The Ambitious Madame Bonaparte by Chatlien Ruth Hull

Author:Chatlien, Ruth Hull [Chatlien, Ruth Hull]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Amika Press
Published: 2013-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

XIX

BETSY, Robert, and Eliza sailed from England in late September and arrived in Baltimore on November 14. Even though Betsy detested her hometown, she felt relief when the ship docked in the familiar square-shaped harbor with its jutting wooden piers and three-and-four-story warehouses crowding the waterfront. As Robert walked the few blocks to fetch the family coach, Betsy stood on deck holding her son and watching freight wagons and carriages pass on Pratt Street. Irrationally, she hoped to glimpse her father going about his daily business.

She had been standing there a few minutes when Eliza joined her at the railing. Betsy recalled the day—it seemed so long ago now—that the two of them had stood together gazing at England for the first time. “Thank you, Eliza, for all your help these past few months. I do not know how I could have gotten on without you.”

Eliza reached over to tuck the baby’s blanket more firmly in place to protect him from the chill. “I am sorry for your sake that your voyage did not have a more satisfactory ending.”

Betsy sighed. “Yes, I had hoped that—well, you know my hopes as well as anyone. The important thing now is that you will soon be with your daughter again.”

An hour later, Robert dropped Betsy and her maid at South Street and then escorted Eliza home. Betsy hesitated before the marble stoop, overwhelmed by a sense that she was returning as a failure. Baltimore society would see her as an abandoned wife, no matter how much she might protest that Jerome intended to come back for her.

Telling herself that lingering in the street would only confirm the impression that she had slunk home in shame, Betsy climbed the steps. The front door opened and her mother stood before her, laughing and crying simultaneously. In the shadowy passageway behind Dorcas lurked the dark figure of Mammy Sue.

“Oh, my child!” Dorcas exclaimed as Betsy entered the hall.

As Jenny closed the door behind her, Betsy held out her dozing baby. “Here is your first grandson, Mother.”

“Hello, precious.” Dorcas took him in her arms and pushed back the blanket from his face. “He is so big!”

“Yes.” Betsy unknotted her ribbons, removed her bonnet, and handed it and her cloak to Jenny. “I cannot account for his vigor because we went for weeks without enough food, but he was a large baby even at birth. I think he must have inherited his uncle’s determination to devour the whole world.”

Standing back at a respectful distance, Mammy Sue cleared her throat, and Dorcas handed her the baby. The wet nurse clucked at him. “Miss Betsy, I see you only brought back that slip of a maid on the ship. Who has been feeding this child?”

“I am. That is what the doctor recommended.”

“Fool doctors don’t know anything. You can turn him over to me.”

“No!” Betsy cried, determined not to relinquish that special bond with her son. “He is used to my milk, and I do not want to upset him after all he has been through.

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