This glorious din, which was to last all morning, announced to the good people of Paris that on that day their Emperor was forty-one years old and that today was a holiday and everyone should behave accordingly.
But there was no holiday for Marianne and so as to be sure of hearing nothing of the general celebrations which would gradually take possession of the capital, she carefully closed and shuttered the windows, drew the curtains and, utterly exhausted, flung herself at last fully dressed on her bed and fell instantly asleep.
***
Marianne's meeting with Arcadius on the evening of the fifteenth of August, while all over Paris people were drinking in the streets and squares and dancing under the street lamps to Napoleon's good health, was almost tragic. His face drawn from the fatigue of several sleepless nights spent haunting every locality where he hoped to find some trace of Lord Cranmere, Jolival reproached Marianne with a good deal of bitterness for what he called her lack of confidence in him:
'Why did you have to come back? What do you hope to do? Bury yourself in this house along with an old fool surrounded by memories of his dead queen and that scheming old woman, still mourning for her murdered lover and her own vanished youth? What are you afraid of? That I won't do all that is humanly possible? Well, don't worry. I am doing it. I'm searching – desperately. I'm searching for news of Mrs Atkins. I spend my nights roaming about Chaillot and the Boulevard du Temple, haunting the Homme Armé and the Epi-Scié. I spend hours in disguise, in the hope of catching a glimpse of one of Fanchon's men, or of Fanchon herself. But I am wasting my time… Do you think I need anything more to worry about – such as knowing that you are here, in hiding, at the mercy of anyone who might denounce you?'
Marianne waited until the storm had blown over. She understood her friend's weariness and discouragement too well to blame him for his outburst, which was prompted purely by his affection for her. To placate him, she was meek, almost humble.
'Please don't be cross with me, Arcadius. I could not stay there, living quietly in the country, while you were working yourself to death here, and while Jason was – was—'
'In prison,' Jolival finished for her tartly. 'A political prisoner. It's not the hulks, you know! And I know he is being treated well.'
'I know. I know all that… or I suppose so, but I was going mad! And when the prince told me he had to come back to Paris, I couldn't stand it. I begged him to take me with him.'
'He should not have done so. But women can always get round him. Well, what are you going to do now? Spend your days listening to Crawfurd extolling the virtues of Marie-Antoinette, telling you in detail all about the Affair of the Necklace or the horrors of the Temple and the Conciergerie? Unless you prefer to hear his wife's life story?'
'I shall certainly listen to anything that she may be able to tell me, because she was born at Lucca and seems to know the history of the Sant'Annas better than anyone; but my real reason for coming back, Arcadius dear, is so that I shall be able to hear any news there is as soon as it is known, and be able to decide what to do… Monsieur de Talleyrand says that things are going very badly and he will tell you—'
'I know. I have just seen him. He told me he was going to seek an audience with the Emperor to try and throw some light on this dreadful business. But I am afraid he won't find it easy to get a hearing. His position is not very encouraging just at present.'
'Why not? He is no longer a minister but he is still Vice-Grand Elector?'
'A grandiose title which is quite meaningless in practical terms. No, what I meant was that Napoleon has heard rumours of his financial troubles and, what is worse, of the reason for them. Our prince was involved to some extent in the Anglo-French negotiations got up by Fouché, Ouvrard, Labouchère and Wellesley. Then there was the failure of Simons Bank – Simons's wife, who used to be a Demoiselle Lange, is an old friend of his – he lost a million and a half there. Above all, there is the four million he was paid by the city of Hamburg to save it from annexation. If Napoleon carries out his intention and annexes it just the same, then Talleyrand will have to pay back the money. At that rate, I don't see him being in high favour at court…'
'Then it's all the more noble of him to try. Besides, if he needs money, I can give it to him.'
'Do you think you have that much? I did not mean to speak of it because I did not want to add to your worries, but this letter came from Lucca five days ago. It came without the quarter's allowance which should normally have been due. You'll forgive me for having read it.'
Foreseeing fresh trouble, Marianne took the letter somewhat reluctantly. She was blaming herself for not having written to the prince herself to tell him of the accident which had resulted in her losing the child. She was afraid of her invisible husband's reaction yet without being very certain what that reaction might be. Something told her now that that was precisely what this letter contained.
