There was no time to say more then. For the laughing, chatting groups
of friends had once more closed up round Marguerite and her husband,
and she, ever on the alert, gave neither look nor sign that any serious
conversation had taken place between Sir Percy and herself.
Whatever she might feel or dread with regard to the foolhardy adventures
in which he still persistently embarked, no member of the League
ever guarded the secret of his chief more loyally than did Marguerite
Blakeney.
Though her heart overflowed with a passionate pride in her husband, she
was clever enough to conceal every emotion save that which Nature had
insisted on imprinting in her face, her present radiant happiness
and her irresistible love. And thus before the world she kept up that
bantering way with him, which had characterized her earlier matrimonial
life, that good-natured, easy contempt which he had so readily accepted
in those days, and which their entourage would have missed and would
have enquired after, if she had changed her manner towards him too
suddenly.
In her heart she knew full well that within Percy Blakeney's soul
she had a great and powerful rival: his wild, mad, passionate love of
adventure. For it he would sacrifice everything, even his life; she
dared not ask herself if he would sacrifice his love.
Twice in a few weeks he had been over to France: every time he went she
could not know if she would ever see him again. She could not imagine
how the French Committee of Public Safety could so clumsily allow the
hated Scarlet Pimpernel to slip through its fingers. But she never
attempted either to warn him or to beg him not to go. When he brought
Paul Deroulede and Juliette Marny over from France, her heart went
out to the two young people in sheer gladness and pride because of his
precious life, which he had risked for them.
She loved Juliette for the dangers Percy had passed, for the anxieties
she herself had endured; only to-day, in the midst of this beautiful
sunshine, this joy of the earth, of summer and of the sky, she had
suddenly felt a mad, overpowering anxiety, a deadly hatred of the
wild adventurous life, which took him so often away from her side. His
pleasant, bantering reply precluded her following up the subject, whilst
the merry chatter of people round her warned her to keep her words and
looks under control.
But she seemed now to feel the want of being alone, and, somehow, that
distant booth with its flaring placard, and the crier in the Phrygian
cap, exercised a weird fascination over her.
Instinctively she bent her steps thither, and equally instinctively the
idle throng of her friends followed her. Sir Percy alone had halted in
order to converse with Lord Hastings, who had just arrived.
“Surely, Lady Blakeney, you have no thought of patronising that
gruesome spectacle?” said Lord Anthony Dewhurst, as Marguerite almost
mechanically had paused within a few yards of the solitary booth.
“I don't know,” she said, with enforced gaiety, “the place seems
to attract me. And I need not look at the spectacle,” she added
significantly, as she pointed to a roughly-scribbled notice at the
entrance of the tent: “In aid of the starving poor of Paris.”
“There's a good-looking woman who sings, and a hideous mechanical toy
that moves,” said one of the young men in the crowd. “It is very dark
and close inside the tent. I was lured in there for my sins, and was in
a mighty hurry to come out again.”
“Then it must be my sins that are helping to lure me too at the present
moment,” said Marguerite lightly. “I pray you all to let me go in there.
I want to hear the good-looking woman sing, even if I do not see the
hideous toy on the move.”
“May I escort you then, Lady Blakeney?” said Lord Tony.
“Nay! I would rather go in alone,” she replied a trifle impatiently. “I
beg of you not to heed my whim, and to await my return, there, where the
music is at its merriest.”
It had been bad manners to insist. Marguerite, with a little
comprehensive nod to all her friends, left the young cavaliers still
protesting and quickly passed beneath the roughly constructed doorway
that gave access into the booth.
A man, dressed in theatrical rags and wearing the characteristic scarlet
cap, stood immediately within the entrance, and ostentatiously rattled a
money box at regular intervals.
“For the starving poor of Paris,” he drawled out in nasal monotonous
tones the moment he caught sight of Marguerite and of her rich gown. She
dropped some gold into the box and then passed on.
The interior of the booth was dark and lonely-looking after the glare
of the hot September sun and the noisy crowd that thronged the sward
outside. Evidently a performance had just taken place on the elevated
platform beyond, for a few yokels seemed to be lingering in a desultory
manner as if preparatory to going out.
A few disjointed comments reached Marguerite's ears as she approached,
and the small groups parted to allow her to pass. One or two women
gaped in astonishment at her beautiful dress, whilst others bobbed a
respectful curtsey.
The mechanical toy arrested her attention immediately. She did not find
it as gruesome as she expected, only singularly grotesque, with all
those wooden little figures in their quaint, arrested action.
She drew nearer to have a better look, and the yokels who had lingered
behind, paused, wondering if she would make any remark.
“Her ladyship was born in France,” murmured one of the men, close to
her, “she would know if the thing really looks like that.”
“She do seem interested,” quoth another in a whisper.
“Lud love us all!” said a buxom wench, who was clinging to the arm of a
nervous-looking youth, “I believe they're coming for more money.”
On the elevated platform at the further end of the tent, a slim
figure had just made its appearance, that of a young woman dressed in
peculiarly sombre colours, and with a black lace hood thrown lightly
over her head.
