The Secret Life of Josephine

by Carolly Erickson

  9

  ALEXANDRE DID NOT RETURN TO US THAT DAY, or the next, or the day after that.

  “He is often petulant,” Aunt Edmee told me. “Men of sensitivity and high intelligence are like that. He will come back eventually, when he recovers his temper.”

  On the fourth day Alexandre strode purposefully through the door of our room at the inn, taking us by surprise.

  “I’ve made arrangements for our journey to Paris,” he said curtly. “The coach will come for us at noon.” He kissed Aunt Edmee on both cheeks but avoided looking at me. “I trust that officer—du Roure was it?—has gone back to his ship and will not trouble us further.”

  “Scipion escorted us here after you left us,” I said. “I was grateful to him. I did not expect to be abandoned on my wedding day.”

  “And I did not expect such an appalling bride,” was my husband’s icy retort, delivered to the empty air as he moved about the room, picking up objects and tossing them into Aunt Edmee’s open trunk.

  “Leave that, Alexandre, the maid will do it,” Aunt Edmee said.

  “The maid is going back to Martinique. I don’t want any half-breeds in my household.”

  “What?” My loud question rang in the small room. “Euphemia is not some half-breed, as you put it, she’s my sister!”

  “Half sister,” Edmee corrected me in an undertone. “And it’s not something we talk about, here in France, not in polite society.”

  “I know full well who she is, and she is going back where she belongs.” “Then I’m going with her,” I heard myself say.

  “Nothing would please me more, I assure you, but I need you to remain here, at least until all the legal matters concerning my inheritance are settled, once and for all, by the Paris attorneys. After that you may go to the devil.”

  “I will not go to Paris, I will not sign any papers, and I will have nothing further to do with you if you send Euphemia away”

  Alexandre looked at me for the first time, and for a moment his mouth curved upward in a slight smile. Then he shrugged and left the room.

  As the hour of noon approached we got ready to leave. Aunt Edmee assured me that Alexandre would not deprive me of Euphemia’s companionship.

  “I know him,” she said. “He spoke rashly. He will think it over. He won’t take your beloved Euphemia from you—partly because he can see what trouble you would make for him if he did, and partly out of sympathy. Besides, his roots are in Martinique, like yours. For most of his childhood he had a mulatto nursemaid, whom he loved. He keeps a miniature portrait of her hidden in his jewelry-case, along with a portrait of his mother.”

  No further threats were made to send Euphemia back across the ocean to Martinique, and so I tentatively prepared myself for the long coach journey to Paris. The harbor town of Brest was many miles from the French capital, and I knew it would take us a long time to get there. The weather was turning colder each day, with frost on the grass in the mornings and a bitter wind sweeping down from the mountains in the afternoon. I worried about my father. Would he be strong enough to withstand the constant bumping and jolting of the coach during the long journey, the indifferent food and hard beds of wayside inns? He had not gotten out of bed since the day of my wedding, and lay listless, slow to respond to the herbal tea Euphemia brewed for him to reduce his fever.

  I went to sit by his bedside. He was asleep, his face turned away from me, his thin cheek with its grey stubble giving him the ravaged look of one who has been ill a long time. I longed to take him back home to Martinique, where he would be well cared for, until he recovered. But the sea journey would probably kill him, I knew And besides, my fantasy was in truth a selfish one; I wanted to go back to Martinique for my own sake, to be free of this cold, disdainful man I had married, free to go back to the life I had known.

  When the hour of our departure came we climbed into the big hired coach with its eight strong, sleek horses, their muscles rippling under their shining coats, their feet stamping on the cold cobblestones. I watched as Alexandre motioned to Euphemia, indicating that she was not to ride inside with us, but up on top of the vehicle with the trunks and Alexandre’s dour, broad-shouldered Turkish manservant Balthazar. She glowered at Alexandre but heaved her considerable bulk up on top, making the coach sway dangerously.

