Kitty (7 page)

Rebecca Purcell of course welcomed them all to supper, and the fare they received was far preferable to incinerated stew.

Just as the pudding was served—stewed apples with cinnamon and cream—they were interrupted by the tread of boots on the verandah and a knock at the door. Win reluctantly tugged his napkin from his collar and rose to greet the caller. Kitty, focused on her delicious-smelling pudding, didn’t look up as conversation was exchanged outside and the visitor welcomed in.

She raised her eyes, however, when Win said, ‘Rebecca, Captain Farrell has a bit of business he thinks might interest us. Could you manage a plate for him?’

‘I’m sure I can,’ Rebecca said, getting to her feet.

‘No, don’t bother, please,’ the captain insisted. ‘I ate at Pukera. My apologies for intruding at suppertime, but I have a busy night ahead of me.’

‘Captain, I don’t think you’ve been formally introduced to Reverend and Mrs Kelleher yet, our new missionary family,’ Win said. ‘Although I believe you were on the beach when they arrived? This is Captain Rian Farrell, Reverend, who trades frequently in this area. Tomorrow you will no doubt see his schooner, the
Katipo,
anchored in the bay, and a magnificent vessel she is too. That is, Captain, if you’re not planning on leaving again at first light?’

‘No, Mr Purcell, not tomorrow,’ Farrell replied, shaking hands with George and nodding pleasantly at Sarah. ‘Good evening, Reverend, Mrs Kelleher.’

Kitty noted that her uncle did not seem terribly enthused to be meeting the captain.

‘And the young lady,’ Win went on, ‘is Miss Carlisle, Reverend Kelleher’s niece.’

‘Ah, yes, I do recall Miss Carlisle,’ Farrell said. ‘The little mermaid.’

‘Good evening, Captain,’ Kitty said as frostily as she could.

She waited in case he might choose this moment to apologise for laughing at her the previous day, which she had found even more humiliating than falling in the water, but he simply nodded, sat down, and turned to Win.

‘I have a selection of goods you may be interested in, Mr Purcell. Paper, which I’m sure Mr Colenso could put to good use in his printing press, some quite nice carpets, various seeds, tools, some agricultural machinery, and a few other bits and pieces.’

‘No muskets or grog, I hope,’ Win said, his round, whiskery face disapproving.

The Paihia mission had been engaged for years in a battle with traders and visiting ships’ crews to stop them supplying the Maoris with anything that might harm their paths to redemption, such as alcohol, tobacco and, in particular, muskets and ammunition, which were invariably used for warfare against other tribes and, on past occasions, had been used against the missionaries themselves.

‘Of course not,’ the captain said, not sounding at all offended by the suggestion.

‘What’s your outgoing cargo?’

‘Timber.’

As the two men spoke, Kitty surreptitiously studied the captain from beneath lowered lashes as she wolfed down her pudding. It was most unbecoming for a young lady to eat with such gusto, but she was still hungry and she decided she couldn’t care less what he thought of her. Tonight he was wearing a royal blue coat with brass buttons, which stood
out in marked contrast to her uncle’s and Mr Purcell’s dusty black.

Win said, ‘Well, we’d certainly be interested in the paper, depending on your asking price of course, and perhaps some of the tools, and I expect the ladies might like to have a look at the carpets.’

Farrell sat back in his seat. ‘Tomorrow morning, then? Shall I have the goods brought in, or will you come out to the
Katipo
?’

‘We’ll come out. Less likely to lose anything that way,’ Win said.

The captain rose to his feet. ‘Good. Shall we say half past ten?’

Win nodded. ‘I’ll bring Mr Colenso with me. He’ll want to inspect the paper and no doubt haggle over the price.’

‘No doubt,’ Farrell agreed. He bowed in what Kitty considered to be a slightly mocking manner. ‘Good night, ladies and gentlemen.’

K
itty and Rebecca sat squashed together on the narrow wooden seat of the dinghy, trying not to stare at Win’s red, sweaty face as he rowed them out to the
Katipo.
The morning sun was obscured by great, fluffy, pewter clouds, and out here on the harbour the wind was so brisk that Kitty had to keep a firm grip on her bonnet. On Rebecca’s left also sat William Colenso, the mission’s printer, his hat pulled well down over his long face to keep the sea spray out of his eyes.

