…
"Gentlemen, our most audacious, our most important mission is upon us. At the very same moment, we must rescue five people: our own Tom Branson; my agent in Citizen Robespierre's own household, John Bates; as well as the royal family: the King, the Queen, and the Dauphin. Predictably, they are all being held in separate prisons, apart from Mr Bates: we have to rendezvous with him and escort him out of Paris before Robespierre or Chauvelin suspect him of anything which is becoming more likely every day since he has been preparing the rescue of the Dauphin ready for our action tomorrow. We will divide into four rescuing groups at Calais and travel to Paris separately since there are so many of us, to reduce the risk of detection. I have assigned you all to one of the groups and everyone has an essential part to play. I look forward to seeing you all at the rendezvous. Good luck everyone!"
Anthony finished addressing the League aboard the Daydream, and once he had finished shaking hands with all his men, he went below to his cabin and shut the door. All these brave fellows were relying on him to give them orders that would enable them to rescue innocents from a horrible death, and to get them all safely out of France. He had gone over the plans so many times, and he was as sure as he could be that this mission would succeed.
He regretted not having Matthew Crawley with him; his strategic brain would have been useful, but there was no point in bewailing what could not be helped. Matthew had stepped back from active involvement and that was that. He was still extremely valuable as a conduit for communications, and other vital operations. As a lawyer he had need of international correspondence. A few extra messages to and from France went completely unnoticed and assisted the League immeasurably.
For the last hour or so before reaching Calais, Anthony instead allowed himself to think of another task. He looked over what he had written.
My dearest darling,
When I first met you, in that appalling prison in Paris, I was overawed by your courage and your humanity. I had resigned myself to living my life alone, because women seemed only to see my fortune, never me. I fell in love with you then and there. I battled with myself whether I should approach you. Even as I courted you, I knew that I was being unfair to you, that this day, the day I left for France never to return, would probably come. I knew that I would leave you too soon even if the Scarlet Pimpernel managed somehow to evade the French every time and live into old age. And yet, I still convinced myself that life as Lady Strallan, and then as the widow of the notorious Sir Anthony, was better than many of the alternatives. Lastly, I allowed myself to believe that you were fond of me, rather than stare the hard reality in the face that you just needed any husband after your sisters married.
Of course you shall have the Richmond House and Loxley and all the lands pertaining therein. You also have all my financial assets. Talk to Stewart about that: he knows everything.
Take the independence that these give you. Go and do the marvellous things that we used to talk about in those golden days when I hoped I could one day make you happy. Meet Mary Wollstonecraft and William Blake. Travel. Find another husband who truly loves you, who is younger, freer with his passions, and more deserving than I.
Live well and don't look back.
I love you so much, my dearest darling, and I will forever more.
Forgive me.
Anthony
He read it over several times before accepting that he could not word his feelings any better. He would have to trust that Edith would understand, should she have to read it.
He quickly changed into his first disguise and went on deck ready to go ashore as the Daydream was securely moored. He was standing with Andrew ffoulkes seeing the members of the League onto their steeds, when M. Bonheur, Anthony's contact in Calais, ran to them from the direction of the town.
"Sir, I came as quickly as I could" he panted. "I don't know how to tell you…"
At once, Anthony stopped the League leaving, and all present listened to the Frenchman.
"Tell me what?" Anthony encouraged.
"I heard from Paris not an hour since. The King … has been executed."
"No!" gasped Andrew.
"The Queen?" asked Anthony in a hoarse voice.
"Will follow him, if she hasn't already."
Anthony closed his eyes and, with head bowed, murmured "I was too late. I have failed."
Bonheur continued "But the Dauphin, I mean the new King, is being held without trial. It looks like your suspicion was correct, sir: Robespierre is going to use him as some sort of pawn."
The League looked to their leader in silence.
A few seconds passed before Anthony drew himself up and spoke to them.
