Читать книгу A Convenient Gentleman - Victoria Aldridge - Страница 8

Dunedin, New Zealand, 1863

D unedin was covered with a light layer of snow, the first Caroline had ever seen. Entranced by the picture-book prettiness of the white-speckled hills, she stood at the dock gates, heedless of the crowd buffeting her. She had seen pictures of snow before of course, in books about Home. But this was much more exciting than England could ever have been. This was a real adventure!

The fact that she had nothing but a single change of clothes in her bag, and twenty-five pounds to her name, simply added an edge to the excitement. Being on board ship for three weeks had been much more boring than she had anticipated: three meals a day, a narrow little bunk to sleep in, nowhere to walk but to the limits of the cabin passengers’ deck. It had been a lot like boarding school, really. But now, for the first time in her life, she was on her own, and she had never been happier.

She felt in the pocket of her coat for the envelope, turning it over in her gloved fingers, not needing to take it out and read it to remember the return address.

Mrs Jonas Wilks, Castledene Hotel, Castle Street, Dunedin.

Dunedin was not as large as she had thought it would be—certainly nowhere as large as Sydney. Built along the shores of a natural harbour inlet, cradled among steep hills, the town that was the hub of the Otago goldrush was still in its infancy. But whereas Sydney had a quiet, settled feel to it after eighty years of colonisation, Dunedin seemed to be teeming with energy.

Fed by the Otago goldfields, the richest since Ballarat and California, Dunedin’s prosperity was obvious. Spanning out from a small central park, called The Octagon, were streets of substantial buildings with ornate façades, between which were empty spaces and busy building sites. Over the lower reaches of the hills spread a canvas town of tents, hundreds of them, which Caro guessed belonged to either transient miners or people unable to find or afford accommodation. There was a vibrancy to the town, almost a sense of anticipation, which thrilled Caro to the bone.

A gust of icy wind blew along the quay, billowing the dresses of the women and loosening a few hats. The half-dozen ships tied up at the docks creaked as the gathering gale plucked at their furled sails and hummed along the ropes. Caro realised that she was growing cold. In fact, she could never recall being so cold in her life. Another new experience to savour!

Pulling the fur trim of her jacket collar up around her chin, she strode along the quay and up the road that lay straight ahead, quite unaware, as always, that she was turning heads as she passed. She had always been hard to overlook, being well above average height for a woman. What was more unusual was the way she bore herself, with a loose-limbed, graceful walk that in a man would have verged on being a swagger. Combined with classically blond beauty and a pair of sparkling eyes, Miss Morgan’s looks had always drawn admiring comment. Most remarkable, however, was that she had always remained blithely oblivious to the fact that her appearance was anything out of the ordinary.

She might as well get her bearings first, she thought, stepping up on to the narrow wooden footpath that ran below the shop awnings. There was only room for three people walking abreast, so she kept politely to the left, holding her bag close to her side so as not to bump into other walkers. Despite the foul weather the streets were busy, and she noted with interest the preponderance of Scottish accents she heard. She passed no fewer than two Churches of Scotland within five minutes’ walk and half the shop names began with ‘Mac’. It was true, then, the description she had heard on the ship of Dunedin being the Edinburgh of the South.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ she said to a man obstructing the footpath as he loaded up his dray. He looked rough, a miner perhaps, and he had a scowl on his face.

‘Get lost,’ he snarled, not looking up. She waited patiently. Her parents had always insisted on the utmost courtesy to everyone, no matter what their station in life, and she was not going to break that ingrained habit now. She could, of course, step down into the road and walk around the horse and dray, but the snow had turned to sleet, and the icy mud looked most uninviting.

‘Will you be long, sir?’ she enquired after a moment.

‘Long as I need to be.’ He slammed down a box with unnecessary force and turned to hoist up the next one. There were still two high piles of crates to load.

‘I see.’ Caro put down her bag. ‘What if I help you load? That will speed you up, won’t it?’

He turned around then with a curse, which died unspoken on his lips as he saw her wide green eyes, utterly devoid of malice or sarcasm. A slow flush rose over his face as he shuffled ponderously to one side to allow her to pass. He was staring at her in the way lots of men did whenever her parents had taken her into Sydney or Parramatta. She really wished they didn’t—one usually couldn’t get any sense out of them when they looked like that. However, this was New Zealand. Perhaps men were a little more sensible here. She gave him a smile and pulled out the envelope from her pocket.

