Anna of Strathallan

Essie Summers

Anna Drummond was delighted to be reuinited with her long-lost grandparents in New Zealand. But how was she to cope with the suspicion and hostility of Calum Doig? And how, as time went on, was she to fight her growing love for him?

To all the readers of my books in lieu of answers to your letters this book is affectionately dedicated.

When an Australian reader realized that an extra book a year could be produced in the time I spent answering readers' mail, she suggested this dedication, saying: 'I'd opt for another book any time.' So here it is with many thanks for your appreciative and inspirational letters.

Essie Summers

A
NNA
had thought the coming week was to be one of a strange poignancy, in which she would say farewell to Fiji and hail to New Zealand; when, as far as blood relations were concerned, she would be on her own in a strange city and a new country, even if that same country had been her birthplace. But Fiji was home.

But now, thanks to the letter she had thrust deep into the swinging satin reticule she had carried at her mother's wedding that very day, it seemed she had kin in New Zealand, a grandmother and a grandfather. She wasn't sure it was going to be a good thing, despite that very nice letter. What if they were no more admirable than their son who had ruined - no,
almost
ruined her mother's life?

Mother had been so fine a character it hadn't been possible for anyone to ruin her life. She had been wounded, disillusioned, finally deserted by Alex Drummond, but she had picked up the pieces and carried on, making a wonderful home life for her only child. Now she was reaping the reward of it all. From the moment Doctor Magnus Randal had come to the guest-house for the term of his association with the hospital, Lois Drummond had known a happiness beyond description. It had been something delightful to witness. Anna knew that, and though naturally she hated the thought of parting with her mother for a whole year, she had refused the offer Magnus made for her to accompany them to the Hong Kong hospital where her stepfather was to study certain tropical diseases as a follow-up to his session in Suva.

She wanted her mother to shed all worries, to have no anxieties as to what to do with an only daughter in a foreign city. It would be the first time since her disastrous marriage over twenty-five years ago that Lois would know freedom from all care, family responsibilities, financial worry, emotional deprivation.

Her mother's best friends, the Sylvesters, had offered Anna a home in Auckland. It was only a courtesy relationship, but Aunt Edna and Uncle Alan couldn't have been dearer had they indeed been true family. They were here now, for the wedding, and as was natural with such warm-hearted people, had been responsible for everything Anna couldn't have coped with on her own.

Her mother and stepfather would be returning to Auckland and during that year Anna hoped she might have found a niche for herself, perhaps as a receptionist in some tourist hotel, the only business world she knew. She was flying back with the Sylvesters next week, when she had formally handed over the guest-house to the new owners. Would she now continue with those plans, seek a position? Or would she go down to her father's people?

A stirring of Anna's pulses betokened excitement, a sense of adventure, but she had said nothing to anyone. No shadow must be allowed to fall upon this day for Magnus and Lois. They must go off on their idyllic honeymoon to Singapore, then to Hong Kong, all unknowing that a voice from an unknown past had reached out and called Anna.

She hadn't known a lot about her father, just that he'd been a ne'er-do-well, weak, charming, completely unreliable. She could only faintly remember him. Her mother had told her that when this uncle in Fiji had left her, his only relation, his guest-house, it had seemed like a miracle. She had been able to sweep her husband away from Auckland, from his old associates, from the gambling, the drinking, the unjustified spending, his inability to either stick at a job or keep it.

Somehow Lois had made the old, rundown guest-house pay. It had meant she could have Anna with her while she worked; the life had satisfied Alex for a while ... it hadn't seemed like work at first, running the launch, taking visitors round the coral reefs, or organizing outdoor entertainments, mixing constantly with tourists from all over the world ... moneyed people mostly. Lois had known a breathing-space of renewed hope, of more security. Then the novelty had worn off. As the business extended the work became heavier.

Lois had no one to turn to. Her uncle had been her sole surviving relation, and Alex had vowed he had neither kith nor kin when she had met him. He'd seemed friendless enough, apart from those undesirable cronies, and at first she had been idealistic about providing a family life for someone even more alone than herself. He told a good story ... he had been knocked about from pillar to post - oh, he'd traded on that, she had excused him much on the grounds that a harsh and cruel childhood had been no basis for a mature adult life. Pity he hadn't turned that imagination to good account... what a writer of thrillers he would have made!

Anna had still been very small when Alex had disappeared from Fiji, taking with him the contents of the guesthouse safe, and every single treasure that could be turned into ready cash, including Lois's engagement ring. From then on Lois had known a more peaceful existence, if never happiness, because at least now he could not undermine her small daughter's character by his regrettable standards.

Many years later she had been granted a divorce on grounds of desertion and a little over two years ago news of Alex's death had been reported in New Zealand newspapers. He had died quite heroically after saving many miners from an accident in South America. A year later Magnus had come into her life, and Anna had been glad, fiercely glad, even though it meant the disruption of her own life, that for evermore Lois's happiness would be in Magnus Randal's safe keeping and that never again would she know want, fear, disillusionment. There were some things you just knew. Magnus was the same calibre as Lois herself, steel- true, blade-straight. His steadfast eyes, his compassionate mouth, his firm chin all spelled integrity.

Thank goodness Anna had picked up the mail herself this morning, that there had been so much of it, belated letters of good wishes, of farewell to her mother, who had certainly made a niche for herself in the community, last-minute business letters, cards, gifts. She had looked at this one curiously. It was postmarked Roxburgh, New Zealand, and was addressed to herself.

She'd turned it over. Yes, the sender's name was on a sticker at the back: Mrs. Gilbert Drummond, Strathallan, Crannog, via Roxburgh, Central Otago, New Zealand.

