Elysium Page 3

  The British soldiers smirked at each other and shook their heads.

  “Be silent, girl. Don’t upset your father.” Madame Cloubert butted up next to her daughter and glowered at the soldiers. “If I’d known this I wouldn’t have come.”

  “Please, Madame. Haven’t we all sacrificed our freedom for the emperor?” Amélie’s own misgivings prickled inside her, but she strained to sound practical. Her father approached.

  “Ma petite, it isn’t polite to question your elders,” he whispered when he handed her into their cart. “Besides, in Madame Cloubert’s case, it never does any good.”

  “We will see how long we’re forced to languish here.” Madame Cloubert knifed her bony frame into a cart, next to her portly husband who sat dormant like a lump of cheese. “Allons-y, what are we waiting for?”

  “Isn’t just breathing irritating to you?” Gascon climbed into the Perrault’s cart. He wiped his brow with a soggy handkerchief. “Your squawking voice grates in my ears.”

  “Oh, save your whining, Philippe.” The head chambermaid snarled her thin lips. “Everyone knows you take more interest in your pretend ills than your cuisine.”

  Amélie settled herself on the hard bench, anxious to leave, and weary of everyone’s complaining. They’d arrived and must find a way to manage.

  The caravan of settlers rambled through the town crammed in a fold of this narrow valley. They passed brown women and children in colored rags, sitting on the steps of whitewashed stone houses with shingled roofs or boards covered in dirt. A thick vapor of clouds floated above, forming a gray ceiling impaled on craggy peaks. They turned to the left for Rupert’s Hill, one of the steep volcanic slopes pressing in on both sides of Jamestown. A path carved into the black rock zigzagged upward with little room for mistakes. Most of the French groaned in unison when they approached. One of the chambermaids burst into tears.

  A waterfall cascading down the extreme south end of the valley caught Amélie’s attention with a wisp of cool air. The fall’s diverted water flowed into a stone drain and out into reservoirs on the wharf to water incoming ships.

  She then stared up at the jagged rock face before her, her pulse thrumming—another challenge.

  “They call this Side Path,” Perrault said when they began their ascent. Chef Gascon sneezed and groaned. “Which sounds far too gentle for such a route.”

  “Barbaric, affreux! Why didn’t we stay on Elba? We could have found other positions.” Madame Cloubert poked her husband’s shoulder as their cart squeaked along in front of the Perraults. The narrow path had only a small lip of rock to keep them on track.

  Amélie gripped the cart seat. Clarice sat stiff in her cart, eyes squeezed shut, clutching her father’s arm as they jostled to the top.

  Leaving the cliff, they entered a hilly region of aloe and pomegranate. Dwarf jellico and samphire, wild among tree fern thickets, crowded both sides of the road as if battling to reclaim it.

  Amélie breathed in the sweet perfume and peppery smell and her spirits lifted. “Saint Helena is nice here. It may not be so unpleasant for us.”

  Her father patted her hand. “I’m sorry for bringing you. There must be a way for me to send you home to France.”

  “No, Papa. Don’t do that.” She shifted and stared at him. How could she make him understand she was capable of deciding? “I insist on staying.”

  The soldiers stopped at a long drive, shaded by banyan trees, leading to a low white house with a Hindu pavilion several yards to the right. African snowdrops and camellias blossomed in the yard and along the house’s walls. A sign on the gatepost read The Briars. Here Napoleon, his chief valet, and his chamberlain awaited them, along with the admiral and several soldiers.

  Napoleon walked over and hugged a girl of about fifteen who stood in the yard. A radiant smile transformed his face and Amélie’s breath caught in her throat. She felt a twinge of jealousy. He was her emperor, this man she’d watched from afar since a small child, bringing grandeur to her country. Until, as many insisted, he’d ruined it all with too much ambition.

  She stiffened, aware that an intelligent woman didn’t allow emotion to rule her.

  The emperor mounted his horse and rode between the admiral and Count Bertrand. People gathered along the road to watch him pass. Napoleon carried his head high, features now stern. Several Chinese laborers, jabbering in their strange tongue, dragged the carts with the emperor’s possessions.

