“I am afraid not. And please call me Kit.”
“Then take off your coat and come close to the fire, my dear,” said her aunt.
“Oh!” Judith exclaimed. “You traveled in a dress like that?” Here in this plain room Kit’s beautiful dress seemed too elegant. The three other women were all wearing some simple gray gowns.
Then Judith saw Kit’s gloves. “They are so beautiful,” she whispered.
“Do you like them? I’ll give you some just like these, if you like. I have several pairs in my trunk.”
Meanwhile, Rachel Wood set a mug, a spoon and a simple wooden plate for Kit. “Tell us, Katherine, how you came so far. Did your grandfather come with you?” she asked.
“My grandfather died four months ago,” Kit explained.
“Oh, you poor child! All alone there on that island! Who came with you, then?”
“I came alone.”
“Oh, poor child!” her aunt cried. “Well, you’re safe here. Have some corn bread, my dear. It was baked yesterday, and there is butter.”
Kit was thirsty and lifted the mug, but then put it down again. “Is that water?” she asked politely.
“Of course. Fresh from the spring.”
Water for breakfast! But the bread was delicious. While Kit was eating, Rachel Wood was looking at her young face. Her eyes filled with tears. “You look so like my sister.”
Matthew Wood had not sat down at the table with the others. What did this kind woman find in that grave silent man? Was he so handsome? Uncle Matthew had said nothing, but Kit understood that he had been watching her very carefully. Now he put on a leather jacket and prepared to leave. “I will be working in the south meadow till sundown,” he told his wife.
At the open door, however, he stopped and looked at Kit’s baggage. “What is all this?” he asked coldly.
“Oh,” said Kit. “Those are my trunks.”
“Yours? Seven trunks? What can be in them?”
“Well, my clothes and some things of Grandfather’s.”
“Seven trunks of clothes, all the way from Barbados, just for a visit?”
The room became suddenly cold and quiet. “I have not come for a visit, sir,” Kit managed to answer. “I have come to stay with you.”
Rachel gasped. Matthew Wood closed the door and came back to the table. “Then why did you not write to us first?” he asked.
“I was afraid that you might not ask me to come, and I had to come,” Kit said.
“We wouldn’t have said no,” said her uncle. “But a step like this should not be taken thoughtlessly.”
“Matthew,” protested Rachel timidly, “we are the only family she has. Let us talk about it later. Now Katherine is tired, and your work is waiting for you.”
Matthew Wood took a chair and sat down heavily. “The work will have to wait,” he said. “It is best that we clear this matter now. How did you get on the ship all alone?”
“There was a ship in the harbor and they said it was from Connecticut. I should have sent a letter, I know, but it might have been months before another ship came. So instead of writing I decided to come myself.”
“You mean that, just on an impulse, you left your home and sailed almost across the world?”
“No, it was not an impulse. I really had no home to leave.”
“And what about your grandfather’s estate? As I know he was a wealthy man.”
“He was wealthy, once. But then he was ill for a long time and couldn’t manage the plantation. He left everything to an overseer who sold the whole crop and then disappeared. So after Grandfather died, there were just debts everywhere. I paid all of them. The land had to be sold, and the house and the slaves, and all the furniture from England. There wasn’t anything left.”
