It was said quite simply, not boasting. Merely a statement of fact.
It was Jason's turn to pale. He made as if to go to her but checked himself and bowed slightly, without a word. Then, crossing the room in a few swift strides, he opened the door and called:
'Lieutenant Benielli.'
The lieutenant appeared promptly, accompanied by Jolival, whose eyes went straight to Marianne. She avoided his anxious glance. Signor Dal Niel's grappa had evidently been to the lieutenant's taste. His face was noticeably more flushed than on his previous appearance, although he had lost none of his rigidity.
Jason studied him from his superior height with a cold and barely contained anger.
'You may return to the Duke of Padua with a quiet mind, Lieutenant. I sail at dawn tomorrow for the Bosphorus where I shall have the honour to convey the Princess Sant'Anna.'
'I have your word on that?' the other said, without emotion.
Jason's fists clenched in a visible effort not to drive them into the little Corsican's arrogant face, which must have recalled, all too clearly, another that was out of reach.
'Yes, Lieutenant,' he ground between his teeth. 'You have. And you can have something else, as well. A piece of advice. Get out of here before I give way to my inclinations.'
'Which are?'
'To throw you out of the window. It would not be good for your uniform, your fellows or your own comfort on the journey. You've won. Don't try my patience too far.'
'Oh, please, go!' Marianne breathed, terrified that the two men would come to blows.
Jolival was already laying a discreet hand on Benielli's arm. The lieutenant, while clearly dying to hurl himself at the American, had the sense to look closely at the faces of the other three. He saw that Marianne was on the verge of tears, Jason tense and Jolival anxious, and he realized that something was seriously amiss. His stiffness showed the faintest relaxation as he bowed to the young woman.
'I shall be privileged to report to the Duke that the Emperor's trust was not misplaced. May I wish your serene highness a successful voyage.'
'Accept my good wishes for your own journey. Good-bye, monsieur.'
In a moment she had turned back, imploringly, to Jason but even before Benielli had quitted the room, Jason too was bowing coldly.
'Your servant, madam. My ship will weigh anchor at ten o'clock tomorrow morning, if that suits you. It will be ample time if you are on board half an hour before that. Allow me to wish you a good night.'
'Jason! Have pity…'
She held out her hand to him, begging for him to take it, but he was encased in his anger and resentment and either did not or would not see it. Without a glance, he strode to the door and went out, letting it swing shut behind him with a bang that echoed in the very depths of Marianne's heart.
Slowly her hand fell and she threw herself sobbing on the sofa.
There, a moment or two later, Jolival found her, half-choked with tears, as he came hurrying back, sensing disaster.
'Good God!' he cried. 'Has it come to this? Whatever happened?'
With much difficulty, a good many tears and hesitations, she told him while he busied himself with a handkerchief and some cold water in trying to calm her sobs and restore her face to something like the appearance of a human being.
'An ultimatum!' Marianne hiccupped at last. 'A – a beastly b-bargain! He told m-me – told me I m-must choose… And he said it was… for my own good!'
She turned suddenly and clung to Arcadius's lapels, saying beseechingly:
'I can't… I can't bear it! Oh, my friend, for pity's sake, go and find him. Tell him…'
'What? That you've given in?'
'Yes! I l-love him… I love him s-so very much… I c-can't…' Marianne was beyond knowing or caring what she was saying now.
Jolival gripped her shaking shoulders with both hands and forced her to look at him.
'Yes, you can. I am telling you that you can, because you are right. Jason is abusing his power by offering you such a choice, because he knows how much you love him. Not that, from his point of view, he isn't right. He has little enough cause to love the Emperor.'
'He – he doesn't love me!'
'Of course he loves you. Only, what he hasn't understood is that the woman he loves is you, as you are, with all your inconsistencies and follies, all your enthusiasms and revolts. Change, make yourself into the cool, submissive person he seems to want and I wouldn't give him six months to stop loving you.'
'Truly?'
