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Chapter XIX
Good-bye, Hezekiah!

And this is the last, but it is interesting, for there is a wedding in it. It was the first wedding of our very own, since, of course, Uncle John and Uncle Stephen were too old to think of marrying now, and Jan, Jock, Pipi, and I too young.

It began with the oxalic acid cake that hadn't any oxalic acid in it. Uncle John declared that Kathie's experiments were too risky. They must cease; otherwise, like the ten little nigger boys, we should dwindle off one by one. He said the best way to stop them was to marry her off to Uncle Dan, but there was a twinkle in his eye as he spoke. I believe he had thought it all out before. Uncle Dan and Kathie were only too glad, and Uncle Dan sent a telegram, yards long, to Mother and Father, and Father gave his consent at a cost of eighteenpence.

Mother came down to Kamahi straight away, and Father a week later. Mother held Kathie very tightly, and Kathie laughed and cried all at once.

"It seems only the other day that you were a page 228little girl, and now you want to get married," Father said, trying to joke because he did not want to show how much he was moved. "Dear me! Time does fly."

"Tempus fugit," added Jan learnedly.

That last week at Kamahi was very nearly perfect. The days were hot and still, and the evenings long and tender. The garden beds, the borders, and the half-hidden nooks under the trees blazed forth in a rioting mass of colour; each tight little bud hastened to unfold in time for Kathie's wedding. Kathie moved around in a dream of her own, out of which she emerged at intervals to unpack the various exciting parcels which began to arrive at the homestead. Jan, who was quieter than usual, sobered by the great event, helped her, and broke only one vase, a thing of delicate gold and green which we all admired. Still, Rob seccotined it together very successfully, and we hoped the donor would not examine it too closely.

Jan's tattooing had all disappeared—much to Pipi's grief. There was not even a trace of the curly smile. Of course this meant our holidays were now at an end, but even Pipi was lenient with Jan.

"'Course she couldn't go about looking like a Maori, always," she said. "And anyway we've had an extra five weeks."

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Jan and I were to be bridesmaids. Pipi did not see why she should not be a bridesmaid too, and said so, though Jan and I pointed out to her, very kindly, that she was too young to appreciate the honour.

"You can be my bridesmaid some day," Jan said, but Pipi was scornful.

"Thank you! I don't want to wait a million years—p'raps never. You're only a little girl like me. I don't see why I can't."

"Perhaps she could be a flower-girl," suggested Uncle John. "I do not know much about such things, but it seems to me I've heard of something of the kind. Pipi would make a pretty little flower-girl," finished Uncle kindly.

"I would," Pipi supplemented modestly.

And, would you believe it, when we stood up to be married—I mean Uncle Dan and Kathie, of course, with Father to give Kathie away, and Jan and I as bridesmaids—there was Pipi too, standing where Jan, as chief bridesmaid, should have stood. Pipi was not going to be left out of anything.

The last week of our holidays simply raced past. Kathie and Uncle Dan were to be married from Kamahi, and the day after the wedding we would return to home and school. The wedding made a thrilling finish to our holidays. As Jan said:

"It's been a quiet time, but a happy one."

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Uncle Dan, who was near, looked at her as if hardly able to believe his ears.

"Quiet!" he said. "Quiet! Oh, my hat! Warn me, Jan, if ever you set out to have a really lively time."

Uncle John and Uncle Stephen took that wedding in hand, and I believe they enjoyed every moment of it. Mrs McPherson made the cake; it was a beauty, with almond icing, and scriggly-wiggles, and silver ornaments. Maggie and Mary were busy in the kitchen, and Jan and I lent a hand with cakes and jellies. Kathie was not allowed to handle even a currant. Uncle John said he did not want the papers to come out with sensational headlines: "Terrible Tragedy at Kamahi. Wedding Party Poisoned by Cake."

The sun, I think, rose a little earlier than usual on the morning of Kathie's wedding, and Jan and I rose with it. There was so much to do. We had undertaken to make a wedding-bell of pink and white roses, and, without waking the others, we stole out on to the veranda. We had armed ourselves with scissors and baskets, and set to work at once to gather the roses that grew in clustering sweetness everywhere. Each leaf and bud hung tremulous with beauty; the east flushed rosy red with excitement; and a little breeze ruffled the petals of the roses, whispering to them:

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"Awake! Unfold! This is Kathie's wedding morn."

"It's a perfect day for getting married," Jan said happily.

We set to work at once, and even if we did prick our fingers till we could have cried, and the wedding-bell resembled a bucket more than anything else, still it was a bell, and we were finished by seven o'clock. Mrs McPherson sent us out tea and toast—you see how the wedding spirit affected her—and we hung the bell at the end of the veranda, and sat down to admire the effect.