In fact, in a brief missive of chilling politeness, Prince Corrado informed Marianne that he had heard of the loss of their mutual hopes, made perfunctory inquiries as to her own health and added that he was in expectation of a visit to Italy on her part in the near future 'so that we may consider the new situation created by this unfortunate occurrence and what steps should be taken…'
'A lawyer's letter!' Marianne exploded, screwing the paper into a ball and hurling it into a corner. 'Consider the situation? Take steps? What does he want to do? Divorce me? I am perfectly willing!'
'Italians do not believe in divorce, Marianne,' Arcadius said sternly, 'and least of all a Sant'Anna! Besides, I should have thought you had had enough of changing husbands every five minutes. Now stop this stupid behaviour!'
'What do you want me to do? Go off there while—No! A hundred times no! Not at any price!'
The explosion of anger which shook her was in reality a cover for her tumultuous thoughts, but for the moment she hated him with all her might, this distant stranger whom she had married in the belief that, in spite of all, she would still keep complete freedom of action, yet who now dared, even from a distance, to dictate to her as lord and master and make her feel the curb. Go back to Lucca! To that house full of hidden dangers where a madman worshipped a statue and offered up human sacrifices to it, where another rode out only at night, wearing a mask? Not now, at all events. If she were to do what she had to do here, Marianne had to be free – free! On the other hand, this act of cutting off her supplies was ominous and more than a little awkward. This was not the moment for anything like that, either, when she might need to bribe people, buy men and weapons… an army, even, to snatch Jason from the unjust condemnation ahead of him. Moreover this letter, the first she had received from Prince Sant'Anna, represented another source of danger. What if it had been opened, by any chance, by the Emperor's Cabinet Noir? A knowledge of its contents might easily give him the idea of removing Marianne definitively from the Beaufort affair by sending her back to her own distant estates. What could she do about it… Then something else about the letter struck her as alarming. What were these 'steps' the prince considered taking? Did he think he could compel her to return to Napoleon so that, at all costs, he might have the child he wanted? Logically, that was the only solution, since the prince could not divorce her. If he had any idea of attending to the matter himself, he would surely have done so long ago? Then what? Why this letter, this thinly disguised command to return to Lucca? What for?
A fearful thought occurred to Marianne. Perhaps Prince Corrado meant to subject her to the fate which, according to Eleonora Crawfurd, was common to all Princesses of Sant'Anna? A violent death that would revenge him for what he might, not unreasonably, consider a fool's bargain. Was he summoning her to execution – in the tradition of his family?
Putting her thoughts into words, she said tonelessly: 'I don't want to go back there… because I am afraid of them all.'
'No one is asking you to. Not at present, at least. I have already written to say that your health is still delicate after your recent
accident and that you have retired, at the Emperor's command, to Bourbon, where the waters are beneficial not merely for rheumatic complaints, but also for female disorders. We can only hope, now that you have seen fit to come back, that no one will be sent to make sure that is where you are. But that is beside the point. I merely wished to make it plain to you that you have no money to throw about rashly and that while you are very far from beggary, you must begin to be a little careful and not spend what you have thoughtlessly. That being done, my dear, I will say good-bye to you.'
'Good-bye?' Marianne cried in alarm. 'You are not – not leaving me?'
It could not be true? Her dear old Arcadius could not be so angry with her as to leave her? Surely he could not blame her so much? Her face went so white that Jolival, seeing the tears that gathered in her big green eyes, could not help smiling. Bending, he took her hand gently in his and dropped an affectionate kiss upon it:
'Where is your common sense, Marianne? I am leaving you – but for a few days only, and on your own business. It has occurred to me that, if he will put himself to so much trouble, Citizen Fouché might do a good deal towards clearing the minds of his former colleagues at the Quai Malaquais, always supposing that the Emperor is willing to let him. I dare not trust a letter to the post, so I am going myself.'
'Going where?'