Gradually, by dint of much persuasion, Jolival was beginning to penetrate to the slough of despond where Marianne was floundering, letting in a little air and daylight to which, unconsciously, she was already turning.
'Yes, truly, Marianne,' he said seriously.
'But, Arcadius, think what will happen at Constantinople! He'll leave me. He'll go away and I shall never see him again, never!'
'It's possible… but before that you will have lived with him, almost on top of him, in the confined space of a ship's quarters for quite a long time. If you aren't able to drive him out of his mind in that time, then you're not Marianne. Play his game for him. Let him enjoy his bad temper and the blow to his masculine pride. If anyone goes through hell, it won't be you, I promise you.'
As he talked, the light came back, little by little, to Marianne's eyes, while that other light of hope was reborn within. Meekly she drank the glass of water with a little cordial in it which he held to her lips, then, leaning on his arm, she managed to walk as far as the window.
It was dark by this time but everywhere lights shone like points of gold reflected in the dark water. A smell of jasmine floated in, along with the sound of a guitar. Down below, by the waterside, couples were drifting slowly along, pairs of dark shapes, moving close together, that melted into one. A decorated gondola passed by, steered by a lithe figure like a dancer. Light streamed golden from behind the drawn curtains, and with it came the happy note of a woman's laughter. Away beyond the Dogana di Mare, the masthead lanterns of the anchored ships swayed gently.
Marianne sighed and her hand tightened a little on Jolival's sleeve.
'What are you thinking?' he asked softly. 'Feeling better?'
She hesitated, not quite knowing how to phrase her thought, but with this one faithful friend she had no need to dissemble.
'I was thinking,' she said, somewhat regretfully, 'that it is a beautiful night for love.'
'That's true. But remember that one night lost may add to the joys of others still to come. The nights in the east are unrivalled, my child. Your Jason doesn't know yet what he is in for.'
Whereupon, closing the window firmly on the swooning night outside, Jolival led Marianne into the little rococo salon where supper awaited them.
Part II
PERILOUS ISLES
CHAPTER SIX
Currents
At some point the bed started to sway. Only half-awake, Marianne turned over and buried her nose in the pillow, trying to shake off a disagreeable dream, but the swaying persisted and slowly her brain cleared, and she realized that she was awake.
Then something creaked somewhere in the body of the ship and she remembered she was at sea.
She considered the round brass porthole in the further wall with a jaundiced eye. The daylight that filtered through it was grey with big white patches that were dollops of sea water. There was no sunshine, and, outside, the wind was blowing strongly. The Adriatic, this stormy July, wore the colours of a dismal autumn.
'Just the weather to begin a voyage like this!' she thought morosely.
Contrary to Jason's original announcement, they had not left Venice until the evening of the previous day. The privateer had suddenly felt again the lure of the unofficial cargo which had nearly cost him so dear in France and he had spent the day loading a small consignment of Venetian wines. It consisted of a number of casks of Soave, Valpolicella and Bardolino from which he anticipated making a handsome profit on the Turkish market
where there was not always strict adherence to the laws of the Koran, and where foreign residents were known to be excellent customers. The Grand Signior himself was said to possess a pronounced taste for champagne.
'That way,' the privateer had explained to Jolival, who was inclined to be less shocked than amused at the deliberate vulgarity, 'I shan't have the voyage for nothing.'
As a result, they had gone aboard at nightfall, just as Venice was lighting her lamps and making ready for her nocturnal revelry.
Jason Beaufort was waiting at the head of the ship's gangway to welcome his passengers aboard. The bow he gave them was sufficiently formal to send a chill through Marianne's heart but at the same time acted as a spur to her anger, hardening her determination to fight back. Seeing that this was how he wanted it, she tilted her pretty nose insolently and considered him with an ironic concern.
'Surely, Captain, we are a little later than arranged? Or am I mistaken?'
'You are perfectly correct, madam.' Jason's voice was clipped but his evident annoyance did not go to the length of 'Serene Highnessing' her. 'I was obliged to delay our departure for commercial reasons of my own. I must ask you to excuse me, but you must remember, at the same time, that this brig is not a ship of war. If you wanted punctuality, you would have done better to apply to your Admiral Ganteaume for a frigate.'
