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"Why Mrs Knightley!" exclaimed Mrs Augusta Elton has she sashayed into the room suddenly without announcement. "Did I ever hear such news!"
She paused at the sight of company. "Oh." She brightened with fake sincerity. "Why hello Mrs Martin... and child."
Flinging her coat and hat off to the startled footman, Mrs Elton positioned herself on the spare chair. "Do you know what I have just heard from dear Jane Churchill herself?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Why! She too is with child."
Emma, in a decided mellow mood in her later stage of pregnancy and not quite her usual talkative self, could only hum in agreement.
"Perhaps there is something in the air," piped up Harriet, half attention on the child perched on her knee.
"Perhaps indeed," the odious woman agreed, inclining her head for the barest of moments before turning back to Donwell and Hartfield's mistress. "And what an honour to know I began it all."
Emma, feeling a little put out at the woman's rejection of her dearest friend, spoke. "And where is your own dear child?" she asked sweetly.
Augusta was incredulous. "But of course, at home. Dear Fanny is so good looking after little E. Why indeed, just the other day..."
Emma exchanged a commiserating glance with Harriet before turning back with all the appearance of attentiveness.
She was all attention when Mrs Elton began to speak of the role her husband played at the birth. "Men are such useless creatures!" she said conspiratorially. "Why indeed, I sent my own from home."
"Robert, I mean, Mr Martin..." Harried blushed under the sudden intense scrutiny of the minister's wife, but continued nonetheless. "Mr Martin paced the living room." She smiled fondly. "I can still see a pattern from where he walked."
"Hm." Augusta spoke great disapproval and superiority in so small a word. "Mrs Knightley," she redirected. "Mr Knightley I expect will be from home."
"From home?" Emma repeated, slightly startled.
"Why, on business in London," admonished Mrs Elton, all astonishment.
"Mr Knightley will not be leaving Hartfield," said Emma.
"Oh?" It was verging on scandalous. "He is to remain?"
Emma blushed prettily. "He does not wish to leave me during this time."
"Oh Mrs Knightley!" gushed Harriet, forgetting that her very own husband had done the same thing.
"'Oh Mrs Knightley' indeed!" exclaimed Mrs Elton.
When the woman finally departed, both Emma and Harried ignored all sense of decorum and burst out into laughter.
Finito.