'To Aix-en-Provence where our friend the Duke of Otranto is wearing out his exile. And I am not without hopes, because quite apart from any kindness he has for you he will be delighted to put a rub in Savary's way. So be a good girl and wait for me nicely – and above all, don't do anything foolish!'
'Foolish? Here? I don't see anything I could do.'
'That depends,' Arcadius said and grinned. 'You might try forcing your way in to see the Emperor, for example.'
Marianne shook her head, saying seriously, as she slipped her arm through his to go with him to the door: 'No, that is one piece of folly I can promise you I will not commit – or not just at present. And in return for that, you must promise me to be quick—very quick! I will be very brave, and very patient, because I know you will bring back the evidence we need. I will be good and wait.'
But waiting was harder than even Marianne had foreseen. Almost before Jolival had left Paris, while the sky was still alight with the many-coloured showers of sparks from innumerable firework displays, the old, stealthy fears returned, insidiously, to take possession of her mind, as if only her friend's presence had the power to exorcize the demons and dispel the evil miasma. It grew worse as time went on.
Shut up in the Crawfurds' house with no other distractions than the detailed inspection of her host's collection of paintings, which was certainly very fine, and walks in the garden where she paced up and down wretchedly for hours on end like a prisoner, Marianne found her hopes melting away, little by little, dissolving like smoke in the chill wind of bad news.
First, she learned that the Emperor had refused to see the Vice-Grand Elector, as indeed it had been feared, and that there was nothing to be done but await the outcome of the very diplomatic letter which had followed the rejection of this request. Next, it became known that Jason Beaufort's trial would open on the first of October before the Assize Court in Paris, and the fact that a date should already have been fixed looked ominous indeed.
'Apparently,' the Prince of Benevento observed, 'the judges are anxious to get the matter out of the way before the new Penal Code which was passed on the twelfth of February this year comes into force next January.'
'What you mean is that the trial will be hurried through and Jason is condemned already?'
Talleyrand shrugged. 'Perhaps not… but, as the English would say, their lordships are certainly a great deal more at home with the old Code. It is always troublesome accustoming oneself to new procedures.'
In these circumstances, it was understandable that Marianne should have begun to sink under the burden of her own gloomy thoughts, especially when the only relief from these thoughts was the conversation of two elderly persons living exclusively in the past. For them, in fact, as Jolival had foreseen, she had become the ideal listener, since her own life was as fraught with drama as theirs had been.
However, if she felt little interest in the doings of Marie-Antoinette, except in so far as they were concerned with that terrible period in which her own father and mother had met their deaths for the queen, Marianne was very willing to listen to Eleonora's tales, which dealt exclusively with Lucca and the strange family into which her own fate had introduced her.
Oddly for a woman whose Italian blood had gifted her with a highly talkative nature, Eleonora maintained a total silence on the subject of her own private life, and especially about the one man who, more than any other, had been the great love of her life, that Count Fersen in whom so many women besides the queen had seen the living image of their dreams. The only sign of emotion which Mrs Crawfurd permitted herself was a small frown and a slight tightening of the muscles round her mouth when her husband, in the course of one of his interminable monologues, evoked the elegant figure of the Swedish count who had died so tragically two months earlier. But on the subject of the Sant'Annas, Eleonora waxed tirelessly eloquent, and so vivid were her powers of description that Marianne, sitting curled up for hours at a time in a deep armchair beside the tapestry frame over which the older woman's hands had fallen still, seemed to see the people of whom she talked conjured up, one by one, by her voice in the shadowy room.
In this way, Marianne learned that Eleonora had been born actually on the Sant'Anna estates. Her father had been the prince's head groom and her mother the princess's personal maid, an office she shared with the mother of Donna Lavinia, the present housekeeper, who was some years older than herself and with whom Marianne was already well acquainted. It was not difficult for her now to recall the sweet, lovely face, with the grey hair and the deep sadness of expression which seemed to carry in it all the latent melancholy of the domain. It did not seem that Lavinia had altered over the years: she had always been quiet, reserved and inclined to melancholy.
