‘Does she ever mention me?’ Kitty asked.
‘Your aunt? No, but I don’t think it’s because she feels any animosity towards you. I think she misses you. And I think she feels ashamed, of her behaviour. Of throwing you and Wai out of the house like that.’
‘Did she say that?’
‘No, she’s never mentioned it. That’s just my assumption.’
‘Then how do you know she threw us out of the house?’
‘I suspect she might have said something about it to Jannah Tait, and then of course everyone knew about it. You know what a lot of gossips they—we—are at Paihia and Waimate.’
‘And Tupehu? Did he calm down eventually?’
‘No, not really.’
‘So we still can’t go home?’
‘Ah, yes, you can, actually,’ Simon said slowly. ‘There’s some more bad news. Or not. You decide.’
‘Oh no, what else?’
‘Tupehu’s dead.’
Kitty frowned again. ‘Dead? Really? What happened?’
‘Well, he went down to Taupo to inform Wai’s intended that the marital arrangement was off, there was some sort of altercation over it and he was killed.’
‘By Te Awarau?’
‘The fiancé? I don’t know, no one’s quite sure. I hope Wai isn’t too upset. But there wasn’t really a lot of love lost there, was there? Still, he was her father, I suppose.’
Kitty blinked back sudden tears. ‘Simon, Wai died a week ago, giving birth.’
The blood drained from Simon’s face. ‘Oh no,’ he said after a long moment. ‘Did the baby survive?’
Kitty nodded. ‘Haunui’s looking after him. Well, we both are. He’s doing well. Why don’t you come and see him?’
When Simon nervously informed him that his brother had been killed, Haunui barely raised an eyebrow. So much for family unity and devotion, Kitty thought.
‘Does this mean you’ll be chief now?’ she asked.
‘No,’ Haunui said simply. He was watching Beata Tyler changing Tahi’s napkin. ‘Someone else can do that. I am tired of fights and politics. I will be happy just to raise Wai’s child.’
‘So, are we going home?’
‘Do you want to?’ Haunui asked.
Kitty opened her mouth to say yes, then shut it again. Suddenly, the idea didn’t seem to have the same urgency—or even the same appeal.
‘I suppose so,’ she replied slowly. ‘Where else would I go?’
Simon gave her an irritatingly knowing look. ‘Where is Captain Farrell, by the way?’ he said.
‘Still here,’ Haunui said. ‘He came by. He said for us to meet him at the Bird-in-Hand at dinnertime. His cargo from America came.’
Beata said she would mind the baby for an hour, so they went to the pub. Rian, already there with the rest of the crew, greeted Simon warmly. ‘And what brings you to Sydney? On God’s business, no doubt?’
‘After a fashion,’ Simon said. ‘Something to do with sheep, actually.’
‘Really? Well, it’s good to see you. Sit down.’
Simon did, nodding at the others. They nodded warily back, and Kitty wondered whether they knew about him. Probably not. Hawk went for another jug of ale.
‘Tell me about the treaty,’ Rian said. ‘Who’s signed? Or, more importantly in my opinion, who hasn’t?’
‘It’s been reported in the Sydney Morning Herald,’ Simon replied. ‘We’ve been getting copies at Waimate.’
Rian waved a dismissive hand. ‘I know, but I want details.’
Hawk came back with the beer.
Simon poured himself a mug, drank it off in one go, and belched loudly. ‘That’s very good,’ he said.
Kitty was surprised; she hadn’t even known that Simon drank alcohol. Some of the missionaries did, of course: it wasn’t prohibited. But somehow Simon hadn’t seemed to her the sort who would quaff great draughts of beer and belch with such abandon. She smiled.
‘Well,’ he began, pouring himself another mugful, ‘as you predicted, the meeting was brought forward to the sixth. Not many signed on the spot, a dozen or so I believe, but copies of the treaty have been going up and down the country ever since. Tamati Waka Nene signed just before I left, and so did Kawiti and Hone Heke.’
Rian frowned. ‘So have they all signed?’
