The Butcher Shop

by Jean Devanny

  Then she remembered that he did not yet know how she regarded him. How extraordinary a proposal it had been! From him, usually so quiet and ordinary and self-possessed. She laughed gleefully and hugged herself. But what would she say to him, anyhow? She had to decide. To marry him, when he had hardly spoken to her? She had thought him dull and funereal for his silence night after night. Why, he must have been thinking of her all the time. He had talked enough that night.

  She felt all warm and—and bubbly. If she married him she would be mistress of that big house in which she was now housemaid. Why, she would be Mrs. Curdy’s mistress—and Maire’s. She liked Maire. Maire was a good girl, and pleasant, even if she was unintelligent. Mrs. Curdy was all right too.

  Then she could do so much for her home folk as Messenger’s wife. How she would love to shower gifts upon them all, especially upon her Mum. Dear old Mum! Serious and solemn reflections came to her with thoughts of Mum. Mum had talked to her about marriage. Mum and Dad, in their own loving union, had shown her how beautiful even poorly circumstanced married life could be. She had seen their loving intimacy, their “smoozing” even after twenty years of wedded life. If she married this young man she would bear the same relation to him as her Mum did to her Dad. Did she want to? Did she want to—to kiss Messenger? She covered her face with her hands so that even the friendly dark should not see her blushes. For the answer was undeniably “yes.” Then she must love him. And when men and women love they marry. Marriage meant more than kisses. She knew what marriage meant. She buried her face in the pillow, her maiden modesty shocked at the pictures her unmaidenly imagination conjured up. But she need have no fear of that young man. How handsome he was! And how strong! His grip of her arms!— She must love him! She wanted to get right out of her bed and go to him then, to tell him the answer to his question.

  All this and more came to her between her snatches of sleep. And when she read his note in the morning she laughed excitedly. How to dress quickly enough to get to him before he left for the ranges! Why on earth did she not know what time he left, anyhow? Before daylight was so vague. Any time was before daylight. She tore out of her room in her slippers with her hair pinned together at the back (no time to tie ribbons) intending to knock on his door.

  Her luck was in. He had only fallen asleep towards morning and had overslept his usual time of rising during “lambing.” He came out of his room as she left hers. They stopped and stared at each other. Then he went red like any girl and thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. He was dressed in heavy riding breeches and leggings, with thick drill shirt, and was coatless.

  Margaret’s heart thumped terribly. It gave her a sort of suffocating, helpless feeling, but on seeing his embarrassment she grew all soft and womanly. How natural it was for her to go right up to him and say, “Yes, I will marry you.” She wanted to. She intended to, but on reaching him she said nothing of the kind. As she approached him he stared at her with breathless intentness, but the electric bulb was behind her and he could not see her face distinctly. She walked close up to him quickly, intending to say simply, “Yes, I will marry you,” but instead— Well, she just found, as all lovers do, that words are not to be calculated on such an occasion. She just went up to him, caught his eyes with hers and breathed fervently, “Oh, Barry, I love you!”

  After his night of doubt and worry her words were to the man like pearls dropping from her mouth. No experience and no teaching in lovers’ ways had he, but he knew what to do right enough, he knew what to do.

  And Margaret Errol was no laggard in responding. There on the landing they loved each other in the good old-fashioned way until movements below stairs warned them to desist. Then—Messenger thus: “Oh, Margaret, how can I go to work? I want to talk about it all and settle things.”

  Margaret: “Must you go to work? I have to work too.”

  He, after a short interval of thought: “Yes, I must go. I am short-handed and the poor brutes may need attention.”

  She, quickly: “Oh, yes, I forgot. To-night, then, we must see each other alone. Where?”

  He, hurriedly, as Maire was heard approaching the stairs: “I’ll arrange that when I come in. You just wait for me. Oh, Margaret!”

  He rushed down the stairs half-way, then turned and looked back at her. She leaned over towards him, her hands pressed upon her heart, which seemed so loving, and answered him in kind: “Oh, Barry!”

