'Need you ask? A little more port?'
'Need you ask?' Marianne retorted, feeling an unexpected lightening of her heart.
The two friends drank eagerly to the success of a plan which they had yet to work out and Marianne felt a delicious sense of well-being creep over her. However, it took considerably more than three glasses of port to produce any noticeable effect on Surcouf's equilibrium. Draining his glass to the dregs, he announced his intention of escorting his visitor to the best hostelry in the town to take a little well-earned rest while he took care of the 'little matter in hand'.
'You can't stay here,' he explained, 'because I am pretty well alone in the house. My wife and children are at our house at Riancourt, near St Servan… and I can scarcely take you all the way there. Besides, Madame Surcouf is a very fine woman but I don't know if the two of you would deal together. She can be a trifle stern – and not overly tender-tongued.'
'A tartar!' Marianne decided mentally, while aloud she assured her friend that she really much preferred to go to an inn. She was anxious to pass unnoticed as far as possible and the fact that she was travelling incognito would make it awkward for her to visit his family. She might have added that she had no desire to figure as a nine days' wonder for the benefit of a pack of children, or to listen to a perfect housewife's comments on the price of grain and the difficulties of procuring foreign goods under the Blockade. A room to herself at a good inn seemed infinitely more attractive.
On this comfortable note, they parted, Surcouf confiding Marianne to the care of his man, the aged Job Goas. Job, who turned out as expected to be a retired seaman, was told off to deliver Marianne to the Auberge de la Duchesse Anne – which, besides being the best in the town, was also the regular posting house – and see her suitably accommodated. Surcouf promised to come himself later in the evening, when he had found the man they needed.
It may have been due to the intoxicating qualities of port wine or perhaps somewhat to relief at this swift acquisition of so substantial an ally, but certain it was that Marianne found the inn charming, her room all that was comfortable and the smells which wafted upstairs from the large public room very thoroughly appetizing. For the first time for very many days, life seemed to have something agreeable to offer.
The little town lay snug within its walls but outside the wind was howling with redoubled fury. The night promised to be a stormy one and the riding lights on the tall masts in the harbour were bobbing up and down like so many drunken sailors. In Marianne's room, however, protected by thick walls and thick panes of leaded glass in the windows, all was warmth and safety. The bed, with its piled-up mattresses surmounted by an enormous red eiderdown, smelled pleasantly of linen dried in the sun, spread on the juniper bushes out on the open heath. Tired from her long journey in bad weather, Marianne could have gone straight to bed, but the port and ginger biscuits had given her an appetite. She felt ravenously hungry and her hunger was sharpened by the delicious cooking smells which were seeping through the whole building. Besides, Surcouf had advised her to eat her dinner in the public room so that he would not have to be taken to her bedchamber when he came with the man he had gone to find. The inn itself was a highly respectable one where a lady might eat alone without fear of importunities. Nevertheless, Marianne decided that Gracchus should share her dinner, so as to be on hand in the event of unlikely but still possible trouble while she waited for Surcouf and his friend.
Seated at a small table close to the immense hearth at which a woman in the graceful lace hennin worn by the women of Pléneuf was making pancakes with the aid of a long-handled pan, the Princess Sant'Anna and her coachman applied themselves unashamedly to the enjoyment of Cancale oysters, large crabs of the kind known as 'sleepers' served with salted butter and a vast cotriade, the Breton bouillabaisse, pungent with herbs. They ended the meal with the traditional golden pancakes and sparkling cider.
Marianne and Gracchus were sipping their fragrant coffee while all around them pipes were being filled with the fine tobacco of Porto Rico, when the low door flew open at a vigorous push from Surcouf. His entrance was the signal for a chorus of loud and joyful greetings, but Marianne paid no attention to these. All her senses were trained on the man who entered in the privateer's wake. Most of his face was hidden by the upturned collar of his heavy pilot coat, but Marianne knew that face too well to be mistaken in its owner, even if he had been wearing a false beard and a hat pulled over his eyes, which he was not. The 'man they needed' was Jean Ledru.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Ninth Star
In the little house which had belonged to Nicolas Mallerousse, Marianne settled down to begin her vigil. She was waiting for two things. The first of these was the convict chain which should by this time be nearing the end of the journey begun more than three weeks before. The second was Jean Ledru's lugger, the Saint-Guénolé, which was working her way round the coast from St Malo to lie up in the little port of Le Conquet until it was time to move out into Brest roadstead.
