‘Papai, how many times have you sinned?’
He grimaced. ‘Too many times, my girl.’
‘God will forgive you,’ I consoled him.
‘Let us hope He will.’
And so we decamped once more, both of our cousins Darcy and Georgiana joining us, to return to Scarborough where papai could speak with Father O. It was then that mamãe surprised us by taking us to Bunberry House, her estate in Hackness, where she oversees a Catholic school for poor girls and where Father O celebrates Mass with them each month. While my cousins and I strolled in the garden, we overheard papai’s outburst on the other side of the yew hedges.
‘I beg your pardon. But you do…who do…what?’
‘Hush, Colonel. I said I have been financing trade with countries on the continent, and I have used the profits to sustain the school and maintain the estate,’ mamãe revealed to him.
‘My God! You’re a smuggler.’
‘Nay. I am a tradeswoman.’
‘I would rather you be a ruthless pirate,’ grumbled papai.
‘What? And not give you quarter every Sunday night?’
‘You minx,’ thundered papai. ‘Your feminine arts and allurements shall not beguile me this time.’
Just when their big row became interesting, Georgiana led me away to the main house. ‘Não, não, não,’ protested I, but obey Georgiana I did. At the parlour window, I stood on the watch, and from there I espied, with a glad heart, my papai and mamãe in the garden embracing each other. To be sure, all would be right in our world again. Nevertheless, I wished to hasten matters, so I summoned up my magical powers to cast a spell on my papai and mamãe to make them marry soon.
After dinner, we walked the trod to River Cottage, a hermitage on the estate, where we bedded down for the night – mamãe and Georgiana and I in one bedchamber, papai and cousin Darcy in another bedchamber, and Father O in the library. The soothing gurgles of the River Derwent promised us a deep slumber, when, of a sudden, papai cried out, ‘Riflemen! Riflemen!’; for, he had many a nightmare about the war. The next morning Father O and papai disappeared down by the river bank to have a long talk, and while they were gone, I discovered that mamãe knew the secret of chocolate.
Mamãe believes every woman, rich or poor, should learn how to care for themselves, which meant cooking, cleaning, &c. Here, at River Cottage, she reigned as mistress, housekeeper and cook. My cousin Georgiana expressed shock at seeing mamãe in the kitchen, but not I. Unlike Georgiana – she being a young lady of quality who would never go near the kitchen, much less know how to cook – I and the other foundlings at the Convento do Desterro had gathered onions, garlic, chile, potatoes and cabbage to prepare our sopa de peixe, a meagre soup, each day.
I stood there entranced at the kitchen-door as mamãe stirred the shavings of rock cocoa with fresh milk and some spices in a pot over a charcoal fire. She brought the pot to the table, where she began to mill the mixture, and once she had tossed some flour into the mixture, she milled it again. When she returned the pot to the charcoal fire, she added several drops of a magic potion that she kept in a phial, and she stirred the mixture.
‘Mamãe, what’s in the magic bottle?’
‘It’s a secret.’
‘What’s the secret?’ persisted I, my curiosity insatiable.
‘Love and forgiveness,’ revealed she.
When Father O and papai returned from their river talk to join us for breakfast, papai joked that he was in need of sustenance. I thought he was right, given his red-rimmed, watery eyes and haggard face. I kissed his hand to bless him, as was our habit each morning and each evening, and he mustered up a grin for me, but soon thereafter he closed his eyes, his lips quivering ever and anon. Father O clapped papai on the back. ‘God bless Soofia-Eee. All childher are special.’
I sat at table next to papai, impatient for Father O to get on with it and say grace, for I was a naughty child. Oh, how I coveted the silver pot sitting there on the table and the mystery therein. Once papai poured me a cup of chocolate and the liquid cooled enough for my tastes, I greedily slurped half of it down. When I had done, I proudly displayed my chocolate moustache to him, thinking he would find it droll, but he only sighed with an impenetrable sadness ere he wiped my moustache away.
While we breakfasted, papai glanced many a time at mamãe, and she at him, and with each forkful of food he ate, his humour improved.
‘Who prepared the eggs if we do not have a cook here?’ Papai swallowed a piece of poached egg.
