Napoleon's Rosebud

by Humphry Knipe

  “Mary!”

  “She’s passed on, Charlotte.”

  “When?” she asked, but she knew the answer. It had to be shortly after the Winchelsea sailed for the news to have reached London so soon.

  “She was watching from Ladder Hill cliff. When the ship disappeared, she must have stepped too close to the edge. They heard a scream.”

  Charlotte was crying so hard she could scarcely speak. “Mary! My poor Mary! It was an accident. Tell me it was an accident!”

  She held his eyes. What was it she saw in them? There was something hiding behind the compassion.

  “Charlotte, you deserve to know. Everybody else on the island does. She was pregnant.”

  Tears of grief turned instantly to tears of anger. “Gaspard! He did it to her! I never want to see him again, ever! Oh it was all my fault! I should have broken down her bedroom door. Told her everything.”

  Now that the deed was done, Burchell seemed to recover his composure. “You couldn’t do that. You’re on a mission. A terrible shock but you must do your duty. I hear you have passed…certain information concerning the emperor’s doctor on to Lady Holland and that your mission is nearing completion.”

  “Oh, I wish it were! I want to go home. To visit Mary’s grave. To be with my darling Daniel. But I have to go to Italy, to Venice. To deliver a letter.”

  “I know,” said Burchell gently. “You have a message for Lord Byron.”

  Charlotte sniffed down her tears. Concentrated on the moment. “How do know all this?”

  “Lady Holland.”

  “You know her?”

  “I help her with her gardens. She has arranged your passage to Venice. You will be escorted by the British consul, no less. Her Ladyship has even chosen a suitable disguise for you.”

  In spite of the tragedy of the moment, Charlotte noticed that the hint of an impish smile was creeping stealthily onto Burchell’s lips. “What kind of disguise?” she said.

  “She wants you to dress as a page.”

  Chapter 16: Voyage to Venice

  Lady Holland sent Charlotte a hairdresser to crop her hair. She sent a tailor to measure her for her page boy tunics, to be worn with tights, and a cobbler to make her shoes and a fine pair of riding boots. Then she sent word that Charlotte was to attend her in costume.

  Her Ladyship, laid up in bed with arthritis, viewed the results with obvious satisfaction. “A hand on your hip, chin tilted up just a little. Now walk across the room and back. Just a little strut in your step. Yes! Fortunately, you are an athletic young woman—the tights show off your fine, long legs. You will most certainly pass for a slightly effeminate boy. I am sure Lord Byron will greet you with open arms.”

  Charlotte was examining herself in the full-length mirror attached to the wall at the foot of Lady Holland’s bed, wondering what being met with open arms entailed. “Thank you, Your Ladyship, although all I have to do is deliver a letter. A postman could do that!”

  “Oh, you are quite wrong, my dear. You are carrying a very special letter from the emperor, which Lord Byron is to read while you are in his presence. You are also on a mission for me.”

  Charlotte reluctantly turned her back on the remarkably fine image, she had to admit, that stared at her from the mirror. “A mission, Your Ladyship?”

  “Yes. You are to use all your wiles to persuade Byron to write an epic poem about Napoleon, just like ‘Childe Harold’ is an epic poem about himself. You see, Byron calls himself the ‘Napoleon of Rhyme.’ So urge him to prove it by winning the sympathy of the world for Napoleon’s cause. Byron, more than anyone, has the power to arouse public opinion to such a pitch that our jealous government is shamed into freeing the imperial eagle from his cage. Damn it, Charlotte, seduce the man if you have to!”

  Charlotte suddenly felt it difficult to hold her proud pose as the weight of this unladylike proposal settled on her shoulders. “Your Ladyship, I’m not sure I can do that!”

  “Of course you can, my dear Charles, for Charles you must be until Byron turns you back into a woman. You have the beauty, you are inexperienced, but you have wit, and most of all you know Napoleon. Byron is convinced that he is surrounded on all fronts by mental dwarfs. He respects only his idol, the emperor. He has nothing but contempt for the rest of humanity. Even the most dazzling luminaries are faint stars blinded by the brilliance of his moon and Napoleon’s sun. Byron will feast on your anecdotes about the emperor’s private life. He will be salivating to feast on you as well. Make him pay a high price for your favors! Make him write that poem, the more epic the better!”

