Marianne and The Masked Prince

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  'Again!' Marianne cried. 'Do you suppose that I will give it to you?'

  'I do not suppose, I know.' His voice was cynical. 'Money has always played a great part in our relations, Marianne. I married you for your fortune. Unfortunately, I dissipated it somewhat speedily, but you are still my wife and as you are clearly rolling in money, I find it quite natural to turn to you.'

  'I am no longer your wife,' Marianne said, her anger slowly giving way to a vast weariness. 'I am Maria Stella, a singer, and you are the Vicomte d'Aubécourt.'

  'Ah, you are aware of that? Well, I am delighted. It gives you an idea of my position in Paris society. I am much in demand.'

  'You will be much less in demand when I have done with you. Everyone will know what you are: an English spy.'

  'Perhaps, but in that case they will know who you are also and since you are my lawful wife, you will become Lady Cranmere again, an Englishwoman, and therefore why not also a spy?'

  'No one would believe you,' Marianne said indifferently, 'and as for giving you money —'

  'You will arrange to have fifty thousand livres to hand immediately,' Francis interrupted her smoothly. 'If not —'

  'Yes?' Marianne said evenly.

  Lord Cranmere felt unhurriedly in his pockets and produced a sheet of yellow paper, folded in four. Unfolding it, he laid it on her lap, before continuing: 'If not, all Paris will be deluged with these.'

  The yellow sheet, printed in heavy, black letters, fluttered in the light wind that entered through the lowered windows, as with growing horror, Marianne read: 'The enemy in the Emperor's bed! Napoleon's beautiful mistress, the cantatrice Maria Stella, is in reality an English murderess at present sought by the representatives of the law in England...'

  For a second, Marianne thought she must be going mad. There was a red mist before her eyes and a storm of utter fury in her heart such as she had never felt before, drowning that other impulse of sickening fear.

  'Murderess!' she gasped. 'I have killed no one. You are still alive, alas!'

  'Read on, my love,' Francis purred softly, 'and you will see it is no more than the truth. You are indeed a murderess. You forget my charming cousin, Ivy St Albans, whom you hit so effectively on the head with a heavy candlestick beside what you imagined to be my own dead body. Poor Ivy! She was less lucky than I. Thanks to my friend Stanton, I am still of this world, but she was so frail, so delicate. Unfortunately for you, however, she recovered consciousness before she died – just long enough to accuse you. There is a price on your head in England, my fair Marianne.'

  Marianne's mouth was filled with a taste of ashes. In the shock of finding Francis alive, she had not given a thought to his cousin, the tiresome Ivy. Until this moment, moreover, she had always regarded the duel and what followed as a kind of divine judgement. Yet in spite of her horror, she managed to say boldly: We are not in England now, but in France. Although I suppose your reason in coming here is to carry me back for the sake of the reward.'

  ' 'Faith, I'll admit I thought of it,' Lord Cranmere agreed pleasantly. 'It is hard times with me. But finding you so comfortably situated at the heart of the Empire gave me a better idea. You can be worth a great deal more than a few hundred guineas to me.'

  This time, Marianne let the words pass. She was still staring at the yellow broadsheet feeling that she had reached the very limits of disgust. The accusation was that she had cold-bloodedly murdered her husband's pretty, gentle cousin. Nothing had been left to chance and the mire into which she was to be dragged down was made as sordid and disgusting as possible.

  'My next thought,' Francis continued, apparently oblivious of her silence, 'was simply to abduct you. I arranged a rendezvous in a ruined castle belonging to a friend of mine, but you must have suspected something, for you did not come, although I am glad of that now. Driven by necessity, I imagined that Boney would pay handsomely to have his fair mistress restored to him unharmed, but it was a hasty thought and consequently a bad one. There was a better plan.'

  So he had been behind the appointment at La Folie! Marianne felt little surprise. She had gone beyond all power of feeling or of lucid thought. Trumpets blared out a fanfare close at hand, backed by a swelling roll of drums that seemed to come from the inmost heart of Paris. The wedding procession must have been approaching for some minutes but, wrapped in her own troubles, Marianne had been deaf to the sounds of mounting excitement in the crowd around her. In a way, she had not wanted to hear: the contrast was too poignant between the gay, laughing throng outside and the duel, even more desperate, perhaps, than that earlier duel at Selton, which was taking place within the carriage.

