[Marianne 3] - Marianne and the Privateer

by Juliette Benzoni

  '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 grubby 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:

  'I love you… As God hears me, I swear to you I love you and I belong to no other man.'

  'Get out!'

  Opening her eyes, she saw that he was standing with his back to her and the whole length of the room between them. But she saw too that he was shaking and that the sweat was making his shirt stick to his brown skin. She stood up, shakily, but was forced to cling to the chair for support. She felt hot and feverish and the room seemed to be spinning around her but she could not go away without telling him what she had come to say, without warning him… Since he had not killed her, she did not want him to die either. He must live, live! Even if the rest of her days were one slow death because she had lost him. It was her own blind rage which had made her commit an ineffable blunder: it was right that she should pay for it.

  At the cost of a violent effort of will, she made herself walk towards him, over the hundreds of miles of empty desert which the room seemed to have become.

  'I can't,' she croaked. 'Not yet… I must tell you—'

  'You can tell me nothing that I want to hear! I do not want to see you again – ever!'

  The words were harsh, but the fury had gone out of Jason's voice. It was
flat and heavy – strangely similar, all at once, to a voice Marianne had heard once before, one night, in a mirror…

  'No – listen! You must not go out tonight. That is what I came to tell you. If you go to Quintin Crawfurd's house, you are lost… you will be dead by morning.'

  Jason turned abruptly and regarded Marianne with genuine astonishment.

  'To Crawfurd's? What are you talking about?'

  'I knew you would deny it, but you are wasting your time. I know that he is expecting you at eleven o'clock, with some other men, for reasons which I do not wish to know, because that is your own business and because – because in my eyes you cannot be altogether wrong.'

  'Who are these other men?'

  Marianne hung her head, hating even to be forced to speak the names. 'The Baron de Vitrolles… the Chevalier de Bruslart.'

  Against all probability, Jason had begun to laugh:

  'I have never heard of Monsieur de Vitrolles, but the Chevalier de Bruslart I do know, and so do you, if I remember rightly. Are you seriously trying to tell me that I have anything to do with these conspirators? Do you expect me to believe that you are doing me the honour to count me one of them?'

  'How can I help it? It is true, isn't it, that you are going to Crawfurd's house in the rue de Clichy?' Marianne insisted, a trifle disconcerted by this unalarmed, not to say hilarious, manner of receiving her news.

  'Quite true. As it happens I am to visit Crawfurd in the rue de Clichy—tomorrow morning. I am to take a luncheon with him and inspect his very fine collection of pictures. But your idea seems to be that I am to go there tonight, to meet these very dubious-sounding gentlemen. Do you mind telling me the motive?'

  'How should I know? All I know is that you are involved in a royalist plot aimed at bringing about peace with England at any cost, that there was to be a meeting at Crawfurd's house tonight, and incidentally that this Crawfurd is playing something of a double game, and that Savary is preparing to arrest you all on the spot and have you taken to Vincennes and shot out of hand. That was my reason for coming here – to beg you not to go… to keep you alive, even if your life belongs to another woman.'

  Jason sank into a chair, where he sat with his elbows on his knees looking at Marianne. Amusement struggled with amazement in his face:

  'I'd like to know where you got this cock and bull story? I can assure you that I am involved in no conspiracy. I, join with royalists, with the men who saved their own skins while they left their king to mount the scaffold and the child Louis XVII to waste away in the Temple? I, plot with the English?'

  'Why not? It was in England that I met you first. Weren't you a friend of the Prince of Wales?'

  Jason shrugged, got to his feet and wandered over to the bookcase. 'It is not hard to become one of Prinny's friends. All it takes is a certain originality, something a little out of the ordinary. He made me welcome, in fact, because I was a friend of Orlando Bridgeman, who is one of his intimate circle. It was Orlando who came to my rescue, dusted me down and put me back in the saddle, after my ship was wrecked off the Cornish coast. We have known each other for ever. Very well. I have one English friend. I imagine that does not mean that I must take all England to my bosom? More especially when, although my country is not yet at war with England, relations are becoming every day more strained and war cannot be all that far off.'

  While he was talking, he had opened one of the cupboards at the bottom of the bookcase and extracted from it a decanter and a tray with two glasses, both of which he proceeded to fill. Outside, the noise of the storm was moving away. It was now only a distant mutter underlying the din of the torrential rain which had followed in its wake and which was now scourging the trees and battering furiously against the roofs and windows of the little town. Filled with an unutterable sense of relief, Marianne subsided on to the harpsichord stool and waited for the pounding of her heart to slow down a little. The only thing that made sense to her in the whole of that night's idiotic adventure was that Jason was not in danger, he had never been in danger – neither had he ever had any thoughts of plotting against Napoleon. It crossed her mind, also, that his attitude to herself had softened remarkably… Her throat felt stiff and tight and her head ached feverishly. She had never felt so tired in all her life. In quiet, obstinately, she was still trying to piece together the fragments of the ridiculous puzzle of all that had been happening to her, trying to understand.