  Charlotte felt a flush burn her cheeks, whether prompted by shame or excitement she wasn’t sure. “Your Ladyship makes me feel like a courtesan.”

  “Napoleon! Byron! Don’t these names make your head spin? And what’s wrong with being a courtesan in the halls of greatness? So was Theodora, and she rose to be empress of Rome. Free Napoleon and perhaps he will make you empress of Europe!”

  Although the words were nonsense they haunted her through the frenzy of her hurried departure. Nonsense as dizzying as the pitching of the fast clipper that was carrying Charlotte around the boot of Italy as it headed for Venice, her cabin trunk full of costumes, some of them for a page, others for a princess.

  Charlotte’s traveling companion, the British consul in Venice on his way back to Italy, had introduced himself at the docks. “Richard Hoppner,” he said with a foppish twirl to his scented handkerchief as he made his bow, “very much at your service. Lady Holland said—”

  “Yes, she told me that you were kind enough to be my—” Charlotte had nearly said chaperon but caught herself in time, because she was dressed as a page, Lady Holland had insisted on it, so Charlotte could practice the impersonation on the ship. “To be my traveling companion.”

  The consul was fresh faced, barely thirty, slightly effeminate. He smiled sweetly. “Yes, well, it just so happened that I was returning to Venice after receiving fresh instructions from the government. Lady Holland, who knows absolutely everybody, remarked on the happy coincidence when I was calling on her the other evening, to update her on Byron, of course. It’s why I am honored to be the occasional guest at Holland House whenever I’m back from Italy.”

  “It’s very kind of you,” said Charlotte. “Although I hope I won’t bore you with all my questions!”

  The British consul waved his handkerchief in a circle, as if he was in pursuit of an elusive idea. “You don’t perchance have a sister?” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “Because the other night I saw the most beautiful young lady at Holland House. Quite the center of attention, she was. Escorted by one of Napoleon’s generals, no less, that frightening chap Gaspard Gourgaud, who has a nasty reputation for being perpetually in pursuit of his next duel.”

  Charlotte dismissed the topic with a laugh. “That must have been someone else,” she said.

  “Is Lord Byron really bad and dangerous to know?” Charlotte asked the British consul that evening when the ship’s captain finally excused himself and they were alone in the tiny officers’ mess.

  “Oh, yes, he is the very devil, although you mustn’t believe everything Lady Caroline Lamb says. She’s madder than he is!”

  She smiled, mysteriously she hoped. “Lady Holland said Byron drove Lady Caroline to it—madness, I mean.”

  “Yes, by seducing her into his twilight. He enchanted her.”

  “Did he love her?”

  “Certainly. He loves everyone, for a short time.”

  “Even Napoleon?”

  This caught the consul by surprise. “Napoleon is the exception, because His Lordship believes that Napoleon is as great a man as he is.”

  Charlotte laughed, swirled her beer in what she thought was a manly fashion, and swallowed some of it, although she hated the bitter taste. “That’s absurd! Napoleon commanded a million men. Perhaps he will do so again. From what I hear, Byron can’t even command himself!”

  “His Lordship commands an army
of the mind. He commands more heads than Napoleon does feet.”

  Charlotte was enjoying the game. “Napoleon rose from nothing. His father was a backstreet lawyer in backward Corsica. Byron was born a lord!”

  “Oh, no, he wasn’t,” countered the consul. “He’s the son of a penniless wastrel, a mere army captain they called mad Jack Byron, who slit his throat when his debts finally caught up with him. His Lordship was only two when his father died. He was brought up by his mother, an absolutely repulsive harridan with aristocratic pretentions. His Lordship stuck pins into her arms because he hated how fat they were, the story goes. He’s disgusted by fat to this day, especially his own. Goes for days fasting on hard biscuit and soda water.”

  “Am I too fat?” Charlotte asked, stretching out her legs.

  The consul’s eyes widened. “Not at all, and you know it! Your tights show your legs off to perfection. I must warn you, His Lordship has a naughty fascination with lithe young men. Picked it up in a Greek monastery.”

  “Interesting,” said Charlotte ambiguously. “But if his father wasn’t a lord, how did Byron become one?”

