THE FISHERMAN'S REST
§ 1
AND whilst the whole of Europe was in travail with the repercussion of the gigantic upheaval that was shaking France to its historic foundations, the last few years had seen but very little change in this little corner of England.
The Fisherman's Rest stood where it had done for two centuries and long before thrones had tottered and anointed heads fallen on the scaffold. The oak rafters, black with age, the monumental hearth, the tables and high-backed benches, seemed like mute testimonies to good order and to tradition, just as the shiny pewter mugs, the foaming ale, the brass that glittered like gold, bore witness to unimpaired prosperity and an even, well-regulated life.
Over in the kitchen yonder, Mistress Sally Waite, as she now was, still ruled with a firm if somewhat hasty hand, the weight of which, so the naughty gossips averred, even her husband, Master Harry Waite, had experienced more than once. She still queened it over her father's household, presided over his kitchen, and drove the young scullery wenches to their task with her sharp tongue and an occasional slap. But The Fisherman's Rest could not have gone on without her. The copper saucepans would in truth not have glittered so, nor would the home-brewed ale have tasted half so luscious to Master Jellyband's faithful customers, had not Mistress Sally's strong brown hands drawn it for them, with just the right amount of creamy foam on the top and not a bit too much.
"And so it was still many a "Ho, Sally! 'Ere Sally! 'Ow long'll you be with that there beer!" or "Say, Sally! A cut of your cheese and homebaked bread; and look sharp about it!" that resounded from end to end of the long, low-raftered coffee-room of The Fisherman's Rest, on this fine May day of the year of grace 1794.
Sally Waite, her muslin cap set at a becoming angle, her kerchief primly folded over her well-developed bosom, and her kirtle neatly raised above a pair of exceedingly shapely ankles, was in and out of the room, in and out of the kitchen, tripping it like a benevolent if somewhat substantial fairy, bandying chaff here, administering rebuke there, hot, panting and excited.
§ 2
The while mine host, Master Jellyband—perhaps a shade more portly of figure, a thought more bald of pate, these last two years—stood with stubby legs firmly planted upon his own hearth, wherein, despite the warmth of a glorious afternoon, a log fire blazed away merrily. He was giving forth his views upon the political situation of Europe generally with the self-satisfied assurance born of complete ignorance and true British insular prejudice.
Believe me, Mr. Jellyband was in no two minds about "them murderin' furriners over yonder" who had done away with their King and Queen and all their nobility and quality, and whom England had at last decided to lick into shape.
"And not a moment too soon, hark'ee, Mr. 'Empseed," he went on sententiously. "And if I 'ad my way, we should 'ave punished 'em proper long before this—blown their bloomin' Paris into smithereens and carried off the pore Queen afore those murderous villains 'ad 'er pretty 'ead off 'er shoulders!"
Mr. Hempseed, from his own privileged corner in the inglenook, was not altogether prepared to admit that.
"I am not for interfering with other folks' ways," he said, raising his quaking treble so as to stem effectually the torrent of Master Jellyband's eloquence. "As the Scriptures say——"
"Keep your dirty fingers from off my waist!" came in decisive tones from Mistress Sally Waite, whilst the shrill sound made by the violent contact of a feminine hand against a manly cheek froze the Scriptural quotation on Mr. Hempseed's lips.
"Now then, now then, Sally!" Mr. Jellyband thought fit to say in stern tones, not liking his customers to be thus summarily dealt with.
"Now then, father," Sally retorted, with a toss of her brown curls, "you just attend to your politics, and Mr. 'Empseed to 'is Scriptures, and leave me to deal with them impudent jackanapes. You wait!" she added, turning once more with a parting shot directed against the discomfited offender. "If my 'Arry catches you at them tricks, you'll see what you get—that's all!"
"Sally!" Mr. Jellyband admonished, more sternly this time. "You'll 'ave my lord Hastings 'ere before 'is dinner is ready."
Which suggestion so overawed Mistress Sally that she promptly forgot the misdoings of the forward swain and failed to hear the sarcastic chuckle which greeted the mention of her husband's name. With an excited little cry, she ran quickly out of the room.
Mr. Hempseed, loftily unaware of interruption, concluded his sententious remark:
"As the Scriptures say, Mr. Jellyband: ''Ave no fellowship with the unfruitful work of darkness.' I don't 'old not with interfering. Remember what the Scriptures say: ''E that committeth sin is of the devil, and the devil sinneth from the beginning,'" he concluded with sublime irrelevance, sagely nodding his head.
But Mr. Jellyband was not thus lightly to be confounded in his argument—no, not by any quotation, relevant or otherwise!
"All very fine, Mr. 'Empseed," he said, "and good enough for them 'oo, like yourself, are willin' to side with them murderin' reprobates...."
"Like myself, Mr. Jellyband?" protested Mr. Hempseed, with as much vigour as his shrill treble would allow. "Nay, but I'm not for them children of darkness——"
"You may be or you may not," Mr. Jellyband went on, nothing daunted. "There be many as are, and 'oo'd say 'Let 'em murder,' even now. but I say that them as 'oo talk that way are not true Englishmen; for 'tis we Englishmen 'oo can teach the furriner just what 'e may do and what 'e may not. And as we've got the ships and the men and the money, we can just fight 'em as are not of our way o' thinkin'. And let me tell you, Mr. 'Empseed, that I'm prepared to back my opinions 'gainst any man as don't agree with me!"
For the nonce Mr. Hempseed was silent. True, a Scriptural text did hover on his thin, quivering lips; but as no one paid any heed to him for the moment its appositeness will for ever remain doubtful. The honours of victory rested with Mr. Jellyband. Such lofty patriotism, coupled with so much sound knowledge of political affairs, could not fail to leave its impress upon the more ignorant and the less fervent amongst the frequenters of The Fisherman's Rest.
Indeed, who was more qualified to pass an opinion on current events than the host of that much-frequented resort, seeing that the ladies and gentlemen of quality who came to England from over the water, so as to escape all them murtherin' reprobates in their own country, did most times halt at The Fisherman's Rest on their way to London or to Bath? And though Mr. Jellyband did not know a word of French—no furrin lingo for him, thank 'ee!—he nevertheless had mixed with all that nobility and gentry for over two years now, and had learned all that there was to know about the life over there, and about Mr. Pitt's intentions to put a stop to all those abominations.
§ 3
Even now, hardly had mine hosts conversation with his favoured customers assumed a more domestic turn, than a loud clatter on the cobblestones outside, a jingle and a rattle, shouts, laughter and bustle, announced the arrival of guests who were privileged to make as much noise as they pleased.
Mr. Jellyband ran to the door, shouted for Sally at the top of his voice with a "Here's my lord Hastings!" to add spur to Sally's hustle. Politics were forgotten for the nonce, arguments set aside, in the excitement of welcoming the quality.
Three young gallants in travelling clothes, smart of appearance and debonair of mien, were ushering a party of strangers—three ladies and two men—into the hospitable porch of The Fisherman's Rest. The little party had walked across from the inner harbour, where the graceful masts of an elegant schooner lately arrived in port were seen gently swaying against the delicately coloured afternoon sky. Three or four sailors from the schooner were carrying luggage, which they deposited in the hall of the inn, then touched their forelocks in response to a pleasant smile and nod from the young lords.
"This way, my lord," Master Jellyband reiterated with jovial obsequiousness. "Everything is ready. This way! Hey, Sallee!" he called again; and Sally, hot, excited, blushing, came tripping over from the kitchen, wiping her hot plump palms against her apron in anticipation of shaking hands with their lordships.
"Since Mr. Waite isn't anywhere about," my lord Hastings said gaily, as he put a bold arm round Mistress Sally's dainty waist, "I'll e'en have a kiss, my pretty one."
"And I, too, by gad, for old sake's sake!" Lord Tony asserted, and planked a hearty kiss on mistress Sally's dimpled cheek.
"At your service, my lords, at your service!" Master Jellyband rejoined, laughing. Then added more soberly: "Now then, Sally, show the ladies up into the blue room, the while their lordships 'ave a first shake down in the coffee-room. This way, gentlemen—your lordships—this way!"
The strangers in the meanwhile had stood by, wide-eyed and somewhat bewildered in face of this exuberant hilarity which was so unlike what they had pictured to themselves of dull, fog-ridden England—so unlike, too, the dreary moroseness which of late had replaced the erstwhile lighthearted gaiety of their own countrymen. The porch and the narrow hall of The Fisherman's Rest appeared to them seething and vitality. Every one was talking, nobody seemed to listen; every one was merry, and every one knew everybody else and was pleased to meet them. Sonorous laughter echoed from end to end along the solid beams, black and shiny with age. it all seemed so homely, so happy. The deference paid to the young gallants and to them as strangers by the sailors and the innkeeper was so genuine and hearty without the slightest sign of servility, that those five people who had left behind them so much class-hatred, enmity and cruelty in their own country, felt an unaccountable tightening of the heart, a few hot tears rise to their eyes, partly of joy, but partly too of regret.
§ 4
Lord Hastings, the youngest and merriest of the English party, guided the two Frenchmen toward the coffee-room, with many a jest in atrocious French and kindly words of encouragement, all intended to put the strangers at their ease.
Lord Anthony Dewhurst and Sir Andrew Ffoulkes—a trifle more serious and earnest, yet equally happy and excited at the success of their perilous adventure and at the prospect of reunion with their wives—lingered a moment longer in the hall, in order to speak with the sailors who had brought the luggage along.
"Do you know aught of Sir Percy?" Lord Tony asked.
"No, my lord," the sailor gave answer; "not since he went ashore early this morning. 'Er Ladyship was waitin' for 'im on the pier. Sir Percy just ran up the steps and then 'e shouted to us to get back quickly. 'Tell their lordships,' 'e says, 'I'll meet them at The Rest.' And then Sir Percy and 'er ladyship just walked off and we saw naun more of them."
"That was many hours ago," Sir Andrew Ffoulkes mused, with an inward smile. He too saw visions of meeting his pretty Suzanne very soon, and walking away with her into the land of dreams.
"'Twas just six o'clock when Sir Percy 'ad the boat lowered," the sailor rejoined. "And we rowed quick back after we landed 'im. but the Day-Dream, she 'ad to wait for the tie. We wurr a long while gettin' into port."
Sir Andrew nodded.
"You don't know," he said, "if the skipper had any further orders?"
"I don't know, sir," the man replied. "But we mun be in readiness always. No one knows when Sir Percy may wish to set sail again."
The two young men said nothing more, and presently the sailors touched their forelocks and went away. Lord Tony and Sir Andrew exchanged knowing smiles. They could easily picture to themselves their beloved chief, indefatigable, like a boy let out from school, exhilarated by the deadly danger through which he had once more passed unscathed, clasping his adored wife in his arms and wandering off with her, heaven knew whither, living his life of joy and love and happiness during the brief hours which his own indomitable energy, his reckless courage, accorded to the sentimental side of his complex nature.
Far too impatient to wait until the tide allowed the Day-Dream to get into port, he had been rowed ashore in the early dawn, and his beautiful Marguerite—punctual to the assignation conveyed to her by one of those mysterious means of which Percy alone knew the secret—was ready there to receive him, to forget in the shelter of his arms the days of racking anxiety and of cruel terror for her beloved through which she had again and again been forced to pass.
Neither Lord Tony nor Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, the Scarlet Pimpernel's most faithful and devoted lieutenants, begrudged their chief these extra hours of bliss, the while they were left in charge of the party so lately rescued from horrible death. They knew that within a day or two—within a few hours, perhaps—Blakeney would tear himself away once more from the clinging embrace of his exquisite wife, from the comfort of luxury of an ideal home, from the adulation of friends, the pleasures of wealth and of fashion, in order mayhap to grovel in the squalor and filth of some outlandish corner of Pairs, where he could be in touch with the innocents who suffered—the poor, the terror-stricken victims of the merciless revolution. Within a few hours, mayhap, he would be risking his life again every moment of the day, in order to save some poor hunted fellow-creature—man, woman or child—from death that threatened them at the hands of inhuman monsters who knew neither mercy nor compunction.
As for the nineteen members of the League, they took it in turns to follow their leader where danger was thickest. It was a privilege eagerly sought, deserved by all, and accorded to those who were most highly trusted. It was invariably followed by a period of rest in happy England, with wife, friends, joy and luxury. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, Lord Anthony Dewhurst and my lord Hastings had been of the expedition which brought Mme. de Serval with her three children and Bertrand Moncrif safely to England, after adventures more perilous, more reckless of danger, than most. Within a few hours they would be free to forget in the embrace of clinging arms every peril and every adventure save the eternal one of love, free to forswear everything outside that, save their veneration for their chief and their loyalty to his cause.
THE CASTAWAY
§ 1
AN excellent dinner served by Mistress Sally and her attendant little wenches put everybody into rare good-humour. Madame de Serval—pale, delicate, with gentle, plaintive voice and eyes that had acquired a pathetically furtive look—even contrived to smile, her heart warmed by the genuine welcome, the rare gaiety that irradiated this fortunate corner of God's earth. Wars and rumours of war reached it only as an echo of great things that went on in the vast outside world; and though more than one of Dover's gallant sons had perished in one or the other of the Duke of York's unfortunate incursions into Holland, or in one of the numerous naval engagements off the Western shores of France, on the whole, the war, intermittent and desultory, had not yet cast its heavy gloom over the entire country.
Joséphine and Jacques de Serval, whose enthusiasm for martyrdom had received so severe a check in the course of the Fraternal Supper in the Rue. St. Honoré, had at first with the self-consciousness of youth adopted an attitude of obstinate and irreclaimable sorrow, until the antics of Master Harry Waite, pretty Sally's husband—jealous as a young turkey-cock of every gallant who dared to ogle his buxom wife—brought laughter to their lips. My Lord Hastings' comical attempts at speaking French, the droll mistakes he made, easily did the rest; and soon their lively, high-pitched Latin voices mingled with unimpaired gaiety with the more mellow sound of Anglo-Saxon tongues.
Even Régine de Serval had smiled when my lord Hastings had asked her with grave solemnity whether Mme de Serval would wish "le fou de descendre"—the lunatic to come downstairs—meaning all the while whether she wanted the fire in the big hearth to be let down, seeing that the atmosphere in the coffee-room was growing terribly hot.
The only one who seemed quite unable to shake off his moroseness was Bertrand Moncrif. He sat next to Régine, silent, somewhat sullen, a look that seemed almost one of dull resentment lingering in his eyes. From time to time, when he appeared peculiarly moody or when he refused to eat, her little hand would steal out under the table and press his with a gentle, motherly gesture.
§ 2
It was when the merry meal was over and while Master Jellyband was going the round with a fine bottle of smuggled brandy, which the young gentlemen sipped with unmistakable relish, that a commotion arose outside the inn; whereupon Master Harry Waite ran out of the coffee-room in order to see what was amiss.
Nothing very much apparently. Waite came back after a moment or two and said that two sailors from the barque Angela were outside with a young French lad, who seemed more dead than alive, and whom it appears the barque had picked up just outside French waters, in an open boat, half perished with terror and inanition. As the lad spoke nothing but French, the sailors had brought him along to The Fisherman's Rest, thinking that maybe some of the quality would care to interrogate him.
At once Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, my Lord Tony and Lord Hastings were on the qui vive. A lad in distress, coming from France, found alone in an open boat, suggested one of those tragedies in which the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel was wont to play a rôle.
"Let the lad be taken into the parlour, Jellyband," Sir Andrew commanded. "You've got a fire in there, haven't you?"
"Yes, yes, Sir Andrew! We always keep fires going here until past the 15th of May."
"Well then, get him in there. Then give him some of your smuggled brandy first, you old dog! then some wine and food. After that we'll find out something more about him."
