James Miranda Barry Read online

  JAMES MIRANDA BARRY

  PATRICIA DUNCKER

  Contents

  Dedication

  Part One The House in the Country

  Part Two North and South

  Part Three The Painter’s Death

  Part Four The Colony

  Part Five Tropics

  Part Six Alice Jones

  Afterword

  A Note on the Author

  By the Same Author

  Copyright Page

  For S.J.D.

  * * *

  This is as strange a maze as e’er men trod,

  And there is in this business more than nature

  Was ever conduct of.

  Shakespeare, The Tempest

  A surgeon should have an eagle’s eye,

  a lady’s hand and a lion’s heart.

  Sir Astley Cooper,

  Professor of Surgery at Guy’s Hospital

  Part One

  The House in the Country

  The man with a moustache sweeps me up in his arms and bangs me down upon the balustrade. A huge puff of smoke floats out of his mouth. As if he were a dragon. There is a chain hanging from a pin only a few inches away from my nose.

  ‘Dragon. Gold.’

  ‘Stand to attention when you’re addressing me, my girl.’ He peers into my eyeballs. I see that his eyes are grey, but flecked with gold. ‘You don’t look like your mother yet, you know. But there’s hope that you will.’

  Is he wearing a uniform? Gold shiny buttons and a silk cravat? I put out my fingers and touch the gold. I unleash a strange smell: herbs, musk, forests. And the weariness of immense distances.

  ‘Travelling dragon.’ I look up at him, already in love with his adventures. ‘Give me gold.’

  ‘Gold? You little mercenary! Well, well. Don’t think I didn’t offer all that to your mother. Estates, servants, riches, a world of luxury. She wouldn’t have me. Wouldn’t. Even her damned father advised her to reconsider. Another mercenary bastard. She’d promised herself to the other one. Would you believe it? Promised? Who in God’s name makes or keeps promises at the age of sixteen?’

  The General has lost his audience. I am now peering over the side of the balustrade. What can I see? A torrent of yellow flowers, falling, falling into a large basin. A stone dolphin with two putti astride, laughing forever, their faces turned in different directions. A little spurt of water. And circle upon circle of reflections. My face, far below me, shimmers, vanishes, shimmers, gone. The General hauls me upright.

  ‘Easy there. Don’t you fall off. Your mother will say that I had a jealous fit and pushed you.’

  The dragon is giving out small, equal gusts of smoke. I stare hard at his moustachios to find the fire. The little brown poker is too small and thin to produce all that smoke. But come to think of it, the more brilliant the fire, the less smoke. I remember a perpetually blazing corner of the nursery and sit thinking of the dolls on the window sill and the inevitability of tea-time. The dragon unties the chain of gold and carefully fastens it around my neck. He has huge hairy fingers and wears an elaborate heavy ring. But his fingers are gentle, hesitant, insecure. He lays the chain flat, free of my lace collar and red curls.

  ‘There you are. You asked for gold.’

  I understand at once. The dragon is asking me to be his friend. We will be friends forever. We will have adventures together.

  ‘Dragon.’ I reach up to put my fingers into silk, my head into smoke, my nose into gold. The General kisses the top of my head.

  ‘Francisco! I thought you’d kidnapped her.’

  She is there. My Beloved. All her smooth pink scents, the prickle and stab of her jewellery, the rustle of her silks, the curl of her lip, a pearl in each ear. Now I am perched on her hip, my plump legs astride her waist. I look down at the stone putti in the fountain beneath us. They are riding dolphins. I kiss the shelving pink curve of her jaw and cry out in her ear.

  ‘Look! Gold.’

  ‘Now who gave you that?’

  Her face is inches away from mine. My Beloved fingers the chain.

  ‘Mine,’ I say defensively. Hoping we can share it later.

  ‘Of course it’s yours. Francisco, you mustn’t give her such expensive things.’ But I know from her tone that she is only pretending to disapprove. She looks up at the dragon. He is twice her size. She is so beautiful to touch. I finger her skin, her pearls. She is mine. She smells of lilacs and powder. The dragon is enveloped in a dense cloud of smoke.

  ‘Come down into the garden. They won’t miss you for twenty minutes. Don’t look so suspicious. Bring that child. How can I be guilty of any gross improprieties if you’ve got the child in your arms?’

