[Marianne 4] - Marianne and the Rebels

by Juliette Benzoni

  'To think I once loved and admired you!' he said in a voice in which bitterness and desperation vied with anger. 'Mademoiselle Marianne would 'a' done better to 'ave left you to rot in prison at Brest, for if you didn't deserve it then, you deserve it now!'

  Then, having spat on the ground to show his contempt, Gracchus let them take him away. The cabin emptied, leaving Jason and Marianne face to face.

  In spite of himself, the privateer's eyes had followed the departing figure of Gracchus. He had paled under that furious outburst, and clenched his fists, but he had made no other move. Yet it seemed to Marianne that his eyes had darkened for a moment with a shade of regret.

  The violent scene which had just taken place in her cabin had succeeded in restoring all her courage at a stroke. She was a natural fighter. It was her element and she felt at home in it. In a way, too, however disastrous the consequences, it was a relief to her to be done with the stifling atmosphere of lies and deceit. Jason's blind and jealous rage was after all a kind of loving, even though he might have rejected the idea with loathing, but it was a devouring and, perhaps, an all-consuming fire. In a few moments the love by which she had lived for so long might be reduced to nothing more than ashes – and her own heart with it.

  Agathe had remained crouching by the bed. Like an automaton, Jason went to her and taking her by the arm, quite gently, took her to her own cabin and locked her in. Marianne watched him in silence, hugging round her the thick shawl which she had flung over her thin nightgown. He turned and saw her standing facing him, her head held high. There was anguish in her green eyes but they met him squarely.

  'Now you can finish what you have begun,' she said steadily, letting the shawl drop just sufficiently to disclose the darkening bruises on her slender neck. 'All I ask is that you get it over quickly. Unless you'd rather hang me from the yard-arm in sight of all the crew?'

  'Neither. I meant to kill you just now, I admit. I should have been sorry all my life. One does not kill such women as you. As for hanging you from the yard-arm, I fear I lack the appetite for melodrama which you, no doubt, picked up in treading the boards. In any case, you must be aware that while my crew might well enjoy the sight, it wouldn't please your watchdogs quite as much. I've no wish to be sunk by a brace of Napoleon's frigates.'

  'Then what do you propose doing with me and my friends? You might as well put me in irons along with them.'

  'Unnecessary. You'll stay here until we drop anchor at Piraeus. I'll put you ashore there, with your friends, and you can find yourself another vessel to take you on to Constantinople.'

  Marianne's heart quailed. If he could talk like this, then his love for her must be dead indeed!

  'Is that how you keep your promises?' she said. 'Didn't you engage to carry me to a proper port?'

  'One port is much like another. Piraeus will do very well. From Athens you will have no difficulty in reaching the Turkish capital – and I shall be well rid of you, once and for all.'

  He spoke quite slowly, without apparent anger, but in a heavy, exhausted voice in which to the thickening caused by drink was now added a note of disgust. In spite of all her anger and her grief, Marianne felt her heart moved with a kind of desperate pity. Jason looked like a man wounded to death. Very softly she asked:

  'Is that really all you want? Never to see me again… never? For our ways to part… never to meet again?'

  He had turned away from her and was looking out of the porthole at the sea, its deep blue struck into a myriad flashing sparks by the sun's fire. Marianne had an odd feeling that her words, penetrating, only served to harden him.

  'That is what I want,' he said at last.

  'Then, dare to look me in the face and tell me.'

  He came to her, slowly and stood looking at her. The sunlight, entering the cabin, bathed her in light. The red shawl clutched about her shoulders was a garment of flame and the heavy masses of dark hair that fell about her pale, strained face, accentuated its almost transparent whiteness. With the bruises on her throat, she was as beautiful and tragic as sin. Beneath the folds of red cashmere, the breasts rose and fell with her emotion.

  Jason said nothing but his eyes, as he studied the slender form before him, grew clouded and their expression was transformed slowly to one of impotent rage.

  'Yes,' he said at last, reluctantly, 'I do still desire you. In spite of what you are, in spite of the revulsion I feel, I do have the misfortune to desire your body, because you're lovelier than any man could bear. But that, too, I shall overcome. I'll learn how to kill my desire…'

  Marianne felt a thrill of joy and hope. Was it possible, after all, to round this tricky point? Was there victory to be won from the impossible?

