A Christmas Homecoming - Anne Perry [4]
“Too little hunger,” Joshua had said of Lydia, but looking at her now, Caroline could not understand what he had meant. It was just another example of the way in which she would never quite be one of them. She could learn all she wished and ask Joshua a hundred questions, but she did not have the instinctive understanding of the way the world of the theater operated that the others shared.
Lydia knew Vincent, of course, but she was introduced to Alice, and then to Mr. Netheridge, and to Eliza Netheridge. She spoke to Joshua and Caroline with the warmth she had always shown them, and they were talking agreeably of nothing in particular when the last two of the players arrived. Mercy Carstairs and James Hobbs had been married for three years and seemed well suited to each other. She was very slender, wide-eyed, and filled with a restless energy that commanded attention on the stage. He was traditionally handsome, as tall as Vincent Singer but far less dynamic. He was good in romantic leads but he had no inner darkness at his command to play villains, and no silence within from which to summon tragedy.
They all exchanged greetings, expressed their satisfaction at the ample accommodations that had been provided for them, and then swapped a few stories about the journey from London.
They had already been shown to the dining room and had taken their places at the table when the last of the week’s guests arrived. He was introduced as Douglas Paterson, fiancé of Alice Netheridge. He was in his late twenties with a keen face. At the moment he was clearly unable to hide his discomfort at the present gathering. He took his seat with a brief apology, directed first to Mrs. Netheridge, then to Alice.
Alice accepted it without comment.
Caroline glanced at Joshua, and saw that he, too, had recognized the first sign of disapproval. Paterson’s glance at Alice, and then the strange tension in his face at her lack of response, made the situation clear. He did not wish his fiancée to be wasting her time at such inappropriate pursuits. He had probably expressed his displeasure earlier, and Alice had clearly chosen to ignore him.
The meal was generous and very well served. They began with soup, then fresh fish. Netheridge remarked that it had come in overnight and been brought up from the docks that morning.
“I doubt we’ll get more for a while,” he said, looking at the closed curtains, beyond which the sound of the rising wind was quite clear.
“They’ll put it on ice,” Eliza assured him. “We have plenty to last us.” She looked at her guests one by one. “I always find a stormy Christmas quite enjoyable, especially if there is snow. I can remember some years when Christmas Day was so beautiful it was as if the whole world had been made anew while we slept.”
“So it had,” Caroline responded quickly. “At least in a spiritual sense, and that is how we should view everything.”
Singer stared at her in amazement. “I thought you were a Jew,” he said, pointedly looking at Joshua and then back at her, his eyebrows high.
There was total silence around the table. Alice dropped her fork and it clattered on the china of her plate.
Caroline hesitated. She knew everyone was looking at her, waiting to see how she would react. All the players were aware of Joshua’s race and religion, but were the Netheridges? Caroline was so angry at Vincent that she put down her own knife and fork and hid her hands in her lap to hide the shaking.
But she forced herself to smile charmingly. “No, you didn’t,” she said to Vincent. “You know perfectly well that Joshua is Jewish and I am Christian. You made the remark to be absolutely certain that our host and hostess are also aware of it, although I can’t think why, unless it is a desire to embarrass someone. If they now wish us to leave, then you have sabotaged the whole project, and all that hangs on it. Surely that was not your intention?”
For several pulsing seconds the silence