The Ragged Heiress (3 page)

On a morning that was indistinguishable from any other, breakfast was brought to Lucetta on the vine-shaded veranda outside her ground floor bedroom. She sipped her coffee wondering what she would do today. Papa would almost certainly be off somewhere on the island buying up all the intricately carved teak-wood, seagrass and rattan furniture that he intended to ship back to England and sell for a handsome profit. Lucetta had heard him tell Sir John that he had already purchased enough to fill the entire hold of the
Caroline
, the clipper ship that would take them home
when Papa was satisfied that his business was done. She sighed, thinking of London and the pleasant life that she had left behind. She did not often allow herself to yearn for home, nor would she have admitted the truth to her mother, but Lucetta missed the trips to the theatre, the outings to the Zoological Gardens and Madame Tussaud’s and meetings with her old school friends from Miss Milton’s Academy for Young Ladies, which she had left last spring.

It would be autumn by the time she returned to London and there was much to look forward to. She thought longingly of her blue and white bedroom on the second floor of the elegant townhouse in Thornhill Crescent, one of the best parts of Islington. All the memories of her happy childhood were encapsulated in that bright, sunny room. Her dolls with their beautiful wax faces still sat on the sofa beneath the window, although it was several years since she had played with them, but they were too well loved to be packed away in tissue paper and stored in the far recesses of the attics. Her favourite books were neatly displayed on the white-painted bookshelves and a rosewood escritoire awaited her return in the alcove next to the fireplace. It was there she wrote in her journal every evening before she went to bed. She had brought it with her, but there was little enough to write about. Life in the consulate was comfortable but hardly exciting.

A waft of frangipani from the blossom tucked into Naomi’s glossy black hair brought Lucetta back to the present and she turned her head to see her maid tipping
the contents of a china jug into the bowl on the washstand.

Lucetta acknowledged her presence with a cheerful smile. ‘Thank you, Naomi.’

Naomi moved gracefully to the cedar chest and opened it. She held up a sprigged muslin morning gown. ‘Yes, missy?’

‘Not that one, thank you,’ Lucetta said, shaking her head. ‘I think I’ll wear the blue silk.’

Naomi’s eyes clouded and her lips trembled. ‘
Saya tidak mengerti, missy.
’

‘No, I’m sorry. Of course, you don’t understand me and I haven’t the slightest idea what you just said.’ Lucetta swung her legs off the teak steamer-chair and stood up. Even this early in the morning her flimsy cotton wrap clung to her skin where perspiration had pooled between her shoulder blades. She reached for her leather shoes and found that they had sprouted a white fungal bloom overnight. She sighed, handing them to Naomi. ‘I’d be grateful if you would clean them.’ She made a polishing motion with her hand and Naomi nodded, smiling as she took the shoes.

‘Blue silk dress,’ Lucetta repeated slowly. She pointed to the azure sky. ‘Blue – like sky.’

‘Ah! Blue.’ Naomi repeated the word triumphantly and disappeared back into the relative darkness of Lucetta’s bedchamber.

Shuffling barefoot across the grass matting, Lucetta followed her into the cool room.

Naomi selected the gown from the cedar chest and held it up for Lucetta to see. ‘Blue dress for Missy.’

‘Well done,’ Lucetta said, clapping her hands. ‘Thank you, Naomi.’ She reached out to take the dress but it felt damp and the strange jungle odour emanated from its folds. Lucetta would not have been surprised to find mushrooms growing from the seams, but a few minutes in the hot sunshine would put that to rights. It would be too complicated to explain this to Naomi and she went outside to drape the garment over the wooden railing. She returned to the room to find Naomi watching her with a worried frown puckering her smooth brow.

‘Missy no dress?’

‘No, thank you. I can manage on my own. You go and get your breakfast, Naomi.’

‘Breakfast?’

Lucetta raised her hand to her mouth, making a pretence of eating, and she rubbed her tummy. ‘Yum, yum – breakfast,’ she said, chuckling. ‘You go now, Naomi.’

Naomi’s lips parted in a wide smile and her almond eyes danced with laughter. ‘I go now, missy.’

When she was alone, Lucetta allowed the cotton wrap to fall to the floor. She stretched her arms above her head, revelling in the caress of the cool air that wafted through the open French windows. Padding over the marble tiles to the washstand, she dipped her flannel in the bowl of water scented by rose petals floating on the surface. She shivered with pleasure as the liquid streamed down her neck, trickling sensuously between her firm young breasts.

