The Scarlet Pimpernel
puzzled, and as his keen eyes met Marguerite’s they became strangely
sarcastic.
“M. Chauvelin,” she said, as he stopped on the top of the stairs,
bowing elaborately before her, “my coach is outside; may I claim your
arm?”
As gallant as ever, he offered her his arm and led her downstairs. The
crowd was very great, some of the Minister’s guests were departing,
others were leaning against the banisters watching the throng as it
filed up and down the wide staircase.
“Chauvelin,” she said at last desperately, “I must know what has
happened.”
“What has happened, dear lady?” he said, with affected surprise.
“Where? When?”
“You are torturing me, Chauvelin. I have helped you to-night . . .
surely I have the right to know. What happened in the dining-room at
one o’clock just now?”
She spoke in a whisper, trusting that in the general hubbub of the
crowd her words would remain unheeded by all, save the man at her side.
“Quiet and peace reigned supreme, fair lady; at that hour I was asleep
in the corner of one sofa and Sir Percy Blakeney in another.”
“Nobody came into the room at all?”
“Nobody.”
“Then we have failed, you and I? . . .”
“Yes! we have failed—perhaps . . .”
“But Armand?” she pleaded.
“Ah! Armand St. Just’s chances hang on a thread . . . pray heaven, dear
lady, that that thread may not snap.”
“Chauvelin, I worked for you, sincerely, earnestly . . . remember. . .
.”
“I remember my promise,” he said quietly; “the day that the Scarlet
Pimpernel and I meet on French soil, St. Just will be in the arms of
his charming sister.”
“Which means that a brave man’s blood will be on my hands,” she said,
with a shudder.
“His blood, or that of your brother. Surely at the present moment you
must hope, as I do, that the enigmatical Scarlet Pimpernel will start
for Calais to-day—”
“I am only conscious of one hope, citoyen.”
“And that is?”
“That Satan, your master, will have need of you elsewhere, before the
sun rises to-day.”
“You flatter me, citoyenne.”
She had detained him for a while, midway down the stairs, trying to get
at the thoughts which lay beyond that thin, fox-like mask. But
Chauvelin remained urbane, sarcastic, mysterious; not a line betrayed
to the poor, anxious woman whether she need fear or whether she dared
to hope.
Downstairs on the landing she was soon surrounded. Lady Blakeney never
stepped from any house into her coach, without an escort of fluttering
human moths around the dazzling light of her beauty. But before she
finally turned away from Chauvelin, she held out a tiny hand to him,
with that pretty gesture of childish appeal which was so essentially
her own.
“Give me some hope, my little Chauvelin,” she pleaded.
With perfect gallantry he bowed over that tiny hand, which looked so
dainty and white through the delicately transparent black lace mitten,
and kissing the tips of the rosy fingers:—
“Pray heaven that the thread may not snap,” he repeated, with his
enigmatic smile.
And stepping aside, he allowed the moths to flutter more closely round
the candle, and the brilliant throng of the _jeunesse dorée_, eagerly
attentive to Lady Blakeney’s every movement, hid the keen, fox-like
face from her view.
CHAPTER XVI.
RICHMOND
A few minutes later she was sitting, wrapped in costly furs, near Sir
Percy Blakeney on the box-seat of his magnificent coach, and the four
splendid bays had thundered down the quiet street.
The night was warm in spite of the gentle breeze which fanned
Marguerite’s burning cheeks. Soon London houses were left behind, and
rattling over old Hammersmith Bridge, Sir Percy was driving his bays
rapidly towards Richmond.
The river wound in and out in its pretty delicate curves, looking like
a silver serpent beneath the glittering rays of the moon. Long shadows
from overhanging trees spread occasional deep palls right across the
road. The bays were rushing along at breakneck speed, held but slightly
back by Sir Percy’s strong, unerring hands.
These nightly drives after balls and suppers in London were a source of
perpetual delight to Marguerite, and she appreciated her husband’s
eccentricity keenly, which caused him to adopt this mode of taking her
home every night, to their beautiful home by the river, instead of
living in a stuffy London house. He loved driving his spirited horses
along the lonely, moonlit roads, and she loved to sit on the box-seat,
with the soft air of an English late summer’s night fanning her face
after the hot atmosphere of a ball or supper-party. The drive was not a
long one—less than an hour, sometimes, when the bays were very fresh,
and Sir Percy gave them full rein.
To-night he seemed to have a very devil in his fingers, and the coach
seemed to fly along the road, beside the river. As usual, he did not
speak to her, but stared straight in front of him, the ribbons seeming
to lie quite loosely in his slender, white hands. Marguerite looked at
him tentatively once or twice; she could see his handsome profile, and
one lazy eye, with its straight fine brow and drooping heavy lid.
The face in the moonlight looked singularly earnest, and recalled to
Marguerite’s aching heart those happy days of courtship, before he had
become the lazy nincompoop, the effete fop, whose life seemed spent in
card and supper rooms.
But now, in the moonlight, she could not catch the expression of the
lazy blue eyes; she could only see the outline of the firm chin, the
corner of the strong mouth, the well-cut massive shape of the forehead;
truly, nature had meant well by Sir Percy; his faults must all be laid
at the door of that poor, half-crazy mother, and of the distracted
heart-broken father, neither of whom had cared for the young life which
was sprouting up between them, and which, perhaps, their very
carelessness was already beginning to wreck.
