Joanna Godden Part 33

"Well, folks don't give her the consequence she'd like; and now she sees you having gentry at your table ..."

"I'd have had her at it too, only she didn't want to come, and you haven't got the proper clothes. Arthur, if you take my advice, you'll go into Lydd this very day and buy yourself an evening suit."

"Ellen won't let me. She says I'd look a clown in it."

"Ellen's getting very short. What's happened to her these days?"

"It's only that she likes gentlefolk and is fit to mix with them; and after all, Jo, I'm nothing but a pore common man."

"I hope you don't complain of her, Arthur?"

"Oh, no--I've no complaints--don't you think it. And don't you go saying anything to her, Jo."

"Then what am I to do about it? I won't have her troubling you, nor herself, neither. I tell you what I'll do--look here!--I--I--" Joanna gave a loud sacrificial gulp--"I'll make it middle-day dinner instead of late, and then you won't have to wear evening dress, and Ellen can come and meet the Old Squire. She should ought to, seeing as he gave her a pearl locket when she was married. It won't be near so fine as having it in the evening, but I don't want neither her nor you to be upset--and I can always call it 'lunch' ..."

--23

As the result of Joanna's self-denial, Ellen and Arthur were able to meet Sir Harry Trevor and his sister at luncheon at Ansdore. The luncheon did not differ in any respect from the dinner as at first proposed. There was soup--much to Ellen's annoyance, as Arthur had never been able to master the etiquette of its consumption--and a leg of mutton and roast fowls, and a large fig pudding, washed down with some really good wine, for Joanna had asked the wine-merchant at Rye uncompromisingly for his best--"I don't mind what I pay so long as it's that"--and had been served accordingly. Mene Tekel waited, with creaking stays and shoes, and loud breaths down the visitors' necks as she thrust vegetable dishes and sauce-boats at perilous angles over their shoulders.

Ellen provided a piquant contrast to her surroundings. As she sat there in her soft grey dress, with her eyes cast down under her little town hat, with her quiet voice, and languid, noiseless movements, anything more unlike the average farmer's wife of the district was difficult to imagine. Joanna felt annoyed with her for dressing up all quiet as a water-hen, but she could see that, in spite of it, her sacrifice in having her party transferred from the glamorous evening hour had been justified. Both the Old Squire and his sister were obviously interested in Ellen Alce--he in the nave unguarded way of the male, she more subtly and not without a dash of patronage.

Mrs. Williams always took an interest in any woman she thought downtrodden, as her intuition told her Ellen was by that coa.r.s.e, hairy creature, Arthur Alce. She herself had disposed of an unsatisfactory husband with great decision and resource, and, perhaps as a thank-offering, had devoted the rest of her life to woman's emanc.i.p.ation. She travelled about the country lecturing for a well-known suffrage society, and was bitterly disappointed in Joanna G.o.dden because she expressed herself quite satisfied without the vote.

"But don't you feel it humiliating to see your carter and your cowman and your shepherd boy all go up to Rye to vote on polling-day, while you, who own this farm, and have such a stake in the country, aren't allowed to do so?"

"It only means as I've got eight votes instead of one," said Joanna, "and don't have the trouble of going to the poll, neither. Not one of my men would dare vote but as I told him, so reckon I do better than most at the elections."

Mrs. Williams told Joanna that it was such opinions which were keeping back the country from some goal unspecified.

"Besides, you have to think of other women, Miss G.o.dden--other women who aren't so fortunate and independent as yourself."

She gave a long glance at Ellen, whose downcast eyelids flickered.

"I don't care about other women," said Joanna, "if they won't stand up for themselves, I can't help them. It's easy enough to stand up to a man. I don't think much of men, neither. I like 'em, but I can't think any shakes of their doings. That's why I'd sooner they did their own voting and mine too. Now, Mene Tekel, can't you see the Squire's ate all his cabbage?--You hand him the dish again--not under his chin--he don't want to eat out of it--but low down, so as he can get hold of the spoon...."

Joanna looked upon her luncheon party as a great success, and her pleasure was increased by the fact that soon after it Sir Harry Trevor and his sister paid a ceremonial call on Ellen at Donkey Street.

"Now she'll be pleased," thought Joanna, "it's always what she's been hankering after--having gentlefolk call on her and leave their cards. It ain't my fault it hasn't happened earlier.... I'm unaccountable glad she met them at my house. It'll learn her to think prouder of me."

--24

That spring and summer Sir Harry Trevor was a good deal at North Farthing, and it was rumoured on the Marsh that he had run through the money so magnanimously left him and had been driven home to economize.

Joanna did not see as much of him as in the old days--he had given up his attempts at farming, and had let off all the North Farthing land except the actual garden and paddock. He came to see her once or twice, and she went about as rarely to see him. It struck her that he had changed in many ways, and she wondered a little where he had been and what he had done during the last four years. He did not look any older.

Some queer, rather unpleasant lines had traced themselves at the corners of his mouth and eyes, but strangely enough, though they added to his characteristic air of humorous sophistication, they also added to his youth, for they were lines of desire, of feeling ... perhaps in his four years of absence from the Marsh he had learned how to feel at last, and had found youth instead of age in the commotions which feeling brings.

Though he must be fifty-five, he looked scarcely more than forty--and he had a queer, weak, loose, emotional air about him that she found it hard to account for.

In the circ.u.mstances she did not press invitations upon him, she had no time to waste on men who did not appreciate her as a woman--which the Squire, in spite of his susceptibility, obviously failed to do. From June to August she met him only once, and that was at Ellen's. Neither did she see very much of Ellen that summer--her life was too full of hard work, as a subst.i.tute for economy.

Curiously enough next time she went to see her sister Sir Harry was there again.

"Hullo! I always seem to be meeting you here," she said--"and nowhere else--you never come to see me now."

Sir Harry grinned.

"You're always so mortal busy, Jo--I'd feel in your way. Now this little woman never seems to have much to do. You're a lazy little thing, Ellen--I don't believe you ever move off the sofa, except to the piano."

Joanna was surprised to see him on such familiar terms with her sister--"Ellen," indeed! He'd no right to call her that.

"Mrs. Alce hasn't nothing beyond her housework to do--and any woman worth her keep 'ull get shut of that in the morning. Now I've got everything on my hands--and I've no good, kind Arthur to look after me neither," and Joanna beamed on Arthur Alce as he stirred his tea at the end of the table.

"And jolly thankful you are that you haven't," said the Squire. "Own up, Joanna, and say that the last thing you'd want in life would be someone to look after you."

"Well, it strikes me," said Joanna, "as most of the people I meet want looking after themselves, and it 'ud be just about waste for any of 'em to start looking after me."

Arthur Alce unexpectedly murmured something that sounded like "Hear, hear."

When Joanna left, he brought round her trap, as the saucy-eyed young groom was having a day off in Rye.

"How've your turnips done?" he asked.

"Not so good as last year, but the wurzels are fine."

"Mine might be doing better"--he stood fumbling with a trace-buckle.

"Has that come loose?" asked Joanna.

"Nun-no. I hope your little lady liked her oats."

"She looks in good heart--watch her tugging. You've undone that buckle, Arthur."

"So I have--I was just fidgeting."

He fastened the strap again, his fingers moving clumsily and slowly. It struck her that he was trying to gain time, that he wanted to tell her something.

"Anything the matter, Arthur?"

"Nothing--why?"

"Oh, it struck me you looked worried."

"What should I be worried about?"