During the journey Marguerite had not much leisure to think. Thediscomforts and petty miseries incidental on cheap travelling hadthe very welcome effect of making her forget, for the time being, thesoul-rendering crisis through which she was now passing.
For, of necessity, she had to travel at the cheap rate, among the crowdof poorer passengers who were herded aft the packet boat, leaning upagainst one another, sitting on bundles and packages of all kinds; thatpart of the deck, reeking with the smell of tar and sea-water, damp,squally and stuffy, was an abomination of hideous discomfort tothe dainty, fastidious lady of fashion, yet she almost welcomed theintolerable propinquity, the cold douches of salt water, which every nowand then wetted her through and through, for it was the consequentsense of physical wretchedness that helped her to forget the intolerableanguish of her mind.
And among these poorer travellers she felt secure from observation. Noone took much notice of her. She looked just like one of the herd, andin the huddled-up little figure, in the dark bedraggled clothes, noone would for a moment have recognized the dazzling personality of LadyBlakeney.
Drawing her hood well over her head, she sat in a secluded corner of thedeck, upon the little black valise which contained the few belongingsshe had brought with her. Her cloak and dress, now mud-stained and dankwith splashings of salt-water, attracted no one's attention. There wasa keen northeasterly breeze, cold and penetrating, but favourable to arapid crossing. Marguerite, who had gone through several hours ofweary travelling by coach, before she had embarked at Dover in the lateafternoon, was unspeakably tired. She had watched the golden sunsetout at sea until her eyes were burning with pain, and as the dazzlingcrimson and orange and purple gave place to the soft grey tones ofevening, she descried the round cupola of the church of Our Lady ofBoulogne against the dull background of the sky.
After that her mind became a blank. A sort of torpor fell over hersense: she was wakeful and yet half-asleep, unconscious of everythingaround her, seeing nothing but the distant massive towers of oldBoulogne churches gradually detaching themselves one by one from out thefast gathering gloom.
The town seemed like a dream city, a creation of some morbidimagination, presented to her mind's eye as the city of sorrow anddeath.
When the boat finally scraped her sides along the rough wooden jetty,Marguerite felt as if she were forcibly awakened. She was numb and stiffand thought she must have fallen asleep during the last half hour of thejourney. Everything round her was dark. The sky was overcast, and thenight seemed unusually sombre. Figures were moving all around her, therewas noise and confusion of voices, and a general pushing and shoutingwhich seemed strangely weird in this gloom. Here among the poorerpassengers, there had not been thought any necessity for a light, onesolitary lantern fixed to a mast only enhanced the intense blackness ofeverything around. Now and then a face would come within range of thismeagre streak of yellow light, looking strangely distorted, withgreat, elongated shadows across the brow and chin, a grotesque, ghostlyapparition which quickly vanished again, scurrying off like somefrightened gnome, giving place other forms, other figures all equallygrotesque and equally weird.
Marguerite watched them all half stupidly and motionlessly for awhile.She did not quite know what she ought to do, and did not like to ask anyquestions: she was dazed and the darkness blinded her. Then graduallythings began to detach themselves more clearly. On looking straightbefore her, she began to discern the landing place, the little woodenbridge across which the passengers walked one by one from the boat ontothe jetty. The first-class passengers were evidently all alighting now:the crowd of which Marguerite formed a unit, had been pushed back in amore compact herd, out of the way for the moment, so that their bettersmight get along more comfortably.
Beyond the landing stage a little booth had been erected, a kind oftent, open in front and lighted up within by a couple of lanthorns.Under this tent there was a table, behind which sat a man dressed insome sort of official looking clothes, and wearing the tricolour scarfacross his chest.
All the passengers from the boat had apparently to file past this tent.Marguerite could see them now quite distinctly, the profiles of thevarious faces, as they paused for a moment in front of the table, beingbrilliantly illuminated by one of the lanterns. Two sentinels wearingthe uniform of the National Guard stood each side of the table. Thepassengers one by one took out their passport as they went by, handedit to the man in the official dress, who examined it carefully, verylengthily, then signed it and returned the paper to its owner: but attimes, he appeared doubtful, folded the passport and put it down infront of him: the passenger would protest; Marguerite could not hearwhat was said, but she could see that some argument was attempted,quickly dismissed by a peremptory order from the official. The doubtfulpassport was obviously put on one side for further examination, and theunfortunate owner thereof detained, until he or she had been ableto give more satisfactory references to the representatives of theCommittee of Public Safety, stationed at Boulogne.
This process of examination necessarily took a long time. Margueritewas getting horribly tired, her feet ached and she scarcely could holdherself upright: yet she watched all these people mechanically, makingabsurd little guesses in her weary mind as to whose passport would findfavour in the eyes of the official, and whose would be found suspect andinadequate.
Suspect! a terrible word these times! since Merlin's terrible lawdecreed now that every man, woman or child, who was suspected by theRepublic of being a traitor was a traitor in fact.
