Lord Tony's Wife: An Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel

"What about the daughter?" reiterated Chauvelin.

"Yvonne de Kernogan has never seen Pierre Adet the miller's son," replied the other curtly. "She is now the affianced wife of Martin-Roget the millionaire banker of Brest. To-night I shall persuade M. le duc to allow my marriage with his daughter to take place within the week. I shall plead pressing business in Holland and my desire that my wife shall accompany me thither. The duke will consent and Yvonne de Kernogan will not be consulted. The day after my wedding I shall be on board the Hollandia with my wife and father-in-law, and together we will be on our way to Nantes where Carrier will deal with them both."

"You are quite satisfied that this plan of yours is known to no one, that no one at the present moment is aware of the fact that Pierre Adet, the miller's son, and Martin-Roget, banker of Brest, are one and the same?"

"Quite satisfied," replied Martin-Roget emphatically.

"Very well, then, let me tell you this, citizen," rejoined Chauvelin slowly and deliberately, "that in spite of what you say I am as convinced as that I am here, alive, that your real identity will be known – if it is not known already – to a gentleman who is at this present moment in Bath, and who is known to you, to me, to the whole of France as the Scarlet Pimpernel."

Martin-Roget laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

"Impossible!" he retorted. "Pierre Adet no longer exists … he never existed … much… Anyhow, he ceased to be on that stormy day in September, 1789. Unless your pet enemy is a wizard he cannot know."

"There is nothing that my pet enemy – as you call him – cannot ferret out if he has a mind to. Beware of him, citizen Martin-Roget. Beware, I tell you."

"How can I," laughed the other contemptuously, "if I don't know who he is?"

"If you did," retorted Chauvelin, "it wouldn't help you … much. But beware of every man you don't know; beware of every stranger you meet; trust no one; above all, follow no one. He is there where you least expect him under a disguise you would scarcely dream of."

"Tell me who he is then – since you know him – so that I may duly beware of him."

"No," rejoined Chauvelin with the same slow deliberation, "I will not tell you who he is. Knowledge in this case would be a very dangerous thing."

"Dangerous? To whom?"

"To yourself probably. To me and to the Republic most undoubtedly. No! I will not tell you who the Scarlet Pimpernel is. But take my advice, citizen Martin-Roget," he added emphatically, "go back to Paris or to Nantes and strive there to serve your country rather than run your head into a noose by meddling with things here in England, and running after your own schemes of revenge."

"My own schemes of revenge!" exclaimed Martin-Roget with a hoarse cry that was like a snarl… It seemed as if he wanted to say something more, but that the words choked him even before they reached his lips. The hot flush died down from his forehead and his face was once more the colour of lead. He took up a log from the corner of the hearth and threw it with a savage, defiant gesture into the fire.

Somewhere in the house a clock struck nine.

V

Martin-Roget waited until the last echo of the gong had died away, then he said very slowly and very quietly:

"Forgo my own schemes of revenge? Can you even remotely guess, citizen Chauvelin, what it would mean to a man of my temperament and of my calibre to give up that for which I have toiled and striven for the past four years? Think of what I was on that day when a conglomeration of adverse circumstances turned our proposed expedition against the château de Kernogan into a disaster for our village lads, and a triumph for the duc. I was knocked down and crushed all but to death by the wheels of Mlle. de Kernogan's coach. I managed to crawl in the mud and the cold and the rain, on my hands and knees, hurt, bleeding, half dead, as far as the presbytery of Vertou where the curé kept me hidden at risk of his own life for two days until I was able to crawl farther away out of sight. The curé did not know, I did not know then of the devilish revenge which the duc de Kernogan meant to wreak against my father. The news reached me when it was all over and I had worked my way to Paris with the few sous in my pocket which that good curé had given me, earning bed and bread as I went along. I was an ignorant lout when I arrived in Paris. I had been one of the ci-devant Kernogan's labourers – his chattel, what? – little better or somewhat worse off than a slave. There I heard that my father had been foully murdered – hung for a crime which I was supposed to have committed, for which I had not even been tried. Then the change in me began. For four years I starved in a garret, toiling like a galley-slave with my hands and muscles by day and at my books by night. And what am I now? I have worked at books, at philosophy, at science: I am a man of education. I can talk and discuss with the best of those d – d aristos who flaunt their caprices and their mincing manners in the face of the outraged democracy of two continents. I speak English – almost like a native – and Danish and German too. I can quote English poets and criticise M. de Voltaire. I am an aristo, what? For this I have worked, citizen Chauvelin – day and night – oh! those nights! how I have slaved to make myself what I now am! And all for the one object – the sole object without which existence would have been absolutely unendurable. That object guided me, helped me to bear and to toil, it cheered and comforted me! To be even one day with the duc de Kernogan and with his daughter! to be their master! to hold them at my mercy!.. to destroy or pardon as I choose!.. to be the arbiter of their fate!.. I have worked for four years: now my goal is in sight, and you talk glibly of forgoing my own schemes of revenge! Believe me, citizen Chauvelin," he concluded, "it would be easier for me to hold my right hand into those flames until it hath burned to a cinder than to forgo the hope of that vengeance which has eaten into my soul. It would hurt much less."

