After that, they had sat up all night telling one another their adventures, Arcadius and Gracchus with the convoy led by General Nansouty and Marianne and Barbe on the long road to Danzig.

There had been eating and drinking, too, and Adelaide, who for a month had scarcely touched a morsel, had suddenly recovered her old voracious appetite. On that memorable night she had accounted all by herself for a whole chicken, a pâtè, an entire dish of prunes and two bottles of champagne.

By daylight, she was slightly grey about the face, but as happy as a queen. And it was then, while she went off to seek her bed with steps that tottered a little, that Jolival turned to Marianne as she stood in the middle of the yellow salon, gazing up at her father's portrait.

'What are you going to do now?'

Without taking her eyes from that proud face whose faintly ironic stare seemed to follow every move she made, she lifted her shoulders in a little shrug.

'My duty. It is time I – for me to grow up, Jolival. And besides – I'm tired of adventuring. You wear yourself out and tear yourself to pieces, and all to no avail. There's Sebastiano – I want to think of him now.'

'Of him alone? There is someone else with him, remember.'

'I've not forgotten. It must be possible to find some sort of happiness in making another person happy. And he more than deserves it, Jolival!'

He nodded, paused for a moment and then said tentatively: 'And – you'll have no regrets?'

She gave him the same proud glance as she had given Jason Beaufort at the moment of parting. But now there was no anger in it. It was as calm and limpid as sunlight on the sea.

'Regrets? I don't know. All I do know is that for the first time for a long while I feel at peace with myself.'

The interminable journey had left her very tired and so she decided to rest for a little while before going on to Italy. The house, needless to say, was still hers to stay in for as long as she pleased. They saw a few friends, among them Fortunée Hamelin, who cried like a schoolgirl when Marianne told her of her meeting with François Fournier. Talleyrand, too, as biting and affectionate by turns as he had ever been, but visibly suffering from a good deal of nervous strain, like Paris itself, which Marianne scarcely recognized. The city was very grim. The Emperor had come back almost furtively and then, after him, week by week, the survivors of what had been the finest army in the world. Sick and wounded men, dragging frostbitten limbs. Many would never rise again from the beds they had gone through so much to reach. And yet it was said that the Emperor was already trying to assemble a new army. The recruiting sergeants were hard at work. For Prussia was raising its head again, encouraged by the disastrous Russian campaign, fostering small rebellions here and there, mustering arms and allies. In the spring, Napoleon would be off again with fresh troops, and Paris was beginning to murmur.

Yet, one piece of good news there was in these dark days. It came to Jolival through his lawyer, and it was good news in keeping with the times, for it, too, told of a death. Jolival's estranged wife was dead. Septimanie, Vicomtesse de Jolival, had succumbed to a severe inflammation of the lungs, contracted while accompanying the Duchess of Angoulême on charitable errands in the vicinity of Hartwell in the chill of the English winter.

Jolival was not hypocrite enough to weep for her. He had never loved her and she had played little part in his tempestuous life, but he was too fine a gentleman to betray any ill-timed rejoicing.

Marianne did it for him. She had not failed to notice, with pleasure and affection, the bond that had developed between her cousin and the Vicomte de Jolival. Jolival's behaviour to Adelaide held a tenderness and consideration that revealed his feeling for her. And so, on the day that she announced to them her intention of leaving for Lucca almost at once, she went on to say point-blank: 'Now that you are free, Jolival, why don't you marry Adelaide? The two of you get on so well together and it would at least give you some proper status in the family, instead of being merely a sort of adopted uncle.'

Jolival and Adelaide both blushed as red as each other. Then Jolival said quietly, and with evident emotion: 'My dear Marianne, it would give me the greatest happiness – but I am not the most eligible of husbands. I've no money, no estates, still less any expectations. A carcass that's seen better days—'

'Well, I'm not precisely the Queen of Sheba,' Adelaide murmured, fluttering like a schoolgirl. 'But I do think I might make a good wife if I were to be asked.'

'That's settled then,' Marianne told them, smiling. 'You shall be married and then come with me to Italy. It shall be your honeymoon.'

