Page 39 of The Pearl Sister
Drummond closed the door and Kitty put the stinking basin down onto the floor, horror and humiliation suffusing her.
What was it that Father always said about situations like this? Perhaps notthisparticular situation, Kitty acknowledged with a grimace, but he’d always taught her that having made a mistake, one should hold one’s head up high and learn from it. So, she decided, tonight she would not lie up here and allow Drummond to believe she was a flimsy wallflower. Instead, she would join the assembled company downstairs for dinner.
That will show him,she thought as she took a deep breath and teetered over to her wardrobe. By the time Agnes the maid knocked on the door, she was dressed and combing her sweat-matted hair up into a neat knot on the top of her head.
‘How are you feeling, Miss McBride?’ Agnes asked her. The girl was even younger than Kitty herself and spoke with a strong Irish lilt.
‘I am recovered now, thank you, Agnes. When you return downstairs, please tell Mrs Mercer that I will be joining the table for dinner.’
‘Are you sure, miss? Pardon for sayin’ so, but ye’ve still got that green colour on ye and it wouldn’t be doing at all to be ill at the table,’ Agnes said as she wrinkled her nose at the stinking basin and covered it with a clean muslin cloth.
‘I am perfectly well, thank you. And I do apologise for that.’ Kitty indicated the basin.
‘Oh, don’t be bothering yourself, I’ve had much worse before they installed a privy here,’ Agnes said with a roll of her eyes.
Ten minutes later, Kitty was making her way gingerly down the staircase, hoping she wasn’t making a terrible mistake, as even the fresh scent of pine made her feel nauseous. She saw Drummond standing below her, arms folded, admiring the Christmas tree.
‘Good evening,’ she said as she reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘I decided I was well enough to join you for dinner after all.’
‘Really? And who might you be?’
‘I . . . please don’t tease,’ she begged him. ‘You know very well who I am.’
‘I assure you that we have never been formally introduced, although I have to presume that you are Miss Kitty McBride, my aunt’s companion.’
‘You know I am, sir, so please stop playing games. If this is some new joke, a punishment for earlier . . . I—’
‘Miss McBride, how wonderful to see you up and about after your terrible bout of sunstroke!’
Now Kitty knew how ill she must be, as another Drummond appeared from the drawing room, a glint of amusement and warning in his eyes.
‘Pray, let me introduce my brother, Andrew,’ he continued. ‘As you may have just realised, we are twins, although Andrew was born two hours earlier than I.’
‘Oh,’ Kitty said, thanking the Lord that Drummond had arrived when he did, or she might have revealed all to Andrew. ‘Forgive me, sir, I did not realise.’
‘Please don’t worry at all, Miss McBride. I can assure you, it’s a very common mistake.’ Andrew walked towards her and held out his hand. ‘I am very pleased to finally make your acquaintance and delighted that you are well enough to join us this evening. Now, shall I escort you into the dining room? We must introduce you to our father.’
Kitty took Andrew’s proffered elbow gratefully, her legs still feeling unsteady beneath her. She caught Drummond giving her a sly wink but turned her head away and ignored it.
The dining table was bedecked with festive decorations: elegant gold napkin holders and sprigs of fir tree with red baubles nestled inside them shimmered in the glow from the candles. Kitty watched in fascination as the Mercers said a prayer in German, before Andrew lit the fourth candle in the intricate wreath that sat in the centre of the table.
As everyone sat down, Andrew caught Kitty’s look of curiosity.
‘They are Advent candles,’ he explained. ‘My parents were kind enough to wait for me to return home so I could light the last one before Christmas Eve – it was always my favourite thing to do as a child. It is an old German Lutheran tradition, Miss McBride,’ he added.
Over a dinner of beef, which she managed to swallow if she took very small bites and chewed each one thoroughly, Kitty studied the twins surreptitiously. Even though identical in looks, with their dark hair and blue eyes, their personalities were anything but. Andrew seemed much the more serious and thoughtful of the two, sitting next to her and asking her polite questions about her life back in Edinburgh.
‘I must apologise on behalf of my brother. He should have known that the midday sun was far too strong for any young lady, especially one so newly arrived to these shores.’ Andrew frowned across the table at Drummond, who responded with a nonchalant shrug.
‘You know me, brother dear. I’m totally irresponsible. Good job you now have Andrew around to protect you, Miss McBride,’ he added.
At the head of the table sat Stefan Mercer, the twins’ father. He had the same blue eyes as his sons, but was rather on the portly side, with a large bald patch covered in freckles atop his head. He told her of how his family had arrived on Australia’s shores seventy years ago.
‘You may already know that many of our forefathers originally came to Adelaide because it allowed them to worship the Lord in any religion they chose. My grandmother was German and joined a small settlement named Hahndorf up in the Adelaide Hills. My grandfather was a Presbyterian from England, and they met here and fell in love. Australia is a free-thinking country, Miss McBride, and I no longer subscribe to any particular man-made doctrine. As a family, we worship at the Anglican cathedral in the town. Tomorrow night we will go there for Midnight Mass. I do hope you will feel able to accompany us.’
‘It will be a pleasure,’ said Kitty, touched that Stefan was obviously concerned that it was not a Presbyterian church.
Struggling over pudding – a delicious trifle with real cream on the top of it – Kitty listened to the three men talk about the family’s business interests, which seemed to have a lot to do with something called ‘shell’, and how many tons of it the crews had brought back on something they called ‘luggers’. Drummond talked of ‘mustering’, which she surmised was somehow linked with ‘heads’ of cattle. His best ‘drover’ had not returned and Drummond announced without irony that he’d been ‘cut up into pieces by the blacks and put in a pot for supper’.
