Betsy and the Emperor (9781439115879)

by Rabin, Staton

  Oh, how marvelous it felt to have a purpose in life again! The emperor had been gone some weeks, and I had been in the depths of despair. I had not been permitted to see him in all that time. Had it not been for my father and Dr. O’Meara, a young, good-hearted Irishman who had Boney’s confidence and kept me posted on the emperor’s condition, I would have known nothing about how he fared. And by all accounts, he did not fare well. Though Lowe had appointed O’Meara physician to “the prisoner,” the friendship Boney developed with his doctor came as no surprise to me. I supposed a Frenchman and an Irishman—whose countries had fought mine throughout history—could agree, if nothing else, on a mutual antipathy for anything English!

  Still, it was no wonder Boney had been doing poorly in his new circumstances despite O’Meara’s kindly ministrations. As soon as the emperor was installed at Longwood, the governor cracked down even harder on him. He was not permitted to speak to anyone outside his compound, nor they to him. If the prisoner happened upon a peasant while out walking or riding, he was allowed to say bonjour—nothing more. Worse, his riding range had been so severely restricted that eventually the emperor refused to go out at all. For a man who had been accustomed to vigorous and lengthy daily sojourns, a sedentary lifestyle was devastating—and I feared it would have a terrible effect on his health. As I predicted, living in Longwood House was a leaden weight on Boney’s spirits. It lacked not only the comforts of home, but the laughter of children.

  I slipped out of the Briars unnoticed the night of the party, wearing my ball gown. The Newcastle was an old ship that creaked like a badly oiled rocking chair. But if she would get me to England, that was all I’d ask of her.

  I’d dressed in my best so as not to call attention to myself at the fete. No one questioned or stopped me. The party was a dull but noisy sort of affair—lots of drunken, grizzled old navy men who looked like walruses and their wives and daughters—so I did not mind that I’d miss most of it.

  When no one was looking, I slipped belowdecks.

  I scouted around, looking for a place that a girl my size could hide. The galley was unsuitable. So was the captain’s quarters, for obvious reasons. But then I saw what looked like a storage room—the perfect place for a stowaway! I tried the doorknob. What luck! It was unlocked and I opened the door.

  Standing before me were two lovers locked in a passionate embrace. I don’t know who was more surprised—they or I.

  The lady looked up first. She screamed. Her hair was in disarray and the top of her dress was unbuttoned. It was Charlotte, the governor’s daughter. Well, I can’t say that part was astonishing.

  “I—I’m so sorry!” I said, embarrassed. I was going to slam the door shut, but something made me hesitate. The man, who wore a military uniform and had been nuzzling Miss Lowe, came up for air.

  “Carstairs!” I said.

  “Betsy!” he said. “What—what are you doing here?”

  “I might ask the same of you!” I replied.

  “Who is this girl!?” Charlotte demanded. “How do you know her?”

  The same way he knows you, dear, I thought.

  “It’s—it’s not how it looks!” Carstairs protested. His comment seemed directed at both of us. Frantic, he tucked in his shirt. “I can explain everything!”

  I was hurt, of course. Deeply. But at the moment I was more enraged than anything else. How dare he! All those flowery letters he wrote to me like the tragic French lover Abelard to his Héloïse, saying I was his one and only, and, oh, the torture of our temporary separation, and how I must, I must be strong! And now this—and with that tramp, of all people!

  “Charlotte, my dear,” Carstairs said, taking her by the hand. “I think you had better leave us for a moment while I take care of this.”

  “This,” I suppose, meant me. How degrading!

  Carstairs led a vociferously protesting Charlotte to one of the cabins and closed the door. Then he returned to where I was standing glowering at him.

  “Well?” I said. Carstairs shifted nervously from one foot to the other.

  “Betsy, you must understand,” he began lamely. “Your father would never have approved of us. Charlotte is older than you, a different sort of girl…”

  “So I’ve noticed,” I replied.

  “That’s not what I mean! Betsy, I—”

  “Courting—if you call that courting!—the daughter of the governor can have certain advantages for a young sailor in search of a promotion,” I snapped.

