Sarah found the letter hard to write, but at length it was done, infused, she hoped, with a cordiality she did not feel. She could only hope Elaine would not stay long.
Sarah went down to the mail-box to post the letter. Certainly she knew that the mail would not be collected until tomorrow’s round, but she’d rather get the hateful thing away. If she left it up at the house, she would be trying to re-write it, so away it must go.
The mail-box was right out on the road, galvanized iron, with a hinged front. Sarah opened it, and saw someone else had been posting mail too. One letter. Also an air-mail to England. It stared up at Sarah in Grant’s positive, black handwriting. The address was the same as on Sarah’s letter ... Elaine Thomason’s address!
Sarah felt as if a physical blow had been struck at her. Grant had pretended he hadn’t heard of Elaine ... she could remember their conversation distinctly. To know Elaine’s address, Elaine must herself have written to him ... Sarah’s quick mind totted up the sum of it. Probably Grant had had a letter from Elaine long before Sarah herself had arrived. Sarah’s instinctive dislike of Elaine guessed immediately that Elaine had, somehow, torn with jealousy of Sarah’s good fortune, resolved to put a rift within the lute. And had succeeded. Suddenly Sarah knew, with a chill bleakness, that there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing but bear it ... if she could.
It seemed odd to meet Grant again later that night, and to realize he did not know she was aware that he was in correspondence with Elaine Thomason.
He had evidently told Mrs. Mac a visitor was coming. He said, in front of Mrs. Mac, “You’d find it cramped in the cottage with a visitor, wouldn’t you? I’m sure we’d be quite pleased to have Mrs. Thomason here at the homestead.”
Sarah said, a double meaning to her words, “Wouldn’t it be rather a strain, entertaining a stranger?”
That would give him the chance of admitting Elaine was known to him.
Grant passed it up. He said coolly, “Oh, strangers can be more stimulating than people we know. By the way, is she a widow?”
Sarah hesitated. Elaine Thomason had never been very confiding.
“Well—we didn’t know, definitely. We had a feeling there might be a husband in the background.”
“Why?”
“We-ell, she was the sort to—”
“The sort to what?”
“To play for sympathy, so if she had been a widow, I’m sure we’d have known all about it.”
Grant uttered a sound of real scorn. “How catty can women get? Not all make capital out of sorrow.”
His meaning was unmistakable. Sarah gathered up her knitting and went over to the cottage. She went quietly, without any show of being hurt. She told herself she wasn’t, anyway, merely tired of the whole thing. She would no longer care. This last scene had shown her it was useless to hope, to dare to believe things could ever be different.
Elaine would come, and whatever mischief she had already made would be doubled, trebled. Sarah felt nothing else would ever have the power to hurt her. Perhaps in time you could deaden feeling, and even stifle love itself.
She found her new attitude quite successful. It armoured her against further thrusts. She showed no resentment when one day Grant said:
“Have you decided whether or not Mrs. Thomason is to stay with you, or with us?”
“No, it really doesn’t matter either way.”
His tone was dry. “It might ... to Mrs. Thomason.”
Sarah said, in an indifferent tone, “Oh, she’d be quite comfortable in either place.”
“Comfortable, yes ... but she might prefer to be here, with strangers, than be with you, unwelcome.”
Sarah said, in the same expressionless tone, “Are you suggesting I would make my guest feel unwelcome?”
His tone was mocking. “I think you’re civilized enough not to do quite that, but aren’t we all aware of the undertones? I think this woman will know. I feel sorry for her.”
Sarah said, “That will be nice for her. Oddly enough I’d not have thought you would have been so intolerant of other people confessing dislike of someone. I can’t imagine your liking everybody.”
“I don’t. But your reason for disliking Mrs. Thomason did not ring true to me. This Doctor Fell business. I usually dislike people for very definite reasons.”
“I can’t quite imagine that.” Sarah’s voice held a significant amusement. “One has only to put one foot wrong with you to be dammed for ever. I’m not like that at all. Even when I disapprove of certain things people do, I can’t always dislike them. We are all so capable of doing wrong things, both impulsively wrong, and deliberately wrong ... or foolish things—that it doesn’t do to sit in judgment ... it doesn’t necessarily follow that we are bad all through, or out-and-out fools. So I often find myself liking people I don’t even admire.”
