The Scarlet Pimpernel Ch. 3: Refugees Arrive

Baroness Orczy

Refugees Arrive at the Inn

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Summary

Feeling runs high across England against the French massacres, yet Pitt will not start a costly war, and Fox will not arm the country because one set of Frenchmen murders another. At The Fisherman's Rest, Sally spies a dripping horse in the yard. Lord Antony Dewhurst comes in wet, kisses her, then throws a quick glance at the two strangers still playing dominoes. For a moment anxiety clouds his merry face. Jellyband boasts they are among friends and names a loyal newcomer in business. Antony asks who else is coming. Sir Percy and Lady Blakeney will stop to see her brother off on the Day Dream. Antony repeats the name in astonishment, then covers it with hunger and a demand for the best supper Sally can cook.

Wheels clatter. The Comtesse de Tournay, Suzanne, the Vicomte, and Sir Andrew Ffoulkes enter, and Antony greets them with both hands. The Comtesse stretches aristocratic hands to the blaze and says they have already forgotten what they suffered. Suzanne looks round the hearth, the oak rafters, and the yokels in smocks, and says this is England. Sir Andrew's eyes meet hers, and colour rushes into her face.

The Vicomte ogles Sally until Harry Waite's friends haul him out of the room. The two strangers never look up from their wine. The Comtesse calls Suzanne back to the table. Supper steams in the doorway, and the inn that spent the afternoon arguing politics is now a corridor for people who cannot afford a careless room.

In this chapter:Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Assessing Trust Under Pressure

Crisis turns ordinary rooms into corridors where trust must be read, not assumed. Antony scans the inn for strangers while welcoming refugees whose lives depend on secrecy.

In tense settings, track who watches whom, which names change the mood, and what cover stories keep people safe.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: the Comtesse de Tournay

She arrives wet and saved, and already the room is a corridor. Antony's glance at the door is not hospitality. It is inventory. The Comtesse will later refuse a hand in this same inn. Tonight she is still only a mother who has been a cargo.

Continue this thoughtA Rumour That Has to Stay a Rumour

Coming Up in Chapter 4

At supper one of the quiet strangers murmurs All safe, and his companion slips under the oak bench. Toasts to England and King Louis will give way to a league that works in the dark, and a name that freezes the table.

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Original text

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Chapter 03

Refugees Arrive at the Inn

THE REFUGEES Feeling in every part of England certainly ran very high at this time against the French and their doings. Smugglers and legitimate traders between the French and English coasts brought snatches of news from over the water, which made every honest Englishman’s blood boil, and made him long to have “a good go” at those murderers, who had imprisoned their king and all his family, subjected the queen and the royal children to every species of indignity, and were even now loudly demanding the blood of the whole Bourbon family and of every one of its adherents. The…

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Refugees Arrive at the Inn

Summary

Why This Matters