How sorry she felt for those whose passports were detained: who triedto argue--so needlessly!--and who were finally led off by a soldier,who had stepped out from somewhere in the dark, and had to await furtherexamination, probably imprisonment and often death.
As to herself, she felt quite safe: the passport given to her byChauvelin's own accomplice was sure to be quite en regle.
Then suddenly her heart seemed to give a sudden leap and then to stop inits beating for a second or two. In one of the passengers, a man whowas just passing in front of the tent, she had recognized the form andprofile of Chauvelin.
He had no passport to show, but evidently the official knew who hewas, for he stood up and saluted, and listened deferentially whilstthe ex-ambassador apparently gave him a few instructions. It seemed toMarguerite that these instructions related to two women who were closebehind Chauvelin at the time, and who presently seemed to file pastwithout going through the usual formalities of showing their passports.But of this she could not be quite sure. The women were closely hoodedand veiled and her own attention had been completely absorbed by thissudden appearance of her deadly enemy.
Yet what more natural than that Chauvelin should be here now? His objectaccomplished, he had no doubt posted to Dover, just as she had done.There was no difficulty in that, and a man of his type and importancewould always have unlimited means and money at his command to accomplishany journey he might desire to undertake.
There was nothing strange or even unexpected in the man's presence here;and yet somehow it had made the whole, awful reality more tangible, morewholly unforgettable. Marguerite remembered his abject words to her,when first she had seen him at the Richmond fete: he said that hehad fallen into disgrace, that, having failed in his service to theRepublic, he had been relegated to a subordinate position, pushed asidewith contumely to make room for better, abler men.
Well! all that was a lie, of course, a cunning method of gaining accessinto her house; of that she had already been convinced, when Candeilleprovoked the esclandre which led to the challenge.
That on French soil he seemed in anything but a subsidiary position,that he appeared to rule rather than to obey, could in no way appear toMarguerite in the nature of surprise.
As the actress had been a willing tool in the cunning hands ofChauvelin, so were probably all these people around her. Where otherscringed in the face of officialism, the ex-ambassador had stepped forthas a master: he had shown a badge, spoken a word m
ayhap, and the man inthe tent who had made other people tremble, stood up deferentially andobeyed all commands.
It was all very simple and very obvious: but Marguerite's mind had beenasleep, and it was the sight of the sable-clad little figure which hadroused it from its happy torpor.
In a moment now her brain was active and alert, and presently it seemedto her as if another figure--taller than those around--had crossed thebarrier immediately in the wake of Chauvelin. Then she chided herselffor her fancies!
It could not be her husband. Not yet! He had gone by water, and wouldscarce be in Boulogne before the morning!
Ah! now at last came the turn of the second-class passengers! There wasa general bousculade and the human bundle began to move. Marguerite lostsight of the tent and its awe-inspiring appurtenances: she was a mereunit again in this herd on the move. She too progressed along slowly,one step at a time; it was wearisome and she was deadly tired. She wasbeginning to form plans now that she had arrived in France. All alongshe had made up her mind that she would begin by seeking out the AbbeFoucquet, for he would prove a link 'twixt her husband and herself. Sheknew that Percy would communicate with the abbe; had he not toldher that the rescue of the devoted old man from the clutches of theTerrorists would be one of the chief objects of his journey? It hadnever occurred to her what she would do if she found the Abbe Foucquetgone from Boulogne.
"He! la mere! your passport!"
The rough words roused her from her meditations. She had moved forward,quite mechanically, her mind elsewhere, her thoughts not following theaim of her feet. Thus she must have crossed the bridge along with someof the crowd, must have landed on the jetty, and reached the front ofthe tent, without really knowing what she was doing.
Ah yes! her passport! She had quite forgotten that! But she had itby her, quite in order, given to her in a fit of tardy remorse byDemoiselle Candeille, the intimate friend of one of the most influentialmembers of the Revolutionary Government of France.
She took the passport from the bosom of her dress and handed it to theman in the official dress.
"Your name?" he asked peremptorily.
"Celine Dumont," she replied unhesitatingly, for had she not rehearsedall this in her mind dozens of times, until her tongue could rattle offthe borrowed name as easily as it could her own; "servitor to CitizenessDesiree Candeille!"
The man who had very carefully been examining the paper the while,placed it down on the table deliberately in front of him, and said:
"Celine Dumont! Eh! la mere! what tricks are you up to now?"
"Tricks? I don't understand!" she said quietly, for she was not afraid.The passport was en regle: she knew she had nothing to fear.
"Oh! but I think you do!" retorted the official with a sneer, "and'tis a mighty clever one, I'll allow. Celine Dumont, ma foi! Not badlyimagined, ma petite mere: and all would have passed off splendidly;unfortunately, Celine Dumont, servitor to Citizeness Desiree Candeille,passed through these barriers along with her mistress not half an hourago."