Auntie Ed had sometimes talked of Central Otago holidays, where the lakes, snow-fed, were brilliantly blue, and great mountains cradled them; a place of extremes, with very cold winters, very hot summers. A huge, fruit-growing area that was a mecca for tourists at all seasons, with skating, curling and skiing in the winter. That was all she knew.

Even so, the names revived in an extraordinary way, a - flash of memory. Gilbert? Strathallan? Of course! Anna and her mother had taken a trip to Britain two years ago, mainly, Anna had guessed, to take her mother's mind off the shock of reading about Alex's death in a New Zealand newspaper.

They had spent some time in Scotland, particularly Perthshire, whence Lois's forebears, the Murrays, had come. One week-end when Lois had gone off to stay with an elderly couple who'd visited Suva, Anna had investigated her paternal side's territory.

She had learned that the Drummonds probably came from Drymen, that a very early forebear had been Gilbert de Dromond, and an Annabella Drummond had married King Robert the Third and had been the mother of James the First of Scotland. Her mother had said long ago that the only time her father had ever mentioned his family, he'd said he believed Anna was a family name, and he would like his daughter to be called that. Anna remembered now that in her probings she had discovered that a Stuart king, mindful of the fact the Drummonds had shared the misfortunes of that Royal House, had created one of them Viscount Strathallan. It had given Anna some feeling of having roots on her paternal side.

So it had been true, that feeling. Here was an estate in the South Island of New Zealand, a place predominantly settled by the Scots, bearing the name of Strathallan!

But there was no time for dwelling on that strange, exciting letter now. This was the time for farewelling. Mother looked wonderful, just like a girl... the palest green dress, filmy and slim-fitting, a colour that looked like the translucent spray upflung from the Fijian surf, with the sun shining through; she had a floppy crinoline hat of the same shade, her green eyes like stars, flakes of pink in her cheeks, love in her eyes... now the hat was being flung on her bed and she was fluffing up her hair... a quick, laughing look at her reflection,
Magnus
coming to
stand
in the doorway, every inch the impatient bridegroom, 'Lois, my love, I'll take you as you are... no more titivating, come on!'

A frantic last check of bags and suitcases, then out to where a beaming Fijian driver in his draped
sulu
waited beside his taxi. They all knew and loved Mother. Scores of people were piling into their cars, when they were off for the airport. Strange to think that for Anna too this scene would soon be just a memory... so much of her life had been spent here ... coconut palms, hibiscus blooms, sugar-cane, banana trees, coral reefs, canoes, frangipanni blossoms, rich and creamy, a happy, laughing land. But in Auckland there were hibiscus bushes too, and bougainvillea, and heat... it wouldn't be too strange, unless, of course, she did go down to that so-different, frighteningly rugged country south of the Waitaki River where her father's parents longed and waited to see their dead, wayward son's only child.

A few days later, with the August sunshine predicting the return of spring to the Southern Hemisphere, she spread out her letter on Aunt Edna's daughter's desk, to investigate and consider this gesture from her father's past. She looked out of the window, with its magnificent view of the Waitemata Harbour, beautifully centred on Rangitoto Island with its symmetrical contours, knowing she was alone in the house and could study it undisturbed.

Her grandmother had written: 'My dear granddaughter, this letter will come as a surprise to you, I believe, just as it was a surprise to me to learn that I had a granddaughter. I think we must all long to be able to leave a little bit of ourselves behind when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, and I'd thought that this would be for ever denied Gilbert and myself.

'I was sad about this, because ever since the first Drummond reached the shores of Otago and founded this estate of Strathallan, there has been an Anna Drummond here, till our generation, but your great-aunt Anna, your grandfather's only sister, died at twenty-one. We tried for so long to trace Alex, my poor wayward son, in the last ten years, but failed. Before that he had always written for money when he needed it. But he always just gave us postal addresses and never told us he had married.

'We had last heard of him in Buenos Aires, then nothing more till we heard about his accidental death in the Argentine. We tried and tried to get word, but this mining village was so remote, so small, that we failed. I think a little bit of me died then. It seemed as if he had never been. And he had been such a dear little affectionate boy - till he grew up.

'When we failed to hear anything about him, his father stopped even speaking about him. Hope was, at last, dead. It aged him more than I like to see. We've been such pals all through our married life, but now I feel he is so scared to have me see how much he is grieving that he has shut off a little of himself. For the first time in my life I feel I cannot comfort him. He needs a new interest to take him out of himself.

'You will wonder how we heard of you. A neighbour of ours - well, she lives over at Corriefeld, which is a few miles away, but she is truly a neighbour in devotion - went with her husband to visit Fiji and stayed at your guest-house. You will remember her, I'm sure, despite the numbers you must meet, because she's Elizabeth Forbes, better known as Elizabeth Goldie, who writes books about gardening and floral art. She and her husband were absolutely intrigued by your resemblance to my husband. He too has that unique combination of fair hair and brown eyes. Only now his hair is almost white. The fact that your name was Drummond set them on the trail, and they made a few discreet inquiries. Please don't hold that against them - they were really discreet. In talk with your mother, who was, they said, the finest person, they found she had come from Auckland - Alex wrote twice from there - and that she had married an Alex Drummond but appeared to think he had no close relatives.

'They flew home via Auckland, and are pretty sure they traced the marriage. Although she worried a little, lest it might upset your mother, Elizabeth felt we had a right to know we had a granddaughter. She was pretty sure your mother had had to take the place of both parents and had suffered much through our son. I was glad, oh, so glad, when she told me that your mother was engaged to a very fine doctor on the island. It seems to me that the Forbes were meant to be in Fiji at this time, and to be told, without having to probe, that when your mother and stepfather leave for Hong Kong, you were coming to New Zealand to live.