“Er, lots to tell, F,” said Henry sharply, glaring at his friend to silence him. “But we must get going now, F. We’ll miss our boat.”
Francis’s aunt pecked her nephew on the cheek and, shaking her head, turned back inside, but when Francis Simpkins climbed into the coach he was very surprised to see not little Eleanor, or Mr Bonespair either, but a young French Count sitting there, in such very fine, clean cloths, looking as if he wanted to make the carriage fly.
Francis Simpkins had seen Armande first when he had stopped in Peckham on the way to his aunt’s, but this was a shock, all right.
“Oh. Hello,” he whispered awkwardly, as he sat down.
Armande St Honoré dipped his head rather warily at the fourteen year old newcomer but, as they rattled away again, in no time at all Henry had explained just what was really going on.
Francis Simpkins went green, as Hal finished speaking.
“Rescue her from Frenchie spies?” he gulped.
“Yes, F. Isn’t it amazing?”
“But a new Club?” said Francis, as doubtfully as Spike had, wrinkling up his freckly nose and wondering if this Skipper driving their carriage would lose control and crash. “But what’s wrong with the Rat…”
“A new club, loyal to the last,” interrupted Henry, pulling out the Sacred Time Piece. “With me the leader.”
“The leader for now,” said Armande suddenly and Henry glared.
“And sworn on this,” he added quickly.
Francis was deeply uncertain but the sight of the chronometer had an instant effect on the owlish newcomer though, because Francis Simpkins’ huge eyes bulged in delight.
“Blimey, Hal, but it’s wonderful.”
“I know. Mr Wickham gave it to me, Francis, for my birthday yesterday. So it’s our new Rats Tail, if you like. It was made by Isaac Harrison himself, F, the Cousin of…”
“John Harrison,” said the swotish boy, with an eager nod, completely forgetting to be frightened now, “Who invented the famous Marine Chronometer, and so solved the problem of Longitude at Sea, to help England Master the waves. It must be good, if his Cousin made it.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
Count Armande looked a little sour, not to say jealous, but Hal was nodding and had just decided to appoint Francis Simpkins special science expert of their brand new Club.
“Can I look inside though, Hal?” asked Francis, “I so love clocks. Especially a Harrison Time Piece.”
“Doesn’t seem to open, F,” answered Henry, with a shrug, “but you’re in aren’t you? The Club. You’ll take the oath, I mean? Help us kidnap Juliette back again.”
Francis Simpkins frowned now, wondering if his Quaker parents would ever approve such a mad thing, but he was certainly a very dedicated Rat Catcher. He was a very measured, thoughtful boy, who usually took his time deciding things, but once he had, it took heaven and earth to change his mind again. It was another reason Henry liked him, because it made him so reliable.
“Yes. I think so. Yes. I will.”
Henry held out the Time Piece and Francis put his hand on it, as Hal began to mouthe the great words that he had used in the barn. “I swear on the Sacred Time piece, and my life, to dedicate myself to the cause of the Pimpernel Club.”
“Well done,” cried Hal, when Francis had finished taking the Oath too, and Armande looked a little left out, now that two such close friends were reunited: Not Rat Catchers now, but Pimpernels
“But look here,” said Francis suddenly. “There’s something’s written on the back.”
It was true. Henry Bonespair had not noticed before that, etched into the silver in the finest lettering, was a fine little inscription that he read out now: “Patent Revolutionary Time Piece. I Harrison. June 6, 1779.’
“But June 6th was yesterday,” whispered Francis Simpkins, looking sharply at his best friend and Armande too.
“Right. And my birthday,” said Hal, with a surprised grin, but blinking too, because the watch felt rather warm again.
It seemed very strange indeed and suddenly a little eerie too.
“Not just yesterday though,” observed Henry, almost to himself, “1779. The same year that I was born, F. The very same day. Ouch.”
Henry Bonespair had just jolted sharply in the carriage, because he had suddenly felt a pain in the top of his head, like someone tugging at his hair.
The two boys looked at him and raised their eyebrows.
