The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.

by Sandra Gulland

  Alexandre groaned.

  “You recall?” Aunt Désirée asked.

  He sighed with exasperation and entered the parlour. “I believe you mean Madame Darigrand—a certain Geneva-Louise.” He sat down by the fire, blowing into his hands and rubbing them together. “It’s so cold out there! Who would believe it’s May? What’s come over this country? The weather has become so unpredictable!”

  The parlourmaid came to the door. “Would Vicomte de Beauharnais wish for something?”

  “I’ll have a pint of claret—warm.”

  “Alexandre!” Aunt Désirée said. “It’s not yet eleven.”

  “And you haven’t been travelling all day in this miserable weather. When you think of the nonsense they concern themselves with, you’d think they’d figure out a way to heat a diligence.”

  I sat opposite him, ready to speak to the subject at hand, when Mimi came to the door holding Hortense’s hand, Eugène following behind, carrying a toy crossbow he’d made the day before from sticks and bits of string.

  “Take the children away,” Aunt Désirée told Mimi.

  “Please allow a moment.” I knew how much his father’s visits meant to Eugène. Hortense squirmed to escape Mimi’s grasp.

  Alexandre examined Eugène’s crossbow. “Do you want to try it?” Eugène asked.

  “I must talk with your mother and Aunt Désirée first.”

  Mimi picked Hortense up, setting off a howl. “You will see your father soon,” I assured her.

  After the children had gone, the three of us sat for a moment in uncomfortable silence. Aunt Désirée cleared her throat. “Madame Croÿ is concerned about the welfare of the child,” she said finally.

  “The child?” Alexandre stood in front of the fire. There were only a few small sticks on a deep bed of ashes—they gave off little heat. “What child?”

  “You don’t know?” I asked. Aunt Désirée and I exchanged a confused look.

  Aunt Désirée explained: “Madame Croÿ claims that her daughter—Madame Darigrand—is soon to be having your child.”

  Alexandre sat down in a chair, crossing and uncrossing his legs in an agitated manner.

  “Alexandre,” I said, “you look upset. Please explain.”

  “I … knew Geneva-Louise—or Madame Darigrand, as you so honour her—for a period of six months. I wasn’t the first and I won’t be the last. We broke off, and a month later she came to me, claiming to bewith child.”

  “Why does this news surprise you?” I asked.

  “Because I gave Madame Darigrand a considerable sum of money to … to resolve her condition.”

  “I see.” Aunt Désirée crossed herself. “And what do you propose to do now, Alexandre?”

  “I told Madame Darigrand I wanted nothing more to do with her,” Alexandre said, “and certainly nothing to do with a child.”

  “But, Alexandre,” I said, “you are the father of that—”

  “I did not journey all the way from Paris to be lectured,” Alexandre said. He strode back into the foyer.

  “Hortense and Eugène will be heartbroken if you leave!” I cried out, running after him.

  He stayed. I promised not to mention Madame Darigrand again.*

  August 10.

  We are besieged by financial troubles, which I greatly resent for I consider money one of the least important things in life. Yet the want of it can certainly be distracting.

  The Marquis’s Saint-Domingue plantation is not earning, nor La Pagerie in Martinico. Aunt Désirée and I have written letter after letter to Father, but without solution. He claims it’s the British, the weather, inflation … all adding up to the same result: no income. I’ve had to depend on Alexandre’s contribution, which is rarely forthcoming. There are times when I am entirely without.…

  September 3, 1:15 p.m.

  It is said that autumn is beautiful in Fontainebleau, but the charm is dulled for me in this season. In three hours Alexandre will arrive and wewill partake of the refreshments the cook has made in honour of Eugène’s fifth birthday. I’ve just finished decorating the cake, fulfilling his request for liquorice comfits all around on top. Oh, how my heart went out with each comfit I placed, how the tears started as I positioned each candle.

  September 4.

  Eugène and Alexandre left this morning, Eugène holding on to his new book bag, looking very grown-up but for the baby-blanket he clasped in his other hand. I tried hard not to cry, for he might cry in turn, and that would have distressed him, I knew, trying so hard to be big. We are all of us trying.

