The Natural History of Love

Caroline Petit

• Publisher: Affirm Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781922806246
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

For fans of Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things and Pip Williams' The Dictionary of Lost Words, The Natural History of Love is based upon the true story of 19th century French explorer, naturalist and diploma the Count de Castelnau and his lover Madame Fonçeca; a sweeping historical narrative set in the wilds of Brazil, salons of Paris and the early days of Melbourne's settlement.When Melbourne lawyer Nathan Smithson takes on the case of mad, wealthy Edward Fonçeca's inheritance trial against his ruthless brother in 1902, he must unearth long-buried family secrets to have any chance of winning.Brazil, 1852: François, the Count de Castelnau and French Consul to Bahia falls dangerously ill on a naturalist expedition and is delivered by a rainforest tribesman to the Fonçeca household. Carolina Fonçeca is 16 years old and longing to leave the confines of her family's remote Brazilian sugar plantation. With a head full of Balzac and dreams of Parisian life, she is instantly beguiled by the middle-aged Frenchman. What Carolina doesn't know is that François has a wife and son back in France. Desperate for a new life, she makes a decision that will haunt her forever.

PART I

Brazil

1852–1857

1852

The Causing Cause

Carolina

Thursday

I hate my life. Tears are my only companions. No one cares how I feel. Am only allowed to say yes, no and nod when Mamãe or Luis says anything.³

I hate it here. The only place I like is dear Papa’s library. Luis’s face was like a thunderstorm ready to strike me with lightning when Papa held my hands and said the books were to be mine and learning is a precious thing.

Luis never comes into the library. He never reads. He’s a beast, and now owns everything on the engenho.⁴ He stalks about like a pompous king waiting for someone not to bend to his will so he can lash him.

In the library, I pretend Papa is still alive so dip a small curtsey as I enter and in my mind ask his permission to read a book. It’s a stupid WRETCHED game. Still, I do it every time.

I am into the Bs. I’m reading Eugénie Grandet now. Balzac knows the heart of women. ‘Is it not the noble destiny of women to be more moved by the dark solemnities of grief than by the splendours of fortune?’ This is so true. I underlined the passage. I was a little scared to do so. Then I thought: This book is mine, mine alone. I drew a very thick line around the words. It’s good. It shows I have deep thoughts.

Mamãe has forgotten what it’s like to be sixteen. Or she was born old. Luis … Luis has no feelings. He married Maria to get more land. Mamãe keeps looking at Maria’s tummy to see if she is pregnant but it’s only fat. She eats until the seams of her dresses have to be let out, waddling and complaining to Luis all the time. I’m rude to her. Fail to address her as dear sister. UGH! I lock myself away in Papa’s study, pretending I don’t hear her bellowing my name. She babbles about nothing. Luis has not stopped visiting the female slaves. Several babies have his big nose. Everyone ignores this, especially Maria. Maria is convinced Luis is out at night making sure the slaves are not up to any black magic or stealing food and supplies. She is truly ridiculous; Luis mean and cruel. A marriage made in heaven.

Everyone argues about money. Sugar prices are down – many plantations in the district are shifting to coffee. Luis wants to sell our workers. You don’t need so many slaves for coffee and the money can then be used to buy the plants. Mamãe says five genera­tions of the Fonçeca family have grown sugar. Luis glares and says, ‘I’m in charge now. I am the one who must decide.’ Maria takes another helping of moqueca, sucking out the prawn meat. SICKENING. Luis smiles, so pleased with himself. Mamãe crosses herself and will go to our chapel after dinner to pray and light more candles for Papa’s soul. I keep quiet. Luis has always hated me. He has never forgiven me for being born, for being Papa’s favourite, being a girl, for liking the things Papa liked. I am like a heroine in a novel – out of place, unloved – except nothing ever happens to me. Life just goes on its grey, boring way. I wish I could run away, but then I would be caught and forced to become a nun. Quelle horreur!

Saturday

Can’t make myself get out of bed. I read sad poems and want to weep. When Papa was alive, every day was different. When home from convent school, he’d burst into my room at dawn, laughing and pleading with me, his companheira a sua vida, to join him in his ride around the engenho.⁵ Often we stopped by the avocado trees and he’d cut one open with his pocketknife, douse the halves with sugar from the leather pouch he always wore around his neck and, laughing and talking, we’d gobble them down. Life was so sweet.

No one talks to me. I might as well converse with old Patulous. She sits in the corner of my room on her pallet as if I were still a child, sorting through her plants, insisting I wear rue to ward off evil spirits. So far it has not helped. But I’d never dare tell a mãe de santõ this because it would break my old nurse’s heart and she might even curse me.⁶ We all keep secrets.

Why should I get up? Then I remember. I won’t have to see Aunt Julianne at breakfast. She isn’t my blood aunt. She is was Papa’s cousin’s cousin on his mother’s side. Last night, she clasped me to her skinny bosom and said, ‘Never forget your wonderful papa.’ HAG! How dare she think I would ever forget Papa. No one likes her. Has three rosaries! Her hair is thinning. You can see her scaly pink scalp. Whenever I read the word ‘spinster’, I picture Aunt Julianne. Even now, three months after Papa’s death, she stinks of the sickroom, or of old age. When she talks, spittle collects at the side of her mouth. Reeking of piety and good works, she is at last leaving to go to Cousin N’s to impose on them and their new baby. Why didn’t she die?

