Marianne and the Privateer

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  'We are all in God's hands,' Vidocq observed with exaggerated piety. 'Who knows what tomorrow may bring? As the poet says, "Patience and time work more than strength and fury".'

  'And however often goes the pitcher to the well, in the end it will be broken… Do you think I came here to listen to proverbs? Jason,' she cried desperately, turning to him, 'tell him you are lost, that your one hope now is – is to escape! And if he is your friend, as he claims to be, and at the same time a master at escaping the police, then he must see…'

  A prolonged and obvious yawn brought Marianne's impassioned tirade to an abrupt halt. She glared at Vidocq with a look of sheer murder on her face while he cocked a thumb in the direction of the open door.

  'I hate to be a spoil sport, but Ducatel is waiting for you, fair one – and the watch is due in five minutes.'

  'You must go, Marianne,' Jason told her seriously as she clung to him by a kind of instinct. 'And you must be sensible. You have made me – so very, very happy. I shall think of you always. But we must say good-bye now.'

  'No, not good-bye… or only for a little while! I shall come again and—'

  'No. I forbid you to. It would not be wise. You are forgetting that you yourself are watched. I must know that you are safe, at least.'

  'Don't you want to see me again?' Marianne was almost in tears.

  He kissed the tip of her nose lightly, then her eyes and then her lips.

  'Silly! I have only to close my eyes to see you. You will never leave me. But I must be wise for two – and now, especially, when your life may be at stake.'

  'Only four minutes!' The turnkey's head appeared round the door, looking anxious. 'You'll have to hurry, lady.'

  With one last kiss, Marianne tore herself bravely from Jason's side. She was half out of the door when Vidocq caught her arm and spoke to her softly:

  'Do you know the Persian poets?'

  'N-no, but—'

  'One of them has written: "Never lose hope, even in the midst of disaster, for the toughest bone contains the sweetest marrow." Go now.'

  She glanced up at him uncertainly before, blowing one last kiss to Jason, she hurried out to join Ducatel who was pacing up and down outside like a caged bear.

  'Hurry!' he told her, shutting the door swiftly. 'We've got no more than three minutes! Here, take my hand. We'll have to run for it.'

  They raced together for the stairs while from the passages behind them the measured tread of the watchmen on their rounds was already making itself heard. At the same time, at the clatter of heavy, nailed boots, the whole prison seemed to come awake. Oaths, curses and ugly shouts rang out on all sides until it seemed as if each door concealed its own miniature version of hell. The smell which even in Jason's cell had been unpleasant, became frankly unendurable as they passed certain doors and when they emerged at last into the Cour du Greffe Marianne found herself taking in great gulps of fresh air. They had resumed a normal walking pace by now and the keeper remarked as he let go Marianne's hand:

  'I dare say a little glass of something wouldn't do either of us any harm, my lady. You looked like a sheet when you came out, and I can't say I feel so hot myself, after that close shave.'

  'I'm sorry. But tell me, this man François Vidocq, is he indeed an escaped convict?'

  'I'll say he is. The guards can watch him for all they're worth, but they can never keep a hold on him. Every time he slips through their fingers. But he can't keep out of trouble, seemingly. He always comes trotting back again. But don't get me wrong. He's not one of your real desperate ruffians. He's not killed anyone. So back they sends him again to serve his time – Toulon, Rochefort, Brest, he knows them all. They're all the same to him. Just the same this time, it'll be. They'll pack him away, and after a bit he'll be off out of it again as usual. And then the whole round will begin again, until one day one of his guards has had enough and quietly puts him away. And that'll be a pity, because he's not a bad lad…'

  But Marianne was no longer listening. She was pondering in her heart the words this strange prisoner had said to her. He had mentioned hope, and hope was the one word she had needed to hear, since Jason had not uttered it. More, he seemed resigned, almost indifferent, accepting with what seemed to her a terrifying calmness the possibility of dying for his country's service.

