The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo (20 page)

There was a rattle as the library doors opened and Captain Palmer, florid-faced but in a clean set of clothes, came in. He looked at Heyford, then walked right in front of him and the Princess and faced the company.

‘I know what you ladies and gentleman want – you want a tale told by a teller who knows . . .'

Lady Gresham grimaced; Mrs Worrall looked worried.

Edmund whispered, ‘The fellow's half cut!'

‘That is his natural state,' Fred told him.

‘This is Captain Palmer,' Mrs Worrall said hastily, ‘a seaman of renown.'

‘I am that, good lady – ten long years in the South Seas, and adjutant to our governor in Sumatra.' He bowed towards Lady Gresham.

Fred had never heard that tale before.

The captain motioned for the Princess to stand up. Heyford, affronted, protested feebly, but no one took any notice.

‘She's lovely, isn't she?' the captain said, sitting in the chair she'd left. ‘Though, to be fair, the Malays are without doubt a most attractive, most friendly people.'

Lady Gresham sat up. ‘So you speak her language, do you?'

‘I do.'

‘So who are her people, exactly?'

‘Ah, the Princess's father is Jesse Mandu, originally from Congee – what we would call China. According to the Princess, he rules the southern tip of her island home, Javasu.'

He looked at Caraboo and she nodded. ‘Javasu.'

‘Excuse me, sir.' Edmund leaned forward. ‘What I fail to understand,' he drawled, ‘is why, if her father is a Chinese, your Princess Caraboo has so little of the Chinese about her – especially the eyes, don't you know.'

There was a ripple of agreement.

‘Ahh!' the captain said, and swept his pointer round until it almost touched the Princess. ‘You see her skin colour . . .'

‘Well, that's it, Captain,' Edmund said. ‘To my mind she doesn't look far from an octaroon or some such as you see in town.'

‘That's it! That is right on the nose, young man! She is of mixed parentage. In Malay, the races of clear one half of the world swirl and mingle. The people there are all shades of brown and yellow. The Princess's mother, who sadly died many years ago, was a Malay.'

‘So she is a mongrel of sorts?' Edmund looked Caraboo up and down.

‘Oh, I wouldn't put it like that myself.' The captain stared back at him. ‘Princess Caraboo's story is a sad, tragic one. One morning, after prayers, she was walking by the shore outside her palace with her handmaids – three or four of them . . .' He turned to Caraboo, showing three, then four fingers. ‘
Trua, ne tan?
' he said.

‘
Trua
,' she replied, holding up three fingers.

‘Three . . . and a pirate ship anchored offshore swooped down upon the helpless maidens and carried them off' – he snapped his fingers – ‘just like that! The handmaids were killed instantly – decapitated by sabres, one, two, three!' The captain made hacking motions with his hand, and Cassandra gasped and reached for Edmund's hand for reassurance.

‘The sea around the ship foamed red with the young girls' blood. But those fiends saw that Caraboo was worth a small fortune in ransom, so they locked up her below decks. All the while she was crying out for her father—'

‘And the pirate ship bought her to England?' Lady Gresham asked.

‘Not quite. She was sold for a sack of gold dust to a pirate chief.' The captain sat back in his chair as if exhausted.

Mrs Worrall began applauding. ‘Most informative, Captain Palmer. I hope we will hear more about the Princess tomorrow, when Mr Gutch from the
Bristol Advertiser
and Mr Williamson of the Bath Scientific and Literary Society will be joining us. Princess, perhaps you would dance?' She said the word again, louder and slower: ‘Dance?'

The Princess saluted Mrs Worrall and moved towards the centre of the room. She had failed to step out into nothing. She was a coward – she did not want to die.

She would do her best to give them Caraboo, she thought, even though her heart was beating so fast it felt as if it might burst. It must be plain as day that she was not a princess; that she was nothing. She stepped right then left, her dress shimmering. A little of the old confidence came back as she danced. She would try her best to be a South Seas princess.

