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“Yes, I cannot but suppose it has,” said Mr. Darcy.

The gentleman regarded his friend with his usual gravity.

“Though the experience has been hard, I cannot but suppose he has learned and grown from it. In the future, I suspect he will take care to judge himself rather than trusting his sister; he has become more decisive, and not only when dealing with her.”

“That is welcome news, Mr. Darcy. While I have always esteemed Mr. Bingley, there often seemed to be a lack of resolution in his character.”

“With that, I cannot disagree. While I still advise him in those matters about which I have some knowledge, Bingley relies more on his own judgment, and that is not an insignificant step.”

Elizabeth regarded him, wondering if she should ask further into the matter of the man’s sister. That Mr. Darcy regarded her, the very picture of complacency, provoked her to speak.

“It is curious, Mr. Darcy, that you come with a diminished party from what I might have expected to greet.”

“Oh?” asked the gentleman, content to make her work to get the knowledge she wished. “Why you would think Miss Bingley eager to return to Hertfordshire, a place she criticized without cessation, I cannot say.”

“Not eagerness, no. Yet I cannot but suppose that Miss Bingley was capable of taking my mother’s measure and acting to protect her interests. Jane was not enough for her dynastic ambitions—I cannot suppose my younger sisters are any more palatable.”

“In that, you are correct.” Mr. Darcy shrugged. “Perhaps it had something to do with Bingley’s insistence that she would not accompany him to Hertfordshire. As I recall, his comments on the subject comprised a desire that she not embarrass him with her behavior before his neighbors.”

Elizabeth held Mr. Darcy’s gaze for a moment longer, then they burst into quiet chuckles together. “Yes, that is a likely outcome of her residence here, though Mr. Bingley has changed much if he said that to her.”

“Indeed, he has.” Mr. Darcy fell silent for a moment, considering.

“I know not if Miss Bingley pushed her attendance with her brother, for they left two weeks after you did and traveled north. When Bingley returned south to Pemberley, it was without his sisters and the declaration that they would not join him.”

A shrug met this communication. “It is for the best, I suppose. I hardly think Miss Bingley has much to fear from my younger sisters catching his eye.”

“With that, I suspect you are correct.”

A burst of laughter caught her attention, and Elizabeth looked to the younger girls, noting them convulsing in mirth, Georgiana in their midst, while Mary looked on with her usual understated interest. That Georgiana was already getting on well with them boded well for the future, though Elizabeth could see that her laughter was more restrained.

Perhaps Kitty and Lydia would take something of her likeness, though Elizabeth knew that alone would not modify their behavior.

“If you will pardon me, Mr. Darcy,” said Elizabeth, turning back to regard him, “you appear nothing the worse for wear. Given Miss Bingley’s stated intentions just before I departed from Pemberley, I might not have thought to see you unscathed.”

The gentleman’s grin showed his anticipation of the question. “Not unscathed so much as unmoved.”

Elizabeth regarded the gentleman, feeling her levity fading away. “Did she attempt something reprehensible?”

“Not unless you believe pushing herself forward at every opportunity to be reprehensible.” The gentleman chuckled. “Miss Bingley did not throw herself on me, try to get me alone, or even insert herself into my bed. Everything short of that, however, was within her capacity.”

“Then her absence?”

“A result of a new understanding between us. I comprehend her wishes, if she ever took the trouble to hide them, and she now knows that I have no interest in an alliance with her.”

“In my opinion,” said Elizabeth, “Miss Bingley never misunderstood. She was unwilling to acknowledge the truth of her pretensions.”

“I cannot say you are incorrect.”

“Then she is still in the north with her family?”

“Licking her wounds and no doubt planning to make a more stupendous match than I can offer her.”

It was so near a likeness of Miss Bingley that Elizabeth did not question Mr. Darcy’s conjecture.

For a moment, Elizabeth thought to inquire further, then decided it was a moot point.

Miss Bingley was not present, and her stated intention to capture Mr. Darcy for herself was revealed as nothing but bluster.

There were more pleasant subjects to discuss.

MR. DARCY WAS AS GOOD as his word, and before even a month had passed, Mr. Bennet announced the engagement of his second daughter to the wealthy gentleman from the north, and Mrs. Bennet celebrated having a second daughter engaged.

What that lady had thought of the gentleman remained forever unspoken, for no one could suppose that she would hold on to her offense in the face of the man’s ten thousand a year.

Jane was so pleased by her dearest sister’s success that she could not wait to go to Hertfordshire to express her appreciation in person.

The two sisters’ reunion was all that was emotional, happy, and filled with tears and promises to forever remain the closest of sisters.

That Mr. Harrington and Mr. Darcy were already acquainted was beneficial in establishing a lifelong friendship between the two.

As Warwickshire was just to the south of Derbyshire, the sisters were pleased that they were not separated by untold miles of English countryside, and though they were farther than they might have wished, they consoled each other in their happy situations and visited as often as occasion permitted.

The speed of Jane’s return brought her into proximity with Mr. Bingley again, as the gentleman had renewed the lease for another year, though with the understanding he would look for a permanent home in the north when that expired.

