[Marianne 5] - Marianne and the Lords of the East

by Juliette Benzoni

  Marianne stood for some time leaning out of the window and forgetting even to take off her hat, fascinated by the fantastic spectacle presented by the bay in the magic of a glorious sunset. The sea was on fire, reflecting the fading beams in great pools of purple and gold, shot with gleams of amethyst that turned to an incredible dark green in the shadow of the great mole. Drums and whistles sounded on board the ships. From every masthead the colors were being slowly hauled down as they were every night at this hour, all together as though in a well-rehearsed ballet. But even from this point of vantage, Marianne was no more able to make out the vessel she sought than she had been from the harbor. Where could the Sea Witch be? And where was Jason? In the citadel, perhaps, or else in some other prison she could not see? This town was like no other she had ever seen. It was disturbing and yet strangely attractive in its intense vitality. Standing there at the window, she felt as if she were on the borders of an unknown world which drew her and yet troubled her at the same time.

  "I've asked our good Monsieur Ducroux to have supper sent up to your room for us." Jolival's familiar voice spoke behind her. "I didn't think you'd want to go down to the dining room, seeing that the hotel seems to be so full of men. I should say the best thing for us tonight would be to eat our supper and then get a good night's rest. The beds seem comfortable enough."

  She swung around to face him.

  "I want to see the governor as soon as possible, Jolival. Can't we go to his house this evening and see if they will let us in?"

  Jolival looked deeply shocked.

  "My dear, you are a lady of quality. You cannot possibly go to the governor's palace yourself and demand admittance, any more than I can. But don't be alarmed. One of the hotel servants is on his way there at this very moment carrying a very proper note composed entirely by your humble servant, expressing in the most formal terms your earnest wish to call on your father's old friend."

  Marianne sighed. "You are quite right, as usual," she said, warming his heart with a contrite little smile. "Then there is nothing for us to do except, as you say, to have our supper and go to bed. I hope word will come from the duke for us to visit him tomorrow."

  They spent a quiet, peaceful evening. Seated comfortably in the small sitting room attached to Marianne's bedchamber, the two friends did ample justice to the Hotel Ducroux's admirable cooking. The cuisine throughout was French and recalled to Marianne the delicacies with which the great Carême had been wont to furnish Talleyrand's table.

  As for Jolival, in his delight at this temporary respite from eastern cooking he tackled carp à la Chambord, a salmis of duckling and tartelettes aux fraises as though he had not seen food for weeks, breaking off only to savor with the air of a connoisseur the excellent champagne, product of Epernay, which Ducroux was able to procure through the good offices of his former employer and a whole fleet of smugglers.

  "You may say what you like," he confided to Marianne as he finished his second bottle, "but there is nothing like champagne for making you see things in a quite different light. I respect the emperor's taste for Chambertin, but to my mind he's a good deal too exclusive. There is simply nothing like champagne."

  "I think he knows that," she said, smiling at the candle flame seen through the airy bubbles rising in her glass. "In fact, it was he who introduced me to it."

  There was a flicker in her green eyes as she remembered that first night. Was it only yesterday, or hundreds of years ago, that Talleyrand, the old fox, had driven her out through the snow to the pavilion of Le Butard, a young girl in a dress of rose-colored satin, to charm away with her voice the melancholy humors of a certain Monsieur Denis who was said to be suffering from some unexplained misfortune? She saw again the charming, intimate little music room, Duroc's broad face, a trifle uneasy in the role of go-between, the fragrance of flowers everywhere, the bright fire blazing in the hearth, the frozen lake outside the windows. And then the little man in the black coat who had listened to her singing without a word, yet with such a look of kindness in his steel blue eyes… She saw it all and even felt something of the emotion which had stirred her then as the heady fumes of the champagne had cast her all too willingly into the stranger's arms. And yet, at the same time, she found herself wondering if that pleasant interlude had really happened to her, or if it were not just a story she had heard, a fairy tale in the manner of Voltaire or La Fontaine.

