Her portrait was no more than fifteen by twelve inches in size, modest amid that bombastic decor. Her likeness grabbed me with all the intensity of a thing you nearly missed, a thing you could have overlooked but instead feel relieved to have noticed after all—a blend of chance and inevitability. It was almost as if she had chosen me, saved herself for me alone. That first time I saw her, she seemed to invite me to linger over every detail: her dress, for example, with its embroidered hem and eccentric design, somewhere between a sari, a bohemian costume and an evening gown made of velvet and silk. With her right hand, she drew my eyes down over her left breast to her low neckline, a horizontal just above her areolae. There, on the border between bare and covered, she holds a small white flower playfully between her fingers. A loose turban with three peacock feathers betrays her dark locks. The curl of her lips is somehow secretive. The landscape in the background is dreamlike, exotic in a fantasized way.
“Princess Caraboo of Javasu”, the information panel tells me. The British painter Edward Bird (1772–1819) painted her portrait in 1817. Caraboo was a princess from the East Indies who, after being abducted by pirates and surviving a shipwreck, washed up by way of the Channel in the southern English city of Bristol.
*
Caraboo is first sighted on 3 April 1817 in the Almondsbury village square, near Bristol. She makes a somewhat distraught impression, babbling and trying with wild sweeps of her arms to communicate something to the passers-by. Alarmed by her overwrought noises and gestures, the villagers fetch the overseer of the poor, who is just as bewildered as they are.
“Perhaps she’s Greek,” he muses. He recalls that the town clerk, Mr Worrall, has a Greek servant. In any case, it strikes him as a good idea to inform Mr Worrall, who after all is also a magistrate.
The overseer takes the woman to Knole Park House, the town clerk’s official residence. Mr Worrall and his wife are captivated at once by the intriguing young woman, who for one thing is rather attractive. Dark eyes. Red lips, pale yet full.
“And excellent teeth,” Mrs Worrall emphasizes.
“Excellent teeth,” Mr Worrall confirms. That makes it clear she cannot be a beggar, even though she has no more in her pockets than a few forged coins and a bar of soap wrapped in linen.
Mr Worrall takes her in from head to toe. Leather sandals. Worsted stockings. A high-necked black dress fringed with mousseline. If it weren’t for the strange black turban on her head, she would look quite respectable, really.
“But what about that shawl—the shawl on her shoulders?” Mrs Worrall points dubiously.
“Black and red . . . aren’t those the colors of Asia?” Mr Worrall wonders.
Mrs Worrall knows better than to show her enthusiasm while company is calling, but she cannot suppress an exhilarated sigh at the thought that this young woman may come from a different continent.
“She’s not Greek, that’s for sure,” the servant says.
After some discussion with the overseer, the Worralls decide that the woman cannot stay in Knole Park. After all, they cannot rule out the possibility that she is a criminal.
“But her hands!” Mrs Worrall exclaims. “They look as if she hasn’t had to work a day in her life! We can’t just cast her out in the streets, can we?”
Mr Worrall consents to hire a room for her at the local inn, where they also order her a nourishing meal. The woman looks exhausted and can hardly walk. The overseer escorts her to the inn, and as he is trying to explain the unusual situation to the innkeeper, the woman begins to shout.
“Annana, Annana!” She points to the wallpaper, decorated with a pineapple pattern, and cries out once more: “Annana, Annana!” This time she folds her hands over her chest as if her heart is about to burst. The sight of the pineapples on the wallpaper is such an obvious comfort to her that the overseer can only conclude she must recognize them from her homeland.
*
The next morning, the Worralls visit the inn, accompanied by the parish clerk. At their request, he brings along a few books with Oriental illustrations. The woman seems most familiar with the patterns relating to Chinese culture. This is all the evidence Mrs Worrall requires. Although too well bred to assert herself directly, she decides then and there that the young woman must stay with them at Knole. Mr Worrall has his doubts, but gives in.
Later that day, by the time Mrs Worrall has a moment alone with the young woman in the pantry, some of her husband’s misgivings must have rubbed off on her. In a steely voice, she issues an ultimatum.
