Page 91

And how wonderfully it had worked out.

“That is generally the way with you. You always did prefer to manage things on your own before you let anyone else see the mess of it.” He nodded toward Gregory again. “He manages Joan very well, I notice.”

“He was terrified of children when I married him. Now look at him.”

“People generally can learn, given enough reason to.” Her father reached over and patted her hand, the same gesture he had used when she was small enough to need it explained. “I am only glad you found your way to it.”

That evening, once the children had finally, protestingly, been delivered to their beds, Phillipa and her father walked out together into the garden, as she had promised him in her letter they would.

The stone bench was cold beneath them.

“Show me,” her father said, “what you remember.”

Phillipa laughed, a little embarrassed. “I remember almost nothing. That is rather why I asked you to come.”

“You remember more than you think. Try.”

She looked up, searching, and found, after a moment, the shape she had been hunting for. “That one. The crooked chair of stars, just there. You called it something once.”

Her father’s voice warmed with real pleasure. “You have not forgotten after all.”

He pointed out three more for her after that, patient the way he had always been, back when she was small enough to sit on his knee for these lessons rather than beside him on a cold garden bench. Phillipa found that her eyes had filled, quite without warning.

“What is it, my dear?”

“Nothing is wrong. I only...” She wiped her eyes, laughing a little at herself. “I only wish I had asked you to teach me properly, all those years ago, instead of letting the etiquette lessons crowd it out entirely. I missed this more than I let myself know, until I had it back again.”

“You have it now. That is rather the whole of what matters, I find. It is never too late to go back for the things that were worth keeping.”

“Your mother wanted to come as well,” her father said eventually. “Her knees have not been good this past year, and the roads are hard going this time of year. She did not think she could manage the whole journey comfortably, so she sent me ahead and made me promise to bring back a full account.”

“I am sorry to hear that about her knees.”

“She complains about it more than it troubles her, I think, though she will deny that if you ever tell her I said so.” He smiled. “She has a great many opinions about the marriage, you should know. About Gregory particularly.”

“What sort of opinions?”

“Mostly that she wishes she had met him sooner, now that she has heard so much about him secondhand. She does not care for being told things after the fact. She would have liked to form her own view of him from the start, rather than taking mine.”

Phillipa laughed. “She can form it herself at Christmas.”

“That is exactly what I told her, and it is the only reason she let me come without her. She intends to make up for lost time.”

“I will write her a proper letter before you leave, so you are not made to recite everything from memory and get it wrong.”

“That would save me a great deal of trouble, yes. She corrects me on details I did not even know I had gotten wrong.”

They sat a while longer, and Phillipa found the crooked chair of stars again without having to search for it this time, pleased with herself, and her father laughed and said she had it the wrong way round, that was the chair’s back leg she was pointing at, not its seat, and showed her properly.

“Will you both come for Christmas, then? You and mother?”

“We will. I shall see to it personally, knees or no knees.”

“Good. The house has room enough now. We added the east wing two years ago, mostly because Gregory could not stand the idea of guests sleeping three to a room whenever Ronan and Augusta brought the children.”

“A practical man.”

“He has his moments.”