He himself went along in order to see that his orders were carried out. Jellyband, as usual, had already deputed his daughter to do the necessary, and in the hall there was Mistress Sally, capable and compassionate, supporting, almost carrying, a youth who in truth appeared scarce able to stand.
She led him gently into the small private parlour, where a cheerful log-fire was blazing, sat him down in an arm-chair beside the hearth, after which Master Jellyband himself poured half a glass of brandy down the poor lad's throat. This revived him a little, and he looked about him with huge, scared eyes.
"Sainte Mère de Dieu!" he murmured feebly. "Where am I?"
"Never mind about that now, my lad," replied Sir Andrew, whose knowledge of French was of a distinctly higher order than that of his comrades. "You are among friends. That is enough. Have something to eat and drink now. Later we'll talk."
He was eyeing the boy keenly. Contact with suffering and misery over there in France, under the leadership of the most selfless, most understanding man of this or any time, had intensified his powers of perception. Even the first glance had revealed to him the fact that here was no ordinary waif. The lad spoke with a gentle, highly refined voice; his skin was delicate, and his face exquisitely beautiful; his hands, though covered with grime, and his feet, encased in huge, coarse boots, were small and daintily shaped, like those of a woman. Already Sir Andrew had made up his mind that if the oilskin cap which sat so extraordinarily tightly on the boy's head were to be removed, a wealth of long hair would certainly be revealed.
However, all these facts, which threw over the young stranger a further veil of mystery, could not in all humanity be investigated now. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, with the consummate tact born of kindliness, left the lad alone as soon as he appeared able to sit up and eat, and himself rejoined his friends in the coffee-room.
THE NEST
§ 1
NO one, save a very few intimates, knew of the little nest wherein Sir Percy Blakeney and his lady hid their happiness on those occasions when the indefatigable Scarlet Pimpernel was only able to spend a few hours in England, and when a journey to their beautiful home in Richmond could not be thought of. The house—it was only a cottage, timbered and creeper-clad—lay about a mile and a half outside Dover, off the main road, perched up high on rising ground over a narrow lane. It had a small garden round it, which in May was ablaze with daffodils and bluebells, and in June with roses. Two faithful servants, a man and his wife, looked after the place, kept the nest cosy and warm whenever her ladyship wearied of fashion, or else, actually expecting Sir Percy, would come down from London for a day or two in order to dream of that elusive and transient happiness for which her soul hungered, even while her indomitable spirit accepted the inevitable.
A few days ago the weekly courier from France had brought her a line from Sir Percy, together with the promise that she should rest in his arms on the 1st of May. And Marguerite had come down to the creeper-covered cottage knowing that, despite obstacles which might prove insuperable to others, Percy would keep his world.
She had stolen out at dawn to wait for him on the pier; and sure enough, as soon as the May-day sun, which had risen to-day in his glory as if to crown her brief happiness with warmth and radiance, had dissipated the morning mist, her yearning eyes had spied the smart white gig which had put off from the Day-Dream leaving the graceful ship to await the turn of the tide before putting into port.
Since then, every moment of the day had been one of rapture. The first sight of her husband in his huge caped coat, which seemed to add further inches to his great height, his call of triumph when he saw her, his arms outstretched, there, far away in the small boat, with a gesture of such infinite longing that for a second or two tears obscured Marguerite's vision. Then the drawing up of the boat against the landing-stage; Percy's spring ashore; his voice, his look; the strength of his arms; the ardour of his embrace. Rapture, in truth, to which the thought of its brief duration alone lent a touch of bitterness.
But of parting again Marguerite would not think—not to-day, while the birds were singing a deafening pæon of joy; not while the scent of growing grass, of moist, travailing earth, was in her nostrils; not while the sap was in the trees, and the gummy crimson buds of the chestnuts were bursting into leaf. Not while she wandered up the narrow lane between hedges of black-thorn in bloom, with Percy's arm around her, his loved voice in her ear, his merry laughter echoing through the sweet morning air.
After that, breakfast in the low, raftered room—the hot, savoury milk, the home-backed bread, the home-churned butter. Then the long, delicious, intimate talk of love, and of yearnings, of duty and of gallant deeds. Blakeney kept nothing secret from his wife; and what he did not tell her, that she easily guessed. But it was from the members of the League that she learned all there was to know of heroism and selflessness in the perilous adventures through which her husband passed with so lighthearted a gaiety.
"You should see me as an asthmatic reprobate, m'dear," he would say, with his infectious laugh. "And hear that cough! Lud love you, but I am mightily proud of that cough! Poor old Rateau does not do it better himself; and he is genuinely asthmatic."
He gave her an example of his prowess; but she would not allow him to go on. The sound was too weird, and conjured up visions which to-day she would fain forget.
"Rateau was a real find," he went on more seriously; "because he is three parts an imbecile and as obedient as a dog. When some of those devils are on my track, lo! the real Rateau appears and yours truly vanishes where no one can find him!"
"Pray God," she murmured involuntarily, "they never may!"
"They won't, m'dear, they won't!" he asserted with lighthearted conviction. "They have become so confused now between Rateau the coalheaver, the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel, and the problematic English milor, that all three of these personalities can appear before their eyes and they will let 'em all escape! I assure you that the confusion between the Scarlet Pimpernel who was in the ante-chamber of Mother Théot on that fateful afternoon, and again at the Fraternal Supper in the Rue St. Honoré, and the real Rateau who was at Mother Théot's while that same exciting supper party was going on, was so great that not one of those murdering reprobates could trust his own eyes and ears, and that we got away as easily as rabbits out of a torn net."
Thus did he explain and laugh over the perilous adventure where he had faced a howling mob disguised as Rateau the coalheaver, and with almost superhuman pluck and boldness had dragged Mme. de Serval and her children into the derelict house which was one of the League's headquarters. That is how he characterized the extraordinary feat of audacity when, in order to give his gallant lieutenants time to smuggle the unfortunates out of the house through a back and secret way, he showed himself on the balcony above the multitude, and hurled dummy figures into the brazier below.
Then came the story of Bertrand Moncrif, snatched half-unconscious out of the apartment of the fair Theresia Cabarrus, whilst Robespierre himself sat not half a dozen yards away, with only the thickness of a wall between him and his arch enemy.
"How the woman must hate you!" Marguerite murmured, with a slight shudder of acute anxiety which she did her best to conceal. "There are things that a woman like the Cabarrus will never forgive. Whether she cares for Bertrand Moncrif or no, her vanity will suffer intensely, and she will never forgive you for taking him out of her clutches."
He laughed.
"Lud, m'dear!" he said lightly. "If we were to take heed of all the people who hate us we should spend our lives pondering rather than doing. And all I want to ponder over," he added, whilst his glance of passionate earnestness seemed to envelop her like an exquisite warm mantle, "is your beauty, your eyes, the scent of your hair, the delicious flavour of your kiss!"
§ 2
It was some hours later on that same glorious day, when the shadows of ash and chestnut lay right across the lane and the arms of evening folded the cosy nest in their mysterious embrace, that Sir Percy and Marguerite sat in the deep window-embrasure of the tiny living-room. He had thrown open wide the casements, and hand resting in hand, they watched the last ray of golden light lingering in the west and listened to the twitterings which came like tender "good nights" from the newly-built nests among the trees.
It was one of those perfect spring evenings, rare enough in northern climes, without a breath of wind, when every sound carries clear and sharp through the stillness around. The air was soft and slightly moist, with a tang in it of wakening life and of rising sap, and with the scent of wild narcissus and of wood violets rising like intoxizating incense to the nostrils. It was in truth one of those evening when happiness itself seems rudely out of place, and nature—exquisite, but so cruelly, transient in her loveliness—demands the tribute of gentle melancholy.
A thrush said something to its mate—something insistent and tender that lulled them both to rest. After that, Nature became quite still, and Marguerite, with a catch in her throat which she would have given much to suppress, laid her head upon her husband's breast.
Then it was that suddenly a man's voice, hoarse but distant, broke in upon the perfect peace around. What it said could not at first be gathered. It took some time ere Marguerite became sufficiently conscious of the disturbing noise to raise her head and listen. As for Sir Percy, he was wrapped in the contemplating of the woman he worshipped, and nothing short of an earthquake would have dragged him back to reality, had not Marguerite raised herself on her knees and quickly whispered:
"Listen!"
The man's voice had been answered by a woman's raised as if in defiance that seemed both pitiful and futile.
"You cannot harm me now. I am in England!"
Marguerite leaned out of the window, tried to peer into the darkness which was fast gathering over the lane. The voices had come from there: first the man's, then the woman's, and now the man's again; both speaking in French, the woman obviously terrified and pleading, the man harsh and commanding. Now it was raised again, more incisive and distinct than before, and Marguerite had in truth some difficulty in repressing the cry that rose to her lips. She had recognized the man's voice.
"Chauvelin!" she murmured.
"Aye, in England, citoyenne!" that ominous voice went on drily. "But the arm of justice is long. And remember that you are not the first who has tried—unsuccessfully, let me tell you!—to evade punishment by flying to the enemies of France. Wherever you may hide, I will know how to find you. Have I not found you here, now?—and you but a few hours in Dover!"
"But you cannot touch me!" the woman protested with the courage of one in despair.
The man laughed.
"Are you really simple enough, citoyenne," he said, "to be convinced of that?"
This sarcastic retort was followed by a moment or two of silence, then by a woman's cry; and in an instant Sir Percy was on his feet and out of the house. Marguerite followed him as far as the porch, whence the sloping ground, aided by flagged steps here and there, led down to the gate and thence on to the lane.
It was close beside the gate that a human-looking bundle lay huddled, when Sir Percy came upon the scene, even whilst, some fifty yards away at the sharp bend of the lane, a man could be seen walking rapidly away, his pace well-nigh at a run. Sir Percy's instinct was for giving chase, but the huddled-up figure put out a pair of arms and clung to him so desperately, with smothered cries of: "For pity's sake, don't leave me!" that it would have been inhuman to go. And so he bent down, raised the human bundle from the ground, and carried it bodily up into the house.
Here he deposited his burden upon the window seat, where but a few moments ago he had been wrapped in the contemplation of Marguerite's eyelashes, and with his habitual quaint good-humour, said:
"I leave the rest to you, m'dear. My French is too atrocious for dealing with the case."
Marguerite understood the hint. Sir Percy, whose command of French was nothing short of phenomenal, never used the language save when engaged in his perilous undertakings. His perfect knowledge of every idiom would have set any ill-intentioned eavesdropper thinking.
§ 3
The human bundle looked very pathetic lying there upon the window seat, propped up with cushions. it appeared to be a youth, dressed in rough fisherman's clothes and with a cap that fitted tightly round the head; but with hands delicate as a woman's and a face of exquisite beauty.
Without another word, Marguerite quietly took hold of the cap and gently removed it. A wealth of blue-black hair fell like a cascade over the recumbent shoulders. "I thought as much!" Sir Percy remarked quietly, even whilst the stranger, apparently terrified, jumped up and burst into tears, moaning piteously:
"Oh, mon Dieu! mon Dieu! Sainte Vierge, protégez-moi!"
There was nothing to do but to wait; and anon the first paroxysm of grief and terror passed. The stranger, with a wry little smile, took the handkerchief which Lady Blakeney was holding out to her and proceeded to dry her tears. Then she looked up at the kind Samaritans who had befriended her.
"I am an impostor, I know," she said, with lips that quivered like those of a child in grief. "But if you only knew...!"
She sat bolt upright now, squeezing and twirling the wet handkerchief between her fingers.
"Some kind English gentlemen were good to me, down in the town," she went on more glibly. "They gave me food and shelter, and I was left alone to rest. But I felt stifled in the narrow room. I could hear every one talking and laughing, and the evening air was so beautiful. So I ventured out. I only meant to breathe a little fresh air; but it was all so lovely, so peaceful... here in England... so different to..."
She shuddered a little and looked as if she was going to cry again. But Marguerite interposed gently:
"So you prolonged your walk, and found this lane?"
"Yes. I prolonged my walk," the woman replied. "I did not notice that the road had become lonely. Then suddenly I realized that I was being followed, and I ran. Mon Dieu, how I ran! Whither, I knew not! I just felt that something horrible was at my heels!"
Her eyes, dilated with terror, looked as black as sloes. They were fixed upon Marguerite, never once raised on Sir Percy, who, standing some way apart from the two women, was looking down on them, silent and apparently unmoved.
The stranger shuddered again; her face was almost grey in its expression of fear, and her lips seemed quite bloodless. Marguerite gave her trembling hands an encouraging pat.
"It was lucky," she said gently, "that you found your way here."
"I had seen the light," the woman continued more calmly. "And I believe that at the back of my mind there was the instinct to run for shelter. Then suddenly my foot knocked against a stone, and I fell. I tried to raise myself quickly, but I had not the time, for the next moment I felt a hand on my shoulder, and a voice—oh, a voice I dread, citoyenne!—called to me by name."
"The voice of citizen Chauvelin?" Marguerite asked simply.
The woman looked up quickly.
"You knew——?" she murmured.
"I knew his voice."
"But you know him?" the other insisted.
"I know him—yes," Marguerite replied. "I am a compatriot of yours. Before I married, I was Marguerite St. Just."
"St. Just?"
"We are cousins, my brother and I, of the young deputy, the friend of Robespierre."
"God help you!" the woman murmured.
"He has done so already, by bringing us both to England. My brother is married, and I am Lady Blakeney now. You too will feel happy and safe now that you are here."
"Happy?" the woman ejaculated, with a piteous sob. "And safe? Mon Dieu, if only I could think it!"
"But what have you to fear? Chauvelin may have retained some semblance of power over in France. He has none over here."
"He hates me!" the other murmured. "Oh, how he hates me!"
"Why?"
The stranger made no immediate reply. Her eyes, dark as the night, glowing and searching, seemed to read the very soul behind Marguerite's serene brow. Then after awhile she went on, with seeming irrelevance:
"It all began so foolishly!... mon Dieu, how foolishly! And I really meant nothing treacherous to my own country—nothing unpatriotic, quoi?" she suddenly seized Marguerite's two hands and exclaimed with childlike enthusiasm: "You have heard of the Scarlet Pimpernel, have you not?"
"Yes," Marguerite replied. I have heard of him."
"You know then that he is the finest, bravest, most wonderful man in all the world?"
"Yes, I know that," Marguerite assented with a smile.
"Of course, in France they hate him. Naturally! He is the enemy of the republic, quoi? He is against all those massacres, the persecution of the innocent. He saves them and helps them when he can. So they hate him. Naturally."
"Naturally!"
"But I have always admired him," the woman continued, enthusiasm glowing in her dark eyes. "Always; always! Ever since I heard what he had done, and how he saved the Comte de Tournay, and Juliette Marny, and Esther Vincent, and—and countless others. Oh, I knew about them all! For I knew Chauvelin well, and one or two of the men on the Committee of Public Safety quite intimately, and I used to worm out of them all the true facts about the Scarlet Pimpernel. Can you wonder that with my whole soul I admired him? I worshipped him! I could have laid down my life to help him! He has been the guiding star of my dreary life—my hero and my king!"
She paused, and those deep, dark eyes of her were fixed straight out before her, as if in truth she beheld the hero of her dreams. There was a glow now in her cheeks, and her marvellous hair fell like a sable mantle around her, framing the perfect oval of the face and enhancing by vivid contrast the creamy whiteness of chin and throat and the rose-like bloom that had spread over her face. Indeed, this was an exquisitely beautiful creature, and Marguerite, herself one of the loveliest women of her time, was carried away by genuine, wholehearted admiration for the stranger, as well as by her enthusiasm, which, in very truth, seeing its object, was a perfectly natural feeling.
"So now," the woman concluded, coming back to the painful realities of life with a shudder, which extinguished the light in her eyes and took all the glow out of her cheeks, "so now you understand perhaps why Chauvelin hates me!"
