This is fiction. I might use real places and real events,
but no real people. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.
(This web template removes indented paragraph marking and such like.
However, posting it here enables a reader always to have the most recent rewrite.)
The Opal Crescent
A Narrative in England’s Late Regency, early 1800s
Copyright © October 24, 2026
By Joel Selmeier
Is this a better title than: The Garter of Eden?
Jenny had ever been something of a wonder to Mary Ellen; she was by no means designing, and yet, by the most charming and unlooked-for accident, she contrived to bring about whatever was agreeable. Their present arrival at Garrard’s was a case in point, for they stood in the very heart of the most distinguished quarter of the most distinguished city in all the civilised world, within a stone’s throw of the new Regent Street. Before them rose tall panes of plate glass, a striking novelty which only the grandest houses could yet afford, and which had lately given rise to the pleasant pastime of idly gazing in at the wares. The neighbouring streets were at that moment thronged with persons of the highest rank, the first consequence, and the largest fortunes that England in the early 1800s could boast.
It must be confessed that Mary Ellen and Jenny had found their way to so prodigious a place solely because Mary Ellen had lately been furnished with a new gown. Jenny, however, was wearing it. Mary Ellen would never have presumed to venture there; yet here she was, passing one of the happiest days of her life, and all of it owing to Jenny.
Miss Jenny’s father was a church organist. Her mother ran a small dame school out of their home. One of the families that arranged for their children to attend it was the family of Leigh Hunt, a journalist and poet who became one of young Jenny’s best friends. He had children her age, but he was charming and funny. By the time she was four, when he came to the school, she practically attacked him wrapping her arms and legs around one of his so that he could walk only by laboring to lift the leg to which she was clinging while she leaned back looking up at him talking, questioning and laughing incessantly.
Miss Jenny, having now attained her eighteenth year, slowly had learned to act in a more subdued manner, but still could brighten any room. She resided upon the rural outskirts of Chelsea, set between two very different worlds. To venture away from the village was to enter a bustling market, where the robust cries of the fishmongers rang above the throng to proclaim the day’s haul, and the tradespeople conversed with unguarded familiarity upon whatever they had found at other stalls. To turn in the opposite direction, however, was to meet the rigid propriety of Chelsea proper, where Mary Ellen resided: a realm in which a lady dared not address a soul without the sanction of a prior introduction. Of late, an incessant stream of newfangled books of conduct had been pressed upon society, dictating with exhausting precision the correct manner of greeting, the exact etiquette of departure, and the proper carriage for every moment between. This suffocating solemnity was descending upon the realm, and Miss Jenny observed it with a heavy heart, after years of unrestrained laughter and high spirits. In addition, pestilence was everywhere. So many were sick, some never to be seen again. It had been months since she had seen or heard from Leigh and she had come to suspect he might be gone too.
So, when a note arrived from Mary Ellen about having received a new dress, Jenny practically ran to try it on. Mary Ellen possessed a sturdier and more generous frame, while Jenny was of a remarkably slender and delicate constitution. It followed that when Jenny, all eagerness, slipped into the gown, a scandalous difficulty presented itself: should she press her arms together, or incline her person in the slightest degree (as in rising from a drawing-room chair, or gathering her heavy skirts to ascend a carriage-step, or one of those formidable high curbs of stone designed to keep a lady’s hem above the muddy, unpaved streets), the neckline gaped most immodestly. A gentleman of taller stature might easily have looked down and beheld her very nearly to the waist. This observation prompted Jenny to utter a most risqué jest, and both young ladies fell into a fit of breathless, conspiratorial laughter, parading before the looking-glass and whispering of imaginary, daring adventures that neither ever would have permitted herself, all of them having to do with men, and attraction, and the continual attempts made to socialize young women in ways intended to make them proper and respectable in order to secure good matches, but which had to work alongside these ladies impulsive yearning to see men driven mad with desire.
This was a garment in which Jenny wanted to be seen and there was something about Jenny that drew Mary Ellen, and many people really, along with her. She envisioned a daring promenade along Regent Street, that grandest and most fashionable thoroughfare, where she might see and be seen by the ton (the most chosen elite of society). Mary Ellen, ever mindful of decorum, was at first disinclined to so audacious a scheme, for a lady of breeding could not venture upon so crowded an avenue without proper protection, lest her reputation be utterly ruined. Jenny’s infectious enthusiasm, however, slowly wore away her friend’s scruples. By degrees the prospect of so splendid an amusement took hold of Mary Ellen’s imagination too, until at last she relented, agreeing to the enterprise on the condition that her own housemaid walk exactly fifteen paces behind them, to preserve the necessary appearance of propriety.
