Note from the author: Thank you all for your patience in waiting for the next part. I have been very busy and haven't had time to write much. I re-organized the parts for easier reading, and followed your advise to shorten chapter two. Enjoy and review away! Thank you. -E. E. (or Melody)
Chapter Six
Failure
I
As the sun rose the next morning Jeanne had already awaken and was sitting under the shady grove behind their small cottage. The morning was glorious, but to enjoy it one must go out of the city, away from the dirt and filth. Here Jeanne could enjoy the soft breezes of summer away from the blazing hot sun. Here she could consult her own thoughts, away from the depressing little broken down cottage that spoke so much of past family memories.
Her much-worn Bible lay open on her lap, and she drank in the soothing words with her eyes as tears filled them unceasingly.
"Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved."
The words were balm to her aching soul, courage to her fading hope. Her Lord would defend her in her right attempt to save the lives of her mother and sister. Though tribunals, guards, and even death came, He would not allow them to be separated. She knelt down over a stump and prayed to her Lord for help.
Then she stood, and surveyed the quiet woods. The trees, full grown and in their brightest green array, shaded the ferns and wild flowers below. It all created a heavenly prospect, but to Jeanne's mind it was only a wood, through which she and her family would escape.
"No trouble through this!" she said to herself joyfully, walking a little ways into the green patch, her eyes darting about watching for any open spaces. But there were none, and she continued on until it grew too long for her to go on.
It was just as she wished. It was long, with tangled brier and hundreds of plants covering the forest floor. Through this they would go straight through and thus escape the search of the guards. She walked back toward the little cottage with a glad, courageous feeling in her heart, and as soon as she reached the rundown building she rushed in to her father.
He was as usual sitting reading the only book he had in his possession: the Bible. Jeanne had always admired him for his great faith in that One who now only could save them all. She interrupted his reading by kneeling by him and taking hold of his limp hand.
"Papa," she said quietly. She knew how much his nerves were upset, so she spoke quietly and gently.
"Yes, my dear?" he said, turning to face her. He tightly squeezed her hand and then stroked her dark hair gently.
She now spoke in a very quiet whisper which only he could hear.
"I have found our escape rout—through the woods behind the cottage. You know where they lead?" She waited for his answer anxiously.
"Yes," he replied, "through to the outskirts of Calais."
The answer was just as she had hoped it would be. Before the revolution had come her father had been wont to traverse the woods—it was one of his favorite pastimes. Now his knowledge of them was a vital factor in the success of their escape. Jeanne in an ecstasy of joy embraced her father.
"We shall soon be safe from these Revolutionists, papa," she said in the loudest whisper she would dare, "we shall take mamman and Adel out of the lions den."
II
That very night the little cottage stood empty and deserted, except for the scurrying of rats and mice on the rotting floorboards. The cool night wind gently blew through the trees and almost brought back the peace and bliss of past days.
In the dark shadow of a street house Jeanne shuddered, but not because of the wind. She looked about her in awe at the darkness around her, but did not move. Across the street a building stood looming out large in the darkness. It was the prison in which her mother and sister were confined.
For a moment Jeanne hesitated; then she ran swiftly, like a fleeting bird in the night, across the street and into the shadow of that building, her breath coming in gasps.
But at this critical moment all Jeanne's courage was stripped from her. She suddenly broke out into a cold sweat, and as she surveyed with quivering hands and unsteady eyes the foreboding doors before her she all of a sudden did not know what to do. The doors were locked, nay, bolted shut, and she, a feeble girl with hardly any strength, had one to a hundred chances of opening one. As these thoughts flooded in through her mind she slowly sunk to the ground in deep mortification. This she had not reckoned on in her excited plans of escape. She saw absolutely no chance of getting within the prison.
In this state she remained, too deep in her own sorrowful thoughts to pay attention to anything else, even the threatening darkness. She waited, for nothing in particular, hardly wishing for some miracle to let her into those forbidding walls and into the prison cell of her mother and sister.
Suddenly Jeanne's acute hearing detected the sound of footsteps walking slowly but not stealthily. Her heart gave a leap and stood still while she looked up and beheld distinctly in the dark night a short, wizened figure approaching the doors by which she cowered. A sharp nose and two evil grey eyes shot through the night like a knife through her breast. Chauvelin!
At first he did not see her. Crouching within the darkest shadows, Jeanne held her breath as if it depended on her life. And she felt it did. Chauvelin approached the entrance, took out a large ring of keys, and proceeded to unlock one of the doors. In spite of her utter fear Jeanne saw the advantage of this opportunity, however risky. Here as a chance she had not dared to hope for, --though she had had no idea how she would get within the prison walls—and however frightened she was, she took it. She waited for Chauvelin to go behind the door to shut it, and then slipped in, making no sound whatever as she glided across the stone floor.
Bt what she did not know was that those steely grey eyes had already detected her crouching figure in the dark and had let her in on purpose. With the slam of the heavy door cam his scrutinizing features peering at her though the darkness. Against her will she shuddered until her whole body shook with fear and trembling.
"My dear mademoiselle," said a cold, cruel voice, which pierced the dark like a razor.
"How very pleasant it is to find you here!"
III
Jeanne shuddered once more. She dare not look into the face of her capturer—for indeed he was. Jeanne knew that too well—she was caught like a rat in a trap, and the only difference was that she had walked into the trap willingly and, for the most part with a sound mind.
She cowered before the malicious grey eyes which looked her over with exultant satisfaction. The silence, which lasted only a few minutes, agonized Jeanne until she thought she should go mad with terror. It was finally, but mercilessly, broken by Chauvelin, whose eyes never left her for a moment.
"I must say I expected you," he said, whilst slowly tucking the ring of keys within his belt, as if wishing her to feel the effect of being locked in forever—and in his hands.
"I knew only too well when your gallant Scarlet Pimpernel's secret was out," he continued, "that you would no doubt take it upon yourself to aid him. I admire your bravery."
In the dark, forbidding corridor the two remained for several moments, the one stooping in fear and helplessness, the other towering over her in the utmost triumph. Jeanne's eyes in spit of herself filled with tears at the thought of her father, who, wholly unsuspecting, would be arrested on the morrow—and all because of her—her stupidity, her inexperience, her utter failure! How would he bear it? His nerves, tried to the utmost, would now break altogether under this last and ultimate trial. Under this man's cruel mercy her whole family's lives were doomed. Not only her mother and sister, but now she and her father would share their fate.
But Jeanne, determined in the midst of her deepest sorrow, would not be put down. She herself had made up her mind before ever she left England, — safe, caring, sympathetic England! — that if God so willed that they should not live to see freedom again, she would die with them.
Therefore in this mind she bore with comparative serenity the rough pushes the soldiers gave her as they led her down the long, cold hall, and down below into the prison of the dead.
