XXXII
In the few days that passed between Uncle Jim’s departure and Wilfrid’s return, there was an atmosphere of unnatural sweetness in the Corders’ house. Ethel’s gratitude to her father, for refraining from making her suffer for Howard’s fault, transformed her into the sunny daughter of an indulgent parent, but Ruth, with the cynicism which both pleased and saddened Hannah, treasured these good moments because she did not believe they would last. Robert Corder, however, had adopted an attitude and he kept it, and Hannah, who found it impossible to attribute a good motive to him if she could find a bad one, saw this consistency as a result of his instinct of self-protection which warned him that if he was to play a part well he must play it all the time. Before many days were over, he had merged himself into his role and she wondered whether there had been any real suffering at Howard’s treatment of him and any response to its implications. His was a curious character and, for all his human weaknesses, she could not believe he was quite real. She would tell herself that he was a marvellous puppet, so much like a man that he could deceive most people, and then, when he came into the house, she had to admit her consciousness of his personality. Ethel was in a flutter to please him, Ruth was vigilantly critical, Hannah herself paid him the tribute of an irritated delight in watching him, in divining the meaning of his looks and foretelling his remarks, and these were the reactions to no puppet. He could absorb the suggestions that suited him as easily as water takes a colour, yet he must have had some suggestive power over other people or they would not have sought him out and gone away comforted. This was a puzzle which it would take a lifetime to solve and Hannah was afraid her sands were running out—for Ethel’s good temper was not all due to her father’s leniency—and as she saw the silent slipping of the moments, she was alternately enraged and amused that, with a few words, Mr. Pilgrim could change the family friend into a person to be shunned, though her management, her economy, her cooking, her counsel, all that made her useful to these people, would remain unchanged. But there was her cousin Hilda and her own word against Mr. Pilgrim’s; it became a matter of pride with her to frustrate him, and there was a strained alertness about her which no one but Mr. Samson noticed. It would have been comforting to tell him everything; he would have listened with a salutary lack of surprise, but, sane as he was, she could not unwrap her little secret to his gaze. He was, in fact, too sane to understand that what he saw in terms of natural, harmless appetite had had a spiritual value for her which she still struggled to keep.
She admitted to being tired and Mr. Samson growled his anxiety about her; he had told that Bible-smiter she was worth taking care of and would have told him a good deal more, but for Miss Fitt and the peaky little girl. He did not want to make trouble that would fall on the family. And what had Corder wanted, poking his nose in and waking Mr. Samson out of his afternoon nap? If he had not thought it was the man with the cat’s meat he would not have gone to the door, and there he was, smirking on the step and trying to look like a herald angel.
“But I let him know it’s you that’s the angel, just as his wife was before you. I’m a lucky old devil, finding two of you at the end of my days, and you wouldn’t think I’d fancy your kind, to look at me, now would you? Well, I’ve fancied all sorts, to tell the truth, but it’s the lively ones I like. A quick tongue’s more use to me than a pretty face. Now, you take care of yourself. And what about a bottle of port to drink on the quiet?”
“No, no, it’s a teetotal household.” Her laughter rang out. “But Mr. Corder had to eat some brandy with his Christmas pudding! I don’t want any port. I’m going to have a day’s holiday and spend it in the country.”
“And that’s a funny idea of a holiday,” Mr. Samson said.
It was certainly a euphemistic description of the expedition she had planned and for which, knowing that Ruth would beg to go with her, she had not settled on the day. It would have been better to wait until the beginning of the school term, but that was a long way off and she would have to refuse Ruth a pleasure which, for her, would be something like a day in Radstowe had been for Hannah, and Hannah herself, full of shrinking though she was, had a great longing to see her own country, to sit in the train and watch the city and its suburbs giving way to fields and woods, flat meadows cut by dykes and villages dominated by their stately perpendicular churches, just as she had watched all these giving way to the promise of Radstowe, that fairy place of streets and towers, bridges, water and ships. She would get her business done as soon as possible, and then she would cross the fields to the old farm. She did not know who owned it now, but if they had any likeness to her own wary but kindly people, they would let her have a peep into the kitchen, where she ought to have been living with the red-cheeked children; they would let her stroll round the farm buildings and have a look at the cows and, as she sat in the Beresford Road dining-room, darning the everlasting socks and stockings, she fancied she could smell the sweet breath of the cows, and the sweetness of wallflowers, old man and pinks, in the little garden where the bear had lurked. There would be no flowers blooming now, unless there was a chance primrose on a sheltered bank, but the cows would be there, and she looked at Ruth, sitting on her feet in the old saddlebag armchair, and reading with absorption, and thought it would be cruel to go without the child. Was this an excuse for procrastination? she asked herself, as there came a loud knock on the front door which made Ruth look up and say: “Postman, Moley. It may be the fortune.”