"You must have been rather indiscreet," Marguerite remarked with a smile.
"I was, I suppose. And Chauvelin is so vindictive. He hates the Scarlet Pimpernel. Out of a few words, foolishly spoken perhaps, he has made out a case against me. A friend gave me warning. My name was already in the hands of Foucquier-Tinville. You know what that means! Perquisition! Arrest! Judgment! Then the guillotine! Oh, mon Dieu! And I had done nothing!—nothing! I fled out of Paris. An influential friend just contrived to arrange this for me. A faithful servant accompanied me. We reached Boulogne. How, I know not! I was so weak, so ill, so wretched, I hardly lived. I just allowed François—that was my servant—to take me whithersoever he wished. But we had no passports, no papers—nothing! And Chauvelin was on our track. We had to hide—in barns... in pig-styes... anywhere! But we reached Boulogne at last... I had some money, fortunately. We bribed a fisherman to let us have his boat. Only a small boat—imagine! A rowing boat! And François and I alone in it! But it meant our lives if we didn't go; and perhaps it meant our lives if we went! A rowing boat on the great, big sea!... Fortunately the weather was fine, and François lifted me into the boat. And I just remember seeing the coast of France receding, receding, receding—farther and farther from me. I was so tired. It is possible that I slept. Then suddenly something woke me. I was wide awake. I had heard a cry. I knew I had heard a cry, and then a splash—an awful splash! I was wet through. One oar hung in the rowlock; the other had gone. And François was not there. I was all alone."
She spoke in hard, jerky sentences, as if every word hurt her physically as she uttered it. For the most part she was looking down on her hands, that twitched convulsively and twisted the tiny wet handkerchief into a ball. But now and again she looked up, not at Marguerite always, rather at Sir Percy. Her glowing, tear-wet eyes fastened themselves on him from time to time with an appealing or a defiant gaze. He appeared silent and sympathetic, and his glance rested on her the whole while that she spoke, with an expression of detached if kindly interest, as if he did not quite understand everything that she said. Marguerite as usual was full of tenderness and compassion.
"How terribly you must have suffered!" she said gently. "But what happened after that?"
"Oh, I don't know! I don't know!" the poor woman resumed. "I was too numbed, too dazed with horror and fear, to suffer very much. The boat drifted on, I suppose. It was a beautiful, calm night. And the moon was lovely. You remember the moon last night?"
Marguerite nodded.
"But I remember nothing after... after that awful cry... and the splash! I suppose my poor François fainted or fell asleep ... and that he fell into the water. I never saw him again.... And I remember nothing until—until I found myself on board a ship with a lot of rough sailors around me, who seemed very kind.... They brought me ashore and took me to a nice warm place, where some English gentlemen took compassion on me. And ... and ... I have already told you the rest."
She leaned back against the cushions of the seat as if exhausted with the prolonged effort. Her hands seemed quite cold now, almost blue, and Marguerite rose and closed the window behind her.
"How kind and thoughtful you are!" the stranger exclaimed, and after a moment added with a weary sigh, "I must not trespass any longer on your kindness. It is late now, and... I must go."
She struggled to her feet, rose with obvious reluctance.
"The inn where I was," she said, "it is not far?"
"But you cannot go out alone," Marguerite reckoned. "You do not even know the way!"
"Ah, no! But perhaps your servant could accompany me... only as far as the town.... After that I can ask the way... I should no longer be frightened."
"You speak English then, Madame?"
"Oh, yes! My father was a diplomat. He was in England once for four years. I learned a little English. I have not forgotten it."
"One of the servants shall certainly go with you. The inn you speak of must be The Fisherman's Rest, since you found English gentlemen there."
"If Madame will allow me?" Sir Percy broke in, for the first time since the stranger had embarked upon her narrative.
The stranger looked up at him with a half-shy, half-eager smile.
"You, milor!" she exclaimed. "Oh no! I would be ashamed——"
She paused, and her cheeks became crimson whilst she looked down in utter confusion on her extraordinary attire.
"I had forgotten," she murmured tearfully. "François made me put on these awful clothes when we left Paris."
"Then I must lend you a cloak for to-night," Marguerite interposed with a smile. "But you need not mind your clothes, Madame. On this coast our people are used to seeing unfortunate fugitives landing in every sort of guise. To-morrow we must find you something wherein to travel to London."
"To London?" the stranger said with some eagerness. "Yes! I would wish to go to London."
"It will be quite easy. Mme. de Serval, with her son and two daughters and another friend, is travelling by the coach to-morrow. You could join them, I am sure. Then you would not be alone. You have money, Madame?" Marguerite concluded, with practical solicitude.
"Oh, yes!" the other replied. "I have plenty for present needs ... in a wallet ... under my clothes. I was able to collect a little—and I have not lost it. I am not dependent," she added, with a smile of gratitude. "And as soon as I have found my husband——"
"Your husband?" Marguerite exclaimed.
"M. le Marquis de Fontenay," the other answered simply. "Perhaps you know him. You have seen him ... in London?... Not?"
Marguerite shook her head.
"Not to my knowledge."
"He left me—two years ago ... cruelly ... emigrated to England ... and I was left alone in the world.... He saved his own life by running away from France; but I—I could not go just then ... and so..."
She seemed on the verge of breaking down again, then recovered herself and continued more quietly:
"That was my idea, you see; to find my husband one day. Now a cruel Fate has forced me to fly from France; so I thought I would go to London and perhaps some kind friends will help me to find M. de Fontenay. I have never ceased to love him, though he was so cruel. And I think that... perhaps... he also has not quite forgotten me."
"That were impossible," Marguerite rejoined gently. "But I have friends in London who are in touch with most of the emigrés here. We will see what can be done. It will not be difficult, methinks, to find M. de Fontenay."
"You are an angel, milady!" the stranger exclaimed; and with a gesture that was perfect in its suggestion of gracious humility, she took Marguerite's hand and raised it to her lips. Then she once more mopped her eyes, picked up her cap and hastily hid the wealth of her hair beneath it. After which, she turned to Sir Percy.
"I am ready, milor," she said. "I have intruded far too long as it is upon your privacy.... But I am not brave enough to refuse your escort. Milady, forgive me! I will walk fast, very fast, so that milor will return to you very soon!"
She wrapped herself up in a cloak which, at Lady Blakeney's bidding, one of the servants had brought her, and a moment or two later the stranger and Sir Percy were out of the house, whilst Marguerite remained for awhile on the porch, listening to their retreating footsteps.
There was a frown of puzzlement between her brows, a look of troubled anxiety in her eyes. Somehow, the brief sojourn of that strange and beautiful woman in her house had filled her soul with a vague feeling of dread, which she tried vainly to combat. There was no real suspicion against the woman in her heart—how could there be?—but she—Marguerite—who as a rule was so compassionate, so understanding of those misfortunes, to alleviate which Sir Percy was devoting his entire life, felt cold and unresponsive in this case—most unaccountably so. Mme de Fontenay's story differed but little in all its grim detail of misery and humiliation from the thousand and one other similar tales which had been poured for the past three years into her sympathetic ear. She had always understood, had always been ready to comfort and to help. But this time she felt very much as if she had come across a sick or wounded reptile, something weak and dumb and helpless, and yet withal unworthy of compassion.
However, Marguerite Blakeney was surely not the woman to allow such fancies to dry the well of her pity. The gallant Scarlet Pimpernel was not wont to pause in his errands of mercy in order to reflect whether the objects of his selfless immolation were worthy of it or no. So Marguerite, with a determined little sigh, chided herself for her disloyalty and cowardice, and having dried her tears she went within.
A LOVER OF SPORT
§ 1
FOR the first five minutes, Sir Percy Blakeney and Madame de Fontenay walked side by side in silence. Then she spoke.
"You are silent, milor?" she queried, speaking in perfect English.
"I was thinking," he replied curtly.
"What?"
"What a remarkably fine actress is lost in the fashionable Theresia Cabarrus."
"Madame de Fontenay, I pray you, milor," she retorted drily.
"Theresia Cabarrus nevertheless. Madame Tallien probably to-morrow: for Madame divorced that weak-kneed marquis as soon as the law 'contre les emigrés' allowed her to regain her freedom."
"You seem very well informed, milor."
"Almost as well as Madame herself," he riposted with a pleasant laugh.
"Then you do not believe my story?"
"Not one word of it!" he replied.
"Strange!" she mused. "For every word of it is true."
"Demmed strange!" he assented.
"Of course, I did not tell all," she went on, with sudden vehemence. "I could not. My lady would not understand. She has become—what shall I say?—very English. Marguerite St. Just would understand... Lady Blakeney—no?"
"What would Lady Blakeney not understand?"
"Eh bien! About Bertrand Moncrif."
"Ah?"
"You think I did harm to the boy ... I know ... you took him away from me... You! The Scarlet Pimpernel!... You see, I know! I know everything! Chauvelin told me..."
"And guided you most dexterously to my door," he concluded with a pleasant laugh. "There to enact a delicious comedy of gruff-voiced bully and pathetic victim of merciless persecution. It was all excellently done! Allow me to offer you my sincere congratulations!"
She said nothing for a moment or two, then queried abruptly:
"You think that I am here in order to spy upon you?"
"Oh!" he riposted lightly, "how could I be so presumptuous as to suppose that the beautiful Cabarrus would bestow attention on so unworthy an object as I?"
"'Tis you now, milor," she rejoined drily, "who choose to play a rôle. A truce on it, I pray you; and rather tell me what you mean to do."
To this query he gave no reply, and his silence appeared to grate on Theresia's nerves, for she went on harshly:
"You will betray me to the police, of course. And as I am here without papers——"
He put up his hand with that gently deprecating gesture which was habitual to him.
"Oh!" he said, with his quiet little laugh, "why should you thin I would do anything so unchivalrous?"
"Unchivalrous?" she retorted with a pathetic sigh of weariness. "I suppose, here in England, it would be called an act of patriotism or self-preservation ... like fighting an enemy ... or denouncing a spy——"
She paused a moment or two, and as he once more took refuge in silence, she resumed with sudden, moving passion:
"So it is to be a betrayal after all! The selling of an unfortunate woman to her bitterest enemy! Oh, what wrong have I ever done you, that you should persecute me thus?"
"Persecute you?" he exclaimed. "Pardi, Madame; but this is a subtle joke which by your leave my dull wits are unable to fathom."
"It is no joke, milor," she rejoined earnestly. "Will you let me explain? For indeed it seems to me that we are at cross purposes, you and I."
She came to a halt, and he perforce had to do likewise. They had come almost to the end of the little lane; a few yards farther on it debouched on the main road. Beyond that, the lights of Dover Town and the Harbour lights glinted in the still, starry night. Behind them the lane, sunk between grassy slopes and overhung by old elms of fantastic shapes, appeared dark and mysterious. But here, where they stood, the moon shed its full radiance on the broad highway, the clump of copper beeches over on the left, that tiny cottage with its thatched roof nestling at the foot of the cliff; and far away, on the picturesque mass of Dover Castle, the church and towers. Every bit of fencing, every tiny twig in the hawthorn hedges, stood out clear cut, sharp like metal in the cold, searching light. Theresia—divinely slender and divinely tall, graceful despite the rough masculine clothes which she wore—stood boldly in the full light; the tendrils of her jet black hair were gently stirred by an imperceptible breeze, her eyes, dark and luminous, were fixed upwards at the man whom she had set out to subjugate.
"That boy," she went on quite gently, "Bertrand Moncrif, was just a young fool. But I liked him, and I could see the abyss to which his folly was tending. There was never anything but friendship between us; but I knew that sooner or later he would run his head into a noose, and then what good would his pasty-faced sweetheart have been to him? Whilst I—I had friends, influence—quoi? And I liked the boy; I was sorry for him. Then the catastrophe came ... the other night. There was what those ferocious beasts over in Paris were pleased to call a Fraternal Supper. Bertrand Moncrif was there. Like a young food, he started to vilify Robespierre—Robespierre, who is the idol of France! There!—in the very midst of the crowd! They would have torn him limb from limb, it seems. I don't know just what happened, for I wasn't there; but he came to my apartment—at midnight—dishevelled—his clothes torn—more dead than alive. I gave him shelter; I tended him. Yes, I!—even whilst Robespierre and his friends were in my house, and I risked my life every moment that Bertrand was under my roof! Chauvelin suspected something then. Oh, I knew it! Those awful pale, deep-set eyes of his seemed to be searching my soul all the time! At which precise moment you came and took Bertrand away, I know not. But Chauvelin knew. He saw—he saw, I tell you! He had not been with us the whole time, but in and out of the apartment on some pretext or other. Then, after the others had left, he came back, accused me of having harboured not only Bertrand, but the Scarlet Pimpernel himself!—swore that I was in league with the English spies and had arranged with them to smuggle my lover out of the house. Then he went away. He did not threaten. You know him as well as I do. Threatening is not his way. But from his look I knew that I was doomed. Luckily I had François. We packed up my few belongings then and there. I left my woman Pepita in charge, and I fled. As for the rest, I swear to you that it all happened just as I told it to milady. You say you do not believe me. Very well! Will you then take me away from this sheltered land, which I have reached after terrible sufferings? Will you send me back to France, and drive me to the arms of a man who but waits to throw me into the tumbril with the next batch of victims for the guillotine? You have the power to do it, of course. You are in England; you are rich, influential, a power in your own country; whilst I am an alien, a political enemy, a refugee, penniless and friendless. You can do with me what you will, of course. But if you do that, milor, my blood will stain your hands for ever; and all the good you and your League have ever done in the cause of humanity will be wiped out by this execrable crime."
She spoke very quietly and with soul-moving earnestness. So was also exquisitely beautiful. Sir Percy Blakeney had been more than human if he had been proof against such an appeal, made by such perfect lips. Nature itself spoke up for Theresia: the softness and stillness of the night; the starlit sky and the light of the moon; the sent of wood violets and of wet earth, and the patter of tiny, mysterious feet in the hedgegrows. And the man whose whole life was consecrated to the relief of suffering humanity and whose ears were for ever strained to hear the call of the weak and of the innocent—he could far, far sooner have believed that this beautiful woman was speaking the truth, rather than allow his instinct of suspicion, his keen sense of what was untrustworthy and dangerous, to steel his heart against her appeal.
But whatever his thoughts might be, when she paused, wearied and shaken with sobs which she vainly tried to suppress, he spoke to her quite gently.
"Believe me, dear lady," he said, "that I had no thought of wronging you when I owned to disbelieving your story. I have seen so many strange things in the course of my chequered career that, in verity, I ought to know by now how unbelievable truth often appears."
"Had you known me better, milor——" she began.
"Ah, that is just it!" he rejoined quaintly. "I did not know you, Madame. And now, meseems, that Fate has intervened, and that I shall never have the chance of knowing you."
"How is that?" she asked.
But to this he gave to immediate answer, suggested irrelevantly:
"Shall we walk on? It is getting late."
She gave a little cry, as if startled out of a dream, then started to walk by his side with her long, easy stride, so full of sinuous grave. They went on in silence for awhile, down the main road now. Already they had passed the first group of town houses, and The Running Footman, which is the last inn outside the town. There was only the High Street now to follow and the Old Place to cross, and The Fisherman's Rest would be in sight.
"You have not answered my question, milor," Theresia said presently.
"What question, Madame?" he asked.
"I asked you how Fate could intervene in the matter of our meeting again."
"Oh!" he retorted simply. "You are staying in England, you tell me."
"If you will deign to grant me leave," she said, with gentle submission.
"It is not in my power to grant or to refuse."
"You will not betray me—to the police?"
"I have never betrayed a woman in my life."
"Or to Lady Blakeney?"
He made no answer.
"Or to Lady Blakeney?" she insisted.
Then, as he still gave no answer, she began to plead with passionate earnestness.
