Chapter Text
With Elizabeth's new awareness of Darcy's feelings, it was not three weeks before an engagement was announced, to the surprise of no one who knew the pair. What would have been a surprise is the fact that the bride proposed to the groom, but they had been so indifferent to the way the things should be done accordingly to Society that it would have been unlikely that they followed what was expected of them on this.
His cousins' knowledge of the situation helped Darcy to pave the way for Elizabeth's acceptance by her new family—well, most of it, for Lady Catherine de Bourgh was most seriously displeased by the news. That help had a price, though, for the brothers teased him mercilessly, but the gentleman was so happy that he took it with good grace.
The young couple would have wished for a very private wedding, but realised that a big, public, London one would give less possibility for additional gossip later. The new Mrs Darcy never relinquished her position as her husband's secretary.
Caroline Bingley always regretted to have plotted to separate her brother from Jane Bennet, for it negated her chances to gain a deeper connexion with the Darcys. When they met again for the first time after his departure from Hertfordshire, both were still unattached, and Bingley tried to woo Jane again, but she could never allow herself to open her heart again to him, partly because she feared his renewed interest was only due to her improved circumstances, partly because she could not imagine marrying someone she could not trust. Soon Mr Bingley's interest faded, and they only considered the other as an amiable and indifferent acquaintance.
Mr Bingley found his One True Angel a little more than one year after he left Netherfield. The lady had proper fortune and connections, though not as much as his sisters wanted, but was far less sweet-tempered than Jane Bennet. Not that Mr Bingley regretted it, for both of them being very much in love; he was always eager to please her and she him. But she also dedicated herself to gently guide her husband in his decisions and to remain firm in them, to the great displeasure of Mrs Hurst and Miss Bingley, who found there another reason to repent of their scheming.
Jane had planned to live with her sister and her new brother and, in time, teach their children to play their instrument very ill—for after all, she did not know how to play otherwise, having had no desire to learn herself. Those plans were thwarted some ten years after the Darcy's wedding, but she could still see her nieces and nephews very often, for her husband's estate was in the neighbourhood of Pemberley.
Mrs Bennet did not end in the hedgerows, though Mr Bennet was the first to die, for Mr Collins had been by that time a widower with two young sons and needed a lady to take care of them—and so he allowed his cousin's widow to remain in Longbourn. The young Collinses grew very fond of their Aunt Bennet—who revealed herself to be surprisingly competent to raise boys and consoled herself somewhat of the loss of her daughters.
Kitty and Lydia had managed, in the confusing time following their father's death, to join their Uncle Gardiner in America, and Mary Bennet—now Sister Martha of the Balm of Sisterly Consolation—lived happily ever after in her cloister.