Epilogue
Darcy pointed out, long before they reached Kent, that he was certain that nobody from Rosings or Hunsford had been involved with her captivity.
“Before Richard made the point, beloved, I was quite sure that my uncle would be using the excuse of his sister if she had even the slightest part. He said nothing, and Richard is absolutely convinced that those in Kent had no knowledge of, let alone responsibility for, the plot.”
The belated announcement of their marriage was published the day the bridal tour started, and thus nobody in Kent, whose newspapers were delayed a day, would have yet seen it by the time of their arrival.
But…would the Bennets have told of the marriage to their neighbours? If so, that news would likely spread to Kent by way of Lady Lucas or Sir William writing to their daughter, who was married to the pastor of Hunsford and near neighbour of Lady Catherine de Bourgh and her daughter.
The Darcys discovered that their hosts had, indeed, heard of the wedding.
Charlotte Collins was delighted to ply her good friend with questions, Mr Collins was as obsequious as it was possible to be, Anne was thrilled for them and gushingly congratulatory…
and Lady Catherine held herself to rigid courtesy that screamed her unhappiness.
In a very private tête-à-tête, Elizabeth told Charlotte about the drama that had preceded their wedding.
Charlotte was properly horrified. At the same time as that little conference, Darcy was telling the entire tale to Anne in their childhood lair in an abandoned turret of Rosings.
Anne was as certain that her mother had no hand in the plot as Richard and Darcy were, and she was astonished to hear of the financial woes of the Fitzwilliam family.
Of course, even more shocking was their criminal act.
“I know now not to trust them as I might once have, and I thank you for the warning!” she said fervently.
That three-day visit was very pleasant, but Darcy and Elizabeth were looking forward to the rest of the bridal tour, which focused on the picturesque landscapes of Dover and the Dungeness, Suffolk and the Fens, and of course the Peak District and Pemberley itself.
By the time they reached Elizabeth’s new home, she felt filled to the brim with natural beauty and love.
The couple had plenty of love left over to house Mary, Kitty, and Lydia.
Georgiana flourished with these new sisters in residence.
Jane never wrote again to Elizabeth, but Mrs Darcy’s life was so full, she only occasionally thought sadly of her elder sister.
She wrote to her parents frequently, and her father answered infrequently but fondly.
In the first few months of marriage, Darcy and Elizabeth travelled to Meadowbrook and Eastbourn. They decided to make many changes in the operation of the two estates, and those alterations led to rapid gains.
Elizabeth was surprised at how pleased she felt to have the properties in her name, even though of course she loved Pemberley and Darcy House far more—and she loved her husband beyond all reason. Soon enough, all of that love resulted in an addition to their family: George Bennet Alexander Darcy.
The three Bennet sisters and Georgiana all came out the same year, which was considered indecorous, but with only one of them being a Darcy, Elizabeth and Darcy decided to bow to the ladies’ insistence that they do it together.
Luckily, the timing of their season worked well between George’s birth and Elizabeth’s confinement with the baby they named Rose.
At the end of a single season, all four young ladies had serious suitors who became their husbands.
It was not long before Pemberley was home to only Darcy, Elizabeth, and their children.
However, the Darcy children kept coming: two daughters and three sons eventually arrived, ready to love and be loved.
During the decade and a half that Darcy and Elizabeth were raising children, Eastbourn’s income grew from eight hundred to five thousand pounds a year, and Meadowbrook’s income almost doubled.
Darcy, who actually earned far more than the fabled “ten thousand a year” when he first met Elizabeth, was so wise with his investments in new technologies that, between the two of them, they had prosperous estates to pass on to each of their children and plenty of ready money in the bank, as well.
As for the Fitzwilliam family, Richard’s two sisters married titled gentlemen with very modest estates and incomes, and they were reportedly malcontents who received fewer and fewer invitations.
Far worse was the viscount. He continued his dissipated lifestyle, and when he died in a duel several years after Darcy and Elizabeth married, it was revealed that he had already wracked up ten thousand pounds of new debt.
The earl and his countess managed to pay down his debts while maintaining a prosperous facade, but Richard reported that both of his parents complained incessantly about Darcy fleecing them on those now-very-productive estates.
When the earl died several years after his eldest son, Richard became the new Earl of Matlock.
He found that Hargrove was practically empty of furnishings and that the manor house, tenant homes, and estate in general were run down.
Matlock itself, in Derbyshire, was in ill repair, as well, but it retained some of the family treasures, although Matlock House, in London, was well kept up and as splendid as it ever was.
Richard obtained a loan from Darcy and managed to restore both estates to fully functioning and profitable.
At that point, he married a widow who had an enormous fortune, and they were able to pay back Darcy and enjoy a wonderful life, full of travel and hosting house parties and balls. They never had children.
The countess lived in the Matlock dower house and maintained her habit of complaining about her life and blaming others.
Jane Bennet, it turned out, was of a similar stripe, although it was difficult to tell because only very rarely did she allow others to hear her complaints and accusations of blame.
The rare times she burst forth with her true feelings, friendships dried up and suitors abandoned her.
It soon became clear even to those who did not know her well that, despite her outer beauty and apparent kindness, there must be something wrong with her for so many people—even her own family—to avoid her.
It was not long before the Darcys were so busy with the business of being happy that they rarely thought of the odd start of their marriage.
However, when George and Rose were fifteen and thirteen, they began to ask their parents questions about how they knew they were in love, how their father proposed, how swiftly they married after the proposal—all manner of questions that simply had not occurred to the children before.
Elizabeth was exceedingly clever at turning conversations around and injecting humour and thusly dodging impertinent questions, so inevitably the oldest two asked their father.
He so hated disguise of every sort that he was famously too blunt and, sometimes, too forthcoming.
Soon, George and Rose learnt the entire story of their mother being drugged and carted off to a brief captivity in a cottage.
They nodded their heads at the part of the story in which their father and beloved Uncle Richard rode out with helpers to search for her, but they gaped at the part in which their mother managed to escape—and Rose said over and over again, “’Tis like a poorly written novel, in which the lady rescues herself before the hero can even get to her. ”
“I have no idea why you would say that the lady rescuing herself is the indicator of a poorly written book!” Darcy exclaimed.
“I should say that it was the very best sort of book, especially since the heroes also helped her—she did not have to walk all the way to London by herself. Let us remember that your mother is a highly intelligent lady and an excellent walker, so she probably would be safer walking alone than most men or women, but still there were some dangers and certainly discomforts that she was spared when Richard and his friends discovered her.”
“You are correct, Papa,” George said. “Given that the story tells of our own mother, we can accept it as true and agree that her own heroism is only matched, but not surpassed, by that of the other heroes. But I wonder if most people would think, ‘That could not happen.’”
“I suppose you are both correct,” Rose said. “Mama is certainly special.”
Just then Elizabeth entered the room. “What are you telling the children, that I earned such praise?”
“Oh, just stories of our younger days, dearest.” Darcy waited until she was a little bit closer; then he shot his hand out to her waist and towed her close to him and said, “But saying you are special is not a million millionth enough praise for you, my dear.”
She kissed his nose and thanked him with a smile and a wink, and George and Rose both said, “Papa! Mama!” They looked at one another and shook their heads in bemusement of how very improper their parents were, almost all of the time.
But…something in their faces showed that they admired the very impropriety they scolded.
THE END