Marianne

only happened to alight there by chance and formed a strong contrast with the other men present. This contrast had been the first thing to strike Marianne when he was introduced to her and she had been ruffled by it, as though the stranger's air of careless unconcern, verging almost on indifference, had been a direct insult to the irreproachable elegance of the others. It was not just his complexion, tanned by wind and weather, that offended her in comparison with the Englishmen with their pink, well fed faces. They were aristocrats, great landowners most of them, he was only a sailor probably owning nothing more than his ship, a ranger of the seas, 'a pirate'. Marianne had dismissed him instantly. It passed her comprehension how the son of an English king, a man who would be king himself one day, could find any pleasure in the company of a man who dared to turn up at a wedding wearing boots. All the same, her dislike had not prevented her from remembering his name. He was called Jason Beaufort. Francis had remarked with his habitual carelessness that the fellow came of a good Carolina family, descended from the French Huguenots obliged to flee to the new world after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but Marianne suspected her new husband of an excessively complaisant attitude towards anyone accepted by the prince.

'In spite of his looks, he's a gentleman—'

Thus the final judgment pronounced by Francis's handsome lips. Even so, Marianne was none too ready to agree. Although his manners were perfectly correct, she sensed in Beaufort something purposeful and menacing which made her uneasy. Accustomed, early in life, to the fierce pleasures of the chase, she often found herself comparing human beings to the animals she loved but whereas Francis reminded her of a splendid thoroughbred, she saw Jason Beaufort as a hawk. He had the hawk's bold profile, bright eyes and the lean, rangy look that yet gave an impression of dangerous vitality. Even the slender brown hands emerging from cuffs of delicate white lawn recalled the talons of the bird of prey while the look in those bright blue eyes was unnervingly intent. All through the ceremony, Marianne had been uncomfortably conscious of it on her neck and shoulders. She had found herself avoiding those eyes because, for all her native courage, she found it hard to meet them.

He was smiling, just now, as he looked at her. A thin, crooked smile revealing a lightning glimpse of very white teeth. Marianne's hand tightened on her husband's. She hated that slow, appreciative smile which made her feel somehow ashamed, as though the American were able to pierce through the mystery of her clothes and lay bare her girlish body. She actually shivered as she saw him abandon his idle stance and come towards her with his rolling sailor's gait. She looked away, pretending she had not seen the movement.

'May I be allowed to offer my compliments and good wishes?' The American's lazy voice spoke from so close behind her that she seemed to feel his warm breath on her neck.

Good manners obliged her to turn round but she left it to Francis to reply. His white hand clasped Jason's brown one as he exclaimed with a heartiness surprising to Marianne: 'You may indeed, my dear fellow! The good wishes of a friend have a value of their own and yours I know are genuine. We can count on your company?'

'Delighted.'

The blue eyes rested on Marianne's tight face and she thought furiously that he was aware of her dislike and amused by it. However, he had the good manners to go no further and merely bowed as the young couple moved away and turned their steps towards the duc d'Avaray and the bishop de Talleyrand-Perigord, who had come on behalf of Louis XVIII to honour the marriage of a countrywoman both of whose parents had perished in the Terror.

These two were standing somewhat apart, in loftly isolation over by the fireplace, making up by an austere dignity of bearing for their reduced situation as exiles. The simplicity with which both men were dressed formed a strong contrast with the elegance of the Prince of Wales and his friends. Marianne, in her old fashioned dress, made a charming foil to their stiff, outmoded dignity. As the bride made her curtsey to the royal envoys, Francis had the momentary illusion that he was back at Versailles twenty-five years earlier and something of this showed in the involuntary respect with which he bowed. The smooth voice of the duc d'Avaray was already extending the royal felicitations to the young couple, then, turning to Marianne, the old nobleman went on:

'Her royal highness, Madame la duchesse d'Angouleme[2] has been graciously pleased to send to you, my lady, this special token of her esteem. Madame has asked me to give you this, as a remembrance of her—'

He held out a small locket of blue enamel set with brilliants enclosing a fine lock of white hair. When Marianne gazed uncomprehendingly at the strange gift, d'Avaray went on:

'This lock was cut from the head of Queen Marie-Antoinette before her execution. Madame wished you to have it in memory of your noble mother who gave her life for the Queen.'