‘Thank you, sir. I wonder if you could tell me where I would find Castle Street? Is it close by?’

He ignored the envelope—too late Caro realised he might not be able to read and that she might have inadvertently given offence—and waved his arm in the direction she had been heading.

‘Down there. Second on yer left.’

‘Thank you so much.’ She picked up her bag and went to move past him, but he had recovered by now enough to move to block her way.

‘Heavy bag for a young miss,’ he said ingratiatingly. ‘Like a hand with it?’

‘How kind. But you couldn’t leave all these boxes here.’ She looked down at him—he was at least two inches shorter—and added with a touch of asperity, ‘And your poor horses. They must be cold. You’ll want to get them moving, won’t you?’

She flashed him a smile and moved smartly away down the sidewalk before he could detain her any further. Already she could see the signpost for Castle Street, and her heart began to beat a little faster. She wasn’t sure what she would find, or what sort of reception she would get at the Castledene Hotel. Indeed, would Mrs Wilks still live there?

Charlotte Wilks. Aunt Charlotte. Her mother’s sister. Caro had never seen her, knew nothing of her except that there was some sort of scandal surrounding her aunt, and not of the common or garden danced-twice-in-a-row-with-the-same-man sort of scandal that would have had female tongues astir on the Hawkesbury. No, Aunt Charlotte’s sins were too dreadful to name, if her parents’ tense reactions to her occasional letters were anything to go by. Caro didn’t know if her mother had ever written back, but she did know that her father would have sternly disapproved. He always went rather…rigid, she thought, when one of Aunt Charlotte’s letters had arrived, or when Caro had mentioned her name, which she had made a point of often doing. Whatever Aunt Charlotte had done, Ben had never forgiven her, and he never would. He loathed her more than anyone else alive. Caro couldn’t wait to meet her.

She turned the corner into Castle Street and caught her breath in relief. Standing proudly at the end of a cul-de-sac, the Castledene Hotel was a magnificent, double-storeyed building, the finest Caro had seen so far in Dunedin. Her fears that she would find Aunt Charlotte starving in a cobwebby attic somewhere began to evaporate. The last letter from here to Caro’s mother had been posted only three months before, and if Aunt Charlotte could afford to board here, she must be reasonably in funds.

Caro gave a wide berth to the entrance to the public bar—although it was only mid-morning, there sounded as if there were already a number of noisy patrons inside—and pushed open one of the big front doors.

Very nice. She put her bag on the ground and looked around in approval. The entry was most imposing, if very cold, being paved and colonnaded in pale grey marble. Carved kauri staircases swept discreetly up on either side, almost obscured by rich velvet drapes. Immediately in front of her, panelled doors stood ajar, giving a glimpse of tables set with heavy damask and sparkling silver. It was as impressive as any of Sydney’s grand hotels, with only the underlying smell of recently sawn wood betraying its newness.

‘Can I help you, miss?’

Caro turned to the thin, neat-looking man behind the reception desk with a smile. ‘I hope so, sir. I’m looking for Mrs Wilks. Mrs Jonas Wilks. I understand she was a guest here some months ago. Is she still here?’

The man cleared his throat. ‘Indeed, miss.’ She was subjected to a politely swift scrutiny. ‘May I tell her who is calling?’

Caro hesitated. She had thought long and hard about this situation, and had decided that a little vagueness might initially be desirable. After all, what if Aunt Charlotte felt the same about Caro’s family as Caro’s father did about Aunt Charlotte?

‘I’m a relative,’ she said warmly. Then, as the clerk hesitated, she smiled encouragingly. ‘I know she’ll want to see me.’

He disappeared up one of the great staircases, his shoes noiseless on the thick carpet, and she sat down to wait on one of the elegant chairs placed between the aspidistras around the foyer. Despite her care, her walking shoes were covered with a light layer of wet mud, and she glared at them in irritation. They and a pair of boots were the only footwear she had now. At home, in her closet, stood rows of boots and shoes and slippers. And as for her dresses—she thought with regret of the wardrobe she had been forced to leave behind her. While it had seemed a good idea at the time to run away from home virtually empty-handed, to show her father that she didn’t need anything from him to stand on her own two feet, it was now proving to be very tiresome managing with a single change of clothes. She sincerely hoped that her aunt wouldn’t mind her shabby appearance. Caro always liked to make a good impression.

