A Second Chance (16 page)

With so many responsibilities, Sarah
frequently had meetings that took her out of the house for hours at
a time. Amy assured Sarah that she was quite happy to be left to
her own devices, and she found no difficulty in keeping herself
occupied. There was the wonderful library in Sarah’s study, of
course; Amy continued her exploration of it, ploughing through
weighty tomes crammed with new and often thought-provoking ideas,
and then losing herself in novels and poems.

On days when Sarah was out, Amy got into the
habit of spending much of the morning in the study. The maids knew
to find her there, and brought morning tea through without waiting
for her to ask.

And in the afternoons she took herself on
outings; at first somewhat nervously, then with growing confidence.
She began by going no further than the park a short walk from
Sarah’s house. It held a weight of memories for Amy: she had sat
there with her father, struggling against tears and her own
weakness after having her baby taken from her. That loss had now
been put wondrously to rights.

In a quiet corner of the park was a statue
of a young soldier, a monument to the men who had served in the
Boer War. Amy often visited it, and sometimes left flowers at its
base. The handsome young man who had served as model bore no
resemblance to Malcolm, but Amy was pleased to have what felt like
a memorial of her son so near at hand.

With the park conquered, she turned her
attentions further afield, and began making expeditions to Queen
Street and its immediate surroundings, the city’s main commercial
area. Sarah had already taken her there, but going to such a
bustling place on her own was a very different experience. Amy
smiled to herself at how Lizzie would scold her if she knew that
Amy was being so reckless as to venture there alone.

It was indeed a busy place for one used to
Ruatane’s quiet roads. Electric trams ran up and down the street,
sharing it with what seemed vast numbers of buggies and carts. Amy
even saw an occasional motor car; bizarre contraptions that gave
the appearance of buggies pulled by invisible horses. When she
wanted to cross the road, she made sure she was surrounded by other
people who appeared to know what they were doing. It was not hard
to find such people; the pavements were as crowded with pedestrians
as the road was with wheeled traffic.

Amy had brought a modest amount of cash with
her, along with her bank book in case she needed more, but she
found little to tempt her to spend any of it. The book shops were
delightful to browse in, but there were more than enough books in
Sarah’s study to occupy her without buying new ones. Her first
visit to one of the large department stores showed her that the
outfits Mrs Stevenson’s seamstresses had made were superior to
anything she saw for sale there. She did not linger in the dress
department, but in the drapery she purchased embroidery silks and
some fine linen, to give herself something to keep her hands busy
during evenings at home with Sarah. Amy was not used to letting her
hands rest idle of an evening. She had a project in mind: she would
embroider a set of cloths for Sarah’s dressing table, using the
shades of blue she had noticed Sarah was particularly fond of. The
intricate design she was planning seemed likely to take many weeks,
especially since they were so often out during the evenings, but
there was no need to hurry.

On her third visit to Queen Street, Amy
watched the people getting on the electric tram until she was sure
she knew what to do; she then climbed aboard, paid over her penny
to the conductor, and rode the tram for several blocks. The speed
was disconcerting, and the swaying motion made her feel rather
dizzy, but it was with a sense of accomplishment that she stepped
down at the end of her ride. It would be something interesting to
put in her next letter to David; though on reflection she decided
it would be best not to tell Lizzie about this particular
adventure.

Amy found the busy area bounded by a few
blocks around Queen Street was quite far enough to explore on her
own when she felt like going further than the park, and interesting
though the shops and passers-by were, it was always something of a
relief to return to the peace and order of Sarah’s house, where she
would generally occupy herself with writing letters for what
remained of the afternoon.

When Sarah was not otherwise engaged in the
daytime, she often took Amy further afield. One afternoon in June,
about six weeks after Amy’s arrival in Auckland, they paid a visit
to Sarah’s friend Emily, who lived a short carriage ride away in
Parnell. Amy enjoyed fussing over Emily’s pretty little daughters,
while Sarah visibly made an effort to show some interest in them.
When the children became noisy, Emily rang for the nursemaid and
returned the little girls into her care.

