Marianne and the Privateer

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  Angry, bruised and half-stifled, Marianne lay, feeling the chaise move off smartly, travelling at first over the jolting cobbled streets of Paris. Then, still muffled in her rug, she thought she heard the clash of arms and a brief word of command, as if they were passing a guard post of some kind, although the vehicle had not slowed down. She guessed that they had in fact passed out of the city limits when the driver whipped up the horses to a still faster pace over a good road in which the pot-holes were few.

  She heard Pilar, above her, give vent to a sigh of relief, and then felt the blanket being moved away from her face.

  'I don't wish you to suffocate,' the Señora said, with insulting solicitude. 'That would be much too quick. Besides, you may as well try and sleep, my dear, because we have a good two hours ahead of us.'

  The Spaniard's feet resumed their position but Marianne had succeeded in shifting herself round so as no longer to have them immediately under her nose, though it made her slightly more uncomfortable. At least she was spared the slight of her foe's complacent expression, and thus able to devote herself to her own thoughts.

  Two hours? At the rate the horses were travelling, and bearing in mind that there would have to be a change somewhere if Pilar intended to keep up this rapid pace, that would mean a distance of about twenty miles. But a knowledge of how far it might be to the place where she was to be held captive did not tell her very much about the place itself, since she had no idea by which gate they had left Paris. Never mind, she knew at least that if she did manage to escape she would have to steal a horse, or else resign herself to the prospect of walking back to Paris – not that the thought frightened her. In order to escape from her captors and fly to Jason's rescue she would gladly have walked to Paris from Marseille.

  Rather than waste her strength to no purpose, Marianne forced herself to relax as far as possible in her cramped position. Old Dobs's advice came back to her now, perhaps because she had been thinking of him before:

  'Relax, Miss Marianne. It's one of the secrets of a good fencer – and of a good shot. It saves wear and tear on the nerves and helps to keep you cool. You have to teach your muscles to relax.'

  Then the old man had taught her how, systematically, to relax her arms and legs, take deep breaths. Now, in spite of her bonds, Marianne strove to put his lessons into practice. At the same time, she did her best to make her mind a blank, shutting out even the memory of those miraculous moments in La Force because she could not think of them calmly, and in the end she succeeded so well that she fell sound asleep.

  She was woken by the soft plop of the blanket landing once more on her face. Almost at once, there was the metallic creak of gates being opened and another clash of arms, as if they had come to a guard post again. Then the chaise was bowling over some soft, smooth surface which might have been the sanded driveway through a private park. They went on for some way but the rug was wrapped so closely round her head that Marianne could hear nothing. Indeed, it was as much as she could do to breathe.

  After what seemed an age, they stopped and she thought that now she would be untied and the gag removed, but nothing of the kind occurred. Two pairs of hands hauled her out of the chaise. There was a splashing and the rattle of a chain, then a soft thud like that made by a boat bumping against a jetty. Her bearers' footsteps, too, had a hollow, wooden sound and almost at once she was deposited in the bottom of a lightly swaying boat. They must be going to cross a river – unless – the thought that came into her mind was a nasty one but it lasted only an instant. Pilar had repeated several times since her capture that they had no intention of killing her immediately, she was to be made to suffer first.

  Someone took the oars and the boat began to move out smoothly over the water. The surface must be quite calm and waveless. A lake, perhaps, or a pool of some kind? Her nerves at full stretch,

  Marianne listened for every sound that might tell her more, but apart from the faint splash of oars and the slightly deeper breathing of the man rowing she heard nothing beyond the cry of an owl in the distance.

  The boat drove against a soft bottom and stopped. Once again, Marianne was seized but this time the hands hoisted her on to a particularly hard and uncomfortable back, as though she had been a sack of flour. Her arms were gripped firmly by a gloved hand that might have been made of iron and a bony shoulder dug into her stomach as she lay, bent double, with her head hanging forward.

