From a pocket in his coat, he drew a roll of papers sealed with a great red seal which he placed in her hands.
'I promised you a house,' he said smiling. 'I am giving you this one. I think you will like it.'
Marianne unrolled the papers but before she had read more than the first words of the deed the colour fled from her face. There were tears in her eyes as she flung herself into his arms.
'Thank you – oh, thank you!' she gasped, hugging to her breast the wonderful deeds which told her that the Hôtel d'Asselnat in the rue de Lille, her family's house where her parents had been arrested and where she herself had been found abandoned by the abbé de Chazay, was now her own.
Gently, Napoleon stroked the heavy crown of dark hair.
'Don't cry. More than anything, I want you to be happy. I have already given orders. Tomorrow morning, Percier and Fontaine will go to the rue de Lille to begin on the necessary repairs, for the house has stood empty since 1793. Fortunée will go with you and you can order it all as you like. There now, don't cry. I have something else to tell you,' he added with affectionate roughness.
She made an effort and dried her eyes.
'I am not crying—'
'Liar! Never mind, I shall go on. Tomorrow, Gossec will come here. He has orders to prepare you for an audition with the director of the Opéra. Within a month, all Paris shall acclaim a new idol. Maria Stella. You have a wonderful voice and it shall be your glory!'
'Maria Stella?' she was too surprised now to feel any wish to cry.
'That is the name I have chosen for you. You cannot appear in the theatre under your real name and as for your adopted one of Mallerousse, that is hideous. Besides, the public will dote on an Italian. You can have no idea of the snobbery of Parisians! They may not take readily to one of their own country women, but an Italian will be sure of their support. So there you are, established as a singer from Italy. Where should you prefer? Venice, Rome, Florence?'
He offered a choice of cities as easily as a choice of gowns.
'Venice!' Marianne cried rapturously. 'I should so love to know Venice.'
'You shall go there! You shall sing in Venice, my whole empire will be fighting for you – so, we'll give you a Venetian passport.'
Vast prospects were suddenly opening up before Marianne, but these prospects involved so many separations. Yet they were inevitable separations. When he could not have her with him, it would be better for her to travel, to be far away. And with her music, everything would be easy.
'Maria Stella!' she murmured as though engraving her new name on her mind.
'It was not I who gave you that name, it was Fouché, star you were, and star you shall remain – but in a very different sky. One more thing. A great singer needs someone to be a kind of impressario for her, to deal with contracts, arrange her programme and protect her against unwelcome intruders. I think I have found what you need. What do you say to the little man with the big ears we found kicking his heels on the road outside Malmaison last night in company with a deaf coachman? I have had a suitable report on him during the day. He seems an odd fellow, but I think he'll do the business. And, if I have understood correctly, you owe him something—'
'But—' Marianne was almost speechless. 'How do you know all this? In so short a time?'
'Didn't you know? I have excellent police. And Fouché stands in some need of forgiveness.' He smiled so wickedly that Marianne could not help laughing. Dazed by the unexpected avalanche which had fallen on her, she had sunk on to a sofa but now he bent forward quickly and tweaked her ear to draw her back to him.
'Happy?'
'How could I help it? I don't know what to say. All this is so sudden, so unexpected – it's almost frightening!'
'I told you I had a heap of things to tell you. Now kiss me and then get some sleep. You need it. And there's nothing like a good night's rest after a deal of excitement. I must go.'
Urgent to be gone now, he kissed her somewhat absently, picked up his hat and was striding to the door when, just as he reached it, he stopped and clapped his hand impatiently to his forehead.
'Fool that I am! I nearly forgot!'
Turning back to Marianne who still stood rooted to the spot, he put into her hands a large green morocco jewel case, stamped with the imperial arms, which he produced as though by magic from yet another of his enormous pockets.
'Here,' he said. 'Wear these on the night of your first appearance! Then I shall know you are thinking of me.'
