Ethel, who had been restive under reproof, rolling her eyes and threatening to bolt, steadied herself as Hannah produced this carrot. “A minister! Who is it?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah said carelessly. “Some young man who’s got a new cure of souls—if you have such things in your denomination. Anyhow, I hope he’ll cure them.”
“Then it must be the new minister at Highfield Chapel.”
“That’s the man. We shall have to kill the fatted calf, I suppose,” Hannah said, and she wished it was possible to put a love potion into the ginger-beer which was the Corders’ festal beverage. Ethel loved, and married to a minister, would be a useful member of society, and he must have his fatted calf, so he must think Ethel had cooked it and, in the meantime, a week of tranquillity for the family was assured.
An hour later she lay in Ruth’s bed, considering the events of the past day. She thought of them, one by one, extracting from them all their savour, whether sweet or bitter. There was her walk on the hill overlooking the water, with the bright tree showing through a grey mist which seemed to darken when the wings of a swooping gull flashed through it: there was the sound of unseen ships hooting or booming at the turn of the river and, at her will, she had been able to imagine them as huge amphibians, calling to each other as they floundered in the water and sought the hidden banks, or she could acknowledge them as the sirens of ships which were coming home from distant places or setting out on fresh voyages, and standing up there with the soft rain on her face, she had marvelled at the richness of human life in which imagination could create strange beasts though facts were sufficient in themselves, while she, who had the privilege of these experiences, had no ache or pain in the whole of her lithe body and no more troubles than were good for her.
She had a feeling of sovereignty while she stood there; she could make what she liked of her world. She was more than a sovereign; she was a magician, changing ships into leviathans with some tiny adjustment of her brain, and, in addition, she had a freedom such as, surely, no one else in all Radstowe could claim, for she was in possession of herself and did not set too great a value on it.
In this high mood, she had swung down from her perch above the rocks and kept her fine content until she came upon Ruth, near Regent Square, and remembered her old ulster and realized, with a pang, that a part of her belonged to Ruth. She had given it willingly and could not withdraw it and she had increased her gift before the day was over.
It had been the most eventful day of her sojourn with the Corders and, in an existence like hers, where excitements outside herself came seldom, it seemed wasteful to have such a walk, to seal her friendship with Ruth, interview Mr. Blenkinsop, witness Ethel’s abandonment and Doris’s impudence, talk to Mr. Samson over the hedge and get a compliment from Robert Corder and news about a minister, in one day.
“This is extravagance,” she murmured.
There were no more sounds from Ethel’s room, and as Hannah turned on her other side to sleep, she saw that the door communicating with Robert Corder’s room was framed in gold. Then that border slowly changed its shape, widening at the top and side, and his figure was silhouetted against the light. She lay still and stiff and shut her eyes. She heard him advance a step and felt his silent, swift retreat. He shut the door as quietly as he had opened it and the gold band was round it, as though it had never stirred.
“What will he make of this?” she wondered, pressing her mouth against the pillow. There would be trouble in the morning, but it would be something to tell Lilla when she paid her call, avoiding the first Friday of the month. Yes, with some amplifications, it would make a very good story, and while she amplified it and planned a fit and reasonable reply to any complaint Robert Corder might make, she felt a new kindness for a man who could steal into a room so gently to look at his little daughter.
XVII
The shadow that fell on Hannah the next morning was not the one of Robert Corder’s displeasure. It was a darker one that hung over her all the week and, on the evening of the supper-party, she slipped out of the house and walked swiftly up the road. At the top of it, she stood still and, drawing a deep breath, looked back. The road was empty. There was nothing to be seen, and she had not expected to see anything, except the lighted windows of the houses and the street lamps which stood like sentinels who were tired of keeping unnecessary watch and did not recognise a fugitive in Miss Mole, and there was no one to notice her as she paused with her back against the railings of a garden and a wry smile on her lips. She was thinking that, until this moment, she had not run away from anything since the days when she had believed in the clever bear and pretended a wolf was coming after her.
“Drat the man!” she said, recovering her jauntiness.
She had shut her door in his face, ten years ago, and that was a heartening memory, and if she avoided him now it was for reasons which he would be the last person to
