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THE HAPPIEST COUPLES IN THE WORLD
I n the interest of their felicity and the tender sensibilities of society, Lady Catherine and Lord Cadbury married only three weeks later by special licence.
The family’s other newly married couple, Mr and Mrs Darcy, could not attend the wedding celebration as they were by then happily ensconced at Pemberley, learning the joys and foibles of married life.
They would welcome the colonel’s eye-opening report on the wedding when he joined them there with Anne after Epiphany.
The Darcys found time to send Lord and Lady Cadbury their best wishes and a pair of matching wig boxes as a wedding gift.
In celebration of their union, Lady Cadbury bestowed upon her husband a jewelled quizzing glass as a companion to his ear trumpet, and he in turn presented her with a boite à mouches containing a set of diamond-studded beauty patches.
At Lady Matlock’s behest, Mrs Parker attended the wedding, and whilst she confined herself to observing her old friend, her mere presence opened a door to resuming their friendship.
But that was months in the future, for the recently wed couple spent the first weeks of their marriage at Cad’s elegant house in town, accepting no visitors and interrupted only by the physician who was called in to treat the eager groom for a sprained groin.
Twelve glorious years later, they expired together, in bed, with their arms around each other and smiles on their faces.
Freed from the constraints on her diet and wardrobe that her mother had earlier placed on her out of concern for health and propriety, Anne took the reins at Rosings.
Not long thereafter, she married her true love, Nigel the groundskeeper.
They filled Rosings Park with a cricket team of sons who made merry mischief in the fruitful gardens of the parsonage.
The Darcys, too, lived happily ever after, always mindful of the critical lessons that Lady Catherine had taught them during those days in London, intentionally or not.
Most of those lessons they chose not to pass on to their joyful brood of children, such as her strictures against ladies’ boots and the calumnies she directed towards parasols.
Others were of limited usefulness but nevertheless held some truth: one must never, for instance, slouch or exhibit wantonness in company.
But one lesson endured most in their hearts, one that they always remembered from those earliest weeks of their marriage: sometimes the thorniest rose, the one that kept others at bay even when it most required care, simply needed extra attention, kindness, and love before it could blossom into its fullest beauty.