Swift Runs The Heart (25 page)

Geraldine was on the last step. The woman had still not moved, blocking the head of the stairs, and Geraldine was forced to come to a halt. For once, she must look up at her stepmother. The woman's faded, china blue eyes scanned her, from her scuffed workboots up the workmanlike gown to her sun-kissed face and the tousled strands of hair sticking out from the serviceable bonnet.

“Geraldine. You have seen fit to discover yourself to us again, then.”

The excited voice of her little brother saved her from replying. “Gerry's back, Mama. She's come home again. Won't Papa be pleased? And she's going to stay here this time, forever and ever. Aren't you, Gerry?” The little hand was pumping hers up and down.

She couldn't help but smile down at the small face, a junior image of her father's but with a sweetness that must have been his mother's before the petulant droop took hold of her face.

“Perhaps, James. It depends.”

“On what?” he immediately wanted to know.

“On many things,” she replied.

“That will be enough, James. I'm sure your sister is very tired after her journey and will want to change and freshen up before appearing in the drawing room.”

Geraldine suppressed a small smile and leaned down to kiss her brother's cheek, promising to see him later. She watched him run off, then decided it was time to end this charade of her stepmother's. She set one foot up the step and onto the top of the porch, forcing the other woman to move back or face an ignominious jostle for position. It was an old and tired game she must play with the second Mrs MacKenny, once simply known as Miss Sophie Fleming. On almost their first meeting, the woman had tried to adopt the role of mother to the girl she obviously viewed as wild and unmannered.

“The poor child has had no chance to know better,” she had once heard her new Mama remark to one of their acquaintances. Unfortunately, the other woman had known Geraldine's mother well, and was only too aware that by birth and education, Máire MacKenny had far surpassed little Miss Sophie Fleming. Geraldine did not think her stepmother had ever forgiven the curt set-down that had resulted, and which in some mysterious fashion was Geraldine's fault.

“Am I still in the same room?”

Her stepmother looked even crosser. “Of course. As if your father would let it be altered.”

“And where is Father?”

“He is busy in the office.”

Geraldine could only nod, reaching down to pick up her bag.

“Leave that. One of the staff will bring it up for you. Please endeavour to remember some of the manners I tried to instil in you.”

As if I could forget,
mused Geraldine, but all she said was, “Aunt Shonagh values self-reliance and humility. I have learnt to manage for myself these last months.”

“Yes, well, we can discuss all that when you meet your father,” said her stepmother, flushing an ugly red. “And do try to find something respectable to wear. There are some of your old gowns in your room, though I dare say they are all far too small now.”

“And no longer appropriate.”

That did silence her stepmother, and Geraldine was left in peace to make her way inside and up the stairs, very glad to finally reach the haven of her old room. Firmly, she shut the door and turned to sink on to the bed, shutting her eyes as a sudden wave of despair swept across her. Was this to be her whole life?

Too soon, she must open them and let her gaze travel round the room.

Nothing had changed. From the portrait of her mother over the dresser to her very first sampler, framed by the door, it was all exactly as she had left it.

How long she lay there, she could not tell, but her solitude was finally broken by a soft touch on the door. Hurriedly she scrubbed at her eyes and sat up, straightening her dress.

“Come in.”

A large, red head appeared at the door and a tentatively smiling face advanced into the room.

“Father!”

She was off the bed and flinging herself into the arms that opened wide. In minutes, the tears broke and the firm arms of her childhood were clamped about her in a protective citadel.

It was quite some time before she could lift her head, then slowly draw back.

“Ah,
mo cridhe,
where have you been to? I was half-frantic with worry when your Aunt Shonagh said you had gone, and Old Tom would only say that you had come from Loch Máire. Is that where you have been hiding?”

She could hear the hope hidden in her father's voice. Slowly, she drew off the riding gloves she had worn here.