Marguerite suddenly felt intense sympathy for her husband. The moral
crisis she had just gone through made her feel indulgent towards the
faults, the delinquencies, of others.
How thoroughly a human being can be buffeted and overmastered by Fate,
had been borne in upon her with appalling force. Had anyone told her a
week ago that she would stoop to spy upon her friends, that she would
betray a brave and unsuspecting man into the hands of a relentless
enemy, she would have laughed the idea to scorn.
Yet she had done these things; anon, perhaps the death of that brave
man would be at her door, just as two years ago the Marquis de St. Cyr
had perished through a thoughtless word of hers; but in that case she
was morally innocent—she had meant no serious harm—fate merely had
stepped in. But this time she had done a thing that obviously was base,
had done it deliberately, for a motive which, perhaps, high moralists
would not even appreciate.
And as she felt her husband’s strong arm beside her, she also felt how
much more he would dislike and despise her, if he knew of this night’s
work. Thus human beings judge of one another, superficially, casually,
throwing contempt on one another, with but little reason, and no
charity. She despised her husband for his inanities and vulgar,
unintellectual occupations; and he, she felt, would despise her still
worse, because she had not been strong enough to do right for right’s
sake, and to sacrifice her brother to the dictates of her conscience.
Buried in her thoughts, Marguerite had found this hour in the breezy
summer night all too brief; and it was with a feeling of keen
disappointment, that she suddenly realised that the bays had turned
into the massive gates of her beautiful English home.
Sir Percy Blakeney’s house on the river has become a historic one:
palatial in its dimensions, it stands in the midst of exquisitely
laid-out gardens, with a picturesque terrace and frontage to the river.
Built in Tudor days, the old red brick of the walls looks eminently
picturesque in the midst of a bower of green, the beautiful lawn, with
its old sun-dial, adding the true note of harmony to its foreground.
Great secular trees lent cool shadows to the grounds, and now, on this
warm early autumn night, the leaves slightly turned to russets and
gold, the old garden looked singularly poetic and peaceful in the
moonlight.
With unerring precision, Sir Percy had brought the four bays to a
standstill immediately in front of the fine Elizabethan entrance hall;
in spite of the lateness of the hour, an army of grooms seemed to have
emerged from the very ground, as the coach had thundered up, and were
standing respectfully round.
Sir Percy jumped down quickly, then helped Marguerite to alight. She
lingered outside for a moment, whilst he gave a few orders to one of
his men. She skirted the house, and stepped on to the lawn, looking out
dreamily into the silvery landscape. Nature seemed exquisitely at
peace, in comparison with the tumultuous emotions she had gone through:
she could faintly hear the ripple of the river and the occasional soft
and ghostlike fall of a dead leaf from a tree.
All else was quiet round her. She had heard the horses prancing as they
were being led away to their distant stables, the hurrying of servants’
feet as they had all gone within to rest: the house also was quite
still. In two separate suites of apartments, just above the magnificent
reception-rooms, lights were still burning; they were her rooms, and
his, well divided from each other by the whole width of the house, as
far apart as their own lives had become. Involuntarily she sighed—at
that moment she could really not have told why.
She was suffering from unconquerable heartache. Deeply and achingly she
was sorry for herself. Never had she felt so pitiably lonely, so
bitterly in want of comfort and of sympathy. With another sigh she
turned away from the river towards the house, vaguely wondering if,
after such a night, she could ever find rest and sleep.
Suddenly, before she reached the terrace, she heard a firm step upon
the crisp gravel, and the next moment her husband’s figure emerged out
of the shadow. He, too, had skirted the house, and was wandering along
the lawn, towards the river. He still wore his heavy driving coat with
the numerous lapels and collars he himself had set in fashion, but he
had thrown it well back, burying his hands as was his wont, in the deep
pockets of his satin breeches: the gorgeous white costume he had worn
at Lord Grenville’s ball, with its jabot of priceless lace, looked
strangely ghostly against the dark background of the house.
He apparently did not notice her, for, after a few moments’ pause, he
presently turned back towards the house, and walked straight up to the
terrace.
“Sir Percy!”
He already had one foot on the lowest of the terrace steps, but at her
voice he started, and paused, then looked searchingly into the shadows
whence she had called to him.
She came forward quickly into the moonlight, and, as soon as he saw
her, he said, with that air of consummate gallantry he always wore when
speaking to her,—
“At your service, Madame!”
But his foot was still on the step, and in his whole attitude there
was a remote suggestion, distinctly visible to her, that he wished to
go, and had no desire for a midnight interview.
“The air is deliciously cool,” she said, “the moonlight peaceful and
poetic, and the garden inviting. Will you not stay in it awhile; the
hour is not yet late, or is my company so distasteful to you, that you
are in a hurry to rid yourself of it?”
“Nay, Madame,” he rejoined placidly, “but ’tis on the other foot the
shoe happens to be, and I’ll warrant you’ll find the midnight air more
poetic without my company: no doubt the sooner I remove the obstruction
the better your ladyship will like it.”
He turned once more to go.