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Chapter XV
The Falling of the Shadow

Suddenly a shadow fell over us all.

It came with early summer, when the sweet spring flowers were drooping in the garden and the roses were unfolding their tight little buds. We had been nearly a year at Kamahi now, and soon father and mother, would be with us again. They had left England three weeks ago, and the Weka was bringing them just a little nearer to us every day. The English doctors had made mother quite well again; she had lost the pains and the headaches, and was stronger than she had been for years, father said.

"And no more long hours on the sofa," wrote mother in one of her dear letters. "No more separation from my loved ones. Think, children, of all the long, beautiful days to come when we shall be always together. England is a very wonderful place, dears, but little, far-away New Zealand is home to me, and I am longing to be with you all once again."

And we longed for mother too. We treasured up every little incident to tell her; we began to work at pincushions and embroidered needlebooks for "welcome home" presents; we thought of her dear, page 221dear face with the wonderful eyes, and we went to sleep and dreamed of her. But—and the strange thing about it is that there was a "but"—we knew that when the time came we would be very sorry to leave Kamahi. We had learned to love the cosy old red homestead with the sheltering pine plantations. We knew the signs of the river, and could trace a ford by the colour and flow of the waters; we had been flooded twice, and snowed up once. We could round up sheep, tell a Merino from a Crossbred, and ride any of the horses barebacked. And Jan had absorbed such a prodigious amount of knowledge in her lessons with Uncle Stephen that we were certain there would be no school learned enough to welcome her as a pupil. As for Jock and I—well, as Uncle Stephen himself remarked, "Least said, soonest mended." Anyway, Kathie had done her best, and we had grown strong and straight and brown in the keen, sweet air of the country.

The uncles said they would be sorry to lose us when the time came. Uncle John declared that the old place would be lonely without any young life to liven it up, and Uncle Stephen told us that every single holiday we had was to be spent with them at the homestead. We were so surprised that we could hardly thank them properly; you see, we had never expected anything so complimentary. Jock, Pipi and I could only stare, dumb with astonishment page 222and quite overwhelmed by it all, but Jan stammered out, rather chokingly, that we would be only too glad to come, and that we would never love any other home as we loved dear old Kamahi.

"And I never will," she told me afterwards. "I just hate the thought of town life again. Of course, I'm longing for mother and dad as much as you are, Ngaire, but just think of being shut up in a narrow street with only an acre or even half an acre of ground, and nothing but streets, streets, streets and houses, houses, houses pressing in on you. I don't seem able to breathe properly when I think of it."

She spoke so forcibly, and threw out her hands with such a funny gesture—something like a windmill gone wrong—that we all laughed. But later, when Uncle John took me into Christchurch for two days, I understood just how she felt about it. After the wide, wind-blown spaces of Kamahi the houses seemed, as Jan said, to "press in" on you. Rows upon rows of houses and rows upon rows of streets. We could never appreciate town life again after our year in the country.

Still, I had a very happy holiday with uncle in Christchurch.

We left Kamahi in the early morning hours. Mrs. McPherson brought us our breakfast long before the others were up, but Jock and Pipi stole out in page 223their pyjamas, and uncle gave them scraps of ham and pieces of hot, buttered toast. Then they crept back to bed, and uncle and I went out into the chilly morning air, and climbed into the gig. Uncle wrapped a big 'possum rug round me, the dogs barked a farewell, and we drove off through the darkness.

Before long the light rose, sickly pale in the east, and stole gently over the stillness of the land. It was all so beautiful, and the twittering of hundreds of birds in the plantations showed that the world was waking to life again.

Then, away in the east, the sun rose in gorgeous splendour. A solitary horseman passed us with a, smile and a "Good morning"; rising smoke from behind the gold of a gorse hedge marked a swagger's camping place. Uncle John took out his watch.

"Ten minutes to go," he said. "See, Ngaire, the train is beating us,"

He jerked his reins encouragingly, and I bent my gaze upon the approaching train, which wound, serpent-like, over the plain, leaving behind a trail of smoke which slowly melted into the still air.

