I found Edward sitting at the writing desk in his room. He wasn't wearing a jacket or tie, and his sleeves were rolled up. And he was rubbing his forehead as though it ached. But he smiled when I passed on Elizabeth's request and said that of course he would oblige, he'd nearly finished the letter in any case.
It was bitterly cold outside--and of course the phaeton is an open carriage, that we usually only use in summer. Elizabeth and I were wearing pelisses and bonnets and both had fur-lined muffs for our hands, and thick rugs over our laps. But my toes were still tingling with cold and my cheeks felt numb before Edward had even driven us past our gatekeeper's lodge.
Elizabeth bit her lip and shifted on her seat every time the phaeton hit a bump or a rut in the road. And before we'd gone more than two miles, she touched Edward's shoulder and asked him to stop. "I'm sorry. I know this was my idea--but maybe it wasn't such a good one after all. Do you think--could I get out and walk, just for a little while?"
Edward told her gravely that she was officially exempt from having to apologise for anything, drew up on the horse's reins, and swung himself out of the driver's seat to help Elizabeth down. I got down with her and we walked for a few hundred yards, with Edward driving the carriage slowly behind us.
A few flurries of snowflakes were just starting to swirl through the air. And cold as it was, it was good to be out-of-doors. Or at least it was until I heard Edward give a sudden shout, and I looked round--and then we were hit by a sudden, moving wall of snow.
That really was what it felt like. I've never known a snowstorm to come up so fast--but this one did. One moment the snow was so light as to be barely noticeable. And the next Elizabeth and I could scarcely see more than a few feet ahead of us.
Edward vaulted down from the seat again and said, "We'd better get back to the house--quickly."
But Elizabeth didn't move, only gave a sudden sharp gasp and caught hold of my hand. At first I thought she was frightened because of the storm. But then I looked down and saw that her skirts were wet, and that her free hand was clutching the swollen curve of her belly. "Oh, dear heaven." Her eyes were wide with panic under the brim of her bonnet. "The baby--it seems to be coming now."
Edward was wonderful. Without missing a beat, he simply picked Elizabeth up in his arms and carried her swiftly back to the phaeton. He turned to help me in, too, but I shook my head and scrambled in without any help. "I'm all right. Let's just get back to the house."
The snow was coming down hard and fast, though--so fast that in what seemed like no time at all, we couldn't even see the road ahead of us. Road, fields, pasture--it all blurred under the thick covering of endless white. And the horse was starting to panic, half-blinded by the snow; it tossed and turned its head and tried to kick at the traces until Edward finally got down from the driver's seat again and took hold of the reins.
He settled the horse, talking quietly to it and rubbing its neck and ears. And then he came back to Elizabeth and me.
Looking at Elizabeth on the seat opposite mine, I realised I'd never seen her truly frightened before--any more than I'd seen her upset before the other night at the ball. But her eyes were still wide and panicked-looking, and beneath the colour the wind and cold had whipped into her cheeks, her face looked white.
Edward gave her a quick glance, then came over and spoke in an undertone to me. "There's nowhere nearby we could take shelter, is there? Nowhere closer than the house?"
I shook my head. "No. There's old Mrs. Bates' cottage--but that's nearly a mile from the main road, and I don't promise I could find it in all this snow."
Edward nodded. Elizabeth seemed not to have heard us. She was breathing quickly and clutching her middle again, her eyes squeezed tightly closed. Edward leaned over the side of the phaeton and took hold of her hand. "Listen to me. It's going to be all right. We're not more than a mile from Pemberley House. I can lead the horse that far."
A little of the terror seemed to ebb from Elizabeth's face. She gave him a shaky nod, and Edward let go of her hand. "All right. You just sit tight back there and I'll get you home. I promise you."
I would have moved across to sit next to Elizabeth, but I didn't want to throw off the phaeton's balance; the wheels were having a difficult enough time finding purchase in the snow. So I stayed where I was on the seat opposite and held Elizabeth's hands. The labour pains must have started, because every so often her fingers would clench hard around mine. But once she smiled a little at me and said, "That's quite a man you've chosen to marry, you know."
And I smiled back and said, "I know." We hit another bump in the road then and Elizabeth gasped--and I told her, "If Edward promises he'll get you home, he will."