It was a vicious, angry dance. She used the knife, and imagined all her trials and obstacles slashed to pieces. Then, as suddenly as she had begun, she stopped, saluted, and ran out into the dark, her heart thumping. She might have fooled them for now, but it was Mary Willcox who would pay for this. Somehow.

‘That was quite remarkable!' Lady Gresham's booming voice was clear even from the terrace.

Princess Caraboo had done her job.

Cassandra slept lightly. Edmund had come close to . . . had almost – she was certain – kissed her. And the night was so warm she tossed and turned, winding herself up in her sheet. She dreamed she was standing at the top of the most famous glacier, the
Mer de Glace
, in Switzerland, wearing some suitably fetching ensemble edged with fur, Edmund Gresham holding her close as the moonlight seared blue across the huge moving river of ice. The sound was of the ground, the ice, creaking and moving under their feet.

‘See,' Edmund Gresham said, his eyes dark brown like warm chocolate. ‘We can do anything!' She smiled at him, before she realized there was another figure standing a little way off. She could smell him in the cold crisp air. It was Will Jenkins, stripped to the waist and throwing barrels of ale at them, yelling at the top of his voice that Cassandra was his.

She felt the ice move, and her whole body seemed to spin out of control; as she fell, she heard a strange hard noise and her eyes snapped open.

She was in bed – her own bed – with the curtains open and the moonlight streaming in, the light silver and icy, like the Switzerland in her dreams. She gripped the blankets.

The noise came again. Now that she was properly awake, it didn't sound like ice creaking, but was it rain? It couldn't be. The sky was clear.

There! The noise. It wasn't rain, it was gravel thrown up at the window. A parcel of fear unfolded inside her. Frankenstein's monster, she was sure, was standing outside in the park throwing stones up at her window.

Then another sound. Her name, whispered, but loud. ‘Miss Cassandra!' More stones.

Whoever it was, it was not a character from a novel made flesh. She pulled on her dressing gown and went to the window.

It was Will Jenkins. He had walked right out of her dream and was standing under her window.

‘Miss Cassandra!' He sounded desperate.

‘What are you doing?! Anyone could hear!' Cassandra spoke in a stage whisper.

‘I need to see you! I've come to the house but you're not—'

‘
Shhh!
' She tied the dressing gown tight. ‘Come back in the morning!'

‘This cannot wait!'

‘Are you drunk?'

‘No! I have to speak to you!'

Cassandra's heart was thumping at least as loud as Will Jenkins's shouting. If she was not careful, the whole household would be roused and all would be lost.

‘I will come down. Wait for me on the terrace!'

Cassandra felt sick. She'd hoped he had understood, after their meeting this afternoon, that things had changed. She could taste something that she imagined must be guilt, sharp and acid at the back of her mouth.

Will Jenkins was not like her, not really, not deep down. He'd never even heard of Mary Shelley. She imagined the look on Mama's face if she knew about their – what was a suitable word? – their
connection.
Which was definitely over. The guilt evaporated. She
had
to do this. For her own sake and her family's.

She took a deep breath and wriggled her feet into her slippers. She had to tell him plainly now; there must be no scene, and this madness would be forgotten. He was not the kind to blab to Father or Mother, was he? No, surely Will Jenkins wouldn't do that. And anyway, who would believe the word of an innkeeper's boy over hers? She felt sick. Believed or not, it could cause no end of damage.

She would give him money if she had to. That pearl necklace she got for her birthday last year had to be worth something.

Cassandra made her way through the silent house and down the stairs. She tried to breathe deeply and rehearse what she was going to say. She would be kind, she would be firm, she would explain; and he would leave, saddened, but accepting. He must have known it all along. As if someone like him could ever really have a girl like her.

As she crossed the hall, she mouthed every oath she knew, and prayed that God would please make Will Jenkins vanish most completely.

He was sitting on the low wall outside the drawing room, the moonlight across his face. He stood up when he saw her coming, his face softening into a broad smile, and Cassandra felt a pang of something – fancy, perhaps – remembering his kisses . . . But she knew she must be severe.

‘Will.'

