page 21

Chapter II
Uncles three

We raced down the hillside, through big white gates, and up a wide, sweeping drive to the house, finishing with a flourish before the front door, where the lamp in the hall sent a cheery shaft of light out into the night to welcome us.

The three uncles were waiting for us on the veranda, and Uncle John said, "Bless me!" very loudly when he saw how many we were. Jan made a bad start. She stepped down on Uncle Stephen's feet when he was helping her out of the waggonette. Uncle Stephen said, "Be careful, child!" and that shrivelled Jan up straight away. She saw that Kamahi was going to be as bad as the steamer and the children's table all over again.

A very much younger man carried Kathie's portmanteau, rug and umbrella into the house, and for the moment we did not realise that this was Uncle Dan. Of course, we had known all along that he was only twenty-four and not a real, true uncle; but, somehow, deep in our hearts, I am sure, we had pictured him with a grey hair or two, and a beard or a moustache at the very least.

page 22

And he hadn't a hair on his face. Uncle Stephen was clean-shaven too, but there were fine lines round his eyes and mouth, and he stooped a little as he walked. All three uncles—no! I think you had better turn back to the first chapter and read just once again all that I wrote in the "Cast of Characters." It will refresh your memory and save paragraphs of uninteresting description.

There are just two things I should like to mention here—Uncle Stephen's eyes, which went through you and out the other side, and Uncle John's moustache, which seemed to perk at the corners when he stormed. And he could storm, too! As for Uncle Dan, he had the merriest, most twinkling blue eyes, and a teasing way of looking at you, and discovering jokes which you couldn't understand at all. It was easy to see that the uncles had spoiled him more than a little.

A maid with a smiling face took us to our bedrooms—a dainty, low-ceilinged room for Jan and Pipi and me—a real girl's room, with soft mats on the floor, three little white beds, muslin curtains over the windows and Hans Andersen pictures on the walls. It was such a new-looking room that I felt certain that the uncles had furnished it purposely for us.

Kathie had a bedroom leading out of ours, and a very elegant grown-up place it was. She had a page 23sofa all to herself, a secretaire, and a big wardrobe with a mirror which reached to the ground. There were more hooks, too, than she had dresses, and her slippers and shoes were quite lost in the big boot cupboard.

We brushed our hair and washed our faces in a china basin decorated with Kate Greenaway children, then followed the maid into the big, cosy dining-room, where the uncles and tea were waiting for us. Here we found Rob and Jock roasting comfortably before a huge fire, where two logs, resting on old-fashioned iron dogs, roared and glowed and sent welcoming sparks flying out on to the hearth.

Pipi pinched my arm when she saw the table and the tea which was waiting for us. Such a tempting meal—a big, uncut ham, cold fowl and fresh salad, peach pie and junket, great jugs of blobbly cream, jams and jellies, cakes and fresh home-made bread. Suddenly I realised that I was very hungry, that our last meal had been taken at twelve o'clock in the dining-car of the express. And then we had had no appetite worth mentioning.

I think Uncle John saw how our eyes lingered on the ham and the other good things, for he smiled and said that tea would be ready in a few minutes.

"Mrs. McPherson is making it now," he said in a big, gruff voice. "Sit near the fire, children. You look half frozen."

page 24

"Who is Mrs. McPherson?" asked Pipi, who was not troubled with shyness, and who could talk while Jan and I were searching for words. "That's a very nice girl who showed us our room, Uncle John. What's her name? And who is Mrs. McPherson?"

"Mrs. McPherson is the housekeeper, and the maid is Mary."

"How many maids have you got?"

"Two," answered uncle, looking a little surprised as Pipi proceeded to catechise him.

"And how many shepherds? And—"

But uncle had turned to Kathie, who was trying to talk to him in an easy, natural, grown-up way, and not succeeding very well. Then a terrible silence fell over us all. Pipi was, of course, the first to break it. She looked at the table and sighed.

"Nineteen, twenty, my stom—"

Kathie found her tongue.