Eleonora and Lavinia had, naturally, been childhood friends. It was otherwise with the man whom Marianne had known as the agent, Matteo Damiani, the unnerving worshipper of statues who had tried to kill her once, one dreadful night when she had discovered his secret. Eleonora had been ten when Matteo was born but, maturing young like all southern girls, she had known immediately that the perilous Sant'Anna blood ran in the veins of the new-born baby brought to the villa one winter's night in the folds of her mother's cloak.
'He was the son of your husband's grandfather, Prince Sebastiano, and a poor girl from Bagni di Lucca called Fiorella who no sooner brought the child into the world than she drowned herself in the Serchio. Fiorella was pretty but slightly simple, yet she had seemed happy enough and no one could think what had made her do it – unless it was not entirely her own doing…'
'You mean – someone pushed her?'
Mrs Crawfurd made a vague gesture. 'Who can say? Don Sebastiano was a terrible man – and I imagine you must have heard something of his wife, the notorious Lucinda, the Venetian, the witch whose malignant shade still hangs over the house…'
The quiet voice had changed suddenly and become filled with such horror and revulsion that for a moment Marianne seemed to see the credulous and superstitious peasant girl she had once been. But she herself could not repress a shudder as she recalled the temple and the sensuous figure which reigned over the ruins. Instinctively dropping her voice, she asked with an eager curiosity not unmixed with fear: 'You know her – Lucinda?'
Mrs Crawfurd nodded and closed her eyes briefly, as if the better to remember.
'In fact, she is the only other Princess Sant'Anna I have known. As for forgetting her – I think if I were to live out many lives I could still not wipe her from my memory. You can have no idea what she was like. I myself have never seen such beauty as hers – so strange and yet so perfect – so demoniacally perfect! God knows you are beauti
ful, my dear, but next to her you would have ceased to exist. When she was there, one saw only her. Venus herself would have looked like a peasant girl beside such splendour.'
'Did you like her?' Marianne breathed, too eaten up with the desire to know to feel the slightest pique at the slighting way in which Eleonora had spoken of her own appearance. The answer came like a cannon shot:
'I hated her! God, how I hated her! And even after so many years I think I hate her still. It was because of her that when I was fifteen I fled from my parents' home with a Neapolitan dancer who, with his company, was performing at the villa. But when I was a little girl, I used to hide behind the bushes in the park to watch her pass by, dressed always in dazzling white, always covered in pearls or diamonds and always followed by her slave, Hassan, carrying her scarf, her parasol or the bag with the bread she used to feed the white peacocks in the park…'
'She had a slave?'
'Yes, a gigantic Guinean Don Sebastiano had brought back from Accra on the Slave Coast. Lucinda made him her bodyguard, her dog and, I learned afterwards, her executioner.'
At this point, Mrs Crawford's voice seemed to flicker, like a lamp in need of oil. She felt in the reticule of black silk which hung always by her chair and, taking a pastille from a silver comfit box, sat sucking it with eyes half-closed while Marianne held her breath for fear of disturbing her contemplation. In a moment or two, the older woman resumed more strongly:
'In those days, I did think that I loved her. She dazzled me. But afterwards—'
'What was she like?' The question had been hovering on Marianne's lips for several minutes. 'I have only seen her statue—'
'Ah, that famous statue! Does it still exist? Well, it was certainly very like her as to face and form, but the colours, the subtle shades of life, it gave no idea of those… If I told you that Lucinda had red hair, I should be giving you a wrong idea. Her hair was like a flame, like liquid gold, her great eyes were black velvet and glowing coals and her skin ivory and rose petals. Her mouth was like an open wound filled with pearls. No, there was never anyone like her. Nor was there anyone so cruel and depraved. Anything, human or animal, that crossed her was in danger. I have seen her slaughter the finest mare in the stables in cold blood, merely because she fell from her saddle, I have seen her order Hassan to beat an ironing maid until she bled, merely for scorching one of her laces. My mother never went near her without fingering her beads in her apron pocket. Even her husband, Prince Sebastiano, was forced to fly from her to find rest and peace of mind, and he was thirty years older than she and had loved her and still loved her passionately. That was why he used to spend three parts of the year on his travels, far away from Lucca.'
Marianne and the Privateer Page 21
