Epilogue
Since you probably wonder what happened to Bingley and the Hursts who escaped to the Americas?
They lived quietly in New York and never set foot in the Kingdom again.
Bingley opened a department store with Hurst. He eventually married an Angel as opposite in looks of Miss Bennet as he could find, and they had three children. The Hursts had a son and daughter.
Miss Mathilda Bingley used some of the money that she received from the balance of Caroline’s dowry to have her niece transferred to a facility just outside of Scarborough weeks after her commitment to Bedlam.
It was a humane place that treated the patients with respect and kindness.
Miss Caroline Bingley lived there for close to fifteen years until she suffered an apoplexy and passed on.
It was not the life she had wanted for herself, but she was always well cared for, and her aunt visited her no less than once a week.
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The Duke and Duchess of Bedford would start to welcome the extended family later this afternoon, the first to arrive would be the Darcy brood from Pemberley in an hour.
These days, thanks to the railway line that connected Bedford to London which went through Lambton, it took the Darcys less than two hours to make the journey.
With nine of them, having a private car on the train belonging to the family, travel was far more palatable.
The Darcys’ firstborn was Cilla Anne Elizabeth, who just turned nineteen and was being courted by the Marquess of Holder, the grandson of Elizabeth’s Uncle Stan.
She had been followed by the twins two years later, Bennet Alexander Fitzwilliam and his identical twin brother, George Thomas Fitzwilliam.
At seventeen, the boys had just completed their studies at Eton and would be going on to Cambridge.
There had been much negotiation not long after the boys were born between their grandfather and father about their schools. In the end Bennet, had acceded and agreed it was his son-in-law’s prerogative to send his sons to the schools of his choice.
A year and a half after the twins, Sarah-Beth, fifteen, was born, followed two years later by Rosemarie, called Rose by all, who was thirteen.
Four years later, when Elizabeth suspected their family was finished growing, she became with child again, and Jane Priscilla was born.
She was nine, and in looks and character, to her father’s delight, was an exact copy of her mother.
To their further amazement, almost to the day two years later, the baby of the family, Richard Andrew, who had just turned seven, arrived.
To say that the Darcys were a happy family would have been a vast understatement.
Elizabeth and William were even more in love now than they had been when they married.
Given both of their natures, there had been numerous arguments and disagreements over the years, but never in the presence of their children, and they had always resolved their disagreements before joining one another in bed so they never went to bed angry with each other.
A year after Waterloo, Darcy had fulfilled his promise to his wife and taken her for a three-month tour of the continent while the grandchildren were spoilt by their grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, and uncles.
The next to arrive would be the five Fitzwilliams from Brookfield.
Lucas Reggie, their firstborn who, at eighteen, was going into his second year at Cambridge, and three years after Lucas, Rich William, who was fifteen and at Eton, had been born.
Rich would inherit Rosings Park when he came of age, as Anne had passed some seven years previously and Lady Catherine a year after her daughter.
Charlotte had thought she was done when five years later they were gifted with Elaine Sarah, who was called Ellie.
At ten she thought herself very grown up, but, like her brothers, had a sweet disposition.
Charlotte and Richard were as happy as they ever were.
Her folly of a first marriage was but a distant memory, one that was never mentioned.
The couple had been honest with their children, who knew that their mother had been married for two months at some point before their parents married.
Lady Lucas lived with them at Brookfield, having lost her husband some four years previously.
As had been predicted, after Sir William got over the townhouse being slipped into the management agreement, he had enjoyed spending time in Town with his family over the years, and had been especially proud when Maria joined Georgiana, Esther, and Ally in being presented to the Queen and coming out together.
Franklin and his wife and four children lived at Lucas Lodge, while John and his family, a wife and three children, lived at the Fields.
John was the primary manager of the estate, but Franklin still assisted him.
With the improvements they had made, the profits had climbed to twelve thousand per annum and they were helping the town of Meryton flourish.
The competition between them and Richard as to who had the better programme still raged, but they had done as planned and created some lines merging breeding stock from both programmes.
The result was the most in demand horses in the country.
Maria married a young man with a medium sized estate in Essex, and they so far had three children and Maria was expecting her fourth before the end of the year.
Even though her three best friends were all married and living in different parts of the country, they always found time to see each other several times a year, for the four had an unbreakable bond of friendship, much as their sisters Elizabeth, Jane, and Charlotte shared.
Jane and Andrew and their five children would arrive on the morrow in the morning.
Some six years previously, when Lord Reginald Fitzwilliam had passed peacefully in his sleep, Andrew and Jane had become the Earl and Countess of Matlock.
Their first born, Reggie Thomas, Viscount Hilldale, who had been born on the final day of April 1812, was the oldest of his generation.
He had one more year at Cambridge before he took his grand tour around Europe.
The next three had been girls. Lady Elizabeth Elaine was seventeen, Lady Priscilla Sarah fifteen and Lady Jacqui Rose, eleven.
The baby, who was eight, Sed Tom had surprised and delighted his parents, who suspected there would be no more after Jacqui.