  She shut her eyes and took a sip of the cold wine as though trying to recapture the taste of that night.

  "France is a long way away," she said. "Who knows what awaits us here?"

  Jolival cocked an eyebrow and smiled into his empty glass and then at the flower-decked table, still loaded with the remains of their meal.

  "Just at this moment it doesn't seem to me so very far. Besides, we are treading the same soil as His Majesty the emperor, you know."

  Marianne's eyes opened wide and she gave a little shiver.

  "The same soil? What do you mean?"

  "Only what Ducroux told me when I was talking to him before dinner. According to the latest information, the emperor is at Vilna. That is why we have seen so much military activity here. The regiments of Tatars and Circassians are mustering to join the tsar's army—and it's said the Duc de Richelieu thinks of marching at their head."

  "A Frenchman at their head? Jolival, you can't mean it!"

  "Why not? Have you forgotten that the Marquis de Langeron fought under the Russian eagle at Austerlitz? Richelieu is like him, an irreconcilable enemy of France as she is today. All he wants is to see Bonaparte defeated in the hope of putting those broken-winded Bourbons back on the throne."

  Jolival seized the slender crystal flute from which he had been drinking and in a sudden spurt of anger sent it smashing violently against the white marble chimneypiece.

  "Then I wonder," Marianne observed, "what we are doing sitting here drinking champagne and philosophizing instead of trying to see this man and make him listen to reason."

  Jolival gave a shrug, then rose and, taking his young friend's hand in his, carried it to his lips with an affectionate gallantry.

  "Sufficient unto the day, Marianne. The Duc de Richelieu won't be leaving tonight. And, may I remind you, we have a favor to ask and so are not precisely in the best position to start preaching him sermons. Forget what I have just told you and my display of bad temper. I think I'm turning into an old fool, God forgive me."

  "No, you're not. It's just that you see red as soon as anyone mentions the subject of émigrés or princes. Good night, old friend. And you, too, try to forget…"

  He was just leaving the room when she called him back. "Arcadius," she said, "that woman we passed coming in, Madame de Gachet, have you remembered where you met her before? She looked like an émigrée. Perhaps she was a friend of your wife?"

  He shook his head. "No. She must have been very beautiful and Septimanie could never get on with pretty women. My impression is—yes, my impression is that she is connected with something unpleasant, with the memory of some horrible event buried deep in my memory which I can't quite recall. But I keep trying because when I saw her just now I had a kind of premonition, as if there were some kind of danger threatening—"

  "Well, go and get some sleep. They say the night brings counsel. You may find you have remembered in the morning. Besides, we may be imagining things and giving a great deal too much importance to a poor woman who means no harm at all."

  "It may be so. But I didn't care for the way she looked at us and I shan't be happy until I've worked out who she is."

  Marianne slept soundly and forgot all about the woman in the black feathers. She was sitting up in bed the following morning, enjoying a real French breakfast of feather-light croissants, when there was a knock at her door. Thinking that the maid must have forgotten something, she bade her come in. But instead of the chambermaid's white cap, what peeped in was the powdered head of Jolival's mysterious lady.

  She had her finger to her lips, enjoining silence
, and she glanced back to make sure that there was no one in the passage before closing the door noiselessly behind her.

  Marianne had paused in the act of spreading butter on a croissant and was staring at her in astonishment, her knife suspended in midair.

  "Madame," she began, intending to request her uninvited visitor to let her breakfast in peace.

  But once again the woman put her finger to her lips, accompanying the movement with a smile so charmingly girlish and confused that all Jolival's rather vague misgivings were forgotten in an instant. At last, when she had satisfied herself that all was quiet outside, the lady approached the bed and swept a curtsy that spoke Versailles in every line of it.

