Epilogue Chapter 2
October, 1823
Pemberley
Elizabeth Darcy ran down the shallow steps to the front drive of Pemberley. More than a decade of marriage and the birth of four children had thickened her figure a little, but she was still light of foot. Indeed, she thought she might be even quicker than before her marriage thanks to her children, who adored chasing their mother around Pemberley’s great halls.
The carriage came to a halt, and a minute later, her sister, Mary, was handed out by her husband.
“Mary!” Elizabeth cried out enthusiastically, clasping her next younger sister affectionately. “You made marvelous time. It is not even noon! I am delighted to see you!”
“It is wonderful to see you too, Lizzy! You remember my husband, of course.”
Elizabeth turned to smile brightly at Mr. Isaac Bennet, formerly Mr. Isaac Gregory, “Of course, Mr. Greg ... my apologies, Mr. Bennet!”
“Thank you for inviting me to Pemberley, Mrs. Darcy,” the man said diffidently, his awed eyes flicking to and fro to take in some of Pemberley’s grandeur.
“We are overjoyed to have you here, and please call me Elizabeth” Elizabeth said warmly, turning to Darcy, who had just arrived at her side, “My dear, you remember Mr. Bennet?”
“Indeed,” Darcy declared, extending a hand to Longbourn’s former steward.
“Mr. Darcy,” the other man replied, shaking his hand enthusiastically.
“Come in, come in,” Elizabeth directed. “You must wish to refresh yourselves after your journey.”
Mary smiled and took her husband’s arm, and together they climbed the steps to enter Pemberley’s great front hall. Inside, various servants were waiting, including a young woman with a baby girl in her arms. The child, who was whimpering, screamed in excitement at the sight of Elizabeth, who hurried forward to take her daughter from the nurse’s arms.
“I am so sorry, Madame,” the nurse said apologetically. “Frances woke up earlier than expected from her nap and would not settle.”
“Of course,” Elizabeth declared warmly, cuddling the baby to her body. “She is hungry, no doubt. Mrs. Clarence, escort Mr. and Mrs. Bennet to their rooms so they can refresh themselves. Mary, when you are ready, please ask the way to the conservatory for a brief repast with Jane and Lydia. Mr. Darcy is planning to drag your hapless husband on a tour around the house, I believe.”
Darcy smiled at this and nodded toward his new brother by marriage, “I hope that is acceptable to you, Mr. Bennet?”
“I would be honored,” Isaac Bennet declared.
/
“Mary!” Jane Bingley exclaimed, rising to her feet and embracing her sister. “Oh, Mary, it is so good to see you. You look well!”
“I am very well,” Mary Bennet agreed as she gazed around at the Pemberley conservatory. She had visited Pemberley twice before and was familiar with its delights, but she was always amazed at the breadth of flora within the succession house’s glass walls. Oranges, cherries, peaches, plums, even pineapples grew and thrived under the tender auspices of Pemberley’s many gardeners
“I am very glad,” Jane replied, and Mary was distressed to see tears in her oldest sister’s eyes. “I feel so guilty that you were forced to deal with losing both Mother and Father without any support from me or Lizzy or Lydia!”
“Nonsense, Jane,” her sister declared stoutly. “You were ill, and Lydia and Elizabeth great with child. Kitty and her husband were a great help, and my dear Isaac shouldered the burden of managing the legal issues associated with Father’s death.”
Jane sighed and gestured toward a table which held tea and fruit, “Please do eat something, Mary; I expect that Elizabeth and Lydia will be along shortly. Lydia’s little son is a rather fractious baby, but she will be here when she can.”
“What of Kitty?”
“She and her family will be here in the next few hours, we hope.”
“And are you entirely well?” Mary demanded as she collected food and drink. Jane looked healthy enough, if rather thin, but her bout of scarlet fever earlier in the year had been brutal.
“I am completely recovered. But please, I know our other sisters have seen you more recently than I have. Can you share something about the ... the end for Father and Mother?”
Mary chewed and swallowed a grape, considering what to tell her still delicate sister.
“Father’s death was no surprise,” Mary finally said. “He was fading for literally months, and Mr. Jones warned me that his time on Earth was near its end. That is why Isaac and I married in haste as we did not wish to wed while I was in mourning. I hope none of you minded that you were unable to attend the ceremony.”
Jane patted her arm, “We understand completely. Besides, you did not tell anyone except Father and the Gardiners ahead of time, correct?”
