El Dorado: An Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel
CHAPTER IX. WHAT LOVE CAN DO
"Yesterday you were unkind and ungallant. How could I smile when youseemed so stern?"
"Yesterday I was not alone with you. How could I say what lay next myheart, when indifferent ears could catch the words that were meant onlyfor you?"
"Ah, monsieur, do they teach you in England how to make prettyspeeches?"
"No, mademoiselle, that is an instinct that comes into birth by the fireof a woman's eyes."
Mademoiselle Lange was sitting upon a small sofa of antique design, withcushions covered in faded silks heaped round her pretty head. Armandthought that she looked like that carved cameo which his sisterMarguerite possessed.
He himself sat on a low chair at some distance from her. He had broughther a large bunch of early violets, for he knew that she was fond offlowers, and these lay upon her lap, against the opalescent grey of hergown.
She seemed a little nervous and agitated, his obvious admirationbringing a ready blush to her cheeks.
The room itself appeared to Armand to be a perfect frame for thecharming picture which she presented. The furniture in it was small andold; tiny tables of antique Vernis-Martin, softly faded tapestries, apale-toned Aubusson carpet. Everything mellow and in a measure pathetic.Mademoiselle Lange, who was an orphan, lived alone under the duennashipof a middle-aged relative, a penniless hanger-on of the successful youngactress, who acted as her chaperone, housekeeper, and maid, and keptunseemly or over-bold gallants at bay.
She told Armand all about her early life, her childhood in the backshopof Maitre Meziere, the jeweller, who was a relative of her mother's; ofher desire for an artistic career, her struggles with the middle-classprejudices of her relations, her bold defiance of them, and finalindependence.
She made no secret of her humble origin, her want of education in thosedays; on the contrary, she was proud of what she had accomplished forherself. She was only twenty years of age, and already held a leadingplace in the artistic world of Paris.
Armand listened to her chatter, interested in everything she said,questioning her with sympathy and discretion. She asked him a gooddeal about himself, and about his beautiful sister Marguerite, who,of course, had been the most brilliant star in that most brilliantconstellation, the Comedie Francaise. She had never seen Marguerite St.Just act, but, of course, Paris still rang with her praises, and allart-lovers regretted that she should have married and left them to mournfor her.
Thus the conversation drifted naturally back to England. Mademoiselleprofessed a vast interest in the citizen's country of adoption.
"I had always," she said, "thought it an ugly country, with the noiseand bustle of industrial life going on everywhere, and smoke and fog tocover the landscape and to stunt the trees."
"Then, in future, mademoiselle," he replied, "must you think of it asone carpeted with verdure, where in the spring the orchard trees coveredwith delicate blossom would speak to you of fairyland, where the dewygrass stretches its velvety surface in the shadow of ancient monumentaloaks, and ivy-covered towers rear their stately crowns to the sky."
"And the Scarlet Pimpernel? Tell me about him, monsieur."
"Ah, mademoiselle, what can I tell you that you do not already know? TheScarlet Pimpernel is a man who has devoted his entire existence to thebenefit of suffering mankind. He has but one thought, and that is forthose who need him; he hears but one sound the cry of the oppressed."
"But they do say, monsieur, that philanthropy plays but a sorry part inyour hero's schemes. They aver that he looks on his own efforts and theadventures through which he goes only in the light of sport."
"Like all Englishmen, mademoiselle, the Scarlet Pimpernel is a littleashamed of sentiment. He would deny its very existence with his lips,even whilst his noble heart brimmed over with it. Sport? Well! mayhapthe sporting instinct is as keen as that of charity--the race for lives,the tussle for the rescue of human creatures, the throwing of a life onthe hazard of a die."
"They fear him in France, monsieur. He has saved so many whose death hadbeen decreed by the Committee of Public Safety."
"Please God, he will save many yet."
"Ah, monsieur, the poor little boy in the Temple prison!"
"He has your sympathy, mademoiselle?"
"Of every right-minded woman in France, monsieur. Oh!" she added with apretty gesture of enthusiasm, clasping her hands together, and lookingat Armand with large eyes filled with tears, "if your noble ScarletPimpernel will do aught to save that poor innocent lamb, I would indeedbless him in my heart, and help him with all my humble might if Icould."
