‘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 latch-key, 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, Lilia 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.
T H E E N D
About The Author
Emily Hilda Young (1880-1949) was born in Whitley, Northumberland. She was educated at Gateshead High School and Penrhos College in Wales. In 1902 she married solicitor John Daniell and moved to Bristol, the thinly-disguised setting of most of her novels.
During the First World War Emily Young worked in a livery stable, then at a munitions factory. After her husband’s death at Ypres in 1917 she left Bristol for London, living with a married man, Ralph Henderson, and his wife. Between 1910 and 1947 she wrote eleven novels for adults, including Miss Mole which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1930, and two for children.
After Ralph Henderson’s retirement, and the death of his wife, he and Emily went to live in Bradford-on-Avon. Her final novel, Chatterton Square, was published in 1947, two years before her death.
Titles by E.H. Young
Fiction for Adults
A Corn of Wheat (1910)
Yonder (1912)
Moor Fires (1916)
The Misses Mallett (1922, originally published as A Bridge Dividing)
William (1925)
Miss Mole (1930)
Jenny Wren (1932)
The Curate’s Wife (1934)
Celia (1937)
Chatterton Square (1947)
Fiction for Children
Caravan Island (1940)
River Holiday (1942)
FURROWED MIDDLEBROW
FM1. A Footman for the Peacock (1940) ... RACHEL FERGUSON
FM2. Evenfield (1942) ... RACHEL FERGUSON
FM3. A Harp in Lowndes Square (1936) ... RACHEL FERGUSON
FM4. A Chelsea Concerto (1959) ... FRANCES FAVIELL
FM5. The Dancing Bear (1954) ... FRANCES FAVIELL
FM6. A House on the Rhine (1955) ... FRANCES FAVIELL
FM7. Thalia (1957) ... FRANCES FAVIELL
FM8. The Fledgeling (1958) ... FRANCES FAVIELL
FM9. Bewildering Cares (1940) ... WINIFRED PECK
FM10. Tom Tiddler’s Ground (1941) ... URSULA ORANGE
FM11. Begin Again (1936) ... URSULA ORANGE
FM12. Company in the Evening (1944) ... URSULA ORANGE
FM13. The Late Mrs Prioleau (1946) ... MONICA TINDALL
FM14. Bramton Wick (1952) ... ELIZABETH FAIR
FM15. Landscape in Sunlight (1953) ... ELIZABETH FAIR
FM16. The Native Heath (1954) ... ELIZABETH FAIR
FM18. A Winter Away (1957) ... ELIZABETH FAIR
FM19. The Mingham Air (1960) ... ELIZABETH FAIR
FM20. The Lark (1922) ... E. NESBIT
FM21. Smouldering Fire (1935) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM22. Spring Magic (1942) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM23. Mrs. Tim Carries On (1941) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM24. Mrs. Tim Gets a Job (1947) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM25. Mrs. Tim Flies Home (1952) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM26. Alice (1950) ... ELIZABETH ELIOT
FM27. Henry (1950) ... ELIZABETH ELIOT
FM28. Mrs. Martell (1953) ... ELIZABETH ELIOT
FM29. Cecil (1962) ... ELIZABETH ELIOT
FM30. Nothing to Report (1940) ... CAROLA OMAN
FM31. Somewhere in England (1943) ... CAROLA OMAN
FM32. Spam Tomorrow (1956) ... VERILY ANDERSON
FM33. Peace, Perfect Peace (1947) ... JOSEPHINE KAMM
FM34. Beneath the Visiting Moon (1940) ... ROMILLY CAVAN
FM35. Table Two (1942) ... MARJORIE WILENSKI
FM36. The House Opposite (1943) ... BARBARA NOBLE
FM37. Miss Carter and the Ifrit (1945) ... SUSAN ALICE KERBY
FM38. Wine of Honour (1945) ... BARBARA BEAUCHAMP
FM39. A Game of Snakes and Ladders (1938, 1955) ... DORIS LANGLEY MOORE
FM40. Not at Home (1948) ... DORIS LANGLEY MOORE
FM41. All Done by Kindness (1951) ... DORIS LANGLEY MOORE
FM42. My Caravaggio Style (1959) ... DORIS LANGLEY MOORE
FM44. Music in the Hills (1950) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM45. Winter or Rough Weather (1951) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM46. Fresh from the Country (1960) ... MISS READ
FM47. Miss Mole (1930) ... E.H. YOUNG
FM48. A House in the Country (1957) ... RUTH ADAM
FM49. Much Dithering (1937) ... DOROTHY LAMBERT
FM50. Miss Plum and Miss Penny (1959) ... DOROTHY EVELYN SMITH
FM51. Village Story (1951) ... CELIA BUCKMASTER
FM52. Family Ties (1952) ... CELIA BUCKMASTER
A Furrowed Middlebrow Book
FM47
Published by Dean Street Press 2020
Copyright © 1930 E.H. Young
Introduction copyright © 2020 Charlotte Moore
All Rights Reserved
Fir
st published in 1930 by Jonathan Cape
Cover by DSP
Cover illustration shows detail from The Young Man by Madeleine Green
ISBN 978 1 913527 22 8
www.deanstreetpress.co.uk