Marianne and the Rebels

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  Two hours later, preceded by the Pauline and followed by the other two frigates, the Sea Witch entered the narrow northern passage between Corfu and the wild mainland of Epirus. On their right lay the long green island rising at its north-eastern end to the sun-drenched mass of Mount Pantocrator. It was later afternoon before the four ships entered harbour and dropped anchor in the shelter of the Fortezza Vecchia, the old Venetian citadel now transformed by the French into a strong modern fortress.

  Standing on the poop deck with Jason and Jolival, wearing a cool dress of lemon-yellow jaconet and a Leghorn hat trimmed with wild flowers, Marianne watched Nausicaa's isle draw nearer.

  Jason, bareheaded and dressed in his most respectable blue coat and a snowy shirt which emphasized his darkly sunburned features, had his hands clasped behind his back and was clearly brooding with deep and growing resentment on the realization that Napoleon had now left him no choice: like it or not, he was bound to carry Marianne to Constantinople. When she looked at him with eyes filled with tender hopefulness and murmured: 'You see, there was nothing I could do. The Emperor knows how to ensure his orders are obeyed. There is no escape,' Jason had growled back through his teeth:

  'There is, if you really want it. Dare you tell me that you do?'

  'With all my heart! When I have accomplished my mission.'

  'You're more stubborn than a Corsican mule!'

  The tone was still aggressive but renewed hope had sprung up in Marianne's heart. She knew that Jason had too much honesty, where both himself and others were concerned, not to admit the inevitable. From the moment that Marianne's will ceased to be her own and became the prey of external forces, he was able to silence his masculine pride and return to her without losing face in his own eyes. Moreover, when her hand had brushed his, timidly, he had not withdrawn it.

  Corfu harbour presented a smiling picture which went well with Marianne's new mood. The black hulls and gleaming brasswork of the warships of the French fleet mingled with the brightly painted Greek boats, decorated like antique vases, with their curiously shaped sails.

  Beyond rose the flat white houses, shaded by ancient fig trees, lying within the circling arm of the Venetian ramparts, grey and hoary with age, which went none the less by the hopeful name of the New Fort. The old fort, the Fortezza Vecchia, was at the other end of the harbour, a heavily fortified peninsula attached to the mainland by a steeply sloping esplanade and looking frowningly out to sea. Only the tricolor flag flying from the keep provided a touch of gaiety.

  The quayside was enamelled like a meadow in springtime with a cheerful motley crowd in which the brilliant reds of Greek costumes mingled with the light dresses and pastel-shaded parasols belonging to the wives of officers of the garrison. There was a joyous hubbub of talk, laughter and song and sporadic outbursts of applause from the throng, all backed by the mewing of the gulls.

  'What a delightful place!' Marianne exclaimed softly, wholly won over. 'How happy they all look!'

  'A bit like dancing on the edge of a volcano,' Jolival said. 'Too many people would like to get their hands on the island for the people to be quite as happy as they look. But it's a land made for loving, that I grant you.'

  He helped himself to a pinch of snuff, then added, with elaborate casualness: 'It was here, wasn't it, that Jason – the Argonaut, I mean – brought Medea and married her after he had stolen her away from her father, the King of Colchis, along with the Golden Fleece?'

  This apt allusion to classical mythology earned him a scowl from the American Jason and a short answer.

  'That's enough classics for one day, Jolival,' Jason warned him curtly. 'I don't care much for legends unless they end happily. Medea was an atrocious female, murdering her own children in a fit of jealousy!'

  The vicomte, elegantly flicking a grain of snuff from the revers of his cinnamon coloured coat, was unperturbed by the brusqueness of his tone, and merely laughed.

  'Who can tell where jealousy may lead? Wasn't it St Augustine who said that the measure of love is to love without measure? Great words, and how true! As for legends, there is always a way round them. To have a happy ending it's often enough to want one – and to alter a few lines.'

