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Six Little New Zealanders

Chapter XVII — Ring Down The Curtain

page 244

Chapter XVII
Ring Down The Curtain

I went to sleep in Morrison's cottage, with the crisp "spring" feeling in the air, and a vision of blossoming pear trees with white laden branches looking in at the window. I awoke in my own little bed at Kamahi with a real summer nor'-wester blowing, and a glory of roses, pink and white and deep, rich red, twisting round the veranda posts outside, and stealing a glance, at me through the open French casement.

Not that I was really asleep all the time—of course, you understand that. But I was ill, quite interestingly ill, with a doctor staying in the house, and two nurses to look after me; with loads of medicine, and nice things to tempt my appetite; with silence in the sickroom; and Jan, Jock, and Pipi passing the door on tiptoe; with everyone remembering only the good things about me and forgetting the bad.

It really is very interesting when I come to look back on it now, though I can remember very little of all that happened during those first few weeks of my illness; I know that I was always tired, always hot, always aching. And always I dreamed that I page 245was walking, walking over wide tussock-covered plains that had no end, with the hum of bees in my ears, and a great fear at the bottom of my heart.

Next I can remember the faces which bent down tenderly over me, the people who came and went— Kathie and Uncle Dan, Uncle Stephen and father, and a pair of squeaking boots and a kind, gruff voice that meant Uncle John. Sometimes, too, I caught glimpses of a fair-haired little girl, a small boy, and an older girl with a mop of hair tied with spotty black and white ribbons.

"Jan always wears the wyandottes now," I said to mother, and I wondered why she gave such a funny little start, and came over to me and held my hand with such a glad look in her eyes.

Would you believe it? That was the first sensible remark I had made. That was why mother was so pleased; it showed that I was really getting better. So I was. I began to notice lots of other things besides Jan's hair-ribbons. She had been wearing the wyandottes because she hadn't the heart to don pink or yellow or blue while I was so ill. They were quite the ugliest she had, too. When I was better she went into colours again, and gave the specklies to Pipi for dolls' sashes. Pipi, however, used them for a hangman's rope instead, and with their aid and some assistance from Jock suspended Chinky, the Chinaman doll.

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But all this time I'm talking about wyandotte hair-ribbons and Chinaman dolls, and you're wondering what mother is doing on the scene when I led you to suppose that she was drowned, away out in the cruel ocean, away from us all, away from the children who couldn't live without her.

Of course she wasn't drowned. Did you ever believe it? I don't think we ever did; not even on that dark Sunday morning when it seemed that all hope was dead, and that father and mother were gone from us together. Deep, deep down in our hearts I think we always felt that something so terrible could never be.

It was not until weeks after that I heard the full particulars of the voyage home, of the breakdown in the machinery, of the hopeless drifting for weeks right off the track of vessels outward bound, of the joyful morning when the funnel of a Union boat had showed in the distance. The rescuing vessel was fortunately fitted with wireless, and the news of the Weka's safety was flashed to a waiting world. But father and mother were over a month behind the good news, and they arrived at Kamahi to find me in one room raving of golden-haired girls and lost brothers and ships which put out and never came back, and Rob, very thin and white and hollow-eyed, in another.

But father and mother were safe! Safe! Safe! page 247We had them home again, and please God we should keep them as long as they both should live.

And what of Rob? All this time, too, you're thinking he died in Morrison's cottage that dark, dark Sunday nine weeks back. But he didn't—not a bit of it. He was up and about long before I began to notice wyandotte hair-ribbons or things like that. One morning I opened my eyes and found him sitting by my bedside—such a lanky, hollow-eyed Rob, with bright eyes that smiled down at me, and strangely white, thin hands.

"Hallo, kiddy," he said casually—too casually, for I saw the quiver round his lips.

"Hallo, Rob," I answered, trying to smile back at him.

"You're looking better," said Rob, so politely that I could not help laughing. Yet, strangely enough, when I laughed, one or two drops fell down my cheeks. I don't know exactly why I cried, but when you're ill it takes very little to set you off. It's quite embarrassing at times; you want a tear bottle tied on to your chin.

Rob looked so horrified that I tried to stop, while he slipped down on his knees beside me, and began to talk wildly about nothing at all. He seized upon a rose in a vase by my bedside, and held it up to me.

"Jolly scent this kind. Cabbage or moss—I forget page 248which. Uncle's got some boskers outside. Carna-tions, too, are grand. Never saw carnations like those he's got—blaze of colour and scent. Grand!"

