A Second Chance (11 page)

‘That grey one?’ Amy asked, trying to follow
Sarah’s pointing finger.

‘No, darling, that’s the Bank of New
Zealand. I mean that brick building—the two-storeyed one. It has
several shops in it. Do you see it now?’

‘Yes, I see the one you mean,’ Amy said,
wondering what the building’s significance might be.

‘Well, my dear, I happen to own that
building. It brings in reasonable rents. And it’s only one of…
actually, I’m not sure that I could tell you the grand total off
the top of my head. A good number, at any rate.’

She took Amy’s arm and led her towards the
waiting carriage. ‘I think I can afford a few dresses for you.’

*

‘
Where did you leave that
other cake tin, Dave?’ Beth asked when she had unsuccessfully
sought the tin on the kitchen shelf where it usually
lived.

‘In the parlour, I think. Yes, that’s right,
it’s in there.’

Beth retrieved the tin from the other room.
She was surprised to find it so light, and when she lifted the lid
the mystery was revealed.

‘Have you eaten all those biscuits?’ she
asked in amazement.

‘Well, I get hungry,’ David said, a little
guiltily.

‘You must do! Ma always says there’s nothing
hungrier than boys, but you’re even worse than my lot. When did you
eat all those? That tin was just about full when I went home
yesterday.’

David frowned in thought. ‘I don’t know. I
suppose it must’ve been last night. You know, it’s that dull and
quiet at night, I just sort of eat to pass the time.’

‘Well, never mind, there’s a couple of these
plain ones left.’ Beth put a biscuit on each of their plates and
sat down beside him. ‘Do you get lonely at night?’

‘I suppose I do, a bit. It’s all right in
the day time, with you here. I’ve got my work to do, anyway, so I
don’t go thinking about a lot of stuff. But in the evening it’s…
well, it’s sort of funny with Ma not here.’

Beth felt a pang of sympathy at the sight of
David’s wistful face. ‘It’s a shame Biff died.’ David’s old dog had
been found dead one January morning, when David had gone to call
him. ‘Animals are good company. It must be awful, being here all on
your own.’ She reached out and put her small hand over David’s
broad one.

David turned his hand palm upwards to take
hold of hers. ‘It’s all right, I suppose. Hey, I got a letter from
Ma, I picked it up this morning.’

‘Another one? She must be writing just about
every day.’

‘She said before she went away that she’d
write a lot. It sounds like she’s having a good time.’ He used his
free hand to fish the letter from his jacket pocket and spread it
out in front of him. ‘She says she went to a play—a Shakespeare
one. It was really good, she reckons.’

‘I wonder what it was like,’ Beth mused.
‘Richard’s been to plays and things. I suppose Aunt Lily might
have, too. What else does Aunt Amy say?’

‘There’s some stuff about dresses. Sarah’s
getting her some new dresses. She sounds pretty excited about that,
too.’

‘Oh,
Sarah
, is it?’ Beth said tartly,
her sharp reaction taking her by surprise. ‘I didn’t know you were
such good friends with her. What happened to “Miss Millish”?’

‘Well, she said to call her that,’ David
said, clearly unsure just how he had earned such an attack. ‘And
she’s the sort of person that you just do what she says, you know.
Like with your ma.’

‘She’s a lot younger than Ma,’ Beth said,
wondering as she did so why she felt the need to argue the point.
‘I heard Ma say she’s twenty-one. She’s really pretty, too.’

‘Is she only twenty-one? She sort of seems
older than that.’

‘Do you think she’s pretty?’ Beth
pressed.

I suppose so. Not as pretty as Ma, though.’
He grinned at Beth. ‘Not as pretty as you, either.’

Beth knew she was being teased, but that did
not prevent her taking a secret pleasure in the compliment. She
would not let David see it, though. ‘What a lot of rot! Miss
Millish has got such pretty dresses and things. She looks much
nicer than I do.’ Failing to raise the hoped-for contradiction, she
returned to more straightforward conversation. ‘She must be really
well-off, eh?’

‘Mmm. Ma says it’s a neat house she’s got,
too. I bet it is. I don’t suppose she misses this place.’

He looked wistful again, and Beth resorted
to a method that never failed to cheer her if she found herself as
low in spirits as David seemed to be. ‘I’d better get on and do
some work, or I’ll never get through it all,’ she said, extricating
her hand from his. ‘You look after the kitten for a bit.’

She fetched a tiny bundle of fur from a box
she had placed close to the range. The bundle stirred, and unfolded
itself into a small black kitten that stared around the room with
bright eyes and gave a tiny squeak of surprise at being moved.

The kitten was the runt of the latest litter
born at Beth’s home, and she had soon realised that the little
creature had no prospect of fighting its siblings for a fair share
of its mother’s milk. Turning down her father’s well-meant offer to
put the kitten out of its supposed misery, Beth had taken it upon
herself to rear the waif.

As was usually the case with Beth’s waifs
and strays, the kitten showed every sign of thriving. But Beth was
taking no chances; rather than leave the kitten at home where she
could not be sure anyone would remember to feed it as often as it
needed, she brought it to David’s farm every day, balancing the
kitten in a small box on her lap as she rode.

‘It’s all right, kitty,’ Beth soothed.
‘Davie will give you some milk.’ She placed the kitten on David’s
lap, poured a little milk into a saucer and put it on the table.
‘Get kitty to lick it off your finger if you can,’ she told David.
‘It’s a bit like teaching calves, only you’ve got to be ever so
gentle.’

The kitten licked David’s finger with
surprising energy for so tiny a creature. ‘It’s got a tickly
tongue,’ David said, smiling at the gentle rasping. ‘Shall I try
him with the saucer?’

‘Have a go. Mind he doesn’t fall right in,
though.’

David balanced the saucer on his knee and
carefully persuaded the kitten to transfer its attentions from his
finger to the saucer. Beth had already had some success with the
same lesson, so she was not surprised when the kitten began lapping
greedily. ‘He’s doing it,’ David said, his face lighting up. ‘Gee,
look at him go for that milk!’

The kitten lapped busily for a few seconds
while Beth stacked dishes on the bench, then it abandoned the milk
to wash its face with its paw. ‘He didn’t have very much,’ David
said.

‘He’s only got a tiny tummy. He’s growing
fast, though—he was like a baby rat a couple of weeks ago.’ Beth
paused in her work to run a finger gently down the kitten’s back.
‘Kitty’s going to be all right, I’m sure he is. I think I might
call him Pip—he’s little and black, like an apple pip.’

The kitten curled into a tight ball on
David’s lap. David lowered his head to catch the tiny rumbling
noise emerging from the warm bundle. ‘He’s purring. You can only
just hear it, but he’s purring all right. You’re good with animals,
you know.’

‘So are you. See how the kitten likes you?
He’s scared of most people, especially boys. Animals can tell when
you like them—I think they know when they can trust someone.’

Beth carried a handful of washed carrots to
the table and sat down beside David. ‘You know what you said about
Aunt Amy before?’ she said, slicing the carrots as she spoke.
‘About how she probably isn’t missing the farm or anything, because
she’s having such a good time?’

‘I don’t mind if she’s not missing it,’
David said quickly. ‘I want her to have a good time. She deserves
to have something nice happen to her.’

‘Of course she does. She must like Miss
Millish an awful lot, too, to go all that way. But it made me think
of when Maudie got married. I cried when she went away, but she
wasn’t upset to be leaving. It sort of seemed funny, you know? I
mean, she was really lucky to get Richard, but I still thought
she’d be sad to be going away from home. I know I would be, even if
I did get someone like Richard. I won’t, though,’ she added, not
bitterly but with the calm resignation of one who had lived her
whole life in the shadow of a self-assured older sister. ‘Not like
Maudie did.

‘I suppose it made a bit more room, anyway,
with Maudie going,’ she said, determinedly bright. ‘Except then
Maisie came to live, and then we got Benjy. It’s always full of
kids at our place, eh? It’s a shame you can’t come and stay with
us, you know—you can’t get lonely there. I don’t know where we’d
put you, though.’

‘No, there’s enough people at your place
without me turning up. Maybe you should stay here of an evening
instead.’

He spoke lightly, but Beth frowned,
pondering just why the notion seemed so unlikely. ‘I don’t think I
could,’ she said slowly. ‘Not at night. Not on my own.’

David’s grin faded, to be replaced by a
thoughtful expression. ‘No, I suppose not.’ His eyes met hers, and
they exchanged a look that sent an unfamiliar fluttering through
Beth.

She broke the moment by returning her
attention to the carrots, finishing the job with a few rapid
slices. ‘That’s the vegies done—I should have time for a bit of
baking if I get on with it. I think I’d better make some more
biscuits, with you gobbling the last lot up like that.’ She stood
and piled the sliced carrots on to a plate.

‘Mmm, make some of those ones with coconut
in them again,’ David said, apparently as relieved as she was to
have the discomforting moment passed. As Beth walked by him on her
way to the range, he took the opportunity to pat her bottom.

Beth had shared this particular item from
her knowledge of things marital within her first three days of
housekeeping for him. The first time he had tried it for himself,
he had earned a scolding by being too energetic, and giving Beth a
much harder slap than he had intended or she had hoped for. He had
the way of it just nicely now, Beth thought. In fact it was really
quite pleasant. Spending every day with David, as she was lately,
was very pleasant indeed.

She ruffled his hair as if he had been one
of her little brothers, and leaned down to plant a light kiss on
his cheek. ‘I wish I could stay here at night, too,’ she said, the
words taking her by surprise. To make a joke of it, she added,
‘It’d be better than Rosie and Kate whispering and fighting and
things, like they do at night. At least it must be quiet here.’

‘Yes, it’s quiet.’ David managed another
bottom pat before she moved out of reach. ‘Except when you’re
here.’

The first hint of daylight sliding into her
bedroom woke Amy. Used as she was to having her days ruled by
sunrise and sunset, she had not yet been able to persuade her body
to adopt the much later hours Sarah kept.

But it was no hardship to have a little time
on her hands; not when she had such delightful new toys to play
with. Amy opened the drapes to take full advantage of the pale
early morning light, then crossed the room to her wardrobe and
opened the doors wide.

Her new dresses had been delivered the
previous evening. Although Amy had had two fittings in the interim,
she had not seen the completed costumes until they arrived at
Sarah’s. The fabrics had been beautiful enough when they were
simply lengths of silk and wool; now that they had been made up
into dresses, they seemed the stuff of dreams.

Amy still found it difficult to believe that
she could possibly own such garments, but when she opened her
wardrobe she found that, dreamlike as they might be, the dresses
were real, and were hanging there just as the maid had left them
the evening before.

She took them out one by one and held them
up in front of her, from the walking dresses that she could
actually imagine wearing, to the startlingly beautiful evening
gowns. She stared at herself in the mirror, her own face almost
unfamiliar with such finery below it.

There was one dress Amy had not had any
fittings for, though its arrival had not greatly surprised her. She
had no idea when she might be able to wear the red velvet, but it
gave her pleasure enough just to know such a beautiful thing lived
in her wardrobe.

She drew it carefully from its hanger, held
it against herself and studied the effect in the mirror. The rich
colour of the dress appeared to heighten Amy’s own colouring, as
though the red velvet were drawing her blood closer to the skin in
a kind of sympathetic magic. Even her heart seemed to beat a little
faster. The dress cried out to be touched. She rubbed her face
against the velvet, its soft pile caressing her cheek, and the
scent of the fabric an elusive hint of roses.

Amy replaced the red dress in the wardrobe
and searched for something more serviceable to put on. On the farm,
her dresses were divided into those for working and the one or two
suitable for church and visiting. Only since her first visit to the
dressmaker had Amy learned that there were so many categories of
clothing, and she was far from confident that she had a firm grasp
of what type of dress was suitable for particular times of day or
social occasions.

The most likely candidates seemed to be her
two tea gowns, though wearing a silk dress as an ordinary house
dress seemed almost sinful. She chose the pale mauve, its colour so
subtle that it could in some lights be taken for a soft grey. She
laid the dress on her bed and opened the second drawer of the
chest, which had been devoted to underwear.

Lingerie, Sarah had taught her to call it,
and these garments were certainly too refined for any name less
elegant. There were two full sets, one in the finest of cotton
lawns while the other was silk. Every item was white, of course;
Amy had never heard of such a notion as coloured underwear for any
item worn closer to the skin than an outer petticoat, and would
have thought it slightly improper if she had. But the ribbon trims
that had been used so extravagantly on all the garments were in
palest pink, making the white fabrics look even fresher by
contrast.