The house was quite still; everyone had gone to bed, and the moon filled the middle of the window, splashing the bed, and Joanna in it, and the walls, and the sagging beams of the ceiling. She thought of getting up to pull down the blind, but had no more energy to do that than to bind her hair. She wanted desperately to go to sleep. She lay on her side, her head burrowed down into the pillow, her hands clenched under her chin. Her bed was next the door, and beyond the door, against the wall at right angles to it, was her chest of drawers, with Martin's photograph in its black frame, and the photograph of his tombstone in a frame with a lily worked on it. Her eyes strained towards them in the darkness ... oh, Martin—Martin, why did I ever forget you?... But I never forgot you ... Martin, I've never had my man.... I've got money, two farms, lovely clothes—I'm just as good as a lady ... but I've never had my man.... Seemingly I'll go down into the grave without him ... but, oh, I do want ... the thing I was born for....

Sobs shook her broad shoulders as she lay there in the moonlight. But they did not relieve her—her sobs ploughed deep into her soul ... they turned strange furrows.... Oh, she was a bad woman, who deserved no happiness. She'd always known it.

She lifted her head, straining her eyes through the darkness and tears to gaze at Martin's photograph as if it were the Serpent in the Wilderness. Perhaps all this had come upon her because she had been untrue to his memory—and yet what had so appealed to her about Bertie was that he was like Martin, though Ellen said he wasn't—well, perhaps he wasn't.... But what was happening now? Something had come between her and the photograph on the chest of drawers. With a sudden chill at her heart, she realized that it was the door opening.

"Who's there?" she cried in a hoarse angry whisper.

"Don't be frightened, dear—don't be frightened, my sweet Jo—" said Bertie Hill.



Sec.23

She could not think—she could only feel. It was morning—that white light was morning, though it was like the moon. Under it the Marsh lay like a land under the sea—it must have looked like this when the keels of the French boats swam over it, high above Ansdore, and Brodnyx, and Pedlinge, lying like red apples far beneath, at the bottom of the sea. That was nonsense ... but she could not think this morning, she could only feel.

He had not been gone an hour, but she must find him. She must be with him—just feel him near her. She must see his head against the window, hear the heavy, slow sounds of his moving. She slipped on her clothes and twisted up her hair, and went down into the empty, stir-less house. No one was about—even her own people were in bed. The sun was not yet up, but the white dawn was pouring into the house, through the windows, through the chinks. Joanna stood in the midst of it. Then she opened the door and went out into the yard, which was a pool of cold light, ringed round with barns and buildings and reed-thatched haystacks. It was queer how this cold, still, trembling dawn hurt her—seemed to flow into her, to be part of herself, and yet to wound.... She had never felt like this before—she could never have imagined that love would make her feel like this, would make her see beauty in her forsaken yard at dawn—not only see but feel that beauty, physically, as pain. Her heart wounded her—her knees were failing—she went back into the house.

A wooden chair stood in the passage outside the kitchen door, and she sat down on it. She was still unable to think, and she knew now that she did not want to think—it might make her afraid. She wanted only to remember.... He had called her the loveliest, sweetest, most beautiful woman in the world.... She repeated his words over and over again, calling up the look with which he had said them ... oh, those eyes of his—slanty, saucy, secret, loving eyes....

She wondered why he did not come down. She could not imagine that he had turned into bed and gone to sleep—that he did not know she was sitting here waiting for him in the dawn. For a moment she thought of going up and knocking at his door—then she heard a thud of footsteps and creaking of boards, which announced that Mene Tekel and Nan Gregory of Windpumps were stirring in their bedroom. In an incredibly short time they were coming downstairs, tying apron-strings and screwing up hair as they went, and making a terrific stump past the door behind which they imagined their mistress was in bed. It was a great shock to them to find that she was downstairs before them—they weren't more than five minutes late.

"Hurry up, gals," said Joanna, "and get that kettle boiling for the men. I hear Broadhurst about the yard. Mene Tekel, see as there's no clinkers left in the grate; Mrs. Alce never got her bath yesterday evening before dinner as she expects it. When did you do the flues last?"

She set her household about its business—her dreams could not live in the atmosphere of antagonistic suspicion in which she had always viewed the younger members of her own sex. She was firmly convinced that neither Nan nor Mene would do a stroke of work if she was not "at them"; the same opinion applied in a lesser degree to the men in the yard. So till Ansdore's early breakfast appeared amid much hustling and scolding, Joanna had no time to think about her lover, or continue the dreams so strangely and gloriously begun in the sunless dawn.

Bertie was late for breakfast, and came down apologising for having overslept himself. But he had a warm, sleepy, rumpled look about him which made her forgive him. He was like a little boy—her little boy ... she dropped her eyelids over her tears.

After breakfast, as soon as they were alone, she stole into his arms and held close to him, without embrace, her hands just clasped over her breast on which her chin had fallen. He tried to raise her burning, blushing face, but she turned it to his shoulder.



Sec.24

Albert Hill went back to London on Tuesday, but he came down again the following week-end, and the next, and the next, and then his engagement to Joanna was made public.

In this respect the trick was hers. The affair had ended in a committal which he had not expected, but his own victory was too substantial for him to regret any development of it to her advantage. Besides, he had seen the impossibility of conducting the affair on any other lines, both on account of the circumstances in which she lived and of her passionate distress when she realized that he did not consider marriage an inevitable consequence of their relation. It was his only way of keeping her—and he could not let her go. She was adorable, and the years between them meant nothing—her beauty had wiped them out. He could think of her only as the ageless woman he loved, who shared the passion of his own youth and in it was for ever young.

On the practical side, too, he was better reconciled. He felt a pang of regret when he thought of London and its work and pleasures, of his chances of a "rise"—which his superiors had hinted was now imminent—of a head clerkship, perhaps eventually of a partnership and a tight marriage into the business—since his Whitsuntide visit to Ansdore he had met the junior partner's daughter and found her as susceptible to his charms as most young women. But after all, his position as Joanna Godden's husband would be better even than that of a partner in the firm of Sherwood and Son. What was Sherwood's but a firm of carpet-makers?—a small firm of carpet-makers. As Joanna's husband he would be a Country Gentleman, perhaps even a County Gentleman. He saw himself going out with his gun ... following the hounds in a pink coat.... He forgot that he could neither shoot nor ride.

Meantime his position as Joanna's lover was not an unenviable one. She adored him and spoiled him like a child. She poured gifts upon him—a gold wrist-watch, a real panama hat, silk socks in gorgeous colours, boxes and boxes of the best Turkish and Egyptian cigarettes—she could not give him enough to show her love and delight in him.

At first he had been a little embarrassed by this outpouring, but he was used to receiving presents from women, and he knew that Joanna had plenty of money to spend and really got as much pleasure out of her gifts as he did. They atoned for the poverty of her letters. She was no letter-writer. Her feelings were as cramped as her handwriting by the time she had got them down on paper; indeed, Joanna herself was wondrously expressed in that big, unformed, constricted handwriting, black yet uncertain, sprawling yet constrained, in which she recorded such facts as "Dot has calved at last," or "Broadhurst will be 61 come Monday," or—as an utmost concession—"I love you, dear."

However, too great a strain was not put on this frail link, for he came down to Ansdore almost every week-end, from Saturday afternoon to early Monday morning. He tried to persuade her to come up to London and stay at his mother's house—he had vague hopes that perhaps an experience of London might persuade her to settle there (she could afford a fine house over at Blackheath, or even in town itself, if she chose). But Joanna had a solid prejudice against London—the utmost she would consent to was a promise to come up and stay with Albert's mother when her appeal was heard at the High Court at the beginning of August. Edward Huxtable had done his best to convince her that her presence was unnecessary, but she did not trust either him or the excellent counsel he had engaged. She had made up her mind to attend in person, and look after him properly.



Sec.25

The attitude of Brodnyx and Pedlinge towards this new crisis in Joanna Godden's life was at first uncertain. The first impression was that she had suddenly taken fright at the prospect of old-maidenhood, and had grabbed the first man she could get, even though he was young enough to be her son.

"He ain't twenty-one till Michaelmas," said Vine at the Woolpack.

"She's always liked 'em young," said Furnese.

"Well, if she'd married Arthur Alce when she fust had the chance, instead of hanging around and wasting time the way she's done, by now she could have had a man of her intended's age for a son instead of a husband."

"Reckon it wouldn't have been the same thing."

"No—it would have been a better thing," said Vine.

When it became known that Joanna's motive was not despair but love, public opinion turned against her, Albert's manner among the Marsh people was unfortunate. In his mind he had always stressed his bride's connexions through Ellen—the Ernleys, a fine old county family; he found it very satisfying to slap Tip Ernley on the back and call him "Ole man." He had deliberately shut his eyes to the other side of her acquaintance, those Marsh families, the Southlands, Furneses, Vines, Cobbs and Bateses, to whom she was bound by far stronger, older ties than any which held her to Great Ansdore. He treated these people as her and his inferiors—unlike Martin Trevor, he would not submit to being driven round and shown off to Misleham, Picknye Bush, or Slinches.... It was small wonder that respectable families became indignant at such airs.

