Napoleon's Rosebud

by Humphry Knipe

  “The girl, this Rosebud, will play her part?”

  “Yes, Your Excellency. I know her well. She’s in awe of Bonaparte. She’ll do anything he asks her to do.”

  “How do we know her young man at Kew will cooperate?”

  “He will be told that it is both his patriotic duty and the only way to keep his sweetheart safe from her own folly.”

  Cockburn interlaced his fingers as if they were pieces of a puzzle. “How well do you know this postmaster?”

  “Joseph Cole has been one of my partners for ten years.”

  “And he will cooperate?”

  “Yes, Sir George. I’m sure he can be…persuaded.”

  “You are, of course, talking about persuasion of the pecuniary kind?”

  “I know he isn’t well-off. If I may be candid, all we traders on the island have suffered huge losses since the embargo on European goods was lifted after Bonaparte’s defeat.”

  Cockburn fixed Balcombe with a stare that made him squirm. “And passengers no longer have to pay your black-market prices.”

  Balcombe cleared his throat twice but could think of nothing to add.

  “How much do you want?” asked Admiral Cockburn. “Of course we will need to read copies of the boy’s responses to the packet or packets if things go smoothly.”

  Bargaining put Balcombe on familiar ground. “That adds levels of complexity but we’ll throw them in for a total fee of a hundred guineas per packet. Half of that will go to the postmaster for the risks…French assassins…the girl’s family…our reputations.”

  “Reputations!”

  “Yes, Sir George. This is a small island. It’s difficult, often expensive, to keep a reputation.”

  “Keeping your reputation is your affair. Keeping your mouth shut about this matter is mine. You and this postmaster better keep that in mind.”

  The admiral fanned his face with the back of his hand, turned his back on Balcombe and gazed with satisfaction at Washington in flames. “All right, agreed. One hundred guineas per packet. Now do get out of here, my good man. The air is oppressive enough.”

  Although the post office was just a few paces down Jamestown’s only road, Balcombe had walked off the insult by the time he got there. The postmaster listened with his mouth open as Balcombe explained in a priestly whisper that he had discovered a devilish Napoleonic plot to smuggle letters out to England in Charlotte’s packets to Daniel, which, out of patriotic duty, he had reported to Admiral Cockburn. He told Cole what he had to do. There was no need to mention the hundred guineas.

  Napoleon was sitting in the thick shade of a pomegranate tree. He pretended not to notice he was no longer alone, his eyes staying glued to his book. Balcombe, hat off, stood stiffly to attention, waiting to be spoken to, not even daring to clear his throat. Charlotte, in her best white dress, was motionless at his side, bare hands in full display.

  Balcombe had told her she’d caught the emperor’s eye that first night at Porteous House and that his instructions were to bring her to him. What he didn’t tell her was that Napoleon intended to recruit her as an accomplice in a scheme to feed false information to His Majesty’s government. What would happen if Cockburn discovered that the king’s men were being sold a pack of lies in repeated doses? What would they do to Charlotte? What would they do to him? The thought had robbed him of sleep until, with the help of his bedside bottle, he found Morpheus in the arms of Bacchus.

  Charlotte stared at the man concealing his face behind the book. She could see from the gold embossed spine that it was a collection of Greek tragedies. The first of his features that caught her eye was how small his feet were. It was hard to imagine such a tiny foot on the neck of Europe! His calf in its white stocking was well shaped, although his little paunch wasn’t elegant. But his shoulders were broad and his hands beautiful, white and dimpled with fingers that tapered off delicately to perfectly manicured nails.

  The slavish minutes crawled by on hands and knees. Eventually the emperor tired of the game. It was time to put the last piece of the puzzle in place. He set down the book, looked the girl full in the face with his bold gray eyes. “Ah!” he said, with relish. “Rosebud.”

  “Charlotte Knipe, Your Majesty,” said Balcombe, unsure what else to say.

  “Leave us.”

  Balcombe did a smart about-turn, which he’d learned during his short service in the navy, put his hat back on, and left her alone with Napoleon.

