Darcy and Fitzwilliam: A Tale of a Gentleman and an Officer

by Karen Wasylowski

  A pair of gentlemen rushing past doffed their hats. A curious dog followed them for a block or more and then lost interest. Sleigh bells rang in the far distance. They heard intermittent laughter from unseen dwellings, and then a harp begin to play “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” in a home gaily lit with candles. They slowed for a moment to rest and listen as faraway voices sang, “Good tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy…” But too soon, the song ended, and there was silence surrounding them.

  The truculent maid kept lagging behind, mumbling angrily and struggling with her nearly empty suitcase. “Mary, please keep your eyes forward. I don’t know why you are so concerned with what is behind us. Please walk faster.”

  Amanda tried to remain calm. Although they were to have waited for Richard’s arrival to help spirit them from the house, he was late, and she had panicked. He would know to find her at the Darcys’ house. He had told her she would be safe there.

  ***

  It was then she noticed that the Darcy’s ornate wrought iron gate was unlatched and creaking, swinging freely. Apprehension grew within her. Following her gaze up the drive to the vast portico, she found it odder still that one of the double front doors was also open, illuminated from within by a dimming fireplace at the rear of the two-story, white-marble foyer. The front lamps were cold and unlit.

  She walked hesitantly forward, drawing closer and closer to the forbidding black rail that surrounded the property, her heart pounding with unknown fear, unrealized danger. The night was so very quiet, eerie and still. Try to think logically now, ’manda, even if you are a woman. Her husband’s oft quoted and lovingly meant jibe caused her to grow bolder. After pushing back the imposing gate, she made her way up the circular drive to the front, setting Harry down finally before she attempted climbing the brick stairs. She instructed Mary to wait for her at their base and to hold her son’s hand then cautiously made her way to the door, calling out a “Hello!” as she pushed the front door fully open. “Mrs. Darcy, are you here?”

  She heard a woman scream.

  Chapter 2

  Lizzy was struggling to rise when she heard the voice calling out to her from the entrance below. “Help me, God.” Her plea was nearer a whisper. With her legs trembling, her palms scraped and bleeding, her heart pounding, she managed to pull herself into a crouching position then lost her balance once more and screamed as she fell sideways, hitting her stomach against the chair. The pain was excruciating, whether from the fall or from within unknown. Terrified for her unborn child, she wrapped her arms around the little one and began to weep. Within moments, a presence knelt before her, and she blindly reached out to it, feeling a rush of relief when she clutched onto the warm, soft hand of another human being.

  “Thank heaven you’re here.” She gasped for air then slowly opened her eyes to tiny slits. “By the way, who are you?” She was staring into the face of a stranger.

  “Mrs. Darcy, please forgive me for barging into your home. The door was open downstairs, and I became alarmed when I heard your cry. Here, allow me help you.”

  Elizabeth took a few more moments to catch her breath, resting back on her heels to look curiously about. Before her was a woman around her age, blonde and very attractive, dressed in an old-fashioned cloak and bonnet. Behind the woman stood a terrified-looking maid holding the hand of a frightened little child. Elizabeth inhaled deeply, a modicum of calm slowly returning. She shook her head. These histrionics will not do, she reasoned. I must get a grip on her emotions. Elizabeth gazed intently into the strange woman’s eyes.

  “Forgive my present state. I am not usually so blunt when speaking or lax in my hospitality.” Suppressing all of her instincts toward hysteria, she forced herself to smile. “It appears that you have me at a slight disadvantage, however, madam, since you seem acquainted with me, although I do not recall the pleasure of meeting you before.”

  “I am Amanda Fitzwilliam.”

  “I am exceedingly grateful to meet you.” Lizzy’s eyelashes began to flutter furiously. “What did you say your name was?”

  Amanda was too distracted to hear the question as she helped support Lizzy in her struggle to stand. They lurched first one way then the other, amidst the associated grunts and “oofs” and “oh mys.” There were one or two very polite apologies regarding unexpected toe injuries, but by and by, they achieved an upright position in relatively short time.

  In thanks, Lizzy squeezed Amanda’s hand and then rested her weight momentarily against the other woman’s supportive body. Having regained some of her composure, Lizzy pulled back slightly to search her face.

  “Are you Fitzwilliam’s Amanda?”

  Diverted with clearing a path through the debris for them to walk, kicking away a small footstool and then shoving the table away slightly with her hip, Amanda answered without thinking. “No, you have it backward. I am Amanda Fitzwilliam.” Amanda quickly looked up and laughed in her embarrassment. “Oh! Yes, I am Colonel Fitzwilliam’s wife, Amanda, and you know that is the very first time I have been able to say that to anyone.” She was beaming.

  “I am Lizzy Darcy.” Elizabeth’s eyes began to tear up with her joy. “You’re American, did you know that? What am I saying? Of course you know that. I sound like an idiot. We’ve been expecting you”—Lizzy hugged Amanda warmly—“just not today.” Then, just as suddenly, Lizzy doubled over in pain.

  “Forgive me for stating the obvious, but I do believe your labor has begun, Mrs. Darcy.”

  Elizabeth swallowed hard and shook her head, her body beginning to quake. “I cannot be in labor, because, you see, I have it on good authority from my physician that I am not due to deliver for another four weeks. These back pains I have been experiencing all week are false. Evidently they are the product of my overly educated female brain.”

  She stopped to press a hand against her mouth. “But truth be told, I am a bit apprehensive, Mrs. Fitzwilliam, a bit overwhelmed. I am beginning to think he has been wrong all along.” A sudden sob escaped her before she regained her poise. “You see he never listened to me nor examined me, never even acknowledged how large I had become when I questioned him. My only solace was that he had engaged a noted midwife.”