I didn't doubt he would--not really. But I don't know how he kept his sense of direction. I would never have been able to find my way back to the house--and I've lived here my whole life and travelled that stretch of road more times than I can even begin to count.
Finally, though, I felt the carriage wheels begin to crunch over what felt like gravel instead of earth underneath all the snow. And the next moment I could see the lights of the house up ahead.
Edward drew the phaeton up to the front steps, helped Elizabeth down, and then picked her up again and carried her inside. Probably giving our footmen the shock of their lives when he burst through the front door. I ran up the stairs behind them and followed Edward into the drawing room, where he was setting Elizabeth down beside the fire.
He turned to me when he'd settled her into the hearth-side chair and took my freezing hands in both of his. "Are you all right?"
I nodded. "Of course. I'm fine. Edward, I'm so glad you were with us. If you hadn't been--" And then I stopped, looking at Elizabeth. Because really there wasn't time to think about what could have happened if Elizabeth and I had gone out on our own.
"I should go and fetch Mrs. Reynolds," I said. I kept my voice low--though Elizabeth was leaning her head back against the chair cushions, her eyes closed. "Clearly there's no question of going for the midwife, not in this snow. I don't suppose you also happen to know how to deliver a baby, as well as navigate in the middle of a snowstorm?"
Edward gave me a lopsided answering grin and pushed the snow-wet hair out of his eyes. "I have done it in the past." And then he grinned again at my look of disbelief and said, "But I'd much prefer to leave it to Mrs. Reynolds, I promise you. You go ahead and fetch her. I'll stay with Elizabeth."
Mrs. Reynolds was in the stillroom, supervising the making of soap; the air was steamy with the scent of boiling lye and the rose oil Mrs. Reynolds always puts in.
It's completely impossible to alarm or rattle Mrs. Reynolds. So she didn't gasp or wring her hands when I told her Elizabeth was going to have the baby today. But she did look grave. "Well, now. I've had the four babes of my own--but that were thirty-odd years ago. And as for delivering one, well, that's something I've never done."
"But if there's no one else?" I asked her. Because Mrs. Reynolds is the only one of the household servants who has had children of her own. All our housemaids and kitchen maids are of course young and unmarried; all girls in service are. "Do you think you can?"
"Oh, aye, I suppose so." Mrs. Reynolds still looked grave, though, and she pursed her lips as she added, "So long as nothing goes wrong."
Edward was sitting beside Elizabeth, talking to her quietly when we got back to the drawing room. Whatever he was saying seemed to have helped, because some of the colour had come back into Elizabeth's face and she was even smiling a little.
Another pain struck just as Mrs. Reynolds and I came in, and Elizabeth shut her eyes and bit her lip. But she looked up when it had passed, smiled a little at Mrs. Reynolds, and said, "I'm sorry to be making such a fuss. I know women have babies every day."
If Mrs. Reynolds still had doubts, at least she didn't let Elizabeth see it. Her broad face was completely unperturbed. "There, now, lamb, no need to be sorry." Mrs. Reynolds clucked her tongue in sympathy and patted Elizabeth's shoul
der. "Every mother's afraid with her first-born. Let's get you upstairs, shall we?"
Elizabeth's face paled again as she caught sight of the snow outside the window and she turned back to Edward. "Darcy? And Caroline and Frank--what if they're--"
"Darcy will have had sense enough to take shelter in one of the tenant cottages." Edward stopped her. "And as for Miss Bingley and my brother, there's no need to worry for them. They're surely in Lambton and can stay at the Inn there until the storm has passed."
Mrs. Reynolds helped Elizabeth towards the door and I turned to Edward. "I should go with them and see if there's anything I can do to help."
"Of course." Edward kissed me lightly. "You go ahead." He glanced at the window, where thick white flakes were still swirling outside the glass. "I'd ride out again if I thought there was any chance of fetching Darcy home for her. But I don't think there is, not with him five miles away."
A shadow of a frown crossed Edward's brow, but then he shook his head and said, "You go ahead up to Elizabeth. I'll be here if there's anything you need me to do."
Upstairs in Elizabeth's room, Mrs. Reynolds efficiently stripped the bed and then bustled away with the armload of linen, saying she'd be back with some old sheets and quilts to use.
