The Darcys were eventually blessed with eight children. Next, after the triplets was a son Alexander, followed by twin girls Jane and Amanda, then came the last daughter, Pricilla, who was followed by the baby of the family, the eighth Darcy child and son, Edward. For all the happiness their children gave them, not all was smooth sailing.
Elizabeth Darcy had a miscarriage between Alex and the twin girls which caused a depression of some length. It took her mother, Jane, and Aunt Elaine assisting her husband to pull her out of the doldrums she had sunk into.
In twisted logic, much like her beloved William had after Ramsgate, she blamed herself. It took reminders of her opinion of her husband taking too much on himself to finally get through to her and she started to recover. A year later after her recovery, she birthed her twin girls.
As much as Elizabeth and William Darcy were in the deepest love imaginable, which is as would be expected with two very strong and intelligent people, they did argue from time to time. No matter how vociferous the argument, they never went to bed without reconciling, which only made the marriage that much stronger.
The servants at Pemberley very quickly learned that if a door was closed, they should walk away or knock, but never walk in unannounced. As they got older the Darcy children learned that hard lesson as well.
Ben would one day inherit Pemberley, but each of his brothers would inherit one of the additional three Darcy estates. George the largest, then Alex, and finally Edward. The smallest of the estates made more than six thousand per annum clear, so Edward had nothing about which to complain.
In addition, each of the three boys were given a fortune of one hundred thousand pounds which equalled the dowries of each of their sisters. As all the money was invested with Gardiner and Associates, each of the younger seven Darcy children had an income of more than ten thousand a year just from their investments and that was before any estate income the boys also received.
As he would inherit Pemberley and the bulk of the remaining Darcy fortune, Ben did not begrudge his siblings their fortunes. Ben, at the age of five and twenty, fell in love with the eldest daughter of the Earl of Holder, Lady Amelia Bretton, who at eighteen was having her first season.
They married a year later, and as it had for his beloved mother, the marriage settlement left Lady Amelia’s dowry of fifty thousand pounds untouched, and it was invested with Gardiner and Associates for their future children.
George married Sarah Elliot, Patrick and Charlotte Elliot’s second daughter, the first born to Charlotte. George, upon his marriage, was given the largest of the other estates in Nottinghamshire, less than a day’s travel from Pemberley and Kympton.
Franny Darcy would not settle for anything less than the love that she saw in her parents’ and grandparents’ marriages, and so it took her four seasons to fall in love with the son and heir to the Earldom of Wokingham in Berkshire.
Lord Reading, or Christopher Pierce, was the one that finally won her heart, and at the age of three and twenty she was married from the Kympton Church by her Uncle Elliot. It was the last duty he performed before he retired to his estate in Shropshire.
Jane Darcy married the second son of the Duke of York, and when the older brother died in a foolish and ill-advised curricle race, her husband became the Marquess and she the Marchioness. Some years later they became the Duke and Duchess of York.
Amanda never found anyone she felt worthy of marriage, and she became the spinster aunt that used to spend time at the homes of her siblings and cousins spoiling her nieces and nephews rotten.
Pricilla married the heir to Rosings Park, her Cousin Rudi Ashby, and they had a long and loving marriage with many children, grandchildren, and eventually great-grandchildren. They and their heirs through the ages kept up the tradition of hosting the whole extended family at Rosings Park for Easter.
In his tenth year of marriage to his beloved Pricilla, Rudi added a wing with more guest rooms to the manor house to accommodate their ever-growing family. The baby of the family, Edward Darcy, twelve years younger than the triplets, married the daughter of an associate of Edward Gardiner, his namesake, and they happily settled at his estate in the shire of Durham.
Five years after Ben’s marriage, and when he and his wife had been blessed with a son and daughter already, Darcy started to intensify the training for Ben to take over the day-to-day running of Pemberley. After Ben’s three and thirtieth birthday, Darcy turned the running of Pemberley over to him.
