The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy [most popular novels .TXT] 📗

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 today, while the birds were singing a deafening paean of joy; not while the scent of growing grass, of moits, 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 blackthorn 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 today 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 antechamber 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 characterised 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!”

II

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 intoxicating 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