Marianne and The Masked Prince

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  She hesitated no longer. In the same instant, the fear which had been lurking in the pit of her stomach all evening vanished. She sped back to her room and began feverishly dismantling the barrier which stood before the panel. With a scarf tied hastily around her waist to confine her billowing robe, a candle in one hand and a pistol in the other, a second pistol stowed safely in her waistband, she descended the staircase for the second time.

  This time, she accomplished the descent swiftly, without hesitation, buoyed up by a rage which banished even the most elementary caution. She had no need to blow out her candle when she reached the entrance: the wind did it for her. It had been rising steadily all evening but behind her curtained windows she had not been aware of it. It was also very much cooler. As she took a deep breath of the night air, she thought that it must have been raining somewhere. The sky was quite light, for the moon was full, but clouds were scudding across it, every now and then hiding the silver disc. The brooding silence had vanished. The park was alive with the rustling of numberless leaves and the creak of swaying branches.

  Marianne plunged resolutely into the cave and hurried through it but in the passage underneath the hill she moved more slowly so as to make no sound. A red light showed from the clearing beyond. The draught in the passage chilled the air and Marianne shivered and clutched the thin cotton of her robe closely to her throat. As she approached the end of the tunnel, her heart began to beat faster but she settled the gun more firmly in her hand and, flattening herself against the wall, ventured to put her head outside. Instantly, it seemed to her that she had been transported back in time, out of the noisy, fast-moving era of Napoleon with all its military glories and its busy, bustling life, back into the darkest, medieval night.

  The statue stood gleaming in the light of a pair of tall black wax candles. More light, the strange, ruddy glow she had seen from the tunnel, came from a pair of low vases which also gave off a powerful, acrid smoke. Between them, a kind of altar had been set up on the ruins. On it, motionless and apparently unconscious since she remained perfectly still although evidently unbound, lay the figure of a naked woman. A receptacle resembling a chalice stood on a small board laid across her stomach. With mingled horror and amazement, Marianne saw that it was Agathe. Even so, she managed to hold her breath, for the silence was so deep that it seemed as if the smallest sound would precipitate disaster.

  Matteo was on his knees beside the motionless girl, but a Matteo whom Marianne hardly recognized. He was wearing a kind of long, black dalmatic decorated with weird signs and unfastened over his chest. There was a gold circlet on his grizzled locks. This was no longer the Prince of Sant'Anna's taciturn steward but a necromancer preparing to celebrate one of the most ancient and unhallowed rites of all time. Suddenly he began reciting Latin prayers at the sound of which Marianne was left in no more doubt as to what he was doing.

  'The black mass!' The thought appalled her, and her eyes went from the kneeling man to the statue which, in that sinister light, seemed clothed in blood. Once, long ago, she had unearthed a dusty volume from a long-forgotten shelf in the library at Selton and read, with growing horror, the details of that abominable rite. Soon, when he had reached the end of his sacrilegious orisons, Matteo would offer up his chosen victim to his goddess who, here, stood in place of Satan himself. Having first possessed her, he would then sacrifice her, so much was clear from the long knife which lay, gleaming ominously, at Lucinda's feet.

  Matteo seemed to have fallen into a kind of ecstasy. It was no longer possible to distinguish what he was saying. The words had degenerated into a form of mumbling chant which filled Marianne with horror. With eyes wide with dread, she saw him rise and remove the chalice which he set down beside him. She watched him covering the unconscious form with kisses. He seized hold of the knife and Marianne's senses swam but, by some miracle, her fear had gone. Leaving the shelter of the tunnel, she stepped out into the clearing, raised her right arm, took careful aim and fired.

  The report seemed to fill the narrow space. Matteo sprang up, letting fall the knife, and gazed about him with a bewildered air. He was unhurt, for Marianne had aimed at the statue, but at the realization that the lower half of Lucinda's uplifted face had disappeared he uttered a dreadful, choking cry. He was about to spring at her, but pulled up short at the sound of Marianne's icy voice.

