Now, reflected Briggs, he was even more than a captain. At thirty-seven years of age, part-owner, too. Admittedly only a third share, but enough. Particularly in a newly rebuilt vessel like the Mary Celeste, trim and clean from stem to stern.

‘She’s a beautiful ship, Benjamin.’

Briggs hurriedly pulled his hand away at the sound of his wife’s voice, as if he had been discovered doing something wrong, and turned, smiling, to her.

‘I was just thinking so myself.’

‘I know.’

‘Is it obvious?’ he asked.

She smiled at the concern in his voice. ‘Why ever shouldn’t it be?’ she said.

‘Hardly seemly.’

‘What’s unseemly about appreciating one’s achievements?’

‘False pride,’ he suggested.

‘Where’s the falsity?’ she demanded. ‘You’ve every reason for pride. There’s a difference between that and conceit, surely?’

‘You think it was the right decision, then?’

She shook her head, the irritation taking the smile from her face even though she knew the reason for his doubt. Until Benjamin’s decision to buy a share in the Mary Celeste, she had not fully realised how deeply he had been affected by his father’s near-bankruptcy after the business venture in Wareham, Massachusetts, had failed.

‘You know how I feel about it,’ she said. ‘It was a wise and sensible thing to do. We decided that.’

‘Even though it’s taken so much of our money that we have to think before taking private horse carriages to visit friends here in New York?’

She sighed. Because of the horse disease, the horse-cars were not running on the east side of the city and they had been able to make only one excursion into Central Park with Sophia, when Sarah’s clergyman brother William had paid the $10 for the vehicle to come to collect them.