Amber

by Deborah Challinor

  Kitty sensed her hesitation. ‘We met Nellie, your house-girl. She’s getting us something to eat. How long has she been working here?’

  Emily shifted her gaze to her daughter. ‘About a year. She’s my assistant as well as my housegirl. I took her on when my dressmaking business started to become too much for me to manage by myself.’

  ‘Well, that’s good news.’ Kitty sounded pleased.

  ‘Yes. And it’s news you would already know if you’d ever put a return address on your letters, Kitty.’

  Kitty said brightly to Rian, ‘I think Mama and I would like a few moments alone. Would you like to wait in the parlour? I’m sure Nellie will bring you something to drink.’

  A look of understanding passed between them, which Emily absorbed with a sharp pang of grief because it was the sort of intimate communication she had so often shared with Lewis.

  Rian smiled at Kitty and murmured, ‘Mo ghrá, of course,’ then turned and went back inside.

  After a moment, Emily said, ‘He’s not what I expected. And he’s Irish.’

  Kitty sat down on the wooden bench set against the whitewashed wall of the house, untied the ribbons of her bonnet and took it off.

  ‘Sit down, Mama. We have a lot to talk about.’

  ‘ We most certainly do,’ Emily said. ‘I’ve been so very worried, Kitty. What on earth did you think you were doing? What do you think you are doing?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ Kitty replied.

  Emily sat. ‘Oh, I knew it would be that, my dear. I’m delighted to see you, I really am, but you have a lot of explaining to do.’

  ‘I know, Mama, and I’m not sure where to start.’

  ‘Try at the beginning.’

  So Kitty did. She told her mother about her first year at the mission station at Paihia with her Uncle George and Aunt Sarah, and her growing friendship with a man called Haunui and his niece Wai, one of Sarah’s Maori housegirls—things that Emily already knew from Kitty’s earlier letters. And then she hesitated.

  ‘The next bit isn’t very nice, Mama. You’ll be shocked and I think quite upset.’

  ‘Nothing could shock and upset me more than hearing that you’d run off from Paihia and having no idea why, Kitty, so just tell me, please.’

  Puzzled, Kitty asked, ‘Did Aunt Sarah not tell you anything at all?’

  ‘No, she has been as close-mouthed as you have, much to my intense annoyance and confusion.’

  Kitty frowned slightly, then made a resigned face. ‘Well, I’m very sorry, Mama, and there’s no easy way for me to say this, but what happened was that Uncle George…well, Uncle George formed an attachment with Wai, and she became pregnant. When Aunt Sarah found out, she threw both of us out of the house, me and Wai.’

  Emily looked as though she had swallowed the bumblebee that had been buzzing lazily around them a minute ago.

  ‘Mama?’ Kitty prompted.

  ‘George made a girl pregnant?’

  ‘Yes. Wai, my friend.’

  ‘How…how old was she?’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  Emily stared at Kitty, horrified.

  ‘Unfortunately,’ Kitty went on, ‘Wai’s father was the chief of the area…well, we thought he was her father, and it was vital that he didn’t find out what Uncle George had done because it was the eve of the signing of the treaty—’

  ‘What treaty?’

  ‘The one in which the Maoris ceded sovereignty over New Zealand to the Crown. Was it not in the newspapers here?’

  Emily thought for a moment. ‘Yes, I do remember something. But what did that have to do with George?’ Suddenly, she covered her face with her hands. ‘I simply cannot believe that about him, Kitty. He can’t have been in his right mind. Are you sure that it was George, that this girl didn’t just make it up?’

  ‘Yes, Mama,’ Kitty replied in a very frosty voice. ‘It was Uncle George. Wai never told lies, and I’ll thank you never to suggest again that she did. You have absolutely no idea.’

  Startled and somewhat chastened by Kitty’s tone, Emily realised that her daughter had changed far more than she had first assumed.

  Kitty went on. ‘We were terrified that if Wai’s father found out that his daughter had been made pregnant by a Pakeha, particularly a man of the cloth, he wouldn’t sign the treaty. But he did find out, and because of that we had to leave immediately.’ She decided not to add that she and Wai had literally had to run for their lives. ‘Rian took us on his schooner, and thank God he did, or I might not be here today to tell you this. And no, Mama, Uncle George wasn’t in his right mind. He’d lost it steadily over the year we were at Paihia, and at the end he was almost a raving lunatic, and I’m sure he was beating Aunt Sarah.’

