“I am fine, just overwhelmed by the prospect that our ordeal might end soon.”
“Let me help you to your cabin.”
THE NEXT MORNING a boatload of provisions arrived for them, and later that day Captain Stephenson received orders to sail from the Netherlands as soon as the weather cleared. The Erin would not be permitted to land as long as her passengers were aboard.
Betsy, William, Dr. Garnier, and Eliza dined with the captain in his cabin. While the others enjoyed their herring, potatoes, cabbage, and Gouda, Betsy picked at her food, uncertain how much she would be able to keep down. The Erin was pitching as the storm still blew.
“I suppose the only thing to do is to head back to Baltimore,” William mused.
Garnier vigorously shook his head. “I cannot endorse that suggestion. There is far too much chance of Madame Bonaparte coming to childbed in the midst of the ocean.”
Betsy laid her hands upon her abdomen. “God knows I do not want to deliver my child at sea. But where can we go?”
Stephenson refilled his guests’ wineglasses. “We shall have to sail to Dover.”
“No, it would be certain to enrage the emperor if I sought refuge with his great enemy.”
“Besides,” William said, reaching over to pat Betsy’s arm, “from what we have heard, Napoleon is preparing to invade the southern coast of England. I will not put my sister in the way of such danger.”
Captain Stephenson said, “Madame Bonaparte, think about the position you put me in if you choose a more hazardous destination. Your father charged me with your safety, and if I should fail him in this, I might lose command of his vessels.”
Eliza shot the captain a disgusted look. “The approaching birth is all that matters. Betsy, how can Napoleon blame you for going to England when he has given you no other choice?”
Closing her eyes and leaning her head on her hand, Betsy tried to shut out the badgering voices. “I wish I knew what Jerome would have me do.”
William said, “You know what he would say. His last words to you were that it is your task to bear a healthy son.”
“Consider this,” Eliza added. “You must get on land as soon as possible. This continual seasickness is debilitating to you and may harm the baby. You need to recover your strength before you deliver.”
Betsy looked around the table at her companions and resented them for their bullying. She was convinced that if she gave the British ammunition in their propaganda war against Napoleon, he would never forgive her. To Captain Stephenson, she said, “Is there is no other port we can try? What about Emden or Bremen?”
He made a wide gesture. “Madam, we did not expect that the long arm of the emperor’s power could reach to Amsterdam. How can we predict what other ports remain open to us? In your condition, we dare not wander from harbor to harbor.”
“But don’t you see? The emperor will never receive me if I go to England.”
William slapped the table. “How much more anger can he display? He has already had a warship fire upon you, and if we do not leave Texel at the first opportunity, those selfsame ships will gladly send us to the bottom. Your situation cannot possibly get any worse.”
“Yes, it can.” Betsy’s thoughts flew to Jerome. Was he, like her, surrounded by people urging him to do something that violated his every instinct? She wanted to hold out against their persuasion, but unlike Jerome, she had to safeguard their child. “Are all of you in agreement that we have no other course?”
Every other person at the table nodded, so against her better judgment, Betsy consented to the plan.
ON MAY 17, the weather cleared enough to sail, and two days later, they anchored off Dover. As they neared that port, they saw rows of pale canvas army tents encamped on the green heights in preparation for Napoleon’s expected invasion.
While William went ashore to obtain permission to land, Betsy and Eliza stood at the ship’s railing staring at the white chalk cliffs and the hilltop castle, perched above the port on the eastern height and surrounded by walls that snaked up and down the slopes. “It looks like something from a storybook,” Betsy remarked.
Eliza pointed toward the harbor. “Look!”
Turning, Betsy saw two British soldiers walking along a distant quay. Seeing the lobster red uniforms of her husband’s enemies made her shiver. “Oh, I feel certain I should not be here.”
Eliza put an arm around her. “I know, but there was nothing else we could do.”
They watched a fishing boat sail into port circled overhead by squabbling gulls. Then Betsy turned her face to the pale spring sun and tried to absorb its warmth. She had to admit that it felt good to be anchored in a harbor where she ran no risk of being turned away. If only Jerome could be with her—but that was impossible. If he were here, the British would take him hostage.
