A Second Chance

by Shayne Parkinson

  ‘No, there’s enough people at your place without me turning up. Maybe you should stay here of an evening instead.’

  He spoke lightly, but Beth frowned, pondering just why the notion seemed so unlikely. ‘I don’t think I could,’ she said slowly. ‘Not at night. Not on my own.’

  David’s grin faded, to be replaced by a thoughtful expression. ‘No, I suppose not.’ His eyes met hers, and they exchanged a look that sent an unfamiliar fluttering through Beth.

  She broke the moment by returning her attention to the carrots, finishing the job with a few rapid slices. ‘That’s the vegies done—I should have time for a bit of baking if I get on with it. I think I’d better make some more biscuits, with you gobbling the last lot up like that.’ She stood and piled the sliced carrots on to a plate.

  ‘Mmm, make some of those ones with coconut in them again,’ David said, apparently as relieved as she was to have the discomforting moment passed. As Beth walked by him on her way to the range, he took the opportunity to pat her bottom.

  Beth had shared this particular item from her knowledge of things marital within her first three days of housekeeping for him. The first time he had tried it for himself, he had earned a scolding by being too energetic, and giving Beth a much harder slap than he had intended or she had hoped for. He had the way of it just nicely now, Beth thought. In fact it was really quite pleasant. Spending every day with David, as she was lately, was very pleasant indeed.

  She ruffled his hair as if he had been one of her little brothers, and leaned down to plant a light kiss on his cheek. ‘I wish I could stay here at night, too,’ she said, the words taking her by surprise. To make a joke of it, she added, ‘It’d be better than Rosie and Kate whispering and fighting and things, like they do at night. At least it must be quiet here.’

  ‘Yes, it’s quiet.’ David managed another bottom pat before she moved out of reach. ‘Except when you’re here.’

  5

  The first hint of daylight sliding into her bedroom woke Amy. Used as she was to having her days ruled by sunrise and sunset, she had not yet been able to persuade her body to adopt the much later hours Sarah kept.

  But it was no hardship to have a little time on her hands; not when she had such delightful new toys to play with. Amy opened the drapes to take full advantage of the pale early morning light, then crossed the room to her wardrobe and opened the doors wide.

  Her new dresses had been delivered the previous evening. Although Amy had had two fittings in the interim, she had not seen the completed costumes until they arrived at Sarah’s. The fabrics had been beautiful enough when they were simply lengths of silk and wool; now that they had been made up into dresses, they seemed the stuff of dreams.

  Amy still found it difficult to believe that she could possibly own such garments, but when she opened her wardrobe she found that, dreamlike as they might be, the dresses were real, and were hanging there just as the maid had left them the evening before.

  She took them out one by one and held them up in front of her, from the walking dresses that she could actually imagine wearing, to the startlingly beautiful evening gowns. She stared at herself in the mirror, her own face almost unfamiliar with such finery below it.

  There was one dress Amy had not had any fittings for, though its arrival had not greatly surprised her. She had no idea when she might be able to wear the red velvet, but it gave her pleasure enough just to know such a beautiful thing lived in her wardrobe.

  She drew it carefully from its hanger, held it against herself and studied the effect in the mirror. The rich colour of the dress appeared to heighten Amy’s own colouring, as though the red velvet were drawing her blood closer to the skin in a kind of sympathetic magic. Even her heart seemed to beat a little faster. The dress cried out to be touched. She rubbed her face against the velvet, its soft pile caressing her cheek, and the scent of the fabric an elusive hint of roses.

  Amy replaced the red dress in the wardrobe and searched for something more serviceable to put on. On the farm, her dresses were divided into those for working and the one or two suitable for church and visiting. Only since her first visit to the dressmaker had Amy learned that there were so many categories of clothing, and she was far from confident that she had a firm grasp of what type of dress was suitable for particular times of day or social occasions.

