Joanna Godden Part 53

"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 advertis.e.m.e.nts 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.

--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 G.o.dDEN."

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 embarra.s.sing 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 d.a.m.n 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."

--32