“Advice that King Louis would have done well to take,” Bonaparte said cheerfully. I suppose he was referring to the king who’d gotten his head chopped off by the guillotine during the French Revolution. I thought his joke in very poor taste.
I’d grown several inches taller since my last visit here, but I found this posed no problem. And Bonaparte was an unusually small man, hardly larger than I—in height, that is to say, not in girth. So he had only to bend a bit and follow me through the passageway. But the cave smelled dank and foul, like a thousand wet hounds that hadn’t enough sense to come in from the rain. A bone-chewing chill emanated from its every nook and cranny, like a blast of retribution from an angry deity. This was not lost on the emperor.
“What do you keep in this godforsaken place, mademoiselle?” he inquired, shuddering. “Roquefort cheese? Relations who have gone fou?”
I knew enough French to know that fou meant “insane.” My relatives are all quite normal, thank you. But I should think an investigation of the emperor’s family tree would prove more fruitful.
Suddenly, a vast and terrible blackness burst from the bowels of the cave like a messenger of death. The extraordinary sound accompanying it was as if an entire library of books had suddenly emptied itself of its pages from a tremendous height. The black, leathery “pages” brushed my cheeks in a very unwelcome caress, and my hair was disarranged by a thousand unseen hands.
“Argh!” the emperor called out, startled. He was probably having an experience similar to mine, but it was too dark for me to see him clearly.
“Are—are you all right, sir?” I asked him. Even in the dimness, I detected his arms swinging wildly about his head like blades on a windmill.
Then, in a moment, it was over.
“Flying rats!” he said contemptuously. “Just like in Egypt. I’d rather fight a thousand Mameluke armies!”
“The bats won’t hurt you,” I said casually. “We just startled them. They were sleeping.”
“I trust they will accept our apologies,” the emperor said facetiously. He was quiet for a moment and stood motionless. I could hear the slow drip…drip…drip of the limestone spikes being formed in the cave, a fraction of an inch at a time; the slow drip of time. Bonaparte said nothing and contemplated, as if time were something in endless supply. And to him, now, here a prisoner, I suppose it was. It was as if he were replaying the whole bat episode in his mind, as a general does after a battle to see what went right and what wrong. At last he spoke to me. His tone was at once puzzled and amazed.
“You did not scream.”
“You did,” I replied.
Chapter 6
I had plenty of time to savor my victory as we wended our way along the narrow pathways of the cavern. I led the way. It gave me a good deal of pleasure to know that this man, who’d led a million men to their deaths on the field of battle, was now reduced to following me, a mere girl of fourteen years. A fitting fate for a man who had brought so much misery upon the world. Who never did anything of value, nor gave a thought to anyone but himself.
Perhaps if he had gone to a strict English school like mine he’d have turned out differently. First, the teacher would rap the young Napoleon’s knuckles, a bit, with the ruler. Bonaparte would bawl like a brat, no doubt. For my part, I never cry when I get it. Next, the headmaster would administer the paddle to his derrière—as the French politely call the “bottom”—until it was as purple as a plum pudding. Now, Master Bonaparte, he’d lecture him. You have been a very obstinate little boy. You shall go and sit in the corner and ruminate about what you’ve done. Oh, yes—he’ll be sitting in this corner of the world for a long, long time….
“Mademoiselle Betsy,” the emperor said, interrupting my delicious speculation. “Your cave is très charmante—very charming—but I think I have seen enough, and it is getting late. Shall we retreat? I would not want to give our Captain Poppleton the apoplexy.”
I ignored him for a few steps more—down a steep incline—and then we arrived at our destination. I reached in the crevice, and the stickiness of a spider’s web enveloped my hand. Was the lamp still there? Ah, yes! And with fresh oil and flints, to boot. Huff must have been there recently. I struck a flint against a striker and lit the wick.
Holding the lamp aloft, I turned to face the emperor in time to see the astonished look on his face. You see, it was not just the lamp that caught him by surprise. It was the laboratory.