She started as she realised that the clerk was standing beside her. Waves of disapproval were almost tangibly emanating from him, and she wondered what she could possibly have done to have earned his censure.

‘This way, miss,’ he said abruptly. ‘You can leave your bag behind the reception desk.’

She followed him up the staircase and along a wide hallway. Her mittened hands were trembling slightly and she clasped them together tightly in front of her waist. The clerk rapped quietly on a door and stood back to admit her.

The hotel room was large, with long windows that let in what winter light there was. A fire burned brightly in the hearth, illuminating a clutter of silver-topped bottles and jars on the dressing table. The air was scented with an odd, but not unpleasant, mix of rosewater and tobacco. Clothes and shoes were flung carelessly over the big bed and on the floor, as if someone had simply stepped out of them and left them lying there. Caro bent and picked up a dress that had impeded the opening of the door. The gentle scent of roses escaped from its folds of soft lace as she smoothed it out and looked around the room for the owner. The room, for all its mess, was charming and utterly feminine.

‘Mrs Wilks?’

There was reluctant movement under the pile of clothing and linen on the bed.

‘Who is it?’ a woman’s voice asked croakily. She sounded cross, too, and it only then occurred to Caro that there would be only one reason why someone would still be in bed in the middle of the day.

‘I’m sorry if you’re not well, Mrs Wilks.’ Caro backed towards the door. ‘I’ll call later.’

The bedclothes were pushed back and a scowling face appeared. Caro’s mouth dropped open. For a few seconds it looked exactly as if her mother were lying there, blinking sleepily at her, except that her mother’s hair was red, not yellow, and her mother’s nightgowns were considerably more modest than her aunt’s. Then Mrs Wilks propped herself up on one elbow and Caro swiftly averted her eyes. Her aunt’s nightgown was not immodest, it was non-existent.

‘You,’ her aunt said flatly after a moment, ‘have to be one of Ben’s children.’

‘I’m Caroline,’ Caro said carefully. ‘The eldest.’

‘Mmm.’ Her aunt eyed her balefully. ‘So what are you doing here? I suppose it’s too much to hope that your father has at last decided to act like a human being and apologise for everything he’s done to me?’

This was much, much worse than Caro had dared dread. She took a deep breath and said somewhat shakily, ‘I don’t know, Mrs Wilks. He…he doesn’t know I’m here…’

‘Really?’ Her aunt sat bolt upright and again Caro had to avert her eyes. ‘You mean you’ve run away from home?’

‘Yes…’

‘May I ask why?’

‘Because…because my father is unreasonable and unfair and…and…’ Her voice gave out through a combination of nerves and sudden, unexpected homesickness. There was a rustle of silk as her aunt mercifully pulled on a pink gown and then enveloped her in a soft, rose-scented hug.

‘You poor darling. He’s a brute of a man, I know. An unfeeling, callous bastard! Oh, what you and my poor sister must have had to put up with all these years…’

This was not strictly fair, but as Caro carefully extracted herself to say so, her aunt smiled at her with all the charm that had seen her through forty-four years and hundreds of men, and Caro felt herself melt into an adoring puddle. With her long, tousled hair tumbling over her pale-blue silk dressing-gown, and her eyes glowing with warm sympathy, her aunt looked like just like an exotic version of her beloved mother. Only the lines of experience and worldliness around Charlotte’s eyes and mouth were different, giving her a wistful, rather vulnerable look.

Charlotte watched the awestruck look on her niece’s face with satisfaction.

‘It’s lovely to meet you at last, Caroline.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Wilks…’

‘Aunt Charlotte, please, darling!’ She glanced swiftly over her shoulder at what looked to be a dressing-room door, and added, ‘Now, why don’t you go and tell Oliver downstairs that you want something hot to drink—your poor face is frozen!—and I’ll get dressed. Just give me half an hour, hmmm?’

Out in the hallway again, Caro hesitated. Who was Oliver? She raised her hand to knock on the door, but the sound of murmuring voices from inside her aunt’s bedroom made her pause. Perhaps her aunt was given to talking to herself. Caro shrugged her shoulders and went back downstairs.

