Joanna Godden Part 11

"I like what we've got very well," she said truculently--"It's done for us properly this thirty year."

"That's just it," said the Rector, "it's done so well that I think we ought to let it retire from business, and appoint something younger in its place ... he! he!" He looked at her nervously to see if she had appreciated the joke, but Joanna's humour was not of that order.

"I don't like the idea," she said.

Mr. Pratt miserably clasped and unclasped his hands. He felt that one day he would be crushed between his parishioners' hatred of change and his fellow-priests' insistence on it--rumour said that the Squire's elder son, Father Lawrence, was coming home before long, and the poor little rector quailed to think of what he would say of the harmonium if it was still in its place.

"I--er--Miss G.o.dden--I feel our reputation is at stake. Visitors, you know, come to our little church, and are surprised to find us so far behind the times in our music. At Pedlinge we've only got a piano, but I'm not worrying about that now.... Perhaps the harmonium might be patched up enough for Pedlinge, where our services are not as yet Fully Choral ... it all depends on how much money we collect."

"How much do you want?"

"Well, I'm told that a cheap, good make would be thirty pounds. We want it to last us well, you see, as I don't suppose we shall ever have a proper organ."

He handed her a little book in which he had entered the names of subscribers.

"People have been very generous already, and I'm sure if your name is on the list they will give better still."

The generosity of the neighbourhood amounted to five shillings from p.r.i.c.kett of Great Ansdore, and half-crowns from Vine, Furnese, Vennal, and a few others. As Joanna studied it she became possessed of two emotions--one was a feeling that since others, including Great Ansdore, had given, she could not in proper pride hold back, the other was a queer savage pity for Mr. Pratt and his poor little collection--scarcely a pound as the result of all his begging, and yet he had called it generous....

She immediately changed her mind about the scheme, and going over to a side table where an ink-pot and pen reposed on a woolly mat, she prepared to enter her name in the little book.

"I'll give him ten shillings," she said to herself--"I'll have given the most."

Mr. Pratt watched her. He found something stimulating in the sight of her broad back and shoulders, her large presence had invigorated him--somehow he felt self-confident, as he had not felt for years, and he began to talk, first about the harmonium, and then about himself--he was a widower with three pale little children, whom he dragged up somehow on an income of two hundred a year.

Joanna was not listening. She was thinking to herself--"My cheque-book is in the drawer. If I wrote him a cheque, how grand it would look."

Finally she opened the drawer and took the cheques out. After all, she could afford to be generous--she had nearly a hundred pounds in Lewes Old Bank, put aside without any sc.r.a.ping for future "improvements." How much could she spare? A guinea--that would look handsome, among all the miserable half-crowns....

Mr. Pratt had seen the cheque-book, and a stutter came into his speech--

"So good of you, Miss G.o.dden ... to help me ... encouraging, you know ... been to so many places, a tiring afternoon ... feel rewarded."

She suddenly felt her throat grow tight; the queer compa.s.sion had come back. She saw him trotting forlornly round from farm to farm, begging small sums from people much better off than himself, receiving denials or grudging gifts ... his boots were all over dust, she had noticed them on her carpet. Her face flushed, as she suddenly dashed her pen into the ink, wrote out the cheque in her careful, half-educated hand, and gave it to him.

"There--that'll save you tramping any further."

She had written the cheque for the whole amount.

Mr. Pratt could not speak. He opened and shut his mouth like a fish.

Then suddenly he began to gabble, he poured out thanks and a.s.surances and deprecations in a stammering torrent. His grat.i.tude overwhelmed Joanna, disgusted her. She lost her feeling of warmth and compa.s.sion--after all, what should she pity him for now that he had got what he wanted, and much more easily than he deserved?

"That's all right, Mr. Pratt. I'm sorry I can't wait any longer now. I'm making jam."

She forgot his dusty boots and weary legs that had scarcely had time to rest, she forgot that she had meant to offer him a cup of tea.

"Good afternoon," she said, as he rose, with apologies for keeping her.

She went with him to the door, s.n.a.t.c.hed his hat off the peg and gave it to him, then crashed the door behind him, her cheeks burning with a queer kind of shame.

--3

For the next few days Joanna avoided Mr. Pratt; she could not tell why her munificence should make her dislike him, but it did. One day as she was walking through Pedlinge she saw him standing in the middle of the road, talking to a young man whom on approach she recognized as Martin Trevor, the Squire's second son. She could not get out of his way, as the Pedlinge d.y.k.e was on one side of the road and on the other were some cottages. To turn back would be undignified, so she decided to pa.s.s them with a distant and lordly bow.