"May God's saints bless you for those words, mademoiselle," he said,whilst, carried away by her beauty, her charm, her perfect femininity,he stooped towards her until his knee touched the carpet at her feet. "Ihad begun to lose my belief in my poor misguided country, to think allmen in France vile, and all women base. I could thank you on myknees for your sweet words of sympathy, for the expression of tendermotherliness that came into your eyes when you spoke of the poorforsaken Dauphin in the Temple."
She did not restrain her tears; with her they came very easily, just aswith a child, and as they gathered in her eyes and rolled down her freshcheeks they in no way marred the charm of her face. One hand lay in herlap fingering a diminutive bit of cambric, which from time to time shepressed to her eyes. The other she had almost unconsciously yielded toArmand.
The scent of the violets filled the room. It seemed to emanate from her,a fitting attribute of her young, wholly unsophisticated girlhood. Thecitizen was goodly to look at; he was kneeling at her feet, and his lipswere pressed against her hand.
Armand was young and he was an idealist. I do not for a moment imaginethat just at this moment he was deeply in love. The stronger feeling hadnot yet risen up in him; it came later when tragedy encompassed himand brought passion to sudden maturity. Just now he was merely yieldinghimself up to the intoxicating moment, with all the abandonment, all theenthusiasm of the Latin race. There was no reason why he should not bendthe knee before this exquisite little cameo, that by its very presencewas giving him an hour of perfect pleasure and of aesthetic joy.
Outside the world continued its hideous, relentless way; men butcheredone another, fought and hated. Here in this small old-world salon, withits faded satins and bits of ivory-tinted lace, the outer universe hadnever really penetrated. It was a tiny world--quite apart from the restof mankind, perfectly peaceful and absolutely beautiful.
If Armand had been allowed to depart from here now, without having beenthe cause as well as the chief actor in the events that followed, nodoubt that Mademoiselle Lange would always have remained a charmingmemory with him, an exquisite bouquet of violets pressed reverentlybetween the leaves of a favourite book of poems, and the scent of springflowers would in after years have ever brought her dainty picture to hismind.
He was murmuring pretty words of endearment; carried away by emotion,his arm stole round her waist; he felt that if another tear came like adewdrop rolling down her cheek he must kiss it away at its very source.Passion was not sweeping them off their feet--not yet, for theywere very young, and life had not as yet presented to them its mostunsolvable problem.
But they yielded to one another, to the springtime of their life,calling for Love, which would come presently hand in hand with his grimattendant, Sorrow.
Even as Armand's glowing face was at last lifted up to hers asking withmute lips for that first kiss which she already was prepared to give,there came the loud noise of men's heavy footsteps tramping up theold oak stairs, then some shouting, a woman's cry, and the next momentMadame Belhomme, trembling, wide-eyed, and in obvious terror, camerushing into the room.
"Jeanne! Jeanne! My child! It is awful! It is awful! Mon Dieu--mon Dieu!What is to become of us?"
She was moaning and lamenting even as she ran in, and now she threw herapron over her face and sank into a chair, continuing her moaning andher lamentations.
Neither Mademoiselle nor Armand
had stirred. They remained like gravenimages, he on one knee, she with large eyes fixed upon his face. Theyhad neither of them looked on the old woman; they seemed even nowunconscious of her presence. But their ears had caught the sound of thatmeasured tramp of feet up the stairs of the old house, and the halt uponthe landing; they had heard the brief words of command:
"Open, in the name of the people!"
They knew quite well what it all meant; they had not wandered so far inthe realms of romance that reality--the grim, horrible reality of themoment--had not the power to bring them back to earth.
That peremptory call to open in the name of the people was the prologuethese days to a drama which had but two concluding acts: arrest, whichwas a certainty; the guillotine, which was more than probable. Jeanneand Armand, these two young people who but a moment ago had tentativelylifted the veil of life, looked straight into each other's eyes and sawthe hand of death interposed between them: they looked straight intoeach other's eyes and knew that nothing but the hand of death would partthem now. Love had come with its attendant, Sorrow; but he had come withno uncertain footsteps. Jeanne looked on the man before her, and he benthis head to imprint a glowing kiss upon her hand.
