Betsy and the Emperor (9781439115879)

by Rabin, Staton

  I turned toward the old man. “What is it, Huff?”

  “I need your help, my dear,” he said.

  “Are Willie and Alexander neglecting their studies again? Surely you know I will not be the best influence on them.”

  “Shhh!” he said again, drawing me closer. Huff wrung his hands nervously and looked around to see if anyone was observing us.

  “Why are you whispering?” I said, a bit annoyed.

  “The emperor must continue his good work,” Huff said with conviction. “Perhaps he shall lead a Muslim rebellion in Arabia! Or finish what Alexander the Great began and conquer Asia Minor. He must be allowed to bring freedom and science to all mankind!”

  “Well, that sounds like a worthy cause,” I said lightly, “but that will be difficult, seeing as how he is holed up here.”

  “I have a plan for his escape!” Huff replied, as simply as if he were noting the weather.

  Escape! God’s nightgown! It seemed the old man really had lost his mind.

  “And you are going to help me,” Huff added.

  “What? I will do no such thing. Really, Huff, I think you have been sniffing at your chemicals too long.” I started to walk away from him.

  “Betsy, wait! Betsy! Please,” he said, following. “Just let me speak.”

  I stopped. A fair hearing? I owed the old man that, at least. I spun around to face him and crossed my arms. “Well?” I said impatiently.

  Huff put his bony arm around my shoulders. “Think, my dear—just think what it will be like, to be known as the girl who freed the great Napoleon Bonaparte! The girl who enabled the achievements of the Revolution to be spread across the globe!”

  “Ridiculous!” I said. “Why—why, can’t you see? I’d cause a scandal! A bloody outrage! No one could ever imagine the daughter of William Balcombe capable of such a thing! My family—the whole British Empire—will have a—a—blathering fit!”

  Huff lifted my chin with his long fingers and looked straight into my eyes. He nodded slowly. Very slowly.

  Hmmm, I thought. So I could stir up a delicious commotion, free the emperor, and save the world in the bargain, eh? Not half bad for a girl who was bored senseless and had failed Miss Bosworth’s history lessons at school.

  The light dawned.

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  Chapter 9

  I arranged to meet Huff at his laboratory the next morning. He would tell me no more about his plans for Bonaparte’s liberation until then. But he did make one request—and an odd one, at that. He asked me to bring as many silk dresses as I could find. To beg, borrow, or steal them, if need be. But that whatever I did, I should under no circumstances reveal the purpose to which they’d be put. Of course, I could not have revealed what I did not know in any case.

  The next morning after breakfast I went up to my room, pleading a headache. After determining that I was indeed alone, I opened the clothes chest. The musty odor of mildew assaulted my nostrils. Since prissy Jane changed her dresses so many times each day, it was a miracle that the wooden chest stayed shut long enough to acquire such a singularly unpleasant odor. I held my breath and looked through the dresses to see what I could find: the pink one; the floral one with the flounces that I hated so much; the horrid green one Cousin Cassandra had handed down to me. None of my dresses were silk—just cotton, because I did not care about the latest fashion. A girl could run like a horse in cotton. Silk just made me sweat like one. But Jane liked finery and would not run to save her life, so I was pleased to discover that most of her frocks were of the type that began life with the labors of prized Chinese silkworms. Surely, I reasoned, she would not miss a few.

  “What are you up to, Betsy?”

  As usual, Jane had entered the room with the stealth of a cobra. She stared at me with those cold green eyes shifting slightly from side to side, as if she were looking for a good place to affix her fangs. I stood there holding a bunch of dresses in my arms, praying my wits would not fail me.

  “Mother wants these altered,” I said, impressed by my own skill at spontaneous invention.

  “Why?” Jane said crisply. “What’s wrong with them?”

  Oh, dear.

  “Uh…nothing. It’s just that…er…she feels that you’ve filled out nicely in the bust and that you ought to show it off more.” When in doubt, flatter. That always worked on Jane.

  “Hmmm,” Jane said, pondering.

  My, my. A close call. But I couldn’t relax, not just yet.