Despite the bad weather, Ledru had put to sea with a crew of ten able-bodied seamen on the same morning as Surcouf had handed Marianne into her chaise and sent her on her way with boisterous good wishes.
The previous night, when Jean Ledru had reappeared in her life, Marianne had hesitated for a moment before committing Jason's future to the very person to whom she owed her own first, highly unenjoyable sexual experience, as well as subsequent trials of a very different kind. Surcouf, seeing Marianne's troubled face, had uttered a shout of laughter and given Ledru a cheerful push in her direction:
'He came to me last March, along with a personal letter from the Emperor asking me to take him back. To please you. So between the pair of us we patched things up – and have not ceased to be grateful to you. That Spanish war was no good for Jean. He did well enough, but he's not at home on shore. And I was happy to have a good seaman back.'
Feeling deeply conscious of the explosive nature of their earlier relations, Marianne extended her hand to her one-time comrade in misfortune: 'How do you do, Jean. I am glad to see you again.'
He had taken the proffered hand, unsmiling. The eyes that were like two blue forget-me-nots beneath lashes bleached white by the sea, remained thoughtful in the face whose tanned skin and short fair beard were still as she remembered, and for an instant Marianne was in doubt of his reaction. Was he still angry with her? Then, quite suddenly, the still face came to life and the gap between beard and moustache widened into a candid smile:
'And I'm glad too! I should rather think so after what you did for me – and if I can repay it…'
It was all right then. Everything was going to be all right! After that, she had tried to warn him of the risks involved in trying to outwit the law of the Empire but, like Surcouf, he would hear none of it.
'The man we have to rescue is a sailor and Monsieur Surcouf says he's innocent. That's enough for me. I don't want to know any more. What we have to do now is decide how to go about it.'
For two long hours, the three men and the girl sat round the table with a pot of coffee and a pile of pancakes in front of them, working out the broad outline of their plan. It was an audacious one but although Marianne's green eyes were occasionally shadowed with doubt, in the three pairs of blue ones belonging to the three men there was never anything but blazing enthusiasm and the thrill of adventure, so infectious that she soon abandoned every objection, except for one final one when the question of the lugger Saint-Guénolé was raised.
'But surely, these luggers are small boats, too small to sail all the way to America? Don't you think a larger vessel—'
She had repeated her proposal, which Surcouf had already turned down with magnificent disdain, to purchase a ship; but once again the corsair king explained to her, quite kindly, that she was talking nonsense.
'This is the ideal type of vessel to pass unnoticed, and to get someone out of Brest in a hurry, especially in the tricky waters of the Fromveur and the Iroise. She holds wel
l in a sea-way and sails close to the wind. Leave what comes after that to me. And don't worry. There'll be a ship for America when it's wanted.'
With this, Marianne was obliged to be content and they parted for the night. All the time they had been talking, Marianne had been observing Jean Ledru, trying to discover from his inexpressive face whether or not he was cured at last of the destructive and ill-fated passion he had felt for her. His face had told her nothing but, just before they parted, he had told her himself, with a little teasing smile on his lips. Rising to put on his pilot jacket he had spoken, ostensibly to Surcouf, but really for the girl's benefit:
'All right if I leave you here, Cap'n? If I'm to sail with the tide I must say good-bye to Marie-Jeanne. There's no knowing how long we may be away, and a man can't put to sea without a last kiss for his girl.'
