6
Kitty McBride lay in her bed and watched the tiny house spider weaving its web around a hapless bluebottle that had flown into its trap in a corner of the ceiling. She’d seen the bluebottle buzzing across her ceiling last night before she turned out the gas lamp – a hardy last remnant of a warm autumn turning to winter. She mused how the spider must have been busy all night to mummify the bluebottle within its silken threads.
‘That will surely be a month’s supper for you and your family,’ she told the spider before drawing in a determined breath and throwing off her covers. Shivering her way across the freezing room to the washstand, she gave herself a far briefer lick and spit than her mother would have approved of. Through the small window, she saw a thick early morning mist was shrouding the terraced houses on the other side of the narrow street. Pulling on her woollen vest and fastening the buttons of her dress across her long, white throat, she scraped her mane of auburn hair off her face and into a coil on the top of her head.
‘I look like a veritable ghost,’ she told her reflection in the looking glass as she moved to the undergarment drawer to retrieve her rouge. She dabbed a little on her cheeks, rubbed it in, then pinched them. She had purchased the compact at Jenners on Princes Street two days ago, having saved all her shillings from the twice-weekly piano lessons she gave.
Father, of course, would say that vanity was a sin. But then, Father thought most things were sinful; he spent his time writing sermons and then preaching his thoughts to his flock. Profanity, vanity, the demon drink . . . and his favourite of all: the pleasures of the flesh. Kitty often wondered how she and her three sisters had arrived on the planet; surely he would have had to indulge in those ‘pleasures’ himself to make their births possible? And now her mother was expecting another baby, which meant that they must have done the thing together quite recently . . .
Kitty baulked as a sudden image of her parents naked flew into her head. She doubted she would ever be able to remove her vest and bloomers in front of anyone – least of all a man. Shuddering, she replaced her precious rouge in the drawer so Martha, one of her younger sisters, wouldn’t be tempted to steal it. Then she opened her bedroom door and hastened down the three flights of wooden stairs for breakfast.
‘Good morning, Katherine.’ Ralph, her father, sitting at the head of the table with his three younger daughters sitting quietly along one side of it, looked up and gave her a warm smile. Everyone always said she resembled her father in looks, with his full head of curly auburn hair, blue eyes and high cheekbones. His pale skin had barely a line on it, even though Kitty knew he was in his mid-forties. All his female parishioners were deeply in love with him and hung on every word he spoke from the pulpit. And at the same time, she thought, probably dreaming of doing all the things with him that he told them they shouldn’t.
‘Good morning, Father. Did you sleep well?’
‘I did, but your poor mother did not. She is plagued by nausea, as she always is in the early stages of her pregnancies. I’ve had Aylsa take up a tray to her.’
Kitty knew this must mean her mother was most unwell. The breakfast routine in the McBride household was usually strictly adhered to.
‘Poor Mother,’ Kitty said as she sat down, one chair along from her father. ‘I shall go up and see her after breakfast.’
‘Perhaps, Katherine, you would be kind enough to visit your mother’s parishioners today and run any errands she needs?’
‘Of course.’
Ralph said grace, picked up his spoon and began to eat the thick oat porridge, which was the signal for Kitty and her sisters to begin too.
This morning, being a Thursday, breakfast was punctuated by Ralph testing his daughters on their addition and subtraction skills. The weekly timetable was sacred: Monday was spelling, Tuesday, capital cities of the world. On Wednesday, it was the dates of when the kings and queens of England had ascended the throne, with a potted biography of her father’s choosing on one of them. Friday was the easiest as it covered the Scottish monarchy, and there hadn’t been many Scottish kings and queens after England had taken over. Saturday was used for each child to recite a poem from memory, and on Sunday Ralph fasted to prepare for his busiest day and went to his church before anyone else in the household was up.
Kitty loved Sunday breakfasts.
She watched her sisters struggling to combine the numbers and then swallowing the porridge quickly to give the answer without their mouths being full, which would have elicited a disapproving frown from Father.
