Amber

by Deborah Challinor

  A hand settled on Kitty’s trembling shoulder and a familiar voice said, ‘Kitty, mo ghrá, it’s me.’

  Kitty raised her eyes, and there he was. ‘Oh God, Rian, help her!’ she cried, holding Amber up to him. ‘Please help her!’

  But Rian, staring in mute horror now at the small, limp form cradled in his wife’s arms, was paralysed and unable to move.

  It was Hawk, moving quickly, who plucked Amber from Kitty’s grasp, laid her on the ground and felt in her neck for a pulse. Grimly he noted the way her limbs flopped lifelessly, and how her eyes had rolled up into her head, and feared that they were too late.

  Simon had been distraught when he’d discovered that Kitty and Amber had apparently vanished into thin air. He’d searched the area around their campsite and shouted himself hoarse for over an hour before he’d finally succumbed to despair and collapsed in a heap with his head in his hands. That was how Rian had found him—babbling repeatedly that it was all his fault for not looking after them.

  Rian and the crew were heading overland back to Paihia, dirty, tired and deeply disillusioned by the shambles they’d witnessed at the Kapotai pa. Major Cyprian Bridge had proved himself completely incompetent, Tamati Waka Nene’s two most trusted lieutenants had performed almost as poorly, and, worst of all, the Kapotai themselves had behaved no better than children. Rian’s mood, therefore, was already fairly dire, and the discovery that Kitty had taken it upon herself to return to the Bay of Islands and had now gone missing made him white with fear and anger.

  As soon as Simon had managed to relate what had happened, giving only a very garbled explanation of why Kitty had a child with her, Rian ordered Daniel to return to Paihia with the horses, and Hawk to begin tracking. Hawk had picked up Kitty’s trail fairly quickly, despite the wet conditions, and had tracked her back to the Kawakawa, where he’d found a small amount of blood near the river’s edge. Keeping the unpleasant discovery to himself, he advised Rian that it looked as though several people had gone onto the river at that point, although he couldn’t say whether they’d travelled upstream or downstream. Rian, convinced that Kitty had been taken captive by either Heke’s or Kawiti’s people, guessed that they had gone inland, heading for the new pa at Ohaeawai.

  It had taken them all that night to walk upriver, never daring to leave the riverbank in case Kitty and her captors had come ashore again somewhere and they missed the signs. The sun had been up for several hours and they were almost asleep on their feet and beginning to fear that Kitty had been lost, when she had crawled out of the swollen river only yards in front of them. Later, Rian told everyone it had been extreme good luck, but Hawk thought it far more likely to be the work of some benevolent god.

  Now they were crossing the wide mouth of the Kawakawa and heading back to Paihia in a waka ‘borrowed’ from a landing place near the ruins of Pomare’s pa at the southern end of the harbour. Rian had said very little to either Kitty or Amber, although Kitty noticed him glancing at Amber frequently, as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Amber was pale and clearly exhausted, but she was all right: Hawk had held her upside-down and whacked her across the back until she’d given an enormous start and vomited up what had seemed like several pints of river water. Then she’d cried for a few minutes, sat up, pointed at Gideon’s bald head and smiled.

  Kitty had no idea what Rian was thinking because he’d been so reticent, and it was hardly the sort of thing she could discuss with him here, jammed between the crew in a waka in the middle of the harbour. He was very angry, though, she could see that—especially with her.

  Haunui greeted them as they landed at Paihia, eager to know whether the stories of the shambles at Waikare were true.

  ‘Yes,’ Rian said shortly, then stomped off across the sand.

  Unfortunately, he had to stomp back a minute later to ask Kitty whether she was staying with Sarah and was it still acceptable if he stayed there too.

  ‘Of course it is,’ she replied tersely, unable to decide whether she was feeling anger, frustration or disappointment. She stayed on the beach, talking to Haunui about what had happened, and of her deep shock at the ease with which she had despatched Amy when she’d believed Amber’s life to be at stake, hoping to give Rian enough time to settle down. Then, when Amber started to yawn hugely, she realised she couldn’t delay the confrontation any longer.