  'Stay where you are, Matteo,' she said, throwing aside the now useless pistol and taking the other from her waist. 'I could have killed you, but I saw no reason to deprive your master of an excellent servant. However, I have another ball ready for you if you do not do as I say. As you have seen, I am not in the habit of missing. I have decapitated your she-devil there. The next will be for your own head. Carry Agathe away from here and put her back in her room. I shall not tell you twice.'

  It did not seem that he had even heard her. He was on his hands and knees, crawling over the ruins, wild-eyed, slack-lipped, but struggling to get to his feet. He seemed to be in a trance, the sharp edges of the stones and the thorny brambles might not have existed for him. As he advanced towards her Marianne felt her flesh, shrinking at the thought that, to defend herself from this man she was going to be compelled to fire, almost at point blank range.

  'Stop!' she commanded him. 'Go back, I tell you. Do you hear me, go back!'

  He did not listen to her. He had succeeded in staggering to his feet and was lurching towards her, hands outstretched, still with that frightening, sleep-walker's face. Instinctively, Marianne stepped back, then back again, unable to bring herself to fire. It was as if a power stronger than her own will had paralysed her arm. Matteo, with his contorted face, his black robes and his torn and bleeding hands, truly resembled some demon cast up out of the pit. Marianne felt her strength ebbing. She took another step backwards, feeling behind her with her free hand for the entrance to the tunnel, but she must have changed direction without knowing it and met nothing but rampant weeds and branches. The undergrowth? Could she push through and hide? But even as she stepped back again, her foot struck against some obstacle and with a scream she staggered backwards into a bush. Still Matteo advanced, with outstretched hands. She saw him growing huge, out of all proportion. The pistol had slipped from her hand as she fell and Marianne gave herself up for lost.

  She screamed again but the scream died in her throat. There was a sound like thunder and a fantastic apparition burst out of the thicket at the far end of the clearing. A tall white horse and black-clad rider, a rider who reared over Matteo with upraised whip, seeming enormous to the terrified girl. She screamed at the sight. Before consciousness left her, she had caught one glimpse of a broad hat brim and, below it, a blank face, white, dead and featureless, in which the eyes were black, glowing holes, a shapeless thing, hidden in the folds of a flying, black cloak. The rider mounted on Ilderim was a phantom, a spectre risen from the terrors of darkness about to ride her down… Marianne gave one desperate moan and fainted.

  ***

  She never knew how long she remained unconscious. When she opened her eyes, with the sense of awakening from some interminable nightmare, she saw that she was in her own room, in her own bed, and as the mists cleared from her brain, she thought for a moment that it had indeed been nothing but a dream. Outside, a wind was blowing but everything else was quiet. Surely it had all been a bad dream: Agathe's room, the clearing, Matteo's insane attack on her and the fearsome rider bestriding Ilderim? The thought was deeply reassuring. It was all so strange. She must be suffering from an overactive imagination to have dreamed up that ghastly scene.

  At that moment, Agathe was no doubt peacefully asleep in her own little bed, very far from thinking of the part that she had played in her mistress's nocturnal fantasies.

  She decided that it would do her good to get up and wash her face in cold water. Her head felt heavy and her thoughts were still confused. But when she threw back the bedclothes, she realized that she was lying naked in her bed which had been strewn by some unknown hand with sprig
s of sweet-smelling jasmine. Then she knew that she had not been dreaming. It was all true: the clearing and the black mass, the shot that she had fired at the statue, Matteo's murderous rage and the final irruption of the terrible horseman.

  She felt her flesh creep and her hair stand on end at the memory. Was it he who had brought her back here? It could scarcely have been Matteo – Matteo had tried to kill her and she was sure that she had seen him go down beneath the rider's flailing whip. Then it was the Prince who had carried her back, who had undressed her and put her to bed – and who had strewn these fragrant blossoms about her unconscious and defenceless body – had even perhaps – no, that was impossible. Besides, why should he have done so when, according to his own word and the cardinal's, the last thing he desired was to make their marriage a reality? And yet, struggling desperately to pierce the mists that had enveloped her brain since she fainted, she seemed to find there a memory of kisses and caresses…

  A wild feeling that was very close to panic jerked her from her bed. She wanted to escape, at all costs and at once, she wanted to leave this house where madness lurked in wait for her, and where her godfather's departure had left her a prey to all the perils of a house whose inhabitants made secrecy their daily bread. She wanted to go back to daylight and sunshine and the quiet countryside of France, less romantic perhaps but so much more comfortable. She wanted her pretty, peaceful house in the rue de Lille, Arcadius's twinkling eyes, Napoleon's rages, yes, even that would seem wonderful now, even the threat of Francis Cranmere. Yes, anything rather than this atmosphere of morbid sensuality which seemed to be dragging her down and against which all her young, healthy soul revolted.

