Wilfrid was to return that evening and, as Hannah walked home slowly,
she was glad to think she would see him soon. He, if anyone could,
would restore her liking for herself. Her little outing had been a
failure. She had not bought a hat; she had told Lilla what amounted
to a lie about Mr. Pilgrim, and, until to-day, Hannah's excursions
into fiction had always stopped at the injury of anyone else. Her
offence was the greater because she did not in the least mind injuring
Mr. Pilgrim: it was at her own peculiar kind of integrity she had
aimed a blow, and it would not be the last one. It was a choice
between her integrity and her treasure, and she had not been tender
with her treasure for ten years to have it breathed upon by Mr.
Pilgrim's outraged sanctimony and revengeful spite. She was tired and
disheartened as she walked through the streets and she was careless,
for once, of the life about her. She forgot to remind herself that hers
was only a small part in a big drama and that all these men and women,
going home from work or coming from the opposite direction in search
of pleasure, felt the same overwhelming importance of their lives as
she felt of hers: she forgot her little sermon to Robert Corder about
infinity, the sun, the moon and the stars: she allowed her own affairs
to cast a dun cloud over the whole world, and the tram-cars, like noisy
magic lantern slides, the shadows of trees on the pavements, the sound
of her own footsteps which she had often heard as a sound of advance
and adventure, had lost their significance and beauty. In her heart
there was the unacknowledged belief that with her lies and evasions she
was paying too big a price for what she was concealing; she would have
had to pay no more for the memory of something perfect, something she
would not have wanted to conceal, and, without actually making that
confession, her mind went on to imagine what a real love might have
been. But such loves do not come in the way of the Miss Moles of this
world, and now she was nearly forty. And thinking thus, she allowed the
threatening wave of her loneliness, avoided for so long, to sweep over
her, and she stood still in the street, helpless while it engulfed her.
It fell back, leaving her battered, but on her feet, and longing for
a hand to help her upward before she could be swamped again, but she
longed in vain and it was a weary woman who walked up Beresford Road
and found no comfort in the ruby glow of Mr. Samson's window curtains.
She assumed her usual look of competence as soon as she entered the
house. Employers do not expect their servants to have visible emotions,
and professional pride straightened her back when she went into the
dining-room. Yet at the sight of Wilfrid, sitting by the fire and
listening to what his cousins had to tell him, and leaping to his
feet at her appearance, she felt as she had felt when she opened his
Christmas parcel, tearfully grateful for a liking which was for herself
and not for what she could do for him, and she put her hand on his
shoulder and kissed his cheek, without a thought, as naturally as
though he were her son.
'Miss Mole!' Ethel exclaimed. And in her voice, the rolling of her
eyes, the gleam of her teeth and the checked spring of her body, Hannah
recognised the colt she had been trying to tame, now scared, shocked
and jealous.
'Yes?' Hannah said pleasantly, but she looked at Ruth who was smiling
stiffly, and Wilfrid, laughing, seized Hannah's hand and said
dramatically, 'we have betrayed ourselves, Mona Lisa, but no gentleman
will compromise a lady and refuse to make honourable amends. You must
marry me!'
'Wilfrid! She can't!' Ethel cried. 'She's old enough to be your mother!'
'Oh, not quite,' Hannah begged. She took off her hat and threw it down.
'Don't be so silly, all of you. Are kisses so scarce among you that you
take fright when you see one? I'm sorry, Wilfrid. Absence of mind!'
'Don't spoil it. I'm grateful. Ruth didn't kiss me, Ethel didn't--'
'I shouldn't think of doing such a thing! I didn't even kiss my own
brother.'
'Perhaps that's why he's gone to South Africa,' Wilfrid said.
'Oh, you know it isn't!' Ethel said helplessly, and Ruth gave a hard
little laugh.
'Dear me, dear me, dear me!' Hannah said. 'What a fuss! The only thing
I can suggest is that we should kiss all round and cry quits.'
'It isn't that. You know it isn't, but I think kisses ought to be
sacred, and I don't see why you should take such a liberty with
Wilfrid.'
'Then I'll tell you why,' Hannah said, her body as tense, her eyes as
green and keen, as a watchful cat's, and a stillness fell on the little
company in the presence of this new and formidable Miss Mole. She
held them like that for a few seconds and then, satisfied with this
small triumph, she dispersed the thoughts that had been crowding into
speech and smiled benevolently at all three, remembering that they were
children. 'Because he's a dear boy,' she said, 'and I like him.'
'Because he's a man!' Ethel said with stubborn courage, and Hannah
looked him up and down teasingly and said: 'Yes, he'll be a man, some
day.'
No one answered her smile, and she felt that there was an influence in
the room of which she knew nothing, and she believed it was stealthy
and malign. She glanced at Wilfrid and saw that he, too, was puzzled,
seeking, behind that thoughtless kiss, some explanation of the
atmosphere which Ruth and Ethel created between them, Ethel struggling
between caution and the blundering candour natural to her; Ruth sitting
on her feet, her back pressed against the back of her chair, perched
there like a hard young judge, weighing unspoken evidence against some
person unnamed.
'I think,' Ethel said at last, 'I ought to tell Father,' and even now
she looked at Hannah for advice, and though she did not ask for it
in words, her expression had a familiar appeal and a pathos in its
offended bewilderment.
'Don't be a fool,' Wilfrid said. 'The poor man's got enough worry as it
is. A son who runs away--! He doesn't want to hear about a nephew who
has kissed Miss Mole.'
'It was Miss Mole who kissed you.'
'Yes, but I kissed back, and jolly quick! Didn't you notice?' His
speech fell into its provoking drawl. 'I call this exceedingly vulgar.
Don't you, Mona Lisa?'