  'But,' she said at last, slowly, thinking aloud more than addressing herself directly to Jason, 'but you were at Mortefontaine with your – with Señora Pilar and you came back without her?'

  'Correct. I was there and I returned this evening.'

  'You returned… because someone was coming to see you – someone I saw leave this house…'

  'Right again,' Jason said. 'Your information up to that point is quite correct but, I repeat, only up to that point. This Crawfurd business is the product of a brilliant imagination and I think it is my turn to ask some questions on that subject. Here, drink this. You must need it.'

  'This' was one of the two glasses of sherry he had been pouring. Marianne accepted it automatically and drank a little. It burned her throat but it did her good.

  'Thank you,' she said, putting the glass down on the corner of the harpsichord. 'Ask what you like. I will answer.'

  Prepared for a fresh tirade when she mentioned the name of her informant, Marianne resigned herself with a little sigh and sat looking down at her clasped hands. A short silence followed during which Marianne dared not raise her eyes, thinking that Jason was choosing his questions. However, he merely gazed at her.

  'Very well,' he said at last. 'In that case, I have only one thing to ask you, and that is the name of the person who told you this extraordinary story. I must try and get to the bottom of this nonsensical affair. You did not think it up for yourself. Who told you I was going to Crawfurd's to meet these conspirators?'

  'Francis…'

  'Francis? You mean Cranmere? Your husband?'

  'My first husband,' Marianne corrected acidly.

  'Never mind that now,' Jason said impatiently. 'Where the devil did he spring from? Where and when did you see him?'

  'Last night, at my house. He was waiting for me in my room when I got back from the theatre. He had got in by climbing over the garden wall and up to my balcony.'

  'This is fantastic! Insane! Go on. I want to know everything. Where he is concerned, all things are possible.'

  All trace of amusement had vanished from Beaufort's expression. His face was very tense and he was leaning against the harpsichord, his tall figure dominating Marianne as she sat and his eyes fixed compellingly on her sweet, downcast features. His voice was stern as he added: 'And look at me, for a start. I must know if you are telling me the whole truth.'

  Still that suggestion of contempt, the same hint of distrust. What must I do, Marianne asked herself despairingly, to make him understand that I love him, that he is the only person in the world for me? But she looked up as he bade her and her green eyes met those of the man leaning over her with a gaze that was wholly candid and direct.

  'I will tell you everything,' she said simply. 'You shall judge…'

  Few words were needed to describe the scene which had taken place on the previous night between herself and Francis Cranmere. As she spoke, Marianne was able to follow the swift succession of emotions reflected on the keen face before her: surprise, anger, indignation, contempt, even pity. But all the time the story took to tell Jason did not utter a single word, not even the smallest exclamation. Even so, when Marianne came to the end, she saw with joy that nearly all the hardness had vanished from the sea rover's blue eyes.

  He remained where he was for a moment, watching her in silence, then, with a shrug and a sigh, he turned and walked away a little.

  'And you paid!' he said roughly. 'Knowing him as you do, you paid, blindly! It did not occur to you that he could have been lying, that it was simply an excuse to get money out of you?'
>
  And you, Marianne thought sadly, it does not occur to you that I love you so much I lost my head, that to save your life I would have given him everything I possess? But she did not utter these bitter thoughts aloud. Instead, she merely answered miserably: 'He had it all so pat that I was forced to believe him. It was he who told me that you would be at Mortefontaine all day today, and that you would be alone when you returned, and he told me, too, that you would have an important visitor this evening – and it was all quite true because I came straight here first thing this morning and had it all from the man at your gate. It was all true – except the one, most important thing, but how was I to guess?'

  'A conspirator! I? Jason flung at her. 'And you believed it? Surely you knew me well enough?'

  'No,' Marianne said seriously, 'no – I don't really know you at all. Remember I saw you first as an enemy, and then as a friend and a saviour, and then at last as someone – someone indifferent.' The word was not easy to say, but Marianne did say it firmly. Then she went on, very gently: 'Which of these men is the real one, Jason? For from indifference you seem to have come to dislike, even to hate me?'

  'Don't talk such rubbish,' Jason retorted sharply. 'What man could be indifferent to a woman like you? There is something about you which drives a man to commit the wildest follies. One must either love you to distraction – or want to wring your neck! There can be no half-measures.'

  'You – you seem to have chosen the second alternative. I can't blame you. But before I go, there is one thing I should like to know—'

  He was standing with his back to her, staring out, unseeingly, at the rain streaming down the windows and at the blackness of the garden beyond.

  'What?'

  'This visitor – who was so important as to bring you back from the Queen of Spain. I should like to know – forgive me – I should like to know if it was a woman?'