Epilogue
Now to settle the fates of my characters.
As is proper in a novel, those who were deserving of happiness received it in full measure.
Elizabeth and Darcy were always able to count themselves as being amongst the happiest couples in England.
Elizabeth’s suspicion that she was already increasing proved to be true, but to the great despair of her mother, their first child turned out to be a girl.
However, when the child was presented by the doctor to Elizabeth, she was too delighted by the perfect creature’s tiny face to be made unhappy by her being a ‘her’.
Anne’s face reminded her a great deal of her Mr. Darcy’s face, and she then stuck her tongue out at her mother and grabbed her fingers in her tiny hand.
Darcy was quite content to have another girl, and their connection was such that Elizabeth did not busy herself with questioning whether her husband was truly happy when he said he was.
Their second child was likewise female, and when Elizabeth came to the childbed a third time, Darcy laughingly confessed to her that he was quite certain they would all be girls.
This confidence proved to be misplaced when he, at last, with a fourth child, was blessed with a son and heir.
This young boy would grow to be a fine gentleman, and with such a mother and such older sisters, he was always quite comfortable around the fairer sex and quite aware that they were rational beings who occasionally behaved in an unfair manner.
Jane and Bingley were also delightfully happy, and Elizabeth was overjoyed to see it.
It also had greatly amused Elizabeth to see the change in her mother’s manner towards Jane when she married Mr. Bingley; Mrs. Bennet had never imagined that this could happen, not even with how much time the two had spent together over a period of months.
But now Jane was another of the favoured daughters who could do little wrong, and Mrs. Bennet repeated many times, “I always said that Jane could not be so beautiful for nothing.”
As for her fears of what would become of her after Mr. Bennet died, they were wholly assuaged by the knowledge that two of her daughters had married far wealthier men than her husband.
That she no longer looked forward with such unhappy anticipation to the day her husband’s death would leave her alone was perhaps fortunate, as Mr. Bennet in fact proved to be the survivor—though neither died young.
While Mr. Bennet always remained palsied with a dragging leg and a weak hand, he continued the practice of a reducing diet and regular exercise preached to him by Doctor Cliff.
He did walk the whole way to Pemberley the second time that he visited Elizabeth at her new home, and enjoyed the grand excursion so much that he made a regular practice of embarking on a walking tour of such length at least once a year for the next twenty years, only ceasing when his joints began to ache and he came to depend more on the comfort and warmth of home when he was well past the three score and ten allotted to man.
At that time, his many loving grandchildren still gathered around him and often came to visit.
At first Mr. Wickham flourished in America, having settled in the southern part of that great country.
He found many friends and was, for perhaps the first time in his life, fortunate in cards, and he gained an estate through that means.
Unfortunately for him, he also met a gentleman who was more determined to exact vengeance than Darcy had been after he learned that Wickham had enjoyed too many favours from his wife.
Simply not attending the agreed-upon duel was not sufficient for Wickham to avoid his fate, in no small part since the obligation to meet in an affair of honour was taken even more seriously in Virginia than in England.
He was shot in the open road, and though everyone knew who had shot him, no attempt at prosecution was ever made.
Darcy was not sad to hear of Wickham’s fate when the news at last reached them.
By then Georgiana was happily engaged to be married to an excellent gentleman, and she barely remembered the childish infatuation that she had once cherished towards him.
But old memories of his kindness to her as a child meant that she experienced some misery at hearing the news.
It is not known by the author whether Mr. Collins was displeased about seeing his honoured cousin live far longer than was anticipated, but it is certain that this gentleman enjoyed the patronage of Lady Catherine for that great woman’s entire life, and that due to that patronage he prospered in his career.
He did live to inherit Longbourn, though only after he had reached an age that was greater than Mr. Bennet’s had been when he had his attack of apoplexy.
Mr. Collins, however, proved to be of less robust stock than Mr. Bennet—perhaps simply he never became an enthusiast of wholesome food and exercise—and he was not many years in possession before his son inherited.
Elizabeth Bennet and Charlotte Collins née Lucas remained the closest of friends for their entire lives, and it was greatly amusing to them both when one of Elizabeth’s daughters married Charlotte’s son.
As a result, even though Mrs. Bennet did not live to see it, her granddaughter at last took the position that she had held for many years, as the mistress of Longbourn.