Читать книгу: «Wildfire Island Docs: The Man She Could Never Forget / The Nurse Who Stole His Heart / Saving Maddie's Baby / A Sheikh to Capture Her Heart / The Fling That Changed Everything / A Child to Open Their Hearts», страница 3
But the elegant, glass-fronted cabinets were empty. Grandma’s precious collection of china—old pieces handed down to her by her mother and grandmother—was gone.
That was when tears started in Caroline’s eyes. Ian had not only stolen physical things, he’d stolen her memories, memories of sitting on the floor in front of the cabinet while Grandma handed her one piece at a time, telling her its history, promising they would be hers one day.
That she’d lost them didn’t matter, but the treachery of Ian selling things he knew had been precious to his mother turned her tears to anger.
Taking a deep breath, she moved on into Grandma’s sitting room.
The little desk she’d used each day to write to friends was there, and Caroline could feel the spirit of her grandmother, the woman who, with Helen, had brought her up until Grandma’s death when Caroline was ten.
Opening off the wide passage on the other side were large, airy bedrooms, all with wide French doors and folding shutters that led onto the veranda. The filmy lace curtains still graced the insides of the windows, although they were beginning to look drab.
Grandma’s was the first room, the huge four-poster bed draped with a pale net, the faint scent of her presence lingering in the air. There’d always been flowers in Grandma’s room, as there had been on the dining-room table and the cabinets in the drawing room …
Leaving her exploration, she hurried out into the garden, minding the thorns on the bougainvillea as she pulled off a couple of flower stems, then some frangipani, a few yellow allemande flowers, some glossy leaves, and white daisies.
Back inside she found vases Ian must have considered too old and cracked to fetch a decent price. She filled them with water and carried them, one by one, into the three rooms where flowers had always stood.
Soon she’d do more—head into the rainforest for leaves and berries and eventually have floral tributes to Grandma that would rival the ones she used to make.
But there was still half a house to explore.
Her father’s room was next, unchanged although the small bed beside her father’s big one reminded Caroline of the rare times Christopher had come to the island. The visits hadn’t lasted long, but she and Keanu had always shared their adventures with him. They would put him in his wheelchair and show him all their favourite places, probably risking his life when they wheeled him down the steep track to Sunset Beach.
The next room must have been Ian’s, then three smaller, though still by modern-day standards large, rooms—hers in the middle.
But as she poked her head into Ian’s room it was obvious he hadn’t been living there as the furniture was covered in dust sheets that seemed to have been there for ever.
‘He lived in the guesthouse.’
Bessie had come in and now stood beside Caroline, looking into the empty, rather ghostly room.
The guesthouse was off the back veranda opposite Helen and Keanu’s suite of rooms, but detached and given privacy by a screen of trees and shrubs.
‘I don’t think I’ll bother looking there,’ she said to Bessie. ‘It was about the only place on the island Keanu and I weren’t allowed to play so there’d be no memories.’
She was back on the front veranda when she heard the whump-whump-whump of a helicopter.
Now she could go down to the hospital and ask for a job.
Right now before she’d let her doubts about working with Keanu solidify in her head.
Or perhaps tomorrow when she’d worked on a strategy to handle working with him …
He had to go up to the house and make peace with Caro, Keanu decided, not skulk around down here at the hospital.
Sam and Hettie would employ her, that much was certain, so he would be working with her. But doctor-nurse relationships needed trust on both sides and although all his instincts told him to run for his life, he knew he wouldn’t.
Couldn’t.
M’Langi was more important than these new and distinctly uncomfortable reactions to Caro. Finding out what had been happening and trying to put things right—that was what the elders expected of him.
So he was here, and she was here, and …
He sighed, then began to wonder just why she was here. He’d never totally lost touch with what Caro was up to, being in contact with her father all through his student years, asking, oh, so casually, how she was doing.
And friends from the islands, staying at the Lockharts’ Sydney house on a visit or while studying, would pass on information. So now he thought about it, he’d known she’d studied nursing, because he’d smiled at the time to think both of them were fulfilling at least the beginning of that childhood promise.
But he’d never expected her to return to Wildfire to actually finish the job, especially as he’d known a little of the life she’d been leading. Known from the Sydney papers he would buy up in Cairns, for the sole purpose, he realised, of torturing himself.
