Not the Faintest Trace by Wendy M Wilson

Author:Wendy M Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wilson
Published: 2018-08-08T16:00:00+00:00

Mette was ready to leave as the sun rose the next morning. Pieter was to take her into town before he went to the sawmill, and she would wait there until the mail coach was ready to leave – an hour or so. Although she might not have a home to return to she was excited at the thought of the adventure that awaited her through the Manawatu Gorge to Woodville. She’d visited Woodville once before, on the way up from Wellington when they first arrived in New Zealand and she remembered it as a larger town than Palmerston, with a main street with shops and several hotels. A real town, in other words, like Haderslev where she and Maren had grown up.

She purchased her ticket and left her bag on the verandah of the Royal Hotel. Frank was out the back in the paddock getting the horses ready and did not see her, even though she stood around on the verandah for as long as she could without looking foolish. After thirty minutes of trying not to look foolish she decided to walk around the Square and look at the shops: a butcher, a greengrocer, a saddler, a photography studio, then, much to her surprise and pleasure, a bookshop. Robinson’s Fine Paper, Books, and Tobacco, it said on the sign above the door. She went in, overwhelmed at the sight of so many books in one place. Her hand clutched the purse that Pieter had given her, with the precious coins inside; ten shillings of English money, five Danish Crowns, and some more in tradesmen’s tokens, which she would be able to use at the hotel in Woodville. Never in her life had she held so much money. Unfortunately, she would not be able to use any of it to purchase another book for herself. Pieter would demand an accounting of every penny spent, and with good reason.

She stood in the bookstore and touched the books carefully — beautiful books with leather bindings and gold-edged pages. She ran her hand along the spines in wonder. So many books! She was afraid to pull one from the shelf, in case the owner of the store expected her to buy it. However, one lone book sat on a table, a piece of paper marking a spot in the middle as if someone had been reading it. She picked it up. It was a volume of poetry by a man named Robert Browning, unknown to her. Opening it, she read a verse:

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