Читать книгу The Last Love - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 16

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The Marquis de Las Cases was waiting for him on the unroofed porch. He also had fallen under the spell of Sarah’s bread and was brushing crumbs from his waistcoat with a chubby hand. The marquis could be described as a tubby man; in stature an inch shorter than Napoleon, his neck thick, his waistline prodigious; a careless and indifferent dresser, moreover. There was a hint of the scorbutic in his ample cheeks and his layers of chin.

“M’sieur le marquis,” said Napoleon, regarding the sky, which was without a cloud, “this will be an excellent day for work.”

“As you say, sire, most excellent. It occurred to me that a table might be placed for us under that clump of tamarinds, and I asked Gentelini to see to it. Ah, here he is. I,—er, took it on myself to have Gentelini lock the gate. To avoid interruptions, sire.”

“Then let us proceed.”

Napoleon’s attitude while dictating, when not pacing up and down, was to lean so far back in his chair that his face would be turned up to the sky, and to keep his eyes closed. The first sentences would come slowly like the preliminary pacing of cavalry but would soon develop into a tumult of words which resembled the headlong charge of his horse brigades on a downslope. He had no mercy on the hand which strove to get his words on paper. Sometimes he would pause and make some such remark as, “Wait! Go back to—oh, you know where I mean, the place where I talked to someone—found it yet? Ma foi, how slow you are, my dear Marquis! Well, this is how I want it worded.” And he would be off on another rampage of rhetoric, some of it well considered and clear but a great deal turgid and impossible to follow.

For an hour he went along at his fastest gait and the pudgy hands and arms of Las Cases seemed ready to give up in sheer exhaustion.

“We are going well today, my dear Marquis,” said Napoleon, nodding with self-satisfaction. “I think I am making the conception of the campaign entirely clear.”

“Yes, sire, I pray that my notes will be equally clear.”

At this moment the sound of light footsteps sounded on the path from the other side of the fence. A quick tap on the gate was followed by a girlish voice, crying: “It’s me! Let me in.”

A gratified smile spread across the features of the Great Man. “It’s la petite Betsee,” he said. “Unlock the gate for her, Las Cases.

“But, sire, we had decided not to allow interruptions—”

Napoleon rang a bell on the table and ordered Gentelini, a footman who had followed him from his first exile at Elba, to bring a third chair. The titled amanuensis seemed about to argue about this but decided, after a second glance at the Napoleonic countenance, that it would be of no avail. Betsy came in, smiling over an armful of flowers.

“Oh, sire,” she exclaimed, “you have laid a spell on Toby. He actually cut these for me to bring. If it had been for any of the family, he would have shaken his head and said, ‘No flowahs to be cut!’ Toby is a tyrant.”

“Do you mean the very black little fellow who was working in the gardens all last evening?

“Yes, sire. He was brought here on a slave ship from Africa.”

Napoleon got to his feet and walked over to a spot in front of the porch where part of the sod had been cut away in the form of a crown. “He was here early this morning, I am told, and paid me this very pleasant tribute.”

“How clever of Toby! But please, sire, don’t let anyone else know. He would get into trouble.”

“Your wishes in the matter, mam’selle, will be scrupulously observed. The honest Toby must be spared trouble. And now, will you stay a while with us?”

“Will I be in the way?”

“Not at all. Your presence will lend some amelioration to a difficult task. I have had a chair brought out especially for you. But you must promise not to talk.”

She did not take the chair immediately. Instead she stood up very straight and patted her skirts into place with a self-conscious air.

“Do you like this dress,” she asked.

“I like the color ... What have you done to your hair?”

“I wanted to look my best. So I brushed and brushed and brushed!” Then abruptly she asked, “Who’s that?” She had caught sight of a young and sober face pressed against the glass in the attic window. The face disappeared at once.

“That is my son Emmanuel,” said Las Cases shortly.

“But, m’sieur, what is he doing up there?” She obviously was disturbed. “It gets awfully hot in that attic room in the daytime. I never go there in summer any more.”

“He is working,” explained the marquis, addressing himself to Napoleon. “Last evening he did no work at all and so I told him he must make up the lost ground.”

“Is it necessary, my dear Marquis, to have these copies made of your notes? Why can’t you put them down legibly in the first place?”

“Sire! have you any idea how fast you talk? No human being could get it all down correctly. I have found it necessary to develop a kind of shorthand which Emmanuel understands. He goes over all my notes and makes a fair copy of them.”

