Hearts in the Land of Ferns

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Hearts in the Land of Ferns Page 2

by Jude Knight


  Miss Campbell had faded from the room again, silent as a ghost. No matter. As the front door closed behind him, Thomas ducked along in front of the parlour window and down the narrow path at the side of the house to the lean-to scullery at the rear.

  Miss Campbell was bent over the sink, while another girl dried each dish as it was handed to her. He waited, watching through the window, as they completed the dishes, and then continued to wait some more.

  He doubted that Campbell, the nasty old miser, let them burn candles sitting up late. Before long, each of them would make the journey down the path to the outhouse at the foot of the garden. With luck, he could return Miss Campbell her book with no one else the wiser.

  Within half an hour, his expectation was fulfilled, as first the maid, then Campbell himself, then Aunt Agnes made the trip. When it was Miss Campbell’s turn with the lantern, he waited until she returned and spoke from the shadows, keeping his voice soft, so as not to alarm her.

  “Miss Campbell, I waited to return your book.”

  Clever girl. She kept her eyes on the back door, but slowed her steps, saying quietly, “Aunt Agnes is watching. I will be back shortly to collect wood. The wood pile is beyond that shed.” She indicated with her head, still not looking at him.

  “I will be there,” Thomas told her. He kept to the shadows, but was in place to meet her when she carried out a basket to fill with wood for the morning fire.

  “Maisie will be here in a moment, Mr O’Bryan, to help me carry the basket back inside. Thank you for telling Uncle Campbell it was your book.”

  “Here you are, Miss Campbell.” He handed her the book, and she slipped it inside the waistband of her skirt, loosening, then retying, the shawl that insulated her against the chill night air.

  A clatter of wooden patens heralded the arrival of the maid, and Thomas faded into the darkness, leaving the two of them to their task.

  He sauntered back along George Street to his hotel. He could write to his Mama and let her know her sister was well. He had done his duty and need not visit again. But he would not at all mind seeing Miss Campbell once more.

  2

  Mr O’Bryan was a bright spot in an otherwise dismal week. Rose’s lateness returning home that night had been overshadowed by the American nephew’s crimes of being a Papist, a gold miner, and an uninvited dinner guest. She escaped with no more than an extra fifteen minutes on her knees, and the linen closet to turn out. She managed to read the book Mr O’Bryan had saved for her in the week before it was due for return, keeping it in her apron pocket, stealing moments at the clothesline or in the kitchen when Aunt Agnes was occupied with the ladies’ church committee.

  On Thursday, Mr Hackerton came to dinner. A widower and an elder at the Congregation of the Elect meetinghouse, he was looking Rose over for her potential as a wife and housekeeper. Rose shuddered. Imagine: a lifetime of being called ‘Laura’, and being touched by those cold, pudgy hands.

  On Saturday, the entire house had to be cleaned from top to bottom, and the next day’s food cooked, so the day could be spent in prayer and meditation, when not at one of two long church services conducted by Uncle Campbell and the other elders.

  And on Monday, she saw Thomas O’Bryan again. She was coming back from shopping, nervously skirting the noisy camp in the Octagon, when he materialised beside her, tipped his cap, and held out a hand for her basket.

  “Let me carry that for you, Miss Campbell. It looks heavy.” He fell into step, saying cheerfully, “As I thought. Far too heavy for a little bit of a thing like yourself.”

  “I thought you would have gone to the fields by now, Mr O’Bryan,” she said.

  “There now, you have been thinking of me!” Something in his grin made her insides feel peculiar, and she looked away, feeling the heat rise in her face.

  “I have business to attend to in Dunedin, but I’ve passage booked on the coach tomorrow,” he explained. “And what are we shopping for, this fine, crisp, spring morning?” He lifted the corner of a package, and shifted another sideways, ignoring her anxious fluttering. “Is there another book concealed beneath the potatoes, Miss Campbell?”

  “Don’t say that,” she darted her eyes about, hoping no one who knew her uncle had overheard. They were all strangers, intent on their own affairs, and Mr O’Bryan was regarding her with chagrin.

