Marianne m-1

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  'If you are so fond of gossip, my child, you should take more note of the old rumours concerning your forebear, Jean Biren – made Duke of Courlande by the whim of a Tsarina. Was it really true that he was a groom? Certainly, hearing your language tonight, I should be tempted to believe it! You must learn to control yourself, I think. It really will not do to shout in this way in Paris, or indeed in any civilized society. If you are so sensitive to gossip, you should have chosen a convent, my child, rather than marriage—'

  'As though I had chosen it!' the girl said bitterly. 'As though you had not forced your nephew on me, knowing I loved another!'

  'Another whom you never saw and who thought little enough of you. If Prince Adam Czartoriski had been so anxious to marry you, he might have behaved in a less distant fashion, eh?'

  'How you enjoy hurting people! Oh, I hate you!'

  'No, you don't. There are times when I think you love me more than you will admit, even to yourself. Do you know, your little outburst smacks a good deal of jealousy? Now, don't get on your high horse again. Calm down, smile and let me tell you something. I know of no one in this world we live in who does not love and respect your mother. She is a woman born to be loved. So, be like everyone else, my child. This world hangs in a very delicate balance. Take care your tantrums do not shake it.'

  The sobs had begun again. Marianne listened, unable to tear herself away. She had only just time to spring back into the shadows of the staircase when the door was thrown wide open and the prince's tall figure appeared in the doorway. He stepped outside, seemed to hesitate for a moment then shrugged and moved away. The regular click of his stick and the more irregular sound of his footsteps on the tiled floor quickly died away. But, inside the room, Dorothée de Périgord was still crying.

  Again, Marianne hesitated. What she had overheard was a private matter which did not concern her but she felt drawn to the little sad-eyed princess and wished she could help her. Surely, it was quite natural for the child to feel revulsion at the spectacle of a liaison between her mother and her uncle by marriage? Such adventures might be all very well for the fashionable world but no truly pure and principled mind could fail to be hurt by them.

  Marianne sighed and turned regretfully to make her way upstairs. She felt very close to the girl weeping in there. Dorothée was suffering from an unhappy love, as she herself had suffered, but there seemed nothing she could do for her. Better to go back to her room and try to forget, for not for anything in the world would Marianne have reported what she had just heard to Fouché. She was just turning away when, through the now closed door, she heard the girl speak again.

  'I loathe this hateful country! There is no one who understands me! No one! If there were just one person—'

  This time, she spoke in German and with such a mixture of rage and pain in her voice that Marianne could no longer resist the urge to fly to her assistance. Before she realized what she was doing, she had pushed open the door and walked in. It was a large room, rather plainly furnished in mahogany with dark green hangings. Dorothée was walking agitatedly up and down, her arms folded and her cheeks streaked with tears she had not bothered to wipe away. She stood facing Marianne who murmured in a soft voice:

  'If there is anything I can do to help you, please command me—'

  She had spoken in German. The little countess's huge eyes seemed to grow larger still.

  'You speak my language? But who are you?'

  Then she seemed to remember suddenly and the joy which had shone for a moment in her eyes went out like a snuffed candle flame.

  'Oh! I know! You are reader to Madame de Talleyrand! I thank you for your solicitude, but I do not need anything.'

  The cool voice reminded Marianne that she was scarcely more than a servant here, but she smiled without taking offence.

  'You think that so humble a person as myself is not worthy to offer help to a princess of Courlande? You long to find someone here who will understand, yet in me you see a mere servant. What is a servant to you who have hundreds—'

  'My only friend is a servant,' the girl burst out quickly as though in spite of herself. 'That is Anja, my nurse – she is the one person I trust. But you! Were you not recommended here by Madame Sainte Croix? A go between! She may have sent you to the princess but I think the prince was more in her mind!'

  Marianne saw wearily that she would find this suspicion not easy to outlive, especially since she herself, after her first interview with Talleyrand, had been the first to leap to it. Suddenly she wanted more than anything else to clear herself, to take off the mask which Fouché had forced on her.

