by Jean Devanny
“Yes, any quantity of them.” Mrs. Curdy spoke with some asperity. “I don’t know why there should be, as the papers say that there are plenty of white men unemployed in the country, but—” She recollected herself and added quickly: “I suppose Mr. Messenger knows best.”
Margaret regarded her curiously. Then: “I don’t understand you,” she said gravely. “Why shouldn’t he employ Maoris even if there are plenty of white men unemployed?”
Mrs. Curdy shrugged. “You are a funny people, you New Zealanders. You treat your natives as if they were white.”
“Where is the difference?” asked the girl quietly, but with a suspicion of heat.
“The difference lies in the colour. A white man is a white man, and a black man is a black man.”
“Yes, of course. That’s no argument. Besides, we were discussing Maoris, not black men. The Maoris are brown.” She waxed enthusiastic, for she was not far from her school days and the lessons on the grandeur of the Maori race, and she had read all the written works on them. “They are a wonderful race. Why, Elsdon Best and Edward Tregear and Johannes Andersen cannot do too much honour to the Maoris. They—”
She was interrupted. “They are awful liars, and lazy, too. Who are those men you mentioned, anyhow? If they knew as much as I know about the Maoris they wouldn’t honour them.”
Margaret Errol laughed merrily and long, to the other’s amaze. Her hilarity was cut short by the appearance at the room door of Tutaki himself, evidently to see if they were ready.
Mrs. Curdy rose hastily. “Mr. Tutaki is waiting. Come on. Mind you, I’m not saying a word against him. He is a gentleman, somehow, and Mr. Messenger’s friend. They are tired, I suppose, it being market day, and want to get home. ‘Lambing’ starts tomorrow, too, so they must be away on the hills before daybreak.”
During the long hour’s run to the station Margaret Errol thought that there might be a little of the “cowboy” book romance around station life, after all. Especially when the car turned in at big gates, ran up a long concrete drive, lined on one side with plane trees and having fathomless space on the other, and stopped before a big, rambling, real “western”-looking house.
Dogs barked unceasingly. The door of a long low building to one side of the big house (the men’s quarters) opened and several men peered out. At the open front door a young Maori girl in a navy costume was standing; she stepped on to the verandah as Margaret and Mrs. Curdy emerged from the car.
Tutaki remained in the car this time while Messenger got out and picked up the girl’s bags and followed the women into the house with them.
Mrs. Curdy took off her coat and hat in the passage, at the same time introducing Margaret to “Maire, my other housemaid, Errol.”
The two girls smiled at each other, and “Errol” said: “I’m glad there is another young girl.” Then, as Messenger dropped her bags beside her she turned to him with a “Thank you,” and saw him properly for the first time.
“You’re tired—” he began as a commonplace, then, seeing her beauty, stopped and stared.
And that moment he fell in love with her, though he did not realise it until the Saturday night he told her “I want to marry you. May I?”
CHAPTER IV
Being but seventeen years old, it is not surprising that Margaret Errol was totally inexperienced in love affairs. She imagined she knew all about love, of course (what girl of her age does not?), having read innumerable love stories of all sorts and conditions. The difference between love and lust she was certainly cognisant of, instinctively so, and the broad laws of sex had been made known to her by her mother; but not so much as a breath of love’s actuality had troubled her until her meeting with Barry Messenger at Maunganui. Nevertheless, she knew that sudden flow of emotional warmth throughout her body for what it was, on the instant. Their eyes had met, clung together for a long second, maybe, and then he was gone; but as Margaret Errol followed the girl Maire up the stairs to her room the slumbering woman in her had stirred and its swift intuition flown straight to the heart of what that meeting might mean for her.
Hitherto her attitude towards men, fostered by her home influences, had unconsciously been that of a child towards grownups, but the meeting with Messenger had destroyed that attitude in the twinkling of an eye. She had looked on the man, and the essence of her had cried “Man, I am Woman.” So acutely did she feel this sudden awakening of her sex-urge that she could only answer confusedly to the soft chattering and questions of Maire. So that in a minute or two the brown girl, looking at her queerly, said: “You are tired, I suppose. I will leave you and go to bed now. I sleep in the next room and will wake you in the morning.”
