A Short History of the Yellow Pimpernel
The Scarlet Pimpernel – as everyone knows – was an English gentleman who saved aristocrats from execution during the French Revolution. He was rich and handsome, he was heroic and gallant and brave, he was admirable and honourable in every way… but then, he was a man.
Heroism, gallantry and honour don’t come so easily to a woman. At least that is the opinion of one woman in 1822. She has read a recently published memoir of his exploits; but, when she decides to follow (more or less) in his footsteps by becoming the Yellow Pimpernel, she acknowledges that devious trickery, subterfuge, and underhand plotting must be more her style. For she has set herself to save women from the dangers, disasters and betrayals to which they are exposed in a society where men hold all the power. And that presents quite new challenges.
For, she reasons, it might have been sufficient for the Scarlet Pimpernel to hide a marchioness in a cartload of turnips – as described in the memoir – and, disguising himself as a hideous old market woman, cackle wildly as he drove her to freedom; but she must be much more cunning.
The Scarlet Pimpernel could carry his marchioness across the channel and escape the laws of France. But how is she to keep the women she rescues safe from the iniquitous laws of England which decree that a woman is almost powerless and reckon her little more than the property of her father or husband?
And – while she does not underestimate the difficulty of persuading a grand lady to hide among root vegetables – she feels the role she has taken on is, in many ways, harder. So, she reasons, she may be excused for behaving in ways which may not be considered quite fair or honourable.
Gentlemen, drinking and gambling in their club, are outraged by every devious plot she devises. They assure each other that a man would never carry out such damnable tricks, and splutter furiously into their brandy glasses that ‘she must be stopped’. Ladies, meanwhile, smile delightedly over their teacups as they recount the latest tales of heiresses rescued from predatory charmers, servant girls saved from the advances of lecherous employers, and mercenary fathers whose schemes to press daughters into loveless marriages have been thwarted.
But one question puzzles the whole of Bath society: who is this Yellow Pimpernel?