Joanna Godden Part 3

"Well, you work as well for me as you did for him, and I won't call you lazy, neither."

She gave him a conciliatory grin, but Fuller had been too deeply wounded for such easy balm. He turned and walked away, a whole speech written in the rebellious hunch of his shoulders.

"You'll get them beasts," she called after him.

"Surelye"--came in a protesting drawl. Then "Yup!--Yup!" to the two sheep dogs couched on the doorstep.

--6

What with supervising the work and herding slackers, getting her breakfast and packing off Ellen to the little school she went to at Rye, Joanna found all too soon that the market hour was upon her. It did not strike her to shirk this part of a farmer's duty--she would drive into Rye and into Lydd and into Romney as her father had always driven, inspecting beasts and watching prices. Soon after ten o'clock she ran upstairs to make herself splendid, as the occasion required.

By this time the morning had lifted itself out of the mist. Great sheets of blue covered the sky and were mirrored in the d.y.k.es--there was a soft golden glow about the marsh, for the vivid green of the pastures was filmed over with the brown of the withering seed-gra.s.ses, and the big clumps of trees that protected every dwelling were richly toned to rust through scales of flame. Already there were signs that the day would be hot, and Joanna sighed to think that approaching winter had demanded that her new best black should be made of thick materials. She hated black, too, and grimaced at her sombre frills, which the mourning brooch and chain of jet beads could only embellish, never lighten. But she would as soon have thought of jumping out of the window as of discarding her mourning a day before the traditions of the Marsh decreed. She decided not to wear her brooch and chain--the chain might swing and catch in the beasts' horns as she inspected them, besides her values demanded that she should be slightly more splendid in church than at market, so her ornaments were reserved as a crowning decoration, all except her mourning ring made of a lock of her father's hair.

It was the first time she had been to market since his death, and she knew that folks would stare, so she might as well give them something to stare at. Outside the front door, in the drive, old Stuppeny was holding the head of Foxy, her mare, harnessed to the neat trap that Thomas G.o.dden had bought early the same year.

"Hullo, Stuppeny--you ain't coming along like that!" and Joanna's eye swept fiercely up and down his manure-caked trousers.

"I never knew as I wur coming along anywheres, Miss Joanna."

"You're coming along of me to the market. Surely you don't expect a lady to drive by herself?"

Old Stuppeny muttered something unintelligible.

"You go and put on your black coat," continued Joanna.

"My Sunday coat!" shrieked Stuppeny.

"Yes--quick! I can't wait here all day."

"But I can't put on my good coat wudout cleaning myself, and it'll taake me the best part o' the marnun to do that."

Joanna saw the reasonableness of his objection.

"Oh, well, you can leave it this once, but another time you remember and look decent. To-day it'll do if you go into the kitchen and ask Grace to take a brush to your trousers--and listen here!" she called after him as he shambled off--"if she's making cocoa you can ask her to give you a cup."

Grace evidently was making cocoa--a habit she had whenever her mistress's back was turned--for Stuppeny did not return for nearly a quarter of an hour. He looked slightly more presentable as he climbed into the back of the trap. It struck Joanna that she might be able to get him a suit of livery secondhand.

"There isn't much he's good for on the farm now at his age, so he may as well be the one to come along of me. Broadhurst or Luck ud look a bit smarter, but it ud be hard to spare them.... Stuppeny ud look different in a livery coat with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons.... I'll look around for one if I've time this afternoon."

It was nearly seven miles from Ansdore to Lydd, pa.s.sing the Woolpack, and the ragged gable of Midley Chapel--a reproachful ruin among the reeds of the Wheelsgate Sewer. Foxy went smartly, but every now and then they had to slow down as they overtook and pa.s.sed flocks of sheep and cattle being herded along the road by drovers and shepherds in dusty boots, and dogs with red, lolling tongues. It was after midday when the big elm wood which had been their horizon for the last two miles suddenly turned, as if by an enchanter's wand, into a fair-sized town of red roofs and walls, with a great church tower raking above the trees.