  “Divine intervention! He and his mother were cooped up in cheap lodgings in Aberdeen when his great-uncle, someone he didn’t know at all, finally did the right thing and died. When the genealogists did their work, they found that the lonely, clubfooted boy of ten was now the sixth Baron Byron, master of Newstead Abbey, a medieval monastery, which dates back six hundred years and came with vast acreage worth a very large fortune.”

  The ship, struck by a rogue cross wave, heeled. “Whoops!” Charlotte said, laying a slender hand face down on the table to regain her balance. “Sounds like a fairy story where a magic castle appears overnight.”

  The British consul waved his handkerchief. “More like a horror story. The great-uncle had let the estate run down, you see. Oh, you’ll love this part. His favorite pastime was playing with his tame crickets. Let them run all over his naked body because he liked their tickle.”

  Charlotte made an unladylike sound and broke into Yamstock. “Dat so disgustin’!”

  “My, my! What is that accent? You sound like a different person!”

  She pouted. “Yamstock. It’s what we old Saint Helena families speak like. It be the raal me. You lick it?”

  The consul cleared his throat as he searched for the right words. “Ah, perhaps I would, if I got used to it. But I doubt I would ever like it less than a bed crawling with crickets!”

  Charlotte laughed as she pictured the grotesque sight, but her thoughts were soon elsewhere, wandering the ruins of Newstead Abbey. “Did he fix it up? The abbey?”

  “Yes and no—that’s always the case with His Lordship. He had some of the rooms superbly furnished but didn’t bother to fix the roof, so the expensive antique carpets are ruined and the beautiful new wallpaper is peeling off the walls. The great hall is a shooting gallery now, the grand dining room used for fencing practice. He prefers the abbey ruined, you see. More romantic that way. A memento of a vanished age. Ghostly processions of chanting monks carrying candles, lightning-blasted towers, ravens screeching as they swoop through cracked arches and over gardens run wild. A celebration of death and decay.” He threw Charlotte a quick, clever look. “That’s why it’s so famous, you see. The inspiration for Gothic writers everywhere. For example, Thomas Peacock’s Nightmare Abbey. Just published. Have you read it?”

  Charlotte shook her head, missing the familiar swish of her long blonde hair. Her lapse into Yamstock had made her think of Daniel and what he could have done with the wild gardens of Byron’s haunted ruin. Out of nowhere she felt the lash of a sudden flush. Daniel Hamilton and Lord Byron in the same sentence! Preposterous! But why was it preposterous? And where did that errant thought come from?

  The consul interrupted her disturbing thoughts. “How about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein? Or hasn’t the book found its way to nowhere yet?”

  Charlotte tried to clear her head and defend her home all at the same time. “Saint Helena isn’t exactly nowhere!”

  “I was teasing, Charles. In fact, right now your island is the navel of the world. But we were talking about Frankenstein, or at least I was.”

  “What’s Frankenstein about?”

  “The creation of a superman out of dead body parts, sparked to life with electricity like Galvani’s frog legs or something. Just published, anonymously. But, aha! I just happen to know the author. She’s Mary Shelley, wife of the poet. It was all Lord Byron’s idea, you see. Came to him at his chalet on Lake Geneva. This was in June, just two years ago, 1816, the year without a summer, damn awful weather. Something to do with a volcano in the East Indies poisoning the atmosphere. Incessant rain, too foul to go outside. Surely Saint Helena was affected?”

  “Not really. The trade wind, the southeaster, blows away everything.”

  “That so?” said the consul. “Anyway, His Lordship had just arrived in Switzerland in Napoleon’s carriage—”

  Charlotte clutched at the word. “Napoleon’s?”

  “Proves how much he’s obsessed with the emperor, how much he wants to be mistaken for him. He had an exact copy of Napoleon’s campaign carriage made, the one that delivered him to destruction at Waterloo. A pull-out bed so comfortable he overslept and so lost the battle—that’s at least what they say.”

  “I thought it was exactly the opposite. He couldn’t sleep because of his hemorrhoids.”

  “Hemorrhoids? Where did you hear that?”

  “Oh, just Saint Helena gossip. Tell me about the carriage.”

