The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy (the little red hen read aloud .txt) 📗

Still no reply from Theresia. She had just smoothed out the mysterious epistle, carefully folded it into four, and was in the act of slipping it into the bosom of her gown. Chauvelin waited quite patiently. He was accustomed to waiting, and patience was an integral part of his stock in trade. Opportunism was another.

Theresia was sitting on her favourite settee, leaning forward with her hands clasped between her knees, her head was bent, and the tiny rose-shaded lamp failed to throw its glimmer of light upon her face. The clock on the mantelshelf behind her was ticking with insentient monotony. Anon, a distant chime struck the quarter after three. Whereupon Chauvelin rose.

“I think we understand one another, citoyenne,” he said quietly, and with a sigh of complete satisfaction. “It is late now. At what hour may I have the privilege of seeing you alone?”

“At three in the afternoon?” she replied tonelessly, like one speaking in a dream. “Citizen Tallien is always at the Convention then, and my door will be denied to everybody else.”

“I’ll be here at three o’clock,” was Chauvelin’s final word.

Theresia had not moved. He made her a deep bow and went out of the room. The next moment, the opening and shutting of the outer door proclaimed that he had gone.

After that, Theresia Cabarrus went to bed.

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.

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,