The Scarlet Pimpernel
But she did not heed any of these petty discomforts: “We may meet
Blakeney at the ‘Chat Gris,’” Sir Andrew had said, when they landed,
and she was walking as if on a carpet of rose-leaves, for she was going
to meet him almost at once.
At last they reached their destination. Sir Andrew evidently knew the
road, for he had walked unerringly in the dark, and had not asked his
way from anyone. It was too dark then for Marguerite to notice the
outside aspect of this house. The “Chat Gris,” as Sir Andrew had called
it, was evidently a small wayside inn on the outskirts of Calais, and
on the way to Gris Nez. It lay some little distance from the coast, for
the sound of the sea seemed to come from afar.
Sir Andrew knocked at the door with the knob of his cane, and from
within Marguerite heard a sort of grunt and the muttering of a number
of oaths. Sir Andrew knocked again, this time more peremptorily: more
oaths were heard, and then shuffling steps seemed to draw near the
door. Presently this was thrown open, and Marguerite found herself on
the threshold of the most dilapidated, most squalid room she had ever
seen in all her life.
The paper, such as it was, was hanging from the walls in strips; there
did not seem to be a single piece of furniture in the room that could,
by the wildest stretch of imagination, be called “whole.” Most of the
chairs had broken backs, others had no seats to them, one corner of the
table was propped up with a bundle of faggots, there where the fourth
leg had been broken.
In one corner of the room there was a huge hearth, over which hung a
stock-pot, with a not altogether unpalatable odour of hot soup
emanating therefrom. On one side of the room, high up in the wall,
there was a species of loft, before which hung a tattered
blue-and-white checked curtain. A rickety set of steps led up to this
loft.
On the great bare walls, with their colourless paper, all stained with
varied filth, there were chalked up at intervals in great bold
characters, the words: “Liberté—Egalité—Fraternité.”
The whole of this sordid abode was dimly lighted by an evil-smelling
oil-lamp, which hung from the rickety rafters of the ceiling. It all
looked so horribly squalid, so dirty and uninviting, that Marguerite
hardly dared to cross the threshold.
Sir Andrew, however, had stepped unhesitatingly forward.
“English travellers, citoyen!” he said boldly, and speaking in French.
The individual who had come to the door in response to Sir Andrew’s
knock, and who, presumably, was the owner of this squalid abode, was an
elderly, heavily-built peasant, dressed in a dirty blue blouse, heavy
sabots, from which wisps of straw protruded all round, shabby blue
trousers, and the inevitable red cap with the tricolour cockade, that
proclaimed his momentary political views. He carried a short wooden
pipe, from which the odour of rank tobacco emanated. He looked with
some suspicion and a great deal of contempt at the two travellers,
muttered “_Sacrrrés Anglais!_” and spat upon the ground to further show
his independence of spirit, but, nevertheless, he stood aside to let
them enter, no doubt well aware that these same _sacrrrés Anglais_
always had well-filled purses.
“Oh, lud!” said Marguerite, as she advanced into the room, holding her
handkerchief to her dainty nose, “what a dreadful hole! Are you sure
this is the place?”
“Aye! ’tis the place, sure enough,” replied the young man as, with his
lace-edged, fashionable handkerchief, he dusted a chair for Marguerite
to sit on; “but I vow I never saw a more villainous hole.”
“Faith!” she said, looking round with some curiosity and a great deal
of horror at the dilapidated walls, the broken chairs, the rickety
table, “it certainly does not look inviting.”
The landlord of the “Chat Gris”—by name, Brogard—had taken no further
notice of his guests; he concluded that presently they would order
supper, and in the meanwhile it was not for a free citizen to show
deference, or even courtesy, to anyone, however smartly they might be
dressed.
By the hearth sat a huddled-up figure clad, seemingly, mostly in rags:
that figure was apparently a woman, although even that would have been
hard to distinguish, except for the cap, which had once been white, and
for what looked like the semblance of a petticoat. She was sitting
mumbling to herself, and from time to time stirring the brew in her
stock-pot.
“Hey, my friend!” said Sir Andrew at last, “we should like some supper.
. . . The citoyenne there,” he added, pointing to the huddled-up bundle
of rags by the hearth, “is concocting some delicious soup, I’ll
warrant, and my mistress has not tasted food for several hours.”
It took Brogard some few moments to consider the question. A free
citizen does not respond too readily to the wishes of those who happen
to require something of him.
“_Sacrrrés aristos!_” he murmured, and once more spat upon the ground.
Then he went very slowly up to a dresser which stood in a corner of the
room; from this he took an old pewter soup-tureen and slowly, and
without a word, he handed it to his better-half, who, in the same
silence, began filling the tureen with the soup out of her stock-pot.
Marguerite had watched all these preparations with absolute horror;
were it not for the earnestness of her purpose, she would incontinently
have fled from this abode of dirt and evil smells.
“Faith! our host and hostess are not cheerful people,” said Sir Andrew,
seeing the look of horror on Marguerite’s face. “I would I could offer
you a more hearty and more appetising meal . . . but I think you will
find the soup eatable and the wine good; these people wallow in dirt,
but live well as a rule.”
“Nay! I pray you, Sir Andrew,” she said gently, “be not anxious about
me. My mind is scarce inclined to dwell on thoughts of supper.”
Brogard was slowly pursuing his gruesome preparations; he had placed a
couple of spoons, also two glasses on the table, both of which Sir
Andrew took the precaution of wiping carefully.
