The arrival of Howard Corder unfortunately coincided with the arrival
of Mr. Blenkinsop's letter, and what should have been a glad little
family gathering had Robert Corder's views of the younger generation
for its entertainment. Mr. Blenkinsop was the text of the discourse
but everyone felt that illustrations from the home circle might be
supplied, and Wilfrid sat in lively, and Howard in patient, expectation
of reproach. Mr. Corder spared them this, however, and, breaking off
suddenly, he remarked with a smile, that he did not want to spoil
Howard's first evening at home.
Wilfrid twisted an eyebrow in Miss Mole's direction and Howard looked
steadily at his plate. He seemed to have all the patience the other
Corders lacked and a capacity for being contented if he were given the
chance.
'Howard must tell us all the news of Oxford,' his father said,
generously resigning his position of spokesman.
'Oh--it's just the same as usual. We've had a lot of fog,' Howard said,
and suddenly, at a slight movement from the head of the table, Wilfrid
and Ethel both began to speak at once.
Wilfrid waved a hand courteously. 'Go on. Your turn.'
'Oh, it's nothing. I was just going to say it's funny you should have
had that letter from Mr. Blenkinsop----'
'Funny!' Robert Corder exclaimed.
'I mean--queer, because I've had one from Patsy Withers. She doesn't
want to help me with the Club any longer.'
'Indeed? Well, no doubt Miss Withers has very good reasons for her
decision and I can see no likeness between her and Mr. Blenkinsop.'
'Oh, no!' Ethel agreed eagerly, 'but she did promise to help, and now
she says Wednesday evening doesn't suit her. Oh! Perhaps she likes
going to the week-night service.'
'That would be very strange,' her father said bitingly. 'As a matter
of fact, she was there last time. I told you it was a mistake to have
Wednesday for the Club.'
'But the girls wanted it then, and the Club's for the girls.'
'Then you must be prepared to lose your helpers.'
'I should think you'd be glad,' said Ruth. 'I hate Patsy Withers.'
'Ruthie, Ruthie!'
'I do,' Ruth said stubbornly. 'She's like barley sugar, yellow and
squirmy, and her voice is like it too, all sweet and waggly, and she
talks to me as if I'm about six.'
'If you were six I should send you to bed,' said her father. 'I won't
have such remarks made at my table.'
'But you were making them yourself about Mr. Blenkinsop,' Ruth said
sullenly.
'That's a very different matter,' he said, and he went out of the room.
This was his usual way of emphasising a disapproval which he forebore
to express in words, and possibly he believed it left his family
depressed. Ethel, indeed, looked frightened, and Ruth looked glum until
her next speech sent Wilfrid into a roar of laughter.
'I don't think it's good for people to be ministers,' she said, and
Ethel cried, 'Oh, hush, Wilfrid, hush! Father will hear you. And it's
very wrong of you, Ruth, to say such things. It's a noble profession.
Isn't it, Miss Mole?'
'All professions can be noble,' Hannah replied gravely. It was only a
little while since Ethel had extolled the doctor's calling in the same
words, only a little longer since Ruth had flushed in loyalty to her
father when Miss Mole had disconcerted him, and in these changes she
measured the profundity of Ethel's feelings and the extent of Ruth's
trust. It was Howard, to whom Miss Mole was a stranger, who looked
uncomfortable, and Ethel, glancing from one face to another, looking
for support and thinking of Mr. Pilgrim, assuring herself she was right
but wishing they would all agree with her, saw her brother's look and
misinterpreted it.
'And when your own brother's a minister, you'll change your mind,' she
said.
'Oh, shut up,' said Howard. 'Let's go into the other room and play at
something.'
'Coming, Mona Lisa?' Wilfrid asked.
Hannah shook her head and remained by the fire, under the hissing gas.
As soon as Robert Corder heard the young people in the drawing-room,
he would look into the dining-room to see if Miss Mole was doing her
duty; in his present mood he would be more disappointed than pleased to
see her there, and Miss Mole was willing to disappoint him, but what a
pity it was, she thought, that he and she could not be companionable.
