Epilogue
Thomas Bennet looked over at Fanny Bates, who was as beautiful as she had ever been in the shimmering blue ball gown that even made her eyes seem to sparkle.
Her hair still looked like spun gold when it was lit by candlelight; her curves were still supple and alluring, especially when the fine silk clung to her body in such a way.
She still looked around with wonder and hope and joy when she was in a ballroom.
Above all, he was as in love with her as he had ever been, and just as foolish enough to dare a third time to hope she might finally love him back.
Their daughters had cheerfully abandoned them as soon as they all arrived at the Crown Inn, but it was their birthday, and so they must be forgiven.
Indeed, Thomas rather wished to thank them, for he could not woo Fanny properly while their girls were looking on, as they had done all week.
Jane and Elizabeth were distracted at present, blissfully besotted by two gentlemen who would make very fine sons-in-law; men with good sense, handsome looks, and grand libraries.
And now it was to be his turn, or so he hoped. As the first strains of music began, he extended his hand to her. “I hope you have saved me the first set, Fanny.”
“When have I ever not?” It was just how she had teased him at their last ball together, twenty-one years and nine months ago.
“And the supper set?”
She smiled brightly as she recited her line and took his hand. “Who else could I bear to dine with, Captain?”
Thomas grinned at her like the daft old fool he was as he spoke the rest of it. “And the final set of the night, of course – I must have that as well.”
She swatted playfully, giggling like a girl half her age. “Why, Captain Bennet, people will talk!”
“Yes, they will say that I am paying you particular attention, and that is just what I intend to do.” He led her to join the set, feeling a little of that feckless youth still there in his heart, and he gave her a daring twirl before they began the figures of the dance properly.
Fanny looked at him with glistening eyes, her body already moving in rhythm with his as if that were all it was ever meant to do. “Do you mean it, Thomas?”
“I meant it all those years ago, and I absolutely mean it again now that I am at liberty to do so. Indeed, I wish to dance the last with you most of all because there is something particular I wish to ask you after – something I have asked twice before, and I may keep up a tradition of asking every ten years or so, whatever you say.”
Beneath his wry laughter was a great tumult of fear and anxiety, and the foolish hope his darling girls had nurtured in his heart.
He knew Fanny saw right through him; she had told him once that he was the only person in the world who ever thought her clever, but perhaps it was because she comprehended him with such devastating clarity.
His heart and soul were laid bare before her already, and she smiled serenely back at him, as if she cared only for the music and their movement together.
They spun through the figures of the dance as easily as if it were still a favorite pastime, and not merely the stuff of memories. He held her gaze, waiting for her to speak, and when she finally did, it was only to observe, “You are still a splendid dancer, Captain Bennet.”
"You are still the prettiest girl in the room, Fanny Bates.”
“Then why should you insist on waiting until the end of the evening to say what you wish to me?”
He laughed and shook his head. “You have never allowed me to insist upon anything; you have always had your own way, Fanny.”
“And perhaps I must again. Perhaps I shall say that we must not let an evening of dancing and candlelight carry us off like all the young couples – that we should let a game of chess decide. I have grown quite good.”
He blinked at her. “A game of chess? Good Lord, woman, what fresh mischief is this?”
“No, I think it will please you, Thomas. If you win, you shall have all the amusement of asking poor Mr. Meeks to read the banns again for you, and in three weeks' time we shall wed – we may even beat our daughters to the altar.”
The next movements of the dance separated them for a minute, and Thomas waited with ? rising anxiety until she turned back to him at last with a radiant smile. “And if I win, ? we must elope at last.”
***
Three weeks later, Thomas Bennet and Fanny Bates wed in the Highbury church, and Mrs. Bates lamented with a smirk that it was the loudest, longest, most sentimentally repellent wedding she could remember in all her years.
She was prodigiously proud, and nearly came to fisticuffs with Mr. Woodhouse when he disparaged the sugary sweetness of the wedding cake.
Two days later, Elizabeth married Mr. Darcy.
