The Cloud Leopard's Daughter

by Deborah Challinor

  Friday lowered her head to reveal an abnormally wide parting in her hair. ‘Went right along the top of my head, didn’t it, Captain? Bled like forty bastards.’

  ‘God, how awful,’ Amber said, sounding hugely entertained. ‘What happened to the man who shot you?’

  ‘Followed us back to Sydney, had another go at us, shot a peeler instead and swung for it. Bloody good riddance, too. Have you got a frock?’

  ‘My sister here in Sydney’s an expert dressmaker,’ Rian said.

  Friday and Aria exchanged a glance. ‘Pity,’ Friday remarked. ‘Our friend Harrie makes lovely dresses. You remember Harrie, Captain. Charlotte’s ma?’

  ‘Charlotte?’ Kitty asked.

  Rian explained, ‘Charlotte was the child who was rescued.’

  ‘What about rings?’ Friday asked.

  Kitty looked at Amber. ‘We haven’t thought about rings, have we?’

  ‘Ha!’ Aria exclaimed. ‘Sarah can make those. She is a very good jeweller.’

  Rian’s eyebrows went up. ‘The Sarah who came to Newcastle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She’s a jeweller?’

  ‘Only the best,’ Friday said. ‘Have you submitted the marriage application?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Do it today. The registry’s on Elizabeth Street. I can get it approved by Tuesday. What church did you want?’

  Kitty frowned. They hadn’t thought about that, either. Tahi had been educated by the Church Missionary Society at Paihia but she doubted if he particularly cared which altar he stood before when he married Amber. She herself was vaguely Church of England and Rian was an extremely lapsed Catholic. ‘Rian?’

  ‘Church of England.’

  ‘St James’s, then? Harrie and James got married there. We’ll aim for about ten days away. That’ll give you time to get the dress and the rings made. Or sooner?’

  ‘As soon as possible. So you are willing to help us?’ Rian asked.

  ‘Why not?’ Friday said. ‘You helped us. But why the rush?’

  ‘If there is to be a, shall we say, “predicament”,’ Kitty admitted reluctantly, ‘we’d like it to be conceived after the ink’s dry on the marriage certificate.’

  Amber reddened. ‘Ma! Will you stop saying that?’

  ‘Also we’re on our way to China on urgent business,’ Rian added. ‘We’ve barely any time to spare in Sydney. Ideally only a week.’

  ‘A week!’ Friday exclaimed. ‘Christ, that’s cutting it a bit fine.’

  ‘It is,’ Rian agreed. ‘If you don’t think you can manage that we can find someone else to make the arrangements . . .’

  ‘Oh, we can manage it, all right,’ Friday said, ‘providing you don’t interfere. I remember you were a great one for interfering thirty years ago. Why don’t you go off and, I don’t know, do something manly and leave things to us and your wife and daughter to sort out?’ She flicked her hand in Rian’s direction. ‘Go on, hop off, there’s a good captain.’

  Rian said nothing, though the muscles in his jaw tensed visibly.

  Kitty felt her hackles rise. No one ever spoke to Rian like that, certainly not foul-mouthed, middle-aged brothel keepers. But it did seem that the woman was able to get things done. How bloody annoying.

  ‘Actually,’ she said through gritted teeth, ‘Rian does have more important things to do, and we have another appointment shortly. May we come back this afternoon, just Amber and myself, and perhaps arrange to visit this jeweller you spoke of?’

  ‘No need. I’ll ask Sarah to come along, and maybe Harrie, too, though we’ll be over at the brothel by then. You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘No,’ Kitty said, ignoring Rian’s deeply disapproving look.

  ‘Shall we say two o’clock?’

  ‘That will be fine, thank you,’ Kitty replied.

  ‘Have you had a bereavement?’ Amber asked suddenly, indicating Aria’s sombre gown.

  ‘My mother died last year, but that is all right. She was old and I did not like her. Also, I am fond of wearing black.’

  Rian stood and collected his hat. ‘Thank you for your help. I’m very grateful for your assistance and I believe I will follow your advice, Miss Woolfe, and leave the arrangements to you, my wife and my daughter. After the fact please present your invoice for all costs incurred, with of course your facilitation fee included.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a starchy old miseryguts, Captain,’ Friday said. ‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’

  The expression on Rian’s face said no, they weren’t.

