Amber

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘Oh, my poor darling, what’s happened to you?’ she whispered.

  But Amber said nothing, merely stood with her head down and her hair falling across her face.

  Kitty went to the door and called out to Simon. When he appeared in the hallway she said angrily, ‘Someone has kicked or beaten the hell out of her, Simon. We need to get a doctor to come and look at her.’

  Simon looked as shocked as she felt. ‘What? Is she hurt?’

  ‘I don’t know. The bruises don’t look new, but there are a lot of them.’

  Mrs Fleming emerged from the kitchen to stand in the hallway, her face grim.

  Then Simon’s hand crept up to cover his mouth as something truly horrible occurred to him. ‘What about, well, is she…has she…?’

  With a jolt that almost sent her heart into her throat, Kitty realised what he was trying to say. She felt sick, and tasted bile rising up into the back of her mouth. ‘I didn’t look. I mean, how would you tell? Oh my God, Simon, please go and get a doctor. Please.’

  Simon nodded and strode purposefully off down the hall, then stopped at the front door when he realised he didn’t know where he was going. ‘Mrs Fleming? Can you recommend a good physician?’

  ‘Doctor Moffitt in Princes Street is very efficient. He attends me and Miss Whelan. He’s expensive, however.’

  Simon was out the door and away. Kitty returned to the parlour to find Amber sitting on the floor near the fire, her bony arms wrapped around her knees.

  Kitty took her hand and encouraged her to step into the bath and sit down. At first Amber was hesitant, and Kitty wondered if she had ever had a hot bath in her life. Finally, though, she sat down, and Kitty began to soap her poor bruised back with some of her own special castile soap. Amber splashed, then splashed some more so that water slopped over the edge of the bath onto the oilcloth, then gave a little tinkling giggle. She lifted a cupped handful of the lavender-scented water to her nose and sniffed noisily, like a small animal, then looked up at Kitty with a smile of such startled delight that Kitty had to bite her lip to stop herself from crying.

  ‘That’s lavender,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘A pretty flower.’

  Kneeling on the floor beside the bath, she leaned close to Amber and inspected her hair—again Mrs Fleming was right: it was infested with nit eggs.

  ‘Mrs Fleming?’ Kitty called. When the landlady put her head around the door, she asked, ‘Do you have any tea-tree oil? I need to attend to Amber’s hair.’

  ‘I believe I have some somewhere,’ Mrs Fleming said, and hurried off to look for it.

  While she waited, Kitty tackled Amber’s tangled and matted hair with a comb. She winced every time the comb caught and jerked Amber’s head, but the little girl simply sat, apparently content, and played with the water.

  After a few fruitless minutes, Kitty realised she was going to have to cut some of the hair off.

  When Mrs Fleming reappeared with the oil, Kitty asked, ‘And do you have a pair of good scissors? This is hopeless.’

  Kitty cut a good six inches off Amber’s hair, leaving it sitting just above her shoulders, then threw the ends onto the fire where they hissed and burned with a sharp, unpleasant smell. She applied the tea-tree oil to the child’s scalp, using almost the whole bottle, and started the arduous process of combing it through and picking out the nit eggs. It took her an hour, during which she had to add more hot water to the bath so Amber wouldn’t get cold. But at least the little girl was getting a thorough soak.

  Finally, when she had removed all the eggs she could see, she began diligently to wash Amber with soap. Her hands and feet were ingrained with dirt and there was a ring of grime around her neck where the collar of her shirt had rubbed for God only knew how long. Then she massaged a liberal dollop of shampoo into what remained of Amber’s hair, and rinsed it several times. To Kitty’s distress, Amber struggled violently when she tipped her backwards into the water, as though she thought she was going to be drowned, so Kitty rinsed her hair by pouring water over it.

  When Kitty judged Amber to be as clean as she was going to be, she lifted her out of the bath and wrapped her in a towel, then sat her on the floor in front of the fire while she combed out her hair.

  ‘She’s almost asleep,’ Mrs Fleming said from the doorway.

  ‘You can come in now,’ Kitty said, trying not to smile. ‘I think she’s vermin-free.’

  Mrs Fleming disappeared briefly, then came back with a bucket of water, a scrubbing brush and a jar of chloride of lime, which she sprinkled on the oilcloth around the bath and began to scour.

