“Oh, oh, oh. Ohhhhh.”
Jane pressed her hand to her stomach, Elizabeth supported her arm now, and Mary had come to the other side.
Lady Catherine came near and said, “To the guest room. The one off the hallway. No need to make Mrs. Collins manage the stairs. And we have an old birthing stool from my time in the attic.”
“I shall never forget the shame of the ruination my wife scattered upon your divan!” Mr. Collins exclaimed. “We cannot impose upon you! We must return home!”
“Oh, do be quiet,” Lady Catherine snapped, as she led Jane, supported by both of her sisters, to the door. “I bore three children, though only one survived the first week. Do you think Idid not know what might happen when I invited a woman so far advanced to dine?”
Mr. Collins immediately snapped his mouth shut, apparently fearing that he would draw the wrath of his patroness upon him by further apologies. Darcy suspected that the gentleman was not at all unhappy that Lady Catherine would not expect him to replace the cushion.
Lady Catherine led the women to a neatly appointed guest room.
As she walked servants were called and ordered about. “Send for the midwife — no physician! One was in attendance when Anne died — bring down the birthing stool. Set a fire, yes it should be roaring. A great many worn linens, the more the better. Even when all goes well there is a great deal of blood and mess. Do settle yourself, Mrs. Collins. It is my firm belief that anxiety upon the part of a woman always worsens her chances. If women never feared the birthing chamber, most of those who die would live. Just sit here till the—”
“Oh, oh, owwwww!”
And then seeing them standing around uselessly, all watching, Lady Catherine fiercely turned to the gentlemen and shouted, “Out, out, all of you! Out. Gentlemen have no place in a birthing chamber! Go chop wood and drink yourselves silly. That is what Sir Lewis always did.”
“You need not give me that command a second time,” Colonel Fitzwilliam, who leaned against the door frame, and thus was the only one of them to not have fully entered the room, said. He had a green look, as though despite the time he’d spent on the battlefield, he found the birthing chamber unsettling. “You need not askmea second time to drink.”
Darcy knew that his presence had been a great comfort to Anne, but a single glance at where Jane sat on the bed, with Elizabeth having her arms around her and Mary holding herhand, convinced him that Mrs. Collins had ample sources of comfort without Mr. Collins.
And a single glance at the pale, wide-eyed way Mr. Collins stared at his wife would have convinced Darcy, had he not been already convinced, that if he forced Lady Catherine to permit the man to stay in the room, that the gentleman would provide quite the opposite of comfort.
“Come man, come,” Darcy said to him. “Not your place here.”
Mr. Collins seemed in a daze, so with the arm that was not occupied holding Emily, who watched the whole proceedings wide eyed and fascinated, Darcy grabbed Mr. Collins and pulled him from the room.
Soon as the gentlemen had returned to the drawing room, Colonel Fitzwilliam walked to the stand and poured a thick glass of brandy for Mr. Collins. He pressed it into the gentleman’s hand, and said, “Drink up. Do you think we are required to actually chop firewood? I’ve a notion to skip straight to being foxed.”
Still acting like a struck steer, Mr. Collins drank the tumbler away.
Colonel Fitzwilliam poured another glass full, but Darcy walked up and stopped him. “It might be best if Mr. Collins retains a little of his wits.”
The officer studied his cousin and shrugged. He then poured a cup for himself and another that he pressed into Darcy’s free hand, and said, “You might know better than I do — efficient servants, they have already taken the cushion away to be cleaned.”
“You do not think I need to offer restitution to Lady Catherine,” Mr. Collins stammered out. “For all the burden.”
“She likes to be useful,” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied as he sipped his own brandy. “You have provided her an opportunity.Sheought to pay you. But as she appointed you to your present position, I dare say the matter is even.”
After Darcy took his first sip of the brandy Emily reached for it, of course. “No, dearest,” Darcy said.
“Baby!”
“My dear,” Darcy replied, “This beverage is quite unhealthful for young children. You must wait until you are older to taste it. Besides, you would not like it.”
Emily reached again. “Baby!”
Colonel Fitzwilliam chuckled when Darcy put the tumbler down on a windowsill to keep it from his daughter’s grasping hands. He said, “I cannot cease to find it hilarious how you attempt to reason with the wild creature.”
“She can understand much of what I say, can you not?”
Emily nodded. “Uhn.”
“See?”
“You are already wrapped around her finger.”
