'I'll leave you,' Talleyrand said, getting to his feet, while Marianne hurried from the room to give orders. 'In any case, I have said all I came to say and I must go home.' He paused and added in a lowered tone: 'Have you any further news?'
Arcadius de Jolival shook his head sadly:
'Not much. The real murderers seem to have vanished into thin air. Not that I'm surprised at that. Fanchon is an old hand. She and her people must have done their work and gone to earth somewhere. As for the Englishman, he has disappeared so completely, whether to become the Vicomte d'Aubécourt or to assume some other identity, that it is easy to believe – as unfortunately it is believed – that he never existed outside our friend's imagination.' He sighed. 'Things are going badly… very badly.'
'Quiet. Here she comes. She is sufficiently unhappy as it is. Until later, then…'
An hour later, adequately washed and refreshed, Jolival was answering Marianne's questions. He told her that he had left Aix-la-Chapelle the moment he had received the letter which Fortunée Hamelin had pledged herself to deliver. Before the hour was out, he and Adelaide d'Asselnat were posting back to Paris.
'Adelaide came back with you?' Marianne said in surprise. 'Then why isn't she here?'
Then Jolival explained how, hearing of the troubles which had beset her young cousin, that elderly spinster had not hesitated for a moment. 'She needs me,' she had declared generously. 'I will go to her.' It seemed, also, that the fascination with the life of the mountebank which had led her to share for a while the existence of the clown Bobèche, was beginning to wear off. Aside from the somewhat doubtful charms of a career as a street player combined with that of a secret agent, Adelaide had finally come to recognize that a difference in age of more than ten years between herself and the object of her affections was a considerable handicap. It may well have been that a budding romance between Bobèche and a blooming flower-girl in the spa gardens at Aix had something to do with her new-found wisdom.
'Naturally,' Jolival said, 'she has returned a little disappointed, rather disenchanted and inclined to melancholy, but at heart I think she is quite pleased to get back to her own life again… and to French cooking. She was very fond of Bobèche but she does dislike sauerkraut! Besides, when you are in trouble, she thinks her place is with you. She is vastly proud of the fact that you are now a princess, by the way, although she would be torn in pieces before she admitted it.'
'But then, why did she not come with you?'
'Because she thinks she will be more useful to you in Paris than coming here to sympathize. Your people know about your exile and it is just as well that someone should be there to mind the house. That is something Mademoiselle Adelaide can do perfectly and everything is running quite smoothly there.'
The two friends talked on far into the night. There was so much they had to tell. Arcadius did not mean to make a long stay at Bourbon. It was his intention to return to Paris the next day and his visit was chiefly to inform Marianne of his return and assure her of his practical help. At the same time, he wanted to hear from her own lips a complete account of all that had happened, so that he could draw his own conclusions.
'I gather then,' he said, settling himself with half-closed eyes to the enjoyment of a glass of the old Armagnac which Talleyrand had sent round in the course of the evening, 'that neither Inspector Pâques nor Savary would listen to you when you tried to put the blame on your – on Lord Cranmere?'
'No. One thought I was mad, the other simply refused to listen.'
'The fact that no trace of his presence has been discovered does rather strengthen their belief. The gentleman would appear remarkably adept at concealing his tracks. All the same, he is still in Paris. Somewhere, there must be someone who has seen him.'
'I've an idea,' Marianne said suddenly. 'Has anyone been to our neighbour, Mrs Atkins? Adelaide was very friendly with her and Francis stayed there. She should be able to tell us at least whether or not he is still there, and if he is not, how long he was in her house.'
'Wonderful!' Jolival exclaimed. 'This is just what I came for. You said nothing about Mrs Atkins in your letter. She once hid your cousin in her house, and Adelaide will easily persuade her to tell everything. Her evidence might be all the more valuable precisely because she is herself English.'
'We do not know yet,' Marianne said soberly, 'if she will agree to give evidence against a fellow countryman.'
