Epilogue Ten Years
It was a truth universally acknowledged in the county of Hertfordshire that Mrs. Bennet had produced the finest crop of grandchildren in living memory, and that she took full credit for every last one of them.
Twelve, at present reckoning, counting Lydia’s Henry and Kitty’s Horatio.
Five dark-haired Bennets belonged to Elizabeth and Darcy, from nine-year-old Thomas—who had inherited his mother’s gift for argument and his father’s unnerving tendency to be right—down to baby Alice, three months old and already issuing imperious decrees with a frown that proved the Darcy disposition survived any change of surname.
Between these bookends marched William, Catherine, and George, each equipped with dark curls, sharp eyes, and opinions on pudding that brooked no contradiction.
Mrs. Bennet, who styled them her little Griffins—dark, aristocratic, fiercely territorial—had bestowed upon them Darcy’s enormous Irish wolfhound, Caractacus, as both mascot and anchor.
And five blond Darcys—Jane and Bingley’s golden brood—exuberant, irrepressible, and radiating their father’s inexhaustible cheer, though not without their mother’s tranquil sweetness.
The eldest, Charles, at nine, had already begun to display a gravity reminiscent of his uncle Darcy, a development Bingley regarded with mingled hilarity and alarm.
The youngest, Mathilda, aged two, had mastered the art of saying “no” with such conviction that one suspected she had rehearsed it in utero.
Bing at eight, Margaret at six, and four-year-old Rose completed the perpetually bouncing “Spaniel” team, so named for their gilded locks and for Russet, the vast Sussex spaniel who shadowed Jane’s children everywhere and was, at present, attempting to devour one of Mrs. Bennet’s commemorative sashes.
“Russet, no!” Bingley dove for the dog, missed entirely, and came up with grass in his hair. “That sash cost… Jane, how much did your mother pay for the sashes?”
“More than the sash is worth and less than your dignity.” Jane did not look up from the blanket, where she was arranging the luncheon things. “Let Russet have it. There are spares.”
“There are no spares!” Mrs. Bennet’s voice blasted across the lawn with the tenor of a military bugle. “Mrs. Hill’s niece embroidered those sashes, and I will not have them destroyed by Russet. Drop it! Charles, control your animal. Jane, why is nobody controlling the animals?”
On this particular July afternoon, the Bennet, Bingley, and Darcy clans were strewn across the Longbourn lawn, and the noise was nothing short of magnificent.
Elizabeth, naturally, sat with baby Alice nestled in her arms, while Darcy reclined at her side, studying the clouds and debating whether they resembled sheep or geese.
Elizabeth thought he looked at least fifteen years younger than the man who had once arrived at Longbourn, trailing aristocratic pride and a dignity heavy enough to require porters.
“Ten children. Five ours, five Jane’s. And Mamma is counting on more. How did this happen?”
“In the usual manner, I believe. Though I confess I was not present for Jane’s contributions.”
“You are incorrigible.” But he was smiling, and when Elizabeth reached down to muss his already disordered hair, he caught her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm.
He raised himself on one elbow and counted heads, stopping at nine. “Where is Thomas?”
“He broods in the orchard,” Elizabeth explained. “William informed him the Darcys would win the tug-of-war. Thomas countered that Bennets never lose at anything. William pointed out the Bennets have never won yet, as the event hasn’t occurred—a technicality Thomas found unforgivably pedantic.”
“He takes after you.”
“I debate broader principles, not minor quibbles,” Elizabeth retorted.
A tremendous crash punctuated the air. Caractacus, spotting Russet with the disputed sash, intervened with enthusiasm, sending two chairs and a precarious tea table flying in defense of Griffin honor.
“That wolfhound,” Bingley said, emerging from the wreckage with a bent spoon, “is a menace. And clearly cheating. She must weigh six stone.”
“Cara weighs four,” Elizabeth said placidly. “Russet weighs three. The difference is negligible.”
“The difference is decisive. If the Griffins are permitted a wolfhound, the Spaniels should be permitted two dogs.”
“Then acquire another dog, Charles.”
“Jane won’t let me. She says five children and one spaniel is already more trouble than any reasonable household can contain.”
From the terrace, Mrs. Bennet’s voice rose above the general din: “Children! Children, attend me! Your sashes are not straight! How can you compete with crooked sashes? Thomas, stand still. Catherine, do not chew on the ribbon… George, that is not a weapon. Lydia, get Henry out of the jam pot this instant!”
