They told her two and tenpence. Sarah put her hand in her overall pocket, drew out a handful of change, carefully counted the amount, laid it in a neat pile in front of Grant Alexander, said sweetly, “Thank you so much ... good morning, Mr. Alexander, good morning, Mrs. Macfarlane,” and was gone. But not before she had encountered Grant’s eyes, blazing, frustrated.
She realized she would hear from him, though by this time she knew him well enough to know it would not be in front of his housekeeper or the children.
The next encounter she had with him was not, however, of his seeking, or to do with the partnership. It arose out of the moment when Rory, at the lunch-table, said casually, “Grant’s going to take us to school on Monday. In Cheviot. He says it’s a good school.”
Sarah gazed at him. “What did you say, Rory?”
“I said ... but you heard, didn’t you, Sis?”
“Yes, but I couldn’t believe it. I told Mr. Alexander that you’d not be starting till February, when the new school year takes up. It’s nothing to do with him. He’s only my partner—not your guardian.”
“Och, Sarah, don’t be getting in a flap. What does it matter? We’d like to start now ... get to know the kids around here, wouldn’t we, Pauline?”
“Ye-es,” said Pauline, a little uncertainly. Sarah seized on this. If Pauline, the usually dauntless, was nervous, she wasn’t going to have her pushed into this, it was quite unnecessary.
“You’d really rather not, wouldn’t you, Pauline?”
Pauline shook her head. “I’m a bit scared, I know, but I’d honestly sooner get it over, Sarah.”
Sarah felt cross. “I’ll see Mr. Alexander myself. It’s really no business of his. And, Rory, did I hear you say Grant? You’ll please refer to him as Mr. Alexander, or you’ll be calling him Grant absent-mindedly to his face.”
Rory’s freckled face broke into laughter lines. “My gosh, Sis, you’re behind the times. I do call him Grant, he told me to. All the men do. It’s the custom here.”
“Well, it’s a custom I do not approve of,” said Sarah. “Some of these colonial customs are very slack and undignified.” But she realized even as she spoke that she was wasting her breath. The children, to be happy, must become New Zealanders, and it would be wise not to stress their differences. Besides, Sarah had a sneaking, uncomfortable feeling she was being petty. That made her all the more determined to have it out with Grant about his high-handed method of deciding they would start school now. In this, at least, she was completely justified.
Later in the afternoon, she saw him not far distant, tightening up fences. She went across. He looked up at her with the odd look he kept for her alone. It was a look that made her conscious that he regarded her as playing a part, trying to sound sincere, trying to undermine his prejudice. It made Sarah stiff, unnatural, and—it must be admitted—unreasonable.
“Mr. Alexander,” she said, hands behind her back, “have you any right whatever to interfere with Rory and Pauline? I am their guardian, and I’ll decide when they start school.”
“I haven’t any right,” he admitted with disconcerting promptitude, “but I like the children” (the inference was unmistakable, Sarah thought resentfully) “and am only sorry that in this it seems they must suffer from an over-sentimental sister. It’s not easy starting a new school, I know, but children have to face life too ... and the longer it’s postponed, the harder it gets.
“You feel, I believe, that it’s better for them to start next year, but it’s three weeks till the end of the year, and they have had a long enough break from regular schooling as it is. Given three weeks now, they’ll be settled in with the others by next year, and it will give the teachers a better chance of grading them. I sincerely hope you’ll not take up the weak-minded, stubborn attitude of refusing this, solely because you would rather go against me than agree with me. My own motive is not to cross you, but because I believe it will be the better for the youngsters.”
Sarah was temporarily bereft of speech. Then she swallowed.
“Very clever, Mr. Alexander. You leave me with no option but to agree. I’ve always thought the person who refuses to change his mind very stupid and weak ... though I’m amazed to find myself actually agreeing with you.”
“Good. I’ll take them in myself on Monday morning. The other children are used to me, and it will help Pauline and Rory not to feel so alien. By the way, I’ve told Rory he’d better let himself be known by his proper name—Roderick. Rory is unusual here, and children are so full of the herd instinct he’s better to have an everyday name for school.”
