The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo

by Catherine Johnson

  There was a snort from the captain, and Will realized that he was fast asleep.

  Caraboo saw the gig turn into the drive from her hiding place in the branches of the large beech tree that grew at the front of Knole Park.

  She was hiding from Professor Heyford, who had insisted on yet another cranial exploration. He had carried out two already, and as far as Caraboo could fathom it was an excuse to stand exceptionally close and run his hands all over her head while making various pronouncements. It was close to torture.

  During the last two, Professor Heyford had deduced that Caraboo was from the Orient and that she liked dancing. He divined that she was young and vigorous and her teeth were proof of good family; according to the professor she was definitely of noble birth. Truly the man had as much insight as a card table!

  But at least Caraboo had given him no reason to think her a fraud, and he had neither the wit nor the knowledge to see past the end of his own nose. Or perhaps, she thought, he wanted only to impress his patron, Mrs Worrall, by going along with her own impressions. People, she thought to herself, did so want to believe a good tale.

  Lies were easy; it was always the truth that was difficult.

  Caraboo was sure of one thing: she had nothing to fear from the professor. Mrs Worrall was beginning to find him tiresome and was looking forward to the arrival of Captain Palmer, a navy man and explorer who spoke, apparently, ten languages. Perhaps, Caraboo thought, this was him coming now.

  As the gig came closer she recognized the driver: it was William Jenkins from the inn, the boy Cassandra wouldn’t stop talking about. In the seat next to him was an elderly, white-haired gentleman, hat off, mouth open, fast asleep.

  William was good looking – Caraboo could see why Cassandra had fallen for him, and he had seemed a nice enough young man. He wasn’t like Frederick Worrall, talking to a girl while he stared at her breasts or her legs. He was decent, she was sure, but she also knew that an affair like theirs could never end well. Caraboo sighed. The Princess would never fall in love.

  She watched as Will shook the man awake and took his trunk down off the cart. It looked heavy; Caraboo hoped he didn’t have anything to do with electricity locked up inside. She dismissed the idea – this man looked too old to be swept up by modern fads and fancies. He walked with a strange gait – a man who had obviously spent a lot of time at sea. This was the ‘second opinion’ which had caused Professor Heyford to go into a sulk.

  The captain was a drinker, his red nose made that clear, and the way he talked – not just with his voice, which Caraboo could hear from her hiding place, but with his arms, with his body – made him seem twice as tall as he really was.

  ‘So, farewell, lad,’ he roared. ‘Send me a letter from Philadelphia!’ He saluted Will as the front door opened. Caraboo frowned – was Will off to America?

  ‘That lad’s a diamond and no mistake!’ he said as he clicked his heels and bowed to Finiefs and Mrs Worrall. ‘Captain Palmer, late of Sumatra, at your service. Pleased to make your aquaintance, I’m sure.’

  Up in the tree Caraboo smiled. Perhaps this sea captain would have more luck with her. After all, if he could see that William Jenkins was a diamond, then he was bound to discover that Caraboo was a princess.

  She waited until Will had led the horse and cart round to the stables, then jumped softly down to the ground and ran round the side of the house. Even though she knew that Cassandra’s love affair with Will was doomed, she wanted to see her friend happy, as she would be once she discovered that her love was here at Knole.

  Cassandra was in the schoolroom with Miss Marchbanks, and Caraboo decided to make an entrance. She climbed onto the balcony of the room next door and jumped in through the window, making the governess start.

  ‘Oh my word!’ Miss Marchbanks clutched her chest. ‘It is that girl again! Can you not get Mrs Worrall to keep her out of the schoolroom when we are working!’

  Caraboo saluted her, pressing her left hand to her forehead and biting her lip to prevent herself laughing. Then she tugged Cassandra’s hand. ‘Ake, Cass-andra! Ake!’

  ‘I think she wants me to go with her, Miss Marchbanks. Ake means “come”.’ Cassandra was already getting up.

  ‘Well, I suppose you might learn a new language yet,’ the governess sighed. ‘But it’s hardly French, is it?’

  Caraboo pulled Cassandra down the stairs, into the garden and then through to the stable yard.

  ‘Caraboo, what are you doing?’

