The Scarlet Pimpernel

DOUBT

Marguerite Blakeney had watched the slight sable-clad figure of
Chauvelin, as he worked his way through the ball-room. Then perforce
she had had to wait, while her nerves tingled with excitement.

Listlessly she sat in the small, still deserted boudoir, looking out
through the curtained doorway on the dancing couples beyond: looking at
them, yet seeing nothing, hearing the music, yet conscious of naught
save a feeling of expectancy, of anxious, weary waiting.

Her mind conjured up before her the vision of what was, perhaps at this
very moment, passing downstairs. The half-deserted dining-room, the
fateful hour—Chauvelin on the watch!—then, precise to the moment, the
entrance of a man, he, the Scarlet Pimpernel, the mysterious leader,
who to Marguerite had become almost unreal, so strange, so weird was
this hidden identity.

She wished she were in the supper-room, too, at this moment, watching
him as he entered; she knew that her woman’s penetration would at once
recognise in the stranger’s face—whoever he might be—that strong
individuality which belongs to a leader of men—to a hero: to the
mighty, high-soaring eagle, whose daring wings were becoming entangled
in the ferret’s trap.

Woman-like, she thought of him with unmixed sadness; the irony of that
fate seemed so cruel which allowed the fearless lion to succumb to the
gnawing of a rat! Ah! had Armand’s life not been at stake! . . .

“Faith! your ladyship must have thought me very remiss,” said a voice
suddenly, close to her elbow. “I had a deal of difficulty in delivering
your message, for I could not find Blakeney anywhere at first . . .”

Marguerite had forgotten all about her husband and her message to him;
his very name, as spoken by Lord Fancourt, sounded strange and
unfamiliar to her, so completely had she in the last five minutes lived
her old life in the Rue de Richelieu again, with Armand always near her
to love and protect her, to guard her from the many subtle intrigues
which were forever raging in Paris in those days.

“I did find him at last,” continued Lord Fancourt, “and gave him your
message. He said that he would give orders at once for the horses to be
put to.”

“Ah!” she said, still very absently, “you found my husband, and gave
him my message?”

“Yes; he was in the dining-room fast asleep. I could not manage to wake
him up at first.”

“Thank you very much,” she said mechanically, trying to collect her
thoughts.

“Will your ladyship honour me with the contredanse until your coach
is ready?” asked Lord Fancourt.

“No, I thank you, my lord, but—and you will forgive me—I really am too
tired, and the heat in the ball-room has become oppressive.”

“The conservatory is deliciously cool; let me take you there, and then
get you something. You seem ailing, Lady Blakeney.”

“I am only very tired,” she repeated wearily, as she allowed Lord
Fancourt to lead her, where subdued lights and green plants lent
coolness to the air. He got her a chair, into which she sank. This long
interval of waiting was intolerable. Why did not Chauvelin come and
tell her the result of his watch?

Lord Fancourt was very attentive. She scarcely heard what he said, and
suddenly startled him by asking abruptly,—

“Lord Fancourt, did you perceive who was in the dining-room just now
besides Sir Percy Blakeney?”

“Only the agent of the French Government, M. Chauvelin, equally fast
asleep in another corner,” he said. “Why does your ladyship ask?”

“I know not . . . I . . . Did you notice the time when you were there?”

“It must have been about five or ten minutes past one. . . . I wonder
what your ladyship is thinking about,” he added, for evidently the fair
lady’s thoughts were very far away, and she had not been listening to
his intellectual conversation.

But indeed her thoughts were not very far away: only one storey below,
in this same house, in the dining-room where sat Chauvelin still on the
watch. Had he failed? For one instant that possibility rose before her
as a hope—the hope that the Scarlet Pimpernel had been warned by Sir
Andrew, and that Chauvelin’s trap had failed to catch his bird; but
that hope soon gave way to fear. Had he failed? But then—Armand!

Lord Fancourt had given up talking since he found that he had no
listener. He wanted an opportunity for slipping away: for sitting
opposite to a lady, however fair, who is evidently not heeding the most
vigorous efforts made for her entertainment, is not exhilarating, even
to a Cabinet Minister.

“Shall I find out if your ladyship’s coach is ready,” he said at last,
tentatively.

“Oh, thank you . . . thank you . . . if you would be so kind . . . I
fear I am but sorry company . . . but I am really tired . . . and,
perhaps, would be best alone.”
She had been longing to be rid of him, for she hoped that, like the
fox he so resembled, Chauvelin would be prowling round, thinking to
find her alone.

