'But why? What is it all about? You suffered as I did – the chain—the bagne?'
Vidocq's rather hard face lit up in a quick smile:
'I knew it was the last time, for your escape was to be mine also. No one is going to hunt for François Vidocq – or for Jason Beaufort, either. You have earned me the right to stop being an agent who works in secret, hidden behind prison bars and a convict's chains. From this moment, I belong openly to the Imperial police.[2] Everything that was done for you, was done with my approval. One of my men followed the so-called Mademoiselle de Jolival to Surcouf's house at St Malo and, before he left the town, he made known to the baron the Emperor's wish that he should take the brig Sea Witch from Morlaix roads and sail her to a spot chosen by me, but to make it look like a real theft. As you say, I suffered everything with you. Does that look like the action of a police spy?'
Jason's glance moved to Marianne who was still clinging to him. He could feel her whole body shuddering.
'No,' he said dully. 'I don't suppose I shall ever understand Napoleon's reasons, but I owe you my life, and for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart. But, what of her? Why must you take her back to Paris? I love her more—'
'More than life itself, than liberty, than anything in the world,' Vidocq finished for him wearily. 'I know all that – and so does the Emperor, undoubtedly. But she is not free, Jason. She is the Princess Sant'Anna… She has a husband, even though that husband may be no more than a phantom, for he is a singularly powerful phantom, and his reach is very long. He is asking for his wife and the Emperor is bound to grant his request or his sister, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, may well find herself with a rebellion on her hands.'
'I won't!' Marianne cried, clinging closer to Jason. 'I won't go back there, ever again!… Jason, save me… Take me with you! I am afraid of him, and his rights over me – even though I have never seen him. For pity's sake don't let them take me from you!'
'Marianne… darling! Quiet, my love, hush! No, I won't let you go. I'd go back to prison, back to my chains, anything rather than leave you.'
'I'm afraid you will have to, however,' Vidocq said heavily. 'There is your ship, Jason. The Emperor gives her back to you. Your life is with the sea, not languishing at the feet of another man's wife. For the Princess Sant'Anna a carriage waits by the harbour at Le Conquet.'
'Then it had better stop waiting!' A new voice had spoken, thick with anger. 'Marianne stays here!'
Jean Ledru, a pistol in either hand, stepped quickly in between Vidocq and the other two.
'This is my ship, Vidocq! It may be small, but I am master here after God! We have the sea under us and these men are all mine! There are fourteen of us to one of you. If you value your life, let me advise you to let Marianne go with the man she loves. Or, believe me, the fishes won't know the difference between a secret agent and an escaped convict! Now move, backwards, into the cabin. Once they are both aboard the brig, I'll land you on the coast.'
Vidocq only shook his head and pointed to where the brig was now hove to on their bow quarter. Her tall sides loomed higher above the little lugger at every moment:
'You are reckoning without Surcouf, sailor. He knows this woman is married to another, and that other is demanding her. He is a man of honour and he knows where his duty lies.'
'He proved that when he agreed to assist Marianne, even when he could not have known that I was innocent,' Jason said quickly. 'He will help us now.'
'No. Nor should I ask him, if I were you.' He turned to Marianne, ignoring the pair of black muzzles aimed at his middle. 'I appeal to you, Madame, to your own loyalty and sense of honour. Did you wed the prince under any constraint, or of your own free will?'
Marianne's whole body stiffened in Jason's arms, as she fought with all her might to shake off the burden of doom which was descending on her at the very moment when happiness seemed finally within her grasp. She turned and hid her face against Jason's shoulder, saying in a muffled voice:
'I married him… of my own will. But I am afraid of him.'
'You, Jason? Haven't you a wife somewhere?'
'The demon who sought my death and Marianne's? She is nothing to me now.'
'Only your wife in the sight of God and men. Listen to me. If you part now, you may meet again later and be the better for it. For you, Madame, my duty is not to take you to your husband, but to the Emperor who desires your presence.'
'I have nothing to say to him!' Marianne said fiercely.
