Joanna Godden Part 8

--16

Her apology took the discreet form of a side of bacon, and Socknersh did not give notice--had evidently never thought of it. Of course the shearers spread the story of Joanna's outburst when they went on to Slinches and Birdskitchen and other farms, but no one was surprised that the shepherd stayed on.

"He'd never be such a fool as to give up being looker a day before she makes him master," said Cobb of Slinches.

"And when he's master," said Mrs. Cobb, "he'll get his own back for her sa.s.sing him before Harmer and his men."

A few weeks later Socknersh brought the first of the cross-bred lambs to market at Rye, and Joanna's wonderful sheep-breeding scheme was finally sealed a failure. The lambs were not only poor in wool, but coa.r.s.e in meat, and the butchers would not deal, small mutton being the fashion.

Altogether they fetched lower prices than the Kent lambs, and the rumour of Ansdore's losses mounted to over four hundred pounds.

Rumour was not very wide of the fact--what with hiring fees, railway expenses, the loss of ewes and lambs at the lambing, and the extra diet and care which panic had undertaken for the survivors, the venture had put about two hundred and sixty pounds on the debit side of Joanna's accounts. She was able to meet her losses--her father had died with a comfortable balance in Lewes Old Bank, and she had always paid ready money, so was without any enc.u.mbrance of debt--but Ansdore was bound to feel the blow, which had shorn it of its fleece of pleasant profits.

Joanna was for the first time confronted by the need for economy, and she hated economy with all the lavish, colour-loving powers of her nature. Even now she would not bend herself to retrenchment--not a man less in the yard, not a girl less in the kitchen, as her neighbours had expected.

But the failure of the cross-bred lambs did not end the tale of Ansdore's misadventures. There was a lot of dipping for sheep-scab on the Marsh that August, and it soon became known that several of Joanna G.o.dden's sheep and lambs had died after the second dip.

"That's her valiant Socknersh again," said p.r.i.c.kett--"guv 'em a double a.r.s.enic dip. Good sakes! That woman had better be quick and marry him before he does any more harm as her looker."

"There's more than he gives a double a.r.s.enic dip, surelye."

"Surelye--but they mixes the can a bit. Broadhurst says as Socknersh's second dip was as strong as his first."

The feeling about Socknersh's incapacity reached such a point that more than one warning was given Joanna for her father's sake, and one at least for her own, from Arthur Alce.

"I shouldn't say it, Joanna, if it wasn't true, but a man who puts a sheep into poison-wash twice in a fortnight isn't fit to be anyone's looker."

"But we were dipping for sheep-scab--that takes something stronger than Keatings."

"Yes, but the point is, d'you see, that you give 'em the first dip in a.r.s.enic stuff, and the next shouldn't ought to be poison at all--there's a lot of good safe dips on the market, that ull do very well for a second wash."

"Socknersh knows his business."

"He don't--that's why I'm speaking. Fuller ud never have done what he's done. He's lost you a dozen prime sheep on the top of all your other losses."

The reference was unfortunate. Joanna's cheekbones darkened ominously.

"It's all very well for you to talk, Arthur Alce, for you think no one can run Ansdore except yourself who'll never get the chance. It's well known around, in spite of what you say, that Socknersh is valiant with sheep--no one can handle 'em as he can; at the shearing Harmer and his men were full of it--how the ewes ud keep quiet for him as for n.o.body else--and 'twas the same at the lambing. It wasn't his fault that the lambs died, but because that chap at Northampton never told us what he should ought.... I tell you, I've never had anyone like him for handling sheep--they're quite different with him from what they were with that rude old Fuller, barking after 'em like a dog along the Brodnyx road and bringing 'em up to Rye all raggled and draggled and dusty as mops ... he knows how to manage sheep--he's like one of themselves."

"That's just about it--he's like another sheep, so they ain't scared of him, but he can do no more for 'em than another sheep could, neither.

He's ignorant--he's got no sense nor know, or he'd never have let you breed with them Spanishes, or given 'em a poisonous double-dip--and he's always having sway-backs up at market, too, and tic and hoose and fluke.... Oh, Joanna, if you're any bit wise you'll get shut of him before he messes you all up. And you know what folks say--they say you'd have got shut of him months agone if you hadn't been so unaccountable set on him, so as they say--yes, they say one day you'll marry him and make him master of Ansdore."