"It was very cold driving up," she said, very suddenly and very loudly. "I thought we should freeze, it was so very, very cold. I've never known it so cold before. I thought we should freeze."

Poor old Kathie! She knew very well what Pipi was going to say, and she felt that the uncles would hardly approve if they heard. And first impressions are so important.

Jan took up the running.

"You see, we come from such a very warm place," page 25she said in her most grown-up manner. I knew that she was trying to impress the uncles; she wanted to show them that she wasn't so very much younger than Kathie; but Uncle Dan and Rob began to-laugh, and just then Jan's dress caught on fire and Uncle Stephen put it, out. After that Uncle John made her sit away from the blaze.

At last Mrs. McPherson brought in the tea. Mrs. McPherson was an elderly Scottish woman, with a face as starched as her cap, and a black dress which rustled with dignity. She eyed us with anything but approval, and I am sure she anticipated the coming year with small joy. She was followed by Mary, whose beaming smile was in strong contrast to the housekeeper's frigid demeanour, and who carried a steaming, puffy omelette and a fragrant chicken pie.

"Fall to!" cried Uncle Dan cheerfully. He placed chairs for us all, and Uncle John took-the head of the table and Uncle Stephen poured out the tea. Pipi sat on one side of Uncle John and Jan on the other. Pipi looked just like a picture out of a Christmas book. Her golden hair shone in the firelight, her cheeks were pink and her eyes sparkled. I saw Uncle John look at her once or twice. He even picked out a nice tender piece of chicken for her and buttered her bread. She chattered away to him between her helpings—she had three of meat and two of pudding— and did more talking than all the rest of us put page 26together. Jan kept her eyes fixed on her plate. She still smelt rather bonfirey, and it depressed her. She felt that she was making a had beginning.

It was really a very trying meal; you knew that the uncles were looking you up and down, and every little bit of you that was the least untidy seemed to shriek for their notice. Uncle Stephen didn't say much, but you could feel that nothing escaped him. I saw his eyes lingering on the straggly ribbon which was supposed to hold Jan's locks in place, and I'm sure he noticed that Jock always selected the pieces of cake which showed curranty and sugar-topped.

Uncle John fired questions at each of us in turn; he always expected an answer too, which made it worse.

He fixed on Kathie just as she was squinting down her nose to see if the hot tea, following on a drive in the cold air, had made it very red.

"Can you cook? Every woman should know how to make bread," said Uncle John.

Kathie brought her eyes up with a jerk.

"Of course. I—I often make scones."

Pipi giggled.

" 'Member the time you forgot the bakin' powder, Kathie? An' the cake what you put in the oven and then started to read, an' it smelled the kitchen out, an' mother said, 'Will you ever learn to cook, my dear?'"

page 27

Kathie tried to smile, but her face flushed brightly, and she took a quick gulp of tea. This time Uncle Dan came to her aid with an offer of strawberry jam and diverted the conversation.

"Can you ride, boy?"

It was Jock's turn now, but he didn't answer. He had just taken an enormous mouthful of pie and was very much engaged. So Pipi helped him out too.

"He can't. He's afraid of horses. Rob isn't. He an' some other boys went to old Toomy Bones' paddick—you know, the man with one eye and a gamey leg—an' they took his horses an' rode them. An' the schoolmaster came to father."

"Ah! Rob can ride, then. You're the lad who wants to learn farming, eh?"

Uncle turned to Rob, and though I think he meant to be kind he might just as well have said, "So you're the young criminal who has come to be reformed," for that is how Rob interpreted it. Poor old Rob! He was almost foolishly sensitive on the subject of his school disgrace, which was not so very disgraceful after all. Now he hacked gloomily at his bread, his mouth set in a way we knew only too well.

"I don't want to learn, but I shall give it a trial. Of course, if I don't like it I shan't stick to it long."

"Oh!" Kathie cast an appealing look at Rob, trying to smooth over his words. "I'm sure you'll like it, Rob. I'm sure he'll like it, Uncle John. He'll-page 28he'll probably make a very good farmer," she finished quite pitifully.

Rob looked straight at Uncle John, ignoring Kathie.

