Читать книгу The Last Love - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 19

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Work on the improvements at Longwood proceeded slowly. The only mechanics available were slipshod and slow. The rotting floors were replaced by unseasoned wood and no efforts were made to provide proper foundations. It seemed impossible to do away with the rats. The sharp faces of inquisitive rodents peered out from holes on every side. It seemed equally impossible to vanquish the stable odors which clung to the old timbers and even filled the new rooms with an all-pervading reek.

For this and other reasons, Napoleon showed no desire to leave the Briars. He had become absorbed into the home life of the Balcombe family and, to the amazement of everyone, he seemed to be quite happy. The two boys paid him daily visits and the younger one, little Alex, would climb up on his knees and play with the glittering decorations he sometimes wore. They called him “Boney” and even made him the victim of boyish tricks. In the evenings there were games of hide-and-seek and blindman’s buff in which everyone joined although the results had a certain monotony; Napoleon caught Betsy or she caught him. Not a morning passed without her “It’s me!” reaching his ears from the garden gate. She was always welcome and she would listen to his dictation with absorbed attention. She never failed to make comments, sometimes devastatingly unfavorable, on what he was setting down. They would fall into bitter arguments, some of which the girl won.

The Captive had brought a number of horses and three coaches. In addition a calèche had been purchased for him at Cape Town, a light and open carriage. One of his daily recreations was to go for rides along the narrow and winding mountain roads. He seemed devoid of fear and would sit back in complete relaxation while calling to the coachman for speed and more speed. This was dangerous in the extreme for the roads along the rocky sides of the hills had been constructed for the most careful and sedate of travel. Often the carriage wheels would be within inches of the edge. It was perhaps not so much an evidence of courage that he could sit with folded arms and calmly look down into the abyss yawning beneath but as of belief in his own destiny. He was convinced it was not in the stars that he could be involved in the kind of mishaps which snuffed out the lives of ordinary men.

He took Betsy on one of the first of these daredevil adventures along the mountain roads. She cringed in a corner of the carriage with her hands covering her face. Napoleon watched her out of a corner of his eye but made no move to check the mad speed at which they were going. When they returned to the Briars, safe and sound but badly shaken up, Betsy stepped down slowly to the ground. Her face was white, and she seemed to be trembling.

“Did you enjoy the ride?” asked Napoleon.

She found it hard to answer at first but finally managed to say, “It was—it was quite exciting, wasn’t it?”

“Are you ill?”

“Oh, no, sire, I am not ill.”

“You look pale, ma petite. I am concerned about you.”

“There is no need for that, sire.”

The next time he sent her an invitation to join him, there was some small delay but she finally arrived and took her place in the opposite corner of the rear seat. She was wearing a poke bonnet, tied with a blue ribbon under her chin. It was most becoming but its purpose, clearly, was to serve as a “blinder.”

“Eh bien! It is a compliment for you to wear such a very fine bonnet. Shall I tell Archambault to go somewhat slower today?” asked Napoleon.

Betsy replied without any hesitation. “Please, sire, you must not consider anything but your own desires.”

The drive was, therefore, a repetition of the first one. At the end Betsy thanked him politely but vanished quickly into the house. “A brave little creature, that one,” Napoleon said to Las Cases who was waiting in the garden for the incessant dictation to begin. “There is a word for it in the English. I think it is ‘game.’ ”

“Your Imperial Highness,” said Las Cases, speaking with the utmost formality, “I trust you will pardon my frankness. I am finding the intrusions of this child very difficult to endure. She interrupts our work all the time. Do you realize, sire, how little progress we are making?”

“Have no fear, Marquis, we will provide you with plenty of material for that very profitable publishing venture you have in mind. Has it not occurred to you that the intrusions of Betsee offer you an amusing sidelight for the book you intend to write?”