  The man carrying her smelled strongly of the stables, with an underlying odour of rancid oil. The combination was a peculiarly unpleasant one but Marianne had little time to reflect upon it before she felt herself being carried up something that seemed to be either a ladder or some very rudimentary staircase. The treads creaked alarmingly and the climb seemed to go on for ever. At last their progress became horizontal once again and at the same time a mixture of dry, country smells, hay and straw and dust, filled Marianne's nostrils, overcoming the human smell. She was dropped suddenly on to what could only be a pile of hay and almost at once her bonds were loosed, the gag taken from her mouth and the blindfold removed from her eyes.

  By the light of the dark lantern carried by one of the men, Marianne saw that she was, as she had guessed, in a large loft three parts full of hay. Just in front of her was a tousle-haired giant, puffing like a grampus, who had apparently been the one carrying her. The other man was still wearing his broad-brimmed hat, long cloak and black mask. Last of all, she saw Pilar come through a narrow opening, which had evidently been formed by the removal of two broad planks from the partition wall.

  'Well, here you are. Make yourself at home,' the masked man said. 'You'll do well enough. It's quite dry and the hay is better than bare boards.'

  'I suppose I ought to thank you,' Marianne said cuttingly. 'I've always liked the smell of fresh hay. But I should like to know how long you mean to keep me here.'

  Before the man could answer, Pilar drew him back with a gesture to him to be silent and it was she who answered:

  'You know that already. I wish to prevent you from interfering with the course of justice. You will remain here until a certain verdict has been reached and sentence duly carried out.'

  'You call yourself a woman!' the prisoner burst out, unable to contain herself any longer. 'You call yourself his wife! You are nothing but a common murderess, a half-crazy, lying fanatic! Is this how you repay Jason for what he did for you? You see, I know why he married you – he wanted to save your life when it was threatened on account of your father's American sympathies!'

  'My father's sympathies were not mine. I should have made my countrymen see where my loyalties were. I did not need Señor Beaufort to marry me for that!'

  'Then what did you marry him for? Tell me that if you dare!… No, you dare not, of course! Well, I will tell you. You made him marry you by pretending to be a poor, helpless, persecuted girl. You threw yourself on him for protection because it was your only chance to get him for yourself! You were mad for him, weren't you? Yet you knew quite well that he was not in love with you!'

  Pilar's foot, in its pointed shoe, caught Marianne agonizingly under the ribs, making her bite back a hiss of pain. In an instant she was on her feet, hurling herself at her enemy, only to find herself caught and held by the two men who had sprung forward to catch her. Pilar gave a small, contemptuous laugh:

  'I said she was dangerous. Remember, she is a murderess who has already killed one woman. I was right, you see, to provide good, stout fetters. Make her fast, Sanchez.'

  The giant grasped Marianne's two wrists in one huge hand and dragged her over the hay to where a brand new chain had been riveted to one of the massive beams. On the end of the chain, which was too short to allow of more than a couple of yards' freedom of movement, was an iron ring which could be fastened by means of a stout padlock. In no time, Marianne's right arm was held fast by the manacle, which fitted tightly round her wrist. The padlock snapped shut.

  'There!' Pilar said with satisfaction. 'Now one may talk to you without f
ear of attack. Your movements will not be unduly restricted and you may await the end of this affair with patience.'

  'Talk!' Marianne retorted with scorn. 'Do not hope to hear any talk from me, Señora. All I have to say to you is this: as you so rightly recall, I killed one woman because she insulted me, as I also fought the man who sullied my good name, and won! You have dared to carry me off and treat me like this to stop me from saving a man you know to be innocent – a man you swore before God to be true to—'

  'He was the first to break that oath – when he forgot me, his wife, and became your lover! He is forsworn!'

  'That is between you and your conscience. And I know of no convent deep and dark enough to shut out the crying of an ill-used conscience. But I will tell you one thing: take care, because I shall escape from you – and I shall have my revenge! Now go away, if you please, and let me go to sleep. I am extremely tired.'

