Chapter X: Part 10

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

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

§6

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

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

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

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

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

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

§7

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why not?--If I'm not entitled, who is?"

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

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

Edward Huxtable consulted the Act.... "'Notice of objection may be served on the Commissioners within sixty days. If they do not allow the objection, the petitioner may appeal to a referee under the Act, and an appeal by either the petitioner or the Commissioners lies from the referee to the High Court, or where the site value does not exceed £500, to the County Court.' I suppose yours is worth more than £500?"

"I should just about think it is--it's worth something more like five thousand if the truth was known."

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

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

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

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

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

§8

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

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

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

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

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

§9

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You're thoroughly run down," he said at last--"been doing too much--you've done a lot, you know."

"Reckon I have," said Joanna--"but I'm a young woman yet"--there was a slight touch of defiance in her last words.

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

"You mean I should ought to go away?"

"Certainly."

"But I haven't been away for twenty year."

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

"But what'll become of Ansdore?"

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

"I can't go till the lambing's finished."

"When will that be?"

"Not till after Easter."

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

"Groove!" snorted Joanna.

§10

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

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

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

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

"But I can't go without you!" she cried dismally--"it wouldn't be seemly--it wouldn't be proper."

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

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

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

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

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

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

§11

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

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

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

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

"I'm getting fanciful," she thought--"this place hasn't done me a bit of good yet."

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

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

§12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

§13

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

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

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

There was a terrible silence.

"Are you going to pretend you didn't?"

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

Her hesitation gave him his opportunity.

"You aren't going to scold me, are you? I couldn't help it."

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

"It's such a lovely night--just the sort of night you feel lonely, unless you've got someone very nice with you."

This was terribly true.

"And you did give me the glad eye, you know."

"I didn't mean to." She had found her voice at last. "I--I thought you were someone else; at least I--"

"Are you expecting a friend?"

"Oh, no--no one. It was a mistake."

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

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

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

"I think it a proper fine band."

"So it is. They're going to play 'The Merry Widow' next--ever seen it?"

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

What on earth had he picked up?

"Do you live at Rye?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, I must be getting back."

"Where are you staying?"

"The Palace Hotel."

What ho! She must have some money.

"May I walk back with you?"

"Oh, thanks," said Joanna--"it ain't far."

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

"Won't you come and have dinner--I mean lunch--with me to-morrow?"

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

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

"Thanks no end--I'll be honoured."

"Then I'll expect you. One o'clock, and ask for Miss Godden."

§14

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

§15

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

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

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

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