It was fortunate for Hannah that Robert Corder heard her story from Mr.
Pilgrim. From another, he might have listened to it receptively, but
from Mr. Pilgrim whom he disliked, who had spoilt Mrs. Spenser-Smith's
party for him, who had lured Ethel to his chapel and who was creating
trouble of the kind Robert Corder dreaded most and felt, in some
obscure way, to be indecent, he heard it with studied incredulity. He
was not the man to let Mr. Pilgrim think he could supply information
of any kind to the leading Nonconformist minister in Radstowe, and
he would have seen this approach as an insult to his household and
his own acumen if his vanity had not assured him that Mr. Pilgrim had
worldly, as well as sentimental, reasons for performing what he called
an unpleasant duty, though it was one which might be the means of
putting him on familiar terms with Ethel's father. Robert Corder was
not, and never had been, quite comfortable about Miss Mole and, while
he listened and showed Mr. Pilgrim a forbidding face, he remembered
all his suspicions and irritations, forgotten lately in his reliance
on her, but his chief impulse, at the moment, was to be as different
from Mr. Pilgrim as he could, and he read him a little lecture on
tolerance, generosity, tenderness towards women and the duty of
Christians to accept sinners who had repented, which was as good as
the best of his sermons. He did not commit himself to a belief in Miss
Mole's innocence: he was too wily for that, and he preferred to present
himself as a man who was ready to fit his practice to his theory, but
if Mr. Pilgrim had had a tail, it would have been between his legs when
he left the house, and that was why Ethel wept alone.
'Oh, what's the matter now?' Ruth exclaimed. 'It's always the same.
We can't have anything nice, in this family, without having something
nasty afterwards. Is it because Moley and I have been out together?'
'I don't care what you and Miss Mole do!' Ethel cried. 'I wished she'd
never come here!'
'Oh--you beast!' Ruth said with vicious slowness. 'If she wasn't here,
I wouldn't stay. No, I wouldn't. I'd ask Uncle Jim to let me live with
him, and I know he would. But you'll stay, won't you, Moley? Don't
listen to her. She doesn't mean it. She'll be sorry, soon, but she
hasn't any self-control.'
'Be quiet!' Hannah said sharply. 'Why, in the name of goodness, can't
you be kinder to each other? I tell you this--and I hope you'll
remember it--I believe unkindness is the worst sin of all. Yes,' she
said, looking at Ethel, 'the very worst.'
'I'm not unkind to Ruth,' Ethel said sullenly.
'But you were to Moley, so I was to you. What's she done to you,
anyhow?'
'That's not for a child like you to know,' Ethel said.
'Then I don't believe you know yourself.'
'Well, I know more--' Fearful, Ethel caught her lip on what she was
going to say, but daring, and careless, in her wretchedness, of
consequences, she let it go, and said in a strained, weak voice, 'I
know more than Mr. Blenkinsop does,' and she looked at Hannah from
between shoulders raised as if to ward off a blow.
It was the table Hannah struck with a single smart rap, calling
attention, if it had been necessary, to her white face and sombre
eyes, and Ruth's murmured, questioning repetition of Mr. Blenkinsop's
name sounded, in all their ears, like the last effrontery. There had
been dark rings round Hannah's eyes for days and now they showed, like
bruises, on her pallor, and Ruth and Ethel, looking at what seemed to
them the very symbol of fury and, waiting for fierce, denunciatory
tones, heard her say quietly, in a movingly sweet and weary voice, 'You
have no manners, either of you. What's to become of you? You can't go
through life biting and scratching like this.' The sadness went out of
her voice and, in the one they were used to she said, 'I don't flatter
myself that mine are good, but they ought to be, for when I was at
school in--when I was at school--I used to look at a motto on the wall
and I thought it was rather silly, but I've never forgotten it. And
that just shows that when you're at school, or anywhere else, for that
matter, there are people who know better than you do. And, in this
room, I'm the one who knows, and I'm going to tell you, as the motto
told me, that manners are not idle, but the fruit of a loyal nature and
a noble mind. Yes,' she said emphatically, 'a loyal nature and a noble
mind. As for you two, you remind me of nothing so much as a pair of
monkeys in a cage.'