Marguerite thought that the face seemed familiar to her, and she also
noticed that the woman carried a large embroidered reticule in her
bemittened hand.
There was a general exodus the moment she appeared. The Richmond yokels
did not like the look of that reticule. They felt that sufficient
demand had already been made upon their scant purses, considering the
meagerness of the entertainment, and they dreaded being lured to further
extravagance.
When Marguerite turned away from the mechanical toy, the last of the
little crowd had disappeared, and she was alone in the booth with the
woman in the dark kirtle and black lace hood.
“For the poor of Paris, Madame,” said the latter mechanically, holding
out her reticule.
Marguerite was looking at her intently. The face certainly seemed
familiar, recalling to her mind the far-off days in Paris, before
she married. Some young actress no doubt driven out of France by that
terrible turmoil which had caused so much sorrow and so much suffering.
The face was pretty, the figure slim and elegant, and the look of
obvious sadness in the dark, almond-shaped eyes was calculated to
inspire sympathy and pity.
Yet, strangely enough, Lady Blakeney felt repelled and chilled by this
sombrely-dressed young person: an instinct, which she could not have
explained and which she felt had no justification, warned her that
somehow or other, the sadness was not quite genuine, the appeal for the
poor not quite heartfelt.
Nevertheless, she took out her purse, and dropping some few sovereigns
into the capacious reticule, she said very kindly:
“I hope that you are satisfied with your day's work, Madame; I fear
me our British country folk hold the strings of their purses somewhat
tightly these times.”
The woman sighed and shrugged her shoulders.
“Oh, Madame!” she said with a tone of great dejection, “one does what
one can for one's starving countrymen, but it is very hard to elicit
sympathy over here for them, poor dears!”
“You are a Frenchwoman, of course,” rejoined Marguerite, who had noted
that though the woman spoke English with a very pronounced foreign
accent, she had nevertheless expressed herself with wonderful fluency
and correctness.
“Just like Lady Blakeney herself,” replied the other.
“You know who I am?”
“Who could come to Richmond and not know Lady Blakeney by sight.”
“But what made you come to Richmond on this philanthropic errand of
yours?”
“I go where I think there is a chance of earning a little money for
the cause which I have at heart,” replied the Frenchwoman with the same
gentle simplicity, the same tone of mournful dejection.
What she said was undoubtedly noble and selfless. Lady Blakeney felt in
her heart that her keenest sympathy should have gone out to this
young woman--pretty, dainty, hardly more than a girl--who seemed to be
devoting her young life in a purely philanthropic and unselfish cause.
And yet in spite of herself, Marguerite seemed unable to shake off that
curious sense of mistrust which had assailed her from the first, nor
that feeling of unreality and staginess with which the Frenchwoman's
attitude had originally struck her.
Yet she tried to be kind and to be cordial, tried to hide that coldness
in her manner which she felt was unjustified.
“It is all very praiseworthy on your part, Madame,” she said somewhat
lamely. “Madame...?” she added interrogatively.
“My name is Candeille--Desiree Candeille,” replied the Frenchwoman.
“Candeille?” exclaimed Marguerite with sudden alacrity, “Candeille...
surely...”
“Yes... of the Varietes.”
“Ah! then I know why your face from the first seemed familiar to me,”
said Marguerite, this time with unaffected cordiality. “I must have
applauded you many a time in the olden days. I am an ex-colleague, you
know. My name was St. Just before I married, and I was of the Maison
Moliere.”
“I knew that,” said Desiree Candeille, “and half hoped that you would
remember me.”
“Nay! who could forget Demoiselle Candeille, the most popular star in
the theatrical firmament?”
“Oh! that was so long ago.”
“Only four years.”
“A fallen star is soon lost out of sight.”
“Why fallen?”
“It was a choice for me between exile from France and the guillotine,”
rejoined Candeille simply.
“Surely not?” queried Marguerite with a touch of genuine sympathy.
With characteristic impulsiveness, she had now cast aside her former
misgivings: she had conquered her mistrust, at any rate had relegated
it to the background of her mind. This woman was a colleague: she had
suffered and was in distress; she had every claim, therefore, on a
compatriot's help and friendship. She stretched out her hand and took
Desiree Candeille's in her own; she forced herself to feel nothing but
admiration for this young woman, whose whole attitude spoke of sorrows
nobly borne, of misfortunes proudly endured.
“I don't know why I should sadden you with my story,” rejoined Desiree
Candeille after a slight pause, during which she seemed to be waging
war against her own emotion. “It is not a very interesting one. Hundreds
have suffered as I did. I had enemies in Paris. God knows how that
happened. I had never harmed anyone, but someone must have hated me and
must have wished me ill. Evil is so easily wrought in France these days.
A denunciation--a perquisition--an accusation--then the flight from
Paris... the forged passports... the disguise... the bribe... the
hardships... the squalid hiding places.... Oh! I have gone through
it all... tasted every kind of humiliation... endured every kind of
insult.... Remember! that I was not a noble aristocrat... a Duchess
or an impoverished Countess...” she added with marked bitterness, “or
perhaps the English cavaliers whom the popular voice has called the
League of the Scarlet Pimpernel would have taken some interest in me. I
was only a poor actress and had to find my way out of France alone, or
else perish on the guillotine.”