'Not a ship of war? Yet I see cannon there. At least twenty of them, surely? Do you employ them going after whales?' Marianne asked sweetly.
From the set of his jaw and the whitening of his knuckles, this little exchange seemed to be putting a severe strain on the captain's nerves but his politeness did not falter, in spite of his very evident desire to send his passenger to the right about.
'You may not be aware, madam, that, as matters stand today, even the smallest merchant vessel must have some means of defence.'
But the lady appeared determined to push him to his limit.
'There is a great deal I am not aware of, Captain, but if this is a merchant ship, then I'll be hanged! Even a blind man could see she's built for speed, not for lumbering about the sea with a hold full of merchandise.'
'She is a privateer, certainly,' Jason said fiercely, 'but a neutral vessel. And if a neutral privateer wants to get a living these days, with your confounded Emperor's damned blockade, then there's nothing for it but trade! And now, if you have no more questions, allow me to show you to your cabin.'
Without waiting for a reply, he led the way across the scrubbed decks, their brasswork gleaming in the lantern light, and in his haste almost knocked over a thin man of middle height, dressed in black, who was coming round the corner of the deck house.
'Oh, is that you, John? I didn't see you there,' he apologized with a smile which did not quite reach his eyes. 'Come and be introduced. Princess, this is Doctor Leighton, our surgeon. Princess Corrado Sant'Anna,' he added, laying a slight, deliberate stress on the first name.
'You have a medical man on board?' Marianne exclaimed in genuine surprise. 'You take good care of your men, Captain. I congratulate you. But how is it that you said nothing of there being a follower of Aesculapius on board?'
'Because there wasn't. But the absence of a surgeon is a thing I have long regretted. So much so that I engaged the services of my friend Leighton some months ago.'
Friend? Marianne studied the doctor's pale face to which the lantern light had imparted a yellowish tinge. He had light, deeply-sunken eyes of no very clearly defined colour, calculating eyes which seemed to be weighing her up in some cold scale of his own.
Marianne thought with a little shudder that Lazarus might have looked like that when he rose from the dead. He said nothing but merely bowed, unsmiling, and Marianne had the sudden, instinctive feeling that not only did the man not like her, he disliked everything about her very presence on the ship. She made up her mind that she had better avoid Dr Leighton in future as far as possible. She had no wish to encounter that death's head. It remained to see, however, what degree of friendship really existed between Jason and this sinister little man.
While Jolival went off to take up his quarters in the poop and Gracchus settled in with the crew forward, Marianne took up residence with Agathe in the deck house.
On first entering her cabin, she had been conscious of a little pang: the room had so obviously been refurbished for a woman's occupation. The waxed mahogany floor was covered with a fine Persian rug; there was a toilet table adorned with a number of pretty knicknacks, and sea-green damask was used for the curtains over the portholes and the coverings on the soft feather bed. It all spoke so clearly of the tender care of a man in love that Marianne was touched. This room had been made ready for her, so that she should feel at home there, to be a frame for her happiness. Bravely she put the thought aside, although promising herself to thank the master of the vessel for his courtesy next day, for neither Marianne nor her maid left the cabin again that evening. They spent the time unpacking their trunks and settling themselves in, which was by no means the work of a moment.
Agathe, for her part, took possession of a tiny cabin next-door to that of her mistress. It contained a bunk, a toilet table and a porthole, but its new owner was more than a little suspicious of it, being unashamedly terrified of the sea.
Marianne lay in bed and stretched, yawned and finally sat up, wrinkling her nose. The inside of the ship had a strange smell, faint, it was true, but in some indefinable way disagreeable. She had noticed it when she came aboard and it had surprised her a little because the slight aroma, reminiscent of something ancient and unclean, seemed out of keeping with the holystoned appearance of the ship.
She glanced at the clock set in the panelling, saw that it was ten o'clock, and considered getting up. Not that she particularly wanted to but she did feel very hungry, for she had eaten nothing before coming aboard the night before.
