Astoria

s e v e n

Meredith was sitting at the kitchen table, perusing an old dress catalog, the dress patterns sketched in by an artist to give ladies an idea of how the dress might look, when Evan came home late that evening.

He entered the dining room and grabbed the dish towel in an attempt to dry his sopping hair somewhat. She watched him, curiously.

"Hit a rainstorm on the way home," he said. "The coach got stuck in the mud and some of the passengers, including me, got out to help push it free.

Meredith nodded. Evan finished with the towel and tossed it onto the counter, coming to sit across from her. She looked up and met his eyes.

"I've gotten you something..." his voice trailed off and he smiled. She closed her catalog of seamstresses illustrations and smiled back.

"What might that be?" she asked, curious.

"For your birthday." He pulled from the inside of his jacket pocket a relatively dry paper package, tied in string. He pushed it across the table to her. She reached out a hand and pulled it towards her, still watching him in a state of almost disbelief.

He grinned impatiently, reminding her of how Nash had looked earlier. "Go on!" he urged her. "Open it!"

She turned her gaze to the package and gently untied the string and folded back the paper. For a few moments, she was stricken speechless and she simply stared at the beautiful strand of pure pearls that lay before her.

She finally looked at her brother.

"Evan...They're beautiful," she breathed.

"I'm glad you like them," he said, smiling at his younger sister softly.

"Oh, Evan!" she gushed. "They must have cost so many ells! However did you get all the money?"

"I've been saving..." he said sheepishly. "I wanted to buy you a suitable birthday present for once. So I had been setting aside little bits...a few ceros here and there, sometimes a rifa. Then I got my advance and gathered it all for a trip to Hampshire." He paused. "I will admit to you that it almost wasn't bought. I was five ells short."

"Five whole ells?" she said, looking properly shocked. "That's more than even a week's earnings at any of our old jobs. However did you end up being able to buy it?"

He smiled and called to his own mind the image of the young man, about his own age but dressed in clothing befitting one who is well off, pressing the coins into his hand. He had opened his hand later, to find that the man had even slipped in a few rifas and ceros.

"I got lucky, I suppose...There was a man. He insisted that he was glad to give me the extra money. I was worried about paying him back...but he said that wasn't necessary!"

She smiled, her eyes turning back to her pearls and drinking them in, for it was the most beautiful thing she owned, and even more beautiful coming from her dear brother.

"It's too bad," continued Evan, "that I probably will never see him again. To thank him. To let him know how much it meant to us."

Evenings passed quietly at Mansfield Palace. The Princess Therese usually retired to her own rooms early, for she lived by the maxim of "early to bed, early to rise". The Queen Olivya had gone to her study to take care of some matters of business. Antony and Isabella had, as usual, made their way to the library, where Isabella practiced her violin and Antony usually found a book to read, or simply sat and listened, a faraway look coming across his face when he held no book to distract himself from the music and what it meant to him.

"Antony, play with me, please."

Antony looked up from the book he was reading to see his cousin holding her violin and watching him intently from across the room.

He sighed.

"Isabella...You know I..."

"Yes, I know," she interrupted, pretending to be put out. "You don't play anymore. But you were so good. And duets were so fun! Come now! We've only a few more days here at Mansfield! For the sake of old, good times!" She ran her bow over the strings, playing a quick tune, before holding the instrument out to her cousin.

Antony glanced quickly between her and the instrument and, after what seemed almost an eternity to his impatient cousin, took the instrument in one hand and the bow in the other.

He hesitated, the bow poised over the strings, before closing his eyes and drawing it across, the resonant note sounding loud, clear, and sweet in the echoing library.

A sudden image of his father, playing the violin and teaching the young Antony to do the same suddenly interrupted his thoughts. A picture of the two of them at the piano while William taught Antony notes and scales. Then the visions of the nightmares he still had several times a week about the day of his father's death.

His eyes came abruptly open and the bow faltered, the note turning sour and screeching in the stillness. He pushed the violin back into Isabella's hands and stood quickly, walking to stand in front of the library window. Isabella came hesitantly to stand next to him.

"As I said before," he managed to say, his voice somewhat tense. "I do not play anymore."