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During the second week of his crossing the Atlantic in a British merchant ship bound for Bermuda, George Wickham watched with some trepidation as a storm came out of the southeast. High waves began to toss the merchant ship as if it were merely a twig thrown in the river.

Fighting the storm for than ten hours the crew managed kept the ship afloat but then the waves battered their way through the hatch in the centre of the deck and the ship quickly filled with water.

Fighting his way around the other panicked passengers, George Wickham made it to the deck.

A sailor waved him toward a lifeboat holding a few crewmen.

As Wickham struggled across the deck to the small boat, a large wave swept over the ship and washed the lifeboat, crew and George into the raging waters.

During his youth, George had learned to swim in farm ponds and the small rivers of England, but the raging ocean of a storm in the Atlantic Ocean was beyond his abilities.

Over the sound of the storm, he heard a man’s voice calling out from the lifeboat that was perhaps twenty feet away.

Trying to move in that direction and calling out the other men, George swallowed sea water and fought for every breath.

Waves and wind pushed him away from the lifeboat.

Around his waist, the precious money belt with checks and a hundred coins weighed Wickham down.

After another minute, a dark wave pushed George under the surface and the man’s lungs emptied of air.

The reflex to inhale filled his nose and mouth with cold sea water.

His limbs felt as though they were made of lead, and his arms had no strength to bring him back to the surface.

Wickham never broke the surface of the water again.

The money belt with thirty thousand pounds in cheques from Rothschild’s Bank floated to the bottom of the Atlantic with the wreckage of the ship and its cargo of tea and spices from the East Indies.

~~~

While Lady Catherine was absent in London enriching Mr Wickham at the expense of her daughter’s estate, control of Rosings Park slipped from the lady’s fingers.

While the noblewoman handed fifteen thousand pounds to George Wickham for an investment in the fictious New World Tea Company, Miss de Bourgh married a gentleman farmer from the neighbourhood.

With a common license purchased from a bishop in Canterbury, Clarence Frederick joined with Anne de Bourgh in marriage.

Mortified to have been dupped by Wickham, Lady Catherine returned to Kent to find her daughter vanished from Rosing Park.

Worse, her personal belongings were packed and moved to the dower house, a large cottage almost a mile’s distance from the manor of Rosings Park.

Mr Fredericks was now the master of Rosings, and he choose to live with his wife in his own family home.

In less than a fortnight, a lady’s companion arrived and moved into the bedchamber next to her employer.

Miss Caroline Bingley was more destitute than Lady Catherine.

Shortly thereafter, Mr Fredericks leased the manor house to a wealthy merchant from London seeking a quiet retirement in the country.

In quick order, Lady Catherine was banned from all visits to the house where she had once ruled, and the disappointed noblewoman struggled through years of boredom in the dower house.

To no one’s surprise, the gentlelady shared her misery with ‘Bingley' daily. The two women found little enjoyment in disparaging each other’s failures and quickly turned to drink to dull the pain of their failures.

Afternoon tea became a pot filled with gin rather than tea, and the ladies shared their drink in the teacups.

Once they were lost in their cups, the two women would examine the stock certificates for the New World Tea Company and manufacture stories of their wealth and position in society.

During their boring evenings, the ‘Countess of Argyle’ called on Lady Catherine de Bourgh where they discussed the general failures of society and men in particular.

In summer, Lady Catherine hosted a supper each fortnight where Mr and Mrs Collins were guests.

After each adequate meal of three courses, Miss Bingley sang and performed on the pianoforte.

However, Mrs Collins realized that the three other persons seated in the stuffy parlour were most interested in discussing the loss of their wealth to the nefarious George Wickham.

The shock of being defrauded and fooled left Lady Catherine addle-brained and the move to the dower house certainly disturbed the lady’s felicity.

For the rest of her life, Lady Catherine de Bourgh never admitted fault in the loss of wealth in her daughter’s estate.

She alternated assigning blame for the loss of her control of Rosings Park between her son-in-law and her nephew.

In her very occasional letters to Fitzwilliam Darcy, Lady Catherine would ask for money in the first sentence, criticise him for not marrying Anne in the second sentence, and disparage Mr Fredericks in the third sentence.

For some reason, she never mentioned her nephew’s wife or the children the couple shared.

On occasion after Sunday services at the Hunsford Chapel, Lady Catherine abused her son-in-law to his face.

Mr Fredericks never replied to his mother-in-law’s denunciations, but Mrs Fredericks registered her objections to her mother’s behaviour by refusing to invite Lady Catherine to supper or tea in their pleasant home even years later when it was filled with children.

Moreover, the couple never responded to any invitation from Lady Catherine to dine at the dower house.

For the more than ten years that Caroline Bingley lived with Lady Catherine, the woman sent many letters to her sister and brother begging for money and escape from the chains of being a lady’s companion.

Louisa, who had three children with Mr Hurst, and Charles, who had four children with the lovely Mrs Bingley, always replied firmly that they had no room available.

Charles reminded his sister that she had fifty pounds each quarter for buttons and cloth for new gowns, shoes, and books. No one offered the spinster houseroom.

Caroline Bingley only returned to London after Lady Catherine passed away.

Now in her late thirties, Miss Bingley was forced to accept another position as a lady’s companion in a home in the city.

The unpleasant woman spent the remainder of her life as the companion of old women of a similar temperament.

Miss Bingley continued to drink gin in the afternoons when most persons drank tea.

~~~

In the many years of their marriage, Mr and Mrs Darcy made Pemberley in Derbyshire their primary residence.