“I am so sorry!” said Marguerite simply.
“Tell me how you got on, once you were in England,” she continued after
a while, seeing that Desiree Candeille seemed absorbed in thought.
“I had a few engagements at first,” replied the Frenchwoman. “I played
at Sadler's Wells and with Mrs. Jordan at Covent Garden, but the Aliens'
Bill put an end to my chances of livelihood. No manager cared to give me
a part, and so...”
“And so?”
“Oh! I had a few jewels and I sold them.... A little money and I live on
that.... But when I played at Covent Garden I contrived to send part of
my salary over to some of the poorer clubs of Paris. My heart aches for
those that are starving.... Poor wretches, they are misguided and misled
by self-seeking demagogues.... It hurts me to feel that I can do nothing
more to help them... and eases my self-respect if, by singing at public
fairs, I can still send a few francs to those who are poorer than
myself.”
She had spoken with ever-increasing passion and vehemence. Marguerite,
with eyes fixed into vacancy, seeing neither the speaker nor her
surroundings, seeing only visions of those same poor wreckages of
humanity, who had been goaded into thirst for blood, when their shrunken
bodies should have been clamouring for healthy food,--Marguerite
thus absorbed, had totally forgotten her earlier prejudices and now
completely failed to note all that was unreal, stagy, theatrical, in the
oratorical declamations of the ex-actress from the Varietes.
Pre-eminently true and loyal herself in spite of the many deceptions and
treacheries which she had witnessed in her life, she never looked for
falsehood or for cant in others. Even now she only saw before her a
woman who had been wrongfully persecuted, who had suffered and had
forgiven those who had caused her to suffer. She bitterly accused
herself for her original mistrust of this noble-hearted, unselfish
woman, who was content to tramp around in an alien country, bartering
her talents for a few coins, in order that some of those, who were the
originators of her sorrows, might have bread to eat and a bed in which
to sleep.
“Mademoiselle,” she said warmly, “truly you shame me, who am also
French-born, with the many sacrifices you so nobly make for those who
should have first claim on my own sympathy. Believe me, if I have
not done as much as duty demanded of me in the cause of my starving
compatriots, it has not been for lack of good-will. Is there any way
now,” she added eagerly, “in which I can help you? Putting aside the
question of money, wherein I pray you to command my assistance, what can
I do to be of useful service to you?”
“You are very kind, Lady Blakeney...” said the other hesitatingly.
“Well? What is it? I see there is something in your mind...”
“It is perhaps difficult to express... but people say I have a good
voice... I sing some French ditties... they are a novelty in England, I
think.... If I could sing them in fashionable salons... I might
perhaps...”
“Nay! you shall sing in fashionable salons,” exclaimed Marguerite
eagerly, “you shall become the fashion, and I'll swear the Prince of
Wales himself shall bid you sing at Carlton House... and you shall name
your own fee, Mademoiselle... and London society shall vie with the
elite of Bath, as to which shall lure you to its most frequented
routs.... There! there! you shall make a fortune for the Paris poor...
and to prove to you that I mean every word I say, you shall begin your
triumphant career in my own salon to-morrow night. His Royal Highness
will be present. You shall sing your most engaging songs... and for
your fee you must accept a hundred guineas, which you shall send to
the poorest workman's club in Paris in the name of Sir Percy and Lady
Blakeney.”
“I thank your ladyship, but...”
“You'll not refuse?”
“I'll accept gladly... but... you will understand... I am not very old,”
said Candeille quaintly, “I... I am only an actress... but if a young
actress is unprotected... then...”
“I understand,” replied Marguerite gently, “that you are far too pretty
to frequent the world all alone, and that you have a mother, a sister
or a friend... which?... whom you would wish to escort you to-morrow. Is
that it?”
“Nay,” rejoined the actress, with marked bitterness, “I have neither
mother, nor sister, but our Revolutionary Government, with tardy
compassion for those it has so relentlessly driven out of France,
has deputed a representative of theirs in England to look after the
interests of French subjects over here!”
“Yes?”
“They have realised over in Paris that my life here has been devoted to
the welfare of the poor people of France. The representative whom the
government has sent to England is specially interested in me and in
my work. He is a stand-by for me in case of trouble... in case of
insults... A woman alone is oft subject to those, even at the hands of
so-called gentlemen... and the official representative of my own country
becomes in such cases my most natural protector.”
“I understand.”
“You will receive him?”
“Certainly.”
“Then may I present him to your ladyship?”
“Whenever you like.”
“Now, and it please you.”
“Now?”
“Yes. Here he comes, at your ladyship's service.”
Desiree Candeille's almond-shaped eyes were fixed upon a distant part of
the tent, behind Lady Blakeney in the direction of the main entrance
to the booth. There was a slight pause after she had spoken and
then Marguerite slowly turned in order to see who this official
representative of France was, whom at the young actress' request she had
just agreed to receive in her house. In the doorway of the tent, framed
by its gaudy draperies, and with the streaming sunshine as a brilliant
background behind him, stood the sable-clad figure of Chauvelin.