Epilogue
The Sugar Emporium
Covent Garden
London
“It is absolutely beautiful, Mr. Collins,” young Lucy Fletcher declared, her brown eyes wide with awe.
“You have outdone yourself, Father,” Tobias Collins agreed.
“It was the work of many people,” Mr. William Collins proclaimed, but his plump face was creased in a proud smile.
“I know,” Tobias commented affectionately, “but the methodology and the idea were both yours.”
The sugar sculpture, currently packed carefully in a padded box, was an impressive rendering of Buckingham Palace, with numerous small windows and parapets carefully devised out of sugar crystals.
“We have cleared out the front window for the sculpture,” Tobias informed his father happily, gesturing toward the glass casement which faced out upon the street. “I have no doubt many a customer will be enticed within our store with the new sculpture in place.”
The elder Collins waved a somewhat wrinkled hand, “That is your department, my dear boy. I may be a genius in many regards, but I find all the details of running a business quite beyond my capacity. I am thankful you are so gifted in that area.”
Tobias chuckled, “If you keep making exquisite creations out of sugar, Father, I believe the patrons will flock here regardless of what I do.”
“A carriage has just arrived in the side lane,” Lucy commented, peering through a window to the alley which led to the tradesman’s entrance to the shop. “I wonder who it could be. We are not opening for business for an hour!”
“Oh my, I lost track of time!” Mr. Collins exclaimed. “That would be Prince Albert. Do excuse me.”
The elder man rushed toward the side door, and a moment later, Tobias and Lucy heard him exclaim, “Your Royal Highness! I am very honored to see you today…”
Lucy Fletcher turned an incredulous gaze on her employer.
“Prince Albert?!” she gasped.
Tobias Collins nodded as he carefully covered the Buckingham Palace sculpture with a large piece of white cheesecloth, “Yes.”
“The husband of our Sovereign Queen Victoria?” the girl whispered incredulously.
“Yes. I intended to tell you about my father’s interactions with Prince Albert before His Royal Highness visited the Emporium, but the first week of your training flew by, and I did not make time. I apologize.”
“That is quite all right, Mr. Collins,” the girl returned nervously.
He gestured for her to proceed into the small back kitchen where both sat down and Tobias began fixing tea.
“Lucy, we chose you for the position here in the Emporium partly because we know you are a discreet young woman. My mother has given you high praise for your dislike of gossip.”
“Oh yes, sir. I know how … how terrible gossip can be.”
Tobias Collins nodded sympathetically. Lucy Fletcher was a shopkeeper’s daughter who had been thrown from her home based on false rumors that she had been defiled by a local farmer.
The Collins family had welcomed her first to Longbourn and then transferred her to Netherfield, where she had proven a most gifted assistant in the sugar manufacturing center there.
“You were not yet born, and I was but a child, when Princess Charlotte died more than twenty years ago in childbirth. Naturally, there was great concern when our gracious Queen Victoria was due to give birth to her first child only a few years ago. My father has written several pamphlets regarding the best procedures for laboring women, and he assisted in the delivery of a number of babies, including Mr. and Mrs. Darcy’s heir, William Darcy. ”
“Was Mr. William Darcy named after your father, sir?” the girl cried out excitedly.
Tobias smiled at her, “Yes, he was. At any rate, my father’s pamphlets came to the attention of Prince Albert, and he requested that Mr. Collins be available to assist the Queen when she was close to her time.
By the grace of God, both her first and second deliveries were relatively easy, but the Prince forged a friendship of sorts with my father through their dealings, and thus His Royal Highness secretly comes here on occasion to discuss various matters and state concerns with my father. ”
“Why secretly, sir?” the girl inquired in a puzzled tone.
“My father is but a lowly clergyman, Lucy, and thus is disdained by many of the high and mighty of the land in spite of his considerable brilliance. And Mr. Collins does not care to be well known in any case. He despises most social engagements and finds the trappings of court etiquette exquisitely dull. I know that the prince appreciates my father’s advice and knowledge, but it is best for both that their association be kept quiet.
I am trusting you to keep silent on this matter. ”
“I promise that I will not breathe a word to anyone, sir!"
“I knew I could depend on you. Now, we need to fill the containers of spherical, cubic, and pyramidal sugar lumps. I expect today will bring many customers.”
“Yes, Mr. Collins.”
