The Bad Miss Bennet Abroad Read online

  After the musicians left, we turned our attention to our Portuguese grammar books. Dona Leopoldina caught sight of one of the few novels I have been able to bring on board, Glenarvon by Lady Caroline Lamb. It is a thinly disguised account of dear Lord Byron and a great favourite of mine.

  The princess frowned at the title and told me that I ‘should not read any literature that excited passion and sensuality.’ When I glanced at her coiffure she pulled at the stray tendrils and added that, ‘we should also avoid long and scandalous toilettes.’ It saddened me to see this young woman, so privileged yet so weighed down by expectations and duties, mouthing sentiments I would have expected to hear from my self-righteous brother-in-law, Mr Darcy, or my sister Mary.

  Scandalous books and toilettes are among the greatest pleasures life has to offer and both are in short supply on this ship. I murmured an agreement as the vessel started to roll again. It was time for our visit to the heads followed by a break for refreshments. The ship has an evil mind of its own, always reserving its worst behaviour for these two events – or was it the elements at fault? My brain is becoming addled, probably by salt.

  ‘At least you are not surviving on hard tack and rum,’ Jerry grumbled when we met later that day. ‘You cannot imagine the conditions below deck while you are swanning around in the royal salon.’ Speechless, I pointed to my salt-dried hair and limp muslins which Adelaide had unsuccessfully attempted to revive with a little lavender water.

  ‘As you can see, conditions for ladies at sea are especially difficult,’ I protested. ‘You men do not object to a lack of soap and water, for the most part. I agree that your rations must be poor but you have rum to blot out everything when necessary.’ This argument did not prevail with him and ended with a promise from me to smuggle out a chicken leg or two.

  ‘It’s nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash for the crew,’ he muttered, as he disappeared below deck.

  Why do our encounters always end in capitulation on my part? Our relationship is so problematic. How far am I from my dearest ambition – marriage to an amiable gentleman of means with a country estate and two matching footmen? I am unlikely to meet such a person in darkest Brazil. As for the Austrian noblemen on board, they are as stiff as boards and I have had enough of their ways.

  Back in my cabin I started to write a letter to my dear friend, Selena. My news will be stale indeed after it travels for six months across the Atlantic. I dared not mention Jerry’s presence on board. All I could say was that Dona Leopoldina dreaded meeting her mother-in-law.

  ‘Who doesn’t?’ Adelaide remarked when I read this aloud.

  Dinner that evening ended in chaos once more. At one point the ship keeled over completely onto one side. Chairs were upended, wine spilled and plates and glasses shattered. The Portuguese ladies descended into hysterics, the men shouted, the parrot cursed, and even the princess shed a tear. At least I would have something exciting to tell Selena. When the ship righted itself members of the crew arrived to carry us to our quarters. Jerry was not among them, I noted.

  Chapter 2

  October 23rd

  Will we arrive in Brazil in this decade or the next? The never-ending voyage continues. Perhaps we are heading for Australia, the far side of the world. Certainly I am beginning to feel like a convict bound for a penal colony, but I must not fall into melancholy and exaggeration. If I am a convict then I am a privileged one. The ship is so overcrowded that many people are forced to sleep on deck. There is a system of rotation, I understand, where Austrian noblemen share the cabin accommodation.

  ‘One of the ladies-in-waiting has suffered an infestation of lice,’ I told Adelaide. ‘Her head has been shaved and powdered and she now wears a strange-looking turban to cover her baldness.’ We sniggered a good deal over this but our merriment soon ceased when we realised that this plague could spread to others. My hair is my best feature and the thought of losing it fills me with dread.

  ‘You should avoid too much contact with sailor Jerry, madam,’ Adelaide advised. ‘All them sailors are rancid at best due to their conditions below decks. You might catch all manner of nasties.’ She is right of course. I shall use this as an excuse to avoid becoming intimately involved with him. I must avoid scandal at all costs.

