Chapter 4

With only two couples remaining at Pemberley, dinners had settled into quite casual affairs. Elizabeth planned soon enough to begin inviting a family or two from the neighbourhood to join them every evening, but for now she was enjoying having only herself, her husband, and the Bingleys gathered in the small dining room to eat whatever abundant results of the day's shooting had not been sent home with the other gentlemen.

After each meal, they would all retreat to the blue drawing room, there to sit in private occupation, unless someone – usually Charles – might grow so bored as to suggest cards. Elizabeth and Darcy read, and Jane preferred needlework, although she went about it slowly, with an exhausted countenance that showed how much she attempted to spell the nurse, poor Mrs. Padgett, from young Elizabeth's squalling.

On the few nights when the baby was quiet, such as this one, she was brought down by Mrs. Padgett, so they all could spend some manner of peaceful time with her. Elizabeth held little Bess – they had settled upon this as a nickname, when it became clear that having two Elizabeths in the household should prove confusing – and was tempted to ruffle the baby's little fluff of blonde hair, but would not. Bess was sleeping, and they all spoke softly, when at all they spoke, for fear of waking her.

It was not to be, however. With no apparent cause, the baby woke, scrunched up her face, and emitted a shriek seemingly loud enough to be heard in Lambton, if not Derby. The only fortunate thing about the situation for Elizabeth was that no one looked at her, with her own rounded belly, and made any judgements about what she must have done wrong to anger the baby, and whether it indicated anything about her own fitness to be a mother. This was simply what Bess did, and Jane rushed over to pick her up, saying, "Oh, I am so sorry!" as she always did, and checking to see whether the baby was wet, which she was not.

Poor Mrs. Padgett was about to return her to the nursery to see if perhaps she was hungry, but Jane did not hand the baby over immediately. Instead, she waited for a break in the crying, and said: "Lizzy, will you humour me, just for a few minutes, and play the pianoforte?"

Elizabeth gave her sister a look she hoped indicated just how very much she felt this was the oddest thing that had ever been said, by Jane, and saw that her sister was very much in earnest in her request. Nor could Elizabeth make much in the line of argument, for she would be required to compete with her namesake in being heard, and Darcy and Charles were both looking at her in desperation. Any argument would only prolong things for all of them.

Before Elizabeth had married, she would have been the first to name herself but a mediocre player of the pianoforte. It was a useful skill, in her Hertfordshire neighbourhood, to be able to assist in providing the entertainment for an evening, and so she had kept with it, but never had the passion for it that might have seen her put in the hours of practise her sisters, Georgiana and Mary, did every day. If given the choice, she would always much prefer to be out for a country walk, than practising her music.

After she had married, with two such fervent piano players as as her sisters in their household, Elizabeth had rather assumed she should become one of those ladies who gave up the instrument upon marriage. Now, with some degree of horror, she was required to open up the cabinet beside the pianoforte – the old one that had been moved from the music room in favour of Georgiana's – and sort through the thick leather folders filled with music, to find something she had at least once been able to play.

With only the thought that she was about to add even more to the cacophony, Elizabeth seated herself at the bench and launched into the song. Her fingers were stiff, and she felt she stumbled rather more than she got right, and yet after a minute or so, Elizabeth realised that all she could hear was the sound of her own poor playing. She risked a glance at Jane, and found her sister still holding Bess, with a triumphant smile on her face.

"I knew it!" exclaimed Jane. "When I was still carrying her, and she would take to her kicking, she always stopped when I sat in the music room with Georgiana or Mary. And do you recall that day, when she was quiet?"

"Of course!" Charles said. "Our sister Mary said she had been neglecting her practise, and sat down for several hours. Do you think Bess could hear it all the way from the nursery?"

"It appears she did," Darcy said. "I congratulate you, Jane, on finding the solution, although I am rather afraid of what my wife thinks of it."

"I must admit right now I am wishing you had witheld your consent for Georgiana's marriage, so she might be here to perform this duty far better than I am able to," Elizabeth said, slurring her way to the end of the song and frantically flipping back to the beginning to play it again. "We must send for Mary tomorrow. Perhaps in a year or so she may be allowed to leave."

They all laughed, Mrs. Padgett included, but it was the exhausted, relieved laugh of five people who had not got nearly so much sleep as they should have for several fortnights.

It seemed that Elizabeth's hour of playing had some manner of lasting effect on little Bess, for even when she went upstairs to be changed, it was to the sound of a goodly silent house, Pemberley as it should be.

"If you don't mind my asking, ma'am, I have a great curiosity as to what it was that finally quieted the bairn," said Sarah, Elizabeth's lady's maid, as she finished removing the pins from Elizabeth's hair.

Some ladies might have minded their lady's maid asking any questions at all, but Elizabeth had a far closer relationship with Sarah, who had been the first to recognise Elizabeth's own pregnancy, and a steadfast servant since the beginning of Elizabeth's marriage. Elizabeth was very fond of Sarah, and would have forgiven any manner of transgressions far beyond what Sarah herself was actually capable of committing.

"I do not mind at all, Sarah," Elizabeth said. "Jane asked me to play the pianoforte – it seems she had a theory that it would quiet Bess, and that she was correct."

"I did not even realise you played, ma'am."

"You might not have, were it not for this. With my sisters in the household I had no need for it, and had thought I might give it up permanently."

"But you have the ability to create music, ma'am – that seems a rather powerful ability to give up."

It would be, Elizabeth realised, for Sarah, who had grown up on a small farm outside of Galway, and certainly would have had no opportunity to learn a musical instrument.

"Should you like to learn the pianoforte, Sarah? I expect we will be enlisting anyone who has interest in learning, so long as it continues to appease the baby."

"I would like that very much, ma'am," Sarah said, her voice indicating she was attempting to contain a degree of enthusiasm even beyond what her words indicated. She finished brushing Elizabeth's hair with a particular happiness, and they said their good nights.

Although she was nearly three months away from having her own child, Elizabeth still made her way to her husband's bedchamber, for she did not sleep well without him. She knew this was the largest factor in their inability to give up marital relations, even this far along in her pregnancy; it was far too easy, when they slept in the same bed, for a kiss and a caress to stoke her ardour, or his, and from there things would progress much as they had before Elizabeth had been with child.

When Elizabeth had come in, and kissed her husband, and felt his hands on her belly, and then her back, pulling her into another kiss, she could not help but speak, once the kiss had wound to its lovely, lingering end.

"Do you think we should stop, now that I have had the quickening?"

Darcy groaned. "I suppose we should. We have been intending to stop for some time now. Did we not say we were going to stop in September?"

"I believe we did. What is the date, today?"

"September twelfth," Darcy said.

Elizabeth laughed heartily, at this, and found herself joined by her husband. The truth was, although she knew at some point it should be uncomfortable for her, when her belly was grown too large, she was not yet at that point, and until she was, they would continue to struggle to find some last day.

"This Saturday is the sixteenth," Darcy said. "Given the Sabbath is the next day, perhaps we should make the sixteenth our last?"

"It is a nice date to aim for. I cannot say I have any degree of confidence that we shall succeed."

"Perhaps I shall have to lock you out of my bedchamber."

"You would not."

"You are correct, and that is why we find ourselves in this predicament."

"Well, perhaps we should move this predicament along, given we only have until Saturday," Elizabeth said, laying her hand upon his thigh, and then touching him in more sensitive places. "I am rather tired, after so much unexpected playing."

"I could not agree more, Elizabeth. And I must admit I am glad to hear you play again. I quite missed it."

Darcy, wisely, kissed his wife before she could make any manner of retort.