WHERE NO ROADS GO

Essie Summers

Stirling – Book 1

Had she destroyed all hope for happiness?

The whole situation weighed heavily on Prudence's conscience, even though she had done the right thing. If only that Australian hadn't been listening!

Prudence was shocked when she discovered that "that Australian." Was not only her cousin by marriage, but co-inheritor with her of a guesthouse in New Zealand's beautiful Fiordland. And Hugo had completely misinterpreted what he'd overheard.

But the worst was yet to come--when she fell in love with Hugo!

CHAPTER I

They had been strangely silent, these purring moonlit miles through the lushly weird thermal area of the North Island. Perhaps it was contentment in each other's presence; perhaps, thought Prudence, Godfrey felt as she did, that tonight was too lovely to be true, a gossamer and stardust night, not meant to last, not meant to be repeated. They were running through shadowy hills where oddly dim wraiths of steam forced up through clefts in the pumice, drifting about the trees like bridal veils billowing, advancing, retreating.

It was warm in the car, warm and comforting, with Godfrey dose beside her, his strong profile etched against the window if she turned her head to look.

Ahead on the smooth main road there was the faint diamond glitter of the first frost. It was part of the charm of this New Zealand wonderland that you could have the sparkle of frost all mixed up with quaking, hissing, heat-cracked earth, a queer world where you watched where you put your foot lest what looked like firm ground was merely a crust, where even on the motor highway were signs to warn motorists of the danger of clouds of steam.

In a moment they would turn off the main road towards the bed of the Waikato River where the ice-blue water spilled over the Huka Falls and filled the air with spray and thunder.

They called it the trysting-place for lovers, a place of beauty and wonder, where sometimes, on a night of the full moon, you might glimpse a rainbow in the spray. It was said that if you did, within a year your dearest dream would come true. But if that were so there would be no rainbow tonight. Tonight Prudence was going to turn her back on dreams ... if she could find the courage.

Back in her room with her father's pictured eyes watching her, it had seemed, if not easy, the only thing to do. Now, with Godfrey's nearness and dearness, she was afraid she would be tempted to postpone it. Afraid that once more she would try to recapture the illusion that they belonged together.

Godfrey swung off the road, spoke. "Be ready to catch the first glimpse, Prudence, it's enchanting."

As if she didn't know, having lived most of her life in Rotorua. Yet there had never been a night like this before, visiting the Falls in company with the man she loved.

They were the only ones there. On summer nights this would have been thronged by sightseers. Tonight it was all theirs. Godfrey's hand slipped from her elbow to her hand. It was warm, comforting, gave her a sense of belonging, of caring. But she didn't belong.

They paused on the edge, hushed, awed. Prudence thought: "Later I'll remember this shared silence and be glad of it."

Suddenly it happened... a trick of the light, or a cloud that had passed over the moon dispersing? For one instant etched against the dark outline of the trees and hill beyond,, curved and shimmered the iridescent bow, a moment of unearthly beauty.

Prudence felt magic flood her spirit like a tide, then swiftly recede, and bitterness pricked her in its steady Your dearest dream to come true within the year.. . what utter nonsense!

She turned sharply to the man beside her, released her hand, said abruptly: "Godfrey, let's get away from the sound of the Falls."

He nodded. "Yes, rather overpowering, aren't they? Makes one feel puny."

He knew and loved this countryside, had clambered over every inch of it, knew all its eerie wonders, its sudden dangers, the sense of inadequately leashed forces straining to burst through the earth's crust.

They picked their way through copse and gully, coming out to a pumice-strewn hillside near the Waikato but away from the ceaseless thunder of the Falls.

Godfrey indicated a low boulder. "Armchair formation. Care for a seat, Prue?"

She looked at it ... a small rock. They would have to sit close, Godfrey's arm would be about her, holding her on. She was suddenly aware it was now or never.

"No, thanks, Godfrey, I prefer to stand." She thrust her hands into the deep pockets of her loose coat. Her face, pale in the moonlight, was lifted towards him. Her voice was jerky, breathless.

"Godfrey, we'll have to call this off. It won't do. We ought never to have started it. It - it's foreign to both our natures. Clandestine. I thought it romantic at first, but it isn't. It - it's simply underhand. And we're getting in - too deep."

There was a silence so brittle that Prudence felt it almost shattered against the rocks on the bank when Godfrey spoke, his voice bewildered, incredulous.

"Prudence, you mean it's over - over before it's even began? Why, I felt we could keep it on this level, a companionship, a kindredness of spirit I've never known."

Pain squeezed a hand about Prudence's heart. Those were the arguments she herself had used, answering the disappointment she had read into her father's photographed eyes.

She swallowed. "It won't work, Godfrey. I - I thought that way too. It didn't matter at first — it just crept up on us, this situation. We met by chance on that hillside track and walked together. We liked the same things, we found ... walked the same pace. It was an idyllic day with nothing clandestine to spoil it. We ought to have kept it that way.

"We thought it could be repeated, so you asked me where I was going the next Saturday. It was almost as perfect, but not quite. Because when we came back to the main road we parted quickly, with the thought unspoken between us that if we were seen together it might hurt your wife.

"We've repeated that, twice, and each time I've liked myself a little bit less. And now ... this is the first time we've come out together at night. You had a slightly guilty air when you picked me up, Godfrey, and I didn't like it. It's foreign to you, I've not worked with you all these months for nothing. You're known for integrity, you are in a position of trust. I'm making you rather less a man.

"I - I admit that perhaps my feelings are more involved than yours - no, Godfrey, please -" He had moved towards her, a protest on his lips, his hands seeking hers. "No, I'm not doing this to make you ... declare your feelings ... but I can see where we're heading. The red light is showing.

"I've found you more kindred than any other man I've ever known, but - Godfrey, tell me something? Have you ever, since you were married, taken out another girl? "

His voice was low, controlled, frank. "No, you're right there, Prue. I haven't."

"Then I've already done you harm. It was foolish of me. I've tried to tell myself it didn't matter, that it was only companionship I was giving you, that it was just that we liked the same things. But if we can't be open about it, it must be wrong. I remember Father saying once, after helping someone in a similar situation, I felt so wretchedly sorry for both ... but if there are fences round a green paddock I mink God means that paddock is kept for someone else. He means the fences to be there, we can't rush them. We've got to find other fields. Other ways of making life fair.'

"And - and tonight, Godfrey, when I was getting ready to come out with you, I couldn't stand the sight of Fathers eyes watching me from his photograph. I turned it face down."

Godfrey was silent, his foot turning over a pebble, his eyes on the small action. Then he looked up. "I heard your father preach once, years ago. Just after the time he knew he had developed that trouble and must give his pulpit up. It was a magnificent sermon, he called it: 'There are other pastures.' And now you speak of forbidden fields. Your father found another avenue of service, didn't he, in his marriage guidance work? And even now he's reaching out to you.

"You're right, Prue - we can't go on. It's going to be tough. But it's unthinkable to go on, each harming the other, lowering our standards. It's - it's been a glimpse, a tantalizingly lovely glimpse of what life might have been if - oh, what's the use?" His voice had a suddenly savage note in it. "We daren't stay here and discuss this ... you're too near, too dear. We've got to go, Prue, and go quickly. Let's get back to the car. I'll take you home right away. No fond farewells ... they might undermine my feelings, last too long."

They came back to the car, got in, drove off.

For Prudence all feeling seemed suspended. She had thought to feel exalted, conscious of freedom, of having done the right thing - that there might have been anguish, but relief too. Instead all she felt was cheated, empty.

She only dimly noticed Godfrey was taking a roundabout way back, one that would take them in a great half-circle back to Rotorua, cutting up through Putaruru and home that way.

Godfrey said suddenly, "It's all right, Prudence. I'm not taking the long way home because I'm playing for time to start persuading you to let things slide and to hope you'll change your mind, but just to let us both get things quietly sorted out in our minds. And - I thought I'd rather be really late. Marian will be asleep then, it will let me get a hold on myself. It won't be easy. You've meant so much to me, even in my thoughts, this last little while. The world's been a more pleasant place simply because you were in it."

Prudence moistened her lips. "Godfrey, I know it's not going to be easy, for either of us, but the final break is up to me. You have your home here. I've nobody of my own now. We just can't help seeing a good deal of each other, at work, if I stay, both of us being in the Tourist Department. I'll go away, leave Rotorua, go to the South Island. That'll make it easy - easier - for both of us."

"Oh, damn! I've messed things up nicely for you, haven't I, Prue? You've never had it easy. When your father had to leave parish work you gave up your university training, came home and took on a job to help them. Then when your mother died you took on her guest-house till you lost your father too. And now I've ruined things for you."

Prudence said, "Who told you all that, Godfrey?"

"Miss Malloch. The old warhorse has a soft spot far you. You wouldn't suspect that, would you?"

Prudence laughed. This small talk was making things easier. "I certainly wouldn't have. The old pet! She was devoted to Dad. But, Godfrey, I've never let those old frustrations matter much, so don't be sorry for me. They didn't hurt me really. Besides, I've got to admit that in spite of everything I've always enjoyed whatever job was to hand. I've never felt martyred."

Godfrey's hand left the wheel, touched hers briefly. "I know - and Prue, don't let this make you bitter, either, will you ? I'd hate to think it did."

Prudence said, "No, I won't. I promise, Godfrey. I - might not feel very happy for a little time, but I'll try not to be bitter."

"And I hope some day, my dear, you'll meet someone - free - who'll make up to you for this. Someone nearer your own age. I only hope he's worthy of you. Tell me, Prue, was there ever anyone else? I mean, a girl with looks like yours doesn't usually get to twenty-four without - oh, not just looks, personality too."

"I suppose you could say there was someone. We were never engaged, only on the brink. Then Mother died and I had Dad to look after. Murray's mother thought it would be a big handicap for a young, ambitious man,"

"His mother thought - what about himself?"

Prudence hesitated. "We-ell, he was ambitious too, I suppose. It - just petered out. I didn't break my heart over it, Godfrey. So I suppose I wasn't too deeply in myself."

Godfrey said, "Haven't had much luck, have you? I wish I could have taught you all - oh, let it go. The railway's ahead, we'll turn back on to the main road there."

Turn back? And finish. Well, no one would ever know. Prudence would say good-bye to Godfrey. She would give a fortnight's notice to the Tourist Office tomorrow and go south - say to Christchurch, or perhaps Nelson. Start again.

A lurid flash lit the sky over the far hills. "There's an electrical storm raging back in there," said Godfrey. "Saw it before. Queer, aren't they? Probably torrential rain falling back there, yet it's so calm and clear here."

Prudence made responses, but scarcely knew what she was saying. She was just numb. Tomorrow this was going to hurt.

They were a few miles farther on when it happened. The road and the railway entered a narrow gorge, running side by side. There was a strange noise, not unlike the roar of the Huka Falls. But there were no falls here, only minor cascades in a little stream — but it was certainly a roar, something that made you terribly uneasy in this quaking, unpredictable country... not a water roar, an earth roar.

Godfrey said, "What the dickens? My God, a landslide! Look, coming down above the railway line."

Had it been daylight it would have been less terrifying; as it was they strained their eyes. The road wasn't threatened, it wasn't even a big landslide, but the railway was right in its path.

The small hillside swiftly disintegrated, great boulders loosening from the earth that bound them, dislodging trees and scrub, then with a crescendo of quite terrifying noise it slid on to the track, completely filling the narrow way, and the crash and volley of it reverberated among the hills.

Godfrey drove in to the side of the road, braked, leapt out.

"Prue, have you any idea what trains could be due - either way? No, of course not. Even if there are no passenger trains there could be goods. Get that torch - it's not much, but better than nothing. We could possibly stop a train coming this way if I wave it. I'll run up the line with it. We may be able to get word through before any trains come - with luck. You dash up to that house we passed - it's not far, remember we saw lights. Get them to ring Rotorua and they'll know how to stop all trains coming either way. It's all I can think of."

He was over the barbed-wire fence with the ease of a man used to the outdoors, and running along. Prudence pounded along on the road parallel with him. A car came towards them, Godfrey leapt back to her, flashed his torch in front of the car as it drew near. It pulled up with a squeal of brakes. A man leant out, "What's the-"

Godfrey said: "A landslide. You might have heard it. On the line. I'm going along the line with my torch in case there's a train. Prudence here is going to a house back in there to alert the railways. Have you got a torch? Two of us waving torches would be better seen. Of course, there may be no train due -"

The other man wasted no time. "I've a very powerful torch here." He seized it, they ran on, the two men on the heavy shingle of the line, Prudence on the road verge. They rounded the bend, stopped dead with dismay. The line here was straight, stretching into the distance, and on it was the powerful beam of an engine's headlamp, travelling towards them.

Prudence got over the fence too, realizing her white fleecy coat would show up against the darkness, and joined them.

It was a terrible few minutes. Would the engine-driver see them? If he did, how long would it take him to pull up? She was waving her arms frantically; any movement might help.

Time seemed to be rushing at them with the train, time that was all-important. She could hear the men's gasping breathing. The shingle was heavy, slowing them. She could see their flailing arms, torches extended, she knew the exact moment when the engine-driver saw them, and threw on the brakes.

They leapt madly for the side of the line, felling into scratchy manuka, yet scarcely conscious of it, picking themselves up with no wasted time. The train flashed by, the wind from it turning their perspiration to cold clamminess.

They gazed desperately after it, turned and ran the way it was going. It wasn't far to the bend, but it was such a pitifully short distance to the slip. Would he be able to pull that heavily laden train, mixed passenger and goods, to a halt?

The stranger yelled, "Is he going to make it? Is he ?"

The air was full of the desperately straining noises of the locomotive. They held their breath, it was definitely slowing now, had taken the curve, and they were still running, running....

They got to the bend, there was the horrible, sickening moment of impact and panic when the locomotive, though at greatly reduced speed, ploughed into the obstruction, turned on its side, one carriage with it, and they saw it slew helplessly down the hillside.

It was all mixed up with the ominous rush of escaping steam, the clash and clatter of carriages bashing together; miraculously the overturned part did not drag the other sections of the train over; it shook, swayed, then subsided into silence and safety.

The three people had been shocked into immobility, but now came to life again. The stranger said: "Come on, there'll be some injured - the crew, the passengers in the first carriage."

Afterwards Prudence was glad that Godfrey hesitated only for a moment ... a moment in which she knew he weighed up the consequences. There would be publicity, an inquiry, they would perhaps be wanted as witnesses ... but Godfrey wasn't going to let his conscience make a coward of him.

He said crisply: "Get away up to that house, Prudence. They must ring for ambulances, doctors, get police and firemen here ... inform the railways, get all traffic stopped. Then get them to bring all they can ... first-aid stuff, blankets, hot water bottles, tea. Now scram J"

Prudence went on flying feet, knowing the two men were racing towards the wreck. As she turned the shoulder of the hill she looked back, saw flames leaping, prayed as she went: God send the men were flung clear of that. By the time she readied the house she was breathless.

She started up the steps, had to pause to get enough breath to be able to speak, put her finger on the bell and kept it there, for a good deal of noise was going on. No, not noise, but the harmonious sound of Maori voices singing, beautifully blended.

The music stopped abruptly, she heard steps, and the door was flung wide. A young Maori girl and her husband stood there, stared at her.

Prudence's sentences were staccato with urgency.

"Righto," said the man. "Airini, you get the women to rustle up blankets and things. Put that coffee you've got on into as many flasks as we've got, but hunt up the Thermette and the Primus. Well take down the camp stretchers in the truck - and get Huia to ring the Wellsfords and the Rentons. Niki, you ring the hospital for ambulances, they'll contact the police and fire stations if you ask them - quicker than from here. They'll get the railway too. Get the Wellsfords to alert the whole district - or perhaps the exchange will do it. Get cracking, all of you." He caught Prudence's arm as she swayed. "Now, steady, my dear. Sue, give her some of that sherry."

Prudence drank it and was out of the house with the young Maori and the first car load, ready to direct them. It had been a stroke of luck, finding such a big crowd of young people.

She put them wise to the probable situation they would have to deal with. "Not total disaster, I would imagine, though the crew could be badly hurt, if not -" She left that unsaid. "The first carriage could have badly injured folk. They must have been flung about horribly. But at least the people in the other carriages would be able to help."

The next hour or so was all confusion. No other car had passed, so Godfrey and the broad stranger were the only non- passengers there and had assumed control. But they had plenty of helpers.

The stranger said as she raced down to them, "Good girl, you wasted no time. The crew are injured but safe - they leapt out on the other side. Not desperate injuries even - I'd say broken legs in both cases, badly bruised, and the fireman has minor burns, but it could have been much worse. This carriage is bad, but they're taking it well - no real panic, though by the groans some severe injuries. Your husband's in there."

Prudence swallowed. "He's not my husband, but never mind." By his accent she judged him to be an Australian.

Godfrey's head appeared out of the door that was facing upwards. He had an elderly woman in his arms. "I think she's only stunned," he said to the Australian. "Can you get hold - oh, good, you're back, Prudence. Early to say yet, but I don't think anyone is killed."

Men and women from the other carriages were working frantically at the windows, bending over and tearing at splintered wood about the windows to enlarge the openings, cardigans wrapped about their hands, and were trying to remove great jagged splinters of glass from the frames to enable the injured to be reached. Already some children were being encouraged to crawl out. They were speaking reassuringly, shining torches in to lighten the darkness which was the worst feature.

The Aussie was saying. "That's right, now along here - yes, I know she's hurt, but we'll get you out first and there'll be more room to attend to her. That's it, edge along ... now lift yourself. I've got you. Easy does it! Now you ...."

They worked with a surprising amount of system, the urgency making them efficient in spite of lack of experience, instinct taking the place of knowledge.

Prudence crawled in beside a child who was screaming over and over, "My mummy won't speak to me, my mummy won't speak to me!" She gathered the little girl close. "Hush, darling. Mummy's just got a knock on the head that's made her all sleepy and dopey. When she wakes up she won't want to hear you making all that noise. Let me pass you out to this man, then I'll see to your mummy."

The child stopped. A mother who might be cross soon was much less frightening than a mother who lay still, uncaring, silent.

"Good for you," said the Australian voice. "Come on, sweetie-pie. I've got you. Pull your dress over your knees, poppet, in case you get scratched. Now, oops-a-daisy ... that's it!" He handed her over the wreckage to the waiting arms of a young Maori girl.

"Prudence," he used her name quite naturally, "can you heave at that broken slat and break it off, then I could get in too."

Prudence managed it, and presently broad shoulders inserted themselves. Nearer the door she could hear Godfrey giving instructions, keeping panic down, helping the uninjured to the door above them, hoisting them up to the arms that reached down. How desperately they needed a breakdown gang to cut their way into this wreckage, to free people pinned beneath.

Time ceased to matter. As the people from the end carriages got over their own shock and pulled themselves together, they rallied in larger numbers to the task in hand. They got more people out of the wrecked carriage, as the men exerted all their strength to make the exits larger. Victims were laid on blankets and tarpaulins - incredible how many that Maori couple seemed to have rustled up - passengers brought rugs from their luggage, coats to be rough pillows. Those who could take it were given a hot drink. Other farmers and their womenfolk were arriving, each with something to help.

A doctor joined them, running down the bank, bag in hand, a powerful torch aiding him. He and the Australian and Godfrey got inside. Prudence felt a great wave of thankfuless well up in her. Groans gradually gave place to deep breathing as injections took effect. Prudence's coat was being used as a blanket, but she was working too hard to feel cold.

But the time the little girl's mother was brought out she was conscious, her first thought for her child. Her injuries seemed only superficial.

More and more helpers poured down the hillside, some good lanterns were brought, and many of the lightly injured were driven off in cars to nearby farmhouses.

The last victim had been brought out, not without difficulty, by the time three ambulances screamed to the scene. They were very fortunate that the men had been able to free everybody.

The first ambulance driver said, "More ambulances to come." It was difficult, of course, so far from hospitals, but presently they would come from all directions. There were doctors, nurses, sisters, besides the St. John men. Now they could leave the badly injured to expert aid, not continue the strain of wondering if they were doing more harm than good. But there was still plenty for them to do.

Presently Prudence went across to Godfrey, touched him on the arm. "I want a word with you," she said.

They drew into the shadow and privacy of a clump of matai trees.

"Godfrey, you've been splendid. There's nothing to be done now that the others can't do. I think you should drive on. I heard that group over there asking questions, notebooks coming out. Reporters. I imagine. It would be just too terrible to think of your wife finding out now."

Godfrey nodded. "I expect you're right. I hate like hell to give up now, but at this juncture I'd certainly not like Marian to know. Come on."

Prudence shook her head. "No, I'd like to keep on looking after these children, see it out. After all, no one will worry about me. I told Mrs. Muirhead I'd be late."

"But how are you going to get home?"

"Oh, there are plenty of people here. Some are bound to be going to Rotorua. I'll get a lift with some carload."

A voice beside them said suddenly, "I'll take her. I'm making for Rotorua myself."

Prudence said, "Oh, would you? Then that will be fine. I - you see, my - my friend has someone who would be anxious about him, so-"

"Yes, I know. I heard. His wife."

Silence.

Then the Australian said, "No, no, I don't want to hear any explanations. It's not my business. But I'll take her home."

Prudence sensed Godfrey stiffen, knew he was going to insist she came now rather than bear the brunt of this stranger's condemnation. She grasped his arm.

"Please, Godfrey. It's best."

The Australian nodded. "Yes. I'll get back to the work. Come to me when you've had enough and I'll get you home." He turned away.

Godfrey and Prudence were left regarding each other in the moonlight. Godfrey drew in a deep breath. "So it's Goodbye, Prue. Thank you for the memory." Their hands met, clung. Godfrey bent his head, kissed her swiftly on the lips, said huskily, "Good-bye and God bless... always."

Prudence turned blindly away as he walked uphill and out of her private life, turned and cannoned into the big bulk of the Australian. "Oh, I thought you'd gone."

"Evidently," he said bitingly.

It didn't matter, she thought numbly, nothing much mattered any more ... save this job that had to be finished. There was plenty yet to do.

Ambulances departed, doctors and nurses worked on, accepted cups of tea and coffee gratefully; gradually the crowds thinned out, people were given hospitality in neighbouring farms, some were taken in to Rotorua by bus transport sent out by the railways department; the breakdown gangs were busy freeing the line.

Prudence supposed she ought to be grateful to the big Aussie for the way he let it appear that she had been with him. In the hectic disorder Godfrey's disappearance went unnoticed.

Then suddenly it was all over and Prudence found she was exhausted. They could go home now, with the feeling that it could have been a lot worse, that although some were badly injured there had been no loss of life. Undoubtedly the slowing-up of the train had averted a major accident.

Prudence and the Australian wearily climbed into his car, drove off.

Silence lay between them, heavy, antagonistic, disapproving.

Finally Prudence broke it. "Staying in Rotorua long?"

"No. You needn't worry. We'll certainly be the ships that pass in the night. I'm travelling through New Zealand. Put in three weeks in Rotorua about a month ago. Just returned to check on a few details. I'll move on tomorrow."

Silence again.

This time, many miles on, the stranger broke it. Broke it to say savagely, "Do you girls ever stop to think what harm you do, what irreparable harm? Have you no idea of the sanctity of marriage? What the dickens do you get out of it? A cheap thrill? A certain excitement because it's forbidden fruit? And you break up a home, a marriage, something it's taken years to build! Now for Pete's sake don't tell me his wife doesn't understand him - she probably understands him only too well. Don't hand me out any excuses - though maybe you're too hardened to even think it needs excusing. You probably think I'm idealistic, out of touch with reality, old- fashioned. Well, maybe I am at that, but I'm not ashamed of it."

Prudence felt as if he had physically attacked her, felt bruised, battered. What could she say? No explanations could be made. She was guilty. It would be foolish to tell him they had just decided to end it. He wouldn't believe her. Besides, she deserved this. It was her punishment. If you got out of step with your own code of conduct you had to take the consequences.

What he had said had been the things she had always believed in, till this had swept her off her feet. But only temporarily. Before they had got in too deep. But who would believe that?

Even after his voice stopped she felt as if accusing waves still pounded against her ears. She was sitting forward, tense, her lower lip caught between her teeth.

He spoke again. "Why don't you pack it in? I'm sure a girl like you could find some unattached chap with as much charm ... if not as much experience. You've got looks, personality too, you've even got a quite surprising amount of courage and grit."

"Why shouldn't I have that?"

"Because those things usually tie in with integrity."

Prudence was silenced again. Useless to protest that till just lately she had had integrity.

He continued: "I was admiring you - till I overheard that conversation. You pitched right in. It wasn't easy to crawl into that carriage - fire could have broken out, it was pitch dark, there was confusion and pain. You saw things later that made you feel squeamish. They made me feel squeamish too, and I pride myself I'm pretty tough. You did things that were beyond your strength - oh yes, I admired you. And then to overhear that! For Pete's sake cut loose from it before you ruin three lives!"

The beating in her ears - a blend of sheer weariness, over- taut nerves and humiliation pushed up to almost screaming point - assailed Prudence again, and she had to clench her fists in an effort to restrain what she wanted to say ... the need to pour out her troubles to this man who had set himself up as her judge. And he was right, incontrovertibly right.

"You ought to cut loose, get right away. In six months' time you'd feel entirely different, wonder what all this had been about."

The Australian spoke no more, yet evidently the silence irked him, for suddenly he switched on the car radio. A light voice filled the car, singing:

"There is a dream that I persist in dreaming

Although I know it never can come true,

It's just a room, a hearthside lightly glowing

.:. and you... and you."

"My stars! What tripe they put on!" he said, and snapped it off.

Prudence agreed silently that it was tripe, but it could have been written out of heartbreak and loneliness.

They reached Rotorua. As they stopped he said, turning to her, "I imagine you'll feel all in. Would you like to have me rouse someone to get you some tea?"

"No, thank you. I wouldn't like to upset Mrs. Muirhead. She's a widow, a minister's widow, and quite elderly. I'll make myself some. Her house is in two flats, and I have one so I can do it myself."

"And I imagine you'd not want her to know too much about tonight's doings anyway!"

Flippancy was Prudence's only defence. "You could be right at that, you know, Sir Omnipotence," she said. "But thank you for bringing me home, and good night."

He hesitated, then said, opening the gate into the garden. "About what I said to you -"

"Don't say another word. I couldn't bear it -" And she was gone down the shadowy path with only the sound of the closing of a door to reach him.

CHAPTER II

Prudence flung herself on her bed. Here was the moment she had been longing for for hours, when she would reach the haven of her room and weep it out. But her eyes remained dry. This was too deep for tears. It was over. Love, quite unbidden, had coloured life vividly for these few brief weeks, and now at her own deciding it had gone.

She had said she would go south. It meant leaving all she loved, home, friends, her memories of her parents, the beauty of this strange thermal wonderland, the green bush, the thrillingly dangerous geysers, the chain of lakes, the crystal streams ... Godfrey.

She sat up, looked across the room, went over to a chest of drawers and slowly picked up the photograph that lay face down on it. She found she could smile at it.

She said to the pictured eyes, "All right, Dad. I can look you in the face again. You wouldn't have condemned me, would you? You would only have been so sorry. You always said your most poignant prayer was: 'Help me to see the funny side of this.' Well, that's beyond me at the moment, but I'll try, Dad." And suddenly she couldn't see the photograph for tears.

She set it on its stand, went down to the bathroom. She was filthy, her hair tousled, her dress bloodstained and torn. She began to run a bath.

It wasn't till she was about to climb into bed that she caught sight of the letter propped against her mantelpiece It was addressed in the black, positive handwriting that was so much a part of Aunt Marguerite's personality. It was postmarked Milford Sound, that lovely fiord of the far south.

Not really her aunt, at least just by marriage to Prudence's great-uncle. She had met her for the first time last year, when after the death of her husband, an eccentric old man who had lived most of his life in one of the most remote of the fiords, she had come to Rotorua to attend a conference and to see a little of the tourist accommodation of the north.

Prudence slit it open; it would postpone for a time that empty moment which would rush upon her when she put out the light.

Aunt Marguerite didn't waste words, she ploughed in.

I've been thinking ever since your father died and you gave up the guest house that you might like to join me down here. This place needs young blood. The Stewarts and myself are getting into a rut. And you'd have ideas. The Tourist Department is very keen for me to provide something more glamorous now in the way of accommodation. This has been merely a trampers' hostel with a few non-trampers coming in by launch twice a week in summer.

But now Milford is being opened in winter to air traffic, we could extend launch service when weather permitted to the months when it has been closed entirely - the road through - from May till November, because of the avalanches. How about it?

If you do decide to come I've an idea. We can't do anything this winter, you see. But how about you travelling about the other resorts of the South Island - I imagine you know the North Island ones well enough - and working for a few weeks at each, gaining experience? I'll pay your wages if at any time you have a gap between jobs and when you arrive I'll get my solicitor - Cherrington-Smith of Dunedin - to draw up some profit-sharing agreement. You could still do your daily recipes for the newspapers from here, of course, as long as you got a big bunch away by every mail. It's a glorious life, to anyone of your tastes, tramping, mountaineering, exploring, boating - and, of course, cooking! Let me know.

Affectionately,

Aunt Marguerite.

Prudence looked up from the letter to gaze at the photograph. "It's here, Dad, in my hand - the chance to get away."

Tomorrow she would give in her notice and in two weeks' time she would depart south. Picton in the Marlborough Sounds at the northern tip of the South Island would be a good kicking-off point. She could visit all the guest houses in that sub-tropical paradise, go on to sunny Nelson, then down the west coast to the glaciers, Franz Josef and the Fox. She was so well known because of her newspaper recipes that it would be easy to get jobs, and in any case you would always get one if you were a cook. It didn't give you much time to think, a job like that. South Island, here I come!

Now it was early November. "Six months," that Australian had said, "and you'll wonder what it was all about."

Well, it hadn't been quite like that, but after the first three months it hadn't been quite so bad. Three months during which Prudence had learned to discipline her longing, straying thoughts.

Nevertheless all the old maxims were true, however trite. Time did heal things.

Now she was fit and bronzed from her winter among the Southern Alps, and closely-packed experience lay behind her. She had learned to ski, to skate, to adapt herself to entirely new surroundings. She had read extensively about this new territory and found out how supplies were taken in so that she could adapt some of the dishes she had picked up from the continental chefs she had worked with as to what provisions would be available.

She had written Aunt Marguerite twice weekly, and by receiving about one letter a fortnight from her had got to know her quite well, she thought.

And now she was really on her way south. Aunt Marguerite had suggested a few days' relaxation at one of the best hotels in Christchurch, meeting the culinary staff there and also the personnel of the Tourist Department, but otherwise just resting.

From Christchurch she could go down by train to Dunedin - it would give her more time to observe the countryside than travelling by plane - then take the bus through to Fiordland, crossing from the east coast to the west, but having to go far south to do it.

Prudence stood at the door of the hotel, looking out on the gentle stream of the green-banked Avon where gulls were fossicking about the statue of Robert Falcon Scott. It was from this city that the great explorer and his no less great band of men had departed on their courageous journey fifty odd years ago.

Yet now great planes belonging to the Deep Freeze Operation flew to the South Pole from here almost daily during the summer, a thought to thrill to. What a wonderful world it was, even if for her it no longer held Godfrey. A thrill of anticipation stirred her pulses. Adventure was ahead for her too in the mysterious wonderland of the fiords with its gouged-out lake basins, its rain forests and mountain passes.

She would be where no roads led, their only link the launch between the hostel and Milford Sound. Milford, for all its luxurious hotel, was cut off too all winter by road; avalanches blocked the tunnel carved out by pick and shovel under the great Homer Saddle. Nevertheless living at Thunder Fiord she would again have someone belonging to her. Life had been very lonely this last year. It was tucked away on an arm of Fearful Sound, and its Maori name was Whaitiri-o-whanga — the Bay of the Personification of Thunder.

Meanwhile, instead of standing here, dreaming, in this grey- spired English city of Maoriland, she should go and purchase her train ticket.

As she turned to go in to get her bag, she almost cannoned into a steward with a telegram on a salver - no doubt a greeting from Aunt Marguerite to wish her well for the last laps of the journey. Prudence slit it open and stared incredulously at the message. She noticed almost mechanically that it was an overnight letter-telegram, which explained its length. It was from Dunedin.

Sorry to convey such news to you, but Mrs. Malcolm died suddenly four days ago and was buried at Thunder Fiord yesterday. Because you were travelling we were unable to contact you till now. As you are a beneficiary under her will would be glad if you would contact us immediately. Cherrington-Smith.

As the express pulled out the next morning for Dunedin, Prudence felt remote, aloof, as if this wasn't happening to her. To be so sure, six months ago, that this was God's plan for her, to take her away from the poignancy and temptation of Godfrey's nearness, only to have it snatched away from her, seemed incredible.

It would be sold to the Tourist Department, she supposed, that lovely, remote hostel in the wilderness. And Uncle Alastair and Aunt Marguerite would become just a memory, legendary figures of the fiords. There had been many memorable characters years ago, stout-hearted people tackling the loneliness and - in those days - the complete isolation, with the spirit of pioneering and adventure.

Well, no doubt she would receive a small legacy - she was fortunate to get even that, for Aunt Marguerite had expected her to be merely a profit-sharing employee for years, no doubt. And she would have to find another position. Any of the hotels in the great chain of tourist accommodations would take her, of course, but it wouldn't be the same as belonging.

The miles of plains, relieved only by the magnificent backbone of Alps running down the island to the west, gave place to rolling hills and mighty rivers; sometimes they ran by the coast, sometimes inland a little, then they came to the picturesque coastline of Otago, skirted the harbour and came into the steep university city of Dunedin, as Scots as its name.

Prudence stood up, took her case from the rack, decided something as she did so. She would go on, later, to Fiordland, visit Thunder Fiord, see all that she might have had. Now she must find a bed for the night and see the solicitor tomorrow morning.

It was ten when she climbed the stairs and entered the solicitor's office. His secretary smiled a welcome and showed her straight through. Cherrington-Smith's office had a kindly atmosphere, with old-fashioned solidity and mellow shabbiness. There were cellos hanging on the wall, the sound of traffic was pleasantly muted.

She instinctively liked Mr. Cherrington-Smith. He had a compassionate face, with dark, vital eyes that missed nothing, and a humorous, kindly mouth.

He shook hands. "Mrs. Malcolm spoke so much of you to me that I feel I know you ... and this is your fellow legatee, Mrs. Malcolm's own nephew, the Australian author, Hugo Macallister. You've probably heard of him."

Prudence felt a thrill of real delight. Hugo Macallister, whose books her father had known and loved! What a wonderful thing to happen. Her eyes met the eyes of the man who had turned from his contemplation of the scene from the window. But this - this couldn't be Hugo Macallister! It just couldn't be - this was the Australian who had crossed her path the night of the train wreck six months ago! Ships that pass in the night, he had said.

His surprise and dismay matched her own. They halted, their hands not quite meeting, their surprise evident enough to cause the solicitor to look sharply from one to the other.

"Good lord! You!" said Hugo Macallister. His hand had dropped to his side, but now, mindful of Mr. Cherrington- Smith's presence, he raised it again and shook hers without enthusiasm.

"Goodness me," said the solicitor, "you've met before." He swung round to Macallister. "But you didn't say. I mentioned her name, didn't I?"

"I didn't know it," said Macallister, trying to recover himself, "at least, not her last name. We met helping at the scene of an accident. Remember that landslide six months or so ago near Rotorua? Miss Sinclair gave the alarm and I and - er - her companion raced to the scene."

"Well, fancy that, and here you are - cousins by marriage!"

The cousins by marriage regarded each other steadily and without any display of pleasure. Then, mindful of their obligations to the solicitor, who was obviously delighted, they tried to appear a little enthusiastic, murmured how odd, and wasn't truth stranger than fiction and what a small world it was!

Beaming, the solicitor wave them to seats and sat down himself.

"There are two other legatees, but as they are minors and you may not know much about diem I thought it best to get you here first. They may be a little anxious about their future, and it should be discussed with you first."

The two legatees looked amazed, united briefly in their puzzlement.

The solicitor hastened to explain. "They are Mrs. Malcolm's wards, brother and sister, teenagers; The girl is at Columba College here, and the boy at John McGlashan College."

