Marianne and The Masked Prince

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  Marianne and The Masked Prince

  Жюльетта Бенцони

  Juliette Benzoni

  Marianne and The Masked Prince

  Part I

  THE MAN WITH THE SCARRED FACE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Appointment at 'La Folie'

  Abruptly, Napoleon ceased pacing up and down the room and came to a stop in front of Marianne. The girl huddled in the big arm-chair by the fire gave a sigh of relief. Even deadened by the thick carpet, that regular pacing racked her nerves and made her head throb. So much had happened in the course of that fantastic evening that she was too exhausted to be conscious of anything beyond the splitting ache in her head. There had been the thrill of her first appearance on stage at the Théâtre Feydeau, her stage-fright and, above all, the inexplicable appearance in one of the stage boxes of the man she believed she had killed, followed by his equally mysterious disappearance. Enough to overcome a much stronger constitution than Marianne's!

  With an effort, she opened her eyes and saw that he was watching her, his hands clasped behind his back and an anxious look on his face. Was he really anxious, or merely vexed? The pressure of his smart, silver-buckled shoe was digging a hole in the pale carpet, while the quiver of his thin nostrils and a certain steely glint in his blue eyes betokened an incipient burst of temper. Marianne asked herself suddenly if the man before her was her lover, the Emperor, or an examining magistrate. In the ten minutes that had elapsed since he burst in on her he had said little, but she could sense the questions in the air. The quiet room with its blue-green watered silks, bright flowers and sparkling crystal, so peaceful and reassuring a few moments before, had taken on a fragile, transitory air. Sure enough, the peace was shattered in an instant by his curt voice.

  'Are you sure what you saw was not an hallucination?'

  'An hallucination?'

  'Yes. You could have seen someone who looked like… like this man. Someone quite different. It is hardly likely that an English nobleman could be at large in France, going to theatres, even sitting in the Chancellor of State's own box and no one any the wiser! My police are the best in Europe.'

  In spite of her shock and exhaustion, Marianne bit back a smile. So that was it: vexation rather than anxiety was uppermost in Napoleon's mind, for the simple reason that the efficiency of his police force was in question. Yet God alone knew how many foreign spies were loose in France at that moment! Marianne sighed wearily.

  'Sire, I know the vigilance of your Minister of Police as well as you do, better perhaps, and I meant no reflection upon him. But there can be no doubt the man I saw was Francis Cranmere and no other.'

  Napoleon made a movement of irritation but controlled it at once and came to sit at the foot of Marianne's sofa. His tone was markedly softer as he asked: 'How can you be sure? You yourself told me that you barely knew this man.'

  'One does not easily forget the face of a man who has destroyed one's life. Besides, the man I saw had a long scar on his left cheek.'

  'And what does that prove?'

  'Only that I gave it him, with the point of a rapier, to make him fight,' Marianne said quietly. 'I scarcely think any accidental resemblance would go so far as to reproduce a scar known here only to myself. No, it was he and from now on I am in danger.'

  Napoleon laughed and drew Marianne into his arms with a movement of spontaneous tenderness.

  'Now you are talking nonsense. Mio dolce amor, how could you be in danger while I love you? Am I not the Emperor? Do you know how powerful I am?'

  The terror which had been gripping Marianne's heart miraculously relaxed its hold. Once again she was conscious of the extraordinary sense of security which only he could give her. He was right when he said that nothing could touch her while he was there but – that was just the trouble. He was going away. With an impulse of childish fear she clutched his shoulder.

  'You are the only one I trust. But you are leaving me, leaving Paris. You will be far away.'

  She had a vague, momentary hope that he would offer to take her with him. Why shouldn't she go to Compiègne too? True, the new Empress was due to arrive in a few days but surely he could install her in a house in the town, away from the palace but not too far? She might have broached her desire but already he had laid her back against the cushions and risen to his feet with a swift glance at the ormulu clock on the mantelshelf.

