The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy (top ten books to read txt) 📗
- Author: Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy
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The wind was becoming boisterous, rattling the leaded windows and the massive doors of the old-fashioned house: it shook the trees outside and roared down the vast chimney. Marguerite wondered if the wind would be favourable for her journey. She had no fear of the storm, and would have braved worse risks sooner than delay the crossing by an hour.
A sudden commotion outside roused her from her meditations. Evidently it was Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, just arrived in mad haste, for she heard his horse’s hoofs thundering on the flag-stones outside, then Mr. Jellyband’s sleepy, yet cheerful tones bidding him welcome.
For a moment, then, the awkwardness of her position struck Marguerite; alone at this hour, in a place where she was well known, and having made an assignation with a young cavalier equally well known, and who arrives in disguise! What food for gossip to those mischievously inclined.
The idea struck Marguerite chiefly from its humorous side: there was such quaint contrast between the seriousness of her errand, and the construction which would naturally be put on her actions by honest Mr. Jellyband, that, for the first time since many hours, a little smile began playing round the corners of her childlike mouth, and when, presently, Sir Andrew, almost unrecognisable in his lacquey-like garb, entered the coffee-room, she was able to greet him with quite a merry laugh.
“Faith! Monsieur, my lacquey,” she said, “I am satisfied with your appearance!”
Mr. Jellyband had followed Sir Andrew, looking strangely perplexed. The young gallant’s disguise had confirmed his worst suspicions. Without a smile upon his jovial face, he drew the cork from the bottle of wine, set the chairs ready, and prepared to wait.
“Thanks, honest friend,” said Marguerite, who was still smiling at the thought of what the worthy fellow must be thinking at that very moment, “we shall require nothing more; and here’s for all the trouble you have been put to on our account.”
She handed two or three gold pieces to Jellyband, who took them respectfully, and with becoming gratitude.
“Stay, Lady Blakeney,” interposed Sir Andrew, as Jellyband was about to retire, “I am afraid we shall require something more of my friend Jelly’s hospitality. I am sorry to say we cannot cross over to-night.”
“Not cross over to-night?” she repeated in amazement. “But we must, Sir Andrew, we must! There can be no question of cannot, and whatever it may cost, we must get a vessel to-night.”
But the young man shook his head sadly.
“I am afraid it is not a question of cost, Lady Blakeney. There is a nasty storm blowing from France, the wind is dead against us, we cannot possibly sail until it has changed.”
Marguerite became deadly pale. She had not foreseen this. Nature herself was playing her a horrible, cruel trick. Percy was in danger, and she could not go to him, because the wind happened to blow from the coast of France.
“But we must go!—we must!” she repeated with strange, persistent energy, “you know, we must go!—can’t you find a way?”
“I have been down to the shore already,” he said, “and had a talk to one or two skippers. It is quite impossible to set sail to-night, so every sailor assured me. No one,” he added, looking significantly at Marguerite, “no one could possibly put out of Dover to-night.”
Marguerite at once understood what he meant. No one included Chauvelin as well as herself. She nodded pleasantly to Jellyband.
“Well, then, I must resign myself,” she said to him. “Have you a room for me?”
“Oh, yes, your ladyship. A nice, bright, airy room. I’ll see to it at once. . . . And there is another one for Sir Andrew—both quite ready.”
“That’s brave now, mine honest Jelly,” said Sir Andrew, gaily, and clapping his worthy host vigorously on the back. “You unlock both those rooms, and leave our candles here on the dresser. I vow you are dead with sleep, and her ladyship must have some supper before she retires. There, have no fear, friend of the rueful countenance, her ladyship’s visit, though at this unusual hour, is a great honour to thy house, and Sir Percy Blakeney will reward thee doubly, if thou seest well to her privacy and comfort.”
Sir Andrew had no doubt guessed the many conflicting doubts and fears which raged in honest Jellyband’s head; and, as he was a gallant gentleman, he tried by this brave hint to allay some of the worthy innkeeper’s suspicions. He had the satisfaction of seeing that he had partially succeeded. Jellyband’s rubicund countenance brightened somewhat, at mention of Sir Percy’s name.
“I’ll go and see to it at once, sir,” he said with alacrity, and with less frigidity in his manner. “Has her ladyship everything she wants for supper?”
“Everything, thanks, honest friend, and as I am famished and dead with fatigue, I pray you see to the rooms.”
“Now tell me,” she said eagerly, as soon as Jellyband had gone from the room, “tell me all your news.”
“There is nothing else much to tell you, Lady Blakeney,” replied the young man. “The storm makes it quite impossible for any vessel to put out of Dover this tide. But, what seemed to you at first a terrible calamity is really a blessing in disguise. If we cannot cross over to France to-night, Chauvelin is in the same quandary.”
“He may have left before the storm broke out.”
“God grant he may,” said Sir Andrew, merrily, “for very likely then he’ll have been driven out of his course! Who knows? He may now even be lying at the bottom of the sea, for there is a furious storm raging, and it will fare ill with all small craft which happen to be out. But I fear me we cannot build our hopes upon the shipwreck of that cunning devil, and of all his murderous plans. The sailors I spoke to, all assured me that no schooner had put out of Dover for several hours: on the other hand, I ascertained that a stranger had arrived by coach this afternoon, and had, like myself, made some inquiries about crossing over to France.”
