Seeking Solitude in the Stables
Helene held the lamp high above her head as she made her way across the gravel to the stable block. In her other hand she held a half dozen carrots for the horses. Helene was worried about the couple she worked for. Her trip to London with Marguerite had ended so strangely and, with Armand's plea for her to look after his sister, Helene felt anxiety for Lady Blakeney and a sense of frustration at her own uselessness in the situation. She was also feeling incredibly guilty about backing out of the League's latest expedition to France. She was sure Sir Percy would be angry with her. She knew he was angry with his wife, for she had heard that they had argued, but as she had been subconsciously avoiding both parties she did not know what the cause was. Was she the cause of the row? Oh, mon Dieu, let me not be the cause of their unhappiness, she thought as she entered the stable and placed the lamp on the side. One of the bays, which pulled Sir Percy's carriage whinnied as it recognised her. "Ah ma chere, comment ca va?" she asked the horse. She had no idea what their names were... or even if they *had* names, so Helene called all the mares 'ma chere'. The horse snorted softly and nuzzled the hand which held the carrots. "Tu as le faim?" she smiled at the gesture, but there was a hint of sadness and pre-occupation in the smile. The animals would calm her and, given time, lift her spirits as they never failed to do. Helene petted the horse gently, fed it a carrot and continued to prattle on... completely unaware that she was not alone.
At the far end of the barn, where Sultan's stall was grandly kept, Blakeney stood in the darkness ,watching. Helene was as he knew her. Strong. Brave. But was she so strong as to keep secret the League and all he had protected these past months?
Helene had been with his lady in London, and even Sir Percy was not foolish enough to be blind to the fact that gossip was a term born forth by women.
He watched Helene make her way nearer and nearer, as she fed each horse. Sultan's turn was coming, and when she neared with the lantern, Percival Blakeney made no move to avoid the light. Instead, it struck his face from below, casting an eerie shadow that made the man known as the Scarlet Pimpernel look rather like the devil himself.
She couldn't help noticing that two of the stables were empty. Where could the horses be at this time? Not out grazing, surely. Last of the line was Sir Percy's personal mount, a huge horse which dwarfed the others as its rider dwarfed most humans. The lantern played with the shadows in the stables, casting them here and there, turning them into towering, menacing shapes. Helene was not frightened by shadows, but when the lamplight fell directly on Sir Percy, his unexpected presence made her exclaim aloud and almost drop the lantern. "Sir Percy?"
"Good evening." He said rather dryly. Blakeney showed nothing of his Sir Percy persona, and he looked anything but being a pleasant man. Angry and furious with Marguerite, he skipped all formalities and hit straight to what was on his mind. "Did you and your lady enjoy London?"
"I..." she began and then stopped. What was she going to say? Sorry? It was so automatic that it almost slipped through, but somehow she knew it would be the worst thing she could say. It was so inadequate. Helene felt small next to the huge stallion and its master. She felt overawed, like a scolded child. It would be too easy to let that feeling sweep away the memory of why she had gone with Marguerite. She tried to speak rationally, "I know you are angry with me and I know that I deserve it, for letting you down, but I had good reason... please believe me."
"It is not you I am angry with Madelmoiselle Helene." He stepped forth into the light, and gave a yawn and stretch. Sir Percy slipping slowly in as the anger melted out. "But I do with to inquire about the time."
Her heart lifted when she saw him yawn like that. She did not think that he could act so, if he were truly enraged. More calmly now, she placed the lantern on the side. "Armand was worried about his sister. He thought her unwell and that she ought to see a doctor." She remembered the carrot for Sultan. The horse nuzzled her hand as he took it and she gently stroked his mane. "But Marguerite can be strong willed... stubborn, even. When she decided to go to London, I believed it would be a golden chance to persuade her. That's why I accompanied her to London."
"Ill indeed." His eyes narrowed and the hatred of his wife flared up. Ill. He knew how stubborn she could be. Stubborn enough to kill."
"Sometimes I think I know you," she said in a voice sadly shocked by his reaction, "and then... how is it you can see pain on the faces of strangers hundreds of miles away, yet you're blind to the sufferings of your own wife?" As Helene thought of that trip to London, the number of times Marguerite had valiently tried to make out that there was nothing wrong and that tearful confession of what the doctor had eventually discovered, her soft voice mustered the tone she generally reserved for the classroom. "Yes, she is ill, the doctor said so. She needs her friends around her... she needs *you*! And I know she can be stubborn, but that's all the more reason for us to keep trying."
