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.

§22

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.

§23

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.

§24

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.

§25

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

"Ole 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."

§26

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, ole 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.

§27

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.

§28

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 ole 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."

§29

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, ole 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 Café,

"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 ole 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.

§30

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, ole 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.

§31

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."

§32

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."

§33

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.

§34

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....

§35

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."

§36

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.

§37

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.