The Scarlet Pimpernel Series – All 35 Titles in One Edition. Emma Orczy
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life, here was love and home and peace, and all to be given up as soon as found to the equally insistent call of honour and of duty!
The others did not speak; perhaps they, too, understood. Men in those days were used to stern sacrifices. They and there forebears had given up their all so that their children's children might live in freedom and security. They only marvelled if this stranger, with the combative English blood in him, would give up what was so infinitely dear to him -- the exquisite wife to whom he had plighted his troth but a few hours ago -- and if he would fight for them again as he had done in the past.
The Stadtholder remained moody and silent, and the close atmosphere of the heavily curtained room seemed to become suddenly still, hushed, as if expectant of the grave decision to come. The wax candles burned quite steadily, with just a tiny fillet of smoke rising up towards the low-raftered ceiling, almost like the incense of silent prayer rising unwaveringly to God.
To many the silence appeared absolute, but not to the man who stood in the midst of them all beside a table littered with papers and documents, his slender hand -- the hand of an idealist, rendered firm and hard by action -- resting lightly upon the board. A tense look in his eyes. Through the silence he could hear his beloved in the little room behind the heavy tapestry. He could hear the soft, insidious sound of the quaint-toned virginal, and her voice, tender and melancholy as the call of the bird to its mate, humming the sweet refrain gently under her breath. with every note she seemed to tear at his heart with an unendurable regret for what might have been.
Oh, it had been such a perfect dream! Gilda and that stately home over in England, and the ride through the night in pursuit of happiness which had proved as elusive as Fata Morgana, as unreal as the phantoms born in the mind of a rhapsodist.
Then the silence did, indeed, become absolute, even to him. Gilda had ceased her song. Only his straining ears caught the sound of her footsteps as she rose from the virginal, then moved swiftly about the room.
"Well," the Stadtholder reiterated, after awhile, "which is it to me, my friend? I start for Utrecht within the hour and if we are to save Arnheim and Nijmegen, you should be on your way to Vorden with the necessary moneys and my written orders to-night. Of course, I cannot compel you," he added simply "The decision rests with you, and if you ---"
The words died on his lips, and in an instant all eyes were turned to that end of the room where a heavy portiere divided it from the room beyond. A faint rustling sound had come from there, then the grating of metal rings upon the cornice-pole that held the tapestry. The next moment Gilda appeared in the doorway, shadowy, wraith-like in her sombre gown that melted into the gloom. Just her small, white face and delicate hands stood out against the murky background, and the gossamer lace at her throat and wrists.
For a moment she stood there, one hand still holding back the heavy portiere, quite still, taking in the company at a glance. A sigh of longing and of renunciation came from an overburdened heart, and was wafted up to the foot of Him who knows all and understands all. Then Gilda allowed the tapestry to fall together behind her, and she came quickly forward. In the other hand she was holding, firmly clasped, her husband's heavy sword.
She came close to him, and then said simply, with an ingenuous smile: "I thought you might wonder where you had left it. It was in the other room. You will be wanting it, my dear lord, if you start for Vorden within the hour."
With deft fingers she buckled the sword to his belt. This, in truth, was her decision, and she had acted with scarce a moment's hesitation, even whilst he marvelled how he could set to work to break her heart by leaving her this night.
Now, when their glances met, they understood one another. The power that lay within both their souls had met and, as it were, clasped hands. They accepted one another's sacrifice. Hers, mayhap, was the more complete of the two, because for her his absence would mean weary waiting, the dull heartache so terrible to bear.
For the man, the wrench would be eased by action, danger and hard fighting; for her there would be nothing to do but wait. But she acquiesced. No one had seen the struggle which it had cost her, over there in the little room, all alone with only the dumb virginal and the dying light to see the tears of rebellion and of agony which for one brief moment -- for her an eternity -- had seared her eyes. By the time the full meaning of what she had overheard from the other side of the portiere had entered into her brain, she had recovered full outward calm, and had brought him his sword in token of her resolve.
Gilda Beresteyn came of a race that had learned to fight even from its infancy. She had handled her father's sword at an age when little maids are content with playthings. Now, when she made the buckles of her husband's sword secure, she met his glance with perfect serenity, and said simply and calmly:
"You will find me, as before, in the other room. I will be waiting there to bid you farewell."
Then she glided out of the room, wraith-like, ethereal, as she had come. And Diogenes woke as if out of a trance.
The Stadtholder jumped to his feet. "Then you're with us?" he exclaimed.
"If your Highness hath need of me," the soldier replied.
"Have I not said so?" the prince retorted. "Henceforth, Sir Percy Blakeney -- for that is your name, is it not? -- accompanies us as our Master of the Camp wherever we go!"
"Nay, " the other replied quite firmly and without even a sigh of regret this time, "my name is Diogenes, as it hath always been. It is the nameless and homeless adventurer, the son of the poor Dutch tramp, who once again places his sword at your Highness's disposal. Sir Percy Blakeney was only a myth, a shade that hath already been exorcized by the magic of your Highness's call, in the name of our faith and of liberty."
"Frankly, man," the Stadtholder retorted with a smile, "I could not picture you in the character of a placid and uxorious country gentleman, watching with unruffled complacence the life and death struggles of your friends."
"I should have waxed obese, your Highness," Diogenes assented whimsically; "and the horror of it would have sent me to my grave."
"Then, you inveterate mocker, are you ready to start?"
"Booted and spurred, your Highness, and a sword on my hip," replied the other lightly. "And my horse hath been waiting for me these two hours past."
Already Maurice of Nassau was on his feet. He took the sacrifice, the self-denial, as a matter of course; was unaware of it, probably. Every other thought was completely merged in that of the coming struggle -- De Berg crossing the Ijssel, Spinola threatening from the south, and victory beckoning once more.
The burghers crowded round him, speaking words of loyalty and of encouragement. He responded with somewhat curt farewells. His thoughts were no longer here; they were across the Veluwe with Marquet and De Keysere; inside Arnheim and Nijmegen.
He kept Diogenes by his side, wrote out his orders in sign-manual, discussed plans, possibilities with the man in whose luck and resource he had unbounded belief.
It took time to get everything ready. There was the financial question, too, for some of the troops were mercenaries, who would be demanding their pay ere they engaged to start on a fresh expedition. For this the aid of the loyal burghers had again to be requisitioned. Arrangements had to be made for credits at Zutphen and Arnheim.
This part of the great adventure the Stadtholder was willing to leave in the hands of Mynheer Beresteyn and his friends. Money to him was dross, save as a means of gaining his great ends. For the nonce he was in a hurry to get away, to get back to his camp at Utrecht, and to make ready for the coming fight.
Then at last there came a moment when everything appeared settled. The messenger had his sealed orders, and the credit notes and the read money upon his person. The Stadtholder was back in the hall with his equerries around him, ready for departure, giving brief, decisive orders such as soldiers love to hear.
But Diogenes did not follow him immediately, and Mynheer Beresteyn remained behind with him. He was the only one who really understood what the once careless and thoughtless adventurer felt at this moment, in face of the inevitable farewell. It was an understanding born in a staunch heart