Epilogue
“Look at that moon,” said Elizabeth drowsily, her head on Fitzwilliam Darcy’s shoulder as they looked up at the stars in the night sky above Pemberley. “How brightly it shines on us!”
“Our honeymoon,” her husband replied, stroking her face with tender, reverent care.
The remains of their picnic supper lay around the blanket they had taken out to sit beside the lake at Pemberley on this idyllic late August night, with its clear sky and chirping crickets. The sun had long since set, but neither of them were inclined to rouse themselves and return to the house.
The pair had married in early August after a whirlwind engagement that had astonished the Bennet family, enraged Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and delighted Georgiana Darcy.
Jane and Charles Bingley had not been long behind them, marrying a week later, and Jane was now happily ensconced at Netherfield Park.
“Could anything ever be so perfect as this?” Elizabeth sighed contentedly. “I never expected life to work out quite this well. Did you?”
Darcy laughed to himself and shook his head.
“If someone had told me six months ago that by August I would be lying out here next to the woman I love, without a care in the world, I would never have believed it. I thought my life was permanently blighted, and I would be harassed and alone forever.”
“Society is already forgetting your fake scandal now that the gossip sheets have stopped printing those stories, and all your friends know the truth to counter the rumours. Anyway, there were plenty of other scandals in London this summer, many of them real. By this time next year, no one will remember Ludlow Fitzwilliam’s falsehoods at all. ”
“Yes, indeed. I know I am truly respectable again now because Bingley’s sisters both deigned to send us a wedding present.”
“Did they?” Elizabeth giggled. “I had not seen that one yet. What have they given us?”
“I cannot even remember,” Darcy confessed. “Indeed, I cannot remember most of them. You were the only present I wanted, Elizabeth, although your father’s gift of the full volumes of the Aeneid in the original Latin was also memorable.”
“I shall kiss you for that, Fitzwilliam, and I have every right to do so,” Elizabeth declared before following through on this promise.
“I remember that hideous vase that Lady Catherine sent us,” she added with a smile. “Though I was not quite sure whether it was an attempt to make peace or a further act of aggression.”
“Likely both, knowing my aunt,” groaned her husband.
“It does no good to over-examine someone like Lady Catherine. She is a force of nature, best appreciated at a distance. Anyway, her mind is elsewhere now, with Colonel Fitzwilliam’s impending return.
I don’t think he knows what he’s getting himself into. ”
“I’m so glad Colonel Fitzwilliam is safe and coming home, even if he’s injured.
It was kind of your aunt to offer him the chance to recuperate at Rosings, and he can come to Pemberley if Kent is too much for him.
I dare say Matlock Castle is the worst place for him, in his present state, and that of Matlock Castle. ”
“Lady Catherine wants to show off her war-hero nephew to the neighbourhood,” Darcy remarked. “Georgiana can’t wait to see Cousin Richard again either. Mr Deringham does well enough as guardian for paperwork, but he isn’t the same as her favourite cousin.”
“We should go and visit Lord Matlock again next week,” Elizabeth suggested. “He might not understand who we are, but he does seem to enjoy company, and I do not like to think of him alone in that rackety place. With Ludlow confined to the east wing, we need not see him too.”
“We shall visit, but have no fear for my uncle,” responded Darcy.
“Now that Ludlow isn’t siphoning off the estate’s income, the place will soon be comfortable again.
Thankfully, Lord Matlock’s servants are good people and have taken better care of him than his own son.
Even with a broken leg, Richard wanted to rush up to Matlock as soon as his ship docked. I had to persuade him otherwise.”
Elizabeth shivered, and Darcy pulled her closer into his embrace, murmuring something about keeping her warm.
“I’m not cold,” she insisted, while making no attempt to move away from him. “I was only thinking of what happens when Lord Matlock dies and Ludlow inherits the title and estate.”
“That will likely be beyond our power to control,” Darcy admitted.
“Unless Ludlow were officially and permanently certified insane, he will have everything. The problem is that he isn’t mad in that way.
He has just gone wrong as a human being, rather like Wickham, in his own way.
We must leave the future to take care of itself in this instance. ”
“The best message of congratulations on our wedding has to be the one from Mr Collins,” said Elizabeth after a brief pause, returning to more pleasant topics.
“‘Caught as I am between the Scylla of Rosings and the Charybdis of Pemberley…’” they both quoted in unison and fell about in laughter.
“The one from Mr and Mrs Wickham was a close second,” Darcy remarked. “Did they congratulate us first and then ask for money? Or ask for money and then congratulate us?”
“If it was the first, it was written by Mr Wickham, and if the second, by Lydia,” Elizabeth laughed. “She does not bother to wheedle for favours. Either way, we are under no obligation to answer such messages, especially while we are still on our honeymoon.”
Gazing up at the full and luminous moon again, she made another sound of contentment and laid her head back on her husband’s broad shoulder.
“Are you happy, Mrs Darcy?” Darcy asked her with an amused smile. “You sound happy.”
“Happier than I ever knew I could be,” Elizabeth breathed, and was rewarded with another kiss.
THE END