"What does he think himself, I'd like to know? He's nothing but a clerk—such as I'd never see my boy."

"And soon he won't be even that—he'll just be living on Joanna."

"She's going to keep him at Ansdore?"

"Surelye. She'll never move out now."

"But what's she want to marry for, at her age, and a boy like that?"

"She's getting an old fool, I reckon."



Sec.26

The date of the wedding was not yet fixed, though September was spoken of rather vaguely, and this time the hesitation came from the bridegroom. As on the occasion of her first engagement Joanna had made difficulties with the shearing and hay-making, so now Albert contrived and shifted in his anxiety to fit in his marriage with other plans.

He had, it appeared, as far back as last Christmas, arranged for a week's tour in August with the Polytechnic to Lovely Lucerne. In vain Joanna promised him a liberal allowance of "Foreign Parts" for their honeymoon—Bertie's little soul hankered after the Polytechnic, his pals who were going with him, and the kindred spirits he would meet at the chalets. Going on his honeymoon as Joanna Godden's husband was a different matter and could not take the place of such an excursion.

Joanna did not press him. She was terribly afraid of scaring him off. It had occurred to her more than once that his bonds held him far more lightly than she was held by hers. And the prospect of marriage was now an absolute necessity if she was to endure her memories. Marriage alone could hallow and remake Joanna Godden. Sometimes, as love became less of a drug and a bewilderment, her thoughts awoke, and she would be overwhelmed by an almost incredulous horror at herself. Could this be Joanna Godden, who had turned away her dairy-girl for loose behaviour, who had been so shocked at the adventures of her sister Ellen? She could never be shocked at anyone again, seeing that she herself was just as bad and worse than anyone she knew.... Oh, life was queer—there was no denying. It took you by surprise in a way you'd never think—it made you do things so different from your proper notions that afterwards you could hardly believe it was you that had done them—it gave you joy that should ought to have been sorrow ... and pain as you'd never think.

As the summer passed and the time for her visit to town drew near, Joanna began to grow nervous and restless. She did not like the idea of going to a place like London, though she dared not confess her fears to the travelled Ellen or the metropolitan Bertie. She felt vaguely that "no good would come of it"—she had lived thirty-eight years without setting foot in London, and it seemed like tempting Providence to go there now....

However she resigned herself to the journey—indeed, when the time came she undertook it more carelessly than she had undertaken the venture of Marlingate. Her one thought was of Albert, and she gave over Ansdore almost nonchalantly to her carter and her looker, and abandoned Ellen to Tip Ernley with scarcely a doubt as to her moral welfare.

Bertie met her at Charing Cross, and escorted her the rest of the way. He found it hard to realize that she had never been to London before, and it annoyed him a little. It would have been all very well, he told himself, in a shy village maiden of eighteen, but in a woman of Joanna's age and temperament it was ridiculous. However, he was relieved to find that she had none of the manners of a country cousin. Her self-confidence prevented her being flustered by strange surroundings; her clothes were fashionable and well-cut, though perhaps a bit too showy for a woman of her type, she tipped lavishly, and was not afraid of porters. Neither did she, as he had feared at first, demand a four-wheeler instead of a taxi. On the contrary, she insisted on driving all the way to Lewisham, instead of taking another train, and enlarged on the five-seater touring car she would buy when she had won her Case.

"I hope to goodness you will win it, ole girl," said Bertie, as he slipped his arm round her—"I've a sort of feeling that you ought to touch wood."

"I'll win it if there's justice in England."

"But perhaps there ain't."

"I must win," repeated Joanna doggedly. "You see, it was like this ..."

Not for the first time she proceeded to recount the sale of Donkey Street and the way she had applied the money. He wished she wouldn't talk about that sort of thing the first hour they were together.

"I quite see, darling," he exclaimed in the middle of the narrative, and shut her mouth with a kiss.

"Oh, Bertie, you mustn't."

"Why not?"

"We're in a cab—people will see."

"They won't—they can't see in—and I'm not going to drive all this way without kissing you."

He took hold of her.

"I won't have it—it ain't seemly."

But he had got a good hold of her, and did as he liked.

Joanna was horrified and ashamed. A motor-bus had just glided past the cab and she felt that the eyes of all the occupants were upon her. She managed to push Albert away, and sat very erect beside him, with a red face.

"It ain't seemly," she muttered under her breath.

Bertie was vexed with her. He assumed an attitude intended to convey displeasure. Joanna felt unhappy, and anxious to conciliate him, but she was aware that any reconciliation was bound to lead to a repetition of that conduct so eminently shocking to the occupants of passing motor-buses. "I don't like London folk to think I don't know how to behave when I come up to town," she said to herself.

Luckily, just as the situation was becoming unbearable, and her respectability on the verge of collapsing in the cause of peace, they stopped at the gate of The Elms, Raymond Avenue, Lewisham. Bertie's annoyance was swallowed up in the double anxiety of introducing her to his family and his family to her. On both counts he felt a little gloomy, for he did not think much of his mother and sister and did not expect Joanna to think much of them. At the same time there was no denying that Jo was and looked a good bit older than he, and his mother and sister were quite capable of thinking he was marrying her for her money. She was looking rather worn and dragged this afternoon, after her unaccustomed railway journey—sometimes you really wouldn't take her for more than thirty, but to-day she was looking her full age.

"Mother—Agatha—this is Jo."

Joanna swooped down on the old lady with a loud kiss.

"Pleased to meet you," said Mrs. Hill in a subdued voice. She was very short and small and frail-looking, and wore a cap—for the same reason no doubt that she kept an aspidistra in the dining-room window, went to church at eleven o'clock on Sundays, and had given birth to Agatha and Albert.

Agatha was evidently within a year or two of her brother's age, and she had his large, melting eyes, and his hair that sprang in a dark semicircle from a low forehead. She was most elegantly dressed in a peek-a-boo blouse, hobble skirt, and high-heeled shoes.

"Pleased to meet you," she said, and Joanna kissed her too.

"Is tea ready?" asked Bertie.

"It will be in a minute, dear—I can hear Her getting it."

They could all do that, but Bertie seemed annoyed that they should be kept waiting.

"You might have had it ready," he said, "I expect you're tired, Jo."

"Oh, not so terrible, thanks," said Joanna, who felt sorry for her future mother-in-law being asked to keep tea stewing in the pot against the uncertain arrival of travellers. But, as it happened, she did feel rather tired, and was glad when the door was suddenly kicked open and a large tea-tray was brought in and set down violently on a side table.

"Cream and sugar?" said Mrs. Hill nervously.

"Yes, thank you," said Joanna. She felt a little disconcerted by this new household of which she found herself a member. She wondered what Bertie's mother and sister thought of his middle-aged bride.

For a time they all sat round in silence. Joanna covertly surveyed the drawing-room. It was not unlike the parlour at Ansdore, but everything looked cheaper—they couldn't have given more than ten pound for their carpet, and she knew those fire-irons—six and eleven-three the set at the ironmongers. These valuations helped to restore her self-confidence and support the inspection which Agatha was conducting on her side. "Reckon the price of my clothes ud buy everything in this room," she thought to herself.

"Did you have a comfortable journey, Miss Godden?" asked Mrs. Hill.

"You needn't call her Miss Godden, ma," said Albert, "she's going to be one of the family."

"I had a fine journey," said Joanna, drowning Mrs. Hill's apologetic twitter, "the train came the whole of sixty miles with only one stop."

Agatha giggled, and Bertie stabbed her with a furious glance.

"Did you make this tea?" he asked.

"No—She made it."

"I might have thought as much. That girl can't make tea any better than the cat. You reelly might make it yourself when we have visitors."

"I hadn't time. I've only just come in."

"You seem to be out a great deal."

"I've my living to get."

Joanna played with her teaspoon. She felt ill at ease, though it would be difficult to say why. She had quarrelled too often with Ellen to be surprised at any family disagreements—it was not ten years since she had thought nothing of smacking Ellen before a disconcerted public.

What was there different—and there was something different—about this wrangle between a brother and sister, that it should upset her so—upset her so much that for some unaccountable reason she should feel the tears running out of her eyes.

On solemn ceremonial occasions Joanna always wore a veil, and this was now pushed up in several folds, to facilitate tea-drinking. She could feel the tears wetting it, so that it stuck to her cheeks under her eyes. She was furious with herself, but she could not stop the tears—she felt oddly weak and shaken. Agatha had flounced off with the teapot to make a fresh brew, Albert was leaning gloomily back in his chair with his hands in his pockets, Mrs. Hill was murmuring—"I hope you like fancy-work—I am very fond of fancy-work—I have made a worsted kitten." Joanna could feel the tears soaking through her veil, running down her cheeks—she could not stop them—and the next moment she heard Bertie's voice, high and aggrieved—"What are you crying for, Jo?"

