The Scarlet Pimpernel (24 page)

He even made her smile quite merrily by telling her of the Scarlet
Pimpernel's quaint and many disguises, through which he had baffled the
strictest watch set against him at the barricades of Paris. This last
time, the escape of the Comtesse de Tournay and her children had been a
veritable masterpiece—Blakeney disguised as a hideous old market-woman,
in filthy cap and straggling grey locks, was a sight fit to make the
gods laugh.

Marguerite laughed heartily as Sir Andrew tried to describe Blakeney's
appearance, whose gravest difficulty always consisted in his great
height, which in France made disguise doubly difficult.

Thus an hour wore on. There were many more to spend in enforced
inactivity in Dover. Marguerite rose from the table with an impatient
sigh. She looked forward with dread to the night in the bed upstairs,
with terribly anxious thoughts to keep her company, and the howling of
the storm to help chase sleep away.

She wondered where Percy was now. The DAY DREAM was a strong, well-built
sea-going yacht. Sir Andrew had expressed the opinion that no doubt
she had got in the lee of the wind before the storm broke out, or else
perhaps had not ventured into the open at all, but was lying quietly at
Gravesend.

Briggs was an expert skipper, and Sir Percy handled a schooner as well
as any master mariner. There was no danger for them from the storm.

It was long past midnight when at last Marguerite retired to rest. As
she had feared, sleep sedulously avoided her eyes. Her thoughts were of
the blackest during these long, weary hours, whilst that incessant storm
raged which was keeping her away from Percy. The sound of the distant
breakers made her heart ache with melancholy. She was in the mood when
the sea has a saddening effect upon the nerves. It is only when we are
very happy, that we can bear to gaze merrily upon the vast and limitless
expanse of water, rolling on and on with such persistent, irritating
monotony, to the accompaniment of our thoughts, whether grave or gay.
When they are gay, the waves echo their gaiety; but when they are sad,
then every breaker, as it rolls, seems to bring additional sadness, and
to speak to us of hopelessness and of the pettiness of all our joys.

The weariest nights, the longest days, sooner or later must perforce
come to an end.

Marguerite had spent over fifteen hours in such acute mental torture as
well-nigh drove her crazy. After a sleepless night, she rose early, wild
with excitement, dying to start on her journey, terrified lest further
obstacles lay in her way. She rose before anyone else in the house
was astir, so frightened was she, lest she should miss the one golden
opportunity of making a start.

When she came downstairs, she found Sir Andrew Ffoulkes sitting in the
coffee-room. He had been out half an hour earlier, and had gone to the
Admiralty Pier, only to find that neither the French packet nor any
privately chartered vessel could put out of Dover yet. The storm was
then at its fullest, and the tide was on the turn. If the wind did not
abate or change, they would perforce have to wait another ten or twelve
hours until the next tide, before a start could be made. And the storm
had not abated, the wind had not changed, and the tide was rapidly
drawing out.

Marguerite felt the sickness of despair when she heard this melancholy
news. Only the most firm resolution kept her from totally breaking down,
and thus adding to the young man's anxiety, which evidently had become
very keen.

Though he tried to hide it, Marguerite could see that Sir Andrew
was just as anxious as she was to reach his comrade and friend. This
enforced inactivity was terrible to them both.

How they spend that wearisome day at Dover, Marguerite could never
afterwards say. She was in terror of showing herself, lest Chauvelin's
spies happened to be about, so she had a private sitting-room, and
she and Sir Andrew sat there hour after hour, trying to take, at long
intervals, some perfunctory meals, which little Sally would bring them,
with nothing to do but to think, to conjecture, and only occasionally to
hope.

The storm had abated just too late; the tide was by then too far out to
allow a vessel to put off to sea. The wind had changed, and was settling
down to a comfortable north-westerly breeze—a veritable godsend for a
speedy passage across to France.

And there those two waited, wondering if the hour would ever come when
they could finally make a start. There had been one happy interval in
this long weary day, and that was when Sir Andrew went down once again
to the pier, and presently came back to tell Marguerite that he had
chartered a quick schooner, whose skipper was ready to put to sea the
moment the tide was favourable.

