Page 131 of The Crown’s Gift

"Do you believe him?" Darcy asked.

Sir Thomas listened to laughter overhead. "Tonight, perhaps."

* * *

Bingley found his estate two years after leasing Longbourn.

Hazelwood lay twelve miles west of Netherfield, close enough for Lady Bennet to visit without luggage and far enough for Jane to establish a household not arranged around childhood memories. The house was smaller than Longbourn, the land well watered, and the tenant farms neglected in ways Bingley now knew how to recognize.

"The roof is sound," he told Sir Thomas after the inspection.

"A low standard learned wisely."

Jane walked through the empty rooms carrying Emma, now a lively toddler who attempted to open every cupboard.

"Can you imagine us here?" Bingley asked.

Jane looked through the drawing-room windows toward an orchard. "Yes. Not because it is perfect. Because we may decide what it becomes."

He purchased Hazelwood in the spring.

Leaving Longbourn was harder than Jane expected. She stood in the nursery while servants packed and remembered fear before her wedding, Emma's first cry, and Bingley walking the floor at night.

"We can remain," he said. "The lease continues."

"No. Loving a house is not the same as belonging in it forever."

They left Sir Thomas's grandfather on the stairs and Mary's height marks beside the schoolroom door. They took the desk Jane had moved to the east window and the cradle Sir Thomas gave Emma.

Longbourn was leased next to a retired naval captain and his wife, who had no unmarried sons and therefore disappointed Meryton. Mr Collins inspected the agreement, approved the rent, and returned to Hunsford after Charlotte reminded him that inheritance did not require rehearsal.

At Hazelwood, Bingley applied everything Sir Thomas taught him and made new mistakes of his own. He replaced a tenant barn before ordering new stables. Jane opened a small school. Caroline visited and advised on the drawing room without moving ancestral portraits because there were none.

The move changed the map of family life. Netherfield stood at the center, Hazelwood to the west, Longbourn below the hill, Pemberley three days north, and London connecting them all through letters and seasons.

Darcy and Elizabeth visited in summer with Anne. The two little girls played beneath the orchard trees while their parents dined outdoors.

"I once believed buying an estate would prove my father had succeeded," Bingley told Darcy. "Then I believed marrying Jane made the house irrelevant. Now I discover land matters because people depend upon what I do with it."

Darcy looked toward Sir Thomas, who carried Emma on his shoulders and pretended not to listen.

"An inconvenient lesson," Darcy said.

"They are the lasting sort," Sir Thomas called.

Jane came to Elizabeth under the apple trees. "I thought I would grieve Longbourn more."

"You carried what mattered."

"And left what should remain."

Emma ran toward them with grass on her gown. Anne followed more slowly, holding a fallen apple in both hands.

Elizabeth lifted her daughter.

"Two houses became three," Jane said.

"Mama will require a larger visiting calendar."