  'Wouldn't it be easier… and more sensible, to let me tell you everything?' she murmured. 'I swear by my hopes of salvation to conceal nothing of what happened to me… not even the worst! But give me a chance… only give me one single chance!'

  She was longing now to plead her own cause, to tell him of all the suffocating horror built up in those past weeks. She sensed that she could still win him back to her. It was clear from the tormented, famished look on his face, the agony it revealed. She still possessed enormous power over Jason – if only he would listen.

  But he refused to listen. Even now, the words she said did not seem to pierce through the armour he had built around himself. He was looking at her, yes, but with eyes that were strangely devoid of expression. Her voice did not reach him, and when at last he spoke, it was to himself, as though Marianne had been no more than a lovely statue, an effigy standing there.

  'Oh yes, she's beautiful,' he said broodingly, 'beautiful and venomous, like the flowers of the Brazilian jungles that feed on insects and whose brilliant hearts smell only of rottenness. Nothing could be brighter than those eyes, or softer than that skin… those lips… nothing purer than that face or more captivating than that form… And yet it is all false… all vile! I know… and even now I cannot bring myself to believe it because I have not seen…'

  While he spoke, his trembling hands were touching Marianne's face, her hair, her throat, but there was no light in his eyes, they were like the eyes of a dead man.

  'Jason!' Marianne implored him. 'For pity's sake, listen to me! I love you, I have never loved anyone but you! Even if you were to kill me, my soul would not forget to love you. I am still yours, still worthy of you – even though you can't believe it for the present.'

  She was wasting her breath. He did not hear her, lost as he was in a waking nightmare, where his dying love fought for survival.

  'Perhaps if I had seen her in another's arms, seen her give herself to another man… vile, and contemptible… perhaps then I should be able to believe it.'

  'Jason,' Marianne begged, almost in tears. 'Jason, stop… have pity!'

  She was trying to grasp his hands, to get close to him and penetrate the icy fog which lay between them, but he shook her off and the colour darkened in his face under the pressure of a fresh wave of anger.

  'I know,' he cried, 'I know how to combat the sirens' song! And I know how to destroy your power, too, she-devil!'

  He sprang to the door and dragged it open, calling in a powerful voice:

  'Kaleb! Come here!'

  In the grip of an irrational terror, Marianne hurled herself at the door and tried to slam it shut but he flung her back into the room.

  'What are you going to do?' she asked. 'Why are you calling him?'

  'You'll see.'

  The next moment, the Ethiopian entered the cabin and, despite her fear, Marianne was struck again by the splendour of that bronze face and body. He seemed to fill the narrow space with a kind of kingly majesty.

  Unlike the other coloured men he did not bow to the white master. In response to Jason's order, he closed the door and then stood with folded arms before her, waiting quietly, but his light eyes went quickly from the privateer to the white-faced woman.

  'Look at her, Kaleb,' Jason said, brutally, po
inting. Tell me what you think of her. Is she beautiful?'

  There was a moment's silence before Kaleb answered gravely: 'Very beautiful. Very frightened also.'

  'A sham! That face is used to play-acting. She's an adventuress disguised as a princess, a singer trained to do anything for applause! She'll sleep with any man she fancies, but you're a handsome fellow – no reason why she shouldn't fancy you! Go on, take her! I give her to you!'

  'Jason!' Marianne cried, horror-struck. 'Are you mad?'

  The slave started and a quick frown creased his brows. Then his face hardened, giving him the look of some stern, basalt image of an ancient pharaoh. He shook his head and turned to go but pulled up short at a cry from Jason.

  'Stay where you are! That's an order! She's yours, I said, so take her – here and now! Look!'

  He reached out swiftly and snatched the cashmere shawl roughly from Marianne's shoulders. The light nightgown she wore was anything but concealing and a slow flush mounted to her cheeks as she crossed her arms over her breast to cover herself.

  No trace of emotion was visible on the impassive features of the Ethiopian as he moved towards her.