Prudence blinked. "She never mentioned it. Are they related to us too? I mean-"

"No. Their father was a geologist who came out here on a scholarship and brought his two motherless children with him. He was killed in a fall over a cliff - he was spending the winter at Thunder Fiord to study conditions there - and Mrs. Malcolm had become so attached to the children - they were there the whole winter too, their father taught them himself - that she assumed full responsibility for them.

"Your aunt was quite comfortably off and has left them well provided for out of her own personal money, and there was some too from their father's estate. It more than covers their education and will give them something for a start in life too. Thunder Fiord Hostel is left jointly to you on two conditions. One is that you live there and run it for one year. The other is that during that year you take over the guardianship of the children. If at the end of that time you do not want to continue managing the hostel or keeping on with the guardianship of the children, the hostel is to be sold to the Government and half the proceeds divided between you and the other half between the children, whose guardianship will then revert to myself."

There was quite a silence. The solicitor waited their reactions with no show of impatience.

They both spoke at once. "How old are these poor kids?"

Mr. Cherrington-Smith seemed pleased that their first thought had been for the children.

"They're fifteen-"

He was interrupted. His two clients seemed intent on speaking in duet.

"Fifteen! Both of them?"

Mr. Cherrington-Smith grinned. "Yes, they're twins. And very devoted. As well they might be - two kids against the world."

His listeners drew in deep breaths as if they had been running.

He continued. "They're good youngsters, very mature, very independent. They were very fond of your aunt. She understood them very well. They are creatures of the outdoors. Naturally they couldn't take schooling indefinitely at the Sounds, but they spend all their long vacations there and always your aunt came to town a couple of times a year, did their shopping and took them out.

"This will, of course, is very recent. Mrs. Malcolm developed a weak heart - I imagine that was why she considered taking you in as a partner, Miss Sinclair. And as she had so newly met both you and Mr. Macallister, it seemed an ideal situation to her."

Prudence was glad she was able to ask all the right questions, though her mind seemed to be functioning automatically rather than consciously. She was aware that Hugo Macallister was in the same case. There were many things to be discussed, decisions to be made. They learned that the children's names were Keith and Janny Phillips.

"You would like to meet them, of course. I'd like to have come with you, but the day is crammed with appointments. In any case it might be better if you made your own approach, and the rector of John McGlashan. By the way, one factor may complicate things for you - or rather hurry your decision. The new season is due to open next week. It will probably be all right for you, Miss Sinclair, as you were going over there to work anyway, but -" he turned to Hugo Macallister, "I don't know how you are placed,"

Hugo Macallister pursed his lips. "This has been something of a bombshell. I had intended going on to Fiordland in due course - I wanted to see Central Otago first. I'm hoping to write a book about the early gold-field days, so I expected to spend weeks if not months gathering material, then thought I'd move on to Fiordland when the worst of the tourist rush was over to spend the winter with my aunt. I felt that when the tunnel road closes for the winter it could give me unique solitude for writing."

The solicitor twinkled, "You're about a year too late, I'm afraid. As Milford has done for a year or two, Thunder Fiord is now going to have a winter tourist season - a restricted one, of course, dependent on how good the flying weather is - which isn't so very often in rain forest terrain. The Tourist Department asked Mrs. Malcolm to try it out."

Hugo Macallister groaned. "I'd thought of Fiordland as the last refuge, remote, lonely, inaccessible for a great part of the year."

Prudence said briskly, "It's a wonderful opportunity to develop a tourist attraction, though."

Mr. Cherrington-Smith beamed genially, "There speaks a member of the Tourist Department staff!"

"A former member," Prudence corrected.

Hugo Macallister looked a question. Mr. Cherrington-Smith supplied the answer. "Miss Sinclair was with the department in Rotorua and knows all the answers."

Her fellow legatee looked singularly unimpressed.

Mr. Cherrington-Smith said gently, "Now, you can't decide the big issue quickly. I suggest you go off and have a meal together. Talk it out over the tea cups and come back and see me this afternoon. You needn't even decide it then if you prefer more time. You could give it a couple of days' consideration and still get away to Fiordland before the first visitors arrive should you decide to give it a go."

They rose, still looking slightly dazed. Hugo with the air - the offended air - of a man who has had an undesirable female thrust upon him. Prudence decided she would relieve him of that responsibility as soon as she got out of earshot of the solicitor. She wanted nothing to do with him.

"Of course, although the estate is naturally not settled yet, you may draw on me for any reasonable advance — especially as this has probably upset your plans considerably."

In this, at least, the cousins-by-marriage were at one. They did not need it.

They found themselves in the street looking at each other.

Prudence got in first. "Don't look so dismayed, Mr. Macallister. You don't have to take me to lunch. I can make my own decision quite independently of you. And I can let Mr. Cherrington-Smith know it and he can communicate it to you."

He looked at her rather savagely, she thought. "Don't be ridiculous. You may hate me knowing you for what you are, but I dare say we can still behave like reasonable human beings. Let's eat."

He gestured towards the traffic lights at the Exchange. Prudence turned with him, inwardly seething. They crossed Princes Street, and ahead of them in Rattray Street saw a notice, "The Diamond Grill". They made for it. It wasn't crowded, as they were ahead of the twelve o'clockers.

Hugo Macallister said: "Suppose we dispose of our steak before discussing anything unpleasant? Pity to spoil a good porterhouse by argument."

Prudence aid loftily: "Oh, there won't be any arguing, I assure you of that. I'm carrying on with my original plans, which will only differ in that Aunt Marguerite won't be there. She spoke to me a lot in her letters this last six months about the Stewarts - the married couple who assisted her - and as Mrs. Stewart will be desperate for help I'll just get on into Fiordland as soon as I can arrange my travelling accommodation."

"Help!" said Hugo Macallister, despite his intentions about eating in peace - or armed neutrality. "I suppose because you were a typist or something with the tourist department you think you know all about running accommodation houses. There'll be something more to do than merely being a decorative receptionist, I can assure you, in a place like Thunder Fiord.

"It's one thing being in a tourist centre in a sophisticated setting like Rotorua and another being in an isolated place like Whaitiri with all transport at the mercy of tide and avalanche and landing conditions - Aunt Marguerite described the life in detail to me when she visited Sydney."

Prudence put her knife and fork down, looked across at him. "You know nothing whatever about me -" she began to point out.

The keen blue eyes met her amber-brown ones. "I do you know - and what I know I don't like."

Prudence felt a hot tide of colour rise with her temper. She ignored it. "You know very little about me," she amended, "so I'll have to tell you I'm prepared to work hard. I don't imagine a receptionist would have much to do at Thunder Fiord. I'm ready to cook, to scrub, to wash dishes. It's exactly what I've been doing for six months in tourist centres all over the South Island - preparing myself to join your aunt."

He said impatiently, "I can't think what my aunt saw in you. I thought she'd have gone for someone plain and sensible - and upright in character."

Prudence would not let him see her wince. "You don't have to be plain and sensible to be suited for the remote hard life," she said between her teeth, "and in any case I'm not exactly a pin-up girl."

His eyes surveyed her sardonically. "I give you a month. You'll be back in the city by then. You're thinking only of the beauty at the moment. There'll be nothing there for you ... no cinemas, no theatres, no coffee bars, dances ... not even any beauty parlours! You won't be able to achieve just that unusual and fashionable shade when you do your own shampooing. What's the name they, call it? Wild plum or something equally ridiculous?"

He looked contemptuously at the shining cap of Prudence's hair swept back behind her ears in deep chestnut wings, burnished and beautiful.

Prudence's eyes held fiery sparks. "Mr. Macallister, you go too far. My hair is not dyed. It's that colour naturally, though if I had mousey, lustreless hair maybe I would tint it."

He disregarded that apart from a disbelieving curl to his lip.

"There won't even be any misunderstood husbands to try your wiles on."

Prudence took a deep breath, swallowed, and managed to say in a fairly normal tone, "Mr. Macallister, I think we'd better stop. Since my colouring is my own, I have a little of the temperament that goes with reddish hair. I pride myself I mostly have it under control, but don't try me too far. Let's keep to non-controversial subjects. I am going to Thunder Fiord. I don't care what you are doing. And when we've finished this meal I'm going to do some shopping and phone Columba College to see if I can meet Janny, then take her on to visit Keith. This must have been very unsettling for them, and I would like to reassure them."

"We'll go together. They're well apart, I think, from what Cherrington-Smith said, and I've got my car."

"I would prefer to use a taxi. I think it would hardly be fair to the children to have two people who are obviously at loggerheads to arrive to visit them. Children can be very sensitive to atmosphere."

"There won't be anything for them to be sensitive to. Surely you'd not think I'd treat you like this in front of the youngsters?"

Prudence looked at him levelly. "Nothing you've done so far leads me to believe that you're even remotely likely to be kind and considerate."

She saw his lips twitch, and hated him for it. "I admit," he said, smiling, "I'm not likely to be either of those two things towards you, or even tolerant of you - but we'll keep our enmity and dislike from the children. They must have led a very lonely life. Suppose we ask to have them out for the weekend? I could put them up at your hotel - I'm in a motor camp because of my dog. We could give them a darned good time."

Prudence looked at him and went wicked. "I don't think for a moment that the principal of a girls' college would consent to that ... a strange male guardian arriving from nowhere, with no solid background or home, merely a foot-loose author. And some folk regard the writing fraternity as definitely unorthodox. It isn't the best recommendation, you know. Although -" She paused provocatively, considering something.

"Although what?-" He sounded outraged, which was exactly what he was meant to sound.

Prudence hid a smile, lifted guileless eyes. "Although the fact that I am their guardian would probably count for something."

"What do you mean? You! Why-"

"Columba is the Presbyterian Girls' College here - and my father was a Presbyterian minister. If it's the same principal as it was two years back, then she stayed with us for a conference on Christian education. Even if it is a different one she'll have heard of my father. So if I say you're my cousin - even by marriage - she may think you quite respectable! Yes, maybe your idea isn't too bad after all."

She had the satisfaction of knowing she had scored for a brief moment. Then he laughed. "Sauce for the gander! You turned the tables very neatly, Miss Sinclair. The writer in me quite appreciated that bit of dialogue. All right, let's go."

"We can't go yet - it would be a very bad time. We must ask Mr. Cherrington-Smith to arrange a time for us — after school hours. I'll do that and meet you somewhere after three o'clock. I can fill in the time more pleasantly on my own."

He ignored that last thrust. "All right, where shall I pick you up. And where are these colleges?"

"I don't know Dunedin well enough to say exactly - this is my first visit - but I have an idea Mr. Cherrington-Smith said Columba was on Highgate and the John McGlashan somewhere near the Balmacewan Golf Links. Perhaps you weren't paying attention. I'll meet you by the Robert Burns statue in the Upper Octagon. That's one place I do know. Mr. Cherrington-Smith can tell me the best way to get to the colleges."

"Look, don't bother calling on him again. I'll ring him. He said he was going to be busy."

Prudence shrugged. "Please yourself."

He drew out a packet of cigarettes, offered her one.

She shook her head. "I don't smoke."

He seemed surprised.

She rose. "I'll leave you to your cigarette. No need to prolong this. Good afternoon for now."

CHAPTER III

She took care to be there early, so he could not accuse her of unpunctuality. Despite that, he was there before her, by a parking meter. The back seat was occupied by a huge brindled bull terrier.

"This is Midge," he said briefly.

Prudence smiled. "Short for Midget, I suppose."

He nodded. Prudence fondled the dog's ears. A dog was a nice safe subject.

The Principal of Columba, to Prudence's great satisfaction, greeted her with warmth, saying presently, "When Mr. Cherrington-Smith rang me I was so pleased. I've been most anxious about Janny's future. After all, I wouldn't wish for a finer guardian for the child than you - even if you seem incredibly young for such a responsibility."

Prudence smiled demurely and said wickedly, "But of course my cousin is so much older."

Hugo Macallister blinked, but swallowed what he was going to say.

"Yes?" said the Principal. She went on, "Janet is quite excited about you too, Mr. Macallister, and I'm afraid you'll be expected to go through the chore of signing autograph books. But I told the girls they can leave them in my study and you can sign them at your leisure. Even the English mistress is a fan of yours."

Prudence appreciated that "even". Hugo Macallister's books were thrillers, though to herself she admitted that they had something more too. Her father had said once, "This man has read widely and deeply and incorporates his knowledge into his adventure tales in the most readable way."

Presently a knock sounded and in came a youngster in the Hunting Mackinnon tartan kilt and green jacket of the Columba uniform. She had light straight hair, bleached on top and with darker streaks beneath, and dark brown eyes. She grinned engagingly as she advanced towards them.

"This could have been" an ordeal," she said clearly and quaintly, "but I feel I know you both from your writings."

"Both of us ?" Hugo Macallister sounded most surprised.

Prudence chuckled and so did the Principal. Prudence said to her, "My cousin hasn't caught up on all I do." She turned to Hugo. "Mine has no literary merit, like yours; it's merely a small feature in one of the local papers."

The Principal smiled. "Oh, our Miss Merritt swears by you... she's a great admirer of your work."

It was all double dutch to Hugo.

Janny lifted her face towards Hugo. "Would you be able to sign a lot of autograph books — please ? "

He nodded, smiled, "Yes, I'll do them when I bring you back."

The Principal was only too happy that Janet should spend time with Prudence at her hotel. "Good thing that match was cancelled, isn't it, Janny?" She added explanatorily, "Janet is our cricket captain. Rather young but extremely good."

Janny turned peony-red with pleasure.

"Cricket?" asked Hugo. "Oh, good, I don't know a darned thing about tennis or basketball. I'm glad you play cricket."

The headmistress laughed. "I warn you, don't get her talking cricket, it's her ruling passion."

Keith was a masculine edition of Janet, with a straight fringe of hair facing over his eyes.

"And are you mad on cricket too?" asked Hugo Macallister.

"No. I play, but I'm much keener on running and the Tramping Club. Better training for a geologist."

He looked up at Hugo. "You know a thing or two about climbing, don't you, sir? I mean, from your books."

Hugo nodded. "Yes, I'm looking forward to getting in a good bit of climbing at Thunder Fiord."

Janet's face lit up. "Then you are going to live there, Hugo? Old Cherry said we mustn't count on it, you might not want to be tied down. He was more sure of Prudence. You don't mind me saying Hugo and Prudence, do you? I've thought of you both as that because of your writings."

No, they assured her, they didn't. Hugo added, "I guess I can write in Fiordland as well as anywhere, better than most places, probably."

Prudence said with some asperity, "You may not have as much time as before, of course. Guest houses don't exactly run themselves. I imagine your writing will be a spare-time job there."

Hugo said smoothly, "Oh, I dare say I shall be able to work out a time-table to suit myself. I was writing books at night long before I earned enough to make it a full-time occupation, dear Cousin Prudence."

Janny giggled. "Doesn't it sound archaic? Dear Cousin Prudence."

"Yes," agreed Hugo, and added suavely, "and yet she's far from being a prudish Victorian miss."

"Hardly," agreed Janny. "They didn't wear trouser suits in those days."

Hugo cast a disparaging glance at Prudence's elegant trousers. "Hardly is right. You'll have to buy some sensible clothes to wear in the Sounds, cousin, though my mind balks at the thought of you in hobnails."

Prudence said blandly, "Oh, don't worry, my tramping boots are in my case."

"Your tramping boots? Then you do like walking?"

His surprise was anything but complimentary.

"Like cricket with Janny, it's my ruling passion. I'm much more fond of that than organized sport."

"I'm not surprised at that. The rules would irk you."

Prudence wondered if this man's sayings would always be barbed. That was to remind her she had broken the code. She would for ever be tagged in this Australian's mind as one who hadn't played the game. Not that she would let him see she cared. She would give him as good as she got. What was he to her?

She said, "Would you like some smart trousers, Janny? We'll have time for shopping before the pictures. Mr. Cherrington-Smith said would I like to see to getting you anything you needed."

"Did he? I don't remember." The Macallister brows were down over the Macallister eyes.

Prudence said calmly, "You weren't there. I went back to see him after lunch."

The two children made a clutch at Midge as he bounded out of the car when Hugo opened the door. Under cover of the subsequent scramble he said to Prudence, "I get it ... after an advance, were you?"

His tone was contemptuous.

"Well, something like that."

"Good heavens, girl, why not just admit it? He asked us quite openly this morning. You could have agreed straight out without all this secretive hoo-ha if you were running short of money."

Prudence said, "I wasn't running short of money - at least not for myself. And I preferred not to ask in front of you."

"And by the way, just what did you mean when you told the headmistress I was much older?"

Prudence hid a smile. She said airily, innocently, "Why, are you not?"

He sighed. "I'm thirty. To twenty-four that shouldn't seem old. You told Cherrington-Smith you were that."

"Only thirty? I'd have thought nearer forty. It must be your manner. You seem like another generation."

"You -" He broke off, realized that Midge was in danger of getting away from the children altogether, whistled him, and the children followed the dog.

Hugo sighed and bundled them all into the car.

"Many dogs at Thunder Hostel ? " he asked.

"Yes, quite a few. A golden labrador called Susie, a springer spaniel, Hal, and three or four bull terriers like this - pig-dogs. We have to hunt wild pigs - they do a fair bit of damage. Miles of them in the bush."

"You mean millions, not miles, Keith," said his twin.

"Millions!" said Keith scornfully. "Like all girls you've got no idea of figures at all. Ever realize how much a million is? Look, if you started counting a million pennies at the rate of fifty a minute, and worked eight hours a day, five days a week, d'you know how long it would take to -"

"No, I don't. And I don't want to know. But it's silly to talk of miles of pig."

"Well, it's a darned sight more accurate than talking of millions. If you put a hundred pigs end to end and measured them, let's see, how big would a pig be?"

"Counting weaners?" asked Janny, and the two children fell back on Midge, laughing as if it was the biggest joke in the world.

"You can put paid to that argument," said Hugo over his shoulder. "There'd never be an end to it. We want to know a bit more about Thunder Fiord. If we're interested in the length of pigs we can work it out for ourselves."

The twins subsided.

After tea, to which the youngsters did full justice, with true boarding-school appreciation of all the frills, they parted company for a while, Hugo and Keith departing for Whitcombe's bookshop and Prudence and Janet bent on more frivolous shopping.

Altogether it was quite a day by the time Prudence finally settled the children in their hotel rooms, but she didn't sleep well. The future bothered her. She would be living at close quarters with a man who despised and distrusted her - with very good reason. It was not a misunderstanding to be cleared up some time. She was going to pay very heavily for her one lapse - something she had hoped to forget, something she would be reminded of every time Hugo Macallister's eyes met hers. He would always wonder how far the affair had gone, as anybody would, would never believe it had finished before it really began, as soon as they had realized where it might lead. But you couldn't undo the past. You just kept on going.

Meanwhile there were these two youngsters in her care, two lonely youngsters, and a taxing job ahead. There would be the full tourist season in a place where extra help would be hard to get, and she was in partnership with someone who wasn't going to be easy to work with, prejudiced as he was.

Never mind, tomorrow they would devote to the children, Sunday they would head for Fiordland, so somewhere in tomorrow's busy hours she must type out half a dozen or more recipes and send them to the agent who distributed her daily cooking feature to newspapers throughout the Dominion, under the heading "Prudence-in-your-kitchen". Mails would be anything but regular at Whaitiri-o-Whanga.

By the time they returned the children to their schools after dinner on Saturday they had learned much about the set-up at Thunder Fiord. "There's mostly just Mr. and Mrs. Stewart and the old Maori breadmaker, Hohepa, usually called Joe."

"Why Joe?" asked Hugo.

Prudence answered. "Hohepa is Joseph. I think it's rather a pity so many of the liquid-sounding Maori names get shortened to English nicknames. Though Hohepa is not an original Maori name but the Maori version of Joseph. So Hohepa makes the bread ?"

"M'mm. He's a great fisherman too. Dries and smokes fish. Takes out the boating parties, and is always stringing people on; where no Maori legends exist, Joe makes them up." Janny giggled. "He salts them to suit his listeners. He's a real character."

Keith added, "We get students up at Christmas time as waitresses - they love it. Some are good, some hopeless. Some see it just as a cheap holiday, you see. You're leaving early, are you, Hugo? Because it's a beaut ride, terrific lot to see. Wish I was coming to tell you all about everything."

"And how!" muttered Janny. "He'd ear-bash you from here to Thunder."

Keith swept on. "You'll love Lake Te Anau. There are glow-worm caves there, but you have to go by launch to see them, you'll not have time this trip. But Te Anau is outstanding. You come to it across alluvial plains that you can see are built up by rivers emerging from the snout of a former large glacier that in the Ice Age filled the lake-bed. The last drop to the township is across old lake beaches formed when the lake was fifty feet higher than now. There are lots of lake beaches. They've just been formed during the last fifteen thousand years or so since the glacier ice began retreating."

"Fancy, quite recent," marvelled Janet. Keith disregarded that.

"Looking up the lake you can see stratified tertiary limestones and sandstones on the east side of the Murchison Mountains - they'd been on the bed of the tertiary sea and were tilted up later - they are quite plainly tilted. And in the west and in the north beyond the head of the lake you get mountains of schist and gneiss."

He stopped and beamed, his small earnest face looking for shared enthusiasm.

Hugo Macallister shook his head and quoted from Goldsmith's Deserted Village:

"And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew

That one small head could carry all he knew."

Prudence said hastily in case Keith didn't like being quoted at, "How I wish you were coming with us, Keith. I'd like to see that region through your eyes."

But Janny gazed at Hugo with hero-worshipping eyes and said, "O-o-oh! How wizard. Wait till I tell the girls. He quotes poetry same as he has quotes at all his chapter headings."

Keith answered Prudence, "Oh, well, there'll be plenty of time in the long vac. It'll be beaut exploring up there with someone young." He added anxiously, "Aunt Marguerite let me have a sleeping-hut for a museum — you won't want to have it for extra accommodation, will you?"

"No. Decidedly not. Everybody should have room to house their hobbies. It's a home as well as a hostel, Keith. It should be a real attraction, Keith. We might even extend it."

At the back of her mind she was admitting how much her father would have appreciated Hugo Macallister. Janny wasn't the only one who liked his chapter headings. Her father had enjoyed them, trying to work out beforehand from each quotation what was likely to happen next and chuckling later over their aptness. His books had meant so much to that vigorous man, confined to his couch. It was a real service that, bringing a breath of the outdoors into a sickroom.

She found it hard to say good-bye to the youngsters, not only because they bridged the gulf between herself and Hugo, but for their own sakes.

"I think we're very lucky they're such grand youngsters and such kindred spirits," she said as they drove away from Columba College. "I'm glad the holidays aren't too far off."

Hugo Macallister nodded. "I'm looking forward to it. Young Keith is going to be a positive mine of information. I can see my next book having a definite geological slant. Now, what time can we leave tomorrow? I'd like to get away early. It's a long trip, and the best of the scenery is at the end, so we want to do it in daylight."

"Yes ... although so far south we get a fairly long twilight, I believe, it's light till about nine. Well, I'll go to early church. It will have to be Anglican, not Presbyterian, then. I think the Cathedral isn't far from my hotel, say about -" She caught his look of surprise and stopped. "What are you looking like that for?" she demanded. Then she realized and anger flared within her. "Hugo Macallister! Don't be such a prig! Of course I go to church. It's for the publicans and sinners as well as the Pharisees."

His hand clamped own on her wrist. "Stop that this moment! I didn't mean that. You're forcing me into the role of prig, and it doesn't suit me. I was only surprised - and pleased - that failing your own church you'd think nothing of going to another denomination. If you like we'll leave immediately after breakfast and go to a service on the way, in some little country church - perhaps about Clinton, or wherever we happen to be at eleven o'clock."

Prudence still felt in the clutch of unreality as the lovely miles went by. The road dipped and wound about low rolling hills, the southern November had decked the hedges with the rose and ivory of hawthorn and every farm garden was sweet with lilac and laburnum, roses and guelders.

They shared in a service of worship at a tiny country church where white-fleeced sheep grazed on the turf surrounding the building, were warmly welcomed and even invited to a farm for lunch, but they excused themselves on account of the distance they were to travel.

They had a very late lunch at Gore. Midge sat upon the back seat and dozed most of the time, occasionally affectionately licking the back of their necks.

They had little small talk. In any case Prudence preferred to travel in silence, absorbing the beauty of the countryside as they turned away inland.

Past Gore, striking still farther west towards Fiordland, they stopped beside a poplar-bordered stream to let Midge have a good run.

"Well do the same at Te Anau," said Hugo. "I've an idea the road narrows from there, and he could be a danger to traffic."

"I imagine it will narrow - not that I know it."

"Seems incredible to me that in so compact a country - after Australia - you New Zealanders should know so little about your own country - many of you, anyway. Imagine having beauty and variety like this locked up in a couple of small islands - yet you've never visited it. They say the Milford Track is the loveliest walk in the world, yet you, although you're with the Tourist Department, have never been along it."

Prudence thought of the years she was tied to her crippled father and to the boarding house, never able to take holidays in the summer because she was so busy giving other people holidays.

Her eyes met his and held amusement. "You're so used to passing judgement on other people. Mr. Macallister, that you take no heed of circumstances. I've been with the Tourist Department, officially, six months. Before that I was in a position where I could have only winter holidays, and then my family responsibilities kept me within certain bounds. Maybe you've not realized that Milford - till these winter air-strips were brought in recently - is completely isolated from April to November. The road through the Homer Saddle closes to the general public as soon as the avalanche danger starts. They pick days to get stores and mail through. But I can hardly expect an Australian who is used only to space, not heights, to understand how dangerous it is."

To her chagrin he burst out laughing. "One up to you! Sorry, mate, I'd not realized you were so tied to home."

"And don't call me mate. I don't like it. Nothing less matey than our relationship could be imagined."

"You're right there," he said solemnly.

He whistled Midge. The dog was wet, he had rolled in the grass to dry himself and his coat was thick with biddybids. They picked them off him, bundled the big dog in. Midge flopped, panting, and before Hugo could get the door shut, half their gear fell out.

One large package of Prudence's fell open and displayed to Hugo's amazed view some large pressure-cookers, a couple of electric waffle irons and an assortment of toys.

He picked up a pan, gazed at it, said, "What the dickens did you get these for? I imagine they're all right in a bachelor girl flat, but not the sort of show we'll be running. Well, it beats me. You've got about as much idea of running a guest house as a new-born babe! I thought we'd cook in outsize army dixies."

Prudence said quietly, "I'm an expert on pressure-cooking - ever used one? No, I thought not. Very conservative, aren't you? I discussed this with your aunt. She told me to bring some of the larger kind. For instance fancy soups take a long time and also a lot of room on the stove, but they can be made in a jiffy in these."

"But in the name of fortune why the toys? We're catering for a trampers' hostel in the way-backs, not a crèche!"

She smiled. "Have you ever been cooped up in a boarding house on a wet day with half a dozen children, Mr. Macallister? No? I thought not. I have! And when I think about the rainfall in Fiordland ... you do realize it's colossal, don't you? About three hundred inches a year, believe it or not. About three wet days in five - well, we are bound to have children to amuse. I aim to set up a rumpus room."

He sighed. "This isn't a fashionable tourist hotel. It's a lodge in the wilderness at the end of a track through the mountains. People aren't going to bring their children. We'll be catering for deer-stalkers, trampers, geologists, naturalists and mountaineers."

"My dear Mr. Macallister, time will prove you wrong. I know tourists. Some folk are sensible when their families are young and suit their holidays to them - seaside cottages and so on - but others take children anywhere. Every member of the Tourist Department staff would tell you that."

"Was this fellow Godfrey with the Department too?"

Prudence felt exactly as if someone had given her an elbow jolt. She turned away a little from his regard.

"Yes, he was my chief. I was his secretary."

"Good lord, what a corny situation!"

Prudence turned on him, the amber eyes sparking. "Mr. Macallister, will you keep Godfrey's name out of our conversation, please? I finished that six months ago. I want to forget it."

"Okay, mate," he drawled. "Let's get going."

It was fairly late in the afternoon when suddenly Te Anau lay before them in all its beauty. The gums by the water's edge made the air sweetly resinous. They had a grill and pushed on into the green beauty of the Eglinton Valley, meeting a sudden squall of rain, thick and misty, that blotted out the lake.

"The chap at the grill told me this was coming, and when I said what a pity, it was the first time we'd been here, he assured me that it would be a perfect day on the other coast beyond the ranges tomorrow. Not only that, but that we'd see it at its best because heavy rain tonight would mean hundreds of waterfalls down the cliff-face tomorrow. Do you think it would be fair on the other side?"

"Possibly. You'd not think so, but I believe it can work that way."

Hugo thought of something. "By the way, did you charge that gear you bought ? "

"No. That was what I wanted the advance for," said Prudence dryly. "Much better to take them in now than to order them by mail."

"Well, why didn't you say so?"

"Because I was sure you would disapprove."

The rain passed over, and they were able to appreciate Eglinton Valley. The road was narrow and the bush crowded close, with great forest giants making a tall green tunnel. Beyond them reared the mountains, still with deep pockets of snow in them.

The air was full of a dense green twilight, shut in among the heights. Twenty-eight miles from Lake Te Anau the road entered the red beech forests of the true Eglinton Valley. They passed between the two stone pillars that marked the entrance to the four thousand square miles of the Fiordland National Park that stretched right to the western fiords.

"These really are valley walls," said Hugo, crouching down in his seat to look up at the peaks that towered above the bush- clad floor of the valleys. "In other places you're so far from the mountains they don't seem so high, but these rear above you."

They came to the Avenue of the Disappearing Mountain. It went straight before them, hemmed in by the serrated tops of the trees, the mountain at the end, framed in green with sky above; but as they came closer it gave the illusion of dropping from sight. It looked like a deliberate, tantalizing withdrawal from prying eyes, as if it were being lowered from its base into the bowels of the earth.

At Knob's Flat there were odd-shaped hillocks, looking for all the world as if they had been man-made; but Prudence, reading from the guide-book on her knee, discovered they were left there in the retreat of the glaciers, mounds of moraine.

They came in the gathering dusk to Cascade Creek, a cluster of huts encircled by the towering mountains and girdled close by the dripping wet bush. The rainfall here must have been heavy earlier.

Rain swept down as they came to a halt, adding its own sound to the gushing of the waters; but it wasn't a dismal sound, it was a joyous, ebullient sound, frothing and bubbling over.

Both of them were alert, eager to record impressions. This would be the type of hostel they would be running. They came in to the office, met the young couple who were managing it for the Automobile Association, said who they were and were received with eagerness.

"Before you leave tomorrow we'll show you right over and explain all you want to know. There are only two of us today, usually there are three, so we have to get on with dinner now."

They were each given an army hut, bare, spotless, equipped with electric light which would go off at bedtime to save the power plant.

The huts held two and three stretchers each, with good mattresses, plenty of blankets, gay tartan rugs. There was a dressing table each and hooks on the back of the door, and a mirror. Their huts were side by side.

"Not all the huts are occupied tonight, but they've had this weather back in the hills so we could easily get campers and hunters in later, washed out of their pup-tents."

There were two big ablution blocks, always an abundance of hot water, dining hall, lounge, kitchen, private premises.

Prudence changed into neat dun-coloured slacks, a polo- necked yellow jersey, rubber-soled brogues, and a parka that would keep her dry on her dash for the lounge.

It had a rough and ready, this-is-the-simple-life sort of atmosphere which she liked. A sense of adventure began to stir her pulses.

In came her cousin by marriage. "The chap told me to put a match to the fire. I suppose the rest of the campers will be in soon." He held the flame to the gum leaves under the brushwood. They caught immediately, flaring up the wide chimney and lighting up the dark room, filling it with aromatic incense. He sniffed. "Ah, that takes me back home, gum-leaves burning."

He looked across at her and grinned. "We are the subject of speculation. I passed a cabin and heard a woman say in a very disappointed tone, "Oh, I'd taken them for a honeymoon couple, but I see they have a hut each!" and the other replied, "Oh, I didn't, dear. They've got a dog with them." As if that clinched it. Aren't folk quaint?"

"They certainly are." There was an edge to Prudence's tone that surprised even herself. "I should have thought an aura of hostility would have been apparent to anyone."

He was still squatting in front of the fire. He turned to her, his blue eyes smiling, yet keen. "I hope not, Miss Sinclair, it would be very bad for business."

"And business, of course, is all you care about, Mr. Macallister?"

"As far as relations between you and me are concerned, yes."

"How nice to know exactly where I stand with you."

As footsteps were heard on the gravel outside the ramp to the lounge door he said swiftly, "And by the way, we'll have to drop this Miss and Mr. business. Most of the folk hereabouts will know we're cousins by marriage - at least that we had a mutual aunt - so it had better be Christian names. Just as well anyway that they should think we're related."

"Why?" Prudence's chestnut eyebrows rose. Then she smiled, her eyes lighting up with wicked amusement. "Oh, I get it - Thunder Hostel is isolated. You're thinking of the proprieties and you regard me as a femme fatale! How amusing."

She saw his jaw set, then relax as the door was thrust open and a wave of chatter and people advanced towards them Prudence was glad she had had the last word. Better to poke fun at him than to appear a guilty sinner.

She was glad when a grizzled, bronzed man in his early sixties took the chair beside her. "I believe you are the Malcolms' niece?" he inquired.

"Yes ... did you know them? Alastair was my father's uncle."

"Rather. I was captain of a lighthouse supply ship before I retired. We often took refuge in Fearful Sound when the weather was bad - or made an excuse to call when it wasn't. Fine folk both of them. Thunder Fiord is an arm of Fearful Sound, you know."

Prudence said easily: "This is my cousin, Hugo Macallister. You may have read his books."

The captain grinned. "Sure have. No place like a ship for reading. You'll find plenty of material round here, sir. And a fine library at the hostel. Did you know your aunt well? A character right out of a book. She kept endless records, too, of the life there, a goldmine of information for an author.

"A very devout woman she was. Many's the time we'd be beating up the coast in a storm and we'd think of the Malcolms and Stewarts and old Joe climbing in the rain up to the little chapel her husband built. They'd read the sailor's version of the twenty-third psalm and pray for all ships on that treacherous coast."

Magic tingled in Prudence's veins. She saw Hugo was moved, too, the story-teller in him appreciating that.

The captain turned to Prudence. "Know anything of the history of Fiordland at all? Your aunt was very keen about it. She'd got a section of her library devoted to it."

Prudence's amber eyes lit up. "As soon as I knew I was coming here I began reading up all I could. Some of it is epic, isn't it? I read The Pioneers of Martin's Bay by Isabel Mackenzie. Incredible, wasn't it, that people should try to found a settlement in so remote an area?"

The captain's eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled. "I was born there myself, my grandfather was one of the pioneers. But my father left when I was quite young - he thought it too hard a life for women. You'll do, lassie. I'm a pretty good judge o' character, and you've got what it takes ... the same calibre as your aunt."

Prudence's eyes flickered to Hugo's, but his expression was unreadable. She said, in case he was sarcastic about it later, "That's a fine compliment, sir, but she wasn't a blood relation."

"No matter." The captain's intensely blue eyes looked into hers. "It's not a matter of kin, only kith. You've the right spirit, I can see that. You've got to be thrilled with the history and background of Fiordland before you become part of it. You'll identify yourself with the place all right."

The dinner gong went and they filed into the dining room with its long formica-covered tables and paper napkins, taking their places in the queue forming up at the hatch, looking right into the homely kitchen whence savoury odours floated to them.

Prudence realized she was starving. They were merely asked if they wanted soup, handed a bowl, then, "Corned beef and vegies, or roast mutton and vegies?"

They took the mutton. It was delicious, so was the soup, thick with vegetables.

"I can never get over how delicious New Zealand mutton is," said Hugo pleasantly. "Our lamb isn't as good as this. Ours is merino, of course, and your conditions are more lush." He turned smilingly to Prudence. "I thought at first it was simply that New Zealand women were extra-special cooks."

A woman opposite Prudence smiled, leaned across and said, "Well, we aren't all such good cooks as your cousin, of course."

Hugo looked mystified. Prudence said quickly, "Maybe I'm all theory," and changed the subject.

Out of the side of his mouth, Hugo said, "My aunt certainly cracked you up, didn't she? "

Later, over the apple pie, Hugo's right-hand neighbour leaned across him to say to Prudence, "I'd not miss your column in the paper for anything."

Prudence turned the conversation neatly.

Hugo said softly: "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin ... in this case I suppose the common interest is clothes."

She blinked at him. "What do you mean?"

"Run a fashion column, do you?"

