LORD TONY
I
A quarter of an hour later citizen-commandant Fleury was at last ushered
into the presence of the proconsul and received upon his truly innocent
head the full torrent of the despot's wrath. But Martin-Roget had
listened to the counsels of prudence: for obvious reasons he desired to
avoid any personal contact for the moment with Carrier, whom fear of the
English spies had made into a more abject and more craven tyrant than
ever before. At the same time he thought it wisest to try and pacify the
brute by sending him the ten thousand francs--the bribe agreed upon for
his help in the undertaking which had culminated in such a disastrous
failure.
At the self-same hour whilst Carrier--fuming and swearing--was for the
hundredth time uttering that furious "How?" which for the hundredth time
had remained unanswered, two men were taking leave of one another at the
small postern gate which gives on the cemetery of St. Anne. The taller
and younger one of the two had just dropped a heavy purse into the hand
of the other. The latter stooped and kissed the kindly hand.
"Milor," he said, "I swear to you most solemnly that M. le duc de
Kernogan will rest in peace in hallowed ground. M. le cure de
Vertou--ah! he is a saint and a brave man, milor--comes over whenever he
can prudently do so and reads the offices for the dead--over those who
have died as Christians, and there is a piece of consecrated ground out
here in the open which those fiends of Terrorists have not discovered
yet."
"And you will bury M. le duc immediately," admonished the younger man,
"and apprise M. le cure of what has happened."
"Aye! aye! I'll do that, milor, within the hour. Though M. le duc was
never a very kind master to me in the past, I cannot forget that I
served him and his family for over thirty years as coachman. I drove
Mlle. Yvonne in the first pony-cart she ever possessed. I drove her--ah!
that was a bitter day!--her and M. le duc when they left Kernogan never
to return. I drove Mlle. Yvonne on that memorable night when a crowd of
miserable peasants attacked her coach, and that brute Pierre Adet
started to lead a rabble against the chateau. That was the beginning of
things, milor. God alone knows what has happened to Pierre Adet. His
father Jean was hanged by order of M. le duc. Now M. le duc is destined
to lie in a forgotten grave. I serve this abominable Republic by digging
graves for her victims. I would be happier, I think, if I knew what had
become of Mlle. Yvonne."
"Mlle. Yvonne is my wife, old friend," said the younger man softly.
"Please God she has years of happiness before her, if I succeed in
making her forget all that she has suffered."
"Amen to that, milor!" rejoined the man fervently. "Then I pray you tell
the noble lady to rest assured. Jean-Marie--her old coachman whom she
used to trust implicitly in the past--will see that M. le duc de
Kernogan is buried as a gentleman and a Christian should be."
"You are not running too great a risk by this, I hope, my good
Jean-Marie," quoth Lord Tony gently.
"No greater risk, milor," replied Jean-Marie earnestly, "than the one
which you ran by carrying my old master's dead body on your shoulders
through the streets of Nantes."
"Bah! that was simple enough," said the younger man, "the hue and cry is
after higher quarry to-night. Pray God the hounds have not run the noble
game to earth."
Even as he spoke there came from far away through the darkness the sound
of a fast trotting pair of horses and the rumble of coach-wheels on the
unpaved road.
"There they are, thank God!" exclaimed Lord Tony, and the tremor in his
voice alone betrayed the torturing anxiety which he had been enduring,
ever since he had seen the last both of his adored young wife and of his
gallant chief in the squalid tap-room of the Rat Mort.
With the dead body of Yvonne's father on his back he had quietly worked
his way out of the tavern in the wake of his chief. He had his orders,
and for the members of that gallant League of the Scarlet Pimpernel
there was no such word as "disobedience" and no such word as "fail."
Through the darkness and through the tortuous streets of Nantes Lord
Anthony Dewhurst--the young and wealthy exquisite, the hero of an
hundred fetes and galas in Bath, in London--staggered under the weight
of a burden imposed upon him only by his loyalty and a noble sense of
self-prescribed discipline--and that burden the dead body of the man who
had done him an unforgivable wrong. Without a thought of revolt he had
obeyed--and risked his life and worse in the obedience.
The darkness of the night was his faithful handmaiden, and the
excitement of the chase after the other quarry had fortunately drawn
every possible enemy from his track. He had set his teeth and
accomplished his task, and even the deathly anxiety for the wife whom he
idolised had been crushed, under the iron heel of a grim resolve. Now
his work was done, and from far away he heard the rattle of the coach
wheels which were bringing his beloved nearer and nearer to him.
Five minutes longer and the coach came to a halt. A cheery voice called
out gaily:
"Tony! are you there?"
"Percy!" exclaimed the young man.
Already he knew that all was well. The gallant leader, the loyal and
loving friend, had taxed every resource of a boundlessly fertile brain
in order to win yet another wreath of immortal laurels for the League
which he commanded, and the very tone of his merry voice proclaimed the
triumph which had crowned his daring scheme.
