On Christmas morning, by candle-light, Doris brought an early cup of
tea to Miss Mole, with an ornamental box of biscuits, from her young
man and herself, on the tray.
'My friend says it's the least we could do,' she replied when Hannah
had made suitable exclamations. 'He thinks you're such a nice lady.'
'Does he?' Hannah sat up and the long plait of her dark hair fell
across the front of her nightgown. 'And I think he's a nice young man
and I'll eat some of your biscuits now, and when they're finished I
shall keep the box on the dressing-table for all my little odds and
ends. Thank you for the tea, too, Doris. It was a kind thought and you
might make a precedent of it, if you know what that means.'
Doris did not know and was not concerned to learn. She was used to what
she called Miss Mole's queer way of talking and she was burdened, at
the moment, with a confession she had to make.
'It was Mr. Wilfrid who told me to do it, before he went away,' she
said. 'And I told my friend and that's how we come to think of the
biscuits. I was to make you a nice cup of tea, Mr. Wilfrid said, and
give you this parcel on the quiet. I reckon it's something he didn't
want the rest of them to see. And he give me ten shillings for
myself,' she added with a sigh. She was more than satisfied with her
young man, whose mother was so respectably stiff, but Mr. Wilfrid was
her ideal of manly beauty and winsomeness. To keep Miss Mole's little
parcel for him was an honour, but it was hard to go away and leave her
to the discovery of what was inside and, among Doris's other reckonings
was the one that she would never know what she had been carrying in her
pocket for the last three days.
It was a small parcel and a small parcel suggested something rare, and,
turning it over and rattling it before she opened it, Hannah pretended
she would find a ruby ring or a necklace of pearls, just as she had
felt her stocking, thirty odd years ago, and imagined marvellous toys
she knew would not be there, and when, at last, leaning towards the
candle, she drew a brooch from the little box, tears started into her
eyes and she could not see it clearly. She could feel that it was
smooth and oval, with a narrow twisted rim, and she wiped her eyes on
the sheet and had a good look before she began to cry again. Wilfrid,
if he was awake at this moment, would think she must be laughing, and
she did laugh while she cried, for that boy had tactfully chosen an
old brooch which had a humorous reference to his avowed admiration and
excused the nature of his gift. The brooch was held in a narrow twist
of gold and under a shield of glass was what Hannah thought must be an
engraving of the blind Cupid drawing his bow, the offering, no doubt,
of some early Victorian lover to his lady.
Holding the brooch and crying with childish abandonment, for pleasure
in this pretty tribute, she wondered how much time he had spent before
he found exactly the right thing, beautiful in itself, a whimsical
comment on his liking for her, and an ornament which might, so
conveniently, have belonged to her own grandmother. She would wear it
at the Spenser-Smiths' party with Mr. Samson's lace; she could not wear
the Chinese silk which was still rolled in its delightfully foreign
paper, but her weeping ceased when she told herself that, with three
charming presents in as many days, there must be something disagreeable
waiting for her, to adjust the balance of fortune. But for that she
was prepared and with Wilfrid's brooch pinned in her nightgown while
she finished her tea and biscuits, she was better equipped than she
had been. Wilfrid's affection was worth having and this ridiculous fit
of crying had done her good. It was years since she had cried and it
would be years before she did it again, and she determined to spend
the rest of the day in cheerfulness if this family would permit it, if
Ethel would not be injured by some fancied slight and if Howard would
continue to hold his tongue.
The day began quietly. The present-giving in this household did not
take place until after the morning service and the mid-day meal, and
Robert Corder, who certainly had some force in his personality, created
an atmosphere of peaceful thankfulness at the breakfast table. The
great day had dawned and he seemed to go on tip-toe, as though he
felt the presence of the sleeping, sacred babe, and though he smiled
readily, he did not do it broadly, and his good wishes were given like
blessings, but, at one o'clock, when Hannah was basting the turkey,
one of Mrs. Spenser-Smith's annual gifts, thankful in spite of her red
cheeks, for a duty which freed her from the chapel, she heard the loud
tones of his voice like a fanfare authorising joviality to begin.
At this signal, Hannah and Doris loaded the tray with turkey, greens,
potatoes, gravy and sauce, and Uncle Jim appeared quietly from nowhere
and picked up the burden. The sight of his brother-in-law's helpfulness
was not altogether pleasing to Robert Corder; it might have been
interpreted as a reproach, but he made a little joke about the handy
man and Uncle Jim muttered that the tray was too heavy for a woman.
'But it's all knack, all knack,' Robert Corder assured him. 'Trained
nurses--and what wonderful women they are--can lift a heavy man without
an effort.'
'But you're not a trained nurse, are you?' asked Uncle Jim.
Hannah wanted to say that, no, unfortunately, she was not a wonderful
woman, but she remembered that it was Christmas Day and simply shook
her head. She tried to look weak and modest, the subject of contention
between two strong men, and then, unable to resist asserting herself,
she ruined this unique experience by remarking that she was used to
handling turkeys, dead and alive.
