The subject of ready money was a more delicate one still. Bram began by giving Joan small sums to supply the most pressing needs of the household at the farm, and for a little while she managed to evade Claire’s curious questions, and even to pretend that it was she, Joan, who occasionally lent a few shillings for the daily purchase of necessary food.
But one evening, when Bram, as his custom was, waylaid her as she came from the farm, as soon as she was out of sight of the window, Joan looked at him with eyes full of alarm.
“Eh, but she’s found me aht, Mr. Elshaw, an’ she’s led me a pretty dance for what you’ve done, Ah can tell ye.”
“Why, what’s that, Joan?”
“That there money! She guessed, bless ye! who ’twas as gave it to me. ‘Joan,’ says she, ‘if ye take money from him again, if it’s to keep us from starving, Ah’ll go and throw mysen down t’ pit shaft oop top o’ t’ hill!’ And she means it, she do! Ah doan’t like t’ looks of her. What between her father and t’other one—” and Joan jerked her head in the direction of the works down in the town—“she’s losing her wits too, Mr Elshaw, that’s what she’s doing!”
Bram was silent for some minutes.
“Well, it can’t go on like this,” said he at last. “The creditors will get too clamorous to be put off. If I could see Mr. Biron I should advise him to——”
But Joan cut him short with an emphatic gesture.
“Doan’t you try it on, Mr. Elshaw!” cried she earnestly. “Doan’t you try to get at Mr. Biron. That’s joost what he wants, to get hold of you. Time after time he says to Miss Claire, ‘If Ah could see young Elshaw,’ says he, ‘Ah could settle summat.’ But she won’t have it. It’s t’ one thing she won’t let him have his way abaht. ‘If he cooms in t’ house,’ says she, ‘Ah’ll go aht o’ ’t.’ So now you know how she feels, Mr. Elshaw, and bless her poor little heart, Ah like her t’ better for ’t!”
Bram did not say what he felt about it. He listened to all she had to say, and then with a husky “Good-night, Joan,” he left her and went home. He too liked the spirit Claire showed in avoiding him, in refusing help from the one friend whose hand was always held out to her. But, on the other hand, the impossibility of doing her any good, of even seeing her to exchange the warm handclasp of an old friend, gnawed at his heart, and made him sore and sick.