Whatever happened to…
While in Sanditon, Maria Lucas met a Colonel in the militia with an expectancy of a small inheritance.
She did not mind his age, nor did he mind hers, and they were married by the end of the summer.
She kept a close association with her old friend Mrs Harriet Forster, with whom she had much in common.
When her husband’s inheritance was bestowed, Colonel and Maria Kingsbury moved into their charming new home in Plymouth, where they entertained the local militia and naval officers often, and lived comfortably on the interest of Colonel Kingsbury’s principal with their daughter Mary.
Mary Bennet married her curate, Mr Eaton, not long after returning to Meryton.
Mr Eaton was not long after awarded the living in Meryton’s parish, as well as a living in Ramsgate when Mr Stanley passed away from consumption.
They had two daughters, Dorothy and Mary, and lived a quiet life working together to help those in need within their parishes.
Lady Priscilla never married, though she refused several offers.
She visited her brother and cousins in turn for many years.
She eventually retired permanently to Grotto Cottage in Ramsgate with her particular friend, Lady Claire St Giles, another nobleman’s daughter who never had any use for men or marriage.
Caroline Bingley lived with her aunt and rejected every offer of marriage as beneath her until there were no more proposals left to decline.
She inherited her aunt’s townhouse in Bath and the remainder of that lady’s fortune.
Eventually her sister Louisa joined her there when she was widowed without children, and the two ladies had very little company, for society would not tolerate their superiority.
Lady Catherine made so much fuss when her daughter married that her brother had her confined to the dower house at Matlock to prevent her from appearing like a raving lunatic in public.
Her daughter refused to visit her there, but her brother and his wife saw her often, and ensured her comfort–and her confinement–until she passed in 1819.
Mr Collins survived the remainder of the war, though he complained bitterly and often that he was above the work of the other pressed men.
He served as a chaplain for a very short time, until the captain decided he was useless in that capacity, and kept him below decks.
The disgraced clergyman caught typhus on the journey back to England and died two days before the ship docked at the harbour in Portsmouth.
Jacob Evins married his sweetheart four weeks after rescuing Lydia Bennet. Lady Barry offered them a tenancy at Yewtree Farm, where they thrived and raised four children, all of whom obtained apprenticeships in respectable professions.
Mr Arthur Johnson, the proprietor of The Gilded Pineapple, expanded his business, became the mayor of Ramsgate, and opened a second shop in Brighton. Each of his daughters took over a shop with their husbands when their father retired.
Sir Rupert Barry challenged Lady Barry’s will, but since he had been only an heir presumptive of her husband, with no proper family connection to her or her forebears, his challenge failed entirely.
He married a second young heiress two years later, and placed her under the authority of his sister, who proceeded to dominate the young woman until she was entirely miserable.
Shortly after the birth of his son, Sir Rupert was found at the base of his staircase with a broken neck.
Knowing of the man’s cruelty and unpleasant nature well, the magistrate was not inclined to investigate the matter.
His wife banished his sister from her son’s estate, and Miss Mildred Barry spent the remainder of her days in a tiny cottage near Matlock, living frugally from the income of the small dowry left to her by her father.
Sir Rupert’s son, Sir Frederick Barry, grew up to be a fine man who took good care of his mother, and was kind and generous to his wife.
George Wickham carried the scars of Lydia Bennet’s rage for the remainder of his days.
He found it impossible to gain sympathy or belief in his lies with such evidence of the danger he posed to others upon his face.
He spent seven years working off his debt before attempting to obtain work as a downstairs indoor servant in an effort not to live in barns or other shoddy outbuildings reserved for indentured outdoor servants, where he had encountered so many giant crab spiders1 that he had been driven quite mad.
He never found such work, and begged in the streets for six months before he was bitten by a jockey spider2 that had been caught and then lost by a naturalist and insect collector who had recently travelled to the desert.
He spent three weeks in a hospital, shivering with sweats, racked with body pain, stomach cramps and nausea, before his heart failed and he died from the venomous bite, just as Lydia Bennet hoped he would do.
Mrs Younge was one of the few of those transported who actually returned to England's shores. The captain of the prison hulk that transported her found her useful for her ability to assist with accounting and writing letters, and due to her genteel manners, considered her a fine candidate for a wife. She remained in hiding on his ship whenever it docked in England for several years before he retired and insisted upon her accompanying him to retire in Upnor.
She spent two years living in fear that she would be discovered by the Darcys and Fitzwilliams before her husband died. She was then convicted of forging his will rather than allow the original to be filed, which left all of his property to his brother. She was again transported to Australia, where she was indentured as a kitchen maid, and worked until she choked upon a raw turnip she had stolen from the house’s kitchen garden.
~finis~