by Dawn Farnham
“Call me Willi, please, for I feel we shall be amies. You are English, I think, and, though it is not fashionable for a Dutch Governor-General’s wife to say so, I love everything English and spend a great deal too much time with the English citizens of our city. I am sometimes reprimanded for it, but Merde! I say. Officially, of course, we do not care for you all very much, though we are grateful to your Wellington for ridding Holland of that connard Napoleon and restoring these islands, at least, to us intact.”
Charlotte was not sure how she should react to these frank expressions nor what to think of what her grandmother would have called the “leid ay a huir.” Fearing to offend, she sat absolutely still.
“When the British came, you know, I have heard they were not at all impressed with us. Lord Minto, the British Governor-General of India, considered us lacking in all beauty—no difference between us except in varieties of ugliness and ordinariness of dress and manners. Another officer, Lieutenant Fielding, was known to remark that amongst us all there were no more than three tolerable—a collection of ‘queer-looking quizzes’, as he put it. Doubtless he was right at the time, for the old women dressed in rather dull Indische style and the old men in very long embroidered velvet coats down to the heels.
“To the old Batavians, the English were an intrusive horror. But to the young they were a breath of fresh air. We couldn’t change fast enough. I was a thoroughly ignorant child when they arrived, but my father, who was Raffles’s principal councillor, got an English tutor and encouraged us in all things English. I was taught to read. This would not have happened if the English had not come. All sorts of books in English were available: spellers, grammars and geography texts. New novels, essays and prayer books arrived all the time. My favourite was Aesop’s Fables.”
Charlotte set down her glass. She had not bothered to correct Wilhelmina’s idea of her being English, for though she was, ostensibly, Scottish, sometimes Charlotte hardly knew what she was. She was cooler now and more at her ease, caught up in Wilhelmina’s memories and her zest.
“Was it not a strange time for you all, with the arrival of so many foreigners?” she asked.
“Oh yes, mon dieu, indeed, but there was a good deal of excitement too. In the beginning all we women were terrified, for the men were ordered into the cantonment and we were left on our own. Not gallant, eh? But after five days it was over, and the English soldiers were very decent. They did not loot or touch the women. We were surprised. Looting was all by the slaves. There was little resistance. The French, Dutch and Javanese soldiers, who did not much care to lose their lives for Napoleon, so I believe, just gave up. Janssens, who was the Governor at the time, was humiliated of course, but frankly relieved. He told my father that he would not have known how to continue with the colony if the English had not succeeded! Holland was cut off, and Batavia was virtually bankrupt. We accepted it all rather quickly. Then of course, it brought so many more interesting and eligible bachelors into town. Officers in the army, officials in the government. We were suddenly outnumbered and awash with young men.”
She looked over at Charlotte in the penumbra.
“Takouhi was a beautiful, rich widow of twenty-six. I can assure you the interest in her from the English gentlemen was considerable. I imagine she was one of the ‘three tolerable beauties’ who Lieutenant Fielding spoke about, for he most definitely was enamoured of her, but she might have had her pick from many.”
This last was something Charlotte had not considered. Takouhi had met George Coleman when she was almost thirty-seven. There was a good deal of her life that was very mysterious.
“For the old boys, they were at least pleased that the English blockade was finally lifted. Ships had not arrived from Holland for four years, and, besides no young men, we had no beer, no wine, brandy or rum, good oil, no salted bacon, pickled meats or butter. Daendels stopped almost all the light in houses: no parties or balls. All that changed in a moment. Raffles and Olivia dragged the wives into society by all means possible. Can you imagine, these women who had lived in virtual purdah their whole lives had suddenly to dress in European fashions and dance at balls in the arms of English men. The English were horrified to discover the ignorance of the women here, whom they considered lazy and helpless through the constant attendance of slaves. We were untutored and lacking social graces, chewing betel, which they disliked more than anything. In England, women participated in the lives of their husbands.
