Жюльетта Бенцони - Marianne

The little church stood beside clumps of dead trees, surrounded by modest graves with, at one side, a charnel-house built like a shrine. On the summit of a nearby hill, a dolmen crouched, like a beast about to spring. It was built of huge stones like a triumphal arch.

The coffin vanished beneath the low porch and the rest of the cortege followed. Marianne shivered as the icy dampness clutched her. It was dark inside. The only illumination was in the sanctuary, where two great candles made of yellow wax and the small red altar lamp seemed to fill the place with shadows. The big black cloaks of the women, the priest's vestments, Morvan's long cape and funereal mask loomed like a ghostly gathering, barely visible in the semi-darkness of the church. What seemed to Marianne sepulchral voices were raised and the service began.

There, in the dark, under that low-arched roof, they might have been already in the tomb. Only the dead man seemed at home. The cold was intense. Their breath rose in a cloud as Marianne began to feel increasingly unwell. Her hands and feet were frozen but her forehead under the wet homespun cloth, was burning hot and her heart thudding madly. She knew the time had come but she could not breathe for nerves. She felt suddenly very lonely and helpless. She could not see the reassuring bulk of Black Fish anywhere. Why wasn't he there? Had he changed his mind? She had caught sight of him in the procession earlier but since the entry into the church, he seemed to have vanished into thin air.

The thought that something had happened to him, that perhaps he had abandoned her after all, swept over her with such terrifying certainty that for a second she lost control. She knew she must get it over with, or else go mad. In another moment, she would be capable of any foolishness, anything to fight off the rising panic which was threatening to choke her. She had to take the plunge. Then, taking a deep breath, she swayed on her feet and, uttering a loud shriek, fell flat on her back. She hit her head on the bench and hurt herself so badly that for a moment she thought she was going to faint in good earnest but she retained sufficient presence of mind to make no sound and lay quite still with her eyes closed, breathing slowly.

Around her the solemn boredom of the service was shattered. There was a stir of movement and shocked voices. Marianne felt herself being shaken by an ungentle hand.

'What's the matter with you?' Gwen's voice hissed crossly.

'She's very pale,' Soizic said. 'She needs air.'

The feeling of absurdity and unreality gained on Marianne. She was playing a part, as those in a play. The smell of wet cloaks and unwashed bodies filled her nostrils, overcoming the musty odour of damp and hot wax. The sound of sabots scraping on stone, then Morvan's voice saying curtly: 'Take her outside, see to her – this is too much! Let the service go on! May the soul of the departed not return to blame us! We will sing two more psalms.'

Behind her closed lids, Marianne felt a sudden, quite unexpected gaiety bubble up inside her. Oh, if she could only open her eyes and see their horrified faces! How they must be reaching for their beads and frantically crossing themselves. Such appalling sacrilege! Thanks to her, that scoundrel Vinoc would have a funeral he deserved.

Incredibly she found herself being lifted and carried out. The close air of the church gave way to rain-laden wind and the fresh smell of wet leaves. Nearby, women's voices were muttering in Breton. She was set down roughly on the ground. Someone slapped her face. Then came the sound of two short groans followed by Black Fish's voice.

'Quick, up, and let's be going!'

Marianne opened her eyes and leapt to her feet. She was inside the porch of the tiny charnel-house. Gwen and a sturdy peasant woman whose name she did not know lay motionless close by. But there was no time for surprise. She was seized by Black Fish's huge hands and hurried forward irresistibly. Towed by the giant, she began to run towards the dolmen, slipping and sliding on the muddy grass. But each time, her guide's great hand was there to yank her to her feet.

'Keep going,' Black Fish growled. 'Do you think we've time to waste?'

They rounded the dolmen and Marianne gave a cry of joy as she saw two horses standing ready saddled.

'I hope you can ride!' For answer, Marianne tucked up her skirts, put one foot in the stirrup and was up like a feather.

Black Fish grunted approval. 'A real trooper! Now, come on!'

At that moment, the sound of voices shouting broke out from the church porch. Their flight had been discovered. Marianne could hear Morvan's angry voice shouting to her hopelessly to stop. Laughing wildly, she dug her heels into her horse's sides. The animal leapt forward in the wake of Black Fish who was already galloping headlong down the hill. There was the sound of a shot, and then another, but both went wild. Turning, Marianne saw that the village had disappeared behind the shoulder of the hill. In front was only the empty, whin-covered heath with the roaring wind and here and there massive clumps of rock. But Marianne plunged through the rain with a kind of exaltation. Through a break in the ground, she caught a glimpse of the sea throwing up lofty plumes of spray high in the air and it seemed to her that this great, empty landscape was the most intoxicatingly beautiful she had ever seen, and the very image of that freedom which she was vaguely aware of having found at last in this land where she had been born.

Spurring on her horse, she caught up with Black Fish and rode level with him.

'Where are we going?'

'To Brest! I have a little house there. Morvan will never think of looking for you there and besides, I have business in the place. Also – I think it's high time you and I had a little talk.'

'Why did you help me get away from Morvan? You don't even know who I am?'

Black Fish chuckled and turned his bearded face towards her. His smile made his face look uglier still.

