Guardian Nurse (7 page)

‘Only overlooking it,’ he called back. ‘Trev used to have to come down here for a swim or to pan. You must meet him some time. We went to school together, were, and are, and always will be thick as thieves, yet like true friends, not needing to be in each other’s pockets to proclaim that fact. He’s a tall, fair monster. You’ll like him. When he returns... yes, he’s away just
now ... I’ll
—
’

He’s here at Uplands, he’s back, Frances started to call, but shrewdly she paused. If she described her meeting and her over-cautiousness with such a bosom friend she would certainly get derision from Burn West.—Yet, on the other hand, when West found out for himself, as probably he must, that she and Trent had already met, wouldn’t there be censure from this very difficult man because she had not informed him? Whatever I do, she sighed inwardly, it will be wrong. She stood trying to decide, and at that moment Jim the fencer hurried by saying he was late, and she would be, too, didn’t she know it was on, so there was no opportunity to say anything.

While
Burn
West garaged her car, Frances ran inside, found that Sandra had fed and bedded a sleepy Jason, so, after checking the boy, after combing her long gold hair, she went along to the communal board
and the eager smiles of the overseer, bookie, Jim and the two jackeroos. She would talk to
Burn
over the meal.

Burn West did not come in.

CHAPTER FIVE

Frances
had her plate filled by Jim, her fellow latecomer, and the fencer claimed because of this that it was his turn to sit near her. This suited Frances. Although she had made a vow to herself not to probe, and so far had kept to that vow, she felt in the instance of Trev Trent of Uplands that it was not so much a case of probing as protecting herself, protection against
Burn
West’s undoubted ridicule when he learned, as he must lea
rn
, being a thick-as-thief friend, that she had held his lifelong mate at arm’s length and allotted him the caution that had been impressed upon her. But, she thought helplessly, how had she been expected to know?

But she could try to discover something at least from Jim, and she drew the conversation at once around to his work. Surely
it ...
she concentrated on the fencing, not the carpentering ... wasn’t so onerous as it might have been, seeing the river took up one large side.

Jim said it was still considerable, more so since the boundary between West of the River and Uplands was very irregular.

‘Uplands doesn’t touch the Murrumbidgee, then?’ She had been told that by Burn, but she pretended ignorance.

‘No, it overlooks it. But it might just as well as far as Trent was ever concerned. Trev and
Burn
were friends from the day they learned to walk and promp
tl
y spent all their hours there on the bank.’

‘Is it a good place, Uplands? I mean like West is?’

‘Oh no. Never was. The older Trents were town people, they inherited Uplands and did their best with it, but it wasn’t a first thing with them as with the Wests. Trev likewise. He never had the feel for land as Burn did. I’d say he’s about given up now. He runs a prosperous travel agency in at Wagga Wagga and only commutes to the homestead when he feels like a spin. Tourism suits Trev, he was always one for fields afar. He’s away now.’

No, he’s back, Frances knew, but she didn’t get round to saying it. Jim was building a fence of potato, a field of peas, and he was showing her the vulnerable parts of a boundary. The jackeroos came in with their knowledge, but made more a lark of it. Someone flicked a piece of sausage and someone flicked the same back, and the fun was on.

Frances agreed to listen to recordings tonight as tomorrow, she said sternly, she was really determined to start serious instruction with Jason.

‘Wish you’d been my teacher,’ Toby said feelingly.

The next morning was spent on more poster filling, but in the afternoon Frances took the paints firmly away, much to Jason’s grievance.

‘I was going to paint the hills,’ he protested.

‘Pink?’

‘Yellow!’

‘Why, Jason?’ It was the time now for this.

‘Because it looks good.’

‘But you wouldn’t really like your hills bright pink, would you?’ She ruffled his hair. ‘Nor yellow?’

Jason said stubbornly that he would. He had stuck out his little lip because of the forbidden paints.

Frances brought out her equipment. It had been highly recommended and carefully chosen; mostly
Montessori-inspired, it leaned heavily on the principle of freedom and self-discipline. Most of the occupations could have been handled by five-year-olds, but Jason though now half past seven seemed to have missed the years arriving there.

At first he glowered down on the thousand-bead chain, which comprised of hooking ten strips of ten beads each together until they numbered a thousand. But when Frances broke in at the first hundred and gave him an identifying numeral, he began to work eagerly for his second hundred, his third.

That afternoon they pondered over the inlaid wooden puzzles together; later an assortment of bells to make an octave—all kindergarten stuff, and this boy should be beyond that, but right from the beginning it was obvious that Jason, once he had conquered each step, would look further ahead. He might be three or four years behind in instruction, but in one day he had caught up with the pre-school he had missed.

He enjoyed it, too, he even abided the messier practical life activity
t
hat most splurge-minded four-year-olds delight in but which only wrinkled Jason’s nose, although he still performed it. This was the production of a plastic jug of water and a sponge. The jug was marked in large writing Nice Clean Water. Jason was to dean the table top, then pour the water into another container marked Old Dirty Water.

‘That was silly, France,’ he protested when he had finished.

She smiled at a little boy leaving the status of small time derisively behind.

‘You made a good job of the table, though. How about these numbered rods? You set them out like this.’

That absorbed him for the rest of the afternoon.

It was almost time, Frances thought quite excitedly that night, to tell
Burn
West to send for the correspondence lessons that she was to supervise. She planned to try the Reading game tomorrow, she felt sure Jason would lap it up thirstily.

