Beresford Road and Prince's Road meet at a point just below Albert
Square, and as they are both on the western side of Nunnery Road,
where the tram-cars go up to the Downs and down to the city, they can
claim to be in Upper Radstowe, but, except for that terraced row of
houses on one side of what the errand boys call Prince's, they might
belong to any other mid-Victorian suburb. The houses in Beresford
Road are just emerging from the basement era. Their kitchens are
still a few steps below the level of the sitting-rooms, but they have
been raised from the cellarage whence a sturdier, or dumber, race of
servants was content to ascend a long flight of stairs an innumerable
number of times a day. Some of the houses are surrounded by their own
gardens; others look like one house and are really two, with their
entrances deceptively placed at the side; they give, and want to give,
the impression that nothing unusual or indecorous can happen within
their walls, and the red bulk of Beresford Road Congregational Chapel
proclaims that Nonconformity has been received into the bosom of
respectability. Perhaps the great days of the chapel are over. It was
built for the benefit of those rising families whose incomes permitted
a removal to this part of Radstowe and whose religious convictions
had not changed with their fortunes; at a time when there was still
something faintly defiant in marching a large, decently clad family to
chapel in the face of church-goers who had never dared anything for
freedom, but now that the church had amiably acknowledged dissenters
as men and brothers, the only flavour left in Nonconformity was the
unpleasant knowledge that its supporters were still considered socially
doubtful. Big families were now out of fashion: many of those girls and
boys who had regarded Sundays as half festival, half penance, who had
been glad to wear their best clothes over the prickly discomfort of
their clean under-garments, and to watch their acquaintances through
the boredom of the services, had moved on to what was called a better
part of Upper Radstowe, reared two or three children and quietly
seceded from the faith of their fathers. The bolder spirits, who still
went anywhere, went to the Unitarian Church, but Upper Radstowe was not
the right soil for Nonconformity, which flourished more abundantly on
the other side of Nunnery Road, and the appointment of Robert Corder
to Beresford Road Chapel, fifteen years ago, had been an attempt to
stir the sluggish ground with the chemical of a vigorous personality.
His predecessor had been a gentle old man who preached patiently to
the shining empty pews and could not be expected to lure young people
to hear him, while Robert Corder was a bold, upstanding figure and the
sight and sound of him advertised the vitality of his faith. He could
be seen, striding about the streets, leaping on to moving tram-cars
and off them, rushing to and from committee meetings, always in a
hurry, yet always willing to check his speed for a few words with his
acquaintances, and these words were cheery, optimistic and delivered
in a loud voice, unless a quiete-sympathy was called for. A member of
his chapel brought him to a halt; a deacon could divert him from his
course, and then he would stride on, still faster, making up for time
which, as he often and merrily told these waylayers, was not lost, but
had gone, before he knew it.
These were habits and occupations with which Miss Mole was not yet
acquainted. From the window of her bed-sitting-room she could see
the roof of the chapel and she had noticed it as a warm patch of red
among the other roofs and the trees. She was a specialist in roofs and
from many high windows in Upper Radstowe they could be seen in every
shape and colour. They slid down the steep slope to Lower Radstowe,
red, grey, blue and green, and spread like a flower garden over the
city. There were old red tiles in close neighbourhood to shining
slates, there were mossy green roofs squeezed between the walls of
higher houses and, with all these variations in height, there were
trees overtopping chimneys and chimneys sending their smoke into other
people's windows, but this could not be seen from Hannah's room. Her
view of the newer part of Upper Radstowe was ordinary enough, and she
had made the most of the chapel roof until it had suddenly changed into
a portent. She liked it no longer, yet she looked at it more often:
she imagined herself sitting under it, a small drab speck against the
varnish, and, during the days which passed before she heard from Lilla,
she spent some time in Beresford Road, feeling like a conspirator or
a private detective. She tried to get into the chapel and found, as
she expected, that the doors were locked. 'This,' she said, addressing
the ivy which grew round the porch, 'is enough to drive anybody to
Rome, and I've a good mind to go there. I suppose the place is so
ugly that they daren't let anyone see it unless there's one of their
entertainments going on, and then they've got each other's hats to look
at. Not,' she added, 'that there can be anything much in the way of
hats.'