'But he has. And I cannot believe that you will have nothing to answer him – when he may help you perhaps, both of you, to be free from the ties that hold you. So be sensible. Do not oblige me to use force. Jason cannot be allowed to go unless he goes alone, and on condition that you go with me quietly to Paris.'
Jean Ledru, who had not released his grip on his pistols, laughed shortly and glanced up at the Sea Witch's counter which now towered above them.
'The force is on our side, I think. And I tell you Marianne shall go with Jason and that Surcouf will help me send you to the bottom of the sea if you persist in this… Now, do as I say. Get below! There's a heavy sea getting up and we've no time to lose. The Iroise is no place to sit around and talk, and that low island that you see over yonder is Ushant. You know what they say about Ushant? That whoso shall see Ushant, shall see his own blood flow!'
'Force is not on your side, Jean Ledru. Look there!'
Marianne, whose hopes had risen when she saw the Breton's firm stand, gave a despairing groan. Rounding St Mathieu's Head was a frigate, the moonlight gleaming ominously on the muzzles of the guns protruding from her open ports.
'The Sirène,' Vidocq said in explanation. 'She is under orders to keep a close watch on what passes here. Emperor's orders, although he may not be precisely aware of them. All her captain knows is that on sighting a pre-arranged signal he is to open fire on the brig.'
Jolival, who had remained silent during these exchanges, spoke for the first time. 'I congratulate you. You appear to wield considerable influence – for an ex-convict!'
'The power is the Emperor's, Monsieur. I am only the humble instrument. You know that he does not care to be disobeyed, and it seems he has his own reasons for not relying on this lady's blind obedience.'
Jolival shrugged scornfully:
'A warship cleared for action! And all to drag one unhappy woman from the man she loves! Not to mention that if the Sea Witch is sent to the bottom, you send your famous Surcouf with her!'
'At any moment, Baron Surcouf will be aboard this vessel. See, here he comes now.'
It was true. A rope ladder had been flung over the brig's side, down which a burly figure was clambering like a monkey on a stick, at a speed that said a good deal for his fitness.
'Moreover,' Vidocq continued, 'Madame here is no unhappy woman but a very great lady whose husband is in a position to cause great trouble. I say nothing of Beaufort's importance – but the Emperor would not have been at such pains to rescue him had he been a person of no account. Our good relations with Washington depend on his reaching his own country intact, and with his ship, whether or not he is supposed to be rotting in the hulks. Well, Madame? What is your decision?'
Surcouf had jumped down on to the deck and was striding lightly towards them.
'What are you about?' he called. 'You must get aboard at once. The wind's getting up and the sea's rising. Your men are waiting for you, Monsieur Beaufort, and you are too good a sailor not to know the dangers of hanging about off Ushant, especially when the wind sits in this quarter.'
'Give them a moment more,' Vidocq interposed. 'Time at least to say good-bye.'
Marianne shut her eyes and a tearing sob broke from her. She clung to Jason with all her strength, as though hoping for some miracle from heaven to make them into a single person. She felt his arms holding her tightly, his breath on her neck and in a moment a tear rolled down her cheek.
'Not good-bye!' she implored desperately. 'Not good-bye for ever. I
could not bear it.'
Jason tightened his hold. 'Nor could I. We shall be together again, Marianne, I swear it!' The words were whispered close into her ear. 'They are stronger than we are and we must obey. But they are sure to send you back to Italy, and I will meet you there…'
'Meet me?'
In the agony of her grief, the sense of what he said had scarcely penetrated, despite the hope it held.
'Yes. I will meet you, in Venice – in six months. My ship will lie offshore and wait for as long as need be.'
Slowly, he was inspiring her with the same indomitable fighting spirit which he himself had never lost, forcing the words into her ear as if he would have forced them into her mind and, little by little, life seemed to return and her brain began to function once again.
'Why Venice? Leghorn is the nearest port to Lucca.'
