Josephine's Garden Page 4

  Inside, the two women walked arm in arm up a grand staircase, carrying their baskets. Rose saw Thérésa had added skeins of bloodied hair and knitting needles to her basket. She looked away, shocked. A touch too far, she thought, even for her wicked friend. The walls were draped in black velvet and lit by flaming brands. The smell of smoking wax caught in her throat. Are the ghosts watching, Rose wondered, the beheaded ghosts of so many friends and lovers? What must they think of us?

  A shout made her turn. Below them there was a ruckus on the stairs. A man in uniform was being turned away. He had no red scarf tied around his neck, had made no effort to come in costume. Did he not know that only survivors were allowed admittance? Only those who had lost their family members to the Terror?

  Rose recognised the sharp outline of his jaw, the ferocity of his hooded eyes. It was the young soldier she had spoken with at Barras’s party. His lank hair was still greasy, his body gaunt and uniform ill-fitting. He looked up with a wild intensity that scared her.

  ‘Do you know that man?’ she whispered to Thérésa.

  ‘The Corsican? Bonaparte?’ Her friend snorted. ‘They say he was not even in Paris during the Terror. He has not seen what we have seen.’

  A throng of people were gathering behind him. The soldier was refusing to leave.

  ‘He has sent me gifts,’ Rose said, and she drew her cashmere shawl tighter around her shoulders. ‘And bouquets of flowers.’

  ‘Charming Rose, have you been too kind again? You should not flatter the runt of the litter if you do not want it to follow you home.’

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Laugh at him or sleep with him. Both will end the infatuation. The former quicker than the latter.’

  Rose nudged her quick-witted friend. So assured for her twenty years. Rose admired her enormously. At the same age, Rose had been an abandoned wife with two young children, sent to live in a convent by her husband.

  The soldier was roughly marched from the premises. His coat was bunched up around his shoulders and, as he turned back to her, his look pinned her to the stair. Rose felt guilty, as though she was somehow complicit in his humiliating treatment. Was he here because of her?

  But then all thoughts of Bonaparte fled as General Hoche entered the lobby. Thérésa gripped her arm. Rose moaned. Hoche was not looking up at her; he was turning behind him, helping a companion, putting an arm around her waist. His young wife. Unconsciously, Rose smoothed her hands over her silk dress, feeling it cling to her curves. She waited for him, urging him to look up, needing him to see her and feel his heart leap.

  He was just as she imagined he would look in his full regimental uniform, cape over one shoulder, red sash at his neck, and just as devastatingly handsome. His beloved face was the same, his hair still lush. She could not breathe; she longed to see those dark eyes fall upon her.

  But as Hoche and his wife climbed the stairs, his eyes sought her out only to implore her not to make a scene. Rose breathed quickly, lips parted, her mouth and nose filling with the smoke in the air. Had he forgotten their passion? She had never made love to anyone as she had with him, with such force, such a need to be pierced, plugged, glued, so deeply jointed to another person.

  When he reached her it took all her will not to throw her arms around him. She wanted to press herself against him, to stir his cock, to remind him what pleasures her lips and tongue could give. Instead, they spoke like strangers, discussing the weather and the state of the roads. ‘Yes, the summer has been hot,’ she heard herself murmur. All the while his pretty young wife, not yet seventeen, stared at Rose from beneath her blonde wig with that look of a wife still in possession of her husband. And then Rose heard Lazare Hoche wish her well and pass her by.

  Her knees buckled. Thérésa held her up. ‘Don’t let them see your weakness,’ she hissed into Rose’s ear. ‘Be a goddess. Be Diana.’ Rose stared at the bloodstained skeins of human hair in Thérésa’s basket and her stomach heaved. She couldn’t stay here any longer. She gripped the wall. This was a farce. A sick imitation. These walls dripped with velvet luxury not with slime and mould. She could no longer endure this morbid fascination with their sufferings. That time for her was now pure misery.

  ‘I have to go.’

  She ran down the blackened stairs, tearing the red sash from her neck.