When Papa was so ill, he did not have the strength to send her away. Afterward, she sat on the veranda like a plant dying from lack of water.

As I write, I hear the noisy birds outside my window. The morning shower has stopped. I am going to get up now.

Sunday

Luis has continued Papa’s weekly blessing. It’s the king is dead, hail the new king. He’s still a nasty princeling. Or a frog prince. No, more of a toad. Could surely eat flies and cockroaches. He’s that disgusting. He now sits at the head of the table. I never look in his direction. Very careless in his manners. Mãe doesn’t notice or doesn’t want to. Sometimes I’m sure he’s drunk, but no one says anything. If I am stupid enough to catch his gaze, he stares daggers at me.

Today’s blessing for our workers was awful. Luis placed a thick cane by his feet – a silent threat – and fussed over it so, until it was square to his wide-legged stance. Vile. Mãe stood off to one side, dressed in black, her eyes fixed on the crucifix on the wall. Luis insisted I stand by Mãe and watch. ‘We are a family,’ he reminded me, though I could tell he’d much rather I weren’t part of his family. The feeling is mutual. When workers entered, their eyes naturally strayed towards Mãe’s, waiting for her to hand them their usual clean clothes for the week: shirts and trousers for our men and very coarse white cotton shifts and skirts for females. Only today Maria gave them out. No, she practically threw them, afraid to touch anyone’s black skin. Luis stood ramrod straight by her side waiting for each slave to say to him: ‘Father, give me blessing.’ All of them only dared to look at their own lumpy bare feet and not Luis’s face as he declared: ‘Bless you’ like a king.

Officially, I am the Carolina problem, one more bit of business Papa did not finish. Luis wants me gone, married off, but resents having to provide a dowry. He won’t give money – there isn’t any – only land. The idea of parting with even a square inch of Fonçeca soil revolts him. Never. Today he looked at me as if I were something on the bottom of his shoe – as he always does – as he and Mãe discussed the need for me to marry, and I called him a pig. He hit me. Drew blood. Mãe gasped. Maria just folded her sow arms and looked pleased. Well, what can you expect from an ugly fat woman who has yet to produce a baby? If Maria gets any fatter, she will have to enter the room sideways. She hates that I am young and beautiful. Papa said that I’m beautiful, so I’m not being vain. Luis turned to Mãe. ‘Do something with her. She’s a witch.’ Mãe banished me to my room. I don’t mind. I have my books but, if I want to eat tonight, I will have to go down on my knees and beg his forgiveness.

Later: Just before dinner I crept down the stairs looking for Mãe. I found her as usual in our chapel in prayer to our faded Madonna, who stands so silent and loving. She said, ‘Carolina, you must subdue yourself. What would Papa say?’

I bowed my head and said nothing. If I opened my mouth, I would scream, ‘None of you cares what happens to me. Papa would not allow Luis to hit me or marry me off to get rid of me.’ She stared at me so with her sad direct gaze that I succumbed and said a half-hearted Hail Mary. She kissed my cheek and I cried not for forgiveness, as Mãe supposed, but because life is so unfair. Why didn’t Luis die instead of Papa?

Wednesday

No more convent school in Bahia. Mamãe told me the news, but it’s all Luis’s doing. I can just hear him: ‘Girls don’t require an education. Any decent man will consider it a stain on her character. She is sixteen now. A grown woman. What more does she need to know? Nothing.’ That’s what so many of the plantation owners think. They keep their daughters in chains. No, hidden in the back of the house like dirty laundry. Balzac would be appalled, if he were still alive. Pity he never came to Brazil. There is no ­society in Bahia; maybe in Rio. I don’t know. I haven’t been anywhere; anything I know of the world is through books.

Worse, Mamãe is going to Bahia to stay with Uncle Antonio and hunt for a husband for me. The husband will be awful. No one cares, not even Mãe. She has always preferred Luis, her firstborn. It’s what the son wants that matters. Luis wants to sell more slaves – too many mouths to feed. Yes, good idea! He must grow coffee and make money. Yes, he must become rich! We all want him to do well. Ha! Not me. Luis knows nothing about coffee except the drinking of it. He will fire Costa and hire another manager. He’s in charge. Everyone must bow down before him. I must stay home because school is a waste of money. What I want is of no importance. Who wants a clever wife? No one.

Mãe wanted Aunt Julianne (Cousin N most likely recovered having decided it was better to get well than die with Aunt Julianne holding her hand) to come and stay with me while she goes away to trawl family connections for a husband because Luis is going to Rio to buy coffee plants and Maria is to stay with her family. Two months or more alone with Aunt Julianne! She’d follow me around like a dog, constantly asking what I am doing. Reading, why? Read it to me – what does it mean? If I dared to read Balzac, she’d turn white with outrage and burn my books. Or at least make me read Mãe’s books on the lives of saints. Ugh. The only things interesting about the lives of saints are their tortu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• About the Author
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Cast of Characters
• Prologue
• Part I: Brazil 1852–1857
• Part II: Paris, France 1857–1861
• Part III: Melbourne, Australia 1861–1880
• Part IV: The Inheritance Case 1902–1903
• Epilogue
• Author’s Note
• Acknowledgements
• Reading Group Questions