Marianne m-1

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  So he too had been thinking of her? But how, and where? Had he come back to Paris after all? Suddenly, she wanted to go back on stage and peep through the curtains again to see if she could catch a glimpse of the American's tanned face and tall, loose-limbed figure anywhere in the audience. But it was too late now. The violins were already striking up. The chorus must be already on stage. In a moment, the curtain would go up. Marianne had just time to slip into her dress. Yet even then, as she laid the white bouquet down on her dressing table, something stirred in her, despite herself, that almost made her forget her fear. Merely with his name pinned to a few flowers, Jason had brought into that crowded, hot-house dressing room, something of his own fierce personality, a free breath of the open sea and his keen love of struggle and adventure. And Marianne discovered that no other evidence of affection had done as much for her as those few syllables.

  While Agathe was putting the finishing touches to her hair and setting a few diamond stars among the thickly piled locks, Marianne remembered Adelaide's astonishing question: 'Are you sure you're not in love with him?'

  It was ridiculous, of course she was sure! How could she hesitate for a single moment between the American and Napoleon? She was honest enough to admit the American's charm, but the Emperor was something different. Besides, he loved her with all his heart and all his power while there was absolutely nothing to show that Adelaide's supposition was right. She had decreed, without ever seeing him, that Jason loved her but Marianne herself thought differently. The American felt guilty towards her and whatever she might have thought before, he was a man of honour. He was sincerely anxious to wipe out the wrong he had done her, that was all. None the less, Marianne admitted that she would be very glad to see him again. It would be so wonderful if he too were there tonight to share her triumph.

  She was ready and the image reflected in her mirror was indeed very lovely. Leroy's much-talked-of dress was, in fact, a masterpiece of simplicity. The heavy, pearly satin with its long train lined with cloth of gold was moulded to her body like a wet sheet, only widening a little at the hem, with an effrontery which only a woman with her figure and her legs could have carried off. With its dizzily plunging neckline that showed off to the full the emeralds and diamonds Napoleon had given her, the dress undressed more than it covered her, but what might have been indecent on another became, on her, merely the height of beauty and elegance. Leroy has predicted that by the next day his salons would be besieged by a host of women all wanting a dress like it.

  'But I shall not let them have it,' he had declared firmly. 'I have my reputation to think of and there is not one in a thousand could wear such a dress so regally.'

  Slowly, and without taking her eyes from herself, Marianne pulled on the long, green lace gloves. Tonight, she was fascinated by her own reflection. Her beauty seemed to her like a promise of triumph. The diamond stars in her black hair flashed fire.

  For a fraction of a second, she hesitated between the two bouquets that lay before her. The violets or the camellias? She was tempted to choose the latter, which would have gone better with her dress, but could she slight the flowers of the man she loved for such a reason? Quickly, with one last look at the delicate white flowers, she picked up the violets and made her way to the door while outside in the passage the stage manager was calling:

  'Mademoiselle Maria Stella, on stage please!'

  ***

  The duet from 'Vestal' had just finished in a storm of applause led by Napoleon himself with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. Her trembling hand clasped firmly in that of Elleviou, who was flushed with pride, Marianne made her bow with a feeling of triumph so fierce that her head seemed to spin with it. But her eyes were less on the packed house now giving them a standing ovation, than on the man in the uniform of a colonel of chasseurs sitting up there in the big, flower-filled box and smiling back at her with such love in his eyes. Next to him, was a very pretty, dark woman with a chiselled profile, his youngest and favourite sister, the Princess Pauline, and from time to time he leaned towards her as though asking her opinion.

  'You've got them!' Elleviou muttered under his breath. 'Every thing will be all right now. Courage! They are all yours.'

  She scarcely heard him. The applause was like triumphal music filling her ears with its wonderful tempestuous sound. Was there any more intoxicating noise in the whole world? Her eyes never left the man in the box, and she looked up at him, seeing nothing else but him and dedicating all this dazzling success to him alone.

  He dominated the vast black hole which had almost made her faint with terror when she came on stage so little time ago. But the panic had passed. She was herself again and not afraid any more, Elleviou was right. Nothing could touch her now.