  “Mother wants me to show decollétage? That doesn’t sound like Mother,” Jane mused.

  “Well,” I said. “I—I was surprised too, at first. But you know how badly she wants you to get married,” I said quickly. “The young officers are fond of low necklines. And there are bound to be some parties around Christmas….”

  Jane wrinkled her brow. Thinking was always a strain on her, poor dear.

  “I see,” she said.

  At last! I’d convinced her. I barely hid my sigh of relief.

  “I’ll go down and model them for Mother,” she said, reaching to take the dresses from me.

  Horrors! Think fast, Betsy!

  “Uh, no, you can’t do that!” I said, pulling the dresses out of her reach.

  “Why not?” Jane replied. “How can she possibly fit them properly without me in them?”

  “It’s—it’s—” Come on, old girl, you can do it! “It’s going to be a surprise.” Ah!—Betsy’s wits come to the rescue again! “For your birthday. Don’t spoil it for Mother. She’ll murder me if she finds out I told you.”

  “Oh,” Jane said, utterly convinced. “Don’t worry, little sister. I’ll keep your secret.”

  Not bloody likely.

  Jane turned to go out the door. I began to relax. Her birthday was so far off, surely I’d think of a way out of this mess by then. God willing. But a second later, Jane leaned in the doorway and faced me again.

  “Betsy, are you quite all right? You seem…agitated. Like you did that time before the blacksmith pulled your tooth.”

  “I’m fine, Jane,” I said. “I’ve only been home a few days. I guess I need some time to get…used to it.”

  Jane shrugged and went out the door.

  Nearly an hour later, when I was sure she’d left the house on an errand—shopping in town, I believe—I stuffed her silk dresses under the one I was wearing and sneaked out of the Briars.

  I found a preoccupied old Huff poring over a calcified book in his laboratory. A large diagram—construction plans for some sort of scientific contraption—was spread out over the worktable, the lamplight casting long shadows over it like huge, dark fingers. The drawing indicated distances and measurements, the dimensions for a basketlike contraption, and an immense bulbous object suspended by strings or wires above it. I suspected that the diagram related in some way to Huff’s plans for the emperor.

  “Making progress?” I asked him.

  “Yaaa!” Startled, the old scholar sprang out of his chair like a man half his age. “For mercy’s sake, Betsy! You’ll stop an old man’s heart!”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  Huff sat back down and pointed to the diagram. “This will carry the emperor to freedom.”

  Then he referred back to the tome he was reading. I looked over his shoulder. It was the same book the emperor had knocked from the shelf the previous day—the Montgolfier brothers’ book of aeronautical experiments. Huff was reading the chapters about construction of a hot-air balloon.

  “You mean, the emperor’s going to fly off St. Helena?” I asked.

  “Precisely,” Huff said. He looked me up and down. “You’ve put on weight, my dear. Try to dipense with it. We need you as light as possible for our test flights.”

  Test flights? You wouldn’t get me up in one of those things! As for my supposed tendency toward corpulence, I removed the wad of silk dresses from under my gown and handed them to him.

  “Ah!” he said. “Thank you, my dear. I knew I could co
unt on you.”

  The old man started ripping Jane’s dresses into long strips.

  “Huff! Those are Jane’s! She’ll eat me alive!”

  “Never mind, my dear,” Huff said, continuing his work.

  It was not difficult for me to figure out how those dresses would be used. The balloon would be constructed out of them! How would Jane feel to know her dresses were instrumental in the escape of Britain’s most famous prisoner? I must say I smiled at the thought.

  “Here is a needle and thread,” Huff said, handing me a red velvet box. “I need your young eyes and hands.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Sew the pieces back together side by side. Like this,” he said, showing me the balloon diagram.

  “I’m afraid sewing is not my strong suit. Mother was going to show me—”

  “Never mind,” Huff said again with a wave of his hand. “You will get better at it as you go along.”

  I sighed, threaded the needle, and began sewing, after a fashion. What irony! Who would have thought I’d ever regret not having taken more sewing lessons!

