Napoleon's Rosebud

by Humphry Knipe

  “No, it’s not that,” Charlotte lied. “The governor doesn’t know you. He knows me.”

  “It’s Gaspard I’m talking about, not the governor. Why is Gaspard abandoning me?”

  “Because he’s a soldier who has to do his duty,” was the best Charlotte could come up with.

  “You’re not telling me the truth. It’s not the governor! It’s Boney, isn’t it? He’s behind all of this!”

  Charlotte couldn’t tell Mary that she’d stumbled onto the truth. “It’s best if Gaspard explains it all to you. Mary, I know you think he’s the only man on earth right now. But he’s not. If Gaspard doesn’t return, you will find someone else, I promise you. The island is full of dashing young officers.”

  But it wasn’t the prospect of finding someone new that prompted Mary Porteous to jump out of bed and pull on her shoes. “Where is he? Your fiancé!”

  “Gaspard’s not my—”

  “Tell me!”

  “Gaspard is at Basil Jackson’s, as far as I know.”

  “Then that’s where I’m going.”

  “You can’t go out in public like that! Put on a fresh dress. At least do your face and your hair!”

  “No! I want everyone to see what you two have done to me! How could you, Charlotte? You of all people, how could you?” Abruptly, the defiant mood fled. Mary threw herself back onto her bed. She pulled the bedcovers over her even though she was still wearing her shoes. “Leave me, Jezebel,” she whispered, turning her face to the wall. “I never wish to see either of you ever again.”

  Charlotte called with Gaspard at Porteous House the next day, ready to explain almost everything to Mary. She sent word that she didn’t want to see them. Charlotte called on her every day that followed but always got the same answer. She and Gaspard tried again the morning the ship sailed, but she was not receiving visitors. Mary didn’t emerge from her bedroom until she got news that the Winchelsea had set sail with Charlotte, Gaspard, and the Balcombes on board. It was March 18, 1818, just three weeks after the memorable events at Nymph’s Pond. She hurried up Ladder Hill and watched until the boat sank below the horizon. It wasn’t the plaintive cry of a bird swooping down from the cliffs that reared above Jamestown. It was Mary Porteous screaming as she fell.

  By sunset the news, told in whispers, was everywhere. She had been at least three months pregnant.

  Chapter 12: Ship of Fools

  Charlotte felt a heartstring snap as the last of the little island disappeared down the gullet of the vast ocean, taking Daniel with it. Dearest Daniel! He had been so magnificently brave about her departure.

  “It’s only fair,” he’d quipped, although there were tears in his eyes. “First I go to London and leave you here. Then you go to London and leave me here.”

  “Darling it will be for just a few months, not seven years. All the same I shall miss you so very much, you know that!”

  “Oh, no, you won’t. You’ll arrive in London at the height of the Season. There will be dances and receptions every night. You will be on the arm of Napoleon’s most dashing general. You won’t have time to think of us poor Yamstocks!”

  He was only half joking, she knew that. “My darling I will come back soon, very soon, I promise. As soon as Gaspard has spun Boney’s web and caught a cartload of fat Liberals in it!”

  He’d gazed at her then, a wistful look, as if he had lost her already. “Charlotte, don’t come back for my sake. I love you too much to be second best, yours only because you feel you owe yourself to me. I can’t bear the thought of you living a life of regret, looking at a mere botanist at breakfast when you could have been looking at a baron or an earl.”

  The pretty little speech stung Charlotte, because she knew there was an awful truth lurking there.

  The Honorable East India Company’s ship the Winchelsea, 1,331 tons, the southeaster filling her sails, plowed northward on her six-week journey to England. Charlotte’s hands tightened on the rail as the boat heeled. Her thoughts drifted.

  The day before the ship set sail, Napoleon had sent for her. He was alone in his tiny study when Marchand showed her in, sitting at his tiny desk. For what seemed to be a long time he examined her without speaking. A rat scampered across the floor. He ignored it.

  “What time do you sail?” Napoleon’s interrogation begun.

  “Tomorrow afternoon, Your Majesty.”

