THE SCRAP OF PAPER
Marguerite suffered intensely. Though she laughed and chatted, though
she was more admired, more surrounded, more _fêted_ than any woman
there, she felt like one condemned to death, living her last day upon
this earth.
Her nerves were in a state of painful tension, which had increased a
hundredfold during that brief hour which she had spent in her husband’s
company, between the opera and the ball. The short ray of hope—that she
might find in this good-natured, lazy individual a valuable friend and
adviser—had vanished as quickly as it had come, the moment she found
herself alone with him. The same feeling of good-humoured contempt
which one feels for an animal or a faithful servant, made her turn away
with a smile from the man who should have been her moral support in
this heart-rending crisis through which she was passing: who should
have been her cool-headed adviser, when feminine sympathy and sentiment
tossed her hither and thither, between her love for her brother, who
was far away and in mortal peril, and horror of the awful service which
Chauvelin had exacted from her, in exchange for Armand’s safety.
There he stood, the moral support, the cool-headed adviser, surrounded
by a crowd of brainless, empty-headed young fops, who were even now
repeating from mouth to mouth, and with every sign of the keenest
enjoyment, a doggerel quatrain which he had just given forth.
Everywhere the absurd, silly words met her: people seemed to have
little else to speak about, even the Prince had asked her, with a
laugh, whether she appreciated her husband’s latest poetic efforts.
“All done in the tying of a cravat,” Sir Percy had declared to his
clique of admirers.
“We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?—Is he in hell?
That demmed, elusive Pimpernel?”
Sir Percy’s _bon mot_ had gone the round of the brilliant
reception-rooms. The Prince was enchanted. He vowed that life without
Blakeney would be but a dreary desert. Then, taking him by the arm, had
led him to the card-room, and engaged him in a long game of hazard.
Sir Percy, whose chief interest in most social gatherings seemed to
centre round the card-table, usually allowed his wife to flirt, dance,
to amuse or bore herself as much as she liked. And to-night, having
delivered himself of his _bon mot_, he had left Marguerite surrounded
by a crowd of admirers of all ages, all anxious and willing to help her
to forget that somewhere in the spacious reception-rooms, there was a
long, lazy being who had been fool enough to suppose that the cleverest
woman in Europe would settle down to the prosaic bonds of English
matrimony.
Her still overwrought nerves, her excitement and agitation, lent
beautiful Marguerite Blakeney much additional charm: escorted by a
veritable bevy of men of all ages and of most nationalities, she called
forth many exclamations of admiration from everyone as she passed.
She would not allow herself any more time to think. Her early, somewhat
Bohemian training had made her something of a fatalist. She felt that
events would shape themselves, that the directing of them was not in
her hands. From Chauvelin she knew that she could expect no mercy. He
had set a price upon Armand’s head, and left it to her to pay or not,
as she chose.
Later on in the evening she caught sight of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and
Lord Antony Dewhurst, who seemingly had just arrived. She noticed at
once that Sir Andrew immediately made for little Suzanne de Tournay,
and that the two young people soon managed to isolate themselves in one
of the deep embrasures of the mullioned windows, there to carry on a
long conversation, which seemed very earnest and very pleasant on both
sides.
Both the young men looked a little haggard and anxious, but otherwise
they were irreproachably dressed, and there was not the slightest sign,
about their courtly demeanour, of the terrible catastrophe, which they
must have felt hovering round them and round their chief.
That the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel had no intention of abandoning
its cause, she had gathered through little Suzanne herself, who spoke
openly of the assurance she and her mother had had that the Comte de
Tournay would be rescued from France by the league, within the next few
days. Vaguely she began to wonder, as she looked at the brilliant and
fashionable crowd in the gaily-lighted ball-room, which of these
worldly men round her was the mysterious “Scarlet Pimpernel,” who held
the threads of such daring plots, and the fate of valuable lives in his
hands.
A burning curiosity seized her to know him: although for months she had
heard of him and had accepted his anonymity, as everyone else in
society had done; but now she longed to know—quite impersonally, quite
apart from Armand, and oh! quite apart from Chauvelin—only for her own
sake, for the sake of the enthusiastic admiration she had always
bestowed on his bravery and cunning.
He was at the ball, of course, somewhere, since Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and
Lord Antony Dewhurst were here, evidently expecting to meet their
chief—and perhaps to get a fresh _mot d’ordre_ from him.
Marguerite looked round at everyone, at the aristocratic high-typed
Norman faces, the squarely-built, fair-haired Saxon, the more gentle,
humorous caste of the Celt, wondering which of these betrayed the
power, the energy, the cunning which had imposed its will and its
leadership upon a number of high-born English gentlemen, among whom
rumour asserted was His Royal Highness himself.