Directly she heard it, it seemed to be the thing she had been dreading most. She could bear no more, and burst into passionate weeping.

They all gathered round her, Agatha with the new teapot, Mrs. Hill with her worsted, Bertie patting her on the back and asking what was the matter.

"I don't know," she sobbed—"I expect I'm tired, and I ain't used to travelling."

"Yes, I expect you must be tired—have a fresh cup of tea," said Agatha kindly.

"And then go upstairs and have a good lay down," said Mrs. Hill.

Joanna felt vaguely that Albert was ashamed of her. She was certainly ashamed of herself and of this entirely new, surprising conduct.



Sec.27

By supper that night she had recovered, and remembered her breakdown rather as a bad dream, but neither that evening nor the next day could she quite shake off the feeling of strangeness and depression. She had never imagined that she would like town life, but she had thought that the unpleasantness of living in streets would be lost in the companionship of the man she loved—and she was disappointed to find that this was not so. Bertie, indeed, rather added to than took away from her uneasiness. He did not seem to fit into the Hill household any better than she did—in fact, none of the members fitted. Bertie and Agatha clashed openly, and Mrs. Hill was lost. The house was like a broken machine, full of disconnected parts, which rattled and fell about. Joanna was used to family quarrels, but she was not used to family disunion—moreover, though she would have allowed much between brother and sister, she had certain very definite notions as to the respect due to a mother. Both Bertie and Agatha were continually suppressing and finding fault with Mrs. Hill, and of the two Bertie was the worst offender. Joanna could not excuse him, even to her own all-too-ready heart. The only thing she could say was that it was most likely Mrs. Hill's own fault—her not having raised him properly.

Every day he went off to his office in Fetter Lane, leaving Joanna to the unrelieved society of his mother, for which he apologised profusely. Indeed, she found her days a little dreary, for the old lady was not entertaining, and she dared not go about much by herself in so metropolitan a place as Lewisham. Every morning she and her future mother-in-law went out shopping—that is to say they bought half-pounds and quarter-pounds of various commodities which Joanna at Ansdore would have laid in by the bushel and the hundredweight. They would buy tea at one grocer's, and then walk down two streets to buy cocoa from another, because he sold it cheaper than the shop where they had bought the tea. The late Mr. Hill had left his widow very badly off—indeed she could not have lived at all except for what her children gave her out of their salaries. To her dismay, Joanna discovered that while Agatha, in spite of silk stockings and Merry Widow hats, gave her mother a pound out of the weekly thirty shillings she earned as a typist, Albert gave her only ten shillings a week—his bare expenses.

"He says he doesn't see why he should pay more for living at home than he'd pay in digs—though, as a matter of fact I don't know anyone who'd take him for as little as that, even for only bed and breakfast."

"But what does he do with the rest of the money?"

"Oh, he has a lot of expenses, my dear—belongs to all sorts of grand clubs, and goes abroad every year with the Polytechnic, or even Cook's. Besides, he has lady friends that he takes about—used to, I should say, for, of course, he's done with all that now—but he was always the boy for taking ladies out—and never would demean himself to anything less than a Corner House."

"But he should ought to treat you proper, all the same," said Joanna.

She felt sorry and angry, and also, in some vague way, that it was her part to set matters right—that the wound in her love would be healed if she could act where Bertie was remiss. But Mrs. Hill would not let her open her fat purse on her account. "No, dear; we never let a friend oblige us." Joanna, who was not tactful, persisted, and the old lady became very frozen and genteel.

Bertie's hours were not long at the office. He was generally back at six, and took Joanna out—up to town, where they had dinner and then went on to some theatre or picture-palace, the costs of the expedition being defrayed out of her own pocket. She had never had so much dissipation in her life—she saw "The Merry Widow," "A Persian Princess," and all the musical comedies. Albert did not patronise the more serious drama, and for Joanna the British stage became synonymous with fluffy heads and whirling legs and jokes she could not understand. The late hours made her feel very tired, and on their way home Albert would find her sleepy and unresponsive. They always went by taxi from Lewisham station, and instead of taking the passionate opportunities of the darkness, she would sink her heavy head against his breast, holding his arm with both her tired hands. "Let me be, dear, let me be," she would murmur when he tried to rouse her—"this is what I love best."

She told herself that it was because she was so tired that she often felt depressed and wakeful at nights. Raymond Avenue was not noisy, indeed it was nearly as quiet as Ansdore, but on some nights Joanna lay awake from Bertie's last kiss till the crashing entrance of the Girl to pull up her blinds in the morning. At nights, sometimes, a terrible clearness came to her. This visit to her lover's house was showing her more of his character than she had learned in all the rest of their acquaintance. She could not bear to realize that he was selfish and small-minded, though, now she came to think of it, she had always been aware of it in some degree. She had never pretended to herself that he was good and noble—she had loved him for something quite different—because he was young and had brought her back her own youth, because he had a handsome face and soft, dark eyes, because in spite of all his cheek and knowingness he had in her sight a queer, appealing innocence.... He was like a child, even if it was a spoilt, selfish child. When she held his dark head in the crook of her arm, he was her child, her little boy.... And perhaps one day she would hold, through her love for him, a real child there, a child who was really innocent and helpless and weak—a child without grossness to scare her or hardness to wound her—her own child, born of her own body.

But though she loved him, this constant expression of his worst points could not fail to give her a feeling of chill. Was this the way he would behave in their home when they were married? Would he speak to her as he spoke to his mother? Would he speak to their children so?... She could not bear to think it, and yet she could not believe that marriage would change him all through. What if their marriage made them both miserable?—made them like some couples she had known on the Marsh, nagging and hating each other. Was she a fool to think of marrying him?—all that difference in their age ... only perfect love could make up for it ... and he did not like the idea of living in the country—he was set on his business—his "career," as he called it.... She did not think he wanted to marry her as much as she wanted to marry him.... Was it right to take him away from his work, which he was doing so well at, and bring him to live down at Ansdore? My, but he would probably scare her folk with some of his ways. However, it was now too late to draw back. She must go on with what she had begun. At all costs she must marry—not merely because she loved him, but because only marriage could hallow and silence the past. With all the traditions of her race and type upon her, Joanna could not face the wild harvest of love. Her wild oats must be decently gathered into the barn, even if they gave her bitter bread to eat.



Sec.28

The case of "Godden versus Inland Revenue Commissioners" was heard at the High Court when Joanna had been at Lewisham about ten days. Albert tried to dissuade her from being present.

"I can't go with you, and I don't see how you can go alone."

"I shall be right enough."

"Yet you won't even go down the High Street by yourself—I never met anyone so inconsistent."

"It's my Appeal," said Joanna.

"But there's no need for you to attend. Can't you trust anyone to do anything without you?"

"Not Edward Huxtable," said Joanna decidedly.

"Then why did you choose him for your lawyer?"

"He's the best I know."

Bertie opened his mouth to carry the argument further, but laughed instead.

"You are a funny ole girl—so silly and so sensible, so hard and so soft, such hot stuff and so respectable ..." He kissed her at each item of the catalogue—"I can't half make you out."

However, he agreed to take her up to town when he went himself, and deposited her at the entrance of the Law Courts—a solid, impressive figure in her close-fitting tan coat and skirt and high, feathered toque, with the ceremonial veil pulled down over her face.

Beneath her imposing exterior she felt more than a little scared and lost. Godden seemed a poor thing compared to all this might of Inland Revenue Commissioners, spreading about her in passage and hall and tower.... The law had suddenly become formidable, as it had never been in Edward Huxtable's office.... However, she was fortunate in finding him, with the help of one or two policemen, and the sight of him comforted her with its suggestion of home and Watchbell Street, and her trap waiting in the sunshine outside the ancient door of the Huxtable dwelling.

Her Appeal was not heard till the afternoon, and in the luncheon interval he took her to some decorous dining-rooms—such as Joanna had never conceived could exist in London, so reminiscent were they of the George and the Ship and the New and the Crown and other of her market-day haunts. They ate beef and cabbage and jam roly poly, and discussed the chances of the day. Huxtable said he had "a pretty case—a very pretty case—you'll be surprised, Miss Joanna, to see what I've made of it."