“Young woman,” Mrs Worrall begins, “I am very much afraid that this is some sort of swindle, that you do in fact understand everything I say and could perfectly well respond in my own language. If that is the case, then your actions are a sign of desperation. Know, then, that I am your friend, a woman as you are, capable of pity. I can give you money and clothes and a way out of this, without whispering one word of the story to anyone else. But only if you confess the truth to me this instant. If you are trying to dupe me, then I must inform you that Mr Worrall is a magistrate and, as such, possesses the power to send you to prison and sentence you to hard labour. You will become a homeless outcast in your own parish.”
But the mysterious woman gives Mrs Worrall a gentle, mystified look. Mrs Worrall returns her gaze with the same gentleness.
“Mrs Worrall,” says Mrs Worrall, pointing to herself. She writes down her name on a piece of paper and encourages the young woman to do the same.
“Mrs Worr-all.” Again, Mrs Worrall points at herself, now sliding the paper to the other side of the table. She repeats the gesture a few times, until the young woman bursts into tears of confusion.
“Cara-boo. Cara-boo,” she sniffles. There can be no doubt that she is saying her name.
*
Princess Caraboo’s portrait was the last work of art I saw in a museum before the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. In the first week of March 2020, just before Belgium went into lockdown, I was visiting Bristol with friends. Afterwards, I travelled on to London, Newcastle and St Andrews to give readings. My British publisher had organized a promotional tour for my first book of poetry translated into English. I took the train from southern England to Scotland and back to Brussels, because I refused to fly such short distances. In five days’ time, I spent thirty-six hours on trains, so that I could give three twenty-minute readings—a long, solitary trip that I justified to myself as an agreeable form of self-torture. My fellow passengers did not see it that way. Eyes narrowed whenever I coughed. The person opposite me cringed when I produced a tissue. I was severely congested and had a slight sore throat. So what? I thought. Doesn’t everyone catch a cold at this time of year? I decided I shouldn’t cause further offense by offering anyone my hand to shake. The vaguely absurd but charming elbow bump adopted some weeks later on the continent had already swept Britain. No one could have suspected how completely everything would change in a matter of days.
It has now been months since I’ve searched for my passport, packed a suitcase, seen an audience or read a poem aloud, months since I saw Princess Caraboo in the museum. Of course all those things are gradually becoming possible again now, but they face an uncertain future.
When I think of the nonchalance with which I travelled in the past, the introverted mood of the current health crisis leaves me with the stifling sense of being a con artist. Time to write, at last, now that everything’s at a standstill, and I can’t commit a word to paper. A deadly virus is shaking up the globe, and I’m watching the news in my PJs. If I’m lucky, I’ll fall asleep in front of the screen.
That day in the museum, was Princess Caraboo onto me? Was she beckoning me with her eyes, or seeing through me? Unconsciously, I felt her portrait had somehow reached out and caught me. And maybe—even in those early days—she could see the deceiver I am, a writer unequal to the truths of her time. I suspect the circumstances, along with my gradual case of impostor syndrome, have intensified the painting’s aftereffects. Be that as it may, Caraboo’s enigmatic likeness has preyed on my mind for weeks now. Those curling lips make me suspicious.
*
Caraboo. The name sounds exotic enough to Mrs Worrall. This is what she’s been longing for with a quiet passion: an event that will shake up her sleepy life and rescue her from the domestic tedium of her days as a town clerk’s wife in the early years of what is shaping up to be a long, long nineteenth century in Victorian England.
Had ennui made her so hungry for diversion that she became reckless? What did she really know about this Caraboo? The woman would liven up their dinner parties at Knole, no doubt of that, but for all they knew, she came from a land of cannibals.
After a slight bout of fever, Mrs Worrall decides it is wiser after all to remove the woman from their house again. Caraboo is given temporary lodgings in Mr Worrall’s offices in Bristol. A colorful procession of captains, clergymen and intellectuals come to pay their respects and weigh in on the Caraboo case. For ten days, they make earnest yet fruitless attempts to find out what language she speaks and where she comes from.
