Young bloods - Scarrow Simon (библиотека электронных книг txt) 📗

After their first meeting Arthur had been dismayed when, so soon afterwards, Kitty had returned to her home in Castlepollard. But just before Christmas, Kitty and her brother Tom moved into the family's house in Rutland Square in Dublin, and Kitty soon became something of a fixture at the court in Dublin Castle, to Arthur's secret delight. His pleasure was tempered by the attention paid to Kitty by many of the other young gentlemen who quickly fell under her charm and competed vigorously for her attention. For some months Arthur found it difficult to penetrate her cordon of admirers in order to have a private conversation. A few snatched sentences were all that was possible before some beau, or chirpy young female acquaintance, intervened to request a dance, or to direct the conversation towards more frivolous territory. At such moments Arthur would seethe inside and put on an expression of polite interest while he endured proceedings, all the time praying that the witless interloper in question would disappear, or have some kind of horribly debilitating fit. But they never did and on each occasion Arthur found himself stewing in frustration, only to have to return to his lodgings afterwards in a miserable mood of self-recrimination for not having the nerve to be more forthright in his attempts to win Kitty's affection. If things continued as they were, he chided himself, then before long someone with a more confident approach would steal her away before she ever became aware of Arthur's feelings towards her.

Meanwhile he was tantalised every time their eyes met across a crowded dance floor or along a dining table, and she seemed to smile with some kind of special significance that made him certain that she regarded him as more than just a face in the crowd. At such moments he felt his heart soar with hope… before it came crashing down again as Kitty turned her gaze on another young man and engaged him in close conversation.Then Arthur would watch in growing frustration at each smile or laugh that was elicited from her.

When he was out of her company he attempted to rationalise his feelings. She was, after all, just a girl, three years younger than him. There were plenty of other desirable young ladies at court and many more years in which to secure one of them for a wife. His feelings for Kitty were a passing obsession, he told himself, all too understandable in someone of his age. But whenever he saw her, all the logic that could be brought to bear on the situation simply melted away as his passion flared into being once more. He was being foolish and, worse still, he ran the risk of making himself look foolish in front of his peers if his feelings for Kitty became known.Yet if he did nothing to let her know how he felt, then how could she begin to reciprocate his affection – assuming she even wanted to?

Chapter 57

Corsica, 1789

When Napoleon landed in Ajaccio late in September he was astonished to find the island almost as he had left it over a year earlier, before the momentous events that had followed the summoning of the Estates General by King Louis. Among the sailors and townspeople on the harbour quay were soldiers from the garrison, still wearing the white cockade of the Bourbons in their hats when the rest of the French Army had adopted the red and blue cockade of Paris. As he walked up the streets to the family house Napoleon stared about his surroundings curiously. There were no posters on street corners proclaiming the latest news from the National Assembly, no impassioned debates outside the cafes and drinking holes of the town, no sense that the world was rapidly changing and that the vestiges of an old regime were being swept aside to clear the way for the new France.

Entering the house, he found his mother upstairs in the laundry room, standing by the window as she pulled the cord that stretched the dripping clothes along the line that hung across the courtyard at the back of the house. She turned and saw him. Napoleon set his hat down on a stool and went to embrace her.

'When you wrote to say the army had taken you back, I feared I wouldn't be seeing you for years.' She stroked his cheek. 'How long will you stay this time, Naboleone?'

He smiled. 'I really don't know. It could be many more months.'

'Good.That's good. Giuseppe came home from Italy last week. He's down at the court watching a trial today. He's missed you. So have I. I'll have you all together under one roof. Just as well, the way things are going.' She looked at him sharply. 'So what exactly is happening in Paris?'

'You must have heard the news, Mother. The whole world must have heard the news by now.'

'It's different here.You have the royalists saying that the King is biding his time, waiting for the chance to seize back his power. Then there's those hothead radicals at the Jacobin Club telling us that the old order is gone and we live in a democracy. And there's Paoli's followers claiming that the chaos in France is the best chance we'll have to win independence for Corsica.' She shrugged. 'But most people don't really care. Life goes on.'

'So I noticed.'

That evening, after dinner when all the younger siblings had been sent to bed with a promise that they would have Napoleon's attention the next day, he sat with his older brother and opened a bottle of wine.

'Well?' Joseph filled their glasses. 'What are you really doing back in Corsica?'

'Besides enjoying the company of my family and dear brother?'

Joseph smiled. 'Besides that.'

'France does not want my services at present. So it's time I took a more active role in Corsica.You've been here for a while. What is the feeling among the people?'

Joseph looked at his brother shrewdly.'You mean, what are the chances of the Paolists? It's hard to say. In the National Assembly the deputy chosen to represent Corsica's nobles is Buttafuoco. He says the French Government can keep the island by bribing some Corsicans and having no mercy on the rest. The deputies for the third estate are Antoine Cristoforo Saliceti and Cesari Rocca. They want nothing to do with Corsican independence and argue that Corsica's best interests are served by staying with France. So you see, there's no one to present the case for Corsican liberty in Paris.'

Napoleon thought for a moment before he spoke. 'Then it must be decided here.'

His brother chuckled. 'That's what I thought you'd say.'

The Jacobin Club met in one of the inns on the streets dominated by the walls of the citadel.The members were delighted to recruit Napoleon. If the King's officers had become interested in radical politics then there was no hope of returning to the dark days of the old regime. The club subscribed to as many of the Paris newspapers as they could afford.The most avid attention was paid to the reports of the proceedings of the Jacobin Club in Paris. Napoleon read these items with as keen an eye as the other members and was particularly taken by the arguments put forward by a deputy called Robespierre, formerly a lawyer from Arras. There was something familiar about his rhetorical style, though Napoleon could not place it.

When the members were not reading the Paris papers they were engaged in heated debate around the tables of the inn, whose owner looked on benignly as he grew steadily wealthier from the massively increased trade. Napoleon soon became one of the most outspoken members of the club. At last there was a vehicle for all the reading and note-taking and essay writing that had occupied much of the lonely life he had led in his off-duty hours. The long rehearsed arguments that he had nurtured in his breast now gushed out in a torrent of irresistible logic and moral principle, and his audience followed him with an intensity that was only relieved by their roars of approval and thunderous applause.