  I am swept away into the shrubbery.

  Here the earth smells of leaf mould and damp. Drops of water in sunshine become a cluster of brilliants on the rhododendrons. I stare at thick green rushing towards me at eye level. The woman says very little to the man. My Beloved holds me as if she were drowning. But I am looking up, up, up at a vast gulf of blue. Beyond the green cathedral, spangled with pink and purple flowers, into an eternity of luminous blue.

  ‘Blue. Mine,’ I shriek in her ear.

  ‘Shhh, darling.’

  The dragon is talking to her. Above his low muttering I hear the creak of leather, the cracking of twigs. Now my Beloved is my faithful mare. We are charging towards a gap in the enemy ranks. I dig my heels into her pure white flanks as we sweep past the poised Frenchies, with their green faces and their pink flowering guns. One of the rhododendrons has been transformed into a general. The colossus with the explosion of purple in his cockade must be Bonaparte himself. I flash my sword at him. He wants to steal my chain. My mare shifts beneath me.

  ‘Don’t kick, sweetheart.’

  We sweep towards the gap. My standard-bearer is in front. Smoking. Galloping. We come out of the shrubbery and my mare falls beneath me. But we have escaped the French. Here, all before us, are English fields. Cows standing, chewing, staring, in the spring sunshine. The white fence is a network of shadows on green. Above, the eternity of blue, and all before me, the vastness of this world.

  ‘Why don’t you run about a little, my love?’

  I have lost my army, my horse, my weapons. But I have escaped the French. As I always do in my dreams. I see my Beloved, growing a little smaller, laughing, laughing. Suddenly I have fallen over a grave.

  It is a large mound of earth moving slightly at the edges. It is a small grave, not yet decorated with a slab and a name. But it is opening. I sit quite still to watch the resurrection of the dead and my buttocks are growing damp. The earth sarcophagus is cracked across. There is a huge fissure in the lid of this grave, as if the last day had already been announced and the spirit had escaped. I peer superstitiously into the crack, but see only lichen, earth and broken stone. I sit staring at shining wet oceans of green and a trembling grave. This is a child’s grave. A child even younger than I am. A child who never knew her Beloved. But she is coming back, struggling under the weight of earth. I lean forward to help. This is a mistake. I catch sight of her claws and pink nose. Quickly. Quickly. She descends back into the grave with a flurry of wet, crumbling earth. I am nearly in tears with disappointment. My dragon must dig her up. My Beloved must find me a baby. I look round for reinforcements. I demand help.

  The dragon has quenched his fire. They have both fallen over, like toppled, coloured columns. He is trying to gobble up my Beloved. His moustachios encircle her soft face; one giant claw is fixed in the back of her head, disturbing her gorgeous torrent of ribbons and curls, his other claw is clamped about her waist. No, it is rising, rising carefully towards her left breast. His back arches above her as she falls prone on the grass. Crushed. H
er white silk is being eaten by his grey and red stripes. I love her. And he is killing her.

  I let out a great wail.

  The dragon lets her go. A little. But she is in no hurry to come to me. She enjoys being eaten. She wants him to consume her. She has lost the use of her legs. I increase the volume and frequency of the wail.

  At last my Beloved is sweeping across the green meadows towards me. My Beloved, her hooves pounding the earth, her mane flying, her blue and pink banners trailing in the wind, her eyes flashing as she catches sight of the tiny grave.

  ‘Oh, my darling love. It’s only a mole. Did it frighten you?’

  Yes, it did. The dragon is not to be trusted. He will eat you if you let him too close. I look up mistrustfully, my eyes filling with tears. But my Beloved is not bleeding. Nor is she covered with bites. She has escaped the dragon’s claws. I can see him puffing gently on the horizon. If he comes any closer I will steal all his gold. Yes, all his gold.

  But as we scamper back towards him I lose all my fears. They fall away. I have what I want. My Beloved’s hand in mine. Warriors we are. Comrades. Lovers. I will give her all the dragon’s gold. And we will live forever, alone in a cave, somewhere behind the gulf of blue.

  ‘Chooses her moments, doesn’t she?’ remarks the General.

