The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo

by Catherine Johnson

  Apparatus could mean anything. She would simply have to charm the professor the same way she had charmed everyone else.

  Caraboo turned her smile up to dazzle.

  ‘What exceptionally white teeth your Caraboo has,’ the professor said, changing the subject. ‘And so neat and even!’

  He was studying her closely. Good, she thought.

  ‘Teeth like that are signifiers of both honesty and openness. I must admit, she is a most interesting young woman.’ He was turning the brass cap in his hands, and now Caraboo could see the wires that came out of it. ‘It will be fascinating to see how she responds to the natural forces, and how they affect her speech.’

  ‘And this will tell us where she is from?’ Fred sounded unconvinced.

  The professor was getting flustered. ‘Let us begin, and all will be clear!’

  Mrs Worrall squeezed Caraboo’s hand reassuringly.

  ‘Can you bring the girl over to the chair by the window, madam, and make her comfortable? Mr Worrall’ – he looked at Fred – ‘if you will make sure her wrists are firmly bound.’ He passed Fred a couple of leather straps.

  ‘Are you sure all this is quite necessary?’ Fred could see that Caraboo was anxious, but the professor simply nodded.

  Mrs Worrall made shushing sounds at her, as if she were a baby.

  Fred leaned close and buckled up the straps. He smelled of sandalwood and citrus, clean and sharp, and not beer and tobacco, which was a comfort. Caraboo tried to imagine unicorns and leopards, but her breaths were quick and shallow.

  ‘I think she is afraid,’ Mrs Worrall said, looking worried herself. ‘I am sure of it.’

  ‘It will all be over in the blink of an eye!’

  ‘And you are sure it is quite safe?’

  ‘Utterly, madam.’ The professor turned a handle on the wooden box, which he said was the generator. The buzzing sound Caraboo had heard earlier started up again. The professor unwound her turban, and she flinched and would have jumped up if she hadn’t had been tied down. He smelled of mothballs and coal, and old soup. Her hair fell down and he tried to gather it up, making her break into a cold sweat. He touched her head, and – she couldn’t help it – she screamed.

  ‘Mrs Worrall! I would appreciate it if you could get your Miss Caraboo to be quiet!’

  ‘I am trying!’ Mrs Worrall smoothed the hair away from Caraboo’s forehead. ‘Fred, where is your sister? She has a way with Caraboo.’

  ‘I cannot say, Mama. The last I heard, she was most keen to see the electrical demonstration.’

  The professor put the metal cap on Caraboo’s head and attached the wires. ‘Mrs Worrall, please stand back.’ He pulled a lever.

  Caraboo shut her eyes as the hum intensified into an oppressive thrum. She steeled herself, gripping the arms of the chair so hard her knuckles showed white.

  Whatever faced her now could not be worse than the things that had already befallen her. She repeated the words over and over in her head. All the bad things that had happened – the men in the woods, her dead Solomon, the look on Robert Lloyd’s face when she had seen him kissing another. She screwed her eyes shut. Those things had all happened to somebody else.

  Caraboo prayed hard to her god.

  ‘The poor child!’

  ‘The power is surging!’ the professor said.

  Suddenly Caraboo felt the air being knocked clear out of her. She was reminded of a time in another life, when she was seven: a boy in the village had caught her under her ribs in a fight. She gasped for air. She could no more exclaim a word in English than she could in any other language. She had no breath at all.

  There was a sizzling sound, and a loud pop! and again the smell of burning – though this time of human hair.

  ‘Oh my!’ Mrs Worrall said.

  She began unbuckling Caraboo’s straps and tore off the skullcap, then took a Turkish embroidered throw from the divan and flung it over Caraboo’s head.

  ‘Water! Quickly! Fred!’

  Then Caraboo was aware of spreading damp – Fred, she supposed, had emptied the vase of flowers over her, and when the throw was removed she realized she was soaked through and had a lap full of flowers.

  ‘There’s something wrong with the conductors . . .’ The professor was fussing over his apparatus.

  ‘Are you all right, miss?’ Fred said.

  But Caraboo saw that he was looking at her chest under the wet dress, and she hated him for it.

  Mrs Worrall hugged her, arms around her neck. ‘Oh, you poor, dear girl.’