  “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen Your—”

  “Who was your father?”

  “Richard. He died ten years ago this—”

  “Where did he come from?”

  “He was born here.”

  “Who was his father?”

  “Isaac Kni—”

  “Where was he born?”

  “Here.”

  “Name of his father?”

  “John.”

  “His father?”

  “Also John.”

  “Where was he born?”

  “England.”

  “When?”

  “About 1660.”

  “What was his first occupation?”

  “Apprentice tanner.”

  “What’s a tanner?”

  “Someone who tans hides.”

  “How does he tan hides?”

  “You begin with the raw skin of—”

  “And then?”

  “You flesh it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You scrape off all—”

  “Does it stink?”

  Charlotte gave a quick smile. “Yes, and attracts flies and—”

  “And then?”

  “You salt it.”

  “And then?”

  “You lay it out on a table and cure it—”

  “And then?”

  “Wash it until—”

  “And then?”

  “Soak it for two weeks in the tanning—”

  “What’s that?”

  “In my great-great-grandfather’s time they boiled the bark of the redwood and ebony trees from the forest, but—”

  “But what?”

  “Eventually they killed all the big trees and the wild goats ate the seedlings. Now instead of Great Wood it’s called Deadwood.” For the first time he let her finish a sentence.

  “Ha! That’s where they want to put me. This Deadwood. Yes?”

  “I don’t—”

  He jumped to his feet, seemingly animated by the interrogation. “Come, walk with me.” He led her down a path that was shaded with pomegranate trees, their flowers matching the jackets of the soldiers watching him from a distance.

  “What do you know about politics?”

  “Not very m—”

  “You must believe something.”

  By this time she knew to keep her answers short. “Everyone should be given an equal chance.”

  “You are American?”

  “No, of course not! But I do believe in democracy. Most ordinary English people do.”

  “Yes! In 1804 we tried to give it to them. I planned to empty the Channel of your fleet with the false intelligence that my ships were in the West Indies, busy linking up with the Americans. Then there would be nothing to stop me from landing two hundred thousand men at Chatham and sweeping up to London in four days. I would immediately have declared a republic, abolished the aristocracy, and redistributed its property among the ordinary citizens. Voilà! England would be a democracy!”

  In a quick movement, he reached out and pinched her cheek, which Charlotte would normally have taken to be a gross presumption. “What do you think of that idea?”

  “I think…” For once she struggled to find her voice. She was thinking of all the upper-class snobs who had looked down their noses at her. She was thinking of Laura Wilks. There was fire in her words. “I think that would be wonderful!”

  “I believe you have a fiancé,” he said. “A gardener at Kew in London.”

  “Not a gardener, Your Ma
jesty,” she said. “A student. He’s studying botany.”

  “You write to him?”

  “Yes. I send him packets of dried plants and flowers. To classify.”

  “Of course you know that all my letters are read. The English oligarchy fears my pen as much as my sword.”

  Charlotte’s heart beat faster, because she had a sense of where this might be going. “Yes, I can see that.”

  His eyes caught hers and cradled them. “Do they ever open yours?”

  “Certainly not! I’ve been sending out the Kew packets for years. And the new postmaster, Mr. Cole, is an old family friend.”

  An unexpectedly sweet smile toyed with the corners of his lips. “Excellent! You shall send a new packet tomorrow.” He reached into his pocket and took out a slender sealed scroll. “You will hide this among your herbs.”

  The next morning Charlotte delivered a packet to Mr. Cole the postmaster. Within minutes Balcombe delivered to it Admiral Cockburn. Kay, the senior government secretary, an aging fixture who had served three administrations already, undid the simple clasp and extracted the cover letter as well as the sealed scroll hiding in the little burlap pouch of herbs.

  Kay broke the seal carefully because he was going to have to replace it. Cockburn read the scroll. All it said was: “Important messages to follow if this arrives intact.” It was signed N.

  Then the admiral started Charlotte’s cover letter and was swept away by a wave of excitement.

