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Joanna Godden by Sheila Kaye Smith

S >> Sheila Kaye Smith >> Joanna Godden




Then to crown all, he took away the Lion and the Unicorn from their
eternal dance above the Altar of God, and in their place he put tall
candles, casting queer red gleams into daylight.... Joanna could bear no
more; she swallowed the pride which for the first few months of
innovation had made her treat the new rector merely with distant
rudeness, and descended upon him in the three rooms of Brodnyx Rectory
which he inhabited with cheerful contempt for the rest of its howling
vastness.

She emerged from the encounter strangely subdued. Mr. Palmer had been
polite, even sympathetic, but he had plainly shown her the indifference
(to use no cruder term) that he felt for her as an ecclesiastical
authority. He was not going to put the Lion and the Unicorn back in
their old place, they belonged to a bygone age which was now forgotten,
to a bad old language which had lost its meaning. The utmost he would do
was to consent to hang them up over the door, so that they could bless
Joanna's going out and coming in. With this she had to be content.

Poor Joanna! The episode was more than a passing outrage and
humiliation--it was ominous, it gave her a queer sense of downfall.
With her beloved symbol something which was part of herself seemed also
to have been dispossessed. She became conscious that she was losing
authority. She realized that for long she had been weakening in regard
to Ellen, and now she was unable to stand up to this heavy, sleek young
man whom her patronage had appointed.... The Lion and the Unicorn had
from childhood been her sign of power--they were her theology in
oleograph, they stood for the Church of England as by law established,
large rectory houses, respectable and respectful clergymen, "dearly
beloved brethren" on Sunday mornings, and a nice nap after dinner. And
now they were gone, and in their place was a queer Jesuitry of kyries
and candles, and a gospel which kicked and goaded and would not allow
one to sleep....




Sec.7

It began to be noticed at the Woolpack that Joanna was losing heart.
"She's lost her spring," they said in the bar--"she's got all she
wanted, and now she's feeling dull"--"she's never had what she wanted
and now she's feeling tired"--"her sister's beat her and parson's beat
her--she can't be properly herself." There was some talk about making
her an honorary member of the Farmers' Club, but it never got beyond
talk--the traditions of that exclusive body were too strong to admit her
even now.

To Joanna it seemed as if life had newly and powerfully armed itself
against her. Her love for Ellen was making her soft, she was letting her
sister rule. And not only at home but abroad she was losing her power.
Both Church and State had taken to themselves new arrogances. The Church
had lost its comfortable atmosphere of Sunday beef--and now the State,
which hitherto had existed only for that most excellent purpose of
making people behave themselves, had lifted itself up against Joanna
Godden.

Lloyd George's Finance Act had caught her in its toils, she was being
overwhelmed with terrible forms and schedules, searching into her
profits, making strange inquiries as to minerals, muddling her with long
words. Then out of all the muddle and welter finally emerged the
startling fact that the Government expected to have twenty per cent. of
her profits on the sale of Donkey Street.

She was indignant and furious. She considered that the Government had
been grossly treacherous, unjust, and disrespectful to poor Arthur's
memory. It was Arthur who had done so well with his land that she had
been able to sell it to Honisett at such a valiant price. She had spent
all the money on improvements, too--she was not like some people who
bought motor-cars and took trips to Paris. She had not bought a
motor-car but a motor-plough, the only one in the district--the
Government could come and see it themselves if they liked. It was well
worth looking at.

Thus she delivered herself to young Edward Huxtable, who now managed his
father's business at Rye.

"But I'm afraid it's all fair and square, Miss Joanna," said her
lawyer--"there's no doubt about the land's value or what you sold it
for, and I don't see that you are entitled to any exemption."

"Why not?--If I'm not entitled, who is?"

Joanna sat looking very large and flushed in the Huxtable office in
Watchbell Street. She felt almost on the verge of tears, for it seemed
to her that she was the victim of the grossest injustice which also
involved the grossest disrespect to poor Arthur, who would turn in his
grave if he knew that the Government were trying to take his legacy from
her.

"What are lawyers for?" she continued hotly. "You can turn most things
inside out--why can't you do this? Can't I go to County Court about it?"

Edward Huxtable consulted the Act.... "'Notice of objection may be
served on the Commissioners within sixty days. If they do not allow the
objection, the petitioner may appeal to a referee under the Act, and an
appeal by either the petitioner or the Commissioners lies from the
referee to the High Court, or where the site value does not exceed L500,
to the County Court.' I suppose yours is worth more than L500?"