'For your name, I hope you will tell me that yourself. As for what you are, I'll tell you. You're neither an adventuress, nor an insipid little goose. You're a lass of spirit, running away from some danger or other in England and you've come to France for some reason you don't know yourself, except that you had to go somewhere to stay alive. Am I wrong?'

'No,' Marianne said, 'that's how it is—'

'Besides,' Black Fish added, his voice grown suddenly gruff, 'I used to have a little lass once – she would have been about your age and you've a touch of her.'

'No longer?'

'No. She is dead. Speak no more of it. Ride on! We must find shelter before nightfall.'

Marianne did as she was told but as she urged on her mount, she wondered if it was only the rain that made her strange companion's bearded face so wet. Whatever happened, she was ready to follow where he led. She trusted him.

With a thunderous roar the diligence, all four tons of it, swept through the gates of the Hôtel des Postes in the rue Jean Jacques Rousseau and came to a halt in the middle of the courtyard. The rain seemed to come down twice as hard as the postilion jumped down heavily and the grooms ran forward to throw the covers over the steaming horses. The steps were let down to allow the travellers to descend. The brightly lit windows of the inn looked remarkably welcoming in the gathering dusk. The first to emerge was the notary from Rennes followed, almost at once, by the lady from Laval, yawning widely though she had slept three quarters of the way. Marianne came next.

It was Wednesday, the twentieth of December and twelve days since she had left Brest. Twelve exhausting, but thoroughly absorbing days spent with her face pressed close to the window of the diligence gazing out at the passing towns and countryside of this fascinating land of France. All the tales she had heard as a child had painted a grim picture of her father's country as a place delivered up to anarchy, brigandage and murder where no one could expect to be safe unless they spent their life virtually in hiding. She knew of course that the great revolution was over and that a new ruler was in power, but her picture of this ruler was an equally terrifying one, depicting him as a kind of brigand who had picked up the crown from a pool of blood in the market place and then only at the cost of the brutal murder of a romantic young prince betrayed into a hideous trap. And the former revolutionaries, soldiers of fortune, one-time washer-women and unfrocked priests who formed his entourage could not be much better. Marianne had expected a succession of half ruined towns, ravaged countryside, a people cowering under the arrogant despotism of the masters of the hour, and general suffering from the most abject and degrading poverty.

Except in some of the wilder parts of Brittany, what she found all along the diligence's endless journey was cultivated fields, prosperous villages, neat, attractive towns, well-run estates and even a number of handsome private chateaux. She had seen decently clad people, peasant women wearing gold crosses and lace caps, plump cattle and even children playing. Only the roads were in a shocking state but hardly worse than those in England and, just as on the other side of the Channel, there were a fair number of highwaymen to be met with in lonely spots, although the Brest Mail had not met any.

As for Paris, the little she had seen of it through the darkness and the driving rain had made her long to know more. They had entered the city after passing through some bare, leafless woods, by what the notary had told her was the barrière de l'Etoile, a massive gateway flanked by some very fine buildings with pediments and classical columns. The foundations of some other vast construction were beginning to rise from the ground close by.

'That is to be a monument to the glory of the Grande Armée,' the lawyer had obligingly informed her, 'a gigantic triumphal arch!'

Beyond, a wide, tree-lined avenue with smart carriages moving up and down it ran down towards splendid buildings and gardens and a sea of shining roofs and spires. But instead of proceeding down this thoroughfare, the diligence turned off to the left alongside a high wall.

'The wall of the Fermiers Généraux,' the notary hastened to point out. 'The Paris wall that made Paris wail, as they used to say when it was built, you know. Not so very long ago, but to some of us it feels like a century. This is your first visit to Paris, is it not?'

'Yes. I have lived always in the country,' Marianne had answered. The notary had been practically the only one of all the passengers on the diligence whom she could understand since his familiarity with legal documents had given him a somewhat slow and solemn turn of speech. The others spoke much too quickly for her and employed a number of strange expressions which, used as she was to the polished and aristocratic French spoken by those she knew in England, found hard to follow. She had therefore taken Black Fish's parting advice and done her best to look as shy and timid as possible.

In the course of her journey, Marianne had looked back with a good deal of affection to the strange companion of her recent adventures. She had found that, beneath his forbidding exterior, Black Fish was kind and brave and the few days she had spent in his little house in the district of Brest known as the Recoubrance, by the banks of the Penfield, had been a time of rest and peace.

It was a very small house built of brine-washed granite with a high, pointed gate and a neat, fenced-in garden. But the stout Bretonne housekeeper kept it as clean as a new pin. From the hearth stoned floor to the copper pans in the kitchen and the lovely old furniture worn soft and smooth with age, everything gleamed and shone. Even Black Fish himself, become once more for a time Nicolas Mallerousse, a retired naval man, took on a completely different air from that he had worn in the tavern at Plymouth. Gone was the piratical appearance and if a certain tang of adventure hung about him still, at least at Recoubrance he acquired a suggestion of honest respectability.

'My house is not large,' he had said, opening the polished oak door for his guest, 'but you are welcome to stay here as long as you wish. I have told you, I have lost my daughter. You can take her place, if you will.'