  Marianne shrank back, sensing a threat and terrified that the slave was going to obey. But Kaleb did not touch her. He merely bent and picked up the shawl as it lay on the deck. As he did so, his strangely blue eyes met hers for an instant. There was no bitterness in them, as might have been expected after the way she had recoiled from him, but only a kind of melancholy amusement.

  With a rapid movement, he replaced the soft woollen stuff round her shivering shoulders. Marianne seized it and hugged it to her as though to glue it to her body. Then, turning to the captain who had watched frowning, Kaleb said simply:

  'You gave me shelter, lord, and I am here to serve you – but not as your executioner.'

  Jason's eyes flashed wrathfully but the Ethiopian met them without flinching, without insolence either, but with a dignity which Marianne found impressive. Then Jason waved him to the door.

  'Get out. You're a fool!'

  Kaleb smiled briefly.

  'Am I? I'd not have left this room alive, had I obeyed you. You would have killed me.'

  It was not a question. Simply a statement of fact and Jason did not offer to contradict it. He let the seaman go without another word, only his frown deepened. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, glancing at the girl who had her back to him now so that he should not see her tears. She was deeply hurt by what had happened, for her pride as well as her love was wounded. A man's jealousy might carry him so far but to be abused like this left bleeding scars in the very heart's tissue, scars which might never fully heal.

  The sound of the door slamming violently told her that Jason had gone but there was small comfort to be had from the fact that it was followed by no click of the key turning in the lock. Now that he had judged her, Jason would hardly consider it worth while to lock her in. For one thing, the mere fact of being on a ship at sea constituted imprisonment enough, and for another, he must know that Marianne had no desire to leave him, that she was dreading the moment when the Athenian coast would rise above the horizon, bringing with it what looked like being an irrevocable parting. For whatever her grief, or possibly because of it, Marianne was determined not to utter another word in her own defence. The abominable treatment meted out to Jolival and Gracchus forbade it.

  The day dragged endlessly, with no other company than Agathe's. The only person to cross her threshold was Toby, who brought her meals, but the old negro seemed as out of spirits as the two women. His eyes were reddened, as though with tears, and when Agathe asked him gently what was wrong he only shook his head unhappily and muttered that the master was not himself, not himself at all.

  'He walk de deck all night long, like some sick wolf, and in de day, he don' seem to hear what no one say to him.'

  There was nothing more to be got from him but this observation, from a servant so devoted, was enough to make it clear how great was Jason's suffering, and Marianne thought with anguish that the discovery of her condition had unleashed forces for evil in him quite unsuspected even by those who had known him from childhood.

  Fortunately, Leighton's potion, which she continued taking in small doses, maintained its beneficent effects and, freed from the dreadful nausea, Marianne had at least the consolation of being able to think straight. It was a dubious advantage as she lay awake, with eyes wide open, staring into the shifting darkness, counting every hour by the ting of the ship's bell that timed the wretched progress of her thoughts.

  In her own corner, Agathe was not sleeping either. Her mistress could hear her praying softly and the occasional little sniffing sounds that showed that she was crying.

  When dawn came, it found them both equally pale and wretched.

  Even though the door was not locked on the outside, Marianne dared not leave the cabin. She was afraid that her appearance might provoke Jason to another of the unpredictable fits of rage which she had learned to fear. God alone knew what his state of mind might be by this time, or whether Jolival and Gracchus might not have to suffer for her imprudence. It was safer to stay where she was.

  But when Toby appeared, in a state of abject terror and shaking in every limb so that the breakfast things he brought clattered on the tray, Marianne forgot all these prudent resolutions. He told her that Kaleb had attempted to kill the doctor during the night and had been sentenced to a hundred lashes as punishment, to be witnessed by the whole crew.

  'A hundred lashes! But he'll die!' Marianne cried, appalled.

  The whites of Toby's eyes rolled. 'He mighty big fellah,' he pronounced. 'But one hund'ed lashes sho' is plenty. He go for to kill dat doctor, sho 'nuff, but ah ain't never known Massa Jason flog no poh darkie afoh!'

  'But, Toby, he can't have tried to kill the doctor! Why should he?'

