A Different Reflection Read Online Free

and thought his remark was slightly obscure, then turned to catch up with him. I found him muttering to himself as he walked along. Maybe he wasn’t as sane as I had first thought. As he realised that I was beside him, he stopped. “So I think it best that we start at this end of the room, with the first portrait of where it all began,” he happily said. “This strange-looking fellow would be Edward Montgomery, who authorised the building of Northfield before his death in 1690. He never saw Northfield finished, but insisted to his son that he finish it and live here. He was the last of their family. His mother had died some ten years prior,” George confirmed. I looked at the painting.
    â€œHe’s a slightly aggressive-looking person, isn’t he?” I stated as I looked at the person in the portrait.
    â€œHe was, I am told, a very headstrong man. He never backed away from anything he saw fit,” George replied. We moved along; “This would be his son, Charles Montagu Montgomery,” he then said. “Before you say anything, this portrait, I believe, was done a year or two before his addiction to alcohol and gambling. Otherwise we may have had a portrait with him asleep or intoxicated!” George raised his eyebrows and I laughed, moving along with him.
    â€œThis is a beautiful portrait,” I then stated as I stared at the graceful and angelic looking woman in the painting. George sighed and then clasped his hands together as if in prayer.
    â€œAh yes, this would be the very lovely Mary Anne Aldersley.” He smiled.
    â€œShe looks no more than twenty-one or two in this painting!” I said.
    â€œShe was twenty years of age and it was the year of her wedding to Howard. How very heavy-hearted it makes me feel to know that only eight years or thereabouts after this portrait, she was to lose her life to something we find is so controllable today,” he said, slightly pained. I touched George’s arm.
    â€œYes, it is despairing, but she also had great love in her short life – many of us do not have the opportunity to experience,” I stated with slight regret. If I think of my relationship with John and how much of our lives are focused on our careers, I cannot imagine him being so grief-stricken at my loss for too long a time. George gestured for me to move on.
    â€œThis is Howard James Aldersley, whom I consider to be the ‘main master’ of this house. He turned it around from being complete ruin, even after tragedy,” George happily stated.
    â€œHe looks very gentlemanly and very kind!” I replied.
    â€œThat he was; a very kind and fair man!” George then stated as a matter of fact.
    â€œYou express the sentiment as if you knew him!” I exclaimed to George. He looked at me with surprise and shook his head.
    â€œOnly what I have heard in stories past!” he confirmed. I nodded in agreement. “This is Margaret Elizabeth Aldersley, Howard’s second wife. She was very beautiful, like her sister, but the elder of the two, and Howard’s saviour I believe!” George then said as I stared at her.
    â€œShe is very beautiful, but very petite,” I said with surprise. “Her hands look like that of a small child, unless the artist himself was not too good at perspective!” I queried as I looked at George. He laughed heartily:
    â€œNo, the artist was quite experienced; it was well-documented that she was only a small lady, but had a heart the size of an elephant!” he said as he finished laughing.
    As we walked to the next portrait, of a young boy with dark, long, floppy hair, I smiled. “Don’t tell me – James Henry Alderlsey?” I asked, hoping that I was correct.
    â€œYes indeed. A very spritely four-year-old boy; he did not really have the patience for sitting for a portrait, but, at the order of his father, was made to do so!” George said, with his arms folded across