The black cloak swirled as he flung it round his shoulders. He went swiftly to the door. Marianne did not move. She remained quite still by the fire but just as, with one last look, he was about to leave her, she stopped him.
'One thing more! Was – was Selton completely destroyed?'
Now it was Jason Beaufort's turn to be cruel, to feel the need to give back hurt for hurt to her who stood like a rigid, diaphanous statue in her shimmering draperies, and see those stony green eyes falter, however little.
'No,' he said harshly. 'There was quite enough left for me to get a good price for it. And to enable me to get a good, fast vessel.'
Suffering in her turn, Marianne closed her eyes so that he should not see her tears. She wished that not one stone of the house that she had loved had been left standing.
'Go – go quickly.'
She did not see the move he made towards her, or his look of angry pain, nor did she hear him sigh. She only heard him say:
'Have the courage to look things in the face – and do not stupidly refuse what is your due.'
She did not open her eyes until a blast of freezing cold air made her shiver. The french door was swinging gently open to the empty night. A gust of wind swirled into the summer-house, raising the ashes in the hearth. Marianne bent slowly to pick up her cloak and wrapped it round her shoulders, huddling into its comforting warmth as though for refuge. Outside, Jason Beaufort was striding swiftly towards the lighted house, his great black cloak flying in the wind like the sails of the Flying Dutchman.
Marianne felt suddenly icy cold. She wished he had not gone, that he was still there to talk to her about that unknown country, full of sunshine and plaintive singing, a land where she could be a different person without ceasing to be herself. She ran to the door and opened her mouth to call him back – but no, she could not do it. She could not go with a man who had bought her for a night like some creature of the streets, a man who had coldly robbed her to repair his own fortunes. She could not go aboard the ship Selton had paid for. For a moment, she had been tempted but it was over. She would go on the way she had chosen and if it proved stony, so much the worse.
Yet, one thought still nagged at her mind. Why had he said she was in danger? Why had he urged her to flee? To that, there was no answer but as she too made her way back to the house, her memory kept repeating like a refrain: 'Hotel de l'Empire, rue Cerutti – Hotel de l'Empire, rue Cerutti—' A funny thing, memory.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Night at Butard
The town berlin belonging to the Prince of Benevento sped as swiftly as the rough-shod greys could draw it along the promenade de Longchamp, deserted at this late hour. It was eight o'clock in the evening. In summer, the promenade would have been crowded with horses and carriages for some hours yet but the dark, the cold and the snow had long since driven Parisians indoors, the bourgeois to their supper and cards, the fashionable world to the large parties which took place almost every night at this time of the year. Yesterday, it had been the Prince de Cambacere's, tonight, it was the duc de Cadore, who had replaced Talleyrand as Foreign Minister. This, thought Marianne, was no doubt the reason why Talleyrand was sitting beside her in the berlin rather than dressing for the duke's ball.
Ensconced in the mulberry coloured cushions which matched the paintwork on the great wheels of the carriage, she stared out indifferently at the snow-covered landscape. Longchamp was quite familiar to her now from many drives with the princess and little Charlotte and she did not greatly care to know where she was being taken. Talleyrand had told her that morning:
'Tonight, I mean to take you to the house of a very good friend of mine, and a great lover of music. I want you to be beautiful. Not that that will be difficult but I should like to see you in pink.'
It was the first time the prince had expressed any preference with regard to her clothes and Marianne was surprised, especially since, until that moment, she had believed his taste to incline rather towards cold colours, like blue and green, and she had no pink dress.
'You shall have one tonight,' the prince assured her and sure enough, later in the day a gown had arrived from Leroy which, though extremely simple, Marianne thought perfect. The dress was made of very pale pink satin, frosted with silver but with no other decoration. With it went a great hooded cloak of the same stuff, quilted and bordered with ermine, and a matching muff. The effect, on her, was stupendous, as was proved to her by the smile of satisfaction bestowed on her by the prince as she came down to meet him.
'I believe,' he told her, 'that tonight will be another triumph for you – perhaps your greatest triumph of all —'
Marianne's voice had certainly earned her a very flattering degree of success at private parties but it was a success which bore no relation with what she hoped to meet with in the theatre. She had the good sense to realize that what she had achieved so far was simply a fashionable success, and by its very nature fleeting. For some time, too, she had been feeling less confident of herself, and had worked with less enthusiasm at her singing. In addition, there was the persistent black cab always on her heels wherever she went. It was beginning to haunt her, like some inescapable presage of disaster. She had thought once or twice of going out on foot to see if anyone approached her but she had not dared, held back by a fear which she could not have explained. What was more serious was that, although she had mentioned it in her report, Fouche had made no comment and now Marianne did not know what to think. The prince had not mentioned it, either. It was all very bewildering. It was in her mind to go and see Fouche in the morning.
It was eight days now since the scene with Jason Beaufort and in spite of her expressed determination to forget him, Marianne had not yet succeeded in doing so. Whenever she thought of the American, it was with such a host of contradictory feelings that she felt quite lost. Anger predominated, and resentment, all the more bitter because she had been tempted to accept his offer. She was still too young to remain unaffected by the magic of certain words. Jason had awakened in her a desire for this new life he had described for her, a free life in a new world full of sunshine and warmth. Perhaps he really meant it when he said he wanted to give back a little of what he had taken from her? And, with that thought, Marianne was sometimes on the point of going to him. One morning, when she was out doing some errands for the princess, she even asked the coachman to drive down the rue Cerutti. She had seen the Hotel de l'Empire at number twenty seven, a building of some elegance with a number of vehicles outside it, and for an instant she had been tempted to stop the carriage and get out, to ask this strange man whom she hated but who fascinated her—
But then she changed her mind. Why should she believe Beaufort's word? He had robbed her of everything, had dared to barter her love and modesty. Who could say if, once they were at sea, he would respect his promise and not claim the shameful rights which he believed were his? And how much more when they were together at the other side of the world! After all, what reason could he have for saving her and from what? What was this danger with which he threatened her if not some imaginary bogey intended purely and simply to make her fall more readily into his snare? Only that morning, Marianne had received a short, unsigned note.
'
Marianne had merely shrugged and tossed the note into the fire. Today, she did not want to believe Jason Beaufort.
The berlin crossed the Seine and Marianne put her face to the window, rubbing a clear patch on the misted glass with the tip of one gloved finger.
'Are we going out of Paris?' she asked. 'Is it much farther?'
In the dimness of the coach, she could see little of her companion, though she could smell the faint scent of verbena. Since leaving the rue de Varennes, he had seemed to be asleep.
'No, not much farther – the village we are going to is called La Celle Saint Cloud. The friend we are to visit has a most delightful chateau there. It is a charming house, one of the prettiest I know. The king used it formerly as a hunting lodge—'