It had not changed much since I’d been here last. Oh, perhaps there were a few more glass flasks and beakers, filled with liquids every color of the rainbow. The book collection still covered both sides of the cavern walls from floor to ceiling. There were books and papers, all shapes and sizes, written in every tongue known to man. Some had been there so long, they were encrusted with green limestone drippings.
The animals were just the same as they’d been—no surprise, since they were all dead and stuffed. The hungry lioness sank her fangs into the graceful neck of the gazelle, frozen in an eternal embrace of death. The mangy hyena cackled silently, and the gorilla stood boldly, baring his teeth and pounding his chest to proclaim his dominion.
The mahogany worktable looked smaller than I recalled. But perhaps since I was bigger now it just seemed that way. A collection of creatures, recently slaughtered, lay on a blood-spattered white sheet on the table. I moved the lamp closer for a better look. The emperor peeked over my shoulder. On the table were detailed anatomical drawings—of what sort of creature, I knew not—done by a steady hand. And nearby a bullfrog was nailed to the sheet with a silver stake through its heart. A set of small pins fixed the skin back, exposing muscles and parts that most people, given a choice, prefer to keep out of public view. I saw Bonaparte wince.
How odd, I thought. With all the gore he must have seen on the battlefield, he can’t stand the sight of blood!
Bonaparte turned to face me. “This workshop belongs to you?” he said, incredulous.
“Oh, no,” I replied. “Of course not. These are Huff’s occupations. I just come here when I want to get away from things.”
“Huff?”
“My brothers’ tutor. He’s a little—well, some people think he’s rather…eccentric.”
The emperor ran his hand against the grain of the hyena’s fur, kicking up a cloud of dust. “I can’t imagine why,” Bonaparte said wryly.
I gave him a disapproving look.
“What is he up to here?” the emperor asked.
“Experiments. He’s a brilliant scientist,” I said, feeling somewhat defensive. “People just don’t…understand him.”
“Ah…,” Bonaparte said. “Just as they don’t understand Mademoiselle Betsy?”
I was taken aback by his insight. But I tried not to show it.
“Quite so,” I said. “Of course, not for the same reasons,” I added quickly.
Bonaparte took off his hat—a white, broad-brimmed islander’s hat that had been a “welcome” present from Toby—and swept off a rickety chair with it. Then he sat down, put his chin in his delicate hand, and looked at me curiously.
“They do not understand you because you have the gazelle’s liberté in your soul. But now you are trapped in a pose—as this stuffed creature here.” He pointed to the gazelle, frozen in its moment of utter helplessness.
In spite of myself, he had captured my attention, and I didn’t say a word. Encouraged, he went on: “Trapped. The role they have written for you does not suit you—like a good actress in a very bad play. You dream of doing great things, but no one expects it of you. Your heart aches to break free—and write your own destiny on the wind. You are not taken seriously. You want to be taken seriously. And someday they will see what they have missed in you—you will make them see. And they will be sorry.”
He studied me.
“Ah, with Betsy’s jaw dropped open like that, she resembles even more our unfortunate gazelle.”
Yes, I confess I was astounded by Bonaparte’s analysis. I must hav
e looked very ridiculous, standing there with my mouth gaping open. How could this man, who’d met me only a few days prior, know my feelings so well? It was as if he were one of the girls I’d gossiped with in the darkness of the bunk room after curfew at Hawthorne. Perhaps Toby has been talking about me, I speculated, annoyed. I’ll have to have a long talk with Toby….
“And now mademoiselle is wondering how I could see into her soul, n’est-ce pas?” Bonaparte said.
I stared at him. Unfortunately, he could tell by the look on my face that he’d guessed correctly, again.
“You see, mademoiselle, you and I are very much alike.”
“What?!” I began angrily. “How can you say—”
“Now, now,” the emperor interrupted soothingly. “Hold your fire. When I spoke of your feelings, I merely spoke of my own—when I was your age. You and I are as much the same on the inside as Roberaud and I are on the exterior. And kindred spirits can always recognize one another.”
