Will he bring his young wife here with their children to play among my gardens with all my animals? Will they feed my swans and wallabies, the emu and the llamas? He knows what pain that will cause me.
The gardeners arrange the shelter over her. They take up their mallets and hammer pegs into the earth. The small marquee is like her battle tent, a command centre. She feels like Bonaparte on his battlefield. She will not retreat. She will not be routed. She looks to the statue of Diana and finds strength. The goddess would not run away. The wind dries the tears from her cheeks.
Marguerite and the women of the Penthémont convent warned her long ago: land and titles can be taken from you, always carry your jewels. But Rose has given everything away. She is as bare of glitter and adornment as a marble statue and is determined to be as difficult to move.
Small comfort that her rival—the Polish wife, Marie Walewska—was dropped like a hot stone. She bore him a son, but he discarded her too. Rose realises she holds no trace of jealousy anymore. Had he professed his love to Marie? she wonders now. Had he promised her they would be together, while secretly he salivated over his choice of brides among the fresh princesses of Europe?
Rose had once believed Bonaparte’s affection for her was true; that, despite his affairs, only she held his heart. Now, she wasn’t sure if he was capable of love like love should truly be. He lacked the selflessness required to share his heart with another.
But perhaps Hortense was right: she should have guarded her own heart better. Something she had never been able to do. She remembers her old infatuations with Hoche and Hippolyte Charles. I was always good at love and passion, she thinks, but not at letting go.
The faint, sweet scent of her wattles from Van Diemen’s Land reaches her. She turns to see the buds just beginning to explode into tiny balls of creamy yellow fluff. These trees were some of her first successes and she remembers how tenaciously they established here, their roots reaching through the earth and flourishing anew.
A figure approaches on her flank. A woman is coming from the village, holding a bundle in her arms. Rose smiles, unable to help herself. It is a delight to see Anne looking so well. She holds out her arms and Anne obliges, putting a golden-haired, pink-faced child in her lap.
Rose gazes at the sleeping bundle in her arms. The baby has grown into a bonny child. ‘How old is she?’
‘Five months.’
‘Oh! The time passes so quickly.’
Anne nods. ‘They do grow fast. I had forgotten myself how much they need to be fed. I feel like one of those cows!’
‘Have you named her?’
‘We call her Virginie. But her full name is Josephine Marguerite Virginie Lahaie. Do you like it?’
Tears tip down Rose’s cheeks. ‘I like it very much indeed.’
‘I never got to thank you for all you did for us that day.’
Rose and Marthe carried Anne from the lakeside. She insisted on the greenhouse. Rose wasn’t sure, but it was closer than the château. Anne gripped their hands and Rose and Marthe kneeled beside her as Anne laboured. They could not leave her. All three women were bound now by this struggle for life, bonded by the moment this baby girl slid out raw and helpless into the world. Rose shook as she held the baby and Marthe cut the cord with a knife she carried in her sleeve.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t bring her to you sooner,’ Anne says in a low voice. ‘I know the last thing you want to be reminded of is a baby. After everything.’
Rose smiles at Anne, who is managing in her awkward way to make things worse. But Rose does not feel bad about the baby. How could she deny pleasure to her beloved friends? She feels no envy. She has come to terms with her failure to conceive.
In the months since the divorce, she has seen Bonaparte only once. He came to Malmaison and they met in these gardens. ‘We could have had a simple life here,’ she told him. ‘We could have been happy with that.’
He held her hands and kissed them. ‘Neither one of us would have been content, my love. We both are driven to be the best and brightest stars.’
Perhaps Bonaparte spoke the truth. She would not have been happy with anything less than the life they had together.
Now she gazes out across to her glittering glasshouses, full of the rare and wonderful. She sees the stand of blue gum trees rising above the lake. She has given them life in a new home and now she must let them go.
‘He wants me to leave, Anne,’ Rose sighs. ‘He wants me to leave Malmaison.’ Rose hears her voice crack.
Rain patters on the tent above their heads. A gust of wind blows cold and sudden and loud. They listen and Anne says nothing. Rose wonders if she also thinks of her own place in this world.
‘It is cold out here,’ Anne observes. Her cheeks are ruddy with the chill breeze.
Rose nods, pulling up the blankets around Virginie’s ears. The child yawns, stretching her little mouth wide, like an angel singing in a choir.
‘Come inside,’ Anne says. ‘Come into the glasshouses where it is warm.’
Instinctively, Rose pushes her toes into the earth, like a donkey refusing to be pulled. The rain splatters rudely on the canvas.
‘I have something you will want to see.’ Anne’s eyes sparkle.
‘Is it the euphorbias?’ Rose can’t stop herself wondering. She loves the profusion of lime green flowers, like baby bonnets, that herald the arrival of spring. ‘Or the hibiscus?’
‘Come and see.’
‘Have the boronia flowered?’ Rose adores the scent of the boronia, those tiny, plain brown bells sending out their glorious aroma while hiding in a nondescript little shrub. It does her good to remember the power of the overlooked.
Rose lets Anne lift the sleeping girl from her lap. Virginie rests her head on her mother’s shoulder and Rose stands and wraps a shawl around them both. The two women stroll unhurried across the lawns, as if they know the rain falling on their skin cannot hurt them. As if they know that whatever the season brings they will find a way to thrive.
