XXXIX
Ruth had had one lovely day, marred, it is true, by Ethel’s outburst, but mended, afterwards, by the talk of those voyages she was to make with Hannah, and on the next day, Wilfrid had a surprise for her. Hannah was informed of it in a paraphrase designed to protect her in case of trouble and, at the midday meal, Wilfrid mentioned, in an offhanded manner, that he and Ruth were having a little excursion that afternoon. In answer to questions, he was prepared to say that they meant to examine some of Radstowe’s public buildings, but, in the absence of Howard, Robert Corder made a practice of ignoring Wilfrid’s remarks when he could not find fault with them, and he said nothing, and Ethel’s concern with her own affairs deadened her to those of others.
The changeable nature of Robert Corder’s views made these precautions necessary. He had never been in a theatre in his life. He had been trained to a distrust of everything connected with the stage and though his mind had broadened with the times and the opinions of eminent fellow-ministers, he had remained aloof. Thus he was spared the awkwardness of deciding what plays were fit for him to see and the danger of making unfortunate mistakes. Ethel also remained aloof, for the sake of her girls who might be misled in those questionable haunts, and pastoral plays in the Zoological Gardens were all she and Ruth had seen. The Spenser-Smiths always went to the Radstowe pantomime, and if Ruth had been invited to accompany them, no doubt her father would have let her go, but it was a different matter when Wilfrid carried his young cousin off, and she had all the excitement of this longed for experience, yoked to the difficulty of wearing her velveteen frock, in honour of Wilfrid and the dress circle, and getting out of the house before Ethel could see the significant finery under her concealing coat.
This was safely accomplished while Ethel was noisily closeted in her bedroom, and Hannah hoped she was dressing for some pleasure of her own. She felt incapable of dealing with more of those mad interviews in which the accused was consulted about the prosecution. Her mind was dull with a weariness demanding solitude and, when Ethel had looked in to say she would be out to tea, Hannah told Doris she had a headache and was not to be disturbed, and she went upstairs slowly, feeling old and strangely deserted, now that she had her wish of being alone.
She had not long for the indulgence of this rare self-pity. She fell into that daytime sleep which, for the exhausted, can be profounder than any that comes at night, and she sank into it as though she floated on subsiding water, without consciousness of the drop, and, accompanying the descent, there was the promise of an oblivion which came upon her before she had had her fill of waiting for it.
Out of this timelessness, this absolute ease from care, she woke with a thumping heart, and with an effort, like a physical wrench, to remember where she was. Darkness had filled her bedroom, the noise she had heard, on the point of waking, as that of horses thundering up the stairs, resolved itself into heavy, hurried footsteps, and her door was flung open to the sound of Ethel’s voice calling for Miss Mole. A fire in the house, or in the theatre, Ruth run over, an accident to Mr. Corder or Mr. Pilgrim, were possibilities rushing to Hannah’s mind as she put her feet to the floor and felt Ethel’s presence in the room, and before she could light the gas, she heard Ethel saying in breathless catastrophic tones, “I’ve been to see Mrs. Spenser-Smith!”
The matchbox slipped from Hannah’s fingers and while she fumbled for it, her legs aching sharply with her fright, she muttered angrily, “I thought someone was dead, at least.”
“It’s worse!” Ethel cried shrilly.
Hannah lit the gas and, looking at Ethel, she thought she saw what Mr. Blenkinsop had seen ten days ago, for strong emotions have faces of their own, and those which had command of Ethel had blotted out the individuality of her features and she might as easily have been taken for Hannah Mole or any other woman in distress, as for Ethel Corder, the competent leader of the Girls’ Club. It was no wonder Mr. Blenkinsop had prowled up and down the street, when he had the memory of such a face; it was no wonder he had not risked further communication with a woman who could look like that, but Hannah had responsibilities towards Ethel which were not Mr. Blenkinsop’s towards her, and whereas she had been incapable of speech, Ethel’s was torrential under the encouragement she received.
She had been to see Mrs. Spenser-Smith in search of comfort and advice. Who else was there she could go to? She had no mother, her father was angry and Miss Mole, to whom she told this story, was the cause of half the trouble, but Mrs. Spenser-Smith who ought to have been consoling and maternal had shattered what happiness Ethel had.
“She was cruel to me, Miss Mole,” Ethel said, with tears streaming down her face. “So cold and haughty. She said Father was quite right; she didn’t like Mr. Pilgrim herself. She said—But it can’t be true! If it’s true, I shall die!”
“No, you won’t die,” Hannah said soothingly.
“But I shall want to!”
“I’m afraid that won’t make any practical difference. Men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love.”
“Oh, Miss Mole, what do you know about it?” Ethel cried. “And it wouldn’t be dying of love. It would be dying of—of shame! For having loved him.”
“You won’t even die of that,” Hannah said, very low.
“It isn’t that I care what he’s done. I could forgive anything—only not lies, not lies! I couldn’t love anyone who told me lies.”
“Then you’ll have a remarkably narrow choice,” Hannah said drily. “But, it seems to me, the important question is whether he loves you.”
“But of course he does!” The flow of Ethel’s tears stopped and went on again.
“Has he said so? In so many words? Was it what they used to call a declaration? Unmistakably?”
“Yes,” Ethel said, dropping her head. “He told me yesterday—but I knew before that.”
“Then why in the world were you crying last night when Ruth and I came in? You ought to have been jumping for joy, girl!”
