'You may say what you like,' he confided to Marianne as he finished his second bottle, 'but there is nothing like champagne for making you see things in a quite different light. I respect the emperor's taste for Chambertin, but to my mind he's a good deal too exclusive. There is simply nothing like champagne.'
'I think he knows that,' she said, smiling at the candle flame seen through the airy bubbles rising in her glass. 'In fact, it was he who introduced me to it.'
There was a flicker in her green eyes as she remembered that first night. Was it only yesterday, or hundreds of years ago, that Talleyrand, the old fox, had driven her out through the snow to the pavilion of Le Butard, a young girl in a dress of rose-colored satin, to charm away with her voice the melancholy humors of a certain Monsieur Denis who was said to be suffering from some unexplained misfortune? She saw again the charming, intimate little music room, Duroc's broad face, a trifle uneasy in the role of go-between, the fragrance of flowers everywhere, the bright fire blazing in the hearth, the frozen lake outside the windows. And then the little man in the black coat who had listened to her singing without a word, yet with such a look of kindness in his steel blue eyes… She saw it all and even felt something of the emotion which had stirred her then as the heady fumes of the champagne had cast her all too willingly into the stranger's arms. And yet, at the same time, she found herself wondering if that pleasant interlude had really happened to her, or if it were not just a story she had heard, a fairy tale in the manner of Voltaire or La Fontaine.
She shut her eyes and took a sip of the cold wine as though trying to recapture the taste of that night.
'France is a long way away,' she said. 'Who knows what awaits us here?'
Jolival cocked an eyebrow and smiled into his empty glass and then at the flower-decked table, still loaded with the remains of their meal.
'Just at this moment it doesn't seem to me so very far. Besides, we are treading the same soil as His Majesty the emperor, you know.'
Marianne's eyes opened wide and she gave a little shiver.
'The same soil? What do you mean?'
'Only what Ducroux told me when I was talking to him before dinner. According to the latest information, the emperor is at Vilna. That is why we have seen so much military activity here. The regiments of Tatars and Circassians are mustering to join the tsar's army—and it's said the Duc de Richelieu thinks of marching at their head.'
'A Frenchman at their head? Jolival, you can't mean it!'
'Why not? Have you forgotten that the Marquis de Langeron fought under the Russian eagle at Austerlitz? Richelieu is like him, an irreconcilable enemy of France as she is today. All he wants is to see Bonaparte defeated in the hope of putting those broken-winded Bourbons back on the throne.'
Jolival seized the slender crystal flute from which he had been drinking and in a sudden spurt of anger sent it smashing violently against the white marble chimneypiece.
'Then I wonder,' Marianne observed, 'what we are doing sitting here drinking champagne and philosophizing instead of trying to see this man and make him listen to reason.'
Jolival gave a shrug, then rose and, taking his young friend's hand in his, carried it to his lips with an affectionate gallantry.
'Sufficient unto the day, Marianne. The Duc de Richelieu won't be leaving tonight. And, may I remind you, we have a favor to ask and so are not precisely in the best position to start preaching him sermons. Forget what I have just told you and my display of bad temper. I think I'm turning into an old fool, God forgive me.'
'No, you're not. It's just that you see red as soon as anyone mentions the subject of emigres or princes. Good night, old friend. And you, too, try to forget…'
He was just leaving the room when she called him back. 'Arcadius,' she said, 'that woman we passed coming in, Madame de Gachet, have you remembered where you met her before? She looked like an emigree. Perhaps she was a friend of your wife?'
He shook his head. 'No. She must have been very beautiful and Septimanie could never get on with pretty women. My impression is—yes, my impression is that she is connected with something unpleasant, with the memory of some horrible event buried deep in my memory which I can't quite recall. But I keep trying because when I saw her just now I had a kind of premonition, as if there were some kind of danger threatening—'
'Well, go and get some sleep. They say the night brings counsel. You may find you have remembered in the morning. Besides, we may be imagining things and giving a great deal too much importance to a poor woman who means no harm at all.'
'It may be so. But I didn't care for the way she looked at us and I shan't be happy until I've worked out who she is.'
Marianne slept soundly and forgot all about the woman in the black feathers. She was sitting up in bed the following morning, enjoying a real French breakfast of feather-light croissants, when there was a knock at her door. Thinking that the maid must have forgotten something, she bade her come in. But instead of the chambermaid's white cap, what peeped in was the powdered head of Jolival's mysterious lady.
She had her finger to her lips, enjoining silence, and she glanced back to make sure that there was no one in the passage before closing the door noiselessly behind her.
Marianne had paused in the act of spreading butter on a croissant and was staring at her in astonishment, her knife suspended in midair.
'Madame,' she began, intending to request her uninvited visitor to let her breakfast in peace.
But once again the woman put her finger to her lips, accompanying the movement with a smile so charmingly girlish and confused that all Jolival's rather vague misgivings were forgotten in an instant. At last, when she had satisfied herself that all was quiet outside, the lady approached the bed and swept a curtsy that spoke Versailles in every line of it.
'I must beg you to pardon this unwarrantable intrusion when we have not even been introduced,' she said in a voice as smooth as velvet, 'but I do think that in a place where civilization is still in its infancy we may allow ourselves to dispense with some of the strict rules of polite society, while at the same time the natural ties which exist between people of the same nationality are strengthened to the point almost of brotherhood. But please, do not let me interrupt your breakfast.'
This little speech had been rattled off with as much assurance as if the two of them were old acquaintances. Not to be outdone, Marianne assured her politely in return, though without any notable enthusiasm, that she was delighted to see her and begged she would be seated.
Her visitor pulled up a chair and sat down with a little sigh of satisfaction, spreading the shimmering skirts of her gray silk bedgown about her. She smiled again.
'The proprietor of the hotel told me that you were Mademoiselle d'Asselnat de Villeneuve and I can see that you are indeed the daughter of my dear friend Pierre. I was struck when I passed you yesterday by your extraordinary likeness to him.'
'You knew my father?'
'Very well. I am the Comtesse de Gachet. My late husband was an officer in the same regiment. I knew your father when he was stationed at Douai in 1784.'
She had no need to say more. In mentioning the father whom Marianne adored without ever having known him other than through his portrait, the woman had uttered the magic words. All Jolival's warnings and reservations were swept from her mind in an instant, and Marianne returned all her visitor's smiles and compliments in full. She even offered to share her breakfast with her, but Madame de Gachet would not hear of allowing her to ring for the chambermaid to bring fresh coffee and another cup.
'No, no. I've already had my breakfast. Besides, I would rather no one knew of this visit, so early and so unconventional as it is. People might start to wonder…'
Marianne laughed. 'My dear madame,' she said, 'I really think you are worrying yourself unnecessarily. As you said yourself, manners are not so strict here as they are in France, and I am delighted to meet someone who knew my father since I never had the good fortune to do so myself.'
'I'm sure. You must have been very young when he died.'
