CHAPTER II. WOODCOTE.
The drive home to Woodcote was a very silent one. Miss Merivale and Rose were both absorbed in their own thoughts, and neither of them even dimly divined the thoughts of the other.
It had never entered Miss Merivale’s head that Rose, her pet and darling, her little nurse and helper, could be longing to live with Pauline in London; and how could Rose have guessed that her aunt’s thoughts were fixed on Rhoda Sampson, the girl Pauline had spoken of in such contemptuous terms? She supposed her aunt was asleep, she sat so still in the corner of the carriage with her eyes closed, and she took good care not to disturb her. She was glad to be free to dwell on the delightful visions Pauline had called up for her.
Miss Merivale roused herself as the carriage turned in at the gates of the drive. The March twilight had gathered thickly, and lights were shining from the windows of the low, irregular house. They could see them twinkling through the trees.
“I wonder if Tom is back from Guilford yet, Rosie. He will scold us for being late. Oh, how sweet and fresh the air is here! Don’t you pity those girls cooped up in that stuffy little flat? You must not promise to stay a week with them, Rosie. You would find two days quite long enough.”
Rose was saved from attempting to answer this by the carriage stopping before the wide porch. A short, fair-haired young man, with a pleasant face and merry blue eyes, was waiting to open the door.
“Auntie, you have no business to be out as late as this and an east wind blowing,” he said, in a playful scolding tone. “Rose, you should not have allowed it. But come in. There is a jolly fire in the dining-room, and tea is quite ready. Next time you go to London, I mean to go with you.”
The dining-room looked a picture of comfort, with the curtains drawn, and the table laid for tea. Miss Merivale never had late dinner except when she gave a dinner party. She liked the simple, old-fashioned ways she had been accustomed to in her youth. But the table was laid with dainty care; the swinging lamps shone upon shining silver that had been in the family for two hundred years, on an old Worcester tea-set that had been bought by Miss Merivale’s grandmother, on bowls of early spring flowers gathered by Rose that morning from the beautiful old garden at the back of the house. Everything in the room spoke of long years of quiet prosperity. As Miss Merivale took her accustomed seat at the tea-table and looked about her, and then at Tom sitting opposite her, all unwitting of the terrible blow that might be about to fall on him, she could scarcely keep back the sob that rose to her lips.
Tom met her glance without seeing the trouble in it, and he smiled cheerfully back at her.