‘Miss Cassandra! Thank heavens!' He took her hands and she pulled them away, pretending to rearrange her dressing gown, then folding her arms tight across herself.

‘I had to see you . . . alone. We must make plans – to be together.'

She cleared her throat: the quicker the better, like Vaughan dispatching a lame horse with one blow. It would be for the best. She took a deep breath.

But Will was still speaking. ‘America, remember?' He stared at her intently and Cassandra had to look away. This was too painful.

‘Cassandra, please!' He was pleading now. ‘You swore love to me, as clear as I stand here—'

‘Will, stop it!' she said. ‘You are mistaken.'

‘Our plans! You said you desired . . .' His voice was a thin croak, and his eyes shone in the moonlight. Was he crying? She had never seen a grown man shed tears.

‘Oh, Will! I could never have come away with you! It was a dream, a fancy—'

‘Not to me.' He took a deep breath. ‘Cassandra, I thought you . . . we . . . I thought there was love . . . you said . . . But you were merely playing with me!' There were no tears now, and the fury in his voice made her back away.

‘You should not have come!' she said. ‘It was over – the fancy. Do you understand?! And if you tell a living soul about what passed between us, I will deny every word. Every single word!'

She ran back into the house, her eyes blurred with tears. She felt a sickness rising up as she shut her bedroom door behind her. She lay in bed, but managed not a single wink of sleep till dawn. At least, she told herself, she hadn't had to part with the pearls.

From her vantage point up on the roof, the Princess Caraboo watched Will stride furiously away.

She had escaped there rather than spend the night in her room, where anyone might find her. She knew the captain wanted words, but she had avoided him, and he had polished off another decanter of Mr Worrall's rum as he told Lady Gresham all about bloodsucking Malaysian spirits.

Poor William Jenkins, he did not deserve to be treated so, she thought as she watched him head out across the moonlit park. It had been like watching a play, hardly real. And she felt guilty for encouraging their affair . . . Something she had thought might be diverting had ended badly. She sighed and rolled herself up in the blanket she had bought from her bedroom.

She watched Will Jenkins make for the village, then change his mind and walk round to the stables. He made an awful noise, a clatter of bolts and doors – it was a miracle that no one stirred, she thought; then, minutes later, she saw him lead Zephyr away from the stables, mount up, and ride off towards Bristol.

What would happen tomorrow? she wondered. She tried to think of nothing and concentrate on counting the stars, which peppered the sky as if someone had been making bread and spilled flour. There were too many.

Lady Gresham had been charmed by Caraboo, and she had surprised herself. She still enjoyed stepping into the princess's skin, but it was different this time; as if, somehow, Mary Willcox was there at the same time, watching Caraboo dance or salute. The newspaper journalist who was arriving tomorrow afternoon would want her to be real. And the man from the scientific society – would he believe in her?

She counted up to thirty stars, then lost her place and was going to start again, but instead cursed, and shut her eyes. She was utterly alone. And perhaps as long as she was someone else, she always would be.

Caraboo had grown from all those stories she had made up, told first to Peg, then to the children she cared for in London, then whispered to her unborn baby.

Stories had been so much easier than real life. Her own real life, from nursemaid to unwed mother to beggar, reliant on the gifts and kindness of strangers. That was it, she told herself; that was the answer.

No more begging, no more playing. Whatever it cost.

‘I am Mary Willcox,' she said aloud to the stars, ‘of Witheridge, near Exeter, in Devon.'

Knole Park House
May, 1819

Mary Willcox had risen early, even before Phoebe. The roof was hard and the morning dew had chilled her. She went down to the laundry room and found the dress she had arrived in, all those weeks ago. It was even plainer than she remembered, made of dull black stuff of poor quality, with a high neck and short sleeves. Wearing this, without a turban, she would be entirely unremarkable. She put it on and found it far more restricting than any of Caraboo's clothes. It would be difficult to climb, to run.

She slipped out of the back door across the morning fields.

She had barely reached the limit of the park when she heard the sound of hooves behind her. She turned and saw Fred Worrall thundering after her on his bay mare.

‘Caraboo, come back!' he shouted.