The Scarlet Pimpernel: A Daring Tale of Courage - Chapter 07

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dream Audio Books presents The Scarlet Pimpernel by baroness or Z,
Chapter seven, The Secret Orchard. Once outside the noisy coffee room,
along in the dimly lighted passage, Marguerite Blakeney seemed to
breathe more freely. She heaved a deep sigh, like one

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who had long been oppressed with the heavy weight of
constant self control, and she allowed a few tears to
fall unheeded down her cheeks. Outside, the rain had ceased,
and through the swiftly passing clouds, the pale rays of
an after storm sun shone upon the beautiful white coast
of Kent and the quaint i regular houses that clustered

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round the Admiralty Pier. Marguerite Blakeney stepped on to the
porch and looked out to see, silhouetted against the ever
changing sky, a graceful schooner with white sails set was
gently dancing in the breeze. The day dream. It was
Sir Percy Blakeney's yacht, which was ready to take arms
Mont Saint just back to France into the very midst

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of that seething, bloody revolution which was overthrowing a monarchy,
attacking a religion, destroying a society in order to try
and rebuild upon the ashes of tradition, a new utopia
of which a few men dreamed, but which none had
the power to establish. In the distance, two figures were
approaching the fisherman's rest, one an oldish man with a

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curious fringe of gray hairs round a rotund and massive chin,
and who walked with that peculiar rolling gait which invariably
betrays the seafaring man. The other a young, slight figure,
neatly and becomingly dressed in a dark, many caped overcoat.
He was cleanly shaved, and his dark hair was taken
well back over a clear and noble forehead. Armand said

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Marguerite Blakeney as soon as she saw him approaching from
the distance, and a happy smile shone on her sweet face,
even through the tears. A moment or two later, brother
and sister were locked in each other's arms, while the
old skipper stood respectfully on one side. How much time
have we got, Briggs, asked Lady Blakeney, before Monsieur Saint
just need go on board. We ought to weigh anchor

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before half an hour, Your ladyship replied the old man,
pulling at his gray forelock, linking her arm in his,
Marguerite led her brother towards the cliffs. Half an hour,
she said, looking wistfully out to sea. Half an hour more,
and you'll be far from me, Armand. Oh, I can't
believe that you are going, dear. These last few days,

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whilst Percy has been away and I've had to all
to myself, have slipped by like a dream. I'm not
going fast, sweet one, said the young man gently, A
narrow channel to cross a few miles of road. I
can soon come back. Nay, it is not the distance, Armand,
but that awful Paris. Just now they had reached the

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edge of the cliff, the gentle sea breeze blew Marguerite's
hair about her face and sent the of her soft
lace Fichu, waving round her like a white and subtle snake.
She tried to pierce the distance far away, beyond which
lay the shores of France, that relentless and stern France,
which was exacting her pound of flesh, the blood tax

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from the noblest of her sons, Our own beautiful country, Marguerite, said, Armand,
who seemed to have divined her thoughts. They are going
too far, Armand, she said vehemently. You are a Republican,
so am I. We have the same thoughts, the same
enthusiasm for liberty and equality. But even you must think
that they are going too far. Hush, said Armand instinctively,

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as he threw a quick, apprehensive glance around him. Ah,
you see, you don't think yourself that it is safe
even to speak of these things here in England. She
clung to him suddenly with strong, almost motherly passion. Don't
go Armand, she begged, don't go back. What should I
do if if if her voice was choked and sobs,

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Her eyes, tender blue and loving, gazed appealingly at the
young man, who, in his turn, looked steadfastly into hers.
You would, in any case be my own brave sister,
he said, gently, who would remember that when France is
in peril, it is not for her sons to turn
their backs on her. Even as he spoke, that sweet,

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childlike smile crept back into her face, pathetic in the extreme,
for it seemed drowned in tears. Oh Ahmand, she said, quaintly,
I sometimes wish you had not so many lofty virtues.
I assure you little sins are far less dangerous and uncomfortable,
but you will be prudent, she added, earnestly, as far

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as possible, I promise you. Remember, dear, I have only
you too to care for me. Nay, sweet one, you
have other interests now, Percy cares for you. A look
of strange wistfulness crept into her eyes as she murmured
he did once, but surely there there, dear. Don't distress

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yourself on my account. Percy is very good. Nay, he
interrupted energetically, I will distress myself on your account, my Margot. Listen, dear,
I have not spoken of these things to you before.
Something always seemed to stop me when I wish to
question you. But somehow I feel as if I could
not go away and leave you now without asking you
one question. You need not answer it if you do

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not wish, he added, as he noted a sudden, hard look,
almost of apprehension, darting through her eyes. What is it?
She asked, simply, does Percy Blakeney know that? I mean,
does he know the part you played in the arrest
of the Marquis de Saint Cyr. She laughed a mirthless, bitter,
contemptuous laugh, which was like a jarring chord in the

