Her finder was very like that man, but not he; his hair was cut off, his eyes were greyer. His smile was beautiful too, teeth as white as snow and not one missing. It was too dim to see more, but when he extended his hand she took it and held on to it, associating him with the one who brought her ashore and still lived in her memory vividly. Once on the road, her eyes cleared enough to see that he was older than her hero of the rock, as brown of skin and dark of hair; they might have been brothers. This conclusion was what prompted her to trust him, to walk with him.
“You are cold,” he said now. “I beg ye, let me give ye my shirt. I mean no insult, but I must touch ye to put it on, Kitty.”
Even had he meant to insult her she was too exhausted to resist, so she stood docilely while he peeled his shirt off and slid her arms into its sleeves, then left her to tie its ends together in a knot about her waist.
“Warmer?”
“Yes.”
Somehow she managed to force her legs to keep moving until they reached the last section of road, which plunged steeply down a hill to a different darkness, lit with pinpoints of flame and, far out, a white flurry. She tripped and fell heavily.
“That settles it,” said Richard, abandoning the torch. He plucked her up, draped her around his shoulders with her wrists pinioned by one hand, her legs by the other, and set off, as sure-footed as if he walked by day. Near the bottom stood a house. He marched up to it and thumped on its door.
“Stephen!” he called.
“Christ, Richard, abducting females?” asked the man from the rock, eyes dancing with unmalicious mockery.
“The poor child spent last night in the Cascade woods. Some bastard attacked her and stole her things. Light me home, please.”
“Let me carry her,” said Stephen. “Ye must be worn out.”
Yes, oh yes, please carry me! she cried silently. But Richard Morgan shook his head.
“Nay, I’ve carried her down the hill, no more. She has lice. Just see me home.”
“What do lice matter? Bring her in,” Stephen commanded, holding the door wide. “Ye have no fire lit, and since ye planned to eat with me, ye have no food prepared. Bring her in, man! I have seen my share of vermin these past two days.” His heart twisted at the look on Richard’s face. Who knows why a man loves, or whom he will love? He has crossed the deck to his fate, just as I did on Alexander. “I have fish-chowder. She will be able to tolerate the broth.”
“Lice first, else she’ll sicken. What she needs most is a bath and clean clothes. Have ye ample hot water on the hob? D’ye need cold? I am off to Olivia Lucas to borrow.”
“I have water enough, but no bath and no louse comb. See if Olivia can oblige.”
Off went Richard, leaving Stephen alone with the scrap, who had recovered sufficiently to stare at him with worshipful eyes—the most extraordinary eyes he had ever seen, an ale color speckled with dark brown dots, and fringed by thick lashes so fair that only their crystal gleam in the candlelight betrayed their presence. Thinner by far than probably God had intended her to be, owning an oval face and no beauty save for those eyes; she had a typically large English nose and prominent English chin.
He put a chair in the middle of the floor and sat her on it. “I am Stephen Donovan,” he said, ladling liquid off the top of the chowder and setting it aside in a bowl to cool. “Who are you?”
“Catherine Clark. Kitty,” she answered, smiling to reveal a trace of dimple in her left cheek and regular, discolored teeth. A sign, thought the experienced sailor, of perpetual seasickness and lack of nourishment.
“You helped me onto the rock,” she said.
“Along with half a hundred others, so indeed I did. Now tell me about the man and your night in the woods, Kitty.”
She explained, composure growing with every passing minute, taking in the neat parlor-cum-kitchen with its table, several nice chairs, kitchen bench, another table which apparently served him as a desk, the sanded walls adorned with three sets of enormous fanged jaws; a chessboard and men sat on the desk together with an inkwell, quills and papers, and the table was set for two.
“A man with yellow hair and four missing front teeth.”
“Yes.”
“Tom Jones Two, for sure.” He gave her the bowl. “Drink.”
When she sipped gingerly at the broth an expression of bliss came over her face; she drank it down greedily and held out the empty bowl. “Please may I have some more, Mr. Donovan?”
“Stephen. Ye may have more in a little while, Kitty. Let that lot settle first. Have ye been seasick often?”
“Forever,” she said simply.