  Silence fell once more, an expectant silence that was yet more living than all the bravos that had gone before. It was as though the whole audience were holding its breath. Marianne's fingers tightened on the bouquet of violets as she began to sing the aria from the 'Calif of Baghdad'. Never had her voice, trained now to cope with the most difficult tests, been so wholly at her command. It soared out across the audience, warm and flexible, containing in its pure notes all the pearls and jewels of the east, the burning scent of desert and the joyous happiness of children playing in a fountain's spray. Marianne herself, bent like a bow string towards the Emperor's box, sang for one man alone, forgetting all the others whom she carried with her along the magic pathway of her music.

  Once again, it was a triumph, noisy, uproarious, indescribable. The theatre seemed to explode into frenzied applause and a sweet smelling storm of flowers began to rain down on the stage. Across the orchestra pit, a radiant Marianne could look out on a standing audience, wild with applause.

  On all sides there were cries of 'Encore! Encore!'

  She took a few steps forward to the front of the stage. Her eyes left the imperial box at last and, meeting the conductor's look, she nodded to him to begin the aria again. Then she lowered her eyes while gradually the audience quietened down and the musicians resumed their instruments. Once again, the music began to spin its enticing thread.

  But suddenly a movement in one of the stage boxes caught Marianne's attention. A man had just come in and instantly her eye was drawn to him. She thought for a second that it was Jason Beaufort, whom she had sought in vain among the rapt faces before her. It was not him but someone else at the sight of whom Marianne's blood seemed to freeze in her veins. He was very tall with broad shoulders encased in dark blue velvet and thick fair hair brushed in the latest style and the face above the high, white muslin cravat bore a cynical expression. He was a handsome man in spite of the thin scar that ran across one cheek from the corner of his mouth to his ear, but Marianne gazed at him with the incredulous horror belonging to those who have seen a ghost.

  She wanted to cry out, to try and overcome the terror which was taking possession of her but no sound came. She felt as though she were in a bad dream, or else going mad. It could not be true. This frightful thing could not be happening to her. At one blow she saw the wonderful, delicate world she had built up for herself at the cost of so much suffering crumble to pieces at her feet. Her mouth opened, gasping for air, but the impression of nightmare became more terrifying while the audience, the imperial box with its dark red roses, the great velvet and gold curtains, the footlights and the conductor's startled face all merged into one infernal kaleidoscope. Marianne put up her hands with a small pitiful movement, trying with all her strength to push the spectre back into the darkness from which it had risen. But the spectre would not go. He was looking at her now, and he was smiling…

  Marianne gave one small desperate cry and then collapsed on to the flower-studded stage while, towering above the uproar which arose all about him, her husband, Francis Cranmere, the man she had believed that she had killed, bent forward to look down on the stage and on the slender white form that lay there, twinkling with tiny stars in the stage lights. He was still smiling.

 
***

  When she opened her eyes, some minutes later, Marianne saw a ring of anxious faces bending over her, against a background of flowers, and realized that she was in her dressing room. Arcadius and Adelaide were there, Agathe was bathing her temples with something cool and Corvisart was holding her hand. Elleviou was there too and Fortunée Hamelin while, towering over them all, was the resplendent figure of the Grand Marshal Duroc, despatched no doubt by the Emperor.

  Seeing her open her eyes, Fortunée immediately seized her friend's free hand.

  'What happened?' she asked affectionately.

  'Francis!' Marianne murmured. 'He was there – I saw him!'

  'You mean – your husband? But that is impossible! He's dead.'

  Feebly Marianne shook her head.

  'I saw him – tall and fair, dressed in blue – in Prince Cambacérès's box.' She struggled to raise herself and her eyes met Duroc's imploringly. The grand marshal understood and disappeared at once. Marianne allowed Corvisart to push her gently back on to the cushions.

  'You must calm yourself, mademoiselle. His majesty is in the gravest anxiety on your account. I must be able to reassure him.'

  'The Emperor is very good,' she said faintly. 'I am ashamed to be so weak—'

  'There is no need to be ashamed. How do you feel? Do you feel able to continue the concert or should we ask the public to excuse you?'

  The cordial which the imperial physician had given her was gradually having its effect on Marianne. She felt a little warmth and life return to her body. Now she felt nothing beyond a general lassitude and a slight headache.