The glance at Marianne which accompanied this declaration was bright with mischief. It said, as clear as day: 'You needn't worry. It's all over between us. There's another woman in my life now.' And such was Marianne's delight that she smiled beamingly on him and shook his horny hand with real goodwill. So that it was with a quiet mind on the subject of future relations between them that, with Gracchus on the box and under a steady downpour of rain which showed no signs of ever stopping, she took the road to Brest.
Ever since her arrival in that great port, Marianne had made a point of remaining as inconspicuous as possible. Gracchus had driven the chaise straight to the posting house of the Seven Saints and there they had left it. It was a hired vehicle which would return to Paris with the next traveller. Then, modestly dressed with their baggage loaded on a handcart, he and Marianne had gone down to the quay below the castle to take the ferry across to Recouvrance. This way, as Marianne had discovered when she had been staying with Nicolas, was much shorter than going round by the bridge, which meant following the Penfeld as far as the arsenal, passing close to the grim, high walls of the bagne, the convict prison, and the rope-walks.
A fisherman in the blue cap of the men of Goulven had laid aside the net he was mending to take them over in his boat. The weather that day was very nearly fine. The wind that swelled the red sails of the fishing boats heading into the Goulet and smacked in the flags that flew from the great, round towers of the castle was cold but not unduly rough. In midstream, their boatman had backed water to give way to a longboat towing-in a frigate, proud in her panoply of war, even with all her canvas stowed. The rowers, straining at their oars in time to the whistle blasts of the comite, wore the red caps and jackets of convict labourers. There were even some among them displaying with a kind of pride the green cap of the 'lifer' and all, the green caps and the red, carried the metal plate with their number on it. Marianne, seated on the rough, wooden thwart, had watched them go by with a curious sensation of horror and revulsion. The galleys might exist no longer but these men were still galley slaves of a kind and before long Jason would take his place amongst them. It had been left to Gracchus to rouse her from her gloomy reverie:
'Don't look, then, Mademoiselle Marianne,' he said. 'It'll only make you miserable.'
'Right you are there,' the boatman had agreed, setting his craft in motion once more. 'It's no sight for a young lady. But it's the chiourme does everything hereabouts. Those that aren't needed down at the docks work in the rope-walks or the sailmakers'. They collect up the garbage, too, and carry powder and cases of shot. You're for ever bumping into them. After a while, you just stop seeing them.'
Marianne thought this unlikely, even if she remained ten years in the town.
The boatman had been duly recompensed for his trouble and gave them good night, assuring them that if ever they wanted him they had only to give him a shout.
'My name is Conan,' he told them. 'Just stand on that rock there and give a hail and I'll be right over.'
Followed by Gracchus with the big trunk on his shoulder and a small boy humping a pair of carpet bags, Marianne had plunged into the stepped alleys of Recouvrance and headed in the direction of the Tour de la Motte Tanguy. More than a year had passed since she had left Brest on the mail coach but she found her way as easily as if it had been no more than a week before.
As they drew near to the tower, she was able to pick out Nicolas's little house at a glance: the whitewashed walls and granite cornerstones, the high, pointed gable window and the neat little garden, bare now of its summer flowers. Nothing had changed, not even Madame le Guilvinec from next door who for years had kept house for the secret agent without the least suspicion of his real activities.
Warned in advance by letter, the good woman came bustling out of her own house the moment Marianne and her escort had come in sight, arms spread wide and happiness written all over her long, rather masculine face, which was surmounted somewhat disconcertingly by the traditional head-dress of the women of Pont-Croix, in the shape of an erection rather resembling a kind of lace dolmen tied securely under the chin. The two women had clung together for a moment, crying a little as each remembered the sturdy figure of the man who had first brought them together.
It gave Marianne an odd feeling of homecoming to step once again into Nicolas's little house. Everything there was familiar, from the old, well-polished furniture and gleaming brass and copper to the collection of pipes and the tiny figurines of the Seven Saints which stood on a shelf, the well-thumbed books and the little wooden model of a ship which hung from a beam in the low ceiling. She settled into the house more easily even than she had done into the refurbished splendours of the Hôtel d'Asselnat and from then on, whenever the weather permitted, she had spent the best part of her time wrapped in a big, black shawl in the little leafless garden, gazing out at the roadstead and the quays along the Penfeld.