The next moment Yvonne lay in the arms of her dear milor. He had stepped
into the carriage, even while Sir Percy climbed nimbly on the box and
took the reins from the bewildered coachman's hands.
"Citizen proconsul ..." murmured the latter, who of a truth thought that
he was dreaming.
"Get off the box, you old noodle," quoth the pseudo-proconsul
peremptorily. "Thou and thy friend the postilion will remain here in the
road, and on the morrow you'll explain to whomsoever it may concern that
the English spy made a murderous attack on you both and left you half
dead outside the postern gate of the cemetery of Ste. Anne. Here," he
added as he threw a purse down to the two men--who half-dazed and
overcome by superstitious fear had indeed scrambled down, one from his
box, the other from his horse--"there's a hundred francs for each of
you in there, and mind you drink to the health of the English spy and
the confusion of your brutish proconsul."
There was no time to lose: the horses--still very fresh--were fretting
to start.
"Where do we pick up Hastings and Ffoulkes?" asked Sir Percy Blakeney
finally as he turned toward the interior of the barouche, the hood of
which hid its occupants from view.
"At the comer of the rue de Gigan," came the quick answer. "It is only
two hundred metres from the city gate. They are on the look out for
you."
"Ffoulkes shall be postilion," rejoined Sir Percy with a laugh, "and
Hastings sit beside me on the box. And you will see how at the city gate
and all along the route soldiers of the guard will salute the equipage
of the all-powerful proconsul of Nantes. By Gad!" he added under his
breath, "I've never had a merrier time in all my life--not even
when...."
He clicked his tongue and gave the horses their heads--and soon the
coachman and the postilion and Jean-Marie the gravedigger of the
cemetery of Ste. Anne were left gaping out into the night in the
direction where the barouche had so quickly disappeared.
"Now for Le Croisic and the _Day-Dream_," sighed the daring adventurer
contentedly, "... and for Marguerite!" he added wistfully.
II
Under the hood of the barouche Yvonne, wearied but immeasurably happy,
was doing her best to answer all her dear milor's impassioned questions
and to give him a fairly clear account of that terrible chase and
flight through the streets of the Isle Feydeau.
"Ah, milor, how can I tell you what I felt when I realised that I was
being carried along in the arms of the valiant Scarlet Pimpernel? A word
from him and I understood. After that I tried to be both resourceful and
brave. When the chase after us was at its hottest we slipped into a
ruined and deserted house. In a room at the back there were several
bundles of what looked like old clothes. 'This is my store-house,' milor
said to me; 'now that we have reached it we can just make long noses at
the whole pack of bloodhounds.' He made me slip into some boy's clothes
which he gave me, and whilst I donned these he disappeared. When he
returned I truly did not recognise him. He looked horrible, and his
voice ...! After a moment or two he laughed, and then I knew him. He
explained to me the role which I was to play, and I did my best to obey
him in everything. But oh! I hardly lived while we once more emerged
into the open street and then turned into the great Place which was
full--oh full!--of people. I felt that at every moment we might be
suspected. Figure to yourself, my dear milor...."
What Yvonne Dewhurst was about to say next will never be recorded. My
lord Tony had closed her lips with a kiss.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note
Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer
errors have been changed and are listed below. All other
inconsistencies are as in the original.
Characters that could not be displayed directly in Latin-1 are
transcribed as follows:
_ - Italics
The following changes have been made to the text:
Page vii. "Bouffaye" changed to "Bouffay".
Page 27: "down-trodden" changed to "downtrodden".
Page 46: "waste land" changed to "wasteland".
Page 54: "interfence" changed to "interference".
Page 57: "such like" changed to suchlike".
Page 71: "overfull" changed to "over-full'.
Page 80: "were hard to enumerate" changed to "was hard to enumerate".
Page 109: "aqua-marine" changed to "aquamarine".
Page 147: "taff-rail" changed to "taffrail".
Page 163: "Nante's" changed to Nantes".
Page 198: "what reports" changed to "What reports".
Page 204: "plans wth" changed to "plans with".
Page 205: "clawlike" changed to claw-like".
Page 207: "passersby" changed to "passers-by".
Page 228: "fish crashing" change to "fist crashing".
Page 238: "anteroom" changed to "ante-room".
Page 239: "hs pocket" changed to "his pocket".
Page 240: "our of Carrier's" changed to "out of Carrier's".
Page 240: "abominal doggrel" changed to "abominable doggrel".
Page 248: "overbearing" changed to "over-bearing".
Page 252: "cutthroat" changed to "cut-throat".
Page 254: "good dead of" changed to "good deal of".
Page 300: "tried to smoothe" changed to "tried to smooth".
Page 308: "ricketty" changed to "rickety".
Page 315: "Hotel de le Villestreux" changed to "Hotel de la
Villestreux".
Page 318: "nighthawks" changed to "night hawks".
Page 318: "lustry" changed to "lusty".
Page 319: "Hotel de le Villestreux" changed to "Hotel de la
Villestreux".
End of Project Gutenberg's Lord Tony's Wife, by Baroness Emmuska Orczy