'Alive?' Robert Corder said gently, giving her a chance to retract
before she must be proved guilty of untruthfulness.
'And alive. I was born and bred on a farm.'
'Were you? Then you'll be able to give me some advice. I'm thinking of
starting a little farm myself.'
'Come, come, let us take our places,' said Robert Corder. 'And I'll
ask you to carve, Miss Mole, as you have such an intimate knowledge
of turkeys,' he said, and Hannah, looking at him over the knife she
sharpened, thought he had a positive genius for getting a note of
disparagement into his voice. 'But where's Ethel? We can't start our
Christmas dinner without Ethel.'
'She'll be here in a minute,' Howard said quickly.
'But where is she?'
'I don't know.'
'Then how can you say she'll be here in a minute?'
'Because she'll want her dinner.'
'Your remark was misleading. You made a statement which was nothing but
a conjecture. If that sort of quibbling is what you learn at Oxford--'
'Oh, I've learnt a lot more than that,' Howard began, and two people
held their breath for the few seconds that passed before Uncle Jim said
good-humouredly:
'Well, well, let's load the tray up again and put the turkey in the
oven. The skies won't fall because Ethel's a few minutes late.'
'I happen to be thinking of all the trouble Miss Mole has taken.'
'Don't mention it,' Hannah said, and wished she could look at Wilfrid.
Mr. Corder's moments of consideration always arrived when he was
annoyed with someone else.
'I suppose she was at chapel?' he went on.
'Oh yes, she was at chapel!' Ruth and Howard cried together, in an
eager unanimity.
'Not in our pew.'
'No,' it was Ruth who started first and Howard did not try to catch her
up. 'If Ethel sees one of her girls, she always goes and sits with her.
I suppose the girl likes it,' she added thoughtfully, and Robert Corder
gave a sharp glance at her innocently pensive face.
'Most inconsiderate,' he said, 'and Ethel must have her dinner cold.
Let us begin. Ask a blessing, Ruth.'
Ruth obeyed in an unwilling mumble. She disliked addressing her God in
the family circle as much as hearing her father do it from the pulpit,
but this was not the moment to make more trouble and, as though even
so slight a communication with the unseen, and done by proxy, had
cleared away his irritability, Robert Corder forebore to reproach Ethel
when, flushed and breathless, she slipped into her place, just as
Hannah, with the carving knife poised in her hand, chose the spot for
its insertion with great precision.
'And how did you think they sang the carols, Ethel?' her father asked.
'Very well,' Howard and Ruth said heartily in another duet.
'I was asking Ethel.'
Ethel was physically and mentally incapable of telling a lie: she
could not prevaricate without blushing, yet now, in an inspiration of
self-protection and in reference, as Hannah guessed, to some singing
not heard by Robert Corder, she made the one remark likely to turn
aside his questions. 'Not very well,' she said, with a roll of her eyes.
'I agree with you,' he said curtly, and he looked at Howard. 'I
can only suppose you were not listening. But I would rather hear a
disagreeable truth than a pleasant fiction. It was very bad. Half the
choir was away.'
'Cooking their Christmas dinners, like Miss Mole has been doing for
us,' said Uncle Jim. 'You've roasted this fellow to a turn. Any profit
to be made out of turkeys, do you think?'
'Difficult things to rear,' Hannah said.
'Pigs, perhaps?'
'Prices are so variable. You get a lot of pigs and find everyone else
has got them, too. We used our pigs for our own bacon and that was
about all.'
'Then what would you start with?'
'Years of experience,' Hannah said.
'Oh, don't try to stop him, Moley--Miss Mole--' Ruth begged. 'It would
be lovely if he had a farm near Radstowe and we could go and stay
with him. He could try with a tiny little place at first and then he
wouldn't lose much money. What a pity he can't have your little farm.
Couldn't you let him have it?'
'It's let, and when it's empty I'm going there myself,' Hannah said,
and because she knew that Robert Corder was suddenly attentive to a
conversation he had been pointedly ignoring, she added rather grandly.
'People who own land ought to live on it.'
In a few moments of time, Robert Corder had to rearrange all his ideas
about Miss Mole. He had seen her as a poor, homeless woman who must
be glad of the shelter of his house, and now he learnt that she had
property of her own: he had wondered at her independence of spirit and
this was now explained: he had resented her manner of speech which was
better than his own, her evidences of having read at least as widely as
he had, the charming notes of her voice, which he acknowledged for the
first time; he had been seeking a way of getting rid of her and found
she could go when she chose, and he felt that he had been duped. He
cast back in his mind to those occasions when he had tried to snub her
and hoped she had been as unconscious of them as she had seemed, and he
thought Mrs. Spenser-Smith had treated him unfairly in not warning him
of Miss Mole's real position in the world.
'Is it the farm you were brought up in?' he enquired.
'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.