Guardian Nurse Read Online Free Page B

Jason was enchanted. The novelty of the toy absorbed him to Wagga Wagga, and later to the turn-off to Mirramunna, some forty miles out.
    Now they were in the true Riverina, the rich and varied Riverina, sometimes long, low green hills, sometimes flat, open, golden country, homesteads in the far distances but their front gates opening to the level, sealed road, different crops in different stages of growth. Trees, trees, trees. All eucalypts.
    Windmills, dams, ponds, creeks, dried streams with beds of rounded pebbles, but no glimpse of any river until, after skirting an old stone house that Burn West called out was Seven Fields, their original and his childhood homestead, after passing, some time later, a more recent structure of red brick that he called to them was Great Rock, another West possession ... he said property ... a sudden curve in the road revealed the meandering Murrumbidgee, or rather, Frances was informed, an offshoot, and on the distant westerly bank of this offshoot a very beautiful if sprawling modern home of cream-washed timber, set in terraced gardens, a long row of young pines as opposed to the inevitable peppercorns that invariably comprised country drives leading from the imposing front gates to the house, an orchard, a gravelled courtyard, green and white striped canvas awnings shading wide windows and deep encircling verandahs.
    ‘Why, it’s lovely !’ Frances gasped.
    Burn West had stopped the car. He took the opportunity to roll and light a cigarette. He finished the ritual of whispering tobacco and paper before he spoke.
    ‘Too close to the river,’ he scowled.
    Bill Furness had got out of the car to open the gate and Mrs. Campbell had followed to check the mailbox.
    ‘But it’s your house, surely you directed it,’ Frances said.
    ‘I did direct it, but it was built ... built hurriedly . . . in my absence. I had a piece of builder Glen Ellery, believe me.’
    I would believe that, thought Frances.
    ‘But Glen had a comeback,’ half-grinned the big man. ‘He said, “You always possessed the river, so I never thought of putting the house anywhere else but beside it.” Well’ ... a shrug ... ‘it was done. But if the river rises — ’
    ‘Does it?’
    ‘So far never enough to cause alarm, but trouble could come. Not from the dam miles up. That’s modern and controlled. However, there’s an ancien t high-level storage tank further down that evidently has slipped the authority’s notice, but not’ ... grimly ... ‘mine. It was on its last legs years ago. With a rush of wet weather ...’ He shrugged. ‘I tell you I was furious with Ellery.’
    ‘For knowing your possessive qualities?’ she baited, borrowing the builder’s words.
    ‘For not complying.’ His eyes flicked remindingly at her.
    A little uncomfortably she said, ‘It’s still beautiful.’
    ‘Of course,’ he said infuriatingly. It sounded to Frances like: ‘What else, when it’s mine?’
    Mrs. Campbell came back with some mail which she told Frances would be deposited by some obliging neighbour who had been into Mirramunna. Bill Furness signalled for the car to pass through the gates. He closed the gates again and got in, and they swept up through the avenue of young pines to the homestead.
    There was a curved flight of shallow stairs to the wide verandah, a verandah already lavishly hung with a flowering vine for all the house’s apparent youth. The front door was open, and Frances noted that the interior was designed in the old colonial manner of a wide gracious hall with rooms on either side. It was thickly carpeted. Beside her now, for he had left the wheel and come to the back to lift out the boy, who now slept, Burn West said, ‘I like the style I grew up in, a hat brim of wide verandah, big rooms cheek by jowl to each other, everything four-square.’
    ‘I like it, too.’
    ‘What? We agree?’ He lifted Jason and carried him up the steps.
    Frances followed him to the child’s quarters, bedroom,