The Ambitious Madame Bonaparte (39 page)

Patterson looked at her with a stunned expression. “See for yourself.” He handed her the telescope.

Holding it to her eye, Betsy scanned the horizon. Over the fort, snapping in the morning breeze, was a gigantic U.S. flag. Beyond it, she could make out the sails of the British fleet moving down the river toward Chesapeake Bay. Feisty Baltimore had repelled the invaders, and Betsy knew that her son was safe.

XXX

J
UBILATION at the victory overflowed Baltimore and flooded through the country as people finally had reason to hope that the United States might defeat Great Britain. Giving voice to the joy was a song written by lawyer Francis Scott Key. As an envoy sent aboard a British ship to negotiate the release of a civilian prisoner, Key had been held there during the 25-hour attack, and his verses described a night of watching rockets and bombs pound Fort McHenry, only to have dawn reveal that the “star-spangled banner” still waved. The song became wildly popular. Betsy thought she would go mad listening to Bo sing it upstairs and down in his loudest voice.

Her nerves received a jolt on Sunday, September 18, when Fort McHenry started firing its guns at noon, but Bo ran into the street and learned from a passerby that the shots were a salute to another victory: U.S. forces had turned back a British invasion at Plattsburgh, New York, and a naval force had destroyed the British squadron on Lake Champlain. Reassured, Betsy rode along as a servant drove her son to his school the next day.

Although the country’s elation over the victory lasted for months, the Pattersons’ joy soon ended. On October 5, fourteen-year-old Henry and twelve-year-old Octavius were racing down South Street when Octavius was thrown from his horse. He hit his head on a cobblestone and died.

Betsy had never seen her father as shaken as he was by the loss of his youngest son. After the doctor had given Patterson laudanum to help him sleep, Betsy sat with Edward and George over a late supper of cold roast beef, cheese, and pickles. “I don’t know whether to bring Bo home for the funeral. He has missed so much school.”

Eighteen-year-old George, usually the quietest member of the family, spoke up. “They were playmates. You must give Bo the chance to say farewell.”

Two days later, the Pattersons gathered at the family burial ground at their Cold Stream estate and watched Octavius’s coffin being lowered into the ground. William Patterson stooped beneath his grief, and his face looked ten years older. Betsy stood back slightly from the rest of her family, troubled by her lack of strong emotion. She had never felt a deep affection for Octavius; when he was very young, he had been just another unwanted burden, and in recent years, she had regarded him mainly as someone who too often posed a risk to Bo. Now, however, when she saw Henry and Bo standing hand in hand, weeping beside the open grave, she regretted that she had not been a kinder sister.

More trouble was to come. Soon after the funeral, Caroline began to worsen, and Betsy moved back to South Street to nurse her. She bathed Caroline’s face when she was feverish and instructed Providence Summers to prepare nourishing broths and comforting custards, but Caroline grew weaker by the day. Betsy often spent the afternoon reading novels aloud to keep Caro from brooding over her memories of Margaret’s decline and the fact that her own deterioration paralleled their sister’s journey toward death.

One morning, as Betsy read the newspaper, she learned that Vice-President Gerry had died of heart trouble on November 23. The information came too late for her to attend the funeral in Washington, and the loss of her friend left her forlorn. As Caroline dozed, Betsy shut herself in her bedroom, so she could weep for the courteous old gentleman who had debated her with so much respect for her opinions. Betsy felt her world growing narrower as, one by one, so many of the people who loved her died. Life had never seemed so precarious, not even when she was in danger at sea.

That December, as Betsy still grieved over the loss of her friend, she received word that the new French government had no objection to her traveling to Paris. For a while that news lifted her spirits. Then another friend wrote to say that Princess Catharine had borne Jerome a son in August. To Betsy’s fury, they named the child Jerome Napoleon as if Bo did not exist.

Desperate for a sympathetic ear and unwilling to inflict her anger on her ailing sister, Betsy called on Eliza Anderson Godefroy.

Eliza’s fourteen-year-old daughter, also named Eliza, answered the door. She hung Betsy’s cloak in the hall and then led Betsy into the drawing room where her mother sat sewing. “I had to come see you!” Betsy exclaimed. “I have no one to confide in at home.”

