He had no great power for concentration and no desire for peace in which to meditate or to read and, unless he had callers to interview, he had little to do in the house when his letters were written and his sermons prepared, and he had time and willingness to listen to the sounds of voices, feet, bells and doors, to conjecture or to criticise. He would hear a murmuring from the kitchen as he passed through the hall and, sometimes, a burst of laughter, and making some excuse, such as the need for another pair of boots, he would penetrate into the kitchen regions and find Miss Mole and Doris mysteriously busy at the table or the stove, when he had expected to find one or both of them idle.
“The Christmas puddings are ready for stirring,” Hannah said to him on one of these occasions. “Will you have your stir now?”
“My stir?”
“Everybody has to stir, for luck.”
Doris turned aside with a giggle. She was embarrassed by the presence of the minister in the kitchen and by Miss Mole’s airy way with him, and Robert Corder, interpreting this sound correctly and reacting to it immediately, took the opportunity to prove his essential homeliness. He stirred manfully, circling the wooden spoon through the unwieldy mixture and an unmistakable scent, very pleasant but forbidden, rose to his nostrils.
“I hope there is no brandy in it,” he said seriously.
Miss Mole looked disappointed. “I know some people prefer beer,” she said, “but I think brandy’s better. I ought to have asked you.”
He dropped the spoon. “But Miss Mole, you must know we never have intoxicants in this house, and I happen to be the president of the Radstowe Temperance Society.”
“Does it count,” she asked meekly, “when it’s cooked and in a pudding? I’m so sorry. What can we do about it? I can’t possibly eat all these puddings by myself.”
“Waste would only be an aggravation of the mistake,” he said sharply, “but, another time, Miss Mole …”
He went away, very much disturbed. Surely the woman could not be as simple as she seemed, and if she was not, what was she? And this was the sort of thing which could be ignored in an ordinary household but was of real importance in one like this. Doris would spread the story; it might have a far-reaching effect on the girl’s attitude towards the drink question, and probably the brandy had been bought through that young man whose relationship to Doris had affected Robert Corder’s own attitude towards the girl, as towards someone not quite unspotted from the world of the flesh, and it would be impossible to offer Christmas pudding to any visitor to the house.
He returned hurriedly to the kitchen.
“And the mincemeat?” he enquired.
“I’m afraid that is contaminated, too,” Miss Mole replied.
No, she was not simple, and he remembered the mattresses. He had an impulse to order the destruction of the savoury mess, to let the family go puddingless at Christmas, but he hesitated and the ardour of his indignation left him, and he did nothing. What he needed in his house was a little committee of people like himself which would frame and pass resolutions and give orders in which responsibility was shared. Alone, he felt that, in some way he would be baffled and his position worsened, but when the pudding appeared on Christmas Day he would quietly refuse to eat it and he hoped Miss Mole would feel ashamed. Then swiftly, with the glibness acquired by answering awkward questions at his class for young men, he arranged such tolerant, humorous comments as might be needed, on domestic accidents and the lenience which must be extended to others in affairs of conscience, but he felt very bitter towards a woman who put him to these shifts and, as the object of his suspicions and dislike, she became oddly fascinating: he liked looking at her and despising her for her lack of beauty, he enjoyed listening to her and silently sneering at her remarks: he was puzzled by the frankness which alternated with her slyness and he did not see how he was to get rid of her without less petty reasons to offer Mrs. Spenser-Smith, a practical woman who would make nothing of the little objections he could name and who would not understand that a mere personality could trouble his peace of mind. He saw himself permanently saddled with Miss Mole and, two days after the pudding incident, he found more causes for mistrustful speculation.
He saw her go down the garden path in what might be taken for her best apparel and, as she went up the road, she waved a hand gaily towards the next door house. It was growing dusk, but he saw her hand plainly in its light glove and the light glove offended him. She was not at the tea table and when he asked where she was Ethel reported that she had gone out. He made a dubious sound and Ethel, tactlessly loyal to Miss Mole, said quickly: “She has to go out sometimes.”
“I am quite aware of that, Ethel. Do you know where she has gone?”
“She said she was going to see Mrs. Gibson first,” Ethel said, and he allowed a sufficient pause to elapse before he made some reference to Mr. Samson. Had anyone seen him lately? Did he still live alone?
Ethel said she had not seen, and was not interested in, the horrid old man, but Ruth said, a little shyly: “He isn’t horrid. It’s just his face and that’s not his fault. Miss Mole says she thinks he’s rather nice, like everybody else when you get to know them.”
“And how has Miss Mole discovered this?”
“Oh, she just knows things like that,” Ruth said contentedly, pretending not to notice her father’s covert sneer.
XXIII
Hannah accepted
