Жюльетта Бенцони - Marianne

Black Fish chuckled and turned his bearded face towards her. His smile made his face look uglier still.

'For your name, I hope you will tell me that yourself. As for what you are, I'll tell you. You're neither an adventuress, nor an insipid little goose. You're a lass of spirit, running away from some danger or other in England and you've come to France for some reason you don't know yourself, except that you had to go somewhere to stay alive. Am I wrong?'

'No,' Marianne said, 'that's how it is—'

'Besides,' Black Fish added, his voice grown suddenly gruff, 'I used to have a little lass once – she would have been about your age and you've a touch of her.'

'No longer?'

'No. She is dead. Speak no more of it. Ride on! We must find shelter before nightfall.'

Marianne did as she was told but as she urged on her mount, she wondered if it was only the rain that made her strange companion's bearded face so wet. Whatever happened, she was ready to follow where he led. She trusted him.

With a thunderous roar the diligence, all four tons of it, swept through the gates of the Hôtel des Postes in the rue Jean Jacques Rousseau and came to a halt in the middle of the courtyard. The rain seemed to come down twice as hard as the postilion jumped down heavily and the grooms ran forward to throw the covers over the steaming horses. The steps were let down to allow the travellers to descend. The brightly lit windows of the inn looked remarkably welcoming in the gathering dusk. The first to emerge was the notary from Rennes followed, almost at once, by the lady from Laval, yawning widely though she had slept three quarters of the way. Marianne came next.

It was Wednesday, the twentieth of December and twelve days since she had left Brest. Twelve exhausting, but thoroughly absorbing days spent with her face pressed close to the window of the diligence gazing out at the passing towns and countryside of this fascinating land of France. All the tales she had heard as a child had painted a grim picture of her father's country as a place delivered up to anarchy, brigandage and murder where no one could expect to be safe unless they spent their life virtually in hiding. She knew of course that the great revolution was over and that a new ruler was in power, but her picture of this ruler was an equally terrifying one, depicting him as a kind of brigand who had picked up the crown from a pool of blood in the market place and then only at the cost of the brutal murder of a romantic young prince betrayed into a hideous trap. And the former revolutionaries, soldiers of fortune, one-time washer-women and unfrocked priests who formed his entourage could not be much better. Marianne had expected a succession of half ruined towns, ravaged countryside, a people cowering under the arrogant despotism of the masters of the hour, and general suffering from the most abject and degrading poverty.

Except in some of the wilder parts of Brittany, what she found all along the diligence's endless journey was cultivated fields, prosperous villages, neat, attractive towns, well-run estates and even a number of handsome private chateaux. She had seen decently clad people, peasant women wearing gold crosses and lace caps, plump cattle and even children playing. Only the roads were in a shocking state but hardly worse than those in England and, just as on the other side of the Channel, there were a fair number of highwaymen to be met with in lonely spots, although the Brest Mail had not met any.

As for Paris, the little she had seen of it through the darkness and the driving rain had made her long to know more. They had entered the city after passing through some bare, leafless woods, by what the notary had told her was the barrière de l'Etoile, a massive gateway flanked by some very fine buildings with pediments and classical columns. The foundations of some other vast construction were beginning to rise from the ground close by.

'That is to be a monument to the glory of the Grande Armée,' the lawyer had obligingly informed her, 'a gigantic triumphal arch!'

Beyond, a wide, tree-lined avenue with smart carriages moving up and down it ran down towards splendid buildings and gardens and a sea of shining roofs and spires. But instead of proceeding down this thoroughfare, the diligence turned off to the left alongside a high wall.

'The wall of the Fermiers Généraux,' the notary hastened to point out. 'The Paris wall that made Paris wail, as they used to say when it was built, you know. Not so very long ago, but to some of us it feels like a century. This is your first visit to Paris, is it not?'