"What could she gain—or you—by her knowing that I am that unfortunate, homeless waif, without kindred and without friends, Theresia Cabarrus—the beautiful Cabarrus!—once the fiancée of the great Tallien, now suspect of trafficking with her country's enemies in France ... and suspect of being a suborned spy in England!... My God, where am I to go? What am I to do? Do not tell Lady Blakeney, milor! On my knees I entreat you, do not tell her! She will hate me—fear me—despise me! Oh, give me a chance to be happy! Give me—a chance—to be happy!"
Again she had paused and placed her hand on his arm. Once more she was looking up at him, her eyes glistening with tears, her full red lips quivering with emotion. And he returned her appealing, pathetic glance for a moment or two in silence; then suddenly, without any warning, he threw back his head and laughed.
"By Gad!" he exclaimed. "But you are a clever woman!"
"Milor!" she protested, indignant.
"Nay: you need have no fear, fair one! I am a lover of sport. I'll not betray you."
She frowned, really puzzled this time.
"I do not understand," she murmured.
"Let us get back to The Fisherman's Rest," he retorted with characteristic irrelevance. "Shall we?"
"Milor," she insisted, "will you explain?"
"There is nothing to explain, dear lady. You have asked me—nay! challenged me—not to betray you to anyone, not even to Lady Blakeney. Very well! I accept your challenge. That is all."
"You will not tell anyone—anyone, mind you!—that Mme de Fontenay and Theresia Cabarrus are one and the same?"
"You have my word for that."
She drew a scarce perceptible sigh of relief.
"Very well then, milor," she rejoined. "Since I am allowed to go to London, we shall meet there, I hope."
"Scarcely, dear lady," he replied, "since I go to France to-morrow."
This time she gave a little gasp, quickly suppressed—for she hoped milor had not noticed.
"You go to France to-morrow, milor?" she asked.
"As I had the honour to tell you, I go to France to-morrow, and I leave you a free hand to come and go as you please."
She chose not to notice the taunt; but suddenly, as if moved by an uncontrollable impulse, she said resolutely:
"If you go, I shall go too."
"I am sure you will, dear lady," he retorted with a smile. "So there really is no reason why we should linger here. Our mutual friend M. Chauvelin must be impatient to hear the result of this interview."
She gave a cry of horror and indignation.
"Oh! You—you still think that of me?"
He stood there, smiling, looking down on her with that half-amused, lazy glance of his. He did not actually say anything, but she felt that she had her answer. With a moan of pain, like a child who has been badly hurt, she turned abruptly, and burying her face in her hands she sobbed as if her heart would break. Sir Percy waited quietly for a moment or two, until the first paroxysm of grief had quieted down, and he said gently:
"Madame, I entreat you to compose yourself and to dry your tears. If I have wronged you in my thoughts, I humbly crave your pardon. I pray you to understand that when a man holds human lives in his hands, when he is responsible for the life and safety of those who trust in him, he must be doubly cautious and in his turn trust no one. You have said yourself that now at last in this game of life and death, which I and my friends have played so successfully these last three years, I hold the losing cards. Then must I watch every trick all the more closely, for a sound player can win through the mistakes of his opponent, even if he hold a losing hand."
But she refused to be comforted.
"You will never know, milor—never—how deeply you have wounded me," she said through her tears. "And I, who for months past—ever since I knew!—have dreamed of seeing the Scarlet Pimpernel one day! He was the hero of my dreams, the man who stood alone in the mass of self-seeking, vengeful, cowardly humanity as the personification of all that was fine and chivalrous. I longed to see him—just once—to hold his hand—to look into his eyes—and feel a better woman for the experience. Love? It was not love I felt, but hero-worship, pure as one's love for a starlit night or a spring morning, or a sunset over the hills. I dreamed of the Scarlet Pimpernel, milor; and because of my dreams, which were too vital for perfect discretion, I had to flee from home, suspected, vilified, already condemned. Chance brings me face to face with the hero of my dreams, and he looks on me as that vilest thing on earth: a spy!—a woman who could lie to a man first and send him afterwards to his death!"
Her voice, though more passionate and intense, had nevertheless become more steady. She had at last succeeded in controlling her tears. Sir Percy had listened—quite quietly, as was his wont—to her strange words. There was nothing that he could say to this beautiful woman who was so ingenuously avowing her love for him. It was a curious situation, and in truth he did not relish it—would have given quite a great deal to see it end as speedily as possible. Theresia, fortunately, was gradually gaining the mastery over her own feelings. She dried her eyes, and after a moment or two, of her own accord, she started once more on her way.
Nor did they speak again with one another until they were under the porch of The Fisherman's Rest. Then Theresia stopped, and with a perfectly simple gesture she held out her hand to Sir Percy.
"We may never meet again on this earth, milor," she said quietly. "Indeed, I shall pray to le bon Dieu to keep me clear of your path."
He laughed good-humouredly.
"I very much doubt, dear lady," he said, "that you will be in earnest when you utter that prayer!"
"You choose to suspect me, milor; and I'll no longer try to combat your mistrust. But to one more word you must listen: Remember the fable of the lion and the mouse. The invincible Scarlet Pimpernel might one day need the help of Theresia Cabarrus. I would wish you to believe that you can always count on it."
She extended her hand to him, and he took it, the while his inveterately mocking glance challenged her earnest one. After a moment or two he stooped and kissed her finger-tips.
"Let me rather put it differently, dear lady," he said. "One day the exquisite Theresia Cabarrus—the Egeria of the Terrorists, the fiancée of the Great Tallien—might need the help of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel."
"I would sooner die than seek your help, milor," she protested earnestly.
"Here in Dover, perhaps ... but in France?... And you said you were going back to France, in spite of Chauvelin and his pale eyes, and his suspicions of you."
"Since you think so ill of me," she retorted, "why should you offer me your help?"
"Because," he replied lightly, "with the exception of my friend Chauvelin, I have never had so amusing an enemy; and if would afford me intense satisfaction to render you a signal service."
"You mean, that you would risk your life to save mine?"
"No. I should not risk my life, dear lady," he said with his puzzling smile. "But I should—God help me!—do my best, if the need arose, to save yours."
After which, with another ceremonious bow, he took final leave of her, and she was left standing there, looking after his tall, retreating figure until the turn of the street hid him from view.
Who could have fathomed her thoughts and feelings at that moment? No one, in truth; not even herself. Theresia Cabarrus had met many men in her day, subjugated and fooled not a few. But she had never met anyone like this before. At one moment she had thought she had him: he appeared moved, serious, compassionate, gave her his word that he would not betray her; and in that word, her unerring instinct—the instinct of the adventuress, the woman who succeeds by her wits as well by her charm—told her that she could trust. Did he fear her, or did he not? Did he suspect her? Theresia could not say. She had no experience of such men. As for the word "sport," she hardly knew its meaning; and yet he had talked of not betraying her because he was "a lover of sport!" It was all very puzzling, very mysterious.
For a long while she remained standing in the porch. From the square bay window on her right came the sound of laughter and chatter, issuing from the coffee-room, whilst one or two noisy groups of sailors and their girls passed her by, singing and laughing, down the street. But in the porch, where she stood, the noisy world appeared distant, as if she were alone in one of her own creation. She could, just by closing her eyes and ears to the life around her, imagine she could still hear the merry, lazy, drawling voice of the man she had set out to punish. She could still see his tall figure and humorous face, with those heavy eyes that lit up now and again with a strange, mysterious light, and the firm lips every ready to break into a smile. She could still see the man who so loved sport that he swore not to betray her, and risked the chance, in his turn, of falling into a trap.
Well! he had defied and insulted her. The letter which he left for her after he had smuggled Bertrand Moncrif out of her apartment, rankled and stung her pride as nothing had ever done before. Therefore the man must be punished, and in a manner that would leave no doubt in his mind as to whence came the blow that struck him. But it was all going to be very much more difficult than the beautiful Theresia Cabarrus had allowed herself to believe.
REUNION
§ 1
IT was a thoughtful Theresia who turned into the narrow hall of The Fisherman's Rest a few moments later. The inn, when she left it earlier in the evening, had still been all animation and bustle consequent on the arrival of their lordships with the party of ladies and gentlemen over from France, and the excitement of making all these grand folk comfortable for the night. Theresia Cabarrus, in her disguise as a young stowaway, had only aroused passing interest—refugees of every condition and degree were frequent enough in these parts—and when awhile ago she had slipped out in order to enact the elaborate rôle devised by her and Chauvelin, she had done so unperceived. Since then, no doubt there had been one or two cursory questions about the mysterious stowaway, who had been left to feed and rest in the tiny living-room; but equally no doubt, interest in him waned quickly when it was discovered that he had gone, without as much as thanking those who had befriended him.
The travellers from France had long since retired to their rooms, broken with fatigue after the many terrible experiences they had gone through. The young English gallants had gone, either to friends in the neighbourhood or—in the case of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and Lord Anthony Dewhurst—ridden away in the early part of the evening, so as to reach Ashford mayhap or Maidstone before nightfall, and thus lessen the distance which still separated them from the loved ones at home.
A good deal of noise and laughter was still issuing from the coffee-room. Through the glass door Theresia could see the habitués of The Fisherman's Rest—yokels and fisherfolk—sitting over their ale, some of them playing cards or throwing dice. Mine host was there too, engaged as usual in animated discussion with some privileged guests who sat in the ingle-nook.
Theresia slipped noiselessly past the glass door. Straight in front of her a second passage ran at right angles; two or three steps led up to it. She tip-toed up these, and then looked about her, trying to reconstruct in her mind the disposition of the various rooms. On her left a glass partition divided the passage from the small parlour wherein she had found shelter on her arrival. On her right the passage obviously led to the kitchen, for much noise of crockery and shrill feminine voices and laughter came from there.
For a moment Theresia hesitated. Her original intention had been to find Mistress Waite and see if a bed for the night were still available; but a slight noise or movement issuing from the parlour caused her to turn. She peeped through the glass partition. The room was dimly lighted by a small oil-lamp which hung from the ceiling. A fire still smouldered in the hearth, and beside it, sitting on a low stool staring into the embers, his hands held between his knees, was Bertrand Moncrif.
Theresia Cabarrus had some difficulty in smothering the cry of surprise which had risen to her throat. Indeed, for the moment she thought that the dim light and her own imaginative fancy was playing her a fantastic trick. The next, she had opened the door quite noiselessly and slipped into the room. Bertrand had not moved. Apparently he had not heart; or if he had cursorily glanced up, he had disdained to notice the roughly clad fellow who was disturbing his solitude. Certain it is that he appeared absorbed in gloomy meditations; whilst Theresia, practical and deliberate, drew the curtains together that hung in front of the glass partition, and thus made sure that intruding eyes could not catch her unawares. Then she murmured softly:
"Bertrand!"
He woke as from a dream, looked up and saw her. He passed a shaking hand once or twice across his forehead, then suddenly realized that she was actually there, near him, in the flesh. A hoarse cry escaped him, and the next moment he was down on his knees at her feet, his arms around her, his face buried in the folds of her mantle.
Everything—anxiety, sorrow, even surprise—was forgotten in the joy of seeing her. He was crying like a child, and murmuring her name in the intervals of covering her knees, her hands, her feet in their rough boots with kisses. She stood there, quite still, looking down on him, yielding her hands to his caresses. Around her full red lips there was an undefinable smile; but the light in her eyes was certainly one of triumph.
After awhile he rose, and she allowed him to lead her to an arm-chair by the hearth. She sat down, and he knelt at her feet with one arm around her waist, and his head against her breast. He had never in his life been quite so exquisitely happy. This was not the imperious Theresia, impatient and disdainful, as she had been of late—cruel even sometimes, as on that last evening when he thought he would never see her again. It was the Theresia in the early days in Paris, when first she came back from Bordeaux, with a reputation for idealism as well as for beauty and wit, and with a gracious acceptance of his homage which had completely subjugated him.
She insisted on hearing every detail of his escape out of Paris and out of France, under the protection of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel. In truth, he did not know who his rescuer was. He remembered by little of that awful night when, after the terrible doings at the Fraternal Supper, he had sought refuge in her apartment and then realized that, like a criminal and selfish fool, he was compromising her precious life by remaining under her roof.
He had resolved to go as soon as he was able to stand—resolved if need be to give himself up at the nearest Poste de Section, when in a semi-conscious state he became aware that some one was in the room with him. He had not the time or the power to rouse himself and to look about, when a cloth was thrown over his face and he felt himself lifted off the chair bodily and carried away by powerful arms, whither he knew not.
After that, a great deal had happened—it all seemed indeed like a dream. At one time he was with Régine de Serval in a coach, at others with her brother Jacques, in a hut at night, lying on straw, trying to get some sleep, and tortured with thoughts of Theresia and fear for her safety. There were halts and delays, and rushes through the night. He himself was quite dazed, felt like a puppet that was dragged hither and thither in complete unconsciousness. Régine was constantly with him. She did her best to comfort him, would try to wile away the weary hours in the coach or in various hiding-places by holding his hand and talking of the future—the happy future in England, when they would have a home of their own, secure from the terrors of the past two years, peaceful in complete oblivion of the cruel past. Happy and peaceful! My God! As if there could be any happiness or peace for him, away from the woman he worshipped!
Theresia listened to the tale, for the most part in silence. From time to time she would stroke his hair and forehead with her cool, gentle hand. She did ask one or two questions, but these chiefly on the subject of his rescuer: Had he seen him? Had he seen any of the English gentlemen who effected his escape?
Oh, yes! Bertrand saw a good deal of the three or four young gallants who accompanied him and the party all the way from Paris. He only saw the last of them here, in this inn, a few hours ago. One of them gave him some money to enable him to reach London in comfort. They were very kind, entirely unselfish. Mme. de Serval, Régine, and the others were overwhelmed with gratitude, and oh, so happy! Joséphine and Jacques had forgotten all about their duty to their country in their joy at finding themselves united and safe in this new land.
But the Scarlet Pimpernel himself, Theresia insisted, trying to conceal her impatience under a veneer of tender solicitude—had Bertrand seen him?
"No!" Bertrand replied. "I never once set eyes on him, though it was he undoubtedly who dragged me helpless out of your apartment. The others spoke of him—always as 'the chief.' They seemed to reverence him. He must be fine and brave. Régine and her mother and the two young ones have learned to worship him. Small wonder! seeing what he did for them at that awful Fraternal Supper."
"What did he do?" Theresia queried.
And the story had to be told by Bertrand, just as he had had it straight from Régine. The asthmatic coal-heaver—the quarrel—Robespierre's arrival on the scene—the shouts—the mob. The terror of that awful giant who had dragged them into the empty house, and there left them in the care of others scarce less brave than himself. Then the disguises—the wanderings through the streets—the deathly anxiety at the gates of the city—the final escape in a laundry cart. Miracles of self-abnegation! Wonders of ingenuity and of daring! What wonder that the name of the Scarlet Pimpernel was one to be revered!
"On my knees will I pay homage to him," Bertrand concluded fervently; "since he brought you to my arms!'
She had him by the shoulders, held him from her at arm's length, whilst she looked—inquiring, slightly mocking—into his eyes.
"Brought me to your arms, Bertrand?" she said slowly. "What do you mean?"
"You are here, Theresia," he riposted. "Safe in England ... through the agency of the Scarlet Pimpernel."
She gave a hard, mirthless laugh.
"Aye!" she said drily; "through his agency. But not as you imagine, Bertrand."
"What do you mean?"
"The Scarlet Pimpernel, my friend, after he had dragged you away from the shelter which you had found under my roof, sent an anonymous denunciation of me to the nearest Roste de Section, as having harboured the traitor Moncrif and conspiring with him to assassinate Robespierre whilst the latter was in my apartment."
Bertrand uttered a cry of horror.
"Impossible!" he exclaimed.
