Epilogue #2
After a wedding tour that took them through Kent, Sussex, and briefly to the sea, Darcy surprised his wife by inviting the whole Bennet family to Pemberley for the tenant harvest party.
“All of them?” Elizabeth asked when she read the letter he had written to her father.
“All of them.”
“You are a brave man.”
“I have learned courage from your sisters.”
“You have learned recklessness.”
“Possibly.”
The harvest party had always been held before the hardest cutting began, when fields stood ready and men could still be spared by turns.
Tenants and workers rotated through necessary duties so every family had some part of the day free.
Long tables were set near the lower meadow.
There were pies, cold meats, syllabubs, cider, games for children, contests for men who took them too seriously, and enough noise to satisfy even Lydia.
Mrs. Bennet arrived at Pemberley and nearly expired in the entrance hall.
“Oh, Lizzy,” she whispered loudly, clutching her daughter’s arm. “The staircase!”
“Yes, Mama.”
“And the servants!”
“Yes, Mama.”
“And the windows!”
Darcy, standing nearby, leaned toward Elizabeth. “The windows are pleased to have made a favorable impression.”
She bit the inside of her cheek.
Mr. Bennet disappeared into the library within an hour and did not emerge until dinner. When Elizabeth found him, he stood in the center of the room with a volume open in one hand and reverence upon his face.
“Lizzy,” he said, “I begin to approve of your marriage.”
“Only now?”
“I was reserving judgment until I met the books.”
“I shall inform my husband he has been accepted on the strength of his shelves.”
“Do. It will be good for him.”
Jane and Bingley came as an understood pair, though still unwed.
Their engagement was announced before the festive season, after Bingley had spent several months proving that constancy could be practiced as well as promised.
They planned to marry in the spring. Bingley kept Netherfield until the lease expired in September and began searching for an estate of his own, though he confessed privately to Darcy that finding one near both Hertfordshire and Derbyshire would require either genius or witchcraft.
“Try patience first,” Darcy advised.
“I dislike patience.”
“You have become better acquainted with it.”
“Yes,” Bingley said, looking across the lawn where Jane stood with Elizabeth and Georgiana. “I have also become grateful for it.”
Each Bennet sister took her turn staying with the Darcys and, later, with the Bingleys. Those visits changed more than society noticed. Mary softened without losing conviction. Kitty gained confidence away from comparison. Lydia became no less spirited, but her spirit found better occupation.
Mary had a season in town before Kitty, to Mrs. Bennet’s astonishment and Mr. Bennet’s secret satisfaction.
She married the Reverend Dr. Edmund Ashbourne, a prominent churchman with several livings, a respectable fortune from his grandmother, and a sincere admiration for improving sermons.
He found Mary’s seriousness charming, and Mary found his library of theological works nearly irresistible.
They settled in Surrey, where she became known for charitable schools, excellent music evenings, and lectures delivered to those who had voluntarily remained in the room.
Kitty attended the season the following year and surprised everyone by marrying Sir Thomas Vale, a good-natured baronet from Shropshire, within the season.
He admired her softness, she admired his horses, and neither demanded more gravity from the other than could reasonably be supplied.
Elizabeth suspected Kitty’s happiness owed much to having spent enough time with Jane, Georgiana, and Lydia to learn that being agreeable need not mean being directed by louder people.
Lydia and Georgiana came out in town together, under Elizabeth’s eye and Mrs. Annesley’s resigned vigilance.
They were a sensation.
Not because either was outrageous, though Lydia occasionally approached the boundary with curiosity.
Georgiana’s fortune and Darcy’s name might have attracted attention in any case, but her sweetness, improved self-possession, and unexpected flashes of humor won genuine admiration.
Lydia, with her bright face, ready wit, and alarming candor, became much sought after by gentlemen who enjoyed laughter and much feared by mothers who preferred obedience.
“She will marry by June,” Mrs. Bennet predicted.
Lydia did not.
Nor did Georgiana.
For three seasons they helped half their acquaintance find matches and accepted none for themselves. Lydia claimed husband hunting was far less interesting than matchmaking. Georgiana agreed, though in her case the refusal was expressed with greater delicacy and fewer alarming metaphors.
When Lydia was the last Bennet sister unmarried, she went to Pemberley for an extended stay with Georgiana.
By then Georgiana had attracted the admiration of Viscount Meriden, a thoughtful gentleman of good family and better temper, who loved music, disliked arrogance, and addressed Georgiana as if she had opinions worth hearing.
That alone recommended him to Darcy, though he pretended to require further persuasion.
Lydia declared him acceptable.
“High praise,” Elizabeth murmured.
“It is,” Lydia said. “He does not bore her, and he does not frighten her. That is a very fine beginning.”
Lord Meriden had a younger brother, Mr. Nathaniel Grey, independently wealthy through a godfather’s estate and possessed of humor enough to survive Lydia Bennet.
He first met her when she was arranging flowers badly in Pemberley’s morning room and informed him that all men who claimed indifference to marriage were either lying or had never met women worth marrying.
He proposed within six months.
Lydia accepted after making him wait three days because, as she told Georgiana, “A gentleman should value suspense if he means to marry me.”
Darcy called it justice.
Elizabeth called it Lydia.
Years unfolded.
Elizabeth and Darcy had five children, three boys and two girls, all of whom inherited some portion of their mother’s wit and their father’s determination, a combination that left Pemberley lively beyond anything old Mr. Darcy could have imagined.
Jane and Bingley had four children and a house filled with music, cousins, dogs, and perpetual hospitality.
Mary, Kitty, and Lydia each had three children and wrote letters of such different character that Elizabeth could identify the author before breaking the seal.