Vintage Love (28 page)

She shook her head sadly. “I fear for you. I fear for both you and the emperor.”

“You are a good girl,” the old man said. “But you do not understand.”

“On the contrary,” she said, “I believe that I do. I saw the greatness in Napoleon even as a young girl meeting him only a few times. But the time has passed, if only you could bring yourself to accept that.”

“A man lives on his dreams, mademoiselle,” the doctor said earnestly. “I cannot give up mine lightly.”

“I know,” she said quietly.

Her sleep was restless that night, and she was wakened before dawn by the maid arriving with her breakfast tray. Then old Major Lacoste came and told her, “I’m responsible for getting you to the boat. I do not wish to make it too unpleasant for you. So I shall merely blindfold you.”

“Is even that necessary?” she asked. “I have no hope of escaping in this strange place.”

“I have my orders,” he said. “I would be negligent if I did not take certain precautions.”

So she was blindfolded, and he led her outside. She was placed in a cart with a lad and another girl. She could not see either of them. But as they chattered back and forth, she gathered that the girl was the kitchen maid who had so caught the White Executioner’s fancy that he was taking her along on the vessel with him. The boy was to be cabin boy. Both of them were excited about the prospects of the sea voyage, and neither showed the slightest interest in her. She guessed they had been warned not to speak with her.

The cart was driven off, and she could tell it was only one of a caravan of wagons. She heard the wheels of the others and the voices of their passengers. After some incredibly rough road she could smell salt air more strongly. She knew they were close to the sea. The wagon stopped, and she was helped out.

She stood on the wharf waiting until old Dr. Lacoste came to her. He took her arm and said, “I will personally escort you on board.”

And he did. He took her below, and when she was in a tiny cabin, he removed the blindfold from her eyes. He said, “You will stay down here until the ship is well away from shore. I will come and advise you. Then you will have the run of the ship until we reach our destination.”

“Venice,” she said, for she had been told that was where Valmy was in hiding with the emperor.

The old man’s eyes twinkled. “Wherever!” he said.

“That kitchen maid rode in the car with me,” she told him.

“I know,” the doctor said with a frown. “That is very wrong. Von Ryn should not have taken her away from her village. He will be reprimanded for bringing her on board, and he will likely rid himself of her as soon as we reach port. She will surely end up in some sad straits perhaps even soliciting in the streets.”

“Can nothing be done for her?” she worried.

“I will try and arrange something,” the old doctor promised. “Perhaps one of the crew will have a sister or mother to take her in as household help. She should not be turned out on her own.”

“I agree,” Betsy said.

It was more than an hour later that she was notified she could go up on deck. When she made her appearance, the sun was shining and the air was warm and clean smelling. She stood by the railing, her hair blowing in the slight breeze.

She heard young laughter and turned to see that the new cabin boy and the kitchen maid were playing some game of tag on the afterdeck like two mischievious puppies. Her heart went out to the naïve young girl and the fate which might be in store for her.

Moving further forward, she came abreast of the wheel. And as she was standing there, General Von Ryn came out to stand on the bridge. He was resplendent in his usual white uniform, but he was wearing dark glasses. They gave him the look of a blind man.

But he was not blind to her. He came over to her and said, “So you are safely on board, Mademoiselle Chapman.”

“Yes,” she said, gazing out at the sea.

“You are distant today.”

She glanced at him. “Do you wish me to pretend to be friends when we both know it is not possible?”

“I expect nothing from you!” he said harshly. “You will soon be confronting our leader. It will be interesting to know his decision concerning you.”

“I expect no kindness,” she said.

He gave a short, mirthless laugh. “You had better not, for you will surely receive none. Raymond Valmy is a bad man to have as an enemy.”

She said, “Yet the emperor is my friend. I will prevail upon him to have Valmy let me go free.”

“Small chance!” Von Ryn gloated. “Valmy makes the decisions these days.”

Thinking to turn the conversation from a difficult subject, she countered with, “Are your eyes troubling you? I note you are wearing dark glasses.”