As though in a dream, Marianne opened the case. Lying on a bed of black velvet, gleaming and flashing in the candlelight, was a fabulous set of emeralds and diamonds. Not even at Talleyrand's had she ever seen anything so splendid. But when she looked up with dazzled eyes, she saw that Napoleon was already back at the door.
'Don't tell me they won't suit you. They are the same green as your eyes. Goodbye, my heart.'
When, a little later, Madame Hamelin, growing anxious at the continued silence in the salon, entered cautiously, she found Marianne sitting on the floor by the fire with her hands full of documents and a cascade of fabulous jewels on her knees, crying as though her heart would break.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Phantom of the rue de Lille
In the grey, rain-swept light of a new day, beneath a sky that held no promise of sunshine, the great entrance portico framed by delapidated walls, with here and there a stone missing, presented a dismal sight. Dead weeds sprouted from the gaps in the stonework where their seed had been carried by the wind and the paving stones before the door with its sad, flaking green paint gaped to make way for a mass of brown and soggy vegetation.
Marianne stood leaning on Fortunée's arm and her eyes behind the heavy veil which hid her face filled with tears as she looked at the old house where her life had begun, from which her father and mother had gone out hand in hand to meet their deaths. She had wanted to visit it alone, before the architects took possession of it, because it seemed to her that she alone had the right to break the silence which had enveloped the Hôtel d'Asselnat for so many years. She wanted to see it in all its loneliness and neglect, before the magic wand was waved that would give it a new life, but she found now that this neglect was painful to her. So much lay behind it.
But for the Terror, all her youth would have been passed in this splendid old dwelling, its noble proportions and the cracked stone trophies over the porch still telling of the splendours of the reign of the Sun King, or else in the old Chateau in Auvergne which now she might never see. Instead, she would have a different life, but would it be any happier? Who could tell what Marianne d'Asselnat de Villeneuve might have been at this moment if – but there was no end to it.
Behind her, Marianne heard Arcadius de Jolival telling the coachman to wait. She walked a few steps towards the house, strangely unwilling to make use of the keys which had been handed to her on waking. Opposite the silent entrance, a splendid, luxurious mansion was just awaking to a spate of furious activity contrasting strongly with its neglected neighbour. The staff were going about their morning tasks, and the place was alive with servants sweeping out courtyards and pavements, polishing brass and beating carpets. People were coming and going, many of them men in army uniform on foot or on horseback, entering or leaving a vast forecourt at the far end of which rose an impressive building in the Egyptian style. Seeing Marianne turn to look, disturbed by the noise breaking in on her thoughts, Arcadius frowned.
'You're going to have noisy neighbours, when they are in Paris, at least. That is the Hôtel de Beauharnais. Prince Eugene, the Viceroy of Italy is there at present. And yesterday, there was a ball and a reception. Prince Eugene likes entertaining and the Emperor was there. But it means hard work for the servants this morning. That's why they are so busy. But when he is back in Milan it will be quieter. The Emperor is very fond of him,' he added knowing that this would be the best way of soothing his young friend's irritation. He was quite right. She smiled.
'Oh well, if th
e Emperor is fond of him. Come, shall we go in? It is freezing out here!'
She proffered the great keys which she had been carrying in her muff. Arcadius took them and went up to the little postern gate beside the main one.
'It will probably be very stiff,' he said, 'if this gate has not been opened for years, the wood frame will have warped and we'll probably have trouble from rusty hinges.'
He inserted the key and leaned against the door, prepared to push with all his strength as he tried to turn it. But the key turned smoothly in the lock and the door opened without the least; resistance.
'Someone seems to have taken the trouble of oiling the lock,' he said in surprise. 'And the door opens as though it were used every day. Who can come here?'
'I don't know,' Marianne answered in some alarm. Let's go in.'