She repeated the action again and again, taking
delight in the relief of feeling fresh and clean, although she knew that by noon she would be just as hot and sticky and in desperate need of another wash. But first she must go through the motions of dressing and putting up her hair, after which she would seek out Lady Boothby and make polite conversation, enquiring about her hostess’s health and her charitable work at the hospital in Denpasar. By that time Mama would have left her room and be comfortably ensconced on the chaise longue in the drawing room while Naomi’s seven-year-old sister fanned her with a palm leaf. Lucetta would read to her mother or simply sit and listen while Evelyn Froy reminisced about her idyllic childhood in the Hampshire vicarage where she had been born and raised. After taking luncheon in the dining room the ladies would retire to their rooms for an afternoon nap, to be awoken by their maidservants at four o’clock in time to dress for tea. The day ahead was as predictable as sunrise and sunset and not nearly as exciting.

Quite suddenly, Lucetta had the urge to escape from the confines of the compound and an irresistible need to do something different and even dangerous. With droplets of water still glistening on her skin, she pulled her fine lawn shift over her head and rang the bell for Naomi.

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she said as Naomi came through the French doors with the blue silk gown draped over her arm. ‘I’m going riding, Naomi. I’ll need my riding habit, please.’

* * * 

Outside the cool interior of the consulate the heat was so intense that it hit Lucetta with a force that took her breath away. She hitched up the long skirt of her riding habit and made her way through the gardens safe in the knowledge that the morning parlour, where Sir John and Lady Boothby took breakfast, was on the far side of the building. Mama would not have risen from her bed, and Papa would have left for the north of the island at dawn. There was no one apart from an aged gardener to see her making a bid for freedom.

She crossed the gravelled compound, making her way to the stable block where the little mare she normally rode whinnied in recognition at the sight of her. The head groom hurried to greet her, and although he eyed her doubtfully he was too well trained to question the consul’s guest when she asked for her mount to be saddled. Lucetta stroked the horse’s soft muzzle and spoke softly to the animal. She had taken a chunk of sugar crystals from her breakfast tray that morning and secreted it in her pocket. She offered it now to the mare on the palm of her flattened hand. She smiled at the gentle touch of the horse’s velvet lips on her skin, and her heartbeats quickened in anticipation of doing something as daring as leaving the consulate unchaperoned. She waited while the groom saddled the mare and led the animal to the mounting block. He held the reins while Lucetta climbed onto the side-saddle.

‘Thank you,’ she said, acknowledging his assistance with a smile. ‘You can let her go now.’

But the groom held on to the reins, shaking his head. ‘Missy not go alone.’

‘It’s quite all right,’ Lucetta said firmly. ‘Sir John said I might take the horse for a short ride. I won’t go far.’

‘No, missy. Not safe.’ The groom signalled to one of his underlings who led a heavy-looking mule of an animal from the stables and prepared to mount.

‘No,’ Lucetta said, snatching the reins from the startled groom’s hand. ‘Thank you, but I will go alone. There is no need to trouble your man.’

She could see by the groom’s set expression that he had not understood, or if he had then he was feigning ignorance. ‘Thank you, but I don’t need an escort.’ She urged the mare forward using her riding crop to tap the animal gently on its flank. They were off at a smart trot before any of the startled stable hands could stop them. By chance the consulate gates had been opened to admit a despatch rider with a satchel of mail for the consul, and Lucetta rode through them before the gatekeeper had a chance to obey the shouts from the stables.

A triumphant cry escaped her lips as she encouraged the little mare to canter along the road that led away from the town. Soon they were galloping along the edge of a palm-fringed beach. The white sand and the sparkling turquoise sea looked so inviting that Lucetta was tempted to stop and tether her mount in the shade of the palms, but there were people around: local farmers leading donkeys laden with panniers filled with rice for the market; fishermen dragging their nets in the lagoon where the distant sound of thunder was not a threatening storm but the crashing of breakers on the coral reef. Lucetta was not bold enough
to go on the beach unattended; at least not until she found a place that was completely deserted.