Mary Ellen, still harbouring reservations, observed, “You must be aware that any lady of fashion will perceive at once that the gown does not fit you perfectly.”
“It is a far finer dress than any I have ever worn, and it gives me the greatest pleasure to wear it.”
“Upon Regent Street, you cannot acknowledge, much less address, a single soul.”
“I am well aware of it.”
“Your disposition is far too forward.”
“I know that to be true also.”
“Regent Street is entirely unlike the fishmongers’ stalls to which you are accustomed…”
“I understand you perfectly.”
“There may be persons of quality there who might know me.”
“I give you my word that I shall be upon my very best behaviour.”
Some three hours afterward (a remarkably brief interval, considering the painstaking preparations which young ladies deem essential before presenting themselves to the public eye), and following a rattling journey in a hired hackney coach, the housemaid perched stiffly opposite, they alighted at the foot of Regent Street. Mary Ellen’s housemaid at once fell into her appointed place, fifteen paces behind. From there it was but a short and thrilling walk to Panton Street and the grand frontage of R. & S. Garrard & Co. This celebrated house of jewellers had long enjoyed the patronage of the first families of England, and its great panes of plate glass, among the finest in London, drew the idle and the fashionable to linger before its displays.
To stand upon the pavement and marvel at the glittering treasures displayed would have quite sufficed to satisfy Jenny’s desire for amusement. The afternoon, however, took an unexpected turn when an elegant carriage drew to a halt, and a gentleman of grandfatherly years, well known to Mary Ellen, stepped down into the street. Mindful of the strict dictates of decorum, which forbade a gentleman to address a lady until she had first granted leave, Mary Ellen contrived to catch his eye, and with a slight smile and a gracious inclination of her head, invited his greeting.
“Bless my soul,” he said, removing his hat and bowing in return. “Miss Carlyle! How do you do? And how do your excellent parents?” When these civilities had been exchanged, Mary Ellen presented Jenny to Mr. Molyneux.
“I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Welsh. Have you come to call for something at this establishment?”
On learning that they had come only to look in at the windows, he ventured, “My dear young ladies, if you can spare a moment, perhaps you might be of service to me. You find me in a state of the most pitiable masculine distress. I am here to collect a necklace for my wife, and I fear I may have chosen ill. I would blame my old eyes, but in truth I have never been a judge of anything ornamental. Would you oblige an old man with a lady’s opinion of what I have selected?”
And so it was that Jenny and Mary Ellen were welcomed into a jeweller’s shop which they would never otherwise have dreamed of trying to enter.
Of course, the grand display cases of the establishment gave no hint of the treasures they contained. In those days every precious article was kept strictly under lock and key, brought forth and uncovered only for a clientele of known repute, a necessary precaution against the desperate hands of thieves, who might snatch a jewel and flee into the London crowd.
An attentive clerk held aloft a magnificent necklace, inquiring of Mr. Molyneux whether the piece met with his approval. The gentleman declared himself quite at a loss to form an opinion, and turned instead to the young ladies to solicit their thoughts. It was then, to the distinct and evident distress of Mary Ellen, that Jenny boldly stepped forward.
Reaching out with unexampled audacity, she cried, “Oh, no, Mr. Molyneux! It must be to your liking as well!”
With these words she deftly lifted the glittering prize from the hands of the wary and thoroughly alarmed clerk. Before anyone could intercede, she wrapped it about her own neck, allowing the broad triangle of jewels to rest upon her collarbones. Securing the unclasped ends behind her neck with her left hand, she used her right to lift the front of the piece a little and let it fall, so that it lay perfectly along the line of her throat.
“There,” she murmured, with a captivating smile, looking toward the astonished gentleman. “Does it not assist your judgment to see it displayed upon a lady?”
“Bless my soul! I never should have thought of it. You could not be more right. It does change the matter to see it worn.”
As another clerk, perceiving through the plate glass the approach of a distinguished patron, stationed himself at the entrance to throw open the door, Jenny continued her appraisal while looking outside, “I find it a most handsome piece,” she remarked with perfect composure. “Far from being heavy or gaudy, it has a rare elegance, and sits most becomingly upon a lady.”
Just as the door swung wide to admit the newcomer, Jenny, having already thoroughly scrutinized his person, cast her eyes downward and maintained a picture of demure innocence, looking in every direction save his, while the young gentleman’s gaze rested upon her alone. The silence was broken by Mr. Molyneux, who exclaimed with pleasant surprise, “Why, Lord Sterling! Good afternoon to you, sir.”
Lord Sterling? Mary Ellen’s mind raced in astonishment. Could this be the courtesy title of Viscount Sterling, the son and heir of the Earl of Beaumont of the Pembroke family, a house surpassed in the kingdom by little save the royal dukes?
