The Elusive Pimpernel
Page 10
There are several accounts extant, in the fashionable chronicles of thetime, of the gorgeous reception given that autumn by Lady Blakeney inher magnificent riverside home.
Never had the spacious apartments of Blakeney Manor looked moreresplendent than on this memorable occasion--memorable because of theevents which brought the brilliant evening to a close.
The Prince of Wales had come over by water from Carlton House; the RoyalPrincesses came early, and all fashionable London was there, chatteringand laughing, displaying elaborate gowns and priceless jewels dancing,flirting, listening to the strains of the string band, or strollinglistlessly in the gardens, where the late roses and clumps of heliotropethrew soft fragrance on the balmy air.
But Marguerite was nervous and agitated. Strive how she might, shecould not throw off that foreboding of something evil to come, which hadassailed her from the first moment when she met Chauvelin face to face.
That unaccountable feeling of unreality was still upon her, that sensethat she, and the woman Candeille, Percy and even His Royal Highnesswere, for the time being, the actors in a play written and stage-managedby Chauvelin. The ex-ambassador's humility, his offers of friendship,his quietude under Sir Percy's good-humoured banter, everything was asham. Marguerite knew it; her womanly instinct, her passionate love, allcried out to her in warning: but there was that in her husband's naturewhich rendered her powerless in the face of such dangers, as, she feltsure, were now threatening him.
Just before her guests had begun to assemble, she had been alone withhim for a few minutes. She had entered the room in which he sat, lookingradiantly beautiful in a shimmering gown of white and silver, withdiamonds in her golden hair and round her exquisite neck.
Moments like this, when she was alone with him, were the joy of herlife. Then and then only did she see him as he really was, with thatwistful tenderness in his deep-set eyes, that occasional flashof passion from beneath the lazily-drooping lids. For a fewminutes--seconds, mayhap--the spirit of the reckless adventurer was laidto rest, relegated into the furthermost background of this senses by thepowerful emotions of the lover.
Then he would seize her in his arms, and hold her to him, with a strangelonging to tear from out his heart all other thoughts, feelings andpassions save those which made him a slave to her beauty and her smiles.
"Percy!" she whispered to him to-night when freeing herself from hisembrace she looked up at him, and for this one heavenly second felthim all her own. "Percy, you will do nothing rash, nothing foolhardyto-night. That man had planned all that took place yesterday. He hatesyou, and ..."
In a moment his face and attitude had changed, the heavy lids droopedover the eyes, the rigidity of the mouth relaxed, and that quaint,half-shy, half-inane smile played around the firm lips.
"Of course he does, m'dear," he said in his usual affected, drawlytones, "of course he does, but that is so demmed amusing. He does notreally know what or how much he knows, or what I know.... In fact...er... we none of us know anything... just at present...."
He laughed lightly and carelessly, then deliberately readjusted the setof his lace tie.
"Percy!" she said reproachfully.
"Yes, m'dear."
"Lately when you brought Deroulede and Juliette Marny to England... Iendured agonies of anxiety... and..."
He sighed, a quick, short, wistful sigh, and said very gently:
"I know you did, m'dear, and that is where the trouble lies. I know thatyou are fretting, so I have to be so demmed quick about the business,so as not to keep you in suspense too long.... And now I can't takeFfoulkes away from his young wife, and Tony and the others are so mightyslow."
"Percy!" she said once more with tender earnestness.
"I know, I know," he said with a slight frown of self-reproach. "La!but I don't deserve your solicitude. Heavens know what a brute I was foryears, whilst I neglected you, and ignored the noble devotion which I,alas! do even now so little to deserve."
She would have said something more, but was interrupted by the entranceof Juliette Marny into the room.
"Some of your guests have arrived, Lady Blakeney," said the young girl,apologising for her seeming intrusion. "I thought you would wish toknow."
Juliette looked very young and girlish in a simple white gown, withouta single jewel on her arms or neck. Marguerite regarded her withunaffected approval.
"You look charming to-night, Mademoiselle, does she not, Sir Percy?"
