Mrs. Spenser-Smith's party was usually on the twenty-seventh of
December, a date on which no hopeful member of the chapel would have
made any other engagement until the chance of an invitation had gone
past. On Boxing Day, there was an entertainment at the Mission,
demanding the attendance of the whole family and Doris, and Hannah was
left alone in the house. Later, she was to look back at that solitary
evening as at an oasis where she had rested between two stages of a
journey and, as though she knew the one in front of her was the harder,
she made the most of the interlude, sitting by the fire and reading one
of the books which Mr. Blenkinsop had, most unexpectedly, sent her.
Uncle Jim and Howard had been for a long walk in the country and she
supposed Howard's affairs had been discussed and they had arranged
their plan of action. She could do nothing more in that business, but
she had determined to try a new method with Robert Corder, to present
herself to him as the person who understood, and so to take the burden
of his indignation from those who were less able to bear it.
'But I shan't succeed,' she said sadly, knowing how far short her
actions always fell of her intentions, and then, remembering the wrong
she had done Mrs. Corder and the reproachful, half humorous gaze she
met when she went into the study, she rejected the idea of failure.
Robert Corder himself was doing what he could to help her. He had been
very affable since he learnt she was a lady of property and she had not
thought it necessary to tell him how small and poor that property was,
and perhaps he shared her own desire to be kind and was frustrated by
the same cause, the insistent craving to be impressive, and as there
was not room for two such people in the same house and one must make
way for the other, it was Hannah, who flattered herself on her superior
sight, who must stand aside while he went blindly on. Nevertheless, he
had his own kind of cleverness. He had been silent about Mr. Samson
until that very afternoon, when he had casually mentioned that he had
called on the old gentleman, and implied that Mrs. Corder had always
hidden her light under a bushel and been chary of speaking about her
good deeds, which he was glad to continue if he could, but that what
the wife of a minister could properly do was perhaps not quite suitable
work for an unmarried lady.
'I never thought of it as work, and he likes me,' Hannah had cried.
'Is that a compliment?' he asked gently.
'He liked Mrs. Corder, too.'
'If you think it over, Miss Mole, I am sure you will see the
difference,' he replied, and it was all Hannah could do to refrain from
saying that Mr. Samson's affection for both of them was grounded on
his partiality for what he called misfits, and that Mrs. Corder's good
deeds, in his connection, had been a charity towards herself. Hannah
was looking forward to Mr. Samson's account of the interview. She would
have been interested to know that Mr. Corder, who was a follower though
he thought himself a leader, had been influenced, against his will,
by the old man's high praise of Miss Mole which fell into line with
Samuel Blenkinsop's attentions and the books which had not escaped
Mr. Corder's notice, with Wilfrid's and Ruth's affection and Ethel's
dependence on her judgment, and with the little property in Somerset.
The fact that he continued to consider Mr. Samson a disreputable old
person with a loose tongue and no respect for the status of a minister,
did not affect his changing estimate of the woman he could not help
distrusting. She was undoubtedly a woman of some character and he hoped
she would not show too much of it at Mrs. Spenser-Smith's party. He was
afraid she might be too clever at the games or too lively in demeanour,
for she was his housekeeper, after all, and he did not want Mrs.
Spenser-Smith or Miss Patsy Withers to imagine she was more, and he
was sorry Mrs. Spenser-Smith's truly Christian hospitality should have
urged her to include Miss Mole in the invitation. This was the little
shadow on the prospect of an evening towards which he looked forward as
much as Ethel and more than Ruth did. He knew his people, loving him
when he was in the pulpit, loved him still more when he was out of it,
and there was a rich pleasure in letting them see him play at musical
chairs with the eagerness of a boy, act in the charades, and dance Sir
Roger de Coverley, with a slightly comic gaiety, before the party came
to an end with the singing of Auld Lang Syne.
Ruth had her own troubles about the party. There was the usual trouble
about Ethel who giggled and looked too pleasant and wore too many bits
of jewellery and would probably have one of her tempers when they got
home; there was the difficulty of pretending to herself that her father
was always a jolly man and of trying not to feel half ashamed of him
in his frock coat; there was the disappointment that Uncle Jim would
not be in evening clothes, and, worse still, had cheerfully confessed
that he had possessed none for many years, and allied to this worry,
was Miss Mole's black silk dress with the jet trimmings. Ethel's
Chinese silk had been made up hastily by an obliging little dressmaker
who went to the chapel, and Miss Mole had finished Ruth's, and they
were the nicest dresses they had ever had; Howard would be in his
dinner jacket, but the appearance of the contingent from Beresford Road
would be completely spoilt by Uncle Jim's blue serge and Miss Mole's
black silk. Her father's frock coat did not matter so much. People were
used to it and he was a minister, but a favourite uncle in blue serge,
rather short in the sleeves, and Miss Mole, who had promised Ruth they
would have all sorts of jokes about the party afterwards, so that the
more they hated it, the more fun they would get in the end, Miss Mole
looking housekeeperish and Uncle Jim, looking all wrong, would make a
mock of the beautiful new dresses; they would look like the accidents
they were. Nothing was ever really right, Ruth thought miserably. This
was the party dress she had wanted all her life and she longed to wear
it, in spite of the background her elders would make for it, but she
had not been deceived by Miss Mole's description of the velveteen frock
as one to wear on occasions for which the other was too gay. She knew
Miss Mole had made it in secret for the Spenser-Smiths' party and must
have sat up late at night to get it done. It was pretty, too, of a
deep coral colour which was kind to Ruth's pale cheeks, and there was
a hair ribbon to match, for Miss Mole remembered everything, and the
present must have cost more than she could afford. She felt she ought
to wear it; she could explain to Uncle Jim and, anyhow, he would not
notice, and Ruth laid both dresses on the bed and decided first for one
and then for the other. It was horrible, it was treacherous, to think,
as she could not help thinking, that if Miss Mole had spent the time
and money on herself, Ruth would have been happier at this moment, and
then, as she stood in her petticoat, trying not to cry at the maddening
perverseness of this dilemma, Miss Mole looked in on her way upstairs
to dress and quietly took the velveteen frock and hung it up.