‘I did,’ Georgiana proudly revealed.
‘W-w-what? Is it safe to swallow?’ Papai winked at his ward.
‘I can assure you that Miss Darcy’s poached eggs are safe,’ mamãe defended Georgiana’s skill.
Papai humphed. ‘Well, now, Georgiana, seeing how we have no servants, shall you be scullery-maid and clean the dishes?’ papai teased her.
‘Colonel, do you know what a pail of slops is?’ Mamãe’s eyes sparkled with mischief.
Papai hesitated, casting a suspicious look at her. ‘Is this fatigue duty?’ Whenever papai didn’t want to do something, he would always call it fatigue duty for some reason.
‘The Colonel an’ I will gladly clean the kitchen for ye,’ offered Father O.
‘We will, Father O?’ Of a sudden papai checked himself, grinning at me. ‘Ay, to be sure we will.’
It seemed papai would do almost anything for mamãe – even empty the pail of slops and scrub the kitchen – if only she would accept his hand. Ai! Two whole months passed ere my magic spell finally took hold. Papai seemed far less troubled, now that he read the Bible each morning and met often with Father O to discuss his long list of ‘frailties’.
Papai proposed again. And mamãe accepted his hand this time. She smiled and patted my cheek when I said my spell had worked. She explained that unlike his first two scanty proposals, his third proposal convinced her that he no longer desired to possess her, having understood that she belonged to God, as did we all. For some reason, knowing this gave him peace, as he said, and this peacefulness, in turn, helped to restore his faith in himself, and as Father O would remind him, he had the power, the love and a sound mind to address his weaknesses. My wee brain struggled to understand this grown-up talk, but I gave up. With an inward shrug, I remained convinced that my magical powers had brought change.
Father O, with a gladness in his heart, received papai into the Catholic Church, and thereafter my parents got married, first at St. Mary’s, the Anglican church, by the vicar there, and then at the Catholic chapel at Bunberry House. To our amazement, my avô attended the wedding ceremony at Bunberry chapel, this despite Lady Matlock’s objections to the marriage and me – I, Sofia-Elisabete, whom she still referred to as a foreign love brat and the natural daughter of a low creature. I had a new mamãe, but Lady Matlock’s cutting remarks reminded me of my unfortunate destiny, one where I was connected with the mysterious bolero dancer, this Marisa Soares Belles, who lived in a land far far away. And so I was.
Chapter Three
Bugbear in the Old Wood
MY FIRST FOOT-RACE, thinks I, was with my pug-puppy on the sands of the North Bay here in Scarborough. A girl I would always be, yet that didn’t stop me from wanting to do boyish things, or what papai calls hoydenish things, such as climbing, jumping and romping. One time, while papai lay under his favourite Scots pine in our garden, amusing himself with his great and deep thoughts as he was wont to say, my own great thought was for my puggy and I to jump over him each time we circled the pine tree, and noisily so, for I had burst into a fit of giggles. ‘Silly gooseberry, I shall court-martial you,’ papai teases me whenever I act hoydenish. But, truly, I cannot help myself.
In May of 1815, after papai had returned from doing war business with the Lancashire Militia, he announced, ‘We are for the old wood where no doubt Sofia-Elisabete shall entertain us with her hoydening’, to which I shouted, ‘Goose-grog! I hope they have goose-grog.’ You see, I rather wished to spend
my fifth birth-day with Pie and Graça at Pemberley where I could eat a cart-load of gooseberry fool. ‘No-no-no,’ papai shook his finger at me, ‘to the Fitzwilliam Hunting Lodge we go, to visit your grandfather.’
Papai promised that Cook at the lodge would make gooseberry fool for me, she being the best cook in the world. He cast his eyes heavenward – the savoury and sweet memories tumbling round in his head no doubt – as he praised the singularity of Cook’s apple charlotte. ‘O apple of my eye.’ ‘O sweet charlotte.’ ‘O the goodly apple.’ Mamãe goggled her eyes whenever papai would request that dessert, it being clear to her now why he favoured it so. ‘Ay, ay,’ cried she, knowing she would need to cajole the receipt from this Cook.