He might pretend he’d bought them for the business section, which was always more comprehensive than the one in the local paper, but, if so, why did he turn to the social pages first, hoping for a glimpse of Caro—a grown-up, beautiful Caro—usually on the arm of a too-smooth-looking bloke called Steve, to whom she was, apparently, ‘almost’ engaged.
What the hell did ‘almost’ mean?
It couldn’t have been jealousy that had made him feel so bad—after all, he’d been the one who’d not almost but definitely married someone else. Someone he’d thought he’d loved because she’d brought him out of the lingering misery of his mother’s death, his loneliness and his homesickness for the island.
So kind of, in a way, he’d betrayed Caro not once—in disappearing from her life—but twice, although that wasn’t really true as trysts made between twelve-and fourteen-year-olds didn’t really count.
Did they?
It was all this confusion—the unresolved issues inside him—that was making him angry, and somehow the anger had made her its target.
Which was probably unfair.
No, it was definitely unfair.
Especially as she was obviously unhappy. He’d put that down to her seeing him again, which would be natural after the way he’d behaved towards her.
So maybe he should stay well out of her way.
Except he’d always hated it when Caro was unhappy. And if he’d caused or even contributed to that unhappiness, which he must have, cutting her off the way he had so long ago, then shouldn’t he do something about it?
At least see if they could regain a little of their old friendship.
Friendship?
When one glimpse of the grown-up Caro had sent his pulses racing, his entire body stirring in a most un-friend-like manner?
Not good for a man who was probably still married …
On top of which, he was torn between two edicts of his mother. The childhood one, always spoken when the two of them as children had left the house, plainly spoken and always understood: take care of Caroline.
Then, as his mother had been dying from pancreatic cancer that had appeared from nowhere and killed her within six weeks, while he, a doctor could do nothing to save her. Then she had cursed the Lockharts …
Well, Ian Lockhart anyway.
Anyway, wasn’t he beyond superstitions like curses?
He shook his head to clear the memories and useless speculation, checked the few patients they had in the hospital, then let out a huge sigh of relief when he heard the helicopter returning.
He almost let himself hope it was bringing in a difficult case, something to distract him from the endlessly circling thoughts in his head.
Hettie and Sam had left the hospital’s makeshift ambulance down near the helicopter pad so Keanu walked down to the airstrip, not really wishing for a patient but ready to help unpack anything they might have brought back. And it would be best to break the news about the FIFO nurse and Maddie not coming now, rather than leaving it until the morning.
Would he tell them about Caroline’s arrival?
He’d have to at least mention it.
Sam would be only too delighted to have an available nurse.
And he would be doomed to work with the woman he didn’t really know but had been instantly attracted to in a way he’d never felt before.
It was because of the old friendship. The attraction thing. It had to be, but with any luck, after the way he’d treated her, she’d want to have as little to do with him as possible.
He was almost at the helicopter now, and could see Sam and Jack Richards, the pilot, lifting out a stretcher.
Good! That means work to do, Keanu thought, then realised how unkind it was to be wishing someone ill. But it was only when he saw the patient that he felt a flush of shame at his thoughts. It was old Alkiri, from the island of Atangi, the elder who had been one of his and Caro’s favourite people and true mentor when they had been young.
He moved closer and greeted the elder in his native language, touching the old man’s shoulder in a gesture of respect.
Even through the oxygen mask, Keanu could see the blue tinge on their patient’s lips and he wondered just how old Alkiri might be.
‘He had a fall, perhaps a TIA as apparently he’d been falling quite a lot recently.’
TIA—transient ischemic attack—often a precursor to a full-blown stroke. Had Alkiri been putting these falls down to old age? He was a private man, unlikely to seek help unless he really needed it. Yet, as Caroline’s grandfather’s boatman, he had not only lived here at Wildfire but had taken two small children under his wing. It was he who had taken them and the village children to and from the school on Atangi, teaching them things about the islands, and life itself, that to Keanu were as important as the learning he’d had at school.
He should tell Caro Alkiri was—
He stopped the thought before it went any further. It had been automatic for he knew she’d loved the old man as much as he had—and probably still would …
But he was no longer the boy who’d run through the house, calling for his friend to pass on a bit of news.
