Mrs. Gibson's greengrocer undertook to deliver Miss Mole's box at the
house in Beresford Road and thither, in the dusk, Miss Mole walked,
following the cart and feeling that this was her own funeral and she
the solitary mourner. Slowly the cart creaked down the road and slowly
Miss Mole walked after it, and it seemed to her that her old trunk was
her coffin and that the solitary mourner was her own ghost. A little
wind was driving the fallen leaves along the pavement, there was a
rustling of the bushes in the gardens, the tired pony's steps and the
turning of the wheels were dismal sounds, and she wished she had gone
to the expense of hiring a cab and arriving with some appearance of
eagerness. This was a very melancholy procession, a detachment of an
army of women like herself who went from house to house behind their
boxes, a sad multitude of women with carefully pleasant faces, hiding
their ailments, lowering their ages and thankfully accepting less than
they earned. What became of them all? What was to become of herself?
Age was creeping on her all the time and she had saved nothing, she
would soon be told she was too old for this post or that, and, for a
second, fear took hold of her with a cold hand and the whispering of
the dead leaves warned her that, like them, she would be swept into the
gutter and no one would ask where she had gone, and her fear changed
into a craving that there should be at least one person to whom her
disappearance would be a calamity. 'No one!' the leaves whispered
maliciously, while a little gust of laughter came from the bushes, and
at that, Hannah paused and looked disdainfully in their direction.
She was not to be laughed at! She was not to be laughed at and she
refused to be frightened! Her head went up and she walked more quickly,
to get level with the cart, and the ruby glow in No. 16's bow window
applauded her spirit. It was pleasant to think he was in there by the
fire with the parrot and the canary and the cats. He would be surprised
when he saw her flicking a duster from a window of No. 14, and Hannah
liked surprising people. This was something to look forward to and she
was not depressed when she saw no welcoming lights shining from Mr.
Corder's house.
The greengrocer shouldered the box, Hannah followed him up the asphalt
path and rang the bell. There was a glimmer of light in the hall, but
no one could be heard stirring in the house.
'Seems as if they're all out,' the greengrocer said, and whistled under
his breath.
Hannah rang the bell more loudly, the greengrocer cocked his head with
polite attention, and now they heard the sound of someone running down
the stairs.
Half an hour later, when Hannah was kneeling in front of her box, she
fancied she could still hear that sound. It had struck her ear, at her
first hearing of it, with a strange significance, as though Fate itself
were coming to let her in, yet when the door was opened it revealed
no more than the figure of a small, thin girl who did not know how
to greet a stranger or to apologize for the necessary absence of her
elders and the neglect of the servant who should have answered the
door.
Hannah made a mental note about that servant and another that this
girl, who must be the one who had holes in her stockings, was not at
all pleased to see her, and she answered reserve with reserve, but when
the greengrocer had struggled upstairs with the trunk and Ruth had
found a box of matches and lighted the gas in Miss Mole's attic bedroom
and, doing her best, had gone to the window to pull down the blind,
Hannah forgot to be dignified and called out, 'Oh, don't do that! I
want to look. It faces nearly south, doesn't it?'
It was a dormer window, the one she had seen from the road, and she
felt like a pigeon peering from a hole in a dove-cot. The house was set
higher than she had thought and, over the opposite roofs, she could
see thousands of twinkling lights and the dim outline of more roofs
and chimneys. And this was a view which would be no less lovely in the
morning, when the spires and towers of Radstowe's innumerable churches
and the factory chimneys with their pennons of smoke would clear
themselves from the wide-spread huddle of buildings. She turned her
head a little to the right and the wind came straight across the hills
from the place where her pink cottage stood in its little orchard, and
it was characteristic of Hannah to accept the pleasure and ignore the
pain of the wind's reminders, to overpay the greengrocer and to smile
as she told Ruth she was going to unpack.
Cheerfully she looked about her when she was left alone and she decided
that she liked this narrow room with its sloping walls, and then, with
the wariness of an old campaigner, she examined the blankets, which
were clean, and the sheets, which were rather coarse, and thumped the
mattress critically.