'If Mademoiselle Adelaide cannot persuade her, then no one can. In any case, we can only try. Another thing is that Lord Cranmere was briefly at Vincennes, when Nicolas Mallerousse arrested him in the Boulevard du Temple. It may be possible to trace him from the prison records.'
'Do you think so? He escaped so easily. He may never have been entered at all.'
'Not entered? When Nicolas Mallerousse handed him over in person? I'll wager he was. And that entry in the register is incontrovertible proof of the connection between Lord Cranmere and your poor friend. If we can get the register examined, then we have a chance of getting first the police and then the court to listen to us. And if necessary we will go to the Emperor. You have been forbidden to seek an audience, my dear, but I have not! And I shall demand an audience, and he will hear me. And then we shall win!'
As he spoke, Arcadius became more and more carried away by the new hope which had risen in him with these two new suggestions, put forward by Marianne and himself. His little bright eyes sparkled and the funny crumpled face which a moment before had been drawn with worry wrinkled into something approaching a smile. To Marianne, his infectious enthusiasm was like a breath of joy and hope. She hugged him warmly, her whole being quite transformed.
'Arcadius! You are a marvel! I knew that as soon as you were here again I should be able to hope and to fight again! Thanks to you, I know now that all is not lost. We may save him yet!'
'May? What is all this may?' retorted Jolival, on whom the effects of the prince's brandy were working to increase his natural enthusiasm. 'You must say that we shall save him!'
'Yes, you are right. We shall save him. At all costs,' Marianne echoed, in a tone of such ferocious determination that Arcadius returned her hug, so delighted was he to find her showing a touch of her old spirit.
That night, for the first time since she had left Paris, Marianne went to bed free from the overriding feeling of hopeless impotence which had haunted her every night, growing sharper and more agonizing as darkness fell. She had recovered her confidence, at least, and she knew that even if she were exiled, far from Paris, she could still act through others and do something to help Jason. The thought was a comforting one.
When Jolival set out again for Paris the next morning, with a readiness which did honour both to his horsemanship and to his powers of endurance, he carried with him, besides a letter to Adelaide from Marianne, all his young friend's renewed hopes. He left behind him a woman who had rediscovered the will to live.
To Marianne, the next few days provided a much-needed period of relief. Trusting in Arcadius and Adelaide to do what was necessary, she allowed herself to be seduced by the charms of the little spa and the hours passed leisurely, marked by the clock in the Quinquengrogne Tower. She even found a certain amount of entertainment in watching Talleyrand's household relax in conditions of greater freedom than those it enjoyed in Paris.
All day long, she could hear little Charlotte laughing and singing. The child seemed to be making it her business to rejuvenate her staid preceptor, Monsieur Fercoc, and was succeeding for once in encouraging him in a regime in which expeditions into the surrounding countryside played a much larger part than Latin and mathematics.
Every morning, Marianne derived a good deal of amusement from watching from her window the prince's departure for the baths. Having first bundled himself up in such an incredible assortment of shawls, blankets, flannel waistcoats and woollies of every description that he resembled nothing so much as a huge and hilarious cocoon, he inserted himself, according to local custom, in a sedan chair
with the blinds drawn down. None of this prevented him from dressing and behaving perfectly normally once the various stages of the ritual had been performed, nor was there any indication of a special diet when the whole company sat down to dinner (Marianne took all her meals with her friends) to do justice to the marvels which Carême managed to produce – from a kitchen of such modest resources that it threw him into a permanent state of nerves each summer until he was able to return to the splendidly appointed nether regions of Valençay or the Hôtel Matignon.