The emperor had a self-satisfied smile on his face that irritated me like an overstarched petticoat.
“What could you and I possibly have in common?” I demanded.
“Beaucoup! A great deal. Born in the middle of a large famille—though in my case, there were eight enfants—I knew when I drew my first breath that I was unlike the others. I struggled to find myself, but there was no niche for me. Then I was sent away to school, far away from everyone known to me—just as you were, mademoiselle. I attended the military academy at Brienne. I did not play by the rules. Like someone else I know,” he said slyly. “I was lonely. An outsider. Did not ‘fit in,’ as the English say.”
“Outsider?” What on earth did the man mean?
“I was not French, you know.”
Bonaparte? France’s greatest “hero”? Not French? Impossible!
He saw my skeptical look and added, “C’est vrai, mademoiselle. Quite true. I am Corsican. Born ‘Buonaparte.’ On a little island that was passed back and forth between France and Italy like a baton. At the academy, shunned for my strange accent and foreign ways. And my…er…diminutive stature. No one expected I would ever accomplish anything. Little Napoleon do anything of consequence? Jamais! But I was determined to prove them wrong. And that would take some time. I ended my glorious career as a scholar forty-second—in a class of fifty-one.”
Ninth from the bottom? Even I had done better than that! Well, except my first term, of course.
Still, from this moment forth, I found it increasingly difficult to view Bonaparte as a strange being from another cosmos.
Just then we heard the sound of footsteps approaching. Bonaparte swung around in a flash, hand on his sword. It seems his old warrior’s instincts were still alive.
It took a few moments for the intruder to come into the lamplight, but I knew him instantly by his hesitant, arthritic gait.
Chapter 7
Huff!”
“Betsy? Can it be? Betsy? Is that you, my dear child?” Huff said, squinting in the dimness. He looked much the same as when I had seen him last—still the peculiar red fez on his head, with tassel dangling, still the long white robe like an Arabian prince. His ragged beard was now completely gray, though, and almost reached his navel.
He shuffled toward me, extending his long, bony arms. “Oh, my dear child! How you have grown!” Huff embraced me, and I daresay he shed a tear or two. “Let me look at you.”
He stepped backward, and it was then that he noticed I was not alone, for Bonaparte had been lurking, sword aready, in the shadows. Oddly, it seemed the emperor had been intent on defending me, should the need arise.
“Have I…interrupted you, my dear?” Huff said, embarrassed. “I will go, of course….” And he turned to leave. I was puzzled at first by his unease. And then it dawned on me: He thought he’d interrupted a romantic tryst!
I couldn’t contain a laugh. “No, no!” I said, almost choking with laughter. “Please don’t go. It’s nothing like that. He’s just a…”
Bonaparte listened expectantly, waiting to see what word I’d supply to describe him, I suppose. But I was at a loss.
“Acquaintance,” Bonaparte supplied in my behalf. “Of the most respectful kind.”
“Ah,” Huff said, as if that made everything clear.
Apparently, his eyesight was none too good. He clearly did not recognize the emperor.
“I hope you don’t mind my bringing him here,” I said to the old tutor. “We didn’t mean to give you a start.”
“Quite all right,” Huff said, tugging at his beard. “I can use the company. You look to be an officer, young man. Betsy, you’ve done well for yourself, my dear.” He clapped Bonaparte feebly on the back. It was clear the emperor was not accustomed to such familiarities, but he did not protest.
“Yes,” Bonaparte said, amused. “An officer, indeed.”
“Well, that’s a most commendable profession,” Huff said, lowering himself slowly into a chair. “Where are you stationed?”
Bonaparte seemed to be enjoying the charade. “St. Helena,” he said. “My orders are that I shall be assigned here…indefinitely.”
“Marvelous! Then we shall be seeing a lot of you,” Huff replied, peering through a lens at an insect specimen pinned to the table. Huff scribbled a few notes with a quill and stood up with agonizing slowness. He extended a veiny, arthritic hand to the emperor. “What is your name, young man?”
