"Delia." Patsy said, breaking the silence suddenly.
They had spent the afternoon together, quietly locked away in Delia's room, reading and talking only in slight murmurs as positions were shifted, or cups of tea offered.
Delia looked up and saw that Patsy had moved from her comfortably slouched position at the bottom of her bed. She was staring at the floor, her fingers obsessively fidgeting something hidden in a pocket, sitting up straight, facing away from Delia, leg tapping a steadily increasing rhythm.
"Pats? Whats-"
"When I was in Hong Kong," Patsy continued, seeming to not have heard Delia at all, "my father gave me something and I- I uhm…I wanted to tell- to ask- its just -uhm…"
Delia's heart lurched, worried that there was something she had failed to notice, something that had been upsetting Patsy all these months since coming home.
"Patsy, what is it? What's wrong?" Delia spoke with clear and desperate concern.
Patsy still hadn't turned to face her, and though it was sudden and seemingly without cause, Delia felt ill, afraid she had hurt Patsy. She wished Patsy would turn around.
"Pats…" Delia's hand reached out softly, hesitantly, touching on Patsy's shoulder. The gesture was answered with a swift jumping up, Patsy facing Delia.
Seeing Patsy's face, wrought with anxiety and fear, Delia's mind raced, assuming the worst.
"Delia Busby." Patsy began, as if she were reciting something she had practiced a thousand times, but still Patsy's voice faltered. She sighed, and began again.
"Delia Busby. When I was in Hong Kong, my father gave me something of my mother's. Something I didn't even know we still had. And there is no one in the world who ought to have it, other than you."
Losing her composure she continued, "and well, gosh, I'm sorry I couldn't take you to a park or the country or anywhere other than this convent, you know, somewhere romantic, somewhere nice, somewhere-"
"Pats?" Delia interjected into Patsy's rant.
Patsy calmed, looking at Delia, and smiling a soft smile, but still tinged with anxiety.
"Right," she said with a heavy sigh as she lowered herself, kneeling on one knee, "Delia Busby."
A pause.
"Delia Busby, will you marry me?" and from her fidgeting hands came an antiquated ring; a diamond set in silver, held out by a shaking hand.
Delia's heart swelled, and she reached out to Patsy's hand, calming her first, then whispering.
"Yes." Laughing at herself and the anxious woman she loved so much before her.
"Yes?!" Patsy's eyes widened and she laughed, with both relief and disbelief. "Yes?!"
"Yes, you fool! Put it on!"
Patsy stood and slid her mother's ring onto Delia's finger. Delia responded with a squeal, jumping up and down, then capturing Patsy in a strong embrace.
"Look!" Delia said after breaking her hold, as if she were showing Patsy something she had not seen before.
"I know!" Patsy laughed.
Delia kissed Patsy suddenly, Patsy attempted to prolong the kiss, but found it to only last a moment as Delia broke away to look at the ring on her finger, exclaiming "look!" each time she saw it.
The two spent the rest of the evening together, as Patsy told Delia more about her mother than she ever had before, and the pride Delia felt to be wearing Patience Mount's mother's ring doubled.