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Updated: May 15, 2025
"That's just it. You've let yourself get into a groove. You want a thorough change of air, scene and society. I recommend that you go away to some cheerful gay watering-place, where there's plenty going on and you'll meet new people." "But what'll become of Ansdore?" "Surely it can get on without you for a few weeks?" "I can't go till the lambing's finished." "When will that be?"
This rumour, when it reached her, brought her a faint thrill. It was the beginning of a slow process of reidentification of herself with her own activities, which till then had been as some furious raging outside the house. She began to picture new acts of discomfiting adventure, new roads which should be shut to Vine through envy. Ansdore was all she had, so she must make it much.
Marvellous plans were forming in her head part, they seemed, of the fiery shapes that the clouds had raised in the west beyond Rye hill. Those clouds walked forth as flocks of sheep huge sheep under mountainous fleeces, the wonder of the Marsh and the glory of Ansdore.... "Socknersh ..." "Yes, missus." She hesitated whether she should share with him her new inspiration.
Traps lurched over the shingle of Ansdore's drive, the Pricketts walked off across the innings to Great Ansdore, guests from Rye packed into two hired wagonettes, and the cousins from the Isle of Wight drove back to the George, where, as there were eight of them and they refused to be separated, Joanna was munificently entertaining them instead of under her own roof.
She inspected Donkey Street, which was a low, plain, oblong house, covered with grey stucco, against which flamed the orange of its lichened roof. It had been built in Queen Anne's time, and enlarged and stuccoed over about fifty years ago. It was a good, solid house, less rambling than Ansdore, but the kitchens were a little damp. Alce bought new linen and new furniture.
During the last year Ellen had become terribly good-mannered and grown up, and somehow that first glimpse of the elegant maiden whom her toil and sacrifice had built out of little Ellen Godden of Ansdore, never failed to give Joanna a queer sense of awkwardness and inferiority. To-day Ellen was more impressive, more "different" than ever.
She was still far removed from his type, but her fundamental simplicity had brought her nearer to it, and in time his good will would bring her the rest of the way. Anyhow, he would look forward to meeting her again perhaps he would call at Ansdore, as she had proposed. Joanna was not blind to her triumph, and it carried her beyond her actual attainment into the fulfilment of her hopes.
Of course Ellen had not gone very far Donkey Street was not five miles from Ansdore, though in a different parish and a different county. But the chasm between them was enormous it was queer to think that a mere change of roof-tree could make such a difference. No doubt the reason was that with Ellen it had involved an entire change of habit.
Though for more than three years her sister had been away at school, with an ever-widening gulf of temperament between herself and the farm, and though since her return she had been little better at times than a rebellious and sulky stranger, nevertheless she was a part of Ansdore, a part of Joanna's life there, and the elder sister found it difficult to adjust things to her absence.
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.
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