[Marianne 3] - Marianne and the Privateer

by Juliette Benzoni

  'Now, here's a surprise!' the privateer cried thunderously. 'You, here in St Malo? I can't believe my eyes!'

  'You may quite safely do so,' Marianne said, submitting to a smacking kiss on both cheeks, country fashion. 'I am really here! I hope my coming is not disagreeable to you.'

  'Disagreeable! Never think it! It's not every day I get the chance of kissing a princess! Damned if I don't do it again!'

  He suited the action to the word and Marianne felt herself blushing. She had announced herself by her maiden name.

  'How – how did you know—?'

  Surcouf's great laughter rang out so heartily that all the lustres in the crystal chandelier tinkled softly in answer:

  'That you were a princess? My dear girl, I do believe you think we Bretons are so cut-off it takes us three or four years to get the latest news from Paris! Not a bit of it! We are well up in all the news. Especially' – and here his joyous laugh boomed out again – 'especially when one numbers Baron Corvisart among one's friends. He attended you a short while ago and I got news of you from him. That is all there is to it. And now sit down and tell me what fair wind blows you here. But first, a glass of port to celebrate your coming.'

  While Marianne resumed her seat and tried to get over her surprise, Surcouf went to a carved wooden chest and took out a decanter of dark red Bohemian glass and a pair of tall glasses which he filled three-quarters full of a golden brown liquid. Feeling better already for his bracing presence, Marianne watched his movements with a smile.

  Surcouf was never anything less than himself. His broad face, framed in a pair of handsome sidewhiskers, was still the same coppery brown and his blue eyes as direct as ever. He had put on a little weight, perhaps, and his broad chest had filled out until the everlasting blue redingote was bursting at the seams and dragging at the massive gold buttons which, when she looked closer, Marianne saw in a kind of daze were none other than Spanish gold doubloons, pierced for the purpose.

  After a ritual toast to the Emperor, they drank their port in silence, nibbling little airy ginger biscuits which seemed to the traveller the most delicious food on earth. Then Surcouf swung round a chair and, seating himself astride it, regarded his young friend with an encouraging smile.

  'I asked what wind blew you here,' he said. 'But by the look of you, I'd say it was more in the nature of a heavy squall. Right?'

  'A storm would be nearer the truth. In fact, I am beginning to wish I had not come. I'm afraid I may embarrass you – or make you think the worse of me.'

  'You could not. And whatever reason brings you here, I'll tell you right away that you did quite right to come. Your own delicacy forbids you to say straight out that you need something of me, but I have no hesitation in telling you I owe my life to you. So let's hear it, Marianne. You know quite well there is nothing that you cannot ask of me.'

  'Not even – if I were to ask you to help me arrange a man's escape from the penal colony at Brest?'

  For all his self-control, he could not conceal the slight start of shock which set Marianne's heart fluttering anxiously. When he spoke, it was very slowly and deliberately:

  'The penal colony at Brest? You know someone in that clutch of felons?'

  'Not yet. The man I want to rescue is still on his way there. He was sentenced for a crime he did not commit – he was condemned to death, but the Emperor granted a reprieve because he was sure he did not kill – and perhaps, too, because he is not French. Oh, it is a terribly complicated story, but I must try and explain…'

  She was growing muddled and confused already. She could hardly speak for fatigue and emotion and could no longer bring herself to look Surcouf in the face. But he interrupted her, saying roughly: 'Wait a minute! A foreigner? What kind of foreigner?'

  'An American. He is a sailor, too…'

  There was a crack from the chair-back as Surcouf's fist smashed down on to it:

  'Jason Beaufort! Thunder of fate! Why didn't you tell me so at once?'

  'You know him?'

  He got up so suddenly that he knocked over his chair but, ignoring it, he answered: 'It is my business to know every captain of every vessel worth the name both sides of the equator. Beaufort is a fine sailor and a brave man. His trial was a blot on French justice! In fact, I wrote to the Emperor and told him so.'

