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The room was sweet with the primroses and white violets they had sent her from Woodcote the day before. Rose felt herself pitying the flowers for being taken from the woods and sent to wither in that stifling air. For it was stifling this afternoon. Even when she threw open the window, no breath of coolness came to fan her burning face.
When Tom had become dear as a son to her, fears would sometimes rise that his claim to Woodcote might one day be disputed; but as the quiet years went on these fears ceased to present themselves, and when Pauline mentioned Rhoda Sampson the name had gone through her like a knife.
And as Miss Merivale thought this she stretched her hand to the check-string, determining to drive at once to Lincoln's Inn to see her lawyer. But her hand dropped at her side. All his life Tom had thought of Woodcote as his inheritance; every stone, every blade of grass, was dear to him. He would have to leave it, to go out into the world to fight for his living. How could she let him go?
From Bruton Street he had emerged upon Berkeley Square; and, as Lady Woodcote had invited him to meet Helen at luncheon at the Ritz, he turned in that direction. He was too early for luncheon; but in the corridor of the Ritz he knew he would find persons of position and fortune, and in reading their minds he might pass the time before luncheon with entertainment, possibly with profit.
After telling the man to drive her to Victoria, she sank back faint and trembling. The alternatives that lay before her seemed equally impossible. If Rhoda was Lydia's child, her own niece, her successor to Woodcote, how could she leave her unacknowledged? How could she be silent about the discovery she had made, even for a day?
"And he'd be glad to see Miss Sampson if she's still with Miss Merivale supposing 'twas convenient." "I am going back to Woodcote now," Tom said, looking at Mr. Harding. He had started violently at the first mention of his name by Mrs. Smith, but he spoke coolly enough. "Will you walk back with me? My aunt will be very glad to see you.
Miss Merivale was so quiet and unassuming a personage that she had got into the habit of ignoring her. "Of Clare's new amusement, Miss Merivale," she said, with a laugh. Her laugh, like her voice, was a trifle hard. "It was scientific dressmaking when I was at Woodcote last, you remember, Rose dear. Now it is a society. Clare is secretary."
I wish I was eighteen, with hair the colour of ripe wheat, then I would wear blue too." She went off, laughing, with Rose to the tiny kitchen on the other side of the passage. The sitting-room was the largest room in the little Chelsea flat, and that was smaller than any of the rooms at Woodcote; but the diminutive dimensions of the place only added to the fascinations of it in Rose's eyes.
Miss Merivale had not been paying much heed to the eager talk that was going on between Rose and Pauline Smythe at the window. The long drive from Woodcote had made her head ache, and she was drowsily wishing that Miss Smythe would get her the cup of tea she had promised, when the sound of a name made her suddenly sit bolt upright, her kind old face full of anxious curiosity.
Would you mind my just finishing this letter for the post? It is very important. I shall not be five minutes." Miss Merivale, who had seen Clare running about the garden at Woodcote three summers before with her hair flying, was considerably taken aback by her extremely "grown-up" manner. She sat meekly down on the sofa and waited for the letter to be finished. "There, it's done!"
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