Page 34 of What Comes Between Cousins
IN THE MONTHS AND YEARS to come, the Darcys prospered in health and happiness. The gossip Darcy had feared did not erupt into scandal, though there were a few choice observations made in Elizabeth’s hearing from time to time. The fact that she was already known to being courted by Mr. Darcy and the announcement of the engagement, which they delayed for more than two weeks, did much to quell what little was said of the affair.
Darcy and Elizabeth, though each wished to meet at the altar in a speedy fashion, exercised patience, finally marrying in April, about a month after the Bingleys were joined in matrimony. They enjoyed the season of their courtship, Darcy being required to leave only once for about a week to prepare the marriage settlement. For the rest of that time they laughed and talked, growing in the knowledge of the other and the love they possessed, which lasted for all the days of their lives.
While Darcy and Elizabeth were happy in their lives, not everyone in their tale could be said to experience the same felicity. As Mr. Bingley had designed, his sister was married to Mr. Collins only six days after he had compromised her, returning to Hertfordshire with the marriage articles completed with Fitzwilliam in tow. Fitzwilliam, though he affected a joviality, was eager to remove himself from the parson’s company.
“The man is a born sycophant,” said he when Darcy asked about his time in London. “It is not only Lady Catherine—he latches on to anyone he deems higher than he in society and treats them with the same reverence as Lady Catherine.”
“He never did that with me,” said Darcy.
His cousin grinned at him. “That is because he was set upon preventing Miss Elizabeth’s growing attachment to you. Once I had him in London, he treated me, and especially my father, with an even more exaggerated deference. Father was ready to throw him out and ordered him to cease his toadying more than once. But it is in his blood.
“I dare say that should Miss Bingley take the trouble, she will find herself ruling him with very little effort.”
“But she is not above him in society. Quite the contrary, little though she wishes to own to it.”
“No, but he also instinctively searches out those who are more intelligent than he is.”
“He should have no difficulty there,” muttered Darcy.
“I do not disagree,” replied Fitzwilliam, still grinning widely.
The wedding proceeded without a hitch. The only problem was the unwillingness of the bride to be married to a man she could not respect, and actively disdained. It took all of Bingley’s newfound resolve to induce her to say the proper words and sign the register.
“I almost thought she would refuse to do it,” said he after returning from Longbourn church. “Even after saying her wedding vows, she hesitated before signing. I made absolutely certain that she did not sign a spurious name, as you can imagine.”
Though Fitzwilliam had attended to stand up with Mr. Collins, Darcy had refused, not wishing to see the odious parson again. Or the new Mrs. Collins, for that matter.
“In the end, she glanced at me, and it was my implacability which eventually forced her to sign. I am glad to be rid of her. I hope she and Mr. Collins find some felicity together, though I am not hopeful of it.”
Whether the new Mr. and Mrs. Collins did find some measure of felicity shall be left to the reader’s imagination. It is true that for the first five years of their marriage, the Collinses did not produce any children, their first being born when Mrs. Collins was almost thirty. A second child followed three years later, the two being the total of the Collins’s efforts—such as they were—to reproduce.
“I thought Collins was about to fall over from apoplexy,” reported Fitzwilliam, later that year when he visited the Darcys. “Miss Deborah Collins is quite the little cherub, and it is easy to see that Mrs. Collins dotes on her, but Mr. Collins was frantic for a son. I shall not sport with your intelligence and attempt to inform you that the arrival of Miss Frances Collins did not send him into a tizzy.”
“Another girl,” said Elizabeth, delighted that Mr. Collins, for all his pomposity and affected superiority, still had not produced an heir. “I would feel pity for him, except for the fact that he does not deserve it. I do pity those two girls, however. With Mrs. Caroline Collins for a mother, I do not doubt they shall be just like her in temperament.”
“The elder already is,” said the viscount. “The younger will be corrupted soon enough.”
The Darcys were in company with the Collins but rarely over the years, and even more infrequent were the words which passed between them. Several years after the birth of his younger daughter, and with the possibility of more children growing remote by the years, Mr. Collins and Mr. Bennet came to an agreement to end the entail. But it was only with Mr. Collins’s written promise that the estate would not be broken up and would be left to his eldest daughter. Thus, Mr. Collins had his security, though Elizabeth had no hope he would actually manage Longbourn well enough to leave it solvent for his daughter.
Lady Catherine, on the other hand, cut all ties with Mr. Collins, and though she could not force him from the living, she no longer showed him the favor she once had, blaming his incompetence for the failure of her dreams. The earl did descend on Rosings like an avenging angel, and though he did not see her in Bedlam as was threatened, he made it very clear that any more trouble from her would result in her being a resident of that hated institution. The lady remained ever after a bitter woman, one who railed against fate and the younger generation. She rarely left Rosings, however, so those who had a grievance against her were at least comforted in that her mischief was ended.
