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Time passed on, healing the wounds of the Marsh. At Donkey Street, the neighbours were beginning to get used to young Honisett and his bride, at Rye and Lydd and Romney the farmers had given up expecting Arthur Alce to come round the corner on his grey horse, with samples of wheat or prices of tegs. At Ansdore, too, the breach was healed. Joanna and Ellen lived quietly together, sharing their common life without explosions. Joanna had given up all idea of “having things out” with Ellen. There was always a bit of pathos about Joanna’s surrenders, and in this case Ellen had certainly beaten her. It was rather difficult to say exactly to what the younger sister owed her victory, but undoubtedly she had won it, and their life was in a measure based upon it. Joanna accepted her sister past and all; she accepted her little calm assumptions of respectability together with those more expected tendencies towards the “French.” When Ellen had first come back, she had been surprised and resentful to see how much she took for granted in the way of acceptance, not only from Joanna but from the neighbours. According to her ideas, Ellen should have kept in shamed seclusion till public opinion called her out of it, and she had been alarmed at her assumptions, fearing rebuff, just as she had almost feared heaven’s lightning stroke for that demure little figure in her pew on Sunday, murmuring “Lord have mercy” without tremor or blush.

But heaven had not smitten and the neighbours had not snubbed. In some mysterious way Ellen had won acceptance from the latter, whatever her secret relations with the former may have been. The stories about her grew ever more and more charitable. The Woolpack pronounced that Arthur Alce would not have gone away “if it had been all on her side,” and it was now certainly known that Mrs. Williams had been at San Remo.... Ellen’s manner was found pleasing “quiet but affable.” Indeed, in this respect she had much improved. The Southlands took her up, forgiving her treatment of their boy, now comfortably married to the daughter of a big Folkestone shopkeeper. They found her neither brazen nor shamefaced and she’d been as shocked as any honest woman at Lady Mountain’s trial in the Sunday papers ... if folk only knew her real story, they’d probably find....

In fact, Ellen was determined to get her character back.

She knew within herself that she owed a great deal to Joanna’s protection for Joanna was the chief power in the parishes of Brodnyx and Pedlinge, both personally and territorially. Ellen had been wise beyond the wisdom of despair when she came home. She was not unhappy in her life at Ansdore, for her escapade had given her a queer advantage over her sister, and she now found that she could to a certain extent, mould the household routine to her comfort. She was no longer entirely dominated, and only a small amount of independence was enough to satisfy her, a born submitter, to whom contrivance was more than rule. She wanted only freedom for her tastes and pleasures, and Joanna did not now strive to impose her own upon her. Occasionally the younger woman complained of her lot, bound to a man whom she no longer cared for, wearing only the fetters of her wifehood she still hankered after a divorce, though Arthur must be respondent. This always woke Joanna to rage, but Ellen’s feelings did not often rise to the surface, and on the whole the sisters were happy in their life together more peaceful because they were more detached than in the old days. Ellen invariably wore black, hoping that strangers and newcomers would take her for a widow.

This she actually became towards the close of the year 1910. Arthur did a fair amount of hunting with his brother in the shires, and one day his horse came down at a fence, throwing him badly and fracturing his skull. He died the same night without regaining consciousness death had treated him better on the whole than life, for he died without pain or indignity, riding to hounds like any squire. He left a comfortable little fortune, too Donkey Street and its two hundred acres and he left it all to Joanna.

Secretly he had made his will anew soon after going to the shires, and in it he had indulged himself, ignoring reality and perhaps duty. Evidently he had had no expectations of a return to married life with Ellen, and in this new testament he ignored her entirely, as if she had not been. Joanna was his wife, inheriting all that was his, of land and money and live and dead stock “My true, trusty friend, Joanna Godden.”

Ellen was furious, and Joanna herself was a little shocked. She understood Arthur’s motives she guessed that one of his reasons for passing over Ellen had been his anxiety to leave her sister dependent on her, knowing her fear that she would take flight. But this exaltation of her by his death to the place she had refused to occupy during his life, gave her a queer sense of smart and shame. For the first time it struck her that she might not have treated Arthur quite well....

However, she did not sympathize with Ellen’s indignation

“You shouldn’t ought to have expected a penny, the way you treated him.”

“I don’t see why he shouldn’t have left me at least some furniture, seeing there was about five hundred pounds of my money in that farm. He’s done rather well out of me on the whole making me no allowance whatever when he was alive.”

“Because I wouldn’t let him make it I’ve got some pride if you haven’t.”

“Your pride doesn’t stop you taking what ought to have been mine.”

“’Ought to’.... I never heard such words. Not that I’m pleased he should make it all over to me, but it ain’t my doing.”

Ellen looked at her fixedly out of her eyes which were like the shallow floods.

“Are you quite sure? Are you quite sure, Joanna, that you honestly played a sister’s part by me while I was away?”

“What d’you mean?”

“I mean, Arthur seems to have got a lot fonder of you while I was away than he er seemed to be before.”

Joanna gaped at her.

“Of course it was only natural,” continued Ellen smoothly “I know I treated him badly but don’t you think you needn’t have taken advantage of that?”

“Well, I’m beat ... look here, Ellen ... that man was mine from the first, and I gave him over to you, and I never took him back nor wanted him, neither.”

“How generous of you, Jo, to have ‘given him over’ to me.”

A little maddening smile twisted the corners of her mouth, and Joanna remembered that now Arthur was dead and there was no hope of Ellen going back to him she need not spare her secret.

“Yes, I gave him to you,” she said bluntly “I saw you wanted him, and I didn’t want him myself, so I said to him ’Arthur, look here, you take her’ and he said to me ’I’d sooner have you, Jo’ but I said ’you won’t have me even if you wait till the moon’s cheese, so there’s no good hoping for that. You take the little sister and please me’ and he said ‘I’ll do it to please you, Jo.’ That’s the very thing that happened, and I’m sorry it happened now and I never told you before, because I thought it ud put you against him, and I wanted you to go back to him, being his wife; but now he’s dead, and you may as well know, seeing the upstart notions you’ve got.”

She looked fiercely at Ellen, to watch the effect of the blow, but was disconcerted to see that the little maddening smile still lingered. There were dimples at the flexing corners of her sister’s mouth, and now they were little wells of disbelieving laughter. Ellen did not believe her she had told her long-guarded secret and her sister did not believe it. She thought it just something Joanna had made up to salve her pride and nothing would ever make her believe it, for she was a woman who had been loved and knew that she was well worth loving.

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Both Ellen and Joanna were a little afraid that Arthur’s treatment of his widow might disestablish her in public opinion. People would think that she must have behaved unaccountable badly to be served out like that. But the effects were not so disastrous as might have been expected. Ellen, poor and forlorn, in her graceful weeds, without complaining or resentful words, soon won the neighbours’ compassion. It wasn’t right of Alce to have treated her so showed an unforgiving nature if only the real story could be known, most likely folks would see.... There was also a mild scandal at his treatment of Joanna. “Well, even if he loved her all the time when he was married to her sister, he needn’t have been so brazen about it.... Always cared for Joanna more’n he ought and showed it more’n he ought.”

Joanna was not worried by these remarks she brushed them aside. Her character was gossip-proof, whereas Ellen’s was not, therefore it was best that the stones should be thrown at her rather than at her sister. She at once went practically to work with Donkey Street. She did not wish to keep it it was too remote from Ansdore to be easily workable, and she was content with her own thriving estate. She sold Donkey Street with all its stock, and decided to lay out the money in improvements of her land. She would drain the waterlogged innings by the Kent Ditch, she would buy a steam plough and make the neighbourhood sit up she would start cattle-breeding. She had no qualms in thus spending the money on the farm, instead of on Ellen. Her sister rather plaintively pointed out that the invested capital would have brought her in a comfortable small income “and then I needn’t be such a burden to you, Joanna, dear.”

“You ain’t a burden to me,” said Joanna.

She could not bear to think of Ellen’s becoming independent and leaving her. But Ellen was far better contented with her life at home than she wisely let it appear. Ansdore was a manor now the largest estate not only in Brodnyx and Pedlinge, but on Walland Marsh; indeed the whole of the Three Marshes had little to beat it with. Moreover, Ellen was beginning to get her own way in the house her bedroom was no longer a compulsory bower of roses, but softly cream-coloured and purple-hung. She had persuaded Joanna to have a bathroom fitted up, with hot and cold water and other glories, and though she had been unable to induce her to banish her father’s Bible and the stuffed owls from the parlour, she had been allowed to supplement and practically annihilate them with the notorious black cushions from Donkey Street. Joanna was a little proud to have these famous decorations on the premises, to be indoors what her yellow waggons were outdoors, symbols of daring and progress.

On the whole, this substantial house, with its wide lands, respectable furniture and swarming servants, was one to be proud of. Ellen’s position as Squire Joanna Godden’s sister was much better than if she were living by herself in some small place on a small income. Her brief adventure into what she thought was a life of fashionable gaiety had discouraged and disillusioned her she was slowly slipping back into the conventions of her class and surroundings. Ansdore was no longer either a prison or a refuge, it was beginning to be a home not permanent, of course, for she was now a free woman and would marry again, but a good home to rest in and re-establish herself.

Thanks to Ellen’s contrivance and to the progress of Joanna’s own ambition rising out of its fulfilment in the sphere of the material into the sphere of style and manners the sisters now lived the lives of two well-to-do ladies. They had late dinner every night only soup and meat and pudding, still definitely neither supper nor high tea. Joanna changed for it into smart, stiff silk blouses, with a great deal of lace and guipure about them, while Ellen wore a rest-gown of drifting black charmeuse. Mene Tekel was promoted from the dairy to be Ansdore’s first parlourmaid, and wore a cap and apron, and waited at table. Ellen would have liked to keep Mene Tekel in her place and engage a smart town girl, whose hands were not the colour of beetroots and whose breathing could not be heard through a closed door; but Joanna stood firm Mene had been her faithful servant for more than seven years, and it wasn’t right that she should have a girl from the town promoted over her. Besides, Joanna did not like town girls with town speech that rebuked her own, and white hands that made her want to put her own large brown ones under the table.

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Early the next year Mr. Pratt faded out. He could not be said to have done anything so dramatic as to die, though the green marsh-turf of Brodnyx churchyard was broken to make him a bed, and the little bell rocked in the bosom of the drunken Victorian widow who was Brodnyx church steeple, sending a forlorn note out over the Marsh. Various aunts in various stages of resigned poverty bore off his family to separate destinations, and the great Rectory house which had for so long mocked his two hundred a year, stood empty, waiting to swallow up its next victim.

Only in Joanna Godden’s breast did any stir remain. For her at least the fading out of Mr. Pratt had been drama, the final scene of her importance; for it was now her task to appoint his successor in the living of Brodnyx with Pedlinge. Ever since she had found out that she could not get rid of Mr. Pratt she had been in terror lest this crowning triumph might be denied her, and the largeness of her funeral wreath and the lavishness of her mourning extinguishing all the relations in their dyed blacks had testified to the warmth of her gratitude to the late rector for so considerately dying.

She felt exceedingly important, and the feeling was increased by the applications she received for the living. Clergymen wrote from different parts of the country; they told her that they were orthodox as if she had imagined a clergyman could be otherwise that they were acceptable preachers, that they were good with Boy Scouts. One or two she interviewed and disliked, because they had bad teeth or large families one or two turned the tables on her and refused to have anything to do with a living encumbered by so large a rectory and so small an endowment. Joanna felt insulted, though she was not responsible for either. She resolved not to consider any applicants, but to make her own choice outside their ranks. This was a difficult matter, for her sphere was hardly clerical, and she knew no clergy except those on the Marsh. None of these she liked, because they were for the most part elderly and went about on bicycles also she wanted to dazzle her society with a new importation.

The Archdeacon wrote to her, suggesting that she might be glad of some counsel in filling the vacancy, and giving her the names of two men whom he thought suitable. Joanna was furious she would brook no interference from Archdeacons, and wrote the gentleman a letter which must have been unique in his archidiaconal experience. All the same she began to feel worried she was beginning to doubt if she had the same qualifications for choosing a clergyman as she had for choosing a looker or a dairy-girl. She knew the sort of man she liked as a man, and more vaguely the sort of man she liked as a parson, she also was patriotically anxious to find somebody adequate to the honours and obligations of the living. Nobody she saw or heard of seemed to come up to her double standard of man and minister, and she was beginning to wonder to what extent she could compromise her pride by writing not to the Archdeacon, but over his head to the Bishop when she saw in the local paper that Father Lawrence, of the Society of Sacred Pity, was preaching a course of sermons in Marlingate.

Immediately memories came back to her, so far and pale that they were more like the memories of dreams than of anything which had actually happened. She saw a small dark figure standing with its back to the awakening light and bidding godspeed to all that was vital and beautiful and more-than-herself in her life.... “Go, Christian soul” while she in the depths of her broken heart had cried “Stay, stay!” But he had obeyed the priest rather than the lover, he had gone and not stayed ... and afterwards the priest had tried to hold him for her in futurity “think of Martin, pray for Martin,” but the lover had let him slip, because she could not think and dared not pray, and he had fallen back from her into his silent home in the past.

The old wound could still hurt, for a moment it seemed as if her whole body was pain because of it. Successful, important, thriving Joanna Godden could still suffer because eight years ago she had not been allowed to make the sacrifice of all that she now held so triumphantly. This mere name of Martin’s brother had pricked her heart, and she suddenly wanted to get closer to the past than she could get with her memorial-card and photograph and tombstone. Even Sir Harry Trevor, ironic link with faithful love, was gone now there was only Lawrence. She would like to see him not to talk to him of Martin, she couldn’t bear that, and there would be something vaguely improper about it but he was a clergyman, for all he disguised the fact by calling himself a priest, and she would offer him the living of Brodnyx with Pedlinge and let the neighbourhood sit up as much as it liked.

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Father Lawrence came to see her one April day when the young lambs were bleating on the sheltered innings and making bright clean spots of white beside the ewes’ fog-soiled fleeces, when the tegs had come down from their winter keep inland, and the sunset fell in long golden slats across the first water-green grass of spring. The years had aged him more than they had aged Joanna the marks on her face were chiefly weather marks, tokens of her exposure to marsh suns and winds, and of her own ruthless applications of yellow soap. Behind them was a little of the hardness which comes when a woman has to fight many battles and has won her victories largely through the sacrifice of her resources. The lines on his face were mostly those of his own humour and other people’s sorrows, he had exposed himself perhaps not enough to the weather and too much to the world, so that where she had fine lines and a fundamental hardness, he had heavy lines like the furrows of a ploughshare, and a softness beneath them like the fruitful soil that the share turns up.

Joanna received him in state, with Arthur Alce’s teapot and her best pink silk blouse with the lace insertion. Ellen, for fairly obvious reasons, preferred not to be present. Joanna was terrified lest he should begin to talk of Martin, so after she had conformed to local etiquette by inquiring after his health and abusing the weather, she offered him the living of Brodnyx with Pedlinge and a slice of cake almost in the same breath.

She was surprised and a little hurt when he refused the former. As a member of a religious community he could not hold preferment, and he had no vocation to settled Christianity.

“I shouldn’t be at all good as a country clergyman. Besides, Jo” he had at once slipped into the brotherliness of their old relations “I know you; you wouldn’t like my ways. You’d always be up at me, teaching me better, and then I should be up at you, and possibly we shouldn’t stay quite such good friends as we are now.”

“I shouldn’t mind your ways. Reckon it might do the folks round here a proper lot of good to be prayed over same as you I mean I’d like to see a few of ’em prayed over when they were dying and couldn’t help themselves. Serve them right, I say, for not praying when they’re alive, and some who won’t put their noses in church except for a harvest thanksgiving. No, if you’ll only come here, Lawrence, you may do what you like in the way of prayers and such. I shan’t interfere as long as you don’t trouble us with the Pope, whom I never could abide after all I’ve heard of him, wanting to blow up the Established Church in London, and making people kiss his toe, which I’d never do, not if he was to burn me alive.”

“Well, if that’s the only limit to your toleration I think I could help you, even though I can’t come myself. I know one or two excellent priests who would do endless good in a place like this.”

Joanna suddenly felt her imagination gloat and kindle at the thought of Brodnyx and Pedlinge compelled to holiness all those wicked old men who wouldn’t go to church, but expected their Christmas puddings just the same, those hobbledehoys who loafed against gate-posts the whole of Sunday, those vain hussies who giggled behind their handkerchiefs all the service through it would be fine to see them hustled about and taught their manners ... it would be valiant sport to see them made to behave, as Mr. Pratt had never been able to make them. She with her half-crown in the plate and her quarterly communion need have no qualms, and she would enjoy seeing the fear of God put into other folk.

So Lawrence’s visit was fruitful after all a friend of his had been ordered to give up his hard work in a slum parish and find a country vocation. He promised that this friend should write to Joanna.

“But I must see him, too,” she said.

They were standing at the open door, and the religious in his black habit was like a cut paper silhouette against the long streaks of fading purple cloud.

“I remember,” he said, “that you always were particular about a man’s looks. How Martin’s must have delighted you!”

His tongue did not falter over the loved, forbidden name he spoke it quite naturally and conversationally, as if glad that he could introduce it at last into their business.

Joanna’s body stiffened, but he did not see it, for he was gazing at the young creeper’s budding trail over the door.

“I hope you have a good photograph of him,” he continued “I know that a very good photograph was taken of him a year before he died much better than any of the earlier ones. I hope you have one of those.”

“Yes, I have,” said Joanna gruffly. From shock she had passed into a thrilling anger. How calmly he had spoken the dear name, how unblushingly he had said the outrageous word “died!” How brazen, thoughtless, cruel he was about it all! tearing the veil from her sorrow, talking as if her dead lived ... she felt exposed, indecent, and she hated him, all the more because mixed with her hatred was a kind of disapproving envy, a resentment that he should be free to remember where she was bound to forget....

He saw her hand clench slowly at her side, and for the first time became aware of her state of mind.

“Good-bye, Jo,” he said kindly “I’ll tell Father Palmer to write to you.”

“Thanks, but I don’t promise to take him,” was her ungracious fling.

“No why should you? And of course he may have already made his plans. Good-bye, and thank you for your great kindness in offering the living to me it was very noble of you, considering what your family has suffered from mine.”

He had carefully avoided all reference to his father, but he now realized that he had kept the wrong silence. It was the man who had brought her happiness, not the man who had brought her shame, that she was unable to speak of.

“Oh, don’t you think of that it wasn’t your doing” she melted towards him now she had a genuine cause for indignation “and we’ve come through it better than we hoped, and some of us deserved.”

Lawrence gave her an odd smile, which made his face with its innumerable lines and pouches look rather like a gargoyle’s. Then he walked off bare-headed into the twilight.

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Ellen was intensely relieved when she heard that he had refused the living, and a little indignant with Joanna for having offered it to him.

“You don’t seem to realize how very awkward it would have been for me I don’t want to have anything more to do with that family.”

“I daresay not,” said Joanna grimly, “but that ain’t no reason why this parish shouldn’t have a good parson. Lawrence ud have made the people properly mind their ways. And it ain’t becoming in you, Ellen Alce, to let your own misdoings stand between folk and what’s good for ’em.”

Ellen accepted the rebuke good-humouredly. She had grown more mellow of late, and was settling into her life at Ansdore as she had never settled since she went to school. She relished her widowed state, for it involved the delectable business of looking about for a second husband. She was resolved to act with great deliberation. This time there should be no hustling into matrimony. It seemed to her now as if that precipitate taking of Arthur Alce had been at the bottom of all her troubles; she had been only a poor little schoolgirl, a raw contriver, hurling herself out of the frying-pan of Ansdore’s tyranny into the fire of Donkey Street’s dullness. She knew better now besides, the increased freedom and comfort of her conditions did not involve the same urgency of escape.

She made up her mind that she would not take anyone of the farming classes; this time she would marry a gentleman but a decent sort. She did not enjoy all her memories of Sir Harry Trevor. She would not take up with that kind of man again, any more than with a dull fellow like poor Arthur.

She had far better opportunities than in the old days. The exaltation of Ansdore from farm to manor had turned many keys, and Joanna now received calls from doctors’ and clergymen’s wives, who had hitherto ignored her except commercially. It was at Fairfield Vicarage that Ellen met the wife of a major at Lydd camp, and through her came to turn the heads of various subalterns. The young officers from Lydd paid frequent visits to Ansdore, which was a novelty to both the sisters, who hitherto had had no dealings with military society. Ellen was far too prudent to engage herself to any of these boys; she waited for a major or a captain at least. But she enjoyed their society, and knew that their visits gave her consequence in the neighbourhood. She was invariably discreet in her behaviour, and was much reproached by them for her coldness, which they attributed to Joanna, who watched over her like a dragon, convinced that the moment she relaxed her guard her sister would inevitably return to her wicked past.

