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I Will Repay

B >> Baroness Emmuska Orczy >> I Will Repay




She paused a moment: said "Good-night" to him, and turned to go, candle
in hand, looking pathetic and fragile, with that ugly contour of
shoulder, which Déroulède assured her he could not see.

The candle flickered in the draught, illumining the thin, pinched face,
the large melancholy eyes of the faithful house-dog.

"Who can watch and bite!" she said half-audibly as she slipped out of
the room. "For I do not trust you, my fine madam, and there was
something about that comedy this afternoon, which somehow, I don't
quite understand."





CHAPTER V

A day in the woods.


But whilst men and women set to work to make the towns of France
hideous with their shrieks and their hootings, their mock-trials and
bloody guillotines, they could not quite prevent Nature from working
her sweet will with the country.

June, July, and August had received new names - they were now called
Messidor, Thermidor, and Fructidor, but under these new names they
continued to pour forth upon the earth the same old fruits, the same
flowers, the same grass in the meadows and leaves upon the trees.

Messidor brought its quota of wild roses in the hedgerows, just as
archaic June had done. Thermidor covered the barren cornfields with
its flaming mantle of scarlet poppies, and Fructidor, though now called
August, still tipped the wild sorrel with dots of crimson, and laid the
first wash of tender colour on the pale cheeks of the ripening peaches.

And Juliette - young, girlish, feminine and inconsequent - had sighed
for country and sunshine, had longed for a ramble in the woods, the
music of the birds, the sight of the meadows sugared with marguerites.

She had left the house early: accompanied by Pétronelle, she had been
rowed along the river as far as Suresnes. They had brought some bread
and fresh butter, a little wine and fruit in a basket, and from here
she meant to wander homewards through the woods.

It was all so peaceful, so remote: even the noise of shrieking, howling
Paris did not reach the leafy thickets of Suresnes.

It almost seemed as if this little old-world village had been forgotten
by the destroyers of France. It had never been a royal residence, the
woods had never been preserved for royal sport: there was no vengeance
to be wreaked upon its peaceful glades and sleepy, fragrant meadows.

Juliette spent a happy day; she loved the flowers, the trees, the
birds, and Pétronelle was silent and sympathetic. As the afternoon wore
on, and it was time to go home, Juliette turned townwards with a sigh.

You all know that road through the woods, which lies to the north-west
of Paris: so leafy, so secluded. No large, hundred-year-old trees, no
fine oaks or antique elms, but numberless delicate stems of hazel-nut
and young ash, covered with honeysuckle at this time of year,
sweet-smelling and so peaceful after that awful turmoil of the town.

Obedient to Madame Déroulède's suggestion, Juliette had tied a tricolour
scarf round her waist, and a Phrygian cap of crimson cloth, with the
inevitable rosette on one side, adorned her curly head.

She had gathered a huge bouquet of poppies, marguerites and blue lupin
- Nature's tribute to the national colours - and as she wandered
through the sylvan glades she looked like some quaint dweller of the
woods - a sprite, mayhap - with old mother Pétronelle trotting behind
her, like an attendant withc.

Suddenly she paused, for in the near distance she had perceived the
sound of footsteps upon the leafy turf, and the next moment Paul Déroulède
emerged from out the thicket and came rapidly towards her.

"We were so anxious about you at home!" he said, almost by way of an
apology. "My mother became so restless..."

"That to quiet her fears you came in search of me!" she retorted with a
gay little laugh, the laugh of a young girl, scarce a woman as yet, who
feels that she is good to look at, good to talk to, who feels her wings
for the first time, the wings with which to soar into that mad, merry,
elusive and called Romance. Ay, her wings! but her power also! that
sweet, subtle power of the woman: the yoke which men love, rail at, and
love again, the yoke that enslaves them and gives them the yoy of kings.

How happy the day had been! Yet it had been incomplete!

Pétronelle was somewhat dull, and Juliette was too young to enjoy long
companionship with her own thoughts. Now suddenly the day seemed to
have become perfect. There was someone there to appreciate the charm
of the woods, the beauty of that blue sky peeping though the tangled
foliage of the honeysuckle-covered trees. There was some one to talk
to, someone to admire the fresh white frock Juliette had put on that
morning.

"But how did you know where to find me?" she asked with a quaint touch
of immature coquetry.

"I didn't know," he replied quietly. "They told me you had gone to
Suresness, and meant to wander homewards through the woods. It
frightened me, for you will have to go through the north-west barrier,
and..."