She had nothing to do but wait, now that the matter of a ship had been settled by Surcouf in his decisive fashion. She had introduced Gracchus as her servant, without denning his duties exactly, but there was little for him to do in such a small house and he passed his days exploring the town, roaming endlessly about the neighbourhood of the bagne and the poor area called Keravel which lay in a cluster of tumbledown houses and twisted alleyways between the wealthy shopping street, the rue de Siam, and the forbidding walls of the prison itself. For company, therefore, Marianne was limited to Madame le Guilvinec who would pop in for an hour or two and sit, knitting interminably, by the fire, or to the worthy woman's cat which had promptly adopted her and was more often than not to be found sleeping contentedly on the hearthstone.
Time seemed to stand still. Already it was December and even inside the Goulet the grey waters of the roadstead were rough with the great winter storms. On nights when the wind roared with the greatest violence, Madame le Guilvinec would set aside her knitting and quietly take out her beads, to pray for sailors and fishermen out at sea. Then, remembering Jean Ledru's lugger, Marianne, too, would begin to pray.
Then, one evening, as the short-lived winter sun was sinking seawards into the mist, the town became filled with a clamour so loud that it rose even above the usual noises of the port: whistles blew and there were echoes of commands roared into loud-hailers. Marianne reacted to the sounds like a war horse to the sound of the trumpet. She snatched up her great, hooded cloak and was out of the door, without even hearing the words her neighbour called after her. She sped down the narrow streets in between the tiny gardens, skidding and jumping on the stones, and reached the quay just in time to see the first wagon round the corner from the rue de Siam and turn along the quay towards the prison.
Even at that distance she could not mistake the uniforms of the guards and the long carts with their enormous wheels on which the men seemed to be crammed together more wretchedly even than at the start, but already it was getting dark and the miserable cortege was soon invisible through the skeins of mist rising from the river. Marianne shivered and, hugging her thick woollen cloak more closely about her, she turned and made her way home to wait for Arcadius, knowing that now the chain was there the Vicomte could not be far
off. She had been tempted for a moment to go on as far as the Pont de Recouvrance and wait for him there by the bridge, but then she recollected that if he took the ferry, as she had done, then she would wait in vain.
He came, guided by Gracchus who had found him at the very gate of the prison, just as Madame le Guilvinec was closing the shutters and Marianne herself was bending over a stewpot suspended over the fire, gently stirring a thick and savoury-smelling soup.
'Ah, here is my uncle arrived from Paris at last, Madame le Guilvinec,' Marianne said simply, while the Breton woman fussed about the new arrival. What a long journey indeed! He must be tired!
Arcadius's face was undoubtedly drawn with fatigue, but there was something else in his expression which alerted Marianne at once. His silence, too, was disquieting. He thanked the good-hearted neighbour for her welcome, then went and seated himself on the edge of the hearth, shifting the cat to make room, and held out his hands to the fire without another word.
Marianne stood watching him anxiously, but without saying anything , while Madame le Guilvinec hurried to set the table. Gracchus stepped forward quickly:
'Never mind that, Madame. I'll do it.'
The Breton people are not talkative and they are highly sensitive to atmosphere. The widow of Pont-Croix was quick to realize that her neighbours wished to be alone and lost no time in bidding them good night, saying that she wanted to go to evening service in the chapel near by. Then, scooping up her cat as she went, she disappeared into the night. Almost before she had gone, Marianne was on her knees beside Jolival, who had let his head droop wearily on his hands.
'Arcadius! What is it? Are you ill?'
He raised his head at that and gave her a wan smile which only added to her fears.
'Something has happened to Jason?' she said, anguish suddenly catching at her throat. They have—'
Marianne and the Privateer Page 33