Mr Worrall begins to fear that the whole affair is turning him into a laughingstock when, miracle of miracles, the Portuguese sailor Manuel Eynesso arrives in town. He recognizes Caraboo’s language right away; it’s not a proper language at all, he says, but a mixture of the dialects spoken on the coasts of Sumatra and ‘various other islands’. Manuel Eynesso has made many sea voyages to Malaya and the Indies, and although he doesn’t speak any of the local languages fluently, he knows enough to distil three things out of Caraboo’s dialect: that she is a princess in her own country, that she was abducted, and that she was brought to England against her will.
“I knew it!” Mrs Worrall crows.
“A princess . . . ” Mr Worrall mumbles, promptly making a slight bow.
Manuel Eynesso feeds the Worralls just the right amount of information about their exotic guests. The story offers a plausible enough account, while leaving plenty to the imagination. That very evening, Princess Caraboo is given a room of her own at Knole for an open-ended stay.
*
For ten weeks, the Worrall home is the epicentre of social life in Bristol and thereabouts. The whole upper class falls head over heels, for Caraboo and her exotic customs: The way she drinks tea with her left hand while covering one eye with her right. Her refusal to eat meat or drink alcohol. Her exceptional skill in archery and fencing. The way she climbs trees and prays from the highest branches to a god named ‘Alla-Talla’. The way she swims in the lake, naked and unafraid. At Mr Worrall’s invitation, she dances for him and his friends—a dance evocative of all sorts of things.
Caraboo makes the newspapers. In cosmopolitan Bath, a society ball is organized in her honour. She is the object of a collective adoration fuelled by conflicting feelings: everyone wants to be part of the fairy tale, and at the same time everybody wants to puncture it.
The riddle of her origins remains the chief preoccupation of the guests at Knole Park. A cloth merchant, who has travelled to the British colonies many times and picked up a few words of Chinese, is determined to get to the bottom of her story. With a suitor’s dedication and an anthropologist’s precision, he studies her gestures, language and folkways until, after many a demanding session, he emerges with tears in his eyes to present his reconstruction of her story:
“Sweet Caraboo is of mixed descent, the child of a Chinese nobleman and a Malaysian mother killed by cannibals in her daughter’s infancy. Her homeland is called Congee—in other words, China—but she herself lives on a remote island known as ‘Javasu’. During a walk in the lush palace gardens, she and three of her ladies-in-waiting were abducted by a band of bloodthirsty pirates whose leader was named Chee-min. Bound hand and foot, the young ladies were taken on board. Caraboo could see her adoring father swimming after the evildoers with his bow and arrow, but it was too late . . . With a heavy heart, he saw the ship bear his daughter away over the horizon.
“After eleven days on the high seas, the ship docked in an unknown port where the merciless Chee-min sold her to another gang, called Tappa Boo. Am I pronouncing that correctly: ‘Tappa Boo’?”
“Tappa Boo!” Princess Caraboo repeats with a scowl.
“Then Caraboo—and it pains me to say it—was confined to the hold for four weeks, until they came to another unknown port and four new women were taken on board, upon which they went back to sea for another five weeks. Princess Caraboo’s sufferings went on and on. When they finally reached the next port, the four women were released, but she had to stay on board. For three days, the ship lay at anchor there, and then its voyage continued, taking her ever further away from her beloved Javasu . . . After another eleven days, Caraboo found a way out of her prison. In desperation, she leapt overboard, willing to drown if that was her destiny. Her deity, Alla-Talla, must have seen to it that she was just off the coast when she committed this desperate act and granted her the strength to swim to land. That was how she arrived in Bristol.”
“Brees-doll,” Princess Caraboo repeats with a demure smile.
Mrs Worrall, deeply moved to hear the whole story of Princess Caraboo’s tribulations, decides that a portrait should be painted as soon as possible in homage to the brave, exotic princess. The chosen artist is Edward Bird, a local painter already known for a few striking portraits and cityscapes, who is also a master of the ‘Japanning art’, a lacquering technique from Japan used to decorate household objects. Since Japan is not too far from China, this skill makes him the perfect choice to depict Caraboo in her country of origin.