  'He shall not die,' she vowed inwardly. 'I shall not let them kill him and he shall not die! Even if his judges condemn him, I will make the Emperor listen to me and he will have to grant me his life…'

  That was the one thing that mattered. Even if life meant a slow death in penal servitude. Until that day she had always thought of it as a kind of foretaste of hell from which no one ever emerged alive. But this man Vidocq was living proof that it was not so. And she knew that while Jason lived she, Marianne, would devote every moment of her life to saving him from the undeserved penalty awaiting him. Gathering together all her strength, she thrust away her fears, her anguish and all thoughts of farewell. Every atom of her being belonged to Jason Beaufort but she believed too that Jason Beaufort belonged henceforth to her and her alone. And because of this she felt a greater strength and fighting spirit than she had ever known before, even on the night when, sword in hand, she had challenged Francis Cranmere to answer for the slur on her honour. The fire of the ancient blood of Auvergne and the unrelenting tenacity of her English descent united in her to produce all the warlike qualities of those other women from whose line she came who had studded history with their loves, their passions and their vengeances: Agnes de Ventadour who had turned Crusader to be revenged on a faithless lover, Catherine de Montsalvy who had risked death a hundred times for the husband she loved, Isabelle de Montsalvy, her daughter, who had fought her way to happiness through the horrors of the Wars of the Roses, Lucrèce de Gadagne, wielding a sword like a man to win back her castle of Tournoel, Sidonia d'Asselnat who had fought like a man yet loved like ten women during the Fronde, and so many more. Go back as far as she would in the annals of her family, Marianne would find the same story, the same pattern of war and arms, of blood and love. Only fate might change the course of human life, but as she followed the keeper down the damp passage leading to his lodging, Marianne knew that she had at last accepted the crushing weight of that heritage, owned herself daughter and sister to all these women because now she had found her own cause for which to fight and to live. And so, she felt no sadness or grief but rather a sense of happiness and exultation and triumph, drawn from the hour which had just passed, but most of all a vast, inner peace. Everything was suddenly so simple. Henceforth, she and Jason were one heart and one flesh. If one died, then the other would die too… and that would be the end.

  As she left the prison, she thanked the keeper warmly and slid into his hand a number of gold coins which brought the blood rushing into his cheeks. Then, slipping back into her part of the country girl elated by a good supper and a drop of wine, she hung on Crawfurd's arm as they set out on the short walk to the church of St Paul where the Scotsman had told the cab driver to wait for them, rather than attract attention by lingering outside the prison. The sentry called out a jovial good night to them as they moved slowly away, walking carefully to avoid tripping on the uneven cobbles.

  'You're happy, I can tell,' Crawfurd said softly as they turned into the rue St-Antoine. 'Am I right?'

  'Yes. It's quite true, I am happy. Not that Jason gave me much encouragement to hope. He expects to be found guilty and, worst of all, he seems to be resigned to it, because the good of his country demands it.'

  'That does not surprise me. These Americans are like their own splendid country: simple and big. Pray God they may never change! All the same, he may be resigned, but that is no reason for us all to be so – eh? As our friend Talleyrand would say.'

  'I agree. But I wanted to tell you—'

  However, Quintin Crawfurd was not destined to hear what Marianne wanted to tell him of her gratitude, because as they approached the little group of elm trees in the miniature squ
are in front of the old Jesuit church, the Scotsman suddenly pressed the arm which lay within his.

  'Sssh!' he said… There is something there…'

  A light wind had got up, sending the heavy rain clouds scudding across the sky, veiling the moon so that it shone through only as a pale, diffused glow. Against this faint lightening of the darkness, the trees in front of them seemed to have taken on strange, moving shapes, as if men in billowing cloaks might be concealed behind them. The square shape of the cab was clearly to be seen near the church but the driver was not on the box. A whinny made Marianne glance to her right and she made out several horses standing in a side alley. It needed no words, nor the movement made by Crawfurd drawing the hidden pistol very slowly from the inner pocket of his cloak, to make Marianne suspect a trap, but she had no time to wonder any more.