'Oh, Moley, that's not manners!' Ruth expostulated, half laughing in
her relief at escape from something much worse than this, but she
obeyed Hannah's significant look at the door, while Ethel moaned
piteously, in excuse, 'I'm so unhappy.'
Hannah checked a movement of impatience. She knew the unhappiness of
a girl could be as poignant as that of a woman, perhaps more poignant,
but the doors were still open for the girl and she had time to wander
and find what she wanted, while, for the woman, the doors were shut
and barred and she had to find, not what she wanted, but what she
could get, inside. 'What's the matter?' she asked gently, and Ethel
cried, 'Oh, Miss Mole, Mr. Pilgrim's been, and Father was furious with
him--about you!'
'How do you know it was about me?'
'Because I--I saw Mr. Pilgrim afterwards, and he told me.'
'Well, it's very obliging of you to pass on the news,' Hannah said, and
she went out of the room to the sound of Ethel's protestations that her
father's anger was not going to affect her actions.
In the hall, Hannah rubbed her cheeks vigorously and blinked her eyes
to rid them of their stiff, glaring feeling. Her indignant, sore anger,
too bitter for relief in words, had changed into a lively, almost
gay, one, and she knocked at the study door and showed Mr. Corder a
face which, he immediately decided, was not the right one for his
housekeeper.
He was in a noble state of scorn for Mr. Pilgrim, but he was ready to
see suspicious symptoms in Miss Mole and the consciousness that he knew
something to her possible detriment and meant to keep that knowledge
from her, gave him a sense of power which was expressed in the cold
blandness of his manner. 'Can I do anything for you?' he asked. She did
not look like a guilty person but the guilty were often shameless.
'Yes, please,' Hannah said. 'I want to know what Mr. Pilgrim has been
telling you.'
This vexed Mr. Corder. He always shrank from a direct attack and his
feeling of power was sensibly diminished. 'It was a confidential
interview, Miss Mole.'
'Of which Ethel knows some of the details.'
'I am not responsible for that.' He did not want to repeat Mr.
Pilgrim's remarks. He had a fear that this woman, who was like no other
he had met, would corroborate them, and force him to some action about
which he could consult no committee, and he took refuge on that height
from which he had addressed Mr. Pilgrim.
'I think I can guarantee that he will say no more. I consider his
behaviour unmanly, Miss Mole, and even if I did not doubt the truth of
his statements, I should ignore them. We have all sinned, in some way,
at some time--'
'Oh, not all of us,' Hannah interpolated, and she tried to look at him
admiringly.
'In greater or lesser degree,' he said, 'and I, for one, am willing to
let bygones be bygones. I judge you as I know you, Miss Mole. I ask you
no questions. I wish to hear nothing from you.'
If he had wanted Hannah to tell him everything, this was the way to
do it. His condescension was almost more than she could bear. Every
feeling of antipathy she had had for him returned in force. She
wondered what influence her little property was having on his leniency
and his wish to hear nothing from her was the strongest of motives for
disobliging him. It would be worth a good deal to see him floundering
in the embarrassment of her confession, and she was in a mental
condition which craved the satisfaction of desperate measures. She
believed that most of her soreness would be healed if she could tell
him what she had done, and assure him that she did not care a damn.
Yes, if she could use that word it would do her all the good in the
world. But after that--what? She had nowhere to go, she had very little
money, and even Mrs. Gibson's house was now closed to her. She could
not go there and, wherever she went, she must leave Ruth behind.
The tightness of her body slackened, her hands came together in front
of her. 'You are very generous,' she said, and some of her pleasure in
offering that tribute was lost in her fear that it might be true, but
her fear was not great: his generosity would cease when other people
became aware of it. 'One has one's family pride, and after all, there
wouldn't be much sense in punishing me because of poor cousin Hilda.
