Jane Bingley sat at the table, relishing the experience of breaking her fast with her husband of roughly a year. Christmas had come and gone, culminating in the celebration of Twelfth Night. She and Charles had not gone to any raucous parties this year; after all, pregnancy did not lend itself to such occasions. Not that Jane minded missing such entertainment; she had already had ample experience with chaos and misrule and was not eager to suffer more.
Charles smiled softly at her, and she returned his look with a contented, serene one of her own. Life could not be better, and she had determined to adopt Lizzy's philosophy of only remembering the past as it gave her pleasure. In many ways, her life at Longbourn and in Meryton already seemed like a dream. After that last incident, she had left Longbourn that very day, never to return. To her surprise, she did not often find herself missing her childhood home or longing to go back. Derbyshire winters may be harsher than Hertfordshire ones, but she would not trade her current home for Longbourn.
Life had been chaotic at Longbourn in the wake of the dual deaths at Netherfield. She, Lizzy, and their fiances had told her family the truth about that final ride for safety, but they had mutually agreed to tell everyone else an edited version of events that had downplayed the supernatural aspect of the affair. After all, they had not wanted the townspeople to find them fit for Bedlam, and nobody would have believed their account anyway.
Jane herself had also hidden some of the facts from everyone—even Lizzy and Charles. She had never gone into detail about what losing her mind had truly felt like. She had never confessed her belief that she had changed in a fundamental way as a result of her experiences. She had never told them that, even now, she still sometimes felt a deep desire to return to Netherfield and take her place there.
Not that she had any wish to go back to Netherfield—or Hertfordshire, for that matter. No, this desire seemed more residual than deliberate. She did not believe the house to be calling her; instead, she felt that her mind was experiencing something that she had heard of courtesy of those who had lost limbs in the war. Jane had once overheard an injured soldier who had returned home talking about how he still somehow felt pain in his left arm even though he had lost it in combat over a year previous. Sometimes, Jane felt the urge to go home to Hertfordshire and Netherfield. She would never do so. She would never tell anyone.
"I have had a letter from Caroline," Charles said, breaking the amiable silence that had enveloped them.
"Is she well?"
"She has requested my presence in Town. The baron who has been calling on her has asked for a courtship, and she believes that he will ask for her hand in short order."
"Shall we go, then?"
"You shall, of course, stay here; you should not be traveling in your condition."
Jane considered arguing with him, but decided to relent because she did not want to interact with Caroline anyway. They may have been sisters in name, but the haughty woman treated Jane with the bare modicum of courtesy required to stay in Charles's good graces. Prior to her experiences with Netherfield, Jane would have been both accommodating and oblivious to Charlotte's true nature, but Jane Bingley was a bit wiser than Jane Bennet had been.
"How long will you stay in Town?" she asked, sipping her tea and looking at her husband questioningly.
"No longer than necessary, Dearest," he said with a smile that turned gradually into a frown. "If I could avoid going altogether, I would do so, but..."
"But you do not wish to pass up the opportunity to marry Caroline off to a man who is willing to overlook her nature in order to secure her dowry."
"Precisely. How could I allow such a chance to pass me by?"
Jane knew that a younger version of herself would have been appalled at herself and Charles, yet both of them agreed that, in spite of the harrowing nature of the experience, their time at Netherfield had changed them for the better in some respects. Jane had grown more discerning, and Charles had grown more assertive. While both of them had relished the freeing of their minds from Netherfield's foul influence, neither of them had wanted to return to the people they had been beforehand.
"Perhaps if we traveled slowly, we could reach Town before Caroline's suitor asks for her hand," she said, giving him her most winsome smile as she changed her mind about her desire to go with her husband.
"Is such an endeavor worth the inherent risks?"
"We already survived the ride from Netherfield to Longbourn; I believe we should have relatively fewer problems with a leisurely trip to Town."
Charles grinned at her sheepishly, acknowledging her point.
"Perhaps we could visit your family as we gradually make our way towards Town," Bingley capitulated with a grin of anticipation. "We could make allowances for weather and road quality and travel as quickly or slowly as we desire."
"Thank you, Charles," Jane said, looking at him lovingly. He truly was the best of men.
"I was not looking forward to being separated from you, Jane," he confessed after taking a sip of his own tea. "Settling Caroline's future is not worth our spending a single day apart."
"I could not agree more, my love," Jane said.
Jane chewed her bite of toast with satisfaction, already anticipating her upcoming visits with her family. She was looking forward to seeing her parents, her younger sisters, and, of course, Lizzy. The two of them got to see each other relatively often, but she missed her dearest sister immensely. Life at Norhaven was idyllic and Jane could not be happier with the estate that Mr. Darcy had helped them purchase, but she knew that, unlike her infrequent urges to go back to Netherfield, she would always long for the company of Lizzy.
"I shall write our loved ones immediately," Charles said, standing up from the table.
"Perhaps I should handle our correspondence, Dearest," she replied with a wry grin somewhat reminiscent of her favorite sister.
"Our messages do tend to reach their destinations more quickly when you write them, Jane," he admitted.
"Perhaps you should ensure that you have addressed any pressing estate issues so that we will be able to leave soon," she suggested.
Charles agreed, and they were both soon productively employed. As Jane put pen to paper, she mused that life had turned out quite wonderfully for a woman who had once lost her mind but had had it returned to her by her loved ones.
AN: This is Part I of the epilogue, so if you find yourself wondering, "But what about such-and-such?", I will hopefully answer your questions tomorrow with Part II. Pretty much everyone's questions should be answered after tomorrow's chapter, but if you have questions, feel free to ask them so I can make sure to write them into the epilogue. I'll be giving a more extensive thank-you tomorrow, but I would still like to thank everyone for following this story. I think it's one of the best I've ever written, and I'm glad to have shared it with y'all. Happy Halloween!
