A Christmas Homecoming: A Novel

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 down to married life.”

Eliza said nothing.