  The Countess of K, chief lady-in-waiting, persecutes me whenever she can. I am subjected to long, boring lectures on Viennese court etiquette, which seem pointless as we are no longer in Vienna. The countess already looks back with nostalgia to a golden age compared to the tropical nightmare awaiting us in Brazil.

  ‘The Portuguese are a backward people compared to the scientifically advanced Austrians,’ she announced. I reminded her that the English were the most advanced in that sphere but she waved away the notion.

  ‘Napoleon was right about one thing. The English are a nation of shopkeepers.’ She is careful not to express any of these views in Dona Leopoldina’s hearing. As for my poor self, I know nothing of correct behaviour due to my lowly origins. The countess gives me a sly pinch whenever she passes, just to confirm my status.

  Our only amusement is in listening to the gossip about the court in Rio, filtered through several languages from the Portuguese who have visited already.

  It is eccentric in the extreme: in the ten years since the court removed from Lisbon it has embraced an almost oriental decadence, crossed with medieval European practices long abandoned, even by our own peculiar House of Hanover. The king’s mother, Queen Maria, recently died totally insane, but our poor King George is also mad. It must be a royal affliction.

  Dona Carlota, the dreaded mother-in-law of Dona Leopoldina, is Spanish and loathed by everyone. She is known as the “Witch of Cordoba.” She is very small, very ugly, unruly and contentious and interested only in Andalusian dancing and horses. It is rumoured that her second son, Don Miguel, is not her husband’s offspring. The royal couple separated and they now maintain their own households.

  All this reaches the ears of poor Dona Leopoldina who is very Germanic, placid and serious in her disposition. I dread to think how she will fare in that tropical broth. At least I have only two years to serve, and several long months have passed already. If the return voyage lasts as long I may be grey-haired by the time I see England again.

  ‘Never mind, madam,’ Adelaide remarked. ‘At least you will be a diamond-covered spinster.’ She is very little comfort sometimes. As for the diamonds – how many will come my way? The prospect of being alone as I grow older is beginning to oppress me. I am only two and twenty but many would consider me past my prime, especially as I am a widow.

  I was taking a little exercise on deck when Jerry appeared. He leaped nimbly out of the way as the five children of the King’s Commissioner scampered by, pursued by nursemaids and tutors. They were followed by more servants bearing pots of waving greenery and cages full of European and tropical birds, all needing their daily airing.

  ‘This place is like Vauxhall Gardens!’ he muttered, as we were both pressed against a stanchion. I am immoderately sick of this ship.

  November 1st

  Good fortune at last! The ship is now bearing down towards Salvador de Bahia in northern Brazil. Our destination is in sight. We have been beguiled with promises of fresh water and tropical fruits and fine new gowns kept especially for this event. Very grand preparations have been made to welcome the princess, and her ladies must look their best. We will be able to remove the salt from our persons and even Dona Leopoldina will not object to a few scandalous toilettes.

  ‘I shall be taking my leave of the ship as soon as we arrive in Rio,’ Jerry told me. ‘The sea-going life is not for me. I had no choice in the matter, being a wanted man. There are riches to be grasped from the fertile lands in Brazil’s interior and I intend to get my share.’ His vision includes becoming a sugar grower with many slaves, enlisting as a soldier of fortune, or stumbling upon a diamond mine. I pointed out that he did not speak the language but he laughed at this. ‘I still have my sword and pistol sto
wed away. They speak louder than any language.’

  I heaved a sigh.

  We both know that our future paths must diverge, but part of me wanted desperately to cry out, ‘Take me with you!’ I would have given every Portuguese gold coin promised to me in exchange for a life with my bold highwayman, although I know that it could not possibly happen. Lydia Bennet Wickham could not survive in a pitiless tropical jungle without the amenities of civilised society and I fear that Jerry might consider me a burden. I heaved another sigh as he wandered off to the far reaches of the ship.

  How did I become involved with a highwayman? I often ask this question of myself. Jerry and his accomplice robbed me of my jewellery on the coach journey to London after I had left Pemberley. When I spied him at the theatre with his doxy wearing my jewels, I gave chase and circumstances ended with the two of us becoming very intimately acquainted.

