Ok, wow, this is the last chapter. Thank you so much for reading this story. Don't worry, I will be uploading another Jean story soon. It's been in the works for an incredibly long time and I'm still working out some kinks. It's been a pleasure!
ALSO: IF ANYONE HAS A TUMBLR ACCOUNT, LET'S BE FRIENDS :D I'm wisdomspearl on Tumblr.
Chapter 50: The Forgotten Years
EPILOGUE
In the May of 1784, Jean Villeneuve and Evangeline Cromwell were wed. Every trouble from the years before they joined together had been forgotten and they faced the remaining ones together. While Jean and Eve had been away, Adele and George had fallen in love. It was an odd match but they married in the June of 1785 and did not wish to look back. They had seven children together. Mary married the officer and moved back to Devonshire with him. Upon Lady Davidson's death in the July of 1785, Peter decided to take Mary and her husband on and be their benefactor to support them and their three children: all girls. Jane married the baker's son and lived the rest of her days in Hutton-Le-Hole with him and their two children. Peter married a young woman who was a class below him. Eve had taught him that love in marriage was more important than anything else. He waited, of course, until after his mother's death. He inherited the massive estate from her and lived the rest of his days out happily with five children, all boys. Arabella finally married and had one child: a daughter, who she named after her mother but she was determined to raise her differently. Sarah and Alphonse had three more children. Ben Martin sold them some land and Alphonse built a reasonable home upon it. He became a farmer and Sarah was more than happy to live that life. She never looked back.
And, finally, Eve had four children with Jean. Angelique was their first born. They named her in honor Jean's late wife. She took after her mother more than any of the other children but she had many of her father's characteristics and his temper. Jean Villeneuve II was their second born. He was exactly like his father in every way. He was born two years after Angelique when Eve was twenty eight. When she was thirty, she had twins in America: Sarah and Louise. They also raised Margot and her brother as their own, giving them a future they would never had imagined. They married well and had an inheritance.
When the French Revolution hit full force, Jean and Eve had to flee France with their children. They barely escaped with their lives. Jean was nearly arrested, having been a retired member of the royal army and the relative of an aristocrat. Eve left France before him and fled to Devonshire, where she and her children waited three grueling months, wondering if he would return alive. He did, fortunately, but Eve did not wish to stay in England and partake in society there. Jean uprooted his family from Europe and moved to America, where Ben, with open arms, welcomed his friend and his family. They ended up living in a lovely home only two miles away from Sarah and Alphonse.
Adele and George also had to flee France with the heat of the revolution at their heels. Eve's parents followed suit, selling their fine home in Blois. They stayed in England, where Anne and Lord Douglas had stayed once she gave birth to a son. Lord Douglas lost his manor in Blois to a fire, which had been set by some disgruntled peasants. Jean's manor was spared, however. He would return to it in 1820 to see his son.
After fifty years of marriage, in 1834, Jean passed away at the very old age of ninety three, surprisingly. Eve and Jean saw it as humorous that so many had told her that he was knocking at death's door when he married her. Eve was seventy four but left well provided for. Their children married well. Jean II moved back to England at the height of the Napoleonic Wars and married a displaced daughter of a French Aristocrat. They moved back to Blois and reopened his father's manor before having six children: four boys and two girls. Angelique married Ben's son, Nathan Martin. They continued on in America, farming with their ten children. Sarah Villeneuve married the son of the mayor of a rebuilt Pembroke. They had three children. Louise Villeneuve followed his brother to France but felt a calling to join the church. It was nearly in ruins in France at the time but he became a priest and carried on. He lived out the rest of his days as a missionary, even living in India for a quarter of his life.
Eve died in 1856, in her nineties. She never imagined that the life she lived would have been as full as it was when she was only twenty three and had fallen into Jean's arms when he caught her that fateful day in 1783. She never could have imagined that was the day her life began.