Ellen would have felt sore and insulted if she had not the comfort of knowing in her heart that Joanna was secretly envious a little hurt that these personable young men came to Ansdore for Ellen alone. They liked Joanna, in spite of her interference; they said she was a good sort, and spoke of her among themselves as “the old girl” and “Joanna God-dam.” But none of them thought of turning from Ellen to her sister she was too weather-beaten for them, too big and bouncing over-ripe. Ellen, pale as a flower, with wide lips like rose-leaves and narrow, brooding eyes, with her languor, and faint suggestions of the exotic, all the mystery with which fate had chosen to veil the common secret which was Ellen Alce.... She could now have the luxury of pitying her sister, of seeing herself possessed of what her tyrant Joanna had not, and longed for.... Slowly she was gaining the advantage, her side of the wheel was mounting while Joanna’s went down; in spite of the elder woman’s success and substance the younger was unmistakably winning ascendancy over her.

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Her pity made her kind. She no longer squabbled, complained or resented. She took Joanna’s occasionally insulting behaviour in good part. She even wished that she would marry not one of the subalterns, for they were not her sort, but some decent small squire or parson. When the new rector first came to Brodnyx she had great hopes of fixing a match between him and Jo for Ellen was now so respectable that she had become a match-maker. But she was disappointed indeed, they both were, for Joanna had liked the looks of Mr. Pratt’s successor, and though she did not go so far as to dream of matrimony which was still below her horizons she would have much appreciated his wooing.

But it soon became known that the new rector had strange views on the subject of clerical marriage in fact, he shocked his patron in many ways. He was a large, heavy, pale-faced young man, with strange, sleek qualities that appealed to her through their unaccustomedness. But he was scarcely a sleek man in office, and under his drawling, lethargic manner there was an energy that struck her as shocking and out of place. He was like Lawrence, speaking forbidden words and of hidden things. In church he preached embarrassing perfections she could no longer feel that she had attained the limits of churchmanship with her weekly half-crown and her quarterly communion. He turned her young people’s heads with strange glimpses of beauty and obligation.

In fact, poor Joanna was deprived of the spectacle she had looked forward to with such zest that of a parish made to amend itself while she looked on from the detachment of her own high standard. She was made to feel just as uncomfortable as any wicked old man or giggling hussy.... She was all the more aggrieved because, though Mr. Palmer had displeased her, she could not get rid of him as she would have got rid of her looker in the same circumstances. “If I take a looker and he don’t please me I can sack him the gal I engage I can get shut of at a month’s warning, but a parson seemingly is the only kind you can put in and not put out.”

Then to crown all, he took away the Lion and the Unicorn from their eternal dance above the Altar of God, and in their place he put tall candles, casting queer red gleams into daylight.... Joanna could bear no more; she swallowed the pride which for the first few months of innovation had made her treat the new rector merely with distant rudeness, and descended upon him in the three rooms of Brodnyx Rectory which he inhabited with cheerful contempt for the rest of its howling vastness.

She emerged from the encounter strangely subdued. Mr. Palmer had been polite, even sympathetic, but he had plainly shown her the indifference (to use no cruder term) that he felt for her as an ecclesiastical authority. He was not going to put the Lion and the Unicorn back in their old place, they belonged to a bygone age which was now forgotten, to a bad old language which had lost its meaning. The utmost he would do was to consent to hang them up over the door, so that they could bless Joanna’s going out and coming in. With this she had to be content.

Poor Joanna! The episode was more than a passing outrage and humiliation it was ominous, it gave her a queer sense of downfall. With her beloved symbol something which was part of herself seemed also to have been dispossessed. She became conscious that she was losing authority. She realized that for long she had been weakening in regard to Ellen, and now she was unable to stand up to this heavy, sleek young man whom her patronage had appointed.... The Lion and the Unicorn had from childhood been her sign of power they were her theology in oleograph, they stood for the Church of England as by law established, large rectory houses, respectable and respectful clergymen, “dearly beloved brethren” on Sunday mornings, and a nice nap after dinner. And now they were gone, and in their place was a queer Jesuitry of kyries and candles, and a gospel which kicked and goaded and would not allow one to sleep....

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It began to be noticed at the Woolpack that Joanna was losing heart. “She’s lost her spring,” they said in the bar “she’s got all she wanted, and now she’s feeling dull” “she’s never had what she wanted and now she’s feeling tired” “her sister’s beat her and parson’s beat her she can’t be properly herself.” There was some talk about making her an honorary member of the Farmers’ Club, but it never got beyond talk the traditions of that exclusive body were too strong to admit her even now.

To Joanna it seemed as if life had newly and powerfully armed itself against her. Her love for Ellen was making her soft, she was letting her sister rule. And not only at home but abroad she was losing her power. Both Church and State had taken to themselves new arrogances. The Church had lost its comfortable atmosphere of Sunday beef and now the State, which hitherto had existed only for that most excellent purpose of making people behave themselves, had lifted itself up against Joanna Godden.

Lloyd George’s Finance Act had caught her in its toils, she was being overwhelmed with terrible forms and schedules, searching into her profits, making strange inquiries as to minerals, muddling her with long words. Then out of all the muddle and welter finally emerged the startling fact that the Government expected to have twenty per cent. of her profits on the sale of Donkey Street.

She was indignant and furious. She considered that the Government had been grossly treacherous, unjust, and disrespectful to poor Arthur’s memory. It was Arthur who had done so well with his land that she had been able to sell it to Honisett at such a valiant price. She had spent all the money on improvements, too she was not like some people who bought motor-cars and took trips to Paris. She had not bought a motor-car but a motor-plough, the only one in the district the Government could come and see it themselves if they liked. It was well worth looking at.

Thus she delivered herself to young Edward Huxtable, who now managed his father’s business at Rye.

“But I’m afraid it’s all fair and square, Miss Joanna,” said her lawyer “there’s no doubt about the land’s value or what you sold it for, and I don’t see that you are entitled to any exemption.”

“Why not? If I’m not entitled, who is?”

Joanna sat looking very large and flushed in the Huxtable office in Watchbell Street. She felt almost on the verge of tears, for it seemed to her that she was the victim of the grossest injustice which also involved the grossest disrespect to poor Arthur, who would turn in his grave if he knew that the Government were trying to take his legacy from her.

“What are lawyers for?” she continued hotly. “You can turn most things inside out why can’t you do this? Can’t I go to County Court about it?”

Edward Huxtable consulted the Act.... “’Notice of objection may be served on the Commissioners within sixty days. If they do not allow the objection, the petitioner may appeal to a referee under the Act, and an appeal by either the petitioner or the Commissioners lies from the referee to the High Court, or where the site value does not exceed L500, to the County Court.’ I suppose yours is worth more than L500?”

“I should just about think it is it’s worth something more like five thousand if the truth was known.”

“Well, I shouldn’t enlarge on that. Do you think it worth while to serve an objection? No doubt there are grounds on which we could appeal, but they aren’t very good, and candidly I think we’d lose. It would cost you a great deal of money, too, before you’d finished.”

“I don’t care about that. I’m not going to sit down quiet and have my rightful belongings taken from me.”

Edward Huxtable considered that he had done his duty in warning Joanna lots of lawyers wouldn’t have troubled to do that and after all the old girl had heaps of money to lose. She might as well have her fun and he his fee.

“Well, anyhow we’ll go as far as the Commissioners. If I were you, I shouldn’t apply for total exemption, but for a rebate. We might do something with allowances. Let me see, what did you sell for?"...

He finally prepared an involved case, partly depending on the death duties that had already been paid when Joanna inherited Alce’s farm, and which he said ought to be considered in calculating increment value. Joanna would not have confessed for worlds that she did not understand the grounds of her appeal, though she wished Edward Huxtable would let her make at least some reference to her steam tractor, and thus win her victory on moral grounds, instead of just through some lawyer’s mess. But, moral appeal or lawyer’s mess, her case should go to the Commissioners, and if necessary to the High Court. Just because she knew that in her own home and parish the fighting spirit was failing her, Joanna resolved to fight this battle outside it without counting the cost.

Se

That autumn she had her first twinge of rheumatism. The days of the marsh ague were over, but the dread “rheumatiz” still twisted comparatively young bones. Joanna had escaped till a later age than many, for her work lay mostly in dry kitchens and bricked yards, and she had had little personal contact with the soil, that odorous sponge of the marsh earth, rank with the soakings of sea-fogs and land-fogs.

Like most healthy people, she made a tremendous fuss once she was laid up. Mene Tekel and Mrs. Tolhurst were kept flying up and down stairs with hot bricks and poultices and that particularly noxious brew of camomile tea which she looked upon as the cure of every ill. Ellen would come now and then and sit on her bed, and wander round the room playing with Joanna’s ornaments she wore a little satisfied smile on her face, and about her was a queer air of restlessness and contentment which baffled and annoyed her sister.

The officers from Lydd did not now come so often to Ansdore. Ellen’s most constant visitor at this time was the son of the people who had taken Great Ansdore dwelling-house. Tip Ernley had just come back from Australia; he did not like colonial life and was looking round for something to do at home. He was a county cricketer, an exceedingly nice-looking young man, and his people were a good sort of people, an old West Sussex family fallen into straightened circumstances.

On his account Joanna came downstairs sooner than she ought. She could not get rid of her distrust of Ellen, the conviction that once her sister was left to herself she would be up to all sorts of mischief. Ellen had behaved impossibly once and therefore, according to Joanna, there was no guarantee that she would not go on behaving impossibly to the end of time. So she came down to play the dragon to Tip Ernley as she had played the dragon to the young lieutenants of the summer. There was not much for her to do she saw at once that the boy was different from the officers, a simple-minded creature, strong, gentle and clean-living, with deferential eyes and manners. Joanna liked him at first sight, and relented. They had tea together, and a game of three-handed bridge afterwards Ellen had taught her sister to play bridge.

Then as the evening wore on, and the mists crept up from the White Kemp Sewer to muffle the windows of Ansdore and make Joanna’s bones twinge and ache, she knew that she had come down too late. These young people had had time enough to settle their hearts’ business in a little less than a week, and Joanna God-dam could not scare them apart. Of course there was nothing to fear this fine, shy man would make no assault on Ellen Alce’s frailty, it was merely a case of Ellen Alce becoming Ellen Ernley, if he could be persuaded to overlook her “past” a matter which Joanna thought important and doubtful. But the elder sister’s heart twinged and ached as much as her bones. There was not only the thought that she might lose Ellen once more and have to go back to her lonely living ... her heart was sick to think that again love had come under her roof and had not visited her. Love ... love ... for Ellen no more for Joanna Godden. Perhaps now it was too late. She was getting on, past thirty-seven romance never came as late as that on Walland Marsh, unless occasionally to widows. Then, since it was too late, why did she so passionately long for it? Why had not her heart grown old with her years?

Se

During the next few weeks Joanna watched the young romance grow and sweeten. Ellen was becoming almost girlish again, or rather, girlish as she had never been. The curves of her mouth grew softer and her voice lost its even tones she had moments of languor and moments of a queer lightness. Great and Little Ansdore were now on very good terms, and during that winter there was an exchange of dinners and bridge. Joanna could now, as she expressed it, give a dinner-party with the best of ’em. Nothing more splendid could be imagined than Joanna Godden sitting at the head of her table, wearing her Folkestone-made gown of apricot charmeuse, adapted to her modesty by means of some rich gold lace; Ellen had induced her to bind her hair with a gold ribbon, and from her ears great gold ear-rings hung nearly to her shoulders, giving the usual barbaric touch to her stateliness. Ellen, in contrast, wore iris-tinted gowns that displayed nacreous arms and shoulders, and her hair passed in great dark shining licks over her little unadorned ears.

Joanna was annoyed because Ellen never told her anything about herself and Tip Ernley. She wanted to know in what declared relation they stood to each other. She hoped Ellen was being straight with him, as she was obviously not being straight with her. She did not think they were definitely engaged surely they would have let her know that. Perhaps he was waiting till he had found some satisfactory job and could afford to keep a wife. She told herself angrily that if only they would confide in her, she would help the young pair ... they were spoiling their own chances by keeping her out of their secrets. It never struck her that Ernley would rather not be beholden to her, whatever Ellen might feel in the matter.

His father and mother well-bred, cordial people and his maiden sister, of about Joanna’s age, never seemed to see anything remarkable in the way Ellen and Tip always went off together after dinner, while the others settled down to their bridge. It seemed to Joanna a grossly improper proceeding if they were not engaged. But all Mr. and Mrs. Ernley would say was “Quite right too it’s just as well when young people aren’t too fond of cards.” Joanna herself was growing to be quite fond of cards, though in her heart she did not think that for sheer excitement bridge was half as good as beggar-my-neighbour, which she used to play with Mene Tekel, in the old days before she and Mene both became dignified, the one as mistress, the other as maid. She enjoyed her bridge but often the game would be quite spoilt by the thought of Ellen and Tip in some secluded corner. He must be making love to her, or they wouldn’t go off alone together like that ... I go no trumps ... if they wanted just ordinary talk they could stay in here, we wouldn’t trouble them if they sat over there on the sofa ... me to play, is it?... I wonder if she lets him kiss her ... oh, I beg your pardon, I’m sure....

Joanna had no more returns of rheumatism that winter. Scared and infuriated by her one experience, she took great care of herself, and that winter was drier than usual, with crisp days of cold sunshine, and a skin of ice on the sewers. Once or twice there was a fall of snow, and even Joanna saw beauty in those days of a blue sky hanging above the dazzling white spread of the three marshes, Walland, Dunge and Romney, one huge white plain, streaked with the watercourses black under their ice, like bars of iron. Somehow the sight hurt her; all beautiful things hurt her strangely now whether it was the snow-laden marsh, or the first scents of spring in the evenings of February, or even Ellen’s face like a broad, pale flower.

She felt low-spirited and out of sorts that turn of the year. It was worse than rheumatism.... Then she suddenly conceived the idea that it was the rheumatism “driven inside her.” Joanna had heard many terrible tales of people who had perished through quite ordinary complaints, like measles, being mysteriously “driven inside.” It was a symptom of her low condition that she should worry about her health, which till then had never given her a minute’s preoccupation. She consulted “The Family Doctor,” and realized the number of diseases she might be suffering from besides suppressed rheumatics cancer, consumption, kidney disease, diabetes, appendicitis, asthma, arthritis, she seemed to have them all, and in a fit of panic decided to consult a physician in the flesh.

So she drove off to see Dr. Taylor in her smart chocolate-coloured trap, behind her chocolate-coloured mare, with her groom in chocolate-coloured livery on the seat behind her. She intended to buy a car if she won her case at the High Court for to the High Court it had gone, both the Commissioners and their referee having shown themselves blind to the claims of justice.

The doctor listened respectfully to the long list of her symptoms and to her own diagnosis of them. No, he did not think it was the rheumatism driven inside her.... He asked her a great many questions, some of which she thought indelicate.

“You’re thoroughly run down,” he said at last “been doing too much you’ve done a lot, you know.”

“Reckon I have,” said Joanna “but I’m a young woman yet” there was a slight touch of defiance in her last words.

“Oh, age has nothing to do with it. We’re liable to overwork ourselves at all ages. Overwork and worry.... What you need is a thorough rest of mind and body. I recommend a change.”

“You mean I should ought to go away?”

“Certainly.”

“But I haven’t been away for twenty year.”

“That’s just it. You’ve let yourself get into a groove. You want a thorough change of air, scene and society. I recommend that you go away to some cheerful gay watering-place, where there’s plenty going on and you’ll meet new people.”

“But what’ll become of Ansdore?”

“Surely it can get on without you for a few weeks?”

“I can’t go till the lambing’s finished.”

“When will that be?”

“Not till after Easter.”

“Well, Easter is a very good time to go away. Do take my advice about this, Miss Godden. You’ll never be really well and happy if you keep in a groove ...”

“Groove!” snorted Joanna.

Se

She was so much annoyed with him for having twice referred to Ansdore as a “groove” that at first she felt inclined not to take his advice. But even to Joanna this was unsatisfactory as a revenge “If I stay at home, maybe I’ll get worse, and then he’ll be coming over to see me in my ‘groove’ and getting eight-and-six each time for it.” It would certainly be better to go away and punish the doctor by a complete return to health. Besides, she was awed by the magnitude of the prescription. It was a great thing on the Marsh to be sent away for change of air, instead of just getting a bottle of stuff to take three times daily after meals.... She’d go, and make a splash of it.

Then the question arose where should she go? She could go to her cousins in the Isle of Wight, but they were a poor lot. She could go to Chichester, where Martha Relf, the girl who had been with her when she first took over Ansdore and had behaved so wickedly with the looker at Honeychild, now kept furnished rooms as a respectable widow. Martha, who was still grateful to Joanna, had written and asked her to come and try her accommodation.... But by no kind of process could Chichester be thought of as a “cheerful watering-place,” and Joanna was resolved to carry out her prescription to the letter.

“Why don’t you go to a really good place?” suggested Ellen “Bath or Matlock or Leamington. You could stay at a hydro, if you liked.”

But these were all too far Joanna did not want to be beyond the summons of Ansdore, which she could scarcely believe would survive her absence. Also, to her horror, she discovered that nothing would induce Ellen to accompany her.

“But I can’t go without you!” she cried dismally “it wouldn’t be seemly it wouldn’t be proper.”

“What nonsense, Jo. Surely a woman of your age can stop anywhere by herself.”

“Oh, indeed, can she, ma’am? And what about a woman of your age? It’s you I don’t like leaving alone here.”

“That’s absurd of you. I’m a married woman, and quite able to look after myself. Besides, I’ve Mrs. Tolhurst with me, and the Ernleys are quite close.”

“Oh, yes, the Ernleys!” sniffed Joanna with a toss of her head. She felt that now was a fitting opportunity for Ellen to disclose her exact relations with the family, but surprisingly her sister took no advantage of the opening thus made.

“You’d much better go alone, Joanna it won’t do you half so much good if I go with you. We’re getting on each other’s nerves, you know we are. At least I’m getting on yours. You’ll be much happier among entirely new people.”

It ended in Joanna’s taking rooms at the Palace Hotel, Marlingate. No persuasions would make her go farther off. She was convinced that neither Ansdore nor Ellen could exist, at least decorously, without her, and she must be within easy reach of both. The fortnight between the booking of her room and her setting out she spent in mingled fretfulness and swagger. She fretted about Ansdore, and nearly drove her carter and her looker frantic with her last injunctions; she fretted about Ellen, and cautioned Mrs. Tolhurst to keep a strict watch over her “She’s not to go up to late dinner at Great Ansdore without you fetch her home.” On the other hand, she swaggered tremendously about the expensive and fashionable trip she was making. Her room was on the first floor of the hotel and would cost her twelve-and-six a night. She had taken it for a week, “But I told them I’d stay a fortnight if I was satisfied, so reckon they’ll do all they can. I’ll have breakfast in bed” she added, as a climax.

Se

In spite of this, Joanna could not help feeling a little nervous and lonely when she found herself at the Palace Hotel. It was so very different from the New Inn at Romney, or the George at Rye, or any other substantial farmers’ ordinary where she ate her dinner on market days. Of course she had been to the Metropole at Folkestone whatever place Joanna visited, whether Brodnyx or Folkestone, she went to the best hotel so she was not uninitiated in the mysteries of hotel menus and lifts and hall porters, and other phenomena that alarm the simple-minded; but that was many years ago, and it was more years still since she had slept away from Ansdore, out of her own big bed with its feather mattress and flowered curtains, so unlike this narrow hotel arrangement, all box mattress and brass knobs.

The first night she lay miserably awake, wishing she had never come. She felt shy and lonely and scared and homesick. After the dead stillness of Ansdore, a stillness which brooded unbroken till dawn, which was the voice of a thick darkness, she found even this quiet seaside hotel full of disturbing noise. The hum of the ascending lift far into the night, the occasional wheels and footsteps on the parade, the restless heaving roar of the sea, all disturbed the small slumbers that her sense of alarm and strangeness would let her enjoy. She told herself she would never sleep a wink in this rackety place, and would have sought comfort in the resolution to go home the next morning, if she had not had Ellen to face, and the servants and neighbours to whom she had boasted so much.

However, when daylight came, and sunshine, and her breakfast-in-bed, with its shining dish covers and appetizing smells, she felt quite different, and ate her bacon and eggs with appetite and a thrilling sense of her own importance. The waitress, for want of a definite order, had brought her coffee, which somehow made her feel very rakish and continental, though she would have much preferred tea. When she had finished breakfast, she wrote a letter to Ellen describing all her experiences with as much fullness as was compatible with that strange inhibition which always accompanied her taking up of the pen, and distinguished her letters so remarkably from the feats of her tongue.

When she had written the letter and posted it adventurously in the hotel letter-box, she went out on the parade to listen to the band. It was Easter week, and there were still a great many people about, couples sitting round the bandstand, more deeply absorbed in each other than in the music. Joanna paid twopence for a chair, having ascertained that there were no more expensive seats to be had, and at the end of an hour felt consumedly bored. The music was bright and popular enough, but she was not musical, and soon grew tired of listening to “tunes.” Also something about the music made her feel uncomfortable the same dim yet searching discomfort she had when she looked at the young couples in the sun ... the young girls in their shady hats and silk stockings, the young men in their flannels and blazers. They were all part of a whole to which she did not belong, of which the music was part ... and the sea, and the sun, and the other visitors at the hotel, the very servants of the hotel ... and Ellen at Ansdore ... all day she was adding fresh parts to that great whole, outside which she seemed to exist alone.

“I’m getting fanciful,” she thought “this place hasn’t done me a bit of good yet.”

