His tone was offhand. “I’d not be at all surprised to find you’ve summed up the situation very neatly.” He shrugged. “I shan’t worry over her reception of you. After all, you could hardly expect a fatted calf, could you? Or banners and bunting?”
Sarah picked up the basket. Better to be on their way and to meet whatever was ahead as soon as possible.
The miles sped by. They stopped in Cheviot for stores. It was a pleasant village. Sarah said so.
“We call them townships here,” said Grant Alexander.
It was set in rolling down' country, and had an English air to it. Great oak trees overhung the ranger’s pound near the school. Old and new buildings rubbed shoulders with each other. The gardens were spacious and colorful, and rutty roads that were like English, lanes ran away into the distance, hedges with cherry-plum, whose blossoms had faded a month ago, and hawthorn where rose and ivory blossom clustered the branches.
“This is where you’ll go to school,” Grant Alexander told the children. “We’re a few miles out, but you can walk ... or ride ... the mile or two to the crossroads where the school bus will pick you up.”
“Ride!” said Rory. “Bikes?”
“No. Ponies. Can you ride?”
Could they ride? That had been a grief only second to the loss of their parents, saying goodbye to their ponies.
The ecstatic look on the two faces stabbed Sarah. There was so much here for them—if she could stick it out herself ... If!
They turned right at the crossroads and dipped into the hills. Except that the fields were mostly yellow and dry, this could have been England. Five-month-old lambs grazed contentedly beside their mothers, sleek cattle stood, their forefeet in shallow, willow-bordered streams, drinking; magpies shrieked raucously, and there were ducks and geese by the ponds.
Suddenly Sarah heard it, through the open windows of the car ... a thin note of ecstasy, high above them. She put her head on one side, listening.
“That sounds for all the world like a lark.”
“So it should. It is a lark. What makes you think it shouldn’t be?”
Sarah ignored the brusque tone, laughed, and said, “Mistaken ideas about the colonies, I suppose. Just like a woman on the ship—she had the quaint idea canaries flew about wild in Australia. An Aussie aboard put her right about that, but before I left a patient said to me, ‘Just fancy, you’ll never hear a lark again.’ I’m glad she was wrong. I can’t imagine a meadow without a lark above it, singing.”
Grant said, “We call them paddocks—not meadows.” He went on. “I’m not surprised. There are a lot of fallacious ideas floating about concerning New Zealand. People seem to think we have earthquakes weekly, and volcanoes erupting. By the way ... we haven’t referred to ourselves as a colony for about half a century. We’re a Dominion. There are other quaint ideas ... Some feel that by merely coming to N.Z. fortune is about to smile on them ... that the streets are paved with gold, or wool cheques. They completely lose sight of the fact that between the lad of eighteen who comes out here as a shepherd, on a back country run, and the same man of forty who owns a sheep station, lie years of unremitting toil and often the remembrance of intolerable loneliness. Not everybody has a homestead dropped into his—her—lap, neatly tied up in parchment and red tape!”
“Like Sarah Isbister!” she said, a dangerous note in her voice. “But don’t forget it’s only half a homestead ... and there are ... snags!”
“Don’t let us forget, either, that wool prices are dropping. Or that both partners in an estate have to pull their weight.”
“I’m ready to do my bit,” said Sarah more evenly.
“Yes?” The drawled monosyllable was no less insulting than the way the hazel eyes flicked over her, from her immaculate shoes to her shining pointed nails.
“It’s easy to look well groomed and useless,” admitted Sarah, “after weeks on board ship. I’m quite willing to don dungarees and hobnails and help where I can.”
“Heaven forbid,” said her partner. “No amateurs for us, thanks. You’d be as realistic as Marie Antoinette playing milkmaid ... and in about the same danger of losing your head! I can imagine what my dour man Jock would say.”
“It sounds to me,” said Sarah, “a case of like master, like man.”
With that they swept through the waters of the ford, and over the cattle-stops. Here was Challowsford.
CHAPTER TWO
He wasn’t taking them in through the front entrance, Sarah noticed, but through the rutted farmyard drive which was no more tidy than most. Sarah pulled herself together. She was in for a rough time, but at least she would not look scared. Sarah picked up her bag, her gloves, gave a quick warning look at the children, and, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin, followed Grant in.