Jane and Andrew did not allow the Dowager Countess to move to the dower house.
She happily shared time between her sons’ houses, spending time with them, her daughters, and grandchildren.
Lady Elaine missed her beloved Reggie every day, but she had so much for which to live, and they had promised one another to do so some years before he had left her.
As would be expected, Jane and Elizabeth were as close as two sisters could be and saw one another at least once a week given the relatively short distance between their estates.
They saw Charlotte almost as much, and occasionally planned an outing the three of them enjoyed while their husbands entertained the children together.
Esther, to no one’s surprise, had accepted and married Robert Jamison in 1816.
As a wedding present, the Duke and Duchess purchased two estates bordering Ashford Dale in Bedfordshire.
It quadrupled the size of the estate, and with a little money from Esther’s amassed dowry, a new manor house was built, leaving the old manor house to become a dower house.
Will and Yvette had insisted on staying in their original home, and so Robert and Esther had taken up residence in the new house. They had four children, Robert Junior, thirteen, who would go to Harrow and Oxford, Sarah Yvette, eleven, Jane Karen, nine, and Alison Priscilla, five.
Another non-surprise had been when Mark Bennet, the Earl of Meryton, requested Karen Jamison’s hand and they married in 1824, making her the Countess of Meryton.
So far, they had two children, Cyril Thomas, Viscount Netherfield, age six, and Lady Yvette Esther, who was three.
Karen was with child with her third, who was expected to arrive in January or February of 1833.
“Tom, I see Lizzy and William’s coaches approaching,” Lady Georgiana Bennet, Duchess of Bedford called out to her husband, the ninth Duke of Bedford.
Gigi and Tom had married in 1816, also surprising no one. Their first son, the current Marquess of Birchington, was born a little over a year later. Lord Thomas Sedgewick was fifteen and at Harrow, like his father and late grandfather before him.
The eighth Duke had succumbed to heart failure some three years earlier.
His death had been preceded by four years when the beloved Lady Rose joined her husband in the Kingdom of God.
The dowager Duchess, who two years earlier mourned the passing of her father, had mourned her beloved Thomas for a full two years.
To this day, and for the rest of her long life, she would wear the muted colours of half mourning.
The Duke and Duchess were joined by Lady Priscilla and their children. Besides Thomas there was Lord Sed Cyril, twelve; Lady Anne Esther, ten; Lady Rosanne, eight; and last but not least, Lord Wes Mark, who was all of four years old.
Darcy was the first out of the lead carriage and handed his wife and oldest daughter out of the conveyance that had transported them from the station in Bedford to the estate.
Ben exited after his sister; his twin and the other four children were in the next carriage.
After greeting the adults, the children disappeared into the house.
“It is so good to see you again, Lizzy,” Priscilla gushed as she took her second daughter’s arm, as Darcy, Georgiana, and Tom fell into step behind mother and daughter.
“It is not many weeks since you were at Pemberley Mama,” Elizabeth smiled as she hugged and then kissed her mother on both cheeks.
“You will have to excuse an old lady if she forgets salient facts from time to time,” Priscilla offered, winning a tinkling laugh from her daughter. Darcy grinned, for how he still loved to hear his wife’s laugh.
“Mama, you look better and have a mind sharper than a woman many years your junior. I know for a fact that your mind is like a steal trap, and you forget nothing!” Elizabeth rebuked her mother in jest.
“You have caught me, Lizzy. I just cannot get enough of all of my sons, daughters, and grandchildren,” Priscilla owned.
“As we can never have too much time with you, Mama.” Elizabeth looked back at her brother and sister-in-law talking to her William. “Their Graces look well, as always.”
“Have we not canvassed the subject that you are not to call us by our honorifics, Lizzy?” Georgiana asked playfully.
“Did you, I forget,” Elizabeth teased the women with her into laughing.
While the other three walked towards the house, the Dowager Duchess directed her daughter to the rose garden fully in bloom, making the air smell especially fragrant. They sat on a bench. “I miss your father so very much,” Priscilla told her daughter.
“We all do, Mama, but what we feel is different from your feelings, I am sure,” Elizabeth soothed.
“He was so proud of all of you. Do you know how many times we discussed how our life changed because of the unknown family connections?”
“I am sure it was often, Mama.” Elizabeth felt sad as she missed her father greatly.
“It was never with regret. Even when the attempt to entrap Esther was foiled, he was always positive. He loved his family above all else,” Priscilla said wistfully.
Some in society never learnt, compromises were attempted with both Tom and Mark, which resulted only in the destruction of the reputations for the ladies involved.
“Family is, and always will be, the most important value to all of us, Mama,” Elizabeth stated with certainty.
While they would always miss those who were no longer with them, the lost family members would always be with them in their hearts as they together continued on as one big, extended family.
“Yes, Lizzy, family has always been more important than wealth and connections, known and unknown!” Priscilla kissed her daughter’s cheek. Mother and daughter stood and walked arm in arm towards the house and their family.
~~~The End~~~