ELIZABETH ANN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21153, 9 April 1932, Page 19

ELIZABETH ANN.

By JOYCE WEST.

Elizabeth Ann was not so young as she 1 used to be. None of us are, but Eliza- j beth Ann was obviously agoing. Her once- ] -so-trim lines were battered and bulging; 1 her voice had grown gasping and wheezy; the paint with which she tried to hido j age's ravages was blistered and peeling j Under exposure. She travelled lop-sid- i cdly, and was subject to sudden heartattacks ill which she could not move an inch. Jn short, Elizabeth Ann must have been Ihc second or third model that was turned out, from the factory. Clem was fond of saving and she had been a good friend. Wool prices, petrol taxes, budget troubles or unemployment levies all made no difference lo Elizabeth Ann. She just went straight ahead with the business, and didn't worry if the cars that jostled her in town wero newer and botter equipped in the matter of little knick-knacks like silver diving-girls glittering upon the radiator cap. She was staunch, was Elizabeth Ann. Only that last summer, when the lorry with the last load of Clem's wool had broken down in the creek-bed, Elizabeth Ann had taken the bales on one by one, and caught the last steamer before tho wool sale. His sweetheart, Clem called her, and gossip winked one eyo, and said it would be a queer stato of affairs if a young fellow like Clern couldn't find a better girl than that. For Clem, although hopelessly shy, was not hopelessly unattractive. He was tall and quiet, with soft-spoken ways, and a slow manner, and the most sorrowful gray eyes that ever saw tho funny side of things. He pricked up his ears, now, as he stood lourtging, oilskin-clad, against the postoffice counter. A curiously-intent look came into his eyes. " Whom did you say was sick, Doctor?" he asked abruptly " Tho youngest Adair," said Doctor Anderson Sutherland. " Out at Matai Valley. Baby six weeks old. You know them, don't you ?" " Yes," said Clem, just that and no more. The post-office clerk pushed over the mail ho had been waiting so eagerly for, and he forgot to pick it up, " The thirteenth," said tho man next to him. "Funny, isn't it?" "If they've got twelve others they won't miss this one much," said a burly fellow, gathering up his letters. Doctor Sutherland turned on him one glance, and he departed rather hurriedly with a swish of wet oilskins, out into the driving rain. " It's rained for two days solid, Doctor," said the melancholy-looking man who believed in unlucky thirteens. " You'll never get anything but a horse out, there." " That's so " Doctor Sutherland's brows were knitted. " And a horse will take so long—it's nearly thirty miles. The child seems pretty ill." " I'll take you through, Doctor," Cicin said quickly, " In my car." There was a general movement, and everybody looked at Clem. "Impossible, man!" declared Sutherland warmly and emphatically. " I've seen that road after a few hours rain. It's utterly impossible." " You don't know my car," Clem explained with gentle indulgence. I wouldn't try M'ith any other car, but I'll have a shot to tako you through. Will you come?" Sutherland was no coward, but ho hesitated an instant before he answered. " Yes." "If anybody can get, him through," yaid somebody as the two went out into the. rain, " Clem will." " But I doubt it." said the melancholy man. Clem went info the quiet garage, started up the. wheezy engine, backed Elizabeth Ann out into the rain swept yard. " Whcre're vou going?" called a service car man, sitting on a barrel, making himself a cigarette. The service cars had not gone out that morning. "Matai Valley!" shouted C'lem. " You can't," retorted the service car man. but Clem had left him without an argument. Elizabeth Ann rattled at a dizzy pace around the corner, picked up Doctor Sutherland and his bag, and headed out along the. wet, gray road. There, was metal at first, and Elizabeth Ann travelled swiftly, it' lopsidedly, and the two men could talk. "Who rang you up?" said Clern, suddenly. " The eldest Adair, the gii'l-" " Elaine," said Clem. " You know her?" Sutherland inquired. " Yes," Clem said. " She is like one might imagine Elaine should be," said Sutherland, perhaps for the. sake of making conversation. He had to talk loudly, for a loose end of one of the chains was banging, with monotonous regularity, against Elizabeth Ann s battered mudguard. Clem vouchsafed uo reply, perhaps because they had left the metalled road, and wore ploughing up a yellow clay turn-off, where the falling rain spattered into pools and sheets of yellow water. Elizabeth Ann lurched lopsidedly in a rut, and Doctor Sutherland's elbow came into violent contact with Clems ribs, lie apologised, and next moment, hit his head on the bar of tho hood.

