Amber

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘How much?’ Kitty said tersely, opening her reticule.

  A look of cunning slowly crossed the man’s face. ‘A shilling for the melon, and you might be interested in some of me other fine goods. If you are, I could be convinced not to go to the constabulary about this little matter,’ he said, inclining his head at Amber.

  Simon exclaimed, ‘That’s extortion!’

  ‘It’s me only offer, take it or leave it,’ the grocer replied. ‘I do hear that the gaol cells in this town can be a mite unpleasant for a little boy.’ He frowned down at Amber, whose hair was falling out from beneath her cap. ‘Actually, that’s a lass, isn’t it?’

  Gripping Amber very firmly by the sleeve of her jacket, Kitty swept past him into his shop. ‘Right,’ she snapped when he’d caught up with her and squeezed himself behind his counter. ‘Show me what you’ve got.’

  Glancing at the doorway to make sure Simon wasn’t yet within earshot, the grocer said leeringly, ‘I could do that all right, missus.’

  Kitty fixed him with a glare of such icy intensity that the man took an involuntary step back and bumped into the shelf behind him, knocking off several tins of tobacco.

  Absolutely livid now, Kitty leaned across the counter. ‘This is a commercial transaction, sir, not a social one, so get on with it.’

  Wiping his sweaty hands on his apron, the grocer seemed to regain a little of his composure. ‘Well, I’ve got some nice Patras currants, come in to port only yesterday, and some juicy muscatelles. Normandy pippins, Barcelona nuts, you name it. A bit pricey, but well worth it. Good sugar—Mauritius, Havannah or Manilla—citron, nutmeg, tapioca. Take your pick.’

  Gritting her teeth, Kitty asked for a pound of the muscatelles, two of the Manilla sugar and a pound of very expensive Java coffee.

  When she opened her reticule again, the grocer reminded her, ‘And a shilling for the melon.’

  While the purchases were being wrapped, Kitty glanced angrily at Simon, who very gently shook his head, warning her to keep her temper in check. Fuming, Kitty turned back to the counter until the grocer slid the parcel across to her.

  Picking it up, she said very clearly, ‘You are the most unpleasant piece of ordure I have come across in a long time. May you rot in hell.’

  As the grocer gaped, she turned to leave the shop. Unfortunately, Amber chose that moment to raise the watermelon she was still clutching high above her head and gleefully drop it, hooting as it exploded everywhere.

  Kitty and Simon grabbed a hand each and whipped her out the door, her feet barely touching the ground. Outside, as they hurried down the street as quickly as was seemly, Simon said, ‘Why did you have to say that? He’ll go straight to the police now.’

  ‘No he won’t, not if he doesn’t want to be brought up in front of the magistrate on charges of extortion.’

  Between them, Amber was still chortling.

  The first of the informants knocked on Mrs Fleming’s door that evening. She was a young Maori woman, bare-headed and barefooted and wearing a plain brown dress.

  ‘Good evening,’ Kitty said in Maori.

  ‘Good evening,’ the woman replied. ‘I have come about the found child. She is my daughter.’

  ‘I see,’ Kitty said. ‘Can you describe her to me, please?’

  The woman frowned slightly, and held out her hand at hip height, palm down. ‘She is this big, with brown skin and black hair.’

  She had just described every four-year-old Maori girl in New Zealand. Kitty said, ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Brown eyes.’

  ‘No distinguishing marks? No…’ Kitty struggled to recall the Maori word for birthmark, then finally remembered it.

  The woman stared at her for a long moment, as though trying to work out what Kitty was thinking. Eventually, she said, ‘No.’

  ‘That is a shame. This child has a birthmark.’

  ‘Where?’ the woman asked.

  ‘On her face,’ Kitty replied, pointing to her left cheek.

  ‘Yes, that is her, that is my daughter!’ the woman cried passionately. ‘I have just remembered. It has been such a long time since I have seen her.’

  Kitty shut the door in her face.

  Simon, standing in the hallway, said, ‘You’re a cunning article, Kitty Farrell.’

  ‘Clearly I’m going to have to be,’ Kitty muttered. She was very relieved that the woman had been an impostor, but deeply disappointed that anyone would lie like that just for five pounds. What might have happened if she had believed the woman and handed Amber over? Would Amber have been dumped at the corner of the next street?

