The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo

by Catherine Johnson

She fed the fire, took the other bird and had its feathers off and its guts out in seconds. She spatchcocked it on a grid of twigs, propped it up over the flames, and coolly passed Fred the knife.

  She didn’t help. She sat back, leaning against a tree, arms folded, as her pigeon began to roast. She half shut her eyes, enjoying the spectacle of Frederick Worrall trying and failing. He had obviously never gutted anything in all his eighteen years. Suddenly he swore loudly and she saw that he had cut himself.

  Princess Caraboo grinned at the sight of Fred, his breeches covered in blood and mud and grass stains, laid low by a dead pigeon. He looked thunderously at her, brushed the hair out of his eyes, only managing to smear yet more blood across his face. He looked like one of the noble savages in his mother’s books, she thought. She told him this, in her made-up language, but he only scowled, prompting her to laugh.

  ‘Just because I cannot prepare a pigeon for the table!’ He threw down the sad, mangled little ball of feathers and flesh that had once been a bird.

  Princess Caraboo scolded him. That was food, she said through mime.

  He sighed. ‘I will go back to the house – I won’t eat your luncheon, Princess.’

  He stood up to leave, but Caraboo reached for his arm and pulled him back towards the fire. It was, she thought, the first time she had touched a man for a very long while. This was lost on Fred, but he did sit down again.

  ‘You are sure you want me at your table, Princess? I would make a very poor member of your tribe, would I not?’

  ‘Tribe?’ she said, head on one side.

  ‘Tribe. Clan? Family? Fam-i-ly?’ Fred pointed at himself. ‘Cassandra, sister, Mrs Worrall, mother, Mr Worrall, father.’ He sighed. ‘I’d rather be in your tribe than mine, to be honest.’

  Caraboo took up the mangled bird and started to pluck and clean it.

  ‘All this living in the woods, hunting and swimming, sleeping under the stars – but I don’t even know if you do that, do you? Perhaps you have some kind of native huts . . . I slept out once when I was young – never told a soul. Heavens, Ed would think I was on the road to Bedlam if I told him about this . . .’

  Caraboo was making a grid to hold Fred’s pigeon.

  ‘But at least there’d be no university, no marriage.’ Fred sighed. ‘What I’d give to see the world, Princess Caraboo. I would swap my life with yours at the drop of a hat.’ He gazed into the fire, which crackled and spat. She knew he didn’t mean that. He had no idea what it was like to live on the road, to sleep hungry, to have nothing.

  She swallowed. She must remember who she was at all times. Princess Caraboo, daughter of the South Seas. Regal huntress and ruler-to-be of Javasu. Not Mary Willcox, country maid ruined twice over, beggar.

  She offered him the pigeon to set over the fire.

  ‘You are so clever,’ he said, taking it, now flattened and pinned ready for cooking and propped it over the embers.

  Caraboo inspected her own bird. Clever. Nobody had ever called her that.

  ‘Din-ner!’ she said.

  ‘Dinner,’ Fred repeated. His hand was still bleeding, and he saw her looking at it. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘Honestly.’

  ‘Honestly?’ Caraboo said.

  ‘True,’ he said, and his lips made a most pleasant shape when he said the word, she thought.

  She sat up straight. She was supposed to be beguiling him, she reminded herself.

  Caraboo took her pigeon off the fire, cut it in two and gave half to Fred. It tasted delicious.

  ‘The best food and the best company,’ he said. ‘I salute you, Princess. I should never have doubted you.’

  No, you shouldn’t.

  ‘There is no side to you, unlike English girls, who preen and play the idiot.’ He turned the second pigeon over so that it cooked on the other side. ‘I only wish I knew what you were saying to me.’ He paused. ‘Something tells me you think I am an idiot.’

  Caraboo said nothing.

  ‘I think, perhaps, you know a lot more than you say. You know, I used to think Mama a fool for all her interests, her books, her anthropology – rather than sewing or music like most mothers. But you have opened my eyes a little . . .’

  He looked at his cut, which was still bleeding. ‘I should bind it up, I suppose.’

  She took his hand in hers; his skin was softer than her own. All the men she had ever known had working hands, calloused and hard, not smooth as the skin on milk like his. The blood was trickling down towards his palm.

