Kitty Read Online Free

trade or supplies are concerned.’
    ‘Oh,’ Kitty said. ‘I thought he was very rude, laughing like that.’
    ‘Yes, I understand he’s not always the gentleman. In fact, they say he’s quite a law unto himself.’
    Supper was a sociable event, with the Purcells, Reverend Williams and his wife, the Kellehers and Kitty, and Frederick and Jannah Tait seated around the long dining table in the main room. The Purcell children ate outside on the wide verandah—even the baby, who at fourteen months was apparently quite accustomed to being spoon-fed by his older sisters while his mother was busy. Fortunately, the Williams and the Tait children had been left at home, or the house would have burst at the seams.
    The meal consisted of soup, then baked fish with vegetables from the mission garden followed by a fruit tart with custard, and was greatly appreciated by those who had spent the last five months eating shipboard food.
    Between the fish and the pudding, George dabbed at his lips with a napkin and pushed back his chair, the legs scraping unpleasantly on the wooden floorboards.
    ‘What an excellent repast,’ he said. ‘The Lord is truly a generous provider.’
    Kitty, who had been about to thank Rebecca Purcell for being the generous provider of such an excellent repast, kept quiet.
    ‘Do you all normally dine this well?’ George asked Mr Tait, seated on his right.
    Frederick Tait, the mission carpenter and a solid, benign-looking man in his mid-thirties, thought for a moment. ‘We do when we sup here,’ he said. ‘Mrs Purcell is a very talented cook.’ He smiled at the recipient of his compliment. ‘Of course, Mrs Tait is a wonderful cook, too,’ he added hastily, glancing at his wife across the table, ‘but we tend to eat a little more simply at home.’
    Jannah Tait gave her husband a sharp look. A very thin woman with a pinched nose and shadows beneath her dark eyes, she looked some years older than he did.
    ‘One is so very busy all day,’ she said defensively, ‘one hardly has time to think about what to feed the family, let alone actually prepare it.’
    Kitty was sure that Mrs Tait’s gentrified accent wasn’t the one she had been born with. She glanced to her left and observed Rebecca staring intently down at her plate, trying to suppress a smile. Or were the flickering lights from the oil lamps set about the room lending her lips that slight curve?
    Looking suitably chastened, Frederick shut his mouth. The subsequent, slightly uncomfortable, gap in the conversation was hurriedly filled by Rebecca’s husband, Win, who was as ginger-haired as his wife. Kitty had expected the Purcell children to all be carrot-topped like their parents, but only two were—the rest had hair ranging in colour from very fair to brown.
    ‘You’ll be pleased to know, Reverend,’ Win said, inclining his head towards George, ‘that a mission house is available now. It’s quite new, built for the people you’ve come out to replace.’
    ‘Ah, yes,’ George responded. ‘The Chambers family, I believe? A most tragic predicament.’
    ‘It was indeed,’ Reverend Williams said, in a tone that implied that as well as being tragic it was also a highly unsuitable topic of conversation for the dinner table.
    ‘At any rate,’ Win went on, ‘you can move in as soon as you like. It’s plank and brick and, although it’s modest, you should find yourselves quite comfortable there. Partially furnished too, I believe.’
    Sarah smiled for the first time that day, and Kitty sensed her relief at the news. Her aunt was a woman who appreciated order, and it was unlikely there would be much of that in the Purcells’ crowded home.
    ‘That’s good news, isn’t it?’ Frederick Tait said to George. ‘A house of your own and you’ve only just arrived. We waited for more than a year before we moved into ours.’
    ‘Yes,’ George agreed, ‘although a humble canvas tent would have sufficed, over the summer months at