Marianne

Juliette Benzoni Marianne

PROLOGUE 1793, A LONELY HEART

Ellis Selton stirred the smouldering logs with the end of her cane. A long tongue of flame leapt up, curled like a glowing snake about the logs and up into the dark expanse of the chimney. She leaned back in her chair with a sigh. Tonight, she hated the whole world and herself more than anything. It was always so when the weight of loneliness became unbearable.

Outside, sharp gusts of wind were bending the tops of the great trees in the park, whirling round the house and howling mournfully down the chimneys. To the lonely old maid who was the last remaining Selton, the storm seemed to draw out of the ground all the age-old ancestral voices of the place. There were no men now to inherit the great estate, no proud joyous young men with loud voices and strong backs who would make light of such a burden. There was only Ellis, lame and thirty-eight years old, to whom no one had ever spoken words of love. Not that she would have had any difficulty in finding a husband, but those who were attracted by her fortune and the splendours of Selton Hall filled her with such contempt that she could never bring herself to make the choice. And so, rejecting one suitor after another, she had turned by degrees into this grey-clad recluse, entrenched in her pride and her memories.

The wind dropped for a moment and from across the park came the muffled clanging of a bell. The huge dog which slept, nose pillowed on its paws, at the woman's feet, opened one eye and cocked it at his mistress. He gave a low growl.

'Quiet,' Ellis murmured, laying a hand on the animal's head. It was probably a servant returning late or some tenant farmer come to see old Jim.

Idly scratching the dog's silky head, she tried to recapture her train of thought but the animal was still uneasy. His hackles had risen and he seemed to be listening intently, as though following by instinct the progress of the caller across the wind-swept park. At last, intrigued by his behaviour, his mistress muttered:

'Can it be a caller? Who would come at this hour?'

But the noiseless entrance of her butler, Parry, a few moments later, brought the answer. For once, Parry, usually the picture of dignified calm, looked flustered.

'There is a man outside, my lady. A traveller who insists on speaking with your ladyship.'

'Who is he? What does he want. What is the matter, Parry?'

'He's not at all our usual style of visitor, my lady, not at all. In fact, it was only at his strong insistence that I consented to disturb your ladyship—'

'Come to the point!' Ellis cried, tapping her stick on the ground impatiently, 'if you go on like this, I shall never find out what it is all about. And since you have consented to disturb me I may as well know why.'

Somewhat disconcerted, the butler allowed his features to relapse momentarily into an expression of disgust. Then, his lips pursed in suitable disdain, he answered:

'It is a Frenchman, my lady, a catholic priest. He appears to be carrying an infant—'

'What! Have you gone mad, Parry—?'

Ellis had risen to her feet. Her face was as grey as her dress and the blue eyes under her heavy, gingery eyebrows were bright with anger.

'A priest? And with a child? Some fugitive from justice, I daresay, with the evidence of his misdeeds! And a Frenchman, into the bargain! One of those wretches who have slaughtered their nobility and murdered their sovereign! And you imagine I will take in such—?'

As a devout protestant, Ellis Selton had no love for catholics and regarded their priests with abhorrence deeply tinged with mistrust. Her voice, as she spoke, had risen from her normal, well-modulated tones to a shrill and penetrating scream. She was on the point of ordering Parry to send the intruder packing when the library door, which the butler had left ajar, opened to admit a small, black-clad figure carrying something in his arms.

'This I think you will take in, however,' he said in a gentle voice. 'One does not reject what God sends—'

The newcomer was thin, almost frail. The dirty stubble which covered his cheeks added a touch of strangeness to an otherwise undistinguished face. There was something unexpected, also, about the rather comical turned up nose although its possessor's evident wretchedness made this more tragic than funny. At all events, the stranger was redeemed from being either ugly or commonplace by the beauty of his great, luminous grey eyes, eyes of great depth and candour which gave his intelligent face a definite charm. In spite of her anger, Lady Selton also took note of the slenderness of his hands and feet, infallible signs of breeding. However, this was not enough to calm her fury. Her face turned from white to dark red.

'Indeed,' she said with some sarcasm, 'so God has sent you. I admire your impudence, my good man! Parry, call the servants and have them throw this heavenly messenger out – and the bastard he's hiding under his cloak!'

She expected the stranger to be worried but he showed no signs of it. The little man did not stir. He merely nodded, his fine, honest eyes fixed steadily on the angry woman.

'You may throw me out if you please, my lady,' he said putting aside the folds of his cloak to reveal the child, apparently asleep. 'But take, at least, the thing that God sends you. For it was not of myself I spoke but of her—'

'Your protégées are no concern of mine. I have my own poor!'

'Of her,' the stranger went on inexorably, and his voice had taken on a solemn note, 'whose name is Marianne Elizabeth d'Asselnat – your niece.'

Ellis Selton stood thunderstruck. The stick on which she had been leaning clattered to the polished floor but she made no effort to retrieve it. As he spoke, the little man had thrown back the great, greenish-black cloak, shabby and rain-sodden, which enveloped him and moved closer to the fire. The firelight fell on the face of a baby some few months old, lying fast asleep wrapped in a tattered shawl.

Ellis opened her mouth to speak but no words came. Her eyes moved wildly from the sleeping child to the stranger's face and came to rest at last on Parry, deferentially holding out her stick. She seized it like a drowning man, clenching her hand upon the knob until the knuckles whitened.

'Leave us, Parry,' she murmured in a voice that was strangely low and hoarse.

When the door had closed on the butler, Lady Selton asked: 'Who are you?'

'I am a cousin of the Marquis d'Asselnat – and also Marianne's godfather. My name is Gauthier de Chazay, the abbé Gauthier de Chazay. His voice held no trace of defiance.

'If that is so, forgive me for this welcome, I could not have guessed. But,' she spoke more sharply, 'you said this child was my niece—'

'Marianne is the daughter of your sister, Anne Selton and the Marquis Pierre d'Asselnat, her husband. And the reason I have come to ask your care and protection for her is that there is now no one to whom she can turn for affection but you, my lady – and myself.'

Ellis drew back slowly, never taking her eyes off the priest, until her groping hand met the wooden arm of her chair and she dropped into it heavily.

'What has happened? Where is my sister – my brother-in-law? if you have brought me their child, then they must—'

She could not go on but the abbé knew from the agonized break in her voice that she had already guessed. There were tears in the grey eyes that studied the old maid and an infinite pity. With her grey dress and the preposterous white cap with green ribbons which crowned her thick head of flaming red hair, she presented a picture that was at once bizarre and imposing. Instinctively, she tucked her crippled leg back under her seat. A fall on the hunting field, five years previously, had left her incurably lame. But the abbe's knowledge of people was enough to show him the proud and painful loneliness of this woman. It grieved him to have to add to her sorrows.