Epilogue #5
Her husband possessed an easy manner and a fondness for horses that delighted Kitty from their earliest conversations.
Though quieter than Lydia, she had gained confidence through the years spent visiting her married sisters and moving within wider society.
Elizabeth watched her wedding with particular satisfaction, remembering the timid girl who had once followed Lydia’s lead in everything.
The Shropshire estate, though smaller than Pemberley or the Bingleys’ home, suited Kitty perfectly. She became an attentive mistress, surrounded herself with dogs, flowers, and cheerful neighbors, and welcomed every relation who chose to visit.
Mary was a more difficult lady to settle.
She approached matrimony with the same thoughtful deliberation she applied to every important subject.
Admirers came and went, some intimidated by her learning, others unable to interest her for very long.
Mrs. Bennet occasionally despaired, while Mr. Bennet privately maintained that Mary would either marry remarkably well or not at all.
She had particular preferences and would not settle for anyone who she deemed less than worthy.
Elizabeth secretly admired her firmness.
Mary sought neither fortune nor consequence. She desired conversation, shared principles, and a husband who valued both intellect and duty. Such gentlemen existed, though they proved somewhat less common than dashing officers or agreeable heirs.
Eventually, she met a rector with three livings—two of which had curates to manage.
The gentleman possessed a dry wit entirely unexpected by those meeting him for the first time.
He and Mary discovered a mutual enjoyment of history, theology, and long country walks during which each was perfectly content to allow the other extended periods of uninterrupted conversation.
Darcy remarked after meeting him that he had never before encountered two people so capable of discussing ancient Rome while forgetting the hour.
Mary accepted his hand after six months of courting.
The engagement surprised those who had mistaken Mary’s reserve for indifference. Elizabeth recognized instead the happiness that softened her sister’s features whenever the rector entered a room.
They lived comfortably in Wiltshire at his primary parish.
Their home became known for excellent hospitality, an enviable library, and dinners that concluded as often with music as with conversation.
Mary never entirely abandoned her improving books, yet her nieces and nephews discovered that she also possessed an unexpected talent for telling stories before the nursery fire.
Jane and Bingley eventually moved north—not out of desperation, but out of a desire to be closer to Darcy and Elizabeth.
After several happy years elsewhere, Bingley confessed that he had grown weary of measuring every journey to Pemberley in days rather than hours. An estate became available scarcely ten miles away, and before long negotiations concluded to everyone’s satisfaction.
Darcy welcomed the arrangement wholeheartedly.
“There are few neighbors,” he told Elizabeth as they rode out together to greet the new arrivals, “whose company I should willingly exchange for solitude.”
Elizabeth smiled.
“I can think of none.”
With an estate just ten miles from Pemberley, the Bingleys were frequent visitors.
Hardly a week passed without one family calling upon the other.
The children soon regarded the journey between the two houses as an ordinary excursion rather than a formal visit, racing together through gardens, exploring woods under careful supervision, and inventing games that occupied entire afternoons.
Christmases alternated between the two estates, while birthdays, harvest celebrations, and summer picnics were invariably shared.
Elizabeth and Jane raised their children together as they always imagined.
The sisters often smiled to recall youthful conversations in which they had hoped never to live far apart.
Fortune, in its kindness, had granted them exactly that blessing.
Their sons became companions from infancy, their daughters shared the same affectionate confidence their mothers had always enjoyed, and scarcely any important family event passed without the entire company gathering beneath one roof.
Darcy never again dismissed his wife’s judgment merely because it differed from his own.
He learned to ask questions before forming conclusions, to listen before deciding, and to remember that even the sincerest convictions benefited from humility.
Elizabeth, for her part, never abused the confidence he placed in her, though she occasionally reminded him of his solemn promise whenever a lively disagreement arose between them.
Such reminders generally ended in laughter rather than debate.
Watching the people he loved gathered beneath the same roof, Darcy could scarcely reconcile the present with the man he had once been.
Wickham had become his trusted friend. Georgiana had regained both his confidence and her own happiness.
Elizabeth had challenged him often enough to make him a better husband than he would otherwise have been.
He had learned that one’s character is not always set.