  'I shall not be away long. I will send for Fouché when I get back and give him strict orders concerning this house. In any case, he must scour Paris for this Cranmere. Give him a complete description of the man tomorrow morning.'

  'The Duchess of Bassano said she saw a Flemish gentleman, the Vicomte d'Aubécourt, in the box. Perhaps Francis is going by that name?'

  'Then the Vicomte d'Aubécourt shall be found and Fouché shall report to me in detail. Don't worry, carissima mia, I will be watching over you, even from a distance. And now I must leave you.'

  'So soon! Can't you stay with me tonight, at least?'

  Marianne regretted her plea as soon as the words were out. If he was in such haste to leave her, she should not have pleaded with him to stay, as if she did not trust him or herself. But in her heart she was a prey to all the demons of jealousy. In a moment he was leaving her to go to another woman. There were tears in her eyes as she watched him cross to pick up his grey coat from the chair where he had flung it as he entered. Only when he had put it on did he look at her and answer.

  'I had hoped so, Marianne, but when I got back from the theatre I found a host of despatches waiting to be answered before I leave. Do you know I left six people waiting in my antechamber to come to you?'

  'At this time of night?' Marianne's voice held disbelief.

  He moved swiftly to her side and tweaked her ear.

  'Always remember, little one, the official day-time visitors are not always the most important. I hold more nocturnal audiences than you might imagine. Now, good-bye.'

  He bent and kissed her lightly on the lips but Marianne did not respond. She uncoiled herself from her chair and went to fetch a branch of candles from her dressing-table.

  'I will escort your majesty,' she said, a little chill of formality in her voice. 'All the servants except the porter will be in bed.'

  She had opened the door and was about to precede him to the stairs when he caught her back.

  'Look at me, Marianne. You are cross with me, aren't you?'

  'I should not presume so far, sire. I am honoured that your majesty can spare your valuable time to remember your humble servant.'

  Before she could complete her stately curtsey, Napoleon laughed and, taking the candles firmly from her hand, pulled her roughly to her feet and into his arms.

  'My love, I swear you are jealous. It suits you. I told you once before you should have been a Corsican. God, but you are beautiful like that, with your eyes blazing like emeralds in the sun! You are dying to abuse me roundly, only you dare not. I can feel you trembling...'

  The laughter died out of his face as he spoke. Marianne knew from his sudden pallor and the tightening of his jaw how much he wanted her. Then his head was buried in her neck and he was covering her shoulders and her breast with kisses. It was he who was trembling now while Marianne, her head thrown back, her eyes closed, listened to her racing heart and gave herself to his caresses. A wild thrill of happiness, made up of pride as much as love, surged through her at the realization that her power over him was as great as ever. At last he swept her up into his arms and carried her to the big bed and dumped her down unceremoniously. Moments later the exquisite white dress, which had dazzled all Paris so short a time before, lay in ruins on the carpet, while Marianne lay in Napoleo
n's arms, gazing up at the canopy of sea-green watered silk rippling over her head.

  Those people waiting for you at the Tuileries,' she whispered, between kisses, 'I hope they won't be bored – and are not too important?'

  'A courier from the Tzar and a papal envoy, you little devil. Happy?'

  For answer, Marianne twined her arms more closely round her lover's neck and closed her eyes with a happy sigh. It was moments like these that made up for all the disappointments, fears and jealousies. Listening to his frenzy of passionate endearments, Marianne was comforted. Surely this Austrian female he was about to take into his bed in place of Josephine, this Marie-Louise, could never win so much love from him? Probably she was nothing more than a frightened little ninny commending her soul to God with every minute of the journey that was taking her closer to her country's enemy. Napoleon to her must seem a kind of Minotaur, a contemptible upstart. If she had anything in common with her aunt Marie-Antoinette, she would treat him with all the hauteur of her imperial blood, while if, as it was whispered in the salons, she was merely a silly girl with as little intelligence as beauty, she would submit passively.