Colour flooded the girl's face. Unable to say a word, she sank into a deep curtsey leaving it to Francis to express her grateful thanks. Her feelings were, in fact somewhat mixed. These continual reminders of the past at a time when she stood on the threshold of a new life which she passionately hoped would be filled with the love and worship of a single man were more painful than pleasant. To Marianne, her mother was no more than a friendly ghost, the image of a smiling face pictured in an ivory miniature, but on this day the image had grown to the point of obliterating her own personality. There were moments when she wondered if it were really Marianne d'Asselnat and not Anne Selton who had married the handsome Francis Cranmere…

As he led her out into the hall to say their farewells to the prince, Francis glanced at Marianne's hands clasped round the locket.

'An odd present for a young bride,' he murmured, 'I hope you are not superstitious?'

She smiled bravely, thrusting away the momentary cloud.

'What is given in good faith cannot bring bad luck. This gift is precious to me, Francis.'

'Truly? I am glad. But, for the love of heaven Marianne, put the precious locket away in a box and don't wear it. Why do these damned demented Frenchmen always have to be waving the shadow of their frightful guillotine? I suppose it helps them keep alive their grievances and their thirst for revenge. And, I daresay, to forget that Napoleon is in power and they are only reflections of a vanished age.'

'You are very hard on my poor countrymen, Francis. Do you forget how much Madame has suffered? And I find it strange, that you, an Englishman, have a good word to say for the Emperor.'

'I detest Napoleon as much as I pity Madame Royale,' Francis retorted coldly. 'But I cannot approve of those who find it so easy to ignore the facts. But after all, politics seems to me a dry subject for your pretty head. Forget all about the revolution, Marianne, and concentrate on pleasing me.'

Dinner that night seemed to Marianne incredibly long and tedious. There were few guests and little gaiety. Certainly, it bore little resemblance to a wedding breakfast. Besides the young couple there were only the abbe de Chazay, Lord Moira, Jason Beaufort and Ivy St. Albans and the guests had too little in common for lively conversation. The talk, at first commonplace, gradually died away. The abbe de Chazay whose thoughts were no doubt already on his coming journey and the carriage which waited, ready harnessed, at the door, spoke little, the American not at all, contenting himself with observing Marianne with embarrassing attention. Only Francis and Moira talked about horses and hunting. Lady St Albans, following the bride's example, took no part in the discussion.

Ivy's dainty fingers were engaged in the mechanical rolling of little pellets of bread on the damask tablecloth. Marianne wondered why it was she could not bring herself to like this exquisite cousin of Francis.

Apart from her never allowing anyone to forget her connection with Lord Cranmere and her way of treating Marianne like a slightly backward child, Ivy St. Albans was the perfect picture of gracious sweetness. Some years older than Marianne, she was of medium height but her fairylike slenderness and still more the knot of pale gold ringlets which she wore high on her head made her seem taller. She had very delicate features, illuminated by a pair of languishing china blue eyes but although her mouth was as small as all the current canons of beauty could demand, there was something about her which Marianne found faintly shocking. It may have been her smile which had too close a look of Francis, perhaps that irreproachable and utterly feminine elegance which made the young girl feel, beside her, both countryfied and overdressed.

This evening was worse than usual. In her spreading lace-trimmed panniers, Marianne felt like some massive Chinese vase placed next to a fragile Tanara figurine. Her outdated furbelows only served to set off to advantage Ivy's wisp of a clinging muslin gown, the same blue as her eyes, cut low in the bosom to reveal the soft curve of her shoulders and caught in below her breasts by a chain of fine antique cameos that matched the fillet binding her fair curls. A long matching scarf completed an ensemble which, while stunningly simple, owed much of its effect to the perfection of the figure it covered. Ivy St. Albans, like many other Englishwomen, had taken to wearing muslin winter and summer because Napoleon was known to dislike it so much that the ladies of his court