They were determined to change us. My own mother was a native woman, my father’s nyai, so she was spared. But for Maria, my father’s wife, it was fearful, I imagine. She was not allowed to go abroad with her slave attendants and her umbrellas of rank. She had to go out and dance, eat with a knife and fork, sit on chairs and mix with men she did not know. Madre de dios! It caused a great fuss.”
Wilhelmina stopped briefly. “Awful for them, now I think about it. But for the young, truly it was wonderful.”
She called to a waiting servant, and he placed two fresh glasses of wine on the table which separated them.
“There was an English newspaper, so lively and interesting, and how we were scolded to give up our Indies ways. The English considered that we lived in our underwear—the sarong a petticoat and the kebaya a chemise, as if we had, somehow, got our clothes on the wrong way round. The innocent kebaya became a battleground. You were either pro-kebaya or anti-kebaya. To this day, I still remember one stout Batavian who leapt to our defense.
“De Vrouwen al te zaam op eene leest te schoeien. C’est incroyable, but I memorised it in English. We children used to chant it.
To condemn all women together, in a fashion most uncouth,
To place the customs of a country in the worst of light;
Is it a goose who does this, or just a callow youth,
Who has never in his life learned how to be polite?
Let an Indian teach you a lesson short and sweet:
Never without reason scoff at other folk you meet.
Just stick to your roast beef, your Madeira, port or beer,
For after all that’s the only joy Life holds for you out here.”
Wilhelmina let out a loud guffaw, and Charlotte, too, laughed.
“So fashion plates of the latest London and Paris styles always found a place, though the fashion at the time was quite horrid, I recall. We were not sure why they were so critical of us when it was rather the English ladies who appeared to be wearing a nightdress. Our shawls, though, became quite popular with the English ladies—the more ornate and expensive the better.
“We were to be improved by literature and poetry. The wives who were obliged to wait on Olivia found the betel banned, cuspidors removed and local dress frowned upon. Raffles and his officers arranged meetings and dances at the Harmonie Club; the Military Bachelors’ Theatre and the Shouwburg put on musicals and English plays to which the ladies were encouraged to come. I still remember going to a theatre for the first time. I do not remember the play, but it was thrilling. We went to many plays after. We always knew the stories because they were printed in Dutch in the newspaper, which Father read to us. Plays, dances, music, madre de dios! It was wonderful.”
She drank a draught of wine and fanned herself, recalling those heady days.
“Most of the regulations which Raffles put in place remained: the land tax, for instance, the justice system, even driving carriages on the left side of the road. Of course, Batavia had an effect on the English, too. Many men who had come as bachelors very rapidly began their own little harems of slave women. In Borneo, the Resident of Banjamarsin, Alexander Hare, was notorious, my dear, for his slave plantation and his vast harem. Even Gillespie, the military commandant, had slaves in his households. For all the sermonising and official edicts, nothing ever really changed in that area until much later.”
Charlotte remembered Tigran’s words on the subject.
“Ah, but many of us admired you English a great deal. So avant-garde, so enlightened, so lively. Raf
fles’s comptroller christened his daughter Olivia Mariamne Stamford Raffles Villeneuve.” Wilhelmina gave a short laugh. “It was de trop, my dear, don’t you agree? And my uncle Petrus Couperus, one of Raffles’s councillors, called his son, Willem Jacob Thomas Raffles Couperus. He was Petra’s brother, my nephew. Petra is my niece through the marriage of my half-sister Catharina. Poor Willem died very young, bless his soul.”
Wilhelmina looked over at Charlotte and detected a heightened interest at the mention of Petra. Actually, Charlotte was thinking what dull days they must have been indeed, when the English government, of all groups, should have had a lightening, gay effect upon society anywhere.
“And now you will marry Tigran Manouk, the Arjuna of Batavia, the great catch. So many maidens, and widows, will cry in their beds tonight, now they have seen your beauty and how hopeless is their position.”
Wilhelmina laughed.
“Yes,” said Charlotte, “I am only discovering what it is that I have done. I had no idea.”
“Oh dear, Charlotte, even worse. All achieved without guile or intent. They shall be vexed indeed.”
The deep sound of a gong resounded around the garden. Wilhelmina finished her wine and rose.