  ‘The price’ll be what Elizabeth Hislop paid you to take us to Newcastle – five guineas – plus allowance for inflation. Then we’ll be properly even.’

  ‘That’s very generous of you, Miss Woolfe,’ Kitty said. She’d add up the cost of everything herself and make sure they paid exactly what was due. She didn’t want to owe this woman anything.

  ‘You’ll have to pay Sarah yourselves,’ Friday said. ‘But as for the rest, five guineas is fair. You’ve no idea how important it was to us to get Charlotte back. Absolutely no idea.’

  ‘She’s well, the child?’ Rian asked.

  ‘Very, though she’s not a child now. She’s a grown woman with a family.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose she would be.’

  Taking her lead from her mother and father, Amber stood. ‘Thank you. I’m really grateful for your help.’

  For the first time, Aria smiled. ‘You are welcome, dear.’

  *

  While Amber, Kitty and Rian were having their uncomfortable meeting at the Siren’s Arms, Haunui and Tahi were wading through breakfasts of enormous beef and oyster pies, fried potatoes and ale in an eating house on George Street.

  ‘You nervous, boy?’ Haunui asked as he attacked a slice of potato.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Getting wed.’

  ‘No. Amber’s all I’ve ever wanted, though I’m happy to leave all the organising to her and Auntie. I wouldn’t know where to start. Are you going to eat that bit of crust?’

  ‘Ae. Get your hands off it.’

  ‘I am a bit nervous about having Rian as my father-in-law.’

  Haunui’s bushy grey eyebrows went up. ‘He’s a good man. And he thinks a lot of you.’

  ‘He didn’t the other night.’

  ‘Ae, well, you shouldn’t have been in bed with his daughter, should you?’

  ‘I definitely should be marrying her, though.’

  ‘I reckon.’

  Tahi sipped his ale and took his time setting the tankard back on the table. ‘Even my mother said so.’

  Haunui went very still. ‘Wai did?’

  Tahi nodded. ‘She came to me, the night Rian caught me and Amber? It took me ages to get to sleep but when I finally did, I dreamt we were walking along the beach at Paihia and she told me I’d marry Amber and everything would work out eventually, but I had to beware of Israel.’

  Haunui pushed his pie crust around on his plate, then cut it in half and stared at the pieces. It wasn’t that his daughter Wai, Tahi’s mother, had appeared to Tahi in a dream that bothered him, it was her message. When Tahi was four he’d dreamt that his mother’s bones would be coming home to New Zealand from Sydney, where they’d been buried since 1840, and they had, on the very day he’d predicted, and when he was older he’d had a vision of Rian’s whereabouts when Rian had been missing, presumed dead. So Wai revealing herself to her son recently wasn’t so unusual, but her comment about Israel was.

  ‘What exactly did she say?’

  Gazing down at his own plate Tahi screwed up his face, thinking. ‘Just that I should beware of him, and that he isn’t who I think he is. Or did she say “what I think he is”? I’ve forgotten.’ Finally meeting Haunui’s gaze, he said, ‘I don’t know what she meant, Koro. Israel’s my best mate. Why would I have to beware of him?’

  Haunui had a very good idea why. Tahi and Israel were apparently the best of friends, and had been since Tahi joined the Katipo’
s crew. In fact, they’d got on well even before then, when Haunui and Tahi had accompanied the Katipo on short voyages. He, Haunui, had watched Israel grow from a scrap of a boy to a tall, well-built, pleasant-looking man of twenty-one. His freckles had faded and his hair had darkened to a deep bronze, spoiling Mick’s taunts of ‘carrot head’, which, as far as Haunui could see, had only taught Israel a hard-earnt lesson in stoicism.

  But Haunui was also very good at noticing what other folk didn’t, and he’d seen the way Israel studied Amber when he thought no one was watching. He’d seen the slow, hot burn of desire in his eyes, and the carefully veiled jealousy when the lad turned his gaze towards Tahi. And while it was true that some of the cheek, cunning and guile had been knocked out of Israel by nearly a decade of sweating away at sea under the guidance of a decent ship’s crew, Haunui didn’t believe he’d changed that much. He’d just learnt to hide that side of himself better. He didn’t trust the boy and neither, he knew, did Ropata.

  ‘Perhaps he cares for Amber, too, eh?’

