on.
She’d reiterated those warnings to herself a couple of times, when Cam had been home with a party of guests, but from a slightly different angle. It was one thing to work with Mrs Preston and the household staff to make sure everything went like clockwork. It was another to watch from the sidelines and feel a bit like Cinderella.
And it was yet another again to find herself keeping tabs on her employer—no, not that, she thought with impatience. Surely not that! So what? To have a sixth sense whenever he was home as to his whereabouts? To feel her skin prickling in a way that told her he was nearby?
To—go on: admit it—feel needled by the way he kept his distance from her? How ridiculous is that? she asked herself more than once.
Then there was Archie.
A serious, sensitive little boy, with grey eyes and brown hair that stuck up stubbornly from his crown, he worried about all sorts of things—when five of Wenonah’s puppies were sent to their new homes he hardly ate all day and couldn’t sleep that night. And he pulled at her heartstrings at times when she thought about him being motherless and fatherless. When she could see how he hero-worshipped Cam, who tried to temper the little time he could spend with the boy bysending him postcards and books and weird and wonderful things from different parts of the country and overseas—things that Archie took inordinate pride in and kept in a special cabinet in his room.
‘Of course they’re not all suitable for a five-year-old,’ Archie’s nanny said to her once, when they were looking through them. ‘Take this.’ She pulled down a full-size boomerang from a shelf Archie couldn’t reach. ‘Archie didn’t realise he shouldn’t experiment with it inside and he threw it through a window, breaking the glass. He was really upset—until Mr Hillier found him a song about a man whose boomerang wouldn’t come back. Archie loves it. It really cracks him up and it made him feel much better.’
‘I—I know it,’ Liz said with a smile in her voice, and she thought, so that explains
that!
She couldn’t deny that she was getting very fond of Archie.
As for Scout, although she’d missed Mary for a time, she’d taken to Daisy Kerr, Archie’s nanny, and so had Liz. Daisy was a practical girl, very mindful of her responsibilities, but with a streak of romance and nonsense in her that lent itself to the magical world kids loved.
And, between them, Liz and Daisy had soon joined forces to occupy the children with all sorts of games.
One memorable one had been the baby elephant walk. When a real baby elephant had been born at Taronga Zoo, they’d watched its progress avidly on the internet, and Liz had found a recording of Henry Mancini’s “Baby Elephant Walk” from the movie
Hatari.
She and Daisy had mimicked elephants, and with onearm outstretched for the trunk and one held behind the back they’d paced around the playroom to the music. Scout and Archie had quickly caught on, and it had become a favourite game.
None of them had realised that Cam was watching one day, unseen from the doorway, as they shuffled their way around and then all fell in a heap, the kids screaming with laughter. Liz had coloured at the indignity of it as she’d hastily got to her feet and patted herself down, but her boss had been laughing and she’d caught a glint of approval in his blue gaze.
Scout had been a little wary of Archie to begin with. It was plain Archie saw himself as the senior child on Yewarra, not to mention owner and architect of the menagerie. As such he dictated what they should do and what they should play.
Scout bore it with equanimity until one day, almost a month on, when Archie removed a toy from her. She screamed blue murder as she wrested it back, and then she pushed him over.
‘Scout!’ Liz scolded as she picked up the astonished Archie and gave him a hug.
‘Mine!’ Scout declared as she clasped the toy to her chest and stamped her
She’d reiterated those warnings to herself a couple of times, when Cam had been home with a party of guests, but from a slightly different angle. It was one thing to work with Mrs Preston and the household staff to make sure everything went like clockwork. It was another to watch from the sidelines and feel a bit like Cinderella.
And it was yet another again to find herself keeping tabs on her employer—no, not that, she thought with impatience. Surely not that! So what? To have a sixth sense whenever he was home as to his whereabouts? To feel her skin prickling in a way that told her he was nearby?
To—go on: admit it—feel needled by the way he kept his distance from her? How ridiculous is that? she asked herself more than once.
Then there was Archie.
A serious, sensitive little boy, with grey eyes and brown hair that stuck up stubbornly from his crown, he worried about all sorts of things—when five of Wenonah’s puppies were sent to their new homes he hardly ate all day and couldn’t sleep that night. And he pulled at her heartstrings at times when she thought about him being motherless and fatherless. When she could see how he hero-worshipped Cam, who tried to temper the little time he could spend with the boy bysending him postcards and books and weird and wonderful things from different parts of the country and overseas—things that Archie took inordinate pride in and kept in a special cabinet in his room.
‘Of course they’re not all suitable for a five-year-old,’ Archie’s nanny said to her once, when they were looking through them. ‘Take this.’ She pulled down a full-size boomerang from a shelf Archie couldn’t reach. ‘Archie didn’t realise he shouldn’t experiment with it inside and he threw it through a window, breaking the glass. He was really upset—until Mr Hillier found him a song about a man whose boomerang wouldn’t come back. Archie loves it. It really cracks him up and it made him feel much better.’
‘I—I know it,’ Liz said with a smile in her voice, and she thought, so that explains
that!
She couldn’t deny that she was getting very fond of Archie.
As for Scout, although she’d missed Mary for a time, she’d taken to Daisy Kerr, Archie’s nanny, and so had Liz. Daisy was a practical girl, very mindful of her responsibilities, but with a streak of romance and nonsense in her that lent itself to the magical world kids loved.
And, between them, Liz and Daisy had soon joined forces to occupy the children with all sorts of games.
One memorable one had been the baby elephant walk. When a real baby elephant had been born at Taronga Zoo, they’d watched its progress avidly on the internet, and Liz had found a recording of Henry Mancini’s “Baby Elephant Walk” from the movie
Hatari.
She and Daisy had mimicked elephants, and with onearm outstretched for the trunk and one held behind the back they’d paced around the playroom to the music. Scout and Archie had quickly caught on, and it had become a favourite game.
None of them had realised that Cam was watching one day, unseen from the doorway, as they shuffled their way around and then all fell in a heap, the kids screaming with laughter. Liz had coloured at the indignity of it as she’d hastily got to her feet and patted herself down, but her boss had been laughing and she’d caught a glint of approval in his blue gaze.
Scout had been a little wary of Archie to begin with. It was plain Archie saw himself as the senior child on Yewarra, not to mention owner and architect of the menagerie. As such he dictated what they should do and what they should play.
Scout bore it with equanimity until one day, almost a month on, when Archie removed a toy from her. She screamed blue murder as she wrested it back, and then she pushed him over.
‘Scout!’ Liz scolded as she picked up the astonished Archie and gave him a hug.
‘Mine!’ Scout declared as she clasped the toy to her chest and stamped her
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