Kitty Page 3

  Jannah Tait, who was working with considerable skill and dexterity on a very complicated cushion cover, gave an unladylike snort. ‘Not much change there.’

  ‘Hopeless in what way?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Well, apparently they would use Mrs Williams’s good napery to clean the floor, strain the milk with the duster, stir baking mixtures with their fingers and eat half of it uncooked, and forget to keep an eye on the children.’

  ‘Reverend Kelleher certainly won’t stand for that,’ Sarah said with a sigh.

  ‘But they really are a lot better now,’ Rebecca added quickly, lest she sounded too discouraging, ‘and of course a lot of them speak English quite well, thanks to the mission school. And they can read and write rather competently in their own language.’

  ‘Does every missionary family have housegirls?’ Kitty asked, wondering whether they would get any.

  ‘Usually,’ Jannah said. ‘I have three at the moment. Mrs Williams sometimes has up to seven or eight at any one time.’

  Rebecca said, ‘Mrs Williams is an inspiration, Mrs Kelleher, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy working with her. Not only is she a trained cook, nurse, midwife and teacher, but she oversees the station when Reverend Williams is away, which is quite often. The Maoris have a very deep respect for her, of course, which certainly helps.’

  ‘Is that because she’s so tall?’ Kitty asked. She couldn’t help noticing that when Mrs Williams had risen to leave the dinner table she stood a good five inches above any of the other women.

  ‘You know,’ Rebecca said after a moment, ‘I’ve never thought of it before, but that could well be at least part of the reason. How extraordinary!’

  ‘She sounds like a true soldier in God’s army,’ Sarah said.

  Rebecca’s tatting needles slowed. ‘She is, and she’s a staunch advocate of taking the older girls into our own homes. We’ve found that we have more success if we can keep an eye on them. It keeps them out of trouble.’

  ‘Trouble?’ Sarah said.

  Rebecca laid her tatting across her knee. ‘When you came into shore today, did you notice the waka passing you on the way out? The canoes?’

  Their own hands still now, Sarah and Kitty nodded.

  ‘And did you see the girls in them?’

  More nods. Kitty felt the fine hairs on her arms stir as she realised she was about to hear something that was bound, at the very least, to be intriguing.

  Rebecca said, ‘Well, I’m afraid they were on their way out to visit the men on the ship that brought you here.’

  Kitty wasn’t entirely clear about the meaning of this statement, although it was obvious that her aunt understood because her mouth had clamped shut like a trap.

  But Kitty’s hadn’t. Before she could stop herself, she blurted, ‘What sort of visit?’

  After a long moment of silence, Sarah gripped her knitting needles even more tightly. ‘It pains me to speak these words aloud, Kitty, but I imagine that the girls exchange personal favours for either trinkets or for money. Am I right, Mrs Purcell?’

  Rebecca nodded. ‘I’m afraid you are, Mrs Kelleher.’

  ‘Oh,’ Kitty said, and blinked. She felt herself blushing from her neck all the way up to her hairline, and there was a strange fluttery feeling in her stomach. To think that those girls had been on their way out to…to go with the very crewmen she’d been talking to less than an hour earlier!

  ‘All I can say is Lord have mercy on them,’ Sarah said, raising her eyes to heaven.

  ‘Apparently they think He does,’ Rebecca replied, ‘because they keep doing it and can’t see the harm in it, but we’re doing our utmost to stop it.’

  ‘Do they all do it?’ Kitty asked, appalled but fascinated.

  ‘No, not all of them, thank the Lord. But even one is too many.’

  Jannah Tait, clearly not approving of this sort of talk, even among women, redirected the conversation. ‘Tell me, Kitty, what made you decide to take up missionary work?’

  Sarah said quickly, ‘My niece has always been a devout girl. When her father died last year she felt that becoming more involved in God’s work might assist her to put her grief behind her.’

  Kitty stared at her aunt.

  Carefully not meeting her eye, Sarah deftly changed the subject again. ‘The Chambers family was mentioned at supper, Mrs Purcell. May I ask why in fact they did return to England?’