We would spend a month in the old wood, as the country-folk called Sherwood Forest. Things being so, I wished to bring Tin-Key with us, but papai warned me that our dear little puggy might be mistaken for a wild animal and end up stuffed and nailed to my avô’s trophy wall at the lodge. Reluctantly, then, did I agree to leave Tin-Key with Mackie, our trusty footman at our Scarborough abode. I hear you cry, ‘What is a Tin-Key?’ I named my pug-puppy Tin-Key in honour of my papai, who, with his ear made of tin, has the ability to sing in a key of his own, as mamãe frequently reminds him.
During the long carriage ride, papai serenaded us with ‘O, the month of May, the merry month of May, So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green.’ Mamãe, she being greatly vexed with papai’s singing, knew not what to do at first, for a proficient in music she is, until she learnt to sing along with him to drown out his voice. On the third day of our journey to the old wood, whilst papai serenaded us with ‘Oh the roast beef of old England, and old English roast beef’, I tugged at his sleeve with urgency.
Papai cast a grim look at me. ‘Pray tell me you visited the Necessary House before we quitted the inn.’
‘Não. You said quick march to the carriage.’
‘Well, now, perhaps I did.’ With a waggish grin, papai gazed at mamãe. ‘Surely you wish for mamãe to help you?’
‘Não, não, não,’ protested I.
‘Oh, hang it! Fatigue duty again.’ Papai rapped his walking-stick for the driver to stop.
Later that afternoon we reached our destination of Fitzwilliam Hunting Lodge, an estate situated on former Crown land that had been sold to my avô, Lord Matlock. While my mamãe stood there admiring the rustic lodge framed by ancient oaks, I broke from her grip to get a better look and see at the turret atop a small rise. This folly, this enchanted tower, whispered to me in some kind of forgotten language that I must needs clamber up the hillock to explore its mysteries. Ai de mim! Someone had secured the door with a padlock. My avô explained to me that a bugbear resided therein who would gobble up any naughty wicked children, particularly those who came near his magical abode without any grown-up protection. Que estranho! These bugbears have strange customs.
‘Meu avô, I’m not afraid of Bugbear.’
‘O, ho!’ My avô tapped me on the nose. ‘You are a courageous one.’
‘I bet a ha’penny I can squash him,’ bragged I.
‘Done! I’ll take your bet,’ replied he.
Upstairs in our apartments, mamãe led me to the dressing room, where she instructed me to call for her when I had done. While I sat within, I overheard my papai and mamãe romanticking themselves in the next room; for, they had been separated for two whole months while papai did his war business in Lancashire, and they had pined for each other every day.
‘My dear Mrs Fitzwilliam, we are finally together in the wilds of England.’
Mamãe laughed. ‘Are you flirting with me?’
‘I am, indeed. Perhaps you would indulge me in one of my wandering fancies to-day?’
‘Pray, what fanciful thing would that be?’ she teased him.
‘Come here, my Senga,’ said he in an audible whisper, ‘and be merciful and quick about it.’
I rapped the wall three times with my knuckles, for they had forgotten that I sat within, and not for the first time, believe you me.
‘Mamãe, I’m ready for you,’ I shouted with all my might. This displeased papai, to be sure.
‘Y-y-yes, my child…I shall be there in a minute…’
‘Pray be merciful and quick about it, mamãe,’ commanded I.
The next day, while my papai and mamãe were romanticking themselves on a stroll through the old wood, my avô promised to take me to a faeryland. We rode out on a mare, passing through the pretty village of Edwinstowe, and then the wilds of Birkland, and from there we rode on another mile or so to Budby Forest where fifty thousand hawthorns bloomed. Hoisted atop my avô’s shoulders, I picked ever so many of these sweet-smelling blossoms from the branches to surprise my mamãe with. We settled ourselves on a log covered with snowy-white blossoms, whereupon my avô recited the tale of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. I sat thus entranced with the plucky deeds of the brave outlaws.
‘What say you of Maid Marian?’ my avô inquired.
‘Gah!’ exclaimed I. All this romanticking with her outlaw I could do without. ‘I want to be Robin Hood and shoot arrows.’
My avô laughed. ‘I’ll teach you how to swim instead, just like I taught your father when he was a boy.’