  Even so, an hour later, as she watched through a hall window the porter shutting the massive gates behind the imperial coach, all Marianne's fears and uncertainties came flooding back. The next time she saw the Emperor he would be married to the Archduchess and meanwhile, under one name or another, Francis Cranmere was at liberty in Paris.

  Shivering in the lace dressing robe which she had slipped on in haste, Marianne picked up the candlestick and made her way back to her own room with a disagreeable feeling of isolation. The sound of the carriage carrying Napoleon away echoed in the distance, a melancholy counterpoint to the words of love still ringing in her head. But for all his tender protestations of affection, Marianne was too honest to conceal from herself that a page had been turned and however great the love that bound her to Napoleon, nothing could ever be quite the same again.

  When Marianne got back to her room, she was surprised to find her cousin there. Mademoiselle Adelaide d'Asselnat, dressed in a loose wrap of puce velvet with an immense fluted cap adorning her head, was standing in the middle of the room contemplating, with interest but no apparent surprise, the glorious debris of the white dress left lying crumpled on the carpet.

  'Adelaide, you here? I thought you were asleep long ago.'

  'I always sleep with one eye open and something warned me you might need a little company when "he" had gone.' The old maid sighed and picked up the scrap of pearly satin. 'Ah, now there's a man who has a way with women! I do not wonder you should fall for him. I did myself, you know, when he was only a shabby, underfed little general. But tell me, how did he take the sudden resurrection of your late lamented husband?'

  'Badly,' Marianne said, rummaging among the ravages of her bed for the nightgown which Agathe, her maid, must have laid out to await her return from the theatre. 'He is half-convinced that I was seeing things.'

  'You were not?'

  'No! Why should I suddenly see Francis's ghost when he was a hundred miles from my thoughts? I thought him dead. No, I am sorry, Adelaide, but there could be no mistake; it was Francis, certainly… and he was smiling, smiling at me in a way that terrified me! God knows what he means to do.'

  'Time will tell,' the spinster said placidly, moving in a purposeful way towards the small table with a lace cloth on which a cold supper had been left ready for Marianne, although neither she nor the Emperor had eaten a mouthful. Calmly, Adelaide uncorked a bottle of champagne and filled two tall glasses. One of these she emptied at a draught, the other she carried over to Marianne, after which she returned for her own glass, selected a wing of chicken from the dish, and settled herself comfortably on the foot of the bed in which her cousin was by now ensconced.

  Marianne sat propped up on her pillows, glass in hand, and regarded Adelaide with an indulgent smile. The amount of food which that frail, bird-like creature could absorb was quite amazing. All day long Adelaide was nibbling, sipping or toying with 'a little something', none of which deterred her in the least from sitting down to table with undiminished enthusiasm when the time came. Yet for all this she never seemed to put on an ounce of weight or lose one jot of her dignity.

  The strange, nervous, cantankerous creature whom Marianne had found in the salon late one night about to set fire to the house had completely disappeared. She had been replaced by a woman no longer young but whose backbone had recovered all its innate rigidity. Well-dressed, her soft grey hair neatly combed into long, silky ringlets that peeped below her voluminous lace caps and velvet hoods, the erstwhile revolutionary who had been sought by Fouché's police and kept under house arrest had become once again Adelaide d'Asselnat, a great lady. At the present moment, however, she was sitting with half-closed eyes, aristocratic nostrils quivering with greed, consuming chicken and champagne with the dainty self-satisfaction of a contented cat. Marianne could not help smiling. While not perfectly sure that her cousin's conspiratorial instincts were altogether buried, Marianne had grown very fond of Adelaide.

  She sipped her champagne slowly, waiting for the old lady to speak. She guessed that Adelaide had something to say to her, and, sure enough, having reduced the chicken to bare bone and drunk the champagne down to the final drop, Adelaide wiped her lips with satisfaction and bent her blue gaze earnestly on her cousin.

