Martin did not join in the discussion--he felt that his presence slightly damped the company, and for him to talk might spoil their chances of forgetting him. He watched Miss G.o.dden as she ate and laughed and kept the conversation rolling--he also watched Arthur Alce, trying to use this man's devotion as a clue to what was left of Joanna's mystery. Alce struck him as a dull fellow, and he put down his faithfulness to the fact that having once fallen into love as into a rut he had lain there ever since like a sheep on its back. He could see that Alce did not altogether approve of his own choice--her vigour and flame, her quick temper, her free airs--she was really too big for these people; and yet she was so essentially one of them ... their roots mingled in the same soil, the rich, damp, hardy soil of the Marsh.

His att.i.tude towards her was undergoing its second and final change. Now he knew that he would never want to flirt with her. He did not want her tentatively or temporarily. He still wanted her adventurously, but her adventure was not the adventure of siege and capture but of peaceful holding. Like the earth, she would give her best not to the man who galloped over her, but to the man who chose her for his home and settlement. Thus he would hold her, or not at all. Very likely after to-day he would renounce her--he had not yet gone too far, his eyes were still undazzled, and he could see the difficulties and limitations in which he was involving himself by such a choice. He was a gentleman and a townsman--he trod her country only as a stranger, and he knew that in spite of the love which the Marsh had made him give it in the few months of his dwelling, his thoughts still worked for years ahead, when better health and circ.u.mstances would allow him to go back to the town, to a quick and crowded life. Could he then swear himself to the slow blank life of the Three Marshes, where events move deliberately as a plough?

To the empty landscape, to the flat miles? He would have to love her enough to endure the empty flatness that framed her. He could never take her away, any more than he could take away Ansdore or North Farthing. He must make a renunciation for her sake--could he do so? And after all, she was common stuff--a farmer's daughter, bred at the National School.

By taking her he would be making just a yokel of himself.... Yet was it worth clinging to his simulacrum of gentility--boosted up by his father's t.i.tle and a few dead rites, such as the late dinner which had impressed her so much. The only real difference between the G.o.ddens and the Trevors was that the former knew their job and the latter didn't.

All this thinking did not make either for much talk or much appet.i.te, and Joanna was disappointed. She let fall one or two remarks on farming and outside matters, thinking that perhaps the conversation was too homely and intimate for him, but he responded only languidly.

"A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Trevor," said Ellen pertly.

"You eat your pudding," said Joanna.

It occurred to her that perhaps Martin was disgusted by the homeliness of the meal--after all, he was gentry, and it was unusual for gentry to sit down to dinner with a crowd of farm-hands.... No doubt at home he had wine-gla.s.ses, and a servant-girl to hand the dishes. She made a resolution to ask him again and provide both these luxuries. To-day she would take him into the parlour and make Ellen show off her accomplishments, which would help put a varnish of gentility on the general coa.r.s.eness of the entertainment. She wished she had asked Mr.

Pratt--she had thought of doing so, but finally decided against it.

So when the company had done shovelling the Stilton cheese into their mouths with their knives, she announced that she and Mr. Trevor would have their cups of tea in the parlour, and told Milly to go quick and light the fire.

Ellen was most satisfactorily equal to this part of the occasion. She recited "Curfew shall not Ring Tonight," and played Haydn's "Gipsy Rondo." Joanna began to feel complacent once more.

"I made up my mind she should go to a good school," she said when her sister had run back to what festivities lingered in the kitchen, "and really it's wonderful what they've taught her. She'll grow up to be a lady."

It seemed to Martin that she stressed the last word rather wistfully, and the next moment she added--

"There's not many of your sort on the Marsh."

"How do you mean--my sort?"

"Gentlefolk."

"Oh, we don't trouble to call ourselves gentlefolk. My father and I are just plain farmers now."

"But you don't really belong to us--you're the like of the Savilles at Dungemarsh Court, and the clergy families."

"Is that where you put us?--We'd find our lives jolly dull if we shut ourselves up in that set. I can tell you that I've enjoyed myself far more here to-day than ever at the Court or the Rectory. Besides, Miss G.o.dden, your position on Walland Marsh is very much better than ours.

You're a great personage, you know."

"Reckon folks talk about me," said Joanna proudly. "Maybe you've heard 'em."

He nodded.

"You've heard about me and Arthur Alce?"

"I've heard some gossip."

"Don't you believe it. I'm fond of Arthur, but he ain't my style--and I could do better for myself ..."

She paused--her words seemed to hang in the flickering warmth of the room. She was waiting for him to speak, and he felt a little shocked and repelled. She was angling for him--he had never suspected that.

"I must go," he said, standing up.

"So soon?"

"Yes--tradition sends one home on Christmas Day."

He moved towards the door, and she followed him, glowing and majestic in the shadows of the firelit room. Outside, the sky was washed with a strange, fiery green, in which the new kindled stars hung like lamps.

They stood for a moment on the threshold, the warm, red house behind them, before them the star-hung width and emptiness of the Marsh. Martin blocked the sky for Joanna, as he turned and held out his hand. Then, on the brink of love, she hesitated. A memory smote her--of herself standing before another man who blocked the sky, and in whose eyes sat the small, enslaved image of herself. Was she just being a fool again?--Ought she to draw back while she had still the power, before she became his slave, his little thing, and all her bigness was drowned in his eyes. She knew that whatever she gave him now could never be taken back. Here stood the master of the mistress of Ansdore.

As for Martin, his thoughts were of another kind.

"Good-bye," he said, renouncing her--for her boldness and her commonness and all that she would mean of change and of foregoing--"Good-bye, Joanna."

He had not meant to say her name, but it had come, and with it all the departing adventure of love. She seemed to fall towards him, to lean suddenly like a tree in a gale--he smelt a fresh, sweet smell of clean cotton underclothing, of a plain soap, of free unperfumed hair ... then she was in his arms, and he was kissing her warm, shy mouth, feeling that for this moment he had been born.

--12

"Well, where have you been?" asked Sir Harry, as his son walked in at the hall door soon after six.

"I've been having dinner with Joanna G.o.dden."

"The deuce you have."

"I looked in to see her this morning and she asked me to stay."

"You've stayed long enough--your saintly brother's had to do the milking."

"Where's Dennett?"

"Gone to the carols with the rest. Confounded nuisance, these primitive religious impulses of an elemental people--always seem to require an outlet at an hour when other people want their meals."

"They'll be back in time for dinner."

"I doubt it, and cook's gone too--and Tom Saville's coming, you know."

"Well, I'd better go and see after the milking."

"Don't worry. I've finished," and a dark round head came round the door, followed by a hunched figure in a cloak, from the folds of which it deprecatingly held out a pint jug.

"What's that?"

"The results of half an hour's milking. I know I should have got more, but I think the cows found me unsympathetic."

Martin burst out laughing. Ordinarily he would have felt annoyed at the prospect of having to go milking at this hour, but to-night he was expansive and good-humoured towards all beasts and men.

He laughed again--

"I don't know that the cows have any particular fancy for me, but I'll go and see what I can do."