  'You did?' Marianne exclaimed in a choking voice. 'D-did he answer you?'

  Told me to mind my own business. Or words to that effect. You know he's not one to beat about the bush. But how comes it about that you are acquainted with the fellow? I thought you were – that is, I believed you to be on terms with His Majesty? I even thought of writing to you to ask for your help, but the business of the counterfeit money decided me against it. I feared to cause you embarrassment. Now here you are, come to ask me to help you help Beaufort to escape, you—'

  'Napoleon's mistress!' Marianne finished for him sadly. 'Things have altered since our last meeting, my friend. I am no longer quite such a favourite at court.'

  'Suppose,' Surcouf suggested, reaching for his chair and setting it on its feet once more before turning back to the chest where he kept his port, 'you were to tell me all about it. I'm a true Breton, you know, and we all dearly love a good story.'

  Heartened by another glass of wine and a fresh supply of biscuits, Marianne embarked on a somewhat tangled account of her relations with Jason and of her recent dealings with the Emperor. However, the port soon exercised a warming effect and in the end she acquitted herself reasonably well in the ordeal. When she finished, Surcouf's comment was typical of the man:

  'Damn fool ought to have married you in the first place, not this bowelless wench from Florida who must have been got by a wild Indian fed on crocodiles! You, now, you'd make a real sailor's wife! I saw that right away, when that old devil Fouché got you out of St Lazare.'

  Marianne took this as a great compliment, and though she refrained from asking him to elaborate on the subject it was with rather more confidence that she inquired: 'So… you will help me?'

  'Need you ask? A little more port?'

  'Need you ask?' Marianne retorted, feeling an unexpected lightening of her heart.

  The two friends drank eagerly to the success of a plan which they had yet to work out and Marianne felt a delicious sense of well-being creep over her. However, it took considerably more than three glasses of port to produce any noticeable effect on Surcouf's equilibrium. Draining his glass to the dregs, he announced his intention of escorting his visitor to the best hostelry in the town to take a little well-earned rest while he took care of the 'little matter in hand'.

  'You can't stay here,' he explained, 'because I am pretty well alone in the house. My wife and children are at our house at Riancourt, near St Servan… and I can scarcely take you all the way there. Besides, Madame Surcouf is a very fine woman but I don't know if the two of you would deal together. She can be a trifle stern – and not overly tender-tongued.'

  'A tartar!' Marianne decided mentally, while aloud she assured her friend that she really much preferred to go to an inn. She was anxious to pass unnoticed as far as possible and the fact that she was travelling incognito would make it awkward for her to visit his family. She might have added that she had no desire to figure as a nine days' wonder for the benefit of a pack of children, or to listen to a perfect housewife's comments on the price of grain and the difficulties of procuring foreign goods under the Blockade. A room to herself at a good inn seemed infinitely more attractive.

  On this comfortable note, they parted, Surcouf confiding Marianne to the care of his man, the aged Job Goas. Job, who turned out as expected to be a retired seaman, was told off to deliver Marianne to the Auberge de la Duchesse Anne – which, besides being the best in the town, was also the regular posting house – and see her suitably accommodated. Surcouf promised to come himself later in the evening, when he had found the man they needed.

  It may have been due to the intoxicating qualities of port wine or perhaps somewhat to rel
ief at this swift acquisition of so substantial an ally, but certain it was that Marianne found the inn charming, her room all that was comfortable and the smells which wafted upstairs from the large public room very thoroughly appetizing. For the first time for very many days, life seemed to have something agreeable to offer.

