Жюльетта Бенцони - Marianne

'No, do not kill him! He's lying – he does not know what he is saying. He serves not Surcouf but me! He would not say so for fear of revealing who I am but I cannot see him die because of me.'

'You?' the stranger said with a lift of his eyebrows. 'Who then are you?'

'An aristocrat, like yourself – for you are noble, are you not? Your voice and your speech declare it—'

To save her life she could not have said what made her say it. But whether divinely or diabolically inspired, her words had certainly succeeded in gaining the stranger's attention and something told her she had not been mistaken. A spark of curiosity showed in the man's eyes.

'It may be so. Know, however that men call me simply Morvan. But you have still not told me who you are.'

'My name is Marianne d'Asselnat. My father and mother went to the guillotine for trying to save the queen.' Suddenly she remembered Madame Royal's curious gift and added urgently: 'Tell your men to give you what they took from me. You will find there, as well as a little English money and my mother's pearls, a blue enamel locket containing a lock of white hair. It was given to me by the duchesse d'Angoulême and the hair belong to the martyred queen!'

Marianne was amazed, as she heard herself speaking, that it all came so naturally. She had slipped effortlessly into the voice and accent of a fanatical royalist even though, in the inn at Plymouth, she had turned her back upon the émigrés who, in the person of the duc d'Avaray, had rejected her. But it seemed quite fair to use them in order to save the life of one who served Napoleon – and of course the unknown but undoubtedly celebrated Surcouf!

It seemed that she had almost won her point. Morvan beckoned imperiously to the two men who had been standing a little way off holding Jean and waiting passively for the order to kill him. A few brief words in the strange rough speech which must be the Breton dialect and Vinoc, scowling to himself, handed over to his chief the jewels stolen from Marianne. Morvan took the pearls and put them in his pocket without a word, then he strolled over to one of the fires, holding the locket in his hand. The glow of the flame fell on his grim face with its black mask behind which the eyes burned like hot coals. Marianne threw a quick, anxious glance at Jean. She was afraid he might have heard the rather unorthodox way in which she had defended him. But he had heard nothing. He was leaning back against a rock with his eyes closed in an attitude of utter weariness, still flanked by his guards, simply waiting for his fate to be decided.

Now Morvan was coming back. This time, as he approached Marianne he uncovered and bowed with unexpected grace, his black hat sweeping the sand.

'I crave your forgiveness, Mademoiselle d'Asselnat, for this discourteous welcome. Believe me, I could not know that you were in this wreck. If you will take my arm, I shall be honoured to conduct you to my house where you may rest yourself – and we shall have some speech together.'

Delighted to have won even a moment's respite, Marianne did not stop to ask herself what he meant to talk about.

'And my servant?' she asked, before accepting the proffered arm. 'I hope you mean to pardon him?'

A smile which Marianne judged far from pleasant appeared below the black mask.

'But naturally. He shall follow us but his rash words have made him suspect and he must be watched. Do not take offence at this.'

The two robbers, both of whom were now dressed, brought Jean Le Dru forward, almost dragging him for he was clearly at the end of his strength. Morvan glanced keenly at the young man then gave his orders in a low, distinct voice.

'Take him back to the manor. His life is spared. He is only a lackey, in the service of the young Marquise d'Asselnat, who comes from our exiled princes. But he had lied to me and must be punished. Lock him in the tower.'

Marianne was overcome with fresh terror at these contemptuous words, realizing that Morvan was trying to provoke Jean into a denial. In fact the young man had flushed angrily and was struggling to free himself. He was going to deny it, he was going to repudiate her and then Morvan would have him killed without a moment's hesitation. Marianne ran to him and clasped his hands as hard as she could.

'Be quiet, Jean – it is no use lying. I have told this gentleman what I had to tell him because it would have been stupid to throw away your life for nothing.'

He opened his mouth to cry out but the pressure of the small hands became more insistent and Jean merely shrugged and cursed.

'Very well, mademoiselle. I daresay you are right and I'm only a fool!'

But the look he gave her was not only devoid of any gratitude but so heavy with contempt that Marianne shivered. Now that Morvan had seen fit to proclaim her as an envoy of the exiled princes, she realized that in Jean's eyes she had become an enemy. A royalist spy, and the comradeship born of danger was dead. She was bitterly hurt without quite knowing why but Morvan was watching her and she made herself turn away in order to avoid rousing further suspicions. An aristocrat should not be unduly concerned about a servant. As it was, he remarked when she slipped her hand into the proffered arm: 'You take good care of your servant, my dear. I wonder if I was right to let him live. You set such store by it—'

Realizing that her pleas would not help Jean and that on the contrary, she was bound to play the part she had assumed right to the end, Marianne merely shrugged in her turn and answered:

'Faithful servants are rare, especially for an exile. Now, Monsieur Morvan. I should be glad if you would conduct me to your house. I am tired and perished with cold.'

She said no more and allowed the wrecker to lead her to his unknown dwelling but inwardly she was full of trepidation. She placed little trust in this man who, while admitting his rank, had not unmasked for her, a man who killed in cold blood, a wrecker who could plunder and steal and who had slipped her pearl necklace into his pocket quite unconcernedly. All she hoped to gain was a little time to rest and food for her exhausted body. But she had no illusions about what must follow. As soon as she was better, she would make her escape, taking Jean with her, he no doubt to rejoin his famous Surcouf, she to try and find what little family she had left.