"Thanks to your bounty," smiled Juliette, a trifle sadly. "WhilstI dressed to-night, I felt how I should have loved to wear my dearmother's jewels, of which she used to be so proud."
"We must hope that you will recover them, dear, some day," saidMarguerite vaguely, as she led the young girl out of the small studytowards the larger reception rooms.
"Indeed I hope so," sighed Juliette. "When times became so troublous inFrance after my dear father's death, his confessor and friend, the AbbeFoucquet, took charge of all my mother's jewels for me. He said theywould be safe with the ornaments of his own little church at Boulogne.He feared no sacrilege, and thought they would be most effectuallyhidden there, for no one would dream of looking for the Marny diamondsin the crypt of a country church."
Marguerite said nothing in reply. Whatever her own doubts might be uponsuch a subject, it could serve no purpose to disturb the young girl'sserenity.
"Dear Abbe Foucquet," said Juliette after a while, "his is the kind ofdevotion which I feel sure will never be found under the new regimes ofanarchy and of so-called equality. He would have laid down his life formy father or for me. And I know that he would never part with the jewelswhich I entrusted to his care, whilst he had breath and strength todefend them."
Marguerite would have wished to pursue the subject a little further.It was very pathetic to witness poor Juliette's hopes and confidences,which she felt sure would never be realised.
Lady Blakeney knew so much of what was going on in France just now:spoliations, confiscations, official thefts, open robberies, all in thename of equality, of fraternity and of patriotism. She knew nothing,of course, of the Abbe Foucquet, but the tender little picture of thedevoted old man, painted by Juliette's words, had appealed strongly toher sympathetic heart.
Instinct and knowledge of the political aspect of France told her thatby entrusting valuable family jewels to the old Abbe, Juliette had mostunwittingly placed the man she so much trusted in danger of persecutionat the hands of a government which did not even admit the legality offamily possessions. However, there was neither time nor opportunity nowto enlarge upon the subject. Marguerite resolved to recur to it a littlelater, when she would be alone with Mlle. de Marny, and above allwhen she could take counsel with her husband as to the best means ofrecovering the young girl's property for her, whilst relieving a devotedold man from the dangerous responsibility which he had so selflesslyundertaken.
In the meanwhile the two women had reached the first of the long lineof state apartments wherein the brilliant fete was to take place.The staircase and the hall below were already filled with the earlyarrivals. Bidding Juliette to remain in the ballroom, Lady Blakeney nowtook up her stand on the exquisitely decorated landing, ready to greether guests. She had a smile and a pleasant word for all, as, in aconstant stream, the elite of London fashionable society began to filepast her, exchanging the elaborate greetings which the stilted mode ofthe day prescribed to this butterfly-world.
The lacqueys in the hall shouted the names of the guests as they passedup the stairs: names celebrated in politics, in worlds of sport, ofscience or of art, great historic names, humble, newly-made ones, nobleillustrious titles. The spacious rooms were filling fast. His RoyalHighness, so 'twas said, had just stepped out of his barge. The noise oflaughter and chatter was incessant, like unto a crowd of gaily-plumagedbirds. Huge bunches of apricot-coloured roses in silver vases made theair heavy with their subtle perfume. Fans began to flutter. The stringband struck the preliminary cords of the gavotte.
At tha
t moment the lacqueys at the foot of the stairs called out instentorian tones:
"Mademoiselle Desiree Candeille! and Monsieur Chauvelin!"
Marguerite's heart gave a slight flutter; she felt a sudden tighteningof the throat. She did not see Candeille at first, only the slightfigure of Chauvelin dressed all in black, as usual, with head bentand hands clasped behind his back; he was slowly mounting the widestaircase, between a double row of brilliantly attired men and women,who looked with no small measure of curiosity at the ex-ambassador fromrevolutionary France.
Demoiselle Candeille was leading the way up the stairs. She paused onthe landing in order to make before her hostess a most perfect and mostelaborate curtsey. She looked smiling and radiant, beautifully dressed,a small wreath of wrought gold leaves in her hair, her only jewel anabsolutely regal one, a magnificent necklace of diamonds round hershapely throat.
Chapter XI: The Challenge