I, Sofia-Elisabete, Love Child of Colonel Fitzwilliam

by Robin Kobayashi

  Papai shook his head, and he berated me for my hoydenish behaviour and bad habit of lying. ‘A child fabulist has sprung from me,’ complained he.

  ‘What’s a fabulist?’ asked I.

  ‘It’s someone who invents stories.’

  I shrugged with raised brows. ‘But papai, the truth is so hum-da-dum-drum.’ Well, upon hearing that, papai threatened to escort me upstairs if I didn’t go to bed. I lingered a moment or two in the passage to spy on them again.

  Papai inclined his head towards mamãe. ‘I fear she’s quite like her lying mother, who sent me to the wrong convent in Lisbon when I was searching for…’

  ‘Oh, nonsense,’ mamãe interrupted him. ‘Our Sofia-Elisabete is just a child with a lively imagination.’

  I climbed up the stairs, wondering if my first mother was a hoyden and a fabulist like me. A week passed, and by then, I had long forgotten about it.

  The third of June arrived, it being my natal day, and I wished to go swimming with my avô, but papai had invited his friends, the Robinsons, to join us at the lodge for a picnic instead. According to papai, he had met Tom Robinson nearly two years ago at the Black Swan in Edwinstowe when papai, who had disguised himself as a common labourer, spilt ale on Tom, and Tom, in turn, had planted a facer on him. And that is how grown men amuse themselves and become great friends, methinks.

  These Robinsons lived in Edwinstowe where they owned a grocer’s shop. There were five of them in all – a hugeous father, a sweet mother, two boys named Pico and Pequin, ages ten and eight, respectively, and a toddler called Poppaye, who looked, well, Poppaye-ish. But we Fitzwilliams could not help but be curious about the names Pico and Pequin. Mr Robinson explained that he named his sons after places mentioned in a certain tale – one where a Spaniard journeyed to the moon with the aid of his flying gansas or geese. Oh, how I wished to fly on a gansa to the moon. But Pico scoffed at me, claiming that no girls could survive the long and difficult journey to see the Man in the Moon, nor would they be safe from the moon men.

  The Robinson boys taught me how to play ancient games, such as blindman’s bluff, leap frog, buck buck and running the gauntlet. They taught me how to speak like a Notts boy, and so I taught them a few choice words in Portuguese, including ‘Viva!’ when you greet someone. The dinner-bell having rung, we raced one another to the festive table that Cook had set up out of doors, it being laden with fish, flesh and fowl, pyramids of this, that and the other, and my favourite gooseberry fool, all nicely dished up.

  ‘D’yer eat this ivry day?’ Pico goggled at these platters of food, particularly the mound of maccaroni.

  ‘Yi, don’t you?’ It hadn’t occurred to me that the Robinsons were poor. Could they not eat the food in their grocer’s shop if they so wished? Surely they never went to bed hungry.

  Pequin picked up one of the hairy gooseberries. ‘I’ve niver seed a goosegog afore.’

  ‘Niver?’ I had thought all English ate gooseberries.

  Once the dinner concluded, the men smoked their pipes, and the women played with Poppaye, while we children stole away to the surrounding old wood. The Robinson boys took out their sling-stones, and they began to hurl rocks at an imposing, ancient oak tree. ‘Retreat!’ warned Pico, and he tossed his sling-stone into my hands, for he had heard my papai’s rapid approach. Convinced that I was the culprit, papai lectured me that I should not sling rocks at Matlock’s Favourite Oak because it would upset my avô.

  ‘But papai, I wasna slingin’ stones. Pico an’ Pequin…’

  ‘I don’t care who did the slinging. A proper young lady must not do it,’ commanded he.

  ‘But papai, I dunna know how to sling. I dunna…’

  ‘Confound your buts and dunnas. Obey me at once.’ He held out his hand for the sling-stone, which I gave to him with alacrity. When he strode off, angry as can be, I stuck out my tongue at those two connivers who fell a laughing at me for getting scolded. I saw how it was. Boys got to run wild, slinging stones, whereas girls could not.

  ‘Yer in the suds now, nincompoop.’ Pico guffawed as if he had uttered the wittiest thing in the world.

  ‘Pah!’ taunted I. ‘Yer niver gettin’ yer sling-stone back.’

  ‘My papa will clout yer papa if he doesna give me my sling-stone.’

