Kitty

by Challinor, Deborah

  Kitty stared. She had been expecting an older woman—someone like Mrs Goodwin perhaps, with spectacles and greying hair tucked under a neat house cap—but this woman was nothing like Mrs Goodwin.

  Enya Mason was probably no more than twenty-five years old, and possessed of quite possibly one of the loveliest faces Kitty had ever seen. Her hair was a pale reddish-gold, her eyes were the blue of newly opened cornflowers, and her complexion would not have looked out of place on the finest of porcelain dolls. She wore no cap, and her indigo-blue dress was plain but beautifully made.

  Kitty was suddenly assailed by a very unpleasant suspicion, and a worm of jealousy began to squirm in her belly. Nevertheless, she said, ‘An acquaintance of ours referred us to you—Captain Rian Farrell. He said to mention his name.’

  Mrs Mason raised finely arched brows. ‘Ah, Rian’s back, is he? How lovely!’

  The worm became a snake and sank in its fangs. Appalled by the force of her feelings, Kitty gritted her teeth. ‘My companion and I are both in need of a range of basic undergarments. Plain will suffice but we require good quality.’

  ‘Oh dear, I hope you haven’t met with some calamity,’ Mrs Mason said, sounding genuinely concerned.

  ‘Of sorts,’ Kitty replied shortly.

  What if this woman was Rian’s mistress? Had he done this on purpose? Kitty felt sick. She had been so confident this morning when she’d informed him there could be no repeat of last night: so determined, so sure it was what she truly wanted. She still was; it was just that she’d had no idea of how wretched she would feel when confronted with the possibility—if not now the evidence—that he had other lovers.

  But she couldn’t just turn around and walk out of the shop. She had her dignity.

  ‘We are, however, perfectly recovered,’ she said crisply to Mrs Mason.

  ‘Well, I’m very pleased to hear that. What would you like to see first?’

  ‘Stays, I think. Then drawers and perhaps chemises.’

  Mrs Mason glanced at Wai. ‘Is it a maternity corset you’ll be needing, Mrs…?’

  Wai said, ‘No, I do not want a corset.’

  Kitty lowered her voice. ‘Wai, I think you should have one. This isn’t Paihia, remember. There are a lot more people in this town, people who don’t understand the way we did things there.’ At the mission station and at Pukera, very few of the Maori women had worn stays, pregnant or not.

  A distinctly obstinate expression settled across Wai’s face. ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll show you some, shall I?’ Mrs Mason suggested. ‘Then you can see what you think.’

  When Wai didn’t respond she walked over to a shelf, selected several garments and brought them back to the counter. They were both of stiffened sateen, one pale pink and the other flesh-toned. Mrs Mason laid them out.

  ‘They don’t have boning, you see,’ she said, bending one energetically to demonstrate her point, ‘but they still provide support. And these gores across the bosom are buttoned so they can be opened for nursing. And, of course, the bigger you get the more you can let the laces out at the back. The panels are reinforced, and I only ever use metal eyelets these days—they stop the fabric from tearing. Mind you, the laces fray instead, but they’re a lot less expensive to replace than a complete corset.’

  Wai looked at Mrs Mason as though she were speaking some sort of foreign language. Which she was, to Wai, who thought a chemise was more than enough when it came to underclothes.

  ‘I do not want one!’ she said again, very truculently this time.

  Undeterred, Mrs Mason turned to Kitty. ‘A corset for yourself then?’

  Mrs Mason’s insistence on saying corset instead of stays was beginning to get on Kitty’s nerves. In her experience only women with pretensions ever said corset.

  ‘Yes. But I’d like to try it first, thank you.’

  ‘Of course. Any particular shade?’

  ‘Just something light-coloured.’

  ‘Demi or full?’

  ‘Demi, thank you.’

  Mrs Mason selected three more garments, these ones boned, and handed them to Kitty. ‘The dressing room is through there. If I don’t have anything to your liking I can measure you and make one up. Although I’m quite busy at the moment, and it won’t be ready for at least a week.’

  Kitty went through the curtain into the dressing room, stripped to her drawers and chemise and called out for Wai to come and help her. Mrs Mason stayed in the shop.