"There will be time for our shock and regret later, gentlemen. We must press on. As you will have realised, this changes the plan. Those of you who were going to rescue the King will join Geoffrey saving Tom Branson. Those assigned to freeing the Queen will join me in aiding the Dauphin. Otherwise stick to the plan, my friends, and God be with us all!"
…
Edith's knuckles were starting to bruise by the time Carson answered the door of Grantham House.
"Lady Strallan! What…?"
She cut him off.
"Is Mr Matthew at home, Carson? I need to see him at once and in private!"
She swept past the startled butler into the drawing room, pacing rather than sitting whilst awaiting her brother-in-law's arrival.
This was where she first met Sir Anthony Strallan…though she now realised that she had encountered the Scarlet Pimpernel before that. Of course, she had heard her father speak of their neighbour in previous years, but Papa had not ever brought his friend home, preferring to meet at their club. For most of her life, Edith had had only the same expectations of Anthony as any other society lady: that he was rich, unmarried, and boring. So it was with some misgivings that she agreed to receive him that day. But she didn't find him boring in the least. She found him honest and direct and well aware of the pain Life can cause without shying from it. He was noble and kind … and very handsome. With every word spoken in that deep, molasses voice, she felt herself fall further into his ocean-deep eyes.
"Edith! What brings you here?"
She turned, ignoring politeness, immediately pleading with her brother-in-law.
"Matthew, I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that your friend and my husband, Sir Anthony Strallan, is the Scarlet Pimpernel."
Matthew's face as he tried to deny it was comical.
"Sorry, what…?"
Edith waved it away.
"Don't waste time, Matthew. Anthony's in great danger: Chauvelin knows that the Scarlet Pimpernel is bound for France and is chasing him at this very moment!"
"Indeed, that might be dangerous … for M. Chauvelin" Matthew drawled.
"Don't be facetious, Matthew! How can I contact him? Where is the rendezvous?"
Matthew, his face serious once more, just looked at her meaningfully with his mouth closed.
"Oh good god, man, do I look like a woman who wants to send her husband to his death? I want to find him, to warn him … or to die with him!"
Matthew quietly weighed her up. Then decided.
"All right. I'll go with you."
"What about the rest of the League?"
"Already in France by now. They sailed at first light this morning."
"Wha-? No, the note said…"
"The note you saw was the one that Anthony wanted Chauvelin to discover. He's been looking after you…"
"… without my knowledge" she finished.
"Especially without your knowledge, so you could be absolutely genuine with Chauvelin and therefore be in less danger."
"Why are you still here, Matthew?"
"Because … because I couldn't guarantee the sort of secrecy that Anthony demanded now that I'm married. Mary and Robert are just too intrusive and demanding. Don't misjudge me: I love your sister, but…"
"Yes, I know how she is. But if you come now?"
"It is more important than you can imagine that Anthony and the League are protected to complete this mission of all missions. I will risk Robert or Mary suspecting something. Worse still, it will be the first time any of us have disobeyed Anthony. But if Chauvelin even has the slightest hint of this mission in particular, well it could tip the balance against us."
"Why this mission, Matthew?" Edith asked, fear breathing ice down her neck.
"Because we are rescuing the Royal Family."
…
At an inn in Dover, passengers for the packet to France waited. In a table set back in the shadows, one man seethed. He had been there since eleven o'clock that morning and still he had missed the blasted Pimpernel. Either Lady Strallan had deliberately fed him with false information, or the Pimpernel himself had switched the messages. Either way, Chauvelin was in a foul mood, stewing in hatred for his fellow man, and silently lusting for revenge. He watched every single person who arrived at the tavern, waiting to cross the Channel. Some were just doing business. Commerce had to continue even with a revolution turning the world upside down. Some looked terrified: they were the ones going to France (or back to France) for the first time since 1792. They didn't know what they would find when they arrived. Neither did he, he scoffed to himself. Things changed so very quickly. Who knew? One day, even Robespierre might feel the kiss of the guillotine's blade.
The door opened again admitting a man and a woman, and Chauvelin felt his luck change.
With a tiger's smile on his lips, he watched and waited.