  “Well, there seems to be distinct evidence that your doctor has miscalculated, Mrs. Darcy. May I ask where everyone is? You say a midwife is to be here? If she is not already in residence, someone should be collecting her immediately.” The quiet in the house was fast becoming oppressive. Amanda hadn’t seen any servants, and there had been no candles lit in the foyer and no footman at the door.

  “Many of the servants have gone home to their families, celebrating Boxing Day. The midwife is terrified of Mr. Darcy’s ranting and will not come until she is assured that the doctor is also here. The doctor refuses to be in the same room with my husband a moment before it is necessary. My sister-in-law has run off and abandoned me, and last but certainly not least, Mr. Darcy and I have had a disagreement, and he left in great anger.”

  Elizabeth halted her rant for a moment to wipe tears away with the back of her hand. She pointed at the doorway. “You see, he broke my door there, barged in like a drunken madman.” Lizzy choked on her sob. “God, I love him so.”

  Amanda looked in amazement at the door frame. “My stars, Mr. Darcy did that? It’s hard for me to imagine him losing his temper at all. He is such an elegant gentleman.” Another pain caused Lizzy to unexpectedly bend over, nearly toppling Amanda with her sudden shift in weight. After a moment, she relaxed, and they continued their slow progress.

  Upon reaching the bedroom, Lizzy sat down heavily on the edge of the Darcy family’s massive heirloom bed and resumed her attempts to tamp down her unbridled fear, watching as Amanda pulled off the counterpane and top sheets. Her voice, when she next spoke, was shaky. “Well, Mrs. Fitzwilliam, it is indeed a pleasure to meet you. Please tell me something of yourself. Do you have family here? You should have used our home for the ceremony, you know. The more I think on it, the more di
sappointed I am becoming. Richard and William are closer than brothers. You would think…” Elizabeth gasped and doubled over with pain, almost falling to the floor. Spasm after spasm of throbbing agony was washing over her, covering her, overwhelming her senses.

  Amanda stooped down before Elizabeth and gathered up her hands. “Mrs. Darcy, have you at all begun to time your contractions?” she asked gently. Lizzy shook her head no, clinging tightly to Amanda’s hands. The fear she had so desperately been trying to hold at bay was finally beginning to overtake her.

  Chapter 3

  Little Harry stood at the doorway, transfixed, fascinated by the scene unfolding before him. Clearly this was one of those moments that Colonel Fitz had told him about, those moments in a gentleman’s life where he must care for the welfare of his ladies. He slipped his hand from the distracted maid’s and walked purposefully up to his mother. He crouched down, holding his knees tight, and stared intently, first into his mother’s face and then into Lizzy’s. “Is Mrs. Darling unwell, Mama?” He squinted, examining Lizzy’s face closely, deciding what he saw there could not be good. He was greatly concerned, worried about her weakened appearance. Suddenly he shouted into her ear, “Did the Frenchies do this to you, madam?!” Lizzy turned a surprised look at him and then at Amanda.

  “We are having a bit of a problem with the concept of the French,” Amanda explained to her quietly. She turned to her son. “Dearest, despite what the colonel says, French people are not responsible for all the pain in the world.”

  Harry’s eyes rounded as he stared back at her, clearly registering his doubt as to that statement. He then looked behind them on the carpet. He tugged on her sleeve. “Mummy…?” he whispered.

  “Dearest, why don’t you wait for Mummy in the other room. Mary, could you please take him out to the sitting room?”

  “But, Mummy,” he whispered again, anxiously.

  “Mummy is very busy at the moment, sweetheart. Go with Mary now.”

  “But, Mummy, look. Mrs. Darling has wet the carpet. Will she be in trouble? Oh, I hope not. She’s not well. Will Mr. Darling make her sleep outside like Grandmama makes Ruffles?” His eyes were wide with concern, and he placed a protective hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder. Again, he shouted into Elizabeth’s ear, “I say, will you be in trouble? Please do not be afraid. I shall protect you.” He lowered his voice and turned back to Amanda to plead for leniency. “I don’t think she meant to do it, Mummy. You see, she is not feeling at all well. I think she must be very old, poor dear.”

  “Oh fiddles.” Amanda had not heard Harry’s rather rude comment about Lizzy’s advanced age. Amanda had been staring where her son was pointing, at the large water stain on the carpet. She looked back at Elizabeth.

  “Mary,” she called over to the maid. “Go downstairs and get someone from the household up here immediately. Look everywhere. Please take Harry into the next room. Harry, you will remain in the sitting room, and you will behave like the wonderful boy you are, all right, my angel?” The maid grabbed Harry’s hand but remained motionless, staring wide-eyed as Lizzy struggled with her growing fright.

  “Mrs. Darcy, I am afraid that, early or not, your baby is coming quite quickly.” Amanda helped Lizzy off with her wet underclothes then to lie back on the bed, placing pillows beneath her head. She ran to a cupboard and grabbed sheets from within.

  “After you bring someone up here, I want you go back downstairs and wait for Colonel Fitzwilliam. Mary, do you understand? Are you listening to me?”

  The maid began backing out of the room. “I’ll just take Sir Harry with me now, mum.”

  “No!” Amanda felt a sudden apprehension. “Please just settle Sir Harry into the adjoining sitting room and leave him there, where I can see him.” At her maid’s raised eyebrows, Amanda almost succumbed to the urge to shout. “Give him that Mother Goose book from my valise to read and then go and wait for the colonel downstairs. Harry, you will wait in the next room and read aloud to Mrs. Darcy and me. That will help Mrs. Darcy very much. Do not stop reading—read very loudly, Harry, until the colonel comes for you!”

  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 th
en 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.

  Chapter 4

  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.