Sweet Are the Ways: Commemorative Edition (Collected Works of Essie Summers Book 4), page 6
But . . . on Elspeth’s lap, in a brown paper bag, was a huge bundle of iris rhizomes . . . a gesture to the future. After all, she still had a stream, and if you could make a dream come true with a few iris roots, you might even be able to re-create a cottage with your pen!
Fortunately she had remembered, from her prowling, that there was a back way to the cottage. Instead of coming into the main street, you could wind round the stream from the Momona side of Fair-acre.
She saw the willows and poplars come into view, greening thickly now, then the chimneys of Martha Moore’s cottage. Heavens, but it needed paint.
“Right here,” she said to the driver.
He gave her a startled look. Elspeth looked so elegant and tailored. “D’ye mean it? Fair dinkum?”
She grinned at him. “Fair dinkum! That’s the cottage I’ve bought.”
“Strewth!” he said, scratching under his cap. “Take a fair bit to do that up, won’t it?”
No good being touchy. “Yes, it will. I’m prepared to do a lot of work on it.” (True enough. She couldn’t afford to employ labour.)
“You must be a super-optimist, lady. Beats me. Parked out here in the middle of nowhere. Course there are people like that. People in Central Otago for instance have gone mad on buying old stables and doing ’em up. They can have ’em. Give me a nice five-roomed bungalow built of heatherstone bricks . . . they come in nice colours, you know, greens and wines and fawns and pinks . . . not much upkeep, only sills and doors to paint. Nice suburban home, nothing to do to it for years. Still, it takes all sorts. I say, what are you going to do for a crust out here?”
Elspeth stared him straight in the eye. “I write for my living,” she said.
His eyes bulged, but even as she said it she knew a lift of the heart. No longer was she tied to describing the vagaries of fashion, the latest whims, scrambling madly through papers night and morning in case Hoodman’s many rivals were first with the latest, or cutting the prices or finding some new gimmick in advertising. She was done with the rat-race. She was now a free-lance writer.
The truck driver said: “Strewth!” again, then, with a gleam of interest, “My wife’s a great reader. What’s your name?”
“Elspeth Cameron.”
He considered it. Then he shook his head. “Never heard of you,” he said dolefully.
“You will,” said Elspeth, giving him a saucy grin. “I’ve written two books, only one in New Zealand shops so far. But I aim to write more.”
“I’d rather have a weekly wage meself. But I’ll get my wife to ask for your book at the library. I only read the newspaper and the Weekly News meself. Look at that drive gate, will you? Falling off its hinges. Pity you’ve got no husband.”
He got out, propped it open, and was able to bring the truck close to the back door.
As soon as Elspeth unlocked the door she realised the parish women must have had a working bee. When she had seen it first, it had been filmed with dust. It even smelled sweet now . . . that astringent blend of soap, polish and kerosene. There must have been a pattern on the kitchen linoleum once, but it was plain brown now and was shining and smooth. The funny old stove had been black-leaded and a fire was set in it, only needing a match.
It was too much to expect any praise from that Dismal Desmond of a truck-driver, though. “Well, at least it’s a roof over your head,” he said.
He was a good worker, all the same, and set up the bed, something Elspeth couldn’t have managed by herself. He opened the packing-case and Elspeth rooted out some cups and made them a cup of tea.
She was glad, waving him goodbye, to notice that he did not take the main road back. She didn’t want him going into the pub and spreading the news that someone who called herself an author had just settled in at the cottage. Elspeth wanted to try to disguise the bareness of the place first. In any case she was going to cultivate a reputation for being a hermit, devoted to writing, so that no one should guess how pitifully meagre her possessions were.
Well, one thing, having so few sticks of furniture, it would take very little time to settle in, and as she needed to get down to writing as soon as possible, that was splendid. She’d have to concentrate on pot-boilers for a few weeks . . . humorous articles for the radio, short stories, topical articles, for newspapers. Anything for quick returns.
First she wanted to go outside and investigate something. There had been something different about the garden, glimpsed through the trees.
She ran out into the garden . . . her garden. Again that lift of the heart. For better or for worse, she was now the owner of a cottage in the country.