Civilities were promptly exchanged, the young ladies were presented to him, and the singular circumstances which had led to Jenny’s wearing the necklace were explained. Throughout, Lord Sterling scarcely permitted himself a smile, offering only what the strictest politeness demanded, before observing in a quiet, even tone, “A novel notion. I confess that such an expedient never would have occurred to me.”
“Nor to me, my lord,” Mr. Molyneux heartily agreed. “The credit belongs entirely to Miss Welsh’s cleverness, and it has quite restored my spirits. I am now perfectly confident that my choice will please Mrs. Molyneux.”
The clerk carefully wrapped the treasure and presented it to the gentleman, and the civil talk went on until Mr. Molyneux took his leave. In the brief lull that followed, Mary Ellen felt a wave of profound relief; against all probability, Jenny’s daring breach of decorum had left the old gentleman entirely charmed. Judging it wisest to depart while their fortune held, she resolved to take their leave. Jenny, however, divined her friend’s intention, and to forestall it she turned her gaze directly upon the newcomer.
“And pray, Lord Sterling,” Jenny inquired, with audacious familiarity, “have you also ventured hither to secure some token for a lady?”
Mary Ellen shot her a look of absolute horror, quite aghast at such unexampled forwardness.
“In truth, I have,” Lord Sterling replied, without looking at her.
“For your wife, sir?”
“Not precisely. For my betrothed,” he said, looking at the floor.
“Would you care for the opinion of two ladies upon the matter?”
Seeing that the clerk had retrieved the piece and was presenting it, Lord Sterling said, “Well, I suppose there is no reason to object,” and murmured, “This is the betrothal ring which has been selected.”
True to form, while Mary Ellen looked on in severe displeasure, Jenny pressed her advantage. “Pray, sir, might I try it upon my own finger, to judge its full effect?”
As Jenny drew off her glove, Mary Ellen stared at her in utter disbelief. It was held to be unlucky for anyone but the bride to wear a betrothal ring. “It is not yours to wear,” she whispered.
Even the clerk was alarmed.
Lord Sterling, equally surprised by the request, hesitated, but he knew not how to refuse a lady, and so placed the ring in her bare hand. As she slipped it on, he inquired, “Do you consider the stone of a sufficient size?”
“Sufficient? Good heavens, sir! It is grand, far too grand.”
Mary Ellen could not have looked more mortified. Lord Sterling, too, appeared somewhat discomposed. Looking at her at last, he asked, “How can a gem be too grand?”
“It crowns three fingers at once,” said Jenny. “Is it a contest, then, to secure the largest?”
“Well… in a manner of speaking, yes. I suppose it is.”
“A contest, sir?”
“She was to choose the most eligible suitor, a contest which I have won. It is now my duty to provide the grandest ring, that she may triumph in her turn.”
Jenny shook her head. “Small wonder you wore so melancholy an aspect when you entered the shop.”
“A melancholy aspect? Truly?”
“It is entirely understandable, sir.”
“I must confess that jewellery is a matter to which I have never directed my attention. I was merely instructed to purchase the largest stone.” Lord Sterling nodded toward the clerk. “This fellow has been exceedingly helpful in that regard.”
The clerk bowed in acknowledgment.
Looking down at the ring, Jenny murmured, “It is entirely devoid of romance.”
“Well, that is a sentiment which comes later, is it not?”
“If it is not present now, sir, I doubt it will ever arrive at all. What other rings have they?”
Lord Sterling looked to the clerk, raising his brows in silent inquiry. The clerk nodded, withdrew a fresh velvet tray of rings, set it upon the counter, and drew off its silk cover.
Jenny inspected the offerings with a critical and discerning eye. “These are merely more of the same, sir,” she observed, in a tone of gentle caprice. “They are far too ostentatious to please a refined taste. Have they nothing of a wholly different character?”
At her bidding the clerk produced trays of rings wrought with motifs of leaf and bloom, and delicate floral work, yet the progression was far too tedious for Jenny’s spirited nature. With a slight shrug she dismissed the greater part of them as unworthy of prolonged scrutiny. To test their quality, she carelessly drew one ring across the bodice of her gown, only to find that the setting caught upon every loose thread. Mary Ellen, watching with bated breath, beheld Lord Sterling draw himself up, transfixed; never in his life had he seen a young lady of breeding drag a piece of merchandise across her own front in so unreserved a manner.
Next, they examined a tray of fede rings, which Lord Sterling learned were tokens bearing the design of two clasped hands. Jenny’s indifferent shrug at their lack of subtlety drew from his lordship a rare and genuine smile. There followed a collection of acrostic rings, which might easily have suited the occasion: pieces in which the gems were set so that the initial letter of each stone spelled out a hidden sentiment, such as “Love.”