  Aunt Edmee, Aunt Rosette and my trembling father took their places on the upholstered seats and we started off. We took the road for Morlaix but had not traveled more than an hour or two before my father fainted and fell from his seat and Alexandre shouted to the coachman to stop. A few sips of brandy appeared to revive him, but he soon vomited all he had drunk, and with it, a good deal of blood.

  “We must turn back,” I said. “We must get him to a doctor.”

  “Milizac,” Alexandre said. “It is very near.”

  “No!” I was surprised at the vehemence of Aunt Edmee’s outcry.

  I looked questioningly at Alexandre. “It is an estate nearby,” he said. “I know there is a physician there. He has been in attendance on—on someone I know.”

  “Do not do this, Alexandre!” Again Aunt Edmee was very forceful in her words, far more forceful than I had ever seen her.

  Alexandre looked at my father, whose blood was staining the yellow velvet of the seat. He lowered the window of the coach and leaned out, calling up to the driver.

  “Let the maid come down! Then take us to Milizac, as quickly as you can. One of our party is ill. Hurry!”

  I felt the coach lean to the side as Euphemia climbed down and got into the interior of the vehicle with us, sitting beside my father in order to give him whatever help she could. I saw the tears spill down her cheeks at the sight of his misery, and my own tears flowed afresh.

  The coach lurched forward then, the pull of the strong horses pressing me back against the seat. I reached for the protective fetish I wore around my neck, under my gown, and clasped it. “Please, don’t let father die,” I whispered. I saw Aunt Rosette’s lips moving, her head bowed and her eyes closed, and knew that she too was praying. Euphemia held my father’s head and put his lace handkerchief to his bloodstained lips. Aunt Edmee continued to glare at Alexandre, frowning, and he turned away.

  I had no idea why my aunt was so set against our going to this place, Milizac, when Alexandre had insisted there would be a physician there. Surely that was what my father needed most.

  We turned off the highroad onto a country lane and the horses could no longer maintain their fast pace. The coach swayed suddenly and I had to hold on to the seat to keep myself from falling onto the floor. We were all shaken. The road narrowed and passed through a wood. Tree branches scraped the sides of the vehicle and we splashed through a stream. My father coughed, then was silent. His eyes were shut, and I could detect no fluttering of his eyelids. For one horrible moment I thought he might be dead.

  “His heart beats,” Euphemia murmured to me in creole French. “His strong heart beats.”

  We must have ridden for at least another half hour, though it seemed far longer than that, through the gathering darkness. At last we came out of the wood and approached a large, stone-fronted manor house whose windows glowed with yellow light. When we reached the courtyard, Alexandre opened the door of the coach and, nimbly jumping down, called for help. Grooms came forward to carry my father into the house. They appeared to follow Alexandre’s orders without question; clearly they knew him and were accustomed to obeying him.

  We were led inside and treated with courtesy by a liveried servant, who showed us to a suite of rooms and told us to make ourselves comfortable.

  “Milady has retired,” he said, “as the hour is late and she has been indisposed for the past few days. But she asks me to tell you that you are welcome to stay the night, of course, while Monsieur Tascher is being treated. I will ask the physician to speak to you after he has seen the patient.”

  We saw nothing further of Alexandre or my father, and presently we settled ourselves by the fire in the warm room and ate
and drank from the trays of food brought up to us. Aunt Rosette fell asleep in her chair. I fretted, worried about father and uncomfortable in this strange house. I was full of curiosity and wanted to ask Aunt Edmee just where we were and who milady was, but something in her nervous, highly unsettled manner kept me from it. Besides, I was eager to hear how father was and what the physician would have to say

  Eventually he knocked at our door, and told us that father was suffering from a consumption of the lung and would need a long rest.

  “No disturbances, plenty of nourishing food and an untroubled mind, that’s what the old man needs,” he said.

  “But father isn’t an old man. He’s only forty-six.”

  “Is he indeed? I would have thought him a man of fifty-five, at least. Perhaps a few years older.”

  We spent a few moments talking of my father’s life in Martinique, how he had been burdened with financial and family worries and how he drank a great deal of rum to console himself. When I described the long sea journey the physician nodded.