"We'll have to do it in double quick time," said Uncle, as the hedges flew by and a warning whistle told us that the train was crossing the bridge. "Have you got everything—bag, coats, umbrellas? Are you ready? Jump!"

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We reached the little country station just as the train was preparing to steam out again. Uncle flung the reins to McPherson, who was to take the trap back to Kamahi, and we rushed a first-class carriage, while the passengers, who had taken a keen interest in the race, craned their heads out of the windows, glad of a little entertainment.

"Just in time," gasped uncle, throwing himself into a seat and panting, just as he had thrown himself into a seat and panted half a hundred times before. "I thought we had missed it this trip."

"Half a second to spare, Malcolm," laughed a gentleman opposite. "Train was before time."

Uncle laughed too, but I admired my purple face in a mirror and wished that he would not always cut the time quite so fine. Yet we liked travelling with Uncle John; there was an element of excitement about it which was lacking in journeys with Uncle Stephen, who invariably arrived just as the train was crossing the bridge, and chose his carriage with deliberation and three minutes to spare. As for Uncle Dan, he alternated an early arrival at the station with a tardy appearance long after the train had steamed away into the distance. There was, as Rob said, no consistency in Uncle Dan's method of catching the express; Uncle John could be de-pended upon to furnish the same excitement each trip, and Uncle Stephen never varied his programme' page 225of methodical punctuality. But if you travelled with Uncle Dan you stood a good chance of dangling your leg's over the platform waiting for the train to appear, or turning round and driving home again because it had left the station thirty minutes before.

Uncle and I spent two days in Christchurch sight-seeing and shopping. Not ordinary, everyday, grocery, tailory shopping either, but the kind which takes you to the shops where they sell glorious, picture-filled books and sweet little writing-cases, to the shops where such delicious toys are spread on the counters that you forget that you are thirteen and will be fourteen some day, to the shops where dainty little scarves and lace-edged collars and kid gloves can be purchased. Uncle bought presents for us all—real, big expensive presents: a gorgeous, pink-cheeked doll for Pipi, a bridle for Jock, a purse, a brooch and two books for Jan, and some pretty blouses and an evening scarf for Kathie. Then we went to a jeweller's and uncle selected the daintiest little enamel watch you ever saw.

Which was for Ngaire.

I could hardly believe my eyes or uncle either;. but when he placed it in my hands I at last understood that it was really for me. A watch for me, and I'm only thirteen, and Jan hasn't got one yet,. and Kathie's breaks down every other day and spends half its life in the shop waiting repairs. A page 226watch for me! I could have hugged that dear uncle of mine right there in the shop.

We spent the night with some friends of uncle's, went sight-seeing next day, and took the late train for Kamahi. I settled myself comfortably in the padded seat, opened a box of chocolates and a new magazine, and prepared myself-for a long cosy journey through the darkness; we would not reach home till the early morning hours.

And then, suddenly, without any warning, the shadow slipped over our lives.

It came with a newspaper boy at the Ashburton station, who went along the platform shrieking his news. I was sleepy and did not catch his words, but uncle looked at me queerly and then stepped out and bought a copy of the paper. After that he was very gentle, very grave and very quiet; once he put his arms round me and held me tight all through the long night till we arrived at the little home station in the first grey hours of the morning.

McPherson met us with the buggy, and Jock, Pipi and Jan were squeezed together on the seat at the back. They were all very cold and very excited, and though they were too polite to ask questions, they were very interested in the big, mysterious packages which we had brought back with us.

But the shadow hovered over us all the way home, page 227dimming the pleasure of the arrival. It followed us within the gates of Kamahi too, till each day we grew more conscious of its threatening. Of course, we knew that something was very wrong, but Kathie and the uncles tried to keep it from us— that is, from Jan and Jock, Pipi and me. They thought we were far too young for trouble, I suppose. Kathie grew very tender and loving and motherly, those days, but her eyes were so often soft and dewy that you knew she had been crying all by herself. Sometimes she tried to laugh with us and play in the old, merry way, but right back of her smiles we knew there were tears. Uncle John never stormed, which made you think that the vague "something" must be very terrible indeed, and Uncle Dan made very few of his bad jokes, and left off teasing except when he really couldn't help it.