She turned a corner by some currant bushes . . . yes, it was certainly different. Here, where before had been a mass of chickweed and fathen, was a neat square of rich black earth, raked to a fine tilth, with rows of seedlings. At each end were white plastic pegs. Down she stooped to read what was printed there: Peas, beans, carrots, parsnips, lettuce, radish, silver beet. Some well-heaped furrows meant potatoes. Mint was growing, thyme, chives, parsley, sage. Some of last year’s silver beet was still flourishing. She realised something . . . once she got a garden established she could practically live off it. Such rich ground, irrigated by the watershed of the Maungatuas. Not for nothing was the airport out yonder called Momona . . . meaning fertile land. The old orchard would yield so many varieties of fruit, she’d never need to buy tinned stuff again. She’d noticed the cupboards were full of jam jars and preserving jars. It would cost her nothing but the sugar for a year’s supply of jam and preserves. She looked at the red and black currants, the gooseberries, the apples, pears, peaches and plums with the gloating eye of a miser.
The whole orchard was burgeoning into full bloom now, hummed over by a myriad of bees. In another week this would be sheer enchantment. A wattle tree, covered with yellow fluffy balls, caught her eye. She walked down to it and beyond it she saw the stream over the fence. She turned back, found her new trowel, picked up the iris rhizomes and went down to the stream. Other less important things could wait.
Strictly speaking, this wasn’t her property, she supposed. Ronald Drew had called it No-man’s Land, running between the church property and Candy Hill.
She put up a hand to look at the hill against the sun. Some day she’d climb that hill. What a view it would give, clear across the Taieri to Saddle Hill and the Pacific. Odd to be looking at the very feature Captain Cook had seen from the sea and named, two centuries ago. No wonder they called this one Candy Hill, a great outcrop of rock that cleaved the green turf in a peppermint formation of red and white stripes. What cataclysm of aeons ago had caused just that?
Elspeth came back to the house, started work in real earnest. Marvellous to have it as clean as this to start with.
She made the shabby, sturdy bed, realising as she flung the rose-red quilt over it that even drapes and spreads took away the starkness of the room. She’d known she’d get less than their worth had she sold these. By the time she’d polished the dressing-table, put out lace mats and her brush and mirror and her cosmetics, and laid the second-hand mat down beside the bed on the wooden floor, it didn’t look so bad.
She ought to get on with the rest of the house, but had a love of finishing one job at a time, so fished out her pictures and vases and found places for them. The curtains took longer. They were too long. She set up her machine and hurriedly ran a deep hem in them. But the rose-sprinkled chintz looked charming.
She looked at a tea-chest, grinned, opened it and unpacked from miles of wadding what the staff at Hoodman’s had given her . . . a mahogany occasional table with a pie-crust edge. “To match your other pieces,” they had said.
Elspeth started to laugh as she looked at it, then solemnly carried it into Martha Moore’s completely bare parlour and set it down. “You can dwell there in solitary splendour,” she told it, “till such time as I write a best-seller.”
She hadn’t even had money enough to buy a modern laminate table for the kitchen. It was a plain deal one with a scrubbed top, something that belonged to the kitchens of yesteryear. Elspeth had bought a table-cover of the same vintage at the second-hand shop, a dim tapestry one with a bobbly fringe. She was sure Martha Moore would have liked it.
Heavens, she was letting that wretched stove go out. What a trial it was going to be when typing, to keep replenishing it. A good thing there was a stock of fuel in the shed. None of her curtains suited this room, they were much too rich-looking. She ruthlessly cut up a large blue-checked tablecloth, hastily stitched them, and threaded them on the expanding wire that was still in place.
The old range was backed with red tiles. With the blue curtains it looked good. Elspeth unpacked a blue-and-white ginger jar, stepped out on to the patch of red brick paving outside the back door and picked some scarlet geraniums, setting them on the sill between the curtains.
She cooked herself some bacon-and-egg . . . what an hour to have lunch, but who cared? She was a free agent. Only knick-knacks to unpack now. By tonight she’d be able to start an article. There was something to be said for having few possessions. And no one to interrupt.