“Come, we must return. Tigran will be looking for you to take you into dinner, and my Pieter hates it when I disappear off in the darkness.” As they returned to the ballroom, Charlotte could not help a feeling of warmth towards Wilhelmina, the highest woman in the land, who often disappeared off into the darkness, to her husband’s chagrin.
Dinner, Charlotte discovered, was a vastly different affair to those in Singapore. Before they sat down, the table had already been covered thickly with open dishes of vegetables and viands. These were, she discovered, to be eaten cold. The soup however, came boiling to the table, so hot as to be a danger to the palate. The desserts and fruit were all present, and thus the whole meal was displayed at once. Charlotte was somewhat disconcerted to find that some of the older diners, both men and women, used their knives for purposes which most English would perform with a spoon or fork. After the soup was dispatched, there was a general mélée, with desserts preceding meats or interspersed with them, vegetables and fruits taken together, beer and wine drunk as the diner chose. The diners were attended by an array of quiet servants, leaping forward to fill a glass, pass a dish and generally assist in the Rabelaisian fray. It was certainly lively, Charlotte thought, whilst resisting all attempts by others to combine on her plate a piece of roast fowl with the sago pudding. Tigran was seated near Wilhelmina and occasionally smiled over at her and raised an ironic eyebrow. Charlotte, fortunately, was seated between John Price and Reverend Medhurst and was thus afforded a measure of protection.
The dancing stood in direct contrast to the frenzy of dining. Slow waltzes were the order of the evening. Everyone seemed to know how to dance most gracefully. Tigran took her in his arms. She remembered an evening in Singapore when there had been dancing, but he had not waltzed. Now she wondered why; he was an excellent dancer. She thought it scandalous—he kept no space between her body and his, holding her tightly against him. Though all eyes were upon them, this seemed to excite no general stirrings around the hall, and she could see from the other dancers that this was, in Batavia, the mode of the dance. What her acquaintance might have thought of this in Singapore and certainly in Scotland she could only imagine.
Tigran smiled down at her, and she blushed, unused to such full-blooded attentions and realising too the rather unforeseen enjoyment at feeling the movements of his body against hers, the sureness of his guiding touch. He held her for two dances, and she was breathless and hot as he released her to a chair and kissed her hand.
Pieter Merkus came up and claimed her as a new dance began, and she saw, out of the corner of her eye, Petra Couperus go up to Tigran and, taking him by the hand, lead him out onto the terrace. He put up little resistance, Charlotte thought, and could not wait for the dance to end. She curtsied to the Governor-General as Pieter took her back to sit with Takouhi. He called for wine and began to converse with her friend. Charlotte paid no attention at all, her eyes riveted to the terrace. She could see nothing but blackness, with a flickering of lamps. She drank down her wine in one gulp and rose, excusing herself with a need for air. The dances were in full flow, and she moved nearer to the door, then, seeing no one, dared to go out into the darkness. She heard a murmur of voices, and, advancing quietly, she leant against a pillar.
Tigran was talking low, but Petra’s voice had risen slightly. They were talking in a mixture of Malay and Dutch, which Charlotte could not understand. She looked around the pillar and saw them standing by a low wall, in the flickering light. Petra had her hand on Tigran’s arm. He said something to her, and suddenly she dropped her hand and turned away from him. He stood behind her. It was clear he took no pleasure in seeing her upset. He murmured, and she turned again and put her arms around his neck, pulling his face towards hers. He took her arms from his neck and moved her firmly away. When he made to leave, she dragged at his arm, stumbling as he pulled away. It was obvious she was abject, and Charlotte wished to see no more. She ran quickly back to the ballroom and walked to her seat.
Tigran returned with two glasses of wine. He handed one to Charlotte and chatted amiably with Pieter. When the music began again, he pulled Charlotte gently into his arms and into a waltz. She was dying to ask him about Petra but sensed that he would most certainly not welcome such inquiries.
