Epilogue #3
Thomas looked at Clara, and Clara nodded. “Bennet,” Thomas said. “Bennet George Darcy.”
The name quieted the room.
Elizabeth looked down at the child again, and for a moment she could not speak. Her father had been gone five years, but his name, troublesome and beloved, had returned to them in a form that had no memory of mistakes, no knowledge of fear, and no burden except to be loved.
Darcy’s hand pressed gently at her back.
“He would have been insufferable about this,” Elizabeth said at last.
Mary’s eyes shone. “He would have pretended not to care and then told everyone he had expected it.”
“He would have said the child showed excellent judgment in choosing Pemberley,” Jane added.
Lydia sniffed. “He would have said something rude about all of us crying.”
“And he would have been right,” Elizabeth said.
The baby stirred then, opened his eyes for one brief, unfocused moment, and looked at no one in particular with an expression of faint suspicion.
Darcy bent closer. “That,” he said, “is Bennet honouring his namesake.”
Elizabeth laughed, and because she laughed, everyone else did too. The sound filled the room, warm and foolish and full of relief for griefs long past and joys newly arrived.
After a little while, Darcy took the baby from her.
Elizabeth watched him settle the child against his arm with the same care he had once used with their own children, though perhaps with more skilful ease now than he had known when their own children were small.
This small boy would one day inherit Pemberley.
He would run across its lawns, learn its paths, trouble its housekeeper, and be taught, if Elizabeth had any influence, that pride was more tolerable when joined with kindness and that good sense need not be solemn to be useful.
“He has your manners,” Elizabeth said. “He is already pretending not to notice the attention.”
Darcy looked down at the child. “Then he will require guidance.”
“From you?”
“From both of us. I have no wish to be blamed alone.”
“You have grown wise.”
“I married wisely.”
“Thirty years ago. Your wife will become quite proud if you keep up such compliments.”
She felt rather than saw him smile. “Then it must be so, for I have not the least intention of giving up congratulating myself on the best choice of my life.”
Elizabeth slipped her arm about his waist and leaned lightly against him.
Around them, the family continued in all its disorder.
Lydia demanded her turn. Kitty objected that she must sit first. Mary insisted hands ought to be washed before anyone passed an infant about as if he were a plate of biscuits.
Bingley declared there was plenty of time for everyone.
Jane merely smiled, serene as ever and entirely aware that no one would listen.
Thomas stood beside Clara, watching his son be admired by the whole family, his face open with pride.
Elizabeth looked at him and remembered every age he had ever been: the infant in her arms, the boy with muddy boots, the young man leaving for Cambridge, the bridegroom standing in the church at Lambton with a nervousness he had thought well hidden.
Time had not taken those versions of him away.
It had only gathered them into the man before her.
Darcy looked at her. “What are you thinking?”
“That I am glad I did not know, when I first came to Pemberley, how much I would come to love it.”
“Why?”
“It would have frightened me.”
His expression softened. “And now?”
“Now I am too old to be frightened by happiness.”
“I am not certain that is true.”
“No,” she admitted. “But I am too old to run from it.”
He smiled at that, and she saw again the young man in Kent, proud and awkward and ardent, and the bridegroom in London, solemn with joy, and the husband of thirty years who had loved her through every ordinary and extraordinary thing that followed.
“Are you happy?” she asked him.
He looked at her as if the answer to that question could be found in her face. “Exceedingly.”
“Still?”
“More than ever.”
It was a simple answer. It was also the best one.
The baby made another small, indignant sound, and Darcy handed him back to Elizabeth when she reached for him.
She bent and kissed the child’s forehead.
“Welcome to Pemberley, Bennet Darcy,” she whispered.
“You have arrived among a very great deal of nonsense, but also a very great deal of love. I hope you will learn to value both.”
Outside, June lay golden over the grounds.
The windows stood open to the scent of roses and cut grass, and somewhere beyond the room a child laughed, another protested, and a dog barked as if determined to be included in the celebration.
Pemberley received its newest child with all the noise, affection, and disorder Elizabeth once could not have imagined and now could not imagine living without.
Elizabeth stood with Darcy beside her, their grandson in her arms, their family gathered close, and blinked away tears of gratitude for all the long years of joy and love, with many more yet to come.
The End