by E. H. Young
‘Is it the farm you were brought up in?’ he inquired.
‘No, I sold that, but I kept a little place on the estate,’ she said, and she began cutting second helpings for those who might want them.
‘And where is this little property?’ he asked genially.
‘Over the river,’ said Hannah, with a jerk of her head.
‘In Somerset?’
‘Yes, in Somerset.’
‘And that’s where Mr. Pilgrim comes from,’ Ruth said, looking at Ethel.
‘It’s a large county,’ said Hannah.
‘A charming county,’ said Robert Corder, giving Miss Mole the credit for it, and when the pudding came in, he ate his share. He had forgotten about the brandy. He had other things to think of.
Hannah went into the kitchen as soon as she could.
‘Be off with you,’ she said to Doris. ‘I’m going to do the washing up. You can stay out till half-past ten to-night, but not a minute later, and be sure to thank your young man for the biscuits.’
She stacked the plates neatly, collected scraps for Mr. Samson’s cats, washed the silver first and dried it before it could get smeary, and while she did this methodically but almost mechanically, she was thinking what a fool she was, a fool to come to Radstowe just because she loved the place, a bigger fool to have spoken about her cottage, and though she knew that her possession of it had impressed her employer, she also knew that his curiosity would not be content with the little she had told him.
‘Fool, fool, fool,’ she said, pushing the plates into the rack. She could not get into her cottage and, if she could, she had not a penny for food and firing. She was angry, too, at her ignorance of the conspiracy in which Howard and Ruth had been joined at dinner. They were protecting Ethel, but from what? And they had been so eager in it that they had almost roused their father’s suspicions. Well, she would find out. She could always find out anything she wanted to know: her difficulty was in keeping her own secrets, and she, who cared little enough for money, but knew its freeing value for the spirit, wished the china under her hands would change to gold.
She heard Ruth calling her and she did not answer. ‘If she wants me, she can come and fetch me,’ she muttered. ‘She can’t tear herself away from that blessed man for a minute.’
But Ruth, divided in her affections, was not unfaithful. ‘Are you there, Miss Mole, dear?’ she asked, hurrying into the kitchen.
‘Yes, and Miss Mole dear’s very busy.’
‘But we’re waiting for you – to open the presents. Uncle Jim said why weren’t you there, and Howard’s got something for you that you’ll like.’
‘No, no. It’s a family affair. I’ll come in afterwards.’
‘But I feel happier with you there, Moley, and safer. Ethel’s such an idiot. She looks as if she’s going to cry. I suppose she didn’t get a chance to speak to Mr. Pilgrim, or else he wasn’t nice to her. Or it may only be her way of being excited. That was a narrow escape at dinner, wasn’t it? I don’t know what Father would say if he knew she’s been at Mr. Pilgrim’s service, and on Christmas Day, too!’ Hannah did not know either, but what seemed to her of more importance was Mr. Pilgrim’s view of this attention and Ruth’s painfully clear vision of Ethel’s weakness.
Chapter 27
Mrs. Spenser-Smith’s party was usually on the twenty-seventh of December, a date on which no hopeful member of the chapel would have made any other engagement until the chance of an invitation had gone past. On Boxing Day there was an entertainment at the Mission, demanding the attendance of the whole family and Doris, and Hannah was left alone in the house. Later, she was to look back at that solitary evening as at an oasis where she had rested between two stages of a journey and, as though she knew the one in front of her was the harder, she made the most of the interlude, sitting by the fire and reading one of the books which Mr. Blenkinsop had, most unexpectedly, sent her. Uncle Jim and Howard had been for a long walk in the country and she supposed Howard’s affairs had been discussed and they had arranged their plan of action. She could do nothing more in that business, but she had determined to try a new method with Robert Corder, to present herself to him as the person who understood, and so to take the burden of his indignation from those who were less able to bear it.
