Georgiana Darcy had come out at eighteen, and in the following two seasons, she had shown no interest in any man who had attempted to call on her. After Tom’s graduation, he had offered a courtship to Giana. She had been ready for an engagement, as she had been in love with Tom for many years. His parents and her guardians had agreed to a six-month courtship followed by an engagement of the same length.
That way, when they married from Pemberley, Tom was almost three and twenty and Giana one and twenty. By then, Tom was fully in charge of Netherfield Park. Even though it was only deeded to him when he reached the age of five and twenty, he was the master in every sense of the word. When they married in May of 1816, after spending a month at Seaview House—the Darcy's house near Brighton—for a month, Giana became the mistress of Tom’s estate.
Their first child, a son, was born in October of 1817. He was named Liam Thomas. In late 1818 Giana was with child and before the quickening had a miscarriage. She had worried she would have the same problems her late mother had birthing children. Her worries were washed away when a daughter was born in November 1819. Then she delivered a second son in July of 1821. After each delivery, Giana recovered as would be expected and never exhibited the same issues her late mother had suffered from.
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Ellie had come out during the season of 1817. Because of her birthday in January, unlike the rest of her sisters, she was not brought out during the Little season, and she had requested to delay her coming out a little—something Becca and Bennet agreed to with alacrity.
Towards the end of that first season, Ellie met Lord Wesley De Melville, Viscount Westmore, the heir to the Earl of Jersey. Ellie was approaching the age of nineteen, and he was seven and twenty. He had been sick and tired of all of the insipid debutantes and their families who attempted to attract his notice. Hence, when he met Ellie, who was not at all the same, but rather quite the opposite, there had been an instant attraction.
He had courted her assiduously. At first Ellie had been tepid towards him, but bit by bit he had won her heart. In February of 1818, some ten days after Ellie turned twenty, she accepted him, and they were married at the end of March that year.
Westmore, Wes’s estate, was in Warwickshire. Much to Becca’s delight, her youngest, when not in London, was less than a day away from Longbourn. Ellie delivered a son, named Cyril Thomas for his two grandfathers, in August of 1819. A second son had followed in December 1820, and Ellie suspected she was with child again.
The most important thing had been that, like all of her siblings, Ellie had made a love match.
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The last in her children’s generation of the extended family to marry was Ian. He had married his beloved, the daughter of a very well-off tradesman, in September of 1821. Hehad had his parents’ approbation for the match and his wife was everything they could have wanted for him in his viscountess. His wife was with child for the first time.
His sisters were long married—they happened to fall in love with twin brothers, sons of the Duke of Hertfordshire—and between them had six children.
Will, who was addressed as William when his father passed away and he ascended to the dukedom, and his duchess Marie, were very pleased when Rosemarie married Jamie Carrington, Viscount Hadlock, in 1813—they had three sons and Rosemarie was with child again, hoping for a daughter—and his son Will had married the daughter of an earl in 1815. Will had become the Marquess of Hartington when his father had become the next Duke of Devonshire. To date they had two daughters and a son, who in the tradition of the Cavendishes had been named William.
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Nothing was heard from Charles Bingley until he brought his family to visit the land of his birth in 1818. He had become a very successful industrialist in the fledgling United States of America. He, his wife, and three children were visiting London when they came across the Darcys strolling in Hyde Park.
The meeting was awkward, but became less so when Darcy saw how much his former friend had changed. The relationship thawed fully when Bingley had offered a full and sincere apology for his former behaviour. The Bingleys and the Hursts were invited to a dinner at Darcy House one evening before the former’s family was to depart England again. The latter had three children, a daughter and two sons. The daughter and second son had benefited greatly from the dowry, which used to belong to the late Caroline Bingley. Hurst invested itand half of his wife’s remaining original dowry with Edward Gardiner. Over the years the amount had practically tripled.
Miss Caroline Bingley, from what the Hursts had learnt, had lasted less than a year in New South Wales. She had evidently angered some local women with her airs and graces and had been found stabbed to death behind an ale hall.
The last remaining bad actor, William Collins, who no one thought about again once he had been committed to Bedlam, had lived for five years in his new home before pneumonia had claimed him.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Becca looked at the group on the veranda; it had expanded as they had been joined by Mary and Richard, Lizzy and Liam, in addition to Maria and Henry. The rest of the extended family would arrive over the next few days. Regardless of their monetary wealth, this was the true riches her family had. Their children and those of the rest of the family, and the love they exuded within their immediate and extended family.
Yes, she had been the next Mrs Bennet, but Becca was fully cognisant that other than being thankful for Jane, Thomas had erased the harpy who had compromised him from his memories.
In all ways that counted, she was the first and only Mrs Bennet in Thomas’s eyes. Yes, God had been very good to them.
~~~The End~~~
PLEASE NOTE:
Following is a free copy of ‘Her Grace’ for you to enjoy. As my next one is ‘Her Grace Revisited’, which is not a rewrite of the original. Rather it is a new story using most of thesame characters found in ‘Her Grace’ with different situations, direction, and characteristics.
It will be ready by the end of June 2025.
Free for your enjoyment: HER GRACE
A Pride & Prejudice Vagary
By Shana Granderson, A Lady
Copyright © 2023 Shana Granderson