  Out on the street, she found herself alone among the departing carriages and with the certainty that she had nowhere else to go.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Autumn 1795

  After Lazare Hoche shrugged her off like a dirty coat, Rose decided that hearts were too delicate and precious to be given to another. All those promises they’d whispered together now sickened her. He had chosen to remain with his infantile wife. The thought of it choked her with humiliation.

  The summer lost its heat quickly that year and the chill suited her mood. She would tame her reckless passions and become enterprising instead. It was what everyone admired in these times: men who saw opportunities and had the courage to seize them. Entrepreneurs. She would count herself among them.

  Barras needed her to entertain. Her talents were people and their pleasures and soon the parties at her country house in Croissy were legendary. Invitations were exclusive and boasted about for weeks. She built a reputation as the finest hostess in Paris and she was proud of that, proud that Barras had chosen her to be the head of his social elite. She hosted parties where nothing was forbidden and she kept her heart tightly leashed.

  Tonight her feast celebrated autumn and Rose settled on the arm of Barras’s chair at the head of her heaving table. She was pleased to see all the members of the National Convention, the current rulers of France, seated among the socialites of Paris. Her glorious Merveilleuses graced one side of the table and the Bichons, those rival women with their awful frizzy white wigs that made them look like miniature dogs, entertained on the other.

  The long table was heavy with dishes: roasted game birds lay breast up, a fawn sat with her feet tucked neatly beneath her, a suckling pig lay splayed on its belly, spit-roasted. And in the centre of it all, Thérésa Tallien reclined on her side, as still as stone, striking a broken-hearted pose amid the platters of spike-leaved pineapples and split pomegranates. Her expression was gentle, her chin tilted towards her shoulder, and a wig of blonde curls whispered over her shoulders. A drape of fabric crossed her lap while the rest of her body was as bare as a classical statue. Rose watched entranced along with everyone else to see if she would move a muscle. Naughty Tallien tickled the sole of her foot with a feather and Thérésa burst into giggles. Rose smiled as glasses were raised to her friend and Barras urged the feast to begin.

  Rose noticed the soldier Bonaparte leaning against a tapestry on the wall, half hidden in the shadows. He had not joined her table and was scowling at Thérésa as Tallien stole the strip of fabric from her lap, leaving her naked.

  Rose stroked Barras’s neck. ‘Why do you invite that man?’ she asked.

  Barras waved across to the soldier, catching his eye and beckoning him towards them.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ Rose squealed. ‘I see him everywhere. He follows us. Every ball, every play, and he never looks as if he is enjoying himself.’

  ‘The boy has a bright future. You should take his interest as a compliment.’

  ‘Are you bored of me?’ she accused teasingly.

  ‘Never.’ He took her hand and placed it on his groin.

  Roaring fires blazed at each end of the dining room. Fresh logs were thrown, spitting, into the flames. Barras liked the heat and Rose was usually glad of it, but tonight she found it stifling.

  On the table, Thérésa rolled onto her hands and knees and prowled through the dishes like a panther. Rose watched Barras lower his chin, intent on her slow advance towards him. He crunched a strip of pork belly. ‘Bonaparte only wants what other men have.’

  Rose glanced at the angular young Corsican. He glowered at them, scratching at the scabs on the back of his hands. S
he shuddered.

  ‘He is out of favour with the Convention,’ Barras continued, ‘but I find it useful to promote a man down on his luck. It makes him grateful. You would do well to accept his advances.’

  She stiffened. What did Barras mean by that? she wondered. Was she to be his whore now?

  ‘Besides, you are damned expensive to run!’ Barras slapped her buttock. ‘You think this beautiful house of yours pays for itself? Let another man share the load!’

  She clenched her jaw. Barras presumed too much. He was not the only man who would be her benefactor.

  His sidelong glance was shrewd. ‘Hoche will not leave his wife for the likes of you, my dear, if that’s what you are hoping for. He knows you will bleed him dry.’

  Rose withdrew her hand from Barras’s groin.

  He laughed. ‘You do want your daughter to be educated at Madame Campan’s, don’t you? The fees that woman charges are extortionate.’