Did it never occur to him, that she might crave for maturer society
sometimes and need more relaxation than she got? From seven o'clock in
the morning until half-past ten at night, she was busy in his service,
dusting, cooking carefully, making beds, shopping economically, darning
socks and stockings and his under-garments, superintending Doris, who
was slow and stupid, and she got her little periods of leisure by her
own speed and contrivance. If he had been a different kind of man, they
could have had good talks by the fire when she took in his tea at ten
o'clock. And, perhaps, he was thinking the very same thing, and wishing
she were a different kind of woman and more like Miss Patsy Withers,
and it seemed to Hannah that Lilla would have been cleverer if she had
chosen her watchdog of the breed Mr. Corder admired. The angularity
and asperity of Miss Mole simply served to show up the softness and
sweetness of the other, but Lilla's thrifty turn of mind had seized on
the opportunity of doing two good deeds in one, supplying Mr. Corder
with a housekeeper and sparing herself the inconvenience of having
a penniless cousin on her hands. She would have done better to have
introduced Patsy herself into the family and let her see what she could
make of it. Patsy would probably have found that a hero is more easily
worshipped at a distance and Robert Corder would have learnt that
flattery does not flavour food, and Hannah saw that the result of this
combined ignorance might be as dangerous to her as Mr. Pilgrim, though
not so disagreeable, and might be disastrous to Ruth. And Patsy had
been at the week-night service and Mr. Corder had heard something which
disturbed him. Now what could that be? Hannah asked herself, tapping
her lips with her scissors.
Mr. Corder put his head round the door and Hannah smiled at him as
charmingly as she could. When he had disappeared, Ethel came in and
fidgeted with the ornaments on the mantelpiece.
'Finished the game?' Hannah asked.
'No, but I have to stay out till they call me in. Miss Mole, don't you
think it's rather funny about Patsy?'
'Is it? You're really glad to get rid of her, aren't you?'
'Yes. But still, I think it's funny.'
This was as near as Ethel would go to what was on her mind and Hannah
would not give her the little push she wanted. 'Is she a great friend
of yours?' she asked, instead.
'Well, sometimes I think she is and sometimes I think she isn't. That's
what she's like.'
'I know. You tell her something and then you wish you hadn't. Have you
ever told her anything about me?'
'Oh, Miss Mole, yes!' Ethel cried, for she was truthful and her
deceptions were only for herself. 'But only about those mattresses.'
'Well, what else was there to tell?' Hannah asked grimly. 'You did all
you could, it seems to me. Never mind, never mind! Don't cry. You cry
far too easily and it's not becoming and they'll know you've been doing
it when you go into the other room. Stop it!' Hannah cried.
'But you'll think I'm a sneak and you've been so kind to me lately.'
'I'll always be kind to you if you'll let me,' Hannah said.
'It wasn't that I wanted to tell tales, but I did want to talk to
somebody.'
'Then talk to me in future.'
'Did she tell Father?' Ethel asked in a strangled whisper.
'I don't know.'
'Because, if she did--Oh, there! they're calling me. I'll come back
next time I'm out.'
Wilfrid changed places with Ethel. 'There's trouble brewing,' he said.
'Man is born to trouble--And poke the fire for me, please.'
'What I like about you, Mona Lisa----'
'Yes, yes, I should love to hear it, but what's the trouble?'
'What I like about you is your allusive and elusive mind. There you
are! The sparks are flying upward. And, of course, there are lots of
other things I like.'
'What's the trouble?' Hannah repeated self-denyingly.
'Revolt's the trouble. Howard says he's chucking the ministry and all
Mrs. Spenser-Smith's good gold will be chucked away too. What do you
think of that? She sent him to the University to make a high-class
little minister of him and he says he won't be a little minister. He's
just broken the news, and they're arguing about it now instead of
getting on with the game. So we're going to have a happy Christmas, and
I shall go as early as possible to my poor dear mother and stay with
her as long as she'll keep me. He'll have a hell of a time, but it's
better than having it for life.'
