'What else would he do?' Marianne said shortly. 'He would offer me a husband of his own choice – and I could not bear it. I would rather face his anger than submit to his giving me to another. It will be less painful.'
Arcadius de Jolival did not insist. He let fall the curtain and came back to Marianne. For a moment they stood looking at each other in silence, but with a world of affection and understanding in their eyes. Marianne knew that all her own fears about the strange prospect which the Cardinal de Chazay had laid before her had now passed to Arcadius and that he would suffer all the time she was away. Indeed, he was telling her so in a choked voice.
'I hope with all my heart – I hope that Jason Beaufort will come in time. He shall set out again the moment he arrives, and this time I will go with him. But until then, although I am not a religious man, Marianne, I will pray for you, I will pray with all my heart that he will come – come and —'
His feelings overcame him at last and Arcadius de Jolival ran from the room, tears streaming down his face.
Part II
THE MAN IN THE GLOVE
CHAPTER NINE
The Tomb of Ilaria
The rain which had been falling all night and for most of the morning ceased abruptly as the coach left Carrara after a change of horses. The sun broke through the clouds and sent them scudding back towards the mountains, giving way to a wide, sweeping canvas of blue sky. The mountains of white marble which had loomed so dully only a short while before now shone with the dazzling brightness of a glacier carved by some gigantic ice-axe. Blinding arrows of light glanced off every ridge but Marianne was too tired to have eyes for any of it. There was a marble everywhere at Carrara, in rough-hewn lumps, in squared blocks, in slabs, in the white dust lying over everything, even on the tablecloths at the inn where they had snatched a hasty meal.
We supply every court in Europe, in the whole world in fact. Our Grand Duchess sends vast amounts into France. Every single statue of the Emperor comes from here!' The innkeeper spoke with simple pride but Marianne's answering smile was perfunctory. She did not doubt Elisa Bonaparte's willingness to bury her energetic family under tons of marble in the form of busts, bas-reliefs and statues, but she was in no mood today to listen to tales about any of the Bonapartes, Napoleon least of all.
Everywhere on her long journey she had encountered towns and villages decked out, as they had been for a month past, in honour of the imperial wedding. It was an endless succession of balls, concerts and festivities of every description, until it began to seem as if the loyal subjects of his Majesty the Emperor and King would never be done with celebrating a union which Marianne regarded as a personal insult. Their road was lined with a depressing assortment of limp flags, drooping flowers, empty bottles and tottering triumphal arches only too well suited to her own journey, at the end of which lay a marriage to a total stranger which she could not contemplate without revulsion.
The journey itself had been appalling. In spite of Arcadius's anxious protests, Marianne had delayed her departure until the last possible moment, still hoping that Jason would arrive in time. In the end it was not until dawn on the third of May that she climbed into her coach. As the four powerful horses drew the berline over the cobbles of the rue de Lille and Arcadius's troubled face and waving hand were lost in the morning haze, she felt as if she were leaving a part of herself behind. It was like leaving Selton all over again and this time too the future looked grim and uncertain.
In order to make up for lost time and avoid being late at the appointed meeting place, she travelled at breakneck speed. For three days, until they reached Lyon, she refused to stop for anything except to change horses and for the briefest of meals, paying the postillions two or three times the normal rate to encourage them to make better speed. They galloped on regardless of deeply rutted roads that sometimes degenerated into a sea of mud, and still Marianne leaned perilously out of the window to look back at the road behind them. But whenever a horseman did come in sight, it was never the one she hoped for.