"I suppose you" know I mean to be a lawyer when I'm older? Did father tell you?"

"In-deed!" remarked Uncle Stephen.

Rob flushed uncomfortably and Uncle Dan laughed.

"Give us a year, Rob," he advised, with a glint of humour in his eyes. "Really, we're not half so black as we're painted."

Uncle John did not speak, but his moustache began to perk, and I felt so sorry that I could have cried then and there. Rob was spoiling everything right at the very start. The uncles would think him a spoilt, reckless boy, who needed lots of suppressing. Perhaps they would keep up the suppressing all through the year. If they did— But it's no use meeting trouble half-way, mother says.

Things went from bad to worse. Rob talked, Uncle Dan laughed, Uncle John bristled, and Uncle Stephen said "In-deed" so politely this time that my hair nearly stood on end, and a chill went creeping up and down my spine. Kathie tried to change the conversation, and Jan knocked over her cup and saucer and upset a dish of red-currant jelly, which left a murderous-looking stain on the cloth.

page 29

Then Pipi settled matters.

It happened when Uncle John, with a surprised look on his face, stood up to help her again to pudding. Pipi's foot was very near his chair; she gave it a little push; then a bigger one still; and when poor old Uncle John went to sit down again there wasn't anything to sit on. So he went straight on till he reached the floor. He's a big, heavy man too; it must have hurt him terribly.

He sat still for a moment and glared at us. We didn't dare to laugh. Jan gave a squeak, but that wasn't because she dared, but because she really couldn't help it. But it was very unfortunate, as uncle immediately decided that she was the culprit. Poor old Jan! Why, she wouldn't have touched his chair with a forty-foot pole; she was far too nervous and too miserable to think of anything so frolicsome as a practical joke.

Very slowly uncle rose to his feet.

"I am asriamed of you, Jeanette," he said. "At your age such babyish tricks should cease. You will have to behave yourself, young lady, or take your meals in the nursery by yourself."

Poor Jan! And she had meant to dress for dinner!

"I—I—it—wasn't—" she stammered.

"Stop that foolish giggling at once," commanded uncle. "Stop it immediately."

page 30

But Jan couldn't. She'd got fairly started, and when once Jan gets fairly started nothing short of battle, murder nor sudden death could stop her. We're all like that. Why, Jan had hardly got going before I began to gurgle in sympathy, and I saw Kathie bite her lips very hard and take a second quick gulp of tea which, alas! went down the wrong way.

Have you ever wanted to laugh so badly that you felt you'd die if you didn't? Have you ever sat at table with two grown-up uncles and one who thought he was, and felt that their eyes were on you, and that you were disgracing yourself and your family at the very beginning of your visit? I shall never forget that unfortunate meal, and though I felt so ashamed of Pipi, of Jan, of Rob, of all of us, I could not control myself. I tried to think of everything sad that had ever happened, but I could only remember the funny things, and when I asked myself what I should do if we all died that night, I laughed so much that I nearly tumbled off my chair.

Uncle John watched us helplessly,

"Stop that nonsense at once," he commanded again. "What is wrong with them, girl?"

Kathie coughed twice.

"I—don't know. They're laughing—I think. Stop, Ngaire! Stop, J-Jan!"

"They're tired and probably rather hysterical."

page 31

Uncle Stephen's voice was kind, but his eyes gimleted us. "They had better go to bed"

"Sleep it off' Uncle Dan smiled at us. He seemed to find the tragical situation quite amusing, and went on eating just as if nothing unusual was happening. Uncle John touched a bell at his side, and when the maid came he told her to send Mrs. McPherson. She was the wife of the shepherd who had driven us up from the station.

Uncle told her that we were tired and wanted to go to bed (which was hardly the truth), so she led us out of the room like two naughty children. Pipi rose too.

"I think I'll go with them," she said. "Good night, Uncle John."

She came away looking like an angel. She hadn't giggled. Oh, dear, no! She had started us off and then watched us with a solemn face and eyes which didn't even twinkle.

Then we went to bed.

And, as Kathie said afterwards, it was just about time.