Page 63 of A Life Diverted
“E llie, you have checked the arrangements for Giana’s wedding over and over again, Everything will be perfect,” Cilla told her daughter.
“I know, Mother, I want to make sure just one more time because this is William’s only sister, and after all, she is marrying my Bennet brother. That is why I must be more than sure everything is as it should be,” Elizabeth responded as her hand rested on her protruding stomach.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Elizabeth was carrying the fourth child that she and William had been blessed with…so far.
Their first, a son, named Bennet Joseph had been born in February 1813.
Like his mother and those family members closely related to the Wendells, he had the birthmark on his back just below his left shoulder.
Following the Darcy tradition of using the mother’s maiden name for the heir, both Elizabeth and William, with agreement from her Wendell parents, had agreed that Wendell was not an ideal familiar name, hence, they had named him Bennet. Their eldest was called Ben by all.
Less than a year after Ben, Elizabeth had begun to miss her courses again.
However, before she felt the quickening she had felt sharp pains in her belly followed by a considerable amount of bleeding.
She had blamed herself and her penchant for walking and riding for the miscarriage, regardless of how many told her she was wrong and assured her it was one of the things which ladies suffered from time to time.
After a month of mourning what would not be and after long conversations with William and then Jane, Elizabeth had thrown off her self-indulgent behaviour and taken up her responsibilities in full once again.
Being reminded that Ben needed her went a long way to bringing Elizabeth out of the melancholy into which she had fallen.
Six months later, she was with child once again which led to Priscilla Frances Darcy being born at the end of March 1815.
Prisci, as she was called to differentiate her from her Grandmama Cilla, was born with a thick head of raven coloured hair, the birthmark, and dark blue eyes.
Much to her father’s delight, by the time Prisci reached five months of age, her eyes had turned emerald-green like her mama, Grandmama Cilla, and Great-aunt Elaine.
For the next four years, Elizabeth had not become with child again, and just when she thought her childbearing days were over, a second son, Robert Alexander, was born in May 1820. Like his siblings, he too had the birthmark.
In October 1821, Elizabeth had begun to increase again, which explained the state she was in as she organised the wedding for Giana and James.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“Ellie, you are not overexerting yourself, are you?” Darcy demanded as he walked into the ballroom where the wedding breakfast would be held. “Mrs Reynolds will make sure that everything will be just as it should be, so there is no need for you and Mother Cilla to be worrying about this now.”
Elizabeth did not miss the sad look in William’s eyes when he mentioned the housekeeper who had begun to work at Pemberley when he was four. She could have retired a few years earlier, but the venerable woman had been determined to remain in her post until Miss Giana married.
As the aforementioned Miss Darcy had waited for the man she loved to propose to her, she would be five and twenty when she married James, who would turn six and twenty in June upcoming.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
James Bennet graduated from Cambridge at the end of the 1815-1816 school year at the age of twenty. Thanks to the final defeat of the Corsican tyrant he and a group of his friends had embarked on a grand tour which had lasted the better part of two years.
When he returned in July 1818, he threw himself into learning how to manage Longbourn which he prayed would not be his for many years.
What James was not aware of was that Lizzy’s sister-in-law had fallen in love with him by the time she had turned eighteen. He had always enjoyed spending time with Giana but had been obtuse to the fact that she saw him as more than Lizzy’s brother.
In May 1821, at Robby’s first birthday party which was celebrated at Longbourn.
Fanny Bennet, who was tired of waiting for her son to wake up and see what was before him, took him by the ear to the privacy of her and Thomas’s sitting room.
There, she asked James if he was blind to the fact that Giana loved him and had been in love with him for some years already.
As James had been so focused on learning to manage Longbourn, he had missed that altogether. He had been in love with Giana for a few years but had never detected anything beyond a family friendship from her.
Fanny had refrained from cuffing her eldest son on the side of his head.
She had reminded him that a proper lady, and Giana was very much so, could not do anything until the man spoke.