  Kitty slid her arms through the straps while Wai threaded then tightened the laces. Two of the three styles fitted her, and she chose the shorter of those, knowing that she could probably do up the laces herself.

  After that came drawers—two pair each in white lawn—plus two chemises and a nightdress each, in lawn and plain cotton, respectively.

  ‘I think that will do,’ Kitty said finally.

  ‘You don’t require petticoats?’ Mrs Mason asked.

  Kitty shook her head. ‘How much will that be?’

  Mrs Mason regarded the neatly folded pile of underclothes on the counter. ‘Two pounds ten, thank you.’

  ‘For everything?’ This sounded very cheap to Kitty, and they were very nicely made garments.

  ‘That’s with the discount, because Rian sent you.’

  ‘Oh.’ Kitty was very tempted to insist on paying full price, but knew they couldn’t afford to. ‘Well, thank you very much.’

  Mrs Mason nodded graciously and began to wrap the clothes. ‘Will you be staying long on The Rocks?’ she asked conversationally.

  ‘Until my baby comes. After that…’ Wai said, and shrugged.

  ‘You’ll be needing lodgings then?’ Mrs Mason said, handing the parcel over and accepting Kitty’s last three sovereigns.

  ‘Yes, but we’ve made arrangements.’ Kitty felt Wai’s puzzled gaze, but ignored it.

  Mrs Mason gave Kitty her change. ‘Well, enjoy your stay here. If you see Rian, please tell him that he must come to see me as soon as possible. Tell him I’ll be expecting him.’

  Another wave of jealously surged through Kitty. ‘Certainly. Good day,’ she replied, and swept out of the shop.

  On the street, Wai said, ‘Do we have lodgings?’

  ‘No, but we should be able to find something easily enough.’

  Wai gave Kitty a doubtful look. ‘We have no money.’

  ‘Yes, I do know that, Wai, so I’ll have to find work.’

  ‘I can work.’

  ‘No, you can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ Wai countered. ‘I worked in Mrs Kereha’s house until two weeks ago.’

  Kitty looked at her: she was right. But no one had known Wai was expecting a child then. On the other hand, Rebecca Purcell had carried on with her domestic duties until the day she’d given birth to Harriet. There was no real reason that Wai couldn’t work, providing she did nothing too strenuous, or otherwise inappropriate.

  ‘We’ll see,’ she said. ‘First we have to find somewhere to live.’

  ‘We should get the work first, or we cannot pay,’ Wai said sensibly.

  Kitty took a deep breath, then let it out very slowly through her nose in an attempt to calm herself. Again, she knew that Wai was right but she had no idea what to do about it. She felt frightened and overwhelmed, despite her bravado this morning. During the past three hours of rather frenzied shopping she had managed to keep her anxieties at bay, but there were still another four months to go before Wai was brought to bed. And then what?

  ‘Come on,’ she said, hoisting the parcels under her arm, ‘it’s time to go back to the hotel. Rian said we should wait there.’

  ‘Will he look after us?’ Wai asked.

  Kitty stopped. ‘The captain?’

  ‘Ae.’

  ‘Why would he?’

  Wai looked at her, suddenly sly. ‘You lay with him. And you like him.’

  Kitty felt the blood rushing to her face. ‘I did not!’

  Wai snorted. ‘Do not lie. I saw him come from the cabin
, and I am seeing your red face now. The lady in the shop, she is his lover?’

  ‘Oh, really, Wai, how would I know that!’

  Wai tapped her head. ‘I am not always stupid. She said to say for him to visit.’

  ‘Well, so what?’ Kitty exclaimed, embarrassed because Wai had evidently been privy to everything she had been thinking in Enya Mason’s shop. ‘That’s none of my business.’

  ‘Make it your business. Tell her to go away.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly, Wai!’

  Wai walked off, saying over her shoulder, ‘I am not the one being silly.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  They waited in the genteel sitting parlour of St Patrick’s Inn for as long as it took them to realise that no one, in fact, was coming to collect them.

  So they went down the street to the Bird-in-Hand, where Kitty stuck her head in the door, waiting while her eyes adjusted to the smoky gloom. There was no foyer—the room opened up directly from the door. Four long tables with accompanying benches lined the walls, and at one of them sat the crew of the Katipo, noticeably the worse for wear. Hawk seemed to be the only one without a flushed face and glassy eyes. The other tables were also occupied, by both men and women. Kitty stared: the women did not appear to be of particularly high standing, but neither did they look like whores. Clearly, in this town, it was considered acceptable for females to drink in hotels. She moved out of the way as another woman pushed past her through the door, an empty glass decanter in her hand.

