Miss Merivale's Mistake Part 10

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 a.s.sumption 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 Devons.h.i.+re, and Rhoda was left behind. She has n.o.body 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?"