Facing the Light Read Online Free Page B

corridor. ‘I’ll make sure no one catches us.’
    â€˜Stop teasing, Rilla.’ Gwen laughed and sounded all at once much younger. ‘
We’re
allowed in the nursery. It’s just the TV people Mother wants to keep out.’
    â€˜Can’t imagine why … has she said? The dolls’ house was Ethan Walsh’s crowning achievement if you ask me.’
    â€˜She likes to keep it to herself for some reason,’ Gwen said. ‘She’s always adored it, and of course it brings back memories for her. I can’t stay long, I’m afraid. James will be back from the wine merchant very soon and you’re supposed to be unpacking.’
    Rilla had always loved the nursery. In the old days, it had been Nanny Mouse’s domain, but for the last few years the old lady had been living in a cottage down at the end of the drive by the gates, looked after by a nurse-companion. She would have been sad to see it all quiet and echoey, stripped of toys, its bookshelves empty. It was not the room it used to be; the room Rilla had for years considered the centre of her world. Gwen’s grandson, Douggie, Efe and Fiona’s son, could have slept there whenever they visited, but Fiona liked to keep him near her still. He was only two and a half. Perhaps when he was older, he’d bring the room to life again.
    Gwen opened the door and there was the dolls’ house in its usual place against the wall. Rilla smiled. Motherwas not a sentimental person, but when it came to this, which she often referred to as
almost my only link with my mother
, she behaved in ways which could only be described as somewhat eccentric. Okay, Gwen was right, and it had been made for Leonora by her father, and her mother had decorated every room. Perhaps she didn’t want everyone in the world peering and poking at it, but still, not allowing the film crew to see it was taking matters a bit far. Also, only older children were actually allowed to play with it. Leonora would never permit toddlers to smear their grubby fingers over the wallpaper, or mistreat the tiny pieces of furniture. Everyone in the family knew that it was still very much Leonora’s own possession, and if they thought there was anything at all strange about a woman of over seventy being attached to what was, after all, a child’s toy, they never said so.
    Making the house had been a labour of love, that was clear. Rilla found it hard to imagine her artistic grandfather, who’d been a bit of a Tartar by all accounts, getting down to child level, as it were, to create this most beautiful residence. Grandmother Maude, who was hardly mentioned in anything written about Ethan Walsh, had decorated it throughout, with exactly the same care that she had lavished on Willow Court. She had also made three little dolls to live in it – exact copies of herself and her husband and daughter. They were tiny rag dolls, but so carefully stitched together that every feature was not only clearly visible, but recognizable too. Ethan was the biggest of the dolls, with a dark moustache and heavy eyebrows over piercing blue eyes. Maude had nut-brown hair drawn into a bun at the nape of her neck, and wore a blouse with a high collar made of lace. The Leonora doll was in a dress cut from the same lilac fabric she wore in one of the portraits, the famous one which showed her sitting on the edge of a bed. The dress was trimmed with the lace Maude had used to make a collaron the figure of the mother. Each doll had a smile embroidered onto its face in pink silk. When she was a little girl, Rilla often said that you could see they were a happy family.
    â€˜She used to let us look at them at Christmas time,’ Gwen said. ‘Do you remember?’
    Rilla nodded. ‘That’s right. Didn’t we have some miniature holly or something that we decorated some of the rooms with?’
    â€˜Wreaths,’ said Gwen. ‘They’re in a box in