  “Ouch!” I pricked my finger. I sucked the metallic-tasting drop of blood from my fingertip. “Wtdsthemprhvtsybtalofths?”

  “What? Speak plainly, my girl! Don’t talk with your fingers in your mouth.”

  “I said, what does the emperor have to say about all of this?”

  “About escaping in my balloon?” Huff asked. I nodded. “I don’t know.”

  “What! You mean, you haven’t told him?”

  “There is no need for him to know,” the old man explained, “until the very last moment. And it would be inadvisable to tell him before then.”

  I gave him a puzzled look. He elaborated.

  “First of all, there are spies everywhere. And it will be difficult to get the emperor alone to tell him.”

  Huff was right about that. I thought of Poppleton and the others who guard the emperor. And what about the meddlesome Gourgaud? I could not imagine that any secret would be safe with him—and surely he’d get wind of this one if the emperor knew of it.

  “In any case,” Huff added, “I do not want to give the emperor too much time to think about our plans. As you saw yesterday from his reaction when we spoke of the Montgolfiers, he is not enamored of aeronautics. But he is a man of action and of courage! If we simply present him with the finished product, he will recognize our balloon represents his only hope of freedom—and climb aboard.”

  “Well, perhaps you are right,” I said. “Though I really wish you’d let me tell him.”

  “No! It must remain a secret!” Huff said, the tassel of his fez vibrating with his excitement. “And there is no time to waste! We must finish the balloon before he is moved to Longwood. When will that be? Have you heard?”

  I strained to remember what I’d overheard the admiral say to my parents. “Perhaps a month or two, I think.”

  “Good!” said Huff, drumming his fingers on the table. “That will give us just enough time.” He stood up slowly and paced the dirt floor of the cave. “At Longwood he will be watched more closely. It would be nearly impossible to effect his escape from there. And around the time he’s transferred to Longwood—no one knows just when—the new governor will arrive. The emperor’s new jailer. I hear Sir Hudson Lowe is not so…flexible a man as our Admiral Cockburn.”

  I wondered what kind of jailer Governor Lowe would be and what sort of life he had in store for the emperor. Huff interrupted my thoughts.

  “We shall need more dresses, Betsy. These are not nearly enough. Can you get more?”

  I shook my head.

  “Not from Jane, anyway. I fooled her once. She won’t fall for the same trick again.”

  “This presents us with difficulties.” Huff sighed.

  He rubbed his forehead, thinking. Then he seemed to get an idea. He reached in his long, white robes and produced a few guineas—or what we called “guineas,” since English coins were so scarce on St. Helena that we all used Spanish reals, Dutch “lion dollars,” Venetian ducats, or silver rupees as a substitute.

  “Here,” he said, handing me the money. “Go into Jamestown. A supply ship came in shortly before you returned to St. Helena. Perhaps it brought bolts of silk for the ladies. There are shops that sell such things, are there not?”

  “I suppose so,” I said.

  “Buy as much as you can.”

  I put down my sewing and prepared to go.

  “And make sure you are not observed,” the old man warned.

  Chapter 10

  Thank heaven I hadn’t run into Jane when I was in town that day. My mission was complicated enough. And for the next few weeks I led a double life. By day I visited the emperor—with whom I’d now gained such familiarity that I occasionally called him “Boney”—or sat for my mother’s tiresome lessons in the wifely arts. By night I sneaked out of the Briars to build the balloon in Huff’s laboratory. There was always the threat of discovery, and time was growing short. Thanks in part to the silks I managed to acquire in Jamestown, the work was proceeding apace.

  One evening I was asked to join the emperor and his suite at supper. I suppose this meant that he had taken me into his confidence, because the conversation seemed unguarded despite my presence.

  “What do you miss most about home?” the Countess de Montholon, wife of one of Bonaparte’s aides, asked the emperor. It did not escape my notice that she appeared to be flirting with him. Her husband didn’t seem to mind.

  “I will not give the answer you expect, Countess,” the emperor replied with a grin. “C’est le vin.” The wine! There were knowing laughs from the others. “I do not know what the English call the bottled liquid they bring on ships to us here, but in France, it would be emptied out the bilge.”

