Читать книгу Joanna Godden - Sheila Kaye-Smith - Страница 22

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She raised Socknersh's wages to twenty shillings the next day, and it was not due to any wordy flow of his gratitude that the name of Martha Tilden was not mentioned between them. "Better leave it," thought Joanna to herself, "after all, I'm not sure—and she's a slut. I'd sooner he married a cleaner, steadier sort of gal."

Grace Wickens had already departed, her cocoa-making tendencies having lately passed into mania—and her successor was an older woman, a widow, who had fallen on evil days. She was a woman of few words, and Joanna wondered a little when one afternoon she said to her rather anxiously: "I'd lik to speak to you, ma'am—in private, if you please."

They went into the larder and Mrs. Tolhurst began:

"I hardly lik to say it to you, Miss Joanna, being a single spinster … "

This was a bad beginning, for Joanna flamed at once at the implication that her spinsterhood put her at any disadvantage as a woman of the world.

"Don't talk nonsense, Mrs. Tolhurst; I may be unwed as yet, but I'm none of your Misses."

"No, ma'am—well, it's about this Martha Tilden—"

Joanna started.

"What about her?"

"Only, ma'am, that she's six months gone."

There was no chair in the larder, or Joanna would have fallen into it—instead she staggered back against the shelves, with a great rattle of crockery. Her face was as white as her own plates, and for a moment she could not speak.

"I made bold to tell you, Miss Joanna, for all the neighbourhood's beginning to talk—and the gal getting near her time and all. … I thought maybe you'd have noticed. … Don't be in such a terrification about it, Miss Joanna. … I'm sorry I told you—maybe I shud ought to have spuck to the gal fust … "

"Don't be a fool … the dirty slut!—I'll learn her … under my very roof—"

"Oh, no, ma'am,'twasn't under your roof—we shouldn't have allowed it. She used to meet him in the field down by Beggar's Bush … "

"Hold your tongue."

Mrs. Tolhurst was offended; she thought her mistress's behaviour unwarranted either by modesty or indignation. There were burning tears in Joanna's eyes as she flung herself out of the room. She was blind as she went down the passage, twisting her apron furiously in her hands.

"Martha Tilden!" she called—"Martha Tilden!"

"Oh," she thought in her heart, "I raised his wages so's he could marry her—for months this has been going on … the field down by Beggar's Bush … Oh, I could kill her!" Then shouting into the yard—"Martha Tilden! Martha Tilden!"

"I'm coming, Miss Joanna," Martha's soft drawly voice increased her bitterness; her own, compared with it, sounded harsh, empty, inexperienced. Martha's voice was full of the secrets of love—the secrets of Dick Socknersh's love.

"Come into the dairy," she said hoarsely.

Martha came and stood before her. She evidently knew what was ahead, for she looked pale and a little scared, and yet she had about her a strange air of confidence … though not so strange, after all, since she carried Dick Socknersh's child, and her memory was full of his caresses and the secrets of his love … thus bravely could Joanna herself have faced an angry world. …

"You leave my service at once," she said.

Martha began to cry.

"You know what for?"

"Yes, Miss Joanna."

"I wonder you've had the impudence to go about as you've done—eating my food and taking my wages, while all the time you've been carrying on with my looker."

"Your looker?—No, Miss Joanna."

"What d'you mean?"

"I don't know what you mean, miss—I've never had näun to do wud Dick Socknersh if it's him you're thinking of."

"Not Socknersh, but I … who is the man, then?"

"Well, it äun't no secret from anyone but you, Miss Joanna, so I döan't mind telling you as my boy is Peter Relf, their looker at Old Honeychild. We've bin walking out ever sinst the day he came after your pläace as looker here, and we'd be married now if he hadn't his old mother and dad to keep, and got into some nasty silly trouble wud them fellers wot put money on horses they've never seen. … He döan't get more'n fifteen bob a week at Honeychild, and he can't keep the old folk on less than eight, them being always filling themselves with doctor's stuff. … "

Joanna was not listening to her—she sat amazed and pale, her heart beating in heavy thuds of relief. Mixed with her happiness there was a little shame, for she saw that the mistake had arisen from her putting herself too realistically in Martha's place. Why had she jumped to the conclusion that the girl's lover was Socknersh? It is true that he had danced with her very often at the Christmas party nine months ago, and once since then she had scolded him for telling the chicken-woman some news he ought first to have told the mistress … but that was very little in the way of evidence, and Martha had always been running after boys. …

Seeing her still silent, Martha began to cry again.

"I'm sure I'm unaccountable sorry, Miss Joanna, and what's to become of me I don't know, nuther. Maybe I'm a bad lot, but it's hard to love and wait on and on for the wedding … and Pete was sure as he could do summat wud a horse running in the Derby race, and at the Woolpack they told him it wur bound to win. … I've always kept straight up till this, Miss Joanna, and a virtuous virgin for all I do grin and laugh a lot … and many's the temptation I've had, being a lone gal wudout father or mother … "

"Keep quiet, Martha, and have done with so much excuse. You've been a very wicked gal, and you shouldn't ought to think any different of yourself. But maybe I was too quick, saying you were to go at once. You can finish your month, seeing as you were monthly hired."

"Thank you, Miss Joanna, that'll give me time to look around for another pläace; though—" bursting out crying again—"I don't see what good that'll do me, seeing as my time's three months from hence."

A great softness had come over Joanna. There were tears in her eyes as she looked at Martha, but they were no longer tears of anger.

"Don't cry, child," she said kindly, "I'll see you don't come to want."

"Oh, thank you, Miss Joanna … it's middling good of you, and Pete will repay you when we're married and have säaved some tin."

"I'll do my best, for you've worked well on the whole, and I shan't forget that Orpington hen you saved when she was egg-bound. But don't you think, Martha," she added seriously, "that I'm holding with any of your goings-on. I'm shocked and ashamed at you, for you've done something very wicked—something that's spoken against in the Bible, and in church too—it's in the Ten Commandments. I wonder you could kneel in your place and say 'Lord have mercy upon us,' knowing what you'd been up to"—Martha's tears flowed freely—"and it's sad to think you've kept yourself straight for years as you say, and then gone wrong at last, just because you hadn't patience to wait for your lawful wedding … and all the scandal there's been and ull be, and folks talking at you and at me … and you be off now, and tell Mrs. Tolhurst you're to have the cream on your milk and take it before it's skimmed."