  The brig had no sooner come alongside than she was mobbed by a noisy, colourful throng who swarmed aboard, all anxious to get a look at the new arrivals from the other side of the world. It was not often that the American flag was seen in the eastern Mediterranean. Furthermore, the word had gone around that there was a grand court lady on board and everyone was eager to see her. Jason had to post Kaleb and two more of the strongest men in the ship's company at the foot of the poop ladder to save Marianne from suffocation.

  He did, however, allow up one gentleman, elegantly attired in a coat of sky-blue superfine and fawn-coloured pantaloons for whom Captain Montfort was doing his best to make a way through the crowd, although even then the gentleman's magnificent cream-coloured neckcloth came very near to suffering irreparable damage. After them, like a splendid shadow, came the colonel of the 6th Regiment of the Line.

  Shouting to make himself heard above the din, Montfort managed to present the newcomers, Colonel Pons, who came to welcome her on behalf of the Governor, General Donzelot, and Senator Alamano, one of the principal personages of the island, who had a request to make to her. In a flowery speech which lost much of its elegance through being shouted at the top of his voice, the senator invited Marianne 'and her suite' to go ashore and accept the hospitality of his house for as long as the Sea Witch remained in harbour for repairs.

  'I assure your ladyship that you will find it vastly more comfortable than remaining on board ship, agreeably as I am sure you are accommodated, and offering much more protection from vulgar curiosity. If you remain here you will have neither rest nor quiet, and Countess Alamano, my wife, would be grieved to be denied the pleasure of entertaining your ladyship.'

  'If I may add my word to what the senator has said,' Colonel Pons put in, 'I should add that while the Governor would be most happy to offer her the hospitality of the Fort, he feels that the senator's house is much more suited to the accommodation of a young and lovely lady.'

  Marianne hesitated. She had no wish to leave the ship because that would mean leaving Jason, and just at the moment when he was showing some signs of weakening. On the other hand, she could not very well disappoint these people when they were giving her such a kindly welcome. The senator was a plump, smiling man whose bravely curling whiskers did their utmost to impart an air of ferocity to his good-natured face.

  She glanced at Jason and saw him smile for the first time in many days.

  'Loth as I am to part with you, ma'am, I believe that these gentlemen are right. While we are undergoing repairs – a matter of three or four days I should think – your life on board would be exceedingly uncomfortable, quite apart from the curiosity you would arouse. This will enable you to rest and relax.'

  'You will come and visit me ashore?'

  His smile broadened, lifting one corner of his mouth with the familiar irony, but the eyes which met hers had recovered nearly all their old tenderness. He took her hand and kissed it quickly.

  'Most certainly. Unless the senator forbids me his house.'

  'I? Why, my dear Captain, my house, my family and all I have are yours! You may move in for weeks at a time with your whole crew if you've a mind. It would make me the happiest of men.'

  'Then you must be the owner of vast estates, indeed, sir,' Jason answered him, laughing. 'But I fear that would be to impose on you rather too much. If you'll go ashore, ma'am, I'll see that your maid follows with such baggage as you require. For the present, then, good-bye.'

  A brief order, a twittering of pipes and the crew had cleared the deck for Marianne and her escort to leave. She took the senator's proffered arm and accompanied by Arcadius and by Agathe, who was evidently delighted at the prospect of setting foot on dry land again, made her way to the gangway to cross the plank linking ship to shore. The senator
went first, holding her hand with the satisfied air of King Mark presenting Isolde to his people.

  Marianne descended graciously to the cheers of the crowd delighted by her beauty and her smile. She was happy. She felt beautiful and admired and marvellously young and, more than all this, she did not need to turn her head to know that she was watched by one pair of eyes whose regard she had almost despaired of ever regaining.

  And then, just as her foot, in its yellow silk slipper, touched the warm stone of the quay, it happened; precisely as it had happened before, one night at the Tuileries, over a year ago. Then it had been in the Emperor's cabinet, after that concert when she had braved his anger by walking off the stage right in the middle of a song, without a word of explanation… after the terrible quarrel which had taken place between herself and the master of Europe. Without warning, the white town, the blue sea and green trees and the multi-coloured crowd all merged into an insane kaleidoscope. Marianne's eyes swam and her stomach heaved wildly.