And so she was. Indeed, if she hadn't heard the opening she would never have known it was her case at all. She listened in ever-increasing bewilderment and dismay. In spite of her disappointment in the matter of the Commissioners and their Referee, she had always looked upon her cause as one so glaringly righteous that it had only to be pleaded before any just judge to be at once established. But now ... the horror was, that it was no longer her cause at all. This was not Joanna Godden coming boldly to the Law of England to obtain redress from her grievous oppression by pettifogging clerks—it was just a miserable dispute between the Commissioners of Inland Revenue and the Lessor of Property under the Act. It was full of incomprehensible jargon about Increment Value, Original Site Value, Assessable Site Value, Land Value Duty, Estate Duty, Redemption of Land Tax, and many more such terms among which the names of Donkey Street and Little Ansdore appeared occasionally and almost frivolously, just to show Joanna that the matter was her concern. In his efforts to substantiate an almost hopeless case Edward Huxtable had coiled most of the 1910 Finance Act round himself, and the day's proceedings consisted of the same being uncoiled and stripped off him, exposing his utter nakedness in the eyes of the law. When the last remnant of protective jargon had been torn away, Joanna knew that her Appeal had been dismissed—and she would have to pay the Duty and also the expenses of the action.

The only comfort that remained was the thought of what she would say to Edward Huxtable when she could get hold of him. They had a brief, eruptive interview in the passage.

"You take my money for making a mess like that," stormed Joanna. "I tell you, you shan't have it—you can amuse yourself bringing another action for it."

"Hush, my dear lady—hush! Don't talk so loud. I've done my best for you, I assure you. I warned you not to bring the action in the first instance, but when I saw you were determined to bring it, I resolved to stand by you, and get you through if possible. I briefed excellent counsel, and really made out a very pretty little case for you."

"Ho! Did you? And never once mentioned my steam plough. I tell you when I heard all the rubbish your feller spoke I'd have given the case against him myself. It wasn't my case at all. My case is that I'm a hard-working woman, who's made herself a good position by being a bit smarter than other folk. I have a gentleman friend who cares for me straight and solid for fifteen years, and when he dies he leaves me his farm and everything he's got. I sell the farm, and get good money for it, which I don't spend on motor-cars like some folk, but on more improvements on my own farm. I make my property more valuable, and I've got to pay for it, if you please. Why, they should ought to pay me. What's farming coming to, I'd like to know, if we've got to pay for bettering ourselves? The Government ud like to see all farmers in the workhouse—and there we'll soon be, if they go on at this rate. And it's the disrespectfulness to Poor Arthur, too—he left Donkey Street to me—not a bit to me and the rest to them. But there they go, wanting to take most of it in Death Duty. The best Death Duty I know is to do what the dead ask us and not what they'd turn in their graves if they knew of. And poor Arthur who did everything in the world for me, even down to marrying my sister Ellen ..."

Edward Huxtable managed to escape.

"Drat that woman," he said to himself—"she's a terror. However, I suppose I've got to be thankful she didn't try to get any of that off her chest in Court—she's quite capable of it. Damn it all! She's a monstrosity—and going to be married too ... well, there are some heroes left in the world."



Sec.29

Bertie was waiting for Joanna outside the Law Courts. In the stillness of the August evening and the yellow dusty sunshine, he looked almost contemplative, standing there with bowed head, looking down at his hands which were folded on his stick, while one or two pigeons strutted about at his feet. Joanna's heart melted at the sight of him. She went up to him, and touched his arm.

"Hullo, ole girl. So here you are. How did it go off?"

"I've lost."

"Damn! That's bad."

She saw that he was vexed, and a sharp touch of sorrow was added to her sense of outrage and disappointment.

"Yes, it was given against me. It's all that Edward Huxtable's fault. Would you believe me, but he never made out a proper case for me at all, but just a lawyer's mess, what the judge was quite right not to hold with."

"Have you lost much money?"

"A proper lot—but I shan't let Edward Huxtable get any of it. If he wants his fees he'll just about have to bring another action."

"Don't be a fool, Joanna—you'll have to pay the costs if they've been given against you. You'll only land yourself in a worse hole by making a fuss."

They were walking westward towards the theatres and the restaurants. Joanna felt that Bertie was angry with her—he was angry with her for losing her case, just as she was angry with Edward Huxtable. This was too much—the tears rose in her eyes.

"Will it do you much damage?" he asked. "In pocket, I mean."

"Oh, I—I'll have to sell out an investment or two, but it won't do any real hurt to Ansdore. Howsumever, I'll have to go without my motor-car."

"It was really rather silly of you to bring the action."

"How, silly?"

"Well, you can't have had much of a case, or you wouldn't have lost it like this in an hour's hearing."

"Stuff and nonsense! I'd a valiant case, if only that fool, Edward Huxtable, hadn't been anxious to show how many hard words he knew, instead of just telling the judge about my improvements and that."

"Really, Joanna, you might give up talking about your improvements. They've nothing to do with the matter at all. Can't you see that, as the Government wanted the money, it's nothing to them if you spent it on a steam plough or on a new hat. As a matter of fact, you might just as well have bought your motor-car—then at least we'd have that. Now you say you've given up the idea."

"Unless you make some money and buy it"—pain made Joanna snap.

"Yes—that's right, start twitting me because it's you who have the money. I know you have, and you've always known I haven't—I've never deceived you. I suppose you think I'm glad to be coming to live on you, to give up a fine commercial career for your sake. I tell you, any other man with my feelings would have made you choose between me and Ansdore—but I give up everything for your sake, and that's how you pay me—by despising me."

"Oh, don't, Bertie," said Joanna. She felt that she could bear no more.

They had come into Piccadilly, and the light was still warm—it was not yet dinner-time, but Joanna, who had had no tea, felt suddenly weak and faint.

"Let's go in there, dear," she said, as they reached the Popular Cafe, "and have a cup of tea. And don't let's quarrel, for I can't bear it."

He looked down at her drawn face and pity smote him.

"Pore ole girl—aren't you feeling well?"

"Not very—I'm tired, like—sitting listening to all that rubbish."

"Well, let's have an early dinner, and then go to a music-hall. You've never been to one yet, have you?"

"No," said Joanna. She would have much rather gone straight home, but this was not the time to press her own wishes. She was only too glad to have Bertie amicable and smiling again—she realized that they had only just escaped a serious quarrel.

The dinner, and the wine that accompanied it, made her feel better and more cheerful. She talked a good deal—even too much, for half a glass of claret had its potent effect on her fatigue. She looked flushed and untidy, for she had spent a long day in her hat and outdoor clothes, and her troubles had taken her thoughts off her appearance—she badly needed a few minutes before the looking-glass. As Albert watched her, he gave up his idea of taking her to the Palace, which he told himself would be full of smart people, and decided on the Alhambra Music Hall—then from the Alhambra he changed to the Holborn Empire.... Really it was annoying of Jo to come out with him looking like this—she ought to realize that she was not a young girl who could afford to let things slip. He had told her several times that her hat was on one side, ... And those big earrings she wore ... she ought to go in for something quieter at her age. Her get-up had always been too much on the showy side, and she was too independent of those helps to nature which much younger and better-looking women than herself were only too glad to use.... He liked to see a woman take out a powder-puff and flick it over her face in little dainty sweeps....

These reflections did not put him in a good humour for the evening's entertainment. They went by 'bus to the Holborn Empire where the first house had already started. Joanna felt a little repulsed by the big, rowdy audience, smoking and eating oranges and joining in the choruses of the songs. Her brief experience of the dress circle at Daly's or the Queen's had not prepared her for anything so characteristic as an English music-hall, with its half-participating audience. "Hurrah for Maudie!" as some favourite took the boards to sing, with her shoulders hunched up to the brim of her enormous hat, a heartrending song about her mother.

Joanna watched Bertie as he lounged beside her. She knew that he was sulking—the mere fact that he was entertaining her cheaply, by 'bus and music-hall instead of taxi and theatre, pointed to his displeasure. She wondered if he was enjoying this queer show, which struck her alternately as inexpressibly beautiful and inexpressibly vulgar. The lovely ladies like big handsome barmaids, who sang serious songs in evening dress and diamonds, apparently in the vicinity of Clapham High Street or the Monument, were merely incomprehensible. She could not understand what they were doing. The comedians she found amusing, when they did not shock her—Bertie had explained to her one or two of the jokes she could not understand. The "song-scenas" and acrobatic displays filled her with rapture. She would have liked that sort of thing the whole time.... Albert said it was a dull show, he grumbled at everything, especially the turns Joanna liked. But gradually the warm, friendly, vulgar atmosphere of the place infected him—he joined in one or two of the choruses, and seemed almost to forget about Joanna.

She watched him as he leaned back in his seat, singing—

"Take me back to Pompeii— To Pompey-ompey-i—"

In the dim red light of the place, he looked incredibly young. She could see only his profile—the backward sweep of glistening, pomaded hair, the little short straight nose, the sensual, fretful lips—and as she watched him she was smitten with a queer sense of pity. This was no strong man, no lover and husband—just a little clerk she was going to shut up in prison—a little singing clerk. She felt a brute—she put out her hand and slid it under his arm, against his warm side.