‘Seventeen!’ shouted Mary, the youngest sister at eight, who was bored of waiting for Miriam, her older sister by three years, to answer.
‘Well done, my dear!’ Ralph said proudly.
Kitty thought this was extremely unfair on poor Miriam, who had always struggled with her numbers and whose nervous personality was overshadowed by her more confident sister. Miriam was Kitty’s secret favourite.
‘So, Mary, as you have beaten your sisters to the answer, you may choose which parable I will tell.’
‘The Prodigal Son!’ Mary said immediately.
As Ralph began to speak in his low, resonant voice, Kitty only wished he had taught them more parables from the Bible. In truth, she was very weary of the few he favoured. Besides, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t understand the moral behind the tale of the son who disappeared for years from his family’s table, leaving another son to take on the burden of his parents. And then, when he came back . . .
‘. . . bring the fatted calf and kill it. Let us feast and celebrate!’ Ralph decreed for her.
Kitty longed to ask her father if this meant that anyone could behave just as they liked and still return home to a joyous welcome, because that was how it sounded. She knew Ralph would tell her that their Father in heaven would forgive anyone who repented of their sins, but in reality, it didn’t sound quite fair on the other son, who’d stayed and been good all along, but didn’t get the fatted calf killed for him. Then Ralph would say that good people got their reward in the kingdom of heaven, but that seemed an awfully long time to wait when others got it on earth.
‘Katherine!’ Her father broke into her thoughts. ‘You’re daydreaming again. I said, would you please take your sisters up to the nursery and organise their morning studies? As your mother is too unwell to give them lessons, I shall come up to the nursery at eleven and we shall have an hour of Bible study.’ Ralph smiled benignly at his daughters, then stood up. ‘Until then, I will be in my study.’
* * *
When Ralph appeared in the nursery at eleven, Kitty ran to her bedroom to retrieve the books she intended to return to the public library before she embarked on visiting her mother’s parishioners. Descending the stairs to the entrance hall, she hastily pulled her thick shawl and cape from a peg, eager to escape the oppressive atmosphere of the manse. As she tied the ribbons of her bonnet beneath her chin, she entered the drawing room and saw her mother sitting beside the fire, her pretty face grey and exhausted.
‘Dearest Mother, you look so tired.’
‘I confess that I am feeling more fatigued than usual today.’
‘Rest, Mother, and I shall see you later.’
‘Thank you, my dear.’ Her mother smiled wanly as Kitty kissed her and left the drawing room.
Stepping out into the bracing morning air, she made her way through the narrow streets of Leith and was greeted by numerous parishioners, some of whom had known her since she was no more than a ‘squalling bairn’, as they often liked to remind her. She passed Mrs Dubhach, who, as usual, asked after the reverend and gushed over last Sunday’s sermon, to the point where Kitty began to feel quite nauseous.
After bidding farewell to the woman, Kitty boarded the electric tram heading for central Edinburgh. After changing trams on Leith Walk, she alighted near George IV Bridge and headed for the Central Library. She glanced at the students who were chatting and laughing as they walked up the steps to the vast grey-brick building, lights shining out from the many mullioned windows into the drab winter sky. Inside the high-ceilinged main hall it was barely warmer than outside, and as she set her books down at the returns desk, she hugged her shawl tighter to her as the librarian dealt with the paperwork.
Kitty stood patiently, thinking about one particular book she had recently borrowed: Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, first published over forty years ago. It had proved to be a revelation for her. In fact, it had been the catalyst that had caused her to question her religious faith and the teachings that her father had instilled in her since childhood. She knew he would be horrified to think she had even read such blasphemous words, let alone given them any credence.
