El Dorado: An Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel

  CHAPTER XXX. AFTERWARDS

  "I am sorry, Lady Blakeney," said a harsh, dry voice close to her; "theincident at the end of your visit was none of our making, remember."

  She turned away, sickened with horror at thought of contact with thiswretch. She had heard the heavy oaken door swing to behind her on itsponderous hinges, and the key once again turn in the lock. She felt asif she had suddenly been thrust into a coffin, and that clods of earthwere being thrown upon her breast, oppressing her heart so that shecould not breathe.

  Had she looked for the last time on the man whom she loved beyondeverything else on earth, whom she worshipped more ardently day by day?Was she even now carrying within the folds of her kerchief a messagefrom a dying man to his comrades?

  Mechanically she followed Chauvelin down the corridor and along thepassages which she had traversed a brief half-hour ago. From somedistant church tower a clock tolled the hour of ten. It had then reallyonly been little more than thirty brief minutes since first she hadentered this grim building, which seemed less stony than the monsterswho held authority within it; to her it seemed that centuries had goneover her head during that time. She felt like an old woman, unable tostraighten her back or to steady her limbs; she could only dimly seesome few paces ahead the trim figure of Chauvelin walking with measuredsteps, his hands held behind his back, his head thrown up with whatlooked like triumphant defiance.

  At the door of the cubicle where she had been forced to submit to theindignity of being searched by a wardress, the latter was now standing,waiting with characteristic stolidity. In her hand she held the steelfiles, the dagger and the purse which, as Marguerite passed, she heldout to her.

  "Your property, citizeness," she said placidly.

  She emptied the purse into her own hand, and solemnly counted out thetwenty pieces of gold. She was about to replace them all into the purse,when Marguerite pressed one of them back into her wrinkled hand.

  "Nineteen will be enough, citizeness," she said; "keep one for yourself,not only for me, but for all the poor women who come here with theirheart full of hope, and go hence with it full of despair."

  The woman turned calm, lack-lustre eyes on her, and silently pocketedthe gold piece with a grudgingly muttered word of thanks.

  Chauvelin during this brief interlude, had walked thoughtlessly onahead. Marguerite, peering down the length of the narrow corridor, spiedhis sable-clad figure some hundred metres further on as it crossed thedim circle of light thrown by one of the lamps.

  She was about to follow, when it seemed to her as if some one was movingin the darkness close beside her. The wardress was even now in the actof closing the door of her cubicle, and there were a couple of soldierswho were disappearing from view round one end of the passage, whilstChauvelin's retreating form was lost in the gloom at the other.

  There was no light close to where she herself was standing, and theblackness around her was as impenetrable as a veil; the sound of a humancreature moving and breathing close to her in this intense darknessacted weirdly on her overwrought nerves.

  "Qui va la?" she called.

  There was a more distinct movement among the shadows this time, as ofa swift tread on the flagstones of the corridor. All else was silentround, and now she could plainly hear those footsteps running rapidlydown the passage away from her. She strained her eyes to see moreclearly, and anon in one of the dim circles of light on ahead she spieda man's figure--slender and darkly clad--walking quickly yet furtivelylike one pursued. As he crossed the light the man turned to look back.It was her brother Armand.

  Her first instinct was to call to him; the second checked that call uponher lips.

  Percy had said that Armand was in no danger; then why should he besneaking along the dark corridors of this awful house of Justice if hewas free and safe?

  Certainly, even at a distance, her brother's movements suggested toMarguerite that he was in danger of being seen. He cowered in thedarkness, tried to avoid the circles of light thrown by the lamps in thepassage. At all costs Marguerite felt that she must warn him that theway he was going now would lead him straight into Chauvelin's arms, andshe longed to let him know that she was close by.

  Feeling sure that he would recognise her voice, she made pretence toturn back to the cubicle through the door of which the wardress hadalready disappeared, and called out as loudly as she dared:

  "Good-night, citizeness!"

  But Armand--who surely must have heard--did not pause at the sound.Rather was he walking on now more rapidly than before. In less than aminute he would be reaching the spot where Chauvelin stood waiting forMarguerite. That end of the corridor, however, received no light fromany of the lamps; strive how she might, Marguerite could see nothing noweither of Chauvelin or of Armand.

  Blindly, instinctively, she ran forward, thinking only to reach Armand,and to warn him to turn back before it was too late; before he foundhimself face to face with the most bitter enemy he and his nearest anddearest had ever had. But as she at last came to a halt at the end ofthe corridor, panting with the exertion of running and the fear forArmand, she almost fell up against Chauvelin, who was standing therealone and imperturbable, seemingly having waited patiently for her. Shecould only dimly distinguish his face, the sharp features and thin cruelmouth, but she felt--more than she actually saw--his cold steely eyesfixed with a strange expression of mockery upon her.

  But of Armand there was no sign, and she--poor soul!--had difficultyin not betraying the anxiety which she felt for her brother. Had theflagstones swallowed him up? A door on the right was the only one thatgave on the corridor at this point; it led to the concierge's lodge,and thence out into the courtyard. Had Chauvelin been dreaming, sleepingwith his eyes open, whilst he stood waiting for her, and had Armandsucceeded in slipping past him under cover of the darkness and throughthat door to safety that lay beyond these prison walls?