  The little town lay snug within its walls but outside the wind was howling with redoubled fury. The night promised to be a stormy one and the riding lights on the tall masts in the harbour were bobbing up and down like so many drunken sailors. In Marianne's room, however, protected by thick walls and thick panes of leaded glass in the windows, all was warmth and safety. The bed, with its piled-up mattresses surmounted by an enormous red eiderdown, smelled pleasantly of linen dried in the sun, spread on the juniper bushes out on the open heath. Tired from her long journey in bad weather, Marianne could have gone straight to bed, but the port and ginger biscuits had given her an appetite. She felt ravenously hungry and her hunger was sharpened by the delicious cooking smells which were seeping through the whole building. Besides, Surcouf had advised her to eat her dinner in the public room so that he would not have to be taken to her bedchamber when he came with the man he had gone to find. The inn itself was a highly respectable one where a lady might eat alone without fear of importunities. Nevertheless, Marianne decided that Gracchus should share her dinner, so as to be on hand in the event of unlikely but still possible trouble while she waited for Surcouf and his friend.

  Seated at a small table close to the immense hearth at which a woman in the graceful lace hennin worn by the women of Pléneuf was making pancakes with the aid of a long-handled pan, the Princess Sant'Anna and her coachman applied themselves unashamedly to the enjoyment of Cancale oysters, large crabs of the kind known as 'sleepers' served with salted butter and a vast cotriade, the Breton bouillabaisse, pungent with herbs. They ended the meal with the traditional golden pancakes and sparkling cider.

  Marianne and Gracchus were sipping their fragrant coffee while all around them pipes were being filled with the fine tobacco of Porto Rico, when the low door flew open at a vigorous push from Surcouf. His entrance was the signal for a chorus of loud and joyful greetings, but Marianne paid no attention to these. All her senses were trained on the man who entered in the privateer's wake. Most of his face was hidden by the upturned collar of his heavy pilot coat, but Marianne knew that face too well to be mistaken in its owner, even if he had been wearing a false beard and a hat pulled over his eyes, which he was not. The 'man they needed' was Jean Ledru.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Ninth Star

  In the little house which had belonged to Nicolas Mallerousse, Marianne settled down to begin her vigil. She was waiting for two things. The first of these was the convict chain which should by this time be nearing the end of the journey begun more than three weeks before. The second was Jean Ledru's lugger, the Saint-Guénolé, which was working her way round the coast from St Malo to lie up in the little port of Le Conquet until it was time to move out into Brest roadstead.

  Despite the bad weather, Ledru had put to sea with a crew of ten able-bodied seamen on the same morning as Surcouf had handed Marianne into her chaise and sent her on her way with boisterous good wishes.

  The previous night, when Jean Ledru had reappeared in her life, Marianne had hesitated for a moment before committing Jason's future to the very person to whom she owed her own first, highly unenjoyable sexual experience, as well as subsequent trials of a very different kind. Surcouf, seeing Marianne's troubled face, had uttered a shout of laughter and given Ledru a cheerful push in her direction:

  'He came to me last March, along with a personal letter from the Emperor asking me to take him back. To please you. So between the pair of us we patched things up – and have not ceased to be grateful to you. That Spanish war was no good for Jean. He did well enough, but he's not at home on shore. And I was happy to have a good seaman back.'

  Feeling deeply conscious of the explosive nature of their earlier relations, Marianne extended her hand to her one-time comrade in misfortune: 'How do you do, Jean. I am glad to see you again.'

  He had taken the proffered hand, unsmiling. The eyes that were like two blue forget-me-nots beneath lashes bleached white by the sea, remained thoughtful in the face whose tanned skin and short fair beard were still as she remembered, and for an instant Marianne was in doubt of his reaction. Was he still angry with her? Then, quite suddenly, the still face came to life and the gap between beard and moustache widened into a candid smile:

  'And I'm glad too! I should rather think so after what you did for me – and if I can repay it…'

  It was all right then. Everything was going to be all right! After that, she had tried to warn him of the risks involved in trying to outwit the law of the Empire but, like Surcouf, he would hear none of it.

  'The man we have to rescue is a sailor and Monsieur Surcouf says he's innocent. That's enough for me. I don't want to know any more. What we have to do now is decide how to go about it.'

