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Three days after their return from Mary’s wedding, Mr Gardiner arrived unexpectedly, shortly before lunch, with a new invention for Darcy. This turned out to be a set of adjustable stairs which he had devised upon hearing in Hertfordshire that Darcy was unable to lift his feet high enough to perform the exercise with the library stairs suggested by Dr Gordon. Like the library stairs, Mr Gardiner’s new gadget had a rail on either side that allowed Darcy to support himself with his arms, but the steps could be adjusted between a one- and seven-inch rise while maintaining an eleven-inch run. Darcy was enthralled with Mr Gardiner’s ingenuity, shaking his head that he had not thought of such a device himself.

Her uncle’s arrival threatened to upset Lizzy’s best laid plans for Mr Thorne, for it was the very day that Jane’s suitor had been invited to lunch. However, Mr Gardiner saw nothing suspicious in Mr Thorne’s advent half an hour later. He knew that Darcy and Mr Thorne had some common business. When Mr Trevor also appeared, Mr Gardiner merely made to take himself off, so as not to intrude. This Darcy would not allow. After Mr Thorne apprised Darcy briefly of his current business dealings with Mr Gardiner and praised his winch, Darcy introduced the topic of the steps, and these were demonstrated again for Mr Thorne’s benefit. Mr Gardiner was promptly invited to join the three gentlemen at lunch. Lizzy’s uncle might normally have hesitated over an invitation with his relatives during business hours, but Mr Thorne’s presence lent the occasion the legitimacy it required to assuage his conscience.

Lunch was a resounding success. The gentlemen talked on trade, the East India Company’s new docks and advances in steam engines, with all the ease of old friends. Lizzy did her best to keep up with topics she had barely an acquaintance with. Fortunately, Georgie, who would have been completely at sea, was not obliged to endure the conversation, for she had gone off visiting with her aunt and Princess Brunhilda, newly returned from her honeymoon. During the meal, Elizabeth missed her new sister’s presence occasionally when something particularly strange or obscure was broached—she would have liked to have exchanged an eye roll, which the men could scarcely have noticed, so engrossed were they in their medium. Mostly she covertly watched Mr Thorne. All her previous convictions, that despite his lowly origins he was a man of good sense and intelligence, were reinforced. Lizzy thought he lacked only a little polish and refinement to be called truly a gentleman, and she knew that Jane’s gentle company could soon provide these.

As the dessert was being put on the table, Elizabeth contented herself with the knowledge that in her uncle she had one relative she need not be ashamed of. She could see that her husband and her uncle were becoming fast friends. Years later she would realise when talking to Jane that her husband was a weird dichotomy—half Mr Gardiner in his passion for machines and half Calhoun in his facility for theory. It took Jane to point out that it was in fact Lizzy who had enabled both these halves. Without her and perhaps his illness, Darcy would have remained a moderately successful businessman instead of the noted captain of industry and respected gentleman mathematician that he became. Losing his sight had made Darcy defer to Mr Trevor many of the mundane things that he had previously thought it necessary to attend to personally.

Sipping her coffee, Elizabeth became anxious lest Mr Thorne depart before she could talk to him privately, necessitating the arrangement of another meeting without the serendipity of Jane’s being detained in Hertfordshire. But Darcy had not forgotten the ulterior motive for Mr Thorne’s invitation. Sitting next to her, her husband became wise to her anxiety when he felt her tense and begin shifting about in her chair. Giving her hand a squeeze under the table, Darcy offered to loan Mr Gardiner a book on steam engines and, when Mr Trevor offered to retrieve it, asked him instead to guide his wheeled chair to his study so that he might select it himself before finalizing his business with Mr Thorne. Looking at his watch, Mr Gardiner bid his niece goodbye and begged Mr Thorne to wait on him on the morrow, before going off with Darcy and Mr Trevor to the study.

Thus did Mr Thorne find himself alone with Lizzy, with only Farley hovering discreetly in the background with the coffee pot.

“I did not earlier get a chance to congratulate you, Mrs Darcy, on your recent marriage. I noticed the ring on your middle finger when we met in Southwark but did not realise it an engagement ring. I see you have now transferred it to your ring finger.”

“It is an unusual ring, is it not?” said Lizzy, twisting the ring of Diana on her finger. “It is very special to me. Fitzwilliam went to great trouble to find it. But I wore it on my middle finger only because it was a little large. Now I have had it adjusted.”