She had purchased a great many new things at Mrs. Bartlett’s shop already that summer, and she insisted that she had no need of a trousseau, but her father thought it a fine joke to gift her half of the exorbitant new wardrobe Miss Bingley had ordered to vex him, for she had been sent away before she could claim any of it.
The other half of the fateful trousseau was set aside for Jane; the newlywed Bingleys, Bennets and Darcys were eager for Mr. Knightley to finally come to the point.
He and Jane became engaged the day after the other happy couples all finally departed for their wedding trips, and they were very well-pleased with themselves for managing it in their own time.
A fortnight of quiet peace settled over Highbury; the next great fuss was celebrated in the village when Bessie Hill and John Martin returned from Gretna Green to discover that nobody had especially noticed their absence, nor was anybody the least bit surprised by their marriage.
Mrs. Bates had been taking bets for a month on whether they would remain in the village or follow the Bennets to Hertfordshire.
The Martins had the last laugh, however, when they elected to do neither.
The housekeeper at Pemberley had been “thinking of retiring soon” for the past three years, and she was finally persuaded to do so right around the time the new Mrs. Martin decided the air in Derbyshire would suit her very well indeed.
Everyone knew this was the latest scheme of Lady Gresham, who took over the lease of Milton Hall when Mr. Bingley quit the place in favor of residing at Hartfield with his affectionate and over-indulged bride.
Lady Gresham remained in Highbury with her daughter Selina Gardiner until the last of the weddings, and then Selina was to have a season in London, where she made fast friends with the young widow Georgiana Darcy.
The pair were squired about London all winter and into the spring until Elizabeth’s confinement obliged Lady Gresham to take a turn in supervising their antics.
Her eminently suitable companion, Charlotte Lucas, made the endeavor a most agreeable one; they worked all sorts of new mischief on the first circles of society for as long as it amused them, until Selina Gardiner wed after a disappointingly straightforward courtship.
A fortnight later, old Lord Gresham most obligingly passed from this world to the next, peacefully enough to please anybody who actually liked him, and with a great enough fortune in his accounts to please his family.
Lady Gresham and her impish protégé travelled extensively – Charlotte wished to go anywhere but back to Hertfordshire.
Eventually, they made their triumphant return to Surrey, delighted by how altered their friends and relations declared them.
Charlotte had refused no less than four proposals in two years – though her employer and devoted friend insisted it was really six, and one of them from a marquess – but everybody knew that Richard Fitzwilliam had been the first. He was also rumored to have been the fourth, and Thomas Bennet was always amused at every chance to remind the poor colonel that the third time proposing might hold some promise yet.
Mr. Darcy purchased Milton Hall as a gift for Elizabeth Darcy’s twenty-fifth birthday, and they travelled there with their twin boys and darling daughter, as well as Georgiana and little Margaret Darcy.
The latter was not at all as timid as her mother, and ruled the other children like a tiny, comical tyrant; Fitzwilliam Darcy was his niece’s most devoted defender, and ever remained thus.
Thomas, Richard, and Gemma Darcy had the singular distinction of befriending their uncle, a stout young lad a whole fortnight older than the boys.
The heir to Longbourn bore the unfortunate name Gresham Milton Bennet – until his devious and devoted older sisters simply shortened his name to Ham, which the whole family agreed was rather worse, but somehow also better.
Georgiana Darcy never remarried; she and her daughter enjoyed a perpetual welcome at Pemberley and Milton alike, and Georgiana was delighted that her daughter should grow up with so many cousins and have the lively and exuberant childhood that she had always wished for herself.
From time to time, the affectionate set of friends and relations who converged annually in Surrey would debate what the best thing about Highbury was.
Lady Gresham maintained that it was the young people, the Darcys believed that it was the pleasure of swimming in the lake, and the Knightleys insisted it was their Donwell strawberries.
Emma and Charles Bingley always joked that their favorite thing about Highbury was the absence of Caroline, who never returned there – nor to any remotely agreeable place.
Thomas Bennet loved to revive the old argument whenever his family visited, but his charming wife would always insist that there was simply something in the air.