She devoted herself to the difficult art of filling up her day. Accustomed to having every moment occupied, she could hardly cope with the vast stretch of idle hours. After a day or two she found herself obliged to give up having breakfast in bed. From force of habit she woke every morning at five, and could not endure the long wait in her room. If the weather was fine she usually went for a walk on the sea-front, from Rock-a-Nore to the Monypenny statue. Nothing would induce her to bathe, though even at that hour and season the water was full of young men and women rather shockingly enjoying themselves and each other. After breakfast she wrote laborious letters to Broadhurst, Wilson, Mrs. Tolhurst, Ellen, Mene Tekel she had never written so many letters in her life, but every day she thought of some fresh thing that would be left undone if she did not write about it. When she had finished her letters she went out and listened respectfully to the band. The afternoon was generally given up to some excursion or charabanc drive, and the day finished rather somnolently in the lounge.

She did not get far beyond civilities with the other visitors in the hotel. More than one had spoken to her, attracted by this handsome, striking, and probably wealthy woman through Ellen’s influence her appearance had been purged of what was merely startling but they either took fright at her broad marsh accent ... “she must be somebody’s cook come into a fortune” ... or the more fundamental incompatibility of outlook kept them at a distance. Joanna was not the person for the niceties of hotel acquaintanceship she was too garrulous, too overwhelming. Also she failed to realize that all states of society are not equally interested in the price of wheat, that certain details of sheep-breeding seem indelicate to the uninitiated, and that strangers do not really care how many acres one possesses, how many servants one keeps, or the exact price one paid for one’s latest churn.

Se

The last few days of her stay brought her a rather ignominious sense of relief. In her secret heart she was eagerly waiting till she should be back at Ansdore, eating her dinner with Ellen, sleeping in her own bed, ordering about her own servants. She would enjoy, too, telling everyone about her exploits, all the excursions she had made, the food she had eaten, the fine folk she had spoken to in the lounge, the handsome amount she had spent in tips.... They would all ask her whether she felt much the better for her holiday, and she was uncertain what to answer them. A complete recovery might make her less interesting; on the other hand she did not want anyone to think she had come back half-cured because of the expense ... that was just the sort of thing Mrs. Southland would imagine, and Southland would take it straight to the Woolpack.

Her own feelings gave her no clue. Her appetite had much improved, but, against that, she was sleeping badly which she partly attributed to the “noise” and was growing, probably on account of her idle days, increasingly restless. She found it difficult to settle down to anything the hours in the hotel lounge after dinner, which used to be comfortably drowsy after the day of sea-air, were now a long stretch of boredom, from which she went up early to bed, knowing that she would not sleep. The band played on the parade every evening, but Joanna considered that it would be unseemly for her to go out alone in Marlingate after dark. Though she would have walked out on the Brodnyx road at midnight without putting the slightest strain on either her courage or her decorum, the well-lighted streets of a town became to her vaguely dangerous and indecorous after dusk had fallen. “It wouldn’t be seemly,” she repeated to herself in the loneliness and dullness of the lounge, and went desperately to bed.

However, three nights before going away she could bear it no longer. After a warm April day, a purple starry evening hung over the sea. The water itself was a deep, glaucous gray, holding strange lights besides the golden path of the moon. Beachy Head stood out purple against the fading amber of the west, in the east All Holland Hill was hung with a crown of stars, which seemed to be mirrored in the lights of the fisher-boats off Rock-a-Nore.... It was impossible to think of such an evening spent in the stuffy, lonely lounge, with heavy curtains shutting out the opal and the amethyst of night.

She had not had time to dress for dinner, having come home late from a charabanc drive to Pevensey, and the circumstance seemed slightly to mitigate the daring of a stroll. In her neat tailor-made coat and skirt and black hat with the cock’s plumes she might perhaps walk to and fro just a little in front of the hotel. She went out, and was a trifle reassured by the light which still lingered in the sky and on the sea it was not quite dark yet, and there was a respectable-looking lot of people about she recognized a lady staying in the hotel, and would have joined her, but the lady, whom she had already scared, saw her coming, and dodged off in the direction of the Marine Gardens.

The band began to play a waltz from “A Persian Princess.” Joanna felt once more in her blood the strange stir of the music she could not understand. It would be nice to dance ... queer that she had so seldom danced as a girl. She stood for a moment irresolute, then walked towards the bandstand, and sat down on one of the corporation benches, outside the crowd that had grouped round the musicians. It was very much the same sort of crowd as in the morning, but it was less covert in its ways hands were linked, even here and there waists entwined.... Such details began to stand out of the dim, purplescent mass of the twilight people ... night was the time for love. They had come out into the darkness to make love to each other their voices sounded different from in the day, more dragging, more tender....

She began to think of the times, which now seemed so far off, when she herself had sought a man’s kisses. Half-ashamed she went back to stolen meetings in a barn behind a rick in the elvish shadow of some skew-blown thorn. Just kisses ... not love, for love had been dead in her then.... But those kisses had been sweet, she remembered them, she could feel them on her lips ... oh, she could love again now she could give and take kisses now.

The band was playing a rich, thick, drawling melody, full of the purple night and the warm air. The lovers round the bandstand seemed to sway to it and draw closer to each other. Joanna looked down into her lap, for her eyes were full of tears. She regretted passionately the days that were past those light loves which had not been able to live in the shadow of Martin’s memory. Oh, why had he taught her to love and then made it impossible for her ever to love again? till it was too late, till she was a middle-aged woman to whom no man came.... It was not likely that anyone would want her now her light lovers all lived now in substantial wedlock, the well-to-do farmers who had proposed to her in the respectful way of business had now taken to themselves other wives. The young men looked to women of their own age, to Ellen’s pale, soft beauty ... once again she envied Ellen her loves, good and evil, and shame was in her heart. Then she lifted her eyes and saw Martin coming towards her.

Se

In the darkness, lit only now by the lamp-dazzled moonlight, and in the mist of her own tears, the man before her was exactly like Martin, in build, gait, colouring and expression. Her moment of recognition stood out clear, quite distinct from the realization of impossibility which afterwards engulfed it. She unclasped her hands and half rose in her seat the next minute she fell back. “Reckon I’m crazy,” she thought to herself.

Then she was startled to realize that the man had sat down beside her. Her heart beat quickly. Though she no longer confused him with Martin, the image of Martin persisted in her mind ... how wonderfully like him he was ... the very way he walked....

“I saw you give me the glad eye ...” not the way he talked, certainly.

There was a terrible silence.

“Are you going to pretend you didn’t?”

Joanna turned on him the tear-filled eyes he had considered glad. She blinked the tears out recklessly on to her cheek, and opened her mouth to reduce him to the level of the creeping things upon the earth.... But the mouth remained open and speechless. She could not look him in the face and still feel angry. Though now she would no longer have taken him for Martin, the resemblance still seemed to her startling. He had the same rich eyes with an added trifle of impudence under the same veiling, womanish lashes, the same black sweep of hair from a rather low forehead, the same graceful setting of the head, though he had not Martin’s breadth of shoulder or deceiving air of strength.

Her hesitation gave him his opportunity.

“You aren’t going to scold me, are you? I couldn’t help it.”

His unlovely, Cockney voice had in it a stroking quality. It stirred something in the depths of Joanna’s heart. Once again she tried to speak and could not.

“It’s such a lovely night just the sort of night you feel lonely, unless you’ve got someone very nice with you.”

This was terribly true.

“And you did give me the glad eye, you know.”

“I didn’t mean to.” She had found her voice at last. “I I thought you were someone else; at least I ”

“Are you expecting a friend?”

“Oh, no no one. It was a mistake.”

“Then mayn’t I stay and talk to you just for a bit. I’m here all alone, you know a fortnight’s holiday. I don’t know anyone.”

By this time he had dragged all her features out of the darkness, and saw that she was not quite what he had first taken her for. He had never thought she was a girl his taste was for maturity but he had not imagined her of the obviously well-to-do and respectable class to which she evidently belonged. He saw now that her clothes were of a fashionable cut, that she had about her a generally expensive air, and at the same time he knew enough to tell that she was not what he called a lady. He found her rather difficult to place. Perhaps she was a wealthy milliner on a holiday ... but, her accent you could lean up against it ... well, anyhow she was a damn fine woman.

“What do you think of the band?” he asked, subtly altering the tone of the conversation which he saw now had been pitched too low.

“I think it a proper fine band.”

“So it is. They’re going to play ‘The Merry Widow’ next ever seen it?”

“No, never. I was never at a play but once, which they did at the Monastery at Rye in aid of Lady Buller’s Fund when we was fighting the Boers. ‘Our Flat’ it was called, and all done by respectable people not an actor or an actress among ’em.”

What on earth had he picked up?

“Do you live at Rye?”

“I live two mile out of it Ansdore’s the name of my place Ansdore Manor, seeing as now I’ve got both Great and Little Ansdore, and the living’s in my gift. I put in a new parson last year.”

This must be a remarkable woman, unless she was telling him the tale.

“I went over to Rye on Sunday,” he said. “Quaint old place, isn’t it? Funny to think it used to be on the seashore. They say there once was a battle between the French and English fleets where it’s all dry marsh now.”

Joanna thrilled again that was like Martin, telling her things, old things about the Marsh. The conversation was certainly being conducted on very decorous lines. She began to lose the feeling of impropriety which had disturbed her at first. They sat talking about the neighbourhood, the weather, and under Joanna’s guidance the prospects of the harvest, for another ten minutes, at the end of which the band went off for their “interval.”

The cessation of the music and scattering of the crowd recalled Joanna to a sense of her position. She realized also that it was quite dark the last redeeming ray had left the sky. She stood up

“Well, I must be getting back.”

“Where are you staying?”

“The Palace Hotel.”

What ho! She must have some money.

“May I walk back with you?”

“Oh, thanks,” said Joanna “it ain’t far.”

They walked, rather awkwardly silent, the few hundred yards to the hotel. Joanna stopped and held out her hand. She suddenly realized that she did not want to say good-bye to the young man. Their acquaintanceship had been most shockingly begun Ellen must never know but she did not want it to end. She felt, somehow, that he just meant to say good-bye and go off, without any plans for another meeting. She must take action herself.

“Won’t you come and have dinner I mean lunch with me to-morrow?”

She scanned his face eagerly as she spoke. It suddenly struck her what a terrible thing it would be if he went out of her life now after having just come into it come back into it, she had almost said, for she could not rid herself of that strange sense of Martin’s return, of a second spring.

But she need not have been afraid. He was not the man to refuse his chances.

“Thanks no end I’ll be honoured.”

“Then I’ll expect you. One o’clock, and ask for Miss Godden.”

Se

Joanna had a nearly sleepless night. The torment of her mind would not allow her to rest. At times she was overwhelmed with shame at what she had done taken up with a strange man at the band, like any low servant girl on her evening out My! but she’d have given it to Mene Tekel if she dared behave so! At other times she drifted on a dark sweet river of thought ... every detail of the boy’s appearance haunted her with disturbing charm his eyes, black and soft like Martin’s his mouth which was coarser and sulkier than Martin’s, yet made her feel all disquieted ... the hair which rolled like Martin’s hair from his forehead dear hair she used to tug.... Oh, he’s the man I could love he’s my sort he’s the kind I like.... And I don’t even know his name.... But he talks like Martin knows all about old places when they were new queer he should talk about them floods.... Romney Church, you can see the marks on the pillars.... I can’t bear to think of that.... I wonder what he’ll say when he comes to-morrow? Maybe he’ll find me too old I’m ten year older than him if I’m a day.... I must dress myself up smart I’m glad I brought my purple body.... Martin liked me in the old basket hat I fed the fowls in ... but I was slimmer then.... I’m getting on now ... he won’t like me as well by daylight as he did in the dark and properly I’ll deserve it, carrying on like that. I’ve half a mind not to be in I’ll leave a polite message, saying “Miss Godden’s compliments, but she’s had to go home, owing to one of her cows having a miscarriage.” I’ll be wise to go home to-morrow reckon I ain’t fit to be trusted alone.

But a quarter to one the next day saw her in all the splendour of her “purple body,” standing before her mirror, trying to make up her mind whether to wear her big hat or her little one. The little hat was smarter and had cost more money, but the big hat put a becoming shadow over her eyes, and hid those little lines that were straying from the corners.... For the first time Joanna had begun to realize that clothes should have other qualities besides mere splendour. Hitherto she had never thought of clothes in any definite relation to herself, as enhancing, veiling, suggesting, or softening the beauty which was Joanna Godden. But to-day she chose warily her hat for shadow, her shoes for grace, her amber necklace because she must have that touch of barbarism which suited her best an unconscious process this and her amber earrings, because they matched her necklace, and because in the mirror she could see the brighter colours of her hair swinging in them. At the last minute she changed her “purple body” for one of rich chestnut-coloured silk. This was so far her best inspiration, for it toned not only with the amber beads, but with her skin and hair. As she turned to leave the room she was like a great glowing amber bead herself, all brown and gold, with rich red lights and gleams of yellow ... then just as she was going out she had her last and best inspiration of all. She suddenly went back into the room, and before the mirror tore off the swathe of cream lace she wore round her throat. The short thick column of her neck rose out of her golden blouse. She burned to her ears, but walked resolutely from the room.

Her young man was waiting for her in the lounge, and she saw his rather blank face light up when she appeared. She had been successful, then ... the realization gave her confidence, and more beauty. During the meal which followed, he re-cast a little of that opinion he had formed of her the night before. She was younger than he had thought, probably only a little over thirty, and far better looking than he had gathered from a first impression. Joanna was that rather rare type of woman who invariably looks her best in sunshine the dusk had hidden from him her really lovely colouring of skin and eyes and hair; here at her little table by the window her face seemed almost a condensation of the warm, ruddy light which poured in from the sea. Her eyes, with the queer childlike depths behind their feminine hardness, her eager mouth and splendid teeth, the scatter of freckles over her nose, all combined to hold him in a queer enchantment of youth. There was a curious, delightful freshness about her ... and she was a damn fine woman, too.

The night before he had gathered that she was of overwhelming respectability, but now he had his doubts about that also. She certainly seemed of a more oncoming disposition than he had thought, though there was something naïve and virginal about her forwardness. Her acquaintance might prove more entertaining than he had supposed. He fixed his eyes on her uncovered throat; she blushed deeply, and put her hand up.

Their talk was very much on the same lines as the night before. He discovered that she had a zest for hearing him discourse on old places she drank in all he had to say about the old days of Marlingate, when it was just a red fishing-village asleep between two hills. He told her how the new town had been built northward and westward, in the days of the great Monypenny, whose statue now stares blindly out to sea. He was a man naturally interested in topography and generally “read up” the places he visited, but he had never before found a woman who cared to listen to that sort of stuff.

After luncheon, drinking coffee in the lounge, they became more personal and intimate. He told her about himself. His name was Albert Hill his father was dead, and he lived with his mother and sister at Lewisham. He had a good position as clerk in a firm of carpet-makers. He was twenty-five years old, and doing well. Joanna became confidential in her turn. Her confidences mostly concerned the prosperity of her farm, the magnitude of its acreage, the success of this year’s lambing and last year’s harvest, but they also included a few sentimental adventures she had had ever so many offers of marriage, including one from a clergyman, and she had once been engaged to a baronet’s son.

He wondered if she was pitching him a yarn, but did not think so; if she was, she would surely do better for herself than a three hundred acre farm, and an apparently unlimited dominion over the bodies and souls of clergymen. By this time he was liking her very much, and as he understood she had only two days more at Marlingate, he asked her to go to the pier theatre with him the next evening.

Joanna accepted, feeling that she was committing herself to a desperate deed. But she was reckless now she, as well as Hill, thought of those two poor days which were all she had left. She must do something in those two days to bind him, for she knew that she could not let him go from her she knew that she loved again.

Se

She did not love as she had loved the first time. Then she had loved with a calmness and an acceptance which were impossible to her now. She had trusted fate and trusted the beloved, but now she was unsure of both. She was restless and tormented, and absorbed as she had never been in Martin. Her love consumed every other emotion, mental or physical it would not let her sleep or eat or listen to music. It kept her whole being concentrated on the new force that had disturbed it she could think of nothing but Albert Hill, and her thoughts were haggard and anxious, picturing their friendship at a standstill, failing, and lost.... Oh, she must not lose him she could not bear to lose him she must bind him somehow in the short time she had left.

There were intervals in which she became uneasily conscious of her folly. He was thirteen years younger than she it was ridiculous. She was a fool, after all the opportunities she’d had, to fall in love with a mere boy. But she knew in her heart that it was his youth she wanted most, partly because it was Martin’s youth, partly because it called to something in her which was not youth, nor yet belonged to age something which was wise, tender and possessive something which had never yet been satisfied.

Luckily she had health robust enough to endure the preyings of her mind, and did not bear her conflict on her face when Hill called for her the next evening. She had been inspired to wear the same clothes as before having once pleased, she thought perhaps she would be wise not to take any risks with the purple body, and as for an evening gown, Joanna would have felt like a bad woman in a book if she had worn one. But she was still guiltily without her collar.

He took her to a small restaurant on the sea-front, where half a dozen couples sat at little rosily lit tables. Joanna was pleased she was beginning faintly to enjoy the impropriety of her existence ... dinner in a restyrong with wine that would be something to hold in her heart against Ellen, next time that young person became superior. Joanna did not really like wine a glass of stout at her meals, or pale ale in the hot weather, was all she took as a rule but there was a subtle fascination in putting her lips to the red glass full of broken lights, and feeling the wine like fire against them, while her eyes gazed over the brim at Hill ... he gazed at her over the brim of his, and somehow when their eyes met thus over their glasses, over the red wine, it was more than when they just met across the table, in the pauses of their talk. It seemed to her that he was more lover-like to-night his words seemed to hover round her, to caress her, and she was not surprised when she felt his foot press hers under the table, though she hastily drew her own away.

After dinner, he took her on the pier. “East Lynne” was being played in the Pavilion, and they had two of the best seats. Joanna was terribly thrilled and a little shocked she was also, at the proper time, overcome with emotion. When little Willie lay dying, it was more than she could bear ... poor little chap, it made your heart ache to see him even though he was called Miss Maidie Masserene on the programme, and when not in bed stuck out in parts of his sailor suit which little boys do not usually stick out in. His poor mother, too ... the tears rolled down Joanna’s face, and her throat was speechless and swollen ... something seemed to be tugging at her heart ... she grew ashamed, almost frightened. It was a positive relief when the curtain came down, and rose again to show that little Willie had done likewise and stood bowing right and left in his night-shirt.

Still the tears would furtively trickle ... what a fool she was getting it must be the wine. My, but she had a weak head ... she must never take another glass. Then suddenly, in the darkness, she felt a hand take hers, pick it up, set it on a person’s knee ... her hand lay palm downwards on his knee, and his own lay over it she began to tremble and her heart turned to water. The tears ran on and on.

... They were outside, the cool sea wind blew over them, and in the wind was the roar of the sea. Without a word they slipped out of the stream of people heading for the pier gates, and went to the railing, where they stood looking down on the black water.

“Why are you crying, dear?” asked Hill tenderly, as his arm crept round her.

“I dunno I’m not the one to cry. But that little chap ... and his poor mother ...”

“You soft-hearted darling.” ... He held her close, in all her gracious and supple warmth, which even the fierceness of her stays could not quite keep from him. Oh, she was the dearest thing, so crude and yet so soft ... how glad he was he had not drawn back at the beginning, as he had half thought of doing ... she was the loveliest woman, adorable mature, yet unsophisticated ... she was like a quince, ripe and golden red, yet with a delicious tartness.

“Joanna,” he breathed, his mouth close to the tawny, flying anthers of her hair “Do you think you could love me?”

He felt her hair stroke his lips, as she turned her head. He saw her eyes bright with tears and passion. Then suddenly she broke from him

“I can’t I can’t ... it’s more than I can bear.”

He came after her, overtaking her just before the gate.

“Darling thing, what’s the matter? You ain’t afraid?”

“No no it isn’t that. Only I can’t bear ... beginning to feel it ... again.”

“Again?”

“Yes I told you a bit ... I can’t tell you any more.”

“But the chap’s dead.”

“Yes.”

“Hang it all, we’re alive ...” and she surrendered to his living mouth.

Se

That night she slept, and the next morning she felt calmer. Some queer, submerged struggle seemed to be over. As a matter of fact, her affair was more uncertain than ever. After Albert’s kiss, they had had no discussion and very little conversation. He had taken her back to the hotel, and had kissed her again this time on the warm, submissive mouth she lifted to him. He had said “I’ll come and see you at Ansdore I’ve got another week.” And she had said nothing. She did not know if he wanted to marry her, or even if she wanted to marry him. She did not worry about how or if she should explain him to Ellen. All her cravings and uncertainties were swallowed up in a great quiet, a strange quiet which was somehow all the turmoil of her being expressed in silence.

The next day he was true to his promise, and saw her off sitting decorously in her first-class carriage “For Ladies Only.”

“You’ll come and see me at Ansdore?” she said, as the moment of departure drew near, and he said nothing about last night’s promise.

“Do you really want me to come?”

“Reckon I do.”

“I’ll come, then.”

“Which day?”

“Say Monday, or Tuesday.”

“Come on Monday, by this train and I’ll meet you at the station in my trap. I’ve got a fine stepper.”