/
“Oh Nathaniel,” Lydia Stanton murmured, leaning closer to her beloved husband of five and twenty years, “are not the landscape and buildings lovely at this height?”
“They are,” he agreed, wrapping his arm protectively around her. The basket beneath the balloon was sturdy and the wicker sides waist high, but it would still not be wise to be at all casual three thousand feet above the ground.
Lydia sighed happily, “Being up in a balloon never grows old, Nathaniel. I hope I may go up when I am sixty years old, and eighty, and one hundred!”
He chuckled and kissed her cheek, “My dear, if you live to the age of one hundred and I to two and one hundred, we will both go up in a balloon to celebrate living to such ripe old ages. We will start at Hyde Park like we did this morning, and no doubt the crowds will be even more impressive as the majority of Londoners would enjoy watching an ancient couple being lifted into a basket with much wheezing and muttering. ”
She laughed aloud at this and turned to gaze to the northwest, “I do believe I see the outskirts of the city coming in sight. We should make ready the parachute.”
Nathaniel bent down to the large package at their feet and together man and wife wrestled it into position.
Some fifteen minutes later, when the landscape beneath them was confined to fields and the occasional hamlet, they lifted the package to rest on the side of the basket, causing it to shift alarmingly with the change in the distribution of the weight.
“Are you ready?” Nathaniel inquired.
Lydia nodded, “One, two, three, go!”
Together, they heaved the parachute out of the balloon and clutched the sides of the basket as it swung in the heavens.
Their eyes were fixed on the parachute, which was plummeting down and down and down and down and down until at last they could see the flare of white and blue silk, followed a few seconds later by a silent crash into the unforgiving earth below them.
Man and wife straightened up and stared at one another in dismay.
“It did not deploy properly,” the lady stated unhappily.
Nathaniel sighed, “No. It is most disappointing.”
Lydia allowed herself a full minute of despondency before straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin, “Even a failure is useful information. It did partially flare out, but not enough and not quickly. I really think it would be most helpful if an aeronaut who is also a scientist did one of these jumps. That way ...”
“No, Lydia.”
She turned toward him, her brown eyes yearning, her pretty lips pouting, her eyelashes fluttering dramatically, “Oh, please, dearest husband, may I jump out of a balloon with a parachute?”
“No.”
She chuckled and threw her arms around him, and he returned her embrace with fervor.
“My darling Nathaniel,” she whispered into his ear, “would it not be glorious to float to the earth, to feel the breezes, to see the world in a new way?”
“You are my beloved wife and the mother of my children, and parachuting is ridiculously dangerous, my adored one. Content yourself with ballooning.”
Lydia sighed dramatically, “Very well, Nathaniel.”
/
Salisbury Estate
Wiltshire
“Oh, Lady Salisbury!”
Kitty, Marchioness of Salisbury, looked up in surprise as a young maid rushed precipitously into the office where she was conferring with her housekeeper.
“Yes, Maria?”
“Oh, my lady, Beatrice asked me to summon you to your art studio immediately.”
Kitty froze for a few seconds at this alarming request, and then was on her feet, out the door, through the south corridor, and into the glassed art studio which had been built by her beloved husband Hugh.
She stepped through the door and froze in astonishment at the scene. Her youngest children’s nursemaid, Beatrice Cates, was standing near the door wringing her hands in dismay and ...
Twenty years ago, Kitty would have been horrified by the scene in front of her. But the passage of time combined with the birth of ten children had relaxed her considerably; thus, she found herself leaning against a convenient wall, laughing.
Her art table, thankfully already stained by previous creative works, was currently supporting her two youngest children, male twins who were but three years of age.
The elder twin, Samuel, had found one of her largest paintbrushes and was vigorously slapping paint all over his compliant twin, Jacob.
Jacob’s usually pale hair was now an attractive shade of mauve, and his shirt and nankeens were blotched copiously with blue, red, and green paint.
Thankfully, the twins had gotten into water based paint and thus would wash off easily enough. It was an incredibly humorous scene.
“I paint Jacob, Mama!” Samuel exclaimed, his eyes glowing with pride and joy.
“I see that, my dear,” Kitty responded, struggling with difficulty to suppress her mirth.
“My lady,” Beatrice exclaimed with tears in her eyes, “I thought the boys were napping but they must have crept out while I was refreshing myself. I am so very sorry.”