  'Here comes the procession,' Francis observed, settling himself more comfortably, in the manner of one intending to remain. We shall have to continue our talk later on. It is impossible to converse in this uproar.'

  This was true. An incredible river of dazzling, coruscating colour was flowing down the Champs Elysées, advancing majestically towards the Tuileries amid a clamour of brass bands playing, drums rolling and cannon roaring, greeted by waves of cheering and cries of 'Long live the Emperor!' The whole great square, so packed with people that the bright colours had all merged into a uniform, grey blue, appeared to give one mighty heave. Around her, Marianne could hear those nearest exclaiming as the procession passed by.

  'Those are the Polish Light Cavalry in front!'

  'How handsome they are! Some of them must be thinking of Marie Walewska today!'

  Red, blue, white and gold, snowy plumes waving on their square shakos and the tips of their long lances gleaming fiery red and gold, Prince Poniatowski's troops rode past in perfect formation, holding the powerful white horses that were a familiar sight on every road in Europe well in hand. After them came Guyot's Chasseurs in purple and gold, alternating with troops of Mamelukes, girded with shining steel, their dark skins and white turbans surmounted by black aigrettes, and the panther skins over their saddles adding a touch of barbaric splendour. Next came the Dragoons, commanded by the Comte de Saint-Sulpice, dark green and white, magnificently whiskered, their black-plumed helmets shining in the sun. Next, red, green and silver, the Guards of Honour, preceding a long file of thirty-six gorgeous golden coaches bearing the imperial family and the highest officers of the court.

  As though in a dream, Marianne scanned the amazing kaleidoscope of colour that was the Emperor's staff, his marshals, aides-de-camp and equerries, picking out Duroc, a blaze of gold, Massena, LeFebvre and Bernadotte, all of whom she had seen more than once in Talleyrand's house. She saw Murat in a purple uniform thickly encrusted with gold braid, sable-lined cloak swinging from his shoulder, glittering like a firework display from his spurs to his diamond cockade. Despite his overweening pride in his own magnificence, he was a figure that compelled admiration for the consummate horsemanship which enabled him to manage his mettlesome Arab stallion with such apparent ease.

  The shimmering cavalcade moved on, a tide of men and horses and splendid carriages. Most sumptuous of all, drawing a gasp of admiration from the crowd, was the great, gilded coach drawn by six white horses that rolled on its stately way surmounted by an imperial crown. This was the Empress's state coach. But although the harness gleamed and the windows flashed with reflected sunlight, no figure waved from within. The coach was empty. For this day the imperial pair had elected to ride together in an open carriage. The barouche that carried Napoleon and Marie-Louise followed immediately after this gilded monument to imperial grandeur. Marianne stared at it with eyes grown suddenly round with amazement, while the crowd were hushed. All were stunned by the vision that met their eyes.

  Marie-Louise sat in the carriage smiling vaguely about her and waving in an ungainly, mechanical way. Her face, under the massive crown of diamonds, was very red and she was dressed in a masterpiece of Leroy's handiwork, a magnificent gown of silver tulle literally covered in diamonds. As for Napoleon, seated beside her in the carriage, his appearance was so different from that he normally presen
ted that for a moment Marianne was startled into forgetting Francis.

  Accustomed to the extreme simplicity of his habitual dress, the black or grey coat of a colonel in the Chasseurs or the Guards, Marianne could hardly believe that the figure waving and smiling from the barouche was indeed the man she loved. He was dressed in the Spanish fashion with a short cloak of white satin liberally sprinkled with diamonds and he, too, had on his head an incredible confection of black velvet and white plumes, circled with eight rows of diamonds, which seemed to maintain itself upright in defiance of gravity. The head-dress had an impromptu, vaguely Renaissance air which Marianne found preposterous, and wholly unsuited to the pale, clear-cut features of the latter-day Caesar. How could he ever have consented to dress himself up like that and what —

  A shout of laughter broke in on her thoughts. She turned on Francis wrathfully, not altogether sorry to have someone on whom to vent her rage and disappointment. He was lying back against the squabs, laughing unrestrainedly.