  "I must beg you to pardon this unwarrantable intrusion when we have not even been introduced," she said in a voice as smooth as velvet, "but I do think that in a place where civilization is still in its infancy we may allow ourselves to dispense with some of the strict rules of polite society, while at the same time the natural ties which exist between people of the same nationality are strengthened to the point almost of brotherhood. But please, do not let me interrupt your breakfast."

  This little speech had been rattled off with as much assurance as if the two of them were old acquaintances. Not to be outdone, Marianne assured her politely in return, though without any notable enthusiasm, that she was delighted to see her and begged she would be seated.

  Her visitor pulled up a chair and sat down with a little sigh of satisfaction, spreading the shimmering skirts of her gray silk bedgown about her. She smiled again.

  "The proprietor of the hotel told me that you were Mademoiselle d'Asselnat de Villeneuve and I can see that you are indeed the daughter of my dear friend Pierre. I was struck when I passed you yesterday by your extraordinary likeness to him."

  "You knew my father?"

  "Very well. I am the Comtesse de Gachet. My late husband was an officer in the same regiment. I knew your father when he was stationed at Douai in 1784."

  She had no need to say more. In mentioning the father whom Marianne adored without ever having known him other than through his portrait, the woman had uttered the magic words. All Jolival's warnings and reservations were swept from her mind in an instant, and Marianne returned all her visitor's smiles and compliments in full. She even offered to share her breakfast with her, but Madame de Gachet would not hear of allowing her to ring for the chambermaid to bring fresh coffee and another cup.

  "No, no. I've already had my breakfast. Besides, I would rather no one knew of this visit, so early and so unconventional as it is. People might start to wonder…"

  Marianne laughed. "My dear madame," she said, "I really think you are worrying yourself unnecessarily. As you said yourself, manners are not so strict here as they are in France, and I am delighted to meet someone who knew my father since I never had the good fortune to do so myself."

  "I'm sure. You must have been very young when he died."

  "I was only a few months old. But do please tell me about him. You can't imagine how eager I am to listen."

  "He was, I believe, the most handsome, gallant and noble gentleman imaginable…"

  For the next few moments the Comtesse de Gachet held Marianne enthralled with an account of various occasions on which she had been in company with the Marquis d'Asselnat. But deeply interested as she was in all her visitor could tell her, Marianne could not help noticing that she seemed peculiarly ill at ease and that she was continually casting quick nervous glances at the door, as though she were afraid that someone might come in.

  She broke off in the middle of her questions to say kindly: "You seem anxious, Countess. You have been kind enough to come and visit me and here I am pestering you with questions when I am sure your time is precious. If there is anything I can do to help you, I beg you to tell me."

  Madame de Gachet smiled a trifle constrainedly, seemed to hesitate for a moment and then, as though reaching a rather difficult decision, she said in a low voice: "You are right. I am in great trouble—so much so that I ventured to call on you, a fellow countrywoman and the daughter of my old friend, in the hope that you might assist me. Yet now I hardly dare—I am so ashamed—"

  "But why? Please, I beg of you, ask me anything—"

  " You are so charming and have made me so welcome that now I am afraid in case I should turn you against me."

  "I assure you you will not. Speak, I implore you."

  The lady hesitated a moment longer and then, dropping her eyes to the lace handkerchief that she was kneading between her hands, she confessed at last: "I have suffered a terrible disaster. It is my misfortune, you see, to be a gambler. It is a shocking vice, I know that, but I started at Versailles in the circle of our unhappy queen and I can no longer help myself. Wherever I am, I have to play. Can you understand that?"

  "I think so," Marianne said, thinking of Jolival, who was also an inveterate card player. "Are you trying to tell me that you have been playing here and you have lost?"

  The countess nodded, without raising her eyes.

  "Here, as in every other port in the world, there is a district—far from respectable, I am afraid—where every kind of gambling is carried on. It is called the Moldavanka. There is a house there run by a Greek, and I must say by no means ill-run at that. Yesterday I had some heavy losses there."

  "How much?"