He touched the fingers of a hand to the glasses and slightly adjusted them. “People suffering from lack of coloring are troubled by too much light. My eyes pain in the sunlight unless I have something to protect them.”

“I did not know,” she said.

Happily the captain of the three-masted vessel came along at this moment and took Von Ryn aside for some sort of discussion, and she used the moment to escape. She went to the other side of the deck and later to her cabin.

She dined with Major Lacoste and the captain and first mate in the first mate’s quarters that night. It was known that General Von Ryn had taken over the captain’s ample cabin and was hosting his kitchen maid there.

The old doctor said, “The sea is calm and the captain thinks it will continue to be until we reach port.”

“It is a good season for sailing,” the captain explained.

Betsy asked him, “Have you ever left these waters?”

“We have once gone to Gibraltar,” the captain said. “But never on to the Atlantic. We have always returned.”

Dr. Lacoste said, “If it is turbulent water you’re looking for, let me recommend the English Channel. It is rough more than it is smooth. I speak as one who lived near it.”

“I prefer it here,” the captain said.

When they finished dinner, Betsy and the old doctor went for a stroll on deck. Dusk was turning into darkness and stars were beginning to appear overhead. The vessel was silent except for the creaking and movement of its hull and sails. She rode the waves gracefully, moving up and down like a true queen.

Betsy asked the doctor, “Shall I see you when we land?”

“I hope so,” he said. “I would like to be assigned to look after the emperor’s health.”

“In that case you would remain at headquarters.”

“Yes.”

“I question that they will give you that responsibility,” she said. “You are too honest a man. And you would be bound to tell both the emperor and those around him the true state of his health.”

He frowned. “I do not think it will be that bad.”

“I’m worried,” she said. “But I do hope you will be somewhere nearby. I will not be so afraid.”

“I will continue to do my best for you,” was his promise.

And she was certain he meant it. In the short time she had known the old doctor, she had come to respect him. She must cling to him until she had escaped from this grim situation. They stood by the forward railing talking earnestly for a long while.

The captain’s cabin showed lights through the portholes, and occasionally loud drunken talk could be heard from in there.

Then to the alarm and concern of Betsy and the old doctor, the shouting inside the cabin became more ugly. They could distinctly hear the sound of the young kitchen maid crying.

Betsy turned to the old man. “What do you think?”

“If it goes on, I’ll go to the door in a moment,” he said grimly. “He must be abusing that girl!”

“Has he done anything else?”

The sound of the girl’s crying became louder and then the door of the cabin burst open and she came running out on deck naked. She ran to the railing and leaned against it, breathing heavily, her hair askew, behaving like a frightened animal.

Then Von Ryn came out in his bathrobe, a pistol in his hand. He spoke sharply to the girl, “Stop sniveling and come back in here!”

“No,” the girl sobbed, covering her face with her hands.

Betsy was about to rush to the aid of the nude girl when without warning Von Ryn fired the pistol. There was a sharp report, a cry of terror from the girl, and a spreading stain of blood running down between her breasts.

“The scoundrel!” Dr. Lacoste said between clenched teeth, and then he ran forward to where the girl had slumped on the deck. He demanded of Von Ryn, still there with the pistol in his hand, “What have you done, you scum?”

“She wouldn’t stop her sniveling! Refused to bed with me!” Von Ryn said sullenly.

The old doctor examined the girl and then looked up and said in a hushed voice, “You’ve killed her! She’s dead!”

“No!” Betsy cried in protest. She had come up to stand beside the kneeling doctor.

Von Ryn smiled coldly and put the pistol back in his robe pocket. “It was her fault! She annoyed me!”

Some of the crew had silently gathered now, drawn by the gunshot. The cabin boy was there, sobbing sporadically, his teeth chattering.

Dr. Lacoste stood up and said grimly, “I regret I shall have to inform Raymond Valmy of this atrocious and needless crime you have committed.”

“Tell him what you like,” Von Ryn said with anger. “I shall give him my version of it.”

The old doctor said, “Sir, you will do me the favor of not addressing me for the balance of the voyage, and I shall behave in a similar way with you.”

