Clarice hopped to her feet, her auburn hair damp on her forehead. “Jules said the count forced him to do it...the attack. That’s all I know. Now I have to take care of things. Go back to the shop, return to Longwood, leave me here.”
“I must know your plans. You can’t get off the island without papers and Governor Lowe’s permission.” Amélie stood. “If you cause problems, it will reflect on Napoleon.”
“You’re still so naïve. I’m not leaving, just this thing inside me is! I have the name of a doctor who’ll dispose of it for me.” She clutched the package to her breast. Her eyes darted wild above fat cheeks, lips trembling, as if she wasn’t altogether comfortable with her decision.
“Clarice, you can’t commit such a terrible act, and it’s dangerous for you as well.” Amélie reached out a hand to touch her shoulder, then flicked her gaze down the street.
Clarice pushed her fingers aside. “Aller. You may be screwing our emperor, but you need to grow up! Jules was right about getting rid of the problem.”
“You may not understand now, but I wanted to help you. Anything you did here would cause a furor and damage us all. You need guidance.” Amélie again glanced down the street. “I couldn’t risk allowing you any money.”
Clarice glared at her, then at the package. She ripped it open and bits of worthless metal spilled out onto the grass. “I can’t believe you tricked me, you horrid witch!”
A few townspeople gathered, whispering and gesturing in their direction.
“Ma pauvre fille!” The bulky form of Monsieur Cloubert plodded down the street as Clarice stared in shock. “Bless you for warning me, Amélie.” The man reached out plump arms to embrace his daughter, who hid her face in her hands and burst into tears.
Amélie sighed with relief and scooped up the metal.
* * * *
Amélie returned to Longwood, shaking over her confrontation with Clarice and the validation of Count de Montholon’s and Jules’s treachery.
Napoleon met her in the salon with a huge grin on his face, distracting her.
“Aha, Amée, it has finally happened!” He thrust a letter in the air. “These English fools have relented. They’ve allowed my mother to send out three companions to join us in our exile. Uncle Fesch has succeeded!” Napoleon swept her up and twirled her around the room, the paper crushed at her back. “They’re only a few weeks behind this letter. Now things will change, and quickly!”
“Why would the governor allow more people to come? He always insists on restricting visitors from Longwood.” She stumbled back to her feet. She didn’t want newcomers invading her sanctuary, her time with Napoleon. His fevered expression almost frightened her.
Chapter Thirty-Six
It did me little good to be holding the helm; no matter how strong my hands, the sudden and numerous waves were stronger still—N.B.
British soldiers escorted a cart with three people and a Chinese driver through Longwood’s front gate. Amélie stood on the veranda under the arch of green trellis work, suspicious that Napoleon’s mother and her brother, Cardinal Fesch, had been allowed to choose these additions to the household: a priest, a cook, and a doctor.
She returned to the preparation room where Marchand arranged orange slices, figs, and almonds on a plate.
“With the British fixation on controlling every aspect of our lives, I don’t understand how they gave official permission for these outsiders.” Amélie picked up the plate of cold ham. “Napoleon acts as if it’s a supreme honor, not an intrusion.” Napoleon’s excitement pricked her jealousy and curiosity. She carried the food toward the dining room.
“His Majesty might be interested in seeing new faces.” Marchand shrugged and this unsettled her more. He carried a salad and curried chicken to the sideboard. The chief valet then placed silverware and linen napkins on the long table.
Amélie stared past him impatiently, awaiting these guests who were being set up in the former quarters of Las Cases and the Montholons in the back wing.
“I’m not comfortable. Your valets knew about it, before me.” She tossed rosemary in the corners of the mildewed room. She finally had things exactly the way she wanted, and now the status quo would be disturbed. What would the priest think of the great Napoleon sleeping with his kitchen wench?
“We do need a doctor, since His Majesty lost Doctor O’Meara and he refuses to accept any doctor not of his own choosing.” Not that much time had passed. How did Napoleon’s mother—who’d paid all the visitors’ expenses—anticipate O’Meara’s recall?