Alce's face flamed as red as his whiskers and nearly as red as Joanna's cheeks. For a moment she faced him speechless, her mouth open.

"Oh, that's what they say, is it!" she broke out at last. "They say I'd marry d.i.c.k Socknersh, who looks after my sheep, and who's like a sheep himself. They think I'd marry a man who's got no more'n two words on his tongue and half that number of ideas in his head--who can't think without its giving him a headache--who comes of no cla.s.s of people--his father and mother were hedge people up at Anvil Green--who gets eighteen bob a week as my looker--who--"

"Don't get so vrothered, Joanna. I'm only telling you what folk say, and if you'll stop and think you'll see they've got some reason. Your looker's done things that no farmer on this Marsh ud put up with a month, and yet you keep him on, you with all your fine ideas about farming and running Ansdore as your poor father ud have had it ... and then he's a well set-up young man too, nice-looking and stout as I won't deny, and you're a young woman that I'd say was nice-looking too, and it's only natural folks should talk when they see a pretty woman hanging on to a handsome chap in spite of his having half bust her."

"He hasn't half bust me, nor a quarter, neither--and I ain't hanging on to him, as you're elegant enough to say. I keep him as my looker because he's valiant with the sheep and manages 'em as if born to it, and because he minds what I say and doesn't sa.s.s me back or meddle, as some I could name. As for being set on him, I'm not so far below myself as all that. You must think unaccountable low of me, Arthur Alce, if you figure I'd get sweet on a man who's courting my chicken-gal, which is what d.i.c.k Socknersh is doing."

"Courting Martha Tilden?"

"Yes, my chicken-gal. And you think I'd look at him!--I!... You must think middling low of me, Arthur Alce ... a man who's courting my chicken-gal."

"I'd always thought as Martha Tilden--but you must know best. Well, if he's courting her I hope as he'll marry her soon and show folks they're wrong about him and you."

"They should ought to be ashamed of themselves to need showing. I look at a man who's courting my chicken-gal!--I never! I tell you what I'll do--I'll raise his wages, so as he can marry her at once--my chicken-gal--and so as folk ull know that I'm satisfied with him as my looker."

And Joanna marched off up the drive, where this conversation had taken place.

--17

She raised Socknersh's wages to twenty shillings the next day, and it was not due to any wordy flow of his grat.i.tude that the name of Martha Tilden was not mentioned between them. "Better leave it," thought Joanna to herself, "after all, I'm not sure--and she's a s.l.u.t. I'd sooner he married a cleaner, steadier sort of gal."

Grace Wickens had already departed, her cocoa-making tendencies having lately pa.s.sed into mania--and her successor was an older woman, a widow, who had fallen on evil days. She was a woman of few words, and Joanna wondered a little when one afternoon she said to her rather anxiously: "I'd lik to speak to you, ma'am--in private, if you please."

They went into the larder and Mrs. Tolhurst began:

"I hardly lik to say it to you, Miss Joanna, being a single spinster ..."

This was a bad beginning, for Joanna flamed at once at the implication that her spinsterhood put her at any disadvantage as a woman of the world.

"Don't talk nonsense, Mrs. Tolhurst; I may be unwed as yet, but I'm none of your Misses."

"No, ma'am--well, it's about this Martha Tilden--"

Joanna started.

"What about her?"

"Only, ma'am, that she's six months gone."

There was no chair in the larder, or Joanna would have fallen into it--instead she staggered back against the shelves, with a great rattle of crockery. Her face was as white as her own plates, and for a moment she could not speak.

"I made bold to tell you, Miss Joanna, for all the neighbourhood's beginning to talk--and the gal getting near her time and all.... I thought maybe you'd have noticed.... Don't be in such a terrification about it, Miss Joanna.... I'm sorry I told you--maybe I shud ought to have spuck to the gal fust ..."

"Don't be a fool ... the dirty s.l.u.t!--I'll learn her ... under my very roof--"

"Oh, no, ma'am,'twasn't under your roof--we shouldn't have allowed it.

She used to meet him in the field down by Beggar's Bush ..."

"Hold your tongue."

Mrs. Tolhurst was offended; she thought her mistress's behaviour unwarranted either by modesty or indignation. There were burning tears in Joanna's eyes as she flung herself out of the room. She was blind as she went down the pa.s.sage, twisting her ap.r.o.n furiously in her hands.

"Martha Tilden!" she called--"Martha Tilden!"