Two-year-old Henry Collins—named, regrettably, for Lydia’s father-in-law and entirely unconnected to the late Mr. Collins of Hunsford, though Lydia found the coincidence hilarious—had located the strawberry preserves meant for the victory tea and was now anointing his face, pinafore, and the leg of Mary’s husband with admirable thoroughness.
“I believe,” the Reverend James Ellsworth said mildly, extracting his trouser leg from Henry’s sticky grip, “that this child has been sent to test my patience.”
“He is enthusiastic,” Lydia said, swooping in to retrieve her jam-covered offspring. “Captain Collins says enthusiasm is the foundation of all great military careers.”
“Captain Collins,” Mary observed, not looking up from her book, “once led a charge against a flock of sheep he mistook for French infantry. His standards for enthusiasm may be suspect.”
“That was a single time, Mary, and the moonlight was very deceptive.”
“She has been preparing for this event for three weeks,” Elizabeth observed about their mother. “I believe she considers it the culmination of her life’s work.”
“The organized warfare of her grandchildren?”
“The campaign she set out to win when she asked my father to call on Bingley. She has commissioned sashes. There are medals. Papa has been taking bets since breakfast.”
Her parents, Elizabeth reflected, had mellowed considerably over the past decade.
Mrs. Bennet’s nerves had not vanished, merely discovered a new vocation.
Where once she had agonized over marriages, entails, and the specter of the hedgerows, she now directed the full force of her anxious energies into the orchestration of twelve grandchildren.
Mr. Bennet had grown older; his hair was grey, his step less sprightly, but his eyes still sparkled with mischief, and he remained a master of observing bedlam from a safe and comfortable remove.
“I have five shillings on the Bennets,” he called across the lawn, noticing Elizabeth’s gaze. “Your spawn inherited your ruthlessness, Lizzy. The Darcys are far too amiable by half.”
“The Darcys,” Bingley protested, with Jane on his arm, “are perfectly capable of ruthlessness when required. Young Charles once refused to share his pudding with Margaret for an entire fortnight.”
“My money also rests on the Bennets,” Kitty said, settling onto the blanket with three-month-old Horatio Harville.
Her husband, Lieutenant Edward Harville, now a gentleman farmer finding the sea less agreeable to his constitution than Hertfordshire soil, struggled to help Mrs. Bennet straighten the children’s sashes, making a hash of it.
“Sorry, Mr. Darcy, but your namesakes are too easily distracted from their task, being essentially Bingleys in disguise.”
“Then which team shall Lydia’s Henry join?” Elizabeth mused. “He might prove the deciding factor.”
“Henry is two,” Lydia said, wiping jam from his eyebrows with her sleeve. “He cannot even grip the rope. But he could serve as… mascot? The battle crier? Captain Collins insists small but loud is as effective on the battlefield as large and quiet.”
“Then we need Georgiana to spill out a couple of more Darcys to shore up the Darcy team.” Bingley rubbed his hands as Georgiana and her new husband, the solicitor Edward Waring, appeared hand in hand.
Ever since the female entail had gained favor amongst their set, Darcy and Elizabeth had secured Netherfield Park and created a new entailed estate for the heirs of the body of Georgiana Darcy.
She did not need to change her name to Bennet, and Mr. Waring had agreed that Darcy was a suitable surname for his branch of the family.
Being a younger son, he was not beholden to any degree of name snobbery.
“We have been married four months, Charles,” Georgiana said, color rising in her cheeks. “Grant us time.”
“I gave Jane and Elizabeth no time at all. Thomas arrived precisely nine months after the wedding, and Charles Junior was—”
“Bingley,” Darcy said, in the tone that had once silenced London drawing rooms, “perhaps we might discuss something other than the reproductive timeline of our respective marriages.”
“Yes, quite right, sorry, forgot myself—”
The terrace door opened again, admitting Charlotte and Colonel Fitzwilliam.
They had been married eight years now—a match that had surprised everyone except Elizabeth, who had observed the Colonel’s growing admiration for Charlotte’s practical intelligence during the tumultuous months following the revelation of the Bennet bloodline.
Charlotte had needed purpose; Richard had needed a woman who could match his wit without being dazzled by his charm.
“I have been dispatched to inform you,” Richard announced, “that the tournament will commence in precisely fifteen minutes, and all combatants, those two years of age and above, are required to take their positions.”
“Tournament?” Darcy raised an eyebrow. “Do we now dignify children’s games with such titles?”