I'd sat down with Elizabeth on the little chaise in front of the dressing table. "How are you feeling?" I asked her.
"I'm all right." Elizabeth's hands were clasped hard together, so tightly I could see the knuckles turning white. "It's just ... I wish Darcy were here. Or Jane. Or--" And then she laughed a little, and bit her lip again. "I never in five hundred years thought I'd say it, but right now I even wish my mother were here."
She broke off, shutting her eyes as another pain struck. When the pain had passed, she looked up at me and put her hand into mine. "I'm so glad you're with me, though." And then a shadow of fear crossed her face--the same fear I'd seen in Edward's gaze downstairs, the same fear I could feel pressing up like a physical force under my ribcage. "You don't think Darcy could have been caught--"
"Of course not." I spoke firmly--and with much more certainty than I truly felt. "Fitzwilliam will have taken shelter in one of the cottages he was visiting just as Edward said, I'm sure of it. It's barely noon now; he wouldn't have yet started back to Pemberley when the snow hit. Believe me. I know Rory Barnes and Tom Hutchins--there's no possible way even my brother could have settled the quarrel between them this quickly."
Elizabeth smiled just a little. And a moment later Mrs. Reynolds came back with an armload of old quilts and sheets. Betty and Joan--two of the housemaids--helped her make the bed and build the fire up in the grate so that the room would stay warm. We'd drawn the curtains and lighted the lamps, but I could still hear the wind outside and the hissing patter of snow against the windows.
I helped Elizabeth to change out of her gown and into a nightdress. And when Mrs. Reynolds had finished arranging the room, she told Elizabeth, "All right, lamb, all's ready now. You should stay on your feet--walk a bit, if you feel you're able."
Elizabeth still looked pale, and she didn't speak--but she did nod, and with my help got to her feet.
I'm not sure how long we walked, or how many circuits of the room we made. It all felt like a blur: slowly walking from the bed to the hearth to the dressing table and round again. Holding Elizabeth's hand and feeling her fingers tighten on mine every time a pain struck.
I know once Elizabeth turned to me, still breathing quickly from one of the pains, and said, "I'm sorry, this must be horribly boring for you."
"Well, you did ask me to come for a walk." I squeezed her hand. "And don't be a ninny, do you think there's anywhere else I'd be when my very first niece or nephew is about to be born?"
I did notice after a time that the pains seemed to be coming closer and closer together--and that they were getting stronger. Elizabeth started to bend over, clutching her middle and gasping every time one hit. Her dark hair was soaked with sweat, and the nightdress clung damply to her body. And then finally she made a little sound, half whimper, half groan, through her clenched teeth and said, "I can't walk anymore. I have to--"
Mrs. Reynolds had been sitting, quietly knitting something grey and wooly in a chair by the hearth. But she was there at once, helping Elizabeth onto the bed. She rubbed Elizabeth's shoulders a little and said, "There, now, my dear, you're doing splendid. I'm afraid you'll only be comfortable again when you can hold the babe in your arms. But that won't be so long, now."
I looked at the clock on the mantle--and was shocked to see that it was nearly eight o'clock in the evening. Elizabeth seemed scarcely to have heard Mrs. Reynolds. Her eyes were tightly closed, and she groaned again as another pain struck. She rolled to one side, as though instinctively trying to escape the pain. And I saw there was a bright stain of blood on the quilts where she'd been lying.
Mrs. Reynolds had moved to the hearth to stir up the fire, and I crossed to her and asked, in an undertone, "Is anything--does that mean something's wrong?"
Mrs. Reynolds glanced at the blood and shook her head. "That? Nay, there's nothing wrong there. It's a good sign, if anything--means the babe will be coming sooner, not later. Most first babies are much slower to come. I mind when your lady mother were brought to bed with Master Fitzwilliam, she laboured all through the night and the next day." Mrs. Reynolds' kind grey eyes focused on Elizabeth, lying limp and spent, her eyes still closed, in the aftermath of the pain. "This one'll come before midnight, I shouldn't wonder."
There was a line between her brows, and I said, "That's good, surely?"