  'Madame de Sainte Croix did recommend me but I am not really known to her. She does not even know who I am.'

  'Who are you then?'

  'An émigrée – hiding, trying to live—'

  'If that is so, then why tell me? I could call someone and denounce you, have you dismissed, thrown into prison.'

  Marianne smiled again and nodded.

  'Denounce is not a word that comes well from your lips, madame. To gain someone's confidence, one must first give one's own. I am in your hands. Very well, denounce me—'

  There was a pause while Dorothée de Périgord looked more intensely at this girl, scarcely older than herself. The chance to speak her native language gave her a childish pleasure which, with the softening of her glance, was not lost on Marianne. Lowering her voice instinctively, Dorothée asked in a much gentler tone: 'What is your name – your real name?'

  Determined to win this odd child's friendship at all costs, Marianne was on the point of telling her when the door opened again. Glittering in the doorway was the splendid but uninspiring figure of the hussar officer who was the young countess's husband.

  'Dorothée, what are you doing? Your mother is looking everywhere for you. She is tired and wishes to go home.'

  'I felt unwell. It must have been the heat. Mam'zelle – Mallerousse very kindly came to my rescue—'

  Marianne trembled to see how well her borrowed name had been noted. When Dorothée turned to her it was with a smile of real pleasure in her eyes. She held out her hand.

  'Thank you,' she said, reverting once more to German. 'You have helped me more than you know. Come and visit me. I live at number two, rue de la Grange Bateliére and I am always at home in the mornings. Will you come?'

  'I will come,' Marianne promised with the slight, respectful bow over the proffered hand, which her role demanded. It seemed to judge from his look of bored impatience, that Edmond de Périgord did not understand German.

  'Come along now—'

  Marianne followed them out of the room. She had no wish to be found there by the prince. She ran swiftly upstairs, slipped off her dress and, putting on her nightgown and nightcap, jumped into bed and put out her candle. In the light of the dying fire she could see the report she had written lying on the table and smiled. These precious beginnings of friendship were something of which the inquisitive Minister of Police should know nothing. Nor should he learn of the little countess's unhappiness. Marianne found herself thinking of her with an almost sisterly affection due to the discovery that she too, in spite of her princely birth, her brilliant marriage, her fortune and the honours with which she was surrounded, in spite of all that she possessed which Marianne had lost, she too was made miserable and unhappy by the ruthless world of men. The little princess of Courlande had been torn from her own land and life and dreams of love to be used as a pawn on the chess board of politics. She had been taken from the man she loved and forced to accept another, and that other an enemy whom she could not but dislike. And then, to crown all, she was obliged to sit by and witness a liaison between her own mother and another of her enemies! How cynically Talleyrand had informed her that she was merely a child of no importance, not yet wise enough to bow to wordly expediency.

  Poor, angry little Dorothée, trying to fight with her bare hands the whole united force of men and their appetites. What were these people made of that the
Emperor of the French and Talleyrand should join together with the Tsar himself to break the will of a fifteen year old child? Did they feel no shame? What were these policies that still demanded human sacrifice?

  Thinking of her new friend, Marianne gradually forgot her own problems and experienced a certain lightening of her heart. She was discovering that she was by no means the only one to suffer and, in doing so, was realizing her own strength. More than ever now, she was determined to fight the overbearing power of men, their sordid passions and lying words of love. And at the same time she meant to do all she could to help her sisters in distress. And God knew they existed! For one Ivy St Albans, serving men and fighting on their side, she had seen a Dorothée de Courlande sold like so much merchandise, an Adelaide d'Asselnat flung into prison and exiled for daring to say what she thought, an Empress dethroned for failing to provide a tyrant with an heir, a princess of Benevento flouted and ignored in her own house and a countess Metternich abandoned as a hostage. Some day, she, Marianne would show that a woman could beat them at their own game!

  That night, Marianne declared war on men.

  ***

  When the servant whose duty it was to attend to her fire came into her room next morning, Marianne was sitting by the window reading. She did not look up from her book.