“What a funny coincidence,” said Francis, starting to sweat a little, “And why Revolutionary, H? The French Revolution started four years ago, and this was made in England. But I wonder if that’s why Mr Wickham gave…”
Henry Bonespair was nodding thoughtfully again, because a strange mystery seemed to have suddenly surrounded the thing, as Count Armande looked jealously at it, remembering their lovely home just outside Paris, and all the marvellous mechanical wonders they had had inside. Until Count Armande realised that it really belonged to the Club now, even if he wasn’t the leader.
But Henry was feeling a little sleepy and his head was hurting oddly too, as he suddenly remembered a strange dream that he had not had for many years, of a fascinated face looking down at him, with brilliant, searching eyes, then reaching out a hand towards him.
“But what’s the plan?” asked Francis, looking eagerly between the two others, and thinking the Count looked rather stupid in his fancy clothes.
Francis reached into his pocket too and pulled out a pencil and a little brown notebook.
“Plan? First off you’ve got to spot who the enemy is,” said Hal firmly, coming back to his senses and trying to instil a sense of leadership over the growing Club, “I don’t mean French Soldiers, F, that’s easy. I mean the hidden enemy, on our own soil. Their spies. Because they’re doing exactly what we’re doing now, trying not to be noticed, as spies too.”
“Spies?” gulped Francis, rather doubtfully, “But they say the Scarlet Pimpernel never calls himself a spy, H.”
Henry Bonespair frowned, then grinned.
“All right then, F, adventurers. We’ll be adventures, not spies. But we must still stay hidden, at all costs.”
It all seemed sensible enough and Francis Simpkins lifted the little leather notebook that he always carried at school to note interesting things down in.
“Go on then, Henry, and I’ll take notes.”
“So we watch out for strange people, F, with odd limps, funny accents and just looking suspicious, or a bit devilish,” said Henry, who heard a kind of dull ‘POP’ and felt water running down his cheek. His ear had cleared at last and it was a huge relief.
“Then to disguises,” said Henry more keenly, wiping the side of his face. “Brilliant disguises, F, and special equipment too: Maps, secret letters, codes and scare tails.”
“Pardon?” said Armande, fiddling with a cuff, and suddenly remembering these boys were mere trades people, “Scares quois?”
“Codes on paper, Count, wrapped on a stick,” explained Francis Simpkins, holding up his pencil to demonstrate and suddenly growing excited too. “You can only read it again when you wrap it round another, Count, exactly the same size. A great way of passing codes.”
It sounded rather complicated and just not the sort of thing that a sophisticated French Count really did, as Armande wondered what on earth he was getting into.
“We don’t have much equipment though,” sighed Francis, “Shoudn’t a good Club have some really decent equipment, H?”
“Well, we’ve got the watch,” answered Henry, “And Spike thinks its magic.”
“Magic? Just like a silly seven year old,” laughed Francis, although rather wanting to see the little girl again, and hearing a dull, muffled banging below them too. “She didn’t come though?”
“Of course not, F, and she’s really furious about it.”
“I bet. Well, H, what’s happening nowadays is much better than stupid magic,” said Francis, “There are so many new inventions around. Someti
mes I even wish I was coming to France with you. For the experiment.”
Francis Simpkins blinked as he realised they weren’t going to France at all, only to Dover, if they could not catch up with Juliette beforehand, but now he thought of it, that was bad enough. These Frenchie Secret Agents sounded horrible and it had all been sprung on him so very suddenly. Francis felt a little sick.
“I mean, if you w-w-were going,” Francis whispered, stuttering slightly, “They say there are many wonderful new things in France now. An age of Reason too.”
“Pardon, monsieur?” said Count Armande stiffly, glaring at Francis’s freckles.
“Reason,” said the fourteen year old softly, “Not God, or any silly Devil, Count, or mad things like that. Citizen Danton uses argument, they say, and rhetoric, to make his great speeches in your National Convention. This new Rationalism, it’s called, like being reasonable.”
Henry Bonespair blinked at his know-it-all friend, hardly knowing who these people were, and hardly caring either, but glad to have Francis there too. Francis looked a little guilty at what he had said though, since his own parents were Quakers. He was always trying to hide from the Religious meetings they had at home.