"I should just about think it is--it's worth something more like five
thousand if the truth was known."

"Well, I shouldn't enlarge on that. Do you think it worth while to
serve an objection? No doubt there are grounds on which we could appeal,
but they aren't very good, and candidly I think we'd lose. It would cost
you a great deal of money, too, before you'd finished."

"I don't care about that. I'm not going to sit down quiet and have my
rightful belongings taken from me."

Edward Huxtable considered that he had done his duty in warning
Joanna--lots of lawyers wouldn't have troubled to do that--and after all
the old girl had heaps of money to lose. She might as well have her fun
and he his fee.

"Well, anyhow we'll go as far as the Commissioners. If I were you, I
shouldn't apply for total exemption, but for a rebate. We might do
something with allowances. Let me see, what did you sell for?"...

He finally prepared an involved case, partly depending on the death
duties that had already been paid when Joanna inherited Alce's farm, and
which he said ought to be considered in calculating increment value.
Joanna would not have confessed for worlds that she did not understand
the grounds of her appeal, though she wished Edward Huxtable would let
her make at least some reference to her steam tractor, and thus win her
victory on moral grounds, instead of just through some lawyer's mess.
But, moral appeal or lawyer's mess, her case should go to the
Commissioners, and if necessary to the High Court. Just because she knew
that in her own home and parish the fighting spirit was failing her,
Joanna resolved to fight this battle outside it without counting the
cost.




Sec.8

That autumn she had her first twinge of rheumatism. The days of the
marsh ague were over, but the dread "rheumatiz" still twisted
comparatively young bones. Joanna had escaped till a later age than
many, for her work lay mostly in dry kitchens and bricked yards, and she
had had little personal contact with the soil, that odorous sponge of
the marsh earth, rank with the soakings of sea-fogs and land-fogs.

Like most healthy people, she made a tremendous fuss once she was laid
up. Mene Tekel and Mrs. Tolhurst were kept flying up and down stairs
with hot bricks and poultices and that particularly noxious brew of
camomile tea which she looked upon as the cure of every ill. Ellen would
come now and then and sit on her bed, and wander round the room playing
with Joanna's ornaments--she wore a little satisfied smile on her face,
and about her was a queer air of restlessness and contentment which
baffled and annoyed her sister.

The officers from Lydd did not now come so often to Ansdore. Ellen's
most constant visitor at this time was the son of the people who had
taken Great Ansdore dwelling-house. Tip Ernley had just come back from
Australia; he did not like colonial life and was looking round for
something to do at home. He was a county cricketer, an exceedingly
nice-looking young man, and his people were a good sort of people, an
old West Sussex family fallen into straightened circumstances.

On his account Joanna came downstairs sooner than she ought. She could
not get rid of her distrust of Ellen, the conviction that once her
sister was left to herself she would be up to all sorts of mischief.
Ellen had behaved impossibly once and therefore, according to Joanna,
there was no guarantee that she would not go on behaving impossibly to
the end of time. So she came down to play the dragon to Tip Ernley as
she had played the dragon to the young lieutenants of the summer. There
was not much for her to do--she saw at once that the boy was different
from the officers, a simple-minded creature, strong, gentle and
clean-living, with deferential eyes and manners. Joanna liked him at
first sight, and relented. They had tea together, and a game of
three-handed bridge afterwards--Ellen had taught her sister to play
bridge.

Then as the evening wore on, and the mists crept up from the White Kemp
Sewer to muffle the windows of Ansdore and make Joanna's bones twinge
and ache, she knew that she had come down too late. These young people
had had time enough to settle their hearts' business in a little less
than a week, and Joanna God-dam could not scare them apart. Of course
there was nothing to fear--this fine, shy man would make no assault on
Ellen Alce's frailty, it was merely a case of Ellen Alce becoming Ellen
Ernley, if he could be persuaded to overlook her "past"--a matter which
Joanna thought important and doubtful. But the elder sister's heart
twinged and ached as much as her bones. There was not only the thought
that she might lose Ellen once more and have to go back to her lonely
living ... her heart was sick to think that again love had come under
her roof and had not visited her. Love ... love ... for Ellen--no more
for Joanna Godden. Perhaps now it was too late. She was getting on, past
thirty-seven--romance never came as late as that on Walland Marsh,
unless occasionally to widows. Then, since it was too late, why did she
so passionately long for it?--Why had not her heart grown old with her
years?