“Right you are. I’ll come on Monday. It’s kind of you to want me so much.”

“I do want you.”

Her warm, glowing face in the frame of the window invited him, and they kissed. Funny, thought Hill to himself, the fuss she had made at first, and she was all over him now.... But women were always like that wantons by nature and prudes by grace, and it was wonderful what a poor fight grace generally made of it.

Joanna, unaware that she had betrayed herself and womankind, leaned back comfortably in the train as it slid out of the station. She was in a happy dream, hardly aware of her surroundings. Mechanically she watched the great stucco amphitheatre of Marlingate glide past the window then the red throbbing darkness of a tunnel ... and the town was gone, like a bad dream, giving place to the tiny tilted fields and century-old hedges of the south-eastern weald. Then gradually these sloped and lost themselves in marsh first only a green tongue running into the weald along the bed of the Brede River, then spreading north and south and east and west, from the cliff-line of England’s ancient coast to the sand-line of England’s coast to-day, from the spires of the monks of Battle to the spires of the monks of Canterbury.

Joanna was roused automatically by this return to her old surroundings. She began to think of her trap waiting for her outside Rye station. She wondered if Ellen would have come to meet her. Yes, there she was on the platform ... wearing a green frock, too. She’d come out of her blacks. Joanna thrilled to a faint shock. She wondered how many other revolutions Ellen had carried out in her absence.

“Well, old Jo ...” It seemed to her that Ellen’s kiss was warmer than usual. Or was it that her own heart was so warm...?

Ellen found her remarkably silent. She had expected an outpouring of Joanna’s adventures, achievements and triumphs, combined with a desperate catechism as to just how much ruin had befallen Ansdore while she was away. Instead of which Joanna seemed for the first time in Ellen’s experience, a little dreamy. She had but little to say to Rye’s one porter, or to Peter Crouch, the groom. She climbed up on the front seat of the trap, and took the reins.

“You’re looking well,” said Ellen “I can see your change has done you good.”

“Reckon it has, my dear.”

“Were you comfortable at the hotel?”

This, if anything, should have started Joanna off, but all she said was

“It wasn’t a bad place.”

“Well, if you don’t want to talk about your own affairs,” said Ellen to herself “you can listen to mine, for a change. Joanna,” she added aloud “I came to meet you, because I’ve got something special to tell you.”

“What’s that?”

“Perhaps you can guess.”

Joanna dreamily shook her head.

“Well, I’m thinking of getting married again.”

“Married!”

“Yes it’s eighteen months since poor Arthur died,” sighed the devoted widow, “and perhaps you’ve noticed Tip Ernley’s been getting very fond of me.”

“Yes, I had noticed.... I was wondering why you didn’t tell.”

“There was nothing to tell. He couldn’t propose to me till he had something definite to do. Now he’s just been offered the post of agent on the Duke of Wiltshire’s estate a perfectly splendid position. Of course, I told him all about my first marriage” she glanced challengingly at her sister “but he’s a perfect dear, and he saw at once I’d been more sinned against than sinning. We’re going to be married this summer.”

“I’m unaccountable glad.”

Ellen gave her a queer look.

“You take it very calmly, Jo.”

“Well, I’d been expecting it all along.”

“You won’t mind my going away and leaving you?”

“Reckon you’ll have to go where your husband goes.”

“What on earth’s happened?” thought Ellen to herself “She’s positively meek.”

The next minute she knew.

“Ellen,” said Joanna, as they swung into the Straight Mile, “I’ve got a friend coming to spend the day on Monday a Mr. Hill that I met in Marlingate.”

Se

For the next few days Joanna was restless and nervous; she could not be busy with Ansdore, even after a fortnight’s absence. The truth in her heart was that she found Ansdore rather flat. Wilson’s pride in the growth of the young lambs, Broadhurst’s anxiety about Spot’s calving and his preoccupation with the Suffolk dray-horse Joanna was to buy at Ashford fair that year, all seemed irrelevant to the main purpose of life. The main stream of her life had suddenly been turned underground it ran under Ansdore’s wide innings on Monday it would come again to the surface, and take her away from Ansdore.

The outward events of Monday were not exciting. Joanna drove into Rye with Peter Crouch behind her, and met Albert Hill with a decorous handshake on the platform. During the drive home, and indeed during most of his visit, his attitude towards her was scarcely more than ordinary friendship. In the afternoon, when Ellen had gone out with Tip Ernley, he gave her a few kisses, but without much passion. She began to feel disquieted. Had he changed? Was there someone else he liked? At all costs she must hold him she must not let him go.

The truth was that Hill felt uncertain how he stood he was bewildered in his mind. What was she driving at? Surely she did not think of marriage the difference in their ages was far too great. But what else could she be thinking of? He gathered that she was invincibly respectable and yet he was not sure.... In spite of her decorum, she had queer, unguarded ways. He had met no one exactly like her, though he was a man of wide and not very edifying experience. The tactics which had started his friendship with Joanna he had learned at the shorthand and typewriting college where he had learned his clerking job and they had brought him a rummage of adventures, some transient, some sticky, some dirty, some glamorous. He had met girls of a fairly good class for his looks caused much to be forgiven him as well as the typists, shop-girls and waitresses of his more usual association. But he had never met anyone quite like Joanna so simple yet so swaggering, so solid yet so ardent, so rigid yet so unguarded, so superior and yet, he told himself, so lacking in refinement. She attracted him enormously ... but he was not the sort of man to waste his time.

“When do you go back to London?” she asked.

“Wednesday morning.”

She sighed deeply, leaning against him on the sofa.

“Is this all the holiday you’ll get this year?”

“No I’ve Whitsun coming Friday to Tuesday. I might run down to
Marlingate ...”

He watched her carefully.

“Oh, that ’ud be fine. You’d come and see me here?”

“Of course if you asked me?”

“If I asked you,” she repeated in a sudden, trembling scorn.

Her head drooped to his breast, and he took her in his arms, holding her across him all her magnificent weight upon his knees. Oh, she was a lovely creature ... as he kissed her firm, shy mouth it seemed to him as if her whole body was a challenge. A queer kind of antagonism seized him prude or rake, she should get her lesson from him all right.

Se

When he had gone Joanna said to Ellen

“D’you think it would be seemly if I asked Mr. Hill here to stay?”

“Of course it would be ‘seemly,’ Jo. I’m a married woman. But would he be able to come? He’s in business somewhere, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but he could get away for Whitsun.”

“Then ask him by all means. But ...”

She looked at her quickly and teasingly.

“But what?”

“Jo, do you care about this man?”

“What d’you mean? Why should I care? Or, leastways, why shouldn’t I?”

“No reason at all. He’s a good bit younger than you are, but then I always fancied that if you married it ud be a man younger than yourself.”

“Who said I was going to marry him?”

“No one. But if you care ...”

“I never said I did.”

“Oh, you’re impossible,” said Ellen with a little shrug. She picked up a book from the table, but Joanna could not let the conversation drop.

“What d’you think of Mr. Hill, Ellen? Does he remind you of anyone particular?”

“No, not at the moment.”

“Hasn’t it ever struck you he’s a bit like my Martin Trevor?”

Her tongue no longer stammered at the name.

“Your Martin Trevor! Jo, what nonsense, he’s not a bit like him.”

“He’s the living image the way his hair grows out of his forehead, and his dark, saucy eyes ...”

“Well, I was only a little girl when you were engaged to Martin Trevor, but as I remember him he was quite different from Mr. Hill. He belonged to another class, for one thing.... He was a gentleman.”

“And you think Mr. Hill ain’t a gentleman?”

“My dear Joanna! Of course he’s not he doesn’t profess to be.”

“He’s got a good position as a clerk. Some clerks are gentlemen.”

“But this one isn’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I happen to be engaged to someone who is.”

“That ain’t any reason for miscalling my friends.”

“I’m not ‘miscalling’ anyone.... Oh, hang it all, Jo, don’t let’s quarrel about men at our time of life. I’m sorry if I said anything you don’t like about Mr. Hill. Of course, I don’t know him as well as you do.”

Se

So Joanna wrote to Albert Hill in her big, cramped handwriting, on the expensive yet unostentatious note-paper which Ellen had decreed, inviting him to come and spend Whitsuntide at Ansdore.

His answer did not come for three or four days, during which, as he meant she should, she suffered many doubts and anxieties. Was he coming? Did he care for her? Or had he just been fooling? She had never felt like this about a man before. She had loved, but love had never held her in the same bondage perhaps because till now she had always had certainties. Her affair with Martin, her only real love affair, had been a certainty, Arthur Alce’s devotion had been a most faithful certainty, the men who had comforted her bereavement had also in their different ways been certainties. Albert Hill was the only man who had ever eluded her, played with her or vexed her. She knew that she attracted him, but she also guessed dimly that he feared to bind himself. As for her, she was now determined. She loved him and must marry him. Characteristically she had swept aside the drawbacks of their different ages and circumstances, and saw nothing but the man she loved the man who was for her the return of first love, youth and spring. A common little tawdry-minded clerk some might have called him, but to Joanna he was all things fulfilment, lover and child, and also a Sign and a Second Coming.

She could think of nothing else. Once again Ansdore was failing her, as it always failed her in any crisis of emotion Ansdore could never be big enough to fill her heart. But she valued it because of the consequence it must give her in young Hill’s eyes, and she was impressed by the idea that her own extra age and importance gave her the rights of approach normally belonging to the man.... Queens always invited their consorts to share their thrones, and she was a queen, opening her gates to the man she loved. There could be no question of her leaving her house for his he was only a little clerk earning two pounds a week, and she was Squire of the Manor. Possibly this very fact made him hesitate, fear to presume.... Well, she must show him he was wrong, and this Whitsuntide was her opportunity. But she wished that she could feel more queenly in her mind less abject, craving and troubled. In outward circumstances she was his queen, but in her heart she was his slave.

She plunged into an orgy of preparation. Mrs. Tolhurst and Mene Tekel and the new girl from Windpumps who now reinforced the household were nearly driven off their legs. Ellen spared the wretched man much in the way of feather-beds just one down mattress would be enough, town people weren’t used to sleeping on feathers. She also chastened the scheme of decoration, and substituted fresh flowers for the pampas grasses which Joanna thought the noblest adornment possible for a spare bedroom. On the whole Ellen behaved very well about Albert Hill she worked her best to give him a favourable impression of Ansdore as a household, and when he came she saw that he and her sister were as much alone together as possible.

“He isn’t at all the sort of brother-in-law I’d like you to have, my dear,” she said to Tip, “but if you’d seen some of the men Joanna’s taken up with you’d realize it might have been much worse. I’m told she once had a most hectic romance with her own shepherd ... she’s frightfully impressionable, you know.”

“Is she really?” said Tip in his slow, well-bred voice. “I shouldn’t have thought that.”

“No, because dear old Jo! it’s so funny she’s quite without art. But she’s always been frightfully keen on men, though she never could attract the right sort; and for some reason or other to do with the farm, I suppose she’s never been keen on marriage. Now lately I’ve been thinking she really ought to marry lately she’s been getting quite queer detraquee and I do think she ought to settle down.”

“But Hill’s much younger than she is.”

“Joanna would never care for anyone older. She’s always liked boys it’s because she wants to be sure of being boss, I suppose. I know for a fact she’s turned down nearly half a dozen good, respectable, well-to-do farmers of her own age or older than herself. And yet I’ve sometimes felt nervous about her and Peter Crouch, the groom.... Oh, I tell you, Jo’s queer, and I’ll be thankful if she marries Bertie Hill, even though he is off the mark. After all, Tip” and Ellen looked charming “Jo and I aren’t real ladies, you know.”

Se

Albert was able to get off on the Friday afternoon, and arrived at Ansdore in time for the splendours of late dinner and a bath in the new bathroom. There was no doubt about it, thought he, that he was on a good thing, whichever way it ended. She must have pots of money ... everything of the very best ... and her sister marrying no end of a swell Ernley, who played for Sussex, and was obviously top-notch in every other way. Perhaps he wouldn’t be such a fool, after all, if he married her. He would be a country gentleman with plenty of money and a horse to ride better than living single till, with luck, he got a rise, and married inevitably one of his female acquaintances, to live in the suburbs on three hundred a year.... And she was such a splendid creature otherwise he would not have thought of it but in attraction she could give points to any girl, and her beauty, having flowered late, would probably last a good while longer....

But . That night as he sat at his bedroom window, smoking a succession of Gold Flake cigarettes, he saw many other aspects of the situation. The deadly quiet of Ansdore in the night, with all the blackness of the Marsh waiting for the unrisen moon, was to him a symbol of what his life would be if he married Joanna. He would perish if he got stuck in a hole like this, and yet he thus far acknowledged her queenship he could never ask her to come out of it. He could not picture her living in streets she wouldn’t fit but then, neither would he fit down here. He liked streets and gaiety and noise and picture-palaces.... If she’d been younger he might have risked it, but at her age thirteen years older than he (she had told him her age in an expansive moment) it was really impossible. But, damn it all! She was gorgeous and he’d rather have her than any younger woman. He couldn’t make her out she must see the folly of marriage as well as he ... then why was she encouraging him like this? Leading him on into an impossible situation? Gradually he was drifting back into his first queer moment of antagonism he felt urged to conquest, not merely for the gratification of his vanity nor even for the attainment of his desire, but for the satisfaction of seeing her humbled, all her pride and glow and glory at his feet, like a tiger-lily in the dust.

The next day Joanna drove him into Lydd, and in the afternoon took him inland, to Ruckinge and Warehorne. These drives were another reconstruction of her life with Martin, though now she no longer loved Albert only in his second-coming aspect. She loved him passionately and childishly for himself the free spring of his hair from his forehead, not merely because it had also been Martin’s but because it was his the impudence as well as the softness of his eyes, the sulkiness as well as the sensitiveness of his mouth, the unlike as well as the like. She loved his quick, Cockney accent, his Cockney oaths when he forgot himself the way he always said “Yeyss” instead of “Yes” his little assumptions of vanity in socks and tie. She loved a queer blend of Albert and Martin, the real and the imaginary, substance and dream.

As for him, he was enjoying himself. Driving about the country with a fine woman like Joanna, with privileges continually on the increase, was satisfactory even if no more than an interlude. “Where shall we go to-morrow?” he asked her, as they sat in the parlour after dinner, leaving the garden to Ellen and Tip.

“To-morrow? Why, that’s Sunday.”

“But can’t we go anywhere on Sunday?”

“To church, of course.”

“But won’t you take me out for another lovely drive? I was hoping we could go out all day to-morrow. It’s going to be ever so fine.”

“Maybe, but I was brought up to go to church on Sundays, and on Whit Sunday of all other Sundays.”

“But this Sunday’s going to be different from all other Sundays and from all other Whit Sundays....”

He looked at her meaningly out of his bold, melting eyes, and she surrendered. She could not deny him in this matter any more than in most others.... She could not disappoint him any more than she could disappoint a child. He should have his drive she would take him over to New Romney, even though it was written “Neither thou nor thine ox nor thine ass nor the stranger that is within thy gates.”

Se

So the next morning when Brodnyx bells were ringing in the east she drove off through Pedlinge on her way to Broomhill level. She felt rather uneasy and ashamed, especially when she passed the church-going people. It was the first time in her life that she had voluntarily missed going to church for hundreds of Sundays she had walked along that flat white lick of road, her big Prayer Book in her hand, and had gone under that ancient porch to kneel in her huge cattle-pen pew with its abounding hassocks. Even the removal of the Lion and the Unicorn, and the transformation of her comfortable, Established religion into a disquieting mystery had not made her allegiance falter. She still loved Brodnyx church, even now when hassocks were no longer its chief ecclesiastical ornament. She thought regretfully of her empty place and shamefully of her neighbours’ comments on it.

It was a sunless day, with grey clouds hanging over a dull green marsh, streaked with channels of green water. The air was still and heavy with the scent of may and meadowsweet and ripening hayseed. They drove as far as the edges of Dunge Marsh, then turned eastward along the shingle road which runs across the root of the Ness to Lydd. The little mare’s chocolate flanks were all a-sweat, and Joanna thought it better to bait at Lydd and rest during the heat of the day.

“You’d never think it was Whitsun,” said Albert, looking out of the inn window at the sunny, empty street. “You don’t seem to get much of a crowd down here. Rum old place, ain’t it?”

Already Joanna was beginning to notice a difference between his outlook and Martin’s.

“What d’you do with yourself out here all day?” he continued.

“I’ve plenty to do.”

“Well, it seems to agree with you I never saw anyone look finer. You’re reelly a wonder, old thing.”

He picked up the large hand lying on the table-cloth and kissed it back and palm. From any other man, even from Martin himself, she would have received the caress quite simply, been proud and contented, but now it brought her into a strange trouble. She leaned towards him, falling upon his shoulder, her face against his neck. She wanted his kisses, and he gave them to her.

At about three o’clock they set out again. The sun was high now, but the air was cooler, for it had lost its stillness and blew in rippling gusts from the sea. Joanna resolved not to go on to New Romney, as they had waited too long at Lydd; so she took the road that goes to Ivychurch, past Midley chapel, one of the ruined shrines of the monks of Canterbury grey walls huddled against a white tower of hawthorn in which the voices of the birds tinkled like little bells.

She was now beginning to feel more happy and self-confident but she was still preoccupied, though with a new situation. They had now been alone together for five hours, and Albert had not said a word about the marriage on which her hopes were set. Her ideas as to her own right of initiative had undergone a change. He was in all matters of love so infinitely more experienced than she was that she could no longer imagine herself taking the lead. Hitherto she had considered herself as experienced and capable in love as in other things had she not been engaged for five months? Had she not received at least half a dozen offers of marriage? But Albert had “learned her different.” His sure, almost careless, touch abashed her, and the occasional fragments of autobiography which he let fall, showed her that she was a limited and ignorant recluse compared to this boy of twenty-five. In matters of money and achievement she might brag, but in matters of love she was strangely subservient to him, because in such matters he had everything to teach her.

They stopped for tea at Ivychurch; the little inn and the big church beside the New Sewer were hazed over in a cloud of floating sunshine and dust. She had been here before with Martin, and after tea she and Albert went into the church and looked around them. But his interest in old places was not the same as Martin’s. He called things “quaint” and “rummy,” and quoted anything he had read about them in the guide-book, but he could not make them come alive in a strange re-born youth he could not make her feel the beauty of the great sea on which the French ships had ridden, or the splendours of the Marsh before the Flood, with all its towns and taverns and steeples. Unconsciously she missed this appeal to her sleeping imagination, and her bringing of him into the great church, which could have held an the village in its aisles, was an effort to supply what was lacking.

But Albert’s attitude towards the church was critical and unsatisfactory. It was much too big for the village. It was ridiculous ... that little clump of chairs in all the huge emptiness ... what a waste of money, paying a parson to idle away his time among a dozen people.... “How Dreadful is this Place” ran the painted legend over the arches.... Joanna trembled.

They came out on the farther side of the churchyard, where a little path leads away into the hawthorns of the New Sewer. A faint sunshine was spotting it through the branches, and suddenly Joanna’s heart grew warm and heavy with love. She wanted some sheltered corner where she could hold his hand, feel his rough coat-sleeve against her cheek or, dearer still, carry his head on her bosom, that heavenly weight of a man’s head, with the coarse, springing hair to pull and stroke.... She put her arm into his.

“Bertie, let’s go and sit over there in the shade.”

He smiled at the innocence of her contrivance.

“Shall we?” he said, teasing her “won’t it make us late for dinner?”

“We don’t have dinner on Sundays we have supper at eight, so as to let the gals go to church.”

Her eyes looked, serious and troubled, into his. He pressed her hand.

“You darling thing.”

They moved away out of the shadow of the church, following the little path down to the channel’s bank. The water was of a clear, limpid green, new-flushed with the tide, with a faint stickle moving down it, carrying the white, fallen petals of the may. The banks were rich with loosestrife and meadowsweet, and as they walked on, the arching of hawthorn and willow made of the stream and the path beside it a little tunnel of shade and scent.

The distant farmyard sounds which spoke of Ivychurch behind them gradually faded into a thick silence.

Joanna could feel Bertie leaning against her as they walked, he was playing with her hand, locking and unlocking her fingers with his. Weren’t men queer ... the sudden way they melted at a touch? Martin had been like that losing his funny sulks.... And now Bertie was just the same. She felt convinced that in one moment ... in two ... he would ask her to be his wife....

“Let’s sit down for a bit,” she suggested.

They sat down by the water side, crushing the meadowsweet till its sickliness grew almost fierce with bruising. She sidled into his arms, and her own crept round him. “Bertie ...” she whispered. Her heart was throbbing quickly, and, as it were, very high in her throat choking her. She began to tremble. Looking up she saw his eyes above her, gazing down at her out of a mist everything seemed misty, trees and sky and sunshine and his dear face.... She was holding him very tight, so tight that she could feel his collar-bones bruising her arms. He was kissing her now, and his kisses were like blows. She suddenly became afraid, and struggled.

“Jo, Jo don’t be a fool don’t put me off, now ... you can’t, I tell you.”

But she had come to herself.

“No let me go. I ... it’s late I’ve got to go home.”

