Lord Tony's Wife Part 6

"Oh!" replied the other, "you know well enough what I mean--I am no fool, what?... or the Revolution would have no use for me. If after my many failures she still commands my services and employs me to keep my eyes and ears open, it is because she knows that she can count on me. I do keep my eyes and ears open, citizen Adet or Martin-Roget, whatever you like to call yourself, and also my mind--and I have a way of putting two and two together to make four. There are few people in Nantes who do not know that old Jean Adet, the miller, was hanged four years ago, because his son Pierre had taken part in some kind of open revolt against the tyranny of the ci-devant duc de Kernogan, and was not there to take his punishment himself. I knew old Jean Adet.... I was on the Place du Bouffay at Nantes when he was hanged...."

But already Martin-Roget had jumped to his feet with a muttered blasphemy.

"Have done, man," he said roughly, "have done!" And he started pacing up and down the narrow room like a caged panther, snarling and showing his teeth, whilst his rough, toil-worn hands quivered with the desire to clutch an unseen enemy by the throat and to squeeze the life out of him.

"Think you," he added hoa.r.s.ely, "that I need reminding of that?"

"No. I do not think that, citizen," replied Chauvelin calmly, "I only desired to warn you."

"Warn me? Of what?"

Nervous, agitated, restless, Martin-Roget had once more gone back to his seat: his hands were trembling as he held them up mechanically to the blaze and his face was the colour of lead. In contrast with his restlessness Chauvelin appeared the more calm and bland.

"Why should you wish to warn me?" asked the other querulously, but with an attempt at his former over-bearing manner. "What are my affairs to you--what do you know about them?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing, citizen Martin-Roget," replied Chauvelin pleasantly, "I was only indulging the fancy I spoke to you about just now of putting two and two together in order to make four. The chartering of a smuggler's craft--aristos on board her--her ostensible destination Holland--her real objective Le Croisic.... Le Croisic is now the port for Nantes and we don't bring aristos into Nantes these days for the object of providing them with a feather-bed and a competence, what?"

"And," retorted Martin-Roget quietly, "if your surmises are correct, citizen Chauvelin, what then?"

"Oh, nothing!" replied the other indifferently. "Only ... take care, citizen ... that is all."

"Take care of what?"

"Of the man who brought me, Chauvelin, to ruin and disgrace."

"Oh! I have heard of that legend before now," said Martin-Roget with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. "The man they call the Scarlet Pimpernel you mean?"

"Why, yes!"

"What have I to do with him?"

"I don't know. But remember that I myself have twice been after that man here in England; that twice he slipped through my fingers when I thought I held him so tightly that he could not possibly escape and that twice in consequence I was brought to humiliation and to shame. I am a marked man now--the guillotine will soon claim me for her future use. Your affairs, citizen, are no concern of mine, but I have marked that Scarlet Pimpernel for mine own. I won't have any blunderings on your part give him yet another triumph over us all."

Once more Martin-Roget swore one of his favourite oaths.

"By Satan and all his brood, man," he cried in a pa.s.sion of fury, "have done with this interference. Have done, I say. I have nothing to do, I tell you, with your _satane_ Scarlet Pimpernel. My concern is with...."

"With the duc de Kernogan," broke in Chauvelin calmly, "and with his daughter; I know that well enough. You want to be even with them over the murder of your father. I know that too. All that is your affair.

But beware, I tell you. To begin with, the secrecy of your ident.i.ty is absolutely essential to the success of your plan. What?"

"Of course it is. But...."

"But nevertheless, your ident.i.ty is known to the most astute, the keenest enemy of the Republic."

"Impossible," a.s.serted Martin-Roget hotly.

"The duc de Kernogan...."

"Bah! He had never the slightest suspicion of me. Think you his High and Mightiness in those far-off days ever looked twice at a village lad so that he would know him again four years later? I came into this country as an _emigre_ stowed away in a smuggler's ship like a bundle of contraband goods. I have papers to prove that my name is Martin-Roget and that I am a banker from Brest. The worthy bishop of Brest--denounced to the Committee of Public Safety for treason against the Republic--was given his life and a safe conduct into Spain on the condition that he gave me--Martin-Roget--letters of personal introduction to various high-born _emigres_ in Holland, in Germany and in England. Armed with these I am invulnerable. I have been presented to His Royal Highness the Regent, and to the elite of English society in Bath. I am the friend of M. le duc de Kernogan now and the accredited suitor for his daughter's hand."

"His daughter!" broke in Chauvelin with a sneer, and his pale, keen eyes had in them a spark of malicious mockery.

Martin-Roget made no immediate retort to the sneer. A curious hot flush had spread over his forehead and his ears, leaving his cheeks wan and livid.

"What about the daughter?" reiterated Chauvelin.

