Anna of Strathallan (13 page)

He went running off and came back with a huge red plastic bowl of hot soapy water, a towel over his arm, and a pair of farm socks that he dropped in front of the fire to warm. He knelt, lifted her skirt over her knees, drew her white bloodless feet into the benediction of the warm water. He dried them as deftly as any mother, drew on the socks. They were pure wool of Kitty's own spinning and knitting and they felt marvellous. She almost purred with creature comfort, sticking out her feet to the fire and looking like some absurd child.

Another laugh escaped Calum. She looked up at him inquiringly. He said, 'You look such a quaint combination of Cinderella-in-the- kitchen, and the princess-at-the-ball, with those great big socks sticking out from under that purple frill.'

She pulled a face. 'I certainly lost my slipper tonight! Things didn't go a bit the way I'd hoped they would. Philip's just got no finesse.'

His eyes narrowed a little. He began to speak, checked, suddenly pulled her to her feet. 'Come on, off to bed while your feet are still warm.'

There was a very low light on the landing upstairs. Her room was first Instinctively, for no reason at all, they both paused, as if all hadn't been said that should. She put a hand on the landing rail, looked up at him, uncertainly, wistful. Should she apologize, or - no, perhaps it was better to leave it be.

While she hesitated he made up his mind to say something himself evidently. She was surprised to see his lips twitch. He was amused then, not angry at their efforts. 'Tell me, Anna, when you were at school, did you always fight other kids' battles?'

She blinked. 'Yes, I'm afraid I did. Not always wisely. At times I used to founder in the mud, like I did tonight. It drove my mother mad. She said my heart always over-ruled my common sense.'

She'd never seen that hawk-like face so tender. It was elder-brotherly. He continued: 'So, did Kitty tell you about Sophy's state of mind? Or heart? Of her indecision?'

Embarrassment made her blush. 'Yes, Calum.'

This time he laughed out loud. 'So you decided to pep things up a bit? Who thought of it, you or Philip?'

'Well, it was Kitty and Philip really. I just fell in with it. And I
do
love Sophy, Calum.'

He smiled. 'Yes, it's easy to do. And she does take herself too seriously. Well, you had the best of intentions, only—'

'Only it flopped badly, didn't it?' she said miserably.

'It wasn't your fault it flopped, it was Philip's. He was so transparent. I think you had Sophy guessing for a bit. She was intrigued. But when you drove off she burst out laughing.'

'Oh, dear, will she be horribly cross with him?'

'No. Mind you, she asked me if I was in the plot too but my conscience was clear on that.'

'Did - do you think it furthered things at all?'

'I don't know. I was a bit mean. You can tell from her sermons how much quotations mean to Sophy. I fired one at her. Asked her had she read much of Addison. If so what about his saying: "The woman who deliberates is lost." She was quite impressed.'

'You mean because she was amazed you should have read Addison?'

'Yes. I didn't dare tell her I'd come across it in a cryptic crossword I was doing one night I couldn't sleep.'

Anna thought privately that sounded like a bit of intellectual snobbery on Sophy's part. Did Calum, intellectually not measure up to Roderick Knight? But Calum had a degree from Lincoln College. Perhaps in Sophy's estimation that didn't count for as much as an Arts degree.

Anna said in a small voice, 'I don't think I'll go to church next Sunday. I'd feel such a fool.'

Calum caught her by the shoulders. 'You'll go all right. Sophy's got a great sense of humour. She said it looked as if we needed saving more from our friends than our enemies.'

'She'll need a sense of humour. Nobody really loves matchmakers. And people should be left to make up their minds in their own good time. I'm sorry I got caught up in it.' She tilted her face towards his. 'And what about your sense of humour, Calum? Does it only amuse you, or do you really feel angry with me... inside?'

'Good lord, I'm not angry at all. Why should I be? You acted from the very best of motives. I think it was sweet of you, even if it back-fired. Good night, Anna. Don't lose any sleep over this lot.'

Taking her quite by surprise he bent down, brought one hand up, brushed her fringe right aside, kissed her lightly on the forehead, just as she had so often seen him do to Maggie when she was going to bed.

Suddenly he said, as if impatient, 'Oh, go on off to bed, Anna Drummond.'

