Anna of Strathallan (8 page)

Anna knew a moment of panic in case she did the wrong thing. Then she found herself talking reassuringly to the grunting ewe who now seemed to be doing her best; Anna got more confidence, and a firmer hold, she and the ewe synchronized, it seemed, and the next moment, to her astonishment, the smaller second lamb was kicking and unfolding on the ground.

'I did it, I did it, I did it!' she exulted, in the tone of a successful Olympic winner, wiped over its face, stood up, still amazed at her achievement, and encountered the grins of the three men standing behind her.

'Good for you,' said Philip.

'And to think,' said Gilbert, 'that only yesterday Kitty was saying: "I do with it wasn't lambing-time. Used to tourist glamour and colour and heat, she'll find this so crude!" But you don't do you, my cushie doo? ... you were born to this sort of life.'

Anna noticed that Calum and Philip looked swiftly away. Perhaps they were a little embarrassed at the sheer delight in the old man's voice. She realized everybody would be fiercely protective about the Drummonds, fearful no doubt that she might be the new broom that swept cleanly, remembering, possibly, stories of her father who, according to her mother, had known sudden and great enthusiasms that died down as quickly as they had come ... seeing always a new accomplishment that might offer something different, show quick returns, then having it pall as he realized that this too, like so many other skills, demanded good, honest, constant slogging.

A little chill wind seemed to blow over her spirit. It would take so long to convince Calum she wasn't like that. How many people would be watching her? Then suddenly, hearteningly, she thought of Elizabeth and Rossiter Forbes who had been responsible for her being brought here. They had liked her for herself alone, long before they had known who she was. So at least she had two friends here, not far away. The thought of them made her want to mention them, to remind this dark-visaged man she was not quite* a stranger.

'Some day, before too long, but only when you can spare the time, Grandmother, I'd like to go over to Elizabeth and Rossiter's place.'

Kitty nodded. 'Surely, bairn. Oh, even in lambing we're not entirely tied to the place. Neither are they. It would be nice for you to see a familiar face, one that would link you with home.'

A strange feeling quivered over Anna. It was almost physical. Out of it she said with conviction, 'Well, a link with my former life - with Fiji. But when Mother married Magnus, and sold the guest-house, that chapter of my existence was ended.'

'So
this
is your home now,' said Gilbert, with the greatest satisfaction. 'Strathallan. Come on, time for lunch.'

As they reached the vehicles Philip said, 'Like to come back with me, Anna? You could add to your education by helping me into the shed with the animals. Calum ought to go in and have a rest. He said his wound was hurting like hell now.'

Anna saw two things. She saw her grandfather start as if to come in the truck with them, and her grandmother's hand go out to stay him. Why? She took a quick look at Kitty's face. It wore a look often to be seen in women's faces. A matchmaking, pleased look. She was sure that was it. As if an idea had hit Kitty.

Oh dear! Kitty would feel that if her granddaughter were to wed in the district, they'd have her near them, always. Well, thank goodness they weren't matchmaking in Calum's direction.

' - They certainly moved fast in lambing-time at Strathallan. By the time she and Philip had scrubbed up at the sink on the back verandah, the lunch was on the table. Afterwards the dishes were piled on the bench so they could get back to the paddock.

Kitty broke off mid-afternoon to go down to One-Mile Corner to collect the children from the school bus. Calum said, 'You don't have to, you know. Kit. It's a glorious day now. They could easily walk home. They so often do.'

She said, appealingly, wanting his approval of her fussing, 'I'm probably a daft old woman, but I want no harm to come to them while they're under my care.'

He grinned. 'Yes, I understand that. It's a big responsibility. How about taking Anna? She's done well, and must be finding a few muscles she's never known she possessed starting to ache bv now. Anna, we're giving you a spell.'

She looked up, her hair blowing all over her head, the Drummond tartan covered with mucous, wool, milk, and worse, and said, 'Oh,
please
don't make me. I don't want to miss a bit of this. It makes me feel less an alien.'

The look on his face was unreadable, yet she wished she hadn't said it. Their glances met, locked, held.

He said, and she could have sworn he said it reluctantly, but felt he must be fair, 'I don't reckon we can count you as alien ... from the very start you got involved, didn't you, when you rescued two local residents and got them to hospital?'