A few days later, whilst my papai and mamãe walked out to shoot hare, my avô took me to the Great Pond. My avô knows everything about the art of swimming – how to plunge oneself into the water like a frog, how to breathe under water like a carp, how to avoid drinking down a great deal of water like a horse and so forth. Once I had mastered some basic tricks, such as swimming on my belly and treading water, I learnt a diverting trick – the flying boulder – by jumping high into the air, tucking my knees to my belly and pinching my nose ere I landed in the water. And each time I performed a perfect flying boulder, my avô would clap his hands in approval.
‘Raaaawwrrr!’ roared a filthy, stinking man with a long beard, who appeared from nowhere to attack my avô. The two of them tussled for a long while until my avô, being a strong man, shoved his foe into the water.
‘Meu avô, who is he?’ I gaped at the shabby man who clambered up the bank.
‘Eh? Oh, I’ve named him Yahoo. He lives in the hermitage, and I dare say he enjoys attacking me as much as I do him.’
I gasped. ‘Is he a bugbear?’
‘Well, now, you might say he is my bugbear.’ For a moment, my avô looked as guilty as papai did when he had fallen asleep during Mass and Father O had given him a severe rebuke for doing so.
When the time came for us to quit the Great Pond, I skipped merrily alongside my avô while he sang in his rich baritone:
When Robin Hood was about twenty years,
With a hey down, down, and a down,
He happened to meet Little John,
A jolly brisk blade right fit for the trade,
For he was a lusty young man…
In the shadows of the ancient oaks, I could see Yahoo dodging us all the way back to our abode, but I feared nought with my brave avô at my side. I rushed up the stairs in the lodge to change my clothes, when I came to a sudden stop, my brain tingling with my magical powers. That is when I observed my parents speaking in a hushed tone, enough so to raise my suspicions that I was in the midst of some romanticking going on.
‘What rotten luck to tussle with a stinking tatterdemalion instead of tussling with you,’ papai wrapped his arms round mamãe. Apparently, Yahoo had wrestled with papai as well.
‘My poor dear was attacked by a strange hermit.’ Mamãe wrinkled her nose. ‘Pugh! You really do need to bathe.’
‘I will, but only if you help me, Senga.’ Papai gave her a lopsided grin.
Mamãe knew that if she did not help him, he would not bathe for at least a week and only on a Sunday morning before we went to chapel. With a wink, mamãe led him by the hand into the dressing room. Soon she got him into the bathing-tub, and I could hear them laughing and then their low murmurs and after that complete silence and then the laughter
started up again. I wondered why they thought it so amusing to bathe.
At dinner-time, I begged papai to let me sit up to supper, which I often did when we were at home, but papai lectured me it would not be appropriate for a child to dine at table with an earl. I stamped my way upstairs, vexed at being cast off, when I seized upon a brilliant idea on how to get rid of my dinner of pease, beefsteak and maccaroni, now that I wasn’t hungry. Having accomplished the evil deed, I sneaked downstairs to the drawing room to eavesdrop on everyone.
‘As like as two peas are to one another…’ my avô muttered to himself.
‘Pater, did you say something?’
My avô cleared his voice. ‘You, son, were a holy terror as a young lad.’
‘Is that why you washed my mouth twice with soap when I was seven years old?’
‘O fie! I never washed your mouth with soap.’
‘My papai hates soap-suds,’ I chimed in, giving everyone a start.
‘Sofia-Elisabete, you ought to be in bed,’ papai scolded me.
My avô lifted me to his knee. ‘Do you know, while we dined, a most curious event took place outside the window? I could swear ’twas a tempest of pease, beefsteak and maccaroni. Who’d have thought that possible?’
I commenced my tale with relish. ‘While I supped upstairs by myself, I heard the strangest thing. Mr Pea bet Mr Beefsteak to jump out the window. Then Mr Beefsteak bet Mr Maccaroni to jump out the window. And then Mr Maccaroni bet Mr Pea to jump out the window. “Done! Done! Done!” they all cried. So there was nothing for it. They threw themselves out the window to win their bets.’
I, Sofia-Elisabete, Love Child of Colonel Fitzwilliam Page 3