And she was no longer the girl he’d always wanted to find so he could tell—
They strapped the stretcher into the converted jeep, especially modified for just that reason, then Jack and Hettie rode back to the hospital, Sam walking with Keanu to check on any news and pass on information from the clinics on the other islands.
The scent of a nearby frangipani hung in the air, but today such a reminder that he was home didn’t soothe Keanu as it had on other days, on other such walks with Sam, or Hettie or whoever had done the clinic run.
He gave Sam the news that neither Maddie nor the FIFO nurse would be arriving the next day, assured Sam he was happy to work full time, then hesitated.
‘More?’ Sam asked quietly.
‘There is a nurse,’ Keanu answered, and something in his voice must have alerted Sam.
‘She’s a problem? Drinker? Chain smoker who’ll insist on cigarette breaks? Axe murderer?’
‘She’s a Lockhart,’ Keanu answered, and watched as Sam smiled and shook his head.
‘That doesn’t make her a bad nurse, Keanu. I assume she’s Max’s daughter, the girl you grew up with. And don’t look at me like that—nothing stays secret on this island for long.’
Sam stopped walking and turned towards Keanu, his usually smiling face set in a frown.
‘Are you saying you can’t work with her?’
‘Of course not,’ Keanu responded, possibly too quickly. ‘But the Lockhart name isn’t held in much regard here at the moment. I was wondering about the patients.’
‘Of course you were.’
Sam smiled again.
‘Considering all the good Max Lockhart and his parents and grandparents before him have done for the islands, I doubt the one bad apple will have totally ruined the name. I do hope not, because we need her. But speaking of Ian, Hettie and I discovered he’d stopped in at Raiki after he left here and took not only the locked box of drugs we kept in the clinic there, but also the clinic nurse.’
‘Why on earth?’ Keanu had trouble taking in this information. ‘Drugs, maybe—he’s on a boat, could have injuries and presumably anything he doesn’t use he’ll sell—but the nurse? I assume she went willingly.’
‘Apparently so, but it leaves Raiki without a nurse. The drugs we can replace, but she was one of the first nurses trained when Max set up the programme to help any islanders wanting to do nursing. Most of them lived in his house in Sydney while they were at university, but she was one of the few who came back here to work.’
‘But the others will be helping people even if it’s not here,’ Keanu pointed out, mainly to cover the stab of guilt he’d felt at Sam’s statement. It had reminded him that he, too, hadn’t come back—well, not until he had been reminded of his duty …
‘So, when do I get to meet her?’ Sam asked.
‘I imagine she’ll come down in the morning. She did help out soon after she arrived earlier today when we had a bloke come up from the research station with a nail from a nail gun in his foot. It wasn’t much of a test of nursing but she seemed to know what she was doing.’
Sam smiled again before walking on.
‘Poor girl!’ he said. ‘Already damned with faint praise.’
Poor girl indeed, Keanu muttered to himself. If she was still a girl everything would be okay.
Or would it?
She’d been nothing more than a girl when he’d hurt her and for all he’d told himself she wouldn’t miss his letters, and would probably be relieved not to have to write back, given all the friends she would have made at school, he’d never quite believed it.
‘I could take you up to the house and introduce you this evening if you like,’ he offered.
Sam studied him for a minute.
‘Let’s just wait for her to come to us,’ he suggested, then he grinned. ‘And let’s hope she’s early as apparently she’ll have to start work straight away.’
CHAPTER THREE
A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG woman with long, lustrous, dark hair piled up beneath a dodgy-looking nurse’s cap, and wearing what was apparently a uniform of green tunic and green three-quarter-length pants greeted Caroline with a smile and, ‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m looking for Sam,’ Caroline explained.
‘Rather you than me,’ the woman replied. ‘He’s in the little room he calls his office, probably setting fire to the paperwork. Straight along the passage and on the left.’
Caroline turned to follow the directions.
‘I’m Anahera, by the way, but everyone calls me Ana,’ the dark-haired woman added.
Caroline turned back.
‘Oh, I’ve met your daughter. She’s adorable. I’m Caroline Lockhart.’
Caroline held out her hand but couldn’t miss the hesitation or the look of wariness in Anahera’s eyes before she took the proffered palm and shook it.
But ‘Oh!’ was all she said, turning back into the small ward behind her where Caroline could see four occupied beds.
Farther down the passage she found the room, knocked briefly then answered a peremptory ‘Come in.’