  Tahi looked shocked. ‘No, he doesn’t. Well, he does, but everyone cares for her. But not in the way I do, he doesn’t. He’s my best mate. I’d know.’ The tiniest of hesitations. ‘Wouldn’t I?’

  Haunui eyed him for a moment, then popped a piece of crust into his mouth. ‘Just something to think about, eh?’

  ‘And what did my mother mean by everything would work out eventually when Amber and I marry? Was she saying things won’t work out straight away?’

  In went the other piece of crust. ‘I don’t know, boy. It was your vision.’

  Chapter Four

  Sydney had certainly changed since Kitty had first visited in 1840: it seemed ever bigger and busier every time they called in. The population had increased to nearly one hundred thousand: houses, commercial buildings and warehouses had gone up everywhere, the streets were crowded, and you could buy almost anything you wanted in the shops. Semi-Circular Quay had been reclaimed from mudflats on the foreshore, sewer pipes were now installed along the main streets, and paving had been attempted here and there – though, Kitty noticed, as she dodged the usual potholes and piles of animal dung, without much success.

  And still the place stank. Perhaps towns and cities always would. London had the Great Stink a few years ago, and Melbourne wasn’t referred to as Smellbourne for nothing.

  Marching up George Street beside Rian, she said grumpily, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met such a rude woman in all my life.’

  ‘You’ve met plenty of rude women.’

  ‘Why did you just put up with what she said to you? I couldn’t believe my ears.’

  ‘Because she can get us what we want. Look, I don’t like her, either.’

  ‘I’m right, though, aren’t I? She is a proper cow.’

  ‘I did warn you. I told you she says and does what she likes. She was like that the last time I had to deal with her. I expect it’s just the way she is.’

  ‘Are you defending her?’

  ‘No, but we want Amber to have a decent wedding, don’t we?’

  They turned right into Suffolk Lane and entered Enya Mason’s dressmaking salon, once a single tiny shop but now three premises joined together to accommodate her expanded business. Enya was the same age as Kitty, and, to the horror and shame of her and Rian’s wealthy Irish family, had been transported to New South Wales at the age of eighteen for unwittingly receiving stolen goods. After four years she’d gained a ticket of leave and married Joshua Mason, who’d died two years later, fortunately leaving her enough money to start her own dressmaking business, which had been extremely successful now for some time. These days Enya was quite a wealthy woman. There had been plenty of beaux, but she had never remarried.

  The bell over the door rang and Enya appeared from the rear of the salon immediately.

  ‘Rian, girls, how lovely to see you!’ she exclaimed in the lovely, cultured Irish lilt that had never left her. She bustled around the small counter and gave each of them a squashy hug, then whacked Rian on the arm. ‘One miserable little note? Why didn’t you write me a proper letter and let me know earlier you’d be in town? I could have made some time for you. I’m that busy at the moment.’

  Oh dear, Kitty thought.

  Rian said, ‘Sorry. We didn’t know we were coming. Amber’s getting married. And no, she’s not expecting. Can you make her a dress in a week?’

  Enya plonked her hands on her hips and blew a wisp of hair back from her still very lovely face. ‘Of course I can. I’ll just pull one out of thin air, shall I?’

  ‘Don’t be like that.’

  ‘Have you any idea what goes into making a wedding gown?’

  ‘Of course I don’t,’ Rian said. ‘I sail ships.’

  ‘I do,’ Kitty said, ‘and we really are very sorry, Enya, but we truly are pushed for time.’ She explained why, then said, ‘If you can’t manage it then that’s our bad luck. We’ll have to find someone else.’

  Enya shook her head. ‘You will not. If Amber’s getting married she’s wearing one of my dresses. Come through to the back and we’ll sit down over a nice cup of tea and talk about it.’

  Rian looked horrified.

  ‘Not you,’ Enya said. ‘You won’t be much help.’

  Already halfway out the door, Rian said. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then. Back in an hour or so.’

  In a corner of the workshop through the door in the rear of the salon, Enya bustled about over a small hearth as Kitty and Amber watched four women at work on garments in various stages of construction.

  The tea ready, Enya moved several bolts of rather gorgeous silk off a table and arranged cups, a teapot and a plate of biscuits. She sat down, gathered half a dozen sheets of paper and a lead pencil, and looked up at them expectantly, her cornflower blue eyes steady. ‘Now, what style did you have in mind? And sit down, will you? You’re making the place look untidy.’

