The Fire Blossom (The Fire Blossom Saga)

by Sarah Lark

She had chosen the clothing wisely, Cat found after finally daring to use the knocker and coming face-to-face with a woman of about sixty. Elizabeth Hempleman reminded Cat a little of the pictures she’d seen of Queen Victoria. She was a stately woman, and she carried herself in a very upright, dignified manner. George Hempleman’s second wife was wearing a somewhat severe blue dress, but it was made from expensive fabrics, and the apron over it was decorated with lace trim. Elizabeth’s carefully pinned-up chestnut hair was covered by a kind of veil rather than a bonnet, something else Cat knew only from photographs of the queen. This woman, however, didn’t seem as unyielding as the monarch. Her face was round and almost free of wrinkles. It was dominated by intelligent pale blue eyes, which regarded Cat kindly.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked.

  “I’m Poti, um, Cat. And I was—” Cat broke off in confusion.

  Elizabeth Hempleman frowned for a moment, but then she broke into a smile.

  “Kitten!” she cried. “You used to be called Kitten, but now you’re grown up, of course! I always wondered what your real name was, but George doesn’t know, and it seems his first wife just called you Kitten.”

  Cat nodded in relief. A glance into the salon showed Cat that Elizabeth lived alongside the memory of her predecessor. Cat recognized the heavy German furniture, and there was a painting of Linda on one wall.

  “I don’t have any other name,” Cat said, finally finding her voice again. “Just Cat. And please excuse me for imposing on you like this.”

  “Imposing?” Elizabeth Hempleman laughed. “Dear child, you wouldn’t believe how happy I am that you’re here. And my husband! Since Linda’s death, he’s been fretting about how badly he did by you. He always says it’s his fault if you ended up on the street.” She eyed Cat, and she seemed to like what she saw. “It seems he’s been worrying in vain! You look lovely. I’m Elizabeth, by the way, his second wife. Come in. George is in the garden, I’ll go and call him. Please, take off your cape! I’m afraid we don’t have a maid, you’ll have to give it to me. Please, Cat . . .”

  Elizabeth Hempleman led Cat to an armchair by the fire and poured her some tea. There were scones and other baked goods in the bowl in front of her. Chasseur tried his pleading look on this hostess as well, but Elizabeth was not Nadine.

  “Down!” she said firmly and pointed at a mat in front of the hearth.

  Chasseur looked up at her, but a single glance was enough to convince him that she was serious. Sighing, he curled up at Cat’s feet.

  “I’ll be right back,” Elizabeth said.

  Cat let her gaze wander over the room’s furnishings. There was furniture she didn’t recognize; maybe it was from Elizabeth’s former household, and George lived with the memory of her first marriage as she did his. Cat wondered how they each felt about that, but then she heard footsteps. George Hempleman must have been on his way inside already. Now he entered the room, and his wife followed him with her face aglow.

  “Here she is!” she said happily. “Do you recognize her?”

  George Hempleman looked Cat over. He hadn’t changed much over the years. If anything, he looked better than he had back at the whaling station. Of course, now he wasn’t exposed to wind and weather all day, he probably drank less whiskey, and he didn’t have to take care of his dying wife. Elizabeth seemed healthy as could be.

  “It really is you,” he said in disbelief. “I thought I’d never see you again. I sent out a search party, you know. Even on the west coast, in the brothels, and on the North Island. But you’d disappeared.”

  “I was right where Carpenter left me,” Cat explained. “With the Ngati Toa. You used to know Te Rauparaha.”

  Hempleman laughed grimly. “That old swashbuckler? Oh yes.”

  During the first years of the whaling station, Hempleman and the chief had often tangled until Te Rauparaha had moved his aggressive activities to Purau and then farther north.

  “But be that as it may, you made it. In spite of my failure. I didn’t take care of you then, Kitten.”

  “Cat,” she corrected him.

  He smiled wistfully. “I didn’t even bother to ask anybody for your real name. After you practically grew up under my nose. Under horrible conditions, as I now know. I should have realized and helped you somehow. I’m sure Linda would have taken you in as her own. But she didn’t know the details either, or did she?”

