Betsy and the Emperor (9781439115879)

by Rabin, Staton

  Gourgaud snorted and quickly sat upright. “At your orders, Sire,” he mumbled.

  After the interminable selection from Voltaire, the emperor asked me to join him at a game of whist. I worried silently that at this rate I’d never get to Huff’s cave tonight. So I replied that I would play the card game but could only stay a short while. Countess Montholon and Bertrand joined us at the card table.

  As Bertrand dealt the cards, I studied Bonaparte’s face. There was no sign that he knew anything of our plans for his escape. There were no raised eyebrows or other signals vying for my attention. No indication that he wished to communicate with me in private. I was satisfied that no one had told him of the balloon and that my secret was safe. But why had he looked at me when he spoke of escape? Was he trying to ask for my help?

  I had a good hand. Hearts were trump, and I had lots of them.

  “So, Betsy,” the emperor said as he picked up the first trick of cards, “what shall you do with yourself now that you are home from school?”

  “I haven’t really thought about it,” I replied. “I don’t think my parents want me to think.”

  “Tant pis,” the emperor said, clucking and shaking his head slowly. He played a knave, rearranged his cards, and studied them. “Have you thought of being a soldier?”

  “That is not a job for ladies—or gentlemen,” I said, picking up a trick of my own.

  “Women have been known to go to war like soldiers, and then they are brave, susceptible to great excitement, and capable of committing the worst atrocities,” the emperor remarked. “I should like to be present if war broke out between the sexes. It would rival the Battle of Austerlitz!”

  I giggled.

  “I like to hear you laugh, mademoiselle,” Bonaparte said, patting my hand. “It is like good French wine.”

  Countess Montholon looked at me strangely. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was jealous! The thought gave me a peculiar sense of satisfaction.

  “Have you ever been in love?” the countess asked the emperor. It seemed to me an impertinent question—especially for a man who’d had two wives. But Bonaparte answered it.

  “It takes time to make oneself loved. And even when I had nothing to do, I always felt I had no time to waste. Besides,” the emperor added. “I am too old for it.”

  Was it true that he had never loved anyone? Even I, a mere child, had been able to tell that he’d loved Joséphine. Ah, but he only said that he’d never “made himself” loved! Not that he had never loved anyone.

  I felt very uncomfortable being present for the countess’s flirtation with him. She looked at him through heavy-lidded eyes.

  “Some men of forty-six,” she said huskily, “are still young.”

  “Some men,” the emperor replied sadly, “have not borne my burdens.”

  It was then that I decided it was time for me to go.

  I went home to the Briars, yawned ceremoniously in front of my parents, and went upstairs to bed. Once Jane went to sleep—and the minx stayed up far too late for my convenience, rattling on about some handsome young English ensign named Carstairs who had caught her fancy from afar—I climbed out my window, down the vine, and rode Belle to Huff’s cave. By now this had become my regular nightly routine, and the shortage of sleep was beginning to take its toll.

  About halfway to the cave a strange sensation came over me. My skin crawled, as if unseen eyes were upon me. And, in a flash, I realized what was amiss. I was being watched! Someone had followed me!

  I quickly took a different route to the cave, hoping to keep them off the scent. Riding around several acacias as if traveling through a maze, I hoped to confuse my pursuer. Every now and then, I looked behind me, but I saw nothing. Sometimes I came to a sudden halt—hoping that I’d hear telltale hoofbeats coming up behind me. But my ruse didn’t work. Whoever it was had reflexes as quick as my own.

  When I finally reached the cave, I waited a long while before entering it. I watched and listened, my heart pounding in my chest like Willie’s toy drum. Had I only imagined I was being followed? Perhaps so. Perhaps frayed nerves and lack of sleep were finally catching up with me. Betsy, old girl, you’re letting your imagination run away with you, I scolded myself.

  At last I entered the laboratory. And there it was: Stretched out on the floor like a gargantuan beached jellyfish, the balloon was nearly finished. And quite a beast it was. The bag must have been thirty feet long, even deflated as it was now. It lacked only a few more silk panels and a gondola to carry the passengers.