It seemed to put her at a disadvantage, as if she ought to depreciate what she
^'
d done. Then they heard a hail from the gate and swung round. Someone with a shambling gait was coming across the paddock. Anna blinked. The others didn't. They seemed to give a concerted groan, instantly suppressed, then Calum's whisper said, 'Oh, Lord preserve us! It's Barney. He'll be in a state of repentance.'

He was also cold sober. She had to admire the way they received him. He apologized ... 'Because I was hardly myself, last night, causing you great inconvenience, not to say danger and injury, when you so kindly tried to ferry me home. When I think I might have had your death on my conscience, Calum, it's downright remorseful I am. So now I'm feeling less under the weather, I'm here to offer my services with the lambing. They told me at the hospital you were walking wounded and that you'd not got off as lightly as I did.'

Kitty said, 'But how did you get here, Barney? Someone give you a lift?

He waved grandly. 'No, it was pension day, so I took a taxi. I could do no less.'

Calum said, 'Well, it was jolly decent of you. Sure we could do with your help. Kit's just off to collect the children, so we'll be a hand short.'

Barney peered at Anna from under a shock of red hair gone grey. 'You'll be Alex's girl? They told me at the hospital - Sister Grey said Calum had told her this morning when she rang to find out how he was. Well, I'm glad for Kit and Gilbert's sake, they can sure do with someone of their own blood - and by the look of you, pitching in like this on your first day, it's better blood than his anyway. He and work never seemed to get on well together. That was my trouble - though I can manage fine if I keep off the booze. Not that he wasn't a darlin' lad. But like me, he was weak. But you've got a chin like your grandfather's.'

Oh, dear, Barney was a clanger-dropper, but they must be so used to him they didn't turn a hair. And work he certainly did, and took a great fancy to Anna so that he stayed with her all the afternoon. He had a knack with the ewes and they seemed to know it. His hands were gentle, his eyes tender for the pain they bore, even if it was for a surprisingly short time.

He stayed for dinner, and more clangers were dropped, but by Bill and Mac, who informed Barney, with great relish, that Anna had thought Calum was drunk too, because Barney's beer had soused him. He took it all most good- naturedly.

Philip, who usually went home for the evening meal, stayed too. It was his own suggestion. Anna caught the twinkle in her grandmother's eye. Philip said, 'You've all those lambs to feed. I'll give them a round of drinks after you've washed up. I've an idea Anna would enjoy feeding them. I'll show her how.'

Anna wasn't going to encourage this. 'Sorry, perhaps the children would help. I want to get that bandage off Calum's head and re-dress it. It looks anything but comfortable at the moment. He must have dragged that cap off too roughly. The way he's been trying to ease it right through dinner, makes me suspect the lint is catching on the stitches, and pulling on them, and there's nothing more annoying.'

•Calum said hastily, 'There's nothing wrong with it. Besides, you mightn't get it back right. I believe there's a real technique involved in capelline bandages. Better leave well alone.'

She said crisply, 'I happen to have that technique. If you'd not been so dopey last night you might've remembered me saying to the doctor I'd done nurse-aiding. That was during one of Mother's spells of being sure I was too tied to the guest-house.'

Maggie said hastily, 'Philip, you can feed the lambs on your own, can't you? We'd like to watch.'

'Oh, no, you don't,' said Anna, getting up. She put a firm hand on Calum's shoulder. 'Into the bathroom where it's private.' Meekly he did as bid.

She sat him on a stool, scrubbed up well, brought out the well-stocked first-aid kit from the cupboard, began unrolling the bandage.

He said, 'Enjoyed making me reverse my opinion of you, as stated in the hospital, didn't you?'

Her laugh had so much amusement in it, and no resentment, that he looked searchingly at her. She pulled a face. 'Of course I did. I'd have been less than human if I hadn't enjoyed setting that preconceived idea right.'

He persisted. 'Ah, but would you have been quite as devoted to your duties ... your new duties... today, if you hadn't overheard that?'

Now her cheeks did show the flush of anger. 'What a very unpleasant remark! How distrustful you must be, Calum Doig. You think my spurt of energy, my disregard of mud and mucous and manure, was merely actuated by a desire to put you in the wrong?'

