Epilogue
Mr. Bennet kept Mr. Darcy in the library for twenty-seven minutes.
Elizabeth knew because Lydia counted.
She had taken up a position in the hall under the pretense of searching for a ribbon she had lost three days earlier.
Kitty stood beside her, offering no pretense whatsoever.
Mrs. Bennet fluttered between the parlor and the stairs with smelling salts in one hand and a lace handkerchief in the other, while Mary sat at the pianoforte and played something improving with too much force.
“Twenty-eight minutes,” Lydia whispered.
“You said twenty-seven.”
“It became twenty-eight while I was speaking.”
Elizabeth stood near the parlor window and tried not to listen to her sisters squabbling. This was impossible. Longbourn had never been a household for secrecy. The parlor door might as well have been a curtain for all the privacy it granted.
“That cannot be good,” Kitty whispered.
“Time in Papa’s library is a privilege we have never been offered. That Mr. Darcy is so favored speaks well of him,” Lydia said.
Elizabeth closed her eyes.
At last, the door opened.
Mr. Bennet emerged first, looking more entertained than any father ought to look after receiving a gentleman’s request for his daughter’s hand.
“Well, Lizzy,” he said, “you may congratulate me. I have survived Mr. Darcy’s seriousness and found it less fatal than expected.”
“Papa.”
“He has asked permission to marry you. I told him he might, provided you did not object, and provided he understands that he is acquiring all of us in various degrees of inconvenience.”
Mrs. Bennet gave a cry and dropped into the nearest chair.
Lydia seized Kitty by both arms.
Mary stopped playing on a wrong note.
Mr. Darcy stepped from the library, his dignity intact but his ears a little red.
Elizabeth loved him violently for both.
Mr. Bennet looked between them, then waved one hand toward the garden door. “Go. Speak to one another before your mother recovers enough to direct the wedding breakfast.”
Mr. Darcy offered Elizabeth his arm.
She took it.
They went into the shrubbery, not far from the house, because propriety still existed even when happiness wished to trample it beneath both feet.
The afternoon air smelled of grass and late roses.
Elizabeth walked beside him until they reached the little turn in the path where the lilacs had grown thick enough to obscure the windows.
Only then did they stop.
Mr. Darcy turned to her.
For a moment, all the words that had carried them from Hunsford to Pemberley, from Pemberley to Longbourn, seemed to retreat. He looked tired still. Dust remained upon one boot. His face bore the strain of travel, hope, and her father’s humor. His eyes were clear.
“Elizabeth,” he said, taking her hand, “I came to ask you properly.”
“I know.”
“I love you. I believe I shall spend the rest of my life discovering new ways in which that is true.”
“I have no grand speech,” he continued. “I had several. Your father injured one of them beyond use.”
Elizabeth laughed, though tears had begun gathering in her eyes.
“I ask this. Will you marry me? Why should I wait for tomorrow when I could have your answer today?”
“Yes,” she said.
The word came easily. Joyfully. Without argument or fear.
His hand closed over hers.
“Yes?”
“Yes, Fitzwilliam. I will marry you.”
He bent over her hand, pressing his lips to her fingers with such reverence that her breath deserted her. When he raised his head, she stepped nearer, fully prepared to forget every rule governing shrubbery, fathers, and open windows.
A branch cracked behind them.
Lydia stepped into view.
All three froze.
Lydia’s eyes widened.
“Oh!” She clapped both hands over her face, though her fingers rapidly parted. “Oh, heavens. I did not see anything.”
“Lydia,” Elizabeth said.
“I mean, I saw enough to know I should not have seen it.” Lydia backed away, cheeks flaming. “Do continue. No, do not continue. I am leaving. I am gone. Kitty! They are engaged!”
“Lydia!” Elizabeth cried.
Her sister’s footsteps flew down the path.
Mr. Darcy covered his eyes with one hand.
Elizabeth leaned against him and laughed until she could scarcely stand.
“You are certain,” he said, “that you wish to bring me into this family?”
“Too late to retreat now.”
“I had no thought of retreat.”
“Then welcome to Longbourn.”
He looked down at her, one hand still holding hers. “And soon, I hope, you will welcome me home.”
By the time they reached the house, Mrs. Bennet had recovered enough to weep, exclaim, embrace Elizabeth, praise Mr. Darcy’s income, apologize for mentioning it, then mention it again.
Mr. Bennet retreated to his library with the air of a man who had done his duty and deserved peace for the remainder of the day.
Mary played a hymn because she felt the occasion required seriousness.
Kitty demanded every detail Lydia had not already shouted.