" It gets a bit better for a few miles farther on." Clem explained apologetically, wiping somo splashes of mud from his eyes. , It did grow a bit better, as f;u as .1 sticky yellow clay surface could be considered better. Elizabeth Ann speeded up wheezily, her tyres swishing on the sticky surface, her broken chain rattling on the mudguard. Every little while she executed a skid that made Doctor Sutherland's hat rise 011 his head. The road was all cut out of the side of the hill. Above, wet tree ferns leaned sadly and drippingly toward the road; below—and sometimes very far below —a swollen stream 1 ushed through the wet, green bush. " Sorry I'm so slow," Clem said, after a few minutes, discouraging Elizabeth Ann from taking a sidewisc dive into some mossy rocks "We 10 just up to the top now." They came out on a point, looked over and down on (he mist-veiled ridges. Elizabeth Ann wheezed and sighed, as she commenced the long descent. She ploughed two deep ruts down the yellow clay track, negotiated a hair-pin corner, and charged through a broken culvert where the water was foaming • merrily. It, seemed that once on the way, there was no turning back. Wet ferns reached out to trail agninst tho hood, there were small slips and slides of rubble at every turning. There was no room on this road for belated decisions; Clem hugged the inner bank, but the outer wheels were often a bare three inches from the edge. A second's hesitation, relaxation for a minute would have been fatal. Elizabeth Ann ploughed down and down. Into the furrows torn by tho . rushing water, she floundered, over stones

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with a bump and rattle, into sticky mudholes that made licr groan like a horse that lias run 1) is last raw. (Jlcin sat loaning forward a little over the wheel, his face, curiously set, his eyes intent. Elizabeth Aim stopped with a bonedislocating jerk. A slip of rubble and loose stones had come hurtling down just in front of her, trailing an uprooted and disconsolate fern tree just behind it. Clem got. out, and Doctor Sutherland followed. Muddy stones and loose rubble could do little harm to Clem's shabby oilskin and dungarees, but the doctor's navyblue trousers had never beforo been subjected to such indignities. " I can get her over, now," said Clem, and sure enough Elizabeth Ann breasted the slip at, a dizzy angle, and emitted a high-pitched sigh of relief. " You can't get, through I his," said the Doctor after about ten minutes. They had corao to a spot popularly known as " That Bad Place." The road narrowed shudderingly against the hillside, as if in fear of the yawning drop beneath. Dogged ends of manuka, all that was left of what had once been fascining protruded from tho ploughcdup mud. " You don't know my Elizabeth Ann," said Clem,, with gentle indulgence. He got out, and tested the mud, sinking to his knees. There was a spring seeping down into it from the hillside, and bubbles canio up uncannily through the yellow water. " You pull up that fern and brush," Clem ordered. " Chuck it over here to mo and I'll put it down in the mud." And Doctor Anderson Sutherland obeyed. They returned to the car, Clem backed her a, few yards up the n. d. He was mud-plasterecl to the waist, a smear of mud across one cheek, his hands and arms cacked to the elbow, lie looked at Doctor Sutherland. " You better wall; across." " No, I'll get in, to<4" said Sutherland. Tlis presence did Clem not the leastbit <<f good in the world, he was an ridded weight, and yet Clem gave him a whimsical glance of approval. " Elizabeth Ann sh"t forward, climbed with a. shuddering groan into the mud. wrenched dizzily from left to right, tilted toward the river and bush so very far below, gave one last triumphant leap. Then she was out, and speeding skiddingly down tho last bends of the road into Matai Valley. A hundred yards from .Adair's sagging gateway, Elizabeth Ann stopped. " She's got a heart attack," said Clein. " You'll have to get out." Sutherland picked up his bag, and they hurried on through the downpour that lashed the puddles at their feet, and bent the wet swaying tea-tree. Clem sat alone on the verandah, endeavoured to make a. cigarette oui of wot tobacco and soaking papers. To him came, in a blue overall and with tumbled hair, the eldest -Adair. ' " Oh, Clern " she said, and then nothing more. 11 1 low's the kid?" said Clem. "She's a little, better!" Elaine announced triumphantly. "Doctor Sutherland says she's going to get, bettor! He's going to stay with her to-night " " Ilo's a good sort," said Clem. " But you, Clem —" said Elaine after a moment, blue eyes shining, fair, silken hair bright even in the greyness of the afternoon. " Dad said nobody could possibly get through the road. You might have smashed up Elizabeth .Ann—you might have—have killed yourself! Howcan T thank you?" " Very easily," said Clom, grown bold. " How's the kid?" ho said, a week later, at tho Adair gate. Elizabeth Ann had not, vet, recovered from Ikt heart attack; it, looked as though she would have to bo given a grave by roadside. " She is quite well," said Elaine Adair. " She is going to be christened at tho end of next month when the minister comes round. Clem—we want to know—will you bo her god-father'." " I'd much rather bo her brother inlaw," said Clem, casting shyness to the winds. "Don't you think it could be managed, Elaine ?" asked dreamily, after a long, long time had passed. "Elizabeth Ann" said the eldest Adair.