Chapter 1
Autumn 1893. Norfolk, England.
All her life, Kitty had known nothing but a full house. Now she sat alone in the empty parlour of the parsonage, her dark curls glimmering copper in the flickering sunlight. The keys of her beloved pianoforte did not call to her as they once did, nor did the singing of her caged canary enliven her as it used to.
Kitty closed the piano and stood up. Outside, a blinding sun burned in the sky, as if mocking her woes. She lifted the window open, then unlatched the little door of the canary’s cage. The bird twirled round the room once, twice, and on the third tour, dived clean across the small garden stretching in front of the house.
As she watched her canary glide on the warm autumn air, Kitty caught sight of a rider trotting up the gravelled path towards the parsonage.
“Billy!” she called out, but the boy didn’t hear.
Kitty rushed to the front door and out, down the steps. Billy had steered his horse around the house, towards the back door entrance into the kitchen.
“Billy!” Kitty called again, running barefoot after him.
The boy stopped short, startled. His horse whinnied at the rough halt. Kitty’s doe-eyed grin made the boy blush, and he dismounted. The two were of similar ages, except Billy worked as a stable hand at Hawkins Hall across the river, and she was Reverend Thackery’s niece, raised at the parsonage as one of his own children.
Despite Kitty’s best efforts, Billy never dared to consider himself a true and equal friend of hers.
“Miss Thackery.” The boy snatched the cap off his head with one hand. The other held on tightly to the reins. “General Hawkins has asked me to convey a note.”
He stuffed his cap under his arm, to dig around his pockets for the paper. Kitty rolled her eyes, nearing the horse.
“It’s Cat,” she told him and took the reins from his fingers. “Or Kitty. How many times do I have to tell you?”
The boy reddened even more. The horse pushed its head into Kitty’s palm, enjoying her caress.
“Is that you, Billy?” Kitty’s aunt Agnes approached the scene from around the house, having come out through the kitchen.
“How do you do, Mrs Thackery,” the boy greeted.
“Well, this is a nice surprise,” Aunt Agnes said, then her eyes fell on Kitty’s pale feet on the gravel. “This, on the other hand, is not. Where are your shoes, young lady?”
“In the parlour, I think.” Kitty shrugged.
Aunt Agnes clicked her tongue at her naughty niece. Billy found the note and held it out.
“I’ve come to deliver this, Mrs Thackery,” he said. “And now I must be on my way. The general needs me to prepare the horses for the carriage.”
“Thank you, Billy.” Aunt Agnes took the missive. “Give him our best, will you? Do you need to take back an answer?”
Billy pondered, fixing the cap back on his head. “Well, yes, indeed, it would help to know whether you are free to travel into Norwich today.”
“Norwich?” Kitty exclaimed. “Why?”
She plucked the note from her aunt’s fingers and read it at speed. The girl squealed.
“Joey is back! Joey is coming home! Billy, yes, of course we can come to Norwich!”
Kitty shocked the stableboy with an impulsive embrace.
“Now make haste, we must get ready!”
“Of course.” Billy climbed back into the saddle. “Have a good day, Miss Thackery.”
“You too, Billy!”
Aunt Agnes stood dazed before her niece. “What’s this about Joey?”
Kitty took her aunt by the hand and dragged her up the front steps into the house.
“Joey is back in England, Auntie! He wrote from Liverpool. The general is taking us to Norwich to meet him at the railway station. Joey is coming home today!”
Dressed in her Sunday best and fretting on the railway platform, Kitty awaited with bated breath the return of her favourite cousin. Joseph Thackery, the youngest of eleven siblings and nearest to Kitty’s age, had been Kitty’s partner in crime growing up.
With enthusiastic support from General Hawkins, who lived alone at Hawkins Hall, the two children had experienced a wide range of free-spirited adventures, which eventually inspired Joey to make a living at sea. Thus, for nigh on four years now, Joey had been away from home, and for most of that time, away from motherland shores, also.
Kitty’s excitement was as palpable as her aunt’s nervousness on the crowded platform. Travellers scrambled to and fro, hopping on and off trains mired in locomotive steam.
“Kitty, will you settle down?” Aunt Agnes scolded the restless girl. “You’re getting in the way of all these people.”
Kitty had wandered into the middle of the platform, craning her neck to examine as many carriages as possible. She didn’t want to miss a single second of Joey’s arrival. Aunt Agnes pulled her to the side.
The kind old general laughed good-naturedly. “Worry not, lass, he’s coming home with us one way or another. And I also have a surprise for you.”