“Well, starting tomorrow, scrub your teeth every day with some ashes from the fire. If ye do not, ye’ll lose them. Bringing up bile for months on end eats them away to nothing.”
“I am sorry for bringing lice into your house,” she said.
“Pish and tush, child! Richard will fetch ye new clothes and we will burn these. But I think ye should cut off your hair, if ye can bear to. Not to the scalp, just short.”
She flinched, but nodded obediently.
Richard returned bearing a small tin bathtub with clothes in it. “Olivia Lucas is a treasure,” he said, dumping the bath down and removing its contents. “Has Kitty told ye what happened?”
“Aye. Her attacker was Tom Jones Two. Unmistakable.”
The two men half-filled the baby’s bath with a mixture of hot and cold water, working, thought the dazed Kitty, as if they truly were brothers.
“Are ye accustomed to bathing, Kitty?” Richard asked. It was the most delicate way he could think to put the question; she may never have washed in her life, judging from her appearance.
“Oh, yes. I cannot thank you enough, Mr. Morgan. I have not been able to wash properly since I left Lady Juliana. Aboard her, we managed to keep clean and free of lice. If you give me a pair of scissors I will cut off my hair,” she said, her speech polite but faintly Londonish—Surrey or Kent, perhaps.
Richard looked horrified. “Let us not cut off the hair yet! I have a fine-toothed comb and we will keep using it until your hair is free, even of nits. My name is Richard, not Mr. Morgan. Where are ye from, Kitty?”
“Faversham in Kent. Then the girls’ workhouse in Canterbury, then the manor at St. Paul Deptford as a kitchen servant. I was tried at Maidstone and sentenced to seven years’ transportation,” she recited humbly. “I stole some muslin from a shop. I think.”
“How old are ye?” Stephen asked.
“Twenty last month.”
“Time for that bath.” Richard bent and picked up the tub as if it weighed a feather. “Ye can have the bedroom and the candle, and scrub. Give me your shoes and throw your dirty clothes through the window onto the ground outside. Stephen, carry her new clothes, soap and a brush—look useful, do! Wash your hair, child, scrub your scalp and then comb the hair as if your life depended upon it.” He laughed softly. “The fate of your hair certainly does.”
“Now to Tom Jones Two,” said Richard when they had left her to her own devices. “How do we go about that?”
“Leave it to me.” Stephen lit a candle from the fire, then ladled chowder into two big bowls and broke a loaf of bread into pieces. “I do not think it politic to bother the Major, as Mrs. Morgan is his housekeeper. The news that ye’ve picked up a stray will reach her soon enough as it is. What good fortune that her surname is Clark! I shall go to our Lieutenant Ralphie darling and recount the tale, emphasizing that the girl is not one of his ‘damned whores.’ With a name like Clark, he will be disposed to believe me. Besides, he loathes the second Thomas Jones, in which matter he displays excellent taste. But I fear we will never see her bedding or her property—Jones will already have bestowed them upon some damned whore in return for her favors.”
Picking up her shoes, Richard exchanged a glance with Stephen and grimaced. “They smell worse than Alexander’s bilges,” he said, throwing them into the fire. He washed his hands thoroughly at Stephen’s be
nch. “See if ye can charm our Lieutenant Ralphie darling into donating her a new pair of shoes now that Stores has some.” He sat down to consume bread and chowder hungrily. “I thought she was a cat,” he said out of the blue.
“Eh?”
“She mewed from the forest. It sounded like cat. I went in hoping to find ye a new Rodney.”
Face softening, Stephen looked at him across the table. If that was not just like him! Did he never think of himself first? And now this girl of wretched circumstances, no more a criminal than the Virgin Mary. Some poor little bumpkin out of a workhouse. What had possessed him to fall in love with her? He was hooked, sad fish. But why her? He had helped dozens ashore, girls and women of great good looks, some of them clearly educated, some of them sprightly, witty, refined even. Not every female convict was a damned whore. So why Catherine Clark? Pinched and plain, fair and foolish. An everyday nobody, devoid of charm, brain, beauty.