  'May I ask what you find to amuse you?'

  'What – oh no, my dear. Don't tell me you don't find Boney's fancy dress very funny? It is so dreadful, it is sublime! I've never seen anything so comical! I could weep with laughter! It's – it's unbelievable!'

  Marianne fought back the impulse to fly at him tooth and nail and wipe the smile from his insolent face. Her fury was all the greater because, in her heart of hearts, she knew that he was right, that for all its wealth of gems this astonishing costume turned her warrior into a dandified figure of fun. If there had been a weapon to hand at that moment, she would have used it with no more hesitation than on that night at Selton. She had longed so desperately for Napoleon to appear before her enemy in all the stern and sombre majesty of his military uniform, to strike terror into his heart or at least to make him think twice before assailing her, Marianne, his accredited mistress. But instead of that, he had got himself up like an ageing Prince Florizel to marry this great, red-faced lump of a girl. Even so, she knew she must silence that hateful laughter which mocked at the only thing she had left in the world, her love.

  Marianne drew herself up, her green eyes blazing in her bloodless face, and turned on Francis who was still laughing helplessly.

  'Get out!' she told him fiercely. We have no more to say to one another. Get out of my carriage before I have you thrown out. Do you think I care what you may do? You can scatter your filthy broadsheets to the winds for all I care. Do as you please, but go! I never wish to see you again, and you will not get a penny from me!'

  Her voice rose to a scream and in spite of the hubbub in the square heads were beginning to turn to look at them. Francis Cranmere had stopped laughing. His hand fastened on Marianne's arm, gripping it so that it hurt.

  'Be quiet,' he commanded. 'Stop this nonsense! It can do no good. You will not escape me.'

  'I am not afraid of you. As God is my witness, if you threaten me, I will kill you and this time no human aid will save you! You know me well enough to be sure that I mean what I say.'

  'I told you to be quiet. I understand. You think yourself very strong, do you not? You think he loves you enough to defend you even against calumny, that he is powerful enough to protect you against any danger? Well, look at him! Bursting with joy and satisfied ambition! This, for him, is the crowning moment of his life. Think: he is marrying a Habsburg, he, a mere Corsican upstart! A niece to Marie-Antoinette! All this dazzling display of wealth and jewels, however preposterous, is laid on to impress her. Her wishes will be law to your Napoleon because he hopes that she will give him the heir who will establish his dynasty. And do you still believe that he will risk the displeasure of his precious Archduchess to protect a murderess? His spies in England will very soon tell him that you are indeed sought by the law for killing a defenceless woman and grievously wounding myself. What then? Believe me, Napoleon's watchword from now on will be: "No scandal, at any price!" '

  Marianne felt an aching bitterness creep over her as he spoke. In an instant, all the confidence which she had based on the power of her love, on her influence with Napoleon, collapsed and fell in ruins. She knew that he cared for her, loved her perhaps as much as he was capable of loving any woman, but no more. The love the Emperor might feel for a woman of flesh and blood could not compete with the love he bore his Empire and his name. He had loved Josephine, had married her, crowned her, yet Josephine had been forced to step down from the throne and make way for this pink Austrian cow. He had loved the Polish countess, she had borne his child, and yet Marie Walewska had been packed off back to Poland in the depth of winter to bring the fruit of that love into the world. What were Marianne and all her charms beside the one to whom he looked for an heir to inherit his Empire and his name? Bitterly, Marianne recalled the careless tone in which he had said to her: 'I am marrying a womb!' That womb was more precious to him than the greatest love on earth.

  Her eyes filled with tears and she saw through a glittering mist the bright forms of the newly-married pair, apparently borne up upon a sea of heads. Francis's voice came to her, persuasive and insinuating, as though out of a dream.

  'Be sensible, Marianne, and be satisfied with your own power – a power it would be foolish to throw away for the sake of a few hundred ecus! What are fifty thousand livres to the queen of Paris? Boney will have given you as many again within the week.'

  'I have not got them,' Marianne said shortly, angrily snuffing out an impending tear with the tip of her finger.

  'But you will have in – shall we say – three days? I will let you know where and how to get them to me.'

  'And what assurance have I that if I give them to you this will be the end of your infamous demands?'