Kitty hadn’t wanted to visit Rian Farrell’s schooner at all, but Sarah, deciding she needed a decent rug for the parlour, had asked her to go as she herself couldn’t face even the idea of stepping off dry land again. Amy had volunteered to accompany Kitty, to say ‘kia ora’ to the crew, but Sarah had said certainly not and given her the job of washing the musty-smelling linen that had been stored in the travelling trunks for months.

As the dinghy drew closer to the
Katipo,
Kitty was able to appreciate what a truly beautiful vessel she really was, even with her sails furled. A three-masted fore-and-aft schooner—which Kitty was delighted to be able to recognise as a result of her frequent illicit conversations with Captain Monk—she sat long and low in the water, not yet having unloaded her cargo. Her sleek wooden hull was painted black with a blood-red stripe running just below the bulwark, and her jib-boom seemed to soar above the waves. The schooner’s figurehead, tucked unobtrusively beneath the base of her bowsprit, was the head and torso of a woman with canary-coloured hair and a good deal of bosom on display.

She could see Captain Farrell now, standing amidships looking down at them as Win manoeuvred the dinghy alongside, and deliberately turned her head away in time to see someone hurl the contents of a bucket over the stern of the schooner. From nowhere a cacophony of screaming gulls descended, swooping onto the greasy mess floating on the water.

Win tossed up a line to secure the dinghy, then climbed the rope ladder lowered by one of Farrell’s crew. When he reached the top he waited while Rebecca followed him, although she ascended with considerably more care than her husband. Kitty had been surprised, even a little shocked, when Rebecca had stepped into the dinghy: at home a woman in her advanced condition would seldom have been seen outside her front door, never mind gallivanting about in dinghies. But, as Kitty had no need to remind herself, this wasn’t England.

Mr Colenso took her hand until she had a firm grasp on the lower rungs of the ladder. Above her she could see Win leaning as far out as possible to help Rebecca over the rail. As Rebecca stepped off, Kitty began to climb. Nearing the top she glanced up again and was dismayed to see Rian Farrell’s face looming over the bulwark. At least he wasn’t laughing this time. He reached out a callused hand and hauled her rather indelicately over the rail. She banged her knee sharply and bit her lip, but refused to give him the pleasure of seeing how much it had hurt.

‘Good morning, Miss Carlisle,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d do you the honour of welcoming you on board the
Katipo
myself.’

‘Thank you, Captain,’ Kitty replied, dying to rub her throbbing knee but forcing herself to stand upright. ‘How thoughtful of you.’

‘Yes, wasn’t it?’ Rian agreed. ‘I imagine you’re here to inspect the carpets?’

Kitty gave him a cool stare, annoyed that he’d assumed she would be interested only in household furnishings. ‘No, actually, I’m here to look at the agricultural machinery.’

Rian’s eyebrows went up. ‘Are you really?’

The look on his face made Kitty smile. ‘No. My aunt would like a rug for our house, but she doesn’t care for the sea and sent me to look instead.’

‘She must have had an awful time on the way out, then,’ Rian said.

Kitty checked his face for signs of sarcasm, but couldn’t see any.

‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘It’s a hell of a voyage for someone averse to the ocean.’

‘Yes, she did suffer somewhat.’

‘Did you enjoy it, though?’ he asked. ‘The voyage, I mean?’

Unable to help herself, Kitty’s face lit up. ‘Oh yes, I adored it,’ she said, remembering the hours spent leaning over the ship’s rail watching the ocean run past beneath her. ‘There’s something about the sea, isn’t there?’

But before Rian could respond, Win, noting Kitty’s delighted expression and mistaking the reason for it, interrupted swiftly. ‘Captain, your cargo?’

‘Of course,’ Rian said, moving towards a wide hatch propped open in the centre of the deck, his visitors following him.

But before Kitty reached the hatch, something caught her eye—a compact ball of black fur curled into the hollow formed by a coil of rope.

‘Oh, look, a cat!’ she exclaimed and reached down to stroke the sleeping animal.

Rian shouted ‘No!’ but it was too late. The cat snapped open citrine eyes and uncurled itself, bouncing back on its haunches and striking out at Kitty. In a blur its claws raked the back of her hand, immediately drawing three bright lines of blood.