  Sarah greeted Kitty and Amber warmly as they trudged in through the front door, clearly relieved that they had returned more or less unscathed, then warned them in a loud whisper that Rian was sitting on the bench in the back garden with a bottle of her best port and a face like thunder.

  ‘Have you had a tiff?’ she asked bluntly.

  ‘It seems so,’ Kitty replied.

  ‘About…?’ Sarah nodded her head at Amber, who was yawning and rubbing her eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ Kitty admitted, and related the events of the past few days to her appalled aunt, adding, ‘So, yes, I think it has come as a bit of a shock.’

  ‘Well, I’d be very surprised if it hadn’t,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s not just any man who’d be willing to take on another’s child, you know.’ She dampened the corner of her apron with spit and wiped a dirty mark off Amber’s face. ‘Still, you’re not married to just any man, are you?’ She laid a hand on Kitty’s cheek. ‘Don’t fret, dear. God has a way of making sure these things work out.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ Kitty said.

  She gave Amber a thorough wash with soap and hot water and made her something to eat. As the little girl’s eyes started to droop, she tucked her into bed and sat with her for the few minutes it took her to fall into a deep sleep. Then she went downstairs.

  Rian was still slumped on the bench in the garden, his eyes closed and the half-empty bottle of port at his elbow. Ngahuia and Rangimarie were picking vegetables for supper, but after a glance from Kitty, which they returned with a sympathetic look of their own, they went inside.

  Kitty moved the port and sat down on the bench.

  ‘Are you awake?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes,’ Rian mumbled, although he didn’t open his eyes.

  ‘I’d like to talk to you. About Amber.’

  Rian said nothing.

  So Kitty told him exactly what had happened from the first moment she had encountered Amber in Shortland Street, and how she had been thinking and feeling, and how her love for the child had grown to the extent that she’d had no option but to take Amy’s life. It took her half an hour, during which Rian drank another quarter of the port.

  When she had finished, he sat forward with his elbows on his knees and turned his head to Kitty. ‘Do you think it’s right to take a child away from everything she knows and push her into a life completely foreign to her?’

  ‘I think it’s right if all that child knows is hunger and loneliness and deprivation. She was wearing rags, Rian, and she was starving and someone had been beating her.’

  Rian made a face, although whether it was at the thought of a small, defenceless child being battered or because he was finding this conversation so difficult, Kitty couldn’t tell.

  ‘How the hell are you going to look after her, though?’ he demanded. ‘Have you thought about that? Have you thought about the practicalities of it?’

  ‘I’ll look after her—we’ll look after her—the way any child would be looked after in a good home.’

  ‘But the Katipo isn’t a good home,’ Rian countered. ‘The Katipo’s a schooner and people can fall off schooners. People can fall off any sort of ship. Especially children.’

  He sat back and contemplated the bottle on the grass at his feet, but didn’t reach for it. Instead, he rubbed his hands over his face and said something so unexpected and so profoundly moving that Kitty could barely swallow around the lump in her throat.

  ‘My son was so young when he died that we hadn’t even had time to name him. That was the worst thing of all, Kitty. I loved him so much, and he died without a name.’

 
; Kitty slid her hand across the bench, took hold of Rian’s, and waited.

  After a moment, he spoke again. ‘What if we took her in, Kitty, and somehow we lost—’ He stopped. ‘Christ, I can’t even say it.’

  ‘Rian,’ Kitty said quietly, without looking at him, ‘I’ve already taken her in. I can’t undo that. I’ve made my choice.’

  She let the implication hang in the air between them, shocked by what she had just said, and even more shaken by the fact that she meant it.

  Rian closed his eyes. ‘Then I don’t have a choice, do I?’

  Kitty squeezed his hand. ‘This is…just how I feel about it, Rian. This isn’t blackmail.’