At least she needn’t worry unduly about Pauline and Rory. Like most manse children they were used to meeting people; they wouldn’t be embarrassed and shy, nor forward and bothersome.
Mrs. Macfarlane’s greeting wasn’t as openly antagonistic as Grant Alexander’s had been. It was appraising, and lacking in warmth, but under it Sarah could sense the woman was apprehensive. Well, Sarah could understand that. Few women welcomed another woman in the kitchen.
She took Sarah and the children upstairs to a cool-looking guest room with a dormer window. It had a small room opening off it, for Rory. It sloped under the eaves. The homestead was quite old—for New Zealand, Sarah guessed. Duncan Alexander had said it dated back to pioneer days, so it was probably nearly a hundred years old.
The children ran eagerly to the windows. Sarah turned from watching them to catch Mrs. Macfarlane’s eyes on her. The woman spoke, surprised into revealing her thoughts and sounding more natural.
“Och, you’re a right down fair Isbister, aren’t you, now?”
Sarah’s eyes widened. “You are an Orcadian?”
The woman nodded. “I was a Stanger before I married. You’ve the look of the Northern folk.”
Sarah grimaced. “But these days, with so many synthetic blondes, people are apt to regard my fairness with suspicion. One patient I nursed told me I was mean not to tell her what I used to keep my hair this color.”
The woman made a derisive sound that was purely Scots in its way.
“If they came from Orkney they’d know the difference. There’s a ripeness about the coloring that never came from a bottle?”
The ice about Sarah’s heart gave a little. Here was someone not quite so antagonistic.
But the next moment it was is if a mask had fallen back over the woman’s face. She appeared to withdraw a little. She is remembering her loyalty to Mr. Alexander, thought Sarah drearily.
“I hope you’ll find everything to your taste, Miss Isbister. If not, then in the morning you can pick another room. Except that Mr. Alexander will retain his own, of course, you’re entitled to pick whichever one you fancy.”
Sarah looked her in the eye. “I shouldn’t dream of doing that, Mrs. Macfarlane. I shall be here only the one night. Mr. Alexander’s uncle told me there are cottages on the property. That it’s years since you had married couples in them. I’ll move over to one tomorrow.”
Mrs. Macfarlane looked amazed. “Mr. Alexander thought you’d want to be here, with me waiting on you—”
Sarah cut in. “I’m afraid Mr. Alexander is labouring under quite a few delusions. I’ve my own plans. If I were you I’d not like a strange woman and two children dumped on me. I’m quite capable of managing for ourselves.”
Mrs. Macfarlane said slowly, “Either of the cottages would take a deal of cleaning up. You’d not be able to take over till we had got them in order.”
“Oh, I’ll get them in order. The children would love to help, and after so much leisure time aboard ship we’re raring to go. I suppose they are furnished enough to make do?”
The woman said doubtfully, “Just with bits and pieces picked up at auction sales. The married couples had their own furniture, the partners provided just the floor coverings, but when the last lot left, and we made do with single men, Mr. Grant furnished them simply for relations who might drop up for a spell during school holidays, or when we had extra hands on at shearing or harvest. It wouldn’t be like what you were used to.”
Sarah smiled. “I’m used to a shabby old manse, or a nurses’ hotel. No period pieces. I brought out one or two family treasures, some linen and silver, pictures. That’s all. But I’ve certainly no intention of living in the homestead.”
She fancied Mrs. Macfarlane looked relieved, but all she said was: “Well, I doubt you’d better discuss it with Mr. Grant. It’s not for me to be saying.”
Sarah called the children to come down to tea with her.
Grant Alexander was standing in front of the kitchen fireplace. “We eat in the kitchen,” he told her curtly. “Saves time and footsteps.”
Mrs. Macfarlane said apologetically, “I was for setting it in the dining-room the night, but Mr. Grant said no.”
His glance was sardonic. “We only use the dining-room when we have guests, don’t we, Mac? We can scarcely regard Miss Isbister as a guest!”