Jenny, however, shook her head. “In truth, sir, it appears a most clumsy and artless method of communication. One might as well employ the postboy to shout the sentiment from the street below.”
Lord Sterling laughed outright, and remained upon the very brink of further amusement as they surveyed a tray of intricate cannetille wirework, which Jenny admired, though she deemed it unsuited to his purpose. All the while, Mary Ellen’s countenance was a study in frantic, silent admonition. She sought desperately to remind her friend, by look alone, that they stood in the presence of a nobleman of ancient lineage, who was moreover betrothed, and who had come for the sole purpose of collecting the ring already chosen for his future bride. But Jenny was quite carried away by the pleasure of the hour.
It was only after Jenny inquired of the clerk whether the house possessed any rings unfettered by the common categories, the work of a true artist rather than of a tradesman catering to the vulgar market, that a tray of magnificent disorder was brought forth. It was crowded with rings of such diverse character that every attempt at arrangement had plainly been abandoned. At random Jenny lifted and replaced one piece after another, bestowing praise and censure in equal measure. Her unstudied freedom at last emboldened Lord Sterling to offer his own commentary from time to time.
“I confess,” his lordship remarked dryly of a particularly heavy piece, “that this one might serve passing well as a branding iron upon my estate.”
Jenny laughed aloud, and so they passed the time in mutual ridicule and occasional admiration through row after row of rings, enjoying the finest amusement imaginable. Suddenly Jenny lifted one particular ring, and a deep silence fell upon her. It was a simple crescent of lapis lazuli, half encircling an opal of the most translucent radiance. Lord Sterling, observing her closely, saw that the token had touched something deep within her. Never had he seen his own intended bride so visibly moved by any object; indeed, he doubted he had ever seen such feeling in any living creature.
Most astonishing of all, it was as though he were suddenly permitted to look upon the world through her eyes. He perceived the ring’s rare beauty as she did; he felt it entirely.
Turning to face him, Jenny slipped the ring upon her finger and pressed her hand flat against her breastbone, spreading her fingers that he might see it more clearly against her skin.
“It is a lovely thing, is it not?” he murmured, his voice dropping.
Mary Ellen stood quite transfixed by the sheer audacity of the display, and no less by its artful effect. First, her friend had drawn them to the very windows of this exalted establishment, for which Mary Ellen was now grateful; next, she had presumed to advise Mr. Molyneux, and how well that had turned out; and now she had brought Lord Sterling of the Pembroke family to this extraordinary state of intimacy.
“I was haunted by the fear that its beauty was visible to myself alone,” Jenny replied, in a soft whisper. “It gives me the greatest happiness to find that you perceive it too, sir.”
Alas, the ornament had been fashioned for a larger hand. As she lifted her fingers from her bodice, the ring slipped from her slender finger and tumbled down the front of her gown. With a sudden reflex she arrested its descent by slapping her right hand against her dress, trapping the jewel just above the lowest of her ribs. In a moment of sheer panic (an instant she would revisit in her thoughts for many years to come), she slid her left hand down into the folds of her bodice to retrieve it. At any other juncture in his life, his lordship would have averted his gaze at once and turned away, as strict decorum required; yet he remained utterly transfixed. Quite without intending it, his hand moved as if to assist her. Mary Ellen, meanwhile, clapped her hand over her open mouth, her eyes wide with unutterable horror.
Drawing the ring gently from her gown, Jenny steadied her breath and said, “Well, sir, at the very least, this one does not snag.”
Lord Sterling nodded and began to laugh, but checked himself, and shaking his head as if to break a spell, pressed his palm for a moment to his forehead, his knuckles white against his brow.
“Indeed, Miss Welsh,” he said at last, his voice rough and quite unseated. “That would have been a most dreadful durbacle, would it not? I mean to say…” He trailed off, for his gaze had drifted from the ring still clutched in her hand to her face.
“Debacle.”
“Quite right.”
“Oh, my goodness, sir,” Jenny replied, her voice dropping to a breathless whisper. “I deserve no such honour as to have commented so familiarly.”
“You do deserve it, Miss Welsh,” he said, the words breaking from him with a quiet urgency that made Mary Ellen stiffen. He took a half-step forward, then checked himself. “Indeed, I have walked through this life… quite as you so rightly observed a moment ago… wrapped in a most melancholy aspect.”
He paused, glancing sharply toward the clerk at the far end of the counter. The man was feigning inattention as he discreetly polished a silver tray, but his ears were strained to the utmost. Lord Sterling lowered his voice, so that Jenny was obliged to incline her head to catch his words.