Her desk would have to go in the kitchen meanwhile. She’d unpack only the books she needed. It was going to be some time before she could afford bookcases. These could go on the old built-in dresser. She had just enough money to tide her over till her monthly cheque for the weekly articles came in. Good job she’d brought down all the stores from the flat. They’d keep her going.
How different housekeeping was going to be . . . no more chickens, fillet steak, flounders, no more first-of-the-season strawberries, asparagus, peas. It would be half a pound of mince, the cheapest stewing steak . . . red cod . . . silver beet, cabbage and turnip.
An idea for an article hit Elspeth amidships. And she had all the time in the world to write it. No job to rush off to, no telephone to ring . . . no wonder the poets of old found living in an attic stimulating. It was nearly midnight before she went to bed and by then she had finished the last typing. She was almost sure it wouldn’t be a homing pigeon.
Next morning when she woke she couldn’t remember where she was . . . birds whistling, a queer rustling noise, the sound of water running . . . of course, what magic, that was tui whistling, the cabbage tree leaves were whispering together, the little stream at the bottom of her garden was singing on its way . . . this was Fair-acre Valley.
She must get up and later on make herself walk to the Post Office and mail her article to Auckland, perhaps meet people. She’d have to be a little less than cordial. She couldn’t afford to give hospitality such as she’d always given . . . didn’t want anyone scanning the bareness of her home.
The sunshine flooding in the door lightened her spirits and she found that the water in the old-fashioned cylinder had actually stayed hot. She took a bath, pulling a face over the yellowed old bath-tub, and decided to wear a quite new green-checked spring suit in a loose jumper style. No need to look as if you were on your beam ends.
The bottle of milk she’d brought from Dunedin was beautifully cold on the marble slab in the dairy . . . what had Martha Moore called it? Oh, yes, the out-bye. Not such a miss after all, having no refrigerator. One thing, one could certainly economise on meals when living alone. Nothing wrong with crusty brown bread, toasted, and a pot of tea in a brown earthenware pot. Elspeth took it outside. There was a bench there, with a shoe-scraper beside it, right against the back door. A cascade of yellow jessamine climbed the wall and arched over the door. Little yellow stars lay scattered over the bricks. Against the wash-house japonica glowed.
She finished her toast, licked her fingers, sat dreaming in the sun and didn’t hear even a step until Dougal MacNab suddenly stood before her, minus his dog-collar, and with a white enamel billy in his hand.
“Why didn’t you let us know you were coming, Elspeth Cameron?” he demanded without so much as a good morning. “The women were looking forward to welcoming you. They’d planned to have a meal ready, to fill your pantry as they always do for newcomers.”
Elspeth flushed, but she said as coldly as she could manage, “I’m afraid I’m not the sociable type. I planned to come as quietly as possible. It’s solitude I’m after, time to write. It was kind of them, of course, but I’m going to value my privacy.”
Dougal MacNab would be rebuffed, beg her pardon, go away thinking, Well, after all, writers were queer kittle-kattle, temperamental and unpredictable.
But he missed his cue.
He said: “Great Scott! It’s odd, but I’d never have dreamed you’d be the liverish-before-breakfast type.”
“I’ve had my breakfast,” she pointed out.
He looked at the plate and crumbs. “So you have — what a pity to let it last so long.”
“I’m not letting it last!” Elspeth had to control a desire to shout. “I mean — I’m not liverish — not at all. Ever!”
He didn’t look impressed.
She said: “But I meant what I said. I’m not sociably inclined.”
“What? I just don’t believe it.”
She bit her lip, then burst out, “Mr. MacNab, that sounds quite a conceited remark. As if you couldn’t imagine anyone not enjoying your company.”
He burst out laughing. “You’re deliberately trying to be insulting, aren’t you, Elspeth Cameron? In the vain hope I’ll get the pip and clear off.”
Elspeth drew in a deep breath, trying to restrain herself. Her voice was silky with rage. “Then tell me how far I’ve got to go before I succeed in brushing you off?”
