She had prayed for years, ever since William was born, for another child, but she had suffered first a miscarriage and then a stillbirth in the intervening years. When she had missed her third month’s menses in August of the previous year, not long after Jane had turned six, she had not said anything to Robert. In September, she had felt the quickening, and only then did she inform her husband.
As each month passed, Anne could not allow herself to get too hopeful thanks to the result last time. The previous experience with childbirth had almost killed her both physically and spiritually. This time, however, thanks to a recently five-year-old imp, one who had resided in her heart since the day she first climbed up onto her lap, things were very different. Lizzy loved to explore, and she cared not whether she was at Holder Heights, Pemberley, or Snowhaven. As she would only receive her pony on her fifth birthday, she explored on foot when she was not sitting in front of her brother or one of her cousins on their mounts. More often than not, when she was present, Lizzy would ask, more like demand, that Anne walk with her.
Anne had always thought that she was not a physically strong person, but the more she walked, first with Lizzy and then on her own almost daily, the stronger and healthier she became.
This had all led to Anne feeling far more confident about her labouring and that she would not have the issues she had the previous time when she had delivered. Mr Jackson Harrison, the physician who served Pemberley, Lambton, and the surrounding area, opined that Lady Anne had the right of it. Her physical fitness could only bode well for her delivery.
Between pains, Anne could not but smile when she remembered how Lizzy had swayed Robert’s thinking regarding Mr Lucas Wickham’s son, especially after the boy and his mother had been forced to expose their true selves. Mr Wickham was their new steward. The wife, Mrs Elsa Wickham, had been pushing and manipulating the Darcys to have the boy George, who was a year younger than William, become the Darcys’ godson. The boy seemed everything obliging and charming. He had charmed Robert, who was considering the request. That all changed thanks to Lizzy.
She seemed to have a sense about the true character of a person, and when she met one she could not trust; eventually, it always proved that her intuitions were correct. Lizzy was never comfortable around George Wickham, and evidently the boy had noticed that she was an impediment to a closer connection to the Darcys and must have reported the same to his mother.
One day, Lizzy had slipped away from her nursemaid and made her way to Pemberley’s stables, where she knew she would see kittens. Mrs Wickham and her son had followed Lizzy into the stables. When Robert, Reggie, Paul, and their sons approached the stables, suspecting it was where she had gone to see the kitties, as she called them, they heard Mrs Wickham and her son berating Lizzy for interfering with their plans. When the men and their sons showed themselves, to say the two were shocked was a vast understatement. Young Wickham had been attempting to enter the circle of the four sons’ friendship while charming Robert. A crying Lizzy running into William’s arms put paid to that ever occurring.
Lizzy was a very strong girl; hence, after the fact, the three mothers had debated if she had only cried to anger the men and boys even more.
The incident had almost cost Mr Wickham his employment. He was given one more chance on the condition he exerted control over his wife and son to ensure they behaved as was expected of them. In addition, the latter two were never to approach the manor house, the residents, or any of their guests again without an express invitation to do so from the master or mistress of the estate.
As a much stronger pain hit Anne, thoughts of the past vanished as she concentrated on her labouring. In addition to the midwife and Mrs Reynolds, Pemberley’s housekeeper, Elaine and Edith were present. Mr Jackson was waiting with the men in case his services were needed.
Before five that morning, more than an hour before the sky would begin to lighten, a baby girl was born. Both mother and daughter were as well as could be expected.
A beaming Darcy entered the birthing chamber once his wife had been washed and changed. The bed was remade with fresh, clean linens, and his new daughter was also cleaned and swaddled before being handed to her proud mamma. “Anne, you have done so well,” Darcy stated as he came to stop next to the bed to admire both his wife and their daughter.
“What say you to Georgiana Elizabeth for her names?” Lady Anne asked.
“I understand Georgiana, as, coincidentally, both of our mothers bore that name, but why Elizabeth? Not that I object, it is a very good name,” Darcy wondered.
“It is my firm belief that Lizzy dragging me with her on her walks and then, my deciding to walk every day I could, contributed in no small measure to the fact that both our daughter and I are doing so well.”
“Georgiana Elizabeth it is!”
After little Georgiana, who would soon be called ‘Anna’ by all who loved her, had had her first meal from her mother—Anne had decided the wet nurse would only feed her daughter at night—she was introduced to all of those waiting in the drawing room.
William fell in love with his sister the instant he saw her, and Lizzy was very proud that her new cousin had her name as her second one.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
June 1796
Almost a full year passed by after Kitty was born before Fanny became with child again. Unfortunately, before the quickening, her husband had been angry about something and took his displeasure out on Fanny. It had led to a miscarriage.
Her husband causing her miscarriage became another item about which Fanny wrote in her secret journal. Had her husband known she was recording many things, each time he laid hands on her included, he would have shown her his displeasure with his fists and destroyed the journal and its contents. It was the reason she kept it hidden. No one but she knew of its existence and where she secreted it.
She was with child once again, but this time Fanny was more than confident she carried a son and possibly more than one. She was far larger than she had been any of the previous four times she had been with child, and this one was far more active than Lizzy had been.
Already it was the first day of June, and Fanny could not wait until the babe or babes came into the world. She hardly slept and had to use the chamber pot multiple times each hour.
Mr Jones had agreed to see her—only if her husband paid his fee before he examined Mrs Collins—and afterward, he had announced that as far as he could tell, everything was as it should be. He had recommended she remain abed given her girth as she neared her lying-in.
By ten o’clock at night on the first Thursday in June, Fanny’s labouring had begun. Not long after midnight, which was the third day of the month, the midwife instructed Fanny to push.
The midwife saw the head begin to emerge, but then, due to its size, the babe was stuck. She had read Fielding Ould’s 1742Treatise of Midwifery in Three Parts,[2]where he had described a procedure to enlarge the opening in certain instances. She had a pair of the crooked probe-scissors he had used and began to cut like he had described. Regardless of how much Mrs Collins caterwauled, for her and the babe’s health, it had to be done.
With the additional space, the huge babe, which afterwards she would swear was close to one stone in weight, was born easily. Having studied with a surgeon, the midwife stitched up Mrs Collins after handing the heavy babe to the housekeeper-cook to attend.
Thanks to the blood she had lost and the ordeal, Mrs Collins lost consciousness while the midwife worked to stem the bleeding. At last, she had the problems under control. She fumed that with the size of the babe, Mr Jones should have attended, but the miserly Mr Collins had not thought the expenditure warranted. When she looked at the way the giant babe had damaged things on her way out, she was certain that Mrs Collins would never carry another babe.
On the midwife’s way out of the house, she encountered the estate’s master returning from a night of getting foxed at the Red Lion Inn. She told him his wife was in a delicate condition and would not be ready for marital calls for up to six months.
