The Shallow Seas (10 page)

As if sensing Charlotte's eyes, he turned and looked at her; it was a long look, of such smouldering intensity that she looked down in embarrassment. But she smiled nevertheless. Petra too saw this look and turned away, fanning herself violently. This was becoming most enjoyable.

A white-liveried servant came up with drinks, and Charlotte chose French wine in a fine crystal glass. Several introductions passed; then the Reverend Walter Medhurst, the Anglican pastor of All Saints, introduced himself. His wife, Eliza, a small, frail-looking woman was with him. They found they had a mutual interest in the London Missionary Society and a common acquaintance in Benjamin Keaseberry in Singapore, who had studied printing with him. Medhurst had arrived in the East to spread the word of Christ to China. China being closed to foreigners, however, it was decided to minister to the Chinese outside who might, if they returned home, take Christianity with them. Java had been chosen. That had been eighteen years ago, he added with a wry smile, but now things had changed. He and others were preparing to depart. The Treaty of Nanking had ended that country's isolation. His own son, educated at Macau, had been Chinese secretary to the expeditionary leader Charles Elliot during the war. He and his wife would be joining their boy in this new town of Hong Kong before proceeding to Shanghai. It was a double blessing.

“Now we shall all begin this glorious enterprise.” His colour had heightened, and Charlotte could see his enthusiasm. She talked a little of her father's life in Madagascar for the Society. As ever, she was impressed by the quiet, unrelenting faith of these missionaries, but was somehow also confounded by their attitudes to the violence and horror of war, the invasion of other lands. She thought of her father. For the first time she asked herself why on earth he had gone to Madagascar. The Chinese in Singapore seemed happy with their ordered and peaceful religion. She could not think how Zhen's deep soul would be improved by Christianity.

“Do the Chinese need Christianity, Reverend Medhurst?” she asked, now suddenly curious, for surely his reasons must have been those of her own father.

“My dear child, oh yes.” He looked shocked. “They worship idols. It is our duty to bring the grace and love of the true Lord to the heathen and to the poor downtrodden masses. And the enormous advantages of an advanced and benevolent civilisation.

Before she could ask more, other Englishmen and their wives joined them. Charlotte found herself relaxing in their easygoing company. John Price was a plantation owner, and his wife was Dutch Chinese. Gillean Maclaine was a trader with a Javanese wife who spoke good English. His sons were by his side with their Indische wives. As she looked round the room, Charlotte realised what Takouhi had said was true: there were few white European woman in the palace. Clearly these English guests had been invited to set her at her ease, and she was grateful to Wilhelmina for her thoughtfulness. The only bachelor present was Nathanial Fox, a naturalist and archaeologist who had been in Java for many years; a slim, pleasant-faced man with blue eyes and curly sandy hair, some ten years older than herself. He reminded her immensely of Robert.

As the others wandered away to pay their compliments elsewhere, Nathanial, seemingly unconcerned about the proprieties of sitting amongst the women, began an exposé of the various guests. The Reverend Medhurst, he said, dear old fellow, was a worthy soul and an excellent scholar.

“He has made a first translation of the Bible into Chinese. He works tirelessly in Batavia. All Saints opens its doors to all the Christian faiths. He has a printing press. There is a native school and an orphanage. He petitions the government for aid in diffusing Christian knowledge amongst the people of Java, but his pleas fall, I assure you, on very deaf ears. The government dreads any such actions and will not brook interference with the religions of the country for fear of stirring up rebellion. Doubtless they are correct.”

Over there, the wild-looking one was Baron van Hoevell, president of the Batavian Society for the Arts and Sciences, an institution which Raffles had revived and encouraged. The Society met at the Harmonie Club, where there was an excellent English library. He himself would be presenting his findings to the Society in due course.

The group in a huddle around Tigran, he said, were all Freemasons, for it was strong in Batavia.

“De Ster in het Oosten,” he said with a strong, mock-Dutch accent. “The Star of the East. You should probably know that your fiancé is doubtless adept in its black arts. You are warned, Mademoiselle.”

They shared a smile.

The grumpy group of old men dressed like figures in a seventeenth-century Dutch painting were members of the Raad van Indie, the council which ran the Indies and met here in the palace. The Governor-General and his wife, like Raffles and all others before them for a hundred years, spent almost all their time in Buitenzorg.

The most grotesque man in the room, but one of the most entertaining and pleasant, was old Leendert Miero, Nathanial confided.

Charlotte looked at this little old man, wizened and bald, with a prominent and hairy chin which contrived to meet his nose. No mouth was discernible, and Charlotte realised that the old fellow clearly had no teeth. He was dressed in an ancient blue velvet coat and a frilled cravat and attended by what were clearly, by their looks, his children.

“He has a wonderful story. There is a house, not far from Brieswijk on Molienvliet West. It was built around 1760 by a former Governor-General, Reinier de Klerk, and passed through various hands to those of John Siberg, who was acting Governor-General before Daendels. Anyway, it happened that Siberg returned home one hot day and found a Polish Jewish soldier sleeping at the entrance whilst on duty. The furious Siburg ordered the man to take fifty lashes. On the day of the lashing, so the story goes, he swore by his forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that one day he would own the house. After he finished his military service, the soldier became a goldsmith and made a fortune. He purchased the house and still to this day he invites all Batavia to celebrate the anniversary of the day he was given fifty lashes.”

Before Nathanial could continue, Wilhelmina Merkus came up to them, fanning herself rapidly. Nathanial bowed and departed to the correct side of the room.

“Are you admiring us all? Will you join me on the terrace before dinner? I am so hot, and I should be glad to talk a little alone.”

6

The terrace of the palace overlooked a vast park, dark now, with candles and flames flickering here and there. Night-blooming flowers—tuberose, gardenia, jasmine and moonflower—exhaled their invisible scent. Charlotte was grateful to escape the heat and the pressing attentions of the ballroom. They sat in the semi-darkness. A servant boy stood to one side with a large fan.

“You have caused quite a little stir in our town. you know,” said Wilhemina.

Charlotte smiled.

“That was certainly not my intention, Madame,” she replied.

“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.”