As it was, the reverend only grudgingly condoned her regular visits to the library, but for Kitty, it was her haven – the place that had provided the bulk of her education in subjects that went far beyond what she learnt from Bible study or her mother’s basic English and arithmetic lessons. Her introduction to Darwin had come about by chance, after her father had mentioned that Mrs McCrombie, his church’s wealthiest benefactor, was considering a visit to her relatives in Australia. Kitty’s interest had been piqued and, knowing next to nothing about the distant continent, she had browsed the library shelves and had stumbled upon The Voyage of the Beagle, which chronicled the young Darwin’s adventures during a five-year journey around the globe, including two months spent in Australia. One of his books had led to another, and Kitty had found herself both fascinated and disturbed by the revolutionary theories Mr Darwin espoused.
She wished that she had someone she could discuss these ideas with, but could only imagine her father’s apoplexy if she ever dared to mention the word ‘evolution’. The very idea that the creatures which populated the earth were not of God’s design, but instead the outcome of millennia spent adapting to their environment, would be anathema to him. Let alone the notion that birth and death were not His to bestow, because ‘natural selection’ determined that only the strongest of any species survived and bred. The theory of evolution made prayer seem rather arbitrary because, according to Darwin, there was no master beyond nature, the most powerful force in the world.
Kitty checked the clock on the wall and, having completed her business with the librarian, she did not linger among the shelves as she normally would, but made her way outside and caught a tram back to Leith.
Later that afternoon, she hurried towards home through the bitterly cold streets. Tall, austere buildings lined either side of the road, all made of the same dull sandstone that blended into the constant greyness of the sky. She could see by the layered light of the gas lamps that a heavy fog was descending on the city. She was weary, having spent the afternoon visiting sick parishioners – both those on her own list and those on her mother’s. To her dismay, when she’d arrived at the front door of a tenement block on Queen Charlotte Street, she’d found that Mrs Monkton, a dear old lady whom Father swore had fornicated and drunk herself into poverty, had died the day before. Despite her father’s comments, Kitty had always looked forward to her weekly visits with Mrs Monkton, although trying to decipher what the woman said, due to the combination of a lack of teeth and an accent one could cut with a knife, was a task that took considerable concentration. The good humour with which Mrs Monkton had taken her slide into penury, never once complaining about the squalor she lived in after her fall from grace – Aye, I was a lady’s maid once, ye know. Lived in a reet grand house until the mistress saw the master had set his sights o’ me, she’d cackled once – had provided Kitty with a benchmark. After all, even if the rest of her own life continued along the same narrow track, at least she had a roof over her head and food on her table, when so many others hereabouts did not.
‘I hope you are in heaven, where you belong,’ whispered Kitty into the thick night air as she crossed Henderson Street to the manse on the other side of the road. As she neared the front door, a shadow crossed her path and Kitty stopped abruptly to avoid colliding with its owner. She saw that the shadow belonged to a young woman who had frozen in her tracks and was staring at her. Her tattered scarf had slipped from around her head to reveal a gaunt face with huge haunted eyes and pallid skin framed by coarse brown hair. Kitty thought the poor creature could only be about her own age.
‘Do excuse me,’ she said, as she stepped awkwardly aside to let the girl pass. But the girl did not move, just continued to stare at her unwaveringly, until Kitty broke her gaze and opened the front door. As she entered the house, she felt the girl’s eyes boring into her back and she slammed the door hurriedly.
Kitty removed her cape and bonnet, doing her best to divest herself of that pair of haunted eyes at the same time. Then she pondered the Jane Austen novels she’d read and the descriptions of picturesque rectories sitting in the middle of delightful gardens in the English countryside, their inhabitants surrounded by genteel neighbours leading similarly privileged lives. She decided that Miss Austen could never have travelled so far up north and witnessed how city clergymen lived on the outskirts of Edinburgh.
Just like the rest of the buildings along the street, the manse was a sturdy Victorian four-floor building, designed for practicality, not prettiness. Poverty was only a heartbeat away in the tenement buildings near the docks. Father often said that no one could ever criticise him for living in a manner above his flock, but at least, thought Kitty as she walked into the drawing room to toast her hands by the fire, unlike others in the neighbourhood, the manse’s inhabitants were warm and dry.
