Scarlet Fever

Winter had long since taken its hold on England. Snow, silent and steady, drifted down from a dark sky, landing undisturbed on already piled drifts covering tree branches, hillsides, and the rooftops of small houses. Shuttered windows glowed with inner orange firelight, but the scene was barren. Separated from other countryside dwellings by both distance and size, Blakeney Manor seemed void of all life on the sleepy winter night. Only one room of the mansion-like house glowed with the warmth of an enormous fireplace, warming the solitary figure that kept a silent vigil in the late hour.

Marguerite Blakeney knew no peace that otherwise gorgeous night. Draped in her flowing white nightgown of silk and lace, the French woman sat curled up on a low couch before the fireplace, her head resting on her arms folded over the couch's side as she stared into the fire. Its light and warmth playing off her porcelain face showed not her usual smiling self, but instead a woman whose brow was creased in worrying thought, her mouth hardset in concerned mutterings and musings, her eyes and cheeks reddened by fallen tears. It had been hours since Percy and the Irish doctor had gone into that room, and since then all Marguerite had been able to hear was silence. That silence was torture. If she could only have news of what was to happen...some sign that everything would be alright or entirely hopeless so she would know how to react... She hated this unknowing.

A servant girl had brought the lady of the house a tray of warm tea some time ago, but those silver cups and spoons still sat on the table before her, cold and untouched. Marguerite could think of nothing else now except what went on behind that closed door which she only had to move her eyes from the fireplace to see. These hours were the most crucial to his survival, the doctor had said. Oh Lord...

It was nearing on the early morning hour of two when a sound finally came from behind the door. A footstep, a click, and the heavy wooden barrier opened to reveal Percival and the doctor emerging form that dark silence. Marguerite found herself very stiff as she pushed herself up to meet them, wiping away her face's redness. She didn't have to say anything. Percy whispered one last thing to the doctor before parting from him to his wife. He carried in his hand a cloth rag limp with saturation, his face grave and fallen, haggard from the same worry that had been plaguing Marguerite, his normally dashing blue gaze shamed in its handsome beauty by an obvious sorrow. He looked gravely at his wife.

"We've done all that we can," he said, his gentle voice breaking the silence that threatened to stifle. "He's in God's hands now."

Marguerite felt whatever strength had kept her outward composure thus far fall away as her husband kneeled beside her, resting his forehead against the couch's material with an exhausted sigh. The burn of tears filled her eyes and she bent to whisper into his blonde mane, dirty and unwashed from the night's surveillance. "Can I see him?"

Percy brought his face up and moved with silent grace until he sat beside her on the low couch, the rag discarded on the table beside it. He reached out to take her hand, and very willingly Marguerite leaned into his warm embrace, more comforting than any firelight, feeling her trembling eased in his protective arms. The sleeve of his common sailor's shirt became the kerchief for her tears. "The boy is still delirious, love," the Englishman sighed, stroking her auburn hair and gently kissing her forehead, wary of his own unsteady voice. "He wouldn't want you to see him in such a way."

"But he's my little brother," Marguerite sobbed, having not the reserves left to hold back her worrying grief. "I want to see him..."

Percy held his wife tightly, rocking her as one would comfort a child. He couldn't stand to see her cry. "Later, my dear," he whispered, his own voice breaking in the quiet. "Later."

"I'm so afraid, Percy," she went on, hugging herself against his chest at it felt any moment she would collapse. His study support was what she yearned for now, the strong beat of his heart a vessel of life she could draw hope from. Her voice itself was a hushed whisper, cracked in fear. "What if Armand dies?"

"Armand will not die," Percy answered, praying then that he should feel half as convinced as he sounded. In truth, from what the doctor had told him, there seemed little hope for the boy. But there was always hope. "He is a strong lad, with the willpower of stubborn ox. He won't give up if he can fight. Trust me, Marguerite, he didn't survive prison just to die on us now."

Marguerite's weeping increased tenfold, both at the thought of her only brother's death and at Percy's bold words that seemed to hold no conviction. She let herself go limp in her husband's arms, her tears unchecked as they fell hot and salty down her cheeks. After a moment of this visual torture Percy rose to his feet, holding Marguerite tightly to him as he dismissed the doctor with a grateful nod and turned to carry her slowly away from Armand's room and back to their own. As much as Percy yearned to comfort her, kiss away his wife's tears and tell her everything would be alright, he didn't. He couldn't. He wasn't sure that they would be. All they could so was wait.

Percy carried her with a tender lover's gentleness into their bedroom and laid her down to rest on the warm, soft blankets. Marguerite curled up immediately, hiding her face deep in the feathery down of a pillow. The man slowly and carefully pulled the top silky sheet loose and let it come to rest covering Marguerite to her shoulders, then removing his jacket and shoes he lay down beside her on top of the coverings. Stroking her arm, her hair, Percival strove to give his wife what it was she most needed then: support, comfort, love. Surrounded as she was in these warm and tender feelings, Marguerite felt herself overcome with exhaustion, and accompanied by the handsome sight of her husband's loving gaze she drifted into a sleep absent of all pain.