“Go make tea,” Eliza told her daughter, and then she laid aside her work and nodded at the chair across from her. “Please, sit down.”

“I cannot.” Too clenched with anger to relax, Betsy pressed her hands against her stomach and started to pace. “Jerome’s fat Catharine has given him a son, and they named the child Jerome Napoleon. How could he do it? After all these years of claiming to love Bo, he shows his true lack of regard. It was not enough for Napoleon to deny us the family name. No, my son’s father has to steal his Christian name and give it to this pretender.”

Eliza rose and, putting an arm around Betsy’s shoulder, walked alongside her. “Surely, you cannot be surprised at your ex-husband’s selfish, careless nature.”

Betsy stopped short. “No. For myself, I expect nothing but infamous treatment from him, but I did not think he would stoop so low as to wound our son.”

Gently, Eliza steered her toward the sofa and sat beside her. “It is all of a piece. He wants to show the world that he believes this new son, not yours, to be his legitimate heir.”

Betsy snorted. “Neither child has anything but debt to inherit.”

“Listen to me carefully. If you can mask your anger over this new outrage and treat it as some minor peculiarity in the way the Bonaparte family christens their children, then your son will not be hurt to learn that his half-brother shares his name. Bo is still young enough to take his lead from you. Can you regulate your emotions enough to do what is best for him?”

Betsy blinked in astonishment; she could swear she heard her mother’s voice speaking through her friend. After taking a deep breath, she said, “Yes, I will try.”

WORRY SOON DISPLACED what remained of Betsy’s anger. Caroline grew ever weaker, and just before Christmas, she died. As Betsy stood with her brothers in the bitter wind at the family burial ground, she felt utterly weary and imagined herself crawling into Caroline’s iron-cold grave, stretching out upon the coffin, and remaining there. Fate had been cruel to the women of the Patterson family, and Betsy wondered how long it would be before death tracked her down too. If she were to die tomorrow, what would she have accomplished? Nothing, it seemed. Yet, the sight of her son shivering in the December wind reminded Betsy that she still had vital work to do. She dare not surrender to melancholy when he needed her to defend his rights.

At dinner the next day, most of the surviving Pattersons were back at South Street, grouped at one end of the long table with five empty chairs at the other. As Betsy passed Bo the dish of potatoes, her father said, “How soon can you close up your house?”

“Sir?” she asked in puzzlement.

“Since you are the only female left in the family, I require you to move back here and see to the running of this household.”

Betsy froze, shocked that he could demand such a thing after so many years of expressing resentment at her presence in his home. After a moment, she said, “Why? Edward is with the Smiths, so only you, George, and Henry live here. And you have a competent housekeeper.”

“She is not family. Your place is here.”

Pressing her lips together, Betsy glanced at Bo, who watched her with wide-eyed hope. She temporized. “Let me consider the matter.”

That night after returning to her own house and putting Bo to bed, she paced in the parlor. The thought of living with her father maddened her. She was certain he was sleeping with Providence Summers, and Betsy did not want her son exposed to such immorality. Nor did she want to subject herself to her father’s ceaseless efforts to force her into a more submissive role.

Weeks earlier, Dolley Madison had written suggesting that Betsy might travel to Europe with Dr. William Eustis, recently appointed the new U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands. Now Betsy wrote to Mrs. Madison, asking her to inquire whether Dr. and Mrs. Eustis would be willing to take her as far as Holland. Once there, she would travel to Paris on her own.

While she waited for an answer, Betsy stalled her father by saying she was not well enough to contemplate a move. Since Caroline’s death, she had been despondent, and her chronic stomach problems returned. When she consulted a doctor, he diagnosed her condition as an excess of bile and suggested she take the waters at a health spa to restore her balance of humors.

“I hope to sail to Europe soon,” she told the physician. “Is that advisable?”

“Yes, yes, a sea voyage might help, and you could visit one of the spas on the continent.”

Believing she now had medical authorization to travel, Betsy was thrilled to hear in mid-January that the Eustises were willing to let her accompany them. They hoped to sail on a vessel belonging to John Jacob Astor, but as they were having trouble getting assurance from the British that the ship would not be attacked, they had not finalized their plans. Dolley Madison said they would forward Betsy the details as they became known.

At the family dinner given to celebrate her thirtieth birthday in February, Betsy announced her intention to travel.

