Valmy scowled. “How will you treat her?”
“I will do my best,” the army surgeon said. And then he added, “If she doesn’t respond readily, I would suggest that I be allowed to call in as a consultant one of the local Venetian doctors.”
“Why not have one of the doctors taking care of the emperor see her?” Valmy wanted to know.
Lacoste smiled. “They would be no better informed on these Venetian fevers than I. It will take a local man. Several of the priests here are physicians. I might get one of them.”
“We must get her well quickly,” Valmy said. “We have to make this move to Paris.”
“She could be left behind,” the army surgeon suggested.
Valmy crimsoned. “That is not possible!” he said in his arrogant manner. “I want her with me.”
“Then I have your permission to bring in a consultant if I must?” Dr. Lacoste said.
“Yes. Just so long as you get her on her feet.”
“I shall wait until morning,” Major Lacoste said. “If she shows no improvement by then, I will seek other help.”
Betsy watched and listened to this charade with a pounding heart. It all appeared to be working out well. She did not have to stretch her pretending to seem ill, for the medicine which Lacoste had given her made her feel truly miserable.
Valmy paced about the apartment all evening. He tried to entice her to join him for dinner, but she only took a little broth in her bed. She could see that he was beginning to fear whatever she had might be contagious. After dinner he sat with her a bit, and then he excused himself and told her he would sleep in the adjoining bedchamber. She was left alone in the room with mirrors.
She passed an uneasy night. In the morning he came to see her before he left. The tall handsome man was concerned that she seemed to show no improvement. He said, “I hope that old dog Lacoste is right in his treatment of you.”
“Perhaps a Venetian doctor could manage a quick cure for me,” she said.
“I have given him permission to try that today,” Valmy told her. “I shall not be able to look in on you again until late this evening. I have to go to a town outside the city and make plans for our transportation.”
“You will not use the public stages?” she asked with faked innocence.
He frowned. “That would be out of the question. This is a most private mission. We must cross the border into France without the identity of the emperor being discovered.”
“I have not met him yet. You haven’t allowed it,” she complained.
“And I shall certainly not allow it until you are better,” he said sharply. “You might infect him with whatever you have.”
“I’m sorry,” she apologized.
“It is all right,” he said stiffly. “I will not kiss you since it is essential I be in good health in the next few days.”
“I understand.”
“Tell Lacoste to spare no expense or trouble,” he went on. “The important thing is that you be ready to travel within the next seventy-two hours.”
“Is that when we are to leave?”
“As things stand now.”
“I will tell him,” she said.
“My thoughts will be with you,” he said awkwardly. And then he turned and strode out of the room quickly, with a great deal of relief on his part, she felt.
Major Lacoste came shortly after and made a show of examining her. When the maid had left the room and they were alone, he said in a low voice, “Valmy has left. He will not return until late, and he has taken some of the guards with him.”
“He said he was going somewhere to plan the caravan to France.”
“This has to be our moment,” the old army surgeon went on excitedly. “I shall return later with a priest and a doctor. They will be here to assist in your escape, not attend to your illness.”
“I feel very well this morning,” she said.
“Excellent,” Lacoste said. “You will dress to leave here. Manage it without the maid knowing. Then put your nightgown on over your clothes and return to bed.”
“I will.”
“Do not be surprised or frightened at anything that takes place,” he warned her.
“I shan’t,” she said.
He reached inside his medical bag and produced a small pistol. “It is loaded and ready in case it may be needed. Conceal it on your person somewhere, and be not afraid to use it.”
She took the pistol quickly and hid it under the pillow. “I will transfer it to my dress pocket later,” she promised.
“Very well,” the one-armed man said, closing his medical bag and picking it up. “I shall return as soon as possible.”
As soon as he’d left, she called the maid and sent her to the palace kitchen to get her a warm drink. While the maid was absent, she hastily dressed and placed the pistol in her pocket. Then she donned her nightgown again and slipped into the big bed at the top of the three steps.
The maid returned with her warm drink, and she dismissed her, saying, “I wish to sleep for a little and not be disturbed.”
She counted on Major Lacoste and his fellow doctors making their way in on their own. Now began the taut period of waiting. She found it difficult to keep her nerves under control. So much would depend on what happened within the following hour. She had every confidence in the old army surgeon and was sure he had planned carefully.
Where had he found the willing aides to help her escape? Perhaps from among his former army cronies. In any event he seemed to have managed it, and she could be thankful for that. She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep. Then she heard the distant voice of Lacoste as he let himself into the apartment.
She sat up in bed and saw that the old man was accompanied by a thin figure in a priest’s robes and cowl of brown. Also with him was a shorter man with a bald head and gray whiskers dressed in a velvet suit. She judged that these were the two doctors he had spoken about. He had mentioned one of them was a priest.
Major Lacoste came over to her bed and smiled at her. “I trust you are feeling somewhat better.”
“I am,” she said. “And these are the doctors?”
“Indeed they are,” the old doctor said. “Let me introduce Father Alberto first. He is a Jesuit and a graduate in medicine.”