  ‘In or out!’ the woman said. ‘Don’t just stand there gathering dust! Looking for your man, are ye?’

  ‘No, a friend,’ Kitty replied, and pointed towards the crew.

  The woman snorted at the sight of them. ‘You’ll be lucky,’ she said, and went inside. At the rough bar she plonked down her decanter, whereupon the barman set about filling it with a dark liquid from one of several kegs behind him.

  The noise in the room was considerable. Apart from Rian’s crew, almost all the patrons seemed to be Irish. Some were eating—cheese with great slabs of bread—others were smoking clay pipes or playing cards, but most were simply drinking, talking and laughing. An enormous fireplace broke up one of the longer walls, but today the fire wasn’t lit, for which Kitty was grateful: the temperature inside the pub seemed even hotter than outside.

  She waved across the room; Sharkey saw her and waved cheerfully back.

  ‘Come on,’ she said over her shoulder to Wai.

  It was indeed hot inside. Haunui pushed himself to his feet, sat back down again—rather harder than expected judging by the expression on his face—then managed to stand up properly. He approached somewhat unsteadily, and began clumsily to divest her of her parcels.

  ‘Have you been drinking?’ Kitty asked disapprovingly, noting his bloodshot eyes and beery breath.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It looks like you have.’

  ‘Ae, then, I have,’ Haunui admitted. ‘But look, no missionaries here!’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ Kitty replied. ‘The point is…’ She hesitated, then closed her mouth. What was the point? Paihia was hundreds of miles behind them, and so was the life they’d been living there. With a startlingly powerful rush of relief, she realised that she no longer had to be a missionary if she didn’t want to. If Haunui wanted to drink himself silly, then so be it.

  She handed the rest of her parcels to him. ‘Can you put these with the others?’ She glanced over at the table. ‘Where exactly are our other parcels, Haunui?’

  He spun around in alarm, then his face relaxed as he remembered. ‘Mr Scanlon said put them behind the bar, so they do not get pinched. It is his pub. I did that.’ He gathered up Wai’s packages with Kitty’s, then wandered over to the bar to stow them.

  The girls sat down at the table.

  ‘Mesdemoiselles,’ Pierre said, bowing his head exaggeratedly low over his tumbler of rum. ‘Have you had the nice morning shopping?’

  ‘Yes, we have, thank you,’ Kitty said.

  She felt more than a little uncomfortable in this room, and glanced around to see if anyone was looking at her. If her mother could see her now, she would no doubt faint dead away. But so much had changed since she had last seen Emily; she must write and tell her that she was safe. And what would Aunt Sarah say? Kitty gave a tiny shrug of indifference: as far as she was concerned, Sarah had forfeited her right to say anything about her behaviour.

  She glanced across the table and caught Rian staring at her. There was a glitter of something in his eyes, then it was gone.

  He stifled a burp. ‘Have you eaten?’

  Kitty shook her head, noting that he seemed slightly better disposed towards her this afternoon. Or perhaps it was just the drink. He pushed his own untouched plate of bread, cheese and pickles across the table. Kitty was actually very hungry, but didn’t want to fall upon the food as though she hadn’t eaten for a week. Wai reached across her and grabbed a large piece of bread.

  ‘Thank you,’ Kitty said to Rian, picking up the smallest of the pickles and beginning to nibble it.

  ‘Oh, go on,’ he said, ‘get it down you. Did you manage to get to Enya’s shop?’

  Kitty put her pickle down; suddenly she no longer wanted it. ‘Yes. She gave us a good discount.’ From the corner of her eye she could see Wai watching her with interest.

  ‘I knew she would,’ Rian said, and took a long swallow of his drink.

  Kitty pushed the pickle around the plate for a moment. ‘She also said you must go and see her as soon as you can.’ The words felt like broken glass in her mouth.

  ‘Did she?’ Rian said, almost without interest. Then he brightened. ‘I’ve found you lodgings.’