Darcy still controlled the investments and was always there for needed advice. For three months each year, Elizabeth and William Darcy were to be found at Seaview Cottage, now really a misnomer as it had been expanded three times to accommodate the ever-growing extended family and had as many servants as Longbourn.
The balance of the time they travelled to see their children, and when they came, grandchildren, and eventually great-grandchildren. Each year they took between one and three months to travel to some exciting destination like Paris, Rome, Athens, Jerusalem, or Cairo to name a few.
Through all their years, through all their triumphs and trials, neither of them ever regretted the time Darcy, out of a sense of familial obligation to his uncle, aunt, and cousins was persuaded to introduce himself to Thomas Bennet at Longbourn those many years ago.
Fanny and Thomas Bennet:
After having turned the running of Longbourn over to Tom and Bennet Fields to James some ten years previously, Fanny and Thomas Bennet were sitting on the terrace at Seaview Cottage overlooking the sea toward Brighton. They were waiting for Elaine and Reggie to join them for a three-week stay, for once just the four of them.
As he swirled the port around in his glass, Bennet looked over at his beloved wife. Yes, her hair was mostly grey now and she had some lines on her face, but she was still the beautiful and vivacious Fanny Gardiner he had married almost fifty years earlier.
After thinking for a minute, he took one of Fanny’s hands. “Can you imagine what our life would have been like if God had not blessed us with Tom and James those many years ago?” he asked quietly.
“I do not even want to imagine it, Thomas,” she frowned. “Look at how we were, what kind of people we had become before the boys were born. I would have let mynervesovertake my life and become ever sillier and more inappropriate, and you would have withdrawn even more and cared less and less for us and the estate.
“Could you imagine the horror our daughters’ lives could have been had we not had sons and that criminal of a parson Collins had been your heir?” she shuddered. “I would have tried to force one of the girls to marry him to save the home, thinking only of myself and not what would have been good for the girls. No, it is too horrible to imagine, Thomas.”
“You are absolutely right, my love,” he agreed as he kissed her hand and took a sip of his port. “It would have been worse than we can likely now imagine. As it is, we do not have to think about it other than as a path not taken but well learned from. Look at what did in fact happen.” He smiled at her, the one that was reserved only for her. “All of our children are in happy, respectful, and loving marriages. We have grandchildren aplenty and our children love to host us. We are beloved by them and all the extended family. Look at the legacy we will leave them, and I do not just mean in terms of wealth.”
“I agree, Thomas. The best legacy that we have passed onto our children is the value of love, respect, and the content of one’s character, not the value of the bank account. And you and me? We do not spend a day where we are not in each other’s company, when before the boys we almost never spent time together even though we had made a love match. As Lizzy says, think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure. We have a lot of pleasure in our past, Thomas, and I daresay we have a lot to come.” She teased him and he chuckled as he tried to swallow his port with some dignity.
“We have had a life of love, respect, and felicity,” Fanny stated as she smiled at Bennet.
“We have a lot of life to live yet Fanny. Do you think our children know when we are gone they will each get an additional two hundred and fifty thousand pounds? You know what the best thing is? Even if they knew they would not care. Money and material possessions have never driven any of our children or family. Even after the bequests to his brother and sisters, Tom will still have more than enough liquid and invested money to last many lifetimes.”
“I was so very happy the whole family supported us as we opened schools for not so well-off children, servants, and tenants. So far, we are in ten counties, and I know after we have gone the family will continue that legacy.” Fanny sighed and then looked again at her husband. “It all started with my introspection and that waddle I made to go beseech God in the Longbourn Church. He heard us and allowed us to change our fortunes. We have done very well, Thomas, yes we have done very well indeed.” She agreed quietly, smiling at him with the knowledge that only comes with age, that love is the true value of one’s life.
Love was their true wealth and legacy, and with the love between them and with their extended family and dearest friends, whom they loved as deeply as family and friends could be loved, they were amongst the wealthiest people ever.
~~~The End~~~