‘Caroline Lockhart, I presume?’
The good-looking man behind the desk looked up briefly from the paperwork he was shoving from one pile to another, then frowned down at it.
‘Never become an administrator,’ he muttered, pushing the lot back together into an untidy heap.
‘Don’t like paperwork?’ Caroline asked, but she was smiling as she said it. There was something immensely likeable about this man.
‘Who does? The problem is I’m already short on staff and I’ve still got to waste time doing blasted paperwork.’
‘Can’t you get the dog to eat it? Isn’t that the classic homework excuse?’ Caroline suggested, seeing the warm brown eyes of the Labrador lying on Sam’s feet under the table.
Sam flashed her a grin.
‘I did try that but the wretch keeps spitting it out. Hospital dogs are too well fed. But let me introduce you. This lazy, too-well-fed beast is Bugsy, Maddie Haddon’s dog. Maddie is one of our FIFO doctors but rather than fly Bugsy back and forth she leaves him here. Unfortunately she can’t make today’s plane and as he usually knows when she’s due in, he’s decided I’m the best substitute for his owner.’
Sam paused and studied Caroline for a moment.
‘I’m also a nurse short, and Keanu told me you were here. Want a job?’
‘As long as it doesn’t involve sorting that mess you’ve made of those papers you’re shuffling. I can certainly help in other ways.’
Humour lit his eyes.
‘Nice back massage? Rub my feet?’
‘In your dreams!’ Caroline retorted, deciding she quite liked this rather strange man.
‘But I could fill in for your missing nurse,’ Caroline added, refusing to be beguiled by gleaming eyes. ‘I’m a nurse and you’re apparently one nurse short.’
‘Keanu said you’re a socialite.’
One more black mark against the man who’d hurt her so badly.
‘Well, you may not have noticed but there’s not that much social life around here, and a socialite without a social set is superfluous to requirements, while a nurse might just fill in for the one who isn’t coming, if you’re willing to give me a chance.’
Now she had his attention.
‘Touchy, are you?’ He looked her up and down. ‘I suppose you have the right bits of paper—degree, references.’
‘Right here,’ she said, pulling the paperwork she’d grabbed and stuffed in her back pocket before leaving the house.
Caroline began to relax.
Well, not relax relax—that would never happen with Keanu somewhere near—but some of the tension she’d been feeling drained slowly out of her.
‘It seems you’ve been away from the island for a long time,’ Sam said, riffling through the papers but, she suspected, speed-reading every word. ‘Why have you come back?’
‘I don’t think that’s relevant but I did hear the island was in trouble.’
‘And you thought coming here to nurse would cure things?’
Caroline shook her head.
‘Boy, are you a grump! I didn’t even know there’d be a nursing position available, although I had intended working here for nothing if necessary, but this place was my home—is my home—and I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit back and let it fall apart without at least trying to find out what’s been happening and what can be done to save it. My dad would be here as well, only he—Well, there’s a family problem.’
Sam raised his head and looked at her.
‘He’s a great man, your father. He does the best he can. Lobbying for government support, fundraising. Ever since the mine stopped paying its promised share for the hospital, I think he’s put his entire salary into it. I just do what I can.’
‘So, do I get a job?’
Sam studied her a little longer.
‘The nurse who was coming was a FIFO—Fly-In-Fly-Out—the term more commonly used in mining communities. It means you’re on duty for two weeks then off for one, and you can take the flight to the mainland for that week off if you wish.’
‘Which leaves you with only one nurse—Anahera—for a week?’
‘Not really. The FIFOs overlap and we have another permanent. You haven’t met Hettie yet—Henrietta de Lacey—only don’t dare ever call her Henrietta, she’ll lop off your head with the nearest implement. She’s our head nurse and is permanent staff and she’s the one you should be speaking to about this job, but she’s doing another clinic run. It’s not usual to do two in one week, but there’s a lot to sort out. The clinic on Raiki is short of drugs, not to mention a nurse, so Hettie’s gone out there to replace the drugs then scour the islands to see if she can get one of the nurses from another island to cover Raiki for a while. How are you in a helicopter?’
Caroline was wondering what had happened to both the drugs and the nurse from Raiki when she realised she’d been asked a question. She grinned at him.
‘Do you mean can I fly one or do I throw up in one?’