  Suddenly I want to confide in him. Now that my Beloved is completely mine once more.

  ‘Dead babies.’ I point towards the grave.

  ‘I haven’t tried to kill you yet.’ The moustache twitches. ‘In fact, for the sake of your mother I will give you anything you want, child. Ask.’

  I stare. I have understood. The dragon has become an ancient, leathery, well-travelled magician. He is going to offer me three wishes and this is a test: of my honesty, my breeding, my honour.

  My Beloved intervenes. She is not talking to me.

  ‘I never forgot you. I gave her your name.’

  ‘She could have been mine in more than name, woman. In fact, can you swear to me that she is not my child?’

  Of one thing I am quite certain. I do not belong to the dragon. But he sinks his enormous hairy fingers into my Beloved’s arm. I am too fascinated by his rings, glinting in sunlight, to begin screaming. But as his fingers release her flesh I see small indentations, blue becoming red.

  My Beloved bites her lip. I snuggle into her skirts, triumphant, fingering my gold chain. All around us is a world turbulent with spring light. I am delighted; for I have the distinct impression that they are quarrelling about me.

  * * *

  I watch the firelight making patterns on the tiles. The tiles are black and white marble in the shape of huge diamonds. I try to make my two hands fit completely into one diamond. And they do, easily. I hop like a rabbit from diamond to diamond, each time making sure that my hands never touch the black. If they do touch the black, even the slightest part, something terrible will happen to me. My thumb inadvertently crosses over the forbidden line. And at once my game is finished. I have arrived in a soft, warm stream of red, orange, gold. It is a Turkish carpet. An obstacle presents itself. Four decorated legs in curving black and gold. I hide behind the sofa and peer into two close masses of silk, which are geometric, like the tiles, one is black and one is white. The ladies’ knees are touching. One of them has dropped her glove. I settle down beneath them, their personal voyeur, their spy.

  ‘. . . a scandal. Well, these days just something of a scandal. I hear she didn’t wear her widow’s weeds a year. I don’t care what she does. Her husband didn’t leave her a penny anyway. It was all entailed to the cousins. And knowing her she’d want the best black silk. Or not wear black at all. But for the look of the thing . . .’

  ‘. . . mind you, he’d always been her lover. She met him years before. He used to visit our family. And the Barrys were well-connected. She was torn between the two of them when she was sixteen and really very marriageable. The General went off to fight with the French against England and there were tempests of tears. All kinds of carryings-on. He may be twice her age, but he’s a very handsome man. Well, dear, don’t look so startled. I’m old enough to say so. Lady Melbourne thinks so too. He’s wealthy, talented . . . Of course, he has quite shocking political opinions. He always did have. But even radicalism is perfectly fashionable, if you have enough money to carry it off.’

  ‘Isn’t he from the Americas?’

  ‘Venezuela. Or somewhere like that, savage and exotic. But wealthy, my dear, with estates, servants, horses, gold. And of course he’s very well-travelled. I heard him say that if the French invasion had succeeded in ’97 it would have been the best thing that could have happened to us. He thinks the world of Bonaparte. And because he fought on the side of the French he’s a marked man in this country. But he has too much money for them to touch him. Mind you, he’s watched. All the time. I have that on the very best authority. Oh yes, he’s a Papist. And it’s rumoured that he’s had that child baptised. The Barrys were Catholics. But what with all his revolutionary sentiments and French principles he’s probably out of favour with the Papists too. Well, you can see why she’s in love.’

  ‘. . . Jeremiah Bulkeley was a better catch when she was sixteen. Or at least she thought so. She wasn’t quite so adventurous then. And had all the usual illusions. She was just a little country girl. The General had run off to the wars and the Barrys weren’t rich. But, as I say, they were always well-connected. No, she couldn’t have expected to do better than Bulkeley then . . .’

  ‘She’s free to marry the General now if she wants to. Then she could be received everywhere. Well, perhaps not everywhere . . .’

  ‘My dear, I’m not sure he’s the marrying kind. And she has some very odd notions.’

  ‘. . . and there’s that red-headed child of hers . . .’

  ‘. . . that’s Bulkeley’s child all right . . .’

  ‘. . . if not my brother’s . . .’