“So Danton sways opinion,” the clever only child went on, trying to look as grown up as the other two boys, “and tells the mob to riot too, so controls the course of a Revolution, with his brilliant reason alone. Danton’s a genius, they say.”
“Oh,” said Hal, yawning slightly.
“Yet anything can happen now,” added Francis, with a sigh, who had clearly been reading the Newspapers too.
“Anything? What do you mean, F?” asked Hal, as the coach jolted and the bag of coin slipped to the floor. Francis bent down to pick it up.
“Well, H, Dr Marat was nearly toppled, a few weeks back, then placed on trial by the Girondins,” said Francis, holding the coin, “They want a Federal State now, with independence for all the regions, not a State governed directly from Paris.”
Armande St Honoré looked rather uncomfortably at this swotish boy, but as Henry thought of Dr Marat, that fearsome name attached to Armande’s letter, the boy suddenly felt a terrible sense of foreboding.
“But such are the changing fortunes of a Revolution,” Francis went on grandly, like a very knowledgable grown up, “That Dr Marat’s acquittal, and then the defection of one of the leading Girondins to Austria too, has opened the gates of horror, Hal. He’s in charge now, and a Terror’s to be let loose. I read it.”
“Austria,” said Count Armande though, not wanting to be left out, “Our Queen is an Austrian. Queen Marie Antoinette.”
“Pelletier,” Francis whispered suddenly.
“What?” said Henry Bonespair.
“Jacques Nicolas Pelletier,” said Francis, noting it down in his book and tapping it with his pencil. “April, 1792. A murderer and criminal, H, and that clever machine’s very first victim too. Madame Guillotine. It’s real History now, Hal, but these days History filled with clever new things.”
Count Armande’s face suddenly looked like thunder.
“Clever new things, Monsieur?” he grunted, “Like that machine, you mean? Mother says there’s only one thing en France, now. DEATH.”
Henry Bonespair remembered that Armande’s father had really been murdered in Paris, for real, and Francis Simpkins blushed.
“Yes, Count, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… “
“Oh, can’t we change the subject?” said Hal though. “We’re not going to France, anyway, Francis, just to Dover. But we can pick up more equipment as we go. Keys. Sharp objects for opening things in the night, and weapons.”
“Weapons?” said Francis, turning a little green again.
“Only if we need them, silly. But from what Armande says about these espion, it’ll be safer not to confront them at all. To smuggle Juliette away in disguise. We’ll dress up first, to search, like The Scarlet Pimpernel himself.”
“But my parents,” said Francis suddenly, who hadn’t thought of it before, “they’re coming to Fule in a few days, and I’m a day late already.”
“Oh, we’ll all be back long before then,” said Hal reassuringly.
“And then there’s School, I’ve got so much catching up to…”
“Don’t be daft, F. That’s not till September, if the Cholera lets up.”
“Oh, yes,” said Francis Simpkins, feeling a little reassured, but another doubt seemed to cloud his mind now. “But Dover. What if we get there just too…”
“Late?” snapped Henry irritably, “The Pimpernels are never late, F. We’ve got a watch.”
Again Hal was trying to be the leader but the boys fell silent, staring at the thing, a little reassured, and all that morning they hurtled along, as Francis Simpkins kept writing scientific notes about wheels and weight ratios, doing a sketch of the special Chronometer too, but towards lunchtime they learnt some very welcome news.
At a way station a wheelwright was telling a small group of travellers how he had made a whole gold piece, mending the axle on a damaged carriage, the day before, for some grumbling Frenchie travellers.
“The espions,” said Armande, as they bounced off again, “They would have to be stopping at night, so they’re only half a day ahead now.”
The news gave the boys renewed hope, and a mounting fear too at what it would really be like to meet the enemy, but soon a torrential downpour started, that belted down on the Dover road, turning everything to thick mud, and slowing them up desperately.
Henry caught up for the night before by sleeping in the coach though, having strange, feverish dreams, feeling a sharp tugging at his head, and hearing a strange banging again, but the rain had stopped by the time night began to fall and they felt the coach slowing again.
