Joanna Godden Part 39

"Not half what you deserve."

"It's all very well for you to say that--you don't understand; and what's more, you never will. You're a hard woman, Jo--because you've never had the temptations that ordinary women have to fight against."

"How dare you say that?--Temptation!--Reckon I know ..." A sudden memory of those painful and humiliating moments when she had fought with those strange powers and discontents, made Joanna turn hot with shame. The realization that she had come very close to Ellen's sin in her heart did not make her more relenting towards the sinner--on the contrary, she hardened.

"Anyways, I've said enough to you for to-night."

"I hope you don't mean to say more to-morrow."

"No--I don't know that I do. Reckon you're right, and we don't get any good from 'having things out.' Seemingly we speak with different tongues, and think with different hearts."

She stood up, and her huge shadow sped over the ceiling, hanging over Ellen as she crouched on the bed. Then she stalked out of the room, almost majestic in her turkey-red dressing-gown.

--33

Ellen kept very close to the house during the next few days. Her face wore a demure, sullen expression--towards Joanna she was quiet and sweet, and evidently anxious that there should be no further opening of hearts between them. She was very polite to the maids--she won their good opinion by making her bed herself, so that they should not have any extra work on her account.

Perhaps it was this domestic good opinion which was at the bottom of the milder turn which the gossip about her took at this time. Naturally tongues had been busy ever since it became known that Joanna was expecting her back--Sir Harry Trevor had got shut of her for the baggage she was ... she had got shut of Sir Harry Trevor for the blackguard he was ... she had travelled back as somebody's maid, to pay her fare ...

she had brought her own French maid as far as Calais ... she had walked from Dover ... she had brought four trunks full of French clothes. These conflicting rumours must have killed each other, for a few days after her return the Woolpack was saying that after all there might be something in Joanna's tale of a trip with Mrs. Williams--of course everyone knew that both Ellen and the Old Squire had been at San Remo, but now it was suddenly discovered that Mrs. Williams had been there too--anyway, there was no knowing that she hadn't, and Ellen Alce didn't look the sort that ud go to a furrin place alone with a man. Mrs. Vine had seen her through the parlour window, and her face was as white as chalk--not a sc.r.a.p of paint on it. Mr. Southland had met her on the Brodnyx Road, and she had bowed to him polite and stately--no shrinking from an honest man's eye. According to the Woolpack, if you sinned as Ellen was reported to have sinned, you were either brazen or thoroughly ashamed of yourself, and Ellen, by being neither, did much to soften public opinion, and make it incline towards the official explanation of her absence.

This tendency increased when it became known that Arthur Alce was leaving Donkey Street. The Woolpack held that if Ellen had been guilty, Alce would not put himself in the wrong by going away. He would either have remained as the visible rebuke of her misconduct, or he would have bundled Ellen herself off to some distant part of the kingdom, such as the Isle of Wight, where the G.o.ddens had cousins. By leaving the neighbourhood he gave colour to the mysteriously-started rumour that he was not so easy to get on with as you'd think ... after all, it's never a safe thing for a girl to marry her sister's sweetheart ... probably Alce had been hankering after his old love and Ellen resented it ... the Woolpack suddenly discovered that Alce was leaving not so much on Ellen's account as on Joanna's--he'd been unable to get off with the old love, even when he'd got on with the new, and now that the new was off too ... well, there was nothing for it but for Arthur Alce to be off. He was going to his brother, who had a big farm in the s.h.i.+res--a proper farm, with great fields each of which was nearly as big as a marsh farm, fifty, seventy, a hundred acres even.

--34

Joanna bitterly resented Arthur's going, but she could not prevent it, for if he stayed Ellen threatened to go herself.

"I'll get a post as lady's-maid sooner than stay on here with you and Arthur. Have you absolutely no delicacy, Jo?--Can't you see how awkward it'll be for me if everywhere I go I run the risk of meeting him?

Besides, you'll be always plaguing me to go back to him, and I tell you I'll never do that--never."

Arthur, too, did not seem anxious to stay. He saw that if Ellen was at Ansdore he could not be continually running to and fro on his errands for Joanna. That tranquil life of service was gone, and he did not care for the thought of exile at Donkey Street, a shutting of himself into his parish of Old Romney, with the Kent Ditch between him and Joanna like a prison wall.

When Joanna told him what Ellen had said, he accepted it meekly--

"That's right, Joanna--I must go."

"But that ull be terrible hard for you, Arthur."

He looked at her.

"Reckon it will."

"Where ull you go?"

"Oh, I can go to Tom's."

"That's right away in the s.h.i.+res, ain't it?"

"Yes--beyond Leicester."

"Where they do the hunting."

"Surelye."

"What's the farm?"

"Grain mostly--and he's done well with his sheep. He'd be glad to have me for a bit."

"What'll you do with Donkey Street?"

"Let it off for a bit."

"Don't you sell!"

"Not I!"

"You'll be meaning to come back?"

"I'll be hoping."

Joanna gazed at him for a few moments in silence, and a change came into her voice--

"Arthur, you're doing all this because of me."

"I'm doing it for you, Joanna."

"Well--I don't feel I've any call--I haven't any right.... I mean, if Ellen don't like you here, she must go herself ... it ain't fair on you--you at Donkey Street for more'n twenty year ..."

"Don't you trouble about that. A change won't hurt me. Reckon either Ellen or me ull have to go and it ud break your heart if it was Ellen."

"Why can't you both stay? Ellen ull have to stay if I make her. I don't believe a word of what she says about going as lady's maid--she hasn't got the grit--nor the character neither, though she doesn't seem to think of that."

"It ud be unaccountable awkward, Jo--and it ud set Ellen against both of us, and bring you trouble. Maybe if I go she'll take a different view of things. I shan't let off the place for longer than three year ... it'll give her a chance to think different, and then maybe we can fix up something...."

Joanna fastened on to these words, both for her own comfort in Arthur's loss, and for the quieting of her conscience, which told her that it was preposterous that he should leave Donkey Street so that she could keep Ellen at Ansdore. Of course, if she did her duty she would pack Ellen off to the Isle of Wight, so that Arthur could stay. The fact was, however, that she wanted the guilty, ungracious Ellen more than she wanted the upright, devoted Arthur--she was glad to know of any terms on which her sister would consent to remain under her roof--it seemed almost too good to be true, to think that once more she had the little sister home....

So she signed the warrant for Arthur's exile, which was to do so much to spread the more favourable opinion of Ellen Alce that had mysteriously crept into being since her return. He let off Donkey Street on a three years' lease to young Jim Honisett, the greengrocer's son at Rye, who had recently married and whose wish to set up as farmer would naturally be to the advantage of his father's shop. He let his furniture with it too.... He himself would take nothing to his brother, who kept house in a very big way, the same as he farmed.... "Reckon I should ought to learn a thing or two about grain-growing that'll be useful to me when I come back," said Arthur stoutly.

He had come to say good-bye to Joanna on a June evening just before the quarter day. The hot scents of hay-making came in through the open parlour window, and they were free, for Ellen had gone with Mr. and Mrs.

Southland to Rye for the afternoon--of late she had accepted one or two small invitations from the neighbours. Joanna poured Arthur out a cup of tea from the silver teapot he had given her as a wedding present six years ago.

"Well, Arthur--reckon it'll be a long time before you and me have tea again together."

"Reckon it will."