  The next person to present themselves was an elderly Maori man whose missing grandchild, it was progressively revealed, had birthmarks on her feet, both legs, her belly, one arm and in the middle of her forehead.

  ‘Was he referring to a child or a piebald pony?’ Simon wondered after Kitty had sent the old man on his way.

  At ten o’clock that evening some more ‘informants’ arrived, a pair of Pakeha men so drunk they could barely stand. This time Simon did the honours and shut the door in their faces.

  The following morning, two little Maori boys knocked on the door. One, about eight years old, was wearing trousers, a vest with the buttons missing, and a gentleman’s black silk top hat. His companion, probably about six, Kitty guessed, sported either long shorts or short longs, and a snotty upper lip.

  ‘The found girl,’ the elder of the two boys announced in English, ‘she is our sister.’

  Kitty assumed that, because he spoke quite good English, he was a pupil at one of the town’s small, church-operated native schools.

  ‘And what does she look like, this sister of yours?’ she said, not unkindly.

  The boys exchanged a quick glance before the elder one replied, ‘Like us, but a girl.’

  ‘Can you be a bit more precise?’ Kitty asked.

  The boys didn’t appear to know what the word precise meant, so Kitty switched to Maori. They managed to come up with a very vague and obviously fabricated description of their ‘sister’, then trailed off into silence.

  The longer they stood staring at her, the sorrier Kitty felt for them, even though they were clearly trying to hoodwink her. Mentally she gave them full marks for initiative, and for being able to read the poster in the first place, and told them to wait on the verandah. She closed the door and went into the kitchen to find the biscuit tin.

  They were still standing there when she opened the front door again. ‘No five pounds, but you can have a biscuit,’ she said, handing them each one of Mrs Fleming’s enormous ginger snaps. They seemed happy enough with those, and wandered off down the street with their mouths full.

  Nobody else knocked that day, or Monday either, after the advert isement had run in the Auckland Times. Kitty was finding the tension almost intolerable as she waited to see whether someone with genuine information would eventually come knocking. Amber herself seemed to be settling well, although she still hadn’t spoken. Kitty suspected that she actually could talk, or had once been able to, because she appeared to understand quite a lot of Maori and responded to it non-verbally when she felt like it. Kitty had begun to teach her the English words for various things, such as ‘cat’ and ‘boot’ and ‘milk’, and was convinced Amber was absorbing them, even if Flora had pointed out that Amber seemed to pay attention only if the subject was related to either food or Bodie. Kitty thought she was being a little cynical, and said so; Flora thought Kitty was being somewhat gullible and overly optimistic, and said so. Mrs Fleming said they were both being rather irritating, and at least as undisciplined as Amber.

  On Monday afternoon Kitty went along to Bank Street to collect Amber’s new clothes. Mrs Hemmings had made a marvellous job of them and Amber seemed to be delighted, parading through the house and twirling around so that the lacy hem on her drawers peeked out from beneath her skirt. An unforeseen but happy outcome of the new underthings was that she seemed very reluctant to soil them, and got
the pot out herself the next time she needed to empty her bladder.

  ‘See, I told you she was a clever little girl!’ Kitty said delightedly.

  ‘Well, I can’t argue with that,’ Mrs Fleming replied, very pleased that she would no longer have to scrub her rugs.

  But late that night someone came to the door with news that almost froze Kitty’s heart. She was a Maori woman with a demeanour thoroughly unlike any of the others who had responded to the poster.

  ‘I have information about the child,’ she said without preamble when Kitty answered the door. She was a tall, handsome woman, with the chin moko that denoted considerable rank. She also spoke excellent English. ‘I believe she is the daughter of my niece.’

  Warily, Kitty asked, ‘Can you tell me, has she any—’

  ‘Yes,’ the woman interrupted briskly, ‘she does. She has a namu, a birthmark, on her back. In the shape of a heart.’

  A bolt of pain lanced Kitty’s chest and her eyes filled with hot, stinging tears. She swallowed and clutched at the doorframe for support, struggling to accept that the worst had happened, that she was about to lose Amber.

