Page 80 of Threads that Remain

Edward considered this carefully.

“Not particularly, no.”

Edward stopped.

“I was going to say that the cake was excellent.”

“It was.”

“And that our daughter looked very happy.”

“She did.”

“And that I am exceedingly fond of my wife.”

“That is a much safer subject.”

Edward smiled.

“I am learning.”

“After all these years?”

“I am a slow learner.”

“So I have observed.”

He reached for her hand and kissed it.

“And yet,” he murmured, “I have been remarkably fortunate in my teacher.”

Elinor lifted her face to his and kissed his chin.

“You are incorrigible.”

“Perhaps in some matters. But I can assure you I will say nothing more on any subject that results in becoming a victim of those fingers of yours.”

“Good man,” she laughed. “Perhaps you are not such a slow learner after all.”

Chapter XL.

The morning after a wedding is generally a quiet one, in a house that has hosted the whole of a parish through its doors the day before; and the breakfast table at Delaford, on the morning after Mary’s, bore every mark of a household recovering by degrees. There was a great deal of cold ham left over from the wedding-breakfast; there was the Colonel, behind his newspaper; there was Marianne, declaring that she should not be surprised if it took her a full week to recover; and there was Henry, sitting rather quietly over his coffee.

Henry casually asked Anne if she had any suitors he should know about.

“Not yet,” answered Anne, stealing a glance up at her Aunt Margaret.

“Your timing is impeccable, Henry,” said Margaret.

“I have waited until after the wedding to mention it.”

The Tregarths had come in from the yellow room a little after the rest, Margaret in high spirits, and Simon a step behind her with the mild, settled, faintly amused expression of a man long practised in being towed along by his wife’s enthusiasms and finding, on the whole, that he did not mind it.

“I have had a letter from Cecilia,” Margaret announced before she was properly in her chair and brandishing it as evidence. “And I have made up my mind that I am very happy about the whole of it.”

“You are always very happy about the whole of everything,” said Marianne, “within five minutes of reading it. What does it say?”

“She and Thomas feel that Portman Square is a great deal too large for the three of them and she will not hear of its standing half-empty when she has a house full of people she loves who might be filling it instead. She wants us, Simon and me, of course, to stay with them and enjoy the season, and I am desperate to see my little Meg. She also extends the invitation to any of my family who wishes to join.” Margaret set the letter down, and looked round the table with the particular bright, decided expression that her family had learned, over a great many years, to recognise as the forerunner of a scheme already three-quarters settled in her own mind. “I should like to take Anne and Sarah, and let them have their season, now that they are both eighteen.”