  Wednesday, January 3, 1787.

  Creditors pester our door like flies in autumn. Years ago, the Marquis’s annual pension was set at one hundred and fifty thousand livres. In the last decade, it was reduced to twelve thousand. And now, because of the impoverishment of the government treasury,* it has been further reduced to under three thousand livres a year.

  Three thousand! How can the Marquis and my aunt be expected to live on such a sum? After all his years of distinguished service, is this his reward? I have written the Minister of War to try to persuade him to have the pension increased. We are renting a house that can stable twelve horses, but can’t afford to keep a pair.

  The Marquis maintains his humour: “I used to think someone impoverished if he couldn’t enjoy the privilege of raising three armed men. I’ll soon be so poor I’ll have to stay in bed while my breeches are mended.” He’s in bed all the time anyway; it’s unlikely he’ll ever wear out a pair of breeches again.

  May 1, 1788.

  The letters from home are distressing. Father is not well and now Manette is seriously ill. Mother begs me to come home—her words havean ominous tone. I must go, surely … but how could I leave Eugène?

  Tuesday, May 27.

  We’ve received the most bewildering news: the Island properties have been earning a profit. According to information Uncle Tascher provided, last year La Pagerie earned seventy thousand livres.

  “Seventy thousand! Why hasn’t Joseph sent you your share?” Aunt Désirée demanded. “Has he sent you anything?”

  “He’s been ill. No doubt—”

  “I wonder if the Marquis’s properties earned a profit as well.” She began pacing in an agitated state. I no longer feared that she might faint.

  “If only I could talk to him,” I said.

  Aunt Désirée stopped. “You must go, Rose.”

  “To Martinico?” I stuttered.

  “I would gladly go myself were it not for the Marquis’s health.”

  “But—” What about Eugène? Alexandre would never permit me to take him. “But Eugène is coming in a few weeks to spend his summer holiday with me.” I’d been looking forward to it, making plans.

  “Yet it is precisely for his sake that you must go, Rose. It is his inheritance, his future, after all.”

  I was at a loss. I longed to see my family, my ailing father and sister, but the very thought of an ocean voyage made me ill. “It would cost a small fortune to go,” I said. Last week Alexandre had informed me that he didn’t have the two thousand livres required to pay for Eugène’s schooling. As well, my own debts had mounted.

  “It will cost you not to go.”

  “But it’s almost June. I would have to leave immediately.” It would be dangerous to be at sea in August, the month of hurricanes.

  “Exactly.” Aunt Désirée dipped a quill in the inkwell. “The Marquis may be feeble but as a former commander in the navy there are a few things he can arrange—I should think passage on the next ship to Fort-Royal would be one of them,” she said, writing out a note. “There—” She sprinkled the letter with sand and shook it clean. “Take this up for his signature and I’ll send it out on the next post.”

  June 2.

  It has happened very quickly. Passage has been found. I’ve borrowed six thousand livres for the journey. As well, Aunt Désirée will loan me one thousand livres. Already she’s found a buyer for my harp—that should help pay for
Eugène’s tuition.

  And so it is set—Mimi, Hortense and I will be leaving in a few weeks for Paris. From there it will be a three-day journey by coach to Rouen, where we’ll take a river barge to Le Havre to wait ship.

  There is so much to do, so many things to remember to do, so many things to worry about.

  I told Hortense last night, at bedtime. She likes the idea of a boat. She is five now, and a strong girl.

  Mimi is ecstatic, of course.

  I can’t believe we are doing this.

  June 20—Paris.

  Hortense and I are in Paris, saying our farewells to Eugène and Alexandre. We leave for Le Havre in the morning.

  It was difficult explaining to Eugène that we are going to be away for a very long time. “I must see my father and my sister,” I explained. “They are ill.” He is only six; it was the explanation he could most easily understand.

  He said he would come visit us, and I had to explain that he couldn’t. “Your sister and I will be on the boat for a very long time, just to get there.”

  I gave him a music box with a toy soldier that popped up. I turned the box over. I’d had an inscription engraved on the bottom.

  “I can’t read it,” he confessed.

  I pointed to each word as I pronounced it: “For Eugène, whom I will always love, Maman.”

