Bride in Flight by Essie Summers Page B

thoughts of Gilbert, of yesterday, fled away. Here at last was the scene of her childhood. She was wide-eyed in the bus, seeking to take it all in, wanting to remember, to recognize something, but it was too long ago, she supposed.
    She saw a double hill, not quite divided, rising from the Taieri Plain, and something stirred, not actual memory, but her mother telling herself and the four Richington children as she taught them the geography of this place.
    She clutched the arm near her. “Simon, could that be Saddle Hill?”
    He nodded, glad to see her so animated. She turned, looked across the mill-town of Mosgiel on the plain below and asked, “That range of bluish mountains... could they be the Faraway Mountains?”
    “No, sorry, they’re the Maungatuas.” He paused, looked thoughtful, said, “You know, I think you’ve got something there. Maunga is certainly mountain, and tau ... let me see. It’s got several meanings, like so many of our Maori words ... you could be right. Yes, it can mean back, or distant time, or further side. Yes, the Faraway Mountains. Was that what your mother called them?” He chuckled. “Fancy an Australian putting me right about my own land!”
    “I’m not an Australian, Simon. I’m a Kiwi ... come home.”
    “True.”
    “Simon, where do we go first? To your sister’s place to get rid of our luggage?”
    “Yes. The children are just next door. With Mrs. Bryn-Morgan—she’s a peach, but three are too much for her at her age, and besides, they’re going for a long-deferred trip to Rarotonga—in the Pacific—soon. My sister said in her letter that their son and his wife—Anthony and Dinah Bryn-Morgan—offered to have them, but Dinah’s expecting a baby, and as this is going to be a long job for Sis, it would mean another upheaval for the kids, and Nan felt it would keep her on her feet too much just when she needed more rest.”
    “I think she’s right. Better to have the children just moved the once. Two changes of school would be most disrupting.”
    He smiled down at Kirsty. “Would you mind if we got a taxi and dashed straight up to the hospital? She’s not in the city one, she’s up at Wakari. It would set Nan’s mind at rest. Then when we get home to the children they can stay put.”
    “Yes, a much better idea on second thoughts.”
    The hospital was tall and modern with sunny windows and was surrounded by immense lawns and rose-gardens, rearing above an immense crop of brand new wooden bungalows painted all colors of the rainbow.
    Simon waved a hand to the lawn-surfaced hill of the hospital. “Most marvellous place for tobogganing when we get a heavy snowfall.” He paid the cab off. “Kirsty, would you mind waiting in the lobby for a few moments?”
    She quite realized he would want to explain her to his sister. A sickening thought occurred to her. What if Nan didn’t fancy the idea? If she did not relish having a stranger take her children into the wilderness. Women were more shrewd than men, more inquisitive. Rightly so, perhaps, where their dear ones were concerned.
    She was glad to see Simon coming back, but afraid to read his face.
    He was frowning. He dropped to the seat beside her, said, “Kirsty, there’s just one thing—”
    She Interrupted, her head held high. “Please don’t, apologize—I understand. Your sister, naturally enough, doesn’t take kindly to the thought of her children being committed to the care of some chance-met stranger, someone you picked up. She thinks you slightly crazy to have entertained the idea even. I can easily find—”
    He shook her arm to stop the flow. “Kirsty Brown, stop it! Talk about jumping to conclusions! Nan—oddly enough—respects my judgment. She knows I’m not the sort to be bowled over merely by a pretty face. I just wanted to say that for reasons you’ll understand, I implied I’d known you longer ... just as I did with the Bothwells.”
    Kirsty felt her lip quiver, caught it under her top