“Bless ye for the thought,” Stephen said, “but Olivia has promised me one of her kittens, a marmalade male with no white on him. He already has a name—Tobias.” Chowder finished, he rose to make sure there was enough in the pot to yield them more, yet still leave a bit for the Kitty. “Did ye ever see such eyes?” he asked as he went to the hob.
Because he turned away he missed the sight of Richard’s spasm; by the time he swung back the pain was vanishing, though enough of it lingered to shock him.
“Yes,” said Richard steadily, “I have seen such eyes. In my son, William Henry.”
“Did ye have just the one son, Richard?”
“Just William Henry. His sister died of the smallpox before he was born. His mother died as if felled by a fist when he was eight. He—he disappeared not long before his tenth birthday. People thought he drowned in the Avon, though I did not think so. Or perhaps it is more honest to say that I did not want to think so. He was with a master from Colston’s School. The master shot himself—left a note saying he caused William Henry’s death, which only compounded the confusion. The whole of Bristol searched for a week, but William Henry’s body was never found. I kept on with the search. The worst agony was the doubt—if he died, how did he die? The only one who might have told me was dead by his own hand.”
The wonder of it, thought Stephen, is that he could make a brother out of me, an unashamed Miss Molly. The master—what a fabulous profession for a child molester!—did something. On that I would stake my life, and Richard knows it too. Yet never once has he identified me with that man because of what I am. “Go on, Richard,” he said gently.
“After that I cared not whether I lived or died. I have told ye of the excise fraud and the swindlers who ridded themselves of me by sending me to trial in Gloucester.” His head tilted, he looked down at the tabletop with lashes lowered, face contemplative and smooth. “But now I understand that William Henry is dead. Her eyes are God’s message. They have answered much.”
Stephen wept. Part of his grief was for Richard’s loss, but part was for his own, though he had never hoped, simply attended like an acolyte a priest, waiting for the divine communion to begin. Thinking that, in the absence of love, at least there was the exquisite comfort of knowing that Richard belonged to no one else. But of course he belonged: to his dead family, and most of all to William Henry. Whom he had lost forever. Until God sent Catherine-Kitty Clark to stare at him out of his son’s eyes. A benediction. And that is how it happens. A look, a laugh, a word, a gesture, meaningless to others because meaning lies in the absolutely unique and personal. Time and torment.
“If ye rest easier, I rejoice,” Stephen said.
The inner door opened; both men turned.
To Richard she looked so beautiful, scrubbed clean from baby-floss hair to pearly toenails, smiling as gravely as a child on its first independent errand. Enchanting. So lovable. His own little Kitty, whom he would care for until he died.
To Stephen she simply looked a more palatable version of what she had been dirty—pinched and plain, fair and foolish. The smile? Ordinary, a trifle mawkish. Oh, the machinations of fate! To give this humdrum girl the one thing in all the world could catch and hold Richard Morgan fast.
“Ye need a shirt before we brave Sydney Town’s August wind,” said Stephen, tossing one to Richard. “Kitty, your shoes were so filthy we had to burn them. I will get ye more as soon as maybe, but ye’ll have to let us chair ye to Richard’s house.”
“Could I not stay here?” she asked.
“In a house with naught but hammocks? Besides, I may have a visitor later. Ready?”
Outside he extended his hand to Richard, who gripped it. Kitty hopped onto their linked arms, one of her own arms about Richard’s neck, the other about Stephen’s. Each with a torch in his free hand, the two men bore her down the vale, up beyond King’s dam and pond, to where Richard’s house stood on the edge of the forest.
The fire was set, wood piled alongside the hearth. Stephen saluted Richard, bowed lavishly to Kitty, and left them to their own devices. There was housework to do in his own home and work with the convicts started at dawn. No, it did not! Tomorrow, he remembered, was Sunday.
Richard carried her to his privy, worried that her tender feet would not tolerate the path, then carried her back. “If ye need it in the night, wake me,” he said, tucking her into his feather bed.
“Where will you sleep?” she asked.
“On the floor.”
Her lips parted to say something else, but sleep claimed her with the words unsaid, and Richard knew that no amount of noise or movement would wake her. So he stripped off his clothes, put them in a bucket and carried it outside before walking to his pool, there to make sure he harbored no louse. Shivering with cold, he returned to warm by the fire, donned a pair of old trowsers, made a bed of Sirius canvas on the floor and lay down in perfect content. His eyes closed and he slept immediately.
