‘Got you!’ the boys cried, crashing through the foliage, coming at her from each flank.
She screamed, loud and long, the release of it a sudden and true pleasure. Then she wrapped the boys in her arms.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Summer 1809
It surprised Anne that by the summer her baby still held on to her. She dared to hope God would let her keep this one. Anne crossed her hands over her belly as she took a moment’s rest on a garden seat. It was uncomfortable to sit for long now, at five months pregnant. She had forgotten how this felt, this phase where there was no use hiding it any longer. Her coarse cotton dress was tight across her breasts, and the fabric that once fell loose and straight to the floor was now pushed and misshapen by the growing babe. She would need a new maternity dress. It had been too long since the boys were born and she had broadened, thickened. She felt like the trunk of a tree. I am growing almost as quickly as the blue gums, she thought. Each time Anne looked upon them she took strength from their vigour. It was a relief to see them thrive.
Anne turned her face towards the château and saw the Empress coming across the lawn, smiling.
Anne hastily rose from the bench, blushing. She had only meant to rest a moment. ‘Madame! I did not know you had returned from Strasbourg!’ A stab of fear struck her. They had not had time to tell her about the baby. When the Empress learned Napoleon was not coming to Malmaison and had ridden to war in Austria she had followed immediately to Strasbourg to be closer to him. How would she react to see Anne now?
‘Josephine—please call me Josephine. How long have we known each other?’
The Empress looked at Anne kindly, her eyes falling to the roundness of her belly. Anne held her breath. The Empress’s smile stalled.
‘Congratulations,’ she said, her eyes wet with tears. ‘This is a happy time.’ She squeezed Anne’s hand with her gloved fingers. ‘I am pleased for you.’
‘Thank you, Madame.’ Anne ducked her gaze away.
‘Show me how my garden has grown while I have been away in Strasbourg.’
She was trying to be brave, so Anne would too. They linked arms and Anne took her past the banksias with their burst of yellow flowers and host of chirping birds. She would take the Empress to her favourite view across the lake. They passed the rhododendrons in full bloom and the feathery New Holland wattles.
The Empress gasped. ‘The eucalyptus, they are so tall!’ The stand of blue gums were impressive, growing quicker than anything else around them. ‘When I look at these trees, I think of you and Félix both. I won’t forget how you have helped me.’
Anne frowned. The Empress was talking as though they were about to part.
‘My garden is the most beautiful thing in the world,’ she said with a sigh, looking across her flowerbeds. The red kangaroo paw, the white hibiscus, the tiny flame peas. Félix had helped the Empress with all these plants from New Holland. Anne remembered the struggles they had getting the Eriostemon shrubs to grow in the damp glasshouse, until Félix realised they did not like their feet in wet socks.
Three young gazelles trotted up to the Empress, expecting treats. She laughed as they nibbled at her fingers. ‘I have nothing for you today.’
‘I think I am the luckiest woman in the world to have all these wondrous animals in my garden.’ The Empress ticked each animal off on her fingers. ‘I have African gnu, and chamois goats, Peruvian llamas, the New Holland emu, my wallabies, flying squirrels, and golden pheasants from China. I feel like the goddess Diana with her animals.’ As if knowing it had been missed out of the list, the zebra trotted into view.
They circuited the lake, arm in arm, until they reached the statue of the goddess Diana herself. The white marble was growing mottled with lichens, mould and moss from the wet forest and she was becoming lost in the green. Anne thought she needed a good scrubbing.
‘Here, I want to give you this,’ Josephine said, pressing an amulet into Anne’s hand. ‘For protection.’
Anne looked doubtful. It didn’t look very Christian. She turned the circular pendant in her palm—a golden circle with the figure of a woman running, head turned, looking over her shoulder, and holding up a bow ready to shoot.
‘The huntress?’ Anne shifted. It made her uncomfortable to speak of pagan gods.
‘She is also the patron saint of pregnant women. Women who want to fall pregnant pray to her.’
Anne looked down over her breasts to her growing stomach. ‘I think it is too late for that.’
