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Thus, Mr Thorne found himself sitting down for dinner at the Clarendon with Jane Bennet. Jane looked resplendent in a Wedgwood blue ball gown that had been made for her by her sister’s modiste, wearing an admirable but modest set of pearls, which were in fact her aunt’s. The party sat at a round table for four. In the candlelight, it seemed terribly intimate. Mr Thorne could almost imagine that he and Miss Bennet were seated there alone, and he felt hot at the prospect. As Mr Gardiner talked and raised his glass of champagne for a toast, Mr Thorne turned to Jane and was completely lost when she directed her first smile at him.

The rest of the evening was a blur. The French food that the Clarendon was famous for was rather lost on Mr Thorne—all his senses were directed towards Jane. It was left to Mr and Mrs Gardiner to enjoy the cuisine and keep up an admirable stream of conversation. Later Mr Gardiner expressed the opinion that his new business partner had likely been exhausted by the long negotiations with the company, to which Mrs Gardiner retorted that it was obvious that the gentleman was moonstruck. Mr Thorne was so encouraged by Jane’s attentiveness to him that when they got up to leave, he shooed the waiter away and pulled her chair out himself. After he handed Jane into the Gardiner’s carriage, he stood at the entrance of the Clarendon long after the vehicle had disappeared, recalling every smile she had bestowed on him and pondering every word she had uttered. Nothing that Jane had said to him was in anyway remarkable, but the warmth with which she had spoken was, to Mr Thorne, pure gold.

Mr Thorne visited Gracechurch Street twice in the following week, principally on business with Mr Gardiner, but he took tea both times. He could have more easily and properly conducted the same business at the warehouse in Southwark but readily accepted Mr Gardiner’s quaint explanations for why he needed to be at home. Jane’s smiles continued and after a frank private conversation with Mr Gardiner, Mr Thorne decided to play the ace up his sleeve—he invited the Gardiners and their niece to Bristol in a fortnight. Again, this was framed as a business trip. Mr Gardiner was to personally supervise the installation of the latest of the winches, a new design that could lift heavier loads. The Gardiners were to stay for two days with Mr Thorne. Nurse was left in charge of the children in Gracechurch Street.

They arrived in Bristol in the early afternoon, having travelled via Reading and Bath. As a treat for Jane and Mrs Gardiner, they had stayed overnight in Bath to spend the morning visiting the pump room and walking about the town. Mr Gardiner had made several flying visits to Bristol before, when he was contemplating expanding his own business to there. He had met with Mr Thorne at the harbour on a few of these trips, but he had never been to his residence in Clifton. Thus, before the horses began struggling up the hill, John Coachman stopped to ask a crossing sweeper the way.

“Oh, I knows where Mr Thorne lives!” the boy declared, whereupon he promptly offered to direct them for a shilling—an exorbitant fee, since he was generally given only a penny to sweep the crossing.

While the coachman was disposed to cavil, Mr Gardiner just laughed and dispensed the coin, considering it a good omen for their trip that Mr Thorne was so well known to the local populace, something that is bound to impress a Londoner. Snatching the thrown shilling from the air, the boy handed his broom to a smaller girl leaning against a wall sucking her thumb and deftly mounted the box.

The houses upon the hill were very fine, built upon the cliffs, looking out upon the river Avon. Although the day was dull, it was still a pretty vista with many ships scattered along the river, looking like children’s toys. After appreciating the view, Mrs Gardiner and Jane peered out the carriage window on the opposite side, commenting on a pretty feature of each of the townhouses they passed as the horses plodded slowly up the incline—a pleasant portico, elaborately swagged curtains, a beautiful vine. After some time, they came to a small park on level ground in which some well-dressed children were flying a kite. The road continued up the hill, but they heard the boy on the box cry out:

“Here it is! Turn left!”

The park was in fact a square bordered on three sides by roads. The side opposite the river was entirely occupied by a large building of sandstone, which looked rather like it might be a grand set of assembly rooms. But as they neared it, a footman came down the wide steps and the boy cried for John Coachman to halt. Looking at each other open-mouthed, Jane and her aunt realised they had arrived at Mr Thorne’s house.

By the time they had alighted from the carriage, Mr Thorne had emerged from the house to greet them most graciously.

“Well!” said Mr Gardiner, adjusting his coat. “This is a fine establishment you have here, Jack!”

“Thank you,” said Mr Thorne, bowing and offering Jane his arm. “I bought the land quite cheaply years ago when it was considered very distant from the city centre. But I had a setback and wasn’t able to build on it straight away. I’m glad I did not. I decided to build further back from the cliff edge than I originally planned, setting aside this little park. Mother was quite happy to stay where she was, down near the docks, in the interim. But when I finally did get the money together to start building, she told me she didn’t want to be isolated up on the hill. So, I built the houses on either side of the square first and leased them.”