'Yes. I have lived always in the country,' Marianne had answered. The notary had been practically the only one of all the passengers on the diligence whom she could understand since his familiarity with legal documents had given him a somewhat slow and solemn turn of speech. The others spoke much too quickly for her and employed a number of strange expressions which, used as she was to the polished and aristocratic French spoken by those she knew in England, found hard to follow. She had therefore taken Black Fish's parting advice and done her best to look as shy and timid as possible.

In the course of her journey, Marianne had looked back with a good deal of affection to the strange companion of her recent adventures. She had found that, beneath his forbidding exterior, Black Fish was kind and brave and the few days she had spent in his little house in the district of Brest known as the Recoubrance, by the banks of the Penfield, had been a time of rest and peace.

It was a very small house built of brine-washed granite with a high, pointed gate and a neat, fenced-in garden. But the stout Bretonne housekeeper kept it as clean as a new pin. From the hearth stoned floor to the copper pans in the kitchen and the lovely old furniture worn soft and smooth with age, everything gleamed and shone. Even Black Fish himself, become once more for a time Nicolas Mallerousse, a retired naval man, took on a completely different air from that he had worn in the tavern at Plymouth. Gone was the piratical appearance and if a certain tang of adventure hung about him still, at least at Recoubrance he acquired a suggestion of honest respectability.

'My house is not large,' he had said, opening the polished oak door for his guest, 'but you are welcome to stay here as long as you wish. I have told you, I have lost my daughter. You can take her place, if you will.'

For a moment, Marianne was speechless. His generosity, springing as it did from genuine affection, went straight to her heart and she had not known what to say but Black Fish had continued:

'I know that when you took ship with me, all you wanted was to put as much space between yourself and England as possible. You've done that. No one will come to look for you at Recoubrance if you should care to stay.'

Marianne knew that she must pluck up her courage and tell him the whole truth. She need not fear his condemnation. That night, over a splendid lobster and a mountain of pancakes and cream provided by the excellent Madame le Guilvinec, she told him of the events at Selton Hall which had led to her flight. She told him, too, how by the merest chance she had learned at Plymouth that she still had some relations living in France.

'It was to my cousin d'Asselnat that I had hoped to go,' she finished up at last 'As my father's first cousin, she is a fairly close relation, while the Empress—'

'I daresay her majesty will welcome you with open arms,' Black Fish said with a hint of new respect. 'She is all that is good and gracious and has strong family feelings. It is to be feared though, that she will not be Empress much longer.'

'What do you mean?'

'That the Emperor has no children, his wife can never give him any and he needs to guarantee his succession. There has been much talk of divorce. Then, Napoleon will marry some foreign princess.'

Marianne had been profoundly shocked at this news although as yet she only half believed it. That the Corsican should wish to part from his wife because she gave him no children did not surprise her. Such behaviour was no more than what was to be expected from a man of his stamp. He was surely without either heart or principles. But as for his marrying a real princess, that would undoubtedly be a very different matter. The usurper must be swollen with pride indeed to think it possible. No princess worthy of the name would deign to sit on such a throne! More over, Black Fish-Nicolas seemed to view these events with some displeasure. Marianne thought she caught a hint of disapproval in his voice and, faithful to her old principle of plain speaking, taxed him with it.

'It seems you do not approve of this divorce, Monsieur Mallerousse?'

'You can call me Nicolas! No, I do not approve. Josephine has meant good fortune to the Emperor, his lucky star, if you like. I am afraid if he sends her packing, his luck may change.'

Marianne forbore to observe that to her way of thinking, the Emperor's luck could not change soon enough, but Nicolas had already reverted to her own future.

'If this is so, child, you've nothing to gain by staying at Recoubrance; even after a divorce, Josephine would still be powerful and her protection is not to be ignored. Napoleon has greatly wronged her but I believe truly loved her. The best thing you can do is go to Paris. You won't have any trouble finding your cousin. I'll give you a letter of introduction to the Minister of Police, Citizen Fouché – the Duke of Otranto, I should say. I'm not used to his new title yet, but I'll get round to it.'