‘But I shan’t succeed,’ she said sadly, knowing how far short her actions always fell of her intentions, and then, remembering the wrong she had done Mrs. Corder and the reproachful, half-humorous gaze she met when she went into the study, she rejected the idea of failure. Robert Corder himself was doing what he could to help her. He had been very affable since he learnt she was a lady of property and she had not thought it necessary to tell him how small and poor that property was, and perhaps he shared her own desire to be kind and was frustrated by the same cause, the insistent craving to be impressive, and as there was not room for two such people in the same house and one must make way for the other, it was Hannah, who flattered herself on her superior sight, who must stand aside while he went blindly on. Nevertheless, he had his own kind of cleverness. He had been silent about Mr. Samson until that very afternoon, when he had casually mentioned that he had called on the old gentleman, and implied that Mrs. Corder had always hidden her light under a bushel and been chary of speaking about her good deeds, which he was glad to continue if he could, but that what the wife of a minister could properly do was perhaps not quite suitable work for an unmarried lady.
‘I never thought of it as work, and he likes me,’ Hannah had cried.
‘Is that a compliment?’ he asked gently.
‘He liked Mrs. Corder, too.’
‘If you think it over, Miss Mole, I am sure you will see the difference,’ he replied, and it was all Hannah could do to refrain from saying that Mr. Samson’s affection for both of them was grounded on his partiality for what he called misfits, and that Mrs. Corder’s good deeds, in his connection, had been a charity towards herself. Hannah was looking forward to Mr. Samson’s account of the interview. She would have been interested to know that Mr. Corder, who was a follower though he thought himself a leader, had been influenced, against his will, by the old man’s high praise of Miss Mole which fell into line with Samuel Blenkinsop’s attentions and the books which had not escaped Mr. Corder’s notice, with Wilfrid’s and Ruth’s affection and Ethel’s dependence on her judgment, and with the little property in Somerset. The fact that he continued to consider Mr. Samson a disreputable old person with a loose tongue and no respect for the status of a minister, did not affect his changing estimate of the woman he could not help distrusting. She was undoubtedly a woman of some character and he hoped she would not show too much of it at Mrs. Spenser-Smith’s party. He was afraid she might be too clever at the games or too lively in demeanour, for she was his housekeeper, after all, and he did not want Mrs. Spenser-Smith or Miss Patsy Withers to imagine she was more, and he was sorry Mrs. Spenser-Smith’s truly Christian hospitality should have urged her to include Miss Mole in the invitation. This was the little shadow on the prospect of an evening towards which he looked forward as much as Ethel and more than Ruth did. He knew his people, loving him when he was in the pulpit, loved him still more when he was out of it, and there was a rich pleasure in letting them see him play at musical chairs with the eagerness of a boy, act in the charades, and dance Sir Roger de Coverley, with a slightly comic gaiety, before the party came to an end with the singing of Auld Lang Syne.
Ruth had her own troubles about the party. There was the usual trouble about Ethel who giggled and looked too pleasant and wore too many bits of jewellery and would probably have one of her tempers when they got home; there was the difficulty of pretending to herself that her father was always a jolly man and of trying not to feel half ashamed of him in has frock-coat; there was the disappointment that Uncle Jim would not be in evening clothes, and, worse still, had cheerfully confessed that he had possessed none for many years, and allied to this worry was Miss Mole’s black silk dress with the jet trim
mings. Ethel’s Chinese silk had been made up hastily by an obliging little dressmaker who went to the chapel, and Miss Mole had finished Ruth’s, and they were the nicest dresses they had ever had; Howard would be in his dinner-jacket, but the appearance of the contingent from Beresford Road would be completely spoilt by Uncle Jim’s blue serge and Miss Mole’s black silk. Her father’s frock-coat did not matter so much. People were used to it and he was a minister, but a favourite uncle in blue serge, rather short in the sleeves, and Miss Mole, who had promised Ruth they would have all sorts of jokes about the party afterwards, so that the more they hated it, the more fun they would get in the end, Miss Mole looking housekeeperish and Uncle Jim looking all wrong, would make a mock of the beautiful new dresses; they would look like the accidents they were. Nothing was ever really right, Ruth thought miserably. This was the party dress she had wanted all her life and she longed to wear it, in spite of the background her elders would make for it, but she had not been deceived by Miss Mole’s description of the velveteen frock as one to wear on occasions for which the other was too gay. She knew Miss Mole had made it in secret for the Spenser-Smiths’ party and must have sat up late at night to get it done. It was pretty, too, of a deep coral colour which was kind to Ruth’s pale cheeks, and there was a hair ribbon to match, for Miss Mole remembered everything, and the present must have cost more than she could afford. She felt she ought to wear it; she could explain to Uncle Jim and, anyhow, he would not notice, and Ruth laid both dresses on the bed and decided first for one and then for the other. It was horrible, it was treacherous, to think, as she could not help thinking, that if Miss Mole had spent the time and money on herself, Ruth would have been happier at this moment, and then, as she stood in her petticoat, trying not to cry at the maddening perverseness of this dilemma, Miss Mole looked in on her way upstairs to dress and quietly took the velveteen frock and hung it up.