She would have been very gloomy if she had not been enjoying her
prejudices and her prophetic powers. She was sure the red roof was
painted blue on the inside, like the firmament, and sprinkled with
opaque golden stars: she had seen Mr. Corder's house, No. 14--a long
stone's throw from the chapel and on the other side of the road--and
her forebodings had been justified. It was one of the coupled houses,
with an asphalt path running up to the inconspicuous door. There were
a bow and a flat window on each of two floors and a small one, like an
eye, in the gable. Hannah had strolled past the house adventurously: at
any moment Mr. Corder might appear and it would be hard to look like a
woman with a right to be in the road. She was not curious about him:
it was the house she was concerned with, and if she could put her head
inside its door she would know, at once, whether she could be happy
in it. That, however, was further than she dared to go and she had to
content herself with an external view, finding nothing hopeful in the
lace curtains and the plot of grass edged with laurels and confined
by iron railings. The architect of that house had been no artist. It
was an ugly house, yet its twin, next door, looked infinitely more
habitable, though the venetian blinds were askew. Dusty-looking red
curtains, clasped by brass chains, draped the lower bow window and
a bird-cage containing a canary reminded Hannah painfully of Mrs.
Widdows. No. 16 was quite as unattractive as No. 14 to the eye, but
Hannah would have felt happier if the red curtains had belonged to Mr.
Corder.
She was startled, the next morning, when she passed again, to hear a
harsh voice bidding her good-day and, standing on tip-toe to peer over
the privet hedge which grew above No. 16's railings, she saw a parrot
in a cage in the middle of the grass plot. The bird leered at her for
an instant and then with an insulting expression, pretended it had
never seen her, though she offered it the usual complimentary remarks.
'Fond of birds?' asked another voice, and a face popped over the privet
hedge, close to her own. 'Picking up the dead leaves,' said its owner,
showing her a handful, 'and giving Poll an airing at the same time.
Can't let him out alone, 'cos of the cats. Even my own cats. Jealousy,
I suppose. Now you'll tell me that a bird is always a bird to a
cat--and they'd eat Minnie, that's the canary, there, if they could get
her, I haven't a doubt, but--and I've made a study of this--it's not
food they're after with Poll. It's the human voice that upsets them and
he's remarkably chatty at times. The human voice, coming from the wrong
place. It's natural, when you come to think of it.'
Miss Mole had discovered why No. 16 was a fitter habitation for her
than No. 14. She recognised something native to herself in this elderly
man who could fall into conversation with a stranger, something
congenial in his battered old face and his roguish, disrespectful
eye. As much as she could see of him was arrayed in a sleeved woollen
waistcoat, a high, stiff collar, and a red tie pierced by a pin with a
diamond and opal horseshoe head, and he had the look of a man who would
wear his cap in the house.
'That's very interesting,' she said, dropping back on to her heels,
while he pressed closer to the hedge to get a better sight of her,
and his humorous, rather watery eyes seemed to be comparing her
unfavourably with all the fine-looking women they had rested on.
'Saw you yesterday, didn't I?' he asked. 'Shaving at the time, up
there,' he jerked a thumb backwards, 'and saw a woman at the chapel
door. "That's a new thing," I said to myself. Couldn't make it out at
all, so I kept my eye on you. Seemed funny to me.'
'It would have been funnier if I'd got in,' Hannah said with a sniff.
'Ah, not my idea of fun, but if you want to get in,' he jerked his
thumb sideways and his tone made large allowances for human vagaries,
'you'll get the key, I dessay, next door. Parson lives there. Went out
half an hour ago with his coat tails flying. Pretended he didn't see
me,' he gave Hannah a slow wink, 'but I could tell him a thing or two
if I liked. Only, as it happens,' he sank out of sight and his voice
came muffled through the hedge, 'I don't like.' She could hear him
gathering up more leaves.
A farewell seemed unnecessary, to go without one seemed rude, and she
murmured something to which he made no response, but he had brightened
her outlook; to live next door to a man who could tell Robert Corder
a thing or two, to discover what those things were, would be an
alleviation of the dreariness she anticipated, and when she opened
Lilla's letter with the news that Mrs. Spenser-Smith had had her way
and that Miss Mole would be expected in Beresford Road on the Tuesday
of next week, Hannah could think more lightly of her bondage and face
the fact that there were not many pounds left in her purse, but she
made a wry face at Lilla's much-underlined conclusion in which she
pointed out that with fifty pounds a year, her board and lodging and
the rent from her house in the country, Hannah would surely be able to
lay something by for a rainy day.
'About enough to buy a cheap umbrella,' Hannah said, flipping the
letter across the table before she tore it into little pieces in
carefulness that the secret of her relationship to Lilla should be kept.
