Marianne and the Privateer

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  It was quite dark by the time they reached the first houses of the village of Passy, a darkness rendered thicker and more menacing by the storm clouds still rolling up like billows of black smoke. No lights showed through the dense mass of bushes which overhung every gateway except for a dim, yellow glimmer from a small house tucked in beside a pair of double gates, which indicated that the porter of the sugar-beet refinery owned by the banker Benjamin Delessert was at his post. A little bit farther on, the old spring gardens of Passy, once filled with noise and animation, presented a blank, dark front, a heavy stillness in which even the trees seemed petrified.

  Gracchus took a right-hand turning and edged his horses into a road ascending in a gentle slope between the Jardin des Eaux and the wall of some large property. At the far end, elegant gilt lanterns hung from black iron stanchions illumined the tall gates and twin lodges guarding the entrance to the Hôtel de Lamballe. Marianne, however, stopped her chaise half-way up the slope and told Gracchus to wait with it where he would be as far out of sight as possible. In answer to his surprised question, she said: 'I want to try and get into the house without being seen.'

  'But, this morning…'

  'This morning it was broad daylight and it would have been folly to attempt secrecy. It is dark now, and late, and I wish my presence in the house to remain unknown, if that is at all possible. To have it known would only result in awkwardness for everyone, and especially for Mr Beaufort.' She thought as she spoke of the jealous Pilar's reaction should she ever hear that Jason had been visited by a woman at night, in her absence, and that woman Marianne.

  She saw Gracchus shift uncomfortably, not meeting her eyes, and realized that he was thinking of something quite different and believed that this was a lovers' assignation. She lost no time in explaining matters:

  'Jason is in great danger tonight, Gracchus, a danger from which I alone can save him. That is why I have to go in there. Will you help me?'

  'Help you save Monsieur Jason? I should just think I will!' The eagerness in his voice gave Marianne the measure of his relief. 'But it'll not be easy. The walls are high and the gates pretty stout. There is an entrance giving on to the Versailles road but…'

  'I noticed this morning that there is a little door somewhere about here. Do you think you could open it?'

  'What with? I've only my bare hands, an' if I try to force it—'

  'With this.' As she spoke, Marianne produced a picklock from the soft, dark green silken folds of her cloak and put it into her coachman's hand. Gracchus, feeling the shape of the tool in his palm, gave vent to a muffled exclamation:

  'Ah! That's the ticket. But where—'

  'Hush. Never you mind,' said Marianne, who had found the implement in Jolival's little collection. Like the late king, Louis XVI, the Vicomte Arcadius had always been something of an amateur locksmith and kept a pretty little bag of tools in his room which might have laid a less respectable man open to some suspicion. 'Do you think you could open the door with that?'

  'It'll be child's play – so long as it's not barred on the inside,' Gracchus assured her. 'Just you wait and see.'

  'Wait! Go up to the gate quietly first and see if there are any lights in the house. And see if you can see a carriage or horses in the drive. I know Mr Beaufort was expecting a visitor at about eight, he may still be there.'

  Gracchus nodded by way of an answer and taking off his hat and livery coat laid both articles inside the chaise, which he then moved to a position alongside the spa gardens where it was overhung by the branches of a huge tree. Having once made sure that the chaise was more or less invisible to anyone not actually looking for it, he turned and made his way up the road to the gates, making no more noise than a cat.

  Marianne's eyes had grown sufficiently accustomed to the darkness by this time to enable her to make out the little side door. She went towards it and, having made sure that it was indeed locked, settled down in the angle of the wall to wait for Gracchus.