  “Ah!” Huff said, patting me on the head. “Welcome, my dear! As you can see, we’re nearly done. Perhaps a week’s labor more, and the balloon shall be ready to fly.”

  “That’s good,” I said, taking up my sewing.

  “How are the emperor’s spirits holding up?” the old man asked.

  “Well enough, I think,” I replied. “Though I believe he’ll be glad at having a chance to escape. Do you think he shall be sorry to leave the others behind?”

  Huff shrugged. “You would know that better than I,” he said. “But at least he will have an old man for company.”

  “You—you mean you will be going with him?” I had not thought of this possibility before. I certainly did not like the idea of losing old Huff.

  “Of course, my dear. He will need someone to pilot the ship.”

  We worked in silence for a few moments.

  “I shall miss you,” I told him.

  “And I, you,” the old man said. “Don’t concern yourself about me, Betsy. I have always wanted to see Paris. I am sure the emperor will take good care of me…”

  It was about an hour later that I left for the Briars. I was extra cautious in making sure that no one was observing me. And I returned home without further incident.

  I scrambled up the vine to the bedroom window. Before I climbed through, I took a deep breath of the damp night air and looked about me. The view was a tonic to my nerves. I listened to the low, soft hum of African spirituals emanating from the slave cabins. Trees swayed in the breeze, as if dancing in time to the music. How could people living a life of hard labor find anything to sing about? I wondered. What inspiration could they draw from soil and yams and sweat? And yet, somehow, they found it within themselves—a freedom that no one could take away from them. Bonaparte was not the only prisoner on St. Helena. Perhaps that’s why he understood me—and Toby, too—so well. In a way, we were all prisoners here. I saw the fires of the soldiers who were camped nearby, burning like yellow stars in the sky. I wondered how the men felt, far from home and family, spending their lives guarding one solitary soul. The emperor was the whole reason for their presence here—the reason for their very existence. Night and day, day in and day out, all attention was focused on him. Was he their prisoner, or they his?

  As I considered these questions, lulled by the sound of the music, my hands seemed to loosen their grip on the vine. I was falling!

  I slipped and, grabbing on to the rain gutter with one hand, made a mad grab at the vine with the other. Caught it! It took every ounce of strength I had to hang on. I was weary. I looked below me—a long, long drop.

  After taking a moment to catch my breath, I climbed through the window. Home at last! I stripped to my nightgown and put a foot in my cozy bed.

  Out of the darkness came a voice.

  “I know what you’re up to.”

  Chapter 11

  Jane! Uh…what are you doing up?”

  I tried to seem nonchalant, but in fact her words terrified me. And, all at once, I knew with terrible certainty that it was she who had followed me to Huff’s cave.

  “Did you think I would be so stupid that I’d believe your story about Mother needing my silk dresses?”

  Yes, Jane, I did think you’d be that stupid.

  “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  Jane got up out of bed and faced me. She lit the lamp. I squinted painfully in the sudden brightness.
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  “It’s no use, Betsy,” she said, crossing her arms. “I heard you talking to Huff about that Frenchman. I borrowed Father’s horse and followed you into the cave.”

  “Oh,” I said, realizing the game was up.

  “How could you—how could you think of doing such a thing?” Jane demanded in her supercilious fashion. “Help him escape? The man is a monster!”

  I sat on the edge of my bed and tried to collect my thoughts.

  “Shhh! You’ll wake the boys,” I said. Actually, I was fearful my parents would overhear her. “He’s not a monster. He’s…industrious.”

  Jane wrinkled her brow. Uh-oh. She was thinking again.

  “You’re—you’re not going to tell Father, are you, Jane?” I asked, fearing the worst.

  “Of course I am! What did you expect? That I’d let you set a murderer free?”

  “Please don’t, Jane! You’ll get all of us in trouble. Huff will lose his laboratory, and heaven knows what they’ll do to him after that!”

  “What do I care for that old lunatic?” Jane said. I could have murdered her for saying that, the little witch! “In fact, I think I’ll go wake Father and tell him right now!”

