Marianne

'Look here, my lad, if you don't put a brake on your enthusiasm for our prison and our jailors, I shall personally insert my adult arm between these baby ones and push your face in! Can't you see the young lady is ill and must be got out of here as soon as possible?'

'Oh, don't be hard on him,' Marianne begged. 'I am sure he will find a way.'

'Why would I have taken all this trouble else?' Gracchus-Hannibal replied in a surly voice. 'All the same, there's nothing to be done tonight. It's too late. It can't be far off five o'clock, though it don't feel like it. And I'll have to get hold of some proper tools. A good file might do – unless we try and get out one or two of the bars—'

'Or knock down the wall!' Arcadius scoffed. 'It seems that you're no locksmith. Find me some good locksmith's tools and come back tomorrow night, if you can. You are right, it's too late now.'

Marianne did her best to hide her disappointment. When she saw the boy appear, she had thought that freedom was within her reach, but now they had to wait another whole day. Gracchus-Hannibal was scratching his head under the blue cap.

'Locksmith's tools?' he said. 'Yes, it could be – but where from?'

'Listen,' Marianne said suddenly as an idea occurred to her. 'If you need help, there may be someone who can give it – at least, if he is still in Paris.'

'Tell us, mam'zelle.'

'Go to the Hôtel de l'Empire and ask for Monsieur Jason Beaufort, he is an American. Will you remember that? Jason Beaufort.'

The boy pulled paper and pencil out of his cap. 'Wait a moment,' he said. 'I'll put it down. There – that's it. What shall I tell him?'

'That you come from Marianne – that she needs help. Then tell him where I am.'

'And if he's gone?'

'Then say nothing to anyone,' she said sadly. 'Just come and tell me, that's all.'

'You don't want me to tell them in the rue de Varennes?'

'No! No – not at present. We'll see if M. Beaufort has gone—'

Marianne could not have said what made her call on Beaufort for help. He had wounded her deeply and even now she did not altogether trust him. But he represented her one chance of escaping from the trouble which had dogged her ever since her marriage to Francis Cranmere. Only with Beaufort did the word "escape" bear its full meaning. If she succeeded in escaping with him, when his ship left the coast of France it would break all the chains that bound her. No more Fouché, no more reports, no more Talleyrand with his cunning plots, his brilliant ideas and his subtle diplomacy. Above all, and more than all, she would put an ocean like an impassable barrier between herself and the man she could not help loving. She could have devoted her life to Charles Denis, but what was the love of a mere girl like herself to Napoleon I, Emperor of the French? In a week, less perhaps, he would have forgotten her, might indeed have done so already. By now, all his thoughts would surely have turned to that arch-duchess of Austria he meant to marry. It was better to go away and never see him again rather than risk yielding a second time. And then, over there, she would try and get over it.

To keep her spirits up, she told herself that she would accept from Beaufort only such aid as she was obliged to and that she would try and support herself by singing. There must be theatres in that far away country, and concert halls—

'You mean to go to America?' Jolival's voice spoke quietly beside her.

Marianne came down to earth and saw that Gracchus-Hannibal had gone. From the far end of the passage, came the sound of stones being moved. He must be making a rough attempt to cover the hole by which he had entered.

'I think it is the best thing I can do,' she answered.

'Maybe. You do not wish to see him again?'

'No. It is best for me, and still more for him. I must not see him again at any price.'

'Why?'

The brief question shook Marianne. It forced her to reply as simply, to give the real reason for her longing to escape and it came home to her more sharply as she said it.

'Because I'm afraid,' she said in a low voice.

'You are afraid,' Jolival finished for her calmly, 'because you realize that you love Napoleon as much as Charles Denis, perhaps more. Whatever you may think, a halo of glory never does any harm to one we love – even if our politics are not quite the same. The glory is still there. And – do you think you will forget more easily if you put an ocean between you?'

'I hope so! Someone, I can't remember who, once said that the greatest victory in love was flight.'

Arcadius de Jolival roared with laughter.

'Look no further. He said it. Napoleon has a great belief in the merits of flight where love is concerned. It still remains to be seen whether there is any truth in that pretty phrase. I promise you, he has not often tried it.'

'Well I shall! You see, Arcadius, I should suffer too much if I stayed. He is to remarry again soon, is he not?'

'What then? A marriage of convenience, a dynastic marriage? No such union ever kept a man from his true love.'

'But I am not his true love! I am only a brief interlude in his life. Can't you understand that?'

'Even so. With his help you might become in a few days what you have dreamed of being, a great singer. But you prefer to set off, like Christopher Columbus, to discover America. It may be as well but remember what I say, even at the other end of the world, you will not forget the Emperor.'

'The Emperor…'

For the first time, she realized the splendour of that title. The man she loved bore the loftiest of all crowns. He was the greatest warrior of any age since Caesar and Alexander. Nearly all Europe bowed before him. As though it were child's play, he had won victory after victory, conquered vast territories. As though it were child's play, he had conquered her, had made her bow beneath a love too great for her romantic little soul, a love without even the legendary wings to help her bear the crushing weight of history.

When she spoke her voice was drained of all expression.

'Why do you think that I shall not forget him?'

Jolival sighed gustily, stretched and settled himself back on the straw. He gave a great yawn and then said placidly:

'Because it is not possible. I've tried.'

The hours that followed were, for Marianne, the most agonizing she had ever lived. The absence of a clock made itself cruelly felt because time seemed to her endless when she had no means of measuring it. Jolival did try asking Requin when he brought their one meal of the day but all he got for answer was:

'What difference does it make to you?'

They were forced, therefore, to rely on guess-work. Jolival attempted to soothe his companion's nerves by observing that darkness fell early in winter but nothing and no one could calm Marianne's nerves. So many obstacles lay between her and freedom. Would Beaufort be still there even? Would the boy manage to come back at all or would he be so overcome by the difficulties before him that he would abandon the whole plan altogether? A host of possibilities, each more desperate than the last, occurred to Marianne's fevered mind. There were times when she actually believed she must have dreamed that Gracchus-Hannibal Pioche was there. But for Jolival and his imperturbable calm, she would never have been able to control herself. But the man of letters appeared so calm and relaxed that it was almost irritating. Marianne would have preferred him to share her terrors and her cloudy suppositions instead of simply peacefully awaiting the outcome of events. But then, she reflected, he had little to fear beyond a disagreeable marriage.

Marianne had just returned for the hundredth time to striding up and down their prison when a whisper from Arcadius stopped her in her tracks.

'Someone's coming!' he said. 'Our red-headed saviour can't be far off – if my calculations are correct it must be getting on for nine o'clock.'