After a few hours' rest at Lyon, the coach began climbing towards the mountains and was forced to slow its killing pace. The new road across Mont Cenis, begun by Napoleon seven years before, had been advised by Arcadius because it shortened the distance considerably. But the work was only recently completed and the crossing was an uncomfortable one for Marianne, Agathe and Gracchus, who were obliged to go a good deal of the way over the pass on foot while the coach was drawn by mules. Yet for all that, thanks to the comforting welcome they received from the monks of the hospice, and thanks, still more, to the splendours of the mountain scenery, which she beheld for the first time in her life, Marianne found here a brief respite from her troubles. There was something a little intoxicating, perhaps, in the knowledge that her coach was, if not actually the first, certainly only the second or third to travel that way. She did not feel in the least tired and, forgetting the need for haste, she sat for a long time beside the blue waters of the lake at the top of the pass, conscious of a strange yearning to remain there for ever breathing in the pure air and watching the slow flight of the jackdaws, black against the snowy majesty of the peaks. Time, here, stood still. It would be easy to forget the noise and deceits and complications of the world, its furies and its heartbreaks. There were no faded banners here, no popular songs, no trampled flowers to destroy the harmony of the scene, only the blue stars of gentian in the crevices of the rocks, and the silver lace of lichen. The bare, almost barrack-like shape of the hospice, it too enlarged by the Emperor, seemed to take on a kind of nobility, a strangely mystical air, as if its stern walls were illumined by the prayer and charity that dwelt within. Not until one of the monks came and laid his hand gently on her arm to remind her that an exhausted maid and a half-frozen coachman were waiting for her by the coach, now ready for the descent, did she consent to continue her journey to Susa.
The same wicked pace was resumed. They clattered through Turin and Genoa with hardly a glance. Neither the sun, nor the flower-filled gardens, nor the indigo sea had any power to lift the black mood that settled more firmly on Marianne with every turn of the wheels. She was possessed by a demoniacal urge to travel faster and yet faster, causing Gracchus to look anxiously at her from time to time. He had never seen his mistress so coldly desperate, so tense and irritable. He could not know that as they drew nearer to their goal she was suffering increasingly from misery and self-disgust. Until this point, she had still hoped against all hope that somehow Jason would come to her, Jason whom she had come to look on as her natural protector. Now that hope was gone.
They had slept last night for a bare four hours in a wretched inn tucked away in a fold of the Apennines. Sleep to Marianne was a series of nightmares broken by feverish wakings which left her feeling so little rested that before cock-crow she was up from her lumpy straw mattress and calling for her coach. Dawn on the day that was to be the last of the journey saw the berline with its occupants racing madly downhill to the sea. It was the fifteenth of May, the final day, but Lucca was not far ahead.
'Thirteen leagues or thereabouts,' said the innkeeper at Carrara.
Now the coach was travelling along a level, sandy road, almost as smooth as a private driveway, following the coast. Only the antique flagstones which stood out here and there showed that this was the ancient Via Aurelia, built by the Romans. Marianne closed her eyes and let her cheek sink on to the cushions. Beside her, Agathe was sleeping, curled up like a weary animal with her hat tipped forward over her face. Marianne wished she could do the same but, tired as she was, her taut nerves would not let her rest. The landscape of dunes and reeds, with a few distant umbrella pines standing out tall and black against a sky dotted with fleecy clouds, only served to depress her further. Her eyes would not stay shut and she found herself following the movements of a tartan that was flying seawards under its triangular sail. The tiny vessel looked so lighthearted, rejoicing in its freedom, and Marianne yearned to be out there with it, running straight
before the wind, thinking of nothing else.
She realized suddenly what the sea could mean to a man like Jason Beaufort and why he remained so passionately faithful to it. She was sure that it was the sea which had come between them now to prevent him coming to her in her need. She knew now that he would not come. He might be on the other side of the world, far away in his own country perhaps, and Marianne's cry for help had gone unheard or, if it ever reached him, it would be too late, much, much too late.
A crazy idea came to her, born of a sudden panic and the sight of a dilapidated finger-post on which she read that Lucca was now a mere eight leagues distant. Why should she not escape, she too run away to sea? There must be ships, a harbour within reach. She could take ship and go herself to find the man who, perhaps just because she could not reach him, had suddenly become so strangely dear, so necessary, like the symbol of her threatened freedom. Three times he had asked her to go away with him and three times she had refused, in her blind pursuit of an illusory love. How could she have been such a fool!