The forecourt lay before them in all its desolation. Ahead, framed in moss-grown outbuildings, the noble, classical facade displayed black windows with broken panes and stonework smeared with green stains and chipped, here and there, by bullet holes. A number of steps were missing from the imposing perron and the stone lions which had formerly guarded it lay headless among the weeds in the courtyard. The ground was strewn with debris of all kinds and over on the right some blackened walls and pillars told of the beginnings of a fire, probably the same the abbé de Chazay had put out before he fled. A riot of vegetation had sprung up everywhere, as though trying to draw a veil over the poor, gutted house. A thin trail of ivy had begun climbing tentatively up the carved oak door, as though nature were trying to comfort the mutilated stones with this fragile ornament. A black cat sprang suddenly through the twisted ironwork of the cellar grille and streaked away to disappear through the gaping doorway of an old stable.
Like a good, superstitious Creole, Fortunée Hamelin shivered and clutched Marianne's arm a little tighter. She sighed.
'Percier and Fontaine will have their work cut out. What a ruin! I am beginning to think the Emperor has given you an odd present!'
'But none that could have given me greater pleasure,' Marianne said fiercely. 'Even the emeralds are nothing besides this sick old house.'
'It is not as bad as that,' Arcadius said comfortingly. 'With a little care and work all this can soon be repaired. The damage is more superficial than really serious. Let's look inside.'
He gave his hand to Marianne to help her up the few wobbly steps that remained of the perron and then returned to perform the same service for Madame Hamelin who followed.
The carved door opened as easily as the one in the street had done. Arcadius frowned.
'Who troubles to look after the locks in a ruined house?' he mumbled. But Marianne was not listening. She stepped forward with a thudding heart into the huge, deserted entrance hall. Not a stick of furniture remained. The coloured marble which had clothed the walls and surrounded the doors lay shattered on the cracked black marble floor. The exquisitely painted doors had been torn from their hinges, allowing the eye to penetrate unhindered into the recesses of the house where everything showed the same traces of blind vandalism.
In the dining room with its tattered hangings, the bare sideboards, tall cabinets and furnishings too heavy to be carried away showed shattered panels rotten with damp. The mutilated remnants of King Louis XIV's profile still showed on a large cartouche above the red marble fireplace, and the grate was full of ashes in which were small bright scraps of gilt bronze from the furniture burnt there.
In the salon which came next, the ravages were still more terrible. Not one piece of furniture was left standing. The once exquisitely polished harpsichord lay in a heap of rubbish, among which one carved foot and a few ivory keys were still distinguishable. The pale silk hangings were only filthy, blackened rags hanging from bits of wood that still showed traces of gilding. Only the scrolled panelling – but suddenly Marianne gave a start. Her eyes widened, staring. Over the mantelpiece, lonely, splendid and wholly unexpected, the portrait of a man reigned over this scene of devastation. It was a fine piece of work. The face beneath the powdered hair was dark, with proud features and fierce, brooding eyes. He stood, hand on hip, proud and arrogant in his handsome colonel's uniform, against the smoky background of some battle scene. The painter's model must have been a man of rare charm and Fortunée, coming up behind Marianne, exclaimed in wonder.
'Oh—! What a splendid man!'
'It is my father,' Marianne said tonelessly.
All three stood motionless, their feet in the dust, their eyes riveted on the portrait which gazed back at them mockingly, with eyes that were extraordinarily alive. For Marianne, there was great poignancy in this confrontation. Until this moment, her father had been to her only a rather faded miniature in a frame of seed pearls, the picture of an elegant, sardonically smiling man, a little world-weary, almost effete, whom she had regarded with the same kind of vague fondness she might have felt for any attractive portrait or for the hero of a novel. But the arrogant young soldier portrayed here touched her in the deepest fibers of her being, because in each of those bold features she recognized herself. He was so like her. The high cheek-bones, the challenging look in those mocking, slightly upward curving eyes, the wide, sensual mouth, betraying the stubborness of that strong, square jaw. He was all at once very close to her, this father she had never really known.
It was Jolival who broke the spell.