"To Pompey-ompey-i"

sang Bert.



Sec.30

The curtain came down and the lights went up for the interval. A brass band played very loud. Joanna was beginning to have a bit of a headache, but she said nothing—she did not want him to leave on her account—or to find that he did not think of leaving.... She felt very hot, and fanned herself with her programme. Most of the audience were hot.

"Joanna," said Bert, "don't you ever use powder?"

"Powder? What d'you mean?"

"Face-powder—what most girls use. Your skin wouldn't get red and shiny like that if you had some powder on it."

"I'd never dream of using such a thing. I'd be ashamed."

"Why be ashamed of looking decent?"

"I wouldn't look decent—I'd look like a hussy. Sometimes when I see these gals' faces I—"

"Really, Jo, to hear you speak one ud think you were the only virtuous woman left in England. But there are just one or two things in your career, my child, which don't quite bear out that notion."

Joanna's heart gave a sudden bound, then seemed to freeze.

She leaned forward in her chair, staring at the advertisements on the curtain. Bertie put his arm round her—"I say, ole girl, you ain't angry with me, are you?" She made no reply—she could not speak; too much was happening in her thoughts—had happened, rather, for her mind was now quite made up. A vast, half-conscious process seemed suddenly to have settled itself, leaving her quite clear-headed and calm.

"You ain't angry with me, are you?" repeated Bert.

"No," said Joanna—"I'm not angry with you."

He had been cruel and selfish when she was in trouble, he had shown no tenderness for her physical fatigue, and now at last he had taunted her with the loss of her respectability for his sake. But she was not angry with him.... It was only that now she knew she could never, never marry him.



Sec.31

That night she slept heavily—the deep sleep of physical exhaustion and mental decision. The unconscious striving of her soul no longer woke her to ask her hard questions. Her mind was made up, and her conflict was at an end.

She woke at the full day, when down on Walland Marsh all the world was awake, but here the city and the house still slept, and rose with her eyes and heart full of tragic purpose. She dressed quickly, then packed her box—all the gay, grand things she had brought to make her lover proud of her. Then she sat down at her dressing-table, and wrote—

"DEAR BERTIE,—When you get this I shall have gone for good. I see now that we were not meant for each other. I am very sorry if this gives you pain. But it is all for the best.—Your sincere friend,

"JOANNA GODDEN."

By this time it was half-past seven by the good gold watch which Poor Father had left her. Joanna's plan was to go downstairs, put her letter on the hall table, and bribe the girl to help her down with her box and call a cab, before any of the others appeared. She did not want to have to face Albert, with inevitable argument and possible reproaches. Her bruised heart ached too much to be able to endure any more from him—angry and wounded, it beat her side.

She carried out her scheme quite successfully as far as the cab itself, and then was betrayed. Poor Father's watch, that huge emblem of worth and respectability, hanging with its gold chain and seals upon her breast, had a rare but embarrassing habit of stopping for half an hour or so, as if to rest its ancient works. This is what it had done to-day—instead of half-past seven, the time was eight, and as the girl and the cabman carried Joanna's box out of the door, Bertie appeared at the head of the steep little stairs.

"Hullo, Joanna!" he called out in surprise—"Where on earth are you going?"

Here was trouble. For a moment Joanna quailed, but she recovered herself and answered—

"I'm going home."

"Home! What d'you mean? Whatever for?"

The box was on the taxi, and the driver stood holding the door open.

"I made up my mind last night. I can't stay here any longer. Thank you, Alice, you needn't wait." She put a sovereign into the girl's hand.

"Come into the dining-room," said Albert.

He opened the door for her and they both went in.

"It's no good, Bertie—I can't stand it any longer," said Joanna, "it's as plain as a pike as you and me were never meant to marry, and the best thing to do is to say good-bye before it's too late."

He stared at her in silence.

"I made up my mind last night," she continued, "but I wouldn't say anything about it till this morning, and then I thought I'd slip off quiet. I've left a letter to you that I wrote."

"But why—why are you going?"

"Well, it's pretty plain, ain't it, that we haven't been getting along so well as we should ought since I came here. You and me were never meant for each other—we don't fit—and the last few days it's been all trouble—and there's been things I could hardly bear ..."

Her voice broke.

"I'm sorry I've offended you"—he spoke stiffly—"but since you came here it's struck me, too, that things were different. I must say, Joanna, you don't seem to have considered the difficulties of my position."

"I have—and that's one reason why I'm going. I don't want to take you away from your business and your career, as you say; I know you don't want to come and live at Ansdore ..."

"If you reelly loved me, and still felt like that about my prospects, you'd rather give up Ansdore than turn me down as you're doing."

"I do love you"—she said doggedly, "but I couldn't give up my farm for you and come and live with you in London—because if I did, reckon I shouldn't love you much longer. These last ten days have shown me more than anything before that you'd make anyone you lived with miserable, and if I hadn't my farm to take my thoughts off I'd just about die of shame and sorrow."

He flushed angrily.

"Reelly, Joanna—what do you mean? I've given you as good a time as I knew how."

"Most likely. But all the while you were giving me that good time you were showing me how little you cared for me. Oh, it isn't as if I hadn't been in love before and seen how good a man can be.... I don't want to say hard things to you, my dear, but there's been times when you've hurt me as no man could hurt a woman he really loved. And I've lived in your home and seen how you treat your poor mother and your sister—and I tell you the truth, though it hurts me—you ain't man enough for me."

"Well, if that's how you feel about me, we had certainly better not go on."

"Don't be angry with me, dear. Reckon it was all a mistake from the start—I'm too old for you."

"Then it's a pity we went as far as this. What'll mother and Agatha think when they hear you've turned me down? They're cats enough to imagine all sorts of things. Why do you dash off like this as if I was the plague? If you must break off our engagement, you must, though I don't want you to—I love you, even though you don't love me—but you might at least do it decently. Think of what they'll say when they come down and find you've bolted."

"I'm sorry, Bertie. But I couldn't bear to stick on here another hour. You may tell them any story about me you like. But I can't stay. I must think of myself a bit, since I've no one else to do it for me."

His face was like a sulky child's. He looked at the floor, and kicked the wainscot.

"Well, I think you're treating me very badly, Joanna. Hang it all, I love you—and I think you're a damn fine woman—I reelly do—and I don't care if you are a bit older—I don't like girls."

"You won't think me fine in another ten years—and as for loving me, don't talk nonsense; you don't love me, or I shouldn't be going. Now let me go."

Her voice was hard, because her self-control was failing her. She tore open the door, and pushed him violently aside when he tried to stand in her way.

"Let me go—I'm shut of you. I tell you, you ain't man enough for me."



Sec.32

She had told the cabman to drive to Charing Cross station, as she felt unequal to the complications of travelling from Lewisham. It was a long drive, and all the way Joanna sat and cried. She seemed to have cried a great deal lately—her nature had melted in a strange way, and the tears she had so seldom shed as a girl were now continually ready to fall—but she had never cried as much as she cried this morning. By the time she reached Charing Cross she was in desperate need of that powder-puff Bertie had urged her to possess.

So this was the end—the end of the great romance which should have given her girlhood back to her, but which instead seemed to have shut her into a lonely and regretful middle-age. All her shining pride in herself was gone—she saw herself as one who has irrevocably lost all that makes life worth living ... pride and love. She knew that Bertie did not love her—in his heart he was glad that she was going—all he was sorry for was the manner of it, which might bring him disgrace. But he would soon get over that, and then he would be thankful he was free, and eventually he would marry some younger woman than herself ... and she? Yes, she still loved him—but it would not be for long. She could feel her love for him slowly dying in her heart. It was scarcely more than pity now—pity for the little singing clerk whom she had caught and would have put in a cage if he had not fluttered so terribly in her hands.

When she arrived at Charing Cross a feeling of desolation was upon her. A porter came to fetch her box, but Joanna—the great Joanna Godden, who put terror into the markets of three towns—shrank back into the taxi, loath to leave its comfortable shelter for the effort and racket of the station. A dark, handsome, rather elderly man, was coming out of one of the archways. Their eyes met and he at once turned his away, but Joanna leapt for him—

"Sir Harry! Sir Harry Trevor! Don't you know me?"

Only too well, but he had not exactly expected her to claim acquaintance. He felt bewildered when Joanna pushed her way to him through the crowd and wrung his hand as if he was her only friend.

"Oh, Sir Harry, reckon I'm glad to see you!"

"I—I—" stuttered the baronet.

He looked rather flushed and sodden, and the dyeing of his hair was more obvious than it had been.

"Fancy meeting you!" gasped Joanna.

"Er—how are you, Miss Godden?"

"Do you know when there's a train to Rye?"