"The chief Commissary of the Section," she went on glibly, earnestly—never taking her eyes off his, "at risk of his life, gave me warning. Aided by him and a faithful servant, I contrived to escape—out of Paris first, then across country in the amidst of unspeakable misery, and finally out of the country into an open boat, until I was picked up by a chance vessel and brought to this inn more dead than alive."
She fell back against the cushion of the chair, her sinuous body shaken with sobs. Bertrand, speechless with horror, could but try and soothe his beloved as she had soothed him a while ago, when past terrors and past bitter experiences had unmanned him. After a while she became more calm, contrived to smile through her tears.
"You see, Bertrand, that your gallant Scarlet Pimpernel is as merciless in hate as he is selfless in love."
"But why?" the young man ejaculated vehemently. "Why?"
"Why he should hate me?" she rejoined with a pathetic little sigh and a shrug of the shoulders. "Chien sabe, my friend! Of course, he does not know that of late—ever since I have gained the regard of citizen Tallien—my life has been devoted to intervening on behalf of the innocent victims of our revolution. I suppose he takes me for the friend and companion of all those ruthless Terrorists whom he abhors. He has forgotten what I did in Bordeaux, and how I risked my life there, and did so daily in Paris for the sake of those whom he himself befriends. It may all be a question of misunderstanding," she added, with gentle resignation, "but 'tis one that wellnigh did cost me my life."
Bertrand folded her in his arms, held her against him, as if to shield her with his body against every danger. It was his turn now to comfort and to console, and she rested her head against his shoulder—a perfect woman rather than an unapproachable divinity, giving him through her weakness more exquisite bliss than he had ever dreamed of before. The minutes sped on, winged with happiness, and time was forgotten in the infinity of joy.
§ 2
Theresia was the first to rouse herself from this dream of happiness and oblivion. She glanced up at the clock. It was close upon ten. Confused, adorable, she jumped to her feet.
"You will ruin my reputation, Bertrand," she said with a smile, "thus early in a strange land!"
She would arrange with the landlord's daughter, she said, about a bed for herself, as she was very tired. What did he mean to do?
"Spend the night in this room," he replied, "if mine host will let me. I could have such happy dreams here! These four walls will reflect your exquisite image, and 'tis your dear face will smile down on me ere I close mine eyes in sleep."
She had some difficulty in escaping fro his clinging arms, and 'twas only the definite promise that she gave him to come back in a few minutes and let him know what she had arranged, that ultimately enabled him to let her go. Even so, he felt inexpressibly sad when she went, watched her retreating figure, so supple and so quaint in the rough, masculine clothes and the heavy mantle, as she walked resolutely down the passage in the direction of the kitchen. From the coffee-room there still came the sound of bustle and of merriment; but this little room seemed so peaceful, so remote—a shrine, now that his goddess had hallowed it by her presence.
Bertrand drew a deep sigh, partly of happiness, partly of utter weariness. He was more tired than he knew. She had promised to come back and say good night ... in a few minutes.... But the minutes seemed leaden-footed now ... and he was half-dead with fatigue. He threw himself down on the hard, uncomfortable horsehair sofa, whereon he hoped to pass the night if the landlord would let him, and glanced up at the clock. Only three minutes since she had gone... of course she would not be long ... only a few more minutes ... a very few.... He closed his eyes, for the lids felt heavy... of a surety he would hear her come....
NIGHT AND MORNING
§ 1
THERESIA waited for a moment or two at the turn of the passage, until her keen ear had told her that Bertrand was no longer on the watch and had closed the door behind him. Then she retraced her steps—on tiptoe, lest he should hear.
She found her way to the front door; it was still on the latch. She opened it and peered out into the night. The little porch was deserted, but out there on the quay a few passers-by still livened the evening with chatter or song. Theresia was on the point of steeping out of the porch, when a familiar voice hailed her softly by name:
"Citoyenne Cabarrus!"
A man, dressed in dark clothes, with high boots and sugar-loaf hat, came out from the dark angle behind the porch.
"Not here!" Theresia whispered eagerly. "Out on the quay. Wait for me there, my little Chauvelin. I'll be with you anon. I have so much to tell you!"
Silently, he did as she desired. She waited for a moment in the porch, watching the meagre figure in the dark cloak making its way across to the quay, then walking rapidly in the direction of the Pent. The moon was dazzlingly brilliant. The harbour and the distant sea glistened like diamond-studded sheets of silver. From afar there came the sound of the castle clock striking ten. The groups of passers-by had dwindled down to an occasional amorous couple strolling homewards, whispering soft nothings and gazing enraptured at the moon; or half-a-dozen sailors lolling down the quays arm in arm, on their way back to their ship, obstructing the road, yelling and singing the refrain of the newest ribald song; or perhaps a belated pedlar, weary of an unprofitable beat, wending his way dejectedly home.
One of these poor wretches—a cripple with a wooden leg and bent nearly double with the heavy load on his pack—paused for a moment beside the porch, held out a grimy hand to Theresia, with a pitiable cry.
"Of your charity, kind sir! Buy a little something from the pore ole man, to buy a bit of bread!"
He looked utterly woebegone, with lank grey hair blown about by the breeze and a colourless face covered with sweat, that shone like painted metal in the moon-light.
"Buy a little something, kind sir!" he went on, in a shrill, throaty voice. "I've a sick wife at 'ome, and pore little gran'childen!"
Theresia—a little frightened, and not at all charitably inclined at this hour—turned hastily away and went back into to house, whither the cripple's vigorous curses followed her.
"May Satan and all his armies——"
She shut the door on him and hastened up the passage. That cadaverous old reprobate had caused her to shudder as with the presentiment of coming evil
§ 2
With infinite precaution, Theresia peeped into the room where she had left Bertrand. She saw him lying on the sofa, fast asleep.
On the table in the middle of the room there was an old ink-horn, a pen, and few loose sheets of paper. Noiseless as a mouse, Theresia slipped into the room, sat at the table, and hurriedly wrote a few lines. Bertrand had not moved. Having written her missive, Theresia folded it carefully, and still on tiptoe, more stealthily even than before, she slipped the paper between the young man's loosely clasped fingers. Then, as soundlessly as she had come, she glided out of the room, ran down the passage, and was out in the porch once more, breathless but relieved.
Bertrand had not moved; and no one had seen her. Theresia only paused in the porch long enough to recover her breath, then, without hesitation and with rapid strides, she crossed over to the water's edge and walked along in the direction of the Pent.
Whereupon, the figure of the old cripple emerged from out the shadows. He gazed after the fast retreating figure of Theresia for a moment or two, then threw down his load, straightened out his back, and stretched out his arms from the shoulders with a sigh of content. After which amazing proceedings he gave a soft, inward chuckle, unstrapped his wooden leg, slung it with his discarded load across his broad shoulders, and turning his back upon harbour and sea, turned up the High Street and strode rapidly away.
§ 3
When Bertrand Moncrif woke, the dawn was peeping in throuhg the uncurtained window. He felt cold and stiff. It took him some time to realize where he was, to collect his scattered senses. He had been dreaming ... here in this room ... Theresia had been here ... and she had laid her head against his breast and allowed him to soothe and comfort her. Then she said that she would come back... and he ... like a fool ... had fallen asleep.
He jumped up, fully awake now; and as he did so a folded scrap of paper fell out of his hand. He had not known that it was there when first he woke, and somehow it appeared to be a part of his dream. As it lay there on the sanded floor at his feet, it looked strangely ghostlike, ominous; and it was with a trembling hand that, presently, he picked it up.
Every minute now brought fuller daylight into the room; a grey, cold light, for the window faced the south-west, showing a wide stretch of the tidal harbour and the open sea beyond. The sun, not fully risen, had not yet shed warmth over the landscape, and to Bertrand this colourless dawn, the mysterious stillness which earth assumes just before it wakens to the sun's kiss, seemed inexpressibly dreary and desolate.
He went to the window and threw open the casement. Down below, a kitchen wench was busy scrubbing the flagged steps of the porch; over in the inner harbour, one or two fishing vessels were preparing to put out to sea; and from the tidal harbour, the graceful yacht which yesterday had brought him—Bertrand—and his friends safely to this land of refuge, was majestically gliding out, like a beautiful swan with gleaming wings outspread.
Controlling his apprehension, his nervousness, Bertrand at last contrived to unfold the mysterious epistle. He read the few lines that were traced with a delicate, feminine hand, and with a sigh of infinite longing and of ardent passion, he pressed the paper to his lips. Theresia had sent him a message. Finding him asleep, she had slipped it into his hand. The marvel was that he did not wake when she stooped over him, and perhaps even touched his forehead with her lips.
"A kind soul," so the message ran, "hath taken compassion on me. There was no room for me at the inn, and she has offered me a bed in her cottage, somewhere close by. I do not know where it is. I have arranged with the landlord that you shall be left undisturbed in the small room where he found one another, and where the four walls will whisper to you of me. Good night, my beloved! To-morrow you will go to London with the de Servals. I will follow later. It is better so. In London you will find me at the house of Mme. de Neafchateau, a friend of my father's who lives at No. 54 in the Soho Square, and who offered me hospitality in the days when I thought I might visit London for pleasure. She will receive me now that I am poor and an exile. Come to me there. Until then my heart will feed on the memory of your kiss."
The letter was signed "Theresia."
Bertrand pressed it time and again to his lips. Never in his wildest dreams had he hoped for this; never even in those early days of rapture had he tasted such perfect bliss. The letter he hid against his breast. He was immeasurably happy, felt as if he were treading on air. The sea, the landscape, no longer looked grey and dreary. This was England, the land of the free, the land wherein he had regained his beloved. Ah, the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel, while seeking ignoble vengeance against her, for sins which she never had committed, did in truth render him and her a priceless service. Theresia, courted, adulated, over in Paris, had been as far removed from Bertrand Moncrif as the stars; but here, where she was poor and lonely, a homeless refugee like himself, she turned instinctively to the faithful lover, who would gladly die to ensure her happiness.
With that letter in his possession, Bertrand felt that he could not remain indoors. He was pining for open spaces, the sea, the mountains, God's pure air—the air which she too was breathing even now. He snatched up his hat and made his way out of the little building. The kitchen wench paused in her scrubbing and looked up smiling as he ran past her, singing and shouting for joy. For Régine—the tender, loving heart that pined for him and for his love—he had not a thought. She was the past, the dull, drabby past wherein he had dwelt before he knew how glorious a thing life could be, how golden the future, how rosy that horizon far away.
By the time he reached the harbour, the sun had risen in all its glory. Way out against the translucent sky, the graceful silhouette of the schooner swayed gently in the morning breeze, her outspread sails gleaming like wings that are tinged with gold. Bertrand watched her for awhile. He thought of the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel and the hideous vengeance which he had wrought against his beloved. And the rage which possessed his soul at the thought obscured for a moment the beauty of the morning and the glory of the sky. With a gesture characteristic of his blood and of his race, he raised his fist and shook it in the direction of the distant ship.
A RENCONTRE
§ 1
FOR Marguerite, that wonderful May-day, like so many others equally happy and equally wonderful, came to an end all too soon. To dwell on those winged hours were but to record sorrow, anxiety, a passionate resentment coupled with an equally passionate acceptance of the inevitable. Her intimate friends often marvelled how Marguerite Blakeney bore the strain of these constantly recurring farewells. Every time that in the early dawn she twined her loving arms round the neck of the man she worshipped, feeling that mayhap she was looking into those dear, lazy, laughing eyes for the last time on earth—every time, it seemed to her as if earth could not hold greater misery.
Then after that came that terrible half-hour, whilst she stood on the landing-stage—his kisses still hot upon her lips, her eyes, her throat—and watched and watched that tiny speck, that fast-sailing ship that bore him away on his errand of mercy and self-sacrifice, leaving her lonely and infinitely desolate. And then the days and hours, when he was away and it was her task t smile and laugh, to appear to know nothing of her husband save that he was a society butterfly, the pet of the salons, an exquisite, something of a fool, whose frequent absences were accounted for by deer-stalking in Scotland or fishing in the Tweed, or hunting in the shires—anything and everything that would throw dust in the eyes of the fashionable crowd of whom she and he formed an integral part.
"Sir Percy not with you to-night, dear Lady Blakeney?"
"With me? Lud love you, no! I have not seen him these three weeks past."
"The dog!"
People would talk and ask questions, throw out suggestions and innuendoes. Society a few months ago had been greatly agitated because the beautiful Lady Blakeney, the most fashionable woman about town, had taken a mad fancy for—you'll never believe it, my dear!—for her own husband. She had him by her side at routs and river-parties, in her opera-box and on the Mall. It was positively indecent! Sir Percy was the pet of Society, his sallies, his inane laugh, his lazy, delicious, impertinent ways and his exquisite clothes, made the success of every salon in which he chose to appear. His Royal Highness was never so good-tempered as when Sir Percy was by his side. Then, for his own wife to monopolize him was preposterous, abnormal, extravagant! Some people put it down to foreign eccentricity; others to Lady Blakeney's shrewdness in thus throwing dust in the eyes of her none-too-clever lord, in order to mask some intrigue or secret amour, of which Society had not as yet the key.
Fortunately for the feelings of the fashionable world, this phase of conjugal affection did not last long. It had been at its height last year, and had waned perceptibly since. Of late, so it was averred, Sir Percy was hardly ever at home, and his appearances at Blakeney Manor—his beautiful house at Richmond—were both infrequent and brief. he had evidently tried of playing second fiddle to his exquisite wife, or been irritated by her caustic wit, which she was wont to sharpen at his expense; and the ménage of these two leaders of fashion had, in the opinion of those in the know, once more resumed a more normal aspect.
When Lady Blakeney was in Richmond, London or Bath, Sir Percy was shooting or fishing or yachting—which was just as it should be. And when he appeared in society, smiling, elegant, always an exquisite, Lady Blakeney would scarce notice him, save for making him a butt for her lively tongue.
§ 2
What it cost Marguerite to keep up this rôle none but a very few ever knew. The identity of one of the greatest heroes of this or any time was known to his most bitter enemy—not to his friends. So Marguerite went on smiling, joking, flirting, while her heart ached and her brain was at times wellnigh numb with anxiety. His intimates rallied round her, of course: the splendid little band of heroes who formed the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel—Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and his pretty wife; Lord Anthony Dewhurst and his lady, whose great dark eyes still wore the impress of the tragedy which had darkened the first month of her happy wedded life. Then there was my lord Hastings; and Sir Evan Cruche, the young Squire of Holt, and all the others.
And for the Prince of Wales, it is more than surmised by those competent to judge that His Royal Highness did indeed guess at the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel, even if he had not actually been apprised of it. Certain it is that his tact and discretion did on more than one occasion save a situation which might have proved embarrassing for Marguerite.
In all these friends then—in their conversation, their happy laughter, their splendid pluck and equally splendid gaiety, the echo of the chief whom they adored—Marguerite found jus the solace that she needed. With Lady Ffoulkes and Lady Anthony Dewhurst she had everything in common. With those members of the League who happened to be in England, she could talk over and in her mind trace the various stages of the perilous adventure on which her beloved and the others were even then engaged.
And there were always the memories of those all too brief days at Dover or in Richmond, when her loving heart tasted such perfect happiness as is granted only to the elect: the happiness that comes from perfect love, perfect altruism, a complete understanding and measureless sympathy. On those memories her hungering soul could subsist in the intervals, and with them as her unalienable property, she could even bid the grim spectre of unhappiness begone.