She reached around to rub her lower back, which ached from the strain of carrying so much weight in front. “Should we go below so you can rest?” Eliza asked.
“No, I have spent far too much time in that stinking cabin.”
After more than an hour, Betsy saw a carriage drive onto the pier where the ship’s boat was waiting. Her brother and an older man alighted and climbed down into the boat, which then rowed toward the Erin. The carriage remained where it was. As Betsy waited for William to reach the ship, she noticed people collecting around the coach. “How odd. Why do you think a crowd is gathering?”
“I cannot imagine. It looks an ordinary enough vehicle.”
Eliza went to ask the captain to have their trunks carried up on deck. Then the two women watched as the crowd continued to grow, some shoving to get near the carriage and some gazing toward their ship. Feeling uneasy, Betsy remembered the parties she and Jerome had attended in Washington; people had gathered in the street so they could peer through open windows at Napoleon’s brother and his scantily clad wife. “This makes me wary,” she told Eliza.
“What do you think may be happening?”
Before Betsy could answer, the boat arrived, and William and a slight, bald man climbed aboard the ship. “This is Mr. Skeffington, our father’s agent in Dover. Mr. Skeffington, this is my sister, Madame Bonaparte, and her companion, Mrs. Anderson.”
They murmured greetings, and then William said, “Skeffington helped me find a set of rooms in a comfortable inn. Betsy, we will take your trunk with us, and then I will send back for the other trunks and the servants.”
To spare Betsy from climbing the ladder again, Eliza went below deck to check that no stray articles remained in their cabins. After she left, Betsy said, “William, I should have spoken earlier, but these last few weeks have been too tumultuous to allow for looking ahead. I do not trust Dr. Garnier or want him to deliver my child. Can you find some pretext to send him away?”
William frowned. “I confess that I also distrust him. He is markedly less respectful toward you when you are absent than he is to your face. But what excuse can we give?”
“Captain Stephenson has to sail back to Amsterdam to deliver part of his cargo. We could say that we must send Garnier to tell Jerome what happened when we tried to land because we dare not commit such a message to the mails.”
William smiled ruefully. “Garnier will not like it, but I will convince him to respect our wishes.”
“Thank you, that takes a great weight off my mind.”
He went below deck. Ignoring Skeffington, Betsy leaned against the railing and watched the seamen load her trunk onto the cargo sling, swing it over the side, and lower it into the boat. A few minutes later, Dr. Garnier approached her. “Madame Bonaparte, I must protest this new plan. Your husband specially charged me with the safe delivery of his child.”
Exasperation drove Betsy to the verge of tears. “Dr. Garnier, I must get word to my husband by someone he trusts. Mr. Bonaparte must be told that his brother’s anger is so severe that it extends to the use of violence. If indeed, he has not already learned so firsthand.” With that reference to Jerome’s peril, she beg
an to weep openly.
William bustled up to them. “Doctor, I begged you not to upset my sister. Can you not ease her mind by agreeing to our request?”
“Of course, I—”
Seeing that the sling had returned from the boat, William started to lead Betsy toward it, but she turned back to Garnier. “Please, give Mr. Bonaparte my love and explain why it was necessary for us to come here despite my misgivings. Tell him his child and I live for his return. Nothing else matters. Do you understand me? Nothing.”
Dr. Garnier stared at her a moment and then nodded.
Betsy turned away, and William helped her onto the sling. “Hold these ropes tightly. The crew has assured me they will treat you as delicately as a basket of eggs.”
The contraption reminded Betsy of the swing her older brothers had rigged for her on a tree at Springfield when she was a girl. At any other time, she might have enjoyed the flying sensation of being suspended over water and lowered into the boat, but in her present condition, the experience left her queasy. After she was settled, she clung to the gunnel and tried not to be sick when the boat rocked as Eliza, William, and Skeffington dropped into it.