To wake before dawn to the sound of John Lawrell’s rooster crowing. The fire was embers but retrievable; he piled wood on it and inspected the contents of his larder, no better stocked than any other Norfolk Island larder. Most of the provisions were still to come ashore. As usual, what had already come ashore consisted of rum and clothing, the two least useful items in his opinion. But he had a loaf of Aaron Davis’s corn bread, made with just enough precious wheat flour to render it edible, and the garden was full of good things—cabbages, cauliflowers, cress down by the stream, broad beans—parsley and lettuce, which grew all year round.
Dawn came, then sunrise. He walked across to his bed to look down at Kitty, who seemed not to have moved. Lying on her back in the modified man’s shirt Olivia Lucas had donated, arms and chest uncovered. With her eyelids down, he could study her more dispassionately than when she gazed at him through William Henry’s eyes. Fair, fine straight hair that could not be called either gold or flaxen; fair brows and lashes; white skin gone only a little pink, which led him to assume she had not gone on deck very often; a rather big and bumpy nose; a sweet pink mouth which reminded him of Mary’s; a prominent chin above a long, slender neck; fine hands with tapering fingers.
Major Ross held divine service at eight, and, like King (a later riser), would tolerate no absentees; Richard would have to go, though she, not yet on the island’s register, would not be missed. Expose her to Lizzie Lock unprepared? Never! So he went up the brook to his bath, donned his only pair of carefully preserved breeches and stockings, his coat, greatcoat and tricorn, one of his two remaining pairs of shoes. She slumbered on. He debated whether to leave her a note, then concluded that she probably could not read or write. So in the end he departed in the hope that she would not wake until he returned in an hour and a half.
“How is Kitty?” Stephen asked, joining him after the service.
“Asleep.”
“Johnny will bring ye a second bed this afternoon, but I am afraid ye’ll have to stuff its mattress and pillow with straw.”
“Ye’re very good.” He whistled up MacTavish, who had accepted the presen
ce of a stranger in his house by retreating outside before she could see him.
“I will try to get ye some extra stores, but they may have to wait until the morrow. Ralphie darling does not have the keys anymore, and Freeman is a cold bastard, not prone to put himself out.”
“Well I know it. I had best be off.”
Stephen cuffed him affectionately on the shoulder. “Richard, ye’re as clucky as an old hen.”
“I have a chick,” grinned Richard. “Come, MacTavish!”
Morning had apparently generated a change of heart in the dog, which bounded through the door and leaped onto Richard’s bed, there to lick Kitty’s arm, flung across the pillows. She woke with a start, stared into a whiskery canine face, and smiled.
“That,” said Richard, removing his hat, “is MacTavish. Are ye well, Kitty?”
“Very,” she said, struggling to a sitting position. “Is it so late? You have been out already.”
“Divine service,” he explained. “Get out of bed and I will take ye to my bath. The ground is fairly soft, ye’ll not hurt your feet. Tomorrow ye’ll probably have shoes.”
She visited the privy, then followed him to the small pool in the forest, alongside which he had put soap and a rag towel.
“The water is cold, but ye’ll enjoy it once ye’re in. ’Tis very Roman—deep enough to submerge ye, not deep enough to drown in. When ye’re done, come back to the house and I will give ye breakfast, such as it is. Mrs. Lucas will visit later to talk to ye about your needs, though I fear ye’ll have naught but convict slops to wear, and horrible shoes—no heels or buckles. Did ye have nice things in your bundle?”
“No, just slops.” She hesitated. “I had a bath last night. Must I have another this morning?”
Now was the time to get some things straight. Richard looked stern. “This climate is not England’s and this place is not England. Ye’ll have to work in the garden, care for a sow, find food for it with a hatchet or carry cobs of Indian corn from the granary for it. Ye’ll sweat, just as I sweat. Therefore ye’ll bathe every evening after the work is done. Today ye can have two baths—ye’ll not wash the last of Surprize away with one scrub, particularly your hair. If ye’re to share my house, I require that your person be as clean as my house and my own person.”