Read Sentence of Marriage for Free Online

lovely room.’
    Amy decided Lizzie was being sincere, so she looked around the room more carefully. Yes, it was rather a nice room; quite large, with a beautiful view down the valley. The furniture was old but solid, and the fine-looking mirror over the mantelpiece only wanted cleaning to look beautiful.
    Frank ran his sleeve over a pretty little rimu table, transferring much of the dust to his shirt. ‘I’ll bring it in, you wait here.’
    ‘Oh, I’ll help,’ said Lizzie. She was out the door before Frank had a chance to protest. Left alone, Bill and Amy looked at each other, grinned, then burst into helpless laughter.
    ‘Do you think we should go back out there to protect Lizzie?’ Amy said between giggles.
    ‘I know who I think needs more protecting,’ Bill chuckled.
    They could faintly hear the sounds of a one-sided conversation until Lizzie returned, carrying a tray with tea things, Frank following at her heels. She poured for them all, clearly enjoying the role of hostess she had appropriated. ‘How do you like your tea, Frank?’ she asked, looking intently at him as though the question was of vital interest to her.
    Frank cleared his throat. ‘Ah, just as it comes, thanks.’ Lizzie rewarded him with a smile.
    Bill drank his tea quickly, then rose to his feet. ‘We’d better be going. We really had, Lizzie,’ he said, forestalling her protest. ‘Pa’ll go crook if I’m not back for milking.’
    Frank saw them out, and waved from the door. Amy thought he looked relieved. ‘Thanks for the pies,’ he called as they drove away.
    ‘So you’re roping me in to help you manhunting,’ Bill said when they were out of earshot. ‘You could give me fair warning next time.’
    ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m sure,’ Lizzie said, looking prim. ‘I was just taking Ben and Frank a present from Ma.’ Amy saw her prim expression relax into a smug smile.
     
    *
     
    ‘It’s about time Pa got back,’ John said at breakfast the next Friday. Only a few of the cows were still in calf by this time.
    ‘We’ll be milking the whole herd by the end of next week, I’d say. That’ll be a beggar with just the two of us,’ Harry said.
    ‘He won’t be away much longer, I shouldn’t think,’ said Amy. ‘I thought he would have been home by now, really.’
    The days went quickly, and the following Thursday Amy was surprised to realise almost another week had passed. That morning she went into town with Harry.
    They collected the mail from the Post and Telegraph Office while their supplies were being loaded into the buggy. ‘There’s a cable from Auckland,’ Harry said.
    ‘It must be from Pa! What does it say?’
    ‘Give us a chance to open it… damn!’
    ‘What’s wrong?’
    ‘He says he won’t be back for another two weeks! Damn and blast the old…’ Harry remembered Amy’s presence. ‘I mean, it’s a bit rough, leaving the farm for that long, when he knows we’re flat out with milking and everything. Damn it, we’ll have to organise selling the calves we don’t want soon.’
    ‘I hope he’s not ill.’
    ‘No, he says he’s “very well indeed”. See for yourself.’
    Amy read the cable and found it was just as Harry had reported. ‘That’s really strange.’
    ‘I can think of another word for it,’ Harry muttered.
    John was as dumbfounded as Harry and Amy over their father’s truancy. They received another cable at the end of August to tell them Jack would be arriving on the following Thursday.
    ‘He expects us to come and get him, of course,’ Harry said.
    ‘Well, he can’t walk all this way, can he?’ said Amy. ‘You’d better go in and fetch him, John,’ she added, thinking it might be sensible to put off Harry’s reunion with Jack. ‘I’ll come with you.’
    She and John drove in together after lunch on the second Thursday in September. The tide was only an hour past full, so they took the rough inland track instead of going along the