Chapter 19 Epilogue #2
Elizabeth laughed, and every trace of sadness disappeared. Instead, she swatted his arm and reached for the door. “We must join our guests.”
“Are you certain?” he asked whilst wiggling his eyebrows.
“Yes, my virile husband, we must. Though I intend to remind you later to resume our conversation.”
“Please do,” he agreed and followed her inside.
#
“Where is Master Fitzwilliam?” Jane enquired.
The ladies had gathered in the blue parlour whilst the menfolk were occupied with business in Darcy’s study.
“He will be here shortly,” Elizabeth replied.
“He had better return before dinner is announced.” She glanced in the direction of the dinner gong as though to will it not to make a sound before her son arrived.
“It is not as if he needed to hunt for our dinner. But he cannot be kept inside for more than a minute with nothing to do as he turns into an ogre at any hint of idleness.”
“Much like his mother,” Lydia tittered and earned a scowl from her second eldest sister.
“I was not that impetuous or as opposed to quiet pursuits,” Elizabeth defended herself.
“Were you not?” Jane asked, but becoming aware of Elizabeth’s rapidly declining mood, she tempered her reply. “Yet, you cannot very well demand he engage in needlework or netting purses.”
“He could read a book, but even that he takes out of doors and sits under the shade of a tree or the like—if he is not flitting about like a busy bee between the first spring flowers.”
Miss Collins’s countenance tightened into a severe expression. “I sincerely hope the bee is not deflowering any innocent maidens on his flight…”
“Of course not,” Elizabeth protested. “He is his father’s son and always behaves irreproachably with the ladies.”
“You mean aloof and insulting?” Lydia revived and joined the conversation.
Elizabeth’s ire rose, and she breathed deeply before replying, “Mr Darcy is the best man I know, and I shall not allow anyone to insult him.”
“Of course he is,” Jane soothed Elizabeth. “The very best that ever lived. As is Mr Bingley,” she added.
“I remember once at the Meryton assembly…” Lydia remarked just as the dinner gong reverberated through the house to warn the tardiest of ladies that the meal was but an hour away. “Oh dear, I must change before dinner,” she cried and hastened out of the parlour.
“Well,” Elizabeth sighed. “At least Fredrick, Robert, Edward, and Henry will be present. Not to forget our baby, Vivienne.” Vivienne was her last child and had come as a surprise four years after Henry.
Elysande had been delighted. Initially wanting brothers, she had soon discovered what a nuisance they could be and was heartily sick of them after the then two-year-old Henry destroyed her favourite doll.
Although there were three years between Elysande and Master Fitzwilliam, the subsequent boys had come as pearls on a string every two years.
Vivienne was eight years old and too shy to object when her mother called her baby, but Elizabeth realised that the epithet was no longer applicable.
“We should all follow Lydia’s lead and dress for dinner,” Elizabeth suggested, rising from her seat.
The ladies murmured their assent and scattered to their designated rooms. Darcy was waiting for Elizabeth when she entered the mistress’s chamber.
He stood leaning against the door frame on the threshold between their rooms, looking as handsome as ever.
The silver streaks in his hair did him no disservice, and his skin was still smooth to touch.
Unfortunately, there was no time to tarry, even if the inducement was most tempting.
She sat before her dressing table where she could continue ogling her husband in the mirror.
“How do you believe our guests will receive our news?” she enquired as her lady’s maid began removing pins from her hair.
“With exhilaration,” was Darcy’s short reply. Which was nothing short of his own response when she had informed him. He had strutted about the room as proud as a peacock before he had swung her around in sheer joy.
“Or surprise,” Elizabeth added wryly, but Darcy only smiled roguishly.
“I shall return and escort you down”—he looked at his pocket watch—“in fifty minutes.”
“Yes, thank you.”
Exactly fifty minutes later, Darcy knocked on her door, and they descended the stairs arm in arm.
Most of their guests had assembled in the blue parlour awaiting their hosts.
To Elizabeth’s relief, Master Fitzwilliam was one of them, and he was surrounded by all the other boys.
She was infinitely proud of him, the main attraction amongst the young in the family as he was a droll combination of his mother and father.
“Dinner is served,” the butler announced.
“Shall we?” Darcy offered her his arm and escorted her to one end of the dining table. He helped her into her chair before taking his seat at the opposite end.