Their two sons and three daughters were born in the great house.

Mrs Darcy’s dowry remained intact and grew to be a large sum that was added to an even larger fund from the Darcy estate as dowries for their daughters.

When Mr Bingley’s lease on Netherfield expired, he and his family moved north to Glenhaven, the estate he purchased near Stoke-on-Trent.

There, Mr and Mrs Bingley lived happily while he managed his profitable business and the estate with Mrs Bingley’s help.

Their four children were often in the company of their Darcy cousins as they grew.

The third Bennet sister might have become a spinster if she had remained at Longbourn after Jane and Elizabeth departed for Derbyshire with their husbands.

But even before the Darcy couple headed for Pemberly that first autumn, Georgiana Darcy requested that Mary join them in the north for the winter.

Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam provided houseroom for Mary for several years.

When Georgiana prepared for her presentation to Queen Charlotte, Mary joined her friend at court.

As a result of having a season in London without her mother or younger sisters around to demand all the attention, Mary made the acquaintance of Mr Joseph Macy, a young professor from Oxford.

They became a couple before Christmas that year once Mr Bennet corresponded with Macy’s father, a man that he’d shared classes with during his years at the university.

Mary and Joseph married from the Darcy house in London the next spring.

The couple spent their lives in Oxford where Mrs Macy edited the articles her husband wrote concerning economics and taxation.

There would have been many protests from Lydia about Mary being presented to the queen, but the year before, the youngest Bennet sister had married Franklin Henderson, an army colonel in His Majesty’s Army.

A second royal militia was bivouacked for a season in Meryton before moved to Brighton to continue building barriers along the beaches.

Lydia’s marriage had been a hurried affair with the wedding occurring the Monday following the third Sunday when the banns had been called from the pulpit. Fortunately, there was no early child in the union.

The fourth Bennet sister married John Lucas the summer after Elizabeth had married Mr Darcy.

Kitty and her husband settled on a newly purchased farm that bordered Lucas Lodge.

Once they married, John managed the whole of the Lucas estate and when Sir William died, John and Kitty and their two small children moved into the manor house while Lady Lucas moved into the farmhouse that became the dower house for Lucas Lodge.

To aide her mother, Kitty Lucas wrote several letters in her mother’s name to Lydia.

But despite receiving multiple letters Mrs Henderson never responded.

The next autumn, Colonel Franklin Henderson sent a letter to Mr Bennet announcing that the couple were transferring to Gibraltar, a new strategic base protecting for British trade at the entrance into the Mediterranean.

Two years later, a second letter arrived from Colonel Henderson announcing the couple were transferred to British Army bases at the tip of Africa, a colony taken from the Dutch during the Napoleonic Wars. In all the years that followed, there was never another word from Colonel and Mrs Henderson.

For their remaining years, Mr and Mrs Bennet resided at Longbourn for most of the calendar.

They ventured north for a month each year to visit with their married daughters in Derbyshire.

But after a fortnight at Pemberly and then another at Glenhaven, each son-in-law welcomed Mr Bennet’s determination to return home to his library and quiet home.

Mrs Bennet, who expected to be a widow for many years, was surprised when she contracted a wasting illness and left her husband a widower when she was only three-and-fifty years.

Mr Bennet lived on for another twenty years, with regular visits by four of his daughters and their families.

The visits by the Bingley and Darcy families occurred when they travelled from Derbyshire to London for the season or political meetings.

Thomas Bennet was pleased to find many curious minds among his grandchildren and spent much of his income providing them with books and devoted his time to acting as tutor.

In his final five years, Bennet spent the whole of each year moving between the homes of Mrs Darcy and Mrs Bingley in the north, where extensive libraries kept his attention.

~~~

In Hunsford, Charlotte Collins dealt with the trauma in her past by keeping a spotless house and managing her husband with food, drink, and strict but encouraging words.

Each quarter, the steward who managed Rosings Park delivered her husband's income in a timely manner.

The steward worked with the new master, Mr Clarence Fredericks, to manage Rosings Park properly for many years.

During the heat of that first summer in Hunsford, when Charlotte realized she was pregnant, the revelation was the answer to her prayers.

Moreover, the news pleased her husband greatly.

With regular correspondence to Lady Lucas and Mrs Eliza Darcy, Charlotte faced her trial of childbirth with determination.

With a bountiful garden and full pantry, Mrs Collins was able to eat sufficient foods to support the demands of the child growing in her womb.

In December, Lady Lucas arrived at the parsonage to aid her daughter during her confinement.

Micha Louis Collins was born in January, and while Charlotte recovered her strength quickly, Lady Lucas remained until the end of March before returning to Meryton.

The blonde-headed boy looked nothing like his father or mother, but Mr Collins declared his son was the spitting image of his own mother, Anne Collins.

Mr and Mrs Collins were not blessed with other children during their many years of marriage, but Charlotte was satisfied with her life.

And fortunately, the birth of a healthy son and heir helped Mr Collins recover from his disappointments with the New World Tea Company and Mr Wickham.

For the rest of his life, William Collins regularly preached that the love of money was the root of evil.

Because Mr Bennet lived to be eighty-four years old, Mr Collins was old and in poor health when he finally inherited Longbourn.

Micha Collins inherited the estate only eight months after his father moved into Longbourn.

Young Mr Collins, his wife and three children moved into the manor house where his mother, Charlotte Collins, continued to live.

Old Mrs Collins instructed her daughter-in-law in all matters needed to manage the manor house and direct the servants.

At the same time, Micah managed the estate with a good steward while practising law in the village of Meryton.

The End.

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