  Toby nodded his woolly head. Fear had given his skin a curious greyish tinge.

  'Maybe yes. Dat doctor, he bad man. Trouble all de time evah since he come aboa'd! Nathan, he say he gwine sell Kaleb fo' a high price in de market at Candy.'

  'You say the doctor means to sell Kaleb? But Monsieur Jason found him and saved him when he was a runaway slave. He would never sell a man who had trusted him!'

  'Not in de o'dinar' way, no. But Massa Jason, not hisself no moh… He quite, quite diffe'ent! De bad times is comin' foh us all, ma'm! De good times is all gone now, all'long o' dat Doctor Leighton!'

  Toby dragged his feet wearily to the door, his head sunk between his shoulders, wiping away a tear on his white cotton sleeve. There was something deeply moving about the old man's unhappiness. It must be dreadful to him to see a man whom he had loved and served all his life reduced suddenly to the state of a wild beast. Perhaps he even feared for himself…

  Marianne detained him just as he was going.

  'When – when is it to be?' she asked.

  'Now. De hands jus' comin' on deck now.'

  Marianne became aware of the patter of dozens of pairs of bare feet on the deck and of the boatswain's voice uttering unintelligible commands. Toby was scarcely out of the cabin before she had leaped out of bed.

  'Hurry, Agathe! Get me a dress and some shoes, and a scarf.'

  'Oh, my lady, what are you going to do?' the girl wailed, not moving. 'I'm sure you'd much better not get involved! Monsieur Beaufort's taken leave of his senses, my lady, and you must never cross a madman!'

  'Mad or not, I'll not let him kill a man who was only trying to defend his freedom, and perhaps his life! Least of all in this barbarous fashion! That Leighton creature isn't worth it! Hurry, now!'

  'But what if he's angry with you, my lady?'

  'As things are, Agathe, I don't think I've anything to lose! Besides, the two frigates are still with us, I suppose. I can have nothing to fear.'

  By the time Marianne came on deck, the crew was already drawn up, facing aft, in a silence broken only by the ghastly sound of the lash biting into unprotected flesh. Punishment
had already begun. Swiftly she forced a way through the tight-packed ranks of men. The barrier they formed was almost impenetrable, but Marianne got far enough to see a sight which froze the blood in her veins. Kaleb was triced up to the mizzen rigging. Standing alone, between the rows of seamen on either hand, Pablo Arroyo, armed with a long whip made of thongs of plaited leather, was administering the flogging. In contrast to the assembled men whose faces bore witness to how little they relished the scene and who winced visibly at every stroke of the lash, the boatswain was quite evidently enjoying his revolting office. With his sleeves rolled back from his wiry arms, he was laying into his victim with all his strength, delivering his blows with a slow relish that was clearly aimed at inflicting the greatest possible degree of pain, while his face was twisted into a hideous expression of sadistic cruelty. He was not hurrying. He was savouring every moment, and now and then his tongue appeared between his teeth, as though the man were literally licking his chops.

  Blood was already dripping from the lacerated flesh. Kaleb's face, pressed against the wooden mast, was a mask of suffering. His eyes were closed but he did not cry out. Only the faintest groan escaped his set lips each time the lash bit. Drops of blood, bright red in the sunshine, were beginning to splash on to Arroyo's face, but Jason stood impassively on the poop, presiding over the punishment.

  He still wore the same, curiously blank expression and the lines in his face were graven deeper than ever. His left hand fidgeted nervously with his neckcloth, while the other was hidden behind his back.

  Leighton, at his side, affected a modest demeanour which was belied by the sheer triumph that shone through every line of his pale face.

  Suddenly it was clear that the victim was no longer conscious. His body slumped in its bonds and the muscles of his arms stood out with the strain, while his grey face drooped against the mast.

  'He's fainted,' said a voice which Marianne recognized as O'Flaherty's. It was harsh with indignation and it acted like a signal on Marianne.

  Spurred by the same sense of outrage, she threw herself forward, forging through the packed rows of the crew which parted to let her pass. So great was her impetus that she fetched up close to Arroyo and but for the lieutenant who dragged her sharply back, would have received the lash full in her face.