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Lady Anne and Robert Darcy could not have been happier to have a fourth grandchild, the first one of their blood.

The two as yet unmarried Bennet sisters and Anna were full of approbation for the way the number of their nieces and nephews was expanding.

Cathy had come out the previous year at nineteen, it had been her choice to wait an additional year, and Anna and Lydia would come out during the season of 1815.

Before the end of 1814, Elizabeth received a short letter telling her one Thomas Bennet had passed away. It did not say what the cause of his death was, and neither did it give any clues as to how Thomas Bennet had lived his life.

As neither Elizabeth nor her sisters had given their birth father a thought since the day he had left Longbourn, they had not mourned him at all.

What they did not know is that Bennet had begun to draft letters of apology to all of them to be sent to the Duke of Hertfordshire. In his indolence, he had never quite completed them and eventually they had fallen off his desk and been cast into the fire by the maid.

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After their first two sons, Mary and Richard contributed two daughters and a third son to the extended family.

Lewis was indeed the heir to the Matlock Earldom as Marie and Andrew never had any more children after their two daughters.

When Richard’s father passed away in 1819, Lewis became Viscount Hilldale.

That meant their second son would have Rosings Park. Mary never regretted giving up Longbourn because her daughters and youngest son had fortunes enough to make their way in life, even if the girls never married.

Mary and Richard were as happy now as they had ever been, their love only increasing over the years.

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Jane and Charles were as happy as could be, and after their first daughter had two more.

Just when Jane thought she would not have a son like her late mother—even though Charles assured her there was no entail on Longfield Meadows to heir’s male—in their twelfth year of marriage they were blessed with a son.

The Bingleys were as close to Elizabeth and the rest of the family as any of the Bennets sisters and their families were.

They had a very good relationship with the Hursts, who since the older Mr Hurst passed away in 1817 had been the master and mistress of Winsdale.

The latter couple had only one child, thankfully a son who would inherit the estate from his father one day.

The Hursts joined those at Falconwood for Christmastide now and again.

Miss Caroline Bingley lived at the home in Wales, lost to her delusions, for almost ten years before one day she awoke, had a brief moment of lucidity, and saw the truth of her situation.

Her chamber was on the fifth floor of the building.

She opened her window and was leaning out to screech for someone to bring her carriage around when her feet slipped and she fell to her death. Sadly, no one mourned her loss.

The friendship with Betsy Collins never waned over the years.

Betsy and William Collins had been blessed with two sons and a daughter.

They were often invited to family events and the proximity of the Bingley estate to the parsonage meant that the best friends saw one another as often as they desired.

Thanks to the amount his invested money had grown, Collins was able to dower his daughter with twenty thousand pounds and give his sons a legacy in the same amount each.

Charles Bingley and William Collins became very good friends over the years.

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Cathy did not find anyone who interested her in the first season after she came out. Word of her massive dowry combined with her stellar connections made her a very attractive target in the marriage mart.

In the second season, the one in which Anna and Lydia joined her in society, Cathy met, and three months later was engaged to Lord Wesley de Melville, Viscount Westmore, and heir to the Earl of Jersey. They married from Longbourn in October of 1815.

To date they had four children, three sons and a solitary daughter. Lord Cyril de Melville passed away in late 1817, elevating his son and daughter-in-law to the earldom. He met his first grandson before his heart failed.

As Cathy did not need it, Longbourn would become Lydia’s when she married or turned five and twenty, whichever came first.

Like Cathy, neither Anna nor Lydia met anyone they were interested in during their first season.

By April 1816, Anna was engaged to the heir to a medium sized estate in Derbyshire, less than fifteen miles from Pemberley.

As Timothy Chalamet loved their daughter and not her dowry and connections, Anna’s parents blessed the union.

They married in mid-May of the same year and had two daughters and a son so far.

When Chalamet’s father passed in early 1818, Anna and her husband became mistress and master of the estate.

With a huge dowry and an estate to boot, not to mention her connections, Lydia was considered a prime catch among members of the Ton . The only problem with that was Lydia had no time for the falseness and hypocrisy of the upper ten thousand.

Uncle Edward had taken on a partner some years past, and he had a son who was four and twenty when said son, James Dunning, met Lydia at the Gardiner’s house on Portman Square after not seeing her for almost ten years while he had been at school and university and on a grand tour.

They were soon speaking, their heads close together and discovering they had much in common.

Two months later they were married. They moved to Longbourn, and at Lydia’s request that he do so, Dunning changed his last name to Dunning-Bennet so that the name of the family who had held the land for hundreds of years did not disappear from the estate.

To date, they had a son and three daughters.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

Hattie and Frank Phillips had saved so much money over the years living at Longbourn; hence, they did not feel put out when Lydia and James took over the Bennet estate. They purchased Purvis Lodge from the Gardiners, who had found an estate, Lambton Dale, near Maddie’s beloved Lambton.

The Phillipses were grandparents to both Cathy and Lydia’s current and future children. They were counted as honorary grandparents to the other three sisters’ children as well.

Lilly had married a viscount in 1819, they had a son so far, and Lady Beauchamp was as happy as she could be, not because of her title, but because Lilly loved her husband as much as he loved her.

Both sets of aunts and uncles had enjoyed a close relationship with the four Bennet sisters, more like parent to child than to nieces.

In the future, Eddy Gardiner, who since graduating from university, ran his father’s businesses would marry the daughter of an extremely wealthy brewer of ale in 1826.

Since his parents moved to the country, Eddy and his wife would live at the house in Portman Square. May would become engaged to be married to the son of a country squire in Nottinghamshire, and Peter when he graduated from Oxford, would begin to work with his brother in their father’s businesses.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

Hertfordshire House, 20 March 1820

Matty’s twelfth birthday was more subdued than normal, kept to family and close friends due to King George III passing away at the end of January of that year. His beloved Charlotte had been called home to God a little more than a year before the King’s death. George IV was on the throne.

Like many in the kingdom, the ladies of the family wore half mourning colours, they would for another nine days when two months had passed since the late King’s passing, and the men had black armbands.

Their six children—Alex was five, born in 1814, while Anna Beth and Roberta, born in 1817—were very excited for another birthday so soon after the February celebration of Gracie and Winston turning ten.

Gracie had been beside herself with joy when Mama delivered twin daughters—not identical—evening out the numbers of males and females in the family.

Unless someone mentioned the last names, one would not know they were not the same, so close were all six of the children.

The younger children continued something the older three had begun, using John Biggs and Brian Johns to climb on. The two guards were much loved by all of the Chamberlain and Darcy children.

Elizabeth watched them proudly as she sat next to Mama and some of her married sisters. She rubbed her belly as she felt the newest Darcy kicking his or her mama. Edward Frank would be born in June of this year, permanently tilting the majority in the family to males.

Later that afternoon when the grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and close friends had gone to their own houses, Elizabeth and William asked their three eldest children to meet them in the family sitting room.

“This,” Elizabeth held up a missive, “is another letter written by Papa Archy before he passed away. His charge to me was to present this one to you on Matty’s twelfth birthday.

He wanted to make sure Gracy and Winston were ten before you read this.

” She handed the letter to Matty. “We will leave you, but if you have any questions, we will be in the nursery with your brother and sisters.”

As soon as the door was closed, the three sat on the settee, Matty in the middle of Gracie and Winston. Matty broke the seal and then held the paper so they could all read it.

12 March 1812

To my wonderful children: Matty, Gracie, and Winston,

My greatest sorrow about what this illness will cause, after forcing me to leave your Mama far sooner than I ever wanted, is that I will not be there to watch you grow up into the estimable lady and gentlemen I am sure you will become.