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

keep her back. She did not appear in the least afraid, but her wrath was terrible to see, and boded ill to those who had dared provoke it. Indeed, Theresia, flushed with her recent triumph and with Robespierre’s rare if clumsy gallantries still ringing in her ear, felt ready to dare anything, to brave anyone⁠—even Chauvelin and his threats. She even succeeded in reassuring Tallien, ordered him to remain in the theatre, and to show himself to the public as utterly unconcerned.

“In case a rumour of this outrage penetrates to the audience,” she said, “you must appear to make light of it⁠ ⁠… Nay! you must at once threaten reprisals against its perpetrators.”

Then she wrapped her cloak about her and, taking Bertrand’s arm, she hurried out of the theatre.

XXXI Our Lady of Pity I

It was like an outraged divinity in the face of sacrilege that Theresia Cabarrus appeared in the antechamber of her apartment, ten minutes later.

Her rooms were full of men; sentries were at the door; the furniture was overturned, the upholstery ripped up, cupboard doors swung open; even her bed and bedding lay in a tangled heap upon the floor. The lights in the rooms were dim, one single lamp shedding its feeble rays from the antechamber into the living-room, whilst another flickered on a wall-bracket in the passage. In the bedroom the maid Pepita, guarded by a soldier, was loudly lamenting and cursing in voluble Spanish.

Citizen Chauvelin was standing in the centre of the living-room, intent on examining some papers. In a corner of the antechamber cowered the ungainly figure of Rateau the coalheaver.

Theresia took in the whole tragic picture at a glance; then with a proud, defiant toss of the head she swept past the soldiers in the antechamber and confronted Chauvelin, before he had time to notice her approach.

“Something has turned your brain, citizen Chauvelin,” she said coolly. “What is it?”

He looked up, encountered her furious glance, and at once made her a profound, ironical bow.

“How wise was our young friend there to tell you of our visit, citoyenne,” he said suavely.

And he looked with mild approval in the direction where Bertrand Moncrif stood between two soldiers, who had quickly barred his progress and were holding him tightly by the wrists.

“I came,” Theresia retorted harshly, “as the forerunner of those who will know how to punish this outrage, citizen Chauvelin.”

Once more he bowed, smiling blandly.

“I shall be as ready to receive them,” he said quietly, “as I am gratified to see the citoyenne Cabarrus. When they come, shall I direct them to call and see their beautiful Egeria at the Conciergerie, whither we shall have the honour to convey her immediately?”

Theresia threw back her head and laughed; but her voice sounded hard and forced.

“At the Conciergerie?” she exclaimed. “I?”

“Even you, citoyenne,” Chauvelin replied.

“On what charge, I pray you?” she demanded, with biting sarcasm.

“Of trafficking with the enemies of the Republic.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“You are mad, citizen Chauvelin!” she riposted with perfect sangfroid. “I pray you, order your men to reestablish order to my apartment; and remember that I will hold you responsible for any damage that has been done.”

“Shall I also,” Chauvelin rejoined with equally perfect equanimity, “replace these letters and other interesting objects, there where we found them?”

“Letters?” she retorted, frowning. “What letters?”

“These, citoyenne,” he replied, and held up to her gaze the papers which he had in his hand.

“What are they? I have never seen them before.”

“Nevertheless, we found them in that bureau.” And Chauvelin pointed to a small piece of furniture which stood against the wall, and the drawers of which had obviously been forcibly torn open. Then as Theresia remained silent, apparently ununderstanding, he went on suavely: “They are letters written at different times to Mme. de Fontenay, née Cabarrus⁠—Our Lady of Pity, as she was called by grateful Bordeaux.”

“By whom?” she asked.

“By the interesting hero of romance who is known to the world as the Scarlet Pimpernel.”

“It is false!” she retorted firmly. “I have never received a letter from him in my life!”

“His handwriting is all too familiar to me, citoyenne; and the letters are addressed to you.”

“It is false!” she reiterated with unabated firmness. “This is some devilish trick you have devised in order to ruin me. But take care, citizen Chauvelin, take care! If this is a trial of strength ’twixt you and me, the next few hours will show who will gain the day.”

“If it were a trail of strength ’twixt you and me, citoyenne,” he rejoined blandly, “I would already be a vanquished man. But it is France this time who has challenged a traitor. That traitor is Theresia Fontenay, née Cabarrus. The trial of strength is between her and France.”

“You are mad, citizen Chauvelin! If there were letters writ by the Scarlet Pimpernel found in my rooms, ’tis you who put them there!”

“That statement you will be at liberty to substantiate tomorrow, citoyenne,” he retorted coldly, “at the bar of the revolutionary tribunal. There, no doubt, you can explain away how citizen Rateau knew of the existence of those letters, and led me straight to their discovery. I have an officer of the National Guard, the commissary of the section, and half a dozen men, to prove the truth of what I say, and to add that in a wall-cupboard in your antechamber we also found this interesting collection, the use of which you, citoyenne, will no doubt be able to explain.”

He stepped aside and pointed to a curious heap which littered the floor⁠—rags for the most part: a tattered shirt, frayed breeches, a grimy cap, a wig made up of lank, colourless hair, the counterpart of that which adorned the head of the coalheaver Rateau.

Theresia looked on those rags for a moment in a kind of horrified puzzlement. Her cheeks and lips became the colour of ashes. She put her hand