The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy (good romance books to read .txt) 📕

“Absolutely, milor,” replied Lenègre, even as he made ready to obey Sir Percy’s orders, “but what about you? You cannot get out of this house, milor,” he urged; “it is watched, I tell you.”

“La!” broke in Blakeney, in his lighthearted way, “and do you think I didn’t know that? I had to come and tell you about Pierre, and now I must give those worthy gendarmes the slip somehow. I have my rooms downstairs on the ground floor, as you know, and I must make certain arrangements so that we can all get out of Paris comfortably this evening. The demmed place is no longer safe either for you, my good Lenègre, or for petite maman and Rosette. But wherever I may be, meanwhile, don’t worry about me. As soon as the gendarmes have been and gone, I’ll go over to the Rue Ste. Anne and let you know what arrangements I’ve been able to make. So do as I tell you now, and in Heaven’s name let me look after myself.”

Whereupon, with scant ceremony, he hustled the old man out of the room.

Père Lenègre had contrived to kiss petite maman and Rosette before he went. It was touching to see the perfect confidence with which these simple-hearted folk obeyed the commands of milor. Had he not saved Pierre in his wonderful, brave, resourceful way? Of a truth he would know how to save Père Lenègre also. But, nevertheless, anguish gripped the women’s hearts; anguish doubly keen since the saviour of Pierre was also in danger now.

When Père Lenègre’s shuffling footsteps had died away along the flagged corridor, the stranger once more turned to the two women.

“And now, petite maman,” he said cheerily, as he kissed the old woman on both her furrowed cheeks, “keep up a good heart, and say your prayers with Rosette. Your old man and I will both have need of them.”

He did not wait to say goodbye, and anon it was his firm footstep that echoed down the corridor. He went off singing a song, at the top of his voice, for the whole house to hear, and for that traitor, Jean Baptiste, to come rushing out of his room marvelling at the impudence of the man, and cursing the Committee of Public Safety who were so slow in sending the soldiers of the Republic to lay this impertinent Englishman by the heels.

A quarter of an hour later half a dozen men of the Republican Guard, with corporal and sergeant in command, were in the small apartment on the fifth floor of the tenement house in the Rue Jolivet. They had demanded an entry in the name of the Republic, had roughly hustled petite maman and Rosette, questioned them to Lenègre’s whereabouts, and not satisfied with the reply which they received, had turned the tidy little home topsy-turvy, ransacked every cupboard, dislocated every bed, table or sofa which might presumably have afforded a hiding place for a man.

Satisfied now that the “suspect” whom they were searching for was not on the premises, the sergeant stationed four of his men with the corporal outside the door, and two within, and himself sitting down in the centre of the room ordered the two women to stand before him and to answer his questions clearly on pain of being dragged away forthwith to the St. Lazare house of detention.

Petite maman smoothed out her apron, crossed her arms before her, and looked the sergeant quite straight in the face. Rosette’s eyes were full of tears, but she showed no signs of fear either, although her shoulder⁠—where one of the gendarmes had seized it so roughly⁠—was terribly painful.

“Your husband, citizeness,” asked the sergeant peremptorily, “where is he?”

“I am not sure, citizen,” replied petite maman. “At this hour he is generally at the government works in the Quai des Messageries.”

“He is not there now,” asserted the sergeant. “We have knowledge that he did not go back to his work since dinnertime.”

Petite maman was silent.

“Answer,” ordered the sergeant.

“I cannot tell you more, citizen sergeant,” she said firmly. “I do not know.”

“You do yourself no good, woman, by this obstinacy,” he continued roughly. “My belief is that your husband is inside this house, hidden away somewhere. If necessary I can get orders to have every apartment searched until he is found: but in that case it will go much harder with you and with your daughter, and much harder too with your husband than if he gave us no trouble and followed us quietly.”

But with sublime confidence in the man who had saved Pierre and who had given her explicit orders as to what she should do, petite maman, backed by Rosette, reiterated quietly:

“I cannot tell you more, citizen sergeant, I do not know.”

“And what about the Englishman?” queried the sergeant more roughly, “the man they call the Scarlet Pimpernel, what do you know of him?”

“Nothing, citizen,” replied petite maman, “what should we poor folk know of an English milor?”

“You know at any rate this much, citizeness, that the English milor helped your son Pierre to escape from justice.”

“If that is so,” said petite maman quietly, “it cannot be wrong for a mother to pray to God to bless her son’s preserver.”

“It behooves every good citizen,” retorted the sergeant firmly, “to denounce all traitors to the Republic.”

“But since I know nothing about the Englishman, citizen sergeant⁠—?”

And petite maman shrugged her thin shoulders as if the matter had ceased to interest her.

“Think again, citizeness,” admonished the sergeant, “it is your husband’s neck as well as your daughter’s and your own that you are risking by so much obstinacy.”

He waited a moment or two as if willing to give the old woman time to speak: then, when he saw that she kept her thin, quivering lips resolutely glued together he called his