'Lumpy,' she said, frowning a little. But never mind! She had the
view from the window, she thought she would be able to hear the ships
hooting up and down the river, and not far away there was the real
Upper Radstowe with its old streets and crescents, its odd passages and
flights of steps, and she unstrapped her box, forgetting she had seen
it as a coffin.
The size of the box erroneously suggested that Miss Mole's wardrobe
was extensive. There was still plenty of room in drawers and cupboards
when she had laid out and hung up her clothes, and there was still a
good deal left in the box, for Miss Mole's treasures travelled with her
and the chief of these was the model of a sailing ship miraculously
enclosed in a pale green bottle. She took it from its wrapping of
cotton wool and gazed at it tenderly when she had put it on the narrow
mantelpiece. She liked to see it sailing all alone, never getting any
further and never losing its gallantness, and it brought back memories
of her very early childhood when it stood on the parlour mantelpiece,
far out of her reach, a mystery in itself and a hint of greater
mysteries. It was connected with the few sights, sounds and smells that
remained to her of those days; heavy bees buzzing among the pinks on a
hot afternoon, a turn in the garden path where danger lurked behind the
hedge of box, the crackling of her starched pinafore, the rattling of
milk pails and the creaking of her father's corded breeches.
She had a lot to be thankful for, she thought. It was good to have such
clean country memories and it was astonishing how solid a background
they made to life. Consciously or unconsciously, they were there, and,
however murky and sordid some of her experiences had been, her roots
were in wholesome earth and she had sprouted among sweet-smelling
things. No one loved streets better than Hannah Mole, but she had
a secret satisfaction in her knowledge of matters on which these
townspeople depended and which they took for granted, and it gave her a
feeling of permanency, of something more real than anything else in her
restless flittings about the world and her changing views of what she
was or might have been.
She had finished dressing herself for the latest part she had
undertaken when a knock came at the door and the thin little girl
appeared again, evidently unwilling to be the messenger who summoned
Miss Mole to supper. She was a little breathless, but whether with
nervousness, indignation or the ascent of the stairs, Hannah did not
know.
'She wants feeding up,' she thought, as she smiled with determined
brightness, and she promised herself that the day would come when this
child would be glad of an excuse to knock at Miss Mole's door. Even
now her eyes had lighted on the bottled ship with a quickly hidden
interest, and of that, too, Hannah made a mental note.
Her bedroom had been a pleasant surprise; the rest of the house was
what she had known it must be. The hall smelt faintly of the morning's
cooking, the gas was protected by a lantern of red and blue glass,
and though, when she entered the dining-room, she missed the green
serge cover on a table which was laid for supper, the rusty fern was
there, under a three-armed chandelier. One of these arms was fitted
for incandescent gas which bubbled inside a frosted globe; the others
were neglected and stood out gauntly like withered branches on a tree,
but the room was further illuminated--though it still seemed rather
dark--by an ordinary gas jet on each side of the fireplace, and these
flames gently hissed in their globes of pink and white.
She noticed these things with a glance of her practised eye, and she
had no time to verify her suspicion that there was cold mutton on the
table before her hand was seized by a young woman who pranced to meet
her.
In her nervous or happy moments, prancing was Ethel Corder's gait and,
indeed, she reminded Hannah of an awkward-tempered colt. There was a
display of teeth and eyeballs, a look of half-playful viciousness for
which her physical peculiarities were chiefly responsible. Her pale,
scanty hair started growing too far back and there was a deficiency
of eyebrow, yet her plainness had a certain feverish quality which
attracted and held the attention.
'Someone's been knocking her about in the stable or stealing her
oats,' Hannah thought, while Ethel volubly explained that an emergency
committee meeting had engaged her father and herself. 'I shall have
to be careful. And the little one looks like a starved donkey. It's
lucky I was brought up on a farm.' She wanted to stroke and reassure
them both, to tell them she could make them plump and happy if they
would trust her. She wanted to stop the gas from bubbling like a turkey
and hissing like a pair of geese. She saw there was plenty here for a
farmer's daughter to do, and though this might not be the place Hannah
Mole would have chosen for herself, it was the one that needed Hannah,
and she was turning the cold mutton into a savoury hash for to-morrow's
dinner and getting rid of the rusty fern, when the voice which had
cheered many a sewing-meeting bade her good evening.
