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Updated: May 15, 2025
It was queer, when she came to think of it, that nothing in her life had been really successful except Ansdore, that directly she had turned off her high-road she had become at once as it were bogged and lantern-led. Socknersh ... Martin ... Ellen ... there had been by-ways, dim paths leading into queer unknown fields, a strange beautiful land, which now she would never know.
Hill that I met in Marlingate." For the next few days Joanna was restless and nervous; she could not be busy with Ansdore, even after a fortnight's absence. The truth in her heart was that she found Ansdore rather flat.
Under it the Marsh lay like a land under the sea it must have looked like this when the keels of the French boats swam over it, high above Ansdore, and Brodnyx, and Pedlinge, lying like red apples far beneath, at the bottom of the sea. That was nonsense ... but she could not think this morning, she could only feel. He had not been gone an hour, but she must find him.
She thought of writing and telling him of her surrender, but like most of her kind she shrank from writing letters except when direly necessary; and she would see Martin to-morrow he had promised to come to Ansdore straight from the station.
The curves of her mouth grew softer and her voice lost its even tones she had moments of languor and moments of a queer lightness. Great and Little Ansdore were now on very good terms, and during that winter there was an exchange of dinners and bridge. Joanna could now, as she expressed it, give a dinner-party with the best of 'em.
She saw herself opening the ball with Dick Socknersh, her hand in his, his clumsy arm round her waist.... Of course old Stuppeny was technically the head man at Ansdore, but he was too old to dance she would see he had plenty to eat and drink instead she would take the floor with Dick Socknersh, and all eyes would be fixed upon her.
She was glad that she was leaving school, and would make no fugitive visit to Ansdore. Immediately her mind leapt to preparations her sister was too big to sleep any more in the little bed at the foot of her own, she must have a new bed ... and suddenly Joanna thought of a new room, a project which would mop up all her overflowing energies for the next month. It should be a surprise for Ellen.
That night Joanna dreamed that giant sheep as big as bullocks were being herded on the Marsh by a giant shepherd. Spring brought a blooming to Ansdore as well as to the Marsh. Joanna had postponed, after all, her house-painting till the winter months of rotting sea mists were over.
Joanna fastened on to these words, both for her own comfort in Arthur's loss, and for the quieting of her conscience, which told her that it was preposterous that he should leave Donkey Street so that she could keep Ellen at Ansdore. Of course, if she did her duty she would pack Ellen off to the Isle of Wight, so that Arthur could stay.
It ended in Joanna's taking rooms at the Palace Hotel, Marlingate. No persuasions would make her go farther off. She was convinced that neither Ansdore nor Ellen could exist, at least decorously, without her, and she must be within easy reach of both. The fortnight between the booking of her room and her setting out she spent in mingled fretfulness and swagger.
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