‘Good evening, Mother,’ she greeted Adele, who was sitting in her chair by the fireside darning socks, resting them and the pincushion on her small bump.
‘Good evening, Kitty. How was your day?’ Adele’s soft accent was that of Scottish gentility, her father having been a laird in Dumfriesshire. Kitty and her sisters had loved travelling south each summer to see their grandparents, and she had especially delighted in being able to ride horses across the sweeping countryside. She had always been perplexed, however, that her father had never accompanied them on their summer sojourns. He cited the need to remain with his flock, but Kitty had begun to suspect that it was because her grandparents disapproved of him. The McBrides, although wealthy, had come from what Kitty had heard termed ‘trade’, whereas her mother’s parents were descendants of the noble Clan Douglas, and frequently voiced their concern that their daughter lived in such reduced circumstances as a minister’s wife.
‘Mrs McFarlane and her children send their best wishes, and Mr Cuthbertson’s leg abscess seems to have healed. Although I have some sad news too, Mother. I’m afraid Mrs Monkton died yesterday.’
‘God rest her soul.’ Adele immediately crossed herself. ‘But perhaps it was a blessed relief, living like she did . . .’
‘Her neighbour said they’d taken her body to the mortuary, but as there are no relatives and Mrs Monkton hadn’t a farthing to her name, there’s nothing for a funeral or a decent burial plot. Unless . . .’
‘I’ll speak to your father,’ Adele comforted her daughter. ‘Although I know church funds are running low at the moment.’
‘Please do, Mother. Whatever Father said about her descent into sin, she had definitely repented by the end.’
‘And she was delightful company. Oh, I do so hate the onset of winter. The season of death . . . certainly around these parts.’ Adele gave a small shudder and put a hand protectively across her belly. ‘Your father’s at a parish committee meeting this evening, then out to take supper with Mrs McCrombie. He’s hoping she will once more see her way clear to giving our church a donation. Heaven knows, it needs it. It cannot run on eternal salvation alone.’
Or on the promise of something we cannot even see, or hear, or touch . . .
‘Yes, Mother.’
‘Perhaps you would go upstairs to your sisters, Kitty dear? Bring them down to see me when they’re in their nightgowns. I feel so weary tonight, I simply cannot climb the stairs to the nursery floor.’
A surge of panic ran through Kitty. ‘You are still unwell, Mother?’
‘One day, my dear, you will understand how draining pregnancy can be, especially at my age. We two shall eat at eight, and there is no need to dress for dinner, as your father is out,’ she added.
Kitty climbed the interminable stairs, cursing the double blight of being a minister’s daughter and the eldest of a brood of four, soon to be five. She walked into the nursery and found Martha, Miriam and Mary squabbling over a game of marbles.
‘I won!’ said Martha, who was fourteen and possessed a temperament as stubborn as Father’s religious beliefs.
‘It was me!’ Mary retorted with a pout.
‘Actually, I think it was me,’ put in Miriam gently. And Kitty knew it had been her.
‘Well, whoever it was, Mother wants you to complete your ablutions, dress in your nightgowns, and go and kiss her goodnight in the drawing room.’
‘Go to the drawing room in our nightgowns?’ Mary looked shocked. ‘What will Father say?’
‘Father is out having supper with Mrs McCrombie. Now,’ Kitty said as Aylsa arrived in the nursery with a washbasin. ‘Let’s see the state of your faces and necks.’
‘D’ye mind sorting them out, Miss Kitty? I must see to the supper downstairs,’ Aylsa pleaded with her.
‘Of course not, Aylsa.’ As their only housemaid, Kitty knew the girl was utterly exhausted by this time of night.
‘Thank you, Miss Kitty.’ Giving her a grateful nod, Aylsa scurried out of the nursery.
When all three of her sisters were in their white muslin nightgowns, Kitty marched them downstairs to the drawing room. As her mother kissed them goodnight one by one, Kitty decided that at least her early experience of childcare would stand her in good stead when she had children of her own. Then, looking at her mother’s burgeoning stomach and the fatigue plain on her face, she thought that perhaps she wouldn’t have any at all.