"Yvonne de Kernogan has never seen Pierre Adet the miller's son,"

replied the other curtly. "She is now the affianced wife of Martin-Roget the millionaire banker of Brest. To-night I shall persuade M. le duc to allow my marriage with his daughter to take place within the week. I shall plead pressing business in Holland and my desire that my wife shall accompany me thither. The duke will consent and Yvonne de Kernogan will not be consulted. The day after my wedding I shall be on board the _Hollandia_ with my wife and father-in-law, and together we will be on our way to Nantes where Carrier will deal with them both."

"You are quite satisfied that this plan of yours is known to no one, that no one at the present moment is aware of the fact that Pierre Adet, the miller's son, and Martin-Roget, banker of Brest, are one and the same?"

"Quite satisfied," replied Martin-Roget emphatically.

"Very well, then, let me tell you this, citizen," rejoined Chauvelin slowly and deliberately, "that in spite of what you say I am as convinced as that I am here, alive, that your real ident.i.ty will be known--if it is not known already--to a gentleman who is at this present moment in Bath, and who is known to you, to me, to the whole of France as the Scarlet Pimpernel."

Martin-Roget laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

"Impossible!" he retorted. "Pierre Adet no longer exists ... he never existed ... much.... Anyhow, he ceased to be on that stormy day in September, 1789. Unless your pet enemy is a wizard he cannot know."

"There is nothing that my pet enemy--as you call him--cannot ferret out if he has a mind to. Beware of him, citizen Martin-Roget. Beware, I tell you."

"How can I," laughed the other contemptuously, "if I don't know who he is?"

"If you did," retorted Chauvelin, "it wouldn't help you ... much. But beware of every man you don't know; beware of every stranger you meet; trust no one; above all, follow no one. He is there where you least expect him under a disguise you would scarcely dream of."

"Tell me who he is then--since you know him--so that I may duly beware of him."

"No," rejoined Chauvelin with the same slow deliberation, "I will not tell you who he is. Knowledge in this case would be a very dangerous thing."

"Dangerous? To whom?"

"To yourself probably. To me and to the Republic most undoubtedly. No! I will not tell you who the Scarlet Pimpernel is. But take my advice, citizen Martin-Roget," he added emphatically, "go back to Paris or to Nantes and strive there to serve your country rather than run your head into a noose by meddling with things here in England, and running after your own schemes of revenge."

"My own schemes of revenge!" exclaimed Martin-Roget with a hoa.r.s.e cry that was like a snarl.... It seemed as if he wanted to say something more, but that the words choked him even before they reached his lips.

The hot flush died down from his forehead and his face was once more the colour of lead. He took up a log from the corner of the hearth and threw it with a savage, defiant gesture into the fire.

Somewhere in the house a clock struck nine.

V

Martin-Roget waited until the last echo of the gong had died away, then he said very slowly and very quietly:

"Forgo my own schemes of revenge? Can you even remotely guess, citizen Chauvelin, what it would mean to a man of my temperament and of my calibre to give up that for which I have toiled and striven for the past four years? Think of what I was on that day when a conglomeration of adverse circ.u.mstances turned our proposed expedition against the chateau de Kernogan into a disaster for our village lads, and a triumph for the duc. I was knocked down and crushed all but to death by the wheels of Mlle. de Kernogan's coach. I managed to crawl in the mud and the cold and the rain, on my hands and knees, hurt, bleeding, half dead, as far as the presbytery of Vertou where the _cure_ kept me hidden at risk of his own life for two days until I was able to crawl farther away out of sight. The _cure_ did not know, I did not know then of the devilish revenge which the duc de Kernogan meant to wreak against my father. The news reached me when it was all over and I had worked my way to Paris with the few sous in my pocket which that good _cure_ had given me, earning bed and bread as I went along. I was an ignorant lout when I arrived in Paris. I had been one of the ci-devant Kernogan's labourers--his chattel, what?--little better or somewhat worse off than a slave. There I heard that my father had been foully murdered--hung for a crime which I was supposed to have committed, for which I had not even been tried. Then the change in me began. For four years I starved in a garret, toiling like a galley-slave with my hands and muscles by day and at my books by night. And what am I now? I have worked at books, at philosophy, at science: I am a man of education. I can talk and discuss with the best of those d----d aristos who flaunt their caprices and their mincing manners in the face of the outraged democracy of two continents. I speak English--almost like a native--and Danish and German too. I can quote English poets and criticise M. de Voltaire. I am an aristo, what? For this I have worked, citizen Chauvelin--day and night--oh! those nights! how I have slaved to make myself what I now am!

And all for the one object--the sole object without which existence would have been absolutely unendurable. That object guided me, helped me to bear and to toil, it cheered and comforted me! To be even one day with the duc de Kernogan and with his daughter! to be their master! to hold them at my mercy!... to destroy or pardon as I choose!... to be the arbiter of their fate!... I have worked for four years: now my goal is in sight, and you talk glibly of forgoing my own schemes of revenge!

Believe me, citizen Chauvelin," he concluded, "it would be easier for me to hold my right hand into those flames until it hath burned to a cinder than to forgo the hope of that vengeance which has eaten into my soul.

It would hurt much less."

He had spoken thus at great length, but with extraordinary restraint.