Miss Mole

Nothing was ever really right, Ruth thought miserably. This was the party dress she had wanted all her life and she longed to wear it, in spite of the background her elders would make for it, but she had not been deceived by Miss Mole’s description of the velveteen frock as one to wear on occasions for which the other was too gay. She knew Miss Mole had made it in secret for the Spenser-Smiths’ party and must have sat up late at night to get it done. It was pretty, too, of a deep coral colour which was kind to Ruth’s pale cheeks, and there was a hair ribbon to match, for Miss Mole remembered everything, and the present must have cost more than she could afford. She felt she ought to wear it; she could explain to Uncle Jim and, anyhow, he would not notice, and Ruth laid both dresses on the bed and decided first for one and then for the other. It was horrible, it was treacherous, to think, as she could not help thinking, that if Miss Mole had spent the time and money on herself, Ruth would have been happier at this moment, and then, as she stood in her petticoat, trying not to cry at the maddening perverseness of this dilemma, Miss Mole looked in on her way upstairs to dress and quietly took the velveteen frock and hung it up.

“But Moley⁠—!” Ruth exclaimed.

“No you don’t,” Hannah said. “I haven’t been working my fingers to the bone, as they say, for a dress that isn’t going to appear tonight.”

“But you worked them to the bone for the other one.”

“You can wear that at the Thingumbobs’ party next week. I ought not to have given it to you for Christmas, but I hadn’t anything else. I might have known your Nonconformist conscience would make you miserable about it.”

“I haven’t got a Nonconformist conscience!”

“Then wear your uncle’s frock,” Hannah said.

That was settled, and Ruth sank on to her bed to enjoy this moment of relief, to tell herself, once more, that Miss Mole knew everything, to look back at those terrible two years between her mother’s death and Miss Mole’s arrival and find they were too black for contemplation. It was mean, it was despicable, to mind about the black silk and jet trimmings when they were worn by Miss Mole who had thought about the night-lights, who had chased away fears, without mentioning them by name, and been wonderfully kind without encroaching on the rights of the mother for whom Ruth still kept her caresses and the spoken expression of thoughts which Miss Mole was content to divine.

Ruth cast away all her cares except the one about Howard, who had the sudden indiscretions of the naturally discreet and might choose this very night for telling Mrs. Spenser-Smith he was not going to be a minister. It was no good asking him not to do it; if she put the idea into his head, it might pop out at any minute. That was the way things happened with Howard. He was good-natured and patient and easygoing and all of a sudden it would seem that he had been nearly boiling for a long time, and, at last, the lid had blown off. It would be awful when this particular lid blew off, for there would be more explosions than one, and Ruth gave a little shudder and a last look into the glass, before she went downstairs.

Uncle Jim was in the drawing-room. He was freshly shaven and he had put on a clean shirt, but he was reading the evening paper as though a party were no more agitating than staying at home, and Ruth envied, while she pitied, the calmness of middle-age. He looked up, however, and approved of her appearance, just as her father bustled into the room, looking at his watch and complaining that Howard was not in and would make them all late.

“Well, well,” this was Uncle Jim’s usual soothing preface. “Perhaps the boy doesn’t want to go.”

“Doesn’t want to go!” Robert Corder had banked Mrs. Spenser-Smith’s Christmas cheque that morning and his voice was shrill with indignation.

“Well, well,” Uncle Jim tried again. “Perhaps he’s met a friend, or something.”

“Perhaps he’s been run over!” Ethel cried, coming in with a rattle of beads, but no one encouraged this notion and she had all her anxiety to herself.

“It’s a strange thing,” Robert Corder said more calmly, “that with my passion for punctuality, I should be constantly vexed,” and he looked at Ethel, “in this manner. And where’s Miss Mole? And what friends has Howard that he should meet at this time of night and when he has an engagement?”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Bob, don’t make mountains out of molehills. He’ll be here soon enough and if he makes us half an hour late, let’s be thankful.”

“If you feel like that, James,” said Robert Corder, who could hardly believe he had been reprimanded in the presence of his daughters, “you’d better stay at home.”

“All right, I’ll look after the house for you.”

“But Doris’s adenoidy aunt has come on purpose to keep her company!” Ruth protested, because the cowardly, snobbish side of her half hoped Uncle Jim would stick to his decision.

“Her what?” Robert Corder demanded.

“Her aunt who has adenoids,” Ruth answered sullenly.

“I don’t like to hear you using such expressions,” her father said mildly, and Miss Mole, entering at that moment with a slight rustle, knowing she looked nice and was going to surprise them, said levelly, using the beautiful middle notes of her voice,

“I’m afraid it’s my expression, but really, when you’ve seen and heard her, you can’t call her anything else.”

“But that isn’t black silk, Moley!” Ruth exclaimed.

Miss Mole’s dress was not fashionable and it was modest, with long sleeves and a small opening at the throat. It was made of a moire silk which changed from green to brown as the light fell on it, a varying colour which matched