There was a sound of a low guttural groan from the other room, and Mr. Collins winced. Colonel Fitzwilliam also pressed his hand against his stomach. Darcy realized that the wall of the guest room that Lady Catherine had placed Jane in was one of the walls of the drawing room.
Darcy walked to Mr. Collins and said, “Stiff chin. Your wife will be well. It is a normal thing.”
“It is the decision of the Almighty if she passes through this travail,” Mr. Collins said mournfully. “Might you permit me to have another drink of whisky?”
Darcy waved his hand towards the stand with the alcohol, and Mr. Collins gratefully bounded over, apparently thinking that he must follow Darcy’s will in this matter.
There was another groan, this one more like a scream.
It brought back unpleasant memories to Darcy. Anne’s pale face. How she gripped his hand so hard that it bruised. Her own screams. The blood-soaked towels.
He drank his own brandy, and he held Emily tight, though she squealed at it. He sniffed her hair, needing that reminder of life.
Despite the very Mr. Collins-ish way he behaved, seeing him clearly affected by his wife entering labour gave Darcy a better opinion of the pompous and servile man. He at least had some feelings, beyond concern for what Lady Catherine said.
After a while Emily fell asleep, and Nell was called to carry her up to the nursery.
The three gentlemen settled around the table and brought out cards to pass the time. Their chief purpose was to distract Mr. Collins, and both Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam kept up a continuous stream of conversation, and they made a point of encouraging Mr. Collins to speak as much as possible.
Even under these circumstances it was not difficult to get him to embark upon long winded and often nonsensical speeches. But when they heard Jane’s moans and occasional screams, he inevitably lost track of what he was saying, and it was impossible to bring him to speak again for half a minute.
The gentleman was soon clearly foxed, though not so far gone that the only thing to be done with him was to spill him in a bed.
Not much more than half an hour after Jane’s labour began, the midwife from the village came in and she was bustled into the birthing room. Other than briefly seeing her when they opened the hall, there was no business between her and the gentlemen.
They settled back to their cards, interrupted by the increasingly loud and frequent moans of pain. At first both Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam won shillings and occasionallyguineas off of Mr. Collins, but then Darcy began to make a serious effort to lose to the increasingly morose gentleman, while at the same time minimizing how much money he lost to his increasingly feral looking cousin.
“I do hope Mrs. Collins will be well,” Mr. Collins said, “And that it will be a healthy son. Lady Catherine said it is likely to be a son.”
“I dare say that Lady Catherine knows no more about the matter than my horse,” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied.
“She is so wise and beneficent!” Collins replied, drinking a little more, and letting both of them see his cards. “And always so confident and sure of herself.”
“So is my horse,” was Colonel Fitzwilliam’s instant reply.
“I love her!” Mr. Collins exclaimed.
“Mrs. Collins?” Darcy asked slowly to confirm the matter.
The clergyman blearily looked at him and then replied in a sober voice, “I, of course, speak of the Lady Catherine de Bourgh.”
Whilst the nature of that love had not been specified, this preference expressed for Darcy’s aunt, rather than his own wife, did much to reverse the slight rise the gentleman had made in Darcy’s estimation.
Another scream from the room, much louder than before.
“Think of this to comfort you,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said dryly, “Lady Catherine is almost certain to survive tonight unscathed.”
“I thank you very much for putting once more into mind the blessings that God has heaped upon my head,” Mr. Collins replied. “I will cling to what you said through the travails of the night. Even if the Almighty sees fit that my wife and child die, and call them to be amongst the angels, Lady Catherine shall live.”
After saying that, he began a series of drunken hiccups.
Either Mr. Collins was insane, or he turned into a fine humourist when deep in his cups.
Colonel Fitzwilliam patted him on the back and pressed a glass of water into his hands while looking at Darcy with a disturbed expression that showed he also had not expected to hear the clergyman make such a declaration of love about their aunt.
“I shall always remember, till the day I die, the occasion when I was first brought before Lady Catherine. How fine her carriage! The excellence of her bearing! What she wore,” Mr. Collins said after coughing. “I had a presentiment as I approached the drawing room that I stood before the turning point which would change the whole course of my future life.”
“Indeed,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said sceptically.