  ‘Did your husband not tell you?’ Rebecca asked in surprise.

  ‘No, he did not.’

  ‘Oh. Well, it certainly was a tragedy,’ Rebecca began. ‘Unforgivable on Mr Chambers’s part, of course, but a tragedy nonetheless. Mrs Chambers was not what you might consider a woman of strong constitution—’

  ‘She was totally unsuited to the life of a missionary’s wife,’ Jannah interrupted.

  ‘Quite,’ Rebecca agreed, ‘although she was a very pleasant woman. But she really wasn’t suited to life here in New Zealand, as Jannah says, and I’m afraid her nerves got the better of her. She became very ill and eventually found herself unable to carry out even the simplest of duties. She spent most of her time in her bed, speaking to no one and weeping almost constantly. She developed quite a mania and there was nothing we could do to help her in the end. It was most upsetting, for everyone.’

  ‘Her husband helped himself, however,’ Jannah said, ‘by forming personal liaisons with several of the Maori girls. He became very indiscreet and we were compelled to inform the Society, and the family was ordered home to England.’

  From the strange and oddly vulnerable look on Sarah’s face, Kitty could see that her aunt was wishing she hadn’t asked after all.

  Chapter Three

  Kitty woke early. Exhausted after such a long day, last night she’d had a perfunctory wash, hastily plaited her hair, then fallen into bed and a deep, dreamless sleep. This morning it had taken her several moments to remember where she was. She missed the ceaseless rocking motion of being at sea, but the susurration of small waves lapping at the beach not far from her window soothed her.

  She sat up, scratched at her sweaty scalp under the heavy plait, and looked through the window. It was warm already and, unlike yesterday, the sky was cloudless. Dying to relieve herself, she slid out of bed and knelt down to retrieve the chamber pot, then changed her mind, deciding to go out to the privy instead. She wondered whether she dare flit through the house in her nightdress, but the thought of being seen in such a state of undress by either Mr Purcell or her uncle made her reach for her cotton dressing-gown.

  She padded through the main room on bare feet, wrinkling her nose at the vaguely rancid smell left behind by last night’s lamps, and out through the kitchen. Rebecca was already up and about, stirring something in a big pot over the fire that smelled temptingly like porridge.

  ‘Good morning, Kitty,’ she said, pushing stray wisps of hair under her cap. ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, I did. I wasn’t sure that I would.’

  ‘It’s the salt air,’ Rebecca said. She raised a wooden spoon to her lips, blew on it, then tasted the contents. ‘I expect you slept well at sea, too.’

  Kitty, now on the verge of wetting herself, nodded and hastily made her way down to the dark and rather whiffy privy at the end of the kitchen garden. She hoisted her nightclothes and sat gingerly on the wooden seat, almost groaning with relief. Instead of newspaper or rags, however, she encountered a basket of large green leaves, shiny on one side but pale and almost furry in texture on the other. She used one and found it to be really rather effective.

  ‘What are the leaves in the privy?’ she asked Rebecca as she passed through the kitchen again.

  Rebecca smiled. ‘Rangiora. We don’t get a lot of newspapers here, and it works just as well.’

  Kitty smiled back and turned to go, but stopped when she felt a light touch on her arm.

  ‘Wait a moment, dear,’ Rebecca said. ‘Sit down.’

  Kitty hesitated, then tightened the sash of her dres
sing-gown and perched on the edge of a wooden chair.

  Rebecca said, ‘Forgive me for being so blunt, but I frankly don’t accept what your aunt said about your reasons for coming out here. I think there’s more to it than that. You don’t seem to be a very happy girl to me.’

  Kitty remained silent.

  ‘You didn’t choose to come, did you?’ Rebecca said. ‘Somebody chose for you.’

  Her eyes filling with hot, unbidden tears, Kitty dug her fingernails into her palms and willed herself not to cry.

  Rebecca stirred the porridge again, then wiped her hands on her apron. ‘I know it’s none of my business, but it might help if you talked about it. Problems often seem smaller if you share them with someone else. Other than God, I mean.’