‘But Moley – !’ Ruth exclaimed.
‘No you don’t,’ Hannah said. ‘I haven’t been working my fingers to the bone, as they say, for a dress that isn’t going to appear to-night.’
‘But you worked them to the bone for the other one.’
‘You can wear that at the Thingumbobs’ party next week. I ought not to have given it to you for Christmas, but I hadn’t anything else. I might have known your Non-conformist conscience would make you miserable about it.’
‘I haven’t got a Non-conformist conscience!’
‘Then wear your uncle’s frock,’ Hannah said.
That was settled, and Ruth sank on to her bed to enjoy this moment of relief, to tell herself, once more, that Miss Mole knew everything, to look back at those terrible two years between her mother’s death and Miss Mole’s arrival and find they were too black for contemplation. It was mean, it was despicable, to mind about the black silk and jet trimmings when they were worn by Miss Mole who had thought about the night-lights, who had chased away fears, without mentioning them by name, and been wonderfully kind without encroaching on the rights of the mother for whom Ruth still kept her caresses and the spoken expression of thoughts which Miss Mole was content to divine.
Ruth cast away all her cares except the one about Howard, who had the sudden indiscretions of the naturally discreet and might choose this very night for telling Mrs. Spenser-Smith he was not going to be a minister. It was no good asking him not to do it; if she put the idea into his head, it might pop out at any minute. That was the way things happened with Howard. He was good-natured and patient and easy-going and all of a sudden it would seem that he had been nearly boiling for a long time, and, at last, the lid had blown off. It would be awful when this particular lid blew off, for there would be more explosions than one, and Ruth gave a little shudder and a last look into the glass, before she went downstairs.
Uncle Jim was in the drawing-room. He was freshly shaven and he had put on a clean shirt, but he was reading the evening paper as though a party were no more agitating than staying at home, and Ruth envied, while she pitied, the calmness of middle-age. He looked up, however, and approved of her appearance, just as her father bustled into the room, looking at his watch and complaining that Howard was not in and would make them all late.
‘Well, well,’ this was Uncle Jim’s usual soothing preface. ‘Perhaps the boy doesn’t want to go.’
‘Doesn’t want to go!’ Robert Corder had banked Mrs. Spenser-Smith’s Christmas cheque that morning and his voice was shrill with indignation.
‘Well, well,’ Uncle Jim tried again. ‘Perhaps he’s met a friend, or something.’
‘Perhaps he’s been run over!’ Ethel cried, coming in with a rattle of beads, but no one encouraged this notion and she had all her anxiety to herself.
‘It’s a strange thing,’ Robert Corder said more calmly, ‘that with my passion for punctuality, I should be constantly vexed,’ and he looked at Ethel, ‘in this manner. And where’s Miss Mole? And what friends has Howard that he should meet at this time of night and when he has an engagement?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Bob, don’t make mountains out of molehills. He’ll be here soon enough and if he makes us half an hour late, let’s be thankful.’