“Then Chauvelin is still in Dover?”
“Undoubtedly. Shall I go waylay him and run my sword through him? That were indeed the quickest way out of the difficulty.”
“Nay! Sir Andrew, do not jest! Alas! I have often since last night caught myself wishing for that fiend’s death. But what you suggest is impossible! The laws of this country do not permit of murder! It is only in our beautiful France that wholesale slaughter is done lawfully, in the name of Liberty and of brotherly love.”
Sir Andrew had persuaded her to sit down to the table, to partake of some supper and to drink a little wine. This enforced rest of at least twelve hours, until the next tide, was sure to be terribly difficult to bear in the state of intense excitement in which she was. Obedient in these small matters like a child, Marguerite tried to eat and drink.
Sir Andrew, with that profound sympathy born in all those who are in love, made her almost happy by talking to her about her husband. He recounted to her some of the daring escapes the brave Scarlet Pimpernel had contrived for the poor French fugitives, whom a relentless and bloody revolution was driving out of their country. He made her eyes glow with enthusiasm by telling her of his bravery, his ingenuity, his resourcefulness, when it meant snatching the lives of men, women, and even children from beneath the very edge of that murderous, ever-ready guillotine.
He even made her smile quite merrily by telling her of the Scarlet Pimpernel’s quaint and many disguises, through which he had baffled the strictest watch set against him at the barricades of Paris. This last time, the escape of the Comtesse de Tournay and her children had been a veritable masterpiece—Blakeney disguised as a hideous old market-woman, in filthy cap and straggling grey locks, was a sight fit to make the gods laugh.
Marguerite laughed heartily as Sir Andrew tried to describe Blakeney’s appearance, whose gravest difficulty always consisted in his great height, which in France made disguise doubly difficult.
Thus an hour wore on. There were many more to spend in enforced inactivity in Dover. Marguerite rose from the table with an impatient sigh. She looked forward with dread to the night in the bed upstairs, with terribly anxious thoughts to keep her company, and the howling of the storm to help chase sleep away.
She wondered where Percy was now. The Day Dream was a strong, well-built, sea-going yacht. Sir Andrew had expressed the opinion that no doubt she had got in the lee of the wind before the storm broke out, or else perhaps had not ventured into the open at all, but was lying quietly at Gravesend.
Briggs was an expert skipper, and Sir Percy handled a schooner as well as any master mariner. There was no danger for them from the storm.
It was long past midnight when at last Marguerite retired to rest. As she had feared, sleep sedulously avoided her eyes. Her thoughts were of the blackest during these long, weary hours, whilst that incessant storm raged which was keeping her away from Percy. The sound of the distant breakers made her heart ache with melancholy. She was in the mood when the sea has a saddening effect upon the nerves. It is only when we are very happy, that we can bear to gaze merrily upon the vast and limitless expanse of water, rolling on and on with such persistent, irritating monotony, to the accompaniment of our thoughts, whether grave or gay. When they are gay, the waves echo their gaiety; but when they are sad, then every breaker, as it rolls, seems to bring additional sadness, and to speak to us of hopelessness and of the pettiness of all our joys.
CALAIS
The weariest nights, the longest days, sooner or later must perforce come to an end.
Marguerite had spent over fifteen hours in such acute mental torture as well-nigh drove her crazy. After a sleepless night, she rose early, wild with excitement, dying to start on her journey, terrified lest further obstacles lay in her way. She rose before anyone else in the house was astir, so frightened was she, lest she should miss the one golden opportunity of making a start.
When she came downstairs, she found Sir Andrew Ffoulkes sitting in the coffee-room. He had been out half an hour earlier, and had gone to the Admiralty Pier, only to find that neither the French packet nor any privately chartered vessel could put out of Dover yet. The storm was then at its fullest, and the tide was on the turn. If the wind did not abate or change, they would perforce have to wait another ten or twelve hours until the next tide, before a start could be made. And the storm had not abated, the wind had not changed, and the tide was rapidly drawing out.
Marguerite felt the sickness of despair when she heard this melancholy news. Only the most firm resolution kept her from totally breaking down, and thus adding to the young man’s anxiety, which evidently had become very keen.
Though he tried to disguise it, Marguerite could see that Sir Andrew was just as anxious as she was to reach his comrade and friend. This enforced inactivity was terrible to them both.
How they spent that wearisome day at Dover, Marguerite could never afterwards say. She was in terror of showing herself, lest Chauvelin’s spies happened to be about, so she had a private sitting-room, and she and Sir Andrew sat there hour after hour, trying to take, at long intervals, some perfunctory meals, which little Sally would bring them, with nothing to do but to think, to conjecture, and only occasionally to hope.
The storm had abated just too late; the tide was by then too far out to allow a vessel to put off to sea. The wind had changed, and was settling down to a comfortable north-westerly breeze—a veritable godsend for a speedy passage across to France.
And there those two waited, wondering if the hour would ever come when they could finally make a start. There had been one happy interval in this long weary day, and that was when Sir Andrew went down once again to the pier, and presently came back to tell Marguerite that he had chartered a quick schooner, whose skipper was ready to put to sea the moment the tide was favourable.
From that moment the hours seemed less wearisome; there was less hopelessness in the waiting; and at
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