Margaret hardly noticed her go. She just sat upon her bed and allowed this new emotion to have its way with her. Thinking not at all, just feeling—feeling the man’s beauty, his youth.
“Young as me,” she murmured, with a disregard of grammar natural to her condition—his mannishness, his goodness. She laughed softly to herself and blushed. “He was going to say something about me being tired when he suddenly saw how pretty I am, and then he liked me all at once and I—I liked him too.”
A delicious radiance began to illumine her world of dreams. Youth’s buoyant optimism crowded upon her with promise of a fragrant future. She, as natural woman, had looked on Man and found him desirable; found him responsive, too, and so her fanciful spirit, unclogged by even so much as a vestige of worldliness, soared heavenwards in search of Paradise. Nevertheless, when she by and by crept into bed, still unthinking, she was sleeping like a child almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.
Maire woke her up at six o’clock in the morning. She opened her eyes to find the brown girl’s face, broadly smiling, leaning over her. “Oh!” she cried, “where am I?” Then, remembering, she sat up quickly and drew her fingers down the golden skin of the other’s face. “You are the first Maori girl I’ve known,” she said. “There are not many Maori women in Wellington. Are there many here?”
“Yes, plenty. There is a big Maori farm adjoining ours. A lot of Maori families live on it. But it is time you were up and working. I’ve been up half an hour, and had a cup of tea. We breakfast at seven.”
Not until then did Margaret remember her experience of the night before. She remembered and was surprised to find that all trace of the sex feeling had departed. An immense interest in the experience took possession of her mind; an immense interest in the man who had caused it; but certainly all trace of the exaltation of spirit and body had gone.
Now her mind got to work on the matter. All that day, while busying about her work, which she found easy and light, she thought of it. She surmised that another meeting with the man would bring a recurrence of the experience. She rather hoped it would. The sensation had been delightful, she admitted to herself with a blush, and then wondered why she should blush. “Anyhow,” she concluded sensibly, at about teatime that night, “there is no reason why we should not fall in love and get married. I’m as good as he is. Money doesn’t matter except with—with frogs. (She laughed out loud at that silliness.) And how pleased mother would be. That is, if he is really nice. But of course he is. He looked like—like Billy does after he has been washed. All innocent and clean—yes, that is it, clean.”
She was eagerly anxious to see him again, just to be sure. Of course he had been surprised to see her last night, surprised at her prettiness; the next time she would be able to judge better about everything. She pumped Maire—a willing talker—for all the information she wanted about his movements. She was told what “lambing” meant; of the rigours it imposed on both man and beast in inclement weather like the spell they were having.
News of the man’s work was as interesting to her as news of the man himself. She was all agog with interest in Maire’s disclosures. Pretty naked disclosures, leaving little to the imagination, for Maire had been reared in the stock-yards, and the native simplicity of her race saw no indecency in plainly recording the plain pr
ocesses of nature.
And Margaret Errol saw none. “How wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Do you really mean to say that those rough men bring life into the world? But why should they have to? I can’t understand. I always thought that animals and native races bore their young very easily.”
But simple Maire could only look at her blankly. She could state the facts as she knew them, but she could not enter into discussion on them. Therefore her conversation soon became unsatisfactory to Margaret.
As soon as the late tea was over the women were free to occupy themselves as they wished. One of Margaret’s duties was to build a fire in the huge dining-room fireplace, and around this fire the three, Mrs. Curdy, Maire and she, drew their chairs at about seven o’clock. Margaret was insatiable for information about the station life, and when she had discovered Maire’s limitations she turned hopefully to Mrs. Curdy. But that lady, though amiable enough, had no interest whatever in the station or station life, and immediately said so, adding: “I have enough to do attending to my work without bothering about the creatures on the place. Hark to the rain. I hope the men all come safely home.”