“I have acted a prescribed part,” he continued, his speech halting, as though he discovered the truth of it only as he uttered it. “I have dressed to an exact standard… I have frequented the proper drawing rooms… merely to maintain my standing in the ton… And I came here today…”
He gestured vaguely toward the sea of glittering velvet trays, his expression darkening with a sudden touch of self-scorn. “I came to secure the grandest, most ostentatious ring to be found. I cared not for a single detail of it, Miss Welsh. Not one. I cared only for the alliance it secures to my house.”
He stopped again. The silence stretched between them, heavy and oppressive. Jenny did not look away; her eyes remained fixed upon his, her thumb unconsciously stroking the surface of the opal.
“Which is no small matter,” Lord Sterling said, his voice dropping lower still, defending his duty to himself as much as to her. “It is a very great matter. It is very nearly everything to a man of my station.” He swallowed, his jaw tightening. “I always knew it was not quite everything. But until now I did not know what was.”
Jenny’s breath caught. “Sir…”
“No, pray, let me speak,” he interrupted softly, his hand twitching upon the mahogany counter as if he longed to reach across to touch her fingers, though he did not dare. “What is expected of me… I must perform blindly, Miss Welsh, or I could not perform it at all. Especially now.” His gaze dropped once more to her hand, his voice faltering. “Especially now that I have seen this ring upon your hand.”
“I am certain,” Jenny whispered, her hand rising of its own accord to rest against her collarbone, “that I have never heard such sweet words spoken in all my life.”
“And I am quite certain,” Lord Sterling replied, a faint, melancholy shadow of a smile touching his lips, “that I have never uttered them before today. How they have found their way from my lips I cannot tell; it is a mystery to me.”
He glanced back at Mary Ellen, whose countenance had gone quite pale with shock. Even the housemaid, till now motionless in a shadow, made a visible movement that brought her to his attention.
“Fortunately for my sanity,” he murmured, “they are spoken in the presence of these clerks and of your excellent chaperone, who stands as your protection.”
Jenny tilted her head, a trace of her former playfulness returning to mask the sudden ache in her breast. “Why should anyone require protection from a gentleman such as yourself, sir?”
“Because I know nothing of your family, Miss Welsh,” he said, the full weight of their difference in station falling upon him. The urgency in his voice faded, and a quiet despair took its place. “I know not who you are, nor whence you came. I know only that Mr. Molyneux’s acquaintance is as fine a recommendation as a lady could hope for, else I should fear we had gone entirely beyond the bounds. But…”
He stepped back again, the rigid armour of his upbringing slowly settling over his shoulders.
“How is it that our paths never crossed before this day? Why is it only now, when my hand is irrevocably promised to another, that I meet a lady who allows me to see in a simple ring what I might otherwise have missed for the remainder of my days?”
He looked at her as though for the last time, a look of quiet, permanent loss.
“You have shown me, Miss Welsh, for the very first time… what I believe I shall now see forever.”
“Sir, it is merely a ring.”
“No. No. It is not the ring. It is you. It is your world. You have led me into it, and I see now the utter folly of every day I have spent doing only what I was commanded. For me, in truth, it is a matter of obedience; but for my family, it is that we have not been soiled by commerce for generations. We are far better at spending fortunes than making them. Her family is in shipping. We possess the title; they possess the wealth. For generations to come… Oh, heavens.”
He turned to look at the door for a moment, then passe his gaze over Mary Ellen as he turned back.
“This is a triumph my family has spent my whole life contriving. Am I to walk away from such an alliance simply because, from this hour forward, I shall look upon that other ring as an ugly mass of metal and stones? And worse, that I fear I shall look upon my betrothed in that same light, now that this simple pair of stones upon your hand has reached places in my heart I never knew existed?”
“Oh, kind sir,” Jenny said, her voice trembling. “Is it not a matter of sacred duty to preserve one’s family?”
“It is. But how dire is our need at this precise moment? I cannot say. I know only that I have no desire to finish what I came here to do.”
The housemaid, her brow furrowed in visible concern, at last ventured forth from the shadows of the rear entryway where she had been stationed. Lord Sterling perceived her approach at the edge of his vision, yet maintained a rigid composure and did not openly acknowledge her. He was acutely aware that the unreserved nature of his speech had transgressed the bounds of decorum to such a degree that a proper attendant must needs make her presence felt, to protect her mistress’s honour.
Turning his countenance slightly toward Mary Ellen, and inclining his head slightly in the direction of the advancing servant, he remarked in a low, measured tone, “I trust she does not intend to lead you away from this place just yet, Miss Carlyle.”
Mary Ellen spoke firmly. “This would be a most prudent time for our departure, Miss Jenny.”
“We are not required to leave just yet, Mary Ellen,” Jenny countered gently.
Shaking her head in disapproval, the housemaid stepped back into the shadow.