  There was a sudden movement, as if the trees had come to life, and in a twinkling the two on foot found themselves the centre of a menacing circle of black, silent shapes of men dressed in full capes and broad-brimmed hats. Crawfurd presented his pistol:

  'What do you want? If you mean to rob us, we have no money onus.'

  'Put up your weapon, Señor,' said one of the shadowy figures, speaking in a strong Spanish accent. 'We have more powerful ones trained on you. It is not gold that we are after.'

  'Then what do you want?'

  But the Spaniard, whose face was invisible beneath his wide hat, disregarded the question, and at a sign from him the Scotsman found himself expertly gagged and bound. Then the man turned to the figure at his side:

  'That is the one?'

  The person addressed, who was much shorter and slighter than the first speaker, moved a step or two closer and, taking a dark lantern from beneath the enveloping cloak, opened the shutter and held it up so that the light shone on Marianne's face. At the same time, the light fell on the cloaked figure and revealed it to be a woman. It was Pilar.

  'It is she!' she proclaimed on a note of triumph. 'Thank you, my good Vasquez, for all the time you have spent watching here. I knew that, sooner or later, she would come to the prison.'

  'Do you mean to tell me,' Marianne said scornfully, 'that this man has been watching the prison for all these weeks purely on the chance of procuring for you this delightful encounter?'

  'Precisely. For more than a month we have waited. Ever since, in fact, we heard that Prince Talleyrand had returned from Bourbon l'Archambault… and that the Princess Sant'Anna was too ill to leave her room. Don Alonso took a lodging in the rue des Ballets and kept watch. We knew that you were not in the prince's house, nor your own. You had to be somewhere, and watching the prison was the one way to find out.'

  'I congratulate you,' Marianne said. 'I had not known that you were so intelligent… or so talkative. And now what do you mean to do with us? Kill us?'

  Pilar's pale face was thrust close to hers. Hatred gleamed in the black eyes but Marianne stared back coolly into the beautiful features, their purity already ravaged by bitterness and despair. If ever she had seen her death written in a human face it was here, but in the strength of her newly consummated love she felt no fear. Besides, Pilar was speaking:

  'That would be too easy! No, we are merely going to take you with us and take good care of you, in case you should do anything foolish. We cannot have any ill-considered action of yours interfering with the course of justice. I had thought at first to hand you over to the police, but it seems that your Napoleon has a fondness for you.'

  'If I were you, I would not forget that fondness. He does not take kindly to having his friends kidnapped!'

  'He will not know. After all – you are still in exile, are you not? You had better silence the lady, gentlemen, she seems to be about to scream.'

  This was true. But before Marianne could do more than open her mouth to alert the people in the nearby houses, she found herself firmly gagged, then bound and bundled into the cab to join Crawfurd. One of the cloaked men jumped on to the box but Pilar and Vasquez got in with their prisoners. Seated, facing her enemy, Pilar frowned:

  'Better bandage their eyes as well, my friend. I don't want them to know where they are taken.'

  This the Spaniard did and Marianne, robbed of both sight and speech, could only sit and think her own thoughts, which seemed suddenly to have become rather less optimistic. Things had ceased, in fact, to be as simple as she had been inclined to think. Ever since leaving Jason she had been buoying herself up with the comforting illusion that she was going to snatch her lover from death and set him free, a freedom which she naturally intended that he should share with her. Failing this, she had been determined to die with him, or at least at the same time, so that they might embark together, hand in hand, on an eternity of love. She had even got to the point of imagining the letter she would leave for Jolival, so that he might unite both their bodies in a single grave, and, rather like a spoiled child saying 'I'll die and then they'll be sorry', she had even derived a certain satisfaction from the thought of Napoleon's grief and remorse when he should learn that by his harshness he had driven his nightingale to her death. In all of which, she found herself obliged to confess bitterly, she had quite forgotten the disagreeable fact of Pilar…

  Until then, she had thought of Pilar as a fanatical barbarian, incapable of any normal train of thought, whose main aim in running to seek refuge with the unlikely Queen of Spain at her court at Mortefontaine had simply been to pull her own chestnuts out of the fire. She had believed her proud and unbalanced, and even base because to satisfy her own unworthy longing for revenge she had sided with the police against her husband. But she could never have believed that her hatred could go so wickedly far. What was it the creature had said? That no action of Marianne's must interfere with the course of justice?… In other words, she was kidnapping Marianne to prevent her from doing anything to rescue Jason!

