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

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 recognised 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 huddle-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 evesdropper thinking.

III

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, protégéz-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 everyone 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 realised 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