Miss Mole

as Hannah walked home slowly, she was glad to think she would see him soon. He, if anyone could, would restore her liking for herself. Her little outing had been a failure. She had not bought a hat; she had told Lilla what amounted to a lie about Mr. Pilgrim, and, until today, Hannah’s excursions into fiction had always stopped at the injury of anyone else. Her offence was the greater because she did not in the least mind injuring Mr. Pilgrim: it was at her own peculiar kind of integrity she had aimed a blow, and it would not be the last one. It was a choice between her integrity and her treasure, and she had not been tender with her treasure for ten years to have it breathed upon by Mr. Pilgrim’s outraged sanctimony and revengeful spite. She was tired and disheartened as she walked through the streets and she was careless, for once, of the life about her. She forgot to remind herself that hers was only a small part in a big drama and that all these men and women, going home from work or coming from the opposite direction in search of pleasure, felt the same overwhelming importance of their lives as she felt of hers: she forgot her little sermon to Robert Corder about infinity, the sun, the moon and the stars: she allowed her own affairs to cast a dun cloud over the whole world, and the tramcars, like noisy magic lantern slides, the shadows of trees on the pavements, the sound of her own footsteps which she had often heard as a sound of advance and adventure, had lost their significance and beauty. In her heart there was the unacknowledged belief that with her lies and evasions she was paying too big a price for what she was concealing; she would have had to pay no more for the memory of something perfect, something she would not have wanted to conceal, and, without actually making that confession, her mind went on to imagine what a real love might have been. But such loves do not come in the way of the Miss Moles of this world, and now she was nearly forty. And thinking thus, she allowed the threatening wave of her loneliness, avoided for so long, to sweep over her, and she stood still in the street, helpless while it engulfed her. It fell back, leaving her battered, but on her feet, and longing for a hand to help her upward before she could be swamped again, but she longed in vain and it was a weary woman who walked up Beresford Road and found no comfort in the ruby glow of Mr. Samson’s window curtains.

She assumed her usual look of competence as soon as she entered the house. Employers do not expect their servants to have visible emotions, and professional pride straightened her back when she went into the dining room. Yet at the sight of Wilfrid, sitting by the fire and listening to what his cousins had to tell him, and leaping to his feet at her appearance, she felt as she had felt when she opened his Christmas parcel, tearfully grateful for a liking which was for herself and not for what she could do for him, and she put her hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek, without a thought, as naturally as though he were her son.

“Miss Mole!” Ethel exclaimed. And in her voice, the rolling of her eyes, the gleam of her teeth and the checked spring of her body, Hannah recognised the colt she had been trying to tame, now scared, shocked and jealous.

“Yes?” Hannah said pleasantly, but she looked at Ruth who was smiling stiffly, and Wilfrid, laughing, seized Hannah’s hand and said dramatically, “we have betrayed ourselves, Mona Lisa, but no gentleman will compromise a lady and refuse to make honourable amends. You must marry me!”

“Wilfrid! She can’t!” Ethel cried. “She’s old enough to be your mother!”

“Oh, not quite,” Hannah begged. She took off her hat and threw it down. “Don’t be so silly, all of you. Are kisses so scarce among you that you take fright when you see one? I’m sorry, Wilfrid. Absence of mind!”

“Don’t spoil it. I’m grateful. Ruth didn’t kiss me, Ethel didn’t⁠—”

“I shouldn’t think of doing such a thing! I didn’t even kiss my own brother.”

“Perhaps that’s why he’s gone to South Africa,” Wilfrid said.

“Oh, you know it isn’t!” Ethel said helplessly, and Ruth gave a hard little laugh.

“Dear me, dear me, dear me!” Hannah said. “What a fuss! The only thing I can suggest is that we should kiss all round and cry quits.”

“It isn’t that. You know it isn’t, but I think kisses ought to be sacred, and I don’t see why you should take such a liberty with Wilfrid.”

“Then I’ll tell you why,” Hannah said, her body as tense, her eyes as green and keen, as a watchful cat’s, and a stillness fell on the little company in the presence of this new and formidable Miss Mole. She held them like that for a few seconds and then, satisfied with this small triumph, she dispersed the thoughts that had been crowding into speech and smiled benevolently at all three, remembering that they were children. “Because he’s a dear boy,” she said, “and I like him.”

“Because he’s a man!” Ethel said with stubborn courage, and Hannah looked him up and down teasingly and said: “Yes, he’ll be a man, some day.”

No one answered her smile, and she felt that there was an influence in the room of which she knew nothing, and she believed it was stealthy and malign. She glanced at Wilfrid and saw that he, too, was puzzled, seeking, behind that thoughtless kiss, some explanation of the atmosphere which Ruth and Ethel created between them, Ethel struggling between caution and the blundering candour natural to her; Ruth sitting on her feet, her back pressed against the back of her chair, perched there