  The caravan rambled farther east and the terrain turned mountainous, the vegetation disappearing. The road snaked around the island’s high narrow backbone of hills and knolls. A gray volcanic powder churned in a rising wind that whipped around their carts. Scattered gum trees with whorled trunks bent over and trembled in its wake, their sparse foliage blown inside out like broken umbrellas.

  Amélie sneezed in the dust and snatched her straw hat before it blew off. She tied its ribbon snug over her ears to soften the wind’s keening—a Siren’s lament.

  A colonial dwelling sat at a curve in the road that led over a narrow track between two steep valleys. The house and track were called Hutt’s Gate, one of the soldiers said. Their procession circled a gorge then rolled onto a desolate, slightly undulating plain.

  “This area is named Deadwood,” Perrault said. Amélie didn’t care for that ominous description. She said nothing, unwilling to give her father another reason to send her home.

  Oxen and carts trundled across the plain and approached a yellow wood and stucco structure with a gray slate roof called Longwood house. Surrounded by a low stone wall, broken in spots like missing teeth, the place looked grim. The entire area appeared ravaged by the elements.

  A group of mustered soldiers beat out a drum salute. The emperor’s black pony reared back, refusing to enter the gate of their new domicile.

  Amélie chewed on her thumbnail, a habit she struggled to break.

  Soldiers directed the Perraults to the rear of the dwelling. A wooden outbuilding—beaten gray and scarred by weather—stood in a courtyard directly behind the main house, not three feet from the kitchen. Amélie opened a door that squeaked on rusted hinges and peered in at their new home.

  “We are better off here,” her father confided from over her shoulder. “Marchand said the other servants will be forced to inhabit an attic in the main house.”

  She turned from the dim passage, which separated two tiny chambers and a rank privy. A spider busily spun a web from the splintered ceiling. “Tres fortune, if we scrub it up.” Part of her wished for quarters in the main house, to be at the center, instead of always to the side. She stepped farther in, away from her father in case he sensed her disappointment. “Of course, I’ll take the smaller room on the left.” This chamber resembled a drab closet, but would be hers alone.

  After unpacking, Amélie entered the adjacent kitchen and found her father and Chef Gascon already there.

  “There’s no space for us to do anything properly.” Gascon moaned as he plopped his array of cookware and pastry utensils down on the rough-hewn table. He appraised them with his droopy hound-dog eyes. “How can we prepare His Majesty’s cuisine under these conditions?”

  The kitchen appeared cramped and primitive for their extensive household. The cupboards sagged and the walls had rotten spots like a bad apple. The stench of mildew clung to every surface. Amélie opened the one window. “Some paint, a vinegar scrub should help.”

  “We’ll just have to learn to create miracles.” Perrault inspected a severe crack in the stove. He turned to them, his smile placating, if withered at the edges.

  “There’s a small pantry here.” She opened the door of a cabinet against the kitchen’s back wall. She started at seeing the shelves, sticky with remnants of flour and sugar, crawling with hordes of ants. Several crept up her arm and she jerked back. The door she held broke off and fell on the d
irt floor with a thump. “A sad, neglected place, it requires our care.”

  * * * *

  Amélie left her outbuilding and the courtyard and walked away from the main house. Past the stables, several hundred yards off, a sentry tower loomed in full view. Closer in on the plain, soldiers attempted to pitch tents that flapped in the gale. The wind pulled at her hair as she looked at the jagged cliffs half encircling the plain. The boundless ocean thrashed to the east, stretching to the sky, blending like a bowl of blue.

  This part of the island did have a stark beauty. Then the sunlight vanished as thick clouds carpeted the sky. The air turned chill and Amélie shivered, unable to see any distance in front of her through the sudden mist. She rubbed her arms, and hurried back and across the courtyard.

  The banging noise of hammers from the ship’s carpenters still working on one of the wings followed her through Longwood’s back door. The stink of mold mixed with fresh paint filled her nostrils. She passed from one chamber into a dining room where several servants rushed by carrying boxes, arguing over what went where.

