The Elusive Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy (books to read to improve english txt) 📕

“Lord Tony?” she murmured.

“Aye! with Hastings and one or two others. I told them to be ready for us tonight as soon as the place was quiet.”

“You were so sure of success then, Percy?” she asked in wonderment.

“So sure,” he replied simply.

Then he led her to the window, and lifted her onto the sill. It was not high from the ground and two pairs of willing arms were there ready to help her down.

Then he, too, followed, and quietly the little party turned to walk toward the gate. The ramparts themselves now looked strangely still and silent: the merrymakers were far away, only one or two passersby hurried swiftly past here and there, carrying bundles, evidently bent on making use of that welcome permission to leave this dangerous soil.

The little party walked on in silence, Marguerite’s small hand resting on her husband’s arm. Anon they came upon a group of soldiers who were standing somewhat perfunctorily and irresolutely close by the open gate of the Fort.

“Tiens c’est l’Anglais!” said one.

“Morbleu! he is on his way back to England,” commented another lazily.

The gates of Boulogne had been thrown open to everyone when the Angelus was rung and the cannon boomed. The general amnesty had been proclaimed, everyone had the right to come and go as they pleased, the sentinels had been ordered to challenge no one and to let everyone pass.

No one knew that the great and glorious plans for the complete annihilation of the Scarlet Pimpernel and his League had come to naught, that Collot was taking a mighty hoax to Paris, and that the man who had thought out and nearly carried through the most fiendishly cruel plan ever conceived for the destruction of an enemy, lay helpless, bound and gagged, within his own stronghold.

And so the little party, consisting of Sir Percy and Marguerite, Lord Anthony Dewhurst and my Lord Hastings, passed unchallenged through the gates of Boulogne.

Outside the precincts of the town they met my Lord Everingham and Sir Philip Glynde, who had met the Abbé Foucquet outside his little church and escorted him safely out of the city, whilst François and Félicité with their old mother had been under the charge of other members of the League.

“We were all in the procession, dressed up in all sorts of ragged finery, until the last moment,” explained Lord Tony to Marguerite as the entire party now quickly made its way to the harbour. “We did not know what was going to happen.⁠ ⁠… All we knew was that we should be wanted about this time⁠—the hour when the duel was to have been fought⁠—and somewhere near here on the southern ramparts⁠ ⁠… and we always have strict orders to mix with the crowd if there happens to be one. When we saw Blakeney raise the candlesticks we guessed what was coming, and we each went to our respective posts. It was all quite simple.”

The young man spoke gaily and lightly, but through the easy banter of his tone, there pierced the enthusiasm and pride of the soldier in the glory and daring of his chief.

Between the city walls and the harbour there was much bustle and agitation. The English packet-boat would lift anchor at the turn of the tide, and as everyone was free to get aboard without leave or passport, there were a very large number of passengers, bound for the land of freedom.

Two boats from the Daydream were waiting in readiness for Sir Percy and my lady and those whom they would bring with them.

Silently the party embarked, and as the boats pushed off and the sailors from Sir Percy’s yacht bent to their oars, the old Abbé Foucquet began gently droning a Pater and Ave to the accompaniment of his beads.

He accepted joy, happiness and safety with the same gentle philosophy as he would have accepted death, but Marguerite’s keen and loving ears caught at the end of each “Pater” a gently murmured request to le bon Dieu to bless and protect our English rescuer.

Only once did Marguerite make allusion to that terrible time which had become the past.

They were wandering together down the chestnut alley in the beautiful garden at Richmond. It was evening, and the air was heavy with the rich odour of wet earth, of belated roses and dying mignonette. She had paused in the alley, and placed a trembling hand upon his arm, whilst raising her eyes filled with tears of tender passion up to his face.

“Percy!” she murmured, “have you forgiven me?”

“What, m’dear?”

“That awful evening in Boulogne⁠ ⁠… what that fiend demanded⁠ ⁠… his awful ‘either⁠—or’⁠ ⁠… I brought it all upon you⁠ ⁠… it was all my fault.”

“Nay, my dear, for that ’tis I should thank you⁠ ⁠…”

“Thank me?”

“Aye,” he said, whilst in the fast-gathering dusk she could only just perceive the sudden hardening of his face, the look of wild passion in his eyes, “but for that evening in Boulogne, but for that alternative which that devil placed before me, I might never have known how much you meant to me.”

Even the recollection of all the sorrow, the anxiety, the torturing humiliations of that night seemed completely to change him: the voice became trenchant, the hands were tightly clenched. But Marguerite drew nearer to him, her two hands were on his breast, she murmured gently:

“And now?⁠ ⁠…”

He folded her in his arms, with an agony of joy, and said earnestly:

“Now I know.”

The Elusive Pimpernel
was published in 1908 by
Baroness Orczy.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Vince Rice,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2001 by
J. C. Byers, L. M. Shaf, and David Widger
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive.

The cover page is adapted from
Portrait of Monsieur Bertin,
a painting completed in 1832 by
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in