His voice was amused as ever. “It’s not possible, so I shan’t waste time on it. My housekeeper sent me over to say you mustn’t dream of cooking yourself a dinner today but must share ours. We have it at twelve-fifteen sharp.”
Elspeth let another breath go in a sigh. She’d done violence to her feelings by trying to be so unmannerly that she’d put him off. Now she would have to confess the unpalatable truth.
“I’m not taking hospitality, Mr. MacNab, because it’s going to be a very long time before I can return it.”
“Why not?”
She looked away, her hands instinctively clenching themselves. “Because — because I’ve had a reversal — financially — and I’m practically just camping in the old cottage. I can’t entertain.” (He’d think all she’d had in the flat had been on time-payment.)
He shook his head over her. “This isn’t the city, girl. It’s the country. Nobody’s going to care tuppence what you’ve got or haven’t got. They’ll look on it this way. You’re a single girl, so it probably took every penny you’d saved to buy a cottage — even one as cheap as this. The whole parish knows you paid cash for it. They’ll admire you for living with bare necessities. They’ll cheerfully sit on a cheese crate if you haven’t enough chairs.”
Elspeth flushed. “I’ve four chairs, only they aren’t exactly —”
“Exactly antiques, such as in your flat. Och, what does it matter? I’ll just put this milk in your kitchen, not out-bye, because it will need scalding. It’s not pasteurised, of course. We have a cow, the Manse has quite a big glebe.” He stepped inside.
Perforce, Elspeth followed.
He looked round in amazement. “A born home-maker! Why, it’s got the same air as in Martha Moore’s day. I thought we were daft leaving the old rag-mat down, but we thought it might do till you got your stuff unpacked. But it harmonises, doesn’t it?” He glanced round. “But your desk is going to get knocked every time that door opens.”
“I know. But it will have to be in here. For a time at least I’ll want the heat from the stove to warm the place where I write. I’m as poor as that, at the moment.”
Well, at least he didn’t offer sympathy.
He looked round, strode to the pantry, looked in, said: “Do you intend using this for food storage?”
“No, I don’t like food on open shelves. There are plenty of cupboards in the kitchen for my stores.”
He was running his fingers up and down the inside walls, his eyes intent.
“What are you doing, Mr. MacNab?”
He looked up, the blue eyes keen. “If this door was taken off, and the frame ripped off and widened six inches each side, it would make a perfect alcove extension. That’s a sizeable window — right for light. The pantry shelves could be made into bookshelves. Then the stove would heat it too. It would look charming.”
Elspeth almost snorted. “It’s a wonderful idea, but I have no money to pay Mr. Christopher Wren for doing so. So please stop making tantalising suggestions.”
“I'm going to do it myself. It’s a hobby of mine — relic of my days in the trade. I’ve renovated most of the Manse by now. I’ll start it this afternoon. I can’t this morning. I’ve got Bible-in-Schools at the valley and at Koromiko Falls.”
“But isn’t your time the parishioners’ for visiting in the afternoons?”
“Not today. I’d intended having it off and staining these floors ready for you coming down. Mondays are supposed to be my days off, but this Monday I did urgent sick visiting in the morning, had a ministers’ meeting in Dunedin in the afternoon and a Boys’ Brigade function at night. It’s against all rules of nature and God and health to work seven days a week. I’ll start straight after lunch. Very little work in it. Pity Uncle Tim’s not here, he loves it too. Although he’s retired he’s still on a Presbytery committee and he’s in Wellington at the moment attending some meetings.”
There was no stopping him.
He looked at his watch. “I’ll have to go for my life. I’ll be back about ten-thirty, but I must get into the study then. I’ll come over for lunch at twelve-ten. Cheerio for now.”
. . . . .
He was prompt. Elspeth said nervously, “I must tell Mrs. Donovan I won’t do this often. A housekeeper has to be studied more than a wife, you know.”
Dougal MacNab grinned, “My housekeeper is a treasure.”
Elspeth realised that as soon as she met her. The sort of woman to whom housekeeping was everything, a creature of routine and method. She was dishing out at the kitchen table and the odours of cooking were delicious.