The Empress laughed. ‘And women who are already pregnant pray for an easy birth.’
Anne’s smile wavered. The Empress meant to cheer her; she could not know of the fears Anne held in her heart. She felt the weight of the child pulling her forward, pulling her off centre. Her child could take her life.
Some nights the memories of her last birthing returned to her dreams. She was crouched and screaming. When she had felt the pains she knew the baby was coming too soon. Something was wrong. That day it felt like a battle had begun inside her womb. A battle only one of them would survive.
Anne squeezed her eyes closed. There was the shame of it. She had won the battle and killed her own baby.
The Empress took the amulet and draped it around Anne’s neck. ‘Please let her help you. It is too late for me.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Summer 1809
‘Hortense!’
Josephine ran out of the house into the courtyard. Word of her daughter’s imminent arrival had reached her only hours beforehand.
She flung open the carriage door, not waiting for the footmen.
‘Hortense, what are you doing here? Have you come for the summer? Is something wrong?’
Her daughter looked tired when she climbed out into the sunshine. There were dark circles bagging beneath her eyes, but she was up to travelling and that had to be a good sign. Josephine had last seen Hortense in Brussels after the death of Napoleon Charles, when Bonaparte finally let her leave Paris. The haggard state of her daughter had scared her then, but now Hortense looked much improved. Her skin had recovered some of its life, and her golden hair its natural shine.
‘Too many questions, Maman, you have my head spinning.’ Hortense embraced her mother with a sad smile.
‘You are alone?’ Josephine asked, thankful that there was no sign of Louis Bonaparte inside the carriage.
‘Papa sent for me. He asked me to come and keep you company.’
‘Blessed Bonaparte, he thinks of my happiness!’
‘He hopes I will bring you comfort,’ Hortense said meaningfully. ‘To prepare you.’
Josephine tugged on her daughter’s arm. ‘Come let us get you settled inside. The painter Antoine-Jean Gros is here, I am commissioning a portrait.’
Josephine called to her staff to bring refreshments for Hortense. ‘Claire!’ she cried. ‘Look who has come!’
Josephine fussed about her daughter, settling her on the chaise in the vestibule.
Gros cleared his throat. ‘Madame Empress, are you ready to begin?’ He picked up his brush hopefully.
‘I want to show them all the things that truly matter to me,’ she said to her daughter. ‘These are to represent you, Hortense.’ Josephine pointed to a vase of hortensia flowers. The blooms were pale green and blushing to pink. The dress she had chosen to wear was adorned with the same pink and green blooms at the base of the skirt. It was a simple gown of cream with touches of gold at her hem and sleeves. She wore few jewels, just a string of small pearls across her chest and carefully chosen teardrop earrings.
She resumed her pose in front of the terrace windows. Gros ordered the plinth with Eugene’s bust be pulled in closer, framing the view of the garden down to the lake and beyond to her sparkling Grand Serre. If the worst was to happen—if she was to be set aside by Bonaparte as everyone wished—then she wanted to leave a record of herself. Her choice of every detail was deliberate. Her hand rested on her velvet-covered notebook with pressed leaves
protruding from the pages, the gold lettering prominent, her private Flore de la Malmaison. In it she had recorded every exotic seed sent to her from sea voyages around the world. Her collection was to be featured in a book about the best modern gardens in France by the celebrated author Alexandre de Laborde who praised Malmaison as the only genuine botanical garden in France. A botanical garden. A garden in service to botany. It had pleased her to her fingertips. Finally she would be seen not as a scandalous socialite, or an empress, but as a collector of consequence.
But her love for this garden was more than that. She knew every species by name and she had raised them like children. She adored growing from seed. The joy of taking a dull brown seed and bringing it to spectacular life. She loved seeing those first two green leaves unfurl above the earth. It was magical. Would the plant have leaves spiked like needles or soft like lamb’s ears? Would they flower with yellow bells, crimson trumpets or pink starbursts? There was no predicting what beauty a simple plain seed might produce.