"Aunt Marie!"
It was Jeanne Lange who spoke, but her voice was no longer that of anirresponsible child; it was firm, steady and hard. Though she spoke tothe old woman, she did not look at her; her luminous brown eyes restedon the bowed head of Armand St. Just.
"Aunt Marie!" she repeated more peremptorily, for the old woman, withher apron over her head, was still moaning, and unconscious of all savean overmastering fear.
"Open, in the name of the people!" came in a loud harsh voice once morefrom the other side of the front door.
"Aunt Marie, as you value your life and mine, pull yourself together,"said Jeanne firmly.
"What shall we do? Oh! what shall we do?" moaned Madame Belhomme. Butshe had dragged the apron away from her face, and was looking with somepuzzlement at meek, gentle little Jeanne, who had suddenly become sostrange, so dictatorial, all unlike her habitual somewhat diffidentself.
"You need not have the slightest fear, Aunt Marie, if you will only doas I tell you," resumed Jeanne quietly; "if you give way to fear, weare all of us undone. As you value your life and mine," she now repeatedauthoritatively, "pull yourself together, and do as I tell you."
The girl's firmness, her perfect quietude had the desired effect. MadameBelhomme, though still shaken up with sobs of terror, made a greateffort to master herself; she stood up, smoothed down her apron, passedher hand over her ruffled hair, and said in a quaking voice:
"What do you think we had better do?"
"Go quietly to the door and open it."
"But--the soldiers--"
"If you do not open quietly they will force the door open within thenext two minutes," interposed Jeanne calmly. "Go quietly and open thedoor. Try and hide your fears, grumble in an audible voice at beinginterrupted in your cooking, and tell the soldiers at once that theywill find mademoiselle in the boudoir. Go, for God's sake!" she added,whilst suppressed emotion suddenly made her young voice vibrate; "go,before they break open that door!"
Madame Belhomme, impressed and cowed, obeyed like an automaton. Sheturned and marched fairly straight out of the room. It was not a minutetoo soon. From outside had already come the third and final summons:
"Open, in the name of the people!"
After that a crowbar would break open the door.
Madame Belhomme's heavy footsteps were heard crossing the ante-chamber.Armand still knelt at Jeanne's feet, holding her trembling little handin his.
"A love-scene," she whispered rapidly, "a love-scene--quick--do you knowone?"
And even as he had tried to rise she held him back, down on his knees.
He thought that fear was making her distracted.
"Mademoiselle--" he murmured, trying to soothe her.
"Try and understand," she said with wonderful calm, "and do as I tellyou. Aunt Marie has obeyed. Will you do likewise?"
"To the death!" he whispered eagerly.
"Then a love-scene," she entreated. "Surely you know one. Rodrigue andChimene! Surely--surely," she urged, even as tears of anguish rose intoher eyes, "you must--you must, or, if not that, something else. Quick!The very seconds are precious!"
They were indeed! Madame Belhomme, obedient as a frightened dog, hadgone to the door and opened it; even her well-feigned grumblings couldnow be heard and the rough interrogations from the soldiery.
"Citizeness Lange!" said a gruff voice.
"In her boudoir, quoi!"
Madame Belhomme, braced up apparently by fear, was playing her partremarkably well.
"Bothering good citizens! On baking day, too!" she went on grumbling andmuttering.
"Oh, think--think!" murmured Jeanne now in an agonised whisper, her hotlittle hand grasping his so tightly that her nails were driven into hisflesh. "You must know something, that will do--anything--for dear life'ssake.... Armand!"
His name--in the tense excitement of this terrible moment--had escapedher lips.
All in a flash of sudden intuition he understood what she wanted, andeven as the door of the boudoir was thrown violently open Armand--stillon his knees, but with one hand pressed to his heart, the otherstretched upwards to the ceiling in the most approved dramatic style,was loudly declaiming:
"Pour venger son honneur il perdit son amour, Pour venger sa maitresse il a quitte le jour!"
Whereupon Mademoiselle Lange feigned the most perfect impatience.
"No, no, my good cousin," she said with a pretty moue of disdain, "thatwill never do! You must not thus emphasise the end of every line; theverses should flow more evenly, as thus...."