  ‘Really, it’s nothing,’ he insisted.

  But before she knew it, she had taken his hand in her mouth and sucked the wound.

  If she had thought about it beforehand, she would never have done it. If she had asked herself what Fred’s reaction would be, she would never have believed it.

  The second her mouth touched his skin, he pulled away from her, stammering apologies. Frederick Worrall, ladies’ man, seducer, was blushing. Caraboo turned away and took a breath. Was he disgusted by her? What did it mean? For the first time, as Princess Caraboo, she felt nervous. This man, this dandy, hated women and hated her, didn’t he? Oh! She had shown herself as nothing but a fool!

  She had made Fred Worrall flush; she knew her own heart was pounding triple time. Perhaps she should run away, swim back now—

  At that second, the second pigeon caught fire. Fred jumped up and took it off, but it was too late: the little thing was blackened and shrivelled, a burned offering. Caraboo looked at Fred, a mess from head to foot, holding a charred pigeon on a stick . . . She had truly never seen anything so ridiculous. She couldn’t help laughing out loud, which was most unprincesslike. In that moment Fred must have realized how he looked, and he laughed too. He took a burned twig, drew some patterns on his face and arms and began to dance, the burned bird held high; finally he sat down, still chuckling.

  Now Princess Caraboo got up to dance – not a silly dance like Fred’s, and not with her knife, in case she gave him any further cause for alarm. She danced, and after a while she forgot that Frederick Worrall was even there.

  ‘Magnificent,’ he said, clapping, and Caraboo turned to glance at him. Did he mean it? She reminded herself that she didn’t care, and sat down again. Fred still looked rather ridiculous, with his dirty, smudgy face.

  ‘Ah, you don’t approve, Princess?’ he said. ‘So you won’t have me in your tribe after all . . . Look, I’m sorry I jumped away like that before – you know, with the hand,’ he said.

  Caraboo hoped she showed no emotion.

  ‘I didn’t expect it. Cass always said that you didn’t like being touched and, well, that you didn’t like men. So, I was . . .’ He shook his head. ‘I wasn’t expecting it. Not from you. Not at all.’

  Caraboo cocked her head on on side.

  ‘Caraboo, I want to be friends.’ Fred’s face, under smears of charcoal and blood, was as open and as beautiful as any face she had ever seen.

  ‘Friends?’ he said again. And held out his hand for her to shake.

  Caraboo nodded. ‘Friends, yes . . .’

  She hesitated, looking at his hand, his face. His eyes. She remembered how he had reacted when she put his hand to her mouth. Had it been disgust? She thought not. Her heart, she realized, was pounding.

  She took his hand, but instead of shaking it, simply clasped it in her own, and before she knew what she was doing she had leaned forward to press her lips to his, charcoal-smeared but soft. She felt him hold his breath, and for a moment she did too, but then he was kissing her back, cautious and careful – not like she had imagined a man like him would be. He smelled of fire and pigeon’s blood and warm, clean sweat.

  His fingers brushed her shoulder, uncertain, and then they were gone – he was still not sure if he could touch her, she realized. She felt a strange fluttering in her chest, and for a moment she wanted to pull him to her, to show him he could—

  Suddenly she drew back. She had forgotten herself.

  Fred Worrall was looking at he
r with wide blue eyes. She could tell that he was not disgusted at all.

  What had she done?

  She quickly got up and ran to the water’s edge so that he wouldn’t see her face.

  Princess Caraboo never blushed.

  She stepped into the water and swam as fast as she could, telling herself that all was as it should be; that this had been how she intended it to go, all along. But she still felt warm in spite of the cold water: she could still feel her lips where Fred’s lips had touched them, and she knew, in her heart, that it was not what she had planned at all.

  Caraboo went back to the house and changed. She thought she would spend some time in the library, even produce the handwriting samples for Mrs Worrall – anything to stop herself thinking about the feel of Fred’s mouth and the look in Fred’s eyes; about how her plan had somehow been turned topsy turvy.