From that moment the hours seemed less wearisome; there was less
hopelessness in the waiting; and at last, at five o'clock in the
afternoon, Marguerite, closely veiled and followed by Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes, who, in the guise of her lacquey, was carrying a number of
impedimenta, found her way down to the pier.

Once on board, the keen, fresh sea-air revived her, the breeze was just
strong enough to nicely swell the sails of the FOAM CREST, as she cut
her way merrily towards the open.

The sunset was glorious after the storm, and Marguerite, as she watched
the white cliffs of Dover gradually disappearing from view, felt more at
peace and once more almost hopeful.

Sir Andrew was full of kind attentions, and she felt how lucky she had
been to have him by her side in this, her great trouble.

Gradually the grey coast of France began to emerge from the
fast-gathering evening mists. One or two lights could be seen
flickering, and the spires of several churches to rise out of the
surrounding haze.

Half an hour later Marguerite had landed upon French shore. She was
back in that country where at this very moment men slaughtered their
fellow-creatures by the hundreds, and sent innocent women and children
in thousands to the block.

The very aspect of the country and its people, even in this remote
sea-coast town, spoke of that seething revolution, three hundred miles
away, in beautiful Paris, now rendered hideous by the constant flow of
the blood of her noblest sons, by the wailing of the widows, and the
cries of fatherless children.

The men all wore red caps—in various stages of cleanliness—but all
with the tricolor cockade pinned on the left-side. Marguerite noticed
with a shudder that, instead of the laughing, merry countenance habitual
to her own countrymen, their faces now invariably wore a look of sly
distrust.

Every man nowadays was a spy upon his fellows: the most innocent
word uttered in jest might at any time be brought up as a proof of
aristocratic tendencies, or of treachery against the people. Even the
women went about with a curious look of fear and of hate lurking in
their brown eyes; and all watched Marguerite as she stepped on shore,
followed by Sir Andrew, and murmured as she passed along: "SACRES
ARISTOS!" or else "SACRES ANGLAIS!"

Otherwise their presence excited no further comment. Calais, even in
those days, was in constant business communication with England, and
English merchants were often seen on this coast. It was well known that
in view of the heavy duties in England, a vast deal of French wines
and brandies were smuggled across. This pleased the French BOURGEOIS
immensely; he liked to see the English Government and the English king,
both of whom he hated, cheated out of their revenues; and an English
smuggler was always a welcome guest at the tumble-down taverns of Calais
and Boulogne.

So, perhaps, as Sir Andrew gradually directed Marguerite through the
tortuous streets of Calais, many of the population, who turned with an
oath to look at the strangers clad in English fashion, thought that
they were bent on purchasing dutiable articles for their own fog-ridden
country, and gave them no more than a passing thought.

Marguerite, however, wondered how her husband's tall, massive figure
could have passed through Calais unobserved: she marvelled what disguise
he assumed to do his noble work, without exciting too much attention.

Without exchanging more than a few words, Sir Andrew was leading her
right across the town, to the other side from that where they had
landed, and the way towards Cap Gris Nez. The streets were narrow,
tortuous, and mostly evil-smelling, with a mixture of stale fish and
damp cellar odours. There had been heavy rain here during the storm
last night, and sometimes Marguerite sank ankle-deep in the mud, for the
roads were not lighted save by the occasional glimmer from a lamp inside
a house.

But she did not heed any of these petty discomforts: "We may meet
Blakeney at the 'Chat Gris,'" Sir Andrew had said, when they landed, and
she was walking as if on a carpet of rose-leaves, for she was going to
meet him almost at once.

At last they reached their destination. Sir Andrew evidently knew the
road, for he had walked unerringly in the dark, and had not asked his
way from anyone. It was too dark then for Marguerite to notice the
outside aspect of this house. The "Chat Gris," as Sir Andrew had called
it, was evidently a small wayside inn on the outskirts of Calais, and on
the way to Gris Nez. It lay some little distance from the coast, for the
sound of the sea seemed to come from afar.

