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Chapter VIII
Patrick goes to Kinloch

Pipi did not like Nan's brother. He looked at her, and said:

"Pipi? Pipi? Why, that is an unusual name, isn't it? I never heard it before."

Pipi glared. She loathes her name; she says the sound of it makes her feel ill. It is Maori, and rather fishy, I think, but Mother chose it when Pipi was only three days old, so she had very little say in the matter.

"It's short for Crayfish," she told him. "And my other name is Sharkey, Oysters, Conger Eel."

Mr Somerset explored her through his pincenez, just as if she were a special and very interesting kind of grub. Then he smiled. He had rather a nice smile. Pipi, however, still regarded him fiercely.

"He's a silly ass," she whispered to me, as we faded off the scene. "I knew he would be a silly ass, an' he is. He's eatin' one of Kathie's drop cakes now, and saying it's delicious. It isn't, I know, 'cause she put in such an awful lot of soda. I tasted it before it was cooked."

"I'd like to feed him on Kathie's cakes, just page 94stuffed with engagement rings," said Jan indignantly. Nancy and her friends had departed in Mr Johnson's motor, Miss Smail still suffering, though not so acutely and so visibly. "Ngaire, what did I say to him?"

"You told him he was a beast," I answered, searching my memory, "and rather a creepy-crawly sort of man, and said that if you were Nan you wouldn't ever want to see him."

"Don't!" begged Jan, anguished.

"Do him good," Pipi giggled. "Do you know he's going to stay here all night? Uncle Stephen is going to drive him up to Kinloch to-morrow morning."

"What!" cried Jan. "What! Then I'll have to meet him at breakfast, and perhaps this evening too. I won't! I won't! I won't! I'll be dead first. I'll be ill, very ill. I do believe I am ill. My head aches awfully," added Jan, suddenly conscious of her sickness. "I won't meet him again. I'll see all the things I said just sticking out of him."

"P'raps he'll forget," I suggested, but Jan shook her head.

"Not Patrick Wayne Somerset." She brought out his full name with a bitter flourish. "He won't forget what we said about him. He might forget his own name or his own face—I expect he'd be glad to forget that—but he'll remember page 95every single word of the conversation this afternoon. And I thought I was entertaining him so well."

She finished with a giggle, and followed me into the nursery, and sat down at the table.

"There's one thing, he won't come in here," she said, comfortably. "I'm jolly glad I don't have to take late dinner with the uncles."

She poured herself out a cup of tea, drank it, and revived a little, while Pipi and I stared at her in astonishment. Jan had always resented the nursery.

"There's to-morrow morning," I suggested, but Jan waved me off airily.

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,'" she said, and she need not have worried, for next morning the "evil thereof," which was Mr Somerset, had apparently forgotten her altogether. He remembered Pipi, though.

"And how is the little—ah—Crayfish, this morning?" he asked, coming out on to the veranda, where Pipi and I were standing waiting for the summons to breakfast.

Into Pipi's eyes shot a wicked gleam. She cast a look around to see if Uncle John was near.

"No, it's— ah—Oysters to-day," she said. "It's Wednesday. I'm always—ah—Oysters on Wednesdays."

I believe Patrick Wayne has a sense of humour page 96tucked away somewhere. He looked at Pipi, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, he laughed. Pipi giggled too; she was rather relieved he had taken it so well.

Directly after breakfast Uncle Stephen had the buggy brought round to the door. He looked at Pipi and me.

"Would anyone like a drive?" he asked.

Jock didn't care about it, and Jan couldn't have been dragged with ropes, but Pipi and I did not wait to be asked twice. We raced to get our hats, and then climbed on to the back seat. Mr Somerset said "Good-bye" to Kathie and Uncle John, Uncle Stephen shook the reins, and we set off down the drive, between the trees, then up the slope, and on to the road.

Mr Somerset was silent at first, but he sat up very straight beside Uncle Stephen, his eyes on the country around. It was when we were passing the cross-roads that he spoke, and there was a funny little catch of excitement in his voice.

"This is the road we used to drive up when I was a boy coming home for the holidays. It isn't so much changed, after all. Why, there is the cottage—Morrison's old place."

He remembered the cross-roads and he knew Morrison's too—a deserted, tumbledown old place, that had stood there for years. He could trace page 97the uncles' boundary-line too, and reel off the names of the mountain-peaks.

"I remember we used to cross the river higher up—at Kinloch," he said. "We used to stay there all night before we went on to Jordan. It is wild country at Jordan, only half explored. There was an old prospector who stayed at the homestead once when I was a youngster. He told me a tale of a wonderful valley hidden away in the mountains, and of a reef of gold, which fired my imagination till I nearly set off in the middle of the night to find it. I must search for it now," he said, laughing, I think, to cover his excitement.

He knew of the wonderful valley. On the back seat Pipi and I nearly burst, but no one cared. Patrick was speaking again, and his voice was quieter now, and a little sad.