AFTERWORD
Josephine did move to the house at Navarre for a time when the Emperor brought his new wife to Paris and began gardens there, continuing her love of rare plants, but she soon returned to Malmaison. She lived to see her ex-husband gain the legitimate heir he always wanted but lose his empire to the Russians. She died five years after the divorce, at her home in Malmaison.
Anne and Félix returned to the town of Versailles after the death of the Empress and built their own nursery of rare and exotic plants. Their daughter Virginie shared their love of plants and continued the business after the death of her parents.
Marthe separated from Jacques Labillardière and moved to Rue Sainte-Anastase in Paris. It was rumoured that she took the mahogany table with her, and Dominic the cook.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
It is both a joy and a torment to puzzle a story around matters of historical record. I love the moments when imagination, metaphor and fact align. However, simplifications and contractions are sometimes necessary, invention irresistable and errors probable, so I hope I will be forgiven for these in the telling of this story. My aim is always to be true to the characters and their motivations.
Many historians have written about Napoleon and Josephine and this wealth of study, together with their own letters and the translated memoirs of their contempories, have all helped to shape this novel. Here are a few of the texts I particularly relied upon: Diana Reid Haig, The Letters of Napoleon to Josephine; Kate Williams, Josephine: Desire, Ambition, Napoleon; and Jill Duchess of Hamilton, Napoleon, the Empress, and the Artist: The story of Napoleon, Josephine’s Garden at Malmaison, Redouté and the Australian Plants. The lives of the other main characters in this novel are less well-documented but I am thankful for the biography by Edward Duyker, Citizen Labillardiere: A Naturalist’s Life in Revolution and Exploration (1775–1834), for bringing them to me.
Small liberties were taken in order to include historical incidents within the bounds of this s
tory. For example, the fertility experiment devised by Bonaparte’s sister occurred as described, but not at Malmaison. The eighteen-year-old Eléonore Denuelle de la Plaigne was kept by Caroline in a pavilion on the Murats’ estate at Neuilly and would be taken to the Tuileries for regular assignations with the Emperor.
A few notes on names. Napoleon Bonaparte was born Napoleone Buonaparte but he and all his family later changed the spelling of their names to be more French than Corsican. For simplicity, I have chosen to use Napoleon Bonaparte throughout. I have omitted the accents on the names of Napoléon and Joséphine following common English usage. I have used the name of Félix Lahaie, rather than Delahaye or Lahaye as his name variously appears in documents, because his last name is spelled that way in one of the primary sources of the time (the journal of Labillardière, Voyage in Search of La Pérouse, translated in 1800) and it is as his name is commemorated on an obelisk in the Jardin des Pamplemousses in Mauritius (then Isle de France) where Félix first delivered the breadfruit plants.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Among many things, this is a story about marriage. I want to thank my companion in life and travels, Paul Johnson. He accompanied me on research for this novel from the Château de Malmaison, through the streets of Paris and on to the universities and libraries of northern Italy in search of fascinating tidbits and ambience. He was my devoted roadie on book tour for Into the World, my champion, and I wouldn’t ever want to be without his love.
I am deeply grateful to the readers of Into the World who have embraced these characters and wanted to know more. It was a true delight to discover such warm responses. I love connecting with readers: you can find me on Facebook or Instagram through my website www.stephanieparkyn.com. Your support of my writing has allowed this story of the botanist, the gardener and Josephine to happen. The continuing tale of Marie-Louise Girardin and her son Rémi Victoire is still to come!
Writers Shirley Patton, Michael Fletcher and Wendy Newton critiqued early drafts of this novel and gave their invaluable advice and support throughout. I so appreciate their talent and dedication to craft. Thanks also to my Nano Tasmania writing group for the crazy write-ins and for brainstorming the title of Josephine’s Garden. Thank you to writer Avery McDougall for the benefit of your wisdom. My insightful agent, Gaby Naher, championed this manuscript from the first reading, much to my relief! When my wonderful publisher, Annette Barlow, snapped it up I was thrilled to work with editors Christa Munns and Ali Lavau and all the Allen & Unwin team again.
My cheer squad of family members has been phenomenal. Thank you Nelli Parkyn, Kate Ghent, Bill Johnson, Jo and Nick Ward, Barbara Johnson and Stephen Johnson for your support. Friends and family have been so enthusiastic and encouraging of my writing, sending photos of my book on shelves or posting reviews and sharing opinions. I love you all! Thank you to everyone who came to my book events through Australia and New Zealand and especially to the friends who hosted us: Sally Collins, Graham Alley, Lyn Willshire, Dani and Nick Amundsen, Ian Ruscoe, Lee and Louise Kingma, Rick and Esme Venter, Abigail Ball, Anthony Miller, Mary and Robbie Rudkin, Jane Harding, Joel de Souza, Susane Krete, Joanna and Andrew McGill, Annie and Glenn Johnson, Gary Le Roux and Anita Kotze.
Lastly, thank you to the readers who find the spectacle of historical drama and the study of human motivations as fascinating and addictive as I do.
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