  The next week my avô proposed a jaunt to Creswell Crags where we could explore the secret caves that sheltered Robin Hood and his Merry Men from the law. My heart filled with joy at the thought of another boyish adventure with my avô, but to my ten-fold dismay, he invited the Robinson boys. I got into the carriage where I sat in between the two miscreants, Pico and Pequin, who pinched me and pulled my hair when my avô did not attend to us. ‘Yow!’ I rubbed my sore head. To distract my tormentors, I begged my avô to tell us another tale of Robin Hood, and so he did. We learnt how Robin Hood set the prisoners free at King John’s Palace in Clipstone while King John searched the caves at Creswell Crags for the bold outlaw.

  ‘I’m goin’ to be Robin Hood someday,’ remarked I.

  Pico laughed at me. ‘Yer just a slip of a girl.’

  When we reached our destination, we clambered up the hillside to inspect one of the caves. There, I suffered a goodly amount of time trapped inside the small cave while my captors pestered me with spiders and other horrid creatures.

  ‘Yer canna get out, Robin Hood, ’til yer eat it,’ Pico dangled a gigantic spider in front of me.

  ‘Why, you rascal.’ I picked up some magic dirt, and I threw it at Pico, thereby enabling me to escape from the cave. I ran to my avô, who awaited me with a proud grin on his face.

  To my great relief, we returned to Edwinstowe where our carriage conveyed us to the grocer’s. I bid the Robinson boys farewell with ‘adeus’, hoping I would never see those two imps ever again. Unfortunately, that was not to be.

  One sunny day too soon thereafter, Mr Robinson and those aforementioned imps arrived at the lodge. Pico said the men were going to fish for trout. ‘Yer a namby-pamby girl an’ canna goo wi’ us,’ taunted he. I gave him a monstrous glare. I ran as fast as I could up the hillock, where I pounded on the turret door with my fist. ‘Let me in you silly Bugbear,’ cried I, my eyes filling up fast with hot tears. I turned round to discover that papai had followed me up to the folly, and in a fit of rage, I saluted him with a volley of oaths that he always used when he thought I couldn’t hear him.

  ‘Saucy girl! I counted four oaths in your string of invectives. That’s four fatigue duties for you.’

  ‘I dunna care.’ I turned away in a pout, and I stamped my feet – left-right-left-right – for I detested chores more than anything.

  ‘Do you wish to make it five?’

  ‘It isna fair. He’s my avô,’ insisted I. ‘I knowed him first.’

  ‘When you can speak the King’s English again and behave like a proper young lady, pray let me know.’ Having said that, papai turned a crisp, right-about-face, and he marched off with long strides. He, being at odds with my avô for some reason, had declined to join the Robinsons on their fishing excursion.

  ‘It isna fair to be a girl,’ muttered I. And that is why I determined to run away and hide somewhere. I slid my way round the turret where no one could see me. Leaning against the wall, I closed my eyes, and I willed myself to drift upwards – higher and higher and higher – and when I opened my eyes, I found myself standing atop the turret.

  I knew not how long I was up there, but it seemed as if I had no sooner accomplished this grand feat, than I heard papai calling my name. I own that I took delight in hearing the concern in his voice, because surely he now believed how wronged I had been. Ere long my mamãe joined him, as did my avô, who had returned from his angling adventure with the Robinsons. ‘Where are you? Sofia-Elisabete, where are you?’ Their voices rang with worry.

  I peered down at them through an arrow-slit on the parapet. ‘Meu avô! Meu avô! You have come home at last.’

  The three of them glanced up at me. I do believe I gave them a go
od fright, for they certainly seemed shocked to see me high atop the turret.

  ‘Dear God, no.’ Papai gaped at me in disbelief.

  In an instant my avô opened the turret door, having found the padlock unlocked. Their loud footsteps echoed in the folly as he and my papai charged up the winding staircase, uttering oaths at each other and blaming the other for not remembering to lock the door.

  ‘Sofia-Elisabete, I shall court-martial you,’ bellowed papai, he still being of a snappish humour.

  ‘Bugbear chased me up here,’ claimed I.

  ‘I dare say you are lying.’ Papai scowled, and he sprang forward to catch me. ‘Vem cá. Come here.’

  I ran away from papai as fast as I could. ‘Avô! Avô!’ I sought the safety of my grandfather’s outstretched arms. ‘You believe me, don’t you?’

  He stooped down to scrutinise me. ‘Child, how came you to be here?’