  “At least you will have Betsy Balcombe for company,” he teased, because he knew Charlotte couldn’t stand the brat. “She calls us Boney. Did you know that?”

  “Yes, Your M—”

  “Since you are closer than a friend, you may call me that, too.” A quick smile revealed his tiny licorice-stained teeth. “Betsy, ah, Betsy! We played games, you know, two years ago. Blind man’s buff. She was too young to be afraid.” He sighed, flicked away a fly. “For her sake we regret we had to sacrifice her father to win Gaspard’s freedom. A casualty of war. Mrs. Balcombe will school you in manners, because you have so few. You must disguise yourself as a lady.”

  “I’ll do my best, Your Majesty. I mean, Boney.”

  “Ha! Boney. How delicious that sounds coming out of your mouth.” His expression changed in an instant to one of infinite longing. Charlotte was swimming in his eyes. “Rosebud, you must come back, even if you don’t succeed. Especially if you don’t succeed. I don’t think I can survive on this cursed rock without you.”

  “Are you savoring your escape?” It was Gaspard grasping the rail next to her, dressed in faded regimentals that bristled with slightly corroded medals.

  “Not really,” Charlotte said. “Because now I am your captive.”

  “If only I were yours!” He smirked. “With hands as beautiful as yours holding me tight, I would be the most willing captive on earth.”

  Charlotte did her best to mask her irritation at the innuendo. “Gaspard we are yoked to the same plow. It would be best if we repaired our relationship so we cut a straight furrow.”

  He laughed at the rustic metaphor. “I see I’ve unnerved you enough to bring out the Yamstock in you. But alas, I’m not an ox. I’m an ordnance officer. All I know is how to blow up things!”

  “You also know how to provoke.”

  Gaspard seemed to need a respite from the game they were playing. “Peace! I come waving an olive branch.”

  “Which is?”

  “I have fallen in love.”

  Charlotte felt a prick of annoyance when her heart beat faster. “Not with me, I hope!”

  “Certainly not.”

  She gazed at him to see if he were making another fruitless attempt at being humorous, but his raised eyebrow did nothing more than invite the obvious question. “All right, with whom?”

  “Betsy Balcombe.”

  “Gaspard, seriously, she’s a child!”

  “She’s not. She’s sixteen.”

  “Forgotten about Mary so soon?”

  “As you know perfectly well, it is Mary who pursues me. She clings to me like a vine. She’s probably gone and stowed herself away in the bilges and will emerge triumphant at bedtime.”

  “So you cut her loose?”

  “As you know perfectly well, I tried to let her down gently, but she refused to see me. Also, mademoiselle, she refused to see you.”

  “Can you blame her, after your disgusting overtures to Daniel?”

  “Your relationship with him recovered from that amusing incident rather quickly, if I may say so.”

  “Because he was the innocent party. Passion, indeed! He knows nothing of passion. He’s an innocent. Have you no shame?”

  Gaspard examined his nails as if he wanted to make sure there was no gunpowder under them. “A sense of shame is an expensive quality. It requires sacrifices that often aren’t worth making. However, I wager that I have a more highly developed sense of shame than you have a sense of honesty. Quite frankly, beauty has made you the most accomplished liar I’ve ever met. The way you pretended you wanted Daniel to fight me. That was masterful!”<
br />
  The morning after Saint Helena was swallowed by the South Atlantic, Charlotte sat on the forward deck with Balcombe and his wife, already much improved by the sea air, and Betsy, who was keeping an ardent eye open for Gaspard.

  “How many social classes are there on Saint Helena?” Balcombe asked her.

  “Three, I suppose,” said Charlotte. “Slaves, us Yamstocks, and you English.”

  “Well, in England there are at least nine!” piped Betsy.

  “Impossible!” said Charlotte. “How could you possibly keep track of what class you were in?”

  “You don’t need to remember,” said Mrs. Balcombe. “Because if you don’t keep in your place, you will soon be put there.”

  Betsy was suddenly so absorbed in playing the teacher that she missed the magnificent sight of General Baron Gaspard Gourgaud strutting onto the deck. “Paupers, poor things, are right at the bottom.”