Unfortunately for this, she could not resist the temptation to glance at Martin Trevor--she had not seen him for some time, and it was surprising to meet him in the middle of the week, as he generally came home only for week-ends. That glance was her undoing--a certain cordiality must have crept into it, inspired by his broad shoulders and handsome, swarthy face, for Mr. Pratt was immediately encouraged, and pounced. He broke away from Trevor to Joanna's side.

"Oh, Miss G.o.dden ... so glad to meet you. I--I never thanked you properly last week for your generosity--your munificence. Thought of writing, but somehow felt that--felt that inadequate.... Mr. Trevor, I've told you about Miss G.o.dden ... our harmonium ..."

He had actually seized Joanna's hand. She pulled it away. What a wretched undersized little chap he was. She could have borne his grat.i.tude if only he had been a real man, tall and dark and straight like the young fellow who was coming up to her.

"Please don't, Mr. Pratt. I wish you wouldn't make all this tedious fuss."

She turned towards Martin Trevor with a greeting in her eyes. But to her surprise she saw that he had fallen back. The Rector had fallen back too, and the two men stood together, as when she had first come up to them.

Joanna realized that she had missed the chance of an introduction. Well, it didn't matter. She really couldn't endure Mr. Pratt and his ghastly grat.i.tude. She put her stiffest bow into practice and walked on.

For the rest of the day she tried to account for young Trevor's mid-week appearance. Her curiosity was soon satisfied, though she was at a disadvantage in having no male to bring her news from the Woolpack.

However, she made good use of other people's males, and by the same evening was possessed of the whole story. Martin Trevor had been ill in London with pleurisy, and the doctor said his lungs were in danger and that he must give up office work and lead an open-air life. He was going to live with his father for a time, and help him farm North Farthing House--they were taking in a bit more land there, and buying sheep.

--4

That October the Farmers' Club Dinner was held as usual at the Woolpack.

There had been some controversy about asking Joanna--there was controversy every year, but this year the difference lay in the issue, for the ayes had it.

The reasons for this change were indefinite--on the whole, no doubt, it was because people liked her better. They had grown used to her at Ansdore, where at first her mastership had shocked them; the scandal and contempt aroused by the Socknersh episode were definitely dead, and men took off their hats to the strenuousness with which she had pulled the farm together, and faced a crisis that would have meant disaster to many of her neighbours. Ansdore was one of the largest farms of the district, and it was absurd that it should never be represented at the Woolpack table merely on the ground that its master was a woman.

Of course many women wondered how Joanna could face such a company of males, and suggestions were made for admitting farmers' wives on this occasion. But Joanna was not afraid, and when approached as to whether she would like other women invited, or to bring a woman friend, she declared that she would be quite satisfied with the inevitable presence of the landlord's wife.

She realized that she would be far more imposing as the only woman guest, and made great preparations for a proper display. Among these was included the buying of a new gown at Folkestone. She thought that Folkestone, being a port for the channel steamers, would be more likely to have the latest French fashions than the nearer towns of Bulverhythe and Marlingate. My I But she would make the Farmers' Club sit up.

The dressmaker at Folkestone tried to persuade her not to have her sleeves lengthened or an extra fold of lace arranged along the top of her bodice.

"Madam has such a lovely neck and arms--it's a pity to cover them up--and it spoils the character of the gown. Besides, madam, this gown is not at all extreme--demi-toilet is what it really is."

"I tell you it won't do--I'm going to dine alone with several gentlemen, and it wouldn't be seemly to show such a lot of myself."

It ended, to the dressmaker's despair, in her draping her shoulders in a lace scarf and wearing kid gloves to her elbow; but though these pruderies might have spoilt her appearance at Dungemarsh Court, there was no doubt as to its effectiveness at the Woolpack. The whole room held its breath as she sailed in, with a rustle of amber silk skirts.

Her hair was piled high against a tortoise-sh.e.l.l comb, making her statelier still.

Furnese of Misleham, who was chairman that year, came gaping to greet her. The others stared and stood still. Most of them were shocked, in spite of the scarf and the long gloves, but then it was just like Joanna G.o.dden to swing bravely through an occasion into which most women would have crept. She saw that she had made a sensation, which she had expected and desired, and her physical modesty being appeased, she had no objection to the men's following eyes. She saw that Sir Harry Trevor was in the room, with his son Martin.

It was the first time that the Squire had been to the Farmers' Club Dinner. Up till then no one had taken him seriously as a farmer. For a year or two after his arrival in the neighbourhood he had managed the North Farthing estate through a bailiff, and on the latter's turning out unsatisfactory, had dismissed him, and at the same time let off a good part of the land, keeping only a few acres for cow-grazing round the house. Now, on his son's coming home and requiring an outdoor life, he had given a quarter's notice to the butcher-grazier to whom he had sub-let his innings, had bought fifty head of sheep, and joined the Farmers' Club--which he knew would be a practical step to his advantage, as it brought certain privileges in the way of marketing and hiring.