  She did not notice Captain Palmer: he suddenly appeared in the first-floor corridor, out of nowhere, and caught her by the arm so tightly that she could not reach for her knife. He pulled her close, and even at this early hour his breath was thick with rum and tobacco. Caraboo tried to pull away, to summon up the image of the leopard growling beside her, but it eluded her. She was trapped, alone.

  ‘All right, Princess?’ The captain spoke low, his manner completely changed. Ice cold, and hard, not the jolly sailor any more. ‘Nobody’s here,’ he whispered, ‘so you just keep it quiet as you like.’

  Caraboo said nothing. If she had bothered to examine her thoughts, she had been prepared for some kind of conversation like this. But she had pushed the idea away. She did not want to think about what Captain Palmer might want from her.

  She drew herself up: she had been a princess long before this wretched excuse for a man had said so aloud.

  ‘You play it like that, lady, but I’m no fool,’ he said. ‘I know you’re hokey. Princess, my salty arse! But if that’s what her ladyship here wants, that’s what we’ll give ’er, see?’

  Caraboo cursed silently. She should have known that a man, any man, would want something, would not be content, as she was, just to pretend; just to be someone else.

  The captain drew even closer – she could almost taste his stinking breath. ‘I don’t know who you are, or what your lay is, but if you’re royalty, I’m Horatio Nelson.’ His eyes glittered, his fingers dug hard into her arm. ‘But we can get along, you and me. We can be useful to each other. Are you here on the nab, lady? What are you after?’ He gripped her even more tightly and she tried to suppress a gasp. She wanted to shout, to yell, to tell him that Caraboo was no thief, but she couldn’t. She had to be brave, to be strong. ‘You can tell old Captain Palmer,’ he said.

  She glared at him. He whispered into her ear: she could feel the flecks of spit on her skin and felt a wave of sickness come over her.

  ‘I think we can make our fortune with this little play,’ the captain said. ‘Here or on the fairgrounds – you the Princess, me your interpreter. I haven’t set my plan in stone, but you’ll go along with it, or I’ll drop you in it. Head first into the fire, lady.’

  Caraboo felt her heart speed up, hammering so loud she thought it would burst.

  ‘So play along, lady, and remember – if you leave before I’m good and ready, I will find you.’ He traced a line across her throat and she felt her legs give way. She put one hand out against the wall to steady herself.

  ‘I will find you and I will make you pay.’ The captain looked her up and down, and all the bones in her legs turned to jelly. ‘In every way possible.’ He shook her off.

  At that moment Phoebe came bustling past and the captain’s manner changed, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. He laughed, as if Caraboo had just said something amusing.

  ‘Come along, Princess!’ he said, exactly like a jolly uncle, or the good-hearted seafaring war hero everyone knew him to be.

  But Caraboo stood there, frozen.

  7

  GONE AWRY

  Knole Park House

  May 1819

  ‘Miss Cassandra.’ He said her name, deep and low, like a moan. Cassandra kissed him again. She knew she was desirable – she had seen it reflected in the faces of quite a few young men in Bath. But she thought she had never felt it so strongly, never felt so utterly adored. He wanted her so much it made her dizzy with the power of it. She looked up into the trees where the light came through in moving diamonds, and felt happier than ever. Since she’d begun meeting Will, and welcomed Caraboo into her life, Knole had become almost bearable.

  She lay back against the soft mossy tree trunk, Will’s jacket folded up beneath her head, his body pressed hard against hers. She was tingling all over, as if every nerve ending sparkled with that same electricity Professor Heyford used in his beastly experiments.

  Will closed his eyes as if in pain, and rolled away.

  ‘Will? Is everything all right? Will?’

  ‘This is not right. I shouldn’t . . . you are too perfect,’ he said, looking away. ‘You deserve everything . . . everything in the world . . .’

  Cassandra picked a handful of grass and threw it at him. ‘Will! I have everything I need. I have your complete adoration . . . don’t I?’

  He turned back. ‘You know that.’

  She reached out a hand. ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Miss Cassandra . . .’

  ‘Look at me, Will.’ She took his face in her hands, tracing the outline; she felt him shudder when her fingertip touched his lips.

  ‘Oh, I love you, Miss Cassandra,’ he sighed. ‘So much.’

  Cassandra smiled. ‘Then everything is exactly as it should be.’ She kissed him.