She was surprised to find herself shaking a little. Not because he'd kissed her. Oh, no, that kiss had been as passionless as a mother kissing her sleeping baby, just a lullaby kiss. No, her knees were shaking at the effort it had been not to move nearer, to kiss him back. Oh, how stupid! Go to bed, Anna of Strathallan, take off your purple gown and his big thick clumsy farm socks, get into that lovely bed, warmed by the electric blanket your dear grandmother would have switched on long ago, and count your blessings - ... you have a family, a home with its roots deep in the soil, something lasting and permanent ... don't cry for the moon.

Anna sprang into bed, pulled the clothes over her head and
stopped
counting her blessings. The smaller delights and compensations were nothing when the one thing you desired above all others was out of reach. If she gave way now to this utter misery that was swamping her, she might be better able to face another day tomorrow.

T
RULY
enough the ordinariness of the day overlaid the poignancy of the night before. Mother had always said her salvation had lain in having more to do each day than she could possibly accomplish, and that the first unbearable smart always wore off.

By Thursday fewer lambs were coming and the weather was so good, with none of the capricious showers usual in the New Zealand September, they had fewer problems. The ewes in the mothering shed condescended, mostly, to feed their rejected offspring, or in cases where they'd lost their own, gradually accepted foster-lambs.

In the afternoon Kitty took Anna off to the Forbes' property, Pukerangi. Kitty said, driving along, 'It means The Hill of Heaven, and that's just what it is to Elizabeth. I think I told you it was a case of second marriages for both Ross and Elizabeth. I feel it was foreordained they should marry as compensation to both of them.

'As you'll know from her books, Elizabeth lived at Lavender Hill. She created a paradise out of a wilderness there. Lazy Larry, we called her first husband. His land was every bit as good as other orchard land round here, but he even let some of it go back to gorse. He didn't replant when he should and would have neglected his trees completely had Elizabeth let him. She slaved day and night for her family, writing books about floral arrangements and making a garden and building up a small florists' business here. I used to see her doing his work as well as her own, and could have choked him. We'd see her spraying, picking, pruning by day, yet if we passed coming home from Roxburgh late at night, her study window would be lit, trying to get a book finished. Such light-hearted books too, we don't know how she did it. It may sound callous, but when Larry died, after months of devoted nursing on her part, we were glad for her sake, even though she'd been too loyal to utter a word against him.

'Rossiter's case matched hers. A whining hypochondriac of a wife, always moaning that she should never have married a farmer. That I agreed with ... for the farmer's sake. Ross was so patient with her. Funny, the only time I ever liked that woman was when she had her last illness. The others were imaginary, mostly. This she bore rather patiently.' - Kitty chuckled. 'I think she found compensation in the fact that now she had a genuine call on people's sympathy. Ross went off on a world trip to put a gap of time between losing his wife and asking Elizabeth to marry him. Silly chump didn't say one word to her. Elizabeth fretted. Finally Fergus MacGregor, a young friend of hers, took a hand. He wrote hinting that Elizabeth was thinking of an overseas trip, and he hoped she might meet someone on board ship to revive her interest in life, that she'd not been looking well ... my goodness, how that worked! Rossiter Forbes was back here before you could say Whangamomona, and swept her off with him to Spain to finish his world tour.'

Anna thought: 'So all meddlers don't make a mess of things.'

It was wonderful to be visiting the round-faced merry Elizabeth. Who could have imagined the twenty-five years of her first marriage had been so tough? Pukerangi was so truly named. Its lower slopes were girdled by lines of poplars that wound in and out of its contours, delightfully punctuated by copsy clumps of trees in every hollow, where silver birches and rowans whispered woodland secrets and primroses and violets patched the ground with gold and purple.

Its symmetrical hilltop, ringed by a formation of rocks exactly like a coronet, gave it a regal appearance and a cloud leaned down to touch its crest lovingly today, as if to identify it with the sky itself. But the garden, about the old farmhouse, was its chief glory, built on terraces afoam with all the flowers of spring. It seemed as if every crevice sprang a bloom, Nature illustrating her abhorrence of a vacuum.

A stream, diverted by Rossiter, under his wife's guidance, meandered through, dropping from terrace to terrace in a series of pools, where waterlilies spread green saucers, and purple iris fringed the edges. It added a cadence of its own to the birdsong that sounded ceaselessly from spinney and grow.

