Читать книгу Joanna Godden - Sheila Kaye-Smith - Страница 13

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By the same evening the news was all over Lydd market, by the next it was all over the Three Marshes. Everyone was repeating to everyone else how Joanna Godden of Little Ansdore had got shut of her looker after twenty-eight years' service, and her father not been dead a month. "Enough to make him rise out of his grave," said the Marsh.

The actual reasons for the turning away were variously given—"Just because he spuck up and told her as her pore father wudn't hold wud her goings on," was the doctrine promulgated by the Woolpack; but the general council sitting in the bar of the Crown decreed that the trouble had arisen out of Fuller's spirited refusal to sell some lambs that had tic. Other pronouncements were that she had sassed Fuller because he knew more about sheep than she did—or that Fuller had sassed her for the same reason—that it wasn't Joanna who had dismissed him, but he who had been regretfully obliged to give notice, owing to her meddling—that all the hands at Ansdore were leaving on account of her temper.

"He'll never get another pläace agäun, will pore old Fuller—he'll end in the Union and be an everlasting shame to her."

There was almost a feeling of disappointment when it became known that Fuller—who was only forty-two, having started his career at an early age—had been given a most satisfactory job at Arpinge Farm inland, and something like consternation when it was further said and confirmed by Fuller himself that Joanna had given him an excellent character.

"She'll never get another looker," became the changed burden of the Marsh.

But here again prophecy failed, for hardly had Joanna's advertisement appeared simultaneously in the Rye Observer and the Kentish Express than she had half a dozen applications from likely men. Martha Tilden brought the news to Godfrey's Stores, the general shop in Brodnyx.

"There she is, setting in her chair, talking to a young chap what's come from Botolph's Bridge, and there's three more waiting in the passage—she told Grace to give them each a cup of cocoa when she was making it. And what d'you think? Their looker's come over from Old Honeychild, asking for the place, though he was sitting in the Crown at Lydd only yesterday, as Sam Broadhurst told me, saying as it was a shame to get shut of Fuller like that, and as how Joanna deserved never to see another looker again in her life."

"Which of the lot d'you think she'll take?" asked Godfrey.

"I dunno. How should I say? Peter Relf from Old Honeychild is a stout feller, and one of the other men told me he'd got a character that made him blush, it was that fine and flowery. But you never know with Joanna Godden—maybe she'd sooner have a looker as knew nothing, and then she could teach him. Ha! Ha!"

Meanwhile Joanna sat very erect in her kitchen chair, interviewing the young chap from Botolph's Bridge.

"You've only got a year's character from Mr. Gain?"

"Yes, missus … " a long pause during which some mental process took place clumsily behind this low, sunburnt forehead … "but I've got these."

He handed Joanna one or two dirty scraps of paper on which were written "characters" from earlier employers.

Joanna read them. None was for longer than two years, but they all spoke well of the young man before her.

"Then you've never been on the Marsh before you came to Botolph's Bridge?"

"No, missus."

"Sheep on the Marsh is very different from sheep inland."

"I know, missus."

"But you think you're up to the job."

"Yes, missus."

Joanna stared at him critically. He was a fine young fellow—slightly bowed already though he had given his age as twenty-five, for the earth begins her work early in a man's frame, and has power over the green tree as well as the dry. But this stoop did not conceal his height and strength and breadth, and somehow his bigness, combined with his simplicity, his slow thought and slow tongue, appealed to Joanna, stirred something within her that was almost tender. She handed him back his dirty "characters."

"Well, I must think it over. I've some other men to see, but I'll write you a line to Botolph's Bridge and tell you how I fix. You go now and ask Grace Wickens, my gal, to give you a cup of hot cocoa."

Young Socknersh went, stooping his shock-head still lower as he passed under the worn oak lintel of the kitchen door. Joanna interviewed the shepherd from Honeychild, a man from Slinches, another from Anvil Green inland, and one from Chilleye, on Pevensey marsh beyond Marlingate. She settled with none, but told each that she would write. She spent the evening thinking them over.

No doubt Peter Relf from Honeychild was the best man—the oldest and most experienced—but on the other hand he wanted the most money, and probably also his own way. After the disastrous precedent of Fuller, Joanna wasn't going to have another looker who thought he knew better than she did. Now, Dick Socknersh, he would mind her properly, she felt sure. … Day from Slinches had the longest "character"—fifteen years man and boy; but that would only mean that he was set in their ways and wouldn't take to hers—she wasn't going to start fattening her sheep with turnips, coarsening the meat, not to please anyone. … Now, Socknersh, having never been longer than two years in a place wouldn't have got fixed in any bad habits. … As for Jenkins and Taylor, they weren't any good—just common Southdown men—she might as well write off to them at once. Her choice lay between Relf and Day and Socknersh. She knew that she meant to have Socknersh—he was not the best shepherd, but she liked him the best, and he would mind her properly and take to her ways … for a moment he seemed to stand before her, with his head stooping among the rafters, his great shoulders shutting out the window, his curious, brown, childlike eyes fixed upon her face. Day was a scrubby little fellow, and Relf had warts all over his hands. … But she wasn't choosing Socknersh for his looks; she was choosing him because he would work for her the best, not being set up with "notions." Of course she liked him the best, too, but it would be more satisfactory from every practical point of view to work with a man she liked than with a man she did not like—Joanna liked a man to look a man, and she did not mind if he was a bit of a child too. … Yes, she would engage Socknersh; his "characters," though short, were most satisfactory—he was "good with sheep and lambs," she could remember—"hard-working"—"patient". … She wrote to Botolph's Bridge that evening, and engaged him to come to her at the end of the week.