“We’ve always needed a priest.” Gascon slumped in with a plate of lemon slices and a jug of tea. “They insult me, however, by sending another cook.” He blinked his hound dog eyes through the tart fragrance, his clothes rumpled as if he’d just crawled from bed.
“An assistant cook will be of great help to you, Chef Gascon.” Amélie forced a smile over the sadness that no one could replace her father.
Gascon needed help now that he didn’t have Clarice to work in the kitchen. Madame Cloubert had hustled her family off the island as soon as she learned of her daughter’s condition and found a ship bound for the Cape.
“The governor was anxious enough to shed himself of the Clouberts.” Amélie bustled around the table straightening the utensils, the napkins, trying to calm her frustration that Napoleon kept these people a secret.
“Maybe the British are feeling a little sympathy for His Majesty, in allowing these people to come.” Marchand squeezed her shoulder and strode toward the salon.
Wasn’t it more a confirmation that their emperor might be imprisoned here forever? If she felt relieved their cloister would stay intact, she didn’t understand Napoleon’s enthusiasm.
The front door opened to a rumbling of voices. She smoothed down her hair, her skirt, and stepped into the drawing room. Napoleon, his smile warm, left Count Bertrand and clasped her arm. When the guests filed in after Bertrand, her heart sank.
“This is Abbé Vignali,” Bertrand said, standing back as if he loathed to touch him.
A man in priest garb ambled in, ducking his head and wringing his hands. His hair wild and unkempt, his clothes disheveled, he greeted the room at large in a Corsican accent. “The end of February and such heat,” the priest moaned, fanning his face.
A second man with wavy black hair, who looked Corsican as well, swaggered in behind Vignali, his sharp features full of scorn.
Bertrand grimaced. “Doctor Antommarchi, from a hospital in Florence, a coroner by trade.”
A pale, thin young man hung back from the group, leaning against the wall, his pasty face sweaty. He looked about to slide down in a faint.
“Over there is the new cook,” Bertrand said in a deadpan voice, his chagrin over their visitors obvious.
Amélie stared at these inadequate additions. The doctor and priest scrutinized her with ill-concealed contempt. She grasped Napoleon’s arm to hold him close, overcome with the creeping fear that he drifted away from her.
* * * *
He acts his part well—an illiterate country bumpkin, Napoleon mused. His anxiety lifting almost made him giddy with eagerness for the next phase of his scheme. The priest brought word that O’Sullivan prepared to sail shortly after their departure.
Napoleon paced around his study, unable to sit after an hour of refreshments and conversation with their guests.
“Why would your mother send such people here?” Amélie watched him, her expression troubled.
“What is the matter, my sweet?” He stopped before her and caressed her cheek. Soon he would have to let her in on this charade, the escape. She’d be upset and try to talk him out of it.
“That cook is ill, and the priest seems like a backward peasant.” She eyed him with skepticism as she closed the study door. “Your mother sent you a coroner for a doctor?”
“Madame Mere had her reasons. The chef cooked for my sister Pauline in Rome. Abbé Vignali has a small intelligence. I met him on Elba. As for Antommarchi, a doctor of cadavers? Quite amusing.” Napoleon laughed. The governor must be pleased with these bouffons—no suspicions on that front. Soon—very soon—what doctor attended him here wouldn’t be an issue.
“Why didn’t you tell me they were on their way?”
“I wasn’t sure.” Napoleon turned from her scrutiny and opened the box the visitors had brought from his family. He smiled as he unwrapped each item. His sister Pauline sent a silver-backed mirror, hairbrush, scissors, and an ivory comb. From his mother were newspapers, books, and an oil painting of the King of Rome in a white satin coat descending a staircase. He clutched the picture close, fingering the gilt frame, his breath catching. “Maybe someday, mon fils.”
“Here is a lovely medallion of your mother.” Amélie held up the portrait with its pearl encrusted frame, as if to distract him from gazing on his lost little boy.
“Ah, yes.” Napoleon smiled at his mother’s likeness. Would he ever see her again, this woman who’d shaped his life, grown old?
