The little town was full of people, although the sharpest, and the better informed, had already taken up their positions near the barn. The fact was that before they were allowed to rest for the night the convicts had to submit to a thorough, detailed search, intended to simplify the task of the guards during the remainder of the journey. At the other halts, there would be nothing more than a check on the shackles and a brief run-over. Marianne wormed her way through the crowd, Jolival, still disapproving, on her heels.
They heard the chain coming long before they saw it. Borne on the wind came a fearsome clangour of voices howling and loud, raucous singing, made louder as it approached Saint-Cyr by the roaring of the worthy townsfolk. Then, just passing the last houses of the town, two mounted officers appeared, their shoulder belts showing up as a white cross on each chest. They stared straight ahead, grim-faced, whereas the prison guards who came after them were grinning at the crowd, like the heroes of a successful play. Behind them, the first wagon lumbered into view.
When all five vehicles had been lined up together in a field, the prisoners were made to get down and the search began. At the same moment, as if in response to some secret signal, the rain came on again.
'Are you really determined to remain here?' Jolival murmured into Marianne's ear. 'I warn you, it is no fit sight for you. You should—'
'Once and for all, Arcadius, I ask you to let me alone. I want to see what they do to him.'
'As you will. You shall see. But don't say I didn't warn you.'
Marianne turned away from him pettishly. A few moments more found her staring very hard at the ground, scarlet with shame. Despite the cold and the rain, the prisoners were being made to strip off every vestige of clothing. Standing there, barefoot in the mud, in nothing but the iron collars round their necks, they were subjected by their guards to a search so thoroughly degrading that it could only have been intended as an additional punishment. While one man inspected suits, shoes and stockings, another examined every orifice of their bodies with minutest care. It was a known fact, however, that the prisoners were adept at concealing a variety of tools, from tiny files to watchsprings which could release a man from his irons in less than three hours.
Marianne, crimson to the roots of her hair, kept her eyes firmly on her own feet and on the clump of trampled grass on which she stood. To everyone around her it seemed to be a high jest. Even the women, honest matrons for the most part, were commenting on the prisoners' persons with a freedom which would not have disgraced a grenadier. Desperate, Marianne tried to turn and beg Jolival to take her away, but a sudden movement among the now wildly excited crowd parted her from him and, without quite knowing how, she found herself carried into the front rank of the onlookers. The hood which she had drawn down over her hair to hide her face had been pushed back in the press and suddenly she saw Jason right in front of her.
The distance between them was not so great that he could help but see her. She saw his face change horribly. His skin turned suddenly grey and the look of anger and shame glaring in his eyes was frightening. He thrust at her violently to drive her away, oblivious of the whip which at that instant thudded into his back.
'Go away! Go away at once!'
Marianne tried to answer, to tell him that she had only wanted to share his sufferings, but already there was an iron hand gripping her arm, dragging her back, irresistibly, regardless of the pain it caused her. There was a moment's agonizing pressure, a quick scuffle and Marianne found herself at the back of the shouting wedge of people staring into the face of Jolival, who was literally green with anger:
'Well? Are you satisfied? You saw him? And you made damned sure that he saw you – at the moment of all moments when he would a hundred times rather have died than be seen by you! Is this what you call sharing his ordeal? Don't you think he has enough to bear?'
Marianne's overstretched nerves snapped all at once and she burst into convulsive sobs:
'I didn't know, Arcadius! I couldn't ever have known, ever imagined anything so vile! I was pushed forward by the crowd – when I only wanted not to look…'
'I warned you,' Jolival said ruthlessly. 'But you are worse than a mule! You will not listen to anyone! One would think you took pleasure in torturing yourself.'
Marianne's only answer was to cast herself into his arms in such desperate floods of tears that he was softened. His hand came up to stroke her rain-sodden hair.
'There, there… Hush, now, my baby! I am sorry I was angry – but you make me so when you insist on adding to your own troubles.'
