§4

That October the Farmers' Club Dinner was held as usual at the Woolpack. There had been some controversy about asking Joanna—there was controversy every year, but this year the difference lay in the issue, for the ayes had it.

The reasons for this change were indefinite—on the whole, no doubt, it was because people liked her better. They had grown used to her at Ansdore, where at first her mastership had shocked them; the scandal and contempt aroused by the Socknersh episode were definitely dead, and men took off their hats to the strenuousness with which she had pulled the farm together, and faced a crisis that would have meant disaster to many of her neighbours. Ansdore was one of the largest farms of the district, and it was absurd that it should never be represented at the Woolpack table merely on the ground that its master was a woman.

Of course many women wondered how Joanna could face such a company of males, and suggestions were made for admitting farmers' wives on this occasion. But Joanna was not afraid, and when approached as to whether she would like other women invited, or to bring a woman friend, she declared that she would be quite satisfied with the inevitable presence of the landlord's wife.

She realized that she would be far more imposing as the only woman guest, and made great preparations for a proper display. Among these was included the buying of a new gown at Folkestone. She thought that Folkestone, being a port for the channel steamers, would be more likely to have the latest French fashions than the nearer towns of Bulverhythe and Marlingate. My I But she would make the Farmers' Club sit up.

The dressmaker at Folkestone tried to persuade her not to have her sleeves lengthened or an extra fold of lace arranged along the top of her bodice.

"Madam has such a lovely neck and arms—it's a pity to cover them up—and it spoils the character of the gown. Besides, madam, this gown is not at all extreme—demi-toilet is what it really is."

"I tell you it won't do—I'm going to dine alone with several gentlemen, and it wouldn't be seemly to show such a lot of myself."

It ended, to the dressmaker's despair, in her draping her shoulders in a lace scarf and wearing kid gloves to her elbow; but though these pruderies might have spoilt her appearance at Dungemarsh Court, there was no doubt as to its effectiveness at the Woolpack. The whole room held its breath as she sailed in, with a rustle of amber silk skirts. Her hair was piled high against a tortoise-shell comb, making her statelier still.

Furnese of Misleham, who was chairman that year, came gaping to greet her. The others stared and stood still. Most of them were shocked, in spite of the scarf and the long gloves, but then it was just like Joanna Godden to swing bravely through an occasion into which most women would have crept. She saw that she had made a sensation, which she had expected and desired, and her physical modesty being appeased, she had no objection to the men's following eyes. She saw that Sir Harry Trevor was in the room, with his son Martin.

It was the first time that the Squire had been to the Farmers' Club Dinner. Up till then no one had taken him seriously as a farmer. For a year or two after his arrival in the neighbourhood he had managed the North Farthing estate through a bailiff, and on the latter's turning out unsatisfactory, had dismissed him, and at the same time let off a good part of the land, keeping only a few acres for cow-grazing round the house. Now, on his son's coming home and requiring an outdoor life, he had given a quarter's notice to the butcher-grazier to whom he had sub-let his innings, had bought fifty head of sheep, and joined the Farmers' Club—which he knew would be a practical step to his advantage, as it brought certain privileges in the way of marketing and hiring. Joanna was glad to see him at the Woolpack, because she knew that there was now a chance of the introduction she had unfortunately missed in Pedlinge village a few weeks ago. She had a slight market-day acquaintance with the Old Squire—as the neighbourhood invariably called him, to his intense annoyance—and now she greeted him with her broad smile.

"Good evening, Sir Harry."

"Good evening, Miss Godden. I'm pleased to see you here. You're looking very well."

His bold tricky eyes swept over her, and somehow she felt more gratified than by all the bulging glances of the other men.

"I'm pleased to see you, too, Sir Harry. I hear you've joined the Club."

"Surelye—as a real farmer ought to say; and so has my son Martin—he's going to do most of the work. Martin, you've never met Miss Godden. Let me introduce you."

Joanna's welcoming grin broke itself on the young man's stiff bow. There was a moment's silence.

"He doesn't look as if a London doctor had threatened him with consumption," said the Squire banteringly. "Sometimes I really don't, think I believe it—I think he's only come down here so as he can look after me."

Martin made some conventional remark. He was a tall, broadly built young man, with a dark healthy skin and that generally robust air which sometimes accompanies extreme delicacy in men.

"The doctor says he's been overworking," continued his father, "and that he ought to try a year's outdoor life and sea air. If you ask me, I should say he's overdone a good many things besides work—" he threw the boy a defiant, malicious glance, rather like a child who gets a thrust into an elder—"but Walland Marsh is as good a cure for over-play as for over-work. Not much to keep him up late hereabouts, is there, Miss Godden?"

"I reckon it'll be twelve o'clock before any of us see our pillows to-night," said Joanna.

"Tut! Tut I What terrible ways we're getting into, just when I'm proposing the place as a rest-cure. How do you feel, Miss Godden, being the only woman guest?"

"I like it."

"Bet you do—so do we."

Joanna laughed and bridled. She felt proud of her position—she pictured every farmer's wife on the Marsh lying awake that night so that she could ask her husband directly he came upstairs how Joanna Godden had looked, what she had said, and what she had worn.