Anna said, 'Oh, what creation must have gone into this, what years of work, to make a hillside that must once have been as bare as those others, blossom like this.'

Kitty said, 'Do say that to Elizabeth. She waxes a little impatient with the well-meaning folk who say: "Ah ... obviously you have green fingers." As if a garden grows by magic, not toil.'

They swept uphill to where the entrance porch, pillared over the drive to provide shelter, was at the side of the house and held another car. As Kitty drew up behind it, her voice was warm with pleasure. 'You're going to meet the man who played Cupid so successfully - Fergus MacGregor. I hope Jeannie is with him.'

She was; four people came out eagerly. Jeannie looked no more than ten years older than Anna, and looked as if she had a fine zest for living. Fergus would be about forty. You knew instinctively that this would be a happy marriage.

They owned an orchard nearer Roxburgh and had a pigeon pair, David who was eleven and Louise who was nine. 'Though we always think of ourselves as having four really,' Fergus said to Anna, 'because Jeannie's young brother and sister have always been with us. Peter's an engineer at the Hydro, and Teresa's teaching in Alexandra. When we heard Kitty was bringing her granddaughter to Pukerangi today, we decided on an afternoon off. We've been spraying and grafting till we're sick of the sight of an orchard tree. I'd rather look at Elizabeth's prunus blossom.'

Rossiter carried Anna off to look at his sheep. 'Calum tells me you're a sheep-farmer to your fingertips in spite of having been brought up on a tropic isle. Good for you! Fergus, coming?' He grinned at his wife. 'We won't keep her too long, but I'm sure Kitty's dying to have you and Jeannie to herself so she can sing Anna's praises without bringing the blush of modesty to her cheeks.'

Anna's cheeks were already warm with pleasure because Calum had commended her. Considering the start they'd had, and the animosity it had bred when she had heard him deploring her imminent arrival, when they were at the hospital, they'd progressed well along the road of amicable friendship. Friendship? Well, that was all it would ever be on Calum's side. On hers it was a strong attraction that was going to be grubbed out, root and crop, however harrowing the process was going to be.

Anna couldn't help laughing inwardly ... even her thoughts ran in farming terms these days.

How marvellous to be accepted like this, striding over the paddocks with knowledgeable farmers, one of their fraternity; she knew she belonged here, with generations of sheepmen behind her from the hills and glens of Scotland.

They came back with appetites sharpened with the keen air, to hot scones and redcurrant jelly, shortbread stamped with Scots thistle moulds, apple shortcake and tea. As they paused on the verandah to scrub up, she heard Jeannie say, 'I wish she had more go in her. I'm sure that's why they've never set a wedding date. It's as if she's never forgotten her first love.'

It seemed as if a cold finger touched Anna's heart. If that were so, would Calum ever know perfect happiness?

Elizabeth's voice was troubled too. 'There are women like that, who love deeply only once. Pity. Still, when they do get married, we may be proved wrong. Only Calum deserves better. I could shake her!'

All the way home something bothered Anna. Suddenly she pinned it down. Sophy was full of spirit. Why did they think she had no go in her? Or were the three women who were discussing it wiser because they had known marriage themselves? Perhaps they recognized Sophy's animation in the things of her career, but felt she was lukewarm as far as Calum was concerned?

Philip hadn't taken Calum's scolding much to heart, it seemed. He said to Anna laughingly, 'The boss didn't approve of our little plot. He told me not to be such a damn fool and definitely not to involve you. He said I was about as subtle as a steam-roller, which is very likely spot on. But oh, boy, I'm not going to church on Sunday, believe me. Calum wasn't exactly complimentary, but Sophy was really withering. I'll give her time to get over it. I'm having a week-end away.'

Anna said, 'Why, when I told Calum I didn't think I'd go to church, he said not to be stupid, that Sophy had a sense of humour.'

For a moment Philip looked grim. 'She has, as far as your part in it is concerned. Not for mine.'

'Why? You haven't seen her, have you?'

'Not seen, heard. She rang. She was incensed, but more on your behalf - at first. Said it wasn't fair to a girl to use her like that and she didn't want to see you hurt.'