“I do not believe I have ever committed an impulsive act in my life,” Lord Sterling said. Then, turning back to Jenny: “If I do not act now, by tomorrow it will be too late.” He turned his gaze to Mary Ellen. “Does Miss Welsh make a habit of taking you to places you have never before visited as well?”
“She brought me here, sir,” Mary Ellen replied.
Lord Sterling looked back to Jenny, a sudden vulnerability in his eyes. “I imagine you work this enchantment upon many people.”
“You continue to be far too kind to me, sir,” Jenny replied, her voice dropping low as her fingers trembled, beginning the slow motion of drawing the ring from her hand.
“No, pray, do not,” Lord Sterling interjected, his hand rising as if to stay her, though he did not touch her. “Do not remove it. I find I am entirely dependent upon the sight of it upon your hand. Listen to me, Miss Welsh: I am declaring what I desire. For the first time in my existence, I am wishing for something entirely for myself. I have never truly coveted anything before today, save the satisfaction of the wishes of others. But I desire, I passionately desire, to see this ring remain upon your finger.”
He paused, a bitter, self-deprecating smile touching his lips as he looked about the grand room.
“Well… this is the precipice to which you have brought me. I have no wish to spend the remainder of my days with a lady who would demand the overlarge monstrosity I came here to purchase. When I look upon that piece now, it appears truly hideous, does it not?”
“I am not certain I am glad to have spoiled that ring for you, sir,” Jenny whispered, her eyes wide with a mixture of awe and dawning guilt.
“But I am… I am glad you have,” he countered, with unexpected fervour. “I am most heartily glad of it. Yet I find myself brought to a crisis of choice unlike any I have ever been called upon to meet. If I cannot now bear the very sight of that dreadful token, how, through all the years to come, could I look upon the woman wearing it as a husband ought to look upon his wife? Were our nuptials not so near, this would not present so sharp a turning; it would be a pleasant meadow where we might wander for a season. But they are near, and we cannot.”
“I understand, sir,” Jenny said, the full weight of his duty bearing down upon her spirits.
“I confess, I do not understand,” Lord Sterling replied, his chest heaving slightly as he fought for breath beneath the gaze of the clerks and the advancing housemaid. “I find myself utterly unable to lift my foot to take another pace along that straight path. It is the path I know. It is the proper course, the correct course, the one expected of me since before my very birth. Had you not been present in this shop today, I should be continuing along it still. But I cannot take another step in that direction. I see no other honourable course… and yet I have just placed a ring upon the finger of the most enchanting creature I have ever met, and I desire nothing else in this world but to gaze upon that ring on that hand.”
He leaned closer, his voice breaking with a final, desperate plea for his own salvation.
“Tell me to stop, Miss Welsh, for honour demands it. Command me to be on my way.”
Jenny looked up into his tormented face, her breath caught in her throat.
“I cannot, sir,” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“A few moments ago I might have done so. But now I cannot. I never dreamed I should hear such words, and I cannot bid you go.”
Mary Ellen bowed her head, burying her face in her hand and shaking it in silent, despairing disapproval.
Lord Sterling turned to the clerk. “You may put the rest of the stock away.” The clerk held up the heavy original betrothal ring. “Yes, that one as well,” Lord Sterling said firmly. “This one upon the lady’s hand is the piece I require.”
The clerk was stunned and remained motionless.
Jenny gasped. “Sir?”
“Yes?”
“What is it you are saying, sir?”
“This is the ring I intend to purchase.”
“I fear I do not comprehend your meaning.”
“I have stepped so far beyond the bounds of propriety that we must part immediately. I did not observe another carriage outside. Have you walked far?”
Mary Ellen stepped forward. “We came by hackney coach, sir.”
Lord Sterling walked along the counter, gesturing for the head clerk to follow him. “At this hour, with the weather that is surely moving in,” he said aloud, though the afternoon sky remained perfectly clear, “the thoroughfares will grow terribly crowded for your return journey, if we do not make arrangements at once.”
Leaning in, he spoke quietly to the head clerk. “Have one of your men discreetly inquire of their housemaid where they are bound. Then secure a glass coach for them. See that it is understood I shall settle the account in full, and in advance.”
The head clerk bowed and signalled to a junior assistant to carry out the order and then moved the large betrothal ring to a less ready location.
Lord Sterling fixed his eyes upon the empty space between the two young ladies, and spoke aloud to no one in particular. “I wonder… I wonder whether there may be any acquaintance in town who is familiar with both our families?”
It was a public acknowledgment of his intentions, an open declaration that he sought an honourable and formal introduction to her father, and a gesture very near to a proposal of marriage.
Mary Ellen smiled. “I believe I could arrange that, sir,” she said, brightening considerably, for this moved the matter in a more socially acceptable direction.