  I must cease these reminiscences. I am not lucky with gentlemen, as Adelaide often reminds me. Jerry, however, is no gentleman.

  Chapter 3

  November 20th

  Today I am writing in my new journal again, for you cannot imagine, dear reader, the excitement I felt as the ship slowly entered the enormous and magnificent Bay of Guanabara, with its strangely shaped mountain known as the Sugar Loaf. It was November 5th or 6th – dates have become difficult to remember, but the fireworks and cannon shots exploding above us seemed appropriate for the date, an exotic version of a Guy Fawkes celebration on a very large scale. Flags were waving and hundreds of small boats rowed by handsome dark youths, almost naked, came out to greet us. The ladies were agog as these young gods handed up unfamiliar fruit, pitangas, Jack fruit and pupunhas, which are like peaches.

  Noise and colour and heat – thus began my time in Brazil. The delight and the horror, the beauty and the misery could not be a greater contrast from my well-ordered little homeland. I know that my stay here will be a great adventure. Longbourn is a distant memory. I have travelled across the world – and what will become of me?

  Only two ladies-in-waiting were allowed to accompany Dona Leopoldina onto the golden barge which carried the royal family. The rest of us watched from the deck as the newlywed couple eyed each other furtively under lowered eyelids. The dark looks of the heir to the throne, Dom Pedro, contrasted sharply with her blonde, blue-eyed appearance. The marriage had been celebrated by proxy in Vienna.

  I thought I would die of pleasure when I felt terra firma beneath my feet again. We disembarked on the following day when we joined a procession of ninety carriages through the streets of Rio, which were decorated as if for a Roman carnival. My senses were overwhelmed by the shouting, screaming, cannon fire and fireworks combined with military bands and oven heat. The vastness of my surroundings and the huge crowds disoriented my senses and I became faint, grabbing the carriage window for support.

  ‘This place is smelly,’ pronounced Adelaide when we surveyed our rooms in the São Cristovão palace. ‘That dung heap should go.’ She pointed to the pile of manure just observable from the window over which thousands of insects hovered. ‘Just our luck to be quartered so close to the thing… and the floors are dirty, and the tapestries are filthy…’

  ‘I know, I know,’ I agreed, ‘but there is little we can do.’ Standards of cleanliness are not high at court. Indeed, after the pomp and ceremony of our arrival the palace is a disappointment, an undistinguished building lacking in style or order. Pemberley is far more impressive. Adelaide is fully occupied in trying to get fresh water for bathing and washing my clothes. Her requests are met by a languid wave of the hand and instruction to ‘tell the slaves to fetch it.’

  In contrast to the almost dingy palace, there is a staff of thousands – mostly black slaves who vastly outnumber the Portuguese. They are treated very badly and are constantly whipped. I know that some people in England keep black servants but the British government is now trying to abolish slavery everywhere.

  The court officials have assigned a slave to me. I insisted that I did not need one as I had my own servant but they did not appear to understand. The girl’s name is Eufrasia; her skin is as black as coal and as smooth as marble. She stares at me with veiled, impenetrable eyes and she speaks no English. Adelaide is up in arms thinking that I would have no further use for her but I reassured her on that score.

  ‘You know I could not manage without your help,’ I told her. ‘Let Eufrasia do the heavier work as she is accustomed to the heat.’ I was also given a whip which I threw out in disgust. The girl watched me do this, her face impassive. We will manage by sign language and some basic Portuguese words.

  Eufrasia brings me my daily breakfast of manioc meal in coconut milk with fried bananas or guavas, or other tropical fruits. The manioc meal is not vastly different from porridge and I have become accustomed to it. The tropical fruits are delicious and a blessing after the long months without such things. Often we drink a strange tasting beverage called guaraná.