“Not quite,” she said, taking his hands in hers. Her wedding band gleamed on her finger and she felt the weight of it pressing against his fingers. He looked down, startled.

“I went to the goldfields and found myself a husband.”

Years later, she would look back at her younger self and recognise the guilt that coloured her perceptions of that moment. But now, to her eyes, her father's face aged ten years in front of her. His eyes looked at her and saw more of the truth than she ever wished him to know.

“You arrived alone,” was all he said, but it made her head drop and she would have pulled back her hands if he had not held them so tightly. It was the language he spoke that finally did for her; the soft, Highland Gaelic of her childhood. Her mother knew the Irish, but had never managed to pick up the sounds and differences of the Scottish version brought to Nova Scotia by her father's people. Her father had taught it to her and it had become their own treasure, the language of the special words of a father and daughter. She could never lie to her father in the Gael, and he knew it. She had not spoken it since his second marriage, but it came back to her tongue with unbidden ease.

“He is a good man,” she said.

“Will he be joining you?”

“He had to leave to attend to unfinished business. He said he would return.”

“But you did not believe him?”

“No.”

He was quiet for long minutes and she could feel him studying her face. Then his hands softened in their clasp on hers and he led her to the small fireside chair, taking the larger one opposite for himself as on so many evenings of her childhood past.

“It seems you had better tell me the rest,” he said drily, and suddenly she knew it would be alright.

At first it came slowly. Then words began tumbling over words. The whole sorry story came out and the more she said, the more she wondered what had come over her. Yet even as she thought that, the memory of a man's smile and a man's lithe body lifting her effortlessly returned and she knew she regretted none of it.

Then it was ended and father and daughter fell silent. Her father had leaned back in his chair, gazing at the empty fireplace.

“So this man gave you his name to protect your honour?” One eyebrow had lifted in ironical query.

She nodded.

“A worthy notion.”

“It was at Sergeant Braddock's prompting, and he is not a man you argue with.”

“Still, it is a legal matter and can be undone. Not easily, I admit, but I do know of someone in town who could assist us to deal with it discreetly.”

“It is not just a legal matter, Father.” A hot blush suffused her cheeks and her hands clung tightly together. “The marriage was a true one, under the law, and complete in all regards.”

“Oh.”

She had been staring into the fireplace also, but now she lifted her eyes and looked at the picture of her mother before turning to look straight into her father's eyes. “As Mam was the one for you, Bas is for me,” she said.

“Hmmph. That's as may be, but does he feel the same about you?”

A lopsided grin came unbidden to her face. “A gauche, naïve colonial Miss. I doubt it.”

She expected some sort of reply, but in the event her father said nothing. He merely looked her over, no doubt seeing the straggled hair, the untidy bonnet, the work-soiled hands and the plain gown, but he did not appear dissatisfied with what he saw. He merely patted her hand and suggested she rest and change her gown, sounding just like her stepmother. Then he rose, switching back to English.

“We'll see you at dinner then.”

But as he left, he turned back at the doorway and added softly in Gaelic, “Bide a while, lassie. Let's see what may come.”

When he had gone, she sat for a long time, not thinking, just remembering his smile and his words. Finally, a ghost of a smile traced her lips and she gave a short nod. She would follow her father's counsel and wait for what might come.

As the weeks grew to months and never did he bring up the subject again, she sometimes wondered if she had imagined her father's last words that day. She was addressed now as Mrs Deverill by the staff, but it was the only acknowledgement of her changed status. Yet again she was no more than the daughter of the house, the unwanted reminder to her stepmother of a warmer and more loving first marriage.

Only with her baby brother could she relax. He was unashamedly overjoyed to have her home and in no time at all, he had again woven the spell round her heart that he had as a tiny baby. Even this her stepmother resented, but with Bas's words echoing in her ears, she at last recognised the jealous grief that lay at its root and could bear the woman's gibes more easily. With a newfound maturity, she also saw the pain their constant battles caused her father. She had always known that he loved his wee son as much as did she did and had felt glad of this one joy granted them both. But now she also saw the guilt he felt at his treatment of her, which was ever warring in him with a desperate fear of the loneliness that had beset him after her mother's death. He could not face a return to that and was prepared to put up with much from his new wife to avoid it. How could she, enmeshed in the pain of a similar loss, begrudge her father his stab at happiness?