The guests followed and sat where they wanted. It was an informal affair with only the closest family present, so the mistress had foregone table placings. Even the children had been included, with the exception of Ellie’s baby, who was already asleep.
When the commotion of scraping chairs and bickering about the best seats had quieted, Darcy rose. All eyes turned to the master of Pemberley.
“I have an announcement to make.” Darcy raised his glass and let his gaze travel to his closest family.
“We are to welcome the new year with an addition.” He looked straight at Elizabeth.
“To my perfect wife and the boundless joy she provides her humble servant.” He took a swig of his wine and gestured for the soup to be served before he resumed his seat.
Elizabeth met his eyes and tried to convey her gratitude across the table. She raised her glass at him before sipping the wine and watched the brief smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth. He was obviously fighting a ridiculously proud grin.
“Have you purchased a new horse?” Mr Hughes asked, none-the-wiser.
“Mother!” Elysande exclaimed in a stern voice whilst glancing clandestinely at her husband.
Her boys seemed disappointingly indifferent and attacked the soup as if they had not eaten in days. Vivienne asked Jane’s oldest daughter Felicity what her father had meant.
“It cannot be…” Lydia mumbled, turning an incredulous expression on Elizabeth. “You are four-and-forty years old!” she accused none-too-quietly.
“Forty-three,” Elizabeth corrected, though she would be forty-four before the blessed event.
In a dreamlike state, she heard Jane’s congratulations and Vivienne clapping in joy that she would no longer be the baby in the family.
From a great distance she heard a chair scratch against the floor, and she felt more than saw her husband’s approach.
Her chair moved backwards, and an outstretched hand offered to aid her to her feet.
Elizabeth grabbed it and allowed herself to be pulled up.
She then tried to retrieve her hand, but Darcy held it tight and brought it to his lips for a lingering kiss.
“It was always my fondest wish to have a large family, but I did not believe it was possible due to my own family history. Neither Darcys nor Matlocks ever sired more than one or two children, yet I have been blessed with a cornucopia of the greatest gifts of all. Seven, and soon to be eight, children. This last blessing delights me beyond reason and my own better judgment. Now that our eldest has had the audacity to leave the nest”—he mock scowled at Elysande—“and our boys spend more time at school or visiting friends than at home, I am looking forward with anticipation to keeping Vivienne for a few years more and the new baby into my dotage.”
He turned to face Elizabeth. “When I entered the Meryton assembly, never did I imagine that I would meet the woman of my dreams who would complete my life so perfectly. I was a fool, who blundered our introduction and fought valiantly against my feelings, only to succumb and deliver a most disastrous proposal. When I assumed all hope was lost, an apparition appeared on Pemberley’s lawn, and I decided then and there that if I should ever win her approbation, I would do everything in my power to be worthy of her affection.
Most of you do not know that a month into our marriage, Colonel Fitzwilliam accosted Mrs Darcy in the library. ”
Darcy continued to relate a short version of what had transpired. When he had finished, Elysande had tears in her eyes, Vivienne cried silently, whilst the boys looked shocked by the revelation. Even Lydia was stunned into silence.
“Not a day has passed without me feeling a profound gratitude for the divine intervention of that dream. Imagine being deprived of the pleasure of observing my precocious Elysande grow into a devoted mother after caring for her brothers and sister. Watching Fitzwilliam grow as one with nature and the land he will inherit, Fredrick excel at his ecclesiastical studies, Robert’s penchant for science, Edward’s military prowess, Henry’s business acumen, and Vivienne’s beautiful paintings, and knowing I could have lost everything due to my mistaken pride or unfounded jealousy—”
“But you did not.” Elizabeth interrupted her husband and shocked the entire room when she rose to her toes and kissed his cheek. “Everything is as it should be,” she continued.
“My love, you are my everything.” Then he scandalised the whole room by grabbing Elizabeth’s cheeks in his hands and kissing her soundly.
Mr Darcy’s affection for his wife never wavered through the decades that followed—not once until the day he drew his last breath.
The End
[1] ‘Divortium a mensa et thoro’ is a Latin term that translates to ‘Divorce from bed and board’. This type of divorce is not a complete end to a marriage but a legal separation that allows the couple to live apart but not remarry.