  Marguerite, miserably agitated, not knowing what to think, lookedsomewhat wild-eyed on Chauvelin; he smiled, that inscrutable, mirthlesssmile of his, and said blandly:

  "Is there aught else that I can do for you, citizeness? This is yournearest way out. No doubt Sir Andrew will be waiting to escort youhome."

  Then as she--not daring either to reply or to question--walked straightup to the door, he hurried forward, prepared to open it for her. Butbefore he did so he turned to her once again:

  "I trust that your visit has pleased you, Lady Blakeney," he saidsuavely. "At what hour do you desire to repeat it to-morrow?"

  "To-morrow?" she reiterated in a vague, absent manner, for she was stilldazed with the strange incident of Armand's appearance and his flight.

  "Yes. You would like to see Sir Percy again to-morrow, would you not? Imyself would gladly pay him a visit from time to time, but he does notcare for my company. My colleague, citizen Heron, on the other hand,calls on him four times in every twenty-four hours; he does so a fewmoments before the changing of the guard, and stays chatting with SirPercy until after the guard is changed, when he inspects the men andsatisfies himself that no traitor has crept in among them. All the menare personally known to him, you see. These hours are at five in themorning and again at eleven, and then again at five and eleven in theevening. My friend Heron, as you see, is zealous and assiduous, and,strangely enough, Sir Percy does not seem to view his visit with anydispleasure. Now at any other hour of the day, Lady Blakeney, I prayyou command me and I will arrange that citizen Heron grant you a secondinterview with the prisoner."

  Marguerite had only listened to Chauvelin's lengthy speech with half anear; her thoughts still dwelt on the past half-hour with its bitter joyand its agonising pain; and fighting through her thoughts of Percy therewas the recollection of Armand which so disquieted her. But though shehad only vaguely listened to what Chauvelin was saying, she caught thedrift of it.

  Madly she longed to accept his suggestion. The very thought of seeingPercy on the morrow was solace to her aching heart; it could feed onhope to-night instead of on its
own bitter pain. But even during thisbrief moment of hesitancy, and while her whole being cried out for thisjoy that her enemy was holding out to her, even then in the gloom aheadof her she seemed to see a vision of a pale face raised above a crowdof swaying heads, and of the eyes of the dreamer searching for her own,whilst the last sublime cry of perfect self-devotion once more echoed inher ear:

  "Remember!"

  The promise which she had given him, that would she fulfil. The burdenwhich he had laid on her shoulders she would try to bear as heroicallyas he was bearing his own. Aye, even at the cost of the supreme sorrowof never resting again in the haven of his arms.

  But in spite of sorrow, in spite of anguish so terrible that she couldnot imagine Death itself to have a more cruel sting, she wished aboveall to safeguard that final, attenuated thread of hope which was woundround the packet that lay hidden on her breast.

  She wanted, above all, not to arouse Chauvelin's suspicions by markedlyrefusing to visit the prisoner again--suspicions that might lead toher being searched once more and the precious packet filched from her.Therefore she said to him earnestly now:

  "I thank you, citizen, for your solicitude on my behalf, but you willunderstand, I think, that my visit to the prisoner has been almost morethan I could bear. I cannot tell you at this moment whether to-morrow Ishould be in a fit state to repeat it."

  "As you please," he replied urbanely. "But I pray you to remember onething, and that is--"

  He paused a moment while his restless eyes wandered rapidly over herface, trying, as it were, to get at the soul of this woman, at herinnermost thoughts, which he felt were hidden from him.

  "Yes, citizen," she said quietly; "what is it that I am to remember?"

  "That it rests with you, Lady Blakeney, to put an end to the presentsituation."

  "How?"

  "Surely you can persuade Sir Percy's friends not to leave their chiefin durance vile. They themselves could put an end to his troublesto-morrow."

  "By giving up the Dauphin to you, you mean?" she retorted coldly.

  "Precisely."

  "And you hoped--you still hope that by placing before me the picture ofyour own fiendish cruelty against my husband you will induce me to actthe part of a traitor towards him and a coward before his followers?"

  "Oh!" he said deprecatingly, "the cruelty now is no longer mine.Sir Percy's release is in your hands, Lady Blakeney--in that of hisfollowers. I should only be too willing to end the present intolerablesituation. You and your friends are applying the last turn of thethumbscrew, not I--"

  She smothered the cry of horror that had risen to her lips. The man'scold-blooded sophistry was threatening to make a breach in her armour ofself-control.

  She would no longer trust herself to speak, but made a quick movementtowards the door.

  He shrugged his shoulders as if the matter were now entirely out of hiscontrol. Then he opened the door for her to pass out, and as her skirtsbrushed against him he bowed with studied deference, murmuring a cordial"Good-night!"

  "And remember, Lady Blakeney," he added politely, "that should you atany time desire to communicate with me at my rooms, 19, Rue Dupuy, Ihold myself entirely at your service."

  Then as her tall, graceful figure disappeared in the outside gloomhe passed his thin hand over his mouth as if to wipe away the lastlingering signs of triumphant irony:

  "The second visit will work wonders, I think, my fine lady," he murmuredunder his breath.