Lady Heritage stared.
“A shop that you must have passed hundreds of times?”
“It’s very stupid of me.”
Lady Heritage smiled with a sudden brilliance. “Well, it is rather,” she said.
It was on the fourth day that Jane really caught her first glimpse of the black rocks.
She was writing in the library, dealing with an apparently endless stream of begging letters, requests for interviews, invitations to speak at meetings or to join committees.
In four days Jane had discovered that Lady Heritage was up to her eyes in a dozen movements relating to feminist activities, women’s labour, and social reform.
Newspapers, pamphlets, and reports littered a table which ran the whole length of the room. Jane was required to open all these as they came, and separate those which dealt with social reform and the innumerable scientific treatises and reviews. These latter arrived in every European language.
Jane sat writing. The day was clear and lovely, the air sun-warmed and yet fresh as if it had passed over snow. April has days like this, and they fill every healthy person with a longing to be out, to stop working, and take holiday.
The windows of the library looked out upon the gravel terrace above the sea. The sun was on the blue water.