Marianne and the Lords of the East

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  As they talked, the three of them had completed the circuit of the garden and found themselves back on the vine-covered terrace outside the drawing room. Autumn had turned it to a wine-red canopy which glowed redder still in the light of the lamps that were now being lit all over the house. But a pervasive odor of roast meat and frying onions emanating from the kitchens robbed the moment of its poetical effect and brought it down to earth. It was dinner time, and Marianne was hungry as always.

  An ancient servingman with long white hair came into the drawing room bent under the weight of a lighted candelabrum almost taller than himself. The prince bowed, touching his forehead, lips and breast in the eastern fashion.

  "I'll bid you good night," he said, as though concluding an ordinary call, "and shall hope to see you very soon."

  Marianne swept him a little curtsy.

  "Very soon, indeed, Turhan Bey, if I have my way. Good night to you also."

  The aged retainer made haste to open the door and the prince followed him quickly, but he turned in the doorway to deliver one parting counsel.

  "If I may be allowed one piece of advice—On no account have any further communication with the lady in question. She is a great deal too intelligent and she has everything to gain from frightening you. Such people make perilous friends."

  The following evening, enveloped in a black ferej and veil of the same color, Marianne left the Morousi palace. Behind her, like a shadow, went a tall Albanian with a dagger like a small cutlass stuck in his belt. His drooping black mustache gave him a strong resemblance to Attila the Hun and he glared around him with a fierce black eye that defied anyone to cross him. But there were plenty more Albanians like him on the waterfronts of Stamboul and his gaudy clothes were in harmony with the multicolored crowds that swarmed there from dawn to dusk. He also possessed the added advantage that he was dumb.

  With him to protect her, Marianne reached the unremarkable little perama waiting among a hundred others like it at the jetty of Aykapani. In another moment she was gliding over the gray waters of the harbor under a fine, persistent rain which, although unpleasant, was almost as impenetrable as a fog, toward her new home.

  Chapter 5

  Arcadius Is Angry

  RAIN! It had begun just after Christmas, which had been unusually mild, and since then it had not stopped, a thin, persistent drizzle soaking everything in sight. The fishing village of Kandilli, across the Bosporus on the Asian side, showed only as a vague blur with the inevitable minaret standing up like a quill pen. The bright colors of the boats and the houses, painted pink, blue, green and yellow, dissolved in the watery mist to form a kind of grisaille in which even the spires of the cypress trees merged into the general gray. The Bosporus was cheerless, a broad salt river heaving sullenly day after day with seabirds shrieking overhead.

  These days were mostly spent by Marianne in the tandour, whose windows, covered with gilded grilles, overhung the gray waters. This was a small circular apartment furnished with a number of divans, their feet converging in the center on a large, tiled stove covered with a brilliantly embroidered woolen blanket, the edges of which could be lifted by the occupants of the divans to cover their feet to help ward off the cold and damp.

  The palace of Humayunabad, built by Ibrahim Pasha in the previous century and now by favor of Mahmoud II the property of Turhan Bey, possessed a number of such comfortable chambers, but Marianne had chosen this one on account of its oriel windows overlooking the Bosporus from which she could watch the shipping pass back and forth each day.

  The view was much livelier than looking at the dripping gardens which, for all their splendor, were enclosed by high, defensive walls that made them almost as depressing as the fortress of Rumeli Hisar, whose battlemented walls and three round towers rose out of the water guarding the narrows with their guns. So huge and lofty were its walls that they remained visible even through the chill sea mists that rolled in from the Black Sea beyond and smothered the place where two worlds met.

  Except for an occasional short stroll in the gardens whenever the rain stopped for long enough to allow it, Marianne would spend hours and hours in this room, resisting all attempts on the part of Jolival and the Persian physicians whom the prince had procured for her in place of Dr. Meryon to persuade her to take more exercise. She was nearing her time now and she felt heavy and sluggish. She could hardly bear to look in the mirror and see her figure, now swollen beyond all possibility of concealment, and her sunken face, entirely dominated by a pair of great green eyes.

