'Very well. I believe you. Now, for the third time—'
'What am I doing here? I will tell you. I came to save you from an infinitely greater danger than anything which could have threatened you at Chernychev's hands.'
'Good God, what danger is this?'
The last words were drowned in a violent clap of thunder, so close that it seemed to be right above the house. At the same time, a fierce gust of wind swirled in through the open windows, lifting the curtains and the papers on the desk. The window banged to behind Marianne. Jason sprang to shut everything tight, then moved about, picking up the scattered sheets of paper and relighting various candles which had been blown out by the wind. At last he turned back to Marianne who meanwhile had come a few steps farther into the room. It seemed to her to have grown suddenly stifling and she took off the light silken wrap which she had flung over her simple, almost girlish dress of white linen sewn with daisies but which now felt unbearably hot, and laid it over a chair. Looking up again, she saw that Jason was observing her curiously and was conscious of a sudden feeling of embarrassment.
'Why do you look at me like that?' she asked, unable to meet his eyes.
'I don't know. Or rather… yes. In that dress, with the ribbon in your hair, you reminded me of the kid I met at Selton for the first time less than a year ago. So little time for all that has happened to you! To think that you have had two husbands, that Napoleon is your lover – and not, perhaps, the only one – it seems incredible!'
'Bearing in mind that neither of my husbands has been so more than in name, is it so hard to believe?' Marianne asked bitterly.
'I know. By your own account, the Emperor would appear to have coped adequately with the practical side of things.'
He spoke sarcastically, with a kind of cold contempt in his voice. Anger welled up suddenly in Marianne's heart, flushing her cheeks and bringing a sparkle to her eyes. She had come to him in desperate anxiety, half out of her mind with the fear that he might die before dawn before a firing squad, she had come to him crying out that he was in danger, and all he could offer her was sarcastic hints and innuendoes about how she had come to lose her virginity!
'I never said that!' she burst out in a voice quivering with anger. 'If you must know, the Emperor was only the second of my lovers. The first was a Breton sailor, a fugitive from the hulks at Plymouth, who was with me when I escaped from England. He saved my life when we were shipwrecked and captured by wreckers and he was the first man I lay with – on a heap of straw in a barn! And I let him do it because he wanted to – and because I still needed his help! Would you like me to tell you his name? He was called—'
A smack which made her catch her breath cut off her anger in mid-flight. She put her hand to her burning cheek and stared up at Jason out of big, tear-filled eyes, like a hurt child. The look of sheer, blazing fury on his face made her flinch. He was so frighteningly angry that she would have turned and fled had he not caught and swung her round, dealing her another ringing slap:
'You grubby little whore! And how many have there been since? How many more men have you given yourself to, eh?… And to think that I loved you! Loved you, did I say? I worshipped you… I was besotted – so besotted that I dared not even touch you! So besotted that there was a time when I could have killed the man who possessed you, although he was a man I admired with all my heart! And him, how often have you deceived him? And with whom? With this Russian, to be sure—'
All the fury of the storm outside seemed concentrated in that thickened, hideously distorted voice. Half-mad with terror and despair at the outcome of her senseless burst of temper, Marianne realized that she had unleashed in him all the hidden forces of a passionate nature, all the more terrible because the inflexible will of the man made him normally able to master them. In a frantic effort to soothe him, she clung to the iron hands which had her by the shoulders and were shaking her mercilessly to and fro, like a plum tree in August.
'Jason!' she implored him. 'Be calm! At least, listen to me—' But he only shook her harder.
'Yes, I'll listen to you all right! I'll make you tell me. This Russian, now? Can you swear by your mother's memory that you have never been his?'
Hideous recollections of the events of the previous night flitted through Marianne's mind, dragging a groan of anguish from her lips.
'No! No, not that!'
'Will you answer me? Answer me, I tell you!… I will be answered.'
This time a strangled shriek was his answer. In his rage, Jason had fastened his hands round Marianne's throat and was squeezing it tighter, and tighter… She shut her eyes and ceased to struggle. She was going to die… to die at his hands! How much simpler that would make everything! There was nothing for her to do, nothing she need say… and tomorrow Savary's men would unite the two of them in death.
Already she was beginning to lose consciousness. Red lights danced before her eyes. Her body went limp in his throttling hands and all at once Jason seemed to realize that he was killing her. He let go of her so suddenly that she would have fallen to the ground but for the chair which happened to be standing directly behind her. For a moment she lay there, helplessly, among the cushions, gasping for the air which was slowly filtering back into her lungs. Her hand went gingerly to her bruised throat, and she gave a sob which felt as if she had swallowed a ball of fire. Outside, the storm had reached its height, but the hellish fury of the elements all about them was no worse than the inferno within. Painfully, she forced herself to utter a few despairing words:
'I love you… As God hears me, I swear to you I love you and I belong to no other man.'
'Get out!'
Opening her eyes, she saw that he was standing with his back to her and the whole length of the room between them. But she saw too that he was shaking and that the sweat was making his shirt stick to his brown skin. She stood up, shakily, but was forced to cling to the chair for support. She felt hot and feverish and the room seemed to be spinning around her but she could not go away without telling him what she had come to say, without warning him… Since he had not killed her, she did not want him to die either. He must live, live! Even if the rest of her days were one slow death because she had lost him. It was her own blind rage which had made her commit an ineffable blunder: it was right that she should pay for it.
At the cost of a violent effort of will, she made herself walk towards him, over the hundreds of miles of empty desert which the room seemed to have become.
'I can't,' she croaked. 'Not yet… I must tell you—'
'You can tell me nothing that I want to hear! I do not want to see you again – ever!'
The words were harsh, but the fury had gone out of Jason's voice. It was flat and heavy – strangely similar, all at once, to a voice Marianne had heard once before, one night, in a mirror…
'No – listen! You must not go out tonight. That is what I came to tell you. If you go to Quintin Crawfurd's house, you are lost… you will be dead by morning.'
Jason turned abruptly and regarded Marianne with genuine astonishment.
'To Crawfurd's? What are you talking about?'
'I knew you would deny it, but you are wasting your time. I know that he is expecting you at eleven o'clock, with some other men, for reasons which I do not wish to know, because that is your own business and because – because in my eyes you cannot be altogether wrong.'
'Who are these other men?'
Marianne hung her head, hating even to be forced to speak the names. 'The Baron de Vitrolles… the Chevalier de Bruslart.'
Against all probability, Jason had begun to laugh:
'I have never heard of Monsieur de Vitrolles, but the Chevalier de Bruslart I do know, and so do you, if I remember rightly. Are you seriously trying to tell me that I have anything to do with these conspirators? Do you expect me to believe that you are doing me the honour to count me one of them?'