  ‘. . . my dear Louisa, you don’t suggest . . .’

  ‘. . . I’m in a position to know and I’m afraid I do . . .’

  ‘. . . General Francisco de Miranda and Mrs Bulkeley. No, no, we are disgracefully early. Please don’t apologise . . . May I introduce . . .’

  I watch the flicker of my Beloved’s dancing slippers as she crosses the tiles. I flatten myself out onto the rich, warm surface. Her satin slippers look like the tropical butterflies Francisco described, with brilliant golden wings, and spots of black, disappearing suddenly by magical cryptic colouration on the surface of a tiger lily. She arrives on the carpet and her feet vanish. This is my choice too – vanish, or be sent to bed.

  Overhead I hear the muffled slither of politeness. I have blocked up my ears. If I cannot hear I cannot be seen. I survey the battlefield: to my right, leather boots and dancing shoes, frills, flounces and furbelows, straight ahead, chaise longue legs, two, not very solid-looking, to my left, an armada of fire irons, logs and flames. The door is too far away. There can be no escape. I am a spy. I will be shot. Francisco says that spies are always shot. At once. Without trials. I will therefore fight to the death.

  No need. The boots creak backwards, giving me a better view of elegant light trousers, and my Beloved’s graceful ankles, revealed briefly as she turns, the hem of her shawl trailing across the surface of black and white diamonds. A great gust of cold as the other hall door shuts and the winter pours in from the outer world. I slither away towards the umbrellas and coats and discarded bonnets. Pause in the doorway, then a rapid escape to the bottom of the staircase. Hide behind the sideboard.

  The double doors are open into the downstairs dining room. This is one of my favourite rooms. So long as I don’t crash into anything I am allowed to wear Francisco’s slippers. These are at least ten sizes too big for me, but I can wedge my feet into the toe and use the open flat backs for ballast. Then, gathering speed on the diamonds in the hall, I can slide from one end of the dining room to the other. Rupert bows ironically low. Polishing the oak boards again, Mademoiselle? I’m gl
ad to see that Mademoiselle takes such an interest in the housework. Rupert thinks that I am monstrously spoilt. He says so. Then panders to my desire for sweet cakes, dipped in sweet wine. Only men work for Francisco. We used to have a maid. But my Beloved had no more money to pay for her. So she left. Then there was no more money to pay for the house. So we left that too. Now we live with Francisco.

  The dining table is being laid for supper. There is a huge centrepiece of flowers and fruit, surrounding a small statue of the goddess Flora. Her robe is made of flowers and she carries golden apples in her basket. She is a warm fountain of gold among the white china and dead silver soldiers. I stare at the glasses I am forbidden to touch. Each one has a different face etched in fine swirls. I know all the faces. I have stared at their scratched features, at their grimaces, at their earrings of grapes, their goat-like beards, their ivy-covered rods, their sneers. I want to touch the faces. I am forbidden to touch.

  So much I desire is forbidden.

  Disgruntled, I check both hall doors, drawing-room door, kitchen door, give myself the all-clear, and then begin the long ascent of the staircase, keeping close to the shadows, counting. The stone stairs are uneven, but I know every step. The candles are lit on the half-landing. The fine glass shades are clear, polished. Salvatore cleans them every day. Francisco bought them from a theatre in Venice that burned down. It was there, just one week before, that he had heard one of the most famous castrati of his age, singing. He explained to me in great detail what a castrato was. It sounded wonderful. You were specially chosen, then you remained a boy forever with a voice borrowed from God and became famous, fat and rich. You never turned into a woman, nor did you die in childbirth.

  There is a horsehair cushion on one of the little sofas on the landing. Now it is my saddlepack. I tighten the girth, running two fingers underneath to make certain that my horse is comfortable. I put my feet through the fat stone bannisters and line up my cannon on the front hall door. I have to be both the gunner and the mounted guard. Every so often I change roles. So that my muscles do not freeze up. Up here the hall fire has very little effect. But I cannot be seen. I can pick off anyone who tries to get in. All the guests who have been invited by Francisco and my Beloved are here now. I count out a convoy of elegance and snobbery. Anyone else is an enemy invader. They will be picked off, ascending the staircase.