'What do you take me for—' she began.
'For a delightful girl with no more sense than I have in my little finger! My exquisite child, you have a genius for getting yourself into impossible situations. To tell the truth, you remind me of a little scatter-brain white seagull setting out blindly to cross the ocean taking it for nothing more than a creek and without the first idea what to do about it. I am telling you that if you stay here, sooner or later you will fall victim to that old lecher Talleyrand.'
'And I tell you I shall not! You spoke, just now, of my voice. It is to that I look for my escape. I am taking lessons every day and my teacher has promised that I shall sing, and triumph, in all the great theatres of Europe. He says I can become the greatest singer of the age!'
Beaufort shrugged.
'The theatre? Is it in the theatre you hope to find a place and a future worthy of you?' Jason's voice hardened. 'If you had the voice of the archangel Gabriel himself, I would beg you to remember who you are. The daughter of the Marquis d'Asselnat treading the boards! Are you mad, indeed, or merely half-witted?'
He was growing really angry now. Marianne saw the knuckles whiten below his lace cuffs and his hawk-like face harden unbelievably.
'Neither mad, nor half-witted,' Marianne raged at him. 'I want to be free, free, do you hear! Don't you understand that Marianne d'Asselnat is no more, that she is dead, that she died one night last autumn – and you killed her! How can you come here now and talk about my name and family? Did you think of that the night you played for me at cards, like a mere chattel, a slave to be disposed of at will? You cared little enough that night for the Marquis d'Asselnat, who died for his beliefs and for his king. You treated his daughter with no more respect than any sailor's drab!'
There were tears of rage and misery in her eyes and Jason recoiled before the violence of her attack. He had paled under his tan and was looking at her grief-stricken face with a kind of helpless pain.
'I did not know,' he said in a low voice. 'I swear to you, by my mother's memory, that I did not know. How could I have done?'
'Know what?'
'What you were like. I had never met you. What did I know of you? Your name, your family—'
'My fortune!' Marianne snapped viciously.
'Your fortune, to be sure. But Francis Cranmere and his friends I did know, and the lovely Ivy in particular. I knew them to be rotten to the core, utterly vicious and corrupt, without principle and without honour, wholly given over to the pleasures of sport, gaming and foolish wagers. How was I to guess that you were not the faithful copy of Ivy St Albans, a girl of noble birth and apparent purity, who was yet capable of giving herself to two complete strangers in a single night simply to get some money for her precious Francis? Francis was to marry you, why should you be any different? Birds of a feather, after all! And it seemed to me, Marianne, that you could not be other than Cranmere because you had consented to marry him, and because your friends had given you to him, knowing quite well what he was—'
'My friends?' Marianne said sadly. 'Never for one moment would Aunt Ellis have believed that the son of the one man she ever loved could be a worthless libertine. And she died, a week before my marriage. I was alone, in the power of a man who wanted only my money and you had no pity for me, you robbed me faster than he would have done!'
'It was not I who robbed you. It was he. I did not prompt him to stake your fortune.'
'But neither did you stop him! No, when he had nothing left to stake, you thought of me.'
'No! No, I swear to you! The idea came from Francis, it was his own suggestion to make you the stake in a final attempt to recover all.'
'And you agreed, naturally.'
'Why not? Since he had the effrontery to offer me your kisses and your person, he must know you would agree. Understand me, Marianne, I thought you as vicious as he was. Hadn't I heard him, a few days before your marriage, laughing and promising to lend you to Lord Moira when he himself had rubbed off some of your delicious bloom. And adding that he was confident of success with you? But had I known you, Marianne, I should never have agreed to play with him. I swear to you.'
'You swear too much,' Marianne said wearily. 'I do not ask you to – and I do not believe you. You saw me during the ceremony. Did I really look to you like a girl who would give herself to anyone?'