She rode on, heading inland and pausing for a moment to gaze in wonder as the land dropped suddenly into a deep valley where narrow terraces had been carved out of the hillside to form paddy fields for the cultivation of rice. Shaded by tall palms, the lush green land was misted with heat haze. Lucetta remembered having come this way once before, with Papa and one of Sir John’s grooms. If memory served her correctly, there was a fascinating Buddhist temple not far distant from this place. She had spotted it then and had asked to be allowed to explore, but the groom had shaken his head, murmuring something in his native tongue, and Papa had been in too much of a hurry to reach a workshop where he had hoped to make trade.

Lucetta patted the mare’s sleek neck and with a gentle pressure of her heels encouraged the animal to walk on. Within minutes she was riding through a village lined with minute dwellings constructed of bamboo, with dirt floors and thatched roofs. Open at the front and sides, they were so different from the brick and stone buildings with which Lucetta was familiar that she could hardly believe that whole families lived in such a way. Chickens roamed freely, pecking at the ground, and mangy-looking curs lay sleeping in the shade, apparently indifferent to Lucetta’s presence. Small children stopped their play, plugging their thumbs in their mouths to gaze at her wide-eyed, while their mothers barely glanced up from
washing clothes in what was little more than a drainage ditch at the side of the road.

Feeling like an intruder, Lucetta allowed her horse to continue plodding along the dirt road, which seemed to be leading nowhere. Just as she was thinking that she must have come the wrong way the track opened out into a clearing at the foot of steep cliffs. She gasped in wonder at the sight of a temple hewn into the rock and covered in intricate carvings of strange-looking beasts and deities. Without thinking, Lucetta dismounted and, clutching the reins, she approached the gaping mouth of the god figure that framed the entrance to the pitch-dark interior of the temple.

Without warning, she found herself surrounded by monks in blue robes who were shaking their fists and shouting at her in their native tongue. The mare reared in terror and the reins were snatched from Lucetta’s hand. Terrified and unable to make them understand that she meant no harm, Lucetta looked round for a means of escape, but found her way blocked by women and children who had appeared seemingly from nowhere. They surrounded her, pointing and staring as if she were an animal in the zoo. A small boy wrenched the riding crop from her hand and ran off shrieking with laughter as he wielded it in the air, and a toothless old woman snatched Lucetta’s hat and put it on her own head. The other women began to laugh and taunt her, but the monks turned on them and started pushing them away. In the midst of all this chaos Lucetta did not hear the sound of approaching
hoofbeats until a group of men, dressed in the manner of European sailors, burst into the clearing and reined in their horses, throwing up clouds of grey dust.

‘Hello there.’ A young officer leapt off his horse, pushing his way through the chattering women and children. The Balinese were small by comparison and they scattered before him as he approached Lucetta. He doffed his cap. ‘You seem to be in a spot of bother, ma’am,’ he said, grinning broadly.

Lucetta couldn’t help noticing that his companions were laughing as they dismounted, and instead of rushing to his aid they stood back watching with obvious amusement.

‘You save your maiden in distress, young Galahad,’ one of them shouted above the din.

Lucetta felt her cheeks burning with humiliation. Fear was replaced by embarrassment. She knew that she must look a sorry sight, hatless and with her hair having escaped from the tight chignon at the nape of her neck. Her cream linen riding habit, made especially for her by Mama’s dressmaker in London, was stained with sweat and dust and her plumed riding hat was now perched jauntily on the head of the old woman who had stolen it moments earlier. Lucetta brushed a stray lock of hair from her brow and drew herself up to her full height. ‘Thank you, sir. But it was a simple misunderstanding.’ Despite her brave words she was uncomfortably aware that her voice shook and she was trembling from head to foot.

‘Are you hurt, ma’am?’

She shook her head but her reply was lost as one of
the monks stepped forward uttering a tirade of angry words. The women and children fell silent as he spoke, or perhaps, Lucetta thought, it was due to the fact that the sailors wore side arms and had formed a tight line behind the young officer. He stood his ground, and taking a handful of coins from his pocket he dropped them into the monk’s outstretched hand. This brought an immediate reaction from the women, who surged forward clamouring for money, but this time it was the monks who stepped in and with a few words delivered in ominous tones they dispersed the crowd. With a final impassioned few words from their leader, the monks disappeared into the dark interior of the temple and there was silence except for the chattering of monkeys in the trees and the background chorus of the tropical birds.