  “And then come the working poor,” said her mother. “Above them are servants. Then craftsmen and tradesmen.”

  “And then the middle classes, such as teachers and doctors and business owners,” said her father.

  “So you Balcombes are middle class?” said Charlotte, who already knew the answer to that question.

  Mr. Balcombe glanced at Mrs. Balcombe for support. “No, we’re more like the next class up. The gentry,” he said. “At least in Saint Helena we were gentry, because we owned an estate.”

  At this Mrs. Balcombe shook her head. “If it hadn’t been for my illness…we’re in transition now, until we find our feet. But we do have some fine connections. We’re expecting Mr. Balcombe to go into government.”

  “Above gentry comes the aristocracy,” persevered Betsy.

  “So Sir Hudson Lowe is an aristocrat?” asked Charlotte, who would have thought much less of the aristocracy if he were.

  “Oh, dear, no!” said Mrs. Balcombe with a sniff. “He’s just a knight. You have to have a hereditary title to be an aristocrat. A noble bloodline.”

  “Then comes royalty,” Mr. Balcombe came in quickly as if he wanted to get this business over with.

  “And right at the top of the heap sits Prinny,” said Betsy. “Which is what le bon ton calls the prince regent.”

  Charlotte was distracted by a flying fish sailing above the waves. “The ton?”

  “Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Balcombe. “I see we really are going to have to start at the beginning. Le bon ton is what society calls itself.”

  “And Charlotte you are completely ton deaf!” said Betsy with a silly giggle.

  “I’ve actually met Prinny, you know. More than once,” said Balcombe, not trying to hide the pride in his voice. “When I was a boy. In fact, my brother still serves him as an equerry.”

  “It was all because of a terrible accident!” Betsy trilled, because she had just caught sight of Gaspard, who touched his hat to her with what came very close to a leer. “Tell her, Daddy, I’ve quite forgotten how it goes!”

  Balcombe shifted in his chair, clearly made uncomfortable by Gaspard’s appearance.

  “Tell her, William,” Mrs. Balcombe said. “She might as well know.”

  Balcombe sighed. “All right, then, it was a mishap, a dreadful one. You see, my father was the captain of a frigate in the early days of the French Revolution. One night, in a dreadful fog, he was run down by the prince regent’s yacht just off Brighton. He went down with his ship.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that,” said Charlotte. She’d heard the old rumor that William Balcombe, like so many others, was the illegitimate son of the prince regent, a rumor he was slow to deny. But she hadn’t heard the story that Prinny had killed his father.

  “The prince regent was devastated, of course,” said Mrs. Balcombe, who, Charlotte knew, was much more intelligent than her husband. “This happened in 1789, you see, the year the Bastille fell in Paris. It gave the impression that Prinny was like one of those French aristocrats who ran over peasants for sport. He went to great lengths to make amends.”

  “He adopted my brother and me,” said Balcombe, trying his best to sound offhand.

  “I think adopted is too strong a word, dear,” said Mrs. Balcombe.

  “Perhaps. But Prinny extended what’s called the king’s bounty to us. We were given a royal education. We even spent time at Carlton House—that’s the prince’s London residence, you know. He appointed his private secretary, Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, as our guardian. I will do Sir Thomas the courtesy of waiting on him the moment we arrive in London.” He smiled at the happy thought.

  The slow weeks passed as the Winchelsea plowed northward. Gaspard fought off boredom by making everyone’s lives a misery. Hoping to make Charlotte jealous, he flirted brazenly with Betsy, pressing his suit with such ardor that Charlotte feared for the girl’s virginity. Although Balcombe was no soldier (although he had fought at the Battle of the Nile as a midshipman, he kept reminding everyone), he had to fortify himself with brandy to warn Gaspard to keep his distance. Gaspard of course immediately challenged Balcombe to a duel, which the captain fortunately forbade, threatening, not very seriously, to clap both gentlemen in irons if they pressed the matter any further. Betsy got the worst of the falling-out. For four long days, she was locked in her cabin, from which her heartbroken laments could be heard almost anywhere downwind.