She was strong enough to push him from her, and scrambled to her feet. They both stood facing each other in the trodden streamside flowers.

“I beg your pardon,” he said at last.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter.”

She was ashamed.

Se

She was frightened, too never in her life had she imagined that she could drift so far as she had drifted in those few seconds. She was still trembling as she led the way back to the church. She could hear him treading after her, and as she thought of him her heart smote her. She felt as if she had hurt him oh, what had she done to him? What had she denied him? What had she given him to think?

As they climbed into the trap she could tell that he was sulking. He looked at her half-defiantly from under his long lashes, and the corners of his mouth were turned down like a child’s. The drive home was constrained and nearly silent. Joanna tried to talk about the grazings they had broken at Yokes Court, in imitation of her own successful grain-growing, about her Appeal to the High Court which was to be heard that summer, and the motor-car she would buy if it was successful but it was obvious that they were both thinking of something else. For the last part of the drive, from Brodnyx to Ansdore, neither of them spoke a word.

The sunset was scattering the clouds ahead and filling the spaces with lakes of gold. The dykes turned to gold, and a golden film lay over the pastures and the reeds. The sun wheeled slowly north, and a huge, shadowy horse and trap began to run beside them along the embankment of the White Kemp Sewer. They turned up Ansdore’s drive, now neatly gravelled and gated, and a flood of light burst over the gables of the house, pouring on Joanna as she climbed down over the wheel. She required no help, and he knew it, but she felt his hands pressing her waist; she started away, and she saw him laugh mocking her. She nearly cried.

The rest of that evening was awkward and unhappy. She had a vague feeling in her heart that she had treated Albert badly, and yet ... the strange thing was that she shrank from an explanation. It had always been her habit to “have things out” on all occasions, and many a misunderstanding had been strengthened thereby. But to-night she could not bear the thought of being left alone with Albert. For one thing, she was curiously vague as to the situation was she to blame or was he? Had she gone too far or not far enough? What was the matter, after all? There was nothing to lay hold of.... Joanna was unused to this nebulous state of mind; it made her head ache, and she was glad when the time came to go to bed.

With a blessed sense of relief she felt the whitewashed thickness of her bedroom walls between her and the rest of the house. She did not trouble to light her candle. Her room was in darkness, except for one splash of light reflected from her mirror which held the moon. She went over to the window and looked out. The marsh swam in a yellow, misty lake of moonlight. There was a strange air of unsubstantiality about it the earth was not the solid earth, the watercourses were moonlight rather than water, the light was water rather than light, the trees were shadows....

“Ah-h-h,” said Joanna Godden.

She lifted her arms to her head with a gesture of weariness as she took out the pins her hair fell on her shoulders in great hanks and masses, golden and unsubstantial as the moon.

Slowly and draggingly she began to unfasten her clothes they fell off her, and lay like a pool round her feet. She plunged into her stiff cotton nightgown, buttoning it at neck and wrists. Then she knelt by her bed and said her prayers the same prayers that she had said ever since she was five.

The moonlight was coming straight into the room showing its familiar corners. There was no trace of Ellen in this room nothing that was “artistic” or “in good taste.” A lively pattern covered everything that could be so covered, but Joanna’s sentimental love of old associations had spared the original furniture the wide feather bed, the oaken chest of drawers, the wash-stand which was just a great chest covered with a towel. Over her bed hung Poor Father’s Buffalo Certificate, the cherished symbol of all that was solid and prosperous and reputable in life.

She lay in bed. After she got in she realized that she had forgotten to plait her hair, but she felt too languid for the effort. Her hair spread round her on the pillow like a reproach. For some mysterious reason her tears began to fall. Her life seemed to reproach her. She saw all her life stretching behind her for a moment the moment when she had stood before Socknersh her shepherd, seeing him dark against the sky, between the sun and moon. That was when Men, properly speaking, had begun for her and it was fifteen years since then and where was she now? Still at Ansdore, still without her man.

Albert had not asked her to marry him, nor, she felt desperately, did he mean to. If he did, he would surely have spoken to-day. And now besides, he was angry with her, disappointed, estranged. She had upset him by turning cold like that all of a sudden.... But what was she saying? Why, of course she had been quite right. She should ought to have been cold from the start. That was her mistake letting the thing start when it could have no seemly ending ... a boy like that, nearly young enough to be her son ... and yet she had been unable to deny him, she had let him kiss her and court her make love to her.... Worse than that, she had made love to him, thrown herself at him, pursued him with her love, refused to let him go ... and all the other things she had done changing for his sake from her decent ways ... breaking the Sabbath, taking off her neck-band. She had been getting irreligious and immodest, and now she was unhappy, and it served her right.

The house was quite still; everyone had gone to bed, and the moon filled the middle of the window, splashing the bed, and Joanna in it, and the walls, and the sagging beams of the ceiling. She thought of getting up to pull down the blind, but had no more energy to do that than to bind her hair. She wanted desperately to go to sleep. She lay on her side, her head burrowed down into the pillow, her hands clenched under her chin. Her bed was next the door, and beyond the door, against the wall at right angles to it, was her chest of drawers, with Martin’s photograph in its black frame, and the photograph of his tombstone in a frame with a lily worked on it. Her eyes strained towards them in the darkness ... oh, Martin Martin, why did I ever forget you?... But I never forgot you ... Martin, I’ve never had my man.... I’ve got money, two farms, lovely clothes I’m just as good as a lady ... but I’ve never had my man.... Seemingly I’ll go down into the grave without him ... but, oh, I do want ... the thing I was born for....

Sobs shook her broad shoulders as she lay there in the moonlight. But they did not relieve her her sobs ploughed deep into her soul ... they turned strange furrows.... Oh, she was a bad woman, who deserved no happiness. She’d always known it.

She lifted her head, straining her eyes through the darkness and tears to gaze at Martin’s photograph as if it were the Serpent in the Wilderness. Perhaps all this had come upon her because she had been untrue to his memory and yet what had so appealed to her about Bertie was that he was like Martin, though Ellen said he wasn’t well, perhaps he wasn’t.... But what was happening now? Something had come between her and the photograph on the chest of drawers. With a sudden chill at her heart, she realized that it was the door opening.

“Who’s there?” she cried in a hoarse angry whisper.

“Don’t be frightened, dear don’t be frightened, my sweet Jo ” said Bertie Hill.

Se

She could not think she could only feel. It was morning that white light was morning, though it was like the moon. Under it the Marsh lay like a land under the sea it must have looked like this when the keels of the French boats swam over it, high above Ansdore, and Brodnyx, and Pedlinge, lying like red apples far beneath, at the bottom of the sea. That was nonsense ... but she could not think this morning, she could only feel.

He had not been gone an hour, but she must find him. She must be with him just feel him near her. She must see his head against the window, hear the heavy, slow sounds of his moving. She slipped on her clothes and twisted up her hair, and went down into the empty, stir-less house. No one was about even her own people were in bed. The sun was not yet up, but the white dawn was pouring into the house, through the windows, through the chinks. Joanna stood in the midst of it. Then she opened the door and went out into the yard, which was a pool of cold light, ringed round with barns and buildings and reed-thatched haystacks. It was queer how this cold, still, trembling dawn hurt her seemed to flow into her, to be part of herself, and yet to wound.... She had never felt like this before she could never have imagined that love would make her feel like this, would make her see beauty in her forsaken yard at dawn not only see but feel that beauty, physically, as pain. Her heart wounded her her knees were failing she went back into the house.

A wooden chair stood in the passage outside the kitchen door, and she sat down on it. She was still unable to think, and she knew now that she did not want to think it might make her afraid. She wanted only to remember.... He had called her the loveliest, sweetest, most beautiful woman in the world.... She repeated his words over and over again, calling up the look with which he had said them ... oh, those eyes of his slanty, saucy, secret, loving eyes....

She wondered why he did not come down. She could not imagine that he had turned into bed and gone to sleep that he did not know she was sitting here waiting for him in the dawn. For a moment she thought of going up and knocking at his door then she heard a thud of footsteps and creaking of boards, which announced that Mene Tekel and Nan Gregory of Windpumps were stirring in their bedroom. In an incredibly short time they were coming downstairs, tying apron-strings and screwing up hair as they went, and making a terrific stump past the door behind which they imagined their mistress was in bed. It was a great shock to them to find that she was downstairs before them they weren’t more than five minutes late.

“Hurry up, gals,” said Joanna, “and get that kettle boiling for the men. I hear Broadhurst about the yard. Mene Tekel, see as there’s no clinkers left in the grate; Mrs. Alce never got her bath yesterday evening before dinner as she expects it. When did you do the flues last?”

She set her household about its business her dreams could not live in the atmosphere of antagonistic suspicion in which she had always viewed the younger members of her own sex. She was firmly convinced that neither Nan nor Mene would do a stroke of work if she was not “at them”; the same opinion applied in a lesser degree to the men in the yard. So till Ansdore’s early breakfast appeared amid much hustling and scolding, Joanna had no time to think about her lover, or continue the dreams so strangely and gloriously begun in the sunless dawn.

Bertie was late for breakfast, and came down apologising for having overslept himself. But he had a warm, sleepy, rumpled look about him which made her forgive him. He was like a little boy her little boy ... she dropped her eyelids over her tears.

After breakfast, as soon as they were alone, she stole into his arms and held close to him, without embrace, her hands just clasped over her breast on which her chin had fallen. He tried to raise her burning, blushing face, but she turned it to his shoulder.

Se

Albert Hill went back to London on Tuesday, but he came down again the following week-end, and the next, and the next, and then his engagement to Joanna was made public.

In this respect the trick was hers. The affair had ended in a committal which he had not expected, but his own victory was too substantial for him to regret any development of it to her advantage. Besides, he had seen the impossibility of conducting the affair on any other lines, both on account of the circumstances in which she lived and of her passionate distress when she realized that he did not consider marriage an inevitable consequence of their relation. It was his only way of keeping her and he could not let her go. She was adorable, and the years between them meant nothing her beauty had wiped them out. He could think of her only as the ageless woman he loved, who shared the passion of his own youth and in it was for ever young.

On the practical side, too, he was better reconciled. He felt a pang of regret when he thought of London and its work and pleasures, of his chances of a “rise” which his superiors had hinted was now imminent of a head clerkship, perhaps eventually of a partnership and a tight marriage into the business since his Whitsuntide visit to Ansdore he had met the junior partner’s daughter and found her as susceptible to his charms as most young women. But after all, his position as Joanna Godden’s husband would be better even than that of a partner in the firm of Sherwood and Son. What was Sherwood’s but a firm of carpet-makers? a small firm of carpet-makers. As Joanna’s husband he would be a Country Gentleman, perhaps even a County Gentleman. He saw himself going out with his gun ... following the hounds in a pink coat.... He forgot that he could neither shoot nor ride.

Meantime his position as Joanna’s lover was not an unenviable one. She adored him and spoiled him like a child. She poured gifts upon him a gold wrist-watch, a real panama hat, silk socks in gorgeous colours, boxes and boxes of the best Turkish and Egyptian cigarettes she could not give him enough to show her love and delight in him.

At first he had been a little embarrassed by this outpouring, but he was used to receiving presents from women, and he knew that Joanna had plenty of money to spend and really got as much pleasure out of her gifts as he did. They atoned for the poverty of her letters. She was no letter-writer. Her feelings were as cramped as her handwriting by the time she had got them down on paper; indeed, Joanna herself was wondrously expressed in that big, unformed, constricted handwriting, black yet uncertain, sprawling yet constrained, in which she recorded such facts as “Dot has calved at last,” or “Broadhurst will be 61 come Monday,” or as an utmost concession “I love you, dear.”

However, too great a strain was not put on this frail link, for he came down to Ansdore almost every week-end, from Saturday afternoon to early Monday morning. He tried to persuade her to come up to London and stay at his mother’s house he had vague hopes that perhaps an experience of London might persuade her to settle there (she could afford a fine house over at Blackheath, or even in town itself, if she chose). But Joanna had a solid prejudice against London the utmost she would consent to was a promise to come up and stay with Albert’s mother when her appeal was heard at the High Court at the beginning of August. Edward Huxtable had done his best to convince her that her presence was unnecessary, but she did not trust either him or the excellent counsel he had engaged. She had made up her mind to attend in person, and look after him properly.

Se

The attitude of Brodnyx and Pedlinge towards this new crisis in Joanna Godden’s life was at first uncertain. The first impression was that she had suddenly taken fright at the prospect of old-maidenhood, and had grabbed the first man she could get, even though he was young enough to be her son.

“He ain’t twenty-one till Michaelmas,” said Vine at the Woolpack.

“She’s always liked ’em young,” said Furnese.

“Well, if she’d married Arthur Alce when she fust had the chance, instead of hanging around and wasting time the way she’s done, by now she could have had a man of her intended’s age for a son instead of a husband.”

“Reckon it wouldn’t have been the same thing.”

“No it would have been a better thing,” said Vine.

When it became known that Joanna’s motive was not despair but love, public opinion turned against her, Albert’s manner among the Marsh people was unfortunate. In his mind he had always stressed his bride’s connexions through Ellen the Ernleys, a fine old county family; he found it very satisfying to slap Tip Ernley on the back and call him “Olé man.” He had deliberately shut his eyes to the other side of her acquaintance, those Marsh families, the Southlands, Furneses, Vines, Cobbs and Bateses, to whom she was bound by far stronger, older ties than any which held her to Great Ansdore. He treated these people as her and his inferiors unlike Martin Trevor, he would not submit to being driven round and shown off to Misleham, Picknye Bush, or Slinches.... It was small wonder that respectable families became indignant at such airs.

“What does he think himself, I’d like to know? He’s nothing but a clerk such as I’d never see my boy.”

“And soon he won’t be even that he’ll just be living on Joanna.”

“She’s going to keep him at Ansdore?”

“Surelye. She’ll never move out now.”

“But what’s she want to marry for, at her age, and a boy like that?”

“She’s getting an old fool, I reckon.”

Se

The date of the wedding was not yet fixed, though September was spoken of rather vaguely, and this time the hesitation came from the bridegroom. As on the occasion of her first engagement Joanna had made difficulties with the shearing and hay-making, so now Albert contrived and shifted in his anxiety to fit in his marriage with other plans.

He had, it appeared, as far back as last Christmas, arranged for a week’s tour in August with the Polytechnic to Lovely Lucerne. In vain Joanna promised him a liberal allowance of “Foreign Parts” for their honeymoon Bertie’s little soul hankered after the Polytechnic, his pals who were going with him, and the kindred spirits he would meet at the chalets. Going on his honeymoon as Joanna Godden’s husband was a different matter and could not take the place of such an excursion.

Joanna did not press him. She was terribly afraid of scaring him off. It had occurred to her more than once that his bonds held him far more lightly than she was held by hers. And the prospect of marriage was now an absolute necessity if she was to endure her memories. Marriage alone could hallow and remake Joanna Godden. Sometimes, as love became less of a drug and a bewilderment, her thoughts awoke, and she would be overwhelmed by an almost incredulous horror at herself. Could this be Joanna Godden, who had turned away her dairy-girl for loose behaviour, who had been so shocked at the adventures of her sister Ellen? She could never be shocked at anyone again, seeing that she herself was just as bad and worse than anyone she knew.... Oh, life was queer there was no denying. It took you by surprise in a way you’d never think it made you do things so different from your proper notions that afterwards you could hardly believe it was you that had done them it gave you joy that should ought to have been sorrow ... and pain as you’d never think.

As the summer passed and the time for her visit to town drew near, Joanna began to grow nervous and restless. She did not like the idea of going to a place like London, though she dared not confess her fears to the travelled Ellen or the metropolitan Bertie. She felt vaguely that “no good would come of it” she had lived thirty-eight years without setting foot in London, and it seemed like tempting Providence to go there now....

However she resigned herself to the journey indeed, when the time came she undertook it more carelessly than she had undertaken the venture of Marlingate. Her one thought was of Albert, and she gave over Ansdore almost nonchalantly to her carter and her looker, and abandoned Ellen to Tip Ernley with scarcely a doubt as to her moral welfare.

Bertie met her at Charing Cross, and escorted her the rest of the way. He found it hard to realize that she had never been to London before, and it annoyed him a little. It would have been all very well, he told himself, in a shy village maiden of eighteen, but in a woman of Joanna’s age and temperament it was ridiculous. However, he was relieved to find that she had none of the manners of a country cousin. Her self-confidence prevented her being flustered by strange surroundings; her clothes were fashionable and well-cut, though perhaps a bit too showy for a woman of her type, she tipped lavishly, and was not afraid of porters. Neither did she, as he had feared at first, demand a four-wheeler instead of a taxi. On the contrary, she insisted on driving all the way to Lewisham, instead of taking another train, and enlarged on the five-seater touring car she would buy when she had won her Case.

“I hope to goodness you will win it, olé girl,” said Bertie, as he slipped his arm round her “I’ve a sort of feeling that you ought to touch wood.”

“I’ll win it if there’s justice in England.”

“But perhaps there ain’t.”

“I must win,” repeated Joanna doggedly. “You see, it was like this ...”

Not for the first time she proceeded to recount the sale of Donkey Street and the way she had applied the money. He wished she wouldn’t talk about that sort of thing the first hour they were together.

“I quite see, darling,” he exclaimed in the middle of the narrative, and shut her mouth with a kiss.

“Oh, Bertie, you mustn’t.”

“Why not?”

“We’re in a cab people will see.”

“They won’t they can’t see in and I’m not going to drive all this way without kissing you.”

He took hold of her.

“I won’t have it it ain’t seemly.”

But he had got a good hold of her, and did as he liked.

Joanna was horrified and ashamed. A motor-bus had just glided past the cab and she felt that the eyes of all the occupants were upon her. She managed to push Albert away, and sat very erect beside him, with a red face.

“It ain’t seemly,” she muttered under her breath.

Bertie was vexed with her. He assumed an attitude intended to convey displeasure. Joanna felt unhappy, and anxious to conciliate him, but she was aware that any reconciliation was bound to lead to a repetition of that conduct so eminently shocking to the occupants of passing motor-buses. “I don’t like London folk to think I don’t know how to behave when I come up to town,” she said to herself.

Luckily, just as the situation was becoming unbearable, and her respectability on the verge of collapsing in the cause of peace, they stopped at the gate of The Elms, Raymond Avenue, Lewisham. Bertie’s annoyance was swallowed up in the double anxiety of introducing her to his family and his family to her. On both counts he felt a little gloomy, for he did not think much of his mother and sister and did not expect Joanna to think much of them. At the same time there was no denying that Jo was and looked a good bit older than he, and his mother and sister were quite capable of thinking he was marrying her for her money. She was looking rather worn and dragged this afternoon, after her unaccustomed railway journey sometimes you really wouldn’t take her for more than thirty, but to-day she was looking her full age.

“Mother Agatha this is Jo.”

Joanna swooped down on the old lady with a loud kiss.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Mrs. Hill in a subdued voice. She was very short and small and frail-looking, and wore a cap for the same reason no doubt that she kept an aspidistra in the dining-room window, went to church at eleven o’clock on Sundays, and had given birth to Agatha and Albert.

Agatha was evidently within a year or two of her brother’s age, and she had his large, melting eyes, and his hair that sprang in a dark semicircle from a low forehead. She was most elegantly dressed in a peek-a-boo blouse, hobble skirt, and high-heeled shoes.

“Pleased to meet you,” she said, and Joanna kissed her too.

“Is tea ready?” asked Bertie.

“It will be in a minute, dear I can hear Her getting it.”

They could all do that, but Bertie seemed annoyed that they should be kept waiting.

“You might have had it ready,” he said, “I expect you’re tired, Jo.”

“Oh, not so terrible, thanks,” said Joanna, who felt sorry for her future mother-in-law being asked to keep tea stewing in the pot against the uncertain arrival of travellers. But, as it happened, she did feel rather tired, and was glad when the door was suddenly kicked open and a large tea-tray was brought in and set down violently on a side table.

“Cream and sugar?” said Mrs. Hill nervously.

“Yes, thank you,” said Joanna. She felt a little disconcerted by this new household of which she found herself a member. She wondered what Bertie’s mother and sister thought of his middle-aged bride.

For a time they all sat round in silence. Joanna covertly surveyed the drawing-room. It was not unlike the parlour at Ansdore, but everything looked cheaper they couldn’t have given more than ten pound for their carpet, and she knew those fire-irons six and eleven-three the set at the ironmongers. These valuations helped to restore her self-confidence and support the inspection which Agatha was conducting on her side. “Reckon the price of my clothes ud buy everything in this room,” she thought to herself.

“Did you have a comfortable journey, Miss Godden?” asked Mrs. Hill.

“You needn’t call her Miss Godden, ma,” said Albert, “she’s going to be one of the family.”

“I had a fine journey,” said Joanna, drowning Mrs. Hill’s apologetic twitter, “the train came the whole of sixty miles with only one stop.”

Agatha giggled, and Bertie stabbed her with a furious glance.

“Did you make this tea?” he asked.

“No She made it.”

“I might have thought as much. That girl can’t make tea any better than the cat. You reelly might make it yourself when we have visitors.”

“I hadn’t time. I’ve only just come in.”

“You seem to be out a great deal.”

“I’ve my living to get.”

