About this story
Four years on Maggie buys it for her father's birthday, Fanny Assingham smashes it on the marble and keeps two gold pieces on her mantel, and Maggie's quiet campaign rearranges the family at the speed of furniture. Forty chapters carry the flaw to the sailing at Southampton and a whole small bowl for the child.
How it opens
London held you between an Italian title without money and an American marriage with both.
Maggie believes our old friendship makes us safe company before the wedding.
She had returned unexpectedly, poor enough to make every beautiful shop an exercise in refusal.
We were never safe company, Charlotte; we were merely discreet witnesses.
Choose
Regret would insult her and flatter what we refused to become.
I regret only that marriage turns every earlier truth into evidence.
Ask me after the wedding, when an answer can no longer alter it.