The course of courtship between persons of such unequal station was beset by a labyrinth of social barriers. For a young gentleman to show an interest in a young lady, propriety required that every introduction be managed through mutual friends. An acquaintance known to both houses must present the suitor to the lady’s father, who must then be allowed ample opportunity to examine the young man’s respectability. Many months of scrutiny and negotiation would follow before so much as a chaperoned promenade could be arranged.
For Lord Sterling, the prospect of breaking off his present engagement meant a perilous climb. The jilted lady would undoubtedly relish the chance to cast her scorn upon his whole house for the remainder of her days. Yet within the modest compass of that simple ornament he had been granted a vision of a world of which he had only heard and never truly known, and he was resolutely determined not to let it go.
Jenny, for her part, exerted every ounce of her will to maintain a show of proper decorum, though her spirits were so buoyant that she might well have floated away. Lord Sterling, retaining his composure, directed the clerk to set the lapis and opal ring aside for him. When the glass coach arrived, the clerk who had summoned it stood ready, holding the store’s door open for the ladies.
Once they stepped out upon the pavement, the liveryman held open the carriage door, and Lord Sterling began inclining his head to whisper a parting thought to Jenny, but the gesture was arrested when a strong, authoritative voice rang out from behind them on the crowded street.
“Come to fetch my sister’s betrothal ring, Sterling?”
Lord Sterling straightened up and, turning toward the speaker, responded with measured calm, “Granville. Hello. Allow me the honor of introducing you. This is Miss Mary Ellen Carlyle.” Mary Ellen offered a stiff nod and a slight, tremulous curtsy. “And this is Miss Jenny Welsh. Both are friends of Mr. Molyneux, who kindly introduced us but a moment ago, inside this very establishment, where the lot of us chanced to be present at the selfsame hour. Ladies, allow me to present Mr. Granville Ellsworth, the brother of Clementina, the lady to whom I am engaged.”
Yet for all their strict adherence to the most careful manners, nothing could conceal the radiant, unalloyed joy that shone from Jenny, who looked for all the world as though she were living the most glorious day of her life. Mary Ellen, catching the infection of the moment, beamed with the proud affection of an elder sister gazing upon an approaching triumph. Only the housemaid, looking down and nearly shaking her head in utter bewilderment, shaped the oath “’Sblood” on her lips without letting out a breath of air that might allow it to become audible.
Granville, his gaze moving between the parties, asked pointedly, “Then you have secured the ring, have you?”
“Ah. Not… quite. It’s still inside.”
“Before this moment, did these ladies know you are engaged?”
“I have told them all about Clementina.”
“And yet you have left the shop without the ring?”
“I have not left yet.”
“You mean to go back in for it? … Your hesitation in answering, together with that particular bow… This is a hired coach. Have they no carriage of their own?”
“Not today, so far as I know. No.”
“So far as you know… Who hired this coach for them?”
“A clerk from inside the shop procured it.”
“But who is paying for it?”
“Well, I am, of course.”
“Do not trifle with me, Sterling. What is going forward here? The air between you is not that of strangers who met but an hour ago.”
“But in fact, we did meet but an hour ago, for the first time, just now.”
“And where is Mr. Molyneux?”
“Odd thing, that. He was not certain he had chosen well in the necklace for his wife, and he asked these ladies for their opinions. So, after he left, I begged them to do the same for me with the betrothal ring.”
“And the result?”
“Well, in fact, after considerable discussion, and the further perusing of other rings, possibly of every other ring in the store, unless there might be some unsorted stash in the back, and trying them on to see what they looked like when actually on a woman’s hand, which, in fact, is what had been done with Molyneux’s necklace, Miss Welsh held it up around her neck so he could see what it looked like, not just draped across a clerk’s hand or spread out on a counter, but hanging on the neck of a lady, as it would be on his wife, was what enabled him to see, in fact, that his choice had been quite appropriate, and so he was enlivened and left in quite a good mood as a result. Much the same as what occurred with us after he left.”
“But he left with the necklace, if I understand this correctly, and you have not left with the ring. The looks upon these faces speak loudly, Sterling. Tell me now. Do you still intend to honour your engagement to my sister?”
“You are an astute observer. I cannot continue this conversation here. You must allow me the grace of writing a deeply apologetic letter. It is all my fault, and…” But he was cut short by Granville’s gloves slapping across his face, and instead said, “You cannot mean to do this.”
Stepping closer, Granville growled, “I am in deadly earnest, sir, and I shall have satisfaction.”
“I am not sure I should have enjoyed being part of a family that answers in a manner which is not only primitive, but also unlawful, even though that is not often enforced.”
“We will meet at dawn.”
