Scarlet pimpernel?

Question

What does this mean? I come and go from a big company and temp as a secretary. A lady I know and whom I hadn't seen for a little while came in to the office and said to me, "Hello scarlet pimpernel-ess". What could she have meant?

Answer 1

"The Scarlet Pimpernel" (British aristocrat Percy Blakeney in disguise) and his loyal network of British comrades and French spies rescue the condemned from the guillotine.

As "Scarlet Pimpernel-ess" of the office, your true identity is kept from the condemned office workers who you save whilst you are in their presence.

Answer 2

I think pimps were around centuries before The Scarlet Pimpernel was written

Answer 3

It is a flower, a novel, and a play (based off the novel).

Here's an article on Wikipedia about the flower:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_pimpernel

Here's an article on Wikipedia about the book/play:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Pimpernel

In the book:
"Scarlet Pimpernel is an anonymous hero who, through a combination of courage and daring, has rescued many aristocrats from Madame la Guillotine, and brought them safely to England."

I have no idea what this lady may have meant, but I hope this helps.

Answer 4

Charles Dickens has nothing to do with the Scarlet Pimpernel, it was written by Baroness Orczy.
She probably meant she has no idea when she will see you as you are not there every day.

Answer 5

The Scarlet pimpernel - from Dickens' 'Tale of two cities'. 'They seek him here, they seek him there - that damned elusive Pimpernel'.

In the novel by Charles Dicken, the Scarlet Pimpernel rescued aristocrats from France and brought them to England during the French Revolution. When going to the guillotine Charles Darney said, 'this is a far far better thing that I do now than ever done.' The implication was that Charles Darney was not the Scarlet Pimpernel, in fact a waster, but that he went to his death because he believed in what the Scarlet Pimpernel was doing.
I may be wrong. Never a fan of Charles Dickens.

Answer 6

Amidst all the academic references and explanations
to Scarlet Pimpernel...

you just might as well go straight to the lady colleageue
of yours and just ask right away, straight away.....

there is always a metaphor, literal, hyperbolical,
cynical references....to avoid miscommunication
and or complicate your anxiety, insecurity, angst....
might just as well ask straight on...

whatever she means, you hang on as the rightful
deserving person that you surely are...

"amidst all the doubts and fears, you are a
child of the universe" (Desiderata)

Answer 7

They seek him here, they seek him there, that damned elusive pimpernel, perhaps she's trying to say your elusive and she hasn't seen you for a long time?!