§ 3
Of Madame de Fontenay—for as such Marguerite still knew her—she saw but little. Whether the beautiful Theresia had gone to London or no, whether she had succeeded in finding her truant husband, Marguerite did not know and cared less. The unaccountable antipathy which she had felt on that first night of her acquaintance with the lovely Spaniard still caused her to hold herself aloof. Sir Percy, true to his word, had not betrayed the actual identity of Theresia Cabarrus to his wife; but in his light, insouciant manner had dropped a word or two of warning, which had sharpened Marguerite's suspicions and strengthened her determination to avoid Mme. de Fontenay as far as possible. And since monetary or other material help was apparently not required, she had no reason to resume an intercourse which, in point of fact, was not courted by Theresia either.
But one day, walking alone in Richmond Park, she came face to face with Theresia. It was a beautiful late afternoon in July, the end of a day which had been a comparatively happy one for Marguerite—the day when a courier had come from France with news of Sir Percy; a letter from him, telling her that he was well and hinting at the possibility of another of those glorious days together at Dover.
With that message from her beloved just to hand, Marguerite had felt utterly unable to fulfil her social engagements in London. There was nothing of any importance that claimed her presence. His Royal Highness was at Brighton; the opera and the rout at Lady Portarles' could well get on without her. The evening promised to be more than ordinarily beautiful, with a radiant sunset and the soft, sweet-scented air of a midsummer's evening.
After dinner, Marguerite had felt tempted to stroll out alone. She threw a shawl over her head and stepped out on to the terrace. The vista of velvet lawns, of shady paths and rose borders in full bloom, stretched out into the dim distance before her; and beyond these, the boundary wall, ivy-clad, overhung with stately limes, and broken into by the finely wrought iron gates that gave straight into the Park.
The shades of evening were beginning to draw in, and the garden was assuming that subtle veil of mysterious melancholy which perfect beauty always lends. In the stately elms far away, a blackbird was whistling his evensong. The night was full of sweet odours—roses and heliotrope, lime and mignonette—whilst just below the terrace a bed of white tobacco swung ghost-like its perfumed censer into the air. Just an evening to lure a lonely soul into the open, away from the indifferent, the casual, into the heart of nature, always potent enough to soothe and to console
§ 4
Marguerite strolled through the grounds with a light foot, and anon reached the monumental gates, through which the exquisite peace and leafy solitude of the Park seemed to beckon insistently to her. The gate was on the latch; she slipped through and struck down a woodland path bordered by tangled undergrowth and tall bracken, and thus reached the pond, when suddenly she perceived Mme de Fontenay.
Theresia was dressed in a clinging gown of diaphanous black silk, which gave value to the exquisite creamy whiteness of her skin and to the vivid crimson of her lips. She wore a transparent shawl round her shoulders, which with the new-modish, high-waisted effect of her gown, suited her sinuous grace to perfection. But she wore no jewellery, no ornaments of any kind: only a magnificent red rose at her breast.
The sight of her at this place and at this hour was so unexpected that, to Marguerite's super-sensitive intuition, the appearance of this beautiful woman, strolling listless and alone beside the water's edge, seemed like a presage of evil. Her first instinct had been to run away before Mme. de Fontenay was aware of her presence; but the next moment she chided herself for this childish cowardice, and stood her ground, waiting for the other woman to draw near.
A minute or two later, Theresia had looked up and in her turn had perceived Marguerite. She did not seem surprised, rather came forward with a glad little cry, and her two hands outstretched.
"Milady!" she exclaimed. "Ah, I see you at last! I have oft wondered why we never met."
Marguerite took her hands, greeted her as warmly as she could. Indeed she did her best to appear interested and sympathetic.
Mme de Fontenay had not much to relate. She had found refuge in the French convent of the Assumption at Twickenham, where the Mother Superior had been an intimate friend of her mother's in the happy olden days. She went out very little, and never in society. But she was fond of strolling in this beautiful Park. The sisters had told her that Lady Blakeney's beautiful house was quite near. She would have liked to call—but never dared—hoping for a chance recontre which hitherto had never come.
She asked kindly after milor, and seemed to have heard a rumour that he was at Brighton, in attendance on his royal friend. Of her husband, Mme de Fontenay had as yet found no trace. He must be living under an assumed name, she thought—not doubt in dire poverty—Theresia feared it, but did not know—would give worlds to find out.
Then she asked Lady Blakeney whether she knew aught of the de Servals.
"I was so interested in them," she said, "because I had heard something of them while I was in Paris, and seeing that we arrived in England the same day, though under such different circumstances. But we could not journey to London together, as you, milady, so kindly suggested, because I was very ill the next day.... Ah, can you wonder?... A kind friend in Dover took care of me. But I remember their name, and have oft marvelled if we should ever meet."
Yes; Marguerite did see the de Servals from time to time. They rented a small cottage not very far from here—just outside of town. One of the daughters, Régine, was employed all day at the fashionable dress-maker's in Richmond. The younger girl, Joséphine, and the boy, Jacques, was doing work in a notary's office. It was all very dreary for them, but their courage was marvellous; and though the children did not earn much, it was sufficient for their wants.
Madame de Fontenay was vastly interested. She hoped that Régine's marriage with the man of her choice would bring a ray of real happiness into the household.
"I hope so too," Lady Blakeney assented.
"Milady has seen the young man—Régine's fiancé?"
"Oh, yes! once or twice. But he is engaged in business all day, it seems. He is inclined to be morbid and none too full of ardour. It is a pity; for Régine is a sweet girl and deserves happiness."
"We have so much sorrow in common," she said with a pathetic smile. "So many misfortunes. We ought to be friends."
Then she gave a slight little shiver.
"The weather is extraordinarily cold for July," she said. "Ah, how one misses the glorious sunshine of France!"
She wrapped her thin, transparent shawl closer round her shoulders. She was delicate, she explained. Always had been. She was a child of the South, and fully expected the English climate would kill her. In any case, it was foolish of her to stand thus talking, when it was so cold.
After which she took her leave, with a gracious inclination of the head and a cordial au revoir. Then she turned off into a small path under the trees, cut through the growing bracken; and Marguerite watched the graceful figure thoughtfully, until the leafy undergrowth hid her from view.
DEPARTURE
§ 1
THE next morning's sun rose more radiant than before. Marguerite greeted it with a sigh that was entirely a happy one. Another round of the clock had brought her a little nearer to the time when she would see her beloved. The next courier might indeed bring a message naming the very day when she could rest once more in his arms for a few brief hours, which were so like the foretaste of heaven.
Soon after breakfast she ordered her coach, intending to go to London in order to visit Lady Ffoulkes and give Sir Andrew the message which was contained for him in Percy's last letter. Whilst waiting for the coach, she strolled out into the garden, which was gay with roses and blue larkspur, sweet william and heliotrope, alive with a deafening chorus of blackbirds and thrushes, the twittering of sparrows and the last call of the cuckoo. It was a garden brimful of memories, filled in rich abundance with the image of the man she worship. Every bird-song seemed to speak his name, the soughing of the breeze amidst the trees seemed to hold the echo of his voice; the perfume of thyme and mignonette to bring back the savour of his kiss.
Then suddenly she became aware of hurrying footsteps on the gravelled path close by. She turned, and saw a young man whom at first she did not recognize, running with breathless haste towards her. He was hatless, his linen crumpled, his coat-collar awry. At sight of her he gave a queer cry of excitement and relief.
"Lady Blakeney! Thank God! Thank God!"
Then she recognized him. It was Bertrand Moncrif.
He fell on his knees and seized her gown. He appeared entirely overwrought, unbalanced, and Marguerite tried in vain at first to get a coherent word out of him. All that he kept on repeating was:
"Will you help me? Will you help us all?"
"Indeed I will, if I can, M. Moncrif," Marguerite said gently. "Do try and compose yourself and tell me what is amiss."
She persuaded him to rise, and presently to follow her to a garden seat, where she sat down. He remained standing in front of her. His eyes still looked wild and scared, and he passed a shaking hand once or twice through his unruly hair. But he was obviously making an effort to compose himself, and after a little while, during which Marguerite waited with utmost patience, he began more coherently:
"Your servants said, milady," he began more quietly, "that you were in the garden. I could not wait until they called you, so I ran to find you. Will you try and forgive me? I ought not to have intruded."
"Of course I will forgive you," Marguerite rejoined with a smile, "if you will only tell me what is amiss."
He paused a moment, then cried abruptly:
"Régine has gone!"
Marguerite frowned, puzzled, and murmured slowly, not understanding:
"Gone? Whither?"
"To Dover," he replied, "with Jacques."
"Jacques?" she reiterated, still uncomprehending.
"Her brother," he rejoined. "You know the boy?"
Marguerite nodded.
"Hot-headed, impulsive," Moncrif went on, trying to speak calmly. "He and the girl Joséphine always had it in their minds that they were destined to liberate France from her present state of anarchy and bloodshed."
"Like you yourself, M. Moncrif!" Marguerite put in with a smile.
"Oh, I became sobered, reasonable, when I realized how futile it all was. We all owe our lives to that noble Scarlet Pimpernel. They were no longer ours to throw away. At least, that was my theory, and Régine's. I have been engaged in business; and she works hard.... Oh, but you know!" he exclaimed impulsively.
"Yes, I know all your circumstances. But to the point, I pray you!"
"Jacques of late has been very excited, feverish. We did not know what was amiss. Régine and I oft spoke of him. And Mme de Serval has been distraught with anxiety. She worships the boy. He is her only son. But Jacques would not say what was amiss. He spoke to no one. Went to his work every day as usual. Last night he did not come home. A message came for Mme de Serval to say that a friend in London had persuaded him to go to the play and spend the night with him. Mme de Serval thought nothing of that. She was pleased to think that Jacques had some amusement to distract him from his brooding thoughts. But Régine, it seems, was not satisfied. After her mother had gone to bed, she went into Jacque's room; found some papers, it seems ... letters ... I know not ... proof in fact that the boy was even then on his way to Dover, having made arrangements to take ship for France."
"Mon Dieu!" Marguerite exclaimed involuntarily. "What senseless folly!"
"Ah! but that is not the worst. Folly, you say! But there is worse folly still!"
With the same febrile movements that characterized his whole attitude, he drew a stained and crumpled letter from his pocket.
"She sent me this, this morning," he said. "That is why I came to you."
"You mean Régine?" Marguerite asked, and took the letter which he was handing to her.
"Yes! She must have brought it round herself... to my lodgings... in the early dawn. I did not know what to do ... whom to consult.... A blind instinct brought me here ... I have no other friend..."
In the meanwhile Marguerite was deciphering the letter, turning a deaf ear to his ramblings.
"My Bertrand," so the letter ran, "Jacques is going to France. Nothing will keep him back. He says it is his duty. I think that he is mad, and I know that it will kill maman. So I go with him. Perhaps at the last—at Dover—my tears and entreaties might yet prevail. If not, and he puts this senseless project in execution, I can watch over him there, and perhaps save him from too glaring a folly. We go by coach to Dover, which starts in an hour's time. Farewell, my beloved, and forgive me for causing you the anxiety; but I feel that Jacques has more need of me than you."
Below the signature "Régine de Serval" there were a few more lines, written as if with an afterthought:
"I have told maman that my employer is sending me down into the country about some dresses for an important customer, and that as Jacques can get a few days' leave from his work, I am taking him with me, for I feel the country air would do him good.
"Maman will be astonished and no doubt hurt that Jacques did not send her word of farewell, but it is best that she should not learn the truth too suddenly. If we do not return to Dover within the week, you will have to break the news as gently as you can."
Whilst Marguerite read the letter, Bertrand had sunk upon the seat and buried his head in his hands. He looked utterly dejected and forlorn, and she felt a twinge of remorse at thought how she had been wronging him all this while by doubting his love for Régine. She placed a kindly hand on the young man's shoulder.
"What was your idea," she asked, "in coming to me? What can I do?"
"Give me advice, milady!" he implored. "I am so helpless, so friendless. When I had the letter, I could think of nothing at first. You see, Régine and Jacques started early this morning, by the coach from London, long before I had it. I thought you could tell me what to do, how to overtake them. Régine loves me—oh, she loves me! If I knelt at her feet I could bring her back. But they are marked people, those two. The moment they attempt to enter Paris, they will be recognized, arrest. Oh, my God! have mercy on us all!"
"You think you can persuade Régine, M. Moncrif?"
"I am sure," he asserted firmly. "And you, milady! Régine thinks the whole world of you!"
"But there is the boy—Jacques!"
"He is just a child—he acted on impulse—and I always had great authority over him. And you, milady! The whole family worship you!... they know what they owe you. Jacques has not thought of his mother; but if he did——"
Marguerite rose without another word.
"Very well," she said simply. "We go together and see what we can do with those two obstinate young folk."
Bertrand gave a gasp of surprise and of hope. His whole face lighted up and he gazed upon the beautiful woman before him as a worshipper would on his divinity.
"You, milady?" he murmured. "You would ... really ... help me ... like that?"
Marguerite smiled.
"I really would help you like that," she said. "My coach is ordered; we can start at once. We'll get relays at Maidstone and at Ashford, and easily reach Dover to-night, before the arrival of the public coach. In any case, I know every one of any importance in Dover. We could not fail to find the runaways."
"But you are an angel, milady!" Bertrand contrived to stammer, although obviously he was overwhelmed with gratitude.
"You are ready to start?" Marguerite retorted, gently checking any further display of emotion.
He certainly was hatless, and his clothes were in an untidy condition; but such trifles mattered nothing at a moment like this. Marguerite's household, on the other hand, were accustomed to these sudden vagaries and departures of their mistress, either for Dover, Bath, or any known and unknown destination, often at a few minutes' notice.
In this case the coach was actually at the gates. The maids packed the necessary valise; her ladyship changed her smart gown for a dark travelling one, and less than half an hour after Bertrand Moncrif's first arrival at the Manor, he was seated beside Lady Blakeney in her coach. The coachman cracked his whip, the postilion swung himself into the saddle, and the servants stood at attention as the vehicle slowly swung out of the gates; and presently, the horses putting on the pace, disappeared along the road, followed by a cloud of dust.
§ 2
Bertrand Moncrif, brooding, absorbed in thoughts, said little or nothing while the coach swung along at a very brisk pace. Marguerite, who always had plenty to think about, did not feel in the mood to try and make conversation. She was very sorry for the young man, who in very truth must have suffered also from remorse. His lack of ardour—obviously only an outward lack—toward his fiancée and the members of her family, must to a certain extent have helped to precipitate the present catastrophe. Coolness and moroseness on his part gave rise to want of confidence on the other. Régine, heart-sick at her lover's seeming indifference, was no doubt all the more ready to lavish love and self-sacrifice upon the young brother. Marguerite was sorry enough for the latter—a young fool, with the exalté Latin temperament, brimming over with desires for self-immolation as futile as they were senseless—but her generous heart went out to Régine de Serval, a girl who appeared predestined to sorrow and disappointments, endowed with an exceptionally warm nature and cursed with the inability to draw whole-hearted affection to herself. She worshipped Bertrand Moncrif; she idolized her mother, her brother, her sister. But though they, one and all, relied on her, brought her the confidences of their troubles and their difficulties, it never occurred to any one of them to give up something—a distraction, a fancy, an ideal—for the sake of silent, thoughtful Régine.
Marguerite allowed her thoughts thus to dwell on these people, whom her husband's splendid sacrifice on their behalf had rendered dear. Indeed, she loved them like she loved so many others, because of the dangers which he had braved for their sakes. Their lives had become valuable because of his precious one, daily risked because of them. And at the back of her mind there was also the certainty that if these two young fools did put their mad project in execution and endeavoured to return to Paris, it would again be the gallant Scarlet Pimpernel who would jeopardize his life to save them from the consequences of their own folly.
§ 3
Luncheon and a brief halt was taken at Farningham and Maidstone reached by three o'clock in the afternoon. Here Lady Blakeney's own servants took leave of her, and post-horses were engaged to take her ladyship on to Ashford. Two hours later, at Ashford, fresh relays were obtained. The public coach at this hour was only some nine or ten miles ahead, it seems, and there was now every chance that Dover would be reached by nightfall and the young runaways met by their pursuers on arrival.