"I'm sorry, I don't. I've just been saying good-bye to my son Lawrence—he's off to Africa or somewhere, but I couldn't wait till his train came in. I've got to go over to St. Pancras and catch the 10.50 for the north."

"Lawrence!"

Thank goodness, that had put her on another scent—now she would let him go.

"Yes—he's in the station. You'll see him if you're quick."

Joanna turned away, and he saw that the tears were running down her face. The woman had been drinking, that accounted for it all ... well, he wished Lawrence joy of her. It would do him good to have a drunken woman falling on his neck on a public platform.

The porter said there was not a train for Rye for another hour. He suggested that Joanna should put her luggage in the cloak-room and go and get herself a cup of tea—the porter knew the difference between a drunken woman and one who is merely faint from trouble and want of her breakfast. But Joanna's mind was somehow obsessed by the thought of Lawrence—her brother-in-law as she still called him in her heart—she wanted to see him—she remembered his kindness long ago ... and in her sorrow she was going back to the sorrow of those days ... somehow she felt as if Martin had just died, as if she had just come out of North Farthing House, alone, as she had come then—and now Lawrence was here, as he had been then, to kiss her and say "Dear Jo"....

"What platform does the train for Africa start from?" she asked the porter.

"Well, lady, I can't rightly say. The only boat-train from here this morning goes to Folkestone, and that's off—but most likely the gentleman ud be going from Waterloo, and the trains for Waterloo start from number seven."

The porter took her to number seven, and at the barrier she caught sight of a familiar figure sitting on a bench. Father Lawrence's bullet head showed above the folds of his cloak; by his side was a big shapeless bundle and his eyes were fixed on the station roof. He started violently when a large woman suddenly sat down beside him and burst into tears.

"Lawrence!" sobbed Joanna—"Lawrence!"

"Joanna!"

He was too startled to say anything more, but the moment did not admit of much conversation. Joanna sat beside him, bent over her knees, her big shoulders shaking with sobs which were not always silent. Lawrence made himself as large as he could, but he could not hide her from the public stare, for nature had not made her inconspicuous, and her taste in clothes would have defeated nature if it had. Her orange toque had fallen sideways on her tawny hair—she was like a big, broken sunflower.

"My dear Jo," he said gently, after a time—"let me go and get you a drink of water."

"No—don't leave me."

"Then let me ask someone to go."

"No—no.... Oh, I'm all right—it's only that I felt so glad at seeing you again."

Lawrence was surprised.

"It makes me think of that other time when you were kind—I remember when Martin died ... oh, I can't help wishing sometimes he was dead—that he'd died right at the start—or I had."

"My dear ..."

"Oh, when Martin died, at least it was finished; but this time it ain't finished—it's like something broken." She clasped her hands, in their brown kid gloves, against her heart.

"Won't you tell me what's happened? This isn't Martin you're talking about?"

"No. But I thought he was like Martin—that's what made me take to him at the start. I looked up and I saw him, and I said to myself 'That's Martin'—it gave me quite a jump."

The Waterloo train was in the station and the people on the platform surged towards it, leaving Lawrence and Joanna stranded on their seat. Lawrence looked at the train for a minute, then shook his head, as if in answer to some question he had asked himself.

"Look here, Jo," he said, "won't you tell me what's happened? I can't quite understand you as it is. Don't tell me anything you'd rather not."

Joanna sat upright and swallowed violently.

"It's like this," she said. "I've just broken off my engagement to marry—maybe you didn't know I was engaged to be married?"

"No, I didn't."

"Well, I was. I was engaged to a young chap—a young chap in an office. I met him at Marlingate, when I was staying there that time. I thought he was like Martin—that's what made me take to him at the first. But he wasn't like Martin—not really in his looks and never in his ways. And at last it got more'n I could bear, and I broke with him this morning and came away—and I reckon he ain't sorry, neither.... I'm thirteen year older than him."

Her tears began to flow again, but the platform was temporarily deserted. Lawrence waited for her to go on—he suspected a tragedy which had not yet been revealed.

"Oh, my heart's broke," she continued—"reckon I'm done for, and there's nothing left for me."

"But, Jo—is this—this affair quite finished? Perhaps ... I mean to say, quarrels can be made up, you know."

"Not this one," said Joanna. "It's been too much. For days I've watched him getting tired of me, and last night he turned on me because for his sake I'd done what no woman should do."

The words were no sooner out of her mouth than she was dismayed. She had not meant to say them. Would Lawrence understand? What would he think of her?—a clergyman.... She turned on him a face crimson and suffused with tears, to meet a gaze as serene as ever. Then suddenly a new feeling came to her—something apart from horror at herself and shame at his knowing, and yet linked strangely with them both—something which was tenderer than any shame and yet more ruthless.... Her last guard broke down.

"Lawrence, I've been wicked, I've been bad—I'm sorry—Lawrence."...

"Tell me as little or as much as you like, dear Jo."

Joanna gripped his arm; she had driven him into the corner of the seat, where he sat with his bundle on his lap, his ear bent to her mouth, while she crowded up against him, pouring out her tale. Every now and then he said gently—"Sh-sh-sh"—when he thought that her confession was penetrating the further recesses of Charing Cross....

"Oh, Lawrence, I feel so bad—I feel so wicked—I never should have thought it of myself. I didn't feel wicked at first, but I did afterwards. Oh, Lawrence, tell me what I'm to do."

His professional instinct taught him to treat the situation with simplicity, but he guessed that Joanna would not appreciate the quiet dealings of the confessional. He had always liked Joanna, always admired her, and he liked and admired her no less now, but he really knew very little of her—her life had crossed his only on three different brief occasions, when she was engaged to his brother, when she was anxious to appoint a Rector to the living in her gift, and now when as a broken-hearted woman she relieved herself of a burden of sorrow.

"Lawrence—tell me what to do."

"Dear Jo—I'm not quite sure.... I don't know what you want, you see. What I should want first myself would be absolution."

"Oh, don't you try none of your Jesoot tricks on me—I couldn't bear it."

"Very well. Then I think there's only one thing you can do, and that is to go home and take up your life where you left it, with a very humble heart. 'I shall go softly all my days in the bitterness of my soul.'"

Joanna gulped.

"And be very thankful, too."

"What for?"

"For your repentance."

"Well, reckon I do feel sorry—and reckon, too, I done something to be sorry for.... Oh, Lawrence, what a wicked owl I've been! If you'd told me six year ago as I'd ever have come to this I'd have had a fit on the ground."

Lawrence looked round him nervously. Whatever Joanna's objections to private penance, she was curiously indifferent to confessing her sins to all mankind in Charing Cross station. The platform was becoming crowded again, and already their confessional had been invaded—a woman with a baby was sitting on the end of it.

"Your train will be starting soon," said Lawrence—"let's go and find you something to eat."



Sec.33

Joanna felt better after she had had a good cup of coffee and a poached egg. She was surprised afterwards to find she had eaten so much. Lawrence sat with her while she ate, then took her to find her porter, her luggage and her train.

"But won't you lose your train to Africa?" asked Joanna.

"I'm only going as far as Waterloo this morning, and there's a train every ten minutes."

"When do you start for Africa?"

"I think to-night."

"I wish you weren't going there. Why are you going?"

"Because I'm sent."

"When will you come back?"

"I don't know—perhaps never."

"I'm middling sorry you're going. What a place to send you to!—all among niggers."

She was getting more like herself. He stood at the carriage door, talking to her of indifferent things till the train started. The whistle blew, and the train began to glide out of the station. Joanna waved her hand to the grey figure standing on the platform beside the tramp's bundle which was all that would go with it to the ends of the earth. She did not know whether she pitied Lawrence or envied him.

"Reckon he's got some queer notions," she said to herself.

She leaned back in the carriage, feeling more at ease than she had felt for weeks. She was travelling third class, for one of Lawrence's notions was that everybody did so, and when Joanna had given him her purse to buy her ticket it had never struck him that she did not consider third-class travel "seemly" in one of her sex and position. However, the carriage was comfortable, and occupied only by two well-conducted females. Yes—she was certainly feeling better. She would never have thought that merely telling her story to Lawrence would have made such a difference. But a great burden had been lifted off her heart.... He was a good chap, Lawrence, for all his queer ways—such as ud make you think he wasn't gentry if you didn't know who his father was and his brother had been—and no notion how to behave himself as a clergyman, neither—anyway she hoped he'd get safe to Africa and that the niggers wouldn't eat him ... though she'd heard of such things....

She'd do as he said, too. She'd go home and take up things where she'd put them down. It would be hard—much harder than he thought. Perhaps he didn't grasp all that she was doing in giving up marriage, the one thing that could ever make her respect herself again. Well, she couldn't help that—she must just do without respecting herself—that's all. Anything would be better than shutting up herself and Albert together in prison, till they hated each other. It would be very hard for her, who had always been so proud of herself, to live without even respecting herself. But she should have thought of that earlier. She remembered Lawrence's words—"I will go softly all my days in the bitterness of my soul".... Well, she'd do her best, and perhaps God would forgive her, and then when she died she'd go to heaven, and be with Martin for ever and ever, in spite of all the bad things she'd done....