  Just before she slipped into unconsciousness and the arms of the senator, who opened them in the nick of time, there was an instant's realization that happiness was not to be, not yet. The evil consequences of her Venetian nightmare were not yet done.

  ***

  Senator Alamano's house was situated not far from the village of Potamos, a couple of miles from the town. It was simple, white and spacious, and the surrounding garden was a perfect earthly paradise in miniature – a paradise in which nature, almost unaided, had played the role of gardener. Orange and lemon trees, citrons and pomegranates, bearing flowers and fruit together, alternated with arbours of vines, all tumbling headlong down to the sea. The heady scent of flowers was lightened by the freshness of a spring that tumbled down a bed of mossy rocks to form a tiny stream whose clear waters played mischievous hide-and-seek about the garden with the myrtles and the huge sprawling fig trees contorted with age. House and garden nestled in the hollow of a valley whose slopes were silvered over with hundreds of olive trees.

  The woman who ruled over this miniature Eden, and over the senator as well, was small, busy and irrepressibly gay. Much younger than her husband who, although he would never have admitted it, was well on the way to a youthful fifty, Countess Maddalena Alamano had a real Venetian head of hair, made of fire and honey, and a true Venetian way of speaking, fast, soft and slurred, and by no means easy to follow until one got used to it. She was pretty rather than beautiful, with small, delicate features, an impudent tip-tilted nose, eyes bright with mischief, and the prettiest hands in the world. Besides being kind, generous and hospitable, she also possessed a busy tongue, capable of diffusing an incredible amount of gossip in the shortest possible space of time.

  The curtsy with which she greeted Marianne on her jasmine-covered terrace was stately enough to have satisfied a Spanish camarera mayor, but she spoilt it immediately by running forward to embrace her with a spontaneity that was wholly Italian.

  'I am so happy to see you,' she explained. 'I was so afraid that you would sail right past our island! But now you are here and everything is all right. It is such a pleasure… such a real happiness! And how pretty you are! But so pale… so very pale! Are you—'

  But here her husband broke in. 'Maddalena, you are tiring the Princess. She needs rest rather than chatter. She was unwell leaving the boat. The heat, I daresay.'

  The Countess snorted.

  'At this hour of day? It's practically dark! More likely that abominable smell of rancid oil that's always hanging over the harbour! When are you going to admit it, Ettore, that the oil warehouse ought to be moved. It makes everything smell horrible. Come, dear Princess. Your room is quite ready for you.'

  'I am putting you to all this trouble,' Marianne said with a sigh. She smiled in a friendly way at the vivacious little woman. 'It makes me quite ashamed to arrive here and go straight to bed. But it's true, I do feel rather tired tonight. Tomorrow I'll be better, I'm sure, and we shall be able to improve our acquaintance.'

  The room which had been made ready for Marianne was pretty and picturesque and very welcoming. The bright red hangings, embroidered in black, white and green by the women of the island, stood out cheerfully against the plain white painted walls which showed up the fine Venetian furniture, in striking contrast to the rustic simplicity of the setting. A touch of comfort was added by the warm red Turkish rugs scattered on the white marble floor, the Rhodes pottery on the dressing-table, and the alabaster lamps. The windows, framed with jasmine, were wide open on the darkened garden but were fitted with fine-mesh screens as a barrier between the mosquitoes outside and the people inside the house.

  There was a bed for Agathe in the dressing-room and Jolival, after a flowery exchange of compliments with his hostess, found himself assigned to a room nearby. He had made no comment when Marianne had come to herself again in the senator's carriage but from that moment, his eyes had not left her, and Marianne knew her old friend too well not to discern the anxiety underlying his lighthearted courtesy to their hosts.