It brings a choke to my throat even now when I look back and remember how Jock, Pipi and I— three desolate little mortals—used to steal away by ourselves and go down to the riverside, where we lay in the tussocks, wondering, wondering. We never questioned the uncles nor Kathie nor even Mrs. McPherson. We hardly dared; a vague uncertainty was better than a definite sorrow.

One day Jan appeared at nursery tea with red-rimmed eyes and a quivering mouth, which tried to twist itself into a smile. And though we knew that page 228she knew, we did not question her either. We stole down to the riverside that night again.

"It might be mother," said Jock, throwing himself on the ground. "Perhaps—after all—she isn't well— and—"

"Or father," cried Pipi. "He was ill once, you know, when he had the measles with us. An' wasn't, he cross,"

"Or Rob," said my heart.

Kathie came to look for us when the evening drew in, and she held my hand and hugged us very hard that night. I pulled her face right down to mine, trying to pretend that she was mother, but when I felt the tears upon her cheeks I gave up the make-believe with the chill of the unknown fear deeper upon me. Soon after Kathie went away, and Pipi and I lay very silently till the sound of a strangled sob drew me over to the other bed. Pipi held me tight.

"It might be nothing. I think it is nothing," I said, trying to comfort her. "Perhaps—"

Pipi sat up suddenly, her cheeks wet, her hair like a halo round her poor little face.

"It is somethin'," she said. "Don't be silly, Ngaire. Oh, I wish I hadn't been so cross that day before we left Auckland. I wish— Oh,. Ngaire, Ngaire, why don't they tell us, Think we're babies? Think we haven't got eyes? No, we page 229won't ask the uncles! I— No, I'm not cryin'. I'm not cryin', I say."

But she let me hold her tight and rock her like a baby—Pipi who never cried. We slept in the one bed that night, cuddling in each other's arms, feeling that in our very nearness there was comfort.

Two days slipped be, or rather dragged past. We played and rode and studied as usual, and the uncles and Kathie thought that they were hiding everything from us, that we were as happy and unthinking and uncaring as we used to be, interested only in our games and the doings on the station, from the thief who had broken into the larder one night, stolen a ham and two loaves of crisp, new bread, to the latest litter of collie pups and the fluffy ducklings which the old mother hen led down to the pond every morning. Children do hear and know and understand far more than their elders realise, and right at the bottom of our hearts Jock, Pipi and I were always haunted by a fear of the unknown trouble.

The truth came to us with a bush parson who was travelling in the district, and who put up for the night at Kamahi, and asked the uncles if he might hold a service on the Sunday morning. Bush parsons, you know, are clergymen whose parishes lie in the back country. Sometimes they can only visit the outlying districts once or twice in a year, and page 230very often their road leads over bleak, lonely hillsides, through dense bush or across swift-running, dangerous rivers.

We held service out on the lawn—"under God's roof," Uncle Stephen said. Jan and Jock and I brought chairs from the house and set them in rows on the lawn; Uncle Dan and the cowboy "heaved" and "hoisted" the small piano and set it up for Kathie; Uncle John superintended, and Uncle Stephen hunted up hymn books and a small table which was to serve as pulpit for Mr. Evans, the clergyman.

Then the rouseabout clanged the station bell and we all went in to church.

All my life I think I shall remember that still, Sunday morning. Somehow, out there on the lawn,, with only the blue sky overhead, we seemed very near to God. All around the air was heavy with the scent of the sweet peas climbing and twining and racing to the tops of the heavy macracarpo hedges, the banks of verbena and the heavily laden lilac bushes; near by, bees were humming, humming ceaselessly. I never hear them now, but I seem to feel the warm, sweet air and the stillness, and to hear the clergyman repeating the words of the twenty-third psalm:

"The Lord is my shepherd: therefore can I lack nothing.

"He shall feed me in a green pasture: and lead me forth beside die waters of comfort."