He glanced up at a sharp knock. Amélie opened the door to Count Bertrand.
“What is it?” Napoleon asked his grand marshal, a man already frustrated by these consuming events. Another voice of reason he didn’t need.
“Sorry to interrupt, Your Majesty. One of Lowe’s officers just brought this to me at Hutt’s Gate.” Bertrand bowed and held out several pieces of paper. “This is the edict from the allied powers meeting at Aix-la-Chapelle that we’ve awaited. I’m afraid…please read it for yourself.”
Napoleon snatched the papers from him. He surmised it was bad news by Bertrand’s gloomy expression. The man needed to learn the art of the impassive face. “Bah! This is nothing I don’t already know.” Napoleon scanned the French translation. “Apparently Lord Amherst told his British superiors I have it too easy here. They’ve voted unanimously to keep me exiled on Saint Helena for the remainder of my life. The rigid policy toward the ex-emperor was approved.” These written words, their disdain, angered him, and he strained for his own impassive face. He clenched his jaw. He’d have the final triumph on them all.
“I’m so sorry. This is very unfair.” Amélie pressed her hand on his arm, yet didn’t look overly aggrieved. She wanted him happy on this island, but entrapment wasn’t happiness.
Napoleon chuckled and threw the paper on his desk. “These scoundrels with their arbitrary pronouncements have no power over me. To think Russia, my one-time ally, wrote the strongest slander. Czar Alexander and his false worship when I held the reins, he’ll see I’m not a man to simply be discarded.” Napoleon turned from them to hide his sly grin.
* * * *
The Chinese, heads bent in their mushroom hats, set up a little wooden fence in front of the thickening boxwood sprouting around the house. Amélie scrutinized the activity as she picked a few straggling strawberries. The English had continued to bring plants to Longwood and she tended them. Napoleon’s insistence on the hedges and now the fence seemed a ring of camouflage to push the night patrol farther from Longwood’s walls.
Since the guests arrived, Amélie felt excluded. The place vibrated with an uneasy energy and more of Napoleon’s evasions. His off-handed reaction to the edict from Aix-la-Chapelle confirmed her fears.
She entered the coolness of the house and walked with her basket into the dining room. Marchand and Ali had their heads together, talking low. They saw her and moved apart. With a distracted nod, Marchand left the room.
Similar actions involving the newcomers had happened on several occasions.
“I hope you plan to supervise the kitchen, fair empress.” Ali strutted over, his grin too broad, Napoleon’s green riding coat draped over his arm. “Chef Gascon just dragged himself up the attic stairs, saying his life is over. He complains constantly about the new cook.”
“Is that what you two are whispering about? Cooks?” Amélie tried to soften the irritation in her voice. She set her basket on the preparation table. She hated to let him know that Napoleon excluded her from anything. “You find too much pleasure in this farce.”
“Farce?” The valet shook out the emperor’s coat, picking lint from its faded lapels. “His Majesty says a German soothsayer convinced his mother he was no longer on Saint Helena, that angels had carried him off to safer environs.”
“Yes, he told me that’s why she sent such ineffective people here.” Amélie tapped the strawberries, releasing their sweet scent. She studied Ali’s face, her frustration simmering. “These weak ‘additions’ might compromise your intrigues.”
“I have no intrigues.” Ali shrugged, though a mischievous grin flitted across his face. “Are there enough strawberries so I can take some to my wife?”
“You certainly hurried to marry your mistress before the priest arrived.” Amélie rinsed the fruit, snatched up a knife, and sliced through the berries. “How can you trust these guests, when the British approved them?”
“Madame Bertrand isn’t happy I stole away her governess.” Ali smirked, but his pleasure bloomed through. “We promised she would still work for Madame. Isn’t it time I settled down? Mary is so lovely.”
“Does she approve of your scheming? Isn’t it dangerous?” Amélie sprinkled sugar on the fruit, refusing to stand on the outside again. Did Napoleon still contemplate escape?