  She swallowed again, the lump in her throat burning like a hot coal. ‘Well, what was she doing wandering around on her own like that? What was she doing all by herself?!’ she suddenly blurted, wanting to lash out at this woman who had brought such awful news. Then, with an almighty effort, she composed herself. ‘I beg your pardon,’ she said stiffly. ‘One moment, please. I will fetch her for you.’

  But the woman reached out and grasped her sleeve. ‘No. You do not understand. I do not want her back. I want you to keep her, and to take her away from here if you can.’

  Kitty could not understand what she was saying. ‘But…you said she has a mother.’

  ‘No, I said she is the daughter of my niece. My niece is not fit to be a mother.’ The woman’s face remained expressionless. ‘The child’s father was a Pakeha. He…defiled my niece. She became insane because of it. No one in my hapu would look after the child because they feared they would also become tainted by the madness. I include myself in this. We gave her food, but she slept in a hut by herself. Then, a year ago, she ran away.’ The woman sighed and dropped her gaze. ‘She cannot come back to my village, but my heart is heavy because of what we have done to her. I have recently been baptised and I have asked the Lord Jesus Christ for guidance, and He has advised me what to do. So please, take her and give her a better life than the one we inflicted upon her. I believe it is God’s will.’

  Kitty suddenly felt so light-headed she knew she had to sit down, and subsided in a heap of skirts on the hallway floor.

  Unperturbed, the woman looked down at her. ‘So, will you take her?’

  ‘Yes. I will,’ Kitty answered hoarsely. ‘Do you want the five pounds?’

  ‘No. Thank you.’

  And she turned to go, but stopped when Kitty said, ‘Wait. What is her name? What did you call her?’

  Over her shoulder, the woman said quietly, ‘We never gave her a name.’

  Kitty stayed where she was and watched as the Maori woman walked away into the darkness. Then she started to cry.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kitty tore open Rian’s letter while she was still in the post office and read it immediately before folding it again, thoughtfully, and slipping it into her reticule.

  ‘Any news?’ Simon asked, when she reappeared. He and Amber had been sitting on the verandah, waiting.

  ‘Yes, although it’s much the same as we’ve already read in the newspaper. The British returned to Kororareka with the usual pomp and ceremony and now Hulme’s marching overland after Heke. He’s landed his force at Onewhero Bay.’

  ‘Does Heke have a new pa at Puketutu?’

  ‘Yes, it seems so,’ Kitty replied.

  ‘Puketutu’s a fair march inland,’ Simon remarked. ‘And a difficult one, for soldiers not accustomed to the bush.’ Kitty hadn’t mentioned the last part of Rian’s letter:

  We knew of the landing place because the wife of one of Waka’s men has a cousin married to someone at Pukera, and naturally it came to Haunui’s ears. So we travelled overnight by waka to Onewhero, went ashore, found a comfortable vantage point and watched as Her Majesty’s finest trudged off inland, laden with ammunition and provisions and hampered from the outset by the weight of several 3 lb rockets from the Hazard. Mick has bet they will manage ten miles by nightfall, although I have wagered only seven as the Weather looks certain to deteriorate. The quicker, though perhaps more challenging, route would have been to head inland from Hararu, but of course it is not my place to offer such advice.

  I will write again when I can. I miss you very much, mo ghrá, but I still believe that you are, for the meantime, safer in Auckland.

  Your Loving Husband,

  Rian

  Kitty was silent for some time. Then she said, ‘Simon, I think it’s time we went back.’

  Simon had been dreading this moment for almost ten weeks, but now the prospect of returning to the Bay of Islands somehow didn’t feel quite as daunting as he had imagined. Nevertheless, he said gloomily, ‘Rian won’t be pleased.’

  ‘Well, I’m not pleased about being stuck in Auckland.’

  ‘What will you do?’ Simon asked, digging in his pocket for a bag of lemon drops and offering them to Amber. ‘When you get back, I mean?’

  ‘Leave the two younger members of our party with Aunt Sarah, and try to find Rian.’

  ‘You don’t have to talk in code, you know. I doubt she can under stand you,’ Simon said, inclining his head at Amber, who was busy trying to accommodate five lemon drops in her mouth at once.