Sir Andrew Ffoulkes? Surely not, with his gentle blue eyes, which were
looking so tenderly and longingly after little Suzanne, who was being
led away from the pleasant _tête-à-tête_ by her stern mother.
Marguerite watched him across the room, as he finally turned away with
a sigh, and seemed to stand, aimless and lonely, now that Suzanne’s
dainty little figure had disappeared in the crowd.
She watched him as he strolled towards the doorway, which led to a
small boudoir beyond, then paused and leaned against the framework of
it, looking still anxiously all round him.
Marguerite contrived for the moment to evade her present attentive
cavalier, and she skirted the fashionable crowd, drawing nearer to the
doorway, against which Sir Andrew was leaning. Why she wished to get
closer to him, she could not have said: perhaps she was impelled by an
all-powerful fatality, which so often seems to rule the destinies of
men.
Suddenly she stopped: her very heart seemed to stand still, her eyes,
large and excited, flashed for a moment towards that doorway, then as
quickly were turned away again. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes was still in the
same listless position by the door, but Marguerite had distinctly seen
that Lord Hastings—a young buck, a friend of her husband’s and one of
the Prince’s set—had, as he quickly brushed past him, slipped something
into his hand.
For one moment longer—oh! it was the merest flash—Marguerite paused:
the next she had, with admirably played unconcern, resumed her walk
across the room—but this time more quickly towards that doorway whence
Sir Andrew had now disappeared.
All this, from the moment that Marguerite had caught sight of Sir
Andrew leaning against the doorway, until she followed him into the
little boudoir beyond, had occurred in less than a minute. Fate is
usually swift when she deals a blow.
Now Lady Blakeney had suddenly ceased to exist. It was Marguerite St.
Just who was there only: Marguerite St. Just who had passed her
childhood, her early youth, in the protecting arms of her brother
Armand. She had forgotten everything else—her rank, her dignity, her
secret enthusiasms—everything save that Armand stood in peril of his
life, and that there, not twenty feet away from her, in the small
boudoir which was quite deserted, in the very hands of Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes, might be the talisman which would save her brother’s life.
Barely another thirty seconds had elapsed between the moment when Lord
Hastings slipped the mysterious “something” into Sir Andrew’s hand, and
the one when she, in her turn, reached the deserted boudoir. Sir Andrew
was standing with his back to her and close to a table upon which stood
a massive silver candelabra. A slip of paper was in his hand, and he
was in the very act of perusing its contents.
Unperceived, her soft clinging robe making not the slightest sound upon
the heavy carpet, not daring to breathe until she had accomplished her
purpose, Marguerite slipped close behind him. . . . At that moment he
looked round and saw her; she uttered a groan, passed her hand across
her forehead, and murmured faintly,—
“The heat in the room was terrible . . . I felt so faint. . . . Ah! . .
.”
She tottered almost as if she would fall, and Sir Andrew, quickly
recovering himself, and crumpling in his hand the tiny note he had been
reading, was only, apparently, just in time to support her.
“You are ill, Lady Blakeney?” he asked with much concern. “Let me . .
.”
“No, no, nothing—” she interrupted quickly. “A chair—quick.”
She sank into a chair close to the table, and throwing back her head,
closed her eyes.
“There!” she murmured, still faintly; “the giddiness is passing off. .
. . Do not heed me, Sir Andrew; I assure you I already feel better.”
At moments like these there is no doubt—and psychologists actually
assert it—that there is in us a sense which has absolutely nothing to
do with the other five: it is not that we see, it is not that we hear
or touch, yet we seem to do all three at once. Marguerite sat there
with her eyes apparently closed. Sir Andrew was immediately behind her,
and on her right was the table with the five-armed candelabra upon it.
Before her mental vision there was absolutely nothing but Armand’s
face. Armand, whose life was in the most imminent danger, and who
seemed to be looking at her from a background upon which were dimly
painted the seething crowd of Paris, the bare walls of the Tribunal of
Public Safety, with Foucquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor,
demanding Armand’s life in the name of the people of France, and the
lurid guillotine with its stained knife waiting for another victim . .
. Armand! . . .
For one moment there was dead silence in the little boudoir. Beyond,
from the brilliant ball-room, the sweet notes of the gavotte, the
frou-frou of rich dresses, the talk and laughter of a large and merry
crowd, came as a strange, weird accompaniment to the drama which was
being enacted here.
Sir Andrew had not uttered another word. Then it was that that extra
sense became potent in Marguerite Blakeney. She could not see, for her
eyes were closed; she could not hear, for the noise from the ball-room
drowned the soft rustle of that momentous scrap of paper; nevertheless
she knew—as if she had both seen and heard—that Sir Andrew was even
now holding the paper to the flame of one of the candles.
At the exact moment that it began to catch fire, she opened her eyes,
raised her hand and, with two dainty fingers, had taken the burning
scrap of paper from the young man’s hand. Then she blew out the flame,
and held the paper to her nostril with perfect unconcern.