  Without stopping to put on her clothes, she ran to Agathe's room for the second time that night and found, to her immense relief, that she too was back in her bed. She would waste no time on questions. Who had brought the girl back and what had become of Matteo were things that could be left unasked. She shook the girl so hard that at last she managed to bring her to some semblance of consciousness, but when Agathe, who was clearly still suffering from the effects of the drug, sat swaying in her bed, staring at her with eyes clouded with sleep, Marianne picked up the water jug from the dressing-table and flung the contents hard in Agathe's face. The girl jumped and spluttered, but finally came fully awake.

  'At last!' Marianne cried. 'Get up, Agathe, and hurry. You must pack our things, and go and wake Gracchus and tell him to put the horses to at once!'

  'But – ma – my lady…' the girl stammered, disturbed as much by the sight of a naked Marianne with her hair tumbling down her back as by the shock of finding herself rudely awakened in the middle of the night with a jug of water. 'My lady – are we going away?'

  'This minute! I want us to be on the road by sunrise. Come along, up with you. Faster than that!'

  While Agathe was extricating herself from her soaking bed, Marianne, possessed now by a furious energy, ran back to her room and started emptying chests and cupboards, dragging out trunks from the box room and stuffing things inside pell-mell, just as they came to hand. By the time her maid appeared a few minutes later, dry and dressed, she found her working like a demon in the midst of the worst chaos she had ever seen. After one look, Agathe snatched up a dressing-gown and ran to wrap it round Marianne's bare shoulders.

  'You'll catch your death of cold, my lady,' she said in a tone of strong disapproval, but dared ask no further questions.

  'Thank you. Now, help me get these things into the trunks, or rather, no, go and wake Gracchus – no, on second thoughts, I'll go myself.'

  But here Agathe rebelled. 'You can't do that, my lady! You just get dressed quietly while I go and find Gracchus. You can't be seen in the servants' quarters, going about in your dressing-gown! I'll send Dona Lavinia to help you.'

  Much to Marianne's surprise, Agathe had scarcely left the room before the housekeeper appeared, fully dressed, as if she had not been to bed at all. It might have been the din raised by her mistress which had wakened her but she certainly showed no surprise at finding her surrounded by trunks and boxes and scattered heaps of clothes. Her curtsey was as calm and correct as if it had been eight or ten in the morning.

  'Is your highness leaving us?' was all she said.

  'Yes, Dona Lavinia. And I can't say you seem particularly surprised.'

  The housekeeper's blue eyes surveyed Marianne's flushed countenance mildly. She smiled a little sadly.

  'I have been afraid that it would be so, ever since his Eminence left us. Alone here, you could not help but wake the forces of evil which still hold sway over this house. There were too many things you wanted to know – and yours is the beauty that inspires tragedy. Do not take it amiss when I say that I am glad that you are going. It will be best for everyone.'

  'What do you mean?' Marianne's brows contracted. Dona Lavinia's calmness amazed her. It was as if the housekeeper were fully aware of the night's events.

  'His highness came in a little while ago and sent urgently for Father Amundi. He is closeted with him now. Matteo Damiani is locked up in the cellars and it appears that lightning must have struck behind the hill at the back of the grotto, for I saw a great light there and heard a sound like falling rocks. For the present, it is best you should go, my lady. When you return —'

  'I shall never return!' Marianne declared but the violence of her tone had no effect on Dona Lavinia's composure. She merely smiled.

