Читать книгу Joanna Godden - Sheila Kaye-Smith - Страница 27

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One afternoon, soon after Ellen had gone back to school for her second year, when Joanna was making plum jam in the kitchen, and getting very hot and sharp-tongued in the process, Mrs. Tolhurst saw a man go past the window on his way to the front door.

"Lor, miss! There's Parson!" she cried, and the next minute came sounds of struggle with Joanna's rusty door-bell.

"Go and see what he wants—take off that sacking apron first—and if he wants to see me, put him into the parlour."

Mr. Pratt lacked "visiting" among many other accomplishments as a parish priest—the vast, strewn nature of his parish partly excused him—and a call from him was not the casual event it would have been in many places, but startling and portentous, requiring fit celebration.

Joanna received him in state, supported by her father's Bible and stuffed owls. She had kept him waiting while she changed her gown, for like many people who are sometimes very splendid she could also on occasion be extremely disreputable, and her jam-making costume was quite unfit for the masculine eye, even though negligible. Mr. Pratt had grown rather nervous waiting for her—he had always been afraid of her, because of her big, breathless ways, and because he felt sure that she was one of the many who criticized him.

"I—I've only come about a little thing—at least it's not a little thing to me, but a very big thing—er—er—"

"What is it?" asked Joanna, a stuffed owl staring disconcertingly over each shoulder.

"For some time there's been complaints about the music in church. Of course I'm quite sure Mr. Elphick does wonders, and the ladies of the choir are excellent—er—gifted … I'm quite sure. But the harmonium—it's very old and quite a lot of the notes won't play … and the bellows … Mr. Saunders came from Lydd and had a look at it, but he says it's past repair—er—satisfactory repair, and it ud really save money in the long run if we bought a new one."

Joanna was a little shocked. She had listened to the grunts and wheezes of the harmonium from her childhood, and the idea of a new one disturbed her—it suggested sacrilege and ritualism and the moving of landmarks.

"I like what we've got very well," she said truculently—"It's done for us properly this thirty year."

"That's just it," said the Rector, "it's done so well that I think we ought to let it retire from business, and appoint something younger in its place … he! he!" He looked at her nervously to see if she had appreciated the joke, but Joanna's humour was not of that order.

"I don't like the idea," she said.

Mr. Pratt miserably clasped and unclasped his hands. He felt that one day he would be crushed between his parishioners' hatred of change and his fellow-priests' insistence on it—rumour said that the Squire's elder son, Father Lawrence, was coming home before long, and the poor little rector quailed to think of what he would say of the harmonium if it was still in its place.

"I—er—Miss Godden—I feel our reputation is at stake. Visitors, you know, come to our little church, and are surprised to find us so far behind the times in our music. At Pedlinge we've only got a piano, but I'm not worrying about that now. … Perhaps the harmonium might be patched up enough for Pedlinge, where our services are not as yet Fully Choral … it all depends on how much money we collect."

"How much do you want?"

"Well, I'm told that a cheap, good make would be thirty pounds. We want it to last us well, you see, as I don't suppose we shall ever have a proper organ."

He handed her a little book in which he had entered the names of subscribers.

"People have been very generous already, and I'm sure if your name is on the list they will give better still."

The generosity of the neighbourhood amounted to five shillings from Prickett of Great Ansdore, and half-crowns from Vine, Furnese, Vennal, and a few others. As Joanna studied it she became possessed of two emotions—one was a feeling that since others, including Great Ansdore, had given, she could not in proper pride hold back, the other was a queer savage pity for Mr. Pratt and his poor little collection—scarcely a pound as the result of all his begging, and yet he had called it generous. …

She immediately changed her mind about the scheme, and going over to a side table where an ink-pot and pen reposed on a woolly mat, she prepared to enter her name in the little book.

"I'll give him ten shillings," she said to herself—"I'll have given the most."

Mr. Pratt watched her. He found something stimulating in the sight of her broad back and shoulders, her large presence had invigorated him—somehow he felt self-confident, as he had not felt for years, and he began to talk, first about the harmonium, and then about himself—he was a widower with three pale little children, whom he dragged up somehow on an income of two hundred a year.

Joanna was not listening. She was thinking to herself—"My cheque-book is in the drawer. If I wrote him a cheque, how grand it would look."

Finally she opened the drawer and took the cheques out. After all, she could afford to be generous—she had nearly a hundred pounds in Lewes Old Bank, put aside without any scraping for future "improvements." How much could she spare? A guinea—that would look handsome, among all the miserable half-crowns. …

Mr. Pratt had seen the cheque-book, and a stutter came into his speech—

"So good of you, Miss Godden … to help me … encouraging, you know … been to so many places, a tiring afternoon … feel rewarded."

She suddenly felt her throat grow tight; the queer compassion had come back. She saw him trotting forlornly round from farm to farm, begging small sums from people much better off than himself, receiving denials or grudging gifts … his boots were all over dust, she had noticed them on her carpet. Her face flushed, as she suddenly dashed her pen into the ink, wrote out the cheque in her careful, half-educated hand, and gave it to him.

"There—that'll save you tramping any further."

She had written the cheque for the whole amount.

Mr. Pratt could not speak. He opened and shut his mouth like a fish. Then suddenly he began to gabble, he poured out thanks and assurances and deprecations in a stammering torrent. His gratitude overwhelmed Joanna, disgusted her. She lost her feeling of warmth and compassion—after all, what should she pity him for now that he had got what he wanted, and much more easily than he deserved?

"That's all right, Mr. Pratt. I'm sorry I can't wait any longer now. I'm making jam."

She forgot his dusty boots and weary legs that had scarcely had time to rest, she forgot that she had meant to offer him a cup of tea.

"Good afternoon," she said, as he rose, with apologies for keeping her.

She went with him to the door, snatched his hat off the peg and gave it to him, then crashed the door behind him, her cheeks burning with a queer kind of shame.