  "Four thousand rubles. It is a great deal of money, I know," she went on hastily, seeing Marianne's involuntary gesture of dismay, "but I assure you that if you will lend it to me, with another thousand so that I may try and recoup my losses, it will not be money thrown away. I have something here which I should like you to accept as a pledge. Naturally, if I am not in a position to repay you by tonight, then you will keep it."

  "But—"

  Marianne broke off with a gasp. From the folds of the handkerchief she had been clutching so tightly Madame de Gachet had produced a magnificent jewel. It was a diamond drop so exquisitely pure and brilliant that the younger woman's eyes widened in amazement. It was like a fiery tear, a miniature sun containing all the concentrated radiance of the morning.

  The countess let her gaze at it for a moment and then with a swift movement slipped it into her hand.

  "Keep it," she said hurriedly. "I know it will be safe with you—and help me if you can!"

  Marianne stared helplessly, now at the diamond scintillating in her palm and now at the woman. The lines in her face and the bitter twist to her mouth showed clearly in the morning light.

  "You embarrass me very much, Madame," she said at last. "Although I know nothing of these things, I am sure this diamond must be worth a great deal more than five thousand roubles. Why not go to a jeweler in the town?"

  "And have him refuse to return it to me? You are new here. You do not know yet what these people are like. Many of them are nothing more than adventurers, drawn here by the loans to be had from the governor. If I were to show anyone this stone they would kill me before they would let me have it back."

  "Very well then. There is the governor. Why not entrust this jewel to him?"

  "Because he is a ruthless persecutor of gambling halls—and of all who frequent them. I wish to settle in these parts, where it is beautiful and mild and sunny. I should not be granted permission to do so if the Duc de Richelieu knew the nature of my troubles. I am not even sure that the tsar, who has been good enough to take an interest in me and has even sent one of his officers to escort me, would look on it more kindly."

  "You surprise me. I thought the Russians were passionate gamblers."

  Madame de Gachet made a gesture of impatience and rose to her feet.

  "My dear child, let us say no more about it. What I am asking of you is a small service of a few hours, no more, or so I trust. If you are unable to accommodate me, please say no more. I will endeavor to make some other arrangement, although—Oh, good God! How came I to get myself into this dreadful fix? If my poor husband could see me—" And the countess subsided abruptly onto he
r chair, shaking with sobs. Then, burying her face in her hands, she began to cry in good earnest.

  Horrified to feel herself the cause of such misery, Marianne sprang out of bed and, pausing only to place the diamond carefully on the bedside table, scrambled hastily into a dressing gown and dropped to her knees beside her visitor, doing her best to comfort her.

  "Oh, please, please don't cry! Of course I'll help you, my dear Countess! Forgive me if I seemed suspicious and asked too many questions, but the sight of the diamond frightened me a little. It is so very beautiful that I am quite afraid to have it in my possession… Only do, please, calm yourself. I will gladly lend you the money."

  Before leaving Humayunabad, Marianne had reluctantly accepted a large sum in gold and letters of credit pressed upon the travelers by Turhan Bey's steward. She was unwilling now to accept money from the man who had taken away her child but Osman had made it clear that he dared not disobey what was an explicit order and in the end it was Jolival, with a much greater grasp of the practicalities of life, who had made her see reason. Thanks to his foresight, Osman had even been so obliging as to obtain Russian money for them, thus sparing them the hazards and chicanery of the money market.

  Rising quickly to her feet, Marianne now went to one of her boxes and, having extracted the required sum, returned to place it in her visitor's hands.

  "There, take it! And never doubt my friendship. I cannot bear to leave a friend of my father's in difficulties."

  In a moment the countess had dried her eyes and, tucking the notes away in her corsage, flung her arms around Marianne and kissed her effusively.

  "What a darling you are!" she cried. "How can I ever thank you?"

  "Why—by drying your tears."

  "They are dried already. And now I am going to sign a receipt for you. I will redeem it tonight."