Rob and Uncle Stephen had turned the veranda into a real bower of roses, all pink and white, like Kathie herself. She was to be married on the veranda, with the sun to shine on her, and the sweetness of the flowers around.

"It looks a bit wobbly," Jan said, her eyes on the bell hanging from the roof over the spot where Kathie and Uncle would stand. "But as long as they don't hop about it will be all right. If only they don't get excited."

"They won't do that. Weddings are solemn," I said.

Kathie did look pretty. Mother, Jan, Pipi, and I dressed her, and in her filmy white frock, with her face pale and her eyes shining, she seemed like a very delicate, beautiful flower, one of the page 232slender lilies, or the sweet white roses in the garden. I felt quite a choke in my throat as I looked at her. And I saw that Mother's eyes were full of tears, and Father's misty, though he seemed a little surprised all the time, as if he could not realize that Kathie was really grown up and old enough to marry. Uncle John blew his nose very hard to cover his emotion, but Uncle Stephen kissed Kathie quietly.

"I'm glad you're not going to leave us altogether," he said.

Kathie looked at him with dewy eyes, and then, forgetting her frills and her furbelows, flung her arms round his neck.

"I'm glad too, Uncle dear," she whispered. "I want to be what Dan has been to you both all these years."

Jan and I looked rather well too, I thought. We wore frocks of palest apricot, with big apricot bows in our hair, and we carried bouquets of roses. Pipi, who was a flower-girl, and didn't let us forget it, looked like a rose-petal in pink organdie. Jan's eyes were dark, and her hair shone with much brushing. She really looked very pretty, but I knew that she was feeling nervous. I was a little shy myself, but Pipi was quite at her ease.

"D'reckly the weddin's over," she whispered o me, "we're going to have tea. The jellies are page 233scrummy. Me and Jock's been peeping in the dining-room."

The guests were gathered on the veranda when we went out. There were not many of them— a few old friends from the city, Pat Somerset and Nan, the McLennans, the Johnsons, and some of the uncles' friends in the district around. A hush fell over them as we took our places under the wobbly bell. Jan gave it one anxious look, and then forgot everything as the minister spoke and we realized that our little eldest sister was going away from us all, that however happy we might be, nothing would ever be quite the same again. We could hardly hear Kathie, but she looked at Uncle Dan with such love and trust in her eyes that Mother smiled happily and Uncle John blew his nose hard again. And Uncle Dan looked down on her with a tender, protecting air. I knew he would cherish her, and love her through all the years to come—that was, of course, if Kathie did not poison him soon with one of her cakes.

Jan, as chief bridesmaid, held Kathie's bouquet when Uncle Dan put the slender gold band round Kathie's finger. Unfortunately, she let the flowers fall to the ground, looked around hastily, and said "Oh, bust!" under her breath. No one, however, noticed her, except, I think, Mr Corfan, and he smiled at her reassuringly. The others were too page 234busy watching Kathie. Then the minister pronounced the blessing, the sun popped out and shone brilliantly, and Kathie was really "Mrs Uncle Dan."

After this it was all excitement, with every one kissing Kathie, and calling her Mrs Malcolm, even Mrs McPherson, who in a new black dress unbent wonderfully. You could not expect the bell to stand so much excitement—no one was calm, and every one hopped about—and it didn't. It came down unexpectedly, eclipsing the flower-girl.

When I think of the feast that followed I want to marry off every one I know, with the uncles to cater and Mrs McPherson to cook. There were sandwiches and savouries; there were jellies and fruit-salad and trifle, and so many cakes that Pipi could not decide where to start first. She and Jock took Nan with them, and settled themselves quietly and unobtrusively in a corner of the veranda. Pipi told me afterward that she ate seven cream-cakes running. She said she lost count of the plates of fruit-salad and trifle, and the sandwiches and jellies she consumed.

Jan and I found chairs on the lawn, and Mr Corfan looked after us, and brought us tea, just as if we were really grown up. We felt quite distinguished. Mr Corfan was leaving Kamahi next day and travelling to the city with us on his way to rejoin his ship.

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"This is my last civilized festivity for three years," he said. "Three years. That is a long time. How old will you be when I come back, Jan? "he asked, smiling at her.

"Twenty," answered Jan, recklessly adding years.

"Eighteen," I corrected.

"Eighteen. Eighteen is a great age," said Mr Corfan, a little sadly I thought. "Almost a woman. Why, Jan, I shall be nearly double that then."

"I think eighty or ninety is really old," Jan answered tactfully, and Mr Corfan laughed.