She got out at Appledore and took the light railway to Brodnyx. She did not feel inclined for the walk from Rye. The little train was nearly empty, and Joanna had a carriage to herself. She settled herself comfortably in a corner—it was good to be coming home, even as things were. The day was very sunny and still. The blue sky was slightly misted—a yellow haze which smelt of chaff and corn smudged together the sky and the marsh and the distant sea. The farms with their red and yellow roofs were like ripe apples lying in the grass.

Yes, the Marsh was the best place to live on, and the Marsh ways were the best ways, and the man who had loved her on the Marsh was the best man and the best lover.... She wondered what Ellen would say when she heard she had broken off her engagement. Ellen had never thought much of Bertie—she had thought Joanna was a fool to see such a lot in him; and Ellen had been right—her eyes and her head were clearer than her poor sister's.... She expected she would be home in time for tea—Ellen would be terrible surprised to see her; if she'd had any sense she'd have sent her a telegram.

The little train had a strange air of friendliness as it jogged across Romney Marsh. It ran familiarly through farmyards and back gardens, it meekly let the motor-cars race it and pass it as it clanked beside the roads. The line was single all the way, except for a mile outside Brodnyx station, where it made a loop to let the up-train pass. The up-train was late—they had been too long loading up the fish at Dungeness, or there was a reaping machine being brought from Lydd. For some minutes Joanna's train stayed halted in the sunshine, in the very midst of the Three Marshes. Miles of sun-swamped green spread on either side—the carriage was full of sunshine—it was bright and stuffy like a greenhouse. Joanna felt drowsy, she lay back in her corner blinking at the sun—she was all quiet now. A blue-bottle droned against the window, and the little engine droned, like an impatient fly—it was all very still, very hot, very peaceful....

Then suddenly something stirred within her—stirred physically. In some mysterious way she seemed to come alive. She sat up, pressing her hand to her side. A flood of colour went up into her face—her body trembled, and the tears started in her eyes ... she felt herself choking with wild fear, and wild joy.



Sec.34

Oh, she understood now. She understood, and she was certain. She knew now—she knew, and she was frightened ... oh, she was frightened ... now everything was over with her indeed.

Joanna nearly fainted. She fell in a heap against the window, looking more than ever, as the sunshine poured on her, like a great golden, broken flower. She felt herself choking and managed to right herself—the window was down, and a faint puff of air came in from the sea, lifting her hair as she leaned back against the wooden wall of the carriage, her mouth a little open.... She felt better now, but still so frightened.... She was done for, she was finished—there would not be any more talk of going back and picking up things where she had let them drop. She would have to marry Bertie—there was no help for it, she would send him a telegram from Brodnyx station. Oh, that this should have happened!... And she had been feeling so much easier in her mind—she had almost begun to feel happy again, thinking of the old home and the old life. And now she knew that they had gone for ever—the old home and the old life. She had cut herself away from both—she would have to marry Albert, to shut her little clerk in prison after all, and herself with him. She would have to humble herself before him, she would have to promise to go and live with him in London, do all she possibly could to make his marriage easy for him. He did not want to marry her, and she did not want to marry him, but there was no help for it, they must marry now, because of what their love had given them before it died.

She had no tears for this new tragedy. She leaned forward in her seat, her hands clasped between her knees, her eyes staring blankly at the carriage wall as if she saw there her future written ... herself and Albert growing old together, or rather herself growing old while Albert lived through his eager, selfish youth—herself and Albert shut up together ... how he would scold her, how he would reproach her—he would say "You have brought me to this," and in time he would come to hate her, his fellow-prisoner who had shut the door on both of them—and he would hate her child ... they would never have married except for the child, so he would hate her child, scold it, make it miserable ... it would grow up in an unhappy home, with parents who did not love each other, who owed it a grudge for coming to them—her child, her precious child....

Still in her heart, alive under all the fear, was that thrill of divine joy which had come to her in the first moment of realization. Terror, shame, despair—none of them could kill it, for that joy was a part of her being, part of the new being which had quickened in her. It belonged to them both—it was the secret they shared ... joy, unutterable joy. Yes, she was glad she was going to have this child—she would still be glad even in the prison-house of marriage, she would still be glad even in the desert of no-marriage, every tongue wagging, every finger pointing, every heart despising. Nothing could take her joy from her—make her less than joyful mother....

Then as the joy grew and rose above the fear, she knew that she could never let fear drive her into bondage. Nothing should make a sacrifice of joy to shame—to save herself she would not bring up her child in the sorrow and degradation of a loveless home.... If she had been strong enough to give up the thought of marriage for the sake of Bertie's liberty and her own self-respect, she could be strong enough now to turn from her only hope of reputation for the sake of the new life which was joy within her. It would be the worst, most shattering thing she had ever yet endured, but she would go through with it for the love of the unborn. Joanna was not so unsophisticated as to fail to realize the difficulties and complications of her resolve—how much her child would suffer for want of a father's name; memories of lapsed dairymaids had stressed in her experience the necessity of a marriage no matter how close to the birth. But she did not rate these difficulties higher than the misery of such a home as hers and Albert's would be. Better anything than that. Joanna had no illusions about Albert now—he'd have led her a dog's life if she had married him in the first course of things; now it would be even worse, and her child should not suffer that.

No, she would do her best. Possibly she could arrange things so as to protect, at least to a certain extent, the name her baby was to bear. She would have to give up Ansdore, of course—leave Walland Marsh ... her spirit quailed, but she braced it fiercely. She was going through with this—it was the only thing Lawrence had told her that she could do—go softly all her days—to the very end. That end was farther and bitterer than either he or she had imagined then, but she would not have to go all the way alone. A child—that was what she had always wanted; she had tried to fill her heart with other things, with Ansdore, with Ellen, with men ... but what she had always wanted had been a child—she saw that now. Her child should have been born in easy, honourable circumstances, with a kind father—Arthur Alce, perhaps, since it could not be Martin Trevor. But the circumstances of its birth were her doing, and it was she who would face them. The circumstances only were her sin and shame, her undying regret—since she knew she could not keep them entirely to herself—the rest was joy and thrilling, vital peace.

The little train pulled itself together, and ran on into Brodnyx station. Joanna climbed down on the wooden platform, and signalled to the porter-stationmaster to take out her box.

"What, you back, Miss Godden!" he said, "we wasn't expecting you."

"No, I've come back pretty sudden. Do you know if there's any traps going over Pedlinge way?"

"There's Mrs. Furnese come over to fetch a crate of fowls. Maybe she'd give you a lift."

"I'll ask her," said Joanna.

Mrs. Furnese, too, was much surprised to see her back, but she said nothing about it, partly because she was a woman of few words, and partly because they'd all seen in the paper this morning that Joanna had lost her case—and reckon she must be properly upset. Maybe that was why she had come back....

"Would you like to drive?" she asked Joanna, when they had taken their seats in Misleham's ancient gig, with the crate of fowls behind them. She felt rather shy of handling the reins under Joanna Godden's eye, for everyone knew that Joanna drove like a Jehu, something tur'ble.

But the great woman shook her head. She felt tired, she said, with the heat. So Mrs. Furnese drove, and Joanna sat silently beside her, watching her thick brown hand on the reins, with the wedding ring embedded deep in the gnarled finger.

"Reckon she's properly upset with that case," thought the married woman to herself, "and sarve her right for bringing it. She could easily have paid them missionaries, with all the money she had. But it was ever Joanna's way to make a terrification."

They jogged on over the winding, white ribbon of road—through Brodnyx village, past the huge barn-like church which had both inspired and reproached her faith, with its black, caped tower canting over it, on to Walland Marsh, to the cross roads at the Woolpack—My, how they would talk at the Woolpack!... but she would be far away by then ... where?... She didn't know, she would think of that later—when she had told Ellen. Oh, there would be trouble—there would be the worst she'd ever have to swallow—when she told Ellen....



Sec.35

Joanna saw Ansdore looking at her through the chaffy haze of the August afternoon. It stewed like an apple in the sunshine, and a faint smell of apples came from it, as its great orchard dragged its boughs in the grass. They were reaping the Gate Field close to the house—the hum of the reaper came to her, and seemed in some mysterious way to be the voice of Ansdore itself, droning in the sunshine and stillness. She felt her throat tighten, and winked the tears from her eyes.

She could see Ellen coming down the drive, a cool, white, belted figure, with trim white feet. From her bedroom window Ellen had seen the Misleham gig turn in at the gate, and had at once recognized the golden blot beside Mrs. Furnese as her sister Joanna.