  'Perhaps I can go on,' she began, a little hesitantly. It was true, she felt strong enough to return to the stage but at the same time she was afraid of the audience, of seeing again the face which had filled her with such terror. In a flash, in the moment of seeing it, she had understood why Jason Beaufort had done all he could to make her go with him and what the mysterious danger was, the precise nature of which he had always refused to divulge. He must have known that Lord Cranmere was alive. But he had wanted to spare her the knowledge. In a moment, perhaps, when Duroc had found him, Francis was going to cross the threshold of this very room and come to her. He was coming now. There were footsteps in the passage. The footsteps of more than one man.

  Marianne clung desperately to Fortunée's hand.

  'Don't leave me – at all costs, don't leave me!'

  There was a knock. The door opened. Duroc was there but the man he brought with him was not Francis, it was Fouché. The Minister of Police looked grave and anxious. With a wave of his hand he dismissed all those gathered about Marianne with the exception of Fortunée, who stayed holding tightly to her friend's hand. 'I fear, mademoiselle,' he said speaking very deliberately, 'that you have been the victim of an hallucination. At the grand marshal's request, I myself went into the Prince's box. There was no one there corresponding to the description you gave.'

  'But I saw him! I am not mad, I swear to you! He was dressed in blue velvet – the moment I close my eyes, I can see him still. The people in the box must have seen him!'

  Fouché raised one eyebrow and made a helpless gesture.

  'The Duchess of Bassano, who is in Prince Cambacérès's box thinks that the only blue habit she saw just after the interval belonged to the vicomte d'Aubecourt, a young Flemish nobleman just recently arrived in Paris.'

  'Then you must find this vicomte. Francis Cranmere is an Englishman. He would not dare to come to Paris under his own name. I want to see this man.'

  'Unfortunately, he cannot be found. My men are turning the theatre upside down in search of him but so far—'

  He was interrupted by three quick raps on the door. Fouché went himself to open it. Outside was a man in evening dress who bowed briefly.

  'There is no-one in the theatre, Minister,' he said, 'who seems able to tell us where the vicomte d'Aubecourt can be found. He appears to have vanished into thin air during the uproar which followed mademoiselle's illness.'

  There was a silence so profound it seemed that everyone had stopped breathing. Marianne was once more white as a sheet.

  'Nowhere to be found! Vanished!' she said at last. 'But he can't have done! He was not a ghost—'

  'That is all that I can tell you,' Fouché said shortly. 'Apart from the duchess, who believed she saw him, no-one, do you hear me, no-one had seen this person. Now will you tell me what I am to tell the Emperor? His majesty is waiting!'

  'The Emperor has waited long enough. Tell him, if you please, that I am at his service.'

  A little unsteadily, but with determination, Marianne rose to her feet and putting aside the woollen shawl they had wrapped round her, went to her dressing table for Agathe to restore some kind of order to her hair. She forced herself not to think of the spectre which had risen from the past to appear so suddenly against the red velvet background of a stage box in a theatre. Napoleon was waiting. Nothing and no-one should ever keep her from going to him whenever he was waiting. His love was the one really good thing in the world.

  One after another, her friends left the box, Duroc and Fouché first, followed by the singers and then by Arcadius, though with evident reluctance. Only Adelaide d'Asselnat and Fortunée Hamelin remained until Marianne was ready.

  A few minutes later, a storm of applause shook the old theatre to its foundations. Marianne was back on stage.

  Footnotes

  1

  The uncle of Napoleon I's famous minister, who had remained loyal to the crown.

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  2

  Madame Royale, the daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.

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  3

  The duc d'Avaray died the following year in Madeira.

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  4

  The stout stick from which no Breton would have been parted.

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  5

  The present rue Bonaparte.

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  6

  The present rue de Richelieu.

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  7

  The present place de l'Alma.

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  8

  Not the present church, which dates only from 1836. When the old church of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette was destroyed, its name was given to the Chapel of St-Jean-Port-Latine at the Cimetiere Des porcherons.

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  9

  The columns of the Grand Trianon were glazed in at this period by the Emperor's order.

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  10

  His actual height was about 5' 6".

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  11

  A page, an aide-de-camp, a sergeant, and a corporal of the Imperial Mews.

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