'No, you did not. But a woman's face may be deceptive, and – you were so beautiful. So very beautiful—'
Marianne gave a hard, contemptuous little laugh. 'I see. And the opportunity too was beautiful, was it not? It was so easy! You wanted me and you could have me with my own husband's blessing!'
Jason turned and walked slowly to the hearth. Marianne could not see his face but she saw the hands clasped behind his back tighten nervously.
In the few minutes silence which fell between them, Marianne was able to take stock of what he had just told her. The ignominy of Francis's offering her to his friend, even before their marriage, perhaps even in return for money. Ivy, prostituting herself so that her lover might live in luxury. Into what a sink had she fallen, and how little compunction she felt now for the death of those two! They had not deserved to live. Suddenly Jason spoke fiercely, still with his back to her.
'I admit it. I did want you, wanted you more than I thought I could want anything again! Wanted you so much that I was ready, in return for just one night of love, to give up the fortune I had won against all hope and of which I stood in such desperate need. Had I lost, I had lost everything – and you would have had your wedding night as though nothing had happened, though a little late maybe, and afterwards been handed over graciously to Lord Moira! But for a little while, you were more to me than the whole world, more than my own future, more than fortune! You were my fortune – and I would have been fool enough to give it all back to you in return for the joy of holding you for a few hours in my arms.'
Marianne was stirred despite her anger by the depth of passion in his voice. Silence fell once more inside the pretty room. In the hearth, a log split asunder and collapsed in a pool of red embers. The American stood very still but it seemed to Marianne that his broad shoulders drooped and bowed, as though under the force of some strong feeling. For a moment, she was tempted to go to him and try and find out how much sincerity was in his words, but she was too distrustful, too much on her guard against men's wiles. And this man was the architect of all her wretchedness. She could not forget that. It was time to make an end.
'Is that all you have to say to me?' she said with a sigh.
'No. I have not yet done.'
He swung round and came to her. Marianne could discern in his features no trace of the violence of a moment before. He was grave but calm.
'Marianne,' he said quietly, 'try and hear me out without losing your temper. I am sincere, I beg you to believe that. You should not, you cannot stay here. No, don't speak. I know what I am saying. If I am here tonight at all, it is solely because of you.'
'Because of me?'
'Yes. I have sought you all the way from England. I learned at Plymouth that you had gone to France and so I came.'
'How did you find me? You had me followed, is that it?' She thought suddenly of the black cab.
'By no means. I have some connections – among others at the Ministry of Police. Maillocheau, citizen Fouché's secretary, has some obligation to me. Your description was enough – especially since you arrived in company with so remarkable a man as the renowned Surcouf – and by the by, I'm still not sure how you managed to board the King of the Corsairs. It is not given to everyone to lead the sea tiger on a leash.'
The atmosphere relaxed. Despite herself, Marianne smiled, remembering her friend of a day. She had thought of him more than once and always with a kind of tenderness that belonged to someone she could have loved. But she would not let Beaufort use him to get the better of her and dismissed the Corsair with a wave of her hand.
'So,' she said, 'you sought me, you have found me and you are trying to
persuade me to leave this house. May I ask where you would have me go?'
Again there was silence, inhabited by the living presence of the fire. The scent of burning pine logs filled the room with warm, peppery fragrance. In spite of herself, Marianne found her eyes captured and held by the American's blue ones. She stood and faced him, like a sparrow mesmerized by a bird of prey – only the falcon's claws were, all at once, oddly gentle on her shoulders. She made no move to shake them off.
With a movement too quick and light for Marianne to be aware what he was doing, Jason unfastened the satin ribbons holding the black cloak and slipped it off her shoulders. The heavy dark folds sank down to the ground, and the slender green form, released, seemed to shoot up before him like a slim fountain from a black rock. He contemplated her for a moment and Marianne stood, riveted by that sparkling gaze, not daring to move. It seemed to her, though why she should have such a strange idea she could not have said, that if she moved at all or said a word something rare and precious would be broken. In the end, it was he who sighed and spoke first.