She giggled. Let him find out. Self-sufficient creature, supposing this and that! "Well, purely of woman interest, I dare say. But don't appear so ignorant of my hobbies. It doesn't sound too cousinly."

The unremitting quality of the downpour was amazing and quite deafening on the tin roofs. But it was cosy and somehow in keeping with Cascade Creek. The retired captain confirmed the hoped-for weather report - the ranges often divided the weather conditions.

It wasn't so good later having to make a wild rush for the ablution block in a raincoat, and worse to face the dash back, warm and drowsy from the bath, with the raincoat cold against you and rain trickling down your neck and lashing about your legs. Not that it was cold, it was a steamy dampness, almost tropical. Prudence lay in the hot water, loath to leave it. Though the sandflies were a nuisance ... if only you could submerge completely you wouldn't have to slap madly every moment. And the bites lasted so long. Finally they drove her to get out of the bath.

Prudence slid into the raincoat, her warm skin flinching away from the cold feel of it, clutched her towel and sponge- bag, opened the door against the driving rain, put her head down and made a dash for it.

She collided with someone, was nearly knocked over, caught and held firmly in a grasp against - of all things in that downpour - a bare masculine chest!

"Whoa there," said a laughing voice. Hugo's. "Oh, it's you, Prudence. Better keep your head up next time!"

The light from the window of his hut fell across him. He was clad only in a pair of shorts and had a towel rolled up under his arm.

His glance fell to her feet in their plastic sandals. "I say, I think we'll give them a bit more cover than this at Thunder, don't you? I'll build a covered alley if the ablution block is separate. You'll have to rub yourself down all over again. Don't get a chill."

The kindness in his voice was surprising. She said, holding her coat flaps tightly about her, "The same to you. Goodnight, Hugo."

The small encounter had oddly cheered her. It had sounded brotherly - something she'd not known for years since Philip and Alan had gone overseas.

She towelled herself vigorously, slid into a green frothy nightgown two seconds before the lights popped out. Bother! She'd have liked a long leisurely read before sleeping, it calmed your mind. Hers was a chaotic jumble of new impressions, she probably wouldn't sleep for ages. So much to worry over, plunging into the thick of the tourist season. And with an antagonistic partner, a harsh, overbearing, critical man. Or was he? Some inborn sense of justice made Prudence admit that given other circumstances he probably wasn't. In fact he was rather like Midge, large, good-natured, friendly. But not to her. To him Prudence was an undesirable type, the kind of girl to encourage infidelity. Nothing could wipe that out. It was something she'd just have to bear. On a wave of black depression Prudence caught herself up. "No self-pity, Prue," she could hear her father saying.

She felt comforted immediately, as she always did with thoughts of her father. She began to get warm, snuggled down under the rugs, conscious of the never-flagging roar and tumble of waters outside like a ceaseless engine on an endless track ... above her was the almost deafening beating of the rain on the corrugated iron roof.

What was that verse of Jane East's she had liked years ago in the Australian Woman's Mirror? Something about longing for a tiny house... Oh, yes...

A tiny house to burrow in, with a hollow-sounding roof of tin

So I can hear with sharp delight the raindrops drumming in the night!

Tin roofs mightn't be as lovely as grey slate or orange tiles, but only tin roofs gave you that sense of being at one with the elemental joy of rain, yet snug and dry. Jane East was an Australian, wasn't she, so they must have mostly tin roofs there too ... That should make Hugo Macallister feel at home, in his rough hut six feet away from hers ... Prudence slid over the edge of sleep into downy cloudland.

CHAPTER IV

She woke with a sense of surprise. Something was different. Oh, the rain had ceased. She was hot, too hot, in this tiny cabin. She got out of bed, rubbed herself down with the towel to freshen her skin ... she dared not run a shower at this early hour, she might disturb the camp. She got into slacks, a plaid shirt, brogues, picked up her towel. She would wash in the stream.

It was barely five o'clock and no one was stirring. What a magic, magic world. Every leaf of the close clustering forest gleamed crystalline in the sun; every granite face that could be glimpsed on the steeper heights above the bush-line sparkled with the silver froth of a new-made waterfall. Cascade Creek tumbled and foamed over its boulders. Even the boulders themselves were fascinating in their variety, pure white, green, pink, lavender, criss-crossed by veins of other colours, a geologist's paradise. Cobwebs were fantasies of skilful weaving diamonded with mist.

Prudence picked her way down to the stream on tiptoe, then kicked her shoes off, doubled up her slacks above the knees, turned the collar of her unbuttoned shirt in, and stepped into the water. It had looked sunlit and warm, and the extreme iciness of the water took her breath away, turning her feet completely numb. Quickly she stooped and scooped the water up, splashing her face and neck over and over again, then when she could bear it no longer, got out on the grass bank.

"Idyllic," said an approving voice behind her. Hugo Macallister's. She swung round, water dripping off her nose, her elbows.

"Well, it was," she said coldly.

"Stone the crows, you're not still liverish, are you? Thought you'd have slept it off. Sorry I'm not the company you'd prefer, but lacking the ideal man you'll just have to put up with me."

"Must I? I'd planned to do that nature walk." She pointed to a sign that led off into the dripping green bush.

"So had I; it's too good a morning to lie abed, and in any case I'd not allow you to go into the bush by yourself."

"You'd not allow -? Might I point out to you that you are not my guardian, only Janny and Keith's!"

"I wish I were your guardian. Guardians have certain privileges - I've been aware more than once that a good spanking could improve you no end."

Prudence ignored that. "I've been exploring New Zealand bush since I was at kindergarten," she retorted.

"Then you ought to know how easy it is to get bushed."

"I do. I take no chances, but last night the others told me how clearly defined this track is. It only takes half an hour and I'd much rather do it alone than in uncongenial company."

"You aren't doing it alone," he said firmly, showing, to her chagrin, no trace of offence. "But first I'll emulate your good example." He was in singlet and shorts and kicked his sandals off.

"I'll borrow your towel - thanks." He took it rather than had it offered to him, put it on a stone, stepped in. "Ouch! Straight from the eternal snows, I guess." He splashed vigorously, came out, towelled himself.

Prudence said waspishly, accepting the sopping towel without enthusiasm, "You'll have to go back to your hut and put a shirt and long pants on - these sandflies are vicious. I've got some repellent in my pocket."

"Okay, mate," he grabbed her arm. "Come on."

She tried to free herself. "I'll wait here."

"Yes, I know all about that. I don't trust you, gentle maiden. You're such a contrary little vixen you'd be off into that bush like a lintie as soon as my back was turned."

"I would not. I promise to wait."

"Right." He turned to go.

"And you might hang this out. I'm not carrying a sodden towel for half an hour."

He saluted smartly, seized it, leapt away, returning in khaki drill longs and shirt. They dabbed themselves liberally with repellent.

They were lost to sight immediately in the bush. It was full of a translucent emerald light, hushed and still. Trunks of mighty totaras and beech reached for the sunlight, others sprawled grotesquely along the deep-littered forest floor before writhing up between other creepers, every branch was moss-covered and a host to countless ferns and creepers. There was a virile, all-pervading sense of prolific growth that was almost overpowering.

Loops of supplejack and vines entangled about their feet, spongy mosses oozed water as they stepped upon them, the roots of fallen giants made great arches they stooped under, they had to dude and scramble. Birds fluttered, without singing, in the close branches. Prudence, although reluctant, came to be glad of Hugo's hand to steady her.

They stepped into a little glade, stood upright, looked about diem.

"This isn't real," declared Hugo. "It's something on the screen, something created by Walt Disney. I just don't believe it."

"It's sheer enchantment." Prudence was caught up in its spell. They went on, came finally to a sheet of dreaming water with great mountains, white-capped, reflected in the pewter- grey rippled waters. The bush was dose behind diem as they stood on the tiny shingle strip.

"This must be the first secret beginnings of Lake Gunn," said Prudence.

The sat down on a rock, dose together as there wasn't much room. The sun poured down on them now, warming them after their time in the grotto-like bush. They sat in silence, the only music that of the waterfalls, both hidden and in evidence, pouring down the watersheds of the mountains into the basin of the lake.

Then, as if at the sound of an alarm clock, the chorus of birds began, bellbirds and tuis the loudest, chiming over the sound of many Waters, but all adding their tiny notes, tits, torn-tits, fantails, bush-robins, with here and there the sound of English birds.

Hugo looked about him, drew out a notebook. "If only Keith were here he could name these rocks for me."

Prudence pointed. "That's very common about here, I believe, greywacke - no, not spelt with a y, with an e, and that's basalt, and I think that's andesite - they're volcanic. You get a lot of platey schist and gneiss, all colours, black, grey, dark green, white. There are marbles and granites, even pink granite, and of course, over on the coast, greenstone - New Zealand jade."

She found Hugo was gazing at her with new respect "I say, you aren't too bad at geology yourself. Not far behind Keith, I'd say. Where did you pick all that up?"

"Oh, Dad was interested - when I was a youngster and he was fit, we took a lot of holidays together. I remember once we'd been doing the volcanic area north of Auckland, and coming home by train a porter was astounded at the weight of our luggage. He said: 'I say, padre, what've you got in this ... gold?' Dad answered seriously, 'No, rocks,' and the porter put his head back and roared at the very idea."

Hugo chuckled. "And you've remembered all that from your childhood? Enough to recognize them?"

"No. I started a course at Varsity. I didn't finish, but I was taking geology as an extra."

"Why didn't you finish?"

"When Dad's complaint came on he had to give up the ministry. I had to get a well-paid job pretty quickly."

"H'm. Pity. No brothers or sisters to help?"

"Oh, Philip and Alan had done rather well, one was in America on a travelling scholarship, the other at Oxford. Neither of them had anything to spare - don't think they were selfish, they both offered to come home - but we wouldn't let them. Dad had set his heart on them getting through. I was quite happy doing other things, and I kept on with the Naturalists' Club, the Tramping Club, and Forest and Bird Society."

"Then you'll know the names of most of these trees and shrubs?"

"Yes, but not all, because much of this is different from the North Island. Some are alpine and sub-alpine about here. Dad and I never got here. But I can recognize most of the beeches, mountain, red, silver; and rimu, miro, kahikatea. There are the differing kinds of tree-fern too. This one I like the best - the wheki - it hasn't got that sort of tent of dead fronds enclosing the upper part of its trunk like the soft tree-fern has.

"Then there's the rata - it's glorious. We'll probably see some just coming into flower, it blossoms redly for Christmas. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish from our red mistletoe vines."

"And what's this one?" asked Hugo.

Prudence dropped her lashes to hide the twinkle that had crept into them. "You could probably guess its name. If you just crush it between your fingers."

He glanced at her suspiciously. "Is it prickly... a nettle?"

She lifted limpid amber eyes. "As if I'd play such a trick! No, pick a sprig."

He did, rolled it between his fingers, said, "So what?"

"Now smell your fingers."

As he did, gold lights of pure mischief danced in her eyes.

He cast the twig from him, said, "Good grief! What a stink. Putrid!" He glared at her. "You little devil!"

"You got it right in one," she said, "it's stinkwood. Coprosma foetidissima is its botanical name, if you want to write it down."

"I don't," he muttered. "Look, I've come without a handkerchief. Give me yours."

"Whatever next? My towel, my handkerchief! Really, you need a nurse."

He dabbled it in the stream, scrubbed vigorously at his fingers, handed it back. She held it to the tip of her nose. "No, thanks, we'll write that one off." She threw it into the lake.

"That leaf there you could name by tasting," she suggested.

He wasn't to be caught twice. He grasped her wrist urgently.

"Come on, what is it?"

"Pepperwood," she admitted. "Oh, I'm starving. Let's go back."

Breakfast was a large one, porridge or fruit, plates of sausages, bacon, eggs. There were huge pots of tea and coffee essence and hot water. They both took tea. "I like my coffee percolated," said Hugo.

"So do I, but Aunt Marguerite told me they just used essence at Thunder - but I could please myself, that she'd had no time for the frills, that was why she wanted me when the Department began to ask could the accommodation be made a little more luxurious. She was to order percolators."

"You amaze me. I thought Aunt would have been too dyed-in-the-wool to welcome change."

"Well, perhaps she was, but she admitted a new era was opening in Fiordland - it's New Zealand's most unique attraction. Thunder can't hope to compete with Milford, of course, its greenstone fireplace and tartan carpet and so on. They have a maitre d'hotel who comes from Bologna, but she thought I was progressive enough to introduce some new ideas."

"But do you know anything about it?"

The edge crept back to her voice. "It was a Home Science course I took."

He laughed derisively. "Bit different from running a guest house - these courses are all theory, no practice."

Prudence checked the desire to tell him she'd done just that, run a guest house, and to put him wise to the practical experience gained in these courses, but he could jolly well find out for himself. Sir Sufficiency!

She contented herself with saying, "Even at that it's just possible I might know more about it than you!"

"That wouldn't be hard, mate," he admitted, adding, "In my own humble way, of course, I might be quite handy. The lighting plant is a bit temperamental, I believe."

"You'd be wise to leave that to the experts. This do-it- yourself interference isn't always a success. Amateurs often rush in where even experts would hesitate to meddle without proper tools - replacements wouldn't be easy at that distance and inaccessibility. You'd probably plunge the whole thing into darkness."

"Not me, mate," he said smugly. "I'm a fully qualified engineer."

"Well, why the dickens didn't you say so?" demanded Prudence, squashing down the awareness that she herself was making a fool of him by keeping quiet about her own accomplishments.

He ignored that. "It's only the last two years I've been able to completely support myself by my pen. My father very wisely insisted I have something else behind me. I was on the Snowy River Project in Australia."

Prudence was completely silenced. The Snowy River Project - wasn't that supposed to be the biggest in the world? And she had twitted him about the tuppenny ha'penny power plant at the Fiord.

He looked at his watch. "I suggest we get cracking. We can fight just as well on the road. The Homer Tunnel is open each way for traffic for twenty-five minutes in each hour, so we'd better not miss a turn. Better not put on anything too heavy, it's going to be hot."

Soon they were into the Hollyford Valley and on the finest scenic road in New Zealand. The valley walls reared above them, their faces gleaming with a myriad waterfalls from yesterday's rain. The mountain passes were great gashes driven through the ranges, the sun glinted on glaciers that had retreated to the topmost clefts of the peaks and lit up the sapphire slashes in the great ice-fields. It was terrifically hot, enclosed in these heights. They couldn't even see the tops for the roof of the car.

Hugo stopped, well into the side.

"To do it justice we'll have to get out for a view. No, boy, you stay here, there's a good chap. Scenery's wasted on you. Yours is a world of smells... too dangerous here."

They crossed to the edge of the overhanging road and looked up. Silence born of awe and incredulity at such grandeur descended upon them.

At last Hugo broke it with a low-voiced quotation that seemed forced from him.

Some things are too lovely for remembrance,

Let me forget them like a dream,

Lest all my days and nights hereafter

Empty should seem.

The words seeped down into Prudence's awareness. Suddenly the realization of how her father would have appreciated this, how he would have enjoyed the company of this man beside her, swept over her. The impact of beauty such as this had a poignancy too. She tried to blink away the unbidden tears, turned her head hastily, but not before Hugo had seen the glint of them.

He caught her elbow swiftly, swung her round to him.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, girl, must you always be wearing the willow for that fellow? Weeping for the unattainable. Jan Struther didn't mean that poem that way ... don't tie up my quotation about all this beauty with what you think was a grand passion but was probably only the lure of forbidden fruit!"

Anger rose in Prudence, swamped her control, and with it, to her chagrin, the tears spilled over. She said, stamping her foot like a child in a temper, "I was not weeping for Godfrey. It was something else - I won't tell you what, you'd think it sheer sentiment, you great unfeeling hulk of an Australian! I find this beauty moving ... or did, till you spoilt it all." She looked up at him. "And anyway, why are you so-so - savagely concerned about my - my conduct? It's almost as if you were involved personally."

He said, turning away a little, and in a flat tone, "I feel I am involved. I saw my sister's marriage break up because of a girl like you. A girl who appeared, on the surface, sweet and wholesome. I saw the happiness of a home, a whole family disintegrate. There are two children. They miss their father like the devil. And my sister is, to use an old-fashioned term, broken-hearted."

Prudence was appalled. No wonder he - They stood there, shaken.

Then she said intensely, "And was your sister entirely guiltless? Could she look back upon the years of their marriage and say, 'No, I never failed him, never failed to give him what he needed to protect him against seeking affection elsewhere'?"

The contempt in Hugo's tone flicked her on the raw. "Is that the sort of thing you stifled your own conscience with?"

She gave no sign of having flinched, said steadily, "I do know Godfrey's wife began to lead a very brittle sort of life, an artificial, inane life, the sort he was excluded from by his very nature. He loved the out-of-doors, the tracks, the hills."

"And told you all that ... the old, old story, my wife doesn't understand me! When in all probability she understood him all too well."

Prudence swallowed. She mustn't lose her temper again. This was the moment to be quietly convincing. It could help to clear the situation a little.

"You may not believe me, but we never discussed his wife. Men - men like Godfrey - don't, you know. If you knew your Australian poets as well as you know others, you'd realize that. Wasn't it your Henry Lawson who wrote:

Oh, the men who made bad matches and the great misunderstood

Are through the world a mighty and a silent brotherhood.

If a wife is discontented every other woman knows,

But the men who made bad matches keep the cruel secret close.

"All the staff were sorry for Godfrey. But it was not because he had said anything. He was too loyal to discuss her."

"But not too loyal to prevent him taking out other girls. Or did you think you were the only one?"

"I knew I was the only one."

"Wishful thinking. And don't ask me to believe you never discussed her, Henry Lawson to the contrary notwithstanding."

Prudence closed her eyes against the sting of that. Nobody had ever disbelieved her before. What was the good of going on, of telling him it had already been decided they would part before the train smash happened? He wouldn't believe that, either. Who would? The fact that his sister's marriage had broken up would blind him to the fact that there could be degrees of infidelity.

But one thing she would say: "Hugo, when I spoke of any part your sister may have played in the break-up of this marriage, I wasn't thinking of myself, and Godfrey, and Marian. I was thinking of the few times my father married divorced people. He was never happy about it, yet if it seemed fairly evident that they were the innocent parties, he would do it, said he could not condemn them to a life of loneliness. But I don't think any of them ever guessed how it tormented him.

"I heard him say to Mother once, 'How can one possibly decide who is guiltless and who guilty? A wife could be faithful in the strict sense of the word, yet untrue to her marriage vows just the same. She doesn't only vow to keep only unto her husband, she vows to love and cherish him. A woman who nags doesn't keep that vow. She could be so frigid she drove her husband to seek companionship elsewhere, yet in the eyes of the law she is blameless.'"

Prudence had been turning pebbles over with her foot. There was no answer from Hugo. She looked up to surprise a look of uncertainty on his face. So he wasn't sure of his sister's blamelessness!

Suddenly she felt tremendously sorry for him, yet on the heels of that, angry with herself that her rage with him had subsided.

"You've still got my hanky," she said rather forlornly. A brief smile touched his mouth.

"I haven't, you know. You threw it away. Take mine, it's quite clean."

Prudence reflected that men's handkerchiefs were much more adequate for mopping-up operation!

They drove on to where the Homer Saddle cut clean across the road, with only the dwarfed arch of the tunnel to break the solid mass.

Cars were still coming up from Milford, so they had to wait at the Hollyford Portal. Hugo put Midge's lead on and they got out, gazing up at the sheer heights above the Portal, marvelling that such a work could have been done solely with pick and shovel, wheelbarrow and explosive.

There were plaques erected to the memory of the men who had lost their lives while it was being hewn through in the years of the Depression in the early thirties. How bleak and inhospitable and remote it must have seemed, with men perhaps ill-clad for the weather, far from their own, hating the hills and the silences and the remoteness, yet preferring that to the hopelessness of unemployment in the cities.

She imagined with what force the too-early snows that caused the disasters would plummet down that sheer rock- face, burying the men beneath.

She looked at the great masses of reinforced concrete reduced to broken segments that had been hurled away down the hillside by the snow, and wondered that the gateway to the Fiords had ever been completed.

Hugo said slowly, "No great engineering feat was ever completed without some loss of life. It's the price we pay. I wonder how many give thanks for it as they go through."

She realized that this man, an engineer himself, would be remembering other tunnels, other lost comrades.

All about, on the rocky hillsides, so barren and harsh, bloomed great clumps of the mountain lilies. They grew in clusters, with polished fleshy leaves, the texture of arum leaves, but rounder and flatter, with ranunculus-like flowers of purest white with orange centres, frail and lovely. They looked as if they needed hot-house conditions.

The last eastward-bound car came through, the three westbound ones went slowly down into the dimness of the great tunnel, well apart. It was wide enough for two cars, but they took no risks and made it one-way. They passed a grader whose driver waved cheerily. What a job! Did he ever suffer from claustrophobia? Scotch-lite tape lit the sides all the way through. Water dripped from the roof, ran in little rivulets across the roadway.

Then they were out into the Cleddau Canyon, with the road dropping steeply over two thousand feet in six miles, between sheer rock walls and with many hairpin bends in the first mile or so. On the left of them was the immense bulk of Sheerdown, an unbroken wall of the canyon for ten miles to the sea.

Sea air met them as they descended, there were tantalizingly brief glimpses of the blue water of the fiord, the road followed round the hills. They stopped when they saw a sign directing them to the Chasm. The road map had told them what it was, the Cleddau river; after flowing down shady hillsides in its boulder-strewn course, it plunged suddenly through a series of rocks worn by the water into sculptured shapes, forcing its way through in foaming fury, the upper fall seventy feet, split by a huge boulder caught in the walls of the chasm.

They negotiated the hundred yards from the road, were glad of the. iron handholds, and finally on the railed platform gazed with awe at the force and thunder of the water, water- worn rocks that appeared to writhe darkly out of the churning spray like some odd surrealist exhibition, gazed down the second fall from the natural rock bridge into the deep shaded pool, and shuddered. The bush leaned out as if to keep it a secret place of mystic rites and sacrifices.

"What a setting for a murder," gloated Hugo.

"I think we'll go," said Prudence. "You might want to get rid of your unwelcome partner. Oh, look, there's a touch of colour - leaning towards us there from the other bank, one of the red mistletoes coming into bloom."

The sunshine seemed safe, comforting, as they took to the road again.

They came in under the dominance of Mount Tutoko, passed an Automobile Association hostel on the left, and by swinging round to the right they got the breathtaking surprise as the road plunged them into the first sight of the great Fiord.

Prudence knew enough about Fiordland to be thankful their first glimpse was on such a perfect day, and the scenery not hidden or even blurred by mist and rain.

The Sound shimmered and danced in sapphire blue, on each side of it the plunging mountain walls dropping into unimaginable depths below. There were the great hanging valleys whose clefts had not been driven right down but were arrested part-way, and from whose laps spilled mighty waterfalls from their lakes. Farther out rose the matchless symmetry of Mitre Peak, one tiny cloud touching its point.

"How small an area of level ground," said Hugo, differences forgotten as they gazed. "You'd almost think it had been formed purposely for a landing-place."

Prudence smiled. "According to Maori legend it was. It's believed that when the South Island was formed from a canoe the gods sank and turned to stone, Tu - short for Tu-to-Rakiwhanoa - was given the task of making it habitable. He came to Fiordland and saw an unbroken wall of rock at the coast. So he took a chop at it. That sounds most unromantic, you need a Maori to do it justice - they have none of our bluntness - a chop at it here and there, and left it all jagged and untidy, with islands scattered about. Gouging out Mil- ford tried him sorely, and while he was resting on the Devil's Armchair, known as Te Nohoaka-o-Tu, the seat of Tu, the Earth Mother told him surely some flat land was needed, for the steep mountains offered no landing-place, so Tu levelled this small area where the hotel now stands. Oh, good heavens, this hadn't occurred to me before - what on earth are you going to do with your car? There aren't any roads to Thunder."

"Surely you didn't think I'd not thought about it. The hotel folk are going to garage it for me and run it enough to keep the battery going. They can use it for trips to Te Anau and other places."

"We'll give Midge a run, then have lunch at the hotel and meet the staff; Cherrington-Smith arranged it all. We work in with them quite a lot, of course, keep in touch with them by radio transmitter; they arrange our launch trips and so on."

The contrast between the hotel and the Cascade Creek camp was amazing, though Prudence had loved the Creek. It was simple, unpretentious, peaceful, merely a roof over your head, and nourishing food.

But here was the setting in which she was vitally interested, the culinary world. The outstandingly beautiful decor, the sense of the beauty outside being brought right into the hotel by the huge windows, the Lobster Pot dining room with its buffet decorations ranging from gay scarlet crayfish to dressed pigs' heads.

As they were shown through the whole building Prudence was wickedly amused by the puzzled look on Hugo's face as he noted the deference with which the chef and his staff treated her ... as one artist to another. In a moment he would tumble to the fact that she wrote daily recipes, published a cookery annual, was a household word in most New Zealand homes, she giggled to herself.

But as they boarded the launch at three he was still evidently unsuspecting. "Well, my aunt certainly cracked up your cooking, didn't she? She must have babbled to the Milford staff too."

Prudence, tying a scarf over her hair, demurely agreed. It would take them three hours to reach Fearful Sound and half an hour more to Thunder Fiord, an arm of Fearful.

This was a special trip as distinct from the twice-weekly runs during the summer, and there was only the pilot and his mate aboard. The walking trip was a two-day one, and there were two huts on the way. One was rarely used, but was necessary in case of emergency.

Prudence looked back at their last link with civilization as they steamed up the Sound, saw the unbelievable force of the Bowen Falls thrusting into space, glanced up at Hugo as he stood at the rails, his hand on Midge's head, and said, "Have you had your appendix out, Hugo?"

He burst out laughing. "What a lovely thought! Yes, thank goodness, have you?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's two worries less. I wonder if in the years to come I could have telephone wires put through by the tramping track or would snows and storm always bring them down?"

The years to come. It suddenly gave Prudence a dizzy feeling. Could this be her? Setting off for an indefinite period in the most remote part of New Zealand!

The man beside her said quietly, "We're committed to it now ... they didn't name you very well, did they? This is a most imprudent adventure."

Prudence looked straight ahead towards the sea entrance of the great fiord, an hour's sailing ahead; beyond that, due west-Australia.

There were stars in the amber eyes, eagerness in the parted lips, purpose in the lifted chin. She looked like a figurehead on a ship of old. She said breathlessly, "It's something I've always wanted, unknown, challenging."

He turned away abruptly. Prudence had an uncomfortable feeling she bad been too dramatic.

In the excitement of the trip she gradually forgot this. There was the five-hundred-foot drop of the Stirling Falls, the drifting beauty of the Bridal Veil ones, the rata glowing red on the steep sides, clinging so incredibly firmly in the crevices and reaching out with the other green native bushes towards the launch. They came in close to where a gull was sitting on its nest, facing westward, its beady eyes steadily watching them but showing no disturbance.

After Midge's first excitement at seeing gulls overhead, Hugo had tied him down below. Otherwise he'd have leapt overboard. Presently they saw a pair of blue penguins, standing side by side on a rock, looking as formal as guests at a dinner-party.

The two launch men, Rob and Alex, were eager to show them all they could. It was fascinating how closely here they could run by the edge because of the great depth. As they came nearer, one of the penguins deliberately turned his back on them.

"Definitely a male," said Prudence saucily, "and most unsociable." She turned around, saw something swimming in the water, said, "Oh, what kind of ducks are those?"

The men laughed. "Duck nothing! That's some more penguins swimming."

They felt they were already accepted into the fellowship of the fiordland folk, knit together in close companionship due to their isolation and dependence on each other for basic needs.

They sketched in the parts of the life Prudence and Hugo didn't know, told them Maori legends, snatches of the heroic history of the Sounds, a history closely tied up with the sea and seamanship, something you were conscious of immediately because of the graves of seamen from all over the world, preserved here on this rugged coast.

"They aren't Sounds really in the true sense of the name, are they?" Prudence asked.

"No." Rob's voice was rueful. "I think it's a pity they were misnamed. Sounds are drowned river valleys, fiords are gouged out with glaciers. But the first explorers weren't thinking of finer points. A Welshman from Milford Haven gave Milford its name, of course."

They came out to the Tasman Sea and began beating down the coast. When finally they turned about to come into Fearful Sound, it was breathtaking. They seemed to glide between canyon walls so steep, and the entrance was so narrow it was like entering a tunnel and emerging into a lake. It had huge arms and fiords of its own, reaching back into the hinterland of mountain, bush and river. Everywhere the water pushed and burst through gorges and chasms. Birds wheeled and sang as if this were their last day upon the earth to pay tribute.

At last, feeling almost surfeited with beauty, weary with receiving so many impressions, they turned into the last inlet of all... Thunder Fiord.

CHAPTER V

Ahead of them, fringed with the delicate green tracery of fern and vine, lay a golden scimitar of sand backed by shingle, and high above it, dead centre in the bush that framed them, Thunder Falls. It spilled from its own secret lake caught high in its hanging valley.

Hugo, beside Prudence at the rail, tightened his grasp till she saw the white bone of his knuckles show through his flesh.

"This is utter Paradise, the last Eden left on earth. What was it Kipling said of New Zealand? 'Last, loneliest, loveliest'."

"Yes ... he said it of Auckland really. It means he couldn't have seen this. It's the ultimate. Oh, how my father would have loved it!"

In a dream, they came to safe anchorage where two men waited at the wharf. Prudence, disappointed, said, "Oh, I hoped Mrs. Stewart might have come down. But I guess she'll be busy with the dinner."

Hugo said, "I expect so, and since Aunt Marguerite sang your praises so, the poor woman is probably all of a dither. And dreading all the changes you'll want to make. Not everyone can take such things in their stride. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"I think you're extremely good at Cassandra-like croakings. Anyone would think two women are bound to fall to fighting as soon as they began to share a kitchen!"

"It has been known. But time will tell!"

She got her things together, uneasiness suddenly engulfing her. That could be true. Aunt Marguerite had looked forward to her coming, but that wasn't to say Mrs. Stewart would. The type of woman willing to be buried here might easily be averse to change.

There was the jolt of the launch coming alongside, then Jock Stewart and Hohepa Paerata came aboard. The old Maori's face was tanned to mahogany and seamed with crinkles of good nature. His greying hair showed up against his brown skin.

He received them with dignity. Jock Stewart looked worried, and promptly explained why. "This is the deuce of a welcome for you - my wife scalded her feet badly this morning. Dropped a roasting pan of hot fat on them. We have a good first-aid kit, of course, but we had to cut her stockings off. It's quite raw in places - I don't much like the look of it, I'm afraid of infection. I think there's only one thing to do, though she's going crazy at the very idea, with the first tourists due and you arriving, and that's to get her down to the Te Anau doctor. I think she may even need a skin graft - it could mean hospital."

Prudence was shocked, not for herself but for Mrs. Stewart. "Oh, we can manage fine, let's just think it would have been worse had it happened when you were on your own. We can cope. Of course she must go - look, I'll convince her she'd be less of a liability in hospital than if we had to nurse her."

The man's face cleared with relief. "Aye, that'd be the line to take with Bessie. Come away up to the house."

In their concern they hardly took in their surroundings save for a feeling of thankfulness that here, instead of huts, the sleeping quarters ran out in a long single-storied wing, opening on to the verandah that looked out over the fiord.

The private part of the house was nearest the water, divided from the guests' rooms by the kitchen and lounge and dining room. It was overhung with vines, clematis and Virginia creeper.

Jock said, "She's very drowsy, I've been keeping her doped with tablets. We've a meal ready, Rob and Alex will need one, then if they can get her away quickly it will be best. We'll make her as comfy as possible. Thank God it's calm. At times it's the very devil here, these are turbulent seas."

Hugo said, "I'm a St. John man; living as I did on works in the outbacks of Australia, I needed first-aid training. Would she mind if I looked at her feet? I've a very modern first-aid kit among my gear."

Bessie Stewart was flushed and uncomfortable, and of all things, looked guilty. "This is a fine kettle o' fish - me to be doing such a thing, sheer carelessness. And I've landed you with such extra work. Really there's a hoodoo on the place just now!"

Prudence crossed to the bed and took her hand. "Dear Mrs. Stewart, you're not to worry. We are here and we can cope. I'm only sorry such a painful thing has happened. I dare say you were up to your eyes and overtired. That's when things happen. Will you let Mr. Macallister look at your foot? He's a St. John man. A bit of expert treatment now will help the healing process immensely."

They brought in the first-aid kit. Hugo was deft and gentle and what he spread on the badly-scalded feet was wonderfully cooling.

"I think that, apart from the sheer misfortune of it happening at all, you've been lucky, Mrs. Stewart. It's all on the upper part of the feet. Not nearly so tricky as if you'd been burnt between your toes, or on the soles where the circulation is poorer. Have you had tetanus immunization?"

"Aye. Mrs. Malcolm saw to that. Only safe in a place like this. Before this lasting one was invented she always had the emergency one by her."

The launch men had departed to prepare comfortable quarters for her. Jock had the meal set out in the big kitchen at a table in the corner window. Rob and Alex came back. "We've got it fixed and we'll secure her firmly; we're not expecting anything rough, but you never know. We'll radio the Rescue Emergency Corps, and they can send an ambulance as far on its way as possible to meet her.

"We can use one of the hotel trucks from the Sound, move her on the palliasse from the boat, and be on the way so that she gets there as soon as possible."

Prudence looked at Hugo, touched his arm, gestured to him to come outside with her. They went on to the verandah.

She said nervously, "You'll probably think me foolish, that my feelings are running away with me, but I hate the thought of her facing that trip with no one of her own, and both men at that - up that terrific stretch of coast, through that Long Sound, then all those mountain gorges and ravines on a rough road. She may be sick, she may need attentions only a husband or another woman could give -1 think they'll take her right to Invercargill - even if they break the journey. I should think it would be all of a hundred and fifty miles from Milford - and what miles! Could we spare Jock? I know we've got the first lot arriving Thursday, but not many - only fifteen."

"Only fifteen! Sounds ghastly to me, but I think you're right. It's dreadful to expect any woman to endure that on her own - and what Jock'd feel like with no news of her for ages, cut off like this, I don't know. He could see her over the worst, and at least we've got the old Maori to make the bread and feed the stock, perhaps kill the mutton. And to act as chaperon."

"As chaperon?" She stared at him stupidly.

"Yes. There'll just be the two of us. I'll get Hohepa to move down to the house. He has his own quarters by the bakehouse. After all, we aren't true cousins."

Colour ran up into her face. She'd forgotten Hugo's opinion of her was not high.

She said shortly: "Oh, well, Hohepa will protect your reputation, I'm sure." She turned.

He caught her elbow, swung her round. "Prudence Sinclair ! I was thinking of your reputation, not mine!"

Her lip curled. "Were you? Hardly expect me to believe that, could you? After all, you know my type, don't you?" Her voice was bitter. She swung round, marched off. He followed.

Jock Stewart's eyes lit up immediately. Then, as they expected, he protested, "Bessie wouldn't hear of it."

"Don't tell her," Prudence advised. "As soon as you have her settled on the launch and we get off, get the men to cast off."

Mrs. Stewart's last words to Prudence seemed to mystify Hugo still further. "Well," she said, "with Prudence in my kitchen I'll certainly know everything will go well."

As Prudence and Hugo climbed the track back to the house he said curiously, "What did you feed my Aunt Marguerite on when she stayed with you? Pavlova cake and caviare?"

Her laugh was light. "No ... pipis and mussels. The true New Zealand touch, not Russian."

They found Hohepa stowing their luggage in their rooms. The private quarters were quite adequate, homely without being luxurious. The paint needed retouching and the chintzes were shabby, but with her own possessions, her books and china, Prudence felt she could make them delightful.

The Stewarts had a bedroom, a verandah and a sitting room to themselves. Then there was a sitting room, a double bedroom that had been the Malcolms', a bedroom each for the children, and two spares, with a bathroom between. They all opened on to the verandah, and mesh doors and windows were fitted everywhere.

Prudence said, "I'll take the double room, you can have the other single spare, Hohepa. I'll make the bed up - oh, Bessie has made it up for me, then that won't need doing. I'll just find sheets for one of these single beds for myself."

Hohepa said, "I'll get the breakfast in the morning, Miss Sinclair. You'll be tired out." He grinned. "I almost said Prudence, I'm used to thinking of you as that."

