Part Two

Chapter Five

The Shores of Calais

Had Jeanne witnessed the look on Chauvelin's features as he left her alone in the parlor her plans perhaps would not have been so desperate. Perhaps they would; we shall never know.

For she did not see the expression of satisfaction on her late antagonizer's face, as he walked out of the empty parlor after completing his ghastly business. In truth, his face in that moment of triumph was so considerably changed for the better that many who saw his entrance into the ballroom actually deemed him cheerful.

He had let out his secret to one whose silence he knew he could trust in. His hard, cold grey eyes showed his contentment in knowing that Jeanne, if not an ally, he had found a tool to the accomplishing of his own ends. She would go back to France, he was almost certain; with the information he had given her she would undoubtedly, seeing the behavior of the supposed rescuer of her family and their condition now,-- she would of no doubt seek them out herself whether she secured help or not. Chauvelin had been willing to sacrifice the letting out of his well-guarded secret to her to give her the idea that Sir Percy was in truth an idiotic fop—who wouldn't care less for the fate of her family. Chauvelin had—in knowing Jeanne was going to France—he had an assurance that as soon as Sir Percy, the Scarlet Pimpernel, learned of her departure, would of a surety follow her there, and then—well, he had better save that wonderful thought till a better time when he would be at leisure to relish it's every detail.

So stepping into the ball room he at once came into view of Sir Percy himself: eye-glass in place, posed most stupidly, he was in the throws of some infamous sally—or even a concoction of his own.

His wife could be seen across the room, engaged in an animated conversation with Lady Ffoukes. Her smiling features and shining eyes for a moment—only a moment—shot a pang of jealousy through Chauvelin's pleasure. But glancing back at Sir Percy—the Scarlet Pimpernel, his arch-rival and most hated enemy—the feeling of complete satisfaction returned in full gusto. He glanced behind him at the dark entrance-way of the parlor he had just left, and smiled crudely. The girl sitting in there was the key to his success, and he was only too sure she would follow through with his plans.

II

The sound of loud laughter issuing from the ballroom woke Jeanne out of her cheerless reverie. With a start she remembered the recent events, and at the memory of Chauvelin she cringed. But when the recollection of her decision presented itself she was as resolute as she had been when she made it. Help or no help, she would find her family, and either bring them herself back to England or die with them. The Scarlet Pimpernel she no more looked on with awe or admiration, but with despise and something of resentment. He was not keeping his promise; it had been two weeks, and now it was too late, she reasoned, for him to do anything. With her there was some chance. She did not count on influence with the Committee of Public Safety—indeed, she knew it to be so futile—no, she would use other means, of which she knew nothing just yet. The only weapons she had were her Lord, and her brains. She had a profound faith in the former, Who, she convinced herself, would not be so barbaric as to separate her from her dear family. She would trust to His help to bring her family safely across the channel.

In ten minutes she had told Lady Blakeney and her husband goodbye and was at the great doors of Lord Melville's mansion. The cool, summer air brushing across her hot cheeks for a moment gave her a sense of well-being, but as she plumped herself wearily on the carriage seat she sighed. Gazing at the mansion she had just left, she found herself hoping that the Scarlet Pimpernel would keep his promise. Would he leave tonight or tomorrow for France? Jeanne gave up, and, leaning back in her seat, told herself he would not hurry, now that it would seem too late for him.

III

On the calm waters of the channel a ship bound for France sailed four days later. Jeanne, standing upon the deck, was watching the shores of England slip away. But it was hardly of that safe and secure country that she thought of; indeed, her thoughts were placed steadily in Amiens, France, the city of her family's residence, and once, hers.

She was dressed in uncommon ragged clothes—an old dress she had worn on that fatal day when the Scarlet Pimpernel, now so despised in her mind, had freed her from the jaws of death, dirty and worn from many a month's wearing—and the shoes, worn through the sole and with many holes. She had in her pocket a passport with the name Adel Confere written on it in place of her own. The reason for entering into France: to visit family. Even if she was arrested, she would perhaps meet with her family, but always know that she would meet them in Heaven in the end. Such a grim outlook was not her own, but was the result of many a weeping back in England before she boarded this ship taking her back into danger.

She cared not for herself; it was her family who was in danger, and why should she let them die while she lived in safety and luxury in England? In the parlor at Melville Mansion she had made up her mind that she would use any means—however feeble—to save her family as she had been saved. Had she known that the Scarlet Pimpernel himself was at this moment in France—we must only guess. For her fellow passengers on the ship—who were few, I assure you—saw that in her eyes which made advice futile.

