
friend.”
And without another look at Chauvelin, Marguerite Blakeney turned her
back on him and walked straight into the inn.
“That is not your last word, citoyenne,” said Chauvelin, as a flood of
light from the passage illumined her elegant, richly-clad figure, “we
meet in London, I hope!”
“We meet in London,” she said, speaking over her shoulder at him, “but
that is my last word.”
She threw open the coffee-room door and disappeared from his view, but
he remained under the porch for a moment or two, taking a pinch of
snuff. He had received a rebuke and a snub, but his shrewd, fox-like
face looked neither abashed nor disappointed; on the contrary, a
curious smile, half sarcastic and wholly satisfied, played around the
corners of his thin lips.
CHAPTER IX.
THE OUTRAGE
A beautiful starlit night had followed on the day of incessant rain: a
cool, balmy, late summer’s night, essentially English in its suggestion
of moisture and scent of wet earth and dripping leaves.
The magnificent coach, drawn by four of the finest thoroughbreds in
England, had driven off along the London road, with Sir Percy Blakeney
on the box, holding the reins in his slender feminine hands, and beside
him Lady Blakeney wrapped in costly furs. A fifty-mile drive on a
starlit summer’s night! Marguerite had hailed the notion of it with
delight. . . . Sir Percy was an enthusiastic whip; his four
thoroughbreds, which had been sent down to Dover a couple of days
before, were just sufficiently fresh and restive to add zest to the
expedition, and Marguerite revelled in anticipation of the few hours of
solitude, with the soft night breeze fanning her cheeks, her thoughts
wandering, whither away? She knew from old experience that Sir Percy
would speak little, if at all: he had often driven her on his beautiful
coach for hours at night, from point to point, without making more than
one or two casual remarks upon the weather or the state of the roads.
He was very fond of driving by night, and she had very quickly adopted
his fancy: as she sat next to him hour after hour, admiring the
dexterous, certain way in which he handled the reins, she often
wondered what went on in that slow-going head of his. He never told
her, and she had never cared to ask.
At “The Fisherman’s Rest” Mr. Jellyband was going the round, putting
out the lights. His bar customers had all gone, but upstairs in the
snug little bedrooms, Mr. Jellyband had quite a few important guests:
the Comtesse de Tournay, with Suzanne, and the Vicomte, and there were
two more bedrooms ready for Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and Lord Antony