  It was still stiflingly hot but the storm was on its way. There was a dull rumble of thunder away to the south and once a flash of still distant lightning illumined for an instant the watery ribbon of the Seine. Somewhere not far off, probably in the little church of Notre-Dame des Graces, a clock struck nine and Marianne's heart thudded in her breast in agonized counterpoint. She was beset by vague and terrible fears. What if Jason had not returned to Mortefontaine before going to Crawfurd's house? Suppose the meeting Francis had spoken of had been cancelled – or Jason had already set out, against all expectation, contrary to all Cranmere's supposed information? Suppose that tomorrow in the ditch at Vincennes…

  The picture which Marianne's imagination conjured up was so real and so hideous that it was all she could do to bite back a groan. She leaned against the wall, shivering and trying to cool her burning forehead by pressing it to the cool stone. She was not yet fully recovered from her recent illness and the brutal treatment to which Chernychev had subjected her the night before had not improved matters, but at the thought of the man whom she now hated with all her heart she felt her courage revive and, fumbling for her handkerchief, began automatically wiping away the sweat which poured down her face. The cool freshness of the eau-de-Cologne which she had sprinkled liberally over it before she came out did her good, and then Gracchus was coming back.

  'Well?'

  'There are lights in the house,' whispered the lad. 'And there is a coach at the door, as if it's about ready to go. I caught a glimpse of someone come quickly out of the house and jump in. Listen—'

  There was indeed a sound of wheels approaching. Then the creak of the gate, the hollow clop of horses' hooves and finally the dark outline of a big berline coming down the hill. Marianne and Gracchus stepped back hastily into the shelter of the doorway, although it was so dark that the driver of the berline never suspected the existence of the small door in the wall and of the two people hidden there. The coach came to the end of the road away in the direction of Versailles.

  'I think all's clear now,' Gracchus murmured. 'Let's see what that tool of yours will do.'

  He felt about for the lock and inserted the wire hook. There was a scrape of metal on metal, it stuck for a moment and then yielded. The bolt slid back quite easily but the door, which seemed to have been long out of use, remained firmly closed. Gracchus had to set his shoulder to it before it finally gave way, revealing a corner of the grounds. Beyond the ivy-covered tree trunks which occupied the immediate foreground, a pale blur and tall, lighted windows giving on to a row of three stone balconies showed the position of a large white house. From the centre windows, which were also the largest and most ornately decorated, a shallow stone stairway, railed with a tracery of delicate ironwork, descended in graceful twin curves to where marble nymphs reclined at ease.

  Marianne's heart leapt in her breast, even before her feet had taken the first steps towards the lighted windows which told her, more clearly than any words, that Jason was at home. Thunder, closer than before, rolled overhead and Gracchus cast a quick look up at the thick roof of leaves:

  'Storm's coming. It's going to rain any moment and—'

  'Wait here,' Marianne commanded. 'I shall not need you. Or, better still, wait for me in the chaise. But take care to leave this door slightly ajar.'

  'Sure I hadn't better come with you?'

  'No. Find yourself some shelter, especially if it should come on to rain. I am in no danger here… or if I am,' she added, smiling involuntarily into the darkness, 'there will be nothing you can do to help me. Good-bye for the present.'

  Without further ado, she picked up her skirts to keep them from getting caught up in the undergrowth and made her way with a light step towards the house. As she came nearer, she was able to appreciate more fully the perfect proportions and restrained elegance of the building. It was certainly a fit dwelling for a delicate and lovely lady, one of the many who had perished in the carnage of the Terror. The shallow steps, as Marianne climbed them with no more so
und than a sigh, seemed made for the subtle whisper of full taffeta skirts and satin panniers…

  Reaching the top of the stairs, Marianne was obliged to stop, pressing her hand to her breast to still the fluttering of her heart, which was pounding as though after a stiff climb. The middle one of the row of tall french windows was open slightly and enabled her to see into a large room, lit by branches of candles in gilt sconces set against walls hung with grey brocade. The fact that all the pictures and hangings within her field of vision seemed to be quite new suggested to Marianne that the house must have suffered during the upheavals of the Revolution. So far as she was able to see, the furniture consisted of a number of chairs, a tall bookcase filled with faded bindings and a harpsichord with old cracked varnish…

  She put out her hand and gave the window a light, nervous push, afraid in her heart that she would find the room empty and the lights burning only in anticipation of someone's return. Then, suddenly, she saw Jason and a wave of happiness swept over her, driving out fatigue, anxiety, fever and pain.