Sir Andrew knocked at the door with the knob of his cane, and from
within Marguerite heard a sort of grunt and the muttering of a number of
oaths. Sir Andrew knocked again, this time more peremptorily: more
oaths were heard, and then shuffling steps seemed to draw near the door.
Presently this was thrown open, and Marguerite found herself on the
threshold of the most dilapidated, most squalid room she had ever seen
in all her life.

The paper, such as it was, was hanging from the walls in strips; there
did not seem to be a single piece of furniture in the room that could,
by the wildest stretch of imagination, be called "whole." Most of the
chairs had broken backs, others had no seats to them, one corner of the
table was propped up with a bundle of faggots, there where the fourth
leg had been broken.

In one corner of the room there was a huge hearth, over which hung a
stock-pot, with a not altogether unpalatable odour of hot soup emanating
therefrom. On one side of the room, high up in the wall, there was a
species of loft, before which hung a tattered blue-and-white checked
curtain. A rickety set of steps led up to this loft.

On the great bare walls, with their colourless paper, all stained
with varied filth, there were chalked up at intervals in great bold
characters, the words: "Liberte—Egalite—Fraternite."

The whole of this sordid abode was dimly lighted by an evil-smelling
oil-lamp, which hung from the rickety rafters of the ceiling. It all
looked so horribly squalid, so dirty and uninviting, that Marguerite
hardly dared to cross the threshold.

Sir Andrew, however, had stepped unhesitatingly forward.

"English travellers, citoyen!" he said boldly, and speaking in French.

The individual who had come to the door in response to Sir Andrew's
knock, and who, presumably, was the owner of this squalid abode, was an
elderly, heavily built peasant, dressed in a dirty blue blouse, heavy
sabots, from which wisps of straw protruded all round, shabby blue
trousers, and the inevitable red cap with the tricolour cockade, that
proclaimed his momentary political views. He carried a short wooden
pipe, from which the odour of rank tobacco emanated. He looked with some
suspicion and a great deal of contempt at the two travellers, muttering
"SACRRRES ANGLAIS!" and spat upon the ground to further show his
independence of spirit, but, nevertheless, he stood aside to let them
enter, no doubt well aware that these same SACCRES ANGLAIS always had
well-filled purses.

"Oh, lud!" said Marguerite, as she advanced into the room, holding her
handkerchief to her dainty nose, "what a dreadful hole! Are you sure
this is the place?"

"Aye! 'this the place, sure enough," replied the young man as, with his
lace-edged, fashionable handkerchief, he dusted a chair for Marguerite
to sit on; "but I vow I never saw a more villainous hole."

"Faith!" she said, looking round with some curiosity and a great deal of
horror at the dilapidated walls, the broken chairs, the rickety table,
"it certainly does not look inviting."

The landlord of the "Chat Gris"—by name, Brogard—had taken no further
notice of his guests; he concluded that presently they would order
supper, and in the meanwhile it was not for a free citizen to show
deference, or even courtesy, to anyone, however smartly they might be
dressed.

By the hearth sat a huddled-up figure clad, seemingly, mostly in rags:
that figure was apparently a woman, although even that would have been
hard to distinguish, except for the cap, which had once been white,
and for what looked like the semblance of a petticoat. She was sitting
mumbling to herself, and from time to time stirring the brew in her
stock-pot.

"Hey, my friend!" said Sir Andrew at last, "we should like some supper.
. . . The citoyenne there," he added, "is concocting some delicious
soup, I'll warrant, and my mistress has not tasted food for several
hours."

It took Brogard some few minutes to consider the question. A free
citizen does not respond too readily to the wishes of those who happen
to require something of him.

"SACRRRES ARISTOS!" he murmured, and once more spat upon the ground.

Then he went very slowly up to a dresser which stood in a corner of
the room; from this he took an old pewter soup-tureen and slowly,
and without a word, he handed it to his better-half, who, in the same
silence, began filling the tureen with the soup out of her stock-pot.

Marguerite had watched all these preparations with absolute horror; were
it not for the earnestness of her purpose, she would incontinently have
fled from this abode of dirt and evil smells.