The man who had first greeted her looked up from the papers on the registration desk. ‘Yes, miss?’

She had not imagined it before—his tone was distinctly chilly. ‘Are you Oliver?’

‘Yes, miss.’

Caro bit her bottom lip. ‘My aunt, Mrs Wilks—’

‘Your aunt, miss?’

There was a wealth of frosty disapproval in the question. Caro drew herself up to her full and impressive height and looked down at the top of his head.

‘Mrs Wilks, who is a guest of this hotel—’

‘Oh, no, miss—she’s not a guest.’ Oliver looked up at her searchingly, seemed to come to a conclusion and suddenly there was a glimmer of a smile in his eyes. Whether it was malicious or not, Caro couldn’t tell. ‘She’s the owner, miss.’

‘The owner,’ Caro repeated blankly.

‘Yes, miss. Since Mr Wilks died six months ago and left the hotel to his widow.’ He shut the registry book carefully. ‘What can I do for you, miss?’

‘Ah…Mrs Wilks suggested perhaps a hot drink while I wait…’

‘Certainly, miss. Please come with me.’

She followed his stiff, black-clad back as he led her through the doors into the dining room. Her first impression of opulence was tempered a little when she saw the dining tables at close quarters. The tablecloths were stained, and the silver looked to be in dire need of a good polish. A general air of neglect lay over the room, from the crumbs lying unswept on the floor to the spiders in the chandelier above. Automatically Caro righted a spilled glass as she passed.

The kitchen was no improvement on the dining room: dirty pots and pans covered the benches and food scraps filled buckets by the door. The huge ovens were lit and had their doors open. The heat was welcome, but not the smell of rotting food wafting on the warm currents of air.

The two women sitting toasting their feet by the ovens looked up as Oliver banged the door shut.

‘Who’s this, then?’ demanded the older of the women. She was a tall, hatchet-faced woman with heat-reddened cheeks. Her rolled-up sleeves and voluminous apron marked her as a cook. The other, who was little more than a girl, smiled shyly at Caro and wiped her nose on a sooty shirtsleeve.

Oliver motioned Caro politely enough towards a chair by the table and moved to rub his hands together before the fire.

‘This, ladies, is Mrs Wilks’s niece. Miss…?’

‘Miss Morgan. Caroline Morgan.’ She waited for him to introduce the other women, but when no introduction came, she sat down in the indicated chair. It looked as if she was not going to be offered a cup of tea, either, but there was a teapot and pile of cups sitting on the table. The teapot was still warm and so Caro helped herself, discarding several cups until she found one that bore no obvious marks of recent use.

The silence dragged on, but Caro was determined that it was not going to be she who broke it.

‘You’re one of the rich relations, aren’t you?’ said the Cook at last, her voice fairly dripping with sarcasm. ‘Come to bail Madam out, I hope.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Caro said politely.

The Cook’s chin came up pugnaciously, and the girl with the sooty dress gave a nervous giggle.

‘You’re one of them Australian relations Madam tells us about. The ones that kicked her out of her home in Sydney when she were first widowed and left her penniless on the streets.’

Caro frowned. ‘I don’t think that was us. I can’t imagine my mother ever doing that to anyone, let alone her own sister.’

The Cook nodded slowly. ‘Well, she did. Leastways, according to your aunt, your father did.’

‘Oh.’ Caro put her cup down carefully. ‘My father. Yes, I suppose he could have done. He’s very unfair like that.’

She tried to imagine what poor Aunt Charlotte could possibly have done to infuriate her father so. Probably very little. Really, Caro thought, she and Aunt Charlotte had a lot in common—both forced out of their home by Ben’s total lack of reason. It was extraordinary that Charlotte had found it in her heart to welcome Caro as she had!

‘So,’ said the Cook, ‘you brought any money with you?’

‘No,’ Caro said blankly. ‘Well, I’ve got twenty-five pounds…’

As her aunt’s three employees all sat back in their chairs with various sounds of disgust and dismay, Caro gained the distinct impression that she was proving a great source of disappointment.

‘I suppose,’ Oliver said heavily, ‘it would have been too much to hope for, that you might have been the answer to our prayers.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Caro said sincerely. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been the answer to anyone’s prayers.’

