Joanna Godden Part 52

"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. d.a.m.n it all! She's a monstrosity--and going to be married too ... well, there are some heroes left in the world."

--29

Bertie was waiting for Joanna outside the Law Courts. In the stillness of the August evening and the yellow dusty suns.h.i.+ne, 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."

"d.a.m.n! 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 gla.s.s 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-gla.s.s. 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-partic.i.p.ating 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.

--30

The curtain came down and the lights went up for the interval. A bra.s.s 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 s.h.i.+ny like that if you had some powder on it."

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