Anna of Strathallan Read Free

for her father's instability of character, his waywardness. She mustn't hurt her mother by becoming too deeply involved too soon. This letter read all right, but the proof of the pudding was in the eating, in this case, in the quality of life as lived at Strathallan. But even while she knew she must proceed with caution, she couldn't help responding to the loneliness that was inherent in that letter. But she would make no rash promises about staying on ... yet.
    She wrote: "Your letter has moved me, of course. I thought my mother and myself were quite alone in the world. That's why I was so glad when my stepfather came into her life. I've not told her about your letter yet, which may sound strange, but it arrived on her wedding-day, and I thought that that day belonged to the present and the future, not to the past.
    I'm so sorry for all you must have suffered through the years and am only sorry we didn't know about you sooner, but hope that now, in some way, we may all find compensation for this lack. More I can't say. It may not be easy x for you, having someone of my age projected into your ordered lives, but IH try not to disrupt them. I think it was sweet of Elizabeth Forbes. We took a great fancy to her and had read her books for years, even though she wasn't writing about gardening in Fiji! We sensed that in later years she'd come into a time of greater happiness, when she wrote of the delightful garden she had created when she married again and left Lavender Hill for Pukerangi, which she said so truly meant The Hill of Heaven. I'm looking forward to meeting her again. It was a kind thought of hers, perhaps sensing I'd be a little lonely when Mother and Magnus took off ?or Hong Kong. I won't start looking for a job in Auckland till I've seen you. Once I get a position it might be some time before I got leave.
    'Please understand if this letter doesn't flow very well. It's not easy to write. Until I arrive, my love to you and Grandfather,
    Anna.'
     
    She stared at it a long time. 'Love to you and Grandfather.' Words she had thought she would never be able to pen. It had been completely out of her ken.
    What was it Magnus had said, kissing her good-bye? 'God bless you, little one. May many a glad surprise be just around the corner for you as it was for me. This time last year I didn't even know my ideal woman really existed.'
    He'd meant, of course, that marriage might be ahead of her, too, but this was what had been around the corner. Kinsfolk of her own. Well, the die would be cast when she posted her letter. Butterflies fluttered uneasily in her stomach. New relations could be such unknown quantities. She supposed it was like meeting future in-laws for the first time. They might be kindred spirits, they might not.
    She heard a door open and close. She would go down and tell Auntie Ed and Uncle Alan now. They'd be glad for her, perhaps a little apprehensive, and would assure her that their home was always open to her if she didn't want to stay in the south. She would ask them not to tell Mother and Magnus yet. Time enough for that. She'd write herself and just say she was off exploring New Zealand before settling down.
     
    It was more than a week later. What an extraordinarily varied country New Zealand was. It ranged from a semi- tropical North to an extremely Scottish-type Far South, not only in the history of the pioneer settlers and the number of Macs in the telephone directories, but in the landscape too, except that there was no heather, but higher mountains.
    Now she had left Dunedin behind, journeyed thirty-five miles south to Milton and had headed west beyond there. This was like the Border country, rolling hills just such as she had loved in Scotland, the land of her forebears, hills cropped close and sheep-dotted, whin-hedged ... or did they call it gorse here?
    Beyond and above were hills with here and there snowy shoulders, streams sang loudly, clouds like giant soap bubbles scattered and amassed,