There was also the deaf brother, Boson, who paid shy court to Marianne in a manner both archaic and almost wholly incomprehensible, since he was unable to understand more than half of what was said to him. However, his advances were somewhat interrupted owing to the fact that he passed the greater part of his time with his head immersed in water in the hope, apparently, of achieving a cure for his deafness,
The afternoons were passed either out driving with the princess or reading with the prince. They went to Souvigny, the St Denis of the dukes of Bourbon, to admire the abbey church and its tombs, driving through the wooded Bourbonnais landscape of hedgerows and tree-shaded meadows dotted with big, white oxen. The warm, perfect weather showed the rich farmland in the full flush of peaceful beauty and even Madame de Talleyrand's aimless chatter seemed to Marianne sane and restful in this interlude from the dark plots which surrounded her.
With Talleyrand, Marianne read, as he had promised, Madame du Deffand's Letters which the prince enjoyed very much because they reminded him of 'his youth, his first entry into the world and all the people who mattered at the time'. And in his company Marianne found herself plunged to her surprise and delight into the charming, frivolous eighteenth century which had been the setting for her parents' courtship. Often, too, their reading would end in talk and the prince would find pleasure in reviving for his young friend his own recollections of 'the handsomest and most perfectly matched pair' that he had known, but of whom she, their daughter, knew so little. Through his words, which could be strikingly tender and affectionate, Marianne seemed to see her mother, a golden beauty in a white muslin dress, a tall, beribboned cane in her hand, moving about the alleys of the Trianon or seated in an armchair by the fire in her own drawing-room, graciously entertaining the guests who flocked to her house to drink 'English tea' and managing somehow to create an intimate and delightful occasion for as many as fifty people at once. Next, Talleyrand would momentarily bring to life again the idealistic Pierre d'Asselnat, his whole life devoted to his two great loves, the monarchy and his wife. Then it would be the big, military portrait in the rue de Lille which came to life in Marianne's imagination as she listened, dazzled and yet oddly envious.
Oh for a love like that! she thought, hearing her friend talk. To love and be loved like them… and then if need be, to die together as they did amid the blood and horror of the scaffold. But before that, a few years… a few months even, of irreclaimable happiness!
Oh, how readily she could understand her mother's gesture when, seeing her husband taken, she had proudly claimed her right to follow him to his death, rejecting all thoughts of the child she left behind her, in order to live out her love to the end. She herself had thought many times during the long nights through which she had suffered since that terrible night at Passy that she would not outlive Jason. She had pictured a hundred tragic ends to her own, unhappy story, had seen herself breaking from the crowd and casting herself in front of the guns of the firing squad as the command was given to fire or, if he were not given the right to a soldier's death, stabbing herself to the heart at the foot of the scaffold, supposing he were treated like a common criminal. But now that Jolival had given her fresh hope her whole will was directed towards the achievement, against all odds, of that happiness which still seemed so obstinately to elude her. Let her only live with Jason and then let the whole world perish, only so long as they had drunk the cup of happiness together to the last drop.
And so, all in all, the days passed not unpleasantly, yet with each new morning Marianne felt her fears returning. She took to watching for the post and studying Talleyrand's expression closely to see if, in the news which reached him from Paris, there might not have been some hint about the Beaufort affair.
One morning, Marianne and the prince walked out a little way along the tree-lined road beside the lake near the chateau. Talleyrand's walks were invariably brief, because of his lame leg, but the weather was so fine, the morning so clear and fresh that both had found the urge to take a turn on foot quite irresistible. The countryside was filled with the scents of hay and wild thyme, the sky was white with doves playing tag around the three grey towers of the chateau and the calm waters of the lake shimmered with iridescent blue and silver, fit to make a fairy's gown.
The man and girl were strolling peaceably along beside the water's edge, throwing bread to the ducks and laughing at the harassed quacking of a mother-duck in her efforts to control a particularly unruly brood of ducklings, when one of the prince's manservants came hurrying towards them holding something white in his gloved hand.
'Post, eh?' Talleyrand remarked with just the faintest shade of irritation. 'It must be urgent to set them running after us.'