  ‘I’m going to put her to bed until the doctor comes,’ Kitty said.

  Her head down over her scrubbing brush, Mrs Fleming casually suggested, ‘Perhaps you could tuck her in with that cat of yours. They’d be good company for each other.’

  Kitty felt her face growing hot. How long had Mrs Fleming known?

  ‘I’ve a good mind to charge you an extra shilling a week for its keep, you know,’ Mrs Fleming went on. ‘But the mouse problem seems to be abating, so I suppose I won’t.’

  ‘Er, thank you,’ Kitty said sheepishly.

  She carried Amber, who was indeed almost asleep, up to her room and tucked her into bed. Bodie, who had been sitting on the windowsill, jumped onto the coverlet, sniffed at Amber’s face and neck, then settled down beside her. Amber sighed, closed her little fist around Bodie’s tail and shut her eyes.

  ‘Well, that’s a surprise,’ Kitty said softly to herself. And was it also an omen? Oh, if only it was.

  When the doctor arrived, Kitty had to wake Amber from a deep sleep. She immediately struck out at Kitty, stared around wildly, then burst into tears. But when she saw that Bodie was still nestled by her side, looking only vaguely affronted at having been woken herself, her wails subsided to sobs and she gradually settled.

  ‘Poor little thing,’ Kitty murmured, stroking Amber’s hair. ‘Did you get a fright? Did you not know where you were?’

  But if Kitty was hoping that something to eat, a good wash and a nap would be enough to restore Amber’s voice, she was disappointed. Amber remained silent, although her fingers played restlessly over Bodie’s sleek black fur.

  Kitty called downstairs for Simon and the doctor to come up, then sat on the bed next to Amber.

  ‘Sorry I took so long,’ Simon apologised as he entered Kitty’s bedroom. ‘Doctor Moffitt was out on a house call.’

  The doctor himself appeared, a short, round man with a kindly face and whiskers that were turning grey.

  ‘What have we here then, eh?’ he said cheerfully as he set his bag on the end of the bed.

  ‘I found her on Shortland Street,’ Kitty explained. ‘And when I left to return here she followed me.’

  ‘And she was by herself?’ Doctor Moffitt asked.

  Kitty nodded. ‘She appeared to be. She was wearing an old rag of a man’s shirt, and she was absolutely filthy and eating rubbish from behind the butcher’s.’

  Doctor Moffitt shook his head sadly. ‘Yes, we’re seeing more and more of this sort of thing. Often with the half-caste children. They’re not wanted by anyone, you see.’

  Kitty didn’t believe that that could be an entirely accurate assessment—look at how precious Tahi was to his family—but perhaps the situation was different in the larger towns. Still, she found it difficult to accept that a child could be so completely abandoned, as Amber appeared to have been.

  ‘We fed and bathed her,’ she said, ‘and I think we’ve managed to get the lice out of her hair, but she’s covered in the most appalling bruises. And she doesn’t seem to be able to speak. And we were worried about, well, whether she has been…otherwise hurt.’ The doctor’s expression was one of such pained distaste that Kitty knew he comprehended her meaning. ‘So I was hoping you could examine her, please. And perhaps also give me an indication of her age, if possible.’

  ‘Of course,’ Doctor Moffitt said, and removed his coat.

  Si
mon went downstairs as Kitty encouraged Amber to sit up. With her body cleansed of the worst of the dirt, the bruises on her tawny skin stood out in even sharper relief.

  ‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ the doctor said grimly. ‘Could you remove the cat from the bed, please?’

  Kitty lifted Bodie out of the way, which immediately sent Amber into a fit of screaming that gave Kitty an awful fright. She glanced at the doctor.

  He shrugged. ‘Perhaps we should leave it there, if it makes her feel better.’

  Kitty returned Bodie to the bed and watched as the doctor gently palpated the bruises on Amber’s chest and back, presumably checking for broken bones, felt up and down her arms and legs and around her neck, pressed his fingers into her belly and had a long look inside her mouth. Amber bore it all in silence, once again holding onto Bodie’s tail. Then Doctor Moffitt made the examination Kitty had been dreading.

  After a minute he patted Amber’s hand and pulled the bedclothes up over her chest.