  The simmering porridge made a faintly vulgar plopping noise. Kitty thought about her aunt, and how her mouth always turned resolutely down at the mere mention of a delicate or personal matter. She knew that as far as Sarah Kelleher was concerned you told those sorts of things only to God, and even then only if they were fit for His ears. Otherwise, you kept them strictly to yourself.

  Then she looked at the woman in front of her, who in less than twenty-four hours had shown her more understanding than her aunt had in five months.

  And it all came out.

  England, Summer, 1838

  Kitty knew she looked fetching—even the dull black of mourning crepe complemented her obsidian hair and pale skin—but the knowledge wasn’t enough to bolster her mood. She felt miserable because she missed her beloved father terribly, anxious because a certain gentleman she was desperate to see still hadn’t arrived, and irritated at having to sit about being polite to people she either didn’t know or didn’t particularly like. Also, she was bored.

  She didn’t enjoy garden parties, and was well aware that she and her mother had been invited to this one only because her uncle and aunt were about to depart intrepidly for the distant and mysterious Antipodes. She was surprised that the invitation had been accepted—it was not normally the done thing so early in a period of mourning—but her mother had muttered something about the importance of a family presence, so here they were.

  As far as Kitty was aware, no one from Dereham, Norfolk, had travelled to New Zealand before, and certainly not in the employ of the Church Missionary Society—if it could be called employment, because by all accounts Uncle George and Aunt Sarah would have to fend more or less for themselves when they got there. But Uncle George was chafing at the bit to go, and Aunt Sarah had always steadfastly accommodated his ambitions. Not necessarily with a smile, because she didn’t smile overly often, but submission to the wishes of her husband was a wife’s lot, especially the wife of an evangelist low-church Anglican minister.

  Kitty waved her black lace fan briskly in front of her face, but it did little to dissipate the late summer afternoon heat. Her stays were laced too tightly, and she could feel the sweat from her armpits and back soaking into the fabric of her dress. She sat up straighter, glancing surreptitiously at the other guests to see if the certain gentleman had arrived yet, but lowered her eyes quickly when she noted her mother’s pointed stare. If Emily Carlisle knew what her daughter had been up to of late, then Kitty would without doubt be locked in her bedroom for the next three years until she turned twenty-one.

  Kitty was well aware that what had happened between herself and Hugh Alexander—the most handsome, interesting and allegedly ‘dangerous’ bachelor in the district—would most certainly cause a major scandal should it become public. Twice now they had been out riding together secretly and unchaperoned, and Hugh had—well, her memory of the extraordinarily exciting things that Hugh had done wasn’t something she would be willing to divulge to anyone. But when they announced their engagement, she frequently told herself with considerable relief, they would no longer have to worry about being discovered.

  She had hoped that Hugh might have raised the subject of marriage with her father, but then Papa had died, his poor neck broken in a fall from his horse. It had been the most dreadful and unexpected shock. Lewis Carlisle, nowhere near as religiously fervent as his brother-in-law, had always said that he didn’t care where he went after his time was up, so long as it wasn’t Norwich because it was too crowded and noisy, but Kitty’s eyes still burned with tears at the thought of her wonderful father lying in the cold soil of the churchyard, alone and bereft of the humour and quick intelligence that had so characterised him in life.

  Emily, her handsome face still pale and pinched with grief, inclined her head towards her daughter and said behind the privacy of her fan, ‘Pay attention, Kitty. At least try to look as though you’re enjoying yourself.’

  ‘I am trying, Mama.’

  ‘No, you’re not. You’re fidgeting and bobbing about like a rabbit in a hayfield. Who are you looking for?’

  ‘No one.’

  Emily gave her daughter another sharp look, and Kitty ducked her head before her pink cheeks gave her away. She wondered uncomfortably whether her mother actually did have some idea of her clandestine activities.

  ‘Well, sit still, then. And do smile, dear. I know it’s difficult to be charming and attentive in company at the moment, but do try. It was very good of Sir and Lady Blackwood to invite us, despite our time of mourning.’ Emily lowered her voice even further. ‘And, Kitty, make the most of it. There are three or four eligible young bucks here today, all well connected and none of them entirely unattractive, so you would do well to put a smile on your face, do you hear me?’

