Marianne and the Lords of the East

'There's only vodka here,' he said. 'Would that do as well?'

Jolival took the glass and gazed with some surprise at the man who proffered it.

'Well, well, if it isn't Monsieur Septimanie. What brings you here?'

'Jolival,' Marianne broke in, 'this gentleman is the governor, the Duc de Richelieu himself.'

'Well, I never! And I was thinking—' He paused to swallow the contents of the glass but showed no particular sign of surprise. Then he returned the empty glass with a sigh of satisfaction. A little color had come back to his wan face.

'Not bad,' he said. 'I might even say it goes down like water.'

His eyes suddenly took in the presence of the countess and Marianne saw them darken.

'That woman,' he muttered. 'I know now who she is! I know where I saw her last. My lord Duke, you are the governor here, then let me tell you that this woman is a thief, a creature publicly branded as such! The last time I saw her she was being held down while Sanson, the public executioner, set his iron to her flesh. That was in 1786, on the steps of the Palais de Justice in Paris, and I can tell you—'

'Be quiet,' the cardinal interrupted him sharply. 'No one has asked you to say anything on that subject or what you may think about it. I am Gauthier de Chazay, Cardinal San Lorenzo and Marianne's godfather. By the grace of God I was here when I was needed to set things right. That is now done and we need hear no more of the matter.' He turned to the countess, whose terrors had revived at the entrance of Jolival. 'Madame, you may go. Colonel Ivanoff awaits you. He will have his orders within the hour and you have only to pack your belongings. But if you wish to enjoy a quiet sojourn here, see to it that you do not indulge in any more such escapades. You will be provided with enough to live on.'

'You have my promise, Your Eminence… Forgive me!'

She stepped forward timidly and, bending her knee with difficulty, bowed her head with a beseeching look. He made a quick sign of the cross above her purple feathered headdress and then held out his hand for her to kiss. On that hand there now appeared only a plain gold band.

Madame de Gachet rose and left the room in silence without looking back.

'She didn't even apologize,' Marianne said when she had watched her go. 'I think she might have done that at least, after all I suffered on her account.'

'It is useless to expect it,' answered the cardinal. 'Hers is the kind of mean spirit which never forgives its victims for the wrongs she has done them… and for the consequences.'

The governor came forward from behind the table, where he had remained an observer of the preceding scene, and spoke to Marianne.

'Then it is I, Madame, who will offer you my apologies, for you have suffered at the hands of my subordinates. How can I make it up to you? When we met down by the harbor yesterday evening you seemed most anxious to speak to the governor. Is there something you would ask him?'

Marianne's pale cheeks flushed with pleasure. Could it be that, after all, her unpleasant adventure was going to be rewarded, much sooner and more easily than she had imagined, with the release of Jason and his ship? It seemed not impossible, for the duke was even then talking of compensation.

'My lord Duke,' she said softly, 'there is a boon, although I hardly dare to ask it, for I have not forgotten that I owe my life to the good Monsieur Septimanie. But it is true that I made the voyage from Constantinople with that object. My only fear is that it may have given you a distrust of me—'

Richelieu laughed, and the sound was so warm and friendly that it lightened the tension left by the mystery of the Comtesse de Gachet.

'I know, but the cardinal's warning cannot be lightly disregarded. As to Septimanie, it is merely one of the innumerable absurd names with which the children of certain families are apt to find themselves burdened. It amuses me to use it now and then. But do please make your request.'

'Very well. I believe that at some time in March an American brig called the Sea Witch was captured by the Russian fleet and brought into harbor here. I want to know what has become of her and her crew and if possible to obtain their liberty. Captain Beaufort is a very dear friend of mine.'

'He must be indeed… You took a very grave risk, Madame, in coming to this country to get news of him. This Beaufort is a lucky man.'

There was a sudden melancholy in the eyes that dwelled on the beautiful woman before him, so touchingly young and frail in a coat many sizes too big for her which swamped the remembered grace of her figure. Her face was pale with pain and weariness, but her great luminous green eyes shone like emerald stars at the sound of the American's name. She clasped both hands together in a pretty gesture of entreaty.

'For pity's sake, Your Excellency, tell me what has happened to them!'

The sparkle in the green eyes had grown brighter still and Richelieu guessed that the tears were not far off. And yet, oddly enough, his face seemed to harden.

'The ship and the men are here. But you must not ask me any more for the present because I have no time to spare. Other less pleasant but more demanding duties call me. But if you will give me the pleasure of dining with me tomorrow night I may be able to tell you something more.'

'My lord—'

'No, no! Not another word. A carriage is waiting to drive you back to Ducroux's, with an escort befitting your station. We will speak of it again tomorrow evening. This is not the place.'

There was nothing more to say. Surprised and a little disappointed by this sudden dismissal, which suggested a wish to avoid the subject, Marianne dropped a curtsy as deep as the wobbly condition of her legs would permit. Her one wish now was for a hot bath and her bed, where she could forget the horrors of the day she had just lived through. Even Richelieu's announcement that he intended keeping the cardinal with him did not wring a protest from her. The governor was clearly burning to question him about the strange woman whom he had brought to heel in such a remarkable fashion.

The same question was tormenting Marianne also, but they were no sooner in the carriage which was to take them back to the hotel than Jolival fell so fast asleep that it took two men to get him out and upstairs to bed in his own room, and even then he did not wake. So she was compelled to master her very natural curiosity regarding both Cardinal San Lorenzo and the mysterious Madame de Gachet.

She was forced to acknowledge that her godfather was a most remarkable person. He seemed to possess unusual powers and his path lay always in the darkest, most mysterious ways. Through all the years of her childhood and adolescence, she had built up a picture of him as a character out of a novel, the man of God who was also a secret agent, sworn to the twofold service of the Pope and the exiled royal family of France. She had seen him in Paris, at the time of Napoleon's marriage to the Austrian emperor's daughter, decked in the scarlet of a prince of the Church—but a rebellious prince, in open revolt against the emperor and compelled to fly by night to escape from Savary's police. Not that this had hindered him at all when it came to arranging her own marriage with a mysterious prince whom no one had ever set eyes on and of whom she herself had seen only a gloved hand during the wedding ceremony.

And now he was here, in Odessa, still engaged no doubt on some secret task, but clad it seemed in unusual and mysterious power which enabled the little blue-eyed priest to command even the highest in this strange land. What office did he hold now? What new unsuspected dignity had he put on? Just now, looking at the gold ring on the cardinal's finger, Richelieu had used a strange, unlikely word to be applied to a priest: the general. Of what secret army was Cardinal de Chazay the head? It must be a powerful one, even if it operated in the shadows, thought Marianne, remembering the ease with which a onetime abbe, poor as a church mouse, had produced the vast sum in gold demanded by her first husband, Francis Cranmere.

Tired of wondering, Marianne let the answers to these questions wait. What she needed now was sleep so that she would be fresh and wide awake tomorrow evening to plead Jason's cause with the governor. That cause might not be easily won, because Richelieu's manner had cooled noticeably when she had summoned up courage to put her request. But at least the brief exchange had told her that Jason was actually here in the same town and that she would see him soon.

With her mind thus far at rest, she was able to respond pleasantly to Maitre Ducroux's effusive welcome and his reiterated apologies for his own unwilling part in what he referred to as 'the unfortunate incident.' But it was with real delight that she found herself once more in her own room. A chambermaid had been busy there and everything had been set to rights, presumably while the proprietor awaited the verdict in the case.