“With all my heart.”
“Can Mrs. Darling hear me, Mummy?” Harry called out from the adjoining room. “Am I helping her?”
“Yes, dearest. You are helping Mrs. Darling very much.”
Harry was into his fifth rendition of Mother Hubbard, none of them the same, the many words he could not read replaced by his vivid imagination. He had a gift for creating fanciful tales from the kernels of his children’s stories, embellishing details and adding his own characters and animal sounds. For this reading, Mother Hubbard was a woman named Mrs. Darling, deathly ill with a stomach ache from eating green apples and currently having a baby in France. She and her baby were then going to eat chocolate cake. Amanda and Lizzy both smiled in amusement as they listened.
Then the pains began again, growing closer in time and much greater in intensity. “I believe you are now two minutes apart. Things should be moving more quickly now.” Amanda leaned over Lizzy and gently smoothed back the sweat-dampened hair that had matted on her forehead. “Mrs. Darcy, I will try to feel for the child, if I have your permission?”
Elizabeth nodded and then smiled, her eyes crinkling in amusement. “I think that we are embarking onto a level of acquaintance where we may begin calling each other by our Christian names, do you not agree, Cousin Amanda?”
Amanda laughed as she sat on a stool between Lizzy’s legs. “Yes, I believe you are right, Cousin Elizabeth.”
Another contraction hit Elizabeth like a thunderbolt, and she grabbed at the sheets, her body constricted in pain. Amanda waited a moment until the pain subsided, and then, while she pressed her hand on Lizzy’s abdomen, she felt for the baby’s head, finding it very near the opening. She was telling Lizzy to be prepared soon to push when a familiar voice was heard from the downstairs’ landing. It was Fitzwilliam, calling out first Amanda’s name and then Elizabeth’s.
Chapter 4
Fitzwilliam walked into the empty foyer and looked about, frightened by the unusual quiet. His first impression was that someone had broken into the house and, beginning to panic, he called out his wife’s name, then Darcy’s and Elizabeth’s. The stillness in the house was suddenly broken by a scream from the upstairs and Amanda’s voice calling to him.
“Amanda!” he shouted, terrified, then was relieved when she called out calmly to him again, “I’m fine, Richard… fifty-one, fifty-two… up in the bedrooms… fifty-five…”
“I was by Penwood House at eight exactly. Why did you not wait for me?” Richard protested as he climbed the steps, up to the living quarters. “That is completely unacceptable, Amanda. Whatever were you thinking, walking around the streets alone?”
At the sight of the colonel entering the dressing-room doorway, Harry whooped happily and threw down his book. He ran toward him, leaping into his outstretched arms. “Hello, son. Whatever is going on in here?” The colonel stopped cold at the sight of the broken sitting-room door, overturned tables, and debris littering the floor of the hallway.
Harry took a deep breath. “Well, it is all very exciting. Mrs. Darling has been hurt by the Frenchies and is crying, but Mummy said she won’t be made to sleep outside for wetting the carpet.” Harry scratched his earlobe and nodded his head seriously while he relayed his version of the night’s events. He took another deep breath. “Mrs. Darling is crying really very loudly sometimes because her tummy hurts, and she is anxious that when someone named William comes home and sees the wet carpet, he will be angry and spank her. She keeps calling his name out and says she loves him, though. She feels really, really sick, and we must protect her. Mama thinks she may throw up a baby.”
Just then another contraction brought yet another, even louder scream from Elizabeth. Putting Harry down, Fitzwilliam ran into the room.
“What’s going on in here?” he demanded. “Amanda, are you all right?”
At first he saw only his wife, and then his eyes found Lizzy on the bed. He spun around, uttering a startled, “Oh my God!” Lizzy’s bare feet and part of her legs were peeking out from under the sheet that Amanda had placed for privacy over her open and bent knees.
“Richard, thank heavens you’re here. Please find someone to fetch the doctor immediately, and the midwife. I sent Mary down ages ago, but I don’t understand what’s taking so long, and where is everyone?”
“Hello, Richard.” Lizzy’s voice was very faint.
“I saw no one when I entered, not even Darcy. For God’s sake, where is he? He’s been a hovering pain in the ass for eight months!”
“They had a disagreement, and he walked out, left the poor thing alone and unguarded.”
“If I could just say something in his defense.” Lizzy lifted her finger to gain attention.
“The fool is nearing a breakdown. He probably just needed to get out of the house and walk it off. He’ll return.”
“Well, I hope you’re right. Anyway, can you please take Harry somewhere safe? I was so frightened before; it appeared as if Mary was going to walk off with him.”
“I told you to wait for me, did I not? Then you would not have needed to bring that maid with you. You never listen to reason. You’re always in such a rush…”
“Pardon me…hellloooo. Remember me?” Lizzy’s exasperation with them both was unexpectedly cut short. Her face contorting into a dumb show of horror, she clutched at the sheet, her knuckles turning so white it looked as if bare bones were grabbing the covers. Writhing with mind-numbing pain, she abandoned any thought of humiliation that Richard was witnessing her terror, witnessing her body being torn in two. Her eyes clenched tightly shut, and her shoulders came up off the bed with her grinding yowl. The contractions were coming in constant waves, increasing in their intensity as she felt the alien body within her begin to shift. After several excruciating moments, she gasped, the endless internal tightening finally easing, her cries dying off with a muffled sob. After a moment, she took a deep breath of relief, pushing her sweat-soaked hair back from her forehead.
“Elizabeth, how very nice to see you. I am sorry, however, that you seem to be in some discomfort.” Fitzwilliam had no idea what would constitute proper conversation in such a situation.
He chose poorly.
“Discomfort?” Lizzy stared at him in stunned disbelief. “ Discomfort! Why you… Sir, try pulling a ten-pound capon through your left nostril, and then we shall speak of discomfort!”
Fitzwilliam wanted to dissolve into the floor. “Well, forgive me, Elizabeth. I certainly did not mean to offend. Are you well, then?”
Lizzy was panting and furious. “ No! I am in agony, you lackwit! And let me tell you, someone had better get this thing out of me and be quick about it!” Then Lizzy gave another howl of pain. “ And find my husband—now!”
“Right. I’ll be off then.” Swiftly turning on his heel, Fitzwilliam ran from the room and snatched up little Harry on his way. He continued running across the hall and down the grand staircase. “Harry, let’s make ourselves scarce, shall we?” When he reached the foyer, he came upon some returning servants hesitantly peeking around the corner, turning and looking curiously around at the empty room, frightened by the disembodied screams. Mr. and Mrs. Winters appeared in the doorway, coming up from the servants’ floor below.
“Colonel Fitzwilliam! What are you doing here? Where is the night butler?”
“Winters, get the doctor here at once. Mrs. Darcy has begun her labor.” Mr. Winters immediately signaled a footman as Fitzwilliam turned to speak with Mrs. Winters. “You are needed upstairs without delay, I am afraid. Tell me, do any of you know the whereabouts of Mr. Darcy?”
They all looked at one another sheepishly. Lizzy’s maid, Cara, hurried forward and began relating to Fitzwilliam the horrible fight that had taken place between the Darcys—apparently a brawl with enough slamming doors to send the few remaining staff scurrying downstairs.