Betsy leaned against Eliza and closed her eyes as they were rowed ashore. Once there, she climbed the ladder to the pier with her brother giving her a hand from above. When she was standing on the weather-beaten planking, she was shocked by the size of the waiting crowd. A small contingent of British soldiers stood at attention and pointed their bayonetted rifles over the spectators’ heads to keep them away from the carriage.
“My God, William, what is this?”
“When getting the passports, I was required to report your identity and the reason for our journey. It would seem the news has traveled swiftly.”
As they walked to the carriage, the mass of people surged forward. Betsy halted, smiled to placate the crowd, and gave what semblance of a curtsy she could with her off-balance figure. A sharp-faced man at the front shouted, “Madame Bonaparte, may I ask you questions?”
Seeing that he held a notebook and pencil, Betsy cried, “No, sir, I beg you.” Mr. Skeffington stepped between her and the crowd and handed her into the carriage. Then Eliza and the two men climbed inside.
As William shut the carriage door, a voice from outside shouted, “Never fear, little lady. Our gallant lads will crush Boney for you!”
“How can they possibly think that is what I want?” Betsy murmured.
WILLIAM HAD BOOKED rooms in a historic inn built in the late 1400s. As at the harbor, a crowd loitered in the street to witness their arrival. At the sight of them, Betsy thought back to her girlhood fantasies of being a princess, stepping out of a gilded carriage to be cheered by adoring subjects; the reality of her arrival in England felt like a perversion of that lifelong dream. The faces in this mob displayed no love but only raw inquisitiveness.
Over their heads, Betsy could see that the building was three stories high and made of brick, with the second story overhanging the first story by several feet, and the third story jutting out over the second. The top two floors were whitewashed, and each floor had a pair of mullioned windows.
After insisting that the carriage pull as close to the door as possible, William and Skeffington climbed out first. Betsy heard the Englishman shout in his reedy voice, “Have some decency, and make way for the ladies!” Then William beckoned to her. As she took his hand and alighted, Betsy smiled to appease the avid curiosity in the strange faces surrounding her. William hurried her through a wide black door in the center of a dirty brick wall. Betsy hoped to find relief from the onlookers once she was inside, but people had also gathered in the common room and stood on the stairs leading to the bedchambers.
The innkeeper, a burly man with a broad chest, went up before them, shouting, “Make way! This is not a circus.”
As she climbed the stairs, Betsy heard exclamations of sympathy rising from below: Look how tired the poor mite is and in a family way too. They say French warships chased her out of Holland. The expressions of concern made her want to weep, but by fixing a tight smile upon her face, she managed to control her emotions until she reached her room.
After Skeffington left them, Betsy, William, and Eliza gathered in the parlor between the bedrooms of the two women. The innkeeper’s lad carried up Betsy’s trunk, and then William shut the door and leaned against it. “I am sorry, Betsy, that we could not use your incognito.”
Betsy shrugged and lowered herself into a chair. “I daresay the truth would have come out anyway. No doubt the British have a spy network, just as Napoleon does.” Gazing around the room at the beamed ceiling, smoke-blackened hearth, and heavy oak furniture, she felt as if she had been transported back to the time of Henry VIII and shuddered to think of that wife-murdering monarch. Shifting a cushion behind her to ease her back, she leaned her head against her chair and closed her eyes. A few minutes later, a knock sounded upon their door.
Their visitor was the innkeeper’s wife, who brought them a supper of pea soup, roasted chicken, bread, cheese, and ale. “Thank you,” Betsy said as the woman laid the table.
Their hostess stepped back to check that everything was in place. She was in her forties with faded ginger hair. Wiping her hands on her apron, she turned to Betsy. “Is it true, ma’am, that you are married to the French emperor’s brother?”
Betsy sat up straighter. “Yes. I hope that will not compromise me in your eyes.”
“No, ma’am.” The woman smiled, showing a gap between her teeth. “No Englishman would blame a lady for her brother-in-law’s crimes. Anyway, we look on Americans as being quite our cousins.”
Betsy felt tears flood her eyes.