  'Indeed you will. You have pledged your word. As I was saying, when you return, many things will have changed. I – I think there will be nothing more to fear. The Prince —'

  'I saw him,' Marianne broke in. 'It was dreadful! I thought it was a ghost. I was terrified – that white face —'

  'No,' Dona Lavinia said quietly, 'merely a mask, that is all, a mask made of white leather. You must not blame him. He is more than ever to be pitied. He has suffered cruelly tonight. I will see to the baggage.'

  Marianne watched speechlessly as she came and went about the room, folding dresses and underwear, putting away shoes in boxes and stowing everything neatly in the open trunks. When she made a move to include the jewel cases, Marianne intervened.

  'No, not those. I do not wish to take them.'

  'Indeed you must! They are your highness's property now. Do you wish to cause our master further pain? He would be deeply wounded, believing that your highness held him responsible…' She left the sentence in mid-air. Defeated, Marianne acquiesced. She no longer knew what to think. She was even a little ashamed of the panic which had gripped her but lacked the courage to change her mind and prolong her stay. She must go now.

  Once outside the bounds of this uneasy domain, she would be herself again, able to think calmly and clearly and come to some conclusions, but for the present, she had to go away. It was the only way to stop herself from going mad and not until she had put a considerable distance between herself and the Villa Sant'Anna would she be able to look back on that night's events without endangering her reason. She needed to be a long way from the rider of Ilderim.

  When, at long last, she was ready, her luggage packed, and the sound of the coach outside at the foot of the broad steps, she turned to Dona Lavinia.

  'I promised my godfather that I would wait for him,' she began unhappily, 'yet I am going...'

  'Do not fret, Princess. I will explain – or rather I and the Prince together will explain everything.'

  Tell him also that I am returning to Paris, that I will write to him here, since I do not know where he will go after this. And tell him that I do not blame him. I know he believed that he was acting for the best.'

  'As indeed he was. You will see that one day. Bon voyage, your highness. Never forget that this house is your own, like all our master's houses. You need not doubt that in future he will know how to keep you safe in it and, when you return, do so confidently, without fear.'

  Marianne was sorry for the old woman who was clearly doing her best to remove the unpleasant associations from her mind
. She knew that later on she would probably regret her unheroic behaviour but she knew also that when she returned, since return she must, she would never do so alone. Either the cardinal or Arcadius, or both together, must come with her. But she kept this thought to herself as she held out both hands affectionately to Dona Lavinia.

  'Don't worry, Dona Lavinia. Say good-bye for me to your master. And thank you, thank you for everything! I shall not forget you. When I come back, there will be the child and all will be well. Tell the Prince that.'

  When at last she climbed into her coach, the morning mist was already lying over the park, giving to it a strange, dream-like quality. The wind of the previous night had dropped and the air was grey and moist. There would be rain later but, sitting with Agathe in the coach, Marianne felt safe, secured against all the spells, real or imagined, contained within that fair domain. She was going home, back to those she loved. Nothing could touch her now.

  The whip cracked. With a chink of harness and a faint creaking of springs, the coach moved off. The wheels crunched on the sanded avenue. The horses broke into a trot. Marianne laid her cheek against the cold leather headpiece and closed her eyes. Her fluttering heart was stilled but all of a sudden she felt tired to death.

  As the cumbersome berline ploughed through the early morning mist on the first stage of the long, long journey back to Paris, she pondered on the absurdity of fate, and its cruelty in condemning her to this eternal wandering in pursuit of an impossible happiness. She had come here fleeing from an evil and unworthy spouse, she had come in order that the child conceived in the likeness of an emperor might hold his head up in life, she had come, last of all, in the secret hope of exorcizing for ever the fate that seemed bent on destroying her. She was leaving rich, bearing a princely title, a great name, an unassailable position, but with her heart stripped more than ever of illusions and affections. She was going back – to what? To the leavings of love which Marie-Louise's husband could offer her, to the sadness of a solitary life because in future she must not lose face, and because Jason could not, or would not come. In the end, all that awaited her at her journey's end was an old house, inhabited only by a portrait and by one faithful friend. The unborn child, the future, was without shape or colour as yet. She was going, once again, into the unknown.