And so, on a late afternoon in April, when the air still had a nip in it, Adelaide d'Asselnat and Arcadius de Jolival were married in the lady chapel of the church of St Thomas Aquinas, with Prince Talleyrand and Madame Hamelin as witnesses. The Vicomte stood straight as an arrow, his dress a symphony of exquisite pearly grey, while Adelaide at his side was radiant in heavy Parma violet silk with a bouquet of violets in her hand, and looking ten years younger in a matching silk bonnet with feathers in it. Afterwards there was a delicious supper at the magnificent Hotel de Talleyrand in the rue St Florentin, where the Vice Grand Elector had been living for the past year and more, since selling Matignon to the Emperor, at which the great Carême deigned to display the full fruits of his genius.

It was just before midnight on the same night that a man in black came knocking on the door of the house in the rue de Lille. He was heavily cloaked and his face was hidden by a mask, but he bowed to Marianne as to a queen. He extended his black-gloved hand without a word, showing her a gold disc engraved with the four letters: A.M.D.G.

Then Marianne knew that this was the messenger of whom Cardinal de Chazay had told her in Odessa. Hurrying to her bedchamber, she took from her desk the diamond drop that she had carried with her faithfully through so many perils. She did not even pause to take it from its leather bag for one last time, but went straight down again and placed it in the messenger's hand. He bowed once more, then turned and went away. She had not even heard his voice. Nor, indeed, had he heard hers, for neither of them had uttered a single word. But when the heavy front door had closed behind the man in black, Marianne sent for Gracchus.

'You can be ready to leave now,' she told him. 'I have nothing more to do here.'


The post-chaise bowled on through the park, with Gracchus sitting on the box in all his former dignity. It reached the vast spreading lawn where the white peacocks were wont to parade majestically, came in sight of the house and drew up at last at the foot of the broad sweep of stone steps lined with white and gold footmen, one of whom stepped forward quickly to throw open the door.

Marianne sprang out, disregarding Jolival's proffered hand, her eyes looking instinctively for the turbanned figure of Turhan Bey. She was followed by Adelaide and by Barbe, and Barbe it was who suddenly clasped her hands together with a soft exclamation.

'Oh! What a little darling!'

Marianne turned. A strange little procession was coming along the driveway from the stables. Rinaldo, the head groom and formidable ruler of the magnificent Sant'Anna stables, was leading a minute grey donkey by the bridle and, perched on its back, held upright by Dona Lavinia's careful hand, was a laughing, black-haired baby boy. And Marianne thought that Rinaldo could not have looked more proud and happy if he had been leading the Prince's favourite stallion, the splendid Ilderim himself.

Dona Lavinia, meanwhile, had caught sight of the travellers and started so violently that she all but let go of the child. But it was only for an instant and then Marianne, standing rooted to the spot by the emotion that swept over her, heard her cry out incredulously.

'Her Highness! Oh God, it is her Highness!'

The next moment she had lifted the protesting boy out of the saddle and was running forward with him bouncing in her arms.

'Hush, my treasure,' she told him, laughing and crying at once, when he objected to this cavalier treatment. 'It's your Mama!'

'Mama – Mama—' At the sound of the baby voice Marianne's heart melted in her breast.

In that instant all the shyness that had paralysed her a moment before suddenly vanished and she leapt forward in her turn, to reach Lavinia only just in time to prevent her from attempting the impossible feat of curtsying with Sebastiano in her arms. Her own arms had gone out to take the child, but then she paused.

His head resting on Lavinia's shoulder, he was looking at her with the mixture of curiosity and alarm that children frequently accord to strangers and Marianne found herself powerless to move. She stood with her hands clasped before her, just as Barbe had done a few seconds before, her eyes devouring this child of hers and her heart turned upside down at the beauty of him.

Sebastiano was big for his fifteen months. His little round face was illumined by a pair of huge green eyes, the very image of his mother's. The white suit he wore showed up the warm golden colour of his neck and his plump little arms. His curly head was black and shining and when all at once he smiled, Marianne caught the gleam of three or four white teeth in the tiny mouth.

Meanwhile, Lavinia was gently detaching the baby's arms from round her neck.

'Well?' she said softly. 'Take him, my lady. He is yours.'