Seeing her distress, the innkeeper’s wife said, “Never fear, ma’am. If you have faith, I am sure God will look after you.” Then she curtsied and left the room.
XVII
THE next morning at breakfast, a letter arrived for Betsy. After reading it, she tossed the page down. “Mr. Skeffington begs leave to bring some people to meet me. Lady Augusta Forbes, wife of the officer overseeing the defense of Dover, and General John Hope, half-brother to the Earl of Hopetoun. These English act as though I am come here for their amusement.”
Picking up the sheet, William read it for himself. “Do not judge Skeffington so harshly. He also offers to help in any way possible.”
Eliza refilled Betsy’s cup. “You need not meet these people if you don’t wish to.”
“You do not know my father. After the money he laid out for this voyage, he will want me to be gracious to his associate.”
William cleared his throat. “I do not think he would require such exertions in your present condition. You know how highly he prizes female modesty.”
Stung by the reminder that she often failed to meet their father’s standards, Betsy grew obstinate. “Perhaps, but I will receive Mr. Skeffington’s friends all the same so that no one may rebuke me later.”
She rested in bed most of that day, and by evening she felt a lessening of the nervous fatigue that had afflicted her since Texel. The improvement in her spirits proved to be short-lived. The innkeeper sent up the previous day’s London Times at supper, and seeing William scowl as he had scanned the front page, Betsy demanded to know what it said.
He showed her a paragraph reporting the arrival of the Erin and the identities of everyone in their party. It described Betsy’s beauty and added that she appeared to be “far advanced in a situation to increase the number of Imperial relatives.”
“I feared this would happen,” Betsy complained. “Now the emperor will certainly know that I have come to England. Jerome told me he pores over the English papers to keep abreast of what they say about him.”
“What else could we do? After the disaster that ensued when Jerome sent us to Amsterdam—”
“How can you blame him?”
William wiped his lips with a napkin before answering, “I do not. I believe him to be as much a victim of Napoleon’s machinations as we
are.”
“I tell you, no good will come of our having fled here!” Betsy pushed on the table to ease herself to a standing position. “I almost wish we had gone to the bottom instead.”
Eliza circled the table and hugged Betsy. “You will not feel that way once your child is born. Believe me that once the baby is in your arms, you will be willing to risk everything for him.”
The sharp longing in her friend’s voice sliced through Betsy’s agitation. “Oh, Eliza, how you must miss your daughter. You left her to be with me, and all I seem to do is rage at you.”
“Hardly that. Besides, we who love you comprehend that your emotions are in turmoil because of the cruelty you have suffered.”
Observing that Eliza had avoided the tender subject of her daughter, Betsy said, “Please forgive my thoughtlessness. I will try to keep in mind all you have sacrificed for me.”
THE NEXT DAY’S visit deepened Betsy’s disquiet about being in England. Lady Augusta and General Hope were polite and claimed to feel concern for her because of the former close association of their two countries. Betsy sensed, however, that beneath their expressions of solicitude, they saw her not as an individual woman whose heart bled for her absent husband, but merely as a symbol that confirmed Napoleon’s tyranny.
After they left, Betsy said to Eliza, “You see, I am nothing more than a cause célèbre they can use to incite public feeling against the emperor.”
“I thought they were kind to offer support in your time of difficulty.”
“Ah, but ‘we all have sufficient strength to support the misfortunes of others,’” Betsy said, quoting La Rochefoucauld. “It costs them little to murmur, ‘You poor abused thing,’ particularly when they can exploit my situation for their own ends. I begin to understand why Napoleon hates the English.”
William reentered the parlor after escorting their guests downstairs. “Betsy, I fail to understand you. How can you of all people defend the emperor?”
She rested her clasped hands atop her protruding abdomen. “I may disagree with what my brother-in-law has done, and I may despise the way he reduces Jerome to a pawn in his stratagems, but I believe he makes his decisions for reasons of state. None of us can know the immense burden he carries in defending France. Therefore, his actions, though detrimental to me, are more defensible than the insincere flattery of the gentry that called this morning.”
The Ambitious Madame Bonaparte Page 24
