Read Online Kitty by Deborah Challinor - Free Book Online Page A

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    Kitty was slightly nonplussed: she had assumed that, being accustomed to grass huts or whatever it was they normally lived in, the girls would be thrilled with any sort of accommodation that had four walls and a proper roof. She showed them the second of the two rooms. Slightly larger, it had a dressing table, as well as a chest of drawers, and two windows.
    Amy said, ‘Wai will have this room. She is the puhi.’ At Kitty’s blanklook, she explained: ‘Princess. Puhi is princess.’
    Kitty stole a quick glance at Wai but couldn’t detect any indication of royal status, unless it was her dress, which was pale green, well fitted and notably smarter than Amy’s outfit.
    ‘Is that because of your father?’ Kitty asked.
    Wai nodded. ‘And I am to be married in one year’s time, to the great warrior chief Wahoterangi Te Awarau of Ngati Tuwharetoa.’
    Kitty was aghast. ‘But you’re not old enough, surely?’
    ‘I am. I will be…’—Wai counted on her fingers—‘sixteen years old in nine more months.’
    ‘Will you have to leave your family?’
    Wai nodded again, this time with resignation.
    ‘But where is Ngati Tu…wherever you said?’ Kitty asked, imagining the poor girl all alone in some exceedingly remote part of already remote New Zealand.
    ‘Not where, who,’ Amy said. ‘Ngati Tuwharetoa are the people from Taupo. They are very powerful, and Tupehu wishes to forge a union with them.’
    ‘Have you met this man?’ Kitty asked.
    ‘Only once, three years ago,’ Wai replied. She shrugged. ‘It is not uncommon, it happens often. I was betrothed when I was born. It is the way things are.’
    Kitty surprised herself by opening her mouth to remonstrate against the immorality of using marriage as a mechanism for social, financial or political advancement, then closed it again as she realised that her own mother would have done something very similar if Kitty hadn’t compromised herself so spectacularly with Hugh Alexander.
    Amy smirked. ‘They say that Te Awarau is a fine-looking man,’ she said, and gave her cousin a hearty nudge with her elbow.
    Like a child, Wai nudged her back, and they both giggled.
    ‘Do you have a husband, Miss Kitty?’ Wai asked.
    Kitty sat down on the bed. ‘Well, no, or I wouldn’t be “Miss”, would I? I’d be Mrs. And anyway, I don’t like being called Miss. I’d rather you just called me Kitty.’
    ‘What does Kitty mean?’ Amy asked, sitting down herself.
    ‘Nothing, really. It’s short for Katherine.’
    ‘Mata Wiremu has a cat called Kitty,’ Wai said. ‘Is that where your name comes from?’
    ‘No, I don’t think so. Why, what does your name mean?’
    ‘My proper name is Waikamo. It means tears.’
    Kitty looked at Wai. ‘Who named you that?’
    ‘Hareta, my mother. She knew that I would be her last child. She died when I was born.’
    ‘Oh. I’m very sorry.’ Anxious to get away from such a sad subject, and reminded painfully of her own father’s death, Kitty asked, ‘And what does Amiria mean, Amy?’
    ‘Nothing. It is after Amelia, a Pakeha woman my mother knew when she was hapu.’ Amy held her hands out in front of her belly, to demonstrate an advanced state of pregnancy.
    Kitty was disappointed; the meaning of Wai’s name had been beautiful, if sad. ‘And Tupehu, what does that mean?’
    Wai grinned. ‘It means to make a…a performance, to be angry. It is a good name for my father.’
    Kitty cast around for another name. ‘What about Haunui?’
    Wai and Amy shared a look and burst out laughing.
    When it appeared that they weren’t going to stop, Kitty, giggling herself now although she didn’t know why, said ‘What? What’s so funny about Haunui?’
    Amy snorted and wiped tears from her almond-shaped eyes. ‘It means—’ and off she went again, eyes streaming and quite out of control. Eventually she calmed down enough to say, ‘It means a mighty wind.’
    Kitty said, ‘Oh, that’s a good name, isn’t it? Do you