A Second Chance (24 page)

She undressed, put on her nightgown and hung
the dress in her wardrobe, her limbs leaden. She stood in front of
the wardrobe for some time, looking at the beautiful gowns Sarah
had bought for her. She would leave them there, Amy decided. There
was no point in taking them to Ruatane, where she would have no
occasion for such finery. She would return to wearing the mourning
she had only set aside for Sarah’s sake. If Sarah did not give them
away, the dresses would stay here, shut up in the wardrobe and
slowly fading. Just like Amy’s memories of these precious months
she had spent with Sarah.

She was lucky, she told herself. She had
never allowed herself to hope that she would ever have so much as a
glimpse of her daughter again; beyond hope, she had spent this time
living in Sarah’s house and seeing her every day. She had a
treasure of memories to hoard. She must content herself with them,
knowing that after she caught the boat home to Ruatane she would
never see Sarah again.

It was too much to expect that Sarah might
have understood something of how it had been. How could she?
Sarah’s life had been spent surrounded by people whose chief care
was her comfort and security. A man like Jimmy would never have
been allowed to come near her. Even if he had, Sarah would not have
been beguiled by soft words and the assurance that she was special.
The people who loved her had been telling her such things all her
life.

Amy halted her train of thought, aware that
she was coming close to blaming Sarah for having reacted with such
disgust. The innocence that had produced Sarah’s response was
something to be thankful for, not resent. And in the whole untidy
muddle, Sarah was the one person who was blameless.

She sat down in front of the dressing table
and picked up her hairbrush, then put it back. Even running a brush
through her hair demanded more energy than she could muster at the
moment. Her head throbbed, and she felt bone-achingly weary.

In the morning she would have to brave the
commotion of the Auckland wharves. She had no idea where in that
confusion of ships and cargoes and sailors and wharf labourers she
might find the ticket booking office, but she would have to look
for a helpful face among the strangers and ask her way. She hoped
there would be a boat leaving soon; her last days with Sarah seemed
destined to be an awkward period of trying to keep out of each
other’s sight. Best to get it over with. She wondered if Sarah
would bother saying goodbye to her.

There was a soft knock on the door, and it
opened a crack.

‘Amy?’ came Sarah’s voice. ‘May I come
in?’

Without waiting for a response, Sarah
entered the room and walked slowly over to the dressing table. She
picked up Amy’s discarded hairbrush and turned it to and fro, then
walked around the room, still clutching the hairbrush.

‘You know,’ she said, apparently addressing
the far wall, ‘Mother very rarely punished me. I suppose that
explains a lot. But once or twice when I was small, I managed to
exhaust even her patience. Then she used the hairbrush on me.’ She
crossed to Amy, knelt down and placed the hairbrush in her lap.
‘Feel free,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’ve never deserved it
more.’

Amy raised her eyes to look into Sarah’s,
and saw tears brimming there. ‘I’m sorry,’ Sarah whispered. ‘Can
you forgive me?’

Amy held out her arms and Sarah sank into
them, resting her head in Amy’s lap. ‘You only said what was true.
There’s nothing to forgive.’

Sarah raised her head. ‘Oh yes, there is. I
had no right to speak to you like that. When I think of the abuse
you’ve had to put up with over the years on my account, and now you
hear the same sort of language from me! I’m thoroughly ashamed of
myself. Please, Amy. Please say you forgive me. I need to hear the
words.’

‘If there was anything to forgive, it’s
forgiven. I know you must have got a shock, hearing it like
that.’

Sarah got up from the floor and pulled a
stool over close to Amy’s chair so that she could sit beside her.
‘It’s ridiculous of me—logically I knew it couldn’t have been a man
of honour. If my father had been a hero tragically killed saving a
hundred people from a shipwreck the week before you were to be
married, you’d have told me the moment you found out who I was.
Since you were silent on the subject, I knew he must be no one to
be proud of.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘But I find there’s a large
difference between a conveniently faceless rogue and one who’s all
too substantial.’

She stroked Amy’s cheek. ‘Does your head
still hurt?’

‘A bit,’ Amy admitted. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
Nothing mattered, now that she knew Sarah still loved her.

Sarah fetched a pillow and slipped it down
the back of Amy’s chair. ‘Lean back. I used to do this for Mother
when she had headaches.’ She took a bottle of lavender water from
the dressing table, dabbed some on her fingers and gently massaged
Amy’s temples. ‘Is this all right?’

