[Marianne 3] - Marianne and the Privateer

by Juliette Benzoni

  The abbé's head nodded and with a sigh he turned his back on the young people and lay down again obediently.

  'There,' Jason said comfortably. 'He'll not move again. He has very nice manners. Now let's forget him. Come and sit by me, let me look at you. You are so lovely! No, don't speak!'

  He led her to a kind of plank bed covered with a moth-eaten rug and made her sit down, all without taking his eyes from her. If the truth were told, there was little in Marianne's modest print gown, made high to the throat, which was the most countrified thing she had been able to find in her wardrobe, to justify his enthusiasm, yet even in her most fairytale dresses, her most fabulous jewels, Jason had never looked at her like this. It was miraculous and yet at the same time oddly disturbing, so disturbing that Marianne found herself withdrawing a little. She kissed his unshaven cheek lightly:

  'Yes but I have come to talk, and we have so little time—'

  'No. Hush now. I don't want to waste these moments in talk. They may never come again – and I have prayed so hard just to see you again – if only once!'

  He buried his head in her neck but, thoroughly alarmed now, she pushed him away.

  'What do you mean? Why may we never meet again? Your trial—'

  'I have no illusions about my trial,' Jason said, with a degree of patience he was far from feeling. 'I shall be found guilty and condemned—'

  'But – oh, no – not to—' She could not bring herself to say the words which, in this prison setting, had acquired a horrible reality. But Jason nodded:

  'Very possibly – even probably. No, be quiet.' His hand came quickly over her lips, checking her fierce protest. 'It is always best to look things in the face. All the evidence is against me. Unless the real culprit is found, which is highly unlikely, the judges will find me guilty. I know that.'

  'But this is fantastic! Insane! Jason, all is not yet lost! Arcadius has gone to Aix, to make Fouché give evidence. Fouché can tell how matters stood between myself and Black Fish!'

  'But he cannot state positively that I did not kill him. Look, this business is the outcome of a political plot. And I am caught in the toils.'

  'Then your ambassador must defend you!'

  'He will not. He has told me so himself, Marianne, here in this very prison, because to do so would be a sure way of bringing about the ruin of the present negotiations between President Madison and France to get the decrees concerning the Continental Blockade revoked where America is concerned. It is all very complicated—'

  'No,' Marianne broke in, desperately. 'I know. Talleyrand told me all about the Berlin and Milan decrees.'

  'God bless him, then,' Jason said, with his crooked smile. 'Well, France's conditions are these: that my country must persuade England, with whom we are not on the best of terms, to revoke what are called the "orders in council", in other words, the English retort to the decrees. And the first condition, naturally, is that the United States shall make no move to interfere with the course of justice so far as I am concerned – this affair of the forged notes is too serious. Cadore has said as much in a note to Armstrong. Armstrong is sorry – but there is nothing he can do. He is almost as much a prisoner as I am. Do you see?'

  'No,' Marianne persisted stubbornly. 'I shall never see why they have to sacrifice you – because that is what they are doing, isn't it?'

  'Yes, it is. But when you think that my country is prepared to go to war with England as a proof of good faith to Napoleon if the orders in council are not rescinded, you can imagine that my own life matters very little. Nor would I wish it to. You see, my love… we must all serve as we can – and I love my country above all things.'

  'More than me, even?' Marianne said quietly, on the verge of tears.

  Jason did not answer. Instead, his arms tightened round her and he sought her lips again. His heart was hammering so hard that Marianne seemed to feel it beating in her own breast. She felt the shuddering of his whole body and she knew that his desires had grown beyond his power to master them, a knowledge only confirmed when, lifting his head briefly from the lips which he had been crushing under his own, he began to plead with her softly: 'My darling, I entreat you… this may be our only chance… Now I am asking you to let me love you…'

  Marianne's heart leapt. Gently, she pushed him away once more, and when she heard him groan she murmured softly: 'A moment, my beloved, only a moment…'

  Then, lifted beyond herself by a love stronger than fear or modesty, Marianne stood up, oblivious of the priest lying a few yards away. He might be asleep or not, he had his back to them at least. Not taking her eyes from Jason who stayed where he was, half-kneeling, his gaze fixed intently on her, she stripped off all her garments one by one and dropped them on the greasy floor. Then, proud and unashamed, she walked into the arms held open to receive her, and the rough and grimy pallet which was Jason's bed became for Marianne a couch softer and more sumptuous than any she had ever lain on, even in that princely palace where she had slept so many nights alone. Yet she blessed the semi-darkness of the prison, for Jason had snuffed the single candle and only a faint moonlight shone into the cell, because it hid the weal, still red and angry, of the burn which Chernychev had given her. She did not want to have to lie to him, nor yet to involve herself in explanations which would have left a scar on Jason's happiness. In that one, irrecoverable moment when Marianne learned at last in joy and wonder what it meant to become one with another person, the past must be blotted out and even the dread future cry a truce.

  When the door opened again a little while later, the candle was burning again and Jason was helping Marianne to put her dress to rights. But it was not Ducatel who appeared. The prisoner named François Vidocq stood in the doorway, one shoulder propped nonchalantly against the door jamb, and after a brief glance at the abbé who was now snoring like a grampus, surveyed the lovers with an air of great amusement.

  'A woman of substance, indeed, Madame,' he remarked chattily. 'You have brought him the one thing that could do him good.'

  'Mind your own business,' Marianne snapped, all the more furious because he had been right. She felt herself blushing to the roots of her hair and, as she always did when threatened with embarrassment, she lost her temper. 'Besides,' she went on hotly, 'you are talking of matters you know nothing about! The only thing that could "do him good", as you put it, would be if they would acknowledge his innocence and set him free.'

  '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 square 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:

  'Tha
t 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!'