  “Me? What about you!” Carstairs said acidly. His handsome face looked very ugly indeed. How could I ever have thought him attractive? “It seems to me, Miss Balcombe, you’re not above offering yourself up to the right sort of people for personal gain. Tell me, my dear innocent: What did you have to do for General Bonaparte to get that diamond necklace you were wearing at the admiral’s farewell ball?”

  I slapped him. I was not in the habit of striking people, but special circumstances call for special adjustments. Carstairs turned on his heel and stomped off. I stood there for a few moments alone, nursing my broken heart. My hand stung. I had no idea it actually hurt the perpetrator to hit someone and vowed not to do it again.

  As I headed for the stairs leading to the deck, I suddenly remembered what Carstairs had forgotten: Charlotte was still waiting for him in the ship’s cabin. The hussy! I noticed a silver key in the lock outside the cabin door. God help me, but I couldn’t resist. I turned the key and pocketed it.

  Back on deck, no one was the wiser. If Charlotte was yelling to get out, as I’m quite certain she was, nobody could hear her over the party noise and ship’s creaking. Carstairs had left the party. Not long after, I went home. I subsequently learned that it was only some hours later that Carstairs remembered where he had left Charlotte. And since she hadn’t contacted him, he’d merely assumed that she was still angry over the incident with me and would find him in due course.

  It was the boatswain on the Newcastle who eventually found Charlotte. They had to break the door down to get her out. The girl looked a fright, so I was told. She never knew how she had gotten locked into that cabin. Charlotte, rather short on brains, must have believed she had somehow done it herself—or that Carstairs had—and was too embarrassed to tell anyone. Of course, she didn’t want to explain what she was doing belowdecks on the Newcastle to begin with. And here was the best thing of all: The captain of the ship accused her of being a stowaway! This caused great embarrassment for her father, Hudson Lowe, and great pleasure for me. Too bad the emperor wasn’t there to see it!

  I barely had time to savor my victory when I received some very troubling news the morning after the party. Hudson Lowe’s latest orders were posted to trees here and there on the island. From that day forth, all ships leaving St. Helena were to be thoroughly searched by the governor’s aides before being permitted to set sail. No doubt his daughter’s misfortune on the Newcastle, as well as a desire for stricter security, helped prompt this decision.

  Blast! Now it would be impossible for me to stow away! By indulging in a harmless prank, I had inadvertently sealed my own fate.

  And with a sudden, crashing sense of defeat, I understood the full impact of this state of affairs. I would never be able to help the emperor escape! He would never again bask in the glory of conquering nations, never again bring freedom to the masses. Oh, it was all so undeniably, unbearably true! Napoleon Bonaparte was going to live out his remaining years and die right here—on this miserable wart on the face of the deep. And it was all my fault!

  Chapter 20

  St. Helena stays virtually the same from season to season. Against this never-changing backdrop, the changing scene of life is so much easier to notice. If you stand before the looking glass, you can almost watch your hair grow. And looking at myself in the year and more since the emperor had been deported to Longwood, I saw a girl I hardly knew. My hair was blonder than it had been when bathed in London fog, and my eyes were bluer—as if mirroring the sea. My cheeks w
ere less cherubically round, but the rest of me was rounder—quite pleasingly so. In the regions of the heart I had changed even more—and more disturbingly. Where once dwelled the conviction that all things were possible, lovers were true, England righteous, and soldiers brave, there now lived a sadder knowledge. And its most painful recognition was that Betsy Balcombe was no longer a carefree girl—and not, by God, invincible.

  I was able to see the emperor only once during all that time—in deference to my father’s wishes. I suppose now that I was older, those wishes were not as easy for me to ignore as they had been when I had first returned to the island. But I missed the emperor mightily.