Bonaparte said nothing but gave the old man his hand. I wanted to break the news to Huff as gently as possible. But there was no time for shilly-shallying.
“This is Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte of France,” I said.
To my astonishment, Huff grabbed on to the seat of his chair and lowered himself painfully to one knee. He doffed his hat and bowed his head. The lamplight danced off his shiny bald spot.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” Huff said quietly.
Bonaparte seemed as mystified as I by the old man’s actions, but he was clearly pleased. For my part, I was afraid Huff would fall and break his hip.
“Huff!” I protested, taking him by the arm. “No need to do that. Please stand up, my friend. He’s just a prisoner now.”
Bonaparte’s eyes flashed fire at me.
Huff raised his bowed head and stared at me with what can only be described as horror.
“Just a prisoner?!” Huff said. I’d never known him to look so angry. He pounded the seat of the chair, albeit weakly. “Young lady, it seems they have not taught you properly in your fancy school!”
“Now, now, old man,” Bonaparte said, helping Huff to his feet. I was surprised by the tenderness the emperor showed him. He could not have been more gentle had he been assisting his own mother. “No need to kneel to me. I can see you are a man of accomplishment yourself.” He glanced around the room. “Why secrete it away here?”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Huff said as he settled back into his chair, wheezing. “When I had my laboratory at the Briars, one of my experiments with electricity—I shall show it to you if you like, sir—caused some commotion—”
“He blew up the cellar,” I amplified.
“—and I was banished forever from doing my work there,” Huff continued. “And when the magistrate got wind of it, anyplace else on St. Helena was forbidden to me as well. Betsy told me of this cave, where she went when in search of solitude. She offered it to me so I could continue my experiments in secrecy.”
The emperor nodded solemnly, as if to promise he would keep the old man’s secret. Huff fixed me where I stood with his cloudy blue eyes. I sensed I was about to receive a lecture.
“Now, young lady, let me attempt to rectify the deficiencies in your education. The man who stands before you is a political and military genius. Now, don’t look at me that way, Betsy. Take heed. Bonaparte is the greatest conqueror of our time! The victor at forty battles. Lord and master to seventy million souls.”
“Eighty,” the emperor corrected him politely.
“The rightful successor t
o Alexander the Great!” Huff continued with a flourish. He nearly toppled from his chair, and the emperor reached out to support him.
“Ah,” I said sarcastically. “You mean he was a dictator.”
“Dictator?” Huff said. “Do you call the president of the United States a dictator?”
“Don’t tell me he was president, too,” I remarked, pretending to yawn.
“None of your nonsense, young lady,” Huff scolded me. “Bonaparte was elected as surely as any American president—by a vote of the people. The constitution that first brought him to power in France was approved by a vote of three million—to only twelve hundred against!”
“I must be truthful,” Bonaparte said. “You are not correct, monsieur.”
Huff and I looked at him questioningly.
“It was fifteen hundred against,” Bonaparte said, smiling. “And how I would have liked to have conversed with them.”
Huff chuckled.
“And when they made him first consul for life, more than half a million more people gave him their votes,” the old man added.
“But now there were ten thousand against,” Bonaparte interjected. “They did not mind the company of Napoleon for a little while, but for some, a lifetime seemed excessif. As old Docteur Franklin used to say in his Poor Richard’s Almanac: ‘Fish and visitors stink after three days.’”
I was not impressed. I had already known of Bonaparte’s military exploits. Knowing he was elected to the post of “professional murderer” did nothing to increase my admiration for him.
“You seem quite interested in my life, monsieur,” Bonaparte said to Huff.
“I am half French,” Huff replied. “My mother’s side.”
“Ah,” said Bonaparte playfully. “I suppose that’s why you knelt only on one knee.”
Huff smiled toothlessly at him. “And I am also an admirer of greatness,” the old man added.
Bonaparte swept off his hat and nodded in acknowledgment. I wrinkled my nose in disgust.
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