Joanna played with her teaspoon. She felt ill at ease, though it would be difficult to say why. She had quarrelled too often with Ellen to be surprised at any family disagreements it was not ten years since she had thought nothing of smacking Ellen before a disconcerted public.

What was there different and there was something different about this wrangle between a brother and sister, that it should upset her so upset her so much that for some unaccountable reason she should feel the tears running out of her eyes.

On solemn ceremonial occasions Joanna always wore a veil, and this was now pushed up in several folds, to facilitate tea-drinking. She could feel the tears wetting it, so that it stuck to her cheeks under her eyes. She was furious with herself, but she could not stop the tears she felt oddly weak and shaken. Agatha had flounced off with the teapot to make a fresh brew, Albert was leaning gloomily back in his chair with his hands in his pockets, Mrs. Hill was murmuring “I hope you like fancy-work I am very fond of fancy-work I have made a worsted kitten.” Joanna could feel the tears soaking through her veil, running down her cheeks she could not stop them and the next moment she heard Bertie’s voice, high and aggrieved “What are you crying for, Jo?”

Directly she heard it, it seemed to be the thing she had been dreading most. She could bear no more, and burst into passionate weeping.

They all gathered round her, Agatha with the new teapot, Mrs. Hill with her worsted, Bertie patting her on the back and asking what was the matter.

“I don’t know,” she sobbed “I expect I’m tired, and I ain’t used to travelling.”

“Yes, I expect you must be tired have a fresh cup of tea,” said Agatha kindly.

“And then go upstairs and have a good lay down,” said Mrs. Hill.

Joanna felt vaguely that Albert was ashamed of her. She was certainly ashamed of herself and of this entirely new, surprising conduct.

Se

By supper that night she had recovered, and remembered her breakdown rather as a bad dream, but neither that evening nor the next day could she quite shake off the feeling of strangeness and depression. She had never imagined that she would like town life, but she had thought that the unpleasantness of living in streets would be lost in the companionship of the man she loved and she was disappointed to find that this was not so. Bertie, indeed, rather added to than took away from her uneasiness. He did not seem to fit into the Hill household any better than she did in fact, none of the members fitted. Bertie and Agatha clashed openly, and Mrs. Hill was lost. The house was like a broken machine, full of disconnected parts, which rattled and fell about. Joanna was used to family quarrels, but she was not used to family disunion moreover, though she would have allowed much between brother and sister, she had certain very definite notions as to the respect due to a mother. Both Bertie and Agatha were continually suppressing and finding fault with Mrs. Hill, and of the two Bertie was the worst offender. Joanna could not excuse him, even to her own all-too-ready heart. The only thing she could say was that it was most likely Mrs. Hill’s own fault her not having raised him properly.

Every day he went off to his office in Fetter Lane, leaving Joanna to the unrelieved society of his mother, for which he apologised profusely. Indeed, she found her days a little dreary, for the old lady was not entertaining, and she dared not go about much by herself in so metropolitan a place as Lewisham. Every morning she and her future mother-in-law went out shopping that is to say they bought half-pounds and quarter-pounds of various commodities which Joanna at Ansdore would have laid in by the bushel and the hundredweight. They would buy tea at one grocer’s, and then walk down two streets to buy cocoa from another, because he sold it cheaper than the shop where they had bought the tea. The late Mr. Hill had left his widow very badly off indeed she could not have lived at all except for what her children gave her out of their salaries. To her dismay, Joanna discovered that while Agatha, in spite of silk stockings and Merry Widow hats, gave her mother a pound out of the weekly thirty shillings she earned as a typist, Albert gave her only ten shillings a week his bare expenses.

“He says he doesn’t see why he should pay more for living at home than he’d pay in digs though, as a matter of fact I don’t know anyone who’d take him for as little as that, even for only bed and breakfast.”

“But what does he do with the rest of the money?”

“Oh, he has a lot of expenses, my dear belongs to all sorts of grand clubs, and goes abroad every year with the Polytechnic, or even Cook’s. Besides, he has lady friends that he takes about used to, I should say, for, of course, he’s done with all that now but he was always the boy for taking ladies out and never would demean himself to anything less than a Corner House.”

“But he should ought to treat you proper, all the same,” said Joanna.

She felt sorry and angry, and also, in some vague way, that it was her part to set matters right that the wound in her love would be healed if she could act where Bertie was remiss. But Mrs. Hill would not let her open her fat purse on her account. “No, dear; we never let a friend oblige us.” Joanna, who was not tactful, persisted, and the old lady became very frozen and genteel.

Bertie’s hours were not long at the office. He was generally back at six, and took Joanna out up to town, where they had dinner and then went on to some theatre or picture-palace, the costs of the expedition being defrayed out of her own pocket. She had never had so much dissipation in her life she saw “The Merry Widow,” “A Persian Princess,” and all the musical comedies. Albert did not patronise the more serious drama, and for Joanna the British stage became synonymous with fluffy heads and whirling legs and jokes she could not understand. The late hours made her feel very tired, and on their way home Albert would find her sleepy and unresponsive. They always went by taxi from Lewisham station, and instead of taking the passionate opportunities of the darkness, she would sink her heavy head against his breast, holding his arm with both her tired hands. “Let me be, dear, let me be,” she would murmur when he tried to rouse her “this is what I love best.”

She told herself that it was because she was so tired that she often felt depressed and wakeful at nights. Raymond Avenue was not noisy, indeed it was nearly as quiet as Ansdore, but on some nights Joanna lay awake from Bertie’s last kiss till the crashing entrance of the Girl to pull up her blinds in the morning. At nights, sometimes, a terrible clearness came to her. This visit to her lover’s house was showing her more of his character than she had learned in all the rest of their acquaintance. She could not bear to realize that he was selfish and small-minded, though, now she came to think of it, she had always been aware of it in some degree. She had never pretended to herself that he was good and noble she had loved him for something quite different because he was young and had brought her back her own youth, because he had a handsome face and soft, dark eyes, because in spite of all his cheek and knowingness he had in her sight a queer, appealing innocence.... He was like a child, even if it was a spoilt, selfish child. When she held his dark head in the crook of her arm, he was her child, her little boy.... And perhaps one day she would hold, through her love for him, a real child there, a child who was really innocent and helpless and weak a child without grossness to scare her or hardness to wound her her own child, born of her own body.

But though she loved him, this constant expression of his worst points could not fail to give her a feeling of chill. Was this the way he would behave in their home when they were married? Would he speak to her as he spoke to his mother? Would he speak to their children so?... She could not bear to think it, and yet she could not believe that marriage would change him all through. What if their marriage made them both miserable? made them like some couples she had known on the Marsh, nagging and hating each other. Was she a fool to think of marrying him? all that difference in their age ... only perfect love could make up for it ... and he did not like the idea of living in the country he was set on his business his “career,” as he called it.... She did not think he wanted to marry her as much as she wanted to marry him.... Was it right to take him away from his work, which he was doing so well at, and bring him to live down at Ansdore? My, but he would probably scare her folk with some of his ways. However, it was now too late to draw back. She must go on with what she had begun. At all costs she must marry not merely because she loved him, but because only marriage could hallow and silence the past. With all the traditions of her race and type upon her, Joanna could not face the wild harvest of love. Her wild oats must be decently gathered into the barn, even if they gave her bitter bread to eat.

Se

The case of “Godden versus Inland Revenue Commissioners” was heard at the High Court when Joanna had been at Lewisham about ten days. Albert tried to dissuade her from being present.

“I can’t go with you, and I don’t see how you can go alone.”

“I shall be right enough.”

“Yet you won’t even go down the High Street by yourself I never met anyone so inconsistent.”

“It’s my Appeal,” said Joanna.

“But there’s no need for you to attend. Can’t you trust anyone to do anything without you?”

“Not Edward Huxtable,” said Joanna decidedly.

“Then why did you choose him for your lawyer?”

“He’s the best I know.”

Bertie opened his mouth to carry the argument further, but laughed instead.

“You are a funny olé girl so silly and so sensible, so hard and so soft, such hot stuff and so respectable ...” He kissed her at each item of the catalogue “I can’t half make you out.”

However, he agreed to take her up to town when he went himself, and deposited her at the entrance of the Law Courts a solid, impressive figure in her close-fitting tan coat and skirt and high, feathered toque, with the ceremonial veil pulled down over her face.

Beneath her imposing exterior she felt more than a little scared and lost. Godden seemed a poor thing compared to all this might of Inland Revenue Commissioners, spreading about her in passage and hall and tower.... The law had suddenly become formidable, as it had never been in Edward Huxtable’s office.... However, she was fortunate in finding him, with the help of one or two policemen, and the sight of him comforted her with its suggestion of home and Watchbell Street, and her trap waiting in the sunshine outside the ancient door of the Huxtable dwelling.

Her Appeal was not heard till the afternoon, and in the luncheon interval he took her to some decorous dining-rooms such as Joanna had never conceived could exist in London, so reminiscent were they of the George and the Ship and the New and the Crown and other of her market-day haunts. They ate beef and cabbage and jam roly poly, and discussed the chances of the day. Huxtable said he had “a pretty case a very pretty case you’ll be surprised, Miss Joanna, to see what I’ve made of it.”

And so she was. Indeed, if she hadn’t heard the opening she would never have known it was her case at all. She listened in ever-increasing bewilderment and dismay. In spite of her disappointment in the matter of the Commissioners and their Referee, she had always looked upon her cause as one so glaringly righteous that it had only to be pleaded before any just judge to be at once established. But now ... the horror was, that it was no longer her cause at all. This was not Joanna Godden coming boldly to the Law of England to obtain redress from her grievous oppression by pettifogging clerks it was just a miserable dispute between the Commissioners of Inland Revenue and the Lessor of Property under the Act. It was full of incomprehensible jargon about Increment Value, Original Site Value, Assessable Site Value, Land Value Duty, Estate Duty, Redemption of Land Tax, and many more such terms among which the names of Donkey Street and Little Ansdore appeared occasionally and almost frivolously, just to show Joanna that the matter was her concern. In his efforts to substantiate an almost hopeless case Edward Huxtable had coiled most of the 1910 Finance Act round himself, and the day’s proceedings consisted of the same being uncoiled and stripped off him, exposing his utter nakedness in the eyes of the law. When the last remnant of protective jargon had been torn away, Joanna knew that her Appeal had been dismissed and she would have to pay the Duty and also the expenses of the action.

The only comfort that remained was the thought of what she would say to Edward Huxtable when she could get hold of him. They had a brief, eruptive interview in the passage.

“You take my money for making a mess like that,” stormed Joanna. “I tell you, you shan’t have it you can amuse yourself bringing another action for it.”

“Hush, my dear lady hush! Don’t talk so loud. I’ve done my best for you, I assure you. I warned you not to bring the action in the first instance, but when I saw you were determined to bring it, I resolved to stand by you, and get you through if possible. I briefed excellent counsel, and really made out a very pretty little case for you.”

“Ho! Did you? And never once mentioned my steam plough. I tell you when I heard all the rubbish your feller spoke I’d have given the case against him myself. It wasn’t my case at all. My case is that I’m a hard-working woman, who’s made herself a good position by being a bit smarter than other folk. I have a gentleman friend who cares for me straight and solid for fifteen years, and when he dies he leaves me his farm and everything he’s got. I sell the farm, and get good money for it, which I don’t spend on motor-cars like some folk, but on more improvements on my own farm. I make my property more valuable, and I’ve got to pay for it, if you please. Why, they should ought to pay me. What’s farming coming to, I’d like to know, if we’ve got to pay for bettering ourselves? The Government ud like to see all farmers in the workhouse and there we’ll soon be, if they go on at this rate. And it’s the disrespectfulness to Poor Arthur, too he left Donkey Street to me not a bit to me and the rest to them. But there they go, wanting to take most of it in Death Duty. The best Death Duty I know is to do what the dead ask us and not what they’d turn in their graves if they knew of. And poor Arthur who did everything in the world for me, even down to marrying my sister Ellen ...”

Edward Huxtable managed to escape.

“Drat that woman,” he said to himself “she’s a terror. However, I suppose I’ve got to be thankful she didn’t try to get any of that off her chest in Court she’s quite capable of it. Damn it all! She’s a monstrosity and going to be married too ... well, there are some heroes left in the world.”

Se

Bertie was waiting for Joanna outside the Law Courts. In the stillness of the August evening and the yellow dusty sunshine, he looked almost contemplative, standing there with bowed head, looking down at his hands which were folded on his stick, while one or two pigeons strutted about at his feet. Joanna’s heart melted at the sight of him. She went up to him, and touched his arm.

“Hullo, olé girl. So here you are. How did it go off?”

“I’ve lost.”

“Damn! That’s bad.”

She saw that he was vexed, and a sharp touch of sorrow was added to her sense of outrage and disappointment.

“Yes, it was given against me. It’s all that Edward Huxtable’s fault. Would you believe me, but he never made out a proper case for me at all, but just a lawyer’s mess, what the judge was quite right not to hold with.”

“Have you lost much money?”

“A proper lot but I shan’t let Edward Huxtable get any of it. If he wants his fees he’ll just about have to bring another action.”

“Don’t be a fool, Joanna you’ll have to pay the costs if they’ve been given against you. You’ll only land yourself in a worse hole by making a fuss.”

They were walking westward towards the theatres and the restaurants. Joanna felt that Bertie was angry with her he was angry with her for losing her case, just as she was angry with Edward Huxtable. This was too much the tears rose in her eyes.

“Will it do you much damage?” he asked. “In pocket, I mean.”

“Oh, I I’ll have to sell out an investment or two, but it won’t do any real hurt to Ansdore. Howsumever, I’ll have to go without my motor-car.”

“It was really rather silly of you to bring the action.”

“How, silly?”

“Well, you can’t have had much of a case, or you wouldn’t have lost it like this in an hour’s hearing.”

“Stuff and nonsense! I’d a valiant case, if only that fool, Edward Huxtable, hadn’t been anxious to show how many hard words he knew, instead of just telling the judge about my improvements and that.”

“Really, Joanna, you might give up talking about your improvements. They’ve nothing to do with the matter at all. Can’t you see that, as the Government wanted the money, it’s nothing to them if you spent it on a steam plough or on a new hat. As a matter of fact, you might just as well have bought your motor-car then at least we’d have that. Now you say you’ve given up the idea.”

“Unless you make some money and buy it” pain made Joanna snap.

“Yes that’s right, start twitting me because it’s you who have the money. I know you have, and you’ve always known I haven’t I’ve never deceived you. I suppose you think I’m glad to be coming to live on you, to give up a fine commercial career for your sake. I tell you, any other man with my feelings would have made you choose between me and Ansdore but I give up everything for your sake, and that’s how you pay me by despising me.”

“Oh, don’t, Bertie,” said Joanna. She felt that she could bear no more.

They had come into Piccadilly, and the light was still warm it was not yet dinner-time, but Joanna, who had had no tea, felt suddenly weak and faint.

“Let’s go in there, dear,” she said, as they reached the Popular Cafe, “and have a cup of tea. And don’t let’s quarrel, for I can’t bear it.”

He looked down at her drawn face and pity smote him.

“Pore olé girl aren’t you feeling well?”

“Not very I’m tired, like sitting listening to all that rubbish.”

“Well, let’s have an early dinner, and then go to a music-hall. You’ve never been to one yet, have you?”

“No,” said Joanna. She would have much rather gone straight home, but this was not the time to press her own wishes. She was only too glad to have Bertie amicable and smiling again she realized that they had only just escaped a serious quarrel.

The dinner, and the wine that accompanied it, made her feel better and more cheerful. She talked a good deal even too much, for half a glass of claret had its potent effect on her fatigue. She looked flushed and untidy, for she had spent a long day in her hat and outdoor clothes, and her troubles had taken her thoughts off her appearance she badly needed a few minutes before the looking-glass. As Albert watched her, he gave up his idea of taking her to the Palace, which he told himself would be full of smart people, and decided on the Alhambra Music Hall then from the Alhambra he changed to the Holborn Empire.... Really it was annoying of Jo to come out with him looking like this she ought to realize that she was not a young girl who could afford to let things slip. He had told her several times that her hat was on one side, ... And those big earrings she wore ... she ought to go in for something quieter at her age. Her get-up had always been too much on the showy side, and she was too independent of those helps to nature which much younger and better-looking women than herself were only too glad to use.... He liked to see a woman take out a powder-puff and flick it over her face in little dainty sweeps....

These reflections did not put him in a good humour for the evening’s entertainment. They went by ’bus to the Holborn Empire where the first house had already started. Joanna felt a little repulsed by the big, rowdy audience, smoking and eating oranges and joining in the choruses of the songs. Her brief experience of the dress circle at Daly’s or the Queen’s had not prepared her for anything so characteristic as an English music-hall, with its half-participating audience. “Hurrah for Maudie!” as some favourite took the boards to sing, with her shoulders hunched up to the brim of her enormous hat, a heartrending song about her mother.

Joanna watched Bertie as he lounged beside her. She knew that he was sulking the mere fact that he was entertaining her cheaply, by ’bus and music-hall instead of taxi and theatre, pointed to his displeasure. She wondered if he was enjoying this queer show, which struck her alternately as inexpressibly beautiful and inexpressibly vulgar. The lovely ladies like big handsome barmaids, who sang serious songs in evening dress and diamonds, apparently in the vicinity of Clapham High Street or the Monument, were merely incomprehensible. She could not understand what they were doing. The comedians she found amusing, when they did not shock her Bertie had explained to her one or two of the jokes she could not understand. The “song-scenas” and acrobatic displays filled her with rapture. She would have liked that sort of thing the whole time.... Albert said it was a dull show, he grumbled at everything, especially the turns Joanna liked. But gradually the warm, friendly, vulgar atmosphere of the place infected him he joined in one or two of the choruses, and seemed almost to forget about Joanna.

She watched him as he leaned back in his seat, singing

“Take me back to Pompeii
To Pompey-ompey-i ”

In the dim red light of the place, he looked incredibly young. She could see only his profile the backward sweep of glistening, pomaded hair, the little short straight nose, the sensual, fretful lips and as she watched him she was smitten with a queer sense of pity. This was no strong man, no lover and husband just a little clerk she was going to shut up in prison a little singing clerk. She felt a brute she put out her hand and slid it under his arm, against his warm side.

“To Pompey-ompey-i”

sang Bert.

Se

The curtain came down and the lights went up for the interval. A brass band played very loud. Joanna was beginning to have a bit of a headache, but she said nothing she did not want him to leave on her account or to find that he did not think of leaving.... She felt very hot, and fanned herself with her programme. Most of the audience were hot.

“Joanna,” said Bert, “don’t you ever use powder?”

“Powder? What d’you mean?”

“Face-powder what most girls use. Your skin wouldn’t get red and shiny like that if you had some powder on it.”

“I’d never dream of using such a thing. I’d be ashamed.”

“Why be ashamed of looking decent?”

“I wouldn’t look decent I’d look like a hussy. Sometimes when I see these gals’ faces I ”

“Really, Jo, to hear you speak one ud think you were the only virtuous woman left in England. But there are just one or two things in your career, my child, which don’t quite bear out that notion.”

Joanna’s heart gave a sudden bound, then seemed to freeze.

She leaned forward in her chair, staring at the advertisements on the curtain. Bertie put his arm round her “I say, olé girl, you ain’t angry with me, are you?” She made no reply she could not speak; too much was happening in her thoughts had happened, rather, for her mind was now quite made up. A vast, half-conscious process seemed suddenly to have settled itself, leaving her quite clear-headed and calm.

“You ain’t angry with me, are you?” repeated Bert.

“No,” said Joanna “I’m not angry with you.”

He had been cruel and selfish when she was in trouble, he had shown no tenderness for her physical fatigue, and now at last he had taunted her with the loss of her respectability for his sake. But she was not angry with him.... It was only that now she knew she could never, never marry him.

Se

That night she slept heavily the deep sleep of physical exhaustion and mental decision. The unconscious striving of her soul no longer woke her to ask her hard questions. Her mind was made up, and her conflict was at an end.

She woke at the full day, when down on Walland Marsh all the world was awake, but here the city and the house still slept, and rose with her eyes and heart full of tragic purpose. She dressed quickly, then packed her box all the gay, grand things she had brought to make her lover proud of her. Then she sat down at her dressing-table, and wrote

“DEAR BERTIE, When you get this I shall have gone for good. I see
now that we were not meant for each other. I am very sorry if this
gives you pain. But it is all for the best. Your sincere friend,

“JOANNA GODDEN.”

By this time it was half-past seven by the good gold watch which Poor Father had left her. Joanna’s plan was to go downstairs, put her letter on the hall table, and bribe the girl to help her down with her box and call a cab, before any of the others appeared. She did not want to have to face Albert, with inevitable argument and possible reproaches. Her bruised heart ached too much to be able to endure any more from him angry and wounded, it beat her side.

She carried out her scheme quite successfully as far as the cab itself, and then was betrayed. Poor Father’s watch, that huge emblem of worth and respectability, hanging with its gold chain and seals upon her breast, had a rare but embarrassing habit of stopping for half an hour or so, as if to rest its ancient works. This is what it had done to-day instead of half-past seven, the time was eight, and as the girl and the cabman carried Joanna’s box out of the door, Bertie appeared at the head of the steep little stairs.