Once her sisters had been despatched off to bed, Kitty and her mother sat down in the dining room to eat a supper of tough broiled beef, potatoes and cabbage. They discussed church business and the coming festive season which, for the McBride family, was the busiest time of the year. Adele smiled at her.
‘You’re such a good girl, Kitty, and I am so very glad of your help, both inside the house and out while I am . . . encumbered. Of course, soon it will be time for you to have a husband and a family of your own. You’ll turn eighteen next week. Goodness, I can’t quite believe it.’
‘I’m in no rush, Mother,’ said Kitty, remembering the last time the minister of the North Leith parish had come to tea with his wife and pointedly introduced her to his son, Angus. The young man had blushed every time he’d spoken through thick, wet lips about how he was to follow his father into the ministry. She was sure that he was perfectly nice, but although she still didn’t quite know what she wanted, it certainly wasn’t to be the wife of a minister. Or Angus.
‘And I will be lost without you here,’ Adele continued, ‘but one day it will be so.’
Kitty decided to grasp the moment, for it was not often she and her mother were alone. ‘I wanted to ask you something.’
‘What is it?’
‘I have been wondering whether Father would consider letting me train as a teacher. I would so very much like to have a profession. And, as you know, I enjoy teaching my sisters.’
‘I am not sure that your father would approve of you having a “profession”, as you put it,’ Adele said with a frown.
‘Surely, he would see it as God’s work? Helping the less fortunate to learn to read and write,’ Kitty persevered. ‘It would mean I was no longer a burden to you if I was earning my own keep.’
‘Kitty dear, that is what a husband is for,’ Adele said gently. ‘We must remember that even though your father has selflessly given himself to the Lord and his path has led us here to Leith, you are a descendant of the Douglas Clan. No woman from my family has ever worked for a living. Only for charity, as we both do now.’
‘I cannot see how anyone – either my grandparents or the Lord above – would think it shameful for a woman to work. I saw an advertisement in The Scotsman for young women to train as teachers and—’
‘By all means, ask your father, but I am sure that he will wish for you to carry on doing your good works in the parish until you find a suitable husband. Now, my back is aching on this hard chair. Let us go and sit in the drawing room where it is warmer and more comfortable.’
Frustrated by her mother’s lack of support for the idea she’d been harbouring for the past few weeks, Kitty did as she’d been bidden. She sat by the fire as her mother took up her knitting for the forthcoming baby and pretended to read a book.
Twenty minutes later, they heard the front door open, heralding the return of the Reverend McBride.
‘I think I will retire to bed, Mother,’ said Kitty, not in the mood to make conversation with her father. Crossing him in the hallway, she dipped a curtsey. ‘Good evening, Father. I trust you had a pleasant supper with Mrs McCrombie?’
‘Indeed I did.’
‘Well then, goodnight.’ Kitty made for the stairs.
‘Goodnight, my dear.’
A few minutes later Kitty climbed into bed, noticing how the spider had wrapped its web so thoroughly around the bluebottle that it was hardly to be seen, and praying that her father had not set his daughter in a similar trap of the marriage variety.
‘Please Lord, anybody but Angus,’ she groaned.
* * *
The following morning, Kitty sat at the desk in her father’s study. She had offered to take over the task of completing the parish accounts while her mother was indisposed, which included totting up the amounts from the collection plate at church, along with any other charitable donations, and balancing them against what seemed like frighteningly large outgoings. As she worked through this week’s columns of figures, she heard a loud knocking on the front door and ran to answer it before it woke her mother, who was resting upstairs.
She opened the door to a young woman whom she recognised immediately as the girl who had appeared outside the manse the night before.
‘Good morning. May I help you?’
‘I need tae see Ralph,’ the young woman said, urgency apparent in her voice.
‘The Reverend McBride is out visiting parishioners,’ Kitty said. ‘Might I pass on a message?’
‘You’re no’ lyin’, are ye? I reckon he’s bin hidin’ from me. I need tae speak to him. Now.’
