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Her uncle claimed her for the set, but she was determined to have a private moment to express her gratitude. She took him a little aside before saying, “I must thank you for your unexampled kindness to me and to my poor mother. I do not know how to express my appreciation—how you even discovered such a portrait—”
“Lizzy,” he chided gently, “you are not much in town, but surely you know who resides at Carleton House? It was Mr Darcy who knew of the portrait’s existence—all I did was discover where the thing was hanging. Saxelby put a flea in the ear of people who know the regent, who were able to make Darcy’s interest in the object known to him. It was Darcy who had to go to such parties and merrymakings as His Royal Highness required of him—for these matters are delicate, you see. Nothing so ham-fisted as a straightforward sale or trade. Knowing the regent, I was somewhat surprised Darcy managed it so quickly, yet it took weeks of routs and revelries as it was. I feared it might take months.”
Lizzy felt herself go pale with astonishment at this enormous effort from a man who disliked an endless onslaught of society.
Her uncle saw her surprise. “Let us take a turn about the room, my dear.”
He walked with her, holding her arm, greeting others whilst she could barely hear what was said over the ringing in her ears.
“It went against my grain to take credit for its acquisition before everyone,” he said at last. “But of course, there was no other way to make the portrait known, and so quickly. It seemed we were barely in time as it was. I think my brother Bennet is cracked.”
Lizzy sighed. “He had just witnessed a spectacular loss of control of his whole family.” She explained what her sisters, and even her mother, had done for her and what, to him, must have seemed an open defiance before the entire neighbourhood.
“I cannot accept excuses for him,” her uncle said. “He is a bully and a fool.”
“I am not waiting for any apologies from him,” Lizzy assured. “But he is no worse than many others of his sex. There is no indignity so abhorrent to their feelings as a natural child and the woman who bore it!”
“That is too often true,” he agreed sadly, “even when the judgement of blood is mistaken, as it was in your case.”
But she did not wish to speak more of Thomas Bennet. “Uncle,” she began hesitantly. “Do you know how Mr Darcy knew of the picture in the first place?”
“Oh, yes. He explained that he came upon it when he was a lad of sixteen years. His old tutor, you see, a gentleman of some learning, connexions, and influence, took him to view the gallery at St James, where he saw the portrait of Lady Sarah—although he did not then learn its subject’s name. It made an impression upon him at the time. He had forgotten it completely, however, until he first saw you. There was something so familiar about you, something making him look and look again, he explained, to try to place you. It nagged at him, at least at first. But his attention, once captured, could not be liberated. Or so he said.”
“But why did he acquire it? Gratitude, for—for what I did for him during his illness?”
He smiled. “Ah. I do not pretend to speak for Mr Darcy, but as indebted to you as he doubtless feels for that, it seems to me that gratitude is the least of his feelings where you are concerned.”
Lizzy turned her head to find Mr Darcy amongst the dancers and saw, at that very moment, he was looking at her from across the room; she looked quickly away.
“He will not appreciate my divulging any of this, although I did tell him I would not keep secrets from you,” her uncle added.
“Why tell me anything then?” she asked with some asperity and not a little frustration. “He is hardly hurrying to my side. He has barely said ten words to me.”
Mr Gardiner smiled, his kindly eyes twinkling. “A man who felt less might say much more” was his only reply.
