Pauline and Rose went down to Woodcote on Friday evening.
Pauline had apparently recovered her spirits, and was in her brightest
mood. She had been very sweet and caressing to Rose ever since their talk
on the evening of Tom’s visit to the flat. Rose inwardly chafed at this
show of affection; she had ceased to believe in Pauline’s sincerity.
Miss Merivale was waiting at the station for them with the pony carriage.
The groom had driven her down, but Rose begged to be allowed to drive
back. It was the first time she had driven the new pony, which was a
pretty, gentle, timid creature, obedient to the lightest touch on the
reins.
“We must take Miss Smythe to Bingley woods to-morrow, Rose dear,” Miss
Merivale said, as they drove slowly up the long hill from the station.
“The primroses are very plentiful this year. Tom says the ground is
carpeted with them.”
Rose did not answer. The pony had started aside at the sight of a railway
train that had just come out of the tunnel, and she was engaged in
soothing it.
“Rose, you had better let me drive,” Pauline suggested. “I drove a great
deal when I was staying with the Warehams. You are not firm enough.”
“It is only trains and traction engines Bob is frightened of,” Miss
Merivale said. “And coaxing is best, I am sure. There, we shall have no
more trouble with him now. He is a dear little fellow.”
Pauline said nothing, but she had some difficulty in keeping herself from
shrugging her shoulders. She thought both Miss Merivale and Rose
deplorably weak and silly. A smart stroke with the whip was what the pony
wanted. But she had come down determined to be on her best behaviour, and
she made some smiling remark on the beauty of the country.
“Rose has been pining for fresh air like a lark in a cage,” she said. “Are
you content now, Rosie?”
“Tom said she looked pale,” Miss Merivale said, giving Rose an anxious,
loving glance. “I wish you would come down again next week, dear. I can’t
let a fortnight pass again without seeing you; it is much too long.”
“Time goes faster in London,” said Pauline, without allowing Rose to
answer. “It seems only yesterday that Rose came to me. How quiet it is
here! Don’t you miss the roar of London, Rosie? I do. Not the clatter of
cabs and carts, but that deep, low roar we hear when we open the window.
It is like the voice of the great city. There is no music like it.”
“I would rather hear the birds,” Miss Merivale said gently; but she gave
Rosie another anxious look. She was wondering if the time had gone as
quickly with her as with Pauline.
Rose did not speak. She was waiting till they got home to pour her heart
out to her aunt. She could not speak before Pauline.
“I am afraid I haven’t many rustic tastes,” Pauline said in a cool,
superior voice. “But it is certainly lovely here. What a delightful change
it must be for that little Miss Sampson! I hear you find her very useful,
Miss Merivale. Clare will be pleased to hear it.”
For the first time in her life Pauline saw Miss Merivale look angry. Her
mild blue eyes actually flashed as she answered in a voice that trembled a
little, “I don’t think you can have heard that Rhoda is related to us,
Miss Smythe. She is staying with me as my visitor. Rose, my dear, I want
you to be very good to her.”
Pauline stole a look at Rose, expecting to see a cloud of jealousy on her
pretty face; but she saw instead a tender, happy smile lurking in the
corners of her lips. She was distinctly mystified.
“Yes, I remember now that Rose spoke of some distant family connection,”
she said carelessly to Miss Merivale. “How very good of you to acknowledge
it, dear Miss Merivale! Some people wouldn’t, I know. They think poor
relations should be kept out of sight as much as possible. But Miss
Sampson is hardly to be called a relation, is she? I forget the exact link
between you, though Rose told me.”
“She is related to poor Cousin Lydia’s second husband,” Rose said, as Miss
Merivale did not answer. “He and his little girl were lost in the bush,
weren’t they, Aunt Lucy?”
“Yes, dear,” said Miss Merivale in a low voice. Her face had become very
white.
“If she had lived, we might never have come to Woodcote,” Rose went on,
her glance resting lovingly on the old house, which had just come into
sight. “How strange it seems to think of that! How old was she, Aunt Lucy?
It is only lately I have thought of her at all.”
“She was about two years old, dear,” Miss Merivale answered in the same
low voice. Pauline, who was watching her in some wonder, could see that
she was profoundly agitated.
“Then she would have been about twenty now,” Rose went on, not noticing
her aunt’s disinclination to talk of her niece. “How old is Miss Sampson,
Aunt Lucy? I wonder if they ever saw each other.”
“She is nearly twenty; I remember Clare telling me so,” said Pauline,
answering for Miss Merivale. “But she looks much older. It is the kind of
life she has lived, I suppose.”
Rose was intent on turning the curve of the drive in a masterly manner,
and did not answer this. And Pauline, after another glance at Miss
Merivale’s face, was silent about Rhoda. It was plain to her that, for
some reason or another, the subject was intensely painful to Miss
Merivale.
Rhoda came shyly across the hall as they entered. She had on a new brown
dress that Miss Merivale had given her. It was brown cashmere, made very
simply, but it was a prettier dress than Pauline had ever seen her
wearing, and she stared undisguisedly at her as they shook hands.