So she stood against the railing once more, her hair once more blowing in the salt-sea air, and her eyes, more or less emotional, fixed upon the shores of England, now a mere speck on the horizon. She stood there for five minutes or more, when the sound of a familiar voice caused her to turn her head. She saw only a man, dressed in hideous breeches and shirt with open collar, talking moodily with another very similarly dressed. His voice sounded surprisingly alike Chauvelin's four nights ago, but looking at the ragged breeches and his companion, Jeanne was convinced that it was not he.

She turned back to the sea, now a beautiful reflection of peach, for the sun was now setting. Jeanne's eyes were dazzled with the shrewd colors of peach and blue side by side and the large, eternal orange ball in the middle of it all. Waves of blue and light orange clouds finished the picture, and the light from it all delicately touched the ship and everything on its deck. Taking one last look at this alluring scene, Jeanne turned under-deck. Had she turned her head one moment before she went down, she would have been met with two triumphant, steely grey eyes looking at her from under the mask of the roughly-clad citizen.

IV

"Passports! Passports, if you please!" rang the shrill voice of the man who stood as barrier to enter the land of France. Though that country welcomed any she could get to close her jaws upon, this one small requirement was set as a mock filter. One by one, the few brave passengers of the ship disembarked and presented their respective passports. Jeanne was let in with a nod and a wave of a dirty hand, her passport being retained "for further inspection." Curiously this was the explanation for all passports presented and kept.

The time was evening of the same day, and in the stuffy, summer night air Jeanne let her shawl hang limp about her arms. She looked back only once toward the calm and unruffled sea, now dark and almost invisible against the black sky. Turning southward once more, she induced herself not to be afraid.

A chill ran down her spine against her will as she surveyed the country of her birth: it was as she had left it, more or less in a state of poverty and filth. Her eyes went over the landscape of poorly-built houses, run down to shacks; the usual mixture of fairly-dressed and rag-clad citizens going about their daily chores. The spectacle was pitiful. Jeanne walked on and did not turn her head to the right or left, for it was too painful to bear. She said nothing, but in her mind she was pleading with God to save her beloved France from the ruins this horrible Revolution had made of it. The faces of her fellow Frenchmen and women were sullen, sad and pale, with no light in them whatsoever. In her ragged clothes Jeanne fit in with the scene, so that none could guess that she had less than a week since stood in a fashionable English drawing room and had intercourse with the wife of one of the richest men in that country.

She walked, whether or not she had planned to, toward the place she had called home when she had lived in France, before the Revolution had taken her away from them on the evidence of a supposed friend. As she neared it, stirring memories flooded her: memories of her older sister, their sister-to-sister talks sitting beneath the shade of the trees that surrounded their humble abode… her mother, kind, gentle, and reassuring, concerned for her family's welfare in every way; and her father, steadfast as a rock, unbending, yet with an ability to make her and her sister feel as safe as they could ever be when he was there, or close by.

As the memory of her family came back to her, Jeanne felt her eyes becoming misty. She did not realize how much she loved and missed them until now: in all the events of the past 2 weeks she had thought of them, longed for their presence, and prayed for them; but not until now did she long so much to be with them, to share their every trial, to go with them to the death. She blamed herself tremendously now for not coming to them sooner, and blamed even more the Scarlet Pimpernel for taking her away from them.

A bend in the road hid the house from her view; she walked faster, a sudden feeling of a compelling desire to meet with them overcoming her.

The house she approached was even more run-down than the others she had passed… vines made their way up the rotten walls; the whole aspect was as if none lived there, and for more than a moment Jeanne feared what she had in her heart tried to make herself believe: that they had indeed been arrested and sent to prison… perhaps…

No! For there was one sign of life, at least. Her heart beat a mile a minute as she surveyed the wreck. As she neared the faulty walls she suddenly perceived a small light through the broken glass of a window.

She rushed in, crying at the same moment "Papa! Oh, papa!" For in the window she had seen the round, sturdy head of that rock which she had leaned on so many occasions, when she doubted the safety of their home.

He was sitting at a rickety desk, and seemed to be reading. As she ran in and shouted his name he turned quickly around, and for a few moments the two faced each other without a word.

"Who are you?" asked her father, still sitting, with one hand on the open book, a stern look in his eyes.