“I am willing to pay whatever…”
Striding away, Granville said, “My seconds will be in touch.”
Following a long interval of shocked silence, Lord Sterling at last mastered his countenance. Turning to all present, he spoke with quiet, disappointed resolve. “A most unfortunate and distressing development,” he observed, his voice betraying no tremor, “but I pray you will not discompose yourselves. I shall directly undertake whatever is necessary with his family to calm his passions, and I beg leave to make amends to whatever extent such remains possible.”
With grave and protective courtesy, he handed the young ladies into the glass coach. Taking care to evade the watchful eyes of the bystanders, he leaned toward Mary Ellen and whispered, low and hurried, that should his endeavours meet with misfortune, the lapis and opal ring would be fully paid for and securely held in Miss Jenny’s name within the vaults of the jewellers. Yet the manoeuvre did not escape the notice of the company. As the carriage rattled away from the pavement, a consuming anxiety seized Jenny, and she could find no peace until she had compelled Mary Ellen to impart the substance of his lordship’s whisper. On learning it, her spirit was rendered more restless still.
Had the challenge to an affair of honour been issued at a later hour of the day, custom would have deferred the meeting for upwards of forty-eight hours, for it required no small time to secure seconds, to find a surgeon willing to attend the field, and to procure the pistols. The morning, however, was yet young, and the arrangements were concluded in haste for the very next dawn, leaving no interval for heated blood to cool. Of this dreadful business Jenny and her companions remained wholly ignorant until the latter part of the following morning, when one of Lord Sterling’s seconds arrived at the house of Mary Ellen’s family, that being the only direction Lord Sterling possessed for the conveyance of tidings. Anticipating some fateful news, Jenny was already present when the messenger was admitted.
The gentleman related that Lord Sterling, following a noble but perilous custom among those who felt bound by honour to answer a challenge yet harboured no murderous intent, had raised his weapon slowly and deliberately and aimed it wide of his mark. Such an action was well understood to signify a wish to spare life, the more so since a death upon the field could be prosecuted as nothing less than murder. Mr. Granville Ellsworth, it appeared, had at first followed suit, raising his own pistol to point wide of his opponent, until Lord Sterling’s weapon was discharged into the air. Then, with chilling and calculated malice, Granville took his time, altered his aim with meticulous care, and shot Lord Sterling through the body. The surgeon pronounced the wound mortal, declaring that his lordship could not survive the setting of the sun. As the calculated malice branded him murderer, Granville had a horse at the ready to flee the Crown’s jurisdiction before Lord Sterling’s seconds could not stop him. It was expected he would not be seen in England again for many a year. A swift messenger had been dispatched to bear the tragic news to those who held the dying man in their thoughts.
Jenny remained wrapped in a deep and unbroken despondency. She withdrew entirely from society, and her days passed in one unrelieved round of grief, save for a single breathtaking moment some weeks on. She was sitting quietly among a few others in the drawing room when the door opened and Leigh walked in. At the sight of his face the chains of her sorrow fell away, and she leapt from her chair with an animation that bordered on madness.
“You are alive!” she cried aloud.
In an ecstasy of relief, she threw her arms about his neck and kissed him full upon the lips. It was a most scandalous breach of decorum, an act so perilous to a lady’s reputation that every witness present must take the utmost pains never to breathe a syllable of it beyond those four walls, for the honour of both parties.
Leigh, however, was a poet who knew nothing as yet of the tragic, aristocratic storm that had preceded his return, only the unbridled joy he had received from her for so many years while she was growing up, now visited upon him again. Stirred by it, he composed lines which seemed an entertaining trifle that only a few would see:
Jenny kiss’d me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss’d me.
Mary Ellen was by degrees learning to look with a more indulgent eye upon Jenny’s frequent and spirited excursions outside the rigid strictures of propriety. Once again, here was Jenny, possessing a rare, almost magical capacity to render a single moment of a poet’s existence profoundly worth the living.
That gift was made manifest to Mary Ellen yet again some months later, upon the arrival of a most distinguished letter. It bore the crest of the Earl of Beaumont and came from that nobleman himself, inquiring with the utmost gravity whether it was correct, as he had been given to understand, that Miss Carlyle might know of a respectable intermediary who could properly arrange an introduction between his wounded, but miraculously surviving, son, Lord Sterling, and Miss Welsh’s father.
Upon reading this joyful news, one of Jenny’s very first thoughts was that Lord Sterling might well be the first gentleman in the history of England to arrive at a formal courtship entirely at his ease, already knowing the very piece of jewellery required to win his lady’s hand. Mary Ellen could only shake her head in bewilderment, marvelling in a whisper, “How does she keep doing this?” knowing Jenny would continue making him very happy.