While the history between them might have suggested a meeting would be fraught with emotion, there was little evidence of that when the significant event took place.

Mr. Bingley, true to his sunny nature, was all smiles and professions of congratulations.

“When your sister informed me of your marriage, I was most surprised,” said the gentleman after exchanging the initial professions of pleasure. “They are, perhaps, overdue, but I offer my felicitations and wishes for your happiness without reserve.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bingley,” said Jane in her understated way. “I appreciate your sentiments.”

Mr. Bingley nodded and turned to Mr. Harrington. “I hope that there is a possibility of friendship with your husband. As Darcy and I are great friends and you are so close to your sister, I anticipate being in your company many times in the coming years.”

“I am willing,” replied Mr. Harrington. “Darcy is such a tall fellow and of an imposing social stature that I suspect I will need the support of another to withstand him.”

The laugh with which Mr. Bingley responded was unrestrained. “Yes, I have often observed that about him. We shall support each other in the face of such a daunting acquaintance.”

The two gentlemen became firm friends, and Mr. Bingley was a part of the lives of the two Bennet sisters in the years to come.

Not that Mr. Bingley did not look on Jane with a sort of wistful consideration, but such regard soon gave way to friendly relations that persisted for the rest of their lives.

In time, Mr. Bingley met and married a woman of some consequence, satisfying his sister with the benefits she brought to the marriage, and Bingley with his affection for her, which she returned.

As Mr. Bingley purchased an estate in Derbyshire not far distant from Pemberley, the families remained close ever after, his wife becoming one of Elizabeth’s closest friends.

Miss Bingley did not appreciate Elizabeth’s triumph, especially in the face of her resolve, but she behaved with perfect civility to Elizabeth thereafter, she suspected, because she wished to keep the appearance of friendship with Mr. Darcy.

Whether this was a factor in her successful search for a husband the next season, Elizabeth could not say.

Any anticipation she had of a close connection with the Darcys remained unfulfilled, as her residence at some distance from Derbyshire and the Darcys’ general disinclination for her company kept her at arm’s length, though they always gave every appearance of civility.

As Elizabeth had designed and her new husband and close sister agreed, they soon took on the task of teaching Lydia and Kitty how to comport themselves in society.

Rather than take offense at their usurpation of his authority, Mr. Bennet looked on them with amusement, wishing Elizabeth well in what he considered an impossible task.

Though the road was long and frustrating, especially with Lydia, in time, the girls had success in moderating their behavior in such a way as to allow them to make credible marriages when the time came.

Georgiana, too, was much involved with them, and all the girls remained friends ever after.

However the younger sisters got on in life, as it turned out, they never became the heirs to Longbourn. When Elizabeth married and passed the position down to Mary, it remained with her, for Mary never entered the state of matrimony.

“I never had much interest,” confessed Mary many years later. “Never having thought much of men or the estate of marriage, I was quite content to remain a spinster.”

“Did our parents’ union warn you away from something similar?”

The look Mary gave her was at once mysterious and knowing. “I shall not claim that it did not influence me, though I shall say nothing more.”

What effect the tendency for men to overlook her had on her outlook, Mary never confided, and Elizabeth did not ask.

Mary remained at Longbourn, inheriting the property when her father passed away.

At the end of Mrs. Bennet’s life, Mary passed the estate down to Kitty’s second son, the oldest second son according to the terms of Mr. Bennet’s will, and departed for the north to live out her days at Pemberley with Elizabeth.

As for Mr. Collins, as Elizabeth had suspected, he came to regret his decision to end the entail for so little. The reason for his decision became known to Elizabeth long before her father’s passing. The source of this information was her husband, and the reason was no less than astonishing.

“Lady Catherine persuaded Mr. Collins to end the entail?” asked Elizabeth, no little hint of incredulity staining her voice.

“That is what I understand,” replied Mr. Darcy.

The lady had not been pleased with Mr. Darcy’s decision to spurn his cousin and marry Elizabeth, and for some time, all contact between them had ceased.

On the rare occasions in which Elizabeth was in Anne de Bourgh’s company, she rather thought the other woman looked on her escape with relief, though she never vouchsafed such an opinion to Elizabeth.

“What could she have to say on the subject? Why did it concern her?”

“Why does she meddle in anything that does not concern her?” asked William with a chuckle.

“Lady Catherine has long involved herself in matters she should eschew. She did not wish to endure the bother of replacing him again, so she took steps to ensure he never had any reason to leave when he handed her the opportunity.”

“And Mr. Collins, revering the ground on which she walks, was eager to follow her guidance.”

“That is true, though Lady Catherine asserts he was leaning toward ending the entail anyway.”

“Now he regrets it.”

“When it is far too late.”

Sources of information about Mr. Collins were not plentiful, but Elizabeth understood he remained the parson at Hunsford for the rest of his life.

Elizabeth suspected he was not unhappy, though he recognized he could have had so much more.

As it was, she did not think about him much.

Mr. Collins had acted as he did and provided salvation to the Bennet family in more ways than one.

For that, at least they could thank him for his short-sightedness in ending the entail.

The End