Disclaimer: I don't own Pride and Prejudice. All rights to Jane Austen
Summary: See Previous Chapters
Epilogue
While the details were kept vague from all but those who needed to know, Colonel Fitzwilliam's efforts on the continent were deemed influential enough to the war effort to see him ennobled as Baron Netherfield, a year after the war ended for the second time.
It was the same year that Lydia turned nineteen, and the new Baron broke hearts across England by retiring his red coat, requesting a courtship with her, and proposing not two months later.
They occasionally undertook missions against the Darkness across Europe, though only at need, their previous adventures having satisfied any youthful desire for adventure quite handily.
The Fitzwilliams were blessed with only one child between them, unlike their prolific families, but not out of any lack of martial harmony. Rather, they cheerfully declared young Alexandra Fitzwilliam to be quite enough for two people (and the world) to handle at any one time. Adding more of her would send them quite distracted.
In this, they were quite correct, for the honourable Miss Fitzwilliam learned all her parents could teach her, before travelling to Europe for a University education, and enjoying a brief teaching career at Bedford College. Eventually, she returned to Netherfield to learn its management and join her parents in training and mentoring the other Gifted who rotated through the Herefordshire Chapter-houses.
The Fitzwilliams were helped in this endeavour by Mary and Mr Crawley, who gladly took the name Bennet upon his marriage to the third daughter of Longbourn, as a condition of their inheriting the estate. Old Mr and Mrs Bennet lived to see the youngest of their three Bennet grandchildren born; a boy coming after two girls. With the changed entail, Alice and Sarah Bennet had no need to feel overshadowed by the birth of their brother Damian, and were satisfied to add him to their combined intelligence, an already-formidable force that kept their parents and grandparents quite busy, before Old Mr and Mrs Bennet were called to their final rest one particularly bitter winter.
In between restructuring how the Gifted were recorded, trained and organised, the new generations of Bennets turned Longbourn into a far more productive estate, eventually increasing it's worth to 3000 per annum, and purchasing an additional parcel of land between Longbourn and Netherfield to experiment with new farming and agricultural techniques. Both families lived happily and more or less harmoniously for several generations, not wishing for strife to invite the Darkness back.
Having two Gifted households in the area provided ample opportunity for each to visit their northern relations with some frequency, without leaving Herefordshire unprotected against the forces of Darkness.
Kitty and Georgiana never married, much to the surprise of those who knew them less well than their siblings. Both found much amusement in those who could not fathom why two attractive, well-dowered young ladies would not be in search of husbands. They lived in Darcy House in Lambton all their days, frequently travelling to visit their sisters in the south of England, and to visit the concert halls and art museums of London. When they were at home, the two Spinsters were heavily involved in local charity efforts, particularly those involving orphans, and neither confirmed nor denied their involvement in a series of Gothic Novels by an anonymous author, which were acclaimed as fantastical even by the standards of the genre.
The Darcys of Pemberley and the Bingleys of Stonewall lived less than ten miles from each other, except for those times when they travelled together, to places where dark rumours swirled, between the wives' confinements. The Darcy brood, by the time Mrs Darcy's hair began to grey, numbered eight in total, an even mix of boys and girls, who balanced their father's gravity and their mother's wit in varying measure between them.
Mr Bingley, by contrast, declared himself and his two sons quite happily outnumbered by Mrs Bingley and four daughters. The entire family found themselves welcome wherever they went, between the virtues of kind, sociable natures and exemplary looks. The eldest Miss Bingley, aided by her cousin Miss Darcy, would go on to become an influential force in London Society, lobbying for equal rights and Women's Suffrage, while their siblings crusaded across Continent and Colonies, forever finding new adventures and causes to take up.
They would journey home eventually, as their parents aged and slowed their own battles, but it was a rare Warrior who actually managed to die in their own bed, and in that, the extended family agreed, they managed quite well.
Happiness, after all, is best achieved by a life well-lived.
THE END
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A/N: A/N: Just the epilogue to go! There are another 6000-ish words of bonus scenes and extra chapters that will not be posted online. You can find it on Kindle under the same title, and the pen-name Natasja Rose