“Yes, dearest,” Lowe muttered to himself. He scratched and cursed the feral cats screaming in the humid Saint Helena dark. “I hear that Cockburn and that civilian Wilks have been soft with him. I won’t make the same mistake.”
The mosquitoes zinged like bullets past his ears. It was after midnight by his watch when he could bear the torment no longer. He examined the netting with his night-light. Some villain had gashed the canopy’s roof, giving the grateful insects a six-inch portal.
The next morning at a quarter to nine, Governor Lowe, Admiral Cockburn, and an entourage of officers and soldiers emerged from the Jamestown valley onto Deadwood Plain in the midst of a howling tropical downpour. Ten minutes later, wet as drowned rats, they entered the grounds of Longwood, the converted cowshed, where Napoleon had already spent four miserable months. At precisely nine an equerry was sent to bang on the door, which was opened by a liveried servant who summoned a man in a splendid uniform whom Cockburn introduced to Lowe, with a touch of sarcasm, as Marshal Bertrand. The marshal told Lowe that the emperor was not receiving visitors, never did in the mornings, as the admiral knew very well, that he was in his bath and that he would not be available to meet the new governor until two tomorrow afternoon. He would be expected then.
Lowe steamed in his sodden uniform. “I feel like plucking the blackguard right out of his tub!” he fumed when the marshal saluted and slammed the door in his face.
“You could certainly do that,” said Cockburn, fresh from making his apology about the gash in the mosquito netting, which Lowe had brought up, acidly, to explain the bites on his face. “Although it would have to be on your own authority.”
Lowe rehearsed the action in his mind. The redcoats breaking down the bathroom door. Napoleon naked in his bath. What then? Who would haul him out? Who would dare to touch his naked flesh?
A preternatural shiver ran up Lowe’s spine. He couldn’t do it. “Tomorrow then,” he said through clenched teeth. “Precisely at two.”
The next day was windy but clear except for the occasional fog bank riding in on the back of the stampeding southeaster. At 2:00 p.m. precisely, the door was knocked on but opened only after an insolent delay. The governor and the admiral entered, the governor first, and were shown into the parlor where they were invited to sit. They kept their hats on.
“We should go in together,” said Cockburn in a churchy whisper. “It would be proper for me, as the outgoing military commander, to officially hand him over to your custody.”
Lowe was wearing his hardest face, but his stomach was crawling with worms. He nodded.
A door opened, revealing General Gaspard Gourgaud, bristling with medals and Gallic pride. He called out in his best parade-ground voice, “Governor Lowe!”
Lowe’s tension released itself into his legs. He sprang up and headed for the open door, the admiral several steps behind him, hurrying to catch up. Through the door Lowe went, and there was the prisoner, short but broad, sitting in the small salon, examining Lowe with mild curiosity, seemingly oblivious to the heated encounter that was going on at the door.
“Let me pass, you villain!” Admiral Cockburn was demanding.
“You were not called!” snapped Gaspard.
“I need to introduce the governor!” Cockburn shouted.
Behind him Lowe heard Gaspard Gourgaud close the door on the admiral’s curse. Napoleon looked Lowe full in the face, through him, all the way to the green paper that decorated the walls.
Lowe felt his hand rise to his hat as if it were being levitated by an unstoppable force that to his disgust removed it. He would like to have sat, for his knees suddenly felt weak, but wasn’t invited to.
Napoleon was speaking. “I am honored to meet the leader of the Corsican Rangers,” he said, chillingly calm, “that band of traitors to Corsica and France.”
Lowe felt color fly to his cheeks. “They were loyalists who were doing their duty,” said Lowe, “just as I am doing my duty now, General.”
The one word Napoleon said was icy as the snows of Russia. “General?”
“Indeed. That is how we are instructed to address you.”
Still very calm. “The world knows me as the Emperor Napoleon. You are known by no one, but you dare to insult me?”
“Sir, you do not know me. Once you do, you will have a different opinion of my character.”
“I know too much about you already. You have never commanded in battle. You have never commanded men of honor. You have done nothing more than conduct skirmishes! Your greatest achievement was being Wellington’s quartermaster, his shopkeeper. You are nothing but a clerk!”
A stiff back with a limp unmentionable! His wife’s drunken accusation struck at Sir Hudson Lowe like a snake. No! He must not allow himself to be flustered. He was facing the wiliest villain in the world. He reminded himself of his heroic race through the ruin this butcher had made of France. Riding alone except for the brave Cossack at his side, taking the news of Napoleon’s defeat to London. Received by the prince regent still in his bedroom. Knighted then and there. Endless rounds of congratulation. Sitting next to the prince at dinner that night, answering a thousand eager questions, fighting not to fall asleep in his chair because he hadn’t slept in days. A hero, that’s what he was!
“Your insults are bombast, General,” he said. “I am a soldier, and you are my prisoner of war.”
“You are a hangman sent to execute me!”
“I am your guardian. My duty is to make certain that you do not escape and cause more mischief in the world.”
A crude bark of a laugh. “If you are not interested only in my corpse, why do you have the face of a hyena?”