‘As I said, he is not at home. May I pass on a message?’ Kitty repeated firmly.
‘Ye tell him Annie needs a word. Ye tell him it can’t wait.’
Before Kitty could reply, the young woman turned swiftly and ran off down the street.
As she closed the front door, Kitty wondered why the woman had used her father’s Christian name . . .
When Ralph arrived home two hours later, she tapped tentatively on the door of his study.
‘Come.’
‘Sorry to disturb you, Father, but a young lady came by the house this morning.’
‘Really?’ Ralph looked up, put down his pen and removed his reading glasses. ‘And what did she want? A few ha’pennies, no doubt. They all do.’
‘No. She specifically asked me to tell you that “Annie needs a word”. And it can’t wait. Apparently,’ Kitty added lamely. There was a pause before Ralph put his reading glasses back on his nose and picked up his pen once more. He began to write as Kitty hovered in the doorway.
‘I think I know the girl,’ he responded eventually. ‘She waits outside the church on Sundays. I took pity on her once and threw her some coins from the collection. I’ll deal with her.’
‘Yes, Father. I’ll be off to run some errands now.’ Kitty withdrew from the study and hurried to retrieve her bonnet, shawl and cape, relieved to escape from a sudden tension she felt but couldn’t begin to describe.
On the way back home with a heavy basket of eggs, milk, vegetables and a waxed wrapper full of the haggis her father loved and the rest of the family tolerated, the cold wind stiffened. Kitty pressed her shawl tighter around her shoulders as she walked down a narrow alley that was a shortcut to Henderson Street. The sight of a familiar figure just ahead of her in the deepening gloom made her freeze where she was. Her father was standing on a doorstep with the poor creature – Annie – who had knocked on the manse door earlier that day. Kitty shrank back into the shadows, instinct telling her she should not reveal herself.
The woman’s features were contorted in what could have been pain or anger as she whispered hoarsely to him. Kitty watched as Ralph reached out and gripped Annie’s hands tightly, before leaning in close to whisper something in her ear and planting a tender kiss on her forehead. Then, with a wave, he turned and walked away. Annie stood alone, her hands clasping and unclasping over what Kitty saw was a markedly distended belly. A second later, she disappeared inside and the door was firmly shut.
After waiting a good five minutes Kitty walked home, her legs unsteady beneath her. Mechanically, she went through her chores, but her mind was continually spinning with possible answers to what she had seen. Perhaps it hadn’t been what it had seemed; perhaps her father had simply been comforting the poor woman in her distress . . .
Yet, in the darkest corner of her mind, Kitty already knew.
* * *
Over the following few days, she avoided her father as much as she could, the situation made easier by the fact her eighteenth birthday was fast approaching. The house positively buzzed with secrets and excitement at the prospect of a celebration, her sisters shushing her out of the room to whisper conspiratorially together, and her parents spending time together in the drawing room with the door firmly closed.
On the eve of her birthday, Ralph caught her as she headed upstairs to bed.
‘My dearest Katherine, tomorrow you will no longer be a child.’
‘Yes, Father.’ Kitty could not bring herself to meet his gaze.
‘You are a credit to both myself and your mother.’ Ralph bent down and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Goodnight, and God bless you.’
Kitty nodded her thanks and continued up the stairs.
In bed, she pulled the covers over her head, shivering in the late autumn chill.
‘Lord, forgive me,’ she sighed, ‘for I’m no longer sure who my father is.’
* * *
Aylsa was already up to lay the fires when Kitty descended the stairs the next morning. Needing some fresh air to clear the fog of confusion and the exhaustion of another restless night, she slipped out of the house and walked in the direction of the docks.
She stopped to sit on a low wall, watching the sky’s slow awakening, which sent hues of purple and pink across its miraculous breadth. Then she saw a figure emerge from the street that she had just walked down. It was Annie, whom Kitty realised must have seen her passing along the alley and followed her.
Their gazes locked as the woman approached her.