  Still smarting from the message she had felt compelled to pass on, Kitty said, ‘Thank you, but I think we can find our own.’ She jumped as Wai elbowed her rather sharply.

  Rian squinted at her across the table. ‘Well, that’s unfortunate because I’ve already agreed to pay a month’s rent in advance.’

  ‘Well, you can just unagree,’ Kitty replied. ‘We don’t need you to pay our rent.’

  ‘Yes we do,’ Wai muttered.

  The rest of the crew suddenly became engrossed in studying their fingernails.

  Rian’s eyes narrowed even further. ‘Look, Miss Carlisle, will you get off your high horse for just a minute and think about the situation you’re in?’

  Kitty lost her temper. ‘I think about nothing but our situation! And don’t keep calling me Miss Carlisle! It was Kitty all the way here—why is it Miss Carlisle now?’

  Stonily, Rian said under his breath, ‘You know why.’

  Judging by the embarrassed expressions around the table, Kitty suspected that everyone else knew as well.

  Beside her, Wai burst into tears.

  Kitty sat back, appalled; she was behaving like a fishwife, and a selfish one at that. She kept forgetting that Wai was only just sixteen years old, and with far more to worry about than herself. She lay a placating hand on her friend’s sleeve. ‘I’m sorry. We’ll take the lodgings if you want to.’

  Wai nodded, hiccupped and wiped her nose on the back of her hand.

  ‘But I will pay you back,’ Kitty said to Rian, ‘as soon as I get work.’

  Rian nodded. ‘It’s only a tenement, but I know the landlady, Biddy Doyle. It’s sure to be clean and comfortable.’

  Kitty wondered if there was anyone Rian didn’t know in this town. ‘When can we see it?’

  ‘Now, if you like. Well, as soon as I’ve finished my drink.’

  The tenement was in Caraher’s Lane, not far from the pub, and it took the three of them, plus Haunui, only a minute or so to walk there.

  Rian rapped on a green-painted door at the end of a row of terrace houses. The woman who answered it was, to Kitty’s relief, in her fifties, grey-haired and comfortably stout. She wore a lace house cap, a dark blue dress and heavy clogs. Her shawl had been crossed over her ample front, the fringed ends disappearing bene
ath the waistband of a clean white apron. In her seamed face sparkled a pair of very shrewd, dark brown eyes.

  ‘Ah, Captain, you’ve brought the young colleens?’ she asked. She looked Haunui up and down. ‘This one isn’t much, is she?’

  Wai giggled, quite recovered from her tears now. Haunui smiled benignly.

  Rian introduced Kitty and Wai. ‘And this is Haunui, Wai’s uncle.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, to be sure,’ Mrs Doyle said. ‘You’ll be wanting a look, I suppose?’

  Kitty nodded. Mrs Doyle closed the door behind her, took five steps down the street and opened the door to number four.

  ‘Here it is,’ she said cheerfully, ‘home for as long as you want it.’

  The door opened onto a small hallway and a set of stairs, presumably leading up to the tenement above. Beyond the stairs was an exit that Kitty fervently hoped was the way out to the privy. To the left was another door, which Mrs Doyle unlocked. The room within was a parlour- cum-kitchen, with a fireplace set up for cooking, and was nowhere near as rough as Kitty had been expecting. That’ll teach me for making assumptions, she thought. The walls were tinted pale blue, and the patterned tiles on the floor and around the fireplace were oxblood red, brown and terracotta. There were curtains at the windows, even lace nets, and a rag rug in the centre of the floor. The room was furnished with a table and chairs, a sofa and a day-bed, and a set of shelves along one wall held an assortment of cooking and eating utensils. Kitty had a closer look at the china. It was a mixture of plain white with a green rim, and some blue and white-patterned plates and bowls that wouldn’t have looked out of place on her mother’s table. As far as she could see, they would have everything they might need.

  ‘I usually only let these particular rooms to women, so you should find the arrangements quite comfortable,’ Mrs Doyle said as she crossed to another door on the far side of the room.

  Kitty and Wai both had a look. The walls in this room were also pale blue, and a stack of linen sat neatly folded at the end of each bed. There were also a basin and ewer on a set of drawers, a chamber pot, a narrow armoire in one corner, and a small table between the beds. A single window let in a rather feeble amount of light.