Mrs. Reynolds nodded--though the deep furrow between her brows remained. "Oh, aye." And then she added, more to herself than to me, and in a voice so low I could barely hear, and Elizabeth certainly could not, "Aye, so long as the babe's not backward. Or it doesn't strangle on the cord." And then her eyes refocused on me, as though she were only just realising fully that I was still there. She shook her head and said, in an entirely different tone, "You oughtn't to be here, Miss Georgiana. An unmarried girl in a birthing room? It's not proper."
I nearly laughed. Except that that would have hurt Mrs. Reynolds' feelings, and she'd been so wonderful through everything so far. Instead I kissed her cheek. "I think it's a little late to try and persuade me that new babies are found under cabbage leaves in the garden. And besides--" I broke off, watching as Elizabeth writhed through another pain on the bed. "Besides, you and I seem to be all that Elizabeth has right now."
Mrs. Reynolds pursed her lips together. But then she seemed to give up, for she shook her head and said, "You'd best go and change your gown, Miss Georgiana. Put on the oldest one you have, if you mean to stay all the way until the babe's born."
I did as she said and ran back to my room--that was when I scribbled down yesterday's diary entry. And when I got back to the room, Elizabeth was groaning and there was a dark, wet stain spreading out from under her on the bed.
"She's started to push," Mrs. Reynolds said. "Won't be long now." She pushed me towards the head of the bed. "You help Mrs. Darcy--talk to her, hold her hand." She settled herself near Elizabeth's feet. "I'll see to the babe."
The rest ... I'm not even sure I can put it down here into words. I did know technically speaking where babies come from, of course--and yet before today, I really had no idea at all just what the birth of a child is like.
Elizabeth grasped my hand so hard I could feel the bones grinding together, and her face reddened with the effort of pushing the child into the world. She kept biting her lip and trying not to scream, too. Until Mrs. Reynolds patted her knee and told her, during a break between pains, "You go ahead and make all the noise you like, my lamb. Be a good lesson to those flighty housemaids of mine not to let the stable lads take any liberties."
Which made Elizabeth hiccup a laugh before the next pain struck.
It seemed to go on for hours, though. I could see how exhausted Elizabeth was growing; she kept her eyes completely shut, now, and every time a pain
left her, she would collapse back onto the pillows, utterly limp and spent--until the next time. I was beginning to get frightened. And then suddenly Mrs. Reynolds said, "That's the way--that's the way, now. I can see the babe's hair!"
Elizabeth's eyes flew open as the next pain struck and she said, "I can't--"
"Yes you can!" The room was over-warm with the heat from the fire; Mrs. Reynolds had said it would need to be, for when the child was born. Sweat was dripping down my ribs under the old gown I'd put on. I held onto both Elizabeth's hands. "You can do it, I know you can! Did you hear that? Your baby's hair!"
"Aye, a fine head of black hair, just like its father's, I reckon," Mrs. Reynolds said from the foot of the bed. But Elizabeth really didn't hear her this time. Another pain had struck and she was groaning and curling forward, straining and pushing and shouting--and I could hear myself shouting with her, telling her she could do it, and how amazingly well she was doing, and then--
And then there was a sudden wail, and Mrs. Reynolds was lifting something red and wet and coated with slime and laying it on Elizabeth's chest. And I realised that it was all over--the baby had been born.
Elizabeth was laughing and crying at once--all three of us were. Mrs. Reynolds found a linen towel and rubbed the baby dry and then put a blanket over it and Elizabeth both. And I wiped my eyes and asked, "Is it a boy or a girl?"
Mrs. Reynolds looked at me blankly, and wiped tears from her own cheeks with the corner of her apron. And then she laughed, the closest to completely nonplussed I'd ever seen her, and said, "Do you know, I were that flustered I never even thought to check?"
Which made all three of us laugh again. Elizabeth lifted the blanket. The baby had stopped wailing and was just lying on her breast, blinking swollen little eyes. "It's a boy," she said. Elizabeth's hand came up to cup the tiny head, fuzzy with damp curls of black hair. With one finger, she traced the line of the baby's shoulder and arm, ending at the tiny fingers, clenched fist-tight. She swallowed and then whispered, "Hello there, little man."
Pemberley to Waterloo: Georgiana Darcy's Diary, Volume 2 Page 8