  Cat shook her head. She wondered how many details George Hempleman knew about her upbringing by now. Priscilla and Noni had probably told him a lot.

  “I didn’t want to upset Mrs. Hempleman,” she said. “You always told me I shouldn’t upset her. So I didn’t tell her anything. About the auction Barker was planning, I mean.”

  “But Linda must have suspected something,” Hempleman said. “Or at least, she wanted to help you. A few days before her death, she wrote her will, and you were to inherit everything she owned. Well, her clothes—we could have sold them for you—and her jewelry, above all.”

  “This!” Elizabeth Hempleman said. While George had been talking, she’d left the room and returned with a box in her hand. “And not to forget this either.” She removed the simple but certainly valuable pearl necklace from around her neck and opened the box. “Look, Cat.”

  Elizabeth placed the pearls next to the other jewelry that was lying on dark blue velvet. Cat gawked at the gold necklaces and bracelets, a sparkling ring, earrings with pearls, and jewels set in gold.

  “This is yours now!” Elizabeth Hempleman told her.

  “But—” Cat recoiled from the pearls, still warm from Elizabeth’s neck. “Haven’t you enjoyed wearing the jewelry yourself up until now? Would you simply give it away like that?”

  Elizabeth’s smile turned wistful. “It isn’t a matter of wanting,” she explained. “It’s true, I’ve worn the jewelry. George wanted to give me some of my own, but you can’t buy any here. Some of these are heirlooms from Linda’s family. They’re very beautiful, and I’ve cherished them. But I always knew they weren’t mine.”

  Cat bit her lip. “I honestly have no use for them,” she said quietly. “I live out in the plains! If I accepted, it would only be to sell it. And that seems ungrateful to Linda.”

  George Hempleman shook his head. “Not at all, Cat. Linda knew you’d convert the jewelry into money. She wanted to help you get away from Piraki. Although . . . I have an idea. Please, don’t misunderstand me, Cat. The jewelry is yours, and you can do with it as you please and sell it to whomever you want. But I was just thinking: Elizabeth would like to keep it, and you’d like it to be in cherishing hands. So why don’t you sell it to me? There’s a watchmaker in Akaroa who should be able to give us an appraisal. Or we could ask about the price of gold in England. There are banks on the North Island, maybe even in Nelson. By no means do I wish to cheat you.”

  Cat looked at the jewelry hesitantly, and then at the Hemplemans. George seemed insecure and embarrassed, but Elizabeth was beaming at him.

  “What a beautiful idea, George!” she said in her finely modulated voice. “Don’t you think, Cat? It would make me quite happy! I wouldn’t take everything, of course, absolutely not. You certainly need something to remind you of Linda. Just choose what you want to keep, and George will give you a fair price for the rest. Is it something you might consider? That way, Linda’s jewelry would stay in the family, so to speak.”

  Cat peered into the box and recognized a locket she had often seen on Linda Hempleman. It contained a tiny picture, a miniature painted by her sister. It showed Linda as a child. Cat thought of her own little Linda.

  “I’d like to have this one,” she said tenderly and toyed with the clasp. It opened immediately, and the little blonde girl in the picture smiled up at her.

  “But you’ll need a gold chain with that,” Elizabeth Hempleman said and began sorting through the box. “There’s one to go with it. I never wore the locket. Here!” She threaded the chain through the ring on the locket. “Go ahead and put it o
n. It will look lovely on you.”

  Cat smiled. She was actually imagining it on her daughter’s neck when she was a little older. “May I take another piece?” she asked timidly.

  “Of course, Cat, please, take anything you like, all of it!” Hempleman insisted.

  Elizabeth held the box out to Cat. “Take your time.”

  She had already found what she was looking for. It was a silver cross adorned with aquamarines that had also been a favorite of Linda’s. Cat lifted it out of the box. She’d give it to Ida, and one day, she could pass it on to little Carol. Touched, she examined the other pieces. Everything exuded Linda’s love. Cat thought back on her motherly friend, filled with tenderness and gratitude. She stroked the velvet of the box one more time before closing the lid.

  “Why don’t you put your pearls back on, Mrs. Hempleman,” she said and handed the box back to Elizabeth. “They match your dress so beautifully.”