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music of her voice. That I denounced the Marquis de
Saint Cyr. You mean to the tribunal that ultimately sent
him and all his family to the guillotine. Yes, he
does know. I told him after I married him. You
told him all the circumstances which so completely exonerated you
from any blame. It was too late to talk of circumstances.
He heard the story from other sources. My confession came

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too tardily. It seems I could no longer plead extenuating circumstances.
I could not demean myself by trying to explain. And
and now I have the satisfaction Armand of knowing that
the biggest fool in England has the most complete contempt
for his wife. She spoke with vehement bitterness this time,
and Armand Saint just who loved her so dearly, felt

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that he had placed a somewhat clumsy finger upon an
aching wound. But Sir Percy loved you, Margot, he repeated gently,
loved me well. Armand I thought at one time that
he did, or I should not have married him. I daresay,
she added, speaking very rapidly, as if she were about
to lay down a heavy burden which had oppressed her

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for months. I daresay that even you thought, as everybody
else did, that I married Sir Percy because of his wealth.
But I assure you, dear, that it was not so.
He seemed to worship me with a curious intensity of
concentrated passion which went straight to my heart. I had
never loved any one before, as you know, and I
was four and twenty then, so I naturally thought that

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it must not be in my nature to love. But
it has always seemed to me that it must be
heavenly to be loved blindly, passionately, holy worshiped in fact,
and the very fact that Percy was slow and stupid
was an attraction for me, as I thought he would
love me all the more. A clever man would naturally
have other interests, an ambitious man other hopes. I thought

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that a fool would worship and think of nothing else,
and I was ready to respond armand I would have
allowed myself to be worshiped and given infinite tenderness in return.
She sighed, and there was a world of disillusionment in
that sye armand Saint just had allowed her to speak
on without interruption. He listened to her whilst allowing his

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own thoughts to run riot. It was terrible to see
a young and beautiful woman, a girl in all but name,
still standing almost at the threshold of her life, yet
bereft of hope, bereft of illusions, bereft of all those
golden and fantastic dreams which should have made her youth
one long, perpetual holiday. Yet perhaps though he loved his

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sister dearly, perhaps he understood he had studied men in
many countries, men of all ages, men of every grade
of social and intellectual status, and inwardly he understood what
Marguerite had left unsaid. Granted that Percy Blakeney was dull witted,
but in his slow going mind there would still be
room for that ineradicable pride of a descendant of a

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long line of English gentlemen. A Blakeney had died on
Bosworth Field, another had sacrificed life and fortune for the
sake of a treacherous Stewart, And that same pride, foolish
and prejudiced, as the Republican Armand would call it, must
have been stung to the quick on hearing of the
sin which lay at Lady Blakeney's door. She had been young, misguided,

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ill advised. Perhaps Arman knew that her impulses and imprudence
knew it still better. But Blakeney was slow witted. He
would not listen to circumstances. He only clung to facts,
and these had shown him. Lady Blakeney denouncing a fellow
man to a tribunal that knew no pardon, and the
contempt he would feel for the deed she had done, however, unwittingly,

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would kill that same love in him, in which sympathy
and intellectuality could never have had a part. Yet, even
now his own sister puzzled him. Life and love hath
such strange vagaries. Could it be that, with the waning
of her husband's love, Marguerite's heart had awakened with love
for him. Strange extremes meet in love's pathway. This woman,

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who had had half intellectual Europe at her feet, might
perhaps have set her affections on a fool. Marguerite was
gazing out towards the sunset armand could not see her face,
but presently it seemed to him that something which glittered
for a moment in the gold an evening light fell
from her eyes on to her dainty fichue of lace.
But he could not broach that subject with her. He

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knew her strange, passionate nature so well, and knew that
reserve which lurked behind her frank open ways. They had
always been together, these two, for their parents had died
when Armand was still a youth and marguerite, but a
child he some eight years her senior, had watched over
her until her marriage, had chaperoned her during those brilliant
years spent in the flat on the Rue de Richelieu,

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and had seen her enter upon this new life of
hers here in England with much sorrow and some foreboding.
This was his first visit to England since her marriage,
and the few months of separation had already seemed to
have built up a slight thin partition between brother and sister.
The same deep intense love was still there on both sides,
but each now seemed to have a secret orchard into

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which the other dared not penetrate. There was much Armand
Saint just could not tell his sister the political aspect
of the revolution in France was changing almost every day.
She might not understand how his own views and sympathies
might become modified, even as the excesses committed by those
who had been his friends grew in horror and in intensity.

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And Marguerite could not speak to her brother about the
secrets of her heart. She hardly understood them herself. She
only knew that, in the midst of luxury, she felt
lonely and unhappy and now armand was going away. She
feared for his safety, She longed for his presence. She
would not spoil these last few sadly sweet moments by

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speaking about herself. She led him gently along the cliffs,
then down to the beach, their arms linked in one another's.
They still had so much to say that lay just
outside that secret orchard of theirs. End of chapter seven.
Dream Audiobook's hopes you have enjoyed this program.