‘Not all of them, I don’t think,’ Simon said, ‘but a lot have.’
Rian slowly turned his mug around on the tabletop, and Kitty could see that he wasn’t pleased by the news. After a moment he said, ‘So what’s Tupehu up to? Did he sign?’
So Simon told him what had happened, and also about Kitty’s uncle.
Rian didn’t even bat an eyelid. Instead he said, ‘Kitty, have you told Simon about Wai?’
She nodded.
‘You know what that means, then, don’t you?’ Rian said. ‘Haunui can take the baby home. And you can go back yourself.’
Their eyes met and for a moment there seemed to be just the two of them at the table.
‘I know,’ Kitty said.
‘Do you want to go back?’
‘I…I think so, yes.’
Rian looked away, then he drained the contents of his tankard. ‘Right, that’s settled then. My cargo’s finally arrived so we’re heading back to New Zealand anyway.’
‘Good,’ Kitty said, feeling strangely bereft. ‘When do you think we might leave?’
Rian glanced at Hawk, who said, ‘The Katipo is ready to go and the cargo will be loaded tonight.’
‘Tomorrow morning,’ Rian said. ‘On the rising tide.’
When Kitty got back to Caraher’s Lane, Tahi was asleep on the day bed with Beata’s baby, and Beata herself was playing with the kittens. Their eyes were open now and they could walk, albeit rather unsteadily, and had recently started escaping from their basket and wreaking havoc around the house.
Beata had them all in her lap, dangling a piece of string above them and laughing as they jumped all over each other trying to catch it.
‘I’ll be off, then,’ she said as Kitty hung up her cape and put the kettle on the fire.
‘Yes, thanks for staying,’ Kitty said.
‘My pleasure. He’s a lovely wee bairn to look after.’
Kitty looked across at Tahi, asleep on his back with his tiny fists thrust up out of his shawl. ‘I know. We’re taking him home, Beata, to New Zealand.’
Beata slung her bag over her shoulder and bent to pick up her baby. ‘Well, probably the best place for him, among his own people,’ she said. ‘Good for them to have lots of family around. When are you leaving, then?’
‘Tomorrow morning.’
‘That soon? Well, I’ll be around for his feeds until then, but what will you do after that?’
Kitty stared at her. ‘I don’t know, actually. I hadn’t thought about that.’
Beata, who had given birth to four children already even though she wasn’t much older than Kitty, rolled her eyes. ‘Get a goat.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Take a nanny goat on board, dip a cloth into the milk while it’s still warm and let him suck on it. That should keep him going until you get there. How long does it take?’
‘To get to New Zealand? Twelve or thirteen days.’
‘He’ll be all right. You’ll have to make sure he gets enough, though.’
While she waited for the tea to draw, Kitty tucked Tahi more securely into his shawl, got down on her hands and knees and dragged two kittens out from under the sofa, and rescued another one who had its claws stuck in the net curtains and was dangling precariously six feet off the floor. She didn’t hear Rian when he came in, and started when she noticed him standing in the doorway.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘I could do with another ten years taken off my life.’
‘Actually, in a way that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Among other things.’
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
Rian nodded, sat do
wn at the table and cleared his throat. ‘I haven’t actually thanked you for what you did for me, going to see Bannerman and visiting me at the gaol. I could still be there if you hadn’t. Or rotting at the end of a rope. So…well, I’m very grateful to you.’
Kitty nodded. ‘Thank you. It was quite a difficult thing to do. But we managed.’
‘It was a difficult thing for you to do, I know that,’ Rian said. ‘And stupidly dangerous, using you as bait like that. If Bannerman had decided…well, it made me so angry when I know…’ he hesitated. ‘When I know how lovely you are.’
To hide her embarrassment Kitty kept her head down, concentrating very carefully on stirring in her sugar.
‘Which leads me to something I wanted to ask you,’ Rian said.
Her heart racing, she tried to deflect him. ‘I’ve got a question for you first.’
He looked a little cross at being interrupted. ‘What’s that?’
