“And smutty-nosed,” said her grim partner gently, and pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket. He rubbed at the smut.
They both laughed, their eyes met, and for an instant something flashed between them, flickered and abruptly died, as they both remembered all that lay between them ... distrust, disharmony, dislike.
“Two-fifteen!” said Grant Alexander jerkily. “What a day! Thank you for your help. Goodnight.” And he slammed the back door.
“It’s no good,” said Sarah dreamily to her mirrored face. “Your legacy from Duncan Alexander—the one you didn’t want to take—will always stand between you. And it doesn’t matter ... it doesn’t matter, because Grant Alexander doesn’t mean a thing to you, not a thing!”
CHAPTER FIVE
Perhaps it was a good thing to be so weary that one instantly sank into billowing clouds of sleep, where motives and humiliation and disillusionments dissolved into vapor and nothingness.
At five, Sarah, refreshed by two and a half hour’s sleep, and roused by a strident alarm clock, was stoking up the range again.
She heard the back door open, and Grant Alexander strode in.
“Good heavens!” he said, as she straightened up from the oven with a tray of huge scones. “You’ll kill yourself. You ought to have stayed in till seven. The scones could have waited till then.”
Sarah looked at him pityingly. “Not with meat to go in. Besides, I can do with very short rations of sleep—I sleep deeply and well.”
“Easy conscience?” His tone was merely bantering, but Sarah took it for sarcasm. This morning she was going to be careful not to soften towards him.
“No ... merely case-hardened,” she said, and wrapped up her first batch of scones in a clean tea-towel.
She was annoyed when he laughed, dropped a friendly hand on her shoulder, and said, “Well, I can understand and take it if you’re a bit liverish this morning. Bet you haven’t had a cup of tea yet.” He paused, added, “And I’d better be careful ... you don’t like being pawed, do you?” The outraged Sarah made no answer. He took the boiling kettle, rinsed out the teapot, made the tea
Sarah, exasperated, said, “Do you realize you’ve used the big teapot, and made enough for a dozen, not two people?”
He grinned. “Odd, isn’t it? I took you for a femme fatale, and blow me down, you’re just another cheese-paring housewife like Mrs. Mac!” He seized a knife, cut a crusty slice off the oven-bottom cake, buttered it lavishly, broke it in half, and handed a piece to Sarah. “Try this.” He bit into his. “This beats bought bread hollow. If you’re not careful, you’ll be landed with this job for keeps.” He looked at her. “Come on, snap out of it. No day for early morning moods today, Sarah Isbister ... Let’s get on with things. You’ll not be half as jaundiced when you’ve had a mug of tea.” He looked at her unyielding face and added, “Don’t forget Challowsford interests are your interest now ... half interest anyway. Let’s call a truce ... I’ll pay the shearers, you feed ’em.”
He was right, of course, odiously right. The tea did make her feel better.
There was one thing about being busy, Sarah realized hours later, in a brief spell from feverish activity, it kept you from churning things over in your mind. There was a certain novelty about this, too, that pleased.
Once the dinner was over, and she knew with relief it was as well cooked and served as Mrs. Mac herself could have managed, she knew she could cope with the rest of the day.
Everything was ready for the afternoon tea, and the late tea itself was an easy one, with only potatoes to cook. Sarah planned to put in more bread after the evening meal.
Pauline and Rory had stayed home and taken the snacks down to the sheds. They had done the entire milking in the morning, and all outside chores. They had both even tackled the stacks of dishes without demur. With a bit of sense, they might be allowed to stay home tomorrow, also. Now they were outside somewhere.
Sarah took the last of the pikelets off the hot plates of the electric stove, and turned as she heard a step. Grant. He filled the doorway. “Everything under control?” he asked.
She nodded, smoothing back her hair with the back of a hand.
“Yes. I’m going to slip into a clean overall, and put up the baskets and call the children to take the afternoon tea down.”
“Oh, they’re down at the sheds. Rory’s picking up fleeces, and Pauline’s watching the shorn ones go through the mister dip and making sure the men don’t poke and bustle them. Also quoting poetry from time to time. She’s been swotting up that book of Station Verse from my bookcase, seemingly!”
