“Can’t you talk about something?” Hannah asked sharply.
“Yes,” he said obediently. “I was going to tell you that I’m looking for a little house in the country.”
“Good gracious! Are you going to start farming too?”
“Not exactly, but I want a little house with a bit of land.”
“And do you expect me to tell you where to find it? Are you going to live in it yourself?”
“Not exactly,” he repeated, and though he looked embarrassed, his confidences continued. “You see, the present state of things can’t last.”
“Which?” Hannah asked perversely.
Mr. Blenkinsop frowned again. “With the Riddings. But we don’t want to talk about it till things are settled.”
“They’re never settled,” Hannah warned him. “Take my word for it. If you want to be comfortable, don’t do anything.”
“Not what I think is right?”
“That’s the very worst thing you can do. What other people think right, if you like, Mr. Blenkinsop, but not what you do. That’s the advice I give you out of my own experience.”
“Well, I’ve been doing nothing in particular for forty years and now that I’ve started I’m going my own way, and it was you who laughed at me for living behind the gilded bars, you know.”
“Oh, don’t blame me!” she cried.
“But it’s no good being off with the old love before you are on with the new.”
“But aren’t you on with it?”
“Getting towards it,” Mr. Blenkinsop said, smiling slyly. “But first I want to find the little house.”
“And if you do,” she said, speaking slowly because she was thinking of two things at once and watching the owner of the sleek black head making towards her deviously but surely, “it will bother you for the rest of your days—I know all about these little houses—for when it comes to hard tacks, Mr. Blenkinsop, if you know what they are, for I don’t—but then, you’ve got what they call an independent income, haven’t you?”
“I shouldn’t do it if I couldn’t afford it,” he said, a little stiffly.
“And that,” she said, “is just the difference between you and me,” and Mr. Blenkinsop turned from her, who had spoken the last words on an upward and then a descending breath, to the man at whom she was looking with a little questioning lift of the brows.
This was the minister with the black head and Mr. Blenkinsop took a great dislike to him. He was interrupting an important conversation, and he was objectionable in himself and in his unctuous smile as he addressed Miss Mole, saying he thought they had met before.
Miss Mole shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I have a very good memory for faces, but if I’ve seen yours before I’ve quite forgotten it.”
“But you’re Miss Mole, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m Miss Mole.” Then she smiled with the vividness which always startled Mr. Blenkinsop. “I wonder if you’re thinking of my cousin,” she said. “Another Mole.”
“Is her name Hannah?”
“No, Hilda. There’s supposed to be a strong family likeness. Oh, don’t go, Mr. Blenkinsop!”
“But we’re going to play Clumps,” said the voice of Mrs. Spenser-Smith, “and I want Mr. Blenkinsop to be one of those to go outside. Mr. Corder will be one, of course, and Mr. Pilgrim, perhaps you’ll be another.”
She swept them both away and it was some time before Mr. Blenkinsop could see more of Miss Mole, for they were in different clumps, than a small steady head among many other heads, like those of bathers, bobbing above a sea of coloured dresses.
XXIX
After supper, one of those little rumours, which start mysteriously and surprise no one so much as the people to whom they refer, began running about Mrs. Spenser-Smith’s drawing-room. For a skilfully long time she pretended not to hear it, but the moment arrived, and it was hastened by Ernest’s clumsy kindness, when it was impossible to resist the knowledge that Mr. Pilgrim could recite. Solo performances were against her rule. She knew what sort of talent the members of the chapel possessed, its devastating effect on the gaiety of her parties and the little jealousies that could arise, but Mr. Pilgrim was a newcomer, invited, as a lonely bachelor, at Ernest’s particular desire, and though she doubted his ability and disliked singling him out for honour, she could not refuse the eager requests of those ladies, of all ages, who were thrilled by the presence of another and a new minister and begged her to let him recite, nor could she ignore Ernest’s open persuasions of the apparently reluctant Mr. Pilgrim. It was noticeable that no other male voice joined in the solicitations, and that even the thinnest-necked of the young men, to whom a minister was a natural object of veneration, put his back against the wall and settled his features into an expression he hoped they would be able to maintain.
Hannah longed for Wilfrid but, lacking him, she found some consolation in watching Uncle Jim’s unguarded look of amazement and Robert Corder’s earnestness to do as he would be done by, and when she met the eyes of Samuel Blenkinsop, who stood among the other young men against the opposite wall, she felt that she was more than compensated for the loss of Wilfrid. Mr. Blenkinsop was looking at her with a solemn dismay, as though she was his only hope in this calamity, and though she had not much time to give to anyone, being anxious not to miss a word or a gesture of Mr. Pilgrim’s performance, or to lose one drop of her revenge for his persistence in dogging her with glances all the evening, it was very pleasant to know that it was her eye Mr. Blenkinsop had sought.
Mr. Pilgrim