‘I didn’t specially care for children before
I had my own,’ Emily said, with a knowing smile. Sarah chose to
ignore her remark.

Before they left, Emily played and sang what
she told them was Miss Farrell’s latest composition, a lively
little piece with a melody that seemed to skip up and down the
scale.

‘Goodness, that’s more cheerful than her
earlier efforts,’ Sarah remarked. ‘I might almost attempt to learn
that one myself.’

‘Oh, yes, she’s a good deal brighter than
she was,’ Emily said with evident satisfaction. ‘One of the music
shops is stocking the sheet music for several of her pieces now.
And it’s early days yet, but things are going rather nicely
regarding personal matters.’ She said it with the air of one who
could be drawn to elaborate on the subject, but Sarah gave her no
encouragement.

‘If the matters are personal, we had better
not pry into them,’ she said.

Emily met Amy’s eyes, and they exchanged a
smile.

Rather than taking the shortest route back
home, Sarah directed Mr Jenson to go via Newmarket, so that she
could show Amy the property she had recently purchased there. They
did not stay long; although the sky was now clear, it had rained
that morning, and the bare land was muddy and uninviting.

Their way back from Newmarket took them
through a part of Auckland that Amy was sure she had not previously
been to with Sarah. She watched idly as the carriage rolled past a
line of rather unprepossessing buildings.

They crossed a small side road. Amy cast a
glance at the new buildings it revealed, and felt a jolt run
through her whole body. Without thinking what she was doing, her
hand closed on Sarah’s wrist and gripped it convulsively.

‘What is it?’ Sarah asked. ‘What’s
wrong?’

Amy turned to face her. In a voice barely
above a whisper, she said, ‘I think I just saw the place you were
born.’

It took Sarah barely a moment to react.
‘Jenson,’ she called. ‘Stop the carriage. Mrs Stewart and I are
going to walk about a little.’

Amy found herself helped down from the
carriage and standing on the footpath almost before she knew what
was happening. Sarah looped Amy’s arm through hers and looked up
the side road. ‘Is it this way?’ she asked, already walking as she
spoke.

‘I think so, if I’m remembering properly.
Sarah, I didn’t mean I wanted—’

Sarah stopped, and turned to face her. ‘I’m
sorry, I’m letting myself get carried away. It’s just that… well, I
know so little of my beginnings. I know I was born in Auckland, but
I’ve never known quite where, and it wasn’t something I could ask
Mother—if she even knew, come to that. I just thought it would be
nice to know. But if you don’t want to, we’ll get straight back in
the carriage and go home.’

Sarah sounded calm, but Amy saw the spark of
excitement in her eyes. She was aware of the effort Sarah had been
making to avoid asking questions Amy might find painful; this
inspection of her birthplace seemed a small favour to ask. ‘I don’t
mind having a little look, Sarah. But don’t get your hopes up,
darling—it was such a long time ago, I mightn’t be remembering
properly. Somehow the look of the buildings and the way you can
just see that windmill up on Symonds Street reminds me of it, but
that doesn’t mean anything. This probably isn’t the right place at
all.’

But it was. Amy became more convinced of it
as they approached, and when they reached the foot of the steps she
was sure. The building looming above her, its windows like dark
malevolent eyes, seemed just as it had on the day she had first
come here. She had been hurried up those steps as fast as her bulk
had allowed, her swollen belly making it impossible to see her
feet, but she remembered her slow climb back down them, clutching
her father’s arm as tightly as she was now clutching Sarah’s. The
very cracks in the steps, and the chipped paint on the railing
beside them, seemed burned into her memory.

With an effort, Amy raised her gaze to the
top of the steps. When she saw the door, she felt a rush of
relief.

‘Oh, I think it’s deserted,’ said Sarah.
‘There’s a padlock on the door.’

‘It looks as if it’s been locked up for a
while,’ Amy said, noting the signs of rust on the chain attached to
the padlock.

