1945. The case of the mysterious proposal

When Anita got to the last sip of her tea at the rather sophisticated afternoon tea-party there was an engagement ring at the bottom of her cup. Her first thought was “I was lucky not to have swallowed all those diamonds”. Then she wondered whose ring may have slipped off as they drank tea and she had picked up the wrong cup. And then she wondered, “I wonder if this ring was meant for me? I have dated two of the men here but I doubt that either was serious enough.”

She glanced around. No one seemed to be watching her. No one seemed to be waiting for a “Yes!” No one seemed to be anticipating a surreptitious shriek of excitement to escape her cherry red lips.

If the proposal was real it would be so banal to simply say, “Hey! Look what I found!” She would spend an entire marriage living with the dullness of having not looked pleased at the marriage proposal.

George came over to her. He was undoubtedly the handsomest man there – or so Anita thought – although he wasn’t one of the two that Anita had been out on dates with.

“How’s it going?” said George.

“Good,” said Anita. “And how are you?”

“Good,” said George. “Would you like another cup of tea?”

“I’d love one,” said Anita.

George took Anita’s cup and saucer and headed for the table with the teapot. He returned.

“Thank you so much,” said Anita. George moved further around the room.

Needless to say, Anita was rather keen to get to the bottom of her cup. Was the ring still there? She was halfway through sips of her too, too hot tea when Berwyn began squealing in the far corner of the room.

“Oh George! Oh yes! Yes! Yes! Oh Georgie darling! Yes! Yes! Yes!”