  The sight of the sea, though, had become like a drug to her, and it was almost more than she could do to drag herself away from it. The nights, when she was forced to leave her divan to go to bed, seemed endless, in spite of the soothing drafts administered by her doctor, who was becoming alarmed at her increasing tension.

  With her hands lying idle on the embroidery that she would probably never finish or on a book she did not read, she would lie there from the boom of the morning gun that marked the beginning of the day until the evening one that ended it, enclosed in her glassed-in birdcage resembling the after cabin of a ship, watching the vessels slipping past the palace and the little landing stage with the marble steps going down into the leaden water, always looking for one who never came.

  The year 1811 had gone out silently and already the first month of the new year had passed away. Yet still Jason had not come. And every new day ate a little more cruelly into Marianne's hopes, until she had almost come to despair of ever seeing him again. If it had not been for the Sea Witch, she could even have believed that he had abandoned her forever and his love for her was dead. The brig, still riding at her moorings in Phanar under Turhan Bey's colors, was her one hope, and she clung to it with all her strength. He could not ignore the ship he loved even if the woman whose face she bore on her prow was nothing to him anymore.

  Weak and ill, with a weight of misery in her heart, Marianne blamed herself for what she privately thought of as her cowardice. The old Marianne of Selton, who had put a sword through her husband on her wedding night to avenge her honor, would have turned her back on any man who treated her as he had. But that had been two hundred years ago and the frail, unhappy woman who lay huddled like a sick cat among her cushions had strength only for the one thought that still kept her going: the longing to see him again.

  One of Turhan Bey's merchantmen, on a regular run from Monemvasia with a cargo of Molvoisie wine, had brought news that the American had left the Morea for Athens early in December, but no one seemed to know what had become of him after that. Once arrived in the ancient capital of learning, he appeared to have vanished into thin air.

  A hundred times over Marianne had made Jolival repeat to her what the fishermen had told the messenger sent by Turhan Bey with instructions to bring Jason back with him if he so wished. The stranger had read the letter that had been given him, together with a sum of money, according to instructions, as soon as he was fully recovered. Then he had simply put it in his pocket and begun making inquiries about a boat for Athens. After warmly thanking those who had nursed him with such kindness, he had pressed on them half the money he had been given and, early one morning, had embarked on a small vessel trading along the coast as far as Piraeus. By the time Turhan Bey's men arrived, he had been gone for a fortnight.

  What had he been seeking in Athens? The tracks of the man who had deceived him, broken him, robbed him and abandoned him to the cruel sea, stripped of everything he cared for in the world: his love, his ship and his illusions? Or the means to reach Constantinople? Or had he done with Europe and its people and simply sought a ship to carry him to Gibraltar and the vast Atlantic?

  Alas, as time went on Marianne leaned more and more toward the latter theory. She was never going to see Jason again in this world but perhaps God would have mercy on her and take her life in exchange for that of the child about to be born.

  Every evening at the same hour, just as the first lights were shining from the Asian
shore, Prince Corrado would come to see how she was doing. He would appear in the doorway of the pavilion which had been set aside for her use and which was divided from his own by the whole width of the garden. For the palace of Humayunabad, in the rambling way of eighteenth-century Turkish buildings, was an amazing collection of pointed roofs, grottoes, swags and moldings, extravagantly decorated kiosks jutting out over the water or the gardens like huge gilded cages, with pools and pavilions for every conceivable purpose, from baths to every other aspect of everyday life, and all adorned with the same painted columns.