Prudence smiled back. "We're going to be living at close quarters, Hohepa, just like a family - better make it Prudence from the start."

He accepted that, with one reservation, "But in front of the guests and staff it will be Miss Sinclair. By the way, Hohepa is a mouthful, better make it Joe."

Prudence's voice was a little wistful, "Do you really prefer it? I like the Maori name best."

"Okay. I do myself, but it's easier for overseas guests. And you actually pronounce it right, most accent one syllable instead of equally. That's because you are from Rotorua, I suppose. By the way, my granddaughter will be here by mid- November. She's a waitress up here for the summer."

"What does she do the rest of the year, Hohepa ?"

"She's at Otago University. Taking an arts course, hopes to teach history, English, French, finally. But she loves it up here. She'll bring more staff with her, other students. She's already sure of one Maori, one pakeha."

"Good show, then we aren't on our own for longer than we can manage. Well, let's tackle the dishes. I think we should have a reasonably early night, tomorrow we'll have to get cracking on preparations for the invasion."

Hugo nodded. "And before we go to bed we must write to the youngsters, otherwise it will get crowded out, and we must have letters to go by the launch that brings the crowd up."

Prudence resented the fact that she had to keep admiring him.

She awoke to the almost deafening dawn chorus of the birds, the distant sound of the waterfall, and sunlight striking through the blind slats in tiger-stripes.

She sprang out, looked down to the fiord, and knew that before the busy hours of today rushed upon her she was going to bathe. She slipped into a yellow-checked bathing suit, reluctantly sniffed her hair into a cap - she wouldn't have time to dry it, though she loved the feel of the water through her hair - picked up a towel, and letting herself quietly out of the verandah door, went pussyfooted down the shingle path; then down the lawn towards the beach track.

At the edge of the fiord was a diving-board off the rocks.

The sun struck warmly on her bare shoulders, the ground was moist and warm to her bare feet. She looked down carefully into the clear green water - no snags, just clear water of great depth, showing shingle.

Prudence dived in. The iciness had to be felt to be believed. She came up, gasped, made for the rocks, pulled herself up, stood upright and said out loud: "Could the South Pole be colder?"

She heard a laugh, and Hugo's head appeared over a rock. "Perhaps we could hitch-hike a flight on one of the Globemasters from Christchurch and go find out. Start the first guest house in the Antarctic."

He clambered up, and stood on top, looking over her head to the steep valley walls on the far side of the fiord. "No wonder it's cold, it's the depth. I expect it plunges as far below as it rears above. Two plunges were all I could stand."

"Oh, you've been in?"

"Yes. I'd just got out when you arrived - fortunately."

Prudence's chin went up. "Sorry to have spoiled the solitude for you. I know you regard this as Eden. I'm cast for the role of serpent, I suppose!"

She picked up the towel. He leapt down beside her, grasped her arm above the elbow. "Don't be such a fool, Prudence, a touchy fool at that. Australians are not as ill-mannered as that, believe me, despite our reputation for bluntness. I only meant I hadn't bothered with togs - and had to leap madly for the rocks and get into my shorts when I suddenly heard you on the shingle. Didn't expect you to be so early."

She said, towelling vigorously, because her teeth were chattering, "I felt it would be the only bit of the day I could call my own. There's a hectic time ahead. I suppose you realize that, Hugo Macallister ? "

"I do, dear cousin. I'm in your hands. Lead on, Sinclair."

Sinclair led. She had purpose in her eye and a score of plans in her mind.

"I gather you and Aunt Marguerite had discussed various projects, and that's why you went round the other tourist resorts - to pick up hints?" A thought struck him. "It must have been very soon after I - er - first met you ? "

"It was. Exactly two weeks."

He said quietly, "I'd like to think that my words to you on the way home that night had something to do with that decision. Did they?"

Prudence's voice was low, intense. "I'd rather not discuss that. It seems quite unprofitable - unless you want the satisfaction of feeling you played Providence."

"Oh, hell," said Hugo. "Let's get to work, then. I dare say your six months' waitressing or whatever it was gives you enough advantage to be boss."

"I was a cook." That finished the argument. She disregarded the atmosphere, plunged into details. "I'd like to make a few changes immediately. Give this a less camp-like air without destroying its fundamental simplicity. We need a coffee bar in a corner immediately."

"Oh, lord," groaned Hugo. "All rattan stuff and bamboo curtains, I suppose, same as you see every second shop in Auckland or Sydney - low lights, so you can't see what you're eating, and pots of cactus on the tables!"

"That's not my idea at all. I don't need to copy anyone's ideas. I knew what I wanted to do before I left Rotorua, and if you don't believe me you'll find evidence of it in that package over there ... that came up ahead of me. Besides, tell me how I could import rattan and bamboo here!"

She crossed the room, slit the twine, began to unwrap paper and straw. A crate of china came into view, china of a pattern he had never before seen. There were delicate tree-ferns on the saucers and plates, and inside the rim of each pastel- shaded cup, a native flower, yellow kowhai, scarlet pohutukawa, native clematis and fuchsia, mountain buttercups. Purely Maoriland.

She surveyed the big dining room. "That corner over there ... There are a couple of power plugs and easy access by that door from the verandah. We'll make it a recess by screening it off a little. Hohepa, would you be able to get some tree-ferns from the bush?"

Hugo looked mystified.

She said, "They'll last in water for months and we can have basins of the most glorious ground ferns and vines, put celmisias - mountain daisies - and so on into hollowed-out tree trunks - oh, a host of little darling plants from the bush all around."

"Hollowed-out? How much time will that take us? Good heavens, girl, I'm not thinking about making a canoe!"

She sighed. "I'm not aiming to do anything that takes time. I'm very practical, as you'll find. There are plenty of hollow logs beautifully clothed with moss and tiny plants lying down in the bush, aren't there, Hohepa? With a counter there - or a table if there isn't one - it will be an ideal bar, set up with glass percolators."

Hugo considered it. "I can see it's a good idea, continuing the New Zealand motif, but haven't we got enough on our plate with the first lot arriving day after tomorrow and the Stewarts away?"

Prudence said gently, "I can understand your looking at it like that, and it's your show as well as mine, but I think it's of the utmost importance to impress the first lot of tourists. Many of them will be New Zealanders, and there's nothing quite so successful in advertising as word-of-mouth recommendations.

"We could so raise the standard we could go up a star in a matter of weeks and charge a bit more... except that I think it would be essential to keep a certain number of the quarters in their cabin-like condition for those who prefer to rough it a bit, and want a cheaper holiday anyway - students, deer-stalkers, pig-hunters, trampers."

"Okay, but if you feel you've bitten off more than you can chew, please admit it. Just because you and I clash I don't want you to stick to your guns come hell and high water, and crash. If you flop we're sunk. We can't get on without a cook. I do think we'd be better to take things easier at first. I'm afraid your feelings do override your common sense, Prudence."

Prudence said, moving away, "You have such a delightful way of putting things, Hugo. Well, if you and Hohepa would like to get on with that, I'm off to the kitchen. I'd like to get it all cleared this morning. I certainly couldn't cook with all that junk cluttering up the place. I'm getting everything off the floor for a start. I don't believe in bending - sheer waste of energy - or of having things at the wrong height. I want everything to my hand. Economy of footsteps is essential in a kitchen."

Prudence heard the men going into the bush with the sledge and horse and dogs as she busied herself. It was a formidable task and a back-breaking one, but presently she saw order coming out of chaos. She was relieved to find the Stewarts had recently cleaned the flues of the big ranges, and it was a mercy the power plant was big enough to run two electric ones plus an amazing amount of gadgets; it also supported a large deepfreeze unit, well stocked with frozen venison and Canada geese plus domestic poultry.

She found the cupboards were surprisingly tidy. She got the floor clear at last and began to scrub it She was just finishing when she heard the men and went out to see the sledge, well laden with spoil.

She wiped her reddened sudsy hands on her sack apron in the best charwoman fashion and asked if they would like a drink.

"I'll say," said Hugo, "it was terrifically hot in the bush for all it's so green. Something long and cool, please."

"And your lunch is ready, come and get it."

"Good. Suppose it's just bread and cheese today? A real working day snack. We won't expect anything flossie."

"It's on the verandah," she said dryly. "I didn't want you on my wet kitchen floor."

Hugo paused in astonishment. The table was beautifully set and a lush fern in a scarlet pot sat in the centre. The silver was bright (not her doing, but Jock Stewart's earlier in the week); a tall frosted jug in pale green with a gold rim held Pimm's Number One cup, and floated lemon discs and cucumber on its surface. On a silver tray stood three stemmed glasses of a delicious dessert with a striped jelly base, heaped- up chopped fruit, ginger, nuts and whipped cream.

Some of Hohepa's golden rolls peeped from a snowy napkin set in a bark basket she had found; the butter was in crisp curls, dewy-sweet with sprinkled water; the salad was a perfection of appetizing colour, and a delicious smell of soup that had certainly never come from a packet wafted towards them.

Hohepa laughed at the look on Hugo's face as he sat down. "Surely, boss," he said, "when Prudence was in the kitchen, you didn't expect baked beans on toast!"

In a daze Hugo said, "How did you find time to make broth like this?"

Mischief lit the amber eyes. "By using the pressure-cooker you so despised," she said demurely.

The old Maori looked from one to the other. "You tease each other! You are good friends, yes?"

"My cousin," said Hugo solemnly, "has a very caustic tongue. But who am I to cavil at that? A meal like this is worth a jibe or two. I've been cooking for myself out of billies and a frying pan ever since I came to New Zealand over a year ago."

Prudence brought in a Madras curry she had made from the cold meat she had found. It was circled with fluffy rice decorated with chopped tomato and green pepper, and rich with spices and dried fruits.

"I thought if we had dinner midday, we could just have a buffet tea tonight. Say five-thirty. I've got a very full afternoon. I don't care how long I work as long as I have my kitchen in working order for baking tomorrow.

"Tonight I would like you both to help me dust and mop the rooms and make up the beds. I trust you know a thing or two about bedmaking, Cousin Hugo ? "

He groaned. "Hohepa, we're going to be made to work for our tucker!"

The old Maori's teeth flashed whitely in his brown face. "Te kai a te tangata ke, he kai titongi kaki? Te ki a tona ringa tino kai, tino makona."

Prudence laughed, "I don't know, Hohepa, I can always enjoy a meal cooked by other hands than mine!"

"Why, what did he say?" demanded Hugo.

"You'd better translate, Hohepa. I only know Maori well enough to get the general gist of it."

Hohepa said, twinkling, " 'Borrowed food only tickles the throat, but gathered by his own hand will eat with contentment'."

Hugo stretched his aching arms above his head. "I've earned my kai today," he said. "But we'll help with the dishes, then you can tell us exactly what you want doing with this stuff from the bush."

The coffee bar completely transformed the rather bare dining room with its three long tables. They found an old counter in an out-house, scrubbed it, and put it in place.

"I'll cover it with some formica, when I can get some," said Hugo.

"Oh, good. Meanwhile snowy tableloths will do. They've got the most wonderful stock of linen. Hohepa, do you think you could bring in that quaint old dresser in the kitchen? It would look charming set out with the new china. Next year we'll put small tables in here."

As Hohepa went off, Hugo said, "You think you'll be here next year, then?"

"Yes, why not?"

"I feel it might be a flash in the pan with you. And the winter may get you - the isolation."

"Wouldn't it get you?"

"No, I find solitude best for my work."

Prudence was silent.

He looked up. "What - not at a loss for an answer, are you?"

"Not really. But you'd take some convincing I'm not a femme fatale. Can't reconcile a cook - and sack aprons - with what you know about me, can you? You probably expect me to go round in glamorous garments and an aura of some seductive perfume instead of ..." she sniffed at her fingers, "smelling of gorse."

"Gorse!"

"Yes. The hand emollient I used after the scrubbing. I expect it's oil of almonds really. I always think gorse has a nutty smell. It's too wholesome a perfume to go with Other Woman behaviour. You think that in no time I'll be yearning for bright lights, gaiety, civilization, men ... you really don't know me at all!"

"I haven't any ambition to," said Hugo.

Prudence, her hands shaking, went back to her kitchen.

After their buffet tea she said crisply: "I'm going to my room for half an hour's rest. Then we'll do the rooms. I suppose you have no objection to wielding a broom, Cousin Hugo?"

"None. I'll go out on the verandah for a quiet smoke till the whistle blows!"

"Real slave-driver, isn't she, boss?" said Hohepa mischievously. "Think I'll come out on the verandah with you."

Prudence had a quick shower, lay down in her dressing gown, and when she felt revived donned a simple white cotton blouse open at the throat, and a gay peasant skirt and green plastic sandals. She felt a giant refreshed.

Fortunately the rooms were small, the floors were good and had recently been polished. The chintz covers and scatter rugs were relatively new.

Adequacy was the keynote here, not luxury, but Prudence felt the wide verandah the rooms opened on to would compensate for the bare simplicity of the sleeping quarters. It was furnished with cane chairs and bright cushions, small tables and over-flowing book cases, and would relieve the congestion in the lounge. Here, behind glass, the guests could enjoy the beauty of the fiord yet be sheltered from wind and weather and sandflies.

It was eleven before they finished, each coverlet smoothed to taut perfection, the vases filled with water, ready to be filled with flowers the next day.

They trooped into the kitchen and fixing themselves down. Hohepa and Hugo lit up. Hohepa offered his rolling to Prudence first. She shook her head.

"She doesn't smoke," said Hugo.

Prudence said, "My cousin thinks I have other vices." Then she wished she hadn't said it. There was something about the old Maori that made you feel bickering was undignified and petty.

He said now, gently, "We are all tired, I think."

Hugo crushed out his half-smoked cigarette. "And I guess Prudence is more tired than any of us. I'll make the supper. What would you like, tea or coffee ?"

"Tea, please. I'm fond of a good brew of coffee, but tea is still my favourite tipple."

"Mine too," said Hugo. "True Australian." A sense of shared peace and accomplishment descended upon the three of them.

Presently Hohepa said smiling, "I'm dropping asleep in my chair, and presently I shall snore and it will be most unbecoming. Will it be all right with you, Prudence, if I start the baking tomorrow afternoon at four?"

"I'll leave that to you, Hohepa, that's your department."

"Well, it will mean the bread will be fresh yet I'll be able to be on deck next morning to take the guests out in the launch, if they want that their first day. They usually do. I must brush up my legends."

Prudence's eyes twinkled back at his. "Do you really need to brush them up? I've heard you were never at a loss. I imagine that before long Hugo will be incorporating them in his books."

Mischief lit the brown eyes. "Will they need to be cold fact, boss?"

"Definitely. None of your embroideries, Joe."

"Pity. I've such a good imagination. I ought to have been an author meself. Well, goodnight, all."

Prudence sat sleepily on. What an effort was needed to get yourself out of your chair! Pity one couldn't drop off to sleep here and now in this post-supper, delightfully drowsy state of half-slumber when everything dulled, even resentment. When nothing mattered much any more.

She opened her eyes at Hugo's touch. It was light and warm upon her arm. "I think you ought to get off to bed now, Prudence, it's been quite a day. You've worked like a Trojan."

His blue eyes were close to the amber brown ones, they held a warmth and admiration too. A pleasant feeling stirred Prudence's pulses. She recognized it as a warning signal, so she said ironically,

"Dear me, Cousin Hugo, do I detect a faint respect in your tone? How it must go against the grain! Don't let my efficiency in household matters blind you to the fact that my standards are deplorably low."

Hugo straightened up, turned and walked out of the room. She felt forlorn, wanted to say sorry, but didn't know how to pick her words.

She went to her room, undressed hurriedly, got into bed without the last look she had promised herself at the silver loveliness outside, the moon-splashed waters of the fiord, the unearthly light striking down from far snowfields, glinting on miniature rainbows in the gossamer mist of the everlasting falls.

CHAPTER VI

Of necessity the next day was all work, concentrating on the preparation of provisions. Prudence could have laughed at the faintly appalled look on Hugo's face. She could even find it in her to be a little sorry for him. After all, she thought, this is the work I like best, but he'll be just longing to escape to his room to get on with his current book ... and when he'll find time I just don't know, with the tourist season descending upon us! She closed her mind against the feeling of pity.

Hugo, busy himself with the endless-seeming jobs in the kitchen Prudence was finding him, said, "You know it would have been far more sensible to continue exactly as my aunt had been doing, simply serving nourishing meals in the rough and ready style that always obtained here. It's just wearing you out and won't last."

"Comment on that again in three months' time, will you? I may even surprise myself. Depends what staff I can obtain for the height of the season. But I shan't flag."

"I think your ambition will override your gumption. People coming here have evidently been satisfied with the type of accommodation provided, so why wear yourself out trying to put on style?"

Prudence went on peeling apples with a swivel peeler she wielded with such speed that Hugo was secretly amazed. "But the Tourist brass hats aren't satisfied, and if we don't show a better standard, a readiness to adopt and carry out new ideas, then they'll make a bid to take over. I'd not blame them. We can't expect to be allowed to run this to suit ourselves, with a minimum of effort. Fiordland has the greatest tourist potential of all. If we're not prepared to move with the times we won't be allowed to keep it merely as a money-making concern."

"But if they want that sort of standard they'll have to be prepared to put an expert in charge of it - not just someone with six months' experience plus a flair for cooking."

Prudence dropped her eyes. "I've an idea they'll be quite happy to continue with me, and you never know - they might even feel you are an acquisition. You could use your pen to boost up the publicity."

They measured glances. Prudence felt she'd gone too far and he would stamp out of the kitchen, but he burst out laughing.

"For sheer effrontery you take the biscuit! Oh well, if you must wear yourself out with all these frills I'll let you have your head for a bit, and when your enthusiasm has spent itself you'll come to your senses."

"And you'll have the pleasure of saying I told you so!"

"Probably. It's one of the keener joys of living, that. Few of us are able to resist it. What would you like me to do now?"

"Take those Pavlova cake shells out of the oven, they should be about dry now, and stack them in that glass-fronted cabinet with greaseproof paper between each - no, not waxed, greaseproof."

"What's that terrific pile of apples for?"

"For the apple pies."

"You mean you'll stew it and bake squares of pastry for on top?"

Prudence looked scornful. "No. Real apple pies. In pie dishes. And cut in wedges when served. Wedges always look more genuine. That reminds me, when I get the menus made up would you type them? We'll put "deep dish apple pie" so they know it's the real Mackay. It's a great pity we have to start off with this hole-in-the-wall business with them queueing up for soup and dinner orders, but I realize we can't do anything about that yet with no waitresses.

"I wonder if Hohepa's granddaughter will be able to bring up some extras. Anyway, we'll set a buffet table out with the desserts - they look much more attractive whole than just as portions on a plate - and I'll go in and serve them from there."

"I expect we ought to be grateful you aren't changing everything from the word go. What are you thinking of eventually?"

"Well, I've not decided yet. I can only do it if you approve, of course - after all, we are partners - but I would like at least half of this wall taken down and glasses halfway from the ceiling. With a new decor for the kitchen and a few modern grilling and poaching devices and so on, it would be a good thing to have a modern and hygienic kitchen exposed to view. Creates interest. I believe Mr. Stewart is a first-rate carpenter."

"I have some modest skill myself that way."

"Organizing the guests' time will be fairly easy and follow the same pattern as of old. It's all here, bathing, boating, fishing, hunting, tramping. The guides won't be bringing in parties of trampers for a week or two yet. Have you noticed the huts nearer the falls? They're for the guides and trampers. They eat up here, though."

Hugo said, "I'm going to order another launch. I'm used to handling boats and I'd like one of my very own. Haven't had anywhere to put one till now."

"Good show," said Prudence.

At eleven that night Hugo said, "You're keeping those ovens pretty hot, aren't you? Won't we be going to bed soon? It will be a hectic day tomorrow."

"I've just got the sponges to make."

"Sponges? Whatever for? Or if you must, why not tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow's going to be far too hectic if I don't get everything possible done tonight. I'll need the ovens for the roasts and casseroles tomorrow - and scones." She began breaking eggs, switched on the electric beaters.

Hugo gazed at the increasing mounds of eggshells. "For Pete's sake how many? You'll never have enough tins."

"Oh, I'm only using tins for the jelly ones, so the jelly will turn out the same size. The rest I'll make, in paper." As she talked she was cutting oblongs of paper to fit the oven slides, turning them up squarely and fitting the corners neatly, fastening them with pins. "See, no waste of shelf room." She poured in the sponge mixture, quickly slid them into the oven.

"Won't they flatten out all over the place?" said Hugo helplessly.

"No. They would if you didn't use a very hot oven. The edges bevel a bit, of course, but you can trim them and use them as a base for the trifles tomorrow. Hugo, wash up as I go, would you? We don't want to be too late; and between washings would you chop those crystallized cherries and blanch the almonds? I mean get their skins off ... pour boiling water on them. I'll manage the decorations and fillings tomorrow if they're ready."

"That's always something to be thankful for," said Hugo sourly. "It wouldn't surprise me at all if we were still here at three. You'll suddenly decide to do the icings after all!"

Prudence laughed. "Oh, no. They're best done at the last. I must remember to top some with cream and sliced Chinese gooseberries. Nothing looks more attractive than their thin green slices with the black specks arranged so symmetrically in them. To get the best effects you need flan tins. Perhaps you could solder me some tine into the middle of round sponge tins some time - then when you serve them you put them on a plain green plate, so it shows through the circle. Oh, I think I hear Hohepa, he must be through."

Hohepa came in in his baking overalls dusty with flour, his hair thick with it, looking tired.

Prudence smiled at him affectionately, "Hohepa, you must have your supper and right off to bed. We listened to the forecast and it looks as if we're going to greet the guests in true Fiordland weather... rain and mist."

Hohepa said, "I listened in too, but I think you don't need to worry. It won't break as soon as that; I think we'll get them here in the fine."

Prudence gave him a grateful look, said, "Then I'll back you."

She surprised a sardonic look on Hugo's face. "He probably thinks I'm kidding up to Hohepa. If he had lived among the Maoris as long as I have in Rotorua, he'd back Hohepa too," she thought.

The morning was all any tourist could have wished. Prudence could feel even her fingertips tingling with excitement. The Hostel lay in a blaze of sunlight. The windows that did not open on to verandahs were hooded with gay sun-blinds; they put out the vivid, poppy-like sun-umbrellas whose shafts were sunk into tree stumps with tables built around them.

The garden was a blaze of colour with scarlet geraniums splashed against the house. Starry pink clematis trailed over arches and trellises, rustic fences rioted in rambler roses and early nasturtiums. Aunt Marguerite had loved her garden. Daisies frothed in every corner, catmint and thyme and lavender took advantage of every crevice in the rocky paths that ran everywhere, pansies poked thoughtful faces in every gap in the borders, alyssum, yellow, lilac, white, bordered the beds.

And all about the garden crowded the moist, warm bush with its secret haunts of cascade and fern, birdsong and insect life, always looking ready to take advantage of any lull in their gardening activities, to take possession once more of the green cleared glade.

Hohepa was bringing huge baker's baskets of crusty rolls, old-fashioned cottage loaves, long sandwich loaves, brown and white. Prudence had made her fillings, piped decorations, iced biscuits, cooked scones and pikelets, made the pies, and had prepared the savoury soufflés as far as possible.

Her buffet table was a masterpiece in colour and delectability, with perfectly turned-out moulds of jellied vegetables and meats, salads that were sheer artistry, trifles and fruit salads and meringues decorated as beautifully as a bride's cake.

Prudence surveyed it all lovingly. This was the dream of a lifetime, to have a free hand with all this. The rare-flavoured local crayfish was tossed in mayonnaise and cupped in chalices of crisp pale green lettuce, tinned shrimps were masked in a curried sauce, presently the perfectly browned chickens would be popped on to beds of fluffy white rice, surrounded by yellow-brown kumaras, the native sweet potato, and finished off with an edge of parsley and chopped tomato.

"This," said Prudence, "is all extra - yet free - to the first tourists of the season, an investment in advertising. Aunt Marguerite and I planned it that way in our letters. By Christmas our tariff will be up."

She sensed Hugo's deep unease. "We've got to risk something," she said. "If it doesn't pay I promise you we can revert to the old style."

His face cleared. "I will hand it to you that it's a wonderful display. I've never seen anything better, even in some of the very exotic places I visited on my travels."

They had agreed they would all three go down to welcome the launch party who would have had morning tea served on board. Then while the guests were settling in, Prudence would put the last-minute things into the ovens. She changed into a white dress splashed with yellow poppies and her chestnut hair glinted above the white like copper beech leaves. Her colour was high on her cheekbones, her eyes bright with anticipation and a trace of nervousness. She wore green sandals on her slim bare feet.

Hugo donned immaculate off-white slacks and silk shirt open at the throat with a blue-spotted cravat tied carelessly. Hohepa joined them, the sun striking on his grey curly head, moving down the hillside with the lithe muscular grace of the Maori. Prudence smiled to herself, amusement touched with bitterness.

"We present a united front to the world," she said in Hugo's ear. "If they only knew!"

They saw the launch put about to come in to Thunder Fiord. Prudence's heart was beating fast. So much depends upon their first guests. She hoped there would be no cranks, no irritating organizers, no bickerings and jealousies.

The blurred faces on the launch became features, personalities. The pilot shouted greetings, they tied up, and the crew began assisting passengers ashore.

"You were right, Prudence, there's a toddler and a baby in arms," said Hugo. "They weren't mentioned on the bookings, either."

They had a horse and sledge ready for the guests' baggage.

"Now isn't that quaint?" said an American voice, warm with pleasure. "A horse and buggy! I guess this is about the one place in the world there are no cars."

"In fact the last Eden," said Hugo's whisper in Prudence's ear.

They were greeting their guests, murmuring words of welcome, then the last party came ashore - three men. Prudence's eyes widened - three she knew, members of a Tourist Commission.

One of them stepped forward, caught her hands as she said, "Why, Mark Swaine!"

"Didn't expect to see us, did you? And we're extras. But we expected to see you. Heard at Te Anau you were here, came through, told the Milford folk that if it didn't matter to them we'd see them later and came through today since there was a launch coming. Hope it won't put you out - I believe you had a slice of bad luck right at the start, losing Mrs. Stewart temporarily. Never mind, if anyone can cope, it's you. You know Bruce Hanning and Rick Bell, don't you?"

Prudence drew Hugo forward. "This is my partner - and a sort of cousin. He's the author, Hugo Macallister."

"Hugo Macallister! The Australian author? Oh, man, what a draw! We must make copy out of this - to have Hugo Macallister and Prudence-in-your-kitchen in the one resort is beyond belief! I forecast a great future for this place."

Prudence saw Hugo's brow wrinkle. Puzzled he was - that odd phrase Prudence in your kitchen. The guests had paused, were looking at them curiously.

Mark Swaine waved a hand to them, said, "Well, you certainly are in luck, folks. Your chef is none but New Zealand's Mrs. Beeton - Prudence-in-your-kitchen. Her recipes go into almost every newspaper in New Zealand. And you've got an Australian author as your host - Hugo Macallister."

There were murmurs of incredulous delight. Prudence wanted to giggle at the look on Hugo's face.

There were rumours about autograph books, complimentary remarks: "I must write and tell my brother, he's a real fan of Hugo Macallister's." "Well, what do you know, I've got a book of his right here now. I'll get him to sign it, what a treasure!" And the kindly American voice said to Prudence, "This is wonderful. Some folk travel round the world collecting teaspoons or national souvenirs - I collect recipes. Nothing like foreign food on your table for recalling places you've visited on your trip."

They climbed the track to the hostel. They seemed a happy- go-lucky crowd.

Hugo said to her quietly, "Been laughing up your sleeve at me, have you? My scathing remarks on your probably writing fashion notes - my doubts as to your experience. What satisfaction did that give you? Aren't you ever open?"

Her eyes met his levelly. "You were so sure of yourself, Hugo Macallister, you didn't ask, you know. You formed your own lightning impressions - just as you did the first time we met."

"Not much chance of forming a wrong impression there, I might remind you. You were out with a married man. Can't explain that away."

At that inopportune moment Mark Swaine came up to them. "Oh, Prudence, I was talking to Godfrey Simmonds before leaving. He sent you his warmest regards, says he missed you like heck."

Prudence bent swiftly, turned up her sandal, then pretended to be digging a stone out of the plastic tread. It would give her colour a chance to subside, or at least be less fiery, and perhaps they'd think it due to the stooping.

Her hair swung over her face. "Oh, I daresay he'll get used to his new typist in time." It sounded lame, she knew - or would to Hugo. Yet Mark would mean it in a business way. Or would have taken it to mean that. She added, "How is Godfrey?"

"Oh, fine. Actually he was to be with us on this commission, but as he's been appointed to take a survey of the islands' tourist attractions after Christmas, he's off to the Pacific - so he felt he shouldn't be away now. He'll be away some time - he's to visit Australia too. Wonderful chance for him. His wife's going along too. He thought I might catch up with you at the Franz Josef. That was the last he had heard of you."

That sounded as if they had kept in touch. Prudence avoided Hugo's eyes, straightened up. "How very nice for them to have a trip like that."

So there was one good thing, she needn't fear Godfrey turning up here this season.

The enthusiasm of the Commission for all Prudence proposed to do was all that was needed to relieve Hugo's doubts. He said so to her that night.

She was weary and admitted it. He smiled rather forgivingly. "I might have had more faith in you had you confided in me more fully. And it has been hard to tie up such domesticity with what I knew of you. I'd not realized you were running a guest house at twenty in the heart of the tourist area. No doubt you got your amusement out of the situation. A sort of revenge for my condemnation of you that night."

Prudence looked away so he might not see the wistfulness in her eyes. "Not only then, Hugo. It has been ever since. It simply has a habit of cropping up, and the condemnation is always there. I'm going to bed - good night."

As it was Fiordland the bad weather came along all right, with days when the guests were confined to the hostel, when they lit fires to keep the house dry, and to guard against the danger of mildew. Mists drifted in from the Tasman, wreathed the mountain peaks and descended into the valleys; rain blotted out the fiords and all that could be heard was the slap-slap of the tide, the eerie dripping of the rain through the forest trees, the increased thunder of the falls.

There were days when trampers came in soaked to the skin, having tramped in downpour and forded streams; deerstalkers arrived with smelly skins, telling of being washed out of their pup tents. But it never lasted - the mists would suddenly roll up the mountain sides, revealing enhanced beauty with every corrie spilling a new waterfall; the squalls would pass eastward over the ranges, leaving the west coast dry and sunny with a relenting sun drying up the pools and the wet bush in steaming vapour.

The work of the guest house was hard, demanding, with a certain weariness of spirit that had nothing to do with the physical work but came from dealing constantly with the public. Most of them were so thrilled with the beauty about them that they were delighted with everything else, but there were always the grizzlers.

The ones who didn't like being cut off from mail, from telephone, who hadn't realized it would be quite so remote, who complained about the children, the rain, their sunburn, most of all about the sandflies.

There were days when Prudence felt she thought about nothing but the menus to come. She found herself muttering as she went about her work, "Perhaps bacon-and-egg pies for savoury supper tomorrow night, or bacon-and-banana rolls. Perhaps stuffed tomatoes, or would they like pancakes?"

She tried to find out the backgrounds of the guests, to concoct dishes that would have a nostalgic flavour for them, American and Canadian dishes, Australian ones, Yorkshire puddings, Lancashire hot-pots, Devonshire cream and jam.

There were stacks of cut lunches to prepare. All the linen was washed on the premises and drying was often a problem, though they were improving the facilities in the drying-room. Prudence longed for Mrs. Stewart to get back so that part of the work, the laundry and bedrooms, could be turned over to her.

Hugo said one night, "When the Stewarts get back we must see about making out a roster for days off. We can't stand this pace."

She nodded. "Yes, it was more than we bargained for - just three of us to cope, but never mind, we've managed. You'd like your days off to be spent on your books, I suppose."

He considered that. "I'm not doing too badly with an hour and a half each night - I sleep so well I can do with short rations - and that can keep me going till winter, when there'll be very few tourists. I think we'll make our day off the time for exploring on our own, and when the new launch arrives - which won't be till after Christmas - we'll explore all around the coast."

Prudence repeated, "Our day off? Won't we take them separately?"

He shook his head. "No. The Stewarts will want theirs together, and the more I see of this life the more I realize that unless we get right away from Thunder, we'll still be at the guests' beck and call. In terrain like this you can't go by yourself - so you'll have to put up with my company. I think we can forget our differences enough to enjoy tramping or sailing together."

Prudence felt a little warm glow pervade her heart.

Jock Stewart came in unexpectedly by the launch one day, glad to be home and able to tell them Bessie was well on the mend. "I can go back to Invercargill in a fortnight and get her. She'd have been well enough to have come now had we not been so isolated - but they take no chances."

Every now and then they had two or three days between guests. That had always been the custom at Thunder Hostel. True, they spent most of the time putting in the improvements they had planned, but it was heavenly to be free. They had their small tables in the dining room, and their kitchen modernized and the glass wall in. They were leaving the bedrooms in their neat simplicity because they did not have to raise the tariff too much. The excellent cuisine would spread their fame. The two primitive airstrips were improved and bookings made for the scenic flights of the little Cessnas to touch down for a meal and a look around.

The Commission had succeeded in persuading Hugo to write some articles about the Fiord, and he had pinned Hohepa down to the unvarnished truth for the Maori legends he included. These, appearing in New Zealand papers and magazines, brought in more bookings than they could take for the Christmas and New Year holiday period in the height of the southern summer.

Hohepa's granddaughter arrived, with other students, and how glad Prudence was to see them. They came as soon as Otago University shut down for the long vacation. It wouldn't reopen till March. Maraea Pewhairangi was exquisite, with the beautifully carved lips and chiselled nostrils of the pure Maori, a lustre to her black smooth hair, and a great sense of fun. Ruahine Matamua was no less beautiful, a little paler, because her grandmother was pakeha. Ruahine was studying medicine. Norah Fawcett and Geraldine Beech were at the university too, Norah a New Zealander, Gerry an English girl, and they all four flatted together in Dunedin.

They would have four days' clear break before the first of the holiday guests arrived - that would be ten days before Christmas when the schools broke up. Janny and Keith would be on that launch. Prudence found herself getting excited about the arrival of the children. She cleaned out their rooms thoroughly, taking care to replace their possessions exactly as she found them.

Once she looked up to see Hugo watching her rather indulgently. This was a change, for although they worked as a team, she was always conscious that under the outward harmony there was a coldness and distrust. It hurt her, for to Jock and Hohepa, the guests and the waitresses, he was all warm friendliness.

He said now: "You're getting a big time out of preparing for the kids, aren't you?"

She nodded. "Yes, it will make this more of a home. It's so long since I had any family about me."

"Better not let anyone else hear you say that. They'd realize you don't look on me as a cousin."

"Well -1 don't."

"But I think it serves very well; the slight relationship is quite a blessing here, in this isolated place, where any time in an emergency we could be left alone."

"I don't foresee it - and anyway you're quite safe, I'd have no designs on you. You aren't the sort I'd choose to be cast on a desert island with, believe me!"

"That's mutual," said Hugo, walking away.

That night Prudence said to him, "I'm having a day quite to myself tomorrow. It's nothing to me what you do with yourself of course, but if you want to spend all day on your book I'll send you in meals on trays. You won't get much done once the rush starts."

"Good idea. Because when the youngsters arrive they'll want what time we can spare them - in lieu of parents."

Prudence turned her head away. Hugo Macallister was nice. Too nice, nice in the way Godfrey had been. She didn't want to find him likeable. If someone you disliked despised you, it didn't matter so much.

Hugo said, "What do you plan to do yourself?"

She said dreamily, "It's lack of planning I'm after. Nothing organized, nothing methodical. To take the day as the mood takes me... and to be quite alone."

She woke at five with bars of sunlight slanting across her bed through the open slats, and to the chorus of bush birds, singing, singing. What a wonderful world, a golden sunshiny dream-dust world. Beauty unsurpassed, unlimited. She went to her window, pulled the blind up, looked out lovingly.

Yesterday's rainfall had given birth to twenty new waterfalls, dropping down the cliffs at the far end of the fiord in shining foaming leaps. Her eyes lit up. This would be the morning to do what she'd like to have done last big rainfall, only there were too many guests about... wash her hair under that waterfall past the big red data. It fell into a perfect basin there - room to splash and tumble after rain, even to swim a few strokes.