Sec.9

During the next few weeks Joanna watched the young romance grow and
sweeten. Ellen was becoming almost girlish again, or rather, girlish as
she had never been. The curves of her mouth grew softer and her voice
lost its even tones--she had moments of languor and moments of a queer
lightness. Great and Little Ansdore were now on very good terms, and
during that winter there was an exchange of dinners and bridge. Joanna
could now, as she expressed it, give a dinner-party with the best of
'em. Nothing more splendid could be imagined than Joanna Godden sitting
at the head of her table, wearing her Folkestone-made gown of apricot
charmeuse, adapted to her modesty by means of some rich gold lace; Ellen
had induced her to bind her hair with a gold ribbon, and from her ears
great gold ear-rings hung nearly to her shoulders, giving the usual
barbaric touch to her stateliness. Ellen, in contrast, wore iris-tinted
gowns that displayed nacreous arms and shoulders, and her hair passed in
great dark shining licks over her little unadorned ears.

Joanna was annoyed because Ellen never told her anything about herself
and Tip Ernley. She wanted to know in what declared relation they stood
to each other. She hoped Ellen was being straight with him, as she was
obviously not being straight with her. She did not think they were
definitely engaged--surely they would have let her know that. Perhaps he
was waiting till he had found some satisfactory job and could afford to
keep a wife. She told herself angrily that if only they would confide in
her, she would help the young pair ... they were spoiling their own
chances by keeping her out of their secrets. It never struck her that
Ernley would rather not be beholden to her, whatever Ellen might feel in
the matter.

His father and mother--well-bred, cordial people--and his maiden sister,
of about Joanna's age, never seemed to see anything remarkable in the
way Ellen and Tip always went off together after dinner, while the
others settled down to their bridge. It seemed to Joanna a grossly
improper proceeding if they were not engaged. But all Mr. and Mrs.
Ernley would say was--"Quite right too--it's just as well when young
people aren't too fond of cards." Joanna herself was growing to be quite
fond of cards, though in her heart she did not think that for sheer
excitement bridge was half as good as beggar-my-neighbour, which she
used to play with Mene Tekel, in the old days before she and Mene both
became dignified, the one as mistress, the other as maid. She enjoyed
her bridge--but often the game would be quite spoilt by the thought of
Ellen and Tip in some secluded corner. He must be making love to her, or
they wouldn't go off alone together like that ... I go no trumps ... if
they wanted just ordinary talk they could stay in here, we wouldn't
trouble them if they sat over there on the sofa ... me to play, is it?...
I wonder if she lets him kiss her ... oh, I beg your pardon, I'm
sure....

Joanna had no more returns of rheumatism that winter. Scared and
infuriated by her one experience, she took great care of herself, and
that winter was drier than usual, with crisp days of cold sunshine, and
a skin of ice on the sewers. Once or twice there was a fall of snow, and
even Joanna saw beauty in those days of a blue sky hanging above the
dazzling white spread of the three marshes, Walland, Dunge and Romney,
one huge white plain, streaked with the watercourses black under their
ice, like bars of iron. Somehow the sight hurt her; all beautiful things
hurt her strangely now--whether it was the snow-laden marsh, or the
first scents of spring in the evenings of February, or even Ellen's face
like a broad, pale flower.

She felt low-spirited and out of sorts that turn of the year. It was
worse than rheumatism.... Then she suddenly conceived the idea that it
was the rheumatism "driven inside her." Joanna had heard many terrible
tales of people who had perished through quite ordinary complaints, like
measles, being mysteriously "driven inside." It was a symptom of her low
condition that she should worry about her health, which till then had
never given her a minute's preoccupation. She consulted "The Family
Doctor," and realized the number of diseases she might be suffering from
besides suppressed rheumatics--cancer, consumption, kidney disease,
diabetes, appendicitis, asthma, arthritis, she seemed to have them all,
and in a fit of panic decided to consult a physician in the flesh.

So she drove off to see Dr. Taylor in her smart chocolate-coloured trap,
behind her chocolate-coloured mare, with her groom in chocolate-coloured
livery on the seat behind her. She intended to buy a car if she won her
case at the High Court--for to the High Court it had gone, both the
Commissioners and their referee having shown themselves blind to the
claims of justice.

The doctor listened respectfully to the long list of her symptoms and to
her own diagnosis of them. No, he did not think it was the rheumatism
driven inside her.... He asked her a great many questions, some of which
she thought indelicate.

