Epilogue
Mr Collins returned to Hertfordshire shortly after Christmas, having spent his absence making the necessary arrangements for his marriage, and before January was very far advanced Charlotte Lucas became Mrs Collins.
The wedding was attended by the Bennets, the Lucases and a considerable portion of Meryton, while Mrs Bennet divided her attention between lamenting Charlotte's future possession of Longbourn and congratulating herself that such an event was unlikely to occur for many years.
The only absence which surprised Elizabeth was Lady Catherine's.
Mr Collins had spoken so often of his patroness's interest in the marriage that Elizabeth had half expected her to appear at the church herself, but Lady Catherine remained at Rosings and sent only her congratulations.
Mr Collins appeared perfectly satisfied with the distinction; Elizabeth was rather more curious about it, though not enough to allow the matter to trouble Charlotte's wedding day.
Charlotte departed for Hunsford with every appearance of satisfaction. Elizabeth embraced her warmly before she left and wished her happy, though she privately suspected that happiness with Mr Collins would require considerably more patience than she herself possessed.
Mr Bingley, meanwhile, continued to find Longbourn irresistible, and Darcy appeared equally incapable of remaining away.
They called almost every day during the weeks which followed Christmas, though Bingley's reasons required very little explanation and Darcy had long since abandoned any pretence that his were different.
On those rare days when weather or some unavoidable engagement prevented their coming, Elizabeth discovered that she noticed Darcy's absence far more than she cared to admit.
Julia remained at Longbourn while her father was with his wife and son, and the familiar company continued to assist her recovery.
Her memories returned sometimes in fragments and sometimes with startling completeness, and with each passing week there was less which required Elizabeth's assistance to supply.
Colonel Fitzwilliam's calls continued with almost equal regularity. At first he claimed concern for Julia's recovery when teased by Darcy. Later he ceased offering explanations altogether.
When his duties eventually required him to leave Hertfordshire, the Colonel wrote to Mr Harding before his departure and made his intentions towards Julia clear.
Mr Harding's answer arrived some days later, granting him permission to continue his attentions, and thereafter Julia acquired an entirely new reason to look forward to the post. Colonel Fitzwilliam proved a remarkably faithful correspondent, even when distance prevented him from being an equally faithful caller.
Jane and Bingley's courtship continued with all the happiness which had characterised it from the beginning.
Mrs Bennet had been speaking of their marriage for so long that when Bingley finally asked Jane to marry him in February, she received the news less as a surprise than as confirmation of something she had already considered settled.
Jane accepted him, of course, and Bingley's happiness upon receiving her answer was so complete that Elizabeth suspected he would have announced it to half of Hertfordshire himself had Mrs Bennet not undertaken the task first. Within days there was scarcely anyone in Meryton who had not heard when the wedding was expected, where Jane intended to live and precisely how fortunate everyone had always known her to be.
Julia returned to her family in the spring, where she was reunited with her father, stepmother and young brother.
By then most of her memory had returned, though the weeks during which her fever had been at its worst remained little more than scattered impressions which her physicians doubted would ever become entirely clear.
In time Julia ceased troubling herself over what remained missing.
She had her family, Elizabeth restored to her and a certain Colonel whose letters showed no sign of diminishing with distance.
Distance, as Elizabeth had particular reason to know, was not always an obstacle to determined correspondence.
Jane and Bingley were married that spring and remained at Netherfield afterwards, to the considerable satisfaction of Mrs Bennet, who discovered that having a married daughter only three miles away provided almost as much pleasure as arranging the marriage had done.
Jane was happy, Bingley was happier still, and Elizabeth could wish nothing more for either of them.
Darcy's courtship of Elizabeth had continued throughout those same months with greater ease than either might once have expected.
There were walks when the weather permitted, long conversations in the drawing room when it did not, and arguments over books, people and opinions which occasionally made Georgiana wonder aloud whether they had quarrelled again.
Elizabeth assured her that there was a considerable difference between quarrelling with Mr Darcy and merely informing him that he was wrong.
Darcy did not always concede the distinction.
Trust returned quietly between them. Darcy no longer decided what Elizabeth ought to know before telling her, and Elizabeth, having forgiven him, did not make a weapon of what had passed whenever they disagreed.
The old hurt occasionally returned, but with every week it occupied a smaller place amongst the many happier memories they were making together.
By late spring, Darcy had ceased having any reasonable excuse for delaying the question which everyone at Longbourn appeared to expect. He asked Elizabeth during one of the walks which had once begun as opportunities for privacy and had long since become a habit between them.
Elizabeth accepted him.
Mr Bennet received the news with less surprise than Mrs Bennet confessed she expected.
He spoke privately with Elizabeth first and, once satisfied that her happiness was secure, gave his consent with considerably more feeling than his usual manner betrayed.
Mrs Bennet required no such examination and passed almost immediately from astonishment into raptures over Pemberley, ten thousand a year and the gratifying circumstance of having her two eldest daughters so exceedingly well married.
Darcy and Elizabeth were married that summer.
Pemberley proved no cure for their habit of disagreeing.
Elizabeth continued to tease her husband, Darcy continued occasionally to deserve it, and Georgiana discovered that acquiring Elizabeth for a sister also meant acquiring an ally in almost every argument against her brother.
Yet the trust which had returned slowly during their courtship settled into something easier with marriage, and neither of them ever again mistook love for the right to decide what the other ought to know.
Colonel Fitzwilliam, meanwhile, continued to visit the Hardings after the family resettled in London whenever his duties permitted.
What had begun through correspondence during their separation soon developed into a more regular courtship, and before the year was out Mr Harding received another request from the Colonel, though this one was rather more permanent.
Julia accepted Richard marriage proposal with considerably less hesitation than he had apparently employed in asking her, and their marriage followed some months later.
Elizabeth stood beside Julia on her wedding day and thought of the months during which she had not known whether her friend was alive.
Julia remembered almost everything now, though there remained portions of her illness which would probably never return.
They no longer seemed to matter as they once had.
She and Elizabeth had made enough new memories together that neither felt the need to measure their friendship by those which had been lost.
When Elizabeth returned to Pemberley with Darcy after the wedding, there was no sadness in leaving Julia behind.
Her dear friend was happy, loved and beginning a new life of her own, and distance no longer possessed the power to frighten Elizabeth as it once had.
There would be visits in the years ahead and, whenever visits were impossible, there would always be letters.
Not many days after returning home, Elizabeth sat down at her writing desk and began the first.
My dear friend,
She smiled as she wrote the words.
This time, she knew precisely where her letter would find Julia Fitzwilliam.
THE END