  When I was presented to the king, Dom João VI, he appeared to be a kindly, gracious man but I noticed immediately that he seldom washed. This was apparent from his bodily odour, heavily overlaid with strong perfumes. When I was required to kiss his hand I noticed another unpleasant aroma in the room. Could it be… surely not? A scandalised Austrian lady confirmed it – the king kept overflowing chamber pots in the corners of his receiving room.

  The Portuguese logic is that as the upper classes never touch anything dirty, they do not need to wash. The Cariocas, the natives of Rio, on the other hand, are very clean people who wash and bathe daily.

  ‘They’ve gone native, you know, except for the cleanliness aspect.’ My fellow countryman was referring to the court and the royal family. We were standing on a veranda watching a tropical twilight glinting gold and copper on the horizon. Within minutes it faded into grey and then black as an all-enveloping velvet cloak. ‘The bat’s wing of night,’ said my companion quite poetically.

  I had found a large contingent of British people established in Rio to secure our interests in trade and foreign affairs. When I was allowed to leave the palace I was often invited into their homes.

  Mr Luccombe is a textile merchant from London, who has made a fortune during his ten years in the country. The British have a monopoly on trade to Brazil and our goods pour into Rio daily. He keeps several slaves in his household but has not completely abandoned European ways. He assured me that anything I wanted from home could be brought in on the packet ship that sails from Falmouth every month.

  ‘How do you find them at court, my dear?’ he asked. ‘The king lives more like an oriental pasha than a Christian monarch, does he not, except for his aversion to washing?’ The expatriates were all agog when they discovered that an Englishwoman had been appointed to a court position. I did not feel I could give them the real reason for my role.

  ‘I confess I am wearied by the feudal customs and the long church services that I am required to attend, even though I am an Anglican,’ I replied. Mr Luccombe went on eagerly: ‘What do you think of the virago Carlota and Dom Pedro – a real Jack-the-Lad that one? There is always scandal about his mistresses. There was the French ballerina who had his child and…’

  ‘Hush, John!’ Mrs Luccombe interrupted her husband’s unruly revelations with some embarrassment. Not in the least subdued, he assured us all that ‘a well-ordered, democratic society needs a temperate climate if it is to function well. I have tried to introduce the game of cricket in an attempt to civilise the locals.’ I gathered that this project had met with only moderate success.

  Mrs Luccombe asked me if I cared for guaraná. ‘The locals regard it as almost the elixir of life and I confess I have become quite addicted to it,’ she told me.

  ‘It bucks her up,’ her husband added with a broad smile. ‘The ladies find the climate very wearing.’

  We retreated into the house in an attempt to avoid the torment of the mosquitoes. I could not tell them that Dom Pedro had already shown some interest in me, g
iving hot, speaking glances in my direction whenever we were in the same room. When I told Adelaide about this, her reply was typically sharp.

  ‘He does that to anything in skirts, it’s well-known.’ She seldom offers me any sympathy, but I have no other confidante in the palace who can speak English. She always has an ear for the latest gossip, even in foreign languages. ‘There was the French ballerina…’

  ‘Yes, I know about her.’

  ‘Then there was the wife of the captain of the royal guard.’

  ‘I do not want to have this conversation, Adelaide. We must not lose all sense of the niceties of civilised living.’ I knew how hypocritical I sounded, as I recalled the incident with the Prince Regent. From the expression on her face I could tell that my maid was remembering the same thing. However, once started on this theme I could not stop.

  ‘We must remember that we are British,’ I added. ‘We come from a reassuring, well-ordered country, and we know the importance of linings.’ Adelaide looked puzzled.

  ‘I am referring to the Brazilian habit of wearing almost transparent clothing which must add to the general decadence.’

  My maid gave me a shrewd look. ‘The French do that too, and so will you in this heat.’ She flounced off with the laundry basket and I wondered why I had bothered with that little speech. Obviously I was trying to put temptation behind me. I could not afford another scandal. As for my maid, Mama always said that we should set an example to the lower orders, but I fear I have not succeeded with Adelaide.

  January 2nd, 1818