  Chapter 3: Cinderella

  October 20, 1815

  Dearest Daniel:

  As I write this, I know that you must already have heard the extraordinary news. An emperor has moved in with us Yamstocks here in little Saint Helena. And not just any emperor, but the emperor Napoleon! I could write this whole letter with nothing but exclamation points, but that would still not do justice to my extraordinary excitement. Not only have I seen Napoleon, but I have seen him all on my own! Just the two of us, tête-à-tête in the Balcombes’ garden! At first he fired a fusillade of questions at me, so quickly that I had hardly any time to answer them. For some reason he wanted to know all about my family, where they came from, what they did. When I told him that they started out as tanners, he insisted on hearing all about tanning, down to every last smelly detail!

  He’s younger than I expected. He turned forty-six on board ship in August on his way down here. Not tall, as everyone knows, but not short, either—I think I might be an inch or two taller. But he is very broad in the shoulders and radiates the most extraordinary energy that overwhelms everyone he meets. His ambition is not to rule the world, he told me, but to bring it the gift of freedom. He said he was the bridge between the feudal world of serfs and a modern world that enslaves only machines. He very nearly helped the English declare the Republic of Britain ten years ago but was prevented by the Channel. He still hasn’t given up. He knows, as you do, how the ordinary English people are suffering, especially with all the war veterans returning to a country where they can’t find work. A spark, he says, will set England on fire.

  Now I come to the heart of this letter. Napoleon needs our help! Our help, can you believe it? His jailers read every letter that he sends to Europe. They destroy every word that does not suit them. Napoleon could write a thousand letters a day, there are so many who are dying to hear from him. But because all his letters will be read, he will not write any.

  So what he asked me to do is hide a little sealed scroll right at the heart of each shipment of dried specimens I send you. Since I have been sending you identical packets for five years now, no one will ever suspect. Take a quick look, there is one inside your specimen packet right now! Napoleon’s courier has been informed of its arrival. If you are reading this in the Black Dog as usual, he is already there. As soon as you finish my letter he will approach you and give you the password, “Rosebud” which is what Napoleon calls me. Isn’t all this so exciting!

  Please say you will help. I know that there is a small degree of danger, but it is a risk I take for freedom’s sake, which I embrace all the more fervently because I can’t embrace you for fifteen long months!

  Be brave, my husband-to-be, just as I am trying to be brave all alone on this lonely island!

  All my love,

  Charlotte

  Daniel choked on his urgent gulp of bitter. He had watched men hanged for less than this. Listened to the crowd laughing as the wretches not lucky enough to have their necks snapped by the drop dancing their last dance at the end of the rope, their feet comically searching for stairs that weren’t there. As with many others he sympathized with the radical causes that swirled in the sewers of English society and kept Charlotte as informed as the slow post would allow. But treason! The packet of herbs in his pocket, as usual sown in burlap, transmuted to lead.

  He could drink no more beer. He also wanted nothing to do with this mad scheme. He would write to Charlotte in the severest terms with instructions to put this nonsense out of her head. He was about to return the letter to the packet, hurry over to the grate that was trying unsuccessfully to keep the room warm, and burn it to ashes, herbs, scroll, and all, when a tiny bird of a man with an angelic smile on his face detached himself from the bar and approached with light steps as if he was trying not to wake a sleeping child.

  “Rosebud sent me,” he whispered. “You are Mr. Daniel Hamilton, are you not?”

  Daniel examined the stranger. He was rail thin and couldn’t have been much more than five feet in height. His slightly humped back and beak of a nose gave him the air of a hungry but amiable vulture. He put down his glass on the table and pulled out a chair. “May I sit with you?” he asked, after the fact, because Daniel, overwhelmed by the swift passage of events, couldn’t find his voice.

  “Who are you?” he asked when the little man had settled himself on the chair with the proprietary air of a hen settling on her eggs.

  “Edwards. George Edwards, at your service,” he said in a surprisingly mellifluous voice, which he dropped in volume when he added, “I am honored to be to be a friend of Mr. Arthur Thistlewood. Surely you’ve heard of him?”

  Daniel had not and said so.