He had spoken thus at great length, but with extraordinary restraint. Never once did he raise his voice or indulge in gesture. He spoke in even, monotonous tones, like one who is reciting a lesson; and he sat straight in front of the fire, his elbow on his knee, his chin resting in his hand and his eyes fixed upon the flames.

Chauvelin had listened in perfect silence. The scorn, the resentful anger, the ill-concealed envy of the fallen man for the successful upstart had died out of his glance. Martin-Roget's story, the intensity of feeling betrayed in that absolute, outward calm had caused a chord of sympathy to vibrate in the other's atrophied heart. How well he understood that vibrant passion of hate, that longing to exact an eye for an eye, an outrage for an outrage! Was not his own life given over now to just such a longing? – a mad aching desire to be even once with that hated enemy, that maddening, mocking, elusive Scarlet Pimpernel who had fooled and baffled him so often?

VI

Some few moments had gone by since Martin-Roget's harsh, monotonous voice had ceased to echo through the low raftered room: silence had fallen between the two men – there was indeed nothing more to say; the one had unburthened his over-full heart and the other had understood. They were of a truth made to understand one another, and the silence between them betokened sympathy.

Around them all was still, the stillness of a mist-laden night; in the house no one stirred: the shutter even had ceased to creak; only the crackling of the wood fire broke that silence which soon became oppressive.

Martin-Roget was the first to rouse himself from this trance-like state wherein memory was holding such ruthless sway: he brought his hands sharply down on his knees, turned to look for a moment on his companion, gave a short laugh and finally rose, saying briskly the while:

"And now, citizen, I shall have to bid you adieu and make my way back to Bath. The nags have had the rest they needed and I cannot spend the night here."

He went to the door and opening it called a loud "Hallo, there!"

The same woman who had waited on him on his arrival came slowly down the stairs in response.

"The man with the horses," commanded Martin-Roget peremptorily. "Tell him I'll be ready in two minutes."

He returned to the room and proceeded to struggle into his heavy coat, Chauvelin as before making no attempt to help him. He sat once more huddled up in the ingle-nook hugging his elbows with his thin white hands. There was a smile half scornful, but not wholly dissatisfied around his bloodless lips. When Martin-Roget was ready to go he called out quietly after him:

"The Hollandia remember! At Portishead on the last day of the month. Captain K U Y P E R."

"Quite right," replied Martin-Roget laconically. "I'm not like to forget."

He then picked up his hat and riding whip and went out.

VII

Outside in the porch he found the woman bending over the recumbent figure of his guide.

"He be azleep, Mounzeer," she said placidly, "fast azleep, I do believe."

"Asleep?" cried Martin-Roget roughly, "we'll soon see about waking him up."

He gave the man a violent kick with the toe of his boot. The man groaned, stretched himself, turned over and rubbed his eyes. The light of the swinging lanthorn showed him the wrathful face of his employer. He struggled to his feet very quickly after that.

"Stir yourself, man," cried Martin-Roget savagely, as he gripped the fellow by the shoulder and gave him a vigorous shaking. "Bring the horses along now, and don't keep me waiting, or there'll be trouble."

"All right, Mounzeer, all right," muttered the man placidly, as he shook himself free from the uncomfortable clutch on his shoulder and leisurely made his way out of the porch.

"Haven't you got a boy or a man who can give that lout a hand with those sacré horses?" queried Martin-Roget impatiently. "He hardly knows a horse's head from its tail."

"No, zir, I've no one to-night," replied the woman gently. "My man and my son they be gone down to Watchet to 'elp with the cargo and the pack-'orzes. They won't be 'ere neither till after midnight. But," she added more cheerfully, "I can straighten a saddle if you want it."

"That's all right then – but…"

He paused suddenly, for a loud cry of "Hallo! Well! I'm …" rang through the night from the direction of the rear of the house. The cry expressed both surprise and dismay.

"What the – is it?" called Martin-Roget loudly in response.

"The 'orzes!"

"What about them?"

To this there was no reply, and with a savage oath and calling to the woman to show him the way Martin-Roget ran out in the direction whence had come the cry of dismay. He fell straight into the arms of his guide, who promptly set up another cry, more dismal, more expressive of bewilderment than the first.

"They be gone," he shouted excitedly.

"Who have gone?" queried the Frenchman.