Pemberley, December, 1817
She could not fault him. The whole country was in mourning for Princess Charlotte and her infant son. While many worried about the succession of the English throne the occupants of Pemberley House could not help but worry about the mistress of Pemberley after reading about the death of a princess and her child because of childbirth. If the best physicians in all of England could not save a princess when brought to bed with a child it brought to bear the challenges and risks of childbirth to all of them.
Darcy was so concerned for the child that he wished for Elizabeth to limit her physical activity. She missed her long walks. To only walk in the sheltered gardens was not sufficient. She felt a balance of elation and discouragement. She was to have a child finally and was filled with a sense of completeness when she contemplated its birth but the limitations of sitting and waiting were difficult for her.
There was the chapel. It has not been used since Georgiana was christened there twenty years ago and then opened once more to allow old Mr. Darcy to lie in state and be mourned some ten or so years now past. Some ancestor in the past one hundred years had added it and the architecture did not quite match Pemberley House's style. It stood apart but not so different that it was an eyesore. It was just enough of a walk that if the weather was pleasant she was permitted to head to it as a destination which allowed her to get beyond the confines of the walled, formal gardens near the house.
She had never been inside the chapel and was never curious enough to inquire about a key to explore inside for outside was where she wished to be, attempting some sort of exercise and away from the coddling restrictions of the ivory tower that Pemberley House had become. So many of the staff had been instructed to deny or divert her from her usual employments. Even a wish to request a carriage and to visit her sister Catherine was denied though if she wrote and arranged it, a carriage could be sent to Kympton Parsonage to fetch Kitty and her son to visit Pemberley. Mrs. Worth, Mrs. Alport, and even Mrs. Stanhope from Lambton came to visit and offer her advice now and again. Some days she was excessively tired but she felt well, overjoyed, in high spirits at the prospect of this child. Darcy seemed pleased in his level-headed way. He had been surprised by Georgiana's announcement that afternoon.
That day, he had returned to London and his own drawing room after a long trip to Pemberley to deal with some difficult issues to see his wife laid out asleep on a chaise lounge, his cousin in conversation with his sister who turned to share not one but two such life-changing pieces of news. He had been by her side then to exclaim over his happiness, waking her from her slumber. Georgiana had been cross at her own news taking second stage to his.
It has been six weeks of chaos then, without Lady Susanna's help and the Countess Dunchurch's, who had come up to London to help as well, he would not have survived. All of the details, the arrangements, invitations to be handled, the cousins to be housed when they arrived, were all handled by them.
He had considered sending Elizabeth home to rest; even Fitzwilliam had suggested the same but the Countess and others said the trip was likely the worst part for a woman with child and Elizabeth did not wish to miss Georgiana's wedding. So he ordered her to keep to her rooms, to her bed, as much as she could.
Miss Georgiana Darcy married Mr. Eustace de Bourgh in November. It was the society wedding his sister wished for with her lavender-blue dress complementing her dark hair, the massive wedding breakfast and the multitude of compliments on the handsome couple. They were such a contrast the tall, dark-haired lady with her sunshine-haired groom and many had fine compliments to say about the pair. The couple left for Ayford estate, eschewing any sort of planned wedding trip.
Darcy then packed his wife, his pregnant wife, in their travel coach and headed at the slowest pace possible for Pemberley to await the birth of his son and heir.
It was as he had traveled home that he had revisited that scene, her by Fitzwilliam's side and had begun to have some doubts. It had been the happiest of domestic pictures: the lady lounging, aglow with happiness, expecting a child, the man sitting next to her, laughing and talking, himself happy.
Darcy knew Fitzwilliam had loved Elizabeth, still loved Elizabeth. How could Fitzwilliam be happy for her to be with child, Darcy's child? So he began to have doubts. Was Elizabeth's child his own?
The year was one of overall happiness: Georgiana's wedding, the impending birth of the child, but in December, however, came word that Mr. Stanhope was stricken one evening and died suddenly in his bed that same night. There was an outpouring of sympathy from all the neighbors for Mrs. Stanhope. They made visits of condolences, local gentlemen helped to see him buried as it seemed there were no relatives who presented themselves to mourn for him.
Many began to wonder what would happen to Mrs. Stanhope and more importantly, what would happen to the Stanhope estate and property? Was she a rich widow now? She was just past forty, perhaps, and though a slightly ascerbic-tongued lady, her hair was not yet gray. Would she remarry? Once her mourning period was over, some of the unmarried gentlemen of the neighborhood might have turned their eyes towards her.
All the speculation on Mrs. Stanhope's future prospects as a widow was irrevocably changed when Mr. Stanhope's will was revealed. The entire Streatley Estate was to be left to his natural son, Mr. Augustus Leigh. All Mrs. Stanhope was to receive was a legacy of three hundred pounds a year, her jewelry and the right to live in one of the houses on the estate—there was no dowager house. The three hundred pounds were said to be the interest on her dowry and many thought it was a stingy compensation after twenty years of marriage.
That Stanhope had been a jolly, well-liked gentleman and Mrs. Stanhope a sharp and observant lady did not sway many in their protests against the unfairness of Stanhope's treatment of her. Mr. Leigh was said to be the result of an affair while Stanhope had been at Oxford and Mr. Stanhope had supported this son all through his growth and upbringing giving him a gentleman's education. No one was sure how to take all of this, whether they would visit him—a merchant's son buying an estate was one thing, but the bastard son, though a gentleman's natural son, was another.
They were not to see Mr. Leigh, however, for he wrote Mrs. Stanhope a private letter, one she did not share with her neighbors, but he said he had no wish to supplant her from Streatley Hall, thought it a rotten thing his father had done, and would let her continue to live there for the present time. She could hide then, at the Hall, behind the black-draped curtains and claim mourning as the excuse for refusing visitors though many would wish to visit and speak with her. Perhaps he had received a gentleman's education after all.