He sighed. 'That wasn't why I said it. Ouch!'

'Sorry. Then
why
was it?'

'Just that I hold a watching brief for Kit and Gilbert. They were friends of my own grandparents. What they own they've won by sheer hard work and it had to triumph over heartbreak too. To see them so happy over you fills me with dread in case, if you too let them down, their second state will be even worse than their first. They'd adjusted themselves to knowing they'd never see their son again. As my own mother has always said, you can get used to anything, even to being bludgeoned by fate. But I'd hate to see them take another knock.'

'Such as?'

'Such as being disillusioned again. If you drift into their lives then out again, it will leave their existence more empty than before.'

'So you mean if I don't intend to stay, it would be kinder to vamoose now, before they get too fond of me?'

'I didn't say that.'

'But you implied it.'

'I didn't. I was just warning you not to promise too much, to make yourself indispensable, to allow them to plan for a future that would include you.'

'You mean because I said I might take a job in Auckland?'

'Yes, you did say it, didn't you?'

'I did. But that was in the heat of the moment when you so unjustly accused me of coming for what I may - at some terrible date when Grandmother and Grandfather are no more - inherit. Inheritance doesn't just mean hard cash you know, dollars and cents, it means an inheritance of belonging, of feeling one of a family, of knowing one's family history, treading in the footsteps of generations of kinsfolk. Something
you've
probably known all your life. Something
I've
never known. When my mother's old uncle died she hadn't a relation left in the world - only friends that as a little girl I called Auntie and Uncle so I could feel a little more like other girls when they visited Fiji. God never
meant
the sins of the fathers to be visited on the children, I'm sure, but people see to it that they are! Just because my father was unstable and fickle, you imagine I'm the same. Well, I'm not, and never have been, so get that out of your mind for once and all. Watch it ... don't stand up ... oh, look what you've done! That bandage won't be aseptic any more!'

'Well, use another. There are plenty there.' He caught her hands. 'Anna, I'm sorry. I'd not realized there were two sides to it. I was only desperately anxious, along with all the other, .members of my family, that people we've known and loved all our lives, mightn't have to suffer any more. Philip's mother adores Kitty and Gilbert, even though - well, that's another story.'

She looked up into the dark blue eyes, felt her own softening, looked quickly away, said, 'It makes me feel horrible to think you'd rather I paid a fleeting visit and went away, than made them fond of me.'

His face was close above hers and very serious. 'No, but I don't want you keeping on promising them you'll stay. It's too soon for a girl of twenty-four to promise such a thing. This is a novelty just now, yes, but other girls Kitty has had in to help have found it too quiet, even girls more accustomed to a rural existence than you - used as you are to the glamour and colour and bustle of tourist life in the Islands. Don't promise too much too soon. After all, what is there here for a girl, apart from the farming and the companionship of a couple two generations ahead of hers?'

Suddenly the anger left Anna, the dimples flashed, and her mouth curved up. 'Oh, I don't know. There are two eligible men right on the property, you and Philip. Isn't that what some girls would like?'

It was sheer teasing, or so she meant it, but he took it seriously. 'Don't be too sure. I'm spoken for and Philip - well, I don't know about Philip.'

She gave another ripple of laughter, said, 'Well, that's all sorted out. Calum, please sit down again and let me take off this last patch of lint very carefully. It's sticking to the wound a little and it's just like I said, the stitches are caught in it. I'll be very gentle.'

She was. He said, when she was finished, 'Thank you, Anna, I'll admit that feels better than it did last night.'

She grinned, 'Oh, I'm not stupid enough to think it better than the hospital job, but it had had some rough treatment today. And I don't think you should be long out of bed tonight.'

'What? It's one of our favourite TV nights. I'll get Philip to take old Barney home if he can get him past the pub, and we'll settle down to being a nice quiet family party.'

So they came downstairs outwardly amicable. But Anna felt he would still carry a watching brief for his employers. As for herself, she felt he would bear watching too. His brother lived in the new house on the estate. Could it be that when Calum married he would want this house, this darling house? That he might persuade her grandparents to retire into Crannog? A fear of what the future might hold rose up in her. She subdued it. She must just take a day at a time. Everything would depend upon what sort of a girl Calum was going to marry, and how much Grandmother liked her.