  CHAPTER VI

  They were married six weeks afterwards, in September, when Spring’s happy touch lay once more upon the land.

  The tumultuous delights of the brief wooing may safely be imagined. There are glimpses of them in Mrs. Curdy’s letter to Margaret’s mother, written immediately after Messenger and Margaret had declared themselves engaged; in the girl’s ardent, impetuous appeal to the same; even in Messenger’s stiff but straightforward communication to his future father-in-law.

  All three letters arrived at the Errol home together. What a stir! What consternation! And then, at night, what confabulation between the parents! Such reading and re-reading of the letters! Mrs. Curdy’s plain statement of the situation as she saw it: “Mr. Messenger, my master, and Margaret, your daughter, have informed me that they intend to get married if you are agreeable. I should advise you to come up at once and deal with the matter. Mr. Messenger is an exemplary young man. Your daughter is, I consider, exceedingly fortunate.”

  “Mum” did not agree with Mrs. Curdy. Fortunate, indeed! The boot was on the other foot. Still—“exemplary young man”—and there was Messenger’s: “I am sole owner of Maunganui Station. My land carries fifty thousand sheep and, just now, about fifteen hundred steers. The wool clip this year brought an unprecedented price. I have to pick up some fairly heavy losses on the slump years, but even so, I should clear about twenty thousand pounds. (Mrs. Errol gulped each time she read this statement.) I’m not much of a hand at writing. I guess you will understand why I want to marry Margaret. Will you come up right away? Bring all the family.”

  But more potent than the lure of the broad acres to “Mum” was the child’s: “Mummy, come up and see the wonderful son-in-law I have found for you. Did you dream of money to burn? You’ll have it, Mummy, and the handsomest, best man in all the world for my husband. Bring Dad and all the kids up right away to fix things. Mrs. Curdy says we can’t go on as we are, because I’m Barry’s housemaid, and she is my mistress, and she does not like ordering me about when she knows that I am going to be her mistress. But I’m behaving myself, Mum. I’m full of happiness, and can’t really understand my good fortune; but I’m just the same to Mrs. Curdy as I was before it happened. Before Barry proposed, I mean. And what a funny proposal! I’ve stacks of things to tell you. I’m so sure, Mummy, so sure that you will love him and accept him that I am taking everything for granted. I know how you feel about young marriages. You’ll be sad and say to Dad: ‘Oh, no, dear, we must not allow it. She is too young!’ And Dad will say: ‘You know best, but I don’t know—’ just as he always does, and then you will agree with whatever he says. Come up next train, dearest Mum. Barry said I was not to work any more, but I know that you will want me to go on just the same until you come. I am sending you what money I have to help with the train fares.”

  The mother and father talked and talked. Too young, of course, but then— Margaret was not like other girls; and Mrs. Curdy ought to know the man. All right, perhaps, if the child was really in love (Mum had married at eighteen herself), and if the man was all right. How fervently Mrs. Errol prayed he would be! No heart-aches for her child. Oh, surely not, so early. She must go up next day, she and Dad. Not the family. One had to be sure of the man first, and of Margaret. Position, his money, may have just dazzled the child. Youth is so easily misled by its inevitable romanticism.

  Of course everything turned out all right. Mrs. Errol stayed at the station until after the marriage, and she left with no misgivings regarding her child’s future. Surely the lines of Margaret’s life had fallen i
n pleasant places. That man she had chosen—his equal in manhood there doubtless existed; his superior, never. No vicious instinct in him; no flaw in his physique. Plainly he worshipped the girl; plainly he reverenced her too. And she loved him.

  During the weeks of brief courtship she was an incarnation of sheer delight. Especially when “lambing” was finished and the man had time to take her out on the ranges, teaching her to ride the horse—“the decent horse”—he had given her; showing off his property to her, explaining everything, delighting in her naïve questions and interests.

  And then the rides home in the springtime dusks, the purple and mauve dusks which Barry told her his father had loved because they were real English dusks. The rides home would be so slow and quiet, the horses close together so that their hands could clasp, their eyes could seek each other’s.

