Читать книгу The Last Love - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 11

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The Comte de Bertrand had left, accompanied by all the members of Napoleon’s train. They were to return as soon as possible with the supplies needed to make him comfortable in the somewhat primitive pavilion. Napoleon seemed to have dismissed the matter from his mind. He lay back in his chair and continued to talk with Betsy.

“I don’t want you to get into trouble, ma petite, over what you call me. Suppose we leave it this way: you will say ‘sire’ when no one is within hearing who might object. At other times it will be wise for you to address me in accordance with their orders.”

“Yes, sire.”

The conversation went on from one thing to another. They discussed the burning of Moscow, and, as it happened, the girl had read enough on that subject to ask intelligent questions. There was considerable talk about the members of the Bonaparte family and the parts they had played. It was Betsy who introduced the most controversial of subjects by asking what he could have done instead of surrendering himself into the hands of the English. Despite the fact that his audience was made up solely of a fourteen-year-old girl, Napoleon went into this problem with the utmost seriousness.

“I could have gone on fighting,” he said, “but I sensed that the French people were war-weary and I doubted if their resolution would have sufficed to win me a stalemate with the allied armies. And—yes, I must say it. I was weary myself. I knew it would have been necessary to shoot a good many of the French leaders to keep the assembly under my thumb. Could I have succeeded in this sufficiently to keep the struggle going for the balance of the year? Frankly, I had doubts.

“If I had fought on, they might have been willing to compromise for the sake of peace. I might have been allowed to resume the throne. They might even have allowed me to have my son back.” He remained silent for several moments and then sighed deeply. “I would have been satisfied with that. I had seen enough of fighting. But I realized how heavy the odds were against me.”

Betsy was listening with intense interest. Living so far away from the scene of the European struggle, the people of St. Helena depended on what they could get in the way of reading matter. When a ship from England put in at the island, there was always a scramble to get letters, to claim the months’-old newspapers, the pamphlets and books. The girl had devoured all that came into the Balcombe household, all judged proper for her eyes. Her mother made it a rule to read everything first, and Betsy had been fully conscious that Mrs. Balcombe was a severe censor. Even at that, however, certain names had strayed into the restricted area of her reading—Marie Walewska, La Bellilote, Grassini, Mademoiselle George of the Paris theater. She had, also, gained a surprisingly clear understanding of the state problems and of the campaigns.

“But why didn’t you get on a ship for America, sire?” she asked him.

“I made a great blunder in not doing that,” he conceded. “I could have lived there in great comfort as my brother Joseph will certainly do. Gradually a great many Bonapartists would drift across the Atlantic to join us. We would have lived on our memories. It would have become like the Elysian Fields. Do you understand, my child, what I mean by that?”

“No, sire,” answered Betsy.

“The Elysian Fields are a stretch of high land in Parnassus to which warriors are translated without dying. They live there forever in great honor.”

Betsy frowned slightly as she thought this over. “Would there be anything for you to do on these plains but—well, to sit around and talk?” she asked, finally.

“I’m afraid not. You have put your finger on the weak point, my child. Could men of action be content for long to do nothing but talk about the past?” There was a protracted pause. “I am not sure the Americans would have had much sympathy for us. They are people of action in their own way. For a time perhaps we would be lionized, but after that there would be a long period of silence and neglect while we—we rusted away. Still,” he continued, “I was guilty of a bad error of judgment in throwing myself on the mercy of the English. They have none, these hard, selfish people!”

Finally they came back to Betsy herself. All through the conversation he had been watching her, and now he said abruptly: “You are too pretty to be English. The women of England are fitted for nothing better than to become the wives of shopkeepers.”

Betsy could not let this pass. “No, no, no, sire!” she exclaimed. “That isn’t fair. Nearly all my friends at school were pretty. And they were bright and nice.”

Napoleon gave a scornful gesture. “Pouf!” he said. “I’ve known many English women and they’ve all been the same. Always dull and with faces like pastry just out of the oven.”

Betsy had discovered that the tie on one of her pantalettes had become loose. She bent over to tighten it. Napoleon watched her with an amused smile.

“You are the one exception, Mam’selle Betsee. But there’s a fault I must point out in you. You should not wear those absurd things.”

“I hate them!” cried Betsy, straightening up. “But we have to wear them until we are fifteen, at least. It’s such a silly fashion!”

“How much longer must you be a slave to it?”

“Another year. Unless I can talk Mamma into letting me discard them sooner. I’m afraid that’s not likely. Mamma is a believer in rules.”

“French girls no longer wear them,” asserted Napoleon. “They went out with the Bourbon kings. Together with many things equally wrong and foolish.”

“I didn’t know that.” Betsy seemed rather puzzled. “But I think French women were foolish to give them up. They have thick ankles and should be glad to hide them.”

“French women are beautiful!” declared the Man of Destiny, frowning imperiously. “They are clever. They are fascinating. And they do not have thick ankles. A girl like you should not criticize them. Ma foi, how many have you known?”

“Quite a few, sire.”

“And did any of them have thick ankles?”

“Yes, sire. All of them did.”

He leaned forward to rest his arms on his knees and for several moments regarded her with an air of serious study. He was thinking: “What an extraordinary little creature. Most girls of her age would say nothing but ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and look frightened and stupid. But here she is, talking to me with more frankness than any of the members of my train.”

Betsy was beginning to look disturbed. “I am sorry, sire, that I seem bold to you.”

“I am not charging you with boldness. I am charging you with intelligence. And with courage.” The pallid cheeks of the captive lighted up completely at this point. “Now that we are so deep into the subject, I will make a confession. You are partly right. Many French women are heavy. Let me tell you the full truth about feminine beauty. You don’t find it in England. No, no, never in England! Rarely do you find it in France or Germany; although my second wife was fresh and pretty. No, it is necessary to go to Italy. Ah, how lovely they are, the women of Italy. I mean when they are young. You know, Mam’selle Betsee, I am not French by birth. The people of Corsica are Italian. My sister Pauline, who is the most beautiful woman in the world, is the perfect Italian type. She is a sensible woman, that one. She devotes herself to her looks and doesn’t bother her head about politics.”

He paused and then began to laugh. “So, French women have thick ankles! You really do say what’s in your mind. And here am I, after knowing countless fascinating French women, agreeing with you. I see we are really going to live up to that agreement we made.”