Kitty gasped and whipped her hand back. The cat, hissing malevolently, took another swipe, then leapt out of the rope and shot up the mainmast, not stopping until it reached the upper boom far above them, where it crouched in fluffy rancour, still spitting.

‘What a foul-tempered little creature,’ Kitty said, blinking back involuntary tears of pain and pressing down on her bleeding scratches with her handkerchief.

‘Not normally,’ Rian said. ‘She just doesn’t like women.’

Kitty ignored the jibe. ‘Has it got a name?’

‘Boadicea.’

‘How apt.’

Rian glanced at Kitty’s hand. ‘Is it bleeding much?’

She lifted the handkerchief. ‘Yes.’

‘Perhaps we should go back to shore,’ Rebecca said anxiously.

‘No need,’ Rian said, calling over his shoulder, ‘Hawk!’

From the shadows of the schooner’s cabin emerged a figure dressed in a fawn shirt and loose trousers. The shirt, open at the neck and revealing a smooth copper-coloured chest, was cinched by a fancy leather belt holding a sharp-bladed knife. The man’s hair had been fashioned into two gleaming black plaits hanging almost to his waist, and his broad face was as red-brown and as hairless as his chest. He approached silently, oblivious to the stares of the
Katipo’s
visitors, and waited with his arms folded across his chest.

‘This is Running Hawk of the Seneca, one of the six tribes of the Iroquois Nation of America, and my first mate,’ Rian said, then turned to him and added conversationally, ‘Boadicea’s had a go at the lady’s hand. Could you get her some of that evil-smelling salve of yours?’

‘Please, don’t go to any trouble,’ Kitty insisted.

Hawk regarded her politely, then retreated back into the cabin. After a moment he reappeared carrying a folded cloth and a green glass jar; he removed the lid and immediately a rancid stench wafted up.

Win jerked his head back. ‘Heavens, man, what is it?’

Rian shrugged. ‘Not sure, but it works on just about everything.’

‘It is a traditional recipe of my grandmother’s,’ Hawk said in good, clear English. ‘She is a revered medicine woman. It has many uses.’

Kitty wrinkled her nose at the dreadful stink, but when Hawk signalled for her to extend her injured hand, she did so, palm down. The Indian carefully wiped away the still-oozing blood with the now heavily stained handkerchief, then bent down, stuck the index finger of his right hand into the jar and scooped out a blob of brownish grease. Gently dabbing it over the vicious scratches, he wrapped Kitty’s hand in the clean cloth and tucked the edges neatly under at the wrist.

Putting the lid back on the jar he said, ‘Do not take the cloth off for three days,’ then nodded to Kitty before padding off across the deck and disappearing into the cabin again.

William Colenso, who had observed everything with interest, said, ‘Well, that was fascinating, wasn’t it? Is he your ship’s surgeon, Farrell?’

‘No,’ Rian said. ‘We see to ourselves.’

‘Where
is
the rest of your crew?’ Win asked suspiciously.

‘All ashore,’ Rian replied, ‘except our cook, who I believe is in the galley preparing our dinner.’

‘At Paihia?’

‘No, Kororareka.’

Win grunted with ill-concealed disapproval. ‘Well, let’s get on with it then, shall we?’

Rebecca chose a cheerful red and yellow carpet, while Kitty selected one patterned with flowers and leaves in green, blue and grey—muted colours she thought her aunt would like. Her hand barely even stung now, which was a relief. As a child, she had once been scratched by a terrified fox cub, which had also been very painful, and her arm had become mildly infected so that the local physician had had to be summoned. William Colenso approved of the paper, after opening at least a dozen reams at random to ensure that it was all of the same quality. Win selected some bits and pieces he declared would be useful on the mission farm, then arranged for the lot to be taken ashore when the
Katipo’s
crew returned from Kororareka. Which, he said disparagingly to Mr Colenso and well within the captain’s hearing, could be any time over the next forty-eight hours, depending on the extent of their depravity.

To Rian directly, he said, ‘I hope you will be joining us on Sunday morning, Captain Farrell. You missed a wonderful service a couple of weeks ago when we confirmed forty-four of our Maori flock and twenty of our own. Marvellous day, it was. The Bishop of Australia officiated.’