But Lord Fancourt went, and still Chauvelin did not come. Oh! what had
happened? She felt Armand’s fate trembling in the balance . . . she
feared—now with a deadly fear—that Chauvelin had failed, and that the
mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel had proved elusive once more; then she
knew that she need hope for no pity, no mercy, from him.

He had pronounced his “Either—or—” and nothing less would content him:
he was very spiteful, and would affect the belief that she had wilfully
misled him, and having failed to trap the eagle once again, his
revengeful mind would be content with the humble prey—Armand!

Yet she had done her best; had strained every nerve for Armand’s sake.
She could not bear to think that all had failed. She could not sit
still; she wanted to go and hear the worst at once; she wondered even
that Chauvelin had not come yet, to vent his wrath and satire upon her.

Lord Grenville himself came presently to tell her that her coach was
ready, and that Sir Percy was already waiting for her—ribbons in hand.
Marguerite said “Farewell” to her distinguished host; many of her
friends stopped her, as she crossed the rooms, to talk to her, and
exchange pleasant au revoirs.

The Minister only took final leave of beautiful Lady Blakeney on the
top of the stairs; below, on the landing, a veritable army of gallant
gentlemen were waiting to bid “Good-bye” to the queen of beauty and
fashion, whilst outside, under the massive portico, Sir Percy’s
magnificent bays were impatiently pawing the ground.

At the top of the stairs, just after she had taken final leave of her
host, she suddenly saw Chauvelin; he was coming up the stairs slowly,
and rubbing his thin hands very softly together.

There was a curious look on his mobile face, partly amused and wholly
puzzled, and as his keen eyes met Marguerite’s they became strangely
sarcastic.

“M. Chauvelin,” she said, as he stopped on the top of the stairs,
bowing elaborately before her, “my coach is outside; may I claim your
arm?”

As gallant as ever, he offered her his arm and led her downstairs. The
crowd was very great, some of the Minister’s guests were departing,
others were leaning against the banisters watching the throng as it
filed up and down the wide staircase.

“Chauvelin,” she said at last desperately, “I must know what has
happened.”

“What has happened, dear lady?” he said, with affected surprise.
“Where? When?”

“You are torturing me, Chauvelin. I have helped you to-night . . .
surely I have the right to know. What happened in the dining-room at
one o’clock just now?”

She spoke in a whisper, trusting that in the general hubbub of the
crowd her words would remain unheeded by all, save the man at her side.

“Quiet and peace reigned supreme, fair lady; at that hour I was asleep
in the corner of one sofa and Sir Percy Blakeney in another.”

“Nobody came into the room at all?”

“Nobody.”

“Then we have failed, you and I? . . .”

“Yes! we have failed—perhaps . . .”

“But Armand?” she pleaded.

“Ah! Armand St. Just’s chances hang on a thread . . . pray heaven, dear
lady, that that thread may not snap.”

“Chauvelin, I worked for you, sincerely, earnestly . . . remember. . .
.”

“I remember my promise,” he said quietly; “the day that the Scarlet
Pimpernel and I meet on French soil, St. Just will be in the arms of
his charming sister.”

“Which means that a brave man’s blood will be on my hands,” she said,
with a shudder.

“His blood, or that of your brother. Surely at the present moment you
must hope, as I do, that the enigmatical Scarlet Pimpernel will start
for Calais to-day—”

“I am only conscious of one hope, citoyen.”

“And that is?”

“That Satan, your master, will have need of you elsewhere, before the
sun rises to-day.”

“You flatter me, citoyenne.”

She had detained him for a while, midway down the stairs, trying to get
at the thoughts which lay beyond that thin, fox-like mask. But
Chauvelin remained urbane, sarcastic, mysterious; not a line betrayed
to the poor, anxious woman whether she need fear or whether she dared
to hope.

Downstairs on the landing she was soon surrounded. Lady Blakeney never
stepped from any house into her coach, without an escort of fluttering
human moths around the dazzling light of her beauty. But before she
finally turned away from Chauvelin, she held out a tiny hand to him,
with that pretty gesture of childish appeal which was so essentially
her own.

“Give me some hope, my little Chauvelin,” she pleaded.

With perfect gallantry he bowed over that tiny hand, which looked so
dainty and white through the delicately transparent black lace mitten,
and kissing the tips of the rosy fingers:—

“Pray heaven that the thread may not snap,” he repeated, with his
enigmatic smile.

And stepping aside, he allowed the moths to flutter more closely round
the candle, and the brilliant throng of the jeunesse dorée, eagerly
attentive to Lady Blakeney’s every movement, hid the keen, fox-like
face from her view.