'The right? Oh yes, the war – I see,' she said wearily.

'No! Listen! Anyone who says that we can ever escape our destiny is a fool or a dreamer! We can never break free from the mistakes that we have made. We must carry them with us for as long as it pleases God to make us! Because we loved each other, you and I, we have done everything we could to bend fate to our will. We've run to the ends of the earth – but however far we've gone, fate has caught up with us. It is stronger than we are.'

'But – what do you mean? What fate?'

'Mine, Marianne. The fate that in my stupidity I forged for myself, out of disappointment, anger, jealousy, call it what you will. Crazy as it seems, it caught up with me back there in St Petersburg, in a city that for us Americans might almost as well be in the middle of Africa. I thought, you know, that I might have some trouble making myself known to the Krilovs, who were my father's friends. I thought that they might well have forgotten the very existence of the last of the Beauforts. Do you know what I found when I reached their house?'

Marianne shook her head. There was something rather frightening about the way he was leading up to this and she was beyond speech. She knew that he was concealing something terrible, something that was going to hurt her very much. It might have been some attempt to soften the blow that made him lower his voice almost to a whisper.

'I found the Krilovs' youngest son – Dimitri – just returned from a voyage to America. His father had sent him to try and find out what had become of us and to renew the old ties, which might lead to some commercial advantage nowadays. He was in Charleston.'

"Yes-well?'

'My – Pilar, whom we thought locked up for good in a Spanish convent, Pilar has come back to me.'

Marianne was conscious of a sudden surge of anger. So this was his destiny? That wretched woman who had done her utmost to send her husband to his death on the scaffold? Who had come near to killing her, Marianne, also! Was this what was worrying him?'

'Well?' she cried fiercely. 'What does it matter if she has come back? You can send her packing!'

'No. I can't. Not any more. I have no right to do it. She – she has come back with a child, my child. My son.'

'Oh—!'

Marianne said nothing more, nothing but that one tiny sound, but it held all the cruel anguish of a dying breath. Jason was right. Fate, that fell and cunning sergeant, had caught up with them. Their long, unremitting struggle against it was over at last.

Feeling her body suddenly lifeless against his, Jason tightened his hold and bent his head and tried to kiss her ice-cold cheeks, her closed lips, but she laid her hands flat against that breast where she had dreamed of laying her head all the nights of her life and thrust him gently away without a word. Like a child whose favourite toy is broken, he tried to snatch her back to him, crying out in his sudden grief and terror: 'Say something! Speak to me! Please! Don't just look at me like that. I know I have hurt you, only speak to me! It's true I love you, you know it is! You are all I love and I'd give anything in the world to be able to live out my dreams with you. Listen – there's no need for us to part yet. Surely we can still snatch a little happiness, a little joy from life? I may die in this war, die far away from you – so come with me! Let me take you aboard this ship. It sails at dawn and it is still many days to Anvers – and many nights. Let me go on loving you to the end! Let us not refuse this last miraculous gift—'

She felt the fever that possessed him. She knew that he was speaking the truth, that he meant what he said, he really did want her to go with him. As he said, it would mean many more days, many more nights for loving, forging a chain of passion which at the last moment he might not have the courage to break. Then, at Anvers, he might ask her again to follow him across the seas to his own land where she might still live a life of secrecy and sacrifice as his mistress. That too would mean many more nights of love – and she did love him so! It was a terrible temptation…

In the depths of her misery she might have yielded, might have let him persuade her. But then all at once three faces came into her mind: her father's, proud and sardonic, Corrado's, splendid and sad, and then the tiny, soft face of a sleeping brown-haired baby… And with that the weak, desperate and desperately loving Marianne shrank away, driven out by the Marianne d'Asselnat who, on her wedding night and for her honour's sake, had fought the man she loved and left him lying wounded on the floor of Selton Hall, and that same night had sent Jason Beaufort from her. It was no longer possible for her to be any other.

