Miss Mole

by E. H. Young

  This was safely accomplished while Ethel was noisily closeted in her bedroom, and Hannah hoped she was dressing for some pleasure of her own. She felt incapable of dealing with more of those mad interviews in which the accused was consulted about the prosecution. Her mind was dull with a weariness demanding solitude and, when Ethel had looked in to say she would be out to tea, Hannah told Doris she had a headache and was not to be disturbed, and she went upstairs slowly, feeling old and strangely deserted, now that she had her wish of being alone.

  She had not long for the indulgence of this rare self-pity. She fell into that daytime sleep which, for the exhausted, can be profounder than any that comes at night, and she sank into it as though she floated on subsiding water, without consciousness of the drop, and, accompanying the descent, there was the promise of an oblivion which came upon her before she had had her fill of waiting for it.

  Out of this timelessness, this absolute ease from care, she woke with a thumping heart, and with an effort, like a physical wrench, to remember where she was. Darkness had filled her bedroom, the noise she had heard, on the point of waking, as that of horses thundering up the stairs, resolved itself into heavy, hurried footsteps, and her door was flung open to the sound of Ethel’s voice calling for Miss Mole. A fire in the house, or in the theatre, Ruth run over, an accident to Mr. Corder or Mr. Pilgrim, were possibilities rushing to Hannah’s mind as she put her feet to the floor and felt Ethel’s presence in the room, and before she could light the gas, she heard Ethel saying in breathless catastrophic tones, ‘I’ve been to see Mrs. Spenser-Smith!’

  The match-box slipped from Hannah’s fingers and while she fumbled for it, her legs aching sharply with her fright, she muttered angrily, ‘I thought someone was dead, at least.’

  ‘It’s worse!’ Ethel cried shrilly.

  Hannah lit the gas and, looking at Ethel, she thought she saw what Mr. Blenkinsop had seen ten days ago, for strong emotions have faces of their own, and those which had command of Ethel had blotted out the individuality of her features and she might as easily have been taken for Hannah Mole or any other woman in distress, as for Ethel Corder, the competent leader of the Girls’ Club. It was no wonder Mr. Blenkinsop had prowled up and down the street, when he had the memory of such a face; it was no wonder he had not risked further communication with a woman who could look like that; but Hannah had responsibilities towards Ethel which were not Mr. Blenkinsop’s towards her, and whereas she had been incapable of speech, Ethel’s was torrential under the encouragement she received.

  She had been to see Mrs. Spenser-Smith in search of comfort and advice. Who else was there she could go to? She had no mother, her father was angry and Miss Mole, to whom she told this story, was the cause of half the trouble, but Mrs. Spenser-Smith, who ought to have been consoling and maternal, had shattered what happiness Ethel had.

  ‘She was cruel to me, Miss Mole,’ Ethel said, with tears streaming down her face. ‘So cold and haughty. She said Father was quite right; she didn’t like Mr. Pilgrim herself. She said – but it can’t be true! If it’s true, I shall die!’

  ‘No, you won’t die,’ Hannah said soothingly.

  ‘But I shall want to!’

  ‘I’m afraid that won’t make any practical difference. Men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Mole, what do you know about it?’ Ethel cried. ‘And it wouldn’t be dying of love. It would be dying of shame! For having loved him.’

  ‘You won’t even die of that,’ Hannah said, very low.

  ‘It isn’t that I care what he’s done. I could forgive anything – only not lies, not lies! I couldn’t love anyone who told me lies.’

  ‘Then you’ll have a remarkably narrow choice,’ Hannah said dryly. ‘But, it seems to me, the important question is whether he loves you.’

  ‘But of course he does!’ The flow of Ethel’s tears stopped and went on again.

  ‘Has he said so? In so many words? Was it what they used to call a declaration? Unmistakably?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ethel said, dropping her head. ‘He told me yesterday – but I knew before that.’

  ‘Then why in the world were you crying last night when Ruth and I came in? You ought to have been jumping for joy, girl!’

  ‘But Father came and said awful things about him, and Mrs. Spenser-Smith says he isn’t a good man. She says he’s telling tales about you because he’s afraid you’ll tell them about him. She says you know something against him. You don’t, do you, Miss Mole? You said you’d never seen him till the Spenser-Smiths’ party – he told me so, but who am I to believe?’