Behind her the vista of her garden opened out. She had achieved this, by her charm and persistence, by her passion. Whatever people would say of her, Malmaison was her life’s work.
She insisted on standing. ‘It is more active,’ she said to Gros. She would not sit, would not be seen as passive. Through everything that had happened in her marriage to Bonaparte, she had created Malmaison. It belonged to her.
Gros stepped back to survey the tableau. ‘Look towards the courtyard, Madame Empress. Pretend you are waiting for your husband to return from battle.’ A letter with Bonaparte’s seal had been thrown to the floor, opened at her feet.
Josephine did as he wished. Gros wanted to see her anguish. It was an emotion easy to perform. Her husband had commanded her to return to Malmaison for the summer, to live her days in quiet retirement, to recede from the public eye. The war in Austria was won, but her husband had stayed behind in Vienna with his Polish bitch.
Tears sparked in her eyes. ‘Perfect, Madame!’ Gros enthused.
Josephine tried to stay calm. Gros had taken out his oil paints and the smell wafted across to her. Soon she would have a headache. She worried for Hortense, but her daughter seemed content to lie back and rest from her travels. Gros mixed and dabbed, mixed and dabbed, making notes of the colours. This portrait was her chance to say who she really was, and she would not falter, no matter how nauseating the smell.
‘They say I failed him, Hortense. At court, they speak of nothing but my divorce. I walk into rooms and voices fall. Or, worse, they speak loudly with no shame and lay bets on when the Emperor will be rid of me.’
‘Oh, Maman.’
‘Hortense, you would not believe how the courtiers look upon a repudiated wife! Once adored Empress, now I am shit stuck to a shoe.’
Gros dropped his palette knife to the floor.
Hortense snorted out a laugh then slapped a hand across her mouth, eyes wide. Josephine was shocked at herself. Her turn of phrase, so unexpected, so coarse, like something Bonaparte would say. Then Josephine herself sniggered. Her shoulders shook with laughter, and soon tears leaked down the creases at the corners of her eyes.
‘Madame Empress?’ Gros said, looking out from behind his easel. ‘Perhaps you have endured enough for one sitting. Should I return later?’
‘Thank you, Antoine-Jean.’ Josephine waved him away. She was racked with hysterical giggles and her sides ached. Hortense rushed to her mother, wrapping her arms around her, waiting for the convulsions to ease.
‘This is no laughing matter, is it, Maman.’ She leaned her head against her mother’s forehead. ‘He makes you miserable.’
‘It hurts to be so completely turned over,’ Josephine admitted, clutching her stomach. ‘It is like I have been stabbed with a pitchfork in their haste to muck out the stable. It’s not true what they say about me, Hortense. They say I will not let him go because I crave power, because I am ambitious, because I love my jewels too much and France too little.’
‘Maman, why stay and endure all this cruelty? His family mock you, Bonaparte is harsh on purpose to drive you away. It is time to give it all up.’
‘Never.’ The word was out as a growl. I will not let her win. She startled herself by the thought. Her instinct was to fight, but in that moment she could not remember whom she was fighting or what she was fighting for. Why did she stay and endure this life? She shook her head. ‘I love him, I cannot leave him. He still needs me, I know it. He always said that I was his good fortune, that our destiny was written in the stars.’
Hortense was looking at her mother with deep sadness.
‘It hurts my eyes to look at you,’ Josephine said, turning away.
‘Maman, what happened to you? Where did you go?’
Josephine stood very still. She gazed out into the vast blue sky.
‘How did you lose yourself so completely?’ Hortense shook her mother’s arms. ‘I want my mother back.’
‘You don’t understand, Hortense,’ she said, stricken. ‘Who am I if I’m not Bonaparte’s wife?’
As summer turned day by day into autumn, Josephine watched the oaks yellow and turn brick orange one branch at a time, as if they were reluctant to let their leaves fall.
