Epilogue

Summer

1883

Lady Lydia Goulding smiled as she watched her son Frederick stroll across the park with the daughter of their neighbour, Miss Cordelia Davenport, at The Grove, the Goulding's family estate in Derbyshire. Located part way between Pemberley and Matlock, the Gouldings had purchased the estate twelve years after their marriage, when Frederick was nearly ten, and Lydia had retired from Mode .

Today, their entire family was here for a garden party in honour of Frederick's return from Cambridge. Their son had taken a first in botany, and Dorian was incredibly proud of him. Frederick had always shown an aptitude for learning, and their shared enthusiasm for education had made the little family very close and supportive of one another.

Out on the lawn were several bright white canopies raised, covering tables laden with refreshments, and comfortable chairs. Their relations enjoyed one another's company happily as the footmen made the rounds, serving champagne and dispensing cups of tea, lemonade, and other tidbits.

"It is no surprise that those two have found one another so quickly," Dorian observed as he drew to her side.

"Like magnets," Lydia marvelled. Her son had befriended the twins on a neighbouring estate shortly after their family moved to Derbyshire. The three had been nearly inseparable every summer, but when Cordelia's twin Tobias was killed after being thrown from his horse two years ago, Frederick's relationship with Cordelia had changed from the childish friendship of their youth, into something more devoted and abiding.

"How long do you think it will be?" he asked.

"By the end of the summer, surely," Lydia speculated.

"I wager it will not be nearly that long. Our scholar will wish to claim his bride and settle down in the dower house to run the estate and conduct his experiments in the hothouses without delay," Dorian predicted.

"You would not catch me taking that wager," Darcy said, as he and Elizabeth approached them.

"I doubt they shall make it to the end of the party," said Elizabeth merrily. Lydia's eldest sister was still striking in her way at sixty-one, and her husband still could not be parted from her for long enough to drink port with the men after supper.

At fifty-one, Lydia was still incredibly handsome herself. Her movements and fashion choices were still highly scrutinised whenever she visited town. They had never been blessed again after Frederick was born, and so Lydia never struggled to keep her figure or her youth, and even at her age, only had a bit of grey in her dark locks.

Elizabeth and Darcy's children were all returned to Derbyshire that summer for a visit. Elizabeth had turned over the reins of her business to her twin sons Marcus and Julian, and they had formed Pemberley Investments. The young men were geniuses in banking, and though Elizabeth had ensured the family fortunes decades ago, her sons had done so again many times over. All of the Bennet and Darcy and siblings had shares in the company, and no matter the order of their birth, the Darcy's children had each been given an enormous estate equal to the grandness of Pemberley upon their majorities, and were all fabulously wealthy. By the time Darcy had finished with the jewel scout, and then another after the first retired, Diane and each of the Darcy progeny took a small trunk of precious unset jewels with them to their marriages.

Diane had grown out of her difficult phase, showing greater maturity by the time she returned from her summer in Kent, and married an earl in her twenty-third summer. Her husband was unique in that he had been a doctor before he was unexpectedly elevated upon the death of his third cousin and his family in a fire at their London home. Diane had met the man while attending a medical lecture with her godfather, Mr Roberts, who encouraged Diane's interest in her father's work. Elizabeth and Darcy were as supportive as could be when Diane declared her wish to marry the young physician, and the groom and his bride were shocked when the news arrived a month after the wedding that Diane and her husband were to be an Earl and Countess. The couple lived in Staffordshire with their progeny, and Diane remained close with all of her aunts and their children. When she was in London, Lord and Lady Worthington were very involved in the societies and endeavours started by the father of her birth, Sir Christopher Astley, and worked together to preserve his legacy.

Richard was still unmarried at thirty-two, and Elizabeth despaired of him ever selecting a wife, but her son was as serious as his father, and would only marry for a match like the one he saw in his parents, even if it took him until he was forty to find it. His twin sister Anne did not marry until five and twenty, to the eldest son of a marquess with a reputation for being a rake, but who had quickly settled down upon his marriage. Elizabeth and Darcy had been unsure of the young man, but Anne was set upon having him, and thankfully their second daughter's husband showed every sign of being utterly reformed and devoted to his wife.