  After a dinner eaten with the senator and his wife, he came up to Marianne's room to bid her good night, and she saw by the way he quickly extinguished his cigar that he had guessed the real reason for her faint.

  'How do you feel?' he asked quietly.

  'Much better. I have not felt faint again.'

  'But you will do, I think… Marianne, what are you going to do?'

  'I don't know.'

  Silence fell. Marianne stared down at her fingers, fiddling nervously with the lace edging on her sheet. The comers of her mouth turned down a little, in the way they had when she was going to cry. All the same she did not cry, but when she looked up suddenly her eyes were dark with pain and there was a little roughness in her voice.

  'It's so unfair, Arcadius! Everything was going to be all right. Jason was beginning to understand, I think, that I couldn't shirk my duty. He was going to come back to me, I know he was! I could feel it! I saw it in his eyes. He still loves me!'

  'Did you doubt it?' Jolival exploded. 'I didn't! You should have seen him just now, when you fainted. He nearly fell in the sea, jumping straight from the stern rail to the quay. He literally tore you out of the senator's arms and carried you to the carriage to get you away from the crowd, who were sympathetic but horribly curious. Even then he would only agree to let the carriage go after I assured him that it was nothing. That quarrel of yours was only a misunderstanding brought about by his pride and obstinacy. He loves you more than ever.'

  'Well, misunderstanding won't be the word for it if he ever finds out about – about my condition! Arcadius, we've got to do something! There are drugs, ways of getting rid of – of it.'

  'They can be dangerous. These things often end in tragedy.'

  'As if I cared! Can't you understand I'd rather die a hundred times than give birth to this – oh, Arcadius! It's not my fault but it disgusts me! I thought I'd washed it all away, but it is too strong. It's come back and now it's taking possession of me! Help me, my friend… try and find me some potion, anything…'

  Her head on her knees, cradled in her folded arms, she had begun to cry soundlessly, and to Jolival that silence was worse than any sobs. Marianne had never seemed to him more wretched and defenceless than she was then, finding herself a prisoner of her own body, the victim of a mischance which could cost her all her life's happiness.

  After a moment, he sighed. 'Don't cry. It does no good and will only make you ill. You must be brave if you are to overcome this new ordeal.'

  'I'm tired of ordeals,' Marianne cried. 'I've had more than my share.'

  'Maybe so, but you've got to go through with this one, all the same. I'll try and see if it's possible to find what you want on this island but it's not going to be easy and we haven't much time. The language they talk in these parts nowadays hasn't much in common with the Greek of Aristophanes that I learned at school, either, but I'll try, I promise you.'

  Feeling a little calmer now that she had shared some of h
er anguish with her old friend, Marianne managed to get a good night's sleep and woke the next morning so completely refreshed that she was seized with doubts. Perhaps, after all, her faintness had been due to some quite different cause? There was certainly a most unpleasant smell of oil about the harbour. But in her heart she knew that she was trying to deceive herself with false hopes. There was the physical proof whose presence, or more precisely absence, corroborated all too surely her own spontaneous diagnosis.

  As she got out of her bath, she stood for a moment staring at herself in the mirror with a kind of horrified disbelief. It was much too soon as yet for anything to show. Her body looked the same as ever, just as slim and unmarked, and yet she felt for it the kind of revulsion inspired by a fruit that looks perfect outside yet is eaten away by maggots within. She almost hated it. It was as though, by admitting an alien life to enter and grow there, it had somehow betrayed her and become something apart from herself.

  'You're coming out of there,' she threatened under her breath. 'Even if I have to have a fall or climb the masthead to do it. There are a hundred ways of getting rid of rotten fruit, as Damiani knew when he tried to keep his eye on me.'

  With this object in mind, she began by asking her hostess if it were possible to have the use of a horse. An hour or two's gallop could have amazing results for one in her condition. But when she asked the question, Maddalena looked at her with eyes wide with astonishment.

  'Horse riding? In this heat? We have a little coolness here but the moment you are out of the shade of the trees—'