Joanna drove straight to the Crown, where Thomas G.o.dden had "put up"

every market day for twenty years. She ordered her dinner--boiled beef and carrots, and jam roll--and walked into the crowded coffee room, where farmers from every corner of the three marshes were already at work with knife and fork. Some of them knew her by sight and stared, others knew her by acquaintance and greeted her, while Arthur Alce jumped out of his chair, dropping his knife and sweeping his neighbour's bread off the table. He was a little shocked and alarmed to see Joanna the only woman in the room; he suggested that she should have her dinner in the landlady's parlour--"you'd be quieter like, in there."

"I don't want to be quiet, thank you," said Joanna.

She felt thankful that none of the few empty chairs was next Alce's--she could never abide his fussing. She sat down between Cobb of Slinches and a farmer from Snargate way, and opened the conversation pleasantly on the subject of liver fluke in sheep.

When she had brought her meal to a close with a cup of tea, she found Alce waiting for her in the hotel entrance.

"I never thought you'd come to market, Joanna."

"And why not, pray?"

The correct answer was--"Because you don't know enough about beasts,"

but Alce had the sense to find a subst.i.tute.

"Because it ain't safe or seemly for a woman to come alone and deal with men."

"And why not, again? Are all you men going to swindle me if you get the chance?"

Joanna's laugh always had a disintegrating effect on Alce, with its loud warm tones and its revelation of her pretty teeth--which were so white and even, except the small pointed canines. When she laughed she opened her mouth wide and threw back her head on her short white neck. Alce gropingly put out a hairy hand towards her, which was his nearest approach to a caress. Joanna flicked it away.

"Now a-done do, Arthur Alce"--dropping in her merriment into the lower idiom of the Marsh--"a-done do with your croaking and your stroking both. Let me go my own ways, for I know 'em better than you can."

"But these chaps--I don't like it--maybe, seeing you like this amongst them, they'll get bold with you."

"Not they! How can you mention such a thing? There was Mr. Cobb and Mr.

G.o.dfrey at dinner, talking to me as respectful as churchwardens, all about liver fluke and then by way of rot in the oats, pa.s.sing on natural and civil to the Isle of Wight disease in potatoes--if you see anything bold in _that_ ... well then you're an old woman as sure as I ain't."

A repet.i.tion of her laugh completed his disruption, and he found himself there on the steps of the Crown begging her to let him take over her market day discussions as her husband and deputy.

"Why should you go talking to farmers about Isle of Wight disease and liver fluke, when you might be talking to their wives about making puddings and stuffing mattresses and such-like women's subjects."

"I talk about them too," said Joanna, "and I can't see as I'd be any better for talking of nothing else."

What Alce had meant to convey to her was that he would much rather hear her discussing the ailments of her children than of her potatoes, but he was far too delicate-minded to state this. He only looked at her sadly.

Joanna had not even troubled to refuse his proposal--any more than a mother troubles to give a definite and reasoned refusal to the child who asks for the moon. Finding him silent, and feeling rather sorry for him, she suggested that he should come round with her to the shops and carry some of her parcels.

--7

She went first of all to a firm of house-painters, for she meant to brighten up Ansdore. She disliked seeing the place with no colour or ornament save that which the marsh wind gave it of gold and rust. She would have the eaves and the pipes painted a nice green, such as would show up well at a distance. There was plenty of money, so why should everything be drab? Alce discouraged her as well as he was able--it was the wrong time of year for painting, and the old paint was still quite good. Joanna treated his objections as she had treated his proposal--with good-humoured, almost tender, indifference. She let him make his moan at the house-painter's, then carelessly bore him on to the furnishers', where she bought brightly-flowered stuff for new curtains.

Then he stood by while at an outfitter's she inspected coats for Stuppeny, and finally bought one of a fine mulberry colour with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons all down the front.

She now returned to the market-place, and sought out two farmers from the Iden district, with whom she made arrangements for the winter keep of her lambs. Owing to the scanty and salt pastures of winter, it had always been the custom on the marsh to send the young sheep for grazing on upland farms, and fetch them back in the spring as tegs. Joanna disposed of her young flock between Relf of Baron's Grange and Noakes of Mockbeggar, then, still accompanied by Alce, strolled down to inspect the wethers she had brought to the market.

On her way she met the farmer of Picknye Bush.

"Good day, Miss G.o.dden--I've just come from buying some tegs of yourn."

"My looker's settled with you, has he?"