She slipped out of her nightgown and into her yellow bathing suit, picked up a couple of towels, a bubble of shampoo, punctured it with her nail scissors ready for use, and, carefully holding it so would not spill, stepped quietly to the verandah and down the steps across the rock paths towards the bush line.

This must have been what it was like when the earth was new ... sun, water, trees, the good rich earth ... no wars, or the shadow of war, only stars in orbit, no fall-out, no places laid waste ... just teeming fertility, song, beauty, health....

She dropped her towels on a rock, stepped into the water, edged against the cliff, and cried out for sheer joy as the water tumbled over her body, buffeting her with its force.

She soaped and rubbed vigorously, loving the feel of the suds as they cascaded from the crown of her head to her toes. It looked such a small waterfall from the hostel, yet here it had such force you couldn't keep your eyes open. She turned into the fall of water for the final rinsing.

Suddenly two arms came round her, two hands reached out to her soapy head, dug into her hair, began rubbing with gusto.

Prudence screamed.

Hugo swung her out of the leaping water, held her against him. "It's all right, Prudence, it's only me. I thought you saw me coming - I shouted as I came in, 'Like a hand with that shampooing?' I didn't dream you hadn't heard me, even thought you nodded."

She clung to him, her face against his hairy chest, dripping wet, a hand at her heart.

"Hugo, you chump! I couldn't hear for the falls. Or see you for the spray. It forces your eyes shut."

"Sorry, what did you think? Think it was a Maori warrior from the lost tribe of Te Anau or something?"

"I don't know... I only know I was glad it was you."

He laughed, water running down his brown face from the spray, his eyes very blue. "Well, that's quite something after your Greta Garbo-ish words last night - wanting to be alone!"

His words shocked Prudence into an awareness of their closeness, his lean hard wet body holding hers against him, braced against the pull of the stream and the suction about their feet. She took his hands from her waist immediately.

"Spoil-sport," said Hugo.

She said breathlessly, looking away, "I must dry my hair."

His tone was disappointed. "Aren't you going to swim?"

The water looked tempting with the sun on it. Not that it would be warm, it would take all day to warm. Somewhere up on the peaks this came from, snows were still melting.

She relented. And dived in. There was a splash beside her as Hugo followed The first plunge took, their breath away, then their circulation began to tingle and in a few moments the temperature felt just right. They dived and gambolled, splashing each other, enmity forgotten. They swam to the side, clinging to the edge of a rock, to get their breath back. Their feet didn't touch bottom, but swayed with the current.

Hugo picked up a wet witch-lock from her forehead. "It seems I owe you an apology. Your dark chestnut doesn't come out of a bottle, does it?"

"No, it's just a bit unfortunate my hair happens to be the popular shade. It even has lighter streaks on top. I don't blame anyone for thinking it was dyed."

They swam slowly to the other side of the pool, clambered out and came to the towels. Prudence looked around. "Didn't you bring one of your own?"

He grinned. "No. Always supplying me with them, aren't you? I saw you go through the garden - I wasn't even up, so I didn't wait for a towel, shot into my trunks, and after you. I don't like you bathing alone. It's too dangerous."

He expected her to argue. She merely said, "I suppose that's right. I'd not thought of it. You could get a cramp very easily in these waters, I suppose. But next time bring your own towel -1 wanted that second one to dry my hair thoroughly."

"Oh, one will take the worst of it off, Prue, and we'll lie out in the sun on that slanting rock - it's just made for it, see - and forget about the time."

Prue. The diminutive had quite an affectionate, cousinly sound. Well, there were so few of them here, and she and Hugo were the only young ones, so she supposed they needed to let this hostility die down.

"Okay," she said. He took the towel from her, rubbed vigorously at her hair, then cast the towel from him. "Come on."

"Not so fast. I must brush and comb it. I must look like a birch broom in a fit."

"You look -" he began, and broke off. Prudence looked at him curiously. But he didn't finish it. He watched while she brushed and combed it, briefly pressing a few waves in with her fingers. He gave her a hand to gain the edge of the rock, a gently sloping slab, worn smooth by other waterfalls, for hundreds - perhaps thousands - of years. But through the years of fiordland rain, slips had blocked up that main flow and now it was always dry.

They flung themselves face down upon it, pillowed their heads on their arms, felt the glorious warmth of the sun- soaked rock seep into them, lulling them into drowsy contentment. There was just room for the two of them. Hugo's arm was against hers, his knee warm against her leg.

He said, "I think we should add that book to our list from Whitcombe's for the children - The Secret of the Lost Tribe."

"Which one is that, Hugo? You mean a book written about the tribe that disappeared from Te Anau?"

"Yes ... didn't you see it in that catalogue? By Phyl Wardell. I believe she came down here before writing it. A youngster's book. Did you read up about the tribe in any of our local books?"

"Not to any extent."

"Evidently in the eighteenth century a party of Ngatimamoe at Otago Heads broke the peace and fled to Preservation Inlet away down the coast. Later another party did the same and fled to the bush beyond Te Anau - they were caught up with, some killed, and those who escaped fled into the wilds and became the Lost Tribe. Slight traces of them appeared from time to time, but they were never found.

"It was thought later that one of the last refuges of the lost tribe was Te Wai O Pani, a lake high up in the mountains between - I think it was the south and middle fiords of Te Anau above a high cliff and backed by a high cliff. Ideal terrain for hiding, I'd think. That's how Doctor Orbell found the takahe - he went up there with a party to look for relics. Do you remember it, Prue?"

"Yes. Dad was always tremendously interested in such things. I remember at school we were taught that the takahe was probably extinct, along with the huia and the moa. We used to have pictures of them in our school journals, big birds, with iridescent plumage - they say the colouring is glorious, and they're flightless, of course, like the kiwis. I think I'd be about nine or ten when word came through they had been discovered. I expect they'd thrive in larger numbers if only we could get rid of our ground pests. You don't wonder that they survived there, do you? It's so sealed off, so inaccessible."

"Yes, and it's to be hoped that they keep it that way. There may be other very rare birds ... they get the odd report of hearing a laughing owl, don't they? Imagine, though, if one was exploring and suddenly saw a giant moa. I wonder if it's within the bounds of possibility."

"It's a magic thought, but I don't suppose so."

"Do you think that in years to come we might be given permission to go in with a party of naturalists - if we trained till we were fit enough ? "

"Well, you might, Hugo, but they probably wouldn't want a woman along. They'd think you could write it up expertly. You said years ahead. You are staying longer than the trial year, then?"

"I think I'm here for keeps. And you ? " He had turned his face on his hands, his eyes were close to hers, seeking the answer.

She dropped her eyes. "Me too," she said lightly. "The solitudes get you."

They lay there, supremely content, drowsy, warm with a delicious natural warmth. Presently she felt the first stirrings of hunger. She sat up a little, turned on her back, put a hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun, said, yawning, "Well, I suppose we'd better go up to the house, get ourselves something to eat, then you can get on with your book."

"What about a day off? I thought we might pack ourselves some lunch and explore a bit. And when we have a longer spell we'll go to Milford some day and pick up the guide and tramp back here along the track. Makes you feel a new chum when the guests ask have you tramped it. In good weather it would be only the one night at one of the huts."

"Oh, Hugo, that would be simply heavenly. I've been longing to do just that." Her hand was under her head, she opened her eyes and drew back sharply.

Hugo was leaning over her, his intention obvious. The blue eyes full of devilment.

"This is supposed to be Eden ... and you make a very bewitching Eve."

His hands were on her shoulders, he had her in an iron grip; his mouth came down on hers. Prudence was helpless. Feelings she did not dare analyse were flooding her. Hugo took his mouth from hers, laughed down at her ... then his eyes narrowed as he saw the white fury of her face.

Prudence's hand came up, caught him a stinging blow across the mouth. "Don't you ever do that again!" she said, struggling up.

His hands gripped her upper arms, bruising them. "You - you tiger-cat! Didn't anyone ever tell you it's not done - to hit a man! He can't hit back!" His eyes were blazing bluely.

"Not done!" Prudence choked. "Yet it's evidently permissible to kiss a girl against her will ... and take her off guard at that, so she's got no chance to get away."

He looked at her unrepentantly. "Was it altogether against your will? I mean at first? You know, I could have sworn you were enjoying it too... till you stiffened."

Sheer anger boiled up in Prudence, up and over. "Hugo Macallister - of all the vain, self-deceiving men I've ever met! Let me tell you I've no taste at all for meaningless, come-by- chance kisses. They don't mean a thing. Kissing without caring is horrible."

His eyes were narrow slits. "How was I to know you were so damned particular? My first impression of you was that you weren't. You're too intense by far, you know. You can't take anything lightly. I suppose that's how you got all tangled up with a married man."

Prudence caught her lip between her teeth, said on a sob, "Oh, why, why did it have to be you sharing this with me? It poisons everything!"

She turned in his grasp with a sudden swift movement that took him unawares, leapt off the rock, hurting her feet as she came down on shingle, bent over the pool, scooped up water, splashed it over her face, scrubbing at her lips, seized the sodden towel, wiped her face, and sprang away, running as fast as she could to the refuge of her own room.

Fifteen minutes later she heard him come into the house, heard the buzz of his electric razor, then, on the heels of that, the clickety-clack of the typewriter going furiously.

She prepared a breakfast tray ... he shouldn't have to complain she punished him by letting him cook his own breakfast ... and gave it to Hohepa. "Take this to Hugo's room, would you? He's flat out on his book and doesn't want to be disturbed."

She looked up at the heights above from the kitchen window ... the heights she longed to climb. It was foolhardy to go alone. You involved other people if you were lost. Now if only ... she checked her straying thoughts. Solitude was infinitely to be preferred to such company. She would unpack her father's books, which had arrived from the North by the last launch, then take out a deck chair and read. She would shut out all thought of Hugo Macallister; if he could lose himself in his work, she would lose herself in leisure. Even to herself she shied away from the thought that she was still conscious of a traitorous warmth within her as the aftermath of that kiss, a bitter-sweet awareness of all she was missing in life, the enchantment of a man-woman world.

She found she couldn't rest, so plunged into work instead. Jock had made her some more bookcases to accommodate the overflow of books; she rearranged the bedroom more to her own taste, typed out a fortnight's supply of recipes for the papers.

Finally she admitted to herself that she would be glad when more guests came. But she wouldn't admit it was because Hugo would then have to emerge, be outwardly pleasant.

CHAPTER VII

At last it was time for the launch. Prudence came out of the verandah, tall and slim in an apricot linen skirt and a white blouse, straw sandals on her feet. Hugo came out of his room, in tussore, moved down the hill with her, outwardly united, host and hostess.

They were shocked out of their stiff politeness by the sight of the first figure to disembark.

"Why, Bessie!" Prudence caught Mrs. Stewart's arms, and in the natural joy of seeing her, kissed her. Undemonstrative Mrs. Stewart looked inordinately pleased. Thai Hugo was wringing her hand: "Why, Jock was coming for you by this boat."

"Aye, I know. But they said there was no reason why I couldn't come now, so thought I'd be here before him - I checked carefully at Milford to make sure he wasn't on his way. They made a real good job of my feet. I'm raring to get to work, that last week or so of idleness fair irked me."

"I do wish Jock had come down to the landing - he usually does, but he was fixing something. What a surprise he'll get."

Hugo was no longer astounded at the number of guests, particularly New Zealanders, who greeted Prudence with warmth, due to having either studied her recipes for years or having stayed at the guest house in Rotorua.

"Popularity based on well-lined stomachs," he said once, mockingly.

Prudence merely said lightly, "Oh, everyone comes to Fiordland sooner or later, and as everyone also treks to Rotorua to see the geysers, it's to be expected." But even as she said it she thought to herself: But not Godfrey. He knows I'm here. He won't come. He'll always make excuses if it's suggested as part of his job - and he'd not take a private holiday here. Marian is too sophisticated.

Prudence had more time with Mrs. Stewart back on the job and began her early preparations for Christmas, baking several cakes and putting them aside, making mincemeat while the last of the apples were available, stocking up on things that would keep, shortbread and biscuits.

Hugo spent a lot of time improving the electric plant, aiming to build it up till it could carry more refrigeration, hoping to stock up heavily on wild pork and venison.

He was improving the grounds too, bridging the streams that ran everywhere, with the idea that elderly folk who were adventurous enough to come down here but were not fit enough to attempt the climbs would appreciate prowling around here without getting their feet wet.

Since the morning at the waterfall Prudence had been careful to keep a certain reserve in her manner to him, but the whole atmosphere of the place, its beauty and peace, lulled your awareness into a dangerous intimacy, and you forgot to watch your words. As now, when, finding Hugo busy at the plant, she spoke impulsively.

"Hugo, I feel you aren't giving yourself enough time at your books. Your publishers will be getting restive - and it's more or less a duty to your readers. Your books must mean a lot to the men who crave adventure and are tied to desks and machines."

He turned swiftly towards her, an outsized spanner in his hand. "You sound as if you're really familiar with them."

"I am. They meant a lot to Dad. There were nights when he couldn't sleep. His copies of your books are in my room now. He particularly liked the quotations at the heads of chapters." She looked up at him and added, quite frankly for once, "That was why I had tears in my eyes in the Hollyford Valley, Hugo, when you quoted 'Some things are too lovely for remembrance.' I suddenly thought how Dad would have enjoyed it all. I hadn't thought of Godfrey - that time."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I jumped to conclusions." There was an awkward silence, then he said, "I like to hear of people's reactions to my books. Artists have an advantage over us - they can attend their own exhibitions; actors get applause - or hisses. A writer sits down at his desk, a wad of blank paper in front of him, but after a while, when fan-mail comes in, you seem to see the writers of those letters as you sit down to write ... the invalids, the aged, the youngsters who dream of going to those places."

He watched the dappled pattern of leaf and sunlight and shadow flicker across Prudence's face.

"Was it very hard going, nursing your father and running a guest house?"

"Yes. Though not too hard. Dad was so considerate. The thing that worried me most was that I felt he needed more of my time."

"And there would be a certain frustration in having given up your varsity studies ? "

"Oh, that didn't matter much - after a while. I was still doing the things I liked doing... creating meals."

He suddenly looked at her with compassion. "Prudence, you Ought to have fallen in love at twenty and got married. You ought to have been chatelaine of some gracious home, with leisure for your experimental cooking and time to write about it. Yes, you ought to have fallen in love early."

Her eyes met his honestly. "I did. It didn't work out."

"Why not?"

"Murray was a young man with ambition. His mother had even more - she thought me quite an acquisition for Murray, his job meant that he would have to entertain a lot so everything was perfect, till Mother died suddenly and I had to take on the guest house. We were on the point of becoming engaged - I thought it could work out very nicely - Dad could have his own room with us. Not ideal, but it would solve a problem.

"Murray's mother had other ideas. It would be a mill-stone around her son's neck. I couldn't let Dad go into a home, Hugo."

"And Murray turned you down?" Hugo's voice held indignation.

"Not really. His mother simply worked on my feelings till I turned him down. I've never regretted it, Hugo. It wasn't a grand passion, it simply shrivelled up and died. It would have been a very artificial life, not like this ..." She turned and looked across the shimmering fiord. Then she grinned. "This is probably very nasty of me, but I felt it was poetic justice. Murray began courting a girl who was extremely eligible; oh, how his mama approved. She met me once and rubbed it in rather. But this time the girl's mother didn't approve. Thought her girl should look higher." Prudence gave a gamine grin. "I ought to have been sorry about it - I wasn't."

Hugo grinned back. "Much better than pretending you were sorry. That would have been humbug. I'm enough of a story-teller to want to know the ending."

"The upshot was that Murray gave up this position that was so promising and went off to South Africa, wanting no more maternal interference. Actually, he came and asked me if I would marry him and go with him. But I knew that he really had loved this other girl, and anyway, I still had Dad. He became a game-warden over there, something he'd always wanted, but got chivvied out of the idea by his mother, who like white-collar jobs. He married a girl vet; I believe they're very happy. I've read articles they write jointly."

Hugo said, "Oh, good show. Look, Prue, hold that washer there, will you, while I tap this, then slide it into place?"

She did so, experiencing a wave of thankfulness that time had overlaid the fierceness of their clash beside the waterfall - something she felt had been her fault. She ought not to have taken it so seriously. It was only their physical closeness that had prompted it.

Hugo straightened up. "There, that's got it And you've no regrets about not marrying him ? You've got over him?"

"Oh, yes, one does. It ceased to matter long ago."

"But what about Godfrey? Does he still matter? Have you got over him?"

As quickly as the drop of a blind shuts out the outside world the atmosphere changed. Friendliness was gone. Prudence's face took on a shuttered look. For a few close moments she had forgotten Hugo's fundamental opinion of her. She sought for words, didn't find the right ones.

"Some things... some things leave their mark."

As they had. That first unfortunate encounter had set the tone of all their future dealings, had overshadowed the loveliness and peace of Thunder Fiord, had made things so impossible.

Prudence's thoughts checked abruptly. What was she thinking? Made what impossible? Suddenly she knew the answer. Knew with a blinding, searing flash of incredulity that it could be so - that she loved Hugo.

With the shaming fear that her feelings might be mirrored on her face for him to see, Prudence stooped swiftly, scooped up some cotton waste that had been dropped, put it oh the bench, turned to go.

His hand fastened on her wrist. "Not so fast. We've not finished our conversation."

"Hadn't we? I thought we had. I said some things leave their mark, I've nothing to add to that."

"Haven't you? Life doesn't stand still. It has a way of adding to things - of tying up the ends - nature filling the vacuum."

That came too close for comfort. Oh yes, the empty space in her heart was filled now. So she said coldly, "You're talking now like one of your books."

"Why not? I pride myself they're true to life. Life as I see it - a reasonably happy affair. My experience of life, anyway. Though you're right about things leaving their mark. I had a letter from Jill - my sister - last launch. She offered to go back to Gregory for the children's sake. To try again - and he turned her down: You'd almost think she was the guilty party."

Prudence considered it. Then she said rather hesitantly, "Hugo, maybe he's got pride as well as your sister. Maybe he wants her to take him back because she loves him."

Hugo started to answer her quickly, hotly, she suspected. Then paused, thinking it over.

Prudence said gently, "I told you my father did marriage guidance work, it was the one avenue of service left to him. I remember him once, over a case that puzzled him, searching his scrapbooks for something he only vaguely remembered keeping. He felt it would give him the key to this problem. I helped him look. It was from Peter B. Kyne's Kindred of the Dust. It said of some woman - I forget the context - 'She lacked tact, understanding and sympathy where her husband was concerned. She was one of that numerous type of wife who loses a good deal of interest in her husband after their first child is born.'"

Prudence's face was eager, uplifted, it wore almost a dedicated look. So might her father have looked, trying to save that marriage. She had forgotten that devastating moment of self-revelation a few moments before.

"Dad had been so concerned because, on the surface, the marriage had seemed an excellent one. Everyone had spoken so well of the wife. She had been an excellent housekeeper, a wonderful mother - but when Dad found this clipping he found the weak spot. She was purely maternal - in wifehood she had failed. That was why the man had gone astray, looking for something he felt had eluded him."

Prudence had been so passionately sincere, she was so concerned about Jill and Gregory's problem she'd lost sight of how this championship could be misinterpreted.

Till Hugo spoke. Till Hugo's tones, harsh, mockingly amused, cut across her earnestness. "Well, you've certainly got the art of self-deception practised to a degree, haven't you, Prudence Sinclair? What does all this add up to but finding excuses for straying husbands?"

It was exactly as if he had thrown cold water over her. Prudence instinctively put up a hand to stay the force of his unkind words from beating against her physically. Then she recovered, squaring her shoulders a little. Her voice was quiet, devoid of all emotion.

"Oddly enough, Hugo, I'd not thought of how that could be taken, hadn't thought of it personally at all. I thought of it simply as Jill's problem. I thought if you were discussing it with her by letter, it might help to heal the breach if you pointed out her husband might want her to want him for himself, not as a father. There are times, you know, when I can completely forget I was ever foolish enough to have gone out with a married man. When I can become just a minister's daughter again. But not in your eyes." She turned and walked blindly down the hill.

It wasn't till she was alone in her room that night that she had time to let full remembrance return, remembrance of that revealing moment when she knew she loved Hugo.

Now she stood in front of her mirror, her eyes seeking her imaged eyes and the knowledge that lay there.

"It isn't any use," she finally told herself. "Even if he ever did come to care, you can't found a marriage on distrust. It was ill-starred from the moment we met. He would never be sure how far the affair had gone. Doubt like that would spoil everything. But you're used to disciplining your feelings, Prudence Sinclair... you can do it again."

Suddenly she crumpled, bit her lip, tried to stem the tide of anguish; but finally tears had their way with her and she cast herself down on her bed, regret and rebellion and bitterness surging over her.

Strange how things that are quite unbearable at night can be borne by breakfast time, she thought next morning. Perhaps because the day brings so many tasks, routine to dull the edge of pain, meals to plan, beds to make, dusting to be hurried through. And with a launch due in at twelve, no time to brood.

Their mail had to be put away till night, till the last guest had had supper and gone to bed. This was the hour when they relaxed, no matter how late. The Stewarts usually retired to their own rooms then, and Prudence and Hugo came into their sitting room, dropped into the old-fashioned chairs, sighed and reached out for books or magazines.

They took it in turns to make the final cup of tea. All very domesticated. Prudence had enjoyed it till now, but tonight she was afraid of being alone with him, afraid she might be betrayed into revealing her feelings. That would be unthinkable.

Hugo looked up from his mail. "What date is our last break? I think it might coincide with the youngsters' break-ups. Listen, this is from Keith. He says: 'It would have been beaut, Hugo, if you and Prue could have been here for the sports and prize-giving. First time I've ever won a prize. But I know you can't. You'll be flat to the boards. We'll book our seats on the bus this week, and stay the night at Milford to get the launch to Thunder next day'."

He looked across at her. "Let's go to Dunedin for their functions. They are on different nights, I note. Those kids don't get much of a break, do they?"

"It would be wonderful, but we'd not have time. I'd have to be back at least a day before that launch - in any case, with all the travelling involved there just wouldn't be time."

"We could charter a plane, bring one in from Queenstown and do the same coming back. Think how thrilled the kids would be. We couldn't hope to make it otherwise."

"But - but it would cost the earth."

"I know, but. Christmas comes but once a year, and I got my six months' royalties in November. Got paid for a translation too. That's settled. We'll go. We'll be able to do our Christmas shopping on the spot instead of by catalogue."

"You do take things for granted J That's settled!' I've not said I'll come. There are things to be considered."

"Do any of them matter against the thrill the kids will get? Think what it will mean to them to have their parent stand-ins there! Listen, Prudence, you and I may not exactly hit it off, but as far as those kids are concerned we do. It may put a terrific strain on us being all sweetness and light to each other, but we must attempt it. Those children need a safe, happy background."

Prudence said hotly, "Anyone would think I was responsible for all the friction, that I loved brawling. Might I remind you, Hugo Macallister, that most of our disagreements arise from your own inability to stop twitting me about - about -"

"About your past."

Prudence got up. "Don't say that," she said violently. "It makes me feel like Jezebel and Mata Hari and Cleopatra all rolled into one. That's exactly what I mean - you seem to take a delight in baiting me. That doesn't make for harmony."

He laughed maddeningly. "I could have my reasons for that, dear cousin. And honestly, you're quite something when you get mad. Even your eyes are fiery, and your cheeks are scarlet. I much prefer that to your air of icy disdain."

Prudence could have stamped her foot. "And don't call me your dear cousin! I'm not."

"Which do you object to?" The laughter lines around his eyes deepened. "The 'dear' or the 'cousin'?"

"Both. Both are equally false. We are not cousins."

"You're dead right, mate. You certainly couldn't call that kiss we once exchanged exactly cousinly, could you?"

Prudence felt weak with anger.

"Oh-h-h," she said, her voice trembling, "you're insufferable! The kiss we exchanged! There was no exchange about it - it was forced on me. You can get your own supper. I don't want any. It would choke me. I hate you! And don't call me mate!"

She heard him laugh as she slammed the door.

She realized she was in for a wakeful night. She would try to read till her chaotic mind calmed down. Blast, she had left her whodunit in the sitting room. She certainly would not go back for it and face Hugo again. There were plenty of books here, but many that had belonged to her father were quite unsuited to her mood.

Her eye fell on the row by Hugo Macallister. Well, they were the lightest here. Despising herself for re-reading one of his, she selected one, climbed into bed. She was thirsty. When she heard Hugo go to bed she would sneak out and make herself a cup of tea. And her head was aching.

She had been reading twenty minutes or so when there was a knock. Oh, dear, not some guest wanting something, surely. Could they never leave one alone! It was nearly one o'clock. She got out of bed wearily, slipped a peach-coloured brunch coat over her shortie pyjamas and went to the door.

Hugo stood there, a tray in his hands. He said humbly, "An olive branch. Your favourite chicken and asparagus rolls ... not quite so dainty as you make them ... and a pot of tea. How's your blood-sugar, mate?"

Prudence experienced a strong desire to slam the door in his face, but she looked up, caught the sincerely rueful expression on his face, and suddenly, with horror, realized she was going to laugh. She gave way to it, clutched the door and giggled helplessly.

"Muchee, muchee better," said Hugo approvingly. "A sense of humour is a fine thing and all. And a good start to the seven weeks ahead of us presenting an amiable front to the children."

His eye fell on the book she had dropped. He bent down, picked it up, put it on the tray, saw the title. "Well, I'm darned," he said, "you must like 'em if you can read one of mine after that slanging match." He put the tray in her hands, turned, said over his shoulder, "There are two aspirin on the tray ... goodnight, Prue."

She ate all the rolls, drank two cups of tea, left the aspirin on the tray and went straight off to sleep.

The capricious Fiordland weather smiled on their venture. The Cessna touched down on a morning so bright it hurt your eyes to look at the water.

Bessie said: "Now, you young ones enjoy yourselves, you've a long tiring summer ahead of you, so make the most of it. I'll have everything well forward here, and you'll come in ahead of the tourists anyway."

The pilot took off in a south-westerly direction so that for a few spellbound moments they saw sounds and ranges further south that hitherto had been only names on a map to them - a secret, enchanted world.

Hugo said, "Some day we'll explore it on foot, Prue. When the season's over and Murdock Galloway will take us on his crayfish boat as far south as we want to go."

They veered west, over the Tasman, then turned northwards. The pilot, one John Mackenzie, known as Mac, said, "My company gave me special orders. I'm to take you up the coastline, folks, as an extra. They're aware you're doing them a service, providing such attractions at the Fiord, so this is on them."

They flew up the magnificent coastline, Prudence conscious of a singing happiness within her. The small plane gave one much more of the real thrill of flying than the large aircraft that plied between the cities. They flew close to the mountains, dropped down occasionally with the down draughts, flew along the fretted coastline, soared up to skim over peaks with retreated glaciers imprisoned in their high ravines, saw closely the blue clefts of the ice-falls, bare stony hillsides dotted with the exquisite clusters of the mountain lilies.

They saw the rivers pouring out mighty waters, thrusting through narrow gorges, hollowing out rocky falls that had once impeded them, then they flew inland over the long dogleg lake of Wakatipu, lying as deep as washing-blue beneath them, the jagged peaks of the Remarkables, with only an odd pocket or two of snow still on them, above the pine-edged tourist town of Queenstown; then flew on over the fertile, tawny hills of the fruit growers of Central Otago, following the peacock-green of the Clutha River almost to Dunedin.

The town was stiflingly hot, the Santa Claus in the shops were perspiring heavily in their gowns and beards, ice cream bars were doing a big trade, the shops were full of roses and carnations, delphiniums and poppies.

They hired a car and came up to John McGlashan first because they had been told when they rang that there were sports on and they would finish before Columba. The look on Keith's face when he saw them was reward enough.

"I'm running in this next race," he flung his arms about both of them, not caring apparently about hiding his emotion.

Then he drew back, whistled, "Gee, Prudence, you look absolutely grouse!"

"Yes," agreed Hugo, "she knocked me for six when she appeared in all that green elegance. I'm used to seeing her in sunsuits or white overalls."

Goodness, thought Prudence, Hugo really is prepared to go to all lengths in front of the children.

To Keith's surprise and gratification he came second. He came up to them, face glistening.

"That's all because you were here," he said, hero-worship- ping eyes on Hugo. Parents came up to meet them, some saying they felt they already knew them.

Suddenly Prudence wanted to giggle. "I feel quite out of my own age group - at least forty," she said to Hugo.

"Perhaps you feel I'm more in my right classification," he said, his eyes smiling into hers.

She looked completely mystified.

He said meaningly: "You thought I was at least forty... remember?"

It was quite evident that she had forgotten all about that. She caught the mischief in his eye, burst out laughing. "I'm afraid that was sheer malice, Hugo," she admitted.

"And very understandable," he said.

That made her day.

"But you're doing very well amongst all these older parents," he said. "This is exactly what these kids need."

"You're not doing too badly yourself," she said.

He smiled down on her in a fashion that made her heartbeats quicken. The warmth of it unfroze something in her.

They consumed sandwiches, drank tea, talked with teachers and the Head, met staff wives, endless boys, chatted with Keith's form-master about his general progress, clapped madly for each event. Then they hurried away lest they miss Janny.

Her delight matched her brother's. They were not able to keep them for dinner, for Janny had to be back early for her prize-giving that very night and Keith had to be at a practice for some function for next day, but they arranged to pick him up to take him to the Columba break-up.

So Prudence and Hugo had dinner by themselves. "This is good," said Hugo, going steadily through all courses. "No responsibility in the kitchen, no dishes to wash, no everlasting queries about launch trips and tramping parties and guides. No complaints about Fiordland rain, diets, sandflies."

Prudence laughed, "You sound like an overworked housewife."

He grimaced. "It's all right for you - it's the breath of life to you. Though I daresay I'll get used to it. I love the place, but domestic chores chain me to the house when I'd like to be out on the fiord."

"Poor Hugo, never mind, when we get back it will be only a day or two before those extra aids I've arranged for arrive, and you can get outside more. An author will be a great attraction on those launch trips. That American woman we liked so much - the one from the Mid-West, I've forgotten her name, said, 'Well, I love his books, but I always have the sneaking feeling that that sort of book is written by some puny, stay-at-home sort of person. Now I know he really is a tough outdoor type I'll enjoy them twice as much.'"

He grinned. "Well, despite what we're paying, they can't make Yorkshire pudding like you, Prue. This is soggy. Yours are always crisp round the edges."

The next two days flew in a maze of functions, shopping, and drives about the beautiful city and its environs. Prudence relaxed in the less hostile atmosphere, delighting in the children's happiness at having them present at their prizegivings. She wondered wistfully if this harmonious attitude would become a habit by the end of the holidays and continue, overlaying the distrust and hostility.

They chartered the plane again for the homeward trip, it was necessary to get in ahead of the guests. Prudence, to Hugo's dismay, visited the auction marts before leaving, taking huge quantities of fruit back foe jam-making. "Can't we continue with tinned jam?" he asked pathetically. "It will wear you and Bessie out making all this."

"Oh, you and Jock and the children will be helping," she told him sweetly. This time the plane was a Dominie; it had to be to take the greater number.

"You'll charge this against the business, of course, Hugo," she said.

"I won't. This is an extra, and my shout. It came out of my royalties, I told you that."

When she protested further he said, "Look, Prue, I'm still able to get in quite a bit of writing at Thunder. You have to work full time and then some. So what I make extra can certainly pay for this. Don't argue. Just accept it graciously - you're by far the more active partner."

She gave in. As they boarded the plane Hugo said to her: "I saw the Post Office and they let me take the contents of the mail-bag. Thought we'd get it earlier that way and could attend to the bookings in it before the onset of Christmas guests. But we'll not read them yet - I'll sort out the business ones, and perhaps glance at the personal ones before we get home."

Home! Yes, it was home now, that isolated cluster of buildings beside the peat waterfall. Where no roads led to it, or from it, just a habitation in the wilderness. Home.

Even a family. Prudence knew it might not be all joy having the children home. They would probably bring problems, but at least it gave you a purpose in life - more than that, a sense of being needed, of belonging. A compensation for the other, deeper relationship she had missed. She needed the children as much as they needed her and Hugo. And Hugo? Well, even time might never quite obliterate his scorn for her, but he was prepared to be friendly at least in their guardianship of the children. Prudence felt for the first time that the situation might work out.

She hadn't read any of her mail, being unwilling for a moment even to tear her eyes away from the kaleidoscopic changes of scenery below. But Hugo had opened one letter.

He was sitting beside her, finished it, said, "That was from my sister. She has taken the children up to their father's mother for Christmas, in fact for the whole six weeks. She says Gregory isn't going home, he's away on an assignment for his paper, and the grandmother wanted them.

"Jill's mother-in-law has remained her very good friend. Jill felt she wouldn't be a very good companion for the children for the festive season, but she can't bear to be alone. She said there wasn't time - with mails only twice a week at Thunder - to ask, but she's coming for Christmas, will arrive next week. It's okay, isn't it? She could have my room - I know we're booked out - and I could have a stretcher in our sitting room."

Prudence swallowed, forced herself to say with what she hoped sounded like enthusiasm, "There are two beds in my room, Hugo, she can have one. I'll be very pleased to meet your sister."

But she wasn't. She was deeply dismayed. Nothing to do with Jill herself, but because she was a wronged wife. Someone whom Hugo loved so that her hurt was his hurt... which all added up to the fact that Prudence's own experience would be ever present in Hugo's mind. What folly to have hoped the Christmas holidays might overlay that.

They came down, walked towards the guest house. By the kitchen garden Janny stopped dead.

"Hugo, what's that?"

He was twinkling. "Well, it looks to me as if it could be a cricket pitch."

"Hugo, you darling! But all those stones that were embedded here? How did you -"

"He dug them all out and carried them away. We have a new rockery," Prudence informed her.

Janny choked, "I've never had anyone do anything like that for me before."

"Well," said Hugo drawlingly, "it mightn't be all for you. We've got New Zealander's most famous cricketer coming here for a week with his wife and family at the end of January. He might want to keep his hand in."

Janny gulped. "Most famous cricketer? Not - not -?" She couldn't go on.

His eyes were dancing. "She's beyond words," he teased. "Yes, Prudence, of course, didn't realize who he is. Incredibly ignorant, isn't she? We'll have to put her wise to a few things before he arrives, otherwise shell commit all kinds of blunders." He paused and added nonchalantly, "As a matter of fact I called in at his sports shop while I was in Dunedin and he's promised to coach you a bit while he's here."

Janny flung her arms round his neck, hugged him tightly, kissed him.

When she had released him and was skipping off with her brother, Hugo said, "See, some people don't shrink from my kisses!"

Prudence tried to look offended, failed, laughed. "You're quite impossible," she said, but her tone was friendly. She might as well enjoy the light bantering tone - it might not last after Jill came.

Prudence was surprised to find the children so ready to pitch in and help, it made a great difference. "Oh, we always did," said Keith, "till the New Year holidays are over. Of course it's busy till the end of February, but Aunt Marguerite always said if. we helped flat out till after New Year the rest of the time was our own. I want to classify some of those specimens I brought home. I say, thanks, Prudence, for the way you've kept my museum. I usually have to spend about two days dusting and cleaning it."

"Oh, I was so interested, I dusted the pieces as I went. When the busy season is over, Hugo and Jock are going to make you more glass cases. To protect them from the public - I'm afraid they'll get handled more than those fossils would stand."

Keith sighed happily. "How beaut! Then it's all right if we have a spell from helping the last few weeks of the vacation? You see we can't get home in May or August. The tunnel road is closed for the avalanche season. Wish we could. It would be heaven here with no guests."

Hugo looked up from winding his fishing line. "You can this winter, kids. I'll fly you in and out."

He was rewarded by Keith's incredulous whistle of joy, by having Janny precipitate herself across the room and fling herself on him. His eyes, laughing, met Prudence's across the tousled tow-coloured head.

CHAPTER VIII

Jill was much as Prudence had imagined her, tall, slim, with a bandbox neatness that you somehow longed to ruffle. She was not in the least like Hugo except in the blue of her eyes. But there were shadows tinder those eyes, a finely drawn tension about her mouth.

Prudence found herself thinking: "The poor pet, if only she could let herself go."