"You're thoroughly run down," he said at last--"been doing too
much--you've done a lot, you know."

"Reckon I have," said Joanna--"but I'm a young woman yet"--there was a
slight touch of defiance in her last words.

"Oh, age has nothing to do with it. We're liable to overwork ourselves
at all ages. Overwork and worry.... What you need is a thorough rest of
mind and body. I recommend a change."

"You mean I should ought to go away?"

"Certainly."

"But I haven't been away for twenty year."

"That's just it. You've let yourself get into a groove. You want a
thorough change of air, scene and society. I recommend that you go away
to some cheerful gay watering-place, where there's plenty going on and
you'll meet new people."

"But what'll become of Ansdore?"

"Surely it can get on without you for a few weeks?"

"I can't go till the lambing's finished."

"When will that be?"

"Not till after Easter."

"Well, Easter is a very good time to go away. Do take my advice about
this, Miss Godden. You'll never be really well and happy if you keep in
a groove ..."

"Groove!" snorted Joanna.




Sec.10

She was so much annoyed with him for having twice referred to Ansdore as
a "groove" that at first she felt inclined not to take his advice. But
even to Joanna this was unsatisfactory as a revenge--"If I stay at home,
maybe I'll get worse, and then he'll be coming over to see me in my
'groove' and getting eight-and-six each time for it." It would certainly
be better to go away and punish the doctor by a complete return to
health. Besides, she was awed by the magnitude of the prescription. It
was a great thing on the Marsh to be sent away for change of air,
instead of just getting a bottle of stuff to take three times daily
after meals.... She'd go, and make a splash of it.

Then the question arose--where should she go? She could go to her
cousins in the Isle of Wight, but they were a poor lot. She could go to
Chichester, where Martha Relf, the girl who had been with her when she
first took over Ansdore and had behaved so wickedly with the looker at
Honeychild, now kept furnished rooms as a respectable widow. Martha, who
was still grateful to Joanna, had written and asked her to come and try
her accommodation.... But by no kind of process could Chichester be
thought of as a "cheerful watering-place," and Joanna was resolved to
carry out her prescription to the letter.

"Why don't you go to a really good place?" suggested Ellen--"Bath or
Matlock or Leamington. You could stay at a hydro, if you liked."

But these were all too far--Joanna did not want to be beyond the summons
of Ansdore, which she could scarcely believe would survive her absence.
Also, to her horror, she discovered that nothing would induce Ellen to
accompany her.

"But I can't go without you!" she cried dismally--"it wouldn't be
seemly--it wouldn't be proper."

"What nonsense, Jo. Surely a woman of your age can stop anywhere by
herself."

"Oh, indeed, can she, ma'am? And what about a woman of your age?--It's
you I don't like leaving alone here."

"That's absurd of you. I'm a married woman, and quite able to look after
myself. Besides, I've Mrs. Tolhurst with me, and the Ernleys are quite
close."

"Oh, yes, the Ernleys!" sniffed Joanna with a toss of her head. She felt
that now was a fitting opportunity for Ellen to disclose her exact
relations with the family, but surprisingly her sister took no advantage
of the opening thus made.

"You'd much better go alone, Joanna--it won't do you half so much good
if I go with you. We're getting on each other's nerves, you know we are.
At least I'm getting on yours. You'll be much happier among entirely new
people."

It ended in Joanna's taking rooms at the Palace Hotel, Marlingate. No
persuasions would make her go farther off. She was convinced that
neither Ansdore nor Ellen could exist, at least decorously, without her,
and she must be within easy reach of both. The fortnight between the
booking of her room and her setting out she spent in mingled fretfulness
and swagger. She fretted about Ansdore, and nearly drove her carter and
her looker frantic with her last injunctions; she fretted about Ellen,
and cautioned Mrs. Tolhurst to keep a strict watch over her--"She's not
to go up to late dinner at Great Ansdore without you fetch her home." On
the other hand, she swaggered tremendously about the expensive and
fashionable trip she was making. Her room was on the first floor of the
hotel and would cost her twelve-and-six a night. She had taken it for a
week, "But I told them I'd stay a fortnight if I was satisfied, so
reckon they'll do all they can. I'll have breakfast in bed"--she added,
as a climax.