  ‘Her teeth suggest that she is around four years old, perhaps a little younger,’ he announced, ‘although she is rather small, due to malnutrition I expect. And I’m fairly sure she hasn’t been…got at, if you’ll pardon my vulgarity.’

  Blinking hard, Kitty breathed a deep sigh of relief.

  ‘But I’m at a loss to explain why she can’t, or won’t, speak,’ the doctor went on. ‘You say she has uttered no words at all?’

  ‘Not in my hearing,’ Kitty replied. ‘I’ve heard her giggle, and you heard her screaming, of course. I’ve spoken to her in both English and Maori, and I believe she was able to understand at least some of the Maori.’

  ‘So she probably isn’t deaf,’ Doctor Moffitt said. ‘And I can see no damage to her larynx and no deformity of the palate, although I’m not an expert in that particular branch of medicine. But she has received a fairly severe beating at some point in the not-too-distant past. Fortunately I can’t feel any broken bones, but she will need bed rest for several days. The sores on her legs, buttocks and stomach are, I strongly suspect, ringworm. She also appears to have intestinal worms. For the ringworm I’d suggest a lotion of flax root. I believe Mr McKenzie the pharmacist keeps a stock. For the bruises, rub in arnica lotion, and for the intestinal worms administer an aperient followed by santonin on an empty stomach. What did you use to douse her hair?’

  ‘Tea-tree oil,’ Kitty said. ‘And I cut quite a lot of it off.’

  ‘Well, if the tea-tree oil doesn’t work, and sometimes it doesn’t, I’d recommend a paste. I can write out the ingredients for you. Two doses over the space of a week should suffice. However…’ Doctor Moffitt paused. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t believe your friend introduced us.’

  Kitty hadn’t even noticed. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, I’m Mrs Kitty Farrell.’

  ‘Mrs Farrell, how long do you intend to, er, keep this child?’

  ‘I hadn’t really thought about it,’ Kitty replied, untruthfully.

  ‘Yes, well,’ the doctor said, ‘it’s all very commendable doing good works, Mrs Farrell, but I’m not entirely sure it would be fair on the child if you fed and kept her for a few days, then sent her back to the streets when she becomes a burden. There’s no orphanage in Auckland, you know.’

  Kitty was thoroughly jolted. Good works? Send Amber back to the streets? Did the man think she was some sort of drawing-room socialite looking for a short-term hobby?

  Frostily, she replied, ‘I can assure you I will have her best interests at heart.’

  Doctor Moffitt eyed her benignly. ‘I see I have offended you, Mrs Farrell, and I apologise, but it does happen, you know. Christian charity can tend to be a passing fad for some people.’

  Kitty inclined her head in acknowledgement of his apology. ‘I have every intention of searching for her guardians as soon as possible, Doctor. If she has any, I will find them. If it seems she does not, well, I will consider the situation again then.’

  ‘Well, I wish you luck,’ Doctor Moffitt said. ‘And remember, if she is a truly feral child, she is quite likely to run off once her belly is full.’

  ‘Well, we’ll wait and see, shall we?’ Kitty replied. ‘Now, how much is your professional fee?’

  Doctor Moffitt waved the question away. ‘I do not view Christian charity as a passing fad, Mrs Farrell, so there will be no charge.’

  ‘Oh,’ Kitty said, slightly chastened. ‘Thank you.’

  Bodie squeaked half-heartedly as Amber picked her up and cuddled her. Doctor Moffitt and Kitty both looked down at her for a moment.

  ‘I suggest you try and encourage her to eat eggs, meat, fresh vegetables and sugar, Mrs Farrell. That way, if she does run off, she will have something inside her to sustain her for at least a few days. You could also ask at the police station whether they’ve received any reports of a missing child, although I doubt they will have. Not regarding this child, anyway.’

  ‘Yes, yes I will, Doctor. Thank you again.’

  Kitty saw the doctor out, then turned to Simon, who was waiting in the hall.

  ‘Well, it could have been worse news, I suppose,’ he said when she had repeated the doctor’s diagnoses.

  ‘I told him I would try to track down her guardians,’ Kitty added unenthusiastically.

  ‘And so you will, starting tomorrow morning,’ Simon said quickly, alarmed by her reluctant tone. ‘You can’t keep her, you know. She’s not a…a cat.’