  She made as if she wanted to lead her past the stables to the lake, but Cassandra stopped dead and squeezed her hand as she recognized the gig from the Golden Bowl, standing there in the stable yard.

  Mr Vaughan, the coachman, was talking to William Jenkins – something about the Golden Bowl’s horse, which looked as if it had seen better days.

  Caraboo felt Cassandra take a deep breath. She let go of her hand and stepped back so that Cassandra wouldn’t see the wry smile that crossed her face.

  ‘Ah, Vaughan!’ Cassandra said. ‘Is Zephyr quite well? Only I looked over his saddle and there seemed to be some stitching that was irritating his back. I wonder, could you take a look?’ She smiled, and Caraboo thought that she sounded completely natural. She had obviously lied before, and often.

  ‘Certainly, Miss Worrall.’

  Cassandra leaned close. ‘Now there’s only Stephen to get rid of,’ she said, looking at the stable boy, who was cleaning out a loose box across the yard.

  Out of the corner of her eye Caraboo saw her lead William Jenkins into the grain store. Even if her heart did get broken, Cassandra had so many people around her who loved her; people who would help her. In any case, Caraboo told herself, a girl like Cassandra would never need help. It was Will, she thought, who would be hurt. Mary Willcox, far away in Exeter and London, knew that love was poisonous, that men would only hurt you, but perhaps the Princess thought differently.

  Will reappeared a few minutes later, climbed into the gig and drove off towards Almondsbury. When the coast was clear, Cassandra emerged. ‘I am meeting him after church this Sunday, in the field beyond the graveyard . . .’ She smoothed her hair down before linking her arm through Caraboo’s. ‘Oh, Caraboo. I wish you could understand me! William is such a gentleman, and so handsome! And his kisses! There is none in the whole county – not even Edmund – that could hold a candle to him.’

  Caraboo said nothing. Cassandra took her by the hand and led her away from the house. ‘His eyes are, I swear, the bluest I have seen!’ She lowered her voice, even though there was no one within earshot. ‘You should have heard him, Caraboo – the way he spoke to me, touched me! I swear my heart nearly burst with the thrill of it.’ Cassandra shuddered, remembering. ‘He has sworn his love to me, said he had thought of me every day he was away in London. He sees a future for us, together!’

  Caraboo thought hard. She should open her mouth there and then and, in the plainest English, spell out that there was no future in it. That if William Jenkins was not lying – and she thought it unlikely that he was – then Cassandra was lying to herself. She was not the sort of girl who would enjoy the life of an innkeeper’s wife.

  Caraboo recognized the look in Cassandra’s eyes. In many ways, she thought, there was little to choose between love and madness.

  ‘And the smell of his skin!’ Cassandra was almost swooning. ‘I would be lost to kissing—’ She stopped dead.

  She had looked up to see Fred come swaggering across the yard. Caraboo thought she would like to take a stick and hit him hard across the back of his knees, so that he fell face down in the slurry Stephen had just swept out of the stable. She pictured his pristine cream trousers – the latest fashion – covered with dung, and smiled.

  ‘I have been looking for you two everywhere. Captain Palmer is waiting in the drawing room and he absolutely can’t wait to meet our foreign friend.’

  ‘Fred, her name is Princess Caraboo.’

  ‘Yes, and I am Napoleon Bonaparte, E
mperor of all the World!’

  The three of them entered the drawing room, where Mrs Worrall and the professor were already seated, while Captain Palmer stalked up and down, cutting the air with a knife. It had a serpentine blade, like a child’s drawing of a wave, and a bright red silken tassel on the handle. Caraboo had seen one exactly like it in Mrs Worrall’s books.

  The captain had the whole party so enthralled by his tale that no one could take their eyes off him – although Professor Heyford’s expression was more than a little sour, his finger tapping irritably at his leg as the captain spoke. It had been some time since he had last been invited to demonstrate any of his equipment.

  ‘. . . So you see, the tiger almost had the better of our party—’ He stopped abruptly when he saw Caraboo, and she saluted him, right hand to temple.

  He looked her up and down, and then saluted her back.

  ‘Manjitoo, Lazor.’ Caraboo went on to salute the professor and Mrs Worrall. Then her eyes fixed upon the captain’s knife, at which he solemnly handed it over. She took it, feeling the weight of it in her hands, then making slashing motions, once, twice, a third time – perilously close to the cheek of Frederick Worrall, causing him to step back.

