"No, Esther, not on any account! Mama is busy!" Caddy exclaims, waving one hand at her daughter while rubbing her own forehead with the other. She is sitting among a pile of papers, her fingers smudged with ink, her eyes bloodshot. She barely looks up.
Esther Turveydrop hovers apologetically by the door, a letter in her hand.
"She only wanted you to have a look at her letter to Mrs. Woodcourt," Prince says softly.
"Must it be tonight?" Caddy mutters. "These bills must be ready to send by tomorrow, and I've barely begun!"
"My dear, you know how precious her godmother's good opinion is to her," says Prince. "Is it not, Esther?"
The child nods, her blue eyes as sad and appealing as her namesake's. She drops her letter on Caddy's desk, and Prince makes an effort not to smile as he watches his wife struggling to ignore the spelling mistakes. Personally, he couldn't make out half the words, blotted and scrawled as they are, but he knows that Caddy will. And he also knows, deep inside his soul, how much it hurts to be unable to please someone you admire. My son's qualities are not shining, but they are useful, he hears his own father say.
Mrs. Woodcourt is a kind lady and would never criticize little Esther, but the child does not know that. She may have Caddy's strawberry-blond hair and fine-boned features, but her painful attacks of shyness come from him – and being deaf hasn't made it any easier. Protectively, he gathers Esther up into his wheelchair and settles her in his lap. She smiles up at him; the one good thing about losing the use of his legs is the fascination this chair seems to hold for his equally, but differently disabled daughter.
"It's important for her to learn to write properly," he says. Even more than most people, he does not need to add.
Caddy throws down her quill, gets up from behind her desk, and bends down to meet her daughter at eye-level. The gentleness in her face makes her so beautiful that, despite eight years of marriage, Prince falls in love with her all over again.
"Tomorrow, sweetheart," Caddy tells Esther, quietly and firmly. "I give you my word. Let me finish these first, but tomorrow our vacation begins, and I will have as much time for you as you wish."
Some children might have squealed, but the way Esther beams and throws her arms around her mother speaks volumes even in silence.