The wreckers had been keeping the plunder from the wreck about the fires on the beach but there was still a good deal of debris floating between the ship, now three quarters submerged, and the shore. Men were still plunging into the water, in the grip of a frenzied and unremitting lust for gain. But the storm was abating and already the tide was on the turn. The thunder of the waves which, only a moment before, had been breaking on the rocks in great fountains of spray, gave way to a degree of calm in which the men's frenzy also abated. The waters began to go down and, at the same time, a greyish light touched their surface and spread over the sky. Dawn was not far off and Morvan, moving slowly up the beach with Marianne, paused to sniff the air and, taking a silver whistle from his pocket, blew three short, piercing blasts which had the effect of stopping his men in their tracks. He raised his arm and pointed to the sky. Regretfully, the wreckers left the water and made their way to the fires where they set about loading the chests and bales on to their shoulders. The corpses were left where they lay. Marianne passed quite close to one of them and closed her eyes to shut out the poor, sightless face. If she valued her life, she dare not let the man beside her see how deeply he appalled her. Little by little, she was learning the hard way that most cruel of all lessons, that if she were to survive, she would have to lie, cheat and use all her wits to do so. It was a lesson she would never forget. With the exception of the poor young man now being dragged along behind her and possibly of Black Fish whose giant corpse must still be floating somewhere in the receding waters of this hateful bay, her first contacts with men in this wide world had brought her nothing but disgust and a profound contempt. In future, she meant to emerge victorious from any further brush with them, at least so far as the still untried limits of her strength allowed.

A mizzling rain began to fall from skies of unrelieved dark grey. The fires were out and the growing daylight glimmered on wet, seaweed covered rocks. Somewhere inland, a cock crowed hoarsely. Marianne's feet stopped sinking into sand and trod on hard ground covered with dry grass. This, then, was Brittany.

The manor house belonging to the man who called himself Morvan lay at the end of a hollow road, at this season deep in mud, between high banks crowned with gorse and stunted ash trees which turned it into a long, greenish tunnel; a crumbling sixteenth century façade flanked by turrets. Some way off, in a dip in the ground, was a small village made up of a few low cottages with walls of grey granite and roofs of heavy thatch. The sea was close by, overhung by ragged cliffs that, to the south, curved back sharply inland to form a narrow estuary. Out on the heath, a pair of standing stones like lonely sentinels kept their gloomy vigil among the gorse and whin bushes while on the summit of a nearby hill the remains of a stone circle lay in the short grass, waiting endlessly for the return of a sun worship now gone for ever. But of all this, in the livid light of a rain-sodden dawn, Marianne saw little. She was too frozen and exhausted to notice anything but the bed which Morvan conjured out of the wall by opening a wooden panel carved in intricate, lacy patterns. The mattress was stuffed with seaweed, the blankets rough wool and the sheets raw, unbleached linen but she threw herself down on them as gratefully as a hunted animal and fell instantly asleep.

When she awoke at last from the deep, dreamless sleep which had possessed her, Marianne saw that it was dark again. Candles were burning in silver sconces, a fire roared up the soot-blackened chimney and before the ancient stone hearth an old woman in a black gown and white cap was busy laying out some clothes on a bench while she watched the great cauldron of water set on to boil. Her face had the sunken look of those whose teeth have gone and there was something uncomfortably witch-like about the dark shadow thrown by the flames on to the old-fashioned coffered ceiling. Her jaw moved continuously above the froth of ribbons fastening her bonnet.

The wooden bed creaked as Marianne sat up. The crone turned colourless eyes on her beneath wrinkled, tortoise lids.

'You can be stirring now. Here's clothes for you and hot water to wash.'

The old woman's peremptory tone nettled Marianne, accustomed to the quiet deference of her own servants.

'I'm hungry,' she said sharply. 'Get me something to eat.'

'Time enough,' the old woman told her calmly. 'Dress yourself and join the master. If he means you to eat, you will eat.'

She hobbled out of the room, leaning on a knotted stick, taking no further notice of the girl. Marianne scrambled over the fretwork side of her strange bed and found herself standing on a bench from which she could step down on to the floor of beaten earth which still showed, here and there, some remnants of coloured tiles. The room itself was of noble proportions and some traces of gilding glinted here and there among the plentiful cobwebs on the ceiling. But it contained no furniture beyond three of the curious cupboard-beds, their walls carved in primitive but oddly attractive designs, the benches by which they were reached and those by the hearth on which, in addition to the clothes, stood a basin, some soap and towels. The old woman had built up a roaring fire in the hearth and Marianne was able to wash in great comfort. She did so with a good deal of pleasure and finished by washing the sand and salt out of her hair, throwing bowlful after bowlful of dirty water out of the tiny window without a thought of where they might be landing.

At last she felt clean again. She twisted her hair into thick braids and wound it round her head, then turned her attention to the clothes provided for her. She was surprised to find them remarkably grand for any peasant woman. The gown was leaf green damask trimmed at the hem with gold embroidery and there was a small satin apron of the same green edged with lace. A big lace shawl and a muslin cap shaped like a small hennin, with a pair of dainty, buckled shoes, completed the outfit. Marianne's pleasure as she put it on was truly feminine. Taking down the old mirror which hung in a corner, she contemplated herself in it with some satisfaction. The dress might have been made for her. The velvet bodice sat well on her slender waist and the green silk matched her eyes. Draping the Irish lace shawl gracefully round her shoulders, she pirouetted lightly and made for the door.