  ‘Oh, poor Sarah,’ Emily said.

  ‘Poor Sarah, my backside,’ Kitty retorted.

  ‘Kitty!’

  ‘Mama, she didn’t even stop to ask whether Wai had wanted to…to lie with Uncle George! No, straight away she called her a trollop and then she threw us bodily out of the house.’

  Stunned, Emily stammered, ‘She never said anything about that in her letters.’

  ‘Well, would you?’

  ‘No, I suppose not. But why did she throw you out as well?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Kitty said. ‘Because I was Wai’s friend, I expect. Perhaps she thought I’d known about what was going on.’

  ‘And had you?’

  ‘No, I had no idea,’ Kitty said, feeling a shadow of the old guilt pass over her.

  ‘So when did George go missing?’

  Kitty shrugged. ‘I’m not sure, but it must have been after Wai and I had gone because I’d seen him earlier that day. You’ve not had any news at all about him?’

  ‘No, Sarah has only ever written that he’d disappeared.’ And then Emily recalled Sarah’s cryptic comments, which made a little more sense now, and said, ‘Oh dear, poor George.’

  ‘Mad George,’ Kitty corrected.

  ‘I can’t say I’m particularly surprised,’ Emily confessed suddenly. ‘About George losing his mind, I mean. He was always a bit…unstable. Your father often said it was likely. It was one of the reasons there was never much love lost between George and myself. I am horrified by what he did, though. I would never have thought he had that sort of behaviour in him.’

  ‘Well, he did. And it ruined Wai’s life.’

  ‘What happened to the child?’ Emily asked with a startled glance at Kitty. ‘I suppose it would be my niece or nephew, wouldn’t it? And your cousin!’

  ‘“It” is a little boy named Huatahi, and he’ll be almost a year old now. Wai gave birth to him in Sydney, but quite soon afterwards he was taken back to Paihia.’

  ‘By his mother?’

  ‘No,’ Kitty said. ‘By Wai’s real father, Haunui. It turned out that Tupehu wasn’t her father at all, although her mother had been Tupehu’s wife. That’s another long story.’ She bit her lip and was silent for several seconds. ‘Wai died giving birth.’

  ‘Oh, Kitty, I am sorry,’ Emily said. She touched her daughter’s hand gently. ‘I really am. I know she meant a lot to you.’

  ‘She did, Mama, she really did. Which is why, one day, we’re going back to Sydney to collect her bones and take them home to New Zealand.’

  Rian sat in the parlour, alternately wading his way through the plate of cake and biscuits Nellie had brought him, and twiddling his thumbs. Kitty had been outside with her mother for almost two hours. He realised they had a lot to talk about, but he wished they’d hurry up; he’d had three cups of tea and was dying to relieve himself, and, assuming that the privy was out the back somewhere, he would have to pass them on his way and he didn’t fancy his progress being monitored by Mrs Emily Carlisle, whose huge dark eyes were so much like Kitty’s and whom he suspected wasn’t overly enamoured with him. Perhaps he could nip out the front and do it in the garden somewhere. But it would be just his luck to be standing there pissing on a lavender bush when someone went past, then it
would be all over Dereham village that Kitty Carlisle was marrying a man who didn’t even have the grace to use a privy when he needed one. But he was saved when Kitty and her mother appeared at the parlour door.

  Kitty smiled, and Rian noticed that the little worry lines that had been forming between her brows over the past couple of weeks had disappeared. ‘Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten you, my love,’ she said.

  Emily Carlisle walked over to him, and he was struck afresh by the uncanny resemblance between mother and daughter, even though he knew that one was more than twenty years older than the other. He was almost tempted to say to Mrs Carlisle that he understood now where her daughter’s fine looks had come from. But not quite tempted enough. It was true, but it was also trite, and he had no wish to appear shallow and ingratiating in the eyes of his prospective mother-in-law.

  ‘Please, let me start again, Captain,’ Emily said, offering him her hand. ‘I’m delighted to meet you and I would like to formally welcome you to this family.’

  Rian lurched to his feet, crumbs tumbling off his jacket onto the rug, and grasped her hand. ‘Thank you very much indeed, Mrs Carlisle. I’m honoured.’

  Emily smiled. ‘And so am I.’

  She was stunning when she smiled, Rian thought, just like her daughter. And she seemed noticeably more pleased to see him now than she had earlier.