  He turned the box over in his hands. “Is that all?” he asked.

  “That’s all,” I said, too close to tears to say more.

  * The separation agreement stipulated that Alexandre would pay Rose an annual allowance of five thousand livres plus an additional one thousand livres for Hort-ense’s expenses up to the age of seven, fifteen hundred livres thereafter. (Unfortunately, this was rarely paid.) As for Eugène, the agreement stipulated that Alexandre would take custody when the boy turned five.

  * Joseph acted as manager of all the Beauharnais properties in the Caribbean. Unfortunately, he was not a good one.

  ** Approximately forty thousand babies were abandoned a year.

  * In June, Marie-Adélaïde (Adèle) was born. Monsieur and Madame d’Antigny became her foster parents. Rose contributed to the child’s upkeep. In 1804, Rose-as Empress-arranged Adèle’s marriage to a Captain Lecomte, and provided her with a farm as a dowry and a trousseau.

  * France was bankrupt in part because of its support of the American Revolution.

  In which I return home

  Thursday, July 3, 1788.

  As we approached the open sea it grew dark. Soon there was a great wind and one of the sails began flapping, making a cracking sound. Quickly the men began taking down the sails.

  “Get below,” a flagman yelled. “Take the child!”

  I grabbed Hortense for fear the wind might snatch her away.

  The swells were growing. The rain began hitting us violently. Just before I climbed down into the passage, I looked out to sea. In the dark I could see a darker dark, a thickening of wind and rain. Then, a deafening roar; the rain had turned to stone. Mimi appeared, falling down the ladder behind us.

  We stumbled into our cabin as best we could, for we were thrown from one side of the narrow passage to the other. Hortense cried out; I held her too tightly. I braced myself against the bunk. I could feel the sickness rising within me. We’d sunk into the pit of Hell, into an elemental fury. “Mimi!” I called out.

  “I am here.” A voice in the dark, barely discernible over the frightful howling. I felt her curled at the foot of the bunk.

  The sickness filled me again. I fought it, weakly. Oh, please, God, I prayed, shameful for having neglected Him.

  We emerged into the light, giddy with the memory of terror. The deck was covered with stones of ice, glittering like a wealth of diamonds. And, as far as I could see, the undulating surface of the sea, smooth and untroubled.

  [Undated]

  We’ve hit a calm, and are helpless, unmoving. For two days we’ve not moved, merely drifted. I never thought I’d pray for wind.

  I feel cut loose from the world, detached. The most horrifying thing might happen and I would never know.

  When I think about this, looking out on the vast watery surface, standing on the deck under the bright and crowded stars, when I think of the enormity of it all and the meaninglessness of my own small life, I am both sickened and comforted.

  “Time is longer than rope,” Mimi says, a Carib proverb. And now I understand.

  August 7.

  At last, we’ve caught a wind. It pulls us forward. With the rising and the falling of the waves, the sickness fills me again. I tolerate it gladly. I’m anxious to be done with this voyage.

  [Undated]

  We’re approaching Martinico. I can smell it. I stand on the deck and pretend it is the wind that brings tears to my eyes.

  August 10.

  Sighting the mountains I held Hortense in my arms and wept. “Is that ‘Tinico?’” she asked, perhaps four times before I gave up answering.

  Mimi leans on the railing and stares, as if turning away would cause this vision to disappear.

  Oh, my beautiful island—in the midst of such a great water.

  August 11—Fort-Royal.

  We pulled into port in a torrent of rain. Uncle Tascher braved the weather to meet us, drenched.

  The roads were rivers of mud. We made it with difficulty to his new estate in the hills, where the house-slaves relieved us of our mud-splattered clothes. Hortense escaped and went running through the rooms in her petticoat (Mimi chasing after), much to the delight of her cousins.

  I was astonished by the luxury of Uncle’s home. He is Mayor now, as well as Port Commander. “And all he has to do is keep the young men from killing themselves off in duels,” his wife said, giggling. Her time of confinement is approaching, it is clear.

  Uncle seemed cheerful in spite of his gout, inflamed due to the rain.

  August 12.

  The bay was too rough to cross by gommier so we made the trip to Trois-Ilets overland in a carriage.