Marguerite didn't know how much time had passed before she woke, having not moved. Percy lay asleep beside her, his arm still draped across her shoulder. The house around them was silent, silent as a tomb, and immediately the French woman remembered Armand. Slowly, carefully, so as not to disturb her husband, Marguerite slipped out from under the cover and tossed a warm shawl over her shoulders. A parting kiss to her husband's cheek, so soft it didn't disturb his quiet snoring, she padded from the room and down the hallway to that of her ill brother.

The room normally reserved for guests but now altered into Armand's quarantine was dark and silent as the rest of the house when Marguerite entered, her bare feet making not a sound on the wooden floor. After closing the heavy wooden door behind her with only a click, she stood, frozen with fear at what she might see there in Armand's bed. From the large bay windows on the far wall, their curtains drawn against the cold, a small amount of the silver moonlight reflecting off the newfallen snow filtered inside, mixing with the gentle firelight across the room which was the only other source. It spilled over the bed, and, as Marguerite approached, she saw formed the shadowy outlines of her brother's profile. Heavenly light.

If Armand had been a somewhat feeble, feminine young man before, as Marguerite gazed at him now struck down by the fever he'd contracted while in prison-by some twisted sense of Fate's humor: scarlet fever-he seemed all the more weak and frail. In the soft fire and moonlight his face was unearthly pale, brimmed in perspiration despite his earlier claims of being cold. The covers pulled up to his chin hid the shallow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the material clutched tightly by slender hands, and with that fear that her brother had already gone Marguerite approached the bedside.

"Armand?"

The young man stirred, groaned, and with an agonizing slowness the Frenchman turned his head and looked weakly up at his sister, gaze faint and unfocused. "Marguerite." A small smile came as he lifted one hand to her, trembling, until she took it. It felt cold as ice. Marguerite hurriedly sat down on the bed's edge, reaching to touch his forehead. Hot as fire. Marguerite felt the deep stabs of sorrow strike her heart once again, souring her throat. She pulled Armand's hand to her cheek, holding it there as though to warm away its coldness. She could hear his breathing now, labored and raspy, his voice dry with the torturing symptoms of the fever. "Marguerite, shouldn't you be in bed? It's very late..."

"Don't you make the slightest fuss over me, Armand," she managed with a choked sisterly chide. "It's you who needs rest."

"How can I rest knowing my sister is up half the night worrying about me?" he tried to return in equal tones but couldn't for the hindrance of coughing. A silence prevailed as he stifled his coughs in the blanket, waiting for them to fall away.

"Armand, I thought I lost Percy once. I don't want to lose you now, too, do you hear me?"

Armand sighed in defeat, knowing he could have expected something such as this, and let his hand and head both go limp from sheer weakness. Gazing towards the fireplace, Marguerite could see his eyes reflecting those golden shafts of light, yet holding no glow of their own. His voice grew ever fainter.

"Marguerite, if you wanted to, you could never lose me."

The woman smiled again, perhaps more than she had all that evening and night, and reached over to gently brush the loose strands of dark hair from his face. He made no move in response. Set beside Armand's bed on a small nightstand was a basin of water accompanied by a wash towel, apparently used in the doctor's visit. Taking the towel, Marguerite dipped one corner into the cool liquid that smelled of sweet belladonna and wrung it out, then in the gestures of any loving caretaker gently wiped it over his brow. Armand closed his eyes serenly and relished the momentary relief from the burning fever. He felt his body relax, his mind drifting...

"I was thinking earlier," he said weakly, seeming without his notice, "about something Chauvelin told me in the prison..."

Her pampering halted at the mention of the man who had caused all of this, and slowly Marguerite drew back the cloth as Armand again looked up at her.

"What did Chauvelin say?" she whispered, memory wandering back to what Percy called delirium and why Armand would bring up such a thing. But she did not want to cause her brother the slightest amount of pain in any way. She set the towel down, sitting dutifully beside her fallen brother, heart chilled at his words the more she listened.

"He said we were traitors," the young man went on, his voice all the more pathetic and weak than usual. "He said we don't belong in France, or England, or anywhere. There isn't a home for people who desert their own country." A note of fearful panic crept into his voice, and when Marguerite tried again to wipe his brow he feebly pushed her away, meeting her eyes. "Where is our home, Marguerite?"

"Our home is here, Armand. Here with Percy."

"But we're not English. We're only citizens by your marriage, Margot. Where do we belong?!"

The growing panic in his voice, the desperation in his eyes as he grabbed hold of his sister's wrist were clear indicators of the returning delirium, and Marguerite realized then that Percy had been right. She didn't want to see Armand in such horrible condition: ill, weak, irrational. The manner in which he so desperately began to beg her to answer him was that of a condemned man, a trapped animal, and it pained her to see him so. Armand's face was deathly pale as he tried to sit up, halted only by Marguerite placing a lithe hand to his lips to silence him, gently pressing his shoulder back down to the bed's softness. "We belong to each other," she said, calming his sudden franticness. "My little brother, we are each other's home, and if all the world casts us out, then at least we still have one another."