Sarah looked at Amy’s expression and smiled
ruefully. ‘I gather you’re not exactly disappointed that we won’t
be able to have a grand tour of the place. Ah, well, it was
probably a foolish idea on my part.’ She glanced down the road to
where Mr Jenson was letting the horses graze the grass verge.
‘Let’s walk to the far corner and back, since Jenson’s gone to the
trouble of stopping.’

Sarah looked about her as they strolled,
running an appraising eye over the dumpy little houses with their
tiny front yards. ‘All rented, I’d say. And owned by a landlord who
doesn’t take a great deal of interest in his property. Most of them
are sadly in need of a coat of paint, at the very least. A
pity—it’s not a bad location.’

‘Do you own any houses near here?’ Amy
asked.

‘Good lord, no! No, my rental property’s
shops and offices, mostly. There are a few tidy little cottages
Father rented out very cheaply to people he was told of who’d
fallen on hard times, and I keep those up, of course, but otherwise
I generally avoid residential property.’

They reached the corner and began walking
slowly back towards the carriage. ‘Were you here for long?’ Sarah
asked.

‘About three weeks. Before that I was in a
boarding house. It can’t have been all that far from here, it
didn’t seem to take long in the cab, but I don’t think I’d be able
to find it again even if I walked right past it. I was there nearly
two months, but I don’t really remember what the outside looked
like.’

‘A boarding house?’ Sarah frowned. ‘And you
were there on your own all that time?’

‘It did seem a long time. It wasn’t an awful
place or anything, but it was lonely with no one to talk to. I
mostly remember how boring it was—I didn’t have anything to do all
day. I think the landlady felt a bit sorry for me towards the end,
she started giving me the newspaper to read and the odd magazine.
She brought me here in the cab when we knew you were arriving.’

The path had led them back to the old
nursing home. Amy glanced at it, then looked away quickly. The
windows were thick with grime, and in one of them water had run
through a broken pane, leaving lines in the dirt that looked like a
face distorted with malice. Amy could picture Sister Prescott
lurking behind that window, lying in wait for girls to torment. She
could not suppress a small shudder. Sarah, with her hand on Amy’s
arm, stopped at once.

‘Was it so very dreadful?’ Sarah asked,
concern in her voice.

Amy looked up at her, and remembered looking
into those same deep blue eyes when they had belonged to a tiny
baby in her arms. ‘Not while I had you with me. I didn’t care about
anything except you.’

She placed her hand over Sarah’s. ‘You were
such a lovely baby. And I knew you were going to be clever, right
from when you were born, just about. You took so much notice of
everything. I used to talk to you all the time,’ she said, smiling
at the memory. ‘Telling you all sorts of things. I thought maybe
you’d remember it somehow when you were older. Silly, wasn’t
it?’

Sarah answered Amy’s smile with one of her
own. ‘Perhaps you were right. Perhaps that’s why when we first met
I felt as if I’d known you always.’

She tugged gently on Amy’s arm, and they
walked on. ‘If it wasn’t dreadful once you had the benefit of my
company, am I to understand that it
was
dreadful before
that? I’d like to know just how much of a nuisance I was on my
arrival in the world.’

Sarah seemed to be trying to make a joke of
it, but Amy was aware of the keen interest behind her light words.
She struggled to decide the proper way to respond.

‘Please, Amy,’ Sarah said softly. ‘Don’t
shut me out as if I were a child. I know it’s not something that’s
usually spoken of in front of unmarried women—Emily wasn’t at all
forthcoming, although even I could see she was unwell after she had
that younger girl of hers—but I can see the very sight of this
place troubles you. I suppose I feel responsible for whatever you
suffered here.’

‘Oh, now you’re being silly,’ Amy protested.
‘Of course it’s not your fault.’ She looked about her to check that
there was not the slightest chance of their being overheard. ‘It
was a long time ago, and the bad part didn’t seem to matter once I
had you,’ she said, keeping her voice low. ‘I was scared, mostly. I
didn’t know what to expect. And the nurses… well, they weren’t very
nice. Especially the one in charge. There’s ways they can make it
easier—you can just go to sleep till it’s all over.’

‘Like an operation in hospital? Father had
one once, when I was very small. I remember being taken to see him
when he was just waking up from it.’