And with long, grimy finger he pointed to an entry in the large bookwhich lay open before him, and wherein he had apparently been busymaking notes of the various passengers who had filed past him.
Then he looked up with a triumphant leer at the calm face of Marguerite.She still did not feel really frightened, only puzzled and perturbed;but all the blood had rushed away from her face, leaving her cheeksashen white, and pressing against her heart, until it almost choked her.
"You are making a mistake, Citizen," she said very quietly. "I amCitizeness Candeille's maid. She gave me the passport herself, justbefore I left for England; if you will ask her the question, she willconfirm what I say, and she assured me that it was quite en regle."
But the man only shrugged his shoulders and laughed derisively. Theincident evidently amused him, yet he must have seen many of the samesort; in the far corner of the tent Marguerite seemed to discern a fewmoving forms, soldiers, she thought, for she caught sight of a glintlike that of steel. One or two men stood close behind the official atthe desk, and the sentinels were to the right and left of the tent.
With an instinctive sense of appeal, Marguerite looked round from oneface to the other: but each looked absolutely impassive and stolid,quite uninterested in this little scene, the exact counterpart of adozen others, enacted on this very spot within the last hour.
"He! la! la! petite mere!" said the official in the same tone of easypersiflage which he had adopted all along, "but we do know how toconcoct a pretty lie, aye! and so circumstantially too! Unfortunatelyit was Citizeness Desiree Candeille herself who happened to be standingjust where you are at the present moment, along with her maid, CelineDumont, both of whom were specially signed for and recommended asperfectly trustworthy, by no less a person than Citoyen Chauvelin of theCommittee of Public Safety."
"But I assure you that there is a mistake," pleaded Margueriteearnestly, "'Tis the other woman who lied, I have my passport and..."
"A truce on this," retorted the man peremptorily. "If everything isas you say, and if you have nothing to hide, you'll be at liberty tocontinue your journey to-morrow, after you have explained yourselfbefore the citizen governor. Next one now, quick!"
Marguerite tried another protest, just as those others had done, whomshe had watched so mechanically before. But already she knew that thatwould be useless, for she had felt that a heavy hand was being placed onher shoulder, and that she was being roughly led away.
In a flash she had understood and seen the whole sequel of the awfultrap which had all along been destined to engulf her as well as herhusband.
What a clumsy, blind fool she had been!
What a miserable antagonist the subtle schemes of a past master ofintrigue as was Chauvelin. To have enticed the Scarlet Pimpernel toFrance was a great thing! The challenge was clever, the acceptance ofit by the bold adventurer a forgone conclusion, but the master stroke ofthe whole plan was done, when she, the wife, was enticed over too withthe story of Candeille's remorse and the offer of the passport.
Fool! fool that she was!
And how well did Chauvelin know feminine nature! How cleverly he haddivined her thoughts, her feelings, the impulsive way in which she wouldact; how easily he had guessed that, knowing her husband's danger, she,Marguerite, would immediately follow him.
Now the trap had closed on her--and she saw it all, when it was toolate.
Percy Blakeney in France! His wife a prisoner! Her freedom and safety inexchange for his life!
The hopelessness of it all struck her with appalling force, and hersenses reeled with the awful finality of the disaster.
Yet instinct in her still struggled for freedom. Ahead of her, and allaround, beyond the tent and in the far distance there was a provocativealluring darkness: if she only could get away, only could reach theshelter of that remote and sombre distance, she would hide, and wait,not blunder again, oh no! she would be prudent and wary, if only shecould get away!
One woman's struggles, against five men! It was pitiable, sublime,absolutely useless.
The man in the tent seemed to be watching her with much amusement for amoment or two, as her whole graceful body stiffened for that absurd andunequal physical contest. He seemed vastly entertained at the sight ofthis good-looking young woman striving to pit her strength against fivesturdy soldiers of the Republic.
"Allons! that will do now!" he said at last roughly. "We have no timeto waste! Get the jade away, and let her cool her temper in No. 6, untilthe citizen governor gives further orders.
"Take her away!" he shouted more loudly, banging a grimy fist down onthe table before him, as Marguerite still struggled on with the blindmadness of despair. "Pardi! can none of you rid us of that turbulentbaggage?"
The crowd behind were pushing forward: the guard within the tent werejeering at those who were striving to drag Marguerite away: these latterwere cursing loudly and volubly, until one of them, tired out, furiousand brutal, raised his heavy fist and with an obs
cene oath brought itcrashing down upon the unfortunate woman's head.
Perhaps, though it was the work of a savage and cruel creature, the blowproved more merciful than it had been intended: it had caught Margueritefull between the eyes; her aching senses, wearied and reeling already,gave way beneath this terrible violence; her useless struggles ceased,her arms fell inert by her side: and losing consciousness completely,her proud, unbendable spirit was spared the humiliating knowledge of herfinal removal by the rough soldiers, and of the complete wreckage of herlast, lingering hopes.
Chapter XVIII: No. 6
The Elusive Pimpernel Page 17