'You are his daughter all right,' he said pensively. 'He cannot have been much older than you when that picture was painted. I have never seen a man more handsome, or more virile. But who could have hung it there? Look—' Jolival brushed the gilded frame with one pale kid-gloved finger, 'not a speck of dust! While everything else—'
An expressive movement of his arm embraced the desolation around them. Then he paused, his arm still in mid-air, as from somewhere upstairs a floorboard cracked sharply, as though under someone's feet.
'But – is there someone here?' Marianne said softly.
'I'll go and see,' Arcadius told her.
He ran quickly to the staircase, whose broad sweep could be seen through a gaping doorway and leapt up two at a time with the lightness of a dancer. Left alone in the salon, the two women looked at one another, neither anxious to break the silence. Marianne had a strange feeling that this empty, desolate house where the one portrait hung in state, was none the less alive, with a dim, underground life of its own. She was torn between two contradictory urges, to sit down right there on the dusty ground and wait for what God knew what or to run away, and shut fast the doors that had opened with such suspicious ease and never return. The thought that very soon workmen would come and break the silence of this peculiar shrine with all their clamour troubled her, as though there was something wrong about it. And yet, no one had more right than she to cross this threshold, and to awaken the sleeping echoes of the old house. The house to which, even yesterday, she had not given a thought had now become part of her flesh and she knew that she could never tear it from her again without leaving a wound. Her eyes returned to those of the portrait which seemed to follow her wherever she went and she spoke to it, a silent, earnest prayer from her heart.
'Is it your wish, tell me, is it your wish that I should come back here, to our house? Already, I love it so! I will restore it to its past splendours, and once again you shall preside over a setting worthy of you.'
Then, as though the house were trying to answer her, the one remaining whole window in the room, its fastening perhaps broken or ill-latched, was caught suddenly by a gust of wind and flew open. Marianne moved across to shut it and in doing so saw that it gave, like the rest, on to a small garden laid out around a green and stagnant pool. Beside the pool a stone cupid with a blackened nose stood dreaming with his arms around a large dolphin that had long since ceased to spout water. And just at that very moment, the rain-filled clouds parted to make way for a pale, timid ray of sunshine which caressed the cupid's cheek, revealing his enigmatic smile. And, without quite knowing why, Marianne felt comforted and ac
cepted. Just then, Arcadius came back.
'There's no one there. It must have been a rat.'
'Or just the woodwork creaking,' Fortunée added, shivering in her furs. 'It is so dank in here! Are you sure you want to live here, Marianne?'
'Quite sure,' Marianne answered on a note of sudden happiness, 'and the sooner the better. I shall ask the architects to work as quickly as possible! I think they will be here soon.'
For the first time, she had spoken out loud, as though officially taking possession of the silence. The warm notes of her voice rang through the empty rooms triumphantly. She smiled at Fortunée.
'Let's go,' she said. 'You are almost dead with cold. It's as draughty here as in the street.'
'You don't want to see upstairs,' Jolival said. 'I can tell you, there is nothing there. Apart from the walls, which could not be stolen, and the charred remains in the fireplaces, absolutely nothing is left.'
'Then I had rather not see. It is too sad. I want this house to find its soul again—'
She stopped, her eyes on the portrait, with the sensation of having said something foolish. The soul of the house was there, before her, smiling arrogantly against an apocalyptic background. What she had to do was to restore its body, by re-creating the past.
Outside, they could hear the horses blowing and stamping on the cobblestones. The cry of a water carrier rang out, waking the echoes of what had been formerly the rue de Bourbon. It was the voice of life, of the here and now which held so much appeal for Marianne. With Napoleon's love to protect her, she would live here as sole mistress, free to act as she pleased. Free! It was a fine word when, at that very moment, she might have been buried alive in the heart of the English countryside by the will of a tyrannical husband, with boredom and regret her only companions. For the first time, it occurred to her that after all she might have been lucky.
Slipping her arm affectionately through Fortunée's, she walked back with her to the hall, though not without one last affectionate look of farewell at the handsome portrait.
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