  “The original’s in Madame Tussaud’s now. Lord Byron took the replica with him when he crossed the Channel. It’s dark blue, convertible, the roof folds down on both sides, just like Napoleon’s. All the amenities, kitchen, dining room, desk that can be drawn out, en suite bathroom with outside access for easy emptying of chamber pots. A real monster, so heavy it needs six horses to get it up a hill. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, because I’m sure he’ll take you for a spin.” The consul batted his right eye in a big, theatrical wink. “He absolutely loves to be seen chasing around in it with someone beautiful at his side.”

  “Really?” said Charlotte, her heart missing a beat.

  “Take my word for it,” said the consul, downing his brandy, his eyes riveted to Charlotte’s face, watching her imagine the experience of riding through the Swiss Alps in Napoleon’s carriage with Lord Byron at her side, his scarf blowing in the wind…He could see the poor girl’s head was swimming like a cork in a whirlpool.

  “Anyway,” he went on, “getting back to Frankenstein, Lord Byron suggested they have a competition to see who could tell the scariest ghost story. He set the tone by reciting some verses from Coleridge’s ‘Christabel,’ which he knew by heart—he really has the most astonishing memory:

  Beneath the lamp the lady bowed,

  And slowly rolled her eyes around…

  “And so on. Now you have heard of Coleridge, haven’t you, Charles?”

  “Yes. In fact, I met him. At Holland House. He translated the epitaph on Napoleon’s bust for me.”

  “Oh, I beg your pardon!” teased the consul, by now a little drunk. “I forget that you’re the lass from nowhere who’s been everywhere.”

  Charlotte arched an eyebrow. “Lass? So we are no longer going with the pretense?”

  “Lady Holland had to tell me so I wouldn’t make a faux pas. Pity, really. You see, I have to admit that like Lord Byron, I enjoy male company now and then, if you know what I mean.”

  Charlotte faked surprise. “I thought Lord Byron was obsessed with women!”

  “He is, but that’s only half of it! Why do you think he’s in Venice? You see, since Napoleon legalized homoerotic love in most Italian states, including Venice, it’s become the hub of the liberated way of life. The Venetian carnival, held during the New Year season, is an absolute dream. Delightful young men and maids in costumes and masks so you can’t tell them apart and don’t wa
nt to. Hermes, Eros, Pan, and Harlequin everywhere. Minotaurs, demons. Six weeks of nonstop carnival. Quite enough to wear you out. After drinking the cup dry after his first carnival, last year, His Lordship collapsed into one of his famous sulks and wrote this:

  So, we’ll go no more a roving

  So late into the night,

  Though the heart be still as loving,

  And the moon be still as bright.

  The consul raised an approving eyebrow above a surprised smile when Charlotte took over:

  Though the night was made for loving,

  And the day returns too soon,

  Yet we’ll go no more a roving

  By the light of the moon

  “Well said, young sir. You’ve just shot up in my estimation.”

  “Was I ranked so low?”

  “I jest, of course. We are shipmates, passing the time with trivialities. Now, where was I?”

  “Frankenstein.”

  “Oh, yes. Well, to cut a long story short”—the consul was one of those people who made that promise often but never kept it—“most of them came up with nothing. Even His Lordship turned out only a couple of verses. Shelley told a weird tale about a woman who had eyes instead of nipples. Panicked by his own story, he grabbed a candle and ran shrieking out of the room to check on Mary—they weren’t married yet, living in sin, you see. Free love, they call it these days. All Napoleon’s fault. Everyone was very young then. Mary only eighteen, Shelley twenty-three, Byron a very old twenty-eight, all driven delirious by large doses of laudanum.”

  Charlotte leaned forward, an arm propping up her chin, one of her prettiest gestures. She was warming to the young consul. “Laudanum?”

  “You haven’t heard of it? How old-fashioned Saint Helena must be! Opium dissolved in alcohol. It’s all the rage with the smart set. Anyway, to cut a long story short, every morning LB—that’s what his close friends call Lord Byron—asked Mary if she’d thought of a story, and every morning she confessed she hadn’t. One night she was thinking about the human leg and arm bones that His Lordship had dug up from a mass burial site, leftovers from an ancient battle, and kept under his bed to give him Gothic dreams.”