  Countess Montholon had a baby. Dr. O’Meara told me of it, since he had officiated at her lying-in. Madame claimed the little girl had her father’s “taste for licorice.” So it was no surprise to anyone that she named her Napoleone. The emperor once told me there is neither happiness nor unhappiness. The life of a happy man is a picture showing black stars on a silver background. The life of an unhappy man is a picture of silver stars on black. Optimistic as he was by nature, I had little doubt that the birth of this child, this blessed event, was the one bright star in the emperor’s sky of pitch.

  My mother warned me not to see Boney anymore. The governor objected, she said. Didn’t I understand I was endangering my future? she said. And, what’s more, I was jeopardizing my father’s position, she said.

  Painful as it was for me now to disregard my parents’ wishes, one day I determined that it was neccessary for me to do just that. It was now 1817. I’d had no news of the emperor for some time and wanted to see him for myself. Napoleone or no Napoleone, Boney needed me now more than ever—and I was no fair-weather friend!

  But as was often the case with my best-laid plans, Hudson Lowe set them awry. I awoke the next morning to find copies of the governor’s latest order bored into every tree like maggots. Henceforth and effective immediately, no one was allowed to see the prisoner without a pass. And any pass would be issued at the sole discretion of His Excellency Lieutenant General Sir Hudson Lowe, K.C.B., etc., etc.

  At my urging—or, more to the point, my tearful pleading, whining, and cajoling—my father went to the governor to request a pass for his younger daughter. But the request was summarily denied.

  For the moment, and only for the moment, I put my plans to see Boney on hold.

  From time to time in the months that followed, Dr. O’Meara would do me the favor of examining Belle’s leg. It had been fine since shortly after my return to St. Helena, but this gave me an excuse to see the doctor and ask about Boney. No one was suspicious of these meetings since there were no animal doctors on the island.

  On one of these visits to the barn, O’Meara brought me some disturbing news. “He’s ill, lass,” the doctor said in his soft-spoken brogue. He shook his head sadly. “Though it’d not be surprising me, with all the governor’s harsh ways.”

  “The emperor ill?” I said, frightened. “What is the trouble with him?”

  The good doctor shrugged. “A man of medicine would point to his stomach. Aye, a man of the cloth would say it’s his soul. But between you and me, dearie, I believe it’s his spirit. And when a man’s spirit is what ails him, there’s no medicine strong enough for it. More’s the pity….”

  I was stunned. Boney was strong, vital—younger than I, in many ways. How could he possibly be unwell? Still, I knew the doctor had told me the truth. I sat down on the straw next to Belle and tried to absorb the shock of the doctor’s words.

  “Will you take me to see him?”

  O’Meara shook his head. “I wish I could help you, lass,” he said. “By God, I wish I could. It would do the emp a world of good too, no denying. But if I cross that cocky Englishman, he’ll have my head on a platter. And heaven only knows the London butcher they’ll bring in to replace me.”

  I realized the doctor was right. As long as O’Meara was Boney’s physician, I knew he’d be in the best of hands. But who knew what evil deeds the doctor’s successor, handpicked by Lowe, might do at the governor’s bidding? We couldn’t risk it.

  I thanked O’Meara, and he went on his way. I stayed in the barn a while longer, currying Belle. It was nightfall. And right then and there I made up my mind.

  “Shall you take me for a ride tonight, girl?” I said to her. “To see our old friend, Boney? Shall you? It will be dangerous, I want you to know. Armed sentries everywhere. You can always refuse if that worries you….”

  But Belle did not fail me.

  It was a warm, muggy night, the sort that made me long for a whiff of London and the river Thames. Burly mosquitoes—so impressive that they must have had distant relations in the elephant family—swarmed ravenously about my face. Belle kept her mind on the road. For that I was grateful, since navigating the steep, death-defying path up to Longwood required the meticulous concentration of a biblical scholar. Once or twice Belle slipped a bit and I got a view of the Devil’s Punchbowl that gin and orange slices might envy. But for the most part, this part of our trip was clear sailing.