"Oh papa!" cried Jeanne, bursting into tears, and throwing her arms round his neck. For a few minutes she wept on his shoulder, and within that time the father recognized something in her touch of that in his youngest daughter.

"Jeanne?" he said quietly, pulling her head off his shoulder to look into her eyes.

"Yes, papa! It is I. I should never have left you… I am here now… we will go to England now!"

At the mention of "go" and "England" the other suddenly clasped his hand over her mouth and pulled her violently into a darker corner of the room.

"You must never speak so!" He said fiercely, "Not here!"

She leaned back against the wall, terrified at this sudden ferocious movement. For a few moments she gazed at that face which she had not seen in a month, and he back at her; the fierce and fearful look in his eyes faded away, and sorrow replaced them. He released his hold on her mouth and raised her to her full height.

"It is not safe," he sighed.

"Forgive me, Papa," replied Jeanne faintly, a tear still lingering in her eye.

"I was excited, nothing more. But where is maman, and Adel?" She asked the question quickly and suddenly, but the effect on her father was more sorry than glad.

"This house…" he began, as he moved away, his voice now a mere whisper.

"It is empty… I live here alone…"

"Papa!" cried Jeanne, running to him once more, "What do you mean? Have they…"

Her father replied sadly in the affirmative.

"Yes… a week since… because of you… I was away, so they missed me…"

He seemed so altered in his ways, so feeble since she last met him, that Jeanne fell back away from him almost in alarm.

"They took them?" she asked bluntly.

"Yes."

It was silent for almost a minute. Jeanne, standing some distance from her father, deliberately held back tears that demanded to fall. Her father, driven almost to his grave by all of the misfortunes that had befallen him, stood still, for he had already wept for their loss.

Jeanne felt as if the world lay in crumbles before her feet; the only thing dear to her left, she thought, was her father, and they were alone in the world, until it pleased the Committee of Public Safety to arrest them both and at last end their miserable, unhappy life.

But no! as she thought, the memory of that night alone in the empty parlor, of her resolute decision to save her family at any cost, suddenly presented itself to her… Chauvelin and his evil ways were oblivious to her now; all that mattered now was saving her family from the clutches of death. The Scarlet Pimpernel had no thought in her mind. She had forgotten him and his league by now, and the rescue they had effected to save her. She despised him, and therefore forgot everything concerning him. She and her father would find her mother and Adel, and if God willed would escape the terrors of the Revolution, and go to live with friends in England, without another thought or tribute to the Scarlet Pimpernel.

"Papa!" she said suddenly.

"Yes, Jeanne?" replied her father gravely, in a voice that sounded afar off.

"They are not doomed, papa. We will find them, and save them… we will not let this hindrance defeat us." She whispered now, ever so quietly and as she did so she neared him and turned shining eyes up at his.

"But, Jeanne, the Scarlet Pimpernel—" began her father, likewise in a hardly-audible whisper, but was interrupted passionately.

"the Scarlet Pimpernel!" cried she, ridicule plainly heard in her voice.

"He is no more capable of saving them as ever I was; his promises are futile, papa. If you really believed in him you would not have been so heartbroken at the arrest of maman and Adel. He is not so wonderful as you think. He cares less of us all than he does of his disguises. He promised to save you all, but now that maman and Adel are arrested he can do next to nothing. With us there is a small chance, and we are bound to try. At least we would be together when…" her whisper faded into silence as the realization of that awful fate dawned itself upon her. To die with her family had not seemed so acute, but to die that death on the horrible guillotine…

But this unpleasant thought was as quickly discarded from Jeanne's mind. She would not allow her hopefully-successful, though risky plan to be thwarted in face of this one small, insignificant obstacle. If indeed they must die that terrible death on the scaffold, she would die bravely, knowing she and her family would meet in Heaven and live together with their Lord forever.

Her voice as she recommenced was more determined.

"We would die together if our plan does not succeed. The horrible revolution itself cannot prevent us from seeking our freedom. Papa, come!" she said passionately, as she could see doubt in the eyes of her parent.

"What would maman and Adel think if we forfeited this once chance to save them? The tribunal takes it's time in condemning and executing France's people; I am sure we have a chance of finding them yet alive. You and I are their only chance to live, Papa."

She held both the arms of his sleeves now; her eyes, bright and ardent, looked into his; he looked back into them, and almost smiled within himself at the young, zealous, and childish eyes of his daughter.

"We can but try—with God's help—for them," he said, gravely but hopefully.

Then the two embraced.