“What fortune?” Ethel asked. She was trying to alter one of her many unsatisfactory dresses, but she was inept, and presently she would ask Miss Mole to gather her scattered pieces into some semblance of a whole.
“If it’s the fortune,” Hannah said, going towards the door, “I’ll give you each—well, it depends, but I’ll give you each something.”
“And she would, you know,” Ruth said, looking gravely at Ethel.
The knock had drawn Robert Corder from his study and he found Miss Mole, in the hall, holding a letter. “The postman?” he asked.
“No. This came by hand, as they say, as though a postman hadn’t got one.”
“For me?”
“No, for me,” she said and she opened and read it while he stood there.
“Not bad news, I hope,” he said.
“Not at all,” she replied, smiling at him as she tucked the letter into the bosom of her dress, and returned to the dining-room.
The smile was still on her lips, though she did not know it until Ruth cried: “And I do believe it really is the fortune!”
“Good gracious! Do I look as pleased as all that?”
“Not now. Now you’re frowning a little. Isn’t it something nice?”
“That depends on one’s point of view,” Hannah said, and Ruth resumed her reading. There were times when she knew it was of no use to ask Miss Mole any questions.
Hannah wondered, and was half annoyed at her satisfaction, but a day in the country with Mr. Blenkinsop would be a day of inward and outward laughter: she could not look at him without a bubbling feeling of pleasure, even his handwriting made her smile and, if she gave him the day he asked for, she must postpone her own expedition. This, in itself, was a relief, and to be looked after as she knew Mr. Blenkinsop would look after her, to have her ticket taken for her, to be asked if she were tired, was an alluring prospect to Hannah, who had spent so much of her time in looking after other people. But Mr. Blenkinsop took a good deal for granted: he assumed, and no doubt she had given him cause, that her interest in Mrs. Ridding was considerable, but to take her into the country to inspect the little house he had found—that house, which, no doubt, was to be Mrs. Ridding’s refuge from her husband—was a dependence on her judgment which that lady might resent, and it was a deliberate involving of Mr. Corder’s housekeeper in an affair which would do her reputation no good. This care for her reputation satisfactorily explained her slight feeling of irritation with Mr. Blenkinsop, but it did not influence her desire to oblige him. Such invitations did not often come her way and, irritated or not, she liked Mr. Blenkinsop, and the thought of his companionship, preoccupied though he might be, for a whole day in the country, with bare branches against grey skies and pale fields slipping into brown ones, and the chance of a primrose, was more than enough to make her smile.
Mr. Blenkinsop hoped the following Sunday would not be an impossible day for her. He was afraid it would be awkward but—he was quite playful in the excitement which had made him begin his note without any formality of address—he also hoped she would be able to produce the usual grandmother or aunt whose illness or funeral called her away. Hannah, however, did not need these ladies, for she had a tenant, and Mr. Corder’s prejudice against Sunday pleasures would not be applied to business if she explained that it could be transacted on no other day. Her trouble was not Mr. Corder; it was lack of suitable clothing for this outing. She had the shoes, but she had no well cut tweeds, no gay scarf and jaunty hat. Life was simpler for men. Their festive occasions were not brightened or dimmed by the clothes question; it was dull for them, but easy, and Hannah looked at her battered headgear and sighed. She counted her little savings and saw the coins as so many meals and so many nights of shelter: it would be madness to spend a penny, but why should she not be mad? There was not much difference between having food for a month and having it for a day, and she put her purse in her pocket and decided to go and look at the shops. The January sales had begun, and she might pick up a bargain: she might save a rich old gentleman from being run over and her future would be secured because she had dared to risk it, and she set off, believing the miracle was really going to happen, ready to squander, but possessed of the pleasant certainty that she could restrain herself if she chose. This was the right mood in which to go shopping. The smell of spring in the mild air, the thought of Sunday, and the purse held firmly in the pocket of her coat, were like wine to Miss Mole, who walked with her quick, light tread until she reached the shops, and then she walked slowly, gazing into the windows, but her exhilaration left her before she had gone far. She was born fastidious, and the heaps of clothing, boldly ticketed, did not attract her. She knew it was better to be decently shabby than cheaply gay and she retraced her steps up The Slope, looking back now and then at the beauty she could get for nothing.
