An hour later, Gracchus-Hannibal Pioche, heavily booted and enveloped in a thick riding cloak that would withstand the heaviest downpour, a hat pulled down over his eyes, clattered through the gates of the Hotel d'Asselnat. Marianne watched him go from an upstairs window and it was not until Augustin, the porter, had shut the heavy gates behind him that she left her post and made her way back to her own room where the smell of hot wax still hovered in the air.
Automatically, she went straight to her small writing-table and closed the blue morocco folder, first carefully extracting the single sheet of paper, signed only with an 'F', which had lain there. This letter, which had been waiting for her when she returned from the rue Chanoinesse, appointed a meeting for the following evening to hand over the fifty thousand livres. Marianne had an impulse to burn it but the fire in the hearth had gone out and then it crossed her mind that she should perhaps show it to Jolival, who at that late hour had still not come in. She thought he was probably trying to find the money for the ransom. The few words in Francis's handwriting had no power to wrest a shiver from Marianne. She read them indifferently, as though they did not really concern her. All her thoughts, all her anxieties, were concentrated on the letter she had just written and which Gracchus was at that moment carrying on its way to Nantes.
It was, in fact, two letters. One was addressed to Robert Patterson, United States consul, requesting him to speed the second letter to its destination with the utmost urgency. Even so, Marianne did not attempt to conceal from herself that the second letter was a little like the message in a bottle cast by a shipwrecked mariner into the waves. Where was Jason Beaufort at that moment? Where was the vessel whose name Marianne had refused to ask? A month was such a short time and the world so wide. Yet, however hopeless the odds, Marianne had been unable to prevent herself from writing that letter summoning to her side the man she had so long believed she hated and who now seemed to her the one being strong, reliable and true enough, the one man she dared ask to give his name to Napoleon's child.
Jason, accustomed from childhood to take life by the horns, to fight it with his bare hands, Jason, who acknowledged no master but the sea, he would be able to guard and protect her and her child. Had he not begged her to go with him once before to find peace and rest in that vast, free country of his? Had he not written: 'Remember I am here, and that I owe you a debt…'? Now, Marianne meant to ask him to repay that debt. He could not refuse because it was to some extent through him that fate had brought Marianne to her present pass. Once before, he had snatched her by night from the quarries of Chaillot and the talons of Fanchon Fleur-de-Lis. Now he must come again and snatch her from the mysterious stranger to whom her godfather meant to marry her.
He must! It was her only chance of a marriage which would not make her shrink with horror.
Yet Marianne knew that by summoning Jason to her side she was committing herself to the bitter sacrifice which she had rejected with despair in her interview with her godfather. She was renouncing Napoleon, committing herself to part from him, perhaps for ever. Jason might agree to give his name to Marianne's child, but he was not the man to accept the undignified role of a complaisant husband. Once he had married her, even if, as Marianne meant to persuade him, he refrained from exercising his rights as a husband, she would still be obliged to go with him and live where he wished, which would certainly be in America. The width of the ocean would divide her from the man she loved, she would no longer be beneath the same sky, breathing the same air. But then, was she not divided from him already by the woman whose rights over him made her an impassable barrier between them? Only the child was left and Marianne knew that through him she would always be united with her lover by ties more binding than those of the flesh.
As for Jason, Marianne dared not examine herself too closely on her feelings for him. Affection, respect, tenderness or merely friendship? It was not easy to be sure. Trust, certainly, complete and absolute trust in his courage and his qualities as a man. In him, the child would have a father capable of inspiring respect, admiration, perhaps even love. And with him, Marianne herself would be able to find, if not happiness, at least security. The solid wall of his determination and his stout shoulders would stand between her and all those who threatened her. There would be no Napoleon for Marianne and her child, but no more Francis Cranmere either, nor any other unwelcome sire.
Tired of meditating by the dead fire, Marianne got up and stretched and went towards her bed. All she wanted now was to sleep, and dream perhaps of the distant land about which Jason Beaufort had once talked to her with such compelling enthusiasm, in the little pavilion in the garden of the Hotel Matignon.
Marianne let fall her dressing-gown and was about to climb into bed when someone knocked at her door.
'Are you asleep?' said a voice in a half-whisper.
It was Arcadius, home at last and certainly unsuccessful in his search for money. There was to be no sleep yet awhile. Marianne sighed at the thought that she would have to tell him all that had occurred, except for what concerned the child and the plans for her marriage. That must remain her secret.
'I am coming,' she said aloud. Then, scooping up her dressing-gown from the floor, she slipped it on and went to open the door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Mountebanks
The dreadful moment had come. It was time to meet Francis to hand over the money. Yet there was nothing to distinguish Marianne and Arcadius from the rest of the Parisian crowd as, in the late afternoon of the following day, they mingled with the people strolling among the open air theatres, showmen's booths and cafes that filled the boulevard du Temple for most of its length. Wearing a walking dress of chestnut-brown merino trimmed with matching velvet ribbon and a narrow
They had left the carriage at the back of the gardens by the Cafe Turc. The afternoon was fine and a good many people were strolling up and down beneath the elm trees of the boulevard, drinking in all the sights and sounds of the permanent fairground which had established itself there.
The entertainment they were offered, against a constant background of music and shouting, showman's patter, trumpets, drums and cries of 'Roll up, roll up, see the show', included the Fire-Eating Spaniard, a thin, olive-skinned youth in a suit of spangles who drank boiling oil and walked on hot coals without apparent discomfort, the Intelligent Dog, able to select cards from a pack to order, and performing fleas drawing miniature coaches and fighting duels with pins. A tall old gentleman with a patriarchal beard stood on a wooden dais calling out: 'Roll up, ladies and gentlemen, roll up and see an entirely new performance, put on by special request, of that celebrated comedy in five acts, 'The Triumph of Peter, or the Atheist Confounded', complete with Transformation Scene, Rain of Fire in Act Five, Grand Finale and Ballet featuring the world-famous dancer, Mademoiselle Malaga, as Don Juan with Innumerable changes of costume! See her in Act Four in a suit of bronze velvet with ruffles of Flemish lace! And, ladies and gentlemen, to prove to you that accounts of her Great Beauty are in no way Exaggerated, we proudly present to you – Mademoiselle Malaga in person!'
Fascinated, in spite of herself, by the showman's technique and by the whole colourful scene, Marianne saw a young girl spring on to the stage like some exotic comet in a swirl of multicoloured silks. Her long, dark hair was bound with strings of sequins and she acknowledged her audience with a charming grace that won her instant applause.
'How pretty she is!' Marianne exclaimed involuntarily. 'What a shame that she should be obliged to appear on such a pitiable stage!'
There is a great deal more talent than you might think to be seen in these booths, Marianne. Malaga herself is reputed to be of good, even noble birth. The old fellow drumming up custom is her father, a