“Ah! In some countries wearing the ring on a particular finger or hand has some special significance. I thought perhaps you had moved it upon getting married,” he said as he idly stirred sugar into his coffee before venturing, “How is your sister? I had hoped I might see her again today.”

“Georgie is out visiting,” said Lizzy, rather slyly, “and as to Jane, she stayed in Hertfordshire for a week to support my mother, who is lamenting the loss of two daughters to marriage in quick succession.”

“She must be very fond of you,” said Mr Thorne.

“Oh! Quite!” said Lizzy, not entirely honestly, “but losing Jane will be the biggest blow to her, since Jane is quite her favourite daughter.”

“I hope your mother can bear the loss tolerably,” replied Mr Thorne, all politeness.

“I expect she will do so, especially if Jane marries well, for it has been her lifelong ambition to establish Jane comfortably.”

“Perhaps your mother is looking to the peerage?” said Mr Thorne, biting his lip. “I fear I have been hopelessly outclassed by Mr Darcy.”

Elizabeth smiled. “Mama did not look so high before, and I expect she will be satisfied if Jane’s heart is. My sister Mary has recently married a clergyman with a small estate and Mama was very well satisfied with him.”

“Then I should not despair?”

“Not at all. I believe Jane noticed the trimming of your whiskers with approbation.”

“Indeed? I have received several compliments on my new look. I thank you for your advice and hope I might put it to good use the next time I see your sister.”

“Could I be so bold as to offer you some more advice, Mr Thorne?” asked Lizzy, getting to the point.

“Of course,” said Mr Thorne, lowering his voice.

“Do you have a valet?”

“I do not. My mother always looked after my clothes. But I have been wondering lately whether I should get one. The trouble is I have no idea how to go about procuring a good valet.”

“Would you mind if I introduced you to someone who might be of help?” asked Lizzy.

Finn appeared soon after he was summoned, arranging to meet Mr Thorne at a nearby gentleman’s outfitter on the following afternoon. Thus did Lizzy set her next scheme in motion to forward her sister’s happiness.

On returning from the tailor on the following day, Finn immediately reported to his mistress that he had ordered an entirely new wardrobe of clothes for Mr Thorne, based mostly on black but with variations in greys and patterns, printed and woven, that would set him up as a gentleman of the first stare. Finn had also chosen one or two suits in colours, should Mrs Darcy’s sister be hopelessly prejudiced against black, though he could not think that these outfits suited Mr Thorne half so well. As to a valet, Finn thought it best if he travelled to Bristol next week, if the master could spare him, where he would undertake to interview valets in response to an advertisement Mr Thorne would place in the papers. Elizabeth thanked him heartily for his trouble.

The day following Mr Thorne’s visit, Calhoun arrived from Cambridge on his first call since he and Darcy had been reunited. To any of his colleagues who enquired, he replied that he was travelling to London to visit his sister, but he more particularly wished to report to Darcy what he had learnt of the methods employed by the blind mathematician Nicholas Saunderson. Being unable to recall whether he had introduced Elizabeth as his lectrice during Calhoun’s previous visit, Darcy merely introduced her to his friend as his wife. Calhoun seemed to take this without a blink, smiling affably at Elizabeth and congratulating her on having married ‘one of the best of fellows’. Since his only vague remembrance of Elizabeth was of her interest in mathematics, Calhoun could not disapprove.

Sitting in the study with Darcy and Calhoun, Lizzy listened in on the Cambridge mathematician’s findings for some time, ordering tea and making several notes on how she might adapt some of Saunderson’s methods, many of which were more suited to his field of geometry. But when Darcy and Calhoun reverted to discussing their own work and started arguing about some aspect of infinite series, Elizabeth took herself off. She was reading alone when the Darcy carriage pulled up outside, returning Georgie from her morning visits.

“Ah! I have caught you at last!” came a robust voice from the door of the saloon.

Lizzy looked up to see Princess Brunhilda, looking even more vital than when they had first met. With an extra sparkle in her eye and roses in her cheeks that had not been there before, there was something almost evangelical about her. As Brunhilda stepped under the lintel, Lizzy briefly imagined her in chain mail, recalling that she had always thought Joan of Arc must have been extraordinarily tall for men to have allowed her to lead them into battle.