Lydia, having failed to keep the secret for even one minute, declared herself responsible for the entire match.
“No one argues with you,” Elizabeth said.
“Because everyone knows it is true.”
Mr. Darcy turned to Elizabeth. “Is this what marriage to you entails?”
“Just on ordinary days.”
Before the household had fully recovered from one arrival, Netherfield’s party came the following day.
Mr. Bingley appeared first, looking anxious, hopeful, and freshly determined. Georgiana followed with Mrs. Annesley, and Lydia flew down the steps so quickly that Hill cried out in alarm.
“Georgiana!”
“Lydia!”
They met in the gravel with an embrace that threatened both bonnets.
Kitty stood behind them, uncertain for but a moment before Georgiana drew her in too. That decided everything. By evening, Kitty had joined their friendship as if she had been waiting for the proper invitation all her life.
Jane received Mr. Bingley with kindness, but not forgiveness.
That was a surprise to almost everyone except Elizabeth.
Bingley came to Longbourn the following morning. He spoke with Jane in the garden for nearly an hour. She was pale but steady, and he left looking both chastened and more devoted than before.
“He asked too soon,” Jane admitted to Elizabeth that evening.
“Asked what?”
Jane folded a handkerchief in her lap, then unfolded it again. “Whether I might ever forgive him.”
“And what did you say?”
“That I hoped so.”
Elizabeth sat beside her. “That was honest.”
“It felt cruel.”
“It was not.”
Jane’s eyes filled. “I was very unhappy, Lizzy.”
“I know.”
“I do not wish to punish him.”
“Then do not. But you need not relieve him of every consequence merely because he looks sorrowful.”
Jane gave a small, watery laugh. “You have grown severe.”
“I have grown practical.”
Lydia and Georgiana took Jane’s reserve as a challenge.
Their methods were not subtle.
Georgiana placed Bingley beside Jane at tea and then blushed so violently that Jane pretended not to notice.
Lydia abandoned rooms with such theatrical suddenness that even Mrs. Bennet grew suspicious.
Kitty volunteered to assist and was sent away twice for giggling.
Mrs. Annesley, when informed of these efforts, observed that young ladies who plotted should at least learn to close doors.
Elizabeth found Lydia and Georgiana bent over a list one afternoon.
“Matchmaking again?”
Lydia covered the paper. “You are not permitted to criticize our skill. It succeeded with you.”
“I have not forgotten. Nor has Mr. Darcy.”
Georgiana smiled.
“Jane is not me,” Elizabeth said. “She must be allowed time.”
Lydia wrinkled her nose. “Time is very slow.”
“Yes.”
“It is inconvenient.”
“Frequently.”
Georgiana folded the list. “We shall be patient.”
Lydia looked personally wounded by the word.
Not all Darcy’s relations approved of the match, of course.
Lady Catherine’s first letter required four pages to express her outrage and a fifth to insist she felt none.
Darcy answered it once with perfect civility.
Elizabeth answered none, a decision her betrothed privately believed the wiser of the two.
To his credit, Bingley proved more patient than anyone expected.
He came often and he did not press. He spoke plainly to Mr. Bennet, apologized to Mrs. Bennet, endured Mary’s moral observations, and treated Lydia’s pointed remarks with such good humor that she eventually declared him redeemable.
There had been a time when Bingley believed another opportunity impossible.
He had mistaken persuasion for judgment once before and had nearly forfeited Jane forever because of it.
He was determined that, if she chose him at last, it would be because she had seen him remain steadfast rather than because he had asked repeatedly.
Most importantly, there was no argument when Elizabeth did not invite Miss Bingley to their wedding even though Mrs. Hurst and Mr. Hurst were present.
Darcy and Elizabeth married in Hertfordshire with more happiness than grandeur, though Mrs. Bennet considered the two nearly indistinguishable.
Mrs. Hurst behaved with more civility than Elizabeth anticipated and more embarrassment than she could conceal. Mr. Hurst praised the wedding breakfast, the wine, and the road away afterward with equal feeling.
Miss Bingley stayed with other relations until after the wedding.
She lived with the Hursts only after begging her sister to save her from their domineering aunt.
Reports of her afterward were infrequent and rarely cheerful.
Within two years she accepted the first gentleman who made an offer that preserved any appearance of consequence.
He owned property in Ireland and disliked London.
Miss Bingley, now Mrs. Ellison, discovered too late that being mistress of a distant house was not the same thing as triumph.
She came to town rarely and to Derbyshire never.
Elizabeth did not rejoice in it.
Lydia did, but in private after being reminded twice that Christian charity applied even to Miss Bingley.