  Caraboo was overcome with relief. She remembered her language and shouted at the professor, ‘Justo no bo beek! No bo beek!’ She was shaking with cold and shock.

  ‘She is still talking gibberish,’ Fred said.

  ‘The experiment is not over!’ the professor told him. ‘I have barely started. The subject has not recieved the required voltage!’

  ‘I think the poor child has had more than enough of your volts, sir. Her hair is quite burned off!’ Mrs Worrall said. ‘And her demeanour proves she is not a fraud at all. Wouldn’t a fraud have cried out in English? Professor, from now on, I will permit only the usual kind of enquiry – no more electricals!’

  ‘But, madam—’

  ‘Look at the poor girl! What have you done, sir?’ Mrs Worrall brushed the burned strands of hair away.

  ‘It is only hair, madam, no flesh wounds,’ the professor insisted.

  Caraboo flinched and scrabbled for her turban.

  At that moment Cassandra burst in through the French windows. Her cheeks showed a high colour and her eyes were shining.

  ‘Oh! Did I miss the electricity?’ She looked at Caraboo, drenched and burned. ‘Oh no! What have you done to poor Caraboo?’

  Cassandra ran across the room, and as she did so a single stalk of straw fell out of her hair and fluttered down to the carpet – as if she had been in the stables, perhaps, Caraboo thought, flat on her back . . .

  5

  A MAN FROM THE SEA

  Knole Park House

  Almondsbury

  April 1819

  Caraboo had risen early, as usual, to climb up to the roof, but then the rain started, so she took a handful of the pink flowers that grew up there and ran back inside. She paused at the foot of the ladder, not wanting to be shut away in her room, and made her way quietly towards the library.

  The house was mostly still asleep. The servants were about – she glimpsed Pheobe at the end of a corridor lugging a bucket of coal for the early morning fires – but she did not expect to find Finiefs in the library—

  He jumped up when she opened the door. He must have been sitting in the chair by the window, straining to read a book in the first glimmerings of light.

  He glared at her, but Caraboo only smiled. ‘I was . . .’ He stood up, the guilt had gone. ‘I don’t know why I bother. Princess or not, you cannot understand me.’

  Caraboo made for the globe and spun it so the world rumbled around. Finiefs was making for the door, but she reassured him in her language that she would not tell a soul. She tucked the pink willow herb into his lapel and saluted. For a moment she thought that Finiefs was about to tell her off, but he simply bowed his head and saluted her back.

  Caraboo picked up the book he had been reading, but she saw that it was in Greek.

  ‘I think perhaps’ – the steward saw her looking – ‘that we both have our secrets. I would not want this family to know the pattern of my life in Istanbul and Alexandria. Maybe it is the same with you.’ He smiled at Caraboo for the first time – a kind, almost fatherly smile – bowed once more and left.

  Caraboo listened for his footsteps as they crossed the marble hall and faded away. There was a tightness in her throat, a catch of such pain that she could not hold the tears back any longer. For a few minutes the Princess was gone, and Mary Willcox hid herself behind the curtain and cried silently for all she had lost.

  William Jenkins swept a huge cloud of dust out of the door of
the inn. He had hardly slept last night. For a moment he leaned on his broom; he watched as the specks swirled in the sunlight, and thought of Miss Cassandra Worrall. In truth, he had thought of nothing else since yesterday. It had been like inhabiting a dream, a dream made real.

  He closed his eyes and remembered, and he was there, in the stables at Knole Park.

  ‘This way . . .’ She had said it quietly, then put her hand out and took his, and led him into a storeroom. He followed, reminded of a picture in a book he had seen of some farmer’s boy enchanted by a fairy queen. He was aware of the softness of her fingers, her palm; he put his hand up to her face, and she touched her lips against his fingertips, and he felt his heart beat so hard in his chest he thought it might burst.

  ‘Miss Worrall—’

  ‘Don’t say anything, Will, please . . .’ She was looking at him. Those blue eyes, dark and deep, bluer than the gentian flowers in the meadow.

  He couldn’t help himself. He kissed her.