  As if she had lost all interest in her captors, Marianne yawned outrageously and, disposing the straw so as to make a comfortable nest for herself, she curled up into a ball, like a cat, with one arm tucked beneath her head, and closed her eyes. After a moment, she heard the man in the hat say quietly in Spanish:

  'It is best that we should go back now, Dona Pilar. There might be talk… Have you anything more to say to this woman?'

  'No. Nothing more. You are right. We should go back. But keep a close watch on her.'

  'Have no fear. Sanchez will be in the next loft. And fastened like that, I don't see how she could escape.'

  Marianne thought that her persecutors were about to leave her at last but just as she was on the point of moving away, Pilar remembered something. She turned to the giant, Sanchez, and indicating the prisoner, who was still feigning sleep, she said: 'Wait. Go and take all the pins out of her hair. There is nothing like a hairpin for opening locks.'

  The man in the hat gave an obsequious chuckle. 'You think of everything, Dona Pilar,' he said admiringly. 'It makes me very happy to think that you are now one of us.'

  Marianne was obliged to stifle her fury while Sanchez's clumsy paws burrowed in her hair in search of every single pin, but she stuck to her promise not to speak another word to Pilar. It was all over in a minute. Carrying the lantern with them, the three departed through the narrow, boarded door and Marianne heard the sound of bolts being drawn on the other side and a heavy bar of metal thudding into place, as though in a real prison. This was followed by a dry rustling and thumping, as though bales of straw were being dragged across the door. Marianne heard the masked man's voice say on a note of satisfaction:

  'That will do. The door is quite hidden. But keep your eyes open, Sanchez, all the same. They told me no one would come here before the winter, but you never know.'

  From the depths of her sweet-smelling and, all things considered, extremely comfortable couch, Marianne offered a silent blessing to the memory of her Aunt Ellis, who had insisted on her learning several foreign languages. Her knowledge of Spanish had stood her in especially good stead that night because Pilar seemed to have forgotten that Marianne could speak a Castilian every bit as pure as her own. One thing was certain: she was imprisoned in a place where it appeared no one was likely to discover her, but they seemed to have taken elaborate precautions to keep her presence in the hayloft a secret from everyone except those who had actually taken part in her kidnapping. What she needed to know now was just who 'everyone' in this case was likely to be. An idea was already taking shape in her mind. It had started initially from her observations about the length of the journey, which suggested that her rural prison was some twenty miles from Paris, and from the clatter of muskets as they passed through the gate, combined with the extent of the park through which they had passed before entering the boat and, most of all, the precautions which were evidently being taken to conceal her presence. Added to the things Talleyrand and Jolival had said about Pilar's reception by the Queen of Spain and about the attention of a certain Alonso Vasquez, the inference was inevitably that she had been taken to Mortefontaine, to the huge estate where Joseph Bonaparte's wife was living while her husband was attempting to reign in Madrid. Turning the residence of a Bonaparte into one's own private prison certainly showed nerve and a good deal of impudence, but Marianne did not think either Pilar or her accomplices lacked nerve. Moreover, as a hiding-place it was ideal. What policeman would be bold enough to start searching in the grounds of Napoleon's elder brother? Only Fouché would have been capable of it, but Fouché was far away and for the first time Marianne was genuinely sorry for it.

  Lying there in the thick darkness to which her eyes had not yet grown fully accustomed, Marianne was conscious, amid these useless regrets, of a growing, insidious fear which she did her best to thrust away. She knew she must not think about the increased danger to Jason arising from her abduction. She had to keep a clear head and a cool brain if she was to fight at all, and the first thing was to get some sleep. Her aching body and her eyeballs parched with weariness told her that.