  The most likely candidates seemed to be her two tea gowns, though wearing a silk dress as an ordinary house dress seemed almost sinful. She chose the pale mauve, its colour so subtle that it could in some lights be taken for a soft grey. She laid the dress on her bed and opened the second drawer of the chest, which had been devoted to underwear.

  Lingerie, Sarah had taught her to call it, and these garments were certainly too refined for any name less elegant. There were two full sets, one in the finest of cotton lawns while the other was silk. Every item was white, of course; Amy had never heard of such a notion as coloured underwear for any item worn closer to the skin than an outer petticoat, and would have thought it slightly improper if she had. But the ribbon trims that had been used so extravagantly on all the garments were in palest pink, making the white fabrics look even fresher by contrast.

  Yards and yards of lace must have gone into trimming the lingerie, Amy calculated, and it was lace of the finest kind, not the coarser ones more familiar in Ruatane. She dreaded the thought of having to wash such delicate items, though she would not have to face that task while she lived in Sarah’s house; Sarah had assured her that her staff were more than capable of taking suitable care of Amy’s lingerie.

  Her tea gowns might be silk, but wearing silk underwear for a quiet day spent inside the house was too great an indulgence for Amy to contemplate. The cotton lawn was distant enough from her previous experience of underwear.

  The lawn was so soft that it was almost as if she was wearing no underwear at all. The sight of her body in the mirror startled Amy. Deep flounces of lace topped with pink ribbon bows floated against the whiteness of her legs where they emerged from her drawers, and rows of tiny pintucks patterned her camisole. The narrow band of lace that formed the top edge of the camisole, only visible where the hair tumbling down over her shoulders divided itself into separate locks, sat low on her chest, emphasising the slight swell of her breasts. She saw a flush creep upwards from her bosom to her cheeks.

  The mauve silk gown hid all traces of sensuous flesh, and when Amy had brushed and pinned her hair into submission she had assumed a duly respectable outward appearance. Now would be a suitable time for her to make herself useful; except that there were so few ways in which she could be useful in this house. She made her bed and slipped her nightdress under the pillows, and made a pretence of tidying her already pristine dressing table. Her fireplace needed cleaning, of course, but she could not possibly contemplate so grubby a task in her finery, and even if she put on one of her old dresses she would have to summon one of the undoubtedly busy maids to ask for a dust pan and shovel.

  If there was nothing useful for her to do, she might as well indulge herself. The new clothes had in no way lost their novelty. Amy rearranged the dresses in the wardrobe, and went through the pleasant exercise of matching hats to outfits. There were cloaks, too; an evening cloak in heavy satin, trimmed with fur, and a day one of wool, lined in satin. She draped each cloak against one of the dresses it was intended to cover, and placed hats on the shelf above to form pleasing ensembles. Then the silk underwear cried out silently to be included in the entertainment, and Amy released it from the chest of drawers and spread each item on the bed.

  The finest of the silk petticoats was more than beautiful enough to have been worn as an outer garment. It had deep, scalloped edges over a triple-pleated flounce, each scallop trimmed with layers of lace and topped with knotted ribbons. Amy lifted it from the bed, held it against herself and twirled round and round, the petticoat making delicious swishing noises as she moved.

  ‘Yes, your frou-frous are as fine as any Frenchwoman�
�s.’

  Amy gave a start; she had been so absorbed that she had not noticed Sarah coming into the room.

  ‘This petticoat makes such a lovely swish-swish noise,’ Amy said. ‘Is that what that word means?’

  ‘Frou-frou? Yes, exactly that. The sound is perhaps a little more subtle when the petticoat’s worn under a dress instead of outside it. But I’m delighted to have caught you out in such mischief.’

  Amy put the petticoat back on the bed. ‘It seems too good to wear—all these things do.’ A wave of her hand took in her new outfits. ‘Is this dress all right to wear in the morning?’ she asked, seeing Sarah’s eyes on the mauve silk.

  ‘Perfect. Don’t worry, I’ll see that you get the chance to wear them all—including your silk petticoat. Now, come along to breakfast, you must have worked up quite an appetite playing with all your new finery.’