'I know… dear friend… I know! Oh, I am so ashamed!… You can't know how ashamed I am! I have hurt him… I wounded him, when I would give my life…'
'Now, now – don't begin again!' Jolival besought her, gently removing her clinging form from about his neck. 'I know all about it, always have done, and if you do not calm yourself at once and stop turning the knife in the wound, I swear to you on my honour I will box your ears as if you were my own daughter! Come, now, let us go back to the inn.'
Taking her wrist once more, he led her rapidly back towards the town, ignoring her feeble protests and the sporadic efforts she still made to run back to the barn. Only when they reached the first houses did he release his hold on her at last.
'Now promise me that you will go straight back to the inn at once, and no turning back!'
'Go back-all by myself? But Arcadius—'
'No. No "but Arcadius". Back, I said. I am going back to the field.'
'But – what for?'
'To see if a little payment to the guard won't procure me a few words with him. And to give him this.'
Opening his big cloak, Jolival showed the loaf which he had been carrying all this time, tucked under his left arm. Marianne looked again from the bread to her friend's suspiciously bright eyes. It made her want to cry again but this time her reasons were different and she managed a smile instead. It was a pathetic enough little smile, in all conscience, but it tried hard to be brave:
'I'll go. I promise.'
'About time too. Now you're being a sensible girl.'
'Only—'
'What now?'
'If you do speak to him – ask him to forgive me – and say I love him.'
Jolival shrugged, raised his eyes to heaven as if to call the skies to witness the idiocy of some people, then folding his cloak around him once more, he strode off into the wind. His voice came back to her:
'Do you think that's really necessary?'
Faithful to her promise, Marianne too began to run back towards the inn, where an ostler was already lighting the big oil-lantern hanging over the gateway. It was nearly dark. The rain had stopped again for the present but the clouds piling up on the horizon were more than just the harbingers of night. She forced herself to shut her ears to the savage din which still floated after her and plunged into the inn like someone running for her life. She went straight up to her room. The single public room was too full of people, mostly men drinking mulled wine and talking over what they had just seen, and Marianne had no desire to meet anyone.
When Arcadius came up to her an hour later, she was sitting in a basket chair by the fire, her hands lying in her lap, so still that she seemed scarcely conscious. However, she looked up when she heard him come in, a questioning look in her eyes.
'I was able to get the bread to him,' Arcadius said, with a slight shrug, 'but not to speak to him. The prisoners were too excited. The search had made them nearly mad. None of the guards would have dared to break the chain – not even for gold. I'll try again later on. Now, Marianne, will you listen to what I have to say?'
He drew up a chair to the fire and sat down opposite her, leaning his elbows on his knees, his black eyes looking very steadily into hers:
'Listen – calmly? Like a sensible girl?'
When she nodded, without speaking, he went on: 'You will leave here in the morning, without me, but taking the chaise. Gracchus is more than adequate protection. He'd let
himself be torn in pieces for you, that boy. No, let me speak,' he added, seeing Marianne's eyes widen and her mouth half open to protest. 'If you continue to follow the chain, we shall have to conceal your presence not only from the guards, who would not take long to spot you, as I said, but also from Jason himself. Your being here can only increase his sufferings. No man worthy of the name wants the woman he loves to see him reduced to the status of an animal. You will go on ahead, therefore, to begin preparations for his escape, while I follow on horseback.'
Marianne sighed. 'I know. You want me to go to Brest and—'
'No. You are quite wrong. I want you to go to St Malo.'
'To – to St Malo? Good heavens, whatever for?'
Jolival's small answering smile managed to combine pity, doubt and some irony.
'What I find so disheartening about you, Marianne, is the speed with which you contrive to forget the very friends who can be most useful to you. I thought you had a friend named Surcouf – indeed, I had the impression you had actually saved his life?'