‘So I heard,’ Rian said. The Maoris at Pukera had, by all accounts, thoroughly enjoyed getting dressed up for the event. ‘Unfortunately we’ll be at the Waitemata by Sunday and after that probably the Manukau, loading timber.’

‘When might you be calling back this way? Perhaps you could attend a service then?’ Win asked, ever hopeful regarding the possibility of the captain’s personal salvation.

‘Perhaps,’ Rian replied diplomatically, not quite meeting Win’s eye.

Business concluded, the visitors departed. As Win turned the dinghy away from the
Katipo
and struck out for the shore, Kitty glanced back to see if the captain was still on deck, but all she could see was the hateful little cat, still crouched high on the boom, staring haughtily down at them.

Kitty didn’t see Rian Farrell again for two months. Her hand healed beautifully with barely a mark to show where the deep scratches had been, and Mrs Williams made a note to ask the ‘Red Indian gentleman’, as she referred to him, for the recipe for his wonderful healing salve.

The end of January and February passed in a swelter of heat, interspersed with sudden heavy downpours and a plague of enormous flies and shiny black crickets. The flies walked over everything that might be considered edible, including every kitchen utensil and surface, and the crickets hid in corners, under furniture and in bedding. The mission’s children delighted in hunting them out then squashing them juicily underfoot, causing the remains to release a sharp stink that lingered long after the crushed corpses had been swept up. Win said it was the heat bringing them, and Kitty dreaded to think what the winter might deliver—not wetas looking for somewhere dry to spend the cooler months, she sincerely hoped. The first one she’d encountered had been so utterly alien and repulsive, with its long, jointed legs, enormous gleaming body and revoltingly supple antennae waving above beady eyes, that she’d almost fainted from fright.

Kitty wasn’t enjoying the hot weather at all. It was, she decided, an altogether different sort of heat than that of a Norfolk summer—stickier, heavier and much more oppressive. Without the sea breezes coming off the harbour it would have been unbearable. The heat gave her a headache and she sweated almost constantly, which left her hair lank and her body and clothes particularly pungent by the end of the day, requiring considerable sponging of both. She had increased her baths from one to two a week, which helped, but she was the only one in the house who had. Sarah refused to get undressed for anything except bed—and
Kitty sometimes wondered if she even did that—and Uncle George was apparently oblivious to the fact that he smelled like a badger’s set, refusing even to go about in his shirt-sleeves.

And nor was the heat doing much for anyone’s temper. Sarah in particular was growing increasingly disillusioned with Amy, suspecting her of being sneaky and light-fingered, among many other criticisms. The most recent incident related to the whereabouts of Sarah’s precious Spode ‘frog pattern’ meat platter—cherished because it was a piece identical to the very service used at King George’s coronation in 1821. Sarah was convinced Amy had stolen it.

Amy was certainly a handful. She never said aloud that, as far as she was concerned, her presence in the Kelleher household was only as a companion to her royal cousin Wai, but her behaviour certainly implied it. She was obviously intelligent and quite skilled at reading and writing both English and Maori, but she showed little interest in learning the finer points of housekeeping and the domestic arts, consistently approaching every task she was given with what could only be described as an apathetic and at times even impertinent attitude. She simply flattened the sheets and underblankets, then drew the quilt over them, so that the beds looked made but actually weren’t. When she was asked to prepare vegetables she always ‘forgot’ that peas need to be shelled, or potatoes peeled, and green beans invariably appeared on plates with bits of stalk still attached unless she was supervised throughout the entire process. The floor was never swept or washed properly, much of the dirt ending up under Sarah’s new rug in the parlour, crockery and cooking implements were frequently found on the shelf with food still stuck to them, and no chore was ever quite completed. She was unfailingly polite, however, and always apologised profusely for these misdemeanours, but in a manner that left people with the vague impression that they had somehow been tricked or, at the very least, patronised.

With Kitty, though, she was less obsequious—perhaps because she knew that the balance of power did not lie in Kitty’s hands, but in Sarah’s. George took very little notice of what happened in the house, being out of it much of the time or shut upstairs in his stiflingly hot little
study working on his sermons. Or selecting tracts from the Bible he deemed suitable to be translated into Maori and subsequently printed by Mr Colenso, a project George had pounced upon with fervour. If either of the housegirls irritated him, he never said so.