This wait was interminable. Bonaparte sent her no news about when he would return from Austria. I shall be in Paris at a moment when nobody will expect me, was all he had revealed. His letters now were short and sent weeks apart. He was tender, he answered her queries about his health, but he signed his notes Adieu, dear. It is like he writes to his mother, she fumed. He has forgotten me utterly.
She was forced to debase herself and ask her few visitors for the gossip at court. Was he still at Schönbrunn with his Polish wife? Had he made up his mind to divorce her? It was all she could think about. Hortense grew impatient with her.
‘Maman, he has promised to look after you. He will give you a home in Italy.’
‘Italy!’ she shrieked. It was worse than she ever could have imagined. He meant to expel her—not just from his heart, but from her home.
‘Eugene will join us. We could begin again, live together in peace. He will bring his wife. I will ask Louis for a divorce. We can be free of all of this!’
Josephine was trembling. How could her daughter suggest such a thing?
Josephine took long walks in her garden, noticing each bush as it came to the end of its bloom. She wept until her eyes were raw. What was happening to her? How had it come to this? When she glimpsed Anne walking with Félix, growing larger and larger with the progress of the season, she could not bear to meet them. She took another path and hoped they understood that it was too painful for her. A son would have secured her husband. Secured her home.
Adèle and her other ladies found life at Malmaison too maudlin and returned to court—flushed with their tales of her, Josephine had no doubt. Compared to the early years at Malmaison, this summer had been dull. There were no entertainments, no plays and concerts, no dinner parties that went on until the dawn. Only Claire de Rémusat remained at her side.
When Caroline arrived one afternoon it was typically without warning.
‘What are you doing here, Caroline?’ Josephine asked coldly.
‘Bonaparte has asked me to come.’
Josephine stared at her husband’s sister. Was that the truth or a lie? Could she ask for proof? If Bonaparte had asked her to come then she could not refuse his sister entrance to their home.
Caroline was smiling. ‘I did not want to miss the proceedings.’
Josephine would not give her the satisfaction of being curious.
‘Your room will be made ready. You will find we live very simply at present. Hortense plays her music and reads. I am often in the garden. We may not be here to entertain you.’
‘Oh, the others will be arriving soon. Madame Mère, my brothers. They all want to watch.’
Josephine turned to the garden. There was a one-eyed man washing her windowpanes. They stared directly at one another f
or a moment, before he moved the rag in front of his face, scrubbing the glass in a steady circular motion. Josephine rubbed her temples. This visit from Bonaparte’s family would tire her. She could feel a migraine beginning, her eyesight flickering.
‘Forgive me, I must lie down.’
‘Don’t you want to know why we are meeting here?’ Caroline was bouncing on her toes.
‘Not particularly.’ Josephine began to walk away towards the staircase, eager for the sanctuary of her bedroom.
Caroline followed close behind, wielding her words like daggers.
‘His Polish mistress is pregnant.’
Josephine had reached the stair and clung to the banister. She was thankful that Caroline did not have the satisfaction of seeing her face. The blood was draining from it.
‘He is leaving Vienna,’ Caroline crowed. ‘He is coming here. He has something important he wishes to discuss with you.’
Josephine had a few moments to compose herself, poised at the base of the stairs, before she slowly began the climb.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Autumn 1809
Marthe stared down at the copy of Jacques’s Plantarum of New Holland in its protective glass case in the library of their home. He had opened it out at the Eucalyptus globulus, and she saw its entire life cycle laid out in a single page. Its gumnuts, leaves and flowers were drawn and lightly coloured in subtle tones of greyish green and pale yellow. Jacques did not lock the cabinet; he had no reason to suspect anyone would have cause to steal such a document. Marthe raised the lid, pleased the hinge was oiled, and lifted the heavy tome. The book was large, too tall for a standard shelf, and bound in leather. She replaced the glass lid carefully and carried the book out of her husband’s life.
Dominic had brought the news that the Emperor was returning from Austria, that he was coming to ask his wife for divorce, but the plan had been her own. Marthe knew this was her last chance. After he divorced the Empress, he would not call on Malmaison again. Her access to the Emperor would end.
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