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I continued implacably. “I would have done it! I made him see in no uncertain terms that I was perfectly willing to drag him down with us.”

I again took Lizzy’s hands. “Lizzy, I have one more confession. I do not really know how or why I did it, but when I left, I agreed to write to Mother and tell her the truth. She had earned nothing from me, but some instinct made me agree. She agreed to keep my privacy, and why I managed to trust the most prolific gossip in Meryton I do not know, but I did it.”

Lizzy by then was so shocked she really could not say anything, but I had to finish the story.

“Lizzy, she knows what she did! Do you know she talked to Charles for half an hour whilst waiting for Wickham and Collins to do themselves in? She knows what she did; she knows what she is, but in the end, she did her best to undo the damage. I do not ask for forgiveness for her, only acknowledgment.”

“You did the right thing, Jane. It all worked out for the best, so do not chastise yourself. All of us can only do our best, and you were looking out for your family to the best of your ability. I have no complaints. I am curious though, how you managed to keep Aunt and Uncle Gardiner out of this, considering how long I was gone.”

That question was at least one I could answer without causing any more distress.

“Initially, I simply bludgeoned Uncle into submission on our way here. He was my next victim after father, but I was certainly not going to allow another family to come to ruin just because ours was. He let us go along only under the most intense objections, but he had to look to his family first. After the attack, I do not believe there is a single thing in the world that would have kept him and Aunt from our door except the protection of your Fitzwilliam. Aunt Gardiner knew of him and trusted him. Your man made it abundantly clear whose protection we were under, and Uncle accepted it.”

With our very last secrets exposed, we all felt a great sense of relief. Those of us planning to be married on the morrow were relieved that we could go to our new husbands and our new lives in our new homes with our new children with nothing hanging over our heads. Those who would be married later knew that they had good men, good sisters, good family to see to their entry into adulthood, and I firmly believed all would be well.

Ballroom

Lady Catherine

I must say that the day I lost my three very worthy nieces to marriage may well have been the happiest day of my life, and it remained so until my Anne married her Thomas two years after Lizzy, though the day Anne’s little Margaret was born might have ranked highly, and the day her George came along was not to be disdained either… but back to my point.

With only one day to prepare the wedding, I did the only thing a woman with my extensive experience and much-celebrated good sense could: I assigned the task to all the nieces who were not presently engaged to be married, and retired to my parlour to enjoy the company of those who were. Of course, with the way things were proceeding in Kent that spring, there was no guarantee that any members of the former would not join the ranks of the latter before the day was out, but since there were no unwed men in the house, we all hoped for the best.

The girls dusted out the ballroom for the ceremony. It had not been used in years, but with five girls to introduce to society the next season, I imagined it would have to reclaim some of its former glory. The girls, in a frightening breach of the usual rules of propriety, invited everyone who worked at Rosings to witness the ceremony, apparently believing that the three marriages were so far-fetched they would need as many witnesses as possible.

And so it was that the three loveliest ladies I knew entered the ballroom together at ten o’clock on Monday morning, the nineteenth of April in the year thirteen; and they all walked past everyone who could be stuffed in, from the stable boy to the butler.

They all, every one of them, glowed with happiness, and I imagine I could describe their dresses or their hair or their other fripperies in agonising detail, but to be candid, I mostly saw only the happiness.

Elizabeth, resplendent in a blue gown with the long sleeves that hid the scars on her arms and would no doubt grace her arms for all but her husband for the rest of her life, just like Anne, had her hair up with two onyx combs holding it in place. They made me practically weep, as the last time I could clearly remember seeing them was when my sister Anne walked down the aisle wearing them to marry George Darcy. My nephew had clearly brought them from Pemberley with a purpose in mind—clever boy, my Fitzwilliam.

Jane was wearing a light yellow gown, and her hair was held up with some combs that belonged to Anne. Her beau would have ridden to London for his mother’s jewels with only another day to wait, but the suggestion would have sent all the men practically into hives, so Jane would have to be content. She had a look of serenity that had been absent these long months, and I thought it might well be a reasonably permanent fixture. Her husband-to-be seemed a most amiable gentleman, solid as a rock and a credit to his sex. He had made a point of telling me he had not always been so, to which I naturally replied by rapping his knuckles with my fan. I knew what he had done.

Charlotte was the type of woman that other mothers would try to call ‘plain’, but that was only because there was a feeling of solidity to her that others may have lacked, and she certainly had her fair share of beauty. She wore a green gown, deliberately tight across the middle under her bosom, simply daring anyone to criticise her. She had taken a level of censure that only Elizabeth, Betsy, or I in this house could truly understand, and set her own path using her own means; and she did not forget to bring young Betsy with her… make that six girls I needed to introduce into society, though Betsy’s turn would not come for some years.

Elizabeth’s Uncle Gardiner escorted her to her waiting bridegroom. A flurry of expresses had brought him along with his wife on a Sunday afternoon which would ordinarily have been considered bad manners, but he did what he liked.

Sergeant MacDonald, not looking the least bit repentant that he had not kept a closer watch on the miscreant Collins on his last day on this earth, stood up proudly with Fitzwilliam, while his wife stood as witness for Elizabeth. I had invited them both to live above stairs at Rosings, but they were perfectly content where they were, so I simply resolved to keep a watchful eye on them from afar.

Richard’s brother, the viscount, stood with him as witness, and his father, the Earl of Matlock, gave away Charlotte. The way his wife Beatrice was hovering over the poor girl, I suspect it was only considered a temporary transfer, as they would be whisked off to Matlock before she could take a breath, and all those clothes the girls had made while watching Elizabeth may or may not survive the ordeal.

Charlotte would do well, and I was proud to know her.

Betsy was to stay with me as my ward along with the rest of the Bennet sisters, and all were happy with that arrangement, or at least they would be until one of the sisters grew restless and ‘borrowed’ them for a month or a season.

Having no shortage of women to stand up with Charlotte, the Bennets drew straws for the honour, and Mary won the privilege.

As anyone who knows them would expect, Lydia stood up with Jane, and much to the assembled crowd’s amusement, Fitzwilliam took a small diversion from his duties as groom to give her away. Everything was done strictly according to protocol in my home; I can assure you of that. He had far more influence in her life and gave her far more protection than her father ever had.

Mr Bingley had a man named Mr Stockton stand up with him, though he was slightly guarded about exactly what the relationship was. Mr Stockton was a gentlemanlike man that I suspected would do very well for one of the other Bennet daughters, but matchmaking was not my business, so they could work it out for themselves.

And so it was, that I had three lovely ladies standing up next to three very worthy gentlemen, and all was right with the world. Certainly, there would be trials and tribulations and vexations and pain and birth and death and enjoyment and… just life. The fates had tested all six, and eventually, but not without some real difficulty, found them worthy.

Those men and women not only rescued themselves, but they rescued me, and I would be forever in their debt.

Epilogue

Mystery Narrator