Howard ought not to have spoken in that cheerful manner or to have
looked so unabashed when he came downstairs, so unusually lively and
determined that the reproaches died on Robert Corder's lips. Miss Mole
ought not to be wearing old lace and appearing calm at the prospect
of being Mrs. Spenser-Smith's guest; in fact, her double masquerade
of housekeeper and lady with a little property was disconcerting. It
was irritating to be forced into a cab with her, while his children
and his brother-in-law crowded into another. He objected to the cabs
on principle: he could not afford these luxuries and, though he was
not paying for them, he disliked the ostentation of such an arrival.
And what was it that had cost Howard fifteen shillings? Nothing, he
thought, should have cost him as much as that: the boy had too much
money to spend: but what had he spent it on and why had he told Jim
about it?
'I thought it would be something like that,' Jim had growled.
Robert Corder hated hearing snatches of conversation and remaining in
ignorance of their context; he hated this familiar nearness to Miss
Mole and he sat stiffly, looking out of one window of the cab, while
Miss Mole looked out of the other.
'We'll soon be there,' she said in a small voice, as though she was
comforting him, or was she really more nervous than she seemed and in
need of a little encouragement? He saw her profile by the light of a
passing car, and it was meek and drooping, her head was bare and the
collar of her coat was turned up.
'Too soon?' he enquired kindly.
'Oh no. I've always wanted to see Mrs. Spenser-Smith's children.'
He squeezed himself further into his corner of the cab. 'I'm afraid
they are not going to be the equals of their parents.'
'No, they never are,' Miss Mole said sadly, and he took another look at
her.
'You don't happen to know where Howard was this evening, I suppose?'
'No idea,' she said in a sharper voice, and she thought of the bowl of
Roman hyacinths he had given her for Christmas.
Robert Corder let down the window to see if the other cab was
following, the wheels crunched the Spenser-Smiths' gravel, and Hannah
stood in the porch, surrounded by gigantic chrysanthemums.
It was he who led the procession into the drawing-room, with Ethel at
his heels: Ruth tried to get behind Miss Mole but she kept her place in
front of Uncle Jim and had the pleasure of watching Lilla's greeting of
the minister and his daughters before she stepped forward for her own
welcome. This was an extended hand and a half-puzzled glance quickly
changing to one of recognition.
'Oh, it's Miss Mole,' Lilla said.
'How sweet of you to remember me,' Hannah replied.
Valiantly Lilla restrained a frown and her quick eye saw the lace,
the brooch and the moire silk before Hannah felt her hand grasped
in Ernest's and knew that only his duty to his other guests and the
instructions he had received from Lilla prevented him from taking her
into a corner and having a good cousinly chat.
Hannah found a corner for herself. She asked for nothing better than a
point of vantage from which she could watch Lilla so skilfully varying
the warmth of her smile for each newcomer and, by the slight changes in
her cordiality, Hannah thought she could judge the worldly position or
soundness of doctrine of each arrival. Lilla was perfectly dressed for
her part; richly enough to do honour to her guests and remind them of
their privileges, but with due consideration for the shabbily clad, and
of these there was a good number, and Uncle Jim's was not the only blue
serge suit. Hannah recognised many faces she had seen in the chapel,
faces of matrons, of spinsters and of young men with thin necks. It
was surprising to see so many young men with thin necks and large
Adam's apples; it had something to do with Nonconformity, she supposed:
perhaps Mr. Corder would be able to explain their association, but
at the moment he was engaged by a gloomy deacon who could not forget
the chapel in the party, and indeed, the party was the chapel on its
lighter side, and Robert Corder, trying to get away from the deacon,
was as anxious as anyone else to emphasise that side and to encourage
the liveliness with which Mrs. Spenser-Smith's parties always went from
the beginning. Already, Ruth was biting her pencil as she earnestly
took part in a competition, and Ethel was being very bright with the
young men whose placarded backs she had to examine. Uncle Jim, to
whom self-consciousness was unknown, was prowling round the room and
volunteering advice about the competitions to people he had never
seen before, and enjoying himself more than he had expected. It was
easy to distinguish Margery Spenser-Smith, like a more sophisticated
Lilla at that age, and to recognise sons of the house in a youth who
had something of Ernest's quiet kindness in his manner, and a younger
boy who looked more bored than any guest would have dared to be. These
were Hannah's cousins and, if she knew her Lilla, they had not heard
of her existence. As far as they, and most of the other people in the
room, were concerned, Hannah was invisible, though Miss Patsy Withers
had given her a sweet smile, and she was tiring a little of this
advantage when she saw Mr. Blenkinsop approaching. There was an empty
chair beside her and she pointed to it, hoping Lilla or Robert Corder
would see this airy gesture, while she smiled up at him, a radiant Miss
Mole, her face transfigured by the laughter behind it. Yet there was
nothing comic in Mr. Blenkinsop's appearance. He looked very clean and
his dinner jacket was well cut; the little black tie and the winged
collar became him; he seemed slimmer in the waist and broader in the
shoulders; his neck was not thin and he had no convulsively working
Adam's apple.
