The Faulkner place had not hosted a proper gathering in five years, but Cordelia made certain her guests never noticed the way the magnolia tree in the front yard had lost half its branches, or how the paint on the veranda peeled in long brown curls like sunburnt skin. She was twenty-six, and she possessed of that particular Mississippi energy which turns poverty into a schedule of bridge afternoons and seasonal receptions. Her guest book was the thing she cherished most. She read it each evening by candlelight, tracing the names of those who had acknowledged her family's continued relevance.

This birthday she had invited thirty people. The chicken was from the butcher in Vicksburg. The ice cream was from Jackson. She had worn her grandmother's coral necklace, though one clasp was loose and she checked it every ten minutes.

The parcel arrived at half past seven, just as Colonel Beaumont was describing his recent trip to New Orleans. It had been delivered by a boy on a bicycle, wrapped in oilcloth that smelled faintly of river mud. No card. Cordelia's stomach tightened, but she smiled, because smiling was what one did.

"From the country, perhaps?" said Mrs. Lenore Beaumont, and everyone turned. Lenore was twenty-four and wore her new money the way Cordelia used to wear her old money: with a kind of confident carelessness that masked the fact that she had never had to lose anything.

Cordelia broke the seal. Inside was a wooden box, carved with magnolia blossoms, the sort of thing one might purchase from a craft vendor in the French Quarter. The lid opened with a soft click.

A ring lay within. A signet ring, heavy gold, set with a stone the colour of deep water. The inside of the band was engraved with the Faulkner crest: a magnolia wreath around a shield.

For a moment there was silence. Then Lenore leaned forward with a laugh that was just a shade too loud. "How quaint! Is this one of those new things? Pseudo-Southern? How very charming."

A murmur of agreement. Someone suggested it was from a tourist shop. Someone else whispered that the stone might be glass. Cordelia felt her cheeks grow warm, though she could not say why. The ring was real. She knew it was real, though she could not remember where she had seen it before.

"Perhaps it is a joke," said Mrs. Beaumont, and then, because she could not help herself: "Your cousin has a peculiar sense of humour, Miss Cordelia."

Cordelia opened her mouth to defend whoever had sent this, but no name came. The oilcloth bore no return address. Only her name, written in a hand she did not recognise.

"Leave it with me," said Miss Lenore Beaumont, and before Cordelia could respond, Lenore had slipped the box into her reticule. "I shall keep it safe. You are clearly too flustered to appreciate it properly this evening."

Cordelia should have objected. She felt, dimly, that the box belonged to someone, though she could not say who. But the conversation had moved on, and Colonel Beaumont was describing his plantation in Louisiana, and Cordelia picked up her glass of sweet tea and drank.

She did not think of the ring again until a month later, when she drove to Jackson on an errand that had nothing to do with the ring.

She was turning out of the parking lot of the bank when she saw it. A shop on the side of the road, the sort of place that sold "authentic Southern memorabilia" to tourists: magnolia pillow covers, handwritten recipes from "old Southern kitchens," ceramic magnolias painted in shades of pink that no magnolia had ever naturally been.

And in the window, on a small wooden stand, was the signet ring.

Cordelia stopped the car. She walked into the shop. The woman behind the counter was not from around here. She had the flat accent of someone from the city, or perhaps from further north.

"What's this?" Cordelia said, pointing at the ring.

The woman looked at it without looking at Cordelia. "Oh, that's a nice piece. Got it from a woman a few weeks ago. Said it was a family heirloom. Wanted to sell quick."

"How much?"

"Fifty dollars."

Cordelia felt something tighten behind her ribs. Fifty dollars. The Faulkner signet ring, three hundred years of history, fifty dollars.

"Did she say whose family it was from?"

The woman shrugged. "Some Thibodeaux woman. Older. She had a box with it. Carved wood. Magnolias on it."

Mabel. It had to be Mabel. Cordelia's distant cousin, the one everyone called the old maid, the one who lived with Aunt Clarisse and tended the family graveyard and remembered the names of every Faulkner who had ever been born or died in this county.

Cordelia stood in the shop for a long time. The woman behind the counter was humming something that might have been a country song. The air conditioning was too cold. Cordelia could see her breath in the glass of the window.

She left the shop without buying the ring. She drove back to the Faulkner place and sat in her car in the driveway and watched the magnolia tree. Half its branches were bare. The wind had taken them in the last storm, and no one had come to tie them back.

She thought about driving to Mabel's house. She thought about knocking on the door and asking why and understanding that the question was not really about the ring.

She did not drive to Mabel's house. She drove home. She sat in the drawing-room and looked at the guest book and did not read it. She left it closed on the table, and the names inside gathered dust, and she did not mind.

That night she walked out to the graveyard. It was behind the old house, past the magnolia tree, past the section where the Faulkners had been buried since 1820. Mabel came out here every Sunday. She cleaned the headstones and cut the weeds and talked to the dead the way some people talked to the living.

Cordelia stood at the edge of the graveyard and looked at Mabel's section. Her headstone was new. Mabel had bought it for herself five years ago, the day Aunt Clarisse died. It was simple: Mabel Thibodeaux. Born 1919. No death date yet.

Cordelia stood there for a long time. The fireflies were out. The air was thick and warm and smelled of river mud and magnolia blossoms.

She did not go to Mabel's house. She did not ask about the ring. She walked back to the Faulkner place, went inside, and sat at the table and looked at the guest book and did not read it.

The magnolia tree lost more branches the next storm. Cordelia did not tie them back.