  As Jane sashayed out the door, I made a grab at one of her golden ringlets.

  “Ow! You horrible creature! Let go!” Jane whined, struggling to get away from me.

  “Not until you promise not to tell.”

  “Ow! Ow! All right—I promise. Now let go!”

  I kept my word and released her. She sat down calmly, rubbing the side of her head as if I’d caused her catastrophic injury.

  Suddenly, she leaped up and headed for the door. “I crossed my fingers!” Jane said with a cackle. Too late to grab her! She ran into the hallway—the only time I’d ever seen her run.

  It was my last chance. Desperate, I ran after her.

  “Wait!” I called out.

  Fool that she was, Jane stopped abruptly.

  “If you tell,” I whispered, gritting my teeth, “I’ll—I’ll tell Father what I saw you doing with Ensign Carstairs!”

  It was a wild, desperate guess, but it was my only hope.

  Jane’s jaw dropped. “It wasn’t Carstairs,” she said, her shoulders slumping in defeat.

  Bull’s-eye!

  “Didn’t think anyone was watching you, did you?” I goaded her.

  Jane shook her head sadly. I almost felt sorry for the poor girl. Well, not really.

  “James—he’s a corporal, you know—promised he’d marry me,” Jane said glumly. “When he got his promotion. He promised! But it was all a lie. A vile, vicious, disgusting lie!” Jane flopped down on the hall floor like a small child throwing a temper tantrum and began to sob.

  “There, there, Jane,” I said, patting her on the shoulder. “He was only a corporal. You can do better than that. You deserve a general at least!”

  “I suppose you’re right, Betsy,” Jane said, wiping her runny nose on her nightdress sleeve. “But—but to think that I—I lowered myself to—!” She dissolved into a whole new cascade of tears.

  “There, now, Jane,” I said, helping her to her feet. I led Jane by the hand back into our bedroom. “Everything’s going to be all right….”

  I blew out the lamp. We lay in our beds, holding hands across the gap between them. The sheets heaved with her sobs. I held on to Jane’s fingers till she cried herself to sleep, just as she’d held mine long ago, when I was scared of the thunder. Well, she was my sister, after all.

  The next morning, I slipped out unnoticed and went to Huff’s cave.

  “Jane is on to us,” I said, greeting the old man. “She spied on us yesterday.”

  “Dear, dear,” Huff replied worriedly. He shook his head. “She never was my favorite Balcombe child.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t catch her following me,” I said. “It’s my fault! I should have been more careful.”

  “That’s all right, my dear,” the old man said, patting me on the head. “I’m sure you did your best.”

  “She’s promised not to tell, but I don’t trust her. I think we had better speed things up. Can we test the balloon tonight?”

  Huff showed me the balloon. The gondola was finished; the balloon, not quite.

  “Impossible,” he said. “We need a few more days of work on it, at the minimum. Besides…” Here, he walked over to the wall where a pear-shaped glass container hung from a nail. There was a red liquid inside, filling about one third of it. Huff peered at it. “The barometer says heavy weather’s afoot.”

  “We’ll have to chance it, Huff,” I said. “Jane could give us away at any moment.”

  Huff considered this carefully and concluded I was correct. With a little luck, he supposed he could complete the balloon’s cooling vent and other essential parts by this evening, leaving a few extras aside. And perhaps the weather would hold up long enough to suit us. We agreed to meet again that night for a test flight under cover of darkness.

  I went back to the Pavilion to keep a close watch on the emperor. I found Willie practicing the piano in the parlor. Or, rather, I should say, he was giving a command performance for the emperor. My brother was amazingly precocious at music, thanks to instruction by the versatile Huff. A prodigy. A young Mozart! I listened to the sonata, enraptured.

  The emperor was clearly pleased too. “Très bien, William. Very good,” Bonaparte said, applauding loudly. “Formidable!”

  “Not yet!” Willie complained, continuing his playing. “Don’t you know you aren’t supposed to applaud between movements?”