  She snuggled further down into the hay and closed her eyes again, forcing herself, as she used to do when she was a little girl and frightened of something, to recall the prayers learned in baby-hood to drive away the fearful shadows of the night. But still her mind would keep returning to Jason and to the moments they had spent together, to the fierce pleasure, half-way between ecstasy and pain, which she had felt in his arms and he in hers, the sweetness of their kisses when their first desire was slaked, slaked only to return again with renewed fervour, and to the wrench of their final parting… They had had so little time. Free, they could have drowned whole days and nights in love, surfacing only to gaze at each other, dazzled by the glory of their happiness, then sinking back again beneath the waves.

  So it was that despite her fetters, despite the peril hanging over her, Marianne was smiling when she fell asleep at last, like a tired but happy child, and her lips still shaped the words: 'Jason, I love you… I love you, love you, love you…'

  CHAPTER NINE

  Concerning the Proper Use of Hay and What May be Found Therein

  Daylight enabled Marianne to take a more exhaustive look at her restricted domain. The hayloft occupied the upper part of a steep-pitched roof-space and the length of the main beam and the impressive structure of timbers which formed the frame suggested that the whole must be of considerable size. At present it was rather more than three-quarters filled with huge bales of hay, too dry and brittle to have come from this year's harvest. The smallest spark would be enough to set the whole lot blazing and Marianne understood why she had not been left a light the night before.

  It was possible to see fairly well during the daytime by reason of a long, narrow opening, like a loophole in the end wall, which could be seen to be very thick. There was also something like a small skylight in the roof itself but it was too small to offer the least chance of escape. Marianne thought she would be lucky to get her head through – and even that with a strong risk of getting stuck. Her chain was long enough to enable her to reach both the slit-window and the skylight. The glass was extremely dirty and dusty but she was nevertheless able to make out the tall slate roofs, noble chimneys and gilded weathervanes of a great house rising above some large trees. One of the towers was flying the standard of Spain and Marianne knew that her guess had been right. She was at Mortefontaine. Farther away and a little to the right, the smoke from a number of chimneys indicated the presence of a considerable village.

  The slit, on the other hand, offered, besides a pleasant draught of cool morning air, a view of a broad, curving expanse of water dotted with small wooded islets already beginning to take on the golden tones of autumn. A light mist was rising from the water, which was opal-coloured in the early light, and the smooth trunks of the whispering poplar trees and the silvery boles of the birches with their crowns of pale gold were like the sentinels guarding some enchanted domain. All around lay wooded hills and gentle valleys, and Marianne, standing with her cheek pressed against t
he stone, thought to herself that she had rarely seen a lovelier, more idyllic landscape. If this was where Queen Julie lived, she understood why she seemed in no haste to leave it for the sombre magnificence of Madrid and the arid sierras. In this favoured spot, life must pass sweetly. Surely the nature which could bring violence and force into such a setting must be singularly warped and twisted.

  The loft itself seemed to be at the top of a fairly high building, a barn perhaps, which also stood on an island, since they had taken a boat to reach it.

  Apart from the mountain of hay, the furnishings of Marianne's prison were minimal. In the darkest corner were a metal basin, a chipped earthenware pitcher which probably contained water, a cake of dark soap, a couple of cleanish, though ragged dishcloths, apparently intended to do duty as towels, and a large bucket for slops. Still, the prisoner might think herself lucky that her captors had thought to provide her with any means of washing herself at all.

  Round about midday, big Sanchez appeared, bringing her food which consisted of some cold meat, stale bread, a lump of cheese, so hard that it seemed unlikely to yield to attack by anything less than a butcher's cleaver, and some rather elderly fruit. But Marianne was hungry enough to set to with a fair appetite for even this unprepossessing repast. While she ate, Sanchez attended to the chores, emptying the bucket and refilling the water jug. Finally, he glared ferociously at the prisoner and pointing one knobbly finger at the food announced: 'No more today. Me back tomorrow.'

  This was one way of warning her to make her provisions last, but all things considered it was rather good news than otherwise. At least Marianne was sure of seeing her gaoler only once a day, which left her more liberty to ponder on a means of escape. It still remained to be seen, though, whether Pilar or any of her associates meant to visit her at all.