  He was seated a little sideways at a writing desk, writing intently. A silver candlestick stood on the desk and the long goose quill moved steadily over the paper. In the candlelight his strange, hawklike profile took on a curiously softer look, the high bridge of his nose and firmly jutting chin were thrown into relief while deeper shadows lurked around the thin mouth and the deep-set eyes, now hidden by the lowered lids. The light fell, too, on his strong, slender, strikingly beautiful hands, one of which held the pen as firmly as if it had been a weapon, the other spread upon the desk to anchor the paper on which he was writing.

  He had discarded his coat, waistcoat and neckcloth on account of the heat and above his breeches and topboots was wearing only a fine white linen shirt, open at the neck to reveal a firm, strongly muscled throat. The arms that showed below his rolled-up shirtsleeves might have been carved from old mahogany. In this elegant drawing-room, with its dainty knick-knacks of silver and precious porcelain and the feminine touch of the harpsichord, Jason looked as out of place as a boarding cutlass on a lady's work table. Yet Marianne stood breathlessly in the window staring at him, forgetful of the reasons which had brought her there, sure now that he could never leave her for his perilous assignation, and conscious of a funny little feeling of tenderness at the sight of the lock of black hair which would keep on falling forward over his forehead.

  She might have stood there for hours without moving if some animal instinct of Jason's had not made him sense someone's presence. He looked up and round and sprang to his feet so suddenly that he knocked over his chair and it fell noisily. Frowning,

  Jason peered at the dark figure standing in the darkness by the window and knew her at once:

  'Marianne! What are you doing here?'

  There was nothing in the least lover-like in his tone and Marianne, brought down abruptly from the dreaming heights of a moment before, could not suppress a sigh.

  'If I had any hope that you might be pleased to see me, that would have taught me,' she said bitterly.

  'That is beside the point. You appear there in the doorway, without any warning, without anyone being in the least aware of your presence, and then you are surprised when I ask you what you are doing here? Don't you know that if one of the servants had chanced to come in just then they would most probably have fled screaming?'

  'I fail to see why.'

  'Because they would certainly have taken you for the ghost of the Princesse de Lamballe who is supposed to haunt this house – or so they say, for I myself have never seen her. But the people here are very sensitive about her. They sent so many to the guillotine that now they see ghosts everywhere!'

  'I trust, however, that I did not frighten you?'

  Beyond a slight shrug, Jason made no answer to this but walked towards his visitor who was still standing as though rooted to the spot:

  'Very well, and now I am asking you again, what are you doing here? Have you come to find out if your Russian killed me? The duel did not take place. Prince Kurakin compelled your champion to abandon it for the present. Considerably to my regret.'

  'Why? Were you so eager to die?'

  'What a poor creature you must think me,' Jason observed, with a faint, crooked smile. 'But your Cossack was in much greater danger, let me tell you, for I should have done everything in my power to kill him. I suppose, by the way, we have not got you to thank, have we, for this – er – postponement? I should not put it past you to drag Kurakin out of his bed in the middle of the night and implore him to put a stop to it!'

  Marianne reddened. The idea had occurred to her, certainly, and but for Talleyrand it was precisely what she would have done if at all possible. The Prince of Benevento's intervention had saved her, however, from the necessity of confessing her intentions in going to the Hôtel Thélusson. Heaven only knew what construction he would have put upon it! She shook her head:

  'No. Not me. You have my word for that.'

  'Very well. I believe you. Now, for the third time—'

  'What am I doing here? I will tell you. I came to save you from an infinitely greater danger than anything which could have threatened you at Chernychev's hands.'

  'Good God, what danger is this?'

  The last words were drowned in a violent clap of thunder, so close that it seemed to be right above the house. At the same time, a fierce gust of wind swirled in through the open windows, lifting the curtains and the papers on the desk. The window banged to behind Marianne. Jason sprang to shut everything tight, then moved about, picking up the scattered sheets of paper and relighting various candles which had been blown out by the wind. At last he turned back to Marianne who meanwhile had come a few steps farther into the room. It seemed to her to have grown suddenly stifling and she took off the light silken wrap which she had flung over her simple, almost girlish dress of white linen sewn with daisies but which now felt unbearably hot, and laid it over a chair. Looking up again, she saw that Jason was observing her curiously and was conscious of a sudden feeling of embarrassment.