  Yes, the girl was but an incarnation of sheer delight. All about the station wondered at her glorious beauty; her own mother marvelled that her quiet self should have begotten this girl. Misgivings about her future? Such could not reasonably be entertained, even by an over-anxious mother. No, Mrs. Errol went home after the quiet marriage ceremony with a mind full of contentment and peace regarding Margaret.

  There was no conventional honeymoon. The shearing began in early October, and even though old Chief Tutaki contracted for the wool clip, Messenger liked to be there supervising, as his father had taught him. There could have been a honeymoon had Margaret desired it, but she vetoed the proposal at once. Leave the station, as yet a bubbling fountain of sheer delights to her! Preposterous! Why, was there anything in the world more engrossing than the shearing would be?

  Barry smiled at that. He pictured the shearers, the “wool-bugs,” in their dirt and grease, thinking the shearing “engrossing.”

  He wondered, while waiting for the marriage, if he would feel those vague unrests, those remote stirrings of soul, at the sound of the young lambs’ blatting, at the fierce, frightened breathing of the mother sheep. No, he knew he would not. He knew now the reason for those vague emotions. The reason for them spelt sex. And he would think of his marriage and tremble.

  How he longed for, yet dreaded, that day when she would be his—his to take to wife. He was frightened. A man must be so careful, so considerate, that the glory of her love be not dimmed nor her faith in his manhood shattered. Once his fear became so potent that he sought his friend, Tutaki, whom he knew to be trustworthy, and confided his fear to him.

  “Don’t you know anything about women at all?” the brown man asked seriously. “Of course, I know you have been pretty fine, but surely there must have been an occasion or two?—”

  “I have never been intimate with a woman,” answered Barry. “I am clean as she is. I thought, perhaps, you might have a book, a good work, on marriage. I know there are such books. I have seen them advertised.”

  Tutaki thought for a while, then said abruptly: “Look here, old chap, you’re all right. Follow your natural instincts. Men and women were made for marriage, and women are as women are—just good. There’s no roughness or badness in you. You’re clean—whatever you do will be clean too.”

  Margaret knew no fear. She did not want to get married particularly. She would have been content to have gone on for ever as she was, just courting. The man’s presents, his caresses, his love words, were all-sufficient for her. She really did not understand why Barry trembled at her close embraces. She had no desire for closer intimacy than then existed. Still, she was not opposed to marriage, either. She saw her position in the house, and knew it must be either marriage or separation for a time. The latter was unthinkable, so marriage it would be. She was prepared for all that marriage meant. She was not eager for it as was the man, but she was not shy of it either.

  Neither mentioned the matter to the other after the date was arranged until the day before the ceremony. This proved to be, as Margaret herself described it, “a really truly spring day,” warm, sunny, with a delightful, fragrant freshness in the air.

  Barry Messenger was giving all of his time these days to the farm. They had not been away from the house for a meal yet, despite their long rides. That morning they left the breakfast-room together and walked out on to the lawn before the house. The grass was heavy with dew; shining moisture clung to the leaves of the laurels and innumerable shrubs encircling the lawn. Margaret turned swiftly to the man: “It is the last day, Barry. Let us take our lunch and have it at Devil’s Corner.”

  He looked at her adoringly, not answering. He was immensely picturesque himself, standing there dressed in riding breeches and drill shirt open at the throat, his legs apart, his hands in his trouser pockets. He just looked at her with his soul in his eyes, and Margaret felt the blood creep up from her heart to the roots of her hair. “Silly!” she said confusedly, pressing her hands against his chest. “Didn’t you hear me?”

  “Yes,” he said slowly. “We’ll go to Devil’s Corner if you like. We’ll go to hell if you say so.”

  Margaret wrinkled her brow. “Why, what a funny thing to say. I don’t want to go to hell.”

  “Come on, then, let it be Devil’s Corner. If you don’t behave yourself I’ll throw you down the Devil’s Hole.”