  Rose felt her cheeks flush. Her breath quickened and she struggled to control it; she could not let Barras see that his words had struck fear in her. Did he mean to deny Hortense her future? She burned with rage thinking of all she had endured, the liberties she had allowed Barras and his friends, to ensure that Hortense, her talented, scholarly daughter, would receive the education she craved. Her nostrils flared. She watched him wipe grease from his chin with a snow-white napkin.

  ‘I suggest you entertain the young general,’ he concluded.

  The smell of game meat was thick in the air. Rose watched the diners feed each other pieces of flesh, licking lips and fingers, faces glistening with sweat and anticipation. It turned her stomach.

  Thérésa prowled her way to the head of the banquet table and dipped her breast into Barras’s champagne coupe.

  Rose uncurled herself from Barras’s side and crossed the floor. The soldier pushed himself away from the wall, flicking his ashen fringe from his face. Rose reached for Bonaparte’s hand, leading him upstairs before the room descended into orgy.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Spring 1796

  ‘You cannot take this man on blind faith.’ The notary slapped his leather gloves on his desk, upsetting a pot of ink and sending a spreading black stain across his papers. He swore. Swabbed. Then swore again.

  Rose straightened her back and stuck out her chin, content to wait. She had arrived at the appointed hour of eight in the evening at the Hôtel de Mondragon, a former mansion now appropriated as a town hall. Bonaparte was already two hours late.

  ‘He has nothing but his cloak and his sword. Tell her, Barras. Tell her she is fool to tie herself to this soldier.’ The notary picked up his ruined papers and threw them in the fireplace.

  But Barras reclined in his chair, his boots raised on an ottoman, a glass of golden brandy swirling above his vest. Rose glanced at him beneath her lowered lids, suspecting Barras had insisted on escorting her here to the notary’s office just to make sure that she went through with this marriage. His smile was smug and satisfied.

  The notary paced the length of his room, irritated by the delay. Rose watched him strut. He was a man of short stature and even shorter temper. He was no doubt wishing he was at home seated at his table and parting some poor fowl’s leg from her carcass instead of waiting here and watching Barras drink glass after glass of his fine liquor.

  ‘Perhaps the young fool doubts himself.’

  ‘Have patience, Leclerq,’ Barras said.

  Rose looked to the door. Despite her resolve to trust her young soldier, prickles of worry unsettled her. Had he had a change of heart? Had he learned of all her debts?

  ‘Forget this foolishness, my dear. You are the most beautiful woman in Paris. Adored by all. Why this indecent haste?’

  Rose studied the notary’s features as he drew a chair alongside hers. The blistered cheeks, the ruddy nose and stubbled chin. Had he been at one of her soirees for Barras? Had he seen her naked body and imagined his own hands running the length of her back? She smiled as prettily as she could and swallowed her revulsion. She willed Bonaparte to arrive and release her from this torment.

  Her young general had grown in her estimation these past months. He could be made to look quite handsome, she found, once she had taught him how to stand without that ugly slouch. He had a fine figure with his shapely legs and broad shoulders, and his skin had improved now that she had encouraged certain improvements in his grooming. His hair she had washed herself, lathering his scalp while he lay back in the hot and steaming copper. She introduced him to the pleasures of a scalding bath, the shock of it to the skin, the burning bliss. And afterwards she rubbed scented oils into his feet and shared her most precious perfumes and powders. He seemed intoxicated by it all.

  Rose had never met a man so entirely engrossed in her. He adored her. She wrote him flirtatious notes and enjoyed driving the young man to distraction. He would spend all night with her, parting in gales of emotion each morning and writing to her within the hour to tell her the agonies he suffered at being apart from her. He was naive in bed, a puppy grateful for her attentions and appreciative of her talents. She found it made her feel powerful, for once in her life.

  Rose steadied herself in her chair. He must come. Barras had tired of her and her bills of promise were large and still growing. Her gaze fell on the embroidered violets and silver fronds along the hem of her wedding gown. Barras never did appreciate how much it cost to be the doyenne of his circle. He had advised her to accept Bonaparte’s proposal without hesitation. Rose swivelled her slippered foot in agitation at the memory.