‘He came tae see me,’ said Annie gruffly, dark smudges of exhaustion evident beneath her eyes. ‘He cannae hide no more behind God. Aye, he knows the truth!’
‘I . . .’ Kitty moved away from her.
‘What’m I meant to do?’ Annie demanded. ‘He gave me a few coins and told me to go get rid o’ it. I cannae, I’m too far gone.’
‘I don’t know, I’m sorry, I . . .’
‘Och, you’re sorry! Fat lot of good that does me! It’s your daddy that needs to be sorry.’
‘I have to go. I really do apologise,’ Kitty repeated as she rose to her feet, picked up her skirts, then walked swiftly away in the direction of home.
‘He’s the Devil!’ Annie shouted after her. ‘That’s the truth!’
* * *
Somehow, Kitty got through the rest of the day – she opened the thoughtful homemade presents from her sisters and blew out the candles on the cake that Aylsa had made especially for her. She suppressed a shudder as Ralph kissed and embraced her – a natural act that, up until a few days ago, she had delighted in. Now it somehow felt unclean.
‘My dear, you have grown into a fine young woman,’ Adele said proudly. ‘I pray that one day soon you will have a family of your own and be the lady of your own household.’
‘Thank you, Mother,’ Kitty replied quietly.
‘Dearest Katherine, my special girl. Happy birthday, and may the Lord bless you in your future. I believe He has something special in mind for you, my dear.’
Later that evening, Kitty was called in to her father’s bare cell of a study that lay at the back of the house facing a brick wall. He always said that the lack of a view helped him focus on his sermons.
‘Katherine, do come and sit down.’ Ralph indicated the hard-backed wooden chair in the corner of the room. ‘Now then, you are aware that I had supper with Mrs McCrombie recently?’
‘Yes, Father.’ Whenever Kitty had glanced at her father’s patron across the aisle in church, she had seen an extravagantly dressed, plump middle-aged woman who looked out of place in the far poorer crowd. Mrs McCrombie never visited them at home. Instead, her father went to see her in her grand house just off Princes Street. Therefore, their sum total of shared conversation had amounted to a polite ‘good morning’ if their paths had crossed outside church after the service.
‘As you know, Katherine, Mrs McCrombie has always been a generous benefactress of our church and our community,’ said Ralph. ‘Her eldest son went into the clergy but was killed in the first Boer War. I fancy she rather sees me as his replacement, and, of course, gives to the church in his memory. She’s a good woman, a Christian woman who wants to help those less fortunate than herself, and I’m eternally grateful that she has chosen my church as her charity.’
‘Yes, Father.’ Kitty wondered where this was leading and hoped the conversation would be over soon. It was her eighteenth birthday, after all, and just now, she could hardly bear to breathe the same air as him.
‘The point is, as you know, that Mrs McCrombie has family in Australia, whom she hasn’t seen for many years, namely her youngest sister, her brother-in-law and two nephews who live in a town called Adelaide on the south coast. She has decided that while she is still in good health, she should go to visit them.’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘And . . . she is looking for a companion to accompany her on the long journey. Obviously, the girl must come from a good Christian home and also be able to assist her in the care of her wardrobe, dressing her and the like. So . . . I have suggested you, Katherine. You will be away for nine months or so, and having discussed it with your mother, I feel it’s a wonderful opportunity for you to go and see some of the world, and at the same time, settle that restless spirit of yours.’
Kitty was so shocked at his suggestion, she had no idea how to answer him. ‘Father, really, I am quite content here. I—’
‘It is in you, Kitty, just as it was once in me before I found the Lord . . .’
Kitty watched his eyes leave her face and travel to somewhere far distant in his past. Eventually, they came to focus back on her. ‘I know you are searching for a purpose, and let us pray you will find it through being a good wife and mother one day. But for now, what do you say?’
‘In truth, I hardly know what to say,’ she replied honestly.