"Well?"

He smiled, and looked earnestly for a moment at the dainty apparition
before him.

"Well, you know!" he said gaily, "that tricolour scarf and the red cap
are not quite sufficient as a disguise: you look anything but a staunch
friend of the people. I guessed that your muslin frock would be clean,
and that there would still be some tell-tale lace upon it."

She laughed again, and with delicate fingers lifted her pretty muslin
frock, displaying a white frou-frou of flounces beneath the hem.

"How careless and childish!" he said, almost roughly.

"Would you have me coarse and grimy to be a fitting match for your
partisans?" she retorted.

His tone of mentor nettled her, his attitude seemed to her priggish and
dictatorial, and as the sun disappearing behind a sudden cloud, so her
childish merriment quickly gave place to a feeling of unexplainable
disappointment.

"I humbly beg your pardon," he said quietly, "And must crave your kind
indulgence for my mood: but I have been so anxious..."

"Why should you be anxious about me?"

She had meant to say this indifferently, as if caring little what the
reply might be: but in her effort to seem indifferent her voice became
haughty, a reminiscence of the days when she still was the daughter of
the Duc de Marny, the richest and most high-born heiress in France.

"Was that presumptuous?" he asked, with a slight touch of irony, in
response to her own hauteur.

"It was merely unnecessary," she replied. "I have already laid too
many burdens on your shoulders, without wishing to add that of anxiety."

"You have laid no burden on me,' he said quietly, "save one of
gratitude."

"Gratitude? What have I done?"

"You committed a foolish, thoughtless act outside my door, and gave me
the chance of easing my conscience of a heavy load."

"In what way?"

"I had never hoped that the Fates would be so kind as to allow me to
render a member of your family a slight service."

"I understand that you saved my life the other day, Monsieur Déroulède. I
know that I am still in peril and that I owe my safety to you..."

"Do you also know that your brother owed his death to me?"

She closed her lips firmly, unable to reply, wrathful with him, for
having suddenly and without any warning, placed a clumsy hand upon that
hidden sore.

"I always meant to tell you," he continued somewhat hurriedly; "for it
almost seemed to me that I have been cheating you, these last few days.
I don't suppose that you can quite realise what it means to me to tell
you this just now; but I owe it to you, I think. In later years you
might find out, and then regret the days you spent under my roof. I
called you childish a moment ago, you must forgive me; I know that you
are a woman, and hope therefore that you will understand me. I killed
your brother in fair fight. He provoked me as no man was ever provoked
before..."

"Is it necessary, M. Déroulède, that you should tell me all this?" she
interrupted him with some impatience.

"I thought you ought to know."

"You must know, on the other hand, that I have no means of hearing the
history of the quarrel from my brother's point of view now."

The moment the words were out of her lips she had realised how cruelly
she had spoken. He dit not reply; he was too chivalrous, too gentle,
to reproach her. Perhaps he understood for the first time how bitterly
she had felt her brother's death, and how deeply she must be suffering,
now that she knew herself to be face to face with his murderer.

She stole a quick glance at him, through her tears. She was deeply
penitent for what she had said. It almost seemed to her as if a dual
nature was at war within her.

The mention of her brother's name, the recollection of that awful night
beside his dead body, of those four years whilst she watched her
father's moribund reason slowly wandering towards the grave, seemed to
rouse in her a spirit of rebellion, and of evil, which she felt was
not entirely of herself.

The woods had become quite silent. It was late afternoon, and they had
gradually wandered farther and farther away from pretty sylvan
Suresness, towards great, anarchic, deathdealing Paris. In this part
of the woods the birds had left their homes; the trees, shorn of their
lower branches looked like gaunt spectres, raising melancholy heads
towards the relentless, silent sky.

In the distance, from behind the barriers, a couple of miles away, the
boom of a gun was heard.

"They are closing the barriers," he said quietly after a long pause.
"I am glad I was fortunate enough to meet you."

"It was kind of you to seek for me," she said meekly. "I didn't mean
what I said just now..."

"I pray you, say no more about it. I can so well understand. I only
wish..."

"It would be best I should leave your house," she said gently; "I have
so ill repaid your hospitality. Pétronelle and I can easily go back to
our lodgings."

"You would break my mother's heart if you left her now," he said,
almost roughly. "She has become very fond of you, and knows, just as
well as I do, the dangers that would beset you outside my house. My
coarse and grimy partisans," he added, with a bitter touch of sarcasm,
"have that advantage, that they are loyal to me, and would not harm you
while under my roof."