'I didn't expect to see you here,' she said. 'You're a black sheep, but
perhaps Mrs. Spenser-Smith doesn't know it. Thank you for the books,
Mr. Blenkinsop. I've used up a lot of Mr. Corder's candles, reading
them when I should have been asleep.'
'You mustn't do that,' he said, with a little frown.
'Dishonest?'
'No. Tiring. As for dishonesty, I was going to telephone to Mrs.
Spenser-Smith and say I'd got a cold--'
'I'm glad some one else can tell lies,' Hannah interjected.
'And then, Mrs. Gibson told me you'd be here, so I came too.'
'Well, tell me all about it, quick! You'll be dragged away to play one
of those idiotic games in a minute. What's been happening?'
'I spent Christmas Day with a sister of my mother's.'
'And when you got home--?'
'And when I got home, I felt worn out,' Mr. Blenkinsop said simply.
'Sitting in a stuffy room, after a heavy meal, and trying to keep up a
pleasant conversation.'
'Don't I know it!' Hannah said feelingly. 'I've spent years of my life
doing that--years! At about fourpence halfpenny an hour. It's grim,
isn't it? I'd rather have a suicidal husband. There's some excitement
about that and the hope of ultimate release.'
'Not if people insist on being as resourceful as you were,' Mr.
Blenkinsop said incisively.
'No,' Hannah said penitently. 'And yet you sent me those books! But go
on, Mr. Blenkinsop. When you got home, worn out, in no state to deal
with a difficult situation--what happened?'
'I went to bed, of course.'
'Oh dear,' Hannah groaned. 'If I laugh out loud, Mrs. Spenser-Smith
will hear me and take you from me, and I can't spare you, but I'm
longing to laugh! It hurts!'
He turned his mild, spectacled gaze on her. 'What's the joke?'
'Oh, nothing, nothing! I was prepared to hear the story of another
rescue, and you merely went to bed!'
'I don't see anything funny in that.'
'Perhaps there isn't,' Hannah said amiably, and her lips twitched as
she imagined his methodical retirement for the night; she saw him
winding his watch, laying his clothes aside neatly, getting out a
clean collar for the next day and examining the buttons about which he
was so nervous, and Mr. Blenkinsop's voice, more intense, reached her
just as he was getting into bed.
'But there'll have to be a rescue, of another kind, sooner or later,'
he said, and Hannah told herself that he had come to the party to talk
to her about Mrs. Ridding.
'I'm afraid to offer to help,' she said, 'in case I do the wrong thing
again, but if I can, I will.'
'The ridiculous part of it,' he confided, 'is that I believe he'd be
just as happy without her.'
'Well, that's a comfort, isn't it?'
'I don't know. I think it makes it worse.'
'You're the best judge of that, Mr. Blenkinsop, but I should call it an
extenuating circumstance.'
'These people simply suck the strength out of their relations--like
vampires,' Mr. Blenkinsop said, becoming fanciful under emotion. 'I
believe he'd be better if he had a thorough change.'
'Of wives?' Hannah asked flippantly.
'I shouldn't care to offer anybody the position,' he said bitterly.
'I may be wanting a job myself, before long,' Hannah said. 'I
suppose you don't know any respectable old gentleman--but not too
respectable--with a competency--and not an annuity--who would suit me?'
'Don't be silly,' said Mr. Blenkinsop and, when he looked at her, he
missed the mocking curve of her lips.