  ‘I’d better tidy these away first,’ Amy said, guiltily aware of the underwear strewn over the bed. ‘I’ve made a bit of a mess.’

  ‘No, leave it. That’s not for you to worry yourself about.’

  They were lingering over toast and a second cup of tea when the morning mail was brought in to Sarah.

  ‘One for you.’ She passed an envelope across to Amy.

  ‘It’s from Dave,’ Amy said, so eager to get at the letter that she had torn the envelope open before she noticed the paper knife Sarah was holding out to her. ‘Oh, I hope he’s all right.’

  She scanned the letter quickly, then allowed herself to relax and re-read it at a more leisurely pace. ‘He sounds happy—he’s really quite cheerful, from the way he writes.’

  ‘I should think he would be,’ Sarah said. ‘I’m sure he’s being well looked after.’

  ‘Yes, he will be, Beth’s a lovely girl. And it’s so good of Lizzie to spare her for me.’ She smiled at a paragraph towards the end of David’s letter. ‘Beth’s got a kitten she’s taking up there every day—a runty one she’s rearing. Beth and her waifs!’

  ‘I seem to remember she had an injured bird when I visited the Kelly’s.’

  ‘Oh, Beth’s always got some creature or other she’s looking after. Dave’s been helping her patch up hurt animals since the two of them were only babies, really. Frank says she’s got a wonderful touch with any of the cows that are sickly, too.’ She folded the letter, replaced it in its envelope and put it beside her plate. ‘I’m so pleased Davie’s sounding cheerful. I was a little bit worried about him, being there on his own.’

  ‘Well, there’s obviously not the least need for you to worry—which is a good thing, as fretting over Dave is forbidden in this house.’ Her smile made a joke of it, though Amy suspected she was at least half in earnest.

  Sarah tilted her head to one side and studied Amy. ‘You do look lovely in that dress. I’ll be able to take you on some day outings now that you’ve nice clothes to wear. I haven’t really felt able to till now—I’ve been rather worried people might think you were my maid.

  ‘But not this morning, I shouldn’t think,’ she added. ‘As it happens, I do have to go out this morning, but I really don’t think you’d enjoy the outing. It’s purely business, regarding some property I’ve been looking at. Do you think you’ll be all right here by yourself while I’m out?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ Amy assured her. ‘You mustn’t worry about me, you’ve got enough to think about with that sort of thing. I know what I’d like to do, too—could I have a look at your books?’

  ‘Treat them as your own,’ Sarah said. ‘I can’t think of a better way for you to pass the morning.’

  Neither could Amy. And when she stood in the study, walls of books rising around her to well above her head, every one of them at her disposal, it was difficult for her to imagine there could be any pleasanter way of whiling away the hours.

  For the moment she determinedly ignored the works of fiction; novels, she decided, would be saved for bedtime reading. What she wanted most was to improve on the scanty education the valley had been able to offer her.

  With the thirst for knowledge that had seen Amy doing Standard Six work before she was eleven years old, and had induced her to spend whatever she could spare of her modest annuity on her own tiny collection of books, she made her assault on Sarah’s library. It was as if a small army of scholars were arrayed before her, ready and willing to share their wisdom, and awaiting her command.

  Surrounded by the works of so many strangers, Amy searched first for a familiar name. She fathomed the arrangement of the books far more easily than she had feared, and it did not take her long to discover the section of shelf devoted to John Stuart Mill. She took down a title that she had not read before, settled herself in one of the study’s deep leather chairs, and began reading.

  There were occasional references in the book to the works of other authors; Amy was familiar with such references, and had always found them frustrating in the tantalising hints they gave of writings she had no way of accessing. She was several chapters in before it occurred to her that Sarah’s library might just possibly be beyond such limitations.

