Marianne moved slowly to a window. Perhaps it was her English blood that made her believe in ghosts. She could feel something now, here in this room.
The opposite wing of the house was hidden from view behind the jutting central block, but the windows commanded the whole extent of the peacock lawn, which ended in an immense cascade down which the water foamed and tumbled from pool to pool to fill a wide basin framed by two groups of plunging horses. It seemed to Marianne that these churning waters, in such strong contrast to the green and peaceful gardens, were a symbol of some powerful, hidden force penned beneath a surface of deceptive calm. But then, after all, those boiling waves, the restless plunging of the horses, these things were life itself, the passion to be and to act which Marianne had always felt fretting within herself. It may have been that which made this place, with its uncanny silence, strike her like a tomb.
Dusk found Marianne standing in the same place. The green park had melted into indistinct shades of grey, the cascade and the statues were pale blurs and the regal birds had gone. Marianne had bathed and nibbled half-heartedly at a light collation but she had found it impossible to sleep for an instant. The blame for this could probably be assigned to the preposterous bed, which made her feel like a victim offered up to the sacrificial knife.
Now she was dressed in a gown of heavy, creamy-white brocade, stiff with gold embroidery, which Dona Lavinia had brought to her, spread out in both arms as solemnly as if it had been some precious relic. Her head was crowned for the first time with a weighty diadem of gold set with outsize pearls, the fellows of the ones that made up the collar and bracelets of almost barbaric splendour which adorned her neck and arms. She stared out into the darkening garden, trying to quell the nervous fears that mounted in her as the hour drew near.
She saw herself, so short a time before, standing in another place, looking out at a different park, on the brink of another marriage. That was at Selton, on the eve of her wedding to Francis. Good God, was it possible that it was scarcely nine months ago? It felt like several centuries! She had stood at the windows of the marriage chamber, dad in a flimsy wisp of cambric, her girlish body quivering with mingled fear and anticipation, staring out as darkness shrouded the familiar landscape. How happy she had been that night! It was all so simple and beautiful. She loved Francis with all her youthful being and hoped to be loved by him, and she waited with passionate intensity for the moment when, in his arms, she would learn the overwhelming joys of love.
It was another who had taught her love and every fibre of her body trembled even now with intoxicating gratitude at the memory of those white-hot nights at Butard and the Trianon. Yet it was this love also which had given birth to the woman whose image she had contemplated only a moment past in those ridiculous mirrors: a statue of almost Byzantine majesty and splendour, huge eyes in a set, pale face, Her Serene Highness the Princess Sant'Anna. Serene… most serene… ineffably serene, while her heart was wrung with grief and anguish. What a mockery!
Tonight there was no question of love, only of a marriage, positive, realistic, implacable. A union of two people in trouble, Gauthier de Chazay had called it. Tonight no man would come knocking at the door of this room, no desire would come to claim her body in which life, secret as yet but already all-powerful, was growing… no Jason would appear to demand payment of a debt, fantastic yet disturbing…
Marianne leaned on the bronze window hasp, fighting off the giddiness which overwhelmed her, thrusting back the mariner's image as she suddenly thought that if he had come she might have felt a real happiness. But he was not there and the world was strangely empty. She wanted to cry out, and she pressed her be-ringed fingers into her mouth to keep back that absurd call for help. Decked in jewels an empress might have envied, she had never felt more miserable.
She was shaken out of her morbid state when the double doors of her room were flung wide open and the shadows were dispelled by the appearance of six footmen holding branched candlesticks aloft. Aureoled in the sparkling light of the dancing flames, his robes of red watered silk sweeping the polished floor, the cardinal entered in all the splendour of the Church of Rome and at the glory of his entrance Marianne blinked like a night bird brought suddenly into the light. The cardinal's gaze rested thoughtfully on her for a moment but he made no comment.
'Come,' he said, merely. 'It is time.'
Whether it was his words or the blood red of his garments, Marianne could not have said, but she felt like one condemned, being summoned to the scaffold. She went to him, none the less, and laid her bejewelled hand on the red gloved fingers he held out to her. Their two trains, the sweeping capa magna and the queenly gown, whispered in concert over the marble surface of the rooms.
As they walked through them, Marianne saw with amazement that every room was lighted as if for a ball, yet nothing could have been less festive than this huge, magnificent emptiness. She thought, for the first time in years, of the fairy stories she had loved as a child. Tonight, she was Cinderella, Donkeyskin and the Sleeping Beauty all rolled into one, but for her there was no Prince Charming. Her prince was a phantom, invisible.
In this way, in slow and solemn procession, they traversed the entire palace. It was as though the cardinal were proudly presenting the newcomer to the assembled shades of all those who had once lived, loved and, perhaps, suffered in this place. At last, they came to a small saloon, hung with red damask, in which the principal article of furniture was a tall mirror of the French regency period, set on a gilt console and framed by a pair of bronze girandoles bearing clusters of lighted candles.
Bidding Marianne with a gesture to be seated, the cardinal stood beside her in silence with the air of one waiting for something. His eyes were on the mirror, which Marianne was sitting facing, but he had retained her hand in his, as if for reassurance. Marianne felt more oppressed than ever and she was already opening her mouth to ask a question when he spoke.
'My friend, here, as I promised, is Marianne d'Asselnat de Villeneuve, my god-daughter,' he said proudly.
Marianne shivered. It was to the mirror he had spoken, and now it was the mirror that answered.
'Forgive my silence, my dear cardinal. I should have spoken first, to welcome you, but I must confess that I was dumb with admiration. Madame, your godfather endeavoured to describe your beauty to me but, for the first time in his life, his eloquence has proved unequal to the task; so far unequal that only the fact that none but a poet could find words to express such divinity can excuse him. Let me say how deeply – humbly grateful I am to you for being here – and for being yourself.'
The voice was low and muffled. Its very tonelessness gave it a note of weariness and profound sadness. Marianne tensed, to control the excitement which was quickening her breath. She too looked at the mirror from where the voice seemed to come.