Joanna Godden | Page 9

ornaments were reserved as a crowning decoration, all except her mourning ring made of a lock of her father's hair.
It was the first time she had been to market since his death, and she knew that folks would stare, so she might as well give them something to stare at. Outside the front door, in the drive, old Stuppeny was holding the head of Foxy, her mare, harnessed to the neat trap that Thomas Godden had bought early the same year.
"Hullo, Stuppeny--you ain't coming along like that!" and Joanna's eye swept fiercely up and down his manure-caked trousers.
"I never knew as I wur coming along anywheres, Miss Joanna."
"You're coming along of me to the market. Surely you don't expect a lady to drive by herself?"
Old Stuppeny muttered something unintelligible.
"You go and put on your black coat," continued Joanna.
"My Sunday coat!" shrieked Stuppeny.
"Yes--quick! I can't wait here all day."
"But I can't put on my good coat wudout cleaning myself, and it'll t?ake me the best part o' the marnun to do that."
Joanna saw the reasonableness of his objection.
"Oh, well, you can leave it this once, but another time you remember and look decent. To-day it'll do if you go into the kitchen and ask Grace to take a brush to your trousers--and listen here!" she called after him as he shambled off--"if she's making cocoa you can ask her to give you a cup."
Grace evidently was making cocoa--a habit she had whenever her mistress's back was turned--for Stuppeny did not return for nearly a quarter of an hour. He looked slightly more presentable as he climbed into the back of the trap. It struck Joanna that she might be able to get him a suit of livery secondhand.
"There isn't much he's good for on the farm now at his age, so he may as well be the one to come along of me. Broadhurst or Luck ud look a bit smarter, but it ud be hard to spare them.... Stuppeny ud look different in a livery coat with brass buttons.... I'll look around for one if I've time this afternoon."
It was nearly seven miles from Ansdore to Lydd, passing the Woolpack, and the ragged gable of Midley Chapel--a reproachful ruin among the reeds of the Wheelsgate Sewer. Foxy went smartly, but every now and then they had to slow down as they overtook and passed flocks of sheep and cattle being herded along the road by drovers and shepherds in dusty boots, and dogs with red, lolling tongues. It was after midday when the big elm wood which had been their horizon for the last two miles suddenly turned, as if by an enchanter's wand, into a fair-sized town of red roofs and walls, with a great church tower raking above the trees.
Joanna drove straight to the Crown, where Thomas Godden had "put up" every market day for twenty years. She ordered her dinner--boiled beef and carrots, and jam roll--and walked into the crowded coffee room, where farmers from every corner of the three marshes were already at work with knife and fork. Some of them knew her by sight and stared, others knew her by acquaintance and greeted her, while Arthur Alce jumped out of his chair, dropping his knife and sweeping his neighbour's bread off the table. He was a little shocked and alarmed to see Joanna the only woman in the room; he suggested that she should have her dinner in the landlady's parlour--"you'd be quieter like, in there."
"I don't want to be quiet, thank you," said Joanna.
She felt thankful that none of the few empty chairs was next Alce's--she could never abide his fussing. She sat down between Cobb of Slinches and a farmer from Snargate way, and opened the conversation pleasantly on the subject of liver fluke in sheep.
When she had brought her meal to a close with a cup of tea, she found Alce waiting for her in the hotel entrance.
"I never thought you'd come to market, Joanna."
"And why not, pray?"
The correct answer was--"Because you don't know enough about beasts," but Alce had the sense to find a substitute.
"Because it ain't safe or seemly for a woman to come alone and deal with men."
"And why not, again? Are all you men going to swindle me if you get the chance?"
Joanna's laugh always had a disintegrating effect on Alce, with its loud warm tones and its revelation of her pretty teeth--which were so white and even, except the small pointed canines. When she laughed she opened her mouth wide and threw back her head on her short white neck. Alce gropingly put out a hairy hand towards her, which was his nearest approach to a caress. Joanna flicked it away.
"Now a-done do, Arthur Alce"--dropping in her merriment into the lower idiom of the Marsh--"a-done do with