‘Mmm. It’s lovely.’ Amy closed her eyes and
gave herself over to the comfort of Sarah’s closeness. The scent of
lavender and the soft touch of Sarah’s hands drove a wave of
contentment through her. The pain in her head became no more than a
dull ache, powerless to spoil the moment.

‘Amy?’ Sarah said quietly. ‘Do you feel able
to tell me a little of how I came to be? I’ll understand if you
don’t want to, but I must confess that I’m curious now. I’m sure he
must have been very different back then, to win you over the way he
did.’

Amy considered her answer carefully. Sarah
had the right to know, however uncomfortable Amy might find
recalling those days. ‘No, I don’t think he was so very different.
Not in the ways that really matter. He was much younger, of course.
I thought he was very handsome. And he was less… oh, I don’t know
the right word for it. Less hard, somehow.’

‘Cynical?’ Sarah suggested.

‘Yes, perhaps that’s it. He was a lot more
cheerful then, too—everyone liked him. Well, everyone except
Lizzie. She never did trust him.’

‘How wise Mrs Kelly is,’ Sarah murmured. She
wiped her fingers on a handkerchief to remove the traces of
lavender water, took up the hairbrush and began brushing Amy’s
hair. ‘But whatever was he doing in Ruatane?’

‘It was because of Susannah. He asked if he
could come and visit her.’

‘Mrs Leith? Of course, he’s her brother.
Good Lord, she’s my aunt!’ The brush stopped moving.

Amy studied Sarah’s face. It was twisted
oddly, as if she were fighting back tears. Sarah let out a
strangled little sound, somewhere between a sob and a laugh, then
laughter won out. ‘Oh, Amy!’ she said when she had caught her
breath, ‘if these new relations you’ve given me don’t cure me of
vanity, nothing will!’

Amy smiled at the sight of Sarah’s mirth.
She waited patiently till Sarah calmed herself, content to watch
that merry face.

‘So he decided to try farm life?’ Sarah
asked at last.

‘I think there might have been some trouble
up here. He got his mother to write and ask if he could come, and
Pa said he could. He was… I don’t know if I can explain properly.
You know how I wanted to be a teacher? I had such grand ideas—I’d
get a job in Auckland, and I’d be able to study things. I thought
I’d buy lots of books, and go and see plays. I wanted that as far
back as I can remember.

‘I had to stop working at the school because
I couldn’t get all my work done at home. Then when Susannah came,
Miss Evans—she was my old teacher—thought maybe I could start
again. But Susannah said I wasn’t allowed.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ Sarah
murmured.

‘Well, Pa was never very keen on the idea,
anyway. That summer I was fifteen. Susannah was miserable, and she
made Pa miserable, too. Her and I would fight, and that’d make Pa
even more unhappy. All there seemed to be was cooking and cleaning
and helping look after the babies, and everyone seemed to think all
I should want was to get married and carry on doing that in a house
of my own.’

‘And then he arrived.’

‘Yes. He was
nice
to me, Sarah. I
don’t mean everyone else was horrible, but… he made me feel as if I
was special. He’d talk to me about books and plays and things. He’d
tell me I was pretty, and clever. He bought me nice things.’ She
hesitated before adding, ‘He gave me that brooch.’

‘This?’ Sarah touched the gold brooch she
wore. A brief look of distaste passed over her face, rapidly
replaced by a determined expression. ‘Well, I’ve always thought of
it as coming from you, and I’ve valued it for that reason. I’ll
continue to do so.’

‘It was my Christmas present. I had to keep
it secret from everyone else, though. Everything had to be secret.’
It was becoming more difficult to go on, knowing what she would
soon have to speak of, but Amy made herself continue.

‘He told me he loved me. I thought he meant
it. And he asked me to marry him—I thought we were engaged, Sarah.
When… when it happened. I thought we were going to get married. He
told me he’d bring me to Auckland as soon as we were married, and
he talked about how he’d buy me fancy clothes, and take me to the
park, and to the theatre.’ She smiled at Sarah. ‘All the things
you’ve done for me instead. But he said it had to be a secret
engagement, just for a while. I was stupid enough to believe
him.’

‘You were fifteen,’ Sarah said quietly. ‘You
had a trusting nature, and you fell into the hands of a rogue.’