  He had no idea, of course, that Kitty had been busy telling Emily that Rian Farrell was all she’d ever wanted in a man and that she intended to marry him no matter what, that he had saved her life on at least one occasion, that he was kind and decent and loved her deeply, and no, she wasn’t in a delicate condition. Also that he wasn’t your run-of-the mill sort of man and that Emily should never expect them to settle down and live what most people would consider to be a ‘normal’ life. The past eighteen months had made Kitty realise that happiness was something to be grasped whenever it presented itself, because it could vanish just as quickly—Emily of all people should know that—and she intended to grasp hold of a life with Rian Farrell, and all that that entailed, as firmly as she could. And if Emily didn’t like it, well, she was sorry but she and Rian would get back into the gig they had hired and return to King’s Lynn and, when the Katipo was ready, simply sail away again.

  Emily had known that Kitty meant what she said, and it had taken her only a few seconds to decide that a daughter married to a slightly scruffy sea captain and gallivanting around the world was better than no daughter at all.

  ‘You must tell me all about yourself, Captain,’ Emily continued. ‘But first I’ll talk to Nellie about some more tea. I’m quite parched—that sun really is rather draining.’

  At the mention of more tea, Rian tried not to pull a face.

  When Emily had gone, Kitty came over and kissed his nose. ‘Well, that went better than I thought it would.’ She gave him an odd look. ‘What’s the matter? You look as though you’re in pain.’

  ‘I bloody well am. Is the privy out the back?’

  Kitty grinned. ‘Oh, poor darling, I didn’t even think to tell you. Yes, it’s just beyond the vegetable garden.’

  When he’d hurried off, walking slightly stiffly, Kitty sat down on the sofa and looked around. The parlour hadn’t changed much since she’d been away. Her mother’s dressmaking business did indeed seem to be prospering, though, because there was a good-quality rug she hadn’t seen before on the floor and a new pair of leather armchairs flanking the fireplace. She was pleased to see, however, that her father’s favourite tatty old chair was still in its usual place near a table lamp, where he had liked to read at night. She wondered if his clothes and books and other personal bits and pieces were still upstairs. Probably, knowing her mother. There was a study lined with bookshelves on the upper floor, and three bedrooms, the largest of which had always been her parents’. She would sleep in her own room for the next few nights, although she wasn’t at all looking forward to it; she and Rian hadn’t spent a night apart since that day in July of the previous year when Haunui and baby Tahi had disembarked from the Katipo at Paihia and she had decided to stay on board with Rian. It was Monday today, and she hoped they would be married by the end of the week, but even that seemed too long to wait to sleep next to him again, to feel his warm, hard body against hers and listen to him breathe at night while she lay awake marvelling at how lucky she was.

  Nellie appeared with more tea, followed by Emily, then Rian, looking markedly more at ease.

  ‘Captain Farrell’s just been telling me about his schooner,’ Emily said gaily. ‘He says it’s been logged as one of the fastest for its size. Isn’t that right, Captain?’

  ‘It is,’ Rian replied. ‘Although Kitty already knows that, of course, having sailed on her for…a while.’ He shut his mouth before he could put his foot into it any further.

  ‘Yes, quite,’ Emily said as she sat down in a rustle of skirts. Signalling for the tea to be poured, she stared hard at Nellie, who was in turn staring at Rian.

  Nellie thought Captain Rian Farrell was one of the most dashing, romantic men she’d ever laid eyes on. It was true that he wasn’t six feet tall and his hair wasn’t dark, but strands of it did flop and his eyes certainly flashed quite a bit, especially when he smiled.

  ‘Nellie, pour the tea, please, will you?’ Emily prompted briskly.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Nellie said, and did just that, all over the tray.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Emily said, and tutted. ‘Go and get a cloth.’ When Nellie, mortified, had rushed from the parlour, Emily added, ‘She’s not normally quite that clumsy. I don’t know what’s come over her.’ She suspected she did, however, and hoped that Captain Farrell’s crew weren’t as mesmerising as Nellie clearly found the captain himself to be. ‘So, Captain, tell me a little about yourself. You’re Irish, I gather?’

  ‘I am,’ Rian replied. ‘Dublin born and bred. Well, Kingstown, to be precise. My family have some land there. And, please, call me Rian.’

  ‘Rian, then,’ Emily agreed. She hesitated, then asked bluntly, ‘How much land? Roughly?’

  Kitty rolled her eyes towards the ceiling.