Kitty’s searching gaze whipped round. It met the general’s sharp eyes sunken among crow’s feet and thick, white eyebrows.
“What surprise?”
The general only winked, smiling. Kitty held her aunt’s hand tighter, and Agnes linked their arms, keeping her niece close. They stood huddled together like this, as yet another train screeched to a halt in the station. Taller and more keenly-eyed than her dear old aunt, Kitty was the first one to spot Joseph Thackery climb out of a first-class carriage alongside a man who looked conspicuously familiar.
“Joey!”
Kitty released her aunt and sprinted through the crowd, jumping into her cousin’s arms. He dropped his satchel and caught her firmly around the waist, lifting her off the ground. Her unpinned hat fell off her hair.
“Kitty…”
No words passed between them as her bright, ingenuous eyes met the world-weary look on Joey’s face. Tears stained his cheeks, which Kitty wiped with her gloveless fingers.
“You must be exhausted from the journey,” she said, to justify to herself the spark missing from Joey’s countenance.
He had always been such a cheerful, curious boy, it now hurt to see a hardened man in his eyes.
“Joey, my boy!” Aunt Agnes cried out, and the spark flickered.
In his mother’s arms, the man could allow the child to resurface.
“Kitty…” The general came up to her, touching her elbow. “There is someone I would like to introduce you to.”
Behind the general stood a young gentleman with Kitty’s hat in his hands. Recognition dawned in her mind, although she’d only ever seen him in old photographs.
“My son,” the general said, “Benedict Hawkins. Ben, may I present Miss Catriona Thackery.”
“How do you do, Miss,” Benedict said, extending his hand.
To Kitty’s surprise, he brought hers to his lips and kissed it.
“I believe this is yours.” He held out her hat without letting go of her hand.
Kitty cleared her throat. “Yes, it is.”
There was something about the man’s mischievous smile, as if he knew she’d long stared at his pictures dotted around Hawkins Hall whenever she visited.
“Mr Hawkins has been very kind to me.”
Joey’s voice broke the spell, and Kitty let go of Benedict’s fingers to fidget with her hat.
“In America, and on the journey here. Thank you for bringing me home, Mr Hawkins. I’m happy you’re here with me, so I can begin to repay your kindness.”
“Don’t mention it,” Mr Hawkins said, and he was all faultless propriety, as if he hadn’t drilled deep into Kitty’s soul earlier. “Let us better be on our way, because I, for one, am thoroughly famished.”
General Hawkins insisted that the Thackerys spend the night at Hawkins Hall, so they were in no rush to get back to the parsonage after the feast hosted in the young men’s honour. Bathed and dressed in clean, pressed clothes, Joey seemed to recover some of his characteristic youthfulness. He stood on the cusp of turning twenty, at that dangerous crossroads between boyhood and manhood which all his brothers had struggled to navigate.
“So,” Mr Hawkins began, lighting a cigar to go with his brandy. “Joe told me there’s eleven of you. Twelve, with Miss Thackery here. What is that like?”
“Loud!” Agnes answered without hesitation, eliciting laughter round the drawing room. “Or, well, it used to be. When the house was full of children. Our nest is empty now, except for this little birdie.”
Aunt Agnes put an arm around Kitty’s shoulders and kissed her niece on the cheek.
“You are the youngest, then, Miss Thackery?” Mr Hawkins concluded.
“Yes,” Kitty confirmed. “I’ll be nineteen, come February.”
“And are you out yet?”
An uncomfortable silence spread around the room.
“Apologies,” Mr Hawkins quickly said, “I meant no harm by the question.”
As sincere as that might have sounded, his inquisitive stare belied remorse.
“I only meant to ask how you like London, if you’d been,” Mr Hawkins added, “or recommend that you visit, if you hadn’t.” His charming smile disarmed his audience’s discomfort.
Kitty graced him with a pretty smile of her own. “No, Mr Hawkins, I am not out. However, I have visited my cousins in London before. Most of them are now settled there.”
“Cousins…?”
Clearly, Joey hadn’t drawn a Thackery family tree for Mr Hawkins.
Reverend Thackery took it upon himself to elucidate this dilemma. “Kitty is my brother’s daughter,” he said. “Wilfred entrusted his wife to us before the naval voyage that became his last. Lost at sea, we presume. Isobel, my sister-in-law, unfortunately passed away from childbirth fever, so we have raised Kitty at the parsonage as one of our own.”