  ‘No, I know it isn’t,’ he said eventually. Then he sighed. ‘But you’re more important to me than anything else on this earth, Kitty, and I’m not willing to live my life without you.’ He opened one eye and asked, ‘Do you think she has the makings of a good sailor?’

  Epilogue

  1 June 1845

  Halfway between New Zealand and Panama, just east of the Marquesas Islands, the Katipo skimmed swiftly and elegantly across the Pacific Ocean as the wind snapped in her sails. Soon she would be drawn by the Peru current up and across the equator and into the south-east trades, and it would be all hands on deck. But for now they were all below in the mess-room, having a party.

  Kitty stuck her head into the galley and said to Pierre, ‘Are you ready? We are.’

  Pierre nodded and, unable to keep the enormous grin off his face, lifted a platter and carried it through, the crew launching into a rowdy rendition of ‘For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ as he set it on the table in front of Amber. On it was a large, round cake that Pierre had spent almost the entire day decorating with marzipan, and Amber’s eyes almost popped out of her head.

  ‘Me?’ she said incredulously, looking up at Kitty,

  Kitty laughed with delight at the look on her daughter’s face. ‘Yes, sweetheart, it’s for you. It’s a birthday cake.’

  Still uncertain, Amber repeated, ‘Birfday?’

  Rian nodded solemnly. ‘Yes. Everyone has one, and we’re making yours today. And that’ll be every year, of course.’

  Amber didn’t understand what he’d said, but she clapped her hands and let out an ‘oooh’ of amazement as Pierre lit the four miniature candles set in the marzipan.

  ‘Blow!’ Kitty urged.

  Puzzled, Amber looked at her.

  ‘You blow them out, like this, see?’ Kitty said, bending over the cake and pretending to blow out the candles. ‘And then you close your eyes and make a wish.’

  Amber did as she was told—for a change—and grinned delightedly as everyone clapped and cheered.

  They were all there: Pierre, Gideon, Mick, Hawk and Ropata. And of course Bodie, sitting contentedly on the end of the table. Daniel was there, too, having proved so useful over the past few months that Rian had asked him to sign on as Sharkey’s replacement, despite Hawk’s muttered misgivings. And so was Simon, who had finally decided to leave the CMS and sail the high seas as ship’s boy while he contemplated his faith and what he was going to do next.

  Amber beamed up at her big, noisy, unconventional family, her little face radiant.

  She looked, Kitty thought with an immense rush of love, like a child who had finally come home.

  Acknowledgements

  The characters in this story are all fictional, except for the ones already in the history books.

  As always, loads of thanks go to the team at HarperCollins Publishers for being encouraging, supportive and enthusiastic. Likewise to Anna Rogers, who once again has managed to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.

  Now, a note about the Irish ballad referred to most commonly these days as ‘Whiskey in the Jar’ and beloved by Thin Lizzy and Metallica fans the world over. In my search for the original lyrics, I had to look fairly hard as there are dozens of versions. The one that appears in this story was published as a broadside (or broadsheet) in 1850, and could be purchased for a penny from the Poet’s Box, 6 St Andrew’s Lane, Glasgow. The address possibly explains why the title appeared as ‘There’s Whisky in the Jar’, with no ‘e’ in the whisky. But I’m sure there must be even earlier versions of these lyrics somewhere.

  About the Author

  Deborah Challinor is a freelance writer and historian living in Hamilton, author of the bestselling Children of War trilogy—Tamar, White Feathers and Blue Smoke—consecutive number-one bestsellers Fire, Kitty and Union Belle, and several non-fiction titles, including Who’ll Stop the Rain? and Grey Ghosts.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Copyright

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  First published in 2007

  This edition published in 2010

  by HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited

  P.O. Box 1, Auckland

  Copyright © Deborah Challinor 2007

  Deborah Challinor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.

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  National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  Challinor, Deborah Amber

  Amber / Deborah Challinor

  ISBN 978 1 8695 0732 9 (pbk.)

  ISBN 978 0 7304 0102 5 (epub)

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