Page 38 of Threads that Remain

Upper Grosvenor Street.

Sir, Madam,

I have no right to write to you, and I know it. I write only because I could not sleep, and because it seemed to me that a thing said upon paper in the small hours may be forgiven for its awkwardness in a way that a thing spoken in a ballroom cannot.

I have come to learn that my son is well, and happy, and that he has been taught to be kind. I have nothing to say to that but that I am more grateful than I know how to put into words; and that I should like you both to believe that I am aware, to the fullest extent, of how very little I have to do with it. I am aware that I did not earn what I have been told. I do not ask for it. I do not ask for anything.

I ask only this. I should like him to be told that I am alive, and near; that I have seen him; and that I think of him. If he wishes to see me, I shall come to any place, at any hour, in any manner that he or you may think fit; I shall say what he wishes to hear and nothing that he does not. If he does not wish it, then I shall not trouble him. I shall not write again. I shall not go to the Gardens. It will be quite enough that I know his name.

I have learned it. It is Henry. I had not expected it to be so easy to say.

I am, Sir, Madam, with a respect that I have not hitherto deserved,

J. W.

There was a very long pause when it was finished. The lamp hissed. Out in the hall the clock struck the quarter.

“He has been thinking in the same direction as Mrs. Smith. And Henry,” said the Colonel at last, in a low voice. “He has not asked for a thing.”

“No.”

“It is not a bad letter.”

“It is not a very good one,” said Marianne. Her eyes were wet. “It is a great deal better than I expected. It has not a single fine phrase in it. I think that is the most alarming part.” She drew a long breath. “Brandon. I think he means it.”

“I think,” said the Colonel, slowly, “that he means it tonight.”

They took it to Henry in the morning.

He read it three times, in the window-seat in the library, with his lips moving very slightly, in the manner of one who is committing a lesson to memory; and when it was done, he folded it very carefully, along the original creases, and gave it back, and sat looking at the floor.

“It is a very short letter for a person to have taken so long to write,” said he. He looked up. “May I answer it?”

“If you like, my dear.”

“I should like to do it myself.”

He wrote it at the library desk, upon the Colonel’s best paper, with his tongue between his teeth and his left arm curled round the page, in the concealing manner of a person who does not wish to have his work looked over. It took him an hour and a half. There were six drafts; five went into the fire. On finishing, he handed it, without a word, to the Colonel; and the Colonel, who was not a man to read another person’s letters, looked at his wife, and looked at the boy, and was asked by its author to read it.

Brook Street.

Sir,

I have received your letter. I thank you for it. I think it was a good one.

I should be pleased to meet you upon Thursday at three o’clock, in Colonel Brandon’s library, if it is convenient. I shall be accompanied by Colonel Brandon, whom I call Papa, and I hope that you will not mind it.

I would like you to know that I am not angry. I have thought about it a good deal and I do not think that I am. But I am not sure about anything else. I think I had better see you first.

I am, Sir, yours truly,

Henry.

P.S. I hope that your children are well. I think I should like to meet my brother, but not on Thursday. I think one thing at a time.

When it was done, he sealed it himself, with a blob of wax that came down rather crookedly upon the flap. Then he took it to the footman to have it sent out.

Chapter XXV.