“No,” she said. “This belonged once to my old lady with the wigs. I believe she had it in her wedding trousseau and it will last forever. I’ve had it cleaned, and I’ve had it remade—”
“Fine old piece of lace,” Uncle Jim remarked.
“And what a quaint old brooch,” Ethel said, with a doubtful glance at her own beads.
“Yes,” said Hannah lightly, “they’ve both been in the family for generations.”
Robert Corder went out of the room. There was no lace or old jewellery in his family, and where was Howard? He paced up and down the hall and, in the drawing-room, Ethel fidgeted and Ruth looked gloomily at Hannah. Her relief at Miss Mole’s appearance was spoilt by this worry about Howard, and now Uncle Jim was saying he would come to the party, after all, so that he could treat them to cabs across the downs, to make up for lost time and keep the girls’ hair tidy. Things were never altogether right, she discovered again, but they improved a little as Howard entered the house and, rushing past his father without apology, cheerfully shouted an assurance that he would not keep them waiting for five minutes.
XXVIII
Howard ought not to have spoken in that cheerful manner or to have looked so unabashed when he came downstairs, so unusually lively and determined that the reproaches died on Robert Corder’s lips. Miss Mole ought not to be wearing old lace and appearing calm at the prospect of being Mrs. Spenser-Smith’s guest; in fact, her double masquerade of housekeeper and lady with a little property was disconcerting. It was irritating to be forced into a cab with her, while his children and his brother-in-law crowded into another. He objected to the cabs on principle: he could not afford these luxuries and, though he was not paying for them, he disliked the ostentation of such an arrival. And what was it that had cost Howard fifteen shillings? Nothing, he thought, should have cost him as much as that: the boy had too much money to spend: but what had he spent it on and why had he told Jim about it?
“I thought it would be something like that,” Jim had growled.
Robert Corder hated hearing snatches of conversation and remaining in ignorance of their context; he hated this familiar nearness to Miss Mole and he sat stiffly, looking out of one window of the cab, while Miss Mole looked out of the other.
“We’ll soon be there,” she said in a small voice, as though she was comforting him, or was she really more nervous than she seemed and in need of a little encouragement? He saw her profile by the light of a passing car, and it was meek and drooping, her head was bare and the collar of her coat was turned up.
“Too soon?” he enquired kindly.
“Oh no. I’ve always wanted to see Mrs. Spenser-Smith’s children.”
He squeezed himself further into his corner of the cab. “I’m afraid they are not going to be the equals of their parents.”
“No, they never are,” Miss Mole said sadly, and he took another look at her.
“You don’t happen to know where Howard was this evening, I suppose?”
“No idea,” she said in a sharper voice, and she thought of the bowl of Roman hyacinths he had given her for Christmas.
Robert Corder let down the window to see if the other cab was following, the wheels crunched the Spenser-Smiths’ gravel, and Hannah stood in the porch, surrounded by gigantic chrysanthemums.
It was he who led the procession into the drawing-room, with Ethel at his heels: Ruth tried to get behind Miss Mole but she kept her place in front of Uncle Jim and had the pleasure of watching Lilla’s greeting of the minister and his daughters before she stepped forward for her own welcome. This was an extended hand and a half-puzzled glance quickly changing to one of recognition.
“Oh, it’s Miss Mole,” Lilla said.
“How sweet of you to remember me,” Hannah replied.
Valiantly Lilla restrained a frown and her quick eye saw the lace, the brooch and the moire silk before Hannah felt her hand grasped in Ernest’s and knew that only his duty to his other guests and the instructions he had received from Lilla prevented him from taking her into a corner and having a good cousinly chat.
Hannah found a corner for herself. She asked for nothing better than a point of vantage from which she could watch Lilla so skilfully varying the warmth of her smile for each newcomer and, by the slight changes in her cordiality, Hannah thought she could judge the worldly position or soundness of doctrine of each arrival. Lilla was perfectly dressed for her part; richly enough to do honour to her guests and remind them of their privileges, but with due consideration for the shabbily clad, and of these there was a good number, and Uncle Jim’s was not the only blue serge suit. Hannah recognised many faces she had seen in the chapel, faces of matrons, of spinsters and of young men with thin necks. It was surprising to see so many young men with thin necks and large Adam’s apples; it had something to do with Nonconformity, she supposed: perhaps Mr. Corder would be able to explain their association, but at the moment he was engaged by a gloomy deacon who could not forget the chapel in the party, and indeed, the party was the chapel on its lighter side, and Robert Corder, trying to get away from the deacon, was as anxious as anyone else to emphasise that side and to encourage the liveliness with which Mrs. Spenser-Smith’s parties always went from the beginning. Already, Ruth was biting her pencil as she earnestly took part in a competition, and Ethel was being very bright with the young men whose placarded backs she had to examine. Uncle Jim, to whom self-consciousness was unknown, was prowling round the
