§10

Martin came on Christmas Day. He knew that the feast would lend a special significance to the visit, but he did not care; for in absence he had idealized Joanna into a fit subject for flirtation. He had no longer any wish to meet her on the level footing of friendship—besides, he was already beginning to feel lonely on the Marsh, to long for the glow of some romance to warm the fogs that filled his landscape. In spite of his father's jeers, he was no monk, and generally had some sentimental adventure keeping his soul alive—but he was fastidious and rather bizarre in his likings, and since he had come to North Farthing, no one, either in his own class or out of it, had appealed to him, except Joanna Godden.

She owed part of her attraction to the surviving salt of his dislike. There was still a savour of antagonism in his liking of her. Also his curiosity was still unsatisfied. Was that undercurrent of softness genuine? Was she really simple and tender under her hard flaunting? Was she passionate under her ignorance and naïveté? Only experiment could show him, and he meant to investigate, not merely for the barren satisfaction of his curiosity, but for the satisfaction of his manhood which was bound up with a question.

When he arrived, Joanna was still in church—on Christmas Day as on other selected festivals, she always "stayed the Sacrament," and did not come out till nearly one. He went to meet her, and waited for her some ten minutes in the little churchyard which was a vivid green with the Christmas rains. The day was clear and curiously soft for the season, even on the Marsh where the winters are usually mild. The sky was a delicate blue, washed with queer, flat clouds—the whole country of the Marsh seemed faintly luminous, holding the sunshine in its greens and browns. Beside the dyke which flows by Brodnyx village stood a big thorn tree, still bright with haws. It made a vivid red patch in the foreground, the one touch of Christmas in a landscape which otherwise suggested October—especially in the sunshine, which poured in a warm shower on to the altar-tomb where Martin sat.

He grew dreamy with waiting—his thoughts seemed to melt into the softness of the day, to be part of the still air and misty sunshine, just as the triple-barned church with its grotesque tower was part.... He could feel the great Marsh stretching round him, the lonely miles of Walland and Dunge and Romney, once the sea's bed, now lately inned for man and his small dwellings, his keepings and his cares, perhaps one day to return to the same deep from which it had come. People said that the bells of Broomhill church—drowned in the great floods which had changed the Rother's mouth—still rang under the sea. If the sea came to Brodnyx, would Brodnyx bells ring on?—And Pedlinge? And Brenzett? And Fairfield? And all the little churches of Thomas à Becket on their mounds?—What a ringing there would be.

He woke out of his daydream at the sound of footsteps—the people were coming out, and glancing up he saw Joanna a few yards off. She looked surprised to see him, but also she made no attempt to hide her pleasure.

"Mr. Trevor! You here?"

"I came over to Ansdore to wish you a happy Christmas, and they told me you were still in church."

"Yes—I stopped for Communion—" her mouth fell into a serious, reminiscent line, "you didn't come to the first service, neither?"

"No, my brother's at home, and he took charge of my father's spiritual welfare—they went off to church at Udimore, and I was too lazy to follow them."

"I'm sorry you didn't come here—they used my harmonium, and it was valiant."

He smiled at her adjective.

"I'll come another day and hear your valiant harmonium. I suppose you think everybody should go to church?"

"My father went, and I reckon I'll keep on going."

"You always do as your father did?"

"In most ways."

"But not in all?—I hear startling tales of new-shaped waggons and other adventures, to say nothing of your breaking up grass next spring."

"Well, if you don't see any difference between breaking up grass and giving up church ..."

"They are both a revolt from habit."

"Now, don't you talk like that—it ain't seemly. I don't like hearing a man make a mock of good things, and going to church is a good thing, as I should ought to know, having just come out of it."

"I'm sorry," said Martin humbly, and for some reason he felt ashamed. They were walking now along the Pedlinge road, and the whole Marsh, so broad and simple, seemed to join in her rebuke of him.

She saw his contrite look, and repented of her sharpness.

"Come along home and have a bit of our Christmas dinner."

Martin stuttered—he had not expected such an invitation, and it alarmed him.

"We all have dinner together on Christmas Day," continued Joanna, "men and gals, old Stuppeny, Mrs. Tolhurst, everybody—we'd take it kindly if you'd join us. But—I'm forgetting—you'll be having your own dinner at home."

"We shan't have ours till the evening."

"Oh—late dinner"—her tone became faintly reverential—"it ud never do if we had that. The old folk, like Stuppeny and such, ud find their stomachs keep them awake. We've got two turkeys and a goose and plum puddings and mince pies, to say nothing of the oranges and nuts—that ain't the kind of food to go to bed with."

"I agree," said Martin, smiling.

"Then you'll come and have dinner at Ansdore?"

They had reached the first crossing of the railway line, and if he was going back to North Farthing he should turn here. He could easily make an excuse—no man really wanted to eat two Christmas dinners—but his flutter was gone, and he found an attraction in the communal meal to which she was inviting him. He would like to see the old folk at their feast, the old folk who had been born on the Marsh, who had grown wrinkled with its sun and reddened with its wind and bent with their labours in its damp soil. There would be Joanna too—he would get a close glimpse of her. It was true that he would be pulling the cord between them a little tighter, but already she was drawing him and he was coming willingly. To-day he had found in her an unsuspected streak of goodness, a sound, sweet core which he had not looked for under his paradox of softness and brutality.... It would be worth while committing himself with Joanna Godden.