She said, "I'm awfully sorry we can't give you a room to yourself because you might be looking forward to catching up on some sleep - I mean since you're having a break from the children -" it would never do to have Jill think Hugo had discussed her unhappiness - "but we were booked right out. Hugo offered to go up and sleep at Hohepa's whare, but I thought it was nicer for you to be nearer each other, and besides, we're always on call and I like Hugo at hand. I'm often very late to bed, but I've fixed this screen up between your bed and mine so the light won't worry you."

Jill lifted heavy eyelids. "That won't worry me, Prudence, I don't sleep very well anyway. It's very good of you to have me in here." She sounded sapped of all vitality. Prudence felt a rush of pity, pity that she must not show. Something more bracing was needed here, she thought.

She was agreeably surprised that Jill was ready and eager to work, then realized that work was an anodyne, dulling the edge of suffering, filling the emptiness. She asked Prudence could she help her stock up the tins, asked what quantities, set to work.

The raspberries and strawberries in the sheltered garden cropped heavily. Mostly they were used just for desserts, so they made the surplus into jam, a long, tiring job in this weather, for even the rainy days were hot with a humidity almost unbearable.

Hugo laughed at them. "You're really very alike in that, if in nothing else. Can't bear to waste anything, can you? Personally I think jam-making and preserving are horrible tasks. I'd happily fling this lot out of the window this very moment.'"

... Alike in that if in nothing else: Sensitively, Prudence thought: He thinks of us as on opposite sides, the betrayed - and the betrayer. And he's right. In housewifely things Jill and I are kindred spirits, but emotionally I suppose I let my feelings run away with me ... or did once ... and she bottles hers up. I wonder if that was the trouble? Mightn't be her fault, it might be her upbringing. But a man could easily feel he'd not tasted life fully if his wife retained some reserve. I remember Dad once saying that in a successful marriage you had to give with both hands.

It didn't seem to matter that they woke on Christmas morning to torrential rain. It was odd that here in the Southern Hemisphere where Christmas came in high summer, tradition died hard. Even the children who were fourth and fifth generation Colonials seemed to think it more fitting if Christmas turned cold. Perhaps it was something to do with one's digestion ... you enjoyed roast lamb, goose, duck, turkey, the plum pudding and mince pies much better if it wasn't blazingly hot.

The children and Hugo had decorated the lounge, dining room and long closed-in verandah beautifully with great tree- ferns, trailing vines from the bush and, in place of holly, boughs of rata crimson with bloom, and above the lights and doorways native mistletoe.

They laughed, because Keith, anxious that no Northern Hemisphere tourists should miss the meaning, had printed cards with "This is New Zealand mistletoe" on them. And with the painstaking exactitude of the born naturalist, had named all the plants.

"Well now, aren't you just sweet!" said one American matron to him. "That sure does add to my enjoyment of this New Zealand Christmas to know the names of all these. I'm jotting them down, Keith, to tell my grandchildren back home. But oh, I'll never get the pronunciation of those Maori names right, and I would like to."

Keith looked at her gravely. "You do very well, Mrs. Wainwright. I think Americans have a good start in that. You sound your u's the way the Maoris do. We are more inclined to say 'yew'. The Maoris don't. And your o's are very like the North of England o's, so that works in very nicely too."

Mrs. Wainwright was copying all this down, nodding with approval. "That's all very flattering, son. I've never heard anything more musical than the Maoris' speaking voices. Now, I wonder if you would do me a favour? Put the meaning of all those Maori names in these other notes of mine? I've copied out all those fascinating legends Hohepa has told us. The Maori meanings are so poetic. I must get them correct. My daughter is a journalist and I thought she could write some of them up for her magazine."

"Oh dear," said Prudence, and exchanged an agonized glance with Hugo.

Mrs. Wainwright looked surprised. "Why, what's wrong with that, honey? I thought you'd be so delighted."

Hugo said promptly, "Oh, we are, Mrs. Wainwright. You've so enjoyed our customs and surroundings - even though it's nothing as luxurious as what you've been used to - that you're our favourite guest. You've been a darned good sport, but - er - well, old Hohepa is inclined to - er - paint the lily."

The American burst out laughing. "I'd kinda suspected that. He gets a faraway look in his eye. A making-up look. Never mind, my dears, you can have a look at my notes - if you can decipher my writing, and mark what you think is not gospel. Come to think though, my daughter could make something of a character of old Hohepa, making it plain which legends were to be taken with a grain of salt. Her readers would be as much interested in the character of the old Maori as the legends themselves."

Prudence caught hold of the American's fingers and squeezed them. "You are a dear. And you've been so good with old Hohepa - your husband too."

Mrs. Wainwright looked at her shrewdly. "And you're a little on the defensive with your Maori friends and the Americans, aren't you? You're a little afraid of race-consciousness? And I guess you have reason to be. But not all of us are that way, Prudence. There are some of us who deplore it as much as you do, and we have to fight it more than you do too. You only get the odd New Zealander with a colour-bar leaning. You know, Prudence, my great-grandfather gave his life to help free the slaves, and I do what I can to follow in his tradition."

Prudence coloured vividly. "Sorry, Mrs. Wainwright. I hadn't meant to be so apparent."

"Bless you, you needn't apologize. I like it. And it warmed my heart when that Professor got off the launch and caught sight of Maraea. The way he turned round to his wife, said, 'Look who's here, dear ... my favourite and most brilliant student!'"

Prudence nodded. "Yes, it's all been most happy."

"And of course my Joe has found Hohepa a kindred soul. They not only have the same name, but they like the same things - fishing, potatoes baked in their jackets, bread-making, lobsters - I mean crayfish. We've got a bakery business back home. Oh, sure, it's the plutey kind. Twenty-nine kinds of bread and rolls, all fancy wrapped. But Joe's spent a lot of time in the bakehouse with Hohepa, and he says you can't beat those loaves he cooks on the flat stones right in the side of the firebox."

Not all guests were like Mrs. Wainwright, of course. There were the ones who left sodden towels on untidy beds, cigarette ash everywhere, put butts and glasses down on polished surfaces, complained there were not wall-to-wall carpets and wash basins in the bedrooms.

Hugo was short with these. "You can get that at Milford - and pay top price. This is a hostel in the wilderness."

They had ten days of glorious weather right after Christmas when guests could bathe, boat, fish, explore to their hearts' content. There were certain not too arduous trades where glimpses of the hinterland could be glimpsed from the peaks, with the most fascinating thought that not all of it was yet explored. There were glades where, if trampers were quiet as they approached, they would come upon deer feeding. There were chamois, red deer, and occasionally a large wapiti.

Hugo led most of these parties; guides were used for the longer, more dangerous tracks. Parties came in from Milford, over the two-day Thunder Fiord Track, footsore and weary, dusty or soaked, but always thrilled with what they had seen.

The scenic flights were a boon, touching down at Thunder Fiord, giving the guests an hour or two there, and meantime taking the hostel guests by air to see the famous Sutherland Falls, formerly to be seen only by those who tramped from Glade House on Te Anau to Milford Sound.

These had been thought once to be the highest falls in the world, but since then some remote, inaccessible ones in South American had won that tide. The Sutherland Falls fell in a magnificent triple drop, with a full height of nineteen hundred feet, flashing through the trees from the clouds above.

Prudence heard Hugo say one morning, "Come on, Jill, time you were toughened up. Prudence will find you some stout walking shoes. This is doing you no good, hanging round the house all day."

"Oh, Hugo, but it's not in my line - tramping. And you don't know how tired I am. I'm still not sleeping well."

His voice was determined. "You'll sleep well after a climb like I'm intending, believe me. Your mind won't be active tonight, going round and round things like a treadmill. You get up as exhausted as what you go to bed. Look at Prudence. She works harder than any of us, yet her spare hours are filled with exploring. It revives her, stimulates her. That's what you want - stimulation, waking up, not rest."

Jill's voice was outraged. "Hugo, how unfeeling! And I thought you would have understood. Prudence knows nothing of the turmoil of mind I suffer."

Prudence caught her breath, unable to turn away. Hugo's words made her blink. "Listen, Jill, you're too wrapped up in your own problem to even begin to understand anyone else's. Prue has her troubles. Ever thought how alone she is? I'm inclined to think she has found ease filling every moment to the brim."

It was just as if Prudence's heart had been held in a grip too tight, too long. The release was almost painful. She could scarcely analyse the feeling that poured over her. That tone had been kind, had held no censure, no astringent inflection.

She moved hastily away as they came nearer, busying herself at a cupboard at the far side of the kitchen. They continued to argue, though in less personal fashion.

Hugo decided it. "Oh, there you are, Prue. You could supply Jill with some good walking shoes, even boots, couldn't you? She's coming with us."

Prudence noted that Jill did sleep better that night. After that she came out with them on most of the tramps. Bookings were still flowing in. They couldn't take any past the middle of April. There was always the chance that the road would have to be closed if winter set in early.

Hugo had put his foot down about taking many in early winter, on the flight trips. It would only be occasionally in winter that the scenic flights could land at Thunder, so it would mean guests coming in by launch after flying to Milford, and then only if the seas were reasonably calm.

Prudence said, "I suppose you want to get on with your book - though with greatly reduced number of guests I could manage, or do you find even having people in the house would put you off?"

"Oh no. I had experience in newspaper offices. You learn to work under all sorts of conditions there. It's not that - you look to me as if you are about a stone lighter than at the beginning of the season. After all, this place has paid for years merely on the summer trade, there's no need to do more in winter than we care to. We'll work out what weeks we'd like to have guests in. But I aim to have the May holidays free for the kids. And you're going to have a rest."

Prudence told her leaping heart it was only because Hugo was fundamentally kind. How different this might have been had they met on equal terms. If only you knew what life held for you just round the corner. But you didn't, and temptation took advantage of empty moments, of times when life was barren and the little devil of loneliness drove hard.

Hugo continued. "That bent of Keith's must be encouraged. I believe some of the personnel of Christchurch Museum are coming here during early winter. We might stretch a point and have only them while Keith is home. If I went along too, they might allow him to go. Apart from that, I'd like to explore some of these longer tracks - if the weather was good. You would too, wouldn't you?"

Would she? Prudence caught her breath at the thought of that. Sometimes the weather in May was very good. Tramping through the mystery and charm of the dense bush, camping at night under the stars in tents, on a bed of fern, Keith and Janny with them, your head on a knapsack, your mind full of long, long thoughts. As a sandfly bit her viciously on the neck she thought, always a serpent in every Eden. Not only stars, my dear Prudence, but sandflies. Mosquitoes, too, but then they were more sporting, you could hear them coming.

"Well, come on, Hugo," said Janny impatiently. "You promised to give me some bowling practice. We've not got long now before he arrives, and my style is lamentable."

There were occasions when Prudence went out on the launch too with the picnic parties, days when they all insisted that the chores need not keep her in.

"Losh, lassie," said Bessie one day (Bessie often reverted to the expressions of her Scots forebears who had been pioneers in Southland), "very often your aunt would take a whole afternoon off, writing letters or just dossing down on her bed while I prepared the evening meal. Why shouldn't you go off with the other young ones? Besides, the guests love it."

This was to be an all-day picnic going south to one of the uninhabited fiords where there was a delightfully safe bathing beach and many arms of the inlet could be explored. Almost every guest was going. The picnic hampers were bursting at the seams and still not all the food was packed.

Hugo came in with a large clothes-basket. "I reckon this would take the rest," he said.

Prudence shook her head. "Sorry, Hugo, it looks the very thing, but we can't use that. Hohepa and Maraea and Ruahine and our Maori guests wouldn't like it."

Hugo gazed blankly at her. "What do you mean? Why wouldn't they?"

"No decent Maori would eat food out of a clothes-basket. They never mix food and clothing."

Hugo was slightly offended. "But dash it, Prue, I scrubbed it well."

"I know, but it's pretty well tapu to them. For instance, we often wash nylons out in a sink. Maoris wouldn't. And you know how handy it is in an ordinary home to sometimes stand a toddler in the sink and scrub his knees before putting him down for his afternoon nap - well, they wouldn't. I have a friend in Rotorua whose husband has a tiny trace of Maori in him - about a thirty-second, I should think. She once bathed the baby in the sink in a hurry and quite upset him."

"Well, that settles it, we don't want to offend anyone. What can I use, Prue? I say, we ought to tell Mrs. Wainwright that, she'd like that for her notebook. And, Prue, you and Jill really must make this a holiday today. You've worked like Trojans all season. When the lunch is over the kids and I will wash up the picnic dishes and you and Jill disappear from the guests' ken."

They took the offer, melting discreetly away when lunch was over. As they disappeared, Prudence said, "Hugo told me to walk up that fallen totara, it's a giant one; it lies uphill, and comes out into the open country on-the hilltop. All around it the bush is so dense no one will explore it and come on it. Hugo and Hohepa have been here before, and if we keep to the tree we can't get bushed. It will be heaven to be away from the crowd for a bit, I admit."

The air was full of the singing of birds, the whirr of the big wood-pigeons, the taffeta swish of the tui, the friendly flirting of the fantails, curiously close, the fearlessness of a bell- bird, olive-green, who escorted them all the way, perching close, and chiming sweetly.

At last they came out into the sunlight, flung themselves panting on the dry bare ground at the summit. They lay there, deliciously drowsy, safe in the knowledge they were liberally smeared with repellent cream. Anyway, it was clear and sunshiny, with no threat of the rain which brought the sandflies most of all.

Above them larks sang in the sky; below, in the secret bush, tuis sounded harp-notes, bell-birds chimed, the faint pipe of the tiny rifleman was heard, rivulets and miniature waterfalls sang their endless songs. On the hills all about them stretched the mighty rain forest. How strange to think that their roothold was only a pad of peat and moss. In a drier climate this couldn't support growth like that. Here and there were great scars, with hillsides swept bare of all vegetation where a landslide had carved a path down the granite face. This was happiness, peace, contentment. Prudence's thoughts halted abruptly. Was it? Was it really? It could be, with someone to share it, someone kindred, someone you loved - let's face it, with - Hugo.

She sat up abruptly. The lizard was gone in a flash. And in that moment Jill sat up too, looked out over the tree tops below them to the dazzling sapphire of the Tasman Sea, beyond the horizon, where, lost in the leagues of ocean and distance, the vast continent of Australia lay.

Jill's eyes took in the bitten-in coastline, the splashes of rata in the evergreen forests, the eternal snows and glaciers, and the words seemed forced from her.

"Oh, how Greg would love this!"

Prudence held her breath.

Jill said, on a dry sob, the words sounding as if they were torn from her throat, "I can't live without him any longer, Prue, no matter what!"

Prudence was with her in a moment. Jill was reserved, aloof, she mustn't be allowed to close up again. Prudence put a hand on her shining golden head.

"Jill, Jill," she said, "if you really mean that - mean that no matter what - I think that's all you need to feel. I've an idea that that's what your Gregory has been looking for. Maybe for longer than you've realized."

Jill sat up, her blue eyes searching Prudence's face. "What do you mean, Prue? Tell me!"

Prudence felt the colour come up in her face. This was hard, she might say the wrong thing, she might rush in where angels would fear to tip-toe; Jill could be furious, but - well, it looked as if she ought to risk it.

She said, "Jill, you might think I have an awful nerve - an unmarried girl - but Father was a marriage guidance counsellor, and he wrote articles on it. I typed them for him when he got past that. They were not just theoretical, they were based on knowledge. And I did see some situations like this.

"Hugo has talked to me about it. He was rather bitter about Greg turning you down when you offered to go back for the children's sake, but I - I agreed with Gregory." She swallowed, Jill didn't seem to be offended, so she plunged on. "You see, in marriage I think it's got to be everything. A complete giving. I don't think any man would like to think his wife just put up with living with him for the sake of the children.

"I think a woman could do just that - might put up with being second-best for her family's sake, even then it wouldn't be easy, but the maternal instinct in women is so strong - because of what she goes through in childbirth, I suppose. But a man needs to be first in his wife's affections."

Jill was gazing at her in wonder. "I - yes, you're right, Prue. Only I didn't know a woman could see it that way. I couldn't, when Greg first said it. I said it was just pride with him and that since he was the one who had - erred - he ought to be glad I would take him back - on any terms. And he said, 'When you decide it's me you want, not just a father for your children, not just a figurehead for a home, to reinstate you in your smug respectability, I'll have you back!'

"At the time, Prue, I was furious. I felt he should be the supplicant, not me. That he was the one who had strayed. I said: 'But I've been faithful to you,' and he said: 'Have you, Jill? Ever analysed that word faithful? Have you ever really kept faith with me?'

"I didn't know what he meant, then. I think I'm beginning to know. I've done a lot of thinking. Prudence, it's just as if, after too long, I'm beginning to grow up. To realize there is more in life than I thought. I've been a bit too conventional, liked things running to a pattern. I always wanted to be married, never longed for a career. I saw it as a nice little home in a nice little suburb with an easy-going husband and some darling children.

"But Greg's not easy-going. He can't bear injustices. He's always fighting for some lost cause or other. He's temperamental, flares up in a minute, but it's over in a flash. He doesn't sulk. I do - yes, I admit it now. And I do think Greg gets more out of life than I do. I've even resented that sometimes. Now, I know that he also puts more into it.

"So I am not guiltless, Prudence. Though it's taken me till now to admit it. I've been a better mother than a wife, and now I've got to the stage where I see you must be first a wife. If I had put more into wifehood then the children wouldn't have had their lives disrupted. But even so, it's nothing to what I've done to Greg. If I'd been more understanding he'd never have been attracted to that other girl. I'm going back to him, Prudence, but I'm afraid, cold afraid, that with my sulky nature I may not be able to forget - but I will have to try."

Prudence nodded. "Yes, forgiveness isn't enough. There was a little poem by Jean Morton in an English magazine that I learned by heart. It's common sense.

If you forgive me, then you must forget,

Or else, my dear, I'll unforgiven go.

I could not bear that all the things I've done

Should be like scars that you must ever show.

I could not bear to think that any day

The things I'd hoped were buried in your mind,

Should be brought out again until new sins

In little ghosts of old sins you should find.

So, dear, you must forget if you forgive,

There is no other way, so be quite sure,

Before you seal my happiness with smiles,

That those same smiles for all time will endure.

"So you would have to forget, Jill. No man could stand being reproached over and over. But listen, are you sure you have as much to forgive as you think you have?"

Jill looked at her in amazement, tears drying on her cheeks.

"Why, what do you mean, Prue?"

Prue said slowly, "I think you're thinking in terms of complete infidelity, aren't you? It didn't have to be. Gregory might never have gone as far as that."

Jill's fingers tightened on a tuft of grass, tore it up, cast it away from her. There was a wry, bitter twist to her mouth.

"Oh, Greg said it hadn't. Well, I might not be a very intense person myself, but I can't imagine anything else. The very fact that Gregory said he'd been looking for what he'd never found made me fear the worst."

"But did he mean that? He didn't say he'd now found it? Might he not have meant he was looking for a comradeship, for someone more interested in his career, his aspirations within that career? Someone interested in his personality, not just concerned with domestic things?"

"We-ell, it could have been, Prudence, at first, but does it ever stop at that?"

"Sometimes it doesn't, I know. In fact quite often it won't - but he could have been just on the verge of an affair. If you'd not found out they may have broken it off themselves, realized where they were heading. And tell me, Gregory said he hadn't been unfaithful - that way. Was he untruthful by nature?"

"Oh, no." The response was spontaneous. "Not by any means. Greg was almost too blunt at times. Where I would smooth a situation over, for peace's sake, Greg wouldn't."

"Then what reason had you for thinking he was lying, then?"

"Because so much was at stake, Prue. So very much. I thought perhaps it was just infatuation, that now he saw his home life breaking up he thought it wasn't worth it. He - he was absolutely amazed when I said I was walking out on him."

"What happened then?"

"He made me keep the house and stay there. He left me. Said if I couldn't believe him we were better apart. I thought so too at the time because I thought that girl had been everything to him. It ate into me like a canker. It poisoned everything. But now I've got round to thinking a lot of it was my fault. I could often have gone places with him on newspaper assignments. But I wouldn't. Some were low dives. But it could have been fun. I couldn't take it. Greg would chat with derelicts sometimes, dirty repulsive people. He always found some good in them. I used to say I wasn't fond of having babysitters in too often. So of course he found someone to go with him. I found a note from her in his pocket when I was sending his sports jacket to the cleaners. And I turned up where they were meeting."

Her voice suddenly had a harsh sound in it. "They weren't writing anything up, believe me. They were sitting in a secluded corner, enjoying themselves. They looked so happy, as if they were in a world of their own. Don't ask me to believe there was nothing more in it than that, Prue. There must have been. Not all girls are like you. You just couldn't be underhand."

That settled it. Prue knew it did. She had known all along she was going to be forced into this. That she couldn't withhold the confidence that could mean so much to this lonely, longing woman beside her. Someone who, for all her wifehood and motherhood, seemed so young, so unawakened. Prudence's heart thudded against her side, her mouth felt dry. She moistened her lips and plunged.

"But you see, Jill, that's where you're wrong. I know exactly what I'm talking about. I fell in love with a married man - went out with him - but we both called it off before it went too far."

The incredulous look Jill gave her was a compliment to her if Prudence could have recognized it. She was too busy with Jill's problem.

"Ever since Hugo told me about you I've felt terrible. I've realized that our stories have run parallel - except that you've been the wife and I've been - the other woman." Even saying those last three words gave Prudence a nasty taste. "I'll tell you about it, Jill, because it may help you to understand Gregory - and this other girl.

"This chap - I won't mention names because in this case the wife never knew and I hope she never will - he was a bit lonely, just as I was - Dad had just died, my brothers were overseas. His wife was in with a gay social crowd. I think half the trouble was that they had no family. To do her justice, that sort of life might have been filling a gap. But they had drifted apart. He liked the things I liked. Tramping mostly, the outdoors.

"We met accidentally, then we sort of helped coincidence, then we met by design. By then I had realized where we were heading, realized that if we went on he'd have to lie to keep meeting me. That's why, when I got Aunt Marguerite's letter asking me to come here, I leapt at the chance. I thought it would help me get him out of my system. It did. Oh, most certainly it did.

"Yet, if his wife had found out she would probably have thought the things you did. It's only natural. Yet there's always a story behind these things, it's not a sudden plunge. I was wrong, terribly wrong, to even yield to the temptation of tramping around Rotorua with him. But at least we stopped before we did each other any real harm. It could have been that way with your Gregory. It sounds as if he's the sort to have admitted it had there been more to it."

Jill was staring at her with an intensity that held, Prudence thought, belief. And dawning hope.

"Yes, he is that sort. I realize that now. And, oddly enough, you've always reminded me of that girl. Not in looks - in some other way. And I couldn't help, deep down, admiring her a little. Even though I resented the fact that I could. I remember how she stood there, stubbing out her cigarette in that frowsy, down-town cafe. There was such a babel of different languages going on round us that we seemed in a world of our own, the three of us.

"She said: 'You don't understand the journalistic world very well, do you, Mrs. Sandhurst? You've never tried to. Greg and I speak the same language. That's all there is to it. Your husband is too fine a chap for a tawdry intrigue - but you're just not big enough to appreciate that.'

"I remember saying: 'You're trying to minimize things, After all, most wives would do a bit of thinking if they found a note like this in their husband's pocket.' I held it out to her. It was on a piece torn off a roll of newsprint. I remember I was furious with her because she laughed, and said, 'Oh, that! Good heavens, woman, there was no secret about that. I didn't even fold it up, I sent it by the office boy. I guess he read it on the way."

"It was that sort of note, but I'd taken it to read more. It said: 'Meet me tonight at the same place, eh? About the usual time. Have got word there's something brewing.' It was that 'same place' that got me. Greg admitted they had met there a few other times - after copy. It sounded thin. She said she had had word of an impending raid by the cops - but they didn't come, Prudence, you see. I know the cops might have changed their plans - but I was too eaten up with jealousy to do any believing. I said: "Why don't you just admit you've fallen for my husband? I like truth,' and she lost her temper and said: 'Well then, suppose I had! What would you care? The poor bloke needs someone to think about him a bit - you haven't much till now.' Oh, it was horrible, Prue. And when we got home Greg and I both said a lot of things we didn't mean.

"The worst of it is I know I didn't mean what I said, but I'm not sure he didn't mean all he said! When I refused to believe there was so little in it, Greg got flaming mad and said: 'All right then, since you won't believe me you can do the other thing ... go on imagining I've been living a double life. I wish I had. At least I'd have had some fun, instead of this half-dead existence with you, you milk-and-water creature! I was only very mildly interested in that other vital woman, but right now I could fall for her in a big way!'

"I was appalled, but so set in my ways I couldn't ask him to forgive me when I had looked upon myself as wronged. Things have always been black and white for me, Prue, either right or wrong, with no shades in between. I've tried to heal the breach twice, and each time I've hurt Greg more. The first time I wrote offering to make another start for the children's sake. Next time I saw him in a Sydney Street. His suit hadn't been to the cleaners for a long time, his collar was turning up at the ends, he must've washed it himself and not bothered to put the stiffeners back, he was thinner. I couldn't bear it. I followed him - to a rather scruffy room, told him I couldn't bear to see him like this. He just stood there, looking at me, arms folded, jaws set.

"It made me falter. I'd been so sure of myself, so certain I was being magnanimous. His look told me I was only being smug. Then he said: 'I'd like you to go, Jill. There's only one thing that would make me come back - if you admitted you missed me. Me. Not what I stand for, which is respectability in your little suburban snobocracy. But me. I'm trying to build up a life without you - and succeeding better than I thought I could.'

"I turned at the door, said, 'Are you building it alone, Greg?'

"He looked me straight in the eye, contemptuously, and said: 'Yes, Vicky asked for a transfer to Adelaide right after that scene. Putting temptation out of the way of both of us. I admired her for that. Much more than I admire you ... still trying for life on your own terms!'

"I realized he just didn't want me any more, so I ran out of the room, down the stairs and into the street. And since then there has never been a day I haven't longed for him, prayed for him. If I'd gone back then and told him I couldn't live without him he might have thought I was doing it to get him back, any old how. Only it's only now that I've realized that all he said was true.

"I didn't really know that girl, Prue, but she was your type, and quite unafraid. If there'd been more in it, she would have been afraid. After all, if that could happen to you, it could have happened to them too. Because I'd never believe you did anything really cheap. Not you, Prue. Some things you just know. And ..." she came nearer Prudence, her eyes bright with unshed tears, "... I can realize just what it meant to you to reveal that to me. You need not have, but your spirit is so generous it just had to be said."

Prudence dropped her eyes. Then she blinked away her tears, said, "Jill, are you going -?"

She didn't have to finish it. The answer was there in the sparkle in Jill's eye, her straightened shoulders, as she sprang to her feet.

"Yes, I'm going back to him, soon as I can. I'll tell him I believe him, that I can't live without him any longer, that without him life is drab, meaningless. That's what he wants, isn't it? Oh, Prue, I feel more alive than I've ever done. I feel I've shed the smug, prudish, hateful creature I was." She paused, caught Prudence's hand, looked imploringly into her eyes. "You think I'll be able to make it up to him, don't you? Able to satisfy him?"

Prudence, eyes ashine too, caught Jill's face between her fingers, smiled into her eyes, said, "I'm sure of it, Jill. You have more to offer him now, haven't you? Not only in loving him but in sharing all those odd adventures of his workaday life."

Jill nodded. By mutual consent they began the descent. The mountain tops had done their work. Jill said happily, "Hugo will be so pleased."

"Yes, he was most concerned. More than most brothers would have been."

Jill had taken half a dozen steps along the fallen totara as Prudence stepped on to it. Her voice floated back to Prudence.

"Well, you see, Hugo was so vitally involved. It was through him Greg met Vicky. Hugo had met her in Adelaide, her home town. It was because of meeting Hugo that she came to Sydney. Hugo got her a job on the newspaper. It was a horrible mix-up."

Prudence missed her step, slipped off the huge mossy trunk, clutched wildly, grasped a lawyer vine that swung with her, took her out into space, and back again.

Jill turned, clutched her, stifling a scream. Prudence's feet found the trunk again, she pulled herself upright, laughed.

"It's all right, Jill. It wouldn't have been far to fall anyway. It was just careless of me, I missed my step."

Yes, that was just what she had done. Jill's remark had been like missing a stair in the dark. It was for Hugo Vicky had come to Sydney. No wonder Hugo was bitter. When his sister's marriage had broken up he had lost the girl he loved ‑

Jill said, "Hugo will be so happy. He read me a lecture the other night, asked me to search my own heart to find out if I was entirely guiltless. Odd that he should have taken that line too. I must tell him you've healed the breach. That you've made me see the thing in its proper perspective."

"No, Jill, you mustn't. At least not altogether. I mean that story I told you - it was in confidence. I wouldn't want Hugo to know about that."

"All right, Prudence. I see what you mean. You said this man was with the Tourist Department. And you and Hugo work in closely with them. The fewer who know about it the better. I'd not like to think any careless word of mine made any wife suffer. But I'll tell Hugo you made me see reason. That I'm going back to Greg."

Hugo and Hohepa had the billy boiling as they came back to the shore. There was a natural glade here, with grass grazed short by deer. The picnic cloth was spread, food piled on plastic plates. Delectable picnic fare, such as Prudence excelled at preparing. Fruit punch, brought in big stone jars, was cooling in the stream.

There was an hour yet before re-embarking, an hour that they filled in with games for the youngsters. Jill joined in, laughing. Prudence saw Hugo glance at his sister once or twice. No wonder - Jill had studiously avoided playing with any of the children, especially the young ones, since coming to Thunder Fiord. They had not remarked on it, knowing how she missed Mark and Linda. But today she flung herself into making every child join in the fun.

"My word," said Mrs. Wainwright to Prudence, "this holiday has certainly done that girl good; she looked very drawn and tired when she came."

Prudence nodded, "Our Fiordland air, no doubt. Who wouldn't feel well? So uncontaminated. Not even roads."

From then on their time belonged to their guests, their comfort and enjoyment. There was the cruise back with guests sunburned and windblown, then dinner to be served. Bessie and Jock had managed beautifully. The waitresses did the dishes, then went off, and after that Hugo, Prudence and Jill usually did some preparation for the breakfasts. Then they had supper and washed their own dishes.

Tonight Prudence said lightly when all this was done, "Now, Hugo, you and Jill go into the sitting room and relax. Jill has something to tell you. I'll just slice the grapefruit in half and segment them and put them on the ice."

Hugo took Jill's arm without demur, left the kitchen.

He was back in less than half an hour, came to Prudence, took the kitchen scissors from her, took her hands, said simply, "I've something to thank you for, Prue."

She said nothing.

He said, "I noticed the difference in Jill as soon as you came out of the bush."

Prudence felt shy, acutely conscious of Hugo's hand engulfing hers. She said awkwardly, "You mean she was more like her old self."

He shook his head. "Not exactly. It was as if she had suddenly come alive at last. She's never been like that before - vital, glowing. It's striking. How did you do it, Prue?"

Prudence said slowly, "Maybe she only needed a confidante, to get something off her chest, see things in a different light."

He said sharply, "Prudence! You're being evasive, holding out on me. You're usually devastatingly direct. Jill gives you all the credit. Said she'd never met anyone like you before. That you made her see things as they really were. Made her believe in Gregory again. I wondered how."

He had her hands too fast for her to free them. Not that she wanted to release them ... it was heaven standing this close, no enmity between them, speaking of things that matter. Only she was afraid the sound of her quickened breathing, the pulse beating in her throat, the flutter of her breast, would give her away.

She couldn't look up. She said, in a tone just above a whisper,

"You don't want a word-for-word account, do you, Hugo? We... just talked. And it came right."

"I do want to know. I have a brotherly curiosity. If only you knew how we'd tried ... my brother and father, a cousin who is very close to Jill. We made no impression."

Prudence looked up, her amber eyes meeting his frankly.

"Hugo, it meant going over things I tried to forget months ago. It took a lot out of me, even talking about it to Jill. I don't want to go over it again."

"I see," he said heavily. "No, I couldn't ask you to do that. In that case I can only say thank you. It couldn't have been easy - in fact it must have been damned gruelling."

Suddenly Prudence smiled at him the sort of smile she hadn't often given him, she was usually so guarded. She said, a little mistily, "But, Hugo, it did something for me too ... gave me back my self-respect. I feel I've made atonement for what I did. I'm more than grateful to Jill for that. It isn't given to everyone to be able to make amends."

Hugo let go her hands, walked to the windows, gazed out at the stars over the fiords, came back to her, said gently,

"Oh, Prue!" He picked up her hand again, kissed it, went away.

CHAPTER IX

Prudence finished the grapefruit, put them in the fridge, walked out of the glass doors and down to the rock-shore. She sat there a long time. Better to be here, in this stifling hot air, than sleepless in her bedroom. That had awakened in her all the longings she carefully suppressed. That was one thing about this life - it was far too busy to leave much time for vain regrets.

Yet sometimes it was impossible not to wonder what it would be like if she were wedded to Hugo. How sweet it would be at the end of days too busy by far, to leave the kitchen together, to find relaxation and enchantment with each other in a world of their own. But what chance of that?

She had dispelled for Jill her doubts of Gregory, but there was no likelihood of Hugo falling in love with her. With Jill and Gregory there were years of married happiness behind them even if they had never reached the possible heights. But Hugo's knowledge and distrust of her dated from their first meeting.

Suddenly Prudence was conscious that the atmosphere had changed, the wind had sprung up, sweeping in from the sou'-west, dispelling the sultriness that had persisted all day. A terrific glare lit the sky eastwards, then the thunder began to roll. A sound like a thousand drums came sweeping towards her. That would be hail. This was going to be no storm in a tea-cup, and here in the fiord, so aptly named, some peculiar acoustic property due perhaps to the sound being hurled against sheer granite walls, thunder always echoed and echoed. It did indeed seem like the personification of all thunder. No wonder they called it Whaitiri-o-Whanga.

Prudence began to run towards the house. The wind buffeted and tore at her, the hail reached her in almost a solid wave as she stumbled up the steps; by the time she reached shelter she was drenched and gasping. The whole house was in darkness, she alone awake. Feeling more lonely than ever, Prudence took a hot shower, went to bed, pulled the clothes over her head to shut out the ferocity of the storm.

They woke to a battered world with no cessation of hostility. The garden was strewn with petals, flowers lay on their sides; on the hillsides and mountains they could see great swathes of flattened bush where trees had crashed, where whole strips of vegetation had been torn from its rock surface and rushed downhill. The mountain peaks were shrouded in mist, swirling and enveloping and retreating. Rain beat up the usually sheltered waters of the Fiord, the sound of the waterfalls was like some giant spillway of a hydro works.

Hugo looked out at Thunder Falls, said, "What power is there - think what it could do."

Prudence looked at him in horror. "Hugo! You don't mean you'd like to see that power used, that beauty destroyed?"

He smiled. "No. In most things I think we have to be practical. For instance I think Manapouri was necessary, and the resulting aluminum industry will be of great benefit to the economic stability of the country. I might not have approved had it not been agreed to preserve as much of the natural beauty of the lake as possible. But this country is unique, a really priceless heritage, something to be preserved at all cost."

Jill joined them, her eyes despairing. "After all this wonderful weather, to be like this today!"

Hugo slipped an arm about her shoulders. "Oh, you can expect this. Fiordland doesn't usually stay dry as long as this last spell. What matter, there's something magnificent about a storm like this."

Jill looked up at him. "But, Hugo, the launch won't set out today."

"No, of course not, it's too dangerous. All the guests would be violently seasick and be put off Fiordland for ever. It means a respite for us."

"But I wanted to go home on it. To Gregory."

"Oh, right away? Sorry, Sis, I should have realized you would. I thought you might have finished out your holiday."

"It wasn't a holiday, it was a refuge. But I must get bad: as soon as possible now. Greg might decide to go away ... he looked so desperately unhappy, even though adamant, when last I saw him. I can't bear to wait."

Hugo's voice was most understanding "Sis, why don't you write him, now, when you're feeling like this? Your letter could easily be more eloquent than speech. You could explain your feelings better, I'm sure. It would be such an anti-climax if you arrived in Sydney and found Greg off on an assignment, or someone with him, someone he couldn't ditch. Or with a desperate need to write all night to get his copy in. You know the airlines are booked heavily just now, but you could get a letter over, telling him you were coming, and how you feel, and when you'd arrive. So much depends on the right circumstances for this reunion.