  “Ah, I see now. He has weakened his lungs with sea-damp and the rum has corroded his stomach. Well, the damage may be able to be repaired— in time. Meanwhile you ladies look very tired. You must rest.” We thanked him and he said good night.

  Where, I wondered, was Alexandre? This was the first night he and I had spent under the same roof, as husband and wife. Yet he had abandoned me again, just as he had on our wedding day. Confused and worn out, I did not know what to think or what to expect. The suite we occupied had a sitting room and several bedchambers. I chose one and prepared for bed. But when I lay down under the soft coverlet and closed my eyes, sleep would not come. The crackling of the dying fire, the sound of the wind outside, above all my unsettled feelings nagged at me. Aunt Edmee had not wanted Alexandre to bring us here, even though it meant help for the brother she loved. Why? And where had Alexandre gone? Why wasn’t he with me?

  Where was my father? How was he? If I could find him, I could sit beside him in case he needed anything during the night.

  At last, unable to doze off and driven by the questions that tugged at my mind, I got out of bed and, taking the bedside candle, went quietly out through the sitting room into the corridor outside.

  It was cold and still in the dark corridor. The candles had burned low in the wall sconces, and gave little light. I saw not a single servant as I walked along past the old, wood-panelled walls, the floor uneven under my feet. Everything about the house was new to me, and very unlike the houses I had known in Martinique. No breeze from out-of-doors swept aside the stale air. No bright colors relieved the darkness of the wainscotting. There were no scurrying lizards climbing the walls, no scuttling bugs crawling across the carpet. Only the silent dimness. And then I heard, very faintly, a baby’s cry.

  I followed the sound, which grew louder as I approached a door beneath which a spill of golden light shone onto the floor. It must be a nursery, I thought. There would be a nurserymaid inside, taking care of the child. Perhaps she could tell me where I could find my father.

  I opened the door—and to my amazement, saw Alexandre, in his nightshirt, lying in a large bed next to a whimpering infant and a blond woman in a lace nightgown.

  “Rose. What are you doing here?”

  For a moment I could not speak. “Looking for my father,” I said at last.

  “He is not with us. He is in the next room.”

  I swallowed. “Who is that woman? Why are you in her bed?” My voice sounded faint in my ears.

  “It is my bed, Rose. This is Laure de Girardin, the woman I love. She has just presented me with our son.” He reached over and took the fussing child in his arms.

  “Here he is. You may as well get to know him. He is named for me. Alexandre. Only three days old today. Tell me, Rose, have you ever seen a finer child?”

  10

  I RAN BACK ALONG THE DARK CORRIDORS to my room and, once safely inside, I threw up into the washbasin.

  My stomach lurched and my head ached. I lay down on the rug in front of the fire and waited for the pain and nausea to pass.

  Anger surged through me. I wanted to find a knife, a big long cane knife, and chop Alexandre and the hateful woman Laure to gory pieces. I wanted to kill them with a glance like a quimboiseur. I wanted to put poison into their food, the food they no doubt shared from a single plate, while lounging naked in their big bed.

  Murderous images flashed through my mind as I lay there on the rug, hot tears running down my cheeks. They had humiliated me, my husband and his mistress. They had no regard for me whatever. They were content to ruin my life, just so Alexandre could have his inheritance.

  The thought that, for most of the past year this blond woman had been carrying Alexandre’s child made me furious. He loved her, she was bearing his son—and all the while he was cynically bargaining with my father to make me his wife. Did my father know all about Alexandre and his mistress? Clearly Aunt Edmee knew. That was why she protested when Alexandre told the coachman to take us to Milizac. Who else knew? My mother? My grandmother?

  My nausea passed but the anger I felt persisted. When Alexandre came into my room the following morning, before I had completed my toilette, I unleashed my fury.

  “How dare you deceive me about that woman? How dare you marry me, in church, in front of God and all his saints, when you already have a wife in all but name? Wait till I tell my father! And Scipion! They will avenge me!”

  I wrapped my thin dressing-gown tightly around my waist, suddenly aware of my state of undress. Alexandre had never before seen me without a gown, or with my hair as it was now, loose and falling in waves down my back. I felt my face grow hot as I spoke, and knew that my cheeks were pink and flushed.

