Epilogue #2
On a more serious note, I have spent some considerable time with Mrs Collins these past weeks.
She has borne her loss with admirable composure, and I find myself rather in awe of her quiet strength.
I have offered to escort her and the child back to Lucas Lodge once a new rector is appointed, though I have also impressed upon our aunt that the matter ought not to be rushed.
It is too soon to say what may come, but I find I am in no great hurry to return to my regiment and have extended my leave through the time of Anne’s wedding, which is to occur early in the new year.
Darcy lowered the letter, letting it rest upon his knee.
“A new match in Kent,” he said thoughtfully. “And perhaps another still to come.”
Elizabeth met his gaze. “Charlotte has long deserved better than what life gave her. I hope she finds it.”
At this, Mrs Annesley looked up from her needlework. A faint, knowing smile touched her lips as she regarded Elizabeth.
“Some hearts are meant to wait,” she said quietly, “but not forever. All things arrive when the hour is right.”
Her words seemed to hang in the air, softer than Georgiana’s gentle playing, before Darcy cleared his throat and bent once more over his cousin’s letter.
The fire crackled steadily in the grate, its golden light flickering over the walls and casting long shadows across the bedchamber. Candles burned low in their sconces, their flames steady in the still air. The snow had ceased at last, leaving the world hushed and white beneath the winter moon.
Elizabeth sat in the armchair nearest the hearth, a woollen shawl wrapped about her shoulders and her bare feet tucked beneath her.
Her book lay forgotten in her lap. The stillness of the hour pressed gently around her, but her thoughts would not settle.
So much had happened in the span of a year—too much, at times, to comprehend fully.
And yet one truth persisted through it all, as steady as the beat of her heart: she was happy.
There had been a time, not so long ago, when she would have laughed at the idea of Mr Darcy as the companion of her future life.
But somehow, impossibly, fate had intervened.
Not with fanfare but in moments both small and strange: in glances, in silences, in second chances.
There was no other word for it. It was as if he had always been her destiny.
Her gaze drifted to the fire as Mrs Annesley’s voice stirred in her memory, faint but clear:
“Some hearts are meant to wait, but not forever. All things come when the hour is right.”
The words carried an unsettling weight, as though she had heard them long before. And then another voice came back to her—the trinket seller in Bromley, speaking of the locket Elizabeth had nearly left behind.
“It will open…but only when the time is right.”
Elizabeth straightened, setting aside her book. She rose and crossed to the dressing table, where the locket lay beside her silver brush and comb. Lifting it, she felt the chain slip gently through her fingers.
The locket settled into her palm, glinting in the firelight. Since its return, she had tried again, and failed, to open it. So had Darcy, and even the jeweller in town.
Surely nothing would come of it now.
Her thumb found the catch. She pressed, and to her astonishment, there was a faint click. The locket sprang open.
A shiver ran through her.
At that moment, the dressing room door opened. Darcy stepped into the glow of the room, pausing when he saw her standing there, the locket in her hand.
“Elizabeth?” His voice was low and intent. “Are you unwell?”
“It opened,” she whispered, wonder catching in her breath. “Fitzwilliam—it opened.”
In an instant he was beside her, his gaze searching hers. “The locket?”
She nodded, a breathless laugh escaping despite herself. “I have tried a hundred times and never once succeeded. But now—” She glanced down at it again, her voice hushed. “There is an inscription.”
She stepped closer to the hearth, tilting the locket towards the light.
“Here,” she murmured, holding it out to him. “Look.”
Darcy took it carefully from her hand. His forehead furrowed as he studied the engraving.
On one side were two sets of intertwined initials: EB and FD, delicately carved. On the other, in elegant script:
For all time
He stared at it wordlessly. When he finally spoke, his voice was low.
“It has to be a coincidence. Whoever owned the locket previously must have shared our initials.” He glanced up at her. “Surely this was always here, and we simply never knew it.”
“Perhaps,” she said slowly. “But how likely is it that a trinket bought on a whim would bear our initials? And why would it not open before now, no matter how hard we tried?”
Darcy let out an uneven breath. “I confess, I have no explanation. But I know this—I have never seen this engraving before. And I did not place it there.”
Their eyes met, and a silent understanding passed between them.
Elizabeth drew closer. “Do you remember the story I told you?” she asked. “About the two of us in that hidden garden at Rosings?”
Darcy nodded, his gaze steady.
Elizabeth’s voice softened. “I remember, you saying you used to dream of me, as though we were already acquainted. As if we had lived a life together, in some other time.”
His fingers closed more firmly around hers. “Then I meant it. Whatever that was, be it dream or memory, if it helped bring us together, I shall never cease to be grateful.”
She smiled and threaded her fingers firmly with his.
And in that instant, a strange awareness swept through her. Flashes of memory danced at the edges of her mind: a candlelit parlour; two hands clasped across a sunlit grove; Darcy’s voice, calling her name.
And then it was gone.
She blinked, and the present returned: the glow of the fire, the curve of her husband’s smile, the steady weight of his hand in hers. Leaning into his embrace, she rested her head against his chest, where his heart beat, steady and sure beneath her cheek.
Perhaps she would never remember all that had been, but it no longer mattered. The rest of their story awaited, and whatever it held, she knew they would write it together.
The End