Page 120 of Threads that Remain

“I shan’t.”

“I know you shall not. You never do.” The Captain said it without rancour, with the open, easy affection that had grown between them in the years since a laundry-basket had first been called a ship; and it was in this spirit, a little later, over a late dinner with the whole family gathered, that the rest of the house had its turn at him.

Madeline had grown, in the two years since he had last stayed under that roof for any length of time, into a tall, fair, quick-eyed young woman of seventeen, with her mother’s sharp tongue not yet entirely filed down by good manners, and her own coming-out fixed for the spring; and she had clearly been saving up her questions, for she fell upon him the moment the soup was cleared, with her chin propped on both hands and her whole attention turned upon him like a lamp.

“Is she pretty?”

“Madeline,” said Sophia, without much hope of being obeyed.

“I am only asking because I have not seen her in years. Is she pretty, Henry?”

“I think her the loveliest woman I have ever seen,” said Henry, “but I am given to understand that a man in my position is not to be trusted on the point.”

“That is not an answer, that is a dodge. What colour is her hair?”

“Brown. Quite ordinary brown, until the sun is on it, and then it is a great many colours at once, and she will tell you it is nothing of the kind and that you are being fanciful.”

“Is she clever?”

“She is a great deal cleverer than I am, and has been since she was nine years old, and has never once let me forget it.”

“Will she like me still, do you think?”

“She will like you enormously,” said Henry, with perfect certainty, “and within a fortnight you will be thick as thieves and writing each other letters I shall not be permitted to read, and I expect to spend a great many future evenings being laughed at by the two of you together, which I find I do not mind in the least, having had a good deal of practice.” He considered her a moment. “You might do a great deal worse than to have her beside you for your coming out next year. She has very firm opinions about which gentlemen are worth dancing with, and which are only worth being civil to, and I promise you they are nearly always right.”

Madeline looked, for a moment, entirely delighted, and considerably less armed for battle than she had been a minute before. “I should like that very much.”

It was afterward, when the younger two had gone off to quarrel amiably over a game of cards, that Willoughby and Sophia kept him a while longer at the table, over the last of the wine, and asked him, between them, a great many quieter questions: what he meant to do with Fernley, now the roofs were sound and the rents fairly set; whether he still meant to make his home in Allenham, and when; what sort of a life he and Sarah had spoken of making together, did he think they would stay for future London seasons at the house in Berkeley Square, and whether he thought he had it in him to be as useful in Parliament as he had been with a drain and a ledger. He answered them plainly, and at some length, in the unhurried way of a man who has thought a great deal about his own future and is in no hurry to seem clever about it; and it was a conversation that went on a long while, low and easy, under the candles, touching on boots, and a school with a new floor in it, and the particular satisfaction of fixing a thing that had been broken a long time before anybody troubled to notice. Willoughby said little, for him, but listened with his whole attention, and more than once reached across and gripped his son’s forearm, briefly, as if to confirm that he was really there and really saying these things; and Sophia, watching the pair of them, allowed herself the plain and unguarded pride of a woman who had built nothing of this herself, and had nonetheless somehow been given a very great deal of credit for it, and had long since stopped arguing with her good fortune.

Henry continued to call at Berkeley Square every day. It was an ordinary day, when he and Sarah, Anne and Matthew were in a conversation with Elinor about what order she thought the brides should descend the stairs when Ned yelled.

It was not a word. It was the sound of a boy who had been hard at work and had at last been repaid, and it carried through two doors and up a staircase. Somewhere below, a footman dropped something.

Elinor, recognising it as her son’s voice, had gone at a pace Henry had never before seen from her. Henry reached the study, with Sarah a step behind him and half the household behind her.

“Ned! What in heaven’s name—” Elinor stopped short in the doorway, caught between alarm and laughter at the sight of the boy sitting on the floor with a drawer beside him.

“Look! Look.” Ned held up a small leather box cracked with age.

“It is much too deep,” Ned started explaining quickly and excitedly. “The drawer is a foot and a half. The desk is two feet and a half, at the least. There is a foot of nothing back here. I took out this drawer and at the very back I found a small wooden divider. I pressed it to the right and heard that beautiful click and a panel sprung open. I knew there was something better to discover!”

He held out the box to Henry, who took it and lifted the latch. It was rusted but gave way.

Inside, on a bed of faded silk, lay three rings.

By the time Henry had laid them out on his handkerchief, the room was full. Sarah stood at his shoulder. Anne had come with Lieutenant Wycliffe, who had been calling that morning and had been caught on the staircase by the commotion.

“Henry, do you know who they belonged to?” Sarah asked.

“I have no idea. Nothing like these was in the paperwork registry of the family heirlooms.”

The first ring was small, a single pearl of great lustre in a circle of seed pearls so fine they looked as if the light might dissolve them.

The second was a line of different stones, set in gold, the sides worn smooth from years of wear, and the third held a rectangle of deep blue sapphire, cut in steps, with a small diamond on either side.

“They may have been tokens of affection, I think,” remarked Elinor.

Henry looked at Sarah then at Ned. “Well done, Ned! This could not have come at a better time. I should not like to keep them in a box. I should like them to be worn. Sarah, choose one.”