Epilogue Ten Years #3
“I was leaning towards wretch, but incorrigible suffices.”
Around them, the children’s laughter rang out—Griffins and Spaniels alike, dark-haired and golden, indistinguishable beneath a coating of mud and pond weed.
Thomas had William in a headlock. Charles Junior was industriously attempting to build a dam.
Rose and Catherine had discovered a frog and were engaged in a heated debate over its nomenclature.
George was earnestly trying to convince Caractacus to retrieve a stick, which the wolfhound was ignoring with monumental dignity.
“I believe,” Richard called from the bank, where he stood with his arm around Charlotte, his face alight with amusement, “that the Great Longbourn Tug-of-War has been postponed due to… unforeseen aquatic circumstances.”
“Postponed?” Mrs. Bennet’s voice achieved hitherto unknown registers. “It cannot be postponed! The sashes! The medals! The strawberries!”
“The strawberries,” Lydia said, holding up a thoroughly empty jam pot and a thoroughly sticky Henry, “have been consumed. By persons unknown.”
“Lydia!”
“It was not me! It was the baby! Babies cannot be held responsible for their actions; everyone knows this.”
Mr. Bennet rose from his chair and made his way, slowly and with evident enjoyment, to the edge of the pond. He surveyed his daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren, all of them mud-covered, laughing, and utterly, gloriously undignified.
“I declare,” he said, “a draw. The Griffins and the Spaniels have tied. The prize shall be split equally among all competitors.” He paused. “The prize, in this case, being a bath and a very stern lecture from Mrs. Hill about the proper treatment of ornamental ponds.”
“A draw!” Mrs. Bennet looked simultaneously relieved and disappointed. “But the medals—”
“Give them each a medal, Mrs. Bennet. They have all demonstrated the essential Bennet quality.”
“And that would be?”
Mr. Bennet smiled—that slow, knowing smile that Elizabeth had inherited and that drove her mother to distraction.
“The ability,” he said, “to turn any occasion into a memorable disaster.”
Much later, after baths had been administered, children fed, Mrs. Bennet soothed with tea, dogs dried, and the duck finally coaxed from its garden-shed refuge—Elizabeth and Darcy stood alone on the terrace, watching the sun set over the Hertfordshire hills.
Elizabeth’s hair was still damp. Darcy’s shirt had been declared a loss.
Somewhere inside the house, Thomas was arguing with William about whether the tie was actually a Griffin victory in disguise, and Mrs. Bennet was telling anyone who would listen about the time Mr. Darcy had fallen in a very icy and muddy pond ten years ago and how she had known then that he would be trouble.
“We built this,” Elizabeth said. “All of it. The children, the glorious mayhem, this family that stretches across two estates, three bloodlines, and more names than any sensible person can keep track of.”
“We built it,” Darcy agreed. “Though I confess I did not anticipate the pond.”
“It is not the pond, but the falling. You are very good at falling.”
“In love, dear, with you.”
He laughed, a full, unguarded sound that ten years of happiness had rendered second nature, and drew her close. She leaned into him, breathing in the mingled scents of pond water, soap, and the indefinable comfort of home.
“Ever regret it?” she asked softly. “The name you relinquished? The inheritance you shared?”
“Never.” His voice was certain. “I set down a name I never truly possessed. What I gained—” He glanced towards the house, where lamplight spilled warmly from windows, children’s voices rose in a fresh dispute, and Mrs. Bennet’s voice could be heard demanding to know who had consumed the final slice of cake. “—was everything.”
“Everything is rather a considerable portion of existence.”
“You,” he corrected gently, turning her to face him, his hands warm on her shoulders, his eyes holding hers, “are rather a lot. Stubborn and opinionated, and you have yet to concede a single argument or stop taking my pennies in cards. You kissed me with three yeses and handed me a packet that destroyed everything I believed about myself, and then you refused to let me run away from the ruins.” His voice roughened.
“You are the finest thing that ever happened to me, Elizabeth Bennet. And I do not care what name I carry, or what name our children carry, as long as I carry it beside you.”
“Fitzwilliam.” Her eyes were wet. “That was a remarkably fine speech.”
“Ten years of practice,” he confessed, a slow smile touching his lips. “I believe I am finally attaining proficiency.”
She pulled him down to kiss her—there on the terrace of Longbourn, with the sunset painting the sky gold and pink and the sound of children’s voices echoing from the house behind them.
They had built all of this: the children, the laughter, the love, and the family that stretched across counties and bloodlines, born from a secret that had waited a century for its telling.
THE END