Acting on this impulse, she called out to Gracchus who, carefree and tireless, was calmly whistling the latest popular tune from Désaugiers: 'Bon voyage, Monsieur Dumollet, safely land at Saint-Malo . ..' with an aptness of which he was quite unaware.
'Do you know if there is a port on this road, somewhere with a fair-sized harbour?'
Gracchus's eyes opened wide beneath the dusty brim of his hat.
'Yes. The girl at the inn told me. There is Leghorn but aren't we going to Lucca?'
Marianne did not answer. Her eyes strayed once again to the tiny tartan which was now setting course along a golden pathway straight into the setting sun. Gracchus reined in the horses.
'Whoa there!' The coach came to a stand and Agathe opened big sleepy eyes. Marianne shivered.
'Why have you stopped?'
'Because if we're not going to Lucca any more, better say so at once. That's the road there, on the left. Straight on for Leghorn.'
It was true. On the left, a road led away towards hills dotted with cypress trees among which blossomed here and there the red-brown walls of a small farm or the warm pink campanile of a church. On the other side, the tartan had disappeared, absorbed into the red sunset. Marianne shut her eyes and swallowed back an anguished sob. She could not do it. She could not go back on her given word. Besides, there was the child-he made all such escapades impossible. His mother had no right to expose that frail life to the perils of the sea. From now on it was her duty to sacrifice everything, even her own deepest feelings, even her most natural hopes and fears, for his sake.
'Are you ill?' Agathe was asking, watching her white face. 'It is this dreadful journey.'
'No, it is nothing. Drive on, Gracchus. Of course we are going to Lucca.'
The whip cracked and the horses sprang forward. The coach turned its back resolutely on the sea and headed into the hills.
***
Dusk had fallen with a soft mauve haze by the time Lucca came in sight, and Marianne was feeling calmer. After leaving the Via Aurelia, they had crossed over a beautiful river, the Serchio, by a noble Roman bridge and driven over a peaceful, fertile plain towards a ring of hills in the centre of which the city had suddenly appeared before them, pink and charming within its bastion of walls, their sternness lightened by trees and greenery. Lucca, with its tracery of towers and romanesque campaniles, all clothed in softest green, seemed to rise up towards the rounded hills where the last rays of light still lingered in the air.
Marianne sighed. 'Here we are. Ask for the Duomo, Gracchus. That is the cathedral and the inn where we are to stay will be in the square.'
The travellers' papers were in order and the guards placid and good-humoured. After the briefest of formalities, the berline rumbled through the arched gateway just as the tinkling notes of the angelus floated from the belfries out over the surrounding countryside. A noisy band of children followed the coach, struggling to hitch a ride on the springs.
They passed along a street lined with tall, medieval houses. Lanterns were already burning here and there in the gathering dusk. Just as on every fine evening in Italy, the whole town seemed to be out of doors and the coach was obliged to travel at a walking pace. A good many of the crowd were men, groups of them arm in arm, heading towards the main squares of the town, but there were women also, dressed in sad colours for the most part but all of them enveloped from head to foot in big shawls of white lace. There was much talk and mutual greeting, occasional snatches of song, but Marianne noticed that many of the men wore uniform and concluded with a sigh that the Grand Duchess Elisa was probably in residence at her luxurious summer villa at Marlia. If news of the so-called 'cure' being undertaken by the cantatrice Maria Stella were to reach her, Marianne might well find herself the object of an embarrassing invitation which would please neither her godfather nor herself. In fact, Lucca would see the end of Maria Stella's brief career. Henceforth her new identity would surely put the stage out of the question for her. Moreover, Marianne had to admit that she did not feel herself cut out for the theatre and would abandon it without regret. Her last public appearance at the Tuileries had been too painful. She would have to do her best to avoid the notice of Napoleon's sister.