That was enough! Lowe jammed his hat back on his head. “I came to do you the courtesy of giving you the time of day. But you have done nothing but insult me! Good day, sir!”
Napoleon jerked his watch out of his pocket, threw it onto the floor, and stamped it to extinction. “That’s what I think of your time of day!” he roared.
Without another word the new governor turned his back, flung open the door, and marched out.
Napoleon stood at the window, hands clenched behind his back, watching Governor Lowe and Admiral Cockburn, both furious although for different reasons, ride away in the rain. In Napoleon’s presence you only spoke when spoken to, so Gaspard, who had come through the open door, stood at attention until the emperor’s sudden burst of crowing laughter invited him to approach.
“Satisfactory, sire?” he whispered, perplexed by his master’s happy mood.
Napoleon spoke without turning round. “Yes. He’s my Caliban.”
The young general looked alarmed. “Your Majesty, the monster could make our lives a misery.”
Napoleon stared at him for a long moment, as if he were considering something. He came to a decision. “Yes, he will crown me with thorns. Send me Rosebud.”
Security measures were lax before Governor Lowe, in his righteous fury, tightened his grip. So there were no challenges when Charlotte, wearing a plain dress with a scarf tied round her head, walked up the hill from Jamestown later that afternoon with the washerwomen who were coming to collect Longwood’s dirty laundry.
Napoleon was in what passed for a garden, because the rain had been swept away. He was sitting under the best tree near the house, the banyan that threw a thick, moving patch of shade, a lifesaver when the tropical sun burst through. He was listening with half an ear to his young doctor, Barry O’Meara, rattle on cheerfully in French about the benefits of licorice on digestion when he saw the girl approach and stop at a respectful distance. He would use her to strike at the governor while the fool’s temper was hot. But first he would feast his eyes on her figure.
She was dressed in a cheap white dress, with a worn white scarf hiding her long blonde hair. Behind her was a grove of gumwoods, leaning away from the wind.
A beautiful girl, fair complexion, tall, dressed in white, walking in a grove of trees.
It was a recurrin
g daydream, which had haunted him in quiet moments ever since he first became interested in women. He would like to see those long legs naked! One day he would indulge himself, but he needed her attention at the moment, not her affection. He needed her help in getting him off this black wart disfiguring the shining face of the Atlantic.
“Come!” he called to her, cutting off the doctor’s dissertation in midsentence. “Leave us,” he said without even looking at him, “but also leave us your prescription pad and a pencil…Rosebud, you look like a peasant!” he said to her before the doctor was out of earshot.
Charlotte’s pale complexion was flushed with the excitement that had swept her up the steep path light as a feather. A summons from Napoleon! It put her wildest dreams to shame. “Your Majesty I dressed like this because I wanted to blend in with the women coming for the laundry.”
“Bah!” said Napoleon, because the laundry women were all black slaves. “Like a lily blends in with lumps of coal!”
A cheeky flash of defiance lit the emerald eyes. “You did send for me?”
“Yes.” He handed her the doctor’s pad. “You will write another letter to your boy in Kew, in English of course. First you will write what a chamber pot this island is. Go on, write! Use those very words. Say it even looks like one. Now write that Deadwood Plain, where we are imprisoned, is named so because it is the most desolate part of a desolate rock that makes Hades seem like paradise. Even the weather torments. Fog and rain follow each other with such rapidity that it is impossible to know what clothes to wear. The endless wind pierces even the thickest greatcoat. The rain vanishes in a flash, and the scalding sun leaps out, joyful as a devil in hell, so hot that it steams you alive in your wet clothes. This isn’t a climate, it’s an assassin! Are you getting all this?”
Charlotte nodded, although she thought it was all a bit of an exaggeration.
“Guarding the portal of this place of horror is our monstrous jailer, recently set loose on us,” the torrent of words continued. “He appropriately goes by the name of Lowe. All accounts confirm that he’s a cowardly officer turned bully who uses the power given by him by the crown of England to insult and humiliate his captive, who could so easily have fled to America but chose to remain in Europe as the guest, not the prisoner, of Great Britain. This Lowe man besmirches the name of England. A Lilliputian who lords it over a giant. He will certainly drive his noble victim to desperate, even violent, measures to escape his tyranny!”
Napoleon paused to allow Charlotte to finish writing. He took a slender scroll out of his waistcoat pocket. Just like the previous one, it was sealed with the imperial eagle imprinted into the red wax. “Include this among your weeds—any weeds will do. Post it first thing tomorrow.”
Neither of them noticed Governor Lowe, back so soon because he was irresistibly drawn to the scene of the crime. He pretended not to be concealing himself behind a bush as he watched Napoleon and a blonde peasant girl talking in the shade of a splendid banyan with long roots hanging from its branches.
“I noticed that tree earlier today, during our visit,” he said to Henry Porteous, who had put on his kilt when he was told that the governor required him to ride up to Longwood with him. “That tree will have to come down. Someone could climb up those roots.”
