Joanna Godden Part 20

"Joanna--don't you feel it, too?"

"Yes--maybe I do. It's queer and lonesome--I'm glad I've got you, Martin."

She suddenly came close to him and put out her arms, hiding her face against his heart.

"Child--what is it?"

"I dunno. Maybe it's this place, but I feel scared. Oh, Martin, you'll never leave me? You'll always be good to me?..."

"I ... oh, my own precious thing."

He held her close to him and they both trembled--she with her first fear of those undefinable forces and a.s.sociations which go to make the mystery of place, he with the pa.s.sion of his faithfulness, of his vows of devotion, too fierce and sacrificial even to express.

"Let's go and have tea," she said, suddenly disengaging herself, "I'll get the creeps if we stop out here on the beach much longer--reckon I've got 'em now, and I never was the one to be silly like that. I told you it was a tedious hole."

They went to the Britannia, on the eastern side of the bill. The inn looked surprised to see them, but agreed to put the kettle on. They sat together in a little queer, dim room, smelling of tar and fish, and bright with the flames of wreckwood. Joanna had soon lost her fears--she talked animatedly, telling him of the progress of her spring wheat; of the dead owl that had fallen out of the beams of Brenzett church during morning prayers last Sunday, of the shocking way they had managed their lambing at Beggar's Bush, of King Edward's Coronation that was coming off in June.

"I know of something else that's coming off in June," said Martin.

"Our wedding?"

"Surelye."

"I'm going into Folkestone next week, to that shop where I bought my party gown."

"And I'm going to Mr. Pratt to tell him to put up our banns, or we shan't have time to be cried three times before the first of June."

"The first!--I told you the twenty-fourth."

"But I'm not going to wait till the twenty-fourth. You promised me June."

"But I shan't have got in my hay, and the shearers are coming on the fourteenth--you have to book weeks ahead, and that was the only date Harmer had free."

"Joanna."

Her name was a summons, almost stern, and she looked up. She was still sitting at the table, stirring the last of her tea. He sat under the window on an old sea-chest, and had just lit his pipe.

"Come here, Joanna."

She came obediently, and sat beside him, and he put his arm round her.

The blue and ruddy flicker of the wreckwood lit up the dark day.

"I've been thinking a lot about this, and I know now--there is only one thing between us, and that's Ansdore."

"How d'you mean? It ain't between us."

"It is--again and again you seem to be putting Ansdore in the place of our love. What other woman on G.o.d's earth would put off her marriage to fit in with the sheep-shearing?"

"I ain't putting it off. We haven't fixed the day yet, and I'm just telling you to fix a day that's suitable and convenient."

"You know I always meant to marry you the first week in June."

"And you know as I've told you, that I can't take the time off then."

"The time off! You're not a servant. You can leave Ansdore any day you choose."

"Not when the shearing's on. You don't understand, Martin--I can't have all the shearers up and n.o.body to look after 'em."

"What about your looker?--or Broadhurst? You don't trust anybody but yourself."

"You're just about right--I don't."

"Don't you trust me?"

"Not to shear sheep."

Martin laughed ruefully.

"You're very sensible, Joanna--unshakably so. But I'm not asking you to trust me with the sheep, but to trust me with yourself. Don't misunderstand me, dear. I'm not asking you to marry me at the beginning of the month just because I haven't the patience to wait till the end.

It isn't that, I swear it. But don't you see that if you fix our marriage to fit in with the farm-work, it'll simply be beginning things in the wrong way? As we begin we shall have to go on, and we can't go on settling and ordering our life according to Ansdore's requirements--it's a wrong principle. Think, darling," and he drew her close against his heart, "we shall want to see our children--and will you refuse, just because that would mean that you would have to lie up and keep quiet and not go about doing all your own business?"

Joanna s.h.i.+vered.

"Oh, Martin, don't talk of such things."

"Why not?"

She had given him some frank and graphic details about the accouchement of her favourite cow, and he did not understand that the subject became different when it was human and personal.

"Because I--because we ain't married yet."

"Joanna, you little prude!"

She saw that he was displeased and drew closer to him, slipping her arms round his neck, so that he could feel the roughness of her work-worn hands against it.

"I'm not shocked--only it's so wonderful--I can't abear talking of it ... Martin, if we had one ... I should just about die of joy ..."

He gripped her to him silently, unable to speak. Somehow it seemed as if he had just seen deeper into Joanna than during all the rest of his courts.h.i.+p. He moved his lips over her bright straying hair--her face was hidden in his sleeve.

"Then we'll stop at Mr. Pratt's on our way home and ask him to put up the banns at once?"

"Oh no--" lifting herself sharply--"I didn't mean that."

"Why not?"

"Well, it won't make any difference to our marriage, being married three weeks later--but it'll make an unaccountable difference to my wool prices if the shearers don't do their job proper--and then there's the hay."

"On the contrary, child--it will make a difference to our marriage. We shall have started with Ansdore between us."