Sarah looked apologetic. “I’ll make them stay up here.”
“No fear. They’re enjoying it hugely, and the men like them. It keeps the language down too. How about coming down yourself with this lot? I’ll give you a hand. You might like to see the shearing in action.”
Sarah said, rather stiffly, for except in emergency, when all else was forgotten, she was not at ease with her partner: “It’s kind of you to suggest it, but—”
He cut in, “I didn’t suggest it. Hori did ... the big Maori. He said, ‘How about Miss Isbister bringing up the tea, boss? ... She’d be pretty easy on the eyes after looking at bloody sheep all day’!”
Sarah couldn’t help laughing.
Grant continued: “Then Lanky said, ‘I second that. All in favor ...?’ and they all said ‘Aye.’ ”
She said, “Knowing that, I’d feel embarrassed.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” He sounded impatient. “Come on. Is that all there is left to butter? I see the kettles are boiling.” He began slapping butter on the last batch of pikelets.
Sarah filled the huge enamel teapots, set them in the big padded nests Mrs. Mac used to keep them hot, put gigantic cosies over them.
It took only a few seconds to change, and do her hair. She reappeared in green linen with white buttons, crisp and cool. She had tied her hair back with a white ribbon, and there were white sandals on her bare feet, cool and comfortable this broiling day.
She thought his eyes rested on her in appreciation. Nothing personal in it, of course, he was merely mildly pleased with the novelty of someone young and pretty for his men to appreciate.
But it wasn’t Grant Alexander’s admiration she wanted, it was his respect.
He had the jeep outside and they were at the sheds in a few moments.
Grant said, “I told them to carry straight on when you came in—that you’d want to see them in action.” There was both machine and hand shearing going oh, and though Sarah had seen shearing before, she knew she had never seen such lightning work.
All seemed noise and confusion, whirr of machinery, bleating of bewildered sheep outside, the indescribably rich atmosphere of sheep, sweating men, the pungent odour of the dip beyond the portholes.
Sarah watched, fascinated, as Lanky ran his shears up, turned the sheep over, the rhythmic sure action, the effortless grace of it, the perfect fleece curling back, the ease of movement, and it was off.
She said, “I’ve never seen such speedy shearing in my life.”
Lanky grinned, his face creasing into dozens of lines. “Of course you haven’t,” he said complacently. “This is Enzed. Enzed shearers. Fastest in the world.”
“I can well imagine that,” said Sarah, “but not, perhaps, the most modest!”
There was a shout of delighted laughter, in which both Lanky and Grant joined.
“I ought to have warned you, Lanky,” said Grant, still laughing. “She may look like a dream, but she’s got a tongue like a two-edged sword!”
The big Maori put his word in. “Oh, but you’re still mighty lucky, boss. Not all the notes of the tui are sweet, but she’s still the pick of the bush birds ... great variety. You ought to thank Tane that your uncle picked you a partner like this.”
Sarah glanced quickly at Grant, but there was only amusement in his eyes, not resentment. In the shearing shed, at least, he seemed to be accepting her as that, his partner.
She said hastily, “Well, here’s the tea. Get it while it’s hot.” She began to pour out into the mugs.
Sarah was fascinated by the big friendly Maori, Hori. He told her his name meant George, and chatted away with an easy charm. He asked her what she thought of this new country, how she was settling in, what differences she noticed in the farming. Sarah told him she thought in certain parts of England the farming would be similar to the Cheviot farming that she’d seen so far except that there were more mixed farms, and more cropping done. Orkney was different, so far north, so sea-girt.
Hori said, surprisingly, “I’ve been to Orkney. During the war. We got extra leave, if the men had relatives in Scotland. So, of course, the Maori had relatives there too! Hadn’t much time, so I went as far north as possible, and spent most of my time getting back!”
Sarah admitted to a few surprises. “I had an idea,” she confessed, “that I might have to learn some kind of pidgin English, to speak to the Maoris.”
Hori chuckled. “We’ve lived so long side by side with the pakeha (white man) we share most of their advantages, not all. And some of the disadvantages ... disease, drink. Of course you don’t find so many Maoris in the South Island as the North. The Maori prefers the heat.”