  “I was only teasing, Miss Campbell. No one heard, and your secrets are safe with me. The old crow and his wife object to you reading?”

  She flushed to hear her secret description for her nearest living relations on the lips of this irreverent man, but something about his clear interest tugged a murmured admission from her. “Uncle says the Bible is the only proper reading for a pious woman.”

  “Which bits?” Mr O’Bryan enquired with interest. “The Song of Songs? The story about Lot’s daughters? Or Tamar?”

  “Mr O’Bryan!” He could not possibly know of her minor rebellion, seeking out the most shocking stories she could find in the Bible, whenever her uncle set her reading.

  “What?” He tried to keep his face bland, but one corner of his mouth twitched, and his eyes twinkled.

  By now, they were out of the shopping area and approaching the turn into Frederick Street. “Thank you for your escort, sir,” Rose told him. “I can manage from here.”

  “I am visiting my aunt, Miss Campbell, so I’ll do myself the honour of seeing you home.”

  Thomas was surprised to hear himself say so. He’d intended to steer clear of his aunt and her poisonous husband, despite his attraction to the niece. Unusual for him to be attracted to a little mouse; though, he had to admit, she had backbone, sneaking books into the house under the old man’s nose. There was more to her than met the eye.

  But she was all wrong for Thomas—Protestant, and puritan at that. This New Zealand venture would establish his fortune, and he’d return home to San Francisco to look for a wife—a good, Catholic girl like Mary Rourke, the daughter of his partner. Ben had hoped… and Thomas had started seriously thinking about it, but he had thought too long, and came back from a trip to Canada to find the girl betrothed—to a local farmer, of all things.

  Miss Campbell was nothing like Miss Rourke. Slender, where Miss Rourke was prettily plump, quiet and contained, while Miss Rourke was vivacious and outgoing, wary, when Miss Rourke expected the world to shape itself to her command. Miss Rourke was all colour—red hair, rosy cheeks, blue-green eyes, bright gowns and shawls and bonnets. Miss Campbell was shades of brown—light hair the shade of a mouse pelt; soft, brown eyes, lightened with gold flecks; skin a pale olive, lit at the moment by the bright colour that rose so easily to her face; and her drab, serviceable, beige dress cut too large and untrimmed.

  She should be dressed in green or red or a warm, rosy pink; something that would give her colour, instead of draining it. If she were his, he’d buy her colours.

  Protestant, he reminded himself. Not for him.

  “Why does your uncle call you ‘Laura’?” he asked, to turn his mind from the subject.

  “He does not like my other name,” she explained.

  “Rose Laura?” He tried it on his tongue. “Or Laura Rose?”

  “Laura Rose, but my papa always called me Rose. Uncle says it is a Pap… Uncle does not like it.”

  Thomas could easily supply the word she caught back: Papist. Another reminder that they occupied separate worlds. “Rose is a very pretty name,” he said.

  She smiled, and the grim spring day became unexpectedly brighter.

  “What business keeps you in Dunedin, Mr O’Bryan?”

  “Mining supplies, Miss Campbell. My firm, Rourke and O’Bryan, sells supplies to miners, and I am here in New Zealand to set up supply lines and open stores in the main fields.”

  “Food, you mean?”

  “And pans and shovels and blankets and buckets and clothing and tents… My father and his partner began the firm in California thirteen years ago, when I was a wee bit of a boy, and Ben Rourke too
k me into the firm when my father died.”

  “I am sorry for your loss, Mr O’Bryan. Is it… recent?”

  “Three years ago, but I cannot seem to realise it, somehow. I was in South Australia, and by the time I received the letter telling me he was ill, he had already gone to his reward.”

  Thomas shook his head, grimacing. He’d returned home on the first ship that could give him passage, but arrived in Vancouver six weeks past the funeral.

  His sister, Mary-Elizabeth, and her family had moved into the fine, new house his parents had built, so his mother would not be alone. But when he was home, Thomas constantly expected to be told it had all been a mistake, to see, at any moment, his father walking in through the front door, kissing his wife, tickling his grandson, and making a joke about the removal of his favourite chair to the attic, since Mama could neither bear to look at it, nor give it away.