“Hullo, Joanna!” he called out in surprise “Where on earth are you going?”

Here was trouble. For a moment Joanna quailed, but she recovered herself and answered

“I’m going home.”

“Home! What d’you mean? Whatever for?”

The box was on the taxi, and the driver stood holding the door open.

“I made up my mind last night. I can’t stay here any longer. Thank you, Alice, you needn’t wait.” She put a sovereign into the girl’s hand.

“Come into the dining-room,” said Albert.

He opened the door for her and they both went in.

“It’s no good, Bertie I can’t stand it any longer,” said Joanna, “it’s as plain as a pike as you and me were never meant to marry, and the best thing to do is to say good-bye before it’s too late.”

He stared at her in silence.

“I made up my mind last night,” she continued, “but I wouldn’t say anything about it till this morning, and then I thought I’d slip off quiet. I’ve left a letter to you that I wrote.”

“But why why are you going?”

“Well, it’s pretty plain, ain’t it, that we haven’t been getting along so well as we should ought since I came here. You and me were never meant for each other we don’t fit and the last few days it’s been all trouble and there’s been things I could hardly bear ...”

Her voice broke.

“I’m sorry I’ve offended you” he spoke stiffly “but since you came here it’s struck me, too, that things were different. I must say, Joanna, you don’t seem to have considered the difficulties of my position.”

“I have and that’s one reason why I’m going. I don’t want to take you away from your business and your career, as you say; I know you don’t want to come and live at Ansdore ...”

“If you reelly loved me, and still felt like that about my prospects, you’d rather give up Ansdore than turn me down as you’re doing.”

“I do love you” she said doggedly, “but I couldn’t give up my farm for you and come and live with you in London because if I did, reckon I shouldn’t love you much longer. These last ten days have shown me more than anything before that you’d make anyone you lived with miserable, and if I hadn’t my farm to take my thoughts off I’d just about die of shame and sorrow.”

He flushed angrily.

“Reelly, Joanna what do you mean? I’ve given you as good a time as I knew how.”

“Most likely. But all the while you were giving me that good time you were showing me how little you cared for me. Oh, it isn’t as if I hadn’t been in love before and seen how good a man can be.... I don’t want to say hard things to you, my dear, but there’s been times when you’ve hurt me as no man could hurt a woman he really loved. And I’ve lived in your home and seen how you treat your poor mother and your sister and I tell you the truth, though it hurts me you ain’t man enough for me.”

“Well, if that’s how you feel about me, we had certainly better not go on.”

“Don’t be angry with me, dear. Reckon it was all a mistake from the start I’m too old for you.”

“Then it’s a pity we went as far as this. What’ll mother and Agatha think when they hear you’ve turned me down? They’re cats enough to imagine all sorts of things. Why do you dash off like this as if I was the plague? If you must break off our engagement, you must, though I don’t want you to I love you, even though you don’t love me but you might at least do it decently. Think of what they’ll say when they come down and find you’ve bolted.”

“I’m sorry, Bertie. But I couldn’t bear to stick on here another hour. You may tell them any story about me you like. But I can’t stay. I must think of myself a bit, since I’ve no one else to do it for me.”

His face was like a sulky child’s. He looked at the floor, and kicked the wainscot.

“Well, I think you’re treating me very badly, Joanna. Hang it all, I love you and I think you’re a damn fine woman I reelly do and I don’t care if you are a bit older I don’t like girls.”

“You won’t think me fine in another ten years and as for loving me, don’t talk nonsense; you don’t love me, or I shouldn’t be going. Now let me go.”

Her voice was hard, because her self-control was failing her. She tore open the door, and pushed him violently aside when he tried to stand in her way.

“Let me go I’m shut of you. I tell you, you ain’t man enough for me.”

Se

She had told the cabman to drive to Charing Cross station, as she felt unequal to the complications of travelling from Lewisham. It was a long drive, and all the way Joanna sat and cried. She seemed to have cried a great deal lately her nature had melted in a strange way, and the tears she had so seldom shed as a girl were now continually ready to fall but she had never cried as much as she cried this morning. By the time she reached Charing Cross she was in desperate need of that powder-puff Bertie had urged her to possess.

So this was the end the end of the great romance which should have given her girlhood back to her, but which instead seemed to have shut her into a lonely and regretful middle-age. All her shining pride in herself was gone she saw herself as one who has irrevocably lost all that makes life worth living ... pride and love. She knew that Bertie did not love her in his heart he was glad that she was going all he was sorry for was the manner of it, which might bring him disgrace. But he would soon get over that, and then he would be thankful he was free, and eventually he would marry some younger woman than herself ... and she? Yes, she still loved him but it would not be for long. She could feel her love for him slowly dying in her heart. It was scarcely more than pity now pity for the little singing clerk whom she had caught and would have put in a cage if he had not fluttered so terribly in her hands.

When she arrived at Charing Cross a feeling of desolation was upon her. A porter came to fetch her box, but Joanna the great Joanna Godden, who put terror into the markets of three towns shrank back into the taxi, loath to leave its comfortable shelter for the effort and racket of the station. A dark, handsome, rather elderly man, was coming out of one of the archways. Their eyes met and he at once turned his away, but Joanna leapt for him

“Sir Harry! Sir Harry Trevor! Don’t you know me?”

Only too well, but he had not exactly expected her to claim acquaintance. He felt bewildered when Joanna pushed her way to him through the crowd and wrung his hand as if he was her only friend.

“Oh, Sir Harry, reckon I’m glad to see you!”

“I I ” stuttered the baronet.

He looked rather flushed and sodden, and the dyeing of his hair was more obvious than it had been.

“Fancy meeting you!” gasped Joanna.

“Er how are you, Miss Godden?”

“Do you know when there’s a train to Rye?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t. I’ve just been saying good-bye to my son Lawrence he’s off to Africa or somewhere, but I couldn’t wait till his train came in. I’ve got to go over to St. Pancras and catch the 10.50 for the north.”

“Lawrence!”

Thank goodness, that had put her on another scent now she would let him go.

“Yes he’s in the station. You’ll see him if you’re quick.”

Joanna turned away, and he saw that the tears were running down her face. The woman had been drinking, that accounted for it all ... well, he wished Lawrence joy of her. It would do him good to have a drunken woman falling on his neck on a public platform.

The porter said there was not a train for Rye for another hour. He suggested that Joanna should put her luggage in the cloak-room and go and get herself a cup of tea the porter knew the difference between a drunken woman and one who is merely faint from trouble and want of her breakfast. But Joanna’s mind was somehow obsessed by the thought of Lawrence her brother-in-law as she still called him in her heart she wanted to see him she remembered his kindness long ago ... and in her sorrow she was going back to the sorrow of those days ... somehow she felt as if Martin had just died, as if she had just come out of North Farthing House, alone, as she had come then and now Lawrence was here, as he had been then, to kiss her and say “Dear Jo"....

“What platform does the train for Africa start from?” she asked the porter.

“Well, lady, I can’t rightly say. The only boat-train from here this morning goes to Folkestone, and that’s off but most likely the gentleman ud be going from Waterloo, and the trains for Waterloo start from number seven.”

The porter took her to number seven, and at the barrier she caught sight of a familiar figure sitting on a bench. Father Lawrence’s bullet head showed above the folds of his cloak; by his side was a big shapeless bundle and his eyes were fixed on the station roof. He started violently when a large woman suddenly sat down beside him and burst into tears.

“Lawrence!” sobbed Joanna “Lawrence!”

“Joanna!”

He was too startled to say anything more, but the moment did not admit of much conversation. Joanna sat beside him, bent over her knees, her big shoulders shaking with sobs which were not always silent. Lawrence made himself as large as he could, but he could not hide her from the public stare, for nature had not made her inconspicuous, and her taste in clothes would have defeated nature if it had. Her orange toque had fallen sideways on her tawny hair she was like a big, broken sunflower.

“My dear Jo,” he said gently, after a time “let me go and get you a drink of water.”

“No don’t leave me.”

“Then let me ask someone to go.”

“No no.... Oh, I’m all right it’s only that I felt so glad at seeing you again.”

Lawrence was surprised.

“It makes me think of that other time when you were kind I remember when Martin died ... oh, I can’t help wishing sometimes he was dead that he’d died right at the start or I had.”

“My dear ...”

“Oh, when Martin died, at least it was finished; but this time it ain’t finished it’s like something broken.” She clasped her hands, in their brown kid gloves, against her heart.

“Won’t you tell me what’s happened? This isn’t Martin you’re talking about?”

“No. But I thought he was like Martin that’s what made me take to him at the start. I looked up and I saw him, and I said to myself ’That’s Martin’ it gave me quite a jump.”

The Waterloo train was in the station and the people on the platform surged towards it, leaving Lawrence and Joanna stranded on their seat. Lawrence looked at the train for a minute, then shook his head, as if in answer to some question he had asked himself.

“Look here, Jo,” he said, “won’t you tell me what’s happened? I can’t quite understand you as it is. Don’t tell me anything you’d rather not.”

Joanna sat upright and swallowed violently.

“It’s like this,” she said. “I’ve just broken off my engagement to marry maybe you didn’t know I was engaged to be married?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Well, I was. I was engaged to a young chap a young chap in an office. I met him at Marlingate, when I was staying there that time. I thought he was like Martin that’s what made me take to him at the first. But he wasn’t like Martin not really in his looks and never in his ways. And at last it got more’n I could bear, and I broke with him this morning and came away and I reckon he ain’t sorry, neither.... I’m thirteen year older than him.”

Her tears began to flow again, but the platform was temporarily deserted. Lawrence waited for her to go on he suspected a tragedy which had not yet been revealed.

“Oh, my heart’s broke,” she continued “reckon I’m done for, and there’s nothing left for me.”

“But, Jo is this this affair quite finished? Perhaps ... I mean to say, quarrels can be made up, you know.”

“Not this one,” said Joanna. “It’s been too much. For days I’ve watched him getting tired of me, and last night he turned on me because for his sake I’d done what no woman should do.”

The words were no sooner out of her mouth than she was dismayed. She had not meant to say them. Would Lawrence understand? What would he think of her? a clergyman.... She turned on him a face crimson and suffused with tears, to meet a gaze as serene as ever. Then suddenly a new feeling came to her something apart from horror at herself and shame at his knowing, and yet linked strangely with them both something which was tenderer than any shame and yet more ruthless.... Her last guard broke down.

“Lawrence, I’ve been wicked, I’ve been bad I’m sorry Lawrence."...

“Tell me as little or as much as you like, dear Jo.”

Joanna gripped his arm; she had driven him into the corner of the seat, where he sat with his bundle on his lap, his ear bent to her mouth, while she crowded up against him, pouring out her tale. Every now and then he said gently “Sh-sh-sh” when he thought that her confession was penetrating the further recesses of Charing Cross....

“Oh, Lawrence, I feel so bad I feel so wicked I never should have thought it of myself. I didn’t feel wicked at first, but I did afterwards. Oh, Lawrence, tell me what I’m to do.”

His professional instinct taught him to treat the situation with simplicity, but he guessed that Joanna would not appreciate the quiet dealings of the confessional. He had always liked Joanna, always admired her, and he liked and admired her no less now, but he really knew very little of her her life had crossed his only on three different brief occasions, when she was engaged to his brother, when she was anxious to appoint a Rector to the living in her gift, and now when as a broken-hearted woman she relieved herself of a burden of sorrow.

“Lawrence tell me what to do.”

“Dear Jo I’m not quite sure.... I don’t know what you want, you see. What I should want first myself would be absolution.”

“Oh, don’t you try none of your Jesoot tricks on me I couldn’t bear it.”

“Very well. Then I think there’s only one thing you can do, and that is to go home and take up your life where you left it, with a very humble heart. ‘I shall go softly all my days in the bitterness of my soul.’”

Joanna gulped.

“And be very thankful, too.”

“What for?”

“For your repentance.”

“Well, reckon I do feel sorry and reckon, too, I done something to be sorry for.... Oh, Lawrence, what a wicked owl I’ve been! If you’d told me six year ago as I’d ever have come to this I’d have had a fit on the ground.”

Lawrence looked round him nervously. Whatever Joanna’s objections to private penance, she was curiously indifferent to confessing her sins to all mankind in Charing Cross station. The platform was becoming crowded again, and already their confessional had been invaded a woman with a baby was sitting on the end of it.

“Your train will be starting soon,” said Lawrence “let’s go and find you something to eat.”

Se

Joanna felt better after she had had a good cup of coffee and a poached egg. She was surprised afterwards to find she had eaten so much. Lawrence sat with her while she ate, then took her to find her porter, her luggage and her train.

“But won’t you lose your train to Africa?” asked Joanna.

“I’m only going as far as Waterloo this morning, and there’s a train every ten minutes.”

“When do you start for Africa?”

“I think to-night.”

“I wish you weren’t going there. Why are you going?”

“Because I’m sent.”

“When will you come back?”

“I don’t know perhaps never.”

“I’m middling sorry you’re going. What a place to send you to! all among niggers.”

She was getting more like herself. He stood at the carriage door, talking to her of indifferent things till the train started. The whistle blew, and the train began to glide out of the station. Joanna waved her hand to the grey figure standing on the platform beside the tramp’s bundle which was all that would go with it to the ends of the earth. She did not know whether she pitied Lawrence or envied him.

“Reckon he’s got some queer notions,” she said to herself.

She leaned back in the carriage, feeling more at ease than she had felt for weeks. She was travelling third class, for one of Lawrence’s notions was that everybody did so, and when Joanna had given him her purse to buy her ticket it had never struck him that she did not consider third-class travel “seemly” in one of her sex and position. However, the carriage was comfortable, and occupied only by two well-conducted females. Yes she was certainly feeling better. She would never have thought that merely telling her story to Lawrence would have made such a difference. But a great burden had been lifted off her heart.... He was a good chap, Lawrence, for all his queer ways such as ud make you think he wasn’t gentry if you didn’t know who his father was and his brother had been and no notion how to behave himself as a clergyman, neither anyway she hoped he’d get safe to Africa and that the niggers wouldn’t eat him ... though she’d heard of such things....

She’d do as he said, too. She’d go home and take up things where she’d put them down. It would be hard much harder than he thought. Perhaps he didn’t grasp all that she was doing in giving up marriage, the one thing that could ever make her respect herself again. Well, she couldn’t help that she must just do without respecting herself that’s all. Anything would be better than shutting up herself and Albert together in prison, till they hated each other. It would be very hard for her, who had always been so proud of herself, to live without even respecting herself. But she should have thought of that earlier. She remembered Lawrence’s words “I will go softly all my days in the bitterness of my soul".... Well, she’d do her best, and perhaps God would forgive her, and then when she died she’d go to heaven, and be with Martin for ever and ever, in spite of all the bad things she’d done....

She got out at Appledore and took the light railway to Brodnyx. She did not feel inclined for the walk from Rye. The little train was nearly empty, and Joanna had a carriage to herself. She settled herself comfortably in a corner it was good to be coming home, even as things were. The day was very sunny and still. The blue sky was slightly misted a yellow haze which smelt of chaff and corn smudged together the sky and the marsh and the distant sea. The farms with their red and yellow roofs were like ripe apples lying in the grass.

Yes, the Marsh was the best place to live on, and the Marsh ways were the best ways, and the man who had loved her on the Marsh was the best man and the best lover.... She wondered what Ellen would say when she heard she had broken off her engagement. Ellen had never thought much of Bertie she had thought Joanna was a fool to see such a lot in him; and Ellen had been right her eyes and her head were clearer than her poor sister’s.... She expected she would be home in time for tea Ellen would be terrible surprised to see her; if she’d had any sense she’d have sent her a telegram.

The little train had a strange air of friendliness as it jogged across Romney Marsh. It ran familiarly through farmyards and back gardens, it meekly let the motor-cars race it and pass it as it clanked beside the roads. The line was single all the way, except for a mile outside Brodnyx station, where it made a loop to let the up-train pass. The up-train was late they had been too long loading up the fish at Dungeness, or there was a reaping machine being brought from Lydd. For some minutes Joanna’s train stayed halted in the sunshine, in the very midst of the Three Marshes. Miles of sun-swamped green spread on either side the carriage was full of sunshine it was bright and stuffy like a greenhouse. Joanna felt drowsy, she lay back in her corner blinking at the sun she was all quiet now. A blue-bottle droned against the window, and the little engine droned, like an impatient fly it was all very still, very hot, very peaceful....

Then suddenly something stirred within her stirred physically. In some mysterious way she seemed to come alive. She sat up, pressing her hand to her side. A flood of colour went up into her face her body trembled, and the tears started in her eyes ... she felt herself choking with wild fear, and wild joy.

Se

Oh, she understood now. She understood, and she was certain. She knew now she knew, and she was frightened ... oh, she was frightened ... now everything was over with her indeed.

Joanna nearly fainted. She fell in a heap against the window, looking more than ever, as the sunshine poured on her, like a great golden, broken flower. She felt herself choking and managed to right herself the window was down, and a faint puff of air came in from the sea, lifting her hair as she leaned back against the wooden wall of the carriage, her mouth a little open.... She felt better now, but still so frightened.... She was done for, she was finished there would not be any more talk of going back and picking up things where she had let them drop. She would have to marry Bertie there was no help for it, she would send him a telegram from Brodnyx station. Oh, that this should have happened!... And she had been feeling so much easier in her mind she had almost begun to feel happy again, thinking of the old home and the old life. And now she knew that they had gone for ever the old home and the old life. She had cut herself away from both she would have to marry Albert, to shut her little clerk in prison after all, and herself with him. She would have to humble herself before him, she would have to promise to go and live with him in London, do all she possibly could to make his marriage easy for him. He did not want to marry her, and she did not want to marry him, but there was no help for it, they must marry now, because of what their love had given them before it died.

She had no tears for this new tragedy. She leaned forward in her seat, her hands clasped between her knees, her eyes staring blankly at the carriage wall as if she saw there her future written ... herself and Albert growing old together, or rather herself growing old while Albert lived through his eager, selfish youth herself and Albert shut up together ... how he would scold her, how he would reproach her he would say “You have brought me to this,” and in time he would come to hate her, his fellow-prisoner who had shut the door on both of them and he would hate her child ... they would never have married except for the child, so he would hate her child, scold it, make it miserable ... it would grow up in an unhappy home, with parents who did not love each other, who owed it a grudge for coming to them her child, her precious child....

Still in her heart, alive under all the fear, was that thrill of divine joy which had come to her in the first moment of realization. Terror, shame, despair none of them could kill it, for that joy was a part of her being, part of the new being which had quickened in her. It belonged to them both it was the secret they shared ... joy, unutterable joy. Yes, she was glad she was going to have this child she would still be glad even in the prison-house of marriage, she would still be glad even in the desert of no-marriage, every tongue wagging, every finger pointing, every heart despising. Nothing could take her joy from her make her less than joyful mother....

Then as the joy grew and rose above the fear, she knew that she could never let fear drive her into bondage. Nothing should make a sacrifice of joy to shame to save herself she would not bring up her child in the sorrow and degradation of a loveless home.... If she had been strong enough to give up the thought of marriage for the sake of Bertie’s liberty and her own self-respect, she could be strong enough now to turn from her only hope of reputation for the sake of the new life which was joy within her. It would be the worst, most shattering thing she had ever yet endured, but she would go through with it for the love of the unborn. Joanna was not so unsophisticated as to fail to realize the difficulties and complications of her resolve how much her child would suffer for want of a father’s name; memories of lapsed dairymaids had stressed in her experience the necessity of a marriage no matter how close to the birth. But she did not rate these difficulties higher than the misery of such a home as hers and Albert’s would be. Better anything than that. Joanna had no illusions about Albert now he’d have led her a dog’s life if she had married him in the first course of things; now it would be even worse, and her child should not suffer that.

No, she would do her best. Possibly she could arrange things so as to protect, at least to a certain extent, the name her baby was to bear. She would have to give up Ansdore, of course leave Walland Marsh ... her spirit quailed, but she braced it fiercely. She was going through with this it was the only thing Lawrence had told her that she could do go softly all her days to the very end. That end was farther and bitterer than either he or she had imagined then, but she would not have to go all the way alone. A child that was what she had always wanted; she had tried to fill her heart with other things, with Ansdore, with Ellen, with men ... but what she had always wanted had been a child she saw that now. Her child should have been born in easy, honourable circumstances, with a kind father Arthur Alce, perhaps, since it could not be Martin Trevor. But the circumstances of its birth were her doing, and it was she who would face them. The circumstances only were her sin and shame, her undying regret since she knew she could not keep them entirely to herself the rest was joy and thrilling, vital peace.

The little train pulled itself together, and ran on into Brodnyx station. Joanna climbed down on the wooden platform, and signalled to the porter-stationmaster to take out her box.

“What, you back, Miss Godden!” he said, “we wasn’t expecting you.”

“No, I’ve come back pretty sudden. Do you know if there’s any traps going over Pedlinge way?”

“There’s Mrs. Furnese come over to fetch a crate of fowls. Maybe she’d give you a lift.”

“I’ll ask her,” said Joanna.

Mrs. Furnese, too, was much surprised to see her back, but she said nothing about it, partly because she was a woman of few words, and partly because they’d all seen in the paper this morning that Joanna had lost her case and reckon she must be properly upset. Maybe that was why she had come back....