  Caraboo studied the knife closely. It was beautiful, and so shiny she could see her own face in it. She remembered what it had said in Mrs Worrall’s book, and traced her finger along the blade so that it drew blood. She heard Mrs Worrall gasp. Then she took the blade over to the window, where Mrs Worrall kept a large pot plant. Caraboo took a leaf and wiped it over the blade, and Captain Palmer almost shouted with excitement.

  ‘There! There! Did you see that!’ He pointed at the knife and the plant. ‘See! It proves that the girl is most definitely a Malay, from one of the islands. They use poison like that! Just like that! Wipe it over the knife – kills the damned monkeys in double-quick time!’

  ‘Well I never!’ Mrs Worrall said.

  Caraboo noticed that Frederick Worrall said nothing; he merely re-crossed his legs the other way.

  ‘Kriss!’ Captain Palmer said, pointing at the knife.

  ‘Kriss,’ Caraboo said back and nodded. ‘Kriss beek.’

  ‘By Jove, that’s it! She think’s it’s good.’

  ‘Yes! Yes, she does,’ Cassandra said, nodding. ‘That’s her word for good – beek!’

  The captain smiled. ‘Didn’t I say there isn’t a language in those islands I don’t know a little of?’

  Everyone was grinning and nodding and smiling – except Professor Heyford, who looked piqued, and Fred, who looked indifferent.

  ‘Javasu?’ Caraboo said, looking straight at the captain. He was as big a liar as she was, wasn’t he?

  ‘Jav-a-su?’ he said back slowly, nodding.

  Captain Palmer indicated that she should sit, then began to babble at her in what sounded like a variety of different languages. Caraboo kept her eyes on him at all times, and in some of the gaps she talked back.

  Mrs Worrall and Cassandra watched, rapt.

  The captain had a book in his hand, and Caraboo saw that it was the same as Mrs Worrall’s, about the islands of the East Indian Ocean, Batavia and Malaya. He flipped the pages, and pointed to a picture of some fruit.

  ‘Ananas!’ Caraboo exclaimed.

  ‘My, my,’ Mrs Worrall said, ‘isn’t that French for pineapple?’

  ‘It’s Eastern originally,’ Captain Palmer said seriously, turning round in his chair to face her. ‘Proves again – and without a doubt, I might say – that what we’re dealing with here is a Malay.’

  He skipped on a few pages, and there was an illustration of the temple at Borobudur in Java. Then on a few pages more to one of peacock feathers. Caraboo stopped him, and indicated that back home they adorned her turban. She knew from Mrs Worrall’s library that peacock feathers were a sign of royalty; surely Captain Palmer knew this too.

  ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘The maid’s from one of the islands. There’s no doubt. And the peacock feathers: a sure sign of nobility. Now, if you would, madam, fetch me a small tot of rum and a globe – perhaps we can discover the true and most likely origins of your house guest!’ He turned and spoke in his strange language to Caraboo, who smiled, and babbled back.

  ‘What do you think she is saying, Mama?’ Cassandra said.

  Fred leaned back in his chair. ‘Gobbledygook – I’d put money on it.’

  ‘Shh, Fred,’ Mrs Worrall said. ‘Captain Palmer is a hero, and a gentleman. Even your father is aware of Captain Palmer’s exploits in the East Indies!’

  The globe was brought in and Captain Palmer pointed at Java, talking to Caraboo all the while. She nodded, and traced a long looping path with her finger across the seas, under the tip of Africa and up the coast as far as France. She kept her face utterly straight. She and Captain Palmer were both talking nonsense. She knew that. He must know that. Or perhaps, Caraboo thought, she was indeed real. Perhaps it only took someone else to see that. She felt giddy. Perhaps it was Mary Willcox who was a figment of Caraboo’s imagination. Perhaps this was reality and the previous seventeen years had been a mixture of dreams and nightmares.

  Captain Palmer poured himself a second glass of rum and addressed the company. ‘Well, our young Caraboo here has quite a tale to tell.’

  The Princess sat up straight. She wondered what she was meant to have told him. She stroked her leopard, which had, in her mind’s eye, wound itself around her legs.

