CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
A Ring with a History
Lady Matlock asked Elizabeth to come to Netherfield alone three days later.
This was sufficiently mysterious that Mrs. Bennet immediately assumed jewels.
"It must be jewels. A countess does not ask a bride to call privately about napkins."
Elizabeth said, "A countess may ask about anything she pleases."
"Jewels," Mrs. Bennet repeated.
For once, she was correct. Lady Matlock received Elizabeth in the small sitting room and dismissed her maid after tea was brought. A narrow velvet box lay on the table.
"Before you become alarmed," the countess said, "you are free to refuse."
"That is a worrying beginning."
Lady Matlock smiled and opened the box. Inside lay a ring: an oval sapphire surrounded by small diamonds, elegant without being enormous.
Elizabeth stared.
"It belonged to Darcy's mother."
Her breath caught.
Lady Matlock touched the velvet beside it.
"Anne wore it before her marriage and afterward on her right hand.
It came back to my mother-in-law when Anne died, because Georgiana was a child.
She left it to me with instructions that it should eventually go to Darcy's wife if the lady wished to wear it. "
Elizabeth looked up. "Does Georgiana know?"
"Yes. She insisted I show you."
"And Mr. Darcy?"
Lady Matlock laughed softly. "He knows the ring exists. He does not know I brought it. My nephew is capable of making a family jewel feel like a legal obligation if given too much time to explain it."
Elizabeth smiled. She looked again at the sapphire.
"I never knew his mother."
"No."
"Would she have liked me?"
Lady Matlock's expression changed.
"Anne loved people who made her think. She also loved her son enough to worry that he took himself too seriously."
Elizabeth's mouth curved.
"Then perhaps."
"More than perhaps."
Elizabeth lifted the ring carefully.
"Was she like him?"
"In loyalty. In reserve when she first entered a room. In remembering everything anyone said to her. But Anne laughed easily among family. Darcy did too as a boy."
Elizabeth thought of the man in the lane smiling after she said yes; of his rare laughter becoming less rare at Longbourn.
"He misses her."
"Every day, I think."
Elizabeth slipped the ring onto her finger.
It fit almost perfectly.
Lady Matlock's eyes filled.
"Oh, dear. I promised myself I would not become sentimental."
"That promise appears unpopular in your family."
"Richard cries at military promotions and denies it."
Elizabeth laughed. The door opened without a knock.
Darcy entered.
He stopped. His eyes went immediately to Elizabeth's hand.
The room became silent.
"Aunt," he said.
Lady Matlock rose. "I remember suddenly that I promised Georgiana something."
"You did not."
"How fortunate you are marrying a woman who values honesty."
She escaped. Darcy remained by the door. Elizabeth looked at the ring.
"Do you object?"
He crossed the room slowly.
"No."
His voice had roughened. He took her hand and looked at the sapphire.
"She wore this often."
"Your aunt told me."
Darcy's thumb brushed beside the ring, careful not to disturb it.
"You need not wear it if you dislike it."
"I like it."
"You need not wear it because it was hers."
"I know."
He looked at her.
Elizabeth said softly, "I would like to carry something of her into Pemberley. Not because I intend to become her. Because she mattered to you."
Darcy's eyes closed briefly. When he opened them, he bent and kissed her hand just below the ring.
"Thank you."
Elizabeth touched his cheek.
"You are becoming sentimental again."
"It is your fault."
"Naturally."
He smiled. And when Elizabeth returned to Longbourn, Mrs. Bennet saw the ring from halfway across the hall and shouted, with tremendous satisfaction, "I knew it was jewels!"
The ring caused a second commotion after dinner when Georgiana came to Longbourn and found Elizabeth wearing it. She stopped in the drawing-room doorway. Elizabeth held out her hand.
"Your aunt said you approved."
Georgiana crossed the room and touched the sapphire with one fingertip.
"I hoped you would like it."
"I do. Very much."
"I remember Mother wearing it once." Georgiana frowned with the effort of memory. "Or perhaps I remember a portrait and think I remember. I was so little."
Darcy, behind her, said quietly, "There is a portrait in the west gallery. She wears it there." Georgiana looked at him. "That must be it."
For a moment brother and sister shared the uncertainty of children who had lost a parent too young and spent years sorting true memory from stories told afterward.
Elizabeth understood without intruding.
Lydia did not. She bounded over. "La! Let me see. Oh, it is beautiful. Is that a real sapphire? Of course it is. What a silly question. Mr. Darcy would hardly give Lizzy blue glass."
"Lydia," Kitty said.
"What?"
Georgiana began to laugh.
The heaviness broke.
Lydia held Elizabeth's hand at arm's length. "It suits you. Though I would prefer rubies."
"No one is surprised," Elizabeth said.
"Red is cheerful."
Mary looked over from her book. "Rubies have traditionally symbolized passion and protection."
Everyone turned toward her. Mary flushed. "I read it somewhere."
Lydia grinned. "Mary knows about passion!"
"Oh, hush."
Mrs. Bennet entered at the exact moment Mary threw a cushion at Lydia.
"Girls! Mind the tea table. And Lizzy, do not wave that ring about. A stone may loosen."
Darcy looked at Elizabeth. "Your mother has become guardian of the Darcy jewels."
"You gave her a purpose."
"I begin to regret many things."
Mrs. Bennet heard him. "You will regret it if Lizzy loses a sapphire that size."
Darcy inclined his head. "Yes, madam."
Elizabeth laughed. Later, when Georgiana was preparing to leave, she drew Elizabeth aside.
"There is something else."
"What?"
"When you come to Pemberley, will you walk through the gallery with me?"
"Of course."
"Fitzwilliam always becomes quiet there. I thought perhaps..." She stopped, embarrassed.
Elizabeth waited.
"I thought perhaps it would be easier if you were there."
Elizabeth took her hand.
"Then I shall be there."
Georgiana smiled. Across the hall Darcy was arguing with Richard about whether the carriage had been kept waiting too long.
Elizabeth watched him. Soon she would enter not only his house but the rooms containing every version of him that had existed before she knew him: son, brother, master, orphan, proud young gentleman trying to become the man his father had expected.
The thought no longer intimidated her as much as it once had.
She would not need to understand all of Pemberley in a day.
She had needed three months merely to understand its master.
And, she suspected, that work would last a lifetime.
Darcy glanced up then and caught her watching him.
His argument with Richard ceased mid-sentence.
He crossed the hall, no longer self-conscious about the slight unevenness of his stride.
"What?" he asked.
"Nothing."
"That answer is never true when you say it."
Elizabeth smiled and touched the sapphire. "I was thinking about Pemberley."
His expression became attentive at once. "Worried?"
"A little."
"So am I."
That made her laugh. "It is your own house."
"Exactly. I know all the ways it can overwhelm someone."
Elizabeth slipped her hand into his. "Then we shall be overwhelmed together."
Darcy looked at their joined hands and smiled.
Richard, waiting by the door, groaned loudly. "If marriage makes you two any more sentimental, I shall request foreign service."
"Please do," Darcy said.
Georgiana laughed all the way to the carriage.