  Thomas shook off the mood. The whole family had offered Masses for the repose of Papa’s soul, and Thomas had performed all the requirements for a plenary indulgence at Christmastide, on Papa’s behalf, these past three years. Papa was a good man, and surely in Purgatory at least, if not in Heaven already.

  “What of your own family, Miss Campbell? How do you come to be living with your aunt and uncle?”

  Miss Campbell wilted, all the vitality sinking out of her, and Thomas felt an almost overpowering urge to give her a hug and bring some warmth back into her face.

  “Never mind,” he said, hastily. “You need not talk about it, if you do not wish.”

  If they turned now, they would be at the Campbell’s cottage before he was ready. He deliberately continued straight ahead, and she followed meekly along, her thoughts far away.

  “I do not mind,” she said, breaking the silence. “The story is a short one. My mother died shortly after I was born, and my father raised me. Then, five years ago, he left me with his brother and went off to Australia. He said the gold fields were no place for a growing girl. A few months later… he drowned, Mr O’Bryan. A flash flood, they said, several miners swept away.”

  Thomas led her into a small patch of uncleared trees, hidden from those passing, so she need not be embarrassed by the tears pouring silently down her cheeks. He put a comforting arm on hers, and she leant into his hug, shoulders heaving as she tried to contain her sobs.

  “Cry away, Miss Campbell,” he told her. “I have two sisters who have cried on me more times than I can count, and no one else will ever know.”

  Miss Campbell shook her head, and took several deep, shuddery breaths.

  “Uncle Campbell would not like me to return home red-eyed. He says my father is burning in Hell for a sinner, and I should not mourn such a man. But he was a good man, Mr O’Bryan. Always humming and telling jokes and hoping for the best. God would not be so cruel as to keep him from Heaven, just because he played the piano at dances and sometimes missed a church service. He would not, would he?”

  Thomas was not qualified to give an opinion on the salvation of heretics. He hedged. “Didn’t Jesus say we don’t know? That some who think they are saved won’t be, and some who think they are not, will be? Love counts, I think. And kindness.” He hoped so, anyway, and the thought cheered Miss Campbell, who pulled back from his arms and set about tidying the bonnet she’d knocked askew against his shoulder.

  How pretty she was, even with her eyes slightly puffy.

  They continued walking, and to change the subject, he began telling her about the clerks he had hired and the warehouse he had rented and the store he intended to build in Hartley Township, in the Dunstan gold fields. She asked intelligent questions, entering with enthusiasm into discussion of his plans, and by the time they arrived at the Campbell’s cottage, all physical signs of Miss Campbell’s grief had faded.

  Thomas sat through an awkward visit with his aunt, who made no effort to conceal her surprise at seeing him again, bur reluctantly offered him tea, which he drank at the kitchen table while Aunt Agnes, the maid, and Miss Campbell bustled about preparing an evening meal.

  Aunt Agnes was visibly relieved when he finished the cup of weak tea and refused to stay for dinner. “Mr Campbell will be sorry to have missed you,” she said.

  Thomas met the lie with one of his own, sending the old bully his best wishes.

  He had no more wish to sit at his aunt’s meagre board than she to have him there. So why, when he took his coat and hat from Miss Campbell, did he bend closer and say, “I will do myself the honour of calling again when I am in Dunedin, Miss Campbell”?

  3

  Mr O’Bryan’s visits were the highlight of the month, and Dunedin felt wetter, windier, and colder after he left. Rose struggled with snail depredations and weeds in the vegetable garden, did the shopping, cooked, cleaned, sewed in the evenings, and woke earlier and earlier with the lengthening day, to read a little in the dawn light before another day of unrelenting work.

  From time to time, but perhaps not more than a dozen times a day, she wondered how Mr O’Bryan was faring in Dunstan and whether he would, indeed, call on them when he returned to Dunedin.

  Then, suddenly, in early December, he was there again, falling into step beside her as she walked from Knox Lane to George Street on her way shopping.

  “Good morning, Miss Campbell. May I carry your basket?” He was taking it from her as he spoke, his impish grin robbing the gesture of any offence.

