Kitty by Deborah Challinor Page A

was pleased for her aunt, whom she was sure had been convinced that they really would have to live in a tent for an unspecified, but no doubt extended, period of time.
    Upstairs were a small landing and three more rooms. Kitty followed Sarah into the largest.
    ‘Your uncle and I will take this one,’ Sarah said. ‘And I expect your uncle will want the one next door for his study.’
    Kitty left her there, stepped across the landing, and opened the door to the third room. It was a reasonable size even though the roof sloped on both sides and the chimney from the parlour below took up much of one wall. It certainly wasn’t as tiny as the room she’d slept in last night. There were two windows: one facing the sea and the other offering a view of the overgrown kitchen garden behind the house and the privy beyond it.
    She sat down on the single bed, which creaked and sagged under her weight. There was a solid set of drawers in the room but nothing else in the way of furniture, not even a rail she could hang her dresses on.
    She jumped up again when Haunui appeared with her trunk balanced on his massive shoulder, grimacing as he inadvertently banged it against the door frame.
    ‘Where?’ he said.
    ‘Anywhere will do, thank you,’ Kitty said, watching his muscles flex as he heaved the trunk off his shoulder and lowered it to the bare floorboards with a bang.
    He straightened up and looked curiously around. ‘Not very pretty,’ he said as he went out.
    Kitty blushed, wondering whether he meant the room or her. She sat on the bed again. Absently watching the progress of a small grey spider as it crawled across the wall, she decided that with some fresh new curtains, a bright rug on the floor, and her white linen on the bed, she could probably make the room reasonably cosy.
    It wasn’t her bedroom at home in Norfolk, though.
    Downstairs the Maori helpers were carting in more trunks and furniture, laughing and calling out to each other in their own tongue.
    Behind them, Rebecca’s children waited patiently, all carrying something to be moved into the house. Even Grace, the three-year-old, was clutching Aunt Sarah’s cap basket, although the sand caked on the bottom indicated that it had been dropped several times on the way.
    There was a moment of concern when it was noticed that Sarah’s spinning wheel had disappeared, but the mystery was solved when it was discovered sitting on the beach, the incoming tide just beginning to lap around its base. The boy charged with transporting it had apparently decided it was too awkward to carry.
    By half past two everything had been shifted into the house, unpacked and put more or less where Sarah wanted it to go. The only thing that Kitty couldn’t find was her wide-brimmed straw sunhat. When the helpers were ready to depart, however, she finally spied it, balanced absurdly on Haunui’s big head. For a moment she considered asking for it back, but decided it was probably fair compensation for having hit him so hard yesterday. She waved at him instead, and smiled when he nodded his head in acknowledgement of the trade and then winked.
    There were also several other items missing, according to Sarah—a candle mould, a set of George’s linen handkerchiefs with his initials embroidered in one corner, a box of lavender-scented soap given as a farewell gift by a Dereham parishioner, an Oriental parasol, and a silver and glass cruet set—but for diplomacy’s sake nothing was said.
    While Kitty and Sarah were unpacking, Rebecca had gone home to prepare a picnic. Kitty found a tablecloth and spread it out on the long grass in the shade of a tree. There was no tea to drink because no one had chopped wood for the fire yet, but Rebecca had bought several bottles of lemonade, which was almost as refreshing.
    It was very hot, even in the shade. The children had taken off their shoes and stockings and stripped down to as few garments as Rebecca would allow, but were still complaining about