Armand lay back down and was still, quiet, letting Marguerite stroke his hair as though pondering her words. Whatever his thoughts, nothing came of them, as his next request was just as small, quiet, and weak as before. "Margot, will you sing something for me? Like you used to...when we were children...?"

Willing at that moment to do anything and everything she could to help her brother, Marguerite nodded with a small smile, and letting Armand pull her hand to his chest where he squeezed it in both of his she sang quietly her favorite lullaby. His hands were still cold.

"Go to sleep, say your prayers.

Rest your head upon my shoulder.

Slumber deep and breathe your cares away.

If I die before I wake, may I look upon the angels,

Standing by: come to take me home.

Don't you cry, my darling, you are home.

You and I together make a home."

Her beautiful voice filled the small room in a quiet but harmonious melody, settling a gentle peace in the fire-lit darkness as Marguerite let her gaze rise up to the distant window, the silver beams of moonlight piercing through. Her voice carried on without her, the words she knew by heart as sweet as when their mother used to sing them to her. That time seemed so long ago...that time in France when they were children. They had only each other then, as well, their parents having long since passed. It had always been that way: just the two of them. The St. Just siblings, young and free with only each other in the world to turn to. It always would be that way, Marguerite promised herself. Beyond all others, beyond Percival, would be Armand. Her only family. She would always have him.

Marguerite's song faded into the crackle of the fireplace, her gaze falling down once again to find that one of Armand's hands had worked itself away sometime during the lullaby and lay draped out across the folds of the bed covers, palm up towards the large bay window, his face turned in the same direction. Eyes closed. Marguerite squeezed his hand, and there was no response. She called his name gently. Again. Fear creeping into her heart like a plague, the woman's other hand strayed forward to clasp his wrist, his name being the only sound to pass her lips. "Armand?"

It was with the whistle of a gust of wind against the draped windows, the crackle of a log falling broken on the fire, that Marguerite fell forward, holding Armand's hand to her cheek in a silent and desperate prayer for him to stir, to speak to her again in that ever soft voice. Her face resting on his narrow, gaunt chest, she closed her eyes, begging first in a mental plea, then with quiet whispers, then with every inch of her soul for him to return. To come back to her. "Oh, Armand...no, dear God. No..."

How long Percy had been standing in the doorway, watching, listening, Marguerite didn't know, but when his hand gently touched her shoulder, her heart sped in sudden fright, coming back to herself. She sat up and turned her eyes up to his taller frame, searching, pleading. His smile was small but genuine as he brushed her cheek, taking her hand to draw her up to stand. "Leave him be, my dear. It's only sleep. Come now. If your ladyship is rested, the doctor wishes to see you as well."

Percival Blakeney stood alone as he had done so many nights before, watching the darkness fade into a gorgeous dawn announcing the new day's arrival from the comfort of his study. Normally he would be out on the stone veranda that circled out into the garden, but tonight, tonight with its winter setting, he was content to remain indoors, watching through the glass panels of a large window the sky still gray with clouds grow light. Behind him the fireplace still blazed, the couch where Marguerite had kept her night-long vigil now empty as she was meeting with the doctor in another room, leaving Armand to his peace. Hands clasped behind his back, Percy didn't know anxiety or worry at that moment of reflection.

It had seemed that in the past few weeks Fate had been playing heavily with the Scarlet Pimpernel and those he knew and loved: Chauvelin's tampering had finally been put to an end; Marguerite finding out about him after so many months of deception; Armand being stricken with fever after having his loyalty stretched to the limits in that prison. In some ways justice was carried out, in other ways not, and in that moment of deep thought in which Percy simply stared out at the coming dawn, he wondered what would happen next. Gah, the boy had even gone so far as to claim he was the Pimpernel!

A soft call of his name brought Percy back to himself and he turned, seeing Marguerite just entering back into the study to meet him. For the moment she paused there in the doorway, the firelight upon her face, her white gown draping her like an angel, she smiled at her husband. What captured Percy most was that smile, what lie behind it. There was a glow there, in her eyes, her face, her entire presence that was astonishing, nothing like the grief-ridden Marguerite he'd guided into the doctor's counsel an hour or so ago. It caught him off-guard, surprising and delighting the tall Englishman as much as when Marguerite swept across the carpeted floor and flung her arms around his shoulders, pulling herself up to his height to plant her lips across his in a passionate kiss, her laugh one of pure happiness. Percy didn't bother to question it.

"What did the doctor say?"

Marguerite took his hands, entwining her fingers throughout his, her eyes and smile never leaving the captivating hold they kept, and with the brilliant radiance of her smile she answered with a prepared, ecstatic serenity. "He said, in several months, I will be bearing a child." Guiding his hands down to the side where she still held them, Marguerite brought their faces but inches apart, her happiness only increasing tenfold at the shocked expression coating her husband's features. "Your child."

In his moment of stunned dumbness Percy could do nothing, hardly even breathe, until from that came the slow spread of an overjoyed lop-sided grin, and he squeezed her hands tight, bringing them up to kiss, gaze never breaking. "Well, we'd best tell Armand then. Perhaps the notion of being an uncle will urge him to recover a little faster!"