So the kitchen swallowed up Norah and Tommy, and there they worked during the weeks that followed, while the influenza scourge raged round Victoria. The little cottage-hospital became full almost to bursting-point. Even the rooms for the staff had to be appropriated, and nurses and helpers slept in a cottage close by. Luckily for the cooks, Cunjee now boasted a gas supply and its citizens supplied them with gas-stoves, as Norah said, “in clutches,” so that they worked in comfort. It was hard work, with little time to spare, but the girls had learned method, and they soon mapped out a routine that prevented their ever being rushed or flurried. And they blessed the cold weather that saved constant watching lest supplies should go bad.
From Billabong came daily hampers that greatly relieved their labours. It was a matter of some amazement to the Lintons that Brownie did not volunteer for the hospital, and indeed, it had been the first thought of Brownie herself. But she repressed it firmly, though by no means feeling comfortable. To Murty she confided her views, and was relieved by his approval.
“I know I did ought to go,” she said, almost tearfully. “There's those two blessed lambs in the kitchen, doing wot I'd ought to be doing; and I know Mrs. Archdale 'ud come up an' run things 'ere for me. But wot 'ud 'appen if I did go, I ask you, Murty? Simply they'd take the two blessed lambs out of the kitchen an' put 'em to nursing in the wards, an' next thing you knew they'd both be down with the beastly flu' themselves. They're safer among the pots and pans, Murty. But when the master looks at me I don't feel comferable.”
“Yerra, let him look,” said Murty stoutly. “'Tis the great head ye have on ye; I'd never have thought of it. Don't go worryin', now. Are ye not sendin' them in the heighth of good livin' every day?”
“That's the least I can do,” said Brownie, brightening a little. “Only I'd like to think Miss Norah and Miss Tommy got some of it, and not just them patients, gethered up from goodness knows where.”
“Yerra, Miss Norah wouldn't want to know their addresses before she'd feed 'em,” said the bewildered Murty. But there came a suspicious smell from the kitchen, as of something burning, and Mrs. Brown fled with a swiftness that was surprising, considering her circumference.
Jim lived a moving existence in those days, flying between Billabong and Cunjee in the car, bringing supplies, always on hand for a job if wanted, and insisting that on their daily “time off” Norah and Tommy should come out for a spin into the country. Sometimes they managed to take Sister, too, or some of the other helpers. The car never went out with any empty seats. Presently they were recovering patients to be given fresh air or taken home; white-faced mothers, longing to be back to the house and children left in the care of “dad,” and whatever kindly neighbours might drop in; or “dads” themselves, much bewildered at the amazing illness that had left them feeling as if neither their legs nor their heads belonged to them. Occasionally, after dropping one of these convalescents, Jim would find jobs waiting to his hand about the bush homestead; cows to milk, a fence to be mended, wood waiting to be chopped. He used to do them vigorously, while in the house “mum” fussed over her restored man and tried to keep him from going out to run the farm immediately. There were generally two or three astonished children to show him where tools were kept—milk buckets, being always up-ended on a fence post, needed no introduction, and the pump, for a sluice afterwards, was not hard of discovery. The big Rolls-Royce used to purr gently away through the bush paddock afterwards, often with a bewildered “mum” looking amazedly at the tall young man who drove it.
Meanwhile Bob Rainham, left alone with his host, set about the business of his new farm in earnest, since there seemed nothing else for him to do; and David Linton, possibly glad of the occupation, threw himself into the work. The farm was bought on terms that seemed to Bob very easy—he did not know that Mr. Linton stood security for his payments—and then began the task of stocking it and of planning just what was best to do with each paddock. The house, left bare and clean by the last owners, was in good repair, save that the dingy white painting of the exterior, and the varnished pine walls and ceilings within were depressing and shabby. Mr. Linton decided that his house-warming present to Tommy should be a coat of paint for her mansion, and soon it looked new—dark red, with a gleaming white roof, while the rooms were painted in pretty fresh colours. “Won't Tommy get a shock!” chuckled Bob gleefully. The dinginess of the house had not escaped him on the morning that they had made their first inspection, but Tommy, who loved freshness and colours, had made no sign. Had you probed the matter, Tommy would probably have remarked, with some annoyance, that it was not her job to begin by grumbling.
Wally came hurtling back from Queensland at the first hint of the influenza outbreak, and was considerably depressed at finding his twin souls, Jim and Norah, engaged in jobs that for once he could not share. Therefore he, too, fell back on the new farm, and found Bob knitting his brow one evening over the question of furniture.
“I don't want to buy much,” he said. “Tommy doesn't, either; we talked it over. We'd rather do with next to nothing, and buy decent stuff by degrees if we get on well. Tommy says she doesn't want footling little gimcracky tables and whatnots and things, nor dressing-tables full of drawers that won't pull out. But I've been looking at the cheap stuff in Cunjee, and, my word, it's nasty! Still, I can't afford good things now, and Tommy wouldn't like it if I tried to get 'em. Tommy's death on the simple life.”