"It's all r-r-right," I gasped, wiping my eyes. "I—I couldn't help 1-laughing."

"I'il bring mother," said Rob, unconvinced.

"No! Sit down and tell me everything. I've lots to hear about everything, Rob."

And so I had. I wanted to ask Rob about his travels, of the "way back" railway camp in which he had worked, of the trip he had taken round the coast in the timber scow, of the swagging days during which he had passed through Otago and South Canterbury. Yet, strangely enough, at first the words wouldn't come easily to either of us, and we were only just beginning to enjoy each other properly when Kathie came into the room with the inevitable medicine bottle.

"Off you go, Rob," she ordered. "Ngaire's eyes are too bright already. Half a wineglass of this stuff, isn't it?"

She went over to the window, and began to measure out the loathsome mixture. Rob rose from his chair, but he still lingered, squashing the counterpane into agitated pleats.

"Suppose I must be off," he said, nonchalantly. "See you again this afternoon."

But he didn't go; instead, he pleated and re-pleated page 249my clean counterpane in a way that would have broken mother's heart.

Ngaire—"

Suddenly he leaned down and touched my cheeks with his lips. And with that I understood all that he meant to say and couldn't say—all the repentance and sorrow and the resolving of better things. And there was something that he did tell me later on, one glad, fine day when, propped up in bed, I was enjoying all the glories of convalescence.

"I'm not going to be a farmer after all, Skinny," he said. "Uncle John is sending me back to school, and then on to the University. So I can be a lawyer or anything else I want. Uncle John's just ripping— you don't know what a good sort he is, kid."

But I did. I had discovered it long ago.

Once I had made a start I just raced to get well, and everyone encouraged me. Kathie and Jan and Mrs. McPherson made the jolliest things to eat, only Kathie burned her sponge cakes and her jellies wouldn't jell. But Jock and Pipi finished them up forme when her back was turned, so that her feelings shouldn't be hurt.

Uncle John made many trips to town, and came back with every kind of game and toy imaginable. He gave me everything but a squeaking lamb and to please him I played with them all, though you do feel a bit of an idiot with a puffing engine when! you're page 250nearly thirteen. But I wouldn t have let him know for worlds. Somehow I feel that I can never love Uncle John half enough. I want to go on packing more and more and more love and joy and happiness into his life.

Uncle Stephen told me stories in the evenings when I was tired and the lights were low.

Everyone spoiled me and petted me. Occasionally Pipi forgot the respect due to an invalid, and once or twice Uncle Dan broke out in the old teasing way—but, then, he couldn't help it. All day long I used to lie, wrapped in rugs, on a couch on the veranda, moving round the house with the sun, and at very frequent intervals mother, Kathie or Jan or Mrs. McPherson would appear, bringing me something to tempt my appetite, which soon needed very little coaxing. Jock and Pipi, too, were very faithful in their attendance upon me, especially at appetite-tempting time, when they would squat affectionately one on either side of me and watch every mouthful that I took. Sometimes if the dish was unusually appetising Pipi would sigh, but Jock was too polite.

"Eat it all up, Ngaire," he would say. "It's to make you strong."

"She's eaten enough already to make her strong as a horse," Pipi said one day, tried beyond endurance by the sight of a rapidly diminishing omelette—and page 251Pipi was particularly fond of omelette. "She's eaten enough to bust. There isn't a bit as big as a crumb left now."

"Ngaire's ill," Jock answered, reprovingly, and then added hurriedly as I put down my fork: "Bags I what she leaves, Pipi."

But Pipi was politely silent. Before the words were out of Jock's mouth she had appropriated the coveted morsel. Jock looked at her and sighed heavily.

"Pipi always was a pig," he said.

And now I've come nearly to the end of the year, and with the end of the year comes, of course, the end of my story. I don't like "Good-byes," do you? The uncles don't like "Good-byes" either. They said it was only to be "Au Revoir"; all our holidays were to be spent at Kamahi. So even if we were living in a town we would have something to look forward to every year.

Kathie would only be with us in Christchurch for about—oh, did I tell you? We were not going back to Auckland. Father had been offered the editorship of a paper in Christchurch and Ghristchurch is, as everyone knows, or ought to know, not so very far from Kamahi. So we wouldn't be a great distance form the uncles, after all.