"It was a hard life for my mother," he said. "Jordan was an isolated spot. I believe there is a fairly good road now, but then we had to pack it out to the station." He paused. "Do you know, I've a little sister? She was brought up there," he added, abruptly.

Pipi could bear it no longer. She just had to join in the conversation.

"Nan! We know Nan!" she cried.

It was the first time, really and truly the very first time, he had mentioned Nan. I began to page 98feel I didn't like him very much, after all. He might have remembered her existence a little earlier.

"She's twelve," said Pipi, "and we met her at the haunted house, and she's got a black horse. She doesn't go to school. She——" Pipi paused uneasily. After all, it would be better not to mention this particular fact. "She doesn't need to go to school—she knows enough without," finished Pipi, feeling she had made a rather good job of a delicate matter.

Uncle Stephen smiled, but Mr Somerset took no notice of Sharkey, Oysters, Conger Eel. We were nearing the hills now, and away in the mountains, on the other side of the river, lay hidden the home he had left twelve years ago.

"I must go up soon. I want to see the old place," he said.

Very soon we drew near the house where the star-eyed daisies rioted knee-deep in the grass. It was here we met Nan. We met hundreds and hundreds of bullocks too—well, there were at least twenty—and Mr Campbell was driving them into a paddock, with much cracking of his whip and much helpful barking from the dogs. Nan was with him, and it was wonderful to see how clever she was—almost as clever as Mr Oh Aye.

The bullocks were great, fierce-looking animals. I do not like cattle of any kind, but Pipi does not page 99know what fear means. She stood up on the seat, and I know she longed to ride a black horse like Nan, and crack a whip as Mr Campbell did. Just as we drew near, two of the animals, finding an open gate in the opposite paddock, rushed toward it. It was fine to see Nan. Over the fence went the black horse, Nan like a streak on his back. In a few minutes they had rounded up the cattle, and driven them out of the gate again and into the paddock on the other side of the road.

"Fine horsemanship, that," said Uncle Stephen. He loves horses, and Nan could ride. "Patrick, this is——"

But Patrick Wayne was out of the buggy. Mr Campbell had caught sight of us, and was coming over to meet him, and Pat seized his hand and shook it up and down like a pump-handle.

"So you see I've come back, after all," he cried. And what do you think Mr Campbell said?

"Oh, aye."

Some instinct must have drawn Bridget forth. She came out on to the roadside, and when she saw Patrick Wayne she gave something between a chuckle and a cry, and flew straight at him, and flung her arms round him. I liked Mr Somerset then. I liked him in streaks, on and off, like the page 100Irishman's pig. He bent down and kissed her twice, and patted her protectingly, just as Uncle Dan might have done.

"You see I've come back, Bridget," he said, again. "Now, don't tell me you didn't expect me, for you did. You've been expecting me every day for the last twelve years. Sure, you know you have."

He had quite forgotten Nan, but Pipi and I had already broken the news to her. She came riding up to us when Pipi beckoned.

"Your brother's come home," she said, in a stage whisper. "That's him—the one in the silly eyeglass huggin' Mrs Campbell."

Nan looked at us, her eyes wide. She did not seem to understand, and I wondered if we had been tactful enough. Fortunately Patrick remembered her existence just then, and came round to the hack of the buggy, which was just as well, since Pipi and I did not want to miss anything.

He looked at her in a half-amused, half-surprised way. I think he was more used to caterpillars and butterflies and the wild things of the woods and fields than he was to little girls. If Nan had been a bee or a butterfly, or even a little wild pig, he would have got on better with her.

"And this is Nan?" he said, and kissed her. Yes, he actually thought of that.

He smiled at her, then turned to speak to Mrs page 101Campbell again. Nan's eyes met ours; her lips quivered.

"He's not a bit like Jock," she said.

Later, Uncle Stephen, Pipi, and I drove home again. The kettle was on the boil, and Mrs Campbell would not hear of us leaving until we had had a cup of tea. Nan clung closely to Pipi and me, and when we drove away we saw her standing, small and lonely, and somehow rather pathetic, under the trees in the drive. Pipi blinked fiercely.

"I just hate Mr Somerset. I hate him."

Uncle Stephen was silent; he did not seem to hear Pipi. I looked at him, and his eyes were grave.

"What are you thinking of, Uncle?" I asked. Uncle smiled down at me, and his eyes crinkled in a way they have.

"I was thinking of Nan's mother, Ngaire," he said, answering me, in Uncle's way, as one grown-up person does another, "and wondering how it will all work out. They will have to start from the very beginning, and learn to know each other."

"Nan wanted him to be like Jock. She told us he was like Jock, and that he was always sending her things. I don't believe he ever did. And he thought she would be a baby, with a rattle and a dummy."

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Uncle flicked Bill gently, and we went down the road at a fine pace.

"I knew him when he was a lad," he said, "and I liked him then. I doubt if, at heart, he has changed much, after all. In time the effect of his English environment will wear off, and the old memories revive. But we must leave it all to time. Time will work wonders," said Uncle, cheerfully.

Uncle liked him in streaks too.