  “All right.” Reaching up she kissed him on the mouth, putting all her strength into the gesture. Then she whispered: “It won’t be me that will misbehave myself,” and ran into the house laughing.

  He stood there with his blood fever hot and his heart racing. How it hurt! Veritable torture! By and by, when he lifted her into the saddle on leaving home, he crushed her so tightly that she cried out.

  Devil’s Corner was a small copse of pines situated in a corner of the boundary fence about three miles from the homestead. It was the top of a hill, and had been a Maori stockade during the Maori wars. Sitting on the grass among the trees one could get a good view of the surrounding countryside. Devil’s Hole was a deep pit, so deep that if a stone had been cast in it, it could only be faintly heard striking the bottom. It lay just outside the ruins of the old stockade. Its origin was a mystery, as the Maoris had possessed no facilities for digging it, and it had certainly been there when the white man arrived. Tradition had it that down it the Maoris had used to throw the dead bodies of their chiefs to save them from molestation by enemies.

  Messenger and Margaret arrived at the copse early. They took the saddles and bridles off their horses and allowed them to roam. It was an ideal place for a lovers’ picnic, without doubt. The grass was long and fresh, but quite dry. They really did not need the rug Messenger always carried tied to the back of his saddle. He spread it nevertheless. The trees were far enough apart to allow the sun to play through warmly, and yet sufficiently close to screen them from a passing shepherd.

  They had books with them, but, needless to say, they did not read. Messenger stretched himself out on his back, and Margaret sat beside him with her hands clasped around her knees. For a wonder she did not talk. So extraordinary a thing was it for her to be silent that by and by he pulled at her hair and asked: “Why are you so silent?”

  She turned to him quickly, laid her head upon his breast, and said: “Tomorrow we are to be married, Barry.”

  He kept his hands away from her. Her words, her close pressure, had the same effect upon him as her kiss had previously had. Never before had he been so stirred. His throat was dry and thick. His heart thumped so suddenly that she sat up in fright. “Why, what is the matter? Your heart—” Her intuition told her. She coloured, then grew quite white, drew a little away from him and hid her face. Strange thoughts came to her, too, strange emotions. Perhaps the woods, the natural surroundings, affected her. She began to think, foolishly, of the myth of Adam and Eve. She giggled a little, timorously, then, fearful that her laugh might sound “beastly” to him so full of primal emotion, she turned to him and pressed her face against his.

  He felt that she was affected too. “Margaret! Margaret! What is it?” he whispered thickly.

  She lay quietly
for a while with her hand upon his neck.

  Then a divine inspiration came to her, a sublime thought born of her sheer naturalness. She raised her head and looked him full in the eyes, the glory of slumbering womanhood shining in her own. “It is God in us,” she said. “It is God in us. This is our wedding-day, Barry. Make me your wife to-day.”

  Before the chill of the spring evening came down they mounted their horses and made for home. They rode slowly. The man kept a hand upon the mane of her horse. In one paddock they came up with a shepherd taking a flock of sheep into the homestead for the shearing to begin upon the morrow, the wedding-day proper.

  The animals had come from the far paddocks, and the weight of their wool hung heavily upon them. The smell of their sweat clogged the air, and their moist, heavy breathing told of their weariness. Numbers of lambs trotted along behind them, dejectedly blatting.

  “Poor souls! They are tired!” exclaimed Margaret.

  “Yes. It is rather a shame, but these things can’t be helped.” The man’s brow wrinkled. He, too, hated the thought of suffering on this day of days. “Let us turn off at the next gate and go home past the rabbitters’ whare.”

  The rabbitters’ whare was a two-roomed shanty occupied by two old cronies who were rabbitting for Messenger. They had been on the station as far back as he could remember, and were known in the locality as “Old Bill and George,” or “Old George and Bill,” as the case might be. They enjoyed the reputation of being characters, which indeed they were. They worked well at their business of trapping rabbits all the week, but Saturday night regularly saw them drunk with the liquors brought them from Taihape by the mailcart. Saturday night and all day Sunday they drank, and at such times they either quarrelled fiercely or became exceedingly affectionate.