About Kathie? Well, Kathie was coming with us to Christchurch for about nine months. After that she would return to Kamahi for good; but then she page 252would be Katrine Malcolm no longer. Her name would be "Mrs. Uncle Dan."

I remember the last day that we spent at the homestead.

It was a still, still evening. Mother and I were sitting on the veranda after tea waiting for the others to come up from the stables, where they had gone with the uncles to say a last "Good-bye" to the dear horses. I still had to rest occasionally, and couldn't race about like the others; but every day I was growing stronger and stronger, and soon I should be quite well again, the doctor said. And you could never feel lonely or " left out" with mother at your side.

We had been talking of our new home in the city, and of the school which Jan,' Pipi and I were to attend. After a while we dropped into silence. Away in the west the sun sank behind the mountains in a golden glory of light; the eastern skies reflected its crimson glow. From the distance came the sound of the river rushing past.

"What made me ill, mother?" I asked.

Mother's arm stole round me, holding me to her.

"A number of things, dear. You wouldn't understand if I tried to explain. And you had had a shock, the doctor said."

A shock? Ah, yes, when I thought mother and father were drowned and Rob dead. Then I had page 253wished to die too, and the little golden-haired girl had come to me.

I had often thought of her since, and wondered if she had been just a part of my dream.

"But she really did seem true, mother/' I said after awhile. "She was with me often when I was ill, and she held my hand when we went down to the river."

Mother's arm tightened round me; her eyes—oh, so full of lovingness-—looked into mine.

"You often talked of her, childie, and it seemed to comfort you. It was only a dream, but a very beautiful one."

I knew that mother was right, that it was only a dream. But I like to think that the little golden-haired girl came to comfort me, just as I shall always believe that the wonderful pears grow bigger and juicier and sweeter at Morrison's old orchard because of the love that was planted with the trees.

"Perhaps the dream came from God," I whispered.

And mother kissed me, and said that perhaps it did.

And now it is really "Good-bye."

They are coming to join us on the veranda. If you shut your eyes you will be able to see them just as plainly as I can.

Uncle Stephen and Jan are walking together. She has scarlet ribbons in her hair, a new blouse with not page 254a button missing, and a skirt without a single tear or stain. They are discussing the box of books uncle has given her to take back to town, and uncle's eyes are very tender as he watches her. I know that sometimes he sees not Jan, but the bright-faced girl whom the waters bore away long, long ago.

Pipi is chaperoning Uncle Dan and Kathie. Every day Kathie grows older and more responsible; she isn't a bit the school-girl who came to Kamahi.

Pipi is prettier and more impish than ever, but she is still a child, while Jock has shot up like a beanstalk. He takes a great pride in his extra inches, and eyes his first tailor suit with joy. Mother won't be able to manufacture "sailors" or "shirt blouses" out of odd lengths for him now.

Rob is walking beside Denise McLennan, who came over in the motor to say "Good-bye." They are great friends, these two. I think it is because they have each a battle to fight, and are fighting it bravely. Rob is not quite so sure of himself, not so ready to dispute any and every point. He is rapidly winning back all that he lost, and reinstating himself in the good graces of the uncles. Denise has learned to bear her pain patiently, and is looking forward cheerfully to the day when she will be—"quite well" again.

Uncle John and father bring up the rear. Father stands beside Jock, and smiles round at everyone page breakbecause he is so glad to have all his family together, and because mother is so well and strong. Uncle John sits down on the deck chair beside a certain little scarecrow of a girl, whose hair is shorter and whose legs are thinner than ever. But he doesn't seem to mind, so perhaps if you shut your eyes tight you will see only the pretty new dress which the dear, gruff old uncle gave her, the watch which he bought one day in town, the pretty collar which came out of his bag yesterday. The dainty slippers with the silver buckles are his present too, and I should like to draw your attention to the prettiest hat, all sweetness and fluffiness, that came from the best shop in town. Also from Uncle John—the hat, I mean, not the shop.

We are really and truly a very happy party. Sometimes I am inclined to wonder how it was that the uncles put up with us so long, for I know we've been an awful trouble to them, but, do you know, when I mentioned it to Uncle John just now he looked down into my eyes and smiled that nice twisty, comforting smile of his and said:

"Some of our biggest troubles are also our biggest joys, little Ngaire."

And somehow I seemed to know exactly what he meant. And it was nice of him to say that, I think, don't you?"

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