  For two long hours, the three men and the girl sat round the table with a pot of coffee and a pile of pancakes in front of them, working out the broad outline of their plan. It was an audacious one but although Marianne's green eyes were occasionally shadowed with doubt, in the three pairs of blue ones belonging to the three men there was never anything but blazing enthusiasm and the thrill of adventure, so infectious that she soon abandoned every objection, except for one final one when the question of the lugger Saint-Guénolé was raised.

  'But surely, these luggers are small boats, too small to sail all the way to America? Don't you think a larger vessel—'

  She had repeated her proposal, which Surcouf had already turned down with magnificent disdain, to purchase a ship; but once again the corsair king explained to her, quite kindly, that she was talking nonsense.

  'This is the ideal type of vessel to pass unnoticed, and to get someone out of Brest in a hurry, especially in the tricky waters of the Fromveur and the Iroise. She holds well in a sea-way and sails close to the wind. Leave what comes after that to me. And don't worry. There'll be a ship for America when it's wanted.'

  With this, Marianne was obliged to be content and they parted for the night. All the time they had been talking, Marianne had been observing Jean Ledru, trying to discover from his inexpressive face whether or not he was cured at last of the destructive and ill-fated passion he had felt for her. His face had told her nothing but, just before they parted, he had told her himself, with a little teasing smile on his lips. Rising to put on his pilot jacket he had spoken, ostensibly to Surcouf, but really for the girl's benefit:

  'All right if I leave you here, Cap'n? If I'm to sail with the tide I must say good-bye to Marie-Jeanne. There's no knowing how long we may be away, and a man can't put to sea without a last kiss for his girl.'

  The glance at Marianne which accompanied this declaration was bright with mischief. It said, as clear as day: 'You needn't worry. It's all over between us. There's another woman in my life now.' And such was Marianne's delight that she smiled beamingly on him and shook his horny hand with real goodwill. So that it was with a quiet mind on the subject of future relations between them that, with Gracchus on the box and under a steady downpour of rain which showed no signs of ever stopping, she took the road to Brest.

  Ever since her arrival in that great port, Marianne had made a point of remaining as inconspicuous as possible. Gracchus had driven the chaise straight to the posting house of the Seven Saints and there they had left it. It was a hired vehicle which would return to Paris with the next traveller. Then, modestly dressed with their baggage loaded on a handcart, he and Marianne had gone down to the quay below the castle to take the ferry across to Recouvrance. This way, as Marianne had discovered when she had been staying with Nicolas, was much shorter than going round by the bridge, which meant following the Penfeld as far as the arsenal, passing close to the grim, high walls of the bagne, the convict prison, and the rope-walks. />
  A fisherman in the blue cap of the men of Goulven had laid aside the net he was mending to take them over in his boat. The weather that day was very nearly fine. The wind that swelled the red sails of the fishing boats heading into the Goulet and smacked in the flags that flew from the great, round towers of the castle was cold but not unduly rough. In midstream, their boatman had backed water to give way to a longboat towing-in a frigate, proud in her panoply of war, even with all her canvas stowed. The rowers, straining at their oars in time to the whistle blasts of the comite, wore the red caps and jackets of convict labourers. There were even some among them displaying with a kind of pride the green cap of the 'lifer' and all, the green caps and the red, carried the metal plate with their number on it. Marianne, seated on the rough, wooden thwart, had watched them go by with a curious sensation of horror and revulsion. The galleys might exist no longer but these men were still galley slaves of a kind and before long Jason would take his place amongst them. It had been left to Gracchus to rouse her from her gloomy reverie:

  'Don't look, then, Mademoiselle Marianne,' he said. 'It'll only make you miserable.'

  'Right you are there,' the boatman had agreed, setting his craft in motion once more. 'It's no sight for a young lady. But it's the chiourme does everything hereabouts. Those that aren't needed down at the docks work in the rope-walks or the sailmakers'. They collect up the garbage, too, and carry powder and cases of shot. You're for ever bumping into them. After a while, you just stop seeing them.'