  Alexandre leaned against a table, his grey eyes appraising me coolly.

  “I blame Edmee,” he said at length. “She should have prepared you.”

  “Prepared me for what? For being an unwanted legal wife when you already had a family with your mistress? For being humiliated?”

  “For your role as Vicomtesse de Beauharnais.”

  I had never before heard my new name pronounced. It startled me.

  “Let me instruct you, as no one else seems to have thought it necessary to do so. Lesson one, Madame la Vicomtesse is always agreeable, good-tempered, with a sweet disposition.”

  He raised himself up and began slowly circling the room, arms folded as if in thought, speaking to me in measured tones as he paced.

  “Lesson two, Madame la Vicomtesse does nothing to create discord. She never complains. She never criticizes. She is gracious to everyone, especially her husband, whom she admires and to whom she is grateful for giving her his exalted rank.”

  I swore then, repeating a foul curse I had often heard in the marketplace in Fort-Royal.

  Alexandre went on, unperturbed. “Lesson three, Madame la Vicomtesse never soils her lips with vulgar language. And lesson four—” he came over to me and reached for the ties of my dressing gown, slowly pulling on them until the gown fell open. I wore very little underneath. I felt mesmerized, unable to resist. Even as he was doing this I thought, why am I permitting this intimacy? Why don’t I scream at him to stop?

  He appraised my body coolly, then pulled the gown back into place.

  “Despite your uncouth manners, you are not without appeal. There are times when I must be apart from Laure. And much as I am attached to the son I have with her, he cannot inherit my future title or my estate.

  I must have another son, and you must be his mother. All this,” he concluded, “dmee should have explained to you.” He paused, and raised one eyebrow inquiringly, as if seeking confirmation that I had understood what he said.

  I was still seething with anger, but it was no longer a hot, blind fury. While I listened to Alexandre it had congealed into an icy fury.

  “What I now see,” I began quietly, “is that the arrogant, hateful boy I knew in Martinique has grown into a selfish, callous man. A m
an I can never love or honor. I have pledged myself to you, but I regret it. Oh, how I regret it! And if I should, one day, bear you a son, I will pray every hour that he grows up to be nothing like you!”

  He shrugged and left the room. I was shaking, and felt a chill. I called Euphemia, who warmed my sheets and put me to bed with a bladder of hot water. I told her what had happened, and she listened, rolling her eyes and clucking her tongue.

  “Men think they rule the earth,” she said, shaking her head, when I finished. “Especially Grands Blancs.” She thought for a moment. “Why couldn t you have married that good Monsieur du Roure, the one that was so kind to us on the ship? Maybe you should have gotten a love potion from Orgulon after all. What do you think?”

  “I think, Euphemia, that I should never have left Martinique.” And with that I cried, my anger having at last given way to pain.

  11

  I WISHED WITH ALL MY HEART, on that terrible morning in Milizac, that I had never left Martinique. But a few weeks later, when at last we reached Paris, and I found myself in the midst of the vibrant, noisy, crowded streets of that city I had dreamed of for so long, I could not help but feel elated.

  There we were, driving down the rue Saint-Martin and the rue Pontchartrain, past grand mansions and along dim alleyways, with Edmee and my father (whose health improved once we came in sight of the capital) pointing out the city’s landmarks with great pride. It was very cold, I remember. Rain dripped down from the roofs, the water running along the centers of the narrow streets, and Edmee remarked that we would probably have snow before long. I had never seen snow, having lived all my life on a warm tropical island. But I knew what it looked like, from pictures in books.

  We drove along the Seine, past the Pont Neuf and the Pont-au-Change. Dozens of small boats crowded the river, some heaped with coal and grain and wine, others filled with laundry baskets and red-faced women vigorously slapping wet clothes against the sides. There were raindrenched markets where old clothes and scrap-iron and flowers were for sale, and streets of fine shops where elegantly dressed men and women stepped out of their gilded carriages to browse and buy.