Firmly, now, she pushed him from her and stepped out of the doorway into the icy wind that billowed out her clothes and stung her body like a whiplash. Gripping her hands together tightly inside her muff of black fox fur, she threw her head back proudly and looked for the last time into the pleading eyes of the man she was leaving and who did not deserve that she should abase herself for him.

'No, Jason,' she said gravely. 'I too have a son. I am Princess Sant'Anna.'

Night had fallen. Without looking back, Marianne walked towards the inn which shone through the darkness like a great ship's lantern, or like a beacon through the storm in which her love was foundering.

Epilogue

JOURNEY'S END

MAY 1813


As before, the black and gold iron gates between the pair of stone giants seemed to open of their own accord at the horses' approach. As before, the magical tranquillity of the park descended like a caress upon those who entered.

There was still the same pale, sanded avenue running like a river between the black plumes of cypresses and round, fragrant orange trees to lose itself in the misty spray of the fountains. And yet Marianne was instantly aware of a feeling that something had altered, that these gardens were not quite as they had been three years ago, almost to the day, when she had come there for the first time at the cardinal's side, as one entering an unknown world.

It was a sudden exclamation from Adelaide that gave her the clue to the difference.

'But it's beautiful!' she breathed. 'All those flowers!'

That was it! The flowers! There used not to be any flowers in the gardens, except when the orange and lemon trees were in bloom. Its beauty had derived solely from the contrasting shades of trees and turf and the tossing waters of the fountains where the statues stood unmoving, with an air of infinite boredom. Now there were flowers everywhere, as though a magician in a moment of madness had scattered all the colours of the rainbow over the whole garden. There were pale, fragrant laurels, huge silvery-pink peonies, great purple rhododendrons, pure white lilies and roses, above all roses – an orgy of flowers! Their splendour had brought the great gardens to life. They rioted everywhere, competing with the shining jets of water from the fountains whose refreshing murmur formed a background to the voices of the songbirds. For there were birds, too, as there had not been before, as though the sadness that had weighed on the whole of the enchanted demesne had frightened them away. Now they were singing with all their hearts.

Amused by Marianne's evident surprise, Jolival bent forward and touched her hand.

'Are you awake, Marianne, or are you dreaming? Anyone would think you had never seen these wonderful gardens before.'

She gave a little shiver, as if she were indeed just waking from a dream.

'In a way that's true. I have never seen them like this. There never used to be any flowers, or birds, or any real life at all, I think… It was all like a strange dream.'

'You were very frightened then. You can't have looked properly.' And Jolival laughed and turned to his newly wedded bride for confirmation. But Adelaide shook her head at him and slipped her arm through Marianne's.

'You don't understand at all, my dear. For my part, I think this change has come about because there is a child here now. A child can make even a graveyard burst into blossom.'

Adelaide and Arcadius had been married for a month now. On her return to Paris in the previous January, Marianne had found the two of them living a cloistered life together in the Hôtel d'Asselnat, locked in their shared grief and it was that, little by little, had brought them together. They were both sure that Marianne was dead and they mourned for her with all their loving hearts.

The arrival of official documents confirming Adelaide as the lawful owner of the family mansion in place of Marianne had not helped matters. Quite the reverse, in fact. This unexpected inheritance had finally convinced them that Marianne was really gone, especially as no one had been able to give them the slightest news of her. After that they had suddenly felt very lonely and unwanted, no longer knowing what to do with their lives. The house had become a mausoleum and the two of them settled down behind its drawn curtains to wait for the end, with only Gracchus to wait on them, but a Gracchus who no longer sang.

On the night when the mud-bespattered coach bearing Marianne and Barbe had drawn up below the steps, the travellers had been met by two very old people dressed in deepest mourning and leaning on each other's arms, both of whom had, in good earnest, very nearly died of joy.

That unexpected homecoming had truly been a great and wonderful moment. They had clung to each other for minutes on end, unable to tear themselves away, while Gracchus, having kissed his mistress in his turn, sat down on the front steps and sobbed as if he could never stop.