“Yes, Sir Hudson,” said the Porteous House landlord, who was also the company’s gardener and the father of Charlotte’s best friend, “although the emperor uses it for reading, almost every day. It’s the only decent shade tree on the property.”
“That’s why it has to come down,” said the governor. “See that it’s done immediately.”
Louis Marchand, Napoleon’s valet, eyes, and ears, was sitting at the Almond Tree the next morning sipping his third cup of foul local coffee, which was mostly chicory, when Charlotte finally made her appearance. He watched her hurry with her easy, long strides to the post office to mail her package, watched as she emerged a minute later and walked back up the street on her way to her vegetable stand. As she passed the Almond Tree, she caught his eye and nodded, just perceptibly.
Less than a minute later the fat little postmaster, Cole, emerged and hurried over the road to Balcombe’s run-down office. To deliver the packet to Balcombe, Marchand supposed. Almost immediately Balcombe emerged from his office with the postmaster. For a moment they seemed to put their heads together. The postmaster returned to the post office, while Balcombe walked briskly toward the Castle.
Marchand paid his bill. Everything was going according to plan.
After a long wait, Balcombe was shown in by Kay, the government secretary. He found Governor Lowe and Admiral Cockburn, barely on speaking terms since the debacle at Longwood the previous day, sitting as far apart as possible at a heavy black Chinese desk—an addition by the new governor, to add to his gravity, perhaps. The painting of Admiral Cockburn burning Washington had already been removed, leaving the wall yawningly blank. Cockburn introduced Balcombe, who made the mistake of thinking the new governor was reaching out to greet him. An awkward moment followed as Balcombe realized his mistake.
“My secretary says you have something for me.”
“Yes, Your Excellency.” Balcombe took the packet out of his pocket and put it in Lowe’s outstretched hand.
Lowe glanced at it and then glared at Balcombe with his suspicious sideways glance. “Admiral Cockburn is familiarizing me with how things have worked around here,” he said. “He has explained who you are and your little…arrangement with him. We are gathered here to determine whether it is worthwhile continuing with it or not.” He tossed the packet on the desk as if he thought it was bound to be worthless. “I hear that the Rosebud girl has just posted this?”
Balcombe said, “Yes, Your Excellency. Just minutes ago.”
“Well, open it, man,” he said to Kay the secretary, who was hovering half a pace behind Balcombe. “We have to determine whether this little venture is worth the trouble.”
The secretary undid the packet’s clasp, extracted the cover letter then fished out the sealed scroll hiding in the burlap pouch of herbs, laying out all the items in a neat row as if he were performing an autopsy.
“Your Excellency,” whispered the secretary, “as you see there’s a cover letter. The sealed scroll itself seems to be one sheet of paper, like the last one.”
“Which was that list of names,” Admiral Cockburn reminded him.
Lowe didn’t seem to hear him. “I don’t care how many sheets of paper!” he said to the secretary. “Open it, man!”
The secretary broke the seal, for which he had a replacement, unrolled the scroll. His eyes widened. “I can’t, Your Excellency,” he said, barely audible.
Lowe raised one of his bushy red eyebrows, turned the right side of his face toward the man as if he heard better out of that ear, examining him out of the corners of his eyes. “And why not? Is it written in Hebrew?”
The secretary, who was near retirement and not well, cleared his throat. “No, Your Excellency. It appears to be completely blank—unless they used invisible ink.”
Governor Lowe thought he had steeled himself for every eventuality. But not this one. “Invisible ink, that must be it! Try steam. Lemon juice. Green vitriol.”
The secretary tried them all, by which time the sheet of paper looked like a wafer-thin slice of moldy cheese. “Your Excellency,” he said, “it seems to be what it appears to be. Completely blank.”
Lowe was in a frenzy. Balcombe saw the hundred guineas he was due, most of which he had already spent, vanish down the drain.
Admiral Cockburn, although mystified, was doing his best to hide that he was being royally entertained. “I have a possible explanation,” he said. “I believe Bonaparte is once again testing the security of this conduit,” the admiral said.
“Of course he is!” said Lowe. “Perhaps there are clues in the girl’s cover letter.” He snatched it up, frowned, turned it on its side. “Damn thing is so cross written to save paper I can’t make sense of it.”
He held it out to the secretary. “Read it, man!”
The secretary took the letter. Voice trembling, he read.
Lowe beat the desk with an angry fist after almost every line. “Blast that girl! That’s a damned lie! And so is that!” By the time his secretary had fought his way through Charlotte’s epistle, Lowe was apoplectic. “There is no way in damnation I’m going to allow that slander to reach the shores of England!” he shouted.
Admiral Cockburn struggled not to laugh at the preposterousness of the insults. “But we must let it through, Sir Hudson. It’s imperative.”
“Imperative! Why?”
“Because otherwise there will be no more letters from Napoleon to his accomplices through this conduit. A very promising intelligence operation will be stillborn.”
“But these slanderous falsehoods! That I cut down Bonaparte’s favorite tree out of spite! Not a grain of truth to it. I cut it down for security reasons. The hanging roots were too close to Bonaparte’s window!”
Napoleon's Rosebud Page 7