All was then for the best. Bertrand, after the coach had rattled out of Ashford, appeared to find comfort and courage. He began to talk, long and earnestly—of himself, his plans and projects, his love for Régine, to which he always found it so difficult to give expression; of Régine herself and the de Servals, mother, son and daughters. His voice was toneless and very even. The monotony of his diction acted after awhile as a soporific on Marguerite's nerves. The rumble of the coach, the closeness of this long afternoon in July, the rocking of the springs, made her feel drowsy. After a while took, a curious scent pervaded the interior of the coach—a sweet, heady scent that appeared to weigh her eyelids down and gave her a feeling of delicious and lazy beatitude. Bertrand Moncrif droned on, and his voice came to her fast-fading senses as through a thick pulpy veil. She closed her eyes. That sweet, intoxicating scent came, more marked, more insistent, to her nostrils. She laid her head against the cushions, and still she heard the dreary monotone of Bertrand's voice, quite inarticulate now, like the hum of a swarm of bees....
Then, all of a sudden she was fully conscious; only just in time to feel the weight of an iron hand against her mouth and to see Bertrand's face, ghastly of hue, eyes distorted more with fear than rage, quite close to her own. She had not the time to scream, and her limbs felt as heavy as lead, so that she could not struggle. The next moment a thick woollen scarf was wound quickly and tightly round her head, covering her mouth and eyes, only barely giving her room to breathe, and her hands and arms were tied together with cords.
This brutal assault had been so quick and so sudden that at first it seemed to Marguerite like part of a hideous dream. She was not fully conscious, and was half suffocated by the thick folds of the scarf and that persistent odour, which by its sickened sweetness caused her wellnigh to swoon.
Through this semi-consciousness, however, she was constantly aware of her enemy, Bertrand Moncrif—the black-hearted traitor who had carried out this execrable outrage: why and for what purpose, Marguerite was too dazed to attempt to guess. He was there, that she knew. She was conscious of his hands making sure of the cords round her wrists, tightening the scarf around her mouth; then presently she felt him leaning across her body and throwing down the window, and she heard him shouting to the driver:
"Her ladyship as fainted. Drive as fast as ever you can till you come to that white house yonder on the right, the one with the green shutters and the tall yew at the gate!"
The driver's reply she could not hear, nor the crack of his whip. Certain it is that, though the coach had rattled on at a great pace before, the horses, as if in response to Bertrand's commands, now burned the ground under their hoofs. A few minutes went by—an eternity. Then that terrible cloying perfume was again held close to her nostrils; an awful dizziness and nausea seized her; after which she remembered nothing more.
MEMORIES
§ 1
WHEN Marguerite Blakeney finally recovered consciousness, the sun was low down in the west. She was in a coach—not her own—which was being whisked along the road at terrific speed. She was alone, her mouth gagged, her wrists and her ankles tied with cords, so that she could neither speak nor move—a helpless log, being taken ... whither? ... and by whom?
Bertrand was not here. Through the front window of the coach she could perceive the vague outline of two men sitting on the driver's seat, whilst another was riding the off-leader. Four horses were harnessed to the light coach. It flew along in a south-easterly direction, the while the shades of evening were fast drawing in.
Marguerite had seen too much of the cruelties and barbarities of this world, too much of the hatred that existed between enemy countries, and too much of the bitter rancour felt by certain men against her husband and indirectly against herself, not to realize at once whence the blow had come that had struck her. Something too in the shape of that back which she perceived through the window in front of her, something in the cut of the threadbare coat, the set of the black bow at the nape of the neck, was too familiar to leave her even for a moment in doubt. Here was no ordinary foot-pad, no daring abduction with a view to reward or ransom. This was the work of her husband's enemies, who, through her, were once more striving to get at him.
Bertrand Moncrif had been the decoy. Whence had come the hatred which prompted him to raise his hand against the very man to whom he owed his life, Marguerite was still too dazed to conjecture. He had gone, and taken his secret of rancour with him, mayhap for ever. Lying pinioned and helpless as she was, Marguerite had but the one thought: in what way would those fiends who had her a prisoner use her as a leverage against the life and honour of the Scarlet Pimpernel? They had held her once before—not so very long ago—in Boulogne, and he had emerged unscathed, victorious over them all.
Marguerite, helpless and pinioned, forced her thoughts to dwell on that time, when his enemies had filled to the brim the cup of humiliation and of dread which was destined for each him through her hands, and his ingenuity and his daring dashed the cup to the ground ere it reached her lips. In truth, her plight then, at Boulogne, was in no way less terrible, less seemingly hopeless than now. She was a prisoner then, just as she was now; in the power of men whose whole life and entire range of thought had for the past two years been devoted to the undoing and annihilation of the Scarlet Pimpernel. And there was a certain grim satisfaction for the pinioned, helpless woman in recalling the many instances where the daring adventurer had so completely outwitted his enemies, as well as in the memory of those days at Boulogne when the life of countless innocents was to be the price of her own.
§ 2
The embarkation took place somewhere on the coast around Brichington. When, at dead of night, the coach came to a halt, and the tang of sea air and salt spray reached Marguerite's burning cheeks and parched lips, she tried with all her might to guess at her exact position. But that was impossible.
She was lifted out of the coach, and at once a shawl was thrown over her face, so that she could not see. It was more instinct than anything else that guided her perceptions. Even in the coach she had been vaguely conscious of the direction in which she had been travelling. All that part of the country was entirely familiar to her. So often she had driven down with Sir Percy, either to Dover or more often to some lonely part of the coast, where he took ship for unknown destinations, that in her mind she could, even blinded with tears and half-conscious as she was, trace in her mind the various turnings and side-roads along which she was being borne at unabating speed.
Birchington—one of the favourite haunts of the smuggling fraternity, with its numberless caves and retreats dug by the sea in the chalk cliffs, as if for the express benefit of ne'er-do-wells—seemed the natural objective of the miscreants who had her in their power. In fact, at one moment she was quite sure that the square tower of old Minister church flitted past her vision through the window of the coach, and that the horses immediately after that sprinted the hill between Minster and Acoll.
Be that as it may, there was no doubt that the coach came to a halt at a desolate spot. The day which had begun in radiance and sunshine, had turned to an evening of squall and drizzle. A thin rain soon wetted Marguerite's clothes and the shawl on her head through and through, greatly adding to her misery and discomfort. Though she saw nothing, she could trace every landmark of the calvary to the summit of which she was being borne like an insentient log.
For a while she lay at the bottom of a small boat, aching in body as well as in mind, her eyes closed, her limbs cramped by the cords which owing to the damp were cutting into her flesh, faint with cold and want of food, wet to the skin yet with eyes and head and hands burning hot, and her ears filled with the dreary, monotonous sound of the oars creaking in the rowlocks and the boom of the water against the sides of the boat.
She was lifted out of the boat and carried, as she judged, by two men up a companion ladder, then down some steps and finally deposited on some hard boards; after which the wet shawl was removed from her face. She was in the dark. Only a tiny streak of light found its way through a chink somewhere close to the floor. A smell of tar and of stale food gave her a wretched sense of nausea. But she had by now reached a stage of physical and mental prostration wherein even acute bodily suffering counts as nothing, and is endurable because it is no longer felt.
After a while the familiar motion, the well-known sound of a ship weighing anchor, gave another blow to her few lingering hopes. Every movement of the ship now bore her farther and farther from England and home, and rendered her position more utterly miserable and hopeless.
Far be it from me to suggest even for a moment that Marguerite Blakeney lost either spirit or courage during this terrible ordeal. But she was so completely helpless that instinct forced her to remain motionless and quiescent, and not to engage in a fight against overwhelming odds. In mid-Channel, surrounded by miscreants who had her in their power, she could obviously do nothing except safeguard what dignity she could by silence and seeming acquiescence.
§ 3
She was taken ashore in the early dawn, at a spot not very far from Boulogne. Precautions were no longer taken against her possible calls for help; even the cords had been removed from her wrists and ankles as soon as she was lowered into the boat that brought her to shore. Cramped and stiff though she was, she disdained the help of an arm which was held out to her to enable her to step out of the boat.
All the faces around her were unfamiliar. There were four or five men, surly and silent, who piloted her over the rocks and cliffs and then along the sands, to the little hamlet of Wimereux, which she knew well. The coast at this hour was still deserted; only at one time did the little party meet with a group of buxom young women, trudging along barefooted with their shrimping nets over their shoulders. They stared wide-eyed but otherwise indifferent, at the unfortunate woman in torn, damp clothes, and with golden hair all dishevelled, who was bravely striving not to fall whilst urged on by five rough fellows in ragged jerseys, tattered breeches, and bare-kneed.
Just for one moment—a mere flash—Marguerite at sight of these girls had the wild notion to run to them, implore their assistance in the name of their sweethearts, their husbands, their songs; to throw herself at their feet and beg them to help her, seeing that they were women and could not be without heart or pity. But it was a mere flash, the wild vagary of an over-excited brain, the drifting straw that mocks the drowning man. The next moment the girls had gone by, laughing and chattering. One of them intoned the "Ca ira!" and Marguerite, fortunately for her own dignity, was not seriously tempted to essay so futile, so senseless an appeal.
Later on, in a squalid little hovel on the outskirts of Wimereux, she was at last given some food which, though of the poorest and roughest description, was nevertheless welcome, for it revived her spirit and strengthened her courage, of which she had sore need.
The rest of the journey was uneventful. Within the first hour of making a fresh start, she had realized that she was being taken to Paris. A few words dropped casually by the men who had charge of her apprised her of the fact. Otherwise they were very reticent—not altogether rough or unkind.
The coach in which she travelled during this stage of the journey was roomy and not uncomfortable, although the cushions were ragged and the leatherwork mildewed. Above all, she had the supreme comfort of privacy. She was alone in the coach, alone during the halts at way-side hostelries when she was allowed food and rest, alone throughout those two interminable nights when, with brief intervals whilst relays of horses were put into the shafts or the men took it in turns to get food or drunk in some house unseen in the darkness, she vainly tried to get a snatch or two of sleep and a few moments of forgetfulness; alone throughout that next long day, whilst frequent summer showers sent heavy raindrops beating against the window-panes of the coach, and familiar landmarks on the way to Paris flitted like threatening ghouls past her aching eyes.
Paris was reached at dawn of the third day. Seventy-two hours had crept along leaden-footed, since the moment when she hat stepped into her own coach outside her beautiful home in Richmond, surrounded by her own servants, and with that traitor Moncrif by her side. Since then, what a load of sorrow, of anxiety, seemed as nothing beside the heartrending thoughts of her beloved, as yet ignorant of her terrible fate and of the schemes which those fiends who had so shamefully trapped her were even now concocting for the realization of their vengeance against him.
WAITING
§ 1
THE house to which Marguerite was ultimately driven, and where she presently found herself ushered up the stairs into a small, well-furnished apartment, appeared to be situated somewhere in an outlying quarter of Pairs.
The apartment consisted of three rooms—a bedroom, a sitting-room, and small cabinet de toilette—all plainly but nicely furnished. The bed looked clean and comfortable, there was a carpet on the floor, one or two pictures on the wall, an arm-chair or two, even a few books in an armoire. An old woman, dour of mien but otherwise willing and attentive, did all she could to minister to the poor wearied woman's wants. She brought up some warm milk and home-baked bread. Butter, she explained, was not obtainable these day, and the household had not seen sugar for weeks.
Marguerite, tired out and hungry, readily ate some breakfast; but what she longed for most and needed most was rest. So presently, at the gruff invitation of the old woman, she undressed and stretched her weary limbs between the sheets, with a sigh of content. Anxiety, for the moment, had to yield to the sense of well-being, and with the name of her beloved on her lips Marguerite went to sleep like a child.
When she woke, it was late afternoon. On a chair close by her bedside was some clean linen laid out, a change of stockings, clean shoes, and a gown—a perfect luxury, which made this silent and lonely house appear more like the enchanted abode of ogres or fairies than before. Marguerite rose and dressed. The linen was fine, obviously the property of a woman of refinement, whilst everything in the tiny dressing-room—a comb, hand-mirror, soap, and scented water—suggested that the delicate hand of a cultured woman had seen to their disposal. A while later, the dour attendant brought her some soup and a dish of cooked vegetables.
Every phase of the situation became more and more puzzling as time went one. Marguerite, with the sense of well-being further accentuated by the feel of warm, dry clothes and of wholesome food, had her mind free enough to think and to ponder. She had thrown open the window, and peeping out, noted that it obviously gave on the back of the house and that the view consisted of rough, uncultivated land, broken up here and there by workshops, warehouses, and timber-yards. Marguerite also noted that she was gazing out in the direction of the north-west, that the apartment wherein she found herself was on the top floor of a detached house which, judging by certain landmarks vaguely familiar, was situated somewhere outside the barrier of St. Antoine, and not very far from the Bastille and from the Arsenal.
Again she pondered. Where was she? Why was she being treated with a kindness and consideration altogether at variance with the tactics usually adopted by the enemies of the Scarlet Pimpernel? She was not in prison. She was not being starved, or threatened, or humiliated. The day wore on, and she was not confronted with one or other of those fiends who were so obviously using her as a decoy for her husband.
But though Marguerite Blakeney was not in prison, she was a prisoner. This she had ascertained five minutes after she was alone in the apartment. She could wander at will from room to room; but only in them, not out of them. The door of communication between the rooms was wide open; those that obviously gave on a landing outside were securely locked; and when a while ago the old woman had entered with the tray of food, Marguerite had caught sight of a group of men in the well-known tattered uniform of the National Guard, standing at attention in a wide, long antechamber.
Yes; she was a prisoner! She could open the windows of her apartment and inhale the soft moist air which came across the wide tract of a barren land; but these windows were thirty feet above the ground, and there was no projection in the outside wall of the house anywhere near that would afford a foothold to anything human.
Thus for twenty-four hours she was left to meditate, thrown upon her own resources, with no other company save that of her own thoughts, and they were anything but cheerful. The uncertainty of the situation soon began to prey upon her nerves. She had been calm in the morning; but as the day wore on the loneliness, the mystery, the silence, began to tell upon her courage. Soon she got to look upon the woman who waited on her as upon her jailer, and when she was alone she was for ever straining her ears to hear what the men who were guarding her door might be saying among themselves.
The next night she hardly slept.
§ 2
Twenty-four hours later she had a visiting from citizen Chauvelin.
She had been expecting that visit all along, or else a message from him. When he came she had need of all her pluck and all her determination, not to let him see the emotion which his presence caused her. Dread! Loathing! These were her predominant sensations. But dread above all; because he was dressed with scrupulous care and affected the manners and graces of a society which had long since cast him out. It was not the rough, out-at-elbows Terrorist who stood before her, the revolutionary demagogue who hits out right and left against a caste that has always spurned him and held itself aloof; it was the broken-down gentleman at war with fortune, who strives by his wits to be revenged against the buffetings of Fate and the arrogance which ostracised him as soon as he was down.
He began by asking solicitously after her well-being; hoped the journey had not over-fatigued her; humbly begged her pardon for the discomfort which a higher power compelled him to put upon her. He talked platitudes in an even, unctuous voice until Marguerite, exasperated, and her nerves on edge, curtly bade him to come to the point.
"I have come to the point, dear lady," he retorted suavely. "The point is that you should be comfortable and have no cause to complain whilst you are under this roof."
"And how long am I to remain a prisoner under it?" she asked.
"Until Sir Percy has in his turn honoured this house with his presence," he replied.
To this she made no answer for a time, but sat quite still looking at him, as if detached and indifferent. He waited for her to speak, his pale eyes, slightly mocking, fixed upon her. Then she said simply:
"I understand."