As she neared the top of the hill, she spied the figure of Lilla bustling down, and a new light came into her eyes. If she could not have a new hat, she could have some fun with Lilla, and she greeted her cousin so loudly and lovingly that Lilla looked round for a retreat.
“Come in here and have some tea,” she said, indicating the shop where they had met on that October evening when Hannah first saw Mr. Blenkinsop, and Hannah followed her into the most secluded corner.
“I’ve been wanting to see you,” Lilla said.
“You don’t look a bit pleased, dear,” Hannah said sadly.
“I’m not pleased, but I wanted to tell you that I wish you’d mind your own business and leave me to mind mine. I don’t need instructions about how to behave, Hannah, and your letter was quite unnecessary.”
“Not instructions, dear—only hints. You told me I was to bark when necessary, so I barked. You put me in that house to take care of Mr. Corder, and I’m trying to do it. I thought you’d be glad. Are you paying for this tea, or am I?”
“Never mind about that. I want to get to the bottom of this affair of Howard’s.”
“But I do mind, Lilla. If it’s me, I’m having a bun. If it’s you, I’ll have buttered toast to start with.”
“Have anything you like,” Lilla said grandly. “I suppose that boy is running away from trouble, but of course his father wouldn’t admit it. He talked a lot of rubbish about temperament and the open air, and I did my best to make things easy for him, but he ought to have trusted me. I’ve a great respect for Robert Corder—”
“Nothing to what he has for you,” Hannah said feelingly. “I really believe the only thing that worried him about Howard was the fear that you would be hurt. He has a noble character, Lilla.”
“H’m,” Lilla said. “I’m not satisfied, but I must say he seemed anxious to return the money I’d spent. Where he’s going to get it from, I don’t know and, if he can pay it back, it seems to me that he can’t have needed it. And that’s not a pleasant thought.”
“Then don’t think it. Just remember that you’re a lucky woman. If Mr. Corder admired me as he admires you—”
“Now don’t begin getting sentimental, Hannah. It’s no good. He thinks you’re a capable woman, but there he stops. I took care to find that out.”
“Oh, did you?”
“Yes, I did. There’s too much nonsense about him in the chapel already, and really, Patsy Withers made me feel quite ashamed at my party. What with her and Mr. Pilgrim—”
“What was she doing?” Hannah asked quickly. “I didn’t notice her.”
“No,” Lilla said drily, “you were too busy monopolising Mr. Blenkinsop, and I may tell you that Mr. Corder saw it. It wasn’t fair, Hannah, with so many girls in the room.”
“I couldn’t help it, dear. I’ve a fatal sort of attraction for him. Why is it do you think? I was the belle of the ball for Mr. Blenkinsop there isn’t a doubt.”
“I invite young men for the sake of the girls, not for you to sharpen your wits on, but if I’d known, as Mr. Corder tells me, that he’d left the chapel, I shouldn’t have invited him at all. And he wouldn’t have been missed, as it happened, and that was your fault. Do you know where he goes?”
“Goes?” said Hannah.
“What place of worship?”
“Oh, here and there; here and there. He wants to take me with him on Sunday.”
“Stuff!” Lilla said, but she said it doubtfully. “Well, Mr. Pilgrim isn’t likely to get him, after the exhibition he made of himself—and that was Ernest’s fault. What did you think of him?” she asked, and her bright eyes sharpened a little. “He told me he’d seen you before, Hannah, and he seemed curious about you.”
“Naturally,” Hannah said easily. “I’ll never get you to understand that I’m a noticeable character.”
“And he used to live in your part of the country,” Lilla went on, “but as you haven’t lived there for years—” she sighed. “I wish I could feel more comfortable about you.”
“Don’t try,” Hannah said. “I haven’t split on you yet.”
“I’m thinking of your own good, Hannah. I didn’t like the man’s manner at all. If there’s anything I ought to know, you’d better tell me.”
Hannah shook her head. “I won’t betray him.”
“Him?” Lilla cried.
Hannah smiled in the way Wilfrid loved and Lilla distrusted.
“It hasn’t occurred to you that he might be nervous about his own little secrets, I suppose?”