"Three years is a long time," Jan added, slowly. I think, all at once, she realized something of what he was going out so smilingly to meet—the danger, the loneliness, the long years in the white silence. She looked at him, wide-eyed.

"Oh, I wish you wouldn't go," she said.

I left them talking together—they had forgotten my existence—and strolled over the grass. Denise and Rob were having tea under the pines. Denise wore a frilly lemon-coloured frock, and looked bright and pretty and animated. I could hardly believe it was the same Denise who had been so pale and listless and hopeless a few weeks ago.

"We've made a bonfire of the chair and the page 236crutches," she said happily." I shall never use them again."

"Have an ice? They're jolly good," Rob suggested.

"I want to speak to Mother," I answered. "I've had three already—a strawberry, a chocolate, and a lemon."

Mother and Mr Somerset were talking earnestly, but Mother smiled at me when I appeared. They were watching Pipi and Nan, and Patrick was admiring Pipi.

"She looks as if she ought to live on rose-petals and air," he said, and I nearly giggled. I knew that Pipi was at her seventh cream-cake.

Pipi and Nan saw us looking at them, and came over the grass.

"And how is the little—ah—Conger Eel enjoying the wedding? "Pat asked, smiling at Pipi.

Pipi giggled in appreciation of his humour.

"It's Oysters to-day," she answered. "I'm always Oysters at a party. Me and Nan's had four ice-creams."

"Don't make yourselves ill. Nan isn't used to ice-cream," he reminded them, and they ran off again. Mother and Patrick Wayne were silent for a time, watching them. I liked the way he looked at Nan—not a bit as if she were an interesting specimen of the Nanibus Bugibus, but just as page 237a little sister whom he would love and cherish and shield.

Nan looked happy and smiling to-day, and she had lost her rather wistful expression. She had a party frock this time—Patrick had sent to the city for it—but the colour did not suit her, and it was several sizes too large. Mrs Campbell's alterations, too, were not very successful.

"She doesn't look like your little girls," Mr Somerset said to Mother. "I'm afraid I shall make a sad mess of things. I've made a bad enough start, goodness knows. When she goes to school—"

"My little girls are very fond of Nan," Mother answered. "Mr Somerset, why not leave the question of boarding-school in abeyance for a while, and let Nan come to us for a good long-visit—say a year? Let me keep her with me while you are in England. She could attend a day-school with Pipi and Ngaire. You said you would be away a year?"

"About a year. After that I am going to settle in my own land, and make a home for Nan.

But—I—" He looked at Mother, seeming so pleased, so relieved, and altogether so boyish that Mother smiled. You just can't refuse Mother anything when she smiles.

"Then it is settled. Nan will come to us. In a big family," Mother said, "there is always room for one more."

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And settled it was. In Mother Nan found what she had been unconsciously missing all her life. She ran straight into Mother's heart, and has been there ever since. She lived with us for a whole year while her brother was in England, and we grew as fond of her as if she had been really one of the family. Patrick stayed with us, too, for a month before he sailed, and though it was rather a strain at first, we soon got used to him. Why, I liked him all the time, with no streaks of dislike, before he left on his twelvemonths' trip.

The sun was still shining happily, and Jock and Pipi were regretfully refusing sweets, when Kathie came running out in her travelling costume. Uncle Dan had the gig waiting, and Kathie climbed in. Uncle was going to drive it to the station, and one of the men would come back with it later. Kathie waved to us all, and Uncle sat up beside her, looking very straight and smiling and proud.

"Good-bye! Good-bye, Mother dear," cried Kathie.

They went off, in the midst of a shower of confetti and rose-leaves. Uncle John and Uncle Stephen stood together by the white gates, and watched them drive through, and suddenly I was glad, oh, so glad, that Kathie was not taking Uncle Dan from them, but was coming back to Kamahi to be with them always. I slipped over page 239to them, and put my hand in Uncle John's, and he looked down and held it tightly.

"They'll soon be back, Uncle."

Uncle smiled down at me.

"That's my girl," he said. Then suddenly he laughed. The gig was swinging up the slope, and from behind the trees two diminutive figures darted out. Something went flying through the air, and Uncle Dan ducked. Pipi had aimed carefully, but she really did not mean to send Uncle Dan away with a bump on his forehead for luck. And Rob's old shoe was heavy.

"Good-bye! Good-bye!" she called after them.

She raced, with Jock, up the slope, climbed the gate-post, and stood waving. Her shrill voice came ringing back to us, through the still air, long after the buggy had disappeared down the white road that led from Kamahi out into the wide world.

"Good-bye! Good-bye! Oh, good-bye, Heze-kiah!"

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