Hannah sighed. 'Why do people want to give each other hell?'
'Because it makes them feel like God. And it's so easy. Now the
uncle----'
'Be careful,' Hannah said. 'He's in the hall, getting the letters.'
'Yes, he likes turning over the letters. God, again! He has to
know everything. And yet, Mona Lisa, to do the man justice, he's a
benevolent deity in the chapel. But that's easy, too, when you come
to think of it. His people get the reward of their obedience, and so
would his children if they'd be what he considers good, which means
admiring and believing in papa. Ruth's quite right. It isn't good for
people to be ministers and there are times when I'm sorry for the poor
devil. If you see yourself as the centre of the universe----'
'I should have thought that's what you do yourself.'
'Yes, but I know I'm doing it. That makes all the difference. Now the
uncle----'
'I ought not to be listening to all this,' Hannah said, but she liked
having the boy there, sitting on the hearthrug with his back against
a chair and his arms hugging his knees. She could pretend that thus
her own son would have dealt with her and she with him, while she knew
that the very lack of those demands which a mother and son make of each
other was what constituted the charm of her relationship with Wilfrid.
'Oh, nonsense,' he said, 'you and I are the only reasonable human
beings in the house. Howard's all right, but he's dull, and depressed,
poor lad. Ethel's trying to make him change his mind and Ruth's
persuading him to keep the bomb until her Uncle Jim arrives.'
'Ruth seems to think her Uncle Jim's omnipotent,' Hannah said, with the
suspicion of a sniff.
'Well, he'll take part of the shock. It was silly of Howard to tell
Ethel. She's bound to blurt it out. She can't see a difficulty without
bumping into it, or giving such a jump that everybody else begins
looking for it.'
He stopped speaking as Robert Corder came into the room, with a letter
in his hand. 'This is for you, Miss Mole,' he said, giving it to her
slowly, and he looked at her curiously and then at Wilfrid impatiently.
'I thought you were playing with the others.'
'So I am, sir. I'm waiting till they call me in. It's one of those
games where there's more waiting than playing.'
Without examining it, Hannah had dropped the letter on to her knee,
with the address turned upwards. 'And they begin talking about
something else,' she said.
'Oh yes,' Wilfrid returned her smile, 'they're doing that.'
'Well,' said Robert Corder, 'I hope you are not disturbing Miss Mole.'
'No, we're talking about something else, too,' she said pleasantly.
'And I can sew at the same time. A woman can always do two things at
once. If she couldn't, she'd have a dreary time of it.'
'I often envy women,' Robert Corder said. 'They have useful and not
exacting occupation for their hands, and no labour need be dreary.'
To this, neither Wilfrid nor Miss Mole ventured a reply, and Robert
Corder retired after another look at the letter on Hannah's knee.
'He wants to know who your letter's from, he wants to know what we're
talking about, he wants to talk to somebody himself. You ought to have
encouraged him, Mona Lisa.'
'Ought I?'
'Yes.' He nodded his head sagely. 'Just for the good of the community.'
'Why didn't you do it, then?'
'He hates the sight of me,' Wilfrid said. 'Too much like my father. But
you want to read your letter.'
'I'm not sure that I do. I don't know who it's from.'
When she had read it, she realized that Robert Corder must have
recognised the clerkly hand of Mr. Blenkinsop who asked her to tea
with him early the next week. 'I haven't a hat fit to wear,' was
Hannah's first thought, and the second was one of impatience that Mr.
Blenkinsop could not manage his affairs without support, but there was
something flattering in his desire to see her, and something touching,
and, as she thought of him, who looked so self-sufficient, she was
bound to wonder if Robert Corder, also, was not as much a baby as the
rest of them. Mr. Blenkinsop was a solemn infant who asked for what he
wanted and Robert Corder was a spoilt one who expected his needs to be
divined.