  The man cleaned the hearth, piled up the new logs, and revived the still glowing embers with a large pair of bellows. When he had done, there was silence. Marianne could hear him breathing loudly and guessed that her air of indifference made him uncomfortable. Rather cruelly she decided to enjoy his discomfiture. Not for anything would she have spoken first. Either he would speak or he would go. At last, she heard him cough.

  'I think this wood will burn well.'

  Only then did she raise her eyes and saw a man neither young nor old, of average build and unremarkable features. In fact, he was a man who, but for his braided livery would have passed absolutely unnoticed anywhere, blended into any background. The perfect spy. She nodded to the report lying on the corner of the desk.

  'The paper – there on the table,' was all she said.

  The man took the letter and slipped it into his capacious pocket before glancing sideways at Marianne.

  'My name's Floquet,' he said. 'Celestin Floquet. What's yours?'

  'I am Mademoiselle Mallerousse,' Marianne said coldly, taking up her book once more. 'You should know that.'

  'Oh yes, I know that! But that's not what I asked. What's your first name? Between colleagues—'

  Marianne had vowed to keep quite calm but the impertinence of the man stung her to instant anger. If she were to be obliged to endure familiarities from this backstairs spy—

  'I have no first name. And I am not your colleague.'

  Her fingers tightened on the book's leather binding but she made herself keep her eyes firmly on the page rather than look at Floquet's commonplace features. But she could not shut out his mocking laugh.

  'Hoity-toity! Proud, 'aint we! And what do you t'ink you are, my pretty? Just don't you forget that I'm the boss here, see! Who'll bring you your pickings from papa Fouché come pay-day?'

  It was too much! Forgetting all caution, as well as all her good resolutions, Marianne sprang to her feet and pointed to the door.

  'Do what you have to do but let that be all!' she exclaimed. 'We have nothing to say to one another and we never will have. Now go!'

  Floquet shrugged but he picked up his wood basket and the pan of ashes.

  'All right!' he muttered rudely. 'Have it your own way. There's no harm in old Floquet but he's not one to let folk tread on his toes!'

  The moment he had gone, Marianne almost ran to the bedside table, poured herself a glass of water and drank it with one gulp. Her hands were shaking so violently that the glass knocked against the carafe as she poured. Never until that moment had she been so dearly aware of her degradation. That one tiny incident opened her eyes. That a lackey, a common informer should think himself entitled to address her as an equal! She could bear anything but not that – not that!

  Tomorrow, in her report, she would demand, even at the risk of rousing his anger, that Fouché compelled this Floquet to keep his distance. If he did not she would never write another word—

  She heard the distant rumble of a carriage in the street and once again the longing to escape swept over her, irritated as she was by this fresh encounter with the male sex. After all, what was there to prevent her slipping on her cloak, packing her few possessions and hurrying to the stage coach office? She could go back to Brest. Nicolas had returned to England but Madame de Guilvinec would be only too happy to look after her. Or she could go to Auvergne and find her turbulent cousin who might take her in.

  No, she could not do that. If Mademoiselle d'Asselnat were being watched, the arrival of a suspicious, fugitive cousin was bound to cause trouble for her. As for Madame de Guilvinec, Marianne remembered now that she must already have left Recoubrance for Hennebont, where her daughter was ill and had sent for her to take care of her children.

  Then, she had another idea. Why not go to Rome and look for her godfather? The abbé Gauthier de Chazay had as yet no idea of the series of disasters which had fallen on his god-daughter. He imagined her living quietly, if not happily, on her country estate in England. Seeing her in such distress, he would naturally feel bound to help her, but what would this good, kind but unswervingly upright man think in his heart of a Marianne who was guilty of two murders, arson and hunted by the law of two countries? The mere thought that he might turn from her in disgust was enough to send a thrill of horror through Marianne. No, there was nothing to be done. She would have to stay, for a little while at least. There was her music and the worthy M. Gossec, in whom she had placed such hopes, would be coming soon to give her her first lesson. She prayed to God that He too would not fail her.