"You'll have to telephone from Milford for reservations. There may be a delay. You may have to spend a day or two in Christchurch or Dunedin waiting for connections. But your letter would reach Greg right away."

Jill's face lit up. She put an arm round Hugo and one round Prudence. "You two dear people," she said. Prudence felt touched, that linked them for once.

Jill went straight to their sitting room. Prudence laughed. "I'll send her breakfast in. She can't wait to start that letter."

It was two days before the storm spent itself, before the launch could put out. Jill's letter was so fat by that time that it took an outsized envelope to hold it. "That's going to cost you a small fortune in airmail stamps," teased Hugo.

Jill said, "And when I get back I'm going to write to Vicky and tell her that I now feel I misjudged her, that I read too much into that incident. Would you like me to give her your regards, Hugo?"

Prudence, found she was holding her breath, awaiting the answer to that. It came.

"No, thanks, Jill. I'll write to her myself."

Prudence turned away. Perhaps she had not only mended a broken marriage but a broken romance.

CHAPTER X

Jill left with a look in her eyes which meant she was looking forward, not back, and the rest of the tourist season sped by on wings. There were days when Prudence longed to hold time still, this magic, dreaming summer. But the guests came first. She wept when the children went back to school. Hugo found her.

"Hey, what's this?"

She was embarrassed. "Oh, it's silly to be so sentimental, but they're so young and. so alone. So very alone. Just us - a pair of strangers till last November - and so cut off from us here. Once the avalanches start we might as well be overseas as far as accessibility is concerned."

He noticed her fumbling for a dry place on her handkerchief, handed her his. "Here - you used to supply me with such things, once." She took it gratefully, sat up from the couch cushions, mopped up, blew her nose.

He sat down beside her. "You've not got it in right perspective, you know. I think those kids are happier with us than they were even with Aunt Marguerite. She was a good soul, but she had her limitations. She was a bit of a Spartan, a certain toughness. You handle them beautifully. And we're more the right age." He laughed. "That's absurd really, in years we're too young, but you know what I mean. Not too far removed from their own age group, yet sufficiently so to have complete control. Don't fret for the kids, Prudence, you'll wear yourself out."

Midge butted the door with his head, came in, sensed something was wrong, leapt up and licked Prudence's face. Hugo pushed him down. "Easy on, boy, lie down."

"I know." She gave a final sniff. "I know it's stupid, but I just hated them going off into the blue like that. It's another world for them. I hate boarding schools, anyway. I had such a happy childhood, just at day school. I was even home for lunch everyday."

"Now, look, Prue, we can't help it. I'm not one who says boarding schools do kids good - I think the ideal is to be home, but if we had them here, on correspondence school stuff, they could become misfits. They need to knock the corners off, to mix with their own age-group. To have sport and social life. Think how Janny enjoys her cricket. That's a great compensation; Keith has others. His visits to the museum, his outings with that friend of his, the lecturer at the University."

"Yes, I know. And of course Janny wants to go nursing and Keith will want the university. Only I do wish we weren't so far from them." She looked up frankly. "And if I were really honest, I'd admit I miss them for myself. They help create a family atmosphere, a harmony that wasn't always here."

He laughed. "Touché! But I'm not going to start bawling you out as soon as they've gone, Prue."

"Oh, I didn't think that, Hugo. We've -"

He waited, twinkling, for her to finish it. She wouldn't so he finished it for her. "We've become - pals - since then."

She was conscious again of that singing happiness within her veins, something she had never known till she met Hugo. Pals, he had said. Not meaning much, but better than their former enmity.

"And as far as the kids are concerned, I'm thinking of something - we probably can't manage it this year, but you know we said we would always keep at least one of the term holidays free of guests so the youngsters could have a taste of home all to ourselves? Well, I think we should buy a cottage at Karitane or one of those beaches close to Dunedin, and have them there with us for the holidays. Give us a chance of doing their shopping, seeing plays, concerts, and so on. We could let it for other holidays, make it pay for itself. I think that in a place like this, you need to have a town home to go to."

"Oh, what a wonderful idea. The youngsters would adore it. They would be able to entertain their school friends there too. They - oh!"

Hugo looked at her. The light and glow was gone. Now what?

She said slowly, "We couldn't, you know. We aren't really cousins. It wouldn't be the thing."

"I'd not thought of that. And the Stewarts hate being uprooted. They're the hermit type." Suddenly he grinned. "Well, it looks as if there's nothing for it but for us to get married, Prue."

She stood up. To hear him joke about the thing that lay nearest her heart was too much.

"Don't be absurd," she said shortly. "It's unthinkable."

There was a quite tense moment. Then Hugo shrugged. "Now, cut it out, Prue. We aren't going to be at each other's throats the moment the children get back to school. I want your advice about those new cupboards in the guides' quarters. Come on, mate."

Suddenly the long lovely summer was over. Autumn wasn't so marked here, with only the English trees in the garden to turn gold and russet. The bush stayed green, with berries to light the dimness. So summer seemed to slip into winter overnight. The tunnel road closed.

They had to change their minds about the May holidays. Keith was invited to join an expedition in Christchurch on the hunt for Maori relics, Janny went to Wellington for a tournament with her hockey team. So they just flew themselves to Dunedin for a few days at the end of the holidays, when the children got back, to help them with their winter shopping and to see Mr. Cherrington-Smith, who was delighted with the way things were going.

Prudence enjoyed the shopping, but was amazed how soon she wearied, longing to be back with the fiord storms, the mist and spray, the thundering falls, the snow and sleet that would sweep down.

The chartered plane had to pick its days to land now, and they were never quite sure when the tourist flights would get in. Catering wasn't the easiest, but they always managed.

"But have you noticed," asked Hugo, "how much easier the winter tourists are to deal with - fewer complaints, ready to take the good with the bad?"

"Yes, they seem to think that if they're rash enough to take a winter holiday they'll have to make the best of the weather."

But some days the sun was unbelievably brilliant, so bright that the rays, striking on the snowy peaks all around, dazzled their eyes. The winds that swept down were tinged with ice, the tramping track was impassable.

They were a close-knit community now, with only the odd launch calling. Supply boats and crayfish boats often called. The fiord was deep and could take most coastal shipping.

Prudence and Hugo began to explore the other arms of Fearful Sound, something they had had little time for before. Sometimes they climbed and tramped, sometimes they took the launch, nosing into countless arms where snow waters rushed joyously down to add their quota to the fathomless depths. But always Jock or Hohepa went with them, the two men who knew the area so well but never let familiarity blunt their awareness of the dangers of being lost.

Prudence put on no weight, it was too hard a life, but she grew tanned, with a dusky glow that set off the amber-brown eyes, the chestnut hair. Hugo's eyes seemed more vividly blue in his brown face.

They had three days of Indian summer when there were daily flights in and Hugo said, "I know it's boosting the takings, but I wish we could have a few days not so good. When Murdoch Galloway was here on his last trip he said he might take us round his crayfish pots next time. Anyway, the Stewarts could manage with Hohepa. We ought to take the chance of seeing further south. I want to see the places where those tough old captains of the sealing boats used to dump the men, coming back months later for them, when they had got in their harvest of skins. I've been reading it up - there must have been a terrific slaughter. No wonder the stocks got depleted. I want to use that background for my next book. You're a good sailor, aren't you? I mean we may strike it rough. It's a treacherous coast, though the Koura Hine is very seaworthy. What's that mean?"

Prudence thought for a moment. "Well, koura is crayfish ... oh, the Crayfish Girl, I suppose. But Maori meanings are tricky - several meanings to one spelling sometimes."

How treacherous the coast was they were soon to know. Murdoch called in, had a meal with them, told them his mate was laid up at Milford. "I knew you'd done a bit of engineering at sea, Macallister, so I'd not lack a hand. Prudence can be galley-hand. Any good on an oil stove in a rough sea, Prue?"

"That will remain to be seen, Murdoch. I might even evolve some original recipes for my column."

Murdoch said to the Stewarts, "We'll just be two or three nights away, but expect us when you see us."

It was dull and cloudy, but a few miles down the coast the sun came through. "Looks as if they'll bring a plane in, but never mind, the tourist worries won't be ours," said Hugo unrepentantly.

Later he said, "Well, Thunder Fiord may be isolated, but it's nothing to this. It's another world."

Murdoch, at the wheel, grinned. "If you think this is isolated, you want to come further round still some time. Get a trip out to some of the bleakest islands past Stewart Island with the mutton-birders. Terrific. Scenes - in the days of the sailing ships - of the most terrible wrecks. They had to put survival huts on the islands in the finish. Men lived for months there on raw shell-fish, sea-birds, seals. Some were lucky and were cast away with matches. Bleak windswept islands with only stunted vegetation, swarming with seals, sea-lions, sea- elephants. They have weather stations on some of them. Great background for your type of book, Hugo."

They steamed in close to the shore in some of the fiords where Murdoch was inspecting his pots. Wild life was teeming, and most of it was unafraid. Occasionally they glimpsed a wild boar crashing through the bush, there were seals, sunning themselves on warm rocks, huge pigeons, little blue penguins, friendly wekas, the native woodhen, gulls and other seabirds they could not name, though Murdoch knew them all. Prudence took notes for Hugo.

It seemed impossible this could have been charted so long ago. They felt they shared with Captain Cook and his sailors that Eden-like magic of waking in the mornings to an almost deafening chorus of bell-birds and tuis. As they went Murdoch told them as much as he knew of the whaling and sealing stations of years gone by, linking them up with the Spanish and French and Dutch names of that coast that sprang to his mind. They had adventured here, knowing that if they were lost they would never be heard of again.

When Prudence picked up a piece of rough greenstone he identified it for her. "Hard to do in this state, but another larger piece has cracked this and you can see fairly plainly that it's second-class greenstone by the flecks. It's said that when the canoe Tairea came to New Zealand under the command of Tama-ki-te-Rangi, his three wives fled to the West Coast. At Piopiotahi - the Maori name for Milford - he found one of his wives, but he was too late, she had been turned to greenstone. As his tears flowed they entered this southern greenstone and give it the flecks - see, they're like teardrops. So it was called tangiwai, the water of weeping. It's a bowenite, not nearly as hard as the pounamu found further up, but for some reason I like this one the best."

"I do too," said Prudence. "I've always thought among the souvenirs I liked the speckled one."

They were memorable days, bound up with a certain pain at knowing the hardship and disaster that had prevailed along the coast, finding evidence of that in the lonely graves here and there, of seamen born across the other side of the world.

They were on their way home when the trouble occurred. Even with the engine fault that developed and faulted again as fast as Hugo and Murdoch repaired it, they could have made Thunder Fiord all right, but when the storm blew up they hadn't a chance.

They kept their fears from Prudence for long enough. She knew so little about seamanship it did not dawn on her the men were getting anxious. She was quite happy pottering about, proving herself a resourceful cook on a primitive stove.

"Certainly never eaten on board like this before," Murdoch had said one day. "I'll take you on as an extra hand any time you like to come, Prue."

She had seen storms like this before beat up Fearful Sound and into Thunder, but never before had she been out on the open sea in a small vessel exposed to the full force of a gale that had swept across the Tasman from Australia. It was a terrifying experience as it increased, all sound and fury, with a shrieking eldritch quality about it that made one feel all the forces of evil were let loose.

"We'll turn into the next fiord," said Murdoch grimly, "while this engine has still got some life in her - otherwise we'll be driven ashore."

"Can you manage her in between the heads?" asked Hugo.

"Yes. We're lucky we're here - this fiord is wide at the entrance. If I can get her in before she cuts out altogether well be jake."

They were inside the mouth of the fiord when a swathe of hail slashed across them, making visibility nil. "If we can make it into the farther arm, we'd be fairly sheltered. I could even beach her there, it's too steep here. We could wait till the storm blows itself out. There's plenty of tucker on board."

Instructions were shouted out against the howling wind; the hail passed, struck again, fresh gusts attacked them. Prudence waited, quelling panic. No need to make it worse for the men. They knew their job. They were just past the second arm when the engine ceased altogether.

"This is it," said Hugo. "Get your May-day signal out. We've not got much time. I'll get the dinghy launched; Prudence, grab provisions - tinned stuff - load the dinghy." He grabbed matches himself, put them in a tin, threw them with the rest of the stuff Prudence was frantically loading.

They had much less time than they thought. The boat was now at the mercy of the elements, tossed like a cork. Murdoch was wrestling with impossible conditions, trying to get his May-day signal out. Hugo got the dinghy launched, realized Murdoch would go down with the boat if he didn't come, gave a great shout for him, and at the moment Murdoch appeared at the rail, the painter broke and the dinghy disappeared astern.

Murdoch didn't hesitate, he dived in straight after it. There was a shudder and reeling as the Koura Hine struck the jagged precipitous rocks of the fiord.

Hugo bent, tore at the laces of Prudence's shoes - she pushed him away as she remembered they were in double knots - "Quick, Hugo, over the side, she's going under!"

They dived together as the ship tilted, into the grey, boiling, foam-flecked waters, instinctively choosing the safest way, away from the suck of the boat's sinking, away from those cruel rocks.

It was only afterwards that Prudence realized how cold the water had been. At the time the only thought was to preserve life, to win to the shore. The water tumbled them, tossed them, as they came up, but mercifully shorewards.

Hugo gasped something, grasped her hair streaming behind her, urged her on. There was a roaring in her ears, she wanted to open her mouth to gasp in air, but she mustn't... The remorseless grip was dragging her on, he was striking out strongly, she battled to swim. There was a sucking, then a hurling, a sucking back again, then they were flung on to sharp rocks, waters swirling madly, fiendishly around them. But they were together, Hugo's fingers still twisted in her hair. She was lying half across him.

She lay there, winded. It seemed as if Hugo was winded too. But once they recovered their breath they could crawl further up the beach, get to their feet, see if they could see Murdoch and the dinghy. She raised herself up, painfully, on her hands, looked down on Hugo. His eyes were closed, his mouth open, his face deadly white. She stared in horror, and in that moment another wave swirled up to them. The wind tore and screamed, combining with those evil sucking waves to drag them back. Prudence stood upright, bent, seized Hugo under the shoulders, began to drag him back, slipping on the slimy, weed-covered rocks, crashing into pools, trying to lift him from contact with the too-sharp mussels. She looked behind her. The jagged reef ran back, thank God, to shingle and sand.

Her every breath was an agony, tearing at her tortured lungs. But there was only one thing to do - get Hugo out of reach of that ravening tide. He had saved her, now she must save him.

Somehow she did it, let him sink back on to the softer sand, dropped down beside him, gazed fearfully at his face, at the ugly wound where the wave that had thrown them on the shore had cast him on a sharp rock. It was bleeding, bruised. But had he swallowed any water, was there weed in his mouth?

She poked her fingers to the back of his throat - no, it was clear; she turned his head over, but no water ran out. He was breathing quite well, he wasn't in danger of drowning. She let him go, ran to the reef, wildly searched what she could see of the sea. Mist was swirling down, advancing and retreating. There was no sign of the dinghy, or Murdoch; only the cabin was visible of the boat; it was slowly submerging. But Murdoch had got- free of the boat, he couldn't have gone down with it, and he was a splendid swimmer - but this was a cruel sea. He might be lying elsewhere on the beach, knocked out as Hugo was.

She didn't know how long she ran between Hugo and the sea, her whole being a prayer, her eyes tortured with straining into the thickening mist, trying not to sob, trying to save her breath for her efforts to call Murdoch. Her ears ached with the effort of listening, but there was only the sound of the fury of the storm, sea-birds crying, never a human voice.

Finally, defeated, she stood once more over Hugo's unconscious form, saw the pitiless rain soaking him, knew that here was the task to her hand. She must get him into some sort of shelter, try to revive him.

She dragged him further still up the beach, then, loath to leave him but knowing she must reconnoitre, disappeared into the mist to see what shelter might be available. She prayed that this might be one of the fiords where survival huts were to be found, holding blankets in watertight containers, food, matches, medical supplies. But it seemed as if it were given over only to the sea-birds and their melancholy wailing.

The bush was all that offered. Even though it would be soaking wet it would offer more shelter than the exposed shore. Prudence knew she would not dare go far in. It was easy to be lost in, in perfect weather; she must take the nearest shelter, however poor.

There were always fallen trees, and sometimes they provided a bit of shelter. Dryness would be too much to hope for, but even to be in the lee of the wind would be something. And Hugo might revive, must revive, would revive soon.

Suddenly she found more than she had hoped for - two immense trees, torn from the hillside in heavy rain many moons before, had been wrenched out with such force, and had so much earth clinging to their roots, that there were two great circles, lying against each other propped into a sort of triangular shelter, with, miraculously, a dry path beneath.

Prudence, with the faint hope in her heart that Hugo might have come to, ran back to him. He was lying as she had left him, his head turned sideways, his arms lying helplessly.

Afterwards she realized it was the strength born of desperation that got him to the bush rim and into the shelter. It was far from adequate, the big Australian had height to match his solidity and his feet sprawled out into the rain, but it gave some protection to head and torso.

She rah back to the water's edge, hair plastered to her cheeks, tears mingling with the rain, clothes moulded against her body, and she called Murdoch's name over and over. There was such a tiny area of shore it didn't take long to search. This was just a small beach, cut off at either side with a reef of rocks below sheer cliffs. They had been fortunate to be cast on that reef.

As she stopped calling, knowing she must go back to Hugo, the seething waves tossed something at her feet. Prudence picked it up, gazed at it with eyes that blurred swiftly. From the dinghy ... one small can of condensed milk! She turned and ran back to Hugo.

It wouldn't be long before it was dark. Night came down swiftly in winter, so far south, and visibility was nothing, owing to the storm. She could do no more for Murdoch. If only Hugo would regain consciousness before darkness fell! Because she wouldn't be able to see any change in him once it was dark.

Suddenly terror, terror of what lay ahead, of darkness, perhaps starvation, with Murdoch drowned, Hugo perhaps badly injured, alone on a coast that had meant the death of many castaways, gripped her all in its horror. Prudence clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream, bit her lip, carried on, head bent against the elements, into the bush.

He lay as she had left him, but just the sight of him restored her a little. Here was a job to her hand. She could not rouse him.

She talked to herself. "Now, don't panic, Prue. His breathing isn't much different from normal, that wound doesn't look too bad, and it's stopped bleeding. There's no bleeding from his ears or nose or mouth, so his head is probably not injured internally. The thing is to keep him dry."

Inwardly she smiled at the thought. Dry! He was soaked to the skin. But it would be something if she could keep the rain from wetting him more. If she had more shelter, she could rub him a little. But no use taking off the wet clothes - there were no others to put on him, no matches for a fire to dry any.

She sprang up, saw the dry fronds of the soft tree-fern, began wresting diem off the trunk, and layering them across the upper edges of the mass of earth and roots. She got broken dead branches, light to lift, to put across as rafters - yes, that was the thing, not too bad at all, then she could lie the lighter fronds across them. The bush was so thick the wind scarcely penetrated here at all. As she stripped the tree-ferns, working as fast as she could without exhausting herself, she found that inside the outer circle of brown dead fronds, the earlier dead ones were bone dry. If she could get enough of them she could make a couch for Hugo and herself.

One thing, she was so soaked this rain didn't matter, and working so hard she would warm up sooner or later, but Hugo wouldn't. He was terribly cold. Each time she returned to the inadequate shelter, she chafed his hands, tried to rouse him. To no avail.

Her watch, of course, had stopped. But she must have worked two hours before she decided she must rest. It was not too bad, leaking in spots, but it wasn't falling to bits. She had torn strips of flax off, somehow, cutting her hands, and with it had tied the supports of the roof to the branches of the fallen trees, but if she stood upright suddenly she would probably knock the whole structure over.

She heaped up the dried tree-ferns, heaved and pushed at Hugo till she got him on them. That would be warmer than the ground. God send it was sunny tomorrow.

She wiped his face with her wet handkerchief, bathed the wound on his temple with some water she brought from the cascades in her shoe. She dug her hands into the pockets of her slacks and jacket, brought out the contents ... a comb, a piece of string, a pencil sharpener, her piece of greenstone, two more handkerchiefs, a headscarf. Nothing to eat.

By now her hunger was sharp. She would have to get that tin of milk open. Perhaps a pointed stone would pierce it and she could let some run into her mouth. But what if she wasted some? It could be the saving of Hugo when he came round. Even in her thoughts she did not say if. A thought struck her, she dived into his pockets.

Ah, a more profitably tally ... a packet of tobacco, his pipe, two boxes of matches, a letter, string, some nails and a corkscrew. And his knife ... his wonderful, wonderful knife! The one Keith had given him for Christmas, a survival knife, he had called it. It had everything in the way of gadgets you could imagine. Prudence flicked up the tin-opener, carefully set the condensed milk on a flat piece of ground, opened it only an inch. It was too precious to risk spilling.

"I'll have four teaspoonfuls," she said to herself, and giggled, because there weren't any teaspoons. But the giggle had done her good. She let it run into her mouth, had to exercise control not to take more, carefully licked the edge - hygiene could go by the board - set it in a circle of stones, put a big leaf and a stone on it. No insects were going to get into that.

Well, one thing, they wouldn't die of thirst. And here, in country where there were no sheep, no dogs, you could drink to your fill with no fear of hyatids. She kept rubbing Hugo to keep his circulation going, speaking to him hoping he would stir. He seemed warmer, she thought, or was that just wishful thinking?

She could hear wood pigeons whirring in their flight, calling to each other. If they were here long would it be possible to kill one? But how? With a stone? She said aloud, because talking was companionable, "You'd better not come round here too much, Mr. Kereru, even if you are a protected bird! You'll find yourself in my cook-pot if you do." Then she fell silent, because there wasn't any cook-pot and the only matches might never strike again, even supposing they dried out. A shiver shook her.

It was then she heard the first rustle. Definite movement in the bush beside her. Prudence froze. Not a wild boar? She thought of those huge boars, aggressive and weighty, their charging power, the cruel tusks, the little vicious eyes. She looked at Hugo, helpless, uncaring. She leaned quietly forward, picked up the knife, released the biggest blade, strained her ears.

She wouldn't make any movement. Maybe they were only dangerous if attacked and disturbed. Then around the edge of the caked earth walked a weka, a friendly, inquisitive native wood-hen. She might have known!

But she knew exactly what she was going to do. She waited till it came right up to her, then she seized it. They had to have food, even raw.

Holding it, scarcely protesting, she got up, carried it outside and, gritting her teeth, wrung its neck with the same humanely quick jerk she had seen Hugo use on the fowls they killed for the table. She despised herself for crying. But she so hated to kill anything. She made sure it was dead, picked up the piece of string, tied its legs together, and bringing it inside, hung it up to one of the branches she had used in the roofing. It would soon be too dark to see the plump, lifeless body, anyway, and she wasn't going to have any stoat or other predatory animal making off with tomorrow's food. If only she wasn't so hungry. She took a little more of the milk, as now it seemed tomorrow's meals might be filling, if not exactly appetizing raw. She sat down again. "If those matches dry," she said, "it could be hangi-baked weka with feraroot and sea-water seasoning."

But suddenly, frighteningly, it was dark, and she could no longer see Hugo's face, just listen for his breathing, just imagine insects crawling all over you. She suddenly thought of the giant wetas that abounded in Fiordland, the stick insects, the spiders and cockroaches, all larger than life in these ideal conditions. She shuddered, then caught herself up. She was alive, wasn't she?

Hugo seemed colder again. She, pushed her dry fronds near him, huddled on to it, eased him round till his face was supported on her breast. He would be more comfy that way, the fronds, as a pillow, sank down too much, and her warmth might just preserve that little spark of life within him. Oh, God, grant that come daylight he might regain consciousness.

The night was going to be a long one, the dark unpeopled night, with only herself conscious in it. How much of that May-day signal had Murdoch managed to get out? Would they have any idea of their whereabouts? There was no knowing. Prudence slipped uneasily into the blessed oblivion of sleep.

It must have been before dawn, a black, hopeless hour, when she woke. Woke wondering where she was, why she was so uncomfortable, so cold, what this weight on her chest was. She stirred, and in that moment Hugo's voice, perfectly normal, except that it was drowsy, said: "Prudence, you don't still care for Godfrey, do you?"

Bemused, disbelieving, Prudence automatically answered, "No, of course not. I got over him before I came here." Then, "Hugo, oh, Hugo, you've come to, you've come to! Oh, Hugo!"

She bent over him, put her face against his, rough, unshaven, with dried blood and dirt on it. Tears were running down her cheeks.

Then his voice again, not drowsy but alert. "Prue, where the devil are we? The boat - what happened? The dinghy - how did-?"

She clutched him as he tried to stand up. "Don't get up, Hugo. You can't see in this pitch darkness, and you'll wreck my fern-tree hut. We got wrecked - we were thrown on shore, but you got a blow on the rocks on your temple."

She felt his hand come up to it. Then his voice, bare of all emotion save the urgency to know, said, "Is Murdoch here, Prue? Is he here?"

She knew her whole body stiffened and that he could feel it, because he said, "Oh, I see. Oh, Prue!"

Then, after drawing a deep breath, "Is it safe to sit up?"

"Yes ... but be careful, you may have other injuries, though I felt you over and you didn't seem to have any broken bones."

He eased himself up, slipping free of her arms, then she felt his arms come round her, draw her to him. She buried her face in his shoulder, felt his hand come up to the back of her head, stroking it.

"Tell me exactly what happened. Everything, mind. How you got me here, how you contrived this shelter, you clever girl. I say, hasn't the rain stopped?"

It had. They talked till the grey, fitful dawn came. They both knew their position was extremely grim; there was no hiding that.

"But even suppose our call for help didn't get through at all, in another day or two when we're overdue and can't be raised on the radio, air and sea rescue teams will be out, Prue."

"Yes ... providing it's flying weather and they have a chance of spotting us. Oh, sorry, Hugo, that's a defeatist attitude."

His hand came to cover hers. "You'll never be defeated, Prue. We must just face realities, and pray for fine weather."

He got his eyes on something that moved and swung from the roof in the growing light.

He said uncertainly, "I know I've had a crack on the head, but I'm sure I can see some game hanging from the roof. What-?"

"Oh, it's a weka," said Prudence. "I wrung the poor things neck last night. But it will be ghastly raw if we can't get those matches to strike."

Hugo started to laugh. "Oh, Prue, Prue! — in fact Prudence-in-your-kitchen. It's beyond belief. You get shipwrecked one day and you have the larder full the next." He sobered suddenly. "My dear, we've got to go searching. There may be ... traces ... and some provisions may be washed up. Let's not waste a moment."

He didn't seem much worse for his concussion; Prudence thought that perhaps he had come round sooner than she had known in those dark hours, and fallen into a natural sleep, and they had kept each other warm a little, though they shivered now as the wind from the sea met them. Their clothes were partly dry, stiff and clammy.

It was no time for Prudence to be wondering just what had made Hugo ask what he had asked, there in the intimacy of the darkness, and out of his first stirrings of consciousness, but despite their plight and because of that asking, she felt again within her that singing in her veins.

He looked at her with warm admiration as he saw how snug she had made their temporary shelter. "I don't know how you did it. Or got me here."

"It was desperation, Hugo. We'd better have some of this condensed milk, in turn, and a drink of water."

They splashed some of the fresh water on their faces, straightened up their clothing a little, combed their hair. By now it was broad daylight, the wind was cold, but a watery sun was warming things up a little.

"Before we do anything else," said Hugo, "we must put these matches to dry. They just might strike if well dried out. If not we'll have to start rubbing sticks together, or striking stones. Or if we found some very dry leaves and the sun got out really hot, if I took the glass out of my watch it might start to smoulder ... I say, look at that, my watch is still going! It's one of those waterproof ones, but I didn't dream it could survive all that."

"Then if we do have to try that, we'll use the glass of mine," said Prudence. "It's had it."

Hugo arranged the matches on a flat rock, weighting them carefully down with stones, but with the heads well exposed. He did four. "I dare not risk more in case of a sudden shower." He put his pipe and tobacco pouch in the sun too.

There were mussels in plenty on the rocks; if they could get a fire going they would not starve, and it would be a signal too, the sort of thing the air and sea rescue folk would be looking for.

They both fell silent as they neared the shore of the tiny bay. It was so small that it was quite evident there were no hopes for Murdoch's survival. Then Hugo's trained eye spotted something on the reef nearest the entrance to the main fiord. "It looks like an oar," he said quietly. He gave Prudence his hand. Mutely they walked towards it. It was an oar all right, and other things from the dinghy were washed up there too. The dinghy itself must have been swept out into the fiord, back towards the mouth perhaps. Hugo stooped swiftly as a wave threatened to wash a small object away - a tobacco tin which, when opened, revealed sheer treasure to their eyes, in the light of their survival value ... a tin of fish hooks. Prudence was scooping up the things from the rocks. "Hugo, we can eat, even without a fire. A tin of salmon! Herrings too, and look, some pineapple. But oh, where have the rest of the things gone?"

"Well, it will give us a start, and if we can get a fire going later we'll at least have the cans to cook things in, a few at a time."

It was just then that Prudence picked something else up ... Murdoch's cap, waterlogged and battered, its once trim peak cracked and broken.

Prudence gave an anguished cry, put her hand to her mouth. Hugo caught her to him wordlessly, pressing her head against him. They stood there, clinging to each other. She knew the big Australian would have tears in his eyes too, thinking of Murdoch, of Murdoch's wife and children in Port Chalmers. They themselves were alive, reasonably well. No doubt some unpleasant experiences yet awaited them, but there was a fairly good chance they would be rescued.

Even the birds seemed hushed, the whole fiord silent with an unbearable silence, remote, unexplored ... impenetrable bush and snow-choked mountain passes between than and civilization.

Then a stone struck a rock just ahead of them and ricocheted to land at their feet. They swung round, gazed up at the cliffs above them, considerably startled ... but it would be a sea-bird, a penguin, even a wood-pigeon, for they were known to try to attract attention by dropping twigs. They shut their eyes against what they saw there ... Murdoch's face peering down at them!

"Ahoy there," said Murdoch's voice. "This is no time for making love. Aren't you hungry, mates? I've got a tin of tomato soup here."

Prudence's knees wouldn't hold her, they buckled under her and she sat down.

Then Murdoch's voice, the laughter gone. "If you knew what I've been through! I didn't dream you could have been washed up this side - I hunted madly all over this other cove till darkness fell. Didn't think you'd had much chance anyway, thought you'd gone down with the Crayfish Lass. I caught hold of the rope on the dinghy till she was smashed to pieces on the rocks. This reef of rocks separates the two coves. I'm coming down."

After that they hid their relief. No use dwelling on agonies over and done with. Murdoch had found a shallow cave, hardly more than a depression in the cliff, but it had been on the lee side and had sheltered him from the wind. He had drunk half the tomato soup, cold, because he was so hungry he couldn't wait to light a fire, but he had a great treasure ... in an inside pocket he had a small packet of matches, wrapped in waterproof material.

"My wife's doings. She always checks to see I have one in every pocket. Her father was a captain on this coast. And I got a tin of milk, too."

Taking it all round they could have been in a much worse plight. There was no sign at all of the Koura Hine she must be at the bottom of the fiord.

Murdoch looked away as he said that, his throat sounded tight. They knew what his craft had meant to him. She was well insured, but -

"There should be wreckage, but the wind must have swung round during the night and swept it out to seawards. Pity, because it could have been useful, though if the crayfish pots got away, they'd keep on bobbing and would make out position for the air search."

Murdoch's amazement when he saw the weka was ludicrous. "She's certainly the sort to get shipwrecked with, isn't she, Hugo?"

Prudence pulled a face at him. "Whenever we get a fire going you two are going to pluck and clean that bird. I hate that job."

"You hate killing anything too," said Hugo. "I don't doubt that you apologized handsomely to the bird before committing the foul deed ... like the Walrus and the Carpenter did to the oysters. But never mind, I'm glad there are some jobs you don't excel at, otherwise we menfolk would develop inferiority complexes. It is possible for women to be too efficient, Prudence Sinclair."

The relief of knowing they were all safe acted like mercury on their spirits. It suddenly became a glorious adventure. Before long they might hear amphibian aircraft out, searching for them.

"Are we anywhere near any of those survival huts, Murdoch?" asked Hugo. "The thought of adequate food and shelter, and especially blankets, sounds good to me."

Murdoch shook his head. "No. In summer you might make one. Never make it in winter. We'd have to strike so far inland, and go so high, we'd perish of exposure. Our best bet is to get a really good beacon fire going on the beach. They'll be looking for us on the coast."

The difficulty was finding dry wood. They made sure of having a good pile to begin with because they weren't going to waste one of those precious matches. They used Prudence's dry fronds for kindling. The greatest difficulty would be keeping it going in the Fiordland weather.

Once they got a good start with the fire, however, it wouldn't matter if they used damp wood because it would make all the more smoke for signalling.

They added water to the half-can of soup, heated that first, setting it with extreme care on very flat stones. They washed it out carefully, put in some condensed milk and water, and used it as a hot drink, using the tin in turns. Prudence began hunting for deep shells to use as scoops for eating food with. She brought up some big mussels, boiled water, dropped them in, cooking them a long time, as they gathered more wood. She had used salt water, so they were unbelievably delicious. She giggled.

"Good job I don't take as long as this at the hostel between breakfast courses! Still, we've no dishes to wash. If you do that cleaning and plucking of the weka we could joint it and try to make a Maori oven to cook it. We can light another fire from this, further away, get stones really hot in a pit, wrap the meat in leaves, and bake it by steam - pouring water on the stones. It will take a long time, but it's the best way ever of cooking anything."

Murdoch scratched his head. "Don't they usually cook it feathers and all, plastered over with clay? I'm not sure, I've had hangi-baked birds, but never watched very closely. It will take the deuce of a time plucking that bird without a big pot of boiling water to dip it in."

"Right, we'll try it," said Prudence. "As long as you take the insides out."

The men laughed and set to work.

Oddly enough the time flew. They had to look for better shelter for that night. The cliff on the side Murdoch had climbed down was honeycombed with caves, but they were very shallow. Then they found one, further in, nearer the bush, that was adequate if not exactly roomy and almost high enough to stand upright in. It was as dry as a bone, and they could tell the tide never came this far up the beach.

"Usually caves give me claustrophobia," said Murdoch, "but any port in a storm, this is fairly sheltered from the wind. It doesn't give much outlook, we'll have to listen for planes, but if the weather stays fine we'll not be in it much, and if it doesn't -" He broke off, glancing sideways at Prudence.

She finished it for him calmly. "If it doesn't we've not much chance of being rescued anyway. No good beating about the bush, Murdoch."

He nodded. "Wish the old tub had stayed on the surface; she'd be a good landmark piled up against the cliffs. But her lifebelts might be floating around and could be spotted. And we'll run up a flagpole on that bluff. There's a bald spot where the bush gives up. We'll put Hugo's red tartan shirt on it as soon as possible."

Hugo looked sour. "Trust me to be the mug to have the right sort of shirt for a flag of distress! Just as well I've got this windcheater, otherwise you'd let me shiver in my singlet, I suppose. Not an advantage belonging to the Clan Macallister after all! Well, what say we cut down a sapling? It will blunt the knife, though. We'll try breaking one first - because if they got your signal they'll be out bright and early while the weather holds. If they didn't they'll wait till they consider we're overdue. Prudence, while Murdoch and I get cracking on that, would you carry over what's left of the dry fronds into the cave for tonight? But don't on any account go further into the bush than the hut."

The work kept them from thinking too much about their not-so-happy position. The weka was plump and young. By the time they got the Maori oven going well, they were all blackened and smarting in the eyes, but as Prudence remarked cheerfully, there was no lack of water for washing.

Their pockets had all yielded string, so they joined up the bits, tied rocks on for sinkers, attached their hooks and managed to drop the line over a deep edge of rock and secure it firmly. Nobody had the time till they had fixed their quarters for the night, to sit and hold the line.

"These waters teem with fish, anyway. We're bound to get a bite, even one on every hook. Main thing is to keep some of the string and half the hooks back in case the line breaks. Later on, when we're looking for something to do, we can plait lines out of flax fibre. We could bash the leaves on the rocks with another stone to remove the green and leave the fibre."

The men later left Prudence to tend the fire while they explored the next cove to see if anything had been washed ashore from the dinghy or the Koura Hine, because anything could be valuable during the next few hours ... or days. Beyond that they would not think.