Heron had paused at the door. It was he who had thrown it open--he who,followed by a couple of his sleuth-hounds, had thought to find herethe man denounced by de Batz as being one of the followers of thatirrepressible Scarlet Pimpernel. The obviously Parisian intonation ofthe man kneeling in front of citizeness Lange in an attitude no wayssuggestive of personal admiration, and coolly reciting verses out of aplay, had somewhat taken him aback.
"What does this mean?" he asked gruffly, striding forward into the roomand glaring first at mademoiselle, then at Armand.
Mademoiselle gave a little cry of surprise.
"Why, if it isn't citizen Heron!" she cried, jumping up with a daintymovement of coquetry and embarrassment. "Why did not Aunt Marie announceyou?... It is indeed remiss of her, but she is so ill-tempered on bakingdays I dare not even rebuke her. Won't you sit down, citizen Heron?And you, cousin," she added, looking down airily on Armand, "I pray youmaintain no longer that foolish attitude."
The febrileness of her manner, the glow in her cheeks were easilyattributable to natural shyness in face of this unexpected visit. Heron,completely bewildered by this little scene, which was so unlike what heexpected, and so unlike those to which he was accustomed in the exerciseof his horrible duties, was practically speechless before the littlelady who continued to prattle along in a simple, unaffected manner.
"Cousin," she said to Armand, who in the meanwhile had risen to hisknees, "this is citizen Heron, of whom you have heard me speak. Mycousin Belhomme," she continued, once more turning to Heron, "is freshfrom the country, citizen. He hails from Orleans, where he has playedleading parts in the tragedies of the late citizen Corneille. But, ahme! I fear that he will find Paris audiences vastly more criticalthan the good Orleanese. Did you hear him, citizen, declaiming thosebeautiful verses just now? He was murdering them, say I--yes, murderingthem--the gaby!"
Then only did it seem as if she realised that there was something amiss,that citizen Heron had come to visit her, not as an admirer of hertalent who would wish to pay his respects to a successful actress, butas a person to be looked on with dread.
She gave a quaint, nervous little laugh, and murmured in the tones of afrightened child:
"La, citizen, how glum you look! I thought
you had come to complimentme on my latest success. I saw you at the theatre last night, thoughyou did not afterwards come to see me in the green-room. Why! I had aregular ovation! Look at my flowers!" she added more gaily, pointing toseveral bouquets in vases about the room. "Citizen Danton brought methe violets himself, and citizen Santerre the narcissi, and that laurelwreath--is it not charming?--that was a tribute from citizen Robespierrehimself."
She was so artless, so simple, and so natural that Heron was completelytaken off his usual mental balance. He had expected to find the usualsetting to the dramatic episodes which he was wont to conduct--screamingwomen, a man either at bay, sword in hand, or hiding in a linen cupboardor up a chimney.
Now everything puzzled him. De Batz--he was quite sure--had spoken of anEnglishman, a follower of the Scarlet Pimpernel; every thinking Frenchpatriot knew that all the followers of the Scarlet Pimpernel wereEnglishmen with red hair and prominent teeth, whereas this man....
Armand--who deadly danger had primed in his improvised role--wasstriding up and down the room declaiming with ever-varying intonations:
"Joignez tous vos efforts contre un espoir si doux Pour en venir a bout, c'est trop peu que de vous."
"No! no!" said mademoiselle impatiently; "you must not make that uglypause midway in the last line: 'pour en venir a bout, c'est trop peu quede vous!'"
She mimicked Armand's diction so quaintly, imitating his stride, hisawkward gesture, and his faulty phraseology with such funny exaggerationthat Heron laughed in spite of himself.
"So that is a cousin from Orleans, is it?" he asked, throwing his lankybody into an armchair, which creaked dismally under his weight.
"Yes! a regular gaby--what?" she said archly. "Now, citizen Heron, youmust stay and take coffee with me. Aunt Marie will be bringing it indirectly. Hector," she added, turning to Armand, "come down from theclouds and ask Aunt Marie to be quick."