  Amber and Kitty sat.

  Kitty said, ‘Something pretty. She spends most of her life in damned trousers. I’d like to see her looking like a proper pretty young woman on her wedding day, at least.’

  ‘A crinoline?’

  ‘She doesn’t care for crinolines.’

  ‘I might,’ Amber said.

  Kitty frowned at her. ‘You don’t. You said you don’t.’

  ‘I might have changed my mind.’

  ‘Shall we start with colour, then?’ Enya suggested.

  ‘Black,’ Amber declared.

  ‘You are not getting married in black!’ Kitty exploded.

  ‘Why not? Other people do.’

  ‘Well, you aren’t.’ What was Amber playing at? And then it occurred to Kitty; that Aria person had been wearing a black crinoline. ‘That sort of thing might work very well on a middle-aged woman, but it isn’t at all suitable for a twenty-three-year-old bride, and that’s that.’

  ‘What middle-aged woman?’ Enya asked.

  ‘Oh, Friday Woolfe’s friend. Aria Kainga someone.’

  ‘Friday and Aria? How on earth did you meet them?’

  ‘It’s a long story, but they’re helping us to arrange the wedding. Unfortunately.’

  Enya poured the tea. ‘Why unfortunately?’

  ‘Because I didn’t find them to be particularly pleasant, especially that Friday Woolfe. In fact, I thought she was vulgar, vicious and rather spiteful.’

  ‘Friday was?’ Enya looked surprised.

  ‘She was a bit rude to Pa,’ Amber explained with a grin.

  ‘Well, Aria’s always been a little aloof, but that’s just her way. And Friday can be loud, and a bit coarse, but you’d not find a more generous soul. She’s very well known for her charity, especially the money she gives to women down on their luck, prostitutes too sick to work, habitual drunkards and the like. She’s teetotal herself, but not sanctimonious about it like some of them can be.’

  ‘Generous, philanthropic and teetotal?’ Kitty crossed her arms. ‘Good God, what a saint.’

  ‘Sh
e is, though, Ma,’ Amber said. ‘She said she’d organise everything for my wedding. And she didn’t drink anything.’

  Kitty snapped, ‘No, but then it was hardly the appropriate time of day for alcoholic refreshments, was it?’ She glanced at Enya’s grin. ‘What?’

  Enya laughed. ‘She really annoyed you, didn’t she?’

  Kitty broke a biscuit in half, picked out a currant, examined it for a moment, then dropped it on her plate. ‘No.’

  ‘Liar. She did. Why?’

  ‘Oh, she was just so indelicate.’

  ‘Indelicate! Kitty, you live on a ship full of sailors!’

  ‘And they’re awful, Ma,’ Amber said, giggling. ‘You know they are!’

  Enya put her elbows on the table. ‘Look, I know perfectly well what’s upset you, and so do you. But I can’t help you until you come out and say it.’

  Kitty sat in silence, feeling her face redden. She felt a fool. She retrieved the lone currant from her plate and squashed it brutally between her fingers. ‘She’s beautiful, even now, even if she has got a mouth like a midden. He met her before he met me. Why does he dislike her so much if nothing happened between them on that trip to Newcastle?’

  ‘Because she got the better of him, that’s why. And you know how he hates that.’ Enya patted Kitty’s hand. ‘And Kitty? Nothing happened between them. I know that for a fact. He told me.’

  ‘Did he?’ But that still didn’t feel right to Kitty. And why the hell was she even worrying about this? It all happened decades ago. What was wrong with her? ‘Why would he tell you something like that?’

  ‘Because he was, well, I think he was a little discomposed.’

  ‘Discomposed? Because he didn’t make a conquest? Honestly, Enya, I know Rian can be fairly arrogant at times, but he’d never be put out by something like that. He isn’t Mick, you know.’

  ‘He was discomposed, Kitty, because Friday and Aria were – are – lovers.’

  Now Kitty was discomposed. ‘Lovers? As in . . . they’re lesbians?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But they’re both so beautiful!’

  ‘Oh, stop it! You’re being as silly as Rian!’ Enya looked really quite cross. ‘Don’t be so judgmental. You’re not normally. They’ve generously offered to help you, so accept it with good grace otherwise Amber will miss out on the wedding she deserves. Ignore Friday’s bad language and her crass behaviour. It’s just the way she is. She wasn’t gently raised like we were, you know.’