"Sometimes we think we know the world in which we live." Percy glanced at Helene. "We live in it. Breathe its air. Hear the sounds from a creek or wind against the trees. We know this world like the back of our hand. As children we knew every tunnel and divot in the ground." His gaze began to focus elsewhere. Some distant point among the trees.
"Then we grow up, still holding onto our ideals and these knowledgeable things that we know are true. They are true and must be so, for we grew up trusting them." Blakeney looked back at Helene. "Then one day we open our
eyes and look to the birds to hear them. We know they are going to chirp and we even know the song they are going to again sing.
"But they don't. They sit on grey branches with frost on their feet and their beaks are tied shut. A choice. A choice Helene. I rescue the French because each day, that is what I do. And no matter what frost may try to contain me, I shall not sit still on a grey branch."
Not until now had she ever heard such pain in any statement. Here he talked of childhood. When children grow up they eventually discard their rose-tinted spectacles, but the man before her was speaking as though his had been stolen... as though he had been forced, before he was ready, to face the grim reality of the world and hated what he saw. What had happened to make him feel this way? and what had it to do with Marguerite? Helene didn't quite understand. "No one is asking you to sit on a branch, Sir Percy." she said gently "No one's asking you to turn your back on those in France who are in need of help. I'm just puzzled at your attitude towards Marguerite, that's all. Why do you run from her when she needs you most?" she hoped he might enlighten her, "Do you fear that she would clip your wings, if she knew?"
"There are things you do not understand, Mademoiselle Helene. Things that even the most understandable of minds still, to this day, can not comprehend." Sir Percy's pale blue eyes hardened, thinking of the deaths. True to his own life's vow, he did not speak against Marguerite. He would not. Could not. "If you will excuse me." He turned to go.
Helene opened her mouth to respond. Just then the door of the stable flew open and Louise, clad only in her little nightgown, came running in. "Helene, Helene! Are you there?" she cried, obviously distraught.
"Yes I'm here"
"Is it true?" she ran to Helene for comfort.
"Is what true? Louise, what are you talking about?"
"They say madam has left. And if Madam has left she won't need a maid, and if she doesn't need a maid then there'll be no sister for you to tutor, so we'll have to leave too. I heard them say so." Them, were obviously the other servants. "Is it true?"
"I don't know" replied Helene honestly, "Is it true Sir Percy?"
Louise froze. She had been unaware of his presence until Helene mentioned it. She gazed at him. Half inclined to run to him for the security his embrace had once offered, half wanting to run away from the man who menaced her new life. Torn, she did neither, but clung still closer to Helene, cuffing her tears on her nightdress.
Taken a bit aback, for Blakeney always held a soft spot in his heart for Louise, the distant eyes came forth to them and he slowly shook his head, slipping into true Sir Percy's full voice. "Nay little flower! What makes you think such things? It is not I that pay the bills and decide who to employee and for what." Squating down, to take a better look at Louise, he reached forward and every so gently cuffed her little chin. "What say I wish to keep you around, just to play with me each and every day, hmm? Who else can do it so well but you?" With a purposefull glance, he looked at Helene. There would be no way in the devil's hell that he was going to let her go either.
Louise brightened, the buoy of her trust and hope springing once more to the surface.
"Really?". Helene caught his look and meaning, but frowned none-the-less, "Marguerite has left Blakeney Manor?" she asked, seeking confirmation
"I do not know. Perhaps the lady is off again on holiday." He stood, patting and ruffling little Louise's mop of hair. His gaze however, held nothing of the fun lovingness going on with the hand. To Helene, his look spoke largely of the disgust of the earlier conversation; Pre-Louise. "She has become truly English, for women surely do what women want."
Helene sensed that he was blocking, probably for Louise's sake. Again how like him to think of her and how irritating that he seemed to care less for his wife than for the child. "I suppose they do, but I would hardly have thought that she would have gone away at present..." she remembered Louise and altered her sentence to "... given recent occurences. Does Armand know that she has gone?"
"I do not know Helene." He reached down and picked up Louise, swinging her over his shoulders until she sat upon them. "What an excellent idea just struck me, Sink me for my cleverness! Why do you not go look for him, say? While you have your hide and seek Helene, Miss Louise and I can have our own game of Priests and Pirates. What do you say?" He asked the child, looking up and ticking her. It was a hurtful reminder that Louise would be the closest he would come to having a child of his own.
"Let's go over here, shall we?" With a purposeful wink at Helene, he left her there, bringing Louise back in doors and out of the darkness of the night.