They hadn't been gone more than twenty minutes when Prudence noticed the thick Fiordland mist swirling down from the mountain tops. She gazed up, realized it was snowing up there above the bush-line. She piled more on the fire, retreated to the cave, because her clothes had dried out now and she didn't want them wet again. She scooped up the drying matches as she went.

She heard the men coming before long. She stared; Hugo had an oilskin on and was carrying a collapsible stool. Murdoch had a sack, and a few things rattled round inside it.

Hugo indicated his haul. "They must have floated loose before the boat sank. The oilskin will be invaluable if this weather continues, it will mean we can tend the fire without getting our other clothes soaked again. There'll be no air reconnaissance today."

Murdoch displayed his finds. A piece of rope, a waterlogged cushion that would take weeks to dry out, a wooden tray, and a tin of baked beans. "We're darned lucky. More may turn up. We'll keep going out, in the oilskin, to see if anything is bobbing about The current's this way." He looked at Hugo. "This sort of adventure is right up your alley. And wonderful publicity. 'Author shipwrecked.' Whacko! I wager your next book will feature a desert island, isn't it supposed to be everybody's dream?"

Prudence knew the two men were making light of it to stop her worrying too much. But she knew as well as they did how long Fiordland rains could last, shutting out all visibility and all chance of being spotted from the air. They would be searching by ship too, but in that fretworked outline of coast, indented with hundreds of coves and inlets, many of them reaching back into the bush, and each with bays and fiords of their own, it was almost an impossible task, especially if the sea was thick with fog.

But she mustn't let the men see she realized that. It would make things harder for them. For the time being at any rate, they were reasonably comfortable.

The weka was unbelievably delicious. The flesh fell to pieces from the long slow cooking, but they could have done with salt.

The cave was a boon now the weather had deteriorated. The men insisted on Prudence having the collapsible stool to sit on; it brought her head a few inches from the roof, but was a change from the hard cold ground. She agreed, on condition they took it in turn for a change of position.

After their lunch Hugo said, "I think you two should have a lie-down. It was a ghastly night for you. I was out of it. I'll squat at the entrance and keep an eye on the fires. Later you can take a turn, Murdoch."

Prudence thankfully subsided on a pile of fronds and bracken and was asleep in a jiffy. She didn't know Hugo had taken off his windcheater and put it over her till she woke and found him in his singlet.

She protested, "In this weather, Hugo!"

"Oh, I used the oilskin for outside, and you get very cold lying uncovered when asleep. I was active and kept warm. Fish for tea. I gutted them and wrapped them in flax, and I hope they're as good as the weka. It's a land flowing with milk and honey. And guess what, I found one of the crayfish pots bobbing about, waded in and got it. Six crayfish in, still alive. We'll even get a varied diet yet. But oh, boy, couldn't I do with a hot cup of tea!"

"Don't! I've been lying here thinking about it."

Murdoch was out securing the crayfish pot in a pool of sea water, then they could use them as they wanted them. Hugo began unpicking the sack with his knife. "We'll have a blanket tonight," he said, "if that sun comes out and we can dry it."

Prudence looked at it and started to laugh as he turned it inside out. "I'm thinking of our linen cupboards at the hostel. Lavender and verbena bags in than. Look at that!"

Hugo laughed with her. It was filthy, had held chaff originally and many things since, it was covered with fish scales, potato shoots, and smelled to high heaven. "But it will be warm when - if ever - it dries," he said.

They agreed sensibly that they would keep most of the tinned stuff against emergency. They improved their technique with the cooking, lifting the top stones occasionally and splashing with sea water to make the fish palatable.

There was plenty of it. "Isn't it a glorious feeling," said Murdoch, leaning back on the fronds, "to be really full?"

Prudence licked her fingers once more in case she had any remaining flavour left on them. "It's worth being really hungry for," she affirmed.

Murdoch felt in his pocket. "By all that's wonderful, here's a packet of chewing gum! Six bits, two each, whaddyer think about that? I've been dying for something sweet! We can each park our wads on a different rock for the night, and it should last us for days!"

The next moment they were all rolling on the fronds, helpless with laughter. They sat near the entrance to the cave till the light faded, playing noughts and crosses with sticks in the dust. They had banked the fire well, using peaty stuff from the bush that would burn slowly. They knew they all needed a good rest, and as they had quite a number of matches, would experiment this one night to see if the fire would stay in. If it didn't the two men would take it in turns to get up and tend it the next night - if they were still there. They hoped they wouldn't be.

The sack was still wet, no good for a covering, but they managed, with great difficulty, to secure it to the roof of the cave at the entrance where there were some fairly sharp points of rock. That would keep the draughts out a little. They draped the oilskin over the chair to block out more - it was too cold for a cover - and finally lay down on their frond mattresses.

Hugh had experimented with criss-crossing young saplings underneath, to keep them off the rock a little, but they were most uncomfortable, and finally, laughing ruefully, they dragged them out again, scrabbling in the dark to get the fronds arranged in position once more. The men made Prudence have the far end of the cave, a foot or two from them, that would be the warmest spot, and they themselves would huddle together. At least the cave didn't drip from the roof.

Prudence woke in the night to the deepest darkness she had ever known. To darkness and a sudden claustrophobic feeling. A memory of having read in the newspaper recently that Fiordland was the most earthquake-prone area in New Zealand rushed in on her. Just imagine if one were to occur now! They could be buried. They would never be found. Despite her attempt at control a gasp escaped her. She put a hand to her mouth instantly, but it had wakened Hugo.

He had been lying against Murdoch's back, but turned to her, raised himself on his elbow and stretched out his hand across the space between till he found her.

"What is it, Prue? Imagination getting away with you? Wondering if we'll be rescued?"

"No." Her whisper was like a little girl's, thin and scared, not like Prudence's voice at all. "But - but I feel I'm suffocating ... it's so dark, the darkness is pressing down close. The roof's too low. I was thinking about earthquakes, landslips ... oh, I'm a coward, Hugo. I shouldn't be saying this, but I've got to. I'm simply terrified." Her hands groped, clung to him.

He said reassuringly, "Have a look at my watch, Prue. There's a focal point in the darkness for you." The tiny luminous dial shone from his wrist with instant comfort. It was only ten o'clock. He laughed. "When we get out of here I'll write the most marvellous recommendation for this particular brand of watch, it must be a cracker-jack, I must have wound it up not long before we went aground."

The low-toned conversation was steadying Prudence's nerves. It was taking place against the rhythmic resonance of Murdoch's snoring.

Hugo said, "Want to come outside? I think it's devilish dark, low cloud, I suppose, but it should be about two shades lighter than in here. But be careful not to trip over the furniture, it's Chippendale!"

They stepped carefully over Murdoch, crept to the door of the cave, found it a relief to stand upright. The mist was dispelled, though the air was damp, cold. They stood there drawing in deep breaths, Hugo's arm around her.

He drew her against him, tilted up her chin, kissed her, held her without moving for a few moments, breathing deeply. Then he touched her cheek fleetingly with his roughened fingers.

"Prue, you're cold - too cold. That's what woke you. Murdoch and I kept each other warmer. Last night I was unconscious, and you kept me warm by holding me. We'll sit up for a bit, against the cave wall. It's all right, because there are three of us. We've got to be sensible - don't want you going down with bronchitis. And by tomorrow night that sack will be dry. Even if it rains again, it will dry hanging up. Okay, mate?"

Prudence looked up at him, said mistily, "Hugo, do you remember once when I said a beastly thing to you?"

She felt him shake with laughter. "Which beastly thing was that, Prue?"

She laughed at him, but said seriously, "When I said you'd be the last person I'd choose to be wrecked on a desert island with. Can I take it back?"

She sensed him smiling. "Sure. And you remember I said the feeling was mutual? Shall we wipe that too ?"

They felt their way in. Murdoch's snores still filled the cave. Hugo pushed his pile of fronds and Prudence's to the wall of the cave. "One thing I'll have to do, even if I wake him up, and that's turn him off his back. We'll never get to sleep again with that confounded row going on. I hope he doesn't get claustrophobia - he said he suffered from it - can't kiss him better. Here, Murdoch old man, shove over! Come on now, over you go. Gosh, he's a heavy sleeper, and a ton weight to boot."

He eased him over, then they both chuckled as Murdoch said in the slurred voice of the sleep-talker, "Oh, sorry, Sally, was I snoring?" and the next moment he was deeply asleep again, but quietly.

They sat down on the pile of fronds. Hugo's arm was around her, he settled her head on his shoulder, his free hand reached down for one of hers, interlocking their fingers.

"Night-night, Cousin Prue," he said. As she drifted off to sleep, warmed, comforted, no longer afraid, Prudence thought that was rather nice of him. A cousinly, chivalrous gesture.

CHAPTER XI

When she woke next morning the two men were outside. She was lying down, and both their jackets were over her. Very considerate of her feelings, she decided. She really had been fortunate, cast away with two men of their calibre. But tonight she would be sensible and control her fears. Otherwise she would become an embarrassment to them. She looked at the place where the two men had lain and realized something. Some time, when she was deeply asleep, Hugo had put her down on the combined fronds, and had lain on the rock floor himself.

But when she pulled the sack aside dismay engulfed her. Thick, blanketing mist, with even the shore scarcely visible, wreathed the bay. They came up towards her, Hugo in the oilskin over his singlet, Murdoch in his thick tweed shirt, bearing the wooden tray of steaming, open mussels, and the milk tin with a small ration of hot milk in it.

She rubbed her eyes. "You must have been up for ages. How long have I slept?"

Murdoch laughed. "Do you good. Not often you have breakfast served for you. Sorry there's no vinegar and pepper, but eat up. Crayfish for lunch, and - we hope - terakihi or kahawai for dinner tonight. For dessert we can chew madly on our gum."

There were times that day when the mist lifted a little and the watery sun peeped out, but they knew there was no likelihood of air search.

It was a miserable day, that one and the next, with a monotonous diet that needed more salt, and they were not able to venture out much in case of getting too wet.

The men were rough in the beard now. "Funny," said Hugo, "some men like it, but I don't. Always feel dirty."

"Oh, I don't mind. I hardly ever shave on board. Only did this time because Prudence was with us. Oh, boy, I could use one of your Yorkshire puddings right now, Prue. I was up once and you had sirloin cooked on the bone, baked potatoes, sprouts, peas, and Yorkshire pud. And you served it afterwards with golden syrup as a pudding. My mother used to do it that way. Just imagine it... lashings and lashings of golden syrup!"

Hugo said dreamily, "I keep thinking of her apple dumplings ... the baked kind, with crisp pastry, and butterscotch sauce and cream. And a grilled steak. I'm never going to eat shellfish again as long as I live. Wish we could get another weka. Can't be many around here. What would you like, Prue?"

"Most of all, I'd like you two to shut up. I'm drooling at the sound of those things... though bread is all I can think of. Bread, good, solid bread and butter, with cups and cups of tea. Look, I can't stand this. It's not too wet at the moment, let's go into the bush and get a lot of flax. I feel such a pig taking that sack at night, and if we wove flax-blades in and out of each other, securing them somehow at the ends, we could make some sort of coverings. Though I do wish I'd attended some Maori weaving classes in Rotorua. It will occupy our time anyway."

She was right. The consequent occupation of their time made them feel better. The nights were the worst, with darkness setting in so soon, and they were so cold sometimes that sleep came slowly. If it was reasonably fine outside, they would race up and down the shore for a bit, chasing each other to get warm.

They had a huge pile of fronds now, adding to them daily, moving further and further into the bush for dry ones. That kept them further from the cold floor. They managed a flax rug for Prudence and a larger one for the men, tucking them in carefully to preserve their warmth as much as possible.

Their favourite occupation was trying to think up ways of snaring a wood-pigeon to provide a bit of a change from the everlasting fish. "When I think of the guns I had on board,"

groaned Murdoch, "I could weep. Those lovely plump pigeons!"

The pigeons were so tame they would have been easy targets. "If only I had a catapult," said Hugo. "I used to be a real terror with a catapult when I was a kid. But we've nothing to make it with."

Suddenly Murdoch jerked his head up. "Gosh, I've got the very thing! This belt." He undid it. "See, it's only leather where it comes round the front, the back of it's elastic, good heavy stuff."

Hugo cocked an eye at him. "Fine, fine, man. But might I point out you've lost quite a bit of weight... we all have, our starch-free diet! How are you going to keep your trews up?"

They all considered that with the solemnity of a kirk session.

Then, "Flax," said Murdoch ruefully. "Won't be the best, but better than nothing. We could cut it into thin strips and plait it."

Suddenly Prudence got up, felt in the oilskin jacket, drew out a belt belonging to it. "I found this in here today when I went out in that shower. It's not as good as the elastic one, but much more gripping than flax."

The next morning was bitter with low clouds and thickening mist. Prudence kept thinking of how good a plate of porridge would be ... toast, coffee. She felt nauseated as she looked at the mussels on the tray. The milk was all gone.

They fared into the bush with grim determination. Their first shots only succeeded in scaring off every pigeon in the area. Prudence said, "I think that in the dusk tonight I'll come alone and sit in that shelter I made the first night. Wekas are more inquisitive. Maybe one would come exploring again and I could grab it."

"Could try it. Awfully boring, though, not knowing if one is coming or not. We'll keep trying this. Let's keep quiet for a bit."

They pressed quietly on, heard the distinctive taffeta swish of wings, caught the gleam of white, black, pink, as the big bird settled and began to preen its iridescent feathers. They froze into immobility. This bird had settled on a bare branch. If they could score a direct hit there would be no disturbing of leaves to warn it off like the others.

Hugo's movements were slow, deliberate; he gradually raised the catapult, drew back the loop of the belt from the stout forked stick, fired. The big bird dropped like a stone. Murdoch was like a streak of lightning in the way he rushed forward, retrieved it, wrung its neck.

Never had game tasted so delicious. They felt filled with hope as well as food. Hugo would probably be able to repeat that tomorrow. Murdoch was talking of bows and arrows now.

"If we're here long enough," said Prudence, giggling as they sat on their couch, "we might be able to make a feather cloak like the Maoris - feather side in, it would be a lot warmer than this thing," she surveyed her flax rug with distaste. "Now that I've got some satisfying food in me I can think of creature comforts. To wit, a lovely soft woollen blanket. I've never liked synthetics."

Prudence woke first next morning. They must all have overslept, she thought, it was so light. She sat up, gazed at the opening of the cave, stepped over the two men, rushed to the entrance, stood upright.

It was unbelievable, or would have been if you hadn't known Fiordland weather. There were a few clouds clinging round the mountain tops, but apart from that, the sky was an inverted bowl of blue, the birds were singing as if they had never sung before, the sun was dazzling. At her joyous cry the men sat up, came out, hugged her.

Then they searched the tops with their eyes, to make sure there was no sign of it closing in again. Murdoch and Hugo went dashing down to the fire, now a bed of hot ash, heaped it up, went to the bush for more fuel.

Prudence, going up to where a waterfall came down the cliff, was halted by Hugo's voice. "If you have any idea about taking off your singlet and washing it, Prudence, you can say goodbye to it right now! It's much too cold to be without."

She pulled a face at him, but obeyed him. She washed her face and hands, combed her hair, filled the cans with seawater, brought it to the boil, was about to drop the mussels in when the men returned.

"We're going to celebrate the return of the sun by having the baked beans. We can't look another mussel in the face. It will still leave us some emergency rations, and we really do feel that it won't be long before we're spotted on a day like this."

How good those beans tasted! And it meant they had another can. They drank hot water. The bush was steaming, scented...

The men made a terrific column of smoke, hoping it might arise above the mighty hills, to attract attention. They kept pouring water on till the acrid fumes nearly choked them. Hugo's red tartan shirt fluttered from the sapling, drying out in the breeze. They kept scanning the horizon, taking frequent looks from beside the flag, out to sea, hoping to see a boat entering the sound.

Prudence collected all the big white stones she could see, and took them up to the headland where the flag fluttered and on the grass began to spell out some words, "All safe and well."

"Then if they see us, and fly off to get aid, they can let all our friends and relatives know. Ease their terrible anxiety."

"Now the time is starting to drag," said Hugo humorously. "We want that rescue plane to appear as soon as the sun shines. I think we'd better have a smoke to pass the time away. I've got just about enough paper off Vicky's letter left to roll Murdoch one more cigarette." He looked in his pouch, said, "Last of the tobacco too."

Prudence wasn't heeding. Vicky's letter. So he'd had a letter from Vicky and thought enough of it to bring it on this trip! Oh, well, just as well to be reminded of Vicky. To realize life wouldn't always be like this. Here, so dependent upon each other she had felt more like Hugo's mate. Mate ... the word she hated.

She watched, scarcely moving, as Hugo put a very tiny speck of tobacco in his pipe, used the last of it to roll in the small oblong of paper.

"Blooming hard to make it stick without a gummed edge," he complained. "Here, Prue, hold the thing, will you, while I light my pipe with a stick ... and it will be ready for Murdoch." He looked towards the cave, shouted, "Murdoch, come and have your last smoke."

He returned to sit by Prudence. She was holding the elongated clumsy-looking cigarette, staring at the words, Darling, darling Hugo, your letter was wonderful.

He caught the direction of her gaze, took in the message, said, "Don't read anything into that, Prue, for heaven's sake. No wonder that silly wench got herself into a pickle with Gregory. Calling everybody sweet and pet. Journalistic world's a bit like that, of course."

Prudence had to know. Without looking up she said, "Doesn't it mean anything, Hugo? I thought -"

"You thought what?"

"I thought you and Vicky had only separated because of what had happened. That you and she - well, Jill seemed to think-"

"Jill!" His voice was anything but complimentary to his sister. "Jill! Of all the muddle-headed, exasperating little so- and-sos! She couldn't manage her own affairs, could she? So how in the world could she possibly manage mine? Prue, have you been thinking that all this -"

"Thanks, Hugo," said Murdoch, a big hand coming over his shoulder. "Oh, you've got it, Prue. Thanks. What's that?"

They had all stiffened. Now they sprang to their feet, began running to the bluff. They got there, strained their eyes to see if they could pick up a sight of the plane whose engine they had definitely heard, then they saw a faint speck, willed it to come near, but it gradually faded, droning off into far silences.

The disappointment was intense for a moment, then they all spoke at once, assuring each other that it was only a matter of time now, that the rescuers were on their job.

But it was two hours before they heard it again, two hours during which they willed the plane to come this way once more, when they kept an immense plume of smoke rising into the sky.

At last they could be sure it really was heading this way. It came in from the sea, heading up the sound, straight towards them.

At last it lost height, flew low above them, dipped a wing in salute, circled, dipped again, then Murdoch cried, "It's going to drop us an emergency pack, see. Be ready. There's not much cleared space here."

It circled round and round, low enough for the pilot to see Prue's message in stone, they thought, and they could probably see the three figures. Then the parachute floated gently down, caught a breeze, was borne away from them, and dropped into the bush, but not far in. They waved their thanks and the plane flew off.

Hugo's voice held relief from strain. "They'll probably radio an amphibian which they'll have all ready at Te Anau."

But the rescue was by ship, not air. The plane had radioed another crayfish boat not many miles away that had been on the search too.

By the time they had rescued the supply parcel, sampled the exquisite joy of hot sweet tea, soup, chocolate, bread, butter in a tin, jam, they could see from the bluff the boat beating up the sound. There were police on board, reporters eager for a story, for photographs.

They were relieved to find the castaways so well, took photographs of the flag, the primitive shelter in the bush, the entrance to the cave, the fire. They even took pictures of Prudence holding her flax rugs.

One of the reporters said ingenuously, "This is the perfect shipwreck. No fatalities ... a famous author, an equally famous cook whose recipes appear on our very own pages, a popular Port Chalmers skipper. Mr. Macallister, give it to us in your own words, you know the sort of stuff we want."

Prudence looked lack at the cove as they left it. She wondered if they would visit it again, renew their memories. It had been an ordeal, but some things she would never forget.

Prudence felt that nothing was ever as good as the hot bath Mrs. Stewart drew for her. There was so much to remember ... Hohepa's broken voice as he caught her in his arms, murmuring blessings in Maori, tears running ashamedly down his brown creased cheeks; the knowledge of how some guests would not leave till they knew they were safe; the fact that news had instantly flashed to the cities, with a request that Keith and Janny and Mrs. Galloway be informed immediately.

There was a doctor waiting at the hostel. When news of the rescue had got through they had flown him in from Te Anau on an amphibian. He was amazed at how fit they were, prescribed nothing but rest, but stayed overnight to make sure they had no delayed effects. So did the reporters.

"This is the sort of job I like best," declared one. "Makes a break from routine, no tragedy mixed up in it, and a jolly good table to boot." He added to Hugo, "Now, enlarge on all that happened - you know, human interest, plus, plus, plus. Lots of derring-do, give us all the local colour you can and as much emotion as possible, your fears, your hopes, your worst and best moments. Throw in all you can." He grinned. "No romance in the offing, is there? I mean that would really make it."

Prudence said quickly, "Good heavens, no. Hugo and I are cousins."

Hugo laughed, turned to the reporter, said, "I'm all on your side - the lady exaggerates the position. We are not cousins, except by marriage. We had a mutual aunt, that's all, who left us the place jointly. We hadn't even known about each other's existence till then. Except that all unknown, we had met, doing rescue work at the scene of that train smash near Rotorua last year! You could have knocked me down with a feather when she walked into the solicitor's office."

"Much, much better," said the reporter, writing busily.

Prudence walked away. With Hugo in this high-spirited mood, nothing could be done with him. He came after her presently.

She turned on him. "Hugo! Hugo Macallister, have you gone quite crazy?"

He twinkled. "Don't you think this cousin business has gone far enough? It's served its purpose."

Prudence was spluttering in her anger. "But - but this was the time to make the most use of it. After all, we were cast away together."

"Yes, but we were three. Murdoch was sufficient chaperon."

"Then why did you tell him that that first night we thought he was drowned I built that shelter? You just piled it on. I sounded a real heroine. And it wasn't like that. I just did what I had to do. And... well, it sounds so cosy."

"Oh, bosh. I said I was unconscious all night." He laughed suddenly, said seriously, "It's all right, Prudence, nobody who knows you is going to believe anything but good of you."

This completely bereft her of speech. She swallowed, turned away so he could not see the look of incredible delight that had sprung to her eyes. She moved the papers on her desk agitatedly. Then that meant that Hugo was prepared to forget that first meeting. Steady, Prudence, that isn't to say he's falling in love with you, only that you've won his respect; there's a long way yet to go, before...

Bessie came in, saw Prudence shuffling the papers, said, "I'd accepted that batch of reservations after you got away, before we had this scare. I was expecting you back to time. But if you aren't feeling up to guests, you and Hugo can keep in the background, and Jock and I will attend to them. There aren't many. They fly in tomorrow if it's flying weather. If not they'll stay at Queenstown."

Prudence said crisply, "I'm quite fit. All I've done is lose a bit of weight. I've not even got a cold out of it. None of us have. It will be good to have guests, take our minds off this - time we settled back to normal. Everything's out of proportion at the moment." She went out of the office.

The weather held and the six people came in - three couples. Prudence wasn't at the landing strip, Hugo brought them up. He took them to their rooms, told them to come to the office to sign the register when they were settled.

Prudence had it ready when the first guest came in. He came in smiling, said, "Well, thank heavens you're here, Prudence. It was a terrific shock when we got to Queenstown to learn you were missing."

"Godfrey!"

She looked down at her desk, moved the papers in some agitation, said, "Oh, I'd not realized you were coming."

"Didn't you, Prue?" asked a voice from the doorway, Hugo's. Hugo's face was set, stern.

Prudence's heart was doing such a rapid tattoo she could hardly control her voice. "No, I hardly glanced at them. And Simmonds isn't exactly an uncommon name. It hadn't registered." But it sounded lame, she knew, true though it was.

Godfrey had swung round, sensing something tense.

Hugo's eyes met his squarely. "No wonder, coming across from the airstrip, you said you thought you'd met me before. I thought it could be you'd just seen my photo on a dust-jacket. But we met at the train smash, remember ? "

They stared at each other, remembering not only the smash but other things.

Then Hugo said with a whip-like inflection, "But I gather I don't mention that in front of Mrs. Simmonds?"

Prudence felt a wave of nausea come over her.

Godfrey's colour had receded. He squared his shoulders, looked at Hugo frankly. "For my wife's sake I would appreciate that. I hadn't realized, of course, that you would be here. I thought that was something known only to myself and Prudence and a stranger neither of us would ever meet again."

Hugo's eyes were watchful, summing up. "I'll keep silent. But there is one thing, Simmonds; you'll leave Prudence alone!"

Prudence spoke swiftly, "Hugo, he would in any case. That was all washed up a year ago."

"As long as I can be sure of that." Hugo's voice still had that whip-like quality in it, taut with contempt.

He turned on his heel, went out into the passage. Prudence and Godfrey were left staring at each other.

Prudence said, a catch in her voice, "Oh, why did you have to turn up now?"

Godfrey said, "How in the world did that chap get here?"

"I didn't know - at the time - but his aunt married my father's uncle. She left Thunder Hostel to the two of us. I didn't know till I met him at the solicitor's in Dunedin."

A fleeting grin softened the grim expression on Godfrey's face. "What a meeting that must have been!"

Prudence moved a ball-point pen with precise care. She wasn't seeing any funny side to this. "It was rather," she said. "But you can trust him, Godfrey. He will have all the contempt in the world for you and for me, but he's safe."

At that moment they heard Hugo's voice again, coming towards them, raised a little more than necessary. A warning to them.

"He's in here," it said, "signing the register, and asking my cousin about our recent experiences."

Cousin. Hadn't lasted long, had it... the truce, the happiness, the enchantment, the daring-to-hope?

Prudence handed over the ball-point. "Just sign there, will you?" She was pleased neither her voice nor her hand shook.

Godfrey signed, swung round as Hugo and Marian entered, said in a perfectly ordinary tone, "Marian, you never met Prudence Sinclair, did you? The most efficient secretary I ever had."

Prudence said, "How do you do, Mrs. Simmonds? Now I expect you're ready for morning tea. We're serving it on the verandah. Hugo, are you coming too?" They went out, mingled with their guests, avoided each other's eyes.

Prudence thanked God they were staying only a few days. She would get through it, she supposed. She prayed the weather would hold, that they might not be all cooped up together, that there would be no delay in the flight that would return the guests to Queenstown.

And after that? There would be no guests. Just themselves. How cruel, that this should happen just when things seemed to have been working out. If only she had noticed Godfrey's name on those lists, she could have said so to Hugo, told him she didn't want him here. But she hadn't given them more than a cursory glance. The wouldn't have been able to run away, you couldn't when there were no roads to take you, but she might have pleaded delayed reaction from their adventures and kept to her room. Then Hugo might have realized that she never wanted to see Godfrey again.

It was a nightmare to Prudence. Hugo remained aloof, quiet. She performed all her own duties mechanically. She and Godfrey held, in the presence of the other guests, conversations about the tourist trade, the potentialities of Thunder Fiord and other remote parts of Fiordland. They recalled workmates, were polite, stiff, artificial.

Marian Simmonds was the most natural. She seemed to be enjoying the holiday immensely. Prudence noticed Hugo watching her with a puzzled expression. As well he might; she felt puzzled herself.

She was standing at the verandah rail one day, staring after Godfrey and Marian as they disappeared, knapsacks on back, after Hohepa, who was taking them up a track, a quite stiff if short climb that would lead them to the lake from which the Falls spilled.

Hugo joined her.

"So he lied, Prudence. His wife isn't the artificial, brittle type, she's the outdoor type."

Prudence felt the colour leave her face, but she must be fair to Godfrey. "I told you it wasn't Godfrey who told me. It was the girls in the office. But I can't understand it."

"Neither can I. But one thing at least is apparent ... you fly to his defence as quickly as you ever did."

Prudence walked away blindly, not caring where she went. A wave of nostalgia swept her for that dark, inadequate cave, the sense of comradeship, the simplicity, for Hugo's arms about her, comforting and warm.

Soon Godfrey and Marian would be gone, but life at Thunder Fiord would never be the same again. For the first time in her not too easy life Prudence tasted real bitterness. The only way she could sleep was with aspirin, and she woke unrefreshed, reluctant to begin another day.

Bessie noticed it, clucked concernedly about it, put it down to the recent experience.

"You perked up well at first, but you've gone down since. You're much thinner and you've great shadows under your eyes. Don't you think so, Hugo?"

Prudence had been stacking dishes. "Oh, don't fuss so, Bessie, for heaven's sake. I can't always be on top of the world. And I can't bear fussing!"

She walked out of the kitchen, leaving Bessie staring after her.

"Something's upset her! I've never known her speak sharply before - even in our busiest times." But Hugo made no comment.

After dinner that night Prue said to Hugo, "I'm not coming into the lounge tonight. I'm going to sit on the verandah off our sitting room and relax with a book. You'll be with the guests, won't you? I don't want to be disturbed."

"Okay by me."

She had been there about twenty minutes when she heard someone come into the sitting room. Hugo, she supposed.

She called out, "I'm out here, Hugo."

The door opened and in came Godfrey. Prudence got up, hastily.

"Godfrey, I'd rather you didn't seek me out."

He smiled. "It's all right, Prudence. I won't upset you, I promise, but I just- must have a talk with you. That's why I came here, though Marian, of course, has no idea. Everyone comes to Fiordland sooner or later, so she wouldn't suspect. I'd like a spot of privacy. How about slipping up the track to Finnan's Point and I'll follow a bit later?"

"No, thank you," said Prudence crisply. "No - and no again. That's all finished, Godfrey. You oughtn't to have come. I picked up the pieces of my life again - and there's no room for you in it."

Again the nice smile. "I know. That's what I came for - to find out-"

The door was thrust violently open. "You'll find out something all right in a moment, Simmonds! You're going to get what you didn't come for. Come into the sitting room and we'll have it out. Not a brawl, I don't want your wife to know about this or I'd knock you clean into the Fiord. But you're going to hear a few things from me. Prue, you can do just what this bounder asked you to do ... go up to Finnan's Point. But not to wait for him - to wait for me!

"I've a few things to say to you too." His voice softened. "Nice things, things I hope you'll want to hear. Go out by that door into the garden. Go now, this moment!"

Prudence took a step backwards, then another, felt for the handle of the door, stepped into the garden. Her thoughts were chaotic, her breathing jerky, none of it made any sense. Godfrey ... she couldn't even understand Godfrey any more. What on earth possessed him ... and what were he and Hugo going to say to each other? Worse, what were they going to do to each other?

Suddenly Prudence knew she just had to find out. That she might have to save the situation yet. Their fury might get the better of them, they might raise their voices, guests might hear, though they were far enough from the lounge.

When she heard the sitting room door close, not quietly, she crept back up the wooden steps, turned the door softly, was in the verandah. This had been added on, so a window was between it and the sitting room. It had a muslin curtain over it and it was slightly open. She could see and hear.

The two men faced each other. Within striking distance, she realized.

"Now," said Hugo with a snap, "you can tell me exactly what you're trying to do! You messed Prue's life up once before, and I shan't allow you to do it again. You played the very devil with her emotions, and nobody with a stern conscience like Prue could fail to suffer over it. Tell me what you're trying to do to my girl!'

Prudence caught her lip between her teeth, pressed closer to the window. Emotion seemed suspended ... that ought to mean something to her ... perhaps it would later. But for the present, what of these two men?

A smile she couldn't possibly understand broke over Godfrey's face. It was broad, relieved, genuine.

"Those are the very words calculated to clear the whole darned situation up," he said.

Hugo looked completely bewildered but recovered and swept on, "Listen, Simmonds. I believe Prue fell for you in a time when she was devilishly lonely. I don't know how far the affair went, but I don't care. She's my girl. She's got you out of her system. She told me, when we were shipwrecked. I gave her a hell of a time when I first met her again. Treated her like a scarlet woman ... Prue, my Prue, wholesome, sweet, loving, forgiving. At least I hope she's forgiving, for my own sake.

"She's suffered enough because of you. And I don't want you ever to come near her again. I've tried to get the whole story out of her, I've even twitted her cruelly, thinking she might tell me all - but anyway I'm going to marry her. Quite soon. I've not asked her yet, but she'll marry me if I have to drag her to the altar. Get it?"

Godfrey's voice was low, strong, convincing. "Macallister, that makes me very happy. That's what I wanted to ask her. Was she going to marry you? I've noticed the way she looks at you. I wanted to find out for myself that she had got over me. She's not the only one with a conscience. I felt I might have done her a grave injury. Women cling to dreams longer than men, I think. But when I saw how you reacted when I showed up, I thought I'd done the wrong thing by coming ... that it had been quite unnecessary anyway.

"I felt I had recalled something best forgotten, and I was going to ask Prudence if I could do anything to put things right with you. I owe a lot to Prudence, even my marriage. My wife and I were going our own ways. Before long it would have broken up entirely. I was bitter, didn't care. Marian was leading the sort of life I couldn't take. It was partly my fault. I was engrossed in my work and I didn't really understand how deeply she had brooded over the fact that we had no family. To counteract that she had plunged into a whirl of social activities. We grew apart.

"Then, on a solitary tramp one day, and feeling like hell, I met Prue. You'll know what a good companion she is. I expect we both told ourselves there was nothing in it more than that. We went another couple of tramps together. Then we arranged to see the Huko Falls by moonlight. By this time I'd realized my feelings were pretty strong... she was all I'd ever dreamed of in a woman.

"When we got to the Falls, Prudence told me she couldn't go on with it. She was pretty brave, Hugo. I might have laughed at her reasons, might not have been a church-going chap at all. She told me quite simply that she didn't care for anything clandestine, that after that second meeting of hers she had been unable to take Communion. That she couldn't meet her father's eyes in his photograph. She even told me on the way home that the night before she'd not been able to pray, she just said, 'And I can't live without prayer, Godfrey.' Do you wonder she's been on my conscience? Do you wonder I wanted to find out if she was fretting?

"And her example set me examining myself. Wondering where I had fallen short... not just Marian. So we met each other halfway. I've found the crowd she mixed with not so bad after all ... a bit pathetic, some of them, chasing after rainbows. And she found she liked tramping after all. I told her I'd been deuced lonely on some tracks. And we've made arrangements to adopt a child next month. That's why we're having a winter holiday. So if that first unfortunate meeting has in any way complicated your life and Prudence's, I hope this has put it right."

Prudence, in a dream, heard Hugo clear his throat, knew he was moved, watched him smile, stretch out a hand, grip Godfrey's.

"Thanks, Godfrey," he said briskly. "I must appreciate your confidence. There were some things I didn't quite understand. Though I'd decided they didn't matter. It hit me hard ... you see, though I've never believed in love at first sight, there was something about Prue ... the way she worked at that ghastly scene ... I didn't want to believe anything unworthy about her. I'm an idealist, I'm afraid. I resented it. One moment the magic of meeting someone like her, the next the disillusionment of hearing what I heard. But living here with her has been a revelation. Now -" He turned to the door, turned back.

"Now," said Godfrey, smiling, "you want to go to her. I wish you luck. Give her my blessing." He turned to go, swung back. A little smile touched the corners of his mouth. "I think you know Prudence pretty well ... I hope you know her too well ever to doubt her ... but in case in the years to come you may ever wonder, I'd like to add this." His eyes held a rueful twinkle. "The only time I ever kissed her was in the presence of a witness... you!"

And he was gone.

Prudence hadn't time to run out of the verandah door. She stayed flattened against the wall. Hugo reached the sitting room door, flung it open, strode straight to the verandah door opposite, heard a voice behind him.

"I'm here, Hugo. I heard it all. I couldn't wait for Finnan's Point."

Gone were the shadows under her eyes, back was the lilt in her voice. Through the windows of the verandah room shimmered and danced the waters of the fiord under the fiord moon. It lit up the plunging waters of the Falls, and for an instant a rainbow flashed across the spray, but nobody had eyes for it.

He crossed the narrow space, seized her outstretched hands, said, "You crooked little eavesdropper!"

She held him off, smiling at him, her eyes searching his. He said, smiling, "At least it saves me the trouble of proposing." He checked, said soberly, "He's a grand fellow, Prudence."

She nodded. "Yes, I suppose so ... but all I could think of was that you called me your girl. I'm saying yes, Hugo, saying it as fast as I can. What I felt for Godfrey was nothing to this ... oh, Hugo, Hugo, do we have to go on explaining?"

He shook his head, gathered her close, bent his head. "We have better things to do, mate," he said.