'Yes, but—'
'Baron Surcouf, my love, may not be a privateer any longer, but he remains a very powerful shipowner.' Jolival spoke silkily. 'Can you tell me a better way to obtain a sound, seaworthy craft and a reliable crew? Well then, tomorrow morning you will set out posthaste for St Malo and lay siege to the gentleman. What we need is a good ship and a crew willing and able to help us get a prisoner away from Brest.'
Marianne could think of nothing to say. Jolival's words had suddenly opened up an immense perspective, dominated by the vigorous, reassuring figure of the corsair-baron. Surcouf! Why had she not thought of him before? She was trying to rescue a sailor – how could she have forgotten that supreme sailor of them all? If he would agree to help her, then Jason's freedom was assured! But would he?
'It's a good idea, Arcadius,' she said after a pause. 'But don't forget, Surcouf is a loyal subject of the Emperor's – while Jason is simply a condemned criminal. He will never do it.'
'He may not, but it is worth trying all the same. I shall own myself very much surprised if he does not give us some help at least, or else the legend and the man are very different things! At worst, you can offer to pay him for both ship and crew. Always supposing you are not robbed on the way, you have enough in that coffer of yours to buy a kingdom!' The Vicomte pointed with a long finger at one of Marianne's boxes.
Marianne's gaze followed his finger and brightened visibly. When she had left home, she had done so with the Sant'Anna jewels in her possession, fully determined to use them to further her plans should the need arise. If and when she ever reached America with the man she loved, then she meant to send the precious casket, with what remained of its contents, back to Lucca, reserving the right to pay back later anything she might have spent. Whatever happened, it was true that she had the wherewithal to buy not one but a dozen ships.
Jolival had been following the direction of her thoughts as they were reflected in her mobile countenance. When he thought she had pondered his proposal long enough, he said quietly: 'Well? You'll go?'
'Yes. You win, Arcadius. I will go.'
It was blowing a gale when Marianne's chaise clattered on to the Chaussée du Sillon, the narrow strip of dry land which formed the causeway linking St Malo to the mainland, and Gracchus had much ado to hold his horses, frightened as they were by the stinging lash of the salt spray bursting over the sea wall. Even in the sheltered anchorage on the other side, the close-packed masts were bowing before the wind. At the far end of the causeway, wrapped in the circle of its classic fortification, the corsair town loomed like an enormous pie made of grey granite, topped by the blue-tiled roofs of its houses, the tall church spires and the massive towers of its medieval castle.
The sea which pounded against the causeway, throwing up great, snowy bursts of spume from its heaving, greenish surface and sending white horses charging furiously against the city of men, was no stranger to Marianne. It was the same sea which, long months ago now, had caught her up in its wild raging, beaten and tumbled her as it smashed Black Fish's boat to pieces and cast them all up at last, naked and half-dead, beside the wreckers' deceitful fires. It was the same sea which battered Morvan's estate, a frenzied and malignant sea, quick to anger and to malice, relying, when the power of a direct assault had failed, on the deadly snares of its deep waters, undersea reefs and treacherous currents. The wind howled round the carriage and crept in through the small crevices around the windows, bringing with it a sharp sea-tang of salt and seaweed.
The streaming horses plunged through the echoing vault of the huge St Vincent gate and instantly their panic ceased. Behind the great ramparts, where the sea could not reach, all was comparative peace and Marianne was a little surprised to find the people going about their business as naturally as in the finest weather. Hardly a soul seemed to take notice of her tempestuous arrival. Only one of the soldiers mounting a somewhat casual guard upon the gate took the clay pipe from his mouth and remarked to Gracchus, who was shaking the water from his dripping hat: 'Bit of a blow like, eh, lad? Nor'wester… 'orses ever takes agin it.'
'So I noticed,' Gracchus responded amiably. 'And grateful I am to know it's a nor-wester, but if it's all the same to you I'd be gladder still to know where Monsieur Surcouf lives.'