  For a second he thought she might scream, push him away, but she didn’t. She held him close, kissed him back. He could taste her now – her mouth, her tongue. And the softness and heat of her body against him. When they had broken apart she was smiling. And so they kissed again—

  ‘Will! William?’ his father shouted from inside the inn.

  Will jumped clear out of his skin and began sweeping, fiercely.

  ‘What are you up to?’ Mr Jenkins said. ‘You’re sweeping so hard you’ll have the stones off the ground. We need two barrels of ale and one of last year’s cider fetched up from the cellar! Quick sharp, boy.’

  Will sighed. He had come back from London for two reasons. The first was that Father had said he was poorly. Miraculously, as soon as Will returned, all ailments seemed to have vanished. Will was sure he had just wanted a cheap pair of hands.

  The other reason he’d come home had been Cassandra. He had looked at her, wanted her for years, wondering if she would ever notice him.

  Will smiled to himself and pushed the hair off his face. He had seen a miracle with his own eyes, felt that miracle kiss him. It had been worth leaving London and his new job ten times over for that.

  ‘Will!’ his father shouted again. ‘I need those barrels before my beard grows long enough to wipe my arse. Stop mooning around, lad, and knuckle down. Is it some girl you’ve left in London making you so?’ He snorted. ‘When I was your age I was wed – that’s the only cure for dreaming. You should settle down, and quick sharp.’

  Will went down to the cellar; at least there he was out of sight. But his father was right about one thing. He wanted to be wed. The snag was, he couldn’t see Miss Cassandra settling for a life in a country inn. Perhaps he should have stayed in London and tried to earn some money. Perhaps he would have to leave again and make his fortune before approaching her family; maybe old man Worrall would not let her go. He should definitely make his fortune before the family got wind of the romance. That would be hard – there were no streets paved with gold . . . but he would work himself to the bone for her, whatever it took.

  He closed his eyes and remembered those kisses. Oh! It would be entirely worth it.

  That afternoon the Gloucester-to-Bristol stage stopped at the Almondsbury smithy rather than in front of the inn, the lead horse having cast a shoe. A gentleman stepped down, stiff from travelling. Will, despatched to meet the coach, carried his trunk, which was old and battered and very heavy. The man was elderly and distinguished, white hair cut short, clothes well made but old – the cuffs of his sleeves were quite worn. Judging by his garments and his bearing, he’d had money once, Will thought, a good few years ago.

  ‘This is Almondsbury?’ The man spoke loudly, almost barking. ‘How far to Knole Park?’

  ‘Knole Park? The Worrall house?’ Will asked. Perhaps he could see Cassandra sooner than he’d imagined.

  ‘Aye, that’s what I said, lad.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Knole Park. On foot, a good three-quarter mile along this road, sir. But I could drive you, if you follow me to the Golden Bowl.’

  ‘The inn?’

  Will nodded.

  ‘Right, good man. Yes. I’m Captain Palmer.’ He put out his hand and Will shook it. ‘Thirty years with the finest navy in the world. You serve rum?’

  ‘Best Jamaican, sir, straight off the boat,’ Will said, and for the first time the man’s face softened.

  When Will came in from readying the gig, Captain Palmer had worked his way through a third of a bottle of the Golden Bowl’s best white rum. He was leaning on the counter telling tales of some kind of spirit to Mr Jenkins, who was listening, rapt.

  ‘Imagine this . . .’ The captain’s eyes shone. ‘The head of a woman – not just a woman – a girl, young and fresh. The most beautiful girl you’ve clapped eyes on: golden skin, black hair, eyes that’d melt a man with one look.’

  Will saw his father nod, open-mouthed. ‘What’s she wearing, then? Some shift? Wet, mebbe?’

  Will rolled his eyes. They were worse than school boys.

  ‘Nothing! She’s not wearing a stitch.’ The captain leaned close. ‘Not one scrap.’

  ‘Ent she now?’ Will was embarrassed to see that his father was almost drooling.

  ‘No,’ said the captain, pouring himself another measure. ‘In fact, she don’t even have a body, just her entrails and innards dangling down, glistening and pulsating as she floats through the air . . .’

  Mr Jenkins pulled a face. ‘That’s not much of a bundle of fun.’