Sarah, still sounding stiff, protested. “I can’t think of Rory as Roderick. I’m sorry you don’t like it.”
He said, quite gently, “I do like it, you know. It was my father’s name. I lost him when I was exactly Rory’s age.” He went on, giving her no time to comment, “One of the boys at school here was always called Theodore at home, and his mother insisted on it at school. The kids gave him a hell of a time, whereas if the stupid woman had said to call him Ted he’d have settled in without half the fights. As it is they’ll probably get teased a little about their Scots accent, though it’s not very pronounced, is it? And you’ve scarcely any.”
Sarah nodded. “Neither Father nor Mother had very pronounced accents—they’d both had part of their education in England—and of course I spent the years of my nursing training in London. I dare say the children will lose theirs altogether now.”
Grant nodded. “M’m. Pity really, it’s most attractive.”
Sarah reflected that, after all, Grant Alexander could say something pleasant once in a while.
A pity then that he had to say, pulling on the wire strainer, “I’ve arranged with the P. & T. to put an extension telephone in the cottage for you.”
Sarah opened her lips to say thank you, because it would be good in case of illness or emergency, to be able to call Mrs. Mac, or the doctor, but hadn’t formed the words before he said with a sidelong glance, “Then you’ll be able to do your business telephoning in private ... even if it does rob you of a little cheap triumph!”
Sarah swung round on her heel, and walked away, her back stiff, her burnished hair glinting in the sunshine. The laughter that followed her made her more angry than ever.
The children settled in amazingly well at school. They rode their ponies for a mile and a half to where the school bus picked them up at the crossroads, and as it was still on Challowsford property, they simply turned them loose in a small triangular field that sloped down to the creek.
Sarah had to admit to herself, reluctantly, that he was good with the children. It was the only thing that made life at Challowsford endurable. He had the reach of the river they used as a swimming pool cleared of snags, and told them his only restriction was that they must have either himself, or Sarah, or Mrs. Mac with them when they went to bathe.
“New Zealand rivers change so, a hole that’s safe today will be scoured out tomorrow, and our rivers take an even greater toll of life than our beaches. If you come home to find us all out, no matter how hot it is, you are not to bathe.”
Sarah herself found solace in work, in getting the cottage into shining order, into attacking the overgrown but delightful cottage garden. Already she had rows of peas, carrots, silver beet and radishes up. She had pruned the currants and fruit trees very lightly, knowing she was too late, but it was necessary to do some pruning to be able to get between them. The ground was rich and loamy, and with the stone walls that fenced the cottage in, there was plenty of shelter from the fierce hot nor’westers that ravaged Canterbury.
Sarah was standing outside the cottage against the stone wall. It was warm against her back, and she stood with a hand on it, each side of her. To left and to right the lilacs bloomed. She wore her lilac overall with a crisp white collar. At her feet were purple pansies, and aubretia, and in the far corner were the first spikes of the delphiniums. Sarah was smiling to herself.
She was acutely aware of the beauty of the New Zealand countryside. This part was so like England, yet with subtle differences. In England the hills would have been clothed with tender green, here they were tussocky yellow hills, yet with a sweet herbage beneath that gave excellent feed. There were poplars and willows, and in the garden itself, silver birches, but there were native trees too ... glossy-leaved taupatas like small-leafed laurels, dainty foliaged kowhais whose golden bells reminded her of English laburnums, and where bellbirds and tuis often came, thrusting their brush-tipped tongues deep into the nectar-laden flowers they loved so well.
They were busy about the red flowering gums too. Sarah supposed that they were Australian trees like the giant blue gums that clustered in the corners of every paddock.
Over and above all, accentuating the joy of the morning, rose the song of the lark, a tiny speck in the aquamarine sky. Perhaps it was only the sun, but Sarah felt her heart warmed too. Some day, when this atmosphere of doubt and distrust had died down, she would be accepted as one of these folk.