RESURRECTION OF ST. VALENTINE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20255, 15 May 1929, Page 7

RESURRECTION OF ST. VALENTINE

A SHORT STORY.

BY KENTON KERRIESHAW,

" It isn't any manner of use goinc on like this, Jerry!" father said, as he contemplated the broad, shawl-covered back of Mrs. Durridge, our latest experiment in housekeepers, who was just taking herself, a wall-paper covered trunk, and sundry other packages and bundles off stationward in our market trap in a state of high dudgeon, because father had mildly suggested that six pans of milk, with the cows all grazing in meadowland, miglit surely have been expected to produce more butter than two half-pound pats and an odd-weight, the last marked as such to avoid mistakes in the disposing thereof by the impress, too, of a somewhat smutty thumb. " It's no manner of use, Jerry! There's been -no comfort in the house since aunt Martha gave up looking after my place to get married. There's only 0110 thing to be done. You'll have to get married, Jerry! You're terribly young, aud I'm dead set against early marriages as a rule, but this case is an exception. Four housekeepers in three months, what with them that wouldn't stay and them that I had to get rid "of sharp because they wanted to stay altogether, is enoght to drive a man crazy, let alone being the destruction of his household goods"—with ! a rueful recollection of the fact that though theone wallpaper-covered trunk had contained all Mrs. Durridge's worldly possessions upon her arrival, they had overflowed into half-a-dozen bundles, some tied up in brown paper, some in the lute lamented Durridge's "red handkerchers," for her departure, a state of things which the worthy lady had stormily explained, on her attention being called to it, with the declaration that " With her feelings so insulted as they had been in this house, 'twasn't to be expected as she could pack things as neat and smooth as they ought to bo packed." " Yes," said father, with a sigh over the destruction of his household goods. "Never a blanket or a feather will there be loft in the house soon. You'll have to get married, Jerry, my son!" And then a'fter a pause as I made no reply. "You'll have to get married, Jerry. What do you think yourself ?" " Well, it's easier talked about than done, father!" said I. " I can't walk up to an utter stranger, and say, ' Will you marry me, because father and I want a housekeeper,' can I?" Father smiled one of his slow, quiet smiles. " You couldn't put it quite like that even to an acquaintance," he answered, " but there isn't any call for you to think about any utter stranger. There's little Margery Penythorne over to Nicholascombe; I haven't seen her about, not to notice her, since she left school, but I'll warr'n she's been well brought up, trust Miss Penythorne for that! She must be a'bout your age too, for I mind her aunt Margery bringing her, a wee maid, ]ust beginning to toddle, home to Nicholascornbe just after your poor mother died, and you were three then. Little Margery s a nice little soul, I'll be bound, though she won't never be the woman her aunt is, never, not if she lives to be a hundred!" And it might have been my imagination, though I don't think it was, but I certainly fancied he finished the sentence with a sigh. Margery Penythorne! I, though I am quite sure that my father had no suspicion of the fact, had worshipped Margery Penythorne at very respectful distance because, for a reason I could only shrewdly guess at, there had been little intercourse between our house and the house of Penythorne—ever since hei return, two years previously, "finished," from boarding-school. " Little Margery," father went on. "Have a try for 'her, lad! If she's her aunt's own niece you couldn't do better, if you're lucky enough, to get her; and you can but ask her," and then he ran his hand meditatively through his still thickly-clustering waves of iron-grey hair, and evidently harked back in memory of his own youthful experiences for suggestions for me. ; He remained in ai brown study for a moment until, struck by a idea, ho strode indoors and across the ' limeash " kitchen floor to where the' almanac hung at one end of the settle, and ran a finger down the columns of dates. " Twelfth of February," he said as I, who had followed him, began, awkwardly enough, to "redd up" the hearth-fire. " Day after to-morrow's Valentine's Day. There's your opportunity, Jerry! Send her a valentine—that's how we used to do our courting—a pretty little thing all lace and silver paper, and hearts and darts and with The rose is red, the violet's blue, Lilies are sweet, and ao are you. that's how they used to run, I mind, on it, Then at the back you put your best respects and you'll take it a favour if she'll meet you at four in the afternoon by Oakfield stile," said father, and he uttered the last sentence dreamily, m abstracted fashion, as if he were thinking of something else, and caught himself up short at the end of it, and added briskly, "Or anywhere else you like, my son, anywhere else you like to mention. I was conscious even while he spoke of a qualm of doubt as to the advisability of so precipitate a wooing of sweet Margery Penythorne, and I faintly wondered whether I hadn't heard something that valentines were out of date, and oldfashioned. Nevertheless, being then somewhat " gawkv " (as we say in Devonshire) and shy, country-bred youth, and but little accustomed to acting upon my own judgment, it never occurred to me to even think of disregarding fathers suggestion, so, the next day being market day, into Pcndivey I went in quest of a valentine. , , , . , Not a silver paper and lacc-edged greeting could I see, however, in any shop window, and when at last, avoiding the better streets, I turned into a tiny stoic in an unfrequented by-way, my shamefaced request for valentines was met by the production Of some narrow, half-yaid strips of paper gay with the most absurd coloured caricatures. . . When half-a-dozen of these monstrosities had been displayed to me, with the apologetic remark. "We have 110 other sort, "there is no demand for the sentimental ones now," I.fled, and calling for my horse, went home half-an-hour later valcntincless, and greatly wondering whether I dared send a letter in default of the more conventional greeting, or whether, after all, I hadn't better takp my courage in both hands nnd ride over, for the first time, to Nicholascombe, and present myself in person as Margery's valentine. While I was still debating this question I sat down to some accounts at father's big desk in the front kitchen, and rummaging in its recesses for some mislaid papers, lighted upon a veritable treasure trove —a thing of silver lace and paper frills that was unmistakably a valentine, and the motto upon which, encircled romantically with a ring of hearts — " I love you, clear, more than I venturo to say, To send you this token on Velentine's Day," seemed to be singularly appropriate. Without pausing to wonder how the valentine came to bo in its present evident place of concealment, I, mindful of father's hints, wrote upon it in my best writing, which'was air assiduously careful: copy of my father's, he having been my tutor in that branch of education, through many a long, dark evening of,