  The man calling himself Edwards whistled, again like a bird. “I’m surprised, I really am,” he said, glancing over his shoulder as if to make sure no one was listening. “Mr. Thistlewood is a rising star in the radical movement. He served with the redcoats in America, where he was set on fire by the flame of liberty. He cashiered himself in ’93 and fled to France, where he was made captain in the French grenadiers during the Terror.” Edwards leaned across the table, his head so low that it looked as if he was going to peck at bread crumbs with his nose. “That’s when he met Napoleon, at the siege of Toulon.” He crossed two skeletal fingers of his right hand. “They’ve been like this ever since.”

  Daniel said nothing, because his mind was a battleground of conflicting emotions with terror leading the charge.

  Edwards looked over his shoulder again, as if he was trying to relieve a crick in his neck, and lowered his voice. “Now if you would pass me the enclosure, I’ll be on my way.”

  Terror won the day. “I’ll have nothing to do with treason!” Daniel hissed. “Nothing!”

  Edwards’s chuckle sounded like a contented cluck. “That’s because you’re afraid. The problem for you is that the girl isn’t. Tell me”—there was steel in his gentle voice now—“what would you prefer? Her dangling on your arm at the altar or her dangling at the end of a rope?”

  Now Daniel was angry. “She’s full of fantasies! What letter? You have no proof! Nothing!”

  Edwards laughed out loud. He gestured at a man who sat at the bar. He had a squint that allowed him to watch the door with one eye and them with the other. “Come, sir, my friend over there is a hard man. And there is the little matter of that letter in your hand. It would be an easy matter for the police to be provided with all the evidence they need for Charlotte’s conviction on a capital charge. All we are asking you to do
is take an insignificant risk to promote the cause of liberty and save the life of the lady you love. Is that too much to ask?”

  “Blackmail!”

  “No, sir, war. Us against them. The common man against the strutting parasites who feed like vampires on our blood. Bonaparte is freedom’s shining star, a freedom that gives every man an equal chance to make his way in the world. You have the power to help us destroy the oligarchy and make England a shining democracy like America. You also have the power to save Charlotte. What say you?”

  Daniel forced himself to take a long, calming swallow. He’d been to enough hangings. He didn’t want to go to his own. And he could not bear the thought of Charlotte…

  Without a word he took the burlap bag out of his pocket, undid the stitching, and found the scroll basking in fragrant Saint Helena herbs. He noticed the seal was stamped with the French imperial eagle. “Here,” he said handing it to Edwards.

  “Capital!” said Edwards. “You have just struck a blow for democracy!” He beckoned to Daniel to lean closer, dropped his voice. They were conspirators already. “When the next packet arrives, you are to deliver the scroll on the Saturday night following to the Cock in Mayfair, where I will introduce you to Mr. Thistlewood himself. He will be expecting you—we are in close contact with the island, you see. He is most interested to hear everything that Charlotte tells you about Napoleon, and I do mean everything, down to the smallest scrap of gossip! Will you make sure she includes all that in her letters?”

  Saint Helena, November 20, 1815.

  On the night of the grand ball, thrown in the Castle ballroom by Admiral Cockburn to welcome Napoleon and his court to Saint Helena, the guest of honor wasn’t there. The victor of the Pyramids, Marengo, and Austerlitz had no wish to celebrate Waterloo. Even the invitation was an insult. Oh, it was grand enough, embossed with bold gold letters, but it was addressed to General Bonaparte! Quelle horreur! This Cockburn creature had no delicacy, none at all. Napoleon would not attend his ball.

  But Napoleon did give Gaspard permission to throw a warm-up reception in a tent that had been pitched on Balcombe’s lawn, the lawn he had torn up with his horse’s hooves when he had robbed the puffed-up English admiral of his residence—if you could call the little shack preposterously misnamed the Pavilion a residence! Although he refused to show himself, Napoleon examined the guests through a chink in the Pavilion’s curtains. Rosebud, the magnificent creature, glowed in her humble gown. She pretended to listen to Gaspard’s war stories but kept glancing furtively in his direction.