  Rose was no longer a fool. She was thirty-two years old and her charms would not last forever. Among the men she entertained for Barras she was a toy to be shared about, not one to be wrapped in silk and treasured, far too manhandled to be truly precious.

  Rose’s first marriage to Alexandre de Beauharnais had been a disastrous match. She had been sent from Martinique to France at age sixteen to marry a man she had never met with the hope of saving her family from financial ruin. It would have been her younger sister’s honour, except that poor Catherine had died before she could sail. Rose had agreed to take her place. Sometimes she wondered what her life would be like now if she had refused her mother’s plea and stayed behind on the family sugarcane plantation. If she had not been seduced by the idea of falling in love.

  The house she came to live in with Alexandre and his family was in the heart of Paris on Rue Thévenot. It was a grand and elegant home when viewed from the street. Inside it was imposing but rather shabby, Rose thought but dared not say, as she was hurried through its oversized reception halls with dusty chandeliers to meet the man she was to marry. The tapestries and oil paintings were dark and sour and the whole house smelled of must and mould and the lingering sickening scent of human waste that had followed them in from the streets. It had been the home of Alexandre’s great-grandmother, and now belonged to his father, the Marquis de Beauharnais, and his mistress, Rose’s Aunt Edmée. Aunt Edmée linked her arm through Rose’s and pulled her along. Rose had fantasised about this moment, believing whole-heartedly in the concept of love at first sight, but now that it was about to arrive her feet dragged, scuffing the parquetry. Aunt Edmée tugged at her arm. Salon doors were opened and it seemed that Alexandre turned in slow motion towards her. Her first sensation was relief, for she saw he was young and proud and handsome.

  From the start of her marriage, though, she was an embarrassment to Alexandre. It became painfully evident that he regarded her as an uncultured colonial, without the education, intelligence or wit to commend her in society. He could muster no warmth of regard for her, letting his eyelids fall closed whenever he thought her uncouth. When other women of his circle spoke of opera or art, she had nothing to say; she had never heard an aria or seen a Caravaggio. Whenever she did speak it was always the wrong words, and the women laughed at her and spoke about her behind their delicate hands. She had no accomplishments in music, poetry or dancing, and no aptitude for the tuitio
n he arranged for her. He shunned her. The only reason Alexandre had agreed to marry her, Rose learned, was because he would come into his inheritance as soon as he was married. She was desperate for his attention, but apart from his rushed conjugal visits to her—passionless, perfunctory couplings—he spent all his time at the home of his mistress, Laure de Longpré.

  It was a miserable, humiliating and lonely time in Alexandre’s family home, until she became pregnant. Her son, Eugene, transformed her. How like Eugene to be a comfort to her even before he was born. Just to feel the weight of her child, always with her, was a solace. And after his birth, Alexandre improved his manner to her, impressed that she had given him a son and heir. For the first time in her marriage, she felt necessary.

  Rose was overjoyed when she became pregnant a second time. Alexandre ceased his visits to her shortly after, which came as a relief. Alexandre’s father treated her well, perhaps shamed by his son’s behaviour, and was indulgent of his grandson. She felt content in those months with her young son and her new baby growing inside her.

  Then, shortly after Hortense’s birth, when Alexandre was in Martinique and had not even met his baby daughter, his mistress, Laure, came to deliver a letter. Rose was surprised, affronted by the bold-faced cheek of the woman to call so openly on the wife of her lover. But Rose had been curious and accepted the letter she delivered, slicing open the seal with her knife. She read the note. It took all her resolve to keep her face still, showing no pain and swallowing her rage. She would not give his lover that satisfaction. In coarse terms, Alexandre informed Rose that he doubted the paternity of her baby. He could no longer be married to a promiscuous slut and he insisted she move into a convent.

  A convent! Rose’s cheeks flushed at the memory. Little Eugene, only two years old, had run to her; even then he was kind-hearted and sensitive to his mother’s distress. He had clung to her legs, as if he knew he was about to lose her.

  Now she was resolved to do what was best for her children. She must marry a man who would cherish her, not parade her, as Marguerite had advised her during her time in the convent. Those women knew about security. Love was a luxury few could afford.