Mary grimaced, “That is right. Mother would not listen to reason about Isaac. Every time I tried to tell her how much I cared for him, how good he is, she would argue that he was not worthy to be my husband and the master of Longbourn. She went on and on about Lydia’s marriage to a Viscount, and claimed I should aim for at least a baronet, not a mere steward. But Jane, I never met another man I could even consider marrying! The men who courted me were fortune hunters, or vain, or pompous, or merely dull. Isaac is a wonderful man, Jane. He has toiled long and hard for many years overseeing Longbourn, and we are very happy together. But I knew Mother would kick up an enormous fuss, so we arranged to wed without her knowledge.”
“That was very sensible, and since Father died only two weeks after your wedding, you were none too expeditious.”
“Yes,” her sister declared solemnly. “Father used his last remaining strength to arrange for all the legalities regarding the inheritance so now Longbourn belongs to Isaac and me.”
“And Mother?” Jane Bingley asked quietly.
Mary sighed, “She was delicate the last few years of her life, but when Father passed on, she deteriorated with frightening rapidity. Theirs was never an equal marriage, but the last decade was far better than when we were children. Father tried hard to be a better husband after recovering from his descent into drink, and he succeeded. When he was gone, she seemed unable to go on without him. Her last illness and death were a terrible shock, but at least Kitty and her husband were at Longbourn to help bear the burden of her care those last days. We buried her only a month after Father, you know.”
“Yes,” Jane agreed. She had been in the throes of her own desperate illness at the time, and had emerged from her fever to discover that both her parents had died. It had been a hard year.
“It has been a truly difficult year,” her sister declared, echoing Jane’s thoughts, “but this coming year will, I hope, be far brighter.”
Jane shot a sly glance at Mary’s midsection, “I am certain it will.”
Mary Bennet gasped and blushed, “Jane, how did you know?”
“My dear, I have been with child four times and can well recognize the signs of pregnancy. When will the heir to Longbourn be born?”
“We are expecting him or her in March.”
/
Elizabeth Darcy stepped out of the conservatory and onto the sunlit, well-tended lawn behind the southeast wing of Pemberley. The green expanse was a mass of people of all ages; Jane and Bingley with their two sons and two daughters, Elizabeth and Darcy’s three sons and one daughter, and Lydia and her husband with their three offspring, one of them a male infant who lay quietly in his mother’s arms. Numerous maidservants and nurses rushed to and fro, making certain that the smaller children were safe in the maelstrom of humanity.
Elizabeth looked over to her sister Kitty and Anne de Bourgh, who, along with their husbands and children, had arrived only an hour ago. Kitty had fallen in love with the rector of Rosings during a visit to that great estate some six years ago, and now she and her husband, Mr. Drew, dwelt in the Hunsford parsonage along with their son and daughter. Elizabeth rejoiced that Anne Fitzwilliam and Kitty Drew were excellent friends, and their husbands dealt well together too. Their children – the two little Drews and the three Fitzwilliam sons – played together happily and without concern for the great disparities in their wealth.
There was a sudden shriek from eight year old Thomas Darcy, the heir to Pemberley, as the boy raced across the lawn toward several bounding blobs on leashes. Elizabeth laughed aloud at the sight; the Darcy kennels were famous across Derbyshire for the quality of their spaniels, and this latest litter of puppies needed to be acclimated to noise and activity.
The other children shrieked as well and suddenly the puppies were surrounded by a mass of enthusiastic small bodies, though various parents and servants carefully monitored the interactions between puppies and children to keep everyone safe.
Elizabeth felt a cold nose on her hand and she looked down in surprise to behold Maxwell, now an elder statesman among the local dog population. She smiled at him and sat down on a nearby bench, stroking his ears and muzzle, though her heart clenched at the sight of the gray fur which had replaced red. Max was already old for a dog, and they would no doubt lose him soon.
“You are responsible for all of this, my precious Maxwell,” she murmured into his ear. “You know that, do you not? If you had not saved me so long ago, Darcy and I might not have married – indeed, my family would have been ruined. You are such a good dog.”
He snuffled a little and sighed before lying down on the ground to stare, with lordly curiosity, at his great-grandchildren who were frolicking on the lawn with joyful abandon.
Her husband appeared suddenly at her side and sat down, and she leaned into his strong embrace.
“Are you happy, my love?” he whispered into her ear.
She sighed with contentment and let her gaze move from her sisters to her nieces and nephews to her children to the rising northern hills.
“I am overjoyed with the life we have, my dear.”
Darcy leaned over to kiss her on the top of the head, “I love you, Elizabeth.”
“I love you too.”
The End
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