Nurse Abroad(18)

Sarah was polishing the kauri rail of the old staircase, polishing it lovingly. Mrs. Mac stood watching her, her arm in its plaster cast.

“There’s something about this place that reminds me of our old manse in Orkney,” said Sarah, rubbing vigorously. “I know this is native wood, but our stair-rail was carved the same. I just love Challowsford.”

She looked up to see Grant standing in the far doorway, his eyes watchful. Sarah felt a hot tide of color rush up her neck and rise right to her forehead. He would think she wanted to go on living here.

“Not,” she said hastily, “that I’ll be sorry when we get back to the cottage. With the schools finishing tomorrow you might easily find the children’s high spirits too much for you, Mrs. Mac.”

Unexpectedly, Grant answered for them both. “Not with Christmas just a week away. A house needs children at Christmas. I’m looking forward to having them here.”



He caught Sarah’s look of surprise, and as Mrs. Mac moved off to the kitchen, came to her, as she stood on the lowest step.

He said, “It won't be an easy Christmas for them, will it?—The first without their parents. Let’s make it as gay a time as we can for them. Perhaps the novelty of Christmas in hot weather will ease it. I hope so.”

Sarah found herself unable to speak. She couldn’t find any words. At times like this he disarmed her, but she mustn’t respond to his kindliness, to this moment when she could glimpse the kind of man he was when he did not remember that through her he was considerably poorer ... If she did respond he would only think she was trying to work her wiles upon him.

She suddenly, to her horror, felt her eyes fill with tears. She looked down hastily, but since she was on the step her eyes were level with his and he caught the glint of the tears.



She turned hastily to the stair-rail, duster in hand, but he caught her arm, turned her about to face him.

“What is it, Sarah?”



She didn’t answer.

“What is it?” His voice was gentle. The tears splashed down on the lilac uniform, making great dark blotches. She put her hand into her pocket, took out her handkerchief.

He said, “I think I know. Sorry, Sarah, I was clumsy. This is the first Christmas for you too, without your loved ones. We called a truce before; it worked for a time. It’s the season of goodwill. How about it? Let’s forget this impossible situation for a while.”

Sarah didn’t dab ineffectively at her wet lashes. She rubbed her eyes vigorously, blew her nose, lifted her head and said gratefully, “Thank you, Mr. Alexander. I—I—it would be easier if—if outwardly we were friends at this season.”



He grinned. “Can’t you feel it inwardly too? Oh, well, perhaps that’s impossible. Anyway, for the sake of Christmas and perhaps the estate too, let’s accept things. And for heaven’s sake let’s use Christian names, even when we’re by ourselves—” He stopped, laughed teasingly. “Even when we’re fighting.”

Sarah felt tension go out of her.

Grant added, still laughing, “And for the sake of appearances we’ll have to give each other Christmas presents.” His eyes gleamed with fun. “Won’t you enjoy writing ‘To dear Grant with love from Sarah’ on little cards with goodwill and holly on them!” He ran upstairs.

Sarah was disturbed to know that the children were happier in the big house than in the cottage alone with her. She tried to analyse it, and she realized that children always miss a man in the house, and that their relationship with Grant was a natural, spontaneous thing. She was pleased for their sakes, but at times it gave her a queer, shutout sort of feeling.

Pauline was most affectionate with Grant. She would lean against his knee after tea at nights when they had settled down, as Sarah had seen her so often against her father’s knee. Sometimes they would get out a book of poetry, read it aloud with the complete lack of embarrassment that was so characteristic of the Rendalls and Isbisters. Puffin, the big golden cat that was Mrs. Mac’s, would be lying stretched out on Grant’s knee, Grant’s hand regularly stroking the striped back, resonant purrs providing a harmonious background to their voices.

Rory was in the seventh heaven because Grant was teaching him to drive the tractor.

Grant said, “You’ll be a great help to me during the holidays if you can take over the tractor work, but you’ve got to respect and fear it. No taking unnecessary risks. Too many tractor accidents by far. Use the grips when you’re on a hillside, take it easy always, and don’t be careless. And while you’re on holiday I’ll put you on tile wages sheet—you'll be working practically full time, and that money will be handy for you—you can bank most of it.”