  A few days later, after the watchmaker, who had turned out to be a former Parisian jeweler, had examined and appraised each piece and converted the ascertained value from French francs to English pounds, Cat was the new owner of a small fortune. She’d been spending the past few nights in the Hemplemans’ guest room. Now she was sitting on her bed, staring at the money, and wondering what to do with it.

  “It would be enough to open up a shop somewhere,” Elizabeth Hempleman said encouragingly. “During the next few years, there will be more large towns, and you could settle in the new town of Christchurch on the Avon, to start your business. Or maybe on the North Island; it’s still hard here for a woman all on her own. Can you think of anything you’d like to do?”

  Cat thought for a long time and concluded that she couldn’t really imagine having her own business. She wasn’t a businesswoman like Jane Fenroy. It wouldn’t be any fun for her to haggle and negotiate.

  “What about an inn?” Elizabeth asked. “A tearoom or a café?”

  “That would be something for Ida,” Cat murmured.

  She thought of the restaurant Ida could have made out of Paddy’s pub. Should she ask Ida about it? Would Ida dare to come to the North Island with her, to run away from Ottfried and try to build her own business? But Ottfried would surely find her. Besides, Cat couldn’t see herself as an innkeeper. You had to be born for such things, like Nadine was.

  Oui, pâtisserie eez my dream! Cat could hear the gifted confectioner’s longing voice. But I not sell sheep of good poor Pierrot to people I not know . . .

  Suddenly, Cat was smiling.

  Chapter 61

  Most of Fenroy Station’s sheep grazed on the surrounding hills, but Ida kept her dairy ewes close to the house and only let them graze for a few hours a day by the river, guarded by the two collies Ottfried had brought. At the moment, she was busy herding them in for their nightly milking, when a boat approached on the Waimakariri.

  Ida waved at the river boatman without even checking whether Ottfried was in the vicinity. During the last few weeks, his behavior had become more and more extreme. He didn’t seem to like the isolation on the remote farm, and he regarded his surroundings suspiciously. When he caught Chris or Karl herding one of “his” sheep to a new pasture without asking first, he threw a tantrum. More often, Ida was the victim of such outbursts. He reproached her with the most absurd accusations if she was friendly to any man on the farm. He insinuated she was philandering with Chris and Karl, and even accused the Maori workers of looking at his wife lustfully. This made them so angry that they didn’t show up to work for days on end.

  Finally, Chris and Karl gave in. They sent Ottfried to Port Cooper with the latest products from Ida’s dairy to trade them for food, cattle feed, and building materials. They didn’t care if he’d negotiate badly and drink away part of the earnings; all they wanted was a few days’ peace. He’d been gone for almost a week now, and Ida felt safer and more content than she had in a long time. It was a shame Cat was still away.

  Now Pete, the boatman, steered over to the jetty Chris had built. Would he bring a message from Cat?

  “G’day, Miss Ida!” he greeted her cheerfully.

  There were quite a few settlements farther up the Waimakariri River, and people liked to have their wares delivered by way of the river. Chris did this rarely, but business-minded Jane was more and more inclined to send out the Maori products by water. That way, they could reach other merchants who paid more than Carpenter. So far, however, her wishes went unheeded by the Maori, who liked to combine business and shopping and always looked forward to Carpenter’s visits.

  “Greetings from Miss Cat. I’m to tell you she’s at the Deans brothers’ farm with your dog and a load of sheep, and she’d like someone to pick her up.”

  Pete gave Ida a friendly smile, and actually did look at her slightly covetously. She looked terribly pretty with her wind-reddened cheeks and dark hair tied up in a ponytail.

  “A load of sheep?” Ida asked. “But come in, Pete! Karl and Chris are in the barn. I’m sure they’ll want to hear the news too.”

  The boatman shook his head. “No time, got a message for Butler. He’s spending a tidy dime on that North Island lawyer; every few days, there’s messages about his land deal. I may stop by again on my way back.”

  He began untying the hasty knot he’d made to bind the boat to the jetty and poled the boat back to the middle of the river.

  “Wait! You have to tell me more about Cat! Where did she get the sheep? And what exactly does she mean by a load?”