'So this is Miss Mole,' he said, nicely fitting his tone to the one
suitable for an emissary of Mrs. Spenser-Smith who was far from being
Mrs. Spenser-Smith herself, and Hannah, prejudiced already, thought she
saw him quickly appraising her as a useful nobody.
With the best will in the world it was impossible to think the same of
him. His height, his handsome head of dark chestnut hair just flecked
with grey, the pointed beard of a lighter colour, his suggestion of
great physical energy, dominated the room, and with a stiffened back,
but a crestfallen spirit, Hannah had to admit that Mr. Corder, too, was
something of a surprise.
Meekly, she took her seat opposite to Ruth, the servant brought in a
dish of damp potatoes, and Mr. Corder took up the carving knife and
fork. Ethel had fallen silent and Ruth seemed determined not to speak.
She looked crossly at the mutton on her plate and at Miss Mole on the
other side of the table, but she bent industriously over her food when
her father began to talk.
'This is a fine old city, Miss Mole,' he said, 'full of historic
associations, and we have one of the finest parish churches in the
country--if you are interested in architecture,' he added, with a
subtle suggestion that this was not likely.
Hannah longed to ask what effect her indifference would have on the
building, but Mr. Corder did not wait for reassurance about its safety.
'Ruth must take you to see it, some day. On a Saturday afternoon,
perhaps Ruthie?'
'I play hockey on Saturday afternoons,' Ruth muttered.
'Ah, yes, of course, these games!' Mr. Corder said good-humouredly.
'Well, Miss Mole may find her way there herself. The Cathedral is not
so good. I don't care about the Cathedral, but we are rather proud of
our Chapter House. It may surprise you--.' He interrupted himself. 'By
the way, what has happened to Wilfrid? Wilfrid is my nephew and he is
supposed to be studying medicine at the University,' he told Hannah.
'Do you know where he is, Ethel?'
Ethel's eyes goggled nervously. 'He had an engagement,' she said in
haste, and Hannah suspected that Ruth's smile had been calculated to
make her sister exclaim angrily, 'It's perfectly true, Ruth! He told me
about it yesterday.'
'And I knew he'd have it a week ago,' Ruth retorted coolly, and Hannah
realised that this rude little girl was hinting that her cousin had
taken care to avoid Miss Mole's first evening.
Robert Corder lifted his eyebrows and managed to look bland as he said,
'I think Ruth shares my opinion about the genuineness of Wilfrid's
engagements. However, we need not waste our time over Wilfrid. I
was saying, Miss Mole, that you may be surprised at my interest in
ecclesiastical architecture, but whatever our religious differences
may be, these buildings are a common heritage, and when I first came
to Radstowe, fifteen years ago, I made a point of seeing everything of
interest or importance, and very valuable the knowledge has been to
me. I have been able to wake a civic pride in a great many people, I
believe, but not, I'm afraid,' he said playfully, 'in my own children.
You know the saying about the prophet! I'm pretty sure Ruth has never
been inside St. Mary's--eh, Ruthie?'
Ruth flushed an angry red and said she hated churches.
'Ruth is a stout Nonconformist, Miss Mole, but we mustn't be narrow.
And there are other beauties in Radstowe. "A thing of beauty is a
joy for ever." You recognise that, Ruth, Ethel? And there are other
interests. Radstowe was once the most important port in England, but
with the increase in tonnage she has lost her place. The big ships
can't get up the river. It is a tidal river--most picturesque in its
gorge--you must be sure to see that, too--but the channel is very
narrow, with large deposits of mud.' And at some length and with what
accuracy Hannah could not judge, he explained how these deposits were
made. 'Dredging goes on, but does very little good. It is a great
misfortune for our trade.'
'Yes,' said Hannah, deciding to be dumb no longer as she could not be
deaf, 'but it's well worth it. At low tide the mud is beautiful. All
the colours of the rainbow, and it makes such a nice promenade for the
gulls.'
Mr. Corder was like a horse bewildered by a check in full gallop. 'So
you have seen our river?'
'Oh yes,' Hannah said lightly, 'I've known Radstowe all my life.'
'Ah, really--' said Mr. Corder and, suddenly, Radstowe became of very
little importance. 'Ruth, will you ring the bell. I think we are ready
for the pudding.'