Karen Wasylowski - Darcy and Fitzwilliam - A Tale of a Gentleman and an Officer

When she looked back down into Elizabeth’s eyes, they were bright with terror. “Mrs. Darcy, please listen to me. There can be only one of two things happening here. Either your physician has made an error in your delivery date, or”—she hesitated with the second, knowing it was the most dangerous of the two for the child—“or the baby is coming early. If it is the former, I will be perfectly able to assist you. I have assisted in many births at my father’s hospital in Boston.”

Elizabeth fought off her panic. “What if it is the latter?”

Amanda swallowed. “I don’t really think it is.”

Elizabeth looked straight up at the ceiling and nodded.

After waiting patiently through a few minutes of quiet counting, Elizabeth squeezed Amanda’s hand. “Mrs. Fitzwilliam, I have heard that extreme stress or shock can bring on labor. Is that true?” Amanda dampened a cloth in cool water and gently wiped Elizabeth’s forehead then used her fingers to tenderly comb her hair back from her face.

“I have heard that also, and it may be possible, although my father never mentioned that. Why do you ask?”

Elizabeth stared intently back at her. “I received a letter that upset me to such an extent that I initiated the fight with Mr. Darcy and drove him to walk out.” Another pain shot through Elizabeth, and she gripped Amanda’s hand convulsively. “He is really such a good man. He looks so calm on the surface but is in actuality more like a duck. All the turmoil is going on beneath the surface.”

Amanda smiled, holding Elizabeth’s hand. “You must love him a great deal.”

“I love him more than my life.”

It was nearly twenty minutes later, and the contractions appeared to have abated. As Lizzy relaxed, her curiosity returned. “So I am now wondering whether my husband was aware of your coming here this evening. He never informed me.”

Amanda sat beside Lizzy, holding her hand and dabbing a cool cloth across her forehead. “You know how men are. I mean besides the general lack of imagination or patience on their part, they are really quite unable to deal with more than one situation.” She wrinkled her nose. “It is best when they are presented with one problem at a time, you know. Anything more than that seems to muddle their thinking.”

“I agree with you completely. The bigger picture is all they see, and they never concern themselves with small details like packing or servants or food. The most terrifying words I ever hear William utter are”—Lizzy dropped her voice several registers and sounded very aristocratic—“All that is required, Elizabeth, is…’ After he makes that pronouncement, I know it will probably be up to me to get the impossible accomplished.”

“And have you noticed that they never listen? I swear to it,” continued Amanda. “I tell Richard times, and he arbitrarily adds or subtracts a half hour…always. When I speak, he nods and nods, but he never remembers what I say. But then of course, he cannot remember what I said because he did not listen in the first place. Now, this evening he was to be at the door at seven in the evening. I waited another half hour but could not wait a moment longer, and we took off on our own. He never listens.”

“Do you love him very much?” Elizabeth smiled up at Amanda.

“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.

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?”