‘Definitely the latter. Pilots we have.’
‘I’ll be fine, but do nurses always do the clinics or do the doctors go out to the other islands as well?’
‘Doctors too,’ came the swift reply, although Caroline had already forgotten what she’d asked as she’d sensed a presence in the room behind her, and every nerve in her body told her it was Keanu.
‘Sorry to butt in, boss.’
His deep voice reverberated around the room.
‘But Alkiri, the old man you brought in from Atangi, is having difficulty breathing—I think his end is very near. Okay with you if I sit with him?’
Sam nodded, then turned to Caroline.
‘If you want to start work now, go sit with Keanu. Just see Alkiri is propped up in a comfortable position and moisten his lips for him if he needs it. Turn his head a little—’
‘So saliva can drain out,’ Caroline finished for him. ‘I have done this before, you know.’
Sam nodded again, then added softly, although they were already alone in the room, ‘I’d like you there for Keanu. He’s known the old man all his life. He’s the elder who asked Keanu to come back to the islands. It will be hard for him.’
Caroline nodded.
‘Alkiri would have known he was dying,’ she murmured, remembering the uncanny sense the islanders seemed to have about death. ‘Maybe he wanted Keanu by his side.’
She left the room to be with Alkiri and Keanu, though she doubted he’d take comfort from her presence.
Sitting on the opposite side of the bed from her childhood friend, she took the old man’s dry hand, feeling bones as fragile as a bird’s beneath the papery skin.
‘It’s Caroline,’ she said very quietly. ‘Do you remember teaching me to weave fish traps?’
To talk or not to talk to the dying was a much-argued topic, but Caroline thought Alkiri deserved to know she remembered, and perhaps to let his mind drift back to happy times he’d had with the two children.
‘Then you’d take us out in your old boat to show us where to put them up against the reef.’ Keanu took up the story equally quietly, but looking at him, Caroline wondered if the sadness in his eyes was not all caused by the elder’s approaching death.
Caroline swabbed the saliva from the old man’s mouth, while Keanu started a story about Alkiri’s frustration at not being able to teach Caro to split a coconut properly.
‘I still can’t,’ Caroline admitted, ‘although they’re everywhere in the city shops now and people are going crazy for coconut water.’
‘I’ve been looking into that and have talked to the elders,’ Keanu said quietly. ‘Wondering if the craze for it might provide a viable source of income for the islanders. After all, it’s not just the water but every bit of a coconut is used in one way or another. I’ve got an accountant who’s done a lot of set-up work on new businesses looking at the figures.’
Her thoughts hadn’t quite got that far but the splitting of coconuts had started her thinking that way.
She risked a glance towards him. Surely they were not still going to be able to read each other’s thoughts, especially now, when her thoughts, since meeting him again, had been almost wholly taken up with how magnificent he looked.
Keanu was as fine a specimen of manhood as she’d ever seen, and although just looking at him generated unwelcome reactions in her body, she couldn’t resist a sneaked glance now and then as she tried to analyse her reactions.
She turned her attention back to Alkiri, speaking quietly again, more memories tumbling into her head. Keanu offered some of his own, adding to hers—shared lives.
At some stage she heard a plane come in—bringing stores but not the staff that had been expected, Caroline guessed. Then some time later it took off again. They talked on …
There were long silences between Alkiri’s rattly breaths, some so long she feared their old friend had already died. Until suddenly he roused, opened his eyes and looked from one to the other, smiling.
‘With both of you here, I am at peace. Please keep me here when I am gone. Wildfire was always my true home,’ he whispered in a thin papery voice, and then the breathing did stop.
For ever.
Caroline couldn’t bring herself to pull the sheet up over the old man’s face. Very gently, she closed his eyes, and straightened the sheet across his body.
‘Can we bury him here or would his family want him back on Atangi?’ she asked, finally meeting Keanu’s eyes across the bed.
Keanu shrugged, and, sensing the grief he was trying hard to hide she went to him, unable not to offer comfort to her old friend, and put her arm around his wide shoulders.
‘Come on, let’s have a cup of tea while we think about the arrangements.’
He walked with her, but blindly, although the fact that he was not aware of her didn’t bother Caroline one bit. She was far too busy battling all the reactions just touching Keanu’s body had caused in hers—hoping the deep breaths she was taking to suppress the weird emotions were going unnoticed by her companion.