  Hannah sat on her bed, looking at her folded hands and for a few minutes she was more occupied with thoughts of Lilia than of Ethel or herself. ‘So you told Mrs. Spenser-Smith what you had heard about me, did you?’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t mean to, but it came out.’

  ‘It would!’ Hannah said, and she smiled as she pictured Lilia’s horror, her immediate belief in her cousin’s guilt, and her equal quickness in protecting her own reputation by using the hint Hannah had dropped about Mr. Pilgrim’s little secrets.

  ‘And oh, Miss Mole, don’t tell me lies to comfort me,’ Ethel begged.

  Hannah had already made her decision, but these courageous words ennobled the task she had set herself and though she doubted Mr. Pilgrim’s worthiness of the girl who had uttered them, she would not allow the doubt to influence her. ‘You can go on loving him,’ she said. ‘He hasn’t told you any lies, not about me, anyhow, and I don’t suppose he has ever committed what he would call a sin. That’s what’s the matter with him. You see, he’s got a grudge against me. I shut my door in his face once, and I’d do it again, and, worse still, I believe I laughed at him. He can’t forgive that, and then, if he loves you, he has an interest in looking after you and trying to get rid of me. He wouldn’t like me to do you harm. I don’t blame him. I don’t blame anybody. What’s the use?’

  ‘Then wasn’t there a Cousin Hilda?’ Ethel asked timidly, making sure of Mr. Pilgrim’s perfections before she gave way to her joy.

  ‘Not in the flesh,’ Hannah said, ‘but in every other way there was, and now she has vanished and her works follow her. The evil that men do –’ Her words slipped into silence and after a moment she added, very softly, to herself, ‘but it was not evil.’

  She was not looking at Ethel, but she could feel her fascinated stare at this new species, at a woman who seemed good, who had never failed to give help when it was wanted, and yet confessed to wickedness, without apology or excuse.

  ‘I shall have to tell Father,’ Ethel said with difficulty.

  Hannah raised her head sharply. ‘I don’t see the necessity,’ she said, and she thought of Ruth, laughing at the pantomime and proud of Wilfrid’s company.

  ‘But don’t you see, I must. It’s only fair to Mr. Pilgrim, and to me. Mrs. Spenser-Smith will be saying things about him. Why, it might ruin him!’

  ‘Then tell him,’ Hannah said wearily.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Mole, I really am. It seems mean, I know, and I’ve always liked you, but you see, don’t you?’

  What Hannah saw most clearly was her own shabby, homeless figure, and it amazed her that Ethel did not see it too, but she said, ‘Yes, yes, I see it all. Don’t tell him until Ruth’s in bed. And don’t tell her at all. I’ll send her to bed early, and I’ll go out. It would be uncomfortable for you, wouldn’t it, to know I was in the next room? Wouldn’t it?’ she persisted.

  ‘Oh, yes, Miss Mole, it would. You think of everything, and I’ll do my best. I’ll ask Father to forgive you, and you’ve been so good to us, I’m sure he will.’

  ‘Well, leave me now,’ Hannah said.

  She counted her money. She would not stay to be blessed by Mr. Corder’s forgiveness. She would go to-morrow. She had no intention of going without giving Robert Corder an opportunity to repeat his generosity and herself the unlikely pleasure of refusing it. She had made her choice. She
had sacrificed Ruth to Ethel’s chance of happiness, but she could not sacrifice all her dignity to Ruth, who had her Uncle Jim to care for her, and to Uncle Jim Hannah wrote before she went downstairs, and, turning to look at the little ship which had been her companion for so long, she decided that Ruth should have it in exchange for Hannah Mole.

  Years seemed to pass over her head while she waited for Ruth and Wilfrid to come in, and while she listened to all they had to tell her. The evening meal, strained by Robert Corder’s general disgust with uncalled-for circumstances, Ethel’s nervous excitement and Ruth’s carefulness to let fall no revealing word, seemed everlasting, and then there was the night-light to be lit for the last time, and there were more of Ruth’s confidences to hear, before Hannah could leave the house, bareheaded and wearing her old ulster.