  Quite suddenly, Marianne's nerves gave way. She threw herself on her bed and burst into tears. She cried bitterly for a long time, swamped by a great wave of misery which for the moment overwhelmed her. To think that in those far off days when she sat poring over her beloved novels, she used to dream of being one of those fantastic heroines who sailed through the direst perils and the blackest tragedies without so much as a crease in their gowns, much less in their pure souls! Her own life was not even a bad novel! It was a farce, a grotesque and degrading farce, a slow and terrifying descent through the mud towards some dreadful and inevitable but as yet unseen abyss.

  Little by little, her sobs died away. She began to feel calm again. She seemed to hear from far back in her childhood the deep voice of old Dobbs who had first put her in the saddle and taught her to handle arms. There was a day when she fell in the river and was screaming at the top of her voice, when he had called to her: 'Swim, Miss Marianne! Don't waste your strength yelling! When you're in the water, you've got to swim.'

  It was true that Dobbs had promptly jumped in too to help her but her own instincts had already come to her rescue. She had paddled wildly, like a puppy, and it was after that she had learned to swim. Well, she supposed it was much the same now. The water was dirty but she could only paddle along, hoping she would soon learn the proper movements and with their help come at last into clearer and more wholesome water. All the same, that very evening, she appended her ultimatum to Fouché to her report. Floquet, coming to light the fire, placed a heavily sealed letter on her writing desk. He neither spoke nor looked at her.

  Inside, Marianne found a note. 'Never fear. You will suffer no further importunities.' It was unsigned. There was something else, too, which made her blush to the roots of her hair. This was a draft on the bank of France to the value of fifty napoleons.

  Torn between relief at knowing that she was safe from Floquet's advances and the shame of receiving money, which in her eyes was dirty and dishonestly come by, Marianne nearly threw the whole lot in the fire. However, she thought better of it and pushed the note into her pocket before putting on her outdoor clothes in preparati
on for going with the princess to the church of St Thomas Aquinas.

  Stubbornly ignoring the minor uproar which her arrival never failed to provoke, the wife of the former bishop of Autun persisted in regularly attending mass in some state and endeavouring to earn forgiveness by the generosity of her donations.

  Today being Christmas day, Madame de Talleyrand-Périgord was exceptionally munificent. As for Marianne, before leaving the church she made sure of slipping Fouché's note unobtrusively into the poor box. That done, she went with a lighter heart and a little smile on her lips at the thought that Fouché's tainted money would do some good in the end, to join her mistress, she was lingering under the bare trees in the square and clearly enjoying the somewhat embarrassed but none the less sincere thanks of the Superior of the Dominicans, to whom the church of St Thomas Aquinas belonged.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Unexpected Guest

  It was a bright cold morning early in January. A pale sun was bravely striking sparks off the stalactites hanging from the roofs and some reflected rays off the ice in the gutters. The keen air reddened the noses of the people in the street but they hurried on cheerfully, hopping up and down the kerb at every break in the pavement occasioned by the carriage entrances of some great houses.

  The rue de la Loi[6] presented a scene of great activity. There were few carriages to be seen apart from three standing outside the door of the couturier Leroy and a hired cab outside his neighbour, the Hôtel Nord, but the street traders were in full cry. A man strolled by pushing a barrow and offering bundles of firewood for sale. Nearby, an old woman with a thick blue woollen shawl over her head was heaving along a great bucket, calling: 'Dried plums! Fat dried plums!' On the other side of the street, a pretty girl in a red and yellow striped dress was crying 'Hot chestnuts!' Not far away, a little knife-grinder was busy on a heap of knives while a haughty looking servant waited.

  Marianne, coming out of Leroy's, paused for a moment to breath in the fresh air. Inside, the famous couturier's salons were in a state of continuous frenzy and the atmosphere stifling. Besides, she had learned to love the lively, colourful streets of Paris with all their passers-by, rich and elegant and poor and wretched, and the host of different street traders crying their wares. She smiled at the little chimney sweep as he went whistling by; he immediately whistled louder than ever, eyeing her with frank approval.