The coach rolled on its way, still with its escort of shouting children, picking up speed as it crossed a broad, handsome square, tree-lined and dominated by a statue of the Emperor, and came to a halt at last before a splendid romanesque church, the solemnity of its massive, crenellated tower alleviated by the lightness of the façade with its triple row of columns.
'There's your cathedral,' Gracchus said.
'Where's the inn?'
'Over there, of course. You can't hardly see anything else.'
Next door to a charming renaissance palazzo, the heavily barred but well-lighted windows of the Albergo del Duomo were plain to see. Honeysuckle twined about the sign which hung over its broad, arched door.
'It looks rather full,' Marianne said doubtfully.
A number of saddle horses stood outside with soldiers at their heads.
'Must be a regiment on the march,' Gracchus muttered. 'What do we do?'
'What should we do?' Marianne spoke impatiently. 'Go in! We cannot spend the night in the coach just because there are people at the inn. Rooms will have been reserved for us.'
Like a good servant, Gracchus asked no more questions but drove through the arched gateway and brought his steaming horses to a halt in the inn yard. Grooms and servants appeared as if by magic from every shadowy corner while the innkeeper himself, armed with a large lantern, came bustling through the door at the far end to bow and scrape before the owner of this elegant equipage.
'Orlandi, madame, at your excellency's service. Madame's visit honours the Albergo del Duomo but I venture to say that nowhere will madame find better board and lodging.'
'Have rooms been reserved for myself and my servants?' Marianne inquired in perfect Tuscan. 'I am the Signorina Maria Stella and—'
'Si, si ... molto bene! If the signorina will condescend to follow me. Signor Zecchini has been waiting since this morning.'
Marianne accepted this without a blink although the name was perfectly unknown to her. Some messenger of the cardinal's perhaps? It could scarcely be the man she was to marry. She gestured towards the uniformed figures that were visible through the smoky kitchen windows.
'The inn appears to be very full?' she said.
Signor Orlandi shrugged his fat shoulders and spat on the ground to show his contempt for the military.
'Pah! The men belong to her highness, the Grand Duchess. They make only a brief stay – or so I trust!'
'Manoeuvres, no doubt?'
Orlandi's round face, to which a flowing moustache like a Calabrian bandit's attempted unsuccessfully to impart a touch of ferocity, seemed to lengthen strangely.
'The Emperor has given orders for the closing of all religious houses throughout Tuscany. Some bishops of Trasimene have rebelled
against authority. Four have been apprehended but it is thought that the others have fled into Tuscany. This is the result…'
The same old story of the antagonism between Napoleon and the Pope! Marianne frowned. Why had her godfather brought her into these parts where the feud between Napoleon and the Church seemed hottest? It would scarcely lessen the difficulties she foresaw attending her journey back to Paris. Even now, she could not think without a shudder of what the Emperor's reaction would be when he learned that, without even consulting him, she had given herself in marriage to a stranger. The cardinal had certainly promised that the man would not be an enemy, the reverse indeed, but could anyone foresee the reactions of a man who was so obsessively jealous of his power?
Noise struck them in the face as they entered the main room of the inn. A group of officers were crowding round one of their number who had clearly just arrived. He was dusty and red-faced, his moustaches quivering with anger, and his eyes flashed as he spoke: ' – a damned, cold-blooded fellow of a servant came and shouted through the bars, above the barking of the dogs, that his master never received visitors and it was no use looking for those confounded bishops in his house. And with that he simply turned his back on me and walked off just as if we were not there! I'd not enough men with me to surround the place but damn me if they'll get away with this! Come on, to horse. We'll show this Sant'Anna what he'll get for defying the Emperor and her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess.'
This martial declaration was greeted with a chorus of approval.
Orlandi had turned pale. 'If the signorina will be kind enough to wait a moment,' he whispered hurriedly, 'I must interfere. Ho there, Signor Officer!'
'What d'you want with me?' growled the angry man. 'Fetch me a carafe of chianti and sharp! I've a thirst on me that won't wait!'
Marianne and The Masked Prince Page 24