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By Root 1224 0

’s Portuguese funcíonarios, many of whom commissioned portraits from him: of themselves, their children and – need it be said? – their wives. Not the least of these luminaries was a fidalgo of ancient lineage and advanced years – one of those chirruping cockchafers who flourish in the dusty cracks of old empires, using their connections to cling for ever to their posts. This fine cavalheiro had previously served a term in Goa, Portugal’s Asiatic metropolis, and while living there had lost one wife and acquired another: his first spouse having been carried away by malaria, he had married a girl of sixteen, some fifty years his junior. The bride belonged to a once-prominent mestiço family that had fallen on hard times: she was, by all accounts, a woman of exceptional loveliness, an otter-rose you might say, and her husband, overjoyed at having been able to pin such a prize upon his lapel, commissioned Alantsae to capture her likeness while she was still in the first freshness of her bloom.

I confess, Puggly dear, I am so fascinated by this tale, I sometimes feel I can see them with my own eyes: the lovely Indo-Portuguese Senhora and the handsome young Chinese painter; she in her mantillas and lace, he in his silken robe, dark-eyed and long-haired. Picture them if you will: the child-bride and the youthful painter, she the possession of a man too feeble to consummate his marriage and he too, virginal in his heart. Do you see how their eyes are drawn to each other, under the frowning gaze of the rosary-counting duennas who surround them? But to no avail alas! The Senhora is as pious as she is beautiful; no temptation can persuade her to stray, and the painter’s passion, finding no release, is directed towards his easel. He caresses the canvas with his brush, strokes it, coaxes it, pours his pith upon it in hot, bright jets and lo! the seed is sown and life stirs within the likeness. It comes into the world like a love-child, a thing of such beauty that it deepens the attachment that was conceived during its making. And yet … and yet … there is nothing to be done – consummation is inconceivable. Society, ever censorious, has its eyes upon them. But heaven itself takes pity upon their love: the old cavalheiro is, as I have said, already in a state of advanced decrepitude and he does not long survive the completion of the painting (some say he is buried with it). After the old man’s passing, the Senhora remains in Macau, purportedly to mourn by his grave, but the world soon discovers that a secret marriage has come about – the Senhora has wedded Alantsae!

You may imagine for yourself the scandal, the gossip, the vile innuendos – the couple are shunned by everyone they know, Chinese, European and Goan alike. The artist, once so much sought after, is now a pariah; his stream of commissions runs suddenly dry and he is forced to eke out a living by painting shop-signs and lurid murals. Yet the couple are not unhappy for they have each other after all, and their passion is rewarded, before long, with another precious gift: a daughter – Adelina. But little do they know, as they rejoice in their babe, that the end of their happiness is near: Alantsae has not much longer to live – grim death is creeping up on him, clothed in the garb of typhus.

After Alantsae’s passing the Senhora struggles on, long enough to see her child into the threshold of adulthood – but then she too goes to an untimely grave, and the young Adelina is consigned to the Misericordia, where orphans and the children of the indigent are suffered to subsist, on public charity.

Well, Puggly dear, suffice it to say that Adelina – or Adelie as she was known – was not the kind of girl who could be expected to live for ever within the walls of a charitable institution. She escaped and became in time the most celebrated courtesan in Macau (this, they say, is how she came to Mr Chinnery’s notice … and what else they say you can well imagine!).

As often happens with famous beauties, there were many men with whom it sat ill that they should have to share a woman like Adelina