…
At the Conciergerie prison, a stocky man with dark hair and a limp was making a devil of a fuss. He was one of Robespierre's own household, and not to be trifled with. The target of his ire was the personal gaoler to the former Dauphin, who not two days ago had become Louis XVII, not that anyone in this gaol was going to refer to him as such.
"No, no, no! This will not do!"
"I'm sorry, monsieur, but what would you have us do? Starve the boy?"
"If needs be, yes! Do I have to remind you what that boy's parents put us all through? He cannot be coddled!"
"But…"
"No, I will hear no more. You are dismissed as of this moment. Your replacement will be arriving before sunset, and I want you, your wife, and all of your possessions out of here before then, or I shall be forced to bring the matter before Citizen Robespierre. Do you understand?"
"How will I…?"
"I have taken the liberty of engaging a man to help you remove yourselves. Do not fear: you will be paid what is due to you."
"But Sir?!"
The man roughly gave the gaoler a handful of coins.
"That is my final word. Good day."
With the aid of his stick, the man stomped out to the courtyard, nodded to the gatekeeper who unlocked for him, and then went out and around the walls of the prison to where a cart waited. It was driven by a man who could have made Quasimodo look like a courtier. His cheeks were dilated and his black teeth jutted out under dusty, unkempt hair that stuck out at all angles under his revolutionary cap which had once been red but which now was a relative of beige like the rest of his clothes.
"Brassard!" he called loudly, as if to someone hard of hearing.
"Yeth, monthieur?"
"The gaolers have been given their notice. You can remove them when you are ready."
"Veewy good, monthieur."
"And please be careful this time. We don't want a repeat of the Cassels, eh?"
"Yeth, monthieur."
The man with the limp departed.
The man with the cart waited until he heard someone on the other side of the wall whispering in a panic about the Cassels affair, (when, it was rumoured, a disgraced Sergeant had been thrown out of a window by one of Robespierre's ruffians named Brassard, or something similar). Only then did he guide the donkey and the cart up to the gates and demand entrance. The guards opened up and got out of his way. When he made his way up to the rooms to be vacated, the gaoler and his wife gave the man the address of the wife's sister and hastened to escape. There wasn't much to move, and it didn't take the man long to load it all up on the cart. He came down with a large wicker basket on his back, added it to the wagon, took his seat, and began his journey.
It was not a journey to the gaoler's wife's sister, however.
As he drove out of the prison, then over a bridge, then up an alleyway to meet and pick up the man with the limp, Anthony fingered the large key to the door of Louis' prison cell in his pocket, and grinned. He wasn't a naturally gifted pick-pocket, but he practised diligently, and it helped that the gaoler was having kittens in his fear of 'Brassard' at the time that Anthony stole the key from him.
"Good day, monthieur" Anthony greeted the other man heartily as he got up to join Anthony on the box seat.
"I don't think we have as much time as we hoped, Anthony" he whispered.
"Robethspierre?" hissed Anthony, his false teeth still affecting his speech.
"His secretary, Chenault. He asked me some awkward questions before I left today."
"Then let usth make hasthe." And with a quick flick of the reins, the donkey picked up speed.
…
"When we've gone ashore, I will find a carriage that can take us to the rendezvous."
"And that's in Paris?" asked Edith.
"No. The meeting place is different for this mission. It's…" He stopped talking as a small, slight figure swaggered towards them.
"Lady Strallan, Mr Crawley, enchanté. Welcome to France."
Edith glared, shocked to see Chauvelin again.
"Monsieur" answered Matthew as politely as he could.
"Where, pray, are you going? I understand you are reuniting with Sir Anthony. I myself would very much like to see him again. Perhaps we could share a carriage?"
"Alas, that is not possible" Edith began.
Then she saw the soldiers arrive and cluster behind the Frenchman.
"Oh, but I insist" he sneered, and then in a much more threatening tone, "Arrest them."
…
My apologies for the gap between chapters. As if losing my sister wasn't enough for one year, my second son died suddenly about five weeks ago.
God bless you all, my dear friends.