  The ritual was always the same. As though making clear his determination to avoid the smallest intimacy with his unlikely wife, the prince would arrive in company with Arcadius, having collected him from the library where the vicomte spent most of his days surrounded by a thick cloud of smoke, dividing his time between his favorite Greek authors and the study of Persian. The door of the pavilion would be opened to them by Gracchus, who conducted them with all the dignity of a real butler to the salon where Donna Lavinia watched unobtrusively over the mother-to-be. There, he handed them over to the housekeeper and returned to his post in the vestibule where he had nothing to do but yawn and play cup and ball with himself and keep the door.

  Marianne's youthful coachman had left the French embassy on the same night as Jolival and with the same extravagant precautions. Jolival had explained to him as concisely as possible how the Ethiopian Caleb had become transformed into Turhan Bey, and with amazing self-control, Gracchus had refrained from asking any questions or showing the smallest astonishment. Nor, bored though he might have been since his arrival at the palace at Bebek, would he have quitted the door he had been told to guard against the machinations of Mr. Canning for anything in the world.

  Gracchus had never cared much for the English. As a good child of the revolution, he hated anything to do with the dreaded "Pitt and Coburg" of his boyhood. He had never approved of his mistress's acquaintance with that same Pitt's niece, but Mr. Canning he had regarded as a creature of the devil and his servants as so many demons. The news that they had dared to threaten his dear princess had sent him nearly frantic. As a result, he was guarding the graceful doors of painted cedarwood entrusted to him like a janissary defending the sultan's treasury. It was all he could do to refrain from subjecting the prince and Jolival to a thorough search every evening, such was his fear that Canningue might have disguised himself as one or other of them the better to reach his victim.

  Donna Lavinia, in turn, would lead the two men to the tandour and then she, too, would withdraw to resume her needlework and her vigil, ready to answer her young mistress's call. Her presence, indeed, was among the very few that Marianne could endure, even in her tormented state, and she would often beg her to sit with her. For the silent Lavinia knew better than anyone how to be quiet.

  The reunion between the two women had taken place without an unnecessary word. They had embraced like mother and daughter after a long absence, and then Donna Lavinia had resumed her services to the younger woman as though she had never left off. Since then she had surrounded her with every care called for by her condition, but she had never made the slightest allusion to the expected child, nor had she betrayed any of the ill-timed jubilation that anyone else could not have failed to betray. She knew too well what the longed-for heir was costing the young Princess Sant'Anna.

  And so she was the only person Marianne would have near her. She bathed her and helped her to dress, did her hair and brought her meals, and slept at night in an adjoining chamber with the door left open, ready to answer the least call.

  Sunk in her mental apathy, Marianne was aware of this unspoken solicitude. She allowed herself to be nursed like a child but, as her time drew nearer, she would call for Lavinia more and more often, as though she felt the need to reassure herself that when the time came she would be there to help her through the ordeal.

  As for the prince, his visits invariably followed the same pattern. He would come in, inquire after her health and try gently to rouse her from her melancholy with news of the outside world and the day's gossip from the Ottoman capital. From time to time he would bring her a present of a new book, a few flowers, a jewel or some unusual or amusing trinket. The one thing he never brought was scent for which, from the sixth month, Marianne had developed an aversion. Even Jolival would change his clothes completely on emerging from his bouts of smoking in the library so as not to offend her with the smell of Turkish tobacco on his person.

  At the end of a quarter of an hour Corrado would rise and bow and bid her good night, leaving Jolival to keep her company. Donna Lavinia would hold back the velvet curtains and his tall, graceful figure would vanish through them to be seen no more until the following night.

  "He reminds me of Aladdin's genie," Marianne confided to Jolival one day when she was feeling a little more cheerful than usual. "I always feel that I have only to rub one of the lamps and he will appear before me in a pillar of smoke."

  "I shouldn't be surprised. The prince is undoubtedly a most remarkable man," was all the vicomte said. " And I don't mean in his appearance only. He's a person of very high intelligence and a most cultivated, even artistic turn of mind…" But his panegyric had ended there, for Marianne had turned her head away and relapsed again into her depression. And the good Jolival could not help privately wishing Jason Beaufort to the devil. Just then he would have given a lot to be able to root him out of the girl's sick mind.