  For a moment, Marianne seemed to hear Talleyrand again. 'Pilar comes of a fierce and passionate race… an injured woman may deliver up her faithless lover to execution without flinching – and then wall herself up alive in a nunnery to expiate her crime…'

  That was it! They were going to keep Marianne locked up in some dungeon from which she could not escape until Jason had been executed. Perhaps then they might do her the favour of killing her also? No doubt it would all make the path of expiation much easier for the saintly Pilar!

  'If I were in her place,' Marianne thought, 'I should probably kill my rival, but not for anything in the world would I harm the man I loved.'

  Her bonds were hurting her and the gag was making it hard for her to breathe. She tried to wriggle herself into a more comfortable position.

  'Sit still,' came Pilar's voice coldly. We shall be changing carriages very soon.'

  They had travelled only a short distance in the cab, but already it was slowing down. Several hands seized Marianne none too gently and dragged her out, but scarcely had her feet touched the ground before she was lifted up again and felt herself set down on a cushioned seat, much softer than the previous one. Her elbows touched silky velvet. But at the same time she knew for certain that the person sitting beside her was no longer Quintin Crawfurd. It was Pilar. Marianne's delicate nostrils had picked up at once the characteristically heavy scent of carnations and jasmine which she used. No one else entered the carriage and the prisoner began to feel seriously anxious on behalf of her companion, whose stifled grunts she could hear coming from some way away. Then someone spoke through the window, in Spanish:

  'What shall we do with the other one?'

  'I have told you,' Pilar replied. 'Drive him to the place you know of. I can promise you the police will not come looking for him there, supposing that they look for him at all.'

  'They'll do that all right, Dona Pilar, you may be sure. When his wife finds he's not come home she'll raise heaven and earth.'

  'Not necessarily. It would mean admitting that they had an exile hidden under their roof. The important part, in any case, is that nothing should
be known before the date we have settled. We can let him go after that. We have nothing against him. Which reminds me, did you pay the driver of the cab?'

  The man Vasquez's reply to this was a low, guttural laugh which made Marianne's blood run cold. Even Pilar was moved to protest:

  'You should not have done that. We are not at home now.'

  'Bah! Another curst Frenchman the less! Go now. Three of our men will go with you and we will meet again there. And if I may make a suggestion, she had better not be seen. Allow me.'

  Marianne was seized again, bundled up in something rough and warm and smelling so strongly of the stables that it must have been a horse blanket, and dumped unceremoniously on the floor of the chaise.

  'I had meant to do that before we arrived,' Pilar said.

  'You are all goodness! Are you so fond of the harlot who has stolen your husband?'

  'How well you understand me, Don Alonso,' Pilar purred. Her voice was so seraphic that it made Marianne immediately long to bite. 'Thank you. Thank you a thousand times. You have made the prospect of the journey very agreeable – to me at all events.'

  The prisoner, lying totally helpless on the carpeted floor of the vehicle, was soon made well aware of how agreeable the journey was to be for her by feeling her enemy's feet planted firmly on her chest. Rather than add to Pilar's enjoyment, however, she refrained from any reaction of her outrage.

  "You'll pay for this!' she swore inwardly. "You'll pay a hundred times over, for this and everything else. You single-minded savage! When I get my hands on you, you murderous she-devil, I'll show you what I can do…'

  Thereafter, the names which Marianne in her impotent fury applied to Pilar were of a sadly descending order of refinement, being almost exclusively borrowed from the vocabulary of old Dobs, the groom at Selton who had taught Marianne to ride. Nor, indeed, was she invariably certain of the precise meaning of the terms she invoked, but she derived a good deal of comfort from the thought that nothing was too base to describe a woman who could permit the cold-blooded murder of an innocent cab driver, to say nothing of the savagery with which she was working to bring Jason to the block.