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The date of the party was approaching, and Mme. Proudfoot seemed depressed and worried, although her dress was ready. One evening her husband said to her, “What’s the matter? The last three days you’ve not been yourself.”
She replied, “It’s rotten not to have a piece of jewelry, not a stone of any kind, to wear. I shall look poverty-stricken. I’d rather not go to the party.”
Her husband suddenly cried: “What a fool you are! Go to your friend, M. Frodo Baggins and ask him to lend you some of his jewels that he inherited from his uncle, Mad Bilbo, who used to vanish with a bang and flash and reappear with bags of jewels and gold! You know Frodo well enough to do that.”
She uttered a joyful cry: “That’s a good idea! I’d never thought of it!”
Next day she went to her friend’s house and explained her dilemna.
M. Baggins went to an old wooden chest, removed a burnished brass casket, brought it over, opened it, and said to Mme. Proudfoot:
“Take what you like, my dear!”
She tried the various ornaments in front of the glass, unable to make up her mind to take them off and put them back; she kept asking: “Haven’t you got anything else?”
“Yes, go on looking; I don’t know what you would like.”
Suddenly she found an ivory-coloured envelope containing a magnificent gold ring on a chain, and she wanted it so desperately that her heart began to thump. Her hands were shaking as she removed it from the envelope. She put it round her throat over her high blouse and stood in ecstasy before her reflection in the glass. Then she asked hesitantly, her anxiety showing in her voice: “Could you lend me that, just that, nothing else?”
“But of course!”
The day of the party arrived. Mme. Proudfoot had a triumph. She was the prettiest hobbit in the room, elegant, graceful, smiling, in the seventh heaven of happiness. All the men in the room seemed drawn to her as though by an unseen force. She danced with them with inspired abandon, intoxicated with delight.
She and her husband left about four in the morning (just a few scant hours before wheelbarrows would arrive to remove guests who had inadvertently remained behind). When they arrived home, she took off the wraps she had put around her shoulders and stood in front of the glass to see herself once more in all her glory. But suddenly she uttered a cry: the golden ring on its chain was no longer around her neck.
They searched in the folds of her dress, in the folds of her cloak, in the pockets, everywhere; they could not find it. He asked: “Are you sure you had it on when you left the ball?”
“Yes, I fingered it in the hall at the Ministry. I had a strange urge to touch it.” They looked at each other, utterly crushed. Finally, her husband dressed again. “I’ll go back along the way we walked and see if I can find it.”
He returned about seven, having found nothing.
Next day, they went to the local jeweler, to ask if he knew where the ring had come from, and how a similar one might be obtained.
“That ring! One of a kind. You’ll not find one like it in these parts. Came clear from the Land of Mordor, so they say.” The jeweler was an old man with a long scraggly, white beard and curious grey robes. He flicked a bit of ash from his long-stemmed pipe and blew a perfect circle of smoke over the M. Proudfoot’s head.
“But we can’t let M. Baggins know that I’ve lost it,” wailed Mme Proudfoot. “Surely you know where I can buy one similar to his ring!
The jeweler, M. Gandalf, took pity on the poor creature. He placed his pipe on the counter and reached into a small drawer. Pursing his lips, he pulled out a worn map and unfolded it in front of the unfortunate Mme. Proudfoot.
“Here’s what I suggest. Travel quietly, and find a good guide. Also, take along a worthy Dwarf goldsmith – you’ll be wanting his help. Find your way to the Black Gate of Mordor, get in somehow (you’ll find a way, I’m sure) and make your way to the opening at the top of Mount Doom. There, you’ll have the good Dwarf forge you another golden ring.” Gandalf scribbled some words in a strange tongue on the corner of the map. “Make sure that these letters are engraved on the ring.” He folded the map and placed it in Mme. Proudfoot’s trembling hands. “That’s all I can do for you, Madame,” he said.
After making various barely plausible excuses to M. Baggins as to why the return of his ring would be delayed, Mme. Proudfoot and her husband set out on their journey. Ten months later, they returned. Mme. Proudfoot now looked an old woman. She had become the strong, tough, course woman we find in the homes of the recently tortured, or those who lived for years like rangers in the wilderness. Her hair was neglected, her skirt was askew, her hands were red. But she had the replacement ring to give to M. Baggins. He did not open the envelope to see it, but he did say, “You ought to have brought it back sooner; I might have wanted it.”
Mme. Proudfoot did not press him to look at the ring. What would he say if he detected the replacement? Would he think her a thief?
Some months later, still bent over and worn ragged by the toils of her great journey, Mme. Proudfoot found herself in Hobbiton, passing near the country estate of M. Baggins. In the fading light she could just make out the shape of M. Baggins and his gardener, M. Gamgee, traipsing down the road carrying rucksacks. She said: “Evening, Monsieurs! Where are we off to?”
M. Baggins paused, peering at the barely recognizable face of Mme. Proudfoot. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. “Well, no harm in telling you that we’re off on a great quest. My Uncle Bilbo left me a gold ring made by the evil Sauron. Turns out that its dreadfully dangerous, and I must go destroy it in the fires of Mt. Doom in the Land of Mordor.”
“But..but…” stammered poor Mme. Proudfeet, her heart nearly stopping its beat.
“Not to worry, I’m sure we’ll get it sorted out in no time,” M. Baggins continued.
“But M. Baggins,” Mme Proudfoot protested. “I never told you, but I lost that ring the night of the ball. I went all the way to Mordor to have another one forged, so that you’d never know. M. Gandalf the jeweler told me how to go about it!”
M. Baggins, deeply moved, took both Mme. Proudfoot’s hands. “My poor Melilot. Old Gandalf was mistaken. I never lent you the One Ring. The ring I lent you was made here in the Shire. It was only gold-plated – a mere trifle!”