  Charlotte pretended that it was for the sake of her mission that she was being more than civil to Gaspard, but she had to admit that she was flattered by the attentions of the most dashing bachelor aboard, a handsome young man who trailed clouds of his master’s glory behind him.

  “You’d better keep your distance,” Gaspard teased. “Balcombe nearly fought me for flirting with his daughter. Imagine what he’ll do if I become over familiar with his new lapdog!”

  “Gaspard,” she shot back, “I am no one’s lapdog! You know perfectly well that it’s a chore having to memorize all this pointless nonsense the boring Balcombes are stuffing down my throat. For example, I have no intention of sitting out the next two dances just because I have turned down some drunken lecher who has asked me to stand up with him!”

  “That’s because you have no breeding, mademoiselle,” said Gaspard with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Of course,” said Charlotte, “a fiddler’s son, brought up in the household of a comedian, would know all about breeding! But this British brand of breeding I can do without. Another example: you have to keep your friends of different ranks from meeting! Another: you have to know whom you shake hands with and whom you don’t.”

  “A fine rule, mademoiselle,” said Gaspard with a smirk. “You never know where some hands have been.”

  The mournful cry of a seagull flapping through the rigging distracted them. It seemed like it was trying to deliver a message. “Must be near land,” said Gaspard. “A small island, perhaps.”

  “Oh, how I wish that small island were England!” Charlotte said. “Because I’m in a tearing hurry to practice my dos and don’ts. Whom to address by their first names and whom by their last. But what I won’t be practicing is not wandering about at a reception on my own just because I’m a woman. That’s a rule I certainly intend to break! If it wasn’t for the emperor’s instructions, I would have nothing to do with all this manners nonsense. I don’t need manners to go to the Hollands and tell them the truth about how the emperor is being treated.”

  Gaspard laughed as if this were the most delightful of jokes. “You honestly expect the cream of English society to receive a peasant girl like you because she claims to have a few tidbits of gossip about an exiled emperor?”

  “I have more than just tidbits,” said Charlotte, sounding ominous.

  “Such as your gem that Governor Lowe won’t give Napoleon leeches to drain his hemorrhoids?” said Gaspard, letting his sarcasm show.

  Charlotte looked away to follow the path of another flying fish. She must watch her tongue. She shouldn’t even hint at the dark secret Napoleon had confided to her. That secret was for Lady Hollan
d’s ears only. Gaspard couldn’t be trusted with anything to do with Dr. O’Meara, Charlotte knew. Gaspard hated the garrulous young doctor, because he was so close to the emperor, almost as close as he was, closer perhaps. O’Meara had told her, with a hearty laugh, that Gaspard had even challenged him to a duel, although somewhat halfheartedly because he knew Napoleon would never allow it. The doctor had accepted, he said, so long as they fought it out with scalpels! Gaspard had stamped off in a huff, and the matter went no further.

  Charlotte fought off the silly fantasy of two well-muscled men, shirts off, slashing at each other with razors. Fighting over her, as two men had almost done already. “How about the fact that Napoleon’s guards at Longwood sell tickets to passengers who want to peep at him?” she said.

  The young general’s gray eyes gazed thoughtfully into hers. He really was a remarkably handsome man, she thought. Brave as well. He made something melt inside her.

  “Charlotte, this is a military campaign. Take it seriously.”

  “I am,” she said. “You’re the general. What’s our strategy?”

  “I don’t know how much the emperor told you. My first move, as soon as we land, is for me to see Bathurst, the war minister, and reassure him that Napoleon has been spreading lies about his treatment on the island. That in fact he has everything he needs and that Governor Lowe is doing his best to make him comfortable.”

  Charlotte slipped off her shoes and wriggled her bare toes, gratified that this seemed to unsettle Gaspard. “A big fat lie. And then what?”

  “And then, Miss Pretty Toes, as soon as I have convinced Minister Bathurst that I strongly support Lowe, he will most certainly want me to repeat everything I’ve told him to Lord Holland and all the rest of the pro-Napoleonic lobby, to set them straight.”

  The emerald eyes looked him full in the face until, to his annoyance, he began to feel uncomfortable, perhaps because he felt guilty about so openly admiring her naked feet. “But will they listen to you?” she asked.