“Do you?” He was staring at her. “Then am I to believe that in spite of all that has passed between you and me, you could ... like me?”
Sarah had need for all her armor in that moment. She gathered it around her, she even managed to achieve an indifferent tone.
“I’m afraid you must be the exception that proves the rule. We don’t find a common ground for liking anywhere, do we?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Two days later Sarah was at the homestead helping Mrs. Mac with some baking. Grant had come in and put through a phone call, and stayed to sample a fresh scone, sitting on the table and regarding Sarah with a look she found disconcerting.
The phone rang, and Mrs. Mac was nearest, she answered.
“Oh, aye, Jeff,” they heard her say. “Hang on a moment.”
Grant got off the table and moved towards the instrument.
“Och, it’s no’ for you, Grant,” said his housekeeper. “It’s for Sarah here.”
Her expression was bland. Grant was surprised.
“I didn’t know she even knew him,” he muttered.
Mrs. Mac twinkled. “You men aye miss what goes on right under your noses. They’ve met several times in the township and across at Nan Granger’s. Nan’s a born matchmaker, you know.”
None of this was audible to Sarah as she talked to Jeff Phillipson, but she wondered why Grant scowled.
“Matchmaker ... what d’ye mean? Do you mean Jeff and Sarah?”
“Aye, just that,” said Mrs. Mac complacently. She looked up at him from under her brows as she swept some crumbs off the table to the palm of her hand. “That ought to please you.”
“What do you mean—ought to please me?”
Her was face guileless. “Welly you’ve no’ exactly made the lassie welcome, have you? In fact she’s a thorn in your flesh. I think it would be just ideal. I’d like to think she stayed in the district. I’ve taken a real fancy to her, just as you’ve taken a scunner at her.”
“Ideal! You think it would be ideal!” His face had darkened and Mrs. Mac saw the color come up under the deep tan of his cheeks.
She said, “And there’s more than myself would think it ideal too. Jeff’s mother thinks she’s the very wife for her lad. Well, wouldn’t any mother? If ever anyone is cut out to be a farmer’s wife it’s Sarah Isbister. She can cope with anything! she never seems to turn a hair. Bakes, gardens, uses up anything that’s going to waste ... she put all those unused rhubarb stalks into rhubarb wine ... she’s talking of having bees, thinks we’re crazy to buy honey. I’ve never seen a lighter hand with pastry, and as for knitting! There are plenty of girls these days can knit anything on two needles, twin sets and cardigans and the like, but not many who can turn the heel of a sock as Sarah does.”
Grant’s face was still dark; Sarah was talking on, animatedly. He glanced at her from time to time, catching a word here and there.
He said to Mrs. Mac, “No doubt those are the virtues a woman would list in a son’s wife, but not always the ones a man looks for when he’s thinking about matrimony!”
Mrs. Mac chuckled maddeningly again. “You’re right there. Sometimes you only meet up with those things in the very plain ones, the hopelessly dull and stodgy ones, but Sarah’s got everything ... gumption and glamour!”
She paused, added, “I’d ha’ thought you’d ha’ been more pleased at the thought of this solution. The situation has vexed you sorely, hasn’t it?”
Grant went to say something, checked, said instead:
“Well... I’d not like to lose Rory. He’s a born farmer.”
“M’mm, he is that. But the laddie’d get a real good chance on Jeff’s place, and by the time he’s left school, anyway, you might be married yourself, and with a wee son coming on. And if Sarah married Jeff, you’d probably be able to buy her out then. I think Mrs. Phillipson is doing her best to speed things up. She’s never really become a countrywoman at heart, you know, and Mr. Phillipson has promised her that when Jeff gets married he’ll buy a house to retire to in Christchurch. I’m real glad about that—wouldn’t like to think Sarah had to face being unwanted twice, and no mother-in-law likes to hand over the reins while still living in the homestead.”