“Forgive me,” Mr Hawkins said, eyeing Kitty directly. “I was callous.”
This time, his heavy gaze did carry unguarded regret.
“My son has misplaced his English manners,” the general said, before Kitty could speak to absolve him.
“Yes, well, it has been a long time since Eton,” Benedict countered.
“That’s quite all right, Mr Hawkins,” Kitty said. “Perhaps you’ll have a chance to recover them, now that you’re here.”
“I doubt I’ll be staying long enough.”
“Oh?” Kitty looked from him, to Joey, then to General Hawkins.
“Have no fear, Miss Thackery, I would not dream to separate you from your beloved cousin again so soon.”
Joey reached for Kitty’s hand from the armchair he sat in. “Kitty, do you still play the piano?”
She jumped up, her fingers threaded through Joey’s. “Of course! Shall we play something?”
He rose to his feet, leaving his glass of port on the coffee table, and followed Kitty to the grand piano. They sat side by side on the little bench. Mr Hawkins walked over, picking up the framed photograph placed next to the score holder. It was one of the pictures he had sent to his father from America, of him dressed as a cowboy outside a saloon.
“I’ll be damned!” Benedict chuckled. “How long has this been here?”
“Ever since it arrived, I think,” Joey said. “The general had it framed and installed it here.”
“Is that so?” Mr Hawkins put the picture back down, casting a curious glance in Kitty’s direction.
The cousins played a disarrayed medley of songs, partly out of tune and harmony, as they reacquainted themselves with each other. Their family put in suggestions and sang along where they knew the words.
Joey eased out of his shell as the night wore on, but his parents and General Hawkins couldn’t keep up with the youngsters. They retreated to sleep soon after midnight, content to permit their children to enjoy this reunion for as long as they liked.
Kitty relinquished her shoes and stockings as soon as Aunt Agnes was out of sight. Mr Hawkins renounced his waistcoat and bowtie, and unbuttoned his collar.
“More wine, Miss Thackery?”
“Please call me Cat, or even Kitty. I find ‘Miss Thackery’ so terribly tiresome!”
“Oh?” Benedict pulled a playful expression. “Where are your English manners, Miss?”
“How would I know? I never went to Eton.”
On the piano bench beside her, Joey shook his head.
“Touché,” Benedict murmured, eyes hooded. He poured port in their glasses lined up next to the cowboy photograph. “Cat it is, then. Only…” He held out her glass, then pulled it back when she reached for it. “Only… if you call me Ben.”
“All right… Ben.”
“Very good. Ben, Cat, and Joe, the three-letter-trio. I’ll drink to that.”
They clinked their glasses, and Ben pulled a chair to sit with them by the piano.
“Now that it’s just our exclusive little circle, though, I feel I must ask…” Ben sipped his wine, legs crossed.
“I wish you wouldn’t ask, Ben,” Joey protested.
“Why not?” Ben retorted. “You don’t know what it is.”
“I know I won’t like it.”
They had switched off all the electric lights, save for a table lamp which they had relocated to the grand piano, along with an ashtray. Ben’s cigar glittered in the dimness as he puffed on it. The smoke he exhaled further masked his lopsided grin.
“I am rather interested to know, Cat… why are you not yet out and about in society?”
“It’s a family matter,” Joey hurried to answer in her stead.
“Oh, you might as well tell the man the truth, Joey.” Kitty went to lie down on the sofa. “He’ll be sure to find out one way or another.”
“Find out what?” Ben now looked irrevocably intrigued.
Kitty yawned. “One of my cousins had an awful Season many years ago.”
“Kitty – ”
“She eloped with a stranger,” Kitty spoke over Joey, disregarding the interruption, “whom she ran away from some years later.”
“What happened to them?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know,” Kitty said. “I was too young to understand. Thing is, the rest of us girls were not allowed to have a Season since. So that is why I am not out.”
“Rebecca sends us letters sometimes,” Joey said. “Without a return address. To let us know she is alive and, hopefully, well.”
“Have you tried looking for her?”
“Of course we have. My brother Tobias is a Scotland Yard Inspector, he’s done everything he could. He never found her.”
“Or he’s never told us,” Kitty suggested.
“Why would he never tell us? Did Ruth come up with this nonsense?”
Kitty made no response. Joey emptied his glass and stood up.
“I think we’d better call it a night. It’s been a long day.”
Kitty sighed, woozy as she sat up. She stumbled into her cousin’s chest and giggled.
“Oh, Joey… I’ve missed you so much…”