Father Alberto bowed and in a low voice said, “My greetings, signorina.” His face was almost completely concealed by his upturned cowl, and he stood with his hands folded in his ample sleeves.
“And this is Antonio Salvario, one of the best-known medical men in Venice. He also speaks English,” Lacoste said with a smile.
The bald man with the whiskers smiled in a friendly fashion, and she felt he had a familiar look. In a high voice he said, “I have spoken a great deal of English, my lady!” And he bowed.
“We are going to try and help you,” Major Lacoste said.
“I’m sure you will,” she told him. “I dismissed my maid awhile ago so I might sleep.”
“Excellent!” Major Lacoste said. And then he opened his medical bag and removed a businesslike-looking revolver from it. He asked her, “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” she said throwing back the bedclothes and taking off her nightgown to reveal she was fully dressed. She took the pistol from her pocket and held it on the ready.
“Good girl!” a familiar voice said, and the priest threw back his cowl. She saw revealed the good-looking Major Eric Walters.
“I can’t believe iti” she cried. “You escaped and you are here!”
“Later coming to your aid than I planned,” Eric said. “But no matter.” And he took her in his arms and kissed her.
The man with the whiskers wailed, “What about me?”
She stared at him in delight. “I didn’t recognize you! You are George Frederick Kingston?”
“I am,” he said. “Also I am Antonio Salvario!”
Old Major Lacoste was smiling. “You see I found you some old friends!”
“You couldn’t have managed better,” she said. “No
w what?”
“We should be able to get out of here. I will tell the guards at the door you are being removed to a hospital on my authority,”‘ Lacoste said.
“If they give any trouble, we’ve guns to reply with,” Eric said.
“Let us hope it will not come to that,” the army surgeon said. “The blockage will come below. We may have to shoot our way out.”
Eric said, “We have a gondola and a man to operate it waiting at the rear door on the canal.”
She said, “What about the emperor?”
Lacoste looked troubled. “You may have a moment to speak with him. It would be good if you did. We will see how things go.”
“Very well,” she said. “I’ll go by your advice.”
Eric had put up the cowl again so that his face would be hidden. “I say, let us lose no more time,” he told them.
Major Lacoste led the way. He spoke a few dignified words to the guard at her door, and he allowed the party to pass. She kept in the middle of the group as they swiftly made their way downstairs to the main hallway.
Lacoste whispered, “Napoleon’s quarters are at the rear, the door almost under the stairway.”
They turned and went to the rear and then took another left turn to a broad hall which led to double doors at the end. There were two guards with guns and swords at this doorway.
Lacoste and Betsy were ahead. She saw the expression of the faces of the guards at Napoleon’s door as they walked steadily toward it. Then one of the guards lifted his gun and aiming it at them, he cried, “Halt!”
It was the signal for bedlam! Eric whipped out a gun and shot the guard down. At the same time Major Lacoste felled the other guard who had his gun raised.
Lacoste said, “This is your moment! Hurry inside!”
Heart pounding, she tried the heavy brass door handle, and it turned. She pulled the great door open and rushed inside. She found herself in a high-ceilinged, richly furnished room. Standing facing her with a look of fear on his face was a gray-haired, shrunken man with a moustache. He wore a shabby blue jacket and trousers, and she had to study him for a moment before she recognized this worn figure as the once great Napoleon.
She fell into the habit of years ago and dropped to her knee in a cursty as she said, “Sir! I am Betsy Chapman from Saint Helena.”
His eyes widened, and he seemed more the old emperor. In a hoarse voice he asked, “Why the shooting?”
“To get by your guards, sire,” she said frantically. “You have delivered yourself into the hands of a traitor. You are trapped. Your friends wish to save you! A ship waits for you in the Channel!”
Eric thrust his head in the door crying, “More guards coming! We must leave!”
“Valmy is deceiving you, sire!” she cried and then turned, leaving the astonished man staring after her.
The three men had waited for her, and now Eric took her by the arm and rushed ahead. He said, “We may be able to get out the rear before they block us off!”
Major Lacoste cried, “I will act as sentry until you are outside.” And the one-armed man took a stand at the end of the hallway.
“He’ll be killed!” she screamed.
“Maybe not!” Eric cried. “We can’t wait to find out!”
Betsy heard shots from behind and angry male voices. She turned in time to see that Lacoste had been shot down and at least a half-dozen guards were in pursuit of them. They made their way out a cellar door to a small dock and a waiting gondola.
“Help her in!” Eric shouted to Kingston.
The actor helped her down into the waiting gondola as Eric remained behind to barricade the iron door so it could not be easily opened from the inside. The gondolier had the gondola party out from the tiny dock when Eric came running to join them. Any onlookers must have been astounded to see the priest take a great leap and land in the water beside the craft!
The gondolier managed to keep the boat balanced as Betsy and Kingston dragged a soaked Eric out of the water. He now went about removing his priestly robes, and Kingston was busy taking off his bald wig and whiskers. The gondolier was far from the shore when the guards burst the door open and came out to shoot some futile rounds in the air.
“We’ve made it!” she said. “But Lacoste was shot down!”