But her heart raced, her head spun, and every nerve in her body tingled with excitement.
Ridiculous, she told herself. This was ‘old friend’ reaction and not sexual at all, although it did feel …
Sexual?
Vailea was in the kitchen. She took one look at Keanu’s stricken face and pulled out a chair for him.
‘I heard you were back,’ she said, her voice cold enough to douse the fires just touching Keanu had set alight. ‘Come to bring more trouble to us?’
‘No, of course not. I’ve come to work.’ Caroline tried to sound reassuring, but Vailea’s words and attitude had stung.
What on earth had been going on? Was it more than Ian’s poor management? Selling off the family heirlooms wouldn’t have affected anyone outside the family, so what else had happened or was happening? What had Bessie said about the new housekeeper? Something about Ian …
‘I’ve come to make Keanu a cup of tea,’ she said as Vailea’s eyes continued to study her, a malevolence Caroline couldn’t understand clear within them.
‘I’ll take care of him,’ the older woman snapped, and Caroline, only too pleased to escape the extremely uncomfortable atmosphere, left the kitchen.
‘Boy, this is going to be fun,’ she muttered to herself as she made her way out of the hospital.
Keanu could deal with Alkiri on his own—do whatever needed to be done. She was damned if she was going to stay around and be insulted. Once Hettie, the head nurse, returned later today and gave Caroline her roster, she could work out how best to avoid Vailea altogether.
Vailea and Keanu.
Although there was something about Vailea’s reaction to her that seemed more personal than a general hatred of all Lockharts …
Keanu walked up to the house at six. He’d spent two hours talking to the elders on Atangi, making arrangements for Alkiri’s funeral. The elders had agreed he could be buried on Wildfire and they would send over people to help with the practicalities and some cooks to prepare the food.
‘Is there somewhere we can all gather?’ the man he’d been speaking to had asked. ‘I think the little church and its hall would be too small.’
Keanu thought of the big longhouse that had once been the centre of the research station and assured the elder that somewhere could be found. There was always the Lockhart house if nothing else worked out.
They settled on a service at ten in two days’ time.
Now, given that they might need the house, he had to make peace with Caro, although he doubted he could ever explain his angry reaction to her arrival—far too complicated and quite unwarranted, really.
Caroline was sitting on the veranda, watching the sun sink into the sea, dropping below the western cliffs lit up with the brilliant fiery red that gave the island its name.
He took the steps three at a time in long, deliberate strides, then slumped down on the top one, not looking at her but out at the dying colours of the sunset.
‘Why did you come back?’ he asked, almost gently, although being this close to her had started all the physical reactions again, and the confusion of that made him feel …
Angry?
Not really, more unsettled …
‘Why did you?’ she countered.
‘I was asked,’ he said, trying desperately to pretend that this was just a conversation between two old friends. Which, of course, it was—wasn’t it?
‘The island was in trouble, the community was in trouble. It’s my home and I love it. Of course, I had to come back.’
‘And yet you ask me why I came? To tell you the truth, I didn’t know things were this bad until I got here. I just wanted—needed—to come home.’
‘And now you’re here?
She turned towards him, her eyes alight with determination.
‘I have to find out what’s been happening. How everything’s gone so terribly wrong. Do you honestly believe the island means less to me than it does to you? That this isn’t my community as well?’
Her gaze drifted back to the sunset, so he guessed there was a bit more to the answer than that. But whatever it was it had caused a break in her voice and he wanted more than anything in the world—more even than saving the livelihood and well-being of the islanders—to comfort her, to take her in his arms, hold her close, smell the Caro scent of her, and never let her go.
Like she’d want that!
He also wanted to ask her about Christopher. She hadn’t answered earlier. But he knew it was too painful a subject to bring up when they were so estranged, so he stuck to practicalities.
‘So, what do you think you can do?’ he asked instead, his voice rougher than it should be as it scraped past the emotion in his throat.
‘Find out what’s been going on, for a start,’ she said. ‘All the predictions from the geologists showed the mine had many years to run. I don’t doubt Ian’s been embezzling the money it’s been earning but it can’t just be that.’
Keanu hid a smile. That sounded so like the young Caroline—his Caro—on the trail of some possible crime—suspected cruelty to some chickens being only one of her campaigns.