  'Dear child,' she began, 'I think you are looking at your problem from the wrong angle. I gather that your late husband's unexpected resurrection has thrown you into a dither and now that you have seen him you are living in terror of his appearing to confront you again. Is that it?'

  'Of course it is! But I don't understand, Adelaide. Do you think I ought to be overjoyed at the return of a man I believed I had punished as he deserved for what he did to me?'

  'Well, yes, in a way.'

  'But why?'

  'Because now that he is alive you are no longer a murderess and need not fear pursuit from the law in England.'

  Marianne smiled. 'I was not much afraid of it,' she said. 'Apart from the war, the Emperor's protection is more than enough to remove all my fears. But you are right in a way. It is nice to know there is no blood on my hands.'

  'Can you be sure of that? There is still the pretty cousin you stunned so neatly…'

  'I can hardly have killed her. If Francis is alive, I would wager that Ivy St Albans is alive as well. Besides, Francis means nothing to me now and I have no reason to desire her death.'

  'He is still your lawfully wedded husband, my dear. That is why, if I were in your shoes, instead of running away from your ghost, I should do my best to meet him again. When citizen Fouché calls on you in the morning —'

  'How did you know I was expecting the Duke of Otranto?'

  'I shall never become accustomed to calling that unfrocked priest by that title. But, of course, he is bound to come tomorrow… Oh, don't look at me so! Naturally I listen at keyholes when I want to know what is happening inside.'

  'Adelaide!' Marianne was genuinely shocked.

  Mademoiselle d'Asselnat stretched out her arm and patted Marianne's hand.

  'Don't be such a little prude. Even an Asselnat may listen at doors. It can be very useful, as you will find. Where was I?'

  'You were saying that the – the Minister of Police would call.'

  'Ah yes. Well, instead of begging him to lay hands on that precious husband of yours and send him back to England on the first frigate, you must ask him, on the contrary, to bring him to you so that you may inform him of your decision.'

  'My decision? Have I decided anything?' Marianne was more and more at sea.

  'Of course you have. I wonder you should not have thought of it yourself. And while you have the minister to hand, ask him to try and find out what has become of your reverend godfather, that Jack-of-all-trades, Gauthier de Chazay. We shall be wanting him shortly. Even while he was still a little nobody of a priest he had the Pope in his pocket, and you c
an't imagine how useful the Pope can be when it comes to dissolving a marriage. Are you beginning to understand now?'

  Marianne was indeed beginning to understand. Adelaide's idea was so brilliant and so simple that she scolded herself for not thinking of it sooner. The marriage was never consummated and besides it had been contracted with a Protestant: it should be possible, even easy, to get it annulled. Then she would be free, wholly, wonderfully free, without even her husband's death upon her conscience. But even as she called to mind the grave little figure of the Abbé de Chazay, Marianne was conscious of a creeping uneasiness.

  She had thought of her godfather so often in the time since she had stood on the quay at Plymouth and gazed despairingly after the little vessel's fast-disappearing sails. She had thought of him sadly but hopefully at first, but a slight anxiety had grown with the passage of time. What would he say, that man of God, so fiercely upright in all matters of honour, so blindly loyal to his exiled king, if he knew his god-daughter was masquerading as Maria Stella, an opera singer and the Usurper's mistress? Would he ever understand what it had cost Marianne in suffering and blighted hopes to reach her present state and the happiness it held for her? Certainly if she had caught up with the Abbé on the Barbican at Plymouth her destiny would have been a very different one. He would probably have gained admittance for her to some convent where she would have been given every opportunity, in prayer and meditation, to expiate what she had never ceased to regard as the righteous execution of her husband. But although she had often thought of her godfather's affection and goodness with real regret, Marianne was well aware that she did not in the least regret the life that would have been hers in the convent.

  Finally, Marianne put something of her doubt into words by saying to her cousin:

  'It would make me more than happy to see my godfather again, cousin, but don't you think it would be selfish of me to seek him out merely to get my marriage annulled? Surely the Emperor —'