Marianne

'How very foolish you should say. My dear sir, I have returned good for ill. Will you be good enough to tell me what this assault might signify?'

With the recovery of his spectacles, Fercoc had also recovered both his manners and his confusion. He hung his head.

'I ask your pardon, Mademoiselle Marianne. As I said, I lost my head. You were looking at yourself in the mirror and you were so lovely, so luminous, so exactly the way I see you in my dreams—'

'You dream about me?' She asked with instinctive coquetry.

'Very often – but not as much as I should like! I wish that I could dream of you every night because at night you notice me, you come to me – and then I dare such things, in my dreams. I thought I was still dreaming.'

There was such warmth and fervour in his voice that Marianne was quite disarmed. She smiled and looked at him with more attention. If he did not look always so timid and down-trodden, she thought, he would be quite a nice looking boy. His eyes behind his spectacles were kind and gentle, too gentle. The eyes of a devoted dog, not of a lover! All the other eyes she had seen bent on her had been masterful and demanding. Francis' eyes had been cold, Jean Le Dru's hot and fierce, while that other, the impudent American who thought that he had bought her, had had eyes like a bird of prey; not one of them had had eyes like these, soft and heavy with untold tenderness which went some way to banish her distrust of men.

'Do you forgive me?' He asked timidly. 'You are not angry with me?'

'No, I am not angry. It is not your fault – if you love me.'

It was a statement rather than a question. She knew that this boy loved her. He would not have looked at her like that had it been simple desire. It was a new and rather refreshing experience. The young man's eyes lit up at her words.

'Oh! You understand? You know I love you.'

'It was not hard to guess. And I have only just found out.'

'And – do you think that, one day, you—'

'That one day I might love you?' Marianne's smile was sad. 'How can you ask me that? I like you and I think we can be friends – but as for love! I do not know if I can love again.'

'Then, you have been in love?' he said in a low voice.

'Yes. And my life has been one long regret ever since. So, please, be kind and never speak to me of love.'

'And he?' Fercoc muttered with sudden violence. 'Does he never speak to you of love?'

'He? Who is he?'

'The prince. I may be shortsighted but with my spectacles I can see clearly enough. I have seen him look at you with his cold snake's eyes.'

Marianne stepped closer and gave the tutor's cheek a gentle, sisterly pat.

'I should not think a snake's eyes so very ardent! So let us have no more nonsense, my friend. The prince's looks mean nothing, to me of all people.'

'And yet I thought – that she had sent you here for him more than for her.'

There was a rustle of tulle as Marianne's hands dropped heavily to her side. It seemed that once again she had fallen into a trap. But now, the boy's innocence annoyed her. Perhaps because it echoed too clearly her own suspicions as to Fouche's private intentions regarding her. She saw that apart from the Countess de Perigord, who knew the truth more or less, everyone she met in this house with some knowledge of its master could have but one idea, that although she might spend her days with the princess her nights must belong to the prince. She had had more than enough of being taken for something she was not. It was insufferable! And this boy was no better than all the rest!

Alarmed by her silence, Fercoc was about to say something more but she silenced him with a gesture.

'No. Don't say any more. I have no time. I must go down. But let me tell you one thing, that whatever you may believe, I am not here for the prince. Good evening to you, Monsieur Fercoc.'

He made an effort to detain her.

'Mademoiselle – one moment – if I have annoyed you—'

But Marianne was no longer listening. The moment's gentleness had passed. He leaned over the baluster and watched her glide swiftly down the stairs, light as an iridescent shade, unaware that her irritation was directed more against herself than him. She was running away from her own weakness as well as from the image that others seemed determined to make of her. The love that he had offered her might have been sweet and soothing. Why did he have to spoil its freshness with his clumsy suspicions? They were insulting and irrelevant. Were there really only three kinds of men, cynics, brutes and fools? Would there never be one who was different?

At her approach, the footman's white-gloved hand pushed open the small door in the panelling of the great salon, which enabled her to avoid entering by the main double doors. She was met by a wave of light and heat, perfume and music. The great white and gold room, adorned with huge banks of pale pink tulips sent that very morning from the hot houses of Valencay, glittered at its most brilliant in the light of immense crystal chandeliers ablaze with innumerable candles. It was filled with a cheerful hubbub of conversation, punctuated by the flutter of fans, the silky swish of trains brushing the carpets, almost drowning invisible violins. Gowns shimmered, diamonds glittered and against a background of white uniforms, Russian or Austrian, that proclaimed the prince's cosmopolitan hospitality, Marianne beheld the gorgeous purple and gold of a marshal of the Empire and recognized the features of Leonine de Ney, Duke of Elchingen. She saw the Duchess of Courland reclining on a sofa wearing a plumed pink turban. Dorothee de Perigord, who was seated next to a tall, thin, talkative woman, Countess Kielmannsegg, smiled and beckoned to her. Last of all, she saw Talleyrand standing watching her. Her eye, at first drawn by the prince, a sombre and magnificent figure in a plain but perfectly cut black coat studded with foreign decorations, moved on insensibly to the other and still taller figure, also in black, standing beside him.

He too was watching her entrance. He had a thin, hawk-like face, a bronzed complexion and blue eyes that were very bright. Marianne felt an iron band tighten suddenly around her forehead and there was a taste of ashes in her mouth. Her fingers tightened on the roll of music. The man was Jason Beaufort.

***

Marianne's first instinct was to turn on her heels and run but in a moment, common sense prevailed over the terror which had taken hold of her. She could not run away. It might have been possible if Beaufort or the prince had not seen her, but both were looking at her fixedly. She had to stay.

Unable, however, to bring herself to approach the two men directly, Marianne veered off towards the corner where the Countess de Perigord was still sitting and beckoning to her. She felt in desperate need of a breathing space in which to try and think.

Dorothee greeted her with the rather exaggerated friendliness she tended to show partly for the pleasure of disconcerting those around her.

'Come and sit with us, Marianne, we are busy tearing everyone to pieces. It is great fun.'

Marianne forced a somewhat absent-minded smile and answered automatically: 'Heaven preserve me from providing you with a target, my lady. Who is your present victim?'

'Why, the Emperor himself. The rumour is spreading that he means to marry an arch-duchess. He has her household in hand already and I have been suggested for lady-in-waiting. What do you think?'

'I think, countess, that your birth makes you equal to the most exalted positions. This does not surprise me… should you like it?'

The conversation seemed to drag on agonizingly, but she had to gain time, time to think!

Dorothee de Perigord gave her great childish whoop of laughter.

'To be honest, no! Oh, not that I have any objection to serving a Hapsburg if she should be fool enough to marry the ogre, but I have no desire to live in Napoleon's immediate circle. There are quite enough of those dreadful, unavoidable evenings at the Tuileries as it is.'

The Countess Kielmannsegg had so far been content to listen but now she apparently felt that her young friend had been expending too much politeness on someone of no importance and that it was time for her to recover the initiative.