  Then came the difficult part. Blast! Lowe’s troops were camped all around Longwood: soldiers by the hundreds—asleep but ready to spring into action at the slightest sound—cannon to the right of us, cannon to the left of us. I scanned the governor’s arsenal, hoping to find a gap between the lines. At last I found a thin spot, if not a gap, where a few soldiers were sprawled out on the ground, snoring loudly. I saw the shadow of one soldier, sitting in a tent. He was singing a song tipsily—a ditty of the sort one doesn’t repeat in polite company.

  Longwood lay just beyond these men. If I could just sneak past them…

  Riding would be too noisy. I dismounted and, leading Belle by the halter, tiptoed past the sleeping soldiers.

  “Mary, Mary darling!” one man called out. He was close enough for me to smell the liquor on his breath. The man rolled back and forth fitfully, and I realized he was talking in his sleep. That set my mind at ease. Until…

  “Mary, is that you?” the soldier said in a dream state. Sleepily, he sat up and grabbed hold of my ankle!

  “Yes, darling,” I said. “I’m here. Now go back to sleep.” I stooped and patted him on the cheek.

  Eyes still shut, the man smiled blissfully, like a baby. I waited, hardly daring to breathe, until he rolled over and his hand loosed its grip on my leg. Carefully, I slipped my ankle out of his grasp. He had never been awake, but I did not feel reassured until I heard the slow, steady rhythm of his snoring once more.

  Belle and I crept on. Longwood was only a few dozen yards away. Here at last! I rejoiced at the thought of how glad Boney would be to see me. After hiding Belle behind the barn, I rapped quietly on Longwood’s front door.

  It was sleepy Marchand who answered it. “Mademoiselle!” He was clearly astonished to see me. He yawned. “What time is it?”

  “Long past time,” I said. “I am here to see the emperor.”

  “He’s asleep. He’s…very ill, mademoiselle.”

  I nodded. “Yes, I know,” I replied. “That’s why I’ve come.”

  The young man hesitated, troubled.

  “Please, Marchand!” I said. “I have come all this way just to see him. It was very dangerous, and—”

  “All right, Betsy,” he said, motioning for me to come inside. “Un moment….”

  Marchand went to wake the emperor and inform him of my presence. He returned quickly to me. “Be brief,” he admonished.

  Marchand led me through the damp rooms of Longwood to the darkness of the emperor’s bedside. He whispered in my ear before he left me with my old friend: “Prepare yourself.”

  But what—what on earth—could possibly prepare me for the horrible sight that met my eyes? I lit the lamp, and there, propped up on pillows in bed, was a man who might have been a distant cousin to the one I once knew. His skin was a sickening yellow, like a tallow; his face, bloated and puffy. Though it was quite chilly up here on the Longwood plateau, bea
ds of perspiration dripped from the emperor’s forehead. The bedsheets were stained dark with it. He coughed—a terrible, hollow sound that shall reverberate in my memory forever. I silently berated myself for not having found a way to come see him sooner.

  He spoke and his voice was strong—just the same as always. “I have just seen my good Joséphine. I reached out my arms to her, but she would not embrace me! She slipped away the moment I wanted to hold her in my arms.” He pointed a trembling finger to a corner of the room. “She was sitting there.” I followed his gaze and saw nothing but an empty chair. “She hadn’t changed—always the same, still completely devoted to me. Joséphine told me we were going to see each other again and never part. She has promised me! Did you see her?”

  His words shook me no less than his otherworldly appearance. I swallowed and screwed up my courage. “No, Boney,” I said. “I—I did not.”

  He stared at me. “Why are you here?” he demanded angrily. “Who said you could come to see me!”

  I was stunned and frightened by his sudden outburst. Perhaps it was only his illness talking, but it scared me just the same.

  “I…wanted to see you,” I replied. “I thought you would want to see me.”

  The emperor trembled—with fever or rage, I could not be certain.

  “No!” he said. “You presume too much. You are not my friend, mademoiselle! You can no longer help me to escape. It is very simple. I like only those people who are useful to me, and only so long as they are useful!”

  I could not have been more hurt if he’d struck me in the face with a hammer. What had happened to him? Could it be that he had never really cared for me? Was I merely an instrument of his designs, a stupid little fool? No! It could not be!