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He passed on to the next verse—ah! how the bees worked in the flowers around! I remember how the pain which had been haunting me for the last three days, grew suddenly worse, and for a few minutes I lost sight of the uncles, Kathie and the men, while I tried to press the ache back from my forehead. And all the time the bees were humming, humming, humming somewhere at the back of my brain.

When next I looked up the preacher was giving out the text of a hymn:

"These men see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep."

Then I knew.

Have you ever read of children who grow up suddenly—in the twinkling of an eye? "In a flash her childhood lay behind"—that sort of thing? Well, I could never understand how it was done, for Kathie took a long time to grow up even with mother helping with the hems of her skirts. But now I know. Growing up is just a feeling in your heart. It came to me that Sunday morning with the hum of bees, the scent of the flowers, and the tears which gathered on Jan's lashes and fell slowly, slowly down.

"Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
 O hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea."

Uncle John was singing in a big, bass voice, but page 232because I had grown up, I suppose, I could see a moisture right back in his eyes and feel the pain behind his gruffness; Uncle Stephen looked straight ahead with tender eyes, seeing things which hid from the rest of us; but Uncle Dan was watching Kathie, who sat with her eyes on the blue sky as if there she found help.

"O Christ, Whose voice the waters heard
And hushed their raging at Thy word,
Who walkedst on the foaming deep,
And calm amid the storm didst sleep:
 O hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea."

Kathie's voice rang out, pure and sweet, high above all others, but Jan gave a low moan and slipped away through the trees as if she could bear it no longer.

It is a great thing to know just exactly what people are going to do. When I am in trouble I like to feel the air blow fresh in upon me or hear the rush of the river close by, but Jan seeks a corner to hide her pain. We found her in her own room, face downwards on the bed. She hid her face in the pillows when she heard us coming, Jock and Pipi following close at my heels.

"Go away!" she sobbed.

Pipi began to sob too.

'When were they drowned?" I asked.

Jan lifted her head. "Ngaire!"

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'We know—at least—we know—Jan, is it true? Are they really dead—father and mother?"

Jan choked down her sobs, but somehow I could riot cry. Father and mother—father and mother-lying somewhere at the bottom of the cruel sea—never to see them again—never any more.

But Jan was speaking still.

"How did you find out? Uncle said you weren't to know—not till there was absolutely—no hope. It's the Weka— it's three weeks overdue, and no one seems to have any more hope. But boats have been late before, and turned up all right, uncle says. Perhaps the Weka will. Only—there's been such awful storms off Australia, and the search boats can't find any trace, and yesterday the papers said—"

Suddenly the walls came pressing in on me till I felt that I could not breathe. Jan buried her face in the pillow again, and did not see us go—Jock and Pipi following again, close at my heels. We went through the pine plantation, across the big paddock and up the first tussocky bank. From afar came the sound of the preacher's voice, and all around the incessant hum of the working bees, beating itself into my brain.

On and on, over the tussocky slope, down the long, white road with its golden hedges; on and on through dark plantations, where the birds peeped down through the boughs to watch us as we passed; on and on, through fields of soft green, through a slow page 234flowing water-race, then out once more to the white road again. And always the hum of bees in my ears and that dreadful thought tearing at my heart.

Father and mother. Father and mother. Dead! Dead! Dead!

Once Pipi plucked at my skirt as we walked, and her voice was frightened.

"Ngaire, Ngaire! Don't go so fast."

Yet I went on. Somehow I felt I couldn't stop. A faint breeze sprang up, chilling the air, then died away again; the sun rose high in the heavens; far away the bleating of a lonely sheep broke into the stillness.

All this time I had been walking like one in a dream, hardly conscious of what we were doing. I had forgotten the two lonely, little frightened ones behind till a sudden sob brought me to myself. Then I went back to them.

"We'll go straight home, Pipi, dear. It's all right, we're not going any farther. Pipi, dear, don't cry so. It's all right."

Pipi clung to me despairingly; her voice came in quick little sobs.

"Ngaire," she whispered, "don't stay. Come away. Don't you hear? Someone's groanin' Let's go home to Kathie. You—Oh, there it is again! An'—an' don't you see where we are? Ngaire, please come away—it's Morrison's."