“What do I care!” Von Ryn shouted. “She was a foul little thing who deserved what she got.”

“I deny that, sir,” the old doctor said. And to the captain he continued, “I will ask you that this girl be given a proper Christian burial!”

The captain nodded. “I shall look after it!”

“No!” Von Ryn said with hysterical rage. “There’ll be no hypocrisy! I’ll look after the slut!” And with that he ran to her and before anyone could stop him, he lifted up her still bleeding body and threw it over the side.

Even the common sailors murmured their dissent. The cabin boy ran off sobbing. The captain turned his back on Von Ryn, and he and the first mate walked away.

Von Ryn jeered at her. “Well, you’re the only female left on board. Would you like to join me in her place?”

“You are a devil!” she whispered in fervent hatred and turned with Dr. Lacoste at her side. Together they walked away from the mad-acting general.

Lacoste told her in a low voice, “He has always been evil. He managed to get away with his wanton killing when the wars were on. But it is not so easy now.”

“He felt absolutely no regrets for what he did,” she said in horror.

“There is more wrong with him than being an albino,” the old doctor said. “He is tainted with madness, and it is surely getting worse.”

“The poor girl!”

“At least it was fast, and she is now at rest,” he said. “She must have realized her fate, become homesick, and began to weep uncontrollably so that she was no use to him.”

“What now?” she asked in a hushed tone as they stood together in the darkness of the deck.

“I do not think you need fear him,” Dr. Lacoste said. “He knows he has to deal with me if he tries to harm you. And he has so far overstepped the bounds of decency that even the captain and crew are disgusted with him.”

“He will likely lie to Valmy and escape without any punishment,” she said.

“Not if I have anything to say,” the old doctor told her. “But Valmy and he have been close. I cannot count on too much.”

This proved to be her worst night. She had a fit of trembling when she went to her cabin, and she could not get to sleep. When she finally did sleep, her nightmares were all of the vicious murder she’d seen on deck. The whole grim episode was repeated in her mind!

But in her dreams the crazed Von Ryn stalked her with the pistol in hand. He ordered her to strip off her clothing on deck beside the dead girl, and when she was naked and shivering, he seized her and raped her in full view of the crew and captain! She awoke from this nightmare lathered in perspiration and screaming!

She lay staring into the darkness, unable to believe the kind of inhumanity one person could have for another. She had encountered various sorts of cruelty, but she had never seen the equal of Von Ryn’s treatment of the simple farm girl.

Dawn came, and she still sought sleep. She arose with a reeling head and a sense of not having rested at all. When she went up on deck, all was strangely silent. The only person in sight was the man at the wheel. She went across the deck and stood staring at the bloodstained spot where the kitchen girl had fallen.

A voice from behind her said, “Yes. It really happened. There were times in the night when I wondered if it had not been all an evil dream. But it did happen!” It was the old doctor staring sadly at the spot.

She turned to him. “How silent it is. You can almost feel the tension in the air.”

Major Lacoste nodded. “The captain and the crew despise Von Ryn. They cannot wait for the voyage to end.”

Betsy shuddered. “Nor can any of us. I don’t know what evil fate awaits me. But I shall be glad to be free of all this.”

The one-armed man gave her a worried look. “I’m deeply concerned for your safety.”

She met his look with a frightened one of her own. “You think he may try to force me into his bed again?”

“That is a real possibility,” the old doctor acknowledged. “The thing that bothers me most is that I will not be here to protect you.”

Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

“This morning Von Ryn deliberately brought about a quarrel with me in view of the captain and the first mate. He wants to put the blame for his plight on someone, and he decided on me. He slapped me across the face with his gloves and demanded that I give him satisfaction!”

“Satisfaction?”

He nodded grimly. “I have no choice as an officer and a gentleman but to accept his challenge for a duel. He has also insisted that the duel be with swords rather than pistols.”

“But that puts you at a disadvantage,” she protested. “With your one arm the only fair contest would be with pistols. And you ought not to be forced into that!”