  ‘I knew it!’ Mrs Worrall clapped her hands.

  ‘Now, I don’t pretend to know all the ins and outs of her dialect, but from what I can understand we have here among us a very special lady who has endured a most terrible and dangerous journey . . .’

  ‘I never doubted it! Frederick, your father will have to believe me now,’ Mrs Worrall said.

  ‘As I intimated earlier, Caraboo is no common or garden Malay, oh no.’

  The eyes of the whole company were fixed on Captain Palmer.

  ‘I believe young Caraboo is a noblewoman from Javasu, captured by pirates in the South China Seas and cruelly torn from her home, from all she knows . . .’

  Caraboo wanted to nod, but held back and concentrated on the knife, feeling the silky tassle and watching it flash in the light.

  ‘A noblewoman?’ Mrs Worrall said. ‘Like a countess?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Captain Palmer replied, ‘or maybe a—’

  ‘Perhaps a princess?’ Cassandra gasped.

  ‘Exactly right, young lady. This young woman, I have no doubt at all, is indeed a princess.’

  ‘A princess!’ Fred said it dismissively, but Caraboo could hear the doubt in his voice. ‘You’re quite sure? I mean to say—’

  Captain Palmer swivelled to face Frederick Worrall. ‘Young man, I have been around the world and back again. I have seen more of the wonders that it has to offer in my three score years than most men see in a lifetime. I have met royalty from the Guinea coast to Coromandel and all the way to China. Believe me, I know a princess when I find one.’ He pointed at Caraboo. ‘And here she is!’

  Caraboo looked meekly around the company. She did not blush because she had to pretend that she could not understand a word, but the story about the pirates was an embroidery by Captain Palmer so audacious that she could not believe the Worralls weren’t throwing the pair of them out and calling the magistrates. Is that really what he had heard when she had spoken to him? She had to work hard not to smile.

  Even if she had understood, the fact that she was indeed a princess was something she had known all along, so it was hardly a shock or a revelation. But now the whole household, not least Mr Frederick Worrall, was aware of the fact too.

  6

  IN THE COURT OF CARABOO

  Knole Park House

  May 1819

  ‘I don’t know how much I believe you, you know.’ Frederick Worrall had been watching her. He had climbed up onto the roof and was leaning against the tiles in his dressing gown. His chest was bare and his skin was the palest gold i
n the dawn light.

  Princess Caraboo’s hand went to her kriss. Another week had run past like water and she was still here. It was her own fault. She moved away. It was his roof, after all. His roof, his house, his life.

  The clock on the stable block said six; the air was early morning sparkling.

  ‘No salute?’ Fred said. ‘Don’t I even deserve that?’

  Caraboo said nothing – he was mocking her. If he came any closer . . .

  He put his hands up. ‘I’m not here for you! You don’t think—?’ He looked faintly disgusted. ‘Look, Caraboo, Princess of wherever, my intentions are honourable. I just came up here because I couldn’t sleep, that’s all. Came up for some air.’ He looked around, surveying the park and the country beyond. ‘This is a grand place up here. No idea why I never bothered before.’ He took a deep breath, drinking in the air. ‘You can see so far . . .’

  Caraboo remained wary. After all, she could understand only a few of his words.

  Fred turned round. ‘I still don’t know what game you’re playing, but I’ll swear you’re playing at something – even if that jabber you and the captain spout is a proper language, even if you are a bona fide princess . . . But you know, so long as you don’t hurt my family, I’m not sure I can be bothered to care . . .’ He looked off into the distance, his arms behind his head, and said nothing more.

  Caraboo got up and began to walk back towards the trapdoor. This boy would not know trouble if it jumped up and hit him over the head.

  ‘Caraboo,’ he called. ‘Princess Caraboo.’

  She stopped.

  ‘Sorry.’ He said it again, more slowly: ‘Sorry.’

  She had never heard Fred Worrall apologize before. Perhaps she had acheieved a little victory. She went back to her altar and sat down.

  ‘You know what, Caraboo?’ Fred said. ‘Perhaps you could help me. Yes, I think you could – after all, you have no idea what I’m saying.’

  He looked lost, and Caraboo found herself wondering why. What could trouble a young man like this, with every advantage? He had money, he was strong and healthy; surely he had never had to be anybody but himself.