'You are too beautiful,' he said sadly. 'It is not right for anyone to be so beautiful. It is perilous – yes, perilous. While you stay here, you will be in danger. You must leave this house, this land – or else, sooner or later, you will suffer for it. Sirens are not made to tread earthly roads. They are daughters of the sea and their happiness can come only from the sea – and I have never met anyone who was so much like a siren as you! Come with me to the sea, Marianne—'
Drawn by the depths of the green eyes looking into his and by the freshness of the lips slightly parted to reveal moist, shining teeth, and mastered perhaps by a passion beyond his control, he made a move to draw her to him. But Marianne recoiled with an instinctive fear from the threatened kiss. The spell was broken. The sparrow shook out its feathers.
'This is the second time,' she said coldly, 'that you have offered to take me away. Why should you imagine I am more likely to agree now than on my wedding night?'
'Because you are alone and friendless, a prey for all dangers and all snares. Do you think you can go on with this fugitive life, hiding under borrowed names, at the mercy of anyone who cares to blackmail or betray you? What I am offering you is a free life in a new land, my own. I do not even ask you to be mine – merely to come with me. I have a ship—'
'I know!' Marianne cried. 'And I know too how you came by it. Do you think I could ever forget that? No, Jason Beaufort, that memory will burn within me as long as I live, as cruel as the hatred—'
'I am not asking you to forget,' Beaufort said impatiently. 'I am asking you to come with me, to let me save you. I swear to you you are in danger here.'
'France and England are at war. The English law will not come for me here.'
'It is not that! You are in danger from something far worse than the English law.'
'What kind of danger?'
'I cannot tell you. But it is serious.'
'If you want me to believe you, you must tell me what it is.'
'I cannot. It is not possible—'
'Then I am not interested. Nor am I interested in your warnings. Besides, supposing I am in danger, why are you so anxious to save me?'
'Perhaps because I have never been able to bear to see a work of art destroyed, and you are the loveliest of all – or, maybe just because I want very much to give you back the equivalent of what I took from you. Come with me, Marianne, I swear – I promise you, by all I hold most sacred, that you will not regret it.'
Abruptly, Marianne turned her back on him. Folding her arms, she began to walk up and down, struggling against the insidious feeling of peace invading her, against a curious longing to listen to this man and believe him, trying to whip up her anger once again.
'It is all too easy, I must say! According to you, it is enough to explain a little and say you're sorry to wipe out everything! Then all you have to do is hold out your hand magnanimously and say: "Come with me, I wish to make amends" and I will be ready to follow you blindly. Yes – I must say, it would be too easy! But you should have thought of all this before you robbed me and degraded me. Now, it is too late, do you hear, too late! I would rather live in wretchedness, like a hunted criminal, I would rather die a thousand deaths than take the least thing from you! Can't you understand that I hate you?'
She spat the last words in his face and had the bitter satisfaction of seeing him whiten. She triumphed in it as though at a victory, vaguely hoping for some sign of weakness which would put him altogether at her mercy and allow her to crush him. But this man of iron did not know how to weaken. He merely shrugged and turned slowly to pick up the big, many-caped black cloak which lay on a chair and throw it over his arm. When he looked at her again, his face was once more expressionless. The warm light had gone out of his eyes.
'You have understood nothing, and learned nothing, even now, have you?' he said grimly. 'You still think of yourself as the queen of a besieged empire. You think that things and men should bow to your wishes and merely thank you politely when you kick them like a naughty child. I fear you may soon find yourself cruelly disappointed – more cruelly even than in the past. But you are your own mistress. Farewell, then, Marianne Mallerousse, do as you like. But should you—'
'I shall not!' Marianne broke in, stiff with pride and anger. But he seemed not to hear and went on calmly:
'But should you change your mind – or wish to know the land I'm offering you for your home, a land of sunshine where the cotton grows and the Negroes sing, where you can hold up your head as a free woman, remember I remain in Paris for some little time yet, at the Hôtel de l'Empire in the rue Cerutti. I shall be waiting—'
'I shall not come!'
