teeth. “I’m sorry, Simon. I—sound prickly.”
He ran a finger absently down her gloved hand. “We are prickly when a wound is recent. Which brings me to this. Sis did ask a few questions. Out of sheer concern for you. I implied we had mutual friends, that I’d heard you wanted to visit New Zealand as a measure of forgetting your loss a little, and that hearing about our predicament you had offered to come with me.” He paused. “She asked how long you’d been married, how long you had been a widow. I didn’t know quite what to say, so said I thought it was a very short time, that I’d not liked to ask outright, but that your husband had caught a chill soon after you were married.”
She swung round towards the passage he had come from, as if the questions were too poignant to be borne, and said unsteadily: “You did very well, and near enough to the truth to let it go at that.”
His hand came under her elbow, steadily guiding her over the highly waxed surface. “Nan won’t ask any more questions, Kirsty. Keep a stiff upper lip. We’ll not be able to stay long, so it won’t be a lengthy ordeal. But don’t forget to call me Simon.”
They were modern four-bedded wards with a delightful vista of gardens and the bush-crowned slopes of Mount Flagstaff.
Nan Chisholm was very like her brother. “I didn’t dream Simon was bring a ready-made solution across the Tasman with him! The children have been dying for Simon to get back to the Haast and for us to visit him. The two elder ones, I mean. They think it must be an enchanted place, especially for Geordie, full of bugs and flying things. I do hope you’re not squeamish. It’s not nice to investigate ,a knotted hanky in Geordie’s drawer and find it full of defunct black beetles or an outsized spider or moth. He collects worms, frogs, taddies and cockabullies. Tins and jars all over the place.”
Kirsty instantly felt more natural. “Oddly enough I like those things myself. I never had time to study them, but perhaps now I may. I’ll give him some place to keep his specimens. Now tell me their likes and dislikes—all children have some—most of their faults I’d prefer to find out, but if they have any dangerous quirks, like playing with matches, or experimenting with explosives, I’d better know.”
Nan looked up from her awkward position frankly. “There are one or two things I’d like to mention ... Simon Peter, that woman in the corner, Mrs. Montrose, has a brother in the Ministry of Works Department. She wondered if you had met him. He worked on the Battling Betty and you did some preliminary surveying there didn’t you?”
“Battling Betty!” cried Kirsty. “What on earth’s that?”
“Oh, the new bridge over the Kawarau. A grand job replacing a delightful suspension bridge more than eighty years old. It was a fine old-time effort, but too narrow for today’s traffic. We are preserving it, though. The contractor’s wife was most enthusiastic about the new one, and they called it the Battling Betty in her honor, bringing it into line with other place names in the Gorge ... the Roaring Meg and the Gentle Annie. I’ll take you there some day. We turn off before we get to the Kawarau Gorge. Now, Sis, don’t go putting Kirsty off. Geordie and Rebecca are no worse—and no better—than any youngsters of their age.” He moved across the ward.
Kirsty realized how tense Nan was, and how hard it was for a mother to relinquish her family into unknown care, how prickly she can be lest their faults be attributed to her upbringing, how terrified lest they be made unhappy or spoiled.
She smiled, feeling less uneasy, in the desire to put Nan’s mind at rest.
“Please call me Kirsty, Nan. Simon has told me so much about you. I take it that Geordie’s a bit fussy about his food. Don’t worry—they always get over it.”
“Yes, but I thought that as you worked in an orphanage where there isn’t time to study too many whims, you might
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