Epilogue Chapter 2
Longbourn
“Look at the conservatory, Mama!” Susanna Darcy cried out with excitement. “Oh, it is beautiful!”
Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy craned to stare out the window of the carriage at her childhood home, which now boasted a small, elegant hothouse attached to the east wing of the mansion. “It is indeed! Kitty wrote that I would be astonished at the changes in only two years, and she was correct.”
Arabella Darcy, age fifteen, began bouncing up and down in her seat. “Oh, Mama! It seems quite impossible that it has been two whole years since we have seen Grandpapa and Grandmama, and Uncle Adam, and everyone else here! I am so very excited!”
“I am as well,” Elizabeth answered, her eyes shifting to the six month old baby in her arms. Elizabeth, like her mother before her, had been surprised by a later in life pregnancy, resulting in the birth of Master Jonathan Darcy the previous winter.
The six older Darcy children, from Susanna, age twenty, down to David, age six, welcomed the new arrival with great enthusiasm.
Elizabeth had found pregnancy more difficult with age and had been quite unable to travel the previous summer, but she could not repine a moment of her discomfort and fatigue.
Jonathan was a delight, and now with three healthy Darcy sons, Pemberley was in safe hands for future generations.
The carriage came to a halt, and a few moments later, a footman opened the door. Susanna and Arabella exited quickly with the ease of youth, and Elizabeth carefully stepped out with her baby in her arms.
Her father was waiting for her on the pavement in front of her beloved Longbourn.
Elizabeth stepped forward, embraced him carefully due to the baby she held, and stepped back to regard him with care.
Her sister Kitty, now married to Mr. Samuel Lucas, had assured her through correspondence that their parents, while aging, were still moderately well, but naturally she wished to judge the matter with her own eyes.
“I am not dead yet, Lizzy,” Mr. Bennet said, his eyes bright with their usual intelligence. “Now, please do introduce me to this little fellow.”
“This is Jonathan, Papa,” Elizabeth explained, her gaze shifting to the baby in his arms. “Is he not a handsome child?”
“He is, as are all my numerous grandchildren,” Bennet returned. “Now come, you had best come in and start greeting family and friends before anyone else arrives. I presume Darcy will be along soon?”
“Yes, Papa. He and the other children stopped at Netherfield to unload our trunks, but they will be along in a few minutes.”
“Excellent,” Bennet replied, turning to slowly climb the steps up to the door.
Elizabeth, with a son in her arms and her two daughters at her heels, followed her father into the familiar front hall.
Her daughters walked immediately toward the drawing room, but Elizabeth halted and looked around with interest. With the birth of Adam and the continued success of Bennet’s authorial career, money had not been a problem for many years, and Mrs. Bennet had made numerous changes throughout the house.
The vestibule, however, was much as it had always been, though Mr. Hill was no longer among the living; he had died suddenly some ten years previously.
Mrs. Hill now lived retired in a small cottage on Longbourn land, and her niece, Mrs. Cleet, served as housekeeper along with her husband, the new butler.
Elizabeth wandered slowly down the main hall and into the drawing room, just in time to hear her eldest daughter exclaim, “There you are, Uncle Adam! How well you look in spite of your many years!”
Adam Bennet laughed and embraced Susanna before retreating a step to inspect his eldest niece.
“My dear Susanna,” he said with a grin, “I fully expect you to listen to me very carefully now, given my extreme age and wisdom.”
Susanna laughed at this, and Elizabeth laughed with her. It was an amusing aspect of Adam’s birth that he was only slightly older than his oldest nieces and nephews.
“Sister,” Adam said, turning to embrace Elizabeth. “It is so good to see you again, and congratulations on your newest little son.”
“Thank you, Adam,” Elizabeth answered, turning the baby so that her brother could look down on the little one’s tiny face. “We are blessed. May I also say, happy birthday? This is a momentous day!”
“It is, Lizzy, it is!” Mrs. Bennet declared, bustling forward to hug her second daughter and then, naturally enough, squeal enthusiastically over the babe.
Mrs. Bennet had embraced being a grandmother with fervor.
She enjoyed spoiling her grandchildren, secure in the knowledge that she could hand them back to their parents when they grew too exhausting.
“Yes, it is,” the lady of Longbourn continued after she had cooed over the youngest Darcy. “To think that after all these years, our son is of age to cut off that dreadful entail!”
Elizabeth and Adam exchanged amused glances over their mother’s now shrunken form.
Given that all five Bennet daughters had married well, and Mr. Bennet was a successful author, the entail was only a minor irritation.
Nonetheless, Elizabeth admitted to herself, it was pleasing that her brother would be able to plan a more sensible way of bequeathing Longbourn through the generations.
She said as much to Adam, who immediately grew serious.
“Father and I will meet with the solicitors next week,” he promised. “No longer will Longbourn be entailed away from the female line.”
“Wonderful.”
New voices floated inside, and Elizabeth turned as Jane and Bingley and their two sons and three daughters, and Kitty and Samuel and their three sons, and Mary and Isaac and their two sons and a daughter, and even Richard and Charlotte Fitzwilliam, with their three children, swirled in a great maelstrom of joyful humanity.
Georgiana, now married to Viscount Bryan Verlest, would arrive tomorrow, as she and her family were traveling from the Verlest estates in Yorkshire.
Lady Anne, who spent half of her time at Pemberley, and the other half in Yorkshire with Georgiana, would be traveling with Georgiana, and no doubt would be of great assistance with the three small Verlest children.
Of all the Bennet daughters, only Lydia was missing from the celebration.
She, to everyone’s relief, had improved significantly during her two years of boarding school and had entered society in search of a sensible husband.
After several years in society, she met Mr. Wilburn, an older widower with two small daughters.
They had fallen in love and now were the happy parents of the older girls and three young sons.
Wilburn served as an English diplomat to the French government, and Lydia and her family were currently living in Paris.
Finally, the door to Longbourn opened again to reveal her beloved Fitzwilliam with their four other children surrounding him, followed by George and Anne Wickham and their two daughters and son.
Darcy, his tall form still rising over everyone else, made his way over to his beloved wife’s side.
In the midst of the noise and excitement, their gazes met, and in an instant, the months, the years, the decades passed away.
Once again they were Miss Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, drawn together by the traitorous acts of Lord Matlock, blessed with love and life and joy and passion from God above.
The baby in her arms suddenly squawked with hunger, and Elizabeth was pulled back to the present again.
“Let me take you to the parlor so that you can feed Jonathan,” Darcy said, wrapping a protective arm around his beloved wife.
“Thank you, my love.”
The End