“Amélie, you are la premiere femme.” Ali continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Stealing our emperor from the clutches of harm, releasing that great mind that’s keenest when all is lost. I never thought His Majesty would rise above his misery here.” The towering valet bent down and kissed her cheek. “No matter what happens, you must believe how happy you’ve made him.”
“What if something terrible happens?” She shivered in dismay. If she had released that great mind, to what purpose would Napoleon put it? She almost grabbed the valet’s collar to shake him, but Ali slipped like a shadow out of the room.
She clenched her fist around the knife handle, determined to discover what all the whispering was about.
* * * *
On Sunday Amélie dressed in her blue silk gown, a fichu tucked in its square-necked bodice. Her heart quivered when she looked at Napoleon attired in his full uniform, medals gleaming, cocked hat slipped under his arm. The grand emperor once again.
“Come, my sweet, we have a Mass to attend.” He extended his other arm.
“I am honored.” Amélie smiled and almost added “your majesty.” She stroked his sleeve, proud to be his consort, and they strolled together into the dining room.
The emperor allowed Abbé Vignali to transform this chamber into a place to hold Mass. Napoleon was not very devout, and took the fuss with amused indulgence.
Their mahogany sideboard, used for an altar, had its sides draped with red satin hangings fixed to the ceiling with gold hooks. White satin fringed with gold lace was used as an altar cloth. The priest had brought two silver crucifixes, scented candles, and lamps for burning incense. A chalice and paten, a font for holy water, and a vessel for the holy wine—all made of silver lined with gold—provided the ritual with dignity in the shabby room.
The numerous candles burning were reminiscent of the stuffy formal meals where the courtiers had forced food and perspired in the heat. She adjusted her fichu in the growing humidity and smelled the smoky-sweet incense, which brought back memories of her childhood.
With imperial ceremony, the priest welcomed Napoleon. Count and Countess Bertrand, in full court dress, bowed, along with the servants decked out in livery. Did the new additions notice the frayed, mended condition of their clothing?
Napoleon assumed his regal bearing as he nodded to his subjects. Amélie sighed, knees weak. Her insecurity at not being of his class flared up.
She stepped back and joined Countess Bertrand.
“Abbé Vignali appears almost priestly now, but he always averts his face when I’m near,” Fanny whispered. “How strange they were even allowed to come. Henri never said a word.” She frowned, then caressed the heads of her two children. “I am happy to show my son and daughter this ceremony. Our religion was too long neglected.”
“The abbé doesn’t look pious to me. He’s avoided me so far. It is odd that our men kept this from us.” Amélie saw Napoleon and the priest exchange a furtive glance. She stiffened. Something about the abbé’s face looked familiar now that he’d cleaned himself up. Fidgeting in her clammy dress, she worried that the entire ceremony seemed uncomfortably staged.
* * * *
Amélie shook the jar of rosemary and thyme until the pungent fragrance floated out. She placed the jar in their bedroom grate to mask the smell of the coal they were forced to use lately.
Napoleon sat in the study with Abbé Vignali and Doctor Antommarchi. She listened at the adjoining door, but they talked in what she perceived to be a Corsican dialect that she had trouble following.
Finally, she opened the door and all three men stared over at the same time. The priest glanced down, the doctor sneered. Napoleon stuffed papers in his desk drawer and turned the lock. He dropped the tiny key into his waistcoat pocket.
“That will be all, gentlemen.” Napoleon stood. The others rose, bowed, and left the room. Antommarchi gave her an arrogant, measuring look when he passed.
“What are you three conspiring about?” Amélie kept her voice light, walked to the open window, and pushed open the shutters. The warm early autumn air drifted in scented with boxwood.
“Conspiring? What an odd choice of words.” Napoleon stepped to the window and closed the shutters tight. “We’re planning work in the garden.”
She sighed. “This is the third time I’ve walked in on your little group, and you immediately adjourn and scatter.” She peered out the shutter holes. The latest orderly officer lurked out front, a harried look on his face. “Il me confond. Lord Bathurst finally relaxes the restrictions, saying you can move about the island more freely, but you take pleasure in irritating the orderly officer and being reclusive again.”
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