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

of your warning.⁠ ⁠… I should like you to think that I have no wish to be ungrateful⁠ ⁠… that I appreciate any kind thought you may have harboured for me in your mind.⁠ ⁠… But beyond that⁠ ⁠… please forgive me if I say it somewhat crudely⁠—I do not feel that the matter concerns you in the least.⁠ ⁠… The hour is late,” she added more gently, as if desiring to attenuate the harshness of her last words. “Shall I send my maid to escort you home? She is devoted and discreet⁠ ⁠…”

“Nay!” retorted the other in tones of quiet sadness, “there is no need of discretion⁠ ⁠… I am not ashamed of my visit to you tonight.⁠ ⁠… You are very proud, and for your sake I will pray to God that sorrow and humiliation may not come to you, as I feared.⁠ ⁠… We are never likely to meet again, Lady Blakeney⁠ ⁠… you will not wish it, and I shall have passed out of your life as swiftly as I had entered into it.⁠ ⁠… But there was another thought lurking in my mind when I came tonight.⁠ ⁠… In case Sir Percy goes to France⁠ ⁠… the duel is to take place in or near Boulogne⁠ ⁠… this much I do know⁠ ⁠… would you not wish to go with him?”

“Truly, Mademoiselle, I must repeat to you⁠ ⁠…”

“That ’tis no concern of mine⁠ ⁠… I know⁠ ⁠… I own that.⁠ ⁠… But, you see when I came back here tonight in the silence and the darkness⁠—I had not guessed that you would be so proud⁠ ⁠… I thought that I, a woman, would know how to touch your womanly heart.⁠ ⁠… I was clumsy, I suppose.⁠ ⁠… I made so sure that you would wish to go with your husband, in case⁠ ⁠… in case he insisted on running his head into the noose, which I feel sure Chauvelin has prepared for him.⁠ ⁠… I myself start for France shortly. Citizen Chauvelin has provided me with the necessary passport for myself and my maid, who was to have accompanied me.⁠ ⁠… Then, just now, when I was all alone⁠ ⁠… and thought over all the mischief which that fiend had forced me to do for him, it seemed to me that perhaps⁠ ⁠…”

She broke off abruptly, and tried to read the other woman’s face in the gloom. But Marguerite, who was taller than the Frenchwoman, was standing, very stiff and erect, giving the young actress neither discouragement nor confidence. She did not interrupt Candeille’s long and voluble explanation: vaguely she wondered what it was all about, and even now when the Frenchwoman paused, Marguerite said nothing, but watched her quietly as she took a folded paper from the capacious pocket of her cloak and then held it out with a look of timidity towards Lady Blakeney.

“My maid need not come with me,” said Désirée Candeille humbly. “I would far rather travel alone⁠ ⁠… this is her passport and⁠ ⁠… Oh! you need not take it out of my hand,” she added in tones of bitter self-deprecation, as Marguerite made no sign of taking the paper from her. “See! I will leave it here among the roses!⁠ ⁠… You mistrust me now⁠ ⁠… it is only natural⁠ ⁠… presently, perhaps, calmer reflection will come⁠ ⁠… you will see that my purpose now is selfless⁠ ⁠… that I only wish to serve you and him.”

She stooped and placed the folded paper in the midst of a great clump of centifolium roses, and then without another word she turned and went her way. For a few moments, whilst Marguerite still stood there, puzzled and vaguely moved, she could hear the gentle frou-frou of the other woman’s skirts against the soft sand of the path, and then a long-drawn sigh that sounded like a sob.

Then all was still again. The gentle midnight breeze caressed the tops of the ancient oaks and elms behind her, drawing murmurs from their dying leaves like unto the whisperings of ghosts.

Marguerite shuddered with a slight sense of cold. Before her, amongst the dark clump of leaves and the roses, invisible in the gloom, there fluttered with a curious, melancholy flapping, the folded paper placed there by Candeille. She watched it for awhile, as, disturbed by the wind, it seemed ready to take its flight towards the river. Anon it fell to the ground, and Marguerite with sudden overpowering impulse, stooped and picked it up. Then clutching it nervously in her hand, she walked rapidly back towards the house.

XV Farewell

As she neared the terrace, she became conscious of several forms moving about at the foot of the steps, some few feet below where she was standing. Soon she saw the glimmer of lanterns, heard whispering voices, and the lapping of the water against the side of a boat.

Anon a figure, laden with cloaks and sundry packages, passed down the steps close beside her. Even in the darkness Marguerite recognized Benyon, her husband’s confidential valet. Without a moment’s hesitation, she flew along the terrace towards the wing of the house occupied by Sir Percy. She had not gone far before she discerned his tall figure walking leisurely along the path which here skirted part of the house.

He had on his large caped coat, which was thrown open in front, displaying a grey travelling suit of fine cloth; his hands were as usual buried in the pockets of his breeches, and on his head he wore the folding chapeau-bras which he habitually affected.

Before she had time to think, or to realize that he was going, before she could utter one single word, she was in his arms, clinging to him with passionate intensity, trying in the gloom to catch every expression of his eyes, every quiver of the face now bent down so close to her.

“Percy, you cannot go⁠ ⁠… you cannot go!⁠ ⁠…” she pleaded.

She had felt his strong arms closing round her, his lips seeking hers, her eyes, her hair, her clinging hands, which dragged at his shoulders in a wild agony of despair.

“If you really loved me, Percy,” she murmured, “you would not go,