‘I need a goat.’
‘What?’
‘I need a goat, to feed the baby on the way back to New Zealand. Beata Tyler told me that’s the way to do it.’
‘Well, I’ll see if Pierre can get us one. I expect he can.’
‘Good, because what you do, according to Beata, is—’
Rian reached across the table and took her hand. ‘Kitty? Be quiet for a minute, will you? I want to ask you something.’
Kitty closed her mouth.
Rian took her other hand, and she noticed that his were shaking slightly.
Softly, he said, ‘Kitty, mo ghrá, an bpósfaidh tú mé?’
There was a long silence, which Kitty eventually broke. ‘Rian, you know I don’t speak Irish.’
‘Sorry, yes, I do know that.’ He let her hands go and took a deep breath. ‘Kitty, will you marry me?’
She looked into his handsome, rugged face and his hopeful grey eyes, and felt his touch caressing her skin as though they had lain together only yesterday.
‘I’m sorry, Rian. I just can’t.’
Chapter Twenty
Sergeant Royce leant against the barracks wall. He was bored and rather annoyed that he’d been given sentry duty yet again. It wasn’t as though the convicts were in the habit of trying to escape—they didn’t need to, they generally had so much liberty anyway—and the work parties wouldn’t be back for dinner for a while yet. It was only half past ten.
He watched a cockroach scurrying around the base of the wall, flicking gravel at it with his boot to make it go faster, and thought about going to get himself a drink of water.
‘Sergeant Royce?’
He looked up and there she was coming towards him through the gates, no bonnet today and her beautiful black hair gleaming in the sun like a raven’s wing. He’d almost given up hope that he would ever see her again.
He jumped to attention and whipped off his cap. ‘Miss Carlisle, good morning!’
‘Good morning, Sergeant,’ she said.
He adored her smile and the way it made dimples in her cheeks. She was so lovely, so elegant, and, he suspected, probably quite a lot of fun if you were lucky enough to know her well.
‘Come to see your uncle again?’ he asked.
‘Ah, no, I haven’t.’
He hesitated; there was something different about her today, something more relaxed, although there were shadows beneath her beautiful dark eyes.
‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I need to tell you something. Avery Bannerman isn’t really my uncle. I’m very sorry, but I deceived you. I needed something from him, something very important for a friend, and there was no other way to get it.’
She made a funny, regretful sort of face, and he knew then that her apology was heartfelt.
‘I’m leaving, Sergeant, but I wanted to come and tell you that.’
‘It’s Daniel,’ he said. ‘My name is Daniel.’
‘Daniel, then.’ She took a step towards him, stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. ‘I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry for taking advantage of you.’
He touched his fingers to his face, to the kiss. ‘I knew you were,’ he said.
‘I know. Thank you.’
And she turned and walked off, and he stared after her until she was long out of sight.
Swearing, Pierre gave the nanny goat a swift boot up the backside, which didn’t achieve anything at all; she simply dug her feet in even more firmly at the bottom of the gangway.
‘Chatte!’ he said, hurling down her lead.
‘What about a carrot?’ Mick suggested. ‘They like carrots, don’t they?’
‘No, you fool, that is donkeys,’ Gideon said.
Kitty stood behind them, trying not to laugh. Under her arm was the basket containing the kittens, which couldn’t be left behind because they were too young to be weaned yet, although Bodie, who had refused to get in the basket and had shot up the gangway ahead of everyone else, seemed to disagree. Haunui stood beside her with Tahi asleep in his arms.
Sighing loudly in exasperation, Gideon thumped down the gangway, picked the goat up and carried her, bleating madly, up onto the deck. When he set her down, she immediately lifted her stubby tail.
‘Watch out, she’s after shitting everywhere!’ Mick exclaimed.
Rian eyed the mess distastefully. ‘Pierre, you can clean that up. Christ, what a bloody zoo.’
‘Why me?’ Pierre said, affronted.
‘Because you chose it.’
‘You wanted une chèvre.’
‘Yes, a goat, not a she-devil on four legs.’