When the evening finally ended, Tigran helped Charlotte into the coach. She was utterly exhausted and befuddled from the wine. The lamplight cast a gentle glow inside the carriage. As Tigran settled in beside her, she kicked off her shoes. He took off his coat and cravat, loosed his thin, soft cotton shirt, threw his head back and closed his eyes. Within a few minutes, as the coach set off swaying, she realised he was asleep. She looked at him, liking the way his hair fell down his neck and onto his cheek. She could see the outline of his chest and waist against the cotton. She let her eyes go down his body. What did she feel for this man? Tonight he had been wonderful. Handsome, gallant, a wonderful dancer, an attentive companion. Tonight he had been Arjuna. She had been the envy of almost every woman in the room.
What did she want? She closed her eyes and saw Zhen. Tired and befuddled, she let her mind rove over his face and body, remembered the feel of his hands on her and let out a low moan. She opened her eyes, but Tigran was still asleep.
Inside the coach it was close and hot. She dropped the glass on the window and put her head outside, watched the swaying horses, heard their snuffling breath and the beat of their hooves on the ground. It had rained, and the path was still slightly wet. The quarter-moon flitted between the branches like a scythe cutting the dark masses of the trees, racing ahead of the coach. The sky was clear and high, washed fresh by the rain. A smell of smoke came from the tall palm leaf torches which the two red-coated footmen held aloft from the back of the carriage.
Footmen, thought Charlotte in a muddled way. I am in a carriage with footmen, like Queen Victoria. The thought was suddenly comical, and she began to giggle.
Charlotte’s hard embroidered bodice was hooked in the front, and it felt hot and tight. Takouhi had forbidden any corset wearing, which she herself loathed and which she deemed unhealthy and unsafe for a pregnant woman. Takouhi could not understand these contraptions with which white women bound themselves. Charlotte undid three hooks and allowed her chest to breath against the light camisole underneath. The wind flowed around her body, and this felt so good she undid all the hooks, allowing it to swing open and feel the coolness against the cotton. She looked quickly at Tigran. Did she want him to awake and find her like this? Did she want him to make love to her inside this dark swaying carriage? She released the camisole from her skirt and allowed the air to circulate around her breasts, over her hot skin. It felt wonderful.
She looked again at Tigran. She had only to reach out and take his hand, put it against her skin and he would
awake, she knew.
Charlotte was completely overtaken with feeling, her blood beating like the hooves of the horses against the path. She threw off her bodice, undid the skirt and let it drop to the floor. She dropped the petticoat also, leaving only her pantaloons. Under this she was naked. The blue diamonds lay against her throat. She liked the feel of the necklace on her naked body.
She knelt next to Tigran and put her hand tentatively to his face. He did not awake but merely moved his head slightly. Somewhere in her brain came the thought that this was wrong, but it was far away. Charlotte frowned, annoyed at his lack of reaction. She put her face to his, her lips on his, and pressed them. He awoke surprised and pulled his face away. He took in Charlotte’s dress thrown on the floor, the outline of her breasts against the camisole, the heavy-lidded gaze. He saw what she wanted, but was it with him or someone inside her head? He had expected this moment to come, but not so soon, not here in the darkness, where it would be so easy to succumb to his own desire for her.
Charlotte moved into his arms, putting her lips against his throat, touching his hair, running her fingers into the plaits and beads which she found so arousing, willing him to touch her. She had taken a surfeit of wine, he knew. The movement of the coach swayed her body against him.
A sudden jolt over rough ground caused her almost to fall from the seat, and he pulled her to him. He lowered his window to the night air and called to the coachman. “Slow down, no hurry. Go carefully.”
The pace immediately slowed to a gentle trot.
By the lamp’s dim light, Tigran looked at her. She locked her fingers into his braids and pulled his lips to hers. She sighed a shuddering sigh, and he could not resist deepening the kiss, their first kiss. He pulled her more tightly into his arms, wanting to rip off her clothes, do what she was begging him for.
But, tomorrow what would she feel? Revulsion? Invaded, shamed? He couldn’t bear any strain between them. These first weeks of their life together were too important, and she was too vulnerable. For the first time in his life, he was glad to be forty and full of sense. If he had been a younger man, he would not have had the will to stop.