After an extensive search his body was found in the woods. Evidently, he had ridden through the woods at too high a speed and had not noticed a low hanging branch that had broken his neck. Jane had been beside herself with grief over the loss of her beloved Charles. It hit the whole family very hard, especially his best friend and brother William Darcy.
The only thing that kept Jane Bingley going was her family and her children. She started wearing half mourning after a full two years and would only come out of mourning after another full year.
Jane Bingley never married again, but she lived a very long and happy life surrounded by family and friends. She helped her daughter-in-law learn how to run the Meadows while Charlie learnt how to manage it with the help of the steward and his uncles.
Once she was sure that Anne Bingley was confident in running the manor on the estate, Jane accepted her sister Lizzy’s invitation and moved to Pemberley. She spent a lot of her time either visiting or being visited by family, especially her children, grandchildren, and eventually great-grandchildren.
As much as she missed her beloved Charles, she knew that he would have wanted her to carry on and be strong. And it was true her very nature would allow no less of herself because she had those in her charge that needed her care and love.
He would have wanted her to remarry, but that was one thing that she would never do, and with all the warmth of family to envelop her, she never felt the need.
Tom Bennet and Georgiana Darcy:
Once Tom completed his studies at Cambridge, he went home to Longbourn to learn how to effectively run the estate from his father, Longbourn’s steward, and his brothers-in-law. He had cared for Darcy’s sister above all others from the first time he met her when she had been a guest at Longbourn many years before.
Tom knew that he was irrevocably in love with her before he was halfway through his studies at Trinity College at Cambridge. He had spoken to his brother and Darcy had requested that he not declare himself until Georgie had completed her first full season.
As much as he had wanted to do so earlier himself, he accepted the logic behind Darcy’s decision, and then, later on, he had spoken to his parents and found they had agreed with their son William completely.
It had killed him to watch her dance with other men that first season, and some had tried to call on her, but none were accepted. What he did not know was Georgie was as much in love with him as he was with her. She went out into society only so she would get the chance to dance with him, which would be the opening or supper set, and if he had not been able to claim both, sometimes included the last as well. She was not sure that he loved her as she loved him but was resolute that she would not settle for anyone else.
There were too many examples of love, respect, and felicity among the married couples in her family for her to ever agree to marry for anything less, as she and Kitty had declared even before their first season.
Georgiana had learnt to accept that the folly of her youth helped teach her the value of true love, but more importantly helped her learn the value of herself, which was as far as she would allow it to influence her life.
At the end of the final ball of her first season, a season she had enjoyed with her sister-in-law Kitty Bennet, Tom, at the end of the final set which had been a waltz, had requested he be granted a private interview the next day. She was then just nineteen and Tom had just turned one and twenty. She had agreed to the request with alacrity and immense pleasure.
The next day, just after ten o’clock in the morning, Tom Bennet had made the walk across Grosvenor Square from Bennet House to Darcy House opposite. Killion had opened the door and then announced him to the Darcys who were waiting for him in the family drawing room.
Lizzy and William left telling him that they would grant him ten minutes, and that the door would remain cracked open. As soon as they were alone, he dropped to one knee, told her how long he had loved her, and asked for her hand in marriage. She told him that she had loved him just as long and accepted him.
When the newly engaged couple entered Darcy’s study, they were not overly surprised to see Thomas and Fanny Bennet sitting therein with Lizzy and William. No one opposed the betrothal, but both the Bennet parents and the older Darcys agreed that there would not be a wedding until one year after Tom had completed Cambridge, giving him time to learn what was needed to run Longbourn before his wedding to Georgianna. Although they would have preferred sooner, neither Tom nor Georgie argued for an earlier wedding, as they could see the sense in the decision.
After the almost two-year wait, Tom and Georgiana Bennet emerged from the Kympton Church the happiest of newlyweds. As Reggie Fitzwilliam had done with Snowhaven, Thomas Bennet turned the running of Longbourn over to Tom after he had been married to his Georgie for three years, and she had presented him with Tommy and was increasing again.
Longbourn on its own had an income well in excess of twenty thousand a year that now all went to Tom and Georgie. Georgie and Tom went on to have six children and, like his parents, had two boys and four girls, the difference being they had the boys first, followed by four girls, and no twins.
It was agreed that it was a very fair swap. William had his Lizzy and Tom had Georgie.
James Bennet:
Like his brother Tom did at Longbourn, James spent the time after graduating from Cambridge learning how to run Bennet Fields. With all of the land that Thomas Bennet had added, Bennet Fields was close to three times the size it was at purchase, and now brought in a clear twelve thousand pounds a year on its own.
There was a nice river that ran through Bennet Fields, and Bennet had built a grist mill and a textile factory that used the water to power the looms. With the income from these two operations, a further five thousand pounds was added to James Bennet’s income.
On his five and twentieth birthday, his papa signed Bennet Fields over to James. Like the other Bennet properties, it had an entail that did not allow the land to be broken up or sold to anyone not a Bennet by blood, and that either male or female could inherit.
James was a lot more serene, like his oldest sister Jane, and like her, he had a backbone of steel. A month after he and Tom celebrated their six and twentieth birthday, Tom met Lady Ingrid Wilson, the oldest daughter of the Baron of Wessex. They fell deeply in love and after a short courtship, followed by a shorter betrothal, James married his Lady Ingrid. They went on to have four children, a daughter followed by three sons.
Kitty Bennet:
Kitty, although some months older than then Georgiana Darcy, came out together with her best friend and sister. Kitty knew her best friend in the world, her Georgie, loved Tom, and she was pretty sure the love was requited.
About halfway through her first season, Kitty, whose dowry had climbed to over eighty thousand pounds, met Lord Haywood Mark Rhys-Davies, the Marquess of Chatsworth, oldest son to the Duke of Derby.
At first, she thought he was the most arrogant, proud, and disagreeable man, and they argued almost every time they were in company together. Kitty could not understand why the disagreeable Lord Rhys-Davies, whose close friends and family called him by his second name Mark, kept approaching her.
After she had known him for about six weeks, he came to call on her at Bennet House. Although to most it would be considered rude, Kitty asked him why he would call on her given how much they argued and disagreed.
