Page 121 of Threads that Remain

She stared at him.

Henry said, “I had rather you chose than that I chose for you and chose wrongly. Take your time.”

She did not take much. Her eyes had gone to the sapphire at the first glance and had never really left it. “The sapphire,” said she, a little shamefaced. “Is it ridiculous? It is only that I have always—”

“Liked blue,” said Henry.

“The sarsenet,” said Anne under her breath, and Sarah went scarlet, and Elinor’s mouth moved in a way that was not quite a smile.

“It is not ridiculous,” said Henry. He took up the ring. He did not put it on her finger. He laid it in her palm and closed her fingers over it. “We shall have it sized. You shall wear it on the day, and not before. I am told there are proprieties.”

“Quite right,” said Elinor with a smile.

He turned to the Lieutenant.

“Mr. Wycliffe. You are to be my brother on the same morning, and I think it right to put the question to you and Anne together. Two are left. Which would Anne like?”

Wycliffe went red to the ears. “Mr. Brandon, I could not possibly. I have not the means to answer so handsome a—”

“You have not been asked to answer for it. You have been asked what she would like. A ring that has done nothing for thirty years is in no position to be proud.”

The Lieutenant looked at Anne. Anne was looking at the pearl. She looked with her whole face, as she had looked at a hundred drawings, and Henry saw something pass between them that no one else was meant to see: a small, shy, certain question and its answer.

“It would go with the sea,” said Wycliffe, very low, and then coughed. “That is foolishly said. But pearls come from the sea, and as we will soon be going across it, I should like you to have a reminder of our first adventure together.”

“I should like that very much,” said Anne.

Henry put the pearl in her hand. She closed her fingers around it as though it might blow away. She said nothing, because she was the quiet one, and the quiet ones generally say least when they feel most.

That left the second ring.

Henry picked up the old gold band to set it back in its box, and he saw the stones again, one after another in the light, and stopped. It was four stones set in a row: diamond, emerald, amethyst, ruby.

Ned had seen it too. His lips were moving.

“D,” said Ned. “E. A. R.”

“Dear,” said Sarah.

“It is a regard ring,” said Anne.

Nobody spoke. Henry looked at Anne, and Anne looked at Sarah, and Sarah looked at Ned, and Ned looked at Henry. It took less than a breath. Not one of them needed a word of explanation, because each could see his own thought on the other three faces, and the thought was quite plain, and all four of them began to smile.

“Mamma,” said Ned, just before Sarah said, “Mamma,” and just a second before Henry and Anne together said, “Aunt Elinor.”

Elinor Ferrars was standing by the window with her hands folded. She raised her eyebrows.

“What?” said she.

Henry crossed the room and held out the ring.

“It spells the perfect word for you, dear Aunt Elinor, and we could not think of anyone else it was meant for.”

She held it. She turned it. She looked at the four stones for what seemed a very long time.

“It is much too fine,” said she at last.

“It is not fine enough,” said Henry.