CHAPTER III
I
I T was in high spirits that Valerie set off the next afternoon with Bob to walk to the coast. A heavy thunderstorm in the night had cleared the air and set the dust, and a breeze had swept the river and the town of the haze that had obscured them for over a week. As they went up Queen Street she looked curiously at the banks, the land offices, the law offices, the Native Land Court building and Roger Benton’s large general store all bunched together near River Street, and beyond them up the rise at the houses and gardens that made this the aristocratic thoroughfare.
She saw that the whole place was heat worn. The gardens and lawns were brown. The blistering sun had peeled the paint off the white walls. There were no large trees anywhere, but only shrubs to break the glare.
When they had gone by the last cottage and were surrounded by the stunted vegetation on the flat above Valerie stopped, looked back and drew a long breath. There was more of a view than she had imagined. She gazed away across the river, over the miles of flax and cabbage trees in the swamp at hills and valleys girdled about with shadows. There were hills and valleys to the south and hills and valleys to the north, all checkered with the shapes of the clouds that were trailing over the face of the sun. To the east and south she saw fields, the glow of grain, innumerable specs of sheep and cattle, the white spots of houses, the red roofs of barns, water towers, clumps of Scotch firs, green spots marking the sources of
28