  ‘I knocked at the door – tap-tap-tap. Bugbear called out, “Come!” And so I let myself in. Bugbear chased me round and round. But I squashed him good and hard.’ My tale was so brilliant I had convinced myself that this had really happened, yes, indeed.

  ‘Now why would Bugbear chase you? Think carefully little one.’

  The gleam of reproach in his clear blue eyes cut me to the soul, and thus I hesitated for a long moment.

  ‘I…was…naughty?’

  ‘That’ll do.’

  Having understood my avô’s censure, I covered my face with my hands to hide my shame. I began to weep a hundred – nay, a thousand – nay, a million – tears, for most assuredly my avô detested me now, and I would never get to do flying boulders or other boyish things with him ever again. To my great surprise, however, he grasped my right hand, and he placed a ha’penny into it. With a wink, he gathered me into his warm embrace where all was forgive and forgot.

  Chapter Four

  Tree on the Hill

  MY FIRST DRUM, thinks I, was an adufe, or pandiero quadrado, in the shape of a square, its two goat skins stitched along the sides of the frame. I clutched the adufe with my thumbs and the pointing finger of my left hand, while the rest of my fingers beat the rhythm on the skins, the seeds rattling pleasantly within. I imagined myself a true adufeira, just like Catarina Baptista, she being a popular adufeira from Trás-os-Montes who came to live one day in Monchique. It was she who taught me the adufe rhythms – ritmo de passo and ritmo de roda – whenever I begged for alms. When I took leave of the Convento do Desterro to find my papai, Senhora Baptista celebrated by playing her adufe as I rode by her on the streets of Monchique. She sang an old song of her adufe not being played with her hand but with a golden ring, a gift from her heart:

  Este pandeiro qu’eu toco não se toca com a mão,

  toca-se com anel d’ouro, prenda do meu coração.

  Here, in Scarborough, without an adufe, I beat my fingers on the tea-table, the bedpost, the cover of a book – whatever I could find and whenever my papai and mamãe weren’t attending to me, because they forbid me to drum my fingers. To be sure, papai would still my hands if he caught me. He would mutter something about it being impolite, not to mention hoydenish. But then, one afternoon, it being the day of the summer solstice, 1815, I heard the strongest of heartbeats – tah-tah da-dum, tah-tah da-dum – summoning me below stairs.

  I sneaked out of doors, into the small kitchen garden, where I beheld a most astonishing sight. My papai’s valet, MacTavish, wore a brass drum, the shape of a gigantic pot, resting high up on his left hip. This drum, so similar to the caixa used by the Portuguese military, hung suspended from a leather strap that he wore over his right shoulder. With a stick in each hand, he beat the drum with the air and spirit of a valiant soldier, making a tempest of sounds of which I had never heard before.

  ‘Viva! MacTavish,’ I greeted him when he had done. ‘Is that your caixa?’

  ‘Ay, ay – ’tis my bres drume.’

  MacTavish told me that when he was just a lad of nine years, he enlisted in the army as a drummer boy after lying about his age. He came from a poor family of ten children, and his parents reasoned that one less bairn to feed would mean more parritch an’ broo of broth for the others. He and two other young lads in the village enlisted at the same time, eager to wear a smart uniform and to eat tasty chum in the army – mighty English roast beef – these sorts of things being promised to them by a jolly Captain MacAdoo, who, by beat of drum, raised volunteers for a regiment of Foot Guards.

  A drum-major taught MacTavish and the other lads the drum signals – march, alarm, approach, assault, battle, retreat and so forth. Why, there were even drum beats to signal the taverns to stop serving ale to the soldiers, or to signal the idle women, they being camp followers, to take their leave. And every so often they had to drum out a miscreant from the army with the Rogue’s March. According to the drum-major, the French Army enlisted boys as young as seven years to be drummer boys, and many years ago, the British Army had done the same.

  ‘I’m five, and that’s nearly seven.’ I counted on my fingers. ‘Could I be a drummer boy?’

  ‘Ye’re a wee bit bairn wi’ wee bit han’s. Listen,’ he removed his drum, ‘Ah’ll tell ye a’ aboot Mary Ann Talbot instead.’

  I learnt the strange story of Miss Talbot, who claimed that, as a youth, she had been disguised as a foot-boy against her will by a certain Captain Bowen, and she had served in the army as a drummer boy. As an eyewitness to the siege of Valenciennes, she observed many a soldier on both sides swallow fire. She said the drummer boys had been ordered to keep a continuous roll despite the cries and confusion on the battlefield.