For Mrs. Gibson, the next few days had a noble sadness in them. She
was to lose Miss Mole but could not grudge her to the exalted state
of being housekeeper to Mr. Corder, and Miss Mole knew she would be
welcome at any time if she liked to drop in for a cup of tea. Mrs.
Gibson gazed admiringly at this woman who had appeared out of nowhere
to save Mr. Ridding's life, to keep out the policeman and avert an
inquest and who betrayed no nervousness at the prospect of living
with a minister, a man whose jokes, as Mrs. Gibson recognised, were
comparable to passing froth on a pool of unknown depth.
Hannah's own sadness was shot with a sense of adventure. She was
prepared for every kind of dullness and annoyance, she was prepared to
be sent adrift again on a world that did not want her, but her belief
in approaching good was irrepressible: there was the man next door
with his cats and his parrot and his canary and, for all she knew, he
might be the one who was to leave her a fortune; there would be the fun
of watching Lilla's secret anxiety and careful condescension, and she
was in the place she loved with the chance, if she behaved herself, of
finding primroses on the other side of the river, in the spring.
Yet she wished she could have had a little longer with Mrs. Gibson,
for Mrs. Ridding was still unfriendly and Mr. Blenkinsop was still the
fortified place she had left behind her. She understood the nature of
Mrs. Ridding's defences and respected them, but she itched to tease
Mr. Blenkinsop with feints of attack. In daily expectation of another
ultimatum, Mrs. Gibson was treating him as though he were seriously
ill: she whispered if she encountered Hannah on the landing outside
his rooms, took special pains with the cooking of his food and carried
it to him herself, lest the blundering of the little servant should
distress him, and this both angered Hannah and gave her the opportunity
she wanted.
On her last evening, she went into the kitchen and picked up the tray.
'He won't like it!' Mrs. Gibson gasped.
'He'll have to lump it,' Hannah said vulgarly. 'What about your poor
legs, as you call them?'
There were no limits to Miss Mole's audacity: Mrs. Gibson could not
cope with it and she looked at Hannah with the mournful, helpless
interest she had once experienced when she saw a man go into a cage of
lions.
Mr. Blenkinsop was sitting by the fire in a large sitting-room heavily
furnished with his mother's mahogany. In front of him was a chessboard
on a stool and his hand was poised above one of the pieces. He did not
look up and Hannah felt as if she had carelessly entered a church while
a service was in progress. The proper thing was to slip away and trust
the appetising smell of cooked meats to creep through Mr. Blenkinsop's
absorption, but, instead of doing that, she said crisply, 'Dinner is
served, sir!' and taking a step forward, she added, 'So that's what you
do in the evenings! It must be a great resource.'
Mr. Blenkinsop looked astonished and then frowned. 'It needs
concentration,' he said pointedly.
'That's what I mean,' Hannah replied obtusely. 'I've brought up your
dinner because Mrs. Gibson's legs ache.
'There's no reason why Mrs. Gibson should do it.'
'Fear,' said Hannah, 'is one of the strongest human emotions.'
'I'm afraid I don't follow you,' Mr. Blenkinsop said with marked
politeness.
'The poor dear is afraid of losing you.'
'She knows how to keep me.' Mr. Blenkinsop took his seat at the
table and unfolded his napkin. 'And really,' he went on, indignation
mastering courtesy, 'I don't quite understand why you should interest
yourself in the question.'
'No, you don't understand,' Hannah said gently. 'And I make no apology.
I'm speaking, as it were, from my deathbed. _Moriturus te saluto!_
To-morrow, you'll be glad to know, I'm moving on. I'm going to live
with Mr. Corder--as his housekeeper--oh Lord!' A faint gleam of
interest passed across Mr. Blenkinsop's face and she took advantage
of it. 'Yes, think of that!' she cried, 'I'd rather live with the
Riddings. Why don't you teach Mr. Ridding to play chess? That would
keep him out of the oven! And what an inconvenience for you to find new
lodgings! And Mrs. Gibson's heart will break! Stay where you are, Mr.
Blenkinsop, and think of me to-morrow at this time, when you're here in
your comfortable room and I'm in a strange land. But perhaps I shall
see you sometimes at the chapel. That will cheer me up.'
'Not very likely,' Mr. Blenkinsop said, firmly nipping this bud of
hope, and he applied himself to his dinner with an unmistakable air of
dismissal.