"But you..." she murmured.

She felt somehow that she had wounded him very deeply, and was half
angry with herself for her seeming ingratitude, and yet childishly glad
to have suppressed in him that attitude of mentorship, which he was
beginning to assume over her.

"You need not fear that my presence will offend you much longer,
mademoiselle," he said coldly. "I can quite understand how hateful it
must be to you, though I would have wished that you could believe at
least in my sincerity."

"Are you going away then?"

"Not out of Paris altogether. I have accepted the post of Governor of
the Conciergerie."

"Ah! - where the poor Queen..."

She checked herself suddenly. Those words would have been called
treasonable to the people of France.

Instinctively and furtively, as everyone dit in these days, she cast a
rapid glance behind her.

"You need not be afraid," he said; "there is no one here but Pétronelle."

"And you."

"Oh! I echo your words. Poor Marie Antoinette!"

"You pity her?"

"How can I help it?"

"But your are that horrible National Convention, who will try her,
condemn her, execute her as they did the King."

"I am of the National Convention. But I will not condemn her, nor be a
party to another crime. I go as Governor of the Conciergerie, to help
her, if I can."

"But your popularity - your life - if you befriend her?"

"As you say, mademoiselle, my life, if I befriend her," he said simply.

She looked at him with renewed curiosity in her gaze.

How strange were men in these days! Paul Déroulède, the republican, the
recognised idol of the lawless people of France, was about to risk his
life for the woman he had helped to dethrone.

Pity with him did not end with the rabble of Paris; it had reached
Charlotte Corday, though it failed to save her, and now it extended to
the poor dispossessed Queen. Somehow, in his face this time, she saw
either success or death.

"When do you leave?" she asked.

"To-morrow night."

She said nothing more. Strangely enough, a tinge of melancholy had
settled over her spirits. No doubt the proximity of the town was the
cause of this. She could already hear the familiar noise of muffled
drums, the loud, excited shrieking of the mob, who stood round the
gates of Paris, at this time of the evening, waiting to witness some
important capture, perhaps that of a hated aristocrat striving to
escape from the people's revenge.

The had reached the edge of the wood, and gradually, as she walked, the
flowers she had gathered fell unheeded out of her listless hands one by
one.

First the blue lupins: their bud-laden heads were heavy and they
dropped to the ground, followed by the white marguerites, that lay
thick behind her now on the grass like a shroud. The red poppies were
the lightest, their thin gummy stalks clung to her hands longer than
the rest. At last she let them fall too, singly, like great drops of
blood, that glistened as her long white gown swept them aside.

Déroulède was absorbed in his thoughts, and seemed not to heed her. At the
barrier, however, he roused himself and took out the passes which alone
enabled Juliette and Pétronelle to re-enter the town unchallenged. He
himself as Citizen-Deputy could come and go as he wished.

Juliette shuddered as the great gates closed behind her with a heavy
clank. It seemed to shut out even the memory of this happy day, which
for a brief space had been quite perfect.

She did not know Paris very well, and wondered where lay that gloomy
Conciergerie, where a dethroned queen was living her last days, in an
agonised memory of the past. But as they crossed the bridge she
recognised all round her the massive towers of the great city: Notre
Dame, the grateful spire of La Sainte Chapelle, the sombre outline of
St. Gervais, and behind her the Louvre with its great history and
irreclaimable grandeur. How small her own tragedy seemed in the midst
of this great sanguinary drama, the last act of which had not yet even
begun. Her own revenge, her oath, her tribulations, what were they in
comparison with that great flaming Nemesis which had swept away a
throne, that vow of retaliation carried out by thousands against other
thousands, that long story of degradation, of regicide, of fratricide,
the awesome chapters of which were still being unfolded one by one?

She felt small and petty: ashamed of the pleasure she had felt in the
woods, ashamed of her high spirits and light-heartedness, ashamed of
that feeling of sudden pity and admiration for the man who had done her
and her family so deep an injury, which she was too feeble, too
vacillating to avenge.

The majestic outline of the Louvre seemed to frown sarcastically on her
weakness, the silent river to mock her and her wavering purpose. The
man beside her had wronged her and hers far more deeply than the
Bourbons had wronged their people. The people of France were taking
their revenge, and God had at the close of this last happy day of her
life pointed once more to the means for her great end.





CHAPTER VI

The Scarlet Pimpernel.