  ‘Och! The lass murgullied the drume roll, nae doot.’ He shook his head.

  ‘Murgullied?’

  ‘The lass bungled the drume roll. ’Tis true that only lads make gude drummers.’

  I scoffed at his maxim, when nothing could stop the rhythm that poured out of my soul. I snatched the sticks from him, and I began to beat the skin of the drum in the same pattern he had done and without bungling it. This shocked MacTavish to see a wee bit lassie striking a bres drume. But soon he clapped his hands and stamped his feet to the beat – tap-tap tah-too, tap-tap tah-too, tap-tap tah-too, tap-tap tah-too. Amazed by my brilliant display of primitive drumming, MacTavish promised to teach me the drum signals, but only if my papai agreed to it.

  The day next, I advised MacTavish that papai had granted my request to become a drummer boy and that I could commence my lessons that very afternoon if I didn’t practise more than half-an-hour. I tried my utmost to sound convincing, knowing that my papai and mamãe had walked out and that their stroll would take – oh yes – exactly half-an-hour.

  MacTavish looked askance at me. ‘Ye’re a bardy bairn. Ah’ll speak wi’ the Colonel aboot it.’

  ‘But you cannot now,’ I shook my finger at him. ‘Papai is doing his manly duty. He took mamãe for an airing.’

  Fortunately for me, MacTavish’s suspicions gave way to his passion for drumming. ‘Ah’ll meet wi’ ye oot in the yaird,’ said he.

  There, under our Scots pine, my first lesson covered something called ‘technique’ – a fancy word, methinks, for holding the sticks properly and for standing upright with my left heel jammed into the hollow of my right foot. In the upper or left hand, one must position the stick firmly between the thumb and two middle fingers and rest it on the third finger above the middle joint, while in the lower or right hand, one must hold the stick with the whole hand, the little finger gripping it firmly like one does with a sword.

  Next, my maestro demonstrated how to perform a long roll – rat-tat tat-tat, rat-tat tat-tat – and a stroke roll. He placed his bres drume on a footstool where I could reach it and practise the rolls. And once those beats became easy and familiar to me, he taught me how to close a roll with two heavy strokes with the upper hand, followed by two strokes with the lower hand, quickening the strokes each time till the roll was closed – rat-tat tat-tat t-rrr-r-r-r rrr-r-r-r-rrr.

  Ea
ger for my second lesson, I met with MacTavish the following ‘Soonday’, and he taught me the open flam and the close flam – a-ra a-tat-a-ra a-tat – all of which I learnt quickly. To challenge me, he demonstrated two drum signals – advance and retreat. He had no sooner done so, than papai stalked into the garden. Unbeknown to me, papai had returned early from his stroll with mamãe.

  ‘Sir!’ MacTavish saluted him soldier-like with a pull of his cap.

  Papai cast a severe look at me. ‘Sofia-Elisabete, did I not refuse your request to become a drummer boy? ’Tis not proper for a young lady to be a drummer.’

  ‘Please, papai, please.’ I stamped my feet – left-right-left-right – in a most unladylike manner.

  ‘Permission denied, again.’ He turned to rail at his man. ‘Confound it, MacTavish! I am the master of this house, yet I find I’m running down the stairs and then back up the stairs because of your drum signals. I’ve no idea if I’m supposed to be advancing or retreating.’

  ‘Colonel, Ah’ve faithfully discharged my dooty an’ teatched the lassie a guid drume beatin’,’ MacTavish spoke with his usual dry manner.

  ‘What duty?’

  ‘Sir?’ MacTavish shrugged, his eyes twinkling.

  Papai turned round to scowl at me. ‘Why, you rascal pup. Prepare to be court-martialled little drummer boy.’

  Alarmed, I tossed the sticks to MacTavish, and I took to my heels, my papai uttering a dreadful oath or two behind me, for he had stepped on one of Tin-Key’s turds in the garden. ‘Confound it! That pug is getting turnspit duty,’ thundered he whenever he stepped on Tin-Key’s turds. Mamãe would always joke that the entire town could hear him and that the town-folk would say, ‘Hark! The Colonel must’ve stepped on another turd to-day.’

  I duly appeared for my court-martial in papai’s study, where he questioned me concerning my bad habit of lying, not to mention my hoydenish behaviour. In my defence, I pleaded that I never really lied, but rather, I helped the truth along whenever it needed it. To be sure, this argument neither pleased nor persuaded him, and so he withheld my goose-grog at dinner that day, and the day next and the day after that.