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winter, a brief, and very humbly-worded request that the recipient would deign to grant me an interview, as I had , something of great importance to say to her, for which purpose I 'Should be waiting by. Oakfield stile, at the corner of Cable Coppice, from four o'clock on the afternoon of Valentine's Day. Which epistle (an effusion which, taken in conjunction with the sentiments expressed within the circle of little „ silver hearts, considering how very bashful I really was, certainly did not savour of diffidence) I signed " J. Merivale;" and* having addressed the envelope in which I had discovered the valentine to " Miss M. Pen.ythorne, Nicholascombe," I hastened to finish the accounts, and then walked into the village to post it before- father returned from market.

After that there was nothing to do but to await, with some trepidation at heart, the day and the hour of the tryst I bad presumed to arrange. I was early at the meeting place, but though I waited with growing impatience, when the soft swish of a woman's gown against the undergrowth that bordered the twisted, maze-like, almost invisible path of the coppice told me that Margery was certainly rewarding my audacity, and approaching, I was seized with a paroxysm of bashfulness, and stepping,-back, being on.-the field side, concealed myself behind the trunk of a giant oak that overshadowed the rail. At the same moment I heard the field gate, a few yards down the hedge away from the wood, creak on its hinges, and fall to, and peering out from my place of vantage, invisible alike from field and coppice, I observed a tall, burly figure, with a dog at his heels, making directly for the stile. It was father, with a hoe on jhis shoulder, going to " spud up " a few turnips for the sheep from the half-frozen ground in the field beyond Cable Coppice, and to which the copse-path was a " nearcut." I, perhaps a littlo glad of the respite, resolved to remain hidden till Mic was out of sight, but just as he reached the stile the rustle of the approaching skirts ceased, and peering eagerly oover the low field hedge I saw—Miss Margery Penythorne, the elder. Father had vaulted over the rail before he was aware of her presence, but directly lie saw her lie pulled off his hat, and held out his hand in a humble fashion that was very different from his usual confident manner.

" Miss Margery!" lie said. " This is a real pleasure—to see you on my ground!" "Yes! It is twenty-five years ago to-day that we parted here for the last time, Jerry," she faltered in gentle ton.es. "And our quarrel was all my fault. It —it was a pretty thought of yours -to send me the valentine I refused then. You can't think, how it touched mc.jjto know that you had kept it all these years." ■ i £ Father was always a 'cute man, and I could see that lie jumped to the correct explanation of the situation at once. But he didn't hasten to declare it. as I expected to hear him do. Instead, he set down his turnip-hoe, and took Miss Penvthorne's hands in one of his, and encircling her waist with the other; arm drew her toward him,, and kissed her, and though I noted that tho warm colour flamed into her still comely cheeks, she did not repulse him. " Seems to me,'!- I heard father tell her, "and it isn't any disrespect to the boy's dead mother to say so, for she knowed, good soul, that she wasn't my first love—seems to me I've been waiting for this day all my life."

Margery Penythorne, the younger, explained to me afterwards that if I had particularly wished ah.y package .to lie given into her hands I should have addressed it M.E.,. for Margery Eleanor, Penythorne, as with great-aunt Penythorne, up at Higher Nicholascombe, Miss Penythorne for the district, her Vaunt had always been Miss M. Penythorne, and even so mistakes were contantly being made in communications intended for either of the two Nicholascombes. I may add that the confusion of names is less confounded now, since Aunt Margery became Mrs. Merivale; though complications may again arise in the future wliec, as I confidently hope she may, Margery, the younger, become Mrs. Merivale, junior;