Rose Augustine was still unwed, and spent most of her time gallivanting about the world with her father's cousin Anne, who, instead of dying an early death as predicted, had developed a wanderlust in her later years, and the two ladies were incredibly well travelled. They had just returned from New York, and Anne said she had been hard pressed to prevent Rose from running off with a man that they had met who was visiting the city from Tennessee on a family matter. He was set upon undertaking a dangerous wagon journey across the country to settle in the west in a place called Oregon, and Rose had been enraptured by the idea of such an adventure. Anne, after a terrible nightmare involving Rose being attacked and kidnapped by Indians, bundled her young cousin onto a ship for home as quickly as she could manage.

Georgiana had two sons after the birth of her daughter, and spent most of her time in Derbyshire at the Radcliffe's estate, King Oaks Prospect. Her sister, Lady Berkeley, was never blessed with children, and the Radcliffe's eldest son George spent a great deal of time helping his uncle manage the estate which would fall to him someday, along with the title. Her younger son, named Vivian for his father, had always displayed an uncommon interest in his mother's and his Aunt Lizzy's impressive jewels. He spent many hours exploring the chests of gems on his visits to Pemberley, and hearing stories passed on from his aunt and uncle about where and how particular pieces were obtained. There were a number of amusing adventures and anecdotes attached to some of the pieces, and the boy had spent his childhood pretending he was away exploring strange lands, and finding rare jewels. He was now on an expedition to Africa himself, and would one day become an important dealer in famous jewels, even becoming a jeweller to the crown.

They had lost some family members over the years. Lady Catherine and the Matlocks had left them. Both Jane and Charles had succumbed to an epidemic of influenza just five years past, and Richard Fitzwilliam had died of an attack of the heart the year before. Aunt and Uncle Gardiner and their three youngest had been lost to a typhoid epidemic in the year 66. Aunt Ada died of pneumonia ten years previous at the dower house at Haye Park. Mr Bertelli had died of an apoplexy just this spring, and Mrs Bertelli had retired to Pemberley's dower house. Her son Michael was visiting as well, and Fanny took great comfort and pride in him.

Her attention back on the scene before her, Lydia laughed at the view of Mary reading one of Kitty's stories to her numerous grandchildren, as Kitty acted out the scenes with her youngest daughter, Olive. Mary's children numbered four, two boys and two girls. Kitty's eldest son Phillip had been an only child for some years before his two sisters joined their family. Jane had borne more children than any of them, six sons, and three daughters. Elizabeth had shared the fifty-thousand-pound dowry that Jane had declined to accept in the year 47 amongst them as they reached their majorities. It had been invested many times over, and had grown to an incredible sum. When added to the dowries and sums settled upon them by their parents, it made them all impressively wealthy and gave them each independence. Two of Jane's sons, Oliver and Charles, worked with Marcus and Julian at Pemberley Investments.

The four of them joined their remaining siblings, children, and their spouses on the lawn, and enjoyed a day of pure bliss with each other, and their closest friends. The children played in the grass, and competed in races and competitions as the adults cheered and called out encouragement. Lydia looked over to see her son kiss Miss Davenport's hands by the edge of the lake, and leave her at a run. She smiled as she observed the young woman's delight. A quarter hour later, she saw Mr Davenport approach Dorian and speak a few words. Dorian laughed and clapped the man on the shoulder with a wide smile.

Mr Davenport suddenly interrupted everyone's conversation. "If I could please have everyone's attention for a moment. It is my pleasure to announce the betrothal of my daughter Cordelia to Mr Frederick Goulding!"

Lydia watched in pleasure as the young lady blushed and accepted the congratulations of everyone present as her husband slid his arm about her waist. "I knew how it would be!" cried Mrs Bertelli. Lydia looked at her sisters as they all burst into uncontrollable laughter in unison.

"It is incredible, is it not? How some things change, but others never do," Lydia said to her husband and her sister Elizabeth as her future daughter in law rushed over and threw her arms about her neck.

THE END