  Kitty winced inwardly at her mother’s use of the old-fashioned word ‘buck’, and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. ‘Yes, Mama.’

  This had been going on for almost a year now, ever since her mother had allowed her to lower the hems on her skirts and put up her hair. And it had intensified markedly since Papa had died. Her mother seemed obsessed with the idea of marrying her off to a suitor with money—or at least a suitor with more money to his name than the Carlisles could now claim.

  Kitty’s father had been a teacher of Latin, Greek and philosophy at the nearby public boys’ school, but, unsurprisingly, his modest income had ceased upon his death. The family home had always been in his wife’s name, so at least she and Kitty had a roof over their heads, but there was no money to speak of. Emily had talked recently of setting herself up as a sempstress, and possibly taking in boarders, but it seemed to Kitty that her mother was set on marrying her off as soon as possible. This was not to get rid of her, Kitty knew, because her mother loved her very much, as had her father, but rather to assure her of a more comfortable life. Otherwise, if she remained a spinster, the best she could hope for was work as a governess to someone else’s children, or a lifetime of sewing gowns for rich women and eventually developing a hunchback and going blind from the physical strain of it, a fate that now seemed to be staring her poor mother directly in the face.

  But Kitty had already chosen the man with whom she intended to spend her life, and if all went to plan—which admittedly it might not, as Kitty had heard her mother energetically holding forth more than once on the subject of what a dreadful rake Hugh Alexander was—she and Hugh would be engaged in a matter of months, if not weeks, and married shortly thereafter. And if she couldn’t have Hugh, she didn’t want anyone.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Kitty said in a loud whisper, ‘here comes Mrs Ormsby.’

  Emily sighed heavily.

  Ida Ormsby was the wife of Bernard Ormsby, the exceedingly wealthy owner of one of Norwich’s largest textile mills. They were ‘new money’, happy to flaunt it, and as fat and odious as each other. Draped in the most voluminous and magnificent Indian silk shawl, Ida was bearing down on them wearing a dress of pale lemon Chinese doupion silk, its high sheen doing nothing to disguise the rolls of flesh struggling to escape from her stays.

  She sat down next to Kitty, wedging her into the corner of the love seat so that the wrought iron armrest dug into Kitty’s lower ribs. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs and Miss Carlisle,’ s
he said, repositioning her weight and making herself comfortable.

  Kitty recoiled slightly. Regardless of her husband’s fortune, Ida Ormsby had very bad teeth. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Ormsby. I hope you are well?’

  ‘Yes, very well, thank you. Although, of course, we’ve had quite a lot of bother at the mill, which I expect you’ve heard about.’

  Kitty and Emily regarded her with identical blank expressions. No, they hadn’t heard anything about Ormsby’s mill—they’d been too busy mourning the death of the person they had both loved more than anything else in the world.

  For the sake of politeness, Emily replied, ‘Yes, how simply dreadful for you, Mrs Ormsby.’

  Ida looked at Emily suspiciously, obviously recalling the fact that Lewis Carlisle had been a known agitator against the appalling working conditions at Bernard’s mill. Finally, she said, ‘Yes, it is. How are you both bearing up after your bereavement? I’ve been meaning to call on you, but one has been asked to sit on so many committees these days.’

  ‘We’re managing, thank you,’ Emily replied.

  ‘Oh, well, that’s good news,’ Ida said, sounding faintly disappointed, as though she’d been hoping for a response with a little more pathos, or even something diverting enough to pass on to her friends. ‘It must be hard for you, dear, what with no income to speak of now.’

  ‘We’re managing,’ Emily said again. Catching sight of her brother crossing the lawn, she called out brightly, ‘George, dear, do come and tell us about the latest plans for your expedition!’

  Kitty watched her uncle approach. He was dark, bony and angular, with a pale face that wore a perpetual frown—due probably, her father had maintained and not always in jest, to the fact that he had so many souls to save and only one lifetime in which to do it.