  She hesitated at Mr. Samson’s gate, but she did not open it. She was afraid she would cry if anyone spoke kindly to her, and more afraid that the signs of this weakness were on her face. And why was she so miserable? She had foreseen all this and been prepared to meet it without a murmur. Was it because she was leaving Ruth, because her secret was being discussed in the study, or because she had no money and no home? It was because of all of these, but they were only part of her distress, for she could no longer trust that spring of hope which, hitherto, had always flowed for her, sometimes feebly, more often with iridescent bubbles which might break as she put her lips to them and change their shape, but kept a quality that refreshed her. The spring had run dry and, as though she went in search of another, she hurried up the street in a drizzling rain and followed the route she and Mr. Blenkinsop had taken when they had walked together at night and found nothing to say to one another. It was strange to remember that she would have been as happy, then, without him, and now, with each step she took, her desire to speak to him increased, not to tell him anything, just to speak to him, before she went away.

  She went round the hill with no regard for the cliffs and the dark river and the sparkling docks she loved so well. She knew they were there and, in a way, they comforted her, but she did not look at them. She hurried down the sloping ground, across The Green and across Albert Square, and she did not slacken her pace until she reached Mrs. Gibson’s door. The door was open, and Mr. Blenkinsop, in his coat and hat, was turning to shut it for the night.

  Chapter 40

  ‘I have just come back from Beresford Road,’ he said. ‘They told me you were out.’

  ‘They?’ Hannah said anxiously.

  Mr. Blenkinsop smiled. ‘A loose expression! I only saw the servant. How did we miss each other?’

  ‘I’ve been for a walk,’ Hannah said, watching Mr. Blenkinsop hanging up his coat and hat.

  ‘You oughtn’t to do that, at this time of night. And nothing on your head! It’s quite wet,’ he said in annoyance.

  ‘What time is it?’ They spoke in low tones, careful for the slumbers of Mrs. Gibson and the little maid and the people in the basement.

  ‘Ten o’clock.’

  ‘Then I oughtn’t to be here, either. I must go back.’ The smile of the alert Miss Mole was weak and wavering, like a nervous child’s. ‘I don’t really know why I came at all,’ she said, and she looked at him as though she expected him to explain her action. ‘I shall be locked out. I forgot to bring my latch-key.’

  ‘Then we shall have to trouble Mr. Corder to let us in,’ Mr. Blenkinsop said.

  That pronoun had an extraordinarily friendly sound in Hannah’s ears and she repeated it. ‘We’d better go now.’

  ‘No. Come upstairs. I’m going to make some tea. You’re cold and wet.’

  ‘But –’ Hannah began, and Mr. Blenkinsop said severely, ‘Just try to forget there are any such people as the Corders. I’ll go up first and turn on the light.’

  Mr. Blenkinsop’s room was warm and glowing with firelight and a shaded lamp, and there was not a sound in the house but the lapping of the fire and not a sound in the street. A dreary peace stole over Hannah, an indifference to duty and disaster, and she went towards one of the deep arm-chairs in an unreasonable conviction that if she could once get between its arms she need never get out again.

  ‘Take off your coat, first,’ Mr. Blenkinsop said. He was busy at a cupboard, getting out cups and saucers and a canister of tea.

  ‘My poor old coat!’ Hannah said with a vague laugh. Months ago she had promised Ruth not to wear it. ‘But it will have to last for a long time yet,’ she said to herself. She leaned back and shut her eyes and listened to Mr. Blenkinsop’s movements, to the change in the notes of the kettle, and then the hissing sound as tea and water met, and she did not open them until he said, ‘there, drink that.’

  Suddenly she was awake, remembering when she had last seen Mr. Blenkinsop, and urgent with all the things she ought to say to him before she went away. ‘Have you taken that cottage?’ she said.

  ‘No. I was going to ask you if you’d like to sell it.’

  ‘Not to you,’ she said quickly.

  ‘I don’t want it. I’ve found another that will suit us better, I think.’

  ‘But how –’ She was realizing that she had not told him the house was hers. It was natural for him to know, and right, but she had not told him. ‘How do you know it belongs to me?’ she asked, and thought it was right for him to know, her eyes were wide and her mouth dropped piteously.

  ‘I’ve been there again,’ he said with a slight embarrassment, but a steady look. ‘I don’t like breaking appointments,’ and at this description of the chase she had given him, she laughed without much mirth.