  Her longing for the handsome privateer was killing her slowly and Jolival, helpless in the face of that speechless misery, could do nothing to comfort her. Where were those happy days when Marianne, superficially in love with Napoleon, had committed every kind of folly but without ever, as now, tearing herself to pieces on the thorns in her path?

  He dared not question her about her feelings for Corrado. For himself, the deeper he penetrated, not without difficulty, into the prince's strange, secret, self-contained personality, so well protected as to be almost impenetrable, the more Jolival liked him. He found himself deeply sorry for the malign trick of fate which had laid on an innocent and altogether exceptional being an antisocial mask that made him an outcast among his own kind.

  If the truth were told, Marianne could not have explained her own feelings toward the man whose name she bore. He fascinated and irritated her at the same time, like a too-perfect work of art, while the instinctive liking she had felt for the slave Caleb had undergone some modification when applied to the Prince Sant'Anna.

  Not that she had ceased to pity him as the victim of an unjust fate, but her compassion had been somewhat superseded by her pity for herself. She might even have taken pleasure in the company of a man of his quality if he had not been the one who was making her go through her present ordeal. For as the days went by, she began to blame him for her sickness, her lassitude and the temporary eclipse of her beauty.

  "I look like a starving cat that's swallowed a balloon," she wailed, catching sight of herself in the mirror. "I'm ugly—ugly enough to put off any man, however besotted!"

  On this particular evening she was looking even worse than usual. The high cheekbones stood out starkly in her face, betraying her listless wretchedness all too clearly. Her long hands were hardly less pale than the full gown of white wool which enveloped her from neck to ankle, so that Jolival found himself wondering how she would survive her approaching ordeal.

  Donna Lavinia said that she was eating almost nothing and that little out of duty more than actual hunger. Her hearty appetite was a thing of the past and for three months now Marianne had had no need to worry about her figure once the child was born. She would be downright thin—always supposing she came safely through the confinement itself.

  The ritual quarter of an hour reached its end and the prince rose to take his leave. He was bowing ceremoniously over Marianne's hand, as he did every night, when Donna Lavinia hurried in and murmured something in his ear. He stiffened and frowned.

  "Where a
re they?" he asked.

  "At the main entrance."

  "I will go at once."

  The prince's habitual calm had gone. Contrary to his usual custom, he hurried from the room with barely a word of excuse. Jolival watched him go with an uneasy expression and even Marianne was roused to curiosity by such unaccustomed behavior.

  "Is it some bad news?" she asked.

  Lavinia hesitated. She might have said that the news had been for Corrado's ear alone, but she was incapable of resisting her young mistress's soft voice and melancholy look. So she merely replied as evasively as she could: "Yes and no. There has been an attempt to steal one of the ships in the harbor, but the thief has been caught and brought here."

  "To steal one of the ships?" Marianne repeated vaguely. "Do you know which one?"

  Before Donna Lavinia could answer, the heavy velvet curtain covering the entrance to the tandour was put aside by the prince's own hand. His blue eyes scanned each of the faces raised to his in turn and came to rest on Marianne. He was evidently under the stress of some strong emotion.

  "Madame," he said, using very nearly the same words as Donna Lavinia a moment earlier, "there has been an attempt to steal your ship. My people seized the thief and have brought him here, with three or four of the men he employed to assist him. Do you want to see him?"

  "To see him? Why should I? Why don't you see him yourself?" she said in sudden alarm.

  "I have no wish to see him. I merely caught a glimpse of him in the hands of my men. And I still think it is for you and no one else to interview him. My presence would only complicate matters and I would rather leave you. He will be here at any moment."

  Then Marianne knew why it was that her heart had beat faster and why she was suddenly nervous. She knew now who the thief was. And she felt magically alive again. The will to live revived in her wasted body. She was herself again and no longer simply the receptacle for an alien existence that was consuming her.