Faceted ruby heart with gold scrollwork

The heart went back to the foundry on Tuesday, wrapped in brown paper with the gold scrollwork still bright from the pickle, and I have not stopped thinking about it since. You will laugh that I, who swore I would never cut anything sentimental, spent three weeks on a ruby the size of a sugar lump. Mr Hale wanted it faceted so the light would fall into it the way light falls down a well. I gave the crown thirty-two facets and a point you could draw blood with, and the goldsmith curled the top of the bezel around it like a pair of hands.

The lady who ordered it never came into the shop. Mr Hale says her husband paid half and then died, and the widow sent a boy with a note saying she could not bear to see it. So the stone sat on my bench under the lamp, and every evening I took the little drop gem off its wire and turned it in my fingers until the red went nearly black at the edges.

Then on Tuesday the boy came back. The widow had changed her mind. She wanted it finished, drop stone and all, because her husband used to say a heart ought to have something hanging from it, like a clock pendulum that keeps going when the rest has stopped. I wrapped it myself and did not charge her for the second cut.

I am writing this on the back step with the river smell coming up, and I keep thinking the gold will dull in the damp and she will polish it every Sunday. Come home when the ship is in, Arthur. There is a bench here with your name carved into the leg, and I have started leaving the lamp lit for you.