From this, Mr Gardiner realised that Mr Thorne not only owned the grand house before them but the entire square and the houses bordering it.

“I thought Mother would be happy to move up here once there was company, but she kept assuring me she wanted to stay as close to the quay as possible so that I would not have to walk far to get home. Finally, I built the grandest house I could afford and brought her up here blindfolded. “Mother,” I said, “I’ve spent every penny I have to make you happy here, so you must say that you will stay.”

“Well, I am sure she must have been delighted!” said Mrs Gardiner, admiring the grand structure.

“To be truthful, Mrs Gardiner, I think she still preferred the tiny house my father bought her near the docks, but she was always too kind to say so.”

As Mr Thorne had delivered this speech in a cheerful tone, Mr and Mrs Gardiner chuckled appropriately and accompanied him up the wide steps to the door. But Jane was struck by the rather melancholy thought of how hard Mr Thorne must have worked to please his mother, only to have the fruits of his labour disdained.

The interior of the house was strangely disappointing after its grand exterior. The vestibule was sparsely populated with odd bits of furniture—two classical revival chairs reminiscent of those favoured by the Garths stood alongside older more practical pieces like an umbrella stand. These few items appeared rather lonely in a sea of marble that formed the floor and a beautiful grand staircase. The house looked like it was hardly lived in—more like a museum. Perhaps there were mummy cases or the Elgin marbles upstairs, Jane thought, and involuntarily shivered.

A footman helped divest them of their coats and showed the ladies a washroom under the stairs. He was perfectly clean and dressed in respectable livery, but Jane noticed his hair was tarred, with the queue in a bag to prevent it besmirching his coat. She shuddered. When they reached the parlour, which had a beautiful bay window that looked out across the park, they found the furniture to be rather old-fashioned and concentrated oddly in one corner of the room near the hearth. Again, it was all spick and span but the two armchairs on either side of the fire had linen cloths thrown over their backs, as Jane had occasionally seen in the houses of naval gentlemen. Noticing the slightly dismayed look on Jane’s face, Mr Thorne apologised, saying his mother had not quite got used to the larger house and had arranged the furniture much as it had been in their former abode. Clearly, he had not seen fit to move it since her passing.

They had tea and cake as Mr Gardiner and Mr Thorne discussed all the work that had been performed on the harbour recently to modernise it. Being a trader, the tea served was of the first quality and the pound cake tasty, if not very fine. It was, however, served on china that Jane recognised as Sèvres from her visits to the homes of the Haut Ton—even Mr Darcy did not aspire to that, his household favoured Wedgwood and Crown Derby.

Following tea, Mr Thorne conducted them to their rooms so that the ladies might rest after their journey while he and Mr Gardiner went down to the docks. The first door at the top of the stairs he opened for Mrs Gardiner, saying that he hoped she found it to her satisfaction—his new valet had chosen the furniture in preparation for their visit. Jane’s room was next door and could be accessed via the hall or through the internal door. His own room was at the end of the hall. After inviting them to roam the house and garden at will in his absence and to ring if they required any assistance, he bowed and took Mr Gardiner off.

Entering the Gardiners’ bedchamber with her aunt, Jane was relieved to find it quite different to the rooms downstairs. It was furnished in much the same manner as the Darcy townhouse with neat modern furniture in restful pastel colours that succeeded in looking luxurious without being pompous. It all smelt very new—of wax and sizing.

“Oh! How lovely!” said Mrs Gardiner. “I shall stay at this inn again!” she joked.

They walked around admiring the furniture and the beautiful views from the windows, exchanging words of praise on all they encountered. Finally, satisfied they had given Mr Thorne—or perhaps his valet—his due, they subsided.

“Should you like to retire to your own room, my dear?” asked Mrs Gardiner. “Or will you lie down here on the bed with me?”

“I shall rest here, Aunt. I am quite tired after our walk in Bath this morning.”

“I always find the carriage wears me out these days,” sighed Mrs Gardiner, setting down her reticule. “Even though it is well sprung, these long journeys do tire me.”

Slipping off her shoes, Jane agreed.

“Shall we just take a peek into your room before we lie down?” suggested her aunt mischievously.

When they opened the connecting door and stepped into the room, Jane’s heart swelled, for the entire bedchamber was decorated in the Wedgwood blue of the ball gown she had worn to the Clarendon. This happened to be Jane’s favourite shade, for it was the colour of her eyes.