  ‘I promise you, Miss Cassandra, even if it takes me two, three years, I will ask your father. Then, when we are married—’

  ‘Two years!’ Cassandra’s mouth turned down in a pout. ‘Will, I am bound to die if I have to wait two weeks! I want to be with you now!’ She held him close and looked across the meadow towards the park, where Knole glittered white like a tiny sugar palace.

  ‘But, Miss Cassandra—’

  She put a finger to his lips. ‘Cassandra. No “Miss” when we are together.’

  ‘I want to do right by you and your family. I have nothing,’ Will said. ‘I am an innkeeper’s son . . .’

  ‘You could be a chimney sweep for all I care. I am sixteen! We could go abroad. The Alps! Italy! Mary Shelley went to—’

  ‘Mary Shelley?’ Will said, making a face.

  Cassandra waved a hand. ‘She is a lady novelist – she wrote Frankenstein when she was just eighteen! . . .’

  Will coughed. ‘I was thinking, perhaps, of America. There are so many opportunities there, Captain Palmer—’

  Cassandra sat up. ‘Mama’s family is from America. From Philadelphia. She has never wanted to return—’

  ‘But we would be together,’ Will said. ‘In America no one cares who your father is. We could have a place of our own, an inn that serves travellers and traders . . .’

  Cassandra sighed heavily. ‘Mama says that America is backward in art and fashion, and not in the least picturesque.’

  Will took a deep breath. ‘But, Miss Cassandra, you don’t know what it’s like to be poor. In America I could earn my fortune, then you could follow me. If we both leave now, it’ll be hard. You’ve never had to live without money—’

  ‘I don’t care about money, Will!’ She didn’t want to hear about America. She clung to him, and felt his heart beating, louder than a volley of rifles under his shirt.

  ‘Truly, Cassandra?’

  She kissed him again. She had had quite enough of talking.

  ‘Caraboo! Princess Caraboo!’ Mrs Worrall stood on the steps that led out of the library and down towards the park. Caraboo could not fail to hear her, but she didn’t move. She was in the library, hidden in the window seat, curtain drawn tight so none might see her, one of Mrs Worrall’s books lying open upon her lap. She had spent all the previous day avoiding everyone. She had planned
to spend the day on the island, but the thought that Captain Palmer might follow her and catch her alone, made her shiver.

  She should have realized that she was betraying her secret by letting him interpret Caraboo. She had put herself in his hands and could not see a way out.

  She had tried to clear her mind, to think of some plan to get a head start out of Knole, before the captain found out that she was gone. But as yet she had none. She had not been able to concentrate on anything – even the words on the page swam in front of her eyes – and when she shut them, all she could see was Captain Palmer’s face, all she could smell was the foul stink of liquor on his breath.

  Caraboo would have to be killed off – she would have to become somebody else; someone the captain would never find . . .

  Her plans for Fred Worrall seemed childish now. What had happened with him on the island, merely a few days ago, felt like a lifetime away.

  She heard the doors open, and froze.

  ‘Ah, Professor Heyford!’ Mrs Worrall said, and Caraboo relaxed a little.

  ‘Madam?’

  ‘I wonder if you had seen my latest addition to the library? My Pantographia?’

  ‘No, madam, though I admit I should like to.’

  ‘Perhaps Fred or the captain has spirited it away. I do so wish they would leave books on the shelf where they found them!’

  ‘Quite so,’ the professor agreed.

  Caraboo thought that Mary Willcox would have called Professor Heyford a regular needy mizzler, a right royal suck-up.

  ‘And the captain? Have you seen him? I would so prefer to talk to the both of you at once.’

  Caraboo felt sick simply hearing the man mentioned.

  ‘I think the captain is, ah, resting.’ Professor Heyford cleared his throat. ‘If I may be so bold, Mrs Worrall, I think Captain Palmer is a little too fond of his drink.’

  ‘He is a naval man – it is the way of things in the navy, I think – at least, that is what Mr Worrall tells me. If you had seen half of what he has experienced across the world . . . Has he told you of those spirits, those blood-sucking harpies, the Penanggalan?’

  ‘More than once, actually, Mrs Worrall.’