  Pete shrugged. “I’d say six or seven dozen. Mostly ewes and lambs. And if it wasn’t she who stole the Redwoods’ animals”—here he broke into a laugh—“then she must have bought them somewhere. I don’t know, Miss Ida, the Deanses only sent me a messenger, and he talked to my wife. Just send someone to pick up Cat in Riccarton.” With those words, he raised his hand in farewell, then rowed up the river with strong strokes.

  Chris was feeding the horses in the stables when Ida finally herded her milking sheep inside. Buddy, who had been lying next to him, leaped up immediately to help the collies. While the animals laid into the oats they additionally received as milk providers, Ida told Chris about Cat.

  “She bought sheep? With her inheritance? Oh, Ida, that’s a good sign! Maybe she wants to be a partner, and maybe she’ll even allow me to build a house for her here! I’ll ride down first thing tomorrow to pick her up. This is wonderful, Ida! She had to think of something, she can’t keep staying with the Maori, and I—”

  Ida turned to her milking parlor without a word. She couldn’t share Chris’s euphoria. Ida silently thanked the heavens that Cat was coming back at all. But a house at Fenroy Station next to Jane’s? And as a fourth partner? Alongside Ottfried? No, Ida didn’t think Cat was planning to graze her sheep at Fenroy Station.

  There was also something else on her mind. Ida had been at Fenroy Station for months now, and she was getting restless. She would have loved to see another woman who spoke her language, one less ill-tempered than Jane.

  “Chris . . .” She turned shyly after milking her third sheep. “Would it be possible for you to take me along to Riccarton to visit the Deanses? I know, of course, that I’d slow you down since we’d have to take the cart. But we could bring cheese and exchange it for wool so I’ll have something to spin in winter, and—”

  Chris smiled. “Ida, you don’t have to justify yourself. Of course you want to get out of here for a change. Pack up the babies and your cheese, and we’ll ride tomorrow at sunrise. Cat’s going to be thrilled to see you! Chasseur too.”

  Ida went on milking cheerfully while Chris thought about her request. Ida wanted to go on a visit on her own, without asking Ottfried first. That was also a very good sign. Karl would certainly see it that way. And Chris had an idea . . .

  “Why don’t you go instead?” When Chris saw the broad smile on Karl’s face, he knew he was doing the right thing.

  “Are you sure?” Karl asked. “I know you’re dying to see Cat again.” />
  Chris laughed. “Maybe it’s better if I show a little restraint. What do you think, should we tease her and act as though we have to think about her partnership first? And you and Ida . . . Karl, you’ll be on the road for a while! You’ll be sitting next to her on the coach box, you’ll make fires in the evenings, tell her stories . . . It’s been unbearable to watch the two of you making eyes at each other for months but not saying anything.”

  “What about Ottfried?” Karl asked.

  Chris sighed. “You should leave Ida in Riccarton and make a detour to Port Cooper. No one wants him back, but we can’t let him drink, gamble, and whore away all the proceeds from the dairy. And he must be doing something of the sort, or he’d have been back by now. So ride over and pull him out of the pub by the scruff of his neck.”

  Ida was surprised and a little unsure when she left the house the next morning only to see Karl sitting on the seat of the wagon.

  “You?” she asked quietly. “I thought we were going with Chris.”

  “Chris has—with the Maori, he—” Chris and Karl had thought up an excuse, but now Karl couldn’t bring himself to lie. “Chris is letting me drive,” he admitted, “so we can have some time to talk. Time for each other.”

  Ida bit her lip. “I don’t know why we’d need time for each other.”

  Karl bent down to pick up first Carol and then Linda and, finally, to help Ida up onto the box. Once again, the world seemed to stand still as their hands touched.

  “You know full well, Ida,” he said quietly. “But we don’t have to talk about that. We can just be together. As friends. Like we were back in Raben Steinfeld.”

  Ida smiled shyly. “And compare our math homework?”

  Karl laughed. “Or dream about Captain Cook’s travels. I haven’t seen a kangaroo yet, but these days, I know for certain that they exist.”

  “I’m quite happy I don’t have to see one,” Ida remarked and placed Carol between Karl and herself, then lifted Linda onto her lap.