'But Moley--!' Ruth exclaimed.
'No you don't,' Hannah said. 'I haven't been working my fingers to the
bone, as they say, for a dress that isn't going to appear to-night.'
'But you worked them to the bone for the other one.'
'You can wear that at the Thingumbobs' party next week. I ought not to
have given it to you for Christmas, but I hadn't anything else. I might
have known your Nonconformist conscience would make you miserable about
it.'
'I haven't got a Nonconformist conscience!'
'Then wear your uncle's frock,' Hannah said.
That was settled, and Ruth sank on to her bed to enjoy this moment of
relief, to tell herself, once more, that Miss Mole knew everything, to
look back at those terrible two years between her mother's death and
Miss Mole's arrival and find they were too black for contemplation.
It was mean, it was despicable, to mind about the black silk and jet
trimmings when they were worn by Miss Mole who had thought about the
night-lights, who had chased away fears, without mentioning them by
name, and been wonderfully kind without encroaching on the rights
of the mother for whom Ruth still kept her caresses and the spoken
expression of thoughts which Miss Mole was content to divine.
Ruth cast away all her cares except the one about Howard, who had the
sudden indiscretions of the naturally discreet and might choose this
very night for telling Mrs. Spenser-Smith he was not going to be a
minister. It was no good asking him not to do it; if she put the idea
into his head, it might pop out at any minute. That was the way things
happened with Howard. He was good-natured and patient and easy-going
and all of a sudden it would seem that he had been nearly boiling for a
long time, and, at last, the lid had blown off. It would be awful when
this particular lid blew off, for there would be more explosions than
one, and Ruth gave a little shudder and a last look into the glass,
before she went downstairs.
Uncle Jim was in the drawing-room. He was freshly shaven and he had
put on a clean shirt, but he was reading the evening paper as though
a party were no more agitating than staying at home, and Ruth envied,
while she pitied, the calmness of middle-age. He looked up, however,
and approved of her appearance, just as her father bustled into the
room, looking at his watch and complaining that Howard was not in and
would make them all late.
'Well, well,' this was Uncle Jim's usual soothing preface. 'Perhaps the
boy doesn't want to go.'
'Doesn't want to go!' Robert Corder had banked Mrs. Spenser-Smith's
Christmas cheque that morning and his voice was shrill with indignation.
'Well, well,' Uncle Jim tried again. 'Perhaps he's met a friend, or
something.'
'Perhaps he's been run over!' Ethel cried, coming in with a rattle of
beads, but no one encouraged this notion and she had all her anxiety to
herself.
'It's a strange thing,' Robert Corder said more calmly, 'that with my
passion for punctuality, I should be constantly vexed,' and he looked
at Ethel, 'in this manner. And where's Miss Mole? And what friends has
Howard that he should meet at this time of night and when he has an
engagement?'
'Oh, for goodness' sake, Bob, don't make mountains out of molehills.
He'll be here soon enough and if he makes us half an hour late, let's
be thankful.'
'If you feel like that, James,' said Robert Corder, who could hardly
believe he had been reprimanded in the presence of his daughters,
'you'd better stay at home.'
'All right, I'll look after the house for you.'
'But Doris's adenoidy aunt has come on purpose to keep her company!'
Ruth protested, because the cowardly, snobbish side of her half hoped
Uncle Jim would stick to his decision.
'Her what?' Robert Corder demanded.
'Her aunt who has adenoids,' Ruth answered sullenly.
'I don't like to hear you using such expressions,' her father said
mildly, and Miss Mole, entering at that moment with a slight rustle,
knowing she looked nice and was going to surprise them, said levelly,
using the beautiful middle notes of her voice,
'I'm afraid it's my expression, but really, when you've seen and heard
her, you can't call her anything else.'
'But that isn't black silk, Moley!' Ruth exclaimed.
Miss Mole's dress was not fashionable and it was modest, with long
sleeves and a small opening at the throat. It was made of a moire silk
which changed from green to brown as the light fell on it, a varying
colour which matched her eyes, and Wilfrid's brooch fastened Mr.
Samson's string-coloured lace.
'No,' she said. 'This belonged once to my old lady with the wigs. I
believe she had it in her wedding trousseau and it will last for ever.
I've had it cleaned, and I've had it remade--'
'Fine old piece of lace,' Uncle Jim remarked.
'And what a quaint old brooch,' Ethel said, with a doubtful glance at
her own beads.
'Yes,' said Hannah lightly, 'they've both been in the family for
generations.'
Robert Corder went out of the room. There was no lace or old jewellery
in his family, and where was Howard? He paced up and down the hall
and, in the drawing-room, Ethel fidgeted and Ruth looked gloomily at
Hannah. Her relief at Miss Mole's appearance was spoilt by this worry
about Howard, and now Uncle Jim was saying he would come to the party,
after all, so that he could treat them to cabs across the downs, to
make up for lost time and keep the girls' hair tidy. Things were never
altogether right, she discovered again, but they improved a little as
Howard entered the house and, rushing past his father without apology,
cheerfully shouted an assurance that he would not keep them waiting for
five minutes.