Marianne and the Lords of the East

speechless misery, could do nothing to comfort her. Where were those happy days when Marianne, superficially in love with Napoleon, had committed every kind of folly but without ever, as now, tearing herself to pieces on the thorns in her path?

He dared not question her about her feelings for Corrado. For himself, the deeper he penetrated, not without difficulty, into the prince's strange, secret, self-contained personality, so well protected as to be almost impenetrable, the more Jolival liked him. He found himself deeply sorry for the malign trick of fate which had laid on an innocent and altogether exceptional being an antisocial mask that made him an outcast among his own kind.

If the truth were told, Marianne could not have explained her own feelings toward the man whose name she bore. He fascinated and irritated her at the same time, like a too-perfect work of art, while the instinctive liking she had felt for the slave Caleb had undergone some modification when applied to the Prince Sant'Anna.

Not that she had ceased to pity him as the victim of an unjust fate, but her compassion had been somewhat superseded by her pity for herself. She might even have taken pleasure in the company of a man of his quality if he had not been the one who was making her go through her present ordeal. For as the days went by, she began to blame him for her sickness, her lassitude and the temporary eclipse of her beauty.

'I look like a starving cat that's swallowed a balloon,' she wailed, catching sight of herself in the mirror. 'I'm ugly—ugly enough to put off any man, however besotted!'

On this particular evening she was looking even worse than usual. The high cheekbones stood out starkly in her face, betraying her listless wretchedness all too clearly. Her long hands were hardly less pale than the full gown of white wool which enveloped her from neck to ankle, so that Jolival found himself wondering how she would survive her approaching ordeal.

Donna Lavinia said that she was eating almost nothing and that little out of duty more than actual hunger. Her hearty appetite was a thing of the past and for three months now Marianne had had no need to worry about her figure once the child was born. She would be downright thin—always supposing she came safely through the confinement itself.

The ritual quarter of an hour reached its end and the prince rose to take his leave. He was bowing ceremoniously over Marianne's hand, as he did every night, when Donna Lavinia hurried in and murmured something in his ear. He stiffened and frowned.

'Where are they?' he asked.

'At the main entrance.'

'I will go at once.'

The prince's habitual calm had gone. Contrary to his usual custom, he hurried from the room with barely a word of excuse. Jolival watched him go with an uneasy expression and even Marianne was roused to curiosity by such unaccustomed behavior.

'Is it some bad news?' she asked.

Lavinia hesitated. She might have said that the news had been for Corrado's ear alone, but she was incapable of resisting her young mistress's soft voice and melancholy look. So she merely replied as evasively as she could: 'Yes and no. There has been an attempt to steal one of the ships in the harbor, but the thief has been caught and brought here.'

'To steal one of the ships?' Marianne repeated vaguely. 'Do you know which one?'

Before Donna Lavinia could answer, the heavy velvet curtain covering the entrance to the tandour was put aside by the prince's own hand. His blue eyes scanned each of the faces raised to his in turn and came to rest on Marianne. He was evidently under the stress of some strong emotion.

'Madame,' he said, using very nearly the same words as Donna Lavinia a moment earlier, 'there has been an attempt to steal your ship. My people seized the thief and have brought him here, with three or four of the men he employed to assist him. Do you want to see him?'

'To see him? Why should I? Why don't you see him yourself?' she said in sudden alarm.

'I have no wish to see him. I merely caught a glimpse of him in the hands of my men. And I still think it is for you and no one else to interview him. My presence would only complicate matters and I would rather leave you. He will be here at any moment.'

Then Marianne knew why it was that her heart had beat faster and why she was suddenly nervous. She knew now who the thief was. And she felt magically alive again. The will to live revived in her wasted body. She was herself again and no longer simply the receptacle for an alien existence that was consuming her.

And yet there was a flaw in the happiness that flooded her being. The man she was about to see had been taken in the act of trying to take possession of the brig. What if he had succeeded? He was unlikely to have left her anchored secretly in some quiet bay while he returned to Constantinople in search of the woman waiting for him there. It was not easy to hide a vessel of that size. He would undoubtedly have taken to the open sea to escape pursuit and Marianne was afraid of finding out that, to a seaman, his ship could mean more than the woman he loved. It was this fear which made her strive to stifle the small voice within that threatened to spoil her wonderful moment.

She stretched out both her hands to Jolival in an instinctive gesture to seek his support, and he came to her where she lay on the divan and gripped them in his own. They were icy cold and she was trembling in every limb, but the eyes she lifted to Corrado were full of stars.

'Thank you,' she said softly. 'Thank you… from the bottom of my heart.'

She put out her hand to him but he seemed not to see it. His face as he bowed and left her was closed and set. But Marianne was too happy to consider what he might be thinking at that moment. With the unconscious selfishness of all people in love, she was thinking only of the one who was coming.

She turned to Jolival with a look of alarm.

'I want a mirror,' she said. 'I must look dreadful—shockingly ugly!'

'Ugly, no. You could never be that—but shocking, certainly. I dare say you're sorry now that you didn't listen to your Uncle Arcadius and try to eat a little more. All the same, it's no bad thing that you should look a trifle peaky. But you must try to be calm. Do you want me to go?'

'No, no! Don't go! Only remember how we parted. Who knows if his long illness has made him think differently about me? I might need you. So don't leave me, my friend, I implore you—besides, it is too late.'

Quick footsteps rang out in the next room. A voice spoke sharply, and the sound of it made Marianne's senses swim. It was answered by Donna Lavinia's infinitely gentler tones. Then the curtain was lifted once more. The housekeeper in her black dress appeared and curtsied deeply.

'If it please Your Serene Highness, Mr. Jason Beaufort.'

As he strode through the door, the small room seemed to shrink. He was so tall that Marianne thought he must surely have grown since she had seen him last. But otherwise he was unchanged. There was still the same masterful face, the same tanned complexion and dark blue eyes, the same unruly black hair. Neither time nor illness, it seemed, had any power over Jason Beaufort. He had returned from the edge of the grave as much himself as if nothing had happened.

Marianne gazed at him wonderingly, forgetting in an instant all that he had made her suffer, as Mary Magdalen must have looked at the risen Christ, with eyes bright with tears and light.

Unhappily, the object of her gaze was not endowed with the same divine serenity. He stopped dead in the doorway, the anger which had driven him into the room cut off short. He had been told that he was going to meet the 'owner' of his beloved brig and had been prepared to tell the thief exactly what he thought of him. But the sight of the two faces before him left him wholly thunderstruck. And since Marianne's voice had suddenly deserted her, it was left to Jolival to break the silence. Releasing the girl's hands, which were quieter now and not so cold, he rose and went to meet the privateer.

'Come in, Beaufort. I'm not sure that you are welcome, but you have certainly been expected.'

The vicomte's voice was noticeably lacking in warmth. Jolival was the last man on earth to bear a grudge but it was clear that he had not forgotten the time that he had spent in irons aboard the Sea Witch, along with poor Gracchus, or the sufferings endured by Marianne. It was these that Jolival could not forgive. If he had not known how deeply his young friend loved this man, if he had not seen her pining for him all these weeks, it would have given him a very real pleasure to have thrown him out of the door, and the more so because, although he had said nothing, he, too, had been shocked by the attempted theft. His state of mind was reflected in his greeting. Consciously or unconsciously, he was spoiling for a fight.