Pierre shrugged, and went off to find the broom.
On deck now, Kitty and Haunui headed for the mess-room. It had been agreed that Kitty would have Rian’s cabin again, although Haunui and the baby would also sleep in there, with her on the floor, where the baby would not be disturbed by the men getting up and down all night on watch. The goat would be tied up on deck under shelter, fed hay and scraps from Pierre’s galley, and would be milked at regular intervals. Kitty had never milked a goat before but didn’t think it could be too difficult, and Beata had nursed Tahi just before they’d left Caraher’s Lane, so he would probably sleep for another two or three hours.
She had just set the kitten basket down on Rian’s bed when he put his head around the door.
‘We’re casting off shortly,’ he said, then spotted the basket. ‘What are they doing in here?’
Kitty had stepped very warily around Rian this morning. He was terse with her, but he was being terse with everyone. She wanted to believe that she hadn’t hurt him too much, but she knew she had. She had certainly hurt herself, wanting so much in her heart to say yes but knowing that she couldn’t. Even the thought of it filled her with panic. Oh, she could love him physically, that would be easy, but the prospect of giving herself to him heart and soul, and then possibly having that tossed back in her face, was dismaying. It would be an enormous risk, and one she wasn’t sure she could trust herself to weather if everything went wrong. She didn’t expect him to offer again; he had too much pride for that.
‘I thought they could stay in here if I kept an eye on them,’ she said.
‘Did you? Well, they can’t. They can go in the hold.’
‘It’s too dark and stuffy for them in there.’
‘Look,’ Rian snapped, ‘I’m not telling you to put the baby in there, just the bloody kittens.’
Kitty didn’t argue any further. She took the basket up on deck, pausing for a minute to watch as the mooring ropes were untied from the dock and a tugboat began to manoeuvre itself around to the Katipo’s bow; there was little wind inshore this morning, so they would have to be towed out into the harbour. She was halfway down the steps into the main hold when she felt a jerk, telling her that the slack in the tow rope had been taken up and they were slowly on their way.
It was quite dark in the hold, the only light coming from the open hatch; it was full of wooden crates and there was an odd, metallic, oily sort of smell. She looked around for somewhere safe to put the kitten
s, but it suddenly occurred to her that once the hatch was closed Bodie wouldn’t be able to find her babies.
She sat down on a crate to think about where else she could put them, but stood up again immediately when the wood beneath her bottom gave an ominous crack.
‘Oh dear, what have I done now?’ she said to the kittens as she set their basket on the floor.
The lid of the crate had broken in several places, and the oily smell was stronger. Curious, Kitty peered inside. The crate was packed with muskets, brand new and gleaming dully.
‘You just had to do that, didn’t you?’ Rian said from the bottom of the steps.
Kitty turned to face him, not really surprised at his appearance. ‘Yes, I did. Are you angry with me?’
He eyed her for a moment, then sighed. ‘Not really. Better you know than not.’ He picked up the basket, the kittens inside squeaking nervously. ‘You’re right, they shouldn’t be down here.’
He was halfway up the steps when she said, ‘Rian, who are the muskets for?’
He stopped. ‘Will you hear me out if I tell you?’
She nodded.
‘Let’s get these animals settled somewhere first.’
The kittens found their way back into Rian’s cabin, and were happily ensconced in his bed, crawling around under the blankets having a lovely time chasing each other’s tails.
‘I hope they don’t make a mess,’ Rian said as he sat watching them.
‘So do I,’ Kitty said, who had to sleep there tonight. ‘The muskets are for the Maoris at Paihia, aren’t they?’ She bent over the box Haunui had set up as a cradle for Tahi, checking that the baby was still asleep.
‘Paihia, and anyone else who needs them. But you already knew that, didn’t you?’
Kitty nodded. ‘But why? What’s the point?’
‘Kitty, you saw those Maori people in Sydney.’
‘I know, but they had nowhere to call home and absolutely nothing to their names and they were sick and penniless. It won’t ever get like that in New Zealand.’
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