The Elusive Pimpernel Baroness Orczy (read more books txt) 📖

hundred pounds, all her own, left to her by her grandmother, and on the strength of this extensive fortune had acquired a reputation for beauty and wit not easily accorded to a wench that had been penniless.

But Mistress Polly was also very kindhearted. She loved to tease Master Jezzard, who was an indefatigable hanger-on at her pretty skirts, and whose easy conquest had rendered her somewhat contemptuous, but at the look of perplexed annoyance and bewildered distress in the lad’s face, her better nature soon got the upper hand. She realized that her remark had been unwarrantably spiteful, and wishing to make atonement, she said with a touch of coquetry which quickly spread balm over the honest yokel’s injured vanity:

“La! Master Jezzard, you do seem to make a body say some queer things. But there! you must own ’tis mighty funny about that Scarlet Pimpernel!” she added, appealing to the company in general, just as if Master Jezzard had been disputing the fact. “Why won’t he let anyone see who he is? And those who know him won’t tell. Now I have it for a fact from my lady’s own maid Lucy, that the young lady as is stopping at Lady Blakeney’s house has actually spoken to the man. She came over from France, come a fortnight tomorrow; she and the gentleman they call Mossoo Déroulède. They both saw the Scarlet Pimpernel and spoke to him. He brought them over from France. Then why won’t they say?”

“Say what?” commented Johnny Cullen, the apprentice.

“Who this mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel is.”

“Perhaps he isn’t,” said old Clutterbuck, who was clerk of the vestry at the church of St. John’s the Evangelist.

“Yes!” he added sententiously, for he was fond of his own sayings and usually liked to repeat them before he had quite done with them, “that’s it, you may be sure. Perhaps he isn’t.”

“What do you mean, Master Clutterbuck?” asked Ursula Quekett, for she knew the old man liked to explain his wise saws, and as she wanted to marry his son, she indulged him whenever she could. “What do you mean? He isn’t what?”

“He isn’t. That’s all,” explained Clutterbuck with vague solemnity.

Then seeing that he had gained the attention of the little party round him, he condescended to come to more logical phraseology.

“I mean, that perhaps we must not ask, ‘who is this mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel?’ but ‘who was that poor and unfortunate gentleman?’ ”

“Then you think⁠ ⁠…” suggested Mistress Polly, who felt unaccountably low-spirited at this oratorical pronouncement.

“I have it for a fact,” said Mr. Clutterbuck solemnly, “that he whom they call the Scarlet Pimpernel no longer exists now: that he was collared by the Frenchies, as far back as last fall, and in the language of the poets, has never been heard of no more.”

Mr. Clutterbuck was very fond of quoting from the works of certain writers whose names he never mentioned, but who went by the poetical generality of “the poets.” Whenever he made use of phrases which he was supposed to derive from these great and unnamed authors, he solemnly and mechanically raised his hat, as a tribute of respect to these giant minds.

“You think that The Scarlet Pimpernel is dead, Mr. Clutterbuck? That those horrible Frenchies murdered him? Surely you don’t mean that?” sighed Mistress Polly ruefully.

Mr. Clutterbuck put his hand up to his hat, preparatory no doubt to making another appeal to the mysterious poets, but was interrupted in the very act of uttering great thoughts by a loud and prolonged laugh which came echoing from a distant corner of the grounds.

“Lud! but I’d know that laugh anywhere,” said Mistress Quekett, whilst all eyes were turned in the direction whence the merry noise had come.

Half a head taller than any of his friends around him, his lazy blue eyes scanning from beneath their drooping lids the motley throng around him, stood Sir Percy Blakeney, the centre of a gaily-dressed little group which seemingly had just crossed the tollgate.

“A fine specimen of a man, for sure,” remarked Johnnie Cullen, the apprentice.

“Aye! you may take your Bible oath on that!” sighed Mistress Polly, who was inclined to be sentimental.

“Speakin’ as the poets,” pronounced Mr. Clutterbuck sententiously, “inches don’t make a man.”

“Nor fine clothes neither,” added Master Jezzard, who did not approve of Mistress Polly’s sentimental sigh.

“There’s my lady!” gasped Miss Barbara suddenly, clutching Master Clutterbuck’s arm vigorously. “Lud! but she is beautiful today!”

Beautiful indeed, and radiant with youth and happiness, Marguerite Blakeney had just gone through the gates and was walking along the sward towards the band stand. She was dressed in clinging robes of shimmery green texture, the new-fashioned high-waisted effect suiting her graceful figure to perfection. The large Charlotte, made of velvet to match the gown, cast a deep shadow over the upper part of her face, and gave a peculiar softness to the outline of her forehead and cheeks.

Long lace mittens covered her arms and hands and a scarf of diaphanous material edged with dull gold hung loosely around her shoulders.

Yes! she was beautiful! No captious chronicler has ever denied that! and no one who knew her before, and who saw her again on this late summer’s afternoon, could fail to mark the additional charm of her magnetic personality. There was a tenderness in her face as she turned her head to and fro, a joy of living in her eyes that was quite irresistibly fascinating.

Just now she was talking animatedly with the young girl who was walking beside her, and laughing merrily the while:

“Nay! we’ll find your Paul, never fear! Lud! child, have you forgotten he is in England now, and that there’s no fear of his being kidnapped here on the green in broad daylight.”

The young girl gave a slight shudder and her childlike face became a shade paler than before. Marguerite took her hand and gave it a kindly pressure. Juliette Marny, but lately come to England, saved from under the very knife of the guillotine, by a timely and daring rescue, could scarcely believe as yet that she and the