From behind the Cook’s forbidding exterior came an unexpected chuckle. ‘Never mind, dear. Miss Morgan, was it? Not your fault if Madam’s living beyond her means now, is it? Agnes—’ she elbowed the young girl off her chair with a degree of viciousness that Caro took to be habitual ‘—Agnes here will fetch you a fresh pot of tea. And some of those scones I made yesterday, too.’

Agnes wiped her nose on her sleeve again and scurried around the kitchen, setting out a fresh pot of tea and a plate of rather stale but nicely risen scones.

‘Got no butter, Miss Morgan,’ the Cook commented as she saw Caro look around her for a butterdish. ‘Got nothing very much of anything, come to mention it. No more tea leaves than are in the jar, no meat, no milk, no cheese…’

‘No wages,’ Oliver chipped in glumly.

‘But that’s dreadful!’ Hungry as she was, Caro forgot all about butter for her scones. ‘Is no one paying you? Not my aunt?’

Her aunt’s employees looked at each other and then moved their chairs closer to where she sat.

‘Mrs Wilks is a most attractive woman…’ Oliver began.

‘Handsome is as handsome does,’ the Cook said darkly. ‘She’s got not so much as a pinch of business sense!’

‘…but she is being poorly served by her business adviser,’ Oliver went on doggedly, ignoring the Cook’s rude snort of derision. ‘When the late Mr Wilks left this hotel to her, it was in fine shape, Miss Morgan. Dunedin’s finest hotel, it was called, and rightly so. But since he died…’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Things are not good, Miss Morgan. Not good at all. We served the last of the meals in the dining room last night, there are creditors at the door day and night, Mrs Wilks can’t and won’t see them, we haven’t had a paying guest under this roof for a week now…’

‘There’s a non-paying guest I’d like to see the back of,’ the Cook snapped. She fixed Caro with a piercing stare. ‘Did you see him up there?’

‘Who?’ Caro was by now thoroughly bewildered.

‘Mr Thwaites. Up there. With her.’ Caro shook her head and the Cook slumped back in her chair. ‘Hmmph. Well, I dare say you’ll meet him soon enough if you stay on. You are staying on, are you?’

‘If my aunt invites me to,’ Caro said earnestly. ‘If I can be of any use, that is. I can cook and clean, and I’m sure I could learn to wait, too…’ Her voice faltered as she saw the expressions of the faces of the others. ‘Is there something wrong?’

‘No, Miss Morgan,’ Oliver said after a moment. ‘It’s just that a lady like yourself, coming from a privileged home, could hardly be expected to lift a broom or a duster. It wouldn’t be right.’

‘Oh, we all had our tasks at home,’ she assured him. ‘Mother didn’t believe in other people doing work we were quite capable of doing ourselves. “Hard work is good for the soul, the figure and the complexion”, she always used to say, and I’m sure my aunt believes the same.’

The Cook spluttered into her tea and Oliver rose creakily to his feet.

‘Well, I’m sure Mrs Wilks will be ready to see you by now, Miss Morgan. I shall take you to her rooms, if you wish.’

‘Oh, please don’t trouble yourself! I remember the way very clearly. And thank you for the tea and scones, Mrs…’

The Cook smiled. ‘Mrs Webb, dear. Now do make sure you call in after you’ve seen your aunt, won’t you? On your way back to Australia,’ she added darkly as the door closed after Caro.

‘Ooh, I thought she were nice.’ Agnes sniffed dejectedly. ‘I hope she don’t go.’

‘She might be nice, but she came down in the last shower,’ Mrs Webb informed her. ‘Gawd help her, she’s still sopping wet! I give her a day before He tries to put one over her…’

‘You mean across her, Mrs Webb,’ interjected Oliver.

‘That, too, Mr Oliver,’ the Cook snapped. ‘Oh, it’s better by far that she leaves here with her virtue than That Man has his way with her. Just look at Madam.’

Oliver leaned forward to prod the embers in the stove. ‘You’re right, of course, Mrs Webb. It will be in her best interests to leave as soon as possible. She won’t be safe here, not with her looks and Madam and That Man…’

They all nodded in sad accord and sat staring at the dying fire, lost in their own thoughts.