Nurse Abroad(24)

She knew Mrs. Mac was aware of the undercurrents, but in front of her, too, Grant and she preserved the outward semblance of amiability. So it was quite natural for Mrs. Mac, going off by bus to her sister’s in town, to say:

“The men are off today, Sarah. How about you giving Grant his meals at the cottage?” Sarah quite expected him to say he’d rustle up his own, but he simply said, “Okay, just bang your own gong, Sarah, when it’s ready. Rory and I won’t be far away. We’re doing some fencing up the valley.”

They stayed no longer than it took to eat their midday dinner, and went back to the job, but they finished early, got their milking done, and announced they were through for the day when they arrived in for tea at six-thirty.

“My word,” said Grant, surveying the table, “quite a party!”

“That’s Pauline’s doing,” said Sarah hastily. “She loves all the trimmings in catering. So I let her do it, for I’d not like to think she passes all the womanly graces by—she’s such a tomboy.”

Grant ignored the latter part of her remarks, and said solemnly, “I did realize that you were hardly likely to kill the fatted calf for me. You’d really much rather put weedkiller in the sandwiches, wouldn’t you, saintly Sarah?”

Sarah didn’t answer. She would be glad when the meal was over, here in the intimacy of the little cottage she had grown to love, sheltered by its poplars, and surrounded by blossom, where bees hummed busily, and birds sang all day long. Never mind, the children’s chatter always served to bridge any awkward moments.

She was wrong there. This time, their chatter created them.

Pauline began it. Pauline would. She wasn’t the sort of child you could head off, because she had the knack of introducing a subject suddenly.

She had finished her tea, and was sitting, elbows on table, chin in cupped hands, looking dreamily at Grant.

“Gosh, Grant,” she said, “I think you’re just beaut. You are just the sort I’d like for a husband. Later on, I mean.”

Grant laughed, bowed to her.

“It beats me,” continued Pauline, “why you’ve not been married before—in fact, long since. Haven’t you ever been even engaged? Or in love?”

Grant’s brown face creased into laughter lines, but Sarah was scandalized.

“Pauline! You mustn’t!”

“Why not, Sarah?”

“It’s—it’s one of the things that just aren’t done.”

Pauline waved a deprecating hand. “But if you never do the things that aren’t done, Sarah, you never get to know anything really interesting, so you must do them.”

Grant said solemnly, “I know exactly what you mean, Paul.”

Sarah said crossly, “Well, if you do, you’re unique. When Pauline gets into these involved phrases no one ever knows exactly what she means, or has even a glimmer. I remember once—”

“Excuse me,” said Pauline distinctly, “but you have told me often enough, Sarah dear, not to butt in, and you butted in before Grant could answer my question!”

“I strongly suspect,” said Grant, laughing, “that Sarah is trying to head you off ... to drag a red herring across the trail ... but disregard her, Paul. Yes, I have been in love two or three times, but only once engaged.”

Pauline was all interest. “And what happened? Did she die? Will you never marry anyone now?”

“Pauline!” Sarah’s voice was despairing. “Don’t be so ridiculous. You sound like a Victorian novelist.” She turned on Grant. “Don’t encourage her. She’ll take everything you say for gospel, and it will be all round the township.”



“It is gospel,” said Grant reasonably. “I’m not stringing her on. I was engaged once. I haven’t got a broken heart, Pauline, but it put me off women. Made me distrust them.”

His eyes met Sarah’s over the teapot. She looked away, assuming an indifference she did not feel.

Pauline said, a comforting tone in her voice, “Never mind, Grant, you’ll meet your ideal some day I’m sure.”

“Thank you and if I don’t, I’ll just wait for you to grow up, Pauline. You’d do me fine. Pity you’re not a bit older. I’ll be a bit long in the tooth by the time you’re old enough to be a bride.”

Pauline sat up. “Gosh ... that’s something I never thought of ... if you’re serious about me being the right type, well, Mum said Sarah was just like me when she was younger, so—”

She didn’t get any further. Sarah had risen, and firmly clapped a hand over her garrulous young sister’s mouth.

“Now shut up, Pauline, or you’re going to bed. I’ll pick my own husband, thank you, and it certainly won’t be Grant!”

Pauline expertly twisted free, and was off her chair...