  'Why do you look at me like that?' she asked, unable to meet his eyes.

  'I don't know. Or rather… yes. In that dress, with the ribbon in your hair, you reminded me of the kid I met at Selton for the first time less than a year ago. So little time for all that has happened to you! To think that you have had two husbands, that Napoleon is your lover – and not, perhaps, the only one – it seems incredible!'

  'Bearing in mind that neither of my husbands has been so more than in name, is it so hard to believe?' Marianne asked bitterly.

  'I know. By your own account, the Emperor would appear to have coped adequately with the practical side of things.'

  He spoke sarcastically, with a kind of cold contempt in his voice. Anger welled up suddenly in Marianne's heart, flushing her cheeks and bringing a sparkle to her eyes. She had come to him in desperate anxiety, half out of her mind with the fear that he might die before dawn before a firing squad, she had come to him crying out that he was in danger, and all he could offer her was sarcastic hints and innuendoes about how she had come to lose her virginity!

  'I never said that!' she burst out in a voice quivering with anger. 'If you must know, the Emperor was only the second of my lovers. The first was a Breton sailor, a fugitive from the hulks at Plymouth, who was with me when I escaped from England. He saved my life when we were shipwrecked and captured by wreckers and he was the first man I lay with – on a heap of straw in a barn! And I let him do it because he wanted to – and because I still needed his help! Would you like me to tell you his name? He was called—'

  A smack which made her catch her breath cut off her anger in mid-flight. She put her hand to her burning cheek and stared up at Jason out of big, tear-filled eyes, like a hurt child. The look of sheer, blazing fury on his face made her flinch. He was so frighteningly angry that she would have turned and fled had he not caught and swung her round, dealing her another ringing slap:

  'You grub
by little whore! And how many have there been since? How many more men have you given yourself to, eh?… And to think that I loved you! Loved you, did I say? I worshipped you… I was besotted – so besotted that I dared not even touch you! So besotted that there was a time when I could have killed the man who possessed you, although he was a man I admired with all my heart! And him, how often have you deceived him? And with whom? With this Russian, to be sure—'

  All the fury of the storm outside seemed concentrated in that thickened, hideously distorted voice. Half-mad with terror and despair at the outcome of her senseless burst of temper, Marianne realized that she had unleashed in him all the hidden forces of a passionate nature, all the more terrible because the inflexible will of the man made him normally able to master them. In a frantic effort to soothe him, she clung to the iron hands which had her by the shoulders and were shaking her mercilessly to and fro, like a plum tree in August.

  'Jason!' she implored him. 'Be calm! At least, listen to me—' But he only shook her harder.

  'Yes, I'll listen to you all right! I'll make you tell me. This Russian, now? Can you swear by your mother's memory that you have never been his?'

  Hideous recollections of the events of the previous night flitted through Marianne's mind, dragging a groan of anguish from her lips.

  'No! No, not that!'

  'Will you answer me? Answer me, I tell you!… I will be answered.'

  This time a strangled shriek was his answer. In his rage, Jason had fastened his hands round Marianne's throat and was squeezing it tighter, and tighter… She shut her eyes and ceased to struggle. She was going to die… to die at his hands! How much simpler that would make everything! There was nothing for her to do, nothing she need say… and tomorrow Savary's men would unite the two of them in death.

  Already she was beginning to lose consciousness. Red lights danced before her eyes. Her body went limp in his throttling hands and all at once Jason seemed to realize that he was killing her. He let go of her so suddenly that she would have fallen to the ground but for the chair which happened to be standing directly behind her. For a moment she lay there, helplessly, among the cushions, gasping for the air which was slowly filtering back into her lungs. Her hand went gingerly to her bruised throat, and she gave a sob which felt as if she had swallowed a ball of fire. Outside, the storm had reached its height, but the hellish fury of the elements all about them was no worse than the inferno within. Painfully, she forced herself to utter a few despairing words: