16
‘My dear, I need to discuss something with you,’ said Andrew, folding his copy of the Northern Times and putting it neatly by his breakfast plate.
‘And what might that be?’
‘Father wants me to sail to Singapore in the new year, and from there travel with him to Europe. He wishes me to meet his contacts in Germany, France and London, because he has finally had enough of travelling and wants me to take over the sales side of the pearls too. We will be away for nearly three months. I had thought of asking you to accompany me, but it will be an arduous trip at that time of year when the seas are so rough. Especially for a child not yet four years old. I presume you wouldn’t be prepared to leave Charlie behind with Camira?’
‘Good Lord, no!’ replied Kitty. Charlie was the sun in her morning and her moon at night. She missed him after an hour, let alone three months. ‘Are you sure he couldn’t come with us?’
‘As you know yourself, life on board ship can be dull and unpleasant. We shall not be stopping at any port for longer than a day or two. I must be back by the end of March for the start of the new season.’
‘Then perhaps I could sail on from London with Charlie and travel up to Edinburgh? I would very much like my mother, and the rest of my family, to meet him. My new brother, Matthew, is almost five, and has never yet met his big sister.’
‘Darling, I promise that next year, when I am finally master of my own timetable, we shall travel back to Scotland together. Perhaps for Christmas?’
‘Oh yes!’ Kitty closed her eyes in pleasure.
‘Then I could leave you both for a few weeks in Edinburgh while I conduct my business. But this year, with Father in tow, that is just not possible.’
Kitty knew that Andrew meant his father did not want a young child tagging along with them. Equally, she knew from experience that Andrew would not stand up to him and insist. ‘Well, I cannot leave Charlie, and that is that.’
‘Then would you consider travelling to Adelaide with Charlie while I am gone? At least you would have the company – and security – of my mother and Alicia Hall?’ Andrew suggested.
‘No. I shall stay here. I have Camira and Fred to guard me, and three months is not that long.’
‘I don’t like to think of you alone here, Kitty, especially during the wet season.’
‘Really, Andrew, we will be fine. I have all our friends to watch over me too. And now Dr Suzuki has come to town and set up his new hospital, my health and Charlie’s is assured,’ she added.
‘Perhaps I should postpone the trip until next year, when we can travel together, but I am so eager to become autonomous, without feeling that Father is constantly looking over my shoulder.’
‘Darling, even though we will miss you, we are safe here, aren’t we?’ Kitty turned to Charlie, who was sitting between them, eating his egg and toast.
‘Yes, Mama!’ Charlie – a little blond angel with egg yolk and crumbs smeared on his face – banged his spoon on his plate.
‘Hush, Charlie.’ Andrew took the spoon away from him. ‘Now, I must leave for the office. I will see you both at luncheon.’
As he left, Camira arrived in the dining room to clean Charlie up and take him off to play in the garden with Cat. Fred had proved himself a useful carpenter and had erected a baby swing out of wood, which he had hung by two strong ropes to a boab tree. In fact, thought Kitty contentedly, Fred had changed almost beyond recognition. No longer did he smell, and due to Camira’s tireless tutelage, he had slowly begun to grasp English.
The breakthrough in Fred and Camira’s relationship had happened almost four years ago, just after Charlie’s birth. Mrs Jefford, the wife of one of the most powerful pearling masters in town, had decided to come calling to the house unannounced – an unusual event in itself, as these things were normally arranged at least a week before.
‘I was just passing, Kitty dear, and realised that I had not yet paid my respects to you since your son was born. I was away in England, you see, visiting my family.’
‘It is most kind of you to think of us.’ Kitty had ushered her into the drawing room. ‘May I get you a glass of something cool to drink?’ she’d asked as she watched Mrs Jefford’s beady eyes travel round the room.
‘Yes, thank you. What a dear little place this is,’ she’d commented as Kitty signalled for Medha to bring in a jug of lemonade. ‘So . . . homey.’
As Kitty had sat down, she’d glanced out of the window and seen Camira, her eyes full of fear, her hand signalling a cut-throat. Mrs Jefford had proceeded to tell Kitty about the treasures she’d recently acquired in her own home. ‘We believe that the vase may well be Ming,’ she’d tittered.
Kitty was used to the one-upmanship of the pearling masters’ wives who vied, it seemed, even harder than their husbands to claim the crown for the most successful pearler in Broome.
‘Mr Jefford was so lucky last year finding eight exquisite pearls, one of which he sold recently in Paris for a king’s ransom. I’m sure that one day your husband will be equally successful, but of course he is still young and inexperienced. Mr Jefford has learnt the hard way that many of the valuable pearls never make it into his hands. And has devised ways and means to make sure that they do.’
Kitty had wondered how long this eulogy to self and husband would last. When Mrs Jefford had finally exhausted her list of recent extravagances, Kitty had asked her if she’d like to see baby Charlie.
‘He’s napping now, but I am sure I can wake him early. Just for once,’ she’d added.
‘My dear, having had three of my own, I know how precious a sleeping baby is, so please do not do so on my account. Besides, Mrs Donaldson told me recently that you have employed a black nursemaid to care for him?’
‘I have, yes.’
‘Then I must warn you never to leave her alone with the child. The blacks have a price on white babies’ heads, no less!’
‘Really? Do they wish to put them in a pot and cook them?’ Kitty had asked, straight-faced.
‘Who knows, my dear!’ Mrs Jefford had shuddered. ‘But I repeat, they cannot be trusted. Only a few months ago, I had to sack my last maid, once it came to my attention that she was supplementing her income by whoring in the brothels in Japtown. And when I say it came to my attention, I mean that the girl was a good few months gone. She did her best to hide it from myself and Mr Jefford, of course, but in the end, one could hardly fail to notice. When I said that her services were no longer required, she literally attacked me, begging me to forgive her and have her stay. I had to fight her off. Then she disappeared into the shanty town, never to be seen again.’
‘Really? How dreadful.’
‘It was.’ Mrs Jefford studied Kitty’s expression. ‘The child she was carrying is almost certainly a half-caste, and as it will surely have been born now, it must be found and taken by the Protectorate to a mission.’
‘Goodness! What a tragic story.’ By now, Kitty had realised exactly why Mrs Jefford had come to pay a visit.
‘I will say that she was a good worker and I have missed her since, but as a Christian woman, I could not countenance an illegitimate child under my roof.’ Mrs Jefford had thrown her a beady look.
‘I am sure you could not. Oh, I believe I have just heard Charlie crying. Will you excuse me?’ Rising from her chair, Kitty had walked as sedately as she could to the door. Closing it behind her, she had dashed into the kitchen, telling Medha to rouse Charlie for her, then grabbed the blacking from beside the range and hurried outside to the backyard. Entering the hut without knocking, Kitty had found Camira hiding under the bedstead, her baby girl clutched to her chest.
‘Make baby black.’ Kitty had pushed the blacking towards her. ‘Fred your husband, understand?’
In the gloom, all Kitty could see was Camira’s terrified eyes. ‘Understand,’ she’d whispered.
Then she had raced back to the kitchen, where Medha was holding a screaming Charlie. ‘Please bring a bottle through to the drawing room,’ Kitty had ordered as she’d grabbed the baby and walked back to Mrs Jefford.
‘Forgive me for taking so long. He had a full napkin,’ she’d said, as Medha arrived with the bottle.
‘Surely your nursemaid sees to that kind of thing?’ Mrs Jefford had probed.
‘Of course, but Camira went to fetch some more muslin from the haberdashery, while her husband collected the ice from town on the cart. They have only just returned.’
‘What a handsome little chap,’ Mrs Jefford commented as Charlie sucked away heartily on his bottle. ‘Did you say that the name of your nursemaid was Camira?’
‘I did, and I feel very fortunate to have her. She was educated at Beagle Bay mission where she cared for the babies in the nursery.’
‘Do you know,’ said Mrs Jefford after a pause, ‘I am almost certain that Camira was the given name of the pregnant maid I had to let go. We called her “Alice”, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Kitty had said. ‘I am still learning the way of these things.’
‘You say she is married?’
‘Why, yes, to Fred, who has worked for both my father-in-law and my husband for years. He drives the trap, tends the ponies and keeps the grounds under control. And oh, he is so very proud of his new baby daughter. Alkina arrived into the world just two weeks before Charlie. They are a devoted family, and study the Bible regularly,’ Kitty had thrown in for good measure.
‘Well, well, I had no idea Alice had a husband.’
‘Then perhaps you would like to meet the happy family?’
‘Yes, of course I would be . . . pleased to see Alice and her new child.’
‘Then come with me.’ Kitty had led Mrs Jefford to the backyard.
‘Fred? Camira?’ Kitty’s heart had pounded in her chest as she rapped on the door of the hut, having no idea whether Camira would have understood her instructions. To her utter relief, the ‘happy family’ – Fred, Camira and the baby, swaddled in her mother’s arms – had appeared at the door of the hut.
‘My dear friend Mrs Jefford wanted to meet your husband and see your new baby,’ Kitty enunciated, trying to calm the fear in Camira’s eyes. ‘Isn’t the baby beautiful? I think she looks just like her father.’
Camira nudged Fred and whispered something to him. To his credit, Fred folded his arms and nodded, just like a proud daddy.
‘Now,’ Kitty had said, noticing the blacking smears on the baby’s face were starting to smudge in the heat, ‘Fred, why don’t you take Alkina while I pass Charlie to Camira to feed? I confess, I am quite exhausted!’
‘Yessum, missus,’ Camira had squeaked. The exchange of babies ensued and Fred disappeared back inside the hut.
‘Bless my soul!’ Mrs Jefford had said, fanning herself violently in the heat as they’d followed Camira back towards the house. ‘I had no idea that Alice was wed. They usually aren’t, you see, and . . .’
‘I understand completely, Mrs Jefford.’ Kitty had placed a comforting arm upon hers, enjoying every moment of the woman’s discomfort. ‘And it’s so very thoughtful of you to take the trouble to visit me and Charlie.’
‘It was nothing, my dear. Now, I am afraid I must leave immediately as I have a game of bridge with Mrs Donaldson. We must have you and Andrew to dine very soon. Goodbye.’ Kitty had watched Mrs Jefford hurrying along the front path towards her carriage. Then she’d walked into the kitchen where Camira was sitting, visibly shaking, while she fed Charlie the rest of his bottle.
‘She believed it! I . . .’ Kitty had started to giggle, and then as Fred’s desperate face had appeared at the kitchen door, holding out baby Cat like a ritual sacrifice, Kitty had let him in and taken the blackened baby from him.
‘Missus Jefford thinkum Fred my husband?’ The look of disgust on Camira’s face made Kitty laugh even harder. ‘I notta marry a man who smellum bad like him.’
Fred had beaten his chest. ‘I-a husband!’
And the three of them had laughed until their sides ached.
From that moment on, Fred had taken his fictitious duties seriously. When Camira was working inside the house looking after Charlie, Fred stood guard over Cat, as though the day Mrs Jefford had visited had joined the three of them as a real family. He had started to wash and had smartened up considerably, and nowadays he and Camira bickered like an old married couple. It was obvious that Fred adored her, but Camira would have none of it.
‘Notta right skins for each other, Missus Kitty.’ It had taken months of persuasion for Camira to call her mistress by her Christian name, rather than ‘boss’.
Kitty had no idea what that meant or where Camira’s religious allegiance actually lay: one moment she would be whispering to her ‘ancestors’ up in the skies, and singing strange songs in her high, sweet voice if one of the children caught a fever. The next, she was sitting with Fred in the stable, reading him the Bible.
Since Mrs Jefford’s visit, there had been no threats from the local Protectorate. Camira was free to walk wherever she wished to in Broome, with Cat and Charlie nestled together in the perambulator. To the whites, she was now a married woman, under the protective banner of her ‘husband’.
* * *
Kitty sat down to write a letter to her mother, and included a recent picture of herself with Andrew and Charlie that had been taken by the photographer in town. So far from her family, she found Christmas the most difficult time of year, especially as it came at the start of the ‘Big Wet’, as Camira called it. She pondered the thought of Andrew going to Europe in January, and only wished she and Charlie could travel with him to visit her mother and sisters in Edinburgh, but she knew from experience that it was pointless to beg him again.
In the past four years, her husband had become further wedded to his business. Kitty read the tension on his face when a haul was coming in on a lugger, and the stress of disappointment later the same day when it revealed no treasure. Yet the business was doing well, he said, and his father was pleased with the way things were going. Only last month another lugger and crew had been added to their fleet. Kitty was just glad that she had Charlie to occupy her, for her husband’s attention was constantly elsewhere. There was one thing he craved above all – the discovery of a perfect pearl.
‘He is so driven,’ she said to herself as she sealed the envelope and put it on a pile for Camira to post later. ‘I only wish he could be content with what he has.’
* * *
‘I have written to Drummond,’ Andrew said over dinner that night, ‘and explained to him that you have insisted on staying in Broome while I am in Europe. He’s usually in Darwin in January, supervising the shipment of his cattle to the overseas markets. I suggested that if that’s the case, he might look in on you once his business is completed.’
Kitty’s stomach did an immediate somersault at the mention of Drummond’s name. ‘As I have assured you, we will be fine. There’s no need to trouble your brother.’
‘It would do him good. He is yet to meet his nephew and living on that godforsaken cattle station of his, I worry he is turning native, so lacking is he for any civilised company.’
‘He is still unmarried?’
‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ Andrew snorted. ‘He’s far too smitten with his heads of cattle to find a wife.’
‘I am sure he is not,’ said Kitty, wondering why she was defending her brother-in-law. She had neither seen him nor heard a word from him in nigh on five years – not even a telegram to congratulate the two of them on the birth of Charlie.
This, however, did not stop her from remembering how he’d kissed her that New Year’s Eve, especially as marital relations with her husband had dwindled considerably. Often, Andrew would retire before she did, and when she arrived in the bedroom he was already fast asleep, exhausted from the stress of the day. Since Charlie’s birth almost four years ago, Kitty could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he’d reached for her and they’d made love.
The lack of a second child had been duly commented on by the gossipy circle of pearling masters’ wives. Kitty replied that she was enjoying Charlie far too much to put herself through another pregnancy, and besides, she was still young. The truth was that she longed for another baby; yearned for the big family that she herself had been brought up in. And also, if she was honest, the loving touch of a man . . .
‘You are absolutely set on staying here rather than going to Alicia Hall?’ Andrew was asking her as Camira cleared the dinner plates from the table.
‘For the last time, darling, yes.’
‘Then I will confirm the trip with Father. And I promise you, Kitty, that next year I will take you and Charlie back to visit your family.’ Andrew rose and patted his wife’s shoulder.
* * *
On the deck of the Koombana a month later, guilt and regret filled Andrew’s eyes as he embraced his wife and child.
‘Auf wiedersehen, mein Kleiner. Pass auf deine Mutter auf, ja?’ Andrew set Charlie down as the Koombana’s bell rang out to warn all non-passengers to leave the ship.
‘Goodbye, Kitty. I’ll send a telegram when we reach Fremantle. And I promise to arrive home with something extraordinary for you.’ He winked at her then tapped his nose, as Kitty swept Charlie up into her arms.
‘Take care of yourself, Andrew. Now, Charlie, say goodbye to your father.’
‘Auf wiedersehen, Papa,’ Charlie chirped. On Andrew’s insistence, he had been spoken to in both English and German and switched between the two languages with ease.
After walking down the gangplank, Kitty and Charlie waited on the quay with a horde of well-wishers. The Koombana’s presence in Broome always saw its residents in festive mood. The ship was the pride of the Adelaide Steamship Company – the height of luxury and a feat of engineering, built with a flat bottom so that it could glide into Roebuck Bay even at low tide. The horn blew and the residents waved the Koombana on her way.
As Kitty and Charlie took the open-topped train along the mile-long pier back to the town, Kitty looked at the sparkling water beneath her. The day was so unbearably humid, she had an overwhelming urge to take off all her clothes and dive in.
Once again she thought how ridiculous the social rules on behaviour were; as a white woman, the idea of swimming in the sea was one that could simply not be countenanced. She knew Camira often took Cat down to the gloriously soft sand and shallow waters of Cable Beach when the jellyfish weren’t in, and had offered to take Charlie too. When Kitty had suggested it to Andrew, he had refused point-blank.
‘Really, darling, sometimes you do have the most ridiculous notions! Our child, swimming with the blacks?’
‘Please don’t call them that! You know both their names very well. And given our child lives by the sea as both you and I did, surely he should be taught to swim? I’m sure you did at Glenelg.’
‘That was . . . different,’ Andrew had said, although Kitty had no idea why it was. ‘I’m sorry, Kitty, but on this one, I’m putting my foot down.’
As Charlie slumbered against her shoulder, worn out from the heat and excitement, Kitty gave a small smile.
While the husband’s away, the ‘Kat’ can play . . .
* * *
The following day, Kitty asked Camira if there was perhaps a hidden cove where Charlie could splash in the water. Camira’s eyebrows rose at her mistress’s request, but she nodded.
‘I knowa good place with no stingers.’
That afternoon, Fred drove the pony and cart to the other side of the peninsula. For the first time since she’d arrived in Australia, Kitty felt the sheer bliss of dipping her feet into the gloriously cool waters of the Indian Ocean. Riddell Beach was not the vast sandy stretch that Cable Beach boasted, but it was infinitely more interesting, with its large red rock formations and tiny pools full of fish. With gentle encouragement from Camira, who had removed her blouse and skirt as innocently as a child, Charlie was soon screeching and splashing happily in the water with Cat. As Kitty paddled in the shallows, holding up her petticoats, she was sorely tempted to do the same.
Then Camira pointed up to the heavens and sniffed the air. ‘Storm a-coming. Time to go home.’
Even though the sky looked perfectly clear to Kitty, she had learnt to trust Camira’s instincts. And sure enough, just as Fred steered the pony and cart into their drive, a rumble of thunder was heard, and the first raindrops of the approaching Big Wet began to fall. Kitty sighed as she took Charlie into the house, for as much as she’d longed for the blissful coolness of the air that would arrive with the storm, in less than a few minutes’ time, the garden would be a river of red sludge.
The rain lasted all night and well into the next day, and Kitty did her best to amuse Charlie inside the house with books, paper and colouring pencils.
‘Play with Cat, Mama?’ He looked up at her mournfully.
‘Cat is with her own mama, Charlie. You can go and see her later.’
Charlie pouted and his eyes filled with tears. ‘Wanna go now.’
‘Later!’ she snapped at him.
Recently, Kitty had noticed how, no matter what exciting things she suggested the two of them do together, all Charlie wanted was to be with Cat. Certainly, Camira’s daughter was an extraordinarily lovely little girl, with a gentle nature that calmed Kitty’s more hyperactive son. There was no doubt that she was already a beauty, with her gorgeously soft skin the colour of gleaming mahogany and her mesmeric amber eyes. She’d also realised in the past few months that Charlie was not just bilingual, but trilingual. Sometimes, she would hear the children playing together in the garden and talking in Cat’s native Yawuru.
Kitty had said nothing about this to Andrew; but the fact that Charlie was clever enough to understand and speak three languages, when she herself sometimes struggled to find the right word in one, made her proud. Yet, as she watched Charlie peering out of the kitchen window, looking desperately for Cat, she wondered if she’d allowed Charlie to spend more time in her company than he should.
The rain finally stopped, although the red sludge had overwhelmed her precious roses, and, with Fred’s help, she spent the next morning clearing the beds as best she could. That afternoon, knowing it was low tide and feeling it important to spend some time alone with her son, she drove Charlie on the cart to Gantheaume Point to show him the dinosaur footprint.
‘Monsters!’ said Charlie, as Kitty tried to explain that the enormous gouges in the rocks far beneath them were made by a giant foot. ‘Did God make ’em?’
‘Did God make them, Charlie,’ she reprimanded him, realising Cat and Camira’s pidgin English was having an effect. ‘Yes, he did.’
‘When he makum the baby Jesus.’
‘Before he made the baby Jesus,’ said Kitty, knowing Charlie was far too young to try to grapple with such philosophical questions. As they headed back home, she mused that life only became more confusing when one viewed it through the eyes of an innocent child.
That evening, Kitty put Charlie to bed and read him a story, then, as Andrew wasn’t there, she took her supper on a tray in the drawing room. Picking up a book from the shelf, she heard another rumble of thunder outside and knew further rain was on its way and the Big Wet had begun in earnest. Settling down to read Bleak House, which served on all levels to cool her senses, she heard the rain begin to pour onto the tin roof. Andrew had promised that next year he would have it tiled, which would lessen the almighty clatter above them.
‘Good evening, Mrs Mercer.’
Kitty almost jumped out of her skin. She turned around and saw Andrew, or at least, a half-drowned and red-sludge-spattered version of him, standing at the drawing room door.
‘Darling!’ she said as she rose and hurried towards him. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘I was desperate to see you, of course.’ He embraced her and she felt his soggy clothes dampening her own.
‘But what about the voyage to Singapore? The trip to Europe? When did you decide to turn back?’
‘Kitty, how good it feels to hold you in my arms once more. How I have missed you, my love.’
It was something about the smell of him – musky, sensuous – that finally alerted her.
‘Good grief! It’s you!’
‘You are right, Mrs Mercer, it is indeed me. My brother asked me to come to see if you were well in his absence. And as I was passing by . . .’
‘For pity’s sake!’ Kitty wrenched her body away from his. ‘Do you take pleasure in your joke? I believed you were Andrew!’
‘And it was very lovely . . .’
‘You should have announced yourself properly. Is it my fault that you look identical?!’ Moved beyond rational thought at his impudence, Kitty slapped him sharply across the face. ‘I . . .’ Then she sank into a chair, horrified at her actions. ‘Forgive me, Drummond, that was totally uncalled for,’ she apologised as she watched him rub his reddening cheek.
‘Well, I’ve had worse, and I will forgive you. Although even I don’t believe that Andrew calls you “Mrs Mercer” when he walks through the door, seeking his supper and his wife’s company. But you are of course correct,’ he conceded. ‘I should have announced myself the minute I walked through the door, but – forgive my vanity – I thought that you would know me.’
‘I was hardly expecting you—’
‘Surely Andrew told you that he’d invited me to pay a visit?’
‘Yes, but not so soon after he’d left.’
‘I was already in Darwin when the telegram was sent on to me in December. I decided there was little point in going back to the cattle station, only to return and do as my brother had bidden me. Do you by any chance have any brandy? It sounds odd given the heat, but I actually find myself shivering.’
Kitty saw the red rivulets dripping off him and forming a puddle on the floor. ‘Goodness, forgive me for having you stand there when you are soaked through and probably exhausted. I shall call my maid and have her fill the bathtub for you. Meanwhile, I shall find the brandy. Andrew keeps a bottle for guests somewhere.’
‘You are still teetotal then?’
He gave her a lopsided grin, and despite herself, Kitty smiled. ‘Of course.’ She took a glass and a bottle from a cupboard and did as Drummond had asked. ‘Now, I will get your bath filled.’
‘There is no need to call your maid. Just point me in the direction of the water and tub.’ He tossed the brandy back in one mouthful and then proffered the glass to her to be filled again.
‘Are you hungry?’ she asked him.
‘I’m famished, and will gladly eat any fatted calf you have to hand. But first, I need to get out of these wet clothes.’
Having led Drummond to Andrew’s dressing room and shown him the pitchers with which to fill the tub, she went to the kitchen to put together a tray of bread, cheese and soup left over from lunchtime.
Drummond entered the kitchen twenty minutes later with a towel wrapped round his waist. ‘All the clothes I have with me are filthy. May I borrow something of my brother’s to wear?’
‘Of course, take what you wish.’ Kitty could not help stealing a glance at his bare chest – the sinews taut across it, and the muscles lying beneath the deep tan of his shoulders that spoke of hard manual labour.
He arrived in the drawing room in Andrew’s silk robe and slippers. He ate the soup silently and hungrily, then poured himself further brandy.
‘Did you travel by boat between Darwin and Broome?’ she asked politely.
‘I travelled overland, part of the way on horseback. Then I happened upon the Ghan cameleers as they made camp on the banks of the Ord River. The river was swollen, so they were waiting until the water subsided enough for the camels to be safely hauled across on a line. Poor blighters, they’re not keen on swimming. I continued my journey with them, which was far more entertaining than travelling alone. The stories those cameleers have to tell . . . and all the time in the world to tell them. It took many days to get here.’
‘I have heard that the desert beyond Broome is a dangerous place to be.’
‘It is indeed, but I’d imagine not nearly as deadly as the viper-like tongues of some of your female neighbours. Give me a black’s spear or a snake any day, above the stultifying conversation of the colonial middle-classes.’
‘You make our lives here sound very dull and pedestrian,’ Kitty said irritably. ‘Why do you always wish to patronise me?’
‘Forgive me, Kitty. I understand that everything is relative. The fact that you sit here now, a woman alone and unprotected in a town thousands of miles from civilisation, where murder and rape are commonplace, is a credit to your strength and bravery. Especially with a young child.’
‘I am not unprotected. I have Camira and Fred.’
‘And who might Camira and Fred be?’
‘Fred takes care of the grounds and the horses, and Camira helps me in the house and with Charlie. She has a daughter of her own, of similar age to my son.’
‘I presume they are blacks?’
‘I prefer not to use that term. They are Yawuru.’
‘Good for you. It is unusual to have such a family unit working for you.’
‘I wouldn’t call them that, exactly. It’s complicated.’
‘It always is,’ Drummond agreed, ‘but I am glad for you. Once such people are committed, they make the most loyal of servants and protectors. To be honest, I am astounded that my brother allowed you to employ such a couple.’
‘They aren’t a couple.’
‘Whatever arrangement they have is unimportant. What is important is that Andrew overrode his prejudice and allowed them close. Now I am no longer so concerned about you being here in Broome alone. I admit to being horrified when I received the telegram. Why did my brother not take you with him?’
‘He said it was a business trip and that Charlie would become restless aboard ship. He wanted me to go to Adelaide to stay with your mother, but I refused.’
‘You thought that option a fate worse than death, no doubt.’ Drummond raised an eyebrow and refilled his brandy glass. ‘I am sure that you have realised by now that the only thing that matters to Andrew is proving himself to Father. And, of course, becoming richer than him.’
‘These things matter to him, of course they do, as they matter to any man—’
‘Not to me.’
‘To every other man, then.’ Kitty stifled her irritation as she watched Drummond drain his brandy glass yet again.
‘Perhaps I have never known the pressure of being the eldest son of a rich man. I’ve often mused on the fact that those two short hours it took me to follow Andrew into the world were a godsend. I am happy to have him take the Mercer crown. As you may have realised, I am a lost cause, unfit for civilised society. Unlike Andrew, who is – and has always been – a stoic pillar of it.’
‘He is certainly a good husband to me and a caring father to Charlie. We want for nothing, I have no complaints.’
‘Well, I do.’ Drummond suddenly slammed his glass down onto the table. ‘I asked you to wait until I’d returned from Europe before you said yes to Andrew. And you didn’t.’
Kitty stared at him, outraged at his vanity. ‘Do you really believe I thought you were being serious? I didn’t hear another word from you!’
‘I was on a boat when my brother proposed. I hardly felt it appropriate to send a telegram asking him why his fiancee hadn’t adhered to my wishes!’
‘Drummond, you were drunk that night, as you are now!’
‘Drunk or sober, what the hell is the difference?! You knew that I wanted you!’
‘I knew nothing! Enough!’ Kitty stood up, now shaking with anger. ‘I will not listen to this rubbish any longer. I am Andrew’s wife. We have a child and a life together, and that is the end of it.’
Silence fell between them; the only sound in the room was the rain rattling down on the roof above them.
‘My apologies, Kitty. I have travelled a long way. I am exhausted and not used to civilised company. Perhaps I should go to bed.’
‘Perhaps you should.’
Drummond stood up, swaying slightly. ‘Goodnight.’ He walked to the door, then turned round to look at her. ‘That New Year kiss is what I remember most of all. Don’t you?’
With that, he left the room.