'No,' she said, 'nothing seems vulgar to me, not really. There's
something wrong with me, I suppose. It's funny,' she went on, and
she leaned forward eagerly, though she looked at nobody, 'it's funny
that it's so easy to be positive about good things and so difficult
about what are called bad ones. And d'you know why I think it is? It's
because the good things exist and the bad ones don't.'
'Oh, but Miss Mole--' Ethel could not resist a discussion in which she
had a sort of professional interest, though her antagonist was Miss
Mole, 'we know there are bad things like--like deceit.'
'Yes, yes, it has a bad name, but get to know the person, the cause and
the circumstances and it may deserve a good one.'
'Then you think I oughtn't to tell Father?'
'I'm hardly the person to advise you, and this is rather like a
nightmare, but I'll try. Do you mean about the kiss?'
'Not only the kiss,' Ethel muttered, biting her tortured lips.
Ruth's voice came clearly. 'If you do, you'll have to tell him that Mr.
Pilgrim came to tea.'
'Oh, has Mr. Pilgrim been? Did he recite?' Hannah asked, and there was
no one in the world who knew her well enough to detect the anxiety
under her careless tones.
Ethel turned to Ruth. 'Why shouldn't I tell him?'
'Because Father doesn't like him.'
'Father doesn't know him.'
'That won't make any difference,' Ruth said. 'Moley, you told me about
your cousin Hilda, didn't you?'
'I didn't tell you much.'
'Ah, but you're going to. So there, Ethel! But of course you wouldn't
believe me.'
'I don't know who to believe,' Ethel said, blinking away her tears.
'What on earth are you all talking about?' Wilfrid asked.
'And if there's nothing bad, what's the use of trying to be good?'
Ethel asked.
'It isn't being good to be a sneak.'
'But how can you help being a sneak if you try to tell the truth?'
'You can hold your tongue.'
'But I'm worried!' Ethel cried. 'And what does a little girl like you
know about it?'
'More than you do, anyhow!'
'Don't quarrel, don't quarrel,' Hannah begged. 'This is the queerest
conversation I've ever heard. Why doesn't anyone else want to laugh?'
'Because we like listening to you,' Wilfrid said, 'and whatever your
sins may be, you'll go to Heaven. They'll give you all the indulgences
you need because they'll want you in the choir.'
'But I can't sing a note.'
'Then the choir will go on strike and say they'd rather hear you
talking in your lovely voice.'
'Have I got a lovely voice?' Hannah asked.
'Has she?' said Ethel, and Ruth exclaimed: 'Oh, Wilfrid, how sickening
of you! I thought nobody knew it except me,' and that remark,
flattering though it was, seemed to Hannah indicative of the fiercely
individual attitude of the Corders towards anything they considered
good. They could see trouble in its effect on the family, as they
had shown in the case of Howard's departure, which neither Ethel nor
Ruth had mentioned as a personal loss, but they would not share their
pleasures.
She had another proof of this in the information Ruth gave her, later,
about Mr. Pilgrim's visit. She had been allowed to have tea with him
and Ethel, but, afterwards, Ethel had got rid of her, and Hannah easily
imagined her clumsy efforts at tact. 'And she needn't have bothered,'
Ruth said. 'I didn't want to stay. I think he's a horrid man. He smiles
too much and his teeth don't fit. They click, too. And Ethel was so
grinny and giggly, till Mr. Pilgrim began talking about you and saying
he was sorry to miss you,' and here Ruth paused and looked at Hannah
who could not find it in her conscience to ask questions of this child
and waited for her next words. 'And, of course,' she said reflectively,
'you did look specially nice at the party, almost pretty, Moley, when
you were talking to Mr. Blenkinsop.'
'What next?' Hannah asked disdainfully. 'And I don't see much use in a
face that's only almost pretty.'
'But it's so exciting. You don't know what's going to happen to it.'
'Well,' said Hannah, 'I never thought I should die conceited about my
looks and, if they've pleased Mr. Pilgrim, I shall also die contented.'
'I don't know about pleasing him. At first I thought it was that and so
did Ethel, and she stopped giggling, but afterwards, when he'd gone, I
found out that he'd been more interested in your cousin. I was rather
in a muddle about it all, and I told Ethel you had a cousin Hilda when
she asked me, and then I rather wished I hadn't, in case there might be
something about her you wouldn't want people to know. I suppose I ought
to have stayed with them all the time.'
'Ought?' Hannah said quickly.
'Yes, and then I should have known why Ethel was so funny when you
came in. It wasn't only kissing Wilfrid, Moley. I didn't like that
myself.'
'You're rather a goose, aren't you? And look here, I don't employ
private detectives, and my cousin Hilda is quite a match for Mr.
Pilgrim, so please mind your own business in future.'
'It is my business,' Ruth said stubbornly. 'If people talk about you
and your relations, I shall tell you what they say. Besides, I'm
interested. What does Ethel want to tell Father? But you'll find out.
She won't want to tell you, but she can't help it. And why did she
begin altering her new hat?'
'She's always altering things. It's the reforming spirit. And I'm going
to alter mine, the newest I've got, and that's three years old. I shall
be out all day on Sunday.'
'How perfectly beastly! But you're not going into the country, are you?'
'Yes I am. I can't take you. I'm sorry. Some day we'll go together.'
'It's always some day with you,' Ruth complained.
'Yes,' Hannah said, 'it always has been and I suppose it always will
be.'
'You're not unhappy, are you?'
'I should be happier if I could take you with me. In another month or
two, perhaps we'll go across the river and find primroses and violets.'
'In the Easter holidays?'
'If we can,' Hannah said, wondering where she would be by that time.
'We can if you really want to.'
'Want to!' Hannah cried. 'I'd like to spend the rest of my life doing
nothing else.'
'You'd soon get tired of that,' Ruth said wisely.