'Because Venice is not a French possession. It is Austrian. If your husband will not release you, you must fly there to me. Napoleon cannot touch you in Venice… Do you understand? You will come? In six months…'
'I shall come, but Jason—'
He stopped her mouth with a kiss, infusing into it all the passion of his love for her. When he let her go at last, his blue eyes looked earnestly into her tear-filled ones as he said in a low, vibrant murmur:
'Before God, Marianne, I will never give you up! I want you and I am going to have you. Even if I must go to the end of the world to find you… Jolival, you will take care of her? I have your promise?'
'What else have I ever done?' the Vicomte said gruffly, tenderly receiving on his chest the trembling form given into his care. 'Have no fears on that score.'
Jason turned resolutely and, making his way to Surcouf, bowed gravely.
'I'm no great hand at thanks,' he said, 'but you may command me, Baron, as and where you like. I am your most grateful servant.'
'My name is Robert Surcouf,' the baron retorted. 'Come here and let me embrace you, lad!' And added, for Jason's ear alone: 'Try and come back for her. She's worth it.'
'I have known that for a long time,' Jason said with a fleeting smile, returning the Malouin's vigorous embrace. 'I shall be back.'
Last of all, he turned to Vidocq and offered him his hand, unreservedly.
'We have been through too much together, you and I, François,' he said, 'for us to be aught but brothers. You did your duty, that was all. You had no other choice.'
'Thank you,' Vidocq said simply. 'Don't worry over her. I, too, shall be watching. Come, I'll help you up.'
He indicated the rope ladder, now banging in the rising wind, that climbed the sheer sides of the brig above them. But even as he spoke men were descending on the deck from the American vessel, hoisting up their captain like a parcel. Ledru's men, reaching out to shake Jason's hand in a crushing grip as he was borne past, held the ladder stiff and steady.
Leaning against Jolival, Marianne watched his progress, following him with her eyes until he reached the frieze of human heads and bodies lining the rail above. Jason's arrival on deck was the signal for a rousing cheer which rang like a death knell in Marianne's already breaking heart. To her, it sounded like the voice of that distant country of his, claiming him from her, back again to a place where she was not allowed to follow.
Meanwhile, Vidocq had gone to the lugger's stern and signalled three times by opening and closing the shutter of a lantern, and away beyond the promontory of rocks the frigate was already going about for Brest. Already, the sky above the coast was almost imperceptibly lighter, though the wind was strengthening, filling the sails as they were set once more, and the lugger's crew, armed with long gaffs, fended her off from the brig's side. Jean Ledru was back at the tiller and, slowly, inexorably, the gap of water between the two vessels widened. The lugger slipped astern of the great sailing ship and lay for a moment in the pool of light cast by her two gilded stern lanterns. And there, high above her as she stood unable any longer to restrain her tears, Marianne saw Jason, his tall figure supported by his own men. He raised one arm in a gesture of farewell, but already he seemed very far away… so far, indeed, that for a moment Marianne forgot the promise she had made only a moment before, forgot to be brave, forgot that this parting was not good-bye but only au revoir. She was only a desperate broken woman, seeing the best part of herself borne away from her on the wind. With a last, terrible effort, she tore herself from Jolival's comforting arms and flung herself at the rail.
'Jason!' she screamed, oblivious of the tossing bow wave which drenched her in spray. 'Jason!… Come back!… Come back!… I love you…'
She clung with dripping fingers to the slippery wood, tossing back the sodden tangles of her hair in an automatic gesture. The lugger plunged deeply into a trough of the waves, nearly sending her sprawling on the deck, but all the strength that she possessed was in her clinging hands, her whole life in the eyes which still gazed at the fast-dwindling shape of Jason's ship. At last, two strong arms came to encircle her, drawing her back from her desperate watch, and from the peril in which she stood.
'Are you out of your mind?' Vidocq's voice scolded. 'Do you want to fall overboard?'
'I want to see him again… I want to be with him!'
'And he with you! But it's not a corpse he'd hope to find, it's you, yourself, alive! Good God! Do you want to die before his eyes to prove your love? For the love of heaven, live! Live at least until the time he appointed for your meeting.'