Her daughter, remarkably, threw off her mother’s shackles, following Darcy’s advice, making something of her life. Though she was ever frail and unhealthy, she would remove to London that season, partaking in the delights society had to offer with her aunt, the countess’s, help. Miss de Bourgh never did marry and passed Rosings down to the Darcys’ second son in her will, but her life was filled with much more joy than it had been previously.
Mr. Wickham, unfortunately, was to spend the better part of a decade incarcerated in Marshalsea. With no hope of ever paying off the large debts he had amassed, his pleas to Darcy to forgive his debts were frequent, but Darcy, having thrown off the memory of his father’s affection for the man, remained adamant that he pay for the misery he had caused, troubles that he had brought upon himself. Eventually, however, he decided to relent, though not in a matter Mr. Wickham had expected or desired.
“I assume Mr. Wickham was not pleased with your decision?” asked Elizabeth when Darcy returned from his objectionable errand.
“That is a fool’s wager, my love,” replied Darcy. “He expected, of course, to simply be released.” Darcy paused. “Of course, given the fights he has engaged in while in prison, and the effects of whatever drink he could procure and the scarcity of the food he has been eating have rendered him a changed man. He will never charm anyone with two teeth missing.”
“Then I hope he will eventually come to an understanding of where he has gone wrong in life. But I am quite happy he will do it in the penal colony, rather than in England.”
As for the rest of their family, while all did not always go smoothly, the Bennets, Darcys, and Bingleys generally were happy in their lives in the ensuing years. The youngest Bennets both married—Kitty to a man possessing a small estate, and Lydia to an officer of the regulars. Louisa Hurst, free of her younger sister, was finally able to welcome children into her life. She remained ever after a close friend of Mrs. Darcy and Mrs. Bingley. Hurst became somewhat less dependent on his vices, though they never truly left him. And the Bennets lived after the departure of their daughters in pleasant harmony. Mr. Bennet was even known to say, on occasion, that he missed the noise of having five daughters in the house.
But there are two others whose fates took a curious turn, one which none of the players of the drama might have expected.
The first was Mary Bennet. Beloved of her eldest sisters, Mary chiefly lived with Elizabeth and Jane after their marriages. Though she loved the new Bingley estate, purchased about a year after the Bingley marriage and situated only thirty miles from the Darcy estate at Pemberley, it was Pemberley that she favored, meaning she was more often with Elizabeth than Jane. It was during one of these visits that an announcement was made that shocked them all.
“You are engaged to Lord Chesterfield?” asked Elizabeth, bewildered by her sister’s announcement. “What can you mean by it, Mary?”
Her husband snorted. “I am surprised you did not see the growing felicity between them. It has been evident ever since Fitzwilliam came to stay with us last month.”
The viscount, who was by now completely reconciled with his cousin, only grinned at Elizabeth, not feeling the need to respond. Later, after the matter had been explained to Elizabeth, she managed to get Mary alone, intending to assure herself of her sister’s happiness.
“I am happy,” said Mary when Elizabeth asked. “You know my expectations in marriage have ever been more modest than yours. But I am certain with my future husband I can rival that blissful estate in which you dwell with Mr. Darcy.”
“I am happy for you, Mary. But I am concerned.”
“I know you are, Lizzy. But you may release those concerns. Though I might have worried that I was being used as a surrogate for you, I am assured that is not the case. He has confessed to me that he was infatuated with you—he never felt true love. His love, in this case, is reserved for me.”
Thus comforted, Elizabeth witnessed her sister wedding a man more prominent in society than any of them, knowing that while Mary might never be a leading light in society, she would hold her own. The Fitzwilliams, by all accounts, were happy in marriage, eventually producing progeny of their own. And one of the Bennet sisters became a countess, and mother to a future earl, though it was not the sister any of them might have thought.
Finally, after several years of being separated from her dearest friend Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth heard that her friend’s employment had ended, and as Elizabeth had newly become a mother herself, Elizabeth wrote to Charlotte, inviting her to Pemberley to become little Victoria Darcy’s governess. Originally, she had wanted Charlotte to simply live with them as a guest, but she knew—correctly—that Charlotte would see that as charity and would not wish to impose.
But Elizabeth had another design in mind, for the parson of Kympton was a man of about five and thirty, and a bachelor. Elizabeth had long thought he would be perfect for the practical Charlotte. In this, she was correct, for, within a few months of arriving, Charlotte was released from Elizabeth’s employ with her blessing and married to her parson. In this, Elizabeth was happy that she had been able to assist her friend in finding her calling in life.
As for the Darcys, they were blessed with three girls and two boys, all of whom trod the pathway of life, encouraged by their parents to follow their dreams. The Darcys lived to a great age, and of them it was said that no couple was closer or more loving, even after the first bloom of love and the heady days of courtship were behind them. It was said of them that if any couple was destined to be together through this life and the next, it was the Darcys.
The End
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