  A door to the left in the dining room opened. The chamberlain, the Count de Las Cases, pattered past her. Amélie stretched to peek through the open door just as Napoleon strode out. She stepped back and bumped a sideboard, almost toppling a silver candlestick.

  “The English are in such a hurry to surround me with guards, they’ve rushed us in here. These accommodations are not satisfactory. I can’t stomach the smell of paint.” Napoleon rubbed his nose. “Then Bertrand’s self-seeking wife thinks she’s too grand to share my abode. Where did they go? Remind me?”

  “Hutt’s Gate, Sire. Very disloyal of them both, I must say.” The diminutive count straightened the medals on his French fleet captain’s uniform. He bobbed his head and pointy nose like a wood-boring bird. “They should be honored to be here with you, as I am.”

  Napoleon paced the room in quick steps. Anxious to draw attention, Amélie knocked the sideboard with her hip. The candlestick plunked onto the floor. She smiled, but only Las Cases glanced in her direction. He waved her away with fluttering fingers.

  “Ah, but we must show the British we are above such petty annoyances.” Napoleon slowed, hands clasped behind his back, his expression thoughtful. “Cockburn will find no reason to belittle me for the short time I’ll remain here.” He reentered his chamber and shut the door.

  “Above petty annoyances, yes indeed,” the little count mumbled before flitting from the dining room.

  Amélie sighed after the emperor’s closed door. She might have been a flyspeck on the wall as far as Napoleon was concerned. She picked up the candlestick. How did one get noticed in this hierarchy and still follow protocol?

  She squeezed by a scratched table and passed into the drawing room. A black stone chimneypiece gave this chamber a touch of elegance. She entered the front hall, the salon de reception, a spacious room painted green.

  Amélie’s stomach tangled in knots over this decrepit abode and furniture that looked dragged from a trash heap. Longwood’s walls resembled withered veneer, a thin protection from the gathering soldiers. The wind shook the house on all sides of her, as if giant hands struggled to twist it from its foundations.

  “Enjoying our new palace, are you?” Clarice tramped into the room scowling, her arms full of linens. “How nice you can stand around doing nothing. Peste, I’m sure I can find something to busy you.”

  “You have no authority over me. I will busy myself where I please.” Amélie turned and walked through the house and outside to her quarters. To have authority over something in her life, even if just Clarice’s demands, gave her a moment of triumph.

  She inspected her room once more—a space she could barely turn around in between the bed and scarred chest of drawers. In Lyon she’d shared a room with her young niece. Here she was happy to have her own space like in Paris. Amélie picked up the lace doily from atop the chest and held it to her cheek, remembering her mother’s soft kisses there.

  Madame Perrault had been a skilled lace maker. Her Italian mother’s sought after creations helped to finance the children’s schooling. To Amélie’s benefit, her father championed education, even for girls. She had excelled in the Paris school, fulfilling her father’s confidence in her, but after her mother’s sudden death, he’d sent her to live with her brother in Lyon. Between helping with domestic duties and longing to be back in Paris, she’d kept her mind sharp with extensive reading.

  She replaced the doily and ran her hands over the books she’d stacked on her bed, caressing the tooled leather. Books opened up the world, something a person like Clarice would never understand.

  She picked up the herb book she’d brought. Plants might transform the bare ground around them. Her father had requested some seedlings while still in Jamestown.

  A red-spotted insect with multiple legs crawling near one book caught her attention. Amélie snatched up a handkerchief and nudged it off the bed. Her room filled with a foul odor that burned her eyes. She held her nose and hurried back outside and almost into the silk skirt of the Countess de Montholon.

  “Oh, Charles, this place is worse than I thought.” The countess, on the arm of her husband, brushed past Amélie as if she were a fence post. The woman’s frown switched to a smile. With her delicate features marred by over-rouged lips, she looked like a marble bust slathered across the mouth with red paint. “How long do we have to stay here? Not that I mind…too much, but you refuse to tell me how dire your money situation is. Is that why we left France?”