Marianne's eyes widened in amazement. Already the instinct for life was reviving in her, willing her to fight on towards the goal which at this moment had eluded her.
'How did you know?'
'He loves you. He would never have parted from you without something of the kind. Now go and get under cover. You are soaking wet and the dawn mist is rising. It's as easy to die of an inflammation of the lungs as it is by drowning.'
She submitted docilely when he led her to a more sheltered spot on the deck and wrapped a heavy canvas sailcloth about her, but rejected all attempts to make her go below. While Jason's ship was still there to be seen, she was determined not to lose sight of it.
Far out, near the islands with their attendant train of rocky reefs and islets, the Sea Witch was heading out to sea, dipping gracefully under the frail, towering white peaks of her crowded sails. In the grey light of dawn, she looked like a gull, gliding among the black rocks. For a moment, as the vessel went about to pass between two jagged islets, she presented herself to Marianne's eyes broadside on and she recalled then what it was that Talleyrand had told her one day about that figure shaped like a woman on the prow. He had said that the figurehead was carved in her own image, that Jason had had it made to adorn the prow of his ship, and Marianne found herself wishing passionately that she could be that woman made of wood whom he had caused to be created, and on whom his eyes must often rest.
A moment later, the American brig had gone about again and nothing more remained to be seen but the stern, with its two lanterns vanishing into the mist.
Sighing, Marianne made her way to where Surcouf and Jolival were sitting, talking quietly together, on some coils of rope while all around them was the slap of the sailors' bare feet as they went about their duties. In a little while now, the carriage would be bearing her back to Paris, as Vidocq had said, back to Paris and the Emperor. She wondered why he should want to see her. Barely recalling now that she had ever loved him, Marianne could think only that she had no desire to see Napoleon.
***
Three weeks later, as her chaise clattered under the gateway of the chateau of Vincennes, Marianne glanced up at Vidocq with an expression full of alarm.
'Do your orders say I must be put in prison?' she asked.
'Good heavens, no! It is the Emperor's wish to grant you an audience, that is all. It is not for me to know his reasons. All that I can tell you is that my mission ends here.'
They had completed their journey from Brittany the night before and as he set Marianne down at her own door Vidocq had told her
that he would come for her the following evening to take her to the Emperor, adding that court dress was not necessary but that she should be sure to wrap up warmly.
She had been a little mystified by this advice but too tired to ask any questions. Nor had she waited to interrogate Jolival. Instead, she had gone straight to bed, like a drowning sailor clutching at a raft, to recruit her strength for whatever was to come, little enough though it might interest her. Only one thing held any meaning for her: three weeks had gone by, three dreadful weeks spent jolting over the endless roads which the bad weather had made more trying even than usual, on a journey rendered hideous by every conceivable kind of unpleasantness, from lost wheels and broken springs to horses that slipped and fell and trees blown across the road. Yet for all this it was three weeks gone from the six months at whose end Jason would be waiting for her.
When she thought of him, which she did every hour, every second of her waking day, it was with a curious feeling of emptiness, like a painful, insatiable hunger which she tried to satisfy by letting her mind dwell constantly on the few, so very few moments when he had been there, close to her, so close that she could touch him, hold his hand, stroke his hair and smell the odour of his skin, the comforting warmth of him and the strength with which, even in his weakened state, he had crushed her to him and pressed that last kiss upon her lips, the kiss whose memory burned her still, and sent a tremor through all her limbs.
They had found Paris deep in snow. The bitter cold froze the water in the gutters, nipping ears and reddening noses. Miniature icebergs floated on the grey, bustling waters of the Seine and there were rumours that people in the poorer districts were dying of cold at nights. Everything was buried under a thick, white blanket which soon became stained and dirty but did not melt, leaving the gardens dressed in a cloak of dazzling white ermine while it transformed the streets into deadly, frozen sewers where it was the easiest thing in the world for anyone to break a leg. Even so, Marianne's horses, frost-nailed, had negotiated the long road from the rue de Lille to Vincennes without mishap.
Marianne and the Privateer Page 37