'You may – think about it, Marianne. Anger is a bad counsellor and you are in real danger. I desire only your peace and happiness, do not forget that.'
The black cloak swirled as he flung it round his shoulders. He went swiftly to the door. Marianne did not move. She remained quite still by the fire but just as, with one last look, he was about to leave her, she stopped him.
'One thing more! Was – was Selton completely destroyed?'
Now it was Jason Beaufort's turn to be cruel, to feel the need to give back hurt for hurt to her who stood like a rigid, diaphanous statue in her shimmering draperies, and see those stony green eyes falter, however little.
'No,' he said harshly. 'There was quite enough left for me to get a good price for it. And to enable me to get a good, fast vessel.'
Suffering in her turn, Marianne closed her eyes so that he should not see her tears. She wished that not one stone of the house that she had loved had been left standing.
'Go – go quickly.'
She did not see the move he made towards her, or his look of angry pain, nor did she hear him sigh. She only heard him say:
'Have the courage to look things in the face – and do not stupidly refuse what is your due.'
She did not open her eyes until a blast of freezing cold air made her shiver. The french door was swinging gently open to the empty night. A gust of wind swirled into the summer-house, raising the ashes in the hearth. Marianne bent slowly to pick up her cloak and wrapped it round her shoulders, huddling into its comforting warmth as though for refuge. Outside, Jason Beaufort was striding swiftly towards the lighted house, his great black cloak flying in the wind like the sails of the Flying Dutchman.
Marianne felt suddenly icy cold. She wished he had not gone, that he was still there to talk to her about that unknown country, full of sunshine and plaintive singing, a land where she could be a different person without ceasing to be herself. She ran to the door and opened her mouth to call him back – but no, she could not do it. She could not go with a man who had bought her for a night like some creature of the streets, a man who had coldly robbed her to repair his own fortunes. She could not go aboard the ship Selton had paid for. For a moment, she had been tempted but it was over. She would go on the way she had chosen and if it proved
stony, so much the worse.
Yet, one thought still nagged at her mind. Why had he said she was in danger? Why had he urged her to flee? To that, there was no answer but as she too made her way back to the house, her memory kept repeating like a refrain: 'Hôtel de l'Empire, rue Cerutti – Hôtel de l'Empire, rue Cerutti—' A funny thing, memory.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Night at Butard
The town berlin belonging to the Prince of Benevento sped as swiftly as the rough-shod greys could draw it along the promenade de Longchamp, deserted at this late hour. It was eight o'clock in the evening. In summer, the promenade would have been crowded with horses and carriages for some hours yet but the dark, the cold and the snow had long since driven Parisians indoors, the bourgeois to their supper and cards, the fashionable world to the large parties which took place almost every night at this time of the year. Yesterday, it had been the Prince de Cambacéré's, tonight, it was the duc de Cadore, who had replaced Talleyrand as Foreign Minister. This, thought Marianne, was no doubt the reason why Talleyrand was sitting beside her in the berlin rather than dressing for the duke's ball.
Ensconced in the mulberry coloured cushions which matched the paintwork on the great wheels of the carriage, she stared out indifferently at the snow-covered landscape. Longchamp was quite familiar to her now from many drives with the princess and little Charlotte and she did not greatly care to know where she was being taken. Talleyrand had told her that morning:
'Tonight, I mean to take you to the house of a very good friend of mine, and a great lover of music. I want you to be beautiful. Not that that will be difficult but I should like to see you in pink.'
It was the first time the prince had expressed any preference with regard to her clothes and Marianne was surprised, especially since, until that moment, she had believed his taste to incline rather towards cold colours, like blue and green, and she had no pink dress.
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