‘I still should have known better. I knew it
was wrong, but… well, I kept thinking it would be all right as soon
as we got married. He said he’d ask Pa, then he said he’d better
write and ask his father first. And somehow it all took so
long.’

She fell silent, thinking back to that time,
then sighed and went on. ‘And then I realised there was going to be
a baby. If I’d had any sense I would have known things weren’t
right from the way he acted then. He’d managed to put off asking Pa
or writing to his father for months, but after I told him you were
on the way, he was on the boat and out of Ruatane in under a week.’
And having indulged himself with a passionate farewell from Amy.
That was one detail she would never share with Sarah. ‘He told me
he’d ask his father and come back soon, and I should keep it secret
till then. So I did. I waited and waited. Then after he’d been gone
a few weeks, Susannah had a letter from her mother saying he’d gone
to Australia. That’s when I knew he wasn’t coming back. That’s when
I knew he’d been lying to me.’

Sarah’s voice shook a little when she spoke.
‘Such men should be flogged through the streets, then put in stocks
in front of the courthouse. Instead, we allow them to be respected
members of society.’ She was silent for a few moments, then
continued more calmly. ‘Thank you for telling me that, Amy. But why
did that man want to see you again today? I don’t suppose it was to
beg forgiveness.’

Amy smiled faintly. ‘No. Mostly he wanted to
ask me what had happened to the baby—I didn’t tell him about you,
Sarah. I didn’t even say if it was a girl or a boy. I just told him
I gave the baby away, and I knew it had gone to good people.’

‘And why the sudden interest on his part
after all these years?’

‘I suppose it was because of seeing me
again. But he’s got some idea in his head about wanting an
heir.’

‘An heir? To that business? Ha!’ Sarah said
in derision. ‘I’m glad you gave him no satisfaction.’ She was too
observant to have missed a single detail. ‘You said it was “mostly”
to ask about me. What else did he want?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It
does
matter, Amy. Whatever he
said had you in quite a state this evening. What was it?’

‘I’d rather not say. I don’t want to talk
about it.’

‘I’m afraid you don’t have a choice in the
matter, my darling. You’re going to have to tell me exactly what he
said to you. Because, you see, I won’t leave you in peace until you
have
told me, and I’m quite prepared to sit here all night
repeating the question if necessary. I need to know it all. How can
I protect you properly if I don’t know the complete story?’

‘Protect me?’ Amy said in confusion. ‘What
do you mean?’

‘He’s clearly upset you, and I don’t intend
to let it happen again. Now, tell me what he said. It can’t be any
worse than what you’ve already told me tonight.’

Amy had come to know the futility of arguing
with Sarah when her mouth had that particular set to it. ‘All
right, then, if you must hear it. He… he wanted me to stay on in
Auckland. So that he could…’ She looked down at her hands. ‘He
wanted me to be his mistress.’ She glanced at Sarah to see whether
she had understood the word; the anger on Sarah’s face answered
her. ‘I think he thought I’d be pleased to be asked. Grateful,
even. He thinks I’m no better than… a bad sort of woman. He even…
he even thought I might want to have another child for him,’ she
finished in a whisper. ‘To give him an heir.’

They sat in silence for some moments, then
Sarah said, ‘Well, I was wrong. I’d believed I couldn’t possibly
think any worse of that man. I’m sorry, Amy.’

‘What for?’

‘For almost letting him come between us. For
almost driving you out of my house.’

Amy took Sarah’s hand between both of hers,
then voiced the thought that was nagging at her. ‘I think perhaps I
had
better go home, Sarah. I’m worried he could cause
trouble for you.’

‘How could he do that?’

‘He said he wants to see me again. He knows
I’m staying here, and he might come here after me.’

‘Don’t you worry about that. If he calls, we
won’t be at home. No, I don’t mean we’ll stay out all day,’ Sarah
said, seeing Amy’s puzzled expression. ‘We simply won’t be “at
home” to Mr Taylor. I’ll instruct the maids accordingly. If he
sends you any notes or letters, we’ll return them unopened—though I
doubt if he’d do that,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘He wouldn’t want
to risk such a thing falling into his wife’s hands. I don’t think
you should go out alone any more, though. I don’t want him
accosting you again. I’ll start going with you on some of those
walks of yours.’