“Come safely home! What do you mean? Are they in any danger?”
“Yes. The sheep-tracks on the hills are narrow and slippery, and it is very dark these nights. The rain is not so bad. When it snows there are often accidents to the horses and sometimes to the men. Old Tutaki’s wife told me that the horse one of her sons was riding broke its leg last ‘lambing,’ and he had to shoot it and tramp miles home through the snow.”
Margaret shivered away a thought of Messenger out there on those terrible hills while she sat at ease by the glowing fire. She was silent for a long while, and then startled them by suddenly exclaiming: “Well, I think he is silly!”
“What! Who is a silly? What are you talking about?”
And Margaret answered hastily: “Nothing. I was just thinking —of nothing in particular. Listen! Horses!”
“It is the men coming in.”
She sat there trying to possess her soul in patience until “he” should come in as Maire had said he always did at night.
But after all his coming was matter-of-fact. He walked in quietly and sat down among them with a quiet “Good evening.”
Margaret was disappointed, then wondered what she could have been expecting, anyhow. Had she expected him to walk up to her and look into her eyes again? She blushed furiously and sat with her mouth shut till bedtime. He did not speak either unless when specially addressed by Mrs. Curdy, and his silence most unreasonably soon began to annoy the girl. She certainly felt no urge towards him that night, though his beauty filled her with admiration. She did not once catch the furtive glances he cast at her from time to time. She did not guess that he remained before the fire long after the three women had retired, seeing in the red embers fitful gleams of distant enchantments, wondering vaguely about the shine on her nut-brown waving hair.
“Cowtails,” he murmured once, smiling softly. “Curly cowtails down her back all shining.”
No, of course she did not guess it. She was up in Maire’s room asking the brown girl if the “family” gatherings were always so funereal; puzzling poor Maire, who was content to curl up drowsily in her big arm-chair like a tabby cat.
“Do you like talking?” Maire asked her.
“Yes, of course. I should think that everyone liked talking. Look at all the things there are to talk about.”
Maire displayed a touch of native insight. “I think you like showing off,” she said, and grinned broadly, flashing her white teeth.
So Margaret went to bed feeling cold and flat, ashamed and disgusted with herself. “Probably he is only a common ‘toff’ after all, and has remembered to-day that I am his housemaid. Well, Mr. Messenger, there is plenty more fish in the sea.” She slammed her hairbrush upon her dressing-table and began to exercise herself vigorously. Nevertheless as she lay courting sleep she could not help feeling sad and regretful. She hankered, despite herself, after the roseate dreams and exaltation of spirit she had experienced the night before—the first actual intimation nature had given her of maturity’s mysteries.
In the dark mind and imagination, as yet rarely separable in her, began again to play around the happening.
Imagination saw herself as lovely Maidenhood lying in a trance of innocence in thick grasses on the edge of a wood; saw her eyes slowly open, her lips fall apart, her white cheeks flush with colour, and her arms lift up to answer the beckoning hand and vibrant call of Someone hidden within the dark of the wood, Someone whom she knew without seeing was Man, and bore the face and form of Messenger.
Mind told her that she had but fallen victim to the state of mind described by girls she knew as being “shook” on a man, a state of mind which, according to themselves, was exceedingly common among the young of both sexes.
But she shuddered away from that supposition, from its vulgarity and the fact that it degraded her superior self to the level of those girls. No, the happening had meant nothing, since here were he and she going on as though it had not happened (Margaret was quite convinced of that); but there had been nothing common or vulgar about it. Just a beautiful incident (here her imagination again took hold), as though the Book of Life had accidentally fallen open before her eyes for an instant and disclosed an alluring glimpse of pictured Love.
She fell asleep and dreamed. Dreamed that Messenger and she walked side by side through drenched grasses at early morn. The world was theirs alone. Theirs and the noisy birds in the hedges, through which they seemed to pass in some miraculous manner from one field to another. The heavens seemed to be, not blue, but clothed in cloth of gold.
