A Christmas Homecoming - Anne Perry [7]
The flicker crossed his face again. “She may be hurt. It’s my place to try to save her from that.”
“You can’t,” she said simply. “All you can do is comfort her if she fails. You will learn that when you have children. Nothing in the world hurts quite like seeing your child fail, and then watching as they try to face the pain of it. But you must not prevent them from following their hearts, just because there is the possibility of failure. All that shows is that you don’t believe in either their ability, or their courage. Believe me, Mr. Paterson, I have daughters just as willful as Alice, if not more so.”
He looked startled. “Did they want to write plays?”
“No, but one of them wanted to marry a policeman, and live on a pittance.”
He swallowed. “What did you do?”
“I let her. Not that I imagine I could have stopped her,” she admitted. “It was a matter of doing it graciously, or ungraciously. I am delighted to say that she is very happy indeed.”
He was clearly not sure whether to believe her or not.
“Let us join Alice, and be shown the theater.” She took his arm, so he was obliged to leave the subject and do as she commanded.
fter seeing the stage, which was unexpectedly impressive, Caroline returned along the series of corridors to the main part of the house. She found that Joshua had apparently gone to discuss the following day’s arrangements with the rest of the players. Only Mr. and Mrs. Netheridge were in the large withdrawing room. Caroline hadn’t had time to really notice the décor earlier, as they had actually approached the dining room from the other side, and so had glimpsed this room only through its open double doors.
Inside it was awe-inspiring, certainly the central room of the house. The ceiling was unusually high and ornate. She tried to imagine how long the scrolled and curlicued plasterwork must have taken, and gave up before her staring became too obvious to be good-mannered. The walls were separated into panels, but the most remarkable feature of the room was an enormous window of almost cathedral-like proportions with panes of delicate leaded glass, most of it in rich autumnal colors. It was clearly seen because the curtains on either side of it were drawn back and held by thick silk ropes. Lanterns outside the window shone through the colored glass.
Mr. Netheridge saw her looking.
“My father had that built,” he said proudly. “Talk of the town, it was, back then. And folk take it for granted now, least from the outside they do.”
“I can’t imagine that’s true,” Caroline said truthfully. Whether you cared for it or not, the window was certainly impossible to ignore.
Netheridge was pleased. “Whole room designed around it, of course,” he went on. “My mother did it all. Had a wonderful eye, didn’t she, Eliza?”
“Wonderful,” Eliza agreed drily. Caroline caught the look of sudden loss in her face, but Mr. Netheridge was looking the other way. His gaze was wandering over the richly colored walls—too richly colored for Caroline’s taste. She found the shading oppressive, and longed for something cooler, less absorbing of the light. She wondered if Mrs. Netheridge senior had been as dominating in personality as she was in her ideas of design, and if Eliza as a new bride had felt obliged to subordinate her own tastes because of it.
Caroline looked at Eliza again and saw a momentary unhappiness in her face that was so sharp as to make Caroline feel that she had unintentionally intruded. She wanted to make amends for it immediately.
“It is quite unlike anywhere I have been before,” she said with forced cheerfulness. Perhaps she would make as good an actress as Lydia or Mercy, one day? “And it is so extraordinarily comfortable. For all its richness, it still feels like someone’s home.” That was a total lie, enough to make her teeth ache, but she saw the pride in Netheridge’s face, and the relief in Eliza’s.
“We’re glad you came,” Netheridge said with satisfaction. “It’ll give our Alice a real chance. Bit of fun for ’er, before she settles