  “Be patient, mon ange. This is all a political necessity. You wouldn’t understand.” Montholon stroked her cheek, but his gaze reprimanded. “Our stay depends on how long it takes me to do what I must. Hopefully, no one will get in my way.”

  Amélie stared after them as they entered the main house. The stench from her room seemed to trail behind these so-called aristocrats.

  Chapter Three

  Their [women] passion must not be awakened, nor must vanity, the most active passion of the sex, be aroused—N.B.

  Napoleon mounted his horse. He couldn’t wait to leave the staleness of his cramped quarters where the walls pressed in on him. Cockburn promised he could ride unmolested, without escort, the few miles around the property. Imagine, the once master of Europe having to be subjugated by such a man, and limited to this paltry area. He thought briefly of the crowds who had shouted “Vive l’Empereur!” as he traveled from Paris to Rochefort after his final abdication—though such memories lost their power to cheer him. “Las Cases, we will ride as if we are on the fields of France,” he said to his companion.

  “Of course, Sire. We will enjoy our reconnaissance like good soldiers.” The count held tight to the pommel, his feet barely reaching the stirrups. “I’m privileged just to ride in your shadow. Like the Colossus of Rhodes, you cast your shadow over the world. Now you’re a spirit on the Elysian Fields.”

  Napoleon chuckled to himself, for Las Cases reined in his pen far more than a horse. He appreciated the man’s culture, but knew he’d joined him just to write of his life. “We will live in the past,” Napoleon had said to comfort himself when still at The Briars. The little count also spoke fluent English and struggled to teach him that language, which should prove useful.

  The emperor allowed Hope his head and galloped over the marled earth. The bleak plain spread between the sea and craggy mountains that thrust up like prison bars—his new empire.

  Slowing his black charger, Napoleon glared up at the colored flags that snapped around a high wire suspended from the observation tower. Each morning the soldiers hoisted a flag from Alarm House to communicate the current “condition” of their prisoner to the admiral on the other side of the island. He couldn’t recall what some of the colors meant, except the white flag indicated “He is well” and the blue “He has escaped.”

  Napo
leon raised his head and flexed back his shoulders to shed off these insults.

  With Las Cases he rode past the Deadwood Camp, a camp thrown together in full view of their residence the minute the French took possession of Longwood. A group of soldiers scrambled from their tents and ran toward them. Napoleon grimaced. Over what infraction would he be harassed?

  The soldiers lined up and saluted him. Napoleon filled with pleasure. He smiled and tipped his hat. “Ah, if I had but a few minutes with these troops, they would know how to treat me. They should respect Europe’s greatest soldier.”

  “They should indeed, Sire.” Las Cases preened in the saddle.

  Hope stumbled near the ravine that separated the camp from Longwood. Red mud scattered from the stallion’s hooves and Napoleon jostled in the saddle. He grabbed the pommel and jammed his feet in the stirrups, nearly losing his balance. He righted himself and hoped none of the soldiers took heed. He’d never sat securely on horseback, that’s why on campaign he’d preferred to travel in the coach he designed himself. Now, after gaining so much weight, riding proved more unwieldy.

  “The English waste their time on these useless precautions,” Napoleon blurted to the little count, aware he had to convince himself as well. “France will soon demand my freedom. That Bourbon ganache who came in the baggage of the allies will sour them again. The French are fickle. They need me.”

  “Sire, if the French, fickle as we are—and there are the British to contend with—take too long to appreciate you…perhaps you should consider other options.”

  Napoleon pressed his thighs against Hope’s flanks, a brief warmth. Did the little count broach the impossible? “What are you saying, mon ami?”

  “In Jamestown I happened to have met an Irish merchant captain.” Las Cases twitched his lips. “He might be interested in aiding you, if you pardon me, in leaving the island.”

  * * * *

  Her gardening book propped up, Amélie leafed through the pages. Rain pelted the kitchen window, splattering red slime over the pane. A shutter banged against the wall on a broken hinge. She glanced out at the ooze in the courtyard, rethinking her wish to convert this place into a paradise.