iRelle

Yesterday, I picked up our very, very well-thumbed and dog-eared copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel, to read it again for the I’ve-lost-count-how-many-th time. I had read this book several times before I’d even heard of Harry Potter, and before I stopped reading Babysitters Club books. I guess I must have been about ten or eleven, and this book is one of the three that form my absolute best-loved classics canon. The other two are Jane Eyre and Gone with the Wind.

Obviously, when I was ten I didn’t understand much of the pride, the malice and the madly, truly, deeply love that makes up a fairly hefty portion of the plot. But I think the loathing for sneaking, slimy little Chauvelin, and the fondness for the foppish, moronic Percy are two emotions that have persisted since the first time I read the book.

In a nutshell: the story is played out in England and revolutionary France, that time when aristocratic heads were rolling from the blade of Madame Guillotine and the Citizens of France were determined to form a new country, no longer crushed beneath the heel of the aristocracy. Naturally, the aristocrats were fleeing the country – but not so successfully, until the entrance of… the Scarlet Pimpernel! This wealthy, well-bred, enigmatical Englishman is the only one who can put fear into the hearts of the French authorities, and with the help of his band of nineteen similarly well-bred and wealthy other young Englishmen, he rescues countless counts and countesses from the blood-stained streets of Paris, signing his defiant notes with a small, star-shaped flower… or at least, until his disguise is betrayed, and his life is put in danger by a woman torn between loyalties and loves.

Lady Blakeney, nee Margeurite St. Just, is ‘the cleverest woman in Europe’, a young Frenchwoman who married the dullest wit but richest bank account in England, Sir Percy. Her older brother, Armand – who stands as mother and father to her, since their parent’s death when she was a child – is heavily involved in the revolution, and soon enough a compromising letter is found with some of the Scarlet Pimpernel’s men. Sneaking, black-hearted Chauvelin, the French ambassador in England, sets out to set a trap for the brave, daring and strangely unsuspecting Scarlet Pimpernel, and as Margeurite dances at my Lord Granville’s ball, she becomes a reluctant pawn in the deadly game.

I am a complete fan of the moment that realisation dawns, as Chauvelin settles in the Dinner Room to spring his trap, and you realise – moments before any of the characters – who the Scarlet Pimpernel really is, and try to grasp what, exactly, just happened… and how the whole story suddenly stretches into a different shape. At least, I didn’t see that coming the first time I read the story, and that moment of surprise and dread still steals up on me.

There is absolutely no excuse for not at least attempting to read this book. It’s not hard to read, the characters are amazingly detailed, and even buxom Sally, the Innkeeper’s daughter, is winsome enough to make you read on. And you can read it (or listen to it, if audiobooks are more your thing) for free, online! See, no excuses at all.

Seriously, if you’re looking for something to fill in an evening or two, or you have some spare time on your hands, this is a brilliant way to do it.

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