This certainly was the first time in the whole of his experience thatHeron had been asked to stay and drink coffee with the quarry he washunting down. Mademoiselle's innocent little ways, her desire forthe prolongation of his visit, further addled his brain. De Batz hadundoubtedly spoken of an Englishman, and the cousin from Orleans wascertainly a Frenchman every inch of him.
Perhaps had the denunciation come from any one else but de Batz, Heronmight have acted and thought more circumspectly; but, of course, thechief agent of the Committee of General Security was more suspicious ofthe man from whom he took a heavy bribe than of any one else in France.The thought had suddenly crossed his mind that mayhap de Batz had senthim on a fool's errand in order to get him safely out of the way of theTemple prison at a given hour of the day.
The thought took shape, crystallised, caused him to see a rapid visionof de Batz sneaking into his lodgings and stealing his keys, the guardbeing slack, careless, inattentive, allowing the adventurer to passbarriers that should have been closed against all comers.
Now Heron was sure of it; it was all a conspiracy invented by de Batz.He had forgotten all about his theories that a man under arrest isalways safer than a man that is free. Had his brain been quite normal,and not obsessed, as it always was now by thoughts of the Dauphin'sescape from prison, no doubt he would have been more suspicious ofArmand, but all his worst suspicions were directed against de Batz.Armand seemed to him just a fool, an actor quoi? and so obviously not anEnglishman.
He jumped to his feet, curtly declining mademoiselle's offers ofhospitality. He wanted to get away at once. Actors and actresses werealways, by tacit consent of the authorities, more immune than the restof the community. They provided the only amusement in the intervalsof the horrible scenes around the scaffolds; they were irresponsible,harmless creatures who did not meddle in politics.
Jeanne the while was gaily prattling on, her luminous eyes fixed uponthe all-powerful enemy, striving to read his thoughts, to understandwhat went on behind those cruel, prominent eyes, the chances that Armandhad of safety and of life.
She knew, of course, that the visit was directed against Armand--someone had betrayed him, that odious de Batz mayhap--and she was fightingfor Armand's safety, for his life. Her armoury consisted of her presenceof mind, her cool courage, her self-control; she used all these weaponsfor his sake, though at times she felt as if the strain on her nerveswould snap the thread of life in her. The effort seemed more than shecould bear.
But she kept up her part, rallying Heron for the shortness of hisvisit, begging him to tarry for another five minutes at least, throwingout--with subtle feminine intuition--just those very hints anent littleCapet's safety that were most calculated to send him flying back towardsthe Temple.
"I felt so honoured last night, citizen," she said coquettishly, "thatyou even forgot little Capet in order to come and watch my debut asCelimene."
"Forget him!" retorted Heron, smothering a curse, "I never forget thevermin. I must go back to him; there are too many cats nosing round mymouse. Good day to you, citizeness. I ought to have brought flowers, Iknow; but I am a busy man--a harassed man."
"Je te crois," she said with a grave nod of the head; "but do come tothe theatre to-night. I am playing Camille--such a fine part! one of mygreatest successes."
"Yes, yes, I'll come--mayhap, mayhap--but I'll go now--glad to have seenyou, citizeness. Where does your cousin lodge?" he asked abruptly.
"Here," she replied boldly, on the spur of the moment.
"Good. Let him report himself to-morrow morning at the Conciergerie, andget his certificate of safety. It is a new decree, and you should haveone, too."
"Very well, then. Hector and I will come together, and perhaps AuntMarie will come too. Don't send us to maman guillotine yet awhile,citizen," she said lightly; "you will never get such another Camille,nor yet so good a Celimene."
She was gay, artless to the last. She accompanied Heron to the doorherself, chaffing him about his escort.
"You are an aristo, citizen," she said, gazing with well-feignedadmiration on the two sleuth-hounds who stood in wait in the anteroom;"it makes me proud to see so many citizens at my door. Come and see meplay Camille--come to-night, and don't forget the green-room door--itwill always be kept invitingly open for you."
She bobbed him a curtsey, and he walked out, closely followed by his twomen; then at last she closed the door behind them. She stood there fora while, her ear glued against the massive panels, listening for theirmeasured tread down the oak staircase. At last it rang more sharplyagainst the flagstones of the courtyard below; then she was satisfiedthat they had gone, and went slowly back to the boudoir.