He and she walked side by side, and always her face was lifted to his, and always he looked down into her eyes. She was with him, and yet also she was able to watch from afar as spirit separate from body.
There were buttercups in her mouth and dewdrops lay thick upon her hair, and in her eyes lifted to his there was the beauty of the surrender of Maid to Man.
On his countenance was expressed immeasurable love and reverence. Supreme benignity was theirs, and they walked through long drenched grasses which did not clog their footsteps towards a horizon which was a blaze of glory. All Virtue, all Hope, all Happiness was depicted there in some supernal way through the medium’ of colour.
Lustrous pearls which were joy floated thickly on azure lakes which were laughter; wondrous were the colours paletted by Happiness, glowing, pulsating, breathing like sentient things, vying with the shining, gleaming gold of Hope and the shimmering liquid silvers of Virtue.
In a great luminous arch the glory coruscated before them, and the dreamer knew that she and the man were crossing the fields in the early morn to live in its refulgence for ever. Thoughtless, careless, love-wrapped and pure, they were walking straight to Paradise.
And then in her sleep she rolled over on to her back.
Instantly the dream world turned foreboding. The drenched sweet grasses at their feet became rank and noisome with sliding serpents; the sky which was cloth of gold grew leaden and flung upon early morn tenebrous shadows and hot, thunderous breaths of wind. Thick, sticky cobwebs barred their path, enmeshing them in their clammy strands, and monstrous spiders, hairy, horny, with bulging eyes and gaping jaws, hung in mid air and glared at them malignantly.
The girl’s face turned earthwards; her splendid wide eyes shrank to whitish, unseeing balls; the skin around them shrinking until the lids were drawn into evil-looking slits. The skin of her face grew harsh and scaly; the lips drew back from her teeth in a vixenish grin. She put out a hand to fondle a spider, and the dainty fingers turned to talons ere they reached it.
All this the spirit separate from the body saw.
But the man. He grew to huge proportions. And as his stature increased his simple manliness gave place to a majesty of demeanour befitting a king of worlds. Instead of love and reverence, his face showed horrific amazement. He drew away from her in loathi
ng. Then he pointed a finger before him and said harshly: “Look!”
She looked, staring with those whitish balls through the evil slits, and a cackling noise, ghastly imitation of a laugh, came from her.
For the glory had departed. The refulgence commingled of Virtue, Hope, and Happiness had fled, and in its place was spread a pall compounded of the turgid discolorations of putrid flesh. The mucus of Vice it lay, drenching the muddy air with the stinks of suppuration, and before it, suspended in space, hung a gallows from which swung the body of a woman.
And the dehumanised Thing standing in the rank, noisome grasses, the spirit apart and the man, all knew that the butchered upon the gallows was the girl.
She awoke shaking, drenched with the sweat of fear and with the sound of a scream in her ears. It took her a minute or two to pull herself together and recollect where she was. Lying on her back, of course. But what a frightful nightmare! Ugh! She shuddered and pulled the blankets over her head. Thank goodness no one had heard her scream! To be sure she would not roll upon her back again, she lay flat on her stomach with her head twisted sideways. In the morning she had a bad pain in her neck, which made her bad-tempered.
“No more ‘Messenger’ nonsense,” she told herself forcefully as she dashed cold water upon her face. “Books for me after this. Doesn’t look as though I’ll be able to get out of the house for a fortnight at least. The blessed ground is that boggy.”
And not until the night upon which this tale opens did she again consider Messenger as a possible husband.
CHAPTER V
What sort of night did she put in after the man’s declaration? Did foul dreams disturb her fitful sleep, or grim foreboding pierce the veil of her future? Not a bit of it. When the astonishment and upset had subsided and she thoroughly realised what had happened, she was sheerly glad.
After all, she had been right about that first meeting. He must have been thinking of her all the time since, though she had put him out of her thoughts. (So she told herself.) What should she say to him on the morrow night? Surely their meeting on the morrow night would be different from that of other nights. He certainly would not be able to walk in among the women as usual. Their next meeting would have to be private, surely. He would think of that urgency.