Where The Heart Belongs

by Tilly Davis

  Both men dashed inside, and having heard the news, Lydia and Mr. Wickham too followed them upstairs and into the now very crowded bedroom of Elizabeth, where upon the bed lay the young lady, the tiniest of babies wrapped in a blanket and laid in her arms.

  ‘He is beautiful, a very handsome little baby, and the mother doing well too’ Doctor Dukes said.

  ‘A boy,’ Mr. Darcy cried.

  ‘A healthy, splendid, marvellous boy,’ Mrs. Bennet cried, ‘now, Elizabeth, you have done what I could not do.’

  ‘Look at him, Fitzwilliam, isn’t he just perfect?’ Elizabeth said, as Mr. Darcy sat down on the bed next to her and he looked down at his newborn son.

  ‘May I hold him?’

  Elizabeth gently passed the little child to her husband and the baby promptly began to cry, eliciting a roar of laughter from around the room which only made the crying increase.

  ‘Now, now,’ Doctor Dukes said, ‘let the gentleman get used to it, that’s it there.’

  What a happy scene it was around the bed, and it was not long before Jane asked the question which everyone had wished to utter.

  ‘What name shall you give him?’

  ‘Why, we haven’t discussed a name,’ Elizabeth said, ‘but if I may be so bold as to offer one name.’

  ‘Of course,’ Mr. Darcy said.

  ‘Well, it would seem appropriate to name him George after my father, George Bennet, I rather like that name.’

  ‘George is a perfect name,’ Mr. Darcy said, ‘utterly perfect.’

  Mrs. Bennet now began to sob, but her tears were ones of happiness and not of sorrow, reaching out to her daughter, she embraced her and asked if she might hold the baby now, a request to which Elizabeth readily assented.

  Taking the baby in her arms she rocked him gently from side to side, watched by her assembled family, Doctor Dukes having slipped quietly away.

  ‘Isn’t love something of a strange thing,’ she began, ‘it can cause one the deepest of sorrows as it did just a few days ago, and it can also lift one up to the greatest of joys as it does now. Its pursuit can cause unhappiness yet finding it can bring all the happiness in the world. Before us there is so much love, yet in the world there can be so much that is not born of love, but here in my arms is love, and I promise that little George will grow up into a family that loves him.’

  And so, as baby George was passed around the gathered assembly, and Charlotte Lucas arrived to see the boy who would no doubt become her godchild, happiness reigned over Longbourn. For as Mrs. Bennet, who lived an exceedingly long and happy life thereafter, was often keen on saying: ‘love is all you need to make everything right in the end, however bumpy the journey might be.’

  The End

  Afterword

  Thank you so much for reading Where The Heart Belongs.

  I do hope you enjoyed it, and if you have a moment, please kindly leave a review on Amazon.

  I look forward to writing more variations on Pride and Prejudice.

  About the Author

  Tilly Davis is an english woman brought up in Jane Austen country. She loves imagining ways in which Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy get together.