“But Father came and said awful things about him, and Mrs. Spenser-Smith says he isn’t a good man. She says he’s telling tales about you because he’s afraid you’ll tell them about him. She says you know something against him. You don’t, do you, Miss Mole? You said you’d never seen him till the Spenser-Smiths’ party—he told me so, but who am I to believe?”
Hannah sat on her bed, looking at her folded hands and for a few minutes she was more occupied with thoughts of Lilla than of Ethel or herself. “So you told Mrs. Spenser-Smith what you had heard about me, did you?”
“Yes. I didn’t mean to, but it came out.”
“It would!” Hannah said, and she smiled as she pictured Lilla’s horror, her immediate belief in her cousin’s guilt, and her equal quickness in protecting her own reputation by using the hint Hannah had dropped about Mr. Pilgrim’s little secrets.
“And oh, Miss Mole, don’t tell me lies to comfort me,” Ethel begged.
Hannah had already made her decision, but these courageous words ennobled the task she had set herself and though she doubted Mr. Pilgrim’s worthiness of the girl who had uttered them, she would not allow the doubt to influence her. “You can go on loving him,” she said. “He hasn’t told you any lies, not about me, anyhow, and I don’t suppose he has ever committed what he would call a sin. That’s what’s the matter with him. You see, he’s got a grudge against me. I shut my door in his face once, and I’d do it again, and, worse still, I believe I laughed at him. He can’t forgive that, and then, if he loves you, he has an interest in looking after you and trying to get rid of me. He wouldn’t like me to do you harm. I don’t blame him. I don’t blame anybody. What’s the use?”
“Then wasn’t there a cousin Hilda?” Ethel asked timidly, making sure of Mr. Pilgrim’s perfections before she gave way to her joy.
“Not in the flesh,” Hannah said, “but in every other way, there was, and now she has vanished and her works follow her. The evil that men do—” Her words slipped into silence and after a moment she added, very softly, to herself, “But it was not evil.”
She was not looking at Ethel, but she could feel her fascinated stare at this new species, at a woman who seemed good, who had never failed to give help when it was wanted, and yet confessed to wickedness, without apology or excuse.
“I shall have to tell Father,” Ethel said with difficulty.
Hannah raised her head sharply. “I don’t see the necessity,” she said, and she thought of Ruth, laughing at the pantomime and proud of Wilfrid’s company.
“But don’t you see, I must. It’s only fair to Mr. Pilgrim, and to me. Mrs. Spenser-Smith will be saying things about him. Why, it might ruin him!”
“Then tell him,” Hannah said wearily.
“I’m sorry, Miss Mole, I really am. It seems mean, I know, and I’ve always liked you, but you see, don’t you?”
What Hannah saw most clearly was her own shabby, homeless figure, and it amazed her that Ethel did not see it too, but she said, “Yes, yes, I see it all. Don’t tell him until Ruth’s in bed. And don’t tell her at all. I’ll send her to bed early, and I’ll go out. It would be uncomfortable for you, wouldn’t it, to know I was in the next room? Wouldn’t it?” she persisted.
“Oh, yes, Miss Mole, it would. You think of everything, and I’ll do my best. I’ll ask Father to forgive you and, you’ve been so good to us, I’m sure he will.”
“Well, leave me now,” Hannah said.
She counted her money. She would not stay to be blessed by Mr. Corder’s forgiveness. She would go tomorrow. She had no intention of going without giving Robert Corder an opportunity to repeat his generosity and herself the unlikely pleasure of refusing it. She had made her choice. She had sacrificed Ruth to Ethel’s chance of happiness, but she could not sacrifice all her dignity to Ruth, who had her Uncle Jim to care for her, and to Uncle Jim, Hannah wrote, before she went downstairs, and, turning to look at the little ship which had been her companion for so long, she decided that Ruth should have it in exchange for Hannah Mole.
Years seemed to pass over her head while she waited for Ruth and Wilfrid to come in, and while she listened to all they had to tell her. The evening meal, strained by Robert Corder’s general disgust with uncalled for circumstances, Ethel’s nervous excitement and Ruth’s carefulness to let fall no revealing word, seemed everlasting, and then there was the night-light to be lit for the last time, and there were more of Ruth’s confidences to hear, before Hannah could leave the house, bareheaded and wearing her old ulster.
She hesitated at Mr. Samson’s gate, but she did not open it. She was afraid she would cry if anyone spoke kindly to her, and more afraid that the signs of this weakness were on her face. And why was she so miserable? She had foreseen all this and been prepared to meet it without a murmur. Was it because she was leaving Ruth, because her secret was being discussed in the study, or because she had no money and no home? It was because of all of these, but they were only part of her distress, for she could no longer trust that spring of hope which, hitherto, had always flowed for her, sometimes feebly, more often with iridescent bubbles which might break as she put her lips to them and change their shape, but kept a quality that refreshed her. The spring had run dry and, as though she went in search of another, she hurried up the street in a drizzling rain and followed the route she and Mr. Blenkinsop had taken when they had walked together at night and found nothing to say to one another. It was strange to remember that she would have been as happy, then, without him, and now, with each step she took, her desire to speak to him increased, not to tell him anything, just to speak to him, before she went away.
She went round the hill with no regard for the cliffs and the dark river and the sparkling docks she loved so well. She knew they were there and, in a way, they comforted her, but she did not look at them. She hurried down the sloping ground, across The Green and across Albert Square, and she did not slacken her pace until she reached Mrs. Gibson’s door. The door was open, and Mr. Blenkinsop, in his coat and hat, was turning to shut it for the night.