Jason did. Adopting her college methods of H. for the out-of-breath sounds, W. for the windy ones, S. for the snaky fellows, she found Jason barely one step behind her all the way. Yes, the child was definitely bright.

‘When do I read a book?’ asked Jason. He already not only looked at CAT as the symbol of a small, furry animal, he actually understood it. And DOG. Tomorrow Frances planned the more difficult ‘ch’, ‘sh’, ‘th’. She was so elated that she was not surprised that it showed in her.

Going down the hall,
Burn
West stopped her, but it was a different arrest from that other time. And a different West.

‘Where are you getting those stars from?’ he asked.

‘Stars?’

‘Eyes. Smile
—
all over you, in you.’

‘It’s Jason. He’s just reacting in the way an educationist dreams. Of course I have an advantage in a smart little fellow, but it still makes me feel good.’

‘He has the advantage of a smart teacher, and that makes me feel good.’

‘Thank you. I think you can send for those lessons soon.’

‘Better than that, I’ll get them. I’m going up to Sydney this week. Tell me how far you’ve gone with the sonno, France.’

She told him a little breathlessly, and enjoyed the pleased surprise in his eyes.

‘A pity to slow down the process for a day,’ he regretted, ‘but I had a call from Doctor Muir. He wants to take a few progress plates of the lad.’

‘I’ll take him—’ She stopped herself in time, remembering how she was not to take Jason out in the car by herself.

If he heard the slip he did not betray it. ‘We’ll go tomorrow. From what Muir says it will be an all-day job.’

Jason, acquainted of his outing the next day, objected angrily. The process of further X-rays did not worry him—Frances suspected the poor little boy was past any medical nervousness
—
but the absence from lessons was an annoyance.

‘I’ll never read
!’
he despaired.

They left after breakfast in Burn’s big estate wagon, Frances sitting beside Jason and carrying on the letter game by pointing out things and suggesting the letter for them, sheep, pony, fence. Sometimes she gave a wrong letter and Jason corrected her triumphantly. He was in quite a good mood when they came into Mirramunna.

They went straight to the hospital, and Scott wasted no time on the first set of plates. ‘Of course,’ he explained, ‘I’m not going for any detail, the plaster must come right off for that, but just a general trend.’

Frances, who was sharply aware that Scott was looking for any possible changes in the bones, any instance of septic disease as well as the leg’s general progress, was relieved when Scott’s face did not tighten ... how well she remembered that significant tightening of his face in the hospital ... as he looked at the first plates. It was decided that he do more in the afternoon, that meanwhile they all have lunch together.

Matron wanted to serve it in the hospital; she had been very effusive to
Burn
, and Frances suspected he was a valued patron. However,
Burn
West said that as it was an occasion they would go to the hotel.

Frances hesitated, feeling a closed room would be no joy for Jason, and Scott at once suggested the ice-cream parlour again.—She saw
Burn
’s brows lift at that ‘again’.

‘They serve a decent grill,’ said the doctor, ‘and the boy can have a soda with his lunch.’

Because of the tight look in
Burn
, Frances diplomatically came out with the best suggestion, or at least Jason voted it so. A picnic in the park. Yes, there actually was a small Mirramunna park by the river, replete with old-fashioned band rotunda, tables and benches and a great many flying gnats.

‘N
—
’ said the eager scholar about gnats.

‘It sounds like that,’ agreed Frances, ‘only it’s a funny word, it has a g in front of it.’

The men had gone over to get the picnic wherewithal, but when they came back it was with a party—cold beer for the adults, lemonade for Jason. Chicken salad. The chocolate cake beloved by children.

After the meal Frances took the little boy to the river’s edge to launch a few bark boats and Scott and Burn sat back talking together.

There were more plates in the afternoon, then tea in the hospital and home again, but on this occasion before the dark hour that Frances had arrived that other evening. As they passed Uplands Frances glanced at it, but there was no sign of a car.

She had dinner with Jason that evening. Very soon, Burn had said, he would bri
ng
· the boy to the
dining room
. Just as they were finishing the meal,
Burn
knocked and came in.

‘I’ll be away by the time you wake up, sonno,’ he said. It was f
o
r Frances as well.
‘Be
a good
boy,
and who knows, I may bring something
back.’

‘Like a book on gold?’

‘You couldn’t read it.’

Jason exchanged an obvious .
.
. though childlike he didn’t realise it was obvious
.
.. triumphant glance with Frances and did not argue that.

‘You be good, too, France,’ said
Burn
, and soon afterwards he strolled out.

She heard him go the next morning, and wondered how long he would be away. It would not be the same house without its master. For all his sternness at least she had to admit that.
The
river would be different without him.

They did more lessons in the morning, then in the afternoon Frances asked
Jim,
seeing he was working nearby, if they could go down to the panning beach. She knew Jason would love that and considered that Jim would be
Burn
’s necessary third. Jim agreed at once, even spent some time showing the boy his own method with a dolly pot, then he sauntered off, telling Frances he was only over the slope and to cooee if she wanted him.

It was glorious down on the
river. If
there was no gold, and there wasn’t today, not even fool’s gold, gold still abounded in the sun-sparkling surface ripples, in the wings of the tiny river things that fluttered between bank and water. Frances propped herself against an accommodating tree so
as
to be near enough if Jason got into difficulties, which seemed unlikely; for all his disability he was a steady lit
tl
e fellow. Also, she had chosen for him the safest part of the bank, level, firm, with no drop to
speak
of and even then a shallow shelf to the deeper water.