The words had been addressed to the man on the gate but almost before the words were out of his mouth a crowd of people had gathered round the vehicle, all talking at once: women in calico bonnets who set down their baskets and pointed, sailors in hard waxed hats and aged fishermen in red stocking caps so prolific of hair and whisker that there was little of their faces to be seen beyond a red nose and a pipe. Everyone was offering to show the way. Gracchus stood on the box and endeavoured to make sense of the hubbub.
'Not all at once, now… for pity's sake! Is that the way?' He had gathered that all the arms seemed to be pointing in much the same direction, but still no one would consent to be quiet. He was just going to sit down again and prepare to wait patiently for the rumpus to die down when two men rather more determined than the rest took hold of the horses' bridles and began leading the chaise sedately along the street that ran like a deep cutting in between the wall and tall houses within. Marianne stuck her head out of the window in puzzlement:
'What is happening? Have we been arrested?'
'No, Mademoiselle Marianne, taken over, more like. Seems to me Monsieur Surcouf is something of a king in these parts, all these folks is so eager to serve him.'
They were led for some way, passing two more gates and then, still following the line of the wall, bearing right until at last the procession reached a large, rather grim house built of grey granite whose tall windows and lofty doorway adorned with armorial bearings above and a bronze dolphin below pointed to a residence of some importance. Marianne's willing escort thereupon pronounced unanimously that this was it and all that remained to be done was for Gracchus to distribute a number of small coins with the recommendation that the thirstier among them should go and quench their thirst to the health of Baron Surcouf and his friends.
The various persons then dispersed happily, the old salts setting a course for the nearest tavern for a mug of mulled cider, well known to be the most comforting drink in the world when the nor'wester was blowing. Meanwhile, Gracchus had taken hold of the bronze dolphin door-knocker and was gravely asking the ancient serving man who answered it, and who bore a strong suggestion of the retired seaman about him, whether his master was at home to Mademoiselle d'Asselnat. Of all the many names which Marianne had borne, this was certainly the one the privateer knew best.
He was informed that 'Monsieur Surcouf' was at present down at the dry dock but that he would not be long and if the young lady liked she could 'heave to and come aboard', a mode of expression which confirmed Marianne in her first impression of the old man's earlier profession. She was admitted to an entrance hall with a black and white tiled floor and old oak panelling. There was little furniture beyond a side
board bearing, between a pair of heavy bronze candelabra, a superb model of a flute in full sail, armed for war, gun-ports open and guns run out. A pair of high-back oak chairs stood guard on either side.
The whole house breathed the smell of new wax, suggesting to the visitor that the Baronne was a proud housewife. Indeed, everything about the house shone with cleanliness: even in white gloves it would have been hard to pick up a grain of dust. The effect was striking, but also slightly chilling.
Surcouf's 'cabin', when she was shown into it, turned out to be panelled in the same dark wood as the hall but was altogether more human. It was the room of a man of action, redolent of adventure and the sea and rumbustious life, a cheerfully untidy room, the desk heaped high with maps and compasses, papers, pipes and quills, in the middle of which was a spirit-lamp and a candlestick with a candle and a few sticks of sealing wax. Barbaric, brightly coloured rugs were scattered on the gleaming, polished floor, on which sprawled a huge map of the world, held down by a sextant and a brass meridian. Exotic weapons and tattered colours still with the stains of battle on them were arranged about a large chart on the wall and every piece of furniture in the room, with the exception of a bookcase stuffed with books, was covered with a clutter of telescopes, cases of pistols and instruments of navigation.
Marianne had scarcely seated herself in the straight-backed chair, as rigid as its fellows in the hall, which the old man had brought forward for her before there was a sound of booted feet. A door slammed somewhere and almost at once the big room seemed to fill with a great gust of sea air, smelling of iodine and spindrift, and Surcouf himself burst into his private domain. His arrival reminded Marianne so strongly of what she felt each time Jason appeared that something seemed to twist inside her. They were strangely alike, these men of the sea, as if they bore the insignia of some secret brotherhood to which all belonged. Just how far, she wondered, would that brotherhood carry him?
[Marianne 3] - Marianne and the Privateer Page 32