'I'm proud to say I've never asked anyone for help yet,' she said, 'but
the day may come. Yes, the day may come,' she repeated, and now he saw
that she was smiling again, but not mockingly and not at him. 'Mrs.
Spenser-Smith has got her eye on you,' she said, 'but stay here for a
little longer if you can. It doesn't do to boast. You see, I'm asking
you for help already.'
'Just sitting here?'
'Just sitting here,' she said, and Mr. Blenkinsop settled himself in
his chair with an adhesive pressure.
He was observant, as far as he went, which was no further than the
person who held his interest at the moment. He had not the power to
watch another group of people at the same time, to see the development
of a situation or to feel slight differences in the atmosphere, which
was Hannah's by nature and by training, and he had no clue to her
strained look which quickly changed to one of quivering, half merry
determination. Mentally lost, Mr. Blenkinsop was firm in his seat.
He knew not why he had to stay there, but stay there he would and,
indifferent to everything but this duty, he endured the confusion of
voices and laughter, the danger to his patent leather toes from all
these young people pushing past him, carefully avoided the eye of
Mrs. Spenser-Smith, and calculated that Robert Corder--now talking to
another minister who had just arrived and who also wore a frock coat
and had a sleek black head--would ignore the presence of his deserter.
'Can't you talk about something?' Hannah asked sharply.
'Yes,' he said obediently. 'I was going to tell you that I'm looking
for a little house in the country.'
'Good gracious! Are you going to start farming too?'
'Not exactly, but I want a little house with a bit of land.'
'And do you expect me to tell you where to find it? Are you going to
live in it yourself?'
'Not exactly,' he repeated, and though he looked embarrassed, his
confidences continued. 'You see, the present state of things can't
last.'
'Which?' Hannah asked perversely.
Mr. Blenkinsop frowned again. 'With the Riddings. But we don't want to
talk about it till things are settled.'
'They're never settled,' Hannah warned him. 'Take my word for it. If
you want to be comfortable, don't do anything.'
'Not what I think is right?'
'That's the very worst thing you can do. What other people think right,
if you like, Mr. Blenkinsop, but not what you do. That's the advice I
give you out of my own experience.'
'Well, I've been doing nothing in particular for forty years and now
that I've started I'm going my own way, and it was you who laughed at
me for living behind the gilded bars, you know.'
'Oh, don't blame me!' she cried.
'But it's no good being off with the old love before you are on with
the new.'
'But aren't you on with it?'
'Getting towards it,' Mr. Blenkinsop said, smiling slyly. 'But first I
want to find the little house.'
'And if you do,' she said, speaking slowly because she was thinking
of two things at once and watching the owner of the sleek black head
making towards her deviously but surely, 'it will bother you for the
rest of your days--I know all about these little houses--for when it
comes to hard tacks, Mr. Blenkinsop, if you know what they are, for
I don't--but then, you've got what they call an independent income,
haven't you?'
'I shouldn't do it if I couldn't afford it,' he said, a little stiffly.
'And that,' she said, 'is just the difference between you and me,' and
Mr. Blenkinsop turned from her, who had spoken the last words on an
upward and then a descending breath, to the man at whom she was looking
with a little questioning lift of the brows.
This was the minister with the black head and Mr. Blenkinsop took a
great dislike to him. He was interrupting an important conversation,
and he was objectionable in himself and in his unctuous smile as he
addressed Miss Mole, saying he thought they had met before.
Miss Mole shook her head. 'I don't think so,' she said. 'I have a
very good memory for faces, but if I've seen yours before I've quite
forgotten it.'
'But you're Miss Mole, aren't you?'
'Yes, I'm Miss Mole.' Then she smiled with the vividness which always
startled Mr. Blenkinsop. 'I wonder if you're thinking of my cousin,'
she said. 'Another Mole.'
'Is her name Hannah?'
'No, Hilda. There's supposed to be a strong family likeness. Oh, don't
go, Mr. Blenkinsop!'
'But we're going to play Clumps,' said the voice of Mrs. Spenser-Smith,
'and I want Mr. Blenkinsop to be one of those to go outside. Mr. Corder
will be one, of course, and Mr. Pilgrim, perhaps you'll be another.'
She swept them both away and it was some time before Mr. Blenkinsop
could see more of Miss Mole, for they were in different clumps, than
a small, steady head among many other heads, like those of bathers,
bobbing above a sea of coloured dresses.