Читать книгу The Life and Exploits of the Scarlet Pimpernel - Emmuska Orczy - Страница 14

Table of Contents

Percy Blakeney was born on the fifth of December, 1760, at Blake House.

A deep and lasting sorrow overshadowed the lives of the Blakeneys at this time. Percy was only a few weeks old when his mother fell a prey to the terrible malady which in those days was looked upon as incurable and nothing short of a curse from God. Algernon Blakeney had the terrible misfortune of seeing his idolized wife become hopelessly insane after two years of happy married life. Madness was a stigma which attached itself, so people said, only to those who had erred in life, but since no one could point the finger of accusation at the Blakeneys or the Dewhursts, this sickness, therefore, was regarded as a mystery, a visitation of the devil or a witch’s foul curse for some imagined insult. Many looked upon it as a just punishment predestined ever since the time when John Blake had deserted his Dutch wife over a century ago. But these only circulated in private and with extreme caution, since the vast wealth of Algernon and the great social and political influence of Lord Fulford precluded any veiled hints from being uttered in the open. One and all, however, pitied the new-born babe who had entered this world amidst such disastrous circumstances, already predicting a dreadful and miserable destiny for this scion of a noble race.

And indeed, it proved a tragic misfortune for both husband and son; the one deprived of the society and joy of a beautiful wife; the other of the tender care of a loving mother. And one can only conjecture how that poor woman must have suffered in the isolation of her deranged brain.

Joan Dewhurst was only eighteen when she married Algernon Blakeney. Her father was a younger brother of the Marquis of Fulford and the alliance was considered a very fitting one, though, according to some, the girl might easily have chosen a husband who stood higher up in the ranks of nobility, her beauty and accomplishments being famed far and wide. As to Joan herself, she seemed, at first, to have stepped straight into the romance of fairyland hand in hand with a Prince Charming who frankly adored her. And the young couple seemed to have nothing but happiness to look forward to in life. But within two years, a distracted husband was forced to leave his home and to take with him into exile a woman who did not even recognise her erstwhile lover, who had wandered away into a land of shadow lonelier and more terrifying than death.

For Percy it was a curious jumble of recollections that eventually emerged from these first few years of life. There was never a connected memory; it seemed as if isolated incidents alone held sway in the boy’s mind. Somewhere or other, there were storms at sea, evil-smelling boats, the bustling of strange lands and the din of foreign incomprehensible languages; somewhere else, the green meadows, the lowing of cattle and the serenity of an English spring. At one time, there was the utter desolation of illness and the frenzies of his father at another, the soft hands of a young woman and the jolly romps with an aged grandfather. But through them all there was no distinct line drawn between each set of impressions, they being, as it were, mixed higgledy-piggledy one into another, so that he could not tell which was first or which was last; the one evoking, even to his dying day, a sense of oppression and of evil presentiment, whilst the other induced always a feeling of well-being and cheerfulness.

One of the earliest recollections and the first milestones in his life, must have been the sudden collapse and death of old Sir George. The shock was a tremendous one for Percy. Though only just turned five at the time, he remembered every detail of that fateful afternoon when, alone with his grandfather at Blake House and whilst in the act of playing together, the old man stumbled and fell at the boy’s feet. The sight of the heavy ashen figure, the noise of the laboured and stertorous breathing terrified him. He watched the still figure with horror and alarm.

In his childish incomprehension of what had happened, he stood gazing down at the lifeless body until a feeling of sudden and utter loneliness surged up within his heart and took possession of his faculties. He remained motionless, hesitating, striving to repel the growing fear which all in a moment had now gripped his mind. He touched his grandfather; he tried to lift him, but the dead weight was too heavy for him to lift. Then the silence of the room suddenly struck Percy with a shock — a shock of awe and dread. He called to the old man, softly at first, coaxingly; then louder and louder until his voice sounded like a shrill shriek which echoed unanswered through the room.

After a valiant battle with himself he incontinently fled from the room. In an upstairs attic he faced the awful truth. The impression of a mysterious, hidden enemy, who stalked people unseen, striking without warning or reason, was an overwhelming one to his infant mind and remained as vivid in old age as it had been at the time of the occurrence. Thereafter, death became a reality long before it should; an actual person whom Percy endowed with flesh and blood; a person to be tracked down, detected and overcome; an insatiable monster to be cheated, its appetite to be starved.

“I shall never forget,” he is reported to have said on one occasion to his intimate friend, Anthony Dewhurst, “my first sight of death. It was so unheroic, so damned stupid, that I was overcome with shame at the idea that it could kill a Blakeney in so silly a fashion.”

Algernon, summoned in haste, failed utterly to grasp the situation as it appeared in the eyes of his son.

“Why did you run away?” the father asked.

And Percy, an emotion of strong aversion prompting him, made answer:

“I couldn’t help it: I was so ashamed.”