§16

Martin had always wanted to go out on the cape at Dunge Ness, that tongue of desolate land which rakes out from Dunge Marsh into the sea, slowly moving every year twenty feet towards France. Joanna had a profound contempt of Dunge Ness—"not enough grazing on it for one sheep"—but Martin's curiosity mastered her indifference and she promised to drive him out there some day. She had been once before with her father, on some forgotten errand to the Hope and Anchor inn.

It was an afternoon in May when they set out, bowling through Pedlinge in the dog cart behind Smiler's jogging heels. Joanna wore her bottle green driving coat, with a small, close-fitting hat, since Martin, to her surprise and disappointment, disliked her best hat with the feathers. He sat by her, unconsciously huddling to her side, with his hand thrust under her arm and occasionally pressing it—she had told him that she could suffer that much of a caress without detriment to her driving.

It was a bright, scented day, heavily coloured with green and gold and white; for the new grass was up in the pastures, releasing the farmer from many anxious cares, and the buttercups were thick both on the grazing lands and on the innings where the young hay stood, still green; the watercourses were marked with the thick dumpings of the may, walls of green-teased white streaking here and there across the pastures, while under the boughs the thick green water lay scummed with white ranunculus, and edged with a gaudy splashing of yellow irises, torches among the never silent reeds. Above it all the sky was misty and fall of shadows, a low soft cloud, occasionally pierced with sunlight.

"It'll rain before night," said Joanna.

"What makes you think that?"

"The way of the wind, and those clouds moving low—and the way you see Rye Hill all clear with the houses on it—and the way the sheep are grazing with their heads to leeward."

"Do you think they know?"

"Of course they know. You'd be surprised at the things beasts know, Martin."

"Well, it won't matter if it does rain—we'll be home before night. I'm glad we're going down on the Ness—I'm sure it's wonderful."

"It's a tedious hole."

"That's what you think."

"I know—I've been there."

"Then it's very sweet of you to come again with me."

"It'll be different with you."

She was driving him by way of Broomhill, for that was another place which had fired his imagination, though to her it too was a tedious hole. Martin could not forget the Broomhill of old days—the glamour of taverns and churches and streets lay over the few desolate houses and ugly little new church which huddled under the battered sea-wall. Great reedy pools still remained from the thirteenth century floods, brackish on the flat seashore, where the staked keddle nets showed that the mackerel were beginning to come into Rye Bay.

"Nothing but fisher-folk around here," said Joanna contemptuously—"you'll see 'em all in the summer, men, women and children, with heaps of mackerel that they pack in boxes for London and such places—so much mackerel they get that there's nothing else ate in the place for the season, and yet if you want fish-guts for manure they make you pay inland prices, and do your own carting."

"I think it's a delicious place," he retorted, teasing her, "I've a mind to bring you here for our honeymoon."

"Martin, you'd never I You told me you were taking me to foreign parts, and I've told Mrs. Southland and Mrs. Furnese and Maudie Vine and half a dozen more all about my going to Paris and seeing the sights and hearing French spoken."

"Yes—perhaps it would be better to go abroad; Broomhill is wonderful, but you in Paris will be more wonderful than Broomhill—even in the days before the flood."

"I want to see the Eiffel Tower—where they make the lemonade—and I want to buy myself something really chick in the way of hats."

"Joanna—do you know the hat which suits you best?"

"Which?" she asked eagerly, with some hope for the feathers.

"The straw hat you tie on over your hair when you go out to the chickens first thing in the morning."

"That old thing I Why I My! Lor! Martin! That's an old basket that I tie under my chin with a neckerchief of poor father's."

"It suits you better than any hat in the Rue St. Honoré—it's brown and golden like yourself, and your hair comes creeping and curling from under it, and there's a shadow on your face, over your eyes—the shadow stops just above your mouth—your mouth is all of your face that I can see dearly, and it's your mouth that I love most ..."

He suddenly kissed it, ignoring her business with the reins and the chances of the road, pulling her round in her seat and covering her face with his, so that his eyelashes stroked her cheek. She drew her hands up sharply to her breast, and with the jerk the horse stopped.

For a few moments they stayed so, then he released her and they moved on. Neither of them spoke; the tears were in Joanna's eyes and in her heart was a devouring tenderness that made it ache. The trap lurched in the deep ruts of the road, which now had become a mass of shingle and gravel, skirting the beach. Queer sea plants grew in the ruts, the little white sea-campions with their fat seed-boxes filled the furrows of the road as with a foam—it seemed a pity and a shame to crush them, and one could tell by their fresh growth how long it was since wheels had passed that way.

At Jury's Gap, a long white-daubed coastguard station marked the end of the road. Only a foot-track ran out to the Ness. They left the horse and trap at the station and went afoot.

"I told you it was a tedious place," said Joanna. Like a great many busy people she did not like walking, which she always looked upon as a waste of time. Martin could seldom persuade her to come for a long walk.

It was a long walk up the Ness, and the going was bad, owing to the shingle. The sea-campion grew everywhere, and in sunny corners the yellow-horned poppy put little spots of colour into a landscape of pinkish grey. The sea was the same colour as the land, for the sun had sunk away into the low thick heavens, leaving the sea an unrelieved, tossed dun waste.

The wind came tearing across Rye Bay with a moan, lifting all the waves into little sharp bitter crests.

"We'll get the rain," said Joanna sagely.

"I don't care if we do," said Martin.

"You haven't brought your overcoat."

"Never mind that."

"I do mind."

His robust appearance—his broad back and shoulders, thick vigorous neck and swarthy skin—only magnified his pathos in her eyes. It was pitiful that this great thing should be so frail.... He could pick her up with both hands on her waist, and hold her up before him, the big Joanna—and yet she must take care of him.