“Would you like to drive?” she asked Joanna, when they had taken their seats in Misleham’s ancient gig, with the crate of fowls behind them. She felt rather shy of handling the reins under Joanna Godden’s eye, for everyone knew that Joanna drove like a Jehu, something tur’ble.

But the great woman shook her head. She felt tired, she said, with the heat. So Mrs. Furnese drove, and Joanna sat silently beside her, watching her thick brown hand on the reins, with the wedding ring embedded deep in the gnarled finger.

“Reckon she’s properly upset with that case,” thought the married woman to herself, “and sarve her right for bringing it. She could easily have paid them missionaries, with all the money she had. But it was ever Joanna’s way to make a terrification.”

They jogged on over the winding, white ribbon of road through Brodnyx village, past the huge barn-like church which had both inspired and reproached her faith, with its black, caped tower canting over it, on to Walland Marsh, to the cross roads at the Woolpack My, how they would talk at the Woolpack!... but she would be far away by then ... where?... She didn’t know, she would think of that later when she had told Ellen. Oh, there would be trouble there would be the worst she’d ever have to swallow when she told Ellen....

Se

Joanna saw Ansdore looking at her through the chaffy haze of the August afternoon. It stewed like an apple in the sunshine, and a faint smell of apples came from it, as its great orchard dragged its boughs in the grass. They were reaping the Gate Field close to the house the hum of the reaper came to her, and seemed in some mysterious way to be the voice of Ansdore itself, droning in the sunshine and stillness. She felt her throat tighten, and winked the tears from her eyes.

She could see Ellen coming down the drive, a cool, white, belted figure, with trim white feet. From her bedroom window Ellen had seen the Misleham gig turn in at the gate, and had at once recognized the golden blot beside Mrs. Furnese as her sister Joanna.

“Hullo, Jo! I never expected you back to-day. Did you send a wire? For if you did, I never got it.”

“No, I didn’t telegraph. Where’s Mene Tekel? Tell her to come around with Nan and carry up my box. Mrs. Furnese, ma’am, I hope you’ll step in and drink a cup of tea.”

Joanna climbed down and kissed Ellen her cheek was warm and moist, and her hair hung rough about her ears, over one of which the orange toque, many times set right, had come down in a final confusion. Ellen on the other hand was as cool as she was white and her hair lay smooth under a black velvet fillet. Of late it seemed as if her face had acquired a brooding air; it had lost its exotic look, it was dreamy, almost virginal. Joanna felt her sister’s kiss like snow.

“Is tea ready?”

“No it’s only half-past three. But you can have it at once. You look tired. Why didn’t you send a wire, and I’d have had the trap to meet you.”

“I never troubled, and I’ve managed well enough. Ain’t you coming in, Mrs. Furnese?”

“No, thank you, Miss Godden much obliged all the same. I’ve my man’s tea to get, and these fowls to see to.”

She felt that the sisters would want to be alone. Joanna would tell Ellen all about her failure, and Mene Tekel and Nan would overhear as much as they could, and tell Broadhurst and Crouch and the other men, who would tell the Woolpack bar, where Mr. Furnese would hear it and bring it home to Mrs. Furnese.... So her best way of learning the truth about the Appeal and exactly how many thousands Joanna had lost depended on her going home as quickly as possible.

Joanna, was glad to be alone. She went with Ellen into the cool parlour, drinking in the relief of its solid comfort compared with the gimcrackiness of the parlour at Lewisham.

“I’m sorry about your Appeal,” said Ellen “I saw in to-day’s paper that you’ve lost it.”

Joanna had forgotten all about the Appeal it seemed twenty-four years ago instead of twenty-four hours that she had come out of the Law Courts and seen Bertie standing there with the pigeons strutting about his feet but she welcomed it as a part explanation of her appearance, which she saw now was deplorable, and her state of mind, which she found impossible to disguise.

“Yes, it’s terrible I’m tedious upset.”

“I suppose you’ve lost a lot of money.”

“Not more than I can afford to pay” the old Joanna came out and boasted for a minute.

“That’s one comfort.”

Joanna looked at her sister and opened her mouth, but shut it as Mene Tekel came in with the tea tray and Arthur Alce’s good silver service.

Mene set the tea as silently as the defects of her respiratory apparatus would admit, and once again Joanna sighed with relief as she thought of the clatter made by Her at Lewisham.... Oh, there was no denying that she had a good house and good servants and had done altogether well for herself until in a fit of wickedness she had bust it all.

She would not tell Ellen to-night. She would wait till to-morrow morning, when she’d had a good sleep. She felt tired now, and would cry the minute Ellen began.... But she’d let her know about the breaking off of her engagement that would prepare the way, like.

“Ellen,” she said, after she had drunk her tea “one reason I’m so upset is that I’ve just broken off my marriage with my intended.”

“Joanna!”

Ellen put down her cup and stared at her. In her anxiety to hide her emotion, Joanna had spoken more in anger than in sorrow, so her sister’s pity was checked.

“What ever made you do that!”

“We found we didn’t suit.”

“Well, my dear, I must say the difference in your age made me rather anxious. Thirteen years on the woman’s side is rather a lot, you know. But I knew you’d always liked boys, so I hoped for the best.”

“Well, it’s all over now.”

“Poor old Joanna, it must have been dreadful for you on the top of your failure in the courts, too; but I’m sure you were wise to break it off. Only the most absolute certainty could have justified such a marriage.”

She smiled to herself. When she said “absolute certainty” she was thinking of Tip.

“Well, I’ve got a bit of a headache,” said Joanna rising “I think I’ll go and have a lay down.”

“Do, dear. Would you like me to come up with you and help you undress?”

“No thanks. I’ll do by myself. You might ask the girl to bring me up a jug of hot water. Reckon I shan’t be any worse for a good wash.”

Se

Much as Joanna was inclined to boast of her new bathroom at Ansdore, she did not personally make much use of it, having perhaps a secret fear of its unfriendly whiteness, and a love of the homely, steaming jug which had been the fount of her ablutions since her babyhood’s tub was given up. This evening she removed the day’s grime from herself by a gradual and excessively modest process, and about one and a half pints of hot water. Then she twisted her hair into two ropes, put on a clean night-gown, and got into bed.

Her body’s peace between the cool, coarse sheets seemed to thrill to her soul. She felt at home and at rest. It was funny being in bed at that time in the afternoon scarcely past four o’clock it was funny, but it was good. The sunshine was coming into the room, a spill of misty gold on the floor and furniture, and from where she lay she could see the green boundaries of the Marsh. Oh, it would be terrible when she saw that Marsh no more ... the tears rose, and she turned her face to the pillow. It was all over now all her ambition, all her success, all the greatness of Joanna Godden. She had made Ansdore great and prosperous though she was a woman, and then she had lost it because she was a woman.... Words that she had uttered long ago came back into her mind. She saw herself standing in the dairy, in front of Martha Tilden, whose face she had forgotten. She was saying: “It’s sad to think you’ve kept yourself straight for years and then gone wrong at last....”

Yes, it was sad ... and now she was being punished for it; but wrapped up in her punishment, sweetening its very heart, was a comfort she did not deserve. Ansdore was slowly fading in her thoughts, as it had always faded in the presence of any vital instinct, whether of love or death. Ansdore could never be to her what her child would be none of her men, except perhaps Martin, could have been to her what her child would be.... “If it’s a boy I’ll call it Martin if it’s a girl I’ll call it Ellen,” he said to herself. Then she doubted whether Ellen would appreciate the compliment ... but she would not let herself think of Ellen to-night. That was to-morrow’s evil.

“I’ll have to make some sort of a plan, though I’ll have to sell this place and give Ellen a share of it. And me where ull I go?”

She must go pretty far, so that when the child came Brodnyx and Pedlinge would not get to know about it. She would have to go at least as far as Brighton ... then she remembered Martha Relf and her lodgings at Chichester “that wouldn’t be bad, to go to Martha just for a start. Me leaving Ansdore for the same reason as she left it thirteen year ago ... that’s queer. The mistress who got shut of her, coming to her and saying ’Look here, Martha, take me in, so’s I can have my child in peace same as you had yours’ ... I should ought to get some stout money for this farm eight thousand pounds if it’s eightpence though reckon the Government ull want about half of it and we’ll have all that terrification started again ... howsumever, I guess I’ll get enough of it to live on, even when Ellen has her bit ... and maybe the folk around here ull think I’m sold up because my case has bust me, and that’ll save me something of their talk.”

Well, well, she was doing the best she could though Lawrence on his blind, obedient way to Africa was scarcely going on a farther, lonelier journey than that on which Joanna was setting out.

“Oh, Martin,” she whispered, lifting her eyes to his picture on her chest of drawers “I wish I could feel you close.”

It was years since she had really let herself think of him, but now strange barriers of thought had broken down, and she seemed to go to and fro quite easily into the past. Whether it was her love for Bertie whom in her blindness she had thought like him, or her meeting with Lawrence, or the new hope within her, she did not trouble to ask but that strange, long forbidding was gone. She was free to remember all their going out and coming in together, his sweet fiery kisses, the ways of the Marsh that he had made wonderful. Throughout her being there was a strange sense of release broken, utterly done and finished as she was from the worldly point of view, there was in her heart a springing hope, a sweet softness she could indeed go softly at last.

The tears were in her eyes as she climbed out of bed and knelt down beside it. It was weeks since she had said her prayers not since that night when Bertie had come into her room. But now that her heart was quite melted she wanted to ask God to help her and forgive her.

“Oh, please God, forgive me. I know I been wicked, but I’m unaccountable sorry. And I’m going through with it. Please help my child don’t let it get hurt for my fault. Help me to do my best and not grumble, seeing as it’s all my own wickedness; and I’m sorry I broke the Ten Commandments. ’Lord have mercy upon us and write all these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee.’”

This liturgical outburst seemed wondrously to heal Joanna it seemed to link her up again with the centre of her religion Brodnyx church, with the big pews, and the hassocks, and the Lion and the Unicorn over the north door she felt readmitted into the congregation of the faithful, and her heart was full of thankfulness and loyalty. She rose from her knees, climbed into bed, and curled up on her side. Ten minutes later she was sound asleep.

Se

The next morning after breakfast, Joanna faced Ellen in the dining-room.

“Ellen,” she said “I’m going to sell Ansdore.”

“You’re what?”

“I’m going to put up this place for auction in September.”

“Joanna!”

Ellen stared at her in amazement, alarm, and some sympathy.

“I’m driving in to tell Edward Huxtable about it this morning. Not that I trust him, after the mess he made of my case; howsumever, I can look after him in this business, and the auctioneer, too.”

“But, my dear, I thought you said you’d plenty of money to meet your losses.”

“So I have. That’s not why I’m selling.”

“Then why on earth ...”

The colour mounted to Joanna’s face. She looked at her sister’s delicate, thoughtful face, with its air of quiet happiness. The room was full of sunshine, and Ellen was all in white.

“Ellen, I’m going to tell you something ... because you’re my sister. And I trust you not to let another living soul know what I’ve told you. As I kept your secret four years ago, so now you can keep mine.”

Ellen’s face lost a little of its repose suddenly, for a moment, she looked like the Ellen of “four years ago.”

“Really, Joanna, you might refrain from raking up the past.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to rake up nothing. I’ve no right seeing as what I want to tell you is that I’m just the same as you.”

Ellen turned white.

“What do you mean?” she cried furiously.

“I mean I’m going to have a child.”

Ellen stared at her without speaking, her mouth fell open; then her face began working in a curious way.

“I know I been wicked,” continued Joanna, in a dull, level voice “but it’s too late to help that now. The only thing now is to do the best I can, and that is to get out of here.”

“Do you know what you’re talking about?” said Ellen.

“Yes I know right enough. It’s true what I’m telling you. I didn’t know for certain till yesterday.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Certain sure.”

“But ” Ellen drummed with her fingers on the table, her hands were shaking, her colour came and went.

“Joanna is it Albert’s child?”

“Of course it is.”

“Then why why in God’s name did you break off the engagement?”

“I tell you I didn’t know till yesterday. I’d been scared once or twice, but he told me it was all right.”

“Does he know?”

“He doesn’t.”

“Then he must be told” Ellen sprang to her feet “Joanna, what a fool you are! You must send him a wire at once and tell him to come down here. You must marry him.”

“That I won’t!”

“But you’re mad really, you’ve no choice in the matter. You must marry him at once.”

“I tell you I’ll never do that.”

“If you don’t ... can’t you see what’ll happen? are you an absolute fool? If you don’t marry this man, your child will be illegitimate, you’ll be kicked out of decent society, and you’ll bring us all to ruin and disgrace.”

Ellen burst into tears. Joanna fought back her own.

“Listen to me, Ellen.”

But Ellen sobbed brokenly on. It was as if her own past had risen from its grave and laid cold hands upon her, just when she thought it was safely buried for ever.

“Don’t you see what’ll happen if you refuse to marry this man? It’ll ruin me it’ll spoil my marriage. Tip ... Good God! he’s risen to a good deal, seeing the ideas most Englishmen have ... but now you you ”

“Ellen, you don’t mean as Tip ull get shut of you because of me?”

“No, of course I don’t. But it’s asking too much of him it isn’t fair to him ... he’ll think he’s marrying into a fine family!” and Ellen’s tears broke into some not very pleasant laughter “both of us ... Oh, he was sweet about me, he understood but now you you! Whatever made you do it, Joanna?”

“I dunno ... I loved him, and I was mad.”

“I think it’s horrible of you perfectly horrible. I’d absolutely no idea you were that sort of woman I thought at least you were decent and respectable.... A man you were engaged to, too. Oh, I know what you’re thinking you’re thinking I’m in the same boat as you are, but I tell you I’m not. I was a married woman I couldn’t have married my lover, I’d a right to take what I could get. But you could have married yours you were going to marry him. But you lost your head like a common servant like the girl you sacked years ago when you thought I was too young to understand anything about it. And I never landed myself with a child at least there was some possibility of wiping out what I’d done when it proved a mistake, some chance of living it down and I’ve done it, I’ve won my way back, and now you come along and disgrace me all over again, and the man I love ...”

Never had Ellen’s voice been so like Joanna’s. It had risen to a hoarse note where it hung suspended anyone now would know that they were sisters.

“I tell you I’m sorry, Ellen. But I can’t do nothing bout it.”

“Yes, you can. You can marry this man, Hill then no one need ever know, Tip need never know ”

“Reckon that wouldn’t keep them from knowing. They’d see as I was getting married in a hurry not an invitation out and my troossoo not half ready and then they’d count the months till the baby came. No, I tell you, it’ll be much better if I go away. Everyone ull think as I’m bust, through having lost my case, and I’ll go right away Chichester, I’d thought of going to, where Martha Relf is and when the baby comes, no one till be a bit the wiser.”

“Of course they will. They’ll know all about it everything gets known here, and you’ve never in your life been able to keep a secret. If you marry, people won’t talk in the same way it’ll be only guessing, anyhow. You needn’t be down here when the baby’s born and at least Tip needn’t know. Joanna, if you love me, if you ever loved me, you’ll send a wire to this man and tell him that you’ve changed your mind and must see him you can easily make up the quarrel, whatever it was.”

“Maybe he wouldn’t marry me now, even if I did wire.”

“Nonsense he’d have to.”

“Well, he won’t be asked.”

Joanna was stiffening with grief. She had not expected to have this battle with Ellen; she had been prepared for abuse and upbraiding, but not for argument it had not struck her that her sister would demand the rehabilitation she herself refused.

“You’re perfectly shameless,” sobbed Ellen. “My God! It ud take a woman like you to brazen through a thing like this. Swanking, swaggering, you’ve always been ... well, I bet you’ll find this too much even for your swagger you don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for.... I can tell you a little, for I’ve known, I’ve felt, what people can be.... I’ve had to face them when you wouldn’t let Arthur give me my divorce.”

“Well, I’ll just about have to face ’em, that’s all. I done wrong, and I don’t ask not to be punished.”

“You’re an absolute fool. And if you won’t do anything for your own sake, you might at least do something for mine. I tell you, I’m not like you I do think of other people and for Tip’s sake I can’t have everyone talking about you, and may be my own story raked up again. I won’t have him punished for his goodness. If you won’t marry and be respectable, I tell you, you needn’t think I’ll ever let you see me again.”

“But, Ellen, supposing even there is talk you and Tip won’t be here to hear it. You’ll be married by then and away in Wiltshire. Tip need never know.”

“How can he help knowing, as long as you’ve got a tongue in your head? And what’ll he think you’re doing at Chichester? No, I tell you, Joanna, unless you marry Hill, you can say good-bye to me” she was speaking quite calmly now “I don’t want to be hard and unsisterly, but I happen to love the man who’s going to be my husband better than anyone in the world. He’s been good, and I’m not going to have his goodness put upon. He’s marrying a woman who’s had trouble and scandal in her life, but at least he’s not going to have the shame of that woman’s sister. So you can choose between me and yourself.”

“It ain’t between you and myself. It’s between you and my child. It’s for my child’s sake I won’t marry Bertie Hill.”

“My dear Joanna, are you quite an ass? Can’t you see that the person who will suffer most for all this is your child? I didn’t bring in that argument before, as I didn’t think it would appeal to you but surely you see that the position of an illegitimate child ...”

“Is much better than the child of folk who don’t love each other, and have only married because it was coming. I’m scared myself, and I can scare Bert, and we can get married but what’ll that be? He don’t love me I don’t love him. He don’t want to marry me I don’t want to marry him. He’ll never forgive me, and all our lives he’ll be throwing it up to me and he’ll be hating the child, seeing as it’s only because of it we’re married, and he’ll make it miserable. Oh, you don’t know Bertie as I know him I don’t say as it’s all his fault, poor boy, I reckon his mother didn’t raise him properly but you should hear him speak to his mother and sister, and know what he’d be as a husband and father. I tell you, he ain’t fit to be the father of a child.”

“And are you fit to be the mother?” Ellen sneered.

“Maybe I ain’t. But the point is, I am the mother, nothing can change that. And reckon I can fight, and keep the worst off. Oh, I know it ain’t easy, and it ain’t right; and I’ll suffer for it, and the worst till be that my child ull have to suffer too. But I tell you it shan’t suffer more than I can help. Reckon I shan’t manage so badly. I’ll raise it among strangers, and I’ll have a nice little bit of money to live on, coming to me from the farm, even when I’ve paid you a share, as I shall, as is fitting. I’ll give my child every chance I can.”

“Then it’s a choice between your child and me. If you do this mad thing, Joanna, you’ll have to go. I can’t have you ever coming near me and Tip it isn’t only for my own sake it’s for his.”

“Reckon we’re both hurting each other for somebody else’s sake. But I ain’t angry with you, Ellen, same as you’re angry with me.”

“I am angry with you I can’t help it. You go and do this utterly silly and horrible thing, and then instead of making the best you can of it for everybody’s sake, you go on blundering worse and worse. Such utter ignorance of the world ... such utter ignorance of your own self ... how d’you think you’re going to manage without Ansdore? Why, it’s your very life you’ll be utterly lost without it. Think of yourself, starting an entirely new life at your age nearly forty. It’s impossible. You don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for. But you’ll find out when it’s too late, and then both you and your unfortunate child ull have to suffer.”

“If I married Bert I couldn’t keep on Ansdore. He wouldn’t marry me unless I came to London I know that now. He’s set on business. I’d have to go and live with him in a street ... then we’d both be miserable, all three be miserable. Now if I go off alone, maybe later on I can get a bit of land, and run another farm in foreign parts by Chichester or Southampton just a little one, to keep me busy. Reckon that ud be fine and healthy for my child ...”

“Your child seems to be the only thing you care about. Really to hear you talk, one ud almost think you were glad.”

“I am glad.”

Ellen sprang to her feet.

“There’s no good going on with this conversation. You’re quite without feeling and quite without shame. I don’t know if you’ll come to your senses later, and not perhaps feel quite so glad that you have ruined your life, disgraced your family, broken my heart, brought shame and trouble into the life of a good and decent man. But at present I’m sick of you.”

She walked towards the door.

“Ellen,” cried Joanna “don’t go away like that don’t think that of me. I ain’t glad in that way.”

But Ellen would not turn or speak. She went out of the door with a queer, white draggled look about her.

“Ellen,” cried Joanna a second time, but she knew it was no good....

Well, she was alone now, if ever a woman was.

She stood staring straight in front of her, out of the little flower-pot obscured window, into the far distances of the Marsh. Once more the Marsh wore its strange, occasional look of being under the sea, but this time it was her own tears that had drowned it.

“Child what if the old floods came again?” she seemed to hear Martin’s voice as it had spoken in a far-off, half forgotten time.... He had talked to her about those old floods, he had said they might come again, and she had said they couldn’t.... My! How they used to argue together in those days. He had said that if the floods came back to drown the Marsh, all the church bells would ring under the sea....

She liked thinking of Martin in this way it comforted her. It made her feel as if, now that everything had been taken from her, the past so long lost had been given back. And not the past only, for if her memories lived, her hopes lived too not even Ellen’s bitterness could kill them.... There she stood, nearly forty years old, on the threshold of an entirely new life her lover, her sister, her farm, her home, her good name, all lost. But the past and the future still were hers.