  The emperor took this criticism very well and sat on his hands until Willie was finished.

  “Licorice?” the emperor offered, removing a small tin from his vest and opening it. Willie and I took some of the candy.

  “What do you say to Boney, Willie?” I said sternly.

  “Merci,” the boy dutifully replied, pleasing the emperor with his French. Bonaparte mussed up his own hair and growled playfully at him. Willie doubled over in giggly hysterics.

  My brothers were no longer afraid of “Boney.” Judging by the black teeth they sported these days, the emperor had bribed them with licorice.

  A deep, rich laugh boomed behind us.

  “Betsy,” the emperor said, “may I present Ensign Carstairs, my designated ‘nanny du jour.’”

  The man, who had apparently been standing in the corner watching us the whole time, winked at me. And I was astonished to realize that not only was this the handsome young soldier Jane was admiring from afar, but he was the same one who winked at me that day Huff and I had conspired near the banyan tree!

  Carstairs bowed. “He means, Miss Balcombe,” the fellow said, smiling mischievously, “that the admiral has sent me to keep an eye on this rascal for today.”

  Well, the man had gumption. Who else but I would think of calling the emperor a “rascal” to his face?

  “Really, monsieur,” the emperor replied, “you flatter me.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Betsy,” Carstairs said. He smelled of bay rum and horse sweat. To my astonishment, he kissed my hand, as if I were an Egyptian princess. No one had ever done that before. I had always thought such affectations silly, but for some reason, it didn’t seem so ridiculous now.

  I stared at Carstairs for so long, I was grateful when Willie started playing the piano again.

  The emperor approached and held out his hand to me. “Dance, mademoiselle?”

  Yes, this day was shaping up to be very surprising indeed.

  I took the emperor’s arm. He showed me some steps that were popular in Paris. His hand was even softer than I’d expected, as if he’d never lifted a hoe in his life.

  “Ouch!” I said when he stepped on my toe.

  “Don’t be so clumsy, Betsy,” he replied, as if it had been my fault.

  Hoping to improve matters, I suggested I teach him some English dances—the ones Miss Hawthorne had taught the girls in London.

  “Play
us a waltz, Willie,” I said. My brother complied.

  “One-two-three—no!—one-two-three,” I instructed my partner.

  The emperor was an awkward student. The waltz refrains resulted in my getting my toes trounced again. So I tried the quadrilles. I am sorry to report that this went no better.

  “In France,” the emperor snapped, struggling to take control, “it is customary for the man to lead!”

  “Well, Boney,” I complained, “how will you ever learn if you don’t let me teach you?”

  “May I cut in?” Carstairs said, tapping the emperor on the shoulder.

  “Why not?” the emperor said sourly. “She has the grace of a sow!” Still, it seemed to me that he stepped aside only grudgingly.

  “You must not be so hard on him,” Carstairs said to me, smiling. He danced with the grace of a gazelle. “Until he met you, his biggest challenge was the Russian army.”

  “Do not think I didn’t hear that,” the emperor called out.

  “Why did you want to dance with me?” I asked the ensign, genuinely puzzled.

  “Ah…,” he replied. “I am told you are wild, headstrong, irresponsible—a perfect terror!” He held me closer, and I felt a strange chill go up my spine. Not at all unpleasant, really. “Just my kind of girl,” he said.

  “Is that so? And who told you that about me?” I demanded, trying to sound indignant.

  “We soldiers talk in the barracks at night, you know. There is not much else to do here. Most of the boys like Jane.”

  “Yes, I know,” I said a bit disapprovingly.

  “But her charms are too obvious for me,” Carstairs said. “I prefer a challenge. And you, Miss Betsy, are a challenge!”

  “Is that so?” I said again. “Really, you are an impertinent fellow.”

  “Yes, I know,” Carstairs replied, spinning me around the room, faster and faster, till I burst out laughing. “Some say that is my best quality!” Carstairs was laughing too. And I couldn’t help noticing the way his blue eyes sparkled like little lightning storms at sea when he looked at me.