  “You’re back,” Rose said. What a foolish thing to say, but her wits had taken flight at his presence.

  “I am. And do I find you well?”

  She stammered something, trying to collect her scattered thoughts.

  “And did your business prosper, Mr O’Bryan?” she managed.

  “It did, thank you. The first cartloads of goods sold before they reached Dunstan. I’ve taken on two more assistants for the tent store and a building to house Rourke and O’Bryan is going up in Hartley Township, as we speak. All is going well there, and so I’ve come to attend to business at this end of the trail.”

  Rose looked around her, wondering what business he found in this mainly residential area, and he must have guessed her thoughts, because he said, “Today, I am taking an afternoon’s holiday. I was on my way to visit you when, behold, here you are walking toward me. Dare I hope to escort you the entire afternoon, Miss Campbell?”

  She smiled her consent, all at once feeling giddy. But someone might see them and report to her uncle! Well, what of it? She would still have the memory of the afternoon—a little treasure to take out and enjoy when he was gone, and she was alone.

  He threw himself into the shopping with enthusiasm, debating the merits of various meats, solemnly inspecting vegetables, giving his view on the best threads to match and contrast with the cushion cover she was decorating.

  When she hesitated over some bonnet trimmings, yearning for a confection of silk flowers and feathers, he offered to buy them. She blushed at the scandalous suggestion, but was not as displeased as she should be.

  “No, indeed, Mr O’Bryan. My uncle would never allow me to wear any bonnet they would make. I will have three yards of the brown ribbon, please,” she told the assistant.

  Mr O’Bryan subsided, but his next suggestion was that they should take tea at the Empire Hotel. Rose hesitated. Anyone might walk together when out shopping, but to take tea with a man at his hotel was surely a wanton act. Or so her uncle would say, in any case.

  At that moment, they passed Hackerton’s Emporium, and even from the footpath, she could hear the man her uncle intended her to wed berating an unfortunate employee.

  “Very well, Mr O’Bryan,” she said. Another memory to cherish. Why not?

  She had passed the tea rooms at the Empire on several occasions, but never thought to enter. She felt very grand sitting at one of their white-linen-covered tables, with a tiered cake plate of toothsome delicacies and a dainty china cup full of fragrant tea. And a handsome, charming, attentive escort, who kept her entertained with stories of people
in the burgeoning boomtown at the Dunstan.

  She was very much in charity with him as they made their way back up Princes Street and through the Octagon, skirting the muddy centre, where the churning population of miners briefly settled, before heading up the Dunstan trail to Central Otago.

  In the next moment, her contentment took a knock.

  “Mr O’Bryan!” The speaker was a tall, striking-looking woman with bold, dark eyes and porcelain skin, set off to perfection by her black dress and bonnet. In the next moment, Rose realised that the veil, currently pushed back from the perfect oval of the woman’s face, marked her a widow. She was older than Rose had thought at first, too—older than Thom… Mr O’Bryan, that was certain.

  “Mr O’Bryan, I want to thank you, Sir. The money has been—I cannot tell you. All those sharks that hovered after the money Arthur owed them…” The woman shuddered.

  “Payment for services rendered, Mrs Moffat, and for those you have promised me. And how is little Mary? Better, I hope? Oh, but I forget my manners. Miss Campbell, allow me to present Mrs Moffat, who works for me. Mrs Moffat, Miss Campbell is my cousin.”

  The woman gave Rose a distracted nod and a brief curtsey before hurrying on, “I must get back to her. I just popped out for a few groceries and left young Arthur in charge, and Mary will not mind him when she is fretful. But I am grateful for it, Mr O’Bryan, for if she is fretful, she is on the mend, so the doctor says. And we will be in Hartley Township in the new year, I promise you that, Sir.”

  “Whenever the little girl is well enough, Mrs Moffat. You are not to be anxious about it.”

  The widow said her farewells, repeating her thanks, and hurried off, with Rose looking thoughtfully after her.

  “A sad case, Miss Campbell. Her husband managed the warehouse I am leasing here in Dunedin, or so I thought. But a fortnight ago, he walked off the end of the wharf and drowned, leaving a wife and seven little ones.”

 

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