Brogard had also produced a bottle of wine and some bread, and
Marguerite made an effort to draw her chair to the table and to make
some pretence at eating. Sir Andrew, as befitting his _rôle_ of
lacquey, stood behind her chair.
“Nay, Madame, I pray you,” he said, seeing that Marguerite seemed quite
unable to eat, “I beg of you to try and swallow some food—remember you
have need of all your strength.”
The soup certainly was not bad; it smelt and tasted good. Marguerite
might have enjoyed it, but for the horrible surroundings. She broke the
bread, however, and drank some of the wine.
“Nay, Sir Andrew,” she said, “I do not like to see you standing. You
have need of food just as much as I have. This creature will only think
that I am an eccentric Englishwoman eloping with her lacquey, if you’ll
sit down and partake of this semblance of supper beside me.”
Indeed, Brogard having placed what was strictly necessary upon the
table, seemed not to trouble himself any further about his guests. The
Mere Brogard had quietly shuffled out of the room, and the man stood
and lounged about, smoking his evil-smelling pipe, sometimes under
Marguerite’s very nose, as any free-born citizen who was anybody’s
equal should do.
“Confound the brute!” said Sir Andrew, with native British wrath, as
Brogard leant up against the table, smoking and looking down
superciliously at these two _sacrrrés Anglais_.
“In Heaven’s name, man,” admonished Marguerite, hurriedly, seeing that
Sir Andrew, with British-born instinct, was ominously clenching his
fist, “remember that you are in France, and that in this year of grace
this is the temper of the people.”
“I’d like to scrag the brute!” muttered Sir Andrew, savagely.
He had taken Marguerite’s advice and sat next to her at table, and they
were both making noble efforts to deceive one another, by pretending to
eat and drink.
“I pray you,” said Marguerite, “keep the creature in a good temper, so
that he may answer the questions we must put to him.”
“I’ll do my best, but, begad! I’d sooner scrag him than question him.
Hey! my friend,” he said pleasantly in French, and tapping Brogard
lightly on the shoulder, “do you see many of our quality along these
parts? Many English travellers, I mean?”
Brogard looked round at him, over his near shoulder, puffed away at his
pipe for a moment or two as he was in no hurry, then muttered,—
“Heu!—sometimes!”
“Ah!” said Sir Andrew, carelessly, “English travellers always know
where they can get good wine, eh! my friend?—Now, tell me, my lady was
desiring to know if by any chance you happen to have seen a great
friend of hers, an English gentleman, who often comes to Calais on
business; he is tall, and recently was on his way to Paris—my lady
hoped to have met him in Calais.”
Marguerite tried not to look at Brogard, lest she should betray before
him the burning anxiety with which she waited for his reply. But a
free-born French citizen is never in any hurry to answer questions:
Brogard took his time, then he said very slowly,—
“Tall Englishman?—To-day!—Yes.”
“You have seen him?” asked Sir Andrew, carelessly.
“Yes, to-day,” muttered Brogard, sullenly. Then he quietly took Sir
Andrew’s hat from a chair close by, put it on his own head, tugged at
his dirty blouse, and generally tried to express in pantomime that the
individual in question wore very fine clothes. “_Sacrré aristo!_” he
muttered, “that tall Englishman!”
Marguerite could scarce repress a scream.
“It’s Sir Percy right enough,” she murmured, “and not even in
disguise!”
She smiled, in the midst of all her anxiety and through her gathering
tears, at thought of “the ruling passion strong in death”; of Percy
running into the wildest, maddest dangers, with the latest-cut coat
upon his back, and the laces of his jabot unruffled.
“Oh! the foolhardiness of it!” she sighed. “Quick, Sir Andrew! ask the
man when he went.”
“Ah, yes, my friend,” said Sir Andrew, addressing Brogard, with the
same assumption of carelessness, “my lord always wears beautiful
clothes; the tall Englishman you saw, was certainly my lady’s friend.
And he has gone, you say?”
“He went . . . yes . . . but he’s coming back . . . here—he ordered
supper . . .”
Sir Andrew put his hand with a quick gesture of warning upon
Marguerite’s arm; it came none too soon, for the next moment her wild,
mad joy would have betrayed her. He was safe and well, was coming back
here presently, she would see him in a few moments perhaps. . . . Oh!
the wildness of her joy seemed almost more than she could bear.
“Here!” she said to Brogard, who seemed suddenly to have been
transformed in her eyes into some heaven-born messenger of bliss.
“Here!—did you say the English gentleman was coming back here?”
The heaven-born messenger of bliss spat upon the floor, to express his
contempt for all and sundry _aristos_, who chose to haunt the “Chat
Gris.”
“Heu!” he muttered, “he ordered supper—he will come back. . . . _Sacrré
Anglais!_” he added, by way of protest against all this fuss for a mere
Englishman.
“But where is he now?—Do you know?” she asked eagerly, placing her
dainty white hand upon the dirty sleeve of his blue blouse.
“He went to get a horse and cart,” said Brogard, laconically, as, with
a surly gesture, he shook off from his arm that pretty hand which
princes had been proud to kiss.
“At what time did he go?”
But Brogard had evidently had enough of these questionings. He did not
think that it was fitting for a citizen—who was the equal of anybody—to
be thus catechised by these _sacrrés aristos_, even though they were
rich English ones. It was distinctly more fitting to his new-born
dignity to be as rude as possible; it was a sure sign of servility to