Joanna Godden Part 17

"I'm sorry not to have succeeded better," said his brother.

The elder Trevor was only two years older than Martin, but his looks gave him more. His features were blunter, more humorous, and his face was already lined, while his hands looked work-worn. He wore a rough grey ca.s.sock b.u.t.toned up to his chin.

"You should have preached to them," said Sir Harry, "like St. Francis of something or other. You should have called them your sisters and they'd have showered down their milk in gallons. What's the good of being a monk if you can't work miracles?"

"I leave that to St. Francis Dennett--I'm quite convinced that cows are milked only supernaturally, and I find it very difficult even to be natural with them. Perhaps Martin will take me in hand and show me that much."

"I don't think I need. I hear the servants coming in."

"Thank G.o.d," exclaimed Sir Harry, "now perhaps we shall get our food cooked. Martin's already had dinner, Lawrence--he had it with Joanna G.o.dden. Martin, I don't know that I like your having dinner with Joanna G.o.dden. It marks you--they'll talk about it at the Woolpack for weeks, and it'll probably end in your having to marry her to make her an honest woman."

"That's what I mean to do--to marry her."

The words broke out of him. He had certainly not meant to tell his father anything just yet. Apart from his natural reserve, Sir Harry was not the man he would have chosen for such confidences till they became inevitable. The fact that his father was still emotionally young and had love affairs of his own gave him feelings of repugnance and irritation--he could have endured the conventionally paternal praise or blame, but he was vaguely outraged by the queer basis of equality from which Sir Harry dealt with his experiences. But now the truth was out.

What would they say, these two?--The old rake who refused to turn his back on youth and love, and the triple-vowed religious who had renounced both before he had enjoyed either.

Sir Harry was the first to speak.

"Martin, I am an old man, who will soon be forced to dye his hair, and really my const.i.tution is not equal to these shocks. What on earth makes you think you want to marry Joanna G.o.dden?"

"I love her."

"A most desperate situation. But surely marriage is rather a drastic remedy."

"Well, don't let's talk about it any longer. I'm going to dress--Saville will be here in a quarter of an hour."

"But I must talk about it. Hang it all, I'm your father--I'm the father of both of you, though you don't like it a bit and would rather forget it. Martin, you mustn't marry Joanna G.o.dden however much you love her.

It would be a silly mistake--she's not your equal, and she's not your type. Have you asked her?"

"Practically."

"Oh that's all right, then. It doesn't matter asking a woman practically as long as you don't ask her literally."

"Father, please don't talk about it."

"I will talk about it. Lawrence, do you know what this idiot's letting himself in for? Have you seen Joanna G.o.dden? Why, she'd never do for him? She's a big, bouncing female, and her stays creak."

"Be quiet, father. You make me furious."

"Yes, you'll be disrespectful to me in a minute. That would be very sad, and the breaking of a n.o.ble record. Of course it's presumptuous of me to want a lady for my daughter-in-law, and perhaps you're right to chuck away the poor remains of our dignity--they were hardly worth keeping."

"I've thought over that," said Martin. He saw now that having recklessly started the subject he could not put it aside till it had been fought out. "I've thought over that, and I've come to the conclusion that Joanna's worth any sacrifice I can make for her."

"But not marriage--why must you ask her to marry you? You don't really know her. You'll cool off."

"I shan't."

"What about your health, Martin?" asked Lawrence, "are you fit and able to marry? You know what the doctor said."

"He said I might go off into consumption if I hung on in town--that beastly atmosphere at Wright's and all the racket.... But there's nothing actually wrong with me, I'm perfectly fit down here. I'll last for ever in this place, and I tell you it's been a ghastly thought till now--knowing that I must either stop here, away from all my friends and interests, or else shorten my life. But now, I don't care--when I marry Joanna G.o.dden I'll take root, I'll belong to the Marsh, I'll be at home.

You don't know Joanna G.o.dden, Lawrence--if you did I believe you'd like her. She's so sane and simple--she's so warm and alive; and she's good, too--when I met her to-day, she had just been to Communion. She'll help me to live--at last I'll be able to live the best life for me, body and soul, down here in the sea air, with no town rubbish ..."

"It sounds a good thing," said Lawrence. "After all, father, there really isn't much use trying to keep up the state of the Trevors and all that now ..."

"No, there isn't--especially when this evening's guest will arrive in two minutes to find us sitting round in dirt and darkness and dissension, all because we've been too busy discussing our heir's betrothal to a neighbouring goose-girl to trouble about such fripperies as dressing for dinner. Of course now Lawrence elects to take Martin's part there's no good my trying to stand against the two of you. I've always been under your heels, ever since you were old enough to boss me.

Let the state of the Trevors go--Martin, marry Joanna G.o.dden and we will come to you for our mangolds--Lawrence, if you were not hindered by your vows, I should suggest your marrying one of the Miss Southlands or the Miss Vines, and then we could have a picturesque double wedding. As for me, I will build on more solid foundations than either of you, and marry my cook."

With which threat he departed to groom himself.

"He'll be all right," said Martin, "he likes Joanna G.o.dden really."

"So do I. She sounds a good sort. Will you take me to see her before I go?"

"Certainly. I want you to meet her. When you do you'll see that I'm not doing anything rash, even from the worldly point of view. She comes of fine old yeoman stock, and she's of far more consequence on the Marsh than any of us."

"I can't see that the social question is of much importance. As long as your tastes and your ideas aren't too different ..."

"I'm afraid they are, rather. But somehow we seem to complement each other. She's so solid and so sane--there's something barbaric about her too ... it's queer."

"I've seen her. She's a fine-looking girl--a bit older than you, isn't she?"

"Five years. Against it, of course--but then I'm so much older than she is in most ways. She's a practical woman of business--knows more about farming than I shall ever know in my life--but in matters of life and love, she's a child ..."

"I should almost have thought it better the other way round--that you should know about the business and she about the love. But then in such matters I too am a child."

He smiled disarmingly, but Martin felt ruffled--partly because his brother's voluntary abstention from experience always annoyed him, and partly because he knew that in this case the child was right and the man wrong.

--13

In the engagement of Joanna G.o.dden to Martin Trevor Walland Marsh had its biggest sensation for years. Indeed it could be said that nothing so startling had happened since the Rother changed its mouth. The feelings of those far-back marsh-dwellers who had awakened one morning to find the Kentish river swirling past their doors at Broomhill might aptly be compared with those of the farms round the Woolpack, who woke to find that Joanna G.o.dden was not going just to jog on her final choice between Arthur Alce and old maidenhood, but had swept aside to make an excellent, fine marriage.

"She's been working for this all along," said p.r.i.c.kett disdainfully.

"I don't see that she's had the chance to work much," said Vine, "she hasn't seen the young chap more than three or four times."

"Bates's looker saw them at Romney once," said Southland, "having their dinner together; but that time at the Farmers' Club he'd barely speak to her."

"Well she's got herself talked about over two men that she hasn't took, and now she's took a man that she hasn't got herself talked about over."

"Anyways, I'm glad of it," said Furnese, "she's a mare that's never been praaperly broken in, and now at last she's got a man to do it."

"Poor feller, Alce. I wonder how he'll take it."

Alce took it very well. For a week he did not come to Ansdore, then he appeared with Joanna's first wedding present in the shape of a silver tea-service which had belonged to his mother.