I've always been friends with her and I always shall be. I haven't
Mr. Pilgrim's fear of contamination and I have none of his reforming
spirit. And I'm very fond of her. There must be some reason why the
naughty people are so much nicer than the others, and Hilda is one of
the naughty, nice ones. But then, perhaps I'm prejudiced,' she added
with a smile.
'I'm afraid I don't know what you are talking about,' Robert Corder
said with his quick frown.
Hannah's eyebrows went as high as they could. 'You don't know what I'm
talking about? Then what on earth has Mr. Pilgrim been saying to you?
Tell me, please, Mr. Corder. I must know.'
Mr. Corder reddened above his beard. 'He was talking about you,' he
said reluctantly.
'About me? About me? Oh, I see,' she said slowly. 'Yes, we're very much
alike. Poor Mr. Pilgrim! How disappointing for him!'
'Why should it be disappointing for him?' Robert Corder asked with an
acuteness she had not been prepared to meet.
'He's that kind of man, isn't he? And you are even more generous than I
thought.'
'Too generous, I am afraid,' he said, for he was not sure that he was
wise in associating himself with what proved to be Miss Mole's own
views, and he could not forbear expressing his doubts and his general
uneasiness by adding, 'It must be a remarkable likeness.'
'It is,' Hannah said, and with that she turned to go, and again, a bad
sign, he called her back.
'Just to clear things up, Miss Mole--'
'But I thought you didn't want to!'
He frowned again. He was not used to having his words brought up
against him. 'For your own sake,' he said, and her enigmatic smile was
a goad, quickening his temper. 'Your cousin seems to have been living
in her own little house in a part of the country known to Mr. Pilgrim.
It's an odd coincidence that you should both have a little house in the
country.'
'Not at all. She was in mine.' All Hannah's desire to enlighten Mr.
Corder had gone. This was better sport, and the rules of the game
demanded that she should take risks, but save her life. She had an
exquisite enjoyment in watching for the feints of her adversary, and
into her mind, stored with detached, incomplete pieces of information,
there darted all the fencing terms she had ever heard, those bright,
gleaming words with the ring of steel and the quick stamping of feet
in them. She had the advantage of him. She knew what she was going to
do, and she knew that he had no plan of action and she felt that she
had him on her point, but, behind the temporary excitement, there was
waiting for her the moment when she would have to tell herself that,
for all its outward gallantry, this was a sorry, sordid business.
Robert Corder brought it to an end with an unconvinced inclination of
the head. 'Thank you, Miss Mole. I don't think you will have any more
trouble with Mr. Pilgrim,' he said, and Hannah became aware of Mrs.
Corder's candid gaze. Whether she approved of these prevarications,
Hannah could not be sure. In saving the younger of her daughters,
Hannah was embarrassing the other, but would Mrs. Corder look
favourably on Mr. Pilgrim as a husband for Ethel, and had Mr. Pilgrim
any intention of asking for the privilege of the post? There was no
knowing with Ethel. A kind word was enough to set her heart beating
faster; she had probably built high hopes on the unsteady foundation
of such compliments as would trickle easily from his lips, and Hannah
found comfort in the thought that, if they really cared for each other,
Robert Corder's antagonism would not separate them for ever.
That night, when she sat on Ruth's bed and they discoursed on their
favourite topic, which was where they would go when they had money and
could travel, Hannah felt that, on the whole, she had done well. It was
possible to be too careful about one's own soul and, in trying to help
two people, she might help neither. Moreover, Ruth's queer, selfish
affection was dear to her: it was worth lying for, and though there was
the chance that some day, and perhaps soon, Ruth would hear about those
lies, the chance had to be taken; and the saying of an old woman she
had known in childhood came back to her, telling her that, in times of
trouble, wisdom lay in living for one day at a time, but even that one
day was more than Hannah felt she could endure.