  ‘Enough to generate an income that will keep Kitty in comfort for the rest of her life should anything ever happen to me,’ Rian answered, ‘if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Oh, no, I wasn’t…’ Noting the keen intelligence in his pale grey eyes, Emily trailed off and decided not to bother with denial. ‘Well, actually, yes, that is what I mean. Forgive me, but I am only thinking of my daughter’s best interests.’

  ‘Of course,’ Rian said, although he failed to offer any further information about his family. Emily didn’t think it mattered; she would prise it out of Kitty later if necessary.

  Nellie returned with a cloth, her round cheeks still flushed. She mopped up the spilt tea, poured three cups, then left again.

  ‘You’ll be pleased to know, Kitty,’ Emily said, offering the cake plate to Rian, who declined, ‘that Reverend Goodall has assured me he can perform a marriage ceremony at any time, so long as he has a couple of days’ notice.’

  ‘Did you have the banns published?’ Kitty asked, taking a piece of cake.

  ‘Yes, I did that in April. You could go and see Reverend Goodall tomorrow to talk about what you’d like. And I’ve managed to find someone to make the refreshments. Nellie’s mother, actually. She’s the cook at the Ormsbys’ house.’

  ‘Not Bernard and Ida Ormsby?’ Kitty said, appalled.

  Emily nodded.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Kitty exclaimed. ‘You haven’t invited them, have you?’

  ‘Of course not. Not after the things they said about your poor father! No, Mrs Ingram has agreed to come here for the day instead. And at quite a reasonable cost. I don’t know what arrangement she has made with the Ormsbys, and, frankly, I don’t care.’

  ‘The Ormsbys own one of the local mills,’ Kitty explained to Rian. ‘I don’t think you’d like them. They’re overwhelmingly awful.’

  Rian shrugged, quite happy
if there were no guests at all at the wedding ceremony. Except for his crew, of course.

  ‘Who else have you invited?’ Kitty asked. ‘Oh, you know, just a few,’ Emily replied evasively. ‘And I’ve only mentioned it in passing, because I wasn’t sure when you’d be home.’

  ‘You mean you weren’t sure whether you could talk me out of it or not,’ Kitty said artlessly.

  Emily looked at her for a moment, then laughed. ‘Something like that, yes. But we can send invitations out as soon as you’ve spoken with the vicar, if you like. Very short notice, though. I’ve only a handful of people I’d like to attend, but you might have a few.’

  ‘Not really, no,’ Kitty said. ‘All the people who are really important to me will be here anyway.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Very,’ Kitty confirmed.

  Emily turned to Rian. ‘What about your parents, Rian?’

  ‘No, there isn’t time. And anyway, my parents and I are currently, shall we say, estranged.’

  Dying to know why, Emily was nevertheless far too polite to ask.

  ‘And my sister went out to Australia,’ Rian added, ‘so I’m afraid it will only be my crew. They’re on their way now. I expect they’ll be here by Wednesday, Thursday at the latest. I noticed a tavern as we came through the village. The White Hart? We’ll stay there, I think.’

  Kitty set her teacup down in its saucer with a rather sharp clink.

  ‘Good, that’s settled, then,’ Emily said brightly, trying but failing to keep the relief out of her voice. ‘Now,’ she said, turning back to Kitty, ‘let’s see about this wedding gown, shall we?’

  The dress was too tight for Kitty across the bosom, and a little short, so Emily skilfully let out the bodice seams and added a length of ivory lace to the hem. By the time she had finished, it looked as though it had been made for Kitty.

  ‘What shoes were you thinking of wearing?’ she asked her on Wednesday morning as she hung the finished gown in the armoire in Kitty’s room.

  But Kitty wasn’t listening; she was leaning on the window sill gazing down into the backyard at Rian, who had arrived early for breakfast and was now making himself useful by chopping wood. Emily was very quickly growing to like her soon-to-be son-in-law, and had to admit she was beginning to appreciate what her daughter saw in him. He was obviously intelligent and had a sharp wit that Emily appreciated. In some ways he reminded her of her beloved Lewis. He also had an air about him, and she couldn’t decide whether it was one of quiet but supreme confidence, or an undercurrent of danger. Either way, it was very attractive. And the way he looked at Kitty, especially when he thought he wasn’t being observed, left Emily in no doubt that he both adored her and lusted after her. ‘Kitty?’ she said more loudly. ‘I asked you a question.’