It was some few hours later. The ladies sat in the drawing-room,
silent and anxious.

Soon after supper a visitor had called, and had been closeted with Paul
Déroulède in the latter's study for the past two hours.

A tall, somewhat lazy-looking figure, he was sitting at a table face to
face with the Citizen-Deputy. On a chair beside him lay a heavy caped
coat, covered with the dust and the splashings of a long journey, but
he himself was attired in clothes that suggested the most fastidious
taste, and the most perfect of tailors; he wore with apparent ease the
eccentric fashion of the time, the short-waisted coat of many lapels,
the double waistcoat and billows of delicate lace. Unlike Déroulède he was
of great height, with fair hair and a somewhat lazy expression in his
good-natured blue eyes, and as he spoke, there was just a soupçon of
foreign accent in the pronunciation of the French vowels, a certain
drawl of o's and a's, that would have betrayed the Britisher to an
observant ear.

The two men had been talking earnestly for some time, the all
Englishman was watching his friend keenly, whilst an amused, pleasant
smile lingered round the corners of his firm mouth and jaw. Déroulède,
restless and enthusiastic, was pacing to and fro.

"But I don't understand now, how you managed to reach Paris, my dear
Blakeney!" said Déroulède at last, placing an anxious hand on his friend's
shoulder. "The government has not forgotten The Scarlet Pimpernel."

"La! I took care of that!" responded Blakeney with his short, pleasant
laugh. "I sent Tinville my autograph this morning."

"You are mad, Blakeney!"

"Not altogether, my friend. My faith! 'twas on only foolhardiness
caused me to grant that devilish prosecutor another sight of my scarlet
device. I knew what you maniacs would be after, so I came across in
the _Daydream,_just to see if I couldn't get my share of the fun."

"Fun, you call it?" queried the other bitterly.

"Nay! what would you have me call it? A mad, insane, senseless
tragedy, with but one issue? - the guillotine for you all."

"The why did you come?"

"To - What shall I say, my friend?" rejoined Sir Percy Blakeny, with
that inimitable drawl of his. "To give your demmed government
something else to think about, whilst you are all busy running your
heads into a noose."

"What makes you think we are doing that?"

"Three things, my friend - may I offer you a pinch of snuff - No? - Ah
well!..." And with the graceful gesture of an accomplished dandy, Sir
Percy flicked off a grain of dust from his immaculate Mechlin ruffles.

"Three things," he continued quietly; "an imprisoned Queen, about to be
tried for her life, the temperament of a Frenchman - some of them - and
the idiocy of mankind generally. These three things make me think that
a certain section of hot-headed Republicans with yourself, my dear
Déroulède, _en tête,_ are about to attempt the most stupid, senseless,
purposeless thing that was ever concocted by the excitable brain of a
demmed Frenchman."

Déroulède smiled.

"Does it not seem amusing to you, Blakeney, that you should sit there
and condemn anyone for planning mad, insane, senseless things."

"La! I'll not sit, I'll stand!" rejoined Blakeney with a laugh, as he
drew himself up to his full height, and stretched his long, lazy limbs.
"And now let me tell you, friend, that my league of The Scarlet
Pimpernel never attempted the impossible, and to try and drag the Queen
out of the clutches of these murderous rascals now, is attempting the
unattainable."

"And yet we mean to try."

"I know it. I guessed it, that is why I came: that is also why I sent
a pleasant little note to the Committee of Public Safety, signed with
the device they know so well: The Scarlet Pimpernel."

"Well?"

"Well! the result is obvious. Robespierre, Danton, Tinville, Merlin,
and the whole of the demmed murderous crowd, will be busy looking after
me - a needle in a haystack. They'll put the abortive attempt down to
me, and you may - _ma foi!_ I only suggest that you _may_ escape
safely out of France - in the_Daydream,_ and with the help of your
humble servant."

"But in the meanwhile they'll discover you, and they'll not let you
escape a second time."

"My friend! if a terrier were to lose his temper, he never would run a
rat to earth. Now your Revolutionary Government has lost its temper
with me, ever since I slipped through Chauvelin's fingers; they are
blind with their own fury, whilst I am perfectly happy and cool as a
cucumber. My life has become valuable to me, my friend. There is
someone over the water now who weeps when I don't return - No! no!
never fear - they'll not get The Scarlet Pimpernel this journey..."

He laughed, a gay, pleasant laugh, and his strong, firm face seemed to
soften at thought of the beautiful wife, over in England, who was
waiting anxiously for his safe return.