‘I will show you Australia in the atlas. You may have heard that it is a dangerous and uncharted country and it is certainly full of heathen natives, although Mrs McCrombie assures me that the town of Adelaide is as civilised a society as Edinburgh. Many of our faith sailed there in the 1830s to escape from persecution. She tells me there are several beautiful Lutheran and Presbyterian churches already built. It is a God-fearing place and under Mrs McCrombie’s wing, I have no hesitation in sending you there.’
‘Will I . . . will I be paid for my services?’
‘Of course not, Katherine! Mrs McCrombie is funding a berth for you and covering all other expenses. Do you have any idea how much such a trip costs? Besides, I think it’s the least our family can do, given what she has so generously donated to our church over the years.’
So I am to be offered as a living, breathing sacrifice in return . . .
‘So, my dear. What do you think of that then?’
‘Whatever you believe is best for me, Father,’ she managed, lowering her eyes so that he couldn’t see the anger contained within them. ‘But what about Mother when the baby arrives? Surely she will need my help?’
‘We have discussed that, and I have assured your mother that when the time comes, I will see that funds are available to hire extra help.’
In all her eighteen years at the manse, there had never been ‘funds’ to ‘hire extra help’.
‘Katherine, speak to me,’ Ralph implored her. ‘Are you unhappy about this arrangement?’
‘I . . . don’t know. It . . . has all come as a surprise.’
‘I understand.’ Ralph leant down and took her hands in his, his mesmeric eyes boring into hers. ‘Naturally you must be confused. Now, you must listen to me. When I met your mother, I was a captain with the 92nd Highlanders and our futures looked set. Then I was sent to fight in the Boer War. I saw many of my friends – and enemies – extinguished by the fire of other men’s rifles. And then I myself was shot at the Battle of Majuba Hill. In hospital afterwards, I had an epiphany. I prayed that night that if I were saved, I would dedicate my life to God, give every breath to try to halt the injustice and the bloody murder that I’d seen. The following morning, with the doctors not expecting me to last the night, I woke up. My temperature was down and my chest wound healed within days. It was then I knew and understood what my future path would be. Your mother understood too; she is full of God’s love herself, but in doing what I felt I must, she has suffered, and so have you and your sisters. Do you see, Katherine?’
‘Yes, Father,’ Kitty answered automatically, although she didn’t.
‘This journey to Australia with Mrs McCrombie is an opening to the kind of society that your mother’s family is part of. Just because I feel a need to save souls does not mean that the future of my daughters should be curtailed. I am sure that if you acquit yourself well on this trip, Mrs McCrombie would be happy to introduce you to a wider circle of young gentlemen both here and in Australia that might make a more suitable match for you than I ever could, given our humble financial status. She knows of my sacrifice to further the Lord’s work and of the aspirations of your mother’s family in Dumfriesshire. She wishes to do her best for you, Katherine. And so do I. Now then, do you understand?’
Kitty looked at her father, then at the soft hands that were clutching hers, and an unbidden memory of a moment similar to this made her withdraw them. Finally, she understood all too well the machinations of her father’s mind and his plan to rid himself of her.
‘Yes, Father, if you think it best, I will go with Mrs McCrombie to Australia.’
‘Wonderful! Of course, you will need to meet with Mrs McCrombie so that she can see for herself what a good girl you are. And you are, aren’t you, dear Katherine?’
‘Yes, Father.’ Kitty knew she must leave the room before her anger overflowed and she spat in his face. ‘May I go now?’ she asked coldly, rising from her chair.
‘Of course.’
‘Goodnight.’ Kitty dipped a curtsey, then turned tail and almost ran out of the study and upstairs to her bedroom.
Closing the door and locking it behind her, she threw herself onto her bed.
‘Hypocrite! Liar! Cheat! And my poor mother – your wife – expecting a child too!’ She spat the words into her pillow. Then she cried long, stifled sobs of despair. Eventually, she stood up, put on her nightgown and brushed her hair in front of the mirror. Her reflection glowed pale in the gaslight.
You know that I see through you, Father. And that is why you are sending me away.