Sec.11

In spite of this, Joanna could not help feeling a little nervous and
lonely when she found herself at the Palace Hotel. It was so very
different from the New Inn at Romney, or the George at Rye, or any other
substantial farmers' ordinary where she ate her dinner on market days.
Of course she had been to the Metropole at Folkestone--whatever place
Joanna visited, whether Brodnyx or Folkestone, she went to the best
hotel--so she was not uninitiated in the mysteries of hotel menus and
lifts and hall porters, and other phenomena that alarm the
simple-minded; but that was many years ago, and it was more years still
since she had slept away from Ansdore, out of her own big bed with its
feather mattress and flowered curtains, so unlike this narrow hotel
arrangement, all box mattress and brass knobs.

The first night she lay miserably awake, wishing she had never come. She
felt shy and lonely and scared and homesick. After the dead stillness of
Ansdore, a stillness which brooded unbroken till dawn, which was the
voice of a thick darkness, she found even this quiet seaside hotel full
of disturbing noise. The hum of the ascending lift far into the night,
the occasional wheels and footsteps on the parade, the restless heaving
roar of the sea, all disturbed the small slumbers that her sense of
alarm and strangeness would let her enjoy. She told herself she would
never sleep a wink in this rackety place, and would have sought comfort
in the resolution to go home the next morning, if she had not had Ellen
to face, and the servants and neighbours to whom she had boasted so
much.

However, when daylight came, and sunshine, and her breakfast-in-bed,
with its shining dish covers and appetizing smells, she felt quite
different, and ate her bacon and eggs with appetite and a thrilling
sense of her own importance. The waitress, for want of a definite order,
had brought her coffee, which somehow made her feel very rakish and
continental, though she would have much preferred tea. When she had
finished breakfast, she wrote a letter to Ellen describing all her
experiences with as much fullness as was compatible with that strange
inhibition which always accompanied her taking up of the pen, and
distinguished her letters so remarkably from the feats of her tongue.

When she had written the letter and posted it adventurously in the hotel
letter-box, she went out on the parade to listen to the band. It was
Easter week, and there were still a great many people about, couples
sitting round the bandstand, more deeply absorbed in each other than in
the music. Joanna paid twopence for a chair, having ascertained that
there were no more expensive seats to be had, and at the end of an hour
felt consumedly bored. The music was bright and popular enough, but she
was not musical, and soon grew tired of listening to "tunes." Also
something about the music made her feel uncomfortable--the same dim yet
searching discomfort she had when she looked at the young couples in the
sun ... the young girls in their shady hats and silk stockings, the
young men in their flannels and blazers. They were all part of a whole
to which she did not belong, of which the music was part ... and the
sea, and the sun, and the other visitors at the hotel, the very servants
of the hotel ... and Ellen at Ansdore ... all day she was adding fresh
parts to that great whole, outside which she seemed to exist alone.

"I'm getting fanciful," she thought--"this place hasn't done me a bit of
good yet."

She devoted herself to the difficult art of filling up her day.
Accustomed to having every moment occupied, she could hardly cope with
the vast stretch of idle hours. After a day or two she found herself
obliged to give up having breakfast in bed. From force of habit she woke
every morning at five, and could not endure the long wait in her room.
If the weather was fine she usually went for a walk on the sea-front,
from Rock-a-Nore to the Monypenny statue. Nothing would induce her to
bathe, though even at that hour and season the water was full of young
men and women rather shockingly enjoying themselves and each other.
After breakfast she wrote laborious letters to Broadhurst, Wilson, Mrs.
Tolhurst, Ellen, Mene Tekel--she had never written so many letters in
her life, but every day she thought of some fresh thing that would be
left undone if she did not write about it. When she had finished her
letters she went out and listened respectfully to the band. The
afternoon was generally given up to some excursion or charabanc drive,
and the day finished rather somnolently in the lounge.

She did not get far beyond civilities with the other visitors in the
hotel. More than one had spoken to her, attracted by this handsome,
striking, and probably wealthy woman--through Ellen's influence her
appearance had been purged of what was merely startling--but they either
took fright at her broad marsh accent ... "she must be somebody's cook
come into a fortune" ... or the more fundamental incompatibility of
outlook kept them at a distance. Joanna was not the person for the
niceties of hotel acquaintanceship--she was too garrulous, too
overwhelming. Also she failed to realize that all states of society are
not equally interested in the price of wheat, that certain details of
sheep-breeding seem indelicate to the uninitiated, and that strangers do
not really care how many acres one possesses, how many servants one
keeps, or the exact price one paid for one's latest churn.

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