“I hardly knew you, Miss Sampson,” she said. “How very well you are
looking! But you must be having quite a holiday.”
The condescending tone did not appear to irritate Rhoda. She answered
pleasantly; there was even a twinkle deep down in her dark eyes as she met
Pauline’s glance.
It was Rose who felt irritated. Now that she saw Rhoda’s face in the full
light, with no hat to shade it, she recognised what a frank, sweet face it
was. She did not wonder that Tom loved her, or that her aunt smiled upon
his wooing. And Pauline’s assumption of superiority vexed her intensely.
Miss Merivale asked Rhoda to show Pauline the room that had been prepared
for her, and they went upstairs together. Rose cast an anxious glance
after them.
“I had better go too, Aunt Lucy.”
“No, wait a moment, darling. I want to have a good look at you. Tom gave
me a bad account. And you are looking pale. You are not working too hard?”
“Not a bit of it,” laughed Rose. “And I am quite well. But I shall be glad
when June comes, Aunt Lucy. I am beginning to count the days. But don’t
tell Pauline that.”
A delighted look flashed into Miss Merivale’s face. “My darling, it is so
sweet to hear you say that. I was afraid you would find it dull here when
you came back. I have missed you more than I could tell you.”
“Really?” asked Rose half wistfully, half teasingly. “You’ve had Miss
Sampson, you know, Aunt Lucy.”
“I want you both,” Miss Merivale said in an eager voice. “Rose, you will
try to love her, won’t you? She is so lonely. Mrs. M’Alister and her
children have gone to Devonshire, and Rhoda was left behind. She has
nobody but us. You won’t treat her like a stranger, will you, dearest?”
Rose felt chilled and hurt by her aunt’s strange eagerness. It was all
very well for Tom to speak so, but her aunt was different. Why should she
plead for Rhoda like that?
“You’ll see how sweet I mean to be to her, Aunt Lucy,” she said gaily; and
Miss Merivale did not notice that the gaiety was forced. “I’ll go up now
and send her down to you. I wonder why Pauline is keeping her.”
She hastened away, and Miss Merivale sat down in the porch and put her
hand on the head of Bruno, Tom’s black Newfoundland, who had come to her
side with an inquiring glance in his beautiful eyes.
“Your master will be home soon, Bruno,” she said. The dog wagged his tail,
but still kept looking at her. She went on speaking to him. “And
everything is coming right, Bruno,” she said. “I am glad I was silent.
It’s all coming right. We shall all be happy together.”
She looked round as she spoke, and saw Rhoda coming down the broad shallow
stairs into the wainscoted hall. A tender smile brightened her face as she
watched her. She had lost the feeling that she was doing her an injustice
by not acknowledging her as her niece. As Tom’s wife she would be as a
daughter to her. She would have everything that was hers by right.
Rhoda stepped rather slowly down, her head bent, a line of anxiety showing
between her clearly pencilled dark brows. She knew something about Pauline
that she was beginning to feel Miss Merivale should know. Yet she had no
wish to disclose the secret she had accidentally learnt. At first it had
amused her, it amused her still. In the brief, decidedly unpleasant
_tete-a-tete_ which Rose had just put an end to, she had found it easy to
bear Pauline’s half-veiled taunts. Ever since her visit to Leyton she had
understood the bitter animosity which Miss Smythe had shown her from the
first. It was not altogether a personal dislike. Rhoda was sure that she
would have treated in the same manner any girl who was poor and yet was
not ashamed of her poverty or of her friends.
“Rhoda.”
Miss Merivale’s gentle call made her hurry her footsteps. Her face had a
wonderfully sweet look on it as she approached Miss Merivale. Miss
Merivale’s kindness had completely won the girl’s heart. She was so happy
at Woodcote that sometimes she felt as if it must be a dream from which
she would awake to find herself in the lonely bedroom in Acacia Road with
the boys’ cots empty, and a long London day of searching for work to look
forward to.
“Sit down here beside me, dear,” Miss Merivale said, taking her hand and
drawing her down on the seat. “Just look at Bruno. He has been asking me
when Tom is coming back. I tell him he will be back in a few moments.”
Rhoda had turned her head quickly away to look at the dog, but Miss
Merivale saw how her colour rose, making even the little ear pink. And she
smiled to herself.
“I hope Tom will be able to go with us to-morrow,” she went on, without
giving Rhoda time to speak. “I want to take Miss Smythe to Bingley woods.
It is too early for a picnic, but we could drive over there directly after
lunch. Ah, there is Tom.”
Bruno had heard the click of the wicket gate leading to the stables before
Miss Merivale spoke. So had Rhoda. She started up. “I promised Wilmot I
would light the lamps, Miss Merivale, as Ann is out. We shall want them
for tea.”
Miss Merivale let her go, smiling softly again to herself. “Rose and Miss
Smythe have come, Tom,” she called to him, as he crossed the lawn,
swinging his stick, and walking with a free, happy step.
“I’m glad of that. Where is Rosie? I’m afraid I shall not be able to see
much of her to-morrow, Aunt Lucy. I must go to Croydon, after all. But
I’ll get back early. How do you think Rose is looking?”