  Unlike the others, Gourgaud seemed very troubled at the mention of home. He got up suddenly from the table and faced a wall, pressing his head against it.

  “Oh, liberté!” he wailed. “Why am I a prisoner!”

  “Gourgaud,” the emperor said calmly, as if he’d heard this all before. “Sit down and finish your meal. Save your drama for after, when we read Voltaire.”

  “Your Majesty!” Gourgaud said, turning around to face us. “Did I not save you from that Cossack at Brienne?”

  “You are a brave man but amazingly childish,” the emperor replied. “Now, please join us.”

  Yes, the emperor was right. Gourgaud was acting rather silly. But I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. On the other hand, nobody else was complaining, why should he?

  “What is the matter with all of you?” Gourgaud said, waving his hand from one end of the table to the other. Everyone put their forks down and stared at the agitated man. “Don’t—don’t you miss your friends, your families? The homes you left behind? You go quietly, as lambs to the slaughter! Have you no feelings?”

  I wondered how the emperor would respond to this outburst. Would he order Gourgaud’s head in a bucket? I think the others were as fearful as I.

  But the only sound was the rustling of the curtains in the evening breeze. No one knew what to say, least of all I. It reminded me of the times my parents were not on the best of terms and we all had to suffer our way through a meal in frigid silence. At last the emperor broke the ice.

  “My dear Gourgaud, how glum you look!” Bonaparte said cheerfully. He stood and put his arm around the man’s shoulders. “Isn’t it true that it is better to be selfish, unfeeling? If you were, you wouldn’t worry about the fate of your mother or sister, would you?” The emperor guided the now pliant Gourgaud back to his chair.

  “Have a cold rubdown; that will do you good,” the emperor advised. He walked back to his place at the head of the table. Bertrand rushed to pull out his chair for him—just in time, like a carefully rehearsed dance. Bonaparte sat. “One must curb one’s imagination. Otherwise, one is liable to go mad. I want my friends to cheer me, not make me sadder by pulling long faces.”

  “
I—I will do my best, Sire,” Gourgaud said, sniffling.

  “There’s a good fellow,” Bonaparte said.

  The emperor picked up his fork. Everyone began eating again. Madame Bertrand rattled on about what the ladies would be wearing in Paris this year. I was relieved the whole unpleasant episode was over. Or so I thought.

  “Do you fancy I have no terrible moments?” Bonaparte interrupted, addressing no one in particular. He stared off into space. “At night I wake up and think of what I was—and to what I have come. But I have no regrets. No one but myself can be blamed for my fall! I have been my own greatest enemy.”

  I was stunned by this admission. And I admired the emperor all the more for making it.

  “But, Sire,” Gourgaud said obsequiously, “surely the fact that we’ve been condemned to this horrible place is not your fault. I did not mean to imply—”

  “I know you didn’t, Gourgaud,” Bonaparte said with a sigh. He looked at me. “And, at times, I too dream of escape.”

  Good heavens! Did he know of Huff’s plan?

  “Arghh!”

  “Mademoiselle Betsy is choking,” Bonaparte said to Bertrand, noticing my distress. “Go to her aid! Vite!”

  Bertrand bounded to my side and slapped me on the back. A piece of fowl had gotten lodged in my throat, and I coughed and coughed like a plague victim.

  “Marchand!” the emperor called into the other room. “Bring water!”

  There was talk of sending for Dr. O’Meara. After a moment more I coughed up the offending object like a dog who’s eaten too much grass.

  By this time the emperor himself was at my side. “I am glad you are still with us, mademoiselle,” he said, helping me to the settee. “They would have said I’d poisoned you.”

  Supper concluded, Bonaparte read to us from Voltaire’s play Candide—in a rather too passionate manner. Still, he went on so long that some of us—myself included—showed signs of nodding off.

  “Madame, you are asleep!” the emperor barked at Bertrand’s wife. That perked her up. Soon after, Gourgaud seemed to be falling into a bowl of pink flowers. “Wake up, Gourgaud!” the emperor shouted.