Over time, she made a place for herself in her father's new home. There was no room for her within the workings of the house. Her stepmother may not be of an enquiring mind, but she ran the large house with a smooth efficiency that Geraldine could only marvel at. Beyond the pales of her house and garden, however, held no interest for Sophie, nor did the growing curiosities of a lively young boy. Geraldine gratefully stepped into the breach, taking over the lessons of her young brother and introducing him to the excitements of station life. By necessity, she had become a skilled stockwoman in the more primitive times of her childhood, when all and any hands were required to help out at times, and now by chaperoning her brother she could enter again without comment into the world of sheep and men that she loved. With her father and brother, she rode out to rediscover this new station that she had not seen since she had gone away to her aunt's.

It was tamer, more civilised than her beloved home run of the inland Waitaki country, but there still remained here some of the native grasslands of her childhood, though they were rapidly being replaced in the pioneering cycle of burning and reseeding with English grasses to let them raise more sheep. The practical side of her agreed with the changes and welcomed the challenge of creating a new farm in these flat Canterbury grasslands, but a part yet mourned the loss of the plants she had grown up with and she was glad to hear of her father's determination to keep some of the back paddocks unchanged.

The first time she saw a stretch of brown tussock reaching over the plains towards the far off hills, she let her horse loose with a wild whoop and breathed in deeply of the earthy smells as its hooves thudded over the ground, feeling at home and free again for the first time in weeks. Her thoughts flew back to the rugged hills of Otago, and Bas. Did he ever think of her? Certainly no word had come and it was as if his last words had never been. “I will return.” Had he said that? The memory of it remained, poignant and crystal clear—too clear to be a phantom of her imagination.

She managed to push it away that day, but as summer faded into autumn, the memory of words and images thrust at her more often. A word, a quick tug of a smile on an ever-mobile face, the sun catching a bright crown of hair. And at night, the touch and feel of a man's strong body leading her into delights unnameable.

Fortunately, March and April brought the usual frenetic activity of harvesting and readying for the onslaught of winter in what was still a primitive life, and for weeks she was too busy and too tired to do more than fall exhausted into bed each night. All hands available were needed in the urgent campaign to prepare the station and household for the cold months ahead, and Geraldine gratefully threw herself into the long list of tasks allotted her, often seeking more once her own were completed. It left no time to think of her future and a part of her prayed that this busy season would not end.

She was in the storeroom one morning, counting and recording the jars of jams and pickles rapidly filling the long wooden shelves. Most of the other women were in the kitchen, salting down the bean crop, but when Sophie had wondered aloud whether the last of the plums should be bottled or made into jam, Geraldine had leapt at the chance for solitude and offered to spend the morning out here, tallying up the various preserves to find out which was most needed. The incessant chatter of the others was more than she could cope with this morning. Here she had peace, but her mind was occupied enough to keep her thoughts from her troubles.

“So this is where you are hiding.” She jumped, swivelling about to see her father looking at her half-quizzically. “Not that I blame you. A right flock of old hens it is inside that kitchen. Enough to drive anybody out of the place.”

She blushed, ducking her head and scrubbing with one finger at a smudge in her column of figures. “You were looking for me, Da?”

“Yes.” There was a strange touch of hesitancy in the single word, and Geraldine looked up quickly. It was in his eyes too, in the brief moment before he turned them away. Then slowly came back to meet the questions in hers. “I have received an offer to buy Loch Máire run,” he said. “It's a fair price, and I need the money if am to do anything worthwhile with this place. I intend to accept the offer.”