“It was he who made our escape possible,” Eric told her. “He held them back just long enough to give us time to reach the dock and barricade the door.”
“Poor old man!” she lamented. “I hope he wasn’t killed!”
Eric looked bitter and pushed his wet hair back from his forehead. “Maybe he didn’t care! With the knowledge the emperor is doomed, he lost interest in everything but getting you free.”
Kingston said, “It has actually been weeks since we’ve been together.”
“Valmy told me you were both still captives!” she said.
Eric nodded grimly. “So Lacoste said.”
The gondolier had taken them along the canal to the mainland. There a black and red stage awaited them. The two men helped her onto the wharf and into the stage. They joined her, and in a few minutes the stage was moving at a fast pace.
“What now?” she asked Eric.
“On to Milan,” he said. “Then to Switzerland and finally Paris. We must manage it in record time. We need a few days planning before Valmy arrives with the emperor.”
“I saw him,” she said in an awed voice.
“What’s the verdict?” Eric asked.
“Yes,” Kingston said, leaning forward in the seat across from her. “Is it an impostor or the real Napoleon?”
She hesitated. “I believe it is the real Napoleon. I’m almost sure he recognized me.”
“Did you have a chance to warn him?” Eric asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I told him Valmy was a traitor. That he had escaped Saint Helena only to be trapped by a man mad with ambition!”
“You at least got that much over,” Kingston said.
“Yes. Then the guards came, and we had to run for our lives,” she said dully. “I don’t think it was worth it. We ought to have gone straight out. That way Lacoste would not have lost his life.”
“He may be alive,” Kingston said.
She grimaced. “If he is, Valmy will court-martial him.”
“The important thing is you came face-to-face with this man, and you believe he is the real Napoleon,” Eric said.
“Yes,” she nodded.
“So we have at least established that feet.”
“He has aged and he is ill,” she said as the carriage rolled on. “He is suffering the same sort of illness of the liver which killed my father. Many came down with it on Saint Helena.”
“Is he well enough to make the journey to Paris?” the actor asked.
“Valmy is worried about that,” she said. “Then when I supposedly fell ill, it was the last straw.”
Eric gave her a peculiar look; he was sitting close to her and the carriage rocked and swayed, making high speed over the rough road. He said, “You came to mean a great deal to him.”
She felt her cheeks warm, and she said, “I dealt with him on the only terms I could.”
Eric offered her a smile of understanding. And he reached out and took her hand in his. “I do not question any of it,” he said.
She looked at him. “He held the threat of killing you and Kingston over me.”
“And all the time we’d escaped,” Kingston said. “But then you wouldn’t know that. We had trouble finding out where you were.”
Eric said, “If Lacoste hadn’t become disenchanted, we might never have been able to get you out of there.”
“He’s a fine old man. And he believes in his emperor. It pained him to see Napoleon ill and nagged by a drunken mistress Valmy chose for him,” she said.
“About Valmy?” Eric said. “Do you consider him to be as dangerous as Felix Black painted him?”
“Every bit,” she said. “He has a great charm and an ability for leadership. He is al
so youthful and vigorous and he is mad with ambition. He sees himself as the successor to Napoleon! Emperor Raymond Valmy!”
Eric looked grim. “We may have a thing or two to say about that. And perhaps the emperor will begin to trouble him with a few questions now.”
“If he listened to me, it will have made the risk worthwhile,” she said.
“Paris is full of agents,” Eric told her. “And to top it all, there are the agents of the new empire, the group faithful to Louis.”
“They could be the chief hazard for Valmy,” she said.
“Yes,” he agreed. “We are only trying to get the former emperor out of his hands and see him safely on a vessel bound for America. But the supporters of the new king will want to destroy Napoleon, Valmy, and all his men!”
She said, “As I understood it from Valmy, he is counting on the ordinary people. He thinks when they see the emperor, they will rise up in a new revolution.”
Eric said, “The emperor you’ve described is hardly likely to be a figure to rally round. A sick and weary Napoleon can not hope to inspire followers to the death!”
“And it will mean no less,” George Frederick Kingston observed. “This new revolution could be a long and bloody arising.”
“I do not think the emperor equal to it,” Betsy said. “He has failed greatly.”
“It will be a race with time,” was Eric’s conclusion. “And the sooner we get to Paris, the better.”
The stage rode on until late in the evening. She became very weary and slept for a while, her head resting against Eric’s shoulder. At least she could relax and feel secure. They finally halted at a small country inn and made arrangements to remain for the night.
The owner was delighted to have customers from the outside world and made a great show of preparing food and drink for them. They sat before a huge, blazing fire in a fireplace that stretched across the end of the room. All the danger and tension seemed far away in this quiet place.
Kingston downed a glass of wine and smiled at her, saying, “I vow your ordeal has left you more beautiful than ever.”
“If that is what I must go through to improve my looks, I would prefer to become homely,” she said.
Eric gave her a fond smile. “I’m proud of you. You are the one who really brought our end of the venture to a successful conclusion. You have found definite evidence that it is the real Napoleon whom Valmy is bringing to Paris.”
Vintage Love Page 26