She was still hesitating when the door opened to admit first a laden tray and then the person of Agathe, as prim and starched as if they were at home in Paris, followed in turn by Jolival in a dressing-gown. He appeared in excellent spirits.
'I came to see how you had passed the night,' he said cheerfully, 'and how you were settling in. But I can see you lack nothing. Well, I never! Damasks and carpets! Our captain has looked after you very nicely.'
'Are you not comfortable, Arcadius?'
'Oh, I'm well enough. Much like himself, which is to say plain but wholesome. And the cleanliness of the ship is beyond praise.'
'It's clean, I agree, but there's a funny smell… I can't precisely pin it down. Don't you notice it? Or haven't you got it where you are?'
'Oh, yes. I've noticed it,' Jolival said, seating himself on the foot of Marianne's bunk and helping himself to a piece of bread and butter and some cakes from the tray. 'I noticed it, although it is very faint… but I couldn't believe it.'
'Not believe it? Why ever not?'
'Because…'
Jolival paused to finish his bread and butter before he went on with unexpected seriousness:
'Because I have smelled something like it once before in my life, only much, much stronger, a truly unbelievable stench. It was at Nantes, in the harbour there… near a slave ship. The wind was blowing from the wrong direction.'
Marianne's hand remained poised, in the act of pouring herself a cup of coffee. She stared incredulously at her friend.
'It was the same smell? You are quite sure?'
'It's not a smell you forget if you've once met it. I tell you, it haunted me all night.'
Marianne set down the coffee-pot with a hand that shook suddenly, so that a large brown stain spread over the tray-cloth.
'You aren't suggesting Jason is engaged in that frightful trade?'
'No because then the smell would be much stronger, in spite of any amount of scrubbing and fumigating. But it makes me wonder if he hasn't had something to do with that kind of – of transport at some time or other.'
'It's quite impossible!' Marianne cried vehemently. Don't f
orget, Arcadius, that six months ago the Witch was lying in Morlaix roads, where Surcouf took her and sailed her to our rendezvous. If Jason had been engaged in that foul trade, he would have smelled the smell, and I can't think he would have run the risks he did for the master of that sort of vessel. Anyway, when Jason does carry contraband, let me remind you, it's wine not human beings!'
She was trembling with indignation, so that when she put down her cup it rattled nervously in the saucer. Jolival smiled soothingly.
'No need to get so excited. In a minute you'll be accusing me of calling our friend a dirty slaver! I said nothing of the kind. Although, at the risk of disappointing you, if Surcouf had noticed anything, he wouldn't have objected. He's carried "black ivory" in his own vessels before now. A good shipowner can't afford to be over-nice. All the same, like you, I find this odd smell very surprising.'
'Perhaps it's not what you think. After all, you only smelled it once.'
'It's not the kind of thing you forget,' Arcadius said grimly. 'Nor the kind that can be got rid of by washing, and unless this vessel has had an epidemic of yellow fever aboard her—'
'That's enough, Arcadius. You're upsetting me. You're probably imagining things. I expect it's just a dead rat somewhere. Where is Jason at the moment?'
'Forward in the chart room. Are you wanting to pay him a call?'
There was a faintly anxious note hovering somewhere at the back of the light, ironic voice but Marianne poured herself another cup of coffee calmly enough. The rich scent of the scalding beverage filled the tiny cabin, overcoming the insidious odour.
'Should I?'
'Not necessarily. Unless you want to edify the ship's company with another passage of arms like last night's. Our skipper would appear to be in an extremely bad temper. Before retiring to shut himself up forward he rocked the poop with an astonishing tirade on the subject of the defective stowing of a cask.'
Marianne wiped her mouth with unusual concentration, a proceeding which enabled her to keep her long curling lashes prudently lowered, yet there was a lift to her brows that struck Jolival as more insubordinate than ever. However, her voice, when she answered, was miraculously soft and gentle.
[Marianne 4] - Marianne and the Rebels Page 16