There were two letters, one for Talleyrand, the other for Marianne. The prince raised his eyebrows at his own, which was sealed with the Emperor's arms, but Marianne fell on hers eagerly, recognizing the extravagant curlicues which passed for handwriting with Jolival. She tore open the wafer with Arcadius's martlets arrayed upon it and scanned the few lines within. A despairing cry broke from her. Arcadius wrote to tell her that Mrs Atkins had quitted her house in the rue de Lille 'for the country' but that there was no means of finding out whereabouts in the country she might be. This had happened on the very day Adelaide d'Asselnat had returned home. As for the records of the prison at Vincennes, they contained no reference to any political prisoner by the name of Francis Cranmere – only the traces where a page had been torn out of the book. Whoever they were who had dedicated themselves to the ruin of Jason Beaufort and the disruption of relations between France and America, they appeared to have left nothing to chance.
Marianne's eyes filled with tears as she crumpled Jolival's letter nervously between her fingers. At the same time, she heard her companion saying testily: 'Why does he need me to unveil his confounded column! This means that I shall be obliged to interrupt my treatment. And I have not the least desire to return to Paris, eh?'
But Marianne was conscious only of the last words. 'Return to Paris? You are returning?'
'I must. I have to be there for the Emperor's birthday on the fifteenth of August. This year, to add to the magnificence of the occasion, His Majesty has decided to hold the unveiling of the bronze column he has set up in the Place Vendôme in honour of the Grand Army, made from the metal of twelve hundred and fifty cannon captured at Austerlitz. I am not at all sure it is such a brilliant idea. It can scarcely be very agreeable to the new Empress, seeing that a good half of the cannon in question belonged to Austria. But the Emperor is so delighted with the figure of himself as a Roman emperor which is to surmount the column that I suppose he wants all Europe to have an opportunity of admiring it.'
But Marianne's thoughts were very far from the column in the Place Vendôme, so far indeed as to make her forget even her manners and break in on the prince unceremoniously:
'If you are going back to Paris, take me with you!'
Take you, eh? What for?'
By way of a reply, Marianne held out Jolival's letter. Talleyrand read it carefully and slowly. By the time he reached the end there was a deep furrow between his brows, but he returned the letter without comment.
'I must go back,' Marianne said again after a moment, in a choking voice. 'I cannot stay here, safe in the sunshine, while Jason is in this dreadful danger. I – I think I should go mad. Let me come with you.'
'You know that you are forbidden to go – or I to take you. Don't you think you will only make
matters worse for Beaufort if the Emperor hears that you have disobeyed him?'
'He will not hear. I shall leave my baggage and my servants here with orders to admit no one to my room and to say that I am ill in bed and will see no one at all. It will cause no surprise. I did very much the same before you arrived. The people here probably think I am mad anyway. With Gracchus and Agathe here, I know that no one will enter my room and find out the deception. Meanwhile, I will go back to Paris disguised as – let me see – yes, disguised as a boy. I shall be one of your secretaries.'
'Where will you go to in Paris?' the prince objected, looking not at all relieved. 'Your house is being watched, you know that. If the police were to see you going in you would be arrested on the spot.'
'I thought…' Marianne began, sounding suddenly rather shy.
'That I would take you in? Yes, well, I thought of it myself for a moment, but it would not do. You are known to everyone in the rue de Varennes and I do not think everyone is to be trusted. There is a likelihood that you would be betrayed and that would not help matters, either for you or for myself. I am not, you will recall, on the best of terms with His Majesty… even if he has asked me to go and unveil his column!'
'Then it can't be helped. I will go somewhere else – to a hotel perhaps.'
'Where your disguise would be seen through in a moment. No, you are being altogether foolish, my child. But I believe I have a better idea. Go and make what arrangements you need. We are leaving Bourbon this evening. I will see that you have some man's clothes and you can pass as a young secretary of mine until we reach Paris. Once there, I will take you to – but you will see. No need to speak of that now. You are set on this piece of folly?'
'I am,' Marianne said firmly, flushed with joy at a degree of assistance she had scarcely dared to hope for. 'I feel that if I am near him, I shall find some way to help him.'
Marianne and the Privateer Page 19