“Take my cup,” Hannah said in a strangled voice. “Take my cup. I shall spill the tea. I’m going to laugh. But I can’t!” she cried after a moment. “Oh, what’s going to happen to me if I can’t laugh any more?”
“You’re tired out,” he said.
“Yes, but it isn’t that.” She looked about her, seeking an explanation. “It must be because it isn’t really funny,” she said in a low, puzzled voice. “You see, I thought you were in love with Mrs. Ridding. I thought the cottage was for you and her.”
“Good God!” Mr. Blenkinsop exclaimed in horror, and again Hannah had the sensation that her heart was shrinking to the size of a pea. He was kind to her, as he was kind to Mrs. Ridding, but this was what he thought of such love affairs as hers, and now she stood up with a deceptive briskness.
“And that,” she said, in a hard voice, “just shows you what kind of a mind I’ve got. I suspect everybody else of what I did myself! And now I must go back, for Ruth may want me.”
“She can’t want you as much as I do,” Mr. Blenkinsop said quietly, in unmistakable accents.
Hannah stood quite still. She clung to her coat, but it dropped out of her hand, and she said slowly, addressing the wall in front of her, “This isn’t true.”
“Yes, it’s true,” he said. “That’s why I’ve been bothering about the Riddings, to do something I thought would please you. And if you’re going to say you don’t care about me—”
“But I’m not!” Hannah cried, with a wide, tremulous smile. “I’m not! Don’t talk to me for a little while. Don’t say anything,” she begged and Mr. Blenkinsop was obediently silent while she lay back in her chair, telling herself that the miracle she had believed in had really happened, it had really happened, it was here, in this room, but in a moment she started up again. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll sell the cottage and give the money to the Riddings.”
“As a thank-offering!” he said.
“Yes,” she said, rather wistfully, “if it seems like that to you. Well, you know everything about me.”
“No,” he said, “and I don’t think I ever shall,” a speech more satisfying to Hannah than any more lover-like protestation.
It was twelve o’clock when they walked down Beresford Road, and Hannah had no latchkey, and Mr. Blenkinsop was looking forward to his interview with Robert Corder. And, after all, Ruth need never know, Hannah thought, in great content, and Mr. Corder would be relieved of the responsibility of taking action, and Ethel would marry Mr. Pilgrim and, surely, Uncle Jim would rescue Ruth and Robert Corder would marry Patsy Withers and find her somewhat dull after the incalculableness of Miss Mole, and, for this misfortune, Lilla would find compensation in the disappearance of a cousin who would cause her no more anxiety. The miracle had happened and though, through the wonder of it, there were regrets for Ruth, Hannah had never been less inclined to doubt that everything was for the best.
Can this be me? she asked herself. She had run up the road, two hours ago, in a drizzling rain and an unbearable loneliness, and now she had hold of Mr. Blenkinsop’s hand and the stars were shining.
“We’ll go away,” he was saying, and she glanced up at him and wondered if, like herself, he saw something whimsical and unlikely in their love. She hoped he did not. She could trust herself to see it with other people’s eyes and laugh, with them, without doing it any injury, but, for him, she wished this happiness to be too solemn and beautiful for mirth.
“We’ll go away,” he said. “I’ll leave the bank. You’ve made me rather ashamed of the bank. It’s too safe.”
“But I want safety now! That’s the worst of happiness—it makes you want safety. We mustn’t want it. I’ve always been afraid of wanting too much,” she said.
“Oh—my poor heart!” Mr. Blenkinsop exclaimed in a broken voice, and stopped and stooped to kiss her.
Colophon
Miss Mole
was published in by
E. H. Young.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Hendrik Kaiber,
and is based on a transcription produced in by
Al Haines, John Routh, and Distributed Proofreaders Canada
for
Faded Page
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
The Grey Bodice,
a painting completed in by
Julian Alden Weir.
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League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
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The League of Moveable Type.
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