“She is pale, Tom; but she says she is very well. I don’t think she likes
it as much as she expected She is anxious to come home in June.”
Tom’s eyes twinkled. “Yes, I gathered that on Tuesday. I am glad you let
her go, Aunt Lucy. But there is no need for her to stay till June if she
does not like it, is there? Why should she go back at all?”
“I don’t think it would be quite fair to Miss Smythe for her to leave her
now, dear,” said Miss Merivale gently. “I am sure Rose would rather go
back.”
Their talk was interrupted by Rose herself, who came flying across the
hall at the sight of Tom, followed more slowly by Pauline. “Oh, Tom, have
you come back? I drove Bob from the station. Did Aunt Lucy tell you?”
“She hasn’t had time. I have only just come in. How do you do, Miss
Smythe? I hope Rose has been a good little girl since Tuesday?”
“Have you, Rose?” said Pauline, with a lazy smile.
Rose did not hear the question. She had caught sight of Rhoda entering the
hall through the swing doors that led to Wilmot’s pantry, and she stepped
back to speak to her. They stood talking together by the wide stone
hearth, filled now with green fir boughs. Pauline noticed how Tom’s eyes
kept wandering to them as he made disjointed remarks to her and his aunt,
and he presently moved across the hall to join them.
Miss Merivale got up from her seat in the porch. “It is getting chilly, my
dear,” she said to Pauline. “Shall we go into the dining-room? Tea will be
ready in a few moments.”
But Pauline lingered in the hall. Though the twilight had begun to gather,
enough light streamed through the great west window to make the portraits
on the wainscoted walls clearly visible. Pauline went from one to the
other, asking Miss Merivale a question now and then, but really far more
intent on studying the group at the fireplace than the pictures she
appeared to be interested in.
Over the fireplace hung the portrait of Miss Merivale’s mother, a sweet,
gentle-eyed woman, very much like Miss Merivale, except that her eyes were
a soft brown instead of a soft blue.
Pauline remarked on the likeness at once. “Except for the dark eyes, it
might be your portrait, Miss Merivale.”
Rose had been glancing from the portrait to Rhoda. “Aunt Lucy, your
mother’s eyes are exactly the same colour as Miss Sampson’s.”
Pauline, who was standing by Miss Merivale, felt her start violently. “I
had not noticed, dear,” she said, without looking at Rhoda.
“Oh, but they are,” Rose went on. “Only Miss Sampson’s are shaped a little
differently. And she was named Rhoda, wasn’t she, Aunt Lucy? Tom, don’t
you see the likeness?”
“I can’t say I do, Rosie,” said Tom, who considered in his heart of hearts
that Rhoda’s long-lashed, sparkling dark eyes were far more beautiful than
the mild brown ones in the portrait. As he spoke he moved quickly towards
his aunt. “Aunt Lucy, it is too cold for you here. Come in by the
dining-room fire. Why, you are trembling with the cold. The evening is
very chilly for April.”
Pauline stood still for a moment gazing intently up at the picture, and
then followed the others into the dining-room. Before Tom had spoken to
his aunt she had seen how white and strange her face was--as white as if
she was about to faint. And a sudden idea had flashed upon Pauline, making
her heart beat fast.
That night, when Rhoda was brushing her hair, she heard a soft tap at the
door. To her surprise, it was Pauline who entered.
“I have come to borrow some matches,” she said. “I find my box is empty.
How pretty your room is! So is mine. It is a charming house altogether.
May I sit down and talk to you a little? I want you and Miss Merivale to
spend a long day with us next week. Do you think you could persuade her to
come?”
The change in Pauline’s manner was so extraordinary that Rhoda found it
difficult to speak. But Pauline did not appear to notice her constrained
answer. She sat down in the low chair by the window and took up the
photograph frame that stood there by Rhoda’s little writing case and a
saucer filled with white violets and moss.
“May I look at this? It is your aunt and cousins, isn’t it? What a dear
little fellow that is on your aunt’s lap! Is that the little boy who was
ill? You took him into the country, didn’t you?”
An irrepressible glimmer of fun came into Rhoda’s dark eyes. “Yes, into
Essex,” she said demurely.
“They have all gone into the country now, haven’t they? How fortunate it
was that Miss Merivale heard me mention you, Miss Sampson! She noticed the
name at once. It is quite certain, isn’t it, that you are related to her
through her sister’s marriage?”
“Miss Merivale insists on thinking so,” said Rhoda quietly. “But I cannot
be sure of it.”
“Don’t you remember your own people at all? I can feel for you, if that is
so. My father and mother died while I was a baby. Can you remember your
mother? I wish I could.”
“No, I cannot remember her.”
“And your father?”
“Just a little.”
Rhoda’s cold, brief replies checked Pauline. She did not find it so easy
to pump Rhoda as she had expected. She put the photograph down, and got up
with a yawn. “I am keeping you up,” she said. “May I have the matches?
Thank you. Good-night.” She gave Rhoda one of her most charming smiles as
she spoke; but Rhoda’s good-night was studiously cold. She had no desire
to accept the olive branch Pauline was holding out to her.