  But Kitty had already turned away.

  Amber slept for the rest of the day, but was awake by the time Hattie and Flora came home from work. It was then that Kitty realised she didn’t have anything Amber could wear, so she improvised by knotting the straps of her spare chemise, cutting off the hem and slipping it over Amber’s head and tying a length of ribbon around the waist.

  Hattie and Flora both thought she was the sweetest little thing they’d ever seen, although everyone soon agreed her manners were shocking. At the dinner table she stood on her chair and snatched food from everyone else’s plates, and when she had her hands crammed full, scampered off to a corner of the kitchen to eat it. The meat dish was chicken, and when she had finished shovelling it into her mouth with her hands, she dropped the bones on the floor, where Bodie—allowed out of Kitty’s room now that her presence had been acknowledged—happily pounced on them. Then Amber let out a remarkably loud burp, given her small stature, which made Flora laugh out loud, Hattie giggle and Mrs Fleming almost faint with disapproval.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Kitty apologised, trying not to laugh herself. ‘But we need to remember that she’s probably never been taught table manners or anything like that.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Mrs Fleming said, still frowning. ‘Well, I’m afraid I can’t countenance such uncivilised behaviour at my table, I really can’t. If she is still here tomorrow, Mrs Farrell, I’m afraid you’ll have to do something to…to control her.’

  ‘I’ll certainly do my best, Mrs Fleming,’ Kitty replied, not daring to meet her landlady’s bespectacled eye.

  After she had eaten, Amber lay down in the corner and fell asleep, so Kitty carried her upstairs and tucked her into bed again. When she retired herself, she slipped in beside Amber and cuddled behind her, gently stroking the little girl’s hair over and over.

  Chapter Twelve

  When Kitty awoke the next morning, Amber was no longer beside her. For a horrid moment Kitty thought she might have run away, but then she found her, on the floor beneath the bed curled around a very contented-looking Bodie, her piece of amber clutched tightly in her hand.

  ‘Amber? Amber, sweetheart, it’s time to wake up.’

  Bodie and Amber both stirred, stretched and then blinked at her. As Amber began to crawl out from under the bed, Kitty stepped back, into a suspiciously damp patch on the rug.

  ‘Oh, sweetheart, you’re going to have to stop doing that,’ she said, disheartened rather than annoyed. Then, with more than a little alarm, she realised that sometime in the near future the forces of nature would come into play an
d Amber would be compelled to produce more than just a puddle. Mrs Fleming most definitely would not be impressed with that in the parlour or in a corner of the kitchen.

  As if able to read her mind, Amber emitted a small fart as she stood up, her belly rumbling ominously.

  Kitty ducked beneath the bed for the chamber pot, set it on the floorboards, lifted Amber’s chemise and sat her on it, gently holding her in place in case she decided to get off.

  Amber looked up at Kitty, clearly not quite knowing what was required.

  Kitty encouraged her in Maori and, obviously having caught the general gist of Kitty’s words, Amber frowned in concentration and bore down. There was a result a few seconds later.

  ‘Good girl, Amber.’ Kitty beamed.

  Amber beamed back.

  Then Kitty said, ‘Oh, hell,’ as she realised she had nothing with which to wipe Amber’s bottom.

  ‘Stay there,’ she said. ‘Nohoia.’

  Amber didn’t move, so Kitty rushed down the stairs for some newspaper, dreading what might confront her if the little girl decided to get off the pot before she returned.

  But she was still there. ‘You’re such a good girl, aren’t you, sweetheart?’ Kitty said as she cleaned her up. Amber clearly knew when she needed to relieve herself, so it was going to be more a matter of teaching her where to do so.

  She led Amber over to the bowl on the chest of drawers, poured in some water from the ewer and showed the little girl how to wash her hands. Amber sniffed the soap, her face breaking into a beatific smile at its perfume. Then Kitty combed out her hair and they went downstairs.

  Breakfast passed without too much incident and, after some rather skilful persuasion, Kitty prevailed upon Mrs Fleming to look after Amber while she went into town to look for children’s clothing, and to visit a printery to have some posters made up.

  Hattie asked, ‘Kitty, you speak Maori, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’