‘If you feel like that, James,’ said Robert Corder, who could hardly believe he had been reprimanded in the presence of his daughters, ‘you’d better stay at home.’
‘All right, I’ll look after the house for you.’
‘But Doris’s adenoidy aunt has come on purpose to keep her company!’ Ruth protested, because the cowardly, snobbish side of her half hoped Uncle Jim would stick to his decision.
‘Her what?’ Robert Corder demanded.
‘Her aunt who has adenoids,’ Ruth answered sullenly.
‘I don’t like to hear you using such expressions,’ her father said mildly, and Miss Mole, entering at that moment with a slight rustle, knowing she looked nice and was going to surprise them, said levelly, using the beautiful middle notes of her voice.
‘I’m afraid it’s my expression, but really, when you’ve seen and heard her, you can’t call her anything else.’
‘But that isn’t black silk, Moley!’ Ruth exclaimed.
Miss Mole’s dress was not fashionable and it was modest, with long sleeves and a small opening at the throat. It was made of a moire silk which changed from green to brown as the light fell on it, a varying colour which matched her eyes, and Wilfrid’s brooch fastened Mr. Samson’s string-coloured lace.
‘No,’ she said. ‘This belonged once to my old lady with the wigs. I believe she had it in her wedding trousseau and it will last for ever. I’ve had it cleaned, and I’ve had it remade –’
‘Fine old piece of lace,’ Uncle Jim remarked.
‘And what a quaint old brooch,’ Ethel said, with a doubtful glance at her own beads.
‘Yes,’ said Hannah lightly, ‘they’ve both been in the family for generations.’
Robert Corder went out of the room. There was no lace or old jewellery in his family, and where was Howard? He paced up and down the hall and, in the drawing-room, Ethel fidgeted and Ruth looked gloomily at Hannah. Her relief at Miss Mole’s appearance was spoilt by this worry about Howard, and now Uncle Jim was saying he would come to the party, after all, so that he could treat them to cabs across the downs, to make up for lost time and keep the girls’ hair tidy. Things were never altogether right, she discovered again, but they improved a little as Howard entered the house and, rushing past his father without apology, cheerfully shouted an assurance that he would not keep them waiting for five minutes.
Chapter 28
Howard ought not to have spoken in that cheerful manner or to have looked so unabashed when he came downstairs, so unusually lively and determined that the reproaches died on Robert Corder’s lips. Miss Mole ought not to be wearing old lace and appearing calm at the prospect of being Mrs. Spenser-Smith’s guest; in fact, her double masquerade of housekeeper and lady with a little property was disconcerting. It was irritating to be forced into a cab with her,
while his children and his brother-in-law crowded into another. He objected to the cabs on principle: he could not afford these luxuries and, though he was not paying for them, he disliked the ostentation of such an arrival. And what was it that had cost Howard fifteen shillings? Nothing, he thought, should have cost him as much as that: the boy had too much money to spend: but what had he spent it on and why had he told Jim about it?
‘I thought it would be something like that,’ Jim had growled.
Robert Corder hated hearing snatches of conversation and remaining in ignorance of their context; he hated this familiar nearness to Miss Mole and he sat stiffly, looking out of one window of the cab, while Miss Mole looked out of the other.
‘We’ll soon be there,’ she said in a small voice, as though she was comforting him, or was she really more nervous than she seemed and in need of a little encouragement? He saw her profile by the light of a passing car, and it was meek and drooping, her head was bare and the collar of her coat was turned up.
‘Too soon?’ he inquired kindly.
‘Oh no. I’ve always wanted to see Mrs. Spenser-Smith’s children.’
He squeezed himself further into his corner of the cab. ‘I’m afraid they are not going to be the equals of their evening, I suppose?’
‘No idea,’ she said in a sharper voice, and she thought of the bowl of Roman hyacinths he had given her for Christmas.
