Page 38 of Longbourn’s Son (Pride and Prejudice Variation #22)
“Yes,” Jane said abruptly, her face shining with exultation. “Yes, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam. I will gladly marry you.”
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Mr. Bennet sat on his favorite wingback chair in the drawing room in Longbourn, looking with satisfaction on the domestic scene playing out before his eyes.
On the hearth rug near, but not too near, the fire, lay his new stepson, little Christopher Hurst, who was currently on his knees rocking back and forth.
The baby was not yet crawling, though he had discovered that he could move around by rolling over and over until he fetched up, to his supreme indignation, against a couch or a wall.
His mother, new sisters, and nursemaids were kept busy placing him in the center of the room again.
The gentle patience of all the womenfolk was in stark contrast to the first Mrs. Bennet, who had found her babies exhausting and irritating, and thus her children had been largely raised by nursemaids.
Bennet was confident the servants had been gentle with his children, but it was a beautiful thing to observe a mother so committed to the care of her own son.
Louisa looked up and met his eye, and smiled at him, and he smiled back. His new wife was yet a young woman. Perhaps in time they would be blessed with a child of their own.
“Oh,” Lydia exclaimed in frustration, and Louisa turned away from her husband towards her youngest stepdaughter, who was staring down at the knitted baby sock which was unraveling in her hands. “Oh, I must have missed a stitch. I will never be able to knit properly!”
“Lydia,” Louisa said, “you are doing marvelously well. You have learned so much in a few days. Now I believe you have been sitting for quite long enough. Perhaps you would like to go out to the stable and observe your brother’s new prize?”
Lydia hesitated and looked down at her new stepbrother. “Are you certain you will not need someone to play with Christopher?”
“The baby will need to take a nap soon, my dear,” Louisa said. “Run along and get some exercise.”
/
“Mr. Darcy, Colonel Fitzwilliam!” Kitty Bennet exclaimed as the two gentlemen entered the Longbourn stables leading their horses. “Is everything all right in London? Are Jane and Lizzy all right?”
“They are very well, I assure you, Miss Kitty,” the colonel said quickly. “I hope you and your family are all well?”
“Indeed we are,” Kitty said, and dropped a belated curtsey.
Lydia’s head suddenly appeared above the wall of a nearby stall, and she smiled down at the newcomers. “Good afternoon, Mr. Darcy, Colonel Fitzwilliam. Father just gave Luke a new thoroughbred foal!”
The stall door swung open, and Luke Bennet, his eyes shining, looked out from within the loose stall at the gentlemen. “Is she not a beauty?”
Darcy, while eager to see Mr. Bennet and ask for permission to wed Elizabeth, surged forward to inspect the horse standing within, a fine-boned, white stockinged bay with the long neck and high withers of her kind.
“How old is she?” Colonel Fitzwilliam inquired.
“Nine months,” Luke said, his eyes feasting on the beast at his side. “Father purchased her from a man in Marlburg and gave her to me only yesterday.”
“Congratulations, Mr. Bennet,” Darcy said heartily. “May I inquire whether your father is at home?”
Kitty, who had been looking bemused, straightened up as her eyes brightened with understanding. “Yes, he is.”
“Thank you, Miss Kitty,” the colonel said with a bow, and the two gentlemen departed hastily. Behind them, they heard Lydia inquire, “Why do they wish to see Father?”
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“You have my blessing of course, both of you,” Mr. Bennet said to his two guests, and then added ruefully, “I admit I find it remarkable that now that I have won a marvelous new wife, I am losing my two eldest daughters, though I could not ask for better gentlemen to carry them away.”
“I believe that the two events are directly correlated, Mr. Bennet,” Darcy said. “Last autumn, when Elizabeth and I danced at the Netherfield Ball, she explained that she felt bound to Longbourn since she felt that she and her elder sister were needed to help raise their younger siblings.”
Mr. Bennet, who had been in the act of pouring brandy for his guests, froze in surprise, before recollecting himself and finishing his task. He handed a glass to both men and then lowered himself into his seat behind the desk in his library.
“I confess I was not aware of my daughters’ sense of obligation toward their sisters and brother,” he admitted, “but I should not be surprised. I am so very blessed by my children. I have not been a particularly diligent father for many years, and have been all too ready to leave the care of both my family and the estate on the shoulders of my daughters and son. I daresay no man, especially an indolent fellow like myself, can change instantly, but ever since Luke was attacked, I have been more attentive. If we had lost him...”
He shook his head and Darcy said, “I understand your distress completely, sir. I too have come to understand my own failures of late – those of egotism and arrogance.”
“And I,” the colonel added, “realized that I have been clinging to my own pride in refusing to accept help from my very wealthy cousin; I am thankful that I will be able to leave the Regulars and provide Jane with a good home at the Darcy subsidiary estate in Lancashire.”
Bennet nodded in satisfaction and said, “I am thankful you will not have to leave my daughter behind when you go to war. Now, when do you plan to marry?”
The two cousins looked at each other and Darcy said fervently, “As soon as possible, sir.”