“What’s up now, Holmwood?” yawned Hal, waking and poking his head out into the dripping night, as Skipper sneezed furiously. Hal felt rather guilty they had all been so warm inside, but Armande was looking in horror at the filthy black rainwater trickling down the side of the window.
“King’s ‘ead, Bonespair,” answered Skipper, “Perhaps she’s down theres.”
Francis was looking out too and the boys acknowledged each other now, but Skipper suddenly pointed to a rickety roadside sign, half covered by a dripping bush, with an arrow indicating a track. Underneath it, in sloppy whitewash, were the words Kings’ Head Inn, 500 Metres. Fine Victualling For All.
“But it says so, Holmwood,” said Francis.
“Right, mister,” grunted Skipper immediately, and blushing deeply, “It’s dark, that’s all. Shall I take it then, or should we push on for Dover? ... Accchooo.”
Poor Skipper Holmwood was drenched and he sneezed again, rather wishing his little friend Spike was here. He felt lonely up there, driving the Club’s carriage.
“Pray HARD, if you do, lads,” roared a voice suddenly.
Skipper Holmwood jumped and Henry pulled back sharply inside, as a weird figure appeared on the track, from nowhere, leering straight in at the three boys, soaking wet too and looking as if he had spent the day in a hedgerow. He looked like a ruined magician.
“Pray for no Highwaymen?” gulped Henry Bonespair in a small voice, remembering what the soldiers had said.
“Pray for no ghosts, boy, nor devils neither,” growled the tramp, rolling his dark red eyes suspiciously at Skipper, “That old road down to the King’s ‘ead, and the wood in them parts, are cursed terrible. There’s a hanging oak down there too, see. A haunted tree.”
Francis Simpkins blanched.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he whispered. It was a favourite phrase of Francis Simpkins’ at school, but the truth was that he had had a bad feeling since Henry had told him the plan. It was not that Francis believed in ghosts, he was far too sensible for that, but the sound of a hanging oak, so close by too, was horrible.
The wayfarer crossed himself furiously and was about to stride off again when a chink of moonlight broke through the scuddin
g clouds and he stopped and looked in near horror, straight at Henry Bonespair’s face.
“Damn and cursed me,” he gasped, stepping back sharply. “No.”
“No what?” said Henry sleepily, “What are you staring at?”
“The eye,” cried the stranger, clasping something in his belt, “but the wicked eye’s on you, lad. There.”
“Wicked eye?” said Henry indignantly, as Armande and Francis stared at him nervously, “But it’s just a punch. A black eye. Armande gave me a black…”
“Rubbish, boy. You bear the mark, for sure, fool. The Evil Eye.”
The stranger thrust his arm into the carriage, pressing something into Henry Bonespair’s bewildered young hand. It was a sprig of Rosemary.
“’eer, lad, take this. It has gypsy power and it’ll bring yoos luck, and turn away the eye. Poor innocent. Turn it away with all you are, boy. Flee it. Fly.”
The tramp cried it out as he he turned and hurried away into the soaking night. He had vanished like a ghost.
“But what did he mean, Bonespair?” whispered Count Armande distastefully, “Evil eyes?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t worry, Henry,” said Francis Simpkins softly, scratching his nose, “that’s all just silly country superstitions. Evil? I mean it stands to reason that if there isn’t any God anymore, H, how can there be any…”
“Hush,” said Henry though, and he put the sprig of Rosemary in his pocket nonetheless.
Skipper pressed on now and the track straight to the inn, hanging tree or not, led towards an eerie patch of wood, as a rising gale began to scream through the creaking branches.
This talk of evil had suddenly made the Club rather terrified.
The lane split on the edge of the trees, and with no other sign indicating if the King’s Head was left or right, the boys took the left fork, but had to turn in a muddy clearing, where the track ran out, and make their way back again.
Francis was getting really nervous now, wondering if they would ever find this blasted inn, but Henry was on edge too, not only because of this sudden talk of curses, and an Evil Eye, but because of what he had seen at the Night Watch in the fire, when there was a furious whinny.