  ‘Exactly! Exactly! The Penanggalan! Foulest fiend in all Malay – saw it with my own eyes, I did! On a moonlit night in old Jakarta, she floated past my window as clear as I see you. Blood dripped from her horrible mouth . . .’

  ‘No!’

  The captain lowered his voice. ‘The thing turned, our eyes locked, just for a moment. I felt a chill in my heart as though it were gripped by ice.’ He shook his head. ‘I thought I was dead. I blinked, and in the instant my eyes were closed, she flew at me and I felt her mouth upon my neck, her foul breath hard against my face. See, here!’

  Captain Palmer pulled his collar away from his neck. Will couldn’t help looking, but he thought the marks might just be moles.

  Mr Jenkins leaned closer. ‘What happened then?’

  ‘I felt the life draining out of me. My whole life flashed before my very eyes. The thing, the Penanggalan, was sucking out my vital force. With the last of my strength I fumbled in my pocket for my pistol. I was fading. I could feel the black veil of death falling . . . falling . . .’

  Mr Jenkins gasped.

  ‘I pulled the trigger. The thing fell to the floor in a juddering stinking black mess. And she screamed. The sound was the scream of Hell come to earth. I hope to God I never hear the like of it again . . .’ The captain slammed the glass down onto the table. ‘It’s a miracle I lived to tell the tale.’

  By the time Will got Captain Palmer and his trunk into the gig, there wasn’t much he didn’t know about Penanggalan or Pocong or any other Malay spirits and demons, and there wasn’t much rum left either.

  ‘You up to see the foreign girl, Captain? The one that speaks no English?’ Will asked.

  ‘That’s why I’m here, lad – sent for to discover if she is indeed the genuine article.’

  ‘They found her out on the Bristol road.’

  ‘Did they now? They say she is most interesting.’

  Will shrugged. ‘She is passing pretty – good teeth – though I seen darker-skinned girls two a penny in London.’

  ‘Two a penny, you say?’

  Will flushed. ‘Not like that, sir, no . . .’

  The old man laughed.

  ‘There’s a professor come up from London at Knole Park, trying to talk to her.’

  ‘What’s the fellow’s name?’

  ‘Heyford, Professor Heyford.’

  Captain Palmer harrumphed. ‘Can’t say I know the name.’

  ‘He works with electricity, I heard.’

/>   The captain smiled. ‘Well, I hope the fellow knows what he is doing. I speak eight varieties of dialect, don’t you know. Lived out East for years – best time of my life, young man.’ He looked at Will. ‘You should travel, son, get yourself out of here and see the world.’ He leaned back and belched. ‘Make your fortune.’

  Will smiled. ‘I need a fortune, sir,’ he said as he urged the horse on, ‘and no mistake.’

  ‘Then you’d better be on that boat quick sharp! They say the days of the Sugar Barons are over. The nigrahs will be turning on us afore long, after what was done to them.’ Captain Palmer shook his head. ‘America has furs, though, and silver – lots of space for a young man.’

  ‘It is a long way, sir.’

  The captain waved a hand in the air. ‘Mark my words, nothing’s a long way any more. These days a man can be across the Atlantic in a matter of weeks. Why, the world shrinks so fast I wager a man’ll stride around the globe in days by the time you reach my age.’

  ‘I worked in an inn in London, sir,’ Will said, ‘and there were folk back off the boats saying just that.’ He drove the cart through the gates of Knole Park. ‘But you have me thinking, sir. I do need to make my fortune, and quick . . . Oh, I’ll work hard, there’s none can match me when I put my mind to it. Then I can come back and, well, I don’t like to say anything more, sir, but I need to come back a gentleman.’ He sighed as he looked at the house at the end of the drive. It was as least four, maybe five, times as big as the Golden Bowl. He needed to show Cassandra Worrall that he was serious. That he could keep her, and provide for her – he let out a long sigh – in the manner to which she was accustomed.

  America! Will saw himself in a few years, wearing one of them fancy coats with a plush beaver collar those colonialists wore, over a finer suit than Cassandra’s beau nasty of a brother could ever afford. Then he would get down from his horse and stride up to old Mr Worrall and ask outright for his daughter’s hand – and, what’s more, get it gladly.

  Will pulled gently on the reins and the horse came to a halt. ‘Sir, Captain Palmer, we’re here.’