“How thoughtful of you, Sir Andrew,” she said gaily, “surely ’twas your
grandmother who taught you that the smell of burnt paper was a
sovereign remedy against giddiness.”
She sighed with satisfaction, holding the paper tightly between her
jewelled fingers; that talisman which perhaps would save her brother
Armand’s life. Sir Andrew was staring at her, too dazed for the moment
to realise what had actually happened; he had been taken so completely
by surprise, that he seemed quite unable to grasp the fact that the
slip of paper, which she held in her dainty hand, was one perhaps on
which the life of his comrade might depend.
Marguerite burst into a long, merry peal of laughter.
“Why do you stare at me like that?” she said playfully. “I assure you I
feel much better; your remedy has proved most effectual. This room is
most delightfully cool,” she added, with the same perfect composure,
“and the sound of the gavotte from the ball-room is fascinating and
soothing.”
She was prattling on in the most unconcerned and pleasant way, whilst
Sir Andrew, in an agony of mind, was racking his brains as to the
quickest method he could employ to get that bit of paper out of that
beautiful woman’s hand. Instinctively, vague and tumultuous thoughts
rushed through his mind: he suddenly remembered her nationality, and
worst of all, recollected that horrible tale anent the Marquis de St.
Cyr, which in England no one had credited, for the sake of Sir Percy,
as well as for her own.
“What? Still dreaming and staring?” she said, with a merry laugh, “you
are most ungallant, Sir Andrew; and now I come to think of it, you
seemed more startled than pleased when you saw me just now. I do
believe, after all, that it was not concern for my health, nor yet a
remedy taught you by your grandmother that caused you to burn this tiny
scrap of paper. . . . I vow it must have been your lady love’s last
cruel epistle you were trying to destroy. Now confess!” she added,
playfully holding up the scrap of paper, “does this contain her final
_congé_, or a last appeal to kiss and make friends?”
“Whichever it is, Lady Blakeney,” said Sir Andrew, who was gradually
recovering his self-possession, “this little note is undoubtedly mine,
and . . .”
Not caring whether his action was one that would be styled ill-bred
towards a lady, the young man had made a bold dash for the note; but
Marguerite’s thoughts flew quicker than his own; her actions, under
pressure of this intense excitement, were swifter and more sure. She
was tall and strong; she took a quick step backwards and knocked over
the small Sheraton table which was already top-heavy, and which fell
down with a crash, together with the massive candelabra upon it.
She gave a quick cry of alarm:
“The candles, Sir Andrew—quick!”
There was not much damage done; one or two of the candles had blown out
as the candelabra fell; others had merely sent some grease upon the
valuable carpet; one had ignited the paper shade over it. Sir Andrew
quickly and dexterously put out the flames and replaced the candelabra
upon the table; but this had taken him a few seconds to do, and those
seconds had been all that Marguerite needed to cast a quick glance at
the paper, and to note its contents—a dozen words in the same distorted
handwriting she had seen before, and bearing the same device—a
star-shaped flower drawn in red ink.
When Sir Andrew once more looked at her, he only saw on her face alarm
at the untoward accident and relief at its happy issue; whilst the tiny
and momentous note had apparently fluttered to the ground. Eagerly the
young man picked it up, and his face looked much relieved, as his
fingers closed tightly over it.
“For shame, Sir Andrew,” she said, shaking her head with a playful
sigh, “making havoc in the heart of some impressionable duchess, whilst
conquering the affections of my sweet little Suzanne. Well, well! I do
believe it was Cupid himself who stood by you, and threatened the
entire Foreign Office with destruction by fire, just on purpose to make
me drop love’s message, before it had been polluted by my indiscreet
eyes. To think that, a moment longer, and I might have known the
secrets of an erring duchess.”
“You will forgive me, Lady Blakeney,” said Sir Andrew, now as calm as
she was herself, “if I resume the interesting occupation which you had
interrupted?”
“By all means, Sir Andrew! How should I venture to thwart the love-god
again? Perhaps he would mete out some terrible chastisement against my
presumption. Burn your love-token, by all means!”
Sir Andrew had already twisted the paper into a long spill, and was
once again holding it to the flame of the candle, which had remained
alight. He did not notice the strange smile on the face of his fair
_vis-à-vis_, so intent was he on the work of destruction; perhaps, had
he done so, the look of relief would have faded from his face. He
watched the fateful note, as it curled under the flame. Soon the last
fragment fell on the floor, and he placed his heel upon the ashes.
“And now, Sir Andrew,” said Marguerite Blakeney, with the pretty
nonchalance peculiar to herself, and with the most winning of smiles,
“will you venture to excite the jealousy of your fair lady by asking me
to dance the minuet?”