'I asked what wind blew you here,' he said. 'But by the look of you, I'd say it was more in the nature of a heavy squall. Right?'
'A storm would be nearer the truth. In fact, I am beginning to wish I had not come. I'm afraid I may embarrass you – or make you think the worse of me.'
'You could not. And whatever reason brings you here, I'll tell you right away that you did quite right to come. Your own delicacy forbids you to say straight out that you need something of me, but I have no hesitation in telling you I owe my life to you. So let's hear it, Marianne. You know quite well there is nothing that you cannot ask of me.'
'Not even – if I were to ask you to help me arrange a man's escape from the penal colony at Brest?'
For all his self-control, he could not conceal the slight start of shock which set Marianne's heart fluttering anxiously. When he spoke, it was very slowly and deliberately:
'The penal colony at Brest? You know someone in that clutch of felons?'
'Not yet. The man I want to rescue is still on his way there. He was sentenced for a crime he did not commit – he was condemned to death, but the Emperor granted a reprieve because he was sure he did not kill – and perhaps, too, because he is not French. Oh, it is a terribly complicated story, but I must try and explain…'
She was growing muddled and confused already. She could hardly speak for fatigue and emotion and could no longer bring herself to look Surcouf in the face. But he interrupted her, saying roughly: 'Wait a minute! A foreigner? What kind of foreigner?'
'An American. He is a sailor, too…'
There was a crack from the chair-back as Surcouf's fist smashed down on to it:
'Jason Beaufort! Thunder of fate! Why didn't you tell me so at once?'
'You know him?'
He got up so suddenly that he knocked over his chair but, ignoring it, he answered: 'It is my business to know every captain of every vessel worth the name both sides of the equator. Beaufort is a fine sailor and a brave man. His trial was a blot on French justice! In fact, I wrote to the Emperor and told him so.'
'You did?' Marianne exclaimed in a choking voice. 'D-did he answer you?'
Told me to mind my own business. Or words to that effect. You know he's not one to beat about the bush. But how comes it about that you are acquainted with the fellow? I thought you were – that is, I believed you to be on terms with His Majesty? I even thought of writing to you to ask for your help, but the business of the counterfeit money decided me against it. I feared to cause you embarrassment. Now here you are, come to ask me to help you help Beaufort to escape, you—'
'Napoleon's mistress!' Marianne finished for him sadly. 'Things have altered since our last meeting, my friend. I am no longer quite such a favourite at court.'
'Suppose,' Surcouf suggested, reaching for his chair and setting it on its feet once more before turning back to the chest where he kept his port, 'you were to tell me all about it. I'm a true Breton, you know, and we all dearly love a good story.'
Heartened by another glass of wine and a fresh supply of biscuits, Marianne embarked on a somewhat tangled account of her relations with Jason and of her recent dealings with the Emperor. However, the port soon exercised a warming effect and in the end she acquitted herself reasonably well in the ordeal. When she finished, Surcouf's comment was typical of the man:
'Damn fool ought to have married you in the first place, not this bowelless wench from Florida who must have been got by a wild Indian fed on crocodiles! You, now, you'd make a real sailor's wife! I saw that right away, when that old devil Fouché got you out of St Lazare.'
Marianne took this as a great compliment, and though she refrained from asking him to elaborate on the subject it was with rather more confidence that she inquired: 'So… you will help me?'
'Need you ask? A little more port?'
'Need you ask?' Marianne retorted, feeling an unexpected lightening of her heart.
The two friends drank eagerly to the success of a plan which they had yet to work out and Marianne felt a delicious sense of well-being creep over her. However, it took considerably more than three glasses of port to produce any noticeable effect on Surcouf's equilibrium. Draining his glass to the dregs, he announced his intention of escorting his visitor to the best hostelry in the town to take a little well-earned rest while he took care of the 'little matter in hand'.
'You can't stay here,' he explained, 'because I am pretty well alone in the house. My wife and children are at our house at Riancourt, near St Servan… and I can scarcely take you all the way there. Besides, Madame Surcouf is a very fine woman but I don't know if the two of you would deal together. She can be a trifle stern – and not overly tender-tongued.'
'A tartar!' Marianne decided mentally, while aloud she assured her friend that she really much preferred to go to an inn. She was anxious to pass unnoticed as far as possible and the fact that she was travelling incognito would make it awkward for her to visit his family. She might have added that she had no desire to figure as a nine days' wonder for the benefit of a pack of children, or to listen to a perfect housewife's comments on the price of grain and the difficulties of procuring foreign goods under the Blockade. A room to herself at a good inn seemed infinitely more attractive.
On this comfortable note, they parted, Surcouf confiding Marianne to the care of his man, the aged Job Goas. Job, who turned out as expected to be a retired seaman, was told off to deliver Marianne to the Auberge de la Duchesse Anne – which, besides being the best in the town, was also the regular posting house – and see her suitably accommodated. Surcouf promised to come himself later in the evening, when he had found the man they needed.
It may have been due to the intoxicating qualities of port wine or perhaps somewhat to relief at this swift acquisition of so substantial an ally, but certain it was that Marianne found the inn charming, her room all that was comfortable and the smells which wafted upstairs from the large public room very thoroughly appetizing. For the first time for very many days, life seemed to have something agreeable to offer.
The little town lay snug within its walls but outside the wind was howling with redoubled fury. The night promised to be a stormy one and the riding lights on the tall masts in the harbour were bobbing up and down like so many drunken sailors. In Marianne's room, however, protected by thick walls and thick panes of leaded glass in the windows, all was warmth and safety. The bed, with its piled-up mattresses surmounted by an enormous red eiderdown, smelled pleasantly of linen dried in the sun, spread on the juniper bushes out on the open heath. Tired from her long journey in bad weather, Marianne could have gone straight to bed, but the port and ginger biscuits had given her an appetite. She felt ravenously hungry and her hunger was sharpened by the delicious cooking smells which were seeping through the whole building. Besides, Surcouf had advised her to eat her dinner in the public room so that he would not have to be taken to her bedchamber when he came with the man he had gone to find. The inn itself was a highly respectable one where a lady might eat alone without fear of importunities. Nevertheless, Marianne decided that Gracchus should share her dinner, so as to be on hand in the event of unlikely but still possible trouble while she waited for Surcouf and his friend.
Seated at a small table close to the immense hearth at which a woman in the graceful lace hennin worn by the women of Pléneuf was making pancakes with the aid of a long-handled pan, the Princess Sant'Anna and her coachman applied themselves unashamedly to the enjoyment of Cancale oysters, large crabs of the kind known as 'sleepers' served with salted butter and a vast cotriade, the Breton bouillabaisse, pungent with herbs. They ended the meal with the traditional golden pancakes and sparkling cider.