  Mr. Blenkinsop responded with a smile and then, quietly, looking at his well-shod feet, he said, ‘I’ve turned the fellow out.’

  Like an arrow from a bow, Hannah’s thin body darted forward, a hand on each arm of her chair, and the last embers of her loyalty leapt into a blaze under the indignant breath with which she cried, ‘how dare you? How dare you? What business was it of yours to interfere?’

  Without raising his head, Mr. Blenkinsop turned it towards the fire. ‘Somebody had to do it,’ he said mildly. ‘You see, when it came to talking business, he couldn’t produce a deed or a lease and he isn’t a very competent liar. In the end, he had to refer me to the owner so I just told him he’d better go.’

  ‘Then you can just go back and tell him he can stay.’

  ‘Oh, he’s gone by this time, and the man who owns the farm is willing to buy the place. Somebody has to look after you,’ he explained patiently.

  Hannah stood up and reached out blindly for her coat. ‘But not you,’ she said, and her voice seemed to come from the very source of sorrow. ‘Isn’t there anybody in the world who won’t trample on the few things I’ve had?’ she asked plaintively. ‘All these people – why must they? And you – I didn’t think you would do it.’ Her anger took hold of her again. ‘What right had you to interfere?’ she repeated. Then pure pain overcame her anger and she said, ‘It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, but I didn’t think you would do it. I didn’t think you would try to find out why I ran away.’ Again she put out her hands for her coat, but they did not meet it and she sat down again, as though she had forgotten what she meant to do.

  ‘What else could I do?’ he said simply. ‘I told you I couldn’t leave it at that. You were in trouble and you wouldn’t tell me what it was. I see now that I ought not to have gone without asking you, but I’m glad I did. No, I ought not to have gone, but when I went I thought there might be something I could do for you. All sorts of queer ideas came into my head and I never thought, I never thought for a moment –’

  Hannah dropped her hands from her face and he saw the familiar, teasing smile. ‘And yet it ought to have been the first thing that occurred to you.’

  ‘Ought it? I suppose I’m stupid. You’ll have to forgive me. I saw he was trying to rob you, or not caring whether he did or not, but I didn’t turn him out until – until –’

  ‘No, no,’ Hannah mourned. ‘Don’t tell me.
Don’t tell me anything he said. Is there no end to it? I didn’t mind your knowing about it, but I didn’t want you to see him. That’s why I ran away. I didn’t want you to see him and now you’ve seen him and talked to him. You’ve seen the kind of man I loved – and lived with. It was the only thing, the only thing about me I didn’t want you to know – the kind of man – and even that I couldn’t keep. I can’t keep anything! Oh, let me go back. I must go back.’ With a tremendous effort at self-command she changed her voice to one of acid amusement. ‘It seems to me that your affection for one woman has made rather a busybody of you, Mr. Blenkinsop.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s true,’ he said. ‘Drink your tea. There’s no hurry. I want to tell you about the other cottage we’ve got hold of. It belongs to Ridding’s brother-in-law. He’s a farmer and he’ll be able to keep an eye on Ridding and help him with his fowls.’ He was looking at the fire, avoiding her eyes, and he did not see astonishment gradually spreading over her face. ‘Ridding will be better in the country. An office isn’t the place for a man like that, and Mrs. Ridding thinks it will suit the baby. They’ll be going in about a fortnight and it’s a great load off my mind,’ he ended with a deep sigh.

  ‘Take my cup,’ Hannah said in a strangled voice. ‘Take my cup. I shall spill the tea. I’m going to laugh. But I can’t!’ she cried after a moment. ‘Oh, what’s going to happen to me if I can’t laugh any more?’

  ‘You’re tired out,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, but it isn’t that.’ She looked about her, seeking an explanation. ‘It must be because it isn’t really funny,’ she said in a low, puzzled voice. ‘You see, I thought you were in love with Mrs. Ridding. I thought the cottage was for you and her.’

  ‘Good God!’ Mr. Blenkinsop exclaimed in horror, and again Hannah had the sensation that her heart was shrinking to the size of a pea. He was kind to her, as he was kind to Mrs. Ridding, but this was what he thought of such love affairs as hers, and now she stood up with a deceptive briskness.