"I was quite sure you would, dear lady," he rejoined blandly. "You see, the phase of heroics is past. I will confess to you that it proved of no avail when measured against the lofty coolness of that peerless exquisite. So we over here have shed our ardour like a mantle. We, too, now are quite calm, quite unperturbed, quite content to wait. The beautiful Lady Blakeney is a guest under this roof. Well, sooner or later that most gallant of husbands will desire to approach his lady. Sooner or later he will learn that she is no longer in England. Then he will set his incomparable wits to work to find out where she is. Again, I may say that sooner or later, perhaps, even aided by us, he will know that she is here. Then he will come. Am I not right?"
Of course he was right. Sooner or later Percy would learn where she was; and then he would come. He would come to her, despite every trap set for his undoing, despite every net laid to catch him, despite danger of death that waited for him if he came.
Chauvelin said little more. In truth, the era of heroics was at an end. At an end those ominous "either—ors" that he was wont to mete out with a voice quavering with rage and lust of revenge. Now there was no alternative, no deep-laid plot save one: to wait for the Scarlet Pimpernel until he came.
In the meanwhile she, Marguerite, must remain helpless and a prisoner; she must eat and drink and sleep. She, the decoy!—who would never know when the crushing blow would fall that would mean a hundred deaths to her if it involved that of the husband whom she worshipped.
After a while, Chauvelin went away. In fact, she never knew actually when he did go. A while ago he had sat there on that upright chair, quiet, well groomed, suave of speech and bland of manner.
"Then he will come," he had said quite urbanely. "Am I not right?"
When Marguerite closed her eyes she could still see him, his mocking gaze fixed upon her, his thin, white hands folded complacently before him. And presently, as the day wore on and the shades of evening blurred one object in the room after another, the straight-backed chair, still left in its place, assumed a fantastic human shape—the shape of a meagre figure with narrow shoulders and thin, carefully be-stockinged legs. And all the faint noises around her—the occasional creaking of the furniture, the movements of the men outside her door, the soughing of the evening breeze in the foliage of the elm trees—all were merged into a thin, bland human voice, that went on repeating in a kind of thin, dreary monotone:
"Then he will come. Am I not right?"
MICE AND MEN
§ 1
IT was on her return from England that Theresia Cabarrus took to consulting the old witch in the Rue de la Planchette, driven thereto by ambition, and also no doubt by remorse. There was nothing of the hardened criminal about the fair Spaniard; she was just a spoilt woman who had been mocked and thwarted, and desired to be revenged. The Scarlet Pimpernel had appeared before her as one utterly impervious to her charms, and, egged on by Chauvelin, who used her for his own ends, she entered into a callous conspiracy, the aim of which was the destruction of that gang of English spies who were the enemies of France, and the first stage of which was the heartless abduction of Lady Blakeney and her incarceration as a decoy for the ultimate capture of her own husband.
A cruel, abominable act! Theresia, who had plunged headlong into this shameful crime, would a few days later have given much to undo the harm she had wrought. But she had yet to learn that, once used as a tool by the Committee of Public Safety and by Chauvelin, its most unscrupulous agent, no man or woman could hope to become free again until the work demanded had been accomplished to the end. There was no freedom from that taskmaster save in death; and Theresia's fit of compunction did not carry her to the lengths of self-sacrifice. Marguerite Blakeney was her prisoner, the decoy which would bring the English milor inevitably to the spot where his wife was incarcerated; and Theresia, who had helped to bring this state of things about, did her best to smother remorse, and having done Chauvelin's dirty work for him she set to to see what personal advantage she could derive from it.
Firstly, the satisfaction of her petty revenge: the Scarlet Pimpernel caught in a trap, would surely regret his interference in Theresia's love affairs. Theresia cared less than nothing about Bertrand Moncrif, and would have been quite grateful to the English milor for having spirited that embarrassing lover of hers away but for that letter which had wounded the beautiful Spaniard's vanity to the quick, and still rankled sufficiently to ease her conscience on the score of her subsequent actions. That the letter was a bogus one, concocted and written by Chauvelin himself in order to spur her on to a mean revenge, Theresia did not know.
But far stronger than thoughts of revenge where Theresia's schemes for her own future. She had begun to dream of Robespierre's gratitude, of her triumph over all those who had striven for over two years to bring that gang of English spies to book. She saw her name writ largely on the roll of fame; she even saw in her mind, the tyrant himself as her willing slave ... and something more than that.
For her tool Bertrand she had no further use. By way of a reward for the abominable abduction of Lady Blakeney, he had been allowed to follow the woman he worshipped like a lackey attached to her train. Dejected, already spurned, he returned to Paris with her, here to resume the life of humiliation and of despised ardour which had broken his spirit and warped his nature, before his gallant rescuer had snatched him out of the toils of the beautiful Spaniard.
Within an hour of setting his foot on French soil, Bertrand had realized that he had been nothing in Theresia's sight but a lump of malleable wax, which she had moulded to her own design and now threw aside as cumbersome and useless. He had realized that her ambition soared far above linking her fate to an obscure and penniless lover, when the coming man of the hour—citizen Tallien—was already at her feet.
§ 2
Thus Theresia had attained one of her great desires: the Scarlet Pimpernel was as good as captured, and when he finally succumbed he could not fail to know whence came the blow that struck him.
With regard to her future, matters were more doubtful. She had not yet subjugated Robespierre sufficiently to cause him to give up his more humble love and to lay down his power and popularity at her feet; whilst the man who had offered her his hand and name—citizen Tallien—was for ever putting a check upon her ambition and his own advancement by his pusillanimity and lack of enterprise.
Whilst she was aching to push him into decisive action, into seizing the supreme power before Robespierre and his friends had irrevocably established theirs, Tallien was for temporizing, fear that in trying to snatch a dictatorship he and his beloved with him would lose their heads.
"While Robespierre lives," Theresia would argue passionately, "no man's head is safe. Every rival, sooner or later, becomes a victim. St. Just and Couthon aim at a dictatorship for him. Sooner or later they will succeed; then death to every man who has ever dared oppose them."
"Therefore 'tis wiser not to oppose," the prudent Tallien would retort. "The time will come——"
"Never!" she riposted hotly. "While you plot, and argue and ponder, Robespierre acts or signs your death-warrant."
"Robespierre is the idol of the people; he sways the Convention with a word. His eloquence would drag an army of enemies to the guillotine!"
"Robespierre!" Theresia retorted with sublime contempt. "Ah, when you have said that, you think you have said everything! France, humanity, the people, sovereign power!—all that, you assert, is embodied in that one man. But, my friend, listen to me!" she went on earnestly. "Listen, when I assert that Robespierre is only a name, a fetish, a manikin set up on a pedestal! By whom? By you, and the Convention; by the Clubs and the Committees. And the pedestal is composed of that elusive entity which you call the people and which will disintegrate from beneath his feet as soon as the people have realized that those feet are less than clay. One touch of a firm finger against that manikin, I tell you, and he will fall as dust before you; and you can rise upon that same elusive pedestal—popularity, to the heights which he hath so easily attained."
But, though Tallien was at times carried away by her vehemence, he would always shake his head and counsel prudence, and assure her that the time was not yet. Theresia, impatient and dictatorial, had more than once hinted at rupture.
"I could not love a weakling," she would aver; and at the back of her mind there would rise schemes, which aimed at transferring her favours to the other man, who she felt would be more worthy of her.
"Robespierre would not fail me, as this coward does!" she mused, even while Tallien, blind and obedient, was bidding her farewell at the very door of the charlatan to whom Theresia had turned in her ambition and her difficulties.
§ 3
Something of the glamour which had originally surrounded Mother Théot's incantations had vanished since sixty-two of her devotees had been sent to the guillotine on charge of conspiring for the overthrow of the Republic. Robespierre's enemies, too cowardly to attack him in the Convention or in the Clubs, had seized upon the mystery which hung over the séances in the Rue de la Planchette in order to undermine his popularity in the one and his power in the other.
Spies were introduced into the witch's lair. The names of its chief frequenters became known, and soon wholesale arrests were made, which were followed by the inevitable condemnations. Robespierre had not actually been named; but the identity of the sycophants who had proclaimed him the Messenger of the Most High, the Morning Star, or the Regenerator of Mankind, were hurled across from the tribune of the Convention, like poisoned arrows aimed at the tyrant himself.
But Robespierre had been too wary to allow himself to be dragged into the affair. His enemies tried to goad him into defending his worshippers, thus admitting his association with the gang; but he remained prudently silent, and with callous ruthlessness he sacrificed them to his own safety. He never raised his voice nor yet one finger to save them from death, and whilst he—bloodthirsty autocrat—remain firmly installed upon his self-constituted throne, those who had acclaimed him as second only to God, perished upon the scaffold.
Mother Théot, for some inexplicable reason, escaped this wholesale slaughter; but her séances were henceforth shorn of their splendour. Robespierre no longer dared frequent them even in disguise. The house in the Rue de la Planchette became a marked one to the agents of the Committee of Public Safety, and the witch herself was reduced to innumerable shifts to eke out a precarious livelihood and to keep herself in the good graces of those agents, by rendering them various unavowable services.
To those, however, who chose to defy public opinion and to disregard the dangers which attended the frequentation of Mother Théot's sorceries, these latter had lost little or nothing of their pristine solemnity. There was the closely curtained room; the scented, heavy atmosphere; the chants, the coloured flames, the ghost-like neophytes. Draped in her grey veils, the old witch still wove her spells and called on the powers of light and of darkness to aid her in foretelling the future. The neophytes chanted and twisted their bodies in quaint contortions; alone, the small blackamoor grinned at what experience had taught him was nothing by quackery and charlatanism.
Theresia, sitting on the dias, with the heady fumes of Oriental scents blurring her sight and the clearness of her intellect, was drinking in the honeyed words and flattering prophecies of the old witch.
"Thy name will be the greatest in the land! Before thee will bow the mightiest thrones! At thy word heads will fall and diadems will totter!" Mother Théot announced in sepulchral tones, whilst gazing into the crystal before her.
"As the wife of citizen Tallien?" Theresia queried in an awed whisper.
"That the spirits do not say," the old witch replied. "What is a name to them? I see a crown of glory, and thy head surrounded by a golden light; and at thy feet lies something which once was scarlet, and now is crimson and crushed."
"What does it mean?" Theresia murmured.
"That is for thee to know," the sybil replied sternly. "Commune with the spirits; lose thyself in their embrace; learn from them the great truths, and the future will be made clear to thee."
With which cryptic utterance she gathered her veils around her, and with weird murmurs of, "Evohe! Evohe! Sammael! Zamiel! Evohe!" glided out of the room, mysterious and inscrutable, presumably in order to allow her bewildered client to meditate on the enigmatical prophecy in solitude.
But directly she had closed the door behind her, Mother Théot's manner underwent a chance. Here the broad light of day appeared to divest her of all her sybilline attributes. She became just an ugly old woman, wrinkled and hook-nosed, dressed in shabby draperies that were grey with age and dirt, and with claw-like hands that looked like the talons of a bird of prey.
As she entered the room, a man who had been standing at the window opposite, staring out into the dismal street below, turned quickly to her.
"Art satisfied?" she asked at once.
"From what I could hear, yes!" he replied, "though I could have wished thy pronouncements had been more clear."
The hag shrugged her lean shoulders and nodded in the direction of her lair.
"Oh!" she said. "The Spaniard understands well enough. She never consults me or invokes the spirits but they speak to her of that which is scarlet. She knows what it means. You need not fear, citizen Chauvelin, that in the pursuit of her vaulting ambition, she will forget that her primary duty is to you!"
"No," Chauvelin asserted calmly, "she'll not forget that. The Cabarrus is no fool. She knows well enough that when citizens of the State have been employed to work on its behalf, they are no longer free agents afterwards. The work must be carried through to the end."
"You need not fear the Cabarrus, citizen," the sybil rejoined dryly. "She'll not fail you. Her vanity is immense. She believes that the Englishman insulted her by writing that flippant letter, and she'll not leave him alone till she has had her revenge."
"No!" Chauvelin assented. "She'll not fail me. Nor thou either, citoyenne."
The old hag shrugged her shoulders.
"I?" she exclaimed, with a quiet laugh. "Is that likely? You promised me ten thousand livres the day the Scarlet Pimpernel is captured!"
"And the guillotine," Chauvelin broke in grimly, "if thou shouldst allow the woman upstairs to escape."
"I know that," the old woman rejoined dryly. "If she escapes 'twill not be through my connivance."
"In the service of the State," Chauvelin riposted, "even carelessness becomes a crime."
Catherine Théot was silent for a moment or two, pressed her thin lips together; then rejoined quite quietly:
"She'll not escape. Have no fear, citizen Chauvelin."
"That's brave! And now, tell me what has become of the coalheaver Rateau?"
"Oh, he comes and goes. You told me to encourage him."
"Yes."
"So I give him potions for his cough. He has one foot in the grave."
"Would he had both!" Chauvelin broke in savagely. "That man is a perpetual menace to my plans. It would have been so much better if we could have sent him last April to the guillotine."
"It was in your hands," Mother Théot retorted. "The Committee reported against him. His measure was full enough. Aiding that execrable Scarlet Pimpernel to escape...! Name of a name! it should have been enough!"
"It was not proved that he did aid the English spies," Chauvelin retorted moodily. "And Foucquier-Tinville would not arraign him. He vowed it would anger the people—the rabble—of which Rateau himself forms an integral part. We cannot afford to anger the rabble these days, it seems."
"And so Rateau, the asthmatic coalheaver, walked out of prison a free man, whilst my neophytes were dragged up to the guillotine, and I was left without means of earning an honest livelihood!" Mother Théot concluded with a doleful sigh.
"Honest?" Chauvelin exclaimed, with a sarcastic chuckle. Then, seeing that the old witch was ready to lose her temper, he quickly added: "Tell me more about Rateau. Does he often come here?"
"Yes; very often. He must be in my anteroom now. He came directly he was let out of prison, and has haunted this place ever since. he thinks I can cure him of his asthma, and as he pays me well——"
"Pays you well?" Chauvelin broke in quickly. "That starveling?"
"Rateau is no starveling," the old woman asserted. "Many an English gold piece hath he given me."
"But not of late?"
"No later than yesterday."
Chauvelin swore viciously.
"Then he is still in touch with that cursed Englishman!"
Mother Théot shrugged her shoulders.
"Does one ever know which is the Englishman and which is the asthmatic Rateau?" she queried, with a dry laugh.
Whereupon a strange thing happened—so strange indeed that Chauvelin's next words turned to savage curses, and that Mother Théot, white to the lips, her knees shaking under her, tiny beads of perspiration rising beneath her scanty locks, had to hold on to the table to save herself from falling.
"Name of a name of a dog!" Chauvelin muttered hoarsely, whilst the old woman, shaken by that superstitious dread which she liked to arouse in her clients, could only stare at him and mutely shake her head.
And yet nothing very alarming had occurred. Only a man had laughed, light-heartedly and long; and the sound of that laughter had come from somewhere near—the next room probably, or the landing beyond Mother Théot's anteroom. It had come low and distinct, slightly muffled by the intervening wall. Nothing in truth to frighten the most nervous child!
A man had laughed. One of Mother Théot's clients probably, who in the company of a friend chose to wile away the weary hour of waiting on the sybil by hilarious conversation. Of course, that was it! Chauvelin, cursing himself now for his cowardice, passed a still shaking hand across his brow, and a wry smile distorted momentarily his thin, set lips.
"One of your clients is of good cheer," he said with well-assumed indifference.
"There is no one in the anteroom at this hour," the old hag murmured under her breath. "Only Rateau ... and he is too scant of breath to laugh ... he..."
But Chauvelin no longer heard what she had to say. With an exclamation which no one who heard it could have defined, he turned on his heel and almost ran out of the room.
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