"Hullo, Jo! I never expected you back to-day. Did you send a wire? For if you did, I never got it."

"No, I didn't telegraph. Where's Mene Tekel? Tell her to come around with Nan and carry up my box. Mrs. Furnese, ma'am, I hope you'll step in and drink a cup of tea."

Joanna climbed down and kissed Ellen—her cheek was warm and moist, and her hair hung rough about her ears, over one of which the orange toque, many times set right, had come down in a final confusion. Ellen on the other hand was as cool as she was white—and her hair lay smooth under a black velvet fillet. Of late it seemed as if her face had acquired a brooding air; it had lost its exotic look, it was dreamy, almost virginal. Joanna felt her sister's kiss like snow.

"Is tea ready?"

"No—it's only half-past three. But you can have it at once. You look tired. Why didn't you send a wire, and I'd have had the trap to meet you."

"I never troubled, and I've managed well enough. Ain't you coming in, Mrs. Furnese?"

"No, thank you, Miss Godden—much obliged all the same. I've my man's tea to get, and these fowls to see to."

She felt that the sisters would want to be alone. Joanna would tell Ellen all about her failure, and Mene Tekel and Nan would overhear as much as they could, and tell Broadhurst and Crouch and the other men, who would tell the Woolpack bar, where Mr. Furnese would hear it and bring it home to Mrs. Furnese.... So her best way of learning the truth about the Appeal and exactly how many thousands Joanna had lost depended on her going home as quickly as possible.

Joanna, was glad to be alone. She went with Ellen into the cool parlour, drinking in the relief of its solid comfort compared with the gimcrackiness of the parlour at Lewisham.

"I'm sorry about your Appeal," said Ellen—"I saw in to-day's paper that you've lost it."

Joanna had forgotten all about the Appeal—it seemed twenty-four years ago instead of twenty-four hours that she had come out of the Law Courts and seen Bertie standing there with the pigeons strutting about his feet—but she welcomed it as a part explanation of her appearance, which she saw now was deplorable, and her state of mind, which she found impossible to disguise.

"Yes, it's terrible—I'm tedious upset."

"I suppose you've lost a lot of money."

"Not more than I can afford to pay"—the old Joanna came out and boasted for a minute.

"That's one comfort."

Joanna looked at her sister and opened her mouth, but shut it as Mene Tekel came in with the tea tray and Arthur Alce's good silver service.

Mene set the tea as silently as the defects of her respiratory apparatus would admit, and once again Joanna sighed with relief as she thought of the clatter made by Her at Lewisham.... Oh, there was no denying that she had a good house and good servants and had done altogether well for herself until in a fit of wickedness she had bust it all.

She would not tell Ellen to-night. She would wait till to-morrow morning, when she'd had a good sleep. She felt tired now, and would cry the minute Ellen began.... But she'd let her know about the breaking off of her engagement—that would prepare the way, like.

"Ellen," she said, after she had drunk her tea—"one reason I'm so upset is that I've just broken off my marriage with my intended."

"Joanna!"

Ellen put down her cup and stared at her. In her anxiety to hide her emotion, Joanna had spoken more in anger than in sorrow, so her sister's pity was checked.

"What ever made you do that!"

"We found we didn't suit."

"Well, my dear, I must say the difference in your age made me rather anxious. Thirteen years on the woman's side is rather a lot, you know. But I knew you'd always liked boys, so I hoped for the best."

"Well, it's all over now."

"Poor old Joanna, it must have been dreadful for you—on the top of your failure in the courts, too; but I'm sure you were wise to break it off. Only the most absolute certainty could have justified such a marriage."

She smiled to herself. When she said "absolute certainty" she was thinking of Tip.

"Well, I've got a bit of a headache," said Joanna rising—"I think I'll go and have a lay down."

"Do, dear. Would you like me to come up with you and help you undress?"

"No thanks. I'll do by myself. You might ask the girl to bring me up a jug of hot water. Reckon I shan't be any worse for a good wash."



Sec.36

Much as Joanna was inclined to boast of her new bathroom at Ansdore, she did not personally make much use of it, having perhaps a secret fear of its unfriendly whiteness, and a love of the homely, steaming jug which had been the fount of her ablutions since her babyhood's tub was given up. This evening she removed the day's grime from herself by a gradual and excessively modest process, and about one and a half pints of hot water. Then she twisted her hair into two ropes, put on a clean night-gown, and got into bed.

Her body's peace between the cool, coarse sheets seemed to thrill to her soul. She felt at home and at rest. It was funny being in bed at that time in the afternoon—scarcely past four o'clock—it was funny, but it was good. The sunshine was coming into the room, a spill of misty gold on the floor and furniture, and from where she lay she could see the green boundaries of the Marsh. Oh, it would be terrible when she saw that Marsh no more ... the tears rose, and she turned her face to the pillow. It was all over now—all her ambition, all her success, all the greatness of Joanna Godden. She had made Ansdore great and prosperous though she was a woman, and then she had lost it because she was a woman.... Words that she had uttered long ago came back into her mind. She saw herself standing in the dairy, in front of Martha Tilden, whose face she had forgotten. She was saying: "It's sad to think you've kept yourself straight for years and then gone wrong at last...."

Yes, it was sad ... and now she was being punished for it; but wrapped up in her punishment, sweetening its very heart, was a comfort she did not deserve. Ansdore was slowly fading in her thoughts, as it had always faded in the presence of any vital instinct, whether of love or death. Ansdore could never be to her what her child would be—none of her men, except perhaps Martin, could have been to her what her child would be.... "If it's a boy I'll call it Martin—if it's a girl I'll call it Ellen," he said to herself. Then she doubted whether Ellen would appreciate the compliment ... but she would not let herself think of Ellen to-night. That was to-morrow's evil.

"I'll have to make some sort of a plan, though—I'll have to sell this place and give Ellen a share of it. And me—where ull I go?"

She must go pretty far, so that when the child came Brodnyx and Pedlinge would not get to know about it. She would have to go at least as far as Brighton ... then she remembered Martha Relf and her lodgings at Chichester—"that wouldn't be bad, to go to Martha just for a start. Me leaving Ansdore for the same reason as she left it thirteen year ago ... that's queer. The mistress who got shut of her, coming to her and saying—'Look here, Martha, take me in, so's I can have my child in peace same as you had yours' ... I should ought to get some stout money for this farm—eight thousand pounds if it's eightpence—though reckon the Government ull want about half of it and we'll have all that terrification started again ... howsumever, I guess I'll get enough of it to live on, even when Ellen has her bit ... and maybe the folk around here ull think I'm sold up because my case has bust me, and that'll save me something of their talk."

Well, well, she was doing the best she could—though Lawrence on his blind, obedient way to Africa was scarcely going on a farther, lonelier journey than that on which Joanna was setting out.

"Oh, Martin," she whispered, lifting her eyes to his picture on her chest of drawers—"I wish I could feel you close."

It was years since she had really let herself think of him, but now strange barriers of thought had broken down, and she seemed to go to and fro quite easily into the past. Whether it was her love for Bertie whom in her blindness she had thought like him, or her meeting with Lawrence, or the new hope within her, she did not trouble to ask—but that strange, long forbidding was gone. She was free to remember all their going out and coming in together, his sweet fiery kisses, the ways of the Marsh that he had made wonderful. Throughout her being there was a strange sense of release—broken, utterly done and finished as she was from the worldly point of view, there was in her heart a springing hope, a sweet softness—she could indeed go softly at last.

The tears were in her eyes as she climbed out of bed and knelt down beside it. It was weeks since she had said her prayers—not since that night when Bertie had come into her room. But now that her heart was quite melted she wanted to ask God to help her and forgive her.

"Oh, please God, forgive me. I know I been wicked, but I'm unaccountable sorry. And I'm going through with it. Please help my child—don't let it get hurt for my fault. Help me to do my best and not grumble, seeing as it's all my own wickedness; and I'm sorry I broke the Ten Commandments. 'Lord have mercy upon us and write all these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee.'"

This liturgical outburst seemed wondrously to heal Joanna—it seemed to link her up again with the centre of her religion—Brodnyx church, with the big pews, and the hassocks, and the Lion and the Unicorn over the north door—she felt readmitted into the congregation of the faithful, and her heart was full of thankfulness and loyalty. She rose from her knees, climbed into bed, and curled up on her side. Ten minutes later she was sound asleep.



Sec.37

The next morning after breakfast, Joanna faced Ellen in the dining-room.

"Ellen," she said—"I'm going to sell Ansdore."

"You're what?"

"I'm going to put up this place for auction in September."

"Joanna!"

Ellen stared at her in amazement, alarm, and some sympathy.

"I'm driving in to tell Edward Huxtable about it this morning. Not that I trust him, after the mess he made of my case; howsumever, I can look after him in this business, and the auctioneer, too."