  Francis stretched his long arms with the lazy grace of a big cat and smiled a sleepy smile.

  'None, I grant you, unless it be that I shall not be in need of money – for a while. One can always write a new pamphlet…'

  'Which I shall have to face sooner or later? Oh no. If that is how it is, Lord Cranmere, you get nothing from me! Sooner or later, you will attack me, when I have no more money, perhaps. No. You may do your worst. You shall not have your fifty thousand livres!'

  Marianne was thinking hard as she spoke. She would go to see Fouché, or even the Emperor, if that were possible, this very night. She would tell them of the danger threatening her and then she would go away, anywhere, so that if Fouché's men failed to stem the tide of pamphlets, at least there would be distance enough between her and Napoleon to prevent their names being linked again. She would go, perhaps, to Italy, where her voice would enable her to earn a living and where she might possibly find her godfather and get this dreadful marriage annulled. Then, when she was Marianne d'Asselnat again (she had noticed that her maiden name was not mentioned in the pamphlet), she might be able to approach Napoleon afresh. For the second time, Lord Cranmere's voice interrupted her plans.

  'Ah, I was forgetting,' he said, on a note of gentle mockery. 'Knowing the impulsiveness of your character and your regrettable passion for disappearing without trace, I have taken additional precautions – in the person of the eccentric female who seems to act towards you as a mother and a chaperon but who is, I believe, your cousin.'

  Marianne's heart missed a beat and she found herself suddenly at a loss for air.

  'Adelaide?' she gasped. 'What is this to do with her?'

  'Why, a good deal, I think. If you knew me better, my dear, you would know that I am not the man to start a game without several trumps in my hand. Mademoiselle d'Asselnat received a message purporting to come from you and by this time should be safely in the care of friends of mine. If you wish to see her again alive...'

  Marianne realized suddenly, from the anguish that tore her heart, just how fond she had grown of Adelaide. She closed her eyes so that he should not see the tears which started into them. The devil! He had dared to lay hands on that kindly, devoted old maid! Marianne knew now that he was hand in glove with Fanchon Fleur-de-Lis and her gang, and f
elt sickened at the thought of her cousin in their hands. She knew them, knew how cruel and unscrupulous they were and their hatred for all those connected, however remotely, with the imperial regime.

  'You dared!' she muttered through clenched teeth. 'You dared to do that and you think by this means to bring me to agree? Well, I shall find her. I know the den of that evil creature who sits grinning at us.'

  'You may find her,' Francis retorted coolly, 'but I warn you, if Fouché's spies start poking their dirty noses into my friend Fanchon's territory, they will find only a corpse.'

  'You would not dare!'

  'Why not? On the other hand, if you behave sensibly, as I hope and do as I ask nicely, then I can promise to restore her to you unharmed.'

  'Do you expect me to believe the word of a —'

  'A scoundrel,' Francis finished for her. 'I know. It seems to me you have no choice. First find the fifty thousand livres I need, my sweet Marianne. I promise I will not call on your generosity again for – a year, let us say. And now —'

  He heaved himself up from the velvet cushions and took the hand which Marianne was still too stupefied to withdraw and carried it to his lips. At the last moment, her slim fingers slipped from Francis's gloved hand, as though instinctively.

  'I hate you,' she said dully. 'Oh, how I hate you!'

  He gave his twisted smile. 'That does not disturb me. With some women, hatred has more spice than love. I shall have my money!'

  'You shall have it, but take care. If you harm one hair of my cousin's head, there is no hiding-place in all Europe safe enough to keep you from my vengeance. That I swear by my father's memory, I will kill you with my own hands, even if I die for it!'

  She shook her gloved fist in Lord Cranmere's face. The smile left Francis's lips and he flinched before the cold fury in her glittering green eyes. The pallor of that lovely face, the anguish so clearly written there, had their effect on the Englishman, touched, perhaps, some forgotten chord in his selfish, cynical nature. He opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it, shrugged, like a man seeking to shift a burden from his shoulders, and stepped down from the carriage. When he stood beside it, he muttered without looking up: 'If you do as I require, nothing unpleasant will happen. And you can forget these tragedy airs – they reek of the boards, you know.'