  A “carriage” I say—it was more of a partially covered wagon, crudely fashioned from canvas, and leaking terribly whenever we were overcome by a squall. Hortense, bounding with eagerness, flung herself from one side to the other in spite of my efforts to still her. At last she fell into an exhausted sleep, her sweat-damp head on my lap, and I was left with my thoughts.

  Now and again the sky cleared and the sun came out, illuminating the thick foliage with an intensity I’d forgotten. The smell was dank, fertile, salted by the sea. I was in a reverie of emotion for all I had missed and was missing still. The incessant noise of the cicadas, the bullfrogs croaking, even the buzzing of the mosquitoes was like a song I’d been longing to hear. I felt I’d been a lifetime away, and was assaulted by memories both of pleasure and pain.

  Coming down the hill into Trois-Ilets I asked Morin, the driver, to stop in the square in front of the church. The market women were there, as before, selling fruit. The fishing boats were moored down the hill at the pier. Behind the church, the bright white of the tombs, littered with flowers and trinkets. Nothing had changed. Only I had changed—thinner, dressed in elegant silk and lace, wearing a bonnet that hid the sadness in my eyes.

  Mimi cried out—she recognized one of the women in the market. She climbed down out of the wagon and sprinted across the square, her skirts pulled up to her knees, in one instant forgetting the ladylike saunter she’d acquired in Paris.

  Hortense sat up, wiped her eyes. “I’m thirsty,” she said.

  “Maybe one of the market women would sell us a juice.” I climbed down from the wagon, took Hortense in my arms. Her clothes were damp from the heat. “This is the church I was baptized in.”

  “It’s little.”

  “Yes.” It looked small to me, too. I pressed her to my heart, inhaling the sweet scent of her damp hair, kissed her nose before lowering her onto the dirt. “Do you want to come inside with me?” I took her hand, dirty now.

  “And then a juice?”

&nbs
p; I nodded. I had forgotten her thirst.

  We climbed the three steps to the door. It creaked as I pulled it open. The dark interior was cool—and empty, for which I was grateful. We stood together, made the sign of the cross (Hortense so sweetly), walked down the aisle, the sound of our footsteps echoing on the black-and-white tiles. “I’m just going to say a prayer and we’ll go,” I whispered to her, edging into the second row of pews.

  “A prayer for what?”

  “For juice, for you,” I teased.

  “Mother!” She frowned, alarmed, for she perceived my jest, and no doubt believed jesting in church a sin.

  “For thanks, for our safe journey,” I whispered, adjusting my skirts and kneeling. And for the soul of my dead sister Catherine. And for my ailing sister Manette and my ever-ailing beloved Father. And for my Mother, who held them all in her arms, both the dead and the dying. And for my own small soul.

  After a moment I rose. Hortense was sitting on the bench beside me, her eyes pinched shut, her brow furrowed, her hands clenched in a fist under her chin. I touched her shoulder. Her eyes flew open. “One moment.” Her eyes shut tight again.

  “And what was it you were praying for?” I asked as we emerged intothe light. Mimi was already in the wagon, sharing a mango with Morin. Flirting, I thought, by the way she moved.

  “For Father.” Hortense jumped three steps in one leap.

  “Alexandre?” I was taken aback. I took her hand and we headed over to the market.

  “For his blessing.” Hortense looked around the market. Trunks of felled banana trees, thick with green fruit, were stacked next to a basket of overly ripe mangoes, buzzing with flies.

  I asked the eldest of the women if she had juice. She smiled a toothless grin and pointed to the pile of ripe oranges stacked before her. She hadn’t understood and my memory of the African tongue had abandoned me. I took three oranges, gave the woman a coin.

  “An orange will be wonderfully juicy,” I told Hortense, who was about to object. “For his love, you mean?” I stripped an orange of peel and gave her a section, popping one in my mouth as well. The sweetness of the fruit brought on a distant recollection of standing in this very market, sucking on orange sections after mass on a Sunday morning. A girl with an aching heart, sucking on orange sections and watching the door of the church, searching the crowd for a boy named William. I took Hortense’s hand and headed back to the wagon.