  To her delight, she found that references could be a joy instead of a frustration. While the study did not hold books by every one of the authors Mill referred to, in a satisfyingly large number of cases it did. It gave her the most delightful of introductions to authors she had never before heard of, and as she dipped into chapters of these new books at random a hint might be given of another subject, another author. Soon there were sizable piles of books around her chair, among them a dictionary and an atlas to solve the mysteries of the more difficult words and obscure places.

  Amy was so absorbed in the delights of the library that she lost all track of the hours passing. A discreet knock on the door intruded on her concentration, and she looked up to see the older of the two housemaids, Alice, standing in the doorway.

  ‘Excuse me disturbing you, Mrs Stewart. Only you haven’t rung, see, and I thought the bell might have gone wrong.’

  ‘Rung?’ Amy said, vaguely confused at being hauled so abruptly from a discussion of comparative economic systems. ‘What would I ring for?’

  ‘Weren’t you wanting morning tea, ma’am?’

  ‘Is it time for that already?’ Amy glanced at the longcase clock that stood against the far wall, and was startled to see the time. ‘Nearly eleven o’clock! How did it get so late?’

  ‘I’ll get your morning tea, then, shall I?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about me. I don’t really need anything, I’ve only been reading. I don’t want to be a bother.’

  Alice had the composure of a long-experienced servant. She managed to answer as if Amy’s behaviour were not at all out of the ordinary from someone whom Alice must assume to be of the same social class as her mistress.

  ‘It’s up to you whether you want it or not, ma’am. Miss Sarah usually has morning tea about this time of a morning.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose she does,’ Amy said, reassured by the answer. ‘Well, if it’s really no trouble, I wouldn’t mind something.’

  ‘I’ll bring it in here, shall I?’

  ‘Would it be a nuisance?’ Amy asked anxiously; the study was a little more distant from the kitchen than most of the other ground floor rooms. ‘Would you rather I had it somewhere else?’

  ‘It’s all one to me, ma’am,’ Alice assured Amy, too well schooled in her job for more than the trace of a smile to hover around her mouth.

  Amy was on the point of asking if it would be better for her to go into the morning room instead, when she abruptly realised that she was making far more of a nuisance of herself with her fluttering indecision than she would by a simple request for tea and biscuits. Difficult as it was for her to let herself be waited on, it was simply something she would have to get used to.

  ‘Thank you, Alice, that would be very nice. I’ll have my tea in here.’

  She was careful to move her reading matter out of harm’s way before Alice returned with a tray.

  A
fter her short break, Amy returned to her reading with renewed vigour, and was soon as absorbed as before. Her piles of books had grown even higher by the time Sarah came home and went to the study to look for her.

  ‘You have been making good use of your time.’ Sarah picked up a book from the top of the nearest heap and glanced at the title. ‘I always find Matthew Arnold rather impenetrable, though I approach him with ever such good intentions,’ she remarked, replacing the book. ‘His poetry’s a good deal easier to digest than his prose. Cast him aside if he’s boring, Amy.’

  ‘Part of it was quite interesting. He was talking about some things Mr Darwin had written—did he really say our ancestors were monkeys? I’ve heard people say he did, but you know how people make things up.’

  ‘Yes, he really did. There have been times when I’ve almost believed it, too—some people are certainly not far from being animals, at any rate. Mr Darwin’s books are here.’ Sarah pointed to one of the shelves. ‘Choose a day when you feel up to being shocked before you tackle them, though.’

  She sank into a chair and leaned against its high back. Her face looked somewhat drawn, but at the same time she was noticeably pleased with herself. ‘So you’ve had a productive morning?’

  ‘It’s been lovely,’ Amy said. ‘I’ve had a wonderful time with all these books. I read all the newspapers, too—you get more here than we do in Ruatane. Did your meeting go all right? You look a bit tired.’

  Sarah sat with her eyes closed for a few moments. She opened them, and flashed a dazzling smile at Amy. ‘I, too, have had a productive morning. Yes, it was rather hard work in places, but that did me no harm. I’ve just acquired a piece of land, and I’ll let you in on a secret—I spent somewhat more this morning than I did on your dresses the other day.’