  Kitty held a gloved hand beneath the girl’s chin to catch the inevitable spillage. ‘Don’t be too sure about that. Sometimes I think she understands more than we realise. Or more than you realise.’

  Simon frowned. ‘Will she be happy staying with your aunt, do you think? She’s already had a lot of changes.’

  ‘I know. It is bothering me. I really don’t want to leave her at Paihia. But she’s only a child, I can’t go dragging her from battleground to battleground.’

  Simon looked alarmed. ‘But you won’t be going near any battlegrounds, will you?’

  ‘If Rian is, then I am,’ Kitty said simply. ‘But Haunui and Tahi will be at Paihia and I’m sure they’ll help. And you’ll keep an eye on her, won’t you? She knows you. Perhaps you can come in from Waimate now and then?’

  She glanced at Amber, who, sucking noisily, was now busy filling the pockets of her pinafore with gravel. Would she think she had been abandoned again? The words of the Maori woman echoed in Kitty’s head: ‘My heart is heavy because of what we have done to her.’ If only there were some way to know how Amber was feeling. Physically, she had changed noticeably: her hair was clean and shiny, the ringworm that had marked her body was clearing up, and she had put on some much-needed weight. And she seemed happy enough, playing with Bodie and with Kitty and Simon and the other women in the house. But sometimes there were tears and tantrums, and she still awoke on the floor under Kitty’s bed each morning. And, from time to time, Kitty had seen something in the child’s eyes, a look of mistrust and suspicion.

  Simon followed Kitty’s gaze, and gave a regretful sigh. ‘Actually, no, Kitty, I can’t keep an eye on her.’

  Kitty blinked. ‘Why not?’

  Simon stood up and brushed off the seat of his trousers. ‘Because I’m coming with you. Rian asked me to look after you, and that’s what I’m going to do.’

  ‘But what about Waimate? What about your duties there?’

  ‘They’re managing now, I’ve no doubt, so they can manage for another month or two without me.’

  Not caring who was looking, Kitty kissed Simon’s cheek and hugged him tightly. ‘Oh Simon, my lovely friend,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

  Kitty was absurdly pleased. She had been steeling herself to strike out from Paihia on her own to find Rian, because she knew she couldn�
��t bear to be separated from him any longer, and the thought of him gallivanting all over the north getting into God only knew what sort of trouble terrified her. She felt as she had during the short battle at Kororareka, only now her fear had multiplied tenfold. This time there were many more soldiers involved and what had started off as a local skirmish was becoming a fully-fledged war. But with Simon at her side, she knew she would find the strength to do what she had to do to reunite her small family.

  However, there were preparations to be made before they left Auckland. Four days after she’d come to her decision, Kitty and Simon walked with Flora late one afternoon to an area of sloping, fenced paddocks bordering Hobson Street. In one paddock stood two horses, a grey and a bay.

  ‘Will they suffice?’ Flora asked. ‘They’re properly schooled.’

  Kitty gathered her skirts and rather laboriously climbed the fence, then approached the horses. The grey was a very fine mare, around sixteen hands high, and her slightly concave nose suggested she had Arab blood in her veins. The bay, a gelding, stood a little taller, and was also a beautifully built animal. Kitty ran her hands expertly along their flanks and up and down their elegant legs, and smiled. It had been a long time since she’d had much to do with horses, and their comforting smell brought back memories of riding out along Norfolk lanes on her mare, a pastime that had both soothed and invigorated her. It would be wonderful to be back in the saddle again.

  Flora came up behind her, followed rather more cautiously by Simon. ‘I had arranged the mare a month ago,’ she said. ‘But then when you said you wanted two animals, I had to ask my friend to find another one.’

  Kitty nodded. This was the favour she had asked of Flora: that she use her ‘contacts’ to procure a horse suitable for crosscountry riding, a horse that was strong, fit and reliable enough to trail British regiments and Maori war parties across the rugged terrain of the upper North Island. ‘Were they expensive?’ she asked, stroking the bay’s velvety nose.

  ‘Very,’ Flora replied. ‘Apparently prime horseflesh is hard to find in this town. But that’s not a problem, is it?’