“Have you taken leave of your senses?” Patterson demanded, pausing from carving the roast. “We are still at war, and our ships are not safe from British depredations.”

“Dr. Eustis is a diplomat, Father, and he is negotiating with the British admiralty to allow the ship to pass unmolested.”

“Even so, it is selfish to undertake such a frivolous journey when I need you here.”

Betsy drew herself up straight. “I have two excellent reasons for going. First, my health requires it. Second, I have not been able to obtain reliable information about schools in Europe, so I must find out what is available.”

Her father resumed carving the beef with an aggressive sawing that shredded the meat. “More nonsense. Bo will do just as well being educated where he is.”

“The priests at St. Mary’s are all very good men, but as the United States is yet in its infancy, American institutions are not sufficiently sophisticated to develop my son’s intellect. I have been told he possesses such mental superiority that it would be a crime not to give him the best education.”

“Bo is a gifted boy,” Marianne said in her most placating tone, which would have set Betsy’s teeth on edge were her sister-in-law not defending her. “And Betsy has wanted to go to Europe for so long that it would be a shame for her not to seize this chance.”

Patterson glared at his daughter-in-law with the rancor he usually reserved for Betsy. “I very much doubt whether the proposed arrangements will come to fruition, so for the time being I will say no more.”

Within days, the newspapers published reports that negotiators had signed the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814, agreeing to end the war between the United States and Britain. Betsy took the news as an omen that fate had smiled on her at last, so she made arrangements to depart. She drove to St. Mary’s and signed papers giving Dr. Dubois, headmaster at Bo’s school, guardianship of her son in her absence. Then she took tea with Bo in the visitors’ parlor, which was furnished with a sofa, armchairs, and a small table so that families could visit in more congenial surroundings than the boys’ dormitory.

After she informed him of her plans, Bo furrowed his brow. “You will not stay in France forever, will you, Mama? Promise you will return for me.”

“Yes, I will return,” Betsy said several times, but still he scowled. Having lost his father to the temptations of Europe, he seemed to think it inevitable that his mother would abandon him too. Only after she swore to stay no more than a year did Bo calm down.

Back in Baltimore, Betsy asked Marianne and Edward to write Bo often and act as his parents during holidays. After reviewing her accounts with Aunt Nancy, Betsy put the older woman in charge of her investments with strict instructions to avoid risk. Betsy was very worried about money. Her friend Jonathan Russell, envoy to the court of Sweden, had written that she would need at least $6,000 a year to live in Europe, and her income was scarcely half that.

At the end of March, Betsy set out to meet the Eustises in Boston, taking George as her escort. Because her stomach still troubled her and the roads were bogged with spring mud, they traveled slowly and stopped at several cities along the way. When they reached New York, Betsy found two letters waiting at the hotel. One was from Mrs. Eustis, which Betsy tore open immediately. It said that their sailing was delayed again, so she might as well enjoy herself in New York rather than hurry to Boston. The second was from Bo. Betsy waited until she was in her room to read his letter in privacy.

How are you? I am pretty well but my spirits are not very good. Tell me when you start to go to France…. Please send me one of your rings for to remember you if you should get lost in the sea. Do not stay any longer than one year for my sake. You must come for me to go to France with you and no one will do except you and my own Father.

I am yours affectionately, Jerome N. Bonaparte

P.S. My dear Mama, I wish you would keep this letter with you all the time you are in France and read it over every month. My dear Mama, I love you very much.

The letter upset Betsy. How could she bear to part from her sweet boy for a year? She had told herself repeatedly that this separation would not be any worse than having him at Emmitsburg, but now she saw what a self-deception that was. George found her in tears when he returned to the parlor after overseeing the disposition of their trunks.

Wordlessly, Betsy handed him the letter. He read it and said, “The year apart will be hard on him, but someday he will understand that you did this for his sake.”

Betsy wiped her eyes. “Yes, you are right.”

Since they had time to spend in New York, Betsy sent her card to some acquaintances she had made when she lived there with Jerome. The next day, nearly a dozen invitations arrived.

As Betsy debated which engagements to accept, news was published that threatened her plans. In March, Napoleon had escaped from Elba to France, where he gathered an army and marched on Paris, causing Louis XVIII to flee. The Bonapartes were once again in power.