Page 136 of The Crown’s Gift

Elizabeth touched the tree's rough bark. "Do you regret the attention that followed?"

"Often. Never the result."

"Netherfield?"

Sir Thomas looked toward the road leading home. "You. Jane. Mary. Kitty. Lydia. Your mother. The result was time I ceased throwing away."

They stood beneath bare branches while church bells tolled for a king.

That night the family dined without formal mourning speeches. Children moved between chairs. Emma asked Sir Thomas to tell the sugar-plum story and was corrected by Anne whenever embellishment contradicted prior versions.

"Were you afraid of the swords?" Thomas Charles asked.

"Very."

"Did you know the King would give you a house?"

"I hoped he would allow me to keep my head."

"Did you become good that day?"

The adults quieted.

Sir Thomas considered the question.

"No. I decided to try that day. Becoming is slower."

Anne nodded as if this accorded with her experience.

Later, Darcy joined Sir Thomas in the emptying dining room.

"The new King may invite you to Court."

"I shall decline unless duty requires it. I have received enough kings."

"And enough gifts?"

Sir Thomas listened to his grandchildren overhead. "More than enough."

* * *

The King's death did not end the life his gratitude altered.

Netherfield continued beneath Sir Thomas's management, then increasingly under Kitty's supervision when she discovered that drawing landscapes taught her to read land as well as render it. She did not surrender art. She built a studio over the old orangery and travelled to exhibitions with a respectable widow as companion.

"You require an heir in practice if not law," she told her father. "Lizzy has Pemberley, Jane Hazelwood, Mary London, and Lydia expects to follow the army. I am here. Teach me."

Sir Thomas did.

He showed her leases, crop records, drainage maps, and the mistakes hidden in old accounts. Kitty's eye for proportion made her excellent at boundaries. Her patience with people exceeded his. In time, the family agreed Netherfield would pass principally to Kitty, with financial shares equalized among the sisters according to the grant.

Lady Bennet mourned that Kitty might remain unmarried until Kitty received an offer from Mr Edward Alden, the widowed younger son of a neighboring family and an amateur botanist who admired her work before her portion. Kitty accepted after a year's friendship and refused to leave Netherfield. Mr Alden came to her instead.

Mary and Mr Avery had two sons and a daughter. Mary published under her full married name after the success of her fifth collection. Her music was performed at Pemberley, Court, and occasionally by young ladies who ignored the difficult passages. She remained quiet in large rooms and no longer mistook quiet for absence.

Lydia married Samuel, by then Captain Carter, after making him wait long enough to satisfy herself rather than Sir Thomas. Their marriage travelled between ports. Lydia wrote vivid letters, managed charity funds with fierce honesty, and still overspent on ribbon once a year.

Jane and Bingley filled Hazelwood with children, guests, and improvements. Bingley became a respected landowner without losing the warmth that once made him vulnerable. Caroline visited twice yearly, spoiled the children, and criticized the drawing-room curtains as proof of affection.