So, in June 1817, Princess Caraboo finds herself in Edward Bird’s studio. He paints exactly what he sees before him: an alluring young woman who enchants everyone who sees her. He portrays her wearing a white turban with three peacock feathers and devotes special attention to her yellow silk dress, offering a delicate rendering of the deep neckline and the drapery. In the background, he conjures up Indian temples, a Chinese pagoda and palm trees.
*
Of course, I can look up Princess Caraboo as often as I like on Google Images, but the online version disappoints me. The digital reproduction of her portrait has nothing like the effect of the original. The color of her dress does not catch the glow of the sunlight entering the gallery. None of the images let me zoom in far enough to see that she’s covering her nipple. The scenic background is darker than I remember it, and the painting looks different outside its kitschy context. I miss the ironic contrast, the way Caraboo seems to mock the whole museum setting. Who is she smiling at? The more I study her online, the more disconnected I feel from her. I no longer know exactly what I’m looking for. Maybe my memory played tricks on me—writers are so often tempted to overload a moment with symbolism. Maybe I’m trying to find meaning in the portrait merely to set myself apart from all the other museumgoers who’ve glanced at her. Isn’t it enough that I saw her? Do I have to write her story too? Did I simply look at her, or did I, like the people of early nineteenth-century Bristol, appropriate her?
*
One day a woman turns up in Knole Park who introduces herself as Mrs Neale. She is holding a newspaper clipping about Caraboo and says the description of the exotic princess sounds very familiar.
“That’s no princess, that’s Mary Willcocks! She was my lodger around six months ago, and I guarantee you she will recognize me.”
Mrs Worrall thinks back to that confidential moment in the pantry months earlier, to the ultimatum and the girl’s sheepish smile. She feels the old doubts resurface, but for that entire evening she conceals them from Caraboo, who showers her with the usual affection and babble.
The next day, Mrs Worrall takes the princess along to Edward Bird’s studio for the final sitting. Caraboo is excited; soon her portrait will be complete. The prospect of posing in the silk dress with the white turban again fills her with pleasure. But how quickly that pleasure turns to despair when, upon entering the studio, she sees not the painter but Mrs Neale. The confrontation with her former landlady throws her off balance.
“Caraboo, Toddy, Moddy,” she stammers, flinging her arms around Mrs Worrall’s neck, but it’s too late. Mrs Worrall goes rigid in her arms.
*
It became clear that Princess Caraboo was in fact the daughter of a poor shoemaker from Witheridge, Devon. Mary Willcocks had left home with few prospects and had to resort to begging to support herself. Once, in a playful mood, she wrapped a shawl around her head like a turban, and to her surprise she ended the day with more coins than usual. She created a character, but she didn’t realize it until, some eighty miles from the village where she’d grown up, she saw how Mrs Worrall was looking at her, the way no one else had ever looked at her before, as if there was something in her worth discovering.
For ten weeks, Mary Willcocks fooled an entire city. She fleshed out her role with the panache of an accomplished actress. Her greatest achievement was her nonsense language, which she spoke so consistently and convincingly that even linguists in Oxford fell for it. She put on a still more persuasive show of not understanding a word of her own language, English, and was therefore permitted to listen in on all the theories, proposals and speculations as to her background. The well-travelled guests at Knole had, in their determination to unravel the mystery, given her all the materials to create an exotic history for herself. Caraboo recycled details from a variety of travellers’ tales, weaving them all into a self-mythologizing origin story. A brilliant stratagem.
What is even more surprising is the eagerness with which the Worralls swallowed her outlandish tale. The Mary Willcocks incident unmasked their prejudices about non-European cultures in a delightful act of subversion. All Mary had to do was become a blank canvas, onto which they were glad to project their desires and fantasies.
Viewers of her portrait now, two hundred years later, are still falling into the same trap. Edward Bird gives us Caraboo as everyone saw her: the ultimate fantasy, mysterious and seductive—the stereotype of an Oriental princess. But after she was exposed, he added a cryptic smile. This destabilizing detail puts Princess Caraboo back in control of her own portrait. She becomes an amused witness to the viewer’s credulity, she dismantles exotic colonial prejudices, and she declares her secret solidarity with the swindlers among us.