From that point on James paid much more attention to his interactions with Giana, and by the end of the summer he had requested a formal courtship.
They had become engaged at the end of January 1822, which would culminate with their wedding in two days.
When James had applied to Richard and William for the courtship, both men had asked him what had taken him so long. James had blushed with embarrassment. Nevertheless, his application had been granted.
For the wedding ceremony, Henry would stand up for his older brother while Mary was Giana’s matron of honour; thus, returning the favour Giana had done by being her maid of honour at Mary’s wedding.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“I love how close all of our sisters have been to one another over the years,” Darcy said as he walked with his wife on his arm towards a drawing room where many of the family were assembled.
“You will hear no argument from me…at least on this,” Elizabeth arched her eyebrow saucily.
In what was now over ten years of marriage, the love, respect, and passion she and William shared still burned white hot, in fact, rather than wane over the years, it had increased.
“Minx,” Darcy replied with the oft playfully used response.
“Who would have thought our Mary would be a marchioness and future duchess? Not that the title is important, what is important is that she and Francis are deeply, irrevocably in love.”
“Amen to that,” Cilla said as she followed her daughter and son-in-law to the drawing room.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Mary Bennet had come out during the season of 1817, when she turned eighteen. She had caught the eye of Lord Francis Russell, the Marquess of Tavistock, who was nine years her senior .
Tavistock had been disinterested in any woman he had met as a potential wife until he was taken with Miss Mary Bennet.
His parents, the Duke and Duchess of Bedford cared not that the lady who had caught his eye was untitled, as long as she was gently born.
It did not hurt that the Russells were close to many of the Bennets’ connections.
At first, Mary had not believed that a future duke was seriously interested in her, that was until the Marquess began to call on her.
By June 1817, she had accepted Francis in an official courtship.
Before the end of August, they were engaged and married from Longbourn in late October of the same year.
About a quarter of the land at Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire—the principal estate of the dukes of Bedford—was designated for the Marquess’s use, and there was a rather fine manor house where the newly married Russells lived when in the country.
In August 1818, Mary delivered a son and heir who they named William John. A daughter, Anna-Rose, was born in May 1821.
Even after she was married and living in Bedfordshire for part of the year, the friendship between Mary and Giana never cooled. It was Mary who had suggested her mother speak to her obtuse son regarding his blindness to Giana’s feelings. Giana would be forever grateful for Mary’s intervention.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“At least, at eighteen Henry is too young to be thinking of a wife,” Elizabeth remarked just before they entered the drawing room.
“True, but it was not too young for Lyddie to be courted,” Cilla sang.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The aforementioned Henry had just completed his first year at Cambridge, and as had been intimated by his sister, there was nary a thought of a future wife in his head.
Like James before him, he would take a grand tour once he graduated, and on his return, he would learn all there was to know about running Netherfield Park.
Lydia had come out at eighteen during the season of 1821.
After telling one and all she wanted to experience a few seasons before accepting a suitor, that idea fell to the wayside when she danced with Lord Paul Carrington—the heir to the Earl of Holder—who had just reached his majority after graduating from Cambridge the previous year.
She had thought her feelings for him were a girlish infatuation.
However, when she saw him at her ball—she had not seen him for some years previously—and how he made her feel as they danced, she promptly fell in love with him, and it was no girlish infatuation.
Although Paul was past his majority, his parents and hers suggested they have a long courtship and longer engagement. If he proposed and if she accepted, he would be at least four and twenty before they married.
The two had agreed to the two sets of parents’ stipulations. They were both well pleased the year of courtship would be complete in June of the current year. When Paul proposed and Lydia accepted him, they would have a two year engagement prior to marrying.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
On entering the drawing room, a heartwarming sight met them.
Aunt Catherine was sitting in one corner, reading a story to some of the younger children.
The lady who had thought she would never have any grandchildren of her own had been made an honorary grandmother to all of the children in the extended family.