He said to Sarah, “He’s born to be a farmer, and young enough to adapt himself to New Zealand ways. I hope you’ll realize the wisdom of that, and not feel he’s disloyal in liking this life so much better.”

Sarah said, “I shouldn’t dream of doing anything of the kind. I looked forward myself to a new life in New Zealand. It’s the only possible basis for a new start... to be prepared to accept all New Zealand has to offer, and not to look back.”

He gave her a strange look, which Sarah interpreted as: But then New Zealand offered you a minor fortune!

Nevertheless, because of their truce, Sarah found that this first Christmas, without her parents, in a far-away land, wasn’t as poignant as she had dreaded.

The same old-time preparations went on. The geese were plucked and stuffed, the puddings made, even though the temperature was in the eighties most days, and often soared into the nineties. It was strange, of course, to be digging new potatoes, picking green peas and mint, to go with the young lamb that would roasted also.

Every time Sarah caught sight of the puddings in the storeroom she felt that the outside world should greet her with snow and bitter winds, with robins bright against the white world, and instead here were roses against the paling fences of the garden, blue delphiniums, richly purple fuchsias, catmint, aubrietia, great flaunting zinnias, cascades of ivy geraniums about the porches and trellises of the old house.

Yet, somehow, Sarah couldn’t feel homesick for England and Scotland when all day long larks sang in the brassy sky.

Pauline joined her,: looking up, shading her eyes against the sun, to try to distinguish the tiny dark speck, incredibly small for the amount of pulsating joy it poured forth.

Pauline said,



“Bird of the wilderness,

Blithesome and cumberless,



Sweet be thy matin o’er moorland and lea!”





and before she could finish it, a deeper voice behind them said,



“Emblem of happiness,

Blest is thy dwelling-place,

Oh to abide in the desert with thee!”



He grinned and added, “James Hogg!”

Pauline looked up, elfish, delighted. “Doesn’t It seem strange, Grant, that once, before the pakehas came here, there weren’t any larks? Do you think the Maoris were glad afterwards, that the whites brought English birds with them?”

“I imagine the Maoris were, Pauline. They didn’t know what was missing, of course, but later it would seem to them that New Zealand was a more satisfying place with the song of the larks, and that the land was more beautiful with the splashing colors of autumn trees, in a land of evergreen trees, after the first saplings the pioneers brought turned color in April.” He smiled down at the child’s upturned face and said, “We’re grateful to England for lots of things, Pauline, things we didn’t miss before.”

The child’s tawny brows creased, then her lips parted in the gamin smile that was so attractive.

“Oh, Grant!” she said. She turned to Sarah.

“He means us, I think.”

“I mean you,” he said, laughing. “But don’t get I above yourself because I said so,” and he went off whistling.

Sarah stood looking after him. “You” was an awkward pronoun—she supposed, sadly but sensibly, he meant it in the singular. Yet he was grateful, in an impersonal way, for the aid she gave Mrs. Mac in dressing, in expert massage, in the housekeeping.

Sarah told the children that since Grant wanted them to open their presents all together on Christmas morning, before breakfast, she felt she shouldn’t put up a Christmas tree over at the cottage.

“Had we been over there, I would have, just a tiny one, but it would seem like shutting them but, so this year, I expect, we’ll just open our gifts at the breakfast table.”

But there weren’t any presents piled up in the kitchen. Grant said, “We’ll have breakfast, then go into the drawingroom.”

They did full justice to the lamb chops that melted in their mouths, the eggs and gravy, toast and coffee, then went along the hall.

Grant was first, and flung open the door. He’d had the blinds drawn, and there, by the fireplace, in all the glory of dozens of electric lights, tinsel and glitter-dust, was the loveliest tree Sarah had ever seen in a private house. Hours of work had gone into that. She was speechless. The children weren’t. Their vocal praise seemed to satisfy Grant.

Mrs. Mac, beaming, said to Sarah, “This is good for Grant. He was an only child, and orphaned so early. The children mean a lot to him.”