Her surprise was genuine. “But why not, Sarah? ... you always said that you’d wait till you met up with a man like Daddy ... and Grant’s just like him all over again.”

Sarah swallowed, said hastily, “What utter rubbish! Trouble with you, Pauline Rendall, is you’vegot a father fixation ... no, I’m. not going to explain what it is.”

Grant got up. “Come on, Pauline. I’ll show you the wild duck’s nest in the reeds in the creek now, if you like. Coming, Rory?”



In a flash they were off. Sarah carried the dishes out to the scullery, watched the three figures going up the valley, Grant tall and broad, Rory stocky, Pauline elfish, her hand in Grant’s. Maybe this was Grant’s way of cutting short a most embarrassing conversation, but she felt once more the cold, familiar, shut-out feeling.





CHAPTER EIGHT



It was New Year’s Eve, and Mrs. Mac had insisted on Sarah’s changing at the homestead.



“The bairns will want to see you in your finery,” she said, (they were spending the night at the homestead), “and besides, there’s a larger mirror here.”

It had been a time when Grant and Sarah had seen as little of each other as possible, something that had been easy since the cottage tea, as the men had been busy on the farm, and Sarah had spent most of her days and evenings bottling fruit in the cottage.

Sarah came downstairs. As she turned the corner of the staircase, the door swung open and Mrs. Mac said with a note of triumph in her voice, “Have a look at her, Grant!”

Without seeming churlish, he could do no other than leave his book on the kitchen table, and come to the door.

The wild-rose color deepened in Sarah’s cheeks, and she strove to appear natural. Mrs. Mac’s sigh was wholly a woman’s; even if she herself did stick to plain, utility lines, she could appreciate this.



Sarah’s frock was more green than blue, and shot with silver. The bodice was heart-shaped, and outlined with a ruching of silver lace. The waist was boned, and the skirt swept out in a redingote effect that opened to show a frothing of tiers of silver lace. Above it she wore a silver necklace, delicately linked, holding a single opal, which had been her mother’s. Her sandals and bag were silver.

“Sarah!” said Mrs. Mac, “you’re a fair dream in yon frock, that you are.”

Sarah laughed and came down in a little run, holding up her skirts.

“Fine feathers make fine birds,” she said.

She wished Grant hadn’t been there ... or did she, really? If she was strictly honest, she’d admit any woman would enjoy appearing before a man in a gown like this ... even a man who despised her.

Mrs. Mac said, “Mercy! I was nearly forgetting my raspberries.” She disappeared abruptly into the kitchen. Sarah paused. Grant was right in the doorway and showed no signs of moving.

She knew, in spite of herself, a quick disappointment that he was obviously not going to the Plunket Ball. He was freshly tubbed and had on green sports trousers and an open-necked silk shirt.

“That cost a pretty penny, I should say,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “What is it? Dior? Hartnell? Worth? Or am I out of date, and it’s some new name in the fashion world?”

Sarah said coolly, “Not so much out of date as speaking out of turn.”

He laughed maddeningly. “I know it’s none of my business, and I ought to be set back, but there are people who can’t be set back, Sarah. I’m one. That tallies with your opinion of me, doesn’t it? It’s nothing but vulgar curiosity ... but I did wonder if a nurse’s salary ... even a sister’s ..., could ever stretch to a frock like that.”

Sarah said stiffly, lest he think it came out of his uncle’s money, “It was a gift. It’s not the sort of frock I should ever be able to afford.”

“From your parents?”

“Ministers’ salaries don’t run to this scale, either, as you know!”

His look was shrewd, penetrating. “Another grateful patient?”

Sarah hesitated, then said flatly, “Yes.”

His voice was derisively amused. “I’d not realized nursing was so ... lucrative, or gratitude so profitable. Quite a lot of perquisites, aren’t there?”

Sarah’s tone matched his. “Yes, if you know how to play your cards. Now, if you’ve finished insulting me, Grant, would you allow me to go into the kitchen?”

“Certainly, but are you going to wait for Jeff in the kitchen? Wouldn’t the drawing-room be the better setting ... pastel chintzes, roses outside the door ... You could be seated at the piano, playing softly. ‘Just a song at twilight’ perhaps, or ‘The Sea-Queen from over the foam.’ ”