"And yet you'll not help us to rescue the Queen?" rejoined Déroulède, with
some bitterness.

"By every means in my power," replied Blakeney, "save the insane. But
I will help to get you all out of the demmed hole, when you have
failed."

"We'll not fail", asserted the other hotly.

Sir Percy Blakeney went close up to his friend and placed his long,
slender hand, with a touch of almost womanly tenderness upon the
latter's shoulder.

"Will you tell me your plans?"

In a moment Déroulède was all fire and enthousiasm.

"There are not many of us in it," he began, "although half France will
be in sympathy with us. We have plenty of money, of course, and also
the necessary disguise for the royal lady."

"Yes?"

"I, in the meanwhile, have asked for and obtained the post of Governor
of the Conciergerie; I go into my new quarters to-morrow. In the
meanwhile, I am making arrangements for my mother and - and those
dependent upon me to quit France immediately."

Blakeney had perceived the slight hesitation when Déroulède mentioned
those dependent upon him. He looked scrutinisingly at his friend, who
continued quickly:

"I am still very popular among the people. My family can go about
unmolested. I must get them out of France, however, in case - in
case..."

"Of course," rejoined the other simply.

"As soon as I am assured that they are safe, my friends and I can
prosecute our plans. You see the trial of the Queen has not yet been
decided on, but I know that it is in the air. We hope to get her away,
disguised in one of the uniforms of the National Guard. As you know,
it will be my duty to make the final round every evening in the prison,
and to see that everything is safe for the night. Two fellows watch
all night, in the room next to that occupied by the Queen. Usually
they drink and play cards all night long. I want an opportunity to
drug their brandy, and thus to render them more loutish and idiotic
than usual; then for a blow on the had that will make them senseless.
It should be easy, for I have a strong fist, and after that..."

"Well? After that, friend?" rejoined Sir Percy earnestly, "after that?
Shall I fill in the details of the picture? - the guard twenty-five
strong outside the Conciergerie, how will you pass them?"

"I as the Governor, followed by one of my guards..."

"To go whither?"

"I have the right to come and go as I please."

"I' faith! so you have, but 'one of your guards' - eh? Wrapped to the
eyes in a long mantle to hide the female figure beneath. I have been
in Paris but a few hours, and yet already I have realised that there is
not one demmed citizen within its walls, who does not at this moment
suspect some other demmed citizen of conniving at the Queen's escape.
Even the sparrows on the house-tops are objects of suspicion. No
figure wrapped in a mantle will from this day forth leave Paris
unchallenged."

"But you yourself, friend?" suggested Déroulède. "You think you can quit
Paris unrecognised - then why not the Queen?"

"Because she is a woman, and has been a queen. She has nerves, poor
soul, and weaknesses of body and of mind now. Alas for her! Alas for
France! who wreaks such idle vengeance on so poor an enemy? Can you
take hold of Marie Antoinette by the shoulders, shove her into the
bottom of a cart and pile sacks of potatoes on the top of her? I did
that to the Comtesse de Tournai and her daughter, as stiff-nacked a
pair of French aristocrats as ever deserved the guillotine for their
insane prejudices. But can you do it to Marie Antoinette? She'd
rebuke you publicly, and betray herself and you in a flash, sooner than
submit to a loss of dignity."

"But would you leave her to her fate?"

"Ah! there's the trouble, friend. Do you think you need appeal to the
sense of chivalry of my league? We are still twenty strong, and heart
and soul in sympathy with your mad schemes. The poor, poor Queen! But
you are bound to fail, and then who will help you all, if we too are
put out of the way?"

"We should succeed if you helped us. At one time you used proudly to
say: 'The League of The Scarlet Pimpernel has never failed.'"

"Because it attempted nothing which it could not accomplish. But, la!
since you put me on my mettle - Demm it all! I'll have to think about
it!"

And he laughed that funny, somewhat inane laugh of his, which had
deceived the clever men of two countries as to his real personality.

Déroulède went up to the heavy oak desk which occupied a conspicuous place
in the centre of one of the walls. He unlocked it and drew forth a
bundle of papers.

"Will you look through these?" he asked, handing them to Sir Percy
Blakeney.

"What are they?"

"Different schemes I have drawn up, in case my original plan should not
succeed."

"Burn them, my friend," said Blakeney laconically. "Have you not yet
learned the lesson of never putting your hand to paper?"

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