“All unnecessary! When Berthier was with me, and we went driving over the face of Europe day and night in that remarkable coach of mine—which I designed—I never stopped dictating orders and letters, hour after hour. Berthier got everything down perfectly. He never made a mistake. Ah, how much I missed the fellow in my last campaign. But he lacked the courage to come out for me after I left Elba.” Napoleon paused and glanced up at the window above them. “Aren’t you working him too hard? The boy doesn’t look very healthy.”

“The boy is healthy enough. He’s growing, you know, and that makes him look lean.”

Betsy had thought the owner of the face at the window looked lonely and unhappy. “Are all French boys as dark and homely as that?” she wondered. She felt sorry for him but this did not seriously disturb her satisfaction in the role she was now to be allowed. She seated herself in the third chair and patted her skirts into place. “I’ll not say a word, sire,” she promised.

So the work was resumed and after a few moments Napoleon was as much absorbed in his task as he had been before her arrival. For half an hour he continued to talk about the turning point in his military career which had come when he was appointed to the command of the French armies in Italy. Betsy sat as still as a bird on a twig and did not speak a word. The pen of Las Cases raced and sputtered in his frantic haste and left many blots on the paper. He did not dare stop long enough to take a pinch of snuff, although the condition of his neckcloth and waistcoat attested the fact that he was an addict. “What a very unpleasant-looking man,” thought Betsy.

Finally the voice of the great conqueror came to a halt. He paused, changed his position, and, after a luxuriant stretch of his arms and legs, addressed himself to Betsy.

“Well, my child. Did you find it interesting?”

Betsy fidgeted uneasily in her chair. Should she temporize? Or would it be better to say what she thought?

“No, sire,” she said, finally.

“No! I am surprised. I thought it was all most exciting.”

“It was”—she hesitated again—“it was rather dull.”

“Dull!” Napoleon’s voice carried an incredulous note.

“Dull!” echoed the marquis.

“Well, it was all about cannon and ammunition and supplies. You didn’t tell any of the kind of stories I read in other books.”

“Other books? What other books?”

“Books about you, sire. Have you any idea how many have been written about you? Every ship that puts in has a great load of them. Everybody reads them because we have no other way on this island of keeping up with events. Of course I only see the proper ones, because Mamma picks them out herself. Sometimes she takes a pen and inks out parts. Sometimes, too, she tears out whole pages before letting us have the book.”

“Does that happen often?”

“Oh, yes, sire, all the time. I can’t help wondering what is said on the pages which get torn out and burned. I do my reading at nights. I put a screen around my bed so the light won’t disturb Jane, who likes to sleep. Sometimes I read for three or four hours. Often Mamma comes up and puts out the candle.”

“And what,” he demanded, “is there in these books which you miss in what I’m dictating?”

“Oh, they always have a lot of stories. Mostly about you but sometimes about other people. Sometimes the stories are very amusing and sometimes they are—well, sort of gossipy. And they always give a lot of details. About how the ladies at the court dressed, and the talks you had with them, and all that.”

“Don’t you ever read about my campaigns? About the great battles?”

“Of course! I think I like the description of battles better than anything else. But I—I skip the details about cannon and ammunition.”

“You mean that you skip the kind of things I’ve been dictating today.”

“Yes, sire. I’m afraid you think me very stupid.”

Napoleon moved his chair around so that he was facing her. He studied her face intently. Suddenly he pounded his hands down on his knees. “Las Cases, she’s right!” he exclaimed. “It is dull. I was finding it dull myself and that was why I went so slowly.”

“Slowly!” said the marquis to himself, flexing his numbed fingers.

“Tear these notes up!” commanded Napoleon. “Tear them into shreds and burn them. This afternoon we’ll start again and I shall put in some personal information as well. Many incidents occurred to me this morning but I brushed them aside, thinking them trivial or immaterial. Now I am sure I was wrong. I remembered what Augureau called me when I arrived in camp. Le petit bougre! The remark was heard and soon even the men in the ranks were calling me that. But my men found that I knew more about warfare than all the rest of the generals put together—and, when they called me that, it was a term of endearment.” He checked himself and looked with a guilty air at Betsy. “Did you understand what I was saying?”

“N-no, sire.”

“That is good. I must be more careful when you are around.” He got slowly to his feet. “There is still an hour before lunch. What do you propose to do with all that time, ma petite?”

“I have an errand to